European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman

by Theodora Goss

  “Oh, dear Lord,” said Mary. “Why didn’t you tell us this earlier? At Irene’s, so it might have been useful to us, and we could have cleaned that cut properly?”

  “I forgot,” said Diana, shrugging.

  “You forgot! How could you possibly forget letting someone drink your blood?”

  “Well, there was a lot going on,” said Diana defensively. “Also, you would have shouted at me, just like you’re doing now.”

  “I’m not shouting!” said Mary.

  Justine reached over and put a hand on her knee. “You are, though. Mary, I know you’re upset, but quarreling won’t help the situation. I’m worried about Lucinda.”

  And, indeed, Lucinda was leaning against Justine’s shoulder with her eyes closed. She looked terribly pale.

  Diana reached under her skirt and took out a small knife. “You’ll see, she just needs some blood.” She held the knife up to her wrist.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” said Mary, grabbing her hand. “If you did that for Lucinda’s mother, I don’t want you doing it for Lucinda as well. I don’t know how much blood you lost! I’ll do it. And where in the world do you keep this knife?”

  “In my garter, of course,” said Diana. “It’s useless otherwise, except to hold up my stocking.”

  Mary shook her head and took the knife, then placed it carefully on the seat beside her so the motion of the coach would not jog it onto the floor. She rolled back her sleeve above the elbow. She had never cut herself before. How much would it hurt? A little? A lot? Quite a lot, as it turned out. She watched the red flow of blood down her wrist—the left one, since she would need her right arm more.

  “Hold her head, will you?” she said to Justine. Then she placed her wrist on Lucinda’s mouth. This was mad—what in the world was she doing? On the other hand, it was no more mad than anything else that had happed in the last three days. Would Lucinda actually drink her blood?

  At first, nothing happened. Lucinda leaned against Justine, eyes closed, as though asleep or in a faint. Then, Mary felt something on her wrist—it was a tongue. Lucinda was lapping at her blood, as though she were a cat lapping at a bowl of milk. All the blood that had flowed down Mary’s wrist and arm, almost to the elbow, Lucinda carefully licked up. Then, still with her eyes closed, she put her mouth to the cut and began to suck.

  It did not seem to hurt anymore, and Mary felt fine, just fine, although curiously light-headed. It felt as though the world were starting to swim around her, as though she were underwater, with the interior of the coach swaying like seaweed. Perhaps she had drowned, and this was the cabin of a wrecked ship. . . .

  “That’s enough!” said Justine. “Quite enough. Mary, are you all right?”

  Justine’s face swam into view. Was she all right? Probably. Maybe.

  “You little bitch!” said Diana. “How could you do that to my sister?”

  Mary giggled—she could not help it. Imagine Diana, of all people, coming to her defense!

  “What?” said Diana. “Why are you laughing? Are you going into hysterics or something?”

  “Give her coffee,” said Justine. “I did not think Lucinda would drink so much, so quickly.”

  Mary felt the cold metal of the vacuum flask against her lips.

  “Come on,” said Diana. “Drink this, and I’m going to kill that little—”

  Mary giggled again, almost getting coffee down the front of her dress.

  “What?” said Diana. “Tell me why you’re laughing!”

  Mary drank from the vacuum flask—ah yes, why had she ever thought tea was superior to coffee? Coffee was the best thing in the world; coffee was life itself. . . . “Because you’re littler than her,” she said finally, after she had finished drinking. She handed the vacuum flask back to Diana.

  “So?” said Diana. “I could take her with one hand tied behind my back!”

  “I’m not so sure of that,” said Justine.

  Lucinda was sitting up now. For the first time, her cheeks were tinged with color. Her eyes were bright, less sunken and hollow than they had been. There was a spot of blood on her mouth, but as Mary watched, she licked her lips and then the spot was gone. In a stronger voice than she had spoken in before, she said, “I am damned, my soul is damned to eternal hellfire. I would prefer to die.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen,” said Mary crossly. “Even if it takes all our blood to keep you alive!” She was starting to feel a little better, but she was still dizzy—the motion of the coach made her sick. “Diana, can you hand me a sandwich? Cheese, this time—and a hard-boiled egg. And some of those pickled whatever they are.” She turned back to Lucinda. “We’re going to get you to Mina in Budapest, understood? You’re not allowed to die until we get there.”

  Lucinda stared down at her hands, which were lying in her lap. Justine stroked the girl’s hair, as gently as a mother would have. Mary looked at Justine and held up her hands in the universal gesture of helplessness. Well, at least the wound on her wrist wasn’t bleeding—all she could see was a red line where the cut had been. Justine shrugged, as though to say, I don’t know what to do either. Great, just what they needed. Here they were, rolling through the Austrian countryside, on the road for three days. It would be complicated enough taking care of all the usual things travelers faced on such journeys—making sure they had enough food as well as places to sleep, places to wash themselves. And now they had discovered that one of them needed blood to survive. Which wasn’t exactly the sort of thing they could purchase at a local market, was it? How in the world were they going to make it to Budapest?

  “Move over,” Mary said to Diana, then switched to the other side of the coach. That would give Justine and Lucinda a little more room—and her too, although there was little enough in the confines of a coach, however luxurious it might be. She considered what had just happened. How often would Lucinda need blood? What sort of blood—would pig’s blood do? She had no idea, and she did not think asking Lucinda would help, not unless she wanted to hear again about how Lucinda was damned and wanted to die. Her head ached.

  Silently—thank goodness for small miracles—Diana handed her a sandwich, one of the hard-boiled eggs, and the pickle jar, with a fork that had been lying at the bottom of the hamper, under the napkins. They were indeed pickled plums, and better than Mary had expected, both sweet and sour. She ate several, then wiped her mouth with one of the two remaining napkins. Diana also took an egg, cracked it against the windowsill, and started to peel the shell. When it was peeled, she bit into the egg and, with her mouth full, leaned over to Mary and said, in a not particularly quiet whisper, “Don’t worry, if she attacks you or Justine, I’ll kill her. I’ll cut her throat with my little knife.”

  It was going to be very long three days.

  DIANA: You never appreciate me, even when I’m being nice!

  MARY: It was nice of you to defend me like that, Diana. I did appreciate it, you know. I do appreciate it, even now.

  DIANA: Well, you’re my sister. I mean, you’re annoying, and you have a stick up your—Catherine doesn’t want me to say that word anymore—but you’re still my sister.

  MRS. POOLE: That may be the most affectionate thing I’ve heard you say, Miss Scamp.

  DIANA: Go back to your kitchen, you old (unprintable).

  CHAPTER XIV

  La Belle Toxique

  Beatrice!”

  Beatrice looked up guiltily. “I know, Cat. I’m sorry—we were just coming to the end of a conversation. We’ve only been talking about an hour, I promise. I watched the time, truly I did.”

  “It’s my fault, Whiskers,” said Clarence. “I kept asking her questions about Italy. I’ve never been. Imagine walking down the streets of Rome, where men like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius walked. . . . The only country in the world I want to see more than Italy is Egypt. And I feel fine, really I do. I think I’m getting used to it—sort of like getting used to the snow when I moved to Boston, or getting used to rain in England
. And look, we’ve got the window open.” He pointed to the train window, which was pushed down as far as it would go. Outside, Catherine could see the Austrian countryside flashing by. It looked . . . green.

  “Beatrice’s poison is not some sort of atmospheric condition,” said Catherine. “You can’t acclimate to it—not without becoming poisonous yourself. Is that what you want?” She glared at him, frowning as disapprovingly as she knew how, then looked at Beatrice. “But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. I think someone from the Alchemical Society is here—on this train.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Beatrice, startled. “Have you seen someone who looks like a member of the Société?”

  “No, of course not. What would a member of the Alchemical Society look like anyway, other than Dr. Seward? I mean, he looks perfectly ordinary. An alchemist in disguise could look like anyone. But I haven’t seen anyone other than our own people. After breakfast I stayed in the dining car, talking to Colonel Sharp and Miss Petunia. Then I thought I would go back to my cabin—well, Zora’s and my cabin, although it’s mostly hers, considering how she leaves her stuff around. I’m surprised I haven’t found one of her snakes in there yet! Anyway, I wanted to get my notebook, so I could write down my impressions of Paris. I thought maybe I could set one of the Astarte stories there—Astarte at the Tour d’Eiffel. Something like that. So I opened the trunk, and things were in the wrong place. Someone had obviously tried to put them back in the right place, but I’m a cat. I know when things are in the wrong place—I can just tell. So I went through all my clothes, our books and maps, even the toiletries you said couldn’t fit in your suitcase. I took everything out, checked all the pockets. And then I realized—the telegram from Irene Norton was gone.”

  “Gone?” said Beatrice. “You told me you had put it someplace no one would ever find it.”

  “Yes, in your Bible, just inside the front cover. I didn’t want to carry it around with me all the time—I figured it was safest if I hid it where no one would look. No one actually looks in a Bible, except Justine, and anyway I put it right down at the bottom, under all my clothes. Who would search down that far? But when I opened the Bible, the telegram wasn’t there. And as I said, everything was disarranged—not so an ordinary person would notice, but I’m not an ordinary person. Now I wish we’d put my clothes in the suitcase and kept the trunk in your cabin. Although then all our maps would be infused with poisonous fumes. . . . Anyway, someone must have taken that telegram.”

  “Are you quite sure?” Beatrice still looked doubtful. “I know how cautious you are, Cat, but we’ve seen no sign that anyone is following us or even particularly interested in our movements. Yes, we were told that Mary and Justine encountered an agent of the Société des Alchimistes on their journey—although I wish Mrs. Norton had given us more information! But that does not mean the society knows where we are—or even who we are. And we have seen no one suspicious—this entire train car is filled with Lorenzo’s performers. If a stranger were to board or enter from another car, he would surely be seen and remarked upon. Or do you suspect a fellow member of the circus? Surely not. I cannot imagine Sasha or the Jellicoes as agents of the Société des Alchimistes. Could you have put the telegram someplace else and then forgotten? Or perhaps it simply fell out of the Bible the last time you opened the trunk, and you did not notice.”

  Could that have happened? Catherine had certainly not put the telegram anywhere else, but could it have slipped out of the Bible at some point, perhaps while she was moving the trunk? No, since they had gotten on the train it had stayed securely under the seat, and she had simply slid it in and out, lifting the lid when she needed clothes. . . . Then what about while she had been searching through the trunk that morning, after she realized someone had tampered with it? Perhaps she should go back and look again. Beatrice might make herself silly over social causes, but she was fundamentally sensible and worth listening to. Catherine tried to think back . . . when had she last seen the telegram, anyway? Yes, it had been their first day on the train, when Beatrice had asked for a pot of rouge, no doubt to make her more attractive for Mr. I-don’t-care-if-I’m-poisoned. She had checked to make sure nothing had broken or shifted while the porters were loading luggage onto the train, and there it had been, tucked securely in the front cover. There was no way it could simply have slipped out.

  Today, Beatrice was wearing one of her Reform dresses—it was green, and almost medieval in style. On their first day in Paris, before the evening performance, she had gone off by herself, telling Catherine only that she needed some air, and yes, she knew Paris perfectly well—she had been here before, for several months, meeting with learned men at the Sorbonne about her condition. Catherine had worried about her venturing out alone—what if she got lost, or poisoned someone? But several hours later she returned with a parcel wrapped in brown paper.

  “Have you been shopping?” Catherine had asked. They didn’t have much money, not having yet received any from Lorenzo, and Paris was expensive.

  Beatrice had looked both pleased and a little ashamed of herself. “I should perhaps have gone to one of the museums or galleries—Paris is so rich in art and culture! But I found myself at the House of Worth, and one of his assistants was so kind as to show me the autumn collection, and then would you believe it, Mr. Worth himself came down from his office! He told me that I had an unusual look, and he would like to hire me as a model, so I had to explain who I was—La Belle Toxique, you know. Then he said that he would like me to wear one of his gowns, because it would be a good advertisement. There was one that had been made up for another customer, who had not wanted it after all, and he said with a few alterations it would look as though it had been made for me. So a seamstress fitted and altered it right there, and then his assistant took a photograph! And here, look! He said this model is called la fée verte.”

  She undid the parcel, and out spilled a gown of green silk that did, indeed, look as though it had been made for Beatrice. It was the perfect gown for a Poisonous Girl.

  Of course, it made her look even more beautiful, which had not helped with the problem of Clarence! But Paris had been a triumph. Five shows—Friday evening, and matinee and evening shows on Saturday and Sunday, all filled to capacity with a crowd eager to see the Jellicoe Twins tie themselves into knots; Colonel Sharp throw his knives, assisted by the attractive, but distinctly bearded, Miss Petunia; and Atlas, the Strongest Man in the World, lift heavier and heavier objects. The Queen of Lilliput, the Smallest Woman in the World, recited poetry while standing on a table, the Dog Boy barked and howled, and the Panther Woman climbed a series of rope-and-plank contraptions to show her agility. The Kaminski Brothers demonstrated their acrobatic skills. The Zulu Prince performed his native dances with abandon. Madam Zora displayed her poisonous snakes. And then, the star attraction . . . La Belle Toxique came onto the stage. Beatrice had told Lorenzo that she would not kill anything living as part of her show. So instead, he called up audience members who had volunteered to let her breathe on them or shake them by the hand. They paid for the pleasure of reeling from her poisonous breath on their faces or feeling their fingers burn. The audience had laughed at those who came stumbling back down the stairs as though drunk, or cheered those who descended with blistered hands. Sometimes, she consented to kiss particular audience members on the cheek—an elderly politician, a beautiful young duchess, a poor sailor on leave. The Paris papers had labeled her la vrai femme fatale.

  It was like being in the sideshow again, with a difference. On the ferry from Dover, Catherine had gone to Lorenzo and said, “Why don’t you let each of us tell our stories? You know, how the Panther Woman of the Andes was born of a panther mother and human father, that sort of thing. These are French audiences, more sophisticated than your usual staid Englishmen. What do you think?”

  Lorenzo looked at her skeptically. “Tell stories, eh? You think the audience will like to hear?”

  “Of course. Everyone likes to
hear stories. Look, I’ll write them down and show them to you by the time we reach Paris. Then you can tell me what you think.”

  So she had spoken with Sasha, and Zora, and Clarence, and the rest of Lorenzo’s performers, creating stories for each of them—a combination of their ideas and her storytelling abilities. In some cases, the story was an outright fabrication—(Clarence: “I was born the youngest son of Shaka Zulu himself. On the day of my birth, the priest of my tribe prophesied that when I was grown, I would travel across the great water to the land of a people as white as ghosts.”)—in some, such as Beatrice’s, nearly the truth. The show had been billed as Une Rencontre Avec des Monstres, and audiences had loved it. Lorenzo made so much money that he wired ahead to Vienna to book an extra show on Thursday evening. They had boarded the train again directly after their last Paris show. It was not an express, of course, but it would get them to Vienna in four days, just in time for their performance. And he told them that he already had an invitation from a theater in Budapest. Everything had been going so well . . . until about an hour ago, when Catherine realized that someone had been going through her trunk, and that the telegram from Irene Norton, with her address and a warning against the Alchemical Society, was gone.

  “Cat, did you write her address down anywhere else?” asked Beatrice.

  “No, it’s not the sort of thing I wanted to write down, in case anyone found it. I have it memorized: 18 Prinz-Eugen Strasse. But that’s not the issue. I’ve tried to think back, and there’s no other way that telegram could be missing. Even if it fell out of the Bible, it would have been in the trunk somewhere. I really did look through everything, Bea. I took all my clothes out, went through the pockets. . . . The telegram wasn’t there. And you know what? It must have disappeared between when I got dressed this morning and when I went back for my notebook, because if anything had been disturbed earlier, I would have noticed. I’m sure I would have. Someone here has been through my trunk and taken Mrs. Norton’s telegram. I can’t think of anyone who would want to do that except a member of the Alchemical Society. You’re right, I don’t think an outsider could have entered this car without being seen, in which case someone would have mentioned it—you know how circus folk gossip. And yes, Clarence and I know everyone here—have known them for years—except Zora. She’s new. Do you remember how eager she was to share a cabin with me? She said she wanted to get to know me better. Why? I thought it was strange at the time, and now it seems . . . well, suspicious. If anyone in Lorenzo’s circus is an agent of the Alchemical Society, it has to be her.”