Queen of Hearts

by Rhys Bowen

Cy beamed. “You won’t find a better director than me, Claire honey. It will be a tremendous hit. You’ll be a star. What do you say?”

  “And that good-looking boy Juan is to play Philip?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But he’s not much older than my daughter.”

  Cy leaned across and patted her knee. “Thanks to the wonders of modern movie makeup artists you’ll look as young and gorgeous as he does. I promise. Cross my heart.”

  Mummy looked at me again, then shrugged. “What can I say? It’s certainly better than spending six weeks in a Reno motel.”

  Chapter 7

  ON THE BERENGARIA

  STILL JULY 13

  Rather rough but I don’t feel seasick yet. Mummy is going to be a film star. As if she needed any more adoration.

  So it seemed that we were going to Hollywood. I must say I was rather excited. I mean, one hears so much about the glamour of that place, and it would be fun to watch my mother turn into a film star. Cy had sworn us to secrecy for now, until he could organize the big press announcement back in Hollywood by which time Mummy’s proxy would be spending her days in a Reno motel. I warned them that Tubby Halliday was on board and not to say anything within his hearing.

  “Oh, so that’s his game, is it?” Goldman said. “I saw him hanging around the bar last night and I thought he was taking too much interest in other people’s business.”

  “He was trying to get out of me why my mother was going to America,” I said. “Luckily I didn’t tell him.”

  “I suppose you might hint to him that your mom was going to Hollywood,” Cy Goldman said. “That will throw him off the scent of your real purpose.”

  “Brilliant,” Mummy said. “Yes, if he asks more questions, Georgie, say that I’m accompanying my old friend Stella Brightwell to Hollywood and leave it at that.”

  BY THE END of the day we had sailed through the squall, the sea had calmed, and the evening was bright and clear. It seemed there was to be a costume ball on our third night at sea and the talk around the ship was on what everyone was going to wear. There was even a costume hire set up in one of the onboard shops.

  “What do you think, Georgie? What should we go as?”

  I shrugged. “It seems rather silly to go when we’ve nobody to dance with.”

  “Don’t be such a fuddy-duddy,” she said. “Really, your great-grandmother comes out in you too often. It’s fun to dress up and I’m sure someone will ask you to dance.”

  “Do you plan to hire a costume or invent something then?” I asked. “I haven’t brought anything suitable with me, unless we wrap our sheets around us and go as vestal virgins.”

  “You could go as a vestal virgin,” Mummy said. “But that really would stretch my acting abilities. Besides, nobody goes in make-do outfits. They either bring them along or rent them on board. We’ll go down and see what they have before all the best ones have been snapped up. I remember leaving it too late once and having to go as a cavewoman. Not my style at all.”

  I followed her down to the room behind the purser’s office that was now full of racks of clothing. We spent a good hour browsing through the outfits, Mummy fighting off other women for any costume she thought she might want. In the end she settled for Cleopatra. She tried to persuade me to be a mermaid, but I certainly wasn’t going to wear two little shells across my front. I also rejected the merry milkmaid with far too much cleavage.

  “Come on, darling. You’re being difficult,” she said.

  “I could be a nun, I suppose,” I said, holding up a black-and-white habit.

  “Darling, no daughter of mine is going to be seen as a nun. You are hopelessly stuffy. Really I do wish that Darcy had ravished you the first time you met.”

  “He did try,” I replied, blushing as I remembered that and other times that we had come very close to “doing it,” but something had always intervened. “And I’m not actually against the idea. It’s just there has never been a good time and place.”

  “There’s always Brighton, darling. There’s always a way if you want it badly enough. Now put down that nun’s costume. I simply forbid it. Here, try on the black cat. It looks rather fun.” Mummy held it out. “And you do have lovely long legs to show off.”

  So I agreed, reluctantly. At least nobody would recognize me with a black nose and whiskers. When we came down to dinner at the captain’s table the ball was the main topic of conversation.

  “We’re dressing the divine Juan as a cowboy. So sexy. All the women will swoon,” Stella said. “How about everyone else?”

  “We brought our costumes with us,” Sir Digby said. “My wife is a dab hand with her needle and we always win first prize at the local garden fete. Don’t we, old thing? But we’re not telling you what we’re going as. It’s a surprise.”

  “I don’t bother with such childish amusements,” Mrs. Simpson said. “I have enough dressing up in real life.”

  “Pretending to be queen, maybe,” Mummy mouthed across to me. I almost choked into my lobster bisque. Everyone was chatting merrily, apart from Princess Promila, who seemed subdued and withdrawn.

  “Will you be coming to the ball, Your Highness?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  She answered the rest of my questions in monosyllables and I wondered if she had felt seasick earlier in the day and was still recovering.

  “So tell me, honey,” Mrs. Simpson said to me when the other side of the table was involved in a discussion about the future of the Talkies, “what are you going to be doing in America?”

  “I’m just keeping my mother company. She hates to travel alone,” I said.

  “And what is your mother going to be doing, I wonder? Traveling without the handsome German? Isn’t he still in the picture or is she on the prowl again?”

  “Max is busy with his factories in Germany and couldn’t get away,” I said. “That’s why I was called upon.”

  “So is this just a little pleasure trip? I heard you might be traveling out West? For what reason?”

  I remembered the gossip on deck earlier in the day. “Pretty much the same reason that you’re traveling alone, I should imagine,” I said.

  She looked at me, eyes narrowed, wondering how much I knew. “I’m just going to settle some financial affairs,” she said. “I wondered if your mama’s trip had something to do with a movie.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I hear that someone is anxious to make a movie of her life story.”

  She gave her characteristic brittle laugh at this. “My God. Wouldn’t that be something. The censors would never allow it.”

  Dinner went on. I was rather proud of myself. I was no longer tongue-tied in the presence of people like Mrs. Simpson. I really was growing up at last. The handsome Juan joined us in the bar afterward and danced with Stella and Mummy. I watched Cy’s face when Stella was dancing and saw a deep frown between his eyebrows. Just what was his relationship with Stella, I wondered. Hadn’t a Mrs. Goldman been mentioned?

  THE NEXT DAY dawned bright and clear. The steward appeared with tea before Queenie staggered into my cabin, still looking rather green.

  “You can’t be feeling seasick now,” I said. “The sea is perfectly smooth. It’s a lovely day out there.”

  “I still feel it going up and down, up and down,” she said.

  “What you need is a good breakfast,” I said. “I’ll dress myself. You go and put eggs and bacon in your stomach.”

  She groaned. “Don’t mention food to me, miss. I don’t feel like I’ll ever want to eat again.”

  “Well, that will save on the food bills,” I said, maybe a little uncharitably, as I was feeling remarkably well myself. “Buck up, Queenie. Go out into the fresh air. Walk around the deck once and then eat something, if it’s only some tea and toast. I promise you’ll feel better.”
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  She staggered off and I bathed and dressed. Mummy was a notoriously late riser so I went up on deck and immediately saw my American friend, among a group of younger men, playing quoits again. “Come and join us,” he called.

  I was glad to see no Tubby Halliday among them and went over to them.

  “I say. You’re Georgiana Rannoch, aren’t you?” one of them exclaimed.

  Oh Lord. Not another newspaper reporter, I thought.

  He was tall and gangly with hair that flopped forward across his forehead and a rather silly, vacant-looking face. He bounded toward me like an over-keen puppy. At the very moment I realized I knew him he said, “I’m Algie. Algie Broxley-Foggett. We met at a hunt ball during your season. At the Windermeres’.”

  “Oh yes, I do remember now,” I said. “Didn’t you set the curtains on fire?”

  He grinned. “Oh that. Silly little accident with a cigarette I thought I’d put out. No harm intended, what? I’m afraid things just seem to happen to me. Accident-prone, y’know.”

  He took the quoit that was handed to him and hurled it at the peg. Instead it went sailing up into the air and struck an elderly military-looking man, taking his constitutional around the deck with his wife, in the back of the head.

  “What the devil?” he demanded, spinning around.

  “Sorry, and all that,” Algie said with an apologetic grin. “Sudden gust of wind, don’t you know.”

  He turned back to us again. “See what I mean? The pater says I’m an utter disaster. That’s putting it a bit strongly, I think. I’d say more like a disappointment, or maybe even a hopeless case, but not a complete disaster. But he got a bit huffy when I flooded the bathroom and the ceiling came down on some rather valuable paintings. So he bought me a one-way ticket to America and told me to go out West and make a man of myself.”

  “What will you be doing?” I asked.

  “His pa wants him to work on a ranch to toughen him up,” my American friend said. “He’ll probably stampede the whole darned herd.”

  “I probably will,” Algie said easily. “And be trampled in the process. Serve the old man right if his son and heir is flattened and the title dies out. Come on, Georgie. Your turn.”

  Strangely enough I tossed the quoit remarkably well. Maybe it was knowing that there was someone on board who was more clumsy and accident-prone than I was that gave me reassurance. After that it was suggested that we go down for a swim. It was strange to be swimming in that echoing, cavernous place. There was something sinister about it and when Algie did a cannonball on top of a large American lady and she made such a fuss that we beat a hasty retreat, I was glad to be back in the bright sunlight.

  WHEN I FINALLY went to seek out Mummy, she was with her film people again, reading through the script. It seems that Stella had had the script for ages and they had been looking for someone to play Mary. “And who is to play this Don Alonso with whom I’m to fall madly in love?” Mummy asked.

  “We haven’t cast him yet. But someone as rugged and handsome as Juan, I promise you,” Cy said.

  “This might be fun after all,” Mummy commented.

  When we went down to dinner there was no sign of Princess Promila.

  “She was very subdued last night,” I said. “I hope she’s feeling all right.”

  “It was as smooth as a pond today,” Sir Digby said. “Nobody could feel seasick on a sea like this, could they, old dear?”

  “I feel extremely healthy,” Lady Digby said, “but then I think it’s a question of mind over matter. I am very much involved with the health and beauty movement and the Girl Guides at home and the one thing I stress is plenty of exercise and fresh air. Sir Digby and I have walked around the deck five times today.”

  After dinner we went up to dress for the costume ball. As soon as I put on the black cat costume I saw that it was a mistake. I’m quite tall and thin and the costume was tight fitting, making me look like a black drainpipe with ears and whiskers at the top of it.

  “You look very nice,” Mummy said kindly, “and I’m sure you’ll have fun.”

  She, of course, looked stunning as Cleopatra. The black wig accentuated her wide blue eyes around which she had now drawn a black line of kohl, and she was wearing a self-satisfied smile at the looks of appreciation she was getting until we reached the ballroom and found that Stella Brightwell was in an identical outfit.

  “Really, that is too bad of them,” Mummy said. “They ought not to rent out more than one of the same thing.”

  “They don’t care,” Stella said, “and besides, we both look divine, don’t we, Cy?”

  “I’m brimming with pride over my two stars,” he said, putting an arm around each of them. He was dressed as Benjamin Franklin with a wig and round wire spectacles and really looked the part. When Juan came up to join us, both Stella and my mother gave a small noise, halfway between a groan and a sigh. If I thought I had any chance of his showing interest in a black drainpipe with whiskers I’d have groaned too. He was wearing tight fringed trousers, boots with spurs, a leather shirt open to his waist and a black cowboy hat. He tipped this to Stella, then took her hand and kissed it.

  “I’m sure cowboys don’t kiss hands,” she laughed.

  “You would be surprised what cowboys can do,” he said in his husky Spanish voice. We made our way across the ballroom to a table by the window. I watched the way my mother moved, the way heads turned as she passed. Why couldn’t I have inherited more of her grace and looks, I wondered. Instead I had the look and build of my healthy Scottish ancestors. Still Darcy found me desirable, I reminded myself. Then of course I became rather moony. If Darcy had been on the ship with me, we’d have danced together. We’d have strolled along the deck in the moonlight. He’d have taken me in his arms and kissed me. . . .

  I sighed. Was there ever going to be a time when we had enough money to marry? I was roused from my revelry by a loud clanking and looked up to see a knight crusader standing over me. “I say there, Georgie, old bean,” said a voice from inside the visor. “Care for a hop around the floor?”

  Oh golly. It was Algie Broxley-Foggett. The full details of the last time I had been at a ball with him returned with horrible clarity. He had spun me around so violently that we had knocked over a statue, which had fallen with a frightful crash. He had trodden on my toes and the toes of every other female. Still, I couldn’t come up with a good reason not to dance with him. We clanked onto the floor and took off at a great pace leaving a chorus of curses, groans and yelps from everyone we passed.

  “I think your sword keeps sticking into people,” I pointed out.

  “Oh, sorry. Can’t see a bally thing with this visor on,” he said.

  “Then take it off.”

  “But that would spoil the effect,” he said. “I’m supposed to be a fearsome knight, don’t you know.”

  “Watch it, young man,” an elderly Roman senator warned. “You nearly knocked over my wife.”

  I was glad when the dance ended and luckily Sir Digby, dressed as King Charles II, invited me to dance. Lady Porter was not too convincing as Nell Gwyn in curly orange wig and showing considerable cleavage. I observed that she watched her husband like a hawk in case he held me too closely. There was no sign of Tubby Halliday, unless he was so disguised that I didn’t recognize him. When the band struck up a quickstep the young American, Jerry, whisked me around the floor, and I found that there was a big disadvantage to my own costume too. It had a long black tail that seemed to take on a life of its own, flying to and fro, slapping other dancers on the behind as they passed me, making them turn to glare in indignation. So after that I thought it might be wiser not to dance again.

  At least I had a good excuse not to hop around the floor with Algie. I noticed that other ladies had similarly turned him down and he was drowning his sorrows in what looked like a lot of cocktails. I was having my own probl
ems in the drinking department. Cocktails go to my head rather easily and Cy Goldman kept buying rounds of drinks that I didn’t want.

  “Come on, honey. Drink up. Put hair on your chest,” he’d say as the glasses lined up beside me. I’d take a sip or two and wondered when it would be impolite to slip away to bed. I looked up in horror as Algie staggered toward me again. He had now taken off his visor and was looking rather bleary-eyed. “I say, Georgie. Care to trip the light fantastic again?” he asked. “It’s a slow waltz this time. Nothing too violent.” But he pronounced the word as “schlow,” and swayed as he said it, nearly knocking over our table.

  “You know, I think it’s time you went to bed, Algie,” I said. “If you try to dance again it will be another of your disasters.”

  “You may be right, old bean,” he said. “The room is swaying around a bit. Is that me or the ship tilting?”

  “It’s you,” I said. “Come on. I’ll lead you out.”

  We crossed the ballroom without any major mishaps. “Which deck is your cabin on?” I asked.

  “A deck.”

  “Oh, so is mine.”

  I led him down one flight of stairs and pointed him in the direction of his cabin. Without warning he grabbed me and I found myself on the receiving end of a horribly slobbery kiss. Actually it reminded me of a Labrador we’d had when I was little—but not as pleasant. I struggled to push him away.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Algie?”

  “Only a little kiss, old bean. For old times’ sake, don’t you know?”

  “Just because I was helping you to your cabin didn’t mean that I was inviting that sort of behavior.”

  He was still holding me round the waist. “But dash it all, Georgie. You’re a girl and I’m a healthy, red-blooded male and my pater is always telling me to seize the moment, so I did.”

  I didn’t quite know whether to laugh or be indignant. “Sorry, but that doesn’t include seizing me. Go on, off to bed.”

  “Speaking of beds,” he said, eyeing me with what he hoped was a lecherous leer, “I say. You wouldn’t fancy a spot of the old rumpy pumpy would you? Seeing that our cabins are so close to each other.”