Lola Montez Conquers the Spaniards (2 page)

I clear my throat, about to speak proudly of my victory, but in that very second the reality of the fiend's reappearance strikes: My God, I understand. He's found me out and come to kill me! And then, in horror: Are these the devil's henchmen? Give nothing away!

The Cockney, who's been pacing, reaches down to clamp my dirty bare left foot in a frightening grip. “I've never seen a woman dancin' with bare legs and flashin' 'er skirts—thought I'd died and ended in 'eaven!” He is laughing.

“Be silent,” the other admonishes, turning back to me. “Tell me, madam, what do the words of the intruder—”

“The madman!” I pant. “The hound from hell!”

“—what do his words mean? Before leaving the theatre, he said you are wanted as a spy and that the Spanish government will pay handsomely—dead or alive.” The three final words rip again through my vitals.

I yank my foot from the Cockney's grasp. The vile man is now jiggling a knife he's pulled from somewhere. “Yer luvly performance and yer luvly bare legs,” he coos, “they're very distractin', but we need to know more.” The yellow glimpse of his incisors is not encouraging.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I'm shuddering like a dish of jellied eels. “What in God's name do you want of me?” The hair is rising on the back of my neck as another dreadful thought strikes:
Are
they toying with me; warming me up and then—?

“The truth,” the Cockney is saying, “even the bits you don' unnerstan'.”

The dapper one rises swiftly and moves towards me. I cry out and lunge away, but he pins me back into the chair.

“Calm down, we haven't hurt you. What did he mean by ‘spy'? And why do they want you ‘dead or alive'?”

“I don't know who ‘they' are!” I cry. “It's only the madman who wants me dead! It's such a terrifying story, you would never believe it!”

He lets go of me, sits again, then steeples his fingers and waits, motionless. The Cockney begins pacing around behind my back, which makes my scalp prickle again.

“I cannot place you, madam,” the dandy muses. “What we saw tonight is not the dance of a dignified widow.”

“You're wrong! It is the dance of a heartbroken
Spanish
widow, the devastated survivor of her hero's tragic death!” Saying this, the shock of everything that has happened in the past six months cascades in upon me—and nearer still, the assassination and treachery, which is so appalling that I don't know how to bear it. My fearless rebel! My mask of bravery is slipping, and a sob bursts from me.

He watches silently as I struggle to bring myself under control. Then, “You're a performer, that is very clear.”

Liar—you dog! My heart is beating like a sledgehammer and will surely break. I can barely hear the man's soft, measured voice above my agitated thoughts.

“You see, young lady, and this is very important: We think you know something you don't know that you know. And we're concerned for your health. For your . . . life. Do you understand?”

The Cockney smacks his lips. “Almost relives it, she does, tears an' all.”

“Mmm . . . There's a thought.” The dandy comes to some decision. “Doña Lola, listen to me carefully. Take your mind back to the beginning of your ‘terrifying story', to how it started. Think through everything that's happened. We know what we're looking for; you don't.”

The Cockney's breath is hot up against my neck. “Give it to us, very pretty. Jus' like you.”

“Here's what's going to happen, Lola Montez, or whoever you are,” the elegant one says with finality. “We're going to leave you here to calm yourself. You won't be able to escape, so don't bother trying. Put it all straight in your head. Every detail. And in the morning, you will tell it to us, sedately, with no histrionics.”

“Yer life depends on it,” adds his genial chum.

“How can I know what to tell you if I don't know who you are?” I quaver, trying to remain strong, the brave Spanish widow. “Are you from the government? The military? The . . . the church?” I manage to get this out, but just barely.

The small man's eyes go hooded, and the Cockney sucks his teeth. I am cold all over.

“How do I know I can trust you?” I persist.

“We don't know that we can trust you,” the European says. “Think it through. We'll leave you now.”

And they do.

I have no idea whose side they are on.

The minute they're gone and their footsteps can no longer be heard, I leap to my feet and dart around the room, checking everything—the paneling, behind the wall hangings, the floor boards. The door is locked fast, as they said it would be. There are no windows. Everything is stale and dusty, as if the air hasn't been disturbed for a very long time. Why oh why did I return to ghastly old England? I hate the place, it's always been bad luck! I could kick myself, so I kick the paneling, hard and repeatedly. I should have gone to America, I curse. The land of liberty, assertiveness, and impulsiveness! A country of free men, where women shoot pistols while riding astride. If I ever get out of this, I swear I will get to America, leave this detestable land of boiled milk and blood pudding once and for all, and never look back!

I collapse onto the settee, holding my head. My body's exhausted from the night's dancing and from the fear. I'm also suddenly hungrier than I can remember—and I've been through some hungry times in recent months.

There are three candles burning, but no others that I can see. With misgiving, but resolve, I blow two of the candles out. Then I sit again. I fear the coming dark almost as much as the men's return.

How can I tell them everything? There is so much I cannot tell, under any circumstances. When there's so much to conceal, I'm afraid to say anything, afraid I'll be caught in my lies.

But no. That's the reasoning of a frightened little girl. Everything that has come before has led me to this, to the new life I've created for myself. I put my hands to my hot cheeks, considering my options. And my resolve begins to rise again: After all, there's no going back. That story is dead; this one's alive. I have a quick mind and a certain wit. I'm young, I'm strong. Like a cat, thrown from a four-story building, I can twist and turn and land on my legs. That's my luck and my talent; it's what I'm good at.

My lost year in Spain . . . Can I bear to remember?

I let the shadows from the flickering candle paint the scene, searching, selecting, giving myself courage as my lover might: It's a game of chance, and I must shuffle the cards.

I'
D ARRIVED BACK IN
London from Scotland in the middle of May, just one year ago, in desperate need of money and no longer able to turn to my long-suffering stepfather. Yes, at twenty-two, I'd burned that bridge beyond a doubt; my mother never wished to hear from me again. What was open to a young woman of my reduced means? Not very much that was appealing: Governess? Hideous. Lady's companion? Perish the thought. I'd heard rumors of women on the continent who spent their lives pleasing men, but didn't fancy it. What if the man was not to your liking? I'd just escaped from that exact torment and wasn't eager to put my neck in the rope again any time soon. The person I was most keen to emulate, and quickly, was the famous Madame Vestris, though the theatre was not my world and I didn't know exactly how to go about becoming part of that milieu. But I wanted it. Needed it.

I took myself to George Lennox's lodgings as soon as I'd found rooms for myself. George had been a revelation in bed after Thomas, my erstwhile husband. I'd thought George and I were made for each other. I'd thought we had a future. Of course he'd never told his wealthy parents about me, nor anyone else in his life that mattered. Just his theatre friends and club mates, the jolly riffraff he collected.

He was at home—this time, alone. And very surprised to see me.

“Don't worry, George, I'm not here for you,” I said, swanning into his drawing room and flinging my reticule down on the chair upon
which I'd found him bouncing the fat, white ass of a third-rate actress named Angel six months before. “I need a favour.”

“Do you know your heel of a husband has sued me?” George retorted. “He's filed papers suing me for ‘criminal conversation' with his wife—that is, with you.”

I had to laugh at the legal euphemism.

“Well, he's suing me for divorce,” I said. “When's your court date?”

“Middle of September.”

“Mine is earlier. I don't think I'll be here.”

“For God's sake, Rosie.”

“I'm serious—and don't call me that.”

“Where've you been, anyway?”

“Mouldering in Scotland with my damned relatives, no thanks to you,” I snapped. “I need the name of the very best teacher in London, George. Acting teacher. And don't you dare laugh.”

It was all so hard to believe, standing there looking at him, that day of my return. The man I'd loved to distraction. I'd wasted my stepfather's present of a nest egg on him; George always seemed to be short when it came time to pay a bill. It had all ended when, planning his twentieth birthday celebration, I'd been tripping around for presents and edibles. I was close to his lodgings and needed a rest before our big night, so I'd stopped there. He was at his club—or so I thought. For a moment I didn't recognize the sounds coming from behind his door. My brain didn't take it in. I used the key, the door swung wide, and there at the end of the corridor was the coarse, slatternly actress George had taken me to meet one night after a musical play: Angel. Stark naked but for her boots, straddling a similarly naked George. My parcels tumbled to the floor, and before I knew what I was doing I'd grabbed up George's riding whip from his hall table, rushed towards them flourishing it, and walloped the blowsy slut across the shoulders several times. She fell backwards howling as George wrenched the whip from my hand. Angel scrabbled crab-like across the parquet towards her crumpled, abominable clothing.

“You filthy, lying cad!” I'd screamed at him, and then advanced on the tart. “Put your clothes on and get out of my house!”

George grabbed my arm in a viselike grip. “Not your house, Rosie. Mine. I didn't expect you. Leave her alone.”

I'd twisted away and grabbed up the whip again, but quick as a flash he'd held the end. We wrestled wordlessly, glaring into each other's eyes, 'til it snapped. Then I spat at him. And he—the rat, the louse—stood there, naked, his member still half stiff with unfinished business, my spit trickling from his cheek onto its tip, while Angel moaned away in the corner. Oh, I could have killed him. I could have died. I wish I had, one or either. And then he gutted me.

“Go away, Rosie,” he'd said.

Just seeing him again, still handsome and still rich, I needed to hurt someone! Scream!

“Acting lessons, let me think . . .” He was musing away, stroking his sideburns, and I longed to give one a mighty yank. “Miss Fanny Kelly might do. She set herself up with her own theatre and school last year.”

“Fanny Kelly?”

“Drury Lane, acted with Kean. Decades ago now.”

I longed to give him another cut with a riding crop; his new one lay on the hall table. “Thank you for nothing.” I retrieved my reticule and swirled past.

“You're a fine piece of horseflesh, Rosana. Keep your looks and you'll go far.”

“And you're a provincial little stink-brain. Say hello to Mama.”

Damnable man! Could all this peril and international skullduggery really have begun with that one suggestion for an acting teacher?

That balmy May, I knew that I had become a ravishing young woman. (I like to believe I still am, but after all I've been through . . . I won't think about that now.) My best features are my thick and lustrous blue-black hair, eyes that sparkle like sapphires, high, pert breasts, and the smallest of waists. I have an instep like no other—an asset for dancing—so arched that it appears almost tortured, though of course it is not. My legs are long, strong and shapely from years of riding and running about as a young savage in India—chasing monkeys up into the trees, riding my hairy pony at breakneck pace across the rifle range. My fingers are slim and elegant, my lips naturally full and dark
crimson (particularly when I bite them). For these and other reasons, I had realized I must strike while the iron was hot, let nothing stop me from climbing as high as I could in as short a time as possible. But what was I wishing to climb towards? I wasn't too sure about that. I fancied fame, but wasn't sure why. I wished to be known for something, to excel at something, but I didn't know what. I yearned for love, but I was head shy, thanks to that cad George, though horses and men (for the most part) were high on my list of pleasures. I was a simple creature, I admit that, why not?