A Curious Beginning

I cleared my throat to bring her back to the subject at hand. “It must have changed Baby Alice’s entire life,” I surmised.

“It might, but the professor, he will not hear of it. Baby Alice makes too much money for him to consider losing her.”

“What happened then?”

She shrugged. “Stoker helps her to leave. She finds a place in another show earning fifty pounds a week and even Mr. Barnum is interested in her. And the professor does not forget. He has been losing money ever since she left, and for this he blames Stoker.”

She turned again to her trunks as I thought about her story.

“That does not explain Colosso’s resentment.”

“He loved Baby Alice,” she said, her tone bored. Clearly other people’s love affairs were of little interest compared to her own, and she left the conversation there. It was enough. I understood both the professor’s resentment and Colosso’s, and I marveled that Stoker had chosen to come here of all places, where enemies surrounded him.

Salome rose, her arms laden with garments, and began tossing the clothes onto my lap in a pretty heap of color.

“A blue costume—it ought to be purple with those eyes of yours, but blue will do well enough. And a dash of color for the train. Ah, here it is! Cherry,” she said, emerging with an armful of taffeta. “So the color trails behind you when you move. Try it on.”

She bustled me behind a screen, thrusting clothes at me. “What about this green? No? Perhaps green is not your color.”

Green was most decidedly not my color, but I was too busy wrestling with the costume she had provided to discuss the matter. The blue garment was a sort of extended bodice that covered the essentials—barely. It joined between the legs to conceal one’s modesty but left the limbs bare, and the neckline plunged dramatically, revealing the shoulders completely.

Salome was still sorting through costumes. “Scarlet?”

“I think the blue will do nicely,” I told her, emerging from behind the screen.

Her eyes widened and she gave a nod. “It is good. The décolletage is perfect,” she said, eyeing my bosom. She circled around me slowly, scrutinizing me from head to heel, her expression growing more sour by the second.

“You are a striking-looking woman,” she pronounced finally, her eyes narrowing. “Tell me the truth. What are you doing with Stoker?”

I summoned a newly wedded simper and batted my lashes in a revolting display of sentimentality. “I love him.”

She snorted by way of response. “No, you do not. Otherwise you would ask me about him, how well I know him. And I know him very well,” she said, her expression dreamy.

“Stoker’s past amours are of no interest to me,” I told her.

“And that is how I know you do not love him!” she cried, striking at her chest. “A woman’s heart is not satisfied without knowing such things.”

I was not of a mind to debate with her on the subject, so I merely gave her a noncommittal smile and stroked the blue taffeta. It was spangled with silver sequins and finished with tiny blue and silver glass beads.

“This is pretty. Did you have it made in London?”

She gripped my arm suddenly. “You need not pretend with me. I know it hurts your heart to think of him with me. You may ask me anything you like—anything at all. I will have no secrets from you because we are women together. And women must be strong against the ways of men. Let us share our secrets.”

Her eyes burned with emotion, and her grip was starting to leave a mark upon my arm. I extricated it gently and gave her a pat. “You seem upset. Shall I bring you a cup of tea?”

She plunged her hands into her hair, tearing at it. “If I am upset it is because you do not wish to be friends. You reject me.”

She looked suddenly forlorn, and I hastened to reassure her. “Not at all. I would be very happy to be your friend. But I think if we are to be friends, we should put aside the lies. To begin with, your name is not Salome, is it?”

She hesitated, then burst out laughing, dropping the Oriental accent and the portentous delivery in favor of an accent straight from the Chiltern Hills. “No. It’s Sally.”

“And where are you from, Sally?”

“Dunstable,” she said, a trifle sullenly. “How did you know?”

I nodded towards her dressing table. “You have a letter there addressed to Sally Barnes in care of the traveling show. And, if you will pardon the observation, you were trying just a trifle too hard to feign exoticism.”

“It is my bit in the show,” she told me airily. “I am Salome, an Eastern princess driven by misfortune to make her way in the world by dancing for the public.”

“And how much of your clothing do you take off?”

She gave me a bitter look and picked at a cuticle. “Just down to my drawers and a sort of chemisette. It’s all gauzy and Turkish-like.”

“Well, whatever the professor pays you, I hope it is enough,” I told her.