Secrets at Sea Read online

  What if Camilla reached in for a handkerchief at the last moment? We hardly breathed.

  Then the men were there for the trunks. Rough hands slammed our trunk shut. We were all three dashed against the far wall of the drawer in a tangle of Camilla’s handkerchiefs and the leftover apple fritter.

  Above us, we heard Lamont bounce off every side of the glove and garter drawer. Beatrice clung to me. Louise braced both feet as we slanted down the stairs on some big bruiser’s back. Then off the front porch and into the wagon bed. The Cranstons were traveling with a wagonload of steamer trunks. We sensed them piled around us, like coffins.

  “Are we over water yet?” frantic Beatrice whispered before they’d had time to turn the horses.

  A TERRIBLE DAY followed. We traveled at great speed and blind as bats. On and off express wagons. On and off the clanking train. Before we reached the gangplank at New York City, they dropped us once on cobblestones. We were knocked half senseless. One of my ears got bent and took forever to straighten out again.

  Now we sensed water below. The damp crept in. Waves lapped the pilings. The blast of the ship’s horn shook the world. We couldn’t see a moment ahead. We couldn’t see anything. Louise whimpered. Beatrice clung. I’d have taken my chances back home. Gladly. But you can’t go back, not in this life. You have to go forward.

  AS NIGHT FINALLY fell, our trunk stood yawning open in Camilla’s shadowy, swaying cabin. A band played in the distance. Bells rang. Whistles shrilled. All the humans seemed to be up on deck, watching us sail. But Camilla would be back soon, to unpack. Then what?

  Then she was there, all over the cabin. She unwound her traveling veils and threw off her fur tippet. She unpinned her hat and rummaged in her jewelry case. We watched her through the crack in the drawer.

  She was shortly down to her petticoats and pearls, and heading our way. We cowered as she searched through the hangers for her dinner dress. She pulled out the lavender one.

  Beside me, Louise went to work, sorting through the handkerchiefs for the one embroidered with violets. She nosed it to the crack in the drawer. It would be the first one Camilla’s fingers would find, and it went with her dress. She only had to open the drawer an inch, and the handkerchief practically popped out at her.

  We watched her through the crack in the drawer.

  Camilla thrust it into the sash at her waist.

  Now she was remembering she’d need her long white gloves. Gloves! She reached for the drawer above us. Imagine reaching for your gloves and getting a handful of Lamont.

  The glove and garter drawer slid open. We braced for Camilla’s screams.

  But no sound came. Now she was at the mirror, pinching her cheeks for extra color. The pair of long white gloves lay draped with the fur tippet over a chair arm. One glove twitched. A furry ball, tightly furled, fell out of it. Lamont.

  From somewhere a dinner gong sounded. Camilla was out of the door, pulling on her gloves. Camilla always had a pleasant, girlish way of darting about that Louise tried to copy.

  We waited, all ears, as the Upstairs Cranstons gathered in the corridor outside. Skirts sighed. Mr. Cranston grumbled. Mrs. Cranston dithered, and her corsets creaked. And Olive no doubt caught her toe in the carpet as they set off for the first-class dining saloon. Olive was never at her best around her mother.

  Our drawer was still a little ajar. We peered out. The electrified lamp above the dressing table still glowed. There was nothing to dropping down, though there’d be no going back. Somebody would be clearing out the drawers and storing things in cupboards. They’d find crumbs of apple fritter in our drawer. Heaven knows what they’d find in Lamont’s.

  We dropped, and landed on our feet. We always do. There on the carpet was Lamont, cool as a cucumber, as if we’d taken ages. We huddled, and I tried to keep us together, but it was like herding . . . cats.

  We glanced past the trunk, around the flowered chamber pot beneath the bed. The cabin was small, nowhere near the size of Camilla’s bedroom back home.

  “At least she doesn’t have to share with Olive,” Louise remarked. “That would have made the trip endless for her. They’d be running into each other all the way across the you-know-what.”

  It was an elegant cabin with two portholes. The walls were paneled in satiny wood.

  “At home we lived inside the walls,” piped Lamont, stroking his chin, though he doesn’t really have a chin. “Maybe we could—”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  The voice came from above us. We jumped and reached for each other. It wasn’t a human voice. It didn’t blare or echo. It was more like one of us, but different.

  “That’s solid sheet metal you ’ave there behind the wood on them bulkheads,” came the voice in rather an odd accent. “Good British sheet metal.”

  We looked up. Camilla’s fur tippet stirred on the chair. We were riveted. Two eyes, redder than rubies, looked down at us. Camilla’s furs parted, and a head appeared, then an entire mouse, snow-white. A big mouse. Full-grown and then some, in the prime of life. Gorgeous whiskers.

  Drawing up, he planted a hand on his big haunch and gave us the once-over. We must have thought we were the only mice on the Atlantic Ocean. But no.

  He dropped down onto the carpet before us. He was light on his feet for his size. We sat back, upright. We were wearing only our fur, but that’s what you travel in. The white mouse wore only his fur, but there was something official about him.

  Beatrice, who had clung to me all day long, turned me loose. She gaped at this white mouse, who said, “ ’ Ello, ’ello, what ’ave we ’ere?”

  He had a funny way of talking. I found my tongue. Who else would? Louise’s hand was clapped over her mouth. Beatrice was agape. Lamont was completely useless. I straightened an ear and spoke. “We are the—”

  “Cranstons?” the white mouse said. “Party of four? Americans? Mister? Missus? Two young ladies? One pretty, one not-so-much? ’Usband-’unting?”

  What? Oh—husband-hunting.

  “Well, yes,” I said, “and . . . party of four mice. We too are Cranstons, though ours is the older family. I suppose you are surprised to find mice traveling—”

  “Nothing surprises me,” the white mouse said. “I’ll be your cabin steward. Call me Nigel.”

  We stared. Lamont stroked his missing chin with worry. Nigel was twice his size. The cabin lurched and rolled. We must have been out on the open sea now, the surging sea. But Beatrice didn’t notice. All she noticed was Nigel.

  “A . . . mouse steward?” I said faintly.

  “You lot don’t get out much, do you?” Nigel the steward said. “This is a British ship with British service.”

  “I’ll be your cabin steward. Call me Nigel.”

  Oh.

  He loomed over us. “Whom do I ’ave the honor of addressing?” he inquired of me.

  The ... cat had my tongue. “Oh,” I said. “I am Helena, the old—I am Helena. The boy is Lamont.” I pointed him out.

  Lamont cringed. Nigel looked down upon him.

  “What went wrong with your tail, son?”

  Lamont was trying to keep it out of sight since it was unsightly. “Snake got it. Sister sewed it back,” he said, suddenly a man of few words.

  “Ah well, these things ’appen,” Nigel remarked. “You’re not going to give me any trouble on this voyage, are you, boy?”

  “Who, me?” Lamont squeaked, which was the best he could do.

  “And this is my sister Louise.” I nudged her.

  Her hand jittered down from her mouth. “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”

  “And this is my sister Beatrice.”

  Beatrice was transfixed. “Pleased,” she breathed. “So pleased.”

  Though nothing surprised Nigel, we seemed to. “ ’Elena, Louise, Beatrice?” he said. “Where’s Vicky and Alice, then?”

  We liked to leap out of our skins. Even Lamont. Who was this magic mouse? How could he possibly know?

  �
��How could you possibly know?” I said.

  “As a matter of fact, I didn’t,” Nigel said. “But Vicky, Alice, ’Elena, Louise, and Beatrice are the five daughters of the Queen of England.”

  “You mean . . . humans?”

  Nigel nodded. “Big ones. They are the daughters of ’Er Majesty, Queen Victoria, Queen of England and Empress of India.”

  Mother must have read that in a book. She was a reader. Perhaps it was meant to be that we were on this fateful voyage.

  “Vicky and Alice are no longer with us.” I spoke in a hushed voice.“Nor Mother, of course.”

  “Ah well, for mice, time’s always running out,” Nigel said. “’Ooo’s for a spot of dinner?”

  THE WORLD IS a sudden place. How soon we’d fallen into the hands of this perfect stranger. Lamont gazed up at Nigel with hero worship in his eyes. And in Beatrice’s eyes—just plain worship. Louise and I exchanged glances. We were at sea indeed.

  There was nothing to getting out of Camilla’s cabin. Mice can get under the tightest door ever hung. But there is more indoors to a ship than you can picture. The corridor ran to a dot in the distance past an endless line of cabin doors. We set forth, four gray shadows behind the white blur of Nigel’s big backside and his commanding tail. We moved on all fours because it’s quicker, and expected. From somewhere far off came the sound of a harp, so we were either dead or it was dinner music.

  A fog of cigar smoke enveloped us as we passed the gentlemen’s smoking room. And would you believe it? A fire burned beneath a marble mantel in there. A log fire snapping in a hearth here on the ocean deep!

  As all the gentlemen had repaired to the first-class dining saloon, Nigel swerved inside so we could catch our breath. He drew up before the crackling fire. We followed and lingered by the fender, making a little group of ourselves. The fire felt warm on our ears. Firelight glittered in Beatrice’s eyes. She was all eyes, this near Nigel.

  There is something very comforting about an open fire. But then Nigel said, “You’ll need to watch yourselves, you lot. Every minute, mind.”

  As if we wouldn’t, thrown in under the very feet of all these hulking humans, ganged together with them within these metal walls. Honestly.

  “There’s a ship’s cat,” Nigel said in a hollow voice. “There always is.”

  We quaked. He had us in the palm of his hand.

  Lamont ducked. We looked around the gentlemen’s smoking room to see if a cat’s eyes glowed from under the furniture, behind the damask drapes. You know cats’ eyes—that sickening yellow. Louise squeaked.

  “Oh, not now,” Nigel said. “Not ’ere. ’E’ll not give you any grief whilst I’m about.” Beatrice looked up at Nigel, rapt. “ ’E won’t tangle with me, the ship’s cat won’t. We’ve tangled before, and I closed one of ’is eyes, permanently. ’E gives me a wide berth. Still, when you’re on your own, be on your guard. ’E’s kill-crazy.”

  “Cats are,” I remarked. Lamont turned in a perfect circle, looking in every shadow for a kill-crazy, one-eyed cat.

  But now, warmed and warned, we continued our journey along the endless corridors.

  Miles we went down the creaking ship, from one deck to another, following Nigel’s tall tail. Now we crept past the slick tiles of the Turkish bath. Very dank with clouds of steam. It was a whole world, this ship, and now we were in its very bowels. Surely we were below water level now, though that didn’t bear thinking about.

  THERE CAME THE worrisome smell of English cooking. We were this close to the doors of the kitchen—the galley—when they banged open. A line of enormous humans burst through and bore down on us. We skittered on the steel deck. Huge waiters in white coats carried trays of the dessert course, shoulder-high. Flaming puddings. I gave us up for dead. We’d been seen, and you dare never be.

  The waiters clattered past us on their ringing heels. We were bunched beside the doors, trying not to gibber. Louise whimpered.

  “We’re doomed,” I said. “They saw us. They certainly saw you, Nigel. You very nearly glow in the dark.”

  “He does,” Beatrice breathed.

  “ ’Course they saw me.” Nigel stroked a gorgeous whisker. “But I ’ave me work to do, and they’ave theirs.”

  “But—”

  “Besides, at sea a steward outranks a waiter.”

  We gaped. “But you’re a mouse.” I was practically wringing my hands.

  Nigel waved me away. “You’re on British soil now, so to speak,” he said. “Rank matters more than appearance.”

  We didn’t know what to think, and the galley doors were still swinging. “Dinner is served,” Nigel said. “Step this way, ladies, Lamont.”

  I MAY HAVE pictured us foraging for crumbs under the ship’s stove for our dinner. How wrong I was.

  The vast kitchens were a clashing of pans and far too many humans. We skirted it, moving through pantries to a storage room right at the end of the known world. We drew up by a tall pile of crated fruit. There in the shadows another shadow fell across us.

  A mouse stood there: tall, gray, gaunt, very upright. Lamont ducked. This mouse before us carried a small towel, hemstitched, over one arm. At his neck was a neatly tied black bow tie. He and Nigel traded glances.

  “How many?” The mouse looked far down his long nose at us.

  “Four more for dinner, Cecil,” Nigel said.

  Four more?

  “I suppose it might be managed,” the gray mouse—Cecil—said.

  “At the ’ead table, Cecil, if you please,” said Nigel.

  The head table?

  Cecil looked even farther down his nose. His gaze just grazed us.

  How shy we felt. Lamont crouched low.

  “Perhaps it could be arranged,” Cecil said. And with a twitch of whisker and a nod of head, he led us around the crate.

  On the far side we got the surprise of our lives. There sat easily a hundred and fifty mice, at three or four long tables—yardsticks supported by alphabet blocks. A hundred and fifty mice, at least.

  A major infestation.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dinner Is Served

  ALOW CHEEPING SOUND of dinner conversation ceased. Three hundred eyes looked up at us newcomers. We hung in the glow of their gaze, embarrassed to death. We met so few new mice in our little life.

  Cecil, the headwaiter, scanned up and down the yardsticks for somewhere to seat us. Young mice waiters with perky black bow ties bustled among the diners, stepping neatly over their tails, serving the soup course.

  I know. I know. I couldn’t believe it either.

  “A great many mice travel with their ’uman families. The better families,” Nigel explained. “Yank—American mice. British mice ’eading’ome. We ’ave the entire chorus of The Nutcracker returning to the London stage. We’re traveling full this trip, what with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee coming up.”

  Our heads whirled. Before we knew where we were, we’d been seated down at this end of a yardstick. Thimbles of a clear soup were set before us. As it turned out, we kept just a course behind the humans in the dining saloon above.

  We must have thought we were the last of the latecomers. But like the crack of doom, the headwaiter’s voice rang out: “All be upstanding for Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cheddar Gorge!”

  The what?

  A hundred and fifty mice pushed back from their yardsticks and rose to their feet. A hundred and fifty-four.

  We’d been sitting on small spools. But next to me at the head of the yardstick was a miniature chair of English bone china, white with hand-painted rosebuds. The motto in gold on it read:SOUVENIR OF SLAPTON SANDS

  Cecil appeared, sweeping back the chair and dusting it off with the hemstitched towel. A mouse of a certain age strode up with the aid of a matchstick cane, gold-topped.

  A Duchess? A royal one? How could she be? I never heard of such a thing among mice. But everybody at our yardstick curtsied or bowed. We did our best. She was seated right there at my elbow just a whiske
r away.

  She wasn’t as old as Aunt Fannie Fenimore, but she was getting there. A bit of bent wire seemed to be caught in the fur between her ears. A crown?

  A mouse of a certain age strode up.

  No, a tiara.

  “We rarely dine in public,” she announced in a carrying voice. “But we thought it might be amusing on the first night.” She spoke just over our heads.

  My land, she was grand.

  She drew herself up, though she was rather bent. “I am Mouse-in-Waiting to Her Royal Highness, the Princess Louise, fourth daughter of the Queen. In the British Empire, Mice-in-Waiting assume a royal rank. It is tradition. Royalty has never made a move without their mice. We came over with William the Conqueror. My mother was a Roquefort. Who might you be?”

  She observed me. Her teeth were terrible, and her breath would kill flies. But she was very sharp-eyed.

  “I am Helena,” I said, squeaking, petrified. “This is my sister Louise.” I nudged her.

  “Then that little shrinking creature on her other side—the one before the boy—must be Beatrice.” The Duchess of Cheddar Gorge indicated her.

  Here we go again, I thought. “Yes,” I said. “Vicky and Alice drowned in the rain barrel.”

  “How sensible of your mother to name you for the Princesses of the Royal Blood, the daughters of the Queen. It gives you something to live up to.”

  The Duchess leaned nearer me. Her breath took mine away. My whiskers drooped. “After a tour of the colonies, the Princess Louise and I are returning to London for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Sixty years upon the greatest throne in human history!”

  My stars, I thought.

  “And who are your humans?” Her whiskers were tangled and her tiara was rusty, but you better have an answer for her.

  “Our humans are the Upstairs Cranstons, though we are the older fam—”

  “Cranstons? Cranstons?” The Duchess gripped the bone china chair arm. “Mother, father, two daughters, one quite young, the other quite awkward?”