The Scorned Cat

August 1895. Zurich, Switzerland.

All summer long, Kitty had known nothing but the joys of travel. Now she brooded over unopened letters on her bed, her dark curls let loose among the ruffles of her chemise. The battered envelopes did not enliven her as they once did, nor did dressing for dinner delight her like it used to.

Kitty huffed. Outside her window, the funicular rumbled. She peeked beyond the curtain at the viaduct, which sprouted from the station next door and vaulted high above the street behind the hotel. A wooden carriage passed its descending twin at the halfway point, where the track split in two, then disappeared up the slope.

From the top of the hill, the neoclassical palace of the Polytechnikum presided over the city like a modern-day Parthenon. Kitty could just about distinguish the columns attached to its façade. A postcard view of Zurich, right at her fingertips, and yet…

Yet, she yearned for a man oceans away, who had as good as abandoned her.

“Goodness, Kitty!” Ruth’s voice roused Kitty from her ruminations. “When was the last time you answered a letter?”

“Venice, I think.” Kitty turned from the window and shrugged at her cousin. “Or maybe Innsbruck. Are we going to the opera after dinner?”

“Yes,” Ruth said, sifting through the envelopes. “Dr Morita has secured tickets.”

Kitty’s countenance brightened. “How resourceful! He truly is the perfect travel companion. Now, whatever shall I wear?”

“Don’t get too excited.” Ruth’s sidelong glance glimmered with a taunt. “It won’t be dress circle or box seats like you’re used to.”

Kitty scoffed and burrowed into the wardrobe, her freckled white cheeks flaming red. Had it really been a year since she and Ben had sent London in a furore, parading through the dress circles and private boxes of the Season’s gala nights? How strangely one’s heart could warp time.

Last summer felt like yesterday. Ben’s last letter felt like eons ago.

“Look, this one’s from your London friend.” Ruth extracted a missive from the pile. “Lady Alice Montrose. Forwarded from the hotel in Munich… Oh! Interlaken return address.”

She grinned, showing Kitty the envelope sealed with green wax and covered in international postmarks.

“Why don’t you reply to this one? Perhaps you can arrange a rendezvous.”

“Will this do?” Kitty dodged the suggestion with a bodice whose subdued shoulders and silk ribbon bows earned Ruth’s immediate disapproval.

“Too 1892,” Ruth protested. She dropped the letter on the dressing table and charged at the armoire.

Its arduous travels had scuffed the envelope’s edges, though not the elegant handwriting on the back. There was an aristocratic flourish to Alice’s penmanship, a grace that Kitty felt too provincial for. If only she could write as prettily as her friend, perhaps Ben would be more inclined to reply to her.

Perhaps he –

“Here.” Ruth thrust another bodice into Kitty’s arms, with large leg-o’-mutton sleeves and lace decorations. “Where is that skirt you bought in Milano? It would be just the thing.”

She dug around the carved-oak armoire, shuffling satin, tulle, and taffeta, until she emerged victorious with a lace-trimmed skirt in hand.

“You need to quit pining for that silly Mr Hawkins,” Ruth decreed as she laid the garment out on the bed. “If he cannot be bothered to write to you, then you shouldn’t bother thinking about him, either.”

Kitty averted her gaze, like a child caught doing mischief. An up-and-coming actress in London’s West End, Ruth had not only a flair for drama, but also a keen eye for detail that never spared Kitty’s feelings.

“Did Mr American even propose before leaving you behind in Norfolk?”

The remark stung Kitty’s aching heart. She collapsed onto the chair at her dressing table, still clutching the bodice to her chest. Its oversized sleeves almost concealed her whole.

“Not in as many words,” Kitty grumbled to her reflection.

Theirs had been a secret romance, and Ben had asked her to go with him, hadn’t he? But Kitty had refused, dreaming of her Grand Tour. Well, here she had it. Not so grand now, on the return journey.

“Forget about him,” Ruth said. “Let us get you opera-ready.”

She whisked the bodice away, leaving Kitty exposed in her home-sewn chemise. A simple girl from the English countryside, navigating a world so much bigger than her woes.

“Chin up.” Ruth winked at her cousin. “I shall make sure my brother does not get between you and charming Dr Morita.”

“Oh, Ruthie!” That got a brittle laugh out of Kitty, enough to release the tension from her chest. “One of these days Joey will lose his mind if you don’t stop flinging me at foreign men.”

As the reluctant chaperone of his older sister and his younger cousin, Joseph Thackery found himself dealing with more stress than he’d faced during his seafaring days. Finding accommodation suitable for young ladies, indulging their amusements, putting up with Ruth’s witticisms, and Kitty’s boundless enthusiasm…

The tobacco he inhaled couldn’t dull his nerves fast enough. Rolling his cigarette between his fingers, Joey breathed out smoke and squinted at patches of clouds drifting across the blue sky. The hotel’s dining-room balcony overlooked the Limmat River, with a view across the Bahnhofbrücke to Zurich’s central railway station and the construction site of the National Museum.

Beside him, Dr Kenji Morita lit himself a second cigarette. Joey stared at his own and snorted.

“You smoke like a chimney,” Joey told his companion.

Dr Morita mustered half a smile. “Coffee and tobacco are the lifeblood of any self-respecting student of medicine.”

The Japanese doctor pulled his watch out of its waistcoat pocket and popped it open.

“Do you think Miss Wright and Miss Thackery will be much longer?”

“I hope not,” Joey said, extinguishing his cigarette. “I’m starving.”

They lapsed into silence. One of Zurich’s newfangled electric trams trundled past on the street below. Promenaders, too, strolled along the river in the mild, late-August weather.

“Mr Thackery,” Dr Morita spoke up, in a cautious tone of voice. “If you might pardon my impertinence, I should like to ask… a delicate question.”

Joey decided to follow the doctor’s example and extracted another cigarette from his engraved silver case. “Out with it.”

“I have noticed you were rather… taciturn, on our journey from Munich. Should my presence offend you…”

Joey frowned. “How do you mean?”

“Mr Thackery, you are in charge of two young, unmarried women. I am a bachelor, and a foreign one at that. I should loathe to cast any slight or shadow of suspicion upon your party.”

“Well, you’re here now, aren’t you? We’ve travelled a long way together.”

“Indeed. Yet, should you deem it necessary, I will make a discreet excuse and depart for Geneva at once.”

Joey deliberated. The smoke from his cigarette dissolved on the breeze.

“I don’t dislike you, Morita,” he resumed. “Am I wary? Certainly. But my sister is fond of you, and Kitty looked forward to reuniting with you, after our time together in Constantinople. I’ve learned it’s better to let those two do as they see fit. If I try to protect them from an imaginary danger, well… they’ll be sure to find real danger, and still get their way.”

Morita chuckled. “Who would have thought that two innocent English ladies could be such a handful!”

That drew a hearty laugh from Joey. “Oh, I don’t know about innocent.”

A delicious dinner where the wine flowed never failed to restore Kitty’s spirits. The flush of good cheer had replaced the embarrassed blush on her cheeks by the time pudding was served, and their glasses filled with port.

Dr Morita gazed through hooded eyes at her ecstatic countenance, lingering for a second longer than would have been strictly appropriate. Kitty acknowledged his attention with a fleeting smile, masked by a spoonful of custard.

“I must say, I have very much enjoyed our time together,” the doctor said, to fill the silence that had settled like a boulder at the bottom of a river. “How lucky I have been that we should all be bound for Constantinople on the same train.”

“How lucky, indeed,” Ruth rejoined. “Kitty, most of all. If you hadn’t rescued her, I think we would have just picked her up on our way back.”

Kitty partook in the chuckles going round at her expense. Her impasse had mortified her at the time, only to become one of her favourite anecdotes – how Dr Morita had swept in, escorting her back to the Orient Express, after she had stepped off without her ticket and got lost in the Munich railway station.

“I’ve certainly learned never to forget my purse!” Kitty said. “And that I ought to take some German lessons.”

“There’s a thought,” Ruth said.

“What are your plans, after Lyon?” Dr Morita asked. “South of France, perhaps?”

Ruth shook her head. “Paris, I think. And then home, to London.”

The mention of home had Kitty dropping her eyes to her dwindling dessert and empty wineglass.

“Do you not miss home, Miss Thackery?”

Dr Morita’s suave voice echoed in Kitty’s ears. Out of nowhere, a waiter appeared to refill her glass.

“No.” Kitty took a sip of port, sweet on her tongue like Persephone’s pomegranate. “There is nothing for me in London or, indeed, England.”

Another sip, and her boldness soared.

“Do you not miss home, Dr Morita?” Kitty’s grey-green eyes challenged the doctor’s guarded gaze. “Japan is so far away! And I imagine everything is quite different there. The food, the people, the clothes.”

A shadow passed across his mien, summoning grave seriousness.

“You may not be aware, Miss Thackery, but Japan is currently at war with the Chinese, on the island of Formosa. I am quite happy to be here, rather… rather than trying to salvage whatever’s left of our butchered soldiers.”

Another boulder sank into the sand of the conversational river, dislodged with some difficulty by Ruth. “Must you be an army surgeon when you go back?”

“I am afraid so, as they are paying for all my European studies.” Dr Morita took a hurried gulp of port. “However, I hope that my placement in Lyon will help me become more useful off the battlefield.”

“What will you be doing in Lyon?” Joey asked.

“Professor Lacassagne, the renowned criminologist, has accepted me as one of his students at the Institute for Legal Medicine.” There was a gleam of pride to his dark brown eyes, which he quickly suppressed. “But I shall not perturb our dinner with such morbid subjects any longer.”

“Not to worry, Dr Morita,” Kitty reassured him. “We don’t shy away from a bit of murder around here.”

“By the by, Joey,” Ruth interceded, eyeing her brother across the table. “Have you heard? Lady Alice wrote.”

“I imagine she does that quite a lot,” Joey quipped.

“But this time she wrote from Interlaken!” Kitty piped up beside Ruth. “I will write back tomorrow morning, perhaps we can all meet.”

“Are you sure, Kitty?” Joey arched an eyebrow at his cousin. “Lady Alice wouldn’t be travelling by herself, that brother of hers must be with her.”

“Alfred, Alice’s brother,” Kitty explained for Dr Morita’s benefit, “was one of my admirers in London. A very rude man, but moderately handsome. His father is a marquess.”

“Oh?” Dr Morita’s eyebrows rose into his tall forehead. The full lips under his boyish moustache curved slightly upwards.

“He owes me his life,” Kitty mused behind her wineglass.

“Ah, thanks to your Joan of Arc feat at the opera?”

“You remembered!”

“Of course, how could I forget. I read about it in the newspapers last year, and then to hear it from your own lips on the Orient Express…” His charming smile glowed in full force. “What a tale!”

Kitty giggled and drained her port. Her cheeks burned. She needed some fresh air to cool them down into a more ladylike shade of pink.

“Would anyone fancy a walk to the opera?” she asked the table. “I think the weather’s quite pleasant still.”

Ruth acquiesced, allowing Dr Morita to rejoice at the prospect, while Joey grudgingly accepted. It was a brisk, twenty-minute walk along the river, past all of Zurich’s iconic landmarks – St Peter’s church, the Fraumünster and the Grossmünster, the city hall, and historic bridges.

Swans still frolicked on the water, now an indigo mirror capturing rippled reflections of streetlights and lit windows. Joey had to let Kitty walk on Morita’s arm, ahead of him and Ruth. His sister then prevented him from separating them at the opera.

Dr Morita led the way to the stall seats he had booked, followed by Kitty, Ruth, and Joey. They sat down in that order, which allowed Kitty complete freedom to flirt with her Japanese admirer.

The gentlemen stored their top hats under their seats, while the ladies kept their fans and opera glasses on their laps. Kitty often tilted her head close to Dr Morita’s, whispering and snickering. More than once, their fingers brushed against each other, and Kitty almost kissed him at the height of the second act.

She didn’t even bother with applause once the curtain finally fell, sprinting along the row to make her exit before the crowd swelled. The crisp night-time air came as a relief from the tedious performance.

“Shall I fetch a carriage?” Dr Morita offered when the group emerged onto the Lake Zurich quayside.

“Thank you, Morita,” Joey said. He kept an eye out for his cousin, who stood at the top of the quay steps jutting out into the lake.

Kitty would have petitioned for a tram ride, had her eyelids weighed any less. She was nodding off by the time Dr Morita found a cab. Ruth half-carried her inside the hotel, and up the stairs to their suite.

“That was the most boring performance I have ever seen,” Kitty complained, while Ruth brushed out her hair for the night. “If not for Dr Morita, I would have fallen asleep halfway through.”

A gaping yawn underscored this assertion, and she plucked Alice’s letter from among her scent bottles. She broke the green wax seal and unfolded the paper.

“We’ve certainly seen better,” Ruth agreed. “To be fair, watching Verdi in Milano and Wagner in Bayreuth – ”

A scream like a boiling kettle erupted from Kitty’s lungs as she leapt to her feet.

“Goodness, Kitty, what is it?” Ruth’s hairbrush hung uncertainly in the air. “What’s wrong?”

Tears streamed down Kitty’s face. Alice’s letter trembled in her hand.

“Ruth, he…” Kitty hiccupped through her sobs. “Ben got married… That’s why Alice is in Switzerland, she and her brother attended his wedding – Ben’s wedding, Ruth! He got married to another woman!”