Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [29]
“That’s cheating,” I said.
Jack laughed. “Still quite a marvel of ingenuity, isn’t it?” he said. “It is quite impressive how much mechanical and engineering talent is gathered in this city and what things they can achieve.”
I inclined my head, agreeing. He was right. There was a sense of vibrancy and invention, of novelty: the submarines that popped up in the middle of Neva had been growing larger and sleeker lately; newspapers reported on new railways and the creeping expansion of St. Petersburg’s many newly constructed factories. There were rumors of increasingly successful airship flights. Maybe it was enough, I thought, enough to make up for the plain-clothed policemen and silent disappearances.
Jack looked at the crowd, as if searching for someone. I drank my Champagne and waited politely, half listening to the human musicians who resumed playing on the stage. A tall, regal woman caught my eye as she walked past our alcove, her hand resting in that of a slender man who seemed to be her senior by a few years.
The woman turned to regard Jack with a long and apparently disapproving look. “Mr. Bartram,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
Jack stood and introduced me to the woman, a Dame Florence Nightingale. Her taciturn companion was Mr. Sidney Herbert—an Englishman, but he quickly informed me his mother was Russian, from the Vorontsov family. He even greeted me in Russian, and I responded in kind, noticing he was only slightly rustier with the language than I was after months spent in St. Petersburg.
While Mr. Herbert and I exchanged pleasantries, Jack and Dame Nightingale entered a fierce whispered argument. She leaned over the table, hovering above his chair like some sort of vengeful angel dressed in a gray two-piece silk dress.
I would’ve eavesdropped, but Mr. Herbert distracted me quite effectively, occupying my attention by asking me about the subtler points of declension of female nouns ending in “ch” and “sh,” and I got so flustered as to completely forget I was supposed to be listening for Jack’s secrets.
My linguistic embarrassment was thankfully cut short when Dame Nightingale pointed her very straight nose at me and smiled, her dark eyes boring into me as if I were some curious thing she happened to come across during a nature excursion—she looked like one of those overly healthy individuals who called their walks “constitutionals” and had an extreme interest in the out-of-doors, vegetarianism, and other ways of artificially extending one’s life, not really caring whether it was God’s intent or not.
“Hello,” I said, trying to keep the hostility I felt out of my voice. “Are you in St. Petersburg for the upcoming season?”
She laughed and shook her head slightly, offering no further response. Instead, she launched an offensive of her own. “Mr. Bartram tells me you are one of those curiosities, a woman they are attempting to educate.”
“Quite successfully,” I said.
She waved her hand, dismissing my words as if they were mere child’s babblings. “Of course. I myself once had interest an in medicine—nursing, to be honest. Thankfully, I had parents who cared about my wellbeing and friends who dissuaded me from such foolishness. It is not a woman’s place.”
“Your queen would beg to differ, I am sure,” I said.
Dame Nightingale snorted rather loudly. “What nonsense. Her Majesty is most concerned with the recent trend of women abandoning home and hearth, as well as their duty to their fathers and husbands. I’m sure she would not at all approve of your little . . . excursion into the male realm.”
I glared. “Surely a woman who is capably ruling two countries . . . ”
“ . . . is especially sensitive to the demands a male sphere of activity puts on the female constitution.” Dame Nightingale smiled unpleasantly. “Besides,