Somebody Know Me
A Mirror, Mirror fanfiction
~1924~
They arranged to meet in the Lady Norwood Rose Garden.
It was the middle of November, so the flowers were almost certain to all be in bloom; but the arrangement wasn't for the pleasurable purpose of admiring a few flowers, rather it was in hopes – well, Nicholas hoped, anyway – of being recognised, even without proof of his identity.
Although his signet ring still lay unreachable in a drum of toxic waste, it nonetheless occurred to the young man – currently styling himself as Nicholas Iredale, in spite of there having been no official legal adoption on the part of the Iredale family – Charlotte Bill, who he and the other royal and imperial children once knew as Lala, might yet know him by sight.
She had been Nanny, primarily, to his late English cousin Johnnie. She would have seen Nicholas and his four sisters several times during their family's visit to England.
True, it had been many years ago – Nicholas had been quite a little boy then – but surely his face could not have changed so very much. No alteration could possibly have taken place which would be great enough to make him unrecognisable to an impartial, kind woman with no motive not to recognise him, no motive to doubt him.
When he heard she was visiting New Zealand, that she was staying quite close by, Nicholas was instantly aware this might well be his only chance for someone who had known him before that muddled night in 1918 when Sir Ivor stole him away to acknowledge his true identity.
He told himself over and over again he hadn't any reason to be nervous, Lala would know him, yet he was still squeezing Louisa's hand as tightly as he could without hurting her.
On his other side, not holding his hand but keeping near wearing a kindly expression on his face, trying his best to be supportive, was Louisa's fiancé Mr. Wentworth.
They were roughly a stone's throw away from the fountain Nicholas had once pretended to play – showing an excess of carefree abandon – with Louisa in front of while really trying to lure her away from her spying tutor, Bellamy Frid, hoping for the chance to ask if her father could help him. Back when he'd believed his family was still alive. So much had happened since then, yet the scenery appeared wholly unchanged.
At his first glimpse of Lala – at her careworn, older face, carved with new frown lines since he'd seen her last – Nicholas was overcome with pity. He knew she'd suffered loss as deep as his own. The British royal family might not have been assassinated, but John's death had no doubt broken her heart as thoroughly and irreparably as losing his parents and sisters had broken his.
A couple of times, he'd tried to ask Sir Ivor about her, if he knew what became of poor Lala, but the gentleman had cared nothing for the fate of a female servant with no noble blood and no purpose in his own plans, and therefore he could tell him nothing.
When they stood across from one another, after slowly disentangling his fingers from Louisa's, Nicholas had taken Lala's hand and bowed over it graciously. "It is good to see you, Lala. How have you been?"
"Well, sir, well." But the sad little blink she gave made his heart sink. There was kindness in her face, but no notable sign of recognition.
"Lala," he tried, "you know who I am, don't you? You remember me?"
She stared into his eyes. He did have piercing blue eyes, eyes that reminded her – undeniably – of the last tsar, the one who had looked so like King George. Still, she couldn't say either way. She'd hoped she might be able to, but – unless she outright lied – she couldn't in good conscience declare she recognised the man in front of her as the same little boy who'd played with Johnnie.
As Prince John's cousin.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, shaking her head. "I'm so sorry. I had hoped... It was a very long time ago. I do remember meeting Alexis, but..." She swallowed hard. Her moist eyes darted to Mr. Wentworth, who had been the one who wrote the letters arranging this meeting. "I don't think I've ever seen this gentleman before in my life."
"But you must know him," blurted Louisa, gesturing frantically between them. "You must! If he isn't Alexis, how could he have known to call you Lala?"
"I'm sorry," she said again. "But Alexis was a little child then. How could I say? I don't... I don't think... I'm so, so sorry."
"It is of no consequence," Nicholas whispered, taking her hand again and kissing it farewell. "I thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to meet with me. And I hope you will accept our invitation to tea before you leave the country, regardless of any disappointment on either of our parts." But as soon as she'd left, he turned very, very pale. "Lala didn't know me," he rasped weakly, looking – though only for a moment before he righted himself – as if he might lose strength and collapse, requiring Louisa and Mr. Wentworth to hold him upright. "How could she not know me? I had imagined she would."
Louisa gripped his arm. "Oh, it doesn't matter, Nicholas! It doesn't matter one bit. We can always try again." She looked to her fiancé. "Can't we? Couldn't you write to someone closer to him? Someone who knew him better? Miss Bill isn't Nick's family. Not really. She wasn't his nanny, even. She doesn't count."
Mr. Wentworth – with forced lightness, his smile strained but sincere – started to say dearest Louisa was quite right; certainly he could try, though no promises could be made, to contact–
"No," Nicholas cut him off. "No. No more."
"But..." Louisa gaped at him as if he were mad. "But why not?"
"Lala was one thing – but I won't become another claimant." Not like that insipid Anna Anderson or that clearly deeply disturbed Eugenia Smith, who'd not only claimed to be his sister Anastasia, but also already openly bolstered another man's claim to be Alexei Romanov. "I won't have my own family disavow me." The mere thought of living through such shame, such utter humiliation, was sickening. "From everything I've heard, my Grandmère Minnie won't even acknowledge the assassination took place. It would be different if I had my ring, of course. They would have to believe my story then."
"But have you not two aunts still living?" Mr. Wentworth said. "Your grandmother wouldn't need to be involved straightaway."
"Aunt Xenia's daughter is married to the man who killed a friend of mine – someone who was keeping Mama's hopes alive – I would never take charity from her. Not even if she could personally give me my throne back tomorrow." And Nicholas looked very stern before softening again. "And Aunt Olga is said to be practically drowning in Romanov children lookalikes breaking down her door. I guess she can take her pick. What need can she have of me?"
"But you're different," protested Louisa. "You aren't anything like those others. Your claim is real."
"That doesn't matter," Nicholas told her. "Not any longer." He smiled at Mr. Wentworth, giving the man a friendly nod. "I believe we are ready to depart."
"Yes, he's right about that. It's been a very long day," Louisa mulled, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "Can you drive us back to Papa's house in your motorcar?"
Nicholas shook his head. "Not there – not me – I would rather, if it would be no inconvenience to you, Mr. Wentworth, be dropped off at my shop."
"Oh, don't! Don't. Come home with me. Won't you be terribly lonely there?" Louisa thought of the large, empty store-front – cold and disarranged – newly acquired by Nicholas after her father helped him to get a loan from the bank; he'd been slow about getting it ready, about preparing for the grand opening, saying that he had it at all, that it was in the right location, was the important thing, and it seemed like such a bleak place to return to after the day's disappointing events.
He assured her he would be perfectly fine.
The truth was, in a way, the shop was another reason he would not – could not – allow himself to become just another Romanov claimant.
If he publicly declared himself Alexei Romanov without proof, who knew where his claim would take him – possibly very far from New Zealand, far from the shop where he needed to be to give the mirror to Jo someday.
Anything at all could happen to an unprotected young man of twenty-four who said he was the sole surviving Romanov. He could be killed; he could have a genuine accident, getting from one location to another in an attempt to prove his identity; he could be lost or taken as a political prisoner (again); and everything would be for naught if any of those possibilities occurred.
He would say, whenever Mr. Wentworth was about, his reluctance was to do purely with his inability to cope with his extended family's inevitable rejection of him, but that wasn't the entire truth. Louisa, with his permission, had told the man she was going to marry who her friend Nicholas really was, but she had withheld all mention of time-travel from him. Firstly, because it was too extraordinary on top of her claim her best friend was a Romanov, and secondly because she didn't want him to know about Tama Williams. Mr. Wentworth believed himself to be her first love and she didn't wish to take that from him. Therefore, Jo Tiegan was also a name Mr. Wentworth would never know.
Nicholas could never explain, not in front of him, how he wouldn't dare risk losing the chance to see her ever again, or how he hoped – someday – to change the past so they were never separated, so the poison was neutralised and he had his ring and was never in this position to begin with.
The true irony was, in avoiding a meeting in which his remaining family members did not recognise him after so many years, he was saving himself in order to prepare for a very different sort of meeting with someone he loved who would not know him when he saw her again, so many years from now.
In a matter of decades, Jo Tiegan would no more recognise him when she walked unawares into his antique shop than Lala had recognised him in the rose garden today.
Finis