The Last Serenade (Sybil Ingram Victorian Mysteries Book 2)

by Amanda DeWees

  Catching sight of Roderick down in the orchestra pit, I waved at him, but he was concentrating fiercely and did not see me. No matter—he would see me during the performance when he came to play the violin in the wings during the hero’s serenades. It occurred to me that our romance was similar to performing. Both meant making ourselves vulnerable and exposed, which could cause anxiety but was also thrilling, because it meant that we were creating something new with every minute that we passed together. Something without a script, entirely improvised, and—here the analogy ended—something that was entirely ours.

  The overture started, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut and breathe deeply for a moment to try to compose myself. How I had missed acting!

  “Break a leg, my dear,” came Kenton’s voice, making me start. Unheard over the music he had come to stand by my side.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I hope I’ll do her justice tonight.”

  His smile was tired but no less sincere. “I’m sure you will.”

  I felt a pang to see him so careworn, and I wanted to ask if I could help, but this was not an opportune time. Then an all too familiar voice, unexpected tonight and highly unwelcome, made itself heard from the direction of backstage.

  “Let me in at once! Get out of my way.” There was some inaudible reply, then the voice resumed, even angrier: “No, I shall not lower my voice, nor shall I return at ‘a more convenient time’! I simply need to retrieve my gloves. I left them behind last night.”

  At that volume, the voice was unmistakable. It was Fournier.

  My eyes and Kenton’s met in mutual shock. “He mustn’t see me here!” I hissed.

  Nodding, he put up his hands to silence me. “I shall take care of him,” he whispered. “Never fear, he’ll not come close enough to see you.”

  As he moved silently away, I could hear the urgent whispering of the stage manager before Fournier’s voice came again: “As much money as I invested in this play, I have every right to go wherever I want in this theater. Now let me go!”

  Helaine joined me, absently making final adjustments to her wig. “That cannot be Monsieur Fournier, can it?”

  I nodded miserably. As if there could be any mistaking those truculent tones.

  Then, thank heaven, I caught the low, soothing tones of Kenton. Fournier’s responses were quieter than before. Kenton must be succeeding in placating him. Even though I strained to hear what they were saying, I could not distinguish more than a few scattered words over the sound of the audience and the overture. Soon I could not hear their voices at all, and then my cue came.

  Time to give my full attention to the play. I walked onto the stage and took my place, poised to enter another world.

  The curtain rose to applause on a tableau of me and Philippe in my bedroom standing by the window as dawn broke. This sentimental domestic scene established an idyllic world that would make the oncoming calamities all the more dramatic by contrast.

  “My dear husband,” I lamented in French, “how quickly the morning comes each day to separate us! Would that you never had to leave my side.”

  There was a slight disturbance in the audience, as if people were conferring with one another and consulting their programs. Had my voice betrayed my identity? Doubtless I was not pronouncing the lines quite as a native speaker would.

  Philippe brought my thoughts back to our fictitious idyll when he clasped me briefly in his arms. “My wishes are one with yours, sweet wife,” he declared. “But alas! You know that my duty to my country is too great to be gainsaid—no, not even for the sake of true love.”

  Thrusting my worries out of my mind, I forced myself to concentrate on my fictitious husband. I could not afford to think about anything except him and the present moment.

  After that, the scene continued with such smoothness that anyone would have thought we had been rehearsing together from the start. Philippe was a generous scene partner, attentive but not impatient, and showed no rancor at my replacing his favored lady. Once I did fail to recall a line of dialogue, which gave me a nasty moment, but he quickly improvised to cover the omission.

  I was concentrating so fully on the role that I did not stop to think about the audience’s response and whether they were accepting me when they had expected Julia. Not until I was singing the aubade, which closed the scene—and then I looked out and saw the rapt faces. Some were already applying handkerchiefs to their eyes.

  When I finished, the applause left no doubt that they found me an adequate substitute for Julia. Philippe gave me a surreptitious grin and whispered, “Bien fait! Well done. Give them an encore.” Roderick smiled up at me from the orchestra pit, and the pride in his eyes was the best praise I could have received.

  The conductor lifted his baton, ready to start the encore at my signal.

  Only then did I realize, with a shock like a dash of cold water, that I had been acting the role as myself, not as Julia. So distracted had I been by the irruption of Fournier that I had unthinkingly acted the character as I thought best, not as Julia had performed her.

  The audience had seemed to like my interpretation, however. Philippe had shown no difficulty in playing off my performance. And I could hardly change course now, could I? In that moment of indecision I looked around for guidance and saw Kenton in the wings, applauding vigorously and nodding when I raised my eyebrows in a question. That could only mean that he approved. Very well. Tonight the audience of Théâtre Caprice would get a Sybil Ingram performance.

  I gave the nod to the conductor, and he led the orchestra in my first encore of the night—but not my last.

  After that, the play went so quickly that entire scenes seemed to unfold in seconds. Later I could recall only scattered moments, like watching Roderick as he stood in the wings, playing the violin serenade, while Philippe, miming on his prop violin, seemed to be the recipient of my adoring gaze. The audience adored the device of the serenade revealing the young hero’s identity when he returned home secretly and in disguise. My character thought he was dead until she heard the fiddler beneath her window playing the same tender love song that her husband had played for her every night during their courtship. Thunderous outcry and applause greeted me when I leaned out the window, straining to reach his hand and crying, “My dear husband, you have returned! By the serenade with which you once wooed me, I know it must be you.”

  Kenton, too, was in fine form, energetic and slyly humorous as he wooed first the supposed widow and then her daughter. He and Gustave were a deliciously wicked duo, and the interplay between Gustave and the tart-tongued maid played by Marianne won shouts of appreciative laughter. As for the final confrontation between hero and villain, followed by the reappearance of the father long thought dead, it won enough gasps and applause to gladden the heart of any actor.

  But the highlight, as far as I was concerned, was Helaine’s performance. She was simply remarkable. Sharing the stage with her, playing dialogue with her, brought home to me what a theatrical legend truly was. She was heartbreakingly fragile as the mother who sees no alternative but to marry her daughter to a man she fears, and in the pivotal scene there was so much applause that she had to do an encore of her big speech, so that everyone could revel all over again in her vulnerability as she declared, “It is not given to me to protect you any longer, my darling. Yes, though I bore you and raised you, though I taught your infant lips to lisp their first words, though I was always here to wipe your tears away, today that sweet idyll ends—for it is not given to mothers to do the work of fathers. Alas, were he here, I know that he could save you from what I fear shall be a cold and harrowing union. My child, compose yourself with patience; be brave, be steadfast in your faith, for our mortal lives are fleeting, and soon you shall be reunited in heaven with your dear father!”

  The applause that followed lasted so long that I wondered if a second encore would be necessary. From where I stood posed in the tableau I could see the tears clinging to Helaine’s eyelashes, and I drew a handkerc
hief from my sleeve and gently blotted them away, as any devoted daughter might. Her chin was trembling, and her eyes darted toward me and then back to the wings, looking for Kenton’s signal to continue or not. I wondered suddenly if the play, as exaggerated as it was in some ways, was bringing back to her the loss of her husband, or if she had simply immersed herself so completely in her role. I was almost relieved when the curtain came down and she was spared the necessity of performing the speech again.

  All too quickly the play was over, and we assembled behind the curtain for our bows. My blood felt as effervescent as champagne in my veins, and I could not stop smiling at everyone. Philippe drew me forward for a separate bow, to gratifying cheers. At the sight of Roderick beaming at me from the pit I blew him an extravagant kiss, and the conductor took that as a sign to signal him to take his own individual bow. There were calls for Helaine, who stepped forward to take a dignified curtsey. Even Marianne was beaming.

  In short, it was a love fest. In fact, the only person who did not seem to be joining in was Kenton. When I looked around for him, I saw that the stage manager had drawn him apart and now they stood in deep conversation. Something in the set of Kenton’s shoulders and the angle of his head gave me a prickle of foreboding. Whatever he was hearing was not welcome news.

  “Monsieur Ivey!” cried Philippe. “They are calling for you!”

  He gave a tight nod, said one last thing to the stage manager, and then joined us in line, where we stood with clasped hands.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked, as he took the place next to me.

  He grimaced. “Keep smiling, my dear, but Fournier’s body has been found in the prop room.”

  “His body?” I echoed, obediently smiling at the audience but thinking that I must have misheard.

  Now Kenton Ivey, too, was smiling broadly and artificially. Without looking at me or moving his lips, he said, “Fournier is dead.”

  The applause had not even ceased before everyone had heard the news, it seemed.

  Kenton summoned us to the green room, the crew and staff as well as the actors, so there was not room for everyone even standing, and the group overflowed into the corridor outside. The orchestra had not been detained, but Roderick and the conductor—as well as Monsieur Lambert, who played piano in the orchestra—were present.

  “Monsieur Fournier, whom most of you know as our primary backer, has expired.” Kenton’s voice, trained as it was, carried so well that surely everyone in the hallway heard every word. “Hortense, Julia’s maid, discovered his body just after act two began.”

  I craned my neck and scanned the crowd for the maid, but in the press of bodies I did not see her. Perhaps she had been too distressed to stay and was being tended to elsewhere.

  “What happened?” asked Gustave, who stood beside his wife. “Did he have an apoplexy or something of that sort?”

  Kenton was silent for a moment, and I saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. “No,” he said. “I’m afraid someone deliberately killed him.”

  Instant confusion. Marianne gave a loud gasp and clutched Philippe’s arm. Everyone began asking questions.

  Roderick and I exchanged uneasy glances. “How can you tell it wasn’t an accident?” he asked Kenton, raising his voice to be heard over the commotion.

  The manager held up his hands for quiet and waited for the talking to subside before answering. “There is a wound as if he has been stabbed, but there is no weapon close by. That means that someone removed it.”

  “Where is he?” Marianne burst out. “I can’t bear to think that I might just—just stumble upon his body.”

  Philippe gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’m certain Monsieur Ivey didn’t just leave him lying about.”

  The thought of our gentle, genial manager hauling Fournier’s corpse about like a bag of coals made me shudder. Roderick put his arm around me.

  Kenton hesitated, perhaps belatedly realizing that some details might be better not shared. “I left him where Hortense found him, in the prop room,” he said. “He is covered now, so you needn’t worry that you will come upon a gruesome sight unexpectedly. My intention now is to summon a policeman and report the crime.” His gaze moved searchingly around the room. “But first I thought it best to see if anyone here knows anything that could shed light on this.”

  “What was he doing here at all?” Estelle asked. “I thought he was meeting Sybil at the Bois de Vincennes.” When I looked at her in surprise she said, “I overheard you at the reception last night.”

  Other heads turned to look at me, and I realized with growing unease that my false assignation might look suspicious. But I was saved the necessity of an explanation when Kenton said, “During the overture he arrived at the theater. Albert, the stage manager, tried to deny him entrance, but Fournier was persistent. I was afraid that he would disrupt the performance, so I took him to the prop room to converse. He was only here, he said, to retrieve a pair of gloves he had worn yesterday.” He gave me a faint smile. “I gathered he wished to be dressed in his best for his assignation with Sybil.”

  “He didn’t find out that Sybil was here, did he?” Roderick demanded.

  “No, certainly not. I thought I had persuaded him to depart gloveless by the time I left him to go onstage. Later I glanced in but saw no sign of him.”

  It was easy to understand how he could have missed the sight of a prone Fournier. The prop room was cluttered and crowded with every imaginable object that a play might require to decorate the set. Furniture, framed pictures and wall hangings, lamps, bird cages, books, trunks, samovars, treasure chests, clocks, Roman shields, even papier-mâché statues—the place was like a junk shop that had been accumulating wares since ancient times. If Fournier had fallen behind any combination of these objects, he might not have been visible to anyone unless they had entered the room and searched it.

  “Did he speak to anyone else after you left him?” I asked.

  “I would like to know that myself,” Kenton said. Raising his voice to address everyone, he asked, “Did any of you see or speak to him tonight?” When the only response was shaken heads, a look of resignation and dread settled over him. “It appears that I was the last person to have seen him alive.”

  The words had a dreadful significance. Kenton had just named himself the most likely culprit. Especially given his financial debt to Fournier and the obscure threat the latter had made last night while Roderick and I listened unseen, it looked as if there was an appallingly large amount of evidence already accumulating against him.

  “What shall we do?” Estelle asked. “Shall we summon a gardien de la paix?”

  Kenton nodded heavily. “There is probably one patrolling nearby. It would be best for everyone to remain here until he has a chance to speak to all of us.”

  “May we at least change out of our costumes?” asked Philippe, who had begun to shiver slightly in his water-soaked shirt and knee breeches. His words seemed to awaken Kenton to the fact that he, too, was drenched from the climactic thunderstorm, although he had flung a dry hermit’s robe over his wet things for his appearance as Elfrida’s returned father.

  “We may as well. We shall probably be here for some time. And Albert—where are you?—if you and your men would go ahead and clean the stage. The last thing we need is water damage.”

  There was much murmuring. Some actors went to change as the crew gathered to put Kenton’s suggestion into action. His eyes were troubled as he watched.

  “I can only hope this terrible thing will not force us to close,” he told me in a low voice. “If only your séance had given us some warning that this would happen, Sybil.”

  “What séance?”

  Roderick’s question shot out with such force that Kenton was taken aback, but he responded before I could stop him. “A few days ago your fiancée kindly consented to attempt to contact the spirit world to find the source of the malaise I have felt so many times in this theater. But, alas, it did not prepare us for thi
s.”

  Roderick said nothing, but the set of his jaw made me uneasy. “I suffered no ill effects afterward,” I reassured him. “I didn’t think it worth mentioning.”

  “I see.” The words were clipped. “Perhaps we might discuss it in private.”

  Was I in for a talking-to, then? My immediate indignation was quickly succeeded by a guilty unease. “Come to my dressing room, then,” I said. “I’d like to change out of this costume, anyway.”

  In silence we proceeded to the room, which was empty. No doubt Hortense had been detained by others to tell her story. I closed the door and began to remove my jewelry and wig. Roderick stood with his arms folded. The god of thunder, Julia had called him, and she was not wrong.

  “Why did you keep it from me that you were having a séance?” he demanded.

  The accusing tone nettled me. I began, “Well, I suppose that—”

  But he interrupted. “You know how hard it was for me to learn to trust you after what happened with Julia. Why couldn’t you have asked me about the séance instead of hiding it from me?”

  “I didn’t think it was that important,” I said shortly. “Besides, I’m used to making my own decisions and not having to ask permission.”

  He plunged his hands through his dark hair. “I didn’t mean you needed permission,” he exclaimed, “merely that I would have liked to have had a say in the matter. To not be blindsided. I thought that was what we both wanted—a partnership, where we consult each other about things that affect us both.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it as affecting you,” I said, but with less certainty than before.

  “Anything that affects your welfare affects me,” he said, in a more moderate tone. “Imagine if something had gone wrong, and I wasn’t there. If, heaven forbid, you had been hurt or in danger, I would have wanted to be with you, to help you if possible. It would have tormented me to find out later that while I was oblivious you were in need of me. Do you see?”