'Well?'
'Well – I think I might have paid my stupid husband's gambling debt! Just to see! He seems to know what he is about, that one – and there's no doubt but he's madly fond of you!'
At the sight of Marianne's stunned face as she sat wondering whether she could have heard right, Adelaide suddenly burst out laughing.
'Don't look at me like that,' she exclaimed. 'One would swear you had set eyes on the devil! Let me tell you, my girl, I'm not such an old maid as you may think. Believe me, there is some good even in the most troubled times! But for the Revolution, I should still be a canoness in some aristocratic convent and no doubt bored to death! But thanks to it, I have been able to discover that virtue does not have all the charm it is cracked up to have and store up one or two fragrant memories that I may tell you about later, when we know one another better. But just remember this. There has always been hot blood in the family, and you won't be the first! And with that I'll bid you goodnight—'
Marianne could not have been more astonished if a thunderbolt had fallen on her. She was discovering that nothing she had ever thought about Adelaide came half-way near the truth, and she would have to begin all over again. The mere fact that she had mentioned Beaufort had been enough to bring him back, tenacious and encroaching, into Marianne's mind though she still persisted in trying to drive him out again. Why? Marianne began to have strange doubts. Could she perhaps have loved the American? Oh dear, it was clear that she was still very young and there was still a great deal she had to learn!
She became aware that Adelaide was walking purposefully in the direction of the kitchen staircase and called out to stop her.
'But – where are you going?'
'Down to the cellar, child. I forgot to tell you it communicates with that of Mrs Atkins. A circumstance I discovered not long ago but one which I have found very useful ever since you changed the locks. Goodnight.'
She walked on but Marianne called after her.
'Cousin!'
It was only one word but there was a world of feeling in it. It suddenly seemed to Marianne that in Adelaide she had rediscovered something of her Aunt Ellis and that cry was the product of her need for some of the warmth of kinship. Adelaide paused in the doorway as though something tangible had struck her. She turned slowly, a look of strain on her face.
'Yes?'
'Why – why must you go on living with a friend when there is this house, our house? It is too big for me. I – I need someone – you! I will ask the Emperor to pardon you and then we can—'
She could not go on. There was a silence. Blue eyes and green eyes met and held one another with an intensity that was far beyond words. Was it an illusion, or was that a tear that gleamed for a moment under the older woman's lashes? She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose vigorously.
'I dare say I'd better move,' she muttered. 'It's dreadfully gloomy here with nothing over the fireplace.'
Patting her tottering pile of hair into place with an air of stern determination, Adelaide turned and marched firmly in the direction of the cellar.
Left alone, Marianne gazed at her surroundings in triumph. It seemed to her that now, suddenly the old house was really itself again, that only now had the old walls begun to live and to accept their new dress. The wheel had come full circle. The house had got its soul again and Marianne a home.
***
Six days later, on the 19th March, the streets around the Théâtre Feydeau were crammed with carriages all turning in to deposit their elegantly dressed contents beneath the round arches of the former Theatre de Monsieur. Women muffled in expensive furs from beneath which came the occasional gleam of jewels, heads crowned with flowers, feathers and diamonds, men in huge overcoats that concealed splendid uniforms or dark coats studded with decorations. In spite of the persistent rain which had been drenching Paris for some days, all that was most distinguished by rank or fortune in the French capital was thronging to the doors of the famous Theatre.
The choice of the Théâtre Feydeau was a late one and due particularly to the size of the auditorium which was much larger than that of the opera in the rue de la Loi. It had also been thought that an Italian singer would find herself more at home on a stage traditionally the preserve of the Italian Comedy and then of the Opéra Comique, rather than at the Opéra where ballet was generally the chief spectacle. The dancers were notoriously averse to sharing the limelight, while the Theatre Feydeau was truly the temple of bel canto. If the Director of the Opéra, Picart, had felt some twinges of regret at the fabulous takings which would not come his way, he consoled himself by thinking of the trouble it would have called down on his head from the temperamental Auguste Vestris, that 'god' whom age did not mellow and who ruled as a despot over a theatre which he regarded as his own personal property.
The members of the Feydeau company, the celebrated Dugazon, the lovely Phyllis and Madame de Saint-Aubin and their male counterparts, the irresistible Elleviou and his colleagues Gavaudan, Martin, Solie and Chenard, had all displayed great deference to the imperial command and declared their willingness to welcome the singer Maria Stella whose great fame, most of it due to the efficient publicity which sprang full-grown from Fouché's fertile brain, had gone before her.
The four Parisian daily newspapers, Le Moniteur, the Journal de l'Empire, the Gazette de France and the Quotidienne, duly instructed, had all published laudatory articles about the new star of bel canto whom none of them had yet seen. Meanwhile, the streets of Paris became covered with bills announcing the forthcoming event at the Theatre Feydeau presenting 'for the first time in France, the celebrated Venetian diva Signorina Maria Stella, the golden voice of the peninsula'. As a result, Paris was talking quite as much about the mysterious new singer as about the new Empress still making her slow way towards France. Fashionable gossip had done the rest. The Emperor was rumoured to be wildly in love with the beautiful Maria, to have installed her secretly in an apartment in the Tuileries and to spend a fortune covering her with jewels. The magnificent preparations for the marriage went almost unnoticed: the alterations to the salon carré in the Tuileries for the ceremony, the overworked dressmakers and seamstresses, the endlessly drilling of troops, and even the transformations taking place on the site of the triumphal arch at the Etoile, where a false arch was being erected out of scaffolding and canvas until the real one could be built. This, too, was not without set-backs caused by the carpenters going on strike for more pay every five minutes.
Marianne was both amused and terrified by all the fuss. She was well aware that on the great night, all the eyes in Paris would be on her, that her figure and her clothes would be subjected to the closest scrutiny and that the slightest weakness in her voice would be fatal. And so she had worked to the very utmost of her strength until her friends became actually worried about her.
'If you wear yourself out,' said Dorothée de Périgord, who now came to the rue de Lille every day in order to encourage her friend, 'you will be too tired on Monday night to bear the fatigue and excitement of the evening.'
'Who would travel far must spare his horse,' cousin Adelaide, who now watched over her like a mother, would remark sententiously, while every morning, Napoleon sent his personal physician Corvisart to check on her health. It was the Emperor's command that Mademoiselle Maria Stella should take care of herself.
But Marianne, scared to death, would listen to none of them. It took Gossec himself to declare that he refused to practise with her more than one hour a day and Arcadius de Jolival to take it upon himself to lock up the piano for the rest of the time before she would finally agree to take a little rest, and even then the harp had to be shut up in the attic and the guitar in a cupboard before she could be brought to resist temptation altogether.
'I'll be a success,' she cried, 'if it kills me!'
'If you go on like this, you'll not get the chance,' retorted Fortunée Hamelin, who was constantly obliging her to swallow mysterious concoctions from her native isl
ands, intended to sustain her, and waging a daily battle against Adelaide who prescribed egg-nogs. 'You'll be dead first!'
The Hôtel d'Asselnat, so peaceful a few weeks before, had become a forum for the expression of everybody's opinion and filled all day long with seamstresses, bootmakers, furriers, milliners and purveyors of endless frills and fancies. Rising above the general uproar was the greedy voice of the couturier Leroy, who ordered everyone about. The great man had not slept for three nights while he was designing the clothes that Marianne was to wear on stage, and in between times had wandered about his salons with such a distracted and distant expression that three princesses, five duchesses and the wives of half a dozen marshals had practically died of rage. A fortnight from the imperial wedding day and Leroy could think of nothing but one lovely figure!
'The evening will either be my triumph, or it will not!' was all he would say, wading through miles of satin, tulle, brocade and gold thread, to the even greater confusion of the scribblers for the various journals, who one and all concluded in their article that Maria Stella would be dressed with such splendour that even the glories of the most fabulous sultanas of Golconda would pale in comparison. They claimed that she would stagger under rivers of diamonds, that she was actually to wear the crown jewels, that the Emperor had had his largest diamond, the 'Regent', mounted in a necklace for her to wear, that he had given her permission to wear a diadem like a princess and a great deal more nonsense of the same kind. Paris retailed it with all the more assurance when it was known that the Austrian Ambassador had gone anxiously to visit Fouché in private to find out how much truth there was in it all.
Meanwhile, Picard, the director of the Opéra, locked himself firmly in his office while his artists gathered round his door weeping with fury, and the performers of the Theatre Feydeau exulted as though in a personal victory. Everyone, right down to the most insignificant member of the chorus, felt immensely proud and considerably flattered to be taking part in an event of this importance.
Several times in the last few days, Marianne went to rehearse on stage, accompanied by Gossec and Arcadius, taking his role of impressario very seriously indeed. There she met Jean Elleviou, the fashionable tenor who was to sing with her in the first part of the evening. Since there had been too little time for her to learn and rehearse a whole opera, it had been decided that she would begin with a scene from Spontini's opera 'The Vestal', an elaborate Roman piece, which was one of Napoleon's favourite works. As a curtain raiser, therefore, they would sing the duet for Julia and Licinius, after which Marianne would sing Zétulve's aria from the 'Calif of Baghdad' followed by a longish extract from 'Pygmalion' by Cherubini. The second half of the concert was confined to Marianne alone when she would sing a number of arias from Mozart, Austrian being decidedly the coming fashion.
Everything had gone very well for Marianne. She had met with great kindness from her new colleagues and a good deal of gallantry from Elleviou, whose numerous feminine conquests left him by no means insensitive to the charms of the new star. He did his best to make her feel at home on the great stage whose dimensions had terrified her when she set foot on it for the first time.
'When the footlights are alight,' he told her, pointing to the impressive array before them, each with its own small reflector, 'you can scarcely see the audience. Besides you will not be alone on the stage for your entrance since we are to sing together.'
To help familiarize her with her surroundings, he took her on a tour of the theatre from top to bottom, showing her sets, dressing rooms, the auditorium decorated in the style of the last century in pink velvet and gilt bronze, with clusters of candles on the front of the balconies and the huge, glittering crystal chandelier. The whole of the centre of the first circle was taken up by one vast box, the Emperor's, and Marianne swore to herself that she would look nowhere else throughout the performance.
She was determined to be quite calm for this most important evening of her life. She spent most of the day in her room, resting in semi-darkness, watched over by Adelaide, who had already taken charge of the household and herself prepared the light meals which were all that Marianne would take on the all-important day. Apart from Fortunée Hamelin, who was almost as nervous as Marianne herself, no-one was allowed near her, although three or four notes of tender encouragement had been delivered from the Tuileries.
But in spite of everything, in spite of all the affectionate care of her friends, Marianne's hands were icy cold and her throat dry when she reached the theatre that night. She was trembling like a leaf in the great Pelisse of white satin lined with sable which Napoleon had given her, in spite of all the foot warmers which her maid Agathe had stuffed into the carriage. She had never been so nervous in her life.
'I can't do it,' she said again and again to Arcadius, who looked almost as pale as she in his black coat. 'I can't do it – I'm too frightened!'
'Stage fright,' he told her with a coolness he was far from feeling. 'All great artists have it. Especially for their first appearance. It will pass.'
Elleviou was waiting for Marianne at the door of her dressing room with a huge bouquet of red roses in his hands. He presented them with a bow and an encouraging smile.
'Already you are the most beautiful,' he told her in his deep voice. 'Tonight, you will also be the greatest – and we two, if you will, may perhaps be friends for life.'
'We are friends already,' she told him, and gave him her hand. 'Thank you for giving me such a comforting welcome. I needed it.'
He was a fair, good-looking man, whose figure did not betray his forty years, and although his eyes showed a somewhat disagreeable inclination to linger on her bosom, he was pleasant and kind in offering to help her past a difficult moment. His support was not something to be scorned. Moreover, Marianne had to get used to her new and rather strange surroundings, very different from anything she had known before, but in which she meant not simply to make a place for herself, but a reigning one.
The dressing room which they had given her had been transformed into a flower garden. It seemed as though there could not be a single rose, carnation or tulip left in all Paris, her friends had so conspired to outdo one another. There were huge sprays sent by Talleyrand, by Fortunée and her friend the banker Ouvrard, even, in a wild burst of unusual extravagance from Fouché, as well as from the grand marshal of the palace, and a host of others. One small bouquet bore the timid signature of M. Fercoc. Inside the great cushion of violets sent by Napoleon was another bouquet, this one made of diamonds, and with it three words which tripled it in value: 'I love you, N.'
'You see,' Arcadius told her softly. 'How can you fail to be brave with so much affection all around you? And think, he will be there. Come and see!'
While Agathe took possession of the dressing room and endeavoured to make some room among the flowers, Arcadius took Marianne by the hand and led her behind the stage curtain. Stage hands and members of the chorus were moving about in all directions, busy with last minute preparations. In the orchestra pit, the musicians were tuning their instruments and men were beginning to light the footlights. From beyond the great velvet wall, they could hear the hum of the audience.
Arcadius made a tiny crack. 'Look.'
The theatre was literally sparkling with the countless points of light from the great chandelier. All the foreign ambassadors were there and all the dignitaries of the Empire, dressed in the slightly fantastic uniforms ordained by Napoleon. Marianne's heart beat faster as she caught sight of Madame de Talleyrand in one box with a group of friends, Talleyrand himself in another surrounded by lovely ladies and Dorothea's sharp little face in a third. Prince Eugene was there, with his sister, Queen Hortense. In a low voice, Arcadius pointed out the chief of those present: Old Prince Kurakin, the Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès, the beautiful Madame Récamier, dressed in silver gauze with long pink gloves, Fortunée Hamelin, brilliant and dazzling as the bird of paradise beside the crafty-looking Ouvrard. In a box facing her sat Adelaide d'Assel
nat, resplendent in the dress of plum-coloured velvet and white satin turban which Marianne had given her. Her lorgnettes held insolently to her eyes fixing everything and everyone with a proud, imperious stare. This was her moment of glory, and her re-entry into society. A wooden-faced lackey guarded the door of her box where she sat enthroned in splendid isolation while every box around her was filled to overflowing.
'The whole Empire is here – or very nearly,' Arcadius whispered. 'And on time, too! One can see the Emperor is coming. In a little while, all these people will be in love with you!'
But Marianne's eyes had fastened on the great box, empty as yet, where Napoleon would sit with his sister Pauline and one or two of his court.
'Tomorrow,' she murmured half under her breath, overcome by a sudden sadness, 'he leaves for Compiègne to meet the new Empress. What do I care if others are in love with me. Only he matters and he is going away!'
'But he will be yours tonight!' Jolival said quickly, realizing that if Marianne gave way to melancholy she was lost. 'Run and get ready now. The orchestra is beginning the overture – quickly!'
He was right. Marianne had neither the time, nor the right to think only of herself. In this final moment, she belonged to the theatre. She had become truly an artist and, as such, must do her best not to disappoint those who had trusted her. Marianne d'Asselnat was gone and Maria Stella took her place. Marianne meant it to be a dazzling change.
Returning the friendly greetings which met her on all sides, she made her way back to her dressing room where Agathe stood waiting for her in the doorway holding a big bouquet of pure white camellias, lace-edged and tied with a bunch of green ribbon. She handed it to Marianne with a little bob.
'A messenger brought them.' Marianne could not help a sudden feeling of excitement as she read the little card that came with them. On it were only two words, a name, 'Jason Beaufort'. Nothing else.
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