Leading Lady

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  Doctor Joseph arrived late that evening, just when Martha was beginning to give up hope of him. ‘Thank you, Anna.’ She dismissed her and looked somewhat doubtfully at the tall, cowled figure. Monks were something quite out of her American experience. ‘You are a doctor, father?’ she asked in German.

  ‘But not a monk, highness.’ He corrected her in fluent French. ‘Though the fathers allow me to wear their uniform.’

  ‘You’re French then?’ She wished he would push back the concealing cowl. How could she decide whether she could trust him when all she could see were heavy brows over deep set eyes, a beaky nose and a mouth that looked as if it knew how to laugh.

  ‘No, highness, thank God.’ He was not laughing now. ‘I’m Swiss, from the Vaud. For what that’s worth these days, since the French took us over. My grandfather welcomed them with open arms when they marched in after their revolution. He thought they were bringing us union and democracy at last. And now look at us! Satellites! Tributaries! Their taxes bankrupted us; it killed my grandfather. Forgive me, you don’t want to hear all this, highness.’

  ‘But you are a doctor?’ She found herself oddly in sympathy with this positive young man.

  ‘A good one. So they conscripted me into their army, the damned – forgive me – French. I couldn’t stand it; it’s not my kind of medicine. I’m a deserter, highness. I told the Fathers; they don’t mind. I got away from the army of Italy, made my way north, found asylum here just in time. It’s exhausting, being on the run. They’ve been good to me. Lissenberg has been good to me. You need a doctor, highness, I am entirely at your service.’

  ‘I am going to trust you.’ She held out her hand and he took it in a warm and comforting grasp.

  ‘You can, I think.’

  ‘Good.’ She liked him the better for the qualified answer, and explained swiftly what she needed him for.

  ‘A lie or two?’ He summed it up with a surprisingly Gallic shrug of hooded shoulders. ‘Against the French? For Prince Franz? It will be a pleasure, highness. And there is something else I think I can do for you.’

  ‘Oh?’ She was liking him more and more.

  ‘I found it just the other day. It’s almost enough to make one believe in God.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘Forget I said that, highness. You’re too easy to talk to. I hadn’t realised how much I miss women. The thing is, just the other day I was down in the farmhouse cellar. It’s a terrible place. Well, all of it is fairly spartan, they don’t go in for comfort, the Holy Fathers, but they’ve done nothing at all about the cellar. It’s dry, but that’s about all you can say for it. To tell you the whole truth, which I want to, I was down there in the hopes of finding a forgotten cask of wine. Vain hope! But what I found was more interesting. A tunnel … solidly built, old, but the air was clear. It has to come here, to the palace. There’s a door at the end, with a grille, into a cellar. I’d know it if I saw it.’

  ‘You mean we could get the prince out that way?’ Anna’s near recognition had been a warning.

  ‘Yes, while I’m pretending to take him up to the Holy Fathers, you will really be getting him up through the tunnel. I’ll bring robes tomorrow early. He’ll have no problem in that silent house. Then he can meet you, by the road, come back as if from Lake Constance.’

  ‘Admirable. You’re an ally in a thousand! Tell me, before I take you to your “patient”. Are you happy with the silent Fathers?’

  ‘Happy? What do you think, highness?’

  ‘I think that if the prince agrees you had better come here as our court doctor.’

  Martha was hardly surprised to learn that there was a secret passage down from the Blue Suite to the tunnel that gave winter access between palace and opera house. The honeycomb of secret or semi-secret passages under the mountain had played a powerful part in last year’s revolution in Lissenberg, and it was strange and yet somehow logical to be down there now with Franz. They found Doctor Joseph’s door easily enough now they knew where to look. It was heavily barred on their side, she was glad to see, and stiff on its hinges when Franz finally got it open. ‘At least no one has used it for a long time.’ She was hastily unwinding his bandages, which they had kept on as a disguise till the last minute. ‘Good God!’ The last one came away. ‘You’ve shaved your beard. I like it.’

  ‘I don’t. But my grandmother said there was no way I could pass as a woman with it, however hooded and shawled, and she was right, as usual. I’ll get used to it, I suppose.’

  ‘It makes you look even more like Max. How strange,’ she reached up to kiss him experimentally. ‘It feels quite different! But we mustn’t be wasting time here. I must go back and see your double off to the Holy Fathers. Dear me, I shall be glad when we have got you officially back here, and you can take charge of things. There’s been a new Austrian messenger for Max, by the way, they sent him on to Gustav, and I’ve sent a man after to ask Max to come back at once.’ They quickly confirmed the meeting-place at dusk, on a lonely stretch of the mountain road.

  ‘Why will you be out so late?’ he asked.

  ‘Because you sent for me, secretly, having confirmed your suspicions of the guards at the frontier post by Lake Constance. I am delighted to have this pretext to get rid of them. I’ve been sure for some time that they are in Austrian pay.’

  ‘It won’t make us popular.’

  ‘That can’t be helped.’

  ‘How did I ever manage without you!’ This time, he kissed her, long and lovingly. ‘I hate to leave you.’

  ‘I know. After so long. And so much we haven’t said. But there will be time for all that when you are safe home.’

  ‘Home,’ he said. ‘Yes, for the first time, this palace feels like that. With you in it. You are my home, Martha. You do know that don’t you? Whatever happens, that’s always true.’

  ‘I know. I love you too. And now I must go and send Doctor Joseph on his way. Till very soon, my darling.’

  ‘Till very soon.’ He kissed the tips of her fingers, reluctantly let go of her hand. ‘Be sure to bar the door behind me.’ He picked up his lantern and started down the dark passageway. She wanted to call out, to stop him. Why was she so suddenly, so desperately afraid for him? Doctor Joseph had come down the passage the other way in perfect safety. She was imagining things. Just like a woman? And the moment had passed; his lantern was flickering out of sight round a corner. She sighed, picked up her own lantern and returned to the Blue Suite.

  After she had seen Doctor Joseph and his bandaged charge on their way, the afternoon seemed endless, but at last it was time to call for the carriage. If only she could take Anna with her, the one person she really trusted, but this would inevitably cause comment. Instead, she must take Deborah, the maid she had brought with her from America, so long ago. Deborah had passed, not very successfully, as her cousin and chaperone in London until she had been replaced in these roles by the formidable Lady Helen. It was a pity poor Deborah was so slow in the uptake, but at least they had a language in common that practically no one at the palace understood.

  ‘It’s late.’ Deborah had reacted to the luxurious palace life by adopting a slight touch of hypochondria. ‘You’ll need a heavier shawl, highness.’

  ‘Nonsense, but fetch one for yourself if you like. Only hurry, Deborah.’ Again she was plagued by irrational anxiety. Deborah seemed to take for ever fetching the shawl, and when they did start out the sun was low towards the mountains. Franz would have to wait for her, and she was angry with Deborah, with herself, with everything.

  She had picked a driver and footmen she thought she could trust, and merely told them to drive her over the mountains to where she could get a last, sunset view of Lake Constance. Strange to remember, two years ago, arriving here that first time for Cristabel to take up her position at the opera house, and Cristabel walking eagerly ahead up the mountain with Prince Max. Poor Cristabel.

  They were over the top now and the coachman was holding in his horses for the
steep downward slope. She wanted to shout to him to hurry as she listened impatiently to a long tale Deborah was telling her about jealousy among the palace servants. She had neglected Deborah, must try and think of some real occupation for her, must also find a more interesting companion for herself.

  But she would have Franz. The coachman eased his horses round a steep bend in the mountain road and there was Lake Constance, brilliant in the last sunshine. But where was Franz? He should have been sitting on the rock that marked a martyr’s grave; she was to have pulled the check string, stopped the carriage, recognised him at leisure. She pulled the string anyway, told the coachman she wanted to get out and walk a little to enjoy the view. ‘No, Deborah, I know you don’t want to join me. Stay in the carriage and keep warm. I’ll just go down to the corner; I’ve been cooped up in the palace all day.’

  She made herself walk slowly, not at her usual brisk pace at all. How could she spin out the time until Franz arrived? But was he going to? It was already late. What could have happened to him? It was absolutely impossible that they could have misunderstood each other. There was only one martyr’s stone on this road, and he should have been sitting on it. She walked slowly down to the corner and looked around; not a soul in sight, and the first lights showing down by the lake, where the houses were already in shadow. How long could she wait?

  She turned back slowly, then, as if on impulse, climbed the little path to the martyr’s stone. What could it tell her? Was the grass around it trampled? She thought so. By one person? By more? Impossible to be sure. Had he been waiting for her? What could have happened to him? And what should she do?

  Back at the carriage, the coachman was lighting the lamps, a mute suggestion that it was more than time they turned back. She made up her mind. One last unavailing look at the rock and she started swiftly back to the coach. ‘I think we’ll just call in on the Holy Fathers on the way back,’ she told the coachman. ‘I’d like to make sure the doctor got his patient safely there.’ And then, aware of the mute protest from Deborah. ‘We won’t stay more than a minute or two.’

  Chapter 6

  ‘I must talk to you, mavourneen.’ Desmond took Cristabel’s arm in an owner’s grip as they emerged from rehearsal on to the steps of the opera house.

  ‘You are,’ said Cristabel dryly. Did she actually dislike the new batch of Irish endearments he was lavishing on her?

  ‘Ah, but quietly, by ourselves, no interruptions. I’ve ordered a carriage; we’re going for a drive; maybe a mountain walk to put some colour back in those cheeks. Franzosi should be flayed alive for overworking you so, acushla.’

  ‘He wouldn’t need to if I was singing better.’ She faced it bleakly. ‘What am I going to do, Desmond? I’m letting everyone down. It’s only days till the anniversary celebrations, and we are heading for disaster.’

  ‘It’s a disastrous opera. Franzosi can’t write them and won’t admit it. Come along, my queen, the carriage awaits you.’

  ‘Now? But I’m tired …’

  ‘Of course you’re tired; sweating it out all day in that airless opera house … You’ll feel better up on the mountain.’

  Maybe she would. She could hardly feel worse. Once again, Franzosi had produced an opera with a comic part for her husband. He had decided that it would be a compliment to Franz and Max to put on an opera about twins, and had finally abandoned the story of Castor and Pollux, whose high drama would have suited Desmond perfectly, in favour of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, where the twin heroes were largely comic figures. Desmond was to sing both of them, with a stand-in for the final confrontation, and was making heavy weather of it. And she herself was not finding her part as the wife who could not tell her husband from his twin much easier. She had not read the play when Franzosi told her he was basing his opera on it, and, when she had, it was too late to tell him that she thought his choice in doubtful taste. She had tried, just the same, but he had pooh-poohed her objections. Prince Franz was a man of the theatre himself; naturally he would take the whole thing for the joke it was. She supposed the same would be true of Max, but found herself more unhappy than ever about her part now she knew he would be there to see her in it.

  ‘Dreaming again, my honey?’ Desmond put his arm around her as the carriage bumped over a sharp corner of the mountain road, and she got one of the whiffs of him that she was appalled to find increasingly offensive. He had always been point device before their marriage: bathed, and perfumed and elegant as to linen; today, as often now, his shirt was not of the nicest and he gave off a faint, unmistakable odour of garlic, and cigar, and man. He was her husband. Surely she should like it?

  ‘I was thinking about the opera,’ she said belatedly, in answer to a surprisingly sharp reminder from his encircling arm. ‘I still think we should tell Franzosi it will not do. The prince and Martha have troubles enough without our doing anything to make them look foolish.’

  ‘That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about, my rose of sharon.’ He pulled the check string sharply. ‘We’ll stop here and walk. Trees have no ears.’ They were on the road that led to the Trappists’ farm, and he told the coachman to walk the horses, took her arm and led her up a stony mountain path. ‘You’ve heard the rumours too?’

  ‘One can’t avoid them. Oh, they try not to let me, but it’s too general, isn’t it, too taken for granted. Idiotic of Prince Franz to have stayed away so long.’

  ‘A slap in the face for his bride, and no mistake. Well, poor girl, if I was married to that dumpling, I’d stay away.’ He pulled her to him for a long, open-mouthed kiss, and she hoped they were out of sight of the road. ‘What a lucky fellow I am.’ He let her go at last. ‘And I’m not risking you here this winter for anything, my bride of dreams. The only question is whether we tell Franzosi now or let him continue in his fool’s paradise until after the anniversary.’

  ‘You can’t be serious!’ She stopped, pulled away to look at him.

  ‘Never more so, acushla. Don’t delude yourself. There’s going to be trouble here in Lissenberg this winter, sure as the leaves fall off the trees. Maybe Prince Franz thinks so too, has decided to stay away and save his skin, leave his wife to face the music. What do you think Prince Max and his father are saying to each other at Gustavsberg today?’

  ‘You can’t think they are plotting together! Prince Max would never …’

  ‘Because he makes sheep’s eyes at you, he must be above suspicion? You’re not really such a fool as to believe that, my dove. No, we’re getting out of here while the going is good. I’ve written some friends in Vienna already, and you’d better have a word with that antiquated Romeo, Count Tafur. It’s about time he and your mother did something for us. I rather fancy trying out my Italian at La Scala, now Milan is capital of Napoleon’s Italy.’

  ‘That’s why you have been working so hard at it!’

  ‘Well, naturally, my own. You and I are going to conquer the operatic world together, and more than half that world is Italian.’

  ‘You’ve been planning all this and never told me?’ The full enormity of it was beginning to hit her.

  ‘It’s a husband’s duty to think for his wife.’ He pulled her close again for a kiss she did not want. ‘And a wife’s to let her husband think for her.’

  ‘Plan for her? I’d like to have been asked for my views.’

  ‘Ah, mavourneen, you’ve troubles of your own with that problem voice of yours. Franzosi’s bad for you, we have to face it. The sooner we get you away from him, the better.’

  ‘Problem voice?’ It had begun to worry her that she looked forward so much to the drops Desmond now habitually poured out for her before each performance. He had told her they made her sing better. It worried her even more that she was not sure herself.

  ‘Why do you think your busy friend Princess Martha sent for your mother?’ He managed a note of irony on the word princess.

  ‘Sent for her?’

  ‘Well, of course! It sticks out a mile. And she was
too idle to come – sent Tafur instead. I look forward to meeting that mother of yours. We’ll go first to Venice, I believe, whatever happens.’

  ‘All this without a word to me?’ She had a sudden, cold, clear vision of just what her mother would think of her husband.

  ‘I told you, my poppet. I thought you had troubles enough of your own. I think we have to go through with Night of Errors. It wouldn’t do to get the name of contract breakers, but after that, we are free as air.’

  ‘Only because Prince Franz isn’t back to ratify the new contracts.’

  ‘Are you so sure of that? Think a little. Prince Franz left his wife absolute authority. She could sign those contracts whenever she liked – if Franzosi asked her to. I’m afraid he is waiting to see how you sing on the great night, my precious, and that’s a game two can play at, as I mean to show him. If you look forward to spending another winter cooped up here in Lissenberg, it’s more than I do. I only stayed last year for your sake, my angel, and now I’ve got you.’ The words came out with a little, unmistakable snap of triumph.

  She stopped, drew a little away, looked at him, facing for the first time the full realisation of her own hideous mistake. He had got her. By marrying him, she had put herself absolutely into his power, and he was beginning to demonstrate it. She had pretended not to notice that he was drinking more, staying out later. Had he actually been showing her that the days of courtship were over, that this was what their marriage was to be like? Had he ever loved her? She almost asked it but restrained herself. The less she said, now, the better. He had made his point, she must reserve her reply until she had had time to think.

  ‘You’re getting cold, my queen.’ She was beginning to hate the easy endearments. ‘We’d best be getting back to the carriage.’ He, too, must have felt that the discussion had gone far enough.