Leading Lady

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘I’ve never stopped thinking of you, longing for you, wanting you. We’re going to start again, now.’ He picked her up, started for the bedroom door. ‘Damnation!’ He paused at the sound of Anna’s unmistakable knock. ‘Tell her to go away.’

  But, ‘Prince Max is here,’ said Anna.

  Chapter 7

  ‘They helped me escape,’ Max told them. ‘I don’t understand any of it.’

  ‘Who? Not the Bemberg and her daughters?’ Franz poured him a badly needed glass of wine.

  ‘No. They must have been the only people in the place who didn’t know. It was the servants. They’ve banded together against Gustav; he’s driven them too far this last year. They told me things … Not for your ears, Martha … We have to do something about our father, Franz. He’s not fit to be in charge of a pigsty. Did you know he was arranging to have me shot “by accident”?’

  ‘Yes, he told us. Thank God you are here safe. Does he know you are?’

  ‘No one knows. I thought the element of surprise might be useful, came by way of the tunnel from the opera house, managed to catch Anna. Only she knows.’

  ‘Admirable. I wonder if we could keep your escape secret until the night of the anniversary opera. Spring it on the audience. I have it! We go along with Gustav’s proposal, Martha and I, send for the Bemberg and her children to join in the celebrations, get little Gustav safely into our hands. He’s only a baby.’ He explained their father’s proposal to Max. ‘For myself,’ he concluded, ‘I would like the succession to Lissenberg to be open to popular vote, but I have been forced to recognise that this would be anything but a popular idea. And, Max, Martha thinks Gustav is right about your feeling for Cristabel; that we can’t count on you for an heir presumptive.’

  ‘Cristabel is the only woman for me,’ said Max. And then, ‘Oh, if all else failed, I suppose I would do my duty, find some poor willing girl and make the best of things, but why should I? Don’t tell me you have let yourselves be influenced by the malicious gossip our father has been spreading! I thought you had more sense. You two have only been married for a year, for goodness sake!’ He hurried on, aware that for once Martha was blushing furiously. ‘As for little Gustav, I was surprised to find myself increasingly convinced that he is in fact our father’s son. I know we all thought it improbable that he could father such a healthy child, but – forgive me, Martha – we have to remember the difference between poor Princess Amelia, daughter of a thousand cousins, and that strapping country wench, the Bemberg.’

  ‘Is that all she was?’ asked Martha, fascinated.

  ‘Oh, yes, an innkeeper’s daughter. Not so much as a quarter of a quartering to her name.’

  ‘Very much like me,’ said Martha, and it was his turn to blush. ‘The question is,’ she turned to practicalities. ‘Do we trust Doctor Joseph, or was he involved in the attack on you, Franz?’

  ‘I’m sure he wasn’t. Yes, we trust him. I can see we have been thinking along the same lines, as usual, you and I. So, we send Max to rusticate among the Holy Fathers for a few days, spring him on the audience at Night of Errors.’ He laughed. ‘When you come right down to it, I suppose our opera audience is about the nearest thing we have got to a parliament since they turned down our proposal for universal suffrage last year.’

  ‘A mad idea,’ said Max. ‘They’re not ready for it, our Lissenbergers. You are really serious in suggesting you and Martha bring up little Gustav? I wonder what the world will think of that. Too quixotic by a half, if you ask me. Though it’s true his parents don’t take much interest in him.’

  ‘That’s what I had imagined,’ said Franz. ‘Of course he’ll be better off with Martha.’

  ‘And you don’t mind?’ Max asked Martha with the directness of an old friend.

  ‘No, I’d like it.’ This was horribly difficult ground. What Franz chose to tell his brother about their relationship was most entirely his own affair. ‘I just find it hard to believe Countess Bemberg won’t object. And, another thing, surely she’ll know of your escape by now, Max, and have sent word to Prince Gustav?’

  ‘Not necessarily. The servants who helped me escape will say nothing. And my disappearance will be a puzzle to them. They may wonder if the accident hasn’t quietly happened to me, if I’m not tidily dead. No, they’ll keep their mouths shut.’

  ‘Of course! Stupid of me. I am so very glad you are not, Max!’ She turned back to her husband. ‘But what I don’t quite see is what it is you mean to put to the opera audience conveniently assembled for the anniversary?’

  ‘Our plans for the succession. It’s the best way to put an end to the malicious gossip Max speaks of. We tell them that until we have an heir of our own, little Gustav is to be brought up to succeed Max, if he too continues heirless.’

  ‘Put like that,’ said Martha, ‘it sounds totally reasonable.’

  ‘If one accepts that little Gustav is the prince’s son,’ said Max.

  ‘Well, anyway, really,’ said Franz. ‘So long as Martha has the rearing of him.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She was actually near to tears.

  ‘And now,’ he went on, ‘I think I had better take you along to the Holy Fathers, Max, get you settled there, and for God’s sake, no sneaking out for any purpose whatsoever.’

  ‘Not even to eavesdrop on the dress rehearsal,’ said Max gloomily. ‘You’re right of course, but I do painfully long to hear if such terrible things have happened to Cristabel’s voice as the unloving Bemberg suggested.’

  ‘The rumours have reached Gustavsberg?’ asked Martha.

  ‘If they didn’t start there. That’s what I have been wanting to find out, whether there’s any truth in them, and the only way is to hear her sing. Poor Cristabel. Have you heard her yet, Franz?’

  ‘No. But you’re right, I must. Not a command performance, do you think?’ to Martha. ‘It would fly in the face of all reason so close to the anniversary night. I’d best just drop in at the next rehearsal, as incognito as I can manage it.’

  ‘I wish you would,’ said Martha. ‘It’s not really her singing; there’s something very strange about her these days, something I do not at all understand.’

  ‘You think she is beginning to recognise what an appalling mistake she has made?’ asked Franz bluntly.

  ‘No, it’s not that. Or not just that. When she sang Rosina the other night – oh, she sang it beautifully, a wonderful relaxed voice, superb in all those trills and flourishes Franzosi puts in. But she wasn’t acting at all!’

  ‘Can you blame her, with that stick Desmond Fylde as Figaro?’

  ‘But you’d have thought she’d put everything into it, try and woo some acting out of him. You know what a brilliant, instinctive actress she has always been, how the audience yields itself to her. It just wasn’t happening. That’s when I started to be really worried.’

  ‘I’ll take you up to the Fathers, Max.’ Franz made up his mind. ‘And then go straight back down the tunnel to the opera house.’

  ‘I wish I could come too,’ said Max.

  ‘You know you must not. But I promise I’ll let you know what I find.’

  ‘How will you achieve your incognito?’ asked Max.

  ‘Easy enough. No one outside the palace has seen me clean shaven. I’ll borrow one of the Fathers’ robes when I’m up there. They refuse to come to the performances, but I’ve seen them standing at the back of open rehearsals often enough.’

  ‘Do be careful,’ said Martha. ‘Both of you. I’m ashamed to feel so full of nerves, but I do. I shan’t have a quiet moment until this anniversary performance is safely over.’

  ‘You’ll be too busy to worry,’ said her husband bracingly. ‘You must see, my darling, that your job is to keep Prince Gustav occupied.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘He won’t like that much. And nor shall I. But I’ll do my best.’

  ‘I know you will.’

  ‘Nobody recognised me.’ Franz returned from the opera house while Martha was changing for
dinner. ‘Or if they did they kept very quiet about it. But, Martha, there is something very gravely wrong with Cristabel. She’s singing like an angel and moving like an automaton. She used to hold an audience in the hollow of her hand. It’s gone. There’s no heart to her; a brilliant technical performance, nothing more. I had thought – hoped in a way – that the trouble everyone spoke of was some kind of breathing difficulty like the one she was having when we first met. Do you remember?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ Lovingly. ‘I’ll never forget how you bullied us all while you were retraining her voice. Of course I’d been hoping just the same thing, counting on you to put your finger on the trouble when you got back. But it’s not that?’

  ‘No. As I say, technically I’ve never heard her in such good form, but it’s like listening to a mechanical doll.’

  ‘Oh, poor Cristabel! How unhappy she must be.’

  ‘I’m not even sure of that. I’ve sung with her, remember, when we were rehearsing Crusader Prince, before Desmond Fylde arrived.’

  ‘I wish to God he never had!’

  ‘That’s just what I mean. I remember singing with her as one of the most difficult and exciting things I have ever done. I’m not in the same class as her, of course, and we both knew it. She was doing her best to bear with me, but we could all of us feel the tension in her, the impatience, the perfectionism, if you like. She got more out of me than I knew was there. And now – she’s calm, Martha. Totally calm, while that husband of hers makes a public fool of himself. He ought not to be allowed anywhere near comedy. I wish I’d come home sooner; I’d never have let Franzosi put on Night of Errors. If it’s not a disaster, we’re all luckier than we deserve.’ And then, seeing her face: ‘Ah, my darling, don’t blame yourself. It would have seemed the worst kind of interference if you had done anything about Franzosi’s unlucky choice.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. And then, to tell you the truth, I did wonder if he wasn’t putting it on just to show Fylde up, and I’m afraid I rather liked the idea. He’s such a boor, that man. I can’t bear to see Cristabel with him. And the worst of it is, he makes it impossible to see her by herself.’

  ‘I’d wondered about that. I wish Cristabel’s mother had come.’

  ‘Oh, so do I,’ said Martha from her heart. ‘But I’m her friend. It ought to be possible for me to see her alone, ask her what’s the matter. May I tell her you watched the rehearsal?’

  ‘Indeed you may. But the first thing is to get her to come to you.’

  ‘I shall ask it for my own sake, don’t you see? Might I not want to talk to a friend before taking a decision like adopting little Gustav? How could Fylde stop her responding to an appeal like that?’

  ‘Clever,’ he said.

  The palace messenger arrived first thing next morning when Cristabel and her husband were still in bed. ‘Ah, let him wait,’ said Fylde. ‘They don’t own us body and soul, up at the palace, whatever they may think.’

  ‘It’s not like that.’ Cristabel was sitting up in bed, reading Martha’s note. ‘She wants my advice, she says. On an urgent matter. I must go to her, Desmond. She’s my friend.’

  ‘She’s your employer now. And making the position clear. I told you it was time we got away from this petty tyranny. But I suppose for the moment we must do the civil thing. Tell the man we’ll come to the palace after rehearsal this afternoon.’

  ‘But she says “alone”, Desmond. She wants to talk to me alone.’

  ‘Man and wife is one flesh, my angel. Do I need to remind you of that again?’ He silenced her with a kiss that hurt, pulled her down and rolled over on to her. She fought him briefly, savagely; yielded at last to superior force.

  Later she heard him send his message to the palace, lay there among tangled bedding, silent, thinking, making herself think,’ face what was happening to her. The drops Desmond now gave her before rehearsal, what were they doing to her? Why did she long for them so? Were they really improving her singing, as he said? Why did she not remember how the performance had gone? And – she always felt better in the morning, after sleeping them off. Think about that. And about Martha, who said she needed her. And Desmond? His words echoed in her head. ‘Man and wife is one flesh.’ Whose flesh? She lay very still, very quiet, until Desmond appeared dressed now, impeccable in snowy linen, ready for the palace.

  ‘Time to get up, my queen. Time for rehearsal, my diva, and here am I, your loving husband, with your drops.’ He held out the glass she had come to long for.

  And she longed for it. The instant calm, the world transformed … ‘Thank you.’ She took it in a hand that trembled. ‘You think of everything.’ She hurt all over from his ruthless love-making. Love? Would she be able to move properly on stage? The drops would make her feel better. What else would they do to her? ‘That’s a new way you’ve tied your cravat,’ she said, saw him glance sideways to the glass, and poured the longed-for drink into the chamber pot.

  Count Tafur returned from his visit to Brundt that day. ‘I stopped at the opera house on the way back,’ he told Martha, after the first greetings. ‘Cristabel looks like death. Have they anyone who could replace her?’

  ‘It’s as bad as that?’ She told him of her message, and Fylde’s reply. ‘So they are both coming up this afternoon. I’m glad you will be here. You and Franz will have to absorb his attention, while I carry her off to my room on some female pretext or other.’

  ‘Unlike you,’ he said.

  ‘Female pretexts?’ With a laugh. ‘Yes, not absolutely my line, but one might as well use them when necessary. Tell me, how did things feel in Brundt?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Slowly. ‘As a stranger it’s hard to tell. Too quiet, perhaps? And a feeling of strangers not being welcome. I called on both your friends, Frau Schmidt and Herr Brodski. Two remarkable people. Oddly enough, they both sent you the same message, though in different words.’

  ‘And that was?’

  ‘Be careful.’

  She could not help laughing. ‘As if I needed telling. Is the news of Napoleon’s march across Europe public knowledge now?’

  ‘Yes, and causing very mixed reactions, as you can imagine. But, to come back to our poor Cristabel. Should I send for her mother, do you think?’

  ‘As bad as that? Would she come?’

  ‘If I sent for her, she’d come.’

  ‘But should we ask it of her?’

  ‘That’s the question, isn’t it? Or rather, the question to be faced is, what could she do if she did come? Maybe for Cristabel’s sake, we should wish Napoleon success in his campaign?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You didn’t know? French law still allows divorce. Napoleon’s new civil code didn’t affect that though I’m afraid it puts a married woman’s property firmly back into her husband’s control. Naturally, we discussed this whole question, Lucia and I, when you sent us the news of Cristabel’s disastrous marriage. Normally, we would have settled something on her, given her a dowry, but what is the use when it would merely make her more valuable to Fylde?’

  ‘You’re right, of course. She has nothing of her own. Only her genius.’

  ‘I wonder if Fylde knew that.’

  ‘Very likely not,’ she thought about it, ‘since her aunt, Lady Helen, contributed her income to our expenses. So, you mean the best hope for Cristabel might be a horrible failure in Night of Errors?’

  ‘Whereupon her husband would abandon her to her fate. Yes, I do think so.’

  ‘Does Cristabel, do you think? Is she doing it on purpose?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t. You ought to know that.’

  ‘Yes, I think I do, really. Oh, well, what’s the use of talking? I count on you and Franz to take care of the wretched man when they come. It’s more than time Cristabel and I talked.’

  But the first greetings were hardly over that afternoon when they heard the stir of an arrival in the castle yard and Baron Hals appeared, flustered, with a guest hard on his heels. ‘All the
people I wished to see,’ Lady Helen swept them with one of her aristocrat’s glances, paused for a dubious moment on Fylde then focused on Cristabel. ‘You don’t look well, child, what have you been doing with yourself? Never mind; I’ve news which will please you. I have contrived to persuade your father to make you the allowance he should. I thought the christening of his heir was the time to do it.’ Her bright, triumphant glance swept the silent circle. ‘What’s the matter? What’s going on here?’

  Desmond Fylde took a step forward. ‘I must be the first to thank your ladyship.’ He took and kissed her reluctant hand. ‘On my wife’s behalf as well as my own.’

  ‘Your –’ She look at him in blank horror, turned to Cristabel, ‘His? … No wonder –’ She stopped. ‘I do not feel quite the thing,’ she said at last turning to Martha. ‘Forgive me, highness, for this abrupt intrusion. With your permission, I’ll take my leave. Cristabel will see me back to the hostel.’ She swept past Fylde as if he did not exist, took Cristabel’s arm and left the room with her.

  ‘Well, I’ll be –’ Fylde looked about him, reconsidered, and followed them.

  ‘She has had the carriage door shut in his face,’ said Tafur, from the window. He turned to Martha. ‘Perhaps I do not need to send for Lucia after all.’

  ‘No,’ said Martha. ‘But what a disaster.’

  ‘The allowance, you mean. Yes, poor Lady Helen, one does have to feel sorry for her.’

  ‘And for Cristabel,’ said Martha.

  ‘But she has a gained a redoubtable ally. I am not sure it is not Fylde we should start pitying.’

  ‘Never,’ said Martha.

  Chapter 8

  ‘It’s a complete disaster.’ Lady Helen had called at the palace next day and found Martha alone. ‘You cannot possibly blame me more than I blame myself. But the invitation came so unexpectedly and at such short notice. It seemed the perfect chance to talk sense into my brother; I never for a moment imagined Fylde would be capable of such wickedness.’