by Ellis Peters
He loosed her hands and took her by the shoulders, drawing her to him. He was smiling, not too confidently, but with some childlike trust in her ultimate will to acceptance, as though he knew her better than she knew herself, but didn’t want to flaunt his knowledge too openly.
And after all, she was beginning to think, resigning herself to the next world like a drowning woman, there might be compensations. Just one man might not be a bad thing at all, provided he was the nicest, the most gifted, the most attractive man around, and the one every other girl coveted. And there was also the consideration that when a man like that did ask you, you couldn’t afford to take any chances on whether he’d feel like asking you a second time.
‘You called me a priggish busybody. And it was not true, I was only very alarmed for you, and very jealous.’
‘You mean it was true what you said about me. You said Johnny ought to beat me—’
His arm slid round her shoulders. She flattened her palms against his chest, but they seemed to have no force, and in a moment her right hand stole up the lapel of his coat and round his neck, and settled there with fingers spread in his hair and the taut lines of his nape fitting snugly into the palm. He was at once warm and cool to the touch, and sent tremors of delight to her heart.
‘I didn’t mean it,’ he said against her cheek, ‘I was only angry. And you know, in opera it is always the wife who beats the husband – like Susanna and Figaro. So marry me …’
‘No!’
He kissed her so nimbly that it was possible to pretend she had never uttered that negative, and he had never heard it. And then he was moved by a stroke of inspiration to invite himself into the family by a formula she could not resist.
‘“Pace, pace, mio dolce tesoro!”’ pleaded Hans very softly in her ear.
She heaved a deep, helpless, happy sigh, and: ‘Yes yes!’ she said, and tightened both arms round his neck.
The walls fell, and the crash was glorious.
Hans went up the stairs with a firm tread, a bold face, a smudge of lipstick just in front of his left ear, and no doubts at all of his reception until he reached the door of Johnny’s office. After all, he was a person who had something to offer, a rising reputation, ambition, a sufficient income, tastes triumphantly in common with Hero’s, and a character which was now threatened by no shadow. All the same, the inevitable constriction gripped his middle as he rapped at the door and answered Johnny’s somewhat restrained: ‘Come in!’
‘Mr Truscott,’ said Hans, looking at his prospective father-in-law across the desk with a face of such earnestness that Johnny’s mouth fell open almost before the shot was fired, ‘I have the honour to ask you if I may pay my addresses to your daughter.’
Now I wonder, thought Johnny, charmed in spite of his astonishment, what wonderful phrase-book he got that out of!
‘Well, well!’ he said, swallowing down the shock with difficulty. ‘This comes a bit suddenly, a man needs time to think about it. And ultimately, let’s face it, fathers don’t have much say in the matter these days. You sit down and keep quiet while I get my breath back.’
Hans declined the chair he was too restless to stay in, and demonstrated his nervousness by going on talking.
‘I love your daughter very much, but you will understand I could not address her while I felt myself to be under suspicion.’ Luckily he had no way of knowing how that ran into the quick of Johnny’s senses. ‘And it matters to me very much that we should have your approval.’
Johnny got up from his chair, to be free of the blue, disconcerting eyes, and walked to the window to stare down into the forecourt littered with dull, dead leaves.
‘And Hero,’ he said without turning his head, ‘how does she feel about it?’
That was pure stalling, because he had to have time to think. He’d seen the little pink bow that decorated the boy’s ear, and the ravages that hadn’t quite been combed out of his thick brown hair. Give him that, he’d hardly been able to get up the stairs fast enough for Father’s blessing. And it made sense of things he hadn’t understood, things that had complicated all their lives. Not that he ever would understand his daughter. Or women in general, for that matter.
‘She has done me the honour to accept me. If we have your permission, of course.’
‘Hero never said that,’ said Johnny positively, and a brief, lopsided grin shook his face out of its anxiety for a moment. ‘Oh, I know, I know! She’s a good kid, she wants me to be happy about it, too. But look, I need time to think. I’ve got to get used to the idea. I’ve hardly realised yet that I’ve got a grown-up girl, and here I am threatened with losing her. She’s only just nineteen, and if she’s going to get herself set up for life I need to be sure she’s getting it right.’
‘Naturally,’ said Hans, ‘that I perfectly understand. If you wish us to wait, to make sure – I am sure, but I will wait for her as long as you think right.’
‘Yes, well … Suppose you leave me to think it over now. Don’t worry, I won’t keep you waiting long, but I’d like to be left alone today to come to terms with the thought. Take her out somewhere until this evening, take her home after the performance. Take care of her, and come and talk to me to-morrow.’
He felt acutely the confusion of mind in which he was sending Hans away. He’d expected, perhaps, a pretty thorough grilling, but an inevitable welcome into the family in the end. Why shouldn’t he? He knew his worth. There was something wrong here, some reservation he didn’t understand. And yet to be told to take the girl out for the day argued that her father had a certain amount of confidence in him.
‘As you please,’ said Hans stiffly, discouragement damping his voice; and he went away with somewhat subdued dignity. What he would tell Hero Johnny couldn’t guess. Maybe it would bring her hot-foot up the stairs to confront her awkward parent and demand to know why he hadn’t flung his arms round her suitor’s neck at once, as apparently she had. But no, she wouldn’t do that. In deference to her new lord she’d be all duty and loyalty, and leave him to conduct his own business. She might even feel for the old man, thought Johnny wryly, and want to make the upheaval as little of a shock to him as possible. She was a nice kid, even if she was a handful. Maybe he ought to have asked Hans if he knew what he was tackling.
And now he was alone the problem lay there before him in all its crudity and ugliness, and not all the contortions he might essay in the effort to put himself in other people’s places could make it look any better to him. He couldn’t very well feel happy about entrusting his girl to a young man who had been an accomplice in a murder, and who apparently didn’t in the least mind letting a poor old imbecile take the blame.
A fine singer, a potentially great artist, a pleasant and good-natured young man, he was all that. It wasn’t that Johnny had any holier-than-thou thoughts about him, it wasn’t that he didn’t like him; he did like him, very much. But giving him Hero was another matter.
So now there was no help for it. He would have to talk to Gisela.
Chapter Eight
The Countess stepped out of the right-hand arbour, alone, erect, regal even in Susanna’s pert soubrette clothes, her voice clear and still as it severed the clamour of recriminations and pleadings and rejections seething round her disguised maid. Frozen, they stared at her, even their exclamations hushed to awed undertones; and Susanna slowly uncovered her face, the deception happily over and the battle won.
The Count, who had sung like a man possessed all the evening, cajoling and menacing and lording it as never before, excelled himself now in his moment of utter defeat; and suddenly it was clear how right Mozart had been to give him only those last four words to say for himself, without bluster or anger or defence of any kind, simply:
‘“Contessa, perdono,
perdono, perdono!”’
Clear, too, why the answer came so simply, the lovely, rounded, melting phrase of forgiveness. When she told him: ‘I can’t say you nay,’ she was telling the final, absolute tru
th not only about the end of this adventure but about their turbulent married life. No one could have resisted this Count. He could have led any woman a dog’s life with his caprices and his jealousy, and still wound her round his finger at the end of it when he gave in and admitted his enormities thus engagingly. Even though she would know, as doubtless his Countess knew, that the whole thing would happen all over again within a month.
Inga extorted her tribute of dimmed eyes and absolute silence, melting and wringing all hearts. The whole group echoed the same caressing phrases. And then the end of the finale, fresh and gay and harking back strongly for the wind of happiness, ready to dance all night.
The curtain came down on forgiveness, reconciliation, hope.
Johnny left his box and went round into the wings as they came off-stage after their flurry of curtain calls. The fine, satisfying sound of an audience going away happy soothed his ears; he knew that full, fed note of content very well, now, he was sensitive to every variation in it.
Cherubino, seeing him there, made a brief, impetuous detour into his arms, hugged him breathlessly, and was hugged again almost too exuberantly.
‘Hey, my ribs! Were we good tonight?’
She knew the answer, she was glowing with achievement.
‘It was him! He got us all on the run. Even Inga’s forgotten she was standing on her dignity. She congratulated us! Imagine that!’
‘Oh, so he’s taking it for granted he’s got you, is he?’ said Johnny, nettled.’ Bragging about his luck already!’
‘No, he isn’t. I told them. It’s all right, isn’t it? I didn’t exactly tell them, actually, it just sort of started busting out all over me, and I had to explain.’
She had no doubts at all, no qualms about his reactions. How could anyone resist her Hans? She locked her arms about Johnny’s neck, and hugged him again warmly.
‘Darling, I’m so happy! It’s all right if I go and have a little supper with him, isn’t it? I’ll be right home afterwards.’
‘Since when,’ said Johnny,’ do you ask my permission before you have supper with a bloke?’
She blushed at the reminder, but without any dimming of her state of bliss. ‘Since right now. Not that I’m afraid of you, just make a note of that. I love you, that’s all.’
‘Well, come to that, I’m pretty soft on you.’
He turned her about in his hands. ‘Go on, then, get off with you, you baggage, and be good.’ He started her off with a pat in the fluted skirts of her blue coat, and she took to her heels and ran like Cherubino himself for her dressing-room and her own clothes. The rapier that danced at her hip now was a mere property sword; nobody would ever commit murder with that.
So it seemed the whole company must know by now that Hero considered herself engaged to Hans Selverer. Time and events were hemming Johnny in, even her innocence and confidence conspired to force his hand. There was no help for it, he must go to Gisela and have it out with her tonight.
‘Good night!’ he said to the members of the orchestra on his way along the corridor, and: ‘Good night!’ to Nan, slipping out blushingly in the arm of the youngest ’cellist. ‘Good night!’ to Don Basilio and Doctor Bartolo, hurtling out as one man, headdown for the stage-door, en route for the Blackcock’s Feather round the corner; they had practically five minutes left before closing-time. ‘Good night!’ to Tonda, tripping down the stairs in her mink, her arms full of flowers and her eyes full of self-satisfaction, energy and mischief. Business as usual in the Leander Theatre, it seemed, and everything back to normal, even tempers. The hole Codger had left behind him would soon heal, except for the few who had had large tracts of their own lives and whole aspects of their own personalities torn out with him.
Johnny climbed the stairs with a tired step, and knocked at Gisela’s door.
She was sitting before the mirror in her old candlewick robe, taking off Marcellina’s make-up. Mezzo-sopranos are perpetually condemned to sing mothers and duennas and housekeepers. He had once had a great scheme for presenting her as Carmen, but she had firmly put her foot on that. She hadn’t the voice for it, she said, and she hadn’t the temperament. And she’d been right, as usual, he’d had to admit it in the end. Annina, the intriguer, with the foreign accent and the itching palm, would be a pleasant change from middle-aged frumps when they staged their new Rosenkavalier next season.
He closed the door behind him, and stood for a moment leaning against it, watching as she loosed her long hair out of the elaborate dressing and began to brush it. He knew she had seen him come in, their eyes had met for a moment in the mirror. Words did not come so easily now, the effort that preceded speech made the very air in the room seem tight and rarefied, too thin to keep alive. They still drove home together as before, always hopeful that the old ease would return, always straining with small, hesitant acts of consideration and tenderness to conjure it back again. They could not draw together again, and they could not separate; separation was unthinkable. Apart, they would die.
‘Good audience tonight,’ he said, coming to her shoulder.
Her eyes lifted to his face quickly, sensing something more than usually askew about the mirror image.
‘What’s the matter?’
When she questioned him directly, like that, her voice intent with partisan affection and anxiety, the impalpable barrier between them shuddered and almost cracked, but never quite.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Merely a little problem in responsibility. Young Hans came to see me this morning, after Musgrave had gone, after I’d told Franz to let the company know it was all over.’
‘Ah!’ said Gisela with a pale, bright smile.
‘Yes … you’ve heard, of course. Everyone seems to know already. It seems he’s been nursing a notion that he was still suspect number one, and now that he finds he isn’t he’s come right out and told me he wants to marry Hero.’
Her face had kindled into affection and pleasure, and even a brief, flashing glimmer that might have been laughter, until she saw the shadow that hung on his lowered eyelids.
‘You see, that was how the wind was blowing, after all. When they took to being so polite to each other I thought I’d been mistaken. Today she’s been shining so, no one could miss it.’
The silence when she stopped speaking was marked. She laid down her hairbrush, watching him with eyes suddenly wide in wonder and anxiety.’ You’re not glad. She’s in love with him, Johnny. This isn’t just play. They’re in earnest.’
‘Apparently,’ said Johnny. He had picked up the silver ribbon that had bound her hair, and was twining it round his fingers.’ She’d left her brand on him plain enough.’ His voice was as cloudy as his face. She watched him, alert and still, the dark curtain of her hair half-veiling her eyes.
‘I know, Johnny. It is very early. She is very young. But it was bound to happen. Just look at her! And he’s surely a very suitable match for her, and a very good young man. You won’t be losing her,’ she said, touching very delicately where she supposed his pain was.
‘No, I know. Not losing a daughter, but gaining a son. I know! Though I admit it does come as a jolt to know it’s on me so soon. They grow up too fast, you can’t keep pace with them.’
‘What have you said to him?’
‘I haven’t given him an answer, not yet. I told him to come and talk to me to-morrow.’
‘But Hero seemed to be sure—’
‘But I’m not,’ he said, with a sudden flare of trouble and anger. He put down the ribbon, and came round to the side of the mirror to have her face to face. She saw how compulsively he closed his hand upon the edge of her dressing-table; the large, long bones stood white in the brown of his fingers.
‘Marriage is no joke, Gisela, marriage is for life, and don’t forget this is my responsibility. She isn’t of age. I can at least hold things up for nearly two years if I think it necessary – long enough to give her time to think better of it. Not that I don’t like him. I do. But—’
H
e had arrived at it by ill-judged and unhappy ways, but he had arrived. It came out not angrily or cruelly, but with a helpless and inflexible simplicity.
‘What am I to do? You tell me! He was your cover, wasn’t he? He sang the two lines that put you out of the running, safe in the arbour with Nan. And Codger being written off as the killer doesn’t seem to worry him, he’s as happy as a sandboy now he’s in the clear. Not that I can blame either of you for hating the fellow,’ admitted Johnny, ‘and not that I’ve any right to judge. Still … A man prefers his son-in-law not to be an accessory in a murder. But what am I to say to Hero if I turn the boy down?’
Gisela had heard him out in stillness and silence, the sudden blaze of understanding in her eyes burning down into a steady glow. Her hands lay in her lap stiff and motionless. It seemed to him that for a moment she held her breath.
‘I know where the lost piece of Hero’s baldric was hidden,’ said Johnny, ‘because I found it there. And I know nobody but you could have put it there, and nobody but you could have taken it away again. You or Nan, and why should Nan do any such thing? But I made sure,’ he continued doggedly. ‘I looked in your bag, while you were changing that night. So I knew it was you who put it in Codger’s pocket afterwards. And if you had killed Chatrier, then it happened earlier than we thought, before you went into the arbour. So there had to be somebody who sang Figaro’s asides for him after he was dead. And that was Hans – wasn’t it?’
Her lips moved, saying soundlessly: ‘Yes.’
‘So what am I to do? Liking him is one thing, but giving him my girl is something very different. It isn’t that I’m so spotless a lamb, God knows! But this is Hero’s future, not mine. If you know the answer, you tell me.’
She sat staring at him for a long moment still, her eyes wide and deep and stunned, and then the calm of acceptance came upon her, and the whiteness of strain began to fade out of her face. She got up quietly and went to the wardrobe, and lifted out of it Marcellina’s rustling black dress. She brought it to him in her arms. ‘Look,’ she said, and unzipped the slender, boned bodice.
