Rondo Allegro

by Sherwood Smith

  That roused Anna to anger. “Why do you hate him so?”

  “Because he, and the rest of them, when they get you girls drunk, they want one thing, and when they tire of it, they will move on.”

  “No. No. Not Auguste. He loves my voice. He said my interpretation of the Handmaid is the best he has ever heard.”

  “Can you not see that as the most atrocious flattery?”

  Anna spun around in her chair. “Now you are saying I am a bad singer?”

  Parrette sighed. “Anna, you are very good, but you have so little experience of life. You do not know the terrible things . . .” She gazed into the slowly whirling dust motes around the single candle flame, and shook herself. “Remember what happened to Marguerite Lisle down the hall, when she went off alone with them after they had been toasting her? I hear she is still recovering all these months later—might never regain her health.”

  Anna grimaced. “But those were soldiers. These are officers.”

  “They are men. And they can do most anything they wish in this city—Junot loves them all. The First Consul looks upon them as favorites.” Parrette took a deep breath. “Also, you are a married woman.”

  “Tchah! He is a paper husband. He is probably dead.”

  “Anna, listen to me. Who are Auguste’s people? The old ways are not completely thrown over. When people want to marry, they still go to their families. If he means well by you, then he will use his influence to find out if your husband lives, and if so, get your marriage annulled, and do everything properly.”

  “Auguste might not be back,” Anna said sullenly. “He has forgotten me already.”

  But the next night, more roses arrived, and when Anna joined those crowded at the wings to peer into the audience, joy suffused her when she caught sight of Auguste’s fine profile in the very center of the first row. The group of officers was larger than ever, looking splendid to the young females, and worrisome to the director, who saw past them to the increasingly empty seats.

  That night, Anna sang better than ever. After the curtain closed, the new tenor, M. Marsac, turned his beautiful brown eyes to Anna. “You were superb, Mademoiselle Bernardo.”

  The new tenor had until this moment been polite but aloof, and though the dancers all admired his height, his slim body, his abundant curling hair, and his excellent clothes, he had scarcely given anyone in the company a glance outside of the requirements of the performance.

  His interest sent another flush of warmth through Anna. Men admired her performance! Was this how Mrs. Billington had begun her great career? “Thank you, M. Marsac.”

  “Jean-Baptiste.”

  She smiled and passed by as Jean-Baptiste Marsac observed the grace of her walk, the gentle sway of her hips that seemed utterly unconscious.

  After the performance, Auguste greeted Anna with a kiss that made her head swim. The others roared approval as he swung her around, his saber rattling, the tassels on his sabretache swinging, his furred pelisse brushing her cheek.

  They walked in a laughing group, Auguste punctuating his compliments on her singing with kisses. Those kisses were better than champagne, Anna thought happily. They spread warmth all through her, dazzling as the many candles glimmering like golden starlight. Even the thin rain that began to fall could not douse the enchantment of the evening, as they ran laughing for the nearest café. Anna was charmed that the men ran, too, not wanting their splendid uniforms ruined in the wet.

  They found an empty table. Piers began banging with his fist and shouting for champagne.

  Anna whispered to Lise, “Must we? I hate the way my head hurt last time, and my singing was terrible the next day.”

  Lise threw back her head, complacently taking in Edouard’s hot gaze lingering on the slim line of her throat, and her rounded, dimpled shoulder peeping from the little puffed sleeve that was slipping down. “So? We are only young a short time. Live!”

  I live through my music, Anna thought, but here was debonair Auguste proclaiming his admiration for all the world to see. He might not be the First Consul, but he was very important, and oh, those strong arms, those kisses!

  She did not refuse the champagne outright, but took the smallest of sips. As the evening progressed, she could not help noticing puzzling things as she raised her glass with the others: how the men exchanged meaningful glances over the heads of their inamoratas as they spoke their extravagant compliments; how they made private jokes that only the others could understand, and which provoked a low kind of laughter that only they shared. Then there was the puzzle of Auguste’s frayed shirt sleeves, and the way Guillaume plunged his hand into his pocket to chase a stray coin.

  It came to her that, in spite of their importance—and she could see their importance in the way that all the other citizens deferred—they always seemed scant of funds. It makes their generosity all the more charming, she told herself when they reached their last bottle and the group began to disperse in twos. She felt very wise in making this observation.

  Auguste held tightly to Anna, though this time she was not the least dizzy. She stood on her tiptoes to lean her cheek against his shoulder, laughing when her temple bumped against his epaulet.

  “Come, love, it has begun to rain. Let us find somewhere dry to celebrate your beauty,” he whispered, brushed his lips from her eyebrow to her jaw, then down her throat to linger in the hollow of her collarbones.

  The champagne fizz in her veins heated to urgency. She knew now what this was—what he wanted, and she delighted in the strength of her own desire.

  But she was sober enough to say, “I am married.”

  “The devil!” Auguste laughed. “You are full of surprises, ma petite. I fear Edouard has won a hundred, from me. He has eyes, the dog! But we shall not tell him. Come.” He slid his arm around her, and urged her on.

  “I tell you I am married,” Anna said, stepping back to tug on his hand, her eyes imploring.

  “And what of that?” Auguste’s smile was tender. “Monsieur le husband must be far, far away, or you should not have such freedom, I am guessing.”

  “He is—” Anna was reluctant to come right out with the captain’s nationality. “In the navy.”

  “Aha!” Auguste threw his head back and laughed. “I guessed right. Most conveniently far away, and yet so fine a man as to marry you, hein! I salute him!” He made a military salute, with an air. Then he kissed her again. “There is no doubt in my mind that he is looking up and seeing this very same moon.” He pointed upward where the clouds had parted. “At this very moment, and with a pretty girl on his arm. And if he could see us, he would be wishing us a very good night, for you know that tomorrow there may be a stray cannonball, a horse who balks, the chance encounter with a bayonet, and c’est finis, he is snatched away to heaven!” He kissed his fingers and flung them out in a debonair gesture.

  Live in the moment, that was what Lise said. Anna’s heart lifted. Ah, what a sweet idea, to surrender to pleasure now, and the future? It could take care of itself.

  And yet she hesitated. What would Parrette say? Anger suffused her—she resented Parrette’s scolding, her incessant warnings. “But what if something happens?” she hedged.

  “How would he know?” Auguste lifted his shoulders in a shrug, the gold in his epaulettes shimmering. “Bonaparte is opening the churches again. If a brat results, you hand it off to the nuns.”

  Anna was shocked by this callous answer.

  He saw it at once. “Oh, my Anna,” he whispered. “You are tender, I can see it. And women should be tender!” He dropped feather-light kisses all over her face.

  She drowned in sweet sensation, but even in willingly permitting the waves to close over her head, she made one last reach: “I want an annulment.”

  He stepped back. “An annulment,” he repeated, as if she had said she wanted a horse, or a crown. Then he opened his hand in a broad gesture, palm up, the light from a nearby lamp gleaming along his regimental facings and gold braid. “Then you ge
t one. It is easy enough.”

  The question in his eyes, the hint of impatience, doused her ardor more thoroughly than the rain starting up again. A thousand curses, Parrette was right. This man did not have marriage in mind.

  Still she wavered, thinking, What can be so bad, if everyone else pays no attention to those stupid old rules? But she could hear herself making that promise before God, and though her Papa had said after Mama’s death that religion was a pack of lies, that God—if he existed—cared nothing for this sorry world, at the very end, he had sent for the priest.

  Even stronger was memory, her mother’s warm embraces every night, her whispered, “God loves you.”

  Anna had always believed that God had to be a mother. Perhaps her mother was watching her from heaven at this very moment. Would she be smiling to see Anna happy, or looking sorrowful because of those vows?

  Lost in this reverie, Anna was unaware of Auguste gazing down at her as the rain increased. The reflected glow of the nearby windows highlighted the raindrops in the curls that framed her heart-shaped face, the enticing curves in her flimsy dress that clung so tightly, the tender, wistful downward curve to her mouth, and he exulted even though he intuited her doubts. He loved the hunt; the prize would be no less enjoyable for a little ruse de guerre.

  “Come, cherie, you are wet, and that beautiful voice must not take a chill. I will see you home.”

  9

  Summer was upon them. One hot, humid day, there was trouble with the machinery backstage, so rehearsal paused while M. Dupree oversaw the repairs. The thick air rang with sharp voices. Tempers rose with the heat.

  Madame Dupree sighed as she fanned herself vigorously. She seemed to be sitting down a great deal—everyone had noticed.

  “Lazy,” Lise whispered.

  “Who can blame her?” Eleanor said practically. “If I could marry a theater director, I would not even be here. I would have a carriage. Two! And a salon.”

  She cast a glance under her lashes at the tenor Jean-Baptiste Marsac, who, it was whispered, was ambitious enough to want one day to own his own theater, and who was talented enough to get it. He never paid the dancers the least heed.

  Today, Madame looked positively ill. She kept blotting her face with a dampened linen, at last saying fretfully, “We need a larger theater, but Anton says we’ve not the money. How can we get more money if we haven’t more seats, I say? Anna, you have been singing better than ever; if only your claque of admirers would pay for their seats!”

  She got heavily to her feet and walked away to summon her maid for more hot chocolate, as Anna frowned. “The officers do not pay?”

  “Who would dare to gainsay them?” Lise said, shrugging, then she gave Anna a meaning look. “Just do not string him along. They mislike that, oh, much.”

  “Especially when they send gifts,” Catherine said, with meaning. “It is not so bad if you turn down a merchant, or even an avocat. But the soldiers?”

  “So true!” Lorette, older—nearly Madame Dupree’s age—made a spitting motion. “They rule France now, and think about it! When they were boys, it was, displease the crowd, and voila, off to the guillotine, or to a lamppost, whichever was nearer.” She made a gesture like hanging herself. “You young things do not remember, but I do. Women, men. Even the poor dogs, one terrible season. Nobody was safe from the mob, ten years ago. Less. And they all remember it, how no one could stop the mob. Now, it is known that no one can stop the soldiers.”

  “Alors! The days of the mob are gone, at least,” said another, laying her hand on her breast. “Bonaparte took care of the mobs! His officers are all lovers, and they must answer to their commanders.”

  “Tchah.” Lise laughed. “Here is the truth, my dear. Argue, call them devils, be haughty or sweet, as you wish. The one thing you must never do is make them look foolish. They will never forgive you.”

  “That’s true for everyone,” Hortense said, as she restitched her worn practice skirt.

  Catherine patted her hand. “And so it is. But the days are gone when a woman can challenge a man.”

  Lise’s features sharpened with impatience. “Good riddance! Let us talk of pleasant things.”

  Catherine crossed her arms. “I am a citizen. I have the right to speak my mind.”

  “Not for long,” Madame Dupree said good-naturedly, and as everyone turned quickly, she rejoined them, sitting down with a sigh. “Not if Bonaparte has his way. We shall be back to curtseys and bows, that is what I predict.”

  Her words had the effect of breaking up the group a moment before M. Dupree appeared, beckoning impatiently. “I want to try something new in the first act.”

  And the rehearsal began.

  Anna said nothing to Parrette, but so intense was her inward conflict that Maestro Paisiello, when she went to him for her private lesson, stopped her a few bars into her first piece. “Are you feeling ill, child?” he asked.

  Anna flushed with remorse. She knew that he was having trouble with his audiences, who could be difficult for so many reasons that had little to do with music. His opera Nina, once immensely popular in Paris, had not been performed since the Revolution, when it was condemned as elitist for having been written in Italian, which “the people” could not be expected to understand.

  Complaints about it had resurfaced, and gossips had it that Proserpina had been set back a season, some said because Mademoiselle Georges was being coached in singing, others because of the reception of the Maestro’s last concert at the Tuileries.

  As she looked into the maestro’s careworn face, Anna regretted her selfishness. “It is, oh!” She blushed. “It is only heart trouble.”

  “You?” he exclaimed. “Handsome you have become, but you are yet a mere child!” He lifted his wig, patted his handkerchief over his head, then plopped the wig down again in a cloud of powder as he peered at her more closely. “Perhaps you are not so young, then. Oh, to have small problems! But they are large to you. My dear Anna, permit an old man to stand in for the father you loved. I know what he would say if he were here, for we were great friends. He would warn you that hearts are tender indeed, full of the fire of love, but hearts have not eyes, nor a brain.”

  “But Auguste is so handsome,” Anna protested. “I want to become his lover, but . . .” She hesitated before mentioning Parrette’s disapproval.

  “But you are devoted to your music,” the maestro stated with an expression of approval.

  Anna agreed, remorseful because she had not been thinking of her music at that moment. Her ambitions did stand in the way of love far more than the existence of a piece of paper stating she was married. “If he does not understand, if he places himself in the way of your success, perhaps it is not love he professes, but something far more ephemeral. The heart is fickle, for it is made for love, and it will overwhelm you with the enticement of attraction at the flash of a smile, a handsome profile, at a shower of the pretty compliments you most want to hear.”

  Anna’s cheeks burned.

  He saw her expression, and his tone lightened to gentleness. “The falsity comes in a man saying what you wish to hear so that he can gain his own ends.” He lifted a shoulder. “In this city, they will say La, that is Paris in modern times! But I have traveled much in my years, and I’ve seen all the variety of human nature. This behavior one finds everywhere. So, to you: if you want something that endures, then you must use your brain as well as your heart to determine if he is saying what he truly feels. There! I have stood in for your dear Papa, and you have been angelic in permitting an old man this liberty. So, let us begin anew, and this time, pianissimo only for the first eight bars, then that little breath, and—glory. One, due, tre . . .”

  o0o

  When Anna returned to the theater, Lise gave her a narrow look. “Where were you?”

  “Tuileries,” Anna said wonderingly.

  Lise sighed and marched away, her thin shoulder blades poking the flimsy muslin as her shoulders twitched in ill humor at every
step.

  “What happened to her?” Anna asked Hyacinthe.

  “Oh, Consular Guard is gone on maneuvers. It cannot be helped!” Hyacinthe threw her hands up. “Why she insists that her lovers have to be in regimentals?”

  Anna murmured something sympathetic, but she was aware that her own sense of disappointment was mitigated by a sense of secret relief. She would not have to decide right now about Auguste, lovers, annulments, or anything having to do with the heart.

  M. Dupree interrupted them, his usually mild voice surprisingly pettish, “Are you here, then, Signorina Bernardo? Or did you leave your voice back at the Tuileries?”

  Anna apologized at once, and willingly threw herself into rehearsal.

  To M. Dupree’s relief, the front rows in that night’s performance sported no chasseurs, but their regular audience was not back. He still did not know for certain if the chasseurs were chasing away custom with their noise. There was nothing he could do about it if any soldiers caused trouble, but forewarned was forearmed, that he had learned during the days of the mobs.

  So he took his younger brother Pierre aside, saying, “Find out what you can.”

  The dry, hot winds died down after two days, but the humid stillness that set in afterward was not considered an improvement. Summer in Paris could be punishing, with brilliant light reflecting off streets, walls, and every bit of metal.

  Tempers flared during rehearsal. Props seemed to break with irritating regularity, and even Madame and Monsieur, usually the most genial of couples, quarreled when she missed yet another rehearsal while he was trying to change the staging.

  “I have to lie down,” she said. “This stage, it is airless. I cannot sing if I cannot breathe!”

  “If you were not sick every day, perhaps we would fill enough seats to warrant moving to a larger space!” he retorted.

  Madame whirled around and stalked off.

  Her husband mopped his face, then said dispiritedly, “We shall rehearse the farce, and the entr’acte ballet. Perhaps Madame will return refreshed by afternoon, for we really must restage the entire second act. Musicians! Come, come. Places!”