Rondo Allegro

by Sherwood Smith

  One blazing October morning, they woke up to discover that their guides—paid to take them all the way to Badajos—had absconded with their horses and mules.

  When M. Dupree went to find someone in authority to complain, he discovered a strange, hostile silence. The women clustered worriedly inside the rough posada, the typical Spanish inn. Some of the men remained with them, others stood outside, oblivious to the glare-bright sun, as they argued about what had happened, what they ought to have done, and what was to be done now.

  The French voices rose on the somnolent air, Spaniards nowhere to be seen. Local headmen wouldn’t speak to them.

  Anna had been sitting disconsolately at a worn table into which some long ago patrons had carved initials, and here and there idiomatic phrases. She was too dispirited even to use her new fan, carved from aromatic wood. All it did was stir the hot air, without cooling or refreshing.

  She looked about wearily, until she noticed a sympathetic glance from a young girl, daughter of the innkeeper. The girl peeped out from the low door leading to the kitchen.

  She got up and went to the door. The girl peered up at her, and in an excited whisper, “Mamacita says, you must go straight to Don Alejandro, who is nephew to the Duke of Medinaceli, Don Luis Fernández de Córdoba y Gonzaga.” She said the name softly, as if so exalted a personage could hear from a great distance, and pluck her straight to prison for not speaking with respect.

  Then she took a step closer, so that Anna could smell the fresh olive oil that the maid had been cooking with in her mother’s kitchen, and whispered, “It is said that the English dogs have destroyed our treasure ships. There is going to be a terrible war, Papa says.”

  Anna thanked her and ran outside, where she discovered M. Dupree, his head red and shiny, his arms waving as he exclaimed passionately, arguing with a stone-faced Spanish man armed to the teeth, whom he had found approaching the nearby stable.

  “For that price, I could buy the coaches, yes, and all the horses too! It is unconscionable!”

  “That is the price. Take it or leave it, Frenchman. I advise you to take it.”

  M. Dupree turned away, groaning. Then he spied Anna. “What is it, Mademoiselle?”

  Anna told him what she had heard.

  M. Dupree did not speak until they were all shut inside their airless, superheated chamber. “That explains the insults I’ve heard. They are angry with us, their allies. How could we have known the roas’biffs would turn pirate? Why do they blame us?”

  They all stared at each other, stunned, horrified as only people can be who have woken up and found themselves regarded as criminals without having done anything to warrant it, while upstairs the baby wailed fretfully, in the grip of another fever.

  “I suspect it is because they see us as foreigners,” the clarinetist said morosely.

  “Surely they can tell the difference between us and the English, who everybody knows are all mad?”

  A violinist nodded. “My cousin, who used to trade in wool, said that your Spaniard hates everybody, French, English, Italian alike, and the Portuguese worse than all three.”

  “I refuse to go to Badajos,” Madame said fiercely. “If it is just thieving, brawling, stealing soldiers, it is the worst of the revolution all over again, but in another land where we are the foreigners. They are not going to give us a theater, and gold. I demand we go directly to Cadiz, and seek the first ship for France!”

  “If I may respectfully demur,” Jean-Baptiste interjected, with an elegant gesture toward Madame that emphasized his aristocratic training. “I believe we would do best to seek this marquis, if you wish to avoid soldiers. And Cadiz being also filled with war ships, there might not be even a rowboat for hire.”

  M. Dupree looked around the peeling plaster of the walls, the shutters closed tightly against the heat waves wavering off the tiled square, and finally to the crucifix over the door, as if any of these sights would offer an answer. Except that he had his answer in Marsac’s commanding gesture.

  Aristocrats had power. And in Spain, at least, they loved theater. “We shall go to this duke.”

  o0o

  The next day the entire company either rode upon donkeys, or in donkey-pulled carts, as they wound up ancient trails, past ruins ranging from Roman to medieval times. The dust was thick, obscuring low, tenacious plants dotted with bright pink or purple heron’s beak, and partly obscured by occasional stands of scrubby oak. Around them rose the scent of the spiky sharp cedar, none of which afforded shade to speak of.

  Anna dutifully noted the countryside as their guide pointed things out, but she rode with her mouth covered by her handkerchief, and her pretty lace mantilla covering her bonnet so that her skin would not blister in the sun, though sweat trickled down the back of her head to pool at the base of her spine.

  By nightfall they reached a fine walled city of the sort they were becoming used to, at its center a plaza with a cathedral and opposite it a beautiful palace. Pierre, who had learned a great deal of Spanish by now, was sent to request an audience with the don.

  A very short time later he returned, a splendidly dressed young man with impressive mustachios with him. “A French opera company, in truth? And played before the king? The very thing to cheer us, after so treacherous an attack by those cowardly skulking English . . . my friend Lucien Bonaparte—his brother soon to be crowned Emperor, did you know . . .”

  Talking volubly in accented but clear French, the don grandly invited them all inside, and within a day they found themselves housed around a small plaza at one end of the vast palace. The theater was nearly a stone’s throw away.

  Life had taken an abrupt turn for the better, Anna thought.

  She had forgotten all about her paper-husband, but no more than he had forgotten her.

  While she stepped onto yet another Spanish stage, he and the fleet were tacking wearily in form, one after the other, off of the coast of Spain.

  13

  Christmas found the Company Dupree in Merida, playing in the splendid Roman theater.

  From there, they proceeded to Zafra, where they stayed in an Austrian-style palace as guests of another noble Medinaceli relation, and from thence to Seville, site of operas by the great Rossini and of course by Mozart.

  By now Pierre had become as fluent as Anna, and expert at finding lodgings better than the ubiquitous posadas. He had learned to scour the inner city for pieces of paper tied to the edges of balconies, which was the Spanish way of advertising that a house was to be let. In Seville he discovered a fine house near the theater, built around a central patio.

  The company had become adept at moving their things into new quarters and swiftly making them homelike. Anna followed the servant carrying her trunk, but instead of going into the room she had been assigned, she paused in the patio, and looked from the handsomely carved doors to the cool tile floors to the shady trees and roses in pots. There was even a fountain, which could be seen from the gallery running all around the upper story.

  She knew there would be a little time to explore before they were expected to gather in the theater to rehearse, a prospect she faced with no particular joy.

  She bent over the fountain, gazing down into the ripples of water sparkling in the sun, and considered her emotion: there was no joy in the prospect of singing. When had that happened?

  She began to walk around the patio, and thought back. It seemed to have been vanishing bit by bit, ever since . . . Caen? Was it because she had not become a second Billington?

  No, that was not it. Anna knew she was good . . .enough. Would genius make her any happier? She splashed her fingers in the water, then cupped them to watch the droplets cascade down. She had heard stories enough about Mrs. Billington’s sicknesses, her tantrums, to wonder if the joy had gone from singing for her, too.

  Anna poured out another handful of water. For the first time, she thought past today’s rehearsal and performance to tomorrow, and next week, and next year. The next ten years. She co
ntemplated the idea that she must do this every day, or most days, and was appalled at the emptiness in her heart.

  Not long ago, she had overheard Madame Dupree saying to Lorette, “When we return to Paris, I shall retire, and never sing another note, unless I wish.”

  Anna had attributed that to the heat, to the dreariness of travel. Perhaps to Madame’s age, for she was six-and-thirty. But now she understood the real emotion.

  She scolded herself mentally. She knew she was lucky, for she had witnessed both starvation and desperation as the results of war.

  Anna turned away. Yes, she was lucky. She would not be forced to travel back to Italy and attempt to beg for a place in a world that was pretty much indifferent to her existence. She had made a place among these people. It was not the ideal place, but it was good . . . enough.

  And that gave her an idea.

  She touched her wet hands to her cheeks to cool them, and walked up to her room, where she found Parrette busy unpacking Anna’s gowns to air them. She let out a squawk of disgust as she picked up one of the coarse blouses the dancers wore in the farces. “Anna! You are not lowering yourself to the farces again!”

  “Naturally not!” Anna heard the sharpness in her own voice, and bit her lip. She tried to breathe out her exasperation: Parrette knew very well that the last farce Anna had danced in had been before they reached Lyons. She forced her voice to a lower tone. “It must have slipped in there with the other things drying in the sun, before we packed.”

  “Good. That was such an act of madness. You could have—”

  Anna clapped her hands over her ears. “If I have to hear about being a ‘lady’ I shall scream. The first thing I must do when we reach Paris again, if this new Civil Code is still in force, is get an annulment. It ought to be easy enough, considering the other party is a devil-dog Englishman!”

  Parrette’s frown became a scowl. “You ought not to joke about such things, Anna.”

  “Very well, very well,” Anna said soothingly. Parrette must be feeling exactly as hot, tired, and dispirited. Anna refused to start an argument when Paris lay so far in the future. “I might see if anyone wishes to walk out to look at the Alcázar, which Pierre said is a famous Moorish palace.”

  Anna pulled her mantilla around her head to ward the sun, and walked down to the room Therese shared with Lorette. When she knocked, Therese opened the door.

  Anna invited her along on her walk. Therese blinked her long eyelashes, smiled her false smile, and professed herself very ready to explore.

  Anna waited until they reached the street, then said, “I wanted to talk to you myself, Therese. There is something I think you should know.”

  Therese Rose flushed, then passed a hand over her magnificent bosom, and her middle, which would be plump if she were not encased resolutely in stays. “You mean in embonpoint,” she said, flushing. “It is this olive oil in all the food.”

  “It is no such thing. I wish to talk about singing,” Anna said firmly. “This theater is enormous. You know how I strain in large spaces; I cannot maintain both purity and volume. I believe we ought to ask M. Dupree if you can take Argia in I riti.”

  “You would do that?” Therese’s wide gaze narrowed. “What do you want in return?”

  “Nothing untoward,” Anna said. Deflect and disengage. “Merely that when we come to a smaller theater, where I know my own strength, that I resume the role again.”

  Therese’s smile of triumph lessened a degree. Anna sensed that Therese still believed she was destined for greatness; she did not seem to hear the truth of M. Dupree’s admonitions about shrillness on the high notes, or sloppiness of tempo.

  “Very well,” Therese said, and began to gush about how they would always be friends, and how great Anna was to think of her.

  When Anna made no answer, Therese said a little less airily, “Perhaps we might explore the Moorish palace another time, and find M. Dupree now. He might be busy later, rehearsing the orchestra.”

  They both knew she meant, You might change your mind.

  But Anna was not going to change her mind. They went together, and as soon as it was done, she felt a curious lightness of heart.

  The rest of the cast heard of the switch that afternoon. Most accepted it without interest, a few with mild surprise.

  Jean-Baptiste Marsac waited until rehearsal was over, and fell in step beside Anna. “Why did you relinquish your role? Has she some hold over you?”

  She glanced up at him in surprise. “Surely you have heard how much effort I expend in a great theater like this? I do not want to strain my voice.”

  “Surely,” he retorted with good humor, “you can employ any of your pretty little tricks to draw the audience’s awareness away? I speak as your friend. You must see how stepping aside for such a person as Therese Rose is to lower your status in everyone’s eyes.”

  “Such a person as? What does that mean? She has improved immensely, and she is pretty.”

  He said gently, “She lived behind a mansion, not in one—I saw her sing in Lille, and discovered at the prefecture that she was a runaway cook’s apprentice. M. Dupree was taken in by a pretty face, but that is his affair. Can you not see how stepping aside for her is unwise, given your place in life?”

  “My place in life?”

  He turned his wrist up in a way that recalled expensive lace in embroidered satin sleeves. “Madam—oiselle, if you wish to perpetuate that little ruse—Mademoiselle Bernardo, with Bonaparte having crowned himself emperor, I believe the pretense of republicanism can said to be well and truly over. I have hesitated against speaking until now, but you have demonstrated in a thousand ways your gentle birth, for I have been observing you.”

  They had reached their street. The patio was empty. Anna paused beside the fountain. He smiled down at her, his curling brown hair touched with gold in the sunlight, a smile of expectation in his handsome face. He was beautifully dressed in a fine new coat of blue with silver buttons, worn over a waistcoat of ivory silk, and camel pantaloons above his fine shoes. She knew that her mother would have agreed with everything he said. If he had been English, she might even have thought him perfect. And yet Anna was aware of a pulse of resentment.

  “I have noticed your interest,” she admitted. “I did not understand it.”

  “Then you must be the only woman who does not,” he retorted, his humor unimpaired. “Permit me to speak as a disinterested admirer, then. This impulse of yours really is unfortunate, though perhaps it can be spoken of as a tribute to your sex. Generous, giving, as a woman ought to be. And yet, even these days, especially these days, I believe it behooves those of us born to a rank to set an example.”

  The words rolled out as easily as if he spoke on stage. Perhaps he had practiced them before a mirror, she thought as he gestured again, turning his palm toward her. “I believe that you would grace a company I am considering forming. I am minded to tour the capitals of Europe, where refinement and order still abide. My company will be made up of those of gentle birth, for the true aristocracy recognizes good blood. It is the way of nature.”

  “A company?” Anna repeated, only half-aware of the words that followed. She had to laugh at herself—here she had been dreading a declaration like Auguste’s. But he wasn’t thinking of that at all!

  “Surely you did not believe I would remain with this rabble of blacksmith’s sons, cooks’ daughters, and the rest of the spawn from the back alleys of Paris!” He extended his hand to sweep around the balcony, then with his other, took her fingers lightly in his grip. “Dupree has taught me how a company is run. When I assemble my company, we will perform only at royal theaters, in Vienna, in Berlin, in Prague, in Stockholm. Wherever there are kings.” He pressed his lips softly to her fingertips. “And you would, I am convinced, grace my life as well.”

  Oh. So she had not been wrong. “You know that I am married,” she said gravely, freeing her fingers.

  “What of it?” He spread his hands. “I have gained t
he impression that you are related to a ducal family, though at a distance, is it not so?” And when she nodded, “If you were single, the duke’s daughter, and came with a dowry, things might be different. But under these circumstances, we could arrive at an understanding—”

  “I am married,” she said, and though she knew herself for a hypocrite, it was the fastest way to get out of a conversation she did not at all wish to have. “So I must honor my vows. I made them according to the laws of God and man.”

  “To an enemy of the state?” he retorted, his smile less complaisant. “As for your laws of man, they appear to change with the seasons, these days. And finally, as for God, if he even notices us anymore, I have yet to be convinced of the evidence.”

  Her resentment flared. She itched to slap that smug smile off his face, but memory of Auguste stayed her hand. He had been full of soft words until she crossed him, and then he set the theater on fire. Men could do what they liked; they had the strength in their hands.

  But that did not mean she ought to throw away her wits.

  “I am honored,” she said therefore, dropping a curtsey. “However, I have no ambition beyond singing with the Company Dupree.”

  Anna walked up the stairs to her room.

  Jean-Baptiste watched her straight back, her uplifted chin as she retreated. His first reaction was a laugh of astonishment. He had imagined gratification, even gratitude, perhaps the blushing pretense of coyness to which women were so prone. That she would dismiss him so cavalierly took him utterly by surprise.

  He waited for her better sense to bring her seeking him, but the days turned into a week, and the weeks to a month. She sang the smaller role in the great theater, she danced every morning with the canaille, and she went out shopping for fans and mantillas and cashmere shawls with the former cook’s apprentice Therese Rose.

  His amiable generosity turned to disgust. Presumptuous coquette!

  o0o

  One day Pierre came around before the siesta period was properly over, summoning them all to the theater.