Rondo Allegro (25 page)

Anna curtseyed again.

“I am not without sympathy for the admiral. Both fleets are,
let us say, in dire need of many specifics. Admittedly the harbor is rife with
spies, many of them former friends of warrant officers, traders, and seamen.
They talk in their cups. The English, though standing well to the south, seem
to know everything there is to know about our movements. Consequently my
esteemed colleague’s rage is, perhaps, if no more pardonable, at least
understandable, when he is presented with an apparent spy.”

Anna’s dismay and perplexity were so plain that the admiral
set the letter opener down and reached for a tiny silver bell that tingled
sweetly.

The door opened at once, and the admiral rose, speaking in
Spanish once again. “Madame, I beg of you, permit the captain to conduct you to
quarters I have specified. Admiral Villeneuve has been informed of the change
of venue; perhaps he will be relieved to regain badly needed space.” Admiral
Gravina bowed slightly.

Anna understood that the interview was over. Further protest
was useless. She curtseyed again, and followed the young captain out.

Instead of going downstairs to some dungeon, they proceeded
along a tiled hallway to a wing on the far side of the command quarters. Here
they came to a plain wooden door, which was opened by an armed guard stationed
there.

The captain bowed slightly, and Anna passed inside an airy
room with two broad windows. The whitewashed walls were bare except for the
expected crucifix, and opposite that, a picture of a woman in a stiff gown with
a ruff and a pearl headdress on another. A rug of blues and golds lay on the
floor, on which was set chairs and a table, with fine candlesticks on it.

There was a door on the other side. As the entry door was
shut and locked behind her, the inner door opened—and there was Parrette!

“Oh, I am so glad to see you. The French admiral said they
questioned you,” Anna burst out.

“And so they did. But I refused to tell them anything. The
very idea. Spies! Whom would we spy for? I demanded to know who accused us of
such a thing, but they would not tell me. However, an orderly did say they
would bring us something to eat,” she said, drawing Anna into a bedroom with
two smaller rooms off it.

At one side stood a monumental bed upon a platform, with a
canopy over it fit for a queen. On the other side, a narrow alcove gave way to
a garderobe, decently closed off. Anna recognized her trunk against the inner
wall. “And hot water to bathe in is on the way,” Parrette finished with
triumph, as if restored amenities also restored order to the world.

Anna quickly related the gist of her interview with Admiral
Gravina, then said thoughtfully, “There was no one writing our words down. I
wonder if that was a good thing or not.”

“I would not dare a guess,” Parrette answered. “But this
much I’ve learned, mostly through overheard curses and slanders, the French are
not very popular in Cadiz. Ah. That must be our tray.” The sound of the salon
door unlocking caused her to cock her head. “Come. Eat and drink something. Then
I will repack our trunks. Who knows what these men will be at next. Whatever it
is, we ought to be ready.”

o0o

Anna slept through the rest of that day, clean, fed, and
resting in a comfortable bed. The next day, she rose betimes. She had finished
her dance stretches before the sun came up. Then she prowled the salon and
discovered an ancient trunk in a corner, the carvings on it peopled with women
in high coned hats and long trailing gowns, the men in short tunics, with hose
on their legs and odd pointed shoes with the tips tied back to their ankles in
what looked like chains.

She opened the trunk, and caught her breath in pleasure:
books! She had not been able to read since her long-ago days with Madame de
Pipelet in Paris.

Many of the books were in Spanish or Latin, with fragile
leather covers. But she found a small stack of newer French novels, and even
more amazing, three in English: a book of Pope’s poems, a novel by Samuel
Richardson, and a book of travels by Daniel Defoe.

The novel by Richardson, tied up with tape, was a seven
volume production in octavo. Anna opened it first.

Clarissa
was slow
going initially. Anna had not thought in English for so long that she struggled
to recall the meanings of words. She set it aside frequently, resorting to
either the poems or entries in the travel book, but she discovered that
rereading sentences, or trying them out loud, sometimes shook loose the
meanings that had been buried in memory.

Gradually the humor was borne in upon her, and she began to
read with more pleasure, thoroughly hating the arrogant, presumptuous Lovelace,
though admittedly he wrote with wit. All of the characters spoke in a style
that strongly brought Anna’s mother to mind—she heard Clarissa’s letters read
in her mother’s voice—and so the hours, and then days passed, broken only by
meals, and by Parrette being permitted to attend Mass, accompanied by one of
Admiral Gravina’s guards.

That Sunday, Parrette returned with an air of excitement. As
soon as they were alone, she said in a whisper, “You will never guess what I
have learned.”

“Come into the bedroom,” Anna said, casting a doubtful look
at that wooden door, beyond which stood an armed guard.

Parrette led the way to the bedroom, her eyes wide. “Hah! I
met Pierre at the early Mass. As Madame and some of the others go to the later
one, he was free to talk to me, to say farewell. The Company Dupree is ordered
to leave on the morrow. The Spanish have said that there is no place for French
actors here.”

“They are leaving? Without us?” Anna asked.

Parrette spread her hands.

“But what about my earnings?” Anna asked.

Parrette uttered a back-street imprecation that shocked
Anna. “There are no earnings. That is, Therese Rose offered to bring them to
you a few days ago, Pierre said. She said she had obtained permission to speak
to you.”

“But I never saw her.”

“Well do I know! She never returned to the lodging. And that
is not all. It was none other than that devil’s spawn Marsac who said you were
a spy.”

“So I thought,” Anna said. “What I don’t know is why.”

“Helene told Madame Dupree, who told Pierre that at the
special performance for the French officers, it was noticed that Marsac
remained behind, talking to Admiral Villeneuve, then la la! A short time later,
they were all swept up for questioning, not just us. But they were kept in the
large room, and let go one by one when the questioners had done with them.
Pierre begged me to tell you that Helene, Ninon, and the others were very
sorry, that if they had thought, they never would have said as much as they did.
They thought their recollections would prove your innocence, for none of them
believed you were a spy.”

Sickened, Anna briefly described the offer Marsac had made.

“I wish you had told me,” Parrette said fiercely. “No, no,
of course I could do nothing. Say nothing. About that. But I always hated him.
He was the worst kind of aristocrat, born well, but hiding behind republican
words to escape the mobs, and profiting thereby. Yet whenever he deigned to
take notice of me, it was to drop his sewing in my lap, as if I existed only to
serve. Even little Helene asked me with politeness when she needed something
delicate mended.”

“I never noticed that,” Anna said, unsettled.

“His habit was to bring his ruined things to me in the
mornings, when you were dancing. Not that it was often. He is very careful with
his things. It was his manner, and I saw no reason to mention it. You could do
nothing. But!” A valedictory finger. “There is a hint of justice, for M. Dupree
turned him away. He said that after such a thing, no one would trust him again,
and so he could seek another company. And so he left, some thought for Paris.
But after, it was noticed that he had taken more than his own trunks—you
remember, he had three. That of Therese Rose was also gone, they saw, after she
did not reappear from her supposed visit to us.”

Anna shook her head. “She always admired him. Or he could
have threatened to turn her over to the French as a runaway.” She told Parrette
what Marsac had discovered. “Though he despised her, I could see him using her
for his own convenience.”

“Despicable! She will get what she deserves, and as for him,
I pray that he gets snapped up by the conscript officers,” Parrette said.
“Spies.
Tchah!”

She jabbed her needle vigorously into cloth, indicating the
subject was closed.

o0o

At the month’s end, Parrette returned from Mass with
astonishing news: “Everyone at the cathedral was whispering that Nelson has
arrived, and joined the English fleet.”

“I wonder what that means,” Anna murmured.

“If it is even true, who knows?” Parrette opened her hands.
“What it means for us, that remains to be seen,” she finished on a dire note.

Later that night, as they went about getting ready for bed,
they were surprised by a quiet but insistent knock upon their door. Anna
entered the salon as the door opened, and the young captain with the mustachios
performed a quick bow. “Gather your wraps, please, ladies. You are to be
transferred.”

“To where?” Anna asked nervously.

There was no answer. The captain silently directed a couple
of burly men to the inside, where they fetched the trunks that Parrette had
kept packed and ready.

Then they wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and out they
walked into night air that had become surprisingly brisk. Excitement warred
with spurts of horror: at every turn Anna dreaded a dank entry to a dungeon, or
worse, French soldiers sent to take them back into custody for that promised
hard questioning.

But they bypassed all these, instead twisting down back
stairs at a dizzying speed, until Parrette was breathing hard, and Anna’s leg
muscled twinged, in spite of all her dance.

At last they were led through a gate past silent guards,
their eyes gleaming in the lantern light. The smell of brine was sharp: they
had reached the seaside!

The lanterns were doused. A cluster of dark figures, barely
discernable against the endless black of the ocean, turned their way. In a low,
rapid voice the captain held a quick exchange, and then he said, “God go with
you, senoras.”

One of those shrouded figures drew near, and a hand took
Anna’s arm. She pulled back with a breathless cry.

“Shush now,” came a voice—speaking English. “We’m here to
fetch ye, on the admiral’s orders, but quiet like, or there’ll be the devil to
pay with Johnny Crapaud.”

“I—” Anna moistened her lips, trying to think in English. “I
do not understand.”

“He’ll explain it all anon. Come away cheerly.”

The hand tugged insistently, but not harshly. Anna
hesitated. If she screamed, would the French or Spanish hear?

“Bear a hand, mates, every second them frogs could happen on
us, and they’m likely to shoot first.”

Anna had to agree. She and Parrette were escorted by two
burly figures to a waiting boat, and motioned to a central bench, where they
sat shoulder to shoulder, both shivering, as men climbed in around them to take
up oars. Their trunks thumped softly in at either end. Three figures shoved at
the boat with soft grunts of effort, causing it to hiss over wet sand, then
bump into the low breakers inside the bay.

As Anna watched, slow-marching clouds briefly revealed the
moon, faint and silvery, shedding blue light over the world. The sense they had
entered a dream ended abruptly when the boat reached the breakers, jolting
horribly. Water splashed in, swirling coldly about their slippered feet, but
neither made a sound.

“Stout ’uns,” a quiet voice whispered approvingly. “Not a
peep, now. We’re all a-taunto, though she’s going to skip about a trifle. Just
bide tight.”

Anna could barely understand the man’s accent, and Parrette
could not make out more than two words. They pressed together, glad of each
other’s presence, as the boat juddered from one wave to another, propelled in
surges by the rhythmic movement of the oars.

One thing was clear: for whatever reason, they were about to
be handed over to the English.
Well,
there is one thing I can do
, Anna thought, and reached behind her. Not two
feet away was the familiar contours of her trunk. She worked the latches loose,
wormed her fingers inside it, as Parrette looked on wonderingly, her face pale
in the moonlight.

At last Anna encountered her trinket box, and let out a
satisfied “Ah.” She withdrew her hand, refastened the latches, and brought her
fingers around to the front.

Parrette’s expression altered when she saw Anna slide
something onto her ring finger. “It was Admiral Nelson who got me into this
situation,” Anna whispered in Neapolitan. “I fully intend that he shall get me
out again.”

“And then?” Parrette asked.

“And then they must set us down somewhere, well away from
their war, I trust, and we will figure out where to go next,” Anna breathed,
though she had no idea.

But it would come. Her earnings were lost, but she had her
belongings, her wits, and her talent.

After an eternity of rowing, there was an indistinct mutter
from someone at the back of the boat. At once two or three figures moved,
rocking them alarmingly. Anna and Parrette clutched each other as these men did
something at the bottom, sending splashes of brine everywhere, then raised a
pole with a sodden mass of sailcloth attached.

“Duck down, now, so the yard don’t take you over the side.”

Anna and Parrette bent over obediently, as with a muffled
rumble and then a snap, the sail caught the wind and bellied out. The boat
lifted and plunged, dashing through the waves. Spray splashed liberally over
them all.