Rondo Allegro (11 page)

Lise’s hearing was at least as sharp as her features. Before
Hyacinthe could speak, she pulled Anna aside and in a quick, low whisper
explained that ‘mouchettes’ was the nickname for the spies the sinister police
chief, Fouché, employed to root out traitors as well as criminals.

“And traitors,” Hyacinthe said, her eyes round, “can be
anyone he mislikes the sound of.”

“It is just that Parrette’s son was taken on board an
English ship in impressment. We want to discover, if we can, where he is. If he
lives.”

Lise lifted a shoulder as she absently flexed her feet while
waiting for the call to places. “I am sorry for Parrette’s missing son. We all
have someone gone missing, either as a soldier, or during the Terror, but we
have learned to leave well enough alone.”

After the performance, as Anna carefully changed out of her
costume, Parrette listened soberly to Anna’s report of her inquiries. “We must
avoid direct questions,” she said. “About British ships. But there are other
ways of learning, as you did with the attachés.”

“By listening,” Anna said. “It is easy enough. These
soldiers? I find, the younger they are, the more they boast.”

Parrette gave a squawk of laughter. “Young! Says the old
crone.”

Anna laughed, but she reflected on the newest dance
apprentices, and two additions to the chorus, both relatives of the Duprees,
none of whom were older than sixteen. She was no longer the youngest.

It was an odd feeling because when she walked out with the
dancers, she had felt like the youngest. That was because she always returned
to the Foulon at night, whereas some of the dancers went riding off in
cabriolets with their beaux.

o0o

“Life is so strange,” Lise said to Anna one night, as she
posed before the mirror at the end of the narrow hall on which all their doors
opened. Her gown was flimsy silk, tied high, and she’d bound up her hair with a
golden fillet. As she spoke, she clasped a diamond necklace around her throat,
a gift from her latest swain, and patted it happily into place. “A very few
years ago, had I dared to go out dressed so, the mob would have hanged me,
tout de suite!”

“As it is, a thief will get that necklet, see if they
don’t,” Hyacinthe warned. “You are a fool to wear diamonds in the Boulevard
crowd.”

Lise lifted thin shoulders, like a bird poised for flight.
“And if I do? I shall demand another.” She smiled in triumph. “What is the use
of having it, if I cannot flaunt it, especially under Ninon’s nose?”

Hyacinthe sighed. “If you sell it in the right place, that
would house and feed us for an entire winter. Perhaps longer!”

“Eh, if a girl cannot find a wealthy boy to cover that, she
deserves to starve,” Lise said carelessly, and sashayed off.

Anna felt old and experienced as she listened to the
dancers. A great deal of what had been hitherto hidden was . . .
if not completely comprehensible, at least somewhat clearer. Lovers, the
dancers all promised, were much better than husbands, as they had to please you
to keep you.

Parrette watched with tight-lipped disapproval as Anna went
off with Lise and Hyacinthe. It was too much to hope that the girl would manage
to stay as unworldly as her parents had in Naples’ dreadful court. But now Anna
was blossoming into a young woman. She was not exactly beautiful, but she was
slowly becoming the next thing to it, with a gliding walk and a graceful turn
of head. It was to be expected that she would enjoy the enchantments of the
Boulevard with the others, but Parrette did not intend to let her forget that,
should she decide she was now a woman, she was a
married
one, until they found out for certain that she was a widow.

Anna sensed this wary disapproval. Having no wish to live on
bad terms with Parrette, she spoke less to her about what she was thinking, and
more to her new friends.

One morning, the dancers stretched legs and arms as they
gossiped about someone’s sister, who until recently had danced at another
theater. But now she was married.

“A husband?” Lise made a dismissive gesture. “What is the
use of that? A husband, you must please, or he will beat you. A lover? If he
doesn’t please you, you cast him off.” She dusted her hands in a quick
movement.

“But if a very, very rich man offers to marry you, snap him
up,” blonde Eleanor said, causing all to laugh.

Anna laughed with them, but she thought about how strange it
was to recollect that
she
was
married. Ordinarily she only remembered her state when she saw that ring lying
among her trinkets.

A week later, Lise’s sarcasm increased abruptly, and Ninon
smirked behind her back. No one could do anything right: Lise mocked Anna’s
struggles to keep pace during dance practice; she mocked the singers. She
mocked the other theaters, the noise the returning swallows made, the smell
left by horses in the street. She and Ninon were overheard squabbling in the
alley, voices rising to shrillness, then abruptly cutting off when M. Dupree
went outside to demand silence, as Madame was trying to work on her aria.

Anna looked for a cause, and found it in Lise’s bare neck.
The diamond necklace had not made a reappearance for days.

During a quiet moment midway through rehearsal, she caught
Hyacinthe alone backstage, fetching water. “The necklace,” Anna said softly.
“Was it stolen?”

“No,” Hyacinthe whispered back, looking as affronted as so
gentle a creature could. “The corn merchant’s wife went to the prefecture, and
claimed Lise had stolen it from
her!
Someone told her Lise had it. She had to return it. That is why she swears, no
more merchants. Only officers.
They
aren’t likely to have grasping wives!”

For a few days following, Ninon went about with curled lip,
never failing to drop a mention of diamonds into any conversation.

After that Lise confined herself to the officers—and not
just any, but a captain who, it was said, reported directly to Chef-de-Brigade
Maurin. This captain, the dancers whispered, was Ninon’s property.

For days, the two rivals entertained the company by their
efforts to beguile this captain, until one morning Ninon left rehearsal with
deliberate parade, climbing into a smart equipage with her new lover riding his
splendid horse alongside.

Eleanor sighed, hands pressed to her heart. “Is that not
romantic? He is to be stationed in the north as they prepare for the invasion
of England, and he is taking Ninon with him. It is said that the officers will
live in a chateau. Oh, Ninon has all the luck!”

Lise glowered from the wing, white-lipped with fury.

Parrette was watching from beside one of the flats, waiting
with Anna’s costume. “Stupid hen,” she muttered. “She will be sorry enough when
he tires of her.”

o0o

The gradual outward changes as spring warmed toward summer
caused an inward change in Anna. She relinquished any pretense of being a
prodigy. She had never liked the false feeling it gave her when she was
introduced at private gatherings as one, but now, with the spectacular rise of
such talents as Mademoiselle Georges, who at fifteen was performing for the
Bonapartes at their private theater, as well as the Théâtre-Français, she felt
it was time to drop the pose.

One night, after one of their friends inveigled a cousin at
the Théâtre for tickets, Anna and her friends went to watch the new comet blaze
across the stage.

“Oh, I wish I could project so effortlessly,” Anna
whispered.

“You think her good? She’s as big as a cow in calf,” Lise
scoffed.

“There is no music in her voice, true—her breathing’s all
wrong—but the emotional range!” Anna said.

“She’s got ankles thicker than an oak,” Lise said.

Mademoiselle Georges tripped across the stage, drawing all
eyes to her as she emoted a thrilling whisper that managed to carry, and then
as the tragedy unfolded, her voice fell to a low, hoarse moan.

As they walked away, Hyacinthe sighed. “It was so romantic.”

“Oh, you love everything, as long as it’s soppy with tears.
She was stupid,” Lise said, and turned on Anna. “The First Consul thinks
her
enchanting? It should have been
you.”

“But I am not an actor,” Anna protested. “I’m trying to
learn, because one must, in order to sing in opera, but—”

“You would be better queening over Bonaparte than that
lumbering cow, and further, you would not forget your friends!”

Anna glanced at Lise’s sharp profile. Though they were
different in every other way, Lise reminded her of certain of the Neapolitan
princesses, who regarded everything, from decorations on shoes to who got in
the pony carts first, as competitions. She returned to the Foulon in a
thoughtful mood.

A few days later, Anna was leaving the Foulon to walk to
rehearsal, smartly dressed as always, when she spied a grand carriage drawn up
in the street. She sidestepped young Pierre Dupree, the owner’s younger brother
and general factotum, busy talking to a young man in a new livery of green and
gold. That was the First Consul’s livery, Anna thought, wondering what he was
doing at the Foulon.

She’d taken no more than two steps when both faces turned
her way. “There she is,” Pierre said. “Signorina Bernardo! This man has a
summons for you.”

Anna’s heart began to pound. All she could think of was the
Minister of Police, and her questions about British naval matters, as she drew
near. “Are you certain you want me?” she managed.

The young man consulted a rumpled slip of paper.
“Mademoiselle Ludovisi,” he pronounced carefully, “also known as Signorina
Bernardo?”

Anna’s throat went dry. “That is I.”

“Well, then, I am to escort you to the Tuileries.” And when
Anna lifted her hands, one pointing helplessly toward the Foulon, and the other
gesturing vaguely at her bare head, the footman said, “Come as you are. I’m to
take you and bring you back. You needn’t bring anything.”

Bring you back.
These words heartened Anna enough to enable her to climb into the carriage,
though her legs shook. All up and down the street, people turned to stare as
the footman climbed up onto the box next to the driver, and waved his hand.
“Clear away! Clear away!”

“That would have netted you a fast trip to Madame Guillotine
ten years ago,” a wizened old woman called as she walked slowly in front of the
horses. She cackled as she looked Anna up and down. “And so would that fine
gown! Ha-ha-ha!” She walked off, crowing with laughter.

“Take it up with the First Consul,” the footman retorted
with a laugh, as the driver touched the whip to his pair.

A short time later, the carriage rolled through the Place du
Carrousel and to the Tuileries, a very long building. To her relief, she was
not taken anywhere near the Consular family’s private wing, but to a portion of
the building from which she could hear the cacophony of violins tuning, and
here and there the quick, brassy sound of horns.

A few minutes later, she was conducted into a small office
that smelled of wet plaster, where she stood in amazement. “Maestro Paisiello!”

“My dear child!” The maestro threw open his arms, nearly
knocking a pile of music sheets from the crowded desk. Powder puffed into the
air from his wig as he lunged to rescue the pages. “I need not ask how Paris
has treated you, I have the evidence of my eyes! I can scarcely wait to tell
Madame. She will wish to see you, but she is at the moment under the care of a
physician. You must call upon her when she has recovered from the journey.”

“Most assuredly. May I ask what brings you and la signora
here?” They had fallen into their old habit of speaking in Neapolitan, which to
her was the natural language of music, even more so than Italian.

“You will remember that the First Consul favored me with a
commission for General Hoche’s funeral march. Well, ever since, he has invited
me to Paris. Of course I did not wish to quit Naples until the king himself
bade me come hither, as a gesture of friendship toward the First Consul. And
so, behold me! I am now in charge of the music of the consular court. Guillard
has given me a fine
Proserpina,
which
will serve as my introduction to the French
tragedie-lyrique
.
As you see, I am in the midst of writing the music.”

Anna had not spent all this time without understanding
something of how the musical life of Paris went. “He brought you here, Maestro?
It is wonderful news, but…”

“Go ahead, shut the door,” the maestro said to the waiting
footman. “We must talk over the opera. When Mademoiselle is ready to return,
you shall see her emerge.”

And when the door was shut, he said more softly, “I do not
pretend to understand, except that there are politics, dear girl. Politics. They
say that the First Consul becomes ever grander, that he even has set his sights
upon a crown.” He sighed. “No, I shall not say that. I desire nothing more than
to stay out of politics!”

He threw up his hands again, dislodging another snowfall of
powder from his wig, then bent confidentially toward Anna. “Tell me, my dear.
How does Mademoiselle Georges sing? The First Consul expects me to put her in
Proserpina, but from anything I can find out, she is a mere child. Is she a
prodigy, a Billington, a Catalani?”

Anna glanced at the door, then said truthfully, “She is a
very pretty girl, but she is an actress.” She stopped there.

The maestro sighed as he took in her averted gaze, and
glanced down at the table littered with papers. “You are reluctant to say what
we both know. It is not only the First Consul, but his sister, who professes to
be my patron, pushing this Georges on me, I expect because she wants to make
trouble in the First Consul’s marriage.”

Anna could not prevent a blush.

The maestro noticed, and patted her hand. “You are still an
innocent, then?”