Rondo Allegro (4 page)

He saw her unhappy face, and drew his own conclusions. “I
gather you are now under the guardianship of the Hamiltons?”

“Yes, Maestro,” she said.

“It is well. Your dear Mama would have approved.” If there
was a little dryness to his tone, Anna missed it; though he had sincerely
admired the excellent Signora Ludovisi, he had thought her passion for England
misplaced. Why retain this love of a land she had left when scarcely able to
talk, and which had repudiated her own parents’ marriage, though made in the
sight of God?

“Now you must come every day, and resume your lessons,” he
said, knowing that the best specific for grief was work. “If you bring to them
all your discipline, there is nothing to get in the way of your attaining
greatness.”

o0o

The days slipped into weeks. Anna was grateful to be kept
busy, which in part eased the heartache of grief that recurred each morning
when she breakfasted alone.

One night, Anna returned to her cramped quarters, exhausted
from a long rehearsal in the humid air. The music kept changing, wearing
everyone’s tempers to a frazzle.

Parrette awaited Anna with a bowl of soup and some bread.
“Ah, Signorina!”

For the first few days she had conscientiously called Anna
‘Signora,’ but gradually had slipped back into old habit, and Anna did not
correct her. “Everyone is talking! The king is indeed awarding Admiral Nelson a
dukedom.”

Anna eyed her maid, whose thin lips were pursed, her head
cocked. “But? I hear a but.”

“He is to be created the Duke of Bronte.”

Anna gasped. “Bronte?” For everyone who read their classics
knew that ‘Bronte’ was a one-eyed Cyclops. That kind of cruel joke against poor
Admiral Nelson, whose physical sufferings were painfully visible, was very much
in King Ferdinand’s style. “Yet the king and queen hailed the admiral as their
savior,” Anna observed. “And here we are, exerting ourselves to celebrate them!
Perhaps Bronte is immense.”

“It is. The pastry chef’s brother, who works in the stable,
says that it lies on the slopes of the volcano,” Parrette whispered, one thin
brow aslant.

Anna shook her head. “I cannot pretend to know anything about
royal affairs. What I do know is that today, we have changed the song four
times, and now I am not to stand by the waxen statues at all, but to sing from
the gallery above. Instead of patriots in Neapolitan colors, or the English
colors, I, and two choirboys, are to sing as angels unseen.”

Parrette clasped her hands.
“Nom d’un nom,
in the gallery? But it is in painting, and not
sturdy at all!”

“They promise all will be complete.” Anna smiled. “Parrette,
we have to practice our English now. As soon as Captain Duncannon returns, we
can approach him together, for it occurs me that surely he could be the means
of finding your son. Was not Michel taken while at sea?”

Parrette whispered a few words of prayer under her breath,
then said, “I would dedicate a thousand masses if
le bon Dieu
grants me a, how one says, a pook?”

“Peek?”

“
Oui!
Yes. Even a
peek at my son, that he is living, and well.”

“I wish I had thought to ask before.” Anna could not quite
bring herself to say
on my wedding day
.
That part still seemed a mere dream.

o0o

The great day dawned.

The English captains chosen by their admiral to witness the
celebrations were gathered, hats under their arms, at one side of the
magnificent royal dais put together by the harassed royal carpenters. Above,
unseen in a much flimsier, hastily constructed gallery, Anna stood with her fidgeting
choirboys in the breathless heat.

The central hall of the newly-built palace had a vaulted
ceiling, but with this crowd, there was nowhere for the heat to escape. Anna
tried to breathe through her mouth, nauseated by the odor of wet paint. Still
tacky were the Chinese scenes painted in mural around the smoothly curved
walls. The palace wasn’t completely finished, but the King and Queen leading
the huge crowd below had declared that it would house the celebration, and so
it was.

As she dared a glance downward, Anna wondered if the great
waxen figures of Admiral Nelson, Sir William Hamilton, and Lady Hamilton—the
latter wearing a heavy purple gown embroidered in gold with the names of all
the ships that had fought in the Battle of the Nile—would melt before the
festivities ended.

Presently the crowd stilled, pressed in an enormous circle
well back of the royal family and the three who were to be honored. Anna looked
right and left as their accompanist softly plucked a note on her harp. Anna
began to sing, her choirboy companions filling in the harmony.

The crowd below hushed, many faces upturned. The English
captains, broiling in broadcloth coats, their necks swathed with cravats, and their
feet encased in heavy boots, listened or endured according to their
personalities.

Henry Duncannon was one of those who listened with deep
appreciation to the pure young voice that floated down as if from heaven. If he
shut his eyes, he did not see the glisten of still-drying paint in the vaulting
overhead, or not-quite-hidden evidence of the scaffolding that held the unseen
singers between earth and sky. He gazed through his lashes at the serene blue,
unwilling to move as the golden voice soared and drifted, borne upward by
fellow angels.

But he could not completely give himself over to the music. He
knew he ought to set about locating his wife. There would be no getting near
either of the Hamiltons this evening, so how would he find the girl in this great
crowd? He had come determined to make certain Jones had gained her
understanding concerning their annulment, before the fleet was ordered out
again. But there was no moving, he discovered, and so he tried to give himself
up to the music again.

He was balked even in this as a pair of lieutenants whispered
to one another behind him.

“Will it ever end?”

“Hold hard. When the caterwauling is over, there’s to be
speeches.”

“Why isn’t there something cold to drink?”

Duncannon was about to administer a sharp reproof when the
song ended. As Sir William began to wheeze a speech, inaudible at this
distance, Duncannon bit back his impatience.

One of the lieutenants observed, “Well, Nelson appears well
pleased, at all events.”

The king responded to Sir William in an equally inaudible
speech, then attention turned to the slight figure on the dais between the
voluptuously beautiful Lady Hamilton and tall, stooped Sir William. Nelson
leaned forward as little Prince Leopold, impatient to do his part, ran out to
place a diamond-studded laurel wreath upon the brow of the admiral’s waxen
statue.

Nelson burst into tears of joy, causing a surge of applause
and smiles.

Under cover of that, the lieutenants behind Duncannon spoke
more normally. “Is it at an end at last? We’re done?”

“No, there’s more to come, but in other rooms.”

Duncannon took advantage of the shifting crowd and forged
away, leaving the lieutenants looking about for the exit.

“Will there be a noise if we rabbit?” asked one of the
lieutenants.

“Craven,” joked his friend.

“There you are!” exclaimed a third, in joining them. “The
crowd is moving at last. I’d as lief be sitting in the Nile again, waiting on
the French to fire. Speaking of the Nile, wasn’t that Wild Harry I just saw,
elbowing his way to escape? Isn’t he about to set sail?”

“Duncannon got special dispensation to come on shore tonight,”
said the first. “From what I hear, he seems to have become entangled.”

“The Perennial Bachelor? Impossible!” exclaimed the
newcomer.

“True as I stand here. I had it from his own clerk,” said the
second. “All secret, on orders of the admiral, you know.” He laid his finger by
his nose. “Arranged by Lady Hamilton.”

Gossip was rife through the fleet about the admiral and the
fascinating Emma, but that kind of speculation had never included Duncannon’s
name. However dour he was in dealing with the fair, he was never behindhand on
his quarterdeck before the prospect of a French frigate stripped to fighting
sail. And so, though he might be quizzed, it was with respect.

“Entangled?” spoke he who mopped his face again, then lifted
his hat and wig for a pass of his pocket handkerchief over his shaven skull. “I
cannot see Wild Harry ensnared by some Sicilian charmer. Was it not he who
suffered some disappointment in youth?”

“Thrown over. For his elder brother, according to what I
heard,” said the first. “Hasn’t looked at a female since. But he obviously has
now. Will wonders never cease!”

“Nothing like that,” said the second. “That gabbling
rantipole of a clerk insists it was marriage, some connection to an Italian
duke.”

“Oh
, Italian
.
Italy sports more dukes than rats.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Is she rich?”

“Wild Harry has all the luck,” murmured he of the wig, who
had not managed as many cutting out expeditions and other mad escapades of the
sort that Nelson loved most, and who therefore had not as yet earned him that
longed-for step to commander, though he was the same age as Duncannon.

“A secret wedding?” spoke the third, who looked about him
for a source of entertainment that had nothing to do with operatic hullabaloo.
“Ah! Speak of the devil. There he is again. Shall we have some fun?” He tipped
his chin to where Duncannon was seen looking searchingly to the right and left,
before he was swallowed from view.

The three lieutenants began applying elbows.

o0o

Without being aware, both Anna and Captain Duncannon had
the other foremost in mind.

Up in the gallery, Anna slowly made her way down the rickety
stair behind the scampering boys. Having creditably performed her part, she was
now free.

She walked outside to where it was marginally cooler. At
least the air was moving. She paused to enjoy the sight of the colored lamps
strung along the terrace and in the gardens, reflecting in the rapidly melting ice
sculptures central to each table of food and drink.

She was hungry and thirsty, now that the performance was
safely over, but she must find Captain Duncannon, as she had promised Parrette.

How to accomplish it? She had scarcely spoken to any strange
gentlemen outside of her wedding day, which seemed more dream than real. She
had no idea how to seek him out, or where to begin if she found him.

As she turned this way and that, she was unaware of herself
as a thin figure in the plain white muslin she had worn for her wedding, a
wraith in the midst of the glittering crowd dressed in rich silks and velvets,
or the martial splendor of dress uniforms.

Captain Duncannon, looking over the heads of the crowd,
spied her there alone on the terrace. He had not been able to recollect much
past her tear-blotched brown face, but he recognized that rumpled white gown,
and the untidy braids with curling wisps escaping from them.

She spotted him as he emerged from the crowd, taller than
she had remembered, his countenance far more forbidding.

“Good evening, Captain Duncannon,” she said, dropping a
schoolgirl’s curtsey, and blushing.

“Good evening—” The word
Signorina
formed itself on his lips, but he forced himself to say, “Mrs. Duncannon,” as
he took her hand and kissed the air above the tops of her fingers. “I trust I
see you well?”

She reddened the more when he saluted her hand, then gazed
up at him doubtfully, the hesitation before the words ‘Mrs. Duncannon’ not
having gone unnoticed.

He returned her gaze, puzzled how to begin. Aboard his own
ship, he had rehearsed the most expeditious method of reaching an understanding
about the annulment. But presented with those wide, questioning eyes, he was
forcefully reminded of his sisters, and the words dried up.

She made an effort to be polite and hospitable. “Are you
pleased with the music?”

His relief showed as he grasped at this straw. “Very fine entertainment
this evening. Is the song we just heard from a new opera?”

“It is a cantata that Signor Paisiello wrote for this
occasion.” Anna was quite proud of her singing, and longed to ask if he had
liked her voice, but modesty was the first rule of deference. This intimidating
stranger whose name she now shared had yet to acknowledge her singing outside
of that single reluctant utterance. If only she knew how to go on!

Her thoughts were echoed by his own; each searched the face
of the other in uncertainty.

Captain Duncannon’s greatest passion was music, a subject of
strife during his early years, and one that had earned him a great deal of
quizzing once he went to sea. As a result he confined himself to polite
nothings about Paisiello’s operas, comparing
Nina
to
Andromaca
as he
sought for a way to introduce his topic.

Anna half-listened, having known the maestro’s music since
she was small. She was resolving to take her courage in her hands and introduce
her chief concern, when he said abruptly, “But music is a subject I can
discourse on forever, and I am not to be a bore. I am to understand you are
comfortably situated. Is there anything you require?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said thankfully. “
I
am well, but there
is
something! That is, if it is not too much trouble. It is my maid, Parrette
Duflot, her son Michel, you see, was taken aboard an English ship some while
past. I do not quite know how it came about, but I am given to understand that
sailors are sometimes . . . that is…”

“Impressed?” he asked, dismayed at this utterly unforeseen
attack.

“That is the word. We have been trying ever since to find
out where Michel is. He would be about sixteen. Can
you
find him?”