Rondo Allegro (8 page)

Anna was content.

Like the rest of Paris, the Boulevard du Temple was in the
midst of changes. After 1791, when the controls against the numbers of theaters
had been lifted, the street had proliferated with stages. Anna soon learned
that this was one of the most popular streets in all of Paris.

She stared in amazement at the grand edifices—many in
various states of repair or rebuilding—as Madame’s carriage took her for her
first interview.

She was nervous, her palms damp and her heartbeat fluttering
in her throat, but the moment she walked in and was greeted by the manager, she
began to understand how very lucky she had been. Her being Madame’s protégé
seemed to have cleared the way: in a short time she stepped for the first time
on the stage, looked over the candles into the cavernous house, then turned
uncertainly. “What shall I sing?”

“Sophie’s song will do,” someone called from the back, and
the voice lowered, still audible, “How old is she? Fourteen? Fifteen? If she
sings half as well as you say, she will do.”

Feeling very much on her mettle, Anna took in a deep breath,
and sang.

“Fine voice, but light,” was the verdict when she was
finished. “She will do nicely in the chorus.”

She was given brisk directions about rehearsals and what
type of costume she must procure, and by the end of the week she had met all
her fellow performers.

By month’s end, Anna stood on stage in the heat of hundreds
of candles, bringing to life a two-act opera for the dimly-perceived, rustling,
whispering crowd in the seats. And at the end, amid resounding applause,
‘Signorina Bernardo’ joined the rest of the cast in bowing; next time, she
hoped, it would be she taking a personal bow.

When she retired to change, she found Parrette with her arms
tightly crossed as she stared with furrowed brow at the stool Anna usually sat
upon to have her hair done.

“What is amiss?” Anna asked. “Is there bad news?” She looked
around the crowded little alcove that functioned as her dressing room, as if
the evidence lurked in the shadows behind the flickering candles.

“No,” Parrette said. After a short struggle, she said in
Neapolitan, “I know you have spoken to few. They think you are a young girl,
and innocent, and in many regards it is true. But there is something you need
to know.”

Anna put her hands up to her ears. “Oh, if it is rumor and
scandal about Madame, I don’t want to hear it. I hate such things. I will not
believe any of it.”

Parrette shook her head. “No, no, I have heard nothing ill
about Madame, though perhaps a little about her play.”

“
Sappho
? That was
her great opera.”

“No, this is a play,
Camille
,
which was to be performed at the Comédie-Française, in the rue de la Loi.” Her
eyes widened as she repeated this prestigious address.

“She never mentioned a word of this,” Anna murmured
wonderingly.

“Charlotte says because they refused to do it. She says the
true reason is because she is a woman, that the freedoms of the revolution are
coming to an end, but that is not what I wished to tell you.” Parrette drew in
a deep breath as she extracted a bit of carefully cut newsprint from her
pocket.

Anna read it in astonishment. The article smugly crowed over
the fact that the English frigate of 20 guns
Danae
had been taken by its crew, the officers killed or
imprisoned, and the ship restored to France.

“Is Captain Duncannon dead, then?”

“It says nothing about that.”

“A mutiny! Like those other mutinies the English had. I
remember the Hamiltons talking about it. They said it was because of terrible
captains who flogged and hanged seamen on whim. He must have been another such
terrible captain.”

Parrette shook her head. “Surely a terrible captain would
not have written back to you about Michel.”

That
surely
silenced them both; there was nothing more to be said. Conjecture was futile
for want of fact. But afterward, Anna noticed that Parrette no longer referred
to
The
Captain.

Captain Duncannon had by necessity been carried to
Gibraltar again and thence northward, after beating against recalcitrant winds
for so long that, as often happened, news of events he had left behind him
reached London before he did.

He read about his former ship in the English newspapers when
he reached Portsmouth just before Christmas. Where the French had been smug,
the English deplored, the more in light of the mutinies two years previous.

Captain Duncannon also read the less sensational account in
the
Naval Chronicle
, and shook his
head over the grim tidings, wondering what his replacement had done to the
capable crew that he had left behind.

He did not have time to think about it long. He had exactly
two days of liberty, one of which he spent in a fruitless journey to London.
There, he set about finding where the Hamiltons were living, just to discover
that no Mrs. Duncannon was numbered among the company.

He obtained an interview with Nelson himself, who professed
surprise and concern. “Did I not issue specific instructions? But Keith has
been my determined enemy, I fear. That must explain it. You must put your
question to the Admiralty,” he said, peering earnestly at Duncannon through his
one good eye. “There you will no doubt be put in possession of the intelligence
that no one has seen fit to report to me.”

Duncannon thanked him profusely, refused another glass of
canary, and took a hackney to the Admiralty, where he was kept waiting among a
parcel of lieutenants and beached captains hoping for placement.

There, he discovered not only was there no communication,
but nothing known of his missing wife, much less news of the progress of his
annulment. “That sounds like Whitehall,” he was told by a senior clerk. “That
has their stamp all over it. You must put your questions there.”

By now Duncannon suspected what he would hear at Whitehall,
but he was determined to carry through the business until it was honorably
resolved. He had turned his back on everything connected to his life before the
navy, except his good name.

He took another hackney to Whitehall, just to find himself
balked, and by so junior a clerk that he knew his efforts were for naught. But
he wrote out the facts as directed, was assured that his question would be sent
up the chain of command, and he walked out into the frigid air. Darkness had
closed in early. He was forced to admit defeat.

He returned to his hotel in a disgusted mood. The next
morning, the prospect of quitting London for Portsmouth in order to read
himself aboard his new command improved his spirits. He penned a letter to the
new legate in Naples asking the whereabouts of his wife, posted it, and then
mounted his horse.

By Christmas he was beating futilely against gales as the
fleet fought to gain westing enough to round Ushant.

o0o

The rest of Europe celebrated Christmas, but in France,
this was the month of Nivôse.

The calendar at first confused Anna. This one talked about
the Year Eight, that one referred to the year 1801, a third scrupulously
recorded the ten-day weeks of the republican calendar. Most, however, betrayed
the habit of a lifetime, more frequently reverting to naming the days of the
week from the Gregorian calendar, as the mobs likely to string you up from a
lamppost for such errors had largely vanished.

Many theater managers insisted on the very latest fashions,
which actresses were expected to find themselves. It was easiest when the
wealthy leaders of Paris donated their gowns, but there were never enough to go
around even if you were able to wangle a way to find out when some might be
coming.

Parrette, having foreseen this, had assured Anna’s success
at select concerts with her gowns modeled on those she had seen Madame
Bonaparte wearing.

By mid-winter, Anna had sung thrice in the chorus at the
Lyri-Comique, without being invited into the company. She was content, as that
was the agreement.

She had also performed at private concerts given by several
other high-ranking individuals in the Consulate government, culminating in a
spectacular evening at the Chateau de Neuilly at a soiree hosted by Madame
Grand, who (it was rumored) would soon marry the Foreign Minister Talleyrand.

Anna was sent back to Madame’s in a sumptuous carriage, her
arms full of flowers, her ears full of praise. But when she reached her room,
Parrette took the flowers to find vases, saying, “Was there any money in it?”

“No,” Anna said.

“This is the third such,” Parrette said, arms crossed in the
way that Anna had learned meant she was keeping something back. “It is a very
bad precedent, but what can be done? Perhaps there is a way to secure gifts
that we do not know about. They say Talma is always sent back with fabulous
treasures, gold, and the like, when he gives recitations for the First Consul.”

“That’s the First Consul,” Anna replied, but she was
thinking,
Madame Grand is nearly as high.

Parrette then said, “I believe you should be trying at the
large houses.”

“The performers are all professionals.” Anna studied
Parrette’s averted gaze. “Am I to understand that you no longer object?”

“Yes, I object.” Parrette lifted her chin. “But I have been
considering. I owe your mother my life, and I promised her as she died in my
arms that I would care for you as she would wish. And so I have tried to do.
And yet I am afraid that Madame de Pipelet is soon to be married, and you know
that the Count has no use for music, anymore than he does for Paris.”

“That is true,” Anna said slowly. Though the Count had
obligingly hired her for her first concert, it had been apparent that he had
done it only to please Madame de Pipelet.

Parrette went on. “The fact is, English rules are no use to
us here—we are not in English society, as there is no English society. If
Madame does marry, I do not think the Count will take us, and we must live. I
have repaid Madame’s loan, but only just, with your earnings, meager as they
are.”

She made no mention of the fact that Anna was not paying
Parrette at all, but Anna felt the pressure of obligation just the same, as
Parrette said gently, “Perhaps it is time to think of joining a company. It
will be no different than what you do in the chorus at the Lyri-Comique, and
you can still live as a respectable woman.”

Anna straightened her back and tightened her ribs. She
thought about Captain Duncannon with increasing rarity, and never without
conflict. Even supposing he had survived, it was true that he had put them in
the way of locating Parrette’s long-lost son—if Michael Deflew and Michel
Duflot were even the same person—but what kind of man would cause his men to
mutiny?

“I want to sing,” Anna stated firmly. “And that is what I
mean to do. And we must live.”

When she got up the next morning, the wedding ring joined
her trinkets in their box. She consulted Madame about auditions—who promptly
agreed, with a betraying smile of relief, as she promised she would do her best
to arrange auditions.

Unfortunately, in spite of all the praise Anna heard at the
private concerts, her auditions were dispiritingly unsuccessful. At the major
theaters, she heard variations on the same judgment: “Excellent range, but no
volume,” and “Fine phrasing, vocal purity, but inaudible from the gallery.”

Finally, after great exertion on the part of her patroness,
she was invited to audition before the great Talma. In trepidation she dressed
in her finest, walked timidly onto the great stage at the Théâtre de la
République and gazed wonderingly out at the tiers of boxes.

She could make out no more than a shadowy form among other
nameless faces in the middle of the theater. Below the stage, a violinist and a
cellist struck up the bars of the music Madame de Pipelet had chosen for her,
from her friend Jeanne-Hippolyte Devisme’s
Praxitèle
.
“Modern is good,” Madame had said—and reminding great people of her friend’s
opera would be even better.

Sing with a light
heart, and tight middle
. Anna straightened up, tried to lift her heart and
tighten the top of her ribs . . . and though she could hear her
singing was pure, perfectly phrased, true to each note, she felt it dissipating
like steam in that enormous cold space.

At the end, she was not surprised when the actor’s rich,
powerful voice echoed with apparent effortlessness back to the stage: “Thin.
Thin person, thin voice. Come back again when you’ve achieved some substance.”

Blinking against the sting in her eyes, Anna walked off, the
only sound the quiet thud of her footsteps. She made it to the street door
before the tears overwhelmed her.

Not two days later, a short, round, balding little man
attended Madame’s salon, and after Anna sang for the company, he was introduced
to Anna as Monsieur Dupree.

“Very fine, Signorina, ah, Citizen,” he said, bobbing his
head. “I think you would sound well at my theater, the Théâtre Dupree. On the
Boulevard, you know. Intimate. My wife is the principal singer, but we need a
new young soprano for Madame de Pipelet’s
Sappho
.
Our Lorette is too old for a soubrette, and at all events she prefers the
breeches roles.”

Anna had been all along the boulevard by then. She
remembered the Théâtre Dupree as one of the smallest, in a ramshackle barn of a
building that probably had been old when Louis XIV came to Paris to attend the
theater. Old, she knew, meant abysmal pay, but poor pay was better than no pay
at all.

She thanked M. Dupree gratefully, and discovered the
following day that though the theater was indeed exactly as old as she had
feared, its size was perfect for her voice. Madame, taller and larger than her
husband, joined M. Dupree in their enthusiastic praise.