Rondo Allegro (9 page)

Anna had become a professional.

o0o

“Listen, Duncannon, the Prince of Denmark appears to be as
decisive as a shuttlecock,” Captain Fremantle said as they stood on the deck of
the
Ganges
, overlooking the smoke-filled
harbor at Copenhagen.

Captain Duncannon coughed, blinking his stinging eyes. The
smolder from the sea battle and the subsequent fires wreathed them, blurring
Fremantle’s round countenance, though he stood not two paces away.

“Nelson is to go ashore in the morning,” Captain Fremantle
said. “I will stay and oversee finishing the burning of the captured ships.”

“All of them?” Captain Duncannon asked in surprise. The
Danes built beautiful ships. Though one had blown up, and others were severely
damaged, that was after fighting every bit as intense as the Battle of the
Nile.

“We can’t spare people to man the prizes,” Fremantle said.
“We are stretched thin enough as it is. Speaking of orders, I want you to
inspect the wounded taken ashore. I need someone I can trust to sort out the
prisoners. Make certain that none of our men are among ’em, and that includes a
few rascally French pretending to be ours. We’ve already caught one son of a
Whitechapel bird-catcher trying to talk his way aboard of the grounded
Bellona
, my guess is to get at the
gunpowder.”

Captain Duncannon had already been awake for most of the
night before the day’s long, fierce battle. But there was too much to be done
for anything more than a bite of bread and a sip of very cold coffee to wet his
mouth.

His gig rowed him ashore, where many of the wounded had been
landed, Danes, French, and English mixed promiscuously. Out of the chaos
appeared a smoke-blackened lieutenant, who hailed him with relief. “You are
timely come, Captain,” he exclaimed once Duncannon had explained his orders.
“Though we’re a vast deal better than we were a few hours ago.” He turned to a
short, thin young man whose black hair was queued in a seaman’s pigtail, one
arm wrapped in a sling.

“This here is Seaman Dafoe, out of
Bellona
. He fell off the foremast yard when
Bellona
struck. He’s been rousting out the Frenchies—speaks the
lingo, including all the dialects that I can’t make head nor tail of.”

‘Dafoe.’ The name was familiar, but Captain Duncannon could
not recollect why, and he was too busy to take the time to reflect.

He nodded at the seaman, and said, “Explain what you have
here, and we will go on from there…”

Some time later, they paused at last, no fresh wounded
having been brought in the past hour. Someone had brewed up coffee and tea,
bringing it around, and they were able to sit for the first time in uncounted
hours.

Duncannon was just stretching his aching feet to the fire
before the command tent, when up dashed a young officer whose clean uniform
indicated he had come from one of the ships held in reserve. “Captain
Duncannon,” this young lieutenant exclaimed, doffing his hat. “I am finally
caught up with you. Lt. Bailey, premier of the sloop-of-war
Dido
. Sir Hyde Parker has been holding
me for dispatches for London, or I would have tried to get this post to you
sooner. I was handed it along with dispatches from the First Lord,” he said,
proffering a ribbon-tied sheaf of letters.

As Duncannon took the letters, Bailey added, “I’m told the
stained one came out of a packet from the Med, nearly swamped by a gale at the
Rock, and then escaped being snapped up by the French by running aground off
Malta. It took until spring tide to get them off.”

Captain Duncannon thanked the lieutenant, invited him to
partake of the wretched boiled coffee, and then, as everyone else seemed busy
with other things, bent his attention to the letters. The top two were from
Yorkshire.

From long habit he pitched them unread into the fire. The
third was from a solicitor whose name was familiar. Curious, Duncannon opened
this letter, to discover that a great uncle—a retired admiral—had left his
entire fortune to “my only nephew worth a damn.”

These words, written in the precise legal hand, caused
Duncannon to throw back his head and laugh aloud. Heads turned, and he
smothered his mirth, begging pardon. A fortune? That was unexpected, to say the
very least!

With heightened expectation, he turned his attention to the
fourth, a much-battered, water-stained missive bearing an official stamp from
Naples. With a sigh, he recollected the burden of his false marriage, and slit
the seal.

The handwriting was a neat clerk’s fist, and it said
everything he had least wished to see: there was no Mrs. Duncannon anywhere in
Naples, within the palace or out of it. No one in the new legate’s staff
claimed any knowledge of a Mrs. Duncannon. If there ever had been such a woman,
she appeared to have vanished, and the unknown fellow had the infernal
impudence to sign this missive
Your very
obedient servant to command
, before the scrawled name.

The captain leaned forward to lay the letter on the fire,
then paused. He had it: Dafoe,
Duflot
.
Could this be the impressed French boy that his bride, what was her name? The
boy she had requested him to locate?

He got to his aching feet and crossed to the area where the
seamen had congregated to eat the salt pork and peas someone had brought over
from the
Ganges
.

“Michel Duflot?” Captain Duncannon asked, giving the French
pronunciation.

The slim youngster with the broken arm and the black pigtail
glanced up, and seeing a superior officer, set aside his mess-kid and rose
slowly to his feet, the firelight reflecting in his black eyes.

“Sit down,” Captain Duncannon said, and took a seat in a
camp chair that a lieutenant vacated. Lowering his voice, he said, “I took you
for a Guernseyman, or some such. You are in fact French?”

Duflot said, “I am. But if you are asking if I am a
Frenchman, pah!” He turned his head aside to spit. “If being a Frenchman means
following Boney. It was he who caused my uncles to die in Italy and in Egypt,
and for what? My father, too, though his death was a blessing.” His sharp face
tightened with hatred. “My father roasts with the devil, but Boney is still
alive, sending good men after him. Though I was born in Lyons, I am no
Frenchman.”

Duncannon rarely acted on impulse, but the youngster had
proved immensely useful—and Duncannon now, apparently, had the wherewithal to
allow himself some indulgences, like setting a decent table at last, and
collecting prime crew between commissions. “What are you rated?”

Duflot’s chin came up. “This year, I am rated able seaman.
Foretop, starboard watch.”

“
Bellona
is going
to be in repairs for a time, and you will be useless for knotting and
splicing.” Captain Duncannon indicated his sling. “If I am to continue in my
present command, I happen to be in want of a yeoman of the sheets, and already
you have demonstrated a knack for organization. Shall I speak to your captain?”

“To go aboard a crack frigate, me?” Duflot’s grin flashed.
“Thank you, sir, I like me that ver-ry well.”

o0o

Anna’s success, while not as spectacular as that of Mrs.
Billington or La Catalani, whose fame was spreading faster and farther across
Europe than Bonaparte’s troops, had insured that she had steady work.

As spring ripened into summer, one morning Madame de Pipelet
came to Anna’s room, sat on the bed and told her sorrowfully that she was
leaving Paris with her husband-to-be. “This is no longer my Paris. It is
becoming the Paris of the First Consul, a military capital. Fewer newspapers,
and I am told that theaters are being told what they may produce, and what not.
There is even talk of licensing again.” She shook her head, sadly regarding the
strange Egyptian figureheads at either end of the reclining couch. “But what
can I do? I am telling you straight away, that you must find somewhere else to
live,” she finished.

Anna carried the bad news with her to rehearsal at Théâtre
Dupree, and asked the rest of the company if anyone knew where she could get a
room.

She was aware of a couple of the dancers whispering
furiously, as Madame Dupree flung her hands wide. “We have too tiny a house,
and so many people in it already.”

That, Anna knew already from gossip around the theater. The
Duprees had sent all four of their children to convent schools in Belgium,
where there were still convent schools to be found. She was hoping they could
give her advice, but they seemed to know nothing about renting rooms.

No one else had any ideas to offer, or apparently any real
interest. Anna caught glances from the two dancers, specifically from the thin dark-haired
one whose sarcastic comments Anna had already noticed. The dancer stared back
at Anna with a hostile expression, a contrast to the dancer with the pretty
auburn curls, who regarded Anna with ready sympathy.

Anna kept her disappointment to herself. Parrette would
surely find something. She was resourceful. And so Anna turned her mind to
rehearsal.

At the end, she was surprised to discover the auburn-haired
dancer next to her. “The rooms next to ours are free, just yesterday. The Hôtel
Foulon. Don’t tell Lise I told you!”

She flitted away.

Anna was tempted to ignore the advice, but when she reached
Madame’s that night, it was to discover that Parrette had had no luck. “Everything
is so very costly, or far away, or there was some man offering in a way I found
very evil.”

Anna told her what the dancer had said.

“The Foulon? That is near to the Lyri-Comique.” Parrette
pursed her lips. “I admit, it is a perfect location. If dancers stay there,
then it cannot be too costly, for they are worse paid even than singers. I am
only afraid what other costs there might be,” she said with a dire frown.

Whatever those were, they must not have been insurmountable,
Anna discovered the next day, for Parrette said that she had engaged the rooms.
“Rooms! It is no more than a closet with a pimple of a box adjoining. Barely
enough for a bed, not even a bed and a trunk. But the outer room has a window
even if it looks out upon the alley, and while it is right under the roof, that
means it will stink less in summer. We shall do very well.”

A couple of weeks later, patroness and protégé parted amid
tears, Anna genuinely sorry to be losing Madame de Pipelet.

“And I am desolated to be drawn away just as I am to witness
your rising star of fame,” Madame said, kissing Anna.

By then Anna and Parrette had moved their few possessions to
the Hôtel Foulon. Anna soon discovered that the auburn-haired dancer,
Hyacinthe, and the thin, sarcastic Lise, lived on the same landing. Hyacinthe
expressed delight to find Anna close by, but Lise ignored Anna.

Through Hyacinthe, who seemed to be friends with everyone in
the Foulon, Anna discovered the best places to eat cheaply, an affordable
laundry (that Parrette oversaw with formidable care) and many other useful
details about life in Paris for those living perilously on a pittance. Best of
all, how to gain entry to all the theaters to watch, enjoy, and to learn.

Parrette would not say why she distrusted the dancers, but
she slowly unbent toward Hyacinthe, to the extent of offering to repair one of
her two good gowns when they found Hyacinthe early one morning sitting on the
top stair and weeping, the cheap muslin clutched in her hands.

Parrette completely remade the flimsy, badly sewn gown,
going to the trouble of adding bits of ribbon that she had acquired in her
constant bargain hunting.

The result looked so smart that within a week, an actress
who lived on the floor below knocked on the door. When Parrette answered, the
woman said, “Hyacinthe told me that you are the one who turned that old
India-muslin of hers. Will you do that for me?”

Parrette glanced at Anna, who was brushing out her hair.
Then she looked back, straightened her shoulders, and said, “I charge
dressmaker prices.”

The actress shrugged. “You are a better seamstress than
Gertrud,” naming the local seamstress.

By week’s end, six women had come to her for their gowns to
be remade. She began building a tidy little sum.

The beginning of the next week, a brisk knock at the door
revealed Lise. She held out a torn gown of cheap silk. “Can you repair that?”

Anna walked past and started down the long flights of
stairs. She found Lise rude and unpleasant, but she would not interfere in
Parrette’s budding business.

As summer storms gave way to autumn sunshine, Anna continued
to model herself on Josephine Bonaparte, viewed from the distant galleries when
Anna attended the theater.

One morning she went early to Theater Dupree ahead of the
first cool rain of the season. Mornings were when the dancers took the stage
for their own practice. Anna had been watching them during rehearsals. Alone in
her room she tried to copy their graceful airs, the way they tripped so lightly
about the stage, but was frustrated. She felt awkward, and when she set up her
tiny looking glass to lean on her trunk against the wall, and looked into it,
her heart sank at her clownish poses, all elbows and knees.

Lise talked to the other dancers as they turned their laced
hands out and stretched arms and back, apparently ignoring the unwanted
visitor.

Hyacinthe, seeing her standing in the wings, came over, her
wide eyes greenish in the diffuse light. “Anna! You are early. Is there a
rehearsal I did not know about?”

Anna shook her head. “I was hoping I might practice with you
girls, before the men come in.”

At this, Lise halted the pretense of not listening, and
advanced on Anna. Her sharp features flushed; even angry, Lise seemed to float.

“What, do you intend to dance as well as sing, and thus shut
us out of our places? Or are you aiming to dazzle Vestris at the Opera? And a
lot of luck you will have!”