The Storm Sister

by Lucinda Riley

Before she could protest further, he pressed the piece of paper into Anna’s hand, then scurried off down the corridor. She stood behind one of the scenery flats, well hidden from view, listening as the orchestra tuned up for the second act. Glancing down into the pit, she saw Jens Halvorsen take his place and unpack his flute from its case. As she peered forward cautiously, he looked up and, for a fleeting moment, their eyes met. The emotion in his expression was one of such disappointment, it unnerved her. Darting back behind the flats, Anna retraced her footsteps to the dressing room in a daze, passing Madame Hansson as she did so. The familiar cloud of French perfume pervaded the corridor as the actress swept along it. The woman barely acknowledged her and as Anna remembered the gossip she had heard about her secret lover, she hardened her heart. Jens Halvorsen was nothing but a cad, a charming ladies’ man who would no doubt lead her to ruin. Entering the dressing room, she promised to play a game of cards with the children during the next interval, knowing she must keep herself occupied.

  That night, upon her arrival at the apartment, she went immediately to the deserted drawing room. And with huge self-control, drew out the letter from her skirt pocket and threw it unopened into the flames of the stove.

  Rude continued to bring her a new letter from Jens Halvorsen each night for the following two weeks, but Anna burnt them all the moment she arrived home. And tonight, her resolve had been strengthened further after she and everyone else along the backstage corridor had heard a loud wail echo through it, accompanied by the sound of glass being broken. The cast were all aware that these noises originated from Madame Hansson’s dressing room.

  ‘What was all that about?’ she asked Rude.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ he replied stubbornly, folding his arms.

  ‘Of course you can, you tell me everything else. I’ll pay you,’ she offered.

  ‘Not even for money would I tell you. It would only give you the wrong impression.’

  ‘Of what?’

  Rude shook his head and walked away. Subsequently, as the gossip began to circulate freely during the performance, one of the chorus girls told her that Madame Hansson had discovered that Jens Halvorsen had been seen with Jorid, another girl in the chorus, a fortnight ago. As she’d already heard the story, it didn’t come as a surprise to Anna, but it seemed that Madame Hansson was the only one in the building who hadn’t known.

  Arriving at the theatre for the first performance of the following week, Anna saw a huge bouquet of red roses resting on the counter of the booth beside the stage door. Walking past them on her way to the dressing room, she heard Halbert, the doorman, call out to her.

  ‘Frøken Landvik?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘These flowers are for you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you. Take them, please, they are cluttering up my booth.’

  Blushing as red as the roses, she turned and retraced her footsteps back towards him.

  ‘Well, Frøken Landvik, it seems you have an admirer. I wonder who that could be?’ Halbert raised a disapproving eyebrow as Anna collected the enormous bouquet, unable to meet his gaze.

  ‘Well!’ she said to herself as she walked along the passage and headed straight for the freezing and smelly latrines that were shared by the women in the company. ‘The cheek of it! Especially with Madame Hansson and Jorid Skrovset both in the building. He’s playing with me,’ she muttered to herself angrily as she slammed the door and locked herself in. ‘Now Madame Hansson’s discovered his behaviour, he thinks he can turn the simple peasant girl’s head with a few blooms.’

  She read the small card that was attached to the flowers.

  I am not as you imagine me to be. I beg you to give me a chance.

  ‘Ha!’ Anna tore the card into the tiniest pieces and sluiced them away down the latrine. There would be endless enquiries about the flowers in the dressing room and she wished to rid herself of any evidence of their provenance.

  ‘Goodness, Anna!’ said one of the mothers, as she entered the dressing room. ‘Now, aren’t they just beautiful?’

  ‘Who are they from?’ asked another.

  The entire room went silent as they waited for her reply.

  ‘Well, of course’ – Anna swallowed after a pause – ‘they are from Lars, my young man in Heddal.’

  A chorus of oohs and ahhs echoed around the room.

  ‘Is it a special occasion? It must be, to spend so much money on those?’ said another mother.

  ‘It’s . . . my birthday,’ Anna lied desperately.

  At that, there was a chorus of ‘Your birthday?’ and ‘Why didn’t you tell us!’

  For the rest of the evening, Anna went through the motions of being congratulated, hugged and given hurriedly put together tokens of everyone’s affection, all the while ignoring the knowing smile on Rude’s face.

  ‘Now, Anna, as you know, the run of Peer Gynt is about to come to an end. I will be organising a summer soirée here at the apartment in June, to which I will invite the great and the good of Christiania to come and hear you sing. Finally, we will set to work and begin to launch your career. And the beauty is that the “ghost voice” will at last be able to reveal itself!’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Herr Bayer.’

  ‘Anna.’ He paused with a frown as he studied her expression. ‘You seem uncertain.’

  ‘I am just tired. But I am very grateful for your attention.’

  ‘I understand that the last few months have been somewhat difficult for you, Anna, but rest assured, many musical acquaintances of mine are privately aware to whom Solveig’s beautiful voice really belongs. Now, take a rest, Anna, you really do look quite pale.’

  ‘Yes, Herr Bayer.’

  As Franz Bayer watched Anna leave the room, he understood her frustration, but what else could he have done? Her anonymity had been a part of the deal agreed with Ludvig Josephson and Johan Hennum. But now that was almost over and the arrangement had served its purpose. The lure of meeting the owner of the mysterious voice who had sung Solveig so exquisitely would be enough to bring all the influential members of Christiania’s musical community here to his apartment for the soirée. He had big plans for young Anna Landvik.

  20

  Jens was feeling particularly low as he awoke at home a week after the run of Peer Gynt had come to an end. And although Hennum had promised him a permanent place in the orchestra for the visiting opera and ballet companies that required one, there was no more work to be had for a month until the new season started. On top of this, having attended a maximum of half a dozen lectures since the start of Peer Gynt, Jens was completely unprepared for his final examinations at the university. He knew without a doubt that he’d fail his degree.

  Last week, before the penultimate performance, he had plucked up the courage to show Hennum the compositions he’d spent hours writing down when he should have been studying. After he’d played them, the conductor had pronounced them ‘derivative’, but good for a beginner.

  ‘May I suggest, young man, that you go away and study at music school. You have talent as a composer, but you must learn how to “hear” the tune you have written as it will be played by each instrument. For example, does this piece’ – Hennum indicated the music – ‘open with a full orchestra? Or maybe . . .’ He played the first four bars on the piano, which even to Jens’ biased ears sounded like an homage to Herr Grieg’s ‘Morning Mood’. ‘Or perhaps a flute?’ Herr Hennum gave him an ironic smile and Jens had the grace to blush.

  ‘I see, sir, yes.’

  ‘Then, when we come to the second passage, would this be played by the violins? Or perhaps a cello or a viola?’ Hennum handed the sheet music back to Jens and patted him on the shoulder. ‘My advice to you, if you are serious about wishing to follow in the footsteps of Herr Grieg and his eminent composer friends, is that you go and learn how to do this properly, both in your head and on paper.’

  ‘But I can’t do it here, for there is no one in Christiania to teach me,’ Je
ns said.

  ‘No. Therefore you must go abroad, as all our great Scandinavian musicians and composers have done. Perhaps to Leipzig, just as Herr Grieg did.’

  Jens had walked away, cursing his naivety. And knowing that, if his father carried out his threat to cut him off if he chose to follow a musical path, there would be no money forthcoming to fund any attendance at a music school. He’d also begun to realise that his natural musical talent had seen him through so far, but now, this was no longer enough. He had to learn the proper techniques if he wished to become a composer. He had to work at it.

  As Jens entered the stage door, he castigated himself for the healthy allowance he’d frittered away over the past three years. If he hadn’t spent it on women and alcohol, he could have saved it for his future. Now, he thought miserably, it was almost certainly too late. He’d blown his chances and had no one to blame but himself.

  Despite his determination not to fall back into his old ways once Peer Gynt was over, Jens had a splitting headache. Last night, in desperation, he’d taken himself off to Engebret to drown his sorrows with any musician he knew who happened to be there.

  The house was silent, which told him it was mid-morning and his father had already left for the brewery, while his mother had no doubt departed to take coffee with one of her acquaintances. Ringing the bell for Dora – he needed coffee urgently – he waited for her to arrive. Which she did, after a pointed interval. Following her knock, he bade her enter and she came in sullenly and set the tray down on his bed with an unnecessary clatter.

  ‘What time is it?’ Jens asked.

  ‘A half hour after eleven, sir. Is there anything else?’

  He looked at her, knowing she was sulking because he’d given her so little attention recently. Debating whether he should expend the effort on placating her, just to make his life in the household easier, he sipped his coffee, thought of Anna, and decided he could not.

  ‘No thank you, Dora.’

  Averting his eyes from her stricken face, he picked up the newspaper from the tray and pretended to read it until the maid had left the room. When she had gone, Jens put it down and sighed heavily. He was thoroughly ashamed of himself for getting drunk the night before, but he’d felt so low and directionless that he’d simply wanted to forget. And Anna Landvik hadn’t helped his mood either.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ Simen had asked him last night. ‘Women trouble, no doubt?’

  ‘It’s the girl who sang Solveig. I can’t stop thinking about her. Simen, I truly believe I’m in love for the first time.’

  At this, Simen had thrown back his head and laughed. ‘Jens, can you not see the truth?’

  ‘No! Why is this funny?’

  ‘She is the only girl who has refused you! And that is why you believe you are “in love” with her! Yes, perhaps you are entranced by the idyll of her pure country ways, but surely you can see that in reality she would be completely unsuitable for an educated city boy like yourself?’

  ‘You are wrong! Whether she is an aristocrat or a peasant, I would love her. Her voice, it is . . . the most exquisite sound I have ever heard. And she has the face of an angel too.’

  Simen had glanced down at Jens’ empty glass. ‘And that is the aquavit talking. Trust me, my friend, you are merely suffering from your first experience of rejection, not love.’

  As Jens sipped his lukewarm coffee, he wondered whether Simen had had a point. Yet, the memory of her face, and her heavenly voice, still haunted his dreams. And at present, with all the other dilemmas he was facing, he wished to God that he’d never set eyes on Anna Landvik. Or heard her sing.

  ‘The soirée will be held on the fifteenth of June, the date of Herr Grieg’s birthday,’ Herr Bayer said to Anna when they met in the drawing room a few days after the last night of Peer Gynt. ‘I will send him an invitation to meet his very first “Solveig”, but I believe he is abroad. We will arrange a programme that encompasses some of his folk songs and, of course, those from Peer Gynt. Then “Violetta’s Aria”, from La Traviata, then a hymn – perhaps “Leid, Milde Ljos”. I wish for everyone to hear your wonderful range.’

  ‘Will I still be able to return home to Heddal for my brother’s wedding?’ Anna asked him, thinking that if she did not breathe some fresh country air soon, she might well suffocate.

  ‘Of course, my dear. You can leave for Heddal soon after the soirée and spend the summer there. Now, we begin in earnest tomorrow. We have one month to make you and your voice perfect.’

  To prepare her for this task, Herr Bayer had lined up a number of tutors he thought appropriate to provide expert guidance on the songs she would sing. Günther returned to concentrate on the operatic arias, a choirmaster from the cathedral arrived with his bitten nails and shiny balding head to share his expertise on the hymn and Herr Bayer himself spent an hour a day coaching her on her vocal technique. A dressmaker arrived to take measurements and provide her with a wardrobe of beautiful clothes fit for a budding young star. And best of all, to Anna’s delight, Herr Bayer began to take her out of the apartment to concerts and recitals.

  On one such evening, before a visit to the Christiania Theatre for the first night of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia by a visiting Italian opera company, Anna walked into the drawing room in one of her exquisite new evening gowns, fashioned from midnight-blue silk.

  ‘My dear young lady,’ said Herr Bayer, rising as Anna entered and clapping his hands together, ‘you look positively radiant tonight. That colour becomes you very well. Now, allow me to enhance it a little further.’

  He presented her with a leather box, inside which lay a sapphire necklace and matching drop earrings. The gleaming, multi-faceted stones were suspended by intricate gold filigree work, the mark of a master craftsman. Anna stared at the jewellery, hardly knowing what to say.

  ‘Herr Bayer . . .’

  ‘They were my wife’s. And I would like you to wear them this evening. May I help fasten the necklace for you?’

  Anna could hardly refuse, as he was already taking the necklace out of its box. She could feel the touch of his fingers on her neck as he fastened it.

  ‘They suit you well,’ he declared in satisfaction, standing close enough so she could smell his stale breath. ‘Now, let us sally forth and present ourselves at the Christiania Theatre.’

  Throughout the following month, Anna did her best to concentrate on her musical studies and enjoy her sojourns in Christiania. She wrote to Lars regularly and said her prayers fervently at night. However, thoughts of Jens Halvorsen the Bad, as she had named him, hoping it might help teach her treacherous heart a lesson, continued to arrive like clockwork in her head. Anna only wished she could speak to a friend about the affliction. Surely there must be a medicine to stop it?

  ‘Dear Lord,’ she sighed one night, rising from her prayers, ‘I believe I am very, very sick.’

  As the fifteenth of June approached, Anna could see that Herr Bayer was in a state of high excitement.

  ‘Now, my dear,’ he announced on the day of the soirée, ‘I have engaged a violin player and a cellist to accompany you. With myself on the piano, of course. They will both be here this morning to practise with us. Then this afternoon, you will take a rest in preparation for your big night.’

  At eleven o’clock the doorbell rang, and Anna, who was waiting in the drawing room, heard Frøken Olsdatter open the door to greet the musicians. She stood up as they walked into the room with Herr Bayer.

  ‘May I present Herr Isaksen, the cellist, and Herr Halvorsen, the violinist,’ he announced. ‘They both came highly recommended by my friend Herr Hennum.’

  Anna experienced another wave of dizziness as Jens Halvorsen the Bad strode across the room to greet her.

  ‘Frøken Landvik, I am indeed honoured to be part of your soirée tonight.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she managed, seeing the amusement dancing in his eyes. As her heart continued to bang against her rib-cage, she herself found nothing remotely
funny about the situation.

  ‘So, we will start with the Verdi,’ Herr Bayer suggested as the two musicians gathered close to him at the piano. ‘Anna, are you paying attention?’

  ‘Yes, Herr Bayer.’

  ‘Then we begin.’

  Anna knew she did not give of her best during the rehearsal and could sense Herr Bayer’s irritation as she forgot all she had been taught and even became breathless at the end of the vibrato notes. And it was all Jens Halvorsen the Bad’s doing, she thought furiously.

  ‘That will have to suffice for now, gentlemen. Let us hope we are all more in harmony tonight. You are to be here punctually at six thirty for the start of the soirée at seven.’

  Jens and his companion nodded politely, then bowed briefly to Anna. As he left the room, Jens’ hazel eyes shot a meaningful parting glance in her direction.

  ‘Anna, what is wrong with you?’ Herr Bayer asked her. ‘Surely it cannot be the accompaniment putting you off. You became perfectly used to singing with a full orchestra during Peer Gynt.’

  ‘Forgive me, Herr Bayer, I have a slight headache.’

  ‘And I think you are having a very understandable attack of nerves, my dear young lady.’ His face softened and he patted her on the shoulder. ‘You will eat a light lunch, then take a rest. And before the performance this evening, we will drink a small glass of wine together to calm your nerves. I have no doubt that tonight will be a huge success, and by tomorrow you will be the toast of Christiania.’

  At five o’clock that evening, Frøken Olsdatter arrived in Anna’s bedroom with a cup of water and the ubiquitous honey.

  ‘I’ve filled a bath for you, my dear. While you take that, I’ll lay out your clothes for tonight. Herr Bayer would like you to wear your midnight-blue gown and his wife’s sapphires. He also suggests you wear your hair up. I will help you to dress it when you return.’