Leading Lady
Jane Aiken Hodge
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
A Note on the Author
Chapter 1
Princess Martha was playing truant. Instead of ordering a carriage for the ten-minute drive down the winding mountain road from Lissenberg’s palace to its opera house, she had slipped quietly out by a side-door of the palace to take the steep footpath across the vineyards. It was good to be out, better still to be alone, away from the unspoken questions that hummed through the palace corridors.
The grapes were dark on the vines now, almost ready for harvest; they had been small green clusters when she and her husband had last come this way, the day before he left for France. But she had come out to forget her troubles. She shrugged them away and reached out to pick a ripe grape from a bunch temptingly close to the path.
‘Hey!’ The angry voice startled but did not alarm her. She turned, smiling, to face the man who had come out from between the vine rows just behind her. He was dressed in the smock and fustian breeches of a fieldworker but his stance and tone suggested a foreman or overseer as he shouted angrily at her in Liss. American herself, she was learning the language of her new country fast, but was still often baffled by the broader versions of the local accent.
But everyone in Lissenberg spoke German. ‘I’m sorry,’ she smiled her friendly smile. ‘But I am your landlord, you know, just sampling the crop.’
‘Landlord?’ A sharp look, not a friendly one. Then: ‘The devil, so you are! Hey, boys!’ He raised his voice. ‘Look who’s here!’ They grew their vines high in Lissenberg and Martha, who had thought the vineyard deserted, now saw her mistake as sun-bronzed workers emerged here and there from among the vines to which they had been giving a late pruning. Some held knives, others small sickles that gleamed in the sun. She fought cold terror as they closed around her on the narrow path. Most of them were naked to the waist, glowing with sweat in the hot sun; she smelled them as they came closer.
‘The Princess herself,’ the overseer went on. ‘Just the person we want to talk to. Right, boys?’ A low growl of assent. They were too close now; she backed up against a small wayside shrine by the path. ‘About our wages, see, highness.’ A note of mockery in the title? ‘When that husband of yours comes back, that surprise, Prince Franz. If he does come back! You tell him we want the same pay as the miners at Brundt he sets such store by. Raised their pay when they asked for it this spring, didn’t he? And you doling out comforts for the women, and not a Lissmark for us.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘Why should you? No affair of yours. A woman! But I’m telling you now, since Prince Franz saw fit to leave you in charge here.’ His tone was sceptical, and a voice chimed in from the crowd: ‘Prince Gustav wouldn’t have, that’s for sure.’ Other voices joined in, disturbingly unintelligible, in Liss. They were working themselves up. To what?
She must not show she was afraid. She held herself very straight, caught and held the overseer’s eye. ‘That’s enough,’ she said. ‘Get your men back to work and I’ll look into your grievances.’
There was a short little horrid silence while she found herself glad for the first time that she was not beautiful. If crowd frenzy won, and they attacked, they would have to kill her. To die, here in the hot sun … Unbelievable … Never see Franz … The long moment extended, the muttering grew, they were pressing closer, then, from the back of the crowd, a new voice: ‘Hey! Here come the women with our lunch!’
The threatening crowd broke up, dissolving among the vines, and Martha turned without another word and walked back up the hill to the palace. Re-entering by the door from which she had emerged with such a cheerful sense of holiday, she was glad to get to her own rooms without meeting anyone. Her maid and ally, Anna, had had leave to spend the night with her mother down in the little town of Lissenberg, and it had been partly with the idea of meeting her on her way back that Martha had started out on what had proved such a dangerous venture. Anna would think nothing of walking up through the vineyards. But Anna was a Lissenberger born and bred. Martha was shaking now as she thought of the danger she had escaped. It had been touch and go, and she knew it.
She knew too that she would tell no one about it, not even Anna. It was sad to think that she would never walk alone again. Not in Lissenberg, the country that had acclaimed her as its princess only a year ago. What had gone wrong? And would she tell Franz when he got back? But then, when would Franz get back? And why had there been no messenger? She was back in the vicious circle of worry she had tried to escape when she set out on her unlucky walk. She would do something about the men’s wages, of course, but she had learned a grim lesson.
She had herself well in hand by the time Anna returned. ‘What news in town?’ Casually.
‘Nothing special. My mother sends her respectful greetings.’ They had first met when Martha had discovered the wretched conditions in which Anna’s mother worked, long before she became Princess of Lissenberg. ‘But what about up here?’ Anna went on eagerly. ‘Has a messenger come from Lake Constance?’ Lissenberg’s only road to the outside world ran past the palace and over a mountain pass to Lake Constance.
‘Nothing. You’d think we were cut off from the world as we are in winter. He must have written, Anna.’
‘Of course he has, highness! Something’s happened to the messenger, that’s all. You know what the roads are like all over Europe after all the years of war there. I sometimes wonder if we Lissenbergers are grateful enough for living at peace as we do. Mother says they are grumbling in Brundt again. It’s hot even in the mines, this weather …’
‘It must be, poor things. But – grumbling, Anna?’ With their pay just raised, she thought.
‘I wish Prince Franz would come home.’
‘Not half as much as I do.’ Her laugh was dangerously close to tears. ‘I miss him so!’
‘Of course you do. And with Lady Cristabel also away. When do they get back, highness, the opera company? They’re being sadly missed in town.’
‘I know.’ It had been to enquire about this that she had started on her unlucky walk. ‘We all miss them sadly.’ Bread and circuses, she thought. Did she dare raise the labourers’ wages while Franz was away? Did she dare not? What was happening in Lissenberg? She moved restlessly to the window to look for the messenger who did not come. ‘I wish the palace wasn’t so far out of town. It’s not good to be out of touch like this.’
‘I suppose Prince Gustav thought it safer.’
‘For a tyrant, yes. But you know my Franz wants to rule as a democratic prince.’ Her voice warmed as she spoke of her husband who had found himself turned, all in one night, from revolutionary leader to reigning prince. Then, suddenly: ‘Look, Anna! Dust on the horizon; there’s a carriage coming. If only it’s Franz!’
‘I do hope it is.’ Anna had been more worried by the state of things in Lissenberg than she had admitted to her friend and mistress. ‘No, it’s the opera company!’ Her eyes saw better than Martha’s which were still blurred with tears.
‘Oh, well, that’s something, I suppose.’ Martha made an effort at cheerfulness. ‘Send a message to the hostel, Anna. Ask Lady Cristabel to come to me just as soon as she can. I long to hear how the tour has gone, and she is bound to have news of the outside world.’<
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‘And of Prince Maximilian in Vienna. I do wonder … I’ll send at once, highness.’
Lady Cristabel arrived even sooner than Martha had hoped, as eager as her friend for the meeting. One long embrace and they drew back a little to look at each other.
‘You look wonderful,’ Martha said. ‘The hot weather always did suit you. And the tour has been a tremendous success, from what I’ve heard. You’ve been sadly lacked here, I can tell you. Oh, Belle, I am so glad to see you. I’ve missed you so much.’ Her friend was more beautiful than ever, she thought, dark ringlets glossy, amazing blue eyes shining, and a glow of happiness over all. She would not spoil it, yet, with her own anxieties.
‘I’ve missed you too.’ Cristabel did not feel she could return Martha’s compliment. ‘You’ve lost weight! It’s elegant, but is it such hard work being Princess of Lissenberg?’
‘It’s not easy. But then, nothing that’s worth while ever is. And you know what a struggle my poor Franz had last winter, trying to make the Lissenbergers accept him as the democratic prince he wants to be. Strange to get rid of a tyrant like Prince Gustav, and then expect tyranny from the democrat who replaced him.’ She could not forget the workmen’s reference to Prince Gustav, deposed prince and attempted murderer.
‘They’re a strange lot the Lissenbergers. Poor Franz! Fancy mounting a democratic rebellion and then finding himself the legitimate prince all the time. It must have been a sad come down for him. But how is he? Worked to death as usual? I long to tell him of the success we have had with his opera. The world is mad for Crusader Prince.’
‘He’s away, I’m afraid. I’m surprised you’ve not heard. He will be sad not to have been here to welcome you, hear all about the tour.’ Before he had become, so surprisingly, Prince of Lissenberg, her husband had been a successful composer of operas, as well as a revolutionary. ‘But, tell me, Belle, did you see Max, when you were in Vienna? And his opera, Daughter of Odin? Is it going to be as brilliant as they say?’
Cristabel made a little face. ‘There is talk of a wild success – that Germanic stuff is all the rage just now. Frankly, not just our kind of music. As to Prince Maximilian, yes indeed we saw him. He’s well. Treading the tightrope between court and musical society with his usual grace, I’ve a letter from him for Franz, and all kinds of messages. Remarkable how well those twin brothers manage to get on after finding each other so late.’
‘Yes,’ Martha agreed. ‘I think it does them both the greatest credit, but specially Max, who had always thought himself the heir to Lissenberg.’
‘He still says he’d much rather write opera. I think he means it, but it’s hard to tell with Max.’
‘I hope Daughter of Odin really is a success!’ Martha was increasingly aware of a tension in Cristabel, under the glowing exterior, surely greater than the occasion warranted. She was glad that she had seen to it that they met first in private. ‘Cristabel, you keep saying “we”?’
‘Yes.’ Cristabel, the prima donna who could hold an audience in the palm of her hand, was blushing now like a schoolgirl. ‘Martha, do, please, be happy for me. I’m married, Martha, like you.’
‘Married?’ For a moment she let herself hope that the old romance with her husband’s twin, Prince Maximilian, had revived in Vienna. ‘Cristabel, who is it?’
‘Who could it be but Desmond?’ Cristabel’s tone belied the confident words.
‘Desmond Fylde?’ Martha could not keep the shock out of her voice. ‘Your Irish tenor?’ What could she say? She had neither liked nor trusted Desmond Fylde when he had played opposite Cristabel in the triumphant performance of Crusader Prince that had ended in revolution in Lissenberg, and her husband on its throne. The man who had then been plain Franz Wengel bad written the opera as part of his planned revolt against Lissenberg’s tyrant, Prince Gustav, only to discover that he himself was twin heir to the principality. Acknowledged by his brother, Prince Maximilian, and acclaimed by the crowds, he had insisted on an open election and won it with ease.
That September of 1804, nearly a year ago, it had all been romance and roses. Franz had married Martha, his American heiress, on a wave of popular enthusiasm, and his brother, Prince Max, had gone off to Vienna, to work on his own opera, Daughter of Odin, at the Burgtheater. Martha had always hoped that one day Max and Cristabel would find their way back into the childhood romance that had been shattered by Napoleon’s intervention. Now she could only look at her friend with a kind of mute horror.
‘My Irish prince.’ Cristabel emphasised the last word. ‘Do, please, rejoice with me, Martha.’ The note of pleading went to Martha’s heart. Could she, already, be having doubts about the ‘Irish prince’ whom Martha’s knowledgeable friend Ishmael Brodski had described as an adventurer from the Dublin slums?
‘What does Lady Helen say?’ Martha went straight to the point. She herself had been Cristabel’s backer and adviser during the years of her training as a singer, before Lissenberg and Crusader Prince had made her a star. She had been (she faced it now) a little anxious when her friend went off on tour with the too handsome tenor playing opposite her, but had counted on Cristabel’s fierce Aunt Helen, sister of the Duke of Sarum, to keep him in line.
‘You haven’t heard?’ Surprised. ‘My father invited her home to England for the christening.’
‘And she went?’ Anger mixed with Martha’s amazement. Lady Helen had been a voluntary partner in her bold and successful plan to make Cristabel into a prima donna. Her presence in the little party had been its guarantee of respectability. ‘How could she?’
‘How could she not? The heir to Sarum, after all these years.’
‘I hope the divorce from your mother was through in time.’ Martha could not help a note of wry amusement. She and Cristabel had discovered the mother everyone had thought dead, very much alive, in scandalous luxury at Venice. ‘Have you written to your mother about your marriage?’
‘No … not yet. It all happened so suddenly. Just the other day. Oh, Martha, it was the most romantic thing!’
‘Tell me about it.’ More and more, unhappily, she was aware of an insecurity in Cristabel. ‘More romantic than my marriage?’ She had been summoned up on to the stage of Lissenberg’s opera house by its enthusiastic citizens to plight her troth, in public, to the man she had just learned was its prince.
‘It was the day after Aunt Helen left.’ Cristabel plunged into her story. ‘The news came when we were at Salzburg. Such a romantic place – and a delightful audience! They had been starved of opera under the prince bishops. They went wild over Crusader Prince. Well, it’s been a succés de scandale everywhere, of course. It’s not every opera that starts a revolution.’
‘And it’s a good opera,’ said Martha, whose husband had written it.
‘Of course it is! Will he ever have time to write another, I wonder, your Prince Franz?’
It was something Martha wondered too. ‘So – Lady Helen heard from the Duke,’ she prompted.
‘Yes. Pleased as punch; announcing an heir at last and asking her to stand godmother, along with Queen Charlotte. Well, Martha, you can see …’
‘I can indeed.’ Martha liked and respected Lady Helen, but, being American, had always been aware that she did not understand the English aristocracy. How odd, now, to find herself trying to pass as a princess. ‘So, she left you? Just like that?’
‘What else could she do? My father’s letter had been delayed. There was no time to lose. The only thing was to hurry back to Vienna, decide there whether to take the northern route, or go south and home by sea. It’s going to be a terrible journey either way, I’m afraid, with France and so much of Italy closed to the British.’
‘And Bonaparte up at Boulogne, inspecting his invasion fleet,’ said Martha.
‘You must call him the Emperor Napoleon now.’
‘Must I? And King of Italy? I wonder what your mother and Count Tafur think about that.’ She came to one of her sudden decisions. ‘Of course! I will invite the
m to come and pay us a visit, before winter cuts us off, here in Lissenberg. And I’ll give them your news at the same time, shall I, Belle? But, first, tell me all about this romantic event.’
‘It was after we left Salzburg, on our way to Munich. It was so strange without Aunt Helen. And you, Martha! It was always the three of us before. I hadn’t thought I’d miss her so. Mr Fylde – Desmond very kindly offered to keep me company in my carriage.’ She was blushing again, the vivid colour enhancing her brilliant looks. ‘He said we had never had a chance to talk. It was true, you know, Aunt Helen was always there. Oh, Martha, when we were alone he said such things … How he worshipped me, adored me … His sun rises and sets in me … And then – we hadn’t noticed, but our carriage had fallen behind the others – suddenly there was a crash, the coach rolled over. He saved me from harm, Martha, at the risk of his own life. We’d lost a wheel, crossing a tributary of the Salzach … No one in sight … We had to spend the night in a little hovel of an inn. He was so good to me, Martha, treated me like a princess. Not a word, not a look out of line.’
‘And in the morning?’ Martha kept her tone rigorously neutral.
‘Such an unlucky chance … Well, not really, since the outcome is so happy. The carriage had been repaired overnight, but it could not come up to the inn, the lane was too narrow, so we walked down, Desmond and I, and found it waiting, ready for us. But with another carriage beside it. Would you believe it? They were friends of Desmond’s, singers in another troupe, bound the other way, for Vienna. They had recognised the carriage and stopped to see if they could be of any help. And there we were, the two of us, coming down from our inn, for all the world like Darby and Joan. The road was rough, Desmond had my arm, and I am sure I looked absolutely nohow when I saw them, standing there by the carriage. Desmond didn’t lose his head for a minute. He pressed my arm, no time to say anything, greeted them with enthusiasm. And introduced me as his wife. No explanations, nothing, just the announcement. And then, of course, it was all kissing and congratulating, and I had a little time to recover myself. It was over in a few moments, none of us had any time to lose. Then, we were back in the carriage, Desmond holding my hand, apologising, asking me to forgive him. But what else could he have done? It was only anticipating a little, he said. When the accident happened he had been about to beg me to marry him in Munich, quietly, to avoid all the fuss and botheration it would mean if we waited until we got back here. He had a friend there, a Protestant minister, who would tie the knot. Now, he thought we had no alternative.’
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