Prima Donna: A Novel

by Megan Chance

  The urge to run was almost unconquerable. I leaped through the possibilities for escape: how to get out of the church unseen, how far I could run before he caught me. Yet through it all was the knowledge that I would do none of those things. Because with my panic came relief, relief that it had happened at last, that the waiting I hadn't realized I was doing was over.

  The song ended; we sat again, my view once more obscured by Miss Wright's head, for which I was thankful. I did not think I could resist the urge to look at him again, to see, to be certain, though I was already.

  When next we rose, I did not think I could make a sound. But when I cast a quick glance, I saw he was no longer there--and that increased my panic. Where had he gone? Had I simply imagined him? I lost my place twice in the music; what peace I'd taken from it had completely disappeared, and I was trembling and bathed in sweat. I wanted nothing so much as to tear the robe off and run outside into the freezing air. It was all I could do to keep singing, to make it through the rest of the service, which seemed to last forever.

  When it was finally over, I was hardly aware of leaving the nave. Suddenly I was in the vestibule, buffeted by the others as they removed their robes and hung them on the hooks. It took me a moment to think of where I was and what I was supposed to be doing, and with clumsy hands I took off my own robe. Robert Marsdon was at my side, saying, "A word, Miss Olson?" and I nodded absently, going with him because I could not make my own thoughts coalesce, and he gave me something to concentrate on, something to follow. He led me to the door that opened onto a small side porch. I slunk back into the shadow of the narrow roof overhang, crossing my arms, trying to look interested when my mind was reeling in a hundred different directions, trying to think something other than Where was he? Why didn't he show himself again?

  "I'm sorry to have to involve you in this, Miss Olson, but I see no other alternative."

  Marsdon's nervousness caught my attention, the dismay in his voice. For a moment, my apprehensions quieted in sudden interest, another dread. "Involve me in what?"

  He stepped closer, as if afraid we would be overheard, though the narrow yard between here and the privy was empty. In the back, the canvas that sheltered the part of the church being expanded for the pipe organ flapped in the breeze. I could hear voices fluttering from the front, good-byes, the laughter of children running through the yard, the jangle of reins and squeak of carriage wheels.

  "I am in despair," Marsdon said quietly. "I would not ask you this, but I think you know her heart best."

  My dread eased. This wasn't about me at all. Of course it wasn't. I'd known that. But in remembering it, I grew impatient. I was no longer interested. I did not want to listen to this, not now.

  As if he sensed my distraction, he took my arm, whispering ardently, "Miss Olson--Marguerite--you know how I feel. Could you be my advocate? Could you help me?"

  "I--"

  There was a sound, a footstep, the smell of tobacco smoke. I turned to see just as he came around the corner. My heart beat wildly; I lost all coherent thought.

  He looked up--how blue his eyes still were--and drew on the cigarette he was smoking. I saw him look to me, to Marsdon, to the hand Marsdon still had on my arm.

  "Excuse me," he said, all politeness, though there was irony below it. "I was looking for Miss Olson. I didn't mean to intrude."

  The shock of his voice startled me. I had never thought to hear it again, though it had never left my dreams, or my nightmares. I pulled away from Marsdon, who stiffened and stepped back, as if he too realized how compromised we were.

  "It's no intrusion," Marsdon said, obviously embarrassed. He frowned and looked to me in question.

  Faintly, I said, "Dr. Marsdon, I'd like you to meet ... Gideon Price. Mr. Price, this is Robert Marsdon."

  Marsdon offered his hand. "Pleased."

  Gideon smiled wryly as he shook it. "Likewise."

  Robert Marsdon glanced at me. "Well, I won't delay you. I'll see you inside at practice, Miss Olson." He opened the door to the church before I could stop him or say a word, disappearing inside. The door closed again with a thud.

  Gideon exhaled; tobacco smoke stung my nose. I shivered and hugged myself close. In the church he'd been too far away to see well, but I saw him now: his hair dull, his eyes red-rimmed, as if he'd had little sleep. Though he'd always been thin, now he was frighteningly so, almost skeletal, his high cheekbones and elegantly planed face sharp beneath his skin, which was too pale.

  But he was still beautiful. Despite everything, the urge to touch him came over me like a terrible fever, and on the heels of that came fear and anger. The combination lashed through me like a monster, dizzying.

  He stepped onto the stair. "Marguerite. Is that what they call you now? Not what I would have chosen for you, but ... I wonder, what does that make me? Faust? Or Mephistopheles?"

  "They said it was to be five years."

  He dragged on the cigarette and blew out the smoke in a cloud. "Is there somewhere private we can talk?"

  "I have to be at practice in a few moments."

  He lifted a heavy dark brow. "Practice? What for? Even in this godforsaken place they must realize you could sing rings around them on your worst day."

  I swallowed. "I have an obligation."

  "Do you meet all your obligations, then? What about the one you have to me?"

  That arrested me--that I had one was undeniable, though I wished I could protest it. I hesitated only a moment before I gestured to the canvas-walled space at the back. "There. Will that do?"

  He glanced to it and took a final drag on his cigarette, throwing it into the trampled mud at the base of the steps, grinding it out with his boot. He stepped back to let me go before him, and I did, my emotions in such turmoil I could gain no real hold on them. I dodged through the canvas flap. The wall of the church was only partially torn down, and planks had been nailed temporarily over the hole the builders had made. I stood near it, waiting while he came inside, and then the space seemed too small--how could it contain us both, as separate as we were now?

  He said, "Is Marsdon your lover?"

  The question was so absurd and unexpected that I gaped at him. "Robert? Dear God, no."

  "Someone else then?"

  "Why should it matter to you?"

  "So there is one."

  I shook my head, rattled, uncertain.

  Again, that wry smile. "Liar."

  "Why do you ask, if you choose not to believe me?"

  He made a derisive sound. "Because I can't help myself. Why else? These last four years, I've tortured myself with thoughts of you. How can I stop now?"

  "Please ... don't," I said.

  "Don't what? Don't say the truth? Wasn't that the problem, Bina? That we never said the truth to each other?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  The look he gave me seemed to strip me bare. "The hell you don't."

  "Have you come only to berate me? Is that why you're here?"

  "No." His gaze swept my scar. The past hovered palpably. Quietly, he said, "Did he do that to you?"

  I could only nod.

  He cursed beneath his breath, reaching into an inside pocket of his coat, pulling out a small leather pouch. He opened it; I watched him roll another cigarette with fingers that seemed to be trembling slightly. But the light was dim; I might have been imagining it. When he was finished, he put it in his mouth and took out a match. He stuffed the leather pouch away and struck the match on the heel of his boot.

  "You're smoking," I said unnecessarily.

  He lit the cigarette and picked a loose bit of tobacco from his lip, flicking it away. "What of it?"

  "You never did before. What about your voice?"

  He laughed shortly. "When was the last time I sang?"

  We both went quiet. It was strange and awkward, especially as there seemed to be so much to say. Perhaps that was the problem--there was too much. The smoke he exhaled filled the space between us. He was standing clos
e, closer than I wanted, but it seemed an expanse. I wished he would go, but the thought that he might go ... that frightened me too.

  He said, "You didn't really think I wouldn't come after you."

  "There was to be another year."

  "I was paroled. Mostly it was because they discovered I could play the piano. They had me play in the chapel on Sundays. Thank God for that, and for Willa's visits. Otherwise the silence would have done me in."

  The sound of my sister's name stunned me. "Willa?"

  "She was at the trial. She wrote to me at Sing Sing."

  "She's still in love with you," I said--and despite myself, I heard the bitterness in my voice.

  I saw he heard it too, but he only said, "She helped me find you."

  I laughed. "How did you convince her to do that? I can't imagine she wanted me found."

  "She knew I wanted it."

  "Of course. So she did it for you. How sweet."

  "Do her reasons matter? I couldn't hire the Pinkertons from prison myself, so she did. I told her what they should look for."

  "Which was what?"

  "I didn't think you'd be able to give up singing. I kept waiting for you to emerge. In Chicago, or New Orleans. Even Denver. When you didn't ... it occurred to me that maybe you couldn't sing, that you'd been hurt too badly"--he exhaled almost violently--"or that you were afraid. After that ... I knew the things you'd taken with you. It was just a matter of looking for them."

  "The jewels I sold," I said.

  He nodded. His smile was small. "You left a solid trail until Cheyenne. After that it stopped."

  "That was where I sold ... the last piece." I didn't say what that was; if he'd found it, he already knew.

  "The Pinkerton agent thought you'd gone to San Francisco."

  "No," I said tightly. "Not there."

  "I've been here two weeks looking for you. Four days ago I saw you at the Palace. I've been following you since."

  I tried not to show how shaken I was that he'd seen me there, that I had not noted him. "How did you know to come to Seattle?"

  "The agent had a friend in San Francisco. Some theater owner--no one I knew. He'd received a letter from a man here asking questions about a woman who'd shown up in Seattle four years ago. One thing led to another, and ... well, I thought that woman might be you. The moment I got out, I came here."

  A theater owner in San Francisco. A letter from Seattle asking questions. I cursed beneath my breath.

  He looked at me sharply. "Who was asking questions?"

  I met his sharpness with my own. "What do you want of me, Gideon?"

  He hesitated. Then he said, "Vanderbilt's grown tired of waiting for them to give him a box at the Academy. He's building a new opera house. The Metropolitan. They're going to need singers to fill it. They're going to need you."

  "Me? Are you mad? Look at me. They'd never have me. The scandal--"

  "The scandal will only make you more popular than ever. They won't be able to resist coming to see you. The great Sabine Conrad, who's been in hiding all this time after her manager murdered a French impresario.... How sordid it all was. They'll line up in droves."

  The thought startled me. I had thought my career on the stage gone forever. To think that it was not ... "But the scar--"

  "The scar only makes it more fascinating. They'll fall over themselves speculating. It will make you irresistible. We can make the most of it, Bina. Even my time in prison will help. Together we're notorious, and notoriety fills the world's biggest stages. The scandal will bring them back. Your voice will keep them there. It'll take a few months of practice to break you of your choir habits"--this said with a sneer--"but after that, you can be what you were before. More than that. You can have the world."

  "You already promised me that."

  "And I gave it to you, didn't I?"

  "Not Europe."

  He went still. He threw his cigarette into a puddle made by a leak in the canvas. "Things have changed. We don't need anyone to get us there. I can do it myself."

  "If I say yes."

  He met my gaze. "Can you say no?"

  I had thought it all gone. I had never expected it to be a possibility, not ever again. I had meant to live without it. But now that he'd told me I could have my life back, I was stunned at the yearning that surged through me. The stage. The footlights. The audience. My voice, mine alone.

  Dear God, how I wanted it.

  But then I looked at Gideon and I remembered. The things I'd done ... I could not live with who I'd become, who he'd made me, and now that I'd seen him again, I knew nothing had changed between us. I was more afraid of him than ever. I'd run three thousand miles to put it all behind me. I wanted to keep it there. I had a new life now.

  "I can't go back," I whispered.

  "You can't." He repeated the words as if he didn't understand them.

  "I won't."

  He frowned. "What?"

  "I don't want to go back to that life. I'm ... happy here."

  Now he looked as if I'd struck him. "You're happy? You're singing in a church choir! You haven't done that since you were sixteen. You're working in a boxhouse. Christ, have you looked around you? This miserable town ... you'd trade everything for this? Sabine ... you could have it all back. You could have everything."

  "I've changed," I said weakly. "I don't want those things anymore. You should go back to New York. I'm sure ... Willa ... would help you find your feet again. There must be other singers. Perhaps Herr Wirt has some other little girl in his choir--"

  "Don't be stupid."

  "Leave me alone. Go away. Go ... back. I'm sorry for what happened. I am. I didn't mean for you to ... I didn't mean for any of it."

  His expression went grim. "Didn't you?"

  "No. I--" I struggled to remember, to think. I was miserable with my refusal, desperate to keep to it. His presence overwhelmed me. "I was frightened. I didn't know what to do--"

  "You thought I deserved it. At least be honest with me about that."

  "No, I ... yes, I did. I did. I was glad when they arrested you. I was happy when they put you in prison. It kept you away from me. Is that what you want to hear? Now will you leave me alone?"

  He was quiet. Outside, the wind came up, snapping the canvas walls around us. I heard the scatter of drops across the top, and I looked up involuntarily and was caught by his eyes.

  "I'm not leaving without you," he said.

  "Then you'll be in Seattle a long time."

  "I think I can bear it."

  "Marguerite!"

  We both started at the sound of Charlotte's voice as she called from the yard beyond. "Marguerite! Where are you? They're waiting for you!"

  "I have to go." I started to move past him.

  He caught my arm. His touch was charged. I froze.

  He said, "I'm at the New Brunswick Hotel."

  The irony of that was too much. The old Squire's Opera House. I laughed--a short, raw expulsion of breath. "Of course you are."

  "Meet me there tonight."

  "Marguerite!" Charlotte's voice was coming closer.

  "I can't. I have to work."

  "Then tomorrow morning."

  "No."

  "If you don't show up, I'll come looking for you," he said, his voice smooth and unperturbed, the threat he intended unmistakable. "Is that what you want? Perhaps I'll find whoever was asking questions--"

  "Marguerite!"

  "You owe me," he said. "Don't forget."

  As if I could. As if I could forget any of the obligation or the guilt that had haunted me since I'd left him. As if his not being here had made his presence any less felt or real.

  I nodded reluctantly. "Very well. Tomorrow morning."

  He released me and stepped back. I said nothing else; I fled the canvas shelter, leaving him behind, hurrying into the yard, where Charlotte was just turning the corner.

  She stopped short. "Where were you? Robert said he'd left you with some man, and I was afraid...."<
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  "Don't worry," I said, going up to her, taking her arm, leading her away from the canvas, back toward the church door, trying to reassure her. "I just needed a bit of air."

  She frowned. "You all right?"

  "I'm fine."

  She stared into my face as if she could read the truth there, and I worked to keep my expression even. I saw the moment she believed me. She nodded shortly and turned back to the church.