Dead, Mr Mozart

by Bernard Bastable

  The House had hardly changed since the days when the Lodge met there. It is even more splendid than Hertford House, as Whig aristocrats do seem to have the edge over Tory ones in the matter of wealth. Hertford House is splendid in a chilly kind of way, but at Egremere House you know that everything is quite simply the best of its kind, or was when it was acquired, and thus it has the unity of superb taste of various ages. It was clear from the carriages outside and the personages gathering on the pavement that this was to be an assembly of the notables of both political parties, and as we went up the superb marble staircase it was obvious that many of the noble guests were seeing the house for the first time. I heard the Duke of Wellington opine that it was a ‘damned fine house’, and say it was a pity that Egremere was ‘not one of us’.

  As we assembled in the magnificent first floor galleries and rooms and made somewhat nervous talk over wonderful champagne (I’m sure it was wonderful, but I don’t like the drink – my stomach makes extraordinarily unmusical noises after only a few sips, and my bowels are loosened for days), it became clear that everyone had arrived early so that the stage could be set for the Coming of Prinny. One who was clearly anticipating his coming somewhat nervously was Therese Hubermann-Cortino, the only other musician I could see at the party, who was to perform later.

  ‘You will see, he will come with Lady Conyngham,’ she whispered. ‘Lord Egremere would be well advised to lock up his silver, but I suppose that is hardly practicable.’

  I thought she looked discontented, and therefore less divine than usual. She was born to play not fire-spitting heroines such as Monsieur Cherubini’s Medea but noble, yearning, wronged figures such as my Countess. Her forbidding bean-pole of a spouse was swapping tedious military yarns with the Victor of Waterloo a few feet away from us, so I felt that if social success was her ambition she had achieved it in full measure. By gently probing I elicited the cause of her discontent.

  ‘I am here as a performer,’ she said, with a little moue. ‘Later on I am to cast my pearls before these swine. I should be here as a guest.’

  I was not inclined to dispute her description of the other guests, but I did wonder why she thought it preferable to be one of the swine rather than an entertainer of swine. It has always been a wonder to me that people who wish to rise in aristocratic circles often express the utmost contempt for the people already in those circles. But I was prevented from saying anything because a hush slowly settled on the magnificent assembly.

  Prinny had arrived.

  The hush lasted a great while. I imagined Prinny heaving his Leviathantine bulk up that splendid staircase step by step, becoming redder and redder with the effort, and finally having to rest his once-beautiful but now inadequate legs at the top. But finally he made his entrance, Lord Egremere at his side. He was a sight to behold, ineffably condescending, dispensing graciousness and bonhomie in a somewhat generalised way to all around him. I watched him, marvelling at his technique: how he took care to exchange words with both Whigs and Tories, brought them together by a gesture, flattered their women-folk. I wondered if the matter of his talk was as well-judged as the manner: after all, if he ever took notice of me it was morally certain that he would want to talk about Rossini.

  Lord Hertford, as Lord Chamberlain, came in behind the King and remained close to him, as did his equine lady, harnessed in more diamonds than it had ever been my privilege to see on a single neck. If conspicuous display is vulgar, then Lady Hertford was a noble fish-wife. Also staying close to the King was a stout, puffy-faced woman with tiny eyes and an assertive manner who I knew to be Lady Conyngham. Between her and Lady Hertford there was a frosty politeness that you could have chilled the champagne with.

  ‘Look at that greedy cow,’ whispered Therese. ‘She’d kill her own mother for half a sovereign.’

  I must say I was shocked at the language of my idol.

  Gradually the party began to loosen up. Prinny got around him an exquisitely-judged group of many political persuasions and he dispensed royal graciousness, not greatly helped by Lady Conyngham, who had by now contrived to get by his side. Lord Egremere mingled with his guests, a genial presence, and eventually came over to me and singled me out for special notice.

  ‘Ah, Mr Mozart, honoured by your presence. I hear whispers that a new opera by you is indeed to be performed for the Coronation. That was a most prescient conversation we had on the day of the old King’s death.’

  Or alternatively the beginning of all my troubles. But I hastened to agree.

  ‘It certainly was, My Lord. Yes, the opera is ready. I hope we shall begin rehearsals for it in the Spring.’

  ‘Splendid. All the sordid financial details settled, eh?’

  ‘I believe so. Lord Hertford is being most generous.’

  ‘You’re a lucky man. Because times are hard, and there is very little money around.’

  That, being translated, meant: if he withdraws his offer, don’t come running to me.

  ‘The country is certainly in a sad state,’ I murmured. ‘Though there seemed to be a lot of money around in the North, where I was recently.’

  ‘Ah, the North. It’s another country. It’s from the North our salvation will come – and our liberation from this dreadful government, though I’m not supposed to be saying things like that tonight!’

  He was giving me a roguish look when the King himself wobbled over, Lady Conyngham in his wake. As I bowed low towards the gargantuan paunch I wondered in what corslet of iron it could be encased so that he could present some kind of impressive figure at his own Coronation.

  ‘Ah, Mr Mozart! Delighted to see you once more. I hear you are having a great success with The Call to Arms.’

  ‘The public does seem pleased with it, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Splendid. I shall certainly come and see it, when my engagements allow.’

  ‘We will be honoured, sir.’

  ‘Ah, we must show this Signor Rossini he’s not the only one who can write a good tune, eh? I’m disappointed in the man. He threw away an opportunity that won’t soon come again. But you’ll show him with your new piece, eh, Mr Mozart? Eh, Mr Mozart?’

  And he passed on, followed by the substantial shadow of Lady Conyngham.

  ‘You have just been the victim of royal tact,’ said Lord Egremere.

  ‘I’m used to it,’ I said. ‘At Brighton I was told I could learn a lot from Signor Rossini. After that, to imply that we are competing in some kind of European tune contest is quite mild.’

  Lord Egremere laughed.

  ‘You know, I had thought to invite the Duke of Clarence tonight, as being the nearest thing to a royal Whig. But the thought of his rattling tactlessness made me forbear. It would have led to open warfare.’ He turned as his shoulder was tapped by a superior flunky, who whispered in his ear. He turned back to me, consternation on his face. ‘Dear me, Mr Mozart. Disaster threatens. The accompanist to the wonderful Mme Hubermann-Cortino has fallen down drunk in the ante-room where he was waiting; But some accompanist she must have. I don’t suppose you…’

  I was mortified. It occurred to me that I had been invited as some kind of reserve player, with just this kind of emergency in mind.

  ‘Delighted, My Lord,’ I said.

  There was no time for preparation or rehearsal. I was hurried with Therese to the back of the room where we had to step over the hack pianist stretched on the floor, snoring. Therese showed me the arias she intended to sing and I hadn’t time to do more than register what they were when we heard Lord Egremere announcing (he did it very nicely) that there had been an emergency, but ‘my honoured guest the great Mr Mozart’ had very kindly stepped into the breach. Then we went out. I was back in my habitual role of public performer.

  Therese had been asked to sing for fifteen or twenty minutes. She sang a piece of innocuous Pergolesi to warm up, then, ‘Oh, had I Jubal’s lyre’ to satisfy the royal Handel-lust, the Willow Song from the charlatan of Pesaro’s burlesque of Othello, and last
ly ‘Batti, batti’, which she sang divinely as she did everything else. We managed one of Haydn’s English songs as an encore, and then we were allowed to go.We were a mere interlude in the peace-making between the political parties. As we refreshed ourselves with glasses of good German wine from the only bottle the drunken accompanist had left untouched, Therese said:

  ‘And that, I think, was my swan-song in this accursed land!’

  I looked at her, open-mouthed with consternation.

  ‘Your swan song! But what about the opera season? The Coronation opera season?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘It will go on without me. Or it will not – no matter. I am going. My mission has failed.’

  I was suspicious at once.

  ‘Your mission? What was that? Was it something to do with the Queen?’

  She smiled, not very divinely.

  ‘You’re really quite clever, Mr Mozart. That was not my mission, but I did have a commission concerning the Queen. On our way to England we stopped off in my native Brunswick and talked to the reigning Duke. He was worried about the harm his mad aunt was doing to his country’s reputation on the Continent, and I promised – for a consideration – to seek an audience with the Queen, with a view to persuading her to accept the King’s offer of a pension if she agreed to return to Italy, or Turkey, or China, or wherever on earth she thought she might be happy.’

  ‘With no success, alas.’

  ‘None whatever. The moment we met I realised the woman is drunk on public acclamation. She talks of nothing but the deputations and loyal addresses she has received, the deafening cheers that greet her in the streets. She is drugged with acclaim. I have seen that in opera singers. I recognise it.’

  ‘But your commission enabled you to take news of it to the King,’ I suggested, my eyes now well open to the woman (how had I been so blind? Because she was a woman, and a German woman?).

  ‘Clever again, Mr Mozart. Which was of course from the first our object in coming here.’

  ‘Why? Do you collect royalty?’

  She tweaked my nose.

  ‘In a way. I see you are bewildered, dear, innocent Mr Mozart. Royal personages, let me tell you, are not more cultured or witty than other souls. Certainly they are not more generous. You of all people, will know that. But what you may not know is that at the end of an affair with royalty the pay-off is superb because all the royal family and all the flunky politicians around them are so anxious to avoid a scandal. All they are worried about is that you do not take your story to the public prints. A hundred years ago – fifty – it would not have been so, but to be royal, in the nineteenth century, is to be bourgeois. They have to pretend to be like their subjects, so that their subjects will love them as they love themselves.’

  ‘Prinny doesn’t pretend to be like his subjects.’

  ‘No. That is probably why he is so unpopular. He is a figure from a previous era. Prinny was a bad choice. My husband and I agree: in future we will research our projects very much better. But that was not why I failed.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Her expression was bitter.

  ‘There has been no affair because your King prefers old women to young ones, ugly women to beautiful ones. There has been no affair because the King probably doesn’t do it any more. There has been no affair because your King probably can’t find it any more. He’d probably have to send down a team of mountain climbers to find it, and how would you position yourself to receive the royal gift?’ She saw I was shocked, and laughed vulgarly. ‘So I’m off to look for better prospects. Someone who wants a mistress not a mother. It’s been suggested that Sweden could be interested – a soldier of Napoleon, with whom my dear husband would have a lot in common. And Holland is dull, boorish but very rich. We shall do our preliminary reconnaissance among the crowned heads better this time.’

  ‘But my—’

  ‘But your opera. The Countess in Figaro. Alas, Mr Mozart, I shall have to deny myself the pleasure of singing your charming if now decidedly old-fashioned music. Try the Ackroyd girl: she has talent and seems to think you’re the latest thing. You won’t find many that think that these days. Try not to remember me unkindly: every woman, in this world that is cruel to women, has to put herself first, last, and all places in between. Così, as you would say, Fan Tutte. So let us go back to the party and goodbye, dear Mr Mozart.’

  Stepping over the drunken accompanist I followed her out, dazed and grieved. My hopes for the opera season had been dealt a terrible blow. The little edifice I had been building since the late King’s death seemed to be collapsing round me. The dreadful prospect opened up of an opera season without an opera of mine.

  Back in the galleries and salons the party was going on famously well. How would it not, with so much graciousness on one side, so much fawning and flattery on the other. Where the King was, admiration and gratitude reigned, where he was not his words were being repeated from mouth to mouth, though without the manner they were hardly worth the saying, let alone repeating. I was about to close in on someone with good will, large unencumbered estates and a love of music when I saw something at the end of the Long Gallery.

  One of the grandest of the footmen had come up to Lord Hertford. In his braided, be-gilt state as Lord Chamberlain he was unmistakable. A salver was presented, and Lord Hertford took from it some kind of note or small package. He found himself an unfrequented corner and opened it. Then he opened a further enclosure, and took out a note. Already I was nervous with anticipation. It took him no more than a second to read. Then he began back towards the throng, his eyes going everywhere.

  Who else could he be looking for but me?

  I thought of slipping away, but what I evaded tonight would catch up with me tomorrow. This damned business was like a chain on my leg, and it would never be removed until it was solved or settled. I began making my way in Lord Hertford’s direction.

  ‘Ah, Mr Mozart!’ he said, sotto voce.

  He pulled me a little aside and handed me a roughly-torn sheet of paper. The note, written in a firm, educated hand, read:

  ‘What I want is a thousand guineas. Have it ready by Monday.’

  I gazed at it in search of a clue, but found none. A man or a strong-minded woman with a love of money – that again about summed it up. Then I turned the page and found my clue.

  The paper I use in my jakes is always unwanted off-prints from publishers. Preferably novels, because I sometimes sit there contentedly reading.The rough bundle of sheets there at that moment was of a reprint of that old favourite A Gentleman of Quality. It had given me pleasure to think that I was wiping my arse on a gentleman of quality. I knew that that morning I had reached the end of the first volume.

  Turning the note over I saw the title page of the second volume.

  17. Sono in Trappola

  I walked back home more uneasy and uncertain than I had ever been. When I had read the note and marshalled my composure I had said to Lord Hertford merely that this second note needed to be thought over, and that I would communicate my thoughts the next day. I could have communicated them then, though I chose not to: they were that Davy had used my partial communication of what happened on the night of Jenny’s death to launch a crude and dangerous blackmail attempt. I had been as mistaken in my estimate of his character as I had been about that of Mme Hubermann-Cortino: simple and endearing he was, but he had a most defective moral code. It was clear that the prospect of easy money had sent him entirely off-balance.

  Whether Lord Hertford had seen anything in my face as I read the note I did not know. I had been too confused and astonished to look him in the face. What I did know, alas, was that that wily old political schemer was as adept at reading people’s thoughts as anyone in the world.

  I was earlier home than I had expected to be or told Davy I would be, and I was relieved to find there was no evidence of Ann in the apartment. Davy heard my key in the door and as I came into my sitting-room he emerged from his bedroom, still in
shirt and breeches, smiling and welcoming.

  ‘Did it go well, Mr Mozart? Was it a right-down good party?’

  ‘It was, in a way, Davy,’ I said, my face giving nothing away. ‘Sit down and we’ll talk about it. I think we need a little more light, don’t you? … There. And I think I need something to drink. Champagne does not really agree with me.’

  ‘Champagne! That’s a real swank drink, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is. Perhaps people who are used to it develop a stomach for it. I would infinitely rather have a good German wine, or even a good German beer. But let us have a glass of brandy, as we did the night you came here.’

  I poured two glasses, and diluted them with water. He was sitting on the sofa, and I went and sat where I could see his face, that face of a guileless peasant, I had thought.

  ‘Oh, what have you done, Davy?’ I asked. His eyes opened wide, and he looked at me with that ingenuousness I had always liked.

  ‘Done, Mr Mozart? I haven’t done anything. Just little jobs while you’ve been out.’

  I shook my head, infinitely sad: ingenuousness could be faked, like any other human quality.

  ‘Oh, Davy, you’ve done much worse than that. Unless by “little jobs” you mean get somebody to write a letter to Lord Hertford demanding money.’

  There was silence, and he looked down at his lap.

  ‘Didn’t think as they’d show you the note, Mr Mozart.’