She sang the waltz song in the first act of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, and after the first few bars she had altogether forgotten that she was not at home, with her own piano, or else standing behind her teacher’s shoulder in the Boulevard Malesherbes.
Now there are not many singers living who can sing the waltz song and accompany themselves without making a terrible mess of the music; but Margaret did it well, and much more than well, for she was not only a singer with a beautiful voice but a true musician. There was not a quaver or hesitation in her singing from beginning to end, nor a false note in the accompaniment.
When she had finished, her lips closed and she went on playing the music of the scene that follows. She had not gone on a dozen bars, however, when a head appeared suddenly round the corner of a picture on an easel.
‘Ah, bah!’ exclaimed the head, in an accent of great surprise.
Its thick dark-brown hair was all towzled and standing on end, its brown eyes were opened very wide in astonishment, and it was showing magnificently strong teeth, a little discoloured.
Margaret sprang to her feet with an apology for having forgotten herself, but the head laughed and came forward, bringing with it a large body wrapped in an enormous gown of white Turkish towelling, evidently held together by the invisible hands within. Margaret thought of the statue of Balzac.
“Margaret sprang to her feet with an apology.”
‘I thought it was Caravita,’ said Madame Bonanni. ‘We are great friends you know. I sometimes find her waiting for me. But who in the world are you?’
‘Margaret Donne.’
‘Ah, bah!’ exclaimed the great singer again, the two syllables being apparently her only means of expressing surprise.
‘But I told your servant — —’ Margaret began.
‘Why have you not made your début?’ cried Madame Bonanni, interrupting her, and shaking her disordered locks as if in protest. ‘You have millions in your throat! Why do you come here? To ask advice? To let me hear you sing? Let the public hear you! What are you waiting for? To-morrow you will be old! And all singers are young. How old do you think I am? Forty-five, perhaps, because it is printed so! Not a bit of it! A prima donna is never over thirty, never, never, never! Imagine Juliet over thirty, or Lucia! Pah! The idea is horrible! Fortunately, all tenors are fat. A Juliet of thirty may love a fat Romeo, but at forty it would be disgusting, positively disgusting! I am sick at the mere thought.’
Margaret stood up, resting one hand on the corner of the piano and smiling at the torrent of speech. Yet all the time, while Madame Bonanni was saying things that sounded absurd enough, the young girl was conscious that the handsome brown eyes were studying her quietly and perhaps not unwisely.
‘I am twenty-two,’ she said by way of answer.
‘I made my début when I was twenty,’ answered the prima donna. ‘But then,’ she added, as if in explanation, ‘I was married before I was seventeen.’
‘Indeed!’ Margaret exclaimed politely.
‘Yes. He died. Let us sing! I always want to sing when I come out of my bath. Do you know the duo at the beginning of the fourth act? Yes? Good. I will sing Romeo. Oh yes, I can sing the tenor part — it is very high for a man. Sit down. Imagine that you admire me and that the lark is trying to imitate the nightingale so that we need not part. We have not heard it yet. The man is beginning to turn up the dawn outside the window behind us, but we do not see it. We are perfectly happy. Now, begin!’
The chords sounded softly, the two voices blended, rose and fell and died away. The elder woman’s rich lower tones imitated a tenor voice well enough to give Margaret the little illusion she needed, and her overflowing happiness did the rest. She sang as she had not sung before.
‘I wish to embrace you!’ cried Madame Bonanni, when they had finished.
And forthwith Margaret felt herself enveloped in the Turkish bath-gown, and entangled in the towzled hair and held by a pair of tremendously strong white arms; and being thus helpless, she experienced a kindly but portentous kiss on each cheek; after which she was set at liberty.
‘You are a real musician, too!’ Madame Bonanni said with genuine admiration. ‘You can play anything, as well as sing. I hope you will never hear me play. It is awful. I could empty any theatre instantly, if there were a fire, merely by playing a little!’
She laughed heartily at her little joke, for like many great singers she was half a child and half a genius, and endowed with the huge vitality that alone makes an opera singer’s life possible.
‘I would give my playing to have your voice,’ Margaret said.
‘You would be cheated in your bargain,’ observed Madame Bonanni. ‘Let me look at you. Have you a big chest and a thick throat? What are your arms like? If you have a voice and talent, strength is everything! Young girls come and sing to me so prettily, so sweetly! They want to be singers! Singers, my dear, with chests like paper dolls and throats like plucked spring chickens! Bah! They are good for nothing, they catch cold, they give a little croak and they die. Strength is everything. Let me see your throat! No! You will never croak! You will never die. And your arms? Look at mine. Yes, yours will be like mine, some day.’
Margaret hoped not, for Madame Bonanni seemed to be a very big woman, though she still managed to look human as Juliet. Perhaps that was because the tenors were all fat.
Again a hand emerged from the thick white folds and grasped Margaret’s arm firmly above the elbow, as a trainer feels an athlete’s biceps.
‘Good, good! Very good!’ cried Madame Bonanni approvingly. ‘It is a pity you are a lady! You are a lady, aren’t you?’
Margaret smiled.
‘I am a peasant,’ the singer answered without the least affectation. ‘I always say that it takes five generations of life in the fields to make a voice. But you are English, I suppose. Yes? All English live out of doors. If they had a proper climate they would all sing, but they have to keep their mouths shut all the time, to keep out the rain, and the fog, and the smoke of their chimneys. It is incredible, how little they open their mouths! Come and sit down. We will have a little talk.’
Margaret thought her new friend had managed to talk a good deal already. Madame Bonanni slipped between the easels and pedestals with surprising ease and lightness, and made for the divan. Margaret now saw that a stool was half concealed by a fallen pillow, so that the singer used it in order to climb up. In a moment she had settled herself comfortably, supported on all sides by the huge cushions. Margaret fancied she looked like a big snowball with a human head.
‘Why don’t you sit down, my dear?’ inquired Madame Bonanni blandly.
‘Yes, but where?’ asked Margaret with a little laugh.
‘Here! Climb up beside me on the divan.’
‘I’m not used to it!’ Margaret laughed. ‘It looks awfully hot.’
‘Then take a chair. Oh, the things? Throw them on the floor. Somebody will pick them up. People are always sending me perfectly useless things. Look at that picture! Did you ever see such a daub? I’ll burn it! No. I’ll give it to the missionaries. They take everything one gives them, for the African babies. Ah!’
Madame Bonanni shrieked suddenly, seized a big cushion and held it up as a screen before her. She looked towards the door, and Margaret, looking in the same direction, saw an over-dressed man of thirty-five standing on the threshold.
‘Go away!’ screamed Madame Bonanni. ‘Logotheti! Go away, I say! Don’t you see that I’m not dressed?’
‘I see nothing but cushions,’ answered the new-comer, showing very white teeth and speaking with a thick accent Margaret had never heard.
‘Ah! So much the better!’ returned Madame Bonanni with sudden calm. ‘What do you want?’
‘You did me the honour to ask me to breakfast,’ said Logotheti, coming forward a few steps.
‘To breakfast! Never! You are dreaming!’ She paused an instant. ‘Yes, I believe I did. What difference does it make? Go and get your breakfast somewhere
else!’
‘Oh no!’ protested the visitor, who had been examining Margaret’s face and figure. ‘I can wait any length of time, but I shall keep you to your bargain, dear lady.’
‘You are detestable! Well, then you must go and look out of the window while I get down.’
‘With pleasure,’ Logotheti answered, meaning exactly what he said, and turning his back after a deliberate look at Margaret.
Madame Bonanni worked herself to the edge of the divan, with a curious sidelong movement, got one of her feet upon the stool and slipped down, till she stood on the floor. Then she gathered the folds of her bathing-gown to her and ran to the door with astonishing agility, for so large a person.
Margaret was not sure what she should do, and began to follow her, hoping to exchange a few words with her before going away. At the door, Madame Bonanni suddenly draped herself in the dark velvet curtain, stuck her head out and looked back.
‘Of course you will stay to breakfast, my dear!’ she called out, ‘Logotheti! I present you to Miss — Miss — oh, the name doesn’t matter! I present you!’
‘I’m afraid I cannot — —’ Margaret began to say, not knowing how long she might be left alone with Logotheti.
But Madame Bonanni had already unfurled the curtain and fled. Logotheti bowed gravely to Margaret, cleared the things off one of the chairs and offered it to her. His manner was as respectful with her as it had been familiar with the singer, and she felt at once that he understood her position.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, as she seated herself.
He cleared another chair and sat down at a little distance. She glanced at him furtively and saw that he was a very dark man of rather long features; that his eyes were almond-shaped, like those of many orientals; that he had a heavy jaw and a large mouth with lips that were broad rather than thick, and hardly at all concealed by a small black moustache which was trained to lie very flat to his face, and turned up at the ends; that his short hair was worn brush fashion, without a parting; that he had olive brown hands with strong fingers, on one of which he wore an enormous turquoise in a ring; that his clothes were evidently the result of English workmanship misguided by a very un-English taste; and finally that he was well-built and looked strong. She wondered very much what his nationality might be, for his accent had told her that he was not French.
After a little pause he turned his head quietly and spoke to her.
‘Our friend’s introduction was a little vague,’ he said. ‘My name is Constantine Logotheti. I am a Greek of Constantinople by birth, or what we call a Fanariote there. I live in Paris and I occupy myself with what we call “finance” here. In other words, I spend an hour or two every day at the Bourse. If I had anything to recommend me, I should say so at once, but I believe there is nothing.’
‘Thank you!’ Margaret laughed a little at the words. ‘You are very frank. Madame Bonanni could not remember my name, as she has never seen me before to-day. I am Miss Donne; I am studying to be an opera-singer, and I came here for advice. I am English. I believe that is all.’
They looked at each other and smiled. Margaret was certainly not prepossessed in the man’s favour at first sight. She detested over-dressed men, men who wore turquoise rings, and men who had oily voices; but it was perfectly clear to her that Logotheti was a man of the world, who knew a lady when he met one, no matter where, and meant to behave with her precisely as if he had been introduced to her in Mrs. Rushmore’s drawing-room.
‘It is my turn to thank you,’ he said, acknowledging with a little bow the favour she had conferred in telling him who she was. ‘I fancy you have not yet seen much of theatrical people, off the stage. Have you?’
No,’ answered Margaret. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I wonder whether you will like them when you do,’ said Logotheti.
‘I never thought of it. Is Madame Bonanni a good type of them?’
‘No,’ Logotheti answered, after a moment’s reflection. ‘I don’t think she is. None of the great ones are. They all have something original, personal, dominating, about them. That is the reason why they are great. I was thinking of the average singer you will have to do with if you really sing in opera. As for Madame Bonanni, she has a heart of pure gold. We are old friends, and I know her well.’
‘I can quite believe that she is kind-hearted,’ Margaret answered. But don’t you think, perhaps, that she is just a little too much so?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘That she might be too kind to tell a beginner just what she really thinks?’
‘No, indeed.’ Logotheti laughed at the idea. ‘You would not think so if you knew how many poor girls she sends away in tears because she tells them the honest truth, that they have neither voice nor talent, and will fail miserably if they go on. That is real kindness after all! Have you sung to her?’
‘Yes,’ answered Margaret.
‘May I ask what she said? I know her so well that I can perhaps be of use to you. Sometimes, for instance, she says nothing at all. That means that there may be a chance of success but that she herself is not sure.’
‘She kissed me on both cheeks,’ Margaret said with a laugh, ‘and she talked about my début.’
‘Then I should advise you to make your début at once,’ Logotheti answered. ‘She means that you will have a very great success.’
‘Do you really think so?’ asked Margaret, much pleased.
‘I know it,’ he replied with conviction. ‘That woman is utterly incapable of saying anything she does not think, but she sometimes gives her opinion with horrible brutality.’
‘I rather like that.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes. It is good medicine.’
‘Then you have only been a spectator, and never the patient!’ Logotheti laughed.
‘Perhaps. Tell me all about Madame Bonanni.’
‘All about her?’ Logotheti smiled oddly. ‘Well, she is a great artist, perhaps the greatest living soprano, though she is getting old. You can see that. Let me see, what else? She is very frank, I have told you that. And she is charitable. She gives away a great deal. She has a great many friends, of whom I call myself one, and we are all sincerely attached to her. I cannot think of anything else to tell you about her.’
‘She said she was born a peasant,’ observed Margaret who wished to hear more.
‘Oh yes!’ Logotheti laughed. ‘There is no doubt of that! Besides, she is proud of it.’
‘She was married at seventeen, too.’
‘They all marry,’ answered Logotheti vaguely, ‘and their husbands disappear, by some law of nature we do not understand — absorbed into the elements, evaporated, drawn up into the clouds like moisture. One might write an interesting essay on the husbands of prima donnas and great actresses. What becomes of them? We know whence they come, for they are often impecunious gentlemen, but where do they go? There must be a limbo for them, somewhere, a place of departed husbands. Possibly they are all in lunatic asylums. The greater the singer, or the actress, the more certain it is that she has been married and that her husband has disappeared! It is very mysterious.’
‘Very!’ Margaret was rather amused by his talk.
‘Have you lived long in Paris?’ he asked, suddenly changing the subject.
‘We live in Versailles. I come in for my lessons.’
Without asking many direct questions Logotheti managed to find out a good deal about Margaret during the next quarter of an hour. She was not suspicious of a man who showed no inclination to be familiar or to make blatant compliments to her, and she told him that her father and mother were dead and that she lived with Mrs. Rushmore and saw many interesting people, most of whom he seemed to know. He, on his part, told her many things about Versailles which she did not know, and she soon saw that he was a man of varied tastes and wide information. She wondered why he wore such a big turquoise ring and why he had such a wonderful waistcoat, such a superlative tie, such an amazing shirt and such a
frightfully expensive pin. But it was not the first time in her life that she had met an otherwise intelligent man who made the mistake of over-dressing, and her first prejudice against him began to disappear. She even admitted to herself that he had a certain charm of manner which she liked, a mingling of reserve and frankness, or repose and strength, the qualities which appeal so strongly to most women. If only his voice had not that disagreeable oiliness! After all, that was what she liked least. He spoke French with wonderful fluency, but he abstained from making the tiresome compliments which so many Frenchmen reel off even at first acquaintance. He had really beautiful almond-shaped eyes, but he never once turned them to her with that languishing look which young men with almond eyes seem to think quite irresistible. Surely, all this was in his favour.
After being gone about half an hour, Madame Bonanni came back, her Juno-like figure clad in a very pale green tea-gown, very open at the throat, and her thick hair was smoothed in great curved surfaces which were certainly supported by cushions underneath them. Her solid arms were bare to the elbows, and the green sleeves hung almost to her feet. Her face was rouged and there were artificial shadows under her eyes. Round her neck she wore a single string of pearls as big as olives, and her fingers were covered with all sorts of rings.
‘Now you may look at me,’ she said, with a gay laugh.
‘I see a star of the first magnitude,’ Logotheti answered gravely.
Margaret bit her lip to keep from laughing, but Madame Bonanni laughed herself, very good-naturedly, though she understood.
‘I detest this man!’ she cried, turning to Margaret. ‘I don’t know why I ask him to breakfast.’
‘Because you cannot live without me, I suppose,’ suggested Logotheti.
‘I hate Greeks!’ screamed the prima donna, still laughing. ‘Why are you a Greek?’
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1105