‘No,’ answered Madame Bonanni, in a rather preoccupied tone. ‘Where is your maid?’
The cadaverous maid came up very quickly from behind, overtaking them with Margaret’s grey linen duster.
‘They did not carry Mademoiselle out at the usual fly,’ she said. ‘I was waiting there.’
‘They were abominably clumsy,’ Margaret said, still very much annoyed. ‘They almost hurt me, and somebody had the impertinence to double-knot the handkerchief after I had arranged it! I’ll send for Schreiermeyer at once, I think! If I hadn’t solid nerves a thing like that might ruin my début!’
The maid smiled discreetly. The dress rehearsal for Margaret’s début was not half over yet, but she had already the dominating tone of the successful prima donna, and talked of sending at once for the redoubtable manager, as if she were talking about scolding the call-boy. And the maid knew very well that if sent for Schreiermeyer would come and behave with relative meekness, because he had a prospective share in the fortune which was in the Cordova’s throat.
But Madame Bonanni was in favour of temporising.
‘Don’t send for him, my dear,’ she said. ‘Getting angry is very bad for the voice, and your duet with Rigoletto in the next act is always trying.
They were in the dressing-room now, all three women, and the door was shut.
‘Is it all right?’ Margaret asked, sitting down and looking into the glass. ‘Am I doing well?’
‘You don’t need me to tell you that! You are magnificent! Divine! No one ever began so well as you, not even I, my dear, not even I myself!’
This was said with great emphasis. Nothing, perhaps, could have surprised Madame Bonanni more than that any one should sing better at the beginning than she had sung herself; but having once admitted the fact she was quite willing that Margaret should know it, and be made happy.
‘You’re the best friend that ever was!’ cried Margaret, springing up; and for the first time in their acquaintance she threw her arms round the elder woman’s neck and kissed her — hitherto the attack, if I may call it so, had always come from Madame Bonanni, and had been sustained by Margaret.
‘Yes,’ said Madame Bonanni, ‘I’m your best friend now, but in a couple of days you will have your choice of the whole world! Now dress, for I’m going away, and though it’s only a rehearsal, it’s of no use to keep people waiting.’
Margaret looked at her and for the first time realised the change in her appearance, the quiet colours of her dress, the absence of paint on her cheeks, the moderation of the hat. Yet on that very morning Margaret had seen her still in all her glory when she had arrived from Paris.
One woman always knows when another notices her dress. Women have a sixth sense for clothes.
‘Yes, my dear,’ Madame Bonanni said, as soon as she was aware that Margaret had seen the change, ‘I did not wish to come to your début looking like an advertisement of my former greatness, so I put on this. Tom likes it. He thinks that I look almost like a human being in it!’
‘That’s complimentary of him!’ laughed Margaret.
‘Oh, he wouldn’t say such a thing, but I see it is just what he thinks. Perhaps I’ll send him to you with a message, by and by, before you get into your sack, while the storm is going on. If I do, it will be because it’s very important, and whatever he says comes directly from me.’
‘Very well,’ Margaret said quietly. ‘I shall always take your advice, though I hate that last scene.’
‘I’m beginning to think that it may be more effective than we thought,’ answered Madame Bonanni, with a little laugh. ‘Good-bye, my dear.’
‘Won’t you come and dine with me afterwards?’ asked Margaret, who had begun to change her dress. ‘There will only be Madame De Rosa. You know she could not get here in time for the rehearsal, but she is coming before nine o’clock.’
‘No, dear. I cannot dine with you to-night. I’ve made an engagement I can’t break. But do you mean to say that anything could keep De Rosa in Paris this afternoon?’ Madame Bonanni was very much surprised, for she knew that the excellent teacher almost worshipped her pupil.
‘Yes,’ said Margaret. ‘She wrote me that Monsieur Logotheti had some papers for her to sign to-day before a notary, and that somehow if she did not stay and sign them she would lose most of what she has.’
‘That’s ingenious!’ exclaimed Madame Bonanni, with a laugh.
‘Ingenious?’ Margaret did not understand. ‘Do you mean that Madame De Rosa has invented the story?’
‘No, no!’ cried the other. ‘I mean it was ingenious of fate, you know — to make such a thing happen just to-day.’
‘Oh, very!’ assented Margaret carelessly, and rather wishing that Madame Bonanni would go away, for though she was turning into a professional artist at an almost alarming rate, she was not yet hardened in regard to little things and preferred to be alone with her maid while she was dressing.
But Madame Bonanni had no intention of staying, and now went away rather abruptly, after nodding to her old maid, unseen by Margaret, as if there were some understanding between them, for the woman answered the signal with an unmistakable look of intelligence.
In the corridor Madame Bonanni met the contralto taking a temporary leave of the wholesale upholsterer at the door of her dressing-room, a black-browed, bony young Italian woman with the face of a Medea, whose boast it was that with her voice and figure she could pass for a man when she pleased.
Madame Bonanni greeted her and stopped a moment.
‘Please do not think I have only just come to the theatre,’ said the Italian. ‘I have been listening to her in the house, though I have heard her so often at rehearsals.’
‘Well?’ asked the elder woman. ‘What do you think of it?’
‘It is the voice of an angel — and then, she is handsome, too! But — —’
‘But what?’
‘She is a statue,’ answered the contralto in a tone of mingled pity and contempt. ‘She has no heart.’
‘They say that of most lyric sopranos,’ laughed Madame Bonanni.
‘I never heard it said of you! You have a heart as big as the world!’ The Italian made a circle of her two arms, to convey an idea of the size of the prima donna’s heart, while the wholesale upholsterer, who had a good eye, compared the measurement with that lady’s waist. ‘You bring the tears to my eyes when you sing,’ continued the contralto, ‘but Cordova is different. She only makes me hate her because she has such a splendid voice!’
‘Don’t hate her, my dear,’ said Madame Bonanni gently. ‘She’s a friend of mine. And as for the heart, child, it’s like a loaf of bread! You must break it to get anything out of it, and if you never break it at all it dries up into a sort of little wooden cannon-ball! Cordova will break hers, some day, and then you will all say that she is a great artist!’
Thereupon Madame Bonanni kissed the contralto affectionately, as she kissed most people, nodded and smiled to the wholesale upholsterer, and went on her way to cross the stage and get back to her box.
She found Lushington there when she opened the door, looking as if he had not moved since she had left him. He rose as she entered, and then sat down beside her.
‘Have you any money with you?’ she asked, suddenly.
‘Yes. How much do you want?’
‘I don’t want any for myself. Tom, do something for me. Go out and buy the biggest woman’s cloak you can find. The shops are all open still. Get something that will come down to my feet, and cover me up entirely. We are nearly of the same height, and you can measure it on yourself.’
‘All right,’ said Lushington, who was well used to his mother’s caprices.
‘And, Tom,’ she called, as he was going to the door, ‘get a closed carriage and bring it to the stage entrance when you come back. And be quick, my darling child! You must be back in half-an-hour, or you won’t hear the duet.’
‘It won’t take half an hour to buy a cloak,’ answered Lushington.
‘Oh, I forgot — it must have a hood that will quite cover my head — I mean without my hat, of course!’
‘Very well — a big hood. I understand. Anything else?’
‘No. Now run, sweet child!’
Lushington went out to do the errand, and Madame Bonanni drew back into the shadow of the box, for the lights were up in the house between the acts. She sat quite still, leaning forward and resting her chin on her hand, and her elbow on her knee, thinking.
There was a knock at the door; she sprang to her feet and opened, and found a shabby woman, who looked like a rather slatternly servant, standing outside with the box-opener, who had shown her where to find the prima donna. The shabby woman gave her a dingy piece of paper folded and addressed hurriedly in pencil, in Logotheti’s familiar handwriting. She spread out the half-sheet and read the contents twice over, looked hard at the messenger and then looked at the note again.
‘Who gave you this? Who sent you?’ she asked.
‘You are Madame Bonanni, are you not?’ inquired the woman, instead of answering.
‘Of course I am! I want to know who sent you to me.’
‘The note is for you, Madame, is it not?’ asked the woman, by way of reply.
‘Yes, certainly! Can’t you answer my question?’ Madame Bonanni was beginning to be angry.
‘I will take the answer to the note, if there is one,’ answered the other, coolly.
Madame Bonanni was on the point of flying into a rage, but she apparently thought better of it. The contents of the note might be true after all. She read it again.
Dear lady (it said), I am the victim of the most absurd and annoying mistake. I have been arrested for Schirmer, the betting man who murdered his mother-in-law and escaped from Paris yesterday. They will not let me communicate with any one till to-morrow morning and I have had great trouble in getting this line to you. For heaven’s sake bring Schreiermeyer and anybody else you can find, to identify me, as soon as possible. I am locked up in a cell in the police station of the Third Arrondissement. ——
Yours ever,
C. Logotheti.
Madame Bonanni looked at the woman again.
‘Did you see the gentleman?’ she asked.
‘What gentleman?’
‘The gentleman who is in prison!’
‘What prison?’ asked the woman with dogged stupidity.
‘You’re a perfect idiot!’ cried Madame Bonanni, and she slammed the door of the box in the woman’s face, and bolted it inside.
She sat down and read the note a fourth time. There was no doubt as to its being really from Logotheti. She laughed to herself.
‘More ingenious than ever!’ she said, half aloud.
A timid knock at the door of the box. She rose with evident annoyance, and opened again, to meet the respectable old box-opener, a grey-haired woman of fifty-five.
‘Please, Madame, is the woman to go away? She seems to be waiting for something.’
‘Tell her to go to all the devils!’ answered Madame Bonanni, furious. ‘No — don’t!’ she cried. ‘Where is she? Come here, you!’ she called, seeing the woman at a little distance. ‘Do you know what you are doing? You are trying to help Schirmer, the murderer, to escape. If you are not careful you will be in prison yourself before morning! That is the answer! Now go, and take care that you are not caught!’
The woman, who was certainly not over-intelligent, stared hard at Madame Bonanni for a moment, and then turned, with a cry of terror, and fled along the circular passage.
‘You should not let in such suspicious-looking people,’ said Madame Bonanni to the box-opener in a severe tone.
The poor soul began an apology, but Madame Bonanni did not stop to listen, and entered the box again, shutting the door behind her.
The curtain went up before Lushington came back, but the prima donna did not look at the stage and scarcely heard the tenor’s lament, the chorus and the rest. She seemed quite lost in her thoughts. Then Lushington appeared with a big dark cloak on his arm.
‘Will this do, mother?’ he asked.
She stood up and made him put it over her. It had a hood, as she had wished, which quite covered her head and would cover her face, too, if she wished not to be recognised.
‘It’s just what I wanted,’ she said. ‘Hang it on the hook by the door, and sit down. Gilda will be on in a minute.’
Lushington obeyed, and if he wondered a little at first why his mother should want a big cloak on a suffocating evening in July, he soon forgot all about it in listening to Margaret’s duet with Rigoletto. His mother sat perfectly motionless in her seat, her eyes closed, following every note.
At the end of the short act, the applause became almost riotous, and if Margaret had appeared before the curtain she would have had an ovation. But in the first place, it was only a rehearsal, after all, and secondly there was no one to call her back after she had gone to her dressing-room to dress for the last act. She heard the distant roar, however, and felt the tide of triumph rising still higher round her heart. If she had been used to her cadaverous maid, too, she would have seen that the woman’s manner was growing more deferential each time she saw her. Success was certain, now, a great and memorable success, which would be proclaimed throughout the world in a very few days. The new star was rising fast, and it was the sallow-faced maid’s business to serve stars and no others.
For the first scene of the last act Gilda puts on a gown over her man’s riding-dress; and when Rigoletto sends her off, she has only to drop the skirt, draw on the long boots and throw her riding-cloak round her to come on for the last scene. Of course the prima donna is obliged to come back to her dressing-room to make even this slight change.
Madame Bonanni was speaking earnestly to Lushington in an undertone during the interval before the last act, and as he listened to what she said his face became very grave, and his lips set themselves together in a look which his mother knew well enough.
The act proceeded, and Margaret’s complete triumph became more and more a matter of certainty. She sang with infinite grace and tenderness that part in the quartet which is intended to express the operatic broken heart, while the Duke, the professional murderer, and Maddalena are laughing and talking inside the inn. That sort of thing does not appeal much to our modern taste, but Margaret did what she could to make it touching, and was rewarded with round upon round of applause.
Lushington rose quietly at this point, slipped on his thin overcoat, took his hat and the big cloak he had bought, nodded to his mother and left the box. A few moments later she rose and followed him.
In due time Margaret reappeared in her man’s dress, but almost completely wrapped in the traditional riding mantle. Rigoletto is off when Gilda comes on alone at this point, outside the inn, and the stage gradually darkens while the storm rises. When the trio is over and Gilda enters the ruined inn, the darkness is such, even behind the scenes, that one may easily lose one’s way and it is hard to recognise any one.
Margaret disappeared, and hurried off, expecting to meet her maid with the sack ready for the final scene. To her surprise a man was standing waiting for her. She could not see his face at all, but she knew it was Lushington who whispered in her ear as he wrapped her in the big cloak he carried. He spoke fast and decidedly.
‘That is why the door at the end of the corridor is open to-night,’ he concluded. ‘I give you my word that it’s true. Now come with me.’
Margaret had told Lushington not very long ago that he always acted like a gentleman and sometimes like a hero, and she had meant it. After all, the opera was over now, and it was only a rehearsal. If there was no sack scene, no one would be surprised, and there was no time to hesitate not an instant.
She slipped her arm through Lushington’s, and drawing the hood almost over her eyes with her free hand and the cloak completely round her, she went where he led her. Certainly in all the history of the opera no prima donna ever left the stage and the theatre in suc
h a hurry after her first appearance.
One minute had hardly elapsed in all after she had disappeared into the ruined inn, before she found herself driving at a smart pace in a closed carriage, with Lushington sitting bolt upright beside her like a policeman in charge of his prisoner. It was not yet quite dark when the brougham stopped at the door of Margaret’s hotel, and the porter who opened the carriage looked curiously at her riding boot and spurred heel as she got out under the covered way. She and Lushington had not exchanged a word during the short drive.
He went up in the lift with her and saw her to the door of her apartment. Then he stood still, with his hat off, holding out his hand to say good-bye.
‘No,’ said Margaret, ‘come in. I don’t care what the people think!’
He followed her into her sitting-room, and she shut the door, and turned up the electric light. When he saw her standing in the full glare of the lamps, she had thrown back her hood; she wore a wig with short tangled hair as part of her man’s disguise, and her face was heavily powdered over the paint in order to produce the ghastly pallor which indicates a broken heart on the stage. The heavily-blackened lashes made her eyes seem very dark, while her lips were still a deep crimson. She held her head high, and a little thrown back, and there was something wild and almost fantastic about her looks as she stood there, that made Lushington think of one of Hoffmann’s tales. She held out her whitened hand to him; and when he took it he felt the chalk on it, and it was no longer to him the hand of Margaret Donne, but the hand of the Cordova, the great soprano.
‘It’s of no use,’ she said. ‘Something always brings us together. I believe it’s our fate. Thank you for what you’ve just done. Thank you — Tom, with all my heart!’
And suddenly the voice was Margaret’s, and rang true and kind. For had he not saved her, and her career, too, perhaps? She could not but be grateful, and forget her other triumphant self for a moment. There was no knowing where that mad Greek might have taken her if she had gone near the door in the corridor again; it would have been somewhere out of Europe, to some lawless Eastern country whence she could never have got back to civilisation again.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1131