FIRST NIGHT
The dark-haired girl stood for a moment, still gazing out over their heads, then turned to her accompanist, gave a confident little nod, took one step forward, and swept a low curtsy. It got her the hush she needed. Then, as the golden voice wove its spell, whispers stilled, coughs subsided, even breath seemed suspended. And, at the end, pandemonium, clapping, stamping of feet, cries of ‘encore’.
‘I see now why they put her to sing before the interval,’ Martha turned to her companion, ‘Is she as brilliant as I think?’
‘I never heard anything like it. And look how she holds the audience. We’ve seen a career start today … Would have, if she was not a duke’s daughter.’
First Night
Jane Aiken Hodge
© Jane Aiken Hodge 1989 *
*Indicates the year of first publication.
Contents
Copyright
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
About the Author
1
The two young people stood facing each other on the wide stage of Lissenberg’s brand new Royal Opera House. Behind them, an ornate set suggested the gates of hell. In the pit, the first few members of the orchestra were tuning up for the overture to Herr Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice, but otherwise they were alone.
‘Please, Max.’ The black-haired girl put a pleading hand on her companion’s arm. ‘It’s all to be sung in masks; no one need ever know. Just think what a joke for you to sing Eurydice! And Orpheus is perfect for me … I long to sing it. And you don’t even care!’
‘They’d find out, Bella. They always do. You don’t know this court as I do. Why should you? You’ve only been here six months.’ As dark as she, he had sparkling deep brown eyes, where hers were a surprising blue.
‘Lord, Father was angry.’ Momentarily diverted, she remembered her father’s rage at what he considered his insulting appointment as Minister to the tiny principality of Lissenberg. ‘Mr. Pitt came to dinner at Sarum House and spent all evening persuading him.’ She laughed. ‘They sent for me to sing to them. I was in bed! Such a to-do. Best muslin, my maid tying my sash while nurse worked on my ringlets – lucky they’re natural – and in the end Mr. Pitt nearly wrecked the whole thing. Papa doesn’t much like to hear my singing praised.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I sang Orpheus’ lament. I didn’t think they were listening – Papa never does; he hates it. They were talking and laughing and throwing back the port-wine, taking no notice whatever, but when I finished, Mr. Pitt just said, “Well, that settles it, you have to go, Sarum. You know how set Prince Gustav is on this children’s opera. That girl of yours will be the making of it, and we’ll get all the troops we need for the war against France.”’ She stopped, suddenly anxious. ‘You won’t tell your father?’
‘I never tell him anything. Least of all now.’
‘I know. I’m sorry, Max.’ They had become good friends in the weeks they had worked together on the Gluck opera with which Max’s father was to celebrate his marriage to a princess of Baden. Max’s mother, dead at his birth fifteen years before, had been merely noble, having married Gustav before he bought the tiny country of Lissenberg and became its Prince. ‘Will she be kind to you, do you think, this Princess Amelia?’ Cristabel asked now.
‘Who cares? The one thing certain is that if she has a son, I’m out of the succession. Father gave himself the absolute right to choose his heir when he took over here. My mother was a plain Lissenberger; this Amelia is a princess, and three of her sisters have married royalty. I heard Father say she’s plain as a boot, but no matter …’
‘Poor lady.’ Cristabel lost interest in her host’s dynastic plans and returned to her own affairs. ‘Dear, darling Max, say you’ll change rôles with me! The tunics are almost the same.’ Laughing. ‘The Opera House cost so much that even your father had to agree to keep the costumes simple.’
‘The first economy of his reign.’ Bitterly. ‘A drop in the lake of his extravagance. And that’s only because he’s been frightened by those mad revolutionaries in France. Your father, the Duke, has no need to fret; he’ll get his Hessian troops all right, from Father’s estates there. And the blood-money Father gets for them will help pay for this wedding. Sometimes, Bella, I wonder if the Jacobins aren’t in the right of it.’
‘Max!’ Now he had really shocked her. ‘You cannot be serious!’
‘I don’t know.’ Slowly. ‘Bella, I just don’t know. I expect things are better in England. You don’t have such poverty, such injustice there, do you? You’re all one people; of course you are kinder to each other. My father doesn’t care a rap for the Lissenbergers. He only bought the place because he wanted to be a Prince and an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire. For what that’s worth these days! He looks on Lissenberg as his property, to be treated as he pleases. Your George III is answerable to his Parliament. Father cares for nobody. He’s bled the people white in the sixteen years he’s been here. Look at this theatre!’ An angry gesture swept the gilded ranks of boxes, cupid-infested ceiling and heavy velvet curtains. ‘And the Palace, and Chapel Royal, where they are regilding vulgar gilt for this wedding. Real gold leaf, mind you! Nothing’s too good for the bride.’
‘Don’t hate her, Max.’
‘I don’t.’ Surprised. ‘I’m sorry for her! Father will use her, as he does everyone else. I wonder if he married my mother because she was a Lissenberger, gave him some thread of a claim to the place. And killed her, establishing it.’
‘Killed her?’ Horrified.
‘He insisted the heir be born in Lissenberg. Left it too late to make the journey. Busy hunting, I expect. It was almost winter. Well, you know what the road across the mountains is like. It’s why Lissenberg has never been conquered. It was too much for my mother. I was born six weeks early, and she died of me.’
‘I’m surprised he didn’t marry again sooner,’ said realistic Cristabel.
‘You’ve not met the Countess Wunzinger. Nor her three daughters – my half sisters.’ He threw it at her. ‘If the Wunzinger had had a son, I really believe my father would have married her. She certainly hoped so. The oldest of the girls is older than I am.’
‘Oh, your poor mother,’ said Cristabel. ‘Have you relatives on her side, then, Max? Aunts and uncles, cousins even?’
‘I’m not allowed to see them. That’s partly why father chose to rebuild the old castle above the town, so he can keep me shut away.’
‘I can see why you don’t much like him. So why should you care what he thinks? Besides –’ she returned to the attack. ‘No one need ever know we’ve changed parts. Just think what a lark it would be. To fool them all like that.’
‘Not the kind of lark a prince should indulge in, Bella.’
‘Oh, pfui!’
The Duke of Sarum had found life more pleasant than he expected at the parvenu court of Lissenberg. The hunting was good, the drinking hard, which suited him, and he had watched his daughter’s growing friendship with the heir of the Principality, with amused surprise. When her governess had reported, with horror, that the children were on Christian name terms, he had shrugged it off. The father was an extravagant nobody, but the son was well enough. So long, of course, as no heir was born to the marriage he had come to help celebrate, and the Duke privately thought this unlikely, after studying his host at cl
ose quarters for six months. And Lissenberg was a long way from England. He flattered himself that he had done his best by the unwanted daughter of his disastrous marriage, but he was counting the years until her own wedding would take her off his hands for good. Then he might even look about him for some well-bred, biddable young creature who would give him an heir and help him forget his boyhood folly.
‘No, no, let the young things enjoy themselves,’ he had surprised Miss Jevons by his tolerance. ‘Nothing wrong with the boy, and it’s time Cristabel learned some conduct. She’s a sad hoyden still.’
‘She knows her own mind,’ said Miss Jevons.
‘Obstinate as be damned,’ amended the Duke. ‘Save your worry for Prince Maximilian. She’ll have him dancing to her tune, you see if she doesn’t. And, now, I must dress for this damned reception of the bride. And mind you see Cristabel doesn’t disgrace me.’
‘She won’t,’ said Miss Jevons. ‘But she asks if she may ride. Prince Maximilian is, I understand.’
‘Why not? That mountain road’s the devil in a carriage. I shall most certainly ride. Mind the chit brings her own groom; I don’t propose to trouble myself with her.’
Although Princess Amelia was the daughter of the neighbouring house of Baden, the short wedding-journey had had to be delayed until the slow spring of 1795 was enough advanced for the mountain road into Lissenberg to be passable. The Duke of Sarum and his daughter had arrived just before winter closed it, and Bella remembered the mountain drive, in a stuffy carriage and pouring rain as something of a nightmare. Now, riding out of the Palace gates with Max at her side, she breathed cold, fresh air with pleasure. The road down to the valley-town of Lissenberg had been open for some time and she and Max had ridden there to watch ice packs scudding down the swift river Liss, but the other track, over the mountains to the little landing-stage that was Lissenberg’s only way out to Lake Constance, and the world at large, had been impassable up to now.
‘It’s a long ride,’ Max warned her. ‘And rough going.’
‘I remember! Just look at the flowers, Max, it’s really spring, at last. I wish we could stop.’
But the little cortège must keep up a steady pace to reach the landing-stage before the party from Baden, and she had to be content with Max’s description of the way the seasons repeated themselves, backwards, as one got nearer and nearer to the snow line. ‘I’ll take you one day,’ he promised, ‘after the wedding.’
They came out of the trees at last, to see Lake Constance below them, brilliant blue in spring sunshine. ‘And the royal barge of Baden lying off, waiting for us,’ said Max. ‘How like Father to be late to meet his bride! And she has sisters married to the Dukes of Hesse and Brunswick, and the Tsarevitch of all the Russias. It would serve him right if she turned round and went home to Baden.’
‘She’s very plain, they say.’
‘So she’ll wait? For Father! It must be terrible to be a woman, Bella.’
‘Oh, Max, it is.’ It was her chance, and she took it. ‘That’s why I want to sing Orpheus. To prove, at least to myself, that I can. That I can be a singer, not just a marriageable commodity. Please, dear, dearest Max, it makes so little difference to you, and to me: everything.’
‘But you couldn’t! A career as a singer? A duke’s daughter.’
‘Worse luck. It will make it harder, of course. But you have no idea how he longs to be rid of me. I think, if I was sure I could make a living, I’d do something to disgrace myself. Something so dreadful, do you see, that he would cast me off. And then I’d be free! Venice, Milan, Naples … La Scala, the San Carlo! If I am good enough. I have to know that. It’s a great deal to throw away …’
‘All of this,’ his wide gesture took in the mounted party, the heavy state coach rumbling along behind, the splendid prospect of lake and far mountains. ‘Do, please, Bella, think hard of what you are planning. You have no idea, I am sure, of what life can be like for a woman.’
‘For one who fails,’ said Cristabel. ‘I don’t mean to fail. I mean to have the world at my feet. Because I am me, not because I’m Sarum’s unwanted daughter. Just give me my chance.’ They had got a little ahead of the rest of the party and she reined in her horse to pause and face him. ‘I may so well be wrong. How can I know what I can do, if I never try? It won’t be an easy audience, after all the celebrations, all the drink. If I can hold them, if I get applause, for me, myself, Orpheus … Then I’ll know it’s worth the risk. If not, I promise you, I’ll be a duke’s good daughter for the rest of my life.’
He nearly said, ‘Marry me.’ But he was not yet sixteen, his position threatened by the bride they were come to greet. He reached out a hand as their ponies tittupped side by side. ‘It’s a bargain, if you will just promise to come to me for help if you should need it.’
‘But of course!’ She pushed back the plumed riding-hat to smile at him with enormous blue eyes. ‘To whom else, Max?’ And then, laughing, a hand setting raven ringlets in place. ‘But, Max, as Prince of Lissenberg, or as composer of operas?’ And, setting sudden spurs to her pony, set it scurrying down the last slope and across spring-green grass to the little landing-stage, where Baden’s royal barge was tying up.
Hawk-nosed Princess Amelia, who had not been enjoying the enforced wait, now came out of the little cabin to see two laughing children reining in their horses at the water’s edge, apparently so deep in talk that they had not even noticed her.
‘Prince Gustav does not seem to be here yet, Highness.’ The ship captain disliked the whole business.
‘Never mind.’ She smiled at him brilliantly and he thought she should always smile. ‘His son seems to have come in his stead. I find that charming. I shall go ashore at once. Forgive me, Captain, but I find myself a little tired of your delightful ship.’
Prince Gustav, emerging in his turn from the trees, saw his bride standing between Max and Bella, laughing, holding a hand of each, while an appalled groom held the two ponies from which they had leapt to greet her. She turned, saw him, moved forward, still holding their hands. Then, dropping them, she swept into a regal curtsy, ‘What a delightful greeting, Prince!’
She’s not so plain after all, he thought.
It had taken all his architect’s tact to persuade Prince Gustav that since the members of the orchestra must live in the town of Lissenberg, and much of the audience be drawn from there, his new Opera House must inevitably be built outside the castle precincts, below the last steep slope that made its position so secure. In the course of the building, the choice of site had been richly justified by the discovery of a disused tunnel which ran down from the castle, under the Opera House and so on to the little town below. The upper part of this tunnel had been cleared and made good so as to provide easy undercover access from the castle, while the burghers of Lissenberg were left to make the best of their way up by the mountain road.
‘I suspect Father’s Kapellmeister, Herr Franck, had more than a little to do with the choice of the site, in a quiet way,’ Max told Bella as they made their way down the last of the steep cresset-lit flights of steps. ‘He and Cuvilles, the Munich architect, were thick as thieves when Cuvilles was here. Just imagine what it would have been like rehearsing if the Opera House had been part of the Palace. Father would have been in and out all the time with his suggestions …’
‘And some of them would have been good ones,’ said Bella. ‘He’s no mean musician, your father.’
‘And knows it.’ Max turned and held out a hand to help her down an extra steep step. ‘But you know as well as I do that no good ever came of divided command in the theatre. When I put on my first opera, I mean to be composer, producer, everything.’
‘Just so long as I am prima donna.’
‘It will be written specially for you!’
It was cloud-cuckoo-land and they both knew it. Kept increasingly busy with last-minute rehearsals, they had had little time to think that Bella and her father would be leaving soon after the wedding. Prince Gu
stav had contrived to stay sober enough, only the day before, to sign the agreement promising the British the Hessian troops they needed for war against the French revolutionaries, and the Duke of Sarum was eager to be off. ‘He always shows himself at the Palace on the King’s Birthday,’ Bella explained. ‘The fourth of June.’ And then, returning to the subject nearest her heart. ‘I do wish we could have contrived one rehearsal in our true rôles!’
‘You know it would have been madness.’ They had been forced to rehearse, in secret, wherever they could, on a remote terrace when the sun shone, in the never-used Palace library when it rained. ‘And no need for you to fret, you really are going to be wonderful. I’m glad I agreed to change with you.’
‘Oh, thank you, Max.’ The blue eyes filled suddenly with tears.
Since all the performers were children, the performance of Orpheus and Eurydice had been scheduled earlier than the usual hour of nine o’clock, with the inevitable result that the audience arrived still elated with the toasts they had drunk to the newly-wedded couple. ‘Heaven help the orchestra.’ Max was listening to the rising volume of cheerful sound from beyond the velvet curtains. ‘They never get much of a hearing, but tonight …’ He took her cold hand. ‘If they’re still very noisy out there, when you have to begin, stand quite still, pick a spot high up at the back, look through it, count ten, as slowly as you can, then start.’
‘Max, I’m frightened.’
‘Do you want to change back?’
‘No!’
The audience talked merrily all through the overture and the first exchanges between Orpheus and the chorus of mourners for the dead Eurydice. Max, peering out from the wings, feared the worst. He could see the royal party, and his father talking eagerly to his new wife. The Prince would be angry, afterwards, if his long-planned opera was a failure; for the moment, he had forgotten all about it. I’ll never get drunk, so long as I live, thought Max, and saw his new stepmother put a hand on her husband’s arm to hush him.
First Night Page 1