The concert opened with a series of songs from Handel’s operas, sung with varying degrees of competence, solo and chorus, by groups of young ladies in white muslin and young gentlemen in elegant black. The audience was restless, some meaning to listen, some paying attention only when relatives of their own were performing, many still plagued with winter colds and unbridled coughs. Then Michael Kelly himself appeared to bring the house down with his famous solo from No Song No Supper.
‘That will be a hard act to follow,’ said Martha.
‘I wonder who will dare,’ Miss Chevenix hushed as a black-haired girl appeared from the wings and the Master of Ceremonies bowed deeply, took her hand and led her forward.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I have great pleasure in presenting Lady Cristabel Sallis, who has most kindly consented to sing to us, her first appearance on the London stage.’
‘Not on any, however,’ whispered Miss Chevenix. ‘You know the story?’
‘Yes.’ Shortly. ‘She’s beautiful.’
‘And knows it?’
‘No, it’s not that. It’s that she likes an audience, I think.’
After a word with the accompanist, Lady Cristabel was standing, very much at ease, gazing beyond the audience as the Master of Ceremonies announced that she would sing ‘He was despised’, from Handel’s Messiah.
‘That’s brave,’ said Miss Chevenix.
‘Hush,’ said Martha.
But the audience was astir with curiosity, noisier than ever. 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 were not a duke’s daughter.’
Martha did not remember much about the interval or the rest of the concert. Miss Chevenix introduced her to a great many people and she managed to make the right responses to the inevitable questions, sighed with relief when it was time to return to their seats, and sat hardly hearing the popular songs which made up the second half. Only when the audience rose for a spirited rendering of God Save the King did she sigh, and stir, and return to the present.
‘You’re very quiet,’ said Miss Chevenix.
‘How can I meet her?’
‘There I am afraid I cannot help you.’ Miss Chevenix knew at once whom she meant. ‘A duke’s daughter is quite above my touch.’
‘Then I shall write to her.’
But what to say? She was scratching away at draft after draft next day when her maid announced Signor Arioso. ‘The very person.’ She rose eagerly to greet him. ‘Your Lady Cristabel is absolutely everything you said, and more so! But how can I meet her, Signor?’
‘No chance, I am afraid. Her success and the talk it has caused have enraged her father. She’s to be sent back to the country.’
‘Medieval! How soon, do you know?’
‘Tomorrow, they say.’
‘So soon?’ She thought for a minute. ‘She’ll travel in some comfort, I take it, spending the night on the way. Could you find out where, Signor Arioso? I have a great mind to make a little excursion into the country myself. Dare I ask you to accompany me, or would my reputation be gone for ever?’
‘I’m afraid so, Signorina.’
‘Pity. Oh well, I have managed so far with only the company of my maid; I shall just do so again.’
Arioso returned later in the day to report that the Duke always spent a night at the Angel at Guildford, when he drove down to Sallis House, and Lady Cristabel and her chaperone would doubtless do the same. ‘Their departure is postponed until the day after tomorrow, by the way.’
‘That’s a blessing. Who is the chaperone, do you know?’
‘I’m afraid it is Lady Helen.’
‘The dragon-aunt! Well, I must be thinking how best to tame her. What do you know about her, Signor?’
‘She’s something of a blue stocking, I believe. A friend of the Miss Berrys, Horace Walpole, that set. But they are bound to have hired a private parlour at the inn. It’s not going to be easy.’
‘Nothing that is worthwhile is easy. But I am a very determined woman, Signor.’
‘I begin to think so.’
It was the first time Martha had left London since the windswept, rain-sodden drive up from Southampton, and she was amazed all over again at the green neatness of England. Today the sun shone, birds sang in flowering trees, wafts of perfume from cottage gardens came in through the open carriage window. ‘This is going to be something like,’ she told Deborah. ‘I’m just about ready for this after all those cramped respectable rides in town.’
‘Yes, Miss,’ said Deborah.
‘No, Deborah.’ Martha leaned forward to pat her hand. ‘You’ve forgotten again. You’re my cousin-companion, don’t forget.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I wonder if we are ahead of Lady Cristabel on the road or behind her.’
‘Ahead I should think.’ Deborah had not enjoyed the ruthlessly early start. ‘But how will you contrive the meeting, Miss?’
‘Not Miss, Martha.’ Patiently. ‘And the answer is the Good Lord knows, and I mean to leave it to Him.’
It was still early afternoon when they swept into the yard of the prosperous coaching inn where Martha had taken the precaution of sending to engage lodgings. This, and the elegant hired carriage, ensured an obsequious welcome from the landlord. ‘I’m rather hoping to meet a friend here,’ she told him carelessly. ‘Lady Cristabel Sallis. You do expect her, do you not?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ If he had bowed deeply before, he almost touched the ground now. ‘I will see to it that your rooms are convenient for her Ladyship’s, ma’am.’
‘Thank you. They’ll dine with me, of course.’ She gave swift orders for the best he could offer. ‘And if you will be so good as to let me know when Lady Cristabel arrives?’
‘With pleasure.’
But the stir in the yard when the Sarum coach swung in was announcement in itself, and Martha anticipated the little boy who came tapping at her door. ‘Thank you.’ She stepped demurely downstairs after him, timing herself by the sounds in the yard, and reached the main hall just as the newly arrived party entered it. ‘Cristabel!’ She moved forward, hands outstretched. ‘What a pleasure to meet you here!’ She turned, gravely curtsying to the tall lady in black. ‘This must be your aunt, whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting. Is not this a happy accident! I could not believe my good luck when the landlord told me he expected you tonight. You’ll give me the pleasure of dining with me, of course. I took the liberty of giving the orders. But I am sure Lady Helen is blessing me for keeping you standing here, when she must long for the comfort of her room. I’ve a million things to say to you, Cristabel. Bear with a savage of a tourist and come and look at the Castle and the Abbot’s Hospital with me? My cousin Deborah is a devoted companion, but no sightseer.’ She had taken Cristabel’s hand in an apparently impulsive gesture as she began this breathless speech, now pressed it hard.
‘I’d be delighted.’ Cristabel took her cue. ‘Lord, it’s an age since we last met. I hardly know where to begin.’
‘By presenting your friend to me, perhaps?’ Lady Helen had been looking Martha up and down, unable to find fault with anything except the soft trace of a Philadelphia accent. ‘I don’t remember your mentioning …’ The English good manners, on which Martha had counted, made it impossible for her to put her doubts more directly.
‘Cristabel never spoke of me? Oh, now, I mind that! Of Martha Ann Peabody? You were surely never ashamed of your American friend, Cris? I may still c
all you Cris? But what are we doing, standing about in public here? Your rooms are next to mine, I asked the landlord specially. This way.’ She had her by the arm now, leading her towards the stairway. ‘Say you’ll come walking with me as soon as you are settled?’
Half an hour later, the two girls were walking side by side, along Guildford’s handsome high street, with Deborah keeping a respectful pace or two behind them. It had been market-day, and the street was still crowded with prosperous red-faced farmers. By tacit consent they kept silent until they reached the gardens of the Abbot’s Hospital. Then Lady Cristabel stopped by a bed of gillyflowers, turned to face her companion. ‘And now, perhaps, you will explain.’ Generations of authority sounded in the cool, deep voice, and Martha felt a sudden qualm almost of fear.
‘It’s not so much an explanation as a proposition,’ she plunged in. ‘We can’t stay out long, can we? No time for beating about the bush. I’m more grateful than I can say, that you caught on so quickly back at the inn. Briefly, the thing is this. I heard you sing at the London Rooms the other day. Michael Kelly had told me about you. You’re all he said. More. You’ve a great future before you, if you want it.’
‘Kelly?’ Black brows lifted over the amazing blue eyes.
‘He’s a friend of mine. He has told me about you. But of course I had to hear you myself; see you. The way you mastered that restless audience. I was spellbound. We all were. You must have felt it. You must want to use your gift. On the stage, in opera, where you belong.’
‘I’ve dreamed of it. Trained for it, thanks to Arioso. This is a very strange conversation.’
‘Is it not? My fault. I have not explained myself.’
‘I’ve heard a little about you.’ The rich voice sounded amused. ‘I may live immured but I’m not entirely out of touch with the world. You are the American heiress.’
‘That’s it. My father left me everything. With no strings attached. He trusted me, bless him, believed in my good sense. When I got to England and found things no better here, I began to wonder if he had been right.’
‘No better?’
‘For a woman. In Philadelphia, after Father died, I was surrounded by men who meant to marry me. Not me, my money. They hardly bothered to hide it. I amuse you?’
‘Yes. You cannot seriously have thought things would be better here in England?’
‘I thought the men would be more interesting.’
‘And they are not?’
‘Not the ones who want to marry me. They are dull about different subjects, that’s all. They take it just as much for granted that I am lucky to be listening to them.’
‘And so you are,’ said Lady Cristabel. ‘My father wants me to marry a man I have not even met. He’s fifty. His lands march with ours down in Somerset and his first wife has just died. Childless, by which I mean leaving only daughters. I refused, and am going back to the country until I see the error of my ways, which means for the rest of my life, I think. How strange to be telling you this.’
‘It makes things easier for me. To say what I want to. I hope you will listen. Do you know Michael Kelly?’
‘How should I? You seem to know about me, know how my life has been until these last few weeks. I know of him, of course. But what has he to do with anything?’
‘It was his idea, really. I was grumbling to him, do you see, about my dull life, women’s dull lives. He said it was a pity I wasn’t good at something, couldn’t play, or sing, or paint. Then I could have been what he called a virtuosa, would be entitled to a life of my own, like Mrs. Billington or Mrs. Jordan, or someone I’ve never heard of called Madame Vigée Le Brun. That’s what made me think of you. With your voice, and my money, I think we might be able to make a life for ourselves, if you would only risk it, only trust me. I’ve been thinking of nothing else since I heard you sing. Please, Lady Cristabel, don’t say “no” before you have thought about it, slept on it.’
‘Say no? Do you think me mad? But – Miss Peabody, I’m not ready. It would not be fair not to tell you this. I’ve been shut up: cloistered. Even Arioso, who is my dear friend, has told me I need experience of real opera, preferably in Italy, Venice maybe, to go every day through the season, eat and drink opera, breathe it, live it. Then, he thinks, he did say that he hoped … It’s no use. I’ve given up. It’s impossible …’ The extraordinary voice faded into silence.
‘Venice,’ said Martha. ‘What a delicious idea. I had been thinking of Naples, but it sounds a sad tatterdemalion kind of a place, not the thing for two ladies on their own.’
‘Whether Venice would prove any better, now it is under Austrian control – Good gracious,’ she broke off. ‘I am talking as if it were a possibility.’
‘Believe me, Lady Cristabel, it is. If you’ll only venture …’
‘You mean … You really mean …’
‘I most certainly mean it. I’ve talked to Signor Arioso. Nothing would make him happier than to act as courier for us. He speaks all kinds of languages, he tells me. Now the peace is signed, we can go the easy way, through France. And that will be interesting too … Maybe a stop in Paris? The opera there?’
‘You’ve really thought about it!’
‘I’ve thought of little else since I heard you sing. I love music, Lady Cristabel, play well enough to accompany your practice, sing well enough to know how brilliantly you do. It would be a happy life for me, on the fringe of yours, maybe managing yours a little. My father was a keen man of business. Anything rather than this everlasting round of Society!’
‘Which I have hardly experienced. But that wedding! My poor stepmother! To get away from it all! But, can we?’ She looked at the little gold watch pinned to her habit. ‘I must be getting back. Aunt Helen will be anxious … I’m fond of her.’
‘I saw. It’s a problem. I had meant to propose abducting you, here and now.’
‘What?’
‘Well, not precisely.’ Laughing. ‘But my carriage is ready, my things still packed, my rooms paid in advance. We could have left your aunt to eat the dinner I have commissioned, driven all night – there’s a moon – taken ourselves some quiet lodging in an unpopular seaside resort and made our plans for the journey. I thought you would just leave a note for your aunt, but I see now that that is impossible. You have to tell her. We have to tell her. Explain. It means it’s going to be harder for you, I’m afraid.’
‘Better in the long run. I don’t shirk my fences, Miss Peabody. Come,’ taking her arm, ‘let us go back to the inn and tell Aunt Helen. I owe her that. Not my father. A letter will do for him, but we must have his tacit agreement, or he could make things very difficult for us. And, Miss Peabody, I have to tell you, I am penniless. Entirely dependent on my father. And the most I can hope from him, I think is noninterference.’
‘Never fret about that. A few years and you will be commanding a prima donna’s fees. You can pay me back then, if you want to.’
‘You really believe it!’
‘So do you. Let us go and face your Aunt.’
‘You are out of your minds,’ Lady Helen had listened impassively as the two girls outlined the plan. ‘Sit down, both of you, don’t tower over me, it makes me nervous. You have known each other …’ she looked at her watch. ‘An hour and a half, and you propose to go gallivanting off together, to Venice, of all places, unchaperoned – I’m sorry, Miss Peabody, but that “cousin” of yours is neither here nor there – where Cristabel will become a famous opera singer and make her fortune. Just like that.’
‘Exactly like that, Lady Helen.’ Martha was beginning to respect the dragon-aunt. ‘But I am sorry you don’t think poor Deborah will do,’ she went on.
‘Of course she won’t do. Couldn’t say “boo” to a goose, poor girl. Well enough as your maid, which I take it is what she really is. So I am going to come with you.’ Amused blue eyes took in their amazement and Martha, with time now to study her, was revising her opinion of the dragon-aunt. She had expected an old lady, but there was o
nly a frost of grey in the black hair so like Cristabel’s. And there was nothing old about the set of the neat head on elegant shoulders, or the snapping blue eyes that had moved from face to face as they told their story. ‘That will take the wind out of Sarum’s sails,’ said Lady Helen with satisfaction. ‘And I can pay my way, Miss Peabody. My brother endowed me with an adequate pittance when he finally gave up hope of my marrying. No chance he’ll do the same for you, Cristabel. This is going to make him angrier than I have ever seen him. I must be a coward. I’d as soon be out of the way when he explodes.’
‘You really mean it, Aunt Helen?’
‘Indeed I mean it. I always wanted to see Venice. But it is up to you, Miss Peabody. I won’t be a charge on you, but I’ll alter the shape of your party more than a little. I’m not in my dotage, but I’m a short-tempered old maid, who likes her comforts.’
‘And you shall have them.’ Martha took a deep breath. ‘When do we start?’
‘First we write to the Duke. Both of us, I think, Cristabel. Not asking him, telling him. I think we had best do that from Sallis House, don’t you? No need to start defying him, and spending Miss Peabody’s money before we must. Will you give us the pleasure of your company there, Miss Peabody?’
‘Why, thank you! But don’t you think I would be better employed in setting about our arrangements in London? There will be a million things to do, and I want to see Mr. Kelly as soon as possible for advice and introductions. You won’t mind if I tell him? In strictest confidence, of course.’
‘It will be a nine days’ wonder soon enough,’ said Lady Helen.
First Night Page 3