‘So soon? That’s wonderful news. Do you agree, Signor Arioso?’ Martha had felt both sorry for Arioso during their anxious week, and impressed by the dignity with which he had accepted his suddenly changed position.
‘Heartily,’ he said now. ‘The change in her breathing is actually extending Lady Cristabel’s already amazing range. Herr Wengel does indeed speak of a début two years from now. He has even suggested where it might take place.’
‘Wonderful!’ There was a new sparkle to Cristabel. ‘In Lissenberg, of all places, where I began. They are celebrating the twenty-fifth year of Prince Gustav’s reign in two years’ time. A new opera is to be performed, singers engaged from all over the world, no expense spared. Well, we all know about Prince Gustav. It is bound to be a tremendous occasion. Everyone who matters will be there. What could be better?’
‘And the opera?’ asked Martha.
‘It’s early days,’ Wengel interrupted Cristabel. ‘But I have great hopes that there will be an open competition for the most suitable one. I know this is what Prince Maximilian would like; the question is whether he can convince his father. I leave for Lissenberg tomorrow. I shall do what I can to see that Prince Maximilian gets his way.’
‘And what can you do, Herr Wengel?’ Lady Helen’s voice was cool, interested.
‘More than you think!’ He turned to her, more brusque than usual. ‘I may seem a nobody to you, but at home in Lissenberg my name is respected among the people who matter. Musicians … men of letters … Besides, my opera will be the best one submitted.’ It was said with complete self-confidence and absolutely no sense of boasting.
‘I really believe I agree with you,’ said Lady Helen.
‘I know I do,’ said Cristabel eagerly. ‘And it will be written for me, for my voice. I’ve been so afraid all week, now I know I can do it. I do thank you, Herr Wengel.’
‘It’s been a great pleasure.’ He turned to Martha. ‘How soon can you leave for Venice? It’s time she went to work.’
Martha lost her temper. ‘We have a saying, where I come from, that “she” is the cat’s mother. It means, in case you do not understand, that it is uncivil to refer to a lady as you do to Lady Cristabel. You boast about your lack of manners, I wonder if you understand what harm you do yourself.’ Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Lady Helen had contrived to draw Cristabel and Arioso to the other side of the room, giving her a clear field. ‘Just because we have borne with your rudeness, your total lack of consideration, all this week, don’t expect that the rest of the world will do so, because it won’t. The manners of the sans culottes won’t do in nineteenth-century society, Herr Wengel, and the sooner you learn this, the better it will be for you and for all of us who are associated with you.’ She raised a quelling hand. ‘Don’t interrupt me, as you usually do. I have started; let me finish. We have a stake in your future. I think this opera you speak of could be the ideal début for Lady Cristabel. So, I want you to succeed. And you won’t if you go home and behave to Prince Gustav as you have to us.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ His colour was high, his voice icy, as he made her a sweeping mockery of a servile bow. ‘Is that better? Should I rub my hands and fawn on you, because you are rich and the two other ladies have titles that mean nothing? Because they are dukes’ daughters? Have you learned nothing from the sight of Bonaparte, that great man? Who came from nowhere. I thought better of you, an American lady. But let me tell you, Miss Peabody, about our Prince Gustav, to whom you wish me to creep and grovel. He’s got a pedigree back to Adam. Oh yes! And he’s rotten with disease; there is no way the new little prince will ever live to succeed him, poor baby. He is bankrupting our country for his vulgar pleasures –’
‘Of which your opera is to be one.’ This time she interrupted him, and was surprised at doing so.
‘One of the more respectable!’ He acknowledged the hit with an out-thrown hand, like a duellist, and suddenly laughed, a short, angry bark of a laugh. ‘I wish you could meet my grandmother, Miss Peabody.’
‘Your –’
‘Grandmother. You thought me a child of the gutter? I’m not, you know. I come from a long line of Lissenberg artisans; the backbone of the country. My father led the protests when Prince Gustav bought the title, back in seventy-nine. If only there had been more like him! Nothing violent; democratic protest in the best tradition of the enlightenment. Gustav did nothing either; just ruined my father. He died when I was a baby. Left nothing. My mother would have been out in the streets if it had not been for Grandma. She had a tiny pension; we lived on that. Bread, and small beer, and the wolf never far from the door, but not the gutter. When I reached my teens, I found that Grandma had been scrimping and saving all that time, so there would be funds for my education. Looking back, I’m afraid she and my mother may have gone short. I never did. Grandma never will again. I shall see to that. Why in the world am I telling you this?’
‘You said you’d like me to meet her. Your grandmother. What happened to your mother?’
‘She died when I was young. Pined for my father, Grandma says. And I imagine being hungry didn’t help. You can see why I don’t much love Prince Gustav. Why should I ape his manners, those of the aristocrats? That’s what I tell Grandma, but she won’t see it. She says good manners oil the wheels of society.’
‘And so they do.’ Martha had never liked him so well. Then she spoiled it. ‘Lady Helen says you’ll never get a patron if you don’t temper your conduct a little.’
‘Lady Helen can go to the devil. Good day, Miss Peabody.’
‘I am so sorry. I truly meant it for the best.’ Martha was trying to explain to Cristabel why Franz Wengel had stormed out of the house.
‘For the best! I’d like to see your worst. And he left without giving me a chance to thank him properly. What business of yours are his manners, anyway?’
‘None,’ said Martha. ‘I am truly sorry, Cristabel. Forgive me? Please? I do so badly want him to succeed.’
‘And so do I!’ They exchanged a long, thoughtful look. ‘He leaves for Lissenberg next week. That was his goodbye. But he’ll write me my opera; I’m sure of it. Martha, how soon can we start for Venice?’
It was raining in Venice. The gondoliers who brought them over from Mestre, on the mainland, demanded extortionate fees and the landlord of the Scudo di Francia Inn received them with churlish surprise. When Martha told him she had written to reserve apartments, he shrugged his shoulders and said something sotto voce about the Austrians and censorship. But he gradually became more civil as he recognised the obvious affluence of the damp little party that had come dripping in from his landing-stage.
‘But I don’t like him much,’ said Cristabel. ‘Nor his inn, though it’s not quite so bad when one gets upstairs.’
‘No,’ Martha agreed. ‘That ground floor was horrible was it not? Damp as a fishmarket.’
‘And smells like one. Mr. Kelly made it sound such a romantic city.’
‘I expect it is when the sun shines,’ said Lady Helen. ‘But just now one can understand why British tourists don’t come here much.’
‘It must have been quite different when it was still an independent republic, the Serenissima, the mistress of the seas.’ Martha was fighting bitter disappointment. ‘I suppose I should have realised that Mr. Kelly was talking about an era that has passed.’
‘You don’t think we should move on to Naples after all?’ Lady Helen had urged Naples all along, as another centre of musical excellence, but Martha and Signor Arioso, as well as Michael Kelly, had opposed her because of the precarious political situation there. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ she went on now. ‘I didn’t mean to raise that again. And after all, we have come here to work, not for pleasure. What are you and I going to do, Martha, while Cristabel studies?’
‘I’m going to learn all the languages I can,’ said Martha. ‘But first, Signor Arioso and I are going to find us a house of our own.’
Salomon Rothschild, calling for
his letter next day, undertook to do this. Easy enough, he told her, since many of the old noble families of Venice’s Golden Book had retired to their country estates to sit out the Austrian occupation, which they were convinced could not last long.
A week later the sun came out and they moved to two floors of a medium-sized palazzo on the Grand Canal, west of St. Mark’s and convenient for the San Moise Opera House and the ten-year-old Fenice Theatre. There, too, it had been easy to secure boxes for the forthcoming season, though Arioso shook his head over the plans for it.
‘Things are even worse than I had feared,’ he told Martha. ‘When I think that Venice once had thirteen opera houses! Now all the four conservatories of music are closed, the singers scattered God knows where. But to look on the cheerful side of things, I have found teachers in every aspect of opera. Singing, languages, stagecraft – there are masters here in them all. And, another good thing, our stay here should be free from public notice.’
‘So that Lady Cristabel’s début will have all the more éclat when it happens?’
‘Just so. I think we will do very well here.’
‘I’m sure we will. But I wish my books would come.’ Martha had sent off an order to Hookham’s Library from Paris, just as soon as their plans for Venice were settled. She and Cristabel had discovered a shared wish to study the history of Central Europe. If both of them had secretly hoped that Wengel would call again before he left Paris for Lissenberg, both had been disappointed and neither had said a word about it. But it made obvious sense to learn something about the country where Cristabel hoped to make her début.
She was soon hard at work, setting off in their private gondola for her lesson every morning, returning for a light luncheon, and siesta, before they set off to explore the city they were beginning to love. Their gondolier, known as ‘Momolo’ for no reason they ever understood, soon became a good friend, and Lady Helen was happy to let them go off alone with him when the variable weather was suddenly too hot for her. They were well and truly launched into Venetian society now, but not finding it much to their taste. Inevitably, Lady Helen had had introductions to many of the remaining noble families, and they were soon on visiting terms with ladies like the Countesses Albrizzi and Cigognera. ‘All the old noble families have been allowed to take the title of “count” by the Austrians,’ explained Lady Helen.
‘It doesn’t make their receptions any more interesting,’ grumbled Martha. ‘Two rows of chairs like country-dance lines leading up to the sofa where your hostess sits, and not one with a word to say for herself. All dying for the moment when the card playing begins and their cavaliere servente can come out from behind their chair and partner them.’
‘Are we going to set ourselves up with them?’ asked Cristabel.
‘Cicisbeos? Attendant knights? What do you think, Lady Helen?’
‘I have no doubt they will offer themselves, and, really, it seems a harmless enough custom. You know, when in Rome … Besides, for some of your sightseeing, I think I’d feel happier if you had gentlemen with you. For the long excursions, Murano and Torcello, I hardly think our dear Momolo would be protection enough.’
‘I told Countess Benzoni we thought of going to Torcello,’ said Martha. ‘She looked as shocked as if we meant to fly to the moon. Do you know how she spends her days?’
‘No, did she tell you?’
‘I asked her. She gets up about twelve o’clock and goes off to Mass, with her cavaliere servente in attendance, of course. Then she takes a turn or two in the Piazza San Marco, pays visits or receives them until dinner time – between three and four. Then she undresses and goes to bed! About eight o’clock she’s up again for her evening toilette and so to the theatre and then the casino until three or four in the morning. In summer, I believe, she spends the time in the cafés on the Piazza.’
‘Where the ladies pay their own shot!’ put in Cristabel. ‘An odd custom.’
‘One I like,’ said Martha. ‘Do tell me, how are we going to accommodate ourselves to this programme?’
‘With difficulty,’ agreed Cristabel. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t get me to go to bed in the daytime, and I must start work betimes in the morning. But do we really need to go to the casino after the theatre? It doesn’t open until midnight, I believe, when the opera is over. If we come home then …’
‘We’ll save daylight and money. I quite agree. So, all we need is a pair of adaptable cicisbeos. It’s a pity one cannot advertise for them.’
‘I think you will find they present themselves,’ said Lady Helen.
A few days later she returned from her afternoon round of visits looking so white and shaken that both girls jumped to their feet. ‘What is it, Aunt Helen?’ asked Cristabel. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Thank you, child.’ She accepted the smelling salts Martha offered her, and sank on to a chair. ‘My dears, I’ve had such a shock … Such an unpleasant surprise. I don’t know how to tell you. And as for my poor brother … How in the world am I going to break it to him?’
‘My father?’ asked Cristabel. ‘What has he to do with anything?’ They had heard nothing from the Duke since they had left England.
‘Madame Benzoni told me,’ Lady Helen accepted a glass of cordial from Martha and took a grateful sip, ‘Just casually, in passing. I couldn’t believe my ears, didn’t want to show my surprise for my poor brother’s sake. The scandal will be appalling. I must write to him at once. It shows how cut off they are in Venice, that Madame Benzoni obviously did not know of his remarriage. It will be a nine days’ wonder when the news gets out!’
‘But what news, Aunt Helen?’
‘It’s your mother, child.’
‘My mother? But she’s dead!’
‘So we all thought. She never took the allowance Sarum sent her. He must have had enquiries made. But she was here all the time, living in a quiet way in the Giudecca. Madame Benzoni seemed to think it was amusing for some reason. I didn’t dare ask why.’
‘Mother’s alive – here in Venice! But, Aunt Helen, I don’t understand. Don’t go, Martha!’ She had made to leave them. ‘You are part of the family now! Father would never speak about my mother. Just said she was dead. What happened to her? What did he do to her?’
‘She was a singer, here in Venice, a ‘seconda donna’, I believe, at the San Benedetto Theatre. He was on his grand tour, fell in love, and married her out of hand. Well, of course it was a disaster. When he got her home to England he saw that soon enough, and so did our father. You were born a year later and they paid her off, sent her back here with a pension on the understanding that she would keep quiet. I was a child still,’ she anticipated Cristabel’s question. ‘I only met her a few times. She seemed a very brilliant lady to me.’
‘And nobody ever troubled to find out what happened to her?’ Cristabel was outraged. ‘Or tell me.’ She thought about it. ‘A singer! How delightful. We shall have so much to talk about.’ And then, with an angry little laugh. ‘No wonder Father hated my singing. Signor Arioso must have known!’
‘Of course he knew. He was her teacher. Your father must have made him promise not to speak of her, as he did the rest of us.’
‘How like Father! And what a judgment that this has happened to him. But how could it?’
‘She went back to her maiden name, apparently. Lucia Aldini. I suppose, when he had enquiries made, they were for the Duchess of Sarum. No one had heard of her. It’s not really very funny, Cristabel.’
‘I’m sorry! But it’s so like Father. Of course, I’m dreadfully sorry for my poor stepmother. Not my stepmother! Goodness, what do they do to dukes who commit bigamy?’
‘Give them a quick divorce in the House of Lords, I imagine,’ said Helen. ‘I shall write to my brother today. I owe it to him, though I dread doing it. And until we hear from him I am sure you will understand that it is better for you not to visit your mother.’
5
Cristabel slept badly that night. Waking unrefreshed, but at h
er normal hour, she went off as usual to her music lesson and returned to find Martha alone. ‘Where’s Aunt Helen?’
‘Gone to pay an early call on Countess Benzoni. I suspect she is having trouble writing that letter to your father.’
‘I should just about think she is,’ said Cristabel. ‘Martha, I’m going to visit my mother. I don’t care what Aunt Helen says, Mother must have heard I am here; you know how talk travels around the lagoon. How can I not call on her? I’d like it very much if you would come with me, but I can see you may not wish to, granted what Aunt Helen said.’
‘Of course I’ll come! I was hoping you’d decide to go. None of my business, but why in the world should you – or your aunt, come to that – take a moment’s notice of your father’s feelings in this? When shall we go?’
‘Now? It would save discussion with Aunt Helen. And I’m sure Momolo will be able to find out where Mother lives on the Giudecca. Do you think it will be very miserable, Martha?’
Martha had been thinking about this, during a wakeful night of her own. ‘I’m afraid it may be, Belle. From what your aunt said, it does not sound as if your mother went back on the stage when she returned here, does it? If she had, surely she would have been found when your father made his enquiries. Poor man, one does have to feel sorry for him.’
‘Not very. But, Martha,’ she hesitated: ‘I’m ashamed to have to ask it of you. Only, you know how I am placed … If we should find Mama in very distressed circumstances …’
‘We will help her. Naturally. And you will not give it a second thought, since we have already agreed that you are going to pay everything back once you are established as Prima Donna, at Lissenberg or anywhere else.’
‘Oh, Martha, I do bless the day we met! Lord, how you have changed my life!’
‘It’s a great responsibility. I was thinking of that in the night.’
First Night Page 6