First Night

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘Sir, I protest!’ Lodge whipped off his mask. ‘I’m a foreigner, an American! Is this the way you treat your guests, here in Lissenberg?’

  ‘It’s the way we treat plotters against the State. Complain to the presiding-judge in the morning, Herr Lodge. I must return to my duties as the Prince’s representative.’

  ‘But the ladies!’ Playfair was trying to silence Lodge, but he went on with his protest.

  ‘Ladies? I see no ladies. Just a nest of criminals, providentially exposed. A night in our cells will make you more amenable to reason. Sleep well!’ He replaced his own mask and turned to go.

  ‘This way.’ One of the soldiers opened a door concealed in the panelling at the back of the green room. ‘Quick now. We’re armed; you’re not. Don’t make things worse for yourselves.’

  The door gaped black and narrow. Passing through it one at a time they felt the icy damp beyond. ‘My voice!’ Cristabel put a hand to her throat. ‘You can’t!’ No pretence of manhood now.

  ‘Gawd! It’s the Prince’s nightingale.’ A soldier pulled off her mask and held his torch to her face. ‘What’s to do, friends? He won’t half be angry if we spoil his prima donna’s voice for her. You know what the cells are like.’

  ‘What can we do?’ said the leader. ‘We’ve our orders, from the Prince’s man. You know what happens to them as don’t obey orders.’ He gestured a sliced throat. ‘Pity about your voice, Fraülein, you should have thought about it before you got involved in this little plot.’

  ‘But we’re not involved,’ protested Martha. The two other dominoes must be clear away by now, she thought. ‘It’s all a total mistake. We only came to the ball, Lady Cristabel and I, to practise her in her role as a man in The Bride Confused. Which is to be performed tomorrow night,’ she pointed out. ‘And there is no understudy. You won’t be very popular with your fellow citizens if you keep her in the freezing cold all night, and she can’t sing. And Prince Maximilian will be furious!’

  ‘So will my mum,’ said another of the soldiers surprisingly. ‘You’re Fraülein Peabody, ain’t you Miss, the one that spoke up for Mum and the other women to the Prince. Hot soup and the fire kept up all day,’ he turned to his fellows. ‘We can’t put her in a cold cell for the night. Mum would never let me hear the end of it, nor my cousin Anna.’

  ‘We can’t let them go.’ The leader stuck to his point.

  ‘Course we can’t. Much as our lives are worth. But why can’t they spend the night by the watch-room fire with the rest of us? So long as you promise to look cold and miserable in the morning, Miss.’ He turned to Martha.

  ‘Of course! But they’ll be worried to death about us at the hostel. Is there any way you can get a message to let them know what’s happened? Nobody even knows we came to the ball!’

  ‘Playing truant was you?’ Rough sympathy in the man’s tone. ‘And fell into a pack of trouble, you didn’t reckon on. Sure we can get a message through by the back stairs. Though likely enough they’ll have heard frontways about this. News travels fast here in Lissenberg. But what are we going to do with the other two?’

  ‘Put them in the cells.’ The leader spoke with absolute decision. ‘Someone’s got to look proper cold in the morning. Besides … What was that you said, Hans, about there being six masks?’

  ‘Six? I never! What made you think that? Ask me, it’s all one of the Chamberlain’s mare’s-nests. Let’s not look more foolish in the morning than we have to. Arresting masks at New Year’s! Two ladies and two foreigners!’

  ‘Who are keeping pretty quiet,’ said the leader. ‘What have you to say for yourselves, gentlemen?’

  ‘We’ll say it to the judge in the morning.’ Playfair took the lead. ‘No use blaming you men for this bit of idiocy. It’s a bad sign of a country’s state when the authorities imagine conspiracies that don’t exist, and so I shall tell the examining judge. In the meantime, so long as you are so good as to keep the ladies warm, my companion and I will be happy enough in your cold cell, though we may complain to our governments about our treatment afterwards. But not about you. We promise you that, do we not, Lodge?’

  ‘Naturally.’ But Martha thought Lodge sounded very much less sure of himself than his companion. Was he beginning to realise just how serious his situation might be? She had always been sure that the two odd companions were fellow conspirators in some kind of international revolutionary plot, but all the evidence so far had suggested that they were not very capable ones. So what in the world was Franz Wengel doing getting involved with them? And should she be angry or relieved that he and his companion had quietly melted away, leaving the four of them to face arrest. Relieved, she thought. And, besides, what reason had he to suspect her and Cristabel’s identity? Of his own, she was in no doubt. She was beginning to think that she would recognise him, by instinct, if they were to be tied, blindfold at the opposite ends of one of the cold cells the Chamberlain had threatened. And where was that going to get her? Nowhere, she told herself, and settled obediently by the guard-room fire to try to sleep.

  Morning brought Baron Hals, the Chamberlain, abjectly apologetic, and visibly relieved when Cristabel decided to reveal that they had not, in fact, spent the night in the cells. The two of them had had no moment alone, and Martha was glad that Cristabel followed her lead in denying all knowledge of any other dominoes. ‘I trust you will see to it that Mr. Lodge and Mr. Playfair are released forthwith.’ Cristabel was suddenly the great lady.

  ‘I shall have to consult my master about that, but you ladies are free to go.’

  For a moment, Martha was tempted to refuse to leave until the other two were also released, but Cristabel needed to rest before the evening performance. Lodge and Playfair would have to fend for themselves. After all, they undoubtedly had been conspiring against the State, or trying to. Perhaps the near disaster would teach them to be more careful in future. As for her, she could not decide whether to be amused or irritated by the assumption that, as women, they were automatically free from suspicion. ‘They don’t seem to have heard of Charlotte Corday here in Lissenberg,’ she remarked to Cristabel, as they crossed the square from the prison entrance to that of their hostel. It was very early still, but she saw a little crowd outside the hostel entrance. ‘Be ready for an audience,’ she warned Cristabel who was still wondering what Charlotte Corday had to do with anything.

  Someone in the crowd turned, saw them coming and raised a cheer. ‘Huzza!’ The others caught it up.

  ‘Your public.’ She took Cristabel’s arm and felt her stiffen into her rôle as cavalier.

  ‘And yours, I think.’ Cristabel had noticed how many of the crowd were women.

  The cheering continued. Nothing was said, but friendly hands reached out to touch them as they passed, and the hostel door swung open to reveal Lady Helen awaiting them.

  ‘Now for our scolding.’ Cristabel braced herself.

  The evening performance was a brilliant success before it even started. Signor Franzosi, who had begun by being furious at the escapade, was their humble servant again by the end of the evening. Cristabel’s first entrance was greeted by a cheer that stopped the performance, and, at the end, even the orchestra rose to join in the ovation. ‘You won’t believe how cross they were with us last night.’ Martha had described their adventures to Lady Helen without any mention of the two vanished dominoes. ‘I suppose they are doing their best to make amends.’

  She had an expected caller the next day. Frau Schmidt came early and found her alone, since Cristabel liked to sleep late after a performance. ‘I have come to thank you,’ she said after the first greetings.

  ‘No need. But on the other hand …’ Martha had been hoping for just this opportunity, ‘There is something I would like to say. The two gentlemen who were arrested with us last night, our charming cicisbeos who cooled their heels in the Prince’s dungeons, I devoutly hope it will have taught them some sense, but, Frau Schmidt, I feel honour-bound to tell you – and anyone else whom it m
ay concern – that sense is a commodity with which they are not richly endowed. They play at conspiracy, I think, as other young men play at love, or war. It makes them infinitely dangerous to anyone with whom they chance to associate. I only wish that they could be ordered out of the country as a result of last night’s work, but as that is impossible, they should be avoided like the plague. I have been considering what would have happened if Lady Cristabel and I had not chanced to go to the masquerade last night, costumed as we were.’

  ‘So have I. All four of them would have been arrested, not a doubt of it. The musicians did their best to impede the arresting party, and so did the servants, but their best would not have been good enough if it had not been for your delaying presence, and the confusion it caused. The assignation had been blown, of course, by someone’s carelessness.’

  ‘Lodge’s, probably, but Playfair is not much better. Shall I suggest to them that they keep out of politics – at least Lissenberg ones – until spring? And that they take their leave as soon as the pass is open?’

  ‘We’d be most grateful.’ The old lady rose. ‘Pray give my regards and congratulations to Lady Cristabel. And to Lady Helen, of course.’ Unspoken between them, like so much else, was the fact that Lady Helen looked on Frau Schmidt as quite below her touch, and did not trouble herself to appear when she called.

  Martha rather enjoyed the interview with Lodge and Playfair who had been kept under lock and key for several days, awaiting Prince Gustav’s pleasure. They were both sorry for themselves, and thoroughly frightened. And a good thing too! They had seen the dark underside of life in Lissenberg and it had shaken them. ‘Those cells, Miss Peabody,’ Lodge shuddered, ‘I’m happier than I can say that you and Lady Cristabel were spared them. We wouldn’t keep a dog in such conditions, in our United States of America.’

  ‘Of course we wouldn’t.’ It was part of his general unconcern with her that he tended to forget she was as American as he. ‘But I hope it has been a useful warning to you both, and that you are planning to leave Lissenberg just as soon as the pass is open.’

  ‘We most certainly are,’ Playfair told her. ‘Spring can’t come soon enough for me. No need for your warnings, Miss Peabody, I’d not raise a finger to help these Lissenbergers after the way they let us down the other night. They just melted away at the first sign of danger, left the four of us to bear the brunt of it. I wish I knew who they were and how they got away. Have you any idea, Miss Peabody?’

  ‘Not the least in the world.’ Martha breathed a secret sigh of relief. ‘And if I were you, Mr. Playfair, I’d neither ask, nor wish to know. Ignorance is sometimes safety.’

  Lodge laughed nervously. ‘I was never more glad of ignorance than when the Prince was questioning us. Able to say we had brought fraternal greetings, but had no idea to whom.’

  ‘None at all? But how did you get in touch?’

  ‘Oh, no problem about that. Letters through a safe house, don’t you see. Only, in the end, before we came through with the funds, we had to see someone face-to-face.’

  ‘Should you be telling me this?’

  ‘I can’t see why not,’ said Playfair wearily. ‘We told the Prince.’

  ‘Hard on the safe house.’ Martha was wondering where the funds would have come from.

  ‘Not a bit of it. Perfectly respectable address. Poste restante with that banker fellow – I’ve seen him calling on you. Nothing against the Jews, myself, but they can look after themselves, that’s one thing certain. Lord, I never thought of that. Could it have been – One of the dominoes spoke, do you remember, Miss Peabody? Asked for a promise. Could it have been that Brodski?’

  ‘Good gracious no!’ She was able to answer with complete conviction.

  ‘You sound very sure, Miss Peabody,’ said Playfair. ‘I wonder why, since you say you didn’t recognise the man.’

  ‘Man?’ she said. ‘Are you sure it was a man?’

  11

  ‘Lodge and Playfair are gone at last.’ Ishmael Brodski had called to tell Martha that the passes were clear. ‘They were in the first carriage that got through. I’m afraid they may paint quite a highly coloured picture of life here in Lissenberg.’

  ‘Dungeons and torture?’ said Martha. ‘I suppose so. Not that torture was in the least necessary. I’m so glad their revelations did you no harm, Herr Brodski.’

  ‘Well, not much, thanks to your warning.’ Smiling. ‘I didn’t perish in the dungeons, nor do I have to leave in the first carriage, but it has all been, shall we say, inconvenient? And expensive. But it would have been much worse without your warning. I am indebted to you, I won’t forget.’

  ‘Thank you. But, tell me …’ Eagerly. ‘If the pass is open, there must be news in. What has happened in the world outside, while we have been shut up here?’

  ‘Shut up? You feel it, even though you have done so much to keep us sane, with Lady Cristabel’s brilliant performances. That was an inspiration of Prince Maximilian’s. She gets better every time I hear her. Deeper … That Dido last week. Miss Peabody, I’m a hardened businessman, I cried!’

  ‘Do tell her! She’d be so pleased. But, you’re putting me off, Herr Brodski. The news?’

  ‘Terrible. Bonaparte seems to have taken leave of his senses. The liberator has turned bloody tyrant. You’ll not believe it, Miss Peabody. He sent his soldiers across the border into neutral Baden. They arrested the young Duc d’Enghien, took him back to Paris, killed him.’

  ‘Killed?’

  ‘A mock trial in the night, shot in the morning. Murder.’

  ‘The heir to the Condés, isn’t he? But, why?’

  ‘There’s talk of a conspiracy. Pichegru … Moreau … And d’Enghien was living just across the French border. Said to hold the threads … Nonsense of course. Everyone knows he was living in Baden to be with the woman he loved, Madame de Rohan-Rochefort. Some say he was even married to her. He’s the soul of honour that young man. Was the soul of honour.’

  ‘He’s really dead?’

  ‘He’s dead all right. Judicial murder. Not just a crime of Bonaparte’s. A folly.’

  ‘Doesn’t Princess Amelia come from Baden?’

  ‘Yes. And her sister, the Tsarina of Russia.’

  ‘What will Prince Gustav do, do you think?’

  ‘If I knew that, Miss Peabody, I’d be a rich man.’

  ‘I thought you were already.’

  ‘Richer then.’

  Outraged, Prince Gustav put his whole court into mourning for the murdered duke. Shops in Lissenberg ran out of black crêpe, and all performances at the Opera House were cancelled.

  ‘Prince Max came himself to tell us,’ Cristabel reported. ‘Closed until further notice, he said. Some of the company talk of asking for leave of absence, going to get a breath of outside air.’

  ‘Will they be allowed to go, do you think?’ Martha got up and prowled over to the window. ‘Blue sky! Shall we ask leave, Cristabel? Go and visit your mother? Venice in spring! It would do us all good. Your aunt has been looking tired for weeks, and I wouldn’t mind a change of scene. And you have most certainly earned a holiday. Herr Brodski was singing your praises the other day. Your Dido made him cry, he says.’

  ‘You have the oddest friends. No, we can’t possibly go, Martha. Prince Gustav is going to announce the result of the opera competition.’

  ‘At last!’

  ‘Signor Franzosi thinks he must have been waiting till the road was open. Hoping against hope for a late entry. Which doesn’t speak too highly for the ones he has received.’

  ‘Or for his taste. And what an insult to the local competitors if that is really what he is doing. Did Prince Max submit one in the end, do you know?’

  ‘Nobody knows anything about anything. Extraordinary in so small a country.’

  ‘Not in Lissenberg. Do you know, when I got to Brundt, back in February, they didn’t even know of Lodge and Playfair’s arrest.’

  ‘Your Frau Schmidt did.’

  ‘M
y Frau Schmidt, as you choose to call her, is a very discreet old lady.’ Too discreet to volunteer any news of her grandson. And Martha too proud to ask. Altogether it had been a frustrating visit. ‘Cristabel, do let’s go and see your mother! A change of air would be wonderful. Maybe a permanent change. A few appearances at the Fenice – I’m sure Count Tafur could arrange that for you – and you should be well-launched into the Italian circuit. You could laugh at Prince Gustav and his opera competition.’

  ‘But I don’t want to,’ said Cristabel. ‘Not yet. I intend to sing in the anniversary opera. It’s going to be a great occasion, just the kind of start I need. I want the world at my feet, Martha.’

  ‘What to do with it?’

  ‘Kick it away? Enjoy it? Find happiness, perhaps? Do you believe in happiness, Martha?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Slowly. ‘Yes, in a way. I’ve been happy this winter, getting my kitchen going. The way you are in your singing, Belle. A little. I like making things work. And then, suddenly, it doesn’t seem quite enough. Cristabel,’ she had been meaning to ask this. ‘Have you thought at all how Bonaparte’s dastardly murder of the Duc d’Enghien may affect Prince Max?’

  ‘You mean, will Prince Gustav change his orders? Make him break off his engagement? Well – if he does, no doubt Prince Max will submit as tamely as he did before. It’s no affair of mine, Martha. Don’t ever think it is. I’ve fought my battle this winter. Won it, thank God. I’m a singer now, first, last, always.’

  Martha volunteered to join Lady Helen on her weekly visit to the Palace the next day. It was a long time since she had been up there, and she felt guilty about it. But sometimes she found Lady Helen’s preaching of aristocratic duty to the poor, beleaguered Princess hard to bear. And, besides, setting up her soup-kitchen had proved harder work than she had expected. She had soon seen that everyone meant to swindle her right and left, both for services and supplies, and this was something that, as her father’s daughter, she would not allow. It had taken a great deal of time and effort, and some very plain speaking, both in Lissenberg and on her trip to Brundt, before her willing helpers understood that she meant to have value for her money. She had shocked Lady Helen and even Cristabel, she knew, by her insistence that she get a Lissmark’s worth for every Lissmark, but she had finally got it recognised, and now felt able to leave the day-to-day running of affairs to a group of women, organised by Anna, who had proved a staunch ally throughout.