‘No! Who?’
‘That’s the question. I think everyone now begins to accept that the little prince is not likely to live to succeed even if he were to be named heir. Prince Maximilian continues in black disgrace.’ He ran surprisingly aristocratic long fingers through thickly curling hair. ‘May I treat you as a male associate, Miss Peabody?’
‘Please.’
‘You know, of course, about Prince Gustav’s latest mistress, the Countess Bemberg? He makes them all countesses, but this one is at least a Lissenberger …’
‘I had heard something.’
‘Naturally. But had you heard that she gave birth to a healthy boy not long ago?’
‘No! But, Herr Brodski, he couldn’t … The Princess Amelia …’
‘One would certainly think not. But, you know the saying, that whom they wish to destroy the Gods first make mad. I am beginning to wonder if that is not what is happening here.’
‘You cannot be serious.’ With a quick, anxious look at the door.
‘Never more so. I asked Anna to wait outside.’
‘For fear of eavesdroppers?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you saying to me?’
‘That I think the situation here is going from bad to worse. Something is going on, Miss Peabody, and even I do not know what it is. My usual sources of information have dried up entirely. I don’t like it. We’re sitting on a mine, in more ways than one. Frankly, I don’t want to be here when it goes up. You’ll think me a coward, but you know as well as I do that we Jews are always the first to suffer when things go wrong. I have written to my friends, the Rothschilds, to warn them that I intend to get out of Lissenberg before the roads are closed for winter, and I urge that you and your friends do likewise. Foreigners are apt to be targets too at such times.’
‘But the opera … the company … Lady Cristabel would never …’
‘She could ask for leave of absence after the celebrations are over. Go to Venice to see her mother … Wait things out there.’
‘I doubt she’d do it.’ Cristabel was full of plans for a season with Desmond Fylde.
‘The new tenor?’ As so often, Brodski read her mind. ‘Very well then, leave her and her aunt, they’re Palace servants after all, they should be safe enough. Your case is quite different. You have made yourself too well loved here in Lissenberg for the Prince’s liking. First the women porters, now the money you have put into supplies. Don’t think he doesn’t know about that. And your country is a long way off. If an “accident” were to happen to you in the course of a disturbance of some kind, or if you were simply to disappear, what do you think would be done about it?’
‘I don’t know.’ She said it slowly, thinking of those ice-cold cells behind the tunnel.
‘Dead women tell no tales. Miss Peabody –’ He rose, towered over her, hesitated for a moment. ‘My mother was a noble Polish lady; my Jewish father ran the family estates. They ran away together, loved each other most devotedly; the happiest couple I ever knew. They brought me up as a Protestant, the world treats me as a Jew, always has, always will. But I’m a rich man. Not as rich as you, but rich enough. And I am tired of being treated as I am here, consigned to the Ghetto. I am going to look for a new life, in your United States. Come with me! I have loved you for a long time. I believe we could be as happy together as my parents were. I am asking you to be my wife, Miss Peabody.’ He looked down at her, black eyes blazing.
‘I’m more flattered than I can say.’ For the first time, a proposal had taken her completely by surprise. ‘I wish I could say yes. I truly do. But – I don’t love you.’
‘I’ve enough for two.’ He took her hand. ‘Give me a chance to make you love me? We could do so much together, you and I. And – children. I’d so much like your children. Ah – don’t cry!’
‘I can’t help it.’ She looked up at him, trying to smile, letting the tears fall, her hand still in his. ‘It’s so much what I’ve always wanted. And I can’t.’
‘May I ask why not? I don’t think it’s because I am a Jew.’
‘Of course not! It’s much simpler than that; it’s because I love someone else. Hopelessly, I think, but that’s not the point, is it?’
‘It might be,’ he said. ‘You always face facts, Martha Peabody. It’s one of the things I love in you. If you know it is hopeless, give me a chance? Let me be your escort back to America. I promise you shall be cherished, adored, chaperoned, and not a word said of this until you are safe home in Philadelphia. Then, let me ask you again.’
‘Safe home in Philadelphia?’ She said it almost wistfully. ‘I’ve been chaperoned enough for a lifetime, but cherished …’ She released her hand, brushed it across her eyes. ‘No, it wouldn’t be fair. And, besides, I’m not going back to Philadelphia. I think my life is here in Europe now, whatever happens.’
He looked at her gravely. ‘But suppose you lose it?’
‘I’ll suppose no such thing! But –’ a shiver ran down her spine. ‘You won’t leave at once, Herr Brodski?’
‘Not if you won’t come with me. I told you I loved you. If you stay, I stay.’
‘Oh!’ Her hand went up to her mouth. ‘I’m glad, of course. But if something happened, if you were hurt, it would be my fault.’
‘Nonsense!’ The black eyes sparked at her. ‘Mine only, for being an obstinate dog of a Jew who still hopes to make you change your mind. Yes?’ There was a scratching on the door.
Anna. ‘It’s Prince Maximilian,’ she said. ‘He’s back, asking for Lady Cristabel.’
‘Who is rehearsing,’ said Martha, ‘with Desmond Fylde. Send the Prince in, Anna.’ She caught a long, measuring look from Brodski. Sympathy. He thought she loved the Prince. It would be comic if it were not all so sad.
‘Then I must leave you,’ said Brodski. ‘Think of what I have said.’
‘It’s been a long time.’ Martha held out a friendly hand to Prince Maximilian.
‘Too long!’ He looked exhausted, anxious, angry? ‘I should have returned sooner, with or without leave. What’s going on here, Miss Peabody?’
‘You ask me that!’
He laughed angrily and she thought with a little shock of surprise that the charming boy had grown up at last. ‘You are as likely to tell me as anyone else! My father won’t see me, spends all his time with the Countess Bemberg–’ A note of savage mockery on the title. ‘My poor stepmother is ill and so is young Gustav. I don’t like the look of him at all. The doctors are baffled, they say. It couldn’t be more unfortunate, just when the Prince is ready to name his heir.’
‘He’s really going to?’
‘He’s committed to it. And I came back with such hopes! I wanted Lady Cristabel to be the first to know, but she is busy rehearsing. At least Crusader Prince seems to be shaping up well. She and Mr. Fylde make a brilliant pair, I hear. Franzosi is delighted with them.’ Was he himself less so? He was silent for a moment, lost in gloomy thoughts of his own.
‘But your news, Prince Maximilian?’ she prompted him gently. ‘Your high hopes?’
‘My opera is to be put on at the Burgtheater in Vienna. It’s a great honour, the chance I had hardly dared dream of. They want me there for the production, of course. If you could have heard the flattering things Signor Salieri said! I had hoped that Lady Cristabel… But she is too busy rehearsing even to see me, and now, with little Gustav so ill, I am afraid the Prince will have no option but to name me Regent at least. And there go all my plans …’
‘You’d feel it your duty to stay here?’
‘Of course. There is so much needs doing. Naturally, I hope the Prince will live for many years, but he has never interested himself in Lissenberg’s problems. Once I had some standing in the country, I think I could do a little … It’s my duty to try … And so much for my plans for a life in music. This kind of chance doesn’t come twice. I had even hoped … let myself believe that Lady Cristabel … But the time I’ve spent in Austria has made me see thing
s more clearly than when I was shut away here in Lissenberg. We must have strong allies for the dangerous years ahead. I think I must resign myself to a dynastic marriage, the question is, which way?’
She thought he was taking a great deal dangerously for granted, but it was not her place to say so. One point though she did feel she must raise. ‘The Lissenbergers,’ diffidently, ‘they have strong views, Prince Maximilian. Should they not be considered? There was a great deal of hostile talk, you know, when word of a possible Russian alliance got out. They don’t much like foreigners.’
‘You’re well informed. So maybe you can tell me what has become of Franz Wengel, whom I expected to find here, putting the last touches to his opera.’
‘He’s not here? But I saw him only yesterday, he was delighted with the way things were going. He said nothing about leaving.’ But when had Franz Wengel talked about his own plans?
‘He’s gone just the same. To Brundt, they say. Said he’d be back for the dress-rehearsal. What can be more important than Crusader Prince just now?’
‘What is your opera called?’ She thought it time to change the subject. ‘What’s its theme? Your duty of secrecy to Prince Gustav must be long over now.’
‘Yes, of course. It’s a German theme, Miss Peabody. One of our old legends. About a valkyrie – one of Odin’s handmaidens – who falls in love with a mortal and loses her own immortality as a result. I had hoped that it would be the first of a series, a kind of cycle of operas, about their fates and those of their child. The Prince detested it.’ An angry laugh. ‘Said it was a glorification of the female principle and that I should be ashamed of myself. It would be a wonderful part for Lady Cristabel. Well, I wrote it for her. They like it particularly in Vienna, feel it appropriate to this time of war, and rumours of war. Did you know that Herr van Beethoven is working on an opera too? I long to see it. A liberation theme, they say. Mind you, not everybody likes his music in Vienna. The old guard finds him too difficult. Not Papa Haydn, of course.’
‘Did you meet him?’
‘Oh yes, both of them. Both interesting men in their different ways. I can’t tell you how stimulating it is to be in Vienna, Miss Peabody. But tell me about Crusader Prince. Is it really going as well as Franzosi says? His geese do tend to be swans. To be frank with you, I was not too happy about Wengel’s libretto when I finally managed to see it. A terrible tailing off in the second half, I thought.’
‘There’s been some rewriting.’ She could hardly say less.
‘I’m glad to hear it. Including, I take it, this famous scene between Lady Cristabel and Fylde, that no one is allowed to witness. You must have seen it.’
‘Many times, but not since Mr. Fylde took over. He’s magnificent, Cristabel says.’
‘A real find. I hope he is keeping up his German lessons. I’d like him for the tenor rôle in Odin’s Daughter.’
‘Your opera is to be sung in German?’
‘Yes, indeed. Now that Austria and Prussia look to become allies at last, there’s a great deal of all-German feeling building up in Austria. Herr Beethoven is working with a German libretto too, I understand. I think Wengel may find himself behind the times in clinging to the Italian. Is it really true that he insists no one see the last scene of his opera even at the dress-rehearsal?’
‘I believe so.’ She found herself wondering if Wengel had gone away to avoid further discussion of this.
‘Lunatic! I must see him. Ah! Lady Cristabel!’ He turned eagerly to greet her, his colour suddenly high. ‘I hear you are surpassing even yourself as Algisa. I long to hear you. But what is this idiocy about the last scene? You must help me make Herr Wengel see sense. And you, too, Mr. Fylde.’ Turning to the tenor, who had entered the room behind Cristabel.
‘Ah, but you don’t understand Prince.’ Martha had noticed how subtly Fylde slid in and out of a touch of Irish brogue. ‘It’s a brilliant idea of Herr Wengel’s. No one is to know how the opera ends until the first performance. It will raise public anticipation immensely, don’t you see? In fact –’ one of his ravishing smiles for Martha, ‘even Miss Peabody doesn’t know the ending, though she thinks she does.’
‘You’ve changed it again?’
‘Herr Wengel has.’ He touched a finger elegantly to full lips. ‘But mum’s the word. We are all sworn to secrecy, and Herr Wengel is not a man one ignores.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Maximilian turned back to Cristabel, ‘I appeal to your good sense, Lady Cristabel …’
‘Mine? What would I be doing with sense, Prince? I’m your prima donna, remember.’
Did Maximilian recognise, as Martha did, the faint trace of Fylde’s Irish brogue in her voice? ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, colour higher than ever, ‘I had mistaken you for the Lady Cristabel Sallis. A duke’s daughter with some knowledge of the world.’
‘Thank you.’ She swept him a mocking curtsy. ‘And so I am. And so I have. But Mr. Fylde has more, and you would be well-advised to recognise it. You talk of rank, Prince, so let me tell you that Mr. Fylde would be a prince in Ireland if we all had our rights. And I am proud to recognise him as such.’ She turned to look up at Fylde with such a naked blaze of adoration that the little group fell suddenly silent.
Martha watched the colour ebb from Maximilian’s face, leaving him sheet-white. Someone must speak. ‘Well, I’m nobody’s daughter, in your terms, Prince,’ smiling at Maximilian, ‘but I value my own judgment too, and I believe there may be something in what Mr. Fylde says. You’ve never met Herr Wengel, have you? I promise you, he is no fool. He would not hold out for this secrecy without very good reason. And we do have to face it that the new Emperor Napoleon is holding court at Mainz just when the anniversary celebrations take place here. It would be a disaster to have a thin house for Crusader Prince, for all kinds of reasons, political as well as personal. You must see that. And this secret ending, if word gets about, which naturally it will, must be a great public draw.’
‘For the wrong kind of public,’ said Maximilian.
‘That may be true. But any public perhaps better than none? Imagine your father faced with empty seats.’
‘Oh very well,’ Martha thought him so shaken by what Cristabel had revealed of her feeling for Fylde that he hardly cared what he said, ‘have your great mystery then.’ He forced a smile for Cristabel. ‘And forgive my intrusion.’ He made them a comprehensive bow which managed, somehow, to exclude Fylde. ‘Good-day, ladies.’
‘And good riddance,’ said Fylde cheerfully when he had gone. ‘But at least we have gained Wengel’s point for him, thanks to you, Miss Peabody. He’ll be grateful, I’ve no doubt.’ He smiled at her knowingly, and she found herself very close to hating him.
‘Lady Helen,’ Martha had managed to find her alone in her room, ‘I’m worried about Cristabel.’
‘Oh?’ Lady Helen looked up from her embroidery.
‘When did you last sit in on a rehearsal?’
‘Oh, some time ago. Now we have a professional singer, it’s less important, and Herr Wengel has this great passion for secrecy.’
‘I see.’ She had been busy herself with arrangements about winter supplies. ‘Cristabel seems to think Mr. Fylde is an Irish prince.’
‘A what?’
‘An Irish prince, if he had his rights. Could it be possible?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. The child is daydreaming again. He’s a great charmer, of course.’ Tolerantly. ‘If it makes it easier for her to act with him, that she imagines herself a little into love with him, what matter?’
‘I think it might matter a great deal. I wish you would talk to her about him, Lady Helen. Make her see him for the fortune-hunter I am sure he is.’
‘But what fortune?’ asked Lady Helen.
Tempers shortened and tension mounted as the celebrations loomed nearer. Princess Amelia and her son were still gravely ill. ‘Not well enough to see me,’ Lady Helen returned from the Palace looking anxious.
‘And the little prince?’ a
sked Martha.
‘No change, they say. And look very glum when they say it. Poor little boy. I saw Baron Hals, the Chamberlain, while I was waiting. He looks positively hag-ridden. And no wonder, poor man. Lord knows what would happen if one of them were to die when the celebrations were at their height.’
‘It doesn’t bear thinking of,’ said Cristabel. ‘You can’t mean they might be cancelled, Aunt?’
‘They would have to be, my dear. You must see that.’
‘Crusader Prince?’ It was a wail of anguish.
‘I think you should be steeling yourself for the possibility.’
‘Surely to God the Prince would have the wits to keep a death secret if it should happen so inconveniently.’ Desmond Fylde had called, as he frequently did, to escort Cristabel to their rehearsal.
‘They say he is in a savage humour.’ Martha had long since stopped being shocked by Fylde, though it still amazed her that Cristabel seemed unaware of his basic coarseness.
‘Your friend Brodski, I suppose.’ Lady Helen had a special tone of voice for Ishmael Brodski. ‘He keeps you well-informed.’
Her tone reminded Martha of the short, sharp battle they had fought over her seeing Brodski alone. For a moment, she was actually tempted to throw his proposal like a bombshell into their midst. Tempted to accept it? ‘Yes, Brodski,’ she said. ‘And Prince Maximilian, who called yesterday hoping to see you, Cristabel. He told me his father is furious at the low level of representatives who are being sent to the celebration. No potentates for your great night, I am afraid.’
‘I’d rather have a few people who understand music and will really listen,’ said Cristabel.
‘Ah, they’ll listen to you, Lady Cristabel.’ Fylde’s huge brown eyes, languishing at Cristabel, reminded Martha of a spaniel she had once had. ‘As to cancellation, we’ll not be thinking of it. But it’s time we went to work, you and I, my princess. Poor Franzosi has worries enough without our being late.’
‘His princess!’ fumed Lady Helen when they had gone. ‘The impudence of it! Oh yes, no need to tell me that’s the part she plays in the opera, I know that as well as you do. But the way she lets him use it as a term of endearment! Martha, I begin to think you were right and I was wrong. But how could I dream that she would take that bold-faced adventurer seriously! I shall be glad when this opera is over! And in the meantime, I believe we should think a little about Mr. Desmond Fylde. He’s a cousin of Mr. Kelly’s, is that right?’
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