‘You trust me then? I wonder why.’
‘So do I.’ This was dangerous ground. ‘Because of your grandmother, perhaps?’
‘She’s a great woman.’ Now she thought he was troubled. ‘I owe her everything. I think I owe it her to tell you that I am not her grandson.’
‘Not?’
‘Her grandson. I only learned the other day. Oh, I’d heard rumours; didn’t believe them. Finally asked her: I wish I hadn’t now. I’m nobody; a foundling. She was embarrassed even to talk about it. I remember boasting to you of my good Lissenberg stock! I am paid for it now. A child from the gutter. Nobody knows this. I am trusting you as you have trusted me.’
‘You can,’ she held out her hand. ‘Thank you for telling me. You must know that it makes no difference. Whatever happens, I shall be silent, and wish you well.’
‘Thank you.’ He bent over her hand, kissed it, leaned back to look at her very straight: ‘I have a duty to do.’
‘I know.’ He would never know what an effort it had been not to touch that bending, golden head. ‘And I do wish you well.’
‘Pray for us. I won’t tell you where or when. Better for you not to know. As for the Princess, my grandmother will send the carriage tonight, after dark, when the rehearsal is in full swing. It will take “Mary Schnelling” straight to our house in Brundt. She has never been there. If we succeed, there will be no problem. And, I promise you, I will make arrangements to get her out of the country, in the confusion, if we fail.’
‘You must not fail. Lissenberg needs you.’
‘I know. Is it not strange?’ They looked at each other for a long moment in silence. ‘Whoever I am, Lissenberg made me. I owe it to her. Owe myself to her.’
‘I respect you for it.’ How much they were saying, without words.
‘Thank you.’ One long look and he turned to go.
16
Wengel had chosen his time well for fetching the Princess. The celebrations up at the Palace began with a great display of fireworks that night and everyone who was not rehearsing was up at the top of the road, watching them from a respectful distance.
‘I do thank you.’ The Princess leaned down from the closed carriage to kiss Martha on the cheek. ‘I’ll never forget this.’
‘Take care of yourself.’ But the coachman had already whipped up his horses and moved away.
Entering the hostel, Martha was aware of a commotion at the back of the building and went to investigate. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked a manservant.
‘It’s the royal guard, Fräulein. They’ve taken charge of the tunnel. There’s one on guard in the women’s hall.’
Looking for the Princess? ‘Do you know why?’ she asked.
‘They don’t themselves. Prince’s orders is all they say, until the celebrations are over. There’s a guard on at the theatre, too, front and back. Signor Franzosi’s in a proper rage. Oh, and, Fräulein, there was a man here from the Chamberlain’s office asking some funny questions. Nobody told him a thing. It seemed simpler.’
‘Much! Thank you.’
Was this why Prince Maximilian had not come to see her as he had promised? Was he perhaps under suspicion? Arrest even? She was relieved when Cristabel returned from the theatre in a towering rage about the guards and mentioned Maximilian in passing. ‘If it hadn’t been for him, I think they’d have insisted on watching the rehearsal! He soon set them to rights about that! Oh, he sent you his apologies, by the way. I don’t know why. He’s not in much of a position to do anyone favours. They’re all at sixes and sevens at the Palace, with the Princess and the little prince so ill. I do pray that neither of them dies! Just think if we had to cancel Crusader Prince now. I don’t think I could bear it.’
‘I doubt you need worry about that,’ said Martha. ‘I believe the Prince quite capable of concealing a death in order to save his celebration.’
‘I do hope you are right.’
So the Prince was concealing the Princess’s disappearance, while having her secretly searched for. Martha thanked God for the instinctive way the Lissenbergers closed ranks against him. It augured well for Wengel’s plans, too. Did she wish now that she had asked about them? She thought not. Anyway he would not have told her.
Gossip about the festivities at the Palace seeped up from Lissenberg town, where the minor guests were staying. The Palace fountains were running with wine; the Prince had entertained his guests with a medieval tournament, where knights in full armour (from the Palace Armoury) tilted at each other with lances they found hard to manage. There had been two banquets so far, the second even more lavish than the first, and an archery contest won by the Prince himself. ‘After some judicious errors by his opponents,’ said Brodski. ‘The Prince is at explosion point, they say. There was a moment when it looked as if he was going to shoot his rival instead of the target, but the rival missed his aim, like a sensible fellow, and survived.’
‘What’s the news of the Princess and the little prince?’ asked Martha.
‘Both too ill to appear. The little prince is dying, they say, and there are some odd rumours about the Princess. Poor lady! No wonder if the treatment she has had and her anxiety about the little boy have turned her brain. No one is allowed to see her. The doctors shake their heads. Even her father’s representative has not been allowed in. I suppose they are afraid of what she might say.’
‘And the Prince’s announcement of his heir? Has he said when it is to be?’
‘He keeps putting it off. Can’t make up his mind. Originally it was to be tomorrow, up at the Palace, his loving subjects summoned up to hear. But something changed all that! You know, of course, about the new precautions that are being taken.’
‘I should just about think so. We have members of the Palace guard at the back of the hostel, and Lady Cristabel says they are swarming all over the theatre.’
‘Something has frightened him,’ said Brodski. ‘I wish I knew what. A man who understood what was going on might make a great deal of money, I believe. But I am not he. Tell me, Miss Peabody, do you by any chance know more than I do?’
‘Why in the world should I?’ If they both knew it was not an answer, there was nothing in the world he could do about it.
Desmond Fylde brought the news. ‘The announcement is to be in the theatre! Just before the performance.’ Flushed with excitement, he looked more handsome than ever. ‘There never was such a guarantee of a full house.’
‘Just so long as the audience is in a mood to pay attention,’ said Martha. ‘Are there any rumours about who it’s to be?’
‘Not one, Miss Peabody.’ He always treated her with an extra layer of civility, concealing, she thought dislike and distrust.
‘But how will it affect the performance?’ Cristabel thought of nothing else.
‘Not the least in the world, my Queen. They are not clearing the house for standing listeners this time, as I believe they did when last the Prince made an announcement there. Instead, his speech will be read, while he is making it, by the Chamberlain, to the crowd, in the square outside.’
‘He’ll speak from the stage?’ asked Martha.
Fylde laughed. ‘Will he not? The scene painters are working like slaves to produce a special backdrop for him. You should just hear them curse, Lady Cristabel.’
‘How ridiculous,’ said Martha.
‘Not entirely so.’ With a knowing smile. ‘A little bird told me that the sets were being specially designed so that members of the Prince’s guard can conceal themselves behind them, covering the audience through hidden slits.’
‘The guard on stage!’ exclaimed Cristabel. ‘Intolerable. I shall complain …’ she stopped.
‘Just so,’ said Martha. ‘To whom? Anyway, think a little, Belle, you don’t want your opening cancelled because of an attack on the Prince, do you?’
‘That’s true.’ She began to smile. ‘It does turn our first night into a quite extraordinary event does it not?’
‘But, dear Mi
ss Peabody,’ said Fylde. ‘You do not seriously expect someone to be fool enough to attack the Prince?’
‘Of course not. But you must have heard the talk from the Palace. From what one hears, he is in a very strange state, starting at trifles. And fear of assassination is natural enough in an absolute monarch.’
‘You sound like a history book.’ He turned to Cristabel. ‘Tell me, my nightingale, this last scene of ours – if the Prince is really in the kind of temper Miss Peabody suggests – is it wise?’
‘It’s musically extraordinary,’ said Cristabel. ‘The best thing I ever sang. It makes the opera. The Prince is a man of taste – he chose the opera after all. He will see it in its context.’
‘I do devoutly hope so. I think I will have a word with Herr Wengel, if he ever deigns to favour us with his company again, and suggest a few minor alterations. Not in the music, my songbird, but in the words. Of course,’ smiling the smile he knew so charming, ‘one could, at a pinch, be a little less intelligible than usual.’
‘But might one not be doing oneself harm in front of so international an audience?’ asked Martha. ‘I have heard, Mr. Fylde, that your Italian is not, in fact, quite so easy to understand as it might be. You would not wish the word to go round that you have problems in Italian as well as, forgive me, in German.’
‘How kind of you to warn me, Miss Peabody,’ he said through gritted teeth.
I have made myself an enemy, she thought. No, he was my enemy already. I have merely brought it out into the open. And then, poor Cristabel.
The dress-rehearsal of Crusader Prince was held behind locked doors in an empty theatre. ‘I am truly sorry,’ Franz Wengel had called on his way to the theatre, ‘if I allowed you in, Lady Helen, and you, Miss Peabody, it would open the door to all kinds of requests I cannot grant. I do hope you understand.’
‘A lot of publicity-seeking nonsense,’ said Lady Helen.
He smiled at her, and Martha’s heart lurched. ‘It’s my duty to seek publicity, Lady Helen, for myself, and for my brilliant cast, as well as for my opera.’
‘You sound very confident,’ said Martha. ‘Are you pleased that the Prince is adding to the notoriety of your first night by making his great announcement before it?’
Now his smile was all for her. ‘Miss Peabody, I cannot begin to tell you how delighted I am.’
‘Even with the royal guard menacing your audience from behind the scenes?’
‘You’d heard of that?’
‘Yes, I had wondered if you had.’
‘Desmond Fylde is a great one for the spreading of news.’ His eyes met hers. ‘I have to thank you, Miss Peabody, for putting it into his head that he cannot afford to swallow his words in my great scene.’
‘It’s great?’
‘I think so.’
‘It went brilliantly,’ Cristabel returned from the rehearsal flushed with excitement. ‘It almost makes me superstitious. You know what they say … But I really don’t think it can fail … Martha, there’s something …’ By common consent they moved toward the window, leaving Desmond Fylde describing his own brilliant singing to Lady Helen. ‘Herr Wengel wants me to change the wording of my last aria. The very last lines before the final chorus, without telling anyone. Do you think I should?’
‘I don’t see why not. He’s the composer, after all, and the librettist. Surely it happens often enough? What does Franzosi think about it?’
‘Wengel doesn’t want even him told.’
‘Oh.’ She thought about it. ‘What precisely is the change, Belle?’
‘You remember the aria? After Brandt has told me how he intends to fight for Lissenberg’s freedom from Charlemagne. It’s my great song of rejoicing for the glorious future of my country. Frankly, I always did think the last line was weak, found it hard to give it the climactic feel it needed. Now he wants me to move down to the front of the stage and sing three words in Liss.’
‘In Liss?’
‘Yes. The Liss word for freedom three times. It sings wonderfully.’ She glanced over to where Fylde and Lady Helen were still deep in talk. ‘I won’t demonstrate now, but take my word for it, it’s a superb climax.’
‘Then sing it,’ said Martha. ‘And tell no one.’
‘That’s what Wengel said.’
Martha did not sleep much that night. Had she really encouraged Cristabel to give the signal for revolution from the stage of the Opera House? She thought she had, thought she was mad, thought she would go on trusting Franz Wengel. What would happen? Would the final chorus ever get sung? The foreign guests, of course, at the front of the house, would not understand, but Prince Gustav surely would. And so would the Lissenbergers at the back of the house and in the gallery. What happened next must partly depend on what Prince Gustav had said in his announcement. Or must it? She remembered what Franz Wengel had said about Prince Maximilian’s losing the affection of the Lissenbergers, and thought it understandable enough. He had seemed too much his father’s puppet, must be identified in the public eye with the wild extravagance of the celebrations up at the Palace. Fountains running with wine while the grape harvest was neglected … Fountains running with blood? She fell asleep, and dreamed wildly.
It was going to be another of Lissenberg’s brilliant autumn days. Already, when they got up, they could hear the murmur of the crowd beginning to assemble below in the great square. ‘The guards are gone from the tunnel,’ said Anna, bringing breakfast. ‘I suppose they need them all for the theatre and the square.’
‘Yes.’ Abstractedly. She was wondering where the guards who were to be hidden on stage would go after Prince Gustav had made his speech. Could she have exposed Cristabel to actual danger? Surely not. She would hang on to her certainty that Franz Wengel knew what he was doing. She racked her brains for any imaginable thing she could do to help. Keeping calm was the first thing, and keeping Cristabel calm, the next. And for the first time, she found herself actually glad of Cristabel’s infatuation with Desmond Fylde. Whatever today might hold for Prince Maximilian, it was no longer any concern of Cristabel’s. She wished she had seen Prince Max since that strange night’s encounter, but was hardly surprised that she had not. He must be walking on egg-shells, up at the Palace. There had still not been a word about Princess Amelia’s disappearance, and presumably the search for her was still continuing, in secret. No one would be leaving the country before the end of the celebrations, to try to do so would be to court disaster. Prince Gustav must know that his wife was hidden somewhere in the tiny principality, be sure of finding her sooner or later if he continued to rule. She was actually praying for Franz’s success today. I would do anything for him, she thought. How strange.
The day seemed endless. Impossible to go out, since the square was now packed with Lissenbergers, making a day of it, picnicking in the hot sun, served with wine and bread and sausages by dirndled girls from the inn. ‘I think you had better plan to get to the theatre early, Belle,’ Martha said when they had finished their light luncheon. ‘If the crowd is as thick as this now, it will be impassable long before the time for the announcement.’
‘Yes.’ Cristabel looked white and drawn. ‘Herr Wengel told us to be there early. He promised to come for me, see me through the crowd. He said there was sure to be one. I expect that’s him now.’
‘Frau Schmidt, what a delightful surprise!’ Martha hurried forward to greet the old lady when she appeared on Wengel’s arm. ‘But how are you? Are you well enough for this long day?’
‘That’s just why I took the liberty of bringing her here,’ said Wengel. ‘She is not well enough, but she is also a very strong-minded old person. She insists on seeing my opera, but must not be exposed to the long wait in the theatre. I thought I would put her in your capable hands, Miss Peabody.’
‘I’m so very glad.’ Aware of disapproval from Lady Helen behind her, she leaned forward to kiss the cool cheek, and was instantly aware of the tension that held the old lady, like a clock overwound. ‘You must res
t,’ she said. ‘Until it is time to go.’
‘There will be time to rest afterwards,’ said Frau Schmidt. ‘My guest sent you her greetings and thanks, by the way.’
‘How is she?’
‘Much better, but anxious.’
‘Time to go.’ Franz Wengel kissed his grandmother on both cheeks. Not his grandmother? How strange; he looked like her. Like someone? Martha lost the thought as she kissed Cristabel and wished her luck, then turned back to Wengel, ‘And to you, too. All the luck in the world.’
‘Thank you.’ He bent with one of the courtly gestures that always surprised her, and kissed her hand. ‘I owe you so much, Miss Peabody. And now I am asking you to take care of my grandmother. I know you will.’
She met his eyes. ‘Whatever happens.’
‘Thank you.’ Now at last he smiled at her and her heart dissolved within her. ‘If I succeed today, may we talk tomorrow, Miss Peabody?’
‘I hope to be the first to congratulate you.’
‘I hope you will have cause to do so.’
17
‘Time to go.’ Watching from the window Martha had seen the palace guard begin to clear a way through the crowded square for the royal party’s arrival. ‘We must be in our places well before the Prince gets there.’ She was relieved to see that the crowd was in a good temper, apparently on easy terms with the soldiers who were pushing them back. ‘Three cheers for the Prince’s guard,’ shouted someone, and got them.
But should she be pleased? How did this augur for Wengel’s plans? No time to be thinking about that now. As they emerged on the hostel steps, soldiers there moved to open a way for them and another voice shouted, ‘Way there, make way for the women’s lady.’ The crowd began to shuffle back with friendly murmurs to let them pass.
‘You seem to have achieved some kind of notoriety,’ said Lady Helen drily. She had not pretended to enjoy entertaining Frau Schmidt.
The theatre was crowded already, liveried flunkeys busy showing people to their places. ‘This way.’ An usher hurried forward to greet them, addressing himself, Martha noticed, to Frau Schmidt.
First Night Page 20