Leading Lady (11 page)

‘She's your employer now. And making the position clear. I told you it was time we got away from this petty tyranny. But I suppose for the moment we must do the civil thing. Tell the man we'll come to the palace after rehearsal this afternoon.'

‘But she says “alone”, Desmond. She wants to talk to me alone.'

‘Man and wife is one flesh, my angel. Do I need to remind you of that again?' He silenced her with a kiss that hurt, pulled her down and rolled over on to her. She fought him briefly, savagely; yielded at last to superior force.

Later she heard him send his message to the palace, lay there among tangled bedding, silent, thinking, making herself think,' face what was happening to her. The drops Desmond now gave her before rehearsal, what were they doing to her? Why did she long for them so? Were they really improving her singing, as he said? Why did she not remember how the performance had gone? And – she always felt better in the morning, after sleeping them off. Think about that. And about Martha, who said she needed her. And Desmond? His words echoed in her head. ‘Man and wife is one flesh.' Whose flesh? She lay very still, very quiet, until Desmond appeared dressed now, impeccable in snowy linen, ready for the palace.

‘Time to get up, my queen. Time for rehearsal, my diva, and here am I, your loving husband, with your drops.' He held out the glass she had come to long for.

And she longed for it. The instant calm, the world transformed … ‘Thank you.' She took it in a hand that trembled. ‘You think of everything.' She hurt all over from his ruthless love-making. Love? Would she be able to move properly on stage? The drops would make her feel better. What else would they do to her? ‘That's a new way you've tied your cravat,' she said, saw him glance sideways to the glass, and poured the longed-for drink into the chamber pot.

Count Tafur returned from his visit to Brundt that day. ‘I stopped at the opera house on the way back,' he told Martha, after the first greetings. ‘Cristabel looks like death. Have they anyone who could replace her?'

‘It's as bad as that?' She told him of her message, and Fylde's reply. ‘So they are both coming up this afternoon. I'm glad you will be here. You and Franz will have to absorb his attention, while I carry her off to my room on some female pretext or other.'

‘Unlike you,' he said.

‘Female pretexts?' With a laugh. ‘Yes, not absolutely my line, but one might as well use them when necessary. Tell me, how did things feel in Brundt?'

‘I don't know.' Slowly. ‘As a stranger it's hard to tell. Too quiet, perhaps? And a feeling of strangers not being welcome. I called on both your friends, Frau Schmidt and Herr Brodski. Two remarkable people. Oddly enough, they both sent you the same message, though in different words.'

‘And that was?'

‘Be careful.'

She could not help laughing. ‘As if I needed telling. Is the news of Napoleon's march across Europe public knowledge now?'

‘Yes, and causing very mixed reactions, as you can imagine. But, to come back to our poor Cristabel. Should I send for her mother, do you think?'

‘As bad as that? Would she come?'

‘If I sent for her, she'd come.'

‘But should we ask it of her?'

‘That's the question, isn't it? Or rather, the question to be faced is, what could she do if she did come? Maybe
for Cristabel's sake, we should wish Napoleon success in his campaign?'

‘Why?'

‘You didn't know? French law still allows divorce. Napoleon's new civil code didn't affect that though I'm afraid it puts a married woman's property firmly back into her husband's control. Naturally, we discussed this whole question, Lucia and I, when you sent us the news of Cristabel's disastrous marriage. Normally, we would have settled something on her, given her a dowry, but what is the use when it would merely make her more valuable to Fylde?'

‘You're right, of course. She has nothing of her own. Only her genius.'

‘I wonder if Fylde knew that.'

‘Very likely not,' she thought about it, ‘since her aunt, Lady Helen, contributed her income to our expenses. So, you mean the best hope for Cristabel might be a horrible failure in
Night of Errors
?'

‘Whereupon her husband would abandon her to her fate. Yes, I do think so.'

‘Does Cristabel, do you think? Is she doing it on purpose?'

‘No,' he said. ‘She wouldn't. You ought to know that.'

‘Yes, I think I do, really. Oh, well, what's the use of talking? I count on you and Franz to take care of the wretched man when they come. It's more than time Cristabel and I talked.'

But the first greetings were hardly over that afternoon when they heard the stir of an arrival in the castle yard and Baron Hals appeared, flustered, with a guest hard on his heels. ‘All the people I wished to see,' Lady Helen swept them with one of her aristocrat's glances, paused for a dubious moment on Fylde then focused on Cristabel. ‘You don't look well, child, what have you been doing with yourself? Never mind; I've news which will please you. I have contrived to persuade your father to make you the allowance he should. I thought the christening of his heir was the time to do it.' Her bright, triumphant glance swept the silent circle. ‘What's the matter? What's going on here?'

Desmond Fylde took a step forward. ‘I must be the first to
thank your ladyship.' He took and kissed her reluctant hand. ‘On my wife's behalf as well as my own.'

‘Your –' She look at him in blank horror, turned to Cristabel, ‘His? … No wonder –' She stopped. ‘I do not feel quite the thing,' she said at last turning to Martha. ‘Forgive me, highness, for this abrupt intrusion. With your permission, I'll take my leave. Cristabel will see me back to the hostel.' She swept past Fylde as if he did not exist, took Cristabel's arm and left the room with her.

‘Well, I'll be –' Fylde looked about him, reconsidered, and followed them.

‘She has had the carriage door shut in his face,' said Tafur, from the window. He turned to Martha. ‘Perhaps I do not need to send for Lucia after all.'

‘No,' said Martha. ‘But what a disaster.'

‘The allowance, you mean. Yes, poor Lady Helen, one does have to feel sorry for her.'

‘And for Cristabel,' said Martha.

‘But she has a gained a redoubtable ally. I am not sure it is not Fylde we should start pitying.'

‘Never,' said Martha.

‘It's a complete disaster.' Lady Helen had called at the palace next day and found Martha alone. ‘You cannot possibly blame me more than I blame myself. But the invitation came so unexpectedly and at such short notice. It seemed the perfect chance to talk sense into my brother; I never for a moment imagined Fylde would be capable of such wickedness.'

‘Or such planning,' agreed Martha ruefully. ‘But, Lady Helen, what does Cristabel say? Were you able to talk to her? He's been making it impossible …'

‘She's in a very strange state,' said Lady Helen. ‘There's more wrong with her than mere unhappiness, I think, though she is unhappy enough, poor child. She is in a terrible fret about the performance next week. She talked mostly about that, about her voice. She was shaking, Martha, actually shaking.' And then, recollecting herself: ‘Forgive me, highness.'

‘Don't,' said Martha. ‘I am so very glad you are come. We had been talking of sending for Cristabel's mother, Count Tafur and I, but this is better. Shaking, you say? Should she see a doctor?'

‘She won't hear of it. Well, you know the hostel doctor; a gossip if ever there was one, and that is something she most absolutely cannot afford. She's just tired, she says; needs a rest, needs a holiday. She even thanked me for getting her the allowance, says now she and her husband can have some time to themselves, go on a little wedding tour. She said it as if it was a sentence of death. And then we were at the hostel, and there were all the arrangements to be made about my arrival. I had looked forward to it so much! All confusion, disappointment … And then he arrived, very angry in a quiet way and I've not had a private word with her since. What are we going to do, Martha?'

‘Two things,' said Martha. ‘First, I am going to ask Franz
to see to it that there is someone ready to take her part next week, if the worst comes to the worst, to get that load off her mind, though she won't like it. But Franzosi must see the need for this, maybe he has already. And the other thing is to get a doctor to her. And I know the very man.' She described Doctor Joseph without going into the circumstances of their first meeting. ‘I've been meaning to invite him to come to the palace as our doctor, specially now that we are thinking of having little Gustav to live with us –' She silenced Lady Helen with an imperative hand. ‘I'll tell you about that some other time. There has been a great deal going on here while you have been away, and I shall be glad of your advice, but for the moment, Cristabel must come first. I shall send Doctor Joseph down to see her, or rather Franz will. He went to a rehearsal the other day, and was shocked at her appearance. He's her employer after all. He has every right to send his own doctor to her.'

‘Fylde won't like it.'

‘There's nothing he can do about it. Their new contracts haven't been signed. I thought they should wait until Franz returned.'

‘Maybe he won't care about that, now that she has the allowance.'

‘Oh, no, he'll care. He's an ambitious man, Desmond Fylde, and a greedy one. He'll take the allowance as an agreeable extra, but it won't satisfy him. He's insatiable, I think.'

‘I'll never forgive myself.'

‘What's done is done. I feel just the same, but what we have to do is think about freeing her.'

‘Divorce?' Horrified.

‘Her father managed it.'

‘He's a duke.'

‘You mean, he's a man. Why is everything easier for them?' And then, remembering Franz, ‘No, not everything. I don't know how soon I shall manage a word alone with Franz,' she warned Lady Helen. ‘He's been so busy since he got back that I almost have to make an appointment to see him. Everyone seems to have saved their problems for him, which is scarcely flattering to me as his substitute.'

‘But understandable, I suppose.'

‘Oh, yes, entirely understandable.' Did she quite manage to keep the note of bitterness out of her voice? ‘Specially here in Lissenberg. Lord, I'll be glad when this anniversary is well over and the roads closed and we can settle down for the winter.'

‘With Napoleon God knows where? Oh – it's a relief, of course, that the threat of an invasion of England has lifted. There was near panic when I was there, and the mob in the streets shouting for Lord Nelson as if he were all the heroes rolled into one. I heard them myself. I've never been so shocked! Living in open sin with Lady Hamilton as he does. There are even rumours of a child. Tell me, my dear –'

‘Better a flawed hero than none,' Martha forestalled her question. ‘As to Napoleon, from what Franz says he's more than half way to Vienna by now. I hope the snow comes early this year, and walls us in. It's a great advantage we have, that time of safety.' Would there be time, then, in the long winter nights, for her and Franz? At the moment, he came to bed so late and so exhausted, that her only thought was to let him get enough rest to prepare him for the next day's problems. Should I be more selfish, she wondered, and made herself listen to what Lady Helen was saying.

Prince Max would have found the boredom of life with the Trappist Fathers intolerable if it had not been for the company of Doctor Joseph, who had welcomed him with open arms and a volley of questions about the outside world. They had become firm friends by the time the messenger from the palace found them sitting over a hard fought game of chess. ‘Prince Franz wants me to go and see Lady Cristabel?' Doctor Joseph looked surprised. ‘What do I know about singers? Or ladies, come to that, specially noble ones!'

‘Lady Cristabel is ill! What's the matter?' Max almost snatched the note his new friend handed to him. ‘He doesn't say. But it must be serious for him to intervene. You'll go at once? Oh God, I wish I could come with you. She's … Poor Cristabel … You've heard the talk about her voice of course?'

‘A little. And about her marriage. Will the husband be
pleased to see me, do you think?' Doctor Joseph was interested in his new friend's vehement reaction.

‘Furious, I should think. He's bound to make it as difficult for you as possible. That's why it is a direct commission from my brother, I'm sure. To smooth the way for you.'

‘Yes.' Doubtfully. ‘I find it an awkward enough compliment, this commission! But I don't need to leave yet. Tell me about Lady Cristabel, since I can see you are a friend of hers.'

‘A friend!' It was almost a groan. ‘I love her. Always have, always will. She came to Lissenberg with her father, the Duke of Sarum, when we were children – well, young; for a children's opera,
Orpheus and Euridice.
I was to sing Orpheus, naturally, she was Euridice. She persuaded me to change parts. I loved her. She could have persuaded me to anything. She was … I cannot tell you what a miracle she was. The first time on any stage, and she held that audience in the palm of her hand. We were masked, you understand, they all thought it was I. We had intended to keep the masks on, but when it came to the applause, I could not do it. She had to have the glory that was hers. Both our fathers were furious. The duke took her away next day, immured her in his country house. We did not meet again for years. You know the story, I expect. The princess was Martha Peabody then, a rich American's heiress daughter. She fled the American fortune hunters, met Cristabel in England and brought her to Europe to further her career. I met them in Venice, lost my heart all over again, if there was any of it left to lose. They came here, to the opera house. I was biding my time to speak to her, fearing that she might not have remembered me as I had her.' He paused, looking back over the old disaster.