Let it be Me (Blue Raven) (34 page)

But as they smiled and twined and leaned, a few of those questions came back to Bridget’s mind. “What are you going to do, Oliver? Without the Teatro?”

“Well, I thought I might work toward opening up one here. In London.” He hesitated, then blew out a breath. “I have been talking with my father.”

“Your father?” She blinked.

He smiled. “He was much . . . happier to see me than I anticipated. We have much talking to do. He came with me here. I should love to have the opportunity to introduce you to him.”

“You forget, I have already met him once. But I should be happy to again.” They abandoned their nook in the corridor and moved down the hall slowly, savoring each other’s solo company.

“Is that what you meant by ‘us’?” she asked suddenly. He looked down at her quizzically. “You said that three days was how long it took ‘us’ to find me, and so forth.”

“Oh!” he cried with a smile. “Partially. I also brought Frederico. It seems he was just as heartsick for Miss Molly as I was for you . . .”

“That explains so much about Molly’s temper during the voyage,” Bridget gasped. “And here I had thought she was simply anxious to be on land again.”

“Yes . . .” Oliver hedged. “But I also brought someone else.”

They had traversed the hallway and found themselves standing in front of a door—and there was the distinct sound of a pianoforte coming from the other side.

Playing a suspiciously familiar tune.

Bridget warily pushed the door open and found herself in Lady Worth’s music room. It was populated by a rapt audience—Lady Worth was there, as was Lord Merrick, among others. And somehow, in the intervening time, both of Bridget’s sisters had migrated here as well. And everyone’s attention was caught and held by Signor Vincenzo Carpenini, up at the pianoforte, playing his latest composition.

The same one that had, upon her hearing it at the Marchese’s, nearly broken Bridget.

“What is he doing here?” she asked, her voice suddenly quite hard.

“Do you know, I am not entirely sure,” Oliver mused. But his hand had grown more firm around Bridget’s arm, making her stay still, anchoring her to the spot, whether she liked it or not. “When I told him I was leaving Venice and coming after you, he adamantly refused to come. But then he came to me and said that since the Marchese was going out of town for the summer, he would rather come with me to England than be left homeless in Venice, if he could. I, of course, placed some conditions on his coming, but he agreed to them.”

“Conditions?” Bridget asked, unhappy.
Why was he playing this piece?
It broke her heart even to think of it.

“Hmm,” Oliver evaded. “Either he needs people more than he thought, or perhaps he just did not wish to be alone in the world. Or perhaps he grew a dust-mote-sized bit of conscience. In any case, he is here now.”

“I don’t understand. Did you bring him along so I could strangle him?” Bridget bit out.

Oliver chuckled quietly. “If you wish, but first, perhaps we could go back to the matter of that question I asked your father.”

Bridget felt her head spin and her heart stop. “You wish to cover that ground now?”

“It was similar in purpose, although not exactly the same as the question I am going to ask you now.”

She whipped her head around to him, wide-eyed. Held her breath. What was he going to ask? And what would she say?

“I would like to know how you would have your name written,” he said.

Well, that was not exactly what she had expected. “I don’t understand,” she replied, once she was able to speak. “My name?”

“Yes. On the publication of the music.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, recently printed by the looks of it. He handed it to Bridget.

It was the cover sheet to a piece of music. Across the top it read,
Symphony No. 4, in G Major. By Vincenzo Carpenini.

And then, underneath that,
With variations and themes by Bridget Forrester
.

“We took a guess that you would want your full name, not ‘B. Forrester’ or ‘Miss Forrester,’ or the like,” Oliver said quietly.

She looked up at him, in complete shock, unable to reply.

“If I could go back in time and stop Carpenini from playing your piece that night, I would. But he did, and what’s more he played it in front of half the musical world. The best way we could make amends was to make certain your name was on it, too,” he explained softly. “We made certain his music publisher in Venice knew that you should receive half the royalties and commissions. And we made a quick stop with Carpenini’s music publisher in London as well.”

“My name is on a piece of music,” she whispered in awe.

“Yes,” Oliver answered. “A rather good one, too, if you would have my opinion.”

“How did Carpenini take this sharing of credit?” Bridget asked, hiding a sniffle. “How did the Marchese?”

“I have no idea how the Marchese took it—one assumes he’s heard by now. As for Carpenini . . . well, it’s about time he learned to share, don’t you agree?”

Bridget smiled and laughed. “Yes. Although I venture to guess he’s agreed to it because he thinks he’ll make more money this way.”

“Maybe so. A young English lady composing a symphony—it would certainly sell tickets,” Oliver replied, unable to stop smiling, letting out a slow breath of relief. As if he knew that he had done enough to win his way back into her life, and all he had to do was work just as hard every day to stay there. “I hope you find our solution acceptable—”

She smiled back at him. “I daresay I do.”

“Good. Because there is one other question I have long held off asking you. And one that can wait no longer.”

For the second time in as many minutes, Bridget’s heart stopped.
This
was it . . . this was the time . . .

“Ah, there they are!” came a cry from across the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Signorina Bridget Forrester has finally arrived!”

They had not even noticed that the music had come to an end, but now, with Carpenini’s delighted cry, they most assuredly had an audience. Every head swung their way and a smattering of “ohh!”s turned into a rather jovial wave of applause.

Carpenini stood up on the piano bench, his Italian accent exaggerated, his theatrics in full effect, and those in the room loved every minute of it. “Friends!” he cried, “if you were unaware, if she was too shy to tell you herself, allow me. Signorina Forrester was briefly my student in Venice these past few months. She set the city aflame with her playing, she played on the stage of La Fenice, and she played for the Marchese di Garibaldi, winning his musical heart. She even helped me compose what you have just heard.”

Impressed murmurs spread through the music room. Bridget caught Sarah’s shocked gaze across the audience and watched as Amanda leaned down and whispered an explanation to her.

“And perhaps, if you would be so kind as to help me, we can persuade her to come play the piece, the Number Twenty-three by the Maestro Beethoven, that made all of Venice—and my friend Oliver—fall in love with her!”

The roar of applause that lifted the room set Bridget back on her heels. She looked from her sisters to the faces of people she had just met, looking at her with new eyes. Then she finally swung her gaze around to Oliver.

“Go,” he said. “Play your piece, and take the bow you have earned.”

The crowd parted like the Red Sea, making a path for her to the pianoforte. But before she took a single step, she turned back to Oliver and firmly planted a kiss on his mouth.

In front of everyone.

And they only cheered louder.

“Bridget Merrick,” she said, once she pulled away.

“What?” he replied, stunned.

“I think my name should be written as Bridget Merrick.” She bit her lip to hide her grin.

A slow easy smile spread across his face.

“As do I, my love. As do I.”

And she played. And it would be the music that would guide them through the years. Bridget took her bow, and took a new name with it. Oliver took a chance, and began mending fences with his father. He would buy a little theatre in Covent Garden, run-down, and turn it into the premier stage for the new and the exciting, especially the popular Italian operas. By the time he was ready to retire and hand his business over to his sons, it would have grown threefold, and now had stages in Edinburgh and Paris to his credit. His only stipulation would be that, as it had always been, the London stage played a concert of Beethoven’s Ninth at least once a year—a gift to his wife.

Yes, there would be children, and children’s children. There would be success, and despair. Their family would grow strong with time, their bonds unable to be broken by distance or death. There would be concerts, and performances. There would be more works written, some written with her infuriating brother-in-law, and some that Bridget wrote and published on her own. Carpenini would take up residence in London and spend the next twenty years composing happily and complaining unhappily about the stuffy English weather.

There would be sorrow, and hope. There would be six long years between the death of her husband and Bridget’s hearing Beethoven’s Ninth once more. But for the lifetime that preceded them, there was an infinite amount of love.

And that love would manifest in everything they ever did. Every song they ever wrote, every theatre they ever built, every child they ever brought into the world.

And throughout it all, like golden thread woven in fabric, there always was, and always would be, music.

Dear Reader,

The declining world of Venice and the rising world of music became the background for the passionate story of Bridget and Oliver, one of my personal favorites. I was as meticulous as possible in researching both these worlds, but as with any historical novel, the intersection of fact and fiction has to be traversed to tell the story. Sometimes history was massaged to this end, and I am sure there are some outright mistakes (which I claim as my own) but for the curious, here are some of the more interesting tidbits of historical information I came across as I wrote
Let It Be
Me
.

Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the “Ode to Joy,” is arguably the most famous piece of music in the world. Its simplistic yet refined and infinitely variable central theme is why today it is the official anthem of the European Union. It is also one of the first instances of a choral symphony—the entire fourth movement being the 1785 poem “Ode an die Freude” sung by a full choir. But on May 7, 1824, at its first premiere in Vienna, no one knew what to expect. Beethoven had not appeared in public for years. He was possibly mad. He was most certainly deaf. Thus everyone was curious, and everyone showed up.

The description that Bridget and Oliver give of Beethoven conducting past the end of the music, and being turned around by the contralto Caroline Unger to five ovations of applause, is an anecdote oft reported but never verified. However, I like to believe that it is true, and thus I included this version of events in the story.

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57 was composed between 1804 and 1806, and is colloquially known as the
Appassionata
. One of the best known sonatas from Beethoven’s middle period, it was given it’s name because of its wide range on the keyboard and its extremes in both tempo and volume, as well as its breadth of feeling. Unfortunately it was not called
Appassionata
until 1838, and therefore it is only referred to as No. 23 in this work. Just listening to it, one can tell it is among the most complex and emotional pieces of music from the early 1800s; thus it would be perfectly suited to the Marchese’s musical competition.

The Bach Minuet in G Major that Bridget plays variations on is more famous to today’s generation for being the basis of the 1960’s pop song “A Lover’s Concerto,” recorded by the Toys. It was composed sometime in the early 1700s. Interestingly, there has been some dispute in the later part of the twentieth century about whether or not Bach was the actual composer, but in 1824, Bridget Forrester would have easily accepted the attribution of the Minuet in G as being by Johann Sebastian Bach.

One of the things Venice is famous for—besides its history, architecture, and canals, of course—is Carnival. Up until the end of the eighteenth century, Carnival was a six-month-long festival throughout all levels of Venice society, leading up to Ash Wednesday, where the revelers would become penitent observers of Lent. (Think of it as an extremely long Mardi Gras.) Carnival participants enjoyed wearing a variety of traditional masks, disguising their appearances—on any given day a duchess could be dancing with a shop clerk, and no one would know.

In 1797, Napoleon invaded Venice, and stripped the city of many of its ornaments and traditions—including Carnival. When the Wars ended, Venice was no longer a Republic, instead finding itself absorbed into the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia and under Austrian rule. The grandeur and spectacle of the Carnival of Venice never fully recovered. In 1824, Carnival would have not been six months long, but a few weeks of frivolity at most. And the revelers were limited to the rich and the tourists, and only those on the main island of Venice. By the midpoint of the century, Carnival would have disappeared from Venice almost altogether, only to be resurrected in the 1970s as a grand tourist attraction to the city.

But even while Venice’s long decline had taken a sharp descent after Napoleon, it still retained a charm and grandeur that attracted seekers of beauty. Lord Byron was one of its most famous seekers during this period, enjoying the attractions (and women—he once said that Venice’s Carnival had given him the one bout of gonorrhea he hadn’t paid for) of Venice, and spending long periods of time there between 1816 and 1819. He even composed a poem in three (long) parts—his “Ode on Venice,” which Bridget mentions as being rather boring.

The Teatro la Fenice—or the Phoenix Theatre—was the most prominent opera house in Venice of its day. Unfortunately, it lived up to its name, and burned to the ground. Twice. The theatre that Oliver Merrick worked at would have been the first La Fenice, which burned in 1836. The second lasted until 1996, and was quickly rebuilt with the version of the opera house that exists today.

There is so much more that went into making Bridget and Oliver’s world come alive, from well-known impresario Domenico Barbaia to the history of the phonograph to walking the grounds of Schönbrunn Palace (and if you enjoy these details, there are more posted on my website at www.katenoble.com), but as with all stories, the characters live at its heart. I hope that Bridget and Oliver came alive for you as they did for me, and that their story, in the end, makes you sigh, smile, and hear their music.

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