Die Upon a Kiss (19 page)

Not that it mattered, of course. The green room was so small, and the Members and Cast collation so ostentatiously splendid, the principals’ table filled most of the limited space and those who had sought to preserve their exclusivity were quickly driven out into the backstage among the riffraff in order to eat without crashing elbows.

“. . . A splendid choice,” Trulove enthused, extricating himself from the press and casting an ardent glance at Oona Flaherty, her mouth full of strawberries and pâté. “Since dance is truly the universal language, freed of all concerns about French or Italian, I cannot imagine a better or more expressive work to perform. . . .”

“But surely controversial?” Trulove’s wife, holding close to his side, raised her pale brows. “There were riots when
La Muette
was first performed in Brussels. . . .”

“Oh, I don’t think we need worry ourselves over that.” Caldwell cleared his throat uncomfortably, aware of being on equivocal ground. “America is a democracy, after all. The sentiments expressed—Masaniello’s courageous battle for liberty from the Spanish oppressors—should strike a chord of sympathy. If you look at the struggles for liberty in New Grenada, in Bolivia and Brazil and in Mexico, to free themselves from the tyranny of Spain . . .”

“As if the average American even knows of Mexico’s liberty,” muttered Cavallo—fortunately in Italian—to Herr Smith.

Marsan, who appeared to have sent away his women-folk as soon as the final curtain rang down, stood beside the green-room door until the press had eased somewhat and the danger of spilling something on his sable waistcoat had receded. Only then did he fetch lemonade, a vol-au-vent, and a morsel of pâté to carry to La d’Isola, who still looked waxy and ill. Belaggio, rather than abandon his position in Madame Redfern’s orbit, merely steered the soprano around so that he stood between her and Marsan.

“You look pale,
querida,”
crooned Madame Montero, gowned—or almost gowned—in a dress strongly reminiscent of the décolleté in Paris in the days of the Directorate. “Perhaps you’d feel better if you sat down?” She indicated the Almavivas’ drawing-room sofa, about thirty feet away in the shadows.

“She’s well where she is,” snapped Belaggio, tightening his grip on d’Isola’s elbow and glaring at the hovering Marsan.

And La d’Isola whispered, “I’m well where I am.”

“If women dueled, I’d put my money on them rather than into the pool for a Davis-Belaggio match.” Hannibal propped himself discreetly at January’s side and poured laudanum into his punch.
“Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received / From him that fled some strange indignity / Which
patience could not pass. . . .”

“I think we’ve seen the opening round.” During the romping in the Almaviva garden in Act Four, the villainess Marcellina had showed a distressing tendency to trip and fall whenever she got anywhere near the chorus of shepherds and milkmaids, once executing a full-out pratfall on her posterior and another time plunging headlong into the shrubbery, to the joyful howls and whistles of the pit. If looks could maim, Bruno Ponte would have been carried off the stage on a plank. “If that’s what’s going on.”

Twice during the performance January had glimpsed the lanky shadow of Abishag Shaw, once at the rail of one of the empty boxes, looking down into the pit, and once in the demi-porte that led from the orchestra to the backstage. Olympe had told him earlier that Shaw had visited her house on Rue Douane but had not questioned the dressings wrapped close around Marguerite’s bruised throat. It was as possible, January supposed, that a potential killer could have deliberately run a woman down in a carriage as it was that he’d lured her into the dark of the
cipriere
and strangled her. In any case, Shaw seemed disposed to take seriously the threat of further mayhem.

“. . . so much prettier,” Mrs. Redfern declared in her hard, over-loud voice, and sipped her negus. In the white-touched black of second mourning she resembled nothing so much as a jeweler’s display stand, the little square red hands in their lace mitts flashing with diamond fire. “Of course I can’t understand a word they’re singing either way. Why, I never knew Mr. Mozart wrote, ‘Soft as the Falling Dews of Night’! It’s my favorite tune! Is there any chance Miss d’Isola could sing it again in the next opera?”

“But of course! The very thing!” Belaggio smiled warmly down at the widow. He’d resumed his black silk arm-sling for the performance, and winced in agony whenever he moved his arm and remembered to do so. “If I may say so, I have always been struck by your keen judgment of artistic matters. Davis—well, I will not say anything of his jealousy, nor his malice toward me. I am large-minded enough to deal with whatever small peril there may be. But I think his hatred stems from his realization that the Italian style is so much more beautiful than the French.” He gestured grandly with his glass of champagne. “Mr. Caldwell and I can present what is new, what is fresh. . . .”

“New is one thing.” Mrs. Redfern nodded judiciously, her little square mouth pursed. “And yet, I feel I must speak to you tonight, sir, regarding this new opera you announced—this
Othello
?” And she held out her hand, into which Caldwell hastily placed the green-bound libretto. “I hardly like to speak of the matter, sir, but I feel in all honesty that I must. Surely you are not going to put
this
on the stage?”

Dr. Ker, the slim, gray-haired Head Surgeon at Charity Hospital, opened his mouth in protest, but young Harry Fry hastened to step in with “I couldn’t agree more.
Othello
is a most unsuitable choice. Not a subject at all that is pleasant for the fair sex.” And he bowed deeply to Mrs. Redfern as if she were the only woman in the room, and the only one he’d ever seen in his life.

Mrs. Redfern drew herself up with the air of one prepared to fight for her prejudices, but without a breath or a blink, Belaggio cried as one suddenly enlightened,
“È vero,
you are right! I said myself to Signor Caldwell, I said,
I have my doubts about this opera. . . .”
He took the libretto, held it folded against his chest. “Did I not, Signor Caldwell? Most unsuitable to present to ladies?”

“Eh?” Caldwell caught one glance from the Widow Redfern and nodded vigorously. “And I agreed with you on that, sir.” He took charge of the offending text. Tapping the green leather binding with one forefinger, he went on oratorically. “What is right for a European audience is sometimes lost on—or completely inappropriate for—the new-forged civilization of America. It is exactly what I was considering myself, only do you know, I never put it as succinctly as you have, Madame.”

“That’s ridiculous!” exclaimed Dr. Ker. “What on earth is wrong with
Othello
? It’s one of the great tragedies of literature, one of the great tales of love and jealousy—”

“I did not find it so,” replied Mrs. Redfern. “Merely an unpleasant tale of a savage behaving disgracefully. Now, if Mr. Othello were perhaps—well—made to be a European gentleman, it would not only be more realistic, but more tolerable.”

“It is Shakespeare!” cried Ker, horrified, as Belaggio opened his mouth to consent to this last-minute revision. “You can’t rewrite Shakespeare!”

“Might I suggest Mr. Bellini’s The Sleepwalker?” Caldwell plucked another glass of negus from the table to replace the empty one in Mrs. Redfern’s hand. “Much simpler, don’t you agree, Signor Belaggio?”

“It would not be difficult to re-write,” argued Belaggio, at the same time shifting Drusilla d’Isola around so that she was on the inside of the group rather than the outside, where Marsan was idling over toward them. “Since the
bella
Signora wishes it, I could do it in a matter of a few days merely. . . .”

But as a former actor, Caldwell had his limits. “Best we simply substitute the one for the other, don’t you think?” he said, and Ker, exasperated, flung up his hands. “The other is, as you said, Madame, of an unpleasant nature. . . .”

“
The Sleepwalker
is new,” agreed Belaggio. “I believe Signor Cavallo has sung Elvino before. My lovely d’Isola”—here he tugged her gently to the fore, her face gray and strained in the harsh light—“can learn the part of the lovely Amina to perfection, can you not,
bellissima
?”

The girl tore her gaze from Marsan’s, smiled tremulously as Belaggio repeated the question in Italian, replied, “Of course. Of a certainty.” She tried to tug away in the direction of the couch, but Belaggio’s grip was relentless.

“
. . . Sleepwalker
might not be quite right.” Ludmilla Burton detached herself from the lively discussion of servants with the Granvilles and came over with her ears almost visibly pricked like a gun-dog’s. “It just struck me that another of Mr. Bellini’s excellent works might be performed, that wonderful Roman opera,
Norma
? The one about the two druidesses in love with the Roman soldier? I realize you don’t have children in your company, Mr. Belaggio, but it so happens that my niece Ursula—a more beautiful child you’ll never see—has the most exquisite voice. She and her sister Violet have both been praised for their adorable ways in the private theatricals we hold every Christmas. I’m sure that they would be perfect as the two little girls. . . .”

“I’ll bet they can sing ‘Cherry-Cheeked Patty,’ too,” murmured Hannibal, as Mrs. Redfern loudly proclaimed her desire to see druidesses and Belaggio began eager inquiries as to how many of his principals had appeared in provincial performances of one of the most staggering operas ever written. “So much for a man risking death for the sake of his art.” He added another dollop of laudanum to the dregs of his punch-cup. “Rather like seeing Esmeralda hop into Claude Frollo’s bed for the price of a glass of beer, isn’t it?”

“I give up.” January set down his empty plate. He felt suddenly drained, exhausted by the events of the past six hours and as disgusted with his own earlier emotions as a man who discovers his love-poems being used for curling-papers. “Let Belaggio be murdered. Let them put on whatever they want and stick as many Grand Marches and choruses of ‘Bonny Dundee’ as they want into it. Beauty and integrity and courage and liberty are obviously none of my business. I’m going home. I’ll see you tomorrow at rehearsal.”

“Signor Janvier?” Drusilla d’Isola stood behind them.

Like all the women of the company, she had taken off the heavy stage make-up, but even under the delicate rice-powder and rouge with which she’d replaced it, she looked like a dead woman. The gorgeous knots and swags of blond lace and point d’esprit that framed her shoulders only served to accentuate her pallor; January sprang to his feet. “You should be lying down, Signorina,” he protested. “Please, sit—or, better still, allow my friend and myself to walk you back to your hotel. That was a heroic performance, but you must rest.”

“It had to be done.” She shook her head at the offer of a gilt-trimmed chair, glanced over her shoulder at Belaggio, still surrounded by well-wishers and soaking up praise like a camel at a water-hole. “Once they begin to replace you— once people hear another’s name rather than yours . . .” She took a deep breath. “Thank you, so much, for sending for your sister to help me. She is a strong woman, your sister. A—a
strega,
such as we have in the villages. She was very good to me.” She crossed herself.

Tired as she was, beaten and struggling to stay on her feet, she seemed very different from the fluttery, sweet child who clung so calculatingly to Belaggio’s arm; who followed Marsan with such adoring eyes. Maybe, thought January, because this was the first he’d seen Drusilla away from either of her lovers, operating on her own.

“Silvio—Signor Cavallo—tells me that you are . . . are concerned in the matter of the strange events that have taken place here. Are concerned to find out who assaulted Lorenzo, and who may have tried to poison me.”

“I
was
concerned about who assaulted Signor Belaggio,” said January. “I am a friend of Signor Davis’s, whom Belaggio has all but accused of the crime. And since I find it unlikely that two violent attackers are pursuing members of the same opera company, I think the same person is responsible for the injury to Madame Scie. Which means that others may be in danger as well.”

D’Isola paled still more, if that was possible, and crossed herself again. “I know,” she whispered, and reached like a child to pluck at his sleeve. “That’s what I have to show you.”

She went to the end of the musicians’ table and fetched a candlestick—“At first I thought it was just that bitch Montero, trying to force me aside. . . .”

“I think it was,” said January. “The day before yesterday she hired me to take her through the Countess’s part. In case, she said, you and Signor Belaggio had a falling-out. It would be hard to prove. . .”

D’Isola stopped in her tracks, lips hardening and eyes snapping fire. “Did she so?” She stamped her foot. “Cow! Slut!” Her hand clenched the gaudy brass as if she meant to brain her rival. “I would never have . . . oh! As if putting poison in my soup weren’t enough . . .”

“You mean something else happened?” January saw again how she’d flinched as she opened the desk-drawer on-stage.

“That scorpion! That . . . but of course, Signor Janvier. During the Letter Duet.”

She led the way down the short corridor beside the rehearsal-room, to the little prop-room originally reserved for the variously colored glass filters that changed the color of the gas-jets, and now promiscuously crammed with rolled-up scrims, stacked chairs, and the hats, coats, and instrument-cases of the musicians. The Contessa Almaviva’s white-and-gilt writing-desk had been thrust into a corner: “Signor Caldwell insisted, Signore. He— and Lorenzo—ordered me to tell no one. He said it would not do for
i padroni
to know there had been more trouble.”

The desk was old and French and rather delicate, cabriole-legged and tricked out in overemphatic gilding that looked gaudy by daylight, but by the glow of candles or gaslight on-stage merely seemed rich. The small scrap of paper on which she’d scribbled still lay atop it, with pen, standish, Cherubino’s military papers, and the pins and combs that had been in one of the ballet dancers’ hair.