Sedition (28 page)

In his bed he lay awake. It was not true that nobody knew of his gelding apart from himself and Alathea. The doctor himself knew. Crouch knew. He contemplated killing the doctor. He contemplated killing Crouch. He did not, however, contemplate killing Alathea. An irrationality gradually took hold of him. What Alathea had taken away, she could return. With her, he would still function as a man: her arts, her lips, her fingers would restore him. Alathea could stop this scuttling. He waited until she was practicing at Manchester Square, then made a wax impression of the lock on her door. On his way out to get a key made, he left a folder of money for Crouch, enough for a one-way ticket to Rome. He left a note for the doctor. If Sawneyford found he had gossiped, he would know where to find him.

After the shard, Alathea avoided the card room. Since she had not planned her assault, she had not thought how things would be afterward. And now she was frightened, for she thought her father as capable of murder as she was herself. It was fear that made her garrulous with Annie, both fear of her father and fear of seeming fearful, because fearful people were the kind of people for whom she had no respect. She scolded herself. Her fear was needless, just a reaction. It would pass. After all, her father would surely be frail for some time yet and the concert was so close. She and Annie would be gone in a week. She did take precautions, though. Whether Annie was with her or not, she was doubly careful to lock her door and kept the key with her, sleeping with it under her pillow. Several times in the night she thought she heard the pianoforte twang. She imagined Sawneyford cutting the strings. It was not the exhaustion of practice with the girls that made her avoid playing with Annie, it was fear of what they might find in the ballroom. Sawneyford’s missing coat told her he was up and out again. Trays of half-eaten street food left in the hall told her that Crouch had abandoned the house and they were now without a servant. She left the trays where they were.

On the Thursday night before the concert, she woke from a half sleep. At first she thought her room ablaze and started up. It was ablaze, though with light, not a conflagration. Candles were reflected in every mirror. Next to the bed, leaning over her, stood Sawneyford, hair awry, dry skin powdering hollowed cheeks. He was wearing a dressing gown loosely knotted and it was clear he wore nothing beneath. Alathea lay perfectly still. She could feel her key under her head. What a numbskull. She should have changed the lock. She hardly breathed. She kept her eyes almost closed. The lamp beside her bed was heavy. She could hit him with that. But he was above her, and gazing at her. He would hit her first. Be still. Be still.

Sawneyford unknotted his dressing gown and climbed onto the bed. Alathea would not look at the scene of her destruction. She closed her eyes fully. Sawneyford lowered himself until he was resting on her thighs, then pulled down the covers. Be still, Alathea, be still. His stubbled cheek scraped against her nose as he tilted forward, then up again. His breath rasped. He felt in his pocket for seven diamonds of different sizes, all cut and polished, drew up her nightgown, and dripped the jewels onto her belly. One rolled into her belly button, the rest he slowly rolled downward until they were half-lost. He took her hand in his, her fingers so soft and unresponsive that he himself had to fold them around where they were needed. All the while he kept his eyes fixed on her face. She was beautiful, his daughter. She would see that after destruction came restoration. Restoration was her duty and she had always been dutiful. His lips were working. He moved her hand. It was smooth and cool. A nice feeling. That was all. His breathing hardened. He clenched her hand and winced. He clenched it again and rejoiced in his wince. Pain might help. His pain. Her pain. Clench, wince, clench, wince.

Nothing worked. He abandoned her hand and pulled her arms above her head, pressing both down with one of his. He shuffled the rest of himself up the bed, his knees at her shoulders. He raised himself. He lowered himself. Alathea, still as the dead, felt wetness on her eyelids, on her cheeks, on her lips. No, she begged silently, though her face never changed. No. It can’t be possible. Not that. I’ve finished him for that. She heard her father groan. Her arms were no longer trapped. The bed creaked as Sawneyford clambered off, leaving the diamonds where they were. He was at the door, fumbling for the key. He was gone.

The second he was out, Alathea tipped her head sideways. She sat up and touched one cheek with a finger. She could have cried with relief. The wetness was light, not heavy; salty, not sticky; clear, not cloudy. She had done her work properly. Making both hands into fists, she used her knuckles to wipe away her father’s tears.

*   *   *

O
N
F
RIDAY
morning, Cantabile went with Monsieur Belladroit to supervise the removal of the pianofortes to Pall Mall, where the final practice would take place. When Monsieur had made this request, Cantabile had at first refused even to listen, then declared point-blank that his pianoforte was irrecoverably tainted, infected inside and out with the girls’ mediocrity and inanity, and nothing would make him break his vow to have nothing to do with it again. Monsieur spoke of what would happen to the pianoforte after the concert. Once the girls were exposed by their husbands and returned, disgraced, to their homes, the instrument would be a scandal. “It will be passed from house to house like a blighted child,” Monsieur said. “Only its value will prevent its destruction.” Could Cantabile not hear it call out to him? Did he want to abandon it in its distress? “It is not a blighted child, it is your child, Vittorio,” Monsieur said, hard-eyed for all his sighs, “and whatever the faults of the girls, it is the finest pianoforte I am ever likely to play. Come, do. Come where you can comfort and save it. Must I go down on my knees on its behalf?”

It was not pleasant for Monsieur when Cantabile shrieked and shouted, flying first into a rage and then into a frenzy. Yet Monsieur persisted, not for the sake of the pianoforte, fine as it was, but for the sake of Annie, the blighted child Cantabile would never comfort. She who had so little should have the pianoforte. It was the only thing he, Claude Belladroit, could offer her. Once he had gone, whatever erupted in that awful workshop, there would be beautiful music.

Monsieur’s persistence was rewarded. Having been determined not to think about his pianoforte, Cantabile opened his ears and heard it calling, and not just calling: he heard it howling. He did want it back. He wanted it back so badly he could not sleep. He said nothing directly to Monsieur, giving his answer only through hiring the undertaker’s cart again and sending an inflated bill for transportation to Mr. Frogmorton. The pianoforte would go from Manchester Square to Pall Mall, and shortly afterward to Tyburn. Cantabile underlined Tyburn twice.

The two men walked to Manchester Square dressed against the weather.

“You’re very quiet, Claude,” observed Cantabile, swinging his bag of tuning and regulating tools.

“I have the aria and variations going through my head,” Monsieur said untruthfully, for going through his head was the joy of the end. There would be no more girls, no more unwanted advances, no more sex. At Pall Mall, thank all the gods in all the heavens, he and the girls would never be alone. Servants would already be busy in the saloon preparing tables and flowers. The doors would always be open. There would be no privacy, not for a second. He recollected with a wry shake of the head his desire to get rid of Mrs. Frogmorton in the spring. Truly, there had been times in the last fortnight when he would have given ready money to have her back in her chair with that odious dog barking. Fancy, he thought. Claude Belladroit in need of a chaperone.
Mon Dieu
.

The cart was already outside No. 23, people gathering around waiting for a body. Neither the undertaker nor the hired muscle had corrected them. Cantabile rang the bell. It never crossed his mind to use the servants’ entrance. Mrs. Frogmorton was already in the hall, Frilly tucked in. She had been waiting for Monsieur, and she berated him at once. “Do you still have no understanding of English taste, Monsieur? An undertaker’s cart again? You should have consulted me. And who is that?” Mr. Cantabile was already on the stairs.

“It is Vittorio Cantabile, the pianoforte maker.” Monsieur gave a quick apologetic bow.

“What is he doing in my house?”

“He is necessary for the removals to the concert saloon, madame. Come now.” Monsieur smiled his most charming smile. “Soon we will be out of your house and the undertaker’s cart will be turned into a marriage wagon, yes?”

“Wagon?” Mrs. Frogmorton swelled with vexation. “You think Harriet will leave this house in a wagon? Really, Monsieur, you don’t—”

“No, madame,” said Monsieur Belladroit sorrowfully. “I expect I do not, but what matter now. After today I will trouble you no more.” He smiled again, ruefully this time, then made for the stairs.

Mrs. Frogmorton deflated slowly as she followed Monsieur. “Foreigners!” she said to Frilly. “Music is awash with them.”

Monsieur found Cantabile greeting his instrument as a mother greets a child released from a kidnapper. When his greeting was over, he methodically wiped down every inch of its frame, every key. “Fetch the men,” he ordered Monsieur. “Let’s get my precious out of here. The concert saloon can’t be worse than this—” He broke off, unable to find a word insulting enough.

The hired muscle found the instrument an awkward corpse and were duly cursed and bawled at as they detached the body from the legs. It was an odd procession down the stairs: three men maneuvering the bulk; two men manhandling the frame; one man clutching the pedal mechanism. The removal left a considerable gap and several stains on the floorboards that only poor light and the quick shifting of the harpsichord kept from Mrs. Frogmorton’s notice. She closed the door on the room’s green gloom, patted Frilly on the head, and remarked with some satisfaction that it was nice to have things back to normal.

At Stratton Street, Mrs. Drigg was glad to see the second pianoforte go to Pall Mall, since this meant that Alathea would no longer be a constant visitor. The concert could not come soon enough, Mrs. Drigg thought as the instrument was trundled away, nor the moment when Alathea would be married, saddled with a dozen wailing children, and holed up in the country, preferably with a husband too poor to have any decent carriage horses. Mrs. Drigg felt guilty at the unchristian quality of this thought, though guilt was quickly overtaken by relief at being able to dedicate herself completely to the subject of Everina’s concert corset.

The fathers, minus Sawneyford, were also in good heart. Frogmorton, Drigg, and Brass arrived at Pall Mall at noon to see the instruments installed at the far end of the Allemonde saloon. The earl had graciously provided two long stools from the servants’ hall and carpenters had been summoned to make certain they were the correct height. Drigg was not pleased to see Cantabile and avoided him. They all ignored the undertaker’s cart, at which the Allemonde servants sniggered.

This was the first time Brass and Drigg had seen Monsieur Belladroit, the castrato. Drigg glanced surreptitiously. Brass openly smirked until Frogmorton reminded him that Monsieur was French and Frenchmen were notoriously huffy. If Monsieur walked out now, where would they all be? Brass growled but stopped smirking. Anyway, there was not much to smirk at. Monsieur was exactly as their wives had described. He did not, on the face of it, look like a eunuch. But what did a eunuch look like? Brass found it more useful to inspect the saloon furnishings and wandered around calculating and assessing. The marble and gold consoles he considered French and without merit. Nonetheless, though he had never seen the Allemonde son, he could imagine Georgiana mistress both of this house and the one fifty miles to the north that he had had independently valued. He would tell Georgiana what he expected of her.

Mr. Cantabile and Monsieur Belladroit cared nothing for the fathers and took no notice when Brass, having finished his inspection of the room, came over to inspect the pianofortes at close quarters. Frogmorton was similarly engaged. “It’s a pity they don’t match,” Frogmorton said.

“And a pity that they seem to insist on the brown one being in the front,” said Brass. “It’s an ugly piece.”

“Oh well,” said Frogmorton. “The Frenchman knows best, and once the girls are playing, nobody will look at the instruments.” Something struck him. “You,” he said to Cantabile. “Mr.—”

“Cantabile,” said Monsieur, when Cantabile did not reply.

“Mr. Cantabile,” said Frogmorton. “You’ll be on hand during the concert to keep the pianofortes well tuned?” He turned and called Drigg over. “Didn’t you say tuning was necessary, Drigg?”

Drigg approached unwillingly. “Well, I suppose—”

“Let’s not suppose,” Frogmorton said. “If tuning is important and we’ve two pianofortes, we’ll need two pianoforte tuners. There must be no delays while the girls are playing. What do you say, Cantabile?”

Cantabile, lever in hand, grinned at Drigg. Drigg looked at his boots. “I’d say two tuners would help the smooth running of your show. I’ll send my daughter.” He spoke to Frogmorton but never took his eyes off Drigg. “Would that be acceptable?”

Drigg paled.

“I don’t care if you send your mother,” said Frogmorton, “so long as she can tune properly.”

“Oh, my Annie can tune properly,” said Cantabile, “and I’ll have my pianoforte back after.”

Brass snorted at him. “Have it back? We paid good money for that instrument.”

“Is that what he told you?” Cantabile jabbed a finger at Drigg.

Frogmorton was immediately suspicious, not of Drigg but of Cantabile. “We paid what we paid,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“What you paid was rent,” Cantabile said. “No money in the world could come close to my pianoforte’s true value, even after your children have … have … have…”

“Drigg?” said Frogmorton.

“Oh, er, I don’t…”

Cantabile snarled his lips in fearsome imitation of Annie. “Don’t you remember, sir? Wasn’t that our agreement, sir? I didn’t want to sell. You must remember, sir.”