Sedition (29 page)

“Of course I remember,” snapped Drigg. He had nothing, really, to be ashamed of, or to hide. He had not told any lies. Not really. Why did he feel like a criminal?

Cantabile kept going. “And I wanted to send Annie as teacher. Do you remember that?” Much to Frogmorton’s surprise, the snarled lip was snarled up some more. “You’d have done well with Annie,” Cantabile said. “Really very well.”

“We’ve done very well with Monsieur Belladroit.” Drigg moved to block Cantabile. “I think, Archibald, that perhaps there was some equivocation. The quality of the instrument may have been … the day may have been … the arrangement may have been—”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Tobias! It hardly matters. If the man wants his instrument back, let him have it. What else are we going to do with it? You should just have made it clear at the start. You can return some of our money if that makes you feel better. Add it to the money you owe for the Frenchman’s lessons.”

Cantabile was back at the pianoforte. After twenty minutes, with pressing business in the City, the fathers left.

The mothers arrived soon after, Mrs. Frogmorton and Mrs. Drigg bickering gently over the number and setting of the candles, Mrs. Frogmorton wanting more light, Mrs. Drigg rather less. With the pianofortes in place, they were nervous. The concert, so long spoken of, now lived and breathed on its own. The sale of their daughters was about to begin. As they fussed, Mrs. Drigg knew with depressing certainty that one candle or a hundred, Marianne and Everina would be outshone by Harriet and Georgiana. Mrs. Brass wished everything were over: concert, marriage, life. Mrs. Frogmorton, confident of Harriet, worried about details. The ordered hothouse flowers had arrived. She sent them back. “Midday tomorrow,” she scolded. “They must be perfect.” She made sure to inspect the kitchens, cleaned at her own expense. She had hired the cooks herself. For the fifth time, she counted out the plate bought specially for the occasion. It was bad enough they had to borrow a room; their china must not be found wanting. Mrs. Drigg’s father provided the fish free of charge. It was in the larder, packed in ice. Mrs. Frogmorton smelled it. Good fish. Excellent fish. It had been nice of him.

In the later afternoon, Cantabile returned to Tyburn, his heart filled equally with disgust and delight. The City men were frightful. Their daughters would be frightful. The concert would be torture. But the concert would soon be over and his pianoforte returned to him. He pushed open the shop door and pricked his ears. Was Annie here? He could never be sure these days. He heard the click of a lever in the back and smelled something bubbling on the stove upstairs. She was here. He moved warily. Since Annie had tried to murder Maria Barthélemon’s music, she and he had padded around each other, alert to the possibility of bloodshed. “Those City people,” he said aloud, going through to the back to find her. “Hyenas.”

Annie did not look at him. “I expect the girls are pretty.”

“The girls weren’t there. If they’re anything like their mothers, I should have paid Claude more. He’d have been better off with you.”

Cantabile knew that these days his jibes were wasted, his barbs blunt. He was unclear exactly how Annie had rendered him impotent, physical hurt the only punishment left to him, and he no longer cared. From now on, he would think solely of his pianoforte. It never had and never would disobey or challenge. It bent readily to his will. It would never leave here again. He went farther into the warehouse. From a tall cupboard he collected the axe, took it to the front, removed his coat, and there, in the workshop, set about destroying his current project. Like his daughter, it was unworthy of him.

Monsieur Belladroit returned to the workshop directly after collecting his last pay pouch from Manchester Square. He considered not collecting it. It always made him feel cheap. However, money was money. He weighed the bag—he never counted it—and put it in his pocket. For the first and last time, and only because he was ordered to do so by Mrs. Frogmorton, Spencer opened and closed the front door for him. The footman and the music master exchanged glances containing not an ounce of camaraderie.

The evening sky was cloudless, the stars bright pinheads. It had already begun to freeze. Nevertheless, Monsieur stopped to look back at the house in which he had spent so many hours. How tightly the windows were shuttered, or curtained, or both, to keep the winter out. All that fuss about dangerous air when real danger was warmly wrapped and came through the front door. His skin tingled. He wound his scarf closer around his throat. A wig would be good tonight; he did not like a cold head. He thrust his hands into gloves. Where next? Where had he not yet been? The possibilities should have excited him: he could go anywhere, but the whole concept of anywhere suddenly seemed very bleak.

He was almost out of the square when, through clouds of steam and showers of sparks more suited to a return from the battlefield than a canter in the park, a man clattered by on his horse and a groom ran out from the back of No. 22. That would be Mr. Buller, thought Monsieur, and nodded. Thomas did not nod back. He was already searching the upper windows of No. 23. The shutters meant there was nothing to see, yet his cheeks reddened with more than the chill. Ah, thought Monsieur, Mademoiselle Harriet has made her move. Poor Thomas Buller. He will not escape now. He chided himself. Why would Thomas Buller want to escape? Mademoiselle Harriet was a nice girl—much nicer than Marianne or Everina. He wished young Mr. and Mrs. Buller well. Banging his hands together, Monsieur made his way into Oxford Street. In the gloaming, stonecutters were still at work. Buildings going up, buildings coming down. Shouting boys had tipped bricks out of a cart to make an ice slide. The bricklayers, half-annoyed and half-indulgent, pelted the boys with mortar from above. Clamoring, belligerent, and constantly battering the ears and nose, London was never so lovely as when you were about to leave it.

NINETEEN

S
ATURDAY,
13 D
ECEMBER
1794

MORNING

Monsieur returned to St. James’s early. In anticipation of the concert, the Allemonde servants had lit fires at either end of the saloon. The shutters were still closed, also the curtains, and despite its size, with six lamps and twenty candles blazing, the room was warm. Monsieur ran his hand over the brown pianoforte. The sound, in here, would be rich as plum cake, as anybody discerning would appreciate. Of course, the audience would not be discerning. He tested each note again. When he was satisfied with the brown instrument, he moved to the black. Again, he sounded the notes carefully, occasionally two notes together, A, A-sharp, B, C, A, and C together, C-sharp, and on, methodical as a workman testing the rungs of a ladder. Two young servants hoping for a dance returned to their duties disappointed.

Monsieur wiped his hands and appreciated the saloon. The major furniture had been cleared and the room was free from the larger elements of concert clutter. The walls, predominantly sand colored, were lightened by white stucco cornice cherubs of unusual daintiness that Monsieur found graceful and pleasing. He bowed to an imaginary audience and sat down at the brown pianoforte. First, a scale. The scale became an arpeggio, then back to a scale in thirds and sixths, then finally scales and arpeggios decorated, ornamented, syncopated. He checked the clock. There was time. He took off his coat and played as he had not played for months: for himself. The toccatas, sonatas, fugues, and inventions of Bach, Handel, and Haydn stretched his fingers, wrists, wit, intellect, and technique. Oh, he had forgotten! In teaching the girls, even Alathea, he had been denied the joy of music
toute seule
. It was glorious here, just himself and Cantabile’s miraculous instrument. After two hours, he was as refreshed and reinvigorated as a man starved of books let loose in a library. He put his coat back on and relaxed. The girls would arrive soon, with no danger of even the mildest flirtation. He was in charge again. It would be quite like old times.

Mrs. Frogmorton and Mrs. Drigg arrived at Pall Mall before their daughters, each preceded by a cart bearing flowers, fruits, and large silk balloons containing the girls’ concert dresses. During the course of the morning, the graceful saloon was transformed into what Monsieur could only describe as an overblown village market.
Tant pis
. He happily tinkered with the instruments, checking the pitch for the sheer pleasure of it. A little later, the girls themselves arrived ready for their final practice. They would not go home before the concert, hence the dresses in their traveling covers. Alathea arrived last. She brought her own dress, also covered. She did not bring any flowers or fruits.

Monsieur set out the scores. The girls, apart from Alathea, studied them with alarm, all the familiar variations seeming, on this morning of mornings, as unfamiliar as something entirely new.

“I can’t remember anything,” moaned Everina. “I’m sure to go wrong.”

“Why did we have to play something so complicated?” whined Marianne.

Harriet and Georgiana were white and silent. They would forget. Their fingers would freeze or grow clumsy. The concert would be a disaster. They kept looking at Alathea.

Alathea was calm, though her heart beat faster than usual. She had not seen her father since Thursday night. On Friday morning, taking the diamonds he had left behind on that last dreadful visitation, she had sped out of the house, first to a jeweler who had given her ready money for one of the diamonds and agreed to cut the others, then to the Salutation and Cat, and from there to the Pool of London armed with the name of the captain of a merchant ship. The Pool had been chaotic. It was almost impossible to see the water, so closely were the ships crowded together. She had been determined and not left until she had solicited a paper guaranteeing herself and Annie a berth on the
Maidenhead
, due to edge out at first tide tomorrow. Alathea had given a wry smile at the name. From the Pool, straight to Stratton Street where the girls had gathered at Marianne’s harpsichord, the pianofortes already removed. She would have preferred to go to Tyburn to show Annie the passage papers but she had promised the girls this final practice, so she entrusted the papers and a letter to a courier. She would collect Annie from Tyburn directly after the concert. By Sunday noon, they would be on the high seas. Before she sealed the letter, she took her mother’s ring from her thumb, kissed it, and slid it inside. It was still a wedding ring. It would always be a wedding ring. After finishing at Stratton Street, she had returned to the jeweler. Once back in Soho Square, she spent most of the night working on her dress. This morning, she was tired but exultant. She smiled confidently and confidentially at the girls. Everina and Marianne stopped wailing. Harriet and Georgiana hugged themselves. This is our day, Alathea’s smile said to them each in turn. Enjoy it.

Monsieur rattled the score to get their attention. “Now, mademoiselles. To work. This is how the morning will go.” He would hear each girl’s particular variations first. Afterward, they would run through the whole performance. During those variations where he was to help out, the girl should always play the brown pianoforte and he would play the black. The five chairs behind the pianoforte stools were where the girls should sit when not playing. Did they understand? They nodded. Practice began and after a while Everina and Marianne were hammering away as always, Harriet and Georgiana offering something more sonorous. Alathea’s sound was rich and—what else? Safe? Yes! For the first time since that first lesson Monsieur was not wondering what was going to happen next.

The room filled with servants, tradesmen, concert chairs. Occasionally, the instructions of Mrs. Frogmorton and the twitterings of Mrs. Drigg, both resplendent in aprons and working caps, drowned out the music. There was tension over the lighting. Mrs. Drigg moved candles. Mrs. Frogmorton moved them back. Mrs. Brass arrived. She whispered. Monsieur barked. The noise—human, musical, mechanical, domestic, congratulatory, admonitory—surged until by one o’clock, all was prepared.

Even Monsieur was content. He shut the pianofortes’ lids. The girls made to leave the room. “Wait!” Monsieur said. “Sit.” The girls sat obediently in the front row of the seats arranged in two banks, six on each side of a center aisle, not pressed together since the skirts of the lady guests’ dresses were expected to be full.

Monsieur walked up and down. He had not intended to give the girls a lecture, but his morning’s playing urged him to remind them of their duty to Herr Bach. He cleared his throat. “As you know, mademoiselles, the
Clavier Übung
is a serious piece,” he said. “To be able to play it at all marks you out as young women of distinction, and it is, of course, this distinction that will attract the future husbands sitting in these rows. I have one last instruction.” He sought their eyes. All were wide, wide, wide. “You must perform the music exactly as Herr Bach wrote it,” he said, “exactly as we have practiced. Do not allow yourselves to be distracted. Place yourselves in Herr Bach’s hands. He will be your guide. That is all.” There was no hint, as he spoke, of the man who had taken them and tumbled them. At this moment, Monsieur Belladroit was musician and music master only. Mrs. Frogmorton and Mrs. Drigg, grappling with ferns and oranges, nodded their approval. How silly their misgivings had been. The castrato was a serious man who had done a serious job. Mrs. Frogmorton thought she would tell the alderman to tip him.

Four of the girls tripped out of the room. Georgiana remained seated. Monsieur went to her. “You must go and have a little food, and then submit yourself to the hair setter with the others,” he said. She did not move. “Mademoiselle Georgiana, do not fear. You are well rehearsed,” Monsieur reassured, “and I will be here, playing my part, as we have arranged. You will not be alone, little dove. The concert will be a success, and afterward, you will never be alone again.” Georgiana squeezed his hand with ferocious intensity. Monsieur had not called her “little dove” since their real intimacy began. Monsieur squeezed back and propelled her after the others.