Sedition (6 page)

Mrs. Frogmorton and Harriet exchanged a familiar look. “I think,” said Mrs. Frogmorton before Mrs. Drigg could start again, “that Stratton Street is hardly the end of Christendom. Still, if Marianne’s so keen, I’m sure nobody minds if she has the first lesson.”

“I don’t want to go after her,” said Everina. She feared any comparison with Marianne’s self-professed musical superiority. “It will hardly wear out the carriage to make the journey twice.”

Mrs. Frogmorton grew impatient. “As you wish. This is the order: Marianne, Harriet, Georgiana, Everina, Alathea. Is that agreeable to everybody?”

They all nodded.

“Good. We’ll leave it to Monsieur to suggest the number of lessons in a week. What about clothes? Do you think pianoforte playing requires a new type of garment, Elizabeth?” Silence. “Yes, I thought you might,” said Mrs. Frogmorton, “though I’m not sure you’re right.”

This was how conversations with Mrs. Brass were always conducted. Mrs. Frogmorton and Mrs. Drigg had long agreed between themselves that since Elizabeth seemed incapable of answering for herself, they would answer for her. It was a pact meant kindly and had become one of the bonds uniting the three mothers, bonds that were born of their husbands’ close connections and grew in strength when Grace Frogmorton, disregarding the danger, billowed into Stratton Street when Everina Drigg had the pox, kissed Mrs. Drigg, and held Everina’s hand; when Elizabeth Brass sent a note, smudged, unsigned, and saying only “weeping,” to Grace Frogmorton after that first stillbirth; when Grace Frogmorton sent a tiny lace gown for Marianne Drigg when her own little girl (the second before Harriet) had, once again, needed only a shroud; when Elizabeth Brass turned up at Stratton Street, a weal across her face and her eyes glazed, and Agnes Drigg offered unquestioning shelter. Compared to the deep bonds of birth bed, marriage bed, and deathbed, the mothers’ daily mutual irritations were only a scab. That all three could remember each child the others had lost, however brief its flicker of life, was indissoluble glue. When particular anniversaries came around, something, perhaps a little cake, perhaps a posy, would arrive. Every year, each husband asked what for. The mothers felt wounded by their husbands on those days. Those wounds were bonding too.

“Tea midlesson?” queried Mrs. Drigg. “How big a fire should be made? Is an hour’s tuition too long? Can the girls practice on their harpsichords?”

Mrs. Frogmorton began to answer. Mrs. Drigg begged to disagree, or agree, or both.

Alathea raised her voice. “What are we to play?”

Cut off midstream, Mrs. Drigg thought, “Why does Alathea always sound so knowing? Why can’t she chat and giggle like the others?”

“I expect Monsieur Belladroit will decide,” Mrs. Frogmorton said, thinking the same as Mrs. Drigg.

“Let’s ask him.” Alathea unfolded herself.

“Sit!” Mrs. Frogmorton felt proprietorial. This was her house and Monsieur Belladroit had, for the day, been hers. She would introduce him. “Are we ready?” she asked. They nodded. Mrs. Frogmorton rang the bell.

Nobody heard his footsteps but Monsieur was among them at once, in gray breeches, dark stockings, short jacket, and shoes with no buckle, his demeanor absurdly deferential—not at all the jaunty cove who, earlier, had left Mr. Cantabile’s. Harriet, Marianne, and Everina offered haughty greetings. Georgiana stared at her feet. Alathea’s lips twitched “well, well, what’s this.”

Monsieur was delighted with the variety of young womanhood: the soft, the elfin, the solid, the nervous, the— He could not quite categorize Alathea, which was unusually delicious. Cantabile was right. He had said the job he had for his dear Claude would be a pleasure, and it would be. Monsieur would steal the girls’ virtue and be away before the new husbands discovered the cherry picked, the goods secondhand. He quite envied these husbands. What a favor he was doing, enabling them to ditch the wife as sullied but keep the marriage settlement. Should he demand a cut? Unnecessary if he took Cantabile’s bonus for marrying one of the girls himself. An odd man, his old friend Cantabile. He was tight-fisted, yet wanted to pay over and above the fee the fathers were paying. But I’m an odd man myself, Monsieur thought.

This was nothing but the truth. With his penchant for varied personal histories and his inability to settle in one place, he was not quite as others. He had welcomed the revolution in his native France not for its ideas but because it made everybody as restless as himself—at least those not sent to their rest by Madame Guillotine. Monsieur had seen two executions—parents of pupils. It was not the blood that appalled him, or the mob. It was the tipping of the headless bodies into muddy holes of permanent dark. When he died, he wanted to be burned and scattered in the wind. Cantabile’s invitation had come at precisely the right time. It took Monsieur’s mind off those dark and muddy holes to be in London and to be considering marriage—a laughable consideration since he could bear neither landlady nor lover for more than a month.

Yet if he were to marry one of these girls, which would be the most profitable? His eyes flickered around the room, assessing the furniture, the drapes, the appalling clock. My goodness. Fancy coming home to this. Nevertheless, the house was solid, the fathers City men. But one thing at a time. Marriage was for after, if at all. Seduction was first.

Monsieur would deflower any girl from fifteen to fifty—perhaps not fifty—but he had his standards, one of which was that whatever the age and ugliness of the girl, he would never resort to rape. He disapproved of it. Even more, he feared a charge of it. Voluntary capitulation was the thing. That, so he had learned over many years, was what stopped girls tale-telling to parents—or at least stopped them telling before he had disappeared. He imagined they felt complicit. He encouraged them to do so. Not that it mattered if his conquests did tell. Wise parents covered up their daughters’ indiscretions as was only sensible, and in France, at least, many husbands did not care if their wives were shop-soiled. Englishmen must be ridiculously fastidious, otherwise Cantabile would not have concocted this romp. He felt flattered to be the conductor. He had never seduced an English girl before. Getting these creatures to capitulate would be a charming exercise. He would, however, lace determination with caution.

“Mademoiselles!” He took each of the girls’ hands in turn and peered at their faces. Why did portraitists depict women as flat skinned with pearly teeth and red lips? Women were not flat, or pearly or red. Women’s skin was like the wood of a pianoforte frame: the little whorls, knots, and faults gave or withheld beauty and their lips were as notched as a man’s bedpost. Take this one. (It was Harriet.) Her lips were thin. Smooth, they would be nothing more than a gash. Notched, with perhaps five tiny bee-sting swellings, they offered all manner of treats. Portraitists should try harder. He was much amused when Harriet snapped her wrist away. He was not to know that she took his lingering on her lips to be a deliberate focus on what she considered her worst feature.

Monsieur moved to Marianne. Oh dear. Skin pitted like an orange; mole like a slug on her left cheek. Freckles. Miserable hair. No neck. Portraitists had a point. It would be foolhardy to tell the truth.

Everina submitted with little shrieks. Those teeth, thought Monsieur with well-hidden shock. A cartoon. A creature of puff, poufs, and pom-poms. Still, her hands were plump, the fingernails clean, and she had plucked her eyebrows into the semicircles of fixed surprise favored for mannequins. It was unappealing but showed attention to detail.

Georgiana, trembling like a sinner before the priest, seemed too insubstantial to scrutinize. Gently, gently with her. She was a nervous dove.

Alathea held out her right hand voluntarily. On her thumb was her mother’s wedding ring. Sawneyford would have buried it with the corpse but Alathea had clung so hard that Sawneyford had removed it. At that time, the ring had been too big even for Alathea’s thumb. On her first visit to the V & B Mrs. W. had helped secure it with a bandage. As Alathea grew, it fitted better. She became accustomed to the feel of it on her thumb and had taken it off only twice, both times for a goldsmith to refit. Monsieur guessed nothing of this. The only lady he had seen wearing a thumb ring would not have been welcome in Mrs. Frogmorton’s drawing room. He dropped Alathea’s hand and found his own taken for inspection. He cocked his head. Well, well. Even without the ring, this girl was unusual: dark skinned, dark eyed, dark haired—not black, if you really looked, more the tarry coppers and russets of the inside of a volcano. He withdrew his hands with a quick “Mademoiselle.” He would think of her later. “You will want to know our program,” he said, giving the mothers a quick once-over. Portly, dumpy, skinny. Mothers, but not enough of them. Two girls must be sisters, or perhaps one or two were without mothers? It did not matter. “I shall teach these lovely girls easy madrigal accompaniments and simple ditties,” Monsieur said. “They can sing and play. It will be charming.”

Mrs. Frogmorton jolted. “Easy madrigals and simple ditties? The pianoforte up the stairs is not for trifles, sir. Attracting husbands is a serious business. Madrigals may do for bank clerks and milliners but they won’t do for us, will they, Elizabeth?”

Monsieur waited for Mrs. Brass to answer. When she did not, he carried on. “In that case, what are your thoughts, mesdames?”

Mrs. Frogmorton made a magnanimous gesture. “Marianne? You’re something of an expert, I gather?”

“I believe the
cognoscenti
admire music by a man called Bach,” Marianne said, stressing the Italian with a smug nod at Mrs. Frogmorton and a slight simper for Monsieur.

“They do,” Monsieur agreed.

“Does Mr. Bach write for the pianoforte? Could he compose something specially for us?”

“I doubt that.” Monsieur Belladroit fanned his fingers.

“Is a commission from us not important enough?” Marianne was at her most superior. “If that’s so, I think Herr Bach overestimates himself.”

“Herr Bach, good ladies, is dead, and has been for some time.”

Mrs. Frogmorton hid a smile. Everina giggled. Alathea bit her lip.

“Herr Bach may be dead,” Marianne declared, flushing, “but his music lives on. We could learn preludes, fugues, or”—she struggled only for a moment, then dug the phrase out and sent it swinging—“suites de pièces.”

“I see now what you are after.” Monsieur’s tongue peeped from the corner of his lips. Alathea noted it. “You want drama, you want thrill, you want arabesques, canons, sarabandes, the adagio arioso, the dotted gigue, the rondo alla Turca.” He flourished the terms like a box of treats.

“They want husbands,” Mrs. Frogmorton said bluntly.

“You want to show your girls at their most delirious?”

“Desirable,” said Mrs. Frogmorton and Mrs. Drigg together.

“As I say, delirious,” agreed Monsieur. Mrs. Frogmorton and Mrs. Drigg clicked their tongues but let it pass.

“What to choose. What to choose.” Monsieur placed a finger flat against his cheek. “The pianoforte, you must understand, is an upstager. It upstages the little harpsichord as a river upstages a stream.”

“Rivers don’t upstage streams,” said Marianne. “They’re entirely different things.”

Monsieur narrowed his eyes. “I bow before higher knowledge of waterways. You perhaps already know Mr. Handel’s
Water Music
?” He hummed and waved for her to join in.

Marianne looked sour. “I don’t hum.”

“Oh, but you must. I shall teach you. You just press your lips together—such pretty lips—press them together—”

“For goodness’ sake!” Mrs. Frogmorton glared at Marianne. “Never mind this nonsense. What are they to play, Monsieur?”

“Madame, you must understand several things. The pianoforte is a garden waiting for a gardener.”

“What?” All the mothers stared at him.

“It is an instrument waiting for music,” Monsieur explained.

“Monsieur Belladroit,” said Mrs. Frogmorton, accentuating his name. “Never mind about the pianoforte waiting. We’re waiting. What music are the girls to play? It’s a simple question.”

Monsieur flexed and unflexed his fingers. “I think I have it.” Eight female faces were expectant. Should he try his luck with the mothers too? Old meat could be tasty. “The girls can perform a sonata each by the lovely Mrs. Barthélemon.” He laughed to himself. Cantabile would find this amusing.

Mrs. Frogmorton sounded a ship’s horn. “Music by a woman?”

“Women also write music, madame.”

Her voice rose. “I daresay they do, but we can’t have a woman composer for our girls. Music’s a man’s thing, Monsieur, and a man’s music is what we want. There must be something suitable.”

Monsieur pressed his fingers to his lips. Mrs. Barthélemon was a nice idea. He dismissed her reluctantly. The matrons leaned forward. “What about,” Monsieur said at last, “an aria with diverse variations.”

“An aria?” said Mrs. Frogmorton. “We’ve already told you about ditties. Our girls are not simpletons.”

“Madame, the work to which I refer could not be played by simpletons. When played on the harpsichord for which it was written it is a work of the utmost difficulty. On the pianoforte, it is a work almost of impossibility.” A groan escaped Georgiana. Monsieur softened his voice. “Do not worry, mademoiselle. Under my tuition and with a little rearrangement of the music, the difficulties will be overcome. That is
my
forte.”

“Does it have a name, this rearranged aria with variables?” Mrs. Frogmorton asked. “It would be easier if it had a name.”

“The name? It is called, I suppose, a
Clavier Übung,
” Monsieur replied.

“
Clavier Übung
?” Mrs. Frogmorton was doubtful. “Sounds French.”

“German,” said Mrs. Brass unexpectedly.

She speaks, Monsieur thought, and she was once pretty. “Quite right. German,” he said. “In France we call what I shall teach your girls something different.” Mrs. Brass looked up. Ah, she was not so dozy, this silent one.

“And in English?” Mrs. Drigg was anxious to relieve Mrs. Brass of the pressure of saying more.