The Devil in Music (80 page)

"So
you went to Italy," MacGregor pursued, "and Marchese
Lodo-vico took it into his head to make a singer of you after all."

"Yes.
But that part of the story you know."

"I
know it now that everybody else does," MacGregor grumbled. "You
didn't see fit to confide in me before."

"I
was afraid you would try to stop me coming to Milan."

"Why
didn't you tell me the truth after I followed you here?"

"You'd
put yourself in far more danger than you knew by attaching yourself
to me in this investigation. The one thing I could do to protect you
was to keep you in ignorance."

"You
thought I wasn't to be trusted," MacGregor accused him.

"I
thought you the most honest and forthright man I knew, and I didn't
want to set you at war with your own nature."

"Fiddlesticks!
You've the prettiest way I ever heard of telling a man he can't keep
a secret."

Julian
was all too aware that he had not told MacGregor the whole truth even
now. But what would it profit MacGregor to know about his mission
for the Angeli? He and MacGregor were not out of Italy yet. Far
better for MacGregor to have nothing to hide from the police.

"I
suppose Dipper knew everything from the beginning," said
MacGregor.

"Yes.
I believe I rose enormously in his estimation when he found there
was a country where I was wanted by the police. But when he realized
I meant to walk straight into their clutches, he was scandalized. It
went against every tenet of his creed."

"What
will your London set make of your escapade as Orfeo?"

"The
details will probably never be understood even in Milan. By the time
they reach London, they'll bear only the most glancing resemblance to
the truth. The whole affair will appear to be a lark, perhaps
prompted by a wager."

"People
may want to hear you sing," MacGregor warned.

Julian
shrugged. "I shall say I gave it up when I discovered that
tenors wear flannel neck cloths and make unspeakable grimaces
whenever they hit any note above a high B."

"Quips
like that may fool your London friends. But I know you were speaking
from the heart when you told Maestro Donati what his training meant
to you. With a gift like yours, how could you give up singing?"

"I
wasn't brought up to it. My mother was on the stage, but she

died
when I was born. My father raised me to be a gentleman, even if in
the most reduced of circumstances."

MacGregor
nodded. "You've told me how his family cut him off for marrying
your mother. You mean he wouldn't have approved of your becoming a
singer?"

"I
think he might have been pleased, actually," Julian reflected.
"He always said my mother had a lovely voice."

"Well
then, what was to stop you pursuing a career on the stage?"

"It
isn't a gentleman's calling."

"Do
you mean to say you let a God-given talent go to waste, because it
wouldn't pass muster in the London drawing rooms?"

Julian
said nothing for a time. He went to the open window and stood
looking out on the trees tipped with moonlight and the glimmer of
lake away to the east. "When I was nine or ten years old, my
father and I went to deliver some manuscript pages to a bookseller in
Paternoster Row. My father had become a hackney writer after my
mother died. He worked at fair-copying, translation, indexes
whatever the booksellers would give him. It was January a cold,
blustery day. My father was dressed in a shabby old greatcoat and
patched shoes, with a moth-eaten green shawl tied around his
shoulders. His nose was blue, and so were his fingers where they
poked through the holes in his gloves. God knows what sort of
miserable object I presented.

"We
were walking along the pavement, when suddenly we saw a gentleman
looking in the window of a bookshop ahead. He was a stout,
prosperous-looking fellow, with a greatcoat all over capes, a black
felt hat, and shiny black Hessian boots. "But that's Wrentham!"
my father exclaimed. "I knew him at university!" He
started toward the gentleman with his hand outstretched. Mr.
Wrentham looked around. I saw surprise in his face, then
recognition, then embarrassment and distaste. And just before my
father reached him, he crossed the street and cut him dead.

"Not
long ago, this same man's son applied for admission to White's,
which, as you may know, is the most exclusive gentleman's club in
London. The outcome was uncertain. I used my influence."

"You
kept him out?"

"My
dear fellow, that would have been spite. No: he owes it to me that
he got in. That was revenge."

MacGregor
stared. After a moment he faltered, "But you can't mean to
spend the rest of your life avenging slights to your father."

"Why
not? It passes the time. And I do solve the odd murder."

MacGregor
shook his head gravely. At length he asked, "What's going to
happen here, now the investigation is over?"

"Our
party will break up quickly, I expect. Grimani will want to get to
Milan as soon as possible, to collect all the credit he can for the
investigation, and to promote his own version of events. The
marchesa will plunge back into Milanese society, and de la Marque
will dance attendance on her as long as he has nothing more pressing
to do. Valeriano will take his place as head of the Malvezzi family,
with Francesca at his side. I shall warn him to keep a close watch
on Nic-colo: Carlo has three sons, and it seems too much to hope for
that they should be nothing like him. Fletcher will go wherever
Lucia does and won't have cause to regret it. If St. Carr is wise,
he'll continue his travels alone and learn to get himself out of
scrapes. You'll go back to England, I imagine."

"All
the better for having come here, thanks to you. But what will you
do?"

"I
don't know. Perhaps I shall go somewhere I haven't been Spain, for
instance."

"That
wouldn't be my prescription." MacGregor came over to the window
where Julian stood, and held his gaze with his own calm, direct brown
eyes. "You're a little heartsick now, just as I was when you
persuaded me to come on the Continent with you. Now I'm telling you
that the best thing for you is to come back with me to England."

From
somewhere in the distant hills, a boy's voice rang out in a peasant's
song. A shepherd, Julian supposed. It must be nearer dawn than he
had thought. The voice was sweet and sure. But where could one go
in this country and not find music?

"There's
something I ought to explain," he said quietly. "I've told
you why I chose not to become a singer. But since I came back to
this villa, there hasn't been a day when I haven't felt regrets. I
thought I made the right choice, returning to England. I'm not sure
anymore."

"I'm
sure," said MacGregor.

Julian
looked at him in surprise.

"It
isn't that I think you've done right to devote your life to fighting
your father's battles. I can't believe he would have wanted that.
But I can see now that you wouldn't have been happy singing on the
stage. Maestro Donati said you didn't have the temperament, and he
was right. Do you remember when you told me that singing in public
would be like appearing naked before a crowd of strangers? That

would
never have done for you. You're the most dressed man I've ever
known. You like being in the public eye, so long as the public sees
only what you want it to see. As a singer, you would have poured
your whole soul into every performance, before all the world. You
have many kinds of courage, Julian, but not that kind. And you were
wise enough to know it."

The
boy was still singing. Julian listened a moment longer, then drew
the window closed. He laid a hand briefly, affectionately, on
MacGregor's shoulder. "All right, my dear fellow. Let's go
home."

The
characters in this novel are fictitious. Historical figures are
mentioned in passing, including the political prisoners Pellico and
An-dryane and the singers Velluti, Pasta, and Catalan!. Giovanni
Battista Rubini, who performs at La Scala in chapters 9 and 10, was a
renowned tenor of the period, but I've taken a liberty with history
by having him sing in Milan in 1825 (he was actually in Paris that
year).

All
the Milan locales, apart from the private houses, are authentic. Some
streets now have different names, and the dreaded Santa Margherita
police headquarters is no more. La Scala has substantially the same
structure as in Julian Kestrel's day, but a reverent silence is now
observed during performances.

Solaggio
is patterned on several Lake Como villages, notably Bellagio. Villa
Malvezzi is loosely modelled on the real Villa Melzi d'Eril, which
also has a Moorish belvedere. Canova's voluptuous lifesized
sculpture of Cupid and Psyche, which I've transported to Villa
Malvezzi, can be seen at Villa Carlotta, near Cadenabbia. Villa
Garuo, mentioned in chapter 14 as the former home of the estranged
wife of Britain's George IV, is now the luxury hotel Villa d'Este.
Villa Plini-ana, with its ancient intermittent spring, is
unfortunately not open to the public.

All
the music in the book is genuine, apart from Donati's compositions.
If any reader would like a list of the songs by their Italian names,
with their composers and (where appropriate) the operas they come
from, by all means write to me.

I
am grateful for the help and encouragement of the following people:
Julie Carey, Cynthia Clarke, Molly Cochran, Shelagh EllmanPearl,
Glenn Morrow, Robert O'Connell, Louis Rodriques, Inger
RossKristensen, Al Silverman, Ilene Robinson Sunshine, Christina
Ward, and Gene Wicker. I would also like to express my appreciation
to Dana Young for listening so patiently to the travails of Julian
Kestrel and his creator. Finally, I would like to thank my father,
Edward Ross, who introduced me to opera at a vulnerable age, and
whose wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm about the subject has been
of the greatest assistance to me in writing this book.

Askews

LIBRARY
EDITION

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Kate
Ross is a trial lawyer with a prominent law firm. She lives in
Massachusetts and is working on her fifth Julian Kestrel novel.

Author
picture Jerry Bauer Illustration by David Scutt