Last Act (12 page)

“Yes.” Doubtfully. Who was it that had told her not to walk through the woods with strangers?

He gave her hand a quick, approving pat. “Sensible girl. Uncle Winkler warned you to be careful, did he? And quite right, too. But you're safe enough with me. Everyone knows I'm taking you back. I couldn't possibly push you off a cliff and get away with it, even if I wanted to, which I don't. You're too pretty to waste.”

“Thanks!” But she was getting out of the car. Sunlight glancing down through beech trees new-green for spring made enticing patches of light on a path that led up through the woods.

“That's the girl.” He locked the car and they started up the path side by side. “I have to make you understand,” he said. “About James Frensham. He's pretty well the boss here now. If he were to decide the opera wasn't worth the trouble. Well—I don't rightly know what would happen.”

“But the peace conference—”

“Exactly. By now, they go together. Trouble is, I just don't know how much young James cares about world peace. I did hear that he wanted to start a small-arms factory here in Lissenberg and our Rudolf wouldn't let him. Like father, like
son, and no great stake in peace talks, either of them. But one thing James does care about is his public image. If he thinks the opera's going to be a credit to him—his father put up most of the money, you know—why then he'll go along with it. So, take those clothes you were looking so mulish about; use them; show him you're star quality. Rudolf saw it; James is no fool. Make him see you; make him think opera for everyone's sake; for Lissenberg's.”

“But I thought you didn't want the kind of mass tourism the opera's likely to bring.” The picture grew more complicated all the time.

“You're right, of course. It's a proper dilemma. But I want tourism a hell of a lot more than I want arms factories. If only they'd stuck to the original plan for the opera house.”

“Original?”

“Smaller. Chamber opera. Friendly. Glyndebourne, not Salzburg.”

“Pity,” she agreed. And then, “Oh, how lovely.” The trees had given way to an emerald patch of Alpine meadow. “Cowslips! I haven't seen them for years.”

“This is what we want to save,” he told her. “No.” He read her thoughts. “You can't stop and pick them. That really would be hard on Falinieri.” He bent down himself and picked two. “For your buttonhole.”

“They smell so good. A kind of orient-flavoured spring.” She turned to look back for a moment as they re-entered the woods. “Heavenly place. I must come back here.”

“Not by yourself, you mustn't. Aside from anything else, there are bears. You might surprise each other.”

She laughed. “How did you guess I was a coward?”

He turned to smile his engaging, lop-sided smile. “I guess you're lots of things, but not a coward. There, you see, it did only take twenty minutes.” They had emerged from the wood at the lower end of the opera valley, near the bridge.

“Do you know, I believe you're right.” She paused for a moment to look at the arcaded buildings. “It would have been better, smaller.”

“Most things are,” he told her.

Falinieri was rehearsing the chorus in their welcome to Regulus, but stopped them to greet Anne with enthusiaism. “At last! Now, at least, we can try out your first scene with Livia. Are you there, Fräulein Stock?”

“I certainly am. In fact, I have been here all day. Waiting.” Gertrud Stock's tone, like her face, was sullen. A handsome, sallow girl, she spoke with what Anne was beginning to realise was a Lissenberg accent. Was this why she reminded her teasingly of someone? But of whom?

Unlike the rest of the cast, Fräulein Stock knew her part perfectly and made no attempt to conceal her impatience with Anne's inevitably patchy sight-reading. It made the rehearsal even more exhausting than it would have been otherwise, and in the end Anne had to cry for mercy. “I'm out of training, I'm afraid,” she apologised.

“So I have noticed.” But Falinieri's tone was kind. “And also that you learn fast and will make a perfect Marcus. We are lucky to have found you. Now, you will not use your voice again today. You will rest, and study the part.”

“Thank you.” Anne looked at her watch, saw she was late for her next appointment, and fled for the wardrobe mistress's room. Luckily, this fierce lady was English and had taken a liking to Anne the day before when she had measured her for her page's costume.

“I know.” Mrs Riley accepted Anne's breathless apology. “It is the great man, of course. One does not get away from Paulo Falinieri easily—he's a proper tyrant.” She spoke with obvious affection. “Out of your clothes, girl. We've work to do.”

“Good gracious!” Struggling out of her pullover, Anne exclaimed in surprise as Mrs Riley opened a cupboard and reached down a long green velvet dress.

“Well, I had your measurements, didn't I? The girls have been at it since word came down first thing this morning. That's right.” Anne had stepped out of her skirt and stood obediently while the dress was slipped over her head. “Dead on.” Mrs Riley stood back to survey its effect with satisfaction. “Only the hem to do. Here! I hope to God they fit.” She opened another cupboard and produced two pairs of shoes and one of gold sandals. “Josef
burgled your room,” she explained cheerfully. “The sandals are an exact copy; they should be OK. If the shoes don't fit, you'll just have to take them back tomorrow and change them. But they'll do for the time being.”

“They'll
do!
” Anne had tried on first a gold sandal, then an elegantly plain high-heel and finally the most comfortable walking shoe she had had for years. “But it's a miracle, Mrs Riley! How on earth …?”

“Shoes are one of their things here in Lissenberg,” explained the wardrobe mistress, busily pinning up the dark green hem. “Crafts, you know. They rather go for them. Some escaped Italian prisoners of war stayed on and started a little factory down one of the valleys. You have to admit they're good. I'd be sad to see them go under.”

“Go under?”

“If Prince Rudolf gets his way, they'll be making shoddy leather purses for the tourist trade.” She sighed and placed the last pin. “Sometimes I wonder if we ought to be working ourselves into the grave trying to make a success of this opera. But you can't help yourself, can you, if it's your job. And then, there's the conference. We don't want anything casting a gloom on that. I wouldn't mind a little peace in our time; I don't know about you.” She unzipped the green dress and replaced it with a short one of mixed brown and gold. “How's that?”

“Terrific!” said Anne.

“Thanks!” Once again, she was busy pinning the hem. “There! I'll send it and the green up to the hostel in half an hour. Now, the suit and the skirt and we're done, and you can trot along to Monsieur Charles.”

“Monsieur Charles?” This was a new name.

“The hairdresser. He's good, I can tell you. I'd just let him rip if I were you. Proper Cinderella touch, isn't it?” She had Anne in the suit by now, and cocked a considering head. “Chanel with a difference, would you say? I'm not too bad myself. Nice to be doing modern for a change. I'm sick of all those damned togas and tunics. There!” She produced a stripy tweed skirt. “That's for climbing mountains, which, frankly, I wouldn't if I were you. Blouses and pullovers are waiting at the hostel and see you don't
let me down, there's a good child.”

“Thank you.” It seemed entirely inadequate.

“You're welcome. It's a pleasure to dress you, and that's a fact. Wear the long green tonight, and say I made it, if anyone should ask.”

“Tonight?”

“Haven't you heard? The Prince is giving a dinner for the cast and the Lissenberg patrons. Business as usual and all that. At the hotel. Well, a kind of preview for the hotel staff too, I suppose. It's not officially open yet, you know. Even the restaurant only opened yesterday.”

“Surely a bit off to have a party with Mr Frensham just dead?”

“Mrs Riley shrugged. “You might think so. But there's a lot stands or falls on this opera. Anyway, there wasn't much love lost between the Prince and James Frensham senior. I wonder if young Frensham will be there tonight. Princess Gloria won't, I'm sure. She's been in and out of hysterics all day, by what I hear. She really loved that cousin of hers. Remarkable. No! You can't wear that pullover.” Back in her own skirt, Anne had reached for the jersey that almost matched it. “It'll wreck your hair, changing. Here!” She opened another cupboard and produced a vyella shirt that would go with both the new skirt and the suit. “Mother Riley thinks of everything.” She was pleased with herself. “Now, off with you to Monsieur Charles—two doors down on the right. And have yourself a good dinner, I don't think.”

These cryptic words were to be explained when Anne arrived at the hostel. A stranger to herself in a glowing rinse and the green velvet dress, she had rather wished that Michael was still driving a taxi. His reaction to her sea-change would, she thought, have been reassuring. But it was one of the black limousines from the hotel that picked her up, and the dour driver simply shut her in the back and hunched himself over the wheel as if in scorn of people who had cars to take them a mere couple of hundred yards.

Reaching the hotel steps, he blew a resounding blast on his horn and sat tight. Nothing happened. He blew another. Still
nothing happened.

“This is ridiculous.” Anne opened her door and got out. “What do I owe you,
mein Herr?
”

“Nothing,” he said rudely, in German, and drove away.

It was raining again and the steps were damp. Anne lifted velvet skirts lovingly out of the wet and began to climb. As she reached the top, the hotel's big doors flew open and two frantic page-boys came running out to meet her, absurd under huge green umbrellas.

Saving her upswept hair from the umbrella prongs by a miracle, she entered the foyer of the hotel and paused in amazement. If the outside conformed with the classic façade of the opera house, the inside was somebody's dream of gothic splendour. Pointed arches here and there in the walls of the windowless room had lights behind garish stained glass. Even the unoccupied reception desk looked like a cross between a pew and a pulpit.

“You like it?” Carl Meyer came forward to greet her, immaculate in evening dress.

She smiled at him. “Frankly, no.”

“Quite. Just don't tell the prince. He designed it.” Returning her smile, “I like
you
,” he said. “Good to see you looking yourself again. This way—unless you want the powder room?”

“No, thanks. Who's here?”

“Everyone. Except the Princess, of course. Alix is representing her.”

“Young Mr Frensham?”

“Yes. Anne, dear, they may ask you to sing. Do you mind?”

“Sing?”

“After dinner. Old-fashioned custom. Something simple? Something young Frensham might understand?”

“Goodness,” she said. “What would that be, I wonder?”

“Here's your chance to find out.” He steered her into a crowded reception room lit by baroque cut-glass chandeliers. Near the doorway, members of the chorus in rather miscellaneous evening dress were drinking champagne and talking in small groups and muted tones. Beyond them, the floor rose by a step, as if to a dais, and Anne remembered that the whole hotel
was built into the slope of the mountains.

On the dais a small group stood apparently frozen round the Prince and James Frensham. The Prince had his back half turned, but they got the full benefit of young Frensham's sneer as they approached. “Killer roads, and a twenty-man police force,” he said. “An opera no one knows and a cast no one's heard of. Not a star in it. And a black hole of a hotel with steps for the guests to fall over, and you still think you can play host to an international peace conference. No wonder my father said he was pulling out.”

“Your Highness.” Carl Meyer boldly intervened before the Prince's rage boiled over in reply. “Allow me to present the star we are launching: Miss Paget.”

“Ah.” The Prince's furious face smoothed into a smile as Anne went down into her deepest curtsey. “I knew it. Trust an old fox like me to know the real thing … the gem when he sees it. And they've not done too badly with the setting, either.” He was eating her up with his eyes, and she thought dismally of the payment it would be in his character to expect.

But for the moment he had more pressing business. “No star, you say, James? I think both our conductor and our Regulus will have a bone to pick with you over that. But here, as Herr Meyer rightly observes, is our lead card, our discovery: Miss Paget.”

“Hmmm.” The dark, deep-set eyes looked Anne over. She might have been a horse, she thought, in a Florentine market, having its points examined.

She put her head a little back and looked up at him with considering eyes. “How do you do, Mr Frensham?” The room, suddenly quiet, echoed to the resonance of her deep voice. “I am so sorry about your father.” She made the words almost into recitative.

“Quite something.” He was shaking her hand, ignoring the reference to his father. “Pity to put you into boy's clothes, though.”

She laughed, and felt a quick, sharp warning of pain. “Not the kind I'll be wearing. The Romans knew a thing or two about dress, and so does our wardrobe mistress. Don't worry. I won't let Lissenberg down—or Beethoven, which is more important.”
He was actually listening, and she sensed a little breath of relief from the group around them. “I know how lucky I am to be appearing in Beethoven's lost opera. The whole world must be waiting for it. It's going to be the most tremendous draw.” She turned to Carl Meyer. “Surely the house must be sold out?”