Leading Lady (15 page)

‘I blame myself,' said Martha.

‘Absurd,' said Franz.

‘Dear boys,' Prince Gustav leaned across his wife. ‘I do hope you are seeing the jest of this.'

‘The audience is,' said Franz.

In her dressing-room, Cristabel stared into the glass as her dresser tidied her ringlets. ‘Something's going on,' she said. ‘What is it? They're laughing too much.'

‘You haven't seen?' The dresser was amused too. ‘I don't think Herr Fylde has either.'

‘Seen what?'

‘It's the new make-up. From the front of the house he looks just like the two princes.'

‘What?' She took it all in. She had noticed, without much caring, what Franzosi was letting happen to her husband, but this was something else again. Something dangerous.
‘Who's that?' A knock on the door. ‘You know I'm never disturbed.'

But it was Doctor Joseph. ‘You've seen what's going on?' he asked as their eyes met and held.

‘I've only just realised. It's monstrous! What's to be done?' She turned to him with total confidence.

‘Only you can do it. Turn the tables. Turn the last act into the opera seria Fylde's been singing all along. You're singing so well! I don't need to congratulate you.' They were both aware of the dresser standing by. ‘Now, imagine you are Gluck's Alceste or Purcell's Dido. You have lost your husband in some great drama, not in a petty street comedy; now you find him again. You can do it.'

‘Of course I can.' They both knew she would sing it for him.

By the beginning of the last act, stage confusion had confounded itself. Antipholus of Syracuse had fallen in love with Adriana's sister, played by the seconda donna, and the two Dromios were similarly embroiled. The audience was laughing harder than ever and Franzosi was having difficulty keeping his orchestra together. Fylde was badly rattled, and Martha thought that the same was true of Franz and Max. Intolerable to be made so subtly and so publicly to look fools.

A particularly vigorous bit of slapstick between Dromio and Antipholus of Syracuse brought him under the balcony where Adriana stood watching for her husband, the other Antipholus. As he left the stage, Dromio tripped Antipholus, who fell sprawling, to a roar of laughter. Impossible that this should have been rehearsed; Fylde would never have agreed to it. The way he picked himself up, obviously furious, amply proved this and sent the audience into an orgy of hoots, shouts, catcalls. In the pit, Franzosi stood pitifully irresolute, arms upraised, baton motionless.

Martha clutched Franz's hand. In a moment, the house would erupt into violence. Franzosi was obviously unable to control it. She felt Franz make to rise, but there was no way from house to stage. Hopeless. Disastrous. Then Cristabel took one step forward on the tiny upstage balcony, raised a hand with absolute authority. Martha had never seen her
quell a house before, but Max remembered the girl who had played Orpheus all those years ago. Amazingly, the house slowly hushed, and Cristabel began to sing. ‘Where have you been, my darling, this long day?' They were restless at first, an isolated titter breaking out here and there, instantly suppressed as the music had its way with them. Martha felt a sheen of tears behind her own eyes, and reached out a hand to find Franz's, seeking hers. There was a moment when Franzosi seemed to hesitate and only the violins followed as Cristabel repeated her first line, ‘Where have you been …?' But Franzosi and the rest of the orchestra recognised the extra repeat for the bold act it was and came in again strongly on the next line. The audience, spellbound now, hardly seemed to notice.

From then on, they were watching grand opera. Did the rest of the cast instinctively play down the comedy, or was there less anyway in this last act? At all events, as revelation and reunion followed on each other the entire cast were singing as if possessed, the audience with them every inch of the way, while Desmond Fylde caught fire from his wife's performance and sang his own final aria with a new intensity. Only, when he folded Cristabel in his arms at last, passionately, Martha saw her head turn a little away from his, and felt a shiver of anxiety. She forgot it again as the last notes of the finale were almost drowned in a roar of applause, and the audience rose to its feet, howling for Cristabel.

The ovation went on and on, but at last Franzosi appeared, leading Cristabel on stage for a final bow. He turned, bowed low to her, then back to the audience and raised a hand for silence. What now? A public thank you for Cristabel? He looked nervous enough for anything, Martha thought, and no wonder. The audience settled gradually back into its seats, with exclamations, mutters of ‘silence for the maestro', a few last calls for Cristabel. Gradually the calls for silence predominated, they came from all corners of the house, surely a pre-arranged claque.

Cristabel was still on stage. She looked at Franzosi, surprised, then paused, turned to listen, her attention helping to quiet the audience.

‘Citizens of Lissenberg,' Franzosi began. ‘I have been asked to speak to you tonight on a very serious subject. You will look
on me, I beg, merely as a mouthpiece, a voice speaking for Lissenberg, speaking for you all. We are here, all together, celebrating the great things that happened in this very house, a year ago. Since the citizens of Lissenberg have no other chance for public discussion, I have been asked to suggest that we seize upon this one, when we are all here together, to discuss the future of the country. We all know what storm clouds are gathering around us. We have seen the messengers arriving at the palace. What have they been saying? Last year, if you remember, our new prince told us great things of democracy, of self-government for Lissenberg. I say to you, friends, that it is time we challenged him on this, asked him just what his plans are for Lissenberg, now he has finally returned from his long attendance on the great enemy, Napoleon. But, first, since this is bound to be a long and serious discussion, I suggest, my friends, that we let the ladies among the audience go home to their beds.'

Diabolically clever, thought Martha angrily. Fatally so, if the opera had ended in the expected débâcle. Monstrous to suggest that it was Franz who had betrayed his own democratic principles, when in fact it was the Lissenbergers themselves who had turned down the idea of an elected parliament. And as for the suggestion about women … She was aware of Princess Gertrude making as if to rise, to lead a mass evacuation of the ladies, when Cristabel took a step forward and spoke. ‘My friends,' she said. ‘I am not a citizen of your delightful country, but then neither, I believe, is Signor Franzosi, so it seems to me that I have quite as much right to speak to you as he has, maybe more, since I speak for myself, and he has not thought fit to mention who asked him to speak to you tonight. On all your behalf, I do so now. Signor Franzosi?'

It floored him. He had quite evidently had no instructions about this, since the assumption had been that after the disastrous end of the performance his suggestion would be carried by acclaim. He stood there for a moment, silent, his eyes on the front of the house, where the three princes sat, waiting for a cue.

It came. Prince Gustav rose to his feet. ‘I did,' he said into the silence. ‘I who have cared for Lissenberg for twenty-six
years and have grown increasingly anxious this last year about our future. What a happy surprise it was, a year ago, what a glorious beginning, my friends! Were we, perhaps, too hopeful, carried away by the excitement of that amazing occasion? I think perhaps we were. Ah, thank you!' Two stage hands had appeared with the gilt steps that gave access to the stage.

Franz and Max were on their feet too as the audience broke into a variety of cries, the claque calling for ‘Prince Gustav' while others just shouted, ‘The prince' or ‘All the princes'. Martha exchanged a long, questioning glance with her husband and stayed where she was as the three men climbed on to the stage, Prince Gustav inevitably in the lead. Franzosi had seized the chance to disappear, but Cristabel was still standing, very still, very quiet, at the side of the stage, watching.

Princess Gertrude leaned across to Martha. ‘We should go,' she said. ‘We should give the lead. This is men's work.'

‘No.' She was aware that the same exchange was going on between men and women throughout the audience, and found herself wondering for a distracted second where Frau Schmidt was sitting. Because of this she missed an altercation that took place between the three men on the stage. When she looked back, she saw that Franz must have won it, and was glad. He stepped forward, and the audience hushed.

‘Men and women of Lissenberg.' His trained voice had a resonance his father's had lacked. ‘Prince Gustav has seen fit to call in question my fitness to rule among you, and, I rather think, my wife's. We have all seen the brilliant performance tonight –' he turned, with a bow, to Cristabel. ‘And all seen, also, a deliberate attempt to make fools of my brother and me. Oh, entertaining enough in its place, and you all know me for an enemy of censorship, but in the context of an attack on my rule, not, perhaps, very pretty. And since Prince Gustav has claimed credit for Herr Franzosi's speech, I think Prince Max and I have to thank him also for this. That is not all he has done. He has tried to kidnap me, held my brother hostage at the risk of his life. I had hoped not to have to tell you this; it is a shameful thing to have to say about one's own father. We had hoped, my wife and I, that by undertaking the upbringing of the little Prince Gustav and
thus ensuring the succession for the time being, we could put an end to this unhappy dissension. We were wrong. I think, now, that I have to ask your agreement that Prince Gustav be sent into exile. Only thus, it seems to me, can we ensure peace and quiet here in Lissenberg. Have I your vote on this?'

It came in a roar, but he insisted, just the same, on a show of hands and got such an instant forest of them in favour that no one dared show against. ‘Thank you,' he said at last. ‘And now, my friends, since we are all here together, I think we should discuss the international threat of which Herr Franzosi spoke. It is very real. Of course we must hope that Lissenberg will be able to sit it out as neutral and I have been trying hard to ensure this, but I cannot tell you that it will be easy. There are bad times coming, and I can only promise you that we will fight our way through, or suffer them together. We have been thinking, my wife and I, how much happier we would be living in Lissenberg, among our friends, and I can tell you – and her – tonight that work has just started to convert the old town hall for our use. Martha –' Looking down from the brilliantly lighted stage into the auditorium – ‘Come and tell me you are pleased.'

She was aware of Princess Gertrude, rigid with fury, as she passed her, then friendly hands helped her up the gilt steps and she was on stage beside him, listening to the roar of the crowd. And, oddly, as she stood at his side, savouring his triumph, curtsying as he bowed, a part of her mind was with Max and Cristabel, standing together now at the side of the stage, and she knew, in her heart, that though they looked together, they were entirely apart. It was not for Max that Cristabel had sung that night.

Coming off stage at last as the excited audience began to leave, Cristabel found her husband waiting for her, his controversial make-up already removed. ‘Let me be the first to congratulate you, my queen! You were tremendous! We showed them what opera should be, you and I, and so I shall tell Franzosi in the morning.'

‘I doubt he'll be here in the morning to be told.' Had she really hoped to find Doctor Joseph backstage waiting to congratulate her? Waiting to solve her next problem for
her, the problem of Desmond? ‘At least everyone could see you had no idea of what was going on,' she told him wearily. ‘I'm tired, Desmond.' She was exhausted now, the long strain of the evening catching up on her. ‘God knows what is going to happen tomorrow.' How could she contrive to suggest he spend this night, like the previous ones, with the seconda donna?

‘You've a right to be tired, my own. After such a performance! We'll have you home in no time, snug in your bed. And tomorrow, my life, is all our own.'

‘I doubt that. The prince is bound to dismiss Franzosi and then what is going to happen to us all?' If only she was a man, she thought, she would volunteer to take over the direction of the company. ‘Do you know, Desmond,' she said now. ‘I think you should join the rest of the company for their after-the-performance celebration. I'm too tired, but you could find out what they are thinking.'

‘Oh, no, my queen,' he told her. ‘We have better plans than that, you and I. Who cares about the company? Tomorrow we will make our arrangements for Vienna. Tonight, I am all yours.'

‘I wish I was sure exile was the answer,' Max returned to the problem next evening. ‘We have to face it, he's a dangerous man, our father. It was a devilish clever plot, you know. If Cristabel had not turned the tide, that opera would have ended in a shambles, with you and me laughing stocks, and Gustav in control.'

‘I know,' Franz agreed soberly. ‘We owe her a great debt.'

‘She says it was Doctor Joseph who suggested it,' Martha told them. ‘He came to her dressing-room in the last interval. She would never have thought of it herself, she says. That's a clever man! I do hope that now you are safe away from the Trappists, Max, he will agree to come to the palace as our doctor. Or to the town hall in Lissenberg, when we move there. Now that was a surprise!' With a loving smile for her husband. ‘How glad I shall be to get away from those tunnels. Personally, I would be happy to have you shut Prince Gustav up in one of the damp cells down there, rather than the honourable confinement he is in now, but I can see it is hardly the way for a son to treat his father. Even such a father. But I am afraid I do agree with Max that exile seems a dangerous alternative. He is bound to stir up trouble for us somewhere. You don't think really close confinement at Gustavsberg would be better?'