Rondo Allegro (13 page)

“She! She could not protect you from a rabbit, nor herself
either. Look at you! This gown, it reeks of champagne. And so drunk that if one
of them decides to attack you, you cannot even walk!”

“They wouldn’t. The chasseurs were so very gallant . . .”

Blissfully unaware of Parrette’s continued scolding, Anna
fell asleep in the middle of having her hair brushed out.

The next morning her head ached abominably. It seemed that
every little noise Parrette made stabbed through her ears into her brain. Her
stomach revolted, but Parrette, pitiless, forced her to rise, and to eat, for
there was rehearsal.

“I won’t dance this morning,” Anna mumbled.

“Morning? Tchah! It is near one. Time for
opera
rehearsal. It would never do to
lose your position with the Duprees.”

“I was very good last night—did you not hear the acclaim? I
can miss a rehearsal, I think!”

“I heard a lot of men who want one thing,” Parrette stated.
“And if they don’t get it, will move on to the next set of fools whose heads
they can turn with flattery.”

Anna blinked owlishly at Parrette. “You hate men.”

“I hate the way men will behave,” Parrette retorted.

“You know nothing of love.”

“I know much about what silly girls think is love. Listen,
Anna. You did not listen to me when you married, and I understood, for your
heart was with your good Papa. But you had better listen now. I was not quite
fifteen when my father proposed I marry Duflot to settle a debt. I took one
look and liked him fine, his curling black hair, his strong white teeth, the
way he strutted down the street. I tumbled straight into love. Or so I thought,
until two days after my wedding, when he first took a stick to me because
another man had beat him at cards. I soon learned I knew nothing about love,
nothing
. And that was
before
I learned he already had a wife!”

She paused and eyed Anna, who tossed her head and smiled at
her bouquet.

Anna was remembering those blue eyes looking down at her so
admiringly, and the strong arm around her, and sighed at the faint echo of
warmth through her, in spite of the throbbing of her head. “Now I understand
the songs I sing.”

“Faugh.” Parrette threw up her hands. “There is no talking
to a head full of clouds!”

That night, the first row contained more soldiers than
before, which caused M. Dupree to look thoughtful.

Anna was cast down. All she saw was that Auguste was not
among them. He had lost interest—she had done something wrong—she was no
good—the world had gone gray and bleak.

Her performance reflected her mood. After the first act, M.
Dupree looked into her face, asking, “Are you ill? Let me fetch my sovereign
remedy,” and bustled off to pour a small amount of neat whiskey into a glass.

Anna understood that her singing was bad, and pride roused
her out of her gloom. The whiskey burned her throat, making her shudder. She
straightened her back and sang better. After the performance, M. Dupree, at
least, was happy. “It always works,” he said smugly, nodding at his hoarded
bottle.

She left directly after the performance and made her way
back to the Foulon, weary and feeling sick. When she sank into her chair,
Parrette was waiting. She took one look at Anna’s listless face and gave her
little nod. “Just as well.”

That roused Anna to anger. “Why do you hate him so?”

“Because he, and the rest of them, when they get you girls
drunk, they want one thing, and when they tire of it, they will move on.”

“No. No. Not Auguste. He loves my voice. He said my
interpretation of the Handmaid is the best he has ever heard.”

“Can you not see that as the most atrocious flattery?”

Anna spun around in her chair. “Now you are saying I am a
bad singer?”

Parrette sighed. “Anna, you are very good, but you have so
little experience of life. You do not know the terrible things . . .”
She gazed into the slowly whirling dust motes around the single candle flame,
and shook herself. “Remember what happened to Marguerite Lisle down the hall,
when she went off alone with them after they had been toasting her? I hear she
is still recovering all these months later—might never regain her health.”

Anna grimaced. “But those were soldiers. These are
officers.”

“They are men. And they can do most anything they wish in
this city—Junot loves them all. The First Consul looks upon them as favorites.”
Parrette took a deep breath. “Also, you are a married woman.”

“Tchah! He is a paper husband. He is probably dead.”

“Anna, listen to me. Who are Auguste’s people? The old ways
are not completely thrown over. When people want to marry, they still go to
their families. If he means well by you, then he will use his influence to find
out if your husband lives, and if so, get your marriage annulled, and do
everything properly.”

“Auguste might not be back,” Anna said sullenly. “He has
forgotten me already.”

But the next night, more roses arrived, and when Anna joined
those crowded at the wings to peer into the audience, joy suffused her when she
caught sight of Auguste’s fine profile in the very center of the first row. The
group of officers was larger than ever, looking splendid to the young females,
and worrisome to the director, who saw past them to the increasingly empty
seats.

That night, Anna sang better than ever. After the curtain
closed, the new tenor, M. Marsac, turned his beautiful brown eyes to Anna. “You
were superb, Mademoiselle Bernardo.”

The new tenor had until this moment been polite but aloof,
and though the dancers all admired his height, his slim body, his abundant
curling hair, and his excellent clothes, he had scarcely given anyone in the
company a glance outside of the requirements of the performance.

His interest sent another flush of warmth through Anna. Men
admired her performance! Was this how Mrs. Billington had begun her great
career? “Thank you, M. Marsac.”

“Jean-Baptiste.”

She smiled and passed by as Jean-Baptiste Marsac observed
the grace of her walk, the gentle sway of her hips that seemed utterly
unconscious.

After the performance, Auguste greeted Anna with a kiss that
made her head swim. The others roared approval as he swung her around, his
saber rattling, the tassels on his sabretache swinging, his furred pelisse
brushing her cheek.

They walked in a laughing group, Auguste punctuating his
compliments on her singing with kisses. Those kisses were better than
champagne, Anna thought happily. They spread warmth all through her, dazzling
as the many candles glimmering like golden starlight. Even the thin rain that
began to fall could not douse the enchantment of the evening, as they ran
laughing for the nearest café. Anna was charmed that the men ran, too, not
wanting their splendid uniforms ruined in the wet.

They found an empty table. Piers began banging with his fist
and shouting for champagne.

Anna whispered to Lise, “Must we? I hate the way my head
hurt last time, and my singing was terrible the next day.”

Lise threw back her head, complacently taking in Edouard’s
hot gaze lingering on the slim line of her throat, and her rounded, dimpled
shoulder peeping from the little puffed sleeve that was slipping down. “So? We
are only young a short time. Live!”

I live through my
music
, Anna thought, but here was debonair Auguste proclaiming his
admiration for all the world to see. He might not be the First Consul, but he
was very important, and oh, those strong arms, those kisses!

She did not refuse the champagne outright, but took the
smallest of sips. As the evening progressed, she could not help noticing
puzzling things as she raised her glass with the others: how the men exchanged
meaningful glances over the heads of their inamoratas as they spoke their
extravagant compliments; how they made private jokes that only the others could
understand, and which provoked a low kind of laughter that only they shared.
Then there was the puzzle of Auguste’s frayed shirt sleeves, and the way
Guillaume plunged his hand into his pocket to chase a stray coin.

It came to her that, in spite of their importance—and she
could see their importance in the way that all the other citizens deferred—they
always seemed scant of funds.
It makes
their generosity all the more charming
, she told herself when they reached
their last bottle and the group began to disperse in twos. She felt very wise
in making this observation.

Auguste held tightly to Anna, though this time she was not
the least dizzy. She stood on her tiptoes to lean her cheek against his
shoulder, laughing when her temple bumped against his epaulet.

“Come, love, it has begun to rain. Let us find somewhere dry
to celebrate your beauty,” he whispered, brushed his lips from her eyebrow to
her jaw, then down her throat to linger in the hollow of her collarbones.

The champagne fizz in her veins heated to urgency. She knew
now what this was—what he wanted, and she delighted in the strength of her own
desire.

But she was sober enough to say, “I am married.”

“The devil!” Auguste laughed. “You are full of surprises,
ma petite
. I fear Edouard has won a
hundred, from me. He has eyes, the dog! But we shall not tell him. Come.” He
slid his arm around her, and urged her on.

“I tell you I am married,” Anna said, stepping back to tug on
his hand, her eyes imploring.

“And what of that?” Auguste’s smile was tender. “Monsieur le
husband must be far, far away, or you should not have such freedom, I am
guessing.”

“He is—” Anna was reluctant to come right out with the
captain’s nationality. “In the navy.”

“Aha!” Auguste threw his head back and laughed. “I guessed
right. Most conveniently far away, and yet so fine a man as to marry you,
hein!
I salute him!” He made a military
salute, with an air. Then he kissed her again. “There is no doubt in my mind
that he is looking up and seeing this very same moon.” He pointed upward where
the clouds had parted. “At this very moment, and with a pretty girl on his arm.
And if he could see us, he would be wishing us a very good night, for you know
that tomorrow there may be a stray cannonball, a horse who balks, the chance
encounter with a bayonet, and
c’est finis,
he is snatched away to heaven!” He kissed his fingers and flung them out in
a debonair gesture.

Live in the moment
,
that was what Lise said. Anna’s heart lifted. Ah, what a sweet idea, to
surrender to pleasure now, and the future? It could take care of itself.

And yet she hesitated. What would Parrette say? Anger
suffused her—she resented Parrette’s scolding, her incessant warnings. “But
what if something happens?” she hedged.

“How would he know?” Auguste lifted his shoulders in a
shrug, the gold in his epaulettes shimmering. “Bonaparte is opening the
churches again. If a brat results, you hand it off to the nuns.”

Anna was shocked by this callous answer.

He saw it at once. “Oh, my Anna,” he whispered. “You are
tender, I can see it. And women should be tender!” He dropped feather-light
kisses all over her face.

She drowned in sweet sensation, but even in willingly
permitting the waves to close over her head, she made one last reach: “I want
an annulment.”

He stepped back. “An annulment,” he repeated, as if she had
said she wanted a horse, or a crown. Then he opened his hand in a broad
gesture, palm up, the light from a nearby lamp gleaming along his regimental
facings and gold braid. “Then you get one. It is easy enough.”

The question in his eyes, the hint of impatience, doused her
ardor more thoroughly than the rain starting up again. A thousand curses,
Parrette was right. This man did not have marriage in mind.

Still she wavered, thinking,
What can be so bad, if everyone else pays no attention to those stupid
old rules?
But she could hear herself making that promise before God, and
though her Papa had said after Mama’s death that religion was a pack of lies,
that God—if he existed—cared nothing for this sorry world, at the very end, he
had sent for the priest.

Even stronger was memory, her mother’s warm embraces every
night, her whispered, “God loves you.”

Anna had always believed that God had to be a mother.
Perhaps her mother was watching her from heaven at this very moment. Would she
be smiling to see Anna happy, or looking sorrowful because of those vows?

Lost in this reverie, Anna was unaware of Auguste gazing down
at her as the rain increased. The reflected glow of the nearby windows
highlighted the raindrops in the curls that framed her heart-shaped face, the
enticing curves in her flimsy dress that clung so tightly, the tender, wistful
downward curve to her mouth, and he exulted even though he intuited her doubts.
He loved the hunt; the prize would be no less enjoyable for a little
ruse de guerre
.

“Come, cherie, you are wet, and that beautiful voice must
not take a chill. I will see you home.”

Summer was upon them. One hot, humid day, there was
trouble with the machinery backstage, so rehearsal paused while M. Dupree
oversaw the repairs. The thick air rang with sharp voices. Tempers rose with
the heat.

Madame Dupree sighed as she fanned herself vigorously. She
seemed to be sitting down a great deal—everyone had noticed.

“Lazy,” Lise whispered.

“Who can blame her?” Eleanor said practically. “If I could
marry a theater director, I would not even be here. I would have a carriage.
Two! And a salon.”

She cast a glance under her lashes at the tenor
Jean-Baptiste Marsac, who, it was whispered, was ambitious enough to want one
day to own his own theater, and who was talented enough to get it. He never
paid the dancers the least heed.