Rondo Allegro (7 page)

“La la,” Madame Simon exclaimed, throwing up her hands.
“That accent! Quaint, but oh, it will never do.”

Anna was stung to discover that the court French spoken at
Naples was preposterously old-fashioned. Her mother had taken care to teach
her. Anna said with mock solemnity, “Then shall I speak in
this
manner? It is how Parrette and I spoke while traveling, to
hide our origins, in case there were revolutionaries still among the innkeepers
and coachmen.”

Madame de Pipelet lifted silver-painted nails to her lips as
she laughed. “Child! You sound like a flower-seller from Lyons. Which would
indeed keep your head on your shoulders during the terrible days of the Terror,
but those days are over, and you simply must speak like a Parisienne. But we
can amend that. I detect a trained ear. It is well.”

She put her finger to her chin. “As for introducing you to
Madame Bonaparte, it will not do. She is the kindest of women, but . . .”
She lifted her shoulders expressively.

Anna did not care why. She had had her fill of the vagaries
of royal courts. And though Bonaparte had not yet declared himself king, as
many expected, she had heard enough gossip to gain an impression of autocracy
to surpass even King Frederick’s.

“I care nothing for courts,” she declared.

Madame de Pipelet laughed again. “Then it is decided. I
shall throw a soiree, and you shall sing,
hein?
Only how shall you be known?”

“By my name,” Anna said. “As it transpires, I am actually
married, so I am not Mademoiselle Ludovisi at all, but Mrs. Duncannon.”

“
Milles diables!
An English name? Worse and worse,” Madame Simon declared. “You must be Italian,
of course. I know! What is your parentage?”

Madame de Pipelet pulled a much-folded paper from a graceful
little side table that ended in faun’s feet. “Her father was connected to a
count or a duke—I cannot make it out, but noble. Ponte San Bernardo?”

“
Alors!
You shall
be Signorina Bernardo, the new child singer.”

“But I am no child. I am nearly seventeen!”

“What has that to say to anything? On the stage, you can be
anything you wish, and as for your age, you look twelve, and everybody loves a
child prodigy. If you in truth have as fine a voice as Madame Paisiello claims
in her letter here, you will do quite well. Oh, it is just the time to be
presenting yourself. Women might do anything, these days,” Madame de Pipelet
said with a sigh.

Madame Simon sat upright on the reclining couch, and
pronounced in a low, thrilling voice, “Only if her reputation remains spotless.
Without. A. Spot. I am living proof!”

“But all that is ended now,” Madame de Pipelet said
soothingly. “With the Bonapartes in charge, surely we shall return to
civilization. Only better. Oh, to be young again! If you had only come a few
months ago, you might now be singing in Madame Devismes’
Praxitèles
. The
Courrier
is full of praises, and by none other than La Delacroix. Think of the
possibilities!”

Madame Simon waved an imperious hand, dismissing Madame
Delacroix, the
Courrier
, and related
possibilities. “We must hear your voice, so that we might consider what best
for you to sing.”

Though Anna had not warmed up her voice properly, she moved
to the pretty Viennese
klavier
,
pressed a chord as she took a deep breath, and began to sing her part from the
triumph fete. It felt good to sing again.

“Very, very pure,” said Madame de Pipelet when she was done.
“Perhaps a little light?” Madame Simon tapped her nails on the little mop-dog’s
silky head, and its tail stirred. “Will she be heard beyond the boxes and the
pit in the Feydeau?”

“
We
shall not
worry about such things,” Madame de Pipelet stated firmly. “I’ll fill my salon
with those who have the expertise.”

Madame Simon concurred. “Have her sing light airs, classic.
Nothing revolutionary. Perhaps a love song or two. And
voila!
Instant success. I wish I could be here to see it.”

She soon took her leave, and Madame Pipelet said, “Now, let
us get busy.”

o0o

She was as good as her word. Anna was swept into a flurry
of shopping and dress-making. Then she was taken to a fashionable barber, who
cut off her untidy, heavy braids. Her hair, freed of that weight, clung close
to her head in natural curls. The back was twisted up into a charming Grecian
style called
a la Titus
, with kiss-curls
framing her high forehead.

After several days of Madame’s excellent food, her meager
figure and face began to fill out a little.

Everywhere they heard the swift chatter of French, which
reminded Anna of bird calls. Her sensitive, music-trained ear enabled her to
swiftly mimic the Parisian accent, and then set about making it her own.

Madame de Pipelet, having dismissed with an imperious wave
all the coquettes and shepherdesses of current operas, insisted that Anna must
begin her concert with the angel Gabriel’s arias from Haydn’s magnificent oratorio,
“The Creation,” and finish with a series of romantic songs by Madame’s good
friend Alexandrine-Sophie Goury de Champgrand, who desperately needed the
income from her music.

And so, while Anna rehearsed in the music room downstairs, Parrette,
finding herself with free time in that well-ordered house, wandered about
Paris, learning the ways of its streets. She dared to walk into the great
square before the Tuileries in order to catch a glimpse of Madame Bonaparte,
whose beauty was renowned all over Europe.

Parrette was disappointed of her goal, requiring her to
return again and again until one day, a stir among the lounging officers and
girls flirting with them indicated that at last she would be rewarded for her
effort.

The crowd drew aside for a carriage pulled by no fewer than
six caparisoned horses. There in the carriage, seated beside her long-faced
daughter, was a woman Parrette’s own age, with a beautifully shaped head framed
by a profusion of feathery dark curls.

When the carriage door opened, Parrette pressed forward in
the crowd to stare at Madame Bonaparte, who wore white, draped so artfully and
elegantly that Parrette scrutinized every fold, determined she would find out
who made those gowns, and how.

o0o

At last came the night of the soiree.

Anna faced a crowd of glittering guests, the women wearing
soft silks, thin metallic threads or pearls holding up their hair. They all sat
on pretty little chairs, surrounding the guest of honor, the Count Joseph de
Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck. Anna was at first intimidated by this grand gentleman
until she became aware that he was more interested in his hostess than he was
in music.

When she was not quite eleven, Anna had been taken to hear
the great Mrs. Billington, not long after she dazzled Naples in the opera the
great Bianchi had written just for her. Anna and her mother had met her at one
of Sir William’s private concerts, after which Anna had confessed that she
wished to be a singer just like her.

Mrs. Billington had patted Anna on the cheek, stooped a
little, and said in English, “I will tell you my secret, little Anna. Always
sing with a light heart, and a tight middle.” And she had pressed her fist
against her ribs under her bosom.

Anna’s heart felt cloud-light as Madam herself played the
opening bars in accompaniment. She touched her fingers to her diaphragm,
straightened another fraction, and sang. She had practiced enough to know how
to fill a room with sound, and when she saw chins lifting among her audience,
the sure sign of pleasure, joy illumined her being.

In the far doorway, Parrette stood with Madame’s maid.

“She will take,” the maid said, nodding once. “What is she?
I know she is not French.”

“Her father was Italian, her mother English.”

“English! These roast-biffs, they turn up everywhere. An
adventuress?”

Parrette kept her temper. It never did to quarrel with the
servants in any house. But she would not accept even the slightest slur against
the only woman who had ever been kind to her. “Anna’s mother was the companion
to a marquis’ daughter. The family traveled to Rome. When the earl married his
daughter to an Italian count, they cast off my Signora Eugenia without a second
thought.”

“Tchah, these aristos are all alike.” The maid lifted her
shoulders in a shrug, but her tone was sympathetic. “We are well rid of them!
Et puis
?”

“
Et puis
she returned
to Florence, but discovered her father dead of a duel. She met Signor Ludovisi
there, who wished to be taught in English. They married. He was very old by
then, and she was already thirty. When Anna was coming, they decided to go
south to Naples, where Madame Eugenia was hired at the royal palace to teach
the children French and English, manners and language,” Parrette said. “And he
became a part of the royal orchestra. He was a great musician. She was an
angel.”

“She is one now,
hein?
”
the maid asked, smiling.

Parrette accepted that in a spirit of amity, and fell silent
as they listened to the lovely romantic songs for which Anna’s voice was
especially well suited.

When the last song was sung and Anna took her bow, the
applause was gratifyingly heartfelt. The guests accepted refreshments and moved
about to congratulate Madame de Pipelet de Leury and her protégé. Snips of
conversation followed them. “. . . voice is not large enough to
fill the Feydeau, or even the Opéra-Comique . . . she is young,
she will improve . . . anywhere along the Boulevard du Temple.
Ah, yes! In a smaller theater, the women must be young and pretty. We will not
get the men in else . . . a trifle thin, but that is easily
amended. More important, she is young, which cannot be amended so easily . . .
charming arms, well displayed…”

Before the last of the guests left, Anna had been invited to
sing for a private party given by no less a figure than the sleepy Count, and
she went to bed in a whirl of happy anticipation.

The next day she was up early rehearsing.

Parrette, who discovered herself with a great deal of
freedom as Madame de Pipelet’s house was well run, put her time to good use.
She ignored most of the gossip, except that about Josephine Bonaparte, wife of
the First Consul. Before long she had gleaned useful information about where
the First Consul obtained her fabrics, and who made her gowns.

After that, it was simple enough to visit Au Grand Turc, and
look carefully at the clothes on display, or Le Roy’s shop in the rue de la Loi.
The proprietors were quite happy to display the sumptuous gowns they made for Madame
Bonaparte, as they deemed it good for business. They did not know that
Parrette, with her rigorous eye, meticulously observed the seams and the drape,
as well as the deceptively simple curves and dips of the horizontal bodice
contrasted with the pure, slim line of skirts.

She took these observations home, talked to Madame about her
ideas, and was advanced a sum against expected gifts, with which to buy fabrics
and trim. Parrette was no less enthusiastic than Anna as she got to work.

o0o

Madame de Pipelet loved the theater, and maintained boxes
at the three main venues. It was here that Anna saw the latest plays and
operas. When the First Consul and his wife attended the theater, the entire
crowd took note.

So did Anna. But she scarcely glanced at the thin man in the
blue and white uniform; her attention was all on Bonaparte’s wife. How
beautifully she moved! How beautiful she was, seen across the vast width of the
theater!

A great commotion brought Madame’s party to a standstill in
the lobby of the Théâtre-Français one night. Here, Anna glimpsed the famous
woman up close. She was quite shocked to discover that Josephine was old, forty
at least!

Anna stared as Madame Bonaparte turned her head, a quick,
graceful movement, and reached to touch the top of the First Consul’s hand as
she spoke. Her face betrayed the lines of age, and she pursed her mouth in the
way people did who wished to hide their teeth, but even so, especially as Anna
gazed at her straight back, at the beautifully shaped head framed by soft dark
curls, she understood what Lady Hamilton had said once after her attitudes:
“The pose is easy, but getting to it, ah, that’s when you must catch their
eye!”

In the carriage ride back to Madame de Pipelet’s, Anna
consciously tried to set her head at Josephine’s angle, to move her hands and
arms the same way. The muscles of her arms felt different, and she remembered
the childhood lessons in dancing that had been given the palace children. “That
is what I need,” she stated to the lurching canvas wall of the equipage.

“What is your need, child?” Madame asked, breaking off her
conversation.

“The First Consul’s wife. I wish to learn to move the way
she does.”

“Ah!” Madame exclaimed, nodding in approval. “If you can
succeed in learning
that
, you will be
elegant even when you are an old woman. But how does one go about it? Perhaps
it is a gift of nature.”

Anna had to admit that that might be true. Yet there was the
evidence of her arms and back muscles. Only did she really look different?

She kept that to herself, as she had other things to think
about. Madame one morning presented to Anna the astonishing news that she was
very, very lucky: she had been granted an opportunity to audition at the famous
Lyri-Comique.

“But is that not earning a living as a common performer?”
Anna asked.

Madame de Pipelet was going to return a tart answer, but she
knew Anna well by then, and saw no pride or presumption in her face. The girl
was heeding, as best she knew how, the precepts given her by her dead mother.

“Oh no,” Madame said. “Not if you audition as a mere
student. You might appear on stage, but this is how you gain training that is
far superior to anything I can get for you!”