The Devil in Music (79 page)

De
la Marque's eyes danced. "But, mon vieux, don't you think a man
ought to like his work?"

"It
is an advantage," Julian allowed. "I shall fall asleep
presently."

"Do
so. I'll row us back."

"You're
very good." Julian closed his eyes, then opened them again. "I
owe you three thousand francs."

"Three
thousand francs? oh, but of course. I wagered three thousand francs
that if you found Orfeo, you would be sorry. I forgive the debt.
What's more, if it would please you, I'll abandon my pursuit of a
certain lady. Though it does seem a shame when you've gone, I shall
be exactly what she needs."

No,
thought Julian. But I think you may be exactly what she wants. "Just
don't leave her more alone than you found her. That's all I ask."

The
lights outside the villa had all burnt out by the time Julian and de
la Marque returned. They had to make their way across the terrace by
moonlight and memory. Halfway to the stairs, they heard footsteps
pacing ahead. De la Marque stopped, and Julian sensed him go taut
with alertness. A revolutionary must suspect every shadow.

"Bonna
sera," called Julian experimentally. "O met, bon giomo."

"Good
morning." Fletcher's lanky figure took shape out of the gloom.

"Can't
you get in?" asked Julian.

"I
haven't tried. I didn't want to go to bed yet. You mustn't mind
about me I don't want to keep you up."

"I
shall take you at your word," said de la Marque. "I'm
quite done up Good night, Mr. Fletcher. Mon vieux, you are
absolutely forbidden to leave tomorrow without saying goodbye."

He
sauntered inside. Julian asked, "How is Lucia?"

"Fine."
Fletcher heaved a long sigh. "You know, you mean the world to
her. You couldn't find it in your heart to love her a little?"

"Oh,
very easily. But I think she deserves to be loved more than a
little, don't you?"

Fletcher
thrust his hands in his pockets and walked about. "She promised
to stand by me as long as I was in any danger. But I'm not in danger
now."

"You've
humbugged a powerful police official. You'll be in danger as long as
you remain in Austrian Italy. If I were you, I should remain a long
time."

"But
I don't want to use her promise to trap her."

Julian
laid a hand on his shoulder. "My dear fellow, take some

advice
from one who knows. Don't try to be fair to her. You're in love,
and you're in Italy. Show her no mercy."

There
was a lone lamp burning in the Hall of Marbles. Julian lit a candle
at it and started toward the stairs. As he passed Cupid and Psyche,
his light cast a warm glow on them, giving their marble limbs the
softness of flesh and their faces the illusion of living tenderness.
It hurt Julian's eyes to look at the thing. He went upstairs.

MacGregor
was lying crosswise on their bed, asleep in his clothes. Hearing
Julian come in, he struggled up, dashing the slumber from his eyes.
"All right. I want some answers from you. Start with the Comte
d'Aubret. Was he your father?"

"My
father was Richard Kestrel, son of a Yorkshire country squire."

"What
about those other rumours de la Marque talked about? Were you some
sort of spy between d'Aubret and the English?"

"He
didn't have spies. He merely had opinions, which unfortunately
weren't popular in court circles."

"Well,
what was it, then?"

"You're
forgetting I'amour a la Grecque."

MacGregor
reddened. "Well, I know it wasn't that!"

"It
wasn't, as it happens."

"Well
then " MacGregor broke off uncertainly. "There's one other
story de la Marque told something about your wandering destitute in
the streets and fainting into d'Aubret's arms."

Julian
withdrew his gaze but spoke quite matter-of-factly. "I didn't
faint into his arms. I dropped on the pavement outside Tortoni's,
and he came out to investigate."

MacGregor
stared. "How old were you?"

"Sixteen."

"What
were you doing there? Why did you faint? Were you ill?"

"I
" It sounded absurd, even somehow shameful. "I was
hungry."

"But
how why " MacGregor stammered.

"I
had no money and nothing left to pawn. I knew no one in Paris. My
father had taught me French when I was young, but I was hopelessly
lost trying to understand the Parisians. My manners were too good
for me to beg with any plausibility, and my clothes were too wretched
for anyone to entrust me with honest work. There's an assumption in
the beau monde that, with so much food about, and so

many
resources for earning a few pence, no one healthy and enterprising
can possibly starve. But actually, it's quite easy."

"But
what were you doing in Paris all alone at that age?"

"I'd
been living with my uncle in London, and I didn't like it. So I ran
away."

"All
the way to Paris?"

Julian
smiled wryly. "That was rather mad. It was just after
Waterloo, and I'd heard there was a rage in Paris for all things
English. I had an idea I might find work, make my fortune God knows
what I thought. I wanted to be somewhere new completely different
from the world I'd known."

"But
whatever prompted you TO leave your uncle's house for a city where
you had no place to go where you'd be a foreigner with no friends?"

Julian
did not answer at once. "My uncle wouldn't let me play the
piano anymore."

"There
must have been more to it than that!"

"That
was enough. Under the circumstances."

MacGregor
looked at him almost fearfully. "What circumstances?"

Another
pause. "I thought you wanted to hear about the Comte d'Aubret."

"You
mean, you don't want to tell me about your uncle."

"Not
particularly. He wasn't an evil man, only narrow and unimaginative,
worshipping money because it was a good he could hold in his hand one
that had no mind of its own and nothing so elusive and immeasurable
as beauty. My mother had run away from him before me, so you see, it
was something of a family tradition."

"All
I see is that you don't want to talk about it, and I can't do
anything to loosen your tongue. So go back to your meeting with the
Comte d'Aubret. What happened after you dropped on the pavement?"

"When
I came to myself, I was alone in a fiacre a Parisian hackney coach
and a servant was offering me cheese and ices and other odds and ends
through the window. D'Aubret had put me there so that I could eat
without being stared at by the fashionable set at Tortoni's."

"That's
a singular thing to have thought of," said MacGregor.

"He
was like that. He put himself very readily into other people's
shoes."

"If
you were a common urchin, you wouldn't have cared who saw you
eating."

"But
the comte suspected I wasn't. In fact, he'd made a bet with his
friends about it. When he found me on the pavement, he'd noticed
that my linen was dirty, but my nails were clean. One of his maxims
was: if you want to know a man's breeding, look at his hands."

"Sounds
as if he had a knack for the sort of divining you do."

"He
did, now you come to mention it. At all events, he talked to me for
a bit, and finding I was English and could write a good hand, he took
me into his household to help with his English correspondence. He'd
lived in England for some years after the Terror, and had a great
many friends there. But as he hadn't enough correspondence to keep
me occupied, I was given all sorts of odd jobs. For a while I helped
look after his clothes."

"His
clothes?" MacGregor's jaw dropped. "You mean you were a a
valet?"

"Not
exactly," said Julian, amused. "His real valet, Justin,
wouldn't have permitted that. But sometimes I was allowed to help
Justin with small tasks, especially ironing, which he disliked."

"Ironing,"
repeated MacGregor dazedly. "How did you even know how?"

Julian's
lips curved wryly. Apparently MacGregor thought he had spent his
boyhood conning Latin verbs. "I have unexpected talents. At
all events, I was often underfoot when the comte dressed in the
morning or undressed at night, and he talked with me about one thing
or another in order to keep up his English. Soon he was telling me
what he thought about all manner of subjects politics, the theatre,
love affairs. Insensibly, my position began to change. The comte
would say, "Your accent needs polishing, Julien, you must study
elocution." Or, "You must learn to ride, Julien, in case I
wish you to accompany me out." When he found out I could play
the piano, nothing would do but that I should continue my musical
studies.

"His
friends couldn't fathom what he was about, but I think I understand
it. The comte was five-and-thirty but had never married. He would
have been expected to take a colourless, convent-educated wife, and
their children would have been swallowed up in the atrophied world of
the Faubourg St. Germain, where his mother and sisters were
desperately trying to re-create the ancien regime. D'Aubret was
liberal, cynical a traitor to his class, a Christian only in his
conduct. His family disapproved of him violently, and if he'd had a
child, they would have been determined to save it from him. But no
one cared how he educated or befriended a mere English stray he'd
found on the street."

"That
all sounds like fustian to me. Did it ever occur to you that he was
lonely, and he liked you?"

Julian
thought a little, then smiled. "Thank you, my dear fellow. I
think that may be what I was trying to say."

"Now,
when did you take up singing?"

"That
was a matter of chance. I was telling the comte the tune of some
instrumental piece, by putting wordless syllables to the notes. He
looked at me strangely. Then he said offhandly that perhaps I ought
to take a few singing lessons. The next thing I knew, he'd found me
a singing master. I thought nothing about it. I'd always loved
music, but I thought of myself at best as a gifted amateur on the
piano. I'd never considered singing at all.

"The
singing master gave me perhaps a dozen lessons. He declared that my
voice was wholly untaught, I didn't know the first principles of
breathing or phrasing, I could hardly tell one register from another.
I was simply a natural singer. The comte told me I was at a
crossroads. I could either go on as I was or cultivate this gift and
make a career on the stage.

"I
didn't want to become a singer. It wasn't the life I'd envisioned
for myself. But I felt I had no choice. Because it dawned on me all
at once how dependent I'd become on the comte. My duties in his
household had become very light, and the expenses of my education
very heavy. I couldn't live indefinitely on his charity. I owed it
to him to stand on my own feet, now that a way had opened before me.

"I
told him I wished to be trained as a singer, and that if he would be
good enough to assist me, I would repay him as soon as I was able to
earn a living. He wasn't deceived. The language of duty and
obligation was foreign to our discourse. He told me he had been
selfish. He'd kept me tied to him by a golden thread of patronage
and money, and there was only one way to set me free. He settled a
sum of money on me enough to dress, keep a horse, and live in the
manner of a gentleman. He told me it was a fait accompli, and
nothing I could say or do would change it. "Now," he said,
'our relations will be amicable and without strain. I shall do
nothing more for you, so you needn't worry about appearing to curry
favour. And you will greatly displease me by feeling a sense of
obligation. A gentleman must learn how to 'receive a favour
gracefully, which for a man of spirit is much more difficult than
conferring one." "

"He
sounds a good man," said MacGregor, "even if he was
irreligious. I'd like to have known him."

"You
do, in a way. Much of the best of me that isn't my father is Armand
d'Aubret."