Rondo Allegro Read online

  “Papa—”

  Her father’s brow contracted and he made a weary move with his hand. “Beppe, fetch the priest. And the English divine. We’ll have it right. There is little time. I feel death sitting on my chest, heavier than stone.”

  Parrette was waiting for Anna when she left her father’s room, her thin brows a line and her vivid black eyes assessing. “So.” The maid gave a short nod. “There is to be a wedding.” She sighed, and spoke more to herself, “I believe it falls to me to instruct you in what that means.”

  2

  All parties were satisfied, except for the two principals.

  Captain Duncannon had been forced to listen to Jones promise the old man that his daughter would gain a house and a position in society, full knowing that he owned little more than his uniform, sword, and sea trunk. And as for society, he had turned his back on it when he took up his naval career.

  Anna was too grief-stricken to think past her Papa’s weakened breathing.

  Parrette was resigned, too experienced with the vagaries of the world to voice any objection. She lost an entire night in her efforts to think out what she must say to Anna about what to expect once the ring was on her finger, but those efforts—the carefully chosen words—were largely wasted, she discovered the next morning. If Anna heard one word in twenty, that was the extent of her comprehension. Her thoughts were entirely taken up with her father.

  Grief had become a boulder behind Anna’s ribs by her wedding day. The westering sun cast an ochre glow around the crowd gathered tightly against the prince’s bed to witness the transformation of Signorina Ludovisi to Mrs. Duncannon.

  The marriage ceremony was conducted first by a priest, after which her father was promised extreme unction. While that was done, the company moved to a pretty courtyard where commenced a second ceremony, mercifully quick, overseen by an English minister connected to the fleet: this man, Anna noted with inward relief, pronounced ‘Maria’ the English way. She hoped that augured well, or as well as this strange situation could ever be.

  Her first contact with her husband was when he slid a ring upon her finger. It did not fit, of course; that seemed emblematic of her life, she thought as tears dripped down her face. She looked away quickly, closing her hand around the ring and surreptitiously thumbing away the tears with the other, aware that she was observed by her husband of five minutes as they walked back to her father’s room to sign the marriage papers.

  Anna’s father had insisted on having his violin at his bedside. He had intended to play a wedding piece, but his hands faltered, and he fell back, defeated by his own struggle for breath.

  Mr. Jones gestured toward the newlyweds. “May I suggest that the bride and groom step into the adjoining chamber, where I understand her ladyship has ordered refreshments to be laid out?”

  “Go,” Signor Ludovisi said to his daughter, his voice slurring. “I will keep my end of the bargain. Talk to your young man. Get acquainted.”

  The door closed behind them and the English chaplain sent by Captain Troubridge, who gracefully offered his congratulations to the bride.

  The chaplain was an older man, face red under his wig. His imperturbable demeanor steadied Anna enough to enable her to glance at Captain Duncannon again, this time taking in more than the blue coat and single epaulette of a commander.

  Like many of Nelson’s captains, he wore his dark hair short. It curled slightly over his heavy collar in back, and brushed over his high forehead. His eyes were well spaced, with little lines at the corners from squinting in wind and weather, a characteristic shared by all the naval men she had encountered. He was very tall, his nose rather beak-like, reminding her of an eagle, and his chin long and firm, all of which seemed to render him even taller. His mouth seemed well shaped, but was too tight for her to descry expression. He looked very old to her; when his gaze encountered hers, she dropped her eyes, reluctant to be caught staring.

  A servant began to circulate, bearing a heavy tray of chased silver, piled high with luscious fruits. Another servant carried around goblets of a chilled champagne punch. Anna was a married woman now, and so she could taste such things. Strange, how a few words changed everything. Would she be expected to dress as a married woman? If so, how was she to pay for new fabric?

  From the far room she could hear men’s voices, though not what they said. She knew that her father had had some dealings with the English, though no one had thought to share with her the particulars. Apparently this business could not wait. She hoped some of it would prove to settle her affairs comfortably, though how remained a mystery.

  “May I fetch you a glass of champagne?” Captain Duncannon asked politely—her husband’s first words to her.

  Anna perceived that she had let a silence build, and blushed. She knew that it was for the wife, the hostess, to speak, to make everyone comfortable, but that was beyond her. All she could say was, “Thank you.”

  The captain obligingly turned away, affording her a moment to pull her handkerchief from her pocket and hastily scrub her eyes dry. Then she straightened up, the little linen square crushed in a ball in her fist. She must exert herself, and learn what was expected of her.

  The captain brought the champagne to her, and she raised the glass to her lips. The unexpected scent from the popping bubbles nearly made her sneeze, and her first cautious sip was even more disagreeable. Had the stuff turned?

  Yet no one complained as the divine and the captain drank to one another, uttering polite compliments of the day. Anna ventured to try another sip, and then a third larger one. This one made her shudder, but it was followed by a sense of warmth from within that she found both strange and mildly pleasant. It gave her enough courage to stand under her husband’s scrutiny, for when she looked up, she discovered his gaze upon her.

  He stared, his heart sinking. His bride was a thin little maid in a plain, neat muslin gown, her thick brown hair bound up unsteadily on her head, her unremarkable face blotchy with tears. The uncertain angle of her chin, her very straight posture, called his sisters to mind. Addressing her as he would one of them, he said, “Have you lived here all your life?”

  She replied seriously, “Not here, precisely, but in Naples, yes.” She spoke clear English, though with a strong French accent. “Soon after my parents arrived here from Florence—in fact, it is said that the monstrous earthquake in Calabria was at fault for bringing me into the world thus precipitously, for they were passing through when the first one struck.” She closed her mouth, blushing. The champagne seemed to have loosened her tongue.

  Duncannon made a polite noise, but inwardly he was appalled. That made her what, not quite sixteen? His sisters were seventeen and twelve; in memory they were mere children. He knew girls married young more often than not, but her youth placed her firmly in a category with Mary and Harriet.

  At least so young a girl could scarcely harbor any expectations of him. He had not seen his sisters for ages, but he recollected that they had liked talking about their harps and singing and dancing. “I was told you study music under the Maestro. Do you play the violin, then?”

  “Badly, sir.” She was barely audible.

  “The fortepiano? The harp?” He named the proper instruments of a well-brought-up young lady.

  “A little of the one, but not of the other, sir.”

  “Your English is excellent, and I am given to understand you speak French as well. I take it you also speak Italian?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. And Neapolitan.”

  “Accomplished indeed!”

  Observed narrowly by Parrette from the doorway, the two continued their awkward conversation. He asked her which of the Maestro’s pieces she had heard of late. As the captain was partial to music—indeed, he spent his occasional liberty attending concerts when he could get them—they talked about the latest opera by the great Paisiello.

  Anna became a trifle more animated as she praised the opera, Duncannon found, to his relief. (It being easier to think of her a
s ‘the young lady’ than as his wife, though signing his name had brought home the truth of his experience.)

  But when they had exchanged all the possible polite superlatives, she agreeing with everything he said, conversation faltered, and he had no idea what to do next.

  Jones rescued him with his reappearance, Troubridge behind him. They signaled with twitches of chins and furtive gestures with the free hands not carrying their hats. The captain excused himself, leaving the young lady in company with the divine, who continued to talk about Mozart, his particular favorite.

  “We’ve heard all we’re going to,” Troubridge said when Duncannon drew near. “If you will report directly to Nelson, Duncannon, pray carry my compliments, and add that we are going to corroborate some of the details before we rejoin you. If you leave now, you should be able to make the tide,” he added.

  Duncannon resolutely hid his relief at the prospect of soon being out of the situation. Except that he wasn’t out of it. He had spoken the words. He had signed his name. He had woken a single man that day, and he would sleep alone again that night in his cabin, though with the knowledge that he possessed a wife.

  “The young lady?” he asked.

  Jones said smoothly, “Lady Hamilton insisted that nothing material will change.”

  “And after the father succumbs? I heard you promise him that the girl would gain a house and position in society, and in the necessity of the situation, I did not deny it. Need I remind you that I cannot offer either of these things? Therefore, I believe it ought to fall to you to initiate a dissolution. At the same time, my own sense of honor requires me to insist that you guarantee that the young lady, however briefly she bears my name, will not suffer thereby.”

  Troubridge heard in the lengthening of Captain Duncannon’s vowels a hint of the dashing captain who had sailed under the guns of the enemy at the Nile, and turned to Jones. “I believe you assured us that Whitehall would cooperate in this matter.”

  The intelligence officer knew very well that ‘Whitehall’ could mean an entirely different set of men if the government changed, and that old promises were very often discarded by the newcomers. But his orders had been clear. “May I remind you gentlemen that the young lady is housed in a royal palace, with every evidence of continuing there, under the patronage of Lady Hamilton? Therefore her position may be regarded as secure, until I obtain instructions from London on how to proceed.”

  Troubridge eyed Jones, then turned to Duncannon. “Once we have settled affairs in Naples, Nelson shall speak to Lord Keith on your behalf. You will not be the loser for your cooperative spirit. Nelson stipulated for that in specific.”

  Mr. Jones bowed.

  “Very well,” Duncannon said.

  He returned to the young lady and took his leave in form, deciding that the least said, the less chance of awkwardness.

  She responded so faintly he could scarcely hear her, and he wondered how much she truly comprehended of the situation. But that is the government’s problem, he thought as he walked away. Even so, he was aware of a sense of guilt, as if he were beating a cowardly retreat.

  Parrette watched him go, then shifted her attention to Anna, who gazed nowhere as she absently turned the ring around and around on her finger. She looked so pale, so sad, that Parrette’s heart ached for her.

  Anna was unaware of anyone else’s sensibilities. Her entire attention was focused on that ring. It itched, or perhaps she only thought it did, for gold did not raise rashes. Parrette had told her that it was one of Lady Hamilton’s trinkets, brought all the way from England, and provided at the last moment.

  Anna was aware of a sense of relief. She had had no firm expectations, knowing that naval wives did not always follow their husbands aboard their ships: some lived ashore as housing could be got, and others remained in England, as for example did Lady Nelson. It seemed she was to be one of the second group. Just as well, she thought, for she could not bear to leave her Papa when he was so ill.

  The captain’s departure served as a general signal. Very soon Anna had given her last curtsey and received her last congratulation. Her mouth ached from the effort of smiling.

  As the servants went about carrying off the dishes, Anna rejoined Parrette in the hallway. “Your Papa is asleep, Mademoiselle, parbleu! Madame, I should say.” Parrette rolled her eyes expressively. “Those English kept him talking, oh, forever, but he seemed easier when they were gone, and he was able to see the priest.”

  “Perhaps, now that he has discharged whatever it is he felt his duty,” Anna said with faint hope, “he might rest well, and recover.”

  Parrette clasped her hands in fervent agreement.

  Anna retired early, too exhausted to think beyond the morrow.

  She woke to the news that her father had sunk into a coma, and two nights later, as Anna woke abruptly from an exhausted doze while sitting on a hassock at her father’s bedside, she discovered that the hand in hers had gone loose and lifeless. A glance revealed the truth, that his spirit had fled.

  3

  Though Admiral Nelson had become as important to the Neapolitan court as the English legates, this marriage between one of his commanders and the daughter of one of the court musicians did not cause a ripple. Lady Hamilton would have made case for a splendid celebration of the sort she loved, but she had been adjured to keep it select, even private, the excuse being the father’s sinking.

  Devoted to Nelson as she was, she acquiesced without demur, and the marriage was known only to those few who had attended. After it, the girl was left in peace to grieve, and the captain was immediately ordered to support the fleet in its impending rescue of Naples.

  As for Anna, there was so much for her to do that she scarcely had time for grief, and no time at all to comprehend her sudden change in state. Though she knew she was a married woman, she felt that she was an orphan.

  With Captain Duncannon gone so soon after the wedding, the only evidence of her marriage was the ill-fitting ring on her finger. It did not seen like a wedding ring at all; it was more like another of the trinkets that Lady Hamilton had given her from time to time as a reward for her singing. Some of them even had worth: Emma had received a pair of diamond earrings for providing the ‘voice of an angel’ from behind the curtain at the Attitudes when the English navy first arrived.

  As Anna set herself to the task of disposing of her father’s few belongings, Parrette made it her business to glean what information she could about Captain Duncannon.

  When Anna came at last to the packing of her father’s music, most written out in his own dear hand, Parrette came in to report. “Captain Duncannon was sent directly from here to Naples.”

  Anna wiped her brow. “I thought as much.”

  “I also learned that he has been promoted from a ten gun brig to a recently captured French vessel called Danae.”

  “Mother of Perseus,” Anna said approvingly.

  Parrette, whose awareness of the classics was roughly coequal to her interest, which is to say scant, went right on to what did interest her. “He was used to be called Wild Harry, which brought him to the notice of Captain Nelson. Catalina, whose brother’s wife’s uncle knows the purser aboard the Danae, says that among the officers of the fleet, he is called the Perennial Bachelor.”

  Anna fanned herself with an extra copy of a Mozart motet as she considered these words, then said, “At all events, he is not one now.”

  Parrette pursed her lips. “Il y a anguille sous la roche,” she muttered, but under her breath. When it came to men, and their often-incomprehensible doings, she always smelled a rat.

  Then, feeling guilty for her forebodings, she busied herself with scrubbing the already-clean chamber, as Anna turned back to her sad task.

  Reality set in under a heavy thunderstorm when Parrette and Anna stood alongside the coach under dripping umbrellas, half the King’s musicians ranged at a respectful distance, as Papa’s casket departed on the coach to his final resting place in Ponte
San Bernardo.

  Beppe paid no heed to the rain dripping from his hat onto his face as he said to Anna, “You’ll be safe with the English.” He remembered the autocratic duchess; even if the French had not been making war up and down the Italian peninsula, there would have been no good life for La Signorina Anna in Ponte San Bernardo.

  Anna whispered, “I believe I will. Here,” and she pushed a purse into his hands. “Here is the half the money from the sale of Papa’s things. He would have wanted you to be comfortable while accompanying him . . .” She swallowed the word home, remembering how many times her father had insisted that ‘home’ was his wife and daughter. Her throat tightened painfully. “To his last rest.”

  Beppe took the purse, which was regrettably light, and pressed a kiss on the back of her black glove. Then he was gone.

  “He’ll drink it up at the first tavern,” Parrette declared.

  “He’s a good man,” Anna said, by habit.

  “Scélérat! Les lazarones are no good,” Parrette muttered, though now that he was leaving, she could acknowledge that at least he had been loyal to the signor.

  o0o

  Each morning following Beppe’s departure—the time Anna had been used to sit with her parents, talking about music in three languages—she sat alone, looking out the windows at the heat-shimmering stones of the courtyard below.

  Each day brought increasingly horrific reports from Naples, and in the meantime, Anna remained in her rooms, uncertain what to do. Lady Hamilton departed with Admiral Lord Nelson aboard the Foudroyant, and Parrette brought back the exciting news that the legate’s wife was interceding with the queen on behalf of Neapolitans, from poor to rich, as Nelson’s force hunted down all Jacobins to be put to death.

  Rumors ran both wild and bloody, the one consistent report that the English had succeeded in driving the French away.