Rondo Allegro Page 3

  Days sped by, one much like another, then it was time for everyone to be on the move again, and in the midst of the chaos, Anna was summoned to Lady Hamilton, whom she found in a cabin aboard the English ship, people bustling about dodging the mariners who tended the complication of ropes and sails.

  “My dearest child,” Lady Hamilton exclaimed when she saw Anna, raising her voice to be heard over the bawling of a boatswain a few feet directly overhead. To a maid importuning her from behind, “No, no, the silk, please. Carry it to Mrs. Cadogan, I beg.” And to Anna, “We are already planning the celebrations. The entire Palazzo Cinese shall be given over to one long fete to celebrate our glorious victory.”

  “I . . “ Anna swallowed. “What about Captain Duncannon?” She could not quite bring herself to say ‘my husband.’

  “Capt—oh yes!” Lady Hamilton laughed, her pretty face flushed. She had entirely forgotten that hasty marriage. “Oh, they are still busy chasing revolutionaries here and there. But you are safe enough with me. The queen depends upon me most straitly. Does not dare to take a step without consulting me, or the dear admiral, who is, the king insists, to be awarded a dukedom. Is that not splendid? Though no more than he deserves.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Now, my dear, I must have you take part in the fete. I want your beautiful voice in a special tableau I have in mind . . .”

  Anna stared in amazement at a pair of miniatures depicting the familiar faces of King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina set all around in diamonds that winked and gleamed with every roll of the ship. This beautiful item sat in prominent display on a little shelf nearby. She was to be reunited with Maestro Paisiello! Joy suffused her.

  As soon as they docked, the entire party was swept into a whirlwind of preparation. Parrette ran straight away to reclaim their old rooms before anyone else could try to claim them, and Anna sped across the familiar palace to the theater wing where the maestro stayed.

  There she found him. He set aside his pen and advanced with sorrow in his countenance as he clasped her hands. “My dear Signorina Anna. I heard about your good Papa. I am so very sorry.”

  Anna stared back as she whispered her thanks for his kind words. Could it be that he did not know that she was now a married woman?

  Her lips parted. She was about to speak, but a thought stayed her. He ought to have known! He ought to have been there, as Papa’s closest friend. Would he be insulted not to have been?

  She swallowed down the forming words. Perhaps it was better to wait. It wasn’t as if anything had changed, outside of her name. Once Captain Duncannon returned, they could tell the maestro together, and the captain could explain how it had all come about, something Anna still did not quite comprehend.

  He saw her unhappy face, and drew his own conclusions. “I gather you are now under the guardianship of the Hamiltons?”

  “Yes, Maestro,” she said.

  “It is well. Your dear Mama would have approved.” If there was a little dryness to his tone, Anna missed it; though he had sincerely admired the excellent Signora Ludovisi, he had thought her passion for England misplaced. Why retain this love of a land she had left when scarcely able to talk, and which had repudiated her own parents’ marriage, though made in the sight of God?

  “Now you must come every day, and resume your lessons,” he said, knowing that the best specific for grief was work. “If you bring to them all your discipline, there is nothing to get in the way of your attaining greatness.”

  o0o

  The days slipped into weeks. Anna was grateful to be kept busy, which in part eased the heartache of grief that recurred each morning when she breakfasted alone.

  One night, Anna returned to her cramped quarters, exhausted from a long rehearsal in the humid air. The music kept changing, wearing everyone’s tempers to a frazzle.

  Parrette awaited Anna with a bowl of soup and some bread. “Ah, Signorina!”

  For the first few days she had conscientiously called Anna ‘Signora,’ but gradually had slipped back into old habit, and Anna did not correct her. “Everyone is talking! The king is indeed awarding Admiral Nelson a dukedom.”

  Anna eyed her maid, whose thin lips were pursed, her head cocked. “But? I hear a but.”

  “He is to be created the Duke of Bronte.”

  Anna gasped. “Bronte?” For everyone who read their classics knew that ‘Bronte’ was a one-eyed Cyclops. That kind of cruel joke against poor Admiral Nelson, whose physical sufferings were painfully visible, was very much in King Ferdinand’s style. “Yet the king and queen hailed the admiral as their savior,” Anna observed. “And here we are, exerting ourselves to celebrate them! Perhaps Bronte is immense.”

  “It is. The pastry chef’s brother, who works in the stable, says that it lies on the slopes of the volcano,” Parrette whispered, one thin brow aslant.

  Anna shook her head. “I cannot pretend to know anything about royal affairs. What I do know is that today, we have changed the song four times, and now I am not to stand by the waxen statues at all, but to sing from the gallery above. Instead of patriots in Neapolitan colors, or the English colors, I, and two choirboys, are to sing as angels unseen.”

  Parrette clasped her hands. “Nom d’un nom, in the gallery? But it is in painting, and not sturdy at all!”

  “They promise all will be complete.” Anna smiled. “Parrette, we have to practice our English now. As soon as Captain Duncannon returns, we can approach him together, for it occurs me that surely he could be the means of finding your son. Was not Michel taken while at sea?”

  Parrette whispered a few words of prayer under her breath, then said, “I would dedicate a thousand masses if le bon Dieu grants me a, how one says, a pook?”

  “Peek?”

  “Oui! Yes. Even a peek at my son, that he is living, and well.”

  “I wish I had thought to ask before.” Anna could not quite bring herself to say on my wedding day. That part still seemed a mere dream.

  o0o

  The great day dawned.

  The English captains chosen by their admiral to witness the celebrations were gathered, hats under their arms, at one side of the magnificent royal dais put together by the harassed royal carpenters. Above, unseen in a much flimsier, hastily constructed gallery, Anna stood with her fidgeting choirboys in the breathless heat.

  The central hall of the newly-built palace had a vaulted ceiling, but with this crowd, there was nowhere for the heat to escape. Anna tried to breathe through her mouth, nauseated by the odor of wet paint. Still tacky were the Chinese scenes painted in mural around the smoothly curved walls. The palace wasn’t completely finished, but the King and Queen leading the huge crowd below had declared that it would house the celebration, and so it was.

  As she dared a glance downward, Anna wondered if the great waxen figures of Admiral Nelson, Sir William Hamilton, and Lady Hamilton—the latter wearing a heavy purple gown embroidered in gold with the names of all the ships that had fought in the Battle of the Nile—would melt before the festivities ended.

  Presently the crowd stilled, pressed in an enormous circle well back of the royal family and the three who were to be honored. Anna looked right and left as their accompanist softly plucked a note on her harp. Anna began to sing, her choirboy companions filling in the harmony.

  The crowd below hushed, many faces upturned. The English captains, broiling in broadcloth coats, their necks swathed with cravats, and their feet encased in heavy boots, listened or endured according to their personalities.

  Henry Duncannon was one of those who listened with deep appreciation to the pure young voice that floated down as if from heaven. If he shut his eyes, he did not see the glisten of still-drying paint in the vaulting overhead, or not-quite-hidden evidence of the scaffolding that held the unseen singers between earth and sky. He gazed through his lashes at the serene blue, unwilling to move as the golden voice soared and drifted, borne upward by fellow angels.

  But he could not
completely give himself over to the music. He knew he ought to set about locating his wife. There would be no getting near either of the Hamiltons this evening, so how would he find the girl in this great crowd? He had come determined to make certain Jones had gained her understanding concerning their annulment, before the fleet was ordered out again. But there was no moving, he discovered, and so he tried to give himself up to the music again.

  He was balked even in this as a pair of lieutenants whispered to one another behind him.

  “Will it ever end?”

  “Hold hard. When the caterwauling is over, there’s to be speeches.”

  “Why isn’t there something cold to drink?”

  Duncannon was about to administer a sharp reproof when the song ended. As Sir William began to wheeze a speech, inaudible at this distance, Duncannon bit back his impatience.

  One of the lieutenants observed, “Well, Nelson appears well pleased, at all events.”

  The king responded to Sir William in an equally inaudible speech, then attention turned to the slight figure on the dais between the voluptuously beautiful Lady Hamilton and tall, stooped Sir William. Nelson leaned forward as little Prince Leopold, impatient to do his part, ran out to place a diamond-studded laurel wreath upon the brow of the admiral’s waxen statue.

  Nelson burst into tears of joy, causing a surge of applause and smiles.

  Under cover of that, the lieutenants behind Duncannon spoke more normally. “Is it at an end at last? We’re done?”

  “No, there’s more to come, but in other rooms.”

  Duncannon took advantage of the shifting crowd and forged away, leaving the lieutenants looking about for the exit.

  “Will there be a noise if we rabbit?” asked one of the lieutenants.

  “Craven,” joked his friend.

  “There you are!” exclaimed a third, in joining them. “The crowd is moving at last. I’d as lief be sitting in the Nile again, waiting on the French to fire. Speaking of the Nile, wasn’t that Wild Harry I just saw, elbowing his way to escape? Isn’t he about to set sail?”

  “Duncannon got special dispensation to come on shore tonight,” said the first. “From what I hear, he seems to have become entangled.”

  “The Perennial Bachelor? Impossible!” exclaimed the newcomer.

  “True as I stand here. I had it from his own clerk,” said the second. “All secret, on orders of the admiral, you know.” He laid his finger by his nose. “Arranged by Lady Hamilton.”

  Gossip was rife through the fleet about the admiral and the fascinating Emma, but that kind of speculation had never included Duncannon’s name. However dour he was in dealing with the fair, he was never behindhand on his quarterdeck before the prospect of a French frigate stripped to fighting sail. And so, though he might be quizzed, it was with respect.

  “Entangled?” spoke he who mopped his face again, then lifted his hat and wig for a pass of his pocket handkerchief over his shaven skull. “I cannot see Wild Harry ensnared by some Sicilian charmer. Was it not he who suffered some disappointment in youth?”

  “Thrown over. For his elder brother, according to what I heard,” said the first. “Hasn’t looked at a female since. But he obviously has now. Will wonders never cease!”

  “Nothing like that,” said the second. “That gabbling rantipole of a clerk insists it was marriage, some connection to an Italian duke.”

  “Oh, Italian. Italy sports more dukes than rats.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Is she rich?”

  “Wild Harry has all the luck,” murmured he of the wig, who had not managed as many cutting out expeditions and other mad escapades of the sort that Nelson loved most, and who therefore had not as yet earned him that longed-for step to commander, though he was the same age as Duncannon.

  “A secret wedding?” spoke the third, who looked about him for a source of entertainment that had nothing to do with operatic hullabaloo. “Ah! Speak of the devil. There he is again. Shall we have some fun?” He tipped his chin to where Duncannon was seen looking searchingly to the right and left, before he was swallowed from view.

  The three lieutenants began applying elbows.

  o0o

  Without being aware, both Anna and Captain Duncannon had the other foremost in mind.

  Up in the gallery, Anna slowly made her way down the rickety stair behind the scampering boys. Having creditably performed her part, she was now free.

  She walked outside to where it was marginally cooler. At least the air was moving. She paused to enjoy the sight of the colored lamps strung along the terrace and in the gardens, reflecting in the rapidly melting ice sculptures central to each table of food and drink.

  She was hungry and thirsty, now that the performance was safely over, but she must find Captain Duncannon, as she had promised Parrette.

  How to accomplish it? She had scarcely spoken to any strange gentlemen outside of her wedding day, which seemed more dream than real. She had no idea how to seek him out, or where to begin if she found him.

  As she turned this way and that, she was unaware of herself as a thin figure in the plain white muslin she had worn for her wedding, a wraith in the midst of the glittering crowd dressed in rich silks and velvets, or the martial splendor of dress uniforms.

  Captain Duncannon, looking over the heads of the crowd, spied her there alone on the terrace. He had not been able to recollect much past her tear-blotched brown face, but he recognized that rumpled white gown, and the untidy braids with curling wisps escaping from them.

  She spotted him as he emerged from the crowd, taller than she had remembered, his countenance far more forbidding.

  “Good evening, Captain Duncannon,” she said, dropping a schoolgirl’s curtsey, and blushing.

  “Good evening—” The word Signorina formed itself on his lips, but he forced himself to say, “Mrs. Duncannon,” as he took her hand and kissed the air above the tops of her fingers. “I trust I see you well?”

  She reddened the more when he saluted her hand, then gazed up at him doubtfully, the hesitation before the words ‘Mrs. Duncannon’ not having gone unnoticed.

  He returned her gaze, puzzled how to begin. Aboard his own ship, he had rehearsed the most expeditious method of reaching an understanding about the annulment. But presented with those wide, questioning eyes, he was forcefully reminded of his sisters, and the words dried up.

  She made an effort to be polite and hospitable. “Are you pleased with the music?”

  His relief showed as he grasped at this straw. “Very fine entertainment this evening. Is the song we just heard from a new opera?”

  “It is a cantata that Signor Paisiello wrote for this occasion.” Anna was quite proud of her singing, and longed to ask if he had liked her voice, but modesty was the first rule of deference. This intimidating stranger whose name she now shared had yet to acknowledge her singing outside of that single reluctant utterance. If only she knew how to go on!

  Her thoughts were echoed by his own; each searched the face of the other in uncertainty.

  Captain Duncannon’s greatest passion was music, a subject of strife during his early years, and one that had earned him a great deal of quizzing once he went to sea. As a result he confined himself to polite nothings about Paisiello’s operas, comparing Nina to Andromaca as he sought for a way to introduce his topic.

  Anna half-listened, having known the maestro’s music since she was small. She was resolving to take her courage in her hands and introduce her chief concern, when he said abruptly, “But music is a subject I can discourse on forever, and I am not to be a bore. I am to understand you are comfortably situated. Is there anything you require?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said thankfully. “I am well, but there is something! That is, if it is not too much trouble. It is my maid, Parrette Duflot, her son Michel, you see, was taken aboard an English ship some while past. I do not quite know how it came about, but I am given to understand that sailors are sometimes . . . that
is…”

  “Impressed?” he asked, dismayed at this utterly unforeseen attack.

  “That is the word. We have been trying ever since to find out where Michel is. He would be about sixteen. Can you find him?”

  Annoyance flooded through the captain, to be instantly suppressed. His first impulse was to resent this girl for saddling him with an obligation before they’d exchanged so much as a hundred words, but hard on that thought came the memory of his own mother, when he was first sent away as a midshipman. At the time he’d been impatient with her tears, her cries of, “But how shall I know if you are alive, Henry, or in need? Letters can take so very long, or become lost!”

  He had to acknowledge that he had brought it upon himself; though his question had the intent of a polite nothing, he had uttered the words.

  And, he reflected, he need not bestir himself in the matter. It was just the sort of business to keep a wag-tongued captain’s clerk busy.

  Duncannon took out his pocketbook and carefully made a note. No sooner had he pocketed it again when he spied those same lieutenants who had interrupted the music with their infernal chatter, now sailing on an intercept course. Long experience with their type caused him to correctly interpret their expressions: they were intent on having some fun, and he was the target.

  He knew he could thank his gabster of a clerk for that. “I shall see to it,” he said to the girl, and bowed. “I cry pardon, but there is someone with whom I must speak.” A few long strides brought him squarely athwart the lieutenants’ line-of-battle.

  Here, he forced the prospective engagement to a standstill, using his superior height and rank to keep them firmly on the topic of the king’s entertainment until at last they took their leave, signaling to one another with a shrug and a lift of brows awareness of their having been thoroughly rompéed.

  They sailed off in search of more congenial entertainment, leaving the captain alone . . . and the young lady was nowhere in sight.

  He cursed under his breath. He had no idea where in this benighted barrack he might locate her, or whom to trust to fetch her. Once again he had been foiled in his design, and the hour was advancing. The tide would not wait.