Escapade, page 7
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘How much, Herr von Achen?’
When they had settled that, he smiled for the first time. Now the pleasure begins.’ In German: ‘Shall we discuss life, fräulein, or literature, or the pursuit of happiness? I do not entirely recommend talking about the state of affairs here in Sicily.’
‘No, that was a — How do you say rash suggestion?’
After a stimulating hour of general talk, Charlotte rang for the promised refreshments. ‘Now,’ smiling at him, ‘I wish you will tell me how you come to be starving here in Palermo, Herr von Achen.’
‘Oh, it is easy for a younger son to find himself starving.’ For a moment she thought he was going to put her off with this, but then he smiled again, looking younger still. ‘Shall I tell you the story of my life, and will you stop me when you do not understand? Good.’ He accepted the glass of wine she had poured for him, and the cake she offered, nibbled and slowly sipped. ‘My family’s estates were in Poland, fräulein, Eastern Poland. We owned miles and miles of open steppes, thousands of serfs. It was then, when we were something in the world, that one of my aunts married into the Villermosa family. No wonder if they are not so happy to have her impoverished nephew on their hands now. Though, mind you, I can only be grateful to them.’ With a warm look. ‘Anyway, we lost everything — almost everything — at the iniquitous Polish partition of 1793. Oh, if my father had been prepared to crawl before the Empress Catherine, he might have saved something. He preferred to go into exile; move into a small estate in the Rhineland that had come into the family by marriage. Do I need to tell you the end of the story?’
‘I am afraid you do.’
‘I shall teach you history, as well as German.’ She had in fact had to stop him several times, to make him slow down, or to ask him the meaning of a word. ‘Perhaps you should pay me double.’ It was a joke. They exchanged a friendly smile. ‘When Napoleon’s armies swept through the Rhineland, my father bowed his head to the storm. Two of my older brothers were conscripted and killed in the Austrian army. That leaves four of us, and two sisters. All to be supported from our small property. I was meant for the Church, the fate of youngest sons, but our occupying masters thought otherwise. I was to be drafted, fräulein, into the French army. The army that had killed my brothers. Intolerable. My mother smuggled me out by the back way while my father kept the recruiting officer in talk over his wine. I went to Vienna; we have cousins there too.
‘It seems to me that you are all cousins, here in Europe.’
‘It is something that needs always to be borne in mind. I joined the Austrian army, of course.’ He had quietly eaten several of the little cakes as he talked, and Charlotte wished she had felt able to order something more substantial. ‘But a devil of a wound I got at Austerlitz put paid to that, and I have been scraping for expedients ever since. My father paid for my escape by losing his estates under the reorganisation at the Treaty of Paris. No help there. Vienna is full of useless men scraping for a living. I fought at the barricades in the year nine, and that did me no good either when the French took over the city. In fact, it is why I am here now.’
‘Oh?’ She poured him more wine.
‘I speak good French,’ he explained, ‘having grown up in the Rhineland. They all speak it in Vienna, of course, but you should hear their accents. When Napoleon proposed for the hand of the Archduchess Marie Louise, and her father made her take him, they wanted someone to polish her French a bit. I was the lucky man. I thought my fortune was made. A nice girl: kind, frightened. I was sorry for her; she was sorry for me; we got on. When it came time to go, she was scared, do you wonder? Asked her father if she could take me along in case she ever needed an interpreter. The Emperor Francis would have said yes to anything, just then. So — a whole new outfit to make me fit to appear in Napoleon’s overdressed parvenu court, and off we all went.’ He stopped; ate another cake.
‘What happened?’
‘A splendid journey, at first.’ He paused, looking back on it. ‘Fêted like the saviours of the civilised world at Melk. And next day, when we got to the frontier, there was Napoleon’s sister Caroline, I’ll never forgive her, all smiles and embraces for her new sister-in-law. And explaining that everything and every person Austrian was to be put away now. They re-dressed the Archduchess in French clothes, straight from Paris, they sent away her ladies-in-waiting. And they sent me away with a flea in my ear. They knew about the barricades, do you see? They know everything, those French devils. Don’t ever forget that, fräulein. Fouché has the best secret police in Europe.’
* * *
Signor Bartolucci had made a box at the theatre available to them, and they went to see Haydn’s Fedelta Premiata that night so that Beth could get the feel of things. ‘I imagine it will be just the same as London,’ she told Charlotte. ‘More conversation than listening, and the gentlemen moving about all the time, from box to box. Mr. Forde comes with us, and I was wondering whether to ask Mr. Peabody.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Charlotte. ‘Safety in numbers, you know. But he will probably be with the Falconis; I know they are to be there.’
But Peabody expressed himself as delighted to accompany them, and they were a cheerful little party as they drove through the warm sweet-scented night to the opera house. The streets were full of people, aristocrats in their carriages, the rest of the world on foot, buying oranges and ices from movable stalls.
‘They seem a cheerful enough lot,’ said Forde, as the carriage moved slowly through the chattering crowds.
‘Not exactly a hotbed of revolution, it seems to me,’ agreed Peabody, watching a man buying oranges for his children.
It got him a sharp look from Forde. ‘What in the world makes you say that, Mr. Peabody?’
‘Oh, just something someone said to me. They were talking about Paris in ‘89, how you felt the tension in the streets. I certainly don’t feel anything here.’
‘I should rather think not.’ They were talking English, of course, but Forde had an anxious glance for the driver in front and the footman up behind. ‘Not just the subject for public conversation, Peabody, if I may say so. And particularly not with ladies present.’
‘For fear it offends our sensitive ears?’ asked Beth.
‘No, Miss Prior, for fear it puts you in danger.’ But the carriage was drawing up outside the brilliantly illuminated opera house and they were able to let the subject drop.
It had taken them longer than they expected to get through the crowded streets and the house was already full, and the orchestra tuning up, when they entered their red plush box. ‘Signor Bartolucci has done well by you,’ Forde held a gilt chair for Beth.
‘Yes, a good view of both stage and audience. Hard to tell which is the more important.’ She was looking along the row of crowded boxes. ‘There is Lady William. So she didn’t go to Messina with her husband. Ah.’ With concealed relief, as Lady William saw their party, smiled and bowed. ‘The Queen’s not here.’ She recognised the Duke and Duchess of Orleans in the Royal Box, where they must have arrived early to avoid ceremony. ‘Odd to think we shall soon know most of these people.’ She hushed as the overture began.
‘I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn back there,’ Peabody said quietly to Forde under cover of the outburst of applause at the end of the short overture. ‘But things I have been hearing have made me a little anxious about our two delightful companions. This place seems a tinderbox to me. And you British perhaps not quite so popular as you were? It’s always hard for an occupying army to be loved, and your men do seem to behave as if they owned the place.’
‘Hush,’ said Beth as the curtain rose.
When it fell again, to resounding applause, Forde excused himself and made his way to the Bentincks’ box, where he had been glad to see the Consul, Fagan. He found Lady William doing her best not to be shocked by the low-cut dresses and light flirtations all around her. She was known as something of an Evangelical, he remembered.
‘You have not left your two young ladies alone, I hope, Mr. Forde?’ was her first question. ‘Things seem to go on with a good deal of ease here in Palermo, and I would not wish that delightful young Miss Pennam to have any kind of awkward experience.’
‘No, I left Nathan Peabody with them.’ He was grateful to her for asking.
‘That young American.’ Fagan took him up on it. ‘What do you know about him, Forde?’
Not much, except that he came gallantly to the ladies’ rescue on the quay the other day. And he is a relative of the Falconis.’
‘A very right-minded young couple.’ Fagan approved of the Falconis. ‘And cousins to Belmonte, another of our friends. As Peabody is to them. But did you know that he came here by way of Naples?’
‘Yes, to look at the antiquities. The advantage of being a neutral American.’
‘While they stay that way,’ said Fagan darkly. ‘But that’s another story. The thing is, I had a report from Naples today.’ It was an open secret that spies plied constantly to and fro across the narrow strait between Sicily and Italy. ‘Peabody did indeed visit the ruins — Pompeii and Paestum and all that. But he was feted by the Murats too. And cut quite a swathe in Neapolitan society.’
‘Which he is now doing here.’ Forde could see the young man prominent among the little crowd around Beth and Charlotte. ‘As I say, the advantage of being neutral. And the son of a rich father.’
‘That, too,’ agreed Fagan. ‘I had enquiries made. He’s the only son, and his father in a very thriving way indeed, what with whaling and the eastern trade. I’m surprised his father let him off the leash to come gallivanting here to Europe.’
When he returned to Beth’s box, Forde found Falconi there, joining with Peabody in urging the two ladies to consider a party of pleasure to look at the ruins at Segesta. ‘My wife longs to go.’ He turned to appeal to Forde. ‘We have often discussed it, but she has never been able to find a female friend intrepid enough to go with her. Or if she has,’ with a smile, ‘her parents have forbidden it. But if we all went,’ his glance included Peabody and Forde, ‘there could be no possible objection. And it would give the ladies a chance to see something of our Sicilian countryside. It would be a pity to come here and see nothing but the streets of Palermo. You go by way of Monreale,’ he explained. ‘The road is good to there. We could start in the cool of the evening; I have a friend in Monreale who will lend us his house. A look at the magnificent Norman-cathedral either evening or morning, and an easy day will take us to Alcamo, where a tenant of mine will put us up. From there, it is merely a morning ride to Segesta. Do say you will all come.’
‘Do let us!’ Charlotte was eager, but Forde thought Beth looked doubtful, as well she might.
‘We must talk more about it.’ He was relieved that the signal for the next act sent Falconi back to his own box.
‘It’s not just the proprieties.’ He was escorting Beth to the carriage after the opera. ‘It’s the danger. I noticed young Falconi said nothing about the bandits who are supposed to lurk everywhere in the hills.’
‘Oh, I think he feels himself safe from them,’ said Beth. ‘It’s his own country, you know. The Sicilians’ sense of honour would protect us. Charlotte longs to go, and I confess I should rather like to. It would be an adventure! One has so few of those, as a woman.’
‘We must think more about it.’ They had reached the carriage.
It was nearly midnight, but the streets were as thronged as ever as they drove down for the evening concourse on the Marino.
‘Does nobody ever go to bed here?’ asked Charlotte.
‘I’m not sure how many of them have beds to go to.’ Peabody threw some small coins to a beggar who had put up appealing hands as the carriage paused in a traffic jam in front of the Porta Felice. ‘There is terrible poverty here in Palermo, Miss Pennam. Falconi warned me never to leave the main streets after dark. The narrow byways are full of perils, and I hope you and Miss Prior will never think of venturing out, even in daylight, by yourselves. I know Palermo presents a smiling face to the world, but it is not one I would trust for a moment. Now in New Bedford, one could carry a bag of gold safe through the streets at midnight.’
‘If it was not too cold to be out,’ suggested Forde. ‘No wonder if the Sicilians live out of doors, with their delightful climate.’
‘We’ve not had a taste of the sirocco yet,’ warned Peabody. ‘My cousins say everything stops when it blows. And it is likely to hit us any time now, they say. That’s why I would like to get our plans made for Segesta as fast as possible.’
‘We must talk more about it in the morning,’ said Forde.
* * *
He visited Fagan early next morning to tell him about the plan. ‘It seems a hare-brained enough scheme to me,’ he said. ‘But Peabody has talked the two ladies into great enthusiasm for it.’
‘I do find myself wondering why.’
‘Just so.’
‘Then perhaps you should go, in the hope of finding out. Leave it to me to make sure no harm comes to the young ladies.’
6
Beth was surprised by a summons to the palace next day. She and Charlotte were giving Robert Fagan a preliminary sitting for their joint portrait when the message came.
‘Goodness.’ She read the note, looked at Fagan. ‘A royal summons. A carriage is coming for me at six; I’m to go alone.’ ‘Alone?’ He did not like it any more than she did.
‘The Queen sends a lady-in-waiting,’ Beth told him. ‘I suppose that makes it all right?’
‘I think so.’ Looking at the watch on his fob. ‘I shall be much interested to hear what her majesty has to say, Miss Prior, and so, I am sure, will Mr. Forde. We will see you at. the theatre tonight, I hope?’
‘Yes, indeed. We are looking forward to Lodoiska. When does Lord Bentinck return?’
‘I don’t rightly know, but he said he would be gone for as short a time as possible. We shall all feel safer when he gets back.’
‘That’s the way I feel.’ Like him or not, and she was not quite sure about this, she felt Bentinck could be counted on for firm action in a crisis. But what was there critical or threatening about a summons to the palace? It was just surprising, that was all.
Flora Cottone, the lady-in-waiting, was fading into her thirties, and fluent in English. ‘My uncle, the Prince Castelnuovo insists it is the language of the future,’ she told Beth. ‘We are all to forget our French and learn English. Will you please to tell me if I say anything that is not quite right?’
‘I shall be glad to.’ Beth was beginning to feel that she had been absurd to be alarmed.
‘And, please, you will try and reassure our poor Queen, signora? Nobody understands what she suffers! An old woman; seventeen times a mother; and now she must fight for her life, and for the future of our country. All alone. No one to turn to. No one to trust. I am trusting you, signora, when I tell you this. But I want you to understand, when you see the state she is in. It is these cruel men who have brought her to it. Your Lord Bentinck with his insulting messages! It is not the first time she has been threatened by you British, signora, as you must know as well as I do. If she talks somewhat wildly, remember, she has cause. She hopes great things of you: I do beg you, for all our sakes, try not to disappoint her; leave her some hope? Or she might be pushed to do something desperate. But here we are.’ The carriage had drawn up at an inconspicuous side entrance to the palace. ‘Her majesty will see you alone, quite informally. I will be waiting to take you home. I do beg you, give her some comfort.’ She put a hand on Beth’s. ‘The doctors fear for her reason,’ she whispered.
Ushered to the same room as before, Beth found Maria Carolina at her desk, frantically scribbling at a letter.
‘Miss Prior!’ The grey-white hair was dishevelled today as if she had been running her hand through it as she wrote; the contrast between the red and white of her face was more extreme than ever. Beth could see why her doctors were anxious. ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘No ceremony. I am beyond ceremony. They have taken ceremony away from me, turned me into an old woman, fighting for her life, for her future, her children’s. Are you going to help me? Say you will help me.’
‘I will most certainly do my best, your majesty. But what can I do?’
‘A great deal, if you will. You and your young companion are friends of this churlish Lord Bentinck and the toady, Forde, he has brought with him. Make them see reason, Miss Prior! They blame me for everything that is wrong, here in Sicily. Make them listen to me when I tell them about these brutes of Sicilians, who can do no wrong in their eyes, because they talk about parliaments and democracy! Let them just try it! Sometimes I am tempted to give up, to go home to my nephew Francis in Vienna, to let them try and make some sense of this benighted island. Let them try and raise a Sicilian army! Collect Sicilian taxes! Grow Sicilian corn! Sweet talk, they’ll get: sweet, enlightened talk. My Sicilians are good at that. But action! Pah!’ She reached for the glass that stood on her writing table. ‘I have to explain this to them, Miss Prior.’ The drink seemed to steady her. ‘But they refuse to listen, even to come to me. Imagine that! To refuse to attend a Queen who asks to see you. What would my mother, what would Maria Theresa have said, if she had been so affronted? But they do not think of her; they think of my poor sister, of Marie Antoinette who was killed by those French barbarians. What has been done before, they think, can be done again. No wonder if they feel free to insult me. But how can I explain to them if they will not come to me?’
‘But how can I help, your majesty?’ Beth was still standing.
‘Oh, sit down, do, and listen to me. They won’t come to talk business, so they must come for pleasure. They think pleasure is all I understand. All I spend my money on. Well, let them think what they will, so long as it brings them to me, gives me a chance to put my case. So you are going to tell me what kind of entertainment would please Lord Bentinck and that starchy wife of his, and you are going, pray God, to help me put it on for them, and get them to come to it.’ Another pull at the glass. ‘How can I explain to them, if they will not listen?’ Her mind was going round and round on the same desperate track.
