“And how did Fitzraven enter into this correspondence?” Crowther asked.
Harwood lifted his palms. “I cannot tell you, Mr. Crowther. I heard a story once that the fair Miss Byrne was so moved by correspondence she received from one music lover, it was all her friends could do to prevent her from eloping with the gentleman, sight unseen. I believe he turned out to be the son of a button maker and still in the schoolroom. Perhaps Fitzraven had a similarly convincing epistolary style.”
Crowther frowned. “Did Fitzraven have a talent with the pen?”
Harwood shifted in his seat. “He did, from time to time, send paragraphs to the newspapers in praise of the productions here, or to alert the public of the personages about to appear. Much as your friend Graves did before his sudden change in circumstance.”
“Graves, I believe, was never in the pay of those about whom he wrote,” Harriet said.
“Indeed, Mrs. Westerman,” Harwood replied, studying the ceiling. “To our cost and his own, Graves always insisted on his independence.”
There was a light tap on the door; a servant leaned into the room just far enough to nod at Harwood, then withdrew. “You must excuse me now, however. I am called to see this wondrous duet that closes Act Two. Everyone who has heard it swears it will get half a dozen encores.” Harwood rose, then said as an afterthought, “Come with me. It is a public rehearsal and I shall watch from the King’s Box. I also hear that Mr. Johannes, our master of stage mechanics, has come up with some piece of trickery that will astound me, and you may have sight of the artistes of whom we were just speaking.”
Harriet and Crowther rose with him. As she moved aside to let him lead the way out of the room, Harriet remarked lightly, “I have always been astonished at the marvels the stage can contain. All those descending angels, mountain ranges a man can climb and so on.”
Harwood bowed a little. “It is part of the spectacular-though we have had our failures. Some years ago I was convinced into releasing live birds during one scene. The effect was brief, and the inconvenience considerable. The coronation scene that followed did not benefit from one of the chorus getting a sparrow caught up in her headgear.”
4
Jocasta would not have chosen Salisbury Street as a place to live. Not while there was a dry corner anywhere else in London. The mist never cleared from these alleys that bent toward the broad Thames, and the whole street had that air of miserable decay that comes on any creature or place forced to stay damp the majority of the time.
Walking up to the door of the first house, she rapped once and hard. A pinched-looking face appeared at the window. A second later, the door was opened a crack and a frighteningly thin nose appeared. So narrow was the face behind it that Jocasta felt she was talking to a door wedge.
“Mitchell?” it said in response to Jocasta’s question. “Third house down.” The door snapped shut again and Jocasta thought about spitting bad luck onto the step for bad manners, but decided against. Instead, she had a tap at the door of the third house down, peered into a parlor done up nice enough but empty, and getting no answer or sight of any person, settled herself on the step opposite. Boyo turned twice and burrowed at her feet. Then put his paws over his nose.
Jocasta lifted her head and said with a nod, “True enough, Boyo. Too much river water in the air here. Still, I’ll have no complaints from you. You know sure enough this was all your plan, and I’m just too much of a silly old fool to do anything but listen.”
Then she waited. Through her mind danced a pattern of swords and a clatter of gold.
As they took their places, Harwood called down to a young-looking man at the harpsichord in the pit that he was all attention, then added in a lower tone to his companions, “As we have not the libretto to hand, I shall act as chorus. Mademoiselle’s character is mourning for her lover, played by Mr. Manzerotti, whom she believes lost to her forever. They meet by accident in the rose garden and she sings this aria to him, ‘C’e una rosa.’ It is the sorrow of a woman deeply in love whose love has now been rejected. Mr. Manzerotti tells her it is inevitable and asks for her forgiveness. He continues to do so as she restates her love and incomprehension at his changed heart.” Harwood covered his mouth with a hand and yawned. “He does love her, of course. They are kept apart by Manzerotti’s loyalty to the enemy of Miss Marin’s father. Very tragic and noble. This opera is largely a pasticcio.” He noticed the confused expression on the faces of his guests. “That is to say, it is made up from segments of other operas by a variety of composers, and there are certain arias that performers prefer and of which they make a showcase. We agree to include them in any performance. However, I wished to have at least a couple of original songs, and this is one. Our young composer, Mr. Richard Bywater, went walking all summer in the Highlands, I understand, to gather his ideas, yet they seemed remarkably thin still when he returned. I only hope inspiration has struck finally with considerable force and the performers have the tune down.”
Harriet began to take in the scene as her eyes became used to the darkness of the auditorium; only the stage and pit where the musicians huddled were afforded any light. There were any number of people moving around the shadows, however, though it was still empty by comparison with the heaving and pushing crowds she was used to seeing in the pits and galleries of an opera house. Some scattered ladies and gentlemen had attended the rehearsal as part of their afternoon’s entertainment. She could also see three or four women at work in the boxes, polishing the fittings and neatening the arrangements of chairs. Two men were at the same business of cleaning in the pit, with a lad following them throwing lavender down in loose handfuls on the floor. At the side of the stage another pair of men were at work on one of the hoop chandeliers, filling the little oil lamps and trimming the wicks.
Two figures sat on chairs placed on the right of the stage. The male figure, the great castrato Manzerotti, was unusually tall and slender. He wore a coat of the most startling scarlet, decorated with a profusion of gold braid, and the high heels of his shoes were an electric blue that so engaged the eye, even from this distance, Harriet thought they must be made of lapis lazuli. They seemed to spark up toward her and sting her eyes. The lady sitting next to him, the writer of the warm letters, Miss Marin, wore many folds of dove gray, gathered at the waist and flowing into a remarkably full skirt. It was balanced by the extravagant size of her hat, whose broad sweeping brim must render, Harriet thought, half the world a mystery to her.
These figures now lazily stood and moved to opposite sides of the stage, exchanged words with unseen watchers in the wings, and waited. Mademoiselle Marin noticed them where they were watching and smiled upward. It was a pleasant smile-rather shy, almost apologetic. Harriet found herself returning it, and regretting her promise to Harwood not to have conversation with the singers before the morrow. Then the first note was struck on the harpsichord and the fiddlers, still finishing their own conversations in the pit, took up the theme.
The stage did indeed look very like a rose garden, though Harriet could see no blooms. Patterned panels created a vista that seemed to stretch for half a mile into the distant depths of the stage, ending with a folly perched on a hilltop. Nearer to the singers on either side were clumped patches of deep green foliage, and in the center of the stage a fountain depicted Apollo and Leucothea embracing and pouring over each other’s forms water that flowed from the cups they held above their heads.