Read Online Last Act by Jane Aiken Hodge - Free Book Online Page B

in Lissenberg? What will they say if a foreigner gets yet another part? Our great local opera, and hardly a Lissenberger in it. And who is this unknown singer? Can she sing? Has she proved it anywhere?” She burst at this point into fluent, furious and entirely incomprehensible Liss.
    It was obvious that it was Anne’s own presumed character, antecedents and capacities that were being so vividly described, and it was restful not to understand a word of it. At last, after a quick check that her lipstick was back on and her short hair just curly from its wetting, Anne stood up. “Were you, perhaps, talking about me?” She let her deep voice make the most of the hall’s admirable acoustics as she moved slowly forward towards the stage, and felt a little hush among the people seated in the twilit auditorium.
    â€œYes!” Carl Meyer came over to meet her on the flight of steps at the right hand side of the stage. “Signor Falinieri,” he said as he helped her up onto the stage. “May I present Miss Paget, who has gallantly agreed to come to our rescue.”
    â€œBut can she do it?” Ignoring Fräulein Moser, Falinieri surveyed Anne without enthusiasm. “You know the part?” he asked.
    â€œNot a word of it!” It was marvellous to be onstage again. “But it’s my register and I’m a quick learner. Besides, just to understudy an understudy.” She turned to Lotte Moser. “It’s just the pleasure of singing it,” she tried to explain.
    â€œPleasure!” spat Lotte. “If that’s your idea of pleasure, you’re welcome!” She had been singing from a score and now thrust it angrily into Anne’s hands, then turned back to Carl Meyer. “They’ve offered me a job at the hotel,” she said. “Two spots a night. I told them I’d have to think it over. Well! I’ve thought! I’d rather sing in a beer cellar than be shouted at by that bastard son of an Italian-American Jew.”
    â€œThat will do,” said Carl Meyer. “You’re fired, Fräuelin Moser. Signor Falinieri, I apologise.”
    â€œNo need, I think, as between you and me. But perhaps we had better hear this understudy of yours before we decide just how much trouble we are in. The speaking voice is perfect, I admit, but what does that prove? If you don’t know Marcus,Miss Paget, what can you sing for us?”
    â€œOrpheus’ first lament,” suggested Meyer, moving over to the piano where the accompanist had sat all the time, looking miserable on his stool. “You know it, Kurt?”
    â€œNot well, I regret.” He spread apologetic hands.
    â€œNo matter. I do.” Carl sat down and played a few introductory notes as Anne moved forward to the centre of the stage. To sing, here on a stage, where she belonged, was to be alive again, and, singing, it was easy to ignore the slow, threatening bite of pain. Carried by the full tide of the music, she went straight on from Orpheus’ lament for Euridice to his passionate cry for reunion or death, and, silent at last, almost expected to hear the dramatic intervention of Amor, the God of Love, who would make all right. Instead, there was a little, breathing hush, and then a sudden burst of clapping from the back of the hall.
    â€œ
Brava,
” cried a new voice, and silence fell again as a tall man moved forward out of the shadows, vaulted lightly onto the stage and stood revealed as considerably older than his movements had suggested. Grey hair, a Hapsburg-type nose, an unmistakable air of command. Even if she had not seen Carl jump to his feet and join the others in something between a bob and a full bow Anne thought she would have recognised the Hereditary Prince, Heinz Rudolf.
    Curtseying is difficult in a straight skirt, but she did her best, only to be gallantly raised and to find her hand kissed by dry aristocratic elderly lips. “No, no,” said the