Ibbotson, Eva - Magic Flutes

‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘Oh yes.’ A hand was pressed against the diamonds at her throat as though to hold back the emotion which otherwise might have choked her.

‘I think we should go backstage now and congratulate them. It’s quite a long interval and you haven’t met Witzler yet, have you? We won’t stay long, but I’d like to say a few words.’

Nerine smiled. ‘You go, my dear. They will want to see you. But I need a few moments . . . quite alone.’

‘Are you sure?’ Guy looked at her tenderly. ‘I can easily wait.’

‘I’m sure.’

She waited until Guy had left the box before gathering up her skirts and running to the powder room. It had been an anxious moment. The theatre was warm and she was almost certain that a drop of perspiration had run down her throat. She had felt her hair go limp, too, just at that part where all those priests were marching about. And if the neck of her dress had moved even a fraction, it would have revealed the remnants of the mosquito bite. She had instructed Pooley to wait for her and, yes, there she was.

‘Hurry, girl!’ ordered Nerine. ‘That ringlet’s not right. And I’ll want fresh powder on my shoulders . . . and lots here on that wretched bite . . .’

‘Wait!’ The peremptory voice halted Tessa, already through the baize-lined door and into the corridor which led backstage.

She turned, saw Guy, and without thought or volition ran like a child into his arms.

‘Oh, wasn’t it marvellous? Wasn’t it beyond belief! You must be so proud, ’ she said, her head against his chest.

‘Proud? I? It’s you who have to be proud. I’ve never heard anything like it, Tessa. Never in my life.’

‘I know.’ She lifted her face to his, rubbed her eyes with a small fist. ‘Isn’t it stupid to want to cry because one is so glad and glad and glad to be alive!’

If Guy had let her go then, while they were just two people united in homage to something that was greater than them both, all would have been well. But Guy did her an injury. He went on holding her, made no movement to loosen his arm or draw away – did not appear, in fact, to have understood that she was a being separate from himself.

His foolishness lasted only a few moments before he did, after all, collect himself and let her go. But those few moments were to cost Tessa dear.

Witzler, when Guy reached him, tried desperately to maintain the pessimism and gloom his race demanded. ‘This act wasn’t too bad,’ he admitted, ‘but who knows what may happen in the last one? There is Sarastro’s larghetto and the cyclorama for the fire and water scene . . . Oh, many things can go wrong still – many, many things!’

But his eyes, as he shook hands with Guy, shone with an unquenchable happiness. One perfect act, at least, thought Witzler. They cannot take that away from me. One act behind which I can stand when I get up there and meet him.’ And ‘him’ – it is often so with those who practise music – was Wolfgang Amadeus, not God.

But nothing was taken from Witzler that night. Guy returned to find Nerine already seated, her profile tilted attentively to the stage. Klasky entered, the curtain rose, and the enchantment of this performance – which was to become an operatic legend – held. The slow march for the priests unfolded with an awe-inspiring majesty; Herr Springer, sober for the first time in months, played his flute solo like an archangel. Sarastro’s sublime ‘In diesen heil’gen Hallen’ had the Uhlan captain vowing to foreswear roulette and the Archduchess Frederica wishing she had not bullied the pearls out of her late husband’s niece. Raisa sang her G minor lament, ‘Ach Ich füls! with a despairingly, unearthly grief and the orchestra consoled her in a postlude of heavenly tenderness.

The thunder thundered, the lightning flashed, the ‘star-flaming Queen’ re-entered, and traditional disaster after disaster was avoided as trap-doors opened as smoothly as silk and costume changes lasting two minutes were effortlessly accomplished. The dreadful old crone who had appeared to Papageno was transformed into an adorable young girl and then – the very heart of the opera now – the lovers, united again, faced and overcame their ordeals. And with a last, exultant chorus – Mozart standing up to be counted in E-flat major – the opera ended.

It was now that the audience paid their greatest tribute. For the curtain did not fall on a burst of applause. As Klasky dropped his head in weariness over the score, there fell over the entire theatre a total stillness. In that solemn and magical hush, the spectators took hold of their departed souls and admitted them once more into their bodies.

It was in that moment of utter silence before the applause which would presently raise the roof, that Guy turned to the woman for whom this miracle had been wrought.

She sat with her dark head leaning against the blue silk draperies of the lôge. One lovely arm lay relaxed and still on the arm of the gilt chair, the hand with the great diamond hanging free. The marvellous eyes were sealed by luxuriant, dusky lashes; her bosom rose and fell, softly, rhythmically. Her breathing was steady, but every now and then a small, incongruous and not entirely pleasant snuffling noise came from between her parted lips.

Guy leaned forward, suddenly anxious. Had she been overcome? Had she fainted?

But, no. There was no cause for alarm and certainly none for the black despair which now overwhelmed him. Naturally and – but for the small snores she emitted – gracefully, Nerine Hurlingham lay deep in sleep.

12

Refreshments and champagne had been laid out in the great hall for the cast and those who cared to join them. However when they had eaten and – more particularly – drunk, they were inclined to wander back to the theatre where they felt at home and, carrying bottles and glasses, to come to rest amongst the scenery – lolling contentedly against pieces of temple, sprawling across pillars.

Everyone was exhausted, tipsy and for these few hours completely happy. For their triumph was as tangible, as unmistakable, as a seam of gold in a rock face, or as the discovery of a new planet, or the act of love. Tomorrow there would be tensions and rivalries again – and hard work as they struck the set and prepared for the journey back to Vienna. But tonight belonged to the gods and even Jacob who never paused, paused now. Even Jacob who never praised, now praised.

‘No, no, Savachka!’ said Raisa firmly. She removed the Archduke’s glass and handed him her large, scuffed and overflowing shoe. ‘It is from zis zat you must drink champagne!’

‘Ah, if only Mama could have been here tonight,’ sighed Pino, his arm around the Middle Heidi. ‘How that woman loved me!’

‘It came quite suddenly you see, this terrible twang – and then I fell and all I remember is my silver tail rolling, rolling away over the footlights before everything went black!’ declared the Rhinemaiden, recounting her historic mishap to the sympathetic David Tremayne.

But again and again they returned to the performance, recalling its felicities like people telling their beads so that they would not forget this night.

To the happiness and contentment pervading the party there was a notable exception: Prince Maximilian of Spittau, scrambling frantically over pieces of scenery and looking for his love.

For Tessa, Maxi could not help feeling, had behaved most shabbily. Not only had she rushed backstage during the interval, but as soon as the applause started after curtain down she had shot off again, declaring that she had to help clear up. And since then he had seen no sign of her.

But he was going to find her. He was going to find her and bring this proposing business to a head if it took all night. Enough was enough. Now, his glass clutched in his hand, he stumbled over entwined couples, fell over Raisa’s dachshund and enquired with increasing desperation for the Princess of Pfaffenstein.