15. Chapter 15
‘How many new costumes for this performance?’
Odette tapped them off against her fingers. The opening. The dance. The seduction. Her song. And the ending. ‘Five,’ she replied.
‘You have budget for three.’ Nadine, the costumer, looked up from her notes as she spoke.
‘I want five,’ Odette insisted.
Nadine shrugged. ‘Take it up with von Miller.’
Odette grumbled. ‘Three, then. But I want embroidery and red satin for my song.’
Nadine watched her over the rim of her glasses, her eyes skating down her body from head to toe, measuring, designing, and likely estimating the cost of the request. ‘Beading?’
Odette nodded. ‘Cut glass. For the lights.’
Nadine put down her notes and took up her measure.
Odette shrugged her robe from her shoulders and let it fall, shivering against the chill air in the green room that clung to the bare skin between her stockings and her chemise.
Nadine had brought a case of different types of fabrics and trims and had also pulled out a selection of older costumes from her stores in case they could be altered.
Velvets, silks, and satins, lace and cord trim sat in rich piles of scarlet, emerald, and burgundy spilling from trunks and onto the floor.
Nadine wrapped the tape measure around Odette’s waist. ‘Red satin is a statement. Who are you hoping to impress?’
‘No one. I do not even know who has reserved a box.’
‘Knowing the detail helps me with the style. If they’re watching from stage left or right, or just from the crowd. Position is everything.’
‘The conductor’s podium.’
Nadine paused in her measuring. ‘You don’t have to try to impress him. I expect to be measuring you for a white gown within a year. If you put him out of his misery and say yes, that is.’
Odette shook her chemise to release a sudden rush of heat. ‘Cassius is hardly in a misery over me.’
But her body and her mind were in a furore over him.
Needs.
That was all. He’d made it clear.
Needs.
But for her? The brief rutting against the wall had thrown her far more off-kilter than the episode in the pit.
And after opening night, he would be leaving, and then there wouldn’t be a single man who could see to her needs because she desired only one.
Her body had distilled the moment into an entire aria of longing, into an aching need for him and him alone.
A need to expose her skin for his kisses, to widen for his thrusts, to tighten around him and hold back her climax so she could release it with his, to coax him into whispering small endearments in that glorious moment when his walls crumbled. A need for Cassius.
And there was only one way to rid herself of it.
‘Can you pin the hems a little higher?’ she asked. ‘An inch or even two?’
Between now and opening night, she would have him. Reset the balance. Satisfy herself properly so that she could banish him from her thoughts before he left and filled his days with the young and beautiful of Vienna.
Across the room, Freya and Sidonie were chatting while they tugged a length of fabric from one of the crates. Sidonie held the bolt against Freya’s cheek. Freya was wearing the same pink dress she’d worn to piano rehearsal, and on a handful of other days since.
‘What do you know of my understudy?’ Odette asked. ‘Little Freya?’
Nadine raised a brow. ‘Not like you to be worried.’
‘I am not worried. Not in that way.’
‘Wouldn’t think badly of you if you were.’
Odette traded a meaningful look with Nadine.
Stagehands knew everything about ropes and acoustics, but costumers were the best source for information about the choir, the dancers, and the cast. They spent hours with the performers when their guards were down, when emotions ran high, when dreams soared to their most ambitious heights.
If the understudy was intent on making life difficult for Odette, Nadine would know. ‘Go on.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ Nadine said, as she measured Odette’s hips.
‘Very.’
‘And she sings well. As good as you.’
‘I would want no less from my understudy,’ Odette replied.
‘Quite a bit younger. And na?ve.’
‘Most of the choir are.’
‘Young or na?ve?’
‘Both.’
‘Not often that a young singer is all those things.’
‘I was,’ Odette said.
‘You were not na?ve.’
An unspoken understanding passed between her and Nadine.
They had both been in the theatre a long time, and for all of Odette’s dismissals, a soprano like Freya could easily be the type of woman to steal headlines from herself.
It had happened before, but the momentum had always fizzled out when the singer could not cope with the pressure, or when Odette had reclaimed the public’s attention with another show or a more brazen part.
But she was no longer twenty-two, not even thirty-two.
The day would come when a singer would maintain a sure enough foothold to nudge Odette out of the way, just as she had done to others when she’d arrived in London.
But without protection, even in the form of her own confidence, a singer like Freya would also be vulnerable.
Karl had no sordid interest in his performers, but not all managers were like him.
Besides leering managers, there were the well-known baritones and tenors who knew how to single out the young and vulnerable and tempt them with empty promises of starring roles that were quickly forgotten.
And all of that was before the singers stepped onto the stage.
If Freya caught the light, even for a moment, a slew of admirers would swiftly profess their devotion to dazzle her, followed by the more suave and beguiling men with power who saw a young star as a conquest to use and discard.
In her own early days, the memory of Babcia had kept Odette grounded, and her friendships with Jonah and Albert had provided her with the necessary gossip to tread a safer path until she learnt how to protect herself.
Did young Freya have anyone who could offer her such kindness?
Odette could, she knew it. But to do so?
To take the girl under her wing? That was not a simple proposition.
Once, Odette had sworn that she would never become like the more established women of the stage who had hidden her petticoats and shoes or tipped her rouge and powders into the privy.
She’d promised herself that she would never maliciously smother anyone’s chance.
She’d been determined to be friends with all the young singers.
But friendships had become fraught with jealousy, failures had turned to accusations, and when an understudy she’d worked closely with to help improve her projection had tried to trip her with a broomstick as she was racing downstairs to change, Odette decided she could not protect anyone if she did not protect herself.
‘She has a tiny waist,’ Nadine said. ‘She’s hungry.’
‘For the stage? Or in her belly?’
‘With the young singers, is there a difference?’
Across the room, Freya scrunched her skirts, then laughed as she looked at Sidonie, who sat chatting and calm while waiting for her turn to be measured.
Sidonie, a contralto and seasoned performer, had recently married a Parisian bank clerk, and the man could not believe his good fortune in securing the affections of a woman of the stage.
He adored her and was travelling from Paris for opening night.
Sidonie had ambitions, but they were different.
She worked for love and money, but she was not hungry. Not in the way Nadine meant.
The tape whizzed against the cotton of Odette’s chemise as Nadine whipped it away.
‘Done. Next!’ Nadine called, pointing at Sidonie, who dutifully leapt from her seat and crossed the room.
Odette pulled her robe on and tied it. Freya, now alone, caught Odette’s look, then cast her gaze to the floor.
She buried her hands in her pink skirts, tickling at the fabric.
A dress too good for theatre rehearsals. It reeked of both love and desperation.
Odette hunted through Nadine’s box of trims and lace until she found a long length of peach-coloured ribbon. She pulled it from the assortment with a swishing sound, then rolled it around her fingers as she strode through the room to stop before Freya, right beside a polished, silver-backed mirror.
‘Who picked this dress for you?’ Odette asked. ‘Your mother?’
Freya shook her head. ‘No. She… I mean, I don’t have… I chose it myself.’
No mother, then. That explained the hair. ‘That pink,’ Odette said, ‘is common. Take this.’ She held out the ribbon. ‘It is a better colour for you.’
‘The tailor said it was the most popular shade of the season.’ Freya grasped the ribbon, her voice a blend of apology and fire. That was a start. She would need the fire if she was to last for more than a summer.
‘Which means it is worn by every second woman in London looking for a husband. Are you looking for a husband?’
‘Maybe. Perhaps, one day.’
‘You can only have one. The theatre or a husband. Pick one,’ Odette demanded.
‘The theatre,’ Freya said, perhaps a little louder than she needed to, but emphatic and fast. ‘I mean, I love the theatre. I love the stage. More than anything.’
Odette beckoned the girl forwards. Freya pushed herself up, and Odette took her hands to pull her closer, then spun her so that she faced the mirror.
‘This dress,’ Odette said, ‘needs a corset.’
‘Yes,’ Freya agreed, with a nod.
‘You are playing a peasant girl. Both as Lisette and perhaps as Marietta.’
‘I… I am.’
‘Is that how you want Nadine to measure you? To fit your clothes? To show your shape, your features, your body? Does your peasant girl wear a corset?’
Freya’s eyes widened, and she mouthed a word that looked like corset to her reflection. ‘Yes. I mean, no. I mean…’ She gazed at Odette in the mirror, imploringly. ‘Does she?’
‘My Marietta is not yours. You want a career? To survive? You need to learn how to write your own stories for the lives you live onstage.’
Freya fidgeted, drawing circles on the inside of her palm with the opposite thumb, occasionally meeting Odette’s gaze before looking away.
‘My… my Marietta does wear a corset. It makes her feel secure. It’s familiar. But it… it binds her, too.’
Odette spun Freya towards her so they stood toe to toe and eye to eye. ‘Next time, do better with your characters, even those you only have as an understudy. I will not have people come to my opera and be sad that I wasn’t there. Understand?’
‘Done!’ Nadine called. ‘Next!’
Freya threw a look over her shoulder as she darted away to take her place before Nadine.
Nadine grumbled, and the two women worked at the buttons of Freyas dress.
Well, that was done. The young soprano could take the advice Odette had offered or decide she knew better and throw it away.
She could draw on her courage and come to Odette’s door, but she could also walk past if she preferred to make her own way.
And if she was seeking a soft touch or a woman to replace the mother she’d lost, she now knew she would not find it in Odette.
‘Arms!’ Nadine barked, and Freya extended them over her head.
As the tape measure whipped around Freya’s midsection, the damn ringing started in Odette’s ears once more.
Too loud, too harsh. She pressed her hands to the sides of her head as the hum smothered everything, resounded everywhere.
Nadine asked a question that Odette could see but not hear, and Freya pursed her lips, then peered at her. ‘…iss Delaney? Are you well?’
The sound faded, then disappeared.
‘I am well. Worry about your shoes, not me.’ And without a look at their questioning faces, Odette escaped from the room, only to collapse against the wall in the shadow between the green room and the hallway, muttering curses to the pills that offered no relief.
This would not do.
She told Karl she had a business meeting and would arrive late for rehearsals.
She told her neighbours and business partners that she could not attend the weekly Tuesday meeting for Spencer and Co. because she had rehearsals.
And she told the doctor that if he was fast and discreet, he would be paid well. If he chose otherwise, Daniel would see him to the bottom of the Thames.
The doctor agreed gruffly, as if silence had been his accomplice many times before.
He inspected her ear without the aid of an otoscope and jabbed a finger into the shell so unexpectedly she flinched.
Then he sat down opposite her, flipping a few pages of a large book on his desk.
He licked his finger—not just the pad, but the entire length from joint to tip—and turned a page.
A bank note and a small stack of sovereigns sat on the table where she’d placed them as advance payment for his opinion and his silence.
‘I can cure you,’ he said, then closed the book with a thump.
All the tightness, all the worry that had clogged her senses evaporated. Finally, an answer. Finally, a cure.
‘Thank you, doctor. I was assured that there was no way, even with the most advanced of modern techniques. I had lost all hope.’
He walked to a cupboard with open shelves.
With his back to her, he pulled a bowl from a shelf above his head, then a few other things she could not see from her seat.
He crossed to her and dropped the bowl to the ground with a clunk.
A length of fabric fluttered to the floor, and a short metal lancet clattered against the enamel.
‘Modern medicine,’ the doctor grumbled. He nudged the bowl with his foot, closer to the chair leg. ‘Show me your elbow.’
Odette unbuttoned her sleeve, then rolled it up.
The doctor grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm so that the soft skin faced out.
He took the length of fabric and tied it around her biceps, and she bit her lip as the skin pinched.
With the back of his hand, he tapped at the place where her arm bent, then pressed the point of the lancet to the same spot until it cut.
Odette hissed as a dark red trickle of blood ran down her forearm to collect in the bowl.
‘A good bleeding fixes most things,’ the doctor said. ‘Doctors now are far too reluctant. One upstart writes an article, and hundreds of years of observation and instinct are discarded.’
Odette dared a look, not at her arm, which she knew she would not be able to manage, but at the doctor. He was squinting down at the bowl, tipping it as he examined its contents. ‘Fair colour. Nice opacity. Slow to clot, which is interesting—’
‘The hum is still there. When will it go?’ she asked.
‘You need at least three more sessions.’ As he tilted the bowl, his brows drew together, but then he threw a quick glance to the table and the coins stacked there. He turned his attention back to her blood and swirled the bowl again. ‘Maybe even four.’