The Storm Sister (The Seven Sisters #2) (32 page)

Rude arrived promptly in the orchestra pit for his nightly mission.

‘Hello, Rude, how are you tonight?’ Jens asked him.

‘I am well, sir. Do you have a note or a message for me to deliver?’

‘Indeed I do. Here.’ He bent down so he could whisper in the boy’s ear. ‘Deliver this to Madame Hansson.’ Jens pressed a coin and a letter into his small and eager
hand.

‘Thank you, sir. I will, sir.’

‘Very good,’ Jens said as Rude made to leave. ‘Oh, by the way, who was that young lady I saw you leaving the stage door with last night as I passed by? Have you a
girlfriend?’ he teased his messenger.

‘She may be the same height as me, but she’s eighteen, sir. And far too old for me at the age of twelve,’ Rude replied seriously. ‘It was Anna Landvik. She’s in the
play.’

‘Really?’ I didn’t recognise her, but then it was dark and I only caught a glimpse of her long red hair.’

‘That is to say, sir, she is
in
the production, but you won’t have seen her on the stage.’ With a deliberately dramatic glance around, Rude beckoned Jens closer so he
could whisper in his ear. ‘She’s Solveig’s voice.’

‘Ah, I see.’ Jens nodded in mock seriousness. The fact that Madame Hansson’s singing was not her own had become the worst-kept secret in the building. But they all had to keep
up the pretence to the outside world.

‘The lady is very pretty, is she not, sir?’

‘Her hair is certainly. For that is all I saw from the back.’

‘Personally, I feel sorry for her. Nobody is allowed to know it is she who sings so well. They have even put her with us in the children’s dressing room. Well,’ Rude said as
the bell rang to indicate the performance would start in five minutes, ‘I will deliver this safely for you.’

Jens pressed another coin into the boy’s palm. ‘Delay Frøken Landvik for me by the stage door tonight, so that I can take a proper look at our mystery singer.’

‘I think I can manage that, sir,’ agreed Rude, who then scurried off like a town rat, well satisfied with tonight’s payment.

‘On the prowl again, are we, Peer?’ Simen, the first violinist, was not as deaf as he seemed and had obviously overheard parts of the conversation. It had become a joke in the
orchestra pit that Jens’ antics with the female members of the company closely resembled those of the play’s eponymous hero.

‘Hardly,’ muttered Jens as Hennum appeared in the pit. His nickname had been amusing at first, but was now wearing extremely thin. ‘You know I am devoted to Madame
Hansson.’

‘Then perhaps I’d had too much port, but I’m sure I saw you walking from Engebret last night with Jorid Skrovset on your arm.’

‘I’m sure it was the port.’ Jens took up his flute as Hennum indicated they were ready to begin.

After the performance that evening, Jens walked through the stage door and hovered near it, waiting for Rude to appear with the mystery girl. Usually, he’d go to Engebret while he waited
for Thora to entertain her admirers in her dressing room and change. She would step into her carriage alone, then pick him up a few yards further down the road, wishing for no one to see them
together.

Jens knew that it was his lowly status as a musician that made her refuse to let him squire her about town. He was starting to feel little better than a common whore who serviced a physical
need, but was not good enough to be seen in public. Which was quite ridiculous, given he came from one of the most respected families in Christiania and was the current heir to the Halvorsen
brewery empire. Thora constantly told him how she’d dined with the great and good of Europe, how Ibsen adored her and how he called her his muse. Jens had put up with her airs and graces so
far because, in the privacy of her bedroom, she quite made up for the humiliation he had to suffer. But now Jens had had enough.

Finally, he saw two figures emerging from the stage door. They stopped for a moment on the threshold, briefly illuminated by the gaslight from the corridor behind as Rude pointed something out
to the young woman. Peering surreptitiously from under his cap, Jens stared at her.

She was a delicate slip of a girl, with lovely blue eyes, a tiny nose and lips as pink as rosebuds set within a small heart-shaped face, her glorious Titian hair falling in waves about her
shoulders. Not normally one to eulogise, Jens felt suddenly close to tears at the sight of her. She was a sheer breath of pure mountain air and made other women seem like primped and painted wooden
dolls.

He stood, as if in a trance, hearing her say a soft ‘goodnight’ to Rude, then float past him before stepping straight into a waiting carriage.

‘Did you see her, sir?’

As Anna’s carriage pulled away, Rude’s sharp eyes had immediately spotted Jens lurking in the shadows. ‘I did my best, but I couldn’t keep her any longer. My
mother’s waiting for me in the dressing room. I said I had to deliver a message to the stage door-keeper.’

‘Yes. Does she always leave straight after the performance?’

‘Every night, sir.’

‘Then I must make a plan to meet with her.’

‘I wish you luck with that, but I really must go.’ Rude continued to hover, and eventually Jens dug in his pocket and handed him a further coin. ‘Thank you. Goodnight,
sir.’

Jens walked across the road to Engebret, ordering himself an aquavit as he sat on a stool at the bar staring into space.

‘Are you unwell, my boy? You look quite pale. Another drink?’ Einar, the cymbal player, asked him as he joined him at the bar. Jens admired Einar for his uncanny ability to leave the
orchestra pit mid-performance counting the beats as he made his way across to Engebret. He’d then drink a beer whilst still continuing to count them, and return to his place in the pit just
before he was required to crash his cymbals together again. The entire orchestra waited for the night when Einar would miss his cue, but apparently, after ten years, he never had.

‘Yes to both questions,’ Jens said, tipping his glass towards his lips and swallowing the contents in one gulp. Having been furnished with a further aquavit, he wondered if he was
indeed sickening for some malady, for he had felt strangely unsettled by the sight of Anna Landvik. He decided that, for tonight at least, Madame Hansson could return to her apartment alone.

‘Frøken Anna, I have a letter for you.’

Anna looked up from her playing cards at Rude, who gave her a cheeky grin, then surreptitiously passed her a folded note. They were in the children’s dressing room surrounded by the bustle
of preparations for that evening’s performance.

She was about to open the letter when Rude hissed at her. ‘Not here. I was told that you must read it in private.’

‘By whom?’ Anna was confused.

Rude looked appropriately mysterious and shook his head. ‘It is not my place to say. I am just the messenger.’

‘Why would anyone want to write me a letter?’

‘You’ll have to read it to find out.’

Anna frowned at him as sternly as she could manage. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

‘I won’t.’

‘Then I shall not continue playing our game of bezique.’

‘No matter, I have to put my costume on anyway.’ The young boy shrugged, stood up and left the table.

Part of her wanted to laugh at Rude’s antics: he was a little monkey, always on the lookout to deliver a message or to lend a hand in return for a coin or some chocolate. She thought he
would make a very successful conman, or possibly a spy, when he was older, for he was the fount of all gossip in the theatre. She realised that he knew exactly who had sent this mysterious missive
and had probably read its contents, judging by the grubby fingerprints around the broken seal. She secreted the letter in her skirt pocket, deciding to read it when she was alone in bed tonight,
then stood up and went to make herself ready for the evening’s performance.

As she read the letter again, then secreted it in the drawer by her bed, Anna surmised it must be written by a man, as it would be most peculiar for a woman to write such a
thing. Turning down the oil lamp and settling herself for sleep, she concluded that it was most likely some elderly gentleman, similar to Herr Bayer . . . which, Anna sighed, presented a deeply
unexciting scenario.

‘Are you meeting him tonight?’ said Rude, his face a picture of innocence.

‘Who?’

‘You
know
who.’

‘No, I don’t. And besides, how would
you
even know that I’ve been invited to meet anyone, hmm?’ Anna enjoyed the dismay on his face as he realised he’d
inadvertently given himself away. ‘I swear to you now that I will never again play a single card game with you, either for money or sweets, if you do not tell me the author’s
name.’

‘Frøken Anna, I cannot. Forgive me.’ Rude hung his head and shook it. ‘It is more than my life’s worth. I swore to the sender I would not.’

‘Well, if you are unable to name this person, perhaps you can at least answer some questions with a “yes” or a “no”?’

‘I can,’ he agreed.

‘Was it a gentleman who wrote the note?’

‘Yes.’

‘And is he under fifty?’

‘Yes.’

‘Under forty?’

‘Yes.’

‘Under thirty?’

‘Frøken Anna, I cannot be sure of his age, but I think so.’

Well, at least that was something, she thought. ‘Is he a regular member of the audience?’

‘No . . . well, actually’ – Rude scratched his head – ‘yes, in a way. At least, he hears you sing every night.’

‘So he is a member of the company?’

‘Yes, but in a different way.’

‘Is he a musician, Rude?’

‘Frøken Anna, I feel compromised.’ Rude gave a dramatic sigh of despair. ‘I cannot say more.’

‘Very well. I understand,’ Anna said, satisfied with her successful interrogation. She glanced at the old and unreliable clock hanging on the wall and asked one of the mothers, who
was embroidering quietly in the corner, what she thought the time was.

‘I believe it is nearly seven, Frøken Landvik. I was just out in the corridor and Herr Josephson arrived. He’s always so punctual,’ she added.

‘Thank you.’ Anna looked at the clock on the wall again, relieved that it was more or less accurate tonight. Should she go? After all, if this man really was under thirty, it may be
that he wanted to meet her for inappropriate reasons, rather than out of mere admiration for her voice. Despite herself, Anna blushed. The very idea that it might be inappropriate – and that
it
might
be a relatively young man – excited her far more than it should.

The seconds on the clock ticked by as she agonised. At thirteen minutes past seven, she decided she was going. At fourteen minutes past, that she wasn’t . . .

And at seven fifteen precisely, she found herself walking down the corridor to the stage door, only to find the area deserted.

Halbert, the doorman, opened the window of his booth to ask what it was she needed. She shook her head and turned to walk back to the dressing room. A blast of cold air hit her as the stage door
opened behind her and a second later, a hand was laid gently on her shoulder.

‘Frøken Landvik?’

‘Yes.’

‘Forgive me. I was a few seconds late.’

Anna turned and found herself staring into the deep-set hazel eyes of the voice’s owner. Her stomach gave a strange lurch, as it did before she had to sing. While Halbert sat in his box
and regarded them both as if they were idiots, they simply stared at each other.