“I think you’d better get back. You’ve had a hard two days and tomorrow you have a performance and—”
“Turn around, I said.”
“Miss Honey will be looking for you.”
“Edith couldn’t care less if I started rolling down a hill and kept going.” She was still smarting from his comment about her lack of education. “If you don’t understand English, how about Italian? Distògliere il viso. French? Traiter avec dédain. Or maybe Spanish is something you understand. Dejar libre.” She was very pleased to see his puzzled look. That should teach him to denigrate her education.
“Which do you want me to do? Turn around, turn aside, turn a cold shoulder, or turn something free.”
He had translated all three languages perfectly. “You are a truly infuriating man.” She grabbed his arm and pulled on him. He was much too big for her to move if he hadn’t helped her, but she did get to see the back of him. He was covered with cactus thorns, some of them hidden by his cotton army blouse, but all of them embedded in his skin. There were more thorns protruding from his trousers, but the sturdy army wool had kept most of them from going through to his skin.
“You’ve mentioned that before, about my being infuriating. I’m afraid that your languages don’t impress me. It might impress me if you had any idea what has happened to all the money you’ve earned over the years.”
She used her fingertips to pull out a thorn. “Are you after my money?”
“I can’t tell that you have any. If you have as little concern for what you’ve made in the past as you do for what you’ve earned on this trip, then I doubt very much that you do have any. Besides, it’s a tradition in my family that we take care of money. My father made me invest twenty percent of all my pocket money from the time I was three years old.”
She pulled out three more thorns, but then his shirt got in her way and hid more thorns than it exposed. She pushed him at the waist. “Up the hill and take that shirt off. Money has never been a concern of mine. I want to sing. Singing is what matters, not money. The sound of the music and the appreciation of the audience is what matters in life.”
He climbed the hill, her behind him. “You say that you’ll not always have your voice. What will you live on when you can no longer sing?”
“I don’t know. It’s not something that has ever interested me much. Perhaps I’ll marry some fat, rich old man and let him support me.” They were at the top of the hill now, and he paused, turning to face her.
“What about children?”
“Take that shirt off, give me that tooth-picker of yours, and lay down on the ground. I want to get those thorns out.”
He began unbuttoning his shirt. “You never thought about children?”
In spite of the fact that he was acting as though the thorns weren’t bothering him, she knew they must be very painful. She walked behind him and helped peel the shirt off, moving the thorns as little as possible. “Is this a marriage proposal, Captain? If it is, I’m not interested. To sing I have to travel around the world a great deal. I don’t have the time or inclination to tie myself to a man. Nor do I want—” She broke off at the sight of his broad, muscular back, for it was covered with thin white scars.
“Stretch out there on the grass,” she said softly, and when he’d done so, she ran her fingertip over one of the scars. “How did this happen?”
“I ran into something.”
“The wrong end of a whip? I didn’t think they whipped officers. And, besides, I can’t imagine you doing anything that could possibly get you into trouble. I’d think the army would give men like you medals—not whippings.”
“I haven’t always been an officer,” he said as he watched her go to his saddle gear and remove his big skinning knife. “You planning to do some skinning?”
She laughed at the nervousness in his voice, then cut a piece of greasy canvas from the bag containing the chicken and wrapped it around her thumb. “Be still,” she said, pushing at his shoulder as she knelt by him. “I’ve removed a few of these before, and I know what I’m doing.” She used the back of the knife blade against her padded thumb to pull the first of the many, many thorns from his back.
When she’d cleared enough of his back that she could put her palm on it, she touched the scars. “For all your flippancy, I know how much pain a whipping like this must have caused you. I know something of pain.”
He could hear the tears in her voice. “Don’t tell me you feel sorry for yourself? What do you know of pain or even hardship? An opera singer’s life isn’t full of what I’d call agony. What do you usually do? Sing all day? Or do you spend most of the time at your dressmaker’s?”
“You know nothing about being a singer of my caliber. If you’ll behave yourself, I’ll tell you how I came to be a singer. I guess I was about seven years old. My father was helping some settlers. They were coming west to open a trading post and—”
“In Lanconia?”
“All I have to do to cause you great discomfort is wiggle one of these thorns. Now, be still and listen. There was a woman who was ill with this group of settlers, and her husband had been killed on the journey. She—”
“Indians?”
“No, actually, he’d been killed by a rattlesnake, if I remember correctly, but I’m not sure because, as I said, I was quite young. The other people with her were very annoyed at having a lone female with them, and a sick one at that, and, from what my father said, they let her know she was a burden to them. My father had no sympathy for them, as he thought all settlers were a nuisance and a plague on the earth. He—”
“But then, your father was a settler too, wasn’t he?”
“Are you going to listen or talk?”
“I can hardly wait to hear more about your illustrious father.”
“You should be honored. Now, where was I?”
“With your father, a settler, being annoyed with more settlers coming in.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, tweaking one of the thorns very slightly, “did I hurt you? I’ll try to be more careful, but if you don’t stop interrupting me, I may not remember to be gentle. Now, let’s see, I was talking about Mrs. Benson. My father thought my mother might like to have some company, so he brought the woman home, planning to take her back east in the spring. She ended up staying with us for four years, then she fell in love with some passing easterner and married him, but by then I had Madame Branchini.”
“And she taught you opera?”
“I’m getting ahead of myself. Mrs. Benson had taught piano and singing in the East and my mother thought it would be nice if she tried to do something with me, because I was awfully jealous of my older sister, Gemma. You see, my mother is an artist and my sister had inherited every bit of my mother’s talent. Even at five years old Gemma could paint and draw rather well, while I could draw not at all. I was jealous that my mother spent so much time with Gemma.”
“So, your mother turned you over to the music teacher and immediately you started singing arias.”
“No, I sang funny little popular songs and things my father’s friends taught me and—”
“Songs about hailing the queen, that sort of thing? Are your father’s friends also dukes?”
She ignored him. “No one thought much about my singing for years, then, one day, Mrs. Benson was looking through a trunk my father had found. It had been thrown from a settler’s wagon—the idiots take everything they own with them and then at the first rough place they have to start lightening their wagons.”
’Ring had seen some of the “rough” places. Ravines a hundred and fifty feet deep. “What was in the trunk?”
“Sheet music. My father hauled it home because he thought maybe Mrs. Benson and I could use it.” Maddie pulled another thorn from his back and smiled. “In the bottom was a piece of music such as I’d never seen before. It was ‘Air des bijoux,’ you know, from Faust.”
“Jewel Song,” he said softly, translating.
“Yes, exactly.”
&nbs
p; “I don’t know the song, but maybe you could sing it for me and I’d recognize the tune.”
“You should have so much luck. Anyway, Mrs. Benson helped me with the words, and since my father’s birthday was approaching, I thought I’d learn the song and sing it for him.”
“And so you did.”
“No, not quite that easily. Mrs. Benson is an American.”
“A curse on a person if I ever heard it.”
“You don’t understand. Americans have a horror of opera. They think opera is for rich people, for snobs. If an American says he has even seen an opera, he will probably be ridiculed. When I asked Mrs. Benson about the piece of music in the trunk, she dismissed it, said it was opera and it wasn’t for a little girl like me. I guess I was about ten then.”
“And that was like waving a red flag in front of you, wasn’t it? Nobody anywhere can tell you not to do anything, can they?”
“Would you like me to send Edith up here to do this? I’m sure she would love to get you with your clothes off.”
He didn’t say anything, but he turned his head and gave her an odd look that she didn’t understand, and she continued.
“I did feel rather challenged by her warning, and I was quite curious, so I took the music to Thomas.” Before he could ask, she told him who Thomas was. “There were several men who lived with us, friends of my father’s. Thomas is one of them, and he could play a little and sing a little. Not as well as my father, of course, but—”
“Of course not as well as Daddy,” ’Ring said under his breath.
“Thomas could play and sing a little,” she repeated pointedly, “so I went to him with the music. By then I could read music rather well and I’ve always had perfect pitch.”
“The best people do.”
She smiled. “Thomas and I together pieced the song out and I rehearsed it. At my father’s birthday, after everyone had eaten and my father had been given gifts from everyone else, Thomas played his flute and I sang the song.”
“And you became an opera singer after that.”
She gave an unladylike snort. “Not quite ‘just like that.’ After I finished my song, no one spoke, they just sat there and stared at me. I knew that I didn’t know how to pronounce the Italian words properly, but I didn’t think my singing was too bad, so I was hurt when they said not a word.”
She paused a moment, remembering that most eventful day in her life. “After what seemed like forever, my mother turned to my father and said, ‘Jeffrey, in the morning you are to leave here, go east, and find my daughter a teacher—a singing teacher. A real teacher. The best teacher that money can buy. My daughter is going to be an opera singer.’ After she said that, the dam broke. Everybody started whooping and my father put me on his shoulders and—”
“His incredibly broad shoulders?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. It was the most wonderful night of my life.”
“Oh? None of your hundreds of men since then have equaled the experience?”
“Not even close.”
“And I guess your father got your teacher. I can’t imagine he ever failed at anything. Madame what-was-her-name?”
“He was gone for months, and when he returned, he had this thin, sour-looking woman with him. I disliked her immediately, and I almost hated her when my mother welcomed her and the little woman ignored my mother. Madame Branchini said, ‘Let me hear this child and see if she is worth all I have gone through.’ Behind her, I could see my father grimacing and I knew she must have been a trial to him on the trip.”
“But she heard you sing and she agreed to stay with you forever and teach you everything you know.”
“Not exactly. In fact, you couldn’t be further from the truth. She had me play the piano—by then my father had brought me one from the East—and—”
“Did he haul it in on his back?”
“And so I played the piano for her and sang a bit.” She stopped and shook her head. “I was a vain little thing. I had been adored by my family and told that I was the best singer in the world. I believe I thought that Madame Branchini was honored to get to hear me sing.”
“I’m glad you’re so different now. None of this telling people that they’d be privileged to hear a singer of ‘your caliber.’ ”
“I have earned it now. Back then I was a child who was vain without any reason for her vanity. Now I but speak the truth. You have heard me sing. Have I ever lied or even exaggerated about my voice?”
“No,” he said honestly. “That is the one thing you haven’t lied about.”
“But that day I was lying to myself. Looking back, I must have been dreadful, really dreadful. The raw talent was there, of course.”
“Of course.”
“But that day I did not get praise as I did from my family. I finished singing my little song and looked up at Madame Branchini with expectation. I expected praise, even hugs. If the truth were told, I expected her to fall to her knees in gratitude at being privileged to hear me sing. Instead, she did not say a word. She turned on her heel and left the room. Of course, my parents and the rest of my family were standing just outside the door. I think they, too, were expecting her to praise their precious daughter. I think that in order to get Madame there, my father had praised my talent rather lavishly.”
“He would.”
“Yes, he would. But Madame Branchini did not praise me. Instead, she told my family that I was lazy and spoiled and that I was much too vain to do anything with. She told my father he had to take her back to New York immediately, that he had wasted his time and hers on this worthless child.”
’Ring turned his head to look at her.
“Yes, difficult to believe, isn’t it? But she knew what she was doing. Everyone started talking at once, with my father telling her she had to at least stay the winter and the others telling her that she had a tin ear. I stood in the doorway and listened, and it was all quite gratifying to my young heart. How dare the old crow say that I had no talent? Why, I was going to be the greatest singer in all the world. I imagined her coming backstage after a performance and begging my forgiveness for ever doubting me.”
Maddie pulled out another thorn and chuckled. “Thank heaven that even at that tender age I had some sense. It quite suddenly occurred to me to wonder how I was going to become an opera singer. Was Mrs. Benson going to teach me? Was I going to learn on my own? Was I going to wait until I was an adult and go east and then start training? What was I going to do in the meantime? In the few years that Mrs. Benson had been with me, I had realized that the thing I liked best in the world was singing. I sang all the time, wherever I was, whatever I was doing.”
Maddie took a breath. “I made the most important decision of my life at that moment. I suddenly realized that Madame Branchini was right and I was lazy. I went to her and asked her to please teach me. She refused. I went on my knees to her and begged her to teach me.”
She paused and stared for a moment, unseeing. “My family hated my begging. They all hated Madame. My father tried to pull me off the floor, but after her continued refusal to give me what I wanted, I was trying to kiss her feet.”
’Ring looked back at her. He couldn’t imagine her groveling.
She smiled at him. “I would have done anything to be able to sing, and this woman was the key to what I wanted.”
“She relented,” he said softly.
“Oh, yes, she did, but only after I’d promised to be her slave. My family didn’t like it, but I think I had an idea of what was necessary. She stayed with us for seven years, and she taught me what I know. It was difficult.”
“Just singing all day?”
“What do you know? You probably spent your childhood outside in the sunshine. I did not. Rain or shine, good weather or bad, I was inside with Madame, practicing. The same note over and over. The same syllable. The Italian lessons, the French lessons. Outside, I could hear other people laughing and having a good time, but I was always inside, practicing.”
“You must have had some time off.”
“Very little. I faltered in my resolve once and only once. I fell madly in love with a young man my father had hired to help with the work. I wanted to be near him almost as much as I wanted to sing.”
“And what did your little Madame say to that?”
“She said that I could be a singer or I could subject myself to a man’s tyranny for life. It was my choice.”
“Spoken like a true spinster.”
Maddie made a face at him. “Why do men always think that the worst state in life for a woman is to live without a man? Yes, she was a spinster. And because she was, she’d been free to come to me in the middle of—” She hesitated. “In the middle of nowhere.”
“So I assume that you chose your singing over the cowboy?”
“Obviously. I saw him years later and wondered what I had ever seen in him.”
“But you made up for lost time with your many hundreds of lovers.”
“My what? Oh, yes, all the men. It’s true that men do love women with talent.”
“Not to mention women with figures like yours.”
She laughed. “I believe that has been an, ah…added attraction. Opera singers do tend to be a bit plump, so I’ve always been careful not to follow that particular fashion. I had no idea you had noticed, though.”
“The last time I checked, I was alive and I was a male. You know, one of those creatures out to make a woman’s life miserable by not allowing her to remain a spinster.”
When she laughed the second time, he turned to look at her. “No sense of humor, huh?”
“None. I’m sure you were serious. Now that I’ve told you a story, you tell me one.”
“Such as?”
“Why you’re doing this. Why you’re taking care of me.”
“I was ordered to, remember? Your beloved General Yovington ordered me here, and I’m doing my job.”
“No, General Yovington ordered Lieutenant—”
“Surrey.”
“Yes, Lieutenant Surrey to escort me. You, Captain Montgomery, are an error. Why did your commanding officer choose you?”
“Now, there’s a man with a sense of humor. I think he thought it would be a great joke to send me out to baby-sit an opera singer.”