Honeyville by Daisy Waugh Page B

can find a little place of your own. And by the way, I have seen the sweetest little cottage on South Elm Street, which you might easily be able to take once your students start to roll in. And in the meantime, Dora, I have come via the Columbia. I’ve taken a room for you there in your new name. It’s only for the week, mind. But I thought – if we are to do this, we must do it properly. And nobody could doubt the credentials of an Italian opera singer if she is residing at the Columbia!’
    The Columbia was the oldest and by far the most luxurious hotel in town. It stood elegant and proud at the heart of Trinidad, on the corner of Commercial and Main Streets. ‘I can’t afford that!’ I said.
    ‘It’s my gift to you, Dora, to thank you.’
    ‘Whatever for?’
    ‘For being my friend,’ she said simply. ‘You can’t imagine what a thrill it is. And for introducing me to Lawrence; and for showing me that even in this Hicksville- Snatchville of a town …’ She giggled delightedly. Ladies didn’t call it Snatchville. They just about called it Honeyville , if they were being especially daring – if they called it anything at all. ‘No matter what my brother Xavier thinks, life can be absolutely … exciting.’
    ‘But it must have cost you a fortune. I can’t accept—’
    ‘Oh don’t be silly, darling!’ She waved it aside. ‘I have already paid for it in cash. The room is sitting empty. It’s under your new name. It’s a suite. And I have told them to put a piano in there – you can play the piano, can’t you?’
    ‘You know I can,’ I said. ‘I already told you. And I was just playing when you came in.’
    ‘Oh yes, of course you were. Well then, Maria di Leopaldi ,’ she pronounced it badly, but with relish. ‘You can leave the ladies a card with your name and details on it – and for a week you can hold court at the Columbia. Offer them trial lessons or something. It’s perfect. And after that, we had better find you a place.’
    For authenticity we decided she would come to fetch me from the hotel, where I would be waiting in the room she had hired, in the Italian opera singer disguise she had helped to pick out, and that we would walk the five minutes or so east along Main Street to Aunt Philippa’s house together.
    It was, I think, the longest walk of my life. God knows – in the exhilaration of cooking up the plan with Inez, I hadn’t allowed myself to fully acknowledge the risks. Shuffling along Main Street with my head down, stomach churning with fear, the risks hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water. If Phoebe discovered I was trying to make my escape, and she surely would, she would not only put a stop to it, she would exact a vicious kind of revenge. I dreaded to imagine quite what; although I knew, whatever it was, it would cause her no loss of income. It gave me some comfort. She wouldn’t murder me then, or have me beaten to a repellent and uncommercial pulp of flesh … My mind skittered from one vengeful alternative to another, and I might have turned back, but Inez marched us forward, and I hardly had a chance.
    She made a point of waving and smiling at just about everyone we encountered.
    ‘You haven’t met Trinidad’s new celebrity,’ she shouted proudly to anyone who stopped – and to several who didn’t. ‘She’s performing for the Ladies’ Music Club this afternoon, but if you or your wife are interested in singing instruction …’
    By the time we reached Aunt Philippa’s house two blocks north of City Hall, Inez had already collected three eager lady students. ‘Between you and me, they’re not quite wealthy enough to be part of the Ladies’ Music Club,’ Inez explained to me in her noisy whisper, as soon as they passed, ‘which makes them all the keener to hang onto our coat-tails, Mrs di Leopaldi. I tell you what, you’re going to make a fortune, Dora! And no one to take any commission off you, either.’
    Mention of Phoebe and her commission –