at first made detailed budgets for them, limiting sweets, firewood, chemises, and rouge. It was only when he found none of the girls would speak to him that he relented, but he still looked at them, breathing heavily through his mouth, as if to say, Mark my words, it will turn out badly for you! (Constanze had confided to Sophie that perhaps she had been mistaken about his brushing against her breasts; the hall was narrow, their parents’ friend a big man. She had stood gazing at Sophie, blinking and doubtful.)
Now Aloysia called back in a much brighter voice. “Our cousin Alfonso’s with him! What could they want? Any news will be welcome.”
The three other girls thrust chairs back from the kitchen fire, flung off their aprons, ran to open the door. In a moment Alfonso’s shining bald head came into view on the steep stairs, followed by the heavy Thorwart in his English coat and boots, the spurs jangling. He wiped his brow. “One day,” he groaned, “the family Weber will not live on the highest floor they can find. I need a plate of noodles and cheese to replenish me after my climb. Girls, come and kiss your uncle,” and he kissed the three younger girls as he could, though they turned their lips away, and the younger two exchanged glances as if to say, Are we mistaken or not?
He did not approach Josefa, who stood apart.
For warmth, they all returned to the kitchen. Taking the best chair, Thorwart sat back with his heavy hands on his breeches. “Our visit’s with a purpose that will interest you very much for it concerns music.” He looked at them all with satisfaction, his presence seeming to fill the kitchen, while Alfonso regarded them with melting eyes, his large ears tucked beneath his hat.
“Music, Uncle?”
“Music, my dears! Ah, you don’t know! My move to Vienna has been most profitable to me, for I’ve found work there as general factotum to the director of one of the two opera companies. Such an incomparable city, my girls, the very center of the Austrian Empire! Why, we see the Emperor himself riding many days in the park, though not in inclement weather. We wouldn’t want the Imperial Majesty to suffer from a chill. On my hope of salvation, now that I have lived in Vienna, I wouldn’t dream of living anyplace else.”
Thorwart’s expression became businesslike, and he leaned forward. He made a quick gesture, as if straightening a pile of papers on the table before him, then cleared his throat. “My news will be of the greatest interest to you,” he said solemnly, “for it’s news I bring indeed. There’s a position open in the opera for a soprano, a young prima donna. Alfonso and I heard of it just eight days ago, and of course we marched to the director’s office and spoke of the beauty, the elegance, the range and expression of the singing voices of the two Weber daughters, the majestical Mademoiselle Josefa, who is one and twenty, and our enchanting Mademoiselle Aloysia, who is, I believe, just past eighteen.”
Alfonso smiled as broadly as he always had when coming up the steps for the Thursday musicales. “And he’s eager to hear you both. I’m returning to Vienna in a few days and will happily take you with me. The position pays well, very well indeed, far more than your dear father ever made. It would keep your whole family. If God wills it, one of you will have the place, and your troubles will be over.”
The two older girls threw everything out of trunks to find trimmings and feathers. They rampaged through the piles of music, leaving it all over the red velvet sofa. They missed the lessons they were to give on the clavier, so intent were they on their packing. Their mother hovered above them, crying, “Your curling rags, your false curls, your rosaries ...” Josefa still wore an engraved silver locket that had appeared the previous summer; she had not taken it off all those months. It glittered slightly as she closed her cloak over it and prepared to bring the bags down the steps into the cold morning. She said little, though Aloysia had never stopped talking the whole three days since the news had come. Aloysia had broken her necklace and thought it was a bad omen and cried heartbreakingly.
Constanze, Sophie, and their mother waved as the older girls boarded the hulking carriage near the house,