Angels of Music Read Online Free PDF Page A

incorrectly around the wrong railings. The gate had been left unfastened. It swung open with a creak.
    ‘I suppose we should have tried that first.’
    Christine frowned, a touch pettishly.
    ‘Now is not the time to bring up this matter, Trilbee.’
    ‘Perhaps not. Now, the fastenings of that little window, eight or ten feet up the wall, look to me to be similarly neglected. Let me make a cradle with my rough Irish peasant hands and hoist your dainty delicate Swedish footsie like so…’
    With a strength born in hours of holding awkward poses while undressed in draughty artists’ garrets, Trilby lifted her fellow angel up off the ground. Christine pushed the window, which fell in with a crash.
    ‘Perhaps we should announce our arrival with twenty-four cannons,
hein
?’
    Trilby shrugged, and Christine slipped through the window. She reached down, and pulled Trilby up after her.
    They both stood in a small, dark room. Trilby struck a lucifer. All around were racks of unattached, shapely arms and legs.
    ‘
Sainte Vierge Marie
!’ exclaimed Christine, in a stage whisper. ‘We have stumbled into the larder of a clan of cannibals!’
    Trilby held the match-flame near a rack. Porcelain shone in the light, and a row of arms swayed, tinkling against each other.
    ‘No, Chrissy, as advertised, this is a mannequin factory.’
    Against the wall sat a range of womanly torsos, with or without heads. Some were wigged and painted, almost complete. Others were bald as eggs, with hollow eye-sockets waiting for glass.
    ‘What would doll-makers have to do with these mystery brides?’
    ‘I’ve a nasty feeling we’re about to find out.’
    A light appeared under the crack of the door, and there was some clattering as a lock was turned. Then bolts were thrown, and several other locks fussed with.
    ‘What are we to do, Trilbee?’
    ‘Take off our clothes. Quickly.’
    Christine looked aghast. Trilby, more used to getting undressed at speed, had already started. The clattering continued. Christine unfastened the first buttons of her bodice. Trilby – already down to stockings, drawers, corset and chemise – helped with a tug, ripping out the other ninety-eight buttons, getting Christine free of her dress as if unshelling a pod of peas. The door, so much more secure than the gate or the window, was nearly unlocked.
    Trilby picked up Christine, and hooked the back of her corset on a hanger.
    ‘Go limp,’ she whispered.
    Christine flopped, letting her head loll.
    Trilby sat against the wall, making a place among a row of mannequins similarly clad in undergarments. She opened her eyes wide in a stare, sucked in her cheeks, and arranged her arms stiffly, fingers stretched.
    The door finally opened. Gaslight was turned up.
    A gnome-like little man, with red circles on his cheeks and a creak in his walk, peered into the room.
    ‘Cochenille, what is it?’ boomed someone from outside.
    ‘Nothing, Master Spallanzani,’ responded Cochenille, the gnome, in a high-pitched voice. ‘Some birds got in through the window, and made a mess among the
demoiselles
.’
    ‘Clear it up, you buffoon. There will be an inspection later, and the Countess does not take kindly to being displeased. As you well know.’
    Cochenille flinched at the mention of the Countess. Christine and Trilby worked hard at keeping faces frozen. Slyly, the little man shut the door behind him, listened for a moment to make sure his master was not coming to supervise, then relaxed.
    ‘My pretties,’ he said, picking up a bewigged head and kissing its painted smile. ‘Lovelier cold than you’ll ever be warm.’
    Cochenille tenderly placed the head on the neck of a limbless torso and arranged its hair around its cold white shoulders. He passed on, paying attention to each partial mannequin.
    ‘Alouette, not yet,’ he cooed to a mannequin complete but for one arm. ‘Clair-de-lune, very soon,’ to another finished but for the eyes and wig. ‘And… but who is this? A