‘But if he had already arranged to have dinner with you, which is what I suppose you’re trying to say, there was nothing to prevent his saying so and insisting on either joining you or having you join us. Why not?’
‘Because neither of us could face any sort of upset with Torelli just before the first night. We know we can’t afford to cross her — yet. And we know she wants you to marry him and — what’s the expression? — keep him in the family. But — ’
‘He — told you that?’ Nicola gasped, as though someone had struck her over the heart, and the other girl gave her an odd speculative look. Then she said deliberately,
‘Yes, he told me that. And I might say he found it as absurd and impertinent as I did. But he was determined not to get involved in any trouble until tonight’s performance was over. I felt differently. I wanted to have it out with you. And then, providentially, she sent for me. Quite unnecessarily, I might say, but that didn’t matter. It’s given me the chance to hand you your exit line. If you have any pride you’ll take it. If not — ’
‘Please go,’ said Nicola, groping blindly for her chair. And Michele went.
‘It serves me right!’ Nicola spoke aloud at last in a harsh little whisper. ‘It serves me right. I was so little faithful to Brian’s memory that I let myself be infatuated by the man who virtually killed him.’
She felt cold with shock, sick with self-disgust, and over and over again there came back to her the humiliating phrases Michele had used. ‘It was just something to laugh about over lunch.’ ‘He found it as absurd and impertinent as I did.’ ‘He was determined not to get involved in any trouble until tonight’s performance was over.’
Just something to laugh about over lunch. — That was what hurt the most unbearably. She burned with shame now to think how she had made it her business to go to his dressing-room after that rehearsal and tell him she thought he had been wonderful. And he had seemed so pleased and amused. Oh, yes, amused no doubt! He had played up. He had even kissed her. And she had thought it a lovely and significant moment Instead of which it was just something for him to laugh about over his lunch with Michele.
Dignity, pride, self-respect — everything which decently clothed one’s most naked thoughts and feelings had been stripped from her. And she hated him in that moment as much as she had hated him when she first knew he was responsible for Brian’s death.
Now she could not imagine how she had ever let herself wander from that bitter, logical standpoint. If she had remembered constantly that he had sacrificed Brian to his ambition she would have been safe. Instead she had allowed herself to be dazzled by his talent and charm, and now she had been sacrificed to his vanity. It was hardly to be borne!
And in that moment she suddenly decided it should not be borne. Let him in his turn hear some home-truths. Let his feelings and pride be sacrificed if that were possible. And if the experience shattered him just before his all-important first night, who was she to care about that?
With an almost steady hand she reached for the telephone and dialled his number. On the day of a performance he was, she knew, practically certain to be in. Even so, when his familiar voice replied she found herself wishing he had been out. She drove herself on, however, to do what had to be done.
‘This is Nicola Denby,’ she began very coolly.
‘Why, Nicola — !’
‘I just wanted to clear up what might have been a misunderstanding last night.’ She was surprised at her own composure. ‘I want you to understand it was not by any wish of mine that I introduced you to my parents. It was merely a piece of social courtesy. And it was Gina who wanted you included in the family party. That had nothing to do with me. I would have preferred not to have you there.’
There was quite a long silence. Then he said, ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘I thought you might have got a totally wrong impression. The impression that I wished to be friendly. Nothing could be further from the case.’
‘And did you have to choose today, of all days, to tell me?’
‘Today seemed as good as any other day.’ She managed to make that sound supremely indifferent.
‘Today was better than any other day if you wanted to do me a real injury,’ he replied quietly. ‘Did you think of that?’
‘I didn’t really think about you at all,’ she said carelessly. ‘I was thinking more of — ’ she was going to say ‘myself’, but then some terrible perverse impulse prompted her and she said softly, ‘Perhaps I was thinking of Brian.’
‘You are an absolute little beast, aren’t you?’ he replied, and then he hung up his receiver.
After a long time she too hung up her receiver. Then she leant her head on her hand, stunned by what she had done and overwhelmed by the most extraordinary feeling that somehow, somewhere Brian was angry with her.
‘I did it for you,’ she whispered. But she knew that was not true. She had done it for her own aching, lacerated pride.
‘I can’t go this evening,’ she decided presently. ‘I don’t want to go this evening. I simply can’t bear to see him triumph. And oh, I can’t possibly, possibly bear to see him fail. What have I done?’
She was still sitting there, her head on her hands, when her uncle came back into the room once more. Without so much as a glance at her he went over to the files which were his special concern. But then something in the stillness of the figure at the desk must have impinged on his consciousness, for he turned and looked across at her.
‘What’s the matter, Nicola?’
‘I don’t want to go tonight,’ she said in a stifled sort of voice. ‘Make some sort of excuse for me, Uncle — please make some excuse for me. Gina will listen to you. I can’t go tonight.’
‘Why not? Are you ill?’
She shook her head. Then she realized that she had let a perfectly good excuse go, and she exclaimed, though without conviction, ‘Yes, I’m ill.’
‘You’re not, you know.’ He came across then and looked down at her. ‘You’re just upset. Who upset you? Gina?’
‘Oh, no!’ She thought how much she loved Gina suddenly, in contrast to the way she hated herself.
Her uncle thought for a moment. Then, with what seemed to her startling acumen, he said, ‘Michele?’
‘H-how did you know?’
‘She’s the only person who has been here this morning. It doesn’t take a magician to guess she made trouble. What did she do?’
For a whole minute Nicola remained silent, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. Then her uncle drew up a chair beside her, took those restless hands in his and said in his comfortingly matter-of-fact way, ‘You’d better tell me. It’s always better to tell a safe person. Otherwise one is suddenly tempted to tell the wrong person.’
‘She — came in here and — made a row — about last night. She was angry because she thought I deliberately took — took Julian Evett away from her. He came and spoke to me when I was with Mother and Dad, you know, and I introduced them. And then you and Gina came in and he was included in the family party. She thought it was my doing.’
‘Does that really upset you?’
‘No,’ said Nicola. And her uncle waited patiently for whatever else might come.
‘She accused me of — of being in love with Julian and trying to take him away from her.’
‘And you are in love with Julian?’ inquired her uncle.
Nicola shook her head, which was bent so low that she didn’t see her uncle smile.
‘It would be quite understandable if you were, you know. He’s an immensely likeable fellow. And there wouldn’t be any question of your taking him away from Michele, because he’s never belonged to her.’
‘He’s keen on her now,’ Nicola said huskily.
‘Rubbish. He has every reason to detest the girl. And she on her side cherishes a special resentment against him.’
‘Uncle!’ Nicola looked up then, her eyes wide and startled in her white face. ‘What on earth mak
es you say that?’
‘Is it very important to you?’
‘Terribly important!’ she cried, with such intensity that her uncle sighed slightly and said, as he had when she asked him about his own dislike of Michele, ‘It’s a long story.’
She knew he meant that he disliked embarking on long stories. But she said imploringly, ‘Please tell me, Uncle. It — it could be more important than you guess.’
Her uncle smiled sardonically, being a man who was used to guessing pretty accurately where his wife was concerned.
‘Well, Nicola, it started a good many months ago now, during the Canadian Festival. I was there with Gina, who was singing, and Julian was conducting in one or two of the principal cities, beginning with Montreal. In the visiting orchestra was a specially brilliant young viola player called Brian Coverdale, with whom he was very friendly. I suppose they talked a great deal to each other about their hopes and plans. Anyway, Julian knew that Coverdale was engaged to a particularly nice girl back in London. — What did you say?’
‘Nothing. I — I just wondered how you knew so much.’
‘Oh, I’ve always liked Julian and believed in his future. We talked sometimes almost on an uncle and nephew basis, now I come to think of it. Gina didn’t know, of course. She’s not much interested in rising artists. She likes them to have risen before she takes much notice of them.’
‘I know.’ Nicola smiled faintly. ‘But where does Michele come in?’
‘Michele was singing in Montreal. Operatic performances and a recital of her own. She set her cap at Julian, but without much success. So she turned her attention to the other fellow, Brian Coverdale, who was a most attractive, gifted chap, I must say, though not, I suppose, quite such a catch as a rising conductor would have been. She completely infatuated him — ’
‘Uncle! Are you sure of that? Brian Coverdale was — was infatuated with Michele?’
‘Besotted with her. She’s the kind some men can’t resist, you know. He was so far gone that when he caught a chill, just before they were due to leave Montreal and go on to Toronto, he made the most of it, pleading real illness and managing to stay on in Montreal.’
‘Was Julian — very angry?’
‘Furious.’
‘Because that was going to spoil his Toronto concerts?’
‘He wasn’t pleased about that aspect, I suppose. But he deplored Coverdale’s utterly irresponsible behaviour as an artist, and took it on himself to be angry too on behalf of the girl back in England.’
‘He — he really minded about her?’ Nicola said faintly.
‘He’s a bit quixotic in these matters.’ Her uncle smiled and shook his head. ‘Doesn’t do, of course. Best to let people run their own lives. He knows that now, poor lad. But apparently he had been very much Brian’s confidant about the girl before the Laraut came along. He told me he’d seen a photograph of her and that there was no doubt about her being something very special. To see her being treated so shabbily added fuel to his anger.’
He paused for a moment, but Nicola said almost feverishly, ‘Go on — please go on.’
‘Well, Coverdale had his way. He ditched his first engagement as soloist with the orchestra in Toronto, and stayed on in Montreal. But when it came to the second one, Julian refused to accept any sort of excuse. He telephoned — I was there at the time — and tore a strip and a half off Coverdale, telling him he would see he was sued for breach of contract if he didn’t turn up. He said he knew that Michele was at the bottom of it, and asked him what sort of cad he thought he was being to his girl in England.’
‘He brought her in again!’
‘Though it was hardly his business — yes, he did. Anyway, Brian caught the next plane and kept his engagement, playing fantastically well, I might say. What Julian didn’t know, poor devil, was that on this second occasion the plea of illness was all too genuine. Coverdale collapsed with pneumonia just after the concert and died the next day. That left Julian with a load of remorse, of course, and Michele with an implacable grudge against him.’
‘But — ’ the words were almost dragged out of Nicola — ‘he acted from the best of motives, didn’t he?’
‘The best of motives don’t help much if they’ve prompted you to do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life,’ replied her uncle drily. ‘It was just Julian’s damned luck to accept the first excuse, which was false, and to reject the second one, which was genuine.’
‘And he was thinking,’ Nicola said slowly, ‘of the girl back in England.’
‘Oddly enough, I think that really did weigh with him. I don’t say he would have pressed his point so ruthlessly on her behalf alone. There were the professional considerations too, of course. But he had taken the measure of Miss Laraut, and I suppose he rather fancied himself as playing God and snatching Brian out of her clutches and restoring him to his rightful girl. Quite absurd, of course,’ he rubbed his chin regretfully. ‘Real life never works that way. The best intentions often earn one the hardest knocks.’
‘But, Uncle — ’ Nicola steadied her voice with the greatest difficulty — ‘don’t you think he was largely moved by his own interests? Surely, surely he was thinking most of the fact that his concert would be spoiled?’ She spoke almost pleadingly.
‘My dear, no one ever acts from unmixed motives.’ Her uncle smiled almost indulgently at what he evidently considered the naïveté of her question. ‘Julian knows better than anyone that there was an element of that. He would have been superhuman and rather foolish if it had been otherwise. Now neither he nor anyone else can say in what proportion he was thinking of Brian or himself or the unknown girl in England. But, being essentially a hard judge of himself, he blames himself far too much. Far more than anyone else would do.’
‘Except,’ said Nicola slowly, ‘perhaps the girl in England.’
‘She least of all,’ was the dry reply. ‘She never knew the truth. Julian told me himself that he meant to seek her out in England and go to any lengths to keep at least her memories of her Brian intact.’
‘He told you that?’ cried Nicola in the utmost dismay.
‘Yes. And knowing Julian as I do, I feel sure that was what he did, whatever it cost him.’
For a moment words stuck in her throat, so that it physically ached. Then, as though she could not help it, she said, ‘You — you think a lot of him, don’t you, Uncle?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled musingly. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever allowed myself regrets that I’m a man without a son. If you marry a Gina Torelli you mustn’t expect family life; you have other things instead. But if I’d had a son, I’d have been pleased to have him like Julian.’
‘Would you, Uncle?’
‘Oddly enough, Gina said something of the sort to me last night,’ he added as though the recollection still amused and touched him.
‘Gina did?’ Nicola was thunderstruck. ‘I knew she liked him nowadays, though not at first. But I’d no idea she felt like that.’
‘Only passingly, I’m sure,’ said her uncle realistically. ‘But I’m glad they hit it off together so well. Gina, as we know, can be difficult. Tonight is vital to Julian, and it could have been disaster if there had been any major friction.’
Nicola felt her mouth go dry.
‘It couldn’t matter so much, surely? He always seems so cool — so well able to deal with anything.’
‘Underneath that confident manner, he’s a sensitive, vulnerable creature, like most artists. Added to which, he has — I don’t know whether one would call it an obsession or a superstition — anyway, a sort of idée fixe about this business with Coverdale. He thinks that because he was somehow responsible for Brian’s death he doesn’t deserve great success and will never quite attain it.’
‘But that’s absurd — absurd!’ Nicola cried.
‘Of course it is. But it’s difficult to argue with an obsession. That’s why we’re all so anxious that he should have the kind of success tonight that will prove him wro
ng, once and for all.’
‘But he won’t!’ Nicola heard her own voice run up to a quite unfamiliar pitch. ‘He won’t have a great success tonight. I’ve upset him as no one else could. Even bringing in Brian! Oh, what have I done? What have I done?’ And overwhelmed by despair and a sense of immeasurable guilt, she burst into wild tears.
It was at this moment that Torelli chose to come into the room.
CHAPTER NINE
For a moment Torelli stood and surveyed her weeping niece and her nonplussed husband, as though waiting for her exact cue. Then she moved forward into the room and inquired calmly,
‘What is going on here?’
‘I have no idea,’ her husband said irritably. But then, because Gina was his first consideration, particularly on a day of performance, he added curtly to Nicola, ‘Stop that nonsense. You’re upsetting Gina.’
‘She’s not upsetting me at all. And don’t bully her,’ said Torelli, who was, of course, capable of bullying anyone much more efficiently than her husband if she thought the circumstances warranted it. ‘Now, Nicola, what is the matter?’ And, sitting down beside her agitated niece, she unexpectedly took her in her arms.
‘Oh, Gina — ’ Nicola clung to her aunt and buried her face against her neck.
It was a very nice neck, firm and white and designed by nature for the display of diamonds rather than one on which to weep. Improbably, however, Nicola was comforted by the cool firmness of it against her own hot, wet cheek.
‘Come now — tell me.’ Torelli’s tone was authoritative though not unkind. ‘Few things are worth such tears.’
And so, in gusts of feverish words, and often in little more than a whisper, Nicola poured out her story.
Once her uncle asked bewilderedly, ‘Do you know what she’s talking about?’
But Torelli said, ‘Yes, of course. It’s perfectly clear. Though her diction is poor, with all this gulping and sniffing. She was in love with Brian Coverdale, and consequently thought she hated Julian. Now she’s in love with Julian, but because of Michele’s spiteful intervention, she got the situation wrong, and chose this day, of all days, to telephone him and upset him by recalling his part in Brian’s death. She’s afraid — ’
The Curtain Rises (Warrender Saga Book 4) Page 15
