Elusive Harmony (The Warrender Saga Book 10)

by Mary Burchell

  Then Mrs Pallerton told him how Natalie had described his voice as the voice of a fighter—and a lover too. And he said that was extraordinarily nice of her, but added, rather teasingly, that he hoped the remark was original and not something she had heard someone else say about her father’s voice.

  ‘Of course I never heard anyone say it about Father,’ she retorted indignantly. ‘It wouldn’t be true anyway,’ she added simply.

  ‘No?’ He narrowed those bright eyes quizzically. ‘I thought your father had all the vocal perfections.’

  ‘In his own individual way, he has,’ she replied steadily, ‘but it’s an entirely different way from yours. His voice is actually more beautiful than yours, if you don’t mind my saying so——’

  ‘I don’t mind your saying so,’ he interjected amusedly.

  ‘—and he has more star quality than anyone else I’ve ever known. But——’

  ‘Oh—star quality.’ He smiled a little indulgently, she thought. ‘Isn’t that a trifle outmoded?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ murmured Mrs Pallerton.

  And, ‘Certainly not!’ retorted Natalie scornfully. ‘In a mediocre world it’s becoming rarer, if you like. But the genuine article is instantly recognisable by sophisticated and naïve alike, and invariably transports an audience. You can’t define it and you can’t teach it; it’s just there. That’s what my father has, and it’s quite independent of youth or age, too,’ she ended defiantly.

  ‘Dear Natalie,’ he said amusedly, ‘when I’m getting on for—fifty-four, isn’t it?—I hope there’ll be someone to speak up for me as enthusiastically as that.’

  ‘There probably will be,’ said Natalie slowly. ‘That man was quite right. You’re the stuff of which success is made.’

  ‘Even without lashings of star quality?’ he countered with a challenging smile.

  ‘You have a touch of it,’ she replied soberly, ‘and a great deal else besides.’

  ‘Well, that seems to leave the honours even,’ he said as he paid the bill and they rose to go.

  He insisted on their driving her home, though she wanted to take a taxi, having some vague feeling that she preferred him not to see where she—and her father—lived. As they said goodnight Mrs Pallerton kissed her ‘for old times’ sake’ as she said, and then, to Natalie’s startled but pleased surprise, Laurence Morven also touched her cheek with smiling lips—‘for the sake of a welcome truce’, as he put it.

  She thought, as she went into the house, that this was not at all how she had intended the evening to end. But then nothing had really been as she intended on this strange and—yes, magical—evening. And again she had that odd feeling that she had taken a step which could never be retraced.

  Natalie was not entirely surprised to find that her father was still up—like most stage people, he tended to keep late hours. And when she saw that there was a light on in the drawing-room she went in resolutely, to find him sitting there, apparently completely relaxed and studying a score.

  He looked up immediately and, as she came forward not knowing at all what she was going to say, he observed, ‘That’s a very becoming dress, my dear. I don’t seem to have seen it before.’

  ‘No—it’s new,’ she said a little breathlessly.

  ‘For a special occasion?’ he suggested. But he smiled at her—that entirely charming smile—and she felt as though her whole heart went out to him.

  ‘Oh, Father’—she ran across and knelt down by his chair—‘you didn’t mind my going to hear Laurence Morven, did you?’

  ‘Mind?—no. I was a little surprised to find you knew him well enough to go out to supper with him. How did you meet him?’

  On a diplomatic—or cowardly—impulse, she rejected the idea of owning up to the early encounter in Germany, and enlarged instead on her unexpected meeting with Mrs Pallerton.

  ‘I knew her daughter, Wendy, very well at school, and they were both very kind to me then. I found she was sitting beside me in the Opera House and of course we talked of old times, and I found she was related to Laurence Morven and—and really it was she who arranged the meeting and the supper afterwards.’

  ‘You didn’t feel it might have been better to plead a previous engagement?’

  ‘No,’ said Natalie, and then found she could add nothing to that.

  ‘You’re usually very perceptive over these things,’ her father said musingly. ‘Didn’t it strike you that, as my daughter, you would be better advised not to have any personal involvement with Morven?’

  ‘Yes, I thought of that,’ Natalie admitted steadily. ‘But, as myself, I wanted to accept the invitation. I had enjoyed the performance. I was interested because’—she hesitated—‘he is very good, isn’t he?’

  ‘Frighteningly good,’ was the strange thing her father said. And in confusion and dismay Natalie dropped her glance to the book that was still on his knee, and saw that it was the score of the new Beverley Caine opera.

  ‘I see why he got the part,’ said her father, and closed the score with a finality that struck her to the heart.

  ‘He can’t compare with you in most ways!’ she cried, in a sudden access of anguished love and loyalty.

  ‘Did you tell him that?’ asked her father rather amusedly, and he lightly touched her hair.

  ‘I told him your voice was more beautiful than his, and then we spoke of star quality—and I said he had a touch of it, but that you had more of it than anyone else I’d ever known or seen.’

  ‘Dear me! How did he take that?’

  ‘Quite well,’ Natalie recalled with some surprise.

  ‘Then he must be either cleverer or more susceptible than I had supposed. Did he bring you home?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘And kiss you goodnight?’

  She longed to deny that, but the deep flush which spread right to the line of her bright hair made denial useless.

  ‘Well, I see he did.’ There was a touch of grimness in the amusement now. ‘Don’t take him too seriously, my dear. We tenors are a philandering lot, on the whole.’

  ‘You weren’t!’ she countered quickly.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked her father amusedly.

  ‘Because you so patently adored Mother. Mrs Pallerton was recalling something she said she would never forget. How you joined Mother in the car outside the stage door one night after a stunning Don Carlos, and how you kissed her in front of everyone, just as though you simply couldn’t help it.’

  ‘I probably couldn’t,’ said her father with a slight laugh. ‘She was the most eminently kissable woman I ever knew. But you have a little of that quality too, Natalie. Don’t encourage Laurence Morven. There’s no harm done if it goes no further than supper this evening. Now go along to bed.’

  So she kissed him and went to bed, aware that she had got off much more lightly than she could have expected. In another mood her father would have been quite capable of staging a splendid scene of paternal reproach, but tonight he had been strangely indulgent and almost understanding. Perhaps he himself had not been quite indifferent to the charm and talent of the new tenor; perhaps the reference to her mother had had its softening effect. Perhaps, even, he was beginning to realise that his daughter was entitled to a life of her own.

  And then she recalled, with a sharp sense of wariness, the note on which the scene had ended.

  ‘Don’t encourage Laurence Morven,’ he had said. ‘There’s no harm done if it goes no further than supper this evening.’

  Suddenly she knew that there was the crux of the matter. He was not grudging her her little romantic flutter, since what was done was done. But, if she understood him aright, it was not to go any further.

  She told herself that in all probability there was no question of the association going any further. Laurence had said nothing about any further meeting. But he had kissed her goodnight. Odd that her father had even guessed that . . .

  And on that thought she fell asleep.

  The reviews next morn
ing ranged from good to ecstatic, and Natalie read them all. Even the one which inevitably—and fatuously—hailed Laurence Morven as ‘the new Lindley Harding’.

  ‘Strange how the truly ignorant always feel impelled to make totally inaccurate comparisons,’ observed Charles, looking up from this particular newspaper. ‘Just as every piping little soprano with a dash of Greek in her background is automatically referred to as “the new Callas”. I imagine Morven and your father are about as different as two good tenors can be.’

  ‘Broadly speaking—yes,’ said Natalie. ‘He’s awfully good, Charles. I went to hear him last night.’

  ‘You did?’ Her father’s secretary looked up in surprise. ‘On the spur of the moment?—just like that?’

  ‘No, rather deliberately, to tell the truth. But Father did too, you know. That’s why he came back to London a day early. He and Quentin Bannister went—ostensibly to hear the soprano. We met backstage.’

  ‘That must have provided something of a tableau!’

  ‘Well, it did rather. But he took it quite well in the end.’

  ‘Perhaps they really had come to hear the soprano.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Natalie scouted the notion with amused good humour. ‘Who goes to hear the Maddalena when a new tenor is making his debut as Andréa?’

  ‘Well, that’s true,’ Charles laughed. ‘Was she good?’

  ‘Very good. Not ideal for Maddalena, I would have said—her voice has a slightly mezzo-ish quality which could be very telling in some more sexy rôle.’

  ‘She’s Morven’s girl-friend, isn’t she?’ Charles asked carelessly, and Natalie turned a page of his newspaper before she asked, ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That’s the backstage gossip, anyway.’ Charles always knew all the backstage gossip. ‘I suppose he’s got a girl-friend, good-looking as he is, and they sing together quite a lot, so she’s as good a bet as anyone.’

  ‘She didn’t go out with him after the performance,’ Natalie was surprised to hear herself state with some emphasis.

  ‘No? How do you know?’

  ‘Because I did,’ replied Natalie, and went back to her newspaper.

  ‘Say that again,’ said Charles, after a moment of stunned silence.

  ‘I went out to supper with Laurence Morven after the performance. And with his aunt,’ she added, as an afterthought.

  ‘Good lord! Does he travel around with an aunt for chaperone?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. I went to school with her daughter, and we found we were sitting side by side at the opera. The rest followed quite naturally.’

  ‘You don’t say!’ She knew Charles was looking at her with some curiosity, but she refused to glance up. ‘It must have been quite an evening, all told.’

  ‘It was,’ said Natalie. And then her father came in, and both Natalie and Charles would have changed the subject if he had not remarked with admirable composure,

  ‘I see Laurence Morven had a very good press. And Minna Kolney too. A very gifted young woman, but not ideally cast for Maddalena.’

  ‘Natalie was saying the same thing,’ Charles volunteered with equal composure. ‘I understand both you and she were there last night. How did you find the new tenor?’

  ‘Very interesting,’ replied Lindley Harding, knowing quite well that that word is the kiss of death when applied either to a new work or a new performer.

  ‘Hm——’ said Charles, and left it at that, while Natalie thought of the raw truth with which her father had described Laurence Morven last night as ‘frighteningly good’.

  The next few days slid by in leisurely uneventfulness, but Natalie was aware of a degree of tension in herself which had little to do with her father or his affairs. It was mostly concerned with the odd way her nerves tautened every time the telephone bell rang.

  And then one afternoon, when she was beginning to react more normally to the summons of the telephone, her father lazily answered the call—a chore he usually left to others—and then held out the receiver to her.

  ‘It’s for you, Natalie.’

  She took the receiver and said in a formal tone, ‘This is Natalie Harding.’ And Laurence Morven’s voice replied, ‘Was that your father who answered first?’

  ‘Yes, it was. Who is it, please?’ Even to herself she sounded like an amateur actress saying her one line in the play.

  ‘You know darned well who it is,’ was the amused reply, ‘but I suppose the situation is tricky. Is he still in the room?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was so anxious not to be drawn into anything remotely conspiratorial that her tone was curt.

  ‘Oh. Well, let’s keep it simple, then. When am I going to see you again?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ replied Natalie to this anything but simple question.

  ‘Not so simple as I intended, was it?’ He evidently sensed her dilemma. ‘We’ll make it a “yes” and “no” conversation. Do you want to see me again?’

  She was so long answering that that he said, ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, I am. But I’m afraid I really can’t talk to you now. I—I’m busy.’ And, although it wrung her heart to do so, she replaced the receiver.

  ‘If that was Laurence Morven to whom you were talking,’ said her father, without even looking up from his book, ‘you handled him rather well.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Natalie’s voice was almost sulky. Then she went upstairs to her own room and sat on her bed and cried.

  ‘It’s all so silly!’ she told herself. ‘Of course I want to see him, and why the hell can’t I say so?—just because Father happens to be sitting there. It isn’t as though he’s a tyrant—at least, not in a beastly way. What must I have sounded like to Latirence? Either a poor, spineless creature or someone determined to give him the brush-off.’

  Now, of course, she could think of several brief but clever answers she could have made. Answers which would have conveyed nothing to her father, but would have implied to Laurence that, at a more propitious time, she would be glad to hear from him again.

  ‘It isn’t as though I have any idea where I could phone him back,’ she thought, chewing a knuckle with vexation. ‘If I couldn’t have thought of anything clever to say, why didn’t I just say, “Yes, I’d love to see you again,” make some arrangement and then have it out with Father later?’

  But she knew the answer to that. An answer which involved her whole way of life for the last few years.

  Presently, when her usual calm had reasserted itself, she went downstairs again and was relieved to find that her father made no further reference to the telephone conversation. Instead, he spoke of the orchestral concert that he and she were attending at the Festival Hall that evening.

  ‘It must be almost a year since Warrender’s last concert in London,’ he observed. ‘It will be quite an occasion, no doubt. Why don’t you wear that very charming dress you had on the other night? I’ve seldom seen you in anything that suited you better.’

  So she wore the dress she had thought she would for ever associate with Laurence Morven’s debut, even though she might never wear it again. And there was no doubt that she and her handsome father made an arresting pair as they entered the hall and made their way up the gangway to their seats.

  Natalie was used to the rustle of interest and excitement which her father’s presence invariably evoked, but it never failed to give her a sensation of pleasure and pride. For his part, though he always appeared charmingly unaware of it, she was sure he really enjoyed every moment of it. And why not?

  ‘Good evening, Mr Harding.’ An attractive-looking young woman in a gangway seat leaned forward and actually touched Lindley Harding lightly on the arm. ‘I did appreciate your coming to see me in my dressing-room the other night.’

  ‘Why—good evening.’ Natalie saw her father smile with that endearing courtesy which could cover, equally, real interest or profound indifference. ‘It’s Miss Kolney, isn’t it? I don’t think you have met my daughter, Natalie.’

>   The two girls exchanged a conventional smile and greeting, and then Natalie and her father passed on to their seats.

  ‘I didn’t recognise her without her stage make-up,’ Natalie said. ‘She’s very attractive, isn’t she?’

  ‘Moderately so,’ replied her father with candid exactness, and Natalie glanced again in the direction of the girl about whom Charles had quoted that unwelcome rumour.

  ‘Good-looking,’ she thought justly, ‘whatever Father says, and—arresting, in some way. Not a friendly face, but very intelligent——’ And then her father made some remark and she gathered her wandering thoughts.

  There was scarcely an empty seat in the hall by now, and throughout the place ran that subtle current of excitement which distinguishes some performances even before the first chord has been struck.

  ‘There’s Anthea Warrender in the end box,’ Natalie said to her father.

  ‘Yes, I saw her. And here comes Warrender,’ replied her father, as the conductor entered and—rare tribute—the audience rose to their feet to applaud him.

  He acknowledged the reception with a slight smile and bow, and then turned immediately to the orchestra. As if in concerted obedience to an authoritative signal, the audience re-seated themselves, and, as they did so, Natalie saw Laurence Morven slip into one of the few empty seats in the hall. The seat beside Minna Kolney.

  With a dismay out of all proportion to the occasion, Natalie stared at them with total concentration, so that the opening phrases of the Egmont Overture passed her by as though they were some meaningless jingle. Even at that distance she saw the intimate little smile which the two exchanged, and noted that the girl’s hand closed on his and remained there for a moment or two.

  ‘So what?’ Natalie asked herself. ‘So what?’ And somehow that stupid catch-phrase served only to highlight the agitation and discontent which overwhelmed her.

  Laurence had asked her if she wanted to see him again, and she had let him think it hardly mattered to her one way or the other. But for that, she told herself, it was she who might have been sitting there beside him now.