Elusive Harmony (The Warrender Saga Book 10)

by Mary Burchell

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘Not one.’ Wendy shook her head with a laugh, and then added, ‘Oh—well—Do you see what I see?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Natalie in a small, chilled voice, as into the room came Minna Kolney, superbly dressed, radiantly attractive and apparently very much at home in these surroundings.

  Bypassing the bride, she went immediately to speak to her hostess and then she turned to Laurence with a charming little exclamation of what might have been pleased surprise, and kissed him, easily and a trifle possessively, in front of everyone.

  ‘Neither Mother nor I invited her,’ muttered Wendy before her attention was claimed by other guests. And as she turned away Natalie felt—and indeed looked—strangely isolated and forlorn.

  It was her father who came up to her and said conventionally, ‘A very charming wedding,’ and never before had she been more glad of the security which his slightly overwhelming presence afforded her.

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ She linked her arm in his, with relief and a sudden rush of affection. And then she repeated once more the phrases about the beauty of the bride, because she could say those without giving her whole attention to the words.

  ‘Very lovely,’ agreed her father impersonally, ‘but I thought you looked lovelier. You were the real beauty in the church—don’t look so startled, even parents pay compliments occasionally. And stop glancing across at Minna Kolney in that surreptitious way. That’s what she wants you to do. And he too, I don’t doubt. I suppose it was he who engineered her presence here.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Natalie faintly.

  ‘Morven, of course. Go on talking to me, it doesn’t matter much what you say. Just put a good face on things. One should always look radiant when one has been shocked or rebuffed. Ah, Enid’—he turned as Mrs Pallerton came up—‘I was just telling Natalie that I felt quite proud of my daughter, as I’m sure you did of yours. They made a charming picture standing there in the church.’

  He seemed to have overlooked the mere bridegroom in the charming picture, but Mrs Pallerton appeared to take Peter’s presence as read. She made some graceful reply and then added, with a rueful little laugh,

  ‘I’m afraid it’s all rather more of a social jamboree than Wendy and I intended. I hope you didn’t mind being treated as a social capture.’

  ‘My dear, what man ever minded being treated that way?’ he replied lightly. ‘In any case, it’s you I regard as the hostess here, and I’m charmed to be looked on as your capture at any time,’ he added gallantly.

  ‘I can’t bear it!’ Natalie was thinking as she stood there smiling suitably and taking what part she could in this light badinage. ‘I can’t bear it. Did he really arrange for her to be here? He looked pleased enough to see her. And she kissed him as though he belonged to her—and he kissed her in return. What else could he do, of course? But he’s still talking to her and smiling, and I hate the sight of her—oh, she’s coming this way.’

  She was, too.

  ‘Why, Natalie, I didn’t see you!’ She smiled brilliantly, though her tone and glance implied that Natalie was easy to overlook. ‘What a pretty little bonnet. So quaint and very much you, somehow.’ Then she went on with hardly a pause, ‘I gather from Laurence—at least I think I do—that you and he have made it up.’

  There was not quite a question mark at the end of that sentence, but very nearly so, and she had now cleverly contrived to interpose herself between Natalie and the other two, so that they were more or less on their own. But somewhere in Natalie there was a useful little streak of her father, and suddenly she pulled herself together.

  ‘Made it up?’ She gave an amused little frown of puzzlement. ‘Had we anything to make up?’

  ‘Well’—immediately there was an edge in Minna’s voice—‘the last time I saw you two together you’d just landed a hearty slap on his cheek. I had no idea you packed such a punch until I heard the sound.’

  ‘Oh—that?’ Natalie laughed. ‘It’s a long time ago and’—she looked Minna Kolney straight in the eye—‘there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then.’

  It gave her a fierce sense of satisfaction to see the other girl momentarily taken aback. But Minna recovered herself almost immediately, shrugged and changed the subject to the dangerous one of the coming Otello performance.

  ‘So your father and Laurence are to be heard at last in the same performance,’ she said musingly. ‘It should provide a chance for some interesting comparisons. Someone is being over-bold, I would say.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ With a thoughtful air, Natalie affected to mistake her meaning. ‘I don’t think Laurence need be scared. Cassio’s part is too small to challenge any comparison with Otello, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, you’re too much for me,’ declared Minna, with an unexpectedly good-humoured laugh, which puzzled Natalie until she saw Laurence within a couple of yards of them. ‘Come here, Larry, and help me!’ Minna still looked charmingly amused. ‘I’ve been trying to defend your decision to sing Cassio in the same performance as Natalie’s father, but I only got my fingers rapped for my pains. I don’t think Natalie likes you and me.’

  ‘That isn’t true!’ exclaimed Natalie. ‘At least——’ she stopped abruptly, for she had almost been trapped into saying she couldn’t stand Minna.

  But Minna caught up the words and laughed afresh. ‘“At least——”’ she quoted mockingly. ‘You see there are certain qualifications, Larry.’

  ‘I don’t know what you two are talking about!’ He frowned doubtfully, half amused but not entirely pleased, Natalie saw. And at that moment Wendy came up and said,

  ‘Come with me, Nat, it’s time I went up to change. I didn’t realise quite how late it was.’

  ‘Just a moment——’ Natalie began distractedly.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll explain,’ said Minna, with a malicious gleam in her eye. And because there was nothing else she could do, Natalie yielded to Wendy’s slight tug on her arm and left the field to her rival. For that was how it seemed to her at that moment.

  It was infuriating and frustrating beyond belief. Minna would take every advantage of the situation and undoubtedly remould the conversation nearer to her heart’s desire. But this day was Wendy’s day, and her one bridesmaid must be at her disposal when needed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Natalie told herself fiercely and untruthfully, ‘it doesn’t really matter. That odious girl was keenly aware of the rivalry there must be in the Otello performance—and how can he be less so? They’ve probably even talked it over, and if that’s so, she’s welcome to him! I’m on Father’s side. I have to be on his side! He didn’t hesitate to come to my rescue when I needed him just now, and how could I do less than stand by him a hundred per cent when he needs me?’

  All the time these confused thoughts were running through her head she was helping Wendy to divest herself of her wedding dress and change into her going-away dress. And then, at the last moment, Wendy reached into a large cardboard box, spilling tissue paper all over the place, and lifted out a superb mink jacket.

  ‘Wendy! How lovely!’ Preoccupied though she was with her own thoughts, Natalie could not restrain her admiration.

  ‘Isn’t it? I thought perhaps you might have seen it.’ Wendy slipped it on and glanced at herself in the mirror. ‘Wasn’t he an absolute angel to think of it?’

  ‘Peter, you mean?’

  ‘Why, no.’ Wendy turned and stared at her friend. ‘Didn’t you know? Your father had it sent yesterday. Apparently he said something to Mother about my not having a father to do the right thing by me, and could he have the pleasure instead?—You know the lovely period speeches he makes. Mother was almost in tears when she told me. I thought you knew.’

  Natalie shook her head wordlessly.

  ‘Well, that makes it even nicer. That he didn’t tell anyone about it, I mean.’ Wendy looked slightly moved herself for a moment. ‘He’s a darling. They don’t come in that pattern any more. Look aft
er him, Nat.’

  ‘I will,’ said Natalie slowly. ‘Oh, I will.’

  And then they both went downstairs. Wendy still carrying her bouquet, to be greeted by the guests surging into the hall, laughing and talking and calling out goodbyes.

  There was the usual flurry of kisses and farewells, and then Wendy slipped her arm into her husband’s. But she turned once more at the door and tossed her bouquet into the crowd. Unmistakably she threw it in the direction of Natalie, but a hand came up in the crowd, and a moment later Natalie saw Minna Kolney standing there, the flowers clasped to her in both hands, while she laughed up into Laurence Morven’s eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  Natalie was not unduly superstitious, but to her there was something disagreeably symbolical in the fact that Minna had reached up and caught the bride’s bouquet which had so obviously been intended for her. That gay indication that whoever caught the flowers would be the next bride had been Wendy’s way of saying, ‘Good luck—and-may you find someone as nice as my Peter!’

  Ordinarily, she would have been no more than amused—or possibly faintly vexed—that she had muffed the catch and lost the bouquet. But that Minna, of all people, should have snatched it away from her and then turned in smiling triumph to Laurence—that was very hard to bear.

  Suddenly she felt tired and dispirited, a feeling not unknown to those left behind at a wedding when the central characters have departed. She still contrived to smile and chat and accept gracefully the compliments bestowed upon her, but she was acutely conscious of the fact that Laurence made no further attempt to seek her out.

  Quite likely, of course, this had nothing to do with any misstatement Minna might have managed to make. While their duties had kept them together his attitude had been impeccable, but, now that the demands of convention had been satisfied, he might well feel it was no longer incumbent upon him to go out of his way to be specially friendly.

  Whatever the explanation, his ignoring her made her feel anxious and unhappy. And she was not sure if she were relieved or sorry when her father suggested they might well make their departure.

  ‘So soon?’ she exclaimed instinctively, and then flushed as her father looked surprised.

  ‘At least half the guests have gone by now,’ he pointed out, ‘and Mrs Pallerton, for one, is looking very tired. I should think she—if not our hostess—will be glad to see the last of us. Weddings can be very exhausting once the principal excitement is over. Did you want to stay for any special reason?’

  She could hardly say that indeed she did: That she was disappointed not to have had more conversation with Laurence, and felt that if she lingered there might be a chance to set right whatever Minna might have contrived to put wrong between them.

  Instead she said, ‘I expect you’re right. I’ll go and have a word with Mrs Pallerton, and if she doesn’t need me for anything I’ll’—she swallowed quickly—‘just thank Laurence for looking after me and——’

  ‘Did he look after you?’ Her father lifted his eyebrows in that way which was so telling on the stage and so disconcerting in real life.

  ‘Well, so far as the best man does look after the bridesmaid,’ she explained hastily. ‘It’s just—a matter of convention.’

  ‘I didn’t notice him being particularly attentive,’ her father said, and although the statement was made casually she found it extraordinarily wounding. ‘But speak to him by all means. There’s no need to be unmannerly simply because someone else is.’

  Her longing to defend Laurence and his manners was out of all proportion to the occasion, but she somehow controlled herself. To make an issue of such a trifle would only imply excessive concern on his behalf. So she went over to Mrs Pallerton without more ado and found, as her father had predicted, that Wendy’s mother had reached the point of just wishing the whole thing were over.

  ‘I’m dead tired,’ she confessed, ‘and have a horrible feeling that’s just how I’m looking too. To be frank, I just want to go home and to bed. I’m sure your father has also had enough of it. He was kind enough to ask if I would join you both for dinner, but even kinder in immediately accepting my excuses. You’ve been such a support, dear, and he’s been wonderful too. Did you ever see anything so lovely as that mink he gave Wendy? I can’t get over his generosity.’

  ‘He’s very fond of you both, Mrs Pallerton,’ Natalie said earnestly. ‘I think he’s never forgotten how kind you were after that unhappy illness in Paris. You helped to rouse him from quite a prolonged fit of melancholy, you know. One remembers these things very gratefully.’

  ‘I’m happy to hear you say so. And I do hope’—she gave a worried little laugh—‘that things don’t go badly between him and Laurence. I’m so truly fond of them both——’

  ‘I, too,’ interrupted Natalie quickly. ‘At least, I mean of course that I’m devoted to Father and—and I like Laurence very much too.’

  ‘Then go and say some nice words to him now,’ said Mrs Pallerton. ‘Look, he’s over there by the window, and unencumbered by Miss Kolney for the moment.’

  So Natalie went, and as she came up to him he turned and smiled at her. Not perhaps with the glowing warmth of his usual confident smile, but almost tentatively as though he were a little doubtful as to why she had approached him.

  ‘Laurence, we’re going now. I just wanted’—she stopped, because really there was nothing for which to thank him specially, and suddenly she found herself saying instead—‘I just wanted to make sure that nothing I said was misrepresented—I mean misunderstood. I had to rush off and help Wendy change from her wedding dress, and I left the conversation rather clumsily unfinished. I wasn’t saying anything about not liking you. It was just that——’

  ‘Do you like me?’ he interrupted flatly, and she caught her breath.

  ‘Yes,’ said Natalie, just as simply. And then for good measure she added, ‘I just don’t like her, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t much like her either,’ said Laurence. And Natalie thought that was the finest speech she had ever heard from anyone.

  ‘Listen’—he took her lightly by the arm—‘can’t we go out somewhere together? We’ve had no time together really, and there’s so much——’

  ‘No, I can’t. I have to go with Father. He’s waiting for me.’

  ‘Oh—Father!’ His tone dropped a couple of notes to something like disgust. ‘Look, Natalie, you don’t really mind that I’m singing with him, do you? It was bound to come to that eventually. And when the performance was first mooted in New York I realised that was the big chance. It suddenly occurred to me that——’

  ‘Don’t tell me any more,’ she interrupted desperately, ‘please don’t! I can’t bear it—this business of divided loyalties. It makes me feel physically ill.’

  ‘There’s no question of divided loyalties,’ he told her impatiently. ‘The position is a perfectly natural one——’

  ‘I must go, dear—I must go.’ She had no idea that she had called him ‘dear’, even when she saw his expression change.

  ‘All right, my sweet,’ he said softly, ‘but one of these days we’re going to have this out, you and I. Father isn’t going to be the big problem in your life for ever.’

  She was horrified at what he had said. And even more horrified that she had put herself in a position to hear him say it. Somehow she should have staved off such a speech. Certainly she should never have said anything which gave him the chance to utter such words. For a second she remained there still, poised on the edge of protest and reproach.

  Then he said, still speaking softly, ‘Your father is coming this way, my dear, and I think you’d better go.’

  He relinquished her arm and she went without a word, meeting her father halfway across the room, so that it was not necessary for the two men to exchange more than a distant bow and smile.

  ‘Come,’ said her father, putting round her the cape he had just fetched for her, and as she shivered involuntarily he asked, ‘Are you cold?’


  ‘I—don’t think so.’ But she was—both hot and cold, and her father remarked amusedly, ‘Well, your cheeks look hot enough, certainly. What brought that flush there? compliments or insults?’

  ‘Neither,’ she replied abruptly. ‘Let’s go, Father.’ And, with a curious glance at her, he escorted her from the room and out to the waiting car.

  She feared he might ask her more on the way home. But, like Mrs Pallerton, he suddenly looked very tired, so that Natalie remembered with poignant clarity Wendy saying, ‘Look after him, Nat. They don’t come in that pattern any more.’

  And she had said she would look after him. With all that that implied.

  The next major event looming up on the horizon was, of course, the Otello performance. It was to be a big social occasion, quite apart from its artistic importance, and, inevitably, a certain amount was written about it in the press. With varying degrees of tact or tactlessness, attention was drawn to the fact that two tenors who might be regarded as interesting rivals would be taking part. And one newspaper came out quite frankly with the statement that Lindley Harding would, in a sense, be ‘defending his title.’

  ‘What nonsense!’ exclaimed Natalie nervously to Charles Drury. ‘Otello is one of the greatest roles in all opera, and Cassio is only a secondary character.’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Charles, rubbing his chin meditatively, ‘of course. But you’d do well to keep that particular bit of journalism from your father’s notice.’ Which she did.

  As was usual, she didn’t attend the earlier rehearsals; neither her father nor Warrender tolerated outsiders until the performance was more or less in shape. But she did of course ask, as naturally as possible, how things were going.