‘Oh, Oliver—’ she was relieved at the friendly greeting, though alarmed at the thought of what he might have to tell her. ‘Was there an awful to-do after I refused the part?’
‘Frightful,’ Oliver assured her cheerfully. ‘Father was in such a rage that he even let slip the fact that he’d spent hours of work coaching you himself. And that didn’t go down well with Marc, I can tell you.’
‘I never meant Marc to know that,’ she exclaimed in great dismay.
‘Well, he knows now, and your copybook is well and truly blotted. Forget about it, love! There are some things one never can explain away, and this is one of them. Don’t worry about it. Just write it off. There’s nothing else to do. What I really want to know is—what on earth was this glorious alternative which made even the leading role in Marc’s new opera seem small beer?’
‘Don’t exaggerate,’ said Gail nervously. ‘It’s not so glorious as all that. It just happens to be the very thing I need at my present stage of development.’ She was grateful to Madame Marburger for having pointed that out to her. ‘Paul Winter, the big Hamburg agent, is arranging a series of appearances for me in North Germany, and—’
‘Paul Winter,’ repeated Oliver, and he whistled. But in protest rather than admiration, she thought, and she asked sharply,
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t you really know?’
Gail shook her head.
‘Why, it was Paul Winter who gave such a boost to Lena Dorman’s career just after she’d given Marc the brush-off. It’s not the nicest way of making history repeat itself, is it?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Oliver was quite right, of course. There were some things one could never explain away. And to Gail it seemed that, even if she could bring herself to try to explain to Marc (an inconceivable thought, in any case) there was absolutely nothing she could say which would make him think her conduct anything but deplorable. She had, however unwittingly, hurt and humiliated him beyond bearing. And when she thought of that she could have buried her face in her hands and wept.
Indeed, when she got home after that revealing talk with Oliver, that was exactly what she did. She tried to put into practice his excellent advice that she had better just write off the whole affair and try to forget it. But each time she recalled that happy, happy evening when she and Marc had drunk champagne and toasted her future success, she knew that was something she would never forget. Even if she had to think of it now as a sort of lost glimpse of paradise.
She heard no more from Oscar Warrender. Having pulled the strings for her in an Olympian sort of way, he left the rest to her. And rightly so, of course.
Of Quentin Bannister she also heard nothing, which did not surprise her. She supposed there was something to be said for his being furious with her. Seldom could he have bestirred himself to give so much care and thought to any student’s development. And, if his motives had not been unmixed, the fact remained that she had benefited by his training to an incalculable degree. There were some things he had taught her in the course of coaching her for the role of Anya which would stand her in good stead for the rest of her life.
If the situation had been less complicated she would have liked to tell him how much she truly appreciated what he had done for her, and how genuinely sorry she was that she had not been able to fulfil his hopes for her. But there was no way of contacting him now. And she could not imagine that it would give him any pleasure if she did.
Without the prospect of her journey to Hamburg to be auditioned by Paul Winter, life would have been sad indeed. But the exciting challenge of an entirely new phase in her career could not leave her unmoved, and there were moments when she felt her spirits rise irrepressibly. She even allowed herself to hope that some day, some time, she might unexpectedly meet Marc again and tell him something of the truth.
Not next month, of course. Not even perhaps next year. Too much was still involved. But one (unspecified) glorious day, when they would meet without bitterness and she could explain to him that she had longed to sing Anya but knew—as he himself would have discovered by then—that Erna Spolianska could do for his work what she could never do. Then she could explain about Oscar Warrender’s offer, and he would see that she had been quite innocent of any desire to hurt or humiliate him.
It was all rather vague and improbable, of course. But she went over the whole scene in her own mind during the journey to Hamburg, and it consoled her quite considerably. It also steadied her nerves for the ordeal ahead.
In point of fact, owing to the warm recommendation from Warrender, she received from Paul Winter much less cavalier treatment than the busy agent usually meted out to new aspiring artists. Besides, he really was in a dilemma, having been let down by one of his principal artists, and he badly needed someone as gifted and well trained as Gail.
He paid her several compliments—which was unusual with him, had she but known it—and it seemed he would have no difficulty in arranging a three months’ tour for her, beginning in the New Year.
Gail, who was full of good resolutions not to be anywhere near London while the preparations for the production of ‘The Exile’ were in progress, was somewhat dismayed at the prospect of returning to England within a matter of days. She had almost convinced herself that her engagements would follow practically immediately on the audition, provided she was found suitable. But the agent quickly disabused her of any such notion.
‘Nothing is arranged as quickly as that, even in a moderate emergency,’ he told her. You can stay here and practise your German and work on your singing, of course. I can recommend you to a modest pension and a good teacher. But, from the practical point of view, you will not be earning money until January.’
‘Then I’ll go home and spend Christmas with my family,’ Gail said, realizing that this would be as happy a way as any of being out of London until she finally left for Germany.
‘Very good. Christmas is a time to be with one’s family,’ agreed the agent, who was almost totally indifferent to his own family. But, like most Germans, he was sentimental in thought if not in deed, and the two words ‘Christmas’ and ‘family’ clicked together suitably in his mind.
So, to the delight of her parents and the twins, Gail spent Christmas in the north, at home.
They were tremendously impressed to learn that she was actually to have a modest tour abroad, and her brother and sister at any rate talked as though she were already a star of the first magnitude.
‘It’s only a beginning,’ Gail explained hastily. ‘Quite good money and marvellous experience—with a chance to make useful contacts. But nothing absolutely sensational.’
‘How did it come about, dear?’ her mother inquired, with almost equal interest. ‘Did you contact this Mr. Winter yourself on the chance of his having something? or did you have a recommendation to him—or what?’
‘I had a recommendation. From Oscar Warrender.’ She could not keep a slight note of pride out of her voice, and everyone was suitably awed. Especially her mother’s next-door neighbour, Mrs. Panton, who was considered locally to be something of an authority on matters musical, and had dropped in to hear the latest from London in whatever form Gail chose to put it.
‘Oscar Warrender?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why, he’s among the very greatest conductors in the world. How did you get a recommendation from him, Gail?’
‘He heard me at an audition,’ Gail explained as casually as she could. ‘I was short-listed for the leading role in a new opera and—’
‘Not “The Exile”?’ said Mrs. Panton, who read her musical periodicals with great thoroughness.
‘Yes.’ Gail was slightly taken aback to find herself involved in discussing the very thing she had most wished to avoid.
‘Why, even I have heard of that,’ declared her young sister, Veronica. ‘Everyone’s heard of it Why didn’t you get the part?’ It was touchingly obvious that she could not imagine anyone rejecting her sister, once Gail had been heard.
‘Someone else was much better.’ Gail laughed lightly, though suddenly she was aware of almost unbearable heartache.
‘I don’t believe it,’ stated Veronica with loyal incredulity.
‘True, nevertheless, Vonnie.’ Gail smiled at her. ‘She was a Polish girl. I was there myself when she was auditioned. She was simply marvellous. With a deep understanding of the part which few people could achieve, I’m sure.’
‘Were you terribly disappointed?’ Veronica’s eyes were wide with sympathy.
‘Well, yes. It’s no good pretending that I wasn’t.’ All at once she seemed to be back in that shabby theatre, watching Erna Spolianska’s incredible performance—and then Marc’s fascinated expression. ‘I knew I was very near getting the part, and I’d even hoped it was virtually mine, because I’d had one or two hints that I was well in the running. But when I heard this girl I knew she was right for the part, and because I wanted the work to be a great success, I suppose I could just bear being pipped at the post.’
She managed to laugh a little as she said that, and the lighthearted expression helped to make her statement less than tragic.
‘All the same, I think you’re being wonderfully philosophical,’ her mother remarked.
‘Though of course it was quite gratifying to get even as near as that,’ said Mrs. Panton.
‘Well, I think it was a shame,’ exclaimed Veronica. ‘I think you should have had the part. Didn’t you nearly burst into tears on the spot, Gail?’
‘No,’ said Gail, and smiled again.
But she thought to herself—the tears came later. And not so much for the disappointment about losing the part as for the anguish of knowing she had lost Marc’s good opinion and friendship.
She had time to think much more deeply about her own reactions during the relaxed days at home, and she was both dismayed and surprised to find how precious those few happy hours with Marc had become in retrospect. Even at the time, of course, she had known that she was tremendously happy. That afternoon when he had bought her the china figure, that celebration supper together, the concert, the occasional word or glance which expressed so much with such unexpected warmth. Even, when she thought about it now, that sharp encounter at his own home, that very first evening.
Nothing of their all too brief relationship lacked its significance now. Not even her now confused thoughts at the time. When she had stood in front of the mirror, for instance, and laughingly asked herself if she wanted him to love her a little. And the instantaneous reply that she wanted him to love her a lot.
‘It was a silly dream,’ she told herself with a sigh. ‘It was lovely—lovely, while it lasted. But it was just a dream.’
Only sometimes it seemed to be a dream from which it was impossible to wake up.
While she was still at home a long and rather fulsome article about the Bannister brothers appeared in one of the chattier newspapers. And just as Gail was completing her packing for her German trip, Veronica came rushing into her room with the paper in her hand.
‘There’s quite a lot here about Marc Bannister and “The Exile”,’ she announced. ‘And quite a bit about the other brother too. Shall I read it to you?’
‘Yes, read it to me,’ said Gail with an indulgent smile. And although she had to repress a slight quiver of nervous apprehension, she went on folding dresses with a calm and competent air.
The article dealt pretty accurately with Marc’s career to date, and then went into some detail about the forthcoming production of ‘The Exile’. There was a little about all the principal members of the cast, with a reference to the fact that the leading woman’s role was to be sung by Erna Spolianska.
Veronica stumbled slightly over the name and then said, ‘They describe her as unknown in this country, but coming from abroad with a fine reputation. And they say Oscar Warrender is going to conduct the first performance, which will be towards the end of March—Oh, I say! you’ll still be in Germany, won’t you? Will you be sorry—or glad?’
‘I don’t really know,’ Gail confessed frankly.
‘Mostly glad, I should think,’ said her sister. ‘I should think it would be agony watching someone else do a part that you’d hoped to do yourself.’
‘Not if she does it as marvellously, as I think she will. But, all things considered—’ by which she supposed she meant both Marc and Quentin Bannister—‘I expect it would be better for me not to be there. Perhaps it’s just as well that I shall be in Germany. But you’ll have to look out for the reviews, Vonnie, and send them all to me. You will, won’t you?’
‘You bet!’ Veronica was pleased and proud to have even so modest a hand in things. ‘There’s nothing more in the article about Marc Bannister. But they say the other brother is also engaged in musical composition of a different sort. That’s how they put it. His name’s Oliver. Do you know him too?’
‘Yes. Very well. It was he who first took me down to the Bannister home.’
‘You know everyone, don’t you?’ said Veronica admiringly.
‘Not exactly. Read me what they say about Oliver.’
‘He’s been writing the music for a new revue. And according to this article he’s just as brilliant as his brother, only in a different way. The book of the revue is by a man called Tom Mallender, and it’s being put on at The Paragon in April, by J. R. Arrowmead. Do you know him too?’
‘No, I can’t say I do,’ Gail laughed. ‘But I know Tom Mallender. And the day he had lunch with Mr. Arrowmead and the idea was first mooted, I met him and he was so excited that he hardly knew where he was going or what he was doing. I’m so terribly glad it’s all turned out well for them. They’re both tremendously gifted men.’
‘There are photographs here of both the Bannister brothers,’ Veronica said. ‘Do you want to see them?’
‘Yes, please.’ Gail held out her hand, and hoped that only she was aware that it was not quite steady.
Veronica handed over the newspaper and Gail stared, fascinated, at the very good photograph of Marc, looking rather serious, it was true, but so exactly as she had seen him look a dozen times that she could hardly bite back an exclamation of mingled pain and pleasure.
‘Oliver’s the better-looking one, isn’t he?’ observed her sister, glancing again at the photographs.
‘Not really.’ Gail looked passingly at the smiling picture of Oliver, and then back at Marc. And she was silent for such a long time that presently Veronica said doubtfully, ‘Gail—?’
‘Um-hm?’
‘Are you in love with one of them?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ Gail dropped the paper. ‘Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘The funny way you looked when you were examining those photographs. Only I couldn’t quite make out which one you were really looking at I think it’s Marc you’re rather keen on, though, isn’t it?’
‘Neither or them means anything special to me,’ declared Gail, wondering how she could tell such a thumping lie without the ground opening and swallowing her. ‘Oliver and I are really very good friends, in a gay, lighthearted sort of way. We were students together for quite a while. I never met Marc until Oliver took me down to their home in Sussex. He and his father were already looking round for the right cast for “The Exile” so my connection with him was almost entirely to do with professional matters.’
‘Did he want you for the part of his heroine?’
‘At first, I think he did.’ She suddenly had a very clear picture of Marc smiling at her over the champagne glass. ‘But not after he heard the Spolianska girl. I don’t think anyone could really have preferred me then—And now I must get my packing finished, Vonnie. Leave the newspaper, if you don’t want it, I’ll take it with me and read the article myself at leisure.’
So Veronica left the newspaper where it was lying, and Gail presently slipped it into her case.
The next day she left for Germany.
Long afterwards, when she used to look back on those months in Germany
, Gail found it difficult to decide if she had been happy or unhappy. Of course there was immense pleasure and interest in travelling through an entirely new country, with different experiences at every turn. But sometimes she was keenly aware that she had left at least half her heart at home in England.
She got on well with most of her colleagues. She was almost uniformly praised for her work. And she was aware that all the time she was enlarging her artistic horizons. All this could be counted as making for a very happy life. But whenever she was able to get hold of an English newspaper she scanned it eagerly for news of Marc and his opera—almost always without any result Inevitably so. For while it was in process of production ‘The Exile’ hardly rated more than a line or two among miscellaneous items of news. It was not until its first night that it would become headline news.
Some of Gail’s engagements were in quite small towns, many of indescribable charm and picturesque appeal, and always there was an appreciative audience. Occasionally she took part in quite important concerts in one of the larger towns, and on these occasions she had the genuine thrill of singing under the directorship of really distinguished conductors. But most of the time her conductors were good, hardworking, run-of-the-mill people, who knew their scores inside out, but brought no special flame of genius to the performance.
All of it was good experience, however, and forced as she was to speak little but German most of the time, she improved her command of the language out of all knowledge.
Quite early in the tour she struck up a friendship with an American girl, Liz Enderby, a gifted soubrette with an excellent Mozart style. She, of course, had no place in Gail’s world of oratorio, but they had rooms at the same pension and sometimes travelled together when Liz was singing at one of the smaller opera houses and Gail had a concert engagement nearby.
She was warm-hearted and gay and very good company, and did more than anyone eke to keep Gail from feeling too homesick. It was from Liz that Gail heard, for the first time after many, many weeks, the name which was constantly in her mind but never on her lips.
Music of the Heart (The Warrender Saga No. 6) Page 14
