Little sister

by Mary Burchell

  It was somewhere near midnight when she heard Varoni come into the bedroom next door, and immediately Alix

  — who had been growing sleepy — was wide awake again, tingling in every nerve at the sound of that sweet, peremptory voice speaking to Drayton.

  Then the communicating door was opened, and a long shaft of subdued light fell across the carpet.

  "Alix, are you asleep?" Varoni spoke very softly.

  "No." Alix struggled into a sitting position. "What — I

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  what is it?" she asked a little apprehensively as her mother came across the room,

  "Only that I hadn't said good night," Varoni said, and the next moment her arms were round Alix.

  "Have you been working all this time?" Alix asked tenderly at last.

  "No — not really working, only I had to be there while Moerling and Grahler thrashed things out. I'm tired now."

  "You must be." Alix touched her hair. "You must go to bed and sleep well."

  "Yes, I shall. I'm glad you were awake."

  "I'm glad too," Alix said as Varoni got up to go.

  That was all. Not one word which suggested they had quarrelled and made it up. Alix saw her for a moment in the shaft of light from the other room, then the door was closed and she was alone again.

  "I shall never understand her," Alix thought, "as long as I live. But I shall love her until I'm dead — and far beyond."

  The next morning Alix woke, at something more like her usual time, to find it was a glorious day. Almost immediately she was summoned to have breakfast in her mother's room, and over the meal Varoni made one of her quick decisions.

  "It is too nice to stay in town today. I should like to go to the country. I'll practise for an hour, and then we'll take the car and go down to the cottage and settle everything."

  "Nina! Really? How lovely! Just the two of us?"

  "Yes." Varoni smiled at her pleasure.

  "Not even the chauffeur?"

  "No. I can drive."

  And later it seemed she certainly could, for as Alix sat beside her in the big American car, she saw that Varoni handled it with a skill and decision which many men might have envied.

  The window was open and the warm air blew in, stirring the tendrils of Varoni's fair hair and catching at the ends of her blue scarf. Alix thought her the loveliest thing she had ever seen, and when they stopped half way for lunch, she felt wild with pride at the interest Nina caused in the country hotel.

  It was still early in the afternoon when they topped the rise which ran smoothly down to the cottage gate. To Alix it was a very strange moment — this meeting of the old life and the new, and, glancing at Varoni, she thought that she too was not unmoved by the sight of the place where her own mother had lived and died.

  Betty was in, and very much astonished to see them. "Why, Miss Alix dear! I didn't expect you until the weekend. But I'm very glad to see you," she added, wringing Alix's hand and glancing with something like awe at the tall, perfectly dressed figure of Varoni.

  "This is my sister, Betty," Alix explained, with admirable composure. "We never heard much of her because she was always away travelling. She's a singer, you know."

  "How d'you do, ma'am?" Betty seemed very much overcome.

  "How do you do, Betty? I understand you have been extremely kind to my little sister," Varoni said slowly in that beautiful voice of hers, and she held out her hand, with a very sweet and gracious smile.

  Alix watched, with something like amusement, Betty's complete capitulation to the famous Varoni charm. And when it seemed that Varoni wanted her to stay on at the cottage, simply to keep it ready for whenever Miss Alix might want it, Betty almost wept at the revelation of such a beautiful disposition.

  Presently, at Alix's earnest request, Varoni came upstairs to her room while she packed the things she meant to take back with her.

  It was indescribably strange to see her mother there in the familiar surroundings, smiling quizzically, and curiously touching the things which Alix had known all her life.

  "Aha, I see I have a place of honour," she said amusedly, pausing in front of her own photograph, which stood in the centre of the narrow mantelpiece.

  "Of course." Alix's voice was very slightly hushed.

  "Didn't your grandmother object?" Again she spoke as though Grandma had no connection with her.

  "No, certainly not. Grandma was not like that at all."

  Varoni didn't answer. She only went on smiling.

  "She wasn't, really. You can't imagine how just and scrupulous she was."

  "Oh, yes, I can. I did know her too, you know," Varoni said softly. "She was absolutely just — mercilessly just."

  "Grandma wasn't merciless at all," Alix retorted in agitation, .whereat Varoni shrugged and said:

  "You and I must have been very different girls, Alix, Perhaps that explains it"

  Alix didn't like to say any more after that, but went on slowly folding things and putting them in her suitcase.

  Varoni sat on the bed and watched her, but every now and then her gaze wandered round the room again with an interest that secretly flattered Alix.

  "It is a pretty room, isn't it?" she said at last, almost shyly.

  "Yes," Varoni smiled. "It's as pretty as ever."

  Alix stopped what she was doing.

  "Have you ever seen my room before?" she said in great astonishment.

  "Oh yes. Didn't you know? You were born here."

  'Was I?" Alix put down the dress she had been folding and came slowly over to the bed. "I'd no idea. I wish I had known."

  "Perhaps it was just as well you didn't know. I hated the room for the little while I was here."

  "Oh, why?" Alix was shocked.

  "Because I hated having you. I didn't want a child at all. I felt trapped and furious and terrified. Your grandmother thought that was terribly wicked, of course — and I suppose you do too." For a moment Varoni was a defiant, miserable girl again.

  "No," Alix said slowly, "I don't think it wicked at all. You couldn't help feeling like that. But did you hate me when I was there?"

  Varoni didn't answer at once. She glanced round the room in that curious, reminiscent way before she said:

  "It's strange — I'd deliberately forgotten all about it. Yesterday I couldn't have told you what this room was like. Yet now I'm here, I remember it all quite clearly. I can remember the day you were born, and the way the sun came in just there. It was a day like this, only early in the morning."

  "Was it?" Alix was watching her mother's face, and the strange play of expression upon it.

  Varoni nodded, her eyes very wide and strangely dark.

  "It had been a horrible night. Hours of trying not to scream, because I was terrified of hurting my throat even then. I hated everybody. You, and — the man who'd got me into the mess, and your grandmother because she was the kind to think it right I should literally suffer for my sins. She thought the 'innocent child' was the important point. I didn't. I didn't want a child. I only wanted to be a famous singer. And I thought I was going to die miserably instead of living gloriously. ,,

  "And then?" Alix said gently as her mother paused.

  "Then?" Varoni laughed suddenly and the stormy look went out of her eyes. "Why, then you were there, and it was very early morning, and I thought perhaps I was going to live after all. I can't remember how you looked, Alix, or whether you cried, but I can remember exactly how you felt when they gave you to me for the first time."

  "Can you?" Alix was amused and touched. "How did I feel?"

  "Exactly as you do now," Varoni said slowly, as though the discovery surprised her. "I realize now. It was what I recognized about you in the hotel the other night."

  "But I couldn't feel like a baby!" Alix laughed. "I'm almost grown up."

  Varoni looked at her thoughtfully.

  "It's a sort of appeal," she said. "A — something which makes me know reluctantly that you're mine. I suppose it's the way animals r
ecognize their young." She laughed suddenly and said with angry flippancy: "Someone who didn't like me once said that I was nearly all animal, with just a gorgeous voice thrown in. Perhaps that's it."

  "It's nothing of the sort," Alix said warmly, much surprised at the remark, for she knew it was very rare for Varoni to repeat an unflattering criticism of herself.

  "Well, it doesn't matter." Varoni seemed suddenly to become aware that the conversation had been much too personal and revealing, and Alix guessed in that moment that she would willingly have taken back at least half the things she had said in the last ten minutes.

  "There—" Varoni moved away. "Hurry up and finish your packing, child. I can't be very late back. I have to try on costumes."

  And after that she talked of nothing but her singing and the theatre, a little as though she were alarmed and annoyed at the way personal matters had been allowed to encroach on her usual scheme of life.

  Alix hurried with her packing, and then had a timid plea to make.

  "Could you please wait just a little longer while I go into the garden, and then stop for a minute in the village. — I — I want to pick some flowers for Grandma's grave."

  "Very well. Don't be long. I'll make the final arrangements with Betty, and then wait for you in the car."

  Alix sped down the garden, half relieved that Varoni didn't follow her there. It was so very much Grandma's domain that somehow it wouldn't have seemed right.

  She cut the flowers quickly, arranging them in the kind of carefully careless mixed bunch which Grandma had always liked. She used to say she liked her cut flowers to represent all her garden, and Alix searched earnestly for every kind of flower which found its place there now.

  She was almost ready, when a queer and frightening thought came into her mind. Was this another unfortunate occasion when Varoni would see flowers which were not for her? A stupid idea, of course, but Alix could imagine that there were times when her strange and beautiful mother would grudge flowers even to the dead. . . Carefully laying down Grandma's flowers on the grass, she hastily gathered another bunch. Then, with both of them in her arms, she ran into the house to bid good-bye to Betty, before she went out into the front once more to join her mother in the car.

  "You've been a long time." Varoni leant forward and opened the door for her.

  "I'm sorry." Alix got into the car, shutting the door behind her. Then she put the flowers into Varoni's lap without a word and kissed her.

  "Oh, silly child," Varoni said. "You shouldn't have waited to get me flowers too." But she gave a smile of indescribable gratification, and Alix thought:

  "Am I the child, or is she? How silly and dear and vulnerable she is. I suppose that's why Moerling guards her so carefully from being hurt."

  Varoni stopped at the gate of the small church-yard 0

  "Here?" was all she said.

  "Yes." Alix gathered up her flowers. "I — suppose you won't come too?"

  "No/'

  Alix got out of the car and went towards the gate.

  "Alix."

  "Yes?" She turned and came back.

  Varoni drew three beautiful roses out of her own bunch of flowers.

  "You can put those there for me." * Alix took them slowly, and looked from the flowers to her mother.

  "What a very sweet thought," she said gently.

  Varoni smiled, a little as though she despised herself.

  "It may be — or perhaps it's just silly. Don't be long, Alix. We'll have to drive fast as it is."

  "I won't be long," Alix promised, and went through the gate into the churchyard.

  All the time she was away, Varoni sat perfectly still in the car, apparently aware of nothing but the pleasant sunshine and the warm wind blowing. Only when the click of the gate announced Alix's return did she rouse herself. And even then she made no comment at all — perhaps she saw her little daughter was too much moved to want to talk.

  They drove very fast after that, as Varoni had said they must, and Alix sat there very still beside her mother, thinking of the strange things that had been said that afternoon. And, as she thought, it came over her that strangest of all had been the phrase — "the man who had got me into the mess."

  At the time it had not made so much impression. Now it came back to Alix with almost brutal force. Who had her father been?

  Alix stole a look at her mother. "The man who had got me into the mess." It didn't sound like a description of a husband. Not even a description by anyone as hard and secretive as Varoni could sometimes be.

  If only her mother hadn't looked so cool and remote now, Alix thought, she might have found courage to question her. A pity she hadn't done so at the time — but now the moment was past.

  Of course, Grandma had said quite definitely: "She

  married your father when she was very young," and Grandma never told a lie. At least, Alix had confidently supposed she never did. But for the sake of her granddaughter's peace of mind—? Yes, Alix admitted, that was just possible.

  "I shan't know now for a long time," Alix thought with a sigh. "But perhaps Mother will tell me one day."

  At the same time, she wondered uncomfortably if it were not all so much a chance incident in Varoni's life that it would scarcely be considered worthy of comment. Not a palatable thought. But then nor were several other thoughts in connection with this new life of hers. And it certainly would explain that half amused, half intrigued air of her mother's, which always seemed to suggest that Varoni could scarcely credit that anything she had firmly labelled as a detail in her life could have the effrontery to push itself timidly under her notice.

  It was not yet seven o'clock when they drew up in front Df the hotel once more, but even so, it was evidently later han Varoni had intended.

  "Run along in/' she said to Alix, "and tell Prescott I shan't be long. I must just garage the car. And if Feron is there with the Don Carlos costumes, tell him I'm sorry I'm late but it simply couldn't be helped."

  "All right." Alix ran into the hotel, proud to have even so minor a message in connection with her mother.

  Feron — a damp, dreamy-eyed, sharp-tongued little Frenchman — was already there, and he received Alix's message contemptuously. However, when Varoni herself appeared, it was a very different matter, and he seemed to enjoy as much as anyone the fitting of the glorious sixteenth-century costumes, with their yards of rich, heavy silk, their graceful Medici collars, and their stiff, beautiful bodices.

  Alix, to her unspeakable gratification, had been allowed to stay and watch, and for her it was a most exciting experience.

  Towards the end, Moerling came in to give his verdict. Everything pleased him immensely except one black dress.

  "It won't do," he said, regarding Varoni through cigar smoke.

  "It is superb," the Frenchman declared annoyedly.

  "Unrelieved it is too sombre. I know the scene — you don't/'

  "She must carry a handkerchief — a soft chiffon one. Voila. A touch of white." He thrust a piece of white material into Varonfs hand.

  "Champs Elysees," Moerling said brutally. "Nothing Spanish about that."

  "Try red," suggested Prescott.

  "No. Red gives too much the idea of violence."

  Without a word, Alix dashed away into her bedroom, flung open her suitcase, tumbled out the things on to the bed, and snatched up a chiffon handkerchief of a peculiar and beautiful shade of bright green.

  Breathlessly she hurried back into the room and put it into her mother's hand.

  There was a critical silence.

  "It's good," Prescott said.

  "Magnifique" declared the Frenchman.

  "Mah-vell-ous," smiled Moerling in admirable imitation of the "stage" Englishman, and they all laughed.

  "It is lovely, darling. May I have it?" Varoni said. And as Alix nodded speechless agreement, she felt she had justified her existence. To think that an actual possession of hers would be carried on the stage by Varoni! It was almost too much.
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  After that they went to have supper, since it was much too late for dinner, and everyone was in a very good humour.

  "Alix comes to the performance tomorrow night, of course?" Moerling asked.

  "I suppose so. You want to
  "Want to come!" Alix was scarlet. "May I, please? I — I've never heard you sing."

  "Then you will enjoy it, I hope." Varoni patted her hot cheek. "It is Tosca. You will like that. Everybody likes :. Or if not, they might as well be dead," she added carols

  "You have heard it before?" Moerling asked.

  "No. Iv never beard an opei

  "My God," said Moerling, "is it possible?"

  Alix admitted regretfully that it v>

  "Do you know the story

  "No."

  "Give her the English libretto tomorrow, Prescott, I cannot let her hear the greatest Tosca of her time and not know what she is singing about."

  "Are you the greatest Tosca of my time?" Alix smiled and took her mother's hand.

  "Moerling thinks so. He should know."

  "Yes, yes," Moerling nodded, but whether to confirm the perfection of Varoni's Tosca or the infallibility of his own judgment Alix could not decide.

  "You will need an evening dress," Varoni said. "That is as important as the libretto," she added with a smile. "Have you an evening dress, Alix?"

  "No." Alix was crestfallen. "I never needed one, you see."

  "Then you must go and get one tomorrow morning — and everything you need with it. Ask Prescott if you want advice. I can't come with you tomorrow. I never go anywhere on the day of a performance."

  "Very well." Alix looked very serious at the responsibility of it all.

  "What kind of dress do you want?" Her mother smiled rather indulgently. "Do you know?"

  "No, but perhaps," Alix said, thinking of Grandma, "I ought to have black."

  "Black! Don't be absurd," Varoni exclaimed with unusual irritation. "Do you want to make yourself look old?"

  "N-no." Alix had never thought of that point. "I dare say white would be nicer," she said hastily and pleadingly, because an expression of indifference was beginning to harden on her mother's face.