The Curtain Rises

by Mary Burchell

  'I believed that too.' Her tone was warm and grate­ful, but although he was speaking more expansively now, there was still something cool, almost wary, about him.

  'There were a couple of highly successful concerts in Montreal, where he and I lived in the same hotel and saw a great deal of each other. It was then that he showed me your photograph and spoke so much about you.'

  She glanced up and smiled suddenly.

  'It may seem a silly question to you, but please be in­dulgent with me. How did he speak of me?'

  'As a man does speak of the girl he hopes to marry. He said you were beautiful and a darling. I can see—' he smiled faintly—'that he was right about the first, and I am willing to take his word for it that he was right about the second.'

  'Thank you.' She was more moved than she had ex­pected to be, and although she still managed to smile, she glanced down quickly so that he should not see her eyes.

  The Toronto concerts were the most important ones for him.' In some curious way he sounded as though he were driving himself to a difficult task. 'Brian was playing the Walton Concerto at the first concert, and was soloist in the Berlioz "Harold in Italy" at the second. He—caught a chill in Montreal and we had to leave him there. But, by cutting rehearsals to the minimum, he still hoped to fulfil his Toronto engagements. In the end, he missed the first one. But, ill though he was, he fulfilled the second one. I'm afraid it was too much for him. That's all.'

  'That's—all?' she repeated bleakly.

  'Well, of course that's all,' he exclaimed almost fiercely. 'What more could there be to say?' And, glancing up, she suddenly realized that she was not the only one suffering. Those blue eyes were even darker than usual with a misery that was almost shocking in its bitterness.

  'Don't!' she said quickly, putting her hand over his clenched one as it lay on the table. 'Don't take it so hard. There was nothing you could have done.'

  'My God—' he laughed shortly, but he turned his hand and held hers tightly for an instant—'are you comforting me?'

  'Perhaps,' she said gravely, 'we're comforting each other.'

  'Perhaps we are,' he agreed slowly. And then, half to himself—'Yes, I see what Brian meant about you.'

  The waiter came with their first course then, so there was no chance to ask him what he meant by that. But on the whole, she thought she would not have asked, any­way. There was something coursing between them in those few moments almost like the flicker of an electric current. An inexplicable line of communication so full of sympathy and understanding that words were not re­quired.

  By common consent they said very little of Brian after that. Instead, she asked him about his own work and told him how much she was looking forward to hearing him conduct.

  'Which is more than your employer would wish you to say,' he observed with a laugh. But now she could smile even at that.

  'Indulge her a little,' Nicola pleaded. 'She is a very great artist indeed, and although she can be very arrogant about it, like all of them she can be strangely vulnerable too. Just as a child needs some spoiling—'

  'And discipline,' he put in wryly.

  'All right—and discipline too. But the discipline of that woman over her art is so fantastic that one can only ad­mire her. I think maybe she just has to relax in other ways sometimes.'

  'And take it out on others?' he suggested, but there was almost sweet good-humour in the slight smile with which he accepted that.

  'Perhaps,' Nicola laughed reluctantly. And that was the moment when a shadow fell across the table, a hand rested lightly on her shoulder, and a beautiful, familiar voice said, 'Enjoying yourself, darling?'

  It was not possible to repress a guilty start. But Nicola looked up bravely at her aunt, while Julian Evett rose immediately to his feet, that indulgently amused expres­sion still on his face.

  'Yes, I am,' declared Nicola, with as natural a smile as she could manage. 'You see—'

  'Of course, of course, dear.' Torelli's glance scarcely brushed over Nicola's companion. 'Have fun.'

  And she passed on, something about the gloriously poised head suggesting that she knew, with satisfaction, that she had left very little sense of fun behind her.

  There was silence for a moment. Then he said, 'I take it I'm not on the visiting list, either for you or for her.'

  'Oh, don't let's make too much of it.' Nicola forced a laugh. 'Maybe it's good for her to know that I have a private life.'

  But, although the rest of the evening was pleasant, a sense of uneasiness lingered, particularly after he had driven her home and said good night to her, with a warmth which was in marked contrast to the coolness with which he had at first received her.

  In spite of the unfortunate encounter, few evenings had given her so much pleasure since Brian went. And she knew instinctively that this was something she must tackle with her aunt in the morning, or for ever be fretting in a false position.

  No opportunity offered at first. Torelli rose late, break­fasted alone, and chose to practise for a long time, while Nicola's nerves grew taut, in spite of every reasonable argument she kept rehearsing to herself.

  But when her aunt finally came into the study she looked relaxed and good-humoured, and she patted Nicola's cheek quite affectionately as she said, 'You're a naughty girl not to have told me you knew Julian Evett so well. Now explain yourself.'

  'I don't know him well at all,' Nicola insisted earnestly. 'I never met him until he came here yesterday afternoon. But—' In a sudden burst of confidence she put her cards on the table—'Madame, I was more or less engaged to Brian Coverdale, and I loved him very much. Something Mr. Evett said yesterday afternoon showed me that he knew him well. I couldn't resist the chance of hearing about Brian's l-last weeks. I telephoned Mr. Evett and he asked me out to dinner. That's really all.'

  Gina Torelli stood and looked rather sombrely at her niece, and the strong lines of her wonderful stage face settled into an expression of almost classical melancholy.

  'And did he tell you about the last weeks of the poor Brian Coverdale?' she said at last, her wonderful speak­ing voice taking on expressive overtones which seemed to mourn Brian like a beautifully modulated lament.

  'Yes,' said Nicola, and swallowed.

  'All about them?'

  'I—suppose so.'

  'And you could still sit at the same table and smile at him?'

  'I don't know what you mean.' Nicola looked startled, and Torelli made a slight but infinitely telling gesture.

  'Dear child, don't you know that Julian Evett was al­most entirely responsible for that poor young man's untimely death?'

  CHAPTER TWO

  'You can't mean it?' Nicola stared at her aunt in absolute horror.

  'I never say anything I don't mean,' replied Madame Torelli. And so shattered was Nicola that she let this staggeringly inaccurate assertion pass without comment.

  'But I don't understand!' She passed her hands over her face in a bewildered gesture. 'Julian Evett couldn't have been responsible for Brian's death. He was his friend. He admired him—was truly attached to him. He spoke of him in terms of the utmost warmth and he—he looked stricken and utterly wretched as he spoke of his death.'

  'And why not?' Madame Torelli shrugged. 'It is not pleasant to reflect that one has driven a young artist to his death, even in the best of causes. That is to say,' she ampli­fied gravely, 'the cause of artistic perfection.'

  'It's unbelievable! You must please explain to me.' And Nicola absently rubbed her hands together as though they had suddenly grown cold, which indeed they had.

  'It is very simple,' Torelli replied regretfully. 'Brian Coverdale was to be the soloist at two concerts under the conductorship of Julian Evett. He was brilliant, that young man. Excitingly brilliant, with that quality which engenders the greatest enthusiasm in an audience. It is something indefinable which makes an occasion, and re­flects glory and triumph on all who take part. With Julian Evett's own excellent talent—' she let that tribute to
him slip out—'his excellent orchestra and a soloist of Brian Coverdale's calibre, he could not fail to achieve the kind of concert which helps to build reputations. Brian was necessary to him on those two occasions.'

  'But Brian was not able to make the first concert, was he?' murmured Nicola. 'He was already ill.'

  'That is true. So that already there was the element of disappointment associated with a Julian Evett concert. He was, I suppose, determined this should not be repeated. Let us give him credit—' she gestured generously— 'for artistic integrity, though inevitably personal ambi­tion must have entered into it too. In any case, he refused to accept any sort of excuse from Brian Coverdale for that second concert. I was told there was an acrimonious long-distance phone call between them in which Julian Evett was brutally insistent.'

  'Making it almost impossible for Brian to refuse?' Nicola said quickly.

  'Exactly. Over-persuaded, Brian Coverdale risked defying doctor's orders and arrived in Toronto with a soaring temperature. But he played at the concert. Curiously enough,' she added reminiscently, 'he played like an angel. I don't ever recall a more thrilling per­formance of the Berlioz "Harold".'

  'You were there, then? '

  'Certainly I was there. I went backstage afterwards to offer him my congratulations, a thing I very seldom do,' observed Torelli, thus marking the quality of the occasion. 'He must have been in a high fever, poor young man. He looked terrible, and as I came into the dressing-room he and Evett were finishing what was obviously a fierce exchange of discourtesies. Evett said, in that unpleasingly arrogant way of his, "I was determined you should come if it killed you—" '

  'Oh, he couldn't have!' Nicola covered her face with her hands.

  'He didn't mean it literally, of course. We all say these things in the heat of the moment. But your Brian answered, "That's what you've done, you devil." He probably didn't mean that either, of course. We are all entitled to our moment of heroics after a great perform­ance,' explained Torelli indulgently. 'But it was almost literally true, as it happened. He collapsed later that night, and died twenty-four hours afterwards. Very sad,' she added judicially. 'Fine artists are rare.'

  'So are the people one loves,' retorted Nicola fiercely.

  'Yes, of course. Well, darling, you see now why I was surprised to see you in such friendly converse with Julian Evett.'

  'I'll never speak to him again!'

  'I'm afraid you will have to.' Torelli was strictly practical about that. 'He is conducting for me at the Festival Hall, whether we like it or not, and I can't have my secretary not on speaking terms with my conductor. It would create ridiculous problems. But,' she conceded as Nicola made a gesture of inexpressible distaste, 'there is no need to be friendly with him. Which brings me round to the first piece of advice I gave you about the young man. He is not one of the people of whom one makes a friend.'

  'How right you were!' exclaimed Nicola bitterly.

  'Yes. I usually am,' stated Torelli without false modesty.

  Then she turned her attention to more important things. And Nicola exerted every ounce of self-discipline she had in order to carry out the routine duties required of her. Not until she was at home that evening in her own flat—the flat where she and Brian had spent so many happy hours together—could she allow herself to think deeply and agonizingly of what her aunt had told her.

  No wonder Dermot Deane had described Brian's death as a tragic waste, and added that it should never have happened. It should never have happened. And would never have happened but for Julian Evett's insufferable certainty that he must be right and his ruthless ambition about a mere concert which would help to build his career and reputation.

  'I hate him,' Nicola said aloud. 'I hate him. I've never hated anyone before. It always seemed so melodramatic and futile to hate anyone. But I know now what it feels like. He killed Brian. I wish—'

  And then the telephone rang at her elbow and, still in a bitter confusion of pain and fury, she reached for the receiver.

  'Yes?' she said tonelessly, and Julian Evett's voice replied,

  'Is that you, Nicola?'

  I never said he could call me 'Nicola', she thought with ridiculous irrelevance. But aloud she replied on an ice-hard note, 'Yes. This is Nicola.'

  'It doesn't sound like you, somehow!' And then, as she did not answer that, he went on, 'I wanted to thank you for coming out with me last night and giving me a very happy evening. I hope you didn't have to pay for it too heavily with Madame Torelli's displeasure.'

  'She was not specially displeased.' Nicola spoke coolly and deliberately. 'She merely said that, since I loved Brian, she was surprised that I could have much to do with you.'

  Even over the telephone she heard him catch his breath, as though someone had struck him over the heart. Then he said quietly,

  'Did she elaborate on that statement?'

  'Naturally. She explained that you were more or less responsible for Brian's death.' And, as she said that, the most extraordinary conviction came to Nicola that she wanted, almost more than anything else in the world, to have him hotly deny that and give chapter and verse for his complete vindication.

  Until that moment she had not known that any of the strangling, bewildering pain had anything to do with anyone but Brian. Now, suddenly, it seemed to her that Julian Evett's guilt and Brian's tragedy were part of the same gigantic nightmare. Just as she had longed fruit­lessly to be assured that Brian was still alive, so, in a lesser degree, she longed to have Julian exonerated.

  But he made no attempt to defend himself, and after a moment she exclaimed angrily, 'Have you nothing to say to that?'

  'Only that it is not strictly true.'

  'Not strictly true? It's either true or false, surely. Did you insist on his taking that journey or not?'

  'I insisted.'

  'Against all his protests?'

  'Against all his protests,' said the voice at the other end of the wire. And then, as though the small extenuating circumstance were dredged up from the mire of his own remorse, 'I didn't really believe that he was as ill as he said.'

  'You mean you didn't want to believe him!'

  'All right, I didn't want to believe him, if you like. It was a tragic error of judgment, but—'

  'An error of judgment!' she interrupted him with a bitter little laugh of absolute contempt. 'It killed him, your error of judgment. And your stupid arrogant cer­tainty that only you knew best. And your insane ambition to make your concert a success at the expense of anything and anyone else. You even said to him that you meant him to come if it killed him—'

  She stopped there, because she had heard the slight click as he replaced the receiver at his end. For a moment or two more she sat there, staring into space. Then she too replaced her receiver, before she began to cry as she had not cried since she first read the news of Brian's death.

  Nicola did not see Julian Evett again until she accom­panied Madame Torelli to the rehearsal, the day before the concert. A little to her surprise, her aunt was tense and nervous to a degree Nicola had not thought possible in anyone of her temperament.

  'But you haven't the slightest need to be nervous,' she declared soothingly. 'I've heard you practising day after day, and your vocal security is miraculous.'

  'Don't be a fool,' was the ungrateful reply. 'No one is ever so vocally secure that they need not fear a perform­ance, or even a full-scale rehearsal. Anyone without fear is a machine, not an artist. And for us singers it is worst of all, for we are our own instrument. You can tune a violin or replace a string. With a piano you can even get some­one else to do it for you. But a singer—' she made a superb comprehensive gesture which seemed to take in limitless risks and eventualities— 'is at the mercy of fate.'

  'I see,' said Nicola humbly, for she had not thought of that.

  'Of course,' Torelli added more briskly, 'a superb technique armours one to a certain extent against fate. But the pitfalls are always there. You must walk a tight­rope from the fir
st note until the last. And there is no net beneath if you should slip,' she concluded grimly.

  'This is only a rehearsal,' Nicola ventured to point out.

  'But with a conductor I have snubbed,' was the dry retort. 'He does not like me, that young man. He is too much of a true musician to want me to slip. But if I did so he would not be particularly indulgent. Not, of course, that this will happen.' Suddenly there was a touch of her more characteristic self-confidence. 'But it will be a walk on the tightrope just the same.'

  Nicola mentally reviewed the tightrope in question and said, 'And yet you start right off with the Queen of the Night aria?'

  'Of course.' Torelli smiled superbly. 'I am not the kind of singer who starts cautiously and warms up gradually. I take the first challenge at once—like that.' And she struck her strong well-shaped hands together.

  'The Queen of the Night is the biggest challenge in the programme, I suppose?'

  'Oh, yes. For a soprano of my type, with weight and colour to the voice, it is a tremendous test of skill. That,' she explained contemptuously, 'is why the role is so fre­quently given to some small, reedy coloratura who can get the high notes with certainty, though nothing else at all.'

  'Which wasn't what was intended?' suggested Nicola, knowing that this kind of conversation both soothed and relaxed her famous aunt.

  'No, of course not! The Queen of the Night represents the power of evil, opposing the power of good, you know. She must sound like a terrible and overwhelming force, not a nice little creature doing exercises. You will see!'

  And later Nicola saw—or rather, heard—beyond any doubt or question. Torelli stood there on the platform in a well-tailored suit. She wore little make-up and no jewellery, and her manner beforehand was simply that of a serious worker intent on doing a good job.

  But as the orchestral introduction ended and Julian Evett looked at her and raised his left hand, she launched into the great opening phrases with the precision of a ballet dancer and the elemental force of a natural phenomenon. It was hardly necessary to understand the words; though these, as always with Torelli, were superbly articulated. The faultless phrasing, the subtle colouring of the tone, the almost arrogant ease with which the vocal fireworks were thrown off, all combined to give the irresistible impression of a terrifying and supernatural appearance.