Unbidden Melody

by Mary Burchell

  “Why, darling!” His handsome, rather tired, expressive face suddenly registered the utmost pleasure. “I won­dered where you’d got to. I shan’t be a moment. I’m al­most ready.” And putting out his hand he drew her against him and kissed her in front of them all. “Good night, Suzanne,” he said again with apparent good-humour, as he smiled over Mary’s head at the famous mezzo, and he drew Mary into the dressing-room and pushed the door half closed.

  Mary heard Suzanne say, “We-ell—’ before she and her friends went off, laughing and talking. Then Nicho­las’s dresser asked, “Is there anything else, sir?” as he lifted down the last-act costume from its hanger.

  “Nothing, thank you. We’re just going.” Brenner gave him a smiling nod of dismissal. And suddenly Mary was alone with him in the small dressing-room.

  “Why did you do that?” she said at last.

  He didn’t go through the pretence of asking what she meant.

  “It was the only form of rescue operation I could think of,” he told her lightly.

  “How did you know I needed rescuing? ‘

  “I heard what Suzanne said—and the way she said it. I’ve been humiliated by a few words often enough in my time. Monica was good at it too. I’m sorry if I overdid it on the spur of the moment. Don’t think too badly of me.” He turned to the dressing-table to gather up a few per­sonal things.

  “I don’t think badly of you,” Mary said slowly. “I think you’re the kindest and most understanding person I’ve ever known.”

  “You do?” He turned back to her and laughed. But it was a laugh which had an unexpected note of tenderness in it. “Well, I’m not sure you aren’t the kindest and most understanding person I’ve ever known. At least you helped me in those first days here, in a way I could never over-estimate. Now we’re going out to eat somewhere. I’m ravenous—I always am after a performance. And please don’t give me any of that stuff about being the girl in the office who can’t go out with the famous tenor.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” said Mary submissively. And she went down the stairs with him and out at the stage door, not quite able to believe that this was really happening to her.

  Afterwards she was quite unable to recall what she ate and drank with him that evening. What she most recalled was the way his exhaustion seemed to drop from him, and how life and vitality began to glow in him again like a light coming up in a recharged lamp.

  Fascinated, she watched and listened as—gay and al­most boyish in his enthusiasm, and totally unlike the rather melancholy creature who had talked to her that first evening—he spoke about the performance, explaining to her how certain effects were obtained and why the slight loosening of the tension in one place could make the final build-up almost unbearable.

  “How you love it all!” She smiled at him almost indulgently. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”

  “That’s because you’ve never been with me after a fine performance,” he told her. “Beforehand I’m as nervous as a cat. Most of us are, I suppose. Nervous, irritable, unreasonable—knowing that one is and yet being quite unable to do anything about it.”

  “But once you’re on stage—?”

  “Oh, the moment I’m on stage I’m quite cool. At least, if someone like Warrender is at the conductor’s desk The coolness is only mental, of course. It’s part of one’s pro­fessional discipline. But it leaves one free to react com­pletely to the drama both emotionally and artistically.”

  “It sounds alarmingly complicated!”

  “No, it’s glorious,” he replied simply. “And then at the end, you’re aware that you’ve achieved an artistic whole—something that the composer meant and heard when he put down those little black notes on the paper. If you can get that feeling it’s wonderful.”

  “Did you get that feeling tonight?”

  “Yes. Largely owing to Warrender. And Suzanne too, of course. She’s a marvellous colleague when it comes to striking the divine spark.” He laughed reminiscently, and she saw frank admiration in his face.

  “Do you usually feel like that?” she asked him pre­sently, partly perhaps to detach his thoughts from Suzanne.

  “I haven’t—for some time. That’s partly why it was so exciting tonight.” He hesitated, and then he added, “I don’t want to rake up what is past and—forgiven, if you like. But that radiant bubble of achievement is so fragile. Criticism—or mockery—in those first few minutes can shatter it, and nothing can put it together again. One’s nerves are raw, I suppose, just after a performance, and one is rather vulnerable.”

  “It’s over,” she said softly, seeing the sudden tension in the line of his jaw.

  “Yes, it’s over,” he agreed, on a long breath. And the tension relaxed.

  “Would it embarrass you if I told you you were so wonderful tonight that I cried?” she said slowly.

  “No, darling. Few things embarrass me.” He laughed as though he had not a care in the world. “Did you really cry?”

  Mary nodded.

  “I expect it was very naïve and unsophisticated of me,” she admitted, “but—”

  “That’s what makes you lovable,” he said. And while she was reeling under the directness and simplicity of that, he went on, “Most worthwhile artists have a deep strain of naïveté themselves. We continually find ourselves the centre of the scene, with lots of glitter and glamour. But do you suppose we don’t cherish—and long for—the moments of simplicity? Bask things like laughter—and tears—mean far more to us than columns in any news­paper, or the pontification of so-called musicologists.”

  “Well, I can understand that,” she laughed softly.

  “Go on talking to me,” he commanded, and he leant his forehead on his hand in a completely unselfconscious pose. “When you say things in that quiet, beautifully pitched voice of yours I feel all my nerves unwind con­tentedly and—Did anyone ever tell you that you have a lovely speaking voice?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “But I’m glad if you say I have.”

  “That first morning I met you—” he was still not look­ing at her and spoke as though half to himself—”you made me laugh. Do you remember? I felt I hadn’t laughed naturally for ages, and you made me laugh quite spontaneously when you said you were a fan who milled round the stage door but didn’t scream. Do you never scream, Mary?”

  “Why should I scream?” Mary asked reasonably, but she smiled.

  “Oh, most women do. With excitement or laughter or—anger. You can’t imagine how that jars on a sensitive ear. But what were you saying?”

  “Nothing. You were doing all the talking, and I was enjoying listening. But I’ll talk if you like. Did you know that I very nearly didn’t stay to speak to you this evening? I felt shy, watching all those important people go into your dressing room. And then when I finally plucked up courage, it was too late. Your dresser said you were chan­ging. It made me feel awful and very much an intruder. I expect that was why I was looking a bit dashed and for­lorn when Suzanne—when Miss Thomas and her party came by. That’s why she—said what she did. But I wasn’t really hanging about, you know.”

  “I know, dear, I know.” He looked up then and smiled. “You were just there because I very much wanted you to be there at that moment.”

  “Well—” she felt she should reduce that to something less significant, “you had said I was to come round, so I came.”

  “Are you coming to the first night of ‘Eugene Onegin’, to hear me sing Lensky?” he asked abruptly.

  “Yes, of course. I have my ticket in the rear amphi.”

  “I want you downstairs,” he replied imperiously. “I’ll send you a ticket downstairs. I want you where I can see you.”

  “See me? But you can’t see anything from the stage, can you?”

  “The first row or two in certain lights. And when one comes before the curtain after each act.”

  “But why do you want to be able to see me?”

  “Why do you think?” He laughe
d and looked straight at her in a way that made her heart skip an uneasy beat or two. “Because you’re very good to look at, for one thing. For the rest—we’ll leave that for another occasion. It’s time I took you home now.”

  “Please—you truly don’t have to take me home. Just put me in a taxi. You can even pay the fare in advance if you like,” she added as he made a gesture of dissent. “But please don’t drag out to Hampstead at this time of night and after a strenuous performance. You—you worry me, when you insist on these things.”

  “Do I?” He looked amused. “How nice to have you worry about me. You almost tempt me to insist. I don’t think I know of anyone else who worries about me, ex­cept to wonder if I’ll turn up all right on the night of performance. May I really not take you home?”

  “No.” She touched his hand gently, so as to soften the briefness of that. But it was a firm negative all the same.

  “Very well.” He called for the bill and then they went out of the restaurant together.

  It was a clear, cool night, and to Mary at any rate there was a touch of magic in the air. Even the taxi, which drew up at a sign from Nicholas, had a sort of aura about it. And when she heard her companion ask to be dropped at the Gloria before she herself was taken on to Hampstead, she realised that there were to be just a few more wonder­ful minutes before she had to part from him.

  In the dark intimacy of the shared taxi he made no at­tempt to put his arm round her—rather to her disappoint­ment, she was ashamed to realise! He merely said rather teasingly, “Well, have you been broken m now to the idea of sometimes coming out to dinner or supper with me?”

  Mary hesitated, and he went on impatiently, “All right, I know you can’t spend our time for ever talking to each other across restaurant tables. I’ll think of something else.”

  She wanted to ask him what else he was likely to think of. But they reached the Gloria before she had got up quite enough resolution to do so.

  He kissed her good night. And although she knew that stage people kissed each other very easily and on all sorts of occasions, it gave her the strangest sensation to realise that for the first time she had kissed him back again. Then he got out and she saw him talking to the taxi-driver, who seemed very pleased about something.

  “Are you free next weekend?” Nicholas came back and spoke to her through the open window of the taxi. “Not tomorrow. I mean next weekend.”

  “Why—why, yes, I think so.” She was too startled to say anything but the truth.

  “All right, I’ll arrange something.” Then he stood back and waved the taxi on, while Mary leant back against the worn leather of the seat-back and wondered just what he had meant by that.

  She was not, it seemed, the only one who wondered. For as the taxi drew up outside her home and she got out, the driver—a stout, middle-aged man—leant towards her and said impressively,

  “It’s no business of mine, but I’ve got daughters of my own. Don’t you go spending no weekends with that chap. He’s a high-flyer and good-looking. But he gave me a five-pound note.”

  “Gave you a five-pound note!” Mary was scandalised. “Whatever for?”

  “Ah, that’s what I wondered. Just you be careful.” And the driver flipped up his flag and drove off into the night, leaving Mary to gaze after him in mingled amusement and consternation.

  CHAPTER IV

  During the weekend Mary went over and over that even­ing with Nicholas Brenner in her mind. At one time, of course, the dazzling thing about it would have been the sheer thrill of being taken to supper by one of one’s fa­vourite opera stars. But now, in some way it was difficult to define, the heart-warming significance of it all was that it was Nicholas who had taken her. No other star would have supplied the same effect.

  Everything else seemed ordinary in comparison. She loved her home and her parents. She had many other inter­ests outside her passion for music. But, almost to her shame, she found the weekend stale and flat since it con­tained no contact with Nicholas.

  On Sunday afternoon Barry telephoned, to ask if she would come out with him that evening. But instinctively she made some excuse about another appointment, and then was ashamed again when her mother, who had over­heard the conversation, said in surprise, “Are you really going out this evening, Mary?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I—just didn’t want to go. I’d like a quiet evening at home. But he wouldn’t have understood that, so I had to tell a white lie “

  In Mrs. Barlow’s experience Mary seldom told white lies, and certainly it had not been her practice to put off Barry, of all people, with something less than the truth. She regarded her daughter thoughtfully.

  “You haven’t quarrelled with Barry, have you?”

  “Oh, no, Mother! I’m just not quite so eager to go out with him these days. I don’t really know why.”

  “Possibly because he treated you rather shabbily over Elspeth Horton,” suggested her mother drily.

  But Mary knew it was not that. She felt no rancour about Elspeth and Barry nowadays. In fact, she felt little emotion of any kind about Barry except for a good-humoured friendliness. With a slight sense of shock she accepted that discovery and all that it implied.

  To her mother she simply said lightly, “I expect I’ve grown a bit wiser and more selective. Barry’s good com­pany and a pleasant friend, but that’s all.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Her mother gave a satisfied little nod. “And if by being more selective you mean you can now recognise the good, solid, down-to-earth qualities which make up the best type of man, that’s all to the good.”

  Mary smiled non-committally, and immediately won­dered if one could describe Nicholas Brenner as having the good, solid, down-to-earth qualities. She thought not, on the whole. He was highly-strung, superbly gifted, un­predictable, kind and yet arrogant in an engaging way—she got no further, because it occurred to her that almost everything about him was engaging. At least to her.

  As the great star he had attracted her from afar. Now that she knew him at closer quarters he had become in­tensely human as well. The combination was almost irresistible. She could hardly imagine life without him now.

  And at that discovery she experienced another shock—a much more powerful one this time. For of course she was going to have to imagine life without him. Indeed, to live most of her life without him. This was just a fascin­ating, slightly unreal interlude while he happened to be in England. In something like a month he would be gone—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles away. If she were lucky he might come to London again in a year’s time, but perhaps not even then.

  The thought was crushing. Almost literally so, for it brought with it a sharp anguish which made her gasp.

  “It’s no good being silly about him,” she told herself. “He belongs to an entirely different world, probably an entirely different way of thought. What did he mean, for instance, about arranging something for next weekend?”

  There had been no doubt about what the taxi-driver thought he meant! And perhaps to a man like Nicholas a casual shared weekend was no more than the natural next step in a growing friendship.

  “But I’m not a weekend girl!” thought Mary. “He has no right to think of me like that.” Or had he?

  If that were to be her one gift from the gods so far as Nicholas were concerned, just how would she react? She was staggered and a good deal shocked to find that she had got as far as this even in her own thoughts. The whole line of argument was entirely alien to her usual pattern of life. But then he was alien to her usual pattern of life. Gloriously, bewilderingly, lovably alien.

  She sat on the side of her bed that night with her head in her hands.

  “I can’t really be in love with him! What’s the matter with me? I must be crazy to be thinking like this. Or am I just the kind of fool who falls for any man who makes a fuss of me? First Barry, and now—him.”

  But she knew this was not the case. There had been plenty of friends and admir
ers from time to time. But the only one who had really gained her affections had been Barry. It had been a disastrous experience in the end, but at the time her hopes and thoughts had followed a perfectly understandable line. She had believed Barry loved her. She had hoped he meant to marry her. All the greater had been the shock when he announced that he was going to marry someone else.

  With Nicholas it was quite different. One didn’t, if one were an inconspicuous secretary, expect to marry a world-famous tenor. One had a friendship—possibly a flirtation. In certain circumstances, if one were a different kind of girl, one presumably had an affair.

  But that, Mary knew—or was pretty sure she knew—was not for her. Therefore she must be careful not to become too deeply involved. No weekend nonsense for her. But then, if that were the case, the sooner she drew back the better. Unless she wanted to be badly hurt again.

  Monday dragged past without any word from Nicholas. She had to make a tremendous effort to keep her attention focussed on her work. If she were to become romantically scatterbrained about this or that operatic star she was not going to stay the course for long in Dermot Deane’s office. But she had to call on every bit of self-discipline not to start at the sound of the telephone or let her thoughts wander from the less interesting aspects of her work.

  On Tuesday afternoon, just as Mary was thinking almost fretfully that nothing was going to happen this day either, Anthea Warrender came into the office. She was looking charming and distinctly prima donna-ish in the kind of simple coat which—Mary knew by now—had probably cost the earth. Supposing that she might well want a private business talk with her employer, Mary gathered up her papers and prepared to depart to the outer office.

  But Anthea said, “Don’t go, Miss Barlow. This con­cerns you too. Dermot, Oscar and I are having an infor­mal weekend party at the new house. It’s on the Thames, just beyond Windsor, you know. Something between a house-warming and a friendly discussion about future plans. We hope you’ll come. And I thought Miss Barlow might like to come too.”