Unbidden Melody

by Mary Burchell

  Here, with Barry, she was in familiar, almost conven­tional territory. On the other side lay that magical, dis­turbing world where people and events were over life-size. It was fascinating, it was breathtaking. But it was alien.

  Or at least, it always had been so.

  In Barry’s company it was inconceivable to believe that a famous tenor had stood beneath her window, offered laughingly to serenade her, and made her come down into the moonlight where she had run willingly into his arms. And yet, just across the river, that was exactly what had happened.

  It was like something one invented to oneself but never really believed in. But to her it had happened. To her, Mary Barlow, who was now sitting opposite Barry Courtland, enjoying a most excellent dinner, in celebra­tion of his having had a sensational promotion in his office.

  Not until they were lingering pleasantly over their cof­fee did he say, “I suppose you know why I brought you here, Mary?”

  “Why, to celebrate your promotion, of course.” She brought her wandering glance back from across the river and smiled as she raised her liqueur glass to him. “Con­gratulations, Barry dear. And may this be the first of many.”

  “Many promotions or many shared celebrations?”

  “Both, I suppose,” she said lightly.

  “That argues that we would be together,” he pointed out deliberately. “That my promotions would be a reason for us to celebrate together. Mary, is that how you would like it to be?” He reached for her hand and held it al­though she made a slight instinctive effort to withdraw it.

  “I wasn’t thinking!” she said quickly. “Of course I should always be glad of anything nice which happened to you, but—”

  “Don’t let’s talk around the point,” he interrupted. “No man likes to admit he was a fool, but there are times when he should do so. I was a fool to turn my back on you, Mary, and go after Elspeth. I know it now.”

  “Oh, please!”

  “It’s true. I’m not criticising her, I’m criticising my­self. I’d give a lot to be able to put back the clock to where we were a year or more ago. But no one gets a chance to do that. Maybe no one deserves that kind of chance. But I’m saying now what I should have said long ago. It’s you I love, Mary, and it’s you I want to marry. At least by waiting until now I can offer you a great deal more than I ever had before.”

  “Barry dear, I don’t know what to say to you.” She felt distressed and guilty that she had let him go so far without her realising and somehow heading him off. “But it’s true—what you said about one not being able to put back the clock. Things have changed. We have changed—” she stopped, unable to define her feelings or her position further.

  “You mean you can’t forget the shabby way I treated you.”

  “No! I don’t mean that at all. It hurt at the time, of course—I was more naïve and vulnerable then. Perhaps I rather asked to be hurt, and it wasn’t just your fault. But—it happened. And whatever there was between us ­went. It had to. You were engaged—pretty well married—to another girl. I did my best to forget, to detach my feelings. Then life went on. Things—changed.” She re­peated the rather futile explanation, hoping he would somehow accept this very general plea.

  He did not. He looked straight at her and said, “You mean, of course, that you think you’re in love with Nich­olas Brenner.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The way you’ve behaved—spoken of him—ever since I’ve seen you again. At first I thought your—your remote­ness towards me was something to do with my own be­haviour. You’d have been justified, and I’d have been almost relieved if that had been the case. But it isn’t that at all. It’s that you’re dazzled by sudden contact with the kind of person who is right outside your usual orbit.”

  She was silent, pushing a few crumbs about the table­cloth and studying them with unnecessary attention.

  “Look, my dear—I don’t want to plead my own cause by running down another fellow. But it would never work, you know.”

  “What wouldn’t?” She glanced up quickly.

  “Anything between you and Brenner. Even if he wan­ted to marry you—and I don’t believe you’re any too sure of that—it wouldn’t be the right life for you. All that stagey glamour, that artificial setting—”

  “You don’t know,” she interrupted in a low voice. “There’s a side of him which is almost touchingly simple. He doesn’t live all the time in the limelight. He doesn’t want to.”

  “Not all the time—no.” Barry’s tone was determinedly reasonable. “But part of him—the greater part—is a public figure. In addition, he is truly what’s meant by a dedicated artist, I’ll give him that. You are an ordinary girl. In the dearest and most valuable sense of the word, you’re an ordinary girl. You would want the ordinary things. You—and they—just wouldn’t count, Mary, if you stood in the way of his art. That’s the way these people are. Think very carefully, my dear. I don’t know how far things have gone—”

  He paused, but she didn’t offer to tell him. For one thing, she simply did not know herself. And after a mo­ment Barry went on.

  “I’m not trying to be argumentative about someone you obviously like very much. And I see I chose the wrong time to tell you I love you and want to marry you. Forget about that for the moment, if you’d rather. I shan’t press things or make myself a nuisance. But just remember I’m your friend, and I’m there if you want me. And now—” he glanced at his watch—”it’s time I took you home.”

  She knew he was behaving very well. Even her mother could not have faulted his conduct on this occasion. And she wished she could have told him she was grateful to him and was sorry she had spoiled his celebration mood. But what could she do? She could not conscientiously allow any sort of tender situation to develop between them. At the same time, nor could she state that she in­tended to marry Nicholas Brenner.

  For the very good reason that she was not at all sure if Nicholas intended to marry her.

  It said something for Barry’s social skill that he some­how contrived to make that return journey normal and unembarrassing. But Mary was thankful beyond expres­sion when he finally deposited her at her own front door.

  Her mother was not yet in bed and, having misunderstood Mary’s telephone message from the office, was under the impression that she had been out with Nicholas Brenner again.

  “Oh, no!” Mary exclaimed when she realised her mother’s mistake. “I went out with Barry. And don’t look blank like that, Mother. He behaved exceptionally well.”

  “In what way?” enquired Mrs. Barlow with some inter­est.

  “Well—” Mary hesitated. Then, because she simply had to tell someone, and she knew her mother for a dis­creet and sensible confidante, she burst out, “He asked me to marry him, and I refused him. I—had to.”

  “Why did you ‘have’ to, my dear? Not that I would blame you, after the way he—”

  “It’s not that! It’s not that at all. I’m in love with some­one else,” Mary said, and she drew a long sigh of relief at being able to admit this to someone at last.

  “Oh, dear—” her mother rubbed the bridge of her nose thoughtfully, a trick she had when she was a little dis­turbed. “I suppose you’ve been losing your head over that singer.”

  Put that way, it did not sound quite like the love story of the century. More as though Mary had been eating too many sweets. She dropped into a low chair and ran her hands through her hair rather distractedly.

  “I suppose I have,” she admitted. “Barry says—”

  “Oh, you discussed it with Barry?” Her mother looked surprised.

  “Yes.” Mary was rather surprised herself, now she came to think of it, for Barry was not somehow cast for the faithful old friend in whom one confided. “Like you, he had guessed that I was—am—in love with Nicholas.”

  “Does Nicholas guess too?”

  “Nicholas knows—I think. And he says he loves me. But I don’t know, Mother, whether
it’s partly just a roman­tic piece of play-acting with him, or whether it’s the real thing. I want it to be the real thing, and sometimes I’m almost sure it is. But he’s not like anyone else I’ve ever known. I suppose that’s why I feel in such an emotional turmoil. I’m sorry to worry you with all this—”

  “That’s what mothers are for,” said Mrs. Barlow kindly. “There isn’t anything to be ashamed of in not knowing your own mind at this point, and probably I’m the best person for you to try out your theories on. But there’s one thing—” she paused, as though choosing her next words carefully.

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “If it did work out as you think you want it, and you married this very famous man, there would be a lot of problems in that kind of life which you’ve never had to tackle before, you know.”

  “That’s what Barry said.”

  “Barry isn’t exactly a disinterested party,” replied her mother crisply. “Nor am I, of course. I’m thinking only of your good, which is how it should be. You won’t want advice, even from me. People always say they want ad­vice, but they don’t. They only want someone to tell them what they want to hear. But remember this, Mary—it’s very seldom enough just to love a man. You have to like him too, and like his kind of life. If you don’t, there’s a great deal of painful adjusting to be done. It has been done, but not very often, and none of it comes easily. Now you’d better go to bed, dear. You look all washed out. And you still have to go to the office in the morning, even if you can’t decide whom to marry.”

  Mary laughed a little and kissed her mother good night. Some people, she knew, would have found this dry, commonsense way of talking rather unsympathetic. But she liked it. It did her more good than any amount of senti­mental sympathising, and she went to bed oddly comfor­ted. Even though her mother—who disagreed with Barry on many points—had undoubtedly agreed with him on one conclusion: That if she married Nicholas, life would not be particularly easy for her.

  This sober reflection remained with her the next day and quite a large part of Thursday. It deserted her en­tirely when Nicholas came on to the stage as Lensky in “Eugene Onegin”.

  She remembered immediately his laughing remark that he rather fancied himself in the caped coat and tall hat of the period, and she thought she had never seen him look so handsome. Even before he began to sing, her heart was his all over again. And when, in addition to everything else, there was that beguiling, heart-searching voice, she forgot about any doubts—expressed or other­wise.

  At one point she was nearly sure he saw her, sitting there in the second row, though of course he was far too professional to give the slightest sign that he did. He was absorbed in his part, playing it with a charm and elegance that were entirely characteristic. And when, in the final moments of Lensky’s life—just before his death in the duel—he sang with a sort of contemplative melancholy the beautiful aria allotted to him, Mary could hardly re­strain her tears.

  It was when he was taking a curtain call after the scene that he unmistakably picked her out in the audience and gave her a brilliant smile all to herself. After that, the rest of the opera meant little to Mary, who secretly thought Onegin himself a bit of a bore and in no way to be com­pared with Lensky.

  Afterwards she went round. Nowadays she had fewer qualms when she presented herself at the stage door, and there was no query at all about her going up to his dressing-room. In some indefinable way, she had acquired the status of those who GO IN.

  He was alone in his dressing-room when she came and, having had nothing to do in the last act, he had already changed and was ready to go. But, just as he reached for his coat, he hesitated and then spoke over his shoulder to her, with an odd touch of something like nervousness which she had never seen in him before.

  “There’s something for you on the dressing-table, Mary. I hope you like it.”

  “Something for me?—where?” She looked at the dressing-table which seemed unnaturally tidy now that all the make-up had been cleared from it. And all she could see was a small and very beautiful little leather case which quite obviously contained a ring.

  “There—the ring.” He spoke almost impatiently.

  “A—ring?” She picked up the case slowly. “For me?”

  “For you, darling. If you will take it.” He came be­hind her then and put his arms round her, so that she could see the reflection of him in the mirror as he smiled at her over her shoulder. “It’s your engagement ring.”

  “Nicholas.!”

  She snapped open the case, and every light in the small, overheated room seem to flash from the one superb dia­mond.

  “Nicholas—” she said again, more softly. And it was not only the brilliance of the diamond which dazzled her. It was his smile, the feel of his arms around her, the in­credible, wonderful, shattering discovery that he did indeed love her and want to marry her.

  Nothing which her mother or Barry had said could mat­ter now. The whole world contained only one all-embrac­ing truth. Nicholas loved her.

  “Do you like it?” He put his cheek against hers and looked at her in the mirror.

  “I—love it,” she said huskily. “There’s never been a ring like it before. Never!”

  “And do you love me too?”

  “You know I do!” She turned in his arms, so that she was facing him and could kiss him.

  “No, I didn’t know,” he told her with a laugh. “At least, not absolutely. You seemed suddenly so doubtful yourself, that night on the terrace. I felt I’d stampeded you—got my timing wrong somehow.”

  “Don’t talk about ‘timing’,” she exclaimed reproach­fully, “as though it were a theatrical scene. It was real, wasn’t it? It was real?”

  “My darling, of course it was real!” He looked aston­ished, even a little shocked. “I suppose the words of one’s profession come naturally to one’s lips.”

  “Of course, of course,” she said eagerly. And then she held out her hand, the fingers widespread, so that he could put on her ring for her.

  He kissed her hand, when the ring was firmly there, and asked, “When are you going to marry me?”

  “Whenever you say—I think.” She smiled. “I should have to give some decent period of notice to Dermot Deane, of course—”

  “And I shall have to do that concert tour first.”

  “Have you got a concert tour?” She looked surprised. “Where? In this country?” She thought how she would love to hear him in concert.

  “No. Holland and Germany. One in Amsterdam, one in The Hague and three or four in Germany. The whole thing won’t take longer than three weeks. And not much preparation needed. We’ve done the same sort of thing before.”

  “We? You mean they’re joint recitals with someone?”

  “With Suzanne—yes. There’s quite a vogue for joint recitals at the moment, usually husband and wife teams.”

  Mary felt suddenly as though a supply of air had been cut off.

  “You mean—Suzanne Thomas?” She enunciated rather slowly and carefully, so that he should not guess she was nearly choking with rage and dismay.

  “Yes, of course. As you know, we work well together,” he said. “Shall we go now? I’m starving, aren’t you?”

  CHAPTER VI

  No possible answer came to Mary’s mind at that moment. Only furious half-sentences, expressing her utter repu­diation of this ridiculous idea that Nicholas should go on a concert tour with Suzanne Thomas.

  Suzanne, who hardly bothered to conceal the fact that she found him eminently desirable as a companion, a col­league—a lover, if he were so inclined. It was impossible that Nicholas—an experienced artist and surely a man of the world—could suppose Suzanne would not take this heaven-sent opportunity of drawing her net more tightly round him.

  Apparently completely unaware of the tempest of feel­ing which had struck Mary, Nicholas was already hold­ing open the dressing-room door for her. And there was nothing to do but pass out into the narrow corridor a
nd down the stone steps to the stage door.

  One or two people called out, “Good night,” as they went, which saved Mary from having to make any real conversation. She was getting her breath back now. And with it a certain degree of natural composure. She would have to talk to him, of course. Reasonably, affectionately, but quite emphatically. He could not go on this tour with Suzanne.

  It was not as though a whole company were going. It would be just the two of them. An accompanist too, pre­sumably. Though Mary could well imagine how easily Suzanne would get rid of a mere accompanist when his or her services were not required. Most of the time it would be just Nicholas and Suzanne. In Amsterdam, in The Hague, in this and that German city. Feted and admired, coupled together wherever they went. Hadn’t Nicholas himself said carelessly that most of these joint recitals were undertaken by husband and wife teams?

  That he could say such a thing to her and not realise that an unwelcome shock it must be!

  He was not a stupid man. Until this moment she had not supposed him to be an insensitive one. It was just—it must be just—that once he was involved in his artistic and professional career, nothing and no one else mattered.

  Just as Barry had said!

  As the shock of Barry’s remembered words hit her afresh they reached the stage door where, inevitably, a large crowd was waiting. With an immense effort Mary forced a calm and smiling expression to her face. She stood in the doorway, waiting while Nicholas autographed a few programmes. And, as she did so, she suddenly re­membered—with an even greater shock, if possible—how that golden girl, Nicholas’s wife Monica, had stood in that very same doorway, smiling as though she had not a care in the world.