“Mother, will you come and meet Nicholas? You could come to the last performance of ‘Eugene Onegin’ and I’d take you round afterwards.”
“Without your father, do you mean?”
“Well, it would have to be, wouldn’t it?” Mary explained patiently. “Since we’re not telling him for the moment, I mean. And it’s next Friday evening, anyway, and Dad’s going to be overnight in Northampton, you remember, at that directors’ meeting.”
“I shouldn’t like to do that,” Mrs. Barlow stated unequivocally. “I should feel I was being slightly deceitful.”
“Oh, Mother, don’t be absurd! It’s just a question of keeping Dad in the dark a week or two longer because—”
“I’ve never kept your father in the dark about anything vital.”
“But in this particular instance—”
“No, Mary,” her mother interrupted firmly, “I know your marriage is going to be a different one from ours. That’s as it should be. Every marriage is individual to the people concerned. But I’m telling you here and now, my dear, that no marriage is a success where the partners keep each other in the dark about the things which concern them equally.”
“But—”
“Let me finish. You are the most vital subject that Dad and I have in common. I’m not going to say I tell him every little worry or thought I have about you, much less what you choose to tell me about yourself. But when it comes to a major decision in connection with you, I’m not going to be one jump ahead of him. When I meet your Nicholas, your father will meet him too. That’s the right way for parents to behave, and that’s the way I should wish it to be.”
When her mother spoke in that tone, Mary knew further argument would be so much wasted breath. And though she felt a certain irritation over her mother’s attitude, she could not help envying her the simple, common sense integrity by which she had been able to live her married life.
To Nicholas, on their last evening before his departure, she gave a somewhat edited account of her talk. Even then, she was slightly anxious lest he might misunderstand her mother’s decision. But she need not have worried. He was absolutely enchanted.
“I love the sound of your mother,” he exclaimed. “And as soon as I’m back from this tour I shall meet them both, and everyone will be happy and satisfied.”
He was so engagingly sure of this that her own spirits rose—almost to a safe level of comfortable reassurance. This helped her over the hard test of not being able to see him off to Amsterdam, where the first concert was to be. For of course there was no question of her doing any such thing. She was simply the girl in the office, as she had often—and quite sincerely—claimed in earlier days. She had to be satisfied—if that was the word—with a charming photograph in the evening newspapers of Nicholas and Suzanne setting off together at London Airport.
On the first evening he telephoned her. And, brief though the conversation was, it seemed to establish some sort of line with him, and she thought she could get through the next three weeks fairly easily if this were to be the pattern of things.
It was not, however. He was apparently too busy or too much in demand during the evenings to telephone her again. She had a short, affectionate letter. And, apart from that, nothing but the first batch of press cuttings sent by their agent in Holland. These were accompanied by translations, fortunately, and Mary sat in the office devouring them eagerly.
There was no question about the success of the two. One paper said, “It was not a performance, it was an event. An event which one hopes this gifted couple will repeat again and again.”
Another one, more chattily, described Suzanne’s ravishing appearance, in a dress which had evidently caused a sensation. And all commented on the remarkable way in which the two singers complemented each other’s art—”as though they were one”, as Mary’s least favourite account put it.
It was no wonder that she was looking pale and a little depressed when her employer arrived. And, observant man that he was, he commented on it immediately and asked if she were well.
Mary hastily disclaimed any illness or undue exhaustion. But it seemed that Dermot Deane was not unmindful of devoted service, and that he had his own way of rewarding it.
“I think,” he said, sorting through his mail, “that a weekend in Paris would do you good. You can go and have a look at this new lyric who’s singing Pamina to Torelli’s Queen of the Night. I’d like your opinion of her.”
“P-Paris?—Torelli?” gasped Mary. “Do you mean you’re sending me over officially?”
“You don’t think I expect you to pay your own expenses, do you? You’re a good girl, and there are certain perks to this job, you know. It’s time your devotion and overtime had some recognition.”
“Mr. Deane! I never heard of such a thing! How good of you.”
“Well, I have my moments,” her employer agreed, looking rather pleased with himself. “Here’s your air ticket. You leave on Thursday afternoon.”
“Thursday—?” Dazedly, she fingered the thin pages of her air ticket, as though they contained some magic spell. Then she gave a quick gasp. “This says—Amsterdam!”
“Yes. I thought you might like to go by way of Amsterdam, and take in the Brenner-Thomas recital there.”
“But it’s over!”
“They’re doing a repeat. By overwhelming public demand or whatever the term is there.”
“And you want me—to go?”
“I thought you would enjoy it,” said Dermot Deane, who had claimed that he never interfered in his clients’ private affairs. And Mary could willingly have gone across at that moment and kissed him.
“That’s why you’ll have to leave on Thursday afternoon. I’d be glad if you would look in and handle the morning post first. Then you can catch an afternoon plane and be in good time for the recital in the evening.”
“I can’t believe it!”
“You’ll have to fly on to Paris on the Friday morning. The performance there is that evening. Which gives you Saturday and Sunday to yourself in Paris. Now, never say your old employer isn’t something of a fairy godfather too!”
“It’s the most wonderful—the most terribly generous treat! Terribly expensive—”
“It all goes down against the firm’s working expenses,” he told her with realistic candour. “Enjoy yourself. Here’s where you stay in Amsterdam. Brenner and Suzanne will probably be at the same hotel—we all use it. And this is your address in Paris. Within reason the firm foots the bill. Any wild extravagances you pay for yourself.”
“Of course,” Mary agreed earnestly. “But there won’t be any.”
For the rest of that day she had to make a conscious effort to keep her mind on her work, and away from the wonderful, fairytale trip which was to be hers. In itself it was dazzling enough. But that, in addition, she would be seeing Nicholas in a matter of days I That was almost too wonderful to be believed.
He would be as enchanted as she was. And if Suzanne disliked her sudden arrival, that would be just too bad. She had a perfectly valid reason for being there. The impulse had not been hers. Even the arrangements had not been hers. Dermot Deane had done it all—with what motive Mary was, even now, not quite sure.
She tried that evening to telephone to Nicholas in Cologne, where she reckoned he must now be. But apparently he had left the hotel earlier that day. So she wrote an express letter to the Amsterdam hotel, explaining about Dermot Deane’s providential gesture. At last in that way he would know that she was coming, and there would not be the faintest suggestion that she was springing any sort of surprise upon him.
Not that it would be anything but a joyous surprise, of course. But, with the uneasy recollection of Monica perpetually in the background of her mind, Mary was exaggeratedly anxious to avoid the least appearance of keeping a watchful eye on Nicholas.
Somehow she got through the next day or two without any error in her work or major omission in her private life.
Once she made something of a gaffe when her mother asked innocently, “Was it really Mr. Deane’s own idea that you should go to Amsterdam too?”
“Why, of course, Mother! Who else’s?”
“I thought—” her mother smiled—”you might yourself have manufactured a good reason for going to see Nicholas.”
“Certainly not! To spy on him, do you mean?”
“Don’t be so touchy, dear,” said her mother mildly. “No one mentioned spying. What a ridiculous word to use!”
It was a ridiculous word. And she was immediately ashamed of having snapped at her mother like that. But she was more than ever glad that she had written so fully to Nicholas, and that he would get the letter before she arrived. He might even be at Amsterdam Airport to meet her! Though on the day of a performance that was by no means certain.
Evidently he had decided against it. Because when her plane touched down, on a perfect late summer afternoon, there was no sign of Nicholas to meet her. The disappointment was small and only momentary. And as she drove into town she was able to enjoy the charming, unfamiliar countryside, and to savour that never-failing thrill of finding oneself abroad in a not too alien country.
At the hotel everything went with the utmost smoothness. Mary signed the register, handed over her luggage and then, on sudden impulse, turned back to the desk. Even though it was the day of the concert, surely she could at least telephone to Nicholas in his room. She asked for his room number.
“Mr. Brenner?” The clerk ran his eye down an alphabetical list. “Mr. Nicholas Brenner?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“No, he isn’t staying here. He left on the twenty-seventh of last month.”
“That was the previous visit. He—they’re doing a repeat concert this evening.”
“But he is not staying here, madame.”
“I sent him a letter—” she tried not to sound as dismayed as she felt. “An express letter.”
The clerk obligingly turned to a series of pigeonholes in which mail had been stacked.
“An express letter for Mr. Brenner. Yes, it is here.” He produced Mary’s own letter for her inspection. “But as he has not been here we could not deliver it.”
CHAPTER VII
Mary slowly turned over the letter before returning it to the clerk at the reception desk. Then, as though another thought had just struck her, she asked casually, “And Miss Thomas? Miss Suzanne Thomas. Is she here, by any chance?”
“No, madame. She also left on the twenty-seventh. We have no further reservation for her either.”
“Thank you.” Mary turned away and followed the small page to the lift.
On the way up to her room she managed to reply smilingly to the boy’s comments. She even looked round her room and observed that it was charming—which it was. But, if it had been a dungeon, she could not have felt more chilled and dismayed. And once she was alone she dropped into a chair, without even removing her coat, and tried to assess the significance of the news she had just received.
Nicholas was not here. Nor was Suzanne. There was no question of accommodation not having been available in the hotel generally patronised by Dermot Deane’s artists. After all, there had been no difficulty about her own reservation. Quite simply, on their return visit to Amsterdam, Nicholas and Suzanne had gone elsewhere. Together.
“It doesn’t mean a thing,” Mary told herself without conviction. “They might be staying with friends. Or one of them might. The other just—just might have preferred a different hotel for some perfectly good reason.”
She tried to believe in what she was telling herself. She also tried to recall the commonsense tones of her mother as she had said, “Don’t be so touchy, dear. No one mentioned spying. What a ridiculous word to use!”
And yet, sitting here alone in a foreign hotel bedroom, unable to locate Nicholas or prepare him in any way for her coming, she felt as though she had been spying. And as though she had just received a nasty and well-deserved shock for her pains.
Only an hour ago there had been nothing but joy in her anticipation of their meeting. Now she began to wonder if it would be wiser not to go to the concert at all. Would Nicholas think that her sudden, unheralded appearance had something a little odd about it?
But the absurdity of being in Amsterdam and not attending the concert for which she had specially come was something she could never explain to her employer. Quite apart from the crushing disappointment she would be inflicting on herself.
Mary put her head in her hands and tried to think what was the natural and sensible thing to do. Suppose she had just been Dermot Deane’s secretary, without any personal involvement with either Nicholas or Suzanne, how would she act?
Having checked in at the hotel, enquired after the two artists concerned and discovered that she could not reach them, she would surely give herself up uninhibitedly to the enjoyment of the weekend visit?
There was time for a leisurely and refreshing bath, after which she would change and dine quietly on her own downstairs, and then go to the concert. There would be no question of her disturbing either artist before the performance, but she would of course go backstage afterwards to congratulate them and give them her employer’s good wishes.
It seemed a sufficiently sensible and simple programme and, to the best of her ability, Mary followed it out. She had a little difficulty when it came to eating dinner, because she found she had practically no appetite. But she managed reasonably well. Then, having ascertained that the concert hall was only a short distance from the hotel, she set out to walk there through the warm summer evening.
With the surface of her mind she took in the enchanting scene. The evening sunlight on the canals, the boats, the lovely old mellow buildings. She even felt slightly better about her own problems and dared to think that probably, in a matter of hours, everything would be satisfactorily explained and she would be happy and secure again.
The very thought of such relief almost brought tears to her eyes, so that she had to pause a moment and pretend to be gazing with special interest at a magnificent fifteenth-century house on the other side of the canal. As she did so, a vaguely familiar voice just behind her exclaimed,
“It’s Dermot Deane’s secretary, isn’t it? Miss—Miss Barlow. What are you doing here?”
Mary turned quickly, to find herself face to face with Richard Kenning, the accompanist who had gone on the tour with Nicholas and Suzanne, and whom she had met once or twice in the office when the final arrangements were being made.
“Hello.” She smiled at him. “I’m here for the recital, of course. Mr. Deane, in a madly generous mood, presented me with a long weekend abroad. I’m going to Paris tomorrow, to hear Torelli and this new lyric soprano, and Mr. Deane sent me round by way of Amsterdam so that I could hear the Brenner-Thomas recital too.”
“You’re in for a treat.” Richard Kenning fell into step beside her. “They’re in top form, both of them. We’ve had rave notices everywhere and deserved them. All three of us.” He laughed, but evidently, like all really good performers, he knew his own value. “I thought I caught a glimpse of you in the hotel, but then decided I was mistaken. When did you get in?”
“Just a few hours ago. So you’re staying at the same hotel?”
“Of course. We most of us use it.”
“But Ni- Mr. Brenner and Suzanne aren’t there,” she said quickly. “I enquired when I arrived.”
“No. They’re at the Amstel,” Kenning informed her carelessly. “They were hatching up something together and thought that was a more impressive setting, I suppose. I happen to prefer something smaller and quieter myself.”
She longed to ask outright what they had been “hatching up together”. But since that would have sounded crude and curious she asked casually instead, “Something professional, do you mean?”
“I expect so. They didn’t offer to say, so I didn’t ask. With Suzanne particularly it does
n’t do to step over whatever line she draws. She has lots of little ploys, both professional and otherwise, that she likes to keep to herself. She’s a deep one.” He laughed again. “But she certainly is an artist!—Well, I leave you here. Your entrance is round the other side. Enjoy yourself.”
He was gone before she could say any more. So she made her way round to the front entrance, wondering whether it would have been cleverer to say, “Don’t tell them I’m here,” or “Let them know I’m here.” As she had not said either, it hardly mattered.
Mary was relieved to find that her seat was halfway back in the hall and rather to the side. That meant she could enjoy the concert—if ‘enjoy’ were the right word—without much fear of being observed from the platform.
From a purely artistic point of view, it was impossible to do anything but enjoy the concert to the highest degree. Indeed, if Mary had been an uninvolved listener she would probably have rated the occasion among the most beautiful and remarkable she could remember. Both singers were in superb voice and both—which is rare among opera singers—were born recitalists.
Strictly within the framework of the concert platform, they allowed their innate sense of drama to give depth and warmth and colour to their more ambitious numbers. But when it came to the simpler, more unsophisticated songs they both employed a limpid purity of style and tone which, Mary knew, represented highest art.
There were groups of songs where they sang separately, and the flood of pride and love and joy which Mary felt for Nicholas then seemed to wash away all feelings of doubt and unhappiness. But they also sang several duets, and there was no doubt that the artistic sympathy and understanding between them made these the outstanding items in the programme.
Mary was torn between her genuine delight in their shared achievement and her very human dismay at the curious and remarkable oneness which existed between them, at any rate on the platform. Once, when Nicholas took Suzanne’s hand and kissed it in tribute to her quite superb performance, Mary felt a sort of constriction round her heart. She recognised it for what it was—an instantaneous and somewhat unworthy sense of jealousy. And she fought it down as she would have fought a personal enemy.
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