“Wasn’t it too exciting, you and Tony marrying so unexpectedly?” drawled Jennifer Forsythe beside her, in a tone from which every trace of excitement was successfully banished.
Anna privately thought it was much more beautiful than exciting, but she said timidly: “Yes, I suppose it was.”
“Did you do it to annoy your people or something?”
“Oh no.”
“Just to be original, I suppose? Well, really, I do admire you. I think a big society wedding is such a frightful bore. I know after mine all I wanted was a nursing home. And then, of course, one had to go tearing off instead on one’s honeymoon.”
Anna couldn’t imagine what to say in answer to this, and just then someone else broke in with:
“I hear you come from Yorkshire. Did you get much hunting in your part of the country last season?”
“I don’t know,” said Anna blankly.
“Which pack do you hunt with?”
“I don’t hunt at all,” Anna said curtly. “I think it’s cruel and very stupid, anyway.”
This created a mild sensation, and a good deal of hostile amusement.
And then, incredibly, Mario Frayne was beside her, looking down into her frightened eyes.
“Come and talk to me,” he commanded smilingly. “I’ve only heard you say about four sentences yet, and each time it’s been like a few bars of music. Why aren’t you standing up making speeches to us while everyone else is silent in admiration?”
Anna laughed, and suddenly the awful tension relaxed. Everything was not lost after all. Katherine had tried so cruelly to make her fail, but the most important man in the room had thrown the careless mantle of his protection round her. She had another chance. Perhaps even yet Tony might be proud of her. She didn’t want it for herself—only for Tony—because he had been so wonderful to her. They mustn’t be able to sneer at him because he had chosen her.
And now here was Tony himself to smile at her, and tell her with his eyes that she was the loveliest thing in the room—or in the world for that matter.
“I was just complimenting your wife on her beautiful speaking voice, Roone,” said Frayne candidly.
Hamilton smiled. “Yes, it is lovely, isn’t it?”
“Do you sing at all?” Frayne asked her abruptly. He wasn’t making fancy speeches now. He was looking at her with intense interest.
“Yes, I sing.” Anna smiled back at him with none of the nervousness which she felt with the rest of the people.
"Come and sing now,” he said.
“Oh, but I think it would be rather nerve-racking for her just now,” protested Hamilton.
“No, Tony, I don’t mind.” Anna was, all at once, completely confident. She could sing. She could do that supremely well, and a curious sort of exaltation entered into her at that moment so that she was not in the least afraid.
“But the party—” began Hamilton, looking a little doubtfully to where Katherine was managing her party exactly as she wanted it.
“Oh, that is of no consequence.” Frayne swept aside everything carelessly to make way for his whim of the moment. “Come!” And he led a faintly apprehensive Anna to the piano.
“Miss Roone,” Katherine turned at once, “your sister-in-law is going to sing for us. I want to hear her voice.”
“Oh, but I don’t think she—” began Katherine.
“Oh yes, she does,” he interrupted firmly. “Now!” He ran his hands over the keyboard and turned to Anna, who stood smiling a little beside him: “In what language are you most at home? English? German?”
“French,” said Anna.
“Good ... This?” He began to play the opening of Mignon’s song, “Connais-tu le pays?”
Anna nodded, and with her hands pressed rather childishly against her breast she began to sing. And, as she sang, the people who bewildered and frightened her were nothing but figures in a dream. She was the wandering Mignon, asking with touching reiteration of every passer-by—did they know the country from which she came—the land where the orange-trees lay warm in the sunshine?
There were no actual tears in her voice—only that intricate sadness which knows no expression in words—the longing for home which every wanderer must know in every corner of the earth.
She finished amid dead silence, and then a little babel of congratulation broke out. But Frayne’s voice broke across it immediately, “Ah! I thought I was not mistaken. Now tell me—do you sing any Italian?”
“A little.”
“Do you know that old and most beautiful of all love-songs ‘Starvicino’?”
“I can’t remember all the words.”
He repeated them to her, his dark eyes on her face, and slowly she said them after him. But her eyes were not on him, they were on Tony. And when she began to sing again it was Tony to whom she sang, in simple, old Italian—that humblest plea of any lover—just to be allowed to stay near the beloved.
She didn’t know that Hamilton wanted to get up and go to her, take her in his arms in front of them all. But she did know that he smiled full at her, and that in his smile there was all his love for her—and his pride in her.
Frayne was saying: “That is really superb. I must get Conrad Schreiner to hear you. He’s in London just now.” And people were murmuring: “Schreiner, you know. Frayne must think well of her.” And: “Yes, but I don’t wonder, Isn’t she lovely?” But to Anna there was only one thing that mattered. “Madame’s husband will be proud of her,” Fanchette had said, and Fanchette had been right.
She didn’t even hear the slight disturbance in the hall. She didn’t notice the subdued little scuffle at the door. Her soul was on the mountain-tops, and she knew nothing but peace and a great happiness.
And then, like a thunderbolt in the sunlit scene of her happiness, a raucous, angry voice struck on her ears:
“Let me alone, I say. Anna’s a good girl. She wouldn’t be ashamed of her step-dad just because she’s married to a swell. She’ll be pleased to see me.”
And, incredibly, like a figure from a nightmare, her stepfather—flushed, quarrelsome, obviously tipsy—came a little unsteadily across the room towards her.
CHAPTER FIVE
In wordless horror Anna watched her stepfather’s unsteady progress across the room, while, on every hand, people fell back, curious and amused, to see what would happen next.
It was quite incredible that Katherine should have arranged this as a sort of joke, of course. They knew she didn’t do things that way. Besides, there was no hint of a joke in young Mrs. Roone’s face. Her eyes were wide with horror, her cheeks ashy with dismay.
The creature had called himself her stepfather, and it looked as though that were the truth. Hamilton Roone’s father-in-law, in a way. It was too appalling and amusing.
And there was Hamilton too, looking as though he had been frozen into stone, while in the background a couple of servants dithered helplessly.
The man had reached Anna’s side now, and was looking down at her, swaying a little as he grumbled:
“I’ve come all the way from Yorkshire, and you won’t even say you’re pleased to see me. I’m ashamed of you, Anna.”
It was at that moment that Frayne rose and took him by the arm.
“Look here, old man,” he said affably, “what you want is a drink. Nobody welcomed you, eh? Well, that’s too bad. But then you didn’t give us any warning, you know.”
He was propelling the slightly protesting man back towards the door.
“Come along and let’s see if we can find something worthy of the occasion.”
Mutterings of, “I meant it as a surprise. She’s an ungrateful girl,” died away along the passage, and because the real centre of interest was now removed they all turned their eyes to Anna.
Hamilton had come over to her, and was talking to her gently standing so that he sheltered her partly from the other people in the room.
But nothing he said did much to relax the rigid misery of her taut figure or c
lear the sullen despair and bewilderment from her eyes.
She knew these people had forgotten all about her singing, forgotten that she was beautiful, that Mario Frayne had said she was superb, worthy to be heard by Conrad Schreiner—whoever he might be. All they remembered now was that she was a common little girl whose stepfather turned up in a horrible check suit, drank, in a London drawing-room.
She made a weary little gesture to silence Tony. It was impossible to explain, but she couldn’t bear even the sound of his voice at the moment.
“I’d better go to him,” she said quietly at last. “There’s no reason why Mr. Frayne should have the task of managing him.”
“Nonsense, my dear.” Tony’s voice was gentle but quite final. “It isn’t a matter for a girl. I’ll go.”
“Then let me come too. I can’t stay here. Won’t you see?”
He let her come at once, but he made her wait in the library at the end of the big square hall, while he himself went in search of Frayne and his unwelcome charge.
“You mustn’t worry, dearest,” he told Anna, though his own grey eyes were intensely worried. “It won’t be difficult to make him understand that it’s no good his turning up here if he wants to keep on the right side of the police.”
She mustn’t worry! Anna smiled bitterly as she walked up and down the big library, her hands clasping and unclasping with the intensity of her despair.
It might be quite easy to get rid of him. She didn’t know. But in any case, what did it matter now? The whole of her world was in ruins. There was not much point in promising her that there would be no second earthquake.
At last there was the sound of a step in the hall, and she went to the door. But it was not Tony. It was Mario Frayne, and he was putting on his coat. She stood quite still, watching him, her eyes dark with apprehension in her thin young face.
Perhaps she made the faintest sound, because he turned suddenly and came towards her, wrapping his white scarf round his throat as he came.
She supposed he meant to say something comforting about the horrible incident and braced herself so as not to wince. But he didn’t mention that. He just said:
“Now don’t forget what I told you about your voice. It’s quite out of the ordinary, if my judgment goes for anything. And I should like Schreiner to hear you.”
“Who is Schreiner?” she said almost in a whisper.
Frayne laughed delightedly at that, as though no such thing as the shattering tragedy of half an hour ago had happened.
“I wish Schreiner could hear that. It would do him good. He’s one of the greatest operatic conductors and directors in Europe.”
“But I don’t suppose he would think anything of me.” The faintest interest lightened the shadow in Anna’s eyes in spite of her wretchedness.
“Possibly not, but possibly—yes. Anyway it will be interesting to hear what he has to say about you. Will you ring me up one day this week?—any time before eleven—and we’ll arrange something.”
He gave her a card, and he stood there, turning it over slowly in her hands.
“I’ll have to ask Tony,” she said at last.
He laughed. “My God, what wifely docility! All right, ask Tony. And now I must go. Good night, Mrs. Roone.”
He kissed both her hands and turned away. It was not until he had reached the hall that she realised she had not thanked him for his quite extraordinary kindness in dealing with her stepfather, nor for the brief, sweet moment of triumph which he had given her.
“Mr. Frayne!”
He turned at once, and as she ran to him across the hall, with her hands outstretched, the sudden smile that leapt into his eyes made her remember, a second too late, what Tony had said about his reputation.
“Well?”
He looked down at her, and in that moment she realised the full fascination of his brilliant, laughing eyes and his fine flaring nostrils.
“It’s only,” she stammered a little, “thank you—thank you—for everything.”
He took both her hands and smiled.
“Sweet child. It was nothing.” He calmly bent his head and kissed her lightly on her startled mouth. And as his rather full lips touched her she knew quite well that, whatever his reputation, that kiss had been given in sheer kindness, and nothing else.
She turned away, faintly shocked but oddly comforted too—and as she did so Katherine stood in the drawing-room doorway.
It was all over in a second; and then the hall was full of people talking and taking their leave. But Anna knew that Katherine had seen, and had read every beastly shade of meaning she could into that kiss from Mario Frayne.
There would be some sort of reckoning, she supposed wearily, but for the moment it scarcely seemed to matter.
She thrust Frayne’s card down the front of her blouse, and somehow the feel of the little stiff square against her gave her courage to join in the good-byes to the guests.
It was over at last. Everyone had gone. And Anna went slowly back into the brightly lighted room which had seen her moment of triumph and her complete and utter humiliation.
Her father-in-law was there, fidgeting about and clearing his throat unnecessarily loudly. He gave her that glance of puzzled distaste which he had given her before, and began to cut and light a cigar.
Katherine came into the room then with her aunt, and, a moment later, Tony, looking tired and grim, joined them.
“Well?” said his father.
“What?”
“Did you get rid of the fellow?”
“Oh yes.” Hamilton went over and poured himself out a whisky and drank it at a gulp.
“The point is—what guarantee have we that this won’t happen again?” His father, fussy and furious, was smoking at a great rate.
“There’s no certain guarantee,” said Hamilton dryly. “But I’ve made it quite clear to him that it will be worth his while to keep away—and probably be unpleasant for him if he comes here again.”
“Do you mean you’re paying him?”
Hamilton shrugged.
“Tony!” That was Anna, from the depths of her misery.
“Be quiet, my dear.” Hamilton spoke curtly and wearily. “You must let me settle this.”
“But it’s blackmail,” fumed his father.
Hamilton made an impatient little gesture.
“I suppose Tony means that if he takes on in-laws who include drunkards he must expect this sort of trouble,” observed Katherine calmly.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Kate—”
Her brother gave her a furious look.
“Oh, Tony, we knew all along that something awful would happen,” his aunt exclaimed plaintively. For even she had given up all attempts at keeping up appearances.
And as Anna watched, in impotent despair, it seemed to her that they took the delicate fabric of her love-story and tore it to pieces.
“This sort of thing is always a terrible mistake.” Old Mr. Roone was walking up and down by now.
Hamilton stiffened angrily. “Will you be quiet, all of you, please! It’s beastly that this should have happened, of course, but it’s worse for Anna than for us. I will not have you talking as though it’s her fault. The man’s no relation of hers—and if he were, I still can’t see that any blame attaches to her.”
“We’re not talking of blame, Tony,” protested his aunt. “It’s just the horrible disgrace. Think of your father’s position. You can’t wonder he is upset. Think of your own position, come to that. This sort of thing is bound to be damaging. And we were looking forward so much to your marriage. There were a dozen nice girls for you to choose from—girls you could have been proud of as your wife.”
Anna made a small, wordless sound at that, and Hamilton flung an angry protective arm round her.
“Aunt, you shall not say such a thing. I chose Anna because I love her and because I am proud of her—frantically proud of her!”
“It would be interesting to know why you feel this—touching pride in
her,” observed Katherine dryly.
“Kate, will you stop being so disgusting! If you must know—because Anna’s sweet and good—she’s beautiful and she’s accomplished, and she has an exquisite natural sense of the fitness of things.”
Anna turned her face against him and kissed him with passionate, trembling gratitude.
“I think if you’d seen what I saw this evening,” said Katherine slowly, “you wouldn’t have been quite so confident of that ‘exquisite sense of the fitness of things.’ ”
Anna stiffened.
“Kate, I don’t want to hear anything more. You’re just being abominably spiteful.” Hamilton’s voice was sharp with impatience.
“My dear Tony, you’ve hidden your head in the sand long enough,” retorted his sister contemptuously. “Whether you want to know or not—while you were busy getting rid of her tipsy relations, Anna, with her exquisite fitness, was flirting with Mario Frayne in the hall. I came upon them myself.”
Hamilton went white, and his eyes were suddenly bleak.
“You’re lying, Kate.”
“I have never lied to you in all my life,” returned Katherine contemptuously. “I have no need to lie about my actions.”
“It’s not true, Anna, is it?” His nervous fingers were gripping her arms so that he hurt her.
“No. Not as Katherine puts it.” She was shaking, and he knew it.
“What do you mean—‘not as Katherine puts it’?” he repeated harshly.
She was silent, and in his dismay he shook her slightly.
“Did Frayne kiss you?”
“Yes.”
“God in heaven! And you let him?”
“Yes. I—I had been thanking him for—for what he had done—”
“Do you kiss every man to whom you have to say thank you?” he asked bitterly. She shrank from him, wordless and wretched.
“He didn’t mean it like that,” she whispered at last.
Hamilton gave a little exclamation of disgust and turned away. And at that moment Anna saw that Katherine was smiling very, very slightly.
It lit in her some flame that had never been there before. Such burning hate and fury took hold of her that she shook with the fever of it, and every vestige of self-control went up in a white blaze of passion.
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