Call and I'll Come

by Mary Burchell

  Manora shrugged. “Once or twice I have, but almost immediately I come running back. There is a fascination that one cannot resist, you know. I think,” she said slowly, “that is why so few of us will not or cannot listen when time says: ‘stop now if you would be remembered at your greatest.’ ”

  Anna wondered if Manora meant that she herself would be an exception, and listen to the warning. And presently she said gently: “And what will you do, Manora? Be wiser than all the others?”

  “I?” Manora smiled and shrugged again, letting her hands fall rather heavily to her sides. “How do I know, my child?” She only called Anna that in moments of real seriousness. “I never look into the future,” she added, with sudden passionate intensity. “Never, never, never.”

  And Anna was silent, thinking how odd and sad it was that Mario looked back to the past for his greatest happiness; Manora looked neither backwards nor forwards, but caught at the present with both hands; while she herself...? She could look only to the future, hoping against hope that some day, some day—

  It was silly, of course, to feel so reluctant to leave London. The gulf between herself and Tony was so immensely wide that no question of physical distance could affect it.

  She could go to the ends of the earth, Tony had said. It made no difference at all.

  And yet, with that lack of logic which is pitiful or ridiculous, according to whether you have known despair or not, she began to feel again that her heart would not ache quite so much if she could see him just once before she went.

  But the days were slipping away fast now. The frail links of connection were snapping.

  And then, on the day before they left, she met him. She was walking up Bond Street in the afternoon sunlight, intent upon some last-minute shopping—and there he was, almost at her side.

  “Tony!” The word was out before she could stop it.

  He swung round at once and caught her hand.

  “Anna!” And then that seemed all he was able to say. For he just stood there, looking down at her with a hungry expression that made her heart ache.

  Presently he became aware that they were being jostled by the passers-by, and he said with a sort of weary impatience: “I can’t talk to you here. Come and have coffee with me, will you?”

  She knew she ought to refuse. She would only hurt them both and complicate things by allowing herself this precious indulgence. But when Tony looked at her with that pleading, anxious air of expectancy she knew she could do nothing but agree.

  “I haven’t very long,” she made herself say coolly, and then she felt sick with pain, because he said humbly:

  “I won’t keep you long.”

  They crossed the road, and for a moment she felt his hand lightly round her arm, as he held her back to allow a car to pass.

  She didn’t know what to say to him. There wasn’t anything to say, she told herself. And by the time she was sitting opposite him in the almost deserted coffee bar her heart was beating in heavy, panic-stricken thuds.

  He ordered tea, and then glanced at his watch and said politely: “How long can you spare?”

  It was all so sad and ridiculous, she thought, when she really had the whole afternoon. However, she must say something, and so she answered quite calmly: “Not more than half an hour.”

  “Oh, well—” He didn’t finish what he was going to say. “How beautiful you are, Anna.”

  It was so entirely unexpected that for a moment Anna’s heart rose in her throat, and her treacherous reason began to whisper: “You see, you were wrong about him. He’s wretched without you. It’s silly to go away to Paris, chasing this mirage of fame. All he really wants is you. He doesn’t mind about your being a nobody.”

  But she knew how hollow all that really was when you put it to the test of reality. And after all, one must expect him to take more than these few months to get over his love for her.

  So she just smiled with the new baffling coolness she had learned, and said: “Am I? It’s always nice to be told that when one has on a new dress, isn’t it?”

  It wasn’t really very well done, but he didn’t seem to notice that. He looked a little bewildered, and glanced down with a touch of embarrassment that hurt. Tony—Tony who had always been so lightheartedly sure of himself and his surroundings—to look nonplussed at some silly thing she had said!

  After a moment he said rather huskily: “What have you been doing with yourself since—since—”

  “Since I left you?”

  He looked sulky at that and said: “Yes.”

  “I’m on the way to becoming a singer, Tony,” she told him calmly.

  “Helped by Frayne, I suppose?” he said, with sudden violence.

  “Mario has been a great help to me,” she agreed coolly. “But not in the way you mean. As a matter of fact, Conrad Schreiner and his wife are very much interested in my voice.”

  “His what?” Tony made that sound coldly disgusted because he wanted to hurt her a little too.

  “His wife. Manora Vanescu.” Anna spoke firmly.

  “She’s not his wife,” Tony said brutally. “She’s his mistress.”

  “Please don’t.” Anna’s voice was very cold. “You don’t help by abusing my friends.”

  “But it’s true.” Tony spoke like a truculent schoolboy. “He has a wife somewhere in Budapest. Everyone knows. She won’t divorce him.”

  “Oh—” Anna suddenly remembered that when she had asked Manora if Schreiner were her husband there had been a funny little pause before Manora had said “Yes.” She wished passionately now that she hadn’t driven Manora to that pitiful little lie.

  She looked up with sudden gentleness in her face.

  “Well, never mind, Tony,” she said much more softly. “I suppose it isn’t really our business.”

  He responded at once to her softer mood, with an almost touching eagerness: “Very well. Only I just thought—”

  “What, Tony?”

  He was silent for a moment, and then burst out with passionate misery: “Are you living with them, or with—with—”

  “I’m living with them,” she said firmly.

  “Anna”—he caught her hand—“God knows I can’t have much pride to be saying this, but I don’t care about Frayne. You don’t have to make excuses for that night or explain it or anything—”

  “Don’t,” she said rather faintly, and something in her voice stemmed the tide of his stumbling eloquence.

  “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said much more quietly. “It’s frightful of me, I know, to go on pestering you when you haven’t any more use for me. Forget what I said.”

  “I—I shan’t forget it,” she said slowly. “And it’s not frightful of you at all. It’s unbelievably generous—only it isn’t any good.”

  “Very well.” His voice was not absolutely steady. “Let’s talk about your singing, then. That’s what you’re really thrilled about, isn’t it?”

  So Anna told him something of Schreiner’s plans for her; and, as she did so, it seemed to her that the way stretched in front of her grey, arid, and stony.

  “I see,” Tony said slowly. “But there’s just one thing I want to say. May I?”

  “I suppose so.” But her eyes were a little apprehensive.

  “Please, darling—” He stopped, and looked startled. That had just slipped out, and they both knew it. Then, after a second, he went on: “Won’t you let me give you an allowance? I hate to think of your being dependent on that raffish couple for everything.”

  “Oh no, Tony, please. I couldn’t.” Her voice was sharp with distress.

  “But surely I have more right—” began Tony.

  “No. You see, they’ll let me pay it back when I begin earning and—and you would never let me do that, would you?”

  “No, my God! I wouldn’t,” he agreed rather violently. “But—oh, hang it, Anna!—in any type of—of separation the husband expects to pay an allowance.”

  “You weren’t really my husband�
��”

  “How dare you say that!” She could see he was white with pain as well as anger.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I—I didn’t quite mean that. I mean that as it was all wrong really, from the very beginning, the best thing we can do is to wash it all out. There would be something indecent about taking an allowance for making a mess of your life.”

  “But—”

  “Please, Tony. There isn’t anything more to say—and I must go now.”

  He paid the bill in silence, and they left the shop.

  Outside there was a man standing with a tray of violets, and on a sudden almost truculent impulse, Tony said: “Well, at least may I buy you some violets ? I could do that for anyone—even if she didn’t matter an atom to me.”

  “Oh, Tony She laughed a little, with a sudden sound of tears in her voice.

  She didn’t add either “yes” or “no”; but as she raised he hand to summon a taxi, with a sureness that the old Anna would never have known, he turned to buy handfuls of dark, sweet smelling violets.

  He brought them to her as she stood by the open door of the taxi.

  “Please take them,” he said, and clasped her hands round their stems.

  “Oh, Tony, they’re lovely,” she said gently. And for a moment she put them against her cheek.

  He stared at her with those unhappy, puzzled eyes for a moment.

  “God bless you, sweetheart,” he said, with sudden roughness in his voice, and he bent his head to the violets for a second. She wasn’t quite sure whether it was a little movement of embarrassment, or whether he kissed the flowers just where her cheek had rested.

  Then she got into the waiting taxi, and drove away without looking back.

  Life in Paris proved to be rather different from life in London. For one thing, they lived at an hotel, and Anna missed the easy informality of the flat in St. James’s. She thought Manora too found the change irksome, and she was certain that Schreiner did.

  He was greatly sought after, and although, in a way, Anna knew, he enjoyed playing “the great man,” there were times when she thought he watched Manora as though the very sight of her rested him—and he needed that rest.

  Manora never made the slightest demonstration of affection towards him in public. But often, when they were alone in the sitting-room of their suite—which was also used as a practise-room—she would show by some word or look that nothing which Schreiner did or said was lost upon her.

  To Anna there was something very touching in their attitude towards each other, and, at the same time, something which excited her unhappy envy, too. If she could have given Tony half that Manora gave Schreiner she felt she could have asked no more of life.

  She went to most of the rehearsals of Manora’s performances, for Schreiner said there was a great deal to be learned that way, and it was useful to get to know the “feel” of a theatre. It was here that Anna first realised to the full the extraordinary genius of Schreiner.

  If he was exciting in a studio, urging one shy student to sing, in charge of a full orchestra he was dynamic. He was wonderfully skilful with his singers, too, and showed towards them a sort of ruthless patience which invariably achieved what he wanted in the end.

  Even Manora could have cried herself sick in opposition to something he had laid down as necessary. It would have made no difference whatever. When he said a thing must be done it was done, and usually, to tell the truth, willingly done.

  Once, when a rehearsal was over, he made Anna come on to the stage and sing into the empty theatre. She was petrified with horror at first but, like the others, she felt it impossible to question Schreiner’s decision.

  It was Manora who whispered to her: “Don’t be frightened, and don’t think of the size of the theatre. Keep the quality of your voice pure, and remember to float it.”

  Anna found herself in the middle of an empty stage, with the yawning gulf of the empty auditorium in front of her. For a moment she thought that her throat was going to close, and that she could not sing. Then she caught sight of Schreiner. The light from the conductor’s desk was on his face, and he was smiling up at her in that peculiarly kind way he could occasionally.

  There was something absolutely compelling about that smile, and Anna felt the fearful tension relax. She was not quite sure when she became aware of the fact that the orchestra were playing, nor when she herself made her entry. But she supposed she must have instinctively done what was right, because the next thing she knew was a feeling of immense exhilaration and wonder.

  It was her voice—hers—that was soaring in those heavenly cadences.

  She felt she was really as surprised as anyone else at the amazing effect, and when she had finished she just went on standing there, looking slightly bewildered, while the orchestra and several people in the wings clapped her in a friendly way.

  She thought suddenly that it seemed ungracious not to make any acknowledgment. So she gave a shy little bow towards the orchestra, and heard Schreiner laugh. But it was a pleased laugh, she knew.

  Then Manora came and kissed her, and one or two of the other singers spoke kindly to her. Even the very famous and superior soprano who had been engaged to do several of the leading French roles observed: “One day, man enfant, you will sing well.”

  Schreiner said nothing until they were in the car on the way back to their hotel, when she ventured to say: “Were you pleased with me?”

  “Very pleased,” said Schreiner, and patted her shoulder.

  “The others were kind, too,” Anna said, with a happy smile. “They are so—friendly.”

  Manora laughed, and Schreiner said: “What does she say they are?”

  “Friendly,” repeated Manora dryly, whereat Schreiner let out a contemptuous bark of laughter.

  “So are tigers, Anna. Very friendly—until they wish for the same piece of meat.”

  Which Anna thought a little disturbing.

  As the days slipped past, it seemed impossible after all for Mario to fly over to hear Manora. But there were plenty of others to be interested and admiring. For Manora, Anna discovered, was very popular with both critics and public.

  Not that this fact appeared to make any difference to her invariable attack of nerves on the day of a performance. Anna was appalled the first time she witnessed the miserable hours that preceded a performance.

  Manora woke in the morning with the announcement that she had a terrible headache, and obviously the beginnings of a cold; that, indeed, she doubted if it would be possible for her to sing that evening.

  Schreiner took this very calmly, merely telling her to gargle and spray her throat. Anna, terribly frightened, could only admire his composure.

  During the morning Manora wandered restlessly about the apartment, unable to settle to anything, but refusing to go out because of her throat. At lunchtime she said that she felt too sick to eat; but, on Schreiner’s advice, she made a remarkably good meal.

  “I will lie down after lunch,” she told Anna sadly, “and see if I can sleep. I did not sleep at all last night.”

  Anna, worried and sympathetic, went to see her comfortably settled. She gently tucked a wrap round Manora and hung over her affectionately, thinking how very dear she had become.

  “I hope you will sleep, darling, and feel much better by the evening,” she said anxiously, noticing with relief that Manora’s blue eyes looked rather sleepy.

  But Manora shook her head and said she was afraid that was unlikely.

  During the afternoon Anna went out and strolled about aimlessly, feeling very unhappy. She sat in the gardens of the Tuileries for a little in the wintry sunshine, but it was too cold to sit there long, and she was back again by the time Manora rang for a cup of tea at five o’clock.

  Anna came into her room then and asked how she had slept.

  “Not at all,” Manora replied, “And my throat feels terrible”. Then she relapsed into gloomy silence.

  Anna went out and asked Schreiner if he di
dn’t think it better to substitute another singer.

  Schreiner looked amused and said, “There is no substitute for Manora.”

  It was touching that he should be so proud of her, of course, but a little callous that he should take no more notice of her illness.

  When they went off to the theatre together Manora was completely wordless, and her usually animated and lovely face was almost blank of expression. Anna herself was going later. She hugged Manora warmly, and felt it was almost an insult to wish her luck.

  However, she did so, and was rewarded with a faint smile, which was more suggestive of an operation patient than a successful singer.

  All the while she was getting ready, and on her way to the theatre, Anna felt sick with anxiety about Manora. She had received strict injunctions not to go round back-stage before the performance, and so she just sat there waiting wretchedly for the opera to begin.

  She wanted to turn to the laughing, uncaring people round her and explain: “If she doesn’t sing very well tonight, it’s because she is ill. She has a terrible headache and a sore throat. But really she’s utterly marvellous.”

  However, of course, she couldn’t do that, and it would not have been much use if she had.

  By the time Schreiner came to the conductor’s desk Anna felt cold all over. He, on the contrary, appeared miraculously calm and undisturbed. He was a callous beast, Anna thought suddenly, with quite unusual violence.

  She scarcely heard a note until Manora was on the stage, and then she sat there with her head bent and her hands gripped together. And then Manora began to sing.

  It was a few minutes before Anna raised astonished eyes to the stage once more—to see Manora using her wonderful smile, with its inevitable effect, in her part of an engaging, warmhearted Victorian coquette.

  That she was singing like an angel seemed quite a detail of her performance. And, with a relief that almost hurt, Anna realised that Manora was singing as beautifully as she had ever heard her.

  Trembling a little, she hurried round back stage in the first interval, and into Manora’s dressing room.

  “Manora, you’re wonderful!” she exclaimed. “There isn’t a trace of your sore throat in your singing.”