He stood regarding her almost broodingly. “The answer to that,” he replied at last, “is that we can all of us rise above our backgrounds. I don’t see you fitting in very well in a junk shop ... not permanently, anyway!”
He started to pace up and down the room, as she had seen him do often before. Then he came back to her and spoke with a strange earnestness.
“There isn’t the smallest reason why you should marry Winterton...”
“Except that Vanessa is ill at the moment, and counting upon her contract.” She looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m not really concerned with your reputation, Mr. Veldon—I’m sure your fans will be faithful to you whatever Mr. Winterton might say about you. But Vanessa has nothing but a long period of convalescence to look forward to at the moment, and if in addition to losing her contract she gets talked about ... Well, women are vulnerable, in a way that men are not vulnerable, and she might find it difficult to get back on her feet again.”
“So you’ll sacrifice yourself for Vanessa?” dryly, “but not for me!”
She sighed.
“You won’t believe it’s a sacrifice. And it isn’t, really, of course ... It’s the most extraordinary piece of good fortune.” She looked down at the belt of her dress that she had been maltreating ruthlessly with her fingers. “I suppose it’s because I haven’t had time yet to get used to the idea that I’m not quite overwhelmed.”
“But when the truth has had an opportunity to sink in, you really will be—overwhelmed? You might even convince yourself that it will be a simple matter to fall in love with Winterton?”
“I don’t know anything about love,” she answered without looking at him.
He made an abrupt movement and turned away. “Lucky for you. Love is a complication best avoided. And if you don’t really need it, well then, I suppose you can always do without it!” At the door he paused to look back at her. “But I’m sorry I made such an unfavourable impression on you when we met for the first time—away from the glamour of the concert hall, that is!”
Across the width of the room her grey eyes attempted an apology.
“And I’m sorry I had to admit to you that you were once a kind of hero of mine. For two years, to be quite truthful!”
“But a hero with feet of clay! Too bad!” He shook his head mockingly.
That night he was one of the first to offer his congratulations to the happy couple when Abraham Winterton made his announcement to a crowded room.
It was the vast room at his flat—the room with the swaying gold curtains that made a noise like the whispering of the night breeze itself when it stirred them with hot and breathless fingers.
“I am the happiest man in the world tonight,” Winterton declared. “For the loveliest woman in the world has consented to marry me. Me, a hardened bachelor!”
If the majority of his friends were surprised, all they betrayed was delight. They fawned upon Janie, although her eyes met his almost appealingly once or twice—but the Baron von Eisler whispered to Janie in astonishment when he got her alone.
“But what happens to Vanessa when the truth leaks out? I mean, it will be Jane Dallas who becomes Mrs. Winterton, and unless you’re contemplating committing a serious fraud”—she gathered he was not in the least delighted by the turn events had taken—“you’ll have to be honest with the registrar, at least. And I can’t see Vanessa allowing another woman to get married in her name!”
“I have no intention of marrying in any name but my own,” she replied stiltedly. “Mr. Winterton—Abraham,” she corrected herself self-consciously, “has a plan to simplify the present position.”
“Then it will have to be a very good plan,” the Baron observed laconically. “So many people appear to have been taken in by your impersonation of Vanessa.”
And he glanced about him as if half relishing the thought of their changed expressions should someone suddenly drop a bomb in their midst, and reveal the truth about the future Mrs. Winterton.
Over by one of the enormous windows Winterton outlined his plan to Veldon, after bluntly admitting to him that he had known the truth for some time.
“I don’t blame you, Veldon,” he said. “Women have a way of getting what they want when they want it badly enough, and I gather that Vanessa wants to sign on the dotted line with me very badly indeed!”
The Austrian conductor was standing very stiffly, looking very dark and distinguished and foreign in his evening things. Janie, who had managed to fight her way through the crush to be nearer to them, thought that he also looked as if every muscle in his body was taut, and he himself battling with a strong sensation of distaste and disapproval.
Although why he should be disapproving now she couldn’t think, when the situation was about to be resolved for him.
Winterton, not noticing she was near, dug him rather playfully in the ribs.
“Of course, I also realize that there’s a strong personal element in this. A favourite pupil become an outstanding star, in addition to being an exceptionally beautiful woman! You naturally want the best of all possible worlds for her, and one day very likely for yourself?” Another dig in the ribs. “There comes a time in the lives of most of us men when we feel the need to take a wife ... and start a family. You and your Vanessa, and me and my Jane”—he suddenly looked round for her anxiously—“will have to get together over this!”
He extended a hand eagerly when he caught sight of Janie, but she was breathlessly watching the conductor’s face to see if, just for one moment, he might betray himself. Even a momentary flicker of relief would confirm what she believed, but there was not even the suspicion of a flicker of relief. Nothing but an unnatural coldness and calm—and distaste.
“Ah, so there you are, Jane!” Winterton exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to make Veldon realize that there’s nothing really to worry about. You and I are going to get married—soon!—and that contract will go to the real Vanessa as soon as she’s fit to sign it. But there’s something I want in exchange for keeping up the necessary deception a bit longer.”
He looked at the conductor with the expression of a keen businessman driving a fairly reasonable bargain.
“I want you to give Jane away at the wedding, Veldon, and I want you to let us have that castle of yours—Schloss, I believe you call it—in the Austrian Alps for our honeymoon,. I once stayed with you there for a week-end, and it caught my fancy. I thought, if ever I get married, I’ll ask Veldon to let me bring my bride here. And now I’m getting married, and I’ll have to be close to Vienna for a time, so it will suit me admirably. Is that okay?”
Veldon looked long and strangely at Janie.
“I’ll let you have the Schloss, but you can count me out at the wedding. Weddings and I do not agree with one another ... Perhaps because I’m a confirmed bachelor!”
And he turned on his heel and left them.
“Confirmed bachelor my foot!” Winterton exclaimed, as he looked after him with a faint puckering of his brows. “Everyone knows that he and the Brandt...” Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Ah, well, perhaps it’s she who isn’t keen on marriage. These career women are all alike, and they’ll sell their soul sometimes to further their interests. No wonder he looks a bit grim.”
Then he looked down, beaming devotedly at Janie.
“How glad I am that you’re just you, Janie, and you’ve no interest in a career. I couldn’t have fallen for you as I have done if you’d been a career-woman, for I want my wife to think of nothing but me!”
CHAPTER X
Janie felt as if she had fallen into a trap, and it was now securely fastened so that she couldn’t escape from it.
When she saw that look in Winterton’s eyes, and heard the slightly husky note in his voice as he told her that in future she was to think only of him, the doors of the trap swung shut. When he put his hand on her arm and urged her to escape from the crowded room with him because, although they were engaged, she hadn’t so far allowed him to kiss her, or
take advantage of any of the privileges of a fiancé, the key turned in the lock.
“Oh, no!” she protested, feeling as if panic rose in her in an actual tide. “I’m so terribly tired tonight!”
It was true, and every moment of the last few days had been so exhausting that all at once she felt as if she was being drained of her strength, and unless someone came to her rescue and made it possible for her to return to normality and obscurity she couldn’t possibly go on putting up a pretence of any sort or kind.
“And it’s so hot!”
It was, breathlessly, suffocating hot, and Winterton took pity on the sudden whiteness of her face, and the blankness of her expression, and agreed to take her straight back to her hotel and allow her to rest and recover from the suddenness of everything, “I suppose it has been a bit of a strain for you, acting the part of Vanessa,” he said. “But you won’t have to act the part much longer, for when we get to Vienna, there won’t be any point in it. Vienna is Vanessa’s home ground, and we’ll just let it be given out that she was taken ill in London and is recovering in a nursing home. You will be booked .in at Sacher’s Hotel as Jane Dallas.”
“But you’ve announced tonight that you’re engaged to Vanessa Brandt!”
He shrugged.
“And have you never heard of a beautiful opera singer changing her mind? By the time we get to Vienna I shall have been cruelly dropped by Vanessa, and you will have consoled me. My adorable little Jane!” He allowed one of his rather womanish hands to rest for a moment on her bare shoulder, and she couldn’t prevent herself shrinking from his touch. “Jane, who is to become my wife!” with an inflexible note in his voice.
“You are not afraid that I ... shall drop you?” she inquired in a faint voice.
He laughed, rather an unpleasant laugh.
“I don’t think you will do that, my dear. You are too nice ... too genuine. You entered into a kind of bargain with Miss Brandt, and you will keep your side of the bargain. Knowing that she is ill you won’t do anything to hurt her still further.”
“But supposing her health isn’t good enough for her to take up the contract?”
“Then we’ll see that she has a most enjoyable convalescence, and put as many plums in her path in future as we can. I’ve already telegraphed to the nursing home that all is well, and she has nothing to worry about save a quick recovery to complete health and excellent voice, and by this time there will be as many flowers in her room as you had when you arrived here.”
Janie felt the bars of the cage begin to press on her.
‘You have a very complete belief in me, haven’t you?” she inquired dryly.
“Very complete,” he assured her. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me! I’m not an impressionable boy, you know, my dear,” he added quietly.
Janie bit her lip.
“But why do we have to keep in such close touch with—with Mr. Veldon? If you really do wish to marry me, why can’t we got right away somewhere where he—?”
Winterton glanced at her quickly.
“You dislike him?” he asked. “You find him stiff-necked and impossible?”
“I don’t think he has ever approved of me.”
“Nonsense, my dear,” he replied, with a gleam of humour in his eyes. “I don’t believe there is a man in the world who could really and truly disapprove of you. But I know what you mean about Veldon. ... There’s an arrogance about him that’s a bit difficult to swallow at times. As a musician, however, he’s in a class by himself, and I’ve got to work with him in the next few weeks. And he’s about the only man in the world who can handle Vanessa Brandt, so if I’m going to use her I’ve got to use Veldon.”
“But do we have to stay at his Schloss?”
At that he caught her hand.
“Wait till you’ve seen it,” he said. “It’s a fairytale place, perched on the side of a mountain and overlooking a valley—a valley full of blue lakes and rivers. You’ll smell the scent of pine woods from dawn till dude, see snow lying on the high peaks that lies there from one year’s end to the other. If two people want to spend a honeymoon somewhere ... well, that’s the spot!”
Janie wanted to cry out bewilderedly that a few days ago she hadn’t dreamed of marrying anyone, and certainly not of having a honeymoon with a stranger. Much worse than a stranger! ... A man in whom she wasn’t even remotely interested, and knew that she could never be interested.
Whereas the owner of the Schloss...
She forced herself to stop thinking along such lines. She was even slightly amazed at herself that she should think such thoughts. Max Veldon disliked her, and she disliked him. He was brutal and cruel, and the only woman he was really interested in was Vanessa Brandt.
He was in love with Vanessa, otherwise he wouldn’t have risked his reputation to please her.
And unless she, Jane, pleased Abraham Winterton, his reputation was still not safe!
Not entirely safe, but not in as much danger as Vanessa’s future, for a reputation such as he had built up could not be destroyed by a little malicious gossip. But to a man with his arrogant attitude to life, his cool pride, the disclosure of a certain amount of weakness would not be pleasant.
He would find it hard to live down, and wherever he went the admission of weakness would go with him. People would talk behind their hands, and their smiles would hold a hint of criticism. The idol would have developed feet of clay, and although it didn’t matter if a girl like Jane Dallas made the discovery that he had feet of clay, it would matter very much indeed if the world became aware of them. The world of music, wherein he had hitherto held so secure a place, and which was his world ... his bright, secure, and all-important world!
Jane knew that having committed herself to something irresponsible—or rather, allowed herself to be over-persuaded into doing something irresponsible—she couldn’t let Vanessa down, and she couldn’t permit a hint of tarnish to mar that scintillating reputation which Veldon had built up for himself. Especially when, while there was still an opportunity to withdraw, she had accepted a challenge that she wouldn’t fail Vanessa, and that the support Veldon lent to her would not recoil on his own head.
She had a shrewd suspicion that, for some purely personal reason, Winterton would enjoy exposing Veldon as something in the nature of a fraud ... just as she had a very strong suspicion that Rudi von Eisler wouldn’t hesitate to conspire against his half-brother if it were to his own advantage. Therefore, while not entirely believing in the finality of the thing she had done, and the linking of her name with Winterton’s, she arrived with him in Vienna and was instantly caught up in a far more fantastic whirl than that which had shaken her in New York.
New York was prosaic, but Vienna was like the coming to life of a fairy-tale—a real fairytale.
Sacher’s Hotel, where a suite was booked for her, was a modern hotel with its feet firmly established in the past. It had all the amenities of the present day and age, but the splendours of the past were inescapable. Gilt and plush, oak and damask ... Janie had the feeling that she had been offered a part in a lush musical of the Lehar period when she saw her own-private sitting-room for the first time, and dined with her fiancé in the hotel dining room that night.
They dined, for once, alone, for Veldon, who had accompanied them from New York, had gone straight to his own flat from the airport, and Miss Calendar had had the tact to say that she would enjoy a tray in her own room. Rudi, back in his own element had temporarily disappeared ... Janie hoped very much that it would be a lengthy disappearance, for the shatteringly handsome Baron, with his mocking, knowing eyes, frightened her sometimes.
And she was fairly certain he had many friends in Vienna who would welcome him back ... particularly feminine friends.
Winterton expressed himself as delighted that he and Janie were able to dine alone.
“I would have liked to stop off in Paris for a while, and you could have bought yourself a trousseau there; but Vienna is a won
derful place for women—perhaps even more than Paris it caters for women—and you can go shopping tomorrow as early as you feel like it.”
He fondled her hand, where it rested on the satin damask of the tablecloth, and she instantly withdrew it as if she had been stung.
At the hurt look in his eyes she apologized.
“I’m sorry... I didn’t quite realize what I was doing!”
His eyes narrowed a little.
“That’s all right, sweetheart. I rather gather you’re a little shy—another thing about you I adore!—and you’re not used to being engaged yet. For that matter, neither am I,” smiling very attractively. “I haven’t even bought you a ring yet,” reaching out and touching her hand again. “But we’ll go shopping tomorrow together and remedy that omission.”
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, experiencing an odd sensation like horror at the thought of wearing the badge of their relationship on her finger. His ring! ... There was something horribly final and irrevocable about wearing a man’s ring. “Oh, no,” she repeated, rather more faintly.
He smiled.
“Diamonds or rubies,” he inquired, “emeralds or pearls? What are your favourite stones?”
“I—I haven’t any!”
His smile grew broader.
“Soon you’ll be quite a connoisseur. I shall load you with so many trinkets that you won’t know what to do with them, and that goes for clothes, too. You must choose masses of them.”
“You mean that you’ll—pay for them?”
“Of course,” almost complacently. “I shall pay for everything you do, wear, eat, or desire from now on.”
She felt ridiculously appalled—considering that less than a week ago she hadn’t had a sufficient amount of money to buy herself a modest outfit of clothes.
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