“So what?” He actually smiled defiantly at her. “Is there anything so criminal about it?”
“Not criminal,” she said quietly. “Just utterly unacceptable.” And she made a brief little gesture as though wiping her hands of something unwelcome. Then she picked up her music again and, with her legs trembling more than she would have believed possible, she went out of the room.
If he had followed her she didn’t know what she would have done. But he did not follow her. And mercifully there was a taxi immediately outside the Studios. She got in, gasped out her address and almost collapsed on the worn leather seat.
She should not have been so brutal. She could have left some of that unsaid and still have achieved her purpose. But, she told herself, it was when he gave that defiant smile that she had seen him at last for what he was. He was not even ashamed of what he had done.
All right — he needed that money desperately, and Rod Delawney was willing to supply it, on the distinct understanding that she should be a member of the company. Up to that point, the situation was just bearable. But that he should have made instant love to her in order to make sure of his subsidy — that was inexcusable! And, judging from that smiling little shrug, he didn’t even know it was inexcusable.
When she reached home she went straight to her room, although all the other girls were out. She felt she could not shut herself away sufficiently from the rest of the world while she lived through this miserable hour of revelation. And there she sat, beside her bed, telling herself that, horribly though this hurt, it was best that she should know the truth now and so armour herself against anything else that Jonathan could do to her.
“He’s not the only man in the world,” she told herself. “He’s not even the only man in my life.” And she thought, with a sort of anguished relief, of gay, kind Rod Delawney, whose madly generous offer had precipitated this crisis and, strangely enough, shown up Jonathan for what he was.
“I’ve always taken Rod too casually for granted,” she thought remorsefully. “And all the time he was worth three of Jonathan Keyne. If only—”
And at that moment the telephone bell rang. She was half inclined to let it go on ringing, in case it should be Jonathan telephoning with fresh excuses. Then the odd idea came to her that perhaps her very thinking so intensely of him had prompted Rod to telephone. And when she went into the hall and lifted the receiver, she was not entirely surprised to hear his voice asking for her.
“Oh, Rod! It’s Anna speaking.”
“Darling girl, what luck to find you in! What are you doing this evening?”
“N-nothing,” she said, more forlornly than she knew.
“You are, you know. You’re coming out with me. Meet me in the lounge at the Gloria in half an hour, and we’ll have a drink and decide where we’re going and what we’re going to do.”
“That would be wonderful!” she exclaimed, and she meant it. For to sit at home and think about Jonathan would be agony. To go out with Rod, accepting him fully at last for the delightful fellow he was, would be comfort unspeakable.
She promised to be with him in half an hour, and then rushed away to don her prettiest dress and a little fur jacket, which she drew close up to her throat to protect the precious voice of which she was now more than ever aware.
In spite of the rush, she was, she knew, looking her best as she walked into the lounge of the Gloria only five minutes after the specified time. And Rod was there to welcome her, install her in a secluded comer seat, and then listen with the utmost interest to her account of the audition for Dermot Deane.
“Was there anyone else there besides Warrender and Deane?” he wanted to know.
“Jonathan was there,” she said, and then found she could say no more.
“Oh—” he laughed slightly, “Jonathan Keyne.”
“Why do you laugh like that, Rod?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps because the thought of him makes me feel slightly uncomfortable.”
“I don’t think it need,” she said earnestly. “You mean because of your generous offer to help finance his tour on — on terms?”
He nodded, and swirled the whisky round in his glass, regarding it with a dry little smile.
“Rod,” she exclaimed on sudden impulse, “what did he say exactly, when you made the offer?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, it — it does rather.”
“Well, he didn’t say anything at all at first, Anna. It was made on impulse, you know, almost between snatches of conversation as we were all leaving the church after the concert.”
“And then he — he referred to it again?”
“Yes, he did. Much later that evening, when I returned from taking you and your father home.”
She caught her breath. By then, of course, Jonathan had sounded her out and knew her reaction.
“What did he say then?” she pressed, hating to hear the whole story, yet knowing she must submit herself to it.
“He asked me if I had made the offer in all seriousness, and I assured him I had.”
“And then?”
“Then, Anna,” said Rod, still swirling the whisky in his glass, “he refused the offer. And I’m bound to say in terms that made me rather ashamed that I’d ever made it.”
CHAPTER NINE
“He — refused? Jonathan refused your offer of financial backing?” Anna stared at Rod Delawney in stupefaction and she thought for a moment she was going to faint. “You can’t mean it. You must be mistaken.”
“Oh, no, I’m not I He couldn’t have been more offensively explicit.” Rod made a half-humorous grimace. “In fact, if I were not a peaceable sort of chap, I’d probably have felt impelled to punch his head. Anyway, what are you worrying about? The possibility of your tour falling through? You needn’t, you know. He’s expecting to get the backing from some other quarter, isn’t he?”
“I — I don’t know,” stammered Anna, making a tremendous effort to recover her composure and look as though her dismay went no further than her anxiety about the tour. “Is he? Who is supplying it — do you know?”
“He didn’t offer any information. He wasn’t exactly in an expansive mood.” Rod grinned, his natural good humour obviously now conquering his remembered resentment. “My guess is that Warrender has something to do with it—”
“Oscar Warrender? But does he back anything of that kind?”
“I shouldn’t think so — in the ordinary way. But he has considerable faith in Keyne’s future, if he’s given a chance. Like all of us, if I’m frank, I think he felt it was a damned shame that old Nat Bretherton behaved the way he did. And, provided he wasn’t left to carry the whole can, I think Warrender would bestir himself on behalf of someone as gifted as Keyne.”
“Do you think he could possibly afford it?” Anna asked doubtfully.
“Warrender? How much do you suppose he’s worth?” Rod retorted amusedly. “Well, no — of course he wouldn’t do the whole thing on his own, as I said. But I should think he might be willing to be a heavy shareholder if someone else proposed the idea.”
“Who else?”
Rod rubbed his chin reflectively and said, “I wouldn’t put it past my own mamma to have a hand in it.”
“Your mother? You mean your father, don’t you?”
“No, no. My father wouldn’t be prepared to put up any more after the Festival.”
“Not even for Teresa?” She could not help saying that. “Teresa would expect to make her own terms, you know,” replied Rod drily. “And I think Jonathan had indicated in the politest way possible that they would not be acceptable.”
“Do you?” Somehow there was the smallest crumb of comfort somewhere in that statement. “But what makes you think your mother could — or would — help?”
“Several things. None of which may be right, of course. I’m only guessing, really. But I know her very well. We tick in rather the same way in lots of things. She’s a very independent-minded woman, my mother. E
ven so far as her family is concerned if she feels strongly. In addition —” he gave that genuinely amused grin again — “I don’t know quite how to put this, but there’s a degree of competitiveness between her and Teresa, you know. Well, Teresa has had her fun with the Festival. I could well imagine Mother countering with an opera tour — particularly if it took Jonathan out of Teresa’s orbit. She never approved of Teresa’s efforts in that direction.”
“Do you mean that she disapproved on Teresa’s behalf -or Jonathan’s?”
“Both, I shouldn’t wonder,” replied Rod promptly. “With the snobbish side of her she wants Teresa to marry a title eventually. With what you might call the human side of her she has quite enough acumen to know that Teresa would be death to Jonathan as an artist.”
“You can say that of your own sister?” Anna was shocked, and could not help showing it.
He smiled good-humouredly, but she noticed for the first time what a determined line there was to his jaw.
“My dear Anna, as a complete realist, most certainly I can say that of Teresa, because it’s true. You don’t suppose the Delawneys make their money by being sentimentally blind about people, do you? Not even their nearest and dearest. I’m quite fond of Teresa in my way, and I greatly admire her talents, but I have no illusions about her.”
“Oh,” said Anna, and then for a minute she was silent, digesting what was to her an extraordinary family attitude. Finally she drew an involuntary sigh and said, “So you think your mother may have offered Jonathan financial backing? It’s a great deal of money for a woman to put up, isn’t it, even if other people are involved?”
“She could afford a pretty handsome gesture, if she felt so inclined,” Rod assured her carelessly. “And, like the rest of us, she knows how to influence useful people. If she really had Warrender’s support — and I notice they had a good deal to say to each other at one time or another — she would know how to make the idea attractive in the right quarters.”
“So that’s how it’s done!” Anna smiled faintly.
“Yes, Anna, that’s how it’s done.” He laughed. “There would be a good deal of discussion first, of course — which would explain why Jonathan is not absolutely sure he has it all in the bag yet. But my guess is that he’ll bring it off all right. So there was no need for you to look so dismayed, my dear. That tour will take place — and you will be the star of it.”
She forced what she hoped he would take to be a happy, relieved laugh, and then called on all her acting powers to appear carefree instead of beset — as she was — by tearing remorse and anxiety.
Fortunately for her, a few moments later a waiter came to say that Mr. Delawney was wanted on the telephone, and with a word of excuse to her he went away, leaving her in her secluded comer, free for a moment to re-examine with feverish dismay the situation she had created between Jonathan and herself.
He was innocent. Jonathan was completely innocent of the contemptible behaviour she had attributed to him. Far from making love to her for a paltry ulterior motive, he had refused the money on which all his plans depended, rather than compromise her interests in the slightest degree.
Considered in that light, the scene she had made that afternoon appeared so crassly idiotic that she writhed even to think of it. What must he have thought when she accused him of wanting her in this company for any reason other than the very obvious one that she was a good singer? No wonder he had looked astounded
But then he had flushed deeply. And that was what had seemed to her to seal his guilt. He had looked so exactly as though she had found him out in something. It couldn’t have been sheer anger — justified though that would have been. It surely meant only one thing — that he did want her with him because he loved her. It was real — it was real!
For a few seconds she experienced such an uprush of happiness and relief that everything else was forgotten. But then, with icy dismay, she remembered how she had received this misunderstood declaration. She had almost literally wiped her hands of him and informed him brutally that the whole thing was “utterly unacceptable”.
“I must explain to him! I must find him somehow and explain to him,” she thought wildly. And she had actually risen to her feet, when the sight of Rod returning across the room reminded her that she was not yet a free agent. She must put on her mask of calm sociability once more. She had had her few moments of respite — if that was what it could be called — and now she must listen to his plans for the evening, having so eagerly accepted his invitation less than an hour ago.
What he had planned was a charming dinner — to which she managed somehow to do reasonable justice — and then a night at the opera, where there was a new production of “Carmen”, with Nicholas Brenner in the part of Don José.
“Oh, Rod, how clever of you to get seats!” For a moment her joy was genuine. “I’ve only heard him once before, and that was just from the slips, where you don’t see much, though you hear marvellously.”
“Well, you’ll see everything tonight,” Rod promised her. “We’re in the fifth row of the stalls.”
“Is Warrender conducting?”
It seemed Warrender was not conducting that night. But a few minutes after they had taken their seats, Anna saw him and Anthea come into a first tier box. She just had time to whisper this piece of information to Rod before the conductor for the evening entered the orchestra pit and the performance began.
For the first few minutes Anna still thought about her own tangled affairs. But then the compulsion of the drama laid its hand upon her, and presently she was utterly absorbed in the duet between Jose and Micaela, only digressing for a moment to think just how she would like to do Micaela when the time came.
In the pregnant pause before Carmen made her entrance, for some reason or other Anna glanced up again at the Warrenders’ box, and then she saw that Jonathan had joined them. The entrance of the justly famous Carmen was completely lost on her. Ashamed she might be of that later in the evening, but in that first moment she could think only that Jonathan was in the house.
During the first interval she let Rod take her out and give her coffee, but she caught no glimpse of Jonathan or the Warrenders. Possibly, of course, they had gone round backstage. In the second interval too there was no sign of them, and when Rod suggested that they should go upstairs to the crush bar, she refused in near-panic. For if they saw the Warrenders and Jonathan inevitably they would have to join them, and what was there that he and she could say to each other while other people stood by?
Just as they were about to return to their seats, one of the Opera House staff, who evidently knew Rod, came up to him with a slip of paper.
“This phone message just came through for you, Mr. Delawney.”
“Thanks—” Rod took the message, read it and frowned. “Anna, I’m frightfully sorry —” he turned to her — ‘I’ll just have to miss this act. There’s a bit of a South American crisis on, and we’re involved financially. I must go to the office—”
“At this hour?”
“I’m afraid so. Financial crises don’t go by the clock. I’ll get back if I possibly can before the end of the performance. But if not, I’ll arrange with the Sergeant to put you into a taxi. I hate to leave you like this, but—”
“It’s all right, Rod.” She smiled at him understandingly, and managed to conceal the relief she felt at being left on her own at last, with no necessity to play a part any more.
“Good girl!” He kissed her lightly and left her. And Anna went back into the house, to be harrowed by Nicholas Brenner’s portrayal of the ruined José, and the anxious conviction that she also had probably ruined her life.
At the end she slowly made her way out into the foyer, holding back for a scared moment of concealment when she saw Jonathan hurry down the big main staircase and out into the night. She should have had the courage to stop him — but she had not. And now he had gone.
She stood there utterly undecided, and suddenly Anthea Warrender’s
voice said behind her, “Hello! I thought I saw you in the house, but somehow we didn’t meet up during the intervals.”
“No. I — I—” She turned to greet them.
“Jonathan has just gone to get the car,” Anthea explained. “Are you alone? We could give you a lift. I’m sure Jonathan would be glad to.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” said Anna before she could stop herself. “I mean—”
“Is he in your bad books at the moment?” enquired Warrender with a touch of genuine interest.
“It isn’t that. I’m in his. And — and it serves me right —” Then Anna stopped, appalled to find she had been unable to hold back exactly what was in her mind.
Both the Warrenders looked slightly taken aback for a moment. Then Anthea said kindly, “One can always say one is sorry. I do sometimes. And even Oscar does very, very occasionally.”
“But not in front of other people,” observed Warrender, with that almost uncanny perception which was one of his special gifts. “Is that the trouble, Anna?”
She nodded wordlessly. But then, as they reached the doorway and she saw Jonathan’s car moving up in the queue, she said quickly, “I must go. Thank you, but—”
“Just a moment.” To her boundless surprise, the great conductor’s hand closed round her arm, and only then did she realise how strong his fingers were. As always, the crowds parted instinctively before him, and she found herself quite effortlessly propelled out on to the pavement, just as Jonathan’s car drew up.
“Mr. Warrender, please—” she whispered urgently.
But he merely bent down to open the car door and speak to the astonished Jonathan.
“Anthea and I have to go backstage, after all,” he stated smoothly. “But here’s Anna Fulroyd needing a lift. Perhaps you would take her — and join us at the Gloria later.”
And before Anna — or, to tell the truth, Jonathan either — could do anything about it, she had been handed into the car, the door was shut and the next car coming up behind was hooting for them to move on.
They moved on — in deathly silence — and not until they were clear of the crowds did Jonathan say, in a tone she had never heard from him before, “What is this, exactly? A hijacking?”
Song Cycle (Warrender Saga Book 8) Page 16
