But then she remembered how Laurence had kissed her and said Why should Minna mind? There was something reassuring about that—a reassurance which lasted until she saw Laurence and Minna going off for what was obviously to be a late lunch together. She told herself this was a very natural arrangement, but she went back to the hotel rather soberly, to find that her father had lunched without her.
‘I didn’t feel like waiting,’ he explained, ‘especially as I didn’t know how long you would be. How did the rehearsal go?’
‘Very well,’ replied Natalie. ‘It made me feel I should like to hear the actual performance.’
‘Two Carmens in three days, my dear?’ Her father yawned slightly. ‘I would call that taking rather heavy punishment.’
She wanted to ask if, all the same, she might inflict such punishment upon herself. But she resisted, knowing from long experience that it was better to take each day as it came and act according to the mood—his mood—of the moment. It would have been nice to set her own mind at rest, but to press the point now might well provoke a refusal. And a refusal would be hard to withdraw later without a loss of dignity.
The Otello rehearsal next day was timed for the afternoon and would, Natalie guessed, probably extend into the evening. Her father had little to say to her on the way there, but she was used to this. She knew that, in spite of the length and distinction of his career, he was always nervous before a performance, and even an important rehearsal could make him tense and difficult.
She remembered her mother saying long ago, ‘They’re most of them impossible to live with on the day of a performance. One must allow them that.’ So she allowed him that.
‘You can go straight into the front of the house,’ her father told her on arrival. ‘I shan’t need you.’
Consequently, she was already sitting in her seat when the music of the great opening Storm broke over her head, with the effect of personal involvement which is the acid test of a well-conducted Otello. As she finally emerged, feeling battered and breathless, from the ordeal, her father strode on to the stage—a superb figure, with his darkened skin, his remarkable height and presence, and the barbaric splendour of his costume. This was one of the moments one lived for! when that unique, clarion-like voice would ring out in the high phrases of Otello’s entrance.
And then no voice came.
She could scarcely believe it. He was, she realised in dismay, simply ‘marking’, not singing out full voice at all. The gestures, the presentation of the part were all there, but he was saving his voice, presumably with Warrender’s permission, and only sketching in the notes.
It was an unusual thing to happen at any final rehearsal; it was unheard-of in the case of her father. She knew he regarded a final rehearsal as being as important and testing as an actual performance. One must be prepared to show one was equal to every demand, he was fond of saying, or admit one was not equal to the part.
After the entrance and then the departure from the stage, Natalie was so shaken that she hardly heard the rest of the scene, even though the Iago was probably the finest baritone in the world. Only when Otello made his appearance once more, to be joined a few minutes later by Anthea as Desdemona, did Natalie come out of a sort of frightened stupor. And even then she was aware of a sense of anxiety and insecurity which she had never before associated with any performance of her father’s.
After a few minutes she drew a shuddering little breath of relief. He was singing full voice now, very beautifully and in exquisite harmony with Anthea’s silvery tones. To anyone who knew the voice as well as Natalie did, there was a hint of special care at the most testing moments, but with his impeccable technique he negotiated the fiendish difficulties of the love duet, and she told herself she had been tormenting herself for nothing.
In the interval she noticed the critical couple who had annoyed her at the Carmen rehearsal, and—despising herself for the impulse—she moved unobtrusively from her seat and slipped into a seat just behind them. They were, of course, already discussing the first scene, with that special know-all phraseology which is calculated to raise the blood pressure of all true music-lovers.
‘Never heard him shirk the Entrance before.’ The speaker shook his head dolefully.
‘Permissible perhaps at a rehearsal,’ replied the other, with an air of knowing more than most.
‘Well, he can’t shirk it at the performance,’ was the reply, and they both laughed. Then the first one added, ‘He’s really over the hill, of course, and probably shouldn’t have taken on Otello at all. I hope there isn’t a fiasco on the night.’
On this the discussion ended and Natalie, resisting with some difficulty a desire to knock their heads together, slipped back to her own seat and tried to still the quaking of her heart. It was absurd, she assured herself, to pay the slightest attention. Fatuities of that sort were the small change of every operatic audience; a mild annoyance to be shaken off with contempt. But she was frightened—really frightened. For, deep down inside her, she knew her father was in some vocal trouble, and only his technique and his sheer grit were going to get him through.
During the next two acts she had her moments of panic, but she doubted if anyone less experienced than herself would have detected any sign of distress. And there were whole passages that were sung as only he could sing them, while his effortless grip on the actual character was something to marvel at.
Just before the last act someone took the seat beside her and, turning her head, she saw that it was Laurence Morven.
‘Have you been in the theatre all this time?’ she asked.
‘No, I had to miss the first act.’ She hoped he also missed her slight gasp of relief. ‘I’ve been at the back for the rest of the time and then suddenly spotted you here. He’s everything they say of him—I have an odd feeling that I’ve never seen or heard the work until now.’
‘Thank you.’ She touched his hand gratefully and he held her fingers and said, ‘Why, how cold you are!’
‘I get nervous for him sometimes.’ She laughed shakily. ‘I don’t know why, because he’s surefire, of course. I suppose it’s natural to be nervous for the people one loves.’
‘If you come to hear me tomorrow night, will you be a little nervous for me, Natalie?’ He spoke softly and a trifle mischievously. But Warrender came back to the orchestra pit just then, so she just whispered, ‘Hush!’ Though she left her hand in his.
The last act, of course, was largely Anthea’s, and exquisitely she sang the heavenly music which Verdi gave to the doomed Desdemona.
‘How unbelievably touching she is,’ whispered Natalie, in the silence which succeeded the final notes of the Ave Maria.
‘Yes,’ he whispered back. ‘They say that’s the point when Warrender fell in love with her, and I shouldn’t wonder if it’s true.’
Then came the fateful chords of Otello’s entry, and from then until the end of the opera Natalie was aware that her father dominated not only the scene but the fascinated man sitting beside her. He leaned forward, as though to catch every significant gesture—economical though these were—and throughout the great final monologue he held Natalie’s hand so tightly that it hurt.
Only Natalie—and probably Warrender too—knew that her father gave the last dying gasps a couple of moments too soon for his usual perfect timing. There was not, Natalie felt frightenedly, a single note left in him.
But Laurence said, ‘No one else will ever do it quite like that again. Of that I’m certain.’
She murmured, ‘I think so too,’ but then added hurriedly, ‘I must go. I must see he doesn’t tire himself now, but remains fresh for the actual performance.’
‘Tell him to rest so thoroughly that he can dispense with you tomorrow night,’ Laurence returned lightly. And then he said again, ‘It will mean a lot to me, Natalie, if you’re there.’
It was true, she told herself, all that was needed was that she should be there. She could hardly hope to defeat Minna’s wiles unless sh
e was on the spot. She had to be there—with him—making her own impact, so that they could get to know each other in depth, instead of remaining on a charming surface relationship which practically never touched the essentials.
‘I’ll do my best. I’ll do my very best,’ she promised, and then she hurried backstage to her father’s dressing-room.
She found him looking rather exhausted, as was to be expected after such a gruelling rôle. But he was in good spirits, she thought gratefully, and had the faintly triumphant air of a man who had successfully scaled familiar but always testing heights.
‘Was it a shock when I only marked the Entrance?’ he asked immediately, but he did not turn from the mirror before which he was removing the last of his make-up.
‘A little, perhaps.’ She managed to make that sound as though she had hardly thought about it until that moment.
‘It was Warrender’s idea. I had a little hoarseness in the early part of the day, and he suggested that it would be wiser to avoid any unnecessary vocal strain.’
‘Much wiser,’ Natalie agreed with emphasis. For at that moment her father met her glance in the mirror, and she saw in his eyes an expression she had never seen before. A shadow of something like fear.
On the way back to the hotel she told him that Laurence had been in the house, and how tremendously impressed he had been.
‘Was he there for the first act?’ asked her father quickly.
‘No. He had to come later,’ said Natalie, and she knew, as if he had actually said the words, that he was relieved.
All the same, he made a good supper and then retired to bed early. Again she had been tempted to tackle the subject of her attending the Carmen performance the next evening, but again she desisted, whether from sheer cowardice or innate good judgment she was not quite sure.
‘I’ll ask him in the morning,’ she thought. ‘If he has a good night and feels fresh, he’ll probably agree to my going. To worry him now would only make him tense and irritable. The morning will be a much better time.’
But the following morning she was hardly dressed before Charles knocked on her door. And when she opened the door he said, with a careful lack of emphasis, ‘Could you look in and see your father, Natalie? He seems to want to consult you about something.’
‘Consult me?’ In Natalie’s experience, her father seldom consulted anyone or anything but his own wishes, and she found the idea so startling that she went immediately to his room, where she found him sitting in a chair, wrapped in a dressing-gown of characteristic magnificence.
‘Is anything wrong, Father?’ Suddenly and inexplicably, she was very frightened.
‘Yes,’ he said, and his voice was undeniably hoarse. ‘You had better call Warrender. I have bronchitis and I can’t possibly sing Otello tomorrow night.’
Chapter Six
Suppressing an overwhelming sense of panic, lest it should communicate itself to her father, Natalie went forward and put a reassuring arm round him.
‘Dear, are you sure it isn’t just a temporary hoarseness because you tired yourself yesterday?’ Her voice was studiedly calm and reasonable, though her heart was pounding so hard that she thought he must hear it.
‘Of course I’m sure.’ There was resignation rather than irritability in his tone, and she knew fatally that this was no question of difficult mood or display of temperament. He felt genuinely ill. Besides, he looked it, she thought distractedly. There was a slightly feverish air about him, and a great weariness.
‘I’ll get Sir Oscar,’ she said without further hesitation, and she went across the room to the telephone.
‘Just a moment!’ Her father’s command stopped her in her tracks. ‘Natalie, how good is young Morven as Don José? Impersonally speaking, I mean—not just because you’re rather dazzled by him.’
‘Laurence?’ She ignored the reference to her own feelings. ‘He’s good—very good indeed. He might even be sensational in an actual performance. But, Father, he couldn’t possibly sing Otello, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Of course that’s not what I’m thinking. I’m not senile, even if I feel as weak as a cat,’ replied her father impatiently. ‘But Warrender will have to fill the gap with something, and it will have to be something damned good. If the Carmen performance makes, as you suggest, a sensation, he might be able to risk repeating it.’
‘I see what you mean.’ Slowly Natalie put out her hand to the telephone, and as she did so she wondered how much it must have cost her father to make that suggestion; to be himself the one to offer his younger rival all the kudos which should have been his at the second gala performance. ‘You’re sure you want to suggest this?’ She turned, the receiver in her hand, her finger already poised to dial the required number.
‘“Want” is not the expression,’ her father replied drily, and then he gave a small but irrepressible cough. ‘There are times when one’s personal feelings are of no importance.’
She dialled then, and almost immediately Warrender’s voice answered.
‘Sir Oscar, it’s Natalie Harding. I’m sorry to tell you my father isn’t at all well. He thinks it may be bronchitis, and if he’s right——’
‘I realised he was in trouble yesterday,’ the conductor’s voice broke in. ‘I’ll come down at once.’ And the receiver at the other end was replaced.
‘He’s coming,’ Natalie said. And then, ‘Would you like me to see about a doctor right away?’
‘Later, later,’ her father replied impatiently. ‘Warrender will know whom to get. I don’t want just anyone playing about with my throat and lungs.’ He leaned back wearily in his chair and closed his eyes, so that to Natalie’s compassionate glance he looked curiously defenceless; just a tired old man.
Warrender arrived a few minutes later and wasted no time in argument. He knew the signs of real illness too well, and was perfectly aware that no sick man, past his first youth, could attempt Otello in any circumstances.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said brusquely but with genuine feeling. ‘From everyone’s point of view, because we were all looking forward to having you the legitimate centre of this performance. But now we must just think what can be done. Any substitute Otello——’
‘If you don’t mind my saying so, there is no substitute for my Otello,’ stated Lindley Harding without even opening his eyes.
‘I don’t mind your saying so, because it’s the simple truth,’ replied the conductor with a grim smile. ‘In which case, we have to change the work.’
‘Natalie tells me young Morven may well make a sensation tonight as José.’
‘Very possibly, particularly with Minna Kolney as Carmen. Though one can never be certain of these things.’
‘We’re not dealing with certainties,’ said Natalie’s father rather disagreeably, ‘we’re going to have to gamble. You are going to have to gamble. Is Morven a good enough proposition to risk a repeat performance? With Minna Kolney, of course,’ he added, with a certain amount of tenor indifference towards the name-character of the work.
Warrender was silent for a minute of two, obviously weighing up the situation with the ruthless realism required in such an emergency.
‘In default of anything else at this late hour, we can’t do other than risk it,’ he said finally. ‘It will be the chance of a lifetime for young Morven, of course, if he can bring it off.’
‘I’ve thought of that,’ replied Lindley Harding drily. And Natalie felt tears prick at the back of her eyes.
‘You’d better get him back to bed, Natalie.’ The conductor stood up. ‘I’ll send the Opera House doctor to see him. Look after him well—we shall be needing him for many another performance of Otello in the future.’
Warrender was not, Natalie knew all too well, in any sense a sentimental man. But she guessed that was his way of offering a crumb of comfort to an old and valued colleague.
Her father, however, was not in a mood to be comforted. He let Natalie help him back to bed. He accepted the
ministrations of the Opera House doctor when he arrived—and the diagnosis that he had a heavy bronchial cold. But then he closed his eyes and said, ‘Leave me alone.’
‘Is there nothing else I can do for you?’ She hung over him, anxious and loving.
‘Nothing. I’ll ring if I want anything, but I’ll probably sleep now.’
Natalie doubted that, but realised he would find any company unacceptable at this moment. So she left him and went in search of Charles, whom she found in the sitting-room of the suite, turning over one or two letters which had come by the morning post.
‘You’ve heard, of course?’ She stood in the doorway.
‘I ran into Warrender as he was leaving, and he gave me the bare outlines. I take it there’s no question of any improvement in time for tomorrow night’s performance?’
‘Oh, no, he’s really quite ill. They propose to do a repeat of the Carmen instead.’
‘Is he very upset about that?’
‘It was his own suggestion.’
‘It was?’ Charles sucked in his breath slightly. ‘He really is a trouper, isn’t he? Whatever his little vanities and poses, he genuinely minds more about the performance than himself. No wonder we’re fond of him.’
‘Thank you, Charles.’ She smiled wanly at him. And when he asked if she had had any breakfast in all this upset she looked slightly surprised and said, ‘No. And it’s a bit late now.’
‘Have something sent up to the suite.’
Natalie shook her head. ‘I’d better go down to the restaurant instead. Any coming and going will disturb Father.’
So she went downstairs to the almost empty restaurant and ordered coffee and croissants. As she sat there, absently sipping her coffee, she suddenly saw a familiar figure enter and stand looking round.
‘Mrs Pallerton!’ Natalie jumped to her feet. ‘Oh, how glad I am to see you. I didn’t know you were coming over for the performance.’
‘I didn’t know myself if I should be able to, until the last minute,’ Mrs Pallerton said, as she kissed Natalie. Then she sat down, ordered coffee for herself and asked, ‘How is everything going? I’ve only just arrived and hesitated to telephone Laurence on the day of his big performance.’
Elusive Harmony (The Warrender Saga Book 10) Page 10