Tender Is The Tyrant

by Violet Winspear

  Lauri extended a long leg and bent her head towards it. ‘I expect the palazzo is a bit run down,’ she said, ‘but I should imagine it’s a romantic old place. From all accounts the di Corte family have lived in it for centuries.’

  ‘You could hardly take your aunt with you, Lauri.’ There was a note of smug satisfaction in Julia’s voice. ‘She couldn’t stand all that dampness with her complaint.’

  Lauri had already thought of this, and it was foremost among her reasons for not wanting to join the di Corte Company.

  The end of the month drew near, and once again Aunt Pat pressed her to make up her mind. ‘Signor di Corte isn’t a man to be played around with,’ she added.

  ‘I know,’ Lauri said. ‘But I can’t picture myself in real ballet.’

  ‘It’s like being a member of a rather special family.’ Aunt Pat spoke from her own knowledge of the ballet company to which she had belonged in her youth. ‘The people of the ballet world have a quality that can’t really be put into words. They’re unique, dedicated, not quite of this earth. I’m sure you’d fit in, Lauri.’

  ‘I feel that I’d be lost among them like a Jenny-wren among a group of jays.’ Lauri’s laughter had an edge of apprehension to it. ‘Look at the Maestro himself.’

  ‘Did you find Signor di Corte unnerving?’ Aunt Pat’s casualness of voice didn’t quite match her sharpness of eye as she glanced down at her niece.

  ‘He was a trifle overwhelming,’ Lauri admitted. ‘I—I sensed something ruthless about him. He moulds people to his tastes, and he makes them submit whether they want to or not.’

  ‘Very probably.’ Aunt Pat spoke dryly. ‘Ballet is not an art that can be daubed in bright colours and splashes on a canvas. It has to be staged, and the result has to be a perfect blending of tones, shapes and movements. The dancer is the clay of this art, and out of the raw material of supple but unsophisticated bodies Signor di Corte shapes his dancers until they fit into the classic frame of the true ballet.’ Aunt Pat drew hard on her cigarette.

  ‘It’s quite a job, Lauri, being the artistic director of a ballet company. A brilliant knowledge of all the arts is essential, along with a fertile business brain, the ability to inspire the artists who work for him, and the driving force and charm that finds the patronage which keeps an independent company off the rocks.’

  ‘The iron hand in the velvet gauntlet,’ Lauri said flippantly. ‘You sound as though you were quite taken with the man.’

  ‘I thought he looked supremely capable of doing a hard job well, but I suppose to a youngster like you, he would seem very worldly.’

  ‘I’m not that young,’ Lauri protested.

  ‘My dear, you can be wise beyond your years,’ Aunt Pat agreed fondly. ‘But you will admit that there are times when you behave like a gamine who won’t grow up, nor do you seem to care for boys very much. You never bring any home to tea.’

  ‘Boys are all right to dance with,’ Lauri said carelessly. ‘Apart from the classroom, I find them boring.’

  ‘The men you meet in the di Corte Company will not be schoolboys,’ Aunt Pat said meaningly. ‘Dare I hope that you can cope, chicken?’

  ‘My decision about joining the di Corte Company lies with the gods and muses.’ Lauri leapt to her feet in one supple movement. ‘Now I’m going to make our cocoa. Um, I think I’ll have a cold meat sandwich with it. How about you?’

  ‘Not this time of the night! I’d never get to sleep.’ Aunt Pat rocked lazily and watched her young niece carving meat off the cold Sunday roast and popping pieces into her mouth. The girl was thin as a wand, with slim, arched feet that were invariably slipperless. Her black hair was carelessly tied back with a ribbon, and the lines of her figure were barely discernible.

  A beloved enigma to Pat Donaldson. Dear as a daughter. Full of talent and nerves. Part dreamer, part gamine, with a bit of angel thrown in.

  They had supper, then made their wayup to bed.

  As they paused on the landing, Aunt Pat touched Lauri’s cheek coaxingly. ‘When the time comes for you to decide about your future, little cat, remember what Signor di Corte said to you. That it would be a pity, my dear, to let the sad past spoil what lies ahead for you.’

  ‘I’ll remember.’ Lauri kissed her aunt goodnight, and entered her little cottage bedroom with its ceiling braced by old dark beams, its white quilt covering the single bed, and red hooked rugs.

  She glanced round the white-painted walls, adorned with ballet pictures cut out of magazines and programmes. She knelt on her bed and studied a big black and white photograph of Michael Lonza holding the lovely ballerina Andreya above his head in a pose from the Black Swan pas de deux. Lauri smiled as she thought of herself in the school show, dancing the role of Odile with a callow boy.

  What, she wondered, did it feel like to dance with a man like Lonza—the Panther, as critics and balletomanes called him? He was darkly handsome, with the eyes and cheekbones of a Tartar.

  In the terrible days of the Russian revolution his father—someone at Court—had managed to escape into Rumania, where he had been sheltered and loved by a gipsy dancer. Then they had drifted apart, and when she died her son Michael had roamed all over Europe.

  He looked a pagan with a sense of humour, Lauri thought. She had no doubts about his gifts as a performer, and wished she could see him dance.

  CHAPTER TWO

  AN air of expectation hung about the cottage at Down-hollow, and then midway through the last week of the month Lauri arrived home from ballet school to find a letter awaiting her.

  ‘Open it before I go quietly crazy!’ Aunt Pat exclaimed.

  ‘I’m scared.’ Lauri stood fiddling with the envelope, which bore a London postmark.

  ‘What about?’ her aunt derided her. ‘I’m sure you’ll be relieved if Signor di Corte has written to say he has changed his mind about wanting you in his ballet company.’

  ‘Do you think he has?’ Lauri wouldn’t have believed that her heart could sink so low.

  ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out’ Aunt Pat took the letter out of Lauri’s hand, ripped open the envelope and drew out a single typewritten page. She scanned it, then broke into a smile.

  ‘He wants you to meet him in London,’ she said excitedly. ‘He writes...’

  ‘Let me see.’ Lauri bent over the letter with her aunt, and her heart beat rapidly as she read that Signor di Corte wished to pursue their conversation of the sixth of that month, and as members of his company were dancing in a gala ballet at the Covent Garden Opera House on Saturday evening, he thought she might like to see the performance. If she could manage to come to London on Saturday, he would be pleased if she would meet him in the foyer of the Strand Palace Hotel at seven-thirty.

  ‘You’ll go, of course?’ Aunt Pat spoke breathlessly. ‘A gala at Covent Garden—Lonza is bound to be dancing, and you’ve been longing to see him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lauri’s eyes were wide and startled, ‘isn’t it strange?’

  ‘Strange is hardly the word, my girl. Now you’re going to need a new dress, so I suggest we go up to London on Friday and buy it there. It will hardly be worth our while coming home again, so we’ll stay at a hotel for the weekend.’

  ‘A whole weekend in London would be fun,’ Lauri agreed. ‘It will make a nice break for you, Aunt Pat, and perhaps Signor di Corte will have another ticket to spare—’

  ‘Lauri,’ Aunt Pat broke in dryly, ‘I’m not the sort who tags along on a girl’s first big date.’

  ‘Date?’ Lauri echoed. ‘This is strictly business, and you love going to the ballet as much as I do.’

  ‘I know more about life than you do, my pet.’ Aunt Pat regarded her niece with a sudden twinkle in her eye. ‘Even when a man only wants to talk business with a girl, he doesn’t want her aunt there bolding her hand. You’ll have to get over the shyness he might arouse in you. He’s only a man, after all, and most of them are a lot kinder than women are.’

  ‘I don’t think he
looked particularly kind,’ Lauri said, remembering the strength in his features, and the piercing quality of his eyes. One look and you knew him to be a man who had known palaces and boulevards; beautiful women and strange cities.

  Lauri and her aunt went up to London on the Friday morning. After lunching at their hotel in Poisseli Square, they drove in a taxi to a small shop in Connaught Street, where they looked at evening dresses and finally chose a maize-gold dress with a youthful neckline.

  ‘A fur jacket would really set that dress off.’ Aunt Pat turned to the assistant. ‘We can’t run to the real thing, but have you anything young-looking in lapin?’ she asked.

  The assistant went away to have a look, while Lauri protested that she could wear her best coat over the dress. ‘Signor di Corte knows we aren’t rolling in money,’ she said. ‘He won’t expect me to turn up dressed like a deb.’

  ‘He’s a sophisticated man and I don’t suppose he’ll want you to look suburban in a coat over an evening dress’, Aunt Pat rejoined. ‘You funny child, don’t you want to look nice for such an attractive man?’

  ‘He thinks me little more than a child,’ Lauri grinned. ‘I’m not being taken to the Opera House on the strength of my glamour. He wants me to see some of his dancers in action.’

  Lauri’s eyes glistened at the thought. Michael Lonza was dancing L’Apres-midi d’un Faune, and having read all about the ballet’s creator, the tragic Nijinsky, she couldn’t wait to see a performance of the ballet.

  To Aunt Pat’s delight the assistant returned with a short lapin jacket which fitted Lauri snugly, the collar a soft brown frame about her pointed face and large enquiring eyes.

  ‘I look more like a cat than a glamour puss,’ she commented.

  ‘Cats have “it”, my child.’ Aunt Pat leaned on her stick and surveyed her niece like a genial witch. ‘You’ll do, when you’re all dressed up, with your hair braided round the crown of your head.’

  Upon their return to the hotel, Aunt Pat had a cup of tea and left Lauri to amuse herself for a couple of hours. She went out again, and on impulse jumped on a bus that took her to the end of the Strand. From there she walked up Drury Lane to Covent Garden marketplace, where she stood in front of the Opera House and felt like doing a pirouette at the thought of tomorrow evening.

  .Whatever the outcome of her talk with Signor di Corte, she was sure of seeing some fabulous dancing. A gala excitement would light up this square ... there would be that special magic in the air which ballet dancers seemed to create.

  The maize-gold dress echoed the lights in Lauri’s eyes, and her hair hung in a thick, glossy braid down over her bare left shoulder.

  ‘You would look at least a couple of years older with your hair up,’ Aunt Pat coaxed.

  ‘It makes my neck look like Swanilda’s’, Lauri laughed nervously. She was unused to dressing up, and made rather shy by her own reflection in the mirror. The dress gave her a lissom look, while her shoulders and neck had a whiteness she had not noticed before. From the lobes of her ears bobbed a pair of small topazes.

  Aunt Pat held the lapin jacket and Lauri slipped into it. Their eyes met in the mirror. ‘Enjoy every moment of this evening, Lauri,’ her aunt said gently. ‘And be sure you make the right decision when Signor di Corte asks you again to join his company. He will, my dear, because he knows a born dancer when he sees one ... and he has a very obstinate chin.’

  Lauri’s fingers clenched on her theatre purse, then she smiled and kissed her aunt on the cheek.

  ‘Now have you got everything?!’ Aunt Pat eyed her niece with pride and a touch of anxiety. ‘What about your taxi fare? You can’t ride to the Strand Palace in a bus.’

  ‘And there isn’t a pumpkin in sight for you to wave your wand over,’ Lauri grinned. ‘I have a pound note in my purse, so I promise to ride in style to meet Prince Alarming!’

  As her taxi turned into Kingsway, Lauri could feel her nerves tightening up. They sped past the neon-lighted shops and the people thronging the pavements. The smell of London came in through the open window, but its noise could not drown the clamour of her heartbeats.

  All too soon for Lauri the taxi arrived at the Strand Palace, and her knees felt weak under the long silk skirt of her dress as she paid the fare. She turned to survey the hotel with its look of discreet opulence and its uniformed doorman, then trying to look as though she entered such places every day of her life, Lauri made her way into the foyer with its marbled columns and chandeliers.

  She glanced about her for a tall individual with a head like a Roman conqueror, but saw only a few ordinary mortals. She swallowed nervously, and then stood delving into her purse for something to do. It wasn’t that she was the only person waiting here for someone, but she felt conspicuous because she was so unused to wearing a silk evening dress and a fur jacket. Despite their sophistication, she was sure she looked as gauche as she was feeling.

  All at once Lauri tensed. She glanced up and saw a tall figure in a dark evening suit approaching her. A nerve fluttered in Lauri’s throat, and she was forcing her lips into a smile when he reached her. ‘We meet again, Miss Garner,’ he held out a hand, into which she put hers rather timidly. ‘I am glad you could come to Covent Garden with me tonight—I had an idea that if I held out some ballet as a bait, you would rise to it.’ His dark eyes glimmered with humour as they held hers. ‘How is your aunt?’ he asked, releasing her hand. ‘I believe she was not too well the last time we met?’

  ‘We came up to London together,’ Lauri told him. ‘Aunt Pat is a lot better than she was—it’s awful that she should suffer with arthritis after being so active in her younger days. She was in ballet, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I was most interested to hear that.’ His gaze was shrewd as it dwelt on Lauri. ‘We have a little time to spare before we go to the Opera House, so would you like to come into the cocktail lounge and have a drink?’ She nodded, and felt his arm brush her waist as he piloted her into the softly-lit lounge with its low tables and deep armchairs. They sat down facing each other and he beckoned a waiter to their table.

  ‘What will you have to drink, Miss Garner?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll have a Green Goddess, please.’ Lauri was determined to show him that she wasn’t as unworldly as she looked.

  He quirked an eyebrow at her request, then turned blandly to the waiter and asked for one Green Goddess, and a gin and Italian.

  ‘Do you go often to the ballet, Miss Garner?’ He opened his cigarette case but did not offer it to her. She was a dancer, of course, and not to be encouraged to smoke!

  ‘As often as possible, signor.’ She found herself watching his lean hands as he lit his cigarette. ‘A few months ago Aunt Pat and I went to see Margot Fonteyn dance Giselle. I queued for hours for the tickets, but I love listening to the balletomanes discussing their favourite dancers.’

  ‘Did you enjoy the ballet?’ He sat back in his chair and gazed at her with disconcerting directness through his cigarette smoke.’

  ‘Every second of it,’ she said warmly. ‘Aunt Pat is an intense fan of Markova’s and she thinks her Giselle the greatest.’

  ‘It is a strange, haunting ballet and was very much suited to the fey personality of Markova’, he agreed. ‘We have it in our repertoire, but the role is inclined to disturb Andreya—you will be seeing Andreya dance this evening.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’ Lauri’s eyes glistened. ‘I’ve wanted for a long time to see Michael Lonza dance. Is he as remarkable as the ballet critics say, signor?’

  ‘One day soon he will take his place beside the greatest male dancers in the world.’ Maxim di Corte glanced at the cigarette in his fingers. ‘How would you like to dance with him, Miss Garner?’

  ‘Golly, it’s something I can’t even imagine.’ She gave a laugh. ‘I shall never be in his class.’

  ‘You are remarkably modest for a female.’ The Venetian had an alarming fascination when he smiled. ‘But let me assure you that I would not bother with a d
ancer unless I thought that she had talent—ah, here come our drinks.’

  As he paid the waiter for them, Lauri studied him under the fan of her lashes. Her heart still beat quickly from the effects of his smile and what he had just said about her dancing talent. It had to be true, for no man as distinguished as this one would bother with a girl like herself unless she had real ability.

  She felt the pull of the man; descendant of a condottiere, and the grandson of Travilla, who had been one of the world’s most magical ballerinas.

  ‘Salata,’ he said as she picked up her Green Goddess and they drank in unison.

  ‘Of what are you thinking, signorina?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘I—I couldn’t possibly tell you, signor.’ She took a hasty sip at her drink, a cocktail she liked because of its fascinating name,

  ‘I insist that you do.’ His gaze compelled her to look at him. ‘I think you have made a judgment about me, and I wish to hear what it is so that I can defend myself.’

  She smiled, amused by the idea of Maxim di Corte having to defend himself against Lauri Garner.

  ‘I think you could be quite without mercy in quest of what you want,’ she said bravely. ‘I have read about the condottiere in your background.’

  ‘Really?’ His eyes dwelt for a moment on the glossy braid hanging down over her shoulder. ‘May I point out that gentler men than I have said that a “cherished grief is an iron chain”. It may well hurt you to dance in a theatre because of the way your parents died, but it will kill you in your soul if you don’t dance.’

  ‘Oh—’ pain seemed to grab at her throat, ‘why did you come to the Darnell School and pick on me?’

  ‘I might so easily not have noticed you,’ he said frankly ‘On your final exit in the ballet, what caught my eye was the way in which you melted from the stage. One moment you were there, and then you were gone—like the little witch-bird. The other girl, the one Madame wished me to notice,’ he spoke impatiently, ‘she was too annoyingly aware of her own charms and her audience. It is death to a role for the dancer to be more aware of herself than the character she plays. Not all the technique in the world could excuse such egoism, least of all in a mere pupil of the dance. It is humility that makes great artistes.’