And this was the mood in which she faced the ordeal of the opening rehearsals.
By now, of course, a good deal was being written about the coming performance in the musical pages of most newspapers. But though photographs and interviews were requested, they were arbitrarily refused by Warrender, and Joanna remained almost insulated against the growing interest and excitement which inevitably surrounded any enterprise personally undertaken by Oscar Warrender.
She was glad of it. She preferred to remain immersed in her work, though she did permit herself some faint hope that Elliot might read about it all and perhaps understand a little better why there had been the necessity to accept — no, she must be accurate: to ask for — his uncle’s financial aid.
But no word came.
‘I think it’s stupid not to have you photographed,’ her mother complained. ‘You’re the heroine of this opera. There’s a photograph here of the composer. He looks a nice old gentleman, but no one would call him romantic. Whereas you, a lovely girl, even if I say it myself, about to spring to fame in a night — ’
‘I haven’t sprung yet, Mother. Give me time,’ said Joanna, smiling. ‘We don’t want people talking about me before I’ve done anything.’
‘I should have thought that would make good publicity beforehand,’ retorted her mother.
‘There’s quite enough publicity — don’t worry. It comes from interest in a new work and the fact that Sir Oscar is involved in it. And the tenor, Nicholas Brenner, is one of the most famous in the world.’
‘Oh, the tenor!’ exclaimed Mrs. Ransome, in a tone which would have surprised — not to say affronted — most tenors; ‘I want to have people inquiring about you.’ Which reminds me, we never see anything of Elliot Cheam these days. What has become of him?’
‘I believe he is in the States,’ replied Joanna with admirable composure. ‘When we last met he was very much taken up with a possible production in New York. I’ve been so busy myself that I haven’t seen anyone much, as you know, and I suppose it’s the same with him. That’s the theatre world for you!’ And she smiled at her mother.
‘Well, I expect it will be worth it all in the end. I’ve just heard from Georgina, by the way, and she’s coming to town for the first night. Absolutely insists on it. She spoke on the phone as though she had been responsible for a lot of your career. I can’t imagine why. She only got you an introduction to nice Mr. Wilmore.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Joanna slowly, ‘that was the beginning of it all. Anyway, I’d like Aunt Georgina to be there.’
‘But not sitting absolutely beside me, dear, I do beg,’ exclaimed her mother feelingly. ‘Just in case you don’t make quite the success everyone is hoping,’ she added naively.
Just in case you don’t make quite the success everyone is hoping. The words stayed somewhere in the depths of Joanna’s mind and surfaced uneasily at various moments during the final rehearsals.
Not that she did not receive both encouragement and support from her immediate colleagues. Some of them — like Nicholas Brenner and his wife — declared themselves fascinated by the way she surmounted the difficulties of a largely silent part. But the undoubted fact was that the work itself was almost experimental, and no one could really foretell what its effect would be on the first night audience.
‘No one except that wily old devil Warrender, that is to say,’ declared Jonathan Keyne, the husband of Mr. Fulroyd’s daughter, Anna. ‘Trust him to produce exactly the right person for the role. How did he find you, Joanna?’
‘I came on her by chance — if these things are chance,’ said the wily old devil, coming up behind Jonathan Keyne at that moment. ‘And I backed my own instinct and judgment. Don’t praise her any further. She has yet to prove herself finally.’
But he put his hand lightly on Joanna’s shoulder. And, because it was a very expressive hand indeed, she knew he was satisfied with her, and she went home from the dress rehearsal in an almost tranquil frame of mind.
This mood of tranquillity did not of course persist for any real length of time. In the hurrying yet crawling hours until the actual performance Joanna alternated between hope and despair, the belief that everything was going to be wonderful and the certainty that shame and disaster lay ahead. Oddly enough, her mother was quite a support during this difficult time, for her capacity for goodhumoured but trivial chatter kept Joanna from sinking too far or riding too high on the emotional switchback of those final hours.
By the time she left for the Opera House on the great night itself she found she was almost calm. But whether or not this was the calmness of despair she would not have liked to say.
On arriving in her dressing-room, she was surprised and a little put out to find Madame Volnikov there, waiting for her, and looking much more the heroine of the evening, in her Russian sables, than Joanna did. In the first moment she supposed she was to receive some last-minute instructions, but the famous old dancer merely smiled her beautiful smile, drew herself up as though for a ceremonial occasion and said,
‘Until now, Joanna, I have been sparing in my praise lest you should rest too easily on your immature laurels. But tonight it is right you should know that you have satisfied my highest expectations. You have supplied the instinct without which no artist can even begin. I have supplied the unrivalled training without which no artist can come to full flower. You English have a peculiar phrase — Go in and win. I say this to you now, for you cannot fail.’
She then kissed the astonished and moved Joanna and took her departure. As she went out a handsome bouquet was handed in and, a little dazed still, Joanna examined the accompanying card. She saw, with the utmost pleasure, that it was from Mr. Wilmore, and the note bore not only the expression of his affectionate good wishes, but the information that he would be in the house that night.
It was the last touch needed to spur her to highest endeavour. This was her supreme chance to make him feel that his generous sacrifice had indeed been worthwhile.
When Warrender came to have a last word with her before the performance began, he found her sitting before her dressing-table, outwardly very calm and already wearing the strangely beautiful green and blue costume, with its floating draperies, which gave her such an other-worldly air,
‘All right?’ He smiled at her briefly.
‘Perfectly all right. Except for a sort of fluttering — here.’ She put her hand against her breast.
‘Every real artist feels nervous on such an occasion,’ he said, and the slight emphasis on ‘real’ was heartening, ‘But remember I am there to support you — and I have a strong hand in these matters.’
‘I know it.’ She returned his smile, ‘Thank you for everything, Sir Oscar.’
‘Thank me after the performance,’ he replied. But he touched her hair lightly before he left her.
She had never before received a gesture of such kindliness and reassurance from him, and for a moment she thought she knew why Anthea was a happy woman. It must be wonderful to know with certainty that the right person loved and understood one. Her part — on the stage tonight and in a more personal way too — was to remain silent and endure, whatever the provocation might be. But it was the choice she had made, and she was prepared to abide by it.
Which was perhaps why, from the moment of her first entrance, she captured and held the sympathies of the entire audience.
‘Self-sacrifice,’ wrote one of the more perceptive of the critics next day, ‘is a dangerous commodity to handle on the stage. Combined with self-pity it is immediately unendearing. But combined with the kind of inner strength and human dignity given to it last night by Joanna Ransome it becomes the strongest link possible between performer and audience.’
He was describing, of course, the ‘unshed tears’ on which Volnikov had insisted. Equally of course, much of the success of Joanna’s interpretation was due to the unique lessons she had received from that remarkable woman. What was peculiarly her own contribution however was the fact that s
he was truly expressing herself, and her own inner conviction. And for most of the evening she merged her identity so completely with the girl she was portraying that it was impossible for her to know herself whether her gestures, her expression and her silent appeal were addressed to Nicholas Brenner, singing the part of her lover like an angel, or — somehow, somewhere in the world — to Elliot who despised her.
The tension — created and sustained throughout the evening by Bernard Fulroyd’s beautiful music, the singing of her fellow artists, and her own gripping yet eloquent silence — never faltered. Indeed, one of the stagehands was actually heard to mutter, ‘Say something, dearie! just say something to him.’
And at the moment when she turned at last to her lover and broke into the beautiful, passionate phrases written for her at that point, not only did Brenner almost literally fall back before her, but throughout the house there ran a sort of shiver of emotion and excitement which exactly paralleled his reaction on the stage.
‘It will be the high-point of the performance,’ Warrender had told her. ‘The challenge is tremendous, for you will have to break into those high, arresting phrases without a shadow of the usual “warming up”. On the other hand, all your vocal resources will be fresh and untired. Something,’ he added sardonically, ‘for which every soprano, from Marguerite to Isolde, would give half her fee at the end of a gruelling performance. Use every bit of vocal technique you possess for that sudden entry. And leave the rest to me.’
He was absolutely right, she found. Those first electrifying phrases came out like the striking of a bell. And then suddenly the compulsion of Warrender’s matchless left hand and the expression of his telling face, seen in the light from the orchestra pit, somehow reminded her of everything he had ever taught her about lyrical phrasing, vocal colouring, and perfect diction.
‘In a sense,’ she afterwards told her mother, ‘he almost did it for me.’
This was not quite true, of course. But at least it was the just reward for all the work they had put into it together.
At the end there was the kind of scene beloved of every opera-lover. Just to have been there on such an occasion seemed a triumph to each member of the audience, and so they participated to the full in saluting the great night. The curtain-calls were endless, the applause was thunderous, and finally Warrender pushed Joanna and Bernard Fulroyd on to the stage together.
‘Come too! You come too,’ they both implored him. But he laughed and shook his head,
‘The evening is yours, my dears,’ he said, ‘Go out and take it.’
So they went out together hand in hand, both of them a little shy and dazed by a reaction neither of them had ever expected to evoke. And each of them — the elderly composer and the very young artist — thought that probably there would never be a moment like this again.
Afterwards, Joanna was engulfed in waves of praise and congratulation from colleagues and friends alike, while her mother and Aunt Georgina glowed with family pride. She cleared the dressing-room temporarily at last. But, just as she was about to close the door, she saw Mr. Wilmore in the corridor and, because she simply could not let him wait for the thanks so richly due to him, she called him in alone, unin-hibitedly flung her arms around him and cried.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you! It was you who made it all possible.’
‘No, my dear.’ A good deal moved, he kissed her and patted her shoulder. ‘It was your own tremendous talent and work that made it possible.’
‘But all that would have remained undeveloped — useless — without your generosity,’ she exclaimed. ‘All that money you poured out on me! Sacrificing things you love, never even telling me there were difficulties. I can never - ’
‘Stop, stop!’ Laughingly he put his hand over her eager lips. ‘I can’t take all this praise. It isn’t even wholly mine. I did make the initial payment and, if you like, I was perfectly prepared to pay the rest, even at some sacrifice. But it was not I who paid most of it.’
‘It — wasn’t?’ She stood back from him, staring with wide, astonished eyes. ‘Then who was it?’
He gave a slight, embarrassed laugh.
‘I was sworn to secrecy, Joanna. But I don’t think it can matter now. It was Elliot who provided the bulk of the money.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘You CAN’T MEAN IT!’ Joanna stared at Mr. Wilmore in utter consternation. ‘Elliot paid for my lessons? It isn’t possible!’
‘Why not?’ Mr. Wilmore looked amused, if a little put out. ‘I assure you Elliot is a very generous-hearted fellow under that casual manner of his.’
‘But not — to me.’ The words were out before she could stop them, and her hands fell to her sides, the fingers curling and uncurling in a gesture as telling as any she had used on the stage.
‘What makes you think he would not want to help you?’ Mr. Wilmore took one of those restless hands rather gently.
‘He doesn’t think me worthy of help,’ she replied quickly. ‘He thinks me a cheap little cadger. And sometimes,’ she added with a sigh, ‘I wonder if he’s right.’
‘What nonsense!’ Mr. Wilmore spoke with energy, ‘You came to me for help, as you might have come to any friend. With special justification, as it happened, because I had already offered my assistance in a general way. There was no question of cadging, and I will not have the word used.’
‘You wouldn’t have it used; you’re too generous for that.’ She returned the pressure of his hand gratefully.: ‘But I could hardly have chosen a crueller moment to make my request, from your point of view. That’s what shocked Elliot so much.’
‘Don’t exaggerate.’ He brushed her argument aside, ‘It was an awkward moment, if you like, though you had no means of knowing that. In any case, with care I could have managed. But then Elliot came to me and made his offer; indeed, insisted on finding the money himself.’
‘For your sake?’ she interjected quickly.
‘And yours,’ he replied. But there was an infinitesimal pause before he said that, and she thought she knew why.
‘Mr. Wilmore, will you please tell me something quite truthfully?’ Joanna said earnestly. ‘In what mood was Elliot when he first broached the subject to you?’
‘In what mood?’ The fact that he repeated her words told her immediately that he was playing for time, finding the least painful way of telling something approximating to the truth. ‘Well, he didn’t understand the situation at first, of course. I had to explain things to him. And then he offered, entirely of his own free will, to be of help.’
‘Yes, I see.’ Joanna spoke gently and resisted any desire to press him further. Why spoil the pleasure of her generous friend by questioning the motive behind what Elliot had done? ‘It was very, very kind of — him, and of you. I can never thank you enough.’
She let him suppose that ‘you’ referred to them both. But she knew now of course, that Elliot’s offer had been made solely with the idea of helping his uncle out of an awkward situation which she had created.
Then the dresser tapped on the door and put her head in to say rather reproachfully that there were a lot of people waiting.
‘I must go.’ Mr. Wilmore bent his head and kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you, my dear, for a great experience. I think you will find that is how most people will describe tonight,’
They did, of course, when they crowded in once more. At the back of her mind there lingered the extraordinary piece of information about Elliot, but even this was thrust aside in an evening in which Joanna registered some of the strangest and most triumphant moments of her life.
For the first time there was a crowd at the stage door for her. For the first time people asked her for her autograph. For the first time the stage-door keeper had to force a way for her through the throng before he could hand her into the Warrenders’ handsome car in which she was driven off to the Gloria for a celebration supper. Her celebration supper.
It was quite an intimate party. Just the Warrenders and the F
ulroyds, Joanna and her mother and — to her extreme gratification — Aunt Georgina.
Joanna had not met Mrs. Fulroyd before, but she liked her on sight. A quiet, smiling woman who seemed even now faintly surprised at her husband’s success. Anna Fulroyd, on the contrary, and her husband, Jonathan Keyne, the producer, seemed to feel that all their confidence in the work had just been triumphantly fulfilled, and they could not praise Joanna enough for her part in making it such a success.
That Joanna’s mother and Mrs. Fulroyd should get on well together was to be expected, for each had a talented daughter to talk about. What was more surprising was that Aunt Georgina and Oscar Warrender seemed to strike a certain number of enjoyable sparks from each other’s conversation.
‘I don’t know what has got into my Aunt Georgina,’ Joanna murmured to Anthea Warrender. ‘She doesn’t really know much about the musical world. I shouldn’t have expected her and Sir Oscar to have much in common.’
‘They have the same rather sardonic sense of humour,’ replied Anthea with penetration. ‘And the same good-natured contempt for a half-done job. Was she a teacher or something?’
‘A formidable headmistress, with a reputation for turning out well-educated girls,’ replied Joanna promptly.
‘Well, there you are! Oscar is a formidable musical director, with a reputation for turning out properly schooled artists,’ said Anthea with a laugh. ‘It’s the same thing, in a different degree. And, talking of great teachers, Volnikov actually shed a few tears at one point this evening. Did you know?’
‘No! How could I? She came afterwards and told me she was pleased, but she said I must work more on the second scene of the first act., And she’s right, of course/ Joanna added meditatively.
‘Quite right,’ observed Warrender, without even turning from Aunt Georgina. ‘You made a good start tonight, and you can afford to rest for the whole of tomorrow. But I want you at the studio the following afternoon. There are one or two phrases to polish before Friday night’s performance.’
Remembered Serenade (Warrender Saga Book 9) Page 15