Little sister

by Mary Burchell

  "My dear, Barry couldn't possibly be more than thirty-three or four, for all his worldly ways. I remember when he used first to come to the opera as a college boy of twenty. It might be a dozen or fourteen years ago, but certainly no more. And he certainly never had anything but a romantic attachment for Nina as a singer — as dozens of other young men have had. This whole story is more than absurd."

  Alix put her head down, because she felt faint once more, and her forehead came against Moerling's hand. He moved his hand then and gently smoothed her hair again.

  She couldn't say anything. The relief was like nothing she had ever known. Even the memory of that awful scene with Barry could do nothing to spoil it. Even the thought that he might never speak to her again seemed unimportant. The only thing that mattered was being able to love him once more, innocently and freely, however little he might love her in return.

  She had no idea how long the silence had lasted when Moerling spoke again. And his voice was very quiet and thoughtful as he said:

  "So you're really Nina's little girl. No wonder you always seemed so dear and sweet, even that first evening."

  Alix thought it a strange comment, following on the recent revelation of Nina's character, but she was deeply

  touched by the tenderness in Moerling's voice, and, taking his hand, she pressed her cheek against it.

  He gave a worried little smile down at her, and then went over and rang the bell. Alix waited nervously until a servant came in. And then at Moerling's curt: "Will you tell Madame Varoni that I want to speak to her," she gasped with horror.

  The servant looked doubtful.

  "She is at a very important supper party, sir."

  "I know. You will tell her that I am extremely sorry to disturb her," Moerling said imperturbably, "but that I want to see her on a matter that will not wait."

  The servant went out, and Alix spoke in a frightened whisper.

  "What are you going to do? You mustn't tell her what I've told you. You mustn't — you mustn't!"

  Moerling remained unmoved.

  "You must leave this to me, Alix. You need not be frightened."

  Alix didn't see how she could possibly be anything else, and her heart beat in suffocating thuds when she heard a step in the passage outside.

  It was only the servant returning, however.

  "I'm sorry, sir. Madame Varoni says she can't possibly come at present."

  Moerling didn't answer. He went over to the desk, wrote two lines without even bothering to sit down, and put the sheet of paper in an envelope.

  "Please take that to her," he said almost carelessly, and the servant withdrew again — obviously trying to decide which was more terrifying: a determined Moerling or an annoyed Varoni.

  There was silence again, while Alix wondered dully how long she had sat there, waiting for nemesis in the shape of her beautiful but frightening mother.

  She glanced timidly at Moerling as he stood over by the desk. Whatever it was that had brought him up to the suite originally was entirely forgotten. He looked perfectly calm — so calm that she marvelled at it and wondered whether it really covered a certain degree of nervousness.

  But if so, the disguise was complete, for he didn't flinch even when Varoni's quick «•♦ -s were heard.

  The door opened, and she came in — the blue of her dress soft in comparison with the angry blue of her eyes.

  "What on earth is the matter?" Her glance went quickly from Moerling to Alix and then back. "Why have you been away all this time? And how dare you send such a message to me?"

  "I am sorry, my dear" (Moerling practically never called her that) "but it was the only way of bringing you here. Suppose you come in and shut the door."

  She did so, leaning against the closed door then and watching him with a hint of something like alarm, Alix thought.

  "Well?"

  "It is about Alix," Moerling said coolly. "Is she my daughter as well as yours?"

  Whatever Alix had expected it was not this, and the hiss of her mother's indrawn breath told her how unexpected it had been there.

  For a second no one moved. Then Varoni said fiercely:

  "What do you mean?"

  "Just that. Come, Nina, I dare say it doesn't seem very important to you, but at least you must remember who the father of your child is."

  "She is not my—" began Varoni, but he interrupted her quite gently.

  "Oh yes, she is. Don't refuse the child that. She's so proud and so fond of you — it is poor gratitude to deny her. She is your daughter, and I don't think—" he smiled slightly — "that she has my eyes for nothing."

  Alix stared at him.

  It was true, of course! What an utter and absolute fool she had been not to guess it long ago. Those big dark eyes, that were so strangely soft and gentle for anyone as autocratic as Moerling, were exactly the same as her own. And that queer bond of half-shy liking which had always existed between them was not without foundation. She was Moer-ling's daughter! However hard Nina had striven to hide the fact, it was out now.

  Alix glanced nervously at her mother, unable to imagine how she would take this fresh blow. And, as she did so, she suddenly saw the wonderful fagade of Varoni's composure and confidence give.

  There was a sudden rush of tears to her angry, frightened eyes — the identity of the radiant prima donna fell from her like a cloak — and with a baffled little sound of bewilderment and anger, she put her hands over her face.

  Alix was petrified with horror. She wanted to rush to her mother and throw her arms protectingly round her, but something almost like terror held her back.

  And then Moerling moved. He crossed the room quickly and took Varoni in his arms, even laughing a little — but very tenderly.

  "Herzchen, how could you be so silly and cruel? There is nothing to be afraid of. Do you think you're less dear because you have a daughter — sweet though she is?"

  Varoni didn't answer. She tried for a second to push him away, but finding it quite impossible, she yielded, though she refused to return his kisses.

  "I don't want her," she gasped suddenly. "A grown-up daughter — to remind me that I'm getting old — that the years are passing so quickly. It's so short, so cruelly short

  — all the glory and the triumph! She seems to make it shorter still."

  Alix stood by — helpless, oddly sorry for her mother, in spite of her selfishness. It must be terrifying and wretched, she supposed. Like being a queen who knew all her life that one day she must abdicate.

  But Moerling seemed undismayed by the outburst.

  "Dearest, you mustn't think like that," he said quietly. "She makes you neither older nor younger, and if the glory and triumph were hers to give, poor child, she would give it all to you. Does that mean nothing to you?"

  Varoni shook her head, and Moerling smiled in that tender, half reproachful way again and kissed the tip of her ear.

  "Well then, is it nothing to you that the child stands as a memorial to the most glorious days of our life?"

  "No!" Varoni raised her head at that. "They were not the most glorious days. That's just it. You want to remember them like that. I don't. I want to remember other things as being much more glorious. That's why having her here

  — as my daughter — means a victory for personal things over everything that makes me Varoni — my career, my triumphs, all the — the glory."

  Alix thought she saw then why the odd tenderness of her mother had alternated sometimes with something almost like brutality. She deliberately crushed her natural feelings lest the personal side of her life should engulf her brilliant career. It was an eternal see-saw between feelings and ambition.

  Moerling was speaking softly to her again, very much as one might soothe an angry, frightened child, and Alix saw that his words were having some effect. They both seemed utterly absorbed in each other, and she felt so like an intruder that she was almost thankful when they went into the inner room and closed the door behind them.

&
nbsp; Perhaps he would be able to make Nina feel less awful about things. But Alix wondered if one could live through an upheaval like this and somehow come out the other side to find the world still much the same.

  Absently she bent and picked up a crumpled piece of paper. She had not seen her mother drop it, and only when she smoothed it out did she realize what it was. Across the page ran two lines of Moerling's strong, legible handwriting:

  "/ have never used my authority as a husband before, my dear, but 1 use it now. Will you please come up to the suite at once?"

  Alix gasped aloud. It seemed to her that one revelation was following on another too fast for her poor, tired brain to take them in.

  Then they were married. Grandma had been right. Varoni and Moerling were really husband and wife — and she was their child. It was like some strange story that one might read — not like the sort of thing that happened to oneself. Even now she could not take in the fact that Moerling was really her father. It made her feel more shy than ever of the great man to realize that she had presumed to be related to him! He had spoken very nicely of her to Nina, of course, but then that was probably to soothe her. When he really digested the fact himself—

  The inner door opened again, and Moerling came back into the room, closing the door behind him.

  Alix got nervously to her feet, scarcely knowing what to do or say, as he came slowly across the room to her. She stood in froiit of him — her lashes down, her heart

  beating uncomfortably hard. She supposed she ought to say something — but what?

  And then it was he who spoke.

  "My little daughter," he said gently, and she knew from his tone that he was smiling, "you are surely not frightened of me, are you?"

  "Oh—" Alix looked up then, overcome by a strange, startled joy. He had used to her that one dear expression she had always longed to hear from her mother. She had long ago given up hope of really hearing it — and now it was the first phrase Moerling used to her when he knew she was his daughter.

  She tried to say something, but her lips trembled so that she could hardly form the words. And then as she stood there looking up at him — breathless, eager — he took her face between his hands and kissed her very tenderly.

  Then he drew her over to the settee, and made her sit down beside him. His arm was very lightly round her, but she sat up rather nervously straight at first.

  Then, remembering what she had seen written on the sheet of paper, she turned to him and said:

  "May I talk to you, please? — really talk, I mean, without any secrets and evasion."

  "I wish you would." He looked at her with anxious, kindly eyes, as though in some way he saw her for the first time. And at that Alix suddenly came close against him, pressing her head affectionately against his shoulder.

  "Why, darling!" he said, both startled and touched by the movement, and he lightly kissed the top of her head, with the sort of easy affection for which Alix longed, but which was entirely beyond her mother's power to give. "Now — what are you going to tell me?" he asked indulgently.

  For answer, Alix spread out the paper which had been crumpled in her hand.

  "I'm sorry — but I found that and read it before I realized how very private it was."

  "Oh—" Moerling took the paper from her and gave that frown before which whole orchestras were supposed to tremble — only Alix couldn't help feeling now that perhaps they didn't tremble very much if they knew how kind he could be too.

  "I'm afraid both you and I are going to get into serious trouble if this goes any further," he observed, and, twisting the paper thoughtfully, he struck a match and lit it — holding it away from her until it had burnt down to the last corner. "There — so much for incriminating evidence."

  Alix watched it burn, and then she said shyly:

  "But I'm glad of what was written on it."

  "Are you? Why? I am a little alarmed myself to think I ever addressed anything so peremptory to Nina," he declared with a smile.

  "Oh, I didn't mean that. I meant — I'm glad to know that — that you're married. I had no idea, you know."

  "No, nor has anyone else — with the possible exception of Prescott, wh'o indulges in a cynical suspicion from time to time, I believe. But of course, to you it must be very important. I hadn't thought of that."

  Alix thought it was a queer thing to overlook, but she supposed he must be so' used to the situation as it was that anything else seemed strange.

  "When — was it?" she asked hesitatingly.

  "What, my dear?"

  "When were you and Nina married?"

  He smiled.

  "When we had known each other three weeks. She was a singing student, and I was a very young, very unimportant conductor. She was indescribably beautiful, even then. Much more beautiful than you will ever be," he added teasingly, but Alix didn't mind at all. They exchanged a smile of complete understanding, which said that they both knew Nina was the most beautiful thing in the world — and that was how they wished it to be.

  "We were both tremendously ambitious," he went on reminiscently, "and both absolutely determined to set the world on fire. But — oddly enough for people of that age — we recognized each other's talents too. It is quite usual at nineteen or twenty to think you are a genius. It is rather unusual to think someone else is."

  "But you always thought her voice wonderful?" Alix prompted eagerly.

  "Yes," he said slowly, "I always thought her voice wonderful. And her eyes and her face and her hair and her smile — everything about her, too."

  Alix moved sympathetically in the circle of his arm.

  "That's how one does feel about her."

  "No, darling," Moerling said with a smile, "that's not how everyone feels about her. But it's how you and I feel about her. 1 think I recognized that in you from the first, only I couldn't know, of course, that it was because you had inherited it from me."

  "Oh — how very — nice." Alix smiled shyly in her turn.

  "Why is it nice?" He was amused again, she saw.

  "To have inherited anything so — so lovely and personal makes me feel that I really do belong."

  "My dear child!" He held her close for a moment, and she knew instinctively that it gave him indescribable pleasure too, to know that something so personal as a daughter belonged to him.

  There was silence for a moment or two. Then Alix said:

  "But wasn't it very unlike Nina to do anything so impulsive?"

  "As to marry me, you mean?"

  "As to marry anyone after three weeks."

  "Very unlike — except that Nina is at heart a very much more passionate creature than you probably know."

  "Is she?" Alix thoughtfully digested that information. Varoni would not like such frankness, she reflected. Decidedly there were breakers ahead. But perhaps Moerling would know how to manage them. There was something about him which inspired confidence, anyway.

  "And then what happened?" It was so lovely being able to ask all the questions of someone who would willingly answer. Her mother would never have spoken of those days, she knew. But to Moerling they were some of the greatest days of his life — he had said as much — and so he told her willingly.

  "We were very poor, Alix, but very much in love, and we were both quite certain that we should be rich and famous one day. We quarrelled a good deal in those days, but we always made it up again, until—" he stopped and frowned. "I don't know even now why we quarrelled quite so badly — but that time there was no making up, and we — separated."

  Alix remembered very distinctly then the bitterness with

  which her mother had spoken of "the man who had got me into the mess", and she thought she understood some things much better now than she had before.

  "Don't you really know why Nina left you?" she said. "Eh?" Moerling glanced at her sharply. "Do you?" "Yes, I think so. I suppose — I was coming, and she — she knew that, once you guessed, there would be no chance of putting me quietly out of
her life. It was the first time she realized that her private affairs might grow stronger than her career and wreck it. I expect perhaps she — already loved you much more than she wanted to, and the idea of a child in the picture too must have frightened her terribly. It was much simpler to make a quarrel and leave you. There is a — a sort of ruthlessness about her that would help her to carry it through. I think she even let Grandma wonder whether she were really married, rather than have any risk of having to keep me with her."

  Moerling held Alix a little away from him, so that he could look at her.

  "You are right, of course," he said. And then he added curiously: "Do you love her any the less for seeing her so cruelly well?"

  "No." Alix smiled slightly. "I know it's weak and silly, and perhaps it argues a wrong sense of values — but I love her just the same. I'm rather — sorry for her, poor Nina, because—"

  "Because she is not all bad. And the struggle between good and bad is always there," Moerling finished thoughtfully.

  "How odd. Grandma said something like that once."

  "Did she? But I don't think she understood or loved Nina much?"

  "No. You see, she was terribly shocked by the bad in her."

  "Whereas you and I are terribly touched by the good in her."

  "Why, yes, that's it, of course," Alix said slowly.

  Moerling watched her more closely than she knew.

  "You must have a very forgiving heart, child," he said at last, and at that Alix looked up and smiled.

  "Why? Because I understand that she couldn't allow herself to want me?"

  'That too. But I was thinking of something else. Hasn't she behaved very badly over someone who means a great deal to you?"

  "Oh — that." Alix's face clouded. But even then it didn't harden. Only her mouth drooped a little, and her eyes looked very sad. "We won't talk about that," she said very hastily. "Tell me when you met Nina again."

  He smiled faintly — half in protest, she thought, at being side-tracked.

  "It was several years later, in Vienna. I suppose she went through the same struggle between her affections and her ambitions again, Alix. And it is hard to say now which won. She refused absolutely to let anyone know we were married, but we spent very much of our time together."