Heart pounding, Melanie moved closer to Anton. 'In ballet the teacher is all-important, and Anton taught me everything I know.'
Lydia, following close on Gregory's heels, caught the end of the remark. 'That could be a very misleading statement,' she said lightly. 'Are we to take it at its face value?'
'Do we have the same sort of values?’ Melanie asked coolly.
For an instant Lydia lost her poise, and her eyes glittered, hard and angry. Then the mask was resumed and the face was once more calm and beautiful. ‘I was just letting my curiosity get the better of me,’ she said sweetly, ‘but it's your own fault really. You and Anton danced so beautifully and realistically that we've all been wondering how much of it was acting.'
Melanie drew a deep breath, but a sudden sharp nip on her thigh from Anton's fingers served as a brake to her temper. 'I'm afraid everyone will have to go on being curious,' she replied.
‘You mean you won't even tell me? The husky voice was pleading. 'We'll keep it strictly in the family, won't we, Gregory darling?'
'Speak for yourself,' Gregory said. 'Personally I think Melanie's private life should remain private.'
'How man-like of you,' Lydia protested, and placed a possessive hand on his arm. 'I wasn't meaning to be nosey, it's just that I'm so happy I want to feel that everyone is the same.' She glanced at Melanie. 'I never knew what happiness was until I found Gregory, and I'd love to think that you had found the same sort of happiness with Anton.'
'Melanie finds her happiness in ballet,' Gregory said before
Melanie herself could answer. ‘Now come along, Lydia, we must talk to our other guests.'
Together they moved away, and the moment they were out of earshot Anton swore fluently at Lydia's departing back. 'She'd be well worth hanging for,' he said grimly, and caught Melanie's hand. 'Don't take any notice of what she said. She's just jealous because you've captured everyone's heart here tonight.'
Everyone's heart except the one she most desperately wanted. But it was a thought that Melanie kept to herself, and as she and Anton continued to move among the guests, no one would have known that inside a part of her had died.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was Christmas when Anton's new ballet was performed and it met with the success that every choreographer dreams of but rarely achieves. A tragic story, it told of a soldier killed in war, whose young widow moved from one war-torn country to another, finding in every garrison of soldiers one who evoked the memory of her husband and to whom she gave herself in the vain hope that by doing so she could make her husband live again. But each giving ending in death, theirs in battle, hers in the realization that she had made love to a mirage and that her husband would never return. The music was as sombre’ as the theme, yet with long stretches of exquisite melody that accompanied every act of love.
Dancing the part of each soldier with whom the widow tried to find happiness, Anton gave the greatest performance of his career. But it was Melanie who received the highest accolade, for her performance not only received acclaim as a dancer but also as an actress. After the first night, queues wound their way round the theatre in a continual wait for tickets, and during the weeks that followed, the name of the Company — and Melanie - was featured in every magazine and newspaper.
Despite a determination to maintain her private life as private, Melanie found that everything she did was reported to the gossip columns, and could not even go to the hairdresser without finding it mentioned publicly the following day.
‘What does it feel like to know you've reached the top?’
Anton asked one afternoon after a long session with the photographers.
'Tiring,' she answered. 'I seem to be working harder at publicity than I am at my dancing.'
'Then we'll have to work out a better routine.'
'Can't we just scrap the publicity?'
He grinned. 'It's worth too much money to the Company. Do you know the whole season's sold out?'
'You're joking!'
'Do I ever joke about money?'
‘No,' she admitted, 'you don't.' She frowned. 'But it's rather scaring somehow. I almost wish it hadn't happened.'
'You mean you regret your success?'
She nodded. 'It's a strain to live up to it You find yourself wanting to do better and yet you know that you can't, and that's when you become scared.'
'Every great artist gets scared. That’s what keeps them great.' He put his hands on her shoulders. 'But they still go on, Melanie, and so will you. You'll be at the top of the tree!'
'You already said I was at the top of the tree,' she reminded him. 'The only place I can go from there is to fall right down to the bottom!'
‘You'll remain at the top,' he assured her, 'but you'll strengthen the roots.'
Despite herself she laughed. You've got an answer for everything.'
'It's a good thing I have. You're looking for answers all the time.' His hands dropped from her shoulders and clasped her round the waist. 'But you're happy with the Company, aren't you?'
'Of course I am. Why do you ask?'
‘Verenskaya's afraid you'll get a better offer from someone else.'
'And leave her? But this company's my home. Verenskaya has been like my mother. She can't think I'd leave.' Melanie looked at him aghast. 'Do you think that, Anton?'
'I'm not so sure. If you had an offer from New York you might see it as an escape from Gregory.' She averted her head but he went on inexorably, 'But you'd be crazy if you ran away. Distance won't help you to forget him. The only thing that can do that is—'
'Work,' she interrupted bitterly. 'If I work any harder I'll collapse.'
'I was going to say love,' Anton retorted.
‘Not that,' Melanie replied. I couldn't go through that again.'
He opened his mouth to say something, stopped as though thinking better of it and then finally said: Then it will have to be work after all. If you don't want to have a love affair, then go all out for your career. It's the best salve to mend a broken heart.'
Many times in the succeeding months Melanie remembered Anton's words, for the adulation of the nightly audience and the appraisal of the critics inevitably began to leave its mark on her. She was now ranked with Tanya as one of the leading ballerinas of the company, and she enjoyed the respect she commanded and the many celebrities she met at the fashionable parties to which she was continuously being invited. No longer was it only Anton who gave her assurance, and the realization that other men found her desirable increased her confidence to a degree she would never have believed possible a few short months ago.
Gradually all trace of the bitter, disillusioned girl she had once been vanished, and by the end of the season she could even begin to think of Gregory with some semblance of equanimity. She had not seen him since the night of the engagement party, though she knew from Mrs. Ransome that he had gone to South America on business and had postponed his wedding until after Christmas.
'I was surprised he didn't marry Lydia in a register office and take her with him,' her mother-in-law admitted. She had come to see a matinee performance in which Melanie was dancing and was now having tea with her in the dressing-room. Lydia was dying to go with him, as you can imagine, but he absolutely refused to be rushed into the wedding.'
‘Lydia shouldn't have let him know she was so anxious. That's one way to make sure Gregory doesn't do what you want!'
Melanie spoke with such vehemence that Mrs. Ransome sighed, I thought at one time you were beginning to like him, but it seems you still don't.'
'I'm sorry,' Melanie said stiffly. 'I've tried but - but we don't see things the same way.'
He's very kind when you get to know him.'
'I'm sure he is. But somehow he always manages to rub me up the wrong way. Even you must admit he's not the soul of tact.'
‘But he is. That's why his behaviour with you has always been so puzzling. I wanted you to have dinner with us before he went off to South America, but he wouldn't�
��' Mrs. Ransome stopped in confusion. 'But it was partly a business dinner - perhaps that was the reason. You see he wanted to talk to Herbert.'
Curiosity stirred in Melanie and carefully she phrased her next question. ‘What is happening with the company? Is Mr. Fenwick doing any - making any alterations?'
‘None at all. Gregory is watching it for me and he says Herbert is carrying on the company just the way my husband would have wanted.' Mrs. Ransome suddenly frowned. ‘You are getting income from it, aren't you, dear?’
'Income?'
‘Yes. Gregory has given Timothy's shares over to you, hasn't he?’
'Oh yes,' Melanie lied. 'I get my money regularly.'
After this conversation Melanie was always careful to avoid any mention of Gregory or Herbert Fenwick when she was with Mrs. Ransome. Indeed, she would have preferred not to have seen her mother-in-law at all - for even an hour at the Belgravia house brought Gregory achingly to mind - but the woman's growing frailty made Melanie's total absence impossible, and though she could genuinely plead work as an excuse for the infrequency of her visits, she did not have the heart to use it as an excuse to stop them completely.
However Verenskaya's decision to take the Company on a short European tour came as a particularly pleasurable escape, and Melanie desperately hoped that she would be out of the country when Gregory returned from South America and got married. No matter what Mrs. Ransome said, that was one invitation she had no intention of accepting.
The company's torn: of the major cities in Western Europe was a series of unqualified triumphs and they were feted to the point of exhaustion. Yet always - at some point - Melanie had to return to her luxurious but alien hotel bedroom, each one a twin of the one before it, and here she forgot the plaudits of the crowd and remembered only her loneliness and grief. As long as she lived no man would matter to her as Gregory had once done, and she did not know whether to laugh or cry when the critics wrote of the growing rapport that they were convinced existed between herself and Anton.
Yet that there was a rapport she could not deny, for though she had occasionally accepted invitations to dine with other men, they had only served to increase her sense of loneliness, so that she had returned more eagerly to Anton, knowing that with him there was no need to simulate a gaiety she did not feel. He was the only man with whom she was entirely at ease, and his casual acceptance of her company and the rare times when he kissed her lulled her into a feeling of tranquillity which, though she knew was false, she none the less accepted.
It was Verenskaya - as always——— who made Melanie face reality.
'You cannot go on like this with him, my child. He is a man, not a boy. One day he will demand more from you, and if you go on using him, you will not be able to refuse.'
'Does one always have to pay for friendship?' Melanie asked with unusual asperity.
‘You are accepting more than friendship from him. You are taking up all his time and all his hopes and dreams - and that is cruel.'
It was a truth that could not be denied, and Melanie turned to the window and stared out at the incomparable loveliness of the Acropolis. In the clear Athenian air it stood outlined on its hillside, seemingly near enough to reach out and touch'. From a nearby taverna the poignant music of bouzouki was borne up to them, and with a sudden knife thrust of pain she yearned to be sharing this moment with Gregory. She shut her eyes momentarily before turning back into the room.
'I'm afraid Gregory has spoiled me for any other man,' she said quietly. 'I can never love Anton in that way.'
'Then give him what you can.'
'It wouldn't be fair to him.'
'If he is happy to accept it, why should you worry? He needs you, Melanie. You are his inspiration. Surely you know that?'
'I do. But I still don't think it would be right of me to give him second best.'
Verenskaya threw up her hands. 'I will not discuss it any more. You are too obstinate to listen to reason.'
Tacitly agreeing to disagree, they changed the conversation, hut Melanie could not forget all that had been said and she would not have been human if she had not been flattered by the knowledge that she was Anton's inspiration.
As if bearing out Verenskaya's statement, he continually discussed new themes with her, but it was not until they were sitting together on the aeroplane that was taking them back to London that he suddenly threw the words 'Theseus in the Cretan bullring’ at her.
‘What do you think of that for a ballet?’ he asked.
'Is there a part in it for me?’
For an instant he stared at her and she realized this was a question she had never asked before; always she had waited to be told, and then to be assured that she was equal to it.
‘Without you there wouldn't be a ballet,'he replied. ‘You’ll be the Athenian girl bull dancer who sacrifices her life for the young king. I'm going to commission special music, make the sets a reconstruction of the Palace of Minos and take the costume designs from Greek vase paintings.'
It was the most ambitious project he had yet attempted and her imagination began to race. ‘What did girl bull dancers wear?’ she asked.
'I'm not sure, but I see you In a simple white tunic and a short, fair wig.' He looked at her challengingly. 'The best bull dancers could vault right over the bull's horns on to its back. How high can you leap, Melanie?'
She took a deep breath and felt as if she was flying already. I'm beginning to believe the sky's the limit!'
He laughed. 'It's a pity we won't be able to give it its premiere in New York.'
‘New York - don't tell me we're going there?'
He nodded. ‘Verenskaya got a cable from the Director of the Lincoln Arts Centre this morning,' he explained. 'He's invited us to dance there.'
'But what about our London season?’
‘We'll still be able to do that - all it means is delaying it for six weeks and renting the theatre while we're away.'
'Then we'll be in the States for the whole of January.'
'Will you mind?'
‘Not at all.' Even as she spoke she realized it was the answer to her prayers, for it meant she would be out of England when Gregory got married. It had come as a bitter blow to her when she had received a letter from Mrs. Ransome saying that he had been delayed in South America and would not be returning to England until the early part of January, for she had realized then that she would almost certainly be in London when he married Lydia. Ever since hearing the news she had been racking her brains to manufacture an excuse that would enable her not to go to the wedding, but now she had a genuine reason, for she would be thousands of miles away on the day he made Lydia his wife.
'You'll love New York.' Anton's voice broke into her thoughts, and she gave such a start that he realized she had been a long way from him. ‘What were you thinking about?' he asked. 'The ballet or Gregory?'
'Both. He'll be marrying Lydia in January and I'm glad I'll be out of England.'
'You still care about him, don't you?'
'I'll never forget him,' she answered carefully.
'That wasn't what I asked you. I never kidded myself you would forget him completely. I've just been hoping that you'd forget him enough to try and make something of your life with me.'
As he said the final words he swung round and put his hand on her thigh and his action was so unexpected that she stiffened. Instantly he took his hand away, an unbecoming flush colouring his face.
'I'm sorry if my touch revolts you,' he said bitterly.
'Don't be silly,' she cried.
'Then why did you cringe like that? If it had been Gregory's hand you'd have—'
'Please, Anton,' she begged, 'don't keep nagging all the time.'
'I've never nagged you at all. Perhaps it would have been better if I had. Instead I've treated you as if you were my sister - as if you were a little girl and not a woman. But it's got to end soon,' he said quietly. 'I love you, Melanie, and I've got to know if there's a chance for me.'
'I can't pretend I love you when I don't.'
'I'm not asking you to pretend. I will be happy with whatever you give me.'
'And how long do you think that will satisfy you?' She tried to keep her voice from shaking, knowing that only by being as logical as possible was there any hope of making him see that he was wrong. 'How long will you be content to love a statue; to hold a woman in your arms who doesn't respond to you?' ' 'When you love someone the way I love you, you'll take them on any terms. Let me love you, Melanie. That's the only way you'll get Gregory out of your mind.'
If only what Anton said were true. If she could believe that by allowing Anton to love her she would forget Gregory, then she would willingly have Anton as her lover tonight. But logic told her that what he said was not true. Perhaps later, it might be possible, but at the moment Gregory was too firmly entrenched in her heart for her to forget him in the arms of another man.
‘Well,' Anton asked, 'will you let me prove I'm right?'
'Ask me again when we come back from America.' Though it was an effort she looked him fully in the eyes. 'By then Gregory will be married and perhaps when I know it's final… that it's all over…'
‘Very well. I've waited so long, another couple of months won't matter.'
The company only stayed in London for two weeks before flying to the States and, with a special Command Performance given during this time, Melanie only had one free afternoon in which to go and see Mrs. Ransome.
To her dismay, she found the woman in bed looking tired and unusually pale.
'I was overdoing it again,' Mrs. Ransome said hastily before Melanie could say a word. 'But I'll be up and about again in a couple of days.' The blue-veined hand patted the coverlet. 'Come and sit beside me and tell me all about your tour.'
'The tour I've come back from, or the one I'm going on?' Melanie asked with a smile.
'Both.'
'There isn't much to tell. It was a whistle-stop journey through Europe and one theatre looks pretty much like another. The audiences are different, though. Some show their enjoyment more than others.'
Roberta Leigh - My Hearts a Dancer Page 17