The Curtain Rises

by Mary Burchell

  'Please go,' he said. 'Both of you.'

  'No. That would settle nothing.' Torelli's famous speaking voice was quiet, warm and authoritative—a voice there was no gainsaying. 'I have come with Nicola because I knew you wouldn't admit her if she were on her own, but—'

  'I don't want to see her,' he interrupted. And as though the sight of her were literally an offence to him, he turned away.

  'She realizes that. What she did today she knows was quite inexcusable, but she did it because she was com­pletely and maliciously misled. The rest she must say herself, so I am going.'

  And with the perfection of timing which never deserted her, Torelli went out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  For almost a minute Nicola stood there by the door, every thought and word blocked off by terror and pity. Pity that he could look as he had in the one glimpse she had of him, terror that she was the cause of it.

  Then at last he said, still without turning,

  'What do you want to say to me? What can there possibly be left to say between us now?'

  What indeed? What word of excuse, contrition, explanation could ever reach him after what she had done? She caught her breath on a half-sob of despair. And then, like a light in the darkness, she remembered what Torelli had said, and every defence of pride or self-interest went down before the necessity of the absolute truth.

  'I love you, Julian,' she said quietly and distinctly. 'I loved you almost from the beginning, and that was what made me cruel. It was agony to feel so faithless to Brian, when I thought you guilty. I know now that you were not—'

  She was aware that he turned slowly, and the stream of words dried up.

  'What did you say?' His voice was slightly hoarse, but he looked somehow as though she had reached him at last.

  'I said I love you.'

  'No—the other.' He almost brushed aside the admis­sion which had cost her so much. 'About—Brian.'

  'I thought once that you were partly responsible for his death.'

  'But I was.' He dropped into the chair by the dressing-table suddenly and buried his face in his hands. 'I was—I was—I was—'

  'No, you were not.' She was quite calm all at once. And she came and stood beside him and stroked his bent head as though it were perfectly natural for her to be the com­forter. 'It's been a sort of nightmare which you and I have shared in our separate ways. But it's over now. I've recovered from the fever of it all, and you must too.'

  He looked up at her haggardly.

  'I don't know what you mean,' he said, with a sort of terrible weariness, and then suddenly he leant his head against her.

  'I'll tell you, shall I?' Her hand passed over his hair again and finally came to rest against his cheek.

  'Please.'

  'I loved Brian very much,' she said slowly. 'So much that if I had known the truth about him and Michele at first—'

  'Do you know that now?' he interrupted sharply.

  'Yes. Uncle Peter told me about an hour ago, not even knowing I was the girl concerned. I would have been torn and shattered if I had had to face that knowledge just after Brian died. It was you who saved me that anguish, Julian, and for this I owe you more than I can say. But in keeping me ignorant you put yourself horribly in the wrong in my eyes.'

  'I was in the wrong,' he insisted wretchedly, but with slightly less conviction this time.

  Not one of us was absolutely in the right,' she said quietly. 'Don't you see that? I suppose Brian was wrong to fall for Michele in the circumstance. But who am I to judge, since I also fell out of love with him?'

  'Not while he was alive,' he countered quickly.

  'But shamefully soon after he died. And with the man I then thought party responsible for his death.'

  'My God, do you mean that?' He held her painfully tightly for a moment. 'I didn't dare listen when you said it before. I believed it was just something you thought up to console me or arrest my attention.'

  'It wasn't a moment for that, Julian,' she said quietly. 'It was my only moment, out of all the time there is, in which to reach you. That was why it had to be the truth or nothing. I had taken your happiness and your peace of mind from you. I could only tell you that I loved you, in spite of all I had done. That was all I had to give. And if you refused it—'

  'Why should I refuse it?' he interrupted almost violently. 'Didn't you know it was the most precious thing in all the world to me?'

  'No! How could I know that?'

  'I thought you must know. Else how did you know exactly how to turn the knife in the wound every time? I loved you from the moment I saw you. In some strange way, almost before I saw you,' he said half to himself. 'That's partly why I drove Brian so hard—I think. It sounds absurd and as though I'm trying to excuse my­self when it's too late. But I knew so much about you from him. If one can do anything so romantically idiotic as fall in love with a photograph, I half fell in love with you then. It drove me wild that he could let a worthless piece like Michele divert him.'

  'But you've been pretty friendly with Michele your­self during the last few weeks, haven't you?' She could not help that, for the thought of Michele and what she had said still burnt a hole in her memory.

  He looked surprised, and he brushed the protest aside almost casually.

  'That was her price for not tormenting you with the truth about her relationship with Brian.'

  'What was?' cried Nicola.

  'Why, that. Withdrawal of my opposition to her sing­ing Pamina, and what she called a "generally friendly attitude".'

  'And you agreed?'

  'What else could I do? I'd gone far enough to keep you in what I thought was happy ignorance. To be civil to Michele for a few weeks seemed a small, though dis­agreeable, addition.'

  'But didn't you hate it?'

  'I loathed it,' he said shortly. 'But it doesn't matter now. It was a typical Michele revenge for my attempt to get Brian out of her clutches.'

  'And when you were trying to get Brian out of her clutches, as you put it, you were really doing it—for me?' She smiled slowly.

  'Partly,' he told her with desperate truth. 'Partly only. And I'll never know what prompted me most. Concern on behalf of a girl I had never seen, anger because of his irresponsible professional behaviour—or just my own ambition, Nicola. His absence would have taken away from the full perfection of my concert. Did I just sacrifice Brian to my ambition? It was that thought which made it impossible to answer your reproaches.'

  'You can answer them now,' she said. 'Or rather, I'll answer them for you and then they need never be repeated again. Your first concern was the concert. Not your concert or his concert, but the concert. You were in charge of it. It was your prime responsibility and your artistic duty to see that everyone pulled their weight. You made a tragic error of judgment, if you like, in refusing Brian's excuses. But everything which had gone before led you—would have led anyone in your position—to think the excuses false. You made a mistake. We all do. Think of the mistakes I have made over the last few months and forgive me if you can. Then—'

  But he let her get no further. Getting up with a sudden air of energy, and looking as though vitality were literally flowing back into him, he caught her in his arms and kissed her over and over again.

  'I love you!' he exclaimed. 'Did I tell you that?'

  'Only after keeping me waiting a long time and frightening me desperately,' she said as she returned his kisses.

  'My darling, I'm sorry!' He stroked back her hair and looked at her, his thin, intelligent face alight now with eagerness and love and a sort of tender amusement.

  'It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now. —Except the performance, of course,' she cried, suddenly remembering her primary reason for being here.

  'The performance?—Great heavens, of course! The performance.' He glanced at his watch, almost pushing her from him to do so. 'And I asked Warrender—'

  'It's all right. Mr. Warrender is here in the Opera House. Gina made him go to her d
ressing-room, and she's probably using every way she knows to keep him there. Perhaps—'

  'Yes. We'll go along and explain.'

  'And what,' asked Nicola innocently, 'are we going to explain?'

  'That I'm sorry to have brought Warrender here for nothing, that I'm conducting tonight, and that everyone, including ourselves, had better go back home and get some rest now.'

  'It sounds a sensible programme,' she smiled mis­chievously.

  'It leaves out a great deal. But it will do for the moment.' He flashed her that brilliant smile of his which she had thought she would never see again. 'Come,' he said. And they went, hand-in-hand, to Torelli's dressing-room.

  When they got there, Oscar Warrender was pacing up and down, frowning, while Torelli sat before the mirror, calmly trying on her first-act headdress and throwing an occasional word over her shoulder.

  'Gina, this is really enough stalling even from you,' they heard him say. 'If you won't tell me—'

  'Here they are. They'll tell you themselves,' replied Torelli, with a quick anxious glance at them in the mirror as they came in. 'And I don't think,' she added with an audible sigh of relief, 'that you'll need to conduct tonight, Oscar.'

  'I'm sorry. I owe you the most abject apology.' The frank smile which the younger conductor bestowed on his great colleague was free from any strain or indecision. 'I shall manage, after all. I'm ashamed of myself for bringing you here unnecessarily, and I can only say how grateful and touched I am that you came so willingly.'

  Warrender's arrogant eyebrows jerked up and he said drily, 'Is that all the explanation I get?'

  'I'm afraid—' began Julian.

  But Torelli said, 'No, of course not. They're in love. Can't you see that for yourself, Oscar? They went through more than the usual degrees of idiocy before finding it out, though. And if you want to know even more about it than that, you had better ask your Anthea.'

  'Anthea?' Warrender looked mystified. 'What does Anthea know about it?'

  'Nothing about this particular case,' replied Torelli. 'But a great deal about the general difficulties of falling in love with a conductor, I imagine. Now take Julian with you and see he has some lunch and rests for the afternoon. I shall do the same for Nicola. And no one—I mean no one—is even to think about anything but the opera now until the final curtain falls tonight. Come, children.'

  They came. Even Oscar Warrender accepted his instructions, though with a slightly amused air. Nicola and Julian could do no more than exchange a glance and a handclasp before they separated. But with that they said enough.

  In the car there was silence at first. Then Nicola simply said, 'Thank you. Darling, darling Gina, thank you.'

  'All right, child.' Torelli patted her cheek sharply. 'I quite enjoyed it, to tell the truth. But now I'm going to forget all about you.'

  And with magnificent thoroughness she did.

  As soon as they reached home she went to her own room, while Nicola was left to have lunch by herself, served by a silent, absorbed Lisette. Then her uncle came to her and said, just as though there had been no crisis that morning,

  'Your aunt says you are not to work this afternoon. You are to go home now, and go to bed and sleep.' Torelli held no brief for people who could not fall asleep to order, since this was something she could do herself. 'She doesn't want you backstage before the performance for any purpose at all. Just join your parents and come to the Opera House. I'll see you in the box tonight.'

  'Very well, Uncle,' said Nicola, as she would have said to anything at all which Gina asked of her at that moment. And in perfect obedience she went home and did exactly as she had been told, even to falling asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.

  She was so utterly exhausted both physically and emotionally that she slept deeply. But she woke to the most glorious sense of wellbeing she had ever experienced. The sunshine which streamed into her room was late afternoon sunshine. But the inner sense of being at the beginning of everything wonderful was like opening her eyes on the morning of the world.

  'Julian!' she said aloud on a note of utter happiness. And then with a little laugh of amused tenderness, 'Gina!—she's unique.'

  While she bathed and dressed and consumed tea and toast with childlike appetite, she could hardly keep from singing. Indeed, she did indulge in a few happy trills. But her standards had risen during her months with Torelli, and after a while she laughed and abandoned that form of expression.

  She wished she had had a new dress for the occasion. But perhaps it hardly mattered. Certainly when her mother saw her she exclaimed, 'Darling, what a wonder­fully becoming dress! I don't think I've ever seen you look so nice.'

  'Nonsense. She always looks nice,' declared her partial father. 'Though I'm bound to say there's something special about you this evening, Nic. What is it?'

  'Oh, just—I'm happy, I guess.' She laughed and coloured slightly, which made her father glance at her a second time. But her mother merely said,

  'Did you and Gina have a nice quiet day together?'

  'That doesn't quite describe it, Mother,' Nicola felt bound to admit. 'But it was—satisfactory.'

  'I'm so glad,' said her mother kindly. 'I don't think I could deal with temperamental people myself. But obviously you have a special knack with them, dear.'

  Nicola said modestly that perhaps she had. And then they left for the opera.

  For the rest of her life Nicola never went to Covent Garden without a breath of the magic and wonder of that night returning to her. The glitter of the great chandelier on the stairs, the white and gold and crimson of the auditorium, the magnificent sweep of the red and gold curtains—all had their perennial charm. But for her the heart-stopping moment was when, to the sound of warm applause, Julian came into the orchestra pit as the lights were dimming.

  He bowed briefly to the audience and cast one quick glance up at the box where Nicola was sitting. In the half light it was unlikely that he actually saw her. But at least he knew she was there, and somehow she felt that there passed between them an indefinable beam of aware­ness, stronger than sight or sound or touch. It was on that utter security that he could rely as he gave all the rest of himself to the performance.

  At first it was difficult for Nicola to judge impartially. She thought Julian wonderful and that was all there was to it. But as the evening went on and a subtle sense of thrilling discovery began to pervade the house, her critical faculties took over even from her deeply com­mitted affections.

  Whatever she had felt for him as a man—if she had been totally indifferent to him—she would still have almost had to love him for the spell he wove that night. With a sure, strong and loving hand he gathered his forces, supported them, deployed them, persuaded them and finally guided them to that inspired level of perfec­tion which reaches just a fraction beyond the full extent of mere mortal attainment.

  'It was heavenly,' declared Mrs. Denby at the end. And to her great gratification her brother-in-law said,

  'No word could be more exactly chosen.'

  Nicola was not listening to either of them. She was standing at the front of the box, flushed, bright-eyed, clapping and cheering with the best of them. Torelli graciously kissed her hand in the direction of the family box and then Julian looked up and smiled. And Nicola fell silent and just stood there, her hands clasped against her, and smiled back at him. For just one moment, in all that crowded, cheering house, for each of them there was only the other. Then the curtains swept together again and her Uncle Peter was saying,

  'I think that's about the lot. We'd better make our way round backstage.'

  They did so—to find that the atmosphere backstage was electric. What some of the audience had gathered the artists and critics knew by instinct and experience. A great new operatic conductor had arrived. And if Nicola had supposed that she would have a quiet word with Julian in his dressing-room she was greatly mistaken.

  The dressing-room was besieged by eager admirers, who were pushed out on
ly with the greatest difficulty even when he insisted that he must change. So, control­ling her disappointment, Nicola accompanied her parents and her uncle to Torelli's dressing-room, where they were received with the utmost warmth and good humour. For Torelli, who had insisted on having Julian to please herself, was now accepting as her right the praise heaped on her for her splendid judgment in pick­ing him out from the beginning as potentially a second Oscar Warrender.

  'Be patient, child,' she whispered with singular under­standing, as she kissed Nicola. 'I'll see you have your turn. Julian will be joining us for supper. You shall have him to yourself at some point or other.'

  'Thank you,' whispered Nicola, with complete faith in her aunt's power to arrange anything. But at that moment there was a knock at the door and Julian himself came in.

  Fresh congratulations broke out on all sides, in the midst of which he quietly possessed himself of Nicola's hand and held it while he answered the compliments and questions showered upon him.

  'It was a wonderful evening,' Mrs. Denby told him kindly.

  'It's a wonderful work, Mrs. Denby,' he replied, smiling upon her with special brilliance because she was her daughter's mother.

  'Yes, of course! The music, anyway.' Mrs. Denby knew she was on safe ground with Mozart. 'Though of course the story is very improbable, even for an opera, isn't it?'

  'What is improbable about it?' inquired her sister-in-law without turning from the mirror, where she was sitting, taking off her make-up.

  'Well—' Mrs. Denby gazed dubiously at Torelli's back. She had really been thinking about the improbability of ever meeting anyone like the Queen of the Night, but she abandoned all thought of saying so and groped for some­thing less controversial. 'The way the young man becomes involved, for instance. Men don't just fall in love with the picture of a girl. They really don't.'

  'Oh, Mrs. Denby, I'm afraid they really do.' Julian Evett suddenly laughed with the utmost gaiety. 'They do, even to this very day.'

  But before Mrs. Denby could ask what he meant by that, Dermot Deane put his head round the door and asked, 'Anyone want a lift to the Gloria?'