“Yes.” Dermot Deane picked up a parcel. “She would like to have this new score of Dickenson Price. I shouldn’t have thought it would be up her street, but she wants to look it over and asked that you should take it along.”
“Me?—personally?” Mary looked surprised. “I should have thought—”
“That any junior on the staff could have done the job,” Dermot Deane finished for her. “So should I. But those were Her Ladyship’s words: ‘Could your Miss Barlow bring it along?’ “
“I didn’t know she even knew my name,” said Mary.
“Nor I. But don’t ask me what’s in her mind. I never make wild guesses with my clients. If you don’t want to go—”
“I don’t mind at all,” Mary insisted a little disingenuously. The exact truth was that her curiosity was stronger than her vague feeling that she did not like, nor wish to know more of, the attractive French Canadian.
These mixed feelings were still with her when she entered the block of luxury flats that afternoon and was wafted upwards in a silent lift to the sixth floor where Suzanne Thomas had her London home.
She opened the door herself, bestowed on Mary a lazy but more friendly smile than any she had displayed so far, and said,
“Do come in. It was nice of you to bring the score along. I know it was tiresome of me to be in such a hurry to see it. But when I get excited about a work I just have to know right away if it’s for me or not.”
“I can understand that.” Mary did her best to match the friendly smile with one of her own, while she concealed her astonishment at being pressed to stay and have tea, with such charming insistence that there was no graceful way of refusing.
“Have you been long with Dermot?” Suzanne Thomas asked as she poured the tea. “He’s a marvellous person, isn’t he?”
Mary was able to agree with this sentiment quite sincerely, adding that he was a very good employer and that even three weeks in his office had been long enough for her to discover that.
“You’ve been there only three weeks? I suppose you worked for one of the other agents before that?” She spoke with such apparent friendly interest that it was hard (though not impossible) to think that one was in some way being cross-examined.
“Oh, no.” Mary explained how she had taken the chance of transferring from the legal world to the music world largely because of being an enthusiastic listener.
“So it was just from the audience that you get to know Nick Brenner so well? Did you know her too?—Monica.”
The questions followed so rapidly and yet naturally upon each other that Mary found herself replying, just as naturally.
“But, Miss Thomas, I don’t know Mi. Brenner particularly well, and I never knew Mrs. Brenner at all.”
“No?” The famous mezzo gave a sceptical little smile. “Yet he seemed to regard you almost as a family friend the other evening. He wouldn’t go out with me—” she laughed that off, apparently without rancour—”but he was perfectly ready to go with you.”
It was, of course, quite ridiculous to be called on to explain the situation as though it required explanation. But Mary realised that to refuse to satisfy this woman’s curiosity would give the incident an entirely false air of importance. So, briefly but a little coolly, she explained about having been assigned by her employer to look after Nicholas Brenner on the day of his arrival.
“As I was quite new to the job I just said ‘yes’ to everything Mr. Brenner suggested,” she said with a smiling shrug.
“And he suggested your going out with him after the rehearsal. You must have made quite a hit, Miss Barlow.”
“No.” Mary kept her temper with difficulty. “I think his first evening back in London was full of unhappy memories. And the fact that I was quite unconnected with the past and, to tell the truth, quite unimportant made it less of a strain to be with me than with anyone more intimately connected with his affairs.”
“Well, I suppose you could be right.” Suzanne Thomas’s smile was almost completely frank and friendly that time. Almost, but not quite. And after a moment she said, “It was very sad about Monica, of course. But I expect you know that she had become such a problem that, in a dreadful way, her death was a sort of solution to a very unhappy situation.”
“Miss Thomas, apart from casual queue gossip, I’ve known absolutely nothing about the private lives of these rather remote people, until I came to work for Mr. Deane. And from neither source have I heard anything of what you are implying,” Mary stated firmly.
“Didn’t Nick say anything, when he took you out?”
It was an impertinent question in all the circumstances, and Mary had no qualm of conscience about lying outright.
“Of course not! He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who would gossip about his personal affairs to the girl in the office. Which is really all I am, you know, when all’s said and done.”
“You underestimate yourself.” But Suzanne Thomas laughed with genuine amusement. And for the first time Mary felt that she was at last satisfied. Indeed, she made no attempt to detain Mary further and, taking the Dickenson Price score, she tossed it carelessly on to a pile of music with such palpable indifference that Mary almost winced for the hapless composer.
By the time she got back to the office she was feeling sufficiency annoyed about the trumped up visit to say frankly to her employer, “It was just an excuse to get me along there and pump me.”
“About what? Your going out with Brenner?”
“Yes. How did you guess?”
“There’s nothing this wise old owl can’t guess, given a few salient facts,” retorted Dermot Deane with some satisfaction. “She was always after him. She was Monica Brenner’s best friend. And if there’s a bigger menace than a best friend in this business, I’ve yet to meet it. Now Monica’s gone, Suzanne will probably go all out for him herself. And she doesn’t mean to be pipped at the post—by you or anyone else.”
Mary laughed angrily.
“Even she can’t be so idiotic as to imagine my pipping her at that particular post,” she said tartly. “I’ve only met the man twice. Once, as you know, I had the routine job of fetching him from the airport, and once I had to accompany him to a rehearsal with half a dozen other people.”
“But you went on to dinner afterwards, my dear. There’s the rub.” Dermot Deane laughed. “On to dinner afterwards.”
“Only because I was quiet and undemanding company,” she countered quickly.
“Maybe.” Dermot Deane rubbed his chin meditatively. “Quiet and undemanding company. That must have been a novelty. Well, well, the test will be if he repeats the invitation.”
To her furious embarrassment, Mary immediately felt her colour rise, the more so as her employer continued to look at her with amused attention.
“I said you were a dark horse. Why are you blushing?”
“I’m not blushing! But you make me feel self-conscious when you say such silly things. Anyway—I may as well be frank about it—Mr. Brenner told me he happened to have two tickets for the Warrender concert tomorrow and he asked if I would like one.”
“And you happened to say you would, I take it?”
“Do you know anyone who would have refused a ticket for the Warrender concert?” Mary countered with spirit.
“No,” said Dermot Deane, “I don’t. Enjoy yourself. But—and now I’m not just teasing you—watch your step if Suzanne Thomas is around.”
Mary said soberly that she would. But this talk of the Warrender concert had suddenly brought it into clear and exciting focus. Something not just to be dreamed about, but to be actually experienced. She even spared a few regrets for the fact that she had rejected the dinner invitation which had originally gone with it. Though after the silly episode with Suzanne Thomas she knew more than ever that she must tread warily.
“Not that I want to put a stupidly exaggerated importance on to what was probably the most casual invitation,” she assured herself. �
�If it had been anyone else who asked me —
But it had not been anyone else. It had been Nicholas Brenner. And Mary was beginning to see that one could not make even the simplest arrangement with a very famous artist without having to consider all sorts of crosscurrents which simply did not arise in the case of a plea-sandy undistinguished friend.
This fact was brought forcibly home to her as she waited for him the following evening near the box office at the Festival Hall. Afraid of being late and keeping the great man waiting, she of course arrived much too early. So that inevitably friends and cronies of her gallery days came up from time to time to exchange a word or two, ask how she was getting on in Dermot Deane’s office, and give her their candid opinion of various artists they had all been hearing during the last week or two.
It was the usual pleasant give and take of gossip and views, and ordinarily Mary would have thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, the thought that Nicholas Brenner might appear at any minute and cast a blinding ray of reflected glory round her made her feel nervous and self-conscious.
Finally someone asked carelessly where she was sitting that evening. And, feeling like a parvenu apologising for her Rolls-Royce, she said vaguely, “I think—in the stalls.”
One of her friends whistled. But another one said, “I suppose you got a complimentary, being in Dermot Deane’s office?—Or, there’s Nicholas Brenner. He looks a bit older since the accident, doesn’t he? but terribly distinguished. He’s looking round for someone.”
“He’s looking round for me,” said Mary, in an unnecessarily small voice. And at the concerted gasp which greeted this statement, she felt somehow as though she were showing off. That was what made her say hastily, “No, please don’t rush off. I’ll introduce you.”
Stunned, as only star-gazers can be stunned when starlight turns full upon them, her friends stood rooted to the spot, and Mary found herself saying, a little nervously, “Mr. Brenner, may I present one or two of your most devoted admirers? We’re all looking forward immensely to the ‘Carmen’ next Wednesday.”
Immediately and effortlessly, he turned on them what Mary was to come to know later as “the full tenor treatment”. Nothing could have been more charming than the way he accepted the introductions, lingered for a moment or two to talk, and then courteously ushered Mary in the direction of their seats, while the dazzled fans made their happy way to the upper reaches of the hall.
“Thank you for being so nice,” Mary said in a rather subdued way, as they took their seats in the hall.
“To your friends? But, my dear girl, why shouldn’t I be? Quite apart from their being your friends, they’re my public. And no artist should underestimate his public. Without them, we don’t exist, you know.”
“That’s true in a way, I know. But I wasn’t really showing you off,” she explained in a confidential burst of frankness.
“Weren’t you. I rather hoped you were?” He flashed a quick, laughing glance at her which did odd things to her.
“Well, I felt terribly proud of being with you, of course,” she admitted with engaging naïveté “But also I didn’t want them to think I was brushing them off in any way just because my job in Mr. Deane’s office gave me a chance of coming here with a celebrity.”
“Dear, you do worry about the oddest things.” Nicholas Brenner laughed softly. “Firstly, no one who knew you would expect you to be disloyal to your friends. And secondly, if you were, I shouldn’t like you as I do. Does that satisfy you?”
“Yes,” murmured Mary. And she stared down fixedly at her programme so that he should not see any telltale radiance in her face.
“He called me ‘dear’ and said he liked me!—Oh, perhaps that’s just part of his way of being charming to everyone.—But I don’t think it is.—And I must manage to look up and be sensible.—But I can’t. If I pretend to look at my programme a little longer—”
And then she realised that he had risen to his feet and was greeting someone who was coming slowly up the gangway. She did look up then. And immediately the warmth of her delight was quenched in an indefinable chill.
He was speaking to Suzanne Thomas, superb in black velvet and sables. And though her faintly sensual mouth was smiling, she was looking past him at Mary with eyes that were as hard and cold as flint.
CHAPTER III
Afterwards, Mary thought one of Oscar Warrender’s finest achievements of the evening was that he almost made her forget Suzanne Thomas was sitting just across the gangway. Almost—but not quite.
As the glorious strands of music which made up her favourite Beethoven symphony wound themselves round her heart and senses, Mary did feel that little else mattered. But, somewhere at the back of her mind, was the nagging wish that Suzanne Thomas were sitting in any other part of the hall. Without leaning forward Mary could not actually see her. But, as though there were a sort of emanation of dislike and hostility from the famous mezzo, she was painfully aware of her presence without needing to see her.
In the interval Nicholas Brenner asked if she would like to come out for coffee or a drink. But Mary, feeling rather like a snail which sensed safety only in its shell, shook her head.
“No, thank you. I’d rather sit here and do my homework—” she smilingly indicated the programme notes. “The Bruckner is quite unfamiliar to me. But you go. Lots of people probably want to talk to you.”
He made a slight grimace at that, but he went. And, as he got up, Mary saw to her relief that the seat across the gangway was empty. The last thing she wanted was an exchange of doubtful courtesies with Suzanne Thomas, and she thankfully bent her head over her programme and concentrated on the rather involved notes.
For some minutes the voices of people round her were no more than a general hum and murmur. Then her quick ear detected the familiar, attractively husky tones of Suzanne and it took her only a second longer to identify also the clear, pretty voice of Anthea Warrender, the conductor’s wife.
She was saying, “But of course we’re expecting you after the concert, Suzanne. It’s a supper party for friends and colleagues. I glimpsed Nick Brenner in the hall, but lost him again. I hope he’ll come too.”
“I doubt it.” Mary knew instinctively that the mezzo was making her utterance specially clear. “That rather pushing girl in Dermot Deane’s office has managed to get hold of him. She won’t let him go if she can help it. She’s sticking like a leech at the moment and he doesn’t quite know how to get away.”
“Really?” Anthea sounded surprised and a little put out, Mary thought, as she lowered her head still further so that she should not be identified. “I thought she seemed rather nice and retiring—”
“Oh, my dear!” Suzanne’s laugh spoke volumes.
“One could ask her too, I suppose.” Anthea sounded faintly obstinate.
“Truly, I wouldn’t do that.” The other woman sounded very much in earnest suddenly. “She’s something of a menace in her quiet way. And for Nick’s sake she shouldn’t be encouraged. She’s quite equal to going after Oscar too, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Anthea laughed quite gaily at that and said she would back Oscar to look after himself. But that if Suzanne thought an invitation would create problems for Nick, it might be better just to leave him out—though it was a pity.
Then the voices faded away, as the two singers moved off to speak to someone else, and Mary was left sitting there with rage and humiliation in her heart, and a very high colour in her cheeks.
As though she would have dreamed of pushing her way into a party of distinguished artists! And at the same time, as though she would want to do Nicholas Brenner out of the pleasure of joining his friends after the concert. She wished passionately now that she had never let him involve her—and himself—in anything which could cause such embarrassing complications.
She could tell him, of course, that she had to go straight home after the concert—which was, indeed, what she had intended to do. But, recalling his insistence on
taking her home the other evening, she doubted if he would accept this. Especially if he heard about the supper party and had some idea that he might be slighting her.
“Oh, dear!” thought Mary, “there’s such a thing as being almost too polite and scrupulous about the formalities.” Though not often in this age, she was bound to admit.
If only—And at that moment Barry Courtland dropped into the vacant seat beside her and said, “Hello! What are you doing here, all on your own?”
“Barry!” She had never been more pleased to greet him. Not even when he had turned up with the news that he was not married to Elspeth Horton after all. “Are you here on your own, too?”
“I am.” He smiled at her a little quizzically.
“Are you doing anything afterwards?”
“Not unless you’re coming with me for a coffee and a sandwich somewhere.”
“Oh, I am! I am,” Mary assured him with almost hysterical relief. “Look here, I’m not stampeding you into entertaining me or anything. But here comes Nicholas Brenner—you’re sitting in his seat, by the way, and had better get up—and when I tell him you’re taking me home, please back me up.”
“But of course!” Barry was obviously both surprised and intrigued. “Is he making himself a nuisance?”
“Oh, no!” That was all Mary had time for, because Nicholas Brenner joined them just then, nodded in a distantly courteous way to Barry and quite obviously waited for him to go.
“Thank you, Barry. Then I’ll meet you at the bottom of the main staircase afterwards,” Mary said, with a dismissing sort of glance. And, as Barry made off, back to his own seat, Brenner said drily,
“What did that mean, exactly? You’re coming round backstage with me afterwards and then out to supper.”
“Oh, I’m not—really.” She managed to make that surprised but emphatic. “You’ll be going round backstage, of course, and I overheard Anthea Warrender saying there was a supper party and that you were expected—”
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