Swan Song

by Crispin, Edmund

  Adam ignored him; now that the worst was over he had recovered much of his self-possession.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ he said, ‘you’re being hypocritical. You know perfectly well that you’re going to marry me.’

  ‘Green Chartreuse, nice Vodka –’

  ‘Will you go away. Elizabeth, my dear –’

  ‘You like the cheque, eh?’ said the waiter.

  ‘No. Go away at once. As I was saying –’

  ‘Oh, pay the bill, darling,’ said Elizabeth. ‘And then you can take me outside and kiss me.’

  ‘Kiss ’er ’ere,’ said the waiter, interested.

  ‘Oh, Adam, I do adore you,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Of course I’ll marry you.’

  ‘Nice magnum of champagne, eh?’ said the waiter. ‘Congratulations, sir and madam. Congratulations.’ Adam tipped him recklessly and they departed.

  For their honeymoon they went to Brunnen. Their rooms at the hotel overlooked the lake. They visited the Wagner-museum at Triebschen, and Adam, in defiance of all the regulations, played the opening bars of Tristan on Wagner’s Erard piano. They purchased a number of rather risqué postcards and sent them to their friends. Both of them were blissfully happy.

  They stood on their balcony gazing across the water, now amethyst-coloured in the fading light.

  ‘How nice,’ said Elizabeth judicially, ‘to have all the pleasures of living in sin without any of the disadvantages.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE MARRIAGE WOULD have been no more noteworthy than ten thousand others had it not been for a third party who was obliquely involved.

  Edwin Shorthouse was singing Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier. Like Adam, he became acquainted with Elizabeth during the rehearsals. And he, too, fell in love with her.

  ‘Love’, as used in this connexion, is largely a euphemism for physical excitement. To the best of everyone’s knowledge, Edwin Shorthouse’s affairs with women had never risen above this plane. His habits suggested, in fact, a belated attempt to revive the droit de seigneur, and his resemblance to the gross and elderly roué of Strauss’s opera was sufficiently remarkable for it to be a subject of perpetual surprise in operatic circles that his interpretation of the role was so inadequate. Possibly he himself was uneasily conscious of the similarity, and felt the basic stupidity of Hofmannsthal’s creation to be a reflexion on his own way of life. Sensitivity, however, was not Edwin Shorthouse’s most outstanding trait, and it is more likely that his aversion to the part was instinctive.

  There may have been something more than mere sensuality in his attitude to Elizabeth. Certainly it is difficult, on any other hypothesis, to account for the active malevolence which Elizabeth’s marriage to Adam aroused in him. Joan Davis held the view that it was his vanity which was chiefly concerned. Here was Edwin (she said); coarse-grained, middle-aged, ill-favoured, conceited, and almost continually drunk; and here, on the other hand, was Adam. The choice, to anyone but Shorthouse himself, must have seemed a foregone conclusion: to him it had undoubtedly been a wounding blow.

  ‘But don’t worry, my dears,’ Joan added. ‘Edwin’s concern is with the female form divine – not with particular women. As soon as another shapely girl comes along – and the world’s full of them – he’ll forget his tantrums.’

  Elizabeth herself suggested frustration as the cause of Shorthouse’s immoderate annoyance. She had not seen a great deal of him at rehearsals, though whenever they met he had been markedly attentive.

  ‘I noticed that,’ said Joan. ‘He was always “undressing you with his eyes”, as the absurd phrase has it.’

  Elizabeth agreed. But – she added – it had been difficult to deal with this attitude until the evening when Shorthouse had made efforts to transfer his somewhat cheerless imaginative pastime to the realm of actuality.

  ‘Naturally,’ Elizabeth concluded demurely, ‘I didn’t encourage him . . . Hence, as I say, he’s frustrated. That’s the answer.’

  Adam had yet another theory. In his opinion, Shorthouse was really in love; within his opulent and unprepossessing frame, Adam maintained, there burned the flame which had destroyed Ilium and held Antony in sybaritic bondage by the Nile. ‘In other words, l’amour,’ said Adam. ‘More Levantine than spiritual, I agree, but, none the less, the genuine article.’

  There seemed, in fact, to be no wholly satisfactory solution, and for a time they contemplated the phenomenon with no stronger emotion than a mild interest. Eventually, however, it became tedious, and at last irritating. Adam was obliged to be fairly often in Shorthouse’s company, and there are few things more exacerbating than an attitude compounded of sneers and snubs – and an attitude the more disconcerting, in this case, because of the real hatred which lurked behind it. In the early days of the engagement, moreover, Adam became aware that sundry vague and discreditable rumours concerning him were going the rounds of his acquaintance, and in one case they found such ready acceptance that he was estranged without explanation from a family with whom he had been for years on the friendliest possible terms. In his innocence Adam did not at first connect Shorthouse with this new affliction, and it needed a chance remark to enlighten him. Even so he controlled himself and carried on as if nothing had happened. Adam had some respect for his work and was determined if possible, to avoid complicating it by an open rift with Shorthouse.

  The honeymoon, which followed the Rosenkavalier production, gave him a respite, and when he and Elizabeth returned from Switzerland to set up house in Tunbridge Wells they were too much occupied with organizing their joint ménage to worry about anything else. Shorthouse, presumably, would be simmering down by now; and luckily, their engagements kept the two men apart until November, when both of them were signed up for Don Pasquale. Adam went to the first rehearsal with mild apprehension, and returned perplexed.

  ‘Well?’ Elizabeth demanded as she helped him off with his coat.

  ‘The answer is in the affirmative. Edwin would seem to be cured. All the same . . .’ Adam, who had just removed his hat, absent-mindedly put it on again. ‘All the same . . .’

  ‘Darling, what are you doing? Was he friendly? You don’t sound at all sure about it.’ They went into the drawing-room, where a huge fire was burning, and Elizabeth poured sherry.

  ‘He was friendly,’ Adam explained, ‘in the most overpowering fashion. I don’t like it. In the old days Edwin’s notion of friendship was to bore one perennially with rambling, pointless anecdotes about his professional experiences. He no longer does that – with me, anyway.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s ashamed of himself.’

  ‘It’s scarcely likely.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. He can’t be quite devoid of humanity. Presumably he had a mother.’

  ‘Heliogabalus had a mother. We all had mothers . . . What I mean to say is that there’s something artificial about this change in Edwin, it’s decidedly insincere.’

  ‘But better, one supposes, than open warfare.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Adam dolefully. ‘I’m not at all sure about that. It’s the kiss of Judas, if you ask me.’

  ‘Don’t be melodramatic, darling, and above all, don’t slop your sherry on to the carpet.’

  ‘I never noticed I was doing that,’ said Adam.

  ‘In any case,’ Elizabeth went on, ‘I don’t see what High priest Edwin can have betrayed you to.’

  ‘Levi, perhaps.’

  ‘The only qualification Levi has for the part is his race. And anyway, he’d as soon get rid of Edwin as you.’

  ‘You’re perfectly right, of course.’ Adam frowned. ‘Well, I’ll see how things turn out. Have you got any news?’

  ‘A commission, darling, and a very profitable one. By the afternoon post.’

  ‘Oh? Congratulations. A new novel?’

  ‘No, a series of interviews for a Sunday paper.’

  ‘Interviews with whom?’

  ‘Private detectives.’

  ‘Detectives?’ Adam was startled.

  Elizabe
th kissed him, a little absently, on the tip of the nose. ‘You’ve still got a lot to learn about me, my precious. Didn’t you know that my first books were works of popular criminology? I’m generally supposed to understand something about the subject.’

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I do . . . Unfortunately it’ll involve a certain amount of gadding about, and I shall have to settle down with Who’s Who and write a lot of tiresome letters tomorrow morning. Do you know any private detectives?’

  ‘There’s one.’ Adam spoke rather dubiously. ‘A man called Fen.’

  ‘I remember. There was some business about a toyshop, before the war. Where does he live?’

  ‘In Oxford. He’s Professor of English there.’

  ‘You must give me an introduction.’

  ‘He’s very unpredictable,’ said Adam, ‘in some ways. Are you in a hurry with these articles?’

  ‘Not specially.’

  ‘Well,’ said Adam, ‘there’s this Oxford production of Meistersinger in the new year. If it suits you, we’ll get hold of him then.’

  The rehearsals of Don Pasquale passed off without incident. Shorthouse, without actually seeking Adam’s company, maintained his curious affability whenever circumstances made a meeting inevitable. And there came a time when he even went so far as to apologize for his earlier behaviour.

  It was immediately after the second performance. Adam had lingered for a few minutes in the wings arguing with the producer about some minor awkwardness which had arisen during the evening, and on entering his dressing-room he was surprised to find Shorthouse there, inspecting, or possibly on the point of purloining, a half-empty jar of removing-cream. This, however, he returned hastily to its place when Adam appeared. He was wearing a voluminous dressing-gown and was still powdered, painted, and be-wigged for the name part of the opera, and Adam supposed that he had run short of removing cream and, their dressing-rooms being adjacent, had decided that this was the simplest way of replenishing his supply. It soon appeared, however, that removing-cream must be, at the most, only a subsidiary reason for his visit.

  ‘Langley,’ he said (and the air at once became aromatic with gin), ‘I’m afraid you’ve no reason to be fond of me. The fact is, I didn’t behave very well over your marriage.’

  Adam, embarrassed, made a dull grunting sound. Shorthouse seemed to find this inspiriting, for he went on, with rather more confidence:

  ‘I came here tonight to apologize. To apologize,’ he repeated, sensing perhaps a certain bareness in his original statement. ‘For my ill-mannered behaviour,’ he added explanatorily after some thought.

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ Adam mumbled. ‘Please don’t think about it. I’m only too glad –’

  ‘We can be friends, I hope?’

  ‘Friends?’ Adam spoke without enthusiasm. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘It’s very generous of you to take it so well.’

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ said Adam again.

  A silence fell. Shorthouse shifted from one foot to the other. Adam removed his wig and hung it with unnecessary deliberation on the back of a chair.

  ‘Good house tonight,’ said Shorthouse.

  ‘Yes, very good. They seemed to be enjoying themselves very much. They laughed,’ Adam pointed out, ‘quite a lot.’

  ‘Of course, it’s a brilliant piece.’

  ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘But I suppose from your point of view – that’s to say, there are better parts than Ernesto.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got Cercherò lontana terra in the second act.’

  ‘Yes, so you have . . . Well,’ said Shorthouse, ‘I’ll go and get some of this muck off my face.’

  ‘Are you out of cream? I thought I saw –’

  ‘No, no, thanks very much. I was only wondering what kind you used. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Adam helplessly. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  And Shorthouse lumbered from the room, leaving Adam greatly relieved at his departure. As he changed, Adam pondered Shorthouse’s sudden regeneracy. He continued pondering it all the way back to Tunbridge Wells. Arrived home, he narrated the events of the evening to Elizabeth.

  ‘Removing-cream?’ said Elizabeth indignantly. ‘He wasn’t trying to pinch that new jar I bought for you?’

  ‘No,’ Adam reassured her. ‘The old one. Yours was still in my coat-pocket. All the same, I shall keep my dressing-room locked from now onwards.’

  ‘Well then, the whole ridiculous business is over.’

  ‘I suppose so. But you know, my dear, I still don’t trust the man. He’s quite capable of playing Tartuffe if it suits his book. I’m not sure, if it comes to that, that he isn’t capable of murder.’

  Adam spoke carelessly. But he was to find soon enough that Edwin Shorthouse was by no means unique in this.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ADAM AND ELIZABETH travelled up to Oxford on a raw, bleak afternoon late in January. The sky was pigeon-grey and the wind chilling. Adam, fretful at the possibility of hoarseness, was wound up in mufflers, but luckily their trains were adequately heated. From Oxford station they took a taxi to the ‘Mace and Sceptre’, where they had reserved rooms. Adam stood about and smoked while Elizabeth unpacked and put away their things. Afterwards they went downstairs to the bar, where they were pleased to find Joan Davis, sipping a dry Martini at one of the glass-topped tables.

  From her Adam learned various details of the Meistersinger production.

  Edwin Shorthouse was to play Sachs; the Walther and Eva were of course Adam and Joan; Fritz Adelheim, a young German, had the part of David, and John Barfield that of Kothner.

  ‘And this man Peacock, who’s conducting,’ said Adam. ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘My dear, yes. Very young but utterly charming. This is his first Big Chance, so you must forget all about what you did under Bruno and Tommy, and co-operate zealously.’

  ‘But is he any good?’

  ‘That remains to be seen. But I don’t thing Levi would have put him in if he weren’t. Levi has quite an eye for operatic conductors.’

  ‘Who’s producing?’

  ‘Daniel Rutherston.’

  ‘As melancholy as ever, I don’t doubt. And Karl is régisseur?’

  ‘Yes. Very cock-a-hoop about it. You know what a fanatical Wagnerian he is. Come to think of it,’ said Joan, ‘I shan’t be sorry to get back to Wagner now the war-time interdict has lifted . . . Why was there an interdict, anyway?’

  ‘It’s a highbrow axiom,’ Adam explained, ‘that Wagner was responsible for the rise of Nazism. If you want to be in the fashion you must refer darkly to the evil workings of the Ring in the Teutonic mentality – though as the whole cycle of operas is devoted to showing that even the gods can’t break an agreement without bringing the whole universe crashing about their ears, I’ve never been able to see what possible encouragement Hitler can have got out of it . . . But you mustn’t get me on this subject. It’s one of my hobby-horses. You’ve been abroad, Joan, haven’t you?’

  ‘In America. Playing Bohème and dying of consumption five times weekly. As a matter of fact, I nearly died of over-eating. You should go to America, Adam. They have food there.’

  The three of them passed an agreeable evening together and went early to bed. At ten o’clock next morning piano rehearsals began. Beneath an obstinately cinereous sky Adam and Joan walked to the opera-house in Beaumont Street.

  While, in general, the English do not erect opera-houses if they can avoid it – preferring commonly such witty and ennobling occupations as Betty Grable and the football pools – Oxford has recently provided a notable exception to the rule. It stands on the corner of Beaumont Street and St John Street, at the side nearest to Worcester College, and is built of Headington stone. The foyer glows with a discreet, green-carpeted opulence. About it are ranged busts of the greater operatic masters – Wagner, Verdi, Mozart, Gluck, Mussorgsky. There is also one of Brahm
s – for no very clear reason, though it may perhaps be a tribute to his curious and fortunately abortive project for an opera about gold-mining in the Yukon. The auditorium is comparatively small, but the stage and orchestra-pit are capable of dealing with the grandest of grand opera. The stage equipment is replete with complex and fallible devices, and a menagerie of mechanical fauna inhabits the property-rooms. The dressing-rooms, too, are more luxurious than is usual; the two floors on which they are situated are even served by a small lift.

  With such amenities, however, Adam and Joan were not for the moment concerned. They made their way to the stagedoor, and thence, directed by an aged janitor, to one of the rehearsal rooms.

  Most of the others had already arrived, and were grouped round the grand piano. Apart from this, and a number of chairs constructed principally of chromium piping, the place was very bare. Its sole concession to aesthetic decorum was a lopsided photograph of Puccini, markedly resembling the proprietor of an Edwardian ice-cream stall.

  Adam was introduced to Peacock, who proved to be a quiet man of about thirty, conventionally dressed, tall, thin, and with a prematurely sparse provision of red hair. Adam liked him immediately. Among the others present were Karl Wolzogen, a wiry little German, preternaturally energetic despite his seventy years; Caithness, at the piano, a dour and laconic Scot; Edwin Shorthouse, exhaling nostalgically the fumes of last night’s gin; and John Barfield, the Kothner. The remainder of the cast were not intimately concerned in the events which followed a fortnight later, and need not be specifically mentioned here. Most of them Adam knew, for the number of operatic singers in England is not large, and they are frequently thrown together.

  The rehearsal went as well as such rehearsals do go, and it was pleasing to find that Peacock knew his business. Edwin Shorthouse took direction with such unaccustomed meekness that Adam became suspicious. He remained uneasy, indeed, as long as the piano rehearsals lasted. Such saintly forbearance as Shorthouse was displaying is rare in any singer, and in Shorthouse, Adam reflected, was positively unnatural. He was not altogether surprised, therefore, at the campaign of obstruction which coincided with the beginning of the orchestral rehearsals.