The Lily Hand and Other Stories (13 page)

‘And one day I thought there was no one to hear me, and I sang aloud one of the airs I had heard the lady singing. I had no words for it, only the tune. And as I was singing, one of the windows of the garden room opened and a little gentleman stepped out, and looked straight at me, and smiled at me. I was frightened, because I knew I ought not to be there. But when he smiled at me, I stopped being afraid.

‘He was quite small, and slender, not nearly so tall as Herr Meyer. He had a blue coat with a high collar, and a white stock, and his hair was powdered and tied back in a black ribbon. I do not know how old he was, but it seemed to me then that he was just the same age as I was and it was quite impossible to be afraid of him. Besides, he was so happy. He had a pen in his hand, and a smudge of ink on his cheek and his face was like sunshine.

‘I could not run away, there was no time, he came so suddenly. And then I did not want to run away. He said – I remember almost every word he spoke to me – he said: “I thought I heard a linnet singing in the garden. Was it really you?” And when I said it was, he asked me if I would riot come in and sing to him again, and he took me with him into the garden room, and it was all white and gold inside, with two harpsichords. He played to me, and I sang to him, and then he sang, too, the same song I had been singing when he surprised me, in a small, high voice like a woman's. I did not understand the words; he said they were in Italian and they began,
“Farewell, my lovely flame …”
I had never seen anyone like him, I did not think there could be any others. And afterwards, I did not want to know if he was like other people, after all, I only wanted him to remain marvellous to me.

‘Then he said I should have a song all to myself, and he sat down at the harpsichord, and he began to shine and to smile as brightly as if the music that sprang up in him had been light. And in a little while he smudged the other cheek with his finger, and threw down the pen and began to play. He played that song I have sung for you, that song you hold in your hand. He sang the words to me, and played and sang over and over again until I could join in with him. That was how I learned it. And when you learn something in that way, something which belongs only to you, you never forget it.

‘I was disappointed at first that it was so short, for I had begun to fancy that I could learn something very long and hard. And I frowned, and asked if that was all. He said, “Yes.” I said, “It's a very
little
song.” And he said, “It's a very little linnet. But you will find that it is quite big enough. When a song has said all it has to say, then it is just the right length.” When I had it perfectly by heart I sang it through for him, the best I could, while he played for me, and he said I sang it very well, and that some day I should sing harder things than this for him and sing them just as well. And he wrote on the paper, and gave it to me, and said it was mine.

‘I was afraid to stay too long, in case my aunt should send to look for me. And I remember that when I said goodbye to him, he kissed my hand. I liked that. And when I looked back from the edge of the trees, he waved his hand to me.

‘I cannot tell you how much I loved him.

‘That was all. That day my aunt received her letter from Döbling, and packed me off the very next morning by the coach. I never saw the garden again, or the lady, or the little gentleman. But I kept the song always, and never told anyone. There was never anyone who would have understood, or cared. It was so much mine, I could not share it with someone who would have thought it trivial or silly. And until – until Herr Meyer – he did not mind when I sang, he said that he liked it – and then, today – the flute—'

She lowered her eyes, but not so quickly that she did not observe Hugo's surging blush of pleasure and the dazzling boyish smile, at once abashed and complacent.

‘Ah, yes, our friend Herr Meyer!' murmured the old man with instant comprehension. ‘And therefore I, of course, was no obstacle – I was vouched for.'

‘There was a further reason why I would not confide in anyone. He was to me – my little gentleman – so much more than a man, so different from other men, that I did not want him to have a name. If he was really only a mortal like the rest of us, I did not wish to know it.'

‘You need not have been afraid,' said Herr Sommerhof very gently. ‘He was not like the rest of us. And he is surely immortal.' He stood gazing at her for a long moment over the talisman he still held in his two hands. ‘Anna, how would you like to leave this inn, and look for your future in another kind of drudgery? Do not think I am offering you an easy life! You have much to learn, and if you elect to go with me you will have to work and work and work, until you may well wish yourself back in your kitchen. But you have a voice that ought not to be wasted, and a natural judgement, and youth, and many a prima donna has come to me with less. If you will put yourself in my hands, I will make of you a singer, and of your little gentleman – God be with him, as he is surely with God – a true prophet. What do you say?'

Nanynka opened her lips, and no words came. Her eyes filled with tears of longing and disbelief, for none of this could possibly be happening. For a moment she saw within her swimming eyelids a world made up all of song, with no more dingy sculleries, no foul-mouthed cook shrieking, no Madame Groh hissing rebukes. Then her tears spilled over, and ran down her cheeks, and suddenly Hugo had her hands fast in his, and was pouring eager, heartfelt assurances into her ears.

‘Nanynka, dear Nanynka, it's true! Herr Sommerhof would not deceive you. You can do your part, and you need not fear that he will not do his. You must not be afraid to venture! You must not be afraid of anything! I shall be near. I will take care of you.'

‘My good sister Agathe will take care of her, I thank you,' said the old man dryly, ‘and you are not in her good books, Master Hugo, so if you wish to be admitted to Anna's acquaintance in future I advise you to walk circumspectly. Well, child, I am waiting. What is your answer?'

Clinging convulsively to Hugo's warm, kind young hand, Nanynka gasped: ‘Do you mean it? Is it possible? Oh, I will work and work, I will do anything, if only I can really learn to sing. You shall never, never have reason to complain of me. But are you sure? – for I have no training, and no one to vouch for me—'

‘No one to vouch for you? Anna, Anna, you do not know what you are saying! Listen! – here is the voice that commends you to me!'

And the old man lifted the fragment of manuscript paper to the light, and read aloud, reverently and tenderly, the inscription which followed the song:

To the linnet in the garden, in gratitude for her first performance, and expectation of her many future triumphs, from her most humble, devoted, obedient servant
,

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

How Beautiful is Youth

She opened her eyes upon the dusky golden light in the curtained room, and through the dissolving mists of sleep she saw the new dress, last night's triumph and fiasco, lying where she had let it fall, a pool of iris-grey cloud in the easy chair with the glint of gold tissue shining through, like a fierce dawn breaking through an overcast sky. It appeared to her, in spite of everything, the kind of dress a man ought to notice when it crossed a room beside him, but Mark had never given it a glance, much less made any comment upon its splendours. Heaven knows, she thought, lying motionless in the enormous bed as she studied her folly through half-closed eyelids, I'm sufficiently inured to the allurements of splendid gowns in my profession, why should I have built any hopes on this one, more than all the rest?

She had only to stir a hand upon the coverlet or her head upon the pillow, and Morgan would be suddenly, softly in the room drawing back the curtains. She must have looked into the room half-a-dozen times already, and refrained from taking a step within for fear of waking her mistress, though she had probably been aching to snatch up the dress and put it reverently upon its hanger. No rehearsal this morning, so Barbara could have what Morgan always comfortably termed a long lie-in. No doubt Morgan would add, as smugly, that she had earned it, for the concert at the Mozarteum had been a triumph. It was the private part of the evening that had been a fiasco.

Her songs had been all Mozart, and perhaps that was enough in itself to account for Mark's preoccupation, for he was still, after three months with her, mortally afraid of accompanying her in Mozart. Other people, he said feelingly, cover up for you, but only the pure in heart can play Mozart, for every flaw shows up like a deformity. She remembered the strained whiteness of his face as he took his seat composedly at the piano and played delicately and perfectly, a fine sweat of nervousness all the time dewing his upper lip. Only when she had taken him by the hand, at the end of her last group, and drawn him to his feet to share the ovation, had he relaxed and broken into one of his wild boyish smiles. She had felt, through the touch of his hand, which clung to hers tightly, his whole body trembling.

Perhaps it was this hypersensitivity of his, these stresses he never confided, and for which he asked no consideration, which had startled and melted her into loving him. Perhaps she was of a nature which must love protectively if it was to love at all. At least it had happened, unlooked for, inescapable, invading her heart secretly like a silent army treacherously loosed into a city by night; in the morning of her awareness the stronghold was already lost.

And how were the mighty fallen! She had halted in Paris to choose a dress all for him, to dazzle him, to awaken him to her as a woman; and he had escorted it home in the car, loved the voice which floated out of its misty folds, and never so much as seen gown or woman. He was proud of her, he was devoted to her, he adored her, but he didn't love her. It had never even occurred to him as a possibility.

The sun was high, she traced its climb through the brocade curtains. She would have to get up. Tonight,
Rosenkavalier
, and to survive the Marschallin she must be in perfect condition and perfect mood. Sighing, she stretched and turned in the bed, and silently, slipping over the carpet like a fat, grey tabby, Morgan came in.

First the curtains, then a finger on the bell, then the benevolent smile and the discreet morning greeting, ‘A lovely morning, Miss Barbara, dear! Did you sleep well?' And with the tap at the door which heralded the coffee-tray, the day might fairly be said to have begun.

Smoothed reverently into decorum on its hanger, the grey-and-gold dress looked suddenly unsuitable, or else its failure had caused her to regard it with revulsion. It was simple and beautiful, but for her a disastrous mistake, an error of taste due, no doubt, to over-anxiety on her part. She felt an aversion to the idea of ever wearing it again.

She slid out of bed, drawing on her housecoat before the mirror and studying herself with the heavy, still look left over from sleep. She saw a tall woman of forty, statuesque, handsome, with a clear pale face and a profusion of glossy hair; the woman Mark never saw. Thank God she hadn't put on weight! She was spared the sagging fat, at any rate; all she had to contend with was the more subtle thickening here and there at neck and shoulder and cheek, the faint weariness of the lofty white eyelids, the resignation of the settled lines of the mouth. These had never mattered until Mark came, nervous and ardent and twenty-four years old, almost sick with awe of her at first.

Three weeks of his company and twenty years of success and satisfaction in her career melted and ran out of her hands. She had had everything, but now suddenly the sum of all she had had was nothing. And the devil of it was that when he looked at her he saw and adored Astrofiammante or the Countess Almaviva, or the embodiment of the voice that breathed into them, but never, never Barbara Tremayne.

‘The young lady slept late too, poor love,' said Morgan, busy running the bath. ‘She was terribly tired when she got here, after that long journey.'

‘Oh, lord!' said Barbara, whirling from the mirror in dismay. ‘Theodora! I forgot all about her! The poor child!' Her own sister's daughter, newly arrived from England on her first trip alone, and her unfeeling aunt could forget her very existence. ‘Do go and ask her to come up and talk to me while I dress, if she's up now.'

‘Yes, Miss Tremayne, she's up. I took her breakfast up to her room thinking she'd feel a bit strange if she had to go down alone just at first. You get your bath, and I'll send her in.'

When Barbara came out of the bathroom, Theodora was sitting in the light from the window, beyond the panes of which the Mönchsberg loomed stonily above the tilted roofs. She was eighteen, and in a simple cotton frock looked even less. Her smooth short hair was as sleek as Barbara's own, her round face had the texture of a new flower, never touched since it had unfolded, and her full lips, plaintive and tender, curled together with the candour of rose-petals, ready to reflect every motion of her guarded spirit. She looked up warily with speedwell eyes, and the very curl of the lashes had a cool, fresh sensation, as if the dew was still upon them.

Kissing her was like kissing the air of the morning. Barbara thought, with a pang which lay somewhere between jealousy and nostalgia, so that's what I was like! That's what I had, and never had the wit to recognize until it was gone. I wonder if she's any brighter!

‘Darling, I'm sorry I slept so late. After tonight, I've got two clear days, and we can see more of each other. Did Morgan look after you properly?'

‘She was awfully nice,' said Theodora, in the composed voice of a vulnerable young woman.

‘Did you sleep well? And how do you feel this morning? Ready to look at Salzburg?'

‘Oh, yes! Can you come with me? Mr Creed said you're singing in
Rosenkavalier
tonight, so if you want me to take care of myself, that's all right, I can do it, you know.'