Читать книгу They Wouldn't Be Chessmen - A.E.W. Mason - Страница 9

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WITH her coat buttoned up about her throat Lydia Flight sat in a corner of the verandah, and over her tea told Mr. Ricardo how she had broken into the world of Grand Opera. She lost the air of frightened anticipation which had been evident in her, and she talked with gaiety and a sense of humour. Lord Chasborough and his wife at Rome had taken her to a little Maestro who lived in a tiny apartment at the top of a tall house in the Via Sistine.

"This little girl ought to have some singing lessons," they had said, and the Maestro had looked at her sourly and shaken his head. He had been with difficulty persuaded to hear her, and he had still shaken his head; and the Chasboroughs had left him with indignation.

"On the other hand, I was obstinate," said Lydia, "and I went again to see him and this time alone. He was franker in consequence. He said to me: 'You have a beautiful organ in your voice, Signorina, but it will come to nothing. Keep on with your little concerts in the drawing-rooms.' I asked him why, and plagued him till he answered. At last he threw up his hands in the air and said: 'Very well, I tell you. First of all you are English. No good! Second, you are with lords and ladies. For a serious artist—Pah!'"

Lydia Flight had very little money, but a great deal of courage. She cut herself adrift from her lords and ladies. She left the Excelsior Hotel and moved to the Hotel Quirinale in the Via Nationale, where she was allowed, since she had a back room, to house a piano.

"The Chasboroughs gave me up, but the Maestro gave me lessons, and I learnt in the Via Sistine and practised in my back room for months. The Costanzi Opera House, which was run then by Bonelli, a great singer in her day, was just at the back of my hotel, and my little Maestro was the sostitute there. That's to say, he played the piano at the rehearsals, and took the individual songs and generally bottle-washed for the regular conductor. He used to smuggle me in behind the scenes during the performances."

"You had become friends, then?" said Mr. Ricardo.

"Oh, yes, now that I wasn't with the lords and ladies," continued Lydia, and she laughed. "But we had to be terribly careful. The Maestro said that if old Bonelli caught me in the scenery he would be fired out, and I should never be allowed in the theatre again. But as it was, I had the most wonderful time. I heard all the operas, I saw all the singers, I was quite close to them. They might have been angels, I thought it so wonderful."

"The Peri at the Gates of Paradise," said Mr. Ricardo, smiling. He had a very complete knowledge of the clichés available to make any conversation commonplace.

"Well, one morning when I was singing away at my piano," Lydia resumed, "up came a message from the manager saying that Bonelli had sent over to ask who was singing the Aria in Carmen. I ran downstairs headlong, I can tell you. Was I to go and see her? I asked. The manager was shocked. He said: 'Of course not. I sent word to the Signora that you were a lady, not an artist.' I could have cried with vexation, if I hadn't felt that it would ruin my voice for the day. I told him to telephone to Bonelli that I wasn't a lady and that I was coming over at once. I ran upstairs, put on my best frock—it wasn't very beautiful—did my hair, powdered my nose, and ran across to the stage door. There was the curtain up, no one on the stage, and old Bonelli seated in the stalls looking like some old burnt-out witch."

Lydia Flight swallowed, and shivered as though the ordeal in that cold dark theatre was once more to be undergone.

"She made me sit by her in the stalls and was as rude as she could be. 'Are you the girl that has been making all this noise all these days in that hotel?' she asked. I said meekly 'Yes.' She went on: 'Of course you can't sing. You're English, aren't you?' I didn't mind that so much, for it showed she had been making enquiries as to who I was. 'I hear you practising the Aria in the first act of Carmen and a coloratura song in the third act. I suppose that's all you know.' I raised my head as haughtily as I could and I said: 'I know the whole role, Signora,' which was a very big lie, and to my horror the sostitute rushed on to the stage from the wings. 'She can't sing yet, Signora,' he cried. 'She's not nearly ready.'

"'You hold your tongue,' shouted Bonelli, and she said to me: 'We'll go upstairs to my room.'"

"That sounded hopeful," said Mr. Ricardo.

"So I thought," Lydia resumed. "I went up with my heart in my mouth. She took me into a room with a small piano and then she looked me up and down.

"'Of course you can't sing. You took half an hour to doll yourself up, because you're English and the English can't sing. If you had been an Italian girl, you'd have been over here in your bedroom wrapper and your carpet slippers.'

"I was getting a little fed up now, so I said to the old woman: 'But you didn't send for me just to tell me all these unpleasant things,' and just for a moment the witch smiled good-humouredly, and I saw what a beautiful creature she must have been in her great days. She made me sing to her parts of Carmen, and then she startled me out of my life.

"'Can you sing that part on Sunday night?' she asked. 'Roma Toccini has gone sick, and if you can't, I must close the theatre.'"

"You had four days," cried Mr. Ricardo. "Youth! Youth!"

"Four days," repeated Lydia. "I rehearsed, and rehearsed. I hardly slept. I had my dresses to make—most of them, for I was running out of money, and the Maestro was in tears. However, it got out that I was to make my debut—Bonelli saw to that, of course; the Chasboroughs and their friends rallied and took boxes. The fleet was in Naples. They got the Admiral up to Rome. I was so worked up that I didn't know whether I was on my head or my heels."

Lydia Flight was speaking with her eyes sparkling, her face radiant, and her words running one into the other. Ricardo seemed to hear from the auditorium the orchestra tuning up, applause greeting the conductor, the tap of his baton as he took his place.

"But you made a splendid success," he cried. He was the least jealous of men, and adored hearing of great triumphs achieved by young people after many discouragements. "It was telegraphed to London," and his face flushed and he seemed to be sharing that night with her.

"Yes, I did," Lydia cried in return. "But the Maestro was furious. All through the performance he kept coming to me and saying 'Que schiva!' and shook his fists. Bonelli said afterwards: 'You're not an artist, no! You have made things come out of that part which aren't there. An artist would have controlled herself to it. But you shall sing it again.' So I sang it again, flatly and shockingly, and a third time like the first time."

"And then you went on to the Scala."

"Yes, for the end of the season. But before that I got a request from Covent Garden to say what my repertoire was. Well, I didn't know then what a repertoire is. I thought it meant all the parts I wanted to sing. So I put down all the mezzo-soprano parts I could think of—Carmen, of course, Mignon, Dalila, Clytemnestra, Octavian, Brangane, Kundry, Amneris, Azucema, and a host of others; and they engaged me at sixty pounds a performance, and old Bonelli rolled off her chair with laughter when I told her."

Lydia Flight became serious again.

"But, you see, Mr. Ricardo, the Maestro and Bonelli were right. I wasn't ready. I couldn't control myself to the part I was singing. So at New York I got those little nodes on the vocal cords which meant: 'Stop now or never sing again.' So I went unhappily down to Nassau, and aquaplaned in my best white satin frock, just to keep my spirits up."

"And to depress ours, since we hadn't the privilege of seeing you." Guy Stallard's approach had been quite unnoticed by the little group at the tea-table, so engrossed had Lydia's audience been in listening to her story, so eager and lively was she in the telling. But he was at their elbows now. He was leaning against the corner of the glass screen of the verandah.

"May I take a seat?" he drawled, and he drew up a basket chair to Lydia Flight's side. Was there a tiny movement of repulsion made by Lydia? If she made one, it was so slight that Guy Stallard betrayed no sign of having seen it. He stretched out his long legs under the table and leaned comfortably back, the fine column of his throat rising from the open collar of his white silk shirt, the dark wave of his hair accentuating the grace of his profile. He took his cigarette case from his pocket. "I have an invitation for you, Mr. Ricardo," he said. "Madame Bouchette will be delighted if you will have tea with her party one afternoon on board the Marie-Popette."

It was remarkable how completely the congeniality of that little party had vanished. Lydia had lost all her gaiety, Oliver Ransom his delight in the quick changes of her face and the lilt of her voice. The cloud of inquietude was gathering about that couple again.

Mr. Ricardo, it is true, seemed unaware of it. But something was happening to Mr. Ricardo. He was sitting forward on the edge of his chair, his eyes bright, his head a little on one side like a bird, and he was watching Guy Stallard with an absorbing expectation.

"But she would like you to let her know beforehand the day on which you are coming," Stallard continued. "For otherwise nobody might be at home."

Ricardo had been waiting with impatience for those last words to come to an end. Whatever was happening to him had happened. He thumped his little fist upon the table.

"I've got it," he cried excitedly.

He looked round with a smile of triumph, whilst Stallard struck a match and lit his cigarette.

"Got what, Mr. Ricardo?" Oliver Ransom asked.

"Why, I felt sure that I had seen Mr. Stallard before."

Stallard inhaled the smoke of his cigarette, and said lazily:

"But you can't have seen me before, Mr. Ricardo, unless, that's to say, you've visited Arizona within the last ten years. That's where I've been. Ten mortal years in Arizona. Searching for copper, certain it was there within a square mile, and not finding it. They thought me loony in Arizona. 'Shorty Stallard,' they called me. Short of his wits, you know, if long in the leg. But I found the copper at the last, and had the laugh of 'em. By gum I did."

And Stallard laughed heartily as he thought of the revenge he had had in the end. But again Mr. Ricardo was watching a face, and not listening to words.

"And why I felt that your American accent didn't belong to you, Mr. Stallard," he went on.

"Well, it doesn't," Stallard returned. "Any more than measles belong to you if you pick them up. I shall get out of it all right. I'm dropping it fast already. It's only when I'm a trifle excited that you hear very much of it."

"And where I did see you," Mr. Ricardo cried gleefully. "Yes, I've got that too, Mr. Stallard. Where I did see you?"

"And where was that?"

Stallard with one swift movement leaned forward from the hips, his body stiff, his great shoulders drawn back, until his face seemed to be within a foot of Mr. Ricardo's.

A wide smile spread over Ricardo's face. He was holding his audience, he was for continuing to hold it, and savouring its expectations.

"Well?" Oliver Ransom asked slowly; and "Well?" Guy Stallard repeated.

"In the portraits of Byron," Mr. Ricardo cried, beaming and laughing with good humour. "I was as curious as a magpie about it. I couldn't tell why I recognised you, and I hate forgetting faces. But that's it. I'm satisfied now. That's where I've seen you, Mr. Stallard. In the portraits of Byron. You're Byron without his limp."

Stallard leaned back again in his chair.

"In that case," he said, "I think that I'm entitled to a brandy and soda."

And certainly, at the moment, he looked as if he needed one.