Читать книгу The Strangers' Gate - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 6

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At nine o’clock that evening Nigel Beverley, seated at the most favoured table in the Germanic grill with Lord Portington, had decided that he was a mean dog. By a quarter-past nine he was sure of it. His companion was a little annoyed.

“For goodness’ sake,” Portington begged, “don’t sit there looking like a thundercloud, Nigel. We have a perfect right to come here and the girl should accept it as a compliment that we wish to hear her play. Can’t you manage to look as though you were enjoying yourself? Waiter,” he added, “I’ll change that wine order. Give us a bottle of Clicquot ’21 instead of the claret.”

“Very good, my lord,” the man replied obsequiously.

“There appears to be a brief interval,” Portington observed. “I shall pay my respects to the young lady.”

He rose and crossed the room to where the orchestra was seated on a little raised dais. Beverley let him depart without a word. His eyes were still fixed upon that slim, girlish figure standing with her back to the piano. She was looking apparently in his direction but with unseeing eyes. Her costume had no kinship with the ordinary type of suburban evening gown affected by young ladies who play the violin in an orchestra. It was a perfectly plain black frock buttoned high up to her neck with scarcely a break in its continuous line. A little bow of white tulle at her throat was her only ornament. Her beautiful hair—he realised for the first time how beautiful, in its mellow golden softness—was brushed plainly back from what he saw now to be a serious as well as an attractive face. She was unduly pale, perhaps, but it was a pallor which carried with it its own distinction. Her deep-set hazel eyes were expressionless but it was because she was looking at nothing. The slight curve of her lips seemed almost childish, a trifle disdainful, too, at her forced appearance amongst that small but heterogeneous crowd of performers. Somehow, she gave him the feeling that he would like to leave his seat, fetch his coat and hat and walk away from the place. At the same time, he had another feeling—that nothing would induce him to leave until he had talked to her....

He had not long to wait. It was a quiet evening and the place was half full. The leader of the orchestra was only too happy to grant a request from a distinguished visitor. Portington brought the girl to their table and the waiter hurried to place a chair for her.

“There’s ten minutes’ interval,” Portington announced, “and Mademoiselle Mauranesco—the Princess, I should say—is going to drink her first cocktail with us.”

“Her first?” Beverley remarked, rising to his feet.

“But you don’t know the young lady’s age,” the other observed. “She is eighteen and a half. She tells me, too, that in Orlac, where there are very few tourists and no one has any money to spend, such luxuries are unknown. I have suggested a White Lady.”

“It is a surprise to see you again so soon,” the girl remarked, looking a little shyly at Beverley across the table.

“We were anxious to hear you play,” he told her, “and I am looking forward to making my apologies.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“You have little to apologise for,” she said. “You were not very sympathetic and you had perhaps the air of not quite believing my story. I suppose it was the wrong thing for me to do, though, visiting you in your office. I am sorry.”

“We will forget it, shall we?” he suggested. “I wanted to have an opportunity of telling you, Mademoiselle, that I was stupid and ill-mannered. That was because I was a little upset. We had an important meeting coming on and then what you told me, whether it was true or not, well, it was rather a blow, you know.”

“We need not speak of it again,” she said. “It is over. I like your cocktail,” she added as she sipped from the glass which had been placed before her. “It is very good indeed, but a little stronger than our syrups and home-distilled vermouth. You are dining here—yes?”

“We have come to hear you play,” Portington confided.

“And I to beg for your forgiveness,” Beverley added.

She waved her hand, a subdued but graceful little gesture.

“It is finished,” she said. “Never need we speak of it again.”

“Are you going to sell us the five shares?” Portington asked.

She shook her head.

“Of course not,” she replied. “I am sorry I spoke of that.”

“Perhaps now that we have a chance you would like me to explain the whole situation,” Beverley proposed.

“Please not,” she begged. “I should not understand and already half of my ten minutes are gone. I am disappointed with this place. It is not even so gay as our cafés in Klast. The lights are not good. People all seem so morose. They eat all the time and they drink nothing. Perhaps that is why they are not gay.”

“A matter of temperament, my dear young lady,” her elder companion assured her. “It takes a great deal to make an Englishman gay. We take our pleasures, if not sadly, at least silently.”

She took another sip from her glass, then, glancing at the platform, she rose to her feet.

“It is Monsieur Berthou who looks at me,” she explained. “He wishes the music. I must return to my place. You will excuse, please? I thank you for the cocktail.”

“Will you come back again?” Portington asked. “My friend here is very anxious to talk to you.”

She looked at Beverley. It seemed to him that this was the first time their eyes had met. There was a faint note of enquiry in her gaze, a certain measure of doubt. He was suddenly conscious that a great deal might depend upon what he said. He had no time, however, to choose his words.

“It is quite true,” he assured her. “I do wish to talk to you. I came to-night on purpose to see you.”

“If it gives you pleasure,” she said slowly, “I will return. It will not be until after ten o’clock. We have half-an-hour’s rest then and supper if we choose to take it. If you wish, I shall come.”

“I most certainly do wish and I shall be here waiting for you,” he told her gravely.

Lord Portington smiled. He was very thankful indeed that Beverley was playing up.

“Let me take you back now,” he begged.

“Thank you,” she answered. “It is not necessary.”

“It will be a pleasure,” he murmured as he led her away.

“Is he very happy, your Mr. Beverley?” she asked as they crossed the floor side by side. “He is engaged to marry a very beautiful lady, as I am sure your daughter must be. That should make him light-hearted and give him good spirits. He should live with a smile upon his lips.”

“Perhaps to-night he is depressed,” Portington said, leaning towards her confidentially. He had an inspiration.

“You see, what you told us about that little lump of rock you carried in your bag was rather a blow,” he went on. “It may be, if your brother is right, that our company will lose a great deal of money.”

“I believe,” she sighed, “that it is money only in this country which makes people happy. That is why my companion, the old nurse who lives with me, does not like being in England. She says that in our own land the people think of music and of their food, their wine and of their love affairs. But of money they think seldom.”

“Perhaps that is why they have so little,” he pointed out. “Yours is a poor country, is it not?”

“One of the poorest in the world,” she told him, “and yours, they tell me, is one of the richest. Yet I have seen more happiness in my own country than I have here. It is strange ... I thank you, Lord Portington.”

“When you come back,” he said, “I shall have gone. Please be kind to our friend.”

“I will play him something gay before the evening is over,” she promised. “I will play him something which will remind him of the sunshine, and dancing, and pleasant people.”

“It would do him a lot of good,” her escort remarked as he turned away with a farewell bow.

Portington resumed his seat with the air of one who faces a problem.

“Nigel,” he confided, “I cannot make that young woman out.”

“Is she so difficult?”

“Of course her age may be the explanation,” Portington meditated. “She gives one the impression of such delightful simplicity, yet when we reflect that she sat there and told us about her brother’s being in prison and apparently thought nothing of it, one is puzzled. Perhaps she really does take it as lightly as she seems to.”

“That is a possibility,” Beverley admitted.

The music recommenced. The two men paused between the courses of their dinner to listen and watch the girl. The music was of the Hungarian type—full of staccato notes, light-footed, with breathless, tremulous spells. Then suddenly the girl was playing, alone, a few queer tremulous notes carrying the rhythm and melody into another phase altogether, and yet preserving by subtle little touches the motif of the composer. Neither of her two auditors were musicians but Beverley was nearer to realising the beauty of Marya’s touch and the faultlessness of the notes she produced. His companion, however, was the first to lead the applause.

“The girl can play, damn it!” he exclaimed. “Jove, she’d be worth backing if one were years younger, and if she’s really the ingénue she seems to be. She’s good, Nigel. I tell you, she’s really good. She’s wasted in an orchestra like this. I don’t see why we shouldn’t have her play at one of Ursula’s At Homes. You must talk to her about it.”

“I wonder,” Beverley speculated.

“Of course,” Portington went on as he lit a cigarette a little later, “for all your alert bearing, you are one of those staid sort of fellows, Nigel. You would never lose your head about anyone. Wish to heaven I was like you! Even at my time of life I tell you frankly that girl makes me feel—well, almost a young man again. And I can’t imagine why. Everything that she says and does, the very way she looks at you, is either a denial or a complete ignoring of sex. Until I knew how young she was she puzzled me enormously.”

Beverley declined to be drawn into a discussion. He opened the evening newspaper for which he had sent.

“I suppose,” he said drily, “she really is a product of her sheltered life and an undeveloped temperament.”

Portington smoked gloomily for several minutes. For a boon companion he sometimes found this young man who was proposing to enter his family a trifle unsympathetic. It was true that the girl was not playing for the moment, but Beverley’s sudden absorption in his newspaper was almost unnatural.

“What’s that you are studying so intently?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon,” Beverley apologised, throwing down the paper. “It is just an account of our meeting this afternoon. I wanted to be sure no gossip had got about. That man who writes the City articles—he’s pretty clever at handling this sort of thing.”

“Is my speech there?” Portington asked with interest.

His companion coughed.

“Only a brief account, sir. Just remarks that Lord Portington, in a few apt words, proposed the usual vote of thanks to the chairman and officials.”

“A couple of very neat little touches of mine wasted,” Portington grumbled.

“Nobody ever reports speeches at these company meetings,” Beverley reminded him. “There’s only one sort of thing to be said and only one way of saying it.”

Portington glanced at the other’s plate.

“You have eaten nothing, Nigel,” he remarked. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Saving myself,” was the quiet reply. “I shall try and persuade the young lady to have some supper or something when the break comes. I thought I had better hold off so as to be able to join her.”

Lord Portington beamed approval.

“Capital!” he exclaimed. “That’s just what I should have done myself. I think, if you don’t mind, I will be getting on. I’d like to look in at the club for half an hour, and afterwards this charity affair might be amusing. Sort of superior bottle party, I imagine. You stick to it, Nigel,” he went on earnestly. “I’d stay if I thought I could do any good, but it’s much better left entirely in your hands. My respects to the young lady. Telephone me how things have gone and what your plans are, either late to-night or to-morrow morning.”

Beverley’s farewell was a trifle indefinite. He was conscious at that moment of only one overpowering desire. He wanted to get rid of his prospective father-in-law. He wanted him to leave the place and stay away. Portington, sublimely unconscious of the fact, murmured a few more words and took his departure, more than ever convinced of his gifts as a diplomat.