Читать книгу Maidlin Bears the Torch - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 4

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Someone had brought an enormous basket of daffodils. Sir Ivor lifted them to the platform and handed them to Madalena. Shy colour rushed into her face as she bowed again, to the audience, to Lady Quellyn, to the orchestra.

‘Not many girls can curtsy like that,’ Mrs. Bennett said, laughing. ‘I wonder where she learned that lovely movement? She’s very graceful. I remember we remarked on the way she walked about the tea-shop.’

‘Aunty, what is it all about?’ Clare pleaded. ‘Why is Ben off her head about this girl? If it was because of her singing I could understand it, for she’s simply marvellous. But it’s something else. What’s wrong with Benney? And why are you talking about a tea-shop?’

‘We’ll tell you the story in the interval,’ Mrs. Bennett promised. ‘This is the symphony. There isn’t time just now.’

The girls perforce settled into silence as Beethoven’s Fourth began. But all through the beautiful movements of the symphony Clare was wondering about the story she was to hear and Benney’s thoughts were back in Annecy.

‘It was two years ago.’ She turned excitedly to her cousin at the first opportunity. ‘We were coming home from Italy, and we spent a few days in Annecy. One day we went for lunch to a café, and almost at once we noticed the girl who was the waitress. It was this girl, Madalena di Ravarati, but we never heard her name then. She was dressed as a waitress, with a little apron, but instead of a cap she had a daffodil stuck in her hair; her hair was done in saucers over her ears. We noticed how prettily she walked; that’s what Mother means. She seemed such a kid to be doing the job; we spoke to her, and she told us she was only doing it for one day, to help a friend who had been taken ill, because the people of the café had been so kind to her and a friend of hers. We could see she wasn’t used to it; she forgot our order and had to come back and ask us to say it again. We saw she wasn’t a proper shop-girl, and we argued over what to do about the tip. Father asked her what she’d do if he gave her ten francs, and she said it was too much, but she’d give it to her friend, who was ill. We thought she was French, and she didn’t know we were English, for she’d asked for our order in French. So Jim said something about her eyes—they are rather marvellous, you know!—and she went all red and hot, and said she was so sorry, but she was English. We laughed, and Jim felt awful, and Mother said she didn’t look English, so she said she was half Italian. We asked her name, but she didn’t tell us.’

‘She said we wouldn’t remember it, and she was right,’ said Mrs. Bennett.

‘We never saw her again, though we went back next day,’ Benedicta went on. ‘Then we had to come home, but Jim kept thinking about her, and on his next trip he went back to Annecy and looked for her, but, of course, she wasn’t there. He asked the café people to tell him her name and address, but they said mademoiselle wouldn’t like it. So we’ve never been able to find out who she was. Now can you imagine how I felt when she came on to that platform and began to sing? I could have shrieked with joy!’

‘You nearly did,’ Clare commented. ‘But it’s a weird story; I don’t wonder you were thrilled. Why was she being a waitress in a tea-shop?’

‘That’s what I want to know,’ Benney said fervently.

Her mother touched her arm. ‘Don’t stare too hard, Benney. Madalena di Ravarati is in the box with Lady Quellyn.’

Benney and Clare could just see her, in the back of the box, sitting with the tall, fair girl in white, while Lady Quellyn turned to speak to her and the twins leaned on her knee and gazed up into her face, asking questions.

‘She’s one of the family, evidently. I expect that’s why they brought the children; it’s a very great occasion,’ Mrs. Bennett remarked.

‘A very great occasion for us too,’ Benney murmured. ‘It’s tophole to have found her, after all this time!’

‘The twins have been jolly good,’ said Clare. ‘They’ll never forget it.’

‘I shall have simply reams to tell the girls to-morrow!’ Benney sighed happily. ‘I am so glad I’m going back to school for two days! They’ll all die with envy when they hear.’

In the second half of the programme came the group of songs written by Lady Quellyn, and it seemed to many of the audience that Madalena’s beautiful voice was even more beautiful in these; she sang them with evident love and appreciation, and at the end, when she had acknowledged the roar of applause, she turned towards the composer in the box and made a funny little bob of a curtsy.

‘Like we do in country-dancing,’ Benney whispered. ‘I wonder if she knows it’s a country-dance bob?’

‘I expect Sir Ivor’s pleased,’ Glare said. ‘Her singing’s marvellous.’

‘Somehow I don’t think he is quite pleased,’ Mrs. Bennett remarked.

‘Oh, Aunty, why not? What more could he want?’

‘I don’t know, but I fancy there’s something more. He isn’t quite satisfied. You girls were looking at her when he gave her those flowers, but I was watching him, and there was an odd expression on his face. It was as if he were saying: “You can have this floral tribute, my child, but you haven’t been a really good girl.” I wonder what had disappointed him?’

‘Not her voice,’ Clare argued. ‘It’s perfect.’

‘No, not her voice. There may have been something in her manner that hadn’t quite pleased him. “Disappointed” is too strong a word; he just wasn’t quite satisfied. But he looked to me rather as if it was just what he’d expected, whatever it was.’

‘I thought she was lovely, in every way,’ Benney exclaimed.

‘Aunty, you couldn’t see all that in his face!’ Clare protested.

‘Oh yes, she could. She’s good at reading faces.’

Mrs. Bennett laughed. ‘Perhaps I imagined it. I don’t suppose we shall ever know. Now, girls!’—as Sir Ivor came to his platform again.

‘I thought they’d take those babies home, when the songs were over,’ Benney murmured.

‘One of them’s going to sleep,’ Clare whispered. ‘The lively one; and the other looks sleepy too. They don’t care about Alwyn’s music. Well, how could they?’

‘I don’t blame them,’ Benney agreed. ‘I don’t like it a bit.’

‘Sir Ivor Quellyn does. He’s always putting Alwyn’s things in his programme. I don’t care for it very much.’

Mrs. Bennett frowned and the girls subsided. Clare tried loyally to follow the difficult music. Benedicta, as before, found her amusement in watching the family group. One twin had fallen asleep on her mother’s lap. The tall girl in white, with yellow hair coiled low on her neck, moved quietly into the place of the second twin and drew the tired child into her arms. The door of the box opened, and Madalena slipped in and sat down behind her friends, and Lady Quellyn greeted her with a smile.

‘Ben! Wake up! Put your coat on!’ Clare scolded, when the concert was over.

‘I was watching those sleepy twins being wakened and put into their coats,’ Benney chuckled. ‘They’re still half asleep. Look, Clare! Green coats and berets; they’re lovely in green!’

‘Come along, girls,’ and Mrs. Bennett led the way out.

One last great satisfaction came to crown the evening for Benedicta. The car was held up for several minutes at Oxford Circus, and next to it in the traffic block was a big saloon; Sir Ivor sat beside the chauffeur, and Lady Quellyn, Madalena and the friend were in the back, with the twins lying sleepily in the arms of their mother and the yellow-haired girl. The windows of both cars were open, and the conversation in the big saloon could be clearly heard.

‘How did it feel?’ Lady Quellyn asked. ‘I was proud of you, Maidie.’

Madalena gave a low laugh. ‘Ivor wasn’t. Did you see how he glared at me? He gave me a dreadful look along with those flowers!’

‘You were just what I expected, Madalena,’ said Sir Ivor over his shoulder. ‘You’re hopeless.’

Madalena laughed again, and the other girl protested. ‘Ivor Quellyn, how can you? She was a great success. They were crazy about her; all the papers will be raving about our new contralto.’

‘I’m well aware of that,’ he retorted. ‘But that’s the end of it. She’ll sing at concerts; I wanted her to go on.’

‘Thanks, Ivor, but I don’t want to go on.’

‘I believe you could do it, if you would,’ he grumbled. ‘Where’s your Italian side? You were all North-Country English to-night, without—— Ah, at last!’

The cars moved on. Benney glanced up at her mother. ‘What did Sir Ivor mean? I suppose we shouldn’t have listened, but I couldn’t help hearing, and there was no harm in it.’

‘I couldn’t hear what they said, Benney.’

‘Lady Quellyn calls her Maidie. He said—oh, that she’d be good enough for concerts, but she couldn’t go on to something else, and she said she didn’t want to. And he said she was hopeless and all North-Country English, without something-or-other; and then we moved on. And the other girl scolded him for scolding her. She—Madalena—didn’t seem a scrap upset that he wasn’t pleased.’

‘I expect he’d like to make her sing in opera, and she isn’t suited to it. She hasn’t a sign of the actress in her, that I could see. Perhaps that’s what he meant.’

‘She isn’t a bit actressy,’ Clare agreed. ‘What a lot I have to tell Mother to-night!’

‘And Jim! He’ll gnash his teeth when he hears what he’s missed,’ Benney chuckled. ‘I am so glad he doesn’t like Sir Ivor Quellyn!’