The Curtain Rises Read online

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  Nicola had everything in life to look forward to, when the brilliant young musician Brian Coverdale implied that he would be asking her to marry him as soon as he returned from his tour to Canada. But Brian never came back; and Nicola's life was shattered when she learned that he had died suddenly. She was fortunate to be offered a post just then as secretary to a world-famous opera singer, for such a fascinating job would certainly help her to take her mind off her troubles, and introduce her to a new world of music and interesting people. But almost the first thing it did was bring Nicola into contact with the one man in the world she least wanted to meet—the man who had been responsible for Brian's death.

  The Curtain Rises

  by

  Mary Burchell

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nicola stopped in the middle of a sentence, raised her head and listened. Then she pushed her machine from her and abandoned any further attempt to work. For to tap typewriter keys while That Voice was singing seemed nothing less than sacrilege.

  Muffled though it might be by distance and a closed door, exercising itself on no more than scales and vocalises, it still remained the voice for which all-night queues gathered and opera directors battled. To Nicola it was, quite simply, the most beautiful sound she had ever heard; and the fact that she could nowadays hear it almost any day of the week took nothing from its magic for her.

  Gina Torelli had been something of a legend in the family ever since Nicola's silent, rather saturnine uncle had married her. People said he had looked after her busi­ness affairs and unravelled her tax tangles so expertly that she had married him just to keep his financial wizardry permanently available. But, whatever the truth of that might be, they had lived abroad since their marriage, so that in those early years Nicola had had no personal knowledge of her famous aunt and only a vague recollection of the uncle who had occasionally appeared at her Warwickshire home during her childhood.

  Nicola's father was a busy family doctor, with a great sense of humour, a shrewd judgment of people and a warm affection for his wife and only daughter. Her mother was a darling, with no sense of humour at all but the kindest heart in the world. Nicola loved them both very much and it had been a great wrench to leave them when she finally went to London to earn her own living with a well-known secretarial agency.

  She had been very homesick at first, and frequently went home for long week-ends. But then she met Brian Coverdale, and the whole pattern of her life changed. He was a brilliantly promising young viola player in one of the leading London orchestras, and people already spoke of him as a coming soloist.

  'One day,' he told Nicola, with an eager self-confi­dence based on dedication rather than vanity, 'one day I'm going to be the greatest viola player in the world.' And, if she secretly thought he was just that already, she admitted to herself that she was not unprejudiced.

  He opened the world of music for her and, under his sometimes indulgent, sometimes impatient guidance, she attended orchestral concerts, sampled chamber music and came to know many of the great names of the musical world. More on her own—since string players can seldom assess voices—she also began to go to the opera, dazzled by her first contact with that strange, glamorous, hybrid world where music and drama meet.

  Since Brian did not share her enthusiasm here, she hid from him the fact that this side of music fascinated her more than any other. But he was most flatteringly im­pressed when she said casually one day that Gina Torelli was her aunt.

  'Your aunt! Darling girl, she couldn't possibly be anyone's aunt. It just doesn't go with the Torelli image.'

  'She married my uncle, so that makes her my aunt,' insisted Nicola with a smile. 'I believe he had a genius for figures and—'

  'Of course, of course! He's the financial wizard in the background, isn't he? They say he doubled her fortune for her, and that must be something! How fascinating. Whatever do you call her when you meet?'

  'We've never met,' said Nicola.

  'Never met? You mean you have a family string to Torelli and you never pulled it? My dear, what do you do with your time?'

  'She's never been to England since her marriage,' pro­tested Nicola. 'How could I meet her?'

  'I should have thought—' Brian gave his quick, in­fectious smile which soothed her momentary annoyance— 'it would have been worth a trip to Paris or Rome or Madrid or almost anywhere for the chance of calling Torelli "Auntie". But never mind. She is coming to Lon­don towards the end of the year, I understand. You must make up for lost time then and introduce me to her.'

  Charmed to be connected with someone who so ob­viously interested Brian, Nicola promised that indeed she would. And in order to familiarize herself more exactly with her famous relative she bought a couple of Torelli records.

  About every great voice there is something utterly indi­vidual. Good voices may be confused with each other. Great voices never. And Torelli's voice was like nothing else Nicola had ever heard. Though soprano in range, it had the dark, exciting quality more often associated with a mezzo, and though it was beautiful in the extreme, no one would ever have said conventionally of Torelli that she 'sang like an angel'. In point of fact, she sang like a beautiful, disturbing devil, which possibly accounted for her immense following.

  'She's good on stage too,' Brian Coverdale told Nicola. 'I saw her once in Vienna. It's an extraordinary experi­ence. There's a combination of flawless technique and a sort of elemental force. I'm really curious to meet her.'

  'I'm glad!' Nicola smiled at him and thought there was nothing in the world she loved better than the occa­sional evening like this one, when Brian found time to come to her small flat and she cooked a delicious little meal for them both and they talked together or listened to records.

  'You're the most restful and yet stimulating person I know,' he told her. 'The kind of person every artist asks God on his knees for.'

  'Why every artist?' asked Nicola lightly, while she hoped he had no idea how breathless she suddenly felt.

  'Because with the nerve-strain of a tough career—the elation and depression, the rapture and terror—the only thing which gives one both inspiration and tranquillity is to have someone at home with just the right qualities. Someone who knows how and when to encourage or criticize, sympathize or act as a spur—Oh, everything! We all feel the same. Sometimes it's a parent or a sister. Sometimes,' he said thoughtfully, 'it's a wife or a hus­band!'

  'Is it?' said Nicola in an unintentionally small voice.

  'Darling—' he took her hand suddenly and held it against his cheek—'when I come back from this Canadian tour, we'll talk of the future and make plans, shall we?'

  'Yes—please.' She looked at him with no concealment of her feelings then, and he drew her towards him and gave her a long, long kiss.

  She was so thrilled, so happy, so radiantly hopeful for the future, that she felt no premonition of any shadow when she waved him off on his plane three days later. She knew that this Canadian tour with his orchestra offered the most exciting prospect which had yet come his way, for he was to be the soloist in three of the most im­portant concerts at an international festival.

  There were one or two postcards from him, describing in no more than a few sentences his first successes. Then there was a gap, followed by a short letter saying he had caught a chill but hoped to be well in a day or two. He was staying behind in Montreal while the orchestra journeyed on, but he would be flying to join them in a few days.

  The next, unbelievable, news she read in print, under the stark heading, 'Celebrated Orchestral Player Dies on Tour.'

  She was in a bus, on the way home from the office, when she noticed the paragraph in the evening paper, and the name Brian Coverdale leapt out
at her from the page. For a minute or two the absolute numbness of horror and unbelief kept anguish at bay. With one layer of her mind she recognized her bus stop, and with the detached deliberation of a sleep-walker she somehow covered the short distance from the bus stop to her flat.

  Only when she was at last at home, and stood blankly staring round the little sitting-room which suddenly seemed utterly empty, did the full significance of the terrible news hit her.

  This was where they had sat so often together. There was the table where they had shared their meals and on which they had leaned their elbows in happy argument and discussion. Here they had been so unknowingly happy together, with all the years in front of them, all the future to plan.

  And now there was no future. No Brian. Nothing.

  Without even taking off her coat, she sagged down in the chair where he used to sit and, with ice-cold hands, spread out the newspaper again and read the meagre de­tails once more.

  He had died of pneumonia in Toronto, after playing with immense success under the conductorship of Julian Evett, the brilliant young Canadian conductor. He would never, after all, be the greatest viola player in the world.

  For several weeks Nicola went round in a sort of terrible dream. Outwardly she was calm, she did her work con­scientiously, she even went about and saw her friends. But inwardly she was dead.

  'You look terribly peaky, dear,' her mother said when she went home for a week-end. 'You haven't been trying to slim or anything silly like that, have you?'

  'No, Mother. I've been a bit under the weather, that's all. I'll be all right now. There's been a lot of work in the last few weeks, but our busiest time is over.'

  'You probably need a tonic. You'd better speak to your father!'

  But there was no need to speak to her father. He took a long look at her and asked, 'What's hit you so badly, chick?'

  She tried to say that nothing had. But then she broke down and cried desolately. And after a while she told him the whole story. How she and Brian loved each other and had meant to plan their marriage on his return from Canada. But now he was dead, and there would be no return and no plan.

  Dr. Denby stroked his bright hair and said, 'I won't try to offer any easy sympathy, my dear. Everyone's grief is so terribly personal, however sorry other people may be. But I'll tell you from my own long experience that there's a certain period you just have to live through before you painfully find a new pattern of life. And the easiest way to get through that first difficult period is to have a few short-term plans that truly interest and appeal to you. What would you really like to do in, say, the next three months?'

  Nicola wanted to say there was nothing she would like to do except go on thinking of Brian and hugging her nostalgic memories. But she felt instinctively that her father would regard that as spineless, so she hesitated, lost for words.

  'What,' asked her father patiently, 'is the thing which most interests you nowadays?'

  'Oh, music—' Nicola began. Then she bit her lip hard because of course every note of music she heard brought poignant reminders of Brian.

  'Music?' Her father thoughtfully sorted through some letters on his desk.

  'But it makes me cry just to listen to it now!' she ex­claimed.

  'That will pass,' her father assured her calmly. 'Music?— hm. Here's a letter from your Uncle Peter. It seems he's been ordered away on a long cruise for his health, so he won't be coming to England when his famous wife comes. He writes to ask if I know any entirely discreet, reliable secretary-companion to be with her during her stay in this country. How about it?'

  'How about what?' Nicola looked inquiring. And then— 'Me? Do you mean that I should take it on? But, Dad, I'm not old enough or responsible enough for—'

  'Of course you are,' said her father coolly. 'Most effi­cient and responsible girl I know. Stop being so prissy and cowardly. The woman's only your aunt, when all's said and done.'

  'Oh, she's not! She's an international celebrity. One of the greatest singers in the world. Why, people are ready to give their eye-teeth to hear and see her.'

  'Well, here's your chance of doing both, at close quarters—and keeping your teeth intact, into the bar­gain,' said Dr. Denby. 'I should have thought it was an offer to be seized with both hands if you say you're so interested in music'

  'Do you really think—?' Suddenly a pale little smile flitted over Nicola's face, and for the first time for weeks a flash of almost passionate interest lit her wide grey eyes. 'I'm supposed to be pretty good at my job.' All at once courage and resolution surged high, and sheer curiosity began to tingle within her. 'When is she coming, Dad?'

  'Next week.'

  'So soon? Brian said—' she checked for a moment over that, for it reminded her painfully of his boyish delight over the prospect of meeting Gina Torelli.

  'She's coming to England for business discussions first, your uncle says.' Dr. Denby consulted the letter again. 'There'll be concerts and operatic appearances later. She might stay on, or go back to Paris in between. If you and she took to each other, you could make what long-term plans you chose. At least it's worth an inquiry, isn't it? She's taking a furnished apartment in Portland Place. Here's the address.' And Nicola's father handed over the letter.

  Fascinated by now, Nicola studied the two-page letter, written in her uncle's small, meticulous handwriting.

  'Yes,' she said, and her smile was sparkling and full of interest. 'It's well worth an inquiry at least. Thank you, Daddy.'

  And, even before she returned to London, she wrote briefly but cordially to her famous relative, referring to her uncle's letter and offering herself for the post of secretary-companion. Lest she should be thought to be presuming on the remote family tie, she enclosed par­ticulars of the agency for which she worked, so that her credentials could be checked.

  Four days later, when she was alone in her flat, some­one with a strong French accent telephoned to say she was Madame Torelli's maid, and would Nicola please call between six-thirty and seven the following evening?

  By the time Nicola kept her appointment her sense of curious expectancy was high. A maid—obviously the one who had telephoned, for the foreign accent was much in evidence—admitted her, ushered her into an extremely handsome drawing-room and, with a slightly wintry smile, said that Madame would be with her in a minute.

  Left alone, Nicola looked round and found to her sur­prise that there was nothing in the least impersonal about this furnished apartment. From the photographs and per­sonal belongings scattered about, Gina Torelli might have been living here for years. And Nicola, who had not yet been introduced to Torelli's unique capacity for making everything a background for her own personality, was impressed by what seemed to her a minor miracle.

  She was just examining a particularly fine signed photo­graph of the famous conductor, Oscar Warrender, when a slight sound behind her made her turn. Gina Torelli stood framed in the doorway, but she moved forward immediately. That infinitesimal pause before the entry gave a touch of drama to the simple action, and in that moment Nicola slid instantaneously (and willingly) into the slightly unreal world which surrounds the true prima donna.

  'My dear child—' The singer's really beautiful hands closed around Nicola's with warmth and surprising strength. 'So you are Peter's little niece?'

  Even then Nicola noticed that she was not Madame Torelli's little niece. But it was a passing awareness, for she was almost immediately overwhelmed by the per­sonality of the woman who stood before her. There was no real beauty in the strictest sense of the term, in spite of magnificent dark eyes and quite wonderful teeth, but Nicola could not imagine that when this woman entered a room anyone else had the slightest hope of being noticed.

  Because of her superb carriage and her air of authority she seemed taller than she really was, and she emanated a sense of strength and vitality which instantly recalled Brian's reference to 'an elemental force'. Everything about her was healthy and fit. Her skin was fine, her eyes clea
r, her hair—though probably not its original colour—springy and full of life, and she moved with the ease and strength of an athletic girl.

  All this was not taken in during that first moment of greeting, of course. But when Nicola thought about her afterwards, each fascinating detail could be recalled to perfection. The impression Gina Torelli made on people was never a vague one. For good or ill she impressed her­self ruthlessly on friend and foe alike.

  She made Nicola sit down on a wide sofa and, still keeping one hand in hers, sat down beside her and examined her with frank interest.

  'You're not at all like Peter,' she said.

  'I'm more like my mother's side of the family,' explained Nicola.

  'Ah, yes. A dear creature, Peter said, but not much sense. Still, we can't all have the same qualities,' observed Torelli broad-mindedly. 'So you would like to be my secretary?'

  'I should love it!' Nicola was slightly surprised at her own enthusiasm. 'If you think I would do, that is.'

  'Your agency speaks well of you.' There was obviously nothing of the vague artist about the inquiries she had made. 'But then no agency speaks less than well of the people it offers, I suppose. Still, you wrote me a pleasing letter, you have a pretty speaking voice, and you are nice to look at. All important points. Do you know anything about music?'

  'Only in the sense that I can read it reasonably well, and that I am an enthusiastic concert and opera-goer.'

  'It is enough. Do you play or sing?'

  'I'm afraid not.'

  'Don't apologize. I would not have taken you if you had. The real professional finds the self-confident amateur insupportably boring and offensive. It is always some reedy little chorister who will insist on telling you where Caruso went wrong.'

  Nicola laughed. At which Madame Torelli looked slightly surprised, but then she laughed too. A sound so inexpressibly deep and beautiful that Nicola was en­chanted.

  'I suppose it is rather funny,' she agreed. 'Though it infuriates one too,' she added. And the dark overtones of her voice when she said that made Nicola wonder immedi­ately what happened when this woman was infuriated.