Four Generations (The Gollantz Family Saga Book 4) Page 6

  With his back to her, his hands very busy with bottles and siphons, Emmanuel asked, ‘And did you go?’

  ‘Having nothing better to do, I went. Oh, my dear, what a marvellous woman! Lovely, lovely, lovely! Wild horses won’t keep me from the Claytons’ on the fifteenth. I didn’t understand one word in ten ‒ all German stuff ‒ and I don’t know much about voices. Bill listened as if he was in church. I wanted Bill to take me round and introduce me, but he pulled down the corners of his mouth and said that he didn’t know, she’d had a long journey, and never talked much after a concert, and generally was rather sniffy. You know her, don’t you?’

  ‘I used to.’

  ‘Could we ask her to dine here ‒ before the Albert Hall Show?’

  ‘I don’t think she’d come. She doesn’t ‒ I imagine ‒ have much in the way of dinner before a concert.’

  ‘Then I must meet her at the Claytons’. She’s heavenly. Oh, you know her, I forgot. Is she nice?’

  ‘She was when I knew her. I met her first when I was about seventeen, I think.’ He stopped speaking because he felt that he was being disloyal to Viva, and yet he could not bring himself to tell her the whole story. Angela had said before they married that it was foolish even to mention it. That it was over, that there had been no ‒ she hesitated and then found the word she wanted ‒ complications. He had been happy and excited about his engagement; it had seemed a solution of everything which was difficult; he had believed that once he was married all memory of Juliet would sink into the limbo of forgotten things ‒ and had agreed.

  Now he would have given a great deal to sit and talk to Viva quite frankly and openly. To have told her how much he liked her, what a good friend she was and always would be, but that his love belonged ‒ as it had done in reality for years ‒ to Juliet. Once he almost mustered sufficient courage to speak, because Viva herself had talked only a few nights ago about courage, and trusting each other, but as he tried to find words, his courage dwindled and died. After all, what was there to say? Simply that he loved her, and was fighting against his inclination to go and see her. If Viva asked, ‘Does she love you? Does she want to see you?’ he could only answer that she had thrown him over two years ago, and that apparently she wanted to avoid seeing him. All very nebulous, tinged with romanticism and sentimentality, reeking of ‘hopeless passion’ and ‘unrequited love’. Slightly ridiculous!

  Viva swung herself off the arm of the big chair and said that she was going to bed.

  ‘I believe that I’m more tired after an early evening than I am after an early morning,’ she said. ‘Good night, Emmanuel, and if you think of making an early start hunting the wily Georgian silver, don’t wake me, there’s a lamb. I’m getting old, and I need my full nine hours.’ She stooped and kissed his hair lightly. He caught her hand and held it.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, smiling down at him.

  ‘Nothing ‒ just ‒ oh, I don’t know. You’re terribly nice, Viva.’

  ‘I am, aren’t I? So are you. I’m not as fundamentally kind as Angela, I’m not as attractive as Amanda, and I’m nothing at all so far as looks go compared with your Forbes woman, but ‒ I am nice.’ She caught his face and held it between her cool palms, turning it up to her. ‘Remember, Emmanuel, my sober-sides, I am distinctly intelligent. Not intellectual, but damned intelligent. Good night, my sweet, sleep well. If I’m awake in the morning, I’ll tell Caroline to let you know.’

  He closed the door behind her, and went back to his chair. There he sat, his hands clasped, trying to fight down the sudden sense of longing for a sight, a sound of Juliet. It seemed that in all London he was the one person who must be denied the right to see and hear her. Bill Masters, Viva, everyone except Emmanuel Gollantz might crowd into the concert halls and listen to her. Then, possibly because it was late, because he was tired, and because he was carrying a weight too heavy for him in the sole management of one of the greatest firms in England, his will weakened and he began to wonder how he might at any rate hear news of her. He couldn’t wait for the morning papers. He wanted to know then and there how she had sung, how good her reception had been, how she looked ‒ anything and everything that appertained to her.

  He looked at his watch; it was only a quarter past eleven. He might quite reasonably telephone to Bill and ask him all he wanted to know. Bill was always ready to talk about Juliet. He might say that Angela wanted to send her flowers, or that he knew that Angela would want to send flowers had she been in England. He might ask where she was staying, might ask a hundred things, and ease this horrible hungry aching to know something of Juliet.

  A quarter past eleven. Talking to Bill on the telephone would certainly only take five minutes at the outside. He couldn’t contemplate going to bed; he almost feared the silence of his room, the sense of loneliness which he knew would possess him. He might walk round to Bill’s flat in Park Crescent, and talk to him for an hour or so. Bill never went to bed until the small hours. Angela always said that the whole family automatically took their worries to Bill Masters.

  He found Watson locking the front door when he went into the hall.

  ‘Leave it,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to go out for half an hour. Don’t any of you wait up for me. I’ve got my key.’

  ‘Very good, sir. Good night.’

  ‘Good night, Watson.’

  The night was very still, the sky cloudless and full of stars. There was more than a touch of frost in the air, and his feet seemed to ring on the pavements as he walked. He kept assuring himself that he was a fool, and then added mentally that he couldn’t help himself. After all, his mother would want to send flowers. She would like to know that anything that could make Juliet’s stay in London more pleasant should be done through one of the Gollantzes. It was so easy, so terribly easy, to justify what he was doing; so dangerously easy. He clenched his hands suddenly and threw back his head as if for the first time he faced things clearly.

  What did he care for what Angela wished? How much did he care about her problematic little kindnesses? Nothing, less than nothing. He wanted news of Juliet and he was going to get it. He’d lost his nerve and given way to an impulse which seemed irresistible. He’d face it, and not try to hide behind excuses and imagined reasons. He might be a fool, he might be all kinds of unworthy things, but he’d at least be honest with himself.

  He turned into the hall of the block of flats where Bill Masters lived. The porter opened the lift and said: ‘Good evening, sir; cold night, isn’t it?’ The lift seemed to whirl him out of the world in which he lived into some other sphere. He caught sight of his face in the little strip of mirror and noticed that his eyes had lost their look of weariness. Involuntarily he smiled at his reflection.

  Bill’s servant, Judson, opened the door to him. Judson was a privileged person, a little stocky ex-soldier who still retained a mania for spit and polish.

  ‘Ah, Mr. Emmanuel!’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Judson. Not too late, am I?’

  Judson grinned. ‘Trifle on the late side, sir, but better late than never.’ He took Emmanuel’s coat and said, ‘Been working overtime sir?’

  Emmanuel nodded. ‘Just a little. Really too lazy to change, Judson.’

  ‘We should worry about that, Mr. Emmanuel,’ Judson said soothingly. ‘My contention being that a gentleman can be a gentleman even without a tail coat and a white shirt. Mr. Masters is in the drawing-room. I’m afraid supper’s over, but if you fancied anything, I don’t doubt as I could fix it.’

  ‘No, that’s all right. I’ll go right in.’

  Judson hurried past him along the long narrow corridor, opened the door and announced, ‘Mr. Emmanuel Gollantz,’ in a tone which would have done credit to a sergeant-major. Emmanuel entered and stood just inside the door surprised and dismayed. The room was full of people ‒ Bill was evidently giving a party. He felt horribly self-conscious as he stood there in his tweed suit, and heard Bill Masters’ voice: ‘I say, this is nice! How splendid!’

  Bill drew him into the room, and his heartiness struck Emmanuel as just a little overdone. Stupid of him not to have telephoned first. Equally stupid of Judson not to have said that there were people there. Still more stupid of Bill to be so damned hearty, because Bill had a perfect right to give parties and not ask all the Gollantz family if he wanted to.

  He said: ‘I’m frightfully sorry, Bill. I didn’t know you were having a party. I thought I’d just slip round for a talk. You must let me go away again at once. I feel like the chap who hadn’t got a wedding garment.’

  Bill said: ‘What nonsense! Come along. Delightful to see you. I’ve been spending the evening with your wife, did she tell you?’

  ‘She did. Said she had enjoyed it tremendously. I’ve been down in the country all day. You see, with my father away ‒’

  He stopped, and said in a new and rather tight voice: ‘I think I’ll get along, Bill. It’s unpardonable to butt in like this.’

  It was little Gilbert who had come forward and stood in front of him; little Gilbert with his fair hair and nervous manner, smiling and holding out his hand, saying as he did so, ‘My dear young man, how very pleasant!’

  Juliet did not move. She stood leaning against the piano, her face expressionless, her eyes never ceasing to watch the tall, good-looking young man who looked down at Gilbert and murmured some polite commonplace. He had not changed. Perhaps he looked a little older, his face had lost its almost boyish curves, and his eyes were graver. His mouth did not seem to smile so easily, and his whole bearing recalled old Emmanuel very plainly. There had been a second’s dismay when Gillie spoke, then he had mastered himself, and was talking to Gillie as if it was the most ordinary meeting in the world. She caught her breath. In a moment Gillie would bring Emmanuel to her,
he would take her hand, she would hear his voice again, listen to his queer little unEnglish trick of rolling his ‘r’s’, and be forced to remember that everything was changed. He was married, settled down, a partner in a great business ‒ happy, successful, established.

  Then a little spurt of anger flared against him. She had written to Angela, had tried to tell her that she didn’t want to meet him, she had even hinted as much to Bill when he broached the idea of a supper party after the concert. Was Emmanuel so dense, so insensitive, so cruel that he actually wanted to make difficulties for her? Angela had written that he would be in Paris during her visit, that he was taking his wife there for a holiday. She had felt secure, safe and almost content. Now he appeared, obviously uninvited, to disturb her peace and force her to remember those things which she had tried so hard for the past two years to forget.

  He stood, his head held very high, and across the room his eyes met hers. Very calmly, unhurried and apparently very much master of himself, he came towards her and stood before her.

  ‘How are you, Emmanuel?’

  ‘Ver-ry well, and you?’

  ‘A little tired, but very well, and delighted that London hasn’t forgotten me.’

  ‘There are some things which even London cannot accomplish.’

  Bill limped up to them. ‘Lucky his turning up like this,’ he said. ‘He wants to go, but I tell him that’s out of the question. You’ll agree with me, I know, Juliet.’

  ‘Of course. How is Angela? And Max? I was so sorry to miss them.’

  ‘Angela is very well, and I heard this morning that my father is better. I r-really came round to find your address, because my wife, who was at the Queen’s Hall tonight with Bill, wondered if you’d dine with us one evening.’

  His voice, his very attitude, were formal; only his little nervous trick of doubling his ‘r’s’ showed her that he was not quite so detached as he seemed. His wife ‒ surely, though, that was a little unnecessary. He might have found some other excuse.

  ‘How kind, but I’m afraid it won’t be possible. It’s terribly difficult to keep any time free, and I’m singing again the day after tomorrow and again on the fifteenth. On the sixteenth I go back to Paris. I’m dreadfully disappointed. I’m sure she’s charming.’

  ‘Then we are all three disappointed, myself, my wife and you. I mustn’t keep you, other people will be hating me. Good night.’

  He moved away, his heart beating very heavily. She hadn’t changed. She was as lovely as ever, her voice was still the most perfect music in the world, but it had been like talking to her through a thick curtain ‒ heartbreaking. They had stood saying nothing, nothing, nothing, only uttering commonplaces. She had not given the smallest sign that she remembered anything; she seemed to wish to assure him that she had forgotten, that she was glad to have forgotten.

  Gilbert was at his side again, asking if he wasn’t going to have a drink. Babbling on, as he used to do two years and more ago. Kindly, silly Gilbert, who was the finest accompanist in the world, Juliet said. ‘A clever man wouldn’t be nearly so good,’ she had said once when Emmanuel had declared that Gilbert was almost a half-wit. ‘He has no definite personality, and so mine never suffers as it might if he were clever at anything except his own job.’

  Once when Emmanuel took out his cigarette-case, Gilbert laid a hand on his arm and said in what Emmanuel remembered Juliet called his rather ‘churchy voice’:

  ‘Do you mind, not yet? I believe that she’s going to sing. Old Lord Rendal is here. He’s very old, and he’s a great friend. She likes to please him.’

  Emmanuel thought, ‘I can’t bear it ‒ I can’t bear it. I must get away. If she sings I’m done. If I can get away, almost hating her, I might be safe. O God, don’t let her sing.’

  But a moment later she made a sign to Gilbert, who walked over to her and sat down at the piano. Emmanuel never forgot the scene. Juliet, tall and slim, her face rather white, her eyes never meeting his; Bill Masters leaning on his stick, frowning a little as if something puzzled or worried him; and old Rendal seated in a gilt armchair, his hands, with their knotted veins showing plainly, grasping the arms, his thin neck stretched forward towards the piano as if he could not bear to miss a single note. Round the walls, people ‒ to Emmanuel they seemed to be only ghosts ‒ clustered to listen. They had no real individuality. No one in the room was real except Juliet, and because of her ‒ Gillie, Masters, and old Rendal, who belonged to a past age anyhow, and who was almost a ghost already.

  She bent down, as he had seen her do a hundred times, and said something to Gillie, who nodded and whispered something back. Then, as she stood upright, she looked across at Emmanuel and for one brief fraction of a second smiled. In that flash it seemed to Emmanuel that she had explained everything. He felt that the curtain which had hung between them had been rent in two, and that the whole world was flooded with sunshine.

  She sang a song which old Emmanuel had loved, ‘Das Lied im Grünen’, and it seemed to his grandson that old Rendal’s figure changed as he listened in to the magnificent body of the first English-speaking Gollantz. To his excited imagination, he seemed to be back at Ordingly with his mother and father, with Leon Hast, Bill Masters, and old Emmanuel ‒ listening. The song ended, and he almost heard his grandfather’s voice saying, ‘Dear Schubert ‒ and dear Juliet. Thank you both.’

  Then the dream ended and once again he found her watching him, though she spoke to Rendal, smiled and laughed at what he said. She was leaving. He saw her move towards the door, with people crowding round, almost like a royal progress. He turned and followed her and Bill Masters into the hall.

  Bill said, ‘Going, Emmanuel?’

  ‘I must, I have to work early. Good night, Bill, and thank you for letting me stay for your lovely party.’

  ‘Thank Juliet, my boy.’

  ‘I do,’ he said gravely; ‘she knows that I do. May I take you down?’

  They passed to the lift in silence, in silence they descended, and only when they reached the car which was waiting, Emmanuel spoke.

  ‘Juliet, may I see you again? I won’t worry you, my dear. Only there are things which I want terr-ribly to say to you.’

  ‘Must you say them?’

  ‘I think so ‒ I can’t help myself.’

  ‘Then tomorrow at four. I am staying at Lauderdale House.’

  ‘Good night, Juliet.’

  ‘Good night, Emmanuel.’

  Chapter 6

  Emmanuel woke the next morning, having only fallen asleep when dawn was breaking, with his mind swinging between content at the prospect of seeing Juliet and a sense of disloyalty to Viva. He knew that it was sufficiently easy to justify his visit. She was an old friend, he had known her for years ‒ Viva knew that, and would certainly raise no objection. But there were the other facts which Viva did not know, and which he could not ‒ after two years’ silence ‒ bring himself to tell her. Two years ago it might have been relatively easy, now it was almost impossible. On the other hand, he felt that he might with some justice consider his own mental attitude. For nearly three years he had tried, both consciously and by filling his life with other interests, to forget Juliet. He had failed, and even before he heard that she was coming to London his desperate need of her, his longing to see her again, had grown unbearable.

  He was twenty-nine. He had made ‒ apart from his father’s position ‒ a place for himself in the world of connoisseurs. He was married, and it might be that a meeting with Juliet would prove to him that, when faced with reality, he had outgrown his love for her. With a kind of cold brutality, which had something of the strength of despair in it, he told himself that Juliet was ten years older than he was. Three years ago she had been thirty-five, now she was nearly forty. A meeting with her might show him that age did make a difference, a difference which nothing could render insignificant.

  Scarcely knowing which section of his thoughts had been honest and which sophistry, Emmanuel dressed slowly, and knew that he was taking additional trouble over his appearance. Always carefully, even rather eccentrically, dressed, he discarded first one thing and then another until he found the exact clothes which pleased him. All the time the less devious side of his nature pleaded with him to be wise, to be honest; while the other side ‒ the side in which imagination played so large a part ‒ applauded his care and attention concerning his appearance.