James, Mrs Chalvey’s butler, mounted the staircase which led to the studio with more than his usual air of importance. At the door he turned on the pair who were humbly and silently following him, and demanded their names, with a look which was intended not only to annihilate them but at the same time to deny their very existence. He conveyed both admirably.
‘Mr Kosminski,’ the young man stammered.
‘And Miss Isaacovitch,’ added the young woman with spirit.
‘Yes, and Miss Isaacovitch,’ the young man agreed hastily.
‘Good Lord!’ James conveyed, and opened the door with a slightly overdone flourish.
Mr Kosminski carried a violin and a case of music. He was small and rather shabby, but carefully brushed and heavily pomaded. James had rightly considered quite deplorable the hat he had handled in the hall with such exaggerated care.
Nina Isaacovitch was tall and sallow. Her black hair trailed down her long neck on to her shoulders, thick and straight. Yet she was picturesque with her discoloured blue velvet frock and the flowing cape which, though poor as to material, was cut by a master hand. A velvet cap was pulled down over a pair of gleaming eyes.
It was evident that the visit to Mrs Chalvey was regarded by these two people as of immense importance. There was a tenseness about them, a summoning of all their forces, physical and moral, as they were delivered from the unfriendly hands of James, and launched upon the shining floor of Mrs Chalvey’s famous studio. Mrs Chalvey herself, in a stiff grey gown enriched by ropes of pearls, came graciously forward to meet them, just in time to save Mr Kosminski from slipping on the endless parquet. She was an Edwardian survival, but still had the ear of the big impresarios, and her influence could help or hinder a career.
‘Now let me see,’ she said with the kind, vague air that can be so chilling. ‘It was Mr Duren who wrote to me about you, wasn’t it? Yes, of course. He heard you in Paris. You are a violinist and your wife the pianist? Is that right?’
‘My fiancée, not my wife; and she is the violinist.’
‘Ah, yes, to be sure. Now perhaps you will play at once?’ She smiled bleakly at Nina, who wondered why she was reminded of an iced cake with silver decorations that could be seen in shop windows but had nothing inside.
It was a little bit depressing to realise that to Mrs Chalvey this visit was of so little importance that she was scarcely aware of their identity, but they cheered up when they reached the sanctuary of the piano and Nina took out her violin. As she stood tuning it she glanced round the room and observed that there was an audience of about ten people and notably a lady of Mrs Chalvey’s age and type, who sat beside her hostess with an air of importance.
Nina had developed plenty of bad habits in the Montmartre cabaret where Duren had heard her play. He was an amateur musician always in search of original talent, and he was impressed by the rather diabolical personality of the girl. There was something of Paganini in her. He recognised a true gift under the slap-dash interpretation of cheap music, and concluded that necessity had driven a good artist to such work. Sitting at his table sipping champagne she had told him a lurid life history of which he believed much less than half. He was familiar enough with the exuberant temperaments which have to romanticise everything, most of all themselves, and his inductions from her spirited narrative of spies and revolutionaries were that she was Polish Jew by birth, had, judging by her English accent, grown up in Whitechapel or thereabouts, and had learnt her art from a well-known violinist who was interested enough to teach her for nothing, but who had unfortunately died.
‘That is my fiancé, Mr Kosminski,’ she had said as the little man sat down at the piano and played some brilliant syncopation. ‘It’s not his job either. Joe is a fine pianist and studied at the London College — got all his diplomas too. We’re only just filling in here a six weeks’ engagement. Then we go to London for some serious concerts. No, we aren’t engaged for any yet, but we got letters from Joe’s teacher to some agents. So we ought to be all right.’
It was then that Duren thought of Mrs Chalvey, who was always so delighted to discover unusual artists. He was a little dubious, however, for in spite of the girl’s striking appearance they were hardly presentable. The little man, having finished his turn, had come and sat at the table. There was an eager, anxious look at the back of his full brown eyes, and his gratitude at the suggestion of an introduction to Mrs Chalvey was embarrassingly fervid. Duren always acted on impulse, especially in Montmartre, and the musicians had gone to their lodgings that night with a letter to Mrs Chalvey in Nina’s handbag.
And now here they were in her studio, playing the first movement of the Spring Sonata to an audience which, until the first repeat, had been attentive enough, but showed signs of boredom that were not lost on Nina, as soon as the novelty of their appearance had worn off. It was a mistake to play Beethoven; neither artist had recovered from the cabaret, and their own consciousness of this subdued their playing, so that their interpretation of the sonata was dull, and they were both ridiculously nervous. Nina should have played one of her flashy pieces to rouse an audience which was almost exclusively concerned with waiting until she had finished so that its own turn should come sooner. The important-looking lady, who was later addressed as Lady Gertrude, was most restless of all, her eyes continually turning to a fair young man with a pale tie, who smiled wanly at her each time he caught her glance.
Only one person in the room was apparently absorbed in the music. Boris Ivanovitch Petrov — a large, impressive figure occupying a small gold chair that seemed about to collapse. His heavy Slav face, with its deep sunk eyes and pointed brows, drew Nina’s attention. That strange brooding face reminded her of Beethoven’s death mask, and there was scarcely more life in it. She thought that here, at any rate, was someone who was listening to her playing. As a fact he was not. His gaze was fixed, but his mind was far away.
A stanza of his long poem was floating like a nebula in the dark profundity of his mind — his long poem in terza rima which was dedicated to Russia, the Russia that was no more, that he would never see again. His own life from his first moments was in that poem, and the first verse told how an uncle, bending over the newborn child, had been heard to say:
‘Poor little ugly creature, why on earth were you born?’
Why indeed? he would ask himself now.
He was a singer because he had a splendid voice and it seemed to be his only saleable gift. He had worked tremendously hard with his training for three years, but he, too, had been driven to work that was beneath him, and had suffered humiliations which had sent him raging from the offices of cinema proprietors, restaurants, night clubs and the like. It was always the same story:
‘We’ll give you a trial, but you must get some more attractive stuff. These French and Russian songs are all very well, and the Volga Boat Song always goes down well. But get some of Guy Hardlot’s things …’
‘No, I cannot, I will not sing “Because”!’ he would shout to the four walls of his small room. But he did, and heard with disgust the applause that greeted the opening chords of his most successful number, sung in a broken English which his audiences found quite attractive.
Fortunately his pride was consoled by the friendship of some of the exiled aristocrats of old Russia. They were ready to listen with rapture and tears to the songs of their lost country, and Boris spent many Sundays at an old country house which had survived in the outskirts of London, and where a hospitality that faintly recalled the glories of the past could be found. Those were comforting days for Boris, who moved large and serene, understood, approved, among people he could admire, pacing the old autumnal garden, acrid-scented on a golden afternoon, once (would he ever forget it?) by the side of a little woman for whom he had afterwards sung in the faded drawing-room. The still figures listening, reverently grouped round the little woman, seemed to fade and become infinitely remote in the creeping darkness.
A cheque had come to Boris a few days later.
‘Please give a concert,’ she wrote.
He had given it, of course, in one of the minor concert halls, and after his first song she had entered quietly with a companion, and taken her seat (which she had bought) in the front row. Boris had come down from the platform and bent over the hand of his royal benefactress, and received her sorrowful smile.
☙
But the cheque had not been adequate, though it had almost emptied the purse of its donor. Boris lost over the concert and had to sing ‘Because’ for a week at a restaurant to make it up. The only tangible result of the concert was an introduction to Mrs Chalvey, and, though he had not the slightest hope that anything would come of it, he presented himself on the day appointed, and found himself seated on a gold chair while Joe and Nina played Beethoven.
As soon as they had done Mrs Chalvey rushed at them and thanked them with cold effusiveness. She did not, nor was she going to, ask them to play again. ‘Duren must have been drunk,’ she thought to herself, as she deposited them on two more gold chairs, and that, as far as she was concerned, was the end of them. The turn of the fair young man had come. He had a sweetly pretty tenor which he kept modestly in his throat, while Mrs Chalvey and Lady Gertrude exchanged delighted glances.
‘What do you think of Peter?’
‘Enchanting!’ murmured Mrs Chalvey, who knew as well as anyone that voices should not be allowed to lurk in throats, but who found the person of the blonde Reter quite up to the standard of Lady Gertrude’s numerous protégés. Besides, she saw in him another pupil for her own more than protégé.
‘A few lessons with Victor. That’s all he wants!’ she cried when the audition was finished. Lady Gertrude was prepared for this; the principle of these two friends had always been mutually to live and let live, and, though Lady Gertrude allowed her fancy to rove more extensively than Mrs Chalvey, who had refused to wander beyond Victor for a surprising number of years, the freemasonry existing between them had never been disturbed.
As Lady Gertrude was about to leave, followed by Peter, Boris, with the rest, rose from his gold chair. The undoubling of this huge figure brought a faint gasp from Lady Gertrude who had been sitting with her back to the room when he had made his entrance, and had not seen him before.
‘WHO IS THIS?’ she flashed to Mrs Chalvey.
Quick as lightning her friend called to her, for she was already at the door:
‘Won’t you stay and hear Mr Petrov sing, my dear?’
Nodding graciously she sat down again near the door, and Boris, who felt that something must be done about that blonde young man and his pretensions, sang Prince Igor’s Song for all he was worth.
‘Mais, c’est épatant!’ cried Lady Gertrude. In her moments of transport she always used French.
Boris was in the mood today, but he was not always in the mood, and that was the trouble. Emotion, deeply buried in the vast architecture of his personality, concealed as it were in a crypt, was not easily called forth. He should never have been a singer, for he had no facility of self-expression. Only on occasions could he get as much as he felt into his singing; this was one of them. Partly it was the challenge of the blonde young man and partly, yes, a great deal, the sympathetic interest already shown in him by the strange little Kosminski pair. They had all sat together while Peter performed and the glances they had exchanged brought them nearer than weeks of conversation.
‘This is imbecile!’ Boris was thinking. ‘This is not singing. What is it? Who is this ridiculous young man who makes a fool of himself and us?’
It had been obvious that Joe and Nina agreed.
Then, for lack of an accompanist, Joe played for Boris, ecstatic and respectful.
Lady Gertrude called Boris to her as soon as he had finished, and meanwhile Mrs Chalvey had told as much of his history as she knew in what was scarcely a whisper. This was highly satisfactory to Lady Gertrude, for all her friend could tell her was that he had lately given a concert which had been royally attended and supported by all the important members of the Russian colony.
‘You must come and see me,’ said Lady Gertrude. ‘I must run away now, but here is my card. Come next Wednesday at three o’clock.’
Peter, the fair young man, was uncertain at first whether to charm Boris or to sulk, but as it was immediately obvious that he could not coax a gleam from those eyes, which had already begun to look inwards again, he decided to sulk. Boris produced his own card, and Lady Gertrude took it tenderly and tucked it into her bag. Peter flung open the door, Lady Gertrude stared through Joe and Nina with an insolence that not even James the butler could have achieved, and, with bows and smiles for everyone else, swept out, Peter scowling at her heels.
The afternoon had fallen to pieces by this time, and such fragments as Joe and Nina were evidently expected to scatter. Boris went with them, as soon as he realised that they were not going to be asked to play again. They had become more forlorn as the afternoon advanced and the failure of their appearance was made manifest.
As soon as they were in the street Joe became almost tearful.
‘That’s the end of that. Nothing doing. She might have given us another chance.’
‘The old bitch!’ was all that Nina said, her eyes burning with the rage that had been so long suppressed.
‘You must not notice these people,’ said Boris soothingly. ‘They are of no account at all. Dreadful vulgar people. Dreadful old woman.’
‘That’s no good. They’re the people what get us on or not. We oughtn’t ever to have gone, Nini. I won’t have you insulted.’ At this thought he actually did burst into tears. The whole afternoon had been designed to humiliate them, from the hateful arrogance of the butler James to the urgency with which they were frozen out of the studio.
‘Perhaps you will come and practise with me?’ suggested Boris, as soon as Joe’s tears had been quenched by a few stern words from Nina. ‘I need an accompanist every day, for I must study many new songs. I cannot pay much, you know. Perhaps later —’
He wondered whether Lady Gertrude would be any use to him after all. Not much hope, he thought. Joe was consoled by his suggestion, and promised to come next day.
When Boris had disappeared into a tube station, Joe said to Nina:
‘That’s a very fine man. A very great gentleman, Nina my darling. The best man we have ever met, so we got something out of that old woman who insulted you after all. That old devil, she doesn’t know and she wouldn’t care, curse her. To think that you were never asked to play again —!’
‘Oh, stop that, Joe. What does it matter? I didn’t want to play again. Why d’you keep on?’
‘Nini, let us get married! Let us have a wedding at once!’
‘Whatever for?’ asked the practical Nina. ‘We’re all right as we are, aren’t we?’
‘No, we’re not. I shall go and get a licence tomorrow, and we’ll have a proper wedding, with a cake and refreshments afterwards. I’ve got five pounds saved and shall spend it all on the wedding. You shall wear a white dress and everyone shall see you as a bride.’
‘And who’s everyone, I should like to know?’
‘I shall send invites to all our relations. Your uncle Leon and my uncle Nathan and their families. Then there’s the artists we know; they’d come. And perhaps our new friend Mr Petrov.’
Marrying Nina had suddenly become imperative, long though it had been delayed. To do Joe justice, she herself had been responsible for continual postponements. Now he would have no more nonsense; he must be able to say to such people as Mrs Chalvey: ‘You dare to insult my wife!’ Besides, this splendid new friend of theirs must be exhibited to all their relations and acquaintances.
Nina, amused and rather touched by Joe’s enthusiasm, consented to a registry office wedding and began to make herself a white frock. Her father, for all the romantic mystery that she had woven round him, had been in reality a small East End tailor, and one of the last garments he had made was the cape which Nina wore over her blue dress. She inherited a gift for cutting and her own taste was original. Joe bought some good material cheap, and she cut and stitched with the ardour of a craftsman who has found something worthwhile. Joe was certainly doing things well.
Every afternoon he turned up at Boris’s rooms and played for an hour on the miniature piano which was so ridiculously out of proportion to the voice it accompanied. Boris was kind but remote; he felt sorry for this poor little Jew who was so anxious, but he did not want to get intimate.
Joe’s happiest hours were spent in the little room, with its few books, which from much tender handling had each attained a personality, so that the shelf which held them seemed to radiate life, with its comfortable impression of good taste routing the commonness of furnished rooms. Perhaps he was conscious of the racial barrier, or perhaps his admiration for Boris came so near to hero worship that he was never quite at his ease with him. Whatever the reason might be, he could not bring himself to tell him about the wedding until a few days before the date.
‘Will you do us the honour to come? It is on the eighth, and we have a reception in my rooms afterwards.’
‘The eighth? That is too bad. Alas! I cannot come. I am singing at Lady Gertrude’s At Home that afternoon.’
Joe’s look of agonised disappointment startled Boris. But he could have no idea how bitter this moment was. It was impossible to alter the date; everything was inexorably fixed, but the guest of honour, whose presence was to awe both families into submission, would not be there. As well not be married at all!
‘I’m awfully sorry,’ said Boris, really moved by the sight of such dismay. ‘But you understand I cannot give up the engagement however much I want to? Now let me make you some Russian tea, and you will tell me all about this wedding of which I knew nothing until this moment.’
While Boris was making the tea, Joe ventured to pick up a book, not so much to read it as to collect his distracted thoughts. He found one of Boris’s cards in it, used as a marker, and this he examined attentively.
‘Where do you get your visiting cards printed?’ he asked. ‘Excuse my saying it, but it’s much better printed than mine. Look at the difference.’ He produced one of his own.
‘That is quite dreadful,’’ said Boris frankly. ‘You must have a die made. Mine is not printed; it is copperplate. That is the way cards should be done. No other way.’
‘Oh, I see. That’s quite a thing to know. Can I take one of yours for a pattern? Better than trying to explain.’
‘Of course,’ said Boris, taking one out of his pocket book. ‘I have my die at Asprey’s, a shop in Bond Street.’
‘Oh!’ said Joe, in a hushed voice. He had looked in at the windows but had never known anyone who had ventured inside.
Boris had been invited several times by Lady Gertrude since keeping the appointment for three o’clock that Wednesday afternoon. He had dined, and sung afterwards to a few guests without a fee, and again he had dined and sung to her alone. She was going to introduce him to Covent Garden, where she had, it was said, great influence. Mrs Chalvey had gracefully resigned, so that Lady Gertrude had the field to herself. And Peter was having lessons with Victor.
On the eighth, the day of Joe’s wedding and the At Home, Boris was asked to lunch with Lady Gertrude — very lightly, she said. He would have liked to refuse, as he never ate before singing, but, boring though he found her, he dared not risk offending her. There was no one else at lunch, and after coffee he suddenly apprehended Lady Gertrude. A film like a snail’s track over the yellow old eyes — a clutching of withered acquisitive hands — and a nauseating scent enveloping him — there was nothing to do but to escape quickly. He left her without a word, opening the door quite quietly, shutting it gently behind him, and crept down the stairs into the hall, took his top hat and music case, and so into the street. He plunged along the pavement till, seeing a taxi, he hailed it as though it were a life-boat and he on a foundering ship. Then he sat back and wiped his forehead with his best silk handkerchief.
‘That is the end of Lady Gertrude, and my career too, I suppose. But the limit is reached. Disgusting old woman! Someone should murder her; someone will … Blackmailers! They think we cannot refuse them and they insult us.’ His thoughts turned to Nina and the cold insolence of Mrs Chalvey.
‘Nina! And she is being married today; after all, I can go to her wedding.’ A present had never occurred to him, and he had nothing in his pocket but his taxi fare. ‘Perhaps they will welcome me even without a present.’ He gave Joe’s address to the driver.
The door was open and he went upstairs. He had been to Joe’s rooms before and knew that ‘rooms’ meant a small bed-sitting room. There was no answer to his knock; he was too early.
‘I shall wait and surprise them.’
He went in, with an ‘Ah-h!’ of amusement, for Joe had decorated his room like a Christmas tree; in the middle of a table of pies and confectionery the wedding-cake waited in frozen calm for the touch of the bride. He tiptoed in the silence of the small festive room that was now to be Nina’s home, with a difference. He pictured her in her wedding frock; it would not become her dark skin, and the devilish glint in the deep eyes would mock the virginal whiteness.
So they had achieved some presents, he was glad to see. There were a few objects arranged on a small table with cards attached. A pair of hideous vases, which seemed familiar, dominated the rest. Beneath them he was surprised to find his own card, prominently displayed. He read:
To my dear friends Nina and Joe,
With best wishes for their future happiness.
Boris Ivanovitch Petrov
Of course, he remembered those vases; they came off the mantelpiece in this room. For the second time that day he must escape quickly and quietly, this time fearing to meet the wedding party, and confuse the bridegroom.
He would not see Nina with her wicked smile, wearing her white frock, after all.