Chapter Thirteen
‘Was ich liebe, muss ich verlassen’

As soon as a date for their marriage had been decided, Marjorie and Tom had set about finding a place to live afterwards. Tom made it clear that he had no intention of living at the Ansonia (that ‘hothouse of egos’ as he called it) and Marjorie refused to move into his pokey apartment near Carnegie Hall. Instead they took out a bank loan and purchased a spacious apartment on the second floor of 1609 West 73rd Street, near Verdi Square. They also leased a modest beach house at Long Beach, intending to spend their summers there. It was at the beach house the couple enjoyed the first idyllic two weeks of their honeymoon

The gentle surf sang us to sleep at nights and in the mornings the sea mist swept through our open windows. We defied the cold and swam nearly every day. Tom hired a couple of bikes and we rode all over the countryside. Other days we forsook our bikes and walked for miles along the hard, pebbly beach.1

Marjorie also indulged in bouts of wishful thinking at this time, writing across the April pages of her diary ‘Going to France with Husband to have a Baby’, and across the month of May (which had not yet arrived), the single word ‘Germany’—by which she meant singing in Bayreuth, Berlin or Munich. Had the war not intervened, Marjorie might well have been taking Tom back to Paris to show him off to her French friends and going on to sing Wagner in that composer’s homeland.

There was nothing fanciful about the cable—and which Marjorie might have considered the perfect wedding present from the Met—she received while at Long Beach from Edward Johnson:

Flagstad not likely available us next season. Hold yourself ready sing Isolde and Kundry as well as other roles. Regards Johnson.2

Flagstad, it transpired, had advised Johnson through an intermediary that she intended returning to German-occupied Norway and sitting out the rest of the war at the side of her businessman husband Henry Johansen. As Johansen was a member of the Quisling Party in Norway and a supplier of lumber to the occupying forces, the German Embassy in Washington issued her with a German passport and she had promptly departed, leaving the Met minus its biggest drawcard.3

For Marjorie everything was now falling into place. She was married to a good man she loved and who loved her in return and her career was about to soar to new heights. When she returned to the Met in November she would no longer be singing in Flagstad’s shadow and would be rightfully acknowledged as the company’s leading dramatic soprano. The torch was about to be passed and she knew she was ready, physically and vocally to seize it and carry it aloft.

After receiving the cable and replying to Johnson that she was ready to meet whatever challenges the next Met season offered, Marjorie and Tom set out to spend the second half of their honeymoon in Mexico. Marjorie had a contract to fulfil there and despite his refusal to traipse around after Marjorie, Tom had agreed to treat this journey as their official honeymoon trip. They first visited a colleague of Tom’s in New York who administered their regulation smallpox ‘shots’, Tom taking his in the arm and Marjorie hers in her right leg. Marjorie and Tom took twelve days to cover the 2000-odd miles from New York to Mexico City, driving a rented car at a leisurely pace and taking in the sights along the way.4 Meanwhile, Cyril (who was still officially Marjorie’s manager) flew to Mexico City to make arrangements for the arrival of his sister and brother-in-law.

According to the contract signed in January Marjorie was to appear as the principal guest artist in the inaugural season of the Mexican National Opera. This was a state-sponsored organisation charged with establishing a permanent opera company and producing regular seasons in the Mexican capital. Marjorie had agreed to sing Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, Salome and Carmen. Mostly local singers were to fill the supporting roles and the musical director was Karl Alwin, another refugee from Nazism. The performances were to be given in the beautiful, 3500-seat Palacio de Belles Artes, famous for its Tiffany stage curtain studded with millions of opalescent crystals. Marjorie had been offered $US5000 for seven performances and paid an advance of $600. That advance would later be a bone of great contention between Marjorie and the company when she was unable to fulfil her contract.

Light-hearted and perfectly healthy during the journey, Marjorie began to experience severe and persistent headaches accompanied by back pain on arrival in Mexico City. These she and Tom put down to the stress caused by the weight of responsibility Marjorie carried for the success of the opera season. Never one to shirk her duty, Marjorie swallowed aspirin, tried to ignore the pain and, with both Tom and Cyril keeping watchful eyes on her, got on with the round of social engagements, publicity appearances and other commitments that are incidental to any opera season.

Marjorie was to open the season in Die Walküre and when she left her hotel to attend the final dress rehearsal, she admitted to Tom that she was feeling sicker than she ever had before. On arriving at the theatre she donned her costume and sat out the first act, waiting for her entry in the second. In the excitement of listening to the opera taking shape on stage and warming up her voice, Marjorie forgot the pain. She sailed out onto the stage confidently, but when she began to sing the pain returned with redoubled violence. It felt, she later recalled, as though the top of her head was lifting off each time she took one of the high notes in Brünnhilde’s Battle Cry.

Interrupted Melody contains a fictionalised version of what happened next, with Marjorie collapsing dramatically on stage, awakening to find her legs paralysed and being carried from the theatre with Tom in tears and her colleagues looking shocked and frightened. The testimony of others present and Marjorie’s own notes show that in fact she managed to complete Act Two, despite suddenly and unexpectedly losing control over her right knee. The joint wobbled threateningly when she put any weight on it and Marjorie found she was unable to rise from a kneeling position unaided. Feeling unwell and alarmed at the behaviour of her knee, Marjorie appealed to Maestro Alwin, who stopped the rehearsal. Marjorie apologised to him and the rest of the cast, explaining she felt too ill to continue.

Marjorie’s colleagues clustered around her making solicitous noises and, if they looked frightened as Interrupted Melody suggests, it may have been out of concern for their own fate should the company’s prima donna not be recovered in time for the beginning of the season the following night. Tom and Cyril bundled Marjorie into a taxi and whisked her back to their hotel, where she immediately took to her bed. A doctor on the staff of the theatre arrived soon after and examined her. His diagnosis was that Marjorie was suffering from altitude sickness and that if she rested, her body would soon acclimatise and her symptoms disappear. Tom was not satisfied with that. His medical knowledge and experience told him there was something more seriously wrong with his wife, whose condition was worsening rapidly. He tried to get a neurologist to come to the hotel, but discovered that medical specialists in Mexico (as in most places) don’t like making house calls.

During the night Marjorie’s condition continued to deteriorate. Her body was wracked with pain, her temperature soared and she vomited continuously. She also slipped in and out of consciousness and in her waking moments was delirious, imagining that Christ’s Apostles were gathered around her bed waiting to take her on a long journey. Later she recalled with lingering dread:

I know I should have died that night and my apostolic imaginings could have been linked to my subconscious acceptance of that fact. In what few rational moments I did have that terrible night, I would have welcomed death; better death than unrelenting agony.5

Marjorie’s body also began to be overtaken by paralysis, beginning in her legs. After more frantic calls from Tom, the neurologist attended Marjorie at four the next morning. He examined her and admitted he was not sure what was wrong with her, suggesting it was ‘inflammation of the nerves’ possibly brought on by a reaction to the smallpox immunisation she had had, or possibly that most dreaded of diseases at the time—poliomyelitis. The neurologist suggested transferring Marjorie to the American Hospital in another part of the city where he could conduct tests to try to pinpoint the cause. Marjorie was taken by ambulance to the hospital and Tom reported:

Marjorie was in agony and she was completely paralysed from the neck down. The hospital doctors told me that they believed she had polio and that it was one of the most virulent cases of the disease they had seen. If she lived, they said, she would never walk again—or sing again. I insisted they kept their diagnosis a secret from Marjorie for the time being and I tried to comfort her by letting her think that whatever she had she would slough off in a few weeks.6

Meanwhile the opera company was in turmoil. On the day the season was to have commenced, it was announced in the press that there would be a two-week postponement and that the management hoped their star would be completely recovered by then and able to take her place at the head of the company. Based on advice from Cyril, who liaised with the opera management, substitute singers were hastily lined up in case Marjorie did not recover in time. Rose Pauly agreed to sing Salome and Carmen and Dorothee Manski, to sing Brünnhilde. Both artists stood by to fly south if they were needed.7

Marjorie remained in the American Hospital as the days ticked by, receiving as much help as the medical staff could provide. Her condition improved slightly, but the pain and the paralysis remained. Diathermy (the application of electric current to produce heat in the deeper tissues of the body) was the only therapy they could offer, but Tom was wary of the Mexican doctors’ ability to apply that treatment safely.

Poliomyelitis—or ‘Infantile Paralysis’ as it was commonly called because of the large number of children afflicted by the disease and its most obvious symptom—was not well understood by the medical profession at that time and the treatments offered (such as diathermy) were largely experimental. There was no cure and the most that victims of the disease could hope for was amelioration of some of their symptoms and mechanical support for the now paralysed bodily functions. Tom was distraught and frustrated:

Marjorie’s utter helplessness nearly killed me because I knew how she loathed being served and handled. The pain continued and I soon realised that the Mexican doctors were unable to help her. I went to the head doctor and demanded to know what else he planned to do for her. He shrugged and admitted there was nothing more they could do or were equipped to do.8

Cyril meanwhile had returned to New York to arrange for the cancellation of all Marjorie’s immediate engagements. News of her illness had been cabled to the US and there was much speculation in the major newspapers about her future, so Cyril issued a statement saying that his sister’s illness was the result of an adverse reaction to her smallpox immunisation and that she was ‘not suffering too much’ and had regained a little movement in her left leg. She hoped, Cyril said, to be back on her feet and able to resume her career in a few weeks.

Cyril did not mention polio in his statement and several possible reasons suggest themselves for that omission. Firstly, Tom might have kept Cyril in the dark about the diagnosis the doctors at the American Hospital in Mexico City had made, or he might have decided on his own initiative that it was in his sister’s best interests for the American public to believe her illness was something more transient. Another possible reason is that Cyril’s assessment was correct and that the cause of Marjorie’s condition was not poliomyelitis at all.

In later years both Marjorie and Tom were adamant that Marjorie was a polio victim. By then they had become involved in the national crusade against the disease and were using Marjorie’s case for its publicity value, so it would have suited them to conceal any doubts they might once have had. However, not all characteristics of Marjorie’s case support that claim. Based on the limited records we have of her illness and drawing on the greater knowledge the medical profession now has about both poliomyelitis and reactions to immunisation, questions arise—questions worthy of our interest, but which at this distance in time we cannot hope to answer confidently.

A good case could be made for poliomyelitis. Some of Marjorie’s symptoms were typical of that disease: headache, fever, paralysis (tending to greater severity in the legs than the arms) and so on, but others, such as loss of consciousness and sporadic loss of vision (which Marjorie claims she suffered) would not be expected. These and other characteristics of Marjorie’s case suggest she might have suffered an immunological reaction to the smallpox vaccination, triggering a combination of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis and an acute inflammatory polyradiculo­pathy. Had Marjorie suffered her illness today she would have been subjected to sophisticated neurological tests and a positive diagnosis made rapidly, but that was not possible in 1941. The truth about the nature of Marjorie’s illness, therefore, remains a mystery.

Although undoubtedly at the time Tom speculated about the nature of his wife’s illness, her suffering would have been foremost in his mind. He decided Marjorie needed to be taken back to the United States where, he hoped, she could receive more sophisticated care and treatment. Reluctantly he left Marjorie to fly back to New York to consult with what he hoped were more knowledgeable specialists, although he received little comfort from this four-day trip, except a suggestion to get Marjorie to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where the therapeutic waters might alleviate her pain. Otherwise the prognosis was the same from each expert he spoke to. If Marjorie had polio, they said, there was little they could do for her. Deeply disheartened, Tom flew back to Mexico City.

Marjorie was overjoyed to have Tom at her side again, but her condition remained unchanged. She was (as Cyril had reported) able to move her left leg very slightly, but the pain that wracked her body and intensified whenever she was moved, showed no signs of abating. Tom contacted the US ambassador to Mexico, Josephus Daniels, who had been planning a reception for Marjorie at the embassy, and asked for his help to get Marjorie out of Mexico. While Daniels persuaded Pan American Airways to remove seats from one of their US-bound aircraft to accommodate a stretcher, Tom obtained a certificate from one of the Mexican doctors authorising Marjorie’s transfer to Saint Joseph’s Hospital, Hot Springs. Marjorie was relieved to be going back to the United States but terrified of the journey.

To my mind, almost unhinged by pain and the partial realization of what was happening to me, the prospect of the long journey was terrifying. I was prepared to give up the ghost. I begged Tom to let me remain where I was. I was going to die. Why inflict new tortures on me? My poor husband was not far from the end of his own tether, but with superhuman patience and gentleness, he told me that once we got to Hot Springs, something would be done to relieve my suffering … there were facilities there, too, for the treatment that would put me back on my feet, he told me, and didn’t I want to be fit for the Metropolitan season?9

On 4 July—Independence Day in the United States—Marjorie and Tom set out on the first stage of their journey to Hot Springs on a Douglas DC3, bound for Brownsville, Texas. Marjorie was carried onto the plane, swathed in blankets and groggy from pain killers, but with her face still carefully made up and putting on a brave smile for the pack of Mexican press photographers who had come to ‘snap’ her ignoble departure from their city.

The flight was accomplished without incident, Marjorie lapsing in and out of sleep, reassured by Tom each time she woke that they were ‘nearly there’. An ambulance was waiting at Brownsville, which took them to the Catholic Hospital. There the sisters cared for Marjorie while Tom planned the next stage of their journey. Without an ambassador’s influence, he was unable to persuade any airline to fly them the remaining 500 miles to Hot Springs, but the Missouri Pacific Railway agreed to carry them to Benton, the nearest station to Hot Springs. Tom reluctantly broke the news to Marjorie that she now had a two-and-a-half-day train journey to endure.

Again my courage deserted me. Again I begged to be left where I was. But again too, Tom rallied my waning spirits and we set off. The journey seemed to take an eternity. The train crew had been told I was aboard and the driver glided the locomotive into every stop and eased it off on every start with amazing smoothness. Even so, my unhappy body was in such a state that it was never free from torment. I cursed my moments of awareness and yearned for the merciful fog of unconsciousness to envelop me.10

Another ambulance was waiting when they finally disembarked at Benton and Marjorie and Tom were driven the last twenty-five miles into Hot Springs, where Dr George Fletcher and the staff of St Joseph’s Hospital were waiting to receive them.

Marjorie was in such a poor state after the journey that Fletcher advised three days complete rest before she began thermal water treatment. On the fourth day a bath was placed beside Marjorie’s bed and she was rolled into the heated, mineral-rich water. This procedure was followed several times daily and as soon as Marjorie was strong enough the treatment was transferred to the Maurice Bathhouse on Bathhouse Row, which specialised in patients with paralysis. Massage was not part of Dr Fletcher’s treatment plan for Marjorie, so Tom secretly massaged her arms and legs at night, and these combined treatments eventually began to alleviate Marjorie’s pain.

Dr Fletcher had wide experience of polio and, when he concurred with the Mexican doctors’ diagnosis, Tom decided it was time to tell Marjorie the truth as he saw it—that she was a victim of polio and if she recovered, even partially, it would take many months and maybe years. Marjorie was devastated.

As the pain ebbed my mind began to take in the full scope of my tragedy. Would I ever walk again? Would the paralysis affect my voice? Would I get to sing Isolde and Kundry at the Met? Was my career at an end? Even worse, was I condemned to spend the rest of my life in a hospital bed? Terror and foreboding overpowered me and I wept for days. My depression was accentuated by the hospital atmosphere, the constant handling as though I was a piece of meat, by being cooped up in one room and knowing there were sick and suffering people all around me. The nursing staff were the soul of goodness, consideration and efficiency, but I was forced to tell Tom that if he didn’t get me out of that place and quickly, I would go mad.11

Tom was occupying the room next to Marjorie’s and paying a patient’s fee for the privilege, adding to the pile of bills that was rapidly accumulating, so he was also keen to move out of St Joseph’s. Dr Fletcher gave his approval for Tom and Marjorie to live outside the hospital and return for her treatment every second day, but when Tom went house hunting it proved more difficult than he expected.

It was high season in Hot Springs and tourists filled most of the rental accommodation. Tom had almost despaired of finding anywhere when the driver of the ambulance that ferried Marjorie between the hospital and the bath house mentioned that he knew of a place that might suit them. At his suggestion he drove Tom down Highway 7 South and, twelve miles out of Hot Springs, turned into the gateway of a property called ‘Villa Rustica’. A long, flower-lined driveway led to a spacious, stone house that blended perfectly with the landscape.

The taxi driver introduced Tom to the owner, a Mrs Mary Hedrick, whom Tom later described to Marjorie as ‘a fine Southern lady’. Mrs Hedrick showed Tom over the house and the garden and he was enchanted by all he saw. Mrs Hedrick’s late husband had designed and built the house in the 1920s. The architectural style of the building—which still stands—is original, but ‘Pueblo’ influence is apparent in its sharp lines and flat roof. Two small streams teeming with fish flowed down the rocky, wooded hill behind the house and two large ponds (which Marjorie later insisted on calling ‘lakes’) fringed with pines and willows formed a backdrop to the garden.

The house was actually three residences in one, each occupying a separate wing and each with its own entrance. Mrs Hedrick explained that she was having difficulty maintaining the twenty-room building on the limited profits the surrounding farmlands earned and had decided to rent out one wing to, as she put it, ‘nice folks’. When Tom explained who he and Marjorie were and Marjorie’s situation, Mrs Hedrick decided they were more than ‘nice’ enough and a deal was struck there and then. Marjorie and Tom acquired a peaceful, comfortable, private, five-room, ground-level home with free run of the rest of the house and the garden for a fraction of the cost of two hospital rooms. They also acquired a devoted friend in Mary Hedrick and she two new friends who became generous employers when Marjorie and Tom bought the property two years later and kept her on as farm manager.

When Tom told Marjorie about his find and described Villa Rustica, she was as delighted by the place and its chatelaine as Tom had been.

Directly we moved to ‘Villa Rustica’ my morale improved. Part of every day I spent out of doors in the sunshine. And I know no Australian, young or old, robust or feeble who is not better off for a few hours in the sun. Helpless though I was, and unable to move, I began to feel a little pleasure again in life as I lay on a stretcher in the warmth and colour of Mrs Hedrick’s flower-filled garden.12

Marjorie’s mood improved and her pain receded, but the paralysis remained and as the weeks passed Tom became ever more anxious to find some treatment that would prevent that from becoming a permanent state. Marjorie was only thirty-four and could confidently look forward to another forty years of life, but the prospect of her spending all that time lying rigid on her back was more than he or she could bear.

A further stimulus to action came in a succession of cables from Edward Johnson and Edward Ziegler making ever more urgent inquiries about Marjorie’s health. Losing Flagstad had been a terrible blow for the Met, but the prospect of losing its other leading female Wagnerian at the same time was a disaster. Marjorie asked Dr Fletcher to write to Ziegler and explain her condition and, perhaps at her request, Fletcher put an optimistic spin on his account of her illness and her progress, but wisely did not make any predictions about when she might be well enough to resume her career. That letter must have encouraged Johnson and Ziegler, but likely did little to put their minds at rest.13

Tom decided their best option lay in contacting Sister Kenny, an Australian nurse working at the University of Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis. Elizabeth Kenny was a formidable, out-spoken sixty-year-old Australian with very little formal medical training who had been achieving good results in treating the effects of polio. Kenny’s theories about the disease and her methods of treating it were unconventional and had put her at odds with the mainstream medical profession for most of her career, but the results she produced spoke for themselves.

Tom wrote to Sister Kenny who replied promptly saying that, if he brought Marjorie to Minneapolis, she would do all she could to help. Marjorie was loaded onto a train at Benton and Sister Kenny was waiting with an ambulance when they reached Minneapolis on 26 August. Immediately on arrival at the university hospital, Kenny submitted Marjorie to a rigorous examination.

Dear Sister Kenny was a big, powerful Amazon and where it had taken two or three people to lift me in Hot Springs, she picked me up like a baby then proceeded to bend, stretch and squeeze my arms and legs brutally. At Hot Springs the doctors had treated me like I was made of glass, not even touching my limbs for fear of hurting me and doing more damage. Kenny first lay me facedown grasped both my ankles and bent my legs as far they would go. Next she rolled me over and endeavoured to push my legs up until my big toes nearly touched my forehead, then set to work on my arms and my shoulders and neck. The ‘examination’, if you could call it that, was so terrifying I could hardly speak for three days.14

Sister Kenny told Tom that she had no doubt that Marjorie had polio, and in an advanced stage. Kenny also explained that her best results were achieved when she was able to commence treatment within a few days of the patient contracting the disease. She therefore had doubts about how useful her procedures might be with a patient who was now in the third month of their illness. ‘But, rest assured Dr King,’ she said, ‘I will do my best.’15

Tom moved into the university faculty club just a block from the hospital and Kenny, her adopted daughter Mary, and a small team of assistants commenced Marjorie’s treatment the following day. To Marjorie’s relief this proved less brutal than the examination and consisted of heat packs applied to all the affected parts of her body, primarily to stop muscular spasms, intramuscular injections of Vitamin E and what Sister Kenny called ‘muscle re-education’—the coaxing back into life of wasted muscles. This was done by massage, passive movement (manipulation) and the encouragement of active movement by the patient herself.

During the first month, Marjorie’s body began, as she put it, to slowly ‘awaken’. Almost imperceptibly she began to twitch her toes and move her fingers, then lift first one shoulder then the other. As she developed strength in her upper body, she was able her sit up in bed supported by pillows, and by late September she could write and knit—to strengthen her fingers. For the first time the press were admitted to Marjorie’s hospital room, where she and Tom tried to answer questions to which neither knew the answers. Photographs were taken, with Tom looking dapper and Marjorie looking brave, her hair carefully brushed, nails painted and lipstick applied; both their faces showing the determination that had carried them through thus far.

Every attainment, no matter how small, was a cause for celebration, but progress was frustratingly slow. Cables kept arriving from the Met and Marjorie slipped back into periods of deep depression as she realised her great opportunity was slipping away. Reluctantly she wrote to Edward Johnson to inform him that, barring a miracle, she would not be able to rejoin the company for the 1941–42 season. Johnson wrote a touching letter in reply, addressing Marjorie by the name he had adopted for her when she first came to New York.

My dear Margie:

Thank you for your kind letter and I can never tell you with what a heavy heart I announced to the press at our meeting a few days ago that you would be unable to take over your roles at the beginning of the coming season. However, I did hold out to them the ray of hope which you conveyed to me, by the reference to your ‘Aussie pep’, that you might resume your work with us for the second half of the season.

You will never know how our hearts go out to you in this very difficult moment and how our devout wishes are continually reaching out in your behalf. We will miss you more than I have words to tell but will live in the hope that the miracle of which you speak will return you to us sooner than anyone anticipates.

Please keep us informed of your condition and if there is anything we can do please do not hesitate to write. God bless you and keep your chin up.

Affectionately yours,

Edward Johnson.16

Letters, cards and cables from colleagues, friends, fans and acquaintances from all over the world had arrived in Mexico City, Hot Springs and Minneapolis. Typical was one from Irene Jessner who was singing in Buenos Aires and had collected the signatures of most of the artists at the Colón that season, including Erich Kleiber, Herbert Janssen and the team of Valkyries whom Marjorie would have been leading had fate not intervened.17 Vincent Attractions wrote or cabled regularly, detailing the dozens of offers of engagements they had received from all over the United States for Marjorie to replace Flagstad. Encouraging though the news and kind wishes were, they also brought home to Marjorie the magnitude of her loss.

To assist her mentally, Tom sought Sister Kenny’s permission for them to live away from hospital again and for Marjorie to attend as an outpatient. Kenny agreed, but only on condition they took a small apartment that was vacant in the building where she and her daughter lived, so they could come to Marjorie’s aid at any time. A bond deeper than common nationality was developing between Marjorie and Kenny, each recognising the other’s strength and courage, with Kenny (not unreasonably) devoting extra time and attention to a high-profile patient whose recovery would boost her own reputation. Tom was also deeply impressed by Kenny and began to attend the classes she ran for medical professionals who wanted to learn her methods. He reasoned that this knowledge and skill would enable him to take over some and eventually all of Marjorie’s treatment and treat other polio victims if he returned to his medical practice. The desire to fill his days with activity and keep despair at bay was another motive.

The move into an apartment brought some temporary relief to the drain Marjorie’s illness was having on their finances. Marjorie had earned much but saved little, anticipating that her income would grow and never imagining it would dry up. Funds she had in France had been confiscated by the Germans and some of the profit from her Australian tour which she had been forced to leave behind in Australia was now frozen under government wartime regulations. Tom’s savings were as modest as his earnings, but at least they were unencumbered. Using their available funds he had paid Marjorie’s medical bills in Mexico City and Hot Springs but cash was running low. Sister Kenny did not charge any of her patients, but the vitamin injections she prescribed for Marjorie were costly and so were the University Hospital fees. So far Marjorie’s illness had cost somewhere in the region of $10,000 and no respite from bills was in sight. Mortgage payments also had to be found for the unoccupied apartment in New York and rent for the house in Long Beach.

As soon as Marjorie was settled into the Minneapolis apartment, a maid engaged to look after her and reassurances received from the Kennys, Tom drove back to New York. He found a tenant for the 73rd Street apartment, whose rental payments would cover the mortgage repayments, and managed to terminate the lease on the beach house. He then set about disposing of as many of his and Marjorie’s possessions as he could before packing their clothes, personal items and Marjorie’s scores and costumes for shipping to Minneapolis.

Disposing of his own possessions was easy enough, but when it came to making decisions about his wife’s, Tom found that taxing. When the time came to consider the fate of Marjorie’s bicycle—the one Hubert Opperman had given her in Australia—Tom’s courage deserted him and he cabled her: ‘Precious Angel, confirm OK to sell bike? Tom’. Two hours later a reply came back: ‘Refuse sell bicycle. Am not dead yet. Dismount handles pedals & store. Love Marjorie.’ In years to come, Tom would say that he knew Marjorie was going to make it through her long and cruel ordeal from the moment he received that cable. Chuckling to himself for the first time in months, he dutifully dismantled the bike and packed it away for the day Marjorie might ride it again.

On his return to Minneapolis Tom found Marjorie was now able to sit in a wheelchair and move her upper body freely. Her legs were still paralysed and, until she gained more strength, a retaining strap was required to prevent her from sliding out of the chair, but this was an achievement and it meant that Marjorie was no longer confined to bed. Tom decided it was time Marjorie had her first real outing in months—a trip to the movies. Before telling Marjorie his plans, Tom investigated the fifteen-block route to the theatre and found that by taking side streets and back alleys, obstacles could be avoided.18 The trip to the movies was a great success. Marjorie admitted that she hated being stared at, but getting out into the world again was a tonic for her. ‘I wouldn’t mind going to a footie match next time’, she told Tom and he hastily arranged that as well, travelling to and from the stadium by taxi. With Marjorie’s chair perched on an aisle at the top of a grandstand and both rugged up against the cold, they watched the Minnesota Golden Gophers thrash a visiting team from Michigan.

Marjorie managed to get through both these adventures without being recognised or mobbed by fans, but when Tom suggested they go to a concert by the Minneapolis Symphony, with whom Marjorie had sung in the past, both knew it would be a different experience. ‘And I’ve got nothing I can wear in this bloody chair!’ Marjorie protested. Tom fixed that. He went out and bought Marjorie a magnificent white satin evening gown. The gown had a full skirt that would drape gracefully over her legs which Marjorie now believed were unsightly. Marjorie was delighted with the dress and Tom couldn’t bring himself to admit that it had come from a charity shop and had cost just $25. The maid, Marie, altered it slightly, at the same time concealing a slight stain on the hem of the skirt.

The concert was held at the huge Northrop Auditorium and the orchestra was conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos, with whom Marjorie had sung in Monte Carlo and Boston. Tom waited until most of the audience were in their seats then wheeled Marjorie into the auditorium. If this was an attempt to avoid notice it failed. Marjorie was recognised immediately and her name whispered throughout the auditorium. The whole assembly rose to their feet and applauded. The orchestra joined in, string players tapping their instruments with their bows. As Marjorie couldn’t make it backstage, Mitropoulos came to her in the interval and kissed her hands. Marjorie was not ‘back’, but it almost felt as if she was, and the warmth of the audience that night gave her the courage to do something the next day she had been avoiding—to give her voice a proper try-out.

Marjorie had kept the score of Tristan und Isolde beside her bed in the Minneapolis apartment and over the past weeks when Tom was at his classes and Marie out shopping, Marjorie had attempted to sing a few phrases sotto voce, too afraid to sing in full voice in case she discovered she could not. After the Minneapolis concert she threw fate to the wind and tried singing a few of Isolde’s phrases in full voice. To her immense relief and joy she found the voice was still there. The paralysis had affected her breathing and she could not manage the deep breaths required to sustain long phrases, but the sound itself was intact.

When Tom got home from the hospital at lunch time that day an overjoyed Marjorie told him he must get her a piano—she wanted to sing again. The ever-faithful Tom immediately went out and bought a second-hand upright piano they could probably not afford. It was delivered the same afternoon.

I was able to use my voice only for about five or six minutes at the first attempt, before it and I tired, but I was back at the piano the next day and every day thereafter, singing for longer periods.19

Experimentation and sheer hard work slowly restored Marjorie’s vocal strength. By using her arms to pull herself up until her back was straight and moving her body until her weight was supported entirely on her buttocks, Marjorie found that she could control her diaphragm without restriction. She also discovered that if she drew her lower abdominal wall in and up in this position, she could achieve the physical sensation of standing—at least from the waist up—and her immobile legs could be forgotten. In this position Marjorie was able to achieve the kind of physical and vocal freedom she needed to make rapid progress. Within three weeks she was going through Isolde’s part in whole acts of Tristan und Isolde at one sitting and, according to Tom, startling their neighbours up to three blocks away.20

While the knowledge that she still had her voice and devising new and efficient ways to sing were enormously encouraging, the prospect of not being able to put her voice to good use was equally distressing and discouraging. What possible value could there be in a singer stuck in a wheelchair, Marjorie pondered, and who would want to listen to a cripple sing? Friends and acquaintances passing through Minneapolis, including some of her former colleagues, didn’t help either. They found it impossible to disguise their distress at Marjorie’s predicament and invariably exclaimed things like ‘To think this should have happened to you of all people … you were always so lively’ and ‘Whatever are you going to do now, dear?’, the assumption being that Marjorie’s professional prospects were now almost nil.

It was only to Tom that Marjorie could unburden herself and express her fears. When one day she said (probably for the umpteenth time) ‘What will I do, Angel?’, Tom surprised Marjorie by suggesting they put their trust in God and simply wait to see what He had in store for them. Neither Marjorie nor Tom was particularly religious. Marjorie had not attended church regularly since singing in Alex Pearce’s choir in Deans Marsh and Tom had let his attendance slip since moving from Florida to New York. Together they set about reviving their faith and, as so many people in extremis do, found unexpected peace and strength.

Tom and I prayed; prayed not so much that I should be cured, but that we should be given courage and hope to continue our lives … to bear our crosses with patience and fortitude. From the day we acknowledged God’s part in our lives and turned to Him, there was a miraculous change in my mental outlook. Faith exorcised my fears. The will to fight my way back and the will to succeed was restored to me.21

The words at the beginning of this chapter are spoken by Wotan to Brünnhilde in Act Two of Die Walküre and translate as ‘I must abandon what I love most’. This poignant phrase might have occurred to Marjorie many times in the preceding months. If it had, then it now seemed she could add ‘or maybe not’.