Guy meanwhile had returned to Vienna and immersed himself once more in the gruelling work connected with the loan, and it was not until he had finished his report on the first stage of the negotiations that he felt free to turn his attention to the matter of the opera.
That music was to play a main part in the entertainment of his guests went without saying: there would be an orchestra to play for the ball and to accompany the fireworks; there would be chamber music at night for those who cared for it. But for the climax of his house party, Guy intended to do no less than stage, in the theatre at Pfaffenstein, the opera at which he had first seen Nerine.
At the beginning of every love affair there is a moment when the timeless essence of the beloved is somehow encapsulated, crystallized and fixed in the mind for ever. It may be no more than the way she bends to a flower or touches the head of a passing child, yet in that instant the lover will perceive the uniqueness and wonder of her whole life. For Guy, this moment had come when Nerine gave that first, small, anticipatory sigh as the curtain rose on the dream landscape of Mozart’s
Now, in his suite at Sachers, he rang for Thisbe Purse.
The woman who arrived in response to his summons was a grim-faced spinster with a greying bun of hair and steel-rimmed spectacles. The prize pupil in her year at Mr Pitman’s Academy for typing and shorthand, she travelled everywhere with Guy – forming with Morgan, his chauffeur-valet, and David Tremayne, the trio of indispensables who enjoyed Guy’s confidence and trust.
‘I want tickets for the opera, Thisbe, please. For tonight.’
‘Yes, Mr Farne,’ said Thisbe, who lived in constant hope of an earthquake, flood or fire from which – with her teeth if necessary – she could rescue her employer. ‘For the State Opera or the Volksoper?’
‘Neither. There’s a company called the International Opera Company, I believe?’
‘Yes, sir. They’re in the Klostern Theatre, in the Braungasse.’ Her employer’s passion for music was such that she made it her habit to investigate all musical events in any city in which they arrived. ‘I’ll go and look in the paper.’
‘It’s
Guy’s eyebrows rose in surprise. From a small and unsubsidized company he had expected rather another
‘All right. That will do. Get me a ticket, please.’
‘Not a box, sir?’
No, I’m going alone. One ticket. Centre stalls.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Thisbe Purse. That there might not be a ticket for a première occurred to her but she did not mention it. If Mr Farne wanted a ticket, he got it. No one who worked for him was left in doubt of that.
The theatre, with its baroque insouciance, pleased Guy. Still in his opera cloak, for public buildings were still very poorly heated, he skimmed the programme and joined in the applause for the conductor whose tormented eyes, as he acknowledged it, seemed to imply a dreadful martyrdom ahead.
The introduction began and Guy relaxed. The orchestra was good; the interpretation sensitive and precise. The curtain rose . . .
Melisande crouched, lost and frightened, by the moonlit well. ‘Ne me touchez pas, ne me touchez pas,’ cried Raisa, managing after all to ‘zink’ in French. But Gollaud did touch her, married her, took her back to his gloomy castle to be loved and destroyed by Pelleas. Of the tenor, Pino Mastrini, even the producer had not demanded that he
The production interested Guy. The scene where Melisande lowered her hair from the window and Pel-leas toyed with it came over remarkably well. Lovely hair, it was, but real – not the excessive, overdone Rapunzel stuff he had seen in some productions. With its soft, blown look it made the love scene very moving, and even Pino Mastrini knew how to
