LOVE SONG

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 211, 7 September 1933, Page 22

LOVE SONG

By ARTHUR HARDY

CHAPTER VI. Whose Song? Williams, the chauffeur, was back at the restaurant at one o'clock sharp. The hired cars were strung out behind him. And at about half-past one the happy party trooped, out of the restaurant laughing and joking, and refreshed by the wine. Paul, his overcoat left carelessly open, questioned the driver before he climbed into the car. "You saw the man safely home ?" "Yes, sir. I helped him upstairs, carried the things up for him and helped him to lay and light a fire. The room was coey when I left." "What sort of a room, Williams?"' "Well, sir, a kind of a garret. Bare boards. Some paper stuffed in the gap of a broken window. A bed in a corner. Table, chairs, a shelf with some faded books." Paul shivered. "But was it clean?" "Quite clean, sir. That was one surprising thing about it." Clean, Paul thought, because Enrico Camagno had once been civilised. Well, he would alter all that —to-morrow. "H'm, then you came away, I suppose ?" "I came away, sir. Had ftonie grub and brought the entree dishes back to the restaurant." "Did—did —he seem pleased?" "He was mightily grateful, I should say, sir, but seemed—rather dazed." Jonitz, muffled up to her ear tips in a nest of sable, thrust her lovely head out of the car. "Will you get in at once, Paul? Have you forgotten how cold the night i≤? Haven't you taken enough risk already without that? Do you think that coating of white we eee everywhere means nothing? Jump in at once and we'll go to my flat and have a drink there before we break up." "Thanks," smiled Paul, "but I am going straight to the Rochester." "You are not," answered the diva. "I would never allow it. On your birthday, too. Nol We are going to my flat, Williams you know the way." Paul got into the car and sank back on the cushions. In a moment Jonitz had linked a soft arm with his and her rounded supple body was drawn quite close to him. Her eyee, sometimes so cold but now on fire, were almost as bright as the diamonds she wore. "You are a wonderful boy as well as a wonderful singer," she sighed. "To do eo much so spontaneously fir a poor, broken-down old man. I don't care what Camagno hae been, he was not worth such a eacriiice now." "Supposing what happened to him happened to me," said Paul. "Would you feel so callously about that?" "It would never happen to you," Maria replied. "It could not. You are not weak, you are strong. And besides, how you sing! So easily. Ma cherc, let me hear again that lovely song you sing." Obediently Paul hummed the tune, Maria knitting her pencilled eyebrows as she followed the catchy lilt of the haunting melody. "Ah! Here we are," she eaid as the car slowed to a stop. "Gus can vamp if he has not the brains to arrange an accompaniment for you, and you shall sing the song in my drawing room, where it is warm." Noisily they entered the lift and were swept up to the third floor, where Jonitz opened the outer door of her sumptuous flat with a latch key. The hired flat was furniehed with almost regal splendour. The air was heavy with scent. Thick curtains screened the double windows. Electric fires glowed in the hall and in the reception rooms. Flowers were displayed in vases at every corner. The large and lofty drawing room with its gilt French chairs and ornate furniture contained in one corner a gilt and painted grand by Steinway. And after the butler had brought wine and glasses had been charged and the guests distributed around in comfort, Maria led Paul to the instrument at which Falder seated himself and began to strum. Already he had caught a snatch of the tune, but its odd twists and unexpected angles defeated him. "Sing, Paul," he aaid with a wink intended tff convey that he knew a groat deal more about it than he showed. "And you see how deftly I shall supply the accompaniment." Paul drew a deep breath and began to sing. I sins my love song to my queen, I/Ovelfpst Indy over soon, Tlint from lier sloepini? sho may rlso, And thrill me with enchanting oyos— In an instant Casranini was silent. Pegler, about to sip his wine, held the glase poised in his hand. Maria Jonitz listened and watched Paul with wondering gaze. And when the fine voice soared in the thrilling climax ehe leapt to her feet and running to Paul, kissed him for the second time that night. "Bravo," she cried. "Wonderful. What a song! And to think that I have never heard it before and you have never said a word about it. And Falder plays the accompaniment as if he had known it all his life. It is a conspiracy. Paul— tell me—who wrote it?" Paul did not immediately reply and Falder, leaning back on the piano, stool, set a monocle in hie eye and smiled mockingly at the prim a donna. "Ah, that is the great secret," eaid he. "The great secret. Don't - lie so mysterious. Soon the song will be : ringing throughout the world. I insist upon knowing who wrote it." Arid it was then that Paul, stepping \ back, dropped his left hand on Ous ' Falder's shoulder and with twinkling eyee and parted, smiling lips said: "Oh. very well then, Maria, since you insist upon knowing, I will tell you. The song was written and composed by Augustus Falder." i -.• CHAPTER VII. Night Frost. Telmar's announcement was received with cries of incredulity. "Gus write such a song as that. Impossible," pronounced. Pegler. Cascanini nodded agreement with the baritone. , "Yet," he compromised, "every composer should be allowed one work of genius, however small." Duir.ont, the French base, shrugged his shoulders. "Gus," lie said with the quaintest accent, "a writer of jazz, a composer of fox-trots, a musician with a dance band complex —non, non!" "But what a song," eaid Fratini, an excellent singer of minor roles. "Perhaps Gus will prepare the band parts and let us have the privilege of hearing it under Cascanini one day after rehearsal at ICorent Garden V

Falder set his . monocle firmly and beamed round at the faces clustered about the piano. "Ha-ha! Why not?" he laughed. "And Paul shall sing it with a full orchestra —then you shall hear what the song is really like." Cora Schumann set her arm through Maria's. "I do not believe I have ever heard an aria that moved me quite as much as (that. FaldeTj you did not write it." "Why not?" Augustus Falder became mysterious. "Do you think because I spend most of my life writing popular music for Rinaldi's who pay me a big retaining fee, that I have no soul? Great songs are for great singers. Alas! I suffer from tha dance band complex. I have to cut my coat according to the cloth. But there is Paul. You have twice to-night heard him sing "Love Song!" Don't you think that such a voice might inspire me to great things?" He removed his monocle, polished the lens vigorously and beamed at Paul. "But Paul lias said nothing about it. I have never heard him sing a note of it before. The song thrilled me." Jonitz shook her diamond bedecked forefinger at the brilliant tenor. "And I repeat it is ft conspiracy for you and Paul to practise such a song alone- and let none of us know of it." Tclmar laughed again, patting Falder's shoulder. "It was never intended that .anyone should know until the song was printed and published. Isn't that so, Gus? But —well, we met poor Camagno and the time was drumming in my head. I sang, it becivu.se it was the first that came to my mind." Falder'e supple fingers roamed the keyboard striking out softly yet brilliantly the beautiful air. "It is surprising what some of you do not know about me," ho said mockingly. "What if I told you that I have, locked up in my safe at home, more than one grand opera with which, some day, 1 hope to surprise the world?" Gascanini'a moustache fairly bristled and the glare he shot at the composer was lit with venom. "Grand opera!" he scoffed. "You write grand opera. Bah! You have not the right shaped head for it." And the roar of happy laughter which greeted the sally put a period to the incident. Falder arose and glanced at his flat drofs watch. "It is half past two o'clock," he remarked, "and so, I think, if tho ladies value their beauty sleep we had better, all of Uβ, go home." Glasses were emptied, adieus exchanged, coats and wraps were donned in the heated hall, and Jonitz wished her visitors good-night. She had a smile for Falder whilst shaking her head doubtfully. "I shall not be convinced that you wrote that love song, Gus," she eaid, "until you show me the oiiginal score. One might just as well have expected l'lanquctto to have written the Priesleid." .She turned to Telinar and arranged his cashmere muffled about his throat, eased with hand the shoulders of his overcoat, adopting a mothering attitude characteristic of her when she liked a

man. Her eyes, sometimes so hard and uncompromising, were liquid, soft, her voice held a coo when ehe epoke. "And you," she admonished, "can you bo trusted to drive straight home and go at once to bed? You must have a hot bottle, some hot whisky with lemon. The night air is very cold, and that beggar Camagno showed you how easy it is to ruin the finest voice in the world." "I am going straight back to the Rochester, Maria," Paul assured her. "It is very nice of you to bother about me." "And why not?" ehe said. "I always bother over the people I like, and I am very fond of you. Paul. And to-night your singing in ' Aida ' —and then that wonderful love song! I am not sure you have not made me love you." "The Lord forbid that," said Falder, laughingly. "We must try and save him from that, Maria; for if you once o-et your clawe in him he is lost." "At least I would never allow him to sing in the cold street, asking for trouble ae the English say. But, of course, Paul did it out of the greatness of his heart —and so, when you collect that fund to keep in comfort Camagno for the closing years of his life under the sunny skies "of Italy, you muet put my name down for fifty gi'/ncaa, Paul." "Thank you, Maria." "Not at all—am I not an artiste? And should not one artiste help another?" She went with them to tho door, hn■geringly pressing Paul's hand when he said good-bye. "Don't forget the rehearsal for 'Boheme' to-morrow," she said. "I shall be there —on time," Paul promi scd. "You always are, you punctual man. [ —x slmll try," Maria Jonitz cooed after them as they descended the stains, the lift having ceased to function. "And take rare of that throat. Kemember, it it cold." Cold! Jonitz was right. It wae ?o cold that hoar frost lay thick upon roofs and sills and railings. It lay heavy upon the wood blocks of the road where wheel marks lined the white carpet. Paul coughed, conscious of a slight tickling in the throat as he stepped into his car. "Williams will take you home, Gus," he said. "Not until we have had a talk, Paul," said Falder, as he pulled a fur-lined rug close about him and sank back against the luxurious cushions. "I have had so many shocks to-night that I am too wide awake to sleep. First Camagno — then that song. Paul, you have just got to tell me the truth about that song." "H'm! You think a lot of it?" "I think it i<s the most wonderful song I have ever heard." "Then you had better come up to my fiat and have a drink while we talk," said Paul, peering out of the windows at the white roofs ae they went gliding by(To be continued daily.)