Pathway of Roses Read online

  PATHWAY OF ROSES

  by

  Mary Whistler

  Janie Dallas bore a striking resemblance to the beautiful singer Vanessa Brandt, but when Vanessa suggested that Janie should impersonate her for one vital week, only the thought of having the constant company and support of the world-famous conductor, Max Veldon, could tempt her.

  CHAPTER I

  Old Hermann Brandt lifted the violin out of its case and touched it tenderly.

  “This was not made yesterday, no,” he murmured, as he so often did. “Not the creation of one of the master craftsmen, but a fine instrument.” He ran, the bow across the responsive strings, and his whole face lighted with pleasure. “Did you hear that, Janie? That is music, yes?”

  Janie agreed with him, and looked almost as enthusiastic.

  “Play something,” she begged, but he shook his head and put the violin away again in its case, and returned the case to the shelf.

  “No, there is much to do, and I cannot spare the time.” He sighed as he contemplated the array—or rather, the disarray—in front of him. “Why is it that we collect so much junk, Janie, and only a very little of that which is truly valuable?” He picked up a battered mouth-organ, and then cast it aside to join company with a selection of flutes, trumpets, accordions, etc. The whole tiny shop seemed to be full of the discarded accompaniments of a musician’s life. “Even a poor violin gives me pleasure, but I have never yet attempted to play a mouth-organ!”

  He turned away, suddenly very businesslike, and a little peevish.

  “Those lists, those lists,” he demanded petulantly. “That latest consignment of gramophone records? Pick of the Pops!” and he actually snorted. “Have you got them all sorted, and on display to our customers?”

  One of the customers, a youth in too-tight trousers and an amazing sweater, came in. and bought a couple of the latest records, and Janie put his money inside the till, and gave him the right amount of change. When he had gone away, and the shop door-bell had stopped quivering, she returned to her employer’s side and-watched him flicking aimlessly with a feather duster at a bust of Beethoven that stood on a pedestal in a corner.

  “You had good news this morning?” she asked him, very softly, because she knew that he had received. a letter. “Your daughter is well, Mr. Brandt?”

  He shook his head, staring owlishly at the bust of Beethoven.

  “Not so well, child. She has a bad throat ... a tired throat, she calls it. She is coming home on a visit. Just a short visit.”

  “Oh, but that’s wonderful!” Janie exclaimed, amazed that he didn’t appear to think so. “Even a short visit will mean that you will actually see her, and be able to talk with her. And I expect a good many famous singers suffer from tired throats occasionally. And after such an exhausting tour—”

  “She says that it went off well,” the old man remarked, as if it was of little interest to him. “She says that every time she sang the audience rose to its feet and cheered her until they were hoarse. In Vienna there were so many bouquets that her dressing-room was like a corner of an enchanted garden.” He studied Janie as if there were certain aspects of her appearance that were striking him for the first time. “You have hair the same colour as hers ... so very fair! Your eyes are grey, and hers are as blue as a summer sky, but otherwise you are much alike. I am surprised that I haven’t noticed it before.”

  Janie smiled at him.

  “You flatter me,” she told him. “I’ve seen photographs of your daughter, don’t forget, and there can only be one Vanessa Brandt in the whole wide world.”

  He sighed again.

  “She was christened Sophia,” he remarked. “I do not know why she should call herself Vanessa.”

  “For publicity reasons, I expect. Because it sounds good.”

  “Sophia is a family name,” he muttered obstinately. “To me it also sounds very good indeed, and how are my neighbours to know that I have a famous daughter if she calls herself by some other name?”

  “Ah,” Janie accused him, as she took the feather duster out of his hand before he could flick most of the objects on an upper shelf off it and on to the floor. “So it’s your vanity that is suffering most this morning, is it? Because you can’t boast of her, and stick a notice in the window informing everyone that Sophia is coming home! But you can prepare for her coming and bake a cake. Or your housekeeper can...” She turned him gently towards the door to an inner room, and then gave him a push. “Go and tell her to kill the fatted calf, and we’ll put the flags out afterwards!”

  Old Hermann mumbled to himself.

  “Sophia will not want that. Sophia will come back here like a thief in the night and wish that no one shall see her! She always hated this street, and how will such as she appreciate one of my good Flora’s cakes?”

  Janie stared at him in a certain amount of surprise. She had only worked for Hermann Brandt for six months, but the one thing she really knew about him was that he adored his daughter ... his only daughter. She was beautiful, and at twenty-six she was a well-known coloratura soprano. She had escaped from the little world of narrow streets and unpretentious houses in which she had been born and brought up and became a star that twinkled in a brighter world ... a more expensive world, where some of the houses that offered her hospitality were near-palaces, and their owners people with titles who would look down on little men like Hermann Brandt as very ordinary little men indeed. In spite of his ability to recognize a Stradivarius even if it were about to disintegrate into dust, and his fine long-fingered hands that could restore it if restoration were possible.

  She had escaped ... and apparently she wasn’t eager to return!

  That was another thing Janie had just learned about her, although somehow she couldn’t believe it. She tried to reassure Hermann.

  “But of course she’s just longing to get back and see you and her old home. I don’t suppose she’s had much opportunity until now...” She watched him start to climb the staircase that led to the flat above the shop. “When do you expect to see her?”

  Hermann shrugged.

  “It could be any time now. She said that she was flying home, and. aeroplanes travel quickly.”

  She actually arrived that afternoon, when Janie was still busily engaged in listing the latest consignment of gramophone records. She pushed open the door of the shop and the unharmonious bell jangled so harshly that Janie looked up, almost startled. A taxi was gliding away from the kerb, and the rain was slanting downwards and making the roads glisten. Vanessa Brandt was so beautifully dressed, and so much more than beautiful herself, that Janie knew at once who she was. She stood up, pushing back her chair.

  Vanessa directed a glacial blue look at her.

  “Who are you?” she demanded curtly.

  Janie explained.

  “I’m Mr. Brandt’s assistant ... Your father’s assistant?” she queried, certain she could not be wrong.

  Vanessa didn’t condescend to answer. She merely walked right in and started looking disdainfully about the shop.

  CHAPTER II

  Janie put away the lists of gramophone records. She watched Vanessa studying the contents of the shop with curiosity, that strong suspicion of contempt that was in every line of her features.

  She had astonishingly delicate features, and for one with humble beginnings, remarkably patrician ones. They suggested a pale and flawless cameo with curling lips and sensitive nostrils, and her eyes were very large and cold and blue. Her hair was pale guinea gold, and was trained to wind itself smoothly about her elegantly poised head, and to lie in a knot on the nape of her neck. The hat she wore, which was very captivating, had a wisp of some sort of veiling which emphasized the porcelain delicacy of her appearance.
/>   “So my father has not conquered his weakness for acquiring rubbish,” she remarked, as she spumed the battered musical instruments with a solitary glance.

  “It’s not because he admires rubbish,” Janie felt forced to reply, “but because he always feels so sorry for the people who want to sell it to him.”

  Vanessa’s eyes rested on her thoughtfully.

  “And you, no doubt, work for him for a pittance because you are in sympathy with his philanthropic ideas of how to run a business,” she stated rather than asked. Then: “Where is he?” she wanted to know.

  “Upstairs,” Janie told her. “At least, so far as I know.”

  “Preparing to welcome me home?” with a kind of brittle dryness.

  “I’ve no doubt he’s fairly actively concerned with a certain amount of preparation for your homecoming,” was the careful response to that.

  Vanessa whipped the captivating little hat from off her head, and cast it down on the counter with a sigh of relief. She ran slim fingers through the soft gold of her hair, loosening it, and then sat down in the only available chair and opened her handbag. She produced a toy of a cigarette case of gold and tortoiseshell and selected a cigarette and lighted it.

  “I’m not in any hurry for that sort of thing,” she confessed. “And if I won’t be in your way I’ll sit here for a bit.” She closed her eyes, as if she was mentally and physically exhausted, while she drew abstractedly on the cigarette; and then, when she opened them again, there was a curious alert look in them as she fixed them upon Janie. “You’re pretty,” she observed. “You’re very pretty for a backwater like this. Why do you work here?”

  “Because I like it here,” Janie replied with simplicity.

  “You mean you actually enjoy working in all this muddle?”

  “I try to straighten it up sometimes,” Jane informed her, with a smile. “But I honestly believe your father prefers a muddle, because he soon sees to it that we’re in a state of chaos again! However, he’s a musician, and you can’t expect a musician to be orderly.”

  “I’m a singer, and I love order,” Vanessa corrected her sharply. “I escaped from this kind of life because I had a superior voice, and I can't remember a single moment of my life when I was happy here. Does that surprise you?”

  “No,” Janie answered, looking at her. “Not really.”

  “Have you ever heard me sing?” Vanessa inquired, with an arrogant tilt to her chin.

  Janie nodded.

  “We have several recordings of yours here in the shop. Your father is very proud of them,” she added.

  “So he should be,” the other commented, looking mildly pleased. “I’ve climbed a long way since the days when he tried to teach me the piano. Actually, I never did learn to play very well, but my voice ... my voice has been described as the voice of a nightingale!” Her blue eyes remained triumphantly fixed on Janie’s face. “That’s something, isn’t it?”

  “It is indeed,” Janie agreed.

  Vanessa crushed out her cigarette in the ashtray. She swallowed, as if something was hurting her throat, and then coughed a little.

  “I shouldn’t smoke,” she admitted. “I’ve been ill ... or rather, I’m very tired, and I’ve got to undergo an operation. Oh, nothing to worry about, but it’s a nuisance ... a particular nuisance just now.” She seemed quite fascinated by the girl in the pink overall, who was automatically doing things with, her hands all the time that she was talking. Neatly clipping thin strips of paper that looked like invoices together, and then tucking them away in a drawer. Sorting the disorder in the drawer. “You know,” she remarked suddenly, “you’re not at all unlike me.”

  Janie stared at her.

  “That’s the sort of compliment I hardly feel I deserve, Miss Brandt.”

  Vanessa made a gesture with her hand.

  “I’m not complimenting you, I’m merely remarking on something that’s a little extraordinary. If you and I were sisters the World could accept it that I’m the beautiful sister, and you’re the slightly plainer one. But with grooming and so forth you could probably look ten times more attractive. And if someone took away that pink overall, and dressed you in some fabulous creation of Dior’s...” Her voice trailed away, but her eyes were full of speculation. “Do you know anything at all about music?” she asked.

  Janie replied with a somewhat dry note in her own voice this time.

  “I’m not a singer, Miss Brandt, if that’s what you mean. In addition,” she added, “to bearing a slight resemblance to you!”

  “It’s not slight,” Vanessa told her. “It’s remarkable! The only serious difference is in the colour of the eyes.” She lighted another cigarette, as if she needed it. “And of course I didn’t mean can you sing. You’d hardly be likely to have a voice like mine, even if you did,” with lofty disdain. “But if you know something about music... if you can talk to people who make it their life, for instance; if you are familiar with the various operas, could identify a passage from some obscure symphony, as well as being perfectly familiar with all the well-known composers—well, then, you’re a find indeed!”

  “I go to the opera whenever I can afford it, and I love Chopin,” Janie told her, with a queer little smile that had in it the merest hint of a form of contempt. “Is that any use?” she inquired flippantly.

  “I think it could be of amazing use,” Vanessa said slowly, as if she could hardly believe in her good fortune. Once more she crushed out a partially smoked cigarette. “Listen,” she said, “this is the set-up. This is the ‘inside story’, shall we say? I have to undergo an operation—a throat operation—as I told you, and according to the surgeon the whole thing shouldn’t take longer than a week. But by some unfortunate stroke of ill luck it happens to be a very vital week for me ... a week when I simply have to be seen and heard and mix with people. I’ve been offered something quite wonderful in Vienna that calls for a tip-top bill of health, and the very maximum of energy and vitality—to say nothing of endurance!—and the mail who is making me this offer wants to see me in New York in a few days’ time. I’m supposed to be on my way there now, but I’m actually on my way to the hospital ... I daren’t postpone this operation any longer if my voice isn’t to fail me altogether! And I’ve been at my wits’ end trying to think up something that could save the situation for me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Janie said sincerely, “if the situation is as bad as that.”

  “And you’ll help me?” Vanessa demanded quickly, her whole being revitalized because an idea had dawned at last “You’re so like me no one would guess ... certainly not anyone who hadn’t really seen me very well before! And Abraham Winterton has never seen me before. He’ll throw parties for me, introduce me to his friends ... and offer me a fine fat contract!” She was fairly bubbling over. “And you won’t have to sing a note, only talk!”

  Janie looked, and felt, aghast.

  “But you must be mad. Miss Brandt!” she protested. “Such a piece of deception is impossible. It wouldn’t get by for a moment—”

  “Don’t be silly, my dear, it’s a wonderful idea! And I’ll have you fitted out with a whole new wardrobe ... As a matter of fact, we’re much of a size, so you can wear some of my things. And Max Veldon will be at your elbow ... give you all the support you’ll need.”

  “Max Veldon?” Janie queried weakly. “The conductor?”

  Vanessa smiled.

  “To me he is something rather more than a conductor ... although he is, of course, one of the most famous conductors in the world. He and I...” Then she decided to say no more.

  Janie twined her fingers together agitatedly.

  “Miss Brandt,” she pleaded. “Please forget this absurd notion. It wouldn’t work—it couldn’t work!—and, in any case, I couldn’t have anything to do with it.”

  But Vanessa’s blue eyes had a strangely hypnotizing effect.

  “If you won’t do this thing for me, you’ll do it for my father, won’t you?” she said. “I can te
ll you’re very fond of my father, and he made a lot of sacrifices for me when I was young. I want to do a lot of things for him”—she sent one of her contemptuous glances round the shop—“remove him from this hovel, and I can do that if I get the Winterton contract.” It was on the tip of Janie’s tongue to ask why she hadn’t done anything for her father before, but the words wouldn’t frame on her lips. And Vanessa went on with unnatural persuasiveness: “And besides ... think what an interlude it will be for you! You must lead one of the dullest lives of any girl I’ve ever known, and I’m offering you a chance to escape ... a chance to see something of a world you know nothing about. A world of brilliance and music.”

  Janie shook her head.

  “I’m happy here.”

  “But you love music,” coaxingly. “You go to the opera whenever you can afford it, and you love Chopin. In New York, for one brief and memorable week, you’ll be caught up in a world of music ... you’ll have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, if you want it. And you’ll meet people ... all sorts of exciting new people. There’ll be glamour—the glamour of smart clothes, cocktail parties, night-clubs...”

  “No,” Janie said.

  Vanessa spoke deliberately.

  “Have you ever seen Max Veldon conduct?”

  “Once,” Janie answered, and felt her knees grow weak. She had never forgotten the night she watched Max Veldon conduct, and heard a famous orchestra give of its best.

  “He’s quite devastating, isn’t he?” Vanessa murmured, with a slow and understanding smile. “Some people won’t have it that he’s handsome, but I think he’s much more than that ... almost frighteningly handsome. The devil’s half-brother, I once heard him called. Think of having him at your elbow for a week, supporting you, advising you! For my sake he’ll do that.”

  “No,” Janie repeated—but it was a weaker “No” this time. “I couldn’t.”