Nightingales (Warrender Saga Book 11)

by Mary Burchell

  For Amanda life went on in a familiar pattern at first. She was extra busy helping Nan, her singing lessons required more intensive study than ever, but in addition she found herself included in some of the not always peaceful discussions which took place between Lewis and Patrick Rogerson.

  Both of them, Amanda discovered with amused interest, displayed more than a hint of what is usually known as ‘artistic temperament’ and both, involved as they were in the strain and excitement of creation, were sometimes short-tempered and impatient with each other—and with her.

  She took it all in good part usually, regarding it as her contribution to the success of the joint venture. But one day when she had expended a lot of energy in bringing peace into a stormy discussion, she said with a sigh, ‘It’s a bit wearing being a buffer state between you two.’

  ‘You’re not a buffer state,’ Rogerson told her with a grin. ‘You’re more of a lightning conductor. A soothing influence, that’s what you are. I can feel the irritation and unreason oozing out of me when you smile persuasively and make tactful and pacific remarks. How about you, Lewis?’

  ‘How about me in what way?’ Lewis asked absently, without even looking up from the page of manuscript he was altering.

  ‘Weren’t you listening at all? I was talking, about Amanda and asking how you feel about her.’

  ‘How I feel——?’ He did glance up then and for the first time she could remember Amanda saw him look extremely startled. Then Rogerson laughed and said,

  ‘Merely a surface judgment, old boy. I was praising her for the way she calms down our artistic blowups, and I give her full marks as a lightning conductor when we’re both letting off sparks and flashes. How about you?’

  ‘She knows what I think about her,’ replied Lewis, and went on with his work. And that was the moment when it came to Amanda that she did not really know what he thought about her and that it was the most important unanswered question in her whole existence.

  The discovery shook her and she was rather silent during the rest of the session. She was even unusually uncommunicative on the short drive home with Patrick Rogerson, and presently he glanced at her and said, ‘You’re very quiet. You weren’t really troubled about that set-to between us this afternoon, were you? It doesn’t mean anything when Lewis and I go for each other. Or only that we both think so well of this enterprise that we’re ready to fight anyone—even each other—for what we think will be best.’

  ‘Oh, no, of course not! I accept that as part of your joint creation. Only you tease him too much sometimes, Patrick. He’s touchy about personal things. You really startled him—didn’t you notice?—when you asked what he thought of me.’

  ‘Did I?’ Rogerson looked amused. ‘Why? Is it a delicate subject?’ And when she made a movement of protest he went on before she could speak, ‘You mean he’s sweet on you and didn’t want the fact commented on?’

  ‘I don’t mean that at all,’ she retorted with emphasis.

  ‘No? Well, it could prove true all the same, I suppose. It would be difficult to work with a darling like you and not be a little sweet on you,’ he declared, but with an air of careless good nature which reduced the issue to a reassuringly unimportant level.

  Even so, Amanda was still very thoughtful when they arrived home and Nan came out to greet them with unusual eagerness, as though she could not wait for them to enter the house.

  ‘Hello, Nan! News from Switzerland?’ enquired Amanda quickly.

  ‘No. It’s a bit too early for that yet. But news from London,’ replied her sister-in-law with an excited little laugh. ‘Lady Warrender phoned while you were out. It’s been arranged for you to have classes at his opera school—Sir Oscar’s, I mean. And he’ll probably give you some intensive training himself. You’re to be in London by the beginning of next week, and will be staying there, except for weekends, for the next month or two.’

  ‘Staying there?’ gasped Amanda. ‘Staying where, for heaven’s sake? It isn’t too easy to find a cheap place in London, though I suppose I could——’

  ‘That’s the cream of the message,’ Nan informed her. ‘You’re to stay with them—the Warrenders. It was Lady Warrender’s idea and he’s agreed to it. How’s that for news?’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Your basic training has been excellent.’ Oscar Warrender got up from the piano and indicated to Amanda that she should sit on the sofa beside his wife. ‘Elsworth is obviously a good teacher and you appear to have been a reasonably intelligent pupil. But these are no more than the minimum requirements for the creation of a worthwhile performer, you understand.’

  ‘Dr Elsworth did impress that on me,’ Amanda replied submissively. For although she had now been three days in the Warrender household this was the first time the great man had given her a formal hearing and she was still considerably in awe of him.

  ‘At this stage,’ Warrender went on, ‘you are in the same category as a pianist who has been presented with a fine, well-tuned piano and has developed a good technique. From that point everything depends on what you do with those two essentials. How much artistry, instinct, intelligence and sheer hard work you are capable of bringing to bear on the problem of developing what’s within you—the unique you which distinguishes you from everyone else. Do you follow me?’

  Amanda nodded and looked expectant.

  ‘You show some signs of innate artistry and a natural sense of drama. Many performers who make quite good careers go no further than that, and indeed in this age of monumental mediocrity that’s often all that is asked of them. But——’

  He paused and Amanda, unable to restrain her eagerness to hear more, said impulsively, ‘You mean there’s something else which distinguishes the real artist? Something that I—I just possibly might have?’

  ‘Difficult to tell at this early stage, but—’ he glanced at his wife—‘what would you say, Anthea?’

  ‘Are you talking of star quality?’ Anthea enquired.

  ‘Not precisely—no. Nothing so immediately arresting as that. But there is an occasional flash of something totally individual. Don’t take that as a compliment, Amanda, or start preening yourself. I’m merely considering vague possibilities, none of which will come to fruition without untiring co-operation on your part. Remember that.’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ Amanda promised gravely. ‘You mean that whatever I have within me is a sort of trust and can only be brought out by my own work and dedication.’

  ‘Something like that.’ The conductor smiled slightly.

  ‘Dr Elsworth told me much the same thing. But—’ she hesitated and then went on diffidently—‘he never spoke of any unique quality. Could you perhaps explain a little more about that?’

  ‘I’ll try.’ He frowned consideringly. ‘I would say it’s the ability to give the breath of life to a character who otherwise exists only on paper. So much so that an intelligent member of the audience will be impelled to wonder what happened to that character after the performance is over.’

  Anthea laughed, but in obvious agreement, and Amanda, catching her breath slightly, said, ‘And you think I just might have that quality?’

  ‘I thought you showed a hint of it when you were here that afternoon with Elsworth. That’s why I was determined to have the handling of you myself,’ replied Warrender coolly.

  ‘But I’m not aware of consciously striving after anything like that,’ Amanda protested anxiously.

  ‘No, of course not. I’m inclined to think it’s a quality one can neither teach nor learn. We’ll see—we’ll see.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I must go now. I have a rehearsal.’ And he went before Amanda could ask any more. Before, in fact, she could even express her appreciation of his interest and advice.

  ‘I ought to have thanked him!’ she exclaimed remorsefully to Anthea as she heard the front door close. ‘I was so—so awed I couldn’t think of anything to say. Even now I find it hard to believe that anyone so famous and knowledgeable should take such
a kind interest in me. Will you please tell him how truly grateful I am?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell him,’ Anthea promised with a smile. ‘But kindness is not what’s prompting him, you know. Don’t think all this is going to be made easy, Amanda, or that there’ll be any preferential treatment for you just because he’s taking a hand in your training. He’s a very hard taskmaster indeed, and no one knows it better than I do. I also was his pupil.’

  ‘I had heard as much,’ Amanda replied, and she looked at Anthea Warrender with a sort of shy curiosity. ‘Was he very hard on you?’

  ‘Perfectly horrible,’ replied Anthea cheerfully. ‘I hated the sight of him half the time. But I realised from the first that he was a genius and that I was lucky to be bullied by him. Even when I pretty well wanted him to drop dead in front of me I was still aware that he was the only person who could give me unshakeable confidence when he was at the conductor’s desk. It’s all a long time ago——’ she broke off and laughed reminiscently.

  ‘How long ago?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘Since I first sang under him?’

  ‘Since you first met him.’

  ‘O—oh—’ Anthea laughed again—‘that was a disaster! It was during a singing contest in my home town and he was one of the judges. I desperately needed the big money prize offered because things were difficult at home and I knew that I couldn’t continue my training without money from somewhere. I thought—and I still think, Amanda—that I was the best of the contestants. Most of the judges thought so too, but Oscar talked them over and the prize went to another girl, who was awfully good in her own way, I must admit,’ she added fairly.

  ‘But didn’t he think you were the best?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he knew I was. But he was determined to save me from a bit of cheap early success and the sort of publicity which would have put me on the wrong path from the beginning. So he did me out of the prize, and then arranged through someone else that I should be sent to him for lessons.’

  ‘That was pretty ruthless, surely?’ Amanda looked slightly shocked.

  ‘But they are ruthless, Amanda, these men who live for their art and have contempt for anything or anyone who stands in the way of the standards they serve. The maddening thing is of course that they’re almost invariably right. Always in Oscar’s case, so far as I know,’ she added with shameless partiality, ‘and probably nearly always in the case of your Lewis Elsworpe. I suppose that’s why we start by hating them and end by loving them,’ she added half to herself. ‘At least, that was how it was with me,’ she amended hastily as she saw the startled expression which came over Amanda’s face.

  ‘When did you begin to feel differently towards Sir Oscar?’ asked Amanda, refusing to particularise about her own affairs.

  ‘Oh, Amanda, I don’t quite know. I realised I was in love with him the first night he conducted for me, when I sang Desdemona. But I suppose if I hadn’t been so mad with him for other things I’d have recognised the fact sooner.’

  ‘And he?’ Amanda could not resist enquiring. ‘Was he equally vague about when it happened to him?’

  ‘No, no. Most unkindly exact, I remember. After that Desdemona performance he told me that he’d fallen in love with my voice the first time he heard it. But by then I wanted to hear that he loved me and I asked him outright if it had only been my voice he fell instantly in love with—and he said it was.’

  ‘Oh!’ Amanda’s exclamation of shocked sympathy made the other girl laugh.

  ‘Just how I felt at that moment,’ she admitted, ‘and, because I was tense and excited after the performance, I began to cry. Then he said it had taken him two and a half weeks to fall in love with me myself—and I could have hit him.’ She smilingly shook her head and added, again in that reminiscent tone of voice, ‘It’s all years ago—nearly twelve years ago, now I come to think of it—but I can remember it as though it were yesterday. How did we come to talk about this, for goodness’ sake?’

  ‘We were talking about the ruthlessness of the dedicated artist and—and the fact that one tends to forgive them and love them all the same,’ Amanda said slowly.

  ‘Yes, I remember now. Don’t worry, my dear. I was generalising. Just concentrate on working the way Oscar directs you. That will give you plenty to think about for the moment.’

  Recognising this for good and kindly advice, Amanda tried to follow it during the ensuing weeks and found how exactly Anthea had estimated her husband’s handling of a pupil. It was true that he was ruthless, even brutal occasionally in a cold way, but absolutely tireless in his quest for perfection; and his very few words of praise—though gained at the expense of much anguish—were something to be treasured.

  He had no personal part in her day-to-day lessons at the school, but here Amanda found she was comfortably abreast of her fellow students as she absorbed the basic technique of stage performance. At a later point she was allowed some chorus work and a walk-on part so small that it comprised little more than a couple of lines. But to each task she devoted the utmost care and attention, gaining a nod of approval from Warrender when he discovered that she had familiarised herself with the complete work even before she set foot on the stage at rehearsal for her two lines.

  Meanwhile the news from home was good. Most of this came by letter from Nan, who proved to be an unusually good correspondent, and occasionally—though more occasionally than she had expected—she was able to go back to The Nightingale for an odd weekend.

  ‘I thought,’ Nan said to her on the occasion of one of her rare visits, ‘that the idea was for you to come home most weekends.’

  ‘I thought so too,’ Amanda agreed. ‘But that doesn’t seem to be Sir Oscar’s idea. He sets my time-table and I couldn’t even imagine querying it. He’s terribly strict.’

  ‘But nice on the whole, I take it?’

  ‘Nice? Oh, no, you couldn’t describe Oscar Warrender as nice, any more than you could describe Niagara Falls or Mount Everest as nice. He’s tremendously stimulating and inspiring and a genius and all that. But if you have anything to do with him professionally he takes over your life and, in a curious way, you’re thrilled to have him do so. That may sound silly, but it’s true.’

  ‘Well, I don’t complain of the way he’s partly taken over our lives either,’ Nan replied with a laugh, and Amanda realised suddenly that her sister-in-law looked unusually happy and oddly reminiscent of the lovely girl who had married Henry. ‘I had the latest news from Dr Charole this morning. He’s cautious, of course—he always is—and I hardly dare to hope too much, but it’s much the best report yet.’

  ‘Let me see!’ cried Amanda, and when she too had read the doctor’s account of Henry’s progress since his operation, she hugged Nan and exclaimed, ‘It’s going to be all right. I know it’s going to be all right. Blessings on the Warrenders! And on Lewis too, of course,’ she added a little awkwardly.

  ‘And Lewis too,’ Nan echoed with a smile. ‘He and Patrick have been in and out most days this week, enquiring about you. It seems they’ve reached some point where they need you.—And, talking of angels (if that’s the right description for them), here they are, I think.’

  Two minutes later both Lewis and Patrick Rogerson came in.

  ‘Here’s our girl at last!’ exclaimed Rogerson, kissing Amanda with a sort of casual heartiness which was in marked contrast to the slight smile with which Lewis greeted her. ‘We thought Warrender had decided to take you over for some scheme of his own,’ Rogerson went on, ‘and that you proposed to desert us and our work.’

  ‘I never thought that,’ stated Lewis calmly.

  ‘I should hope not indeed!’ exclaimed Amanda. ‘After all you’ve done for me? Why, your claims come before anything Sir Oscar or anyone else could suggest. Nothing could ever make me forget our family debt to you,’ she ended passionately.

  ‘Well, forget it now,’ Lewis told her curtly, and she had the odd impression that what she had said did not please him. Nan also was evidently aware of h
is reaction because she put her hand on his arm, with an easy familiarity which Amanda envied, and said, ‘Don’t look so cross and self-conscious. You can forget if you like, but we never can.’

  ‘Oh, please——’ he frowned and made a quick movement of rejection, while his companion looked amused and curious.

  ‘All right, I won’t labour the point,’ Nan conceded. ‘But we’ve just had wonderful news from Switzerland and we naturally associate it with you and the Warrenders.’

  ‘May one ask——’ began Rogerson.

  ‘No, one may not,’ Lewis interrupted shortly. ‘It’s not important anyway. What is important is that we can take Amanda back with us and put her through a vital scene in the second act. We’ve worked on it until we can hardly be civil to each other, Amanda, and we have to hear you sing it and give us some idea of what it’s like when delivered in person. It needs what one might call the breath of life to lift it from the manuscript page and make a real thing of it.—Why do you look like that?’ he added curiously.

  ‘Because of what you said,’ Amanda replied. ‘You used almost exactly the same term as Sir Oscar when he——’

  ‘When he what?’ Lewis looked at her intently.

  ‘When he auditioned me formally for the first time he—he said I just might have the unusual quality which enables an artist to give the breath of life to a character who exists otherwise only on paper.’

  ‘So he recognised it too!’ Lewis put out his hand and, as though Nan and Rogerson were not there, he drew her against him and looked down at her.

  ‘He thought I showed a hint of it when I sang that prayer in the last act. And I thought how wonderful it would be if I could help to give life to a character created by you.’

  ‘If you succeed in that don’t ever again speak of being in debt to me,’ he said with a slight smile, and he bent his head and kissed her cheek. It was a much lighter kiss than the exuberant salute Patrick Rogerson had bestowed upon her, but to Amanda it conveyed more than any other kiss she had ever received.