She almost violently rejected any suggestion that she should teach music (though even Lewis Freemont had said disparagingly that he supposed she might make a good teacher). Instead, with her unusual capacity for concentrated hard work, she launched into a crash course in secretarial training, which brought all her slightly haphazard knowledge in this line to a remarkably high pitch. Then she joined the agency for whom Rosamund worked.
She told herself that she was content to have things this way. She did, it was true, derive a certain satisfaction from finding that she could now maintain herself without any aid from her father. While he, on his side, knowing nothing of the events which had precipitated his daughter’s decision, wrote to say he was glad she was applying herself to something practical and financially rewarding, but ‘hoped she was keeping up her music for her own pleasure.’
At the word ‘pleasure’ Antoinette gave a sad, rather bitter little smile. Pleasure was no longer associated with the thing which had once been her life, and she told herself that she never wanted to attend another concert so long as she lived.
This, of course, proved to be a passing phase. One cannot fix every hope and thought upon one thing — particularly one form of art — and then suddenly root it out of one’s life entirely. Less than a couple of months after the disastrous scene with Lewis Freemont Antoinette found herself longing to go to a concert. Any concert, she told herself. But in actual fact this was less than the truth.
What she wanted was to go once more and hear the man who had altered her life. She wanted to hear him again, with critical rather than entranced ears, to judge in her new mood of bitter realism whether he were truly such a remarkable musician himself that she could never reject his verdict entirely.
She said nothing about her intention to Rosamund. Indeed, not until the very evening of the concert did she quite admit to herself that she was going. And then, having left it so late, she found of course that there were only a few returned tickets — all of them much more expensive than anything she had intended to pay.
She had to make her decision quickly, with an impatient queue behind her and, faintly flustered, she said she would take the least expensive ticket available. Only when she had turned away with the ticket clutched in her hand did she discover that the seat was in the front row.
Ordinarily, she would have been very willing to be near enough to watch his playing close at hand, even though it meant being too near for what was largely an orchestral concert. But, in the dismayed realization that not only would she see but also that she could be seen, she nearly turned back to the box-office and returned the ticket. But by now she felt rather self-conscious. And, anyway, others were crowding in to make their own enquiries.
Besides — suddenly her spirit rose defensively — why should she care if he did see her and, by some chance, recollect her? Her life was not going to be ruled in its smallest particular by the fact that Lewis Freemont had been crushingly rude to her! If he recognized her, let him reflect that she had paid to come and decide what she thought of him, and if the reflection afforded him even a second of discomfiture, she would be the last to worry.
In point of fact, when he finally came on the stage his glance passed over her as it did over everyone else in the hall. Quite obviously, if he saw the audience at all, he saw them collectively. And once he sat down at the piano, she could not imagine that he remembered anyone in the place but the conductor and the orchestral players around him.
The first concerto was a modern work and the sheer brilliance of his execution drew tremendous applause. But Antoinette was eager to tell herself that this was merely a display of the very thing he had assessed so contemptuously in herself. Well, if not quite like that, at least the work plumbed no searching depths of feeling.
But when it came to the Beethoven — ah, that was a different matter entirely. The brilliant technique became no more than a means to an end. The sensitive instinct, the inner knowledge of the man, shed a light that was almost divine upon the work, so that all could share fully in one of the wonders of the musical world instead of just glimpsing it dimly.
As with all great performances, it was difficult to tell where creative art ended and interpretative art began. Like everyone else, Antoinette just accepted the miracle of the experience, so that she was transported to something a little beyond herself and came back a better and a happier person because of it.
This time the applause had warmth and affection and something like gratitude in it, as he came forward to the front of the platform, smiling at last with his task well done. He saw them as people now, not just a disembodied audience, and as his cool, keen glance travelled along the front row it came to rest on Antoinette.
There was no doubt that he recognized her as someone he knew, and for a moment she received the full force of that immensely attractive smile. Instinctively she smiled back — it was impossible not to. Then the audience surged forward from further back in the hall and the moment was over. Though he returned to the platform many times he never seemed to notice Antoinette again.
She went home in a daze of mixed feelings which she could not possibly explain to herself. She hated him still for what he had done to her, and she despised him for the heartless, arrogant way in which he had chosen to do it. But he was still the person above all others who could stir her senses and excite her imagination. If only, only he had left her her dreams she could almost have loved him for the way he had played that evening. And the way he had smiled at her afterwards.
After that, she resumed her concert-going to a certain extent. At least she never missed an occasion when he played. Once or twice she thought he noticed her again and recognized her, but he never again smiled at her in that moment of almost intimate warmth. Perhaps he had now fully recalled the circumstances of their initial meeting. It was a humiliating thought. But it did not keep her away when he played.
In late September Antoinette took a week’s holiday from her work, with the half-formed intention of going home to see her father and Meriel. But her tentative suggestion to this effect brought an immediate reply from Meriel, who explained regretfully that they themselves would be in Scotland. Such a pity, but she was sure Antoinette would understand.
Antoinette understood all right. But she wondered indignantly and a little sadly why there was no word from her father about her possibly joining them — or even about altering dates somewhat to make their plans and hers fit better. With no more than six months’ employment behind her she had not saved enough to afford much of a holiday elsewhere. But Rosamund took some days off too and they had one or two enjoyable excursions outside London.
It was on one of these excursions, when they were in one of the loveliest parts of Surrey, that Rosamund pointed to a faded-looking signpost and remarked:
‘Your friend Lewis Freemont lives somewhere around here, doesn’t he?’
‘Does he?’ Antoinette was constantly astonished by the odd pieces of information which Rosamund gleaned from her work or from her very casual reading of journals and newspapers. ‘How do you know?’ she enquired curiously, and then added automatically, ‘He’s no friend of mine, as well you know.’
‘It was just a manner of speaking,’ Rosamund assured her pacifically. ‘I remember seeing a photograph of his house in a magazine when I was under the hair-dryer. It’s a converted manor house, the article said. And that was the name of the village — ’ once more she pointed to the signpost — ‘I remember it because it was such a queer name — Pallin Parva.’
‘That must be the house,’ Antoinette said slowly, and she indicated a distant moss-grown tiled roof with what looked like Tudor chimneys at either end. From one of them a trail of smoke curled up lazily into the pale sky of the autumn afternoon.
‘Do you want to go and have a closer view?’ asked Rosamund.
‘Oh no!’ Antoinette rejected the suggestion quickly. ‘I haven’t any interest in him nowadays,’ and she walked on.
But as she did so sh
e knew perfectly well that neither statement was the truth. She longed to go and have a closer view, for the simple reason that Lewis Freemont still interested her out of all proportion to his place in her present life.
The next day Rosamund had to go into the office on an emergency call and Antoinette was left on her own. Again it was a lovely clear autumn day. And, telling herself that she would just go wherever her fancy took her, she boarded the same Green Line bus that she and Rosamund had taken the day before and took a ticket to the end of the run.
But when the bus neared the place where they had dismounted the previous day, something stronger than herself impelled her to ring the bell. And a few moments later she found herself alone on the country road, watching the bus disappear rapidly into the distance.
Even now she would not quite admit to herself that she was going to look at Lewis Freemont’s home. Nor would she examine just what her motive might be in coming here at all. She had little reason to feel any friendly interest in him. She was past the stage of the star-struck teenager. She had no wish to know him or even see him. Why then was she here?
‘Why shouldn’t I be here?’ she asked herself defensively. ‘Or anywhere else I choose to go. This happens to be a lovely part of the country. I’m at liberty to enjoy it in my own time and my own way.’
But she felt faintly self-conscious all the same as she paused at the hedge-lined crossroads about a couple of hundred yards from the house. Then, still feeling something of an intruder — though a defiant intruder — she started to cross the road. As she did so a powerful white car swept round the bend in the road, the sound of its approach obscured by the droning of an aeroplane overhead.
If she had gone straight on she would have been missed by inches. But, in a split second, she recognized that distinctive car, seen so many times outside concert halls, and a ridiculous feeling of mingled guilt, embarrassment and indecision stopped her in her tracks.
There was a scream of protesting tyres and she actually heard him shout something at her as the car swerved round her. Then, as she cast a terrified glance over her shoulder, the big white car seemed to strike a patch of oil or grease in the road. With no appreciable slackening of speed it spun round in a nightmare skid and headed straight for an enormous tree at the side of the road. There was a crash which sounded to Antoinette like the end of the world. And then — silence, utter and complete, except that, on the very edge of it, she seemed to hear the distant drone of the aeroplane fading across the autumn sky.
She was ashamed to remember afterwards that in the first moment of panic she actually turned to flee. Then, realizing that there was no one but herself to do something about what had happened, she forced her trembling legs to take her to the side of the road.
The car was a horrible buckled tangle of metal, but he had been flung clear and was lying on the grass verge face downwards, his arms outspread on either side of him.
‘Mr. Freemont — ’ the idiotic incongruity of addressing the still figure thus hardly touched her consciousness. In any case, what else was she to say? ‘Please — please — ’
She touched him, but he did not move. And then, with a considerable effort of strength, she managed to turn him so that she could see his face. It was pale and set and his eyes were closed. But — she could not have said why — he certainly did not look dead.
‘He’s only stunned. I think he’s only stunned,’ she said aloud, as though to reassure herself, and a slight sob of frightened relief escaped her. But now the most urgent thing was to get help.
She jumped to her feet and looked wildly round her, and as she did so he stirred sharply. Immediately she dropped on her knees again beside him.
‘Open your eyes,’ she exclaimed imploringly. ‘Please open your eyes!’ And at that he did exactly what he was told. He opened his eyes, but he looked past her and muttered,
‘What’s happened? — what’s happened?’
‘There was an accident — ’
‘I remember — that fool of a girl — ’ he was still muttering, but it was obvious that full consciousness was returning. ‘What’s happened?’ he repeated, on a note of curiously bewildered impatience. ‘Where’s the light?’
‘The — the light?’ stammered Antoinette. And at the sound of her voice he seemed to focus his gaze more exactly on her, though entirely without recognition.
‘Who are you? Where are you?’ was the extraordinary thing he said. And suddenly one groping hand fastened on her arm with an urgency and a strength that almost made her cry out.
‘I’m here — here,’ she answered helplessly. ‘Here — just beside you. Can’t you see me?’
‘No, I can’t see you.’ And then, in the tone of someone struggling not to accept a monstrous discovery — ‘I can’t see anything at all. It’s all dark.’
At these words a chill of inexpressible horror crawled down Antoinette’s spine.
‘I’ll get help,’ she gasped. ‘Lie where you are. You’re off the road and safe here. I’ll get help. A house — your house — is quite near.’
‘But I don’t understand — ’ His grip was still so tight on her arm that she literally had to prise his fingers away, and she did so in panic and dismay beyond anything she had ever known before.
‘Don’t move,’ she implored him. And then again, ‘I’ll get help.’
‘Who are you?’ He sounded wild with impatience and helplessness. ‘You’re the girl who caused the accident, aren’t you? You must be. There was no one else,’ Then, in a horrified burst of anger and despair, he cried. ‘God, you little fool, you’ve blinded me!’ And he made a strange sketchy gesture with one powerful hand, as though he literally wanted to get hold of her and shake the life out of her.
‘I’ll get help,’ she cried for the fourth time. And she turned and ran stumblingly from the scene, urged quite as much by a panic desire to flee as by her genuine wish to fetch aid of some sort.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she sobbed aloud as she ran. ‘It wasn’t entirely my fault. He was driving fast. And the car caught that patch of oil in the road. I saw it there myself. It wasn’t my fault — it wasn’t! — But he’ll never believe anything else.’
She was at the house more quickly than she had expected and hammered on the door.
‘Quick, quick!’ she gasped to the startled man who snatched open the door. ‘There’s been a car accident. Mr. Freemont is hurt. He’s lying on the grass verge, down by the crossroads.’
Even while she poured out her story, the man had turned from her and was calling to several men further back in the hall who seemed to be engaged on some sort of building or decorating.
‘Fetch one of those boards,’ he called, ‘in case we have to carry him. There’s been an accident!’
And then, as Antoinette flattened herself against the side of the porch, several men in white painter’s overalls ran past her with an air of purpose and urgency which gave her her first glimmer of comfort since the awful thing had happened. At least they knew what to do and were preparing to do it with all speed.
She followed in their wake as far as the gate. They had already outdistanced her and were running towards that huddle of metal at the end of the lane. She herself was no longer needed. And even as she realized that, the instinct of flight — barely controlled in her until this moment — rose in a flood and overwhelmed every other feeling.
Guiltily, and yet with a sense of relief that hurt, she turned in the opposite direction and ran as hard as she could.
More by luck than any calculation she found a Green Line bus stop, and she had been standing there trembling and distraught for no more than three minutes before a bus came along. It happened to be going in the direction of town, but wherever it had been going Antoinette would have scrambled on to it. Anything, anything to get away from the scene of what had just happened.
By a horrid quirk of fate the bus had to pass within yards of the scene of the accident. And only a few minutes after she had got on she heard p
eople saying, ‘Oh, look, there’s been an accident! It’s that big white car. They’re picking someone up — ’
She shut her eyes tightly, so that she should see nothing, and wondered for a moment if she were going to faint. She must have gone a queer colour, because after a minute or two the woman sitting beside her said:
‘Makes you feel quite funny, doesn’t it? Did you see — ’
‘No,’ interrupted Antoinette violently. ‘I didn’t see anything. I shut my eyes.’
‘I don’t blame you, dear,’ was the reply. And presently several people got off the bus and Antoinette was able to go and sit alone at the back and think her own thoughts uninterrupted.
But what thoughts! — what thoughts!
Was she really to blame? Could the stupidity of that momentary hesitation really be held against her? What was she doing there, anyway? What ill-fated, idiotic impulse had brought her there?
But even worse than any question of her own responsibility was the awfulness of what had happened to him.
Could his blindness be merely the temporary effect of shock? She prayed and prayed confusedly that this should be so, but gained no reassurance from the words that gabbled ceaselessly through her consciousness.
All the way home she tormented herself with questions. But most tormenting of all was the realization that she must keep her fears and her knowledge to herself. There was nothing useful she could do by coming forward, she assured herself, even while another part of her said that she was a coward. She was not responsible. Over and over again she repeated this to herself.
No one could ever assert that she had been there. Lewis Freemont himself could not identify her. She felt sick for a moment when she thought why he would not be able to identify her. As for the workman who had opened the door at Pallin Manor, to him she was no more than a stranger who had disappeared as swiftly as she had come.
So far as identification was concerned, she was safe. Only she knew — and would know to her dying day — that perhaps, perhaps she had been partly responsible for this dreadful thing which had happened.
When Love Is Blind (Warrender Saga Book 3) Page 2