‘It’s wonderful!’ Antoinette stood and smiled at him. Then, realizing that of course he could not see the pleasure and congratulation on her face, she came over and patted him on the shoulder, and said again, ‘It’s wonderful!’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Immediately he put up his hand and covered hers. ‘Thank you. It’s largely because of your certainty and encouragement, you know. You give me a sort of confidence just by being here, in the house. As though there’s a line of communication between us not entirely dependent on physical touch.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Antoinette quietly. But she was really so much moved that she was relieved that they were interrupted at this point by the entry of Gordon Everleigh.
Nothing could have exceeded the congratulation and warm-hearted delight of Lewis Freemont’s impresario. As an excellent businessman, he was naturally immeasurably relieved to see one of his most invaluable artists no longer determined to rule out the possibility of a comeback. But in addition, Antoinette saw, he was personally genuinely happy on behalf of a friend.
‘Everything is possible, now that you’ve made the first step,’ he declared.
‘More than the first step,’ Antoinette pointed out warmly. ‘He has decided to play again, and he’s already learning to move about with some confidence.’
‘Thanks to the mingled encouragement and bullying of my admirable secretary,’ put in Lewis Freemont drily.
‘Yes, yes, I dared to hope something like this might happen from the first moment I set eyes on Miss Burney,’ declared Gordon Everleigh. ‘Somehow, she looks the kind of girl who works the occasional miracle.’
‘Does she really?’ Lewis Freemont sounded both amused and interested.
‘Well, don’t you agree?’
‘My dear chap, I’ve never seen her.’
‘Oh, lord, no, of course you haven’t! I’m sorry, I forgot you hadn’t met her until this happened.’
‘Don’t apologize. I probably know her quite as well as I should if I could have seen her from the beginning.’ There was no self-pity in his tone. There was even a hint of gaiety. ‘You concentrate more on other things if you can’t see a person. Is she as pretty as her speaking voice suggests?’
‘At the risk of embarrassing her, I should say — yes,’ replied Gordon Everleigh judicially, and Antoinette laughed.
‘You shall describe her to me some time,’ remarked Antoinette’s employer.
‘Has no one done so yet?’ His friend sounded amused.
‘Only Toni herself — and Charmian. I have an idea that neither did her strict justice,’ was the dry retort. And Antoinette, curiously secure all at once, allowed herself another slight laugh.
She left the two men together then, to discuss tentative, long-term plans for Lewis Freemont’s eventual return to public life. But some time later Gordon Everleigh sought her out in her office and said,
‘If you can keep him more or less in this mood of positive optimism, the musical world will owe you a real debt of gratitude.’
‘I shall do my best,’ Antoinette promised. ‘There will be setbacks, you know. He’s a mercurial sort of creature — ’
‘Don’t tell me!’ The impresario laughed and made a face. ‘I make my bread and butter out of the artistic temperament. There’s nothing I don’t know about it.’
‘Yes, of course! I forgot. I only meant that the impetus of this first enthusiasm will slacken, and we shall have to be ready to deal with the inevitable depression and frustration when the day-to-day difficulties emerge.’
‘You think of everything,’ was the approving reply, ‘and I have every confidence in your being able to deal efficiently with everything as it comes along. I only hope Freemont realizes one day how much he owes to you.’
Then he went away, leaving Antoinette divided between happiness over present approval and grief at the thought of what her employer owed to her from the past.
Nothing, however, could now cloud her bright spirits for long. And she was delighted to find on the following morning that he was determined to go into the garden.
It was a lovely late autumn day, incredibly mild for that time of year. And, having walked round part of the garden with him, describing some of the flowers and plants and letting him pause to enjoy the scent of some late roses, she left him sitting in a sheltered corner, touched by the almost naive pleasure with which he raised his face to feel the rays of the autumn sun which he could not see.
Back in her office, she worked without interruption for some time. So deeply absorbed was she that she was almost startled when the door into the drawing-room opened. For a staggered moment she wondered if her employer had somehow found his way in from the garden alone, and then she saw, with surprise and no special pleasure, that Mrs. St. Leger stood framed in the doorway.
‘Mr. Freemont is in the garden, Mrs. St. Leger,’ Antoinette said. ‘It’s the first time he — ’
‘Yes, I know. I saw him as I passed.’ The voice was grave, and suddenly Antoinette realized that there was a regretful, almost reproachful air about her visitor which was singularly becoming to her type of beauty. ‘I didn’t disturb him, because it was you I wanted to speak to personally.’
Suppressing a secret irritation at the impression of gentle melancholy, Antoinette pushed aside her typewriter and said, with a sort of brisk courtesy, ‘What can I do for you? Is it something to do with Mr. Freemont?’
‘Yes, it is.’ The air of a minor saint contemplating the unbelievable wickedness of the world deepened slightly. ‘Miss Burney, this isn’t going to be at all easy for me to say. But I think you will realize something of what is coming if I tell you that yesterday, when I was in town, I called to see an old acquaintance of mine — Sir Horace Keen.’
Such a frightful chill gripped Antoinette’s heart at these words that she experienced an almost physical pain. She literally could not utter a word, even if it would have been advisable to do so, and after a moment Mrs. St. Leger went on,
‘Naturally my friendship with Mr. Freemont brought me in contact with many people in the musical world, and I have known Sir Horace for some years, and it occurred to me that perhaps it would help if I went to him and asked if there were anything further we could do to trace that girl who had injured Lewis so terribly.’
She paused again, but still Antoinette said nothing, and, with a slight sigh for the disagreeable necessity of inflicting the blow, Mrs. St. Leger said,
‘Inevitably we came to a discussion of the list of names he had supplied. He spoke of eight names, though I knew there had been only seven on the one you showed me, and at my request he produced the carbon copy of the original letter and list. There were eight names on it, Miss Burney, and I don’t need to tell you whose the missing name was.’
‘No, you don’t need to tell me.’ Antoinette’s voice was slightly husky, perhaps from having remained silent so long. ‘The eighth name was mine, of course.’
‘Miss Burney, how could you? How could you deceive a blind man so ruthlessly? I’m not a censorious woman, and heaven knows, I’m not perfect — ’ she obviously offered this statement as polite fiction rather than hard fact — ‘but it’s beyond my comprehension that a nice-seeming girl like you could do all this. What is this — this sort of vendetta that you have against poor Lewis?’
‘There is no vendetta, or anything so ridiculous.’ Antoinette’s tone was curt to the point of rudeness in her instinctive reaction to the sugary reproaches that were being poured over her. ‘The whole thing has been misunderstood and misrepresented. I didn’t like being failed in my exam, of course, but at no time did I have the slightest intention of doing Mr. Freemont any harm. The idea is preposterous. It’s true that I was crossing the road near his house on that unfortunate day. I recognized his car and, in a moment of idiotic self-consciousness, I stopped dead.’
She closed her eyes for a moment, hearing yet again the screech of his brakes and seeing with ghastly clarity the unforgettable scene of the crash.
‘Why did you run away afterwards, then?’
‘I summoned help and then I — I panicked,’ Antoinette admitted with grim candour.
‘But, my dear, how wrong of you! One should always bravely face the consequences of one’s actions.’
‘I’m aware of that.’ Antoinette, who resented the ‘my dear’ even more than the rebuke, spoke coldly. ‘But, as you said of yourself just now, none of us is perfect.’
The older woman looked surprised, having evidently forgotten that hollow stricture on herself and resenting the idea that anyone else should presume to echo it. Her tone was also cold, therefore, as she said,
‘But, having done so much harm, how could you possibly come and work for him. Surely you didn’t want to watch him in his tragic helplessness?’
With difficulty Antoinette stifled her fury at the implication that she might almost have gloated over the situation.
‘I wanted to make some amends,’ she said simply. ‘I realized I had certain gifts that could be of use to him. I wanted, very badly, to put them at his disposal.’
‘But wouldn’t one have to be very insensitive to be able to bear to see the results of one’s tragic work?’ Mrs. St. Leger looked all sensitive bewilderment herself.
‘It wasn’t easy at first,’ Antoinette admitted shortly. ‘It became easier when I found I was really of use to him. That was why I felt justified in suppressing my name on that list, even though it meant deceiving a blind man. I’m sorry you had to find all this out in circumstances that put me in a very bad light. But what I want to know now is — what do you propose to do about your discovery, bearing in mind that I’ve become a real support to Mr. Freemont? I say this quite impersonally, because all I want is his good. If you feel the same — ’
‘Of course I want nothing but his good!’ Mrs. St. Leger looked deeply hurt that anyone should question the purity of her motives. ‘I’ve had only one thing in mind over this miserable and disgraceful affair, and that is — what is best for Lewis?’
‘Then may I venture to suggest, Mrs. St. Leger, that your natural good heart and good sense will tell you that much the best thing for Mr. Freemont is that I should remain here until he has been helped back to his place in public iife. He needs a sort of personal security during this difficult period. For some reason or other, I seem to give that to him. It would be an immeasurable shock for him to learn the truth now. And to what purpose? Once he has regained his natural position in the musical world, no doubt I — I can gradually withdraw from the scene, infinitely grateful (if you will believe me) that I’ve been able to compensate in some way for what I inadvertently did. Don’t you agree this is best?’
It had not been Charmian St. Leger’s idea that anyone else should ask the questions. But the reference to her natural good heart and good sense was something she had to live up to. In addition, she probably saw in that moment just how she could turn the situation to her advantage.
‘It isn’t for me to judge,’ she began, ‘and to anyone sensitive like me it’s peculiarly painful to have to inflict unhappiness on anyone. I’d much rather say nothing — ’
Incredulously, Antoinette drew a slight breath of relief.
‘ — But there’s one thing I feel in duty bound to add, Miss Burney. I can’t help noticing — oh, how shall I put this without sounding unkind? — that you overstress the personal side of your relationship with Mr. Freemont. That really would have to stop, you know. Even though it is probably best that you should remain as his invaluable secretary, I simply couldn’t stand by and watch anyone who had injured him so cruelly worm her way into his friendship or — or affections. It wouldn’t be right of me to do so. You do see what I mean, don’t you?’
There was a long pause, while Antoinette digested the full implications Of this gentle piece of blackmail. Then she looked straight at Mrs. St. Leger, whose beautiful violet-blue eyes gazed stonily back at her.
‘Yes,’ said Antoinette slowly, ‘I see exactly what you mean.’
‘Then it’s agreed that your relations with Mr. Free-mont remain strictly business ones? And that I say nothing about your real identity?’
‘It is agreed,’ said Antoinette with an effort.
‘Good. I think I’ll go and see Mr. Freemont in the garden now.’ And, smiling gently, Charmian St. Leger drifted away while Antoinette looked helplessly after her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Well, that was it! Determinedly Antoinette tried to brace herself with the thought that at least she had bought Mrs. St. Leger’s silence. But she knew that, with even the gentlest of blackmailers, the first trial of strength is very seldom the last.
‘I’ll have to risk that.’ She even whispered aloud to herself in her agitation. ‘I’ve lived on the edge of risk for the last many weeks. I have to go on doing just that. And so long as I follow out her demands exactly — ’
She paused, knowing that if she were to examine in detail the real meaning of those demands she would also have to examine in detail the real state of her own feelings. She winced away from the thought. But necessity — and a sort of fascinated sense of dread — drew her back to that confrontation of herself.
As the price of Charmian St. Leger’s silence she had promised to remain on strictly business terms with her employer. That was all. Was there anything so dismaying in that? On what other terms did she want to be? Wasn’t she thankful enough to be just the invaluable secretary — the girl who helped him back to professional life as some slight compensation for the injury she had done him? What more could she ask?
Antoinette leant her elbows on the desk and her head on her hands. She was no longer listening to the sound of her own inner voice. What she heard was that slightly mocking, half tender voice saying, ‘To me you’re one of the nicest, most worthwhile people I know — ’ She heard him say, ‘Where are you?’ and felt him put his arms round her and lean his head against her in mute gratitude and emotion. She felt him kiss her, as no one else had ever kissed her before. In rapid, overwhelming succession she recalled every word and incident that had drawn them inevitably nearer to each other. And in a final moment of irresistible self-knowledge she realized that she loved him.
Antoinette was so terrified and yet elated by the discovery that she could no longer sit still at her desk. Getting to her feet, she walked up and down her small office, clasping and unclasping her hands in a mixture of rapture and dismay impossible to describe. It was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her — and the most appalling. It comprised all her happiness — and equally it threatened its very foundations. He meant everything to her and, by the bargain she had just struck, he must mean nothing.
‘I won’t do what she wants! Why should I?’
But a more childish question no one had ever asked herself. If she did not fulfil Charmian St. Leger’s demands to the full then, with gentle ruthlessness, Lewis Freemont would be told the exact truth — that the secretary on whom he was depending more and more was the girl who had ruined his life for him.
It was not as though one could appeal to the other woman’s sense of mercy or fairness. She had none. All she had was a limitless capacity for believing that what she wanted was the best course to pursue — a quality far more dangerous than frank brutality. Not for the first time, Antoinette’s heartfelt sympathy went out to the erring husband who had fled from Charmian St. Leger to South America in the refreshing company of ‘an absolute nobody’.
Irresistibly drawn there, Antoinette crossed to the window, from which she could see a large section of the garden, including the sheltered corner where she had left her employer sitting in the autumn sunshine. It did not surprise her that Charmian St. Leger was now sitting there beside him on the stone bench, her hand lightly on his arm. He, Antoinette noted with melancholy satisfact
ion, was not smiling and, even as she watched, he moved his arm impatiently from under the clinging fingers of his beautiful companion.
‘He doesn’t really care about her,’ she thought. ‘He admired her beauty and style and charm in the days when he could see those things. But he needs something more real, more — more tangible now. Being blind has changed him. Perhaps other things have changed him too. Perhaps — ’
She moved away from the window and, by a supreme effort of will, went on with her morning’s work. When she looked out of the window half an hour later Mrs. St. Leger had gone, and Lewis Freemont was sitting alone, with a singularly thoughtful expression on his worn face.
Antoinette went out to him and at the sound of her footstep he turned his head at once and smiled.
‘Is that you, Toni?’
‘Yes. Do you want to come in now? It’s not far off lunchtime.’
‘No. Come and sit beside me. I want to talk to you.’
With an illogical conviction that Mrs. St. Leger would know and disapprove Antoinette sat down beside him and absently, though with a gesture that was natural and instinctive, he felt for her hand and took it lightly in his.
She trembled a little, mostly because of the wave of tenderness which immediately swept over her and the instantaneous effort with which she now felt bound to suppress it. For a moment or two he was silent, while she listened to the lazy hum of a nearby bee and what seemed to her the loud beating of her own heart. Then it was she who spoke.
‘Did Mrs. St. Leger stay long?’
‘Too long.’ He made a slight face. ‘Could you tactfully convey to her that daily visits are not called for?’
When Love Is Blind (Warrender Saga Book 3) Page 9