‘Don’t fish for compliments,’ he said, but he smiled. ‘If Oscar Warrender thought your gifts merited enquiry you needn’t underrate yourself ever again. He’s brutal to any amateur who masquerades as the real thing. But he was genuinely impressed by you.’
‘Yes, he was, wasn’t he?’ She managed to make that sound gay and gratified. ‘But most of all he was impressed by the way you proved able to play a concerto without actually seeing him conduct.’
‘It was largely his skill too,’ Lewis Freemont said quickly.
‘Yes, of course. It was miraculous teamwork. But you showed between you that it can be done. Even now I think none of us quite realizes what that means. You’re on the way back! — really on the way back to full professional life again! Oh, I’m so glad, so — so thankful!’ He laughed and held out his hand to her, as though both charmed and moved by her complete identification of herself with his interests.
‘Dear Toni!’ he said. And then more lightly, ‘To whom are you thankful? To Warrender for stampeding me into doing this?’
‘A little to Mr. Warrender — yes, of course. But mostly to God, I think,’ said Antoinette seriously. ‘It’s so wonderful to have — a second chance,’ she added half to herself.
‘A second chance?’ He sounded half puzzled, half amused. ‘You mean this is my second chance to create a career?’
‘Why, yes,’ she said quickly. ‘Yes, of course that’s what I meant.’
She knew she sounded confused and she saw he was not entirely satisfied. But after a moment he laughed and remarked affectionately,
‘You’re an odd child! Just as Charmian said last night.’
‘Ch-Charmian?’ stammered Antoinette, feeling the short hairs lift at the nape of her neck. ‘Did Mrs. St. Leger come to see you here last night, then?’
‘No, she telephoned — to know if she might come to see me this afternoon.’
‘And — and did you say she could?’ It was hard even to formulate the words.
‘No,’ was the cool reply. ‘I’ve had enough of Charmian for the time being. She bores me. I told her that I have to give all my time and energy to my work until I’ve made a comeback — which is true — and that I shall be having virtually no visitors for the time being.’
‘Did she accept that?’ enquired Antoinette tremulously.
‘She had to,’ he said carelessly.
‘But then,’ Antoinette prompted him, ‘she — she spoke about me?’
‘Yes. For some reason best known to herself’ — he smiled scornfully — ‘she seemed to think it was necessary for her to explain you to me in some way. She started to say that I didn’t really know you; that you were — as I quoted just now — an odd girl. But I stopped her there, being unwilling to hear her views, and told her that if she really had anything to tell me about you she had better send it to me in writing.’
‘In writing?’ Antoinette gave a scared little laugh. ‘But she would know that I should have to read it to you!’
‘Of course. That’s why I said it. I thought it was a rather neat way of rebuking her,’ he added, with such satisfaction that Antoinette had the greatest difficulty in keeping herself from embracing him.
‘Then you mean we shan’t be seeing much of her for quite a while?’
‘We shan’t be seeing anything of her for quite a while,’ he corrected drily. ‘Nor, I think, will she be troubling us with letters.’
For the second time that afternoon Antoinette drew a cautious, trembling breath of relief. It was the most extraordinary, unhoped-for cloak of protection! And it was he who had almost carelessly flung it round her. She could hardly believe it even now. But she blinked her lashes and swallowed a lump in her throat and tried not to let her voice sound too liltingly happy as she said sedately,
‘I’m glad. I don’t think she’s very good for you.’
He seemed to find that inordinately funny. Certainly he laughed more heartily than was usual with him and replied, ‘I don’t know that she’s all that good for you either. You sound curiously contented, and as though you’re smiling in a rather relieved sort of way. Are you?’
‘Yes,’ said Antoinette. And then, before he could comment further on that, she added quickly, ‘Goodness, how late it is! I must go, or Rosamund will be wondering where on earth I am.’
‘My apologies to her,’ he retorted amusedly. ‘And tell her I realize that I have far more than my fair share of your time and attention.’
‘She wouldn’t mind that,’ Antoinette assured him with a smile. And — perhaps because Charmian St. Leger no longer presented an immediate danger — she touched his hand lightly but affectionately in a gesture of leavetaking before she went.
It was true enough that Rosamund would not think of querying her comings and goings these days. She had become used to the fact that Antoinette’s working hours were extraordinarily elastic, and if she sometimes thought her friend was imposed upon, she was not prepared to argue over an arrangement which obviously gave Antoinette herself such satisfaction.
That evening, however, there was something so radiant about Antoinette that Rosamund exclaimed,
‘Anyone can tell when it’s been a good day for you! You have the most expressive face and I don’t believe you can hide anything you’re thinking.’
‘Oh, I don’t know — ’ murmured Antoinette, secretly staggered that anyone who knew her so well as Rosamund could feel like that. ‘It was a rather special day, to tell the truth.’ And she proceeded to give a full account of the scene with Oscar Warrender, omitting only the reference to Sir Horace Keen and St. Cecilia’s.
‘Then Warrender was really impressed with you? That means quite something in the musical world, doesn’t it?’
‘I should say so! His approval is about the handsomest accolade one can receive.’ Antoinette’s professional pride and joy were uppermost for the moment. ‘He almost made me wonder — ’
She stopped, and Rosamund finished the sentence for her.
‘You wondered if you might, after all, make a musical career for yourself?’ she suggested.
‘Well — ’ Antoinette laughed, but her eyes were sparkling with excitement and an inner fire which had not been there since Lewis Freemont uttered his first devastating verdict on her. ‘It’s too early to say yet,’ she added quickly. ‘The important thing at the moment is to get Lewis Freemont back before the public.’
‘And he’s starting with a recital at the Corinthian in January?’
‘Almost certainly. Perhaps two. There’ll be weeks of concentrated work and preparation first.’
‘Which will require everything you’ve got, I suppose,’ retorted Rosamund a trifle protestingly.
‘I shan’t have any part in recital preparations! It’s only when he requires me for orchestral practice that I — ’
‘I wasn’t thinking of the actual playing,’ interrupted Rosamund thoughtfully. ‘It’s in the personal way that you mean so much, isn’t it? You’re more or less his support and inspiration in all this effort, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, Rosamund, don’t exaggerate!’ The idea was half shocking, half entrancing. ‘I only do what I can to encourage him, bolster his courage, counteract the occasional mood of depression — that sort of thing.’
‘That’s what I meant. The simple fact is that he would never have got as far as this without you, would he?’
‘Someone else might just as easily have supplied the right impetus,’ Antoinette asserted.
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Rosamund shook her head. ‘It had to be you. There’s a curious, subtle mixture of elements in a situation of this sort, and you supplied just what was needed. You had the musical skill and understanding required, but you had the right human approach too. The fact that you’d both adored him and nearly hated him made you peculiarly aware of his reactions. You were tuned in to him emotionally, if you see what I mean.’
‘What makes you think I adored him?’ was all Antoinette said.
‘Oh, my dear! Of course
you adored him before that unfortunate business of the exam. You didn’t yearn over him and write him fan letters, because it doesn’t take you that way. But you used to talk as though he was God’s gift to every piano student and enthusiast.’
Antoinette laughed rather crossly.
‘It all seems so long ago,’ she said musingly.
‘It is quite long ago — even in time,’ Rosamund replied. ‘It’s probably even longer ago in personal development. I’m not suggesting you adore him now, of course.’
‘No,’ said Antoinette, and changed the subject.
But she thought a great deal about Rosamund’s remarks in the following weeks. She tried not to exaggerate the degree of her importance to the man she loved. It was all of no use anyway. But she could not help knowing that in every way he drew strength and support from her.
He talked over every item of his programme with her, practised uninhibitedly in front of her, asked for her comments, argued with her over her opinions, and whenever it came to a purely physical difficulty, like the sheer problem of getting on and off the platform with the least element of fuss, he discussed every detail with her.
At first he tried to insist that she should be the one to lead him on to the platform, but she rejected that idea out of hand.
‘First, I should be nervous and might communicate my nervousness to you,’ she told him. ‘And secondly it should be another man who does it, someone unconnected with you — impersonal, tactful and self-effacing. Anything else would distract the attention of the audience from the real business of the occasion.’
He considered that for a moment in silence. Then he said,
‘You mean that if a lovely girl brings me on to the platform it will inevitably start some sort of romantic speculation?’
‘Something like that. Though I’m not specially lovely,’ she added, in the interests of strict accuracy. ‘I’m reasonably personable, that’s all. But a woman helping a man in any kind of difficulty always tends to start speculation of a kind.’
‘You don’t say?’ He seemed amused by this theory. But he added, ‘Perhaps you’re right. You’re right about so many things, Toni. How did you manage to make a mess of your own life?’
‘Wh-what do you mean?’ She was so shaken that she could not keep her voice entirely steady.
‘Well, I can’t help knowing that everything must have gone wrong for you at some point or another. Otherwise, why are you and your husband apart?’
‘My husband?’ She had almost forgotten the mythical creature she had invented as a barrier between them in her moment of most acute danger. But she recovered herself sufficiently to say, ‘We did agree not to discuss that subject, didn’t we?’
‘Oh, very well.’ He gave a discontented little shrug. ‘Though why it should all be so sacrosanct I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t altogether believe in him.’
She nearly said she didn’t either. But instead she changed the subject to something purely musical, and the moment of danger passed.
On the whole, there were fewer occasions for agitation nowadays. The menace of Charmian St. Leger was at least temporarily removed. Her employer himself seemed satisfied to accept the unsentimental though warm relationship she had established between them. And in any case, the primary interest of both of them was the tremendous challenge presented by his return to the concert platform.
‘Remember,’ Gordon Everleigh said to her once, ‘that a comeback is twice as nerve-racking as a debut. You aren’t borne up by the wild elation of having your chance at last; you know all the dozens of pitfalls that experience has shown you; and you are aware that there are plenty of sensation-mongering vultures ready to insist that you aren’t so good as you once were.’
Antoinette thought it sounded pretty grim. She wondered if her employer sometimes woke in the night in a cold sweat of apprehension. She did if he didn’t. And when the evening of the first recital finally came, she could not have been more nervous if she had been making her own debut.
With every grain of self-discipline she had, however, she concealed the fact, for only one person was entitled to be nervous that evening — and he seemed singularly calm.
‘Do you want me backstage or in the audience?’ she asked him.
‘Backstage, of course. How do you suppose I can go on if you’re not there with me?’ was the simple retort. And in that moment she reproached herself for refusing to go on to the platform with him.
At least she sat beside him in the car on the way to the hall, and held his arm as he went in at the stage door. They had already practised the business of entering the hall, and she was glad of it now, for a sympathetic little crowd of admirers were there to clap and call good wishes, and she knew he would have hated to seem less than self-possessed and in command of the situation.
‘That went well,’ she assured him as they reached the dressing-room, which was level with the platform at the Corinthian and singularly easy of access. The man who was to lead him on-stage was already there — an immensely experienced and unshakably confident assistant who had turned the pages for countless performers in his time and had a positive genius for effacing himself when necessary.
‘A full house, needless to say, Mr. Freemont,’ he observed. ‘Quite a lot of your old friends there, I should say.’
‘And an almost equal number of old enemies, I expect,’ replied Lewis Freemont, but with what Antoinette secretly called his fighting smile.
‘Well, one wouldn’t want to be without them,’ was the very knowledgeable reply. ‘They sometimes spur us to greater efforts than our friends, don’t they?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ was the dry retort. ‘Just one thing, though. I prefer not to have anyone round here afterwards, except the few on the list Miss Burney will give you. I still find it confusing to deal with a number of people I can’t see.’
‘Of course, sir. Don’t worry.’
The man took the list — which did not include the name of Mrs. St. Leger — and went away to make the necessary arrangements. Then Gordon Everleigh came in briefly to wish Lewis Freemont luck. And when he had gone Antoinette and her employer were alone.
During the last few minutes before he went on, he sat fingering his ‘blind’ watch, from which he could tell the time by touch. She said nothing to him. Only, just before the man came back to lead him on to the platform, she kissed his cheek and said,
‘That’s for luck — and with the certainty that it’s going to be all right.’
Thank you,’ he replied, but almost absently. And she saw suddenly that even she had almost dropped from his consciousness. He was no longer the easily accessible person. He was the dedicated professional going out to face one of the biggest challenges of his life.
As she watched him go there were tears in her eyes. Not because she meant little to him at that moment, but tears of thankfulness for the discovery that as an artist he was wholly himself again.
She stood near the door leading to the platform so that — curiously like him — she could hear though not see what was happening. She heard the warmth, the almost emotional quality, of the applause which greeted his appearance, and she knew by the sudden cessation of the clapping the exact moment when he sat down at the piano. She could also judge from the tense quality of the silence that she was not the only one strung up to a high pitch of anxious excitement.
And then he began to play. He started with something of deceptive simplicity and shimmering beauty, one of the deadly pitfalls for the slick performer with shallow understanding. And, as she stood there, her hands pressed to her cheeks in the intensity of her feeling, Antoinette felt a glorious, almost loving calm steal over her. This was beauty and truth as conceived by the mind and heart of a genius, and Lewis Freemont could still convey it to those who were listening with a power of interpretation that very few could rival.
Possibly over the months Antoinette had gained a deeper, clearer understanding of his particular power of expression. Possibly the fires through whic
h he had passed had given a new dimension to his work. At any rate, one thing was certain — the Lewis Freemont who had emerged from months of ordeal was, if anything, an even finer artist than before.
The applause which greeted each work, and culminated in a tremendous ovation at the end of the evening, was of a quality there was no doubting. Sentiment and sympathy for his misfortune would have assured him a friendly reaction without question. But the acclaim he received at the end was for his playing and his playing alone.
And he carried off the whole occasion with a coolness — even a sort of dash — that half amused and half charmed Antoinette. Once he had got over the first slight hesitancy about coming on to or off the platform, there was no sign of any difficulty. It was hard to believe that he could not see the audience for whom he bowed, with that characteristic, faintly mocking little smile.
When he came off for the last time, however, and Antoinette took his hand, she saw that he was completely exhausted.
‘You shouldn’t have given them that last encore,’ she protested gently. ‘You’ve tired yourself.’
‘I would have given it to them in other days,’ was his simple reply. ‘I wanted them to have no less tonight. But — yes, I’m rather done now. We’ll go home as soon as possible. Cut things short, Toni.’
So with all the tact she possessed — and with the able assistance of Gordon Everleigh — she cut the congratulatory visits and speeches short, and got him away from the hall by a side-exit and home to the flat.
But nothing — no exhaustion or nervous reaction — could dim the lustre of that triumphant evening. And the next morning’s papers confirmed in every detail the verdict of the audience on the previous evening.
Like most successful artists, Lewis Freemont was essentially tough and immensely resilient. He recovered rapidly, went on to repeat the triumph at his second recital, and then settled down to prepare for the final and much stiffer challenge off the orchestral concert under Oscar Warrender.
From a working point of view Antoinette was essential to him in this. But from a personal standpoint he was less and less dependent upon her. She no longer needed to bolster his confidence nor insist that he would surely return to a full career. He knew that now. The lost, bitter, desperate man who had once glimpsed hope only through her eyes was indefinably changing back to the authoritative, secure artist he had been at the height of his career.
When Love Is Blind (Warrender Saga Book 3) Page 12