'It is nice, isn't it?' He smiled at her with unexpected friendliness. 'It was my father's favourite room. And he would have approved of you standing there in that very charming dress. He always used to say that what this room required to set it off was a lovely woman wearing a dress which made a really brilliant splash of colour against all the paler tints.'
'Oh, thank you.' The compliment was so unexpected that she found herself blushing like one of her own schoolgirls. At which he looked amused and asked her what she would drink.
She tried to look sophisticated and at ease as she watched him bring their two glasses across, and she hoped that he would now tell her what it was he had wanted to talk over with her.
He made no attempt, however, to start the subject immediately. Instead, he began to tell her something about the house and the school, which now occupied what had once been the original family house.
r
'I spent all my growing-up years there, of course. I always remember it as incredibly large and impersonal and unsuitable for private living. It requires about fifty people to make it feel lived in, which is what it has now, of course — along with a number of other civilizing improvements. This house where we are now was built in the grounds in the last years of my father's life, when he decided to start the Tarkman School and use the big house for the purpose.'
'So the original idea for this special school for musical children was his, not yours?'
'Certainly it was his idea. So was almost everything else to do with the administration of the Trust. He was a man of considerable vision. I merely try to carry out his ideas as I think he wanted them to be.'
'Turning visions into practical fact is quite something, isn't it?' She smiled at him in her turn. 'Everyone says you make a marvellous job of it.'
'Not everyone,' he assured her cynically. 'Some people think I'm just an arrogant bounder who rides roughshod over some of the most cherished theories of the day.'
'Oh, well—' began Felicity. Then she stopped and looked confused.
'Do go on,' he said amusedly.
She turned her glass on its stem, smiled suddenly and said, 'At the risk of being rude to my host, I was going to say that I could well imagine your riding roughshod and being—'
'Arrogant,' he prompted.
'Arrogant,' she accepted. 'But I'm quite sure that you're scrupulous to the last degree about carrying out what you think your father really wished to have done.'
'I do my best,' he conceded, 'even if I sometimes translate into my own terms. What I do always keep in mind is his overriding wish that the school should turn out not simply self-absorbed, technically stunning exhibitionists, but real music-makers in the truest sense of the term.'
'I know—' suddenly her eyes were shining with sympathy and eagerness — 'I know exactly what he meant.'
'Yes, you do, don't you? Because that's your speciality too.'
'How do you know?' She was rather taken aback.
'I've been making quite a lot of inquiries about you,' he told her coolly.
'You have? From whom?'
'First from Mrs. Bush, who may not know much about music but is a very shrewd judge of her staff as people. Then from the head at your last school—'
'Miss Evesham !'
'Yes, Miss Evesham. And finally the very remarkable headmaster of your first school.'
'Oh, he really did know about music-making!' she said quickly.
'Yes, so I realized. But each one of the three, though different in outlook and temperament, had exactly the same thing to say about you in one respect.'
'And what was that?' She was surprised and intrigued.
'That they had never come across anyone with your remarkable capacity for arousing interest and enthusiasm. Or, as Miss Evesham rather picturesquely put it, for opening windows on fresh and exciting horizons.'
'She said that?' Felicity was genuinely touched, for she had not known that Miss Evesham rated her so highly. 'How very nice of her. But, Mr. Tarkman, why have you been going round collecting opinions about me? And incidentally, what was it you wanted to discuss with me before the others arrived?' She glanced at her watch.
He noted the gesture with a smile and said, 'I can save time by giving the same answer to both those questions. I want to persuade you to join the staff of Tarkmans as a visiting lecturer on music appreciation — or whatever term you choose to apply to your special gift for opening windows on fresh musical horizons.'
'Me? You want me to teach at Tarkmans? But—' genuine humility came over her — 'I'm not at all sure I'm that standard.'
'If you weren't I shouldn't be asking you,' he assured her drily. 'Think it over, Miss Grainger. I hear our first guests arriving. And let me know your decision at the end of the evening.'
CHAPTER THREE
Dazed as she was by Stephen Tarkman's unexpected offer, Felicity found some difficulty in pulling herself together sufficiently to appear calm and sociable when the first visitors were ushered in. But as one of them proved to be Julia Morton, she called on all her powers of self-control, smiled sweetly and contrived to say all the right things.
With Mrs. Morton came Professor Blackthorn who was, Felicity remembered, the other person Stephen Tarkman had originally proposed to bring with him to the ill-fated school concert. Apparently the professor — a pleasant, middle-aged man with shrewd dark eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles — remembered this too, because he immediately said,
'I was sorry not to come to your end-of-term concert a few weeks ago, but I had to go north to adjudicate at a county competition that night. How did things go?'
She was taken aback to find that apparently Janet had not rated so much as a word of discussion between the two men and she asked quickly, 'Didn't Mr. Tarkman tell you?'
'I haven't had a chance to talk to him since,' the professor explained.
'Oh — well,' Felicity admitted, 'I'm afraid my protégée had a fit of nerves and did herself less than justice, but—'
'It often happens,' he interrupted consolingly. 'She may get another opportunity. How old is she?'
'Eleven. She is Mrs. Morton's niece,' Felicity added in a lower tone, and she glanced across the room to where Stephen Tarkman was displaying to his other guests what appeared to be a recent addition to his collection of water-colours.
'Really?' Professor Blackthorn seemed interested. 'Was it she who first drew Tarkman's attention to the girl?'
'On the contrary,' replied Felicity drily. 'In my view, Mrs. Morton seriously underrates her niece's gifts, and there seems little sympathy between them. But of course one doesn't want to bring personalities into these matters.'
'Of course not,' agreed the professor, but rather regretfully, as though he would have enjoyed a little gossip at that point.
Sounds of other arrivals were heard just then, however, and into the room came Oscar Warrender, preceded by his wife.
Once more Anthea Warrender looked so engagingly like the Anthea Benton Felicity remembered from her student days that the years seemed to fall away, and she watched smiling while Stephen Tarkman welcomed his distinguished guests. Then Anthea turned, saw Felicity and cried,
'Felicity Grainger ! I don't believe it! Where did you find her, Stephen?' She kissed Felicity warmly and, still holding one of her hands, turned to her husband. 'Oscar, you remember Felicity? She and I roomed together at Mrs. McManus's when we were students.'
Felicity could think of no reason why Oscar Warrender should remember her, and she shrewdly suspected that he couldn't either. But he greeted her with a touch of the famous charm which he used when he wanted to be specially nice to a friend or unpleasant to an enemy, and the talk became general.
Within the next few minutes other guests arrived — mostly connected in some way with the Foundation or local friends of Stephen Tarkman, Felicity judged. Then dinner was announced and she found she was seated between Professor Blackthorn and an engaging young man called Edgar Inglis, who turned out to be Warrender's privat
e secretary.
'You must have stamina!' she remarked, regarding him with slightly envious interest. 'Isn't it rather a hectic life?'
'Unbelievably so,' he agreed. 'But never dull, except when the fan-mail gets knee-deep. It's the life for me. It would kill me — although I'm remarkably tough — to have regular hours and some fool of a union man telling me which part of the job was mine and which wasn't.'
'How would you define your job exactly?' she asked, intrigued. 'Apart from the actual secretarial work, I mean?'
'I couldn't,' he assured her cheerfully. 'It varies from travel agent to psychiatrist, from father confessor to court jester.'
'And you mean to say Mr. Warrender really requires all that?'
'Oh, he doesn't. He's the most self-sufficient creature I ever came across. But one's inevitably involved with all the people who surround one's boss. And if he happens to be an international stage figure and a driving force in the musical world they include agents, managers, fans, pensioners, adorers, haters, fellow artists — both talented and dud-ambitious mums, self-deluded amateurs, jealous old pros — oh, the lot!'
'And how,' inquired Felicity with real interest, 'does Anthea make out in all this?'
'Anthea? Oh—' his mischievous smile softened slightly — 'she's our guardian angel, good fairy, or whatever else of the kind you like to call her. I tell you — if she wanted me to, I'd lie down on the ground and let her walk over me. But fortunately, she isn't given that way,' he added lightly. 'The only one she ever walks over — very occasionally — is Warrender.'
'She can do that?'' Felicity was impressed.
'Only for his own good,' Edgar Inglis assured her with a grin.
After dinner, when the company moved back into the other room, Anthea found the opportunity to come and talk to Felicity and to ask what she had done since they had last seen each other at her own dinner-party three years ago.
'It's I who should be asking you that,' Felicity declared with a laugh. 'You are the one who has done the interesting things. What is it like to be a famous singer in your own right and married to the greatest conductor in the world?'
'Heaven, with an occasional dash of hell,' said Anthea succinctly. 'But I truly want to know about you. What's this about your coming to teach at Tarkmans?'
'Who told you that?' Felicity demanded.
'Stephen, of course.'
'As a settled thing?' She looked rather vexed. 'He is sure of himself, isn't he?'
'Well, of course, darling. Men like Stephen Tarkman don't get where they are by being urasure of themselves,' Anthea pointed out. 'Isn't it true, then?'
'It's true that he asked me, just before the rest of the guests arrived. I was to think it over and let him know my decision at the end of the evening.'
'And you're busy thinking out ways of refusing?' inquired Anthea with a sceptical smile.
'No, of course not!' said Felicity. And then they both laughed so much that Stephen Tarkman who was passing stopped to ask with a smile if they were recalling their misspent student days together.
'We haven't got to the past yet,' Anthea assured him gaily. 'We were talking about the future — and about Felicity coming to teach at Tarkmans.'
"And is Felicity coming to teach at Tarkmans?' His amused glance moved so quickly to the other girl that he could not have failed to catch the look of sparkling delight which brightened her eyes and parted her lips.
'Yes, please,' she said, with the naive and breathless eagerness of a child. And at the same moment Julia Morton came up, slipped her arm into Stephen Tarkmans, and inquired what discussion was making Miss Grainger look so starry-eyed.
'It's not a discussion. It's a decision,' Stephen Tarkman informed her. 'Felicity — Miss Grainger — is going to take some classes for us at Tarkmans.'
'But I thought—' there was an almost imperceptible hardening of that charming voice — 'I thought Miss Grainger had a full-time post at Carmalton School!'
'She has,' he replied coolly. 'But arrangements can be made. I've already had a word with her headmistress about that.*
'Have you?' Felicity was astonished.
Mrs. Morton was evidently astonished too, and not pleasantly so. But she laughed and said in an amusedly admonishing sort of tone, 'You do get busy in holiday time, don't you, Stephen?'
'Of course. Sometimes one does more in holiday time than term time,' he agreed easily. Then he passed on, taking her with him, and Anthea, looking intrigued, murmured,
'Who is she? I was introduced, but I've forgotten her name.'
'Mrs. Morton,' said Felicity, carefully confining herself to the exact question.
But that was not enough for Anthea, who replied promptly, 'Don't be cagey. Why was she mad at the idea of your coming to Tarkmans? Is she jealous or something?'
'She has no reason to be.'
'Jealousy isn't based on reason,' retorted Anthea.
'We clashed rather over her niece, who is a pupil of mine,' Felicity admitted. 'And I think I said more than was advisable.'
She laughed slightly, but Anthea did not. Instead she looked thoughtfully after the woman who had just left them, and after a moment she said. 'Shall I tell you something? She's dangerous, that woman. If she were a rival soprano — I'd be just a little bit afraid of her.'
'Would you?' Felicity glanced at her friend curiously. 'Why?'
'Partly because she doesn't show her real feelings at all. She just bottles them up and smiles. I've seen the same thing in my profession, and it nearly always means danger. The extroverts like Torelli, for instance, can rage and behave abominably and enjoy a scene and forget it. It's about as dangerous as a nosebleed in an ordinary person. But the cold sweet ones, like Peroni, will smile entrancingly as they hand you the poisoned cup.' And she gave an odd little shiver.
'You're surely not afraid of Peroni nowadays?' Felicity smiled incredulously, though she remembered that some people said the famous soprano had preceded Anthea in Warrender's affections as well as in the roles in which the younger woman now excelled. 'I thought she retired some time last year.'
'Oh, yes. At least, she gave a farewell appearance. There's no professional rivalry between us nowadays. But do you know, Felicity, if I'm aware that she's in the audience I'm never on top form. I can't tell you why. She just has that effect upon me. Though he says nothing, I think Oscar goes to great pains to see I don't know she is there. But she usually sends me flowers, so as to make sure that I do know. Gorgeous flowers. And they always make me feel sick.'
'You feel like that about her?' Felicity gazed at the successful, securely established Anthea Warrender, but what she saw was the small, pale, spectacled face of Janet Morton. 'Why, Janet says—'
But just then Oscar Warrender glanced across the room and Anthea said instantly, 'I must go. He wants me for something. Felicity, we must manage to see each other again. We're at the Royal for the next three days. Call me up and we'll arrange something.'
With a quick smile she was gone, and almost immediately her place was taken by Professor Blackthorn, who had just heard about Felicity's proposed connection with Tarkmans and wanted to talk shop. They talked shop very enjoyably, as a matter of fact, for a good part of the evening after that. But almost all the time, at the back of her mind, Felicity thought of what Anthea had said about Peroni — and Julia Morton.
To her great surprise, when the party was breaking up, Mrs. Morton very cordially offered to give her a lift in her car. But before Felicity could think quite what to do with this offer, Stephen Tarkman intervened.
'Don't worry, Julia. Miss Grainger goes in the opposite direction from you. I am running her home myself.'
'I can have a taxi—' Felicity began.
'It isn't necessary,'' he told her, and turned to say goodnight to the other woman. Julia Morton looked past him for a moment and there was an odd, flinty glitter in her eyes as they rested on Felicity. Then she leaned forward and rather deliberately kissed Stephen Tarkman.
It was true that
one or two others, including Anthea, kissed their host good night. But none of them, Felicity thought, in quite the way Julia Morton did.
When all the other guests had gone, he took Felicity out to his car. And as he handed her in she said impulsively, 'I still can't quite believe that this has happened to me, or that you can be in any way sure that I'm qualified for the job.'
'Shall we say that I'm sufficiently sure to give you a fair trial?' he replied. 'Your academic qualifications are excellent and all your previous employers speak highly of you. Both important points. But in addition you have something I've been looking for for a long time. The quality of capturing and holding attention to an extraordinary degree.'
'Have I? But how do you know?'
'Because I've spent some time observing you closely,' he told her coolly. 'Even three years ago, whatever gaffes you made, at least you captured my attention.' He smiled, not entirely kindly.
'Then!' She laughed incredulously. 'You're joking.'
'Only half. When I recognised you again I found I could recall almost every detail of that occasion—'
'Oh, not every detail, I hope!' she protested with some embarrassment.
'I'm willing to gloss over some of them,' he said with that dry little smile. 'But the fact remains that you, and what you said, were completely printed on my mind. With anyone else — almost anyone else — I should have allowed the whole thing to slip into unimportant oblivion. Then at the school concert I watched very carefully your handling of your pupils. With each you were subtly different, but for each you represented security and a sort of compulsive interest which carried them through. That's quite a gift, Miss Grainger.'
'But for my poor little Janet I couldn't do it,' murmured Felicity half to herself.
'With your poor little Janet you permitted yourself to become too emotionally involved,' he informed her drily. 'Which brings me to the one point on which I think I should utter a warning. Don't let your prejudices — either for or against — take too close a hold on you, Miss Grainger. That might make your position at Tarkmans less enjoyable than it should be.'
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