A Song Begins (Warrender Saga Book 1)

by Mary Burchell

  And then, just as she was about to take her leave, he said, almost carelessly,

  “You have a splendid lyric voice. I couldn’t let them award you the prize in that absurd competition. You would have been ruined in a year or so. As it is, when I have finished with you” — he did smile then, with a faint touch of satisfaction which she found disturbing — “you may be worth something. Remember — here at the same time next Monday.”

  Both the words and the air implied instant dismissal. But Anthea was so astounded by what he had said that she found the courage to stand her ground and demand,

  “What exactly do you mean by that? Did you talk the other members of the panel out of awarding me the prize because you thought me too good?”

  “No. I didn’t think you good at all,” he replied, with crushing candour. “But I realised that you had a fine organ which, so far, you were not mistreating. For that, incidentally, your teacher may take full credit. And I was not prepared to be a party to having that voice ruined. That’s all.”

  “But” — she could not hide her indignation — “that thousand pounds would have paid for my training! That’s what I wanted it for.”

  “Oh, no.” He shook his head. “Once you found easy engagements coming your way, you would have been content to accept them and let any further work go. For a year or two you would have exploited your voice instead of developing it. You would have lived on your vocal capital, as hundreds — thousands — do today. And presently the organ you were abusing would have been damaged beyond repair, and you could no more make your vocal chords obey you than one can make a broken zip-fastener work again.”

  “But you couldn’t know that I would have done that,” she protested, still indignant. “You’re just assuming that I’m a fool

  “Of course,” he agreed coldly. “There are so many more fools than wise people in the world, and I had no reason to think you among the minority.”

  She swallowed that as well as she could. But she was determined not to abandon the argument until she had settled one other point.

  “You were not to know that some — some unknown benefactor was going to come forward and offer me the right training,” she pointed out. “What if nothing had happened? What if I had been left with my voice safely intact, but with absolutely no chance of training and developing it?”

  “You would have found a way if you have anything in you,” he returned indifferently. “The artist who cannot conquer difficulties is not going to be much of a success. Remember that. For the way is not going to be easy, I promise you.”

  She remembered it. She remembered it all the way home. And particularly did she remember the faintly cruel tone of amusement in which he had uttered the warning. As though he rather enjoyed the idea of her having to struggle along a difficult road.

  But that was not all she had to remember. As she journeyed back to Cromerdale on that unforgettable June day, she dazedly reviewed all that had happened to her.

  Even now, she could not believe that everything had been arranged with relatively little fuss. But it seemed that when Oscar Warrender wished a thing done, it was as good as accomplished then and there.

  Not for him the petty worrying about lodgings or timetables or expenses — or the relative merits of this and that. He said she was to take up residence in London. That was sufficient. Just a short telephone call and apparently a place was immediately found for her in a students’ boardinghouse in Kensington. And, even on that first afternoon, he had drawn up her scheme of studies with an exactness which made Anthea open her brown eyes wide.

  For her actual singing lessons he decreed that she should go to Enid Mountjoy, which relieved and pleased her immensely, for she had been greatly impressed by the interesting, elderly, well-dressed woman on the board of judges, who so obviously knew what she was doing, and took such a conscientious interest in each competitor.

  For languages — “Your Italian is pretty poor,” he had said, “and I suppose your French and German are no better” — she was to go to a high-pressure language school. And for her overall musical training and operatic coaching she was to attend twice a week at the flat in Killigrew Mansions.

  “Unless,” he had added, “I am rehearsing or travelling, in which case we will make some other arrangement. But the most important thing for you to understand is that you will be expected to work as you have probably never worked before. I am not interested in amateurs, and to me laziness is the cardinal sin. Keep that well in mind in the coming months, and we may get on all right.”

  She had taken note of that disquieting “may”. But she would have agreed if he had ordered her to walk all the way back home.

  She liked him no better than she had in the beginning, and she was a good deal afraid of him. But she was already under his spell. That spell which one critic had once declared could make a third-rate performer second-rate, a second-rate one almost first-class, and a first-class artist scale heights never dreamed of before in his or her career.

  Anthea wondered in which category she was listed in the Warrender mind. Third-rate, she greatly feared, in spite of those faintly encouraging words when she was going. But terrifying though that audition had been, it had inspired her with an iron determination to prove that she could do all that he demanded of her. His criticism might be cruel and stinging, but the odd thing was that it made one avid for that word of almost unattainable praise which — surely, surely — he must occasionally dispense.

  When at last she reached home, to find a wildly excited Roland and her mother waiting to hear every detail, she discovered that it was extraordinarily difficult to convey to them just what effect Oscar Warrender had had upon her.

  It was comparatively easy to describe her hopes and fears as she had entered the flat in Killigrew Mansions. It was even simpler to list the questions asked and detail the arrangements made. But when she tried to re-create the scene of the audition, her mother was appalled to hear that she had actually been made to cry.

  “Oh, it didn’t really matter,” Anthea assured her easily. “And somehow it — loosened the tension or something. Anyway, he was a bit sorry, I think” — she was not really at all sure about that — “and then he explained exactly what he meant. He’s perfectly odious in many ways, of course. But he’s a genius. I accept that now. He has a quality of inspiration which has nothing to do with either liking or disliking him. I’ve never known anyone in the least like him before.”

  Her mother looked doubtful and not a little troubled.

  “I can’t say that I feel very satisfied with the idea of your being almost completely under his jurisdiction,” she said, frowning, while even Roland looked somewhat perturbed. “He doesn’t sound at all a nice man to me.”

  “Oh, he’s not!” Anthea laughed. “He’s a beast, I tell you. But” — suddenly she smiled and her eyes sparkled with a sort of inner fire — “he made me sing as I’ve never sung before. I felt I was Mimi for those incredible five minutes.”

  “Well, at any rate he seems to be a practical genius,” Roland remarked. “You say he’s got you fixed up with coaching and language classes and lodgings — the lot — so that you can begin next Monday? That is hustling, if you like. I’m surprised you told him you could be ready in time.”

  “Are you?” Anthea smiled again, as though she recalled something which puzzled her. “So am I now. But at the time it never occurred to me to do anything but agree to everything he suggested.”

  Crowded though her last weekend at home was, of course she made time to go and see Miss Sharon and give her a detailed account of all that had happened — including Oscar Warrender’s grudging comment that her teacher must take credit for the fact that she was not mistreating her voice.

  At this very meagre compliment Miss Sharon glowed with almost girlish ardour and was moved to prophesy rashly,

  “You’ll go far, Anthea. You’ll go right to the top. With your gifts and his guidance you can’t fail. You lucky, lucky girl!”

/>   Anthea knew she was lucky — if not for quite the reasons Miss Sharon meant. And, on the way home, she suddenly came across the author of this almost unbelievable luck. Neil Prentiss came out of a house some yards ahead of her and, without seeing her, walked rapidly towards his car, parked farther down the street.

  “Mr. Prentiss!” She broke into a run and, at the sound of her voice and her footsteps, he turned, and a smile of unmistakable pleasure and welcome brightened his good-looking face.

  “Why, hello!” he said, and held out both his hands, so that it was perfectly natural to clasp both of them and stand smiling up at him, in slightly breathless eagerness.

  “Mr. Prentiss, I’m so glad I saw you! I’m going to London on Monday and – ”

  “So it worked!” he exclaimed. And then looked so indescribably embarrassed and put out that she guessed he could have bitten his tongue out.

  There was only one thing to do. To pretend for all she was worth that she had not heard his interruption nor guessed his secret.

  “I specially wanted to tell you,” she explained, “because you were so wonderfully good over Dad, and so kind and understanding about my disappointment at the T.V. contest. Something almost incredible happened! Someone — I can’t imagine who, but I suppose it might have been one of the panel — apparently decided I was worth training, and I was summoned to London and auditioned by Oscar Warrender, of all people. And he’s taking on the overall direction of my training and

  She stopped for lack of breath and laughed and found that she was still holding both Neil Prentiss’s hands.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” she cried, as the full realisation of it all swept over her again.

  “Wonderful,” he agreed, looking at her as though it were the radiance of her joy and enthusiasm which he found wonderful. “But I’m not entirely surprised. Someone had to recognise the beauty of that voice and do something about it. How does Oscar Warrender rate now?” And he laughed mischievously down at her.

  “I can’t like him. I never should,” she declared. “But I suppose that isn’t necessary. The fact is that he’s the most extraordinary, inspiring creature, and even while you could slap him across that handsome, arrogant face, you want madly to do exactly what he tells you. Does that sound crazy?”

  “Absolutely,” he assured her amusedly. “But it has the ring of truth. Even the great Peroni is reported to have said, ‘I could kill him — except that I should be half the artist without him, and the most heartbroken mourner at his funeral.’”

  “She said that?” Anthea was impressed. “So great a singer, and she still feels his power and acknowledges his authority. I begin to think Miss Sharon is right, and that I’m incredibly lucky to have him even notice my existence.”

  “Believe me, you couldn’t be in better hands,” Neil Prentiss assured her earnestly, and she rather thought this was his way of justifying his hard choice.

  “I’m sure you are right,” she said gently. “And to the day I die I shall be grateful to whoever gave me this wonderful chance.”

  “You dear, appreciative girl! I wish you all the luck in the world in London,” he declared. And, to her astonishment, he bent and lightly kissed her flushed cheek. “Bless you. I’ll hope to see you sometimes when I come.”

  “Oh, indeed you shall!” she cried in delight. “Do you sometimes come to London?”

  “Every few weeks,” he assured her. And then he took his leave, and she walked on alone through the late summer evening, warm to her very heart at the thought that Neil Prentiss would still have some place in her life.

  The visit to Miss Sharon had been Anthea’s last port of call, and as she made her way homeward now, she silently took leave of one familiar landmark after another. She would be coming back, of course — often. But the conviction was growing upon her that the Anthea who returned to Cromerdale would never be quite the same person again.

  The days of her sheltered, largely untroubled, uninhibited girlhood were slipping away. When she came back next time she would already have had some experience of the world, acquired some knowledge of the professional way which lay before her. Above all, in some subtle, inexplicable way, she knew that the seal of Oscar Warrender would have been set upon her, for good or ill.

  The next morning the final goodbyes were said — briefly to Roland, as he was rushing off to school — and more lingeringly and with some emotion to her mother. Her goodbyes to her father had been said in hospital the previous day, and she still recalled with happiness the light of pride and interest in his eyes as he had listened to her plans.

  “I wish I didn’t have to leave you at such an anxious time,” she said, as she hugged her mother goodbye. “But I think Dad’s out of the wood now. And of course I am only four or five hours’ journey away. I could rush back at a moment’s notice if — if you felt there were any special need.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not summoning you back from the really important work of your life,” her mother promised. “I have an idea your Oscar Warrender would think poorly of family claims versus professional ones.”

  “His isn’t absolutely the last word,” Anthea declared, with a toss of her head. And on this final declaration of defiance, she departed from Cromerdale on the great London adventure.

  When she said those words, she had meant them. But when she recalled them, as she stepped into the elegant silence of Fourteen Killigrew Mansions that afternoon, she found them peculiarly empty and pointless. For, of course, she had chosen the exact expression which summed up Oscar Warrender’s place in her life from now onwards. His was the last word. In everything.

  A little to her relief, he was not alone this time. Enid Mountjoy was also there, and she greeted Anthea kindly though a trifle formally.

  “I am glad we are going to work together,” she said. “I thought your voice very beautiful when I first heard it. In some circumstances I think I should have had to insist on awarding you the prize. But” — she shrugged expressively — “there were other considerations.”

  “I understand,” Anthea told her quietly, and she simply could not help glancing at Oscar Warrender.

  She was not surprised to find him smiling faintly in that cold, arrogant way of his. Very pleased he looked at having done her out of a thousand pounds because he judged her too much of a fool to be trusted to spend it wisely!

  For quite a while Enid Mountjoy talked to Anthea about her development so far and her projected studies. She went to the piano once, to illustrate some point she wanted to make, and as she walked across the room, Anthea saw that she was slightly lame. But she moved with exceptional grace all the same.

  During this conversation Oscar Warrender allowed her to take charge entirely, and contented himself with merely interjecting a trenchant comment from time to time — often of an uncomplimentary nature.

  “You must not expect miracles at this early stage, Mr. Warrender,” Enid Mountjoy told him with a smile.

  But he brushed that aside.

  “Mediocrity is easy to attain,” he said contemptuously. “The miraculous is the least one must aim at. I’ve told her that she has a hard road in front of her. Don’t give her any comfortable illusions.”

  “If I did you would have no difficulty in dispelling them, I’m sure,” was the amused retort.

  “Well, she has an essentially amateurish approach at the moment,” he said, speaking of Anthea as though she were either stone deaf or not present. “That’s the first thing to put right.”

  “We’ll do our best,” replied Enid Mountjoy, with an encouraging smile at Anthea. Then she got up and said, “I must go now. Shall I drop you off at your boarding-house? It’s on my way and I have my car here. Is your luggage downstairs?”

  “Yes.” Anthea got up, too eager to take this opportunity of furthering their acquaintance. “If you would be so kind

  “You’re not free,” cut in the conductor drily. “This was only the preliminary discussion. You have a lesson, even if you have forgotten it.�
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  “On the very first day! — on her way from the station?” Even Enid Mountjoy seemed surprised.

  “On her very first day — on her way from the station,” Oscar Warrender confirmed coolly. “If she is going to fill in some of the lamentable gaps in her knowledge, she can’t start too soon.”

  “Very well.” Enid Mountjoy bowed gracefully to inexorable circumstances and then, turning to Anthea, she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow at ten. I’m within walking distance of your boarding-house, and any of the students will tell you the way.”

  Then she went away, and Anthea felt a little as though she were being abandoned.

  “Now we’ll get down to work,” the conductor decreed. “Last week we just played at it.”

  That was not at all the way Anthea would have described that harrowing scene over the Mimi aria. But she soon began to see what he meant.

  At least, she saw what he meant about the real work beginning now. What he meant by his crisp, curt words of explanation and direction she found much more difficult to follow, particularly at one point when she found herself badly trapped over a particularly difficult entry.

  In the end, he asked, with an air of dangerously diminishing patience, “I take it you do know how to read music?”

  “Y-yes, of course,” she stammered.

  “Well, read it, then!” he shouted, crashing his hands down on the piano keys with a force that made her nearly jump out of her skin. “If you can’t pay attention to the simplest instructions — ”

  “They aren’t simple instructions,” she suddenly heard herself shout back at him. “You’re not very good at explaining, if you must know. You assume I know all sorts of things I can’t possibly know, and you don’t bother to make yourself clear.”

  A deathly silence succeeded this incredible outburst, during which she prayed for the ground to open and swallow her up. Then he said, almost pleasantly, “You mean I’m the one who is lacking in intelligence?”

  “N-not that — no. But you — you – ”

  “Do go on,” he said gently. “I’m devoured with curiosity.” And he leaned forward to pencil something on the music in front of him.