Song Cycle (Warrender Saga Book 8)

by Mary Burchell

  Song Cycle

  Mary Burchell

  © Mary Burchell 1974

  Mary Burchell has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1974 by Mills & Boon.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “You don’t think—” Anna regarded her mother with something between hope and doubt — “that this time Dad really might have brought it off?”

  But her mother shook her head with humorous finality.

  “Three times in our married life your father has been certain he has composed a masterpiece, Anna. Not to mention several other occasions when he was moderately sure. He wasn’t right any one of those times. I can’t believe success is just waiting round the comer for him now.”

  “Many of the great masters had their failures first,” Anna claimed defensively.

  “But few battled on into their late fifties without some sign of their latent genius,” countered her mother with a smile.

  “Poor darling!” Anna laughed reluctantly, but she gave a sigh of real sympathy too. “He loves it all so much.”

  “It’s never enough just to love it all.” Mrs. Fulroyd, who had cherished no more than a moderate liking for music throughout her rather difficult life, remained realistic. “You have to have vision and judgment — in the right proportions. And if you ever hope to hear your work performed, you simply must have some regard for what is practical in that respect too.”

  Anna nodded regretfully and both fell silent, each recalling in painful detail some of the more grandiose and improbable scenes in which Kenneth Fulroyd’s unperformed operas abounded.

  “He’s going to be desperately disappointed if his work is turned down once again,” Anna said at last.

  “But he always recovers with astonishing speed and resilience,” her mother replied consolingly. “Don’t worry, dear. Most of the time he’s very happy, playing the organ and teaching his beloved music at the school, and indulging in his dreams between whiles. That’s the secret of happiness, I sometimes think — to work hard at what you love and to dream your dreams. Anyway, that’s what makes your father happy.”

  Anna wanted suddenly to ask if her mother were happy too. But, for no reason she could define, she was all at once afraid of the answer. For it occurred to her, for the first time in her life, that her mother was looking older and, somehow, less positive than she once had. Which was queer, when she came to think of it, because it was her mother whom she had always associated with all the confidence and security of her happy life.

  True, it was her father’s enthusiasm and knowledge which had inspired her with the longing to train as a singer. But it had been her mother who had worked out the practical details and somehow found the money to finance her modestly in London while she completed the studies already begun under her father’s admirable guidance in the small West Country town in which she had grown up.

  Anna was now in her third year at one of the famous London music colleges, and this time when she had come home on holiday she had been able to report more than academic progress. Already some engagements as soloist with one or two quite important church choirs had come her way. And at the last end-of-term college performance she had attracted outstanding mention from more than one of the London music critics.

  “The important thing now is not to rush things,” her father had immediately warned her. “No heavy, voice-damaging roles, remember. No temptations to take big money or easy applause just because you have an outstanding voice with genuine brilliance.”

  “No, Dad, of course not,” Anna agreed, with difficulty resisting the impulse to point out that no one was exactly beating a pathway to her front door with offers of star roles.

  “That has been the death of many a fine talent in the last two decades,” her father went on, developing one of his favourite lines of argument. And, since she had the good sense to know that much of what he said was right, Anna had listened with grave attention to words she had heard many times before.

  At twenty-two, she was unusually perceptive about people — even to a certain extent about herself, which is rare at that age. She knew quite well that she had inherited a great deal from both parents and, since they were strikingly unalike in disposition, she was sometimes aware of a conflict within herself. From her father came her musical intelligence, her artistic instinct, her sensitive feeling for beauty and quality; but from her mother came her down-to-earth streak of common sense which told her that facts must be looked in the face, even if they are unpalatable.

  Until she went to London she had lived what would nowadays be called a somewhat sheltered life. That is to say, her parents (who would undoubtedly have been classified as old-fashioned by modern theorists) had seen to it that she had a happy, secure, well-regulated childhood and came to relative maturity by leisurely and unsensational stages.

  No one had concealed from her the fact that life had its grim, dark patches, but no one had encouraged her to dwell on these to the exclusion of everything else. Similarly, although she never doubted her supreme importance to the people who loved her, from an early age she was made fully aware of the needs and claims of other people.

  Her transfer to London, where she shared a flat with three other girls, had provided some eye-opening discoveries. But she was adaptable, and she was enormously happy in her work. Without vanity or false modesty, she knew in her inmost heart that she was genuinely gifted and she had never been afraid of hard work. Even this combination, Anna knew, was not sufficient in itself to launch her on a career, but she was optimistic enough to hope that she would also be blessed with the stroke of good luck which is almost invariably one of the essential ingredients of success.

  “It’s not all just slog and brilliance,” her special friend, Judy Edmonds, had said in her second year. “You have to be in the right place at the right time with the right people around — and then you must have luck. Oh, how you must have that luck! That’s why I myself am quitting. I just don’t think I have the right kind of luck.”

  “You’re quitting? Giving up the idea of becoming a singer, you mean?” Anna, who was glimpsing hope on the horizon, was shocked.

  “Yes.” Judy gave a vigorous little nod of her dark head. “It’s not just a question of luck, though that’s important enough, as I say. But I’m not really sufficiently gifted, Anna. Yes, I know—” as Anna started to protest — “I have a good voice, I’m musical and I’m quite attractive. It’s not enough. There are dozens — hundreds — like me trooping in and out of every music college in the land. The only difference between them and me is that I’ve faced the fact that only the gifted few earn their living by doing what they really want to do. The others settle for something humdrum but reasonably rewarding.”

  “Such as?”

  “For every singer, actress, artist, writer that this world can absorb, how many really good secretaries do you suppose are needed?”

  Anna was silent, digesting this.

  “There are few enough of them, goodness knows!” Judy went on cheerfully. “I’m facing the fact now that I’ll be happier and have more self-respect as a good secretary enjoying music as a hobby than as a not-very-good performer in an overcrowded market. I’m reasonably well educated, I’m nobody’s fool, and I have a couple of useful for
eign languages. With six or nine months’ intensive training I reckon I shall be able to take my pick of several good jobs. That makes more sense to me than struggling on as I am.”

  “Then it doesn’t make sense to you that I do intend to struggle on as I am?” Anna said, making a little face.

  “Ah, that’s different!”

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t quite know.” Judy ruffled up her hair consideringly. “For one thing, you have a much finer, more individual voice than I have. It’s been developing perfectly beautifully in the last few months. But that’s not all. There’s something about it — about you, I suppose. Even though you’re little more than a student yet, you have the quality that — that transports one. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I think I do,” Anna said slowly. “I didn’t know I had it, though.”

  “It’s something one can’t either teach or learn,” Judy went on, frowning with the effort to make herself clear. “It carries a sort of uplift and conviction straight from the singer to the listener. Oh, how do I explain it? It’s like — well, fifty people can sing, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’, and it’s all very lovely and fine. Then one more comes along, and suddenly everyone knows that He does live. Just like that! Or a singer sings ‘I love you — ‘ in perhaps the most hackneyed operatic phrase, and all at once it carries to everyone in the house the absolute conviction that love is real and might touch any one of us any day.”

  “Yes, I do know what you mean,” Anna confirmed, her tone slightly awed at this suggestion that she might herself possess such a rare gift. “It’s a sort of fusing of words and music and instinct and training — and something indefinable as well.”

  “And something indefinable as well,” Judy agreed. “That’s what you have, I’m nearly sure. And with hard work and some luck you’ll really be something one day. Meanwhile, I intend to be a dam good secretary.”

  She was, too. In less than a year, she was firmly established with an internationally famous music publishing firm with, as she said, a sufficiently good salary to attend most of the musical performances she wanted to hear.

  The two girls remained fast friends, with a warm interest in each other’s fortunes, though Judy was not one of the girls who shared a flat with Anna, preferring to live at home with her family in one of the outer suburbs. They lunched together at least twice a week, however, and it was on one of these occasions that Judy supplied the information that Jonathan Keyne was looking for good young talent for an operatic company he planned to take on a tour of Canada, the following spring.

  “I don’t know the full repertoire,” Judy admitted. “But he’s bound to include ‘Figaro’ because Donald Spyres is going and that’s one of his principal roles. Why don’t you boldly ask to be auditioned for Susanna? He’ll be auditioning in about a month’s time.”

  “How do you know all this?” Anna asked eagerly.

  “Oh, I keep my ear to the ground,” replied Judy airily. Then she grinned and added, “As a matter of fact, I heard Oscar Warrender talking about it.”

  “You heard Oscar Warrender talking about it?” Anna was impressed. “When and where?”

  “In the office, yesterday. He was talking to Mr. Prendergast. He does drop in occasionally when he wants a special score or something.”

  “You secretaries do live it up, don’t you?” said Anna with a frankly envious little laugh. “Oscar Warrender and Jonathan Keyne! It’s almost too much.”

  “Jonathan Keyne wasn’t actually there. I just heard about him.”

  “Yes, I know.” Anna suddenly smiled reminiscently. “He was on the selection board when I was admitted to the college, you know. I remember him very well. I don’t think he was much impressed by me then.”

  “That’s a long time ago,” Judy said quickly.

  “Yes, it’s a long time ago.” Anna looked thoughtful. “I wonder what he’d think of me now. I’d like a chance of impressing him! I remember how it riled me that he was so indifferent then.”

  “Why did it rile you?” Judy seized on the word. “Did you feel he was unjust to you?”

  “N-no, not that, exactly,” Anna admitted. “I suppose the fact is that he’s the kind of man one very much wants to impress. He’s an arresting sort of person. Attractive, authoritative — unusually authoritative for anyone of thirty, or whatever he is. He was talking to the other judges, I remember, when I came in, and they were all laughing. There was an immense gay vitality about him. And then, when he turned to the business of hearing the next unimportant applicant — who was me — I just felt I was an unwelcome interruption to an enjoyable occasion. It’s difficult to build up a big entry on that!”

  “It would be quite different now,” Judy asserted. “Be sure you write to him before you go away on holiday, and don’t hesitate to enclose those last notices you got. Even if you get no further than auditioning for him this time he won’t forget you again. And it’s useful to establish yourself favourably in the memory of a man like Keyne. He’s already wielding a lot of influence in the musical world, and he’ll go further still.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” agreed Anna, wishing she did not recall with quite such painful clarity the faintly bored way his glance had passed over her as she tremblingly launched into the exacting Handel aria which had been chosen as the test piece.

  “Of course I’m right,” Judy insisted emphatically. “It’s not only that he’s such a gifted musician himself. He has a real flair for spotting and developing talent. Warrender said he’d rather have Keyne direct a musical festival than many men twice his age. And Anthea Warrender agreed with him.”

  “Was she there too in the office — Warrender’s wife? What is she like, close to?” Anna asked curiously.

  “Lovely.” Judy spoke without reservation. “She looks the complete prima donna nowadays. And yet somehow, if you lived next door, you wouldn’t mind going and asking her to take in the laundry for you.”

  “I would!” declared Anna with conviction. “After all, he might answer the door. Think of that!”

  They had both laughed immoderately over this idea, and parted in excellent spirits. But before she left London Anna wrote to Jonathan Keyne, explaining that she had heard he was looking for new singers to take part in a Canadian opera tour, and asking for an audition.

  With considerable difficulty and the exercise of much self-discipline, she had managed to keep from her parents any hint of her hopes. After all, the chances were that nothing would come of her application, and there was no point in preparing a disappointment for anyone other than herself. There were, alas, already too many insecurely based hopes waiting for extinction in their household.

  It was true, as her mother had said, that no experience of repeated rebuffs seemed to dim her father’s conviction that one day he would write something which the world would hail as a masterpiece. A minor masterpiece, perhaps, but still something that would give him a modest place in the great hierarchy of those he most loved and admired — the men who had given beautiful music to the world. But the moment when hope was dashed yet again could not possibly be anything but a painful one.

  Three days later, when the morning post brought the verdict that yet another of Kenneth Fulroyd’s works had proved unacceptable to an indifferent world, Anna was alone with him at the breakfast table. She had known from the flush of eagerness with which he picked up the envelope what he was hoping. And she realised even more poignantly from the tremor of his hands as he read the single sheet what the answer was.

  Presently he went on eating his breakfast while she tried, quite fruitlessly, to think of something to say. In the end, it was he who spoke first.

  “Well, Anna—” his half nervous little laugh wrung her heart — “I’m afraid it’s going to be left to you to bring any musical fame to this family.”

  “I did hope that, as it was a letter and not a parcel, perhaps the manuscript had been accepted this time,” she said gently.

  “The same id
ea struck me. But they say they’re returning it under separate cover.” He stirred his coffee and looked once more at the few typed lines, as though he might still discover some hidden ray of encouragement.

  “Dad, I’m so sorry! Judy always says one has to have luck, as well as all the other qualities. Perhaps — perhaps your luck just isn’t in at the moment.”

  “It’s more than I am just not ‘in’ at the moment,” replied her father, with more realism than he usually showed. “It’s a harsh, unlovely period, Anna. Sometimes I think no one wants beauty and grace and melody anymore.”

  “You don’t think,” Anna ventured diffidently, “that perhaps you over-estimate the — the scope of what’s required today? I mean, your works do require huge casts, and most of them would be terribly difficult to stage, whereas—”

  “My dear!” the objection was brushed aside with some amusement. “This is reckoned to be the age of theatrical miracles. Staging should present no problems. Look back a hundred and fifty years and think what composers were demanding then! Rossini, for instance, in his ‘Moses’, calmly throwing in the crossing of the Red Sea by the Children of Israel, not to mention the destruction of the Egyptian army following them. That’s what you might call a difficult theatrical situation, if you like.”

  Anna was inclined to agree. But she lacked the courage to point out that no one lightly undertook the staging of “Moses” either in these days. Instead, she crossed her arms on the table, smiled encouragingly at her father and said,

  “Don’t you ever feel moved to try something on a — a less ambitious scale? Say something for piano or organ — or perhaps chamber music?”

  “You talk like your mother.” He said that kindly and without condescension, but there was a note of reproof in his tone. “As an artist yourself, you must know that genius — even talent — must express itself in its own way or not at all.”

  Anna knew it was cowardly of her not to point out immediately that genius — and even talent — undisciplined could often produce no more than a shapeless, self-indulgent piece of mediocrity. But she had not the heart to add sharp argument to his present disappointment.