‘No,’ said Antoinette quite simply, at which he laughed.
‘Why not? Aren’t you supposed to be in charge here?’
‘I wasn’t aware of it.’ She smiled slightly in spite of herself. ‘In any case, if you don’t want Mrs. St. Leger around, it’s for you to drop a firm hint, not me.’
‘She doesn’t take hints.’
‘Then she certainly wouldn’t take anything from me! She doesn’t like me, for one thing,’ said Antoinette before she could stop herself.
‘No, she doesn’t, does she?’ he agreed with sudden amusement. ‘Do you know why?’
‘No!’ said Antoinette quickly.
‘I do.’ He spoke almost casually. ‘It’s because she knows I do like you.’
‘O — oh. You mean she’s a little — jealous? But that’s absurd.’
‘I don’t know that it is.’ He spoke with deliberation and, on sudden instinct, Antoinette tried gently to pull her hand away, but he kept a firm hold on it. ‘Charmian is both competitive and singularly possessive. I realize it more every time I listen to her voice. I wasn’t so much aware of it when I could see her. There are advantages to being blind, you see.’ He laughed, though she could not. ‘You’d be surprised how differently one observes and assesses people when one can’t see them.’
‘Does one?’ Antoinette’s lips were rather dry.
‘Yes. I think that if Charmian came to see me once, or at the most twice, a month that would be quite sufficient.’
‘Then you must tell her so.’
‘But as for you,’ he went on calmly — ‘it’s a poor day when I don’t have you somewhere around me. That’s why I don’t like the weekends much.’
It was all she could do not to say that she would willingly come to Pallin on Saturdays and Sundays too. But she immediately recalled Mrs. St. Leger’s hard, beautiful eyes and the way she had said, ‘You do see what I mean, don’t you?’
So Antoinette swallowed slightly and murmured, ‘It would be difficult to come every weekend.’
He laughed, obviously touched by what she knew to be the feeblest of compromises.
‘Does that mean that you would be willing to give up an occasional weekend to me?’
‘If — if you wanted some work done, of course.’
‘I shouldn’t want any work done,’ he told her coolly. ‘I should just want you. I tell you, it’s a poor day for me when you’re not around.’
‘I’ll — I’ll see what I can do.’ Her voice was husky with the effort of keeping herself from saying that she would come any time he liked and for as long as he liked. And then, terrified that the conversation might get out of hand, she rose to her feet.
But he said, ‘No — ’ and firmly drew her down again on to the bench beside him. ‘I haven’t finished what I have to say. Charmian insisted on advising me about my future while we were sitting here.’
‘Your future?’ Antoinette stirred uneasily. ‘What had she to say about your future?’
‘Mostly that, without very careful planning, I should find life — particularly professional life — quite impossible.’
‘How dared she make such suggestions!’ Antoinette was furiously indignant that anyone should undermine the self-confidence she was so carefully building up in him.
‘It was for my own good, she said.’ He sounded bored and also faintly amused, and Antoinette guessed instinctively that he was exactly reproducing the maddening air with which he had received Mrs. St. Leger’s advice.
‘But she did put forward one good suggestion,’ he went on reflectively. ‘She assured me that, as time went on, I should need someone at my side who loved me, understood me (her words, not mine), and was willing to put my interests first.’
There was a slight silence. Then Antoinette said, ‘She meant herself, of course?’
‘Of course.’ Again that almost cruel note of boredom crept into his tone.
‘You said just now that you thought it a good suggestion. You don’t sound as though you think that now.’
‘There was nothing wrong with the suggestion, Toni. She cast the role wrongly, that’s all.’
‘Oh!’ Panic and rapture engulfed her, but she tried to force things on to a lighter level with a scared little laugh. ‘Then you must find the right person. If that’s another job for your secretary — ’
‘Don’t be so damned coy!’ he exclaimed roughly and pulled her suddenly close against him. ‘That’s not for you. Don’t you understand? I love you — ’ he kissed her hard on her mouth — ‘I need you. And not only because I’m blind. Stop struggling. Don’t you want me to kiss you?’
‘No!’ she gasped.
‘Liar,’ he said coolly, and kissed her again, so that she forgot all about Charmian St. Leger and the danger that hung just over her head, and she clung to the man she loved and kissed him over and over again.
He released her at last, with an incredulous, breathless little laugh, and said with teasing tenderness, ‘So that’s what my cool, self-contained little secretary is really like!’
‘No, it isn’t! I didn’t realize — I’m not like that at all — I’m not that kind of girl — ’
‘What kind of girl, for God’s sake?’ He sounded both angry and amused. ‘What sort of advances do you suppose I’m making to you? I’m asking you to marry me.’
‘I can’t!’ The image of Charmian St. Leger and the enormity of her own guilt rose like a cloud before her.
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Of course you can tell me. Do you suppose I can’t stand the truth, after all that’s happened? Do you hate the fact that I’m blind?’
‘No, no, no!’ she cried, and in her eagerness to reassure him she put her hands round his face and kissed him between his sightless eyes.
‘Then — ’ his voice was suddenly not quite steady — ‘what is it? Don’t you love me?’
‘N-no,’ she said uncertainly.
‘That isn’t true! Kiss me again — and then try to tell me that!’
‘No. I just can’t marry you. That’s all there is to it.’
‘But why, why, why? Oh, God, this is when it’s such hell to be blind!’ Wild rebellion and frustration made him suddenly savage, and he caught hold of her and jerked her against him. ‘If I could see you — if I could see you — I’d know the answer.’
Antoinette went cold all over at the terrible, unknowing truth of that, but she managed to say calmly, ‘Please just accept the fact. I can’t marry you.’
‘All right — I accept it. But tell me why.’
‘Because I’m married already.’
She simply could not imagine from where that answer came to her, in its completeness and irrefutable strength. It was as though someone put a weapon of defence into her hand when she was almost done.
‘You’re — what?’ He released her so abruptly that she almost fell away from him and she watched in fascinated despair as he passed his hands over a face that had suddenly grown bleak and older. ‘You’re married! Why did you never tell me?’
‘There was no need to. It was my affair. Until — until you spoke to me as you did just now.’
‘Do you live with him?’ he asked harshly.
‘No.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘I can’t talk to you about that. Will you please, please let me keep my private affairs to myself? I love working here. I admire you as an artist, I — like you as a person, and ask nothing more than to help you find your way back to professional life again. Can’t that be enough?’
‘It — has to be, doesn’t it?’ he said heavily. And then, after quite a long silence, ‘I’ll go back to the house now. The sun has gone in, hasn’t it?’
She bit her lip. The sun was shining still. But not, she saw, for him. There was not much brilliance about the day for her either as she gently guided him back into the house.
Nothing but the most impersonal things were said between them for the rest of that
day, or the next, or the next, or the next. She was the conscientious, efficient, even devoted secretary, and he was the not too difficult, fairly reasonable employer, with the occasional mood to which an employer is entitled, particularly if he is blind and pays well.
But the golden thread of intimacy and loving understanding which had spun itself between them had snapped. Chairman St. Leger herself could have found nothing unacceptable in their behaviour to each other.
Indeed, when she made her next appearance, she must have become immediately aware of the subtle change in the atmosphere, for she was sweetly gracious to Antoinette — as to a child who was not now so naughty as she once had been.
To Lewis Freemont she was gay and tender and affectionate, though he was not encouraging, and when she explained she had been in London most of the week and asked smilingly, ‘Did you wonder where I was?’ he replied without elaboration, ‘No.’
The visit was not a long one, though whether from her choice or his Antoinette could not tell from the backwater of her office. All she knew was that less than half an hour later she heard her employer practising, and she knew he would not do that if Charmian St. Leger were there.
Increasingly music was becoming once more the principal thing in his life. She told herself she was thankful this should be so, that this was the way in which he would find he could live very well without her. But sometimes, as she sat in her office spinning out the diminishing amount of office work, she felt forlorn, unneeded and utterly wretched.
Then one day he said to her abruptly, ‘Do you practise regularly?’
‘To a certain extent — yes.’
‘What do you mean? — “to a certain extent”?’ he retorted impatiently. ‘You either practise regularly or you don’t.’
‘I mean that I keep up a certain degree of facility. I don’t practise as I did — would, I mean — if I were a professional.’
‘You never intended to be a professional, did you?’ He sounded curious suddenly and she had a moment of panic.
‘Of course not.’ She brushed that off quickly. ‘But why did you ask about my practising?’
‘I want to see how I can tackle a concerto in the changed circumstances. It’s an entirely different proposition from a solo recital. And I need someone to play the orchestral part on a second piano.’
‘I — don’t know that I could do that.’ She was immediately nervous and uneasy at the thought of bringing her playing under his notice again. But he simply said rather disagreeably,
‘Of course you can. I shouldn’t have asked you if I hadn’t known you could.’
‘But surely there must have been someone, much better qualified than I am, who used to work with you like that in the old days?’
‘Don’t be so obstructive,’ he countered impatiently. ‘If I’m going to make a hash of it I’d rather do so with you than anyone else.’
‘Oh — I see.’ The tone might be harsh, but the implication was rather touching, and she found herself agreeing to what he had suggested and even encouraging him in the idea that he might perhaps play with an orchestra again one day.
‘It wasn’t entirely my own inspiration,’ he admitted. ‘Oscar Warrender came to see me yesterday evening, after you had gone, and almost sold me the idea.’
‘Oscar Warrender did?’ She could not hide her interest. ‘You’re great friends, aren’t you?’
‘As far as anyone is a friend of Warrender. He’s a tremendously self-sufficient creature, you know. His two real loves are his work and his wife — in that order, I believe. Well, I suppose that’s all right if you’re lucky enough to have both,’ he added, with a touch of restlessness.
‘I suppose so,’ agreed Antoinette hastily. ‘You’ll have to let me practise on my own first. I’ve never tackled a piano version of an orchestral score before.’
‘I’ll teach you,’ he said. And from his tone that could have been either a promise or a threat.
From that day a new regime started. For Antoinette it was made up of artistic excitement beyond anything she had ever imagined, a great deal of personal strain, and a terrifying alternation between glowing achievement and sickening failure. For Lewis Freemont at the piano was a very different person from the man who had made love to her in the garden — or even the half mocking, half indulgent employer. He set almost impossible standards for others as well as himself.
For a solid week he took her through her part of the first movement alone, before there was any question of their working together on the two pianos. He sat beside her advising, instructing, correcting — almost willing her to do what he wanted. And, in the sheer interest of battering her into playing as he thought she could, he often lost sight of the fact that her part would merely be to supply the groundwork on which he could build his own practising.
‘Play!’ he shouted at her once. ‘Play! You’ve got it in you to make music, haven’t you? And all you do is push down the keys. You drive me crazy!’
‘You drive me crazy too!’ She was surprised to find that she too was almost shouting. ‘I’m not the soloist. I’m just the useful hack pretending to be an orchestra. And stop shouting at me anyway!’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said stiffly.
‘No — I’m sorry too!’ And then suddenly she laughed at the sheer absurdity of the scene and, as the tension relaxed, she impulsively put her hand over his.
He slowly turned his hand and clasped hers, and he said, ‘That’s the first time you’ve touched me since — that day.’
‘Oh, no! Surely not?’ There was a note of shocked protest in her voice.
‘Oh, yes,’ he assured her wryly. ‘And I haven’t heard you smile — until you laughed just now.’
‘I smiled quite often,’ she insisted.
‘Not so that I could hear you,’ he said simply, and she bit her lip.
‘I’m sorry — I’m sorry — ’ She stroked the hand she was holding, and the warm, firm pressure of her fingers said more than she could say in words. ‘If only — ’
‘I know — I know,’ he interrupted her with a quick sigh. ‘I’m not trying to force your hand in any way, but — do things have to be so horribly different from what they were, Toni?’
‘I didn’t mean them to be! It was only that — that — ’
‘Is this a music lesson that I’m interrupting?’ enquired a bright, sweet voice from the doorway. And as Lewis Freemont said, ‘Damn,’ quite audibly and Antoinette snatched her hand away, Charmian St. Leger came in from the garden, a smile on her lips and her violet-blue eyes like stones.
‘Charmian, I’ve asked you before not to come in unannounced! I’m past the days of easy convalescence now, and I can’t have work interrupted at any — ’
‘But, darling Lewis, it didn’t look at all like that.’ There was amused protest and a touch of real concern in her voice. ‘You know I wouldn’t take liberties for the world. Any more than Miss Burney would, I’m sure,’ she added, and she gave Antoinette a spine-chilling glance of dislike and warning.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Lewis Freemont sounded irritated.
‘But she does,’ retorted Mrs. St. Leger softly. ‘She knows exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you, Miss Burney? — And you mustn’t be so cross, Lewis, just because you don’t quite follow. All women have their little secrets, don’t they, Miss Burney?’
‘What is this, for heaven’s sake?’ He turned his head restlessly so that his sightless glance moved from his unwelcome visitor to where he knew his secretary was sitting. ‘What’s this nonsense about a secret?’
‘Nothing,’ said Antoinette between dry lips. At which the other woman laughed and said almost gaily,
‘It’s just something we nearly told you some time ago, Lewis. And then we thought perhaps it wasn’t the right time — that things might sort themselves out without our worrying you. But perhaps — I don’t know — ’
She paused provocatively and those hard, beautiful eyes gazed speculatively at A
ntoinette. And not all her pride or resolution could keep Antoinette from giving an imploring glance in return.
‘Well, we’ll see — ’ The other woman turned away, warning in every line of her. ‘I’m sorry I came at the wrong moment, Lewis dear. And if I’m really in the way, I’ll go?’
The note of query in her voice invited him to protest, but he remained brutally silent. And after a moment she sighed slightly, touched him gently on the arm and said, ‘Good-bye, my dear. I’m afraid I’m in disgrace.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then may I phone this evening and find out when I can come without being a nuisance?’
‘Yes, certainly.’ His tone was not gracious, and Antoinette kept her eyes down lest Mrs. St. Leger should imagine that she detected some glance of triumph or satisfaction and allow her chagrin and spite to get the better of her.
She went then, but at a slow, graceful pace suggesting the temporary retreat of someone who knew the strength of her position too well to doubt her triumphant comeback. And in silence Antoinette watched her go. For a whole long minute the two left behind said nothing. Then when he finally spoke his voice was abrupt and uneasy.
‘What was she talking about, Toni? What did she mean by all that stuff about not telling me something because it might worry me?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Antoinette coolly, and she was herself astonished at her own composure.
‘Truly no idea?’ He gazed at her with those blank, yet strangely attractive eyes, as though by sheer will-power he would somehow pierce the terrible barrier between him and her. ‘You wouldn’t actually lie to me, would you? — not even if you thought it was for my own good.’
‘No,’ said Antoinette, and wondered a little why no affronted Power struck her down. But what could she do, once she had committed herself to this devious path? ‘I think,’ she went on, and this time she spoke the exact truth, ‘that Mrs. St. Leger wanted, to make some sort of trouble between us.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He brushed that off as absurdly self-evident. Then after a moment he added, ‘Tomorrow I shall start making arrangements to move back to my London flat.’
‘Because of Mrs. St. Leger?’ Antoinette enquired incredulously.
When Love Is Blind (Warrender Saga Book 3) Page 10
