‘Oh, no, no, no.’ The conductor dismissed that idea impatiently. ‘People don’t kill each other for reasons like that.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Antoinette said painfully. ‘You don’t understand even now. Not even you. I’ve lived with it all too long not to know what the real situation is. Rightly or wrongly, Mr. Warrender, he regards me as the cause of his blindness. For months and months he has nursed his hatred and the hope of one day identifying the girl who caused the accident. Well, he has identified her. He’s found that I am the girl. And even that isn’t all. He has also found that for months I’ve deceived him. I took advantage of the very fact that he was blind to deceive him.’
‘He fell in love with you, nevertheless.’
The statement was so coolly positive that Antoinette derived an odd moment of comfort from it even then. But she sighed and said, ‘Only because he didn’t know who I really was.’
‘So he both loves you and hates you?’ The conductor gave an odd little smile and added half to himself, ‘And then they say that the love-hate relationships of opera aren’t true to life!’
She was silent, and after a moment he asked, ‘What are your plans now?’
‘I — have no plans.’ She looked slightly dazed. ‘It’s a little early to make plans, isn’t it?’
‘It’s never too early to make future plans when present ones have failed,’ was the dry retort. ‘And brooding over failure is the one sure bar to success.’
‘I’m not looking for success.’ She almost resented being forced to the painful use of her numbed thoughts and emotions.
‘No, I know,’ replied the great conductor brusquely. ‘You want to creep away into a corner and nurse your grief. A dismal and excessively boring exercise when put to the test. Don’t waste time and thought on it. The fact is that your musical gifts interest me, Miss Burney, particularly your unusual capacity for reproducing orchestral tone on a piano. I could use you quite a lot, and put a good deal of such work in your way. Would you be interested?’
Would she be interested? At one time she would have been transported with joy to have Oscar Warrender ask her such a question. But now only one consideration operated. She stared at him and said apprehensively, ‘You’re a dangerously close link with — him.’
It had evidently not occurred to the famous conductor to regard himself as a mere link with anyone. He made a slight grimace of amused protest.
‘I have a certain significance apart from that,’ he pointed out. And at that Antoinette laughed, though shakily.
‘Don’t think I’m ungrateful for the compliment — the kindness — ’
‘No kindness is involved, Miss Burney.’ Oscar Warrender spoke categorically. ‘In professional matters I am not kind. One cannot afford to be if one wishes to maintain standards. If I offer you work, be sure it is because I know your work has value. What is your answer?’
‘Do I have to give it now?’
‘I will give you until eight o’clock this evening.’
‘So exact a deadline?’ She was startled.
‘Major decisions should always have strict deadlines. And in any case, I need a quick decision. I must make other arrangements if you are not willing to co-operate. Telephone me before eight.’
‘I will.’ She was surprised to hear the docile note in her voice. But she was even more surprised to find that, as she watched him go, there was already a faint stirring of interest — almost excitement — in her heart. And this served to blunt the inevitable pain of leaving the familiar flat for the last time.
She walked home, putting off the moment when she would have to give some sort of explanation to Rosamund. And she was guiltily relieved to find a note to say that Rosamund had gone out and would not be in until late.
If she had had to sit alone with nothing to think about but the afternoon’s disaster she would have been wretched indeed. As it was, Oscar Warrender’s sudden offer demanded immediate consideration, in a way that forced everything else out of the exact foreground of her thoughts.
It was true that, if she accepted, she would still be in contact with the world of Lewis Freemont; something she had dismissed as impossible only a few hours ago.
But was her whole life to be directed by the fear and pain connected with one man? And, if she were careful, she could surely manage to avoid him. With some sympathetic co-operation from Oscar Warrender —
She paused, recalled his irrefutable statement that in professional matters he was ruthless, and decided that she must not expect help in any emotional problem from that quarter. Why should she, come to that? Her life was her own, and she must learn to live it.
Without her knowing it, the conductor’s bracing words were already beginning to take effect. There was no virtue in creeping into a comer to nurse one’s grief. She had been made a splendid — an unprecedented — offer. The kind of challenge any real musician would embrace with pride and delight. Had she really imagined for one moment that she could reject it?
It was not even eight o’clock before Antoinette telephoned to Oscar Warrender and told him that she was ready and willing to work with him.
‘Good!’ She could not but be flattered by the fact that there was genuine satisfaction in the great man’s voice. But she did feel something of a check when he added, ‘Then come along right away, will you? There’s a good deal to discuss.’
‘To — to your apartment, do you mean?’ It was only a matter of hours since she had left the building, telling herself she would never return.
‘Yes, of course.’ There was nothing in Oscar War-render’s voice to suggest he would have any sympathy with nostalgic reflections of that sort. ‘I’ll expect you in about twenty minutes.’ And he rang off.
Antoinette slowly hung up the receiver, since there seemed nothing else to do. Then she hastily threw on a coat and went out and hailed a taxi. Perhaps speed was better than reflection if one wanted to avoid nervous tension.
For all her resolution, it cost her a pang to enter the familiar building, take the familiar lift, past the floor where she could never, never go again, and on to the apartment where the famous conductor and his wife lived.
Anthea Warrender herself opened the door to her and greeted her like an old friend.
‘How nice to see you again!’ she exclaimed. ‘Give me your coat, dear, and go into the studio.’ And she gave Antoinette’s arm an almost affectionate squeeze before ushering her through the doorway which had proved the threshold to her own career.
Antoinette went forward — and then stopped dead. For the man who turned from the window to face her was not Oscar Warrender. It was Lewis Freemont.
CHAPTER NINE
‘Where did you come from?’ she whispered at last, as though he were a ghost. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘From the nursing home, of course. Warrender fetched me — with very little opposition, I might say. Blakin had completed his miracle.’ He spoke in short, jerky sentences. ‘I can see almost perfectly again. I can see — you.’
She had no idea what she could answer to that. She just stood there, almost motionless, without defence against any bitter verdict he might pronounce. And what he finally said was:
‘How — lovely you are. I’d forgotten how lovely.’
‘Oh — ’ she blinked her lashes against the sudden rush of tears. And then he went on, exactly as though they were taking up their conversation where it had been interrupted that afternoon, ‘Toni, tell me now. Why did you do that dreadful thing to me?’
‘But I didn’t,’ she cried. ‘I didn’t! Won't you understand? There was nothing deliberate about it. I was there, crossing the road, it’s true, but I didn’t even hear your car coming. There was an aeroplane overhead making a tremendous noise. You were almost on top of me before I realized you were there, and then I recognized the car and was paralysed with fright and shame and a sort of guilt that I was there at all. It was all over in seconds. And after that there were just the days and weeks and months
of useless remorse, while I asked myself again and again why I hadn’t moved.’
‘But you disappeared. Once you had done it — ’
‘Don’t use that term!’ she cried in furious despair. ‘As though I did it on purpose. It was an accident, I tell you! An accident — an accident — an accident!’ And she began to cry wildly.
‘But after that — you came to me.’ He spoke almost as though he were reading something from an unwinding scroll, and he hardly seemed aware of her sobbing. ‘You came into my life with the first gleam of light and hope and reality in all that nightmare. What made you do that, Toni?’
‘I wanted to make some sort of amends. There was suddenly this incredible chance. I knew I was mad to take it, but I had to do it. It was like — ’ her voice dropped to a whisper again — ‘like the hand of God, that second chance.’
As though drawn irresistibly, she came close to him then. And, equally without the power to resist, he put out his hand and touched her cheek.
‘Your cheek is wet,’ he said, as though even now he relied on touch rather than sight to confirm an impression. And then, almost tenderly, ‘Don’t cry, Toni. Weren’t you afraid of being found out?’
‘Every day. Almost every hour. But I had to go on. And then Mrs. St. Leger had the dreadful idea of sending for the list of the students who failed that exam. I think she sensed I was deadly afraid for some reason.’
‘But the list came! Why wasn’t your name on it?’
‘It was. But — ’ she drew a deep breath — ‘don’t you remember? It was I who read it out to you.’
‘Oh, my God, so you did!’ And suddenly he dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
‘I deceived you, you see.’ Her usually warm and flexible voice was quite toneless. ‘I took advantage of the fact that you were blind, and I deceived you.’
‘Yes, I see.’
He was silent for quite a long time after that, and at last she said:
‘What was the question you wanted to ask me this afternoon? Had you already begun to — suspect?’
‘The question?’ He looked up haggardly at her. ‘What question? — Oh, it seems almost unimportant now. You’re not really married, are you?’
‘Married,’ In the midst of all the other tangle she had almost forgotten that extra piece of fabrication. She laughed a little bitterly, now that she remembered it, and said, her voice running up almost hysterically, ‘No, of course I’m not married. That was just part of the miserable, ever-growing deception that I practised upon you. Once I’d started to live that lie, I just had to go on lying. There were other details, other contemptible evasions. Would you like to ask about them? Are there any other questions before — ’ she caught her breath on a sob — ‘before I go?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and he drew a long sigh, like a man who has carried a heavy burden for so long that he hardly knows if it has been lifted or not. ‘Yes, there is just one other thing I must ask you.’
‘What is it?’ She stood there trembling a little and again with that curiously defenceless air about her.
‘Come here,’ he said gently, ‘my good — and bad — angel.’ And he held out his hand to her with such a compelling gesture that she came, in a sort of fascination, and actually knelt by his chair.
‘This is the moment of truth between us, so look at me, Toni.’
She looked at him, somehow without flinching, and he put his strong, beautiful hands lightly round her face.
‘There is really only one question of importance between us.’ And suddenly she was aware of the tenderness of his touch. ‘Do you love me, my darling?’
It was not at all what she had expected, and the reply came instantaneously from her heart to his.
‘Now — and for ever — whether you want me or not.’
‘I want you,’ he said, catching her close and kissing her. ‘I want you as I’ve never wanted anything else in my life. Not even my sight.’
‘Don’t! Don’t put it like that.’ But she was returning his kisses with almost wild eagerness. ‘Oh, my dear, do you mean that you’ve forgiven me at last?’
‘No!’ He brushed off the idea almost angrily. ‘One doesn’t presume to forgive where one loves. There is nothing to forgive. What is it the Bible says?’ He gave that half mocking, half tender smile. ‘“You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” I never thought until this moment what that really means. I know the truth — and I am free. It’s like recovering my sight in double measure.’ Then, as though in contrast to the solemnity of the moment, he added lightly, ‘God bless Warrender for his interference.’
‘Why, of course!’ She sat back and looked at him. ‘It was Mr. Warrender who engineered this scene.’
‘Anthea too. I heard her playing her sympathetic part as she ushered you in. It seems — ’ he touched her cheek again with a gesture of loving amusement — ‘that you’re not the only one with a taste for deception.’
‘Oh, don’t call it that. It was so good of them, good of them to bother so much about us, wasn’t it?’
‘Well — ’ there was a flash of the familiar sardonic humour — ‘I believe every conductor has a secret longing to be a producer too. Usually with atrocious results, I might say,’ he added with a touch of professional realism even at that moment. ‘Perhaps this was just Oscar Warrender the conductor allowing himself the indulgence of producing a drama.’
‘But with marvellous results!’ she cried warmly.
‘With marvellous results,’ he agreed, smiling at her.
‘Let me call them in, so that we can thank them!’ She made as though to rise, but he drew her back into his arms again and said, ‘Wait!’
‘What is it?’ She too was smiling now.
‘Just that I want to look at you again. To look at you and see you — see you — see you. Let me savour the miracle one moment longer. I can look at the woman I love — and see her.’
You can look at me for the rest of your life,’ she told him with a laugh, but her eyes were very tender.
‘It will hardly be long enough,’ he told her as he kissed her again. ‘Now call them in. I can bear to share you now.’
And he watched her as she went across to the door, as though every movement she made were a dear and fresh miracle in the world that had been restored to him.
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When Love Is Blind (Warrender Saga Book 3) Page 16
