* * *
The first days were very difficult. After the initial excitement had worn off, after the youngsters had given up making allowances for this strange, withdrawn, sometimes sullen cousin of theirs, after they had stopped trying to coax her out of her shell and left her firmly to her own devices it fell often to Anna to try to break through the wary reserve, to tempt the girl to relaxation and to laughter. To absolutely no avail.
‘It’s no good,’ she said to Katya, a week or so after their arrival, ‘I simply can’t get through to her. Oh, she isn’t overtly rude, I don’t mean that. On the contrary she’s always excessively, quite wearingly, polite. It’s just – it’s as if there’s a wall between us. A wall she won’t even let me peep over, let alone pull down.’
‘You’ve tried to talk to her?’ Katya asked. They were sitting on the terrace with tea. The three youngsters and Sebastien were engaged in a cut-throat game of croquet at the far end of the garden. Tonia was nowhere to be seen. ‘About what happened, between Lenka and you?’
Anna nodded. ‘Tried’s the word. She simply refuses to talk about it. Very politely of course.’ She sighed, heavily, then into the silence added, ‘She’s so much like her, isn’t she? Like Lenka, I mean? So – difficult – so unhappy all the time. If only there were something we could do to show her –’ She trailed off, frustrated.
‘There’s one person who could,’ Katya said, and leaned forward. ‘More tea?’
There was a small silence. ‘No thank you,’ Anna said. And then, ‘Sebastien, you mean?’
‘Of course. The poor girl’s crazy about him. Hadn’t you noticed? She follows him around like a little puppy. Not that one can blame her of course.’
Anna turned to watch the young folk laughing and squabbling on the lawn. ‘I had noticed, I suppose. Yes. But Katya, isn’t that even more dangerous? Isn’t it likely to make her even more unhappy?’ She turned her eyes from the fountain that played prettily in the centre of the lawn. Sipped her tea. That episode was over and forgotten, by a relieved Sebastien at least. The thought was wry. He had all too eagerly accepted her ‘forgiveness’ for his lapse.
‘It rather depends, doesn’t it – may I have another of Mrs Barton’s delicious biscuits please? – on how Sebastien feels about it?’
Anna turned her head. ‘What do you mean?’
Katya shrugged. ‘He doesn’t seem to mind. The way she follows him about, I mean. He seems perfectly happy in her company.’
‘Well he would, of course. He’s a very kind young man. He wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings.’
‘Perhaps not. I heard them playing together the other day. I’m no expert as you know, but they sounded pretty good to me. That’s got to be the basis of something, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose it has.’ Anna’s voice was quiet.
Katya turned to look at her. ‘How good is she? Tonia, I mean? You’d know better than any of us.’
Anna waited a moment before she answered. ‘From what I’ve managed to hear,’ she said at last, ’she shows promise. She needs more training of course. But,’ she shook her head, ’it’s hard for me to tell. You must have noticed she won’t play in front of me? I only ever hear her from behind closed doors.’
Katya leaned forward and patted her hand. ‘Don’t worry, my dear. She’ll come round. She’s been through so much. We can’t expect her to change in a week.’
‘No. I suppose not. Now,’ briskly and deliberately Anna changed the subject, ‘the houseparty next weekend. Did you want me to get in touch with the Bradburys? You remember – the portrait painter and her husband, they were here last year – they were asking after you just a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure they’d love to see you again.’
* * *
The summer days were warm and long. Doors and windows stood open to the air and the sunshine. On the afternoon after her conversation with Katya, Anna came down the curving staircase to hear from behind the music-room door the sound of a violin.
She hesitated at the foot of the stairs, her hand on the post. Turned to walk away. Stopped, listening. The Bach Concerto in E Major. One of her own favourites, played with a lilting precision that held her for a moment of real and disinterested pleasure. Impulsively she turned and walked to the music-room door.
Tonia did not hear her entrance. The girl was absorbed in the music, hair fallen in an untidy tangle across her eyes. For a moment Anna was tempted to withdraw quietly and leave her to it, but the slight movement she made attracted Tonia’s attention. The music stopped abruptly, a fragile thread broken by intrusion. The thin arms lowered, the violin hung by her side. Her chin came up. She did not smile.
‘I heard you from outside,’ Anna said, with no preamble. ‘You were playing so well. Won’t you continue?’
It was the first time she had bluntly invited a straight rejection. Calmly she walked to the table that stood by the open French windows and reached to rearrange, quite unnecessarily, the vase of summer flowers that stood upon it.
From behind her, after a long moment’s quiet, the violin began to play. Anna did not turn, but stood looking out into her lovely garden, listening. Many thoughts came to her, and many memories; but one in particular, a small, haunting and vivid picture of a girl she had thought long forgotten; a girl as pale, as intense and she supposed as awkward as the one who played in the room behind her. Herself at Tonia’s age, devastated because her dream of music had been taken from her by her father.
Yet he had given her something else.
The last note died. She turned. The girl was watching her with the old unapproachable, half-defiant look. A look Anna saw in a sudden moment of utter clarity that, despite all her efforts, could not disguise the fear of rejection, the palpable yearning behind it. ‘That was truly lovely,’ she said.
Tonia half-turned, dropping her eyes, lifted the battered violin to rub at it with her sleeve.
Anna crossed the room to where her own violin rested in the same scuffed case in which it had first travelled from Moscow to St Petersburg all those long years ago. ‘Have you seen this?’
Tonia shook her head. Could not resist coming closer as Anna unsnapped the catch and lifted the instrument out. She turned. The girl’s eyes were fixed, unguarded, upon the violin. ‘Your great-grandfather made it,’ Anna said. ‘It’s a wonderful instrument.’
The girl put out a bony hand and, very gently, laid the back of her knuckles upon the shining wood before snatching her hand away.
‘Would you like to play it?’ Anna asked.
‘I –’ Tonia swallowed. Stiff-necked pride battled irresistible temptation. Temptation won. She reached for the instrument.
Anna held on to it for only a fraction of a second too long before she relinquished it into the younger girl’s hand.
Tonia held it with disciplined delicacy, weighing it in her hands, turning it this way and that, watching as the burnished wood caught the light. Then, carefully, she lifted it and tucked it beneath her chin.
Anna turned and walked to the window again. Stepan and Sebastien were walking across the lawn towards the house. She saw Sebastien’s exaggerated gestures as he talked, saw Stepan’s slow, and to Anna who remembered so well the terrified, browbeaten child he had been, perfectly lovely smile.
Behind her the music lifted once more; Mozart’s Fourth Concerto, one part of her brain automatically noted; evocative, gently passionate, perfect for the day. She saw Sebastien stop, turn his head quickly towards the music room before, after saying something and lifting a quick hand in farewell to his companion, turning to walk swiftly and lightly towards the terrace and the open French windows.
Anna watched him come.
Silhouetted in the doorway he stopped. ‘Anna?’ Then, ‘Tonia! It’s you?’
Tonia had stopped playing. Her face was bright as a poppy. She nodded. Eagerly Sebastien came to her. ‘Play it again – no! – I have a better idea. Come.’ He pulled her towards the piano, shuffled through the music that was stre
wn upon the table beside it. ‘Ah, here, the Beethoven – the Kreutzer, you know it?’
‘I – yes, I know it.’
‘It’s my favourite. Come. Let’s try it.’ He was already settling himself at the piano.
Anna stood all but forgotten.
He played a few notes, loosening his fingers. Tentatively Tonia drew the bow across the strings of her great-grandfather’s violin.
No, Anna thought, very determinedly, pushing away an impulse that, once lodged in her mind, refused to be ignored. No. That would be too much.
Sebastien, face grave and intent now, lifted a finger then nodded. Once again the bow touched the strings, as a little uncertainly Tonia began to play.
‘Wait,’ Anna interrupted, suddenly and sharply, as Sebastien was poised to play the first resonant chord. ‘I’m sorry. Just a moment.’
She hurried to a long cabinet that stood at the far end of the room and without giving herself time to think reached for the long, slender case that lay upon it. She stood in the shadows, the open case in her hand, feeling the surprised eyes of the two youngsters on her back. Then she turned and walked to Tonia. ‘I thought –’ She offered the bow. ‘Your great-uncle Andrei made it. Try it. See what you think.’
Tonia laid down the bow she held and took the one that Anna offered. Her face, usually so tense and drawn, softened as she lifted it, drew it with gentle pressure across the strings. ‘It’s wonderful. Perfect –’
‘I always thought so,’ Anna said.
She turned and walked out into the sunshine, leaving them there. The sound of violin and piano drifted out behind her. With slow and careful steps she walked from the terrace to where a small stone seat was set beneath an ancient apple tree.
She sat there, very still, for a very long time.
‘Anna? Why here you are. I’ve been looking everywhere. See,’ ice clinked musically against glass, ‘I’ve brought us both a rather naughty drink. Champagne and fruit juice. It is such a very lovely day – Anna? Are you all right?’ Katya settled herself beside her, a tall glass held out.
‘Yes. I’m fine. Thank you.’ Anna took the drink.
Katya cocked her head, listening. ‘Ah.’ Her eyes brightened. ‘Sebastien and Tonia?’
Anna nodded.
‘How beautifully they play together,’ Katya said, thoughtfully.
‘Yes. Don’t they?’
The music filled the air, piano and violin weaving enchanted, precise and passionate patterns like the swooping flight of birds in the summer’s sky.
‘Sebastien and Tonia,’ Katya said again, after a moment, the intonation a little different, the tone delighted and amused. ‘Well. Stranger things have happened, I suppose.’
Anna held the cool, beaded glass to her flushed cheek. ‘Strange are the ways of God,’ she said.
‘Good Lord!’ Katya gave a soft laugh. ‘It’s years since I heard that saying. That old woman of yours – what was her name? Irina? Irisha? – used to say it all the time, didn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘She did. And she was right.’
’Tasha’s voice lifted, laughing, from the tennis court on the other side of the hedge. A bird sang into the sunshine from the branch above them.
Across the lawn the music drifted, timeless and beautiful.
First published in Great Britain in 1993 by HarperCollins Publishers
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Teresa Crane, 1993
The moral right of Teresa Crane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788633611
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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