“Well, they weren’t exactly queueing up to ask me,” Anthea replied with a laugh. “And since I can’t be with my family, I’d much rather be with all of you than anyone else.”
“I suppose you’d have been with Oscar Warrender, if he hadn’t had to go to hospital?” Violet Albany said.
“Oh, I don’t know.” The thought of the smiling, slightly possessive Peroni stabbed her. Then she hastily brushed the recollection aside and said, “I nearly died of fright when I first heard of the accident, and thought he wasn’t going to conduct the last act.”
“And we nearly died of surprise when we saw him pick up his baton with his left hand,” declared Vicki. “I must say he was a sport to do it, Anthea. He must have been in a good deal of pain.”
“Yes,” said Anthea slowly. And for a moment she seemed to feel his hand on her hair and to hear him say, “Leave her alone.”
But then she remembered the impatient way he had brushed off her timid overture, when all was over and he no longer needed to keep her calm and happy. And she was silent until Vicki said,
“You got some gorgeous flowers, didn’t you?”
“Yes, wonderful. Including yours.” Anthea smiled round gratefully on them all.
“Who sent the red roses?” Mrs. McManus wanted to know. “Red roses mean true love, don’t they?”
“Well, not in this case,” said Anthea drily. “Those are from Oscar Warrender.”
“What message did he put on them?” Ella Crann asked curiously.
“Just ‘O.W.’,” replied Anthea, and without her knowing it, her voice took on a hurt, resentful tone. “It wasn’t exactly lavish, was it?”
“Not even ‘Good luck’ or anything?” Vicki was rather scandalised. “I call that pretty shabby. I spent ages trying to think of the nicest thing I could to put on ours.”
“I’m sure you did. But then you’re rather different from Oscar Warrender,” Anthea said.
“Well, I can hardly believe it.” Vicki actually got up from the table and went to look over the little pile of notes and messages which she and Ella had conscientiously detached from Anthea’s flowers before putting them in water. “Yes, you’re right. At least — ”
She picked out a small square of white and brought it back to the table with her.
“I think there’s a card inside that, Anthea. The ‘O.W.’ is just on the envelope.”
“What?” Anthea was suddenly alert. “I hadn’t realised that!”
And, with more eagerness than she knew, she hastily untwisted the little piece of gold wire which had held the envelope in place and abstracted a card. On it, in small, dark, legible handwriting was:
“It was not my idea to buy authority over you, Anthea. I fell in love with your voice, and I was determined that no one should ruin it. Tonight will be my justification. Oscar Warrender.”
“Oh, no!” Suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, Anthea pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. “And I said there was no comment!”
They all stared at her open-mouthed. But she did not even see them. Still clutching the card in her hand, she ran out to the telephone in the hall and, without a moment’s hesitation, dialled Oscar Warrender’s number.
It seemed that the bell at the other end rang for a long time. Then a voice which she recognized as the housekeeper’s said, “Mr. Warrender’s apartment. Who is that, please?”
“Is Mr. Warrender back yet?” Anthea’s voice was not entirely steady.
“No. He had to go to hospital after the performance. He telephoned a while back, to say he was just leaving there and would stop for something to eat on the way home. Do you want to leave a message?”
“No, thank you.” Anthea hung up the receiver, and for a moment she leaned against the wall in the rather dimly lit hall.
“He fell in love with my voice,” she repeated in a whisper. “He fell in love — But was it only with the voice?”
And suddenly that was the question of all questions in the world that she most needed to have answered. Nothing else mattered. Not fame nor success, not quarrelling nor peace-making. Was it only her voice that he loved? She had to know.
Without any idea of time or place, or of what might seem strange or unseemly, she went back into the dining-room and said,
“Dears, I’m terribly sorry. You must finish supper without me. I have to go out.”
“Go out?” they cried in chorus. And Vicki added, “But it’s well after midnight.”
“I can’t help that. I have to go. There’s — there’s something I must clear up.”
“But wouldn’t the morning do?” asked one of the wind players, a stolid young man who thought twice before he did anything.
“Oh, no — no!” cried Anthea, to whom the thought of waiting even an hour had suddenly become insupportable.
“Where are you going?” enquired Vicki anxiously.
And she hesitated only a moment before she said firmly, “To see Mr. Warrender.”
“He’ll be furious if you disturb him after a performance,” protested Vicki, while Mrs. McManus said, with unexpected primness,
“You can’t call on a man at this time of night.”
To them both Anthea merely replied, “I can’t think about that now.” And she reached for her coat, which she had flung off when she came in, and shrugged herself into it.
“At least let us call a taxi for you,” said one of the young men. So she waited impatiently for a time while they tried unsuccessfully to telephone for a taxi. Then she exclaimed,
“I can’t wait any more. I’ll pick up a taxi on the way.” And, deaf to all protests — even to those of Vicki, who followed her into the hall, she went out into the night to find the answer to her question.
It was cool and clear outside, with bright starlight overhead, and, as she walked rapidly along, it seemed to Anthea that, ever since she had first seen Oscar Warrender at Cromerdale Town Hall and heard him dismiss her contemptuously as no more than good material, she had been working up to this moment.
“That was what I couldn’t take, even then,” she thought. “And that’s what I’ve found unforgivable ever since. I was only a voice to him. Or was I?”
She walked for ten minutes before she picked up a cruising taxi. And, when she had given her directions and sunk down in its musty interior, she seemed to regain some sense of reality, which made her ask herself dismayedly what she really thought she was doing.
When she got to his flat, what was she to say to the housekeeper? How could she demand to be let in and allowed to wait at this time of night? Could she say he was expecting her? But, again at this time of night, what sort of impression would that create?
When she reached her destination she was already cold with indecision. But she simply could not go back now. So she paid off the taxi and, as she went up in the lift, she rehearsed some plausible words for the housekeeper.
When she pressed the bell, her hand was shaking a little, as it had that very first time. But she somehow composed her features into a matter-of-fact smile, to accompany the reasonable opening sentence she had prepared.
Neither was required, however. For it was not the housekeeper who opened the door. It was Oscar Warrender himself, in a dark, rather magnificent-looking dressing-gown.
“Anthea!” For once in her life she saw him completely at a loss. “What on earth do you want at this time of night, child?”
“To — to come in, please. If — if I may,” she stammered.
“Well, of course.” He stood back to allow her to pass and, from force of habit, she went through to the studio. He followed her more slowly, switching on a few extra lights as he came.
Then he stood and regarded her, with a touch of hostility, even wariness, and asked abruptly, “What’s the matter?”
“It’s about — the note on your flowers,” she blurted out, because she had nothing prepared to say to him. Only something to say to the housekeeper.
“Oh — yes?”
“I
hadn’t found it when you asked me if I — if I had any comment.” She stood there clasping and unclasping her hands nervously. “I saw only the envelope. I thought you put only your initials on the flowers. And — and when you asked me, I didn’t see what comment I could make.”
“I see.” The very faintest amusement lifted the comers of his mouth. “But when you got home — you read it?”
“Yes.”
“And so – ?”
“That’s why I’m here,” she explained, with desperate simplicity. “Was it — was it true, what you put on that card?”
“That I never had any intention of buying authority over you? Yes, that was true.”
“No, not that bit. I accept that now.” She brushed it aside, for it had become unimportant. “The other bit. About — about — ”
“Falling in love with your voice?” He completed the sentence for her with more consideration for her feelings than he usually showed. “Yes, of course. I fell in love with your voice the very first time I heard it. Immediately and irretrievably.”
“With — my voice? Just — with my voice?”
There was an odd little silence. Then he laughed protestingly and asked, “What more do you want me to say? That I fell in love with you that first day?”
“Only if — it’s true,” she said breathlessly.
“It is not true,” he replied coolly and categorically, and suddenly the world went cold and empty for her.
“Oh, I see.” She put down her lashes and tried hard not to let any tears escape. But it had been a tremendously emotional and harrowing evening and her self-control was weak. In spite of all her efforts, two large tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks.
Then that beloved, half mocking voice said softly, “I think it took me two and a half weeks to fall in love with you yourself.”
“You beast!” cried Anthea, and her lashes swept up, so that the tears could no longer be held back. “You beast! How dare you torment me like that!”
“I don’t know,” he said. And suddenly he was beside her and his uninjured arm was round her. “And I don’t know how you can shed tears for me, my angry little beloved. I don’t deserve it.”
“No, you don’t deserve it,” she sobbed, burying her face against him.
“But I love you,” he said softly, just above her head. “In my arrogant, imperfect, sometimes cruel way, I adore you. Are you listening to me?”
She nodded, her face still hidden.
“Well, listen well,” he said, half teasingly, half tenderly, “because I shall probably never say all this to you again. I’m not in any way worthy of you. You are warm and basic and infinitely human, and that’s why you are irresistible to a cold, self-contained creature like me. When I look at you it’s like looking at the sunshine, and when I listen to you singing it’s like hearing the music of the spheres. It was utterly inevitable that I should love you. The miracle is that you should love me. If you marry me, you won’t always be happy — ”
“If I don’t marry you, I shall never be entirely happy again,” she said, looking up suddenly and speaking out of the depths of her profound conviction. “I know some of what you say of yourself is true, but I don’t care. I know you’ll make me shed many tears, but — ”
“Not many, my darling,” he said, and his lips were warm against hers. “I promise you that. And some of the weapons are in your hands now, you know. By admitting that I love you utterly, I’ve given you certain dominion over me.”
“You’re quite capable of taking it back, though, sometimes,” she replied, with a flash of humour.
“No, he said, with absolute simplicity, “I can’t. I may not be a generous or an easy giver. But what I give I never take back. Not my word, not my friendship, not my love.”
“Have you ever given — your love before?” she asked timidly.
“Not to any woman.”
She thought about Peroni, and for a moment she was tempted to mention her name. But suddenly the idea seemed unworthy. If he said he had not given his love to another woman, she believed him. The gossips could say what they pleased. Oscar Warrender’s heart was hers.
The discovery was so breathtaking, so dazzling, that she gave a little gasp and flung her arms round his neck and kissed him over and over again. It was something she simply could not have imagined herself doing even an hour ago. Now it was the most completely right and natural thing in the world.
He gave a slight, incredulous laugh and returned her kisses, first with a tenderness which astounded her, and then with a passion which excited her more than anything else that had happened on that unbelievable evening.
Then, after a minute or two, he held her slightly away from him and said, with a wry little smile,
“And now, my darling, it’s about time you went home to your safe, respectable boarding-house. You may be an angel, but I am not. I’ll come down with you and get you a taxi, as I can’t drive you home.”
“No, you won’t!” It was intoxicating to be able to contradict him with impunity. “You’re not going to get your injured arm in and out of a coat sleeve again tonight. And I don’t think,” she added demurely, “that you’d better see me off in a dressing-gown at this hour of the night.”
He laughed a little vexedly at that. But he said, “All right. The porter will get you a taxi.” And then, almost as an afterthought, “When will you marry me?”
“Whenever you say.”
“Perfect obedience still to the will of her operatic director, I’m glad to see,” he said mockingly.
“No. Perfect agreement with the man I love,” she retorted, and he put his hand against her cheek with a gesture of tenderness which made up for all the times he had been brutal to her.
“My little prima donna from the provinces,” he said. “Well, we’ll discuss a wedding date along with all the other aspects of your future tomorrow. It isn’t going to be plain sailing, you know, being married to your conductor. There’ll be plenty of spiteful people to say that you get on just because I favour you, for one thing.”
“And will you favour me?” She looked up at him and smiled mischievously.
“On the contrary.” He kissed her smiling mouth deliberately. “I shall probably be as hard on you as on myself, which is saying something. But remember, however harsh I am with you, I love you.”
“And, however temperamental I am with you, I love you,” she replied, which seemed to amuse him greatly.
He came with her to the door of the flat and rang the bell to summon the lift. Then as the lift slid smoothly upwards and the door opened, he said,
“From tomorrow onwards you will probably be offered the world. But it will be a year or two before you have earned the right to accept it. I hope the long wait will not be too irksome if we are together.”
“It will be all too short,” she assured him, with a smile, as she stepped into the lift. “Do you want me for a lesson tomorrow morning as usual?”
“No, darling, it will be Sunday,” he reminded her. “Tomorrow we’ll relax — and see each other without a lesson. But on Monday” — suddenly his voice took on the familiar stem note — “I shall expect you at eleven. Don’t be late. There’s a lot of work to be done on that second act yet.”
“Yes, Mr. Warrender,” said Anthea. Then the lift door closed, and she was borne downwards.
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A Song Begins (Warrender Saga Book 1) Page 17
