‘Oh — oh, yes.’ She was faintly startled to find herself immediately so near the forbidden subject. ‘He telephoned the next day and congratulated me. I think he still found my acting more interesting than my singing.’
‘Did he?’ Elliot shot her an interested glance. ‘Well, it’s of quite a high order, I would say. But you have to remember that speaking a part is a very different matter from singing it.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Joanna said earnestly, and changed the subject by saying, ‘Speaking of real actresses, Sara Fernie was at Wilmore Manor when I looked in there.’
‘Oh — was she?’ He smiled a trifle grimly and, to her surprise, pursued the matter no further until they were seated opposite each other at the same table as before. Then he asked, as he studied the menu, ‘And what had Sara to say about me?’
‘About you? Joanna looked surprised. ‘She didn’t mention you. She and I are not quite on those terms, you know.’
‘No, I don’t know. What sort of terms do you mean?’
‘I don’t think she would honour me with any girlish confidences. What’s the matter? Have you quarrelled again?’
He didn’t answer that immediately. Then, without looking up, he said, ‘I tried out your theory. The theory that with the Sara type of girl it’s healthy to display some indifference if she starts to play up.’
‘Oh?’ Joanna sounded doubtful, ‘And did it work?’
‘Depends what you mean by working, my dear.’ He did look up then. ‘She made me pretty wild about something — it doesn’t matter what, but it involved my authority at the theatre — and so I put on a splendid display of indifference.’
‘With what result?’ Joanna looked amused.
‘With the result that suddenly I found I was not putting on a display at all. Quite simply, I was indifferent. The spell was somehow broken.’
‘But not just because you’d been feigning indifference?’ Joanna was very slightly shocked. ‘One’s emotions don’t work like that. At least, only if they’re skin-deep. And I don’t think your feelings for Sara were just skin-deep, were they?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I was quite crazily in love with her at one time. Uncritically in love, I suppose you could say. It went on even after I began to see things about her that didn’t fit into my picture of her. This latest upset wasn’t the first row we had had, by a long chalk. I thought the familiar pattern would repeat itself and that we would make it up. But when I stood back from the scene, as you might say, while I built up my pretence of indifference, I suddenly — no, perhaps it was gradually — saw that, somewhere along the road, I had lost the real feeling. I was just going through the motions. The indifference was not a pretence. It was a natural expression of what my true feelings had become.’
‘I see,’ said Joanna slowly.: ‘Do you want me to commiserate with you on losing an ideal or congratulate you on losing your chains?’
‘Oh, congratulate me,’ he retorted lightly. ‘The sense of freedom is almost intoxicating. I had to celebrate it in some way; that’s why I asked you to dinner. You seemed to be the natural person to share the celebration.’
‘I did?’ She sounded a little indignant. ‘I don’t specialize in rescuing besotted young men.’
At that he laughed so much that she could not help smiling too. He was so extraordinarily handsome when he threw back his head like that and his eyes sparkled with amusement.
‘You have the most wonderful turn of phrase at times,’ he declared. ‘That’s one reason why you’re such a delightful companion,’
‘Am I that?’ She smiled slightly into her glass, because all at once it was a little difficult to meet his eyes,
‘Of course, darling,’ he said. And she knew that this was not a casual ‘darling’ — the type of endearment that was bandied about so easily between people in his world. This time he meant it. She was a darling to him. And the thought warmed her very heart and made the whole world a lovely place to live in.
She wished she could have told him about the other wonderful things which had happened to her in the last few days. The incredible offer from Oscar Warrender, the unbelievable things Madame Volnikov had said to her; even, in that expansive moment, all about the visit to his uncle and the superb, characteristic generosity with which he was prepared to make the whole miracle work.
But then she remembered how essential it was that all this should remain secret for a while longer from even her nearest and dearest. And as that phrase formed in her mind she gave a small, almost inaudible gasp, for yet anothing shining discovery opened out before her. Elliot was her nearest and dearest.
Small though the gasp was, he must have heard it, for he asked softly, ‘What’s the matter, Joanna?’
She shook her head.
‘Nothing is the matter. Everything is — is wonderful.’
‘Is it?’ He reached for her hand as it lay on the table and imprisoned it in his. ‘Tell me why everything is wonderful.’
‘Oh — ’ She glanced up quickly then, and realized that she had to give some sort of explanation for her impulsive words. She could not say, ‘I’ve just discovered that I’m in love with you.’ She could not even say, ‘What did you mean when you called me “darling” in that special tone of voice?’
And then it came to her that perhaps she could legitimately tell him of one aspect of her dramatically changed fortunes. Something that would account for her air of suppressed excitement, and her inability to conceal the magic of her present mood. She could not tell him much, of course. Her promise to the intimidating Oscar Warrender prevented that. But she could mention just one thing, in a general sort of way. And so she smiled at him with eager candour and said, ‘I’ve been longing to tell someone! And, since you’ve said such nice things about me, I’m going to tell you. But it’s a secret for the moment, Elliot. Promise!’
‘I promise.’ He looked intrigued.
‘Have you ever heard of Tamara Volnikov?’
‘Of course — the dancer? What about her?’
‘She’s going to give me lessons — in mime and acting and general stage training. Oscar Warrender is arranging it. He thinks I’m worthy of such lessons.’
‘Warrender thinks so?’ Elliot looked incredulous and, for some reason, not entirely pleased. ‘Is he paying?’ he asked abruptly.
‘No,’ she asserted steadily. ‘He’s getting some wealthy patron of the arts to do that.’
‘It’s going to have to be a pretty wealthy patron to satisfy that old cormorant. Is it anyone you know personally?’
‘No,’ lied Joanna coolly, though by now she was wishing she had never embarked on this conversation.
‘You know why I’m asking, don’t you?’
‘No.’ She shook her head, and Volnikov herself could not have looked more candid and innocent.
‘Because the man who will pay out that sort of money usually wants something in return.’
‘Don’t be an idiot!’ In her relief at his failure to make the obvious guess she actually laughed convincingly. ‘How do you know it’s a man? It may be a woman, for all I know. Anyway, I’m leaving that to Sir Oscar, — And don’t you go asking him questions! He’d kill me if he thought I had so much as breathed a word to you or anyone else.’
‘Why?’ asked Elliot flatly,
‘Why?’ She groped again for a convincing reply, ‘Because he has some idea of following his own hunch about me, I suppose, but wouldn’t like it if I proved him wrong. Isn’t that rather the way Oscar Warrender ticks?’
‘Ye-es, I suppose it is.’ Elliot was more than half convinced now, she saw, and insensibly both of them relaxed, like two adversaries who suddenly realized there was little reason for them to measure up to each other after all. ‘I’m very glad for your sake, my dear,’ he said much more gently. ‘But you understand why I had to ask those questions, don’t you?’
‘Not really,’ she replied lightly. ‘After all, I’m not exactly your concern, am I?’
There was quite a long pause.
‘You mean it’s too quick a change-round if I say that I wish you were my concern?’ he said at last. ‘I’ve hardly convinced you of my indifference to Sara and here I am trying to make you regard me as something special in your life. Is that it?’
‘Not entirely, Elliot.’ She glanced down at their clasped hands, and tried to find the right words. There was something in what he had just said, of course. There was even more in the difficulty of believing in the discovery she had just made about her own feelings. But most of all was the thought that for some months at any rate she was going to have to live a sort of secret life. The most important thing in her whole career was opening up before her. If she gave him some sort of right to share in her thoughts and experiences how was she to maintain the secrecy which had been so sternly enjoined upon her?
Luckily or unluckily, they were interrupted at that moment by the waiter bringing their meal. And by the time they had disengaged hands, and the dishes had been set on the table, a slightly more prosaic mood inevitably prevailed.
‘All right - ’ he smiled across at her when they were once more alone. ‘Let’s not rush our fences. Forget the exact words if you prefer to, and just remember that all the questions I asked were dictated by the fact that you and your future matter quite a lot to me. Does that fit the mood of the moment?’
‘Perfectly!’ Her smile was as gay and warm as his. ‘And I’m glad that you said all you did.’
‘Darling!’ Again the endearment held more than a casual meaning. ‘Now tell me about your visit to Volnikov. Didn’t she terrify you?’
So Joanna gave him a lively account of her first encounter with the legendary dancer, taking care to keep it all in general terms, and not for one moment suggesting that the training was intended for a specific project.
It was all rather easy, once she had embarked on a perfectly true description of the actual visit, and they both laughed a good deal together, and at the same time he showed a genuine respect for her artistic comments.
‘There always seems something new to discover about you, Joanna,’ he said when he took her home.
And as he said good night to her he suddenly drew her into his arms and kissed her.
There was nothing casual about the kiss, any more than there had been about the twice he had called her ‘darling’. And as Joanna kissed him in return she was aware that this probably betrayed her true feelings far more than any words could have done.
He would have detained her a moment longer, his arms very close around her. But she broke away from him with a breathless little laugh which she tried to make lighthearted instead of excited. Then she ran up the short path to her front door and let herself in without once looking back at him.
It was late and her mother was already in bed, so that the house was very quiet as she leant against the door and drew one or two quick breaths, while her heart beat loudly in the stillness.
‘It’s true!’ she told herself. ‘It really happened. Oh, I’m so happy! All this — and Sir Oscar’s plans as well. It’s almost too much. And Mr. Wilmore’s generosity too! I don’t know what I’ve ever done to deserve it all.’
During the next week or two the eager dreams were translated into sober fact. Neither Volnikov nor Oscar Warrender could be described as indulgent. Both could inspire one to an extraordinary degree, but Joanna soon found that their demands on her understanding, her capacity for work and her sheer stamina were formidable.
‘Tears have a place in every artist’s development,’ the old Russian dancer observed, when she had actually reduced Joanna to tears one day. ‘But beyond a certain point they are an emotional indulgence. It is the unshed tears which move an audience to the depths.’ And in some strange and magical way she began to channel Joanna’s frequent despair and protest into gesture and facial expression.
Warrender came more brutally to the point, when he gave her a gruelling lesson on the final aria in her otherwise silent role. He simply said, ‘Stop sniffing and gulping. The one interferes with the purity of tone and the other spoils your phrasing. Now try that again.’
Quite simply, both took perfection as the norm, and any deviation from that standard irritated them. There were moments in those first two or three weeks when Joanna wondered why on earth she had taken on this impossible challenge. But there were also moments when she glimpsed what was required of her, and the few almost grudging words of praise vouchsafed her on those occasions elated her as nothing else had ever done in her whole life before.
Nothing, that was to say, except the discovery that she loved Elliot and that he was not indifferent to her.
She saw very little of him during that first week or two. Unexpectedly he had to fly to the States to discuss the New York production of a play in which he was interested. And for this Joanna was almost glad. For nothing and no one must distract her from her present work, and if she had been seeing Elliot frequently it was hard to see how she could have maintained a discreet silence about the project on which her every hope and effort was fixed.
About this time she met the composer of the work which occupied so much of her time and thought. He was a kind, mild-mannered man, and in startling contrast to the star quality which blazed from both Volnikov and Warrender, his almost gentle and deprecating way of speaking to Joanna made her doubly determined to make a success of his work if it were humanly possible.
‘One can never quite assess one’s own work until one hears it performed,’ he told her. ‘But now that I’ve heard you sing that air — and sing it so beautifully, my dear - I feel that, unpractical though the work may be in some ways, it could indeed have a future.’
‘Sir Oscar is sure of it,’ Joanna declared. ‘And, in my opinion for what it’s worth, it is an utterly lovely work. At first, like everyone else, I thought that a whole evening of virtual silence would be impossible to sustain. But with Madame Volnikov’s help I’m sure I can do it.’
‘You really gather inspiration from that unlikeable woman?’ Bernard Fulroyd smiled at her doubtfully and, taking off his spectacles, polished them vigorously — a trick he had when he was either moved or nervous. ‘I confess she terrifies me.’
‘Well, she terrifies me sometimes,’ Joanna conceded with a laugh. ‘But she is a unique teacher, and if I make any success of this role it will be due to her. And Sir Oscar, of course.’
‘Ah, Sir Oscar! There’s a man!’ said Mr. Fulroyd. ‘I owe him more than I could possibly say. I doubt if any of my music would have reached public performance without his help. He seems confident he’ll put this work on the stage. Indeed, he was telling me this morning that, if his plans for the backing turn out as he is expecting, we might look forward to a first night in less than six months’ time.’
‘He said that? Joanna’s eyes shone and the colour rushed into her cheeks. ‘Then he must think I’m shaping all right.’
‘I think he’s very pleased indeed with you,’ replied
Mr. Fulroyd. Which was more than Joanna had dared to hope, for the conductor had been sparing indeed with his praise.
She went home after that talk with her spirits high. But, at the same time, the mention of a first night within the foreseeable future seemed to bring the whole enterprise into clear — and terrifying — perspective. So far, her ambition had been merely to satisfy Warrender and the old Russian dancer. From day to day that had been the limit of her effort.
Now, however, when the composer himself appeared to be looking forward with some confidence to hearing his work performed, she realized with a great bump of her heart the tremendous weight of responsibility which was going to rest upon her. If, as Warrender himself had said, she was uniquely suitable for this role — a role that few singers either could or would take on — she was more or less essential to the whole project.
‘I have to make that dear man’s work a success!’ Joanna thought. ‘I could also make it fail. But I mustn’t even think of failure. I must just work hard, and beli
eve that my star is riding high. And it is, it is! Oh, I wonder when Elliot is coming home from the States.’
She had been walking the last part of the journey home, which she did most days as an antidote to the hours she spent in concentrated study, and as she turned into her road she saw, with an uprush of joy, that a familiar car stood outside her home.
‘Elliot!’ She broke into a run. And then when she came up to the car she saw he was sitting in the driving seat still and had apparently not made any attempt to go into the house. ‘Elliot, how wonderful!’ She bent down to speak to him through the window. ‘Why didn’t you knock and go in?’
‘I did knock.’ He got out of the car and gave her a slight smile, though he did not attempt to kiss her, perhaps because it was broad daylight which hardly contributed to a romantic mood. ‘But I think your mother must be out.’
‘She is — I remember. She was going to a matinee with a friend. But come on in.’ She led the way up the path and opened the door. ‘I’ll give you tea. Oh, I’m so glad to see you, Elliot. Did everything go well in the States?’
‘Yes, And — ’ she suddenly thought he was speaking with some sort of effort — ‘is everything going well with you too?’
‘Yes, of course, I’ll get tea.’ She bent to switch on the fire, and as she came upright again he caught her lightly by the arm.
‘No — wait a moment.’
She stood still and said in surprise, ‘Is something wrong?’
‘I don’t know. No - I hope not.’ But I have to ask you something, Joanna. I have to ask you, will you believe me? And if I’m doing you an injustice, try to forgive me.’
She said nothing. Only stood there close beside him, with his hand still on her arm.
‘Well?’ she said at last, aware that her lips had gone dry.
‘Joanna, is it my uncle who’s paying for your lessons with Volnikov?’
She felt a little as though the floor had opened up in front of her. In a way, she would have been glad if it had, so long as she could have disappeared in some magical way from this terrible moment. But there was no escape. He was holding her arm fast, and he was looking at her with an almost pleading expression which, even as she stared back at him, began to change to one of cold anger.
Remembered Serenade (Warrender Saga Book 9) Page 13
