"I've made my decision—a final and all-embracing one," was the cold reply. "I shall not play in public again unless I can walk unaided to the piano and do my job properly. I'm a working musician, not a circus side-show."
"Is it all right if I go and get on with my own work now?" asked Antoinette in a small voice.
"Yes, yes, of course." Lewis Freemont dismissed her impatiently, and she went thankfully to her own office, where she despised herself for the fact that she had to wipe away a tear before she could get on with her work.
To her surprise, about half an hour later, Gordon Everleigh came into her office—but by the doorway from the hall, and not directly from the drawing-room where he had been with Lewis Freemont.
"Miss Burney, I want a confidential word with you," he said, his strong, pleasant face slightly creased with worry now that he no longer needed to give an appearance of confident cheerfulness. "Freemont seems to have taken a fancy to you and to feel that you could be a real support to him. I hope you're going to stay in this job, even though it will present quite a lot of difficulties from time to time."
"Why, of course!" Antoinette assured him earnestly. "You need have no fear of that. I've always admired Mr. Freemont as an artist. I'm only too glad if I can be of any help to him now."
"Well, of course that's how we all feel—those of us who admire him and are fond of him," said Gordon Everleigh, apparently including Antoinette in this number without question. "This tragedy is about the most ghastly thing that could have happened to him. In a way it would almost have been better for him if he'd been killed. There's something proud and splendid about going out on the crest of a wave of glory, at the height of one's career. But to an independent, arrogant rather cussed creature like Freemont it must be pure hell to be so helpless."
"I—realize that," said Antoinette faintly.
"At the present time his one idea is to withdraw into himself. A simpler—I suppose one might say a humbler —man might have come to terms more easily with the situation. Sight is not an absolute requisite for a pianist. And to some men, once they had regained confidence and learned to be blind—there is no other expression for it—it would not have been impossible to make a distinguished career again. But Freemont is a proud perfectionist in everything. You heard what he said just now about not being a circus side-show. It's a perfectly ridiculous attitude, but a tragic one if he clings to it. What I wanted to say to you was that your day-to-day attitude could be quite a useful factor."
"In what way?" Antoinette's voice was husky but eager. "I'll do anything. Anything."
"Good girl!" He gave her an approving glance. "Go carefully. Don't overdo things or give the impression of trying to coerce him. But keep always in mind the idea that we—you and I and the few who really care about him—have every intention that he shall go back to the concert platform. It's his life. Without it he's lost."
"Oh, I'll try! I'll do my very best."
"Don't nag him or argue—" Antoinette wondered how he supposed she would dare!—"Just go along with his ideas for the moment. But encourage him to play for you some time, keep him in touch with the musical world whether he shows interest or not. Put the emphasis on letters that are positive in approach and play down—or if you like, shamelessly suppress—any that are negative and depressing. Do everything you can to excite his interest and participation and don't let him retire into a backwater."
"I'll do everything I can," Antoinette promised softly.
"Encourage him to see people as soon as he shows the slightest inclination. At present I'm afraid the only people he will allow near him are you and me. That's why we're important."
"I think," said Antoinette diffidently, "that he is going to see at least one other person today or tomorrow—a Mrs. St. Leger."
"Charmian St. Leger?" Gordon Everleigh raised his eyebrows.
"Yes. Will she be good for him, do you think?"
"Well, yes—and no." The manager's good-looking face was perplexed but slightly amused too. Finally he said—"I suppose anything and anyone who brings him out of his present mood will be good for him. But the very fact that he was always attracted by her may make him feel inadequate now in her presence. Well—see how things go. Don't campaign too obviously. He'd rumble that immediately and be furious. Play it by ear, with all the kindness and common sense you have. You're going to need both of them."
Then he patted her on the shoulder and said, "I have every confidence in you," before he went away—leaving her wondering if that assumption that one could do anything was what made him so successful with his clients. There is nothing quite so heady as having someone express unlimited faith in one.
When she bade her employer good-bye later in the afternoon, she took it on herself to say, "I hope you're going to find me satisfactory. I've liked my first day very much."
"I hope you're going to find me satisfactory too," he, retorted sardonically.
"I think I shall," she told him demurely. And she was pleased that the last sound she heard from him was a genuinely amused laugh.
On the way home in the bus she found suddenly that she was utterly exhausted, and she realized that the emotional strain of the day must have been considerable.
"But I shall get used to it," she assured herself. "I've already cleared several of the worst hurdles. He has accepted me. My name, in the version I gave, roused no dangerous memories in him. He—likes me, I think. And Mr. Everleigh genuinely thinks I'm good for him."
When she reached home an intensely curious Rosamund was waiting eagerly to hear how she had got on, and she listened with flattering attention to every word that Antoinette had to say. Only when the subject of Charmian St. Leger was reached did she interrupt to ask,
"Is she in love with him, do you suppose?"
"She could be." Antoinette gave grave consideration to what she found to be an unwelcome idea, though she could not have said why. "She wrote affectionately. But then some people do—particularly if they're under the influence of a tragedy. It's their way of saying how sorry they are."
"And he?" enquired Rosamund. "Did he react affectionately?"
"Not really—no. But he's inclined to be mocking and a little sardonic about any display of feeling." She thought of his reaction when he found she was crying, but she did not tell Rosamund about that scene. It would have been difficult to justify her tears, for one thing.
"Is there a Mr. St. Leger?" Rosamund then wanted to know.
"No one mentioned him." Antoinette wrinkled her forehead reflectively. "Funny, I never thought of asking. I just assumed there wasn't one. She didn't sound as though there were, if you know what I mean."
"I know exactly what you mean," Rosamund assured her. "She's a designing widow or divorcee, if you ask me, and you'll have to rescue him from her clutches, though how I can't really imagine."
"Nor can I," replied Antoinette so feelingly that Rosamund laughed.
"You don't feel anything like so badly about him now, do you?" she said curiously. "I mean—about his being so beastly to you that time at the exam."
"No." Antoinette looked away. "That's all just water under the bridge. I want nothing but to help him now, if I can."
"I suppose when you've become really friendly with him you might even tell him who you are and make him feel just a bit ashamed of the way he behaved?"
"Oh, no!" There was such real alarm in Antoinette's tone that Rosamund looked surprised. "I don't want him ever to know. Not ever! It might—it might embarrass him, so that he suddenly disliked having me around."
"Is he the kind to be easily embarrassed?" Rosamund sounded sceptical.
"No," Antoinette was forced to admit. "But I don't want to take any risk. I'll never let him know."
"Of course," said Rosamund reflectively, "If he ever recovered his sight—which is what we must hope for him—he might quite easily recognize you, mightn't he?"
"'Yes," agreed Antoinette stonily, "He would recognize me then."
/> "Unless he'd forgotten all about you," amended Rosamund cheerfully. "After all, he didn't recognize your name. One would have expected him to, really. It's quite an unusual one."
"I simply gave my name as Miss Burney and said my friends called me Toni, and that it was a nickname because I didn't like my own name which was—Sarah, I think I said."
"Good gracious!" Rosamund opened her eyes wide. "You did take a lot of precautions, didn't you?"
"I was determined he shouldn't know me," replied Antoinette obstinately.
"So even if he has to repeat "Miss Burney" rather often, you still hope that he—"
"He's going to call me "Toni"," said Antoinette a little reluctantly, which made Rosamund open her eyes wide again.
"Well, well, you have made a good beginning, haven't you?" Rosamund laughed a good deal. But after that her questions were exhausted.
The next day Antoinette set out for Pallin Parva in a very different mood from that of the day before. A certain degree of nervous anxiety still lingered. But far stronger than any anxiety was her eagerness simply to see him again and perhaps to put into practice a little of Gordon Everleigh's advice. If she could be even remotely instrumental in helping Lewis Freemont back to public life, something of the weight of guilt which still pressed on her day and night would be shifted.
Brenda, the maid who opened the door to her, greeted her already as a member of the household, and smilingly volunteered the information that Mr. Freemont seemed in much better spirits that day. Antoinette was just wondering if she might dare to attribute this partially to her own presence when Brenda went on,
"Mrs. St. Leger came to see him yesterday evening, and I expect that cheered him up. She's a lovely lady. Everyone round here likes her."
"Is there a Mr. St. Leger?" enquired Antoinette casually, as she ran a comb through her hair.
"Colonel St. Leger there was," said Brenda in a somewhat repressive tone. "But he went off with someone else—quite a nobody. To South America, they say. No one could understand it—his leaving a lovely women like Mrs. St. Leger. But never a word has anyone ever heard her utter against him," declared Brenda emotionally. "She's been a saint about it, as you might say."
"Really?" murmured Antoinette, feeling perversely that she liked Mrs. St. Leger none the better for her saintly behaviour. Then she went into the drawing-room, where she found her employer, as Brenda had said, in distinctly better spirits.
For his part, he made no reference to his attractive neighbour's visit, but plunged immediately into some intricate business details to do with the recent purchase and partial reconstruction of the house. This involved Antoinette's reading him one or two legal documents of a complicated nature. But, though she herself found some difficulty in following them, he never seemed to lose the thread. On the contrary, he appeared able to keep a clear picture of the whole transaction in his mind even though unable to refer back to the printed or written word.
When she commented on this, he gave a slightly surprised laugh and said, "It's easier than memorizing a concerto." But she thought he was not displeased to be praised, which made him suddenly seem very human and vulnerable.
Towards the end of the discussion there was suddenly the sound of a dog barking on the lawn, and a moment later the glass door into the garden opened and in came someone who could, Antoinette felt sure, be only Mrs. St. Leger.
Not only was she in Brenda's words undoubtedly "a lovely lady". She came in with the smiling air of one confident of her welcome. She must, thought Antoinette a trifle uncharitably, have worked hard the previous evening, for instead of the rebuff she would undoubtedly have received yesterday she won a look of smiling expectancy as Lewis Freemont turned and said,
"Is that you, Charmian?—Ah, I thought I heard Rufus—" as a friendly red retriever pushed gently past Mrs. St. Leger and came to put his head on Lewis Freemont's knee.
"Are we both welcome, or are we in the way?" The visitor spoke to Lewis Freemont, but her charming smile included Antoinette in the query.
"You're not in the way. This is my secretary, Miss Burney, who hopes she will give satisfaction and thinks I shall."
Still smiling, Charmian St. Leger came over and shook hands with Antoinette. She was a tall, indescribably elegant woman, beautifully though very simply dressed, with smooth fair hair and wonderful violet-blue eyes—the kind of eyes which look soft and dreamy but which curiously often belong to strong-minded people.
"Miss Burney—I'm so glad Lewis has found you. He tells me that, in addition to everything else, you have a good knowledge of music. That's going to be very helpful to him with his book."
"His book?" Antoinette looked enquiring. But her employer said a little disagreeably,
"She doesn't know about that yet."
"I'm sorry!" Her hand brushed his arm in the lightest gesture of apology. "I mustn't interfere, must I? But I'm so eager for you to do things. May I ask just one more question? Have you told Miss Burney about the suggested letter to Sir Horace?—You haven't?—Oh, dear, I'm too impatient, I know. But then I'm rather proud of the letter idea because it was mine, and I think it's a good one. May I tell Miss Burney about it?"
"If you like." He was leaning back now against the high, carved back of his chair, and although his expression was faintly mocking, Antoinette saw that it was indulgent too.
"It's about this strange business of the girl who caused the accident," explained Mrs. St. Leger, and Antoinette felt as though someone had hit her between the eyes. "Has Lewis—has Mr. Freemont told you about her? The girl who obviously hated him because he failed her rather brutally in a music exam?"
"Yes," said Antoinette, her mouth dry and her muscles tense with the effort of appearing unperturbed. "But I think, if I may say so, that he rather exaggerates her—her role in this."
"I think so too." Mrs. St. Leger was all gracious agreement. "But that makes it all the more important to rid him of the obsession if—"
"I'm not subject to delusions as well as blind," interjected Lewis Freemont drily. "Go on with your story."
Mrs. St. Leger looked slightly shaken for a moment, but then she turned her full attention upon Antoinette, so that it was inexpressibly difficult to meet the scrutiny of those violet-blue eyes which had become shrewd suddenly instead of dreamy.
"Well, my idea was that it should be fairly easy to identify her. One only has to write to Sir Horace Keen at St. Cecilia's College—What did you say?"
"Nothing. I—I pricked myself on the pin holding these papers. You were saying—if one wrote to Sir Horace Keen—?"
"And asked for a list of the students examined on that occasion—"
"Better make it a list of those I failed on that occasion. There were quite a number of them," put in Antoinette's employer unkindly.
"Yes, that's even better," agreed Mrs. St. Leger cheerfully. "If Lewis actually had that list of names in front of him—"
"I shouldn't be able to see it," he reminded her harshly. "Put it a different way, would you?"
"Oh, my dear!" There was an affecting little catch in her voice. "I meant—if you were told the names, you would almost certainly remember which she was."
"I might," he agreed. "At any rate it's worth trying. You might write to Sir Horace on those lines, Miss Burney. Make it your first letter will you? I'm curious to see his reply—I mean, to have his reply," he corrected himself deliberately.
"Very well."
With the air of a calm and competent secretary, Antoinette gathered up her papers and disappeared into the small office. Only when the door was shut behind her and she had sunk down in the chair before her desk did she dare to become the haggard, shaking, frightened girl she really was.
CHAPTER THREE
"I'LL have to leave!" Antoinette's first panic-stricken reaction was such a desire for flight that she could hardly control it. "There's no way of avoiding discovery now. When that list of names comes and I read it out to him—"
&
nbsp; In her agitation she moved some small articles to and fro on the desk in front of her.
"When I read it out to him—" Like a gramophone needle which refused to go further on a record her thoughts stuck at that one point.
In that list of unsuccessful candidates only one would stand out. Antoinette Burney.
She could almost hear him repeating the name reflectively. "Burney—Burney. That's your name, isn't it? Antoinette—Burney. But that was the girl! I remember now." And then the white rage and hatred with which he would turn his sightless gaze upon her and exclaim, "Toni—Toni! That's short for Antoinette, isn't it?"
Oh, she could never, never face such a moment! Much better to leave now, to trump up any excuse.
But how could she leave now? After making such high-sounding promises to Gordon Everleigh. And feeling—she twisted her fingers together until they ached—feeling as she did towards Lewis Freemont.
Not that she must exaggerate the position, even to herself. Such wording made it seem almost as though she were in love with him. Whereas what really tormented her was her desperate pity for him and her sense of guilt. All she asked was to be of use to him, to compensate in some small way for the tragedy she had forced upon him, to have some little part in rescuing a great artist from frustrating inactivity and bringing him back to the exhilarating conflict and heart-warming rewards of a public career.
But none of that would be remotely possible once he knew—once she had read out that list to him. And here she was back where she had started.
Inevitably it would be she who would read it out. First Sir Horace's reply, and then the list enclosed with it—name by name until she came to her own. Unless—
Suddenly Antoinette's mind moved on at last from that dreadful, inescapable moment, with what seemed to her a terrific, breathtaking leap. For who, after all, was to know if she read out all the names?
She winced at the thought of such a gross offence against integrity—an integrity so doubly necessary between a blind employer and a secretary on whom he must utterly depend. Could she really bring herself to trick him like that? Could any ultimate good justify anything so hateful and contemptible?
When Love Is Blind Page 5
