When Love Is Blind

by Mary Burchell

  "Why not?"

  "I can't tell you."

  "Of course you can tell me. Do you suppose I can't stand the truth, after all that's happened? Do you hate the fact that I'm blind?"

  "No, no, no" she cried, and in her eagerness to reassure him she put her hands round his face and kissed him between his sightless eyes.

  "Then—" his voice was suddenly not quite steady— "what is it? Don't you love me?"

  "N-no," she said uncertainly.

  "That isn't true! Kiss me again—and then try to tell me that"

  "No. I just can't marry you. That's all there is to it."

  "But why, why, why? Oh, God, this is when it's such hell to be blind" Wild rebellion and frustration made him suddenly savage, and he caught hold of her and jerked her against him. "If I could see you—if I could see you—I'd know the answer."

  Antoinette went cold all over at the terrible, un­knowing truth of that, but she managed to say calmly, "Please just accept the fact. I can't marry you."

  "All right—I accept it. But tell me why."

  "Because I'm married already."

  She simply could not imagine from where that an­swer came to her, in its completeness and irrefutable strength. It was as though someone put a weapon of defence into her hand when she was almost done.

  "You're—what?" He released her so abruptly that she almost fell away from him and she watched in fas­cinated despair as he passed his hands over a face that had suddenly grown bleak and older. "You're married! Why did you never tell me?"

  "There was no need to. It was my affair. Until—until you spoke to me as you did just now."

  "Do you live with him?" he asked harshly.

  "No."

  "Do you love him?"

  "I can't talk to you about that. Will you please, please let me keep my private affairs to myself? I love working here. I admire you as an artist, I—like you as a person, and ask nothing more than to help you find your way back to professional life again. Can't that be enough?"

  "It—has to be, doesn't it?" he said heavily. And then, after quite a long silence, "I'll go back to the house now. The sun has gone in, hasn't it?"

  She bit her lip. The sun was shining still. But not, she saw, for him. There was not much brilliance about the day for her either as she gently guided him back into the house.

  Nothing but the most impersonal things were said between them for the rest of that day, or the next, or the next, or the next. She was the conscientious, effi­cient, even devoted secretary, and he was the not too difficult, fairly reasonable employer, with the occasion­al mood to which an employer is entitled, particularly if he is blind and pays well.

  But the golden thread of intimacy and loving under­standing which had spun itself between them had snapped. Charmian St. Leger herself could have found nothing unacceptable in their behaviour to each other.

  Indeed, when she made her next appearance, she must have become immediately aware of the subtle change in the atmosphere, for she was sweetly gracious to Antoinette—as to a child who was not now so naughty as she once had been.

  To Lewis Freemont she was gay and tender and affectionate, though he was not encouraging, and when she explained she had been in London most of the week and asked smilingly, "Did you wonder where I was?" he replied without elaboration, "No."

  The visit was not a long one, though whether from her choice or his Antoinette could not tell from the backwater of her office. All she knew was that less than half an hour later she heard her employer prac­tising, and she knew he would not do that if Charmian St. Leger were there.

  Increasingly music was becoming once more the principal thing in his life. She told herself she was thankful this should be so, that this was the way in which he would find he could live very well without her. But sometimes, as she sat in her office spinning out the diminishing amount of office work, she felt forlorn, unneeded and utterly wretched.

  Then one day he said to her abruptly, "Do you practise regularly?"

  "To a certain extent—yes."

  "What do you mean?—'to a certain extent'?" he retorted impatiently. "You either practise regularly or you don't."

  "I mean that I keep up a certain degree of facility. I don't practise as I did—would, I mean—if I were a professional."

  "You never intended to be a professional, did you?" He sounded curious suddenly and she had a moment of panic.

  "Of course not." She brushed that off quickly. "But why did you ask about my practising?"

  "I want to see how I can tackle a concerto in the changed circumstances. It's an entirely different pro­position from a solo recital. And I need someone to play the orchestral part on a second piano."

  "I—don't know that I could do that." She was immediately nervous and uneasy at the thought of bringing her playing under his notice again. But he simply said rather disagreeably,

  "Of course you can. I shouldn't have asked you if I hadn't known you could."

  "But surely there must have been someone, much better qualified than I am, who used to work with you like that in the old days?"

  "Don't be so obstructive," he countered impatiently. "If I'm going to make a hash of it I'd rather do so with you than anyone else."

  "Oh—I see." The tone might be harsh, but the im­plication was rather touching, and she found herself agreeing to what he had suggested and even encour­aging him in the idea that he might perhaps play with an orchestra again one day.

  "It wasn't entirely my own inspiration," he admitted. "Oscar Warrender came to see me yesterday evening, after you had gone, and almost sold me the idea."

  "Oscar Warrender did?" She could not hide her interest. "You're great friends, aren't you?"

  "As far as anyone is a friend of Warrender. He's a tremendously self-sufficient creature, you know. His two real loves are his work and his wife—in that order, I believe. Well, I suppose that's all right if you're lucky enough to have both," he added, with a touch of restlessness.

  "I suppose so," agreed Antoinette hastily. "You'll have to let me practise on my own first. I've never tackled a piano version of an orchestral score before."

  "I'll teach you," he said. And from his tone that could have been either a promise or a threat.

  From that day a new régime started. For Antoinette it was made up of artistic excitement beyond anything she had ever imagined, a great deal of personal strain, and a terrifying alternation between glowing achieve­ment and sickening failure. For Lewis Freemont at the piano was a very different person from the man who had made love to her in the garden—or even the half mocking, half indulgent employer. He set almost im­possible standards for others as well as himself.

  For a solid week he took her through her part of the first movement alone, before there was any ques­tion of their working together on the two pianos. He sat beside her advising, instructing, correcting—almost willing her to do what he wanted. And, in the sheer interest of battering her into playing as he thought she could, he often lost sight of the fact that her part would merely be to supply the groundwork on which he could build his own practising.

  "Play!" he shouted at her once. "Play! You've got it in you to make music, haven't you? And all you do is push down the keys. You drive me crazy"

  "You drive me crazy too!" She was surprised to find that she too was almost shouting. "I'm not the soloist. I'm just the useful hack pretending to be an orchestra. And stop shouting at me anyway!"

  "I'm sorry," he said stiffly.

  "No—I'm sorry too!" And then suddenly she laugh­ed at the sheer absurdity of the scene and, as the tension relaxed, she impulsively put her hand over his.

  He slowly turned his hand and clasped hers, and he said, "That's the first time you've touched me since—that day."

  "Oh, no! Surely not?" There was a note of shocked protest in her voice.

  "Oh, yes," he assured her wryly. "And I haven't heard you smile—until you laughed just now."

  "I smiled quite often," she insisted.


  "Not so that I could hear you," he said simply, and she bit her lip.

  "I'm sorry—I'm sorry—" She stroked the hand she was holding, and the warm, firm pressure of her fingers said more than she could say in words. "If only—"

  "I know—I know," he interrupted her with a quick sigh. "I'm not trying to force your hand in any way, but—do things have to be so horribly different from what they were, Toni?"

  "I didn't mean them to be. It was only that—that—"

  "Is this a music lesson that I'm interrupting?" en­quired a bright, sweet voice from the doorway. And as Lewis Freemont said, "Damn," quite audibly and An­toinette snatched her hand away, Charmian St. Leger came in from the garden, a smile on her lips and her violet-blue eyes like stones.

  "Charmian, I've asked you before not to come in un­announced! I'm past the days of easy convalescence now, and I can't have work interrupted at any—"

  "But, darling Lewis, it didn't look at all like that." There was amused protest and a touch of real concern in her voice. "You know I wouldn't take liberties for the world. Any more than Miss Burney would, I'm sure," she added, and she gave Antoinette a spine-chilling glance of dislike and warning.

  "I don't know what you're talking about." Lewis Freemont sounded irritated.

  "But she does," retorted Mrs. St. Leger softly. "She knows exactly what I'm talking about, don't you, Miss Burney?— And you mustn't be so cross, Lewis, just because you don't quite follow. All women have their little secrets, don't they, Miss Burney?"

  "What is this, for heaven's sake?" He turned his head restlessly so that his sightless glance moved from his unwelcome visitor to where he knew his secretary was sitting. "What's this nonsense about a secret?"

  "Nothing," said Antoinette between dry lips. At which the other woman laughed and said almost gaily,

  "It's just something we nearly told you some time ago, Lewis. And then we thought perhaps it wasn't the right time—that things might sort themselves out with­out our worrying you. But perhaps—I don't know—"

  She paused provocatively and those hard, beautiful eyes gazed speculatively at Antoinette. And not all her pride or resolution could keep Antoinette from giving an imploring glance in return.

  "Well, we'll see—" The other woman turned away, warning in every line of her. "I'm sorry I came at the wrong moment, Lewis dear. And if I'm really in the way, I'll go?"

  The note of query in her voice invited him to pro­test, but he remained brutally silent. And after a mom­ent she sighed slightly, touched him gently on the arm and said, "Good-bye, my dear. I'm afraid I'm in dis­grace."

  "No, of course not."

  "Then may I phone this evening and find out when I can come without being a nuisance?"

  "Yes, certainly." His tone was not gracious, and An­toinette kept her eyes down lest Mrs. St. Leger should imagine that she detected some glance of triumph or satisfaction and allow her chagrin and spite to get the better of her.

  She went then, but at a slow, graceful pace suggesting the temporary retreat of someone who knew the strength of her position too well to doubt her trium­phant comeback. And in silence Antoinette watched her go. For a whole long minute the two left behind said nothing. Then when he finally spoke his voice was abrupt and uneasy.

  "What was she talking about, Toni? What did she mean by all that stuff about not telling me something because it might worry me?"

  "I have no idea," said Antoinette coolly, and she was herself astonished at her own composure.

  "Truly no idea?" He gazed at her with those blank, yet strangely attractive eyes, as though by sheer will­power he would somehow pierce the terrible barrier between him and her. "You wouldn't actually lie to me, would you?—not even if you thought it was for my own good."

  "No," said Antoinette, and wondered a little why no affronted Power struck her down. But what could she do, once she had committed herself to this devious path? "I think," she went on, and this time she spoke the exact truth, "that Mrs. St. Leger wanted to make some sort of trouble between us."

  "Yes, of course." He brushed that off as absurdly self-evident. Then after a moment he added, "To­morrow I shall start making arrangements to move back to my London flat."

  "Because of Mrs. St. Leger?" Antoinette enquired incredulously.

  "No, of course not." He contemptuously dismissed the idea of being forced into any course of action he had not chosen himself. "She's only one of the minor considerations." Antoinette was human enough to wish Charmian St. Leger could have heard that. "It's a de­cision I've been coming to for a variety of reasons, most of them concerned with the sheer convenience of being in the centre of the musical world again if I am to contemplate a real comeback. One can't expect people like Everleigh—or, indeed, Warrender—to come down here every time we want to discuss anything. In any case, it will be easier for you to work in London, won't it?"

  "I suppose so." But there was affectionate regret in her tone and before she could stop herself she added, "Though I love Pallin."

  "But not the master of Pallin?"

  The question was so unexpected that she caught her breath. But the terror of Charmian St. Leger's warning was raw and recent, and her voice was almost cold as she said,

  "I'm afraid not. And please, please don't ask me that question again."

  "I won't," he promised grimly, "ever."

  The move to London was effected much more speed­ily and easily than Antoinette had expected. Lewis Freemont's handsome studio flat, overlooking St. James's Park, was in the same block as those of Oscar Warrender and one or two other distinguished musi­cians, and it was obvious that here he would have no lack of congenial company. Now that he had emerged from the phase in which he thought he wanted to cut himself off from his old life, nothing could have been better for him, Antoinette saw, than this move to town.

  His admirable housekeeper and a couple of the staff from Pallin Manor came too, including Brenda, who confided to Antoinette with regret that "she expected poor Mrs. St. Leger would be very sad at the change."

  "I daresay she will," agreed Antoinette, unable to infuse any excessive regret into her tone. "But I suppose she comes to town fairly often."

  "Oh, yes! Yes, indeed," Brenda asserted happily. "And she'll come even more often now, I expect," she added naïvely.

  Antoinette expected so too, with a chill sense of resignation. But there was a wonderful sense of freedom, an indefinable lifting of her spirits, now that at least she was not in almost daily contact with her enemy.

  She was not so simple as to suppose that a matter of a few miles would put Charmian St. Leger off her course, or that she was any less menacing because she was no longer more or less on the doorstep. But it is humanly impossible to be as frightened by a distant danger as by an ever-present one, and during those first few weeks in London Antoinette was almost happy.

  The flood of letters about her employer's accident and withdrawal from the musical world had now dropped to a trickle, and there was nothing like enough secretarial work to keep her occupied. Consequently, she found herself more and more concerned with the professional side of his life. Not only was she inval­uable to him for a great deal of his daily practising. She quite naturally became involved in the discussions with Gordon Everleigh about future plans. She also for the first time met Oscar Warrender.

  The famous conductor was then at the height of his career. Autocratic, dynamic, loathed by some, adored by others and almost equally indifferent to both, he was probably the strongest single force in the musical field. He had even successfully challenged the engineer­ing gods of the recording world.

  "I am a music-maker, not a computer," he was re­ported to have said, "and I will not have knobs turned, tapes spliced, or orchestras juggled with in the cause of mechanical perfection and artistic death. Take it or leave it."

  They took it, of course. No one could afford to leave Oscar Warrender. And the first time Antoinette saw him at close quarters she knew why.

  There
is a quality about some people—a very few—which is unique and inexplicable. They are the natural centre of the stage, the born leaders, the people for whom the world stands aside because they know where they are going. Such was Oscar Warrender, and An­toinette recognized the quality immediately when he came into her employer's flat one dull winter's after­noon.

  There was nothing formal about his arrival. He merely came down from his own flat on the next floor, in a smoking jacket and very much off duty. He hardly noticed Antoinette's presence, it was true, but then one doesn't expect Olympus to take note of one on a first occasion. And he immediately started to outline exactly what he wanted.

  It seemed that an important foreign soloist engaged for a concert in three months' time would not, after all, be available.

  "He wouldn't have been my own first choice in any case," Warrender remarked, "so it doesn't matter. There are three other possibilities, and we have time to con­sider any or all of them. But my own inclination is to make this the opportunity for you to come before the full London public again."

  "My dear fellow, I couldn't possibly make my come­back in an orchestral concert" Lewis Freemont ex­claimed quickly. "I must try first in the much easier medium of a recital, so that I can assess the strain of actually getting on to a platform, dealing with a real but unseen audience, finding—"

  "Yes, yes, I realize all that." Objections were sum­marily dismissed. "I spoke to Everleigh this morning. He can arrange a recital—two if you like—at the Corinthian in January. Less overwhelming, more in­timate than the Festival Hall. I said I felt sure you would jump at the chance."

  "What made you sure of that?" enquired Lewis Freemont disagreeably.

  "My own good judgment of your good sense," was the unmoved reply. "It's the best possible way of doing things, and you know it. Trembling on the brink will only make the initial effort harder."

  "I'm not trembling on the brink—or anywhere else, come to that," said Antoinette's employer drily. "On the whole, I accept your assessment of the position, but—"

  "Excellent." The conductor was evidently used to having his assessments accepted. "And how about the orchestral concert in late February? I leave the choice of concerto to you. I'll build the rest of the programme round it if necessary."