"You don't even know how well—or ill—I can handle that much more complicated medium. To play with an orchestra, without even being able to see the conductor—"
"I shall be the conductor, don't forget." There was nothing specially arrogant about that, only a statement of fact. "There is a sort of musical radar between us, I think. But we should have to try it out, of course. I'll get Farrell down here some time during the next few days. He can play the orchestral part on a second piano and—"
"You don't have to do that," said Lewis Freemont slowly. "Toni—Miss Burney—will do that. Now."
"Miss Burney?" Oscar Warrender looked round, took in the fact that Miss Burney was not just part of the furniture and said, "Good afternoon."
"Good afternoon," said Antoinette demurely.
"Can you play the piano transcription of the orchestral score?"
"Yes, I think so, Mr. Warrender. I've been doing so for quite a while when Mr. Freemont wants to practise."
"You don't say?" The conductor looked suddenly amused. "Then we'll try it now. What are you playing, by the way?"
"The Beethoven Third," said Lewis Freemont, and held out his hand to Antoinette, who immediately came forward and led him to one of the pianos at the end of the long studio. Then, trembling a little, with mingled excitement and nervousness, she went to the other piano herself.
Oscar Warrender leaned over and picked up a ruler that was lying on the writing desk nearby and took up his stand where she could see him and he could watch Lewis Freemont's every movement and expression.
"All right," he said, and they started.
It was both exhilarating and terrifying. Antoinette, of course, had never before played under the guidance of someone who could convey by a single movement of an eloquent left hand the exact quality of tone and expression he required, and she felt a little like someone who started out on a walk and then found herself flying.
On his side, Warrender naturally concentrated on Lewis Freemont, once he had found that Antoinette was reliable and intelligent. Inevitably, the usual roles of conductor and soloist were to a certain extent reversed. Since the pianist could not visually follow the lead of his conductor, the conductor had for once to do a certain amount of following himself. Which must, Antoinette thought passingly, be a novelty for Oscar Warrender!
But there was indeed some sort of subtle line of communication between the two men, a oneness of purpose, not dependent on sight and visual direction. And except for one moment of slight confusion, almost instantaneously righted, they went through the whole of the first movement triumphantly.
"Are you going to tell me now that you're in doubt about tackling an orchestral concert?" enquired Oscar Warrender on a note of exultant satisfaction.
"No, I think you're right. It could be done." There was a streak of excited colour in Lewis Freemont's cheeks, and the very slightest tremor in his voice. Possibly that was not lost on the conductor. At any rate, as though giving the other man time to recover, he turned to Antoinette and said good-humouredly,
"You're extremely good. Why haven't I heard of you before? That particular gift of representing orchestral tone on a piano is very rare."
"Oh, I don't really belong to the musical world!" Antoinette assured him hastily. But the once-ambitious pianist within her rose joyously to the surface for the first time in a year. "I'm really Mr. Freemont's secretary. I happen to play the piano as well."
"Nonsense," said the conductor. "Where were you trained?"
It was indescribably pleasant to be asked—and asked by such an authority as Oscar Warrender—about one's musical background, and Antoinette smiled as she said, "I was trained at St. Cecilia's."
"Were you indeed? I must ask my friend Sir Horace Keen about you," remarked the conductor graciously.
"Oh—no" Suddenly Antoinette saw the gulf open in front of her. And at the same moment her employer said curiously,
"You never told me you trained at St. Cecilia's."
CHAPTER SIX
TO Antoinette it seemed that the whole tottering edifice of her deception was about to collapse around her. She gave a quick, desperate glance from her sightless employer to the all-too-well sighted Oscar Warrender. And then, with an effort she would not have believed within her powers, she replied with the boldness of sheer simplicity,
"Surely I mentioned St. Cecilia's when you were corresponding with Sir Horace about—" her voice shook for a moment—"about that girl? I'm sure I did. You were too much occupied with the—the other matter to take much notice of what I said, I expect."
"I should have noticed that," retorted Lewis Freemont with a touch of irritation. "I never thought of your being at St. Cecilia's. Otherwise I should have asked for your co-operation in tracing the girl."
"What girl?" put in Oscar Warrender curiously.
"The girl who blinded me," replied Lewis Freemont almost brutally, and Antoinette winced perceptibly.
"The girl who—? What are you talking about?" exclaimed the conductor. "It was a car accident"
"Not quite simply a car accident. There was more to it than that." Lewis Freemont stirred impatiently and, by accident or intention, his hand struck a jangling discord on the piano.
The other man started to say something, but he interrupted almost harshly, "It's a long story. It doesn't matter now. But it starts with someone I very much wanted to trace. She was a student at St. Cecilia's. I should have thought Toni would have been only too eager to use her knowledge of the place to help me."
He turned his sightless eyes on Antoinette and there were little lines of tension at their corners, as though, useless though it might be, he still could not help straining to see her in that moment.
"I'm sorry." To her own astonishment her voice was still miraculously calm. "The girl must have been long after my time. I just never thought of myself as having any special knowledge that might help."
"Anyway, it doesn't matter." That was Oscar Warrender, with the almost naïve arrogance of the single-minded artist. "What does matter is that you have proved conclusively that you can tackle not only a recital but an orchestral concert too, within the measurable future."
"Yes, that's true." The strain left Lewis Freemont's face and he smiled slightly. But Antoinette noticed with anxious tenderness that he looked suddenly tired, and she went and took him by the arm and led him back to his chair.
The conductor watched with close attention and a touch of approval. And it was obvious that he too was aware that a certain amount of reaction had set in.
"Rest completely now," he said, with an air of friendly authority. "We can discuss everything tomorrow." And then to Antoinette, who had made an eager movement—"No, it's all right. I'll see myself out."
Ordinarily people obeyed Oscar Warrender's slightest order or suggestion, and he went without even looking behind him. But Antoinette followed him into the hall, closed the door behind her and, as he reached the front door said, in a low but almost peremptory voice, "Mr. Warrender—"
The conductor turned in surprise, perhaps at her tone, perhaps at merely finding her there.
"Please—" she came quite close to him—"don't discuss me with Sir Horace. I'd—much rather that you didn't."
"Why?"
"Isn't it enough that I ask you not to discuss me with someone?"
"No," said Oscar Warrender, who seldom wasted words.
"But this is something which concerns me. I can't be of the slightest interest to you and—"
"On the contrary," the conductor interrupted her, "you interest me profoundly. You have a rare gift which most people would be only too eager to thrust under my notice, and yet you try to play it down. You have an air of disarming candour, and yet you apparently concealed from Lewis Freemont something he thinks singularly important. And now you invest a simple query with an air of mystery, and try to do what few people would be bold enough to contemplate—to divert me from a personal course of action. You have left out nothi
ng that was needed to excite my curiosity."
Antoinette stared at him in such blank dismay that, after a moment, he laughed not unkindly and said,
"Come, you'd better tell me what the mystery is."
"I—can't." Then she added mechanically, "There is no mystery."
He did not bother even to accord that an answer, evidently finding it absurd. Instead he enquired,
"Who is this girl Freemont spoke of in such odd terms? Was there a girl who had something to do with his accident?"
"He—believes so," said Antoinette with an effort. "He failed her in an examination at St. Cecilia's, and he has some fixed idea that she followed him around, wishing him ill, and that she—she made him crash his car."
"Made him crash his car?" Oscar Warrender repeated the words incredulously. "Do you mean—you can't mean—that he has some superstitious feeling about her? Freemont just isn't that kind."
"Not exactly—no. He says she was—there when the accident occurred. That she stood in the road and that in order to avoid her he had to crash the car."
"And was she there?" Those cold, penetrating eyes were suddenly full upon her.
"How should I know?"
"I—wondered," said the conductor. "Couldn't he remember the name of the girl he failed? It should be easy enough for the staff at St. Cecilia's to supply a list of the unsuccessful candidates on that occasion."
"They did," replied Antoinette stonily. "He couldn't recognize any of the names when the list was read out to him."
"Who read the list?" was the odd thing Oscar Warrender asked.
"I did," said Antoinette. And after a long moment, the conductor said, "I see."
Like many people before her, Antoinette suddenly had the curious impression that it was virtually impossible to pull the wool over Oscar Warrender's eyes. She didn't even try any more. She simply looked straight at him and said,
"Are you going to speak to Sir Horace about me?"
"No," said the conductor, and turned away. But she caught him by the arm in her eagerness and exclaimed,
"Are you really not going to say anything about—this?"
Oscar Warrender looked down at her and for a moment she wondered why she had thought his glance was cold.
"I'm a conductor, my dear," he said drily, "Not a self-appointed judge."
Then he went out of the flat, closing the door behind him, and she was left staring at the door until her employer called,
"Toni, where are you?"
"I'm coming." A sudden overwhelming wave of relief engulfed her, so that she felt incredibly light-hearted—almost light-headed. That Oscar Warrender should have guessed the truth and found it unnecessary to do a thing about it was in such intoxicating contrast to the emotional blackmail of Charmian St. Leger or, indeed, her employer's bitter intensity of feeling, that for the first time in months Antoinette dared to draw a slight breath of hope, and to question her own sense of proportion about the whole situation.
The respite was only momentary, of course, and was succeeded by the familiar sensation of remorse and anxiety. But that one moment of truth was indescribably strengthening and comforting. It even made her able to go in to her employer and say lightly,
"I'm really terribly sorry if I seemed in any way secretive about my musical training. It never occurred to me that I hadn't mentioned St. Cecilia's in connection with myself. I suppose it was partly that I couldn't imagine my musical training could be in any way interesting to anyone so professional and distinguished as yourself."
"Don't fish for compliments," he said, but he smiled. "If Oscar Warrender thought your gifts merited enquiry you needn't underrate yourself ever again. He's brutal to any amateur who masquerades as the real thing. But he was genuinely impressed by you."
"Yes, he was, wasn't he?" She managed to make that sound gay and gratified. "But most of all he was impressed by the way you proved able to play a concerto without actually seeing him conduct."
"It was largely his skill too," Lewis Freemont said quickly.
"Yes, of course. It was miraculous teamwork. But you showed between you that it can be done. Even now I think none of us quite realizes what that means. You're on the way back—really on the way back to full professional life again Oh, I'm so glad, so—so thankful"
He laughed and held out his hand to her, as though both charmed and moved by her complete identification of herself with his interests.
"Dear Toni" he said. And then more lightly, "To whom are you thankful? To Warrender for stampeding me into doing this?"
"A little to Mr. Warrender—yes, of course. But mostly to God, I think," said Antoinette seriously. "It's so wonderful to have—a second chance," she added half to herself.
"A second chance?" He sounded half puzzled, half amused. "You mean this is my second chance to create a career?"
"Why, yes," she said quickly. "Yes, of course that's what I meant."
She knew she sounded confused and she saw he was not entirely satisfied. But after a moment he laughed and remarked affectionately,
"You're an odd child! Just as Charmian said last night."
"Ch-Charmian?" stammered Antoinette, feeling the short hairs lift at the nape of her neck. "Did Mrs. St. Leger come to see you here last night, then?"
"No, she telephoned—to know if she might come to see me this afternoon."
"And—and did you say she could?" It was hard even to formulate the words.
"No," was the cool reply. "I've had enough of Charmian for the time being. She bores me. I told her that I have to give all my time and energy to my work until I've made a comeback—which is true—and that I shall be having virtually no visitors for the time being."
"Did she accept that?" enquired Antoinette tremulously.
"She had to," he said carelessly.
"But then," Antoinette prompted him, "she—she spoke about me?"
"Yes. For some reason best known to herself—he smiled scornfully—"she seemed to think it was necessary for her to explain you to me in some way. She started to say that I didn't really know you; that you were—as I quoted just now—an odd girl. But I stopped her there, being unwilling to hear her views, and told her that if she really had anything to tell me about you she had better send it to me in writing."
"In writing?" Antoinette gave a scared little laugh. "But she would know that I should have to read it to you."
"Of course. That's why I said it. I thought it was a rather neat way of rebuking her," he added, with such satisfaction that Antoinette had the greatest difficulty in keeping herself from embracing him.
"Then you mean we shan't be seeing much of her for quite a while?"
"We shan't be seeing anything of her for quite a while," he corrected drily. "Nor, I think, will she be troubling us with letters."
For the second time that afternoon Antoinette drew a cautious, trembling breath of relief. It was the most extraordinary, unhoped-for cloak of protection. And it was he who had almost carelessly flung it round her. She could hardly believe it even now. But she blinked her lashes and swallowed a lump in her throat and tried not to let her voice sound too liltingly happy as she said sedately,
"I'm glad. I don't think she's very good for you."
He seemed to find that inordinately funny. Certainly he laughed more heartily than was usual with him and replied, "I don't know that she's all that good for you either. You sound curiously contented, and as though you're smiling in a rather relieved sort of way. Are you?"
"Yes," said Antoinette. And then, before he could comment further on that, she added quickly, "Goodness, how late it is. I must go, or Rosamund will be wondering where on earth I am."
"My apologies to her," he retorted amusedly. "And tell her I realize that I have far more than my fair share of your time and attention."
"She wouldn't mind that," Antoinette assured him with a smile. And—perhaps because Charmian St. Leger no longer presented an immediate danger—she touched his hand lightly but af
fectionately in a gesture of leavetaking before she went.
It was true enough that Rosamund would not think of querying her comings and goings these days. She had become used to the fact that Antoinette's working hours were extraordinarily elastic, and if she sometimes thought her friend was imposed upon, she was not prepared to argue over an arrangement which obviously gave Antoinette herself such satisfaction.
That evening, however, there was something so radiant about Antoinette that Rosamund exclaimed,
"Anyone can tell when it's been a good day for you! You have the most expressive face and I don't believe you can hide anything you're thinking."
"Oh, I don't know—" murmured Antoinette, secretly staggered that anyone who knew her so well as Rosamund could feel like that. "It was a rather special day, to tell the truth." And she proceeded to give a full account of the scene with Oscar Warrender, omitting only the reference to Sir Horace Keen and St. Cecilia's.
"Then Warrender was really impressed with you? That means quite something in the musical world, doesn't it?"
"I should say so! His approval is about the handsomest accolade one can receive." Antoinette's professional pride and joy were uppermost for the moment. "He almost made me wonder—"
She stopped, and Rosamund finished the sentence for her.
"You wondered if you might, after all, make a musical career for yourself?" she suggested.
"Well—" Antoinette laughed, but her eyes were sparkling with excitement and an inner fire which had not been there since Lewis Freemont uttered his first devastating verdict on her. "It's too early to say yet," she added quickly. "The important thing at the moment is to get Lewis Freemont back before the public."
"And he's starting with a recital at the Corinthian in January?"
"Almost certainly. Perhaps two. There'll be weeks of concentrated work and preparation first."
"Which will require everything you've got, I suppose," retorted Rosamund a trifle protestingly.
"I shan't have any part in recital preparations It's only when he requires me for orchestral practice that I—"
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