"I wasn't thinking of the actual playing," interrupted Rosamund thoughtfully. "It's in the personal way that you mean so much, isn't it? You're more or less his support and inspiration in all this effort, aren't you?"
"Oh, Rosamund, don't exaggerate!" The idea was half shocking, half entrancing. "I only do what I can to encourage him, bolster his courage, counteract the occasional mood of depression—that sort of thing."
"That's what I meant. The simple fact is that he would never have got as far as this without you, would he?"
"Someone else might just as easily have supplied the right impetus," Antoinette asserted.
"No, I don't think so." Rosamund shook her head. "It had to be you. There's a curious, subtle mixture of elements in a situation of this sort, and you supplied just what was needed. You had the musical skill and understanding required, but you had the right human approach too. The fact that you'd both adored him and nearly hated him made you peculiarly aware of his reactions. You were tuned in to him emotionally, if you see what I mean."
"What makes you think I adored him?" was all Antoinette said.
"Oh, my dear! Of course you adored him before that unfortunate business of the exam. You didn't yearn over him and write him fan letters, because it doesn't take you that way. But you used to talk as though he was God's gift to every piano student and enthusiast."
Antoinette laughed rather crossly.
"It all seems so long ago," she said musingly.
"It is quite long ago—even in time," Rosamund replied. "It's probably even longer ago in personal development. I'm not suggesting you adore him now, of course."
"No," said Antoinette, and changed the subject.
But she thought a great deal about Rosamund's remarks in the following weeks. She tried not to exaggerate the degree of her importance to the man she loved. It was all of no use anyway. But she could not help knowing that in every way he drew strength and support from her.
He talked over every item of his programme with her, practised uninhibitedly in front of her, asked for her comments, argued with her over her opinions, and whenever it came to a purely physical difficulty, like the sheer problem of getting on and off the platform with the least element of fuss, he discussed every detail with her.
At first he tried to insist that she should be the one to lead him on to the platform, but she rejected that idea out of hand.
"First, I should be nervous and might communicate my nervousness to you," she told him. "And secondly it should be another man who does it, someone unconnected with you—impersonal, tactful and self-effacing. Anything else would distract the attention of the audience from the real business of the occasion."
He considered that for a moment in silence. Then he said,
"You mean that if a lovely girl brings me on to the platform it will inevitably start some sort of romantic speculation?"
"Something like that. Though I'm not specially lovely," she added, in the interests of strict accuracy. "I'm reasonably personable, that's all. But a woman helping a man in any kind of difficulty always tends to start speculation of a kind."
"You don't say?" He seemed amused by this theory. But he added, "Perhaps you're right. You're right about so many things, Toni. How did you manage to make a mess of your own life?"
"Wh-what do you mean?" She was so shaken that she could not keep her voice entirely steady.
"Well, I can't help knowing that everything must have gone wrong for you at some point or another. Otherwise, why are you and your husband apart?"
"My husband?" She had almost forgotten the mythical creature she had invented as a barrier between them in her moment of most acute danger. But she recovered herself sufficiently to say, "We did agree not to discuss that subject, didn't we?"
"Oh, very well." He gave a discontented little shrug. "Though why it should all be so sacrosanct I don't know. Sometimes I don't altogether believe in him."
She nearly said she didn't either. But instead she changed the subject to something purely musical, and the moment of danger passed.
On the whole, there were fewer occasions for agitation nowadays. The menace of Charmian St. Leger was at least temporarily removed. Her employer himself seemed satisfied to accept the unsentimental though warm relationship she had established between them. And in any case, the primary interest of both of them was the tremendous challenge presented by his return to the concert platform.
"Remember," Gordon Everleigh said to her once, "that a comeback is twice as nerve-racking as a debut. You aren't borne up by the wild elation of having your chance at last; you know all the dozens of pitfalls that experience has shown you; and you are aware that there are plenty of sensation-mongering vultures ready to insist that you aren't so good as you once were."
Antoinette thought it sounded pretty grim. She wondered if her employer sometimes woke in the night in a cold sweat of apprehension. She did if he didn't. And when the evening of the first recital finally came, she could not have been more nervous if she had been making her own debut.
With every grain of self-discipline she had, however, she concealed the fact, for only one person was entitled to be nervous that evening—and he seemed singularly calm.
"Do you want me backstage or in the audience?" she asked him.
"Backstage, of course. How do you suppose I can go on if you're not there with me?" was the simple retort. And in that moment she reproached herself for refusing to go on to the platform with him.
At least she sat beside him in the car on the way to the hall, and held his arm as he went in at the stage door. They had already practised the business of entering the hall, and she was glad of it now, for a sympathetic little crowd of admirers were there to clap and call good wishes, and she knew he would have hated to seem less than self-possessed and in command of the situation.
"That went well," she assured him as they reached the dressing-room, which was level with the platform at the Corinthian and singularly easy of access. The man who was to lead him on-stage was already there—an immensely experienced and unshakably confident assistant who had turned the pages for countless performers in his time and had a positive genius for effacing himself when necessary.
"A full house, needless to say, Mr. Freemont," he observed. "Quite a lot of your old friends there, I should say."
"And an almost equal number of old enemies, I expect," replied Lewis Freemont, but with what Antoinette secretly called his fighting smile.
"Well, one wouldn't want to be without them," was the very knowledgeable reply. "They sometimes spur us to greater efforts than our friends, don't they?"
"Undoubtedly," was the dry retort. "Just one thing, though. I prefer not to have anyone round here afterwards, except the few on the list Miss Burney will give you. I still find it confusing to deal with a number of people I can't see."
"Of course, sir. Don't worry."
The man took the list—which did not include the name of Mrs. St. Leger—and went away to make the necessary arrangements. Then Gordon Everleigh came in briefly to wish Lewis Freemont luck. And when he had gone Antoinette and her employer were alone.
During the last few minutes before he went on, he sat fingering his "blind" watch, from which he could tell the time by touch. She said nothing to him. Only, just before the man came back to lead him on to the platform, she kissed his cheek and said,
"That's for luck—and with the certainty that it's going to be all right."
"Thank you," he replied, but almost absently. And she saw suddenly that even she had almost dropped from his consciousness. He was no longer the easily accessible person. He was the dedicated professional going out to face one of the biggest challenges of his life.
As she watched him go there were tears in her eyes. Not because she meant little to him at that moment, but tears of thankfulness for the discovery that as an artist he was wholly himself again.
She stood near the door leading to the platform so that—curiously lik
e him—she could hear though not see what was happening. She heard the warmth, the almost emotional quality, of the applause which greeted his appearance, and she knew by the sudden cessation of the clapping the exact moment when he sat down at the piano. She could also judge from the tense quality of the silence that she was not the only one strung up to a high pitch of anxious excitement.
And then he began to play. He started with something of deceptive simplicity and shimmering beauty, one of the deadly pitfalls for the slick performer with shallow understanding. And, as she stood there, her hands pressed to her cheeks in the intensity of her feeling, Antoinette felt a glorious, almost loving calm steal over her. This was beauty and truth as conceived by the mind and heart of a genius, and Lewis Freemont could still convey it to those who were listening with a power of interpretation that very few could rival.
Possibly over the months Antoinette had gained a deeper, clearer understanding of his particular power of expression. Possibly the fires through which he had passed had given a new dimension to his work. At any rate, one thing was certain—the Lewis Freemont who had emerged from months of ordeal was, if anything, an even finer artist than before.
The applause which greeted each work, and culminated in a tremendous ovation at the end of the evening, was of a quality there was no doubting. Sentiment and sympathy for his misfortune would have assured him a friendly reaction without question. But the acclaim he received at the end was for his playing and his playing alone.
And he carried off the whole occasion with a coolness —even a sort of dash—that half amused and half charmed Antoinette. Once he had got over the first slight hesitancy about coming on to or off the platform, there was no sign of any difficulty. It was hard to believe that he could not see the audience for whom he bowed, with that characteristic, faintly mocking little smile.
When he came off for the last time, however, and Antoinette took his hand, she saw that he was completely exhausted.
"You shouldn't have given them that last encore," she protested gently. "You've tired yourself."
"I would have given it to them in other days," was his simple reply. "I wanted them to have no less tonight. But—yes, I'm rather done now. We'll go home as soon as possible. Cut things short, Toni."
So with all the tact she possessed—and with the able assistance of Gordon Everleigh—she cut the congratulatory visits and speeches short, and got him away from the hall by a side-exit and home to the flat.
But nothing—no exhaustion or nervous reaction—could dim the lustre of that triumphant evening. And the next morning's papers confirmed in every detail the verdict of the audience on the previous evening.
Like most successful artists, Lewis Freemont was essentially tough and immensely resilient. He recovered rapidly, went on to repeat the triumph at his second recital, and then settled down to prepare for the final and much stiffer challenge of the orchestral concert under Oscar Warrender.
From a working point of view Antoinette was essential to him in this. But from a personal standpoint he was less and less dependent upon her. She no longer needed to bolster his confidence nor insist that he would surely return to a full career. He knew that now. The lost, bitter, desperate man who had once glimpsed hope only through her eyes was indefinably changing back to the authoritative, secure artist he had been at the height of his career.
She would not have had it otherwise. All she had ever asked was that she should be allowed to help him back to his professional career and then, her debt paid as far as was humanly possible, fade into the background of his life. But she would have been less than human if she had not sometimes thought longingly of the days when she had been his essential support and comfort—when he had looked to her for almost everything and owned to missing her desperately when she was not there.
But at least she was still an essential part of his hours of practising. And when at last the day of the final rehearsal, with the actual orchestra, came she accompanied him to the hall satisfied in the knowledge that she was largely responsible for the security on which everything rested.
At the end of the rehearsal, when even the members of the orchestra had laid down their instruments and applauded, Oscar Warrender unexpectedly called Antoinette on to the platform and said,
"Gentlemen, here is someone I think we might also applaud. Without her admirable preliminary work I hardly think this performance would have been possible. Am I right, Freemont?"
"Entirely right!" He turned and held out his hand not quite in the direction where Antoinette was standing. And she came quickly and took the outstretched hand, aware that the clasp of those thin, strong fingers expressed more gratitude than any words.
Colouring a little, she bowed shyly as the orchestra accorded her amused but sincere applause. And then Oscar Warrender came down from the podium and said,
"Now go home, both of you, and take things quietly. Tomorrow morning, if you like, have a final run-through of the Haydn, but leave the Beethoven alone. There is absolutely nothing to add to it. Then leave the rest to me."
It was impossible not to accept the reassurance of such calm confidence, and Antoinette was aware of a relaxing of tension in her employer as well as herself.
On the way home in the car she did not bother him with casual conversation. It was he who finally said, "It went better than I dared to hope."
"It was practically perfect," she replied. "But I expected it after the standard of those two recitals."
"Co-ordinating with other performers is an entirely different matter," he returned, with a touch of irritation which told her his nerves were not entirely under control. "It means calling on the very last ounce of concentration—and then even something beyond that—a sort of sixth sense which one's never exercised before. Terrifying, and yet incredibly exhilarating if one can bring it off."
"You'll bring it off," she assured him calmly.
"We'll see," he retorted disagreeably. But she thought he was glad of her confident reassurance.
Nothing, of course, could make the next day anything but difficult and he was in quite a shocking temper during most of the morning. She told herself this was the prerogative of anyone under great nerve-strain and remained unshakably calm and good-tempered, which earned her no more, however, than an irritable, "Do you have to be so insufferably sweet and spineless?"
"No, not really. Were you spoiling for a fight?"
There was a moment of astonished silence. Then he laughed suddenly and asked, "Is that a smile that I hear in your voice?"
"Yes, of course. You're being rather funny, you know."
He drew a long, rather odd sigh of something like relief at that and simply said, "I'm glad you're here. You'll be backstage all the time tonight, won't you?"
"Of course," she assured him. And that was all that was said.
During the afternoon she went home, leaving him to rest completely. She too tried to rest. But after she had lain on her bed for ten minutes she could lie there no longer, and she got up and went out and walked about the streets until it was time to come home and change.
Her dress was a new one of a specially becoming sea green, and as she looked at herself in the mirror it occurred to her for the first time that she wished he could see her. Not so that he would recognize her, of course, as the girl who had spoiled his life, but just so that he could know that she really looked rather nice sometimes.
When she arrived at his flat he was ready and amazingly calm, and on the way to the hall he actually talked quite cheerfully. It was she who found the greatest difficulty in making coherent conversation, and she was thankful when they arrived and the reassuring presence of Oscar Warrender made any further efforts of hers superfluous.
The programme opened with one of the Beethoven Overtures, and even in the dressing-room Antoinette could hear something of the characteristic sweep and drive of Warrender's direction. But she was in no mood for assessing any finer points at the moment, and it s
eemed to her that all too soon the applause for the first item had ended and Oscar Warrender came back into the dressing-room and said pleasantly and in an unhurried way, "Whenever you are ready—?"
"I'm ready."
This time there was no question of kissing her employer or even wishing him luck. Neither of the men seemed even aware that she was there. She could only watch them go, Lewis Freemont with his hand lightly on the conductor's arm, and then stand there praying confusedly that everything would be all right.
Her degree of anxiety was so much more intense than at either of the recitals that she did not dare even to go near the stage. She had the curious impression that she might bring disaster to him again by the sheer force of her nervousness. Instead, she walked quietly up and down the dressing-room, while the familiar strains of the Haydn Concerto reached her faintly. But how it was going or if she had reason to fear or exult she simply did not know—until a great roar of sound greeted the triumphant finale.
She opened the door then and the waves of clapping and cheering seemed to sweep in like a living force. She wanted to go to him, but even then she could not. She just stood there until, through the open doorway, she saw him coming down the passage, his hand again on the arm of the conductor.
"Toni," he exclaimed eagerly, "where are you?"
"I'm here." She started forward at last and, incredibly, he left hold of Warrender and stepped forward alone in his eagerness.
"Be careful," she cried, but a second too late. For, misjudging the direction of her voice by a fraction, he collided with the side of the door, striking his head so violently that he gasped, staggered back and would have fallen if Oscar Warrender's powerful hand had not upheld him.
Characteristically, the conductor showed nothing of the dismay he must have felt, and without so much as an exclamation, he guided his half stunned friend to the nearest chair and said, almost conversationally,
"Lie back and keep quite quiet. And don't worry about anything. We have the whole interval for your recovery—or to make new plans if necessary." And then to the silent, appalled Antoinette— "Stay near him, Miss Burney. I'll get a doctor."
When Love Is Blind Page 12
