Child of Music (Warrender Saga Book 5)

by Mary Burchell

  Naturally, Felicity concealed her inner nervousness. It was not for her to convey any sense of crisis — much less alarm — to the child. But she secretly envied Janet her air of easy enjoyment when she first viewed the Tarkman building from near at hand.

  ‘It’s pretty splendid, isn’t it?’ she said admiringly, though this was not the case. The ornate yet ponderous style of the original great house had no special architectural beauty. But since it fulfilled its function admirably, and was at least surrounded by exceptionally pleasant grounds, Felicity was able to agree that it had its points.

  ‘I like Mr. Tarkman’s own house better,’ she remarked, as they passed this. ‘It was built a good deal later and has considerable charm, I think.’

  Janet accorded it a brief glance and then said quickly, ‘She won’t be there, will she?’

  Felicity did not go through the motions of pretending not to know who was meant by ‘she’.

  ‘No. Only Mr. Tarkman and Professor Blackthorn will be there,’ she asserted with some confidence. For she was virtually certain that Stephen Tarkman was not a man to take any malicious pleasure in forcing his personal views at a time when he was seriously considering the merits of a pupil.

  Indeed, nothing could have been more reassuring and friendly than his reception of Janet, and he paid her the compliment of stating the exact position without any evasions.

  ‘We have heard a very good account of you from Mr. Warrender, Janet,’ he said. ‘And Professor Blackthorn and I are both looking forward to hearing you.’

  ‘You heard me once before,’ Janet reminded him with equal directness.

  ‘Yes, I know. But we all have our off moments. You were not at your best that night, I understand. And I think perhaps my powers of judgment were not at their best either. We’ll wash out that occasion and start again. And this time I’ll listen very attentively.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault that other time,’ Janet told him generously. ‘I was rotten. But I like playing for you and Professor Blackthorn and I’ll do my best.’

  Which she did. Just as she had risen to the occasion for Oscar Warrender, so she quite cheerfully played her best for Stephen and the professor who would be her teacher in future. And, again to a degree which brought the tears to her eyes, Felicity was moved afresh by the purity of her musical vision and the perfection of her technique.

  Both Stephen and Professor Blackthorn asked her a good many questions, most of which she seemed to answer to their satisfaction. Then the professor took her through some exercises which were a speciality of his, and there was no doubt that he was delighted with her response.

  ‘She has been very well taught.’ He smiled approvingly at Felicity.

  ‘I can’t take full credit for that,’ Felicity said quickly. ‘Janet had been remarkably well grounded before she came into my hands. It has been a pleasure to teach her during the time I have had her in my care.’

  ‘Well — ’ Professor Blackthorn glanced at Stephen — ‘there’s nothing more I want to ask or hear. How about you?’

  ‘Nothing musically speaking,’ Stephen affirmed.

  ‘Then I’ll go. I have a busy evening.’ The professor shook hands with his small pupil-to-be and told her he was going to enjoy having her work with him. Then he went away and Stephen Tarkman called Janet to his side.

  She came and stood beside him, unperturbed, attentive but completely relaxed, and Felicity thought it was with mutual pleasure that they exchanged a very direct glance. Then Stephen said calmly, ‘Can you tell me, Janet, why it was that you played so differently that other evening when I heard you? — so differently, in fact, that I would hardly have believed it was the same girl playing.’

  Felicity caught her breath on an audible gasp, and Stephen raised his hand slightly, as though to silence the interruption which, in fact, she had no intention of making.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Janet with complete frankness. ‘I played badly because my aunt was there.’

  ‘So I’ve been told. But that seems to me rather improbable, you know. Why should her presence make such a difference to you? — No, don’t answer that without thinking about it carefully. And don’t imagine I’m being merely curious. I should really like to know. One can sometimes help people who have these unreasoning feelings.’

  ‘This isn’t an unreasoning feeling,’ Janet told him, after a moment’s thought. ‘It’s a bit the sort of feeling some people have about cats, you know. They can’t be in the same room with them without being upset. That is an unreasoning feeling perhaps — but it’s there. The more straightforward reason is that she doesn’t like me and I don’t like her. And — I’m afraid of her.’

  ‘Suppose I told you that she does like you?’

  ‘You’d be wrong,’ said Janet with great simplicity, as though that ended the discussion.

  ‘You don’t think a grown-up might be better able to judge your aunt’s feelings and intentions than you — a little girl?’ He asked that quite kindly, without a trace of sarcasm.

  ‘No,’ replied Janet equably. ‘It’s nothing to do with being grown-up. Some grown-ups — ’ she looked at him almost tenderly — ‘are not specially good at knowing about people. But anyway, only the person concerned can know if they are disliked. You can be mistaken and think someone likes you when they don’t. You can’t be mistaken when someone likes you. It’s like a disharmony. Like when you strike a wrong note in a chord.’

  ‘Is it?’ He smiled faintly, but he was slightly taken aback, Felicity saw. ‘I don’t know that I find your reasoning quite convincing, Janet. And I think I must tell you that your aunt has offered to pay your expenses at Tarkmans. How about that?’

  ‘She doesn’t have to pay them,’ Janet replied a little contemptuously. ‘I have a trustee who has quite a lot of money for me. She knows that as well as I do.’

  ‘Then why should she make this offer?’ he countered impatiently.

  ‘I suppose,’ Janet said simply, ‘she thought it would impress you. And it did, didn’t it?’

  He didn’t answer that. He got to his feet, patted her cheek and said, ‘I think we’ve had enough discussion for one evening. Try not to have fanciful ideas about people, Janet. You might make yourself and other people unhappy for no reason.’

  She smiled and said almost mischievously, ‘I haven’t any fanciful ideas about you. Or Professor Blackthorn. I like you both.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief!’ Stephen Tarkman laughed.

  ‘And I think,’ she added shyly and quite without offence, ‘you like me too, don’t you?’

  For a moment he looked as though he were going to reply with suitable lightness. Then he said quite seriously, ‘Yes — I like you.’ And Felicity guessed that the very slight shade of surprise in his tone derived from the fact that Julia Morton had confidently assured him he would not.

  While Janet went to put away her violin, Stephen drew Felicity into one of the deep window embrasures.

  ‘You can say “I told you so”, with as much emphasis as you like,’ he said wryly. ‘The child is everything that you — and Warrender — claimed. She is a natural for Tarkmans, and I could never have forgiven myself if I had been the means of turning her away from here.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have been the means,’ thought Felicity. But aloud she merely said, ‘Thank you, Stephen, for such a generous admission. And I’m glad she is to have her chance. It isn’t only that she’s the nearest thing to a musical genius I’m ever likely to handle. She’s a good child too.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, on a note of surprised conviction. ‘She’s a good child too. I shall like having her at Tarkmans. And though you will be losing her as your individual pupil, I hope you will still have a great deal to do with her development even after she comes here.’

  ‘If it rests with me, I shall,’ Felicity assured him with a smile.

  Then Janet came back carrying her violin case in her hand, and Felicity and she took their leave. They were companionably silent f
or a few minutes as they walked down the long drive. Then, as they passed Stephen’s house, Janet said,

  ‘Poor Mr. Tarkman is a very nice man, isn’t he?’

  ‘Very,’ agreed Felicity. ‘But why do you call him “poor” Mr. Tarkman?’ she asked, both amused and curious.

  ‘Because he doesn’t understand about Aunt Julia at all. And he’ll probably go and marry her, just as my father used to say.’

  ‘Janet,’ protested Felicity feebly, ‘I don’t think it’s for us to make personal speculations about Mr. Tarkman. It’s not quite our business, you know.’

  Janet digested that for the next hundred yards or so. Then she said with a sigh, as though the cares of the world rested on her shoulders, ‘He ought not to marry Aunt Julia. She’ll make him miserable. He ought to marry you. You’d suit him much better.’

  ‘I know I would!’ thought Felicity, with such a pang of anguish that a great lump stuck in her throat and made it impossible to find enough voice to tell Janet not to make absurd suggestions.

  In silence she hustled the little girl along to the bus stop, where the deserted scene suggested that they had just missed a bus.

  ‘I’m afraid we may have quite a long wait,’ Felicity said, and she was pleased to notice that her voice sounded quite normal and matter-of-fact. Probably her silence had merely conveyed to Janet that her foolish comment was not even worth a reply.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Janet replied contentedly. ‘There are such a lot of nice things to think about.’

  No doubt there were — if you were Janet, with all your happy hopes and ambitions about to be realized. Not so much so if you were Felicity, so emotionally confused that you hardly knew what you hoped and what you feared.

  They were still silent, and still alone, when a long, low car slid to a standstill beside them, and Julia Morton’s charmingly pitched voice said, ‘Jump in, both of you, and I’ll give you a lift. Have you just had your audition, Janet? And how did you get on?’

  Neither of them could say a word for a moment, Felicity being almost as petrified as Janet at the sight of Julia, leaning back in the driving seat and regarding them with something the same smile as Peroni had used when she sweetly implied that Anthea’s superb performance had been a little below standard.

  ‘Thank you, but the bus will be here any minute now,’ Felicity declared, suddenly recovering her self-possession.

  ‘It won’t, you know.’. Julia glanced at her wrist-watch. ‘It isn’t due for another ten minutes at least. I can get you home in the time you’d be waiting here.’

  If she had been alone, Felicity would have made the best of it and accepted the lift. But Janet, uninhibited by any grown-up concern for doing the correct thing, found her voice and said huskily but firmly, ‘I don’t want a lift, thank you. I’d rather wait ten minutes for the bus.’

  ‘Why?’ Her aunt looked at her with faintly scornful amusement. ‘Is your conscience troubling you about the naughty lies you’ve just been telling Mr. Tarkman about me?’

  It was a bow at a venture, but obviously one which she expected to disconcert her young niece. And, remembering some of the candid things which had been said, Felicity rather expected it too. But Janet replied with a calmness which secretly surprised Felicity,

  ‘I didn’t tell any lies,’ she said. ‘I just played to him and Professor Blackthorn.’

  ‘With no questions asked and no half truthful replies?’ Julia laughed sceptically, but lightly, as though it were all more than half a joke.

  ‘Mrs. Morton,’ Felicity cut in, ‘of course there were quite a lot of questions from both Mr. Tarkman and Professor Blackthorn. Musical questions. They were there to test Janet’s knowledge and reactions, and I think they were very satisfied with her replies.’

  If Felicity had been a fly Julia could not have taken less notice of her. She continued to look at Janet with that disturbing smile, and she said very pleasantly,

  ‘I’m going to tell you something for your own good, Janet. If, while you’re at Tarkmans, you make any trouble between me and Mr. Tarkman you’re going to be a very, very unhappy little girl indeed.’

  Felicity almost expected Janet to shrink against her at these preposterous words, and she put out her hand in an instinctive gesture of protection. But something had happened to Janet during the triumphant last few days. She took off her glasses and looked straight back at her formidable aunt.

  ‘And I’ll tell you something,’ she said, breathlessly but resolutely. ‘Mr. Tarkman isn’t going to marry you. He’s going to marry Miss Grainger.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Janet, how could you have said such a thing?’

  They were sitting now in the front seat of the bus which had mercifully appeared only a few seconds after Janet had delivered her shattering retort to her aunt. But Felicity could still see in her mind’s eye the way Julia Morton had paled. She had said absolutely nothing in reply. She had merely looked at Janet — and then for a second at Felicity too — with a sort of naked hatred.

  ‘Are you cross with me?’ Janet sounded faintly subdued, though there was still a touch of defiant elation about her.

  ‘Yes, I think I am. You had no right to drag me into this business — ’

  ‘But you’re in it,’ interrupted Janet with characteristic simplicity. ‘And anyway, what I said is true.’

  ‘Janet, it isn’t true!’ Felicity spoke almost desperately. ‘What could make you think such a thing?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to marry Mr. Tarkman, then?’ Janet turned and looked at her owlishly through those round spectacles.

  ‘That’s absolutely nothing to do — ’ Felicity caught herself up before she could complete the sentence. ‘I refuse to discuss such academic nonsense,’ she stated firmly. ‘You had no right whatever to couple my name with — with his like that. Mrs. Morton could read all sorts of undesirable implications into such a remark. And you know as well as I do that she wouldn’t be slow to make mischief out of it.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Janet. ‘I didn’t think about that.’ Then, as Felicity remained too vexed to reply, she added stubbornly, ‘Anyway, it’s true.’

  ‘What’s true?’ Felicity asked crossly.

  ‘What I said. He won’t marry her. He’ll marry you.’

  ‘Janet, if you say that again I’ll shake you! You haven’t the very smallest reason for making such a statement, and a lot of trouble — ’

  ‘Yes, I have.’ Janet looked oddly complacent for a moment. ‘I have sort of — flashes sometimes. And I couldn’t resist telling her when I had that one. It shook her, didn’t it?’ Janet looked inordinately pleased.

  ‘Whatever flashes or hunches you have,’ Felicity said patiently, ‘please keep them to yourself if they have anything to do with me. Anything! It’s kind of you to do all that wishful thinking on my behalf, but I’d rather do without it, thank you. I can manage my own life — just — if no one else interferes. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Grainger.’ Janet spoke very submissively now, and after a moment she slipped her hand into Felicity’s as it lay, clenching and unclenching, on her lap.

  It was impossible to reject the unspoken appeal of that small, strong, clever hand, and almost immediately Felicity clasped it and her own fingers ceased to curl and uncurl quite so agitatedly.

  They said no more about the encounter with Julia Morton after that. But, once she had seen Janet home, Felicity walked the short distance to the cottage in a turmoil of anxiety, shot through with a completely irrational sense of wild hope. Not that she really attached any importance to Janet’s absurd statement. But somehow, to have even a child put into trenchant words the secret hope in her heart was to give faint substance to something which had been no more than a forbidden shadow up to now.

  ‘I’m crazy!’ Felicity told herself. ‘What did he ever say to me to support such an idea? The only praise he ever bestowed on me has been for my teaching. That and the reluctant admission that he didn’t dislike me.’<
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  Such modified and negative praise was enough to make one laugh. In fact, she did laugh slightly at her own absurdity. But when she recalled Julia’s white, hating face, and thought of the way she could twist what Janet had said, her laughter, feeble as it had been, ceased abruptly.

  If only there had been some way of forestalling the damaging account Julia would undoubtedly give of that ridiculous encounter. If one could say something casually — making a joke of the whole thing. But it was inconceivable that — either directly or indirectly, seriously or laughingly — one could actually introduce a subject of such ghastly embarrassment. The smallest mention of it would only underline the very implication she so longed to remove from it. There was only one person who could afford to mention the incident, and that was Julia. And mention it she would, with all the spiteful innuendo at her command, Felicity felt certain.

  Even to Mary she felt unable to speak of what had happened. She reported in full on Janet’s success with Stephen and Professor Blackthorn, and accepted her congratulations and speculations on the future with all the smiling satisfaction she could summon up.

  Not until she was alone in bed that night could she concentrate once more on that scene at the bus stop. And then it was only to writhe with fresh embarrassment as her lively imagination supplied her with the kind of comment Julia would undoubtedly make. Perhaps had already made.

  ‘What do you think my imaginative young niece has got into her head now? She informed me that you are going to marry Miss Grainger! — Yes, standing there at the bus stop, with Miss Grainger beside her. No, Miss Grainger didn’t say anything. Where do you suppose she got that idea?’ Gay, sweet, speculative laughter. ‘Someone must have been doing some wishful thinking. My poor Stephen, don’t you know it’s dangerous to be quite so good-looking when impressionable young women are around? — You never thought so? Oh, I did. I always thought the poor girl was after you. Why shouldn’t she be? There can’t be much in her life, poor thing.’