Song Cycle (Warrender Saga Book 8)

by Mary Burchell

  Until that moment she had seemed completely indifferent to the way anyone was coping, so long as she need not make any effort herself — a state of things so alien to Anna’s lifelong experience that this alone would have convinced her that her mother was dangerously ill. But now she was smiling faintly and looked really interested.

  “It’s simplicity itself,” Anna assured her enthusiastically. “I don’t expect I look after things half as well as you do. But Dad seems quite satisfied and, to tell the truth, I’m rather enjoying a bit of cooking and housework. I suppose it’s a novelty.”

  “But your own work, dear?” A small worried frown creased her mother’s forehead, prompting Anna to the most determined invention — anything so that the dangerous shadow of worry should be banished.

  “Well, it’s the most extraordinary thing, Mother. Just a day or two before you were taken ill, I was auditioned for a short opera tour sometime next year, and I was taken on. It isn’t until quite a way on in the year and I have to prepare several roles. That means I can work at home, part of the time with Dad. It couldn’t be better, could it?”

  “Anna dear, how wonderful!” Her mother smiled almost brilliantly. “And you’re sure you can work satisfactorily at home?”

  “It’s the very thing I would have chosen to do,” declared Anna, a good deal astonished herself to find how adroitly she had mingled fact and fiction. “So, you see, there’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about.”

  “I’m so glad. Now I don’t mind so much about going away and leaving your father.”

  “L-leaving him?” stammered Anna, chill with terror. But her mother laughed. Faintly but, characteristically enough, with real humour.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to die,” she said firmly. “I’m really not going to die, after all, Anna. But the doctor was talking to me this morning, and he wants me to go away to a convalescent home for at least a month, between leaving here and going home.”

  “Why, of course, dear, if that’s the best thing for you!”

  “Much the best thing, now that I know you’ll be looking after Dad,” said her mother. Then she closed her eyes contentedly and was almost instantly asleep.

  Realising that she had stayed the full length of the permitted visit, Anna stole from the room and went out into the late autumn sunshine. She was infinitely relieved by her mother’s undoubted improvement, and only faintly guilty at the thought of the lies she had so glibly told. What did fret her was the knowledge that a largely idle month or six weeks now stretched in front of her. Her domestic duties were light indeed, for her father was the least demanding of men and the small house an easy one to run. There was little she could do except a student’s routine practice, whereas, if things had been different, these were almost certainly the weeks in which she would have been working hard to perfect her roles for Jonathan Keyne’s Canadian tour.

  “It’s no good even thinking about it,” she told herself almost savagely. And at that moment she became aware that someone was sounding a musical motor-horn with some insistence.

  Anna glanced up and saw that a small, elegant white car was parked at the kerb, while the driver — a girl in a brilliant scarlet jacket — was waving somewhat imperiously. Realising that she herself was the only person within reasonable distance, Anna went forward, expecting to be asked for directions to some place or other.

  Instead, the girl — who, in her dark, flashing beauty, seemed as brilliant as the jacket she was wearing — said, “You are Anna Fulroyd, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am.” Anna looked enquiring.

  “I’m Teresa Delawney. My brother was telling me about you.” The girl gave Anna a perfectly beautiful smile which almost — though not quite — disguised the ruthless determination in her vivid face. “He says you have a tremendous amount of know-how about the musical world. Is that right?”

  “I don’t think I could make such an extravagant claim for myself.” Anna smiled irresistibly because the other girl was so pretty and so intent on what she wanted. “I’m a singing student at what I suppose one could call a rather advanced stage, but —”

  “Oh, I wasn’t interested in your musical studies,” Teresa Delawney explained with devastating candour. “But you know about the musical world as such, don’t you? Terms and personalities and how to deal with temperamental people and that sort of thing?” Then, before Anna could even draw breath to answer that, she added, “And do you type?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” admitted Anna, wondering what this had to do with what the girl called “musical know-how”. “I’m not an expert typist, but—”

  “You’d be good enough for what I want. Jump in.” The other girl opened the car door, evidently expecting Anna to drop her own unimportant concerns on the instant. “I’m going to take you home with me and we’ll have a good talk.”

  And so positive was she about the priority of her own wishes over everything else that Anna, to her subsequent astonishment, found herself actually obeying Teresa Delawney to the letter.

  The speed and skill with which she was then conveyed to Coppershaw Grange left Anna rather breathless. Teresa Delawney took no stupid risks, but she drove with a confidence in her own right of way that was very nearly regal.

  Coppershaw Grange, which stood about a mile and a half outside the town, was a Regency house of quite superb design and construction. Big enough to be imposing, but elegant enough to be almost endearing. And it stood in several acres of very lovely parkland.

  Anna had never been as near as the porticoed entrance before, and when she had stepped out of the car, she stood there for a minute, just enjoying the lovely sight of the house.

  “What a beautiful place to live,” she exclaimed quite frankly, and the other girl cast a glance along the wide facade, a little as though she were seeing her home for the first time.

  “Yes, it is rather nice, isn’t it?” she agreed. “And it’s ideally suited for what I want.” All too obviously, even her lovely home was little more than a background for her own wishes, and without further comment she led Anna up the short flight of steps and into the big panelled entrance hall.

  Here she hardly gave Anna time even to glance round before she almost hustled her through the house into the most beautiful drawing-room Anna had ever seen. All along one side long windows reached to the floor, giving a magnificent view across an ornamental terrace to sloping gardens beyond.

  “This is where we shall have the two concerts of chamber music, of course,” Teresa Delawney explained rapidly. “It’s a pity we’re coming into the chilly part of the year, otherwise we could have used the terrace and gardens.”

  “Why didn’t you make it a summer festival?” Anna asked. “This lovely place is just made for it.”

  “Oh, I didn’t want to wait until next year!” Teresa Delawney’s tone suggested that she was measuring out aeons of time. “I like to do things when I want to do them.

  If you wait, ideas go stale on you, and then you don’t want the thing when you’ve got it.”

  Anna found this a rather revealing statement, but she merely observed mildly that even the most modest festival required a good deal of preparation.

  “It’s not like throwing an impromptu party,” she added with a laugh.

  “But with me things have to be like an impromptu party,” Teresa countered firmly. “That’s the whole fun of the thing. What’s the good of having a father who’s disgustingly rich and very indulgent if you can’t make large, extravagant gestures? I always think it must have been wonderful to be one of those French kings at Versailles who could order a ball or a masque or even an opera, and all the artists of the period just ran around and poured out their gifts to make it a real success. I wish I’d lived then.”

  “There must have been disadvantages for some people in that arrangement,” Anna said, still smiling. “Anyway, I’m afraid it’s very different today, when people make their plans a long while ahead and—”

  “You ne
edn’t tell me about the difficulties. I know them, and I refuse to recognise them,” Teresa interrupted. “Anyway, don’t be defeatist. You’re going to have to be a lot more positive than this if you’re going to help me organise this festival.”

  “Help you organise? But I haven’t said I’ll do any such thing. I’m not even qual—”

  “Of course you have. Why did you get into the car otherwise? Anyway, sit down and I’ll tell you what has been arranged so far.”

  And while Anna — annoyed but intrigued against her will — sank into a chair without further protest, Teresa Delawney went over to a beautiful inlaid writing desk from which she produced two large files. She brought these back, spread them out on a table in front of her and proceeded to outline her plans with quite amazing clarity and precision.

  If she had not, in the process, displayed a touch of something which almost amounted to genius, Anna would have found some way of backing out of the arrangement. But within minutes she was interested and fascinated to a degree she would never have believed possible. For, with a mixture of ruthless determination and undoubted vision, Teresa Delawney had already laid the foundations of a minor festival of genuine interest and novelty.

  “You ought to have been an impresario,” declared Anna at one point, and although she laughed as she said it, she more than half meant it.

  “I think so too,” agreed the other girl, who was evidently unhampered by anything like false modesty. “Of course it helps a lot having my father’s money behind me. But I reckon we can put on a couple of weeks of festival that the people around here won’t forget in a hurry. The house itself will provide the background for the chamber music, the piano recital by Franz Klein, and the final Eighteenth Century Evening which will be primarily a private party — in fancy dress, of course — but will include dances of the period by eight dancers from the Athena Ballet Company—”

  “How on earth did you get them?” Anna interrupted.

  “Oh, the right price and the pulling of a string or two,” replied Teresa airily. “The Tithe Bam has been transformed into a small countrified theatre, and the very good amateur company from Elthorne, laced with a few professionals, are giving three performances of ‘Past and Present’—”

  “The review by Bannister and Tom Mallender, you mean?”

  “Yes. And I’ve even got Gail Bannister, who made such a success in it, to do the famous Spanish number.”

  “I can’t believe it!” Anna spoke with genuine admiration. “How on earth did you do all this?”

  “I had one or two massive strokes of luck,” Teresa conceded, though she evidently greatly enjoyed Anna’s uninhibited praise. “The biggest piece of luck was having the co-operation of Jonathan Keyne, I suppose.”

  “J-Jonathan Keyne?” A prickle of shock — both terrifying and delightful — ran all the way down Anna’s spine. “Do you know him, then?”

  “Very well. Do you?”

  “Only slightly.” With an effort Anna recaptured her self-control. “What — what else had you in mind? Or is this the full programme?”

  “Certainly not! I want a concert of some sort in the Tithe Barn and I’d like something in the church, if you think your father could put on something really up to the standard of the rest.”

  “I don’t see why he shouldn’t,” Anna said rather coldly, for she greatly resented this slighting reference to her father who, after all, was far more of a genuine musician and a professional than this attitudinising young woman would ever be.

  “Well, I meant — not just another dreary oratorio performance that everyone has heard a dozen times before, you know. And of course only the pick of the choir. There’s one kid there who is quite outstanding, I’m told.”

  “Tommy Bream,” said Anna, choking back her chagrin sufficiently at least to name the blessing and bane of most choir practices.

  “Yes, I think that was the name. Talk to your father about it, will you? But of course we’ve got to work to a very high standard.”

  “Of course.” Anna’s tone was still warningly cool, but the other girl seemed unaware of that. “And where in all this did you want me to operate?”

  “I told you! You’ll be at the organising end, here with me in the house. There’s a tremendous amount of secretarial work to be done, people to interview, hand-outs to local papers and possibly even some of the national ones. You might have some ideas about the concert in the Tithe Barn too. And then there’ll be advance ticket selling to attend to. Oh, there’s no end to the ways in which I can use you.”

  Anna was not a conceited girl and had never had an exaggerated idea of her own attainments. But the expression “the ways in which I can use you” was not a flattering one, while the calm assumption that naturally her role could be only that of general dogsbody was so enraging that for a moment she could not even find the voice to utter her contemptuous refusal of the offered appointment.

  And then, into the short silence which succeeded Teresa’s careless assessment of Anna and the ways in which she could make herself useful, there intruded the sounds of someone arriving in the hall outside.

  Immediately Teresa sprang to her feet and, completely ignoring Anna or anything she had been going to say, she ran to the door with an exclamation of surprise and delight.

  As she did so, the door opened and Jonathan Keyne walked into the room.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Why, Jonathan!” To Anna’s somewhat irrational resentment, Teresa reached up and kissed the man who had just come in. “I didn’t expect you until this evening.”

  “I got away sooner than I dared to hope.” He lightly returned the kiss before, looking past her, he saw Anna and exclaimed in a cool, not very friendly tone, “Hello! What brings you here?”

  Teresa switched round, an angry light in her eyes, and replied for Anna before she could even open her lips.

  “Miss Fulroyd is helping me with some festival details. Her father is the local organist here—” the tone somehow reduced him to a very minor status — “so it seemed a good idea to enlist her help.”

  “As one of the artists for your festival?”

  “Oh, no!” Teresa dismissed that quaint notion with a laugh. “She’s just doing some of the office jobs for me.”

  “I see.” If there was a touch of irony in his tone she did not seem to notice it. And in any case, the conversation was turned into fresh channels by the arrival at that moment of Roderick Delawney.

  His greeting to Jonathan Keyne was casual but friendly. Then he, in his turn, took in Anna’s presence and exclaimed, “Aha! So you’ve joined the festival bandwagon, after all?”

  “Not exactly,” Anna began. But once more Teresa insisted on answering for her.

  “Miss Fulroyd has promised to take on some of the organising chores for me,” she said quickly. “She’s going to be such a help! We’ve just had a long talk and she’s starting right in tomorrow morning. At least, I hope she is.” And Teresa flung Anna her brilliant, compelling smile.

  This was, of course, the moment to tell Teresa Delawney — crisply if not vulgarly — exactly what she could do with her organising plans for the Festival. Anna even drew breath to do so. But then, in a way she could neither avoid nor define, Jonathan Keyne caught her glance and held it, a sort of interested speculation in his eyes.

  And because — ever since that first encounter some years ago now — she had wanted passionately to secure Jonathan Keyne’s interest, she simply could not make herself say the words that would banish her finally and irrevocably from the festival scene.

  Instead, she heard herself say, formally but pleasantly, “I’ll start tomorrow if that suits you. But I must go now. My father will be wondering where I am.”

  “I’ll drive you home,” stated Jonathan Keyne unexpectedly.

  “No, you won’t!” Oddly enough, brother and sister spoke in unison, though with totally different expressions.

  “You’re not running off the moment you’ve arrived.” Teresa caugh
t Keyne’s arm with a smiling little air which was almost, but not quite, proprietorial. “You must be more than ready for tea after your long journey.”

  And Roderick said, “I’ll drive you down, Anna. The car’s just outside.”

  There was nothing to do then but accept Roderick Delawney’s offer with the best grace possible, make her good-byes and leave. Teresa gave her a smiling but definitely dismissing little nod and said, “Nine-thirty tomorrow. I’m an early starter, and I have to go out later in the morning.”

  Jonathan Keyne said nothing at all, merely inclined his head with that speculative glance again, and then turned away to talk to Teresa.

  Roderick took Anna’s arm lightly and ushered her through the house once more and out to the waiting car. As he did so he said, slightly lowering his voice, “I made sure you were going to join the list of artists when I found you there with Teresa and Keyne. How come you’re contenting yourself with an office job?”

  “Perhaps I’m not festival standard.” She managed to smile quite good-humouredly over that.

  “Aren’t you really?” he asked, with pleasing directness. “I don’t know.” She laughed, but she bit her lip too, for her artistic pride had taken some battering during the last hour or so. “It’s not for me to say. But, in any case, with the responsibility of my mother in the background, I don’t think I should take on any professional commitment in the next few months.”

  “Not even something actually on the spot? That seems nonsense to me. How much will your mother need your undivided attention in the immediate future?”

  “For the next four or six weeks not at all,” Anna confessed. “I heard this afternoon that she is to go to a convalescent home for some while after leaving hospital, but—”

  “Well, there you are! You could well involve yourself in this Festival, and at the same time be available when your mother needs you. Why not?”