Song Cycle (Warrender Saga Book 8)

by Mary Burchell

And then Anna’s full attention was back again on the work, and she was preparing for her long solo depicting the beautiful melancholy of Autumn. This called for fine, well-supported legato singing, and she unconsciously called on everything that Madame Marburger had taught her over the years. She was hardly even nervous. Just on her mettle and determined to do herself and her teacher credit.

  The short, fateful Winter section was almost completely choral, and then came the fine flower of the work — the hopeful, tender, and then radiantly confident promise of returning life and Spring. If it had been intentionally written for Anna’s voice it could hardly have shown her off better. And, by that peculiar but indefinable process of communication between artist and artist, she knew that the choir, in tribute, were singing their very best too, happy and proud to supply the beautifully harmonised support for the ever-soaring melody.

  At the end, ignoring the fact that they were in church, one or two of the visitors actually applauded. Then Mrs. Delawney, followed by most of her party, came forward to congratulate Anna and her father and the gratified choir.

  “It’s a quite wonderful work,” exclaimed one of the men. “I only wish I had written it!”

  And Mrs. Delawney, introducing him to Anna’s father, said, “This is Marcus Bannister, who composed ‘The Exile’, you know.” Whereupon the two men fell into animated talk, and Mrs. Delawney drew forward the girl who had accompanied Bannister and said to Anna,

  “I think Gail Rostall wants to tell you herself how much she enjoyed your singing.”

  “I do indeed!” The other girl smiled at Anna and added, “You must surely be a pupil of Elsa Marburger? I think only she could have—”

  “I am, I am!” Anna was only too happy to pay tribute to her teacher. “I needed to call on everything she ever taught me in that Autumn section.”

  “That was where I felt sure you were a pupil of hers. Do tell me —” and for several minutes they eagerly discussed their teacher and the way in which she had helped them both.

  It was such a delight and refreshment to Anna to be talking again of the art which was her life that she scarcely noticed anyone else. Even Jonathan had momentarily retreated into the background of her consciousness. But then someone else claimed Gail Rostall’s attention, and Anna was once more seized upon by the triumphant Mrs. Delawney.

  “Warrender was right — as always, of course. This will be the sensation of the Festival. We have just enough time to advertise it worthily. And Jonathan must see to it that—”

  “Where is Mr. Keyne, incidentally?” interrupted Anna. And with a sudden chill, so nearly physical that she actually trembled, she took in fully the fact that he had not come near her to offer either congratulation or comment.

  “Oh, in the end, he didn’t come—” began Mrs. Delawney, and then someone caught her by the arm and asked a question about the church, and she was only too pleased to speak at length on what was one of her favourite subjects.

  He hadn’t come!

  He had kissed her and asked her to sing specially for him that evening. And she had done so, with all her heart and soul and voice. And he had just not bothered to come.

  For a moment Anna stood there, silent and half stunned. Then suddenly she saw that Teresa was watching her. And because, even in this fearful moment she felt the remnants of her pride stirring, she went over to the other girl and asked boldly,

  “How did you like the work, Teresa?”

  “Enormously.” Teresa spoke with every appearance of generous candour. “I was wrong and Mother was right. The work is fine and you sing it beautifully. It can’t fail to be a success.”

  If she had been a good friend she could not have said more. And the unexpectedness of her reaction rocked Anna on her heels. Perhaps that was why it was to Teresa, of all people, that she put the burning question, “Why didn’t Mr. Keyne come?”

  “Oh, he had an important phone call from London at the last minute and felt he should deal with that instead,” Teresa explained carelessly, as she turned away. Then she looked over her shoulder and added, “He said to tell you he was sorry he couldn’t make it.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  He was sorry he couldn’t make it! That was all. He was just sorry he could not make it.

  For a moment it seemed to Anna that there was nothing and no one in the church except herself and her pain and fury and misery. Before she had had time to savour it folly, her artistic triumph was dust and ashes, and the remembrance of Jonathan’s lips on hers a bitter taste that nothing would ever sweeten. She had been an utter, utter fool.

  Teresa had been right when she told her not to take Jonathan seriously. She should have listened to Teresa — bitterest thought of all! That charm, that whimsical friendliness had not meant a thing. He had asked her to sing specially for him, and she had done so. And all the time he had not even bothered to be there.

  She had to call on all her self-control and pride to live gracefully through the next twenty minutes. She thought the talk and jubilation would never end. Roderick Delawney in particular could not say enough about his delight in her triumph.

  “I knew all along that you ought to be in this Festival,” he declared. “I felt it in my bones, even though you were so modest and retiring about your qualifications.”

  “You were just guessing.” Anna forced a smile. “You didn’t really know anything about me as an artist.”

  “Except that you had the loveliest speaking voice, in addition to that something which makes one want to know more about you. I suppose it’s what people mean by personality. Anyway, it got me, right from that first day when I saw you standing there in the wind and rain, and you let me drive you to the hospital.”

  “You were so kind to me that time,” murmured Anna, wondering how much longer she would have to go on making this sort of conversation, while all the time she wanted only to rush away and cry on her own, and rage against Jonathan Keyne.

  “I wasn’t being kind. I was pleasing myself,” Rod told her with some emphasis. “I don’t think you know how appealing and forlorn you looked on that windswept platform.”

  “Oh, not now!” thought Anna. “I just can’t take drippy compliments at this moment.”

  But then he had indeed been kind, and it was ungrateful to feel irritated just because his timing was bad. So she let him go on talking to her and she somehow managed to carry the burden of her part in the conversation, until suddenly there was a moment’s pause and she could ask, in an almost natural voice,

  “Why didn’t Jonathan Keyne come to hear this rehearsal? I thought he was dead keen on hearing — the work.”

  “He was. I think he was fed up at not being able to come. But he was phoned for from London. His grandfather died suddenly, it seems.”

  His grandfather! It was ludicrous in its almost comic form of insult. Like the standard stories of the office boy asking for the day off “to bury his grandmother”.

  “Was he so devoted to his grandfather?” she heard herself ask father coldly.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Rod said indifferently. “One of the toughest old tycoons who ever planned a tricky merger, I’d say. He even bested my father once, and that takes some doing. Not that there were any hard feelings about it. They respected each other, being birds of a feather. Though buzzards, as you might say, rather than larks. That’s how Jonathan came to be a friend of the family.”

  “I see,” said Anna.

  But she didn’t really see at all. She could see no good or proper reason why Jonathan should not have put off his journey for an hour or two, so that he could come and hear her on that one vital occasion when he had asked her to sing specially for him.

  It was over at last. All the congratulations and good wishes and discussion. And even Teresa seemed so relaxed and good-humoured that she was talking quite gaily to Anna’s father.

  “We’ll make the concert on the Tuesday of the second week, Mr. Fulroyd. We need a high spot of interest just then, because the impetus of the
first week will just be slackening. Would you submit a programme to me in the next day or two, and I’ll let you know within twenty-four hours if it’s approved or requires further discussion. Though after tonight, I feel I can safely leave things to you.”

  And she smiled so charmingly at him that, as Anna and he walked home together under what seemed to her to be a cold and indifferent moon, he said,

  “Miss Delawney is really a very sympathetic and knowledgeable young woman, after all. I hadn’t realised that. It just shows how mistaken one can be about people.”

  How mistaken indeed!

  Not until they were actually in the house did Mr. Fulroyd think to enquire, “What happened to Jonathan Keyne? I thought he was coming specially to hear you in the song cycle this evening.”

  “He was.” She tried not to choke on that. “But his grandfather died suddenly and he had to go to London.” She wondered if that sounded as idiotic to her father as it did to her. But apparently not, because he simply said, “Dear me, that’s too bad. But he will hear you at the actual concert, no doubt. I must say, Anna dear, you were quite wonderful. You never sang better in your life.”

  “And I never shall again,” she thought unhappily. “‘Everything was there to make me give of my best. Or I thought it was. I can’t imagine my ever again feeling so gloriously uplifted and inspired.”

  Fortunately, she recognised this in a moment or two as the ultimate depths of contemptible self-pity, and she pulled herself back just in time, with the bracing reflection that she had managed to sing very well before Jonathan Keyne came along, and would no doubt do so again. But, unlike every other form of artist, a singer is his or her own instrument. And what happens to the singer is almost invariably reflected in the voice. Of course she had sung with radiant joy and a conviction in the reality of happiness. That was the way she had felt — when she believed that Jonathan was listening eagerly to her. It was going to be difficult to recreate that mood now that she knew how little she really meant to him.

  Worn out with excitement and effort — and disappointment, Anna slept deeply, but she woke to a sense of depression. Her father, in contrast, was in splendid spirits at breakfast time. He had no reason to be otherwise. It was she who had to put on a convincing pretence of regarding the previous evening as one of the highlights of her life.

  She was almost glad to get away at last, even though it meant going to Coppershaw Grange where she would have to pretend once more, though in a slightly different way. For, whatever happened, Teresa must never, never know what a blow had been dealt her when she discovered that Jonathan had not even bothered to come and hear her.

  It was easier than her fears had prompted her to expect, for Teresa was much occupied with the Bannisters. Gail naturally wanted to see the Tithe Barn, which had now been converted into a very attractive countrified little theatre, since it was here that the performances of the review “Past and Present” were to be staged. And, although her husband was more interested in the operatic side of her career, he was uninhibitedly proud of the fact that she had almost literally sprung into fame in a night in the brilliant review for which his brother had written the music.

  “It’s a pity Oliver himself couldn’t have been here,” Anna heard Marcus Bannister say to Teresa. “But he’s in New York of course for the Broadway production of the show. I’ve promised to hold a sort of watching brief for him, however.”

  “Then you must come down to the Tithe Barn also and meet some of our other performers,” Teresa replied. “They’ll be thrilled to have either of the famous Bannister brothers among them. Are you coming too, Mother?”

  Mrs. Delawney said that she most certainly was. And they all went off together, leaving Anna to get on with her work in what was rather welcome isolation, except for the frequent ringing of the telephone.

  It was more than halfway through the morning when, at the insistent summons of the phone bell, she lifted the receiver yet again and heard Jonathan Keyne’s unmistakable voice ask,

  “Is that you, Teresa?”

  “No,” she replied coolly. “Teresa is down at the Tithe Barn. Can I do anything for you? This is Anna.”

  “Anna! I’m so glad to get you yourself. That’s really why I rang up. I wanted you to know how desperately sorry I was not to be able to stay last night. But I simply had no choice.”

  “Oh, that’s all right.” She was pleased to hear how casually she managed to say that.

  “I hope someone found time to explain the exact circumstances to you?”

  “Yes, Teresa did. And then Rod added a few details.”

  “Then you do understand?” As she seemed to feel that called for no further confirmation, he went on after the slightest pause, “How did it go, Anna?”

  “Very well, I think. Everyone seemed pleased. Marcus Bannister and his wife, Gail Rostall, came. He congratulated my father very warmly on the work, and Gail was a pupil of my teacher Elsa Marburger, so we had a lot to talk about together.”

  “I’m so glad. But, in spite of the interesting company, I hope I was a little bit missed.”

  “By whom?” The cool tone was a few degrees cooler.

  “By you, of course. You were going to sing specially for me — remember?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Anna, you haven’t forgiven me. I can hear it in your voice. I tell you — I’m sorrier than I can say—”

  “Then why bother to say it?” she asked with unbelievable dryness. “And I do understand quite well. There are times when an urgent phone call can make other things seem quite unimportant. Like the time I heard about my mother being so ill.”

  “Is that the trouble? Is that what you’re holding against me? All right, then, I was not as understanding and sympathetic as I should have been on that occasion, and

  I’m damned sorry about it. This wasn’t a parallel case, exactly, but—”

  “No, it wasn’t, was it? But really, it isn’t worth all this discussion.” Anna’s brisk tone suggested that she was the busy secretary wanting to get on with something that was really important. “You were coming to the rehearsal, but you didn’t make it after all. So what? There were enough people there to make the vital decision, so that the church concert will be held and the song cycle included. It’s to be on the Tuesday of the second week. I expect you’ll be here to hear it then, but if not—”

  “Of course I’ll be there!” he interrupted violently. “You talk as though it’s of no interest to me, whereas you know perfectly well that it’s the most important thing in the Festival to me now.”

  “Well, it’s nice of you to say so. But it was really Teresa you wanted to speak to, wasn’t it? She’ll be back in about an hour’s time. Shall I get her to call you back?”

  There was quite a pause. Then he said, in a tone as cool as her own, “Yes, please.” And he rang off.

  Well, she told herself, she had dealt with the situation admirably. She had really managed to sound as though she had hardly missed him last night. That would teach him.

  But teach him what? — She was not at all sure. And, in spite of the fact that she felt she had come off the better in that encounter, she wiped away a couple of unexpected tears before going on with her work.

  At lunchtime Anna was made to feel immediately the difference in her status, now that she had become an artist in the Festival rather than just someone who was helping out in the office. In other words, for the first time it was assumed that she would join the house party at lunch, though whether on the insistence of Mrs. Delawney or because the Bannisters quite obviously expected her to be there, she was not quite sure.

  In any case, it was an interesting occasion, with much discussion about Gail’s part in the review, and many questions about the rest of the Festival programme from Marcus Bannister.

  “I gather that Warrender is interested and will probably be here?” he said to Teresa.

  And Teresa was able to reply happily that both the Warrenders were expected for part o
f the Festival, though she was not at present sure exactly which events they would be attending.

  “They will, like you, be staying here in the house, of course,” she added.

  “And without doubt they will include the church concert during the second week,” her mother amplified. “It was Mr. Warrender himself, you know, who gave the provocative interview to the Daily Echo which riveted our interest and sent us all last night to hear Mr. Fulroyd’s song cycle.”

  “Was it really?” Gail looked amused. “That isn’t like him. He’s usually rather disagreeable about newspaper interviews or items for gossip columns.”

  “Then it’s all the more gratifying that he should have made an exception for us,” declared Mrs. Delawney contentedly.

  “Indeed yes. But I thought —” Marcus Bannister frowned slightly, as though trying to recall something — “I know Brian Eden, the chap on the Echo who wrote up that account of the Festival. It was he who first drew my attention to the work we heard last night. I thought he said he got his information direct from you, Miss Delawney.”

  “No.” Teresa shook her head decidedly. “Not from me.”

  “Perhaps from your secretary, then,” said Marcus, and he went on with his admirable lunch, entirely unaware that the secretary was sitting opposite him, since to him she was more properly one of the Festival artists.

  No one said anything for a moment. Then Mrs. Delawney changed the subject, and Anna breathed again. Though cautiously.

  After lunch she went back to her study, expecting that any moment the door would open to admit a suspicious Teresa in a questioning mood. When the door did finally open, however, it was Mrs. Delawney who came in, and what she said was:

  “How very naughty of you, Anna. But rather ingenious too. And very fortunate, I suppose one must say. Because if you hadn’t pumped all that stuff into the Daily Echo man we wouldn’t now be having the church concert. But just why did Jonathan spring to your defence, and put it all on to Oscar Warrender?”

  “I don’t know.” Anna felt unable — indeed, since she genuinely liked Mrs. Delawney, she was also unwilling — to elaborate her deception further. “I’m ashamed now to think what I did. But it was on the spur of the moment, and because I knew how much it would mean to my father, as well as to myself. You see, the Daily Echo phoned while I was on my own and asked for what they called an interesting story about the Festival. It — it seemed the last chance to get anything done. And it was true that Oscar Warrender had heard the work and thought it good and said it must be included in the Festival.”