Child Of Music (8 page)

Mrs. Morton was evidently astonished too, and not pleasantly so. But she laughed and said in an amusedly admonishing sort of tone, 'You do get busy in holiday time, don't you, Stephen?'

'Of course. Sometimes one does more in holiday time than term time,' he agreed easily. Then he passed on, taking her with him, and Anthea, looking intrigued, murmured,

'Who is she? I was introduced, but I've forgotten her name.'

'Mrs. Morton,' said Felicity, carefully confining herself to the exact question.

But that was not enough for Anthea, who replied promptly, 'Don't be cagey. Why was she mad at the idea of your coming to Tarkmans? Is she jealous or something?'

'She has no reason to be.'

'Jealousy isn't based on reason,' retorted Anthea.

'We clashed rather over her niece, who is a pupil of mine,' Felicity admitted. 'And I think I said more than was advisable.'

She laughed slightly, but Anthea did not. Instead she looked thoughtfully after the woman who had just left them, and after a moment she said. 'Shall I tell you something? She's dangerous, that woman. If she were a rival soprano — I'd be just a little bit afraid of her.'

'Would you?' Felicity glanced at her friend curiously. 'Why?'

'Partly because she doesn't show her real feelings at all. She just bottles them up and smiles. I've seen the same thing in my profession, and it nearly always means danger. The extroverts like
Torelli,
for instance, can rage and behave abominably and enjoy a scene and forget it. It's about as dangerous as a nosebleed in an ordinary person. But the cold sweet ones, like
Peroni,
will smile entrancingly as they hand you the poisoned cup.' And she gave an odd little shiver.

'You're surely not afraid of
Peroni
nowadays?' Felicity smiled incredulously, though she remembered that some people said the famous soprano had preceded Anthea in Warrender's affections as well as in the roles in which the younger woman now excelled. 'I thought she retired some time last year.'

'Oh,
yes. At least, she gave a farewell appearance. There's no professional rivalry between us nowadays. But do you know, Felicity, if I'm aware that she's in the audience I'm never on top form. I can't tell you why. She just has that effect upon me. Though he says nothing, I think Oscar goes to great pains to see I don't know she is there. But she usually sends me flowers, so as to make sure that I do know. Gorgeous flowers. And they always make me feel sick.'

'You feel like that about her?' Felicity gazed at the successful, securely established Anthea Warrender, but what she saw was the small, pale, spectacled face of Janet Morton. 'Why, Janet says—'

But just then Oscar Warrender glanced across the room and Anthea said instantly, 'I must go. He wants me for something. Felicity, we must manage to see each other again. We're at the Royal for the next three days. Call me up and we'll arrange something.'

With a quick smile she was gone, and almost immediately her place was taken by Professor Blackthorn, who had just heard about Felicity's proposed con
nection with Tarkmans and wanted to talk shop. They talked shop very enjoyably, as a matter of fact, for a good part of the evening after that. But almost all the time, at the back of her mind, Felicity thought of what Anthea had said about
Peroni
— and Julia Morton.

To her great surprise, when the party was breaking up, Mrs. Morton very cordially offered to give her a lift in her car. But before Felicity could think quite what to do with this offer, Stephen Tarkman intervened.

'Don't worry, Julia. Miss Grainger goes in the opposite direction from you. I am running her home myself.'

'I can have a
taxi—'
Felicity began.

'It isn't necessary,'' he told her, and turned to say goodnight to the other woman. Julia Morton looked past him for a moment and there was an odd, flinty glitter in her eyes as they rested on Felicity. Then she leaned forward and rather deliberately kissed Stephen Tarkman.

It was true that one or two others, including Anthea, kissed their host good night. But none of them, Felicity thought, in quite the way Julia Morton did.

When all the other guests had gone, he took Felicity out to his car. And as he handed her in she said impulsively, 'I still can't quite believe that this has happened to me, or that you can be in any way sure that I'm qualified for the job.'

'Shall we say that I'm sufficiently sure to give you a fair trial?' he replied. 'Your academic qualifications are excellent and all your previous employers speak highly of you. Both important points. But in addition you have something I've been looking for
for
a long time. The quality of capturing and holding attention to an extraordinary degree.'

'Have
I? But how do you know?'

'Because I've spent some time observing you closely,' he told her coolly. 'Even three years ago, whatever gaffes you made, at least you captured my attention.' He smiled, not entirely kindly.

'Then!' She laughed incredulously. 'You're joking.'

'Only half. When I
recognised
you again I found I could recall almost every detail of that occasion—'

'Oh, not
every
detail, I hope!' she protested with some embarrassment.

'I'm willing to gloss over some of them,' he said with that dry little smile. 'But the fact remains that you, and what you said, were completely printed on my mind. With anyone else — almost anyone else — I should have allowed the whole thing to slip into unimportant oblivion. Then at the school concert I watched very carefully your handling of your pupils. With each you were subtly different, but for each you represented security and a sort of compulsive interest which carried them through. That's quite a gift, Miss Grainger.'

'But for my poor little Janet I couldn't do it,' murmured Felicity half to herself.

'With your poor little Janet you permitted yourself to become too emotionally involved,' he informed her drily. 'Which brings me to the one point on which I think I should utter a warning. Don't let your prejudices — either for or against — take too close a hold on you, Miss Grainger. That might make your position at Tarkmans less enjoyable than it should be.'

She thought of the way Julia Morton had looked at her not half an hour ago and was sorely tempted to argue the point. But her better judgment prevailed. If she could not accept that with submissive words, at least she could remain silent, which she did. And after a moment he went on,

'Apart from that, I see no reason why you should not be a great success. I noticed at that concert with everyone of those girls that, scared though they might be, they were all deeply involved. Not one of them looked even remotely bored.'

'Bored?
Oh, no, I don't think any pupils of mine are bored. But I shouldn't have thought that any student of the Tarkman standard ran any danger of that. Boredom argues a certain lack of intelligence, doesn't it?'

'Of course. But the lack of intelligence can be on the teacher's part as well as the pupil's.'

'Well, that's true,' Felicity admitted with a smile. 'But at Tarkmans—'

'At Tarkmans, Miss Grainger,' he interrupted, 'inevitably there is far more specialization — and discipline — than elsewhere. Training has to be intensive if there is to be success beyond the average. But the danger inherent in that is that a sort of mechanical brilliance can set in, and the means can become more important than the end.'

'I know.' She nodded. 'Just as it's true that "without vision the people perish" so without inspiration the artist stifles. And although inspiration almost invariably comes from within, it's the teacher's business to — what was that? — open new windows and point to fresh horizons.'

'Exactly.' And then he added, 'I thought you were the right person. Now I know it.'

She was so moved and flattered that for a moment or two she could think of nothing but her own deep satisfaction. It was not only that the praise of a man like Stephen Tarkman was indescribably pleasing. It was also that his words seemed to confer some accolade on all that she had striven for in her work. She was in a daze of happiness, until he suddenly said,

'I think we've gone past your turning, haven't ' we?'

'Oh—' she glanced out of the window - 'yes, we have. Quite a long way past. I'm sorry, I wasn't noticing.'

'It doesn't matter. I'll back and turn here.'

He did so. And it was as the headlights of his car swept an arc of light along and across the lane that Felicity leaned forward and exclaimed sharply, 'Wait! There's a child walking — Drive on the way we were going. I think there's something wrong—'

He followed her instructions immediately. And, as the lights caught the small moving figure again, Felicity said, in a distressed half-whisper, 'She's in — in a
nightdress,
with nothing on her feet. It's Janet. I thought it was! She must be sleep-walking or something. Draw up quietly.'

Stephen Tarkman drew the car to a standstill a few yards beyond the walking child, and made as though to get out. But Felicity said almost fiercely, 'No! I'll get her.'

'Be careful. Don't wake her suddenly.'

'No, it's all right.' Felicity slipped out of the car and went back towards Janet, who showed no sign at all of seeing her.

'Darling—' Very gently Felicity took her hand, which was frighteningly cold, and walked a few yards with her. 'Come home with me now. You must be tired and want your bed.
⁵

'Tired,' Janet agreed with a small sigh. 'Tired. But I don't want to see Aunt Julia.'

They had come level with the car now and Stephen Tarkman, standing at the open door, could not fail to hear what was said. But Felicity, still in the same soothing, matter-of-fact tone, replied firmly, 'You don't have to see your Aunt Julia, dear. Come with me, Janet. It's Miss Grainger.'

'Miss Grainger—' Janet drew against her suddenly.
'I
'm cold. Terribly, terribly cold. But I don't want—'

'I know, dear. Come in the warm with me.' Again Stephen Tarkman moved to take over, but Felicity shook her head and whispered, 'She doesn't know you. She might be frightened.' And he let her half lift Janet into the car, though it was something of an effort.

'There's a rug,' he murmured, handing that in to her, and she wrapped it round Janet and drew her close again.

At that the child half roused herself and said in a tone of great surprise, 'Miss Grainger! Where on earth—? What happened?
'

'It's all right, Janet. You're quite safe. You went walking in your sleep. But now I'm taking you home.' And then to Stephen Tarkman, who was back in the driving seat by now, she said, 'If you turn and drive back the way we came, the Emlyns' house is just opposite the big oak tree with the wooden bench under it.' Janet yawned suddenly and completely naturally. 'I was dreaming,
'
she said. 'I thought Aunt Julia was coming to hear me play—
'
then she stopped, gave a funny apologetic little laugh, as though she realized she was being silly, and asked, 'How did you find me, Miss Grainger?'

'Mr. Tarkman was driving me home from a party—'

'Is that Mr. Tarkman?' Janet interrupted in a discreet whisper, and she raised her head and peeped past Felicity with an air of interested respect.

He said, 'Hello, Janet,' in a friendly, matter-of-fact tone.

But her answering, 'Hello,' was shy and subdued. And, dropping her head back against Felicity again, she remained silent until they arrived at the Emlyns' house.

It looked, Felicity thought, as though Janet's absence had already been discovered, for late though it was, lights shone from every window in the small house. And the moment there was the sound of a car stopping, the front door was snatched open by an eager hand and Mrs. Emlyn, in a dressing gown, came running down the short path to the gate.

'It's all right, Mrs. Emlyn, we've got Janet quite safe,' Felicity called softly. And poor Mrs. Emlyn looked in at the open window of the car and said in quite a shaky voice,