On wings of song (11 page)

experience in assessing works and performers.'

'Sounds reasonable enough. Mother.' Jeremy grinned. 'And anyway, you're going to have to be more careful what you say about one of the best agents in the business. He's just demonstrated his own good judgment by taking on your son, as a matter of fact.'

'About time too,' replied his mother grudgingly, while Caroline cried excitedly,

'Jerry, you can't mean it? At last?'

'Didn't you know anything about it?' Her cousin gave her a curious glance.

'Of course not. I'd have told you if I had.'

'I thought maybe you'd put him up to it, though he said not when I asked him. He did say someone had spoken for me. I suppose it might have been Warrender. Anyway, Marshall contacted me, saying he wanted to hear m.e for himself.'

'And you never told us?' His mother was reproachful.

'I couldn't. Mother. Not after so many false starts and crushed hopes. I had to have something positive before saying anything to you or Caroline.'

'Anyway, it doesn't matter now,' his cousin broke in eagerly. 'Tell us what happened when he did hear you.'

'He was impressed, I'd glad to say. Said he would like to represent me, and proposed to send me to audition for one or two of the smaller opera houses in Germany. Not leading roles, of course, but invaluable experience. The sort of thing Sir Oscar suggested, now I come to think of it.'

'Small roles in minor opera houses?' Aimt Hilda made a disparaging grimace. 'Then he

doesn't appreciate you properly. I always said he was no good.' (She had done nothing of the sort, of course, though perhaps she had implied it.)

'Jerry, I'm so glad for you!' Caroline hugged him impulsively, with none of the inhibitions which had spoiled much of their happy relationship recently, and he responded with equal fervour.

'I have to leave for Germany at the weekend,' he went on exultantly. *One of the places needs an immediate replacement for Arlecchino in "Pagliacci", a role I know inside out, fortimately, and also Jacquino in "Fidelio", which will need some intensive revision. Then later I'm to go and audition for two or three other places within quite a small radius—^for next season. They're all small,' he insisted again. 'But it's a beginning. If I can only get my foot in '

*And you'll have done it without that Lucille Duparc,' added his mother, with whom the French singer was out of favour for having failed to promote Jeremy's fortunes more speedily. 'She was going to do so much for you, but she didn't come up with much in the end, did she?'

'These are early ^ days yet,' replied Jeremy stiffly. 'Anyway, she and I are pinning a lot of hopes to the Carruthers Trust Contest.'

Caroline bit her lip, and then said as casually as she could, 'You still plan to go in for that, then?'

'Why, of course! It's the biggest thing in our— in my—plans.'

'I thought perhaps this German development might cut across the dates,' she said quickly. And in her heart she knew that had been her immediate hope. For the risk that she and Jeremy

might find themselves pitted against each other in the same important contest lingered at the back of her mind like a perpetual threat.

Later she wished she had seized the opportunity to make her own plans known, for the longer she left her intention undisclosed, the greater would be his indignation and shock when he learned the truth.

But it might not come to that, of course. All kinds of things might intervene, in her affairs as well as his, and perhaps the wisest thing was not to meet trouble halfway.

So she congratulated Jeremy once more, and then hurried off to the Festival Hall, where she was to join Kennedy Marshall for a Warrender concert, at which the soloist was to be the famous but ageing tenor, Lindley Harding.

He was already in the hall when she arrived and, as she slipped into her seat beside him, she said quietly but fervently, 'Thank you for helping Jeremy to his first engagement.'

'Oh, you know about that already?' He smiled slightly.

'Yes. He came home just as I was leaving. And I can't tell you how happy it's made him—and me.'

'Well, he's good. Otherwise of course I wouldn't have dreamed of putting him forward. There's little doubt about their taking him for those two roles. They're in a tight spot and won't fimd anyone better at a moment's notice. It should be the real break for him at last.'

'But you took quite a chance on him, not having heard him yourself until today.' She glanced at him curiously. 'Why did you do that?'

*Why do you think?' he replied.

But before Caroline could hazard any sort of guess, applause broke out as Sir Oscar made his way to the conductor's desk.

Caroline had of course heard Warrender conduct many times before, but tonight she heard and saw him from an entirely different standpoint. She thought of what he had said about 'serving the composer and the work' and realised that, commanding though his air might be when he was in charge of his orchestra, his total rapport with the music meant that he was indeed serving the composer with a lack of personal conceit rare in conductors.

'It isn't real arrogance,' she said half to herself and half to her companion as the first pause came. 'Only the authority of a man who knows.^

'Not bad judgment,' replied Kennedy Marshall, and laughed softly. Then he glanced down at the progranmie and asked, 'Have you heard Lindley Harding before?'

'No.' Caroline shook her head. 'But he was the great Otello of his time, wasn't he?'

'He was indeed. A tremendous stage artist, but equally fine in oratorio, as you'll hear tonight. I see he's singing, "Waft her, angels" from Handel's "Jephtha", and I imagine he'll be thinking of his own daughter as he sings it. She's up there in the stage box with her husband.'

Caroline glanced up at the couple who both leaned forward as Lindley Harding made his way on to the platform. Silver-haired and very erect, though no longer young, he was a striking, indefinably elegant figure as he made his entrance

to the sort of applause accorded only to the cream of popular favourites.

He started the ineffably beautiful recitative with a clarity of diction which projected every word without effort to the back of the hall, and all at once, he was no longer a handsome elderly man in a faultless evening suit. He had become an almost biblical figure, and in every word, musical nuance and facial expression he was the distraught father who had vowed a sacrifice to a jealous God, and now realised that it was his own child who had to be killed.

There was not a sound from the audience, not even a suppressed cough. Everything and everyone seemed to wait on the drama of the occasion until, with a soft, almost universal sigh, they relaxed for the heartrending air in which the sorrowing father appeals to the angels to take his child gently.

Caroline was not ashamed of the tears which came into her eyes. But she was slightly taken aback to find that two of them had spilled down her cheeks. Then she realised that her employer had taken her hand and was holding it firmly, so that she felt oddly like a child who was being comforted.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered, under cover of the applause which succeeded the one long moment of stunned silence at the end of the aria.

'No need to apologise,' he replied. 'I'd have wept myself if I were the weeping type. And I wouldn't have liked you half so well if you'd kept a stiff upper lip. Do you want to go round afterwards and meet the old boy?'

'Oh, please! Do you really mean that?'

'Certainly. And the two in the stage box, if you like. He's a very fine tenor in his own right.'

'Tell me about them,' said Caroline, her eyes shining with interest. 'I noticed that she too wiped her eyes.'

'No doubt she did. Her father was the great figure in her life for years. There was a very close and emotional relationship between him and her—^until the moment when a splendid young tenor rival came along to challenge his preeminence.'

'What happened then?' Caroline asked eagerly.

'She married him. That's the good-looking chap with her in the box now.'

'She married him?—^her father's rival? I call that pretty mean!'

'Even if it was a love match, Caroline?* He spoke gravely, but she noticed that those keen grey eyes were twinkling with something like amusement at her reactions.

'Oh—^Do you think it was?'

'I'm not in their confidence. But to the outside world I'm boimd to say they show every sign of being very happy together.'

'And her father?—did he mind dreadfully, do you suppose?'

'I imagine he disliked the position very much indeed at first.' Kennedy Marshall appeared to give the problem his serious consideration. 'And she couldn't have been very happy about it either, poor girl. It's not easy, I imagine, to be torn between two highly possessive males. Tenors, at that,' he added reflectively.

She was not aware that he studied her grave and rather troubled face with an air of amused

indulgence, iintil he said lightly, 'I don't think more tears are in order, Caroline. I understand that peace was made and that they're a very happy family group by now.'

*Are you making all this up?' She shot him a suspicious glance.

^Certainly not. All pretty well authenticated stage gossip.'

'But, Mr Marshall '

*Do you think,' he interrupted with sudden irritation, 'that you could bring yourself to call me Ken? At least when we're out together. There's an unacceptably Victorian flavour about "Mr Marshall" at this stage of our relationship. It makes me feel a brother under the skin to Mr Rochester.'

'Oh, but Mr Rochester was a splendid hero!' she declared.

'Thank you. Your point is taken.'

'I didn't mean that disparagingly,' she declared with a laugh. 'And I'll call you Ken, if you like.' Then to her extreme annoyance she felt herself colouring, as though in keeping with the Victorian reference, and she was glad to see the leader of the orchestra returning to the platform.

In the second half of the programme Lindley Harding again sang a Handel aria, but this time a completely contrasting one, the rousing 'Sound an alarm!' from 'Judas Maccabeus'. At the end the audience rose to their feet, as though literally obeying the call to arms, and at the same time saluting the splendid old man who could still produce the kind of clarion notes hardly ever heard in the world today.

Caroline foimd herself on her feet too. But Ken

Marshall, more experienced in these matters perhaps, remained seated until she glanced at him indignantly and said, 'Stop playing Mr Rochester, and get on your feet and cheer!'

Looking very much amused, he rose to his feet and clapped, but he stopped short of cheering.

Then, as at last the applause died down, Caroline dropped back into her seat and said eagerly, 'You really meant it when you said you'd take me roimd to meet him, didn't you?'

'Yes, of course. But there's a condition attached.'

'O-oh?' She glanced at him warily.

'Will you come out to supper with me afterwards?'

She gave a relieved laugh, because something in his tone had made her think he might propose some totally unacceptable condition.

'Well, thank you. Most certainly I will—with pleasure. What made you think I would hesitate?'

'I'm never quite sure if you like me, or merely put up with me because I 'm useful—and your boss.'

'What a horrible way to think of me! Particularly after what you've done for Jeremy.'

'Do we have to drag in Jeremy!' he coimtered with sudden impatience. And when she hastened to apologise and explain, he simply said, 'Ssh,' in an admonitory sort of growl, as the conductor returned to the platform.

By the end of the concert, however, he seemed to have recovered his good temper and, true to his promise, took Caroline round to the artists' room. And for the first time in her life Caroline foimd herself being introduced as a fellow artist, albeit only a budding one herself.

*A young find of Oscar Warrender's, I hear,' said Lindley Harding, with an air of courteous grandeur which would have been slightly overdone in anyone else, but was perfectly appropriate to his style and appearance.

*Why, where did you hear that?' Caroline laughed and flushed with pleasure.

*From Anthea Warrender ' then he broke

off to exclaim, *Why, Anthea my dear! I didn't know you were in the house.'

*I promised I'd come if I could possibly get away,' she reminded him, and, as she kissed him, she added, 'You don't suppose I would miss this rare chance of hearing my favourite tenor, do you?'

Then his daughter and son-in-law came in, and Caroline would have withdrawn from the group of celebrities if Anthea had not taken her hand and said,

*You have met Caroline Bagshot, haven't you? If she works hard and fulfils all our hopes, we should be hearing some interesting things of her in the future.'

'I'm only at the very beginning!' Caroline protested.

*My dear, we've all been at the very beginning once,' the old tenor said to her, with a charm that was as compelling as that of any man half his age. 'You have my best wishes.' Then he turned to his daughter and said, 'I think we should go now.' And Caroline realised suddenly that he was very tired.

She withdrew at once, with a murmur of thanks for his kind interest, and, finding Kennedy Marshall near her, she impulsively took

him by the arm and said, *Thank you. That was absolutely wonderful!'

'What was?' he asked as they made their way out of the hall.

'Everything!' declared Caroline expansively. 'But most of all, I suppose, was the first touch of supreme star quality at such close quarters.'

'Didn't you feel that after the Lucille Duparc recital, when you met her?'

'Oh—her? No,' Caroline stated firmly. 'There's something entirely different—something with real heart—in that amazing old man, even if he is a tiny bit of a poseur.'

'Well ' he laughed '—a top grade tenor,

with years of fame behind him, is an almost irresistible phenomenon. Would you like to wait here while I fetch the car?'

'No, I'll come with you,' she said. And, as they made their way to the car park, she liked the way his hand closed firmly round her upper arm while they negotiated the uneven pieces of pavement which tend to make the surroundings of the Festival Hall so perilous at night.