Child Of Music (4 page)

At the end he said, 'Naturally I should have to hear her myself. And I should want Professor Blackthorn to hear her too. But I must make it quite clear from the beginning that the applicants far exceed the few vacancies available, and no child without really outstanding gifts has any chance of being accepted.'

'Janet's gifts are outstanding,' replied Felicity quietly.

'You're very sure of that?'

'Quite sure.'

'As sure as you were about Rodney Eskith, for instance?' He looked up suddenly and that mocking smile was there, to remind her with painful clarity of an occasion she would so willingly have forgotten.

She caught her breath slightly, resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to reply tartly and said with complete honesty, 'I was wrong about Rodney Eskith.'

'Yes, you were, weren't you? But it's courageous of you to admit it so frankly,' he added unexpectedly.

'It wouldn't be much good doing anything else.' She gave a small, wry smile. 'He provided incontrovertible evidence of the fact, didn't he?'

Stephen Tarkman laughed so heartily at that that for the first time she thought she saw why Anthea War- render had expected her to like him. The impression was gone in a moment, however, as he said carelessly,

'You could have pretended you didn't remember a thing about the discussion.'

'Just as you pretended you didn't remember a thing about me?'

'I didn't until a minute or two ago,' he assured her with brutal frankness. 'But so far as Janet Morton is concerned—'

'Please—' interrupted Felicity eagerly. 'Although I admit to having been mistaken about Rodney Eskith, I do assure you I am right about Janet. Please give her a chance and hear her for yourself.'

'I intend to. When and how can I hear her?'

'Oh—' Felicity was so surprised by this easy acceptance of her plea that for a moment she was almost put off her stroke. Then she said doubtfully, 'But don't you hold auditions here?'

'Yes, certainly we do. But if possible — and certainly in the case of a child as young as Janet Morton — it's better for her to be heard without knowing what is involved. What do you suggest?'

'Well, she is playing at the end-of-term concert in about a fortnight's time,' Felicity began.

'Yes, that's the kind of thing exactly.'

'It would mean sitting through a certain amount of stuff definitely below Tarkman standard,' Felicity warned him with a slight smile.

'I'm used to that. So is Professor Blackthorn, who will come too if he is free. Would our presence in the audience seem unusual?'

'No. It's the kind of concert to which parents come.'

'Then I shall be there — trying to look like a parent,' he assured her. And he rose, held out his hand and made it perfectly clear that the interview was at an end.

On the short bus ride back to Carmalton Felicity felt elated beyond expression. She had secured this great chance for Janet, and in a form that robbed it of the terrifying significance which a formal audition might have. It was beyond anything she could have hoped for. And she was bound to admit that this was due to
the imaginative understanding of Stephen Tarkman — to whom she had, until now, certainly not attributed either imagination or human understanding.

Naturally she gave a full account of her interview to both Mrs. Bush and Mary. The former said the most important thing was that there should be no talk beforehand and no question of Janet's knowing the extra importance attaching to the occasion - with which Felicity entirely agreed. The latter said that Stephen Tarkman sounded rather nice, after all.

' "Nice" isn't quite the word,' Felicity protested.

'What is, then?'

'I don't know.' Felicity looked doubtful. 'He's nothing as innocuous as nice. Attractive, I suppose, in a very forceful way. Impossible to ignore, but not really likeable, if you know what I mean.'

'No, I don't think I do,' replied Mary amusedly. 'But I'll see for myself on the night of the concert. What is your star chick going to play? Unaccompanied Bach, or something grim like that?' Mary was becoming quite knowledgeable after a year with Felicity.

Felicity shook her head and laughed.

'Not for general parental consumption,' she said. 'I'm letting her do two movements of a Haydn sonata. Deceptively simple-sounding and easily accessible to a mixed audience, but extraordinarily difficult to play with real style and musical understanding. Janet will be all right, though. It's just the kind of thing to show off her unusual gifts.'

In the ensuing two weeks Felicity became more and more sure of this. She was also greatly reassured by the fact that Janet showed no undue nervousness. On the
actual
day of the concert she looked a little tense. But her 'run-through' in the morning was faultless.

Then, since there was a half-day's holiday, Felicity told her to go home and rest during the afternoon. And, as she told Mary afterwards, 'Off that child went, with the serious, dedicated air of the real professional ! You'd have thought she was going to play at the Festival Hall, no less.'

'Not at all nervous?' Mary asked.

'No more so than any real artist should be,' replied Felicity, unaware that she had paid Janet the final compliment of speaking of her as though she were an adult performer.

However calm Janet might be about it all, Felicity herself suffered a good deal of nervous excitement during those last hours of waiting. And, to her surprise, she realized that it was not all on Janet's account. There was a sort of enjoyable anxiety about the coming meeting with Stephen Tarkman which had something much more personal about it than she would ever have thought possible. And the exact reason for that she simply could not fathom.

She dressed with some care for the occasion, telling herself that it was necessary to look her best, while not taking any of the limelight from the young performers — particularly not from Janet, for whom she was, of course, playing the piano part of the
Flaydn
sonata. But she was inordinately pleased when Mary said,

'You look lovely. That queer shade of
greyish
blue is just
you,
somehow.'

When they arrived at the school, there was already a great air of activity and self-importance attaching to those who were taking part in the evening's performance. About half of them were pupils of Felicity. The others were, as they importantly styled themselves to admiring parents, drama students.

'Everything's going to be fine,' Mary told Felicity as they looked from an upper window at the gratifying number of cars drawing up before the main entrance of the school. 'I must say the parents in this school do then- stuff very nobly. I think I'd be in
agony
if I had to listen to my own offspring murdering Shakespeare or lacerating Beethoven.'

'My pupils don't lacerate Beethoven,' retorted Felicity mildly. 'Oh, there's Stephen Tarkman, getting out of that ordinary-looking black car.'

'I'd have thought he would sport a Rolls,' commented Mary. 'Who is his glamorous companion?'

'Glamorous companion !' Felicity craned her neck to see the other side of the car. 'I thought Professor Blackthorn was coming. Perhaps he couldn't and this is another member—'

'Oh, no, dear! The lady is no professor,' Mary laughed.

And Felicity, catching a glimpse at last of Stephen Tarkman's companion, could only agree. There was nothing professorial about the slim, tall, red-haired woman with him.

'Perhaps it's his wife,' suggested Mary.

'Perhaps,' agreed Felicity doubtfully. 'Though he didn't
seem
married, somehow. Too - too—'

But before she could complete that qualification she glanced at her watch and saw it was time for her to round up her performers and give them a last word of advice and good cheer.

'Good luck!' Mary sketched a little gesture of encouragement and went to take her seat in the hall, while Felicity made her way to the classroom which had been set aside as a sort of 'green room'.

High spirits had given way now to quieter, more nervous chattering. But only one person was utterly silent, and that was Janet, who sat alone in a corner, looking unexpectedly attractive without her glasses and in a slightly old-world frock with a lace collar. One glance at her, however, told Felicity that something was desperately wrong. She was pale and tense and so utterly withdrawn from the busy scene round her that Felicity felt her heart plummet.

She went immediately to the child and, trying to make her voice warm and reassuring, said, 'All right, Janet?'

'Miss Grainger, I can't play.
⁵
Janet got to her feet and spoke in a rapid, husky half-whisper. 'I'm not well —I can't play.'

'But of course you can, dear.' Felicity took her hand and was dismayed to find it icy. 'Everyone is a bit nervous beforehand. It's just—'

'No, it's nothing to do with being nervous. You don't know who's there, in the audience. I've just seen. I looked into the hall.'

In that moment Felicity could have kicked herself for all her well-intentioned discretion. She should have foreseen this contingency and guarded against this last- minute recognition and reaction. But it was too late now.

Still warmly and persuasively she smiled, squeezed the cold little hand comfortingly and said, 'Mr. Tarkman isn't an ogre, my dear child. He'll understand, better than anyone else there, just how good you are.

As a matter of fact, I can't wait to show you off to him.
Gome
, cheer up—'

'Mr. Tarkman?' repeated Janet, so blankly that Mary would have said she looked almost idiotic. 'I don't know anything about Mr. Tarkman. It's my aunt who is there - that pretty woman with the red hair. And I can't play if she's there. I hate her - she makes me feel dreadful. She takes all my confidence away. I can't play, I tell you. Not if she's there. I — can't — play!'

Janet's
tone carried such conviction that Felicity could almost see her carefully laid plans drifting to disaster on the rock of the child's obsession. For once this evening's chance was gone, any audition, formal or informal, was unlikely to recur.

It was vital to do something and do it quickly. So, repressing a sense of panic almost equal to Janet's own, she glanced across the room to where the first two or three performers were preparing nervously for their entry on to the platform and, on a rapid reckoning, decided that she still had about a quarter of an hour before she herself would be called on to take any active part in the concert. Then she sat down with Janet's hand still in hers and made a tremendous effort to see the problem from the child's own viewpoint.

Reasonable argument and false cheerfulness would, she could see, be alike useless. She must accept the situation at Janet's valuation or give up here and now.

'Listen, dear—' she made the child face her, so that their eyes met— 'I do understand that for all of us there are people who scare us and make us feel inadequate. If your aunt is one of those people for you, I'm not going to pretend it's a small matter. But, Janet, I must tell you now that I've made a very special effort to get Mr. Tarkman here tonight to hear you play. I didn't tell you beforehand for fear of making you nervous—'

'He doesn't make me nervous. Only my aunt does,' reiterated Janet with a sort of stubborn wretchedness.

'I understand that,' Felicity said patiently. 'But it's Mr. Tarkman who is important tonight. He has come to hear you in the hope that you'll prove suitable for a place in the Tarkman School.'

'Can't I play for him when my aunt isn't there?' Janet gazed rather forlornly back at Felicity.

'I doubt if another opportunity could be arranged. Can't you summon all your courage, ignore your aunt and make the effort?'

'I don't think so,' said Janet. 'I feel sick.'

So did Felicity, she discovered to her surprise. But she could not think about her own reactions at that moment. Mary would probably have regarded Janet as a tiresome child who had no right to invent difficulties at this late hour. But Felicity knew that behind the frightened child was a deeply disturbed artist and, with a slight sigh, she tried again.

'I hardly know what else to say to you, Janet. I can't force you to play, of course. But this is a great chance for you, and I can't bear to see you throwing it away without so much as trying.'

Janet looked down at her clasped hands, and then up again as though something other than her own misery had impinged on her consciousness.

'You said it was difficult for you to get Mr. Tarkman here. Does that mean you'd be made to look small if I — if I just backed out now?'

It had not been in Felicity's mind to plead her own false position. But she felt so desperate at that moment that even a little bit of emotional blackmail seemed justified.