Masquerade with music wa.., p.1
Masquerade with Music (Warrender Saga Book 12), page 1
MASQUERADE WITH MUSIC
Mary Burchell
© Mary Burchell 1982
Mary Burchell has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1982 by Mills & Boon.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter One
‘But, Oscar, you can’t actually refuse to see the girl!’ Anthea Warrender glanced in half amused protest at her husband. ‘She is your niece, after all.’
‘She is not my niece,’ replied the famous conductor without even looking up from his score. ‘She is merely the daughter of the designing widow who caught my elder brother.’
‘Was she a designing widow?’ Anthea enquired curiously.
‘She was a widow who took every advantage offered by a long sea voyage. I take it that is what is meant by “designing”. Anyway——’ Warrender shrugged—‘it’s all years ago. They settled in New Zealand, so I never met either her or the daughter. Nor indeed my brother after that.’
‘Were you quite close to him in the earlier years?’
‘Close to him?’ Warrender did look up then and considered the question. ‘If you mean in a very personal sense—no. We wished each other well, of course, and I admired him for his academic qualities. In fact——’ he looked reflective—‘I think he probably had the better brain of the two of us.’
‘Unprejudiced as I am, I question that,’ Anthea smiled.
‘True, nevertheless,’ he replied with characteristic realism. ‘I was more worldly, I suppose, and had my own particular musical gifts. But he was almost a genius in a slightly vague way. I presume that was how she caught him.’
‘Well, if she made him happy——’ began Anthea. Then, ‘Did she make him happy?’
‘I have no idea.’ Warrender shrugged again, and Anthea looked down once more at the letter he had tossed into her lap.
‘She says the girl has a very beautiful voice and great stage presence,’ she observed.
‘She wouldn’t be the first mother to make that claim for a totally ungifted daughter,’ was the cynical reply. ‘I see no reason why this one should be an exception to the rule.’
‘It’s an attractive name, with an odd similarity to yours,’ mused Anthea. ‘Olga Warrender——’
‘The girl has no claim to the attractive name,’ cut in her husband shortly. ‘She is not a Warrender.’
‘Unless your brother chose to adopt her and give her his name. What was the mother’s name before her second marriage?’
‘How should I know? One of those ordinary names, if I remember rightly. Not quite Smith or Brown. Simpson or something like that. In his rare letters my brother always referred to her as Lucy.’
‘She signs herself Lucretia,’ observed Anthea.
‘She would. That Borgia touch would appeal to her, I imagine. She wrote—probably under that name.’
‘Oh, she wrote? Then she too had her gifts.’ Anthea glanced up with fresh interest.
‘Unfortunately, yes. She was what is called, I believe, a gossip writer,’ said Warrender disdainfully. ‘Terrible stuff, very personal and highly-coloured. I wouldn’t have known about it except for the fact that she nearly got herself involved in a libel action just before my brother died. I think it cost him quite a packet to get things hushed up.’ He paused and then just said. ‘Lucretia, my God!’ in a tone of ineffable contempt.
Anthea laughed; that very pretty laugh which was one of her special charms. ‘You really are in a bad temper, aren’t you, darling?’ she said equably.
‘I expect so.’ Her husband gave her his own rare smile, and then sighed impatiently. ‘I miss my invaluable Miss Caterham more than I could have believed possible. I hardly realised her value for the last ten years, until she became ill. Each secretary sent by the agency proves more idiotic than the last.’
‘I know, I know,’ Anthea said sympathetically. ‘I always said Isobel Caterham was a pearl beyond price. But we’ll find someone presently. Meanwhile, I’m just off to the nursing home to see her. Shall I give her your love?’
‘No, that would be excessive,’ Warrender replied with great exactness. ‘Give her my good wishes and all the fruit and flowers and anything else she would fancy. And tell her I miss her,’ he added suddenly, for he was on the whole a just man.
‘I will,’ Anthea promised. Then she slipped the discussed letter into her handbag, kissed her husband and departed to visit his invaluable secretary at the very expensive nursing home to which he had insisted on sending her.
For her part, Isobel Caterham had not reached the age of forty-eight without realising that she was indeed a treasure. She would have been a fool if she had failed to do so; and no fool would have remained Oscar Warrender’s secretary for long. She thought the sun, moon and morning star shone out of her employer and his wife, and if countless operatic enthusiasts thought the same, how could she be wrong?
‘You mustn’t worry so much about him,’ Anthea told her kindly. ‘He’s managing quite well, although he said I was to tell you that he misses you.’
‘It’s nice to be missed, but——’ Isobel Caterham sighed—‘he can’t be managing very well. He hates changes in his immediate personnel. Who has he at present, Lady Warrender?’
‘We-ell,’ Anthea had to admit, ‘we’re between two possibilities, you might say.’
‘You mean,’ retorted her husband’s secretary shrewdly, ‘that he’s just dispensed with someone impossible and is now waiting without much hope for the next one.’
Anthea gave a vexed little laugh and agreed that this was more or less the case. ‘But,’ she added, ‘the new one comes with the highest recommendations from an agency specialising in international staff. Dermot Deane employed her recently when he was in Paris and says she’s excellent.’
‘Mr Deane is a gifted impresario,’ conceded Miss Caterham rather stiffly, ‘but I wouldn’t regard him as the best judge of a secretary likely to suit Sir Oscar. In Paris, you say?’ she slightly pursed her lips. ‘Do you mean she’s French?’
‘Oh, no. Canadian, I think. At least, Dermot said she came by way of Canada to France. And now, providentially it seems, she has ended up in London. Anyway, my dear, let’s hope for the best, while admitting that you yourself are quite irreplaceable.’ Anthea smiled at her with real affection. ‘Even Oscar must put up with a few inconveniences occasionally. All we want is for you to get well.’
‘Just so long as he isn’t irritated to a degree that interferes with his ART,’ said Miss Caterham in capital letters.
‘Quite so,’ agreed Anthea, nobly stifling a yawn. For, though she adored her husband, she sometimes found the adulation surrounding the famous conductor rather trying. It never failed to astonish her that he himself seemed unaware of it, or at least totally indifferent to it. Resisting the desire to say that it might not hurt him to have to make the best of things for once, she rose and prepared to take her leave.
‘Oh, Lady Warrender,’ cried Miss Caterham just as she reached the door, ‘you won’t forget that he must make time to see that interesting man who’s doing a book on contemporary conductors, will you? It’s unthinkable that an authoritative book on famous conductors should not include Sir Oscar.’
‘I’ll remember,’ Anthea promised. ‘What was his name, did you say?’
‘Evander Merton.’
‘Oh, dear!’ said Anthea and finally departed.
As she re-entered the apartment in St James’s, for some reason, Anthea clearly recalled the first time she had come there—a nervous, aspiring young singer from the provinces, terrified by the fact that she was to sing for the famous Oscar Warrender for the first time. Then she realised that it was the sound of a charming speaking voice, with a hint of suppressed nervousness in it, which had twanged that chord of memory. She heard her husband ask an abrupt question and then the musical, faintly nervous voice replied.
‘The new secretary,’ she decided and, mildly curious after what Dermot Deane had said about her, she went into the studio.
Her husband was sitting at his desk and facing him sat a quietly dressed young woman, listening to what he was saying with an air of genuine interest and attention. She was in the full light from the window, so that the afternoon sunshine added a touch of pure gold to her smooth fair hair.
She rose to her feet immediately as Anthea came in and Oscar Warrender said, ‘This is my wife, Miss Grayson,’ and then to Anthea, ‘Miss Grayson is going to replace Miss Caterham for the time being.’
‘I thought we were still discussing no more than possibilities, Sir Oscar,’ said the girl, and as she smiled Anthea noticed a gleam of something like mischief in her quite remarkable grey eyes.
‘No,’ said Warrender. ‘I made my decision ten minutes ago. When can you start?’
‘Tomorrow morning. Unless you have a backlog of work which requires attention this evening.’
Warrender gave a short, not displeased laugh. But before he could say anything the telephone rang beside him.
He picked up the receiver and said, ‘Yes?’ in a
non-committal tone. ‘Who? Evander Merton? Wait a moment. I’ll ask my secretary.’ Then, seeing that Anthea was making signs, he put his hand over the mouthpiece and asked, ‘Have you ever heard of him?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Anthea explained rapidly. ‘He’s the man who’s writing that book about conductors. Isobel says it’s important and that you must be in the book. At least see him, Oscar,’ she added as her husband made a face.
‘You deal with this,’ Warrender said, and calmly handed the telephone to the young woman on the other side of the desk.
Putting her hand over the mouthpiece in her turn, she simply asked, ‘“Yes” or “no”?’
‘Yes,’ replied Warrender. ‘But don’t be fulsome and don’t commit me to anything.’
‘Mr Merton, this is Sir Oscar’s secretary speaking,’ she said in that pleasant voice. ‘It’s about the book you’re writing, isn’t it? Sir Oscar is very much occupied at the present time. But would it be a good idea if you had a word with me first, and then perhaps we could arrange for him to see you personally and discuss things further? It would? Just a minute while I look at the diary.’
Warrender pushed towards her across the desk a slip of paper on which he had written in his bold, legible handwriting. ‘Tomorrow afternoon. Three o’clock. Here.’
‘Would tomorrow afternoon at three suit you, Mr Merton? It would? Then here, at Killigrew Mansions. The hall porter will bring you up.—Not at all. Thank you. Goodbye.’
She replaced the receiver, Anthea laughed outright, and Warrender smiled grimly as he said, ‘You’re engaged, in case I had not made that clear already. Can you be here tomorrow morning at nine-thirty?’
‘Certainly,’ the girl said, and then she took courteous leave of her future employer and his wife.
‘She seems reasonably efficient,’ commented Warrender, as they heard the front door close.
‘She has remarkably beautiful eyes,’ replied Anthea.
‘I didn’t notice,’ said her husband.
‘Don’t be affected, darling. Of course you did,’ Anthea told him. ‘With almost every artist you’ve ever handled——’
‘She is not an artist,’ Warrender interrupted. ‘Not even an aspiring one, I trust.’ But then he added, ‘Yes, her eyes are remarkable. I have an idea they don’t miss much, for one thing. She wasn’t flustered over having to play my secretary without warning. Though I noticed her hand shook slightly as she took the phone.’
‘You see?’ Anthea laughed triumphantly. ‘You did notice most things about her. I expect she was nervous, poor girl,’ she added compassionately. ‘But she hid it well. Anyway, she’ll have to be cool and collected to stay the course with you. What’s her name, by the way?’
‘I told you when I introduced her—Grayson.’
‘No, her other name.’
Warrender consulted the agency form and said, ‘It’s given here as Kate. Katherine or Kathleen, I suppose. Modishly shortened in the silly manner of today.—So long as she doesn’t attempt to call me Oscar,’ he added, as he drew his score towards him once more.
Kate Grayson, as she left Killigrew Mansions and started to walk across the Park, would have been surprised to know that the Warrenders were assessing her as a cool and collected young woman. In point of fact she had never felt less cool or collected in her life. On the contrary, her admirably shaped legs felt strangely weak and insecure, and it was only with a deliberate effort that she unclenched her hands as she walked along. Presently she came to a shaded bench, where she sat down and allowed herself to relax. Then, as she realised that she was completely alone, she permitted herself the indulgence of saying aloud, but softly, ‘Well—I’m in!’
After a while she opened her large handbag and drew out a writing pad and deliberately wrote,
‘Dear Mother, My Uncle Oscar is all that people say—curt, authoritative, quite unfairly handsome—and married to the prettiest and most friendly person I’ve met in years.
‘No, I’m not a protégée yet. Not even a humble student. And I rather doubt if I shall ever be either, so don’t start building castles in the air. I met his impresario in Paris, where I managed to do some secretarial work for him. That gave me the edge on anyone else applying to be Uncle Oscar’s temporary secretary—so, you see, I was right to insist on a top secretarial training. I’ll let you know when I have a place of my own. At present I’m in a modest hotel. And I’m using a variation on my own name, of course. I’m being exceedingly discreet, as you see—and I IMPLORE YOU TO BE THE SAME. You did promise that I should handle this my own way, remember. All my love, Kate.’
The next morning she presented herself at the Warrenders’ apartment in good time, and was admitted by a maid who took her to a small but pleasant office. Here, thanks to the methods of the invaluable Isobel Caterham, she had little difficulty in finding the well-arranged office supplies; and a quick examination of the filing cabinet showed her that all was in excellent order up to three weeks ago, after which some odd muddles seemed to have taken place. She rapidly brought order out of recent chaos and then fell to studying the pile of correspondence in the ‘In’ tray.
On some of the letters Warrender had scribbled a trenchant comment or two, on the rest merely ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. She was just familiarising herself with the way Miss Caterham had conducted previous correspondence with some of these people when Warrender came in, greeted her quite pleasantly and asked merely. ‘Is all that clear?’
Resisting the craven temptation to say, ‘Yes,’ and chance her luck in guessing what was really required, she said calmly,
‘No. Some of them are quite straightforward, of course. But when, for instance——’ she reached for one letter—‘you say, “The man’s an ass,” do you wish me to convey that information to him bluntly or tactfully? or were you perhaps just letting off steam?’
For the first time she saw Oscar Warrender laugh heartily. Then he came to stand beside her as he took the letter from her, and she was keenly and rather frighteningly aware of his height and his overwhelming presence.
‘I was just letting off steam,’ he said, and she found his unexpected frankness oddly engaging. ‘Let him know that I can’t agree with him, but you needn’t be harsh. He’s an old man and, now I come to think of it, he was once very good to me when I was young and brash.’
‘Were you ever brash?’ she asked with interest.
‘Oh, yes. Most young people are either brash or boring,’ he told her goodhumouredly. ‘And I was never boring,’ he added with no false modesty. ‘Do what you can with the rest of those. I have to go to rehearsal now. Later you can ask me about anything you find impossible to tackle.’
‘And Mr Merton? Who’s coming here this afternoon, you remember. Do you really want me to interview him on your behalf? and, if so, am I to hold out any hope that you’ll see him yourself later?’
‘Use your own judgment about him,’ said Warrender. ‘I can’t imagine I would really want him to “write me up” as the horrible phrase is. That sort of thing makes me cringe.’ She thought she had never seen anyone less likely to cringe than Oscar Warrender. But then he went on, ‘I have an impossible sister-in-law—on the other side of the world, fortunately—who writes on those lines. She’s trying to force her ghastly child on me at the moment. But we’ll deal with that later.’
Then he went off, leaving Kate Grayson to stare at the door he had just closed behind him and murmur thoughtfully, ‘Yes, we’ll deal with that later.’
She worked steadily during the rest of the morning. Anthea Warrender looked in once, to ask how she was getting on, and to supply a useful comment on one or two of the letters. Then she explained that she herself was going out to lunch but that Kate would have lunch served to her in the apartment unless she chose to make other arrangements.
‘In any case, you’ll want some sort of break before your afternoon stint,’ she said. ‘It’s a glorious day and we’re quite near the Park, as you know. Don’t drive yourself too hard. You seem to have got through a lot of work.’ She glanced respectfully at the pile of answered correspondence. ‘Is my husband leaving you to tackle Mr Evander Merton on his behalf?’
‘Yes,’ Kate smiled.
