Nightingales (Warrender Saga Book 11) Read online

  And then, nearly a year after she had finally left school, the opportunity arose, with almost dramatic simplicity and suddenness. Among the increasing number of ‘locals’ who dined frequently at the charming hotel where young Mrs Lovett put on such delicious and unusual menus was a Mrs Carter, the widow of a Lieutenant-Colonel. She was always most complimentary about Nan’s culinary talents, but she was sometimes accompanied by her somewhat waspish sister, Miss Orton, who was much more sparing with her praise. Miss Orton came from London and felt in duty bound to show that her sights had been set the higher for that fact. She seldom bestowed more than the gracious smile of the almost (though not completely) satisfied connoisseur on whatever was set before her. But Nan—and Amanda too—had learned not to be too deeply irritated by this sort of patronage.

  Mrs Carter enjoyed a degree of local chat and gossip along with her after-dinner coffee and, if Nan and Amanda were not too much engaged, would draw them into conversation. It was on one of these occasions that she observed,

  ‘What a talented young woman you are, Mrs Lovett! Not only do you turn out these delicious meals, but someone was telling me that you sing as well.’

  Her admiring tone and choice of words immediately conjured up for Amanda a picture of Nan turning the roast and singing the Mad Scene from Lucia at one and the same time, and she had some difficulty in suppressing a giggle. But Nan replied a little sharply, ‘Oh, I don’t sing nowadays. There isn’t any time.’

  ‘A pity,’ observed Miss Orton judicially. ‘Talents should never be wasted. You should join the choir at St Mary’s at Austin Parva. The organist and choirmaster, Dr Elsworth, is exceptionally good, almost worthy of a London appointment.’

  Amanda was aware that her sister-in-law was probably holding her breath and counting ten. So it was tact as much as self-interest which prompted her to say quickly, ‘I’ve heard of him. Jerome Leydon told me about him and said how gifted he was.’

  ‘Jerome Leydon?’ Miss Orton fixed her with an unbelieving stare. ‘How did you come to discuss Dr Elsworth with Jerome Leydon?’

  ‘He came to an end-of-term concert at my school,’ explained Amanda lightly, as though Jerome Leydon were really nothing much in her young life. ‘We’d sung a cantata of his and he spoke to—to some of us afterwards. And when I happened to say where I came from he mentioned Dr Elsworth and his remarkable work. He quite made me think I’d like to join that choir myself!’

  ‘You would?’ Nan laughed, but in a not unfriendly way since Amanda had contrived to put Miss Orton in her place in the nicest way possible. ‘But have you got anything much of a voice?’

  ‘Oh—well, I always warbled in the school choir, you know,’ Amanda replied a trifle disingenuously. ‘And I sometimes got a few solo lines.’

  ‘I doubt,’ observed Miss Orton majestically, ‘if Dr Elsworth would be much interested in school choir warblers.’

  ‘On the contrary, he might be glad to import a fresh young voice,’ Nan remarked briskly. ‘Most choirs tend to run a pretty high average age, don’t they? I should go along and enquire, Amanda, if I were you. It could be rather fun for you. And goodness knows, you work hard enough here to merit some relaxation sometimes.’

  So there it was! handed to her on a silver plate, by no less a person than Nan herself.

  Amanda reflected on that fact with a sense of almost superstitious awe. And a few days later she said, ‘You know, Nan, Austin Parva is only twenty minutes’ run from where I’m going to order the honey. I think I will go and see if I can find this Dr Elsworth they talk about. I always enjoyed choir singing at school and I quite like the idea of joining a good church choir.’

  ‘Do,’ replied Nan absently, for she was busily checking the contents of her store cupboard. ‘You can but get a refusal. And if you were by any chance accepted it would be one in the eye for Miss Orton, which is quite a pleasant thought.’

  Amanda laughed, made a cheerful thumbs-up sign, and mounted her bicycle with an air of setting off on a fairly unimportant quest instead of something which now made her heart beat with some excitement. During the ride she had time to experience several variations in the level of her hopes and expectations and, by the time she had dealt with the matter of the honey and gone on her way again, she had almost reached the point of deciding that she was wasting her time and entertaining inflated ideas about herself.

  But as she rode into the delightful village of Austin Parva she told herself there was no harm in trying. And anyway, what was that bit about responding to a challenge?

  There was no difficulty in identifying the church since it was the only one in the place—a beautiful late Norman structure of surprising size for such a comparatively small place. Amanda propped her bicycle against the churchyard wall and surveyed the scene with the pleased eye of a natural artist, and as she did so she became aware of the strains of an organ being played in the church.

  It was almost like a stage cue. So she went slowly up the path to the deep porch, lifted the heavy latch of the door and, pushing open the door, stepped inside the church. Immediately she seemed surrounded by music. ‘It was all round me and at the back of my neck as well,’ she told Nan afterwards. ‘My word, could that man play!’

  Fascinated, she remained standing where she was, just inside the door, afraid that any movement or footstep of hers might disturb whoever was playing. The music was slightly familiar to her. Mozart, she decided. And then she recognised it for the beautiful ‘Exsultate Jubilate’, and at once a rising tide of excitement swamped her. It was, if she was not mistaken, the penultimate section, and must inevitably, if the player continued, end with the magnificent ‘Alleluia’. If he did continue——

  She took one or two deep, excited breaths and then, as the first note of the ‘Alleluia’ sounded she joined in, with a precision of ‘attack’ which even Miss Egerton would have approved.

  The organist must have been startled, for there was the slightest hesitation in the rhythm of his playing, but then he went on. And Amanda went on singing. The most extraordinary feeling of elation took hold of her. She had never before sung in a place with such magnificent acoustics, and never before had she experienced this kind of support from a fellow performer. In some inexplicable way, it was like flying, and the sense of release and triumph which this gave her imparted just the right note of rapture to her singing.

  So enthralled was she that when the music ceased she actually shook herself slightly, as though waking to reality again from a half-trance. At the same time a man’s voice spoke with great clarity and some authority, and what he said was,

  ‘You’d better come here and tell me who you are and where you learned to sing like that.’

  Amanda came down the centre aisle then and, as she did so, a man got up from the organ bench and came down the few steps to her level. He was, she realised with surprise, quite young. Somehow she had visualised a Dr Elsworth who was a church organist and choirmaster as a rather venerable gentleman. He was not at all venerable. He was rather slightly built, had a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles pushed up on to his forehead and regarded her with an air of nervous attention which might have been shyness or short-sightedness, she decided.

  ‘My name is Amanda Lovett,’ she explained with a smile. ‘Jerome Leydon told me about you and suggested I should come and see you, as I live near here. He thought I had quite—quite a respectable sort of voice and that you might be willing to let me join your choir.’

  To her chagrin, he laughed unexpectedly at that, and she braced herself to receive what she thought was to be a scornful refusal. Nothing of the kind happened, however. What he said was, ‘You can certainly join the choir—without further audition. But I must say that “respectable” is the last word I would have applied to that voice. “Seductive” would be more accurate.’

  ‘I—beg your pardon!’ Amanda drew herself up and gave this extraordinary choirmaster the chilliest glance she could achieve. ‘I’m not that sort of girl at all.’ And she turned away
.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said the authoritative voice behind her. ‘It doesn’t matter in the least what sort of girl you are. Nothing could be more boring or off the point. It’s the voice I’m talking about. It has a most unusual quality. Where did you say you were trained?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ replied Amanda, now beginning to feel rather silly. ‘I haven’t had any formal training, except in choir singing at school. Our teacher, Miss Egerton——’

  Again he stopped her with that unexpected laugh.

  ‘Good lord! Are you telling me that voice is the product of a schoolmistress and a girls’ school choir? How intriguing!—Sit down——’ he indicated the front pew beside which they were standing, and Amanda sank down on to the carved wooden seat and looked up enquiringly at the man who stood before her.

  ‘Well, let’s see what you’re really like.’ He brought down his spectacles from his forehead and this immediately imparted to him an air of authority to match his voice. At the same time, his look was not at all offensive—just a sort of general summing up, as though the girl in front of him were some sort of proposition he would have to assess.

  Most men would have found Amanda an attractive proposition, it must be said, for she was one of those fortunate people gifted with very dark eyes but very fair skin and hair. No dazzled smile, however, greeted his closer view of her.

  ‘You look healthy,’ he observed, rather as a vet might comment on a horse whose teeth he was examining.

  ‘Well, I am—if that’s important,’ Amanda retorted crisply.

  ‘It’s of paramount importance,’ he replied, unruffled. ‘The degree of stamina and vitality required by a singer is comparable to that required by a first class boxer.’

  ‘You’re speaking of a professional singer, of course?’

  ‘Of what else were we talking? And what would you mean by an unprofessional singer, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Well—’ she was slightly confused by this challenge—‘I suppose I was thinking in terms of an amateur singer. One who——’

  ‘I’m not interested in amateur singers,’ he interrupted coldly. ‘Every member of my choir is expected to work with the devotion and application of someone who regards singing as a professional job. There’s no room for anyone who’s just playing at it. That’s why I get results.’

  ‘I see.’ Amanda spoke more meekly than she had intended. ‘Then I doubt if I’m going to be of much use to you. Not because I’m not sufficiently interested and not because I disagree with anything you’ve said. But it’s just a matter of the sheer time available.’

  ‘What do you do with your evenings?’ he enquired. ‘Waste them with some silly young attachment who wants all your spare time and isn’t even serious?’ He glanced disparagingly at her bare left hand and then back at her face.

  ‘No. I have no attachment, as it happens, either silly or otherwise. But I work in the small family hotel which belongs to my brother and sister-in-law, and evenings are our busy times. Sundays are an exception. That’s why I thought I might be all right in a church choir. And I could certainly get away on one other evening a week—when I suppose you have choir practice.’

  ‘What about lessons?’

  ‘Lessons?’

  ‘Individual lessons,’ he amplified a trifle impatiently. ‘You’re going to need those if you’re to develop your full potential. What else did you think?’

  She had not, of course, really thought anything else at all. She had just wanted to sing. How far she might follow through from there she had no idea at the moment.

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it in detail,’ she confessed. ‘I just thought of joining a choir, and when I was at school——’

  ‘Well, you’re not at school now!’ he almost shouted at her. ‘Stop talking like a child.’ And he swung from her to take two or three impatient steps before he turned and came back to her. ‘Listen, I’m not going to give you an inflated idea of yourself. You have a very good voice, if I’m not much mistaken, and quite a lot of natural talent—which happens sometimes. But none of that is worth anything unless you’re prepared to work. I’d like to hear you in something else before I say more. Do you sing anything operatic?’

  Amanda shook her head doubtfully, and then said hesitantly, ‘Would you call “Divinités du Styx” from Gluck’s Alceste operatic?’

  ‘I would,’ he replied grimly, and his withering glance informed her that she had made another bad slip by even querying such a thing. ‘Do you sing it in the original key?’

  ‘Yes,’ she stated boldly, having no idea whether she did or not, but determined not to show any further indecision.

  ‘Come and stand over here.’

  She followed him until she stood quite near the organ, when he imperiously waved her a little further off and said, ‘You can give the climax all the power you’ve got. I’d like to hear the actual size of the voice.’

  With nervous haste Amanda mentally reviewed the aria, trying to decide exactly where the climax came. Then, just as though someone had literally prompted her, she thought, ‘She’s imploring the gods of the underworld to restore the man she loves. The music grows quite naturally with the strength of her appeal.’

  There was something strange and awesome about standing there in a church built hundreds of years ago to the glory of God, and singing an impassioned appeal to the pagan gods of the underworld. On the one hand a tremendous depth of feeling, on the other the cool classical line of the music. She forgot about Dr Elsworth or what he might have ultimately to say about her voice. She was one with the loving woman she was portraying.

  But she remembered him as she finished the aria and turned round quickly to look at him. He was still sitting at the organ, but he had turned to regard her with a sort of amused incredulity.

  ‘Out of a girls’ school choir!’ he said, as though commenting to someone other than Amanda herself. ‘Well, we’ll have to see what we can do with that voice. It’s much too good to go to waste. You’ll have to explain to your brother and sister-in-law that——’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t tell them about it!’ Amanda insisted in some agitation. ‘At least, not her.’

  ‘Why not?’ He sounded as though he were preserving his patience with some difficulty.

  ‘Well, you see——’ with great earnestness and in some detail Amanda explained about Nan and her early ambitions. She thought he was listening with some sympathy, but at the end he said,

  ‘It seems a great lot of nonsense to me.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not! It’s a question of people’s happiness. The happiness of people I’m very fond of, incidentally. It would kill Nan to have someone right in the family succeed where she’d failed through no fault of her own.’

  ‘People aren’t killed so easily,’ he replied callously. ‘And don’t talk so confidently of your success. You haven’t even started. However, we’ll take this silly family secret into consideration if you think it important. Now, how much time would you be able to devote to all this? You say you can get away on Sundays and one other evening. Wednesday evening is when we have choir practice. If you were vague at home about the actual timetable, you could get in one lesson before the choir practice, and another one some time on Sunday, either before or after evening service. How about home practising?’

  ‘I could manage fairly well.’ Insensibly she found herself falling in with his imperious calculations. ‘Nan’s piano is stored away in one of the unused rooms of the house. A remote room, as it happens. I think—’ her voice dropped a compassionate note or two—‘she just couldn’t bear to have it around.’

  ‘Very likely,’ he agreed with shocking indifference. ‘Well, that’s fortunate. The arrangements aren’t ideal, but we might try them for six months and see how you get on.’

  ‘There’s just one other thing!’ Amanda blushed furiously as she remembered an absolute essential which had not yet been discussed. ‘I don’t know whether I have enough—I mean, would the lessons be very expensive?�
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  ‘No. They would be free.’

  ‘Free? Oh, but I couldn’t allow that! You don’t even know me. It—it would be a sort of imposition.’

  ‘Not since I do it by my own choice. And I assure you that if I find at the end of six months that you’re not worthy of my teaching or time, I shall have no hesitation in terminating the arrangement.’

  ‘Then it’s—an experiment?’ She smiled slowly and, though she did not know it, very beautifully. For gradually it was dawning on her that perhaps dreams did sometimes come true.

  ‘It’s an experiment,’ he confirmed. ‘For six months only. And then we will review the position in the light of your progress—or lack of it.’ Then he added briskly, ‘Today is Monday. I’ll expect you in the church schoolroom next door at five o’clock on Wednesday. Without fail.’

  ‘Without fail,’ she promised him jubilantly.

  And all the way home, as she bowled along on her bicycle, she kept repeating to herself, ‘Without fail—without fail.’ As though, in some magical way, that would ensure the success of this most romantic venture.

  To her relief, explanations at home proved to be a good deal easier than she had anticipated. Nan seemed amused rather than curious when Amanda explained that Dr Elsworth had somewhat informally auditioned her and decided that she was acceptable in his choir. And even over the matter of arranging the times when Amanda could be missing, Nan just said, ‘You are taking it all very seriously, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, he seems pretty strict,’ Amanda replied. ‘He implied that it was something of an honour to be accepted and that he expected people to toe the line.—His line.’

  ‘We must let Miss Orton know presently,’ observed Nan with some satisfaction. And that was all.

  So the six months’ trial began the following Wednesday, with a rather painful first lesson during which Amanda was given to understand that she had almost everything to learn. But even on that first harrowing occasion she already had some inkling of the sheer fascination of the struggle to perfect any form of art. As a teacher Dr Elsworth was not conspicuous for his patience. But what he did have was a talent, amounting almost to genius, for explaining exactly what he wanted and, provided one were musically intelligent, how this might be achieved.