Music from the Heart Read online

  They stopped for luncheon at a country inn with the inevitable village green in front of it and a duck pond where there were no ducks.

  Fortunately the innkeeper was wise enough not to try fancy dishes for his customers, but produced a home-cured ham and a local cheese, which to Ilouka was for more palatable than anything more pretentious but badly cooked.

  She accepted a glass of home-made cider with her meal, but Hannah insisted on having tea because the water was boiled.

  As Hannah was so disapproving and critical of everything, Ilouka could not help wishing that she was with someone young who she could laugh with or, better still her mother, who when they were alone invariably saw the funny side of everything.

  She planned that when she was at Stone House with her stepfather’s sister, whom she had been told to call ‘Aunt Agatha’, she would write to her mother every day, making it like a diary and trying to find things to tell her that would sound amusing.

  ‘It is going to be difficult,’ Ilouka thought with a wry smile, knowing that at Stone House the days followed one another with monotonous regularity and usually nothing happened that was worth recalling.

  They stopped at a market town where the other occupants of the coach alighted and two newcomers came to join Ilouka and Hannah. They were certainly more interesting than any of the passengers who had been in the coach before.

  The man was elderly, but he had about him a certain raffish air, which for the moment Ilouka could not recognise.

  He was obviously not rich, although his clothes were smartly cut and his overcoat, which he carried over his arm, had a velvet collar.

  At first she thought it strange that he should be travelling by coach. Then because she was observant she saw that his shoes, although highly polished, were worn and the white cuffs at his wrists were frayed at the edges.

  After she had looked at the woman who accompanied him, she decided that they were probably an actor and actress.

  The woman was small and very attractive with dark hair and flashing eyes made larger by the application of mascara on her eyelashes.

  Her lips were crimson and Ilouka knew by the way Hannah’s back became as stiff as a ramrod that she disapproved and she turned her face to look out the window.

  As she and Hannah were now sitting on the seat of the coach that faced forward, the newcomers took possession of the seats opposite them with their backs to the horses.

  As the coach began to move off again, the actress, speaking for the first time, announced,

  “Well, thank the Lord we can rest our legs and I personally am going to put mine up!”

  As she spoke, she seated herself sideways in her corner and put her legs up on her seat.

  The man to whom she addressed her remark smiled at her.

  “I think you’re wise,” he said. “You don’t want to feel tired before you dance, although we’ll have a night’s rest before we get there tomorrow.”

  “In what sort of place?” the woman asked disparagingly.

  “I hope it’ll not be too uncomfortable,” the man said apologetically, “but we’ll certainly be in luxury tomorrow night.”

  The way he spoke with an unexpected lilt in his voice told Ilouka that he was looking forward to tomorrow and it meant something very special to him.

  She wondered where they were going and longed to ask them if they were in fact on the stage.

  Then the man who was sitting opposite her looked at her for the first time and she saw the expression of astonishment in his eyes.

  It was something that often happened when men looked at her and, as it always made her shy, she turned her face to look out the window at the passing countryside.

  But she was well aware that the man was still staring at her and they had not gone far before he said and Ilouka was certain that it was merely an excuse to speak to her,

  “Excuse me, madam, but would you allow me to open the window a little?”

  His voice was deep, somehow melodious and also surprisingly well educated.

  “Yes, of course,” Ilouka replied. “It has grown much hotter this afternoon and it will be nice to have some air.”

  “Thank you.”

  He started to let down the window with difficulty because the sash was old, the leather that held it in place was worn and it was quite hard to fix it in place on the hooks provided.

  Finally he achieved it and, when he had finished, the actress piped up,

  “I hope there’s not goin’ to be a draught. I don’t want to have a sore throat by tomorrow mornin’.”

  “If it is too draughty for you,” the elderly actor replied courteously, “I will, of course, close it again.”

  “Oh, leave it for the moment.”

  The man settled himself back in his seat facing Ilouka.

  “I’m afraid this coach is very slow,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for it for over an hour.”

  “The horses are tired,” Ilouka replied. “They have come a long way, poor things.”

  “I feel sorry for them too,” the actor agreed, “but at least this coach isn’t over-laden, although I should have thought it was too heavy a vehicle for only two horses.”

  Hannah fidgeted ostentatiously and Ilouka knew that she was annoyed that she should be talking to a stranger, but was not quite certain how she could end the conversation.

  Because she thought it tiresome that Hannah should be so unfriendly, she commented,

  “It always distresses me to see how stagecoaches, wherever they are travelling, usually carry far too many people and too much baggage for the horses that have to pull them. In fact I have heard that the life of a horse drawing a stagecoach is little more than three years!”

  “I do agree with you, madam, it is disgraceful!” replied the man. “And, even though the service in most cases is lamentable, they still charge far too much for the fares.”

  “I told you we should have gone by Post-chaise,” the young woman he was with said petulantly. “I can feel my bones rattlin’ every time the wheels turn in this ramshackle old wheelbarrow!”

  Ilouka laughed because the way she spoke was so funny and it flashed through her mind that this would certainly be a conversation to relate to her mother.

  As if she felt obliged to intervene, Hannah suggested,

  “As we’ve still a long way to go, Miss Ilouka, I suggest you close your eyes and rest. Otherwise, when we do get to the place we’re stayin’, you’ll be too tired to sleep.”

  Ilouka smiled at her.

  She was fully aware that Hannah was trying her best to prevent her from talking to the man opposite, but she had no intention of being forced into silence until she had found out a little more about him.

  “Will you tell me, sir,” she asked, “where you are going?”

  “We’re on our way, Miss Ganymede and I, to stay with the Earl of Lavenham.”

  He spoke the name with a flourish as if he bowed while he did so.

  “That’s if we ever get there,” Miss Ganymede remarked. “And by the time we do I’ll be rattled to bits, so it’s very unlikely I’ll be able to walk let alone dance!”

  “Are you a dancer?” Ilouka asked eagerly.

  “I hope that’s obvious,” Miss Ganymede replied, “but you tell her, D’Arcy.”

  “Of course,” the man answered. “Let me introduce myself, madam, my name is D’Arcy Archer, at your service, and the lady beside me is Miss Lucille Ganymede from The Royal Olympic Theatre in London.”

  “How exciting!” Ilouka exclaimed. “I have heard of The Royal Olympic Theatre. In fact I read in one of the newspapers that they were performing a play called Mary, Queen of Scots and I longed to see it.”

  “That’s indeed correct, madam,” Mr. Archer replied. “You are very well informed.”

  “Was the play successful?” Ilouka asked.

  Mr. Archer gave what sounded like a theatrical laugh.

  “One of the newspapers said last week that Wych Street, where The Royal Olympi
a Theatre is situated, should henceforth be called ‘Witch Street’, for great is the enchantment of Vestris and Foote.”

  He looked up to see if she understood and, in case she did not, he explained,

  “Madame Vestris, who you must have heard of, is the owner of The Royal Olympic Theatre and Miss Foote, a great actress, plays the part of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.”

  “I have heard of Madame Vestris,” Ilouka replied.

  As she said the name, she remembered that her mother had in fact been shocked by the publicity that Madame Vestris had acquired by appearing on the stage in plays in which she played the part of a man and showed her legs.

  Thinking back, Ilouka could remember how the newspapers had been full of the part she played first in a play called Giovanni in London.

  Then she had worn breeches and, although Ilouka had been very young at the time, she could remember her mother saying that it was outrageous and improper and she was only astonished that anybody would go to see such a play.

  Her father, however, had laughed.

  “It is not the play they go to see, my darling,” he had said, “but Lucy Vestris’s extremely shapely legs!”

  “Really,” Mrs. Compton had exclaimed. “While I am certain that the theatre is full of men, no lady could be expected to watch such an immodest exhibition!”

  Her father had laughed again, but because it had intrigued Ilouka to think of a woman showing off her legs, she had for the next few years read all the notices that appeared about Madame Vestris in The Beggar's Opera, The Duenna and Artaxerxes, where once again her legs were very much in prominence.

  Because she knew it shocked her mother, she did not mention Madame Vestris to her, but some years later when she was with her father she asked him,

  “Have you ever seen this Madame Vestris, Papa, about whom the newspapers are always writing?”

  “She is a very attractive woman,” her father had answered, “but whether I was interested in her or not, she would be far too expensive for me.”

  He spoke without thinking, saw the puzzled expression on his daughter’s face and said quickly,

  “Forget I said that. Your mother would not approve. What I was meaning was that the bucks and beaux of St. James’s smother her with flowers and the presents she receives are worth a very large sum of money.”

  After that Ilouka had watched the newspapers to learn more about Madame Vestris.

  Three years ago she had seen sketches of her as ‘John of Paris’ in skirts way above the knees and, as ‘Captain Macheath’ dressed completely as a man in close-fitting pantaloons, a high cravat and a top hat on her head.

  After her father’s death, when her mother and she had moved to Sir James’s large and comfortable house, Ilouka had really forgotten Madame Vestris and the theatres in London that she had often talked to her father about.

  Now she found it absorbing to be actually speaking to a real actor and an actress.

  Because she was curious she asked,

  “And do you also perform at the Royal Olympic Theatre, Mr. Archer?”

  “Alas, I have not had that privilege,” he replied, “but Miss Ganymede and I are on our way to give a private performance for the Earl of Lavenham and his friends and I don’t think his Lordship’ll be disappointed.”

  As he spoke, he looked towards Miss Ganymede and said,

  “I do know, Lucille, that his Lordship will appreciate the way you’ll imitate Madame Vestris.”

  “I should jolly well hope so,” Miss Ganymede replied, “seein’ the long way we’ve had to come to show what we can do.”

  Ilouka noticed that, while Mr. Archer’s voice was cultivated, Miss Ganymede’s had a common accent.

  As if she wished to assert herself and so prevent Mr. Archer from concentrating all his attention on Ilouka, she complained,

  “I can feel a draught! For God’s sake shut the window or I’ll be hoarse tomorrow night and unable to sing a note.”

  “Yes, of course, I’ll close it at once,” Mr. Archer offered.

  He bent forward and lifted the strap, but it was even more difficult to close the window than it had been to open it.

  After a short struggle he put his top hat down on the seat beside him and rose to his feet.

  He gave the leather strap a mighty tug and it came away in his hand, with the result that instead of closing it, the window slithered down and disappeared below the sill.

  “Now see what you’ve done!” Miss Ganymede exclaimed.

  “I’m sorry” Mr. Archer murmured, “but the strap is rotten, although I daresay I can raise the window without it.”

  He started to try to pull the glass up from where it had settled deep inside the door.

  As he did so the stagecoach turned a corner sharply and lurched so that Mr. Archer had to hold on to the window with both hands.

  There was a shout from the coachman as he pulled his horses in and the coach came suddenly to a halt.

  It shook everybody inside so that Miss Ganymede gave a little scream and Hannah, looking down her nose, said harshly,

  “This is disgraceful! What’s happenin’?”

  The shouting outside went on although they could not hear what was said, but, as the window was down, Mr. Archer put his hand outside, opened the door and stepped out into the road.

  He stood staring ahead and then gave a sudden cry and came to the open door of the coach to shout,

  “Get out! Get out quickly!”

  Because Ilouka was nearest to him, he took her hand in his and pulled her forward out of the coach.

  Even as she reached the road, wondering what on earth could be going on, the coach in which they had been travelling swayed for just a moment and then fell sideways at a strange angle.

  As it did so, the coachman threw down the reins and jumped from the box and, as Ilouka looked on in horror, the whole coach, with the horses plunging to save themselves, turned over, falling over the side of the road and a second later disappearing out of sight.

  For a moment Ilouka could not believe that it was not some figment of her imagination.

  Yet the coach had gone and she realised that she, Mr. Archer and the coachman were standing on the road, which ended abruptly about two feet away from them.

  As she stepped forward to see what had happened, she could see the coach lying upside-down about twelve feet below amongst the debris of the road on which there had apparently been a landslide.

  The horses were lying on their backs, their legs in the air, and neighing with fear and she could see the guard, who had been thrown clear in the fall, struggling to his feet and going towards the terrified animals.

  Then, as the coachman began to descend to where the coach was lying, Ilouka was aware that she was still holding on tightly to Mr. Archer’s hand.

  “We must – help the – others,” she gasped.

  “Wait a minute,” he replied, “I’m sure that even in this isolated spot help’ll come from somewhere.”

  He looked over his shoulder in the direction that they had come from.

  Sure enough, there were two men, obviously farm labourers, running towards them.

  “How can – this have happened?” Ilouka asked. “Surely if the road had subsided they should have – prevented us from – coming this way?”

  “It may only just have occurred,” Mr. Archer replied.

  Ilouka thought that this was more than likely, but for the moment she could think only of Hannah trapped in the fallen vehicle and was at a loss as to what she could do about it.

  She went to the edge of the road, saying,

  “I think, Mr. Archer, we should climb down.”

  But he held her back,

  “Be careful! I doubt if it’d be possible to release the two women inside the coach until there’re enough men to lift it.”

  The coachman and the guard were struggling with the horses, which were terrified to the point where it was difficult to go near them.

  Then, almost by magic,
people began to arrive at the scene seemingly from nowhere.

  Later Ilouka felt that they must have been working in the fields or perhaps the people in the village that they had passed through instinctively became aware of the tragedy that had happened down the road.

  Anyway there were men attempting to raise the coach, men trying to release the horses and others who carried the trunks and other pieces of luggage that had been stacked on the roof up onto the road.

  “Now you sit down, dearie, there’s nought you can do by goin’ down there,” a motherly old woman said to Ilouka when she tried to climb down the bank to where the coach lay.

  “I must see to my maid,” she answered. “She is trapped inside!”

  “You can’t do no good,” the woman replied. “Now sit you down! It’s hard I knows, but women only gets in the way at times like this.”

  Ilouka was obliged to admit that she was right, although she kept rising from the trunk on which she was seated to try to see what was happening below.

  She could see that the men were having considerable difficulty in moving the coach that seemed to have become embedded in two or three feet of mud.

  It seemed to her that the methods by which they were working were uncoordinated and, while they kept shouting instructions to one another, nobody appeared to obey them.

  Finally, after what had seemed to Ilouka hours of anxiety when all she could think of was that Hannah must be suffering and was probably injured by the fall, the Vicar came to her side.

  “I have been told that you are travelling with your maid, who is an elderly woman,” he said.

  “Is she all right?” Ilouka asked quickly.

  “I am sorry to have to inform you that she is dead,” the Vicar replied quietly. “And so is the other lady in the coach.”

  *

  Ilouka sat in the shabby sitting room in the Vicarage with Mr. Archer.

  She was trying to realise that she would never see poor Hannah again and never hear her sharp disapproving comments, which more often than not had amused her because they were so characteristic of Hannah herself.

  The Vicar’s housekeeper had given her and Mr. Archer cups of tea and sandwiches, which Ilouka had eaten mechanically without tasting them.