Music from the Heart Page 6

  Ilouka laughed.

  “That would hardly be polite to our host and anything less like Hades than this lovely beautiful house I could not imagine.”

  She spoke lightly and she did not see the expression of apprehension in D’Arcy Archer’s eyes, almost as if he was afraid for her in a way that he had no wish to express.

  *

  Ilouka was in bed and almost asleep when she heard an authoritative voice speaking to Mr. Archer in the sitting room

  At first it was just a sound that seemed to mingle with her thoughts, which had almost become dreams.

  Then it became real and she was aware of it and was sure that their host had returned and was doubtless giving Mr. Archer his instructions for the evening.

  As she listened to it, she thought that the voice was exactly what she had expected from what she had heard about the Earl of Lavenham, clear and authoritative and yet cold, distant and undoubtedly condescending as he spoke to an inferior.

  ‘I suppose,’ she thought, ‘that, with all his possessions and the adoration he receives as a sportsman and with those beautiful women running after him, he is abominably conceited.’

  She did not know quite why, but she felt at that moment almost hostile towards the Earl, although she had never seen him before.

  It was as if she was really a poor aspiring actress hoping by his patronage to further her career and, just like Mr. Archer, praying that the Earl’s approval would somehow change her whole future.

  After her father’s death, Ilouka had known just what it was like to be very poor and be frightened of being entirely without money, so she had a kindred feeling for anybody in the same position.

  She could hear Mr. Archer’s voice and, although she could not hear what he was saying, she was aware that he was being humble and ingratiating.

  It was almost as if he went down on his knees in front of the Earl.

  ‘It is wrong,’ she thought, ‘that one man should have so much and others so little and I doubt if he has any sympathy for the underdog.’

  She told herself again that she would do everything in her power to make the Earl help Mr. Archer and wondered if it would be possible to speak to him alone while she was staying here.

  But she expected that, when they had finished their act, they would next merely leave the dining room or wherever they were performing and in the morning be then sent away like unwanted baggage and never thought of again.

  Then there was silence in the next room and she knew that the Earl had left.

  ‘He has given his orders,’ she thought, ‘and all we have to do now is to obey them to the letter!’

  Because she was so tired she fell instantly into a deep sleep.

  *

  Waiting behind the curtains that separated the main dining room from the dais on which they were to perform, Ilouka could hear the voices and the laughter of the guests the Earl was entertaining.

  She was also vividly aware how nervous Mr. Archer was and she thought with a smile of amusement that he might be the amateur and she the professional.

  She was not at all worried for herself because she knew that, if the Earl’s guests did not appreciate her, it would not matter in the least to her and only Mr. Archer would suffer.

  She really wanted to give a good performance for his sake and, because she had already conceived what was almost a dislike of their host, she longed to make him realise that he was not omnipotent. At the same time she was being needlessly critical when it would have been impossible to find fault with the way that they had been treated so far.

  Although Ilouka was aware that the rooms that they had been given were certainly not the best available in the house, they were nevertheless very comfortable and the piano had been provided especially for them.

  The meal that had been served in their sitting room, at the same time as the Earl and his guests dined downstairs, was excellent and there was a bottle of wine, that D’Arcy Archer enjoyed, although Ilouka preferred lemonade.

  All the time she knew that within her there was a growing resentment at finding herself in an inferior position, which was something that she had never known before in her life.

  Mockingly she told herself that it was a salutary experience that she should never forget.

  However there was nothing she could put her hand on positively that brought it home to her vividly.

  It was just the Earl’s tone of voice when he was speaking to Mr. Archer and the way they were served dinner that, although correct, made Ilouka feel that the footmen, rather like the housemaids, were regarding them with curiosity rather than respect.

  Then there was the house itself.

  As they walked through it on their way to the dining room, Ilouka had a glimpse of a huge salon lit with crystal chandeliers and saw a unique collection of paintings and fabulous furniture.

  As she peeped surreptitiously through the curtains into the dining room, she told herself again that the Earl owned too much.

  She was gazing at his many possessions when she saw him.

  He was sitting at the end of a long table, which, in the fashion set by King George IV, was polished and without a tablecloth and on it were ornaments of silver and gold, which were breath-taking.

  After a quick glance at them, Ilouka found herself looking at the man who sat at the far end in a high-backed armchair and knew that the Earl was exactly as she had expected him to be.

  His friends whom he was now entertaining and there were twenty or more, all men, were laughing uproariously and enjoying themselves with an exuberance that she thought must have come after a good day’s racing.

  But she felt that the Earl in contrast looked supercilious and almost bored.

  He was better-looking than she had expected with straight classical features, hair swept back from a high forehead and even at a distance she thought that in his evening clothes with a high cravat round his long neck he was magnificent.

  He gave the distinct impression of sitting aloof on a pinnacle of his own making and with no intention of stepping down from it to mix with the common herd.

  ‘He is too proud and too puffed up with his own importance,’ she thought.

  She pulled the curtain to in case he should be aware that there was someone peeping at him.

  The small stage or dais on which they were to perform stood between two pillars in the dining room and Ilouka thought it was probably used on other occasions by a band or perhaps quite frequently for entertainment such as they were to provide tonight.

  The piano, D’Arcy Archer found with satisfaction, was an excellent one and there were several lamps on the edge of the dais to act as footlights.

  After due consideration as to what she should wear, Ilouka had chosen what she thought was one of her prettier gowns that her mother had bought for her to wear at smart parties or a ball.

  It was not white, which would have been conventional for a young debutante, but very pale green with a full skirt that billowed out from a tiny waist and with puffed sleeves of the same material.

  The décolletage displayed Ilouka’s white skin, which her father had said had a magnolia-like quality about it.

  The only ornamentation that she wore was round her neck was a little cameo set with tiny diamonds that was hung on a ribbon of the same colour as her gown.

  She had taken a great deal of trouble in arranging her hair in a more elaborate manner than her mother felt was correct for a young girl. Because she had long hair and the colour of it shone in the light, she arranged it in curls at the back of her head so as to make her look, in her own eyes at any rate, very theatrical.

  It most certainly framed her small heart-shaped face and because, despite her resolution to remain calm, she was excited and her eyes seemed enormous. They had little glints of gold in the green of them, which made anyone who looked at her find it hard to look away.

  As a concession to her theatrical appearance, she had tied ribbons of the same colour round her wrists and added to each one
a small white rose that actually belonged to another gown.

  At the last moment she placed two of the same roses on top of her head and knew that they gave her the spring-like look of Persephone that Mr. Archer had envisaged.

  When she had gone into the sitting room where he was waiting for her, he stared at her for a long moment before he said,

  “You look exactly as I hoped you would and there is nothing more I can add to that.”

  “Thank you,” Ilouka replied. “I am only afraid that I may let you down.”

  “I think that is impossible. We shall know by the end of the evening whether we are a success or a failure, but I am quite certain that ‘failure’ is a word that we need not include in our vocabulary.”

  Ilouka smiled.

  “Papa always said that if you want to win the race you must believe yourself the winner.”

  “And that is what we must do,” he said. “Now come, it is time we went downstairs, but before we do so, let me thank you once again for coming to my rescue.”

  He took her hand in his and kissed it with a theatrical gesture that made Ilouka want to laugh.

  Instead she accepted his tribute gracefully and they walked down the Grand Staircase side by side while the footmen in the hall watched them appreciatively.

  When they were shown into the back of the dining room and heard the noise made by the diners, Ilouka wondered how it would be possible for them to hold the attention of the Earl and his sophisticated friends.

  She thought it would be extremely humiliating to their self-esteem if they were either ignored or hissed off the stage.

  Then she knew that, even if they were not interested in her personally, it did not matter and only Mr. Archer would suffer.

  ‘I will do my best for his sake,’ she thought. ‘Then it is in the lap of the Gods.’

  She knew that the dinner was coming to an end when the port had been taken round the table and decanters and others filled with brandy were set in front of the Earl.

  He raised his voice and Ilouka heard him say,

  “Now, gentlemen, there will be a short entertainment to amuse you and tonight it will be something that has not appeared here before.”

  “You are making me curious, Vincent,” one of the Earl’s guests remarked.

  “Then I will reveal my surprise,” the Earl replied. “I am sure all of you know Madame Vestris!”

  There was a murmur of assent and approval before the Earl went on,

  “Madame unfortunately could not come to us this evening, but we have in her place her understudy and one who I am told is as attractive and redoubtable as Lucy herself and, dare I say it, somewhat younger in years!”

  There was laughter at this and the Earl went on,

  “Madame has captured the hearts of far more of us than I wish to disclose. Let’s hope that her understudy will now prove to be another Lucy as she was when she first captivated, entranced and undoubtedly scandalised the Beau Monde eleven years ago.”

  There was more laughter and one or two men clapped their hands.

  Then, as if this was his signal to begin, D’Arcy Archer started to play the lilting gay tune that he had described to Ilouka.

  Hidden behind the curtains, she now heard the hush from the dining room as the music started.

  Then, as Mr. Archer burst into song, she now realised that he had a deep baritone voice, which had, however, deteriorated rather with age, although his enunciation made it easy to hear every word that he was singing.

  She realised from the laughter that he evoked with almost every line that the song was appreciated by those listening to it.

  At the same time she found it hard to understand.

  She told herself there must be a double entendre of some sort because a quite simple phrase had those listening laughing uproariously.

  After a number or two she ceased to listen and, moving to her peephole in the curtains, she looked through it to discover the Earl’s reaction.

  As she had somehow expected, he was not laughing. Instead she thought that there was a faintly contemptuous smile on his face which annoyed her.

  As he leant back in his chair, very much at his ease with a glass of what she thought must be brandy in his hand, she had the idea that, while his friends had all eaten and drunk well, he had been abstemious.

  She might well have been wrong, but while their faces were flushed and in some cases riotously red, the Earl looked cool and athletic and the jokes, if that was what they were in the song, did not make him laugh.

  ‘Perhaps he will recommend Mr. Archer even though he personally is not very impressed with him,’ Ilouka hoped.

  She had a feeling that he was far from impressed and told herself that, if Mr. Archer could not please the Earl, she must certainly do so.

  When his song finally came to an end, D’Arcy Archer told two or three jokes, which again Ilouka did not understand and now she realised that at any moment it would be her turn.

  She had an uncomfortable feeling that everything depended on her being a success.

  The laughter died away as D’Arcy Archer said,

  “And next, my Lords and gentlemen, I now have the privilege of introducing a lady who, when you do see her, you will agree is like a nymph rising from the lake below the house or perhaps a sprite who has crept in from the woods that surround us, or much more likely, just a Goddess who has stepped down from Mount Olympus because she wishes to bemuse and bewitch the human race. Yes, that is right! It is a Goddess who I have here and therefore, gentlemen, let me present to you the Goddess Ilouka, here in person for one performance and one only before she returns to the place from whence she came.”

  It was all very dramatic and it took Ilouka by surprise that he should call her by her own name, but she was glad that she was not having to impersonate somebody who was dead.

  Then, as D’Arcy Archer returned to sit down at the piano and played the first chords of The Mountain Maid, she came slowly and gracefully onto the dais to stand in the centre of it.

  Just for a moment she felt as if her voice had gone, then, as if she was drawn to him like a magnet, she looked towards the Earl.

  As the words of the ballad rang out in her very musical voice, which, although she had no idea of it, had an almost hypnotic quality about it, she sang to him and to him alone.

  She noticed that he was watching her and, while he leant back in his chair, apparently uninterested, she was sure that she held him with the vibrations of life flowing towards him from within herself with a magnetism that she forced him to acknowledge.

  When the ballad had finished, she made a little curtsey and the applause from the Earl’s guests was unanimous and noisy.

  The Earl did not clap, but his eyes were still on her face and Ilouka had the idea that, although he would not show it, he had thought that her performance was good.

  D’Arcy Archer was already playing the gypsy music they had chosen for her to dance to and she stood very still, drawing in her breath, trying now to think not of the Earl but of the music itself so that it should inspire her.

  Almost like a picture right in front of her eyes, she could see the Hungarian Steppes as she envisaged them, the high mountains in the far distance topped with snow and a band of gypsies camped round an open fire, their piebald horses cropping the grass, the women sitting in the doorways of the painted caravans.

  The men placed their violins in their chins and the dancers came running towards them to dance to the music that ran in their blood.

  It was then as she saw it all happening that Ilouka became one with the dancers and her feet began to move.

  Because D’Arcy Archer was a professional he knew instinctively what she wanted. At first the music was slow and soft and spoke of the gypsy’s yearning that came from his soul as he searched for love, which was part of his heart.

  Sometimes he found it, but sometimes he must move on to search for it in other lands, an El Dorado that was always beyond the farthest horizon and then
beyond again.

  Ilouka moved and swayed and translated into rhythm the music that flowed from Mr. Archer’s adroit fingers.

  There was complete and absolute silence as her whole being stirred to the adventure of life, not only of the spirit and the soul but also of the body.

  The music quickened and Ilouka’s feet seemed to fly across the polished floor until to those watching her it was as if she flew in the air above it.

  She moved quicker and quicker, her arms in graceful harmony with her feet, her head thrown back, her eyes brilliant with a strange ecstasy that was part of the music and part of the feelings rising within herself.

  Then those who were watching her began to move their feet and hands in rhythm like the slow thump of drums.

  They moved quicker and quicker until finally, as if she had attained what she sought and desired, she stood for a moment absolutely still.

  Her arms were flung up towards the ceiling and her head was thrown back in rapture before finally she sank to the floor, an indescribable gesture of surrender to forces greater than herself.

  At a signal from D’Arcy Archer, with the final crescendo of music, the footmen closed the curtains.

  The applause in the dining room was deafening and several of the guests rose to their feet, shouting, ‘Bravo!’ while others cried, ‘Encore!’

  D’Arcy Archer rose from the piano to take Ilouka’s hand and raise her to her feet.

  He realised, as only a professional could that for a few moments it was difficult for her to come back to reality from the magic world that her dancing had taken her into.

  “You were magnificent!” he exclaimed.

  She gave him a faint smile before the curtains were pulled open and the pressure of his hand told her that she must curtsey as he bowed to the applause in the dining room.

  Then, as the curtains were closed again, there was a cry of, ‘join us, join us, we want to talk to you.’

  The footmen in charge of the curtains hesitated a moment, but Ilouka, as if suddenly aware of the men applauding her, remembered that she was the only woman in the room and said quickly,