The Broken Wing (Warrender Saga Book 2), page 1
The Broken Wing
Mary Burchell
© Mary Burchell 1966
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 1966 by Mills & Boon.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter I
The afternoon light had faded and there was a warm glow of electric light in her comfortable office, but Tessa Morley worked on, oblivious of time; oblivious of anything, to tell the truth, except the fact that Quentin Otway would come in at any minute now, demanding his letters, firing questions and orders at her, full of good-humoured enthusiasm over something that had gone supremely well, or silent and withdrawn because something had gone badly.
“It’s his artistic temperament,” Miss Curtis had explained succinctly, when she had handed over her secretarial duties to Tessa less than a month ago. “He’s not a bad-tempered man, and I’ve worked for him for five years without actually wanting to take a hatchet to him. But they’re all like that in this kind of life. Everything in the garden is too lovely for words, or the end of the world is just around the corner.”
“But he isn’t exactly an artist,” Tessa had objected. “I mean he doesn’t play or conduct or sing himself. He’s simply the artistic director of the festival.”
“Only makes it worse,” Miss Curtis had assured her cheerfully. “It means that he must have the business acumen to make the thing a success; and he has, I’ll give him that. But, at the same time, he must be artist enough to have vision, judgement and general know-how. He must be able to make the budget balance. So far as a festival budget ever does balance, of course,” she added in cynical parenthesis. “And he must have enough of the artistic temperament himself to understand its every form in other people. He has to handle them all, you know, from a nervous, highly strung singer to a cool customer like Oscar Warrender. How would you like to have to stand up to him when things go wrong?”
“I shouldn’t like it at all,” Tessa had declared hastily, for she had seen and heard the famous conductor many times, and a more authoritative, intimidating person she could not imagine.
“Mr. Otway thrives on it,” Miss Curtis had asserted, with a sort of gloomy relish. “You should hear them when they disagree. A battle of the giants, I can assure you.”
Tessa had felt slight alarm at this point, having no ambition to be the buffer state when giants were battling. But neither this nor anything else Miss Curtis said had the slightest effect on her determination to become Quentin Otway’s secretary. Her mind had been irrevocably made up from the moment he had first smiled at her and said,
“You’re the one I want. The other applicants would drive me to murder. If your professional qualifications are equal to your soothing manner, you’re the answer to a prayer. See Miss Curtis about your official duties. I could live with you around.”
No one had ever said anything like that to her before. Certainly no one had ever suggested that she had charms or virtues in any marked degree. On the contrary, Tessa was painfully aware that any superlatives in her family were inevitably reserved for Tania, her vivacious, gifted and entirely enchanting twin.
So when Quentin Otway had looked upon her with favour and more or less demanded her allegiance, she had ceded it without hesitation. And, during the succeeding weeks, she had strained every nerve to smooth his official path and confirm him in the carelessly expressed conviction that he could “live with her around.”
Selfless devotion would not have been much good on its own, of course. But fortunately Tessa was remarkably efficient too. She was stimulated rather than dismayed by the amount of work involved in the planning of the great Northern Counties Festival and, after the humdrum grind of a big company office, she was intoxicated by the Otway treatment.
“Nibble your way through that lot, Mouse,” he said to her once, with that laugh which did the oddest things to her, and he threw down a pile of letters and notes in front of her. Then, when she presented him, at the end of the day, with everything neatly dealt with and answered, he leant back in his chair, fixed his bold, laughing eyes on her and asked,
“How did I manage before you came along?”
“By giving all the work to Miss Curtis, I expect,” she replied demurely, while a faint colour came up in her cheeks.
“Don’t you believe it! She was a good worker, but she used to say there was reason in all things. There isn’t, of course, in this job, but it was her way of saying she had had enough. When are you going to tell me that there’s reason in all things and that I’m an impossible, unreasonable devil?”
“If the work is there it has to be done, doesn’t it?” she replied, with her slightly shy smile.
He laughed at that and reached for his pen.
“Sometimes I think I just dreamed you up when I was desperate,” he told her. “And some magic power turned you into a real creature.”
When he said things like that she felt ready to work for him all night. It made her forget missed lunches and agitating phone calls. It even made her forget how much her leg ached sometimes when he sent her running about on messages half the morning.
Though she had been with him nearly a month now he had apparently never noticed that she limped. Or if so he had made no reference to it. Certainly he had not made any allowances for any difficulties it might cause. She had taken the greatest care to avoid walking much in front of him, and in the confined space of the office it was comparatively easy to conceal the unevenness of her step.
Perhaps he had noticed but found it quite unimportant, she thought hopefully, as she now whipped the last letter out of her typewriter and added it to the pile she had put ready for signature.
The timing was miraculously accurate. At that exact moment he came flaring into the office, his dark hair slightly ruffled by the wind, his eyes gleaming with amused satisfaction, his whole personality radiating immense vitality and a sort of animal magnetism. Nothing could have been in greater contrast to her last employer, she thought, amused and enchanted. Mr. Pendle’s hair (what there was of it) had been sandy, his eyes had been shrewd but small, and if he ever thought about animal magnetism, which was doubtful, he would, she felt certain, have found it slightly improper.
“Finished?” Quentin Otway flung himself down at his desk, and added, without even waiting for her reply, “But of course you have. I’ve kept you confoundedly late, I’m afraid. You’d better come in an hour later in the morning, to make up.”
It was a nice gesture, though quite unpractical. For if she had ever allowed herself to start any of her busy days late, she would have found herself behindhand for the rest of the week. He knew that too and, after a moment, had the grace to say, “Not that that’s much good to you, is it?”
“Not really.” There was the faintest note of indulgence in her voice. “But it was a kind thought.”
“Which cost me nothing,” he retorted, and looked oddly discontented for a moment. “My grandmother — who is a frightful old martinet but the most interesting woman I know — once told me that I never made a nice gesture if I thought I should have to implement it. Tough of her, wasn’t it?”
“She must have been feeling cross at that moment,” Tessa told him soothingly. “You don’t need to listen to people when they’re cross. Anger disturbs their judgement.”
That restored his good humour immediately and he laughed.
“You’re the nearest thing I know to this,” he remarked, and indicated the beautiful little carved wooden angel which always stood beside his ink-stand.
She laughed a little too then, and flushed. And, to cover her confusion, she said,
“What is that, exactly? I’ve often meant to ask you why you have it there.”
“It’s my mascot. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Fourteenth-century German.” He took up the figure and handled it lightly in his strong, clever hands. “I keep her, even though she is flawed. I call her my damaged angel.”
“Wh-why damaged?” There was a sudden constriction at Tessa’s heart.
“Because she is. It spoiled her real value, of course. Some fool dropped her and chipped a bit off one of the wings. It’s been cleverly mended, but that isn’t the same thing as having her perfect. Not if one is a perfectionist — which I am.” He frowned suddenly and pushed the little figure aside. “I sometimes think of replacing her with something undamaged. But — I don’t know —” He started to sign his letters.
“Oh, you couldn’t do that!” It was the first time she had ever voiced anything like criticism or reproof, and at the almost violent note in her tone, he looked up, astonished.
“Why not, for heaven’s sake? Do you think it would break my luck or something?” He grinned. “Are you so superstitious?”
“Yes — No, I mean! It’s nothing to do with superstition. It — it’s disloyal to like a beautiful thing less because misfortune happens to it.”
“Good lord!” He looked both mystified and amused. “What a novel idea. You sound quite passionate about it.”
“Oh, no. I just —” Suddenly she was confused and, turning away
“What’s the matter? Have you hurt your foot?”
“No!” She stopped in her tracks, but she did not turn.
“You were limping,” he said, and to her nervous fancy it seemed there was a note of distaste in his voice.
“I — I always do.”
“What do you mean — you always do?” He sounded impatient then. “Is it a trick or something?”
“No. I — can’t help it. I —” she swallowed slightly — “was born that way. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it before.”
There was an odd silence. Then he said, rather disagreeably,
“I’m sorry. I don’t usually make a gaffe like that. Does it trouble you, incapacitate you at all?”
“Oh, no! Not in the least,” she lied eagerly, lest he should somehow find her less than satisfactory for that. “I — I hardly ever think about it. And no one else need either.”
“That’s all right then.” She thought he sounded relieved, and, since he asked her no more, she told herself she need not feel so shaken by the conversation.
But shaken she was. As for that glib lie about hardly ever thinking about her disability, she blushed to think she could tell him anything so far from the truth. For there were few times when she was unaware of her lameness, and never when she was involved in a new relationship.
Perhaps she would not have been so much aware of that disability if Tania had not been so lively and attractive and — yes, perfectly proportioned. They were not identical twins, but there was a strong likeness between them. Enough for Tessa to feel, as she had once said to her music teacher in her last term at school, “like a throw-out in a china factory where perfection is the absolute rule.”
“Nonsense,” Miss Herrington had replied with customary vigour. “Your limp may bar you from a real career — I’m afraid it inevitably will — but so far as sheer singing is concerned, it is you who are the perfect model. Your sister is only a rather good copy.”
It had comforted Tessa a good deal at the time. Not that she grudged Tania her easy popularity and success. But the role of second fiddle is a singularly unsatisfying one at times.
Most people would have been astounded to know the degree of frustration and hurt rebellion which seethed behind Tessa’s quiet exterior. The casual observer saw no more than a rather self-effacing girl with a heart-shaped face, almost silvery blonde hair and large, soft brown eyes. And there were few who did not turn instead to the more vivid Tania, whose face was the same endearing shape, but whose bright eyes shone with provocative gaiety, and whose lovely corn-coloured hair was usually dressed in an arresting manner only adopted by those who can afford to court attention.
That was the basic difference in the two girls. Tessa, because of an over-sensitive awareness of her limp, sought to avoid notice. Tania made a confident and engaging bid for it.
In spite of this, they had always got on rather well, partly because Tania’s very self-confidence precluded any real competition. There is truth in the Italian saying that the world stands aside for the man who knows where he is going. But it is nothing to the admiring way the world stands aside for a pretty girl who knows where she is going. And Tania knew where she was going. To the top of the tree, to the centre of the picture, to anything which implied unquestioning supremacy in every phase of her existence.
At school she had inevitably played the Fairy Queen in end-of-term pantomimes. Tessa was usually a brown elf or something like that, and her role seldom extended further than, “She comes, she comes! The Fairy Queen!” At which Tania would enter in tulle and spangles, radiating smiles and charm, while parents murmured admiration or envy, according to the beauty (or otherwise) of their dispositions.
Even at home Tania achieved a sort of first-class status. Not with their father, for he was a busy, impartial solicitor who had little time or interest for either of them. But their mother, who had been an actress remarkable for her beauty rather than her world-shaking talent, saw in Tania a successful extension of herself. With “poor little Tessa” she felt a mild degree of personal failure which secretly irritated her. She tried conscientiously to subdue this irritation, but succeeded only in achieving a display of rather exaggerated pity and concern. To a sensitive and intelligent child this was sometimes almost unbearable.
Like many people denied one aspect of fulfilment, Tessa poured all her feeling and powers into the one thing in which she excelled. She possessed a singing voice of singular sweetness and purity, and she was fortunate enough, in her last year at school, to come into the hands of an intelligent music teacher, who insisted that she was worthy of some really good training.
“But to what purpose?” Mrs. Morley had asked dubiously. “The poor child could never have a stage career.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that she should make it her profession,” replied Miss Herrington briskly. “No one could tell until a later stage if she were gifted to that degree. But she has a remarkable talent and is supremely musical. She should have a real training.”
“Well, she could have singing lessons, of course. Her father and I would be willing for her to have anything that would give her a little harmless pleasure,” Mrs. Morley declared co-operatively.
“It wouldn’t be a case of harmless pleasure.” Miss Herrington with difficulty concealed the fact that she thought Mrs. Morley a fool, though a beautiful one. “It would mean very hard work. But Tessa is a dedicated worker and quite a little artist in her own way. She would derive no pleasure from just playing at something. I would suggest that you let her have a full professional training, even if she never uses it for anything but her own enjoyment. Tania is to have something of the kind, I understand.”
“Oh, Tania is quite a different matter!” Tania’s mother smiled. “She is a natural for the stage. Just as I was,” she added simply. “She moves beautifully, dances well and sings charmingly. She could hardly fail to make a success in operetta or light opera.”
“All the same, Tessa is twice the artist and three times the singer,” retorted Miss Herrington, undaunted. “If you don’t mind my saying so, she is much more worthy of real singing lessons than Tania.”
Mrs. Morley did mind her saying so. She regarded the statement as just the sort of stupid heresy one might have expected from one who, unlike herself, had never been on a stage. But she was unwillingly impressed by Miss Herrington’s insistence. And when she found that Tessa passionately wanted to have her voice trained, she yielded at once.
“It will mean a lot of hard work, you know, dear,” she said, characteristically unaware that she was speaking to the daughter for whom hard work held no terrors, only stimulation and challenge. “And of course, for any kind of stage career, it would be —”
“I wasn’t thinking of singing professionally,” Tessa interrupted quickly. “I just want to SING.”
So she had her lessons. And, later on, when she started to earn her own living, she paid for her own lessons, which remained her beautiful, heart-warming, thrilling indulgence, however much anyone else in the family might think she was wasting her time.
Meanwhile, Tania, with marked success, danced and sang her way into a number of minor engagements, on the fringe of the world of operetta and musical comedy. And everyone said how lovely she was, and what a joy it must be for the Morleys to have such a talented daughter.
Tania thought it was wonderful too, and enjoyed every moment of it. But she had fixed her sights a good deal higher than anything she had achieved so far. And, although Tessa was at this moment unaware of it, Tania saw in her sister’s appointment as the secretary of Quentin Otway the most felicitous opportunity of furthering her own ambitions.
When Tessa came home that evening to the large, pleasant flat where she still lived with her parents all was in delightful confusion, because Tania had just arrived back from a television appearance in the West Country, which had yielded a good fee, a certain amount of experience and much admiring comment.
“Hello, Tess!” She blew her sister a careless kiss. “Where on earth have you been? Cocktail party with Quentin Otway?”
