Free Child Of Music by Mary Burchell Page B

you who didn't like it one little bit. Julia Morton. She gave that cool, disparagingly little laugh of hers, raised her eyebrows and said doubtfully, "Have you all that much confidence in her, Mr. Warrender?"
    'And what,' asked Felicity with understandable interest, 'did Mr. W arrender say to that?'
    'Oh, he gave her one of those deceptively vague glances which he keeps for people who think they're pulling wool over his eyes and said, "I don't have to. I have confidence in Stephen and he makes the staff appointments." Then he went on talking to Stephen and I think she could have boiled him in oil with pleasure.'
    Felicity laughed, but a little uneasily. She was on the point of asking Anthea if she knew about the impending marriage. But something — perhaps it was Stephen Tarkman's stinging warning about avoiding gossip — prompted her to silence. If Anthea already knew about it, she evidently regarded the information as confidential. If she did not know, it was not for Felicity to break the confidence made to her.
    She would dearly have ill-red to discuss the subject which was rapidly - and inexplicably - coming to be of disproportionate interest to her. But the visit ended without the slightest reference to it.
    'I f you come to London during the season let me know.' Anthea said as she kissed Felicity good-bye. 'I don't want to lose sight of you again. And if you'd like to hear me sing any time, I'll see you have tickets.'
    Warmed by so much friendliness, and the promise of considerable future pleasure. Felicity said good-bye in her turn and went out iato the street once more to wait for her bus to Carmalton. Aggravatingly enough, she missed one by a matter of yards and settled down resignedly to a long wait. But she had not been standing at the bus stop more than three or four minutes when a car slid to a standstill beside her and Julia Morton leaned from the open window and said,
    'Jump in.. Miss Grainger. I'll give you a lift home. This time I am going your way.'
    It was impossible to refuse without discourtesy. And, in any case, a lift in a car was greatly to be preferred to a wait of indefinite duration. Even a lift from Julia Morton. So Felicity smiled, her thanks as agreeably as she could and got into the car. Though she did wander» as they shot away down the sleepy main street, how she was going to sustain light conversation with Julia Morton all the way to Carmalton.
    She need not have worried, however. The initiative was not left to her. They had hardly drawn clear of the main street before Julia said, as though she had a right to know, 'How far has this idea of your teaching at Tarkmans gone?'
    Felicity allowed a small pause before her reply, partly from astonishment, but mostly to indicate that this was no business of Julia Morton's. Then she said briefly, 'It's settled, barring a few details.'
    Utterly uncrushed, the other woman asked sharply, ' Has anything been signed?'
    'Signed? What should be signed in a teaching arrangement of this sort?'
    'There's usually a contract, isn't there? — or at least a contractual letter. If everything has been verbal up to now—?' she paused in her turn, as though inviting Felicity to confirm or query that.
    'As it happens,' Felicity said drily, 'everything has been verbal up to now, but—'
    'Then you could still withdraw?'
    'If Ï wished to. But I don't wish to, Mrs. Morton, ' Felicity stated coldly and finally. 'And I find it rather odd that you should speak like this about something which concerns me only.'
    'No, not only you. Stephen too. ' The other woman was completely unmoved. 'And, at the risk of your finding this even more odd, I'm going to suggest to you that it would be better if you did withdraw from the arrangement.'
    There was something so single-minded about her determination to press her own point of view that she was almost frightening. And it took quite an effort for Felicity to remind herself that this was not only an impertinent conversation but a