Elements of Chance. Barbara Wilkins
signature chignon; her black eyes glittered. She wore a silk tunic to her knees and matching silk trousers in a red so intense it seemed that flames were licking at her tall, thin body. Her toes, their tips crimson, peeped from high-heeled sandals.
“You’re slandering me again, you bastard,” she said, kissing Claude fondly on either cheek. “I should have you arrested for what you say about me. I should have your knees broken for you.”
There was a broad smile on her red lips as she turned to Lady Anne and put out both her hands.
“Lady Anne,” she said. “You honor my humble home.”
“This is Valerie Hemion,” said Claude. “She is Lady Anne’s niece. She comes from Los Angeles.”
“How many times are you going to tell me that, you bloody fool?” Maria asked crossly. “Do you think I can’t remember from one day to the next what you’ve told me?” Taking Valerie’s two hands in her own, she continued, “Welcome, my dear. I hear you’re brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Claude tells me you’re to play in the Van Cliburn this year. It’s a ridiculous idea. You’re much too young, and you’ll lose. You’ll make a fool of yourself. But what can you expect from Leon Stern, that tyrant, that Attila the Hun? All he thinks about is his own glory, his own triumphs. Pianists? We’re nothing to him. Dirt. Scum. Every day in all the years I studied with him, I woke up every morning hoping he was dead. A heart attack. Run over by a bus. Anything. We’re machines to him, interpreting his visions.”
She lapsed into a moody silence at the thought of Leon Stern until the butler announced that luncheon was served.
“That was Weyburn on the phone just now,” Maria said to Claude in a confidential voice, as Valerie strained to hear her words from across the table. “He was begging to see me tonight, begging.” The butler poured the white wine that was to accompany lunch into the crystal glass in front of her. “I could kill you for introducing me to that fool,” she continued. “You only did it to drive me to an early grave. It was a spiteful, terrible thing. I would rather have your slander, your back stabbing, than Weyburn in my life.”
“Don’t see him,” Claude suggested, his tone amused.
“And give up all of this?” Maria asked, gesturing with her fork. “You’re crazy, you know?”
After lunch, sitting at the concert grand piano in the music room, Valerie played the Mozart concerto she was preparing for the Van Cliburn. When she finished, Valerie kept her fingers on the keys, her head down.
“You’re a genius!” Maria screamed, rushing over to Valerie. “You’ve thrilled me, thrilled me.”
She nearly wrestled Valerie off the piano bench, covering her cheeks with wet kisses.
“I have it,” she said, her black eyes snapping. “We can play together, a duet, after the Van Cliburn. We will start to prepare a program. It will be at Wigmore Hall.”
“But Madame Obolensko, I’m not ready,” Valerie stammered in amazement.
“Oh yes you are, my dear. Of course, I will be the draw to fill the hall, but you, my darling Valerie, you will complement me.” She was pacing the room, muttering to herself. “An orchestra? Forty? Sixty?” Her black eyes narrowed as she saw the stage in her mind. “No. No orchestra,” she said. “Just the pianos. The two Steinways. Maria Obolensko and her protégé, Valerie Hemion.”
Later, in the drawing room as the butler poured coffee, Maria said to Valerie, “You’re a pretty little thing, you know. Oh, you blonds are always washed out, but you’ll be all right. I can see it from your beautiful cheekbones. And you’re how old? Fifteen?” She sipped her coffee and reached down to pet one of the Dobermans that lay at her feet. “I always knew that I would be beautiful too,” she murmured. “I knew it back when I was a tiny girl in Prague, studying at the feet of my dear papa. I knew it because of the cheekbones.”
“Well, this has been charming,” Claude said, glancing at his watch. “But I have an appointment that I’m already a bit late in getting to.”
As Maria stood with the three of them in the doorway, she put her arms around Valerie and said, “We’ll make a good team. We’ll show that bastard Leon, won’t we?”
All Valerie could do was nod.
The Wigmore Hall concert was a major triumph for Maria, and it also netted Valerie critical praise. A lengthy interview with Maria in the Times of London reported her heartfelt interest in helping younger artists with their careers. A recording Maria’s label made of the concert was released to excellent reviews. The duke of Weyburn partially underwrote the record’s release by purchasing five thousand copies at a discount and distributing them to music classes in the grammar schools.
“You’re wonderful, Maria,” said Valerie, gazing at her with the sense of wonder she always felt in Maria’s presence. “You can do anything.”
“That’s true,” Maria said. “There’s no point to being falsely modest. It isn’t attractive.” She glanced at the diamond-studded watch on her slender wrist. “Bernard will be knocking on the door in exactly one minute,” she said. “He is always on time. You had better get home or your aunt will be worried, and she won’t let you come to see me anymore.”
As Valerie started to rise, Maria asked, “Do you know Victor Penn?”
“No,” said Valerie, shaking her head. “I’ve seen him, though.” Lady Anne had pointed him out to Valerie when they were at the opera, at the theater, and once at the Ritz when they had been there for dinner. Victor Penn was always with a different beautiful woman. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he?” Valerie asked.
“And, he’s very rich,” Maria said. “Very, very rich and very, very generous.”
Penn International renewed Valerie’s scholarship for a second year, and then a third. Valerie’s blossoming career seemed to become even more important to Lady Anne. When Valerie thought about it, it seemed to her that attending to its details had replaced whatever life Lady Anne had been leading before she came along.
Backstage in her dressing room at the Albert Hall, Valerie sat in front of the bright lights of the makeup mirror. She examined her face, the wide forehead, the pale hair swept up into a bun on top of her head, the high cheekbones. She had coaxed her eyes to their most vivid green with shadow, and darkened her long, sweeping lashes with mascara. After applying blusher to the hollow under her cheekbones, she dabbed some on the tip of her nose, on her chin, all to create a vivid face to be seen from the audience, the way Maria had taught her. She smiled, admiring her straight white teeth, and applied a glossy pink lipstick.
Valerie’s eyes were reflective, cool despite her dry mouth and her perspiring hands as she fumbled with the clasp of Lady Anne’s pearl necklace.
The swell of her breasts was nearly as white as the chiffon of her gown, which fell to her narrow feet in their white satin slippers. “Always wear white when you perform,” Maria had insisted. “White makes you look like a Grecian goddess, a wood nymph. White is good theater!”
Maria’s white roses were arranged in a tall crystal vase on a little table next to one of the flowered, chintz-covered chairs that decorated the pretty dressing room. As always, there were white cattleya orchids from Leon Stern, long-stemmed pink roses from Lady Anne. An extravagant spray of pale green cymbidia from Claude Vilgran. Red roses from Max in Los Angeles. Charming bouquets from conservatory friends and the staff of the house in Green Street, who would be cheering from the audience later. There were the usual long-stemmed red roses from Penn International, and an array of daisies with no card.
Valerie started at a tap on the door.
“Come in,” she called as she glanced