The Lost Daughters by Jeanne Whitmee

Author:Jeanne Whitmee [Whitmee, Jeanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2017-09-02T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Dinner was a sociable affair. Kay went out of her way to be particularly charming to Johnny and Matthew and complimented Cathy effusively on the house and on finding such a good cook. She also encouraged Simon to tell them all a little about his background. He told them that his father, anticipating Hitler’s invasion of Poland, had fled to England along with his wife and mother-in-law in 1938, shortly before Simon was born, and had immediately joined the RAF. His grandmother was Danuta Polinski, who was a well-known concert pianist in Poland during the twenties and thirties. Simon was still a baby when his father was killed and his mother took up work as a secretary and interpreter at the War Office, leaving him in the care of his grandmother for the rest of the war.

Danuta missed her musical career and the gay social whirl she had enjoyed in Warsaw before the war. Her poor grasp of the English language and her unwillingness to adapt to the British way of life made her rather isolated, but as soon as Simon was big enough to sit at the piano she found a new vocation in teaching him to play.

Simon was without inhibitions when it came to recounting his musical accomplishments and the story of his meteoric progress had everyone enthralled. By the time he was twelve he was giving concerts and when he was sixteen had already begun to teach schoolchildren, saving the money he earned to buy himself a new piano and to help pay his way at college.

In anyone else the lack of modesty would have been obnoxious, but the warmth of Simon’s personality more than made up for any hint of boastfulness. He charmed them all with his vivacity, his keen, blue eyes and ready smile. Even Maggie lingered as she drifted in and out to wait on the dinner table, unable to take her eyes off the charismatic young man with the fascinating accent.

After everyone else had said goodnight and gone to bed Gerald invited Kay into the smaller of the two studios, which he also used as an office. Switching on the desk lamp, he took a decanter of brandy and two glasses from a cabinet.

‘Well, what do you think of him?’ she asked, relaxing into one of the deep leather chairs.

Gerald filled one glass and handed it to her. He took his time over pouring his own drink, considering carefully for a moment before answering. ‘Well, he’s certainly talented, I’ll give you that. Maybe a little on the flamboyant side for my taste, and he does seem to have picked up one or two bad technical habits, but I daresay there’s nothing that can’t be ironed out.’

‘I like his flamboyance. It’s part of his personality.’

‘You would!’ Gerald smiled as he sat down opposite her. ‘He’s full of himself, isn’t he? And what about that rather pseudo accent? Is it cultivated? After all, he was born in this country.’

‘He says his grandmother never spoke good English and always insisted that they conversed in Polish at home.

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