‘I’m so sorry, Marcus, but Rodney’s been hospitalized with bronchitis. I guess it isn’t serious but I daren’t leave him. I know you’ll be great and see you very soon.’

As Marcus put down the telephone almost weeping with disappointment, Miss Smallwood handed him some drooping crimson flowers.

‘Hellebores from Dame Hermione’s own garden,’ she said reverently. ‘Her gardener brought them all the way from Paradise. Dame Hermione wishes you all the luck in the world, but daren’t risk a cold in this weather, such a caring person.’

By seven o’clock the hall was filling up with members of the musical society, variations on Miss Smallwood in flat shoes, long coats with triangles of brightly coloured scarves around their necks, all huddling together for warmth. Any hell fires fanned by the Cotswold Hunt Ball had receded long ago.

Two more telephone apologies came from Rupert’s friend, Basil Baddingham and the Bishop of Cotchester, who both claimed to be laid low by the same bug. As a note of bathos the hunt saboteurs had got the night wrong and rolled up to wave placards saying: ‘Cotswold Butchers’ and ‘Don’t victimize our vixens’ and generally hassle the Hunt Ball. Learning Rupert, who’d hunted with the Cotswold all his life, was expected later, they decided to hang around.

As Marcus changed into his dark suit and had fearful difficulty putting cuff-links into his grey-and-white striped shirt, he noticed the coloured windows of Cotchester Cathedral lit up for Evensong.

He should be the one on his knees praying for his hubris in thinking he could play the Appassionata and the Siberian Suite. Even the Chopin was so clear and linear, it gave you nowhere to hide and the left-hand part was just as challenging as the right.

Having showered and washed her hair, Helen had changed into the gold silk dress and wanted approval.

‘You look stunning, Mum.’

‘You really think so, and it goes with these shoes?’

‘Perfect,’ said Marcus dutifully.

‘I guess I had to have something new. It’s your first professional date.’

She has no idea, thought Marcus in despair, as he put on a crocus-yellow tie, bought for him by Flora to jazz up his whole outfit.

‘Isn’t that rather loud?’ began Helen.

There was a rat-tat-tat on the door.

‘Fifteen minutes, Mr Black,’ cried Miss Smallwood, ‘and Lady Baddingham’s just arrived,’ she added excitedly. ‘But she’s afraid Dame Edith has been struck down by the same dreaded lurgy as our bishop.’

Marcus fought an hysterical desire to laugh.

Monica Baddingham, Basil’s sister-in-law, had caused an uproar last year when she had walked out on her vicious venal husband of nearly twenty-five years’ standing and moved in with Dame Edith.

Such was Monica’s popularity in the area — she had worked endlessly for charity and been kind to everyone and she seemed so blissfully happy with Dame Edith — that the scandal had blown over. Helen would normally have disapproved violently of such bohemian escapades, but realizing how influential Monica had suddenly become in the music world, she scuttled out to say hallo.

She was less amused by the arrival of a very jocund company from the Academy who conga-ed in led by Flora. In order to drink on the way down they had hired a minibus and had now stationed themselves on the left side of the hall so Marcus’s ravishing female fan club could drool over him while he played.

Boris, also on the bus, was in a frightful state of nerves. His hair looked even more electrocuted than usual. He wore a grey track suit, the loose trousers of which kept falling down his chunky body, and his suede feet seemed to curl round each other like bear claws.

‘I don’t want Siberian Suite to be hackled.’

He was longing to sit next to Helen who meanly introduced him to Marcus’s teacher, Miss Chatterton, so they could be nervous together.

‘Do tell Marcus,’ Miss Chatterton begged Helen, ‘that the audience will only enjoy it if Marcus smiles and enjoys it, too.’

Not many people, thought Flora in disappointment. It was crucial to have bums on seats, because anyone who contemplated booking Marcus in future would check with Cotchester Musical Society whether he pulled the crowds.

Oh thank God, here was Taggie looking ravishing as always, in a dark red suit and rather tentatively leading Bianca by the hand. They were followed by Kitty, Mrs Bodkin, all Rupert’s grooms and estate workers and finally, Tabitha, who might have been very jealous of Marcus if she had not received seventeen Valentines and been danced off her feet at the Hunt Ball.

The sight of Bianca, enchanting in a tartan, smocked wool dress with a white collar and dark green tights, gave Helen a legitimate excuse to express her jealousy of Taggie with a burst of anger.

‘Is that wise? It’s a long programme?’

Taggie flushed. ‘Bianca adores Marcus, she’d have been heartbroken if I’d left her behind. If she starts acting up, I’ll take her out, I promise. Hallo, Monica.’ Taggie turned in delight to embrace Lady Baddingham, for whose dinner parties she had often cooked before she was married. ‘Isn’t this exciting? Edith’s been so wonderful to arrange all this for Marcus.’

‘Edith’s hopping mad not to be able to make it,’ said Monica, a big-boned handsome woman, whose red veins clashed merrily with her emerald-green coat, ‘Is this one of your smalls?’

She beamed down at Bianca. ‘Isn’t she adorable? You can’t start them off at concerts too early.’

Helen could have screamed.

‘Where’s Rupert?’ she snapped.

‘He should be here,’ Taggie looked at her watch. ‘I hope the fog isn’t bad.’

‘About a hundred and twenty,’ said Miss Smallwood counting heads. ‘Not bad for a beastly February evening. It’s nearly half-past, we ought to start.’

Marcus was hunched over the table in his dressing-room, panic about an impending asthma attack making him even more breathless. He couldn’t let everyone down again. His reflection glittered silver with sweat in the mirror. Then Helen had burst in in a rage.

‘Absolutely typical, your bloody father’s helicopter’s been grounded by fog. He and Lysander rang from the M4. They won’t make it before the interval, if at all. So, we’re going to start.’

A great calm swept over Marcus. At least Rupert wouldn’t be bored witless or sneer at the low turn-out. Quickly he washed the sweat off his face and straightened his tie.

Nerves overwhelmed him again as he fell up the steps to the platform and sidled towards the piano, hangdog as the last person picked in a team.

‘Please smile, Marcus,’ begged Miss Chatterton.

‘Will you nudge me when I’m meant to clap?’ Taggie whispered to Monica Baddingham.

With a brief shy nod to acknowledge the rattle of applause, Marcus sat down, fiddled with the height of the piano-stool, gave his fingers a last wipe.

‘Hair’s too short,’ muttered a member of his fan club.

‘I like it, more butch,’ said another.

‘He’s utterly gorgeous any way,’ sighed a third.

On her right Flora noticed an old man in a beret getting out a score.

For a second Marcus sat clasping his hands to stop them shaking, then one seemed to escape like a white dove above the keys, then it fell in a skirl of bright notes, a weightless shimmer of sound and the Scarlatti was away.

Forgetting the cold, members of the Cotchester Musical Society smiled in relief. The estate workers and the grooms looked at each other in amazement — was this their sweet diffident Marcus?

At the end of the Scarlatti, Marcus got a splendid round of applause, augmented by the whooping, cheering and stamping feet of his friends from college.

‘Good boy, Marcus,’ piped up Bianca when there was a pause which set everyone laughing and clapping again.

As Marcus came on to play the Appassionata he was smiling. The bass was still woolly but suddenly the sound blossomed, producing such thrilling contrasts of loud and soft, of tender and so fierce that the big black piano shook on its legs.

How could such unleashed forces be contained in such a slender, youthful body, wondered the audience, marvelling, too, at every angelic ripple of sound as Marcus captured not only the nobility but also plumbed the extraordinary depths and dramas of the piece.

Part of the intense pleasure for Marcus’s friends was to see the almost unearthly happiness on his face. Flora clutched herself in ecstasy and looking round noticed a tear like an icicle glittering on the wrinkled cheek of the old man in the beret.

The middle movement was so beautiful as theme and variations chased each other round the keyboard that the tears sprung in Marcus’s eyes, too.

But, as he lingered over the runs and pauses which bridge the second and last movement, he told himself that he must keep something in reserve for the fireworks of the finale.

Allegro non Troppo, Beethoven had warned. He had known the dangers that awaited the unwary pianist, the temptation to show off and run out of puff.

Marcus was usually nervous as the end approached, like the last looming fence in the show-jumping ring. This evening he was utterly confident. But, as he tensed himself to leap into the fray, there was a kerfuffle at the back of the hall.

‘You can’t go in now,’ cried Miss Smallwood.

‘I can do what I fucking like,’ drawled an all-too-familar voice. ‘We’ve come all the way from America to hear this bloody concert.’ And Rupert stalked up the aisle, trailing a red-faced Lysander.

‘Daddy,’ crowed Bianca.