Sedition (8 page)

“The pianoforte does not make music for you, mademoiselle,” Monsieur agreed. “That we must acknowledge.”

“Why can’t I just play my harpsichord—or Harriet’s? It’s over there.”

“With a harpsichord everything you say is the same. With a pianoforte, you may say many different things.”

“I don’t want to say different things. I’m supposed to say ‘marry me.’ Isn’t that the whole point?” She bashed out the
Barricades Mystérieuses
.

Monsieur considered the unmysterious noise she was making. This girl was, and would always be, no more a musician than Mrs. Frogmorton’s dog was an orator. If she played in time, that would have to be enough. As for seduction, yesterday’s anticipation had been optimistic. There could be no pleasure here. Marianne lacked not only delicacy in feature and limb, she lacked any vestiges of girlish charm and her breath was still fuzzy from breakfast. Still, he told himself firmly, she had swellings in the correct places and assisted by silk, lace, and some decent brocade, a clever dressmaker was keeping her just short of impossible. When the time came, he could always close his eyes and hold his nose. He nudged the piano with a sympathetic knee. With luck, Marianne would be the worst. She ground out the final chord.

“B-flat major is a pleasant key, yes?” said Monsieur.

Marianne snorted. “You music masters! It’s just a key, like the others. Let’s get on. Where shall we start? I don’t want to be here forever.”

“Indeed not, mademoiselle. That would be intolerable.” He gave her exercises. She copied them badly. He could not bring himself to care.

Harriet was next, in high-waisted, short-sleeved pale blue—rather too smart for a pianoforte lesson, Harriet well knew—with a long cherry-colored sash. She greeted Marianne at the door and dawdled across the room. “It’s very dark,” she said, picking up one of the discarded candelabra and placing it back on the pianoforte so that it shone directly on her. “That’s better.” She sat with learned grace, hands carefully in her lap. She studied the keyboard.

“This concert has been dreamed up by our parents,” she said, sotto voce. “I’m not against it, but—”

“Dreamed up or not, we must make the best of the hour and instrument your parents are so generously providing.”

Harriet poked middle C with her index finger. The note responded softly. She frowned. She rolled a chord. She rolled the chord again, more carefully. “It sounds peculiar.” She bumped a toe against the pedals.

“The notes are struck, not plucked,” Monsieur explained. “It makes the sound a little cloudier than you are used to. And you have bumped your toe on the pedals.”

She regarded the pedals. “What are they for?”

“The right-hand pedal sustains the notes, the left-hand hushes them. It is the modern way.”

Harriet looked faintly disbelieving. “Monsieur Belladroit, can we be frank?”

“Of course.”

“I know I must be married,” Harriet said, “and indeed, I want to be married. I will be married. I’ve decided to marry Mr. Thomas Buller. He lives next door and he’ll marry me without any piano playing. I know he will.”

“You are already engaged?” Monsieur cocked his head.

“Not exactly, and please keep your voice down. He was kind to me when we first moved here, so I know he likes me, and he’s rich. I really don’t have to bother with any of this. The servants tell me his father’s considering buying an earldom.”

Monsieur was amazed. “People still buy such things? Do you not see what goes on across the sea?”

Harriet laughed. “Oh, Monsieur, they’re all foreigners across the sea! We’re
English
.”

“Well,” Monsieur said, collecting himself, “even the English cannot buy the soul of Herr Bach.”

“Oh, come!” Harriet faced him. “Of course they can. Isn’t that precisely what we are doing? We’re buying his aria, or whatever it’s called, and using it to attract customers. It’s no different from buying and selling cheese.”

Monsieur was taken aback. He had no real liking for Harriet’s type: too neat, self-conscious, pale; too contrived; too English. Yet a prickle of whip and leash. If she had made up her mind to grab this Thomas, the boy would not escape her. “You speak nothing but the truth,” Monsieur said. “Perhaps you will be wasted as a wife. You should rather be a husband.”

“Are you saying I’m bossy?”

Monsieur was humble. “I beg your pardon, no. I simply observe that you would be a good lady of business.”

“I think that’s a compliment?”

“Indeed.”

“I like it.”

Monsieur laughed. “Let’s to the music, mademoiselle.” He rearranged the exercises on the stand. “To play Herr Bach properly, the fingers must be dexterous. Do you have dexterous fingers?”

“My father says I play perfectly.”

“Is your father always right?”

She tilted her head and flashed him a look, then leaned into the music. First finger, third finger, second, then fourth. Up the keyboard she went. Her father was not right in this case, as Monsieur and Harriet could both see. She began again. “Careful of your wrist, mademoiselle. Do not let it drop. Listen.” He played with wrist raised and again with wrist sunk. “Can you hear a difference?”

She looked surprised. “Yes. That’s extraordinary.”

“You try.”

She tried. “Goodness.” The lesson progressed. After a while, the future Mrs. Thomas Buller worked with some pleasure, and when she gave up her seat to Georgiana, she and Monsieur were humming.

Georgiana Brass was late. Dressed by a well-meaning servant, she was so tied up in stiff damask and whalebone that she hobbled like a trussed goose.

“Suitable clothes, mademoiselle,” Monsieur said reprovingly.

Georgiana had seen her mistake before he spoke. “I’m sorry,” she stammered, her speech as impeded as her movement. “I didn’t know what that meant.” Her tears dripped as she attempted to sit down. Behind the screen, Mrs. Frogmorton was whispering to Frilly. Georgiana, certain the whisper was criticism, crumpled further.

Monsieur Belladroit hastily mopped her tears with a silk handkerchief Annie had given him years ago. He settled the whalebones. When Georgiana stopped crying, he perched beside her. “Dear mademoiselle. What can I do? Your papa does not wish you to be miserable.”

“I don’t know what he wishes, Monsieur.”

“He wishes for you to marry well and be happy. We shall do our best to oblige.”

“Yes. Our best.” The notion of “best” nearly set her off again.

Monsieur tutted. “Mademoiselle, please do not cry. It is bad for your skin. It is bad for the pianoforte. It is bad for my nerves. What I say to you during our hours together will not be to criticize. It will be to help toward your concert performance.” He paused until she had control of herself. “So. We have already established that it is impossible to play music in such clothes as you are wearing. To play the pianoforte you must be able to move freely. Let me advise. Tomorrow, wear muslin; wear gauze; wear silk; wear satin; wear ribbons; wear pearls; wear flowers. These will suit you and our lessons very well.” He raised the handkerchief to her cheek, to mop up the last of the damp, as a father might. He spoke about the pianoforte, explaining the touch, pointing to the pedals. He played a little Mozart. Her eyes were gray pools. Monsieur had never seen anything so gray. Even the pupils were gray, as though constant tears had washed the color out. “This instrument sings,” he told her, “and tomorrow, little dove, when you are dressed more softly, it will sing for you.”

He bent down, as if to check the pedals. Yes, she had satisfactory ankles and her feet, encased in blue leather with tiny buttons, were enchanting.

The hour with Everina dragged the most. She blasted her way through the
Barricades
, stamping on the pedals as though crushing beetles. She never inquired about their use. The only thing in Everina’s favor was greater accuracy than Marianne. Once she had finished the piece, she hammered through a Giustini sonata more prestissimo than Giustini ever intended, then hammered through another, Frilly yapping his disapproval half a beat behind the time.

“Stop! Enough!” Monsieur Belladroit waggled his hands; the notes stung like hornets. “Very illuminating, Mademoiselle Everina. I feel for your harpsichord.”

“Feel for it?”

“Feel for how busy you must keep it,” he said. “Can you hear a difference between it and this pianoforte?”

She giggled. “You can go just as fast on either.”

“That’s not what I asked. Can you hear a difference?”

“What does it matter, Monsieur? Once you’ve finished playing, the sound’s over.”

Monsieur wondered what Cantabile would do if he were suddenly in the room. He might chop Everina’s fingers off. At this moment, Monsieur would help him. He closed the lid over the keyboard. “Do you read books, mademoiselle?”

“Of course,” Everina said. “Every parlor boarder at the Misses Lees’ Academy reads books.”

“And do you like them?”

“I found Mr. Richardson’s
Virtue Rewarded
very instructive.” She had learned this response from her teacher.

“And is Mr. Richardson’s story the same as every other story?”

“Of course not.”

“But all stories are made of words, so why are they not all the same?”

She wagged a coquettish finger. “I see what you’re doing. You’re saying words are like notes. They’re not. Words aren’t notes. Books aren’t music. How am I to go on with the lid closed?”

Monsieur gave her a look that was not benign. “I shall reopen the lid if you promise to do as I ask.”

“And what will you ask, Monsieur?”

Her tone was so arch that it flashed across Monsieur’s mind that this pudding had already been tasted. He did not have to wait until the end of the lesson to know this would be a relief.

Luncheon arrived: three lamb patties, a hunk of bread, and some weak ale. He picked with distaste.

Alathea’s lesson did not start well. The lamb patty repeated on Monsieur, and in this dismal room she seemed completely ordinary, her skin dull, her hair lusterless. A quick glance revealed thick stockings. He was disappointed. This girl was not intriguing.

“Good afternoon,” he said as she settled herself at the keyboard. “Please accustom yourself to the pianoforte and then play something. I hope it will not be Giustini.” The fire had been banked up again. Mrs. Frogmorton was reinstalled. Monsieur stifled a yawn.

Alathea did not look at the pianoforte. She looked at him. A twitch in her cheek—Monsieur could not tell how it was done—splintered any sense of ordinariness. “I think Herr Bach is a very good choice,” Alathea said. “The
Clavier Übung
will challenge us all. You’ll have to give us a great deal of help.”

“You know this work?”

“Prepared for the soul’s delight of music lovers,” she said. “You told us yourself.”

“And you count yourself among their number?”

“Music lovers?” She stressed the “music.”

“Music lovers,” he repeated without taking his eyes from her.

“Would you?”

“Count you or myself?”

“Whichever you like.”

He relaxed. She was playing a game. He could play too. “How do you know the work? It is not printed in London.”

“Sir John Hawkins has some of it in his history of music. The rest was not hard to find. My father has Leipzig contacts and it’s not a secret work, only a work containing secrets.”

A peppercorn scorch in his throat. “And you know these secrets?”

“Monsieur, we waste time.”

His brows flattened and he resisted an urge to loosen his collar. “You have played a pianoforte before, mademoiselle?”

“I have one at home,” she said.

“You never said so.”

“You didn’t ask me.”

I’ll test this girl, he thought. He reached into his case and pulled out the aria and variations. “Very well,” he said crisply. “Begin.”

“We’ll play together,” she said, moving along the piano stool. He was aware of a scent—musk, he thought, yes, musk, smokily beguiling, with animal undertones. Unusual perfume choice for a young girl. He was not sure he liked it. From behind the screen Mrs. Frogmorton cursed as she pricked her finger, and Frilly yapped commiseration. Monsieur curled his lip. The dog needed drowning. He caught Alathea’s eye. It was clear she was thinking the same—an unexpectedly murderous connection. Alathea pointed to the music.

A change now. Mrs. Frogmorton and Frilly were left behind. Monsieur and Alathea sat completely still, completely silent, and from the silence, in this ugly room, something marvelous emerged: G, G, A-trill to B, A, grace note to F-sharp, grace note to D. So sure was each note, so confident of its place, the ornaments so neat and the sequence so clean, that Mrs. Frogmorton was hardly aware the silence had been broken.

Monsieur played with questioning delicacy. Musically, he was prepared for anything. Alathea played with complete belief. She knew this music. She did not flirt or tinker with it. It was a beam she drew directly from the instrument. Monsieur’s top lip fluttered.
Quelle merveille.
He and this girl were perfectly in time, sympathetically phrased, drawing the beam together. Though a music master from an early age, Monsieur did not reckon to feel like a musician when he taught. His pupils sometimes had talent, yet never this kind of intelligence. Usually he wondered why his lessons were called music lessons at all. Lessons in mechanical reproduction would have been more apt. Naturally, he corrected and instructed but his mind always strayed, and the years had blunted his sensibility. He knew this and regretted it. Yet in this unlikely place he experienced a taste of what might have been had he not needed to earn his daily bread. Melancholy threatened to overwhelm him.

Taking the aria as a duet, Monsieur’s unused right hand and Alathea’s left rested on their respective knees. They both kept their feet from the pedals. Occasionally their hands touched, a touching of music, not flesh. They repeated, then moved over the repeat marks to the second section. They repeated this. Grace note, crotchet, the aria ended, the beam broke.

As if to ask a question, Alathea turned to face Monsieur. He wanted to thank her. He wanted to confide his melancholy. However, before he could say a word, with no change of expression her unoccupied hand was no longer on her own knee, it was on his. It was above his knee. It was halfway up his thigh. It did not rest there. Melancholy vanished. Flesh was very quickly flesh again. Monsieur’s gasp made Frilly stir and growl. Mrs. Frogmorton rose and peeped around the screen, where she observed Monsieur’s eyes fixed glassily on the score and Alathea looking much as Alathea always did: irritatingly amused, as though enjoying a private joke.