“I do not think we have spoken of Keats’s works, Ma’am,” he said. “I have not your opinion of him, except perhaps in comparison to Wordsworth.”
“I–I am very fond of his poems,” Kitty answered, who had been unnerved by Hetta’s strange behavior. “Although I confess myself to have read only a few.”
“I would lend you my little volume,” he said, “if it would please you.”
His presence was close to her, in a room which seemed very warm in Kitty’s current estimation. The breeze from Miss Harwick’s fan was not sufficient; her own fan seem tangled around her wrist and she was unable for some reason to make her fingers grasp it.
“I am sorry,” she gasped. “It is the heat–the room is quite full tonight, is it not?” She touched her fingers to her forehead, her gaze lowered beneath his own as if she were merely feeling the pangs of a headache.
“Are you well, Miss Phillips?” A note of anxiety was present in Mr. Turner’s voice. “If you are faint–”
“No, no, I am quite all right,” she assured him, forcing herself to look up with a smile. “It is only a moment of fatigue, I fear.” As he drew closer in his concern, she was aware of a flush traveling across her skin above the neckline of her gown.
“You must have a great deal to worry you,” he answered. “You have your sister’s health and the care of her children in your keep.” His eyes, which seemed a shade of blue darker than before, met hers with an ease she could not share.
“I have my brother’s assistance," she answered, softly. "And the comfort of knowing that there is help if needed.”
"You must take care of yourself, for I would not wish you to be one of my patients who requires the smelling salts to revive her upon a public occasion," he said, lowering his voice as a hint of merriment crept into these serious words.
"I shall not need anything so drastic, sir," she answered, laughing a little in response. "I am not given to faints, I am sure."
"I shall endeavor to catch you if that is not the case," he said. She met his glance, the mirthful features above her, then looked away with a quickness that prevented her from knowing if anything more than general concern might be detected in his eyes. Whether for modesty or fear of disappointment, she was not certain.
She did not speak to him again, for Hetta addressed her with a question about Mr. Hooker’s niece; but a moment later, all the gentlemen present were charged with taking the ladies in to dine.
Miss Harwick was seated close by Kitty, but not close enough to afford easy conversation between them. At the opposite end of the table, Kitty observed Mr. Turner seated with the barrister, their closest conversation Lucy Foster.
Turning to her own dining companion, the vicar’s wife, she offered a kind smile and received an equal one in turn, but no conversation, for it seemed the woman was given to silence at these events.
Hetta leaned forward. “You will play for us all after dinner, won’t you, Miss Phillips?” she asked. “Mrs. Servennia is quite eager to press you to favor the company.”
“You would wish me to play?” Kitty said, addressing her hostess as she attempted to suppress the incredulity in her reply. From what source or desire this request was born, she was uncertain, since she had not played publicly in Beiberry, nor spoken of her music with any but Mrs. Allgood.
“We hear that you are a delightful musician, Miss Phillips,” chimed Mrs. Servennia. “My daughters have told tales of your playing all the afternoon long. And Miss Harwick claims she will only play a little tonight, for she has a headache.”
“It is the heat of the rooms,” Hetta apologized. “I fear I am always susceptible to such things.”
Kitty glanced at Hetta after this statement, her friend momentarily interested in the contents of her glass at this moment and failing to meet her eyes.
“I would be happy to oblige,” said Kitty.
“My daughter Eliza, were she here, would oblige us with a cello performance, for she is an accomplished player,” said Mrs. Servennia, “but she has been away at her uncle’s in Portsmouth for a short visit.”
There was a murmur of regret from the party in general, except for Mr. Hooker, who muttered in low reply, “Thanks be to us all who have heard her play before.” A few chuckles could be heard by the younger members of the table who dined beside him, their mirth suppressed lest they incur the unhappiness of their hostess.
Mrs. Servennia’s pianoforte was a fine, although comparatively inexpensive instrument, which had been moved into a more congenial position in the drawing room. Seated at its keys, Kitty felt none of the apprehension she had felt at the Everton’s party. A light air by Mozart was sufficient to please her company, which consisted mostly of Beiberry’s society ladies fanning themselves upon sofas and chairs while the gentleman conversed in groups behind them.
Lucy Foster was turning pages for her, eager to oblige and to watch her companion’s fingers fly across the keys.
“You play so quickly,” she said, in a low voice of astonishment at the song’s close. “It must be hard to learn such a song as that.”
“I have had a great many years to learn,” answered Kitty with a laugh–a short one, when the realization struck her of how such words might sound to Lucy. “That is to say,” she added, “I devoted a great deal of time to practice. It is the same thing, no matter when it is begun.”
“Will you play the one you loaned me?” asked Lucy. She shifted the sheet of music newly-copied to the front, its painstaking lines bearing evidence that at least one of the Miss Servennias was a devoted collector of songs.
“With pleasure,” said Kitty. She began playing the song, a piece by Rossini which had been among those loaned her by Miss Harwick. The lady in question was conversing with one of the widows, a slight smile upon her face making it evident to Kitty that her friend was amused by the remarks of Mrs. Jenner.
She was aware as she played that Mr. Turner was beside her, watching her performance. He had approached and been perusing his host’s music, evidently; for as she finished playing, he removed a sheet from the ones placed close by.
“Would you play this one, Miss Phillips?” He placed before her a Celtic folk song, ‘The Curragh of Kildare.’ “I trust, perhaps, you know it already.”
“Indeed, I know this one very well,” said Kitty. “And I shall play it, if you wish.” She was placing the sheet before the keys when he spoke again.
“You sing also, do you not?” he asked. “Your voice leads me to believe it is so.”
“I do–that is, I have not done so in a long time,” she answered. The first reply had been on impulse; the hasty correction was born out of apprehension of its meaning for herself.
There was nothing for it now; she turned to the music and began to play. Her last occasion of public singing was all but lost to her memory, leaving only little occasions of lullabies to her nephew and nieces and light airs sung to herself at the keys in the London drawing room.
She did not dare affect the accent which most singers would choose for this piece, instead singing the English interpretation.
“The winter is past, and the summer’s come at last,” she sang, “and the small birds are singing in the trees. Their little hearts are glad, but mine is very sad; since my true love is far away from me.”
Her voice emerged high and clear; to her surprise, it did not break, nor tremble in the way she had feared.
“The rose upon the brier, like the water running clear, gives joy to the linnet and the bee; their little hearts are blessed, but mine is not at rest, since my true love is far away from me.”
“For it’s straight I will repair to the curragh of Kildare...” A man’s voice struck up the chorus with her own, the sound of a tenor both young and pleasant. “It’s there I’ll find tidings of my dear...” Mr. Turner was close beside her. His fingers turned the pages of her music, her form aware of the closeness of his own as he joined her in the song.
“A livery I’ll wear, and I’ll comb back my
hair,” sang Kitty, “and in fair bit of green I will appear...” Her heart had quickened within her chest, although her fingers did not falter as she feared they might.
She glanced at her companion, her nod almost imperceptible, a communication she did not know if he would understand. He met her eyes at this moment.
“You that are in love and cannot fairly woo, I pity the pain that you endure.” As if upon her cue, Mr. Turner’s voice took the next verse. “For experience lets me know that your hearts are full of woe. Woe that no mortal can cure.”
“For it’s straight I will repair to the curragh of Kildare,” Kitty rejoined him in the chorus, “It’s there I’ll find tidings of my dear.” Her fingers upon the keys held the last note, so that it died away only after their voices faded from hearing.
There was applause from their listeners, an eager patter of hands whose imperfect rhythm brought a blush to her cheeks equal to the one born out of her companion's presence. Mr. Turner touched her shoulder lightly.
“Well played, Miss Phillips,” he said. “And indeed well sung.” On his face, an expression of evident pleasure.
“It has long been a favorite, sir,” she answered, hiding the flush on her cheeks by making herself busy rearranging its pages.
“For myself as well,” he said. “Although the end is fair sad without a second chorus to cheer, I think. We should have sung yet two lines more.” His fingers rested upon the instrument, near the keys and Kitty’s right hand upon them. “Might you play another one?” he asked.
She was in the act of replying yes; but in the corner of her eye, she saw one of the young ladies springing up with eagerness already.
“I believe I must stop for a moment,” she said in apology. She rose, as Miss Pauline supplanted her at the pianoforte.
The young woman offered the surgeon a smile upon her rosy countenance. “You may choose another sir, if you wish,” she offered.
“Do you know ‘Sheehan’s Reel’, Miss Pauline?’” he inquired, seating himself on one end of the pianoforte’s bench. Placing his fingers upon the keys, he accompanied her by playing the high part of the song at one end of the instrument. The girl’s face, radiant with delight, turned towards him more than once during the performance, for both musicians seemed well-acquainted with the piece.
Kitty was ashamed of herself in this moment for half-wishing she had remained seated at the pianoforte; her vexation was as much from self-disappointment as a sense of propriety, which cast her gaze upon the hands folded over her closed fan.
At the song’s close, Mr. Turner declined to sing or play any further; and after the young lady’s solo, Miss Harwick was eagerly pressed into service. Refusing to sing herself, she played a composition unfamiliar to Kitty’s ears by name, although she recognized it as one of the pieces Blakely had played at the Evertons’ party.
Behind Kitty’s seat in the drawing room stood several other guests, including her companion at dinner, the vicar’s wife, whose conversation with Mr. Hooker was audible only by accident of tone.
“Miss Harwick is a splendid musician,” she said. “But I was greatly impressed by Miss Phillips’s performance. She possesses a beautiful speaking voice, but her singing voice was lovely indeed. She made a pretty partner for Mr. Turner’s fine tenor.”
“Miss Phillips has a pretty voice, no doubt,” said Mr. Hooker, in his jovial manner, “but I believe your fellow guests, and I daresay Turner himself, would prefer the prettier sight of Pauline beside him in duet.”
“Such is the way of the world,” answered the vicar’s wife, with a sigh.
Chapter Sixteen
“Your friend Miss Harwick is a lady also, is she not?” asked Mrs. Allgood. “I have not seen her, you know; for I cannot stir these days.”
“She is,” replied Kitty. She sat next to the elderly woman, whose dry, thin hand rested in her own. “She is not young, but she is very accomplished and well-mannered.”
“The name Harwick is not familiar to me.” The woman’s voice trembled. “Are they a good family in London?”
Kitty hesitated. “Her father was a gentleman,” she said. “There are none living except herself and a sister, who lives abroad with her husband.” By Mrs. Allgood’s own standards, she suspected, the Harwicks would be viewed as a shady example of the gentle class, but there was no reason to allude to such matters.
Mrs. Allgood sighed. “I have sent her my compliments and a gift–a bottle of Madeira which my husband laid by an age ago.”
“She has meant to call upon you,” said Kitty, reassuringly. “She has only been much engaged since she has come here; and there are obligations with her fortune, I believe, which must mean a great deal of time in correspondence with London.” For Kitty had seen several letters addressed to a London solicitor upon the footman’s tray in Pennicot’s front hall.
“I am sure that is true,” said Mrs. Allgood. “You dined at the Servennia’s a fortnight ago, I trust? They are a good sort of people; they are not one of the old names of county or country, however.”
“I did,” Kitty answered. This was a subject unpleasant to her, for it brought to mind her irritation with Hetta during their encounter with Mr. Turner; and also the memory of her duet and the subsequent unhappiness she felt at being displaced after the performance. These were symptoms of a malady which Miss Phillips did not wish to admit; therefore, she did not wish to dwell upon them.
“It was a very fine occasion,” said Kitty. “There were a great many families present and a great deal of music after dinner. Miss Mary Servennia is a very talented musician.”
“There were too few in my day,“ said Mrs. Allgood. She attempted to sit up further, exposing a severe patch of purple flesh along the loose collar of her gown and her neck. The mark of bruising without the signs of healing which come with time. Kitty’s breath caught in her throat at the sight before she gained possession of her reaction again.
“Are you well these days, Ma’am?” she asked. “For I fear that you must feel the effects of being alone and in such drafts as this window and roof affords.”
“I am quite well today, thank you,” the widow answered. She patted Kitty’s hand, so the younger fingers were enclosed between two gnarled forms.
“You have music in your possession, Miss Phillips,” she said. “Do you play and sing often?”
“I have been visiting with Mrs. Servennia’s daughters and with Miss Foster,” she answered. “They have a great fondness for music and I have allowed them to copy my own. We sometimes play while I am there–for Miss Foster is endeavoring to learn the notes.”
“Miss Foster is their ward,” said Mrs. Allgood, uncertainly. “She is a good sort of girl, I have heard; but her parents were very unfortunate people.”
“It is true that she has nothing except her character to recommend her; but character is enough, when the heart is pure and kind,” said Kitty. “Miss Foster has impressed me as a very good girl, who needs only a little encouragement to be as well-mannered and respectable as any lady of gentility.”
Mrs. Allgood sighed again. “You are very kind,” she murmured. She lapsed into silence before speaking again.
“Will you sing something, Miss Phillips?” she asked, faintly.
“With pleasure,” answered Kitty, after a moment‘s hesitation. She did not ask for a title, for the elderly woman seemed on the verge of drifting to sleep. Instead, she recalled from her memory a snatch of a Celtic folk song she sang as a lullaby to her nieces at Enderly.
“There was a lord lived in this town,” she sang, “who had a fair and lovely daughter. She was courted by a handsome man, who was a servant to her father...” The song “Matt Hyland” had been a great favorite with the two girls, sung so often that even now she scarce gave thought to its tune or words.
She was aware, after its first verse, that Mrs. Allgood was asleep. The woman’s breathing had grown slow and shallow, her eyes closed in the hollows of her face. After a moment, she stirred again, her eyes opening u
pon the final verse.
“A very pretty voice,” she said. “Many’s the time I heard that song sung in my own day. I think no one sang it as well, nor so gently, as I recall ...” Her voice died away again. After a moment, Kitty gently disengaged her hand and went downstairs again.
In the kitchen, Patience Tibbets was ironing a white sheet spread across the table, with nightdresses and caps awaiting her attention. Her flushed face was framed by the oversized mob cap she always wore, although she favored Kitty with an open smile of greeting from within its circle of ruffles.
“Good mornin’, Ma’am,” she said. “Is me mistress well today?”
“Did you not see her this morning?” asked Kitty. “For she breakfasted with the children downstairs.”
“I wasn’t at my place at-all yesterday; nor at all this past night or mornin’, Ma’am.”
“Were you unwell?” asked Kitty, concerned. Other than the heat of the kitchen, Patience showed no signs of illness or fatigue. In reply, the servant girl straightened her back bent from her efforts and carried the iron to the fire again.
“’Twasn’t me, Ma’am,” she answered. “Mrs. Allgood was too poorly to leave with only one present.” She selected a second iron from its heating spot on the hearth.
“She had a fall from her bed.” Mrs. Josephs was in the doorway behind Kitty, her somber black silk ornamented with the single brooch of gemstone and human hair. “She attempted to rise when I was not present. It was a great deal of effort to lift her again, for we had not the cook there to help since she was away visiting.”
“You were alone–you and Patience?” said Kitty. “And it was thus that she was helped into bed again. Was it a fall by weakness or by fainting?”
Mrs. Josephs’ calm exterior weakened in response. “She felt ill,” she answered, hesitantly. “She was–was becoming ill, I fear. A great quantity of her tea and bread disagreed with her–for she takes no dinner in the evenings now. The tremors and general pain in her limbs makes it difficult for her raise herself or aid herself in any manner.”
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