Duet for Three Hands

by Tess Thompson

  Several feet from her, he looked up and then came to an abrupt halt. She gasped. “It’s you. From the train station.”

  “It’s you,” he repeated, staring.

  “You’re Professor Fye?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m Lydia Tyler.”

  He blinked several times, peering at her as if he didn’t believe her. “You’re Mrs. Tyler?”

  “Yes.” She put out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  He looked at her hand and then shook it quickly, like it was hot. “I imagined you as a little old lady with a tea cozy.” His hand was strong and remarkably large, but his skin felt soft, like someone who hadn’t done outside work. Her own hand appeared rough and freckled in comparison.

  “I thought the same of you. Well, not an elderly lady with a tea cozy.” She paused, laughing. “But rather an old man with a pipe and gray beard scowling at little children who run across your lawn.”

  His mouth turned up, just a slight curve, but there was a moment of merriment in his eyes. Balancing his hat under his left arm, he set his satchel on the floor before reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a set of keys. “Please come in, Mrs. Tyler.”

  As she moved past him into the small office, she held her notebook against her torso, feeling dowdy in her homemade dress. She should have listened to Birdie and bought a new dress or two.

  She hadn’t gotten a good look at the professor at the train station—the light was glaring, and she’d been anxious to get to campus. But now she saw that he possessed a considerable presence. His features were unremarkable except for their perfect symmetry. And his almond-shaped, brown eyes were sensitive, like they were working hard not to betray emotion of any kind.

  “You’re northern?” Why this was the first question out of her mouth, she couldn’t explain. Sometimes her mouth just started moving of its own accord.

  “Yes. Maine. The Northeast, like you.”

  She felt unreasonably pleased he remembered a detail from her letter. Or had she mentioned it at the train station? Well, either way, it was flattering. Warmth spread from her stomach out to her limbs.

  He set his satchel on a modest wood desk and pulled back heavy curtains that looked out onto an oak and the lawn. The tidy office filled with light. He indicated she should sit. Once she settled in her chair, he sat at his desk.

  He gazed at her, his forehead knit as if he were trying to solve a puzzle. “What do you hope to accomplish this summer, Mrs. Tyler?”

  “I’m here to have an adventure and learn something new.” She paused, glancing at a sparrow on one of the oak branches. “Really, to fight against the inevitable downward slide into old age, kicking and screaming and holding onto youth with the tips of my fingers.” She paused. Why oh why couldn’t she stop talking? “And, my youngest daughter said she wanted to stay at Auburn this summer and take classes.”

  “I see. I think.”

  “When I saw a notice about this program in the newspaper, I just decided then and there that, if you’d have me, I’d come.” She sat forward in her chair. “My only worry was that this is a self-indulgent and vain decision, studying frivolously when the country is in terrible crisis.” Again, the words simply tumbled out. Reticence? Not one of her gifts, apparently.

  A shadow passed over his face as he shrugged. “Art is important, especially in the worst of times.”

  She tucked her hair behind ear. “Well, also, I thought of Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I suspect she might say that it’s actually noble to use the gifts God gave you, instead of languishing into old age, relics before our time. I wonder if it isn’t the finest thing one can do, given the opportunity, to create beauty in the midst of chaos or despair. Can this perhaps be the highest form of worship to a good and merciful God?”

  Watching her, the same guarded expression on his face, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “It would be pleasant to think such a thing.”

  “Do you not agree, Professor?”

  “I have no idea what pleases God.” He put the cigarette back in his pocket. “I’m trying to quit.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Cigarettes.”

  “Oh, right. Why is that?”

  “They make me feel terrible. I’m trying not to indulge in things that make me feel terrible, but I can’t seem to stop.” He stood, clearing his throat. “Would you play for me?”

  His height and imperious, formal demeanor made her feel almost petite and oddly nervous, and something else. She shuddered, realizing. Desire. So long dormant and now suddenly alive? Horror filled her. Desire for the professor? Five minutes into the adventure and she meets this? This man? This opposite of Santa? Why now?

  He watched her with what she suspected was amusement. Had he read her thoughts? Her cheeks flamed hotter.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Tyler?” What a gentle way he had. A good teacher. She could see this already.

  “Oh, quite fine. Thank you.”

  “Come on over to the piano. I’d love to hear you play.”

  She coughed into her hand, moving to the piano while he closed the door. He set her entrance composition on the piano and then moved to stand at her side, indicating that she should begin as he took a handkerchief from his pocket. “Hot in here.” Mopping his brow, he grimaced. “Never have been able to adjust to the humidity down here.”

  Feeling overly warm herself, which she could not blame on the humidity but rather on the man at her side, she felt the impulse to fan her face with the sheet music but instead left it on the piano. She glanced up at him. “Play?”

  “Please.” He moved around to the left side of the piano and closed his eyes, resting his right hand on top. Feeling nervous, she willed her trembling fingers to move across the keys. When she finished, he opened his eyes and made a sweeping gesture across the top of the piano. “It’s a lovely piece, in its simplicity.”

  “Simplicity?” She cringed inwardly at how childlike she sounded.

  He nodded and looked at her with a kind of scrutiny that made her uncomfortable. “I’d like to hear you play something you haven’t written.” He shuffled around in his satchel, pulling out another piece of music and placing it on the piano. “This is one of my own. Would you play it for me?”

  “Fine,” she said, still stung and surprisingly miffed by his dismissal of her piece as she scanned the pages. It was untitled, and the markings indicated that it should be played at a rapid tempo in C minor. She took a deep breath and began, no longer nervous because of her anger. She’d show him how she could play, and he’d see she was not simple. A skilled sight reader, her hands found the notes with ease. The music was rich and varied, intricate in its composition. The mood of it felt melancholy, indeed almost dark. As she played, the drama of the music made her forget where she was or that she performed for her new teacher. She played for herself, just as she did at home, alone in her parlor.

  When she was done, she gazed, unseeing, at the keys, lost in the beauty of the music and humbled. This was a man of immense talent—one who had indeed earned the right to call her piece simple. He was a musician of a caliber rarely seen and that she’d certainly never known personally. The professor stirred next to her. When she looked over at him, she wasn’t sure if it was pleasure she saw there or boredom.

  After a moment, he spoke, his voice gruff. “Your playing is remarkable, Mrs. Tyler. How did you learn to play like this?”

  “I studied as a young woman. Before my marriage.”

  “Yes,” he murmured. “So you said in your letter. But this music is complex, extremely difficult to play. Only the best can play it so well the first time.”

  “Thank you.” She flushed. “I have a regimented practice schedule.”

  “Right. Your five hours a day.” He paused, seeming to think out loud. “Discipline alone cannot take the place of talent. And please don’t take this as an insult, but you have the largest hands I�
�ve ever seen on a woman.”

  Lydia felt herself turning what she knew from past experience to be an even deeper shade of pink. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “Vanity aside, Mrs. Tyler, this is an excellent quality in a pianist.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Mrs. Tyler, had you never heard of me? I mean, before you applied to school?”

  “No, should I have?”

  “Not necessarily, but it surprises me, given your considerable dedication to your craft.”

  She stared at him, taken aback and unable to think of what to say.

  “I was once called the best pianist in the world.” He glanced at his hands. “I don’t know if was true or not, but that’s what they said. Most pianists your age would know that.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been rather out of touch with culture. Atmore is small. And provincial. I’ve been raising children.” A trickle of sweat ran down the small of her back. “Why do you no longer play professionally?”

  He stepped back from the piano. “I had an accident. The nerves in my left hand are damaged. I can no longer play, which makes my former career as a concert pianist impossible.”

  Lydia, shocked, filled immediately with sympathy. “I’m sorry.” I can think of nothing worse, except for the loss of a child, she thought to herself.

  “Which is why I teach now.”

  She stared down at her own hands in her lap. “I see.”

  “Ah, well.” He looked around the small office and spoke with a dismissive sigh. “One must rebuild from the rubble.”

  “Yes.”

  “And after many years of horrendous but well-meaning girls, I finally have a real student.”

  She felt her eyes widen. “You mean me?”

  The professor’s eyes lit up. “Yes, I mean you. Here, play this Schubert.”

  She did, and then he had her play a Chopin, and then an Albéniz.

  He paced at the side of the piano. “What in God’s name possessed you to give up a career to get married?” She couldn’t decide if he was angry or excited. “With this kind of talent, how could you walk away from a career?” Now his voice was almost a growl.

  “I did it on a whim, actually. A childish whim.”

  He massaged his left arm in an absent way that made her suspect he had a chronic ache there. He saw her watching him and dismissed her sympathetic glance with a sweep of his hand. “Never mind that, I’m having a bad day of it. That’s all.” He put his hands in his pockets and glared at her.

  She pushed middle C three times, then glanced at the light fixture above the piano, which was full of dead bugs. “My mother died when I was nineteen, and three months later my father married a woman only a couple years older than I. It devastated me. I met William at a dance when I was on holiday, and, well, before I knew it I was a housewife.” She paused, considering the truth of her next statement. “But I haven’t regretted it for one instant. We had many good years together. He gave me my two daughters, which is better than any ambitions I once had. You must not have children, Professor Fye, or you would understand.” She saw him flinch. “Do you have children?” she asked, meekly.

  “I had a son. He died when he was only hours old.”

  “I’m sorry.” She fidgeted, feeling awful and small. “I often say the wrong thing. I talk too much.”

  He glowered at her for a moment. Then to her relief he shook his head and laughed—more of a chuckle that seemed out of practice. “You are a surprise, Mrs. Tyler.” He rocked back and forth on his feet. “With more instruction you could be really fine. Do you understand that?”

  “A fine what?”

  “Pianist. At the risk of sounding immodest, Mrs. Tyler, when you play, it reminds me of myself. Before my accident, that is.” His face went dark again. “Will you allow me to mentor you?”

  She stared at him for a moment before realizing that he expected an answer. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “When I was a young man, sixteen, actually, I went to New York and studied with a French master named LaPlante. His tutelage changed my life.”

  “But why me?”

  “Because teaching is what I do.” He shrugged, speaking casually, as if it was neither here nor there, and she suspected suddenly that he was embarrassed. “And your talent is worthy of a teacher.”

  She could think of nothing to say.

  He tapped the top of the piano with his good hand. “I’m saying that with some hard work and dedication and more than a little boldness, we could turn you into a virtuoso.”

  “But aren’t I too old?”

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Tyler. How old do you feel?”

  “I feel the same as I always did.”

  “I imagine the work it took to raise children without a spouse would prove too much for most people, but you managed a practice regimen at the same time. That, Mrs. Tyler, is most unusual.” He peered at her like she was a fascinating oddity; his pupils contracted as if he were staring at the sunlight.

  “Should I go now, Professor?”

  He rocked on his heels again, looking like a boy. “Yes, but you must come to my home sometime. Play on my baby grand. There’s no finer instrument.”

  “Your home?”

  “My wife will be there, too, of course.”

  “Oh, right, of course.” She tried not to stutter as she accepted his invitation, feeling both dread and excitement. Wife. Well, of course, he had a wife. He wore a wedding ring. It wasn’t a surprise, but it deflated her, nonetheless. “And your wife? Is she happy here in Montevallo?”

  His eyes turned hard as his voice deepened. “My wife’s a southerner, but she misses the city. She’s found small-town life to be somewhat stagnant, I’m afraid.” He glanced out the window. “Her health is fragile.”

  “I’m sorry. May I ask what’s wrong?”

  He pulled the same cigarette from his pocket that he’d abandoned earlier. “Frances suffers from what the doctor calls sad moods.” He lit his cigarette with a small silver lighter and took a deep drag.

  Wanting to ask more but knowing it was not appropriate, she nodded in what she hoped was a polite way. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He went to his desk and opened a notebook where he obviously kept his calendar. “What day next week would you like to come to the house, then?”

  “Friday?”

  “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow, here at the office.”

  Chapter 32

  Nathaniel

  * * *

  A week had passed since Lydia Tyler had come to him. They’d worked together every day except Sunday. Nathaniel and Pastor Ferguson, during these same days, had established a pattern of walking in the early morning hours before he picked up Jeselle. During their walks, Nathaniel slowly told the pastor of his life, including his tribulations with Frances and the death of their child. To his surprise, he admitted to the reason for their marriage and then described the rapid decline of their relationship after John’s death and his subsequent career-ending injury. All of which the pastor met without judgment or criticism. This wasn’t the kind of pastor Nathaniel had ever met before.

  Today they began at the parsonage and made their way out of town, to walk alongside the creek, warm despite the early hour. The sun slanted through the trees.

  Ferguson pulled his hat farther down over his forehead. “You’re smiling to yourself this morning, like you’re thinking of something else.”

  He smiled. “I have a new student. Lydia Tyler. She’s a middle-aged widow, but you’d never know it by the way she plays. She’s on my mind this morning.”

  “You’re excited to teach her?”

  “More than I can say. More than anything in a long while.”

  Ferguson swatted at a fly hovering near his head. “Tell me, Nathaniel, what do you do for fun?”

  “Fun?”

  “Yes, y’know, something that amuses you.”

  Nathaniel slowed his pace, thinking. “I don’t know.” They reached the grassy bank w
here they often stopped. “It was just music. All my life, music. And then, Frances and music. And then, nothing.” He motioned toward a wooden bench. “Let’s sit.”

  Ducks waddled by on their way into the creek.

  “Frances likes the moving pictures. She sees everything that comes to town.”

  “But what about you?” asked Ferguson.

  “I like books. Yes, that’s something. Novels mostly.” He leaned down and picked up a pebble, tossing it into the creek, near the gaggle of ducks. A female dove under the surface, thinking it was some kind of food, brown tail feathers wriggling above the water. “And I love fishing with Whitmore. Frances’s brother. After John died, Whitmore was a solace to me.”

  “My littlest daughter died when she was only five years old. Did you know that?”

  “Lulu told me. I’m sorry.”

  Ferguson took off his hat and scratched the back of his head. “No worse pain than losing a child. You think you won’t ever breathe again, and then, you find you have. But the pain never goes away, despite being able to breathe.” He put his hat back on, adjusting it with both hands. “Do you see Whitmore often?”

  “Not enough. He’s at Princeton. He’s a gifted artist and a wonderful boy. I’m hoping to make connections for him in New York when he’s ready.” He tossed another pebble into the water. “Truth is, I don’t find I look forward to much these days.”

  “Well, perhaps this new student will help.”

  “I think she will.” He felt a flash of happiness at the thought of teaching Lydia Tyler. “And you, Gillis. And our walks. I haven’t had a friend since Walt. I’ve missed it.”

  Ferguson smiled and patted Nathaniel on the shoulder. “I couldn’t agree more. But we better go. Lulu hates it when I’m late for a meal.”

  Part V

  From Jeselle Thorton’s journal.

  * * *

  June 9, 1934