American Anthem

by BJ Hoff

  “She’ll not be staying here; don’t think for a minute she will.” It was Moira, in her usual caustic tone.

  Her husband answered, his voice gruff. “You don’t know that.”

  “She might stay for now, if she has designs on him, as I suspect she does. But you watch. That’ll change soon enough. Who’s to say but what she’s not the same turn as the sister, after all?”

  Susanna cringed at the comparison with Deirdre. But to her surprise, Liam Dempsey came to her defense. “This one’s not at all like the other. She seems a good enough sort. The wee wane dotes on her, and she turns a steady hand to her work. And doesn’t the man have a right to a bit of happiness? The Lord knows he’s had little enough of it these past years.”

  “Even if she means well, she’s too young,” Moira insisted. “A girl like that is not going to tie herself down with a blind man and a child for long! You mark my words, she’ll not be staying! And there he’ll be again.”

  “ ’Tis none of our affair, woman!” Liam growled. “You worry too much!”

  “And wasn’t I right about the other one?” Moira shot back. “Didn’t I tell you what she was, early on?”

  “Aye. But I’ve been married to you long enough to know you’re not right all the time, and this is one of those times, I’ll wager.”

  Susanna stood staring at the kitchen door for a second or two more, then quickly turned and retraced her steps. She went into the library and stood at the window, fuming. How dare Moira Dempsey assume she was anything like Deirdre, simply because they were sisters! She had done nothing to earn the woman’s suspicion and contempt. And yet…

  The Dempseys had known Michael since he was a boy, and Moira obviously considered herself a surrogate mother to him. Not only had she been a part of his childhood, but she would have experienced the difficult years after his accident when he’d endured both blindness and a devastating marriage. She would have witnessed much of the anguish and humiliation Deirdre had brought upon him.

  Even though Susanna was shocked at the animosity that apparently fueled Moira’s disapproval, once she calmed, she had to concede that perhaps in the housekeeper’s place she would have reacted the same. The woman did not know her, after all. How could she be expected to trust Susanna’s motives or her actions where Michael was concerned? Nothing but time—most likely a great deal of time—would win Moira Dempsey over.

  She left the library and went in search of Michael, still mulling over the conversation. She hated being the object of someone’s distrust. More distressing still was the awareness that Moira’s suspicion was based on nothing but the deceit of another person—in this case, Susanna’s own sister.

  And wasn’t this very nearly the position in which she had placed Michael?

  The realization slammed her like a hammer blow, and she stopped in the middle of the hallway. From the beginning she had been unable to trust Michael, and all because of Deirdre. Her own suspicions had been based entirely on what she’d been told by her sister—whose deceit had been monumental.

  Down the hallway, she heard noises from the music room and started in that direction. Just as she reached the door, she heard a dissonant crash, like a cat jumping on the piano keys. Then a loud thud.

  She found Michael on his knees near the piano. Manuscript pages were scattered everywhere, and he frowned and muttered to himself as he vainly tried to sort through them. He looked unusually disheveled, his hair tousled, his tie askew, his face flushed.

  Rarely had Susanna seen a flare of the proverbial “artist’s temperament” in Michael—that volatile emotionalism and passion of one completely consumed by his work, or the blistering flash of impatience when the work did not go well. For the most part, despite the limitations his blindness imposed on him, he almost always maintained an enviable calm, a reserve of self-control she never would have expected to find in so complicated and gifted a man.

  She wasn’t sure she really believed there was such a thing as the “artist’s temperament,” but if there was, Michael certainly didn’t seem to fit the mold. This was one time, however, when his even disposition had clearly abandoned him.

  She hesitated at the door, waiting for the right moment to enter.

  His head came up. “Susanna?”

  “Yes.” She walked the rest of the way into the room. “Can I help?”

  Without waiting for him to answer, she stooped down and began picking up random manuscript sheets from the floor, glancing at them to see what they were.

  “Grazie,” he said. “I was foolish enough to think I could manage this without Paul.”

  “What sort of order do these belong in?”

  He sighed. “I had two stacks and managed to drop them both. One section is partially coded—but not numbered. The rest is Paul’s notation. Everything is out of order.”

  “Why don’t you let me do this?” Susanna offered, already beginning to sort the pages numbered in Paul’s neat hand from those coded in the New York Point for the blind, which Michael used for his personal reference. “I’ll just separate the Braille sheets and put Paul’s in order.”

  “Ah. Grazie,” he said again.

  He pushed himself up to one knee, staying there as if he could watch Susanna’s progress. His closeness unnerved her and made her hurry even more.

  “Was it terribly hard for you?” she asked, attempting to make conversation as a means of easing the awkwardness between them. “Learning to use Braille?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “It was not easy. I think for children, it is probably a little easier. Their reading and writing habits are not so well-formed yet. Becoming blind as an adult is much like beginning a new life.”

  He said it without so much as a trace of self-pity. Susanna looked at him. He seemed weary to the point of exhaustion, and in that instant she felt as if she might suffocate with love for him.

  Love. How studiously she had avoided that word! Yet how easily it seemed to slip into her thoughts of late.

  Flustered, she glanced away and finished scooping up the manuscript as quickly as she could.

  “There,” she said, “I think I’ve got it back together the way it should be.”

  They stood, and for a moment they faced each other, Michael’s hand on her arm, his head bent low.

  “Michael…I wonder if we could talk,” Susanna ventured. “I…want to apologize for the other night. There hasn’t been time—”

  Unexpectedly, he lifted his hand as if he would touch her face, but didn’t. “There is no need.”

  “There is a need,” Susanna insisted. “Please, can’t we just…talk?”

  “Susanna—”

  “Michael, I have something I need to tell you, but there’s something else I need to say first. Please, just let me say it!”

  He frowned in surprise at her outburst, but stood waiting, his features taut, as if he were apprehensive about what was coming.

  “Can we—” Susanna glanced toward the settee in front of the fireplace. “Can we sit down?”

  “Sì. Of course.”

  He was in his shirt sleeves but moved now to shrug into the jacket tossed on top of the piano before crossing the room. Susanna followed him, watching as he stooped to punch up the fire: his broad back, his great mane of dark hair, his easy movements. Emotion seized her again, and she had to look away.

  He racked the poker and joined her on the small sofa. “So, then, what is it you wanted to tell me?”

  “About the other night. I want to explain why I acted as I did—”

  “You did explain,” he broke in. “And I told you, I understand.”

  “Oh, Michael, will you please stop being so…forgiving!”

  One dark eyebrow lifted, but he said nothing.

  “You’re always so kind to me.” Susanna’s voice rose. “But I don’t deserve your kindness this time, don’t you see? I’m trying to tell you that I’m dreadfully sorry, really I am, about what happened. I’ve no idea why I jumped to the conclusion I did. I
know you better than to think you’d deliberately deceive me. You wouldn’t. It was foolish and unfair, and I still can’t believe I acted as I did. You have every right to be upset with me—”

  “But I’m not upset with you, Susanna.”

  “Well, you should be! I jumped to conclusions, I accused you of a perfectly awful thing. Can you forgive me? And please, don’t just say you do! Don’t be kind! I need to know you really do forgive me, if you can.”

  He sat utterly still, his expression thoughtful, as if he was choosing his words with deliberate care. “Of course, I forgive you, Susanna,” he said softly. “But you’re wrong in thinking it was all your fault. I should have told you about Christopher’s accident before rehearsal. But I suspected you would accuse me of deliberately taking advantage—”

  “And that’s exactly what I did accuse you of! It probably wouldn’t have made any difference when you told me, I would have—”

  He lifted a hand to stop her. “But more than likely, you would not have been so quick to assume what you did if I had simply explained beforehand. That was my fault, not yours.”

  Finally, some of the tension began to seep out of Susanna and she managed a deep breath. “It should never have happened. I…don’t really know why—”

  “Is it so difficult for you to trust me, Susanna, even now?”

  “Oh, Michael, no! I do trust you! It’s so much easier, so natural, to trust—”

  Susanna stopped, putting a hand to her mouth to stop the words she had almost blurted out: “It’s so much easier, so natural, to trust someone you love…”

  “I would like to believe that, Susanna. But I can’t help wondering…why now?”

  “I’ve changed,” Susanna managed to say. “I can’t explain, but I have changed. And there’s something else—”

  She stopped, trying to quell her nervousness. What was she letting herself in for? But she had promised herself—and God—that she was going to try.

  “If you want, I’m willing to help with the concert. I’ll…play the organ. If I can, that is. I’ll at least try.”

  He leaned forward so suddenly the sofa pitched under his weight, and the smile that slowly spread over his features made Susanna feel as if she’d just handed him a rare and precious gift.

  28

  THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD

  Truth cannot hide from the eyes of a child.

  ANONYMOUS

  So…what changed your mind?”

  “It’s not that I haven’t wanted to help you, Michael. I have. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve refused to do something I really wanted to do.” Susanna paused. “Because I was always afraid. Afraid I’d fail.”

  She went on, struggling to explain about the safe place she had made for herself by always staying in the background, never undertaking anything beyond her capabilities, and the false humility she had birthed and nurtured through the years.

  She hated being this honest with Michael, recoiled at letting him see just what a pitiful coward she had been…and perhaps still was, if truth were told. She would much rather have had his respect, even his admiration—but it seemed important that she make as honest an explanation as she could manage.

  She thought it futile entirely to mention Deirdre’s attempts to diminish her, so she didn’t. Her sister’s contempt had not created Susanna’s inadequacies and fear of failure, after all, but had only added to the weaknesses already there. Only in letting slip the nickname Deirdre had given her—“Mouse”—did she hint at her sister’s ongoing abasement. And when she saw Michael’s countenance tighten, she hurried on, giving him no time to respond.

  “It was Caterina, I suppose, who finally helped me come to realize what I had done to myself all these years.”

  “Cati?” he said with a look of surprise.

  “Yes. When she brought up David and Goliath at the rehearsal, it triggered something in me, something that forced me to confront what I’d done to myself.” She paused. “Children often have a way of…mining truth from a grownup’s heart.”

  Michael smiled a little and nodded. “I, too, have sometimes had to confront a truth because of one of my precocious daughter’s incisive questions.”

  Caterina had flung one of those “incisive questions” at him only that evening, after he had heard her prayers and tucked her into bed.

  He had bent over to kiss her good night when the question came. “Papa? Why are you unhappy with Aunt Susanna?”

  “But I am not unhappy with Aunt Susanna. Where did you get such an idea, Cati?”

  “You hardly talked to her today,” Caterina had replied, her tone uncommonly solemn. “And when you did, Aunt Susanna looked…worried. And you sounded like you do with me sometimes when I’ve done something to make you unhappy.”

  He took her hand. “I’ve been very busy, Cati. Too busy. But I promise you, I’m not unhappy. Not with Aunt Susanna nor with anyone else.”

  A long sigh escaped her—a very adult sigh. “Do you like Aunt Susanna, Papa?”

  “Such questions tonight! What is going on in that clever little head, eh? Of course, I like Aunt Susanna. I like her very much. Don’t you?”

  “I love her!” Caterina said fiercely. “I love her more than anyone else in the world except for you!”

  “Good. I hope you have told her so. She would like hearing it, I know.”

  “Have you told her, Papa? Does she know you like her?”

  “Well…it is…different for grownups,” Michael stammered. “We do not always speak of such things.”

  “Why not? Don’t you think Aunt Susanna would want to know you like her? She likes you. A lot. I can tell.”

  “And how is it that you know this, hmm?”

  “When she looks at you, I can see it. I think Aunt Susanna likes you almost as much as I do.”

  Caterina was just a child, Michael reasoned. A child who loved her father and her Aunt Susanna with all her heart. Even so, her words made him lose his breath for an instant, wishing that he could see how Susanna looked at him.

  Susanna watched Michael retreat and wondered where he’d gone. Michael was a man who needed quiet as much as food and water, and somehow he seemed to have carved out a place within himself where he could withdraw—even in the middle of a crowd or an ongoing conversation.

  She had grown accustomed to his silences, but in light of what she’d been trying to tell him, she wished he hadn’t picked now to turn inward.

  “Michael?”

  He straightened. “I’m sorry, Susanna. I was thinking about what you said. About Caterina. What else did you say?”

  “Yes, well, I was saying that even though I’m familiar with most of the music you’re doing for the Christmas concert, your arrangements will be altogether new to me. And there’s so little time left—only a few days. I’d have to practice a great deal, but where? I can’t very well go into the city every day and leave Caterina.”

  “That need not be a problem. Saint Catherine’s has a fine organ. I’m sure Dermot would be more than happy for you to use it for your practice.”

  “Dermot?”

  “Dermot Flynn. You met him your first evening here, remember? He’s the priest at Saint Catherine’s. It’s close, not quite a mile away. And you needn’t worry about Caterina. Moira will be here, even if Paul and I are gone. Perhaps Caterina could go with you sometimes. I’m sure she’d like that.”

  As Susanna listened, Michael proceeded to work everything out, precisely and thoroughly. And Susanna began to realize that she had lost any hope of a way out.

  Perhaps this was God’s way of making His will perfectly clear.

  With a bit of help from Michael.

  29

  A NECESSARY FLAW

  I have sought, but I seek it vainly,

  That one lost chord divine,

  That came from the soul of the Organ

  And entered into mine.

  ADELAIDE A. PROCTER

  Only three days remained until the concert. In ad
dition to spending hours at Saint Catherine’s every day in practice, Susanna also had to help ready the house for Christmas. Decorations were constructed and put up; preliminary baking had begun, with Moira Dempsey feverishly supervising every move made in the kitchen; gifts were prepared—some homemade, others purchased; and Caterina insisted on adding a new Christmas carol to her repertoire on a biweekly basis, which of course required extra instruction.

  Susanna felt as if she were living in a whirlwind. By now it was difficult to believe there had ever been a time when a concert didn’t loom like a waiting storm and every hour of the day wasn’t filled with too much work to do.

  The world outside might just as well have not existed, so frenzied and all-absorbing was life at Bantry Hill. Most of the news she managed to glean came through discussions between Michael and Paul about events going on in the city or her own random reading of the newspapers.

  Apparently the Tilton-Beecher scandal still dominated the gossip circles, even though a mistrial had been declared the previous year and Henry Ward Beecher had been exonerated by his congregation. The famous Brooklyn preacher and brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe had been accused of adultery with the wife of one of his parishioners—a parishioner who also happened to be his closest friend. But then Mr. Beecher seemed to be the subject of more than one scandal. Apparently, there was much speculation that the clergyman was also involved in the rising spiritualism movement—especially with its women.

  Susanna had the feeling there might be more to this story than what Michael and Paul discussed in her presence. She had read mention in the newspapers about the character of some of the women who participated in the spiritualist groups springing up all over New York State, and their reputations were questionable at best.

  Indeed, scandal seemed to be the leading fodder for the newspaper mills these days. In addition to the tales about Beecher, there was also the recent news that the infamous “Boss” Tweed, the leading, albeit corrupt, political force in the city of New York for years, had escaped from jail and was on his way to Cuba.