“I thought something like this.”
Bess frowned, thinking that this new melody was too trite to follow the old, abruptly turning the piece from beautiful to cloyingly sentimental.
“Precisely!” Mr Cluett said, glancing up from the keys just long enough to allow his eyes to rest on her face for half a moment. “No, do not say a word. I quite agree. Cloying sentimentality. Then, I thought perhaps this instead.”
He lifted his hands, resting them back at their starting point, and beginning the simple melody again. This time it morphed into something lilting and sad.
One corner of Bess’s lips lifted. She liked this better, but it took away from the cheer of the piece. Her heart sank, and she was too slow to rearrange her expression before Mr Cluett’s gaze snapped back to her.
“Too sad?” he asked, sinking his fingers into one last, tragical chord with a sigh. “Yes, too sad. You see, there must be some point between the two to strive for, but I cannot see it.”
“You have forgotten the rhythm,” Bess remarked, at last, setting her own hands on the keys an octave below his, and playing from the sheet before her, exaggerating the rhythm he showed her. “You begin it here, and then it ends. If you played your second choice but incorporated a little spring -” She made some approximation of what he had just played, only too conscious of the discordant notes that crept into her attempt, and exaggerated the rhythm to prove her point. The entire tone of the melody lifted, becoming not sad but merely wistful, a thoughtful coda to all that had gone before.
“That’s it!” Mr Cluett exclaimed, snatching up the sheet of paper and squinting at it. “I cannot believe I did not see it. How simple a solution that is, and it utterly changes everything! Elizabeth, you are a wonder!”
Bess coloured but said nothing, unsure that she could have found breath to speak, even if she could summon a word.
“I wish I had brought the entire manuscript with me, for I am quite persuaded I shall never progress so well without you as with. Why, in just a moment you have solved a problem that has plagued me all day.” He turned to regard her, his expression rendering his face youthful and she saw, at a glance, what he must have been like as a child. He was not old, now, but his features could be careworn. Gone was the frown that he had worn like a mask upon their first few meetings, gone was the concern that made his thin shoulders sag. If her suggestion had breathed life into his music it had breathed life into him as well, and Bess could not help but smile, before offering a tentative suggestion.
“Well, you may bring it another day, you know. It is not as if I have any other obligations on my time...”
“DO YOU THINK THEY KNOW they are perfect for one another?”
Louisa’s voice was a stage whisper, and Juliet glared at her. Her sister was impervious to reproach, though, and turned to direct her question to Mr Cluett’s sister, instead of her own.
“I mean, I do not know your brother well, but I do not believe I have ever seen a pair of hearts so alike!”
“No, indeed!” Rosemary agreed, a slight shadow flickering across her face. She drew in a breath and smiled and the shadow vanished.
Juliet continued to shuffle the pack of cards she had at last wrenched from her father’s grip when he started to doze over them. She had brought them with her to a chair beside Louisa, planning to lay out a game of patience, but found that fidgeting with the cards in her lap gave far better vent to her feelings than the slow concentration of a game.
Muted laughter swirled from the piano and she looked over to where Bess sat, smiling at Mr Cluett as he played a few more notes for her assessment.
How did I not see this before?
She had seen it, at least in part. Had that not been a point of concern for her, that naive, open-hearted Bess would fall in love with Christopher Cluett the moment she laid eyes on him? She was already a little way in love with him because of his talent and success in the world of performance. Yet she had never dared to think that Cluett might come to care for her as well!
Juliet narrowed her eyes, looking at him a little more carefully. He was almost a different man from the one that had dined at Aston House and been so bad-tempered and standoffish. Fear stalked at her chest. She had feared Bess being heartbroken by the swift arrival and swifter departure of the famous composer, but had she been naive? Surely the more fearful thought was that he might care for Bess too and, in so doing, steal her away!
Juliet winced, her fingers closing over one corner of her pack of cards, and sending them cascading towards the floor. Swallowing a cry, she bent to retrieve them and noticed from the movement at the corner of her eye that Rosemary had done likewise.
“Do you intend to stay long in Castleford, Rosemary?” she asked, her voice a hushed whisper. Her heartbeat rapidly as she awaited her friend’s response.
“A while,” Rosemary said, passing her a few cards with a merry smile. “Longer, if I may have my way.” She sighed. “Alas, we must go wherever Christopher’s music takes him. He will play a series of concerts, which will keep us at home here for at least the foreseeable future. After that, who knows!”
“How romantic!” Louisa breathed, as the two ladies returned to their seats. Juliet set her cards down on the edge of an end-table, hoping neither of her companions noticed the way her hand shook.
Even if something did develop between Bess and Mr Cluett, he would not immediately whisk her away, then. I need not lose all my sisters at once! It was a hollow comfort. She had never thought of Bess marrying, or if she had, had imagined it would be many years hence. Bess was still a child to her, although an assertion Edmund had once made struck her then as truer than ever. She is a young lady, Juliet. She and Louisa both are rapidly growing up and your ignoring it will not keep it from happening! Time marches on for all of us.... Then he had fixed her with a stare from those dark eyes of his that seemed to speak a hundred things words could not. She shook her head, not wanting to return to Edmund yet feeling entirely incapable of keeping him from her thoughts for more than a moment. Even her concern for Bess could not keep Edmund at bay, nor the answer she had yet to give him. She stole a glance at the carriage clock on the mantel, running a quick calculation in her mind.
“Do we keep you from an appointment, Juliet?” Rosemary asked, noticing the gesture and commenting on it. She exchanged a twinkling smile with Louisa. “You must not stay here merely to accommodate my brother and me.” She nodded towards the piano. “I fear I have lost him for the next hour, but you need not stay here purely to keep me company. I am quite content.”
As if to illustrate this, she stood and took a few steps closer to Mrs Turner, forsaking the sisters for their Mama, and engaged her in a quiet, whispered conversation peppered with compliments and designed to further endear her to the woman who was contented mother to them all.
“That was rude!” Louisa hissed.
“I didn’t say a word!” Juliet protested, glancing towards the door and realising that, intended or otherwise, Rosemary had kindly provided her with the very opportunity she had been hoping for. Hoping for, and dreading.
“I think I shall take a run over to Northridge Place,” she murmured, tugging self-consciously at her curls and her cuffs, and hoping she did not look so very homely.
It doesn’t matter she reminded herself. Edmund has seen me every which way and loves me. Her breath caught. Yes, Edmund loved her. And she loved him. It was about time she told him so.
“Alone?” Louisa’s eyebrows knit, suspiciously. “Why do you look so peculiar? Oh!” she let out a theatrical groan. “Do not tell me you have had another falling out with Edmund? Honestly, I wonder that the two of you do not think it far more sensible to stop being friends altogether than to continually make up and fall out like this. It is exhausting. Well, I had better come with you and keep you from saying something you shall regret -”
“No!” Juliet began, before conceding to Louisa’s company. She might have preferred Maddy’s or even Bess’s, for she knew if
she confided the truth to her sister that their falling out would be forgotten and forgiven. Yet, as she looked towards the piano she saw how very pretty Bess looked in the waning afternoon light, the animation in her features as she conversed with Mr Cluett, and, for his part, how his eyes scarcely lifted from her as she spoke. He seemed oblivious to the presence of a single person in the room beside her. No, she would not disturb them. Let Bess love, and be loved. As I hope to be, Juliet thought, biting her lip and hesitating a moment in her decision, before standing and tugging Louisa up beside her.
“Very well then, come if you are coming, and do not be a nuisance. Perhaps you can seek out Mr Weston and ask him when, if ever, he intends to return to London!”
Chapter Fourteen
“What a charming embroidery!”
Nash’s tone was so obsequious, Edmund wondered that it did not irritate Mrs Gale, who was quick to see through falseness of any kind. Instead, she blossomed under his easy praise, tilting her hand so that he might better see the dainty flower she had been working for the past hour.
Edmund swallowed a groan, burying his head further into his book. His friend grew more irritating with every day he remained at Northridge Place, but as Mama seemed quite contented to have him there it was unlikely he would remove himself to London soon.
“At least one of you takes an interest in things outside of your own pursuits!” Mrs Gale said, with an arch look at her son, who did not need to see her to know the precise expression that would be resting on her features.
Affixing a smile to his face, he lifted his chin, giving her embroidery a cursory glance.
“Very pretty, Mama.”
Mrs Gale beamed, her goal in securing yet more praise easily achieved. She set down her sewing and turned to Nash.
“I hope you do not feel as if I am keeping you here, Nash, dear. You know you needn’t stay at home merely to cheer a lonely old lady.”
Nash glanced around him as if seeking where this old lady might be, and Mrs Gale giggled, patting him lightly on the arm.
“I can hardly think of a better place to be, can you, Ed?”
Edmund turned a page he had not read and looked at his friend.
“I am surprised you do not wish to return home. Your own home, I mean.”
“And forsake such enjoyable conversation as this?” Nash winked at him. “Besides, I do not have a houseful of pretty young ladies running over here at all hours.”
Mrs Gale pursed her lips, and Edmund felt his heart begin to race. He had not told his mother of the conversation he had had with Juliet a day previously. It had been a miracle that he had been able to keep the secret, for the matter rolled over and over in his head, tormenting him. He had scarcely slept but lain awake wondering which of them would be first to broach the subject and whether her answer would be favourable. He knew his friend well enough to know that she was not one to be rushed to a decision, but he had dared to think he had seen, when she looked at him, genuine affection in her eyes, beyond what existed between them as friends. There is none for me but you. How true those words had become for him. He could not now bear the thought of life without her if she clung stubbornly to the independence that had kept her from marrying him the first time she asked. Surely she must know I do not want things to change? He glanced at his mother, who was silently sewing with vigour, her gaze still fixed on him. Edmund shrugged, sinking further into his seat as if to protect himself from her gaze. It was as if, somehow, she could see into his very mind, deduce the direction his thoughts had taken.
“Oh, look!” Nash exclaimed, hurrying to his feet. “We have visitors!” He chuckled, knocking into Edmund’s chair as he passed. “They must have heard you talking, Ed. It’s two of those charming young ladies from next door.”
He tugged at his cravat as he spoke, smoothing down the front of his shirt, and lastly running a hand through his hair, giving it a rakish look of disarray.
Edmund hurried to his feet, doing likewise, but with a delay that meant the door was opened even as he tugged a hand painfully through his dark curls.
“Miss Turner and Miss Louisa Turner.” The butler bowed, ushering the two young ladies across the threshold.
Louisa skipped lightly in as she had done a hundred times before, slipping her hand around the arm that Nash offered and allowing him to escort her to a chair next to Mrs Gale’s sofa. His mother softened at that, for, of all the Turners, Louisa was the one she most approved of, and Louisa was well-equipped to flatter and admire her, angling her head that she might better appreciate the neatness of her stitching.
“Good afternoon,” Edmund said to Juliet, once he heard their three companions embark on a whispered conversation about the merits of one shade of embroidery silk over another. He smiled, marvelling at how strangely formal it was to be around Juliet again, and wondering if she felt it too.
“Good afternoon.” Her eyes met his momentarily, before bouncing to the walls, the floor, the huddled group in the corner, and at last back to him. “I wondered if...that is, I thought...” She bit her lip.
Edmund glanced over his shoulder, clearing his throat.
“You must let me show you the library, Juliet. I took your advice and cleared it out, and have unearthed some veritable treasures!”
This was spoken in a tone of voice that was too loud and too jolly, entirely false, but it did succeed in facilitating their escape from the parlour without raising anyone’s suspicion. He laid a light hand on Juliet’s shoulder, turning her towards the doorway, and silently they walked along the corridor towards the small room that had always been her favourite of the whole of Northridge Place, one that he had already begun to think of as hers, and would always do so, even if she did not consent to marry him.
“Mr Cluett and his sister came to call,” Juliet remarked, apropos of nothing, as they reached the library.
“Oh?” Edmund raised his eyebrows, surprised to hear her speak so normally, and of the very last thing he had expected her to mention.
She nodded, trailing her finger along the spines of one shelf of books. She kept her gaze rigidly turned from him, but Edmund dared to think it was not without effort on her part.
“And is their company so very dreadful that you must escape to call on me?” The tone of his voice was teasing and for a moment he saw her shoulders sag with relief. Relief that he could joke with her, still, that he was the same as he ever had been.
“No, they are charming.” She sighed, turning, at last, to shoot him a wry smile. “Too charming. Bess is quite clearly half in love with Mr Cluett and I have my suspicions that he cares for her too. He is quite different now to the silent, bad-tempered fellow he was at your dinner.” She arched one eyebrow. “Perhaps it is you he does not like.”
Edmund laughed.
“Perhaps. I have made my share of enemies throughout my life.”
He pulled out a book at random and opened it, flipping the pages. He was only too aware that Juliet’s gaze remained fixed on him and whilst he was desperate to ask her real reason for calling he knew better than to demand answers right away. With excruciating patience, he turned a page, feigning absorption in the words before him which might just as well have been made of hieroglyphics for all the sense they made to him.
Juliet sighed, fidgeting from one foot to another as if in a long, drawn-out internal debate. At last, she spoke again, her voice so soft and quiet and unlike herself that Edmund would have missed it had he not been so attuned to her movements.
“I did not give you my answer before, and I ought to have. Yes. My answer is yes.”
Edmund felt his countenance change and rapidly struggled to regain control, slipping his features back to neutral, folding his book and shoving it unceremoniously under one arm.
“Yes?” He raised his eyebrows.
Juliet nodded, trying to resist the urge to smile.
“Well, now...” Edmund ran a finger thoughtfully across his chin. “I wonder - oof!”
His book slid to
the floor with a thump as Juliet poked him quite unceremoniously in the chest.
“Don’t be beastly!” Her cheeks flooded with colour. “Do you know how hard it was for me to march over here and tell you that - that I do wish to marry you.” She bit her lip, evidently finding the words as strange to say as he did to hear.
Edmund smoothed a loose curl away from Juliet’s face, looking at her with so much love in his eyes that her fears might be forgotten. How could she have ever doubted her oldest, truest friend loved her? How could she have mistaken his intent, when he had shown her he did in any one of a thousand different ways throughout their friendship?
“Is it so difficult an answer to give?” he asked, seriously.
Juliet shook her head, not trusting herself to speak again. She answered him the only other way she could, with a kiss.
“AND WHAT WAS ROME LIKE?”
Elizabeth’s eyes were wide, her concentration solely on him. Christopher smiled. This was not like the inquisitions he had endured from musical aficionados in the past. She did not want to know chapter and verse of what was played and who was present. She wasn’t angling for names to drop. She asked because he had travelled to places she had only ever dreamed of and read about and because she longed to know his thoughts.
“Rome was very fine.” He swallowed. “Everyone tells you it is, of course, but to see the Colosseum with your own eyes is something one can hardly begin to put into words.” He tapped out a vague scale. “Or music.”
“I have never been anywhere,” Elizabeth said, with a matter-of-fact shrug. “Nor have I ever wished to travel.” She bit her lip. “I have always been content at home, with my family.” She shot a sideways glance at her father, who had long-since abandoned his attempt to stay wakeful and surrendered to sleep, punctuating the quiet of the room with an occasional snore. “I suppose you think that very dull and childish.”
A Spring Serenade Page 10