This time, his mother’s silence was an infuriating challenge. She feigned complete ignorance that he had been speaking, failing to acknowledge that he was in the room with her at all.
“Will you not come, then, Mother? Are you so unhappy with me that you will punish yourself by choosing to miss a concert you were only too happy to attend a few days ago?”
“A few days ago, my life still had meaning!”
Edmund was so surprised to hear his mother’s voice after so many days of silence that he did not immediately understand her words. He blinked, allowing the sense to come to him, and struggled not to respond with either laughter or violence at the absurdity of her comment.
“Your life still had meaning?” He shook his head. “Mama, do not be ridiculous. All that has changed is that Juliet and I have announced our plans to marry - plans that can surely not have been a surprise to you, as they were not to anyone else that knows us.”
Mrs Gale sniffed, muttering something that Edmund could not quite hear.
“What was that?”
“I said...” She set down her embroidery, that she might better fix a woeful gaze on her son. “I had hoped for better for you.”
“Better than marriage to the person I have loved all my life?” Edmund scoffed. “There is none better than Juliet for me, Mama. I thought you understood as much. You claim to care for me and want what is good for me. If that is even the least bit true, you must respect my choice. The Turners have been friends of ours as long as I recall. Mr Turner and Father were close friends. We are not dissimilar families.”
“As friends and neighbours, yes, but we are hardly alike enough to consider marriage!”
“How fortunate then, that you are not the one marrying them!”
Edmund could bear his mother’s weeping and wailing no longer. He stood, stalking towards the door and decided that at that moment he would prefer to be anywhere that was not in her immediate presence.
Walking the short distance to his neighbours’ had the benefit of burning off a little of his agitation so that when he arrived at the Turners’ he appeared merely restless.
“Good afternoon, Edmund!”
Bess was the first to greet him, occupied with dressing a bonnet in one corner of their parlour.
“Very pretty!” he remarked, leaning over her shoulder to examine the cunning little hat. He smiled, grimly. “For the concert?”
Bess coloured prettily and nodded, and he was forced to recall one of many discussions he and Juliet ha had about the possibility of a match between Bess and their composer friend. There is a match that will face no opposition! he thought, his smile growing. “It will look very well, Bess, I am sure.”
The door to the parlour flew open and Juliet hurried in, buried beneath armfuls of books.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“Reorganising!”
Juliet’s voice was muffled beneath her heavy burdens, and Edmund reached out to take a few from her that were perilously close to cascading to the floor.
“Thank you!” she smiled, as soon as he had cleared enough that she could be seen. “I knew there was a reason I agreed to marry you!”
Edmund’s answering smile did not quite reach his eyes, and Juliet deposited her books down on the sofa with a thump, before turning to look at him with concern.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing.” He raked a hand through his hair, knowing that his answer and his manner were less than convincing. Juliet did not press him, though, merely plucked at an imaginary piece of lint on his shoulder and waited, patiently, in case he needed to say more. He fidgeted with the edge of one cuff, before letting out a sigh.
“I am aching for some activity! Will you come for a drive to Castleford?” He glanced over one shoulder to widen his invitation. “You too, Bess. We’ll make a party of it. What say you?”
Juliet’s smile grew apologetic.
“I would, you know I would, but I have to finish sorting through these books, and then I did so wish to write a few words...”
“Say no more!” Edmund dropped a kiss on her cheek, silencing her explanations. He had promised her, and himself, that their engagement would be no hindrance to her creative endeavours, and he meant to live up to that promise at every opportunity, lest she second-guess their decision. He grinned. “I shall leave you to your work and look forward to a recitation this evening?” He winked, for it was a perpetual discussion between them whether she was ready to share her work and whether he was capable of being a suitable audience. He turned on his heel, surveying the milliner.
“Bess?”
“I will come!” she said, frowning at her bonnet and pushing her chair back from the table. “I could do with a break from this, lest I ruin it with too much attention.”
“Excellent!” Edmund clapped his hands, making for the door. “I shall go and ready the horses and we shall make our escape!”
As he made for the door he almost collided with Louisa, who squealed and was righted only by Edmund’s quick reactions, grasping her gently by the elbows until she regained her equilibrium.
“Why are you here?” Louisa groaned. “You always seek to upset the balance of things!”
“And I am delighted to see you this morning, too, Louisa. Now, be a good girl and come to Castleford with Bess and I, won’t you?”
Louisa opened her mouth to protest, but his suggestion was too pleasant to refuse. She smiled instead, allowing the dimples in her cheeks to show, and nodded.
“Good girl!” Edmund grinned snatching up his hat from a bemused servant. “Ready yourselves for our departure, both of you! I shall return with carriage!”
CASTLEFORD HAD BECOME almost as familiar to Bess as any of the other small towns close to their home, and she could not help but enjoy touring its bustling, elegant streets, especially in company with Edmund and Louisa. Edmund had been more cheerful than ever since the announcement of his engagement to Juliet, as if some great question hanging over his life and his future had been answered, leaving little to chance but the promise of a happy, healthy future together.
Bess was happy too, but could not help but feel a tiny flicker of envy. Juliet would be married, and Louisa was only ever destined to move away. What hope could she have of future happiness? Whatever friendship had been developing between Christopher Cluett and her would end as soon as he moved away. She was torn between excitement for his concert, to hear him perform the pieces that she had helped him to perfect, and sadness because she knew that, once the series was complete, he would leave and they would never see one another again.
“Well, ladies, where shall we go first?” Edmund asked, as the three of them walked along the narrow pavement, pausing to peer in windows as they passed.
Louisa longed for new ribbons, Edmund himself had invented a reason to call at his glove-makers, and Bess was merely content to be in Castleford and free to watch their bustling neighbours and friends.
“Bess! Come and see this delicious bonnet!” Louisa called, when she had run on ahead of them and reached the haberdasher’s first. “It is like the one you were trimming at home, although not as elegant. Come and see!”
Bess shot Edmund a longsuffering smile and hurried to catch up with her sister. Her attention was so fixed on Louisa that she scarcely looked where she was going and collided almost entirely with another couple who were strolling contentedly together down the path towards them.
“Oh!”
The gentleman spotted her at the last moment, sweeping his companion to one side, and standing by so that they passed without injury.
“Miss Elizabeth!”
Bess stopped, then, looking up for the first time into the features of the tall, slim gentleman and recognising Christopher Cluett.
“Mr Cluett! Rosemary!”
She had barely uttered his sister’s name when that young lady threw her arms around her, pulling her into a warm embrace.
“You did not tell us you were coming!” Ro
semary waved to Louisa and then turned to greet Edmund. “And where is your fiancée?”
“Drowning under piles of old books,” Edmund said, with a cheerful smile. “She left me to amuse myself, and poor old Bess and Louisa were kind enough to offer me an excuse to drive out to Castleford. Afternoon, Cluett.” He shook Christopher’s hand warmly. “Not practising?”
“I have managed to tear myself away,” Christopher said, with a droll smile.
“He had promised to take me to tea,” Rosemary said, slipping her arm through Bess’s. “We were just on our way. You will come with us, won’t you?” She called to Louisa and bade her join them, which Louisa did, with a regretful glance over her shoulder at the haberdashers.
“We may come back, Miss Materialist!” Edmund teased her, tugging her curls as he had been wont to do when she was a much younger child and he not a full-grown gentleman.
Louisa scowled and walked a little faster ahead of them to outpace him, and the two gentlemen were left to stroll contentedly along together.
Bess walked with Rosemary, and she did so quite happily, although her gaze remained fervently fixed on Christopher. He looked well, and his features were animated as he spoke to Edmund. She could not help smiling to see his eyes dance with light as he described some aspect of rehearsal in great detail, accentuating each point he made with wide circling motions of his arms. She could not hear him but liked to think she could understand at least a little of what he was saying.
“Bess.” Rosemary’s address made Bess realise too late that she had been careless in concealing her interest in the two gentlemen, and that Christopher’s sister surely had only to look at her to deduce her feelings. She struggled to rearrange her features into something bland and indifferent and turned to her friend with a disinterested smile.
“Do you care for my brother? You may speak freely, you know, for as much as I am his sister I like to think I am your friend.”
“Oh,” Bess stammered, feeling her cheeks flood with colour. “I think highly of him. He is a very talented musician, and has been so very kind to me, helping me with my own playing and allowing me to be of some service to him as he prepared for his concert.” Her eyes pricked painfully as she realised just what she would be losing when the concert series ended and Christopher moved away.
“These past few weeks have been the most wonderful...” Her words faltered, and she bit down on her lip, fearing that to continue would be to court disaster. A long moment passed before she could trust herself to speak again. “I shall be sad to bid you both farewell.”
“What if...” Rosemary fidgeted, her features dimming in a frown that communicated some great degree of uncertainty. “What if you did not have to bid us farewell? What if - that is, I know you are happy here, but have you ever given a thought to travelling?”
“Travelling?” Bess frowned, unsure quite where her friend’s thoughts had gone to.
“I mean to say...” Rosemary stopped, tugging on Bess’s arm so that they stood still on the pavement, allowing the rest of their company to continue without them. Bess looked at her friend, concerned by the ruddy flush to her cheeks and her eyes which were suddenly a little too bright. “My brother cares for you, as I believe you care for him. He is too idiotic to speak of it himself, and when questioned provides a hundred excuses, the most important of which seems, to me, to be that he would not wish to part you from your family. I suppose what I am asking, Bess, dear, is would you be willing to leave them, if that is what marriage to him would mean?”
“Marriage?” Bess’s throat grew tight, her brain struggling to process all that her friend was telling her. “Do you mean -”
“Rosemary?”
Christopher had stopped and looked back, noticing, at last, that the two young ladies were not behind him, as he thought. He frowned and closed the distance between them.
“Is something the matter, ladies?” He paused, then, his eyes darting between the two as if he could tell all of a sudden the direction their conversation had turned in.
“I had to tell her, Christopher,” Rosemary stammered at last. “I could not sit idly by and watch you - watch both of you - forego a chance at happiness. My chance to marry and be loved was taken from me, but yours is right here, if only you dare to seize it!”
Chapter Seventeen
“Rosemary...”
Christopher’s mind was as blank as it had been in the very worst days of composing, but now he wasn’t searching numbly for music, but words. It should be have been easier. It wasn’t.
“Oh, look!” Rosemary said, brightly. “There is Alicia Gilmour. I must just go and say hello. I’ll join you for tea, Christopher. You can see Bess to the door, can’t you?” She looked at him meaningfully. “It will allow you to talk.”
With a sigh, Christopher nodded, turning to face Bess and wondering what sort of revenge he could contrive to visit upon his sister for putting him in this position.
Bess, for her part, stood stock-still, her features pinched and drawn. For a moment, Christopher feared that his sister’s words had so unduly unsettled her that she was at risk of swooning. He began to look around, desperately, for a bench, some place he might direct the young lady to before she fainted.
“Are you quite well, Miss Elizabeth? Look, the tea room is only a few steps away. I shall go and fetch your sister if you wish -”
“No!” Bess’s voice was strangled but sure, and Christopher was relieved to see a little colour creep back into her pale cheeks. She shook her head, seeming to grow in confidence and clarity with every moment that passed. “No, I do not need my sister. I do not need anyone.” She drew a breath, her gaze flickering up to meet his, unflinching, and he saw a calmness in her eyes that worked to settle his own jangled nerves. Gone was the shy, anxious Elizabeth he had first met at the pump rooms, only a few yards from this spot. In her place stood a young woman who knew her own mind, who could decide for herself what path she wished to walk down and embark upon it.
“Perhaps, then, you will permit me to escort you the rest of the way?” He offered her his arm, and after a moment’s deliberate consideration, she took it. It seemed to him the most natural of gestures, as if the crook in his elbow had been designed precisely with her small, delicate hand in mind.
“Let’s not go in straight away,” Bess murmured, the colour deepening in her cheeks at the audacity of her suggestion. “Is that not the concert hall up ahead? I should like to see it before it is filled with people and performers. Might we?”
Christopher nodded, determined at that moment that he would provide Elizabeth Turner with whatever she wished for, and thinking that to see the inside of Castleford’s grand concert hall should be the very least of the requests she deserved to have met. The place had become so familiar to him it was like a second home: it would be only right to welcome her into it, to show him the very place where the music she had helped him to write would first be heard.
The stepped across the threshold in silence, broken only by the breathless “oh!” that escaped Bess’s lips when she saw the elegantly carved cornices, the grand fresco on the ceiling, sparkling in the afternoon light.
“I trust you approve of the venue, Miss Elizabeth?”
“Bess,” Elizabeth corrected, smiling merrily at him. “I have only ever been Elizabeth to strangers.”
“Bess.” Christopher dipped his head, acquiescing to her suggestion. What a small, simple name she possessed, and yet, how it suited her! “I am grateful Providence has afforded us one last opportunity to speak before the concert. I was hoping we might.”
This was not entirely true, for whilst a part of him longed to speak to her, to unburden his mind and his heart and speak the words he had long wished to utter, a greater part knew that he oughtn’t to hope for such a thing. He had lived in conflict for so long that now, presented with the opportunity, he did not know how to begin.
“I hope the rehearsals go well,” Bess remarked, smiling up at him. “I assure you, my family a
nd I are most eager to attend. Mama is quite delirious to hear you perform the piece we worked on at home.” She laughed, and a more musical sound Christopher was not sure he had ever heard. “I ought to warn you that she has rechristened the piece Aston House Symphony, and will accept no other name for it.”
“I can think of none better,” he assured her. “Alas, I have been forced to name it formally for the programme, you understand, but I assure you that this is the name it shall always have to me.”
He hesitated, then, thinking that this ought to provide him with the perfect segue into what he wished to say, but finding that his courage seemed to fail him even now. He rued his sister for her interference, then recalled her last words, the tearful glance she had shot him by way of apology.
“I could not sit idly by and watch you - watch both of you - forego a chance at happiness. My chance to marry and be loved was taken from me, but yours is right here, if only you dare to seize it!”
“Miss - Bess,” he began again, forcing himself to speak the words he had long nursed in the quietness of his mind, dreaming of uttering them and dreading the answer he might receive. He shoved his anxiety away. There was no way out but through. “I dread to think what secrets my sister divulged to you concerning me.”
Bess’s face remained sanguine, betraying nothing, and, swallowing, Christopher continued.
“As such, I can neither confirm nor deny her accusations. But I can tell you what is on my heart, whether you have already heard it alluded to or not. I am very grateful for the friendship you have shown me during my time at Castleford. I know I can be - have been - have occasion to be difficult at times.” He smiled, ruefully. “Professional acquaintances would argue that that is the right of the musician, the artist, the performer. I have lived too long with my sister to indulge in such justification.” He sighed. “In truth, I have struggled with composing anything at all of late. I have had this concert on my horizon for quite some time, growing larger and more imposing with every week that passed and never any music to show for it. I was growing rather desperate at the time we first met, for my anxiety over composition was affecting my ability to play even the simplest of melodies.” He clenched his free hand into a fist and released it again, marvelling at the way it was now free of pain when, mere weeks earlier, such an action would have been fraught. “When I met you, it was as if a spring burst into life once more. Music found me, and it has not stopped flowing for me ever since.” He blinked, fixing his eyes on Bess. “It is a gift, and I credit it only to you. And it is for that reason that -”
A Spring Serenade Page 12