Peter smiled through a bite of beefsteak. “Indeed.”
“Will you play this evening, Miss Moore?” Beatrice asked.
Clara straightened. “Forgive me, Amelia. I did not have a chance to tell you. Sir Ronald requested a display of our talents this evening. Each of the ladies are to pick a song to play or sing.”
My gaze flicked to Sir Ronald, who smiled and said, “I’m afraid you have no choice. A musicale is a tradition at my house.”
“To play or to sing?” Peter tilted his head. “Which will you choose?”
“Neither will fall well on your ears,” I warned seriously. “But I suppose I shall embarrass myself less on the pianoforte.”
“So modest,” Georgiana goaded. “That is what all women say when their confidence is lacking.”
“Indeed,” I replied without hesitation. “I hope it is very clear that I know my own capabilities well.”
“She speaks such only because she compares herself so harshly to Mozart himself,” Clara said defensively. She pursed her lips and shot Georgiana a fiery look as though she desired nothing more than to wring the girl’s neck.
Plates of baked custard distracted us, and all too soon Lady Demsworth rose, leading us to the music room on the second floor.
I had peeked into the room a few times during our stay, but tonight the space was lit with dozens of candles, their light reflecting in mirrors that lined each wall. In the middle of the large, open room was a grand mahogany pianoforte, glossy and detailed with beautiful craftsmanship. Four tall windows behind it spanned nearly the entire length of the front wall, their curtains drawn open to reveal a breathtaking view of the moon and stars.
Gliding my hand along the ornate carvings on the grand pianoforte, I found myself twirling from wall to wall, taking in the grandeur of the vaulted ceiling and floating along the smooth tile floor beneath my shoes.
“I think I want this room all to myself,” Clara said beside me, breathless. “This pianoforte, and this chair.”
I squeezed the arm of a cushiony purple velvet chair as I walked toward the windows. “And this view.”
Servants had lined chairs in rows a few paces away from the pianoforte, facing the windows. Georgiana fingered a harp. Beatrice presented two separate pieces of piano music to her mother to choose between, and Clara looked over her own sheet music. Was she going to sing? And then I realized I had nothing that would display what little musical talent I possessed. Not to mention the fact that I’d scarcely played the pianoforte since arriving here.
I knew only one song from memory. One song I’d forced myself to learn by heart.
Father brought the pages home after a weekend in London. He said he’d bought them from a poor composer on the streets. When at first I attempted to play the song, the notes did not make sense. Half of them looked partially erased, and I was sure Father had been swindled by the composer. But he forced me to practice the pages hours on end to make sense of the music he was sure was a masterpiece.
It took me weeks to riddle out the chords, until one afternoon, I realized the partially erased notes were not meant to be erased at all. Played in tandem with the others, the music fell into place, like an orchestra of the most heavenly sounds.
The first time I played it, I wept at its beauty. Whoever this composer was, he was a genius. And Father, when he heard it, could not speak for an entire minute. He made me play it multiple times a day. He tried going back to find the composer, but to no avail.
After Father died, I took to the pianoforte to play his song. But Mama could not abide it. She stole the pages from their ledge and cast them into the fire. The change in her had already begun to surface.
Since that day, I copied down Father’s song from notes in my memory and played it as often as I could at Gray House. Now more than ever I needed to free the notes, the music that both uplifted and broke me.
Settling on the bench, I loosened my fingers with a few scales, stretching out the joints and muscles that had grown stiff from the absence of practice. Pushing all thoughts of marriage aside, I let myself feel. Music had a way of healing, and I was in desperate need of it.
The men arrived too soon. I knew I was not ready, and thankfully Georgiana offered to play first, so I took a seat beside Mr. Bratten in the back of the room. She held the harp delicately but firmly, and despite our disagreements, I could not help but admire her. Her flawless performance earned great applause from the room.
Clara stood next, accompanied by Lady Demsworth on the pianoforte. She sang an angelic rendition of a French song from our youth. My courageous sister had blossomed here at Lakeshire Park. Sir Ronald hardly blinked as he watched her in clear admiration.
Clara curtseyed when she finished, and Lady Demsworth beckoned me. It was my turn. As I made my way empty-
handed toward the pianoforte, I heard Georgiana remark disdainfully to Peter about my playing from memory.
Performing for a small group was almost worse than for a crowd. Knowing each of member of the audience personally, I felt self-conscious playing something so meaningful in front of them. But Clara would know the piece, so I would play for her.
I closed my eyes, picturing the music before me, and slowly struck the first soft note.
The immediate rise and fall of the notes lifted me from the room, a melody that transcended the stars, and I escaped reality as I always did when playing Father’s song. One scale followed by another lifted me higher, until my chest was on fire, and I felt a yearning within my soul to never land.
As my fingers flew across the keys, I thought of Peter and how it felt to be so close to freedom and yet so confined to circumstance. I let the notes speak my sorrows and pains, feelings that no words could describe. To have so much in front of me, but to be so afraid, so alone, and so inept at reaching for it raged like an old familiar storm within my soul. Why could life not be like this song? Inspiring, hopeful, brave? I wanted to be as consumed by life, by love, as I was by the notes I played. I wanted my heart to burst with longing. I wanted my soul to sing.
But as the notes softened and descended, rising again only briefly and then slowing, falling, I felt my feet upon the floor again. Grounded, where I belonged. My breath caught, and tears pricked my eyes.
The air was alive with clapping and hushed praise. I rose, and my eyes found Peter, his cheeks flushed, his gaze serious. Lady Demsworth and Mrs. Turnball were standing in appreciation beside the men, and Clara stood off to the side with a hand to her chest. Only she could truly understand.
I suddenly felt very exposed, pushed into a corner like a museum display, and shut the lid of the pianoforte.
Lady Demsworth reached out to me. “That was the loveliest sound I have ever heard, dear girl.”
“It was beautiful, Miss Moore.” Mrs. Turnball breathed with feeling. “So beautiful.”