Intermezzo (21 page)

“Misunderstood Charles, my lady?”

“Do not begin to
my lady
me, miss. I have it from Charles that he has offered for you. Surely you mean to accept?”

Adela hesitated, and as she was clearly very agitated, Lady Spencer simply sat back and waited.

“Somehow Aunt Sophia, I do not think we should be discussing this.”

“True we should not be discussing it and we have indeed been avoiding all mention of Charles for this last fortnight. Do you not think a little discussion might clear the air? You do not seem, you know, like a young lady in gleeful anticipation of marriage.”

“I don’t believe you understand. His lordship did offer for me. I think he was intoxicated at the time. In any case we were both of us not quite sane. And the next morning when he had realized what he had done he left for Ashleigh. He offered for me, I am convinced, out of a mistaken sense of duty and over an ill-advised embrace.”

Adela’s face was scarlet and her eyes were cast down and so she did not see the amusement in Sophia’s eyes. “My darling Adela, you are indeed a gudgeon. You must know that Charles loves you—has loved you for months. And it is equally clear that you love him.”

“If he loves me, why has he left when I need him?”

Lady Spencer chose to overlook the mention of need, and folding her hands in her lap, she began to lecture. “Adela you have so much to learn. Charles as a man of honor could not have remained in the same house after he had declared his feelings.”

“Are you saying that what had been proper for months on end, an arrangement which you yourself engineered, should suddenly become—improper.”

“Yes, I engineered the whole and with the hope I might add of reclaiming Charles who I have always been extraordinarily fond of. By the by, you know I have two daughters advantageously married. They do not have much use for me, the eccentric silly old lady that I am. They send cards at Christmas. Charles is the son I never had.”

Adela took her hand in comfort.

“No I don’t suppose I need your sympathy. I have had a good life and a wonderful husband, but my daughters are
very
pedestrian people, and for years I have faced the fact that I care for them as little as they do for me. But Charles is different you know. Different and far better than the other Beaumonts. I have known for ever that Charles is capable of real humanity and it almost broke my heart to see him slowly atrophy into an elegant mate for that Lady Diana. I
could
not stand by and see him ruin his life. And so I engineered his acceptance of Rebecka, and when it was clear that he was fond of the child but still intent on Diana, I introduced you into the ménage.”

“You used me? You intended that we should come to love each other? That is unconscionable!”

“No, no. I was not fostering a romance. I had no hope of romance, Charles being such a stickler for physical beauty. But I thought if he were surrounded by two warm feeling women—a niece and a cousin, he would come to see Diana for what she was and he would shrink from the connection.”

“And you succeeded.”

“Yes, I succeeded beyond my wildest hopes. Charles and you are very well matched.”

“Then why did he leave, surely not out of any formal sense of propriety. No one needed to know that he had offered.”

“Foolish little girl,” she said gently, “everyone knew—has known—since your return from Ashleigh. Do you think that because the hero and the heroine of our plot were determined on studied ignorance that the rest of us, the servants, Rebecka, and myself should be equally blind. No, nor was it simply
empty
propriety. I suspect that Charles has never denied himself anything before in the world. Once having declared himself he could not have remained in this house with you. Surely you must understand what a strain it would be.”

Color had rushed to Adela’s face. And Lady Spencer continued, “There I see that you do understand, so we will drop the subject.”

And Adela did understand that constraint between them would have been a terrible burden
—she
was certainly incapable of restraint. Still, she was not entirely convinced that Charles’s offer had been anything other than a spur-of-the-moment suggestion. Quietly, and not quite convinced, Adela returned to the music room and to her work.

Several days later Miss Trowle received a letter from Ashleigh.

My dearest Adela,

Sophia writes that Rebecka’s tooth has become infected and is causing her considerable amounts of pain. Still she will not willingly go to have it pulled and there is, I suppose, no sense in forcing the issue. It has been my experience that while overt force is repugnant, a little bribery is often not amiss. You might mention that the tooth fairy will undoubtedly recognize the greater heroism of willingly having a tooth pulled, and even a pulled tooth can be saved under one’s pillow. The tooth fairy in such instances has been known to be extraordinarily generous, having some respect for the courage and fortitude of the child victim.

I could wish that both of you were at Ashleigh now. The flowers are blossoming in the fields and the asparagus and strawberries have come to the table. Nurse and the staff ask after you both. But of course I had not meant to write you about Rebecka and strawberries. Again I am a coward. Every evening I write you quite another sort of letter and every morning I burn it. There is something between us which seems to prevent any honest expression of our feelings and like the two cowards that we are, we have only to look into each other’s eyes to fall into seas of obfuscation and obscurity. Perhaps now, today, I will be able to write what I have so often wanted to say.

I do not know how long I have loved you. I suppose that first I came to love your music, but soon after I realized that
you
were the music that was coming into the library and infecting my soul with your capacity for grief, for pain, and for love. I know now that I cannot imagine myself not loving you—loving you almost to the point of madness. I have hesitated to tell you these things because I—because of so many things which I am only just coming to understand. Primarily, I suppose the fear that you will reject me. After all, what can I offer you. I am an arrogant bored dilettante aristocrat, who before he met you thought he wanted a centerpiece for a wife. I am too old for you, too staid, and too burdened with a position which you will only find an encumbrance. By the by, you must know that being a viscountess of wealth can only assist your career as a pianist. No one will ask you to play at any but the very best of events and with so much time, a moderate degree of comfort, and Horace’s collection you will be able to devote an extraordinary amount of energy to your work.

The ton and the family will be relieved that the only “oddity” of my wife is a penchant for the piano. Our Aunt Sophia has accustomed them to Beaumont women of a much more exotic sort. A pianist is far more acceptable than a “vile Whig.” And you are a great pianist. Nothing, least of all Charles Henry Beaumont, must interfere with your art. And after the concert you will no longer need me.

But can you, my nightingale, accept the devotion of a thirty-five-year-old surly temperamental reprobate? I feel, often, as if I am the beast in the tale of beauty and the beast. I am merely a patron of the arts and you are the embodiment of beauty. I shall be incurably jealous, my love. I promised I would not interfere with your choice, but for weeks I have been living in a hell of jealousy. Without the considerable restraints of civilization, I would surely have throttled De La Courte and I would still gladly murder Brewer even as I know that I am so like what he saw me to be and that he was so much more worthy of you than I could ever be. I shall never be
worthy
—it’s not my nature.

I hated De la Courte and young Brewer but strangely enough, unlike Rebecka, I am not jealous of your Jonathan. Had you not loved him so much you would not have the ability to love me. Caring, genuine caring, is a plant that grows, and is not consumed. There is so much I want to teach you and so much I want to learn. I want to laugh together and to waltz with you in my arms. Every moment with you is a lifetime. I have been used to mere beauty—you have given me a taste for the sublime.

Even when I, in honor, concede that you must choose your own path and that Richard Brewer is a decent chap and life in his cottage would be simple and pleasant—even should you choose that life, I know that I am wedded to you for life and beyond. I can no more cease to love you than I can cease consciousness. Please understand that no matter what your decision, this thing between us is for me a great blessing. I am possessed by a girl with divine fingers.

May God bless you.

Your

Charles

Adela immediately sat down to return an answer.

My dear Lord Waterston,

Last week Rebecka consented without subterfuge or bribery to have her tooth pulled. Had your letter arrived in time I would no doubt have been tempted to resort to the tooth fairy but I would have done so with great reluctance. She is beyond believing in tooth fairies and tooth fairies are, with the best of intentions, something of a lie.

Once when Jon was three and it was Easter we painted some bright colored eggs and hid them, telling him only, as is customary, that a great big rabbit was seen leaving some eggs about the place. Jon found the eggs with no difficulty, but then he began to look for the rabbit, either to return the eggs or else out of some sense of responsibility for a fellow creature. Rabbits that lay eggs are a great rarity. He looked everywhere and continued to look for hours and finally we, my mother and I, explained to him that there was no rabbit. It was all a story that had been repeated to children over the ages at Easter time. Jon
could
not understand. He literally could not understand
why
we had lied to him and he looked at us with great innocence and asked why it was necessary to lie to children at Easter time. Since we could not really justify ourselves we decided that it might, in the future, be wiser to refrain from lying—even little white lies.

Oh, but the lies we tell ourselves! There have been so many fabrications—conscious and unconscious, willing and unwilling ... By the by, I would make an awful countess. Sophia has been trying to beat and badger me into form but I think I am hopeless. My hair, my figure, my manner, all seem to resist her herculean efforts. I do not
want
to have the responsibilities of being a countess. But, somehow—desperately—I
want
to be your wife... Yes of course I love you. As I look back I realize I have loved you for months.

I love you with all my being as I have never loved anyone before and I do so wish I could come to you whole. But in so many very important ways I cannot. You speak of Jon and there is so much I would like to say about Jon but even today, years later, I cannot ... Tomorrow is his birthday; he would have been nineteen and at Oxford. But he is dead. What is the legacy of a small boy? A few memories of a child picking flowers, a flute, a pair of mittens, and a scarf? And now who is to play the flute? and who is to pick the flowers? Eve’s curse was not the travail of childbirth—that pain is small and followed by great joy. Eve’s curse must have been to see her children, body of her body, wrenched from her in death. I do not know how we women endure such agony but, I know now, we do, somehow, endure.

You have given back to me the gift of life, of love and, even more, of laughter. But I had thought, I had really thought, that after the bottomless grief and the fear of insanity would come a return to the
simple
joys and loves I had once known. To a life innocent of grief. The return is impossible. My grief has not been eradicated only transformed into a kind of affirmation of life—a very limited affirmation at that. Adela Elizabeth Trowle cannot ever be quite whole again. For me always in ecstasy there will be the seeds of despair; in tranquility there will be the presence of death; in laughter there will be the welling of tears. As I come to love you more, I love Jon more as well. I shall go through life waiting to see him come through the door and hearing his laughter echoed through the trees on a warm spring day when the buttercups are in the grass.

When my mother died I would visit her in dreams, but Jon does not come to me in that way. I waited for him to speak and he remained silent. I called to him in my music and he did not answer. But my music has changed. You have helped me to become so much more than I was ... You see I would make a sad little thing of a wife. I shall be a limpet attached to your soul. Even now, I worry so much about you. Take great care of yourself. I am petrified that your horse will run wild or that you will be attacked by highwaymen. I doubt that I could ever live without you and I know I could never laugh without you. I miss you so very much. I do not understand yet what is between us; I have so much to learn of life. I think, however, that if you were here beside me now and if I could only reach out and touch you—we would both be incinerated.

Daily and hourly, when Sophia is not dragging me about educating me, I work on the concert. Seven years I have played for Jon but Monday evening I will be playing only for you.

Take care my love and God bless you.

Adela

The night of the concert the great piano had been moved down from the music room and tuned, the lights were dimmed except for the candelabras and chandeliers set around the instrument, and the audience of distinguished and elevated guests, was gathered into the room quietly chatting among themselves. Rebecka had been allowed to stay up and was sitting off by herself and Waterston, who arrived in the house as the concert was about to begin, had sequestered himself in a corner and sat very still silently facing the pianoforte.

Adela was announced and entered hesitantly. Looking up, she encountered a brilliant smile from Waterston and returned the smile tremulously. Then she curtsied and seated herself at the piano.

The audience saw a demure woman making almost no effort at sophistication. She was dressed almost in a schoolgirl uniform—severely, in navy silk with white lace trim. She was unprepossessing, a tiny little thing who could have passed among them unnoticed as a shopkeeper’s wife—a daughter of the middle classes.

Adela hesitated, bowed her head quietly, and the Mozart began. It was light and airy, as they had expected, but there were depths to it, nuances of passion that no one of them had ever heard in Mozart’s music before. Technically she was excellent, but so many pianists were technically excellent. Miss Trowle was far more. Somehow, without any apparent change, the shopkeeper’s wife had been metamorphosed into a nightingale.

Then almost by contrast she played the Bach—sparse geometric music with a discipline and a power and strength completely alien to her image and to her sex. She played Bach with greatness.

There was far more than the customary courtesy applause after she bowed her head and stilled her fingers. Waterston, they thought, had indeed made a discovery: his
protégée
was brilliant!

Finally, after a ten-minute intermission when Adela had withdrawn from the room, she soundlessly entered and reseated herself at the bench. The audience was perfectly silent. Now the Beethoven Pathétique.

The music seemed, on the face of it, controlled. But here was a raging torrent of grief, fear, power, and love. Her fingers were racing and in her eyes was a species of madness. It was no longer a woman at the piano, it was a demon spirit that seemed to grow before their eyes and become massive and overpowering, filling the room until there was nothing left but the music.

Then quite suddenly she was finished.

Everyone was on their feet and the din was enormous. Clementi was shouting his bravos. She heard little of it and looked instead at Charles Beaumont, who was not clapping, but with tears in his eyes was radiating pride and love.

She was surrounded by yellow roses and the calls for “encore,” “encore,” and so with a tremulous smile she held out her hand for Rebecka and the child seated at the familiar piano joined her for a sparkling duet.

Together they were a princess and a queen, and the applause was again deafening, although now accompanied by smiles. These were not warm people, but they understood music and recognized greatness and passion. Adela Elizabeth Trowle was great and she was, moreover, one of them. She was one of theirs. And, for the first time, Adela knew that this was true.

Minutes later she was struggling through the congratulatory crowd toward the corner in which Waterston had been. When she came to his chair it was empty and casting about wildly she found Sophia’s eyes on her. Lady Spencer said very quietly, “I saw him go into the library.”

She closed the door behind her and standing against it she saw him facing away from her, looking out the window. Slowly he turned and there was a great awkward silence. It had been so long and the space between them was so charged with emotion.

Finally, he said almost formally, “You were everything tonight I knew you could be. You must know you no longer need me.”

She ignored his words and stared into the eyes which now reflected so much of the pain that had once seemed an irradicable part of her own being.

She said very slowly, “Charles, I love you—I want to have your children.”

And suddenly there was no distance between them and all words were unnecessary.

Ten minutes later Lord Waterston and Miss Trowle left the library hand in hand to greet their guests.