Sweeter than Birdsong (39 page)

“Welcome, sir.” A stout woman in cap and apron came out of a back room into the large common area set up as a dining room with trestle tables. Two ladies dressed in travel attire sat in the upholstered chairs by the fire, and several men sat apart from one another at the tables, reading papers.

“I am Mrs. Pye, the manager. Will you lodge with us tonight?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She told him the price for room and board. He set his luggage down and paid her.

“Dinner will be served in an hour.” She handed him a key. “We usually have music before, but our player did not arrive. Snowbound, I venture.” She gave a rueful look to the upright piano in the corner farthest from the fireplace.

One of the middle-aged ladies turned from her contemplation of the fire. “Such a shame, Mrs. Pye. We so enjoyed his playing last evening. My sister is quite crushed. It lifted her spirits so, you see, and she has been melancholy.” And it did seem the other lady was quite downcast, her eyelashes lowered to her cheeks, her face strained.

“I do apologize, Mrs. Fereday,” said the landlady. “But it can’t be helped, I’m sure you understand.”

Ben hesitated. “I play a little, ma’am,” he said to the woman by the fire. “Would you like me to stand in for the missing musician?”

Both Mrs. Pye and the two women straightened up.

“Oh yes,” said the one named Mrs. Fereday. “Mrs. Ellsing, do you hear? There will be music after all.”

The other woman regarded Ben with interest, her sagging face not as defeated. “That would be lovely,” she said in a faint voice.

“Then I would be glad to oblige.” Ben went to the piano. He pulled off his gloves and kneaded his hands together, then lifted the lid over the keys and sat down. “Would you like something cheerful, or a little more stately?”

“Stephen Foster is her favorite,” Mrs. Fereday said.

He repressed a wry grin and began the opening bars of “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.” It was good to see the care fall away from the sad lady’s face as the song progressed. The men at the tables had looked up. When he finished with a run up the keyboard, the ladies applauded.

“Camptown Races!” one of the men called out. He looked like a working man, but did not seem rough, just simple.

Ben obliged with the jaunty tune. The man started to sing, and another joined in. Mrs. Pye beamed and walked back into what must be the kitchen

He played for an hour, until he had almost exhausted his popular repertoire. Each new song was greeted with tapping feet and nodding heads. He played every Foster tune he knew, enjoying the camaraderie. The men sang along to several of the Fosters and the other well-known tunes.

Finally, he was out of well-known songs. Without sheet music, he could not go on. And perhaps it was a good time to stop, as the smells rolling out from the kitchen were making his mouth water and it must be near dinnertime.

“Oh, just one more, please,” the sad woman said.

All he had left were his own songs. Well, he did not like to disappoint her. “Darling Nelly Gray” was good enough to be published—he would play that one.

The chords rang out, and he embellished them to bring out the plaintive quality of the tune.

The working man called out from his seat, “I’ve heard this one.”

He had? Then maybe the song had been distributed here after all. Or maybe the man was simply mistaken.

“But let’s have something happier, shall we?” the man added.

“Hear, hear,” said another one of the men, seated at the far end of the table, who looked like a supercilious lawyer. He did not look up from his paper.

“Oh yes, Mr.— What is your name?” asked Mrs. Fereday.

“Hanby,” Ben said.

“Mr. Hanby, let’s not end with something sad. Would you mind playing another Stephen Foster for my friend, just to end on a good note? So to speak?” And she giggled.

“Not at all.” He shoved down his hurt pride. “How about ‘Camptown Races’ one more time?”

“Oh, perfect.”

The men grinned and the other woman pressed her hands together in gratitude.

They were not bad people. They seemed quite decent. It was Ben’s song that was not appealing.

He was no Stephen Foster. The song would probably sell a few copies and disappear. He resigned himself to the ache of another failure. But he wished it had not been so. The disappearance of the song seemed doubly heavy, because with the song would die away those faces and voices he had known: Joseph, Nelly, her baby. It was as if he had failed them a second time. His music was not strong enough to support their story. He had let them vanish as if they never lived.

He had lost his appetite.

Forty-Two

“R
UTH, COME UPSTAIRS
.” A
UNT
M
ARY STOOD AT THE
foot of the stairway in a cream morning dress that frothed over her elbows and slippers. “And you too, Kate. You must go up and see her now.”

Her mother crossed the rugs to the stairs. Kate followed, disguising her reluctance. She did not want to see her mother in grief—it was like seeing her unclothed.

Down the dim hallway and into her grandmother’s bedroom they went. There she lay, still inert and apparently unconscious. Perhaps she had lapsed back into oblivion in the short time it took them to come to her. The room’s now-familiar sense of loss shrouded Kate, the feeling of a past emptied and impoverished, of wasted time and stunted love.

Kate’s mother approached the bed and sat in the chair positioned close to the head, so Kate took the chair on the opposite side and waited in silence. Her mother touched the thinning hair, where her grandmother’s scalp was showing through. “She always had beautiful, thick hair that I asked to brush when I was a little girl. I always wondered why she didn’t wear it long, in all its magnificence, until she told me one day that grown ladies didn’t do that.”

Kate kept quiet, awash in the memory of begging to brush her mother’s hair, when she was only four or five. How she had adored her mother then.

“Mary thinks the end has come.” Her mother spoke in a low, unemotional voice. “It won’t be long now for Mother. And still no word from her. It would make it so much easier, somehow.”

The shiver of pain and pity that assailed Kate so often in this home returned.

Would Kate one day have to sit at her mother’s bedside, with so many questions unanswered and so many old hurts? Perhaps her mother also thought this, as they sat there in the loaded silence. Kate could so easily see the estrangement building and dividing her from her mother as history repeated itself.

Her mother lifted her hand and stroked her grandmother’s head. She must have suffered too. And inexplicably, a long-forgotten line sprang to Kate’s mind:
Though a mother forsake her child, he will not abandon you
. What was it like, to be a child completely forsaken, and without the comfort of a real faith or even a tender marriage? The emptiness in her mother’s face was giving way to a living pain that hurt to witness.

Then her grandmother’s eyes opened. She appeared more cognizant of her surroundings than she had seemed since their arrival.

“It is Ruth,” her mother said. “I am here.”

Her grandmother nodded her head just a fraction of an inch.

Her mother took her grandmother’s limp hand. “I forgive you, Mother.” Her eyes grew wet, and tears ran down her cheeks. Kate wanted to look away but could not. Her love for her mother stirred and awakened like a bear after winter—hungry, angry, pained from long absence. She wanted to comfort her, to tell her she was sorry for that lonely young woman who had been cast out by those who should have rallied around her.

It seemed to Kate that her grandmother’s hand moved ever so slightly, as if she had squeezed her mother’s hand with fading strength.

“I understand,” her mother said. And they sat there until her grandmother closed her eyes again.

Kate wanted only to flee before she wept. She rose without speaking, left the bedside, and went downstairs, walking back into the parlor, finding comfort in its rich warmth. She wandered around, peering into the cabinets. That porcelain statue had come from Thailand, but where had her grandparents acquired the three miniature ivory carvings? Perhaps Aunt Mary would tell her.

A copy of the new
Godey’s
lay on the table. Kate picked it up, leafing through it, seeking anything to take her mind off the sadness.
Godey’s
was her favorite, for its historical features and the engravings. As she flipped the pages, she saw the usual printed page of sheet music. A song in every issue, the cover always promised.

“With the permission of Oliver Ditson and Company,” it said, “and in response to requests from our readers,
Godey’s
presents ‘Darling Nelly Gray.’”

She read the lyrics. Then she saw the name under the title.
B. R. Hanby
. Surely not. She read the name again in disbelief. But who else could it be?

She went to the piano and sat down, skimming the first line, laying her fingers on the keys, reminding herself of the sharps and flats. She began to play the melody only, which was quite easy after her practices with Cornelia.

Oh my poor Nelly Gray, they have taken you away,
And I’ ll never see my darling any more;
I am sitting by the river and I’m weeping all the day,
For you’ve gone from that old Kentucky shore.

It was the song for Nelly, the one he had mentioned in the letter. And it was a beautiful song, haunting, as if she should remember it from some other time and place. He had published it—bittersweet pleasure on his behalf dripped through her with every line she played. The chorus was as good as the verse, the lyrics touching. She played through all four verses, and by the time she finished she was singing the chorus, under her breath, so no one could hear her.

Aunt Mary came down the stairs, her cream skirt ruffling after her like foam against the carpet. “Kate, you know that song? It’s lovely. I heard a friend’s daughter play it the other night.”

“A song from
Godey’s
.” That must explain it. Nothing spread as fast as a tune in
Godey’s
.

“It’s called ‘Darling Nelly Gray,’ isn’t it? I’ve seen mention of it in the papers.”

“In the newspapers?”

“Oh, it’s all the rage, apparently.”

Kate kept quiet, wondering.

“I have good news,” her aunt said. “Arthur procured some tickets for
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
this evening, as our last outing together. I am sorry you must leave, but at least we may offer you this one big-city entertainment first.”

“Thank you.” That penetrated even her Ben-induced fog.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
, her one and only chance to see it. How kind of Arthur and Georgia—they had known Kate would love to go.

Her mother spoke from behind, startling her. “Mary, would you mind if I took the carriage to the shops this morning?” She must have come down silent as a ghost on the stairs. She still looked pale.

“Not at all. Would you like me to accompany you?”

“No, thank you. I have some purchases that I must make in private.”

“I understand.” Aunt Mary lowered her voice to a discreet murmur and stepped closer to Kate’s mother. “But please don’t feel that you must buy us parting gifts. We are family, and you are welcome here at any time.”

Kate’s mother nodded, turned, and hurried back up the stairs, saying over her shoulder, “I will be down in ten minutes to leave if your carriage can be ready.”

“Of course.” Mary crossed to the bell pull on the wall and rang for the servants, though it did not make a sound in the parlor.

“Kate,” she said when she returned, and the last footsteps had faded on the stairs. “Will you play the song one more time? I do love it.”

Kate began again, and this time dared add the left hand to bring in the harmonies. It was soaking in Ben’s presence, calling him back to her mind and heart, remembering joy that overcame the old sorrows of this house.

She did not mind if she played it fifty times. But her aunt might find it strange.

Forty-Three

B
EN UNFOLDED
K
ATE’S LETTER AND READ THE ADDRESS
again, though he had committed it to memory on the train: 119 Walnut Street.

“119, please,” he said to the hackney cab driver.

“Yes, sir.” The houses of Walnut Street passed by in restrained elegance as the horse trotted on. The cab stopped. Ben climbed down. “Wait here, please.” The driver nodded, accustomed to well-dressed gentlemen who paid at the conclusion of several errands.

He had donned his clean coat, shirt, and tie and taken care to look as gentlemanly as he could. The hotel valet had cleaned his hat so it gleamed. But his neat appearance did not ease the hammering of his heart. He rehearsed his speech in his mind, then stepped up to the door and rang.

A middle-aged man in servant’s livery answered. “Good evening, sir.”

“I seek Mrs. Isaiah Winter, whom I believe to be a guest here. It is a matter of some importance.” He handed his visiting card to the servant.

The card disappeared into his hand and he opened the door. “Please come in.”

Ben stepped over the threshold into the foyer. He noted the molded paneling, the rich wood floor under his feet—signs of the wealth Mrs. Winter wanted for her daughter.

“This way, sir.” The servant took his hat and ushered him to the left, opening double doors into a high-ceilinged parlor with blue-draped windows, a red medallioned carpet, and elegant mahogany chairs softened by lace doilies. The man closed the doors behind him and left him alone.

The warmth of the fire soothed his cold face—he approached the snowy white marble hearth and the portrait on the wall above it. The lady in the painting was black-haired and blue-eyed, like Kate. His pulse quickened, outracing the tick of the tall clock to his right with its long brass pendulum under etched glass.

The doors opened and Mrs. Winter entered. She wore a green silk dress and walked as if she were born to own such a house—and he supposed she was. She stopped six feet away, as if he were a tradesman.

He would behave as a gentleman nonetheless. Inclining from the waist a few degrees, he bowed to her in the most formal and polite manner possible.