Sweeter than Birdsong (6 page)

Leah stared, her cloying artifice dropped. “You are going to sing in the musicale?”

“I don’t know.” A curt answer would deter further questions. She did not like to lie, for she was not, in fact, going to sing in the musicale. “Mr. Hanby seems to wish me to sing.”

“Mother will be delighted.” Leah spoke like an actress relishing her role in a stage drama. The long ringlets beside her face shuddered with her dramatic inflection.

Frederick leaned toward Kate, very earnest. “You mustn’t go back on your word now. Not with that splendid voice of yours.”

She could not flee and could not think of a new subject. Her heart drummed to a faster rhythm. But she could not blame him. He did not know she had been compelled to audition by her mother’s iron decree.

Leah jumped in. “I hear you have quite the singing voice yourself, Mr. Jones.”

Leah must have been talking to the Bogler girls, with their cooing and gossip about the wealthy, handsome member of the Philomatheans. Though Kate avoided such talk like a noxious odor, Leah lived for it.

“I would so love to hear you sing.” Leah sounded like a bad actress again, drawing out her vowels in her idea of an English accent.

Kate wanted to cringe—she picked up the teapot instead and aimed for a perfect pour into the cup. Her sister had worn her best pink gown in addition to styling her dark hair around her face like Little Bo Peep. Leah was a pretty girl, but she was so forward.

Frederick shifted on the edge of his chair. “I must confess that I came here on a mission. And, of course, I obtained your mother’s consent to call.”

Kate passed him a cup and saucer.

Leah filled the silence. “Mr. Jones has just invited us to a spring social on his family’s farm this Saturday afternoon.”

Frederick set his cup on the low table between them and regarded her with his hazel gaze that reminded her pleasantly of the woods. “Miss Winter, I wonder if you might like to ride there with me in my buggy.”

Leah’s rosebud mouth hung open.

Still no words came.

When Kate finally thought of something and opened her mouth to say it, her tongue hardly worked. “And will Leah be coming with us?”

Frederick hesitated and gazed outside through the filmy curtain over the window. “I fear my buggy is too small for three to fit comfortably. But I would not miss your sister’s company for the world, and so I will be delighted to see her arrive with your parents.”

“Oh.” Kate picked up her saucer and touched the handle of her teacup, examining the milky brown liquid with close attention. “I must ask my parents if I may go in your buggy. I will, if they agree.” She had to glance at Frederick then. It was a small room.

He smiled. “I’ve already asked your parents. They gave consent.”

Had he spoken to her father, or only her mother? Please let it be only her mother, who at least would not have reeked of spirits during such an exchange.

“And while I’m delighted to show you my buggy, your company will be the true pleasure,” he added.

Kate’s face burned. They did not teach responses to such statements at Otterbein.

“Well, I must be off to invite the other families.” Frederick bowed slightly. “Miss Winter.” He nodded to her sister. “Miss Leah.”

Kate rose and followed him to the door, the dutiful hostess. The dutiful, mute hostess. She wanted to kick herself in the shins, if that were not an impossibility. Tessie scurried in front and opened the door to let him out.

He was more solid than Kate had noticed before, his shoulders massive beneath his well-tailored coat. He paused on the doorstep and donned his hat in the afternoon sunlight. Backed by the green lawn, he looked quite the ideal gentleman on a stroll. What if he could somehow sense her thoughts? Her face pulsed hotter.

His eyes rested on her for a moment and he smiled. “I’ll await the pleasure of your company.” He turned and walked down to the fine buggy that stood at the hitching post.

Tessie closed the door and melted into the dim recesses of the back hall.

“My, my, my.” Leah had followed Kate and taken a position next to the stairway. She raised her eyebrows like a naughty sprite and tapped her fingers on the banister where it curved to an end.

“Oh, do be kind. What shall I do?” Kate murmured. She could hardly go driving with a young man when she could not speak more than five words to him. It would be a disaster.

Leah placed one hand to her forehead in the style of a tragedienne. “Oh heavens, what shall I do?”

No help would come from her sister. Kate ignored her and crossed to the foot of the stairs.

“Are you really going to be in the musicale? Did you sing for Ben Hanby? Isn’t Frederick Jones a catch?” Leah’s animation set her long curls bobbing.

Kate fought the urge to press her hands over her ears and started up the stairs.

The doorbell rang again. Leah stopped and looked at the door. Kate paused and then descended the stairs again. Had Frederick forgotten something?

Tessie went to answer the door, but nodded her head toward the parlor. The young ladies of the house must go prepare to receive callers, should it be necessary.

Kate resumed her seat in the parlor chair, arranging her skirt around her. At the door, a young woman’s voice drifted past Tessie, her words indistinguishable.

“Please come in, miss,” the maid said.

A girl younger than Leah rounded the parlor door frame and stood there, uncertain. Kate rose. How well she understood feeling out of place and awkward. “Good afternoon,” she said.

“Good afternoon. I’m not dressed for visiting,” the girl said.

“You look quite lovely just as you are.” Kate smiled at her.

“I’m Jenny Hanby.”

“I remember you,” Leah blurted, jumping to her feet. “We were in class together at the academy.” The younger division of Otterbein held more students, and they did not always become well acquainted with one another.

“Yes, we were.” Jenny Hanby had an open, curious face and hair simply styled in a braid down her back, so much more becoming to a young girl than the fussy ringlets Leah preferred. She turned to Kate. “I have a message for you, Miss Winter.”

The front door opened and Kate’s mother entered the house, her face weary before she noticed the visitor and brightened into social artifice. “Good afternoon.”

“Mother, this is Miss Jenny Hanby.”

“I’m sorry to disturb your family, Mrs. Winter.” The girl bobbed a curtsy. “But I have a message for Miss Winter.”

Oh, this might be unfortunate. For Jenny would only be bringing a message from the director of the musicale, her brother Ben.

“Thank you for coming.” Kate’s mother gave Jenny a smile too brittle to convince.

“You’re welcome, ma’am. Ben . . .”

Kate held herself immobile. She must not react.

“My brother Ben wishes to ask Miss Winter if she will be kind enough to accompany me to a rehearsal for her singing part. He is practicing in the recital hall with my sister and brother.”

A rehearsal. So Kate would not get away with one grueling audition, which she had barely managed. The torment of the stage would go on until she left town.

Her mother burst into a genuine smile that wreathed her face in tiny wrinkles across her cheeks. “But of course she will come. Very good, Kate. Off you go. Get your hat.”

Her mother’s rare unguarded pleasure was almost enough to lift Kate’s spirits. But not quite, not when Kate must still march down to a horrible rehearsal like her mother’s personal marionette. She envisioned herself jerking on the puppet strings and then reaching up a jointed hand with a little pair of silver scissors. Snip, snip. It would not be long now—with the threat of more rehearsals, she might have to slip through that iron gate and take nothing but her sheer will to escape.

The sound of a violin seeped out of the college building before Kate reached the main door. She followed the ascending notes to the recital room. The music soothed the throbbing in her head and steadied her nerves.

She slowed her steps as she neared the room. Around the edge of the half-open door she saw the back of a young woman who played the violin, her chin pressed to its base as her bow glided over the strings. Beyond her, by the wall, a young man with wild, light brown hair removed a cello from its case and set it on the floor. He rested the long wooden bow on his shoulder like a soldier’s rifle, then hefted the cello in one lean arm to walk toward the girl. That was Ben Hanby’s brother—she remembered him from the audition. And the girl must be their sister.

She stopped in the shelter of the door. She could still turn around and walk away before Ben saw her.

“We have a fair visitor,” Ben’s brother announced with relish as he seated himself in his chair and positioned the cello against his trouser leg.

Now she would look a fool if she did not enter, thanks to that rather discourteous greeting. She laid her hand on the door but it pulled away from her fingers as someone opened it wider from the other side. She looked right into the serious brown eyes of Ben Hanby. His dark hair was mussed, as if he had been ruffling it unconsciously while concentrating on his music.

A fractional pause gave away his surprise. “Good afternoon.” He made a slight bow, then smiled as if she had brought him a basketful of gifts instead of a bundle of nerves. Extending his arm to invite her in, he stepped back with an old-world courtliness that made her blush.

“Would you like to sit?” He brought a chair from the wall and positioned it a few feet from his own. Then, with a subtle glance at her, he slid her chair farther away to comply with Otterbein standards of decorum. His own awkwardness lessened the burden of hers. She seated herself and he took his own seat, still watching her.

She should mouth pleasant phrases, but her tongue refused to obey the feeble requests of her brain.

Ben seemed to sense her discomfort. “Perhaps you would like to hear us play? Your voice will be beautiful accompanied by the strings.” His attention both drew her in and disconcerted her—it was so complete, as if she were a person to be respected and her thoughts of importance. He turned to include the others. “You may remember my brother, Mr. Cyrus Hanby. This is my sister, Miss Amanda Hanby. Amanda, this is Miss Winter.”

Kate’s greeting in response was too soft—even she herself heard it more as a vibration in her head than a voiced answer.

“We play very well,” Cyrus said. He sawed his bow against the cello strings and a series of tuneless shrieks came from the tortured instrument.

A smile hovered inside her, but the thought of having to sing shattered it. She mustered her will for the inevitable.

Ben rose to his feet. “You will need the music for Miss Winter’s song.” He turned to the end of the score on the lyre-shaped music stand in front of his brother. “Here it is.” He carefully took his sister’s violin from her hand and plucked the third and fourth string of the violin several times, listening before tightening one with a turn of the screw.

Amanda paged through her music, then held out a hand for the violin again. He gave it to her and she settled it on her shoulder.

“Let’s begin.” Ben raised his hand in the style of a practiced conductor. “One, two—” The last two beats were silent and indicated only by the mark of the rhythm from his precise hand.

Cyrus leaned into his bow. Mellow, rich sound filled the room and soaked into the wooden walls like wine in a cask. The melody the cello played was slow, almost regal, but also full of beauty and generosity, like an echo from a more perfect world. It eased into Kate’s spirit and lifted her away from herself into its loveliness. Amanda’s violin joined in, ascending up the scale in delicate counterpoint to the cello’s lower tones.

Ben waved his hand and his siblings stopped, their bows still poised.

“This is where you come in,” he said to Kate, a look of entreaty breaking through his intense concentration.

“I’m not familiar with the song.” Her throat was tight. She must tell him she would not be singing for him. She could not lie and deprive him of a singer at the last moment by her absence.

“Do you read music?” he asked.

“Not well enough.” A good excuse.

He paused, then picked up the sheet music he had been following. “Then I will teach you the first section. You will see. There could be no better song for the purity of your soprano. In fact, I won’t do it justice myself, but if this is how to persuade you to try, then so be it.” He stepped over to the other side of Amanda, as if to minimize his presence.

So he was also shy, at least in this setting. Improbable as it seemed, this lean, intense young man in a black frock coat and white collar, who could speak to crowds with such confidence— he was reluctant to sing in her presence.

“Lower it by a third.” He nodded to his siblings and the cello began again, with the same lovely phrase that caught at her breath, but in a lower key. After the violin, a beat’s hush fell, and then Ben began to sing.

His voice was as rich as the cello, though infused with the intelligent spirit carried only by a human voice. It floated straight through her reserve and self-consciousness.

Where e’er you walk
Cool gales shall fan the glade