Lady Marie concluded her piece, and then very predictably looked about her as if she had not known she were being listened to. Polite clapping all round and on to the next.
So the evening wore on. Some of the ladies were mediocre at best, some more skilled. Lady Jemima had obviously spent all her waking hours at the pianoforte and blazed through a Haydn sonata in a seeming effort to frighten whoever would follow her.
The only things that kept Balthazar from dozing off were the very good wine, the anticipation of Lady Rosalind’s turn, and Miss Mayton spraying crumbs on him. Her cake had a thin glaze of icing that was leaving white spots on his clothes. Henri would be apoplectic over it.
“And now,” Lady Hightower said, “we are charmed to have Lady Rosalind Bennington play on the pianoforte. Lady Rosalind, what sheet music can I set up for you?”
Lady Rosalind had hopped up from her chair. She said, “Oh, it does not matter, really. I only use the sheet music as a starting point.”
Lady Hightower appeared surprised to hear it and backed away from the pianoforte. Balthazar was rather surprised himself. Originality was one thing, but what could she mean by sheet music only being a starting point?
Lady Rosalind sat herself down with alacrity, glanced at whatever sheet music was before her. She had not blushed, she had not hesitated, she had not appeared taken aback to be asked.
Of course she had not. There was nothing of artifice about Lady Rosalind.
The lady smiled and her hands struck down upon the keys.
What Balthazar listened to in the next minutes was of a type and style that he was certain had never before been heard in any drawing room in London. Or the world.
It occurred to him that it was usual to get a feel for where a piece of music was going and then one’s ear naturally predicted what was to come next.
Rather than being able to predict anything, he found his free hand gripping the arm of his chair.
One minute, it was a soft Irish air, the next a lively reel, the next a funeral march. The tempo zigged and then zagged, there were several crescendos, it would go melancholic before suddenly speeding up, then make an about face to something reminding him of a baroque fugue. There were times when the lady paused dramatically with her hands raised, as if she considered her next move.
At those suspenseful moments, Balthazar noted the people in the rows ahead of him leaned forward. Then suddenly, Lady Rosalind would have picked her direction and her hands would come down upon the instrument with gusto and she would be off in another direction entirely.
Near the end, at least Balthazar had hope it was near the end, Lady Rosalind’s fingers began repeating the same notes, only faster and faster.
Miss Mayton leaned over and whispered, “Her signature arpeggio. She ends every performance with it.”
And what a performance it was.
Lady Rosalind very suddenly stopped playing and rose. The conclusion was so abrupt that nobody saw it coming and it took most of her audience unawares. There was a silence before a gentle clapping ensued.
The lady graciously curtsied and retook her seat.
As for Lady Hightower, that lady appeared very much bowled over by the performance. “Goodness, yes, well, all right, now, well I suppose…oh yes, let us hear from Lady Mary Gremington on the pianoforte. Will you need music, my dear?”
Of course, Lady Mary did require music, and then very faithfully followed its written instructions.
Lady Rosalind was simply bizarre on the pianoforte and it was about the last thing anybody would wish to have as a regular feature of their drawing room. The notion that she’d worried about outshining the others made him want to roar with laughter. Though, she had certainly not exaggerated when she laid claim to originality.
Everything about her was original.
*
Tattleton had gonedown to the servants’ quarters as finally the ladies of the house had gone above stairs with a tea tray.
Lady Cordelia had enacted her Desdemona again and quite naturally there had been overturned candles, but then he supposed that was what sand buckets were for. The footmen had since cleaned up the sand and moved a chair over the new burn hole in the carpet.
Benny and Johnny had also mopped up the drips of paint on the floor, as Lady Viola had taken to dragging an easel everywhere in an effort to paint portraits. At least, Tattleton had been told they were portraits—the one she was working on at the moment looked to be something seen in a frightening fever dream. The sort of dream where a person was being chased by an otherworldly being sent from the devil.
Though the ladies had gone above stairs, they were determined to wait up for Lady Rosalind and there had been no turning them from the idea. At least the maids would have got them into their nightclothes so when they inevitably fell asleep and then awoke sometime in the middle of the night, they need not ring the bell.
He sat with the rest of the servants as they had their nightly ale. The windows were open because as usual that dog on the floor was contaminating the entire place with her eruptions.
Tattleton glared at the creature while he mulled over a matter weighing heavily upon him. He was very afraid the ladies of the house were plotting something. The first tip-off had been yesterday morning, when they’d sent him out of the breakfast room and made sure the door to it was shut.
