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About midway through our tea, I asked to be excused to go to the bathroom, and Otis directed me to the closest one, which was on the west side of the house. As I was coming out, I heard piano music coming from a room farther down the corridor. It was so beautiful I was drawn toward it, and I looked through, a doorway that opened to a beautiful sitting room, behind which was a patio that opened to the gardens. But to the right of the patio door was a grand piano, the top up
so that at first I couldn't see much of the young man who was playing. I took a step in and to the right to see more, and I listened.
Dressed in a white cotton shirt with a buttoneddown collar and dark blue slacks was a slim young man with dark brown hair, the strands thin and loose so that they fell over the sides of his head and over his forehead, settling over his eyes. But he didn't seem to mind--or to notice anything, for that matter. He was so lost in his music, his fingers floating over the keys as if his hands were independent creatures and he was just as much an observer and listener as I was.
Suddenly he stopped playing and spun around on the stool to turn toward me. However, his eyes shifted to my right, as if he were looking not at me but at someone behind me. I had to turn around myself to be sure I hadn't been followed.
"Who's there?" he asked, and I realized he was blind.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you."
"Who's there?" he demanded.
"My name's Ruby. I'm here for Mrs.
Clairborne's tea."
"Oh. One of the greenies," he said disdainfully, the corners of his mouth dipping. Otherwise he had a strong, sensuous mouth, with a perfectly straight nose and a smooth forehead that barely wrinkled even when he smirked.
"I'm not one of the `greenies," " I retorted. "I'm Ruby Dumas, a new student."
He laughed, folding his arms across his narrow torso, and sat back.
"I see. You're an individual."
"That's right."
"Well, my grandmother and my cousin Margaret, whom you know as Mrs. Ironwood, will see to it that you lose that independent spirit soon enough and become a proper daughter of the South, stepping only where you should step, saying only what you should say--and saying it properly--and," he added with a laugh, "thinking only what you should think."
"No one will tell me what to say and think," I replied defiantly. He didn't laugh this time, but he held his smile for a moment and then grew serious.
"There's a different sound in your voice, an accent I detect. Where are you from?"
"New Orleans," I said, but he shook his head.
"No, before that. Come on, I can hear things more clearly, more distinctly. Those consonants . . Let me think . . You're from the bayou, aren't you?"
I gasped at his accurate ears. He put up his hand. "Wait . . . I'm an expert on regional intonations . ."
"I'm from Houma," I confessed.
He nodded. "A Cajun. Does my grandmother know your true background?"
"She might. Mrs. Ironwood knows."
"And she permitted you to enroll?" he asked with sincere surprise.
"Yes. Why wouldn't she?"
"This is a school for pure bloods. Usually, if you're not a Creole from one of the finest Creole families . . ."
"But I am that too," I said.
"Oh? Interesting. Ruby Dumas, huh?"
"Yes. And who are you?" He was hesitant. "You play beautifully," I said quickly.
"Thank you, but I don't play. I cry, I scream, I laugh through my fingers. The music just happens to be my words, the notes my letters." He shook his head. "Only another musician, a poet or an artist, would understand."
