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“I’m Mr. Vincent Beam. I entered the competition under a male pseudonym. And I won second place.”
“Didn’t Mr. Atwater know it was you?”
“I never claimed my prize and I never revealed my identity.”
“Whyever not?”
“It’s... complicated.”
“Why did you enter the contest under a male pseudonym?”
“I shouldn’t have done. I was inspired by my bold, fearless friends. India, Duchess of Ravenwood, has dedicated her life to uncovering the stories of women throughout history who have been overlooked, forgotten, and whose accomplishments have sometimes been erroneously attributed to men. She had just infiltrated the Society of Antiquaries in male clothing, and I thought to follow her example, on a much smaller and less risky scale, by submitting the symphonicwork to the competition. I honestly never thought it would win. But when it came time to collect the prize, to reveal myself, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m not as intrepid as my friends.”
He guided her into a secluded bower and gently pulled her onto an ironwork bench next to a burbling fountain. “Viola.” He clasped both of her hands and gazed at her earnestly. “I think that you should take credit for your work. And that you should allow it to be published. It would be a great gift to the world.”
With the soft scent of flowers around them, the soothing liquid accompaniment of the fountain, and his hands warm and strong, cradling hers, she allowed herself to imagine, just for one moment, what that would be like. A world where she was more fearless, and more focused on herself, on her accomplishments, instead of always nurturing those of others.
She broke the clasp of his hands and turned away from his penetrating gaze, staring at the fountain instead. “I’ve made my choices. It’s too late to change the entire course of my life now.” She laughed softly. “And have you read any reviews from the critics about female composers? The reviews of Mr. Beam’s work have been glowing. Everyone wants to know who he is and whether he’ll reveal his identity. The conversation would change drastically if they knew it was composed by a female. The reviews would read something like this: ‘How rare it is for a woman to compose a symphony of real talent,’ or they would conjecture that since I’m the daughter of a famous composer,I must be merely copying my father. I couldn’t be a talent in my own right.”
And she couldn’t risk the possibility of someone discovering that she’d been publishing under her father’s name.
“Critics be damned!” West crooked his thumb under her chin and turned her to face him. “Don’t allow a review that hasn’t even been written yet to silence you. If you composed one symphonic work, there must be more inside that brilliant mind of yours.”
There were those bells again. Ringing softly, just a tinkling in the night air... but they were ready to peal loudly, to claim joy.
“I have an entire trunk filled with my musical compositions,” she admitted. “But I’m content with the life I’ve carved out for myself. It’s only rarely that I feel that being my father’s caretaker is a yawning abyss that swallows everything, consumes everything, leaving no room for me. For my creativity. My voice.”
“Do you want the works you’ve composed to be discovered after your death and published posthumously? Everyone will say what a shame it was that the musical genius, Miss Viola Beaton, kept her opus locked away in a trunk.”
“I’m the great composer’s daughter. I’ll be a side note in the history books if I’m mentioned at all. And that’s perfectly amenable to me.”
“Is it, though?” He cupped her face with his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “Is that really enough? You should want more.”
“I wouldn’t call my works genius. I would saythey’re an itch that must be scratched. I could no more stop composing music than I could stop breathing.”
“And you shouldn’t have to. You’ve been holding yourself back from truly living. I saw you perform tonight. You were amazing. You shouldn’t hide that talent from the world.”
“I never should have performed.”
“You don’t perform. You don’t dance. You don’t publish under your name. You believe in love with a capitalLbut you’ve given up on suitors and having a family of your own. The buttoned-up wallflower is only a shell you’ve developed to move through the world overlooked and unnoticed. The real you emerges when you play. Passionately alive, ablaze with talent. Don’t squander your life like I have. Don’t hide your brilliant light from the world. Be adored. Be worshipped.”
“That’s just it. I don’t want to be adored, placed on a pedestal, by the public. I’ve seen what that did to my father. What fame wrought on him. The toll it’s taken. It nearly killed him. Mine was a childhood filled with the requirement for survival in the eye of a storm. My father was always unpredictable, but fame made him a dictator, ruling the lives of all around him by his whims. I learned to navigate carefully. To expose myself as Mr. Beam would be to expose myself to the possibility of a new storm. The publicity that would occur around the daughter of a famous composer attempting to establish her own opus.”
“It’s still a shame. Judging by what I heard youplay the other evening and what I heard tonight, your works are worthy of standing on their own.”
“The critics wouldn’t make that distinction. I would become famous only by association with my father. Fame is dangerous. The power to move audiences, to make people weep openly, to bring them joy... sometimes it comes with a heavy price. I witnessed how this power changed my father, how it warped him. He thought he was above the rules of society. Until he was sued in a court of law and lost everything, including his so-called friends.”
“I understand about the fear of becoming one’s parent. You think that fame might change you in the same ways it changed your father. But you’re not your father. You are sensible, strong, and manage those around you with sensitivity and caring.”
She placed her hand over his and tilted her neck, leaning into him. “I gather from your sisters that you’ve lived your entire life in opposition to your father. But you can learn to forgive him. What did he do to you, West?”
His face closed, eyes dark in the shadows. “That’s a long story. We should be joining my sisters.”
“Humph. So you can ask me questions about my past and give me advice about my future but the moment I ask you something about yourself you change the subject and try to leave?”
“I don’t talk about my father.”
“You should. It might loosen some of the hold he still has over you.”
