Death and Transfiguration

Chapter 25

"What are you talking about?" I asked Léa, but she didn't answer right away. Instead, she looked out over the water, while I followed her lead and did the same. Soft piano notes played in my head as I glanced back toward the water, taking in the slow, gentle rhythms of the waves, and I tried to hold onto the moment, if only so I could write it down later, immortalize it in one of my compositions. In my head, the music ebbed and flowed, the harmonies swirling around endlessly, and I heard the most beautiful melody soaring over it all...

"He's in love with you, you know," Léa said.

"Who?" I asked, snapping out of my daydream.

"Moreau, obviously," Léa said.

"Moreau?" I said, confused. "He's just a friend."

"Come on," Léa said. "I've seen the way he looks at you."

I thought back to all of those hours I'd spent with Moreau by my side, but I still couldn't see it. He didn't look at me any differently than he looked at anyone else, or so I thought. He certainly liked me, but not like that, not in the way that Léa was insinuating. "I'm serious, Léa," I said. "He's just a friend."

"And I don't think he feels the same way," Léa said. "Listen Mattie, not everyone is like you. Not everyone wants friendship just for the sake of friendship. I'm sure Moreau had some ulterior motive in befriending you."

"It's funny," I said. "He says the same thing about you."

Léa laughed and said, "Typical. He's never liked me much."

"He said just yesterday that you've probably slept with the entire population of Europe by now," I said.

Léa laughed again and then said, "That's most definitely an exaggeration, and to think that he would slander me like that...well, let's just say I'm disappointed, but not surprised."

"Do you have any idea of why he doesn't like you?" I asked. Léa had her faults, but she was genuinely kind and empathetic, and she certainly made life more interesting. Without her, I would never have explored Bergmann's hotel room or broken Sylvestre out of jail. I couldn't even begin to imagine why Moreau disliked her so much.

"Actually, I do," Léa said, as she glanced over her shoulder to make sure there weren't any passersby who might overhear. Then, she leaned closer to the river and began to tell her story.

"Moreau and I met for the first time at an Order of the Nightingales meeting. I don't remember exactly when it was. Two years ago? Three? I suppose it doesn't matter. He was a student at the conservatory at the time, and I had just come home to France from Vienna, and as it turned out, we had a lot in common, and he had that gorgeous English accent...anyways, I ended up taking him home."

My jaw dropped, and Léa said, "Oh, don't be so shocked, Mattie. I've done it with most of the Nightingales at some point or another. With Moreau, it was just one night - neither of us expected it to go any further than that. I'll spare you the details of what exactly happened, but well...as it turns out, he's actually a woman."

"Really?" I said, perhaps even more surprised than I was when Léa had said that she'd slept with him. "But that can't be..."

"I saw it with my own eyes," Léa said. "I think he said something about being in a carriage accident, but he was obviously lying. Anyways, I didn't particularly care, but I might have said something about it to the director of the conservatory, and let's just say that it didn't exactly go well."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Moreau almost got kicked out of the Paris Conservatory," Léa said. "Lajoie and I convinced the director to let him stay though - after all, the conservatory only admits men, and Moreau clearly thinks of himself as such, and he's a fantastic violinist, so I really don't see the problem. Moreau was still angry with me for telling the director in the first place though, so we haven't exactly been close ever since then. I, for one, don't understand it - all I did was tell the truth, and then when that didn't go as planned, I saved his entire career! If he knew what was good for him, he would be thanking me.

"Anyways, I've gotten off track. I think you should talk to him, and if you like him back, you should tell him so, and if you don't, you have to stop leading him on."

"I haven't been leading him on!" I exclaimed, but my mind was whirring, trying to process everything that Léa had just told me.

"You most definitely have been," Léa said, but I was certain that she was reading too far into this situation. If Moreau had feelings for me, they were only platonic. If there was one thing I was sure of in this mad situation, it was that.

There was a long period of silence, and I stared into the water, unsure of what was even happening anymore, what I was supposed to do now. Maybe Léa was lying to me. Maybe she was just trying to mess with my head, to slander Moreau just as he had tried to slander her. All I wanted was to go home, to work on my symphony, to listen to the sound of Moreau playing the Mendelssohn concerto on his violin again and again. All I wanted was a return to my old, familiar world, where I knew exactly who Moreau was and what our friendship was like.

"Honestly, I can't blame Moreau," Léa said. "You're a very beautiful woman, and every time you've played one of your compositions for the Order of the Nightingales, it's been absolutely breathtaking..."

It took me a moment before it hit me.

Moreau and Gertie were right all along.

Léa was in love with me.

I looked back into the river: the last thing I wanted was to make this already complicated situation even more complicated. How had I ended up in the middle of a love triangle, of all things? I certainly didn't want to become the protagonist of one of those romance novels, the ones Gertie read, but pretended that she didn't. For a moment, I wished that I could rewind time, that I could go back and pretend as if this entire day hadn't happened.

"I...I think I'm going to go home," I said as I got up and started walking back toward the boarding house.

Léa sighed, and when our eyes met, she said, "Alright. I'll see you tomorrow, I suppose."

"See you later, Léa," I said, and as she sat there, watching the waves go by, I went across the bridge and headed back to the boarding house. When I got there, I went upstairs, where the gorgeous sound of Moreau's violin drifted out of his room. I stood there for a moment, taking it all in, but I soon returned to my room, hoping that Moreau wouldn't stay up all night practicing again.

I spent a few hours working on the symphony, but I could hardly focus, and when I finally did go to bed, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. I didn't know what to do about Léa or Moreau; I didn't even know what I wanted anymore, aside from justice for Bergmann and Lajoie and finally completing the brilliant symphony that Bergmann had started, but never finished.

It came to me around three o'clock in the morning.

All of a sudden, I realized how Moreau knew Gertie, why he and my sister acted like old friends.

Because they were old friends. They'd known each other for years, and now that I realized it, I didn't know why I hadn't seen it before. I must have talked to him a million times when I was a girl. He'd even been at the concert at St. James's Hall, the one where I'd heard Bergmann's music for the first time.

He'd gone by a different name then.

Alice Barkley.