Red, White and Blue (Book Two of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Fifteen: An Audience of One

Magda danced between the vases of flowers surrounding the piano without knocking over a single one. She had hitched up her skirts with both hands – a very vulgar thing for a woman to be seen doing – but, since she and Elliott were the only people in the room, and since she had just got engaged to a Duke, he supposed she could be forgiven.

Some of the flowers were dying now. A fresh vase of forget-me-nots was placed on top of the piano every day, but nobody took away the old ones, so there was a line of them stretching across the piano, in various different stages of decay. The worst of them had become little brown twigs, curled in on themselves.

Elliott was playing Bach – a piece that was dark, gothic and interminable. It was his usual tactic for keeping people away, but it wasn't working on Magda. A funeral march couldn't have dampened her spirits at the moment.

After dancing through the flowers, she climbed onto the piano, propped herself up on her elbows, and lay there, humming away to Bach as though it was the chirpiest tune in the world.

Elliott sighed. "I still don't see why it has to be so sudden. It takes time to plan a wedding-"

"Money can buy time, Elliott," said Magda dreamily.

"Well, what about your wedding gown?" he said, seizing on this as the only consideration which might carry some weight with her. "Don't you need to find a good tailor? Aren't you always saying there are no good tailors in Oxford?"

"I've got three words for you, Elliott. Charles. Frederick. Worth."

Elliott just stared. "I may need a few more."

"Oh, good god," said Magda, making an impatient gesture with her hand. "How can you make your way in society without knowing this?"

"I probably can't."

"Charles Frederick Worth? As in 'The House of Worth'? Makes gowns for some of the most beautiful and fashionable women of the age? Sarah Bernhardt – Empress Eugenie – the Countess di Castiglione? I have an appointment for a fitting with him the day after tomorrow, in Paris." She pressed a hand to her chest, and said, with no small amount of smugness, "Fitzwilliam's a close, personal friend."

A nasty thought occurred to Elliott. "Fitzwilliam's not coming with us on tour, is he?"

Magda started to laugh, and then stopped herself. Her mouth formed into a worried little 'o'.

Elliott stopped playing. "Magda--"

"Oh, darling," she protested, half-laughing. "You didn't think-? But I'll be a Duchess! Do you have any idea how many responsibilities a Duchess has?"

"Magda--"

"Besides, I'm not doing you any good, anyway," she added, sitting up and smoothing out her skirts. "I'm preventing you from meeting new people."

"I hate new people!" Elliott protested. "I hate all people! Magda, I haven't left the music rooms for four days!"

"Well, you'll leave tonight," she said soothingly. "Fitzwilliam's holding a little party to announce our engagement."

"No," said Elliott, through clenched teeth. "You don't understand. I haven't had no opportunity to leave – I can't leave. I can't go outside."

Magda laughed. "Why, what do you think's going to happen to you out there?"

"I don't know!" said Elliott, throwing his hands up. His fingers remained curled, as though they couldn't get out of the shape they assumed when they were playing the piano. "Everyone's so hard out there. They all know how things are supposed to be done."

"Darling, Americans in England feel this way all the time. When I first came here, I thought I was rude and unpolished and uneducated. But you only have to talk to people to see that they're the same as us--"

"I hate talking to people!" he snapped, knowing as he said it that he sounded like the worst kind of spoilt child. That was the trouble with talking to Magda. She just got more and more reasonable, until you felt as though you were a grumbling infant. The fact that he had been a grumbling infant when they had first started arguing didn't improve his credibility.

"But they're nice!" she protested.

"You know what? It's worse if they're nice."

"You just need practice."

"No, I don't, Magda!" he shouted. "I've practised and practised and it's always a disaster. There comes a time when you've got to stop believing in yourself and just take the damned hint!"

Magda's eyes flashed, but she didn't shout. "Look," she said gently, "we're from a simpler world, but there's – there's nothing wrong with us--"

"There's something wrong with me!" Elliott shouted. "That's what I keep trying to tell you!"

But it was no good. How could she ever understand it? She swam through every crowd like a supremely confident fish. She would, he had to admit, be a very good Duchess.

Elliott looked back down at the piano-keys. He was surprised his fingers hadn't worn grooves into them. He had been playing constantly for the past four nights. He couldn't be with people, but heavens knew, silence unnerved him. And you got worse silences in Oxford than in any other part of the world. It was probably the damp, the low-hanging clouds and the stagnant air – they made everything seem muffled.

So he would play Bach until the dawn shone in through the closed curtains. And he couldn't shake the feeling, during these late-night recitals, that he was playing for an audience – that something unbearably important rested on his music and that it was imperative he didn't stop.

Sometimes he would even give this audience a face – a pretty girl, lonely and scared just like him, sitting on the window-ledge outside. Someone who only wanted to come inside, and she would never leave him. Sometimes, he was almost sure that, if he stopped playing and threw back the curtains, he would see her. But there was enough doubt in his mind to prevent him from actually doing this. If he opened the curtains and there was nobody there, he'd be alone again.

He sighed and stretched his hands over the keys once more. His fingers twitched in anticipation of the punishment they were about to be put through.

"Can I – can I go home?" he said, in a small voice.

Magda closed her eyes, as if she'd been expecting this. "Let's not be hasty."

"Why not? You're being hasty!"

"This is your career, Elliott," she said, still without opening her eyes. "You're on the verge of something extraordinary. Don't throw it away in a fit of pique. Besides..." She hesitated, and then plunged on, "Fitzwilliam's so proud of you – he's so proud of having a genius in the family."

"He's not marrying me," said Elliott sulkily.

Magda opened her eyes and fixed him with an expression that was half-stern and half-imploring. "Most women can bring something to their marriage," she said. "Money, or family connections, or – or something. I've got nothing to offer except--"

"Except a famous brother," said Elliott. Suddenly, he didn't want to talk anymore. Talking to Magda wasn't like a real conversation anyway. There was no give and take. It was like a tug-of-war, in which she not only gathered in the entire rope, with you on the end of it, but then opened up your abdomen and started gathering up your intestines.

He wanted to play. There were never any questions about fitting in, or what he was doing with his life, when he played. There was just the lone, pretty audience member, and the enticing possibility that she might be out there, even now.

"If you'll excuse me," he said coldly. "I need to practise. I'm on the verge of something extraordinary, after all."

***

Thank you so much for reading! Please give this chapter a vote if you've enjoyed it!