The Lady Tennant

by Cate Morgan



  THE LADY TENNANT

  Waking Muse #1

  By Cate Morgan

  COPYRIGHT

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  DEDICATION

  This one goes to Denise Dale Jacobs, teacher and mentor. She taught me the discipline and self-trust all Creatives need to thrive, and pushed me to push myself, to deny boundaries, and to strive to improve with every production. You are missed, Mrs. J.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  Hearth & Home Excerpt

  Other Books

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  First the ferry from Dublin to Holy Head in Wales, then the train to London and north to Cambridge. The carriage swayed at counterpoint to the whispering of its wheels over the track. Rain splattered against the window, almost drowning the sound of cool, recirculated air streaming through the vents.

  Tamsin reached, without looking, to steady the worn violin case on the seat next to her. Her fingers drummed on its surface, in time to the music emanating from her ear buds. Despite the energetic rills of the Vivaldi violin concerto, she could still discern the two matronly gossips carrying on behind her.

  “Cindy’s Amanda left Oxford? Well, I never.”

  “Left? My dear, she was practically sent down.”

  “I still find it difficult to imagine. I recall her being such a bright, talented girl.”

  “Yes, well secondary school is a far cry from Oxford, isn’t it? Couldn’t cope with the pressure, as I understand it.”

  It was no good. She couldn’t focus. Tamsin stopped the music with an inward sigh. Just as she was removing her ear buds, her phone rang—obnoxious Nordic folk rock that brought the old birds to a standstill. Disapproval radiated from them like a sonic wave, but at least they were quiet.

  She answered the phone mid-riff, indulging in just a smidgen of satisfaction. “Hello, Charlie.”

  “Sis! How goes the grand adventure?”

  A gust of rain pelted the window. “Wet.”

  “So just like home, then?”

  The gossipers got going again. Something about “disrespectful” and “some people’s children”, all emphasized by the violent dance of their knitting needles.

  “You have no idea.”

  “I emailed you a new arrangement—Pachelbel’s Canon in D. The double stops will suit you.”

  Tamsin smiled, but the expression was tight as a clay mask beginning to crack. “I love your arrangements.”

  Charlie sighed, and she knew hadn’t fooled him in the least. “You should be having the time of your life, Tommy.”

  “I am.” Liar.

  “Liar.” Pause. “So what’s wrong?”

  Tamsin leaned her temple against the cool glass. Off in the distance she could just make out a meager patch of sun filtering though the storm clouds. “I don’t know how I’m going to manage without you.” Without him pushing her, coaching her—driving her to be better in every way.

  Cambridge was her first paid place in a symphony orchestra, and she dreaded making a complete hash of it. It wasn’t her lack of regular, formal training that concerned her—much—but the very real possibility she was about to let everyone down. She was no true virtuoso like her mother, the infamous “Faerie Queen” of the symphonic world, no child prodigy like her brother—but everyone, including the board of trustees at Cambridge, was expecting something extraordinary from her. And with the bills at home mounting, Tamsin had no choice but to do her best not to choke. Leaving two okay-paying jobs for one okay-paying job several hundred miles away felt like insanity personified, but she couldn’t ignore the potential for much more should the opportunity pan out.

  “You’ll manage.” Charlie’s smug assurance brought her back to the present.

  She pushed away from the subject as well as the window. “How goes life with the Agony Aunts?”

  “Entertaining.”

  She thought she detected a telltale shriek in the background. A genuine smile lit her face this time. “If you’d stop filching Aunt Jane’s cigarettes…” She considered asking him how he did it, but decided it was best she didn’t know. “I’m sorry we had to move you out of Bellingham House.” Frankly, she was certain the special care home had been relieved to see the back of him—or, rather, his wheelchair. The only upside to him being asked to leave so many care homes is that they grew progressively cheaper and less particular the further down the line Tamsin’s family went. Charlie’s exploits had grown truly impressive at the time of his less than ceremonious exit of Bellingham.

  “Are you kidding?” Charlie sounded truly astounded. “This is miles better.”

  “Really.” It wasn’t meant to be a question.

  “Absolutely. The food’s better, and the bed’s nowhere near as lumpy. Besides, the Agonies aren’t as bad as all that.”

  “Now I know you aren’t serious.”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.” He lowered his voice. “I think the nurse is keen on me.”

  A giggle escaped Tamsin’s throat. His daily nurse was fifty, if she was a day. “If you say so.”

  “Hey, I’m irresistible, me. Really, sis, you know all I’ve ever wanted was to spend my last months at home, sleeping in my own bed.”

  Tamsin stiffened, chilled to the bone as though someone had opened the window on her. “Don’t talk like that, Charlie.”

  “Like what? It’s only the truth.”

  “You could have years yet.”

  He sighed again. “I’m twenty, Tommy. You know the odds as well as well as I do.”

  Her voice went quiet with fear. “Is it getting worse?”

  “No, but it’s hardly going to get better, is it?” She thought she imagined the shrug on the other end of the line. A shrug impossible for him to achieve. Another small piece of her heart cracked and fell away. “I can still make music, and that’s something.”

  “It should be you going to play for Cambridge, not me.”

  “Bollocks. You’re better than you give yourself credit for. Even Old Man McCready said he had nothing left to teach you.”

  Her employer at the music store hadn’t been able to pay her much beyond his knowledge, and even though he’d brought her to the attention of the Cambridge Symphony he’d been genuinely sad to see her go. And she’d enjoyed teaching, of setting an instrument in the hands of a budding musician for the first time. “I suppose you could be right.”

  “Of course I am.” Rigorous thumping emanated from his end. “Gotta go. Auntie J’s come for her smokes.”

  “Love you, demon spawn.”

  “You too, ham fingers.” He hung up.

  Tamsin leaned against the window again, searching for that elusive sun. A sign. Anything at all that would show her she was doing the right thing.

  “You know what I always say,” a voice said behind her, the knitting needles giving an accusatory clack, clack, clack. “If you’re not doing your best, then you’re just not trying hard enough.”

 

  Robert stood at the conservatory window, curtain pulled aside, all the better to ignore the ebb and flow of conversation behind him punctuated by the delicate rattle of the tea things. Nothing pleased Vivien and Julien more than discussing what he should and should not do with his career and, by extension, his life. So he did what pleased his friends most, and stayed out of it.


  A young woman on a bicycle stopped in the lane beyond the garden gate, a violin case protruding from the basket. Her shape and coloring were indeterminate from his vantage point, bundled as she was head to toe in a tweed hat, rain coat, and heavy boots. As he watched, she unlocked the gate and opened it with a faint creak before wheeling in her bike. Once she shut and locked the gate behind her, she continued on to the granny annex on the other side of the lawn.

  He turned from the window. “I thought you said I’d be alone here.”

  Vivien took no notice of the implied accusation. “So I did.” She poured tea into three elegant cups, adding milk and sugar as dictated by the personal preferences in the room. “Come and have your tea before it gets cold.”

  “So why, then, is there someone apparently living in the cottage?”

  Vivien set her untouched cup down again with a sigh and a pointed clink. She folded her hands in her lap and eyed him with a maternal hawk eye. ‘The cottage is not here, Robert. It is a fully independent outbuilding, I assure you. My membership on the Cambridge Board of Fine Arts requires more than just lip service and money to the grant process.”

  “So who is she?” He ignored Julien’s Cheshire Cat grin. He was fond of the young composer, but Julien could prove beyond irrepressible at times.

  “A discovery of mine—a violinist from Dublin.” She took up her cup again, and by her expression he knew she was supremely pleased with herself. “Moira Hayes’ daughter, as it happens.”

  Robert’s eyebrows lifted. “I wasn’t aware her daughter played.”

  “It seems very few did—privately—and somewhat haphazardly—trained, due to financial constraints.”

  Robert twitched the curtain aside once more. “Is she any good?”

  “She wouldn’t be here if she weren’t. We—the board—expect great things from her.” She paused. “This is the main reason I asked you stay at my country home, Robert. If Miss Hayes works out as well as I hope, I intend to loan her the Lady Tennant.”

  Robert was so impressed by this he came around to sit on the sofa across from them, eyes shooting across the room to the glass-fronted display cabinet against the back wall. Sure enough, the Stradivarius violin was locked away in pride of place.

  “What constraints?” Julien wanted to know, sounding deeply interested. Another of Vivien’s young “discoveries”, she’d persuaded Robert to take Julien under his wing while the young man studied at Cambridge. “I would think the daughter of Moira Hayes could study anywhere she liked.”

  Robert privately agreed. Moira Hayes had unexpectedly taken the classical world by storm with nothing more than an old family violin and astounding talent, earning herself the nickname of “the Faerie Queen” before abruptly disappearing from the scene some years ago.

  “Private constraints, Julien, having to do with her family.” She graced him with a quelling look before continuing. “But despite Miss Hayes’ late start, she’s quite the promising talent.” A genteel sip of tea, a pat of the fading, blonde French twist. “Oh, don’t fret, Robert. She won’t bother you. You won’t even know she’s here.”

  “I could use a violinist for a duet I’m working on,” Julien said. “Think she’d be game?”

  “I sincerely doubt it. She’s very reserved for a young person.” Vivien’s tone was deeply approving.

  “A reserved violinist? That’s new.” Julien turned to Robert. “Speaking of duets, how goes yours, old man?”

  Robert gestured toward the gleaming Steinway in the middle of the hardwood floor, his voice gruff. “See for yourself.”

  Julien slid onto the bench and played a page or so of the music sitting on the stand, with a flair Robert almost envied. It wouldn’t be too many years before Julien played even better than he.

  “It’s not bad,” Julien said, nodding. “It could use a bit more playfulness after the initial shyness. Just a little flirtation, you know.”

  “I hardly feel flirtatious,” Robert pointed out, his dark tone a warning. His wife had been the playful, flirtatious one. She’s danced her way into flirtation with him, flirted with him from stage as he’d conducted the orchestra whose performance she’d made her own in that Puckish way she had, flirted until he couldn’t help but respond. Respond, and fall in love.

  Julien played a few more bars, humming along. “It’s very good, Rob. Just needs a bit warming up after the intro.”

  Robert pulled himself from the memories of her laughing, dancing ghost. “It needs Jessica, he growled.

  A startled chill filled the room as they stared at him.

  There. He’d done precisely what he promised himself he wouldn’t. He’d said her name in reference to his music. He’d used it to hurt his friends. Jess would have been ashamed of him.

  His princess. His muse.

  His dead, beloved wife.

  Julien left the piano, hands up in conciliatory fashion. “It’s been five years, Rob.”

  “So it’s supposed to hurt less?”

  “Of course not. But it should have healed, a least a little, by now.”

  Robert turned away, more angry at himself than anyone else. “There is no time table for grief.” He sipped his cooling tea by way of apology.

  “It needs Jessica,” Vivien agreed. “But Jessica isn’t here, and no amount of Darcy-esque brooding will bring her back.”

  “That’s why I agreed to come. To finally finish our piece so I can begin again.” He gazed out the window once more, swallowing. “To figure out what comes next.”

  Vivien stood. “We’ll leave you to it, then. Come, Julien.”

  With their departure, the silence crept in, like dusk upon an already fading late afternoon. Finally, he was alone.

  He just wasn’t so sure he liked it.

  Tamsin made herself tea and a sandwich in the small country kitchen of her borrowed cottage before retiring to the slightly musty parlor where her violin waited. The rain had finally cleared, so she opened a window.

  For the first time in months she felt upbeat. Charlie had stolen Aunt Jane’s cigarettes no less than three times that week—a personal best and sure sign he was doing well. Better at home, as he’d said. She suspected Aunt Jane enjoyed the game as much as her brother—otherwise it would have been easy enough to tuck them up out of reach of his wheelchair.

  To top it off, her director had given her the solo for Scheherazade to work on—a difficult piece, and one of her favorites. Of course, she wasn’t so naïve to think she was the only one given the assignment. There would be, she knew, stiff competition for the solo. But her confidence soared to be one of the few asked.

  She bit into a sandwich triangle and bent to rosin up her bowstring. Then she took a fortifying sip of tea and began her warm up with scales, trills, stops, and double stops. She put her mind elsewhere while she focused on her hands, her fingers, every joint, until her right elbow fairly creaked with effort and she had to wipe a fine patina of sweat from her brow with the back of her bow hand.

  Only then did she take another bite of sandwich, another sip of tea, and begin work on Scheherazade. Her director had tasked her with focusing her efforts on the emotion of the piece rather than its technical difficulties. He reminded her Scheherazade, the storyteller of legend, had only the barest, most tenuous of leashes on her emotions when fighting her for life by regaling the Sultan with stories for a thousand and one Arabian nights. The performance of this piece must be compelling, persuasive, and very much afraid behind a facade of calm.

  These were emotions Tamsin understood very well. She knew her weakness as a performer lay in keeping too strict a control on her own emotions, instead of channeling what she needed into her music. The violin was an instrument of passion as well as precision.

  She took it slowly at first, cautiously. Getting comfortable with the melody. Playing into the notes, instead of through them.

  As her comfort deepened, so did her mastery of the piece. She played the really difficult bits over and over, forming
muscle memory, and then started from the beginning for her first complete run through.

  The sudden jangling of the phone jarred her so badly the bow nearly flew from her hand. She took a moment to settle back to Earth before striding into the kitchen to snatch the phone from its cradle.

  “I’m practicing,” she snapped. Had the caller been her director or another player, they would understand. And Charlie knew her practice routine as well as she did.

  “Don’t take that tone with me, miss.”

  “Aunt Mary.” Agony Aunt the Elder. She should have known. While her mother’s practice sessions had always been sacred to her aunts, it fell to Tamsin to placate every household disturbance as and when they occurred. It seemed Tamsin’s removal to the opposite side of the Irish Channel did not nullify this fact.

  “Of course it’s me, who else would it be?”

  “I’m practicing,” she said again.

  “There’s no reason to repeat yourself, I heard you the first time.” She sniffed. “I’m not deaf.”

  “And I’m busy. What is it?” Her throat constricted with a sudden thought. “Charlie.”

  “An utter trial to poor Nurse Riordan, but otherwise fine.”

  “Then what?”

  “Your father. He’s gone again.” She sounded almost triumphant.

  Now Tamsin was well and truly confused. It was hardly unusual for her father to be absent for weeks at a time. “So?”

  “’So’? The horse fair was over weeks ago.”

  “So?” With Aunt Mary, one often felt like a broken record. “What am I supposed to do from here? Call every pub from Wicklow to Cork?” She caught her breath. “Where’s Aunt Jane?”

  “Off buying more of those foul French cigarettes, I suspect.”

  “Couldn’t this have waited until she got back?” Tamsin pinched her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Unless Da has stopped sending money, I have work to be getting on with.”

  “Ungrateful child.” The phone slammed in her ear, followed by the hollow accusation of the dial tone.

  She lowered the receiver, letting it fall gently back into the cradle. Deep irritation warred with weariness, and she wondered just how much more she could be expected to take. The constant peck, peck, peck at her mental and emotional walls was becoming almost more than she could handle, and the temptation to take an evening off, to rest, heightened to a siren’s song. Oh, yes—she knew exactly how Scheherezade must have felt.

  Tamsin returned to the parlour, calmly finished her sandwich, and her tepid tea. Then she picked up her violin.

  Robert hardly noticed when violin music drifted on the night air from the cottage across the lawn. Instead he leaned forward to change a note on the sheet music before him with one hand, trying the new melody with the other.

  He set his pencil down and played in earnest, knowing almost immediately that it still wasn’t right. He studied the lines of music, then crumpled it all up and tossed it in the fire with the rest of his failed efforts.

  Only then did the music reach him. He stood and walked over to the window, twitching the curtain aside.

  Warm light glowed from the cottage windows. Typical warm-up exercises, practiced with fierce concentration. Vivien had been right: a violinist so focused would have no cause to disturb him. It was nice to know he wasn’t the only one working. It didn’t feel quite so lonely.

  He turned away when the music stopped, only to swing around again, to stare as the familiar strains touched him.

  The violinist played certain phrases over and over again until she got them right—exquisite, painful exasperation. Then she started from the beginning, slowly at first, taking her time to really draw the notes to their breaking point. It was easy to tell when she let go, losing herself in the sheer joy of making music. It was breathtaking, to say the least.

  Jessica’s Scheherazade, come to life again. He hadn’t heard the music in years. It had been his wife’s signature role. Everyone who staged it clamored for her, and she’d never grown tired of dancing it.

  The music cut off at its highest point, a kite whose string snapped mid-soar, and he came back to Earth with equal abruptness. He was standing out in the middle of the garden, alone in a dark filled with memories and music.

  Now it was quiet, and he couldn’t stand it. He retreated back to the house, shutting the conservatory door behind him in urgent defense.

  The music started again. He pressed his palms against the fragile panes of glass, head bowed. He waited, bracing himself against the impending onslaught.

  It didn’t come. A different violinist had taken up the music, technically perfect. Emotionally barren.

  He sagged in relief.