Heartstrings

by Marilee Boekweg

  Chapter Eleven

  Eroica sat at the piano once again, but she was not practicing. She was thinking. It was

  early evening in October, and it was dark and windy outside. Eroica, whose house was almost

  completely dark except for the lamp on her piano, didn’t even notice. Her thoughts were

  centered on one thing—her required senior recital.

  Eroica was not a natural performer. She loved to practice, she love to accompany, but she feared being the soloist. She got through the first three years of required recitals well enough. Each year she had to put together a one-hour performance to be done in the recital hall. This was a small performance hall, so Eroica didn’t get too nervous.

  But the senior recital was very different. It was a two-hour performance done in the concert hall. This hall held over three thousand people and was always filled. Senior recitals were a big event on campus. The first hour of the performance was all solo piano. The second hour was a concerto with the Deseret College Orchestra.

  Eroica had chosen her solo pieces, and had begun to work on them. But her concerto. She knew what she wanted to do, but she was scared to even think about it. The Heinrich Schelling Concerto that she loved so much. It was so difficult and yet so beautiful. She felt overwhelmed by her desire to learn this music and her uncertainty of how to go about it.

  Just then the phone rang, bringing her back from the seemingly impossible to Provo, Utah. The voice on the other end was just as abrupt as the phone’s ringing had been.

  “How tall are you?”

  Eroica knew it was Tilly. “Five-two.”

  “Perfect. I’ll be right over.”

  True to Tilly’s form, Eroica didn’t know what Tilly was up to. But she knew it would prove interesting. She got up from the piano and turned on some lights, which made her home looked lived in.

  When Tilly blew in, bringing the wind with her, and shattering the evening’s quiet, she was carrying a huge box full of satin, lace, seamstress chalk and tape, and lots of pins.

  “I’ve got to get this dress ready for a wedding that is taking place tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!” Eroica cried. “What happened?”

  “This is the most flighty bride that I’ve ever dealt with, and I have been doing this for years. Put this dress on, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Eroica didn’t feel right about putting on someone else’s wedding dress, but she knew that Tilly didn’t have time to go through the motions of talking her into it. So she let Tilly pile the masses of material into her arms, went back to her bedroom, and found her way into the dress.

  “Stand up on this table,” Tilly ordered when Eroica came back into the room.

  As Eroica carefully climbed onto her kitchen table, the folds of the gown tumbled down around the table and onto the floor. This dress was more beautiful than Eroica could have possibly imagined. And she had seen many friends and roommates in wedding finery.

  The dropped waistline met with yards of matted white satin. There was no lace to complicate the elegant flow of the skirt. But delicate Alencon lace covered the elbow length puffed sleeves and bodice, which led up to a modest scooped neckline. Several small satin roses hung on the shoulders and matched some larger rosettes that decorated the bustle. Pearl buttons were sewn up the back and, as Tilly pulled the veil out of the box, Eroica could see that pearls also dotted its almost invisible netting.

  “The veil is sewn onto a large hair clip,” Tilly said as she smoothed out the creases. “I need to hem the veil and the train so that they match in a cathedral length. So you’ll need to pull your hair back.”

  “That’s easy enough,” Eroica said as she gathered up the loose strands of her brown hair, twisted it a few times, and tied it in a knot at the back of her head. Tilly handed her a rosette and pearl-covered hair clip, and held the netting out of the way so Eroica could clip it into place.

  “Wait a minute, Tilly,” Eroica said as Tilly began smoothing and pinning the fabric. “I don’t have any shoes on. Shouldn’t I put on something that has a bit of a heel?”

  “No,” Tilly laughed. “Mrs. Penrod, the bride’s mother, is so afraid that her daughter will go down the aisle in bare feet. She is getting married at their country club, and apparently has stated that shoes aren’t necessary since they will be on the grass. Mrs. Penrod is, of course, insisting that her daughter wear shoes on her wedding day. But she has asked me to hem it a little bit shorter, just in case. I think she would rather have her daughter be a barefoot bride that makes it to the altar, than one that trips down the aisle because her dress is too long.”

  Tilly chattered away as she continued to measure and pin. “These pearls that I’ve sewn all over the dress are real pearls. Mrs. Penrod gave me a jewelry box full of them and told me to use them up. This dress is worth a fortune. It’s the most expensive dress I’ve ever made. And the most beautiful.

  “The bride came to me with her mother not more than a month ago. She had just become engaged the night before and was determined to have as short an engagement as possible. However, Mrs. Penrod wanted the wedding dress to be as elaborate and as formal as possible. She wanted me to put all other sewing orders aside so that I could make her daughter’s wedding dress, and she paid me right then and there to do it. Paid extra too, I might add.

  “So I tried to get the bride to look at some dress patterns, but she was in an awful hurry to get back to her fiancé. I remember those days. Anyway, she was a cute gal, but in sweat pants, and a tee-shirt, and sandals that she had kicked off her feet as soon as she walked through my door. I don’t think she cared much about clothing. Her mother said that they would come back in a day or two and would make all those decisions.

  “And that was the first and last time that I have seen them. Mrs. Penrod made several appointments with me over the phone, but they never showed up for any of them. She finally just gave me her daughter’s measurements and told me to go ahead and make something. Anything. I think she had become a desperate mother-of-the-bride. She promised that she would get her daughter to come in for a fitting in plenty of time so the dress could be altered if necessary. But that didn’t happen.

  “So this is what I made. She had given me enough money to make it as elaborate as I wanted. And it was a lot of fun to make. Having five boys and no girls, I never thought I would have the chance to make a wedding dress exactly the way I wanted to.

  “Anyway, the wedding is tomorrow, and the bride hasn’t even seen the dress. Such a beautiful dress it turned out to be, too. It really should go to someone who would appreciate it. It ought to go to you, Eroica. It fits you perfectly, as if I had made it just for you. It wouldn’t even need to be altered anywhere, and that’s amazing. And it looks good on you. Let me get a mirror so you can see how pretty you are.”

  Before Eroica could protest, Tilly was rummaging around in her bedroom. She came back with a large, handled mirror and held it up to Eroica’s face. Eroica was a bit embarrassed, but she did feel a certain curiosity. After all, this might be her only opportunity to put on a wedding dress.

  What Eroica saw in the mirror surprised her. With her hair pulled away from her face, the striking whiteness of the dress set off the glowing darkness of her brown eyes. They sparkled along with the pearls, and Eroica couldn’t help but smile. The thought that maybe someday she might be a bride sent color to her cheeks. Eroica felt truly pretty, and it showed in her whole countenance.

  “Oh, Tilly,” Eroica exclaimed, “You certainly know how to work magic with a sewing machine. I feel like a princess.”

  “You look like one, too,” Tilly agreed as she set the mirror aside and went back to pinning. “I just don’t understand why you aren’t married yet.”

  Just then there was a knock at the door, which saved Eroica from a one-sided conversation about herself and marriage.

  “Come on in,” Tilly called. Eroica wonde
red if Tilly had forgotten that she wasn’t in her own house. She smiled to herself as she realized that Tilly would have done the same thing, either way. Eroica was glad to have Tilly’s comfortable friendship.

  “You just stay put,” ordered Tilly. “I’m not finished yet, so you can’t budge.”

  As the front door opened, an autumn breeze went scurrying through the house, sending pins and veil netting flying.

  “Come in and shut the door,” cried Tilly as she chased after flying pins.

  “Hello.” Mark Wallace hurried to close the door.

  Eroica’s mind raced. What should she do? They both stood there, staring at each other. Eroica had just enough time to wonder why she cared that Mark Wallace saw her in a wedding dress. Neither one was conscious of what the other was experiencing—Eroica feeling foolish in another woman’s bridal gown, and Mark looking at what he thought was someone else’s bride.

  “I guess congratulations are in order,” Mark finally said.

  “Oh, no. Tilly is just trying to finish this dress before the wedding tomorrow.” Eroica again felt as if she were confessing. Her eyes pleaded to Tilly for help.

  Tilly, who liked the looks of this young man, was too much help.

  “Eroica isn’t the bride yet, although I don’t understand why not. Whoever does marry Eroica is going to be happy forever. And can she ever play the piano. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, I did. My name is Mark Wallace, and I’m Eroica’s music theory teacher at the college.”

  “Oh?” Tilly raised her eyebrows. “I’m Matilda Tenner, but everyone calls me Tilly. I’m Eroica’s neighbor, and I make her do these terrible favors for me. She has been standing here for quite a while, and she must be tired of it by now. But I am almost done.

  “This dress is going to be worn by a girl who doesn’t even want it,” Tilly carried on. Eroica was relieved that Tilly was taking over the conversation. “She is most likely going to get grass stains all over it from that country club, and she’ll probably spill punch and cake all down the front of it. It wouldn’t surprise me if I were to someday find it hanging on the rack at the thrift store. It’s such a shame. And it looks wonderful on Eroica. As if it were made for her.

  “Well, Cinderella, I have finished this hem. Now I can take it home and throw it onto my sewing machine and get it finished before tomorrow.”

  Eroica couldn’t relax until Tilly and all the bridal finery were gone.

  “Things usually aren’t this chaotic around here,” Eroica apologized to Mark, who had been waiting in her front room.

  “I just stopped by to give this to you. It came to the school in today’s mail.” He handed her a compact disc. The label read “Heinrich Schelling: Concerto for Piano.”

  “How did you get this?” she cried. “I have been trying to find a recording of this since I came back from Germany.”

  “My brother is on a mission in Austria right now. I wrote to him and asked him to look for it. I also sent him some pictures of a particular girl, so he was willing to do a favor for me.”

  “I can’t believe you went to all of that trouble just for me. That was so thoughtful. I guess what everyone says about you is true—you really are nice.”

  Eroica immediately realized that she should have said that differently. But Mark just laughed as her face turned colors.

  “You should hear what people say about you,” he teased.

  Eroica didn’t know that many people, so she couldn’t even imagine.

  “It’s nothing terrible,” he reassured her, seeing that she was not finding this humorous. “People just like your name, that’s all. It’s pretty and it’s unusual. I don’t know anyone else named after a symphony.”

  “My father chose my name. He wanted to name me Ludwig, after his favorite composer, but I turned out to be a girl. And because Beethoven didn’t have a wife, I wound up with Eroica. My mother chose my sister’s name. She wanted to use Johann, after her favorite composer. But since she had a girl and not a boy, she used the names of Bach’s wives: Anna and Maria. I just call her Anna. Her husband calls her Annie. But when my parents visit, no one calls her anything but AnnaMaria. My parents feel very strongly about our names.”

  “I think that’s wonderful. I was named Mark Henry after my great-great-grandfather. He crossed the plains with the pioneers and helped settle the Salt Lake Valley. He was only ten years old, and he walked the whole way.”

  “You have pioneer ancestors? Those stories fascinate me. Tell me about your great-great-grandfather.”

  “Okay, but only if you’ll come get a burger with me.”

  So Eroica found herself once again going for bargain burgers with Mark. As he told her about his pioneer heritage she could feel his testimony. She knew he believed in the gospel. In fact, the more she knew Mark, the more she wondered why he wasn’t married yet.