Annie made a face at her.
“Well, you’re slim and trim yourself,” Alice said, “so don’t look at me that way.” She dipped her head to the list she’d brought with her. “Take a look at that.”
Annie scanned the list of names and nodded. “I’ve called most of these. I’ll try to call the others today.”
Alice sipped her tea and then said, “I have a good idea.”
Annie raised one eyebrow. “Oh? About the party?”
“No. About that piece of music.”
“What about it?” Annie asked.
“Well, don’t you want to hear it? Don’t you want to know what it sounds like?”
“I do,” Annie admitted. “And I want to know who Olivia is too. And I want to know who wrote it, and why it was secreted away in that music box. I’ve just had … other things on my mind.”
Alice leaned forward. Curiosity sprouted out of her like antennae.
“What kind of things?”
Annie waved a dismissive hand. “Never mind. Tell me your idea about the musical score.”
Alice squinted at her, obviously trying to read her mind, but Annie didn’t want to discuss Grady Brooks’s visit right then. She knew her friend well enough to know that Alice would dither on about him, making up romantic scenarios, forgetting all about the party, the music box, and the score they found inside it.
Annie smiled blandly and repeated, “Tell me your idea about the music.”
“Well, I want to hear it. Don’t you?”
“I seem to recall your extreme indifference to that particular song,” Annie reminded her with a teasing smile.
“That’s because I had my heart set on something really cool, like a wad of cash.” She wiggled her eyebrows comically. “But having had time to ponder the find, I’m now ready to hear it played, and I know just the person to do it.”
“And who might that be?” Annie sipped her tea and looked over the rim of her teacup at her friend.
“Jason.”
“Stella’s chauffeur Jason?”
“The one and only,” Alice said. “He plays the piano.”
“He does?”
Annie tried to imagine the chauffeur, who drove Stella Brickson around town in a ten-year-old Lincoln and seemed to be her right-hand man, as being musical.
“Oh, yes. I think he’s probably pretty good. And Stella has that lovely baby grand piano in her home, you know.”
“Then by all means, let’s go see Jason!”
“Right now?”
“As soon as I get my purse.”
Alice drove them to Stella’s large red brick Georgian house. Immaculately kept hedges and flower beds greeted visitors who approached the front door via a broad, curving brick walkway.
Stella greeted them at the door. Wearing a simple lavender dress with a lace-edged white collar and thin belt, her every white hair in place, Stella was the quintessential image of Stony Point’s leading lady.
“What a pleasant surprise,” she said. “Please come in.”
She led them from the foyer into a lovely little parlor/sitting room, something like one might see in a museum with its marble floor and shining chandeliers.
“Please sit down. May I get you some tea?”
“No, thank you, Stella, none for me,” Annie said as they settled into two small, white fragile-looking chairs with seats upholstered in white and pink floral chintz.
Alice declined as well, saying, “We finished a pot of Earl Grey at Annie’s just a few minutes ago.”
Stella seated herself in a stiff-looking leather wing chair that had the appearance of being in that room since time began. The woman sat straight as a ramrod, crossed her feet at the ankles, folded her hands in her lap and looked at her callers expectantly. The smile she gave them was gracious but formal.
“You have a lovely home,” Annie said, glancing at the white marble fireplace flanked by two huge Boston ferns.
“Thank you. It’s quite comfortable, and it suits me well,” Stella replied. Then she tilted her head a fraction and asked, “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
Annie felt a little taken aback. She was accustomed to the Southern way of doing things, where caller and host exchanged pleasantries and a little chitchat about weather or local interests before getting to the meat of a visit. But she smiled brightly and took the musical score from the large handbag she carried.
“This is what was inside the music box,” she said, handing it to Stella.
Interest flashed across the older woman’s features, chasing away the primness.
“So, obviously, you were able to figure out how to get inside,” said Stella.
Annie nodded. “Papa Dexter was very helpful.”
“Yes. Alex Dexter is rather gifted that way. I should have thought to recommend him to you at the meeting.” She glanced down at the paper. “Such old, fragile paper,” she murmured, as she settled reading glasses on her nose.
Annie watched as the thin, aged fingers, with their rosy pink polish and flashing rings, gently unrolled the score.
“Ah!” Stella said softly as she saw it. She looked at all four pages. “Music! How lovely. Look at those delicate handwritten notes. Their form is an art unto itself, isn’t it?” She continued to study the pages, each one carefully, and then she came back to the first page. “Who is Olivia?”
She looked over her glasses at Annie, as if Annie knew the person.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know who wrote the music, or when it was written. There is no composer’s name or date anywhere on the score.”
Stella glanced over the pages again.
“I see that.” Once more her gaze settled on Annie. “Have you played it? Is it good piece of music?”
“I wish I knew,” Annie told her.
“That’s one reason we came to you, Stella,” Alice said.
“My dear, I don’t read music very well. But then I’m sure you mean you came to see Jason, not me.”
“Guilty as charged,” Annie said with a smile. “We were hoping he might be persuaded to play it for us.”
Stella gave the score one last look, and then rolled it gently and handed it back to Annie. She stood.
“And what’s the second reason?” she asked.
“We’re wondering if you think the score should be kept in a museum,” Annie said.
Stella glanced at the rolled paper in Annie’s hands and said, “It’s my considered opinion that most old things of any value are better kept in a museum rather than thrust in someone’s dresser drawer or housed in someone’s basement.”
Perhaps the words sounded harsher than Stella meant them. She had a brusque way of expressing herself. Annie and Alice glanced at each other.
“If you ladies will excuse me,” Stella said, “I’ll have Jason come in here. He’s in the back garden.”
After she left, Alice said, “Stella is hard to read sometimes, isn’t she?”
“Oh, I think it’s because she’s of a different generation and social circle than most of us,” Annie said. “Beneath that exterior, I believe she’s really very sweet.”
“You believe that, even though she gave you such a hard time when you first moved here?”
Annie smiled somewhat ruefully, remembering the cold reception Stella had given her. But as time passed, the history between Annie’s grandmother and Stella came to light, and Stella’s long-hidden fears and hurts surfaced. Time and understanding had undercut Stella’s resentments until, finally, she was able to accept Annie as a member of the club and the community. However, Stella remained a cool, often formidable woman, and her friends knew this was just part and parcel of who she was.
“I think she’s lovely,” Annie said, “Prim and proper to the core, God bless her.”
“You would say that!” Alice reached over and gave Annie a quick hug. “You are so kind, Annie. No wonder you have fellas hanging around in the wings.”
“Alice! I have no such thing, and please do not say
something like that where someone else could hear you and misunderstand. You know how gossip travels in this town.”
Alice shrugged, but she didn’t stop grinning.
A moment later they heard the crisp snap of Stella’s shoe heels against the floor and the heavier tread of Jason’s steps; then the two came into the room. Jason, tall and utterly masculine, with dark hair going gray, looked out of place in the frilly, feminine parlor, but he didn’t act as if he felt alien in that room.
“Good morning, Annie, Alice,” he said in cordial greeting. “Lovely day. I understand you have something to show me?”
“And I understand you can play the piano,” Annie said, handing him the music. “Can you play this?”
“Careful!” Stella cautioned him as he took the roll. “That is very old.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, unrolling the delicate paper. His eyes lit up as he perused the score. “Wow! Where’d you find this?” he asked, lifting his gaze to Annie.
She told him about the music box, and then she filled him in on the roundabout search she and Alice had had up to that point.
“We have no idea who wrote it, or who Olivia is,” Annie said, “but we were hoping you could play it for us. I understand you’re quite good.”
“My dear,” Stella said, “he is extremely good. Let’s go into the music room, shall we? Then Jason can play this mysterious piece of music for us.”
“Well, ma’am,” Jason said, looking first at one and then the other, “it’s been a while since I’ve played the piano. I’m awfully rusty.”
“Nonsense!” Stella said briskly. “Come along.”
Jason handed the paper back to Annie and looked at his hands. “I need to wash up. I never should have handled that old document with such dirty hands.”
“Very well. We’ll be waiting in the music room.” Stella led the two friends into a bright, high-ceilinged, white room across the foyer where an ebony baby grand piano stood gleaming in the late morning light. Several small, elegant Victorian chairs had been arranged around the room, and Stella invited the women to sit.
“Are you coming to the cookout, Stella?” Alice asked.
The older woman toyed with the delicate pendant at her neck.
“Of course. I rarely miss a Stony Point function. But tell me, Annie. How does one dress for such an occasion? Casually, I assume?”
“Oh, my, yes! Jeans, T-shirts and sneakers are just fine.”
A thoughtful look fell over Stella’s refined features, and after a moment or two, she said, “I don’t believe I have any jeans, T-shirts and sneakers.”
“You just show up, Stella,” Annie said warmly, “and dress the way you feel most comfortable. We want you to be there and to have fun.”
“Thank you,” the older woman said, smiling. “I’m looking forward to it.” Then she asked, “I believe tomorrow is your day at the school, isn’t it, Annie? Yours and Alice’s, if I remember correctly.”
A frisson of panic shot down Annie’s back. She had all but forgotten the Hook and Needle Club project. “Yes, it is. What fun it will be to teach those children.”
Stella looked skeptical. “If you can get them to sit still long enough, then more power to you. I’m not altogether convinced this project Mary Beth and Reverend Wallace cooked up was such a good idea.”
“Sure it is!” Alice put in. “Why, this is something those kids will remember when they’re as old as … as old as the rest of us. And Annie is a great teacher of crochet. I might have given up already if she hadn’t been the one to guide me.”
Stella gave Annie a speculative gaze. “You’ve inherited your grandmother’s gift of crafting and teaching.”
“I hope so. She was thorough, but so patient.”
Jason walked into the room. He had done more than wash his hands; he had changed into neatly pressed slacks and a pale yellow polo shirt.
“Well, let’s see about that composition,” he said. Annie handed it to him, and he seated himself on the black bench.
“These pages are going to curl,” he said as he unrolled the music score along the stand.
Stella got up and took him two small, leather-bound books from a table near the window. He positioned the books gently against the old paper to hold it open as Stella returned to her chair.
Jason flexed and stretched his fingers several times.
“As I said before, I’m a little rusty,” he told them with a laugh. “Mrs. B, when was the last time I played? Christmas, wasn’t it?”
“I believe so, yes.” She glanced at her guests. “But that’s not my fault. I try to get him to play for me quite often, but he’s always got some excuse or other. Maybe I need to find old scores hidden in music boxes.”
They all chuckled. Jason played a few scales and chords, studied the written notes spread before him, and then said, “Well, here goes, ladies.”
The piece started out slowly, sweet tones as fluid and light as moving air, giving Annie a sense of the touch of fingertips caressing her skin. As Jason continued, the music retained its soft quality but embodied a more robust sound—not lively or heavy, but strong. The tune found its way across the entire keyboard, coaxing the listener with higher, dreamier notes, and rewarding them with deeper, more powerful tones. It almost seemed to Annie that this was music she might hear in a dream—a dream of candlelight and romance.
Jason stopped playing abruptly.
They waited, but he did not continue.
“This composer obviously was influenced by Debussy,” he said to the women over his shoulder. “The way his music seems to touch all your senses, it’s almost poetic.” He turned to glance at the women. “The person who wrote this piece has done the same thing, wouldn’t you say?”
“Absolutely,” Annie agreed fervently.
“It sent shivers all over me,” Alice said. “Look!” She held out one arm to demonstrate the appreciative prickles along her skin.
“That’s quite interesting,” Stella said, “and I agree that it’s an enchanting bit of music, but please finish the song, Jason.”
“Yes, do. It’s so lovely,” Annie added.
“Sorry, Mrs. B, Annie. That’s all there is.”
They gaped at him.
“That’s all?” Alice said, nearly shouting. “But … how can that be all?”
Jason shrugged. “It simply stops right there at the end of the page. Perhaps the rest of it is elsewhere.”
“You mean the piece of music that finishes the song is somewhere else?” Alice asked.
Jason nodded. “Or at least continues the sonata.”
“But that’s all that was in the music box,” Annie cried. “Alice, I didn’t see anything else in the music box, did you?”
“No. Nothing else. Oh, dear. What a shame.”
They were silent a minute.
“I wonder if the rest of it is hidden in another music box,” Annie said.
“Oh, no!” Alice said. “That would be awful.”
“More awful than a composition that stops without ending?” Annie said.
Alice shook her head.
“It’s a shame,” said Stella.
“It’s a tragedy,” Jason added.
All four of them sighed.
“Well, now what?” Alice asked. “Where do we look for the rest of it?”
“That’s a good question,” Jason replied. “I’d say look in other music boxes made by the same person.”
“Papa Dexter said they are rare, as in museum-piece rare.”
Jason winced. “Ouch.”
“My goodness,” Stella said. “Is it possible that Betsy had other music boxes with hidden compartments?”
“I will check them when I get home,” Annie told her, “but I hardly think so. Jason, now that you’ve played the music, do you have an inkling of who might have written it?”
He shook his head. “As I said, it is similar to Debussy’s style, but I’ve not heard that particular composition.” A smile spread across his face. �
�Wouldn’t it be amazing if that bit of music turned out to be an undiscovered score by Debussy?”
Alice gulped audibly.
“Oh, Jason, do you think so?” Annie asked, feeling her eyes go wide.
“No, not really,” he said slowly, with considerable regret. “It wouldn’t make much sense, would it? Work by a French composer found in a music box in Stony Point, Maine.”
“It’s possible, though,” Alice said. “Anything is possible.”
Jason shrugged. “If I were you, I’d not count on it being a Debussy composition. But what I would do, is to get in touch with anyone who might have had any contact with the person who made that music box. They might know something.”
“I think that’s a good idea, Jason,” Annie said.
Stella cleared her throat. “Jason is a very clever man.” She tapped the tip of her index finger against her temple. “He has a good brain!”
Jason stood suddenly, as if the three women bestowing smiles on him made him uncomfortable.
“If you don’t need me, ma’am, I need to get back to my work.”
Stella inclined her head once.
“Goodbye, Jason,” Annie said, extending her hand. He shook it and Alice’s too.
“Goodbye, ladies. Next time you find an old piece of music, bring it to me.” He grinned at them and left the room.
“Well,” Annie sighed, “just about the time we have the answer to one thing, two more puzzles pop up. I hope Papa Dexter remembers that carver’s family’s name.”
“Even if he does, Annie, we mustn’t forget that the man was an itinerant,” Alice said. “His family may be hard to locate. And you know what else?”
“What?”
“How in the world will that family know who composed that bit of music hidden in the music box? I have a feeling this is going to be difficult.”
Annie nodded. “I have a feeling you are one hundred percent right.”
Back at Grey Gables, Alice went with Annie into the library. They cleared the tops of both desks, and then the two of them gently, but with great eagerness, took each music box from the corner shelf.
They opened each box, and left none of them unexamined. The tops, sides, bottoms, and all corners of every music box received sharp-eyed scrutiny.
The Unfinished Sonata Page 9
