Dread pooled within me. My heart picked up speed with nervousness. I was quite certain I did not want to hear whatever she had to say.
Leaning toward me, she looked into my eyes and said, “No man here will propose to you.”
I flinched. My pride reared up. “You sound so sure of yourself, Sylvia.” My voice sounded bitter. “How can you say that?”
“Because all of the people here are friends of my mother. And all of them know about Eleanor.”
I blanched. “But that is old news. She is married now. She cannot hurt me anymore.”
Sylvia shook her head, and her cool blue eyes were full of pity. “There are new rumors in London. I didn’t want to tell you, but everyone in our set, the entire Ton, is whispering about her.”
“But she is married,” I said again, unable to think past that idea.
“Married women can cause as much scandal as unmarried ones,” Sylvia said with a jaded look.
I dropped my head into my hands, feeling all hope leaving me.
“In fact, when Mama heard the rumors, she wrote to Henry and told him you could no longer come to Blackmoore. But Henry fought her, and I stood up for you, too, Kitty. I told her that you had never behaved like Eleanor, and you never would. I told her that our guests would have nothing to fear from your company ... that they would not be tainted by any scandal while you were with us.”
I breathed in and out, trying not to cry. “I only want to go to India. It’s the only reason I did what I did.”
She was silent for so long that I raised my head and looked at her. Condemnation was written all over her face—judgment and reproach and dismissal. “Even if there was a chance that you might succeed, I cannot believe you would use some unsuspecting man to get what you want. Did you not think of the moral implications of your plan? To use these men—to toy with their hearts—to lead them to fall in love with you, all the while knowing you would reject them! It’s heartless. Absolutely heartless. And selfish and ... and ...” She sucked in a breath. “It sounds like your mother, to be honest. It sounds exactly like something she would do.”
I flinched at the words she threw at me. “It does not,” I said, my voice sounding savage. I pushed back my chair and stood, hands clenched into fists. “I am not my mother. I am never going to be like her. I can’t believe you would say that. After all these years of knowing how I feel about her and knowing how loath I am to become like her! How could you say such a thing?”
She stared at me, her eyes filled with pain but her lips pressed tight. An apology would not escape, she seemed to say. She was separate from me. She looked at me as someone she pitied but not someone she cared for.
The truth of her words pounded at my soul, but I would not let them in, just as she would not let an apology out. We were beyond each other’s reach, and after a long stretch of tension and silence and stubbornness from both of us, she looked over her shoulder at the door. At the way back to the world she belonged in.
“I should return to the guests. Mama will be wondering where I am.”
She waited, shifting from one foot to another, and I felt a crack in my defenses—a weak place where truth knifed and twisted and pried for an opening. I could not bear to have her witness my vulnerability. I brushed past her and opened the door myself. I left her with a strong stride and a lifted chin and the injured pride of someone who would not admit her own mistakes.
But as soon as I opened the door to the second music room—the room I had claimed as my own, and the room with the stirring, silent bird in it—I lost everything that had been protecting me. I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes as the truth found my weakness and expanded it and then poured in, blinding me with the pain of illumination. I had spent the last few years running away from becoming like my mother. But in my effort to escape my fate, I had become her. I had been willing to use others for my own gain. I had been willing to target the weakness of others—their hopes and dreams and the most tender feelings of their hearts—and manipulate them and trap them and then gut them. All for my own dream of India. And in that moment of illumination, I hated myself.
Chapter 12
Only one thing could soothe a soul as wretched as my own. I sneaked out of the second music room—the bird room, as I now thought of it—and found the back stairway I had discovered during my exploring earlier. I could not risk having any of the guests see me like this. I was not crying, but I was very, very close. Too close to allow my heart to remain in this vulnerable state.
I hurried up the two flights of stairs and down the maze of corridors until I reached the west wing, shivering with the chill of the wind seeping through the old stone walls. I stayed there only long enough to grab my Mozart from my room and then fled back down the stairs, hurrying faster and faster, feeling my heart crack open with the weight of all of my discoveries this evening.
When I ran back inside the bird room without being seen, I took only a moment to light the extra candles in the room, carrying one close to the pianoforte. I glanced over at the bird in his cage. He regarded me with solemn, bright eyes, turned his head, and flapped his wings. But he did not sing.
Then I spread my music across the top of the instrument and sat down. Closing my eyes, I told myself that I would silence my aching heart. I would banish the humiliation that burned within me. I would stop my frantic thoughts at what I had lost when I entered into a bargain with Mama. I would not think of how I had become like her. I would not feel despair at the truth. Mozart would fix all of this. Opening my eyes and taking a deep breath, I set my hands on the keys and began to play.
The notes of Mozart’s Concerto No. 21 were designed to march. I always made them march, and in controlling those notes, I controlled my heart. This was how a heart was schooled. Discipline. Order. Reason. This was the essence of classicism.
But the little soldiers would not march tonight. As soon as I sat down to play, Sylvia’s words flooded back to me. The humiliation doled out to me by Mr. Pritchard stung anew. And the realization that I had never had a chance to win my bargain with Mama—the realization that I would now have to give myself up to her will—darkened my soul with despair of the deepest kind.
I yearned for Mozart to fix all of this. I yearned for detachment and clarity. I played my concerto all the way through once and started over again. But my heart was heaving within my chest with despair and humiliation and the futility of everything I had attempted to make happen for myself. My heart shouted at me that no music could fix this—that no philosophy could make amends for losing this bargain with Mama. Nothing could undo the work I had done when I set out to become like her.
I struggled with the music, even as tears poured down my cheeks. I struggled with those little note soldiers, and with my heart, but the soldiers came loping out, or crashing into each other, or they fell sideways and would not stand in place.
“Stop!”
I jerked back from the keyboard, startled. My gaze flew to the man who strode across the room, waving his arms. “Stop! Stop this at once.”
It was Herr Spohr, with his untamed hair and his thick German accent. He walked quickly, urgently, and came to me. “You must stop this, what you are doing. It is not right.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. He rubbed a hand over his head, breathing hard, as if he had just run all the way from the drawing room. Then he asked, in a gentle voice, “What are you doing, Fräulein?”
“I ... am ... playing. I am playing Mozart.”
“No. This is not playing.” He shook his head and waved his hands, as if trying to wipe away what he had just heard. “This is fighting. You are fighting this music.”
He leaned over me, peering into my face. He had clear blue eyes, and for a moment I felt a thrill of fear. Here was someone who could see into my soul, I felt. And there was so much I did not want anyone to see.
“There is some war—some inner struggle—here.” He tapped my chest just below the collarbone with two fingers. “The demon you fight is
keeping you from making excellent music. You must find the right music for your struggle—for your demon.” I could only look at him in confusion. I understood his English, but his words made no sense to my classically trained mind.
He tapped my chest again. “Find the music that sets this beast free. This beast that fights and struggles within you. You cannot subdue it. The music will suffer. You will suffer. Do you understand?”
I understood nothing. Perhaps he could see that bewilderment in my face, because he sighed and ran his hand over his hair, back and forth. “Mozart is not the answer for you. Mozart is hurting you.” He leaned over and grabbed my music, pulling it to his chest. Then he bowed his head to me and said, “I am sorry, but I must take this away.”
Without another word, he walked hurriedly across the room and out the door, leaving me bereft. I stared at the door, stunned, waiting for him to return and tell me it had all been a joke. But he did not reappear. I slid off the piano bench and walked numbly to the birdcage. Kneeling before the cage, I gazed at the dark, silent bird. I touched the gilded iron bars, softly, then ran my fingers up and down their length. My heart was breaking. There was no mending of this crack. It ran too deep.
My fingers curled around the iron bars of the cage, and I felt how this cage was as strong as it was decorative. And suddenly I hated it. I hated everything about the cage and everything about the cage of my own life. My rage rising within me, I rattled the bars without thinking. The bird flew madly in response, its wings a blur, beating against the bars. I reared back, startled, my heart racing. Feathers fell to the bottom of the cage.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the frantic little thing. I leaned my forehead against the bars as tears rained down my face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
The floor was hard and cold under my knees, but I did not leave my vigil in front of the birdcage. It was both a tomb and a shrine to me—a symbol of what my life had become as well as an altar at which I prayed for deliverance. And I did not know how to leave this spot until I had regained some hope for my future.
I did not turn when I heard the door creak open. I did not turn when I heard my name, with a question in the voice. I did not turn as the footsteps came soft and measured and stopped right next to me. I kept my gaze trained on the bird, who had settled back onto its perch, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Henry lower himself to sit on the floor next to me.
“What did Sylvia tell you?” My voice was rough, my nose still stuffy from all the crying I had done.
“Sylvia? Nothing.”
I glanced at him then. “Then why are you here?”
I should not have looked at him. His gaze was too gentle—too worried. It made my eyes well up with fresh tears. I could hardly breathe as it was. More tears would suffocate me.
“I overheard what Mr. Pritchard said to you. When you left and didn’t return, I thought he might have upset you. So I looked for you.” He glanced at the bird in its cage. “I should have known you would be here. I don’t know why I didn’t think to come here first.”
I traced a gilded iron bar, from bottom to top, watching the dark bird inside as it solemnly watched me. “It doesn’t sing,” I said, almost to myself.
“I know.” I heard the sadness—the compassion—in Henry’s voice. “That’s why I suggested my grandfather keep it in here, where it could at least hear music, even if it could make none of its own.”
My gaze moved to his face. He was watching me, not the bird. His eyes were dark in the dim light, and his gaze held pain and worry and something else—some pull or temptation or battle that I could not name.
“He should not have spoken to you like that,” he said in a voice threaded with anger. “I don’t agree with your dream of going to India, but nobody should ever treat you with such derision, such ... dismissal.”
My face burned in remembered embarrassment.
“Should I call him out?” he asked.
I chuckled and blinked at unshed tears.
“I am in earnest.” He rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes. “We’ll have a duel in the morning on the moors. Plenty of fog. It will be quite dramatic, I daresay. And I will shoot him to avenge your honor.”
I laughed again and a little half-smile twisted his lips.
“No?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No. But thank you.” I drew in a rattled breath. “Besides, it was not Mr. Pritchard who upset me. Not really.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then who?”
I immediately wished I could recall my last sentence. I was not prepared to admit to Henry my own shameful realization of what I had become. Nor was I willing to share with him the humiliation of my conversation with Sylvia. I wished he had never discovered me here. My nose ran, and I wiped it on my sleeve, for lack of a handkerchief.
Good heavens! I was behaving exactly like Maria! I was sitting in a strange place, crying, and letting my nose run and tears stream down my face. I shook my head, disgusted with myself. How had I sunk this low in just a few short days?
Pushing my hair back from my face, I said, “It was nobody. It was nothing.”
“Kate, I have never seen you cry like this. Surely it was not nothing.”
I shook my head. “I can’t ... I can’t tell you, Henry.” I watched the little dark bird, but all I was aware of was the weight of Henry’s focused gaze on my face.
After a long moment of silence, he said, still in that low, quiet voice, “Do you remember that day in the woods? The day my father died?”
My gaze flew to his face. I caught my breath. I could not believe he was bringing that up, after all of these years of silence on the subject. We had never mentioned it since that day—not to each other. I had not spoken of it to anyone else, either, and I seriously doubted Henry had. And now, after all of this time ...
“Of course,” I whispered.
His gaze caught mine, and something built between us—some charge of emotion that made the distance between us measurable in movements: a shift, a leaning, an outstretched arm, a bent head. But we sat perfectly still, with only this memory connecting us.
Until he leaned forward and reached out a hand and touched my wrist. His hand moved up my arm, gently, until it rounded the curve of my shoulder. And only when he had anchored me there did he say, “I could never find the words to tell you what that meant to me.” His voice was so soft and husky, like a caress. Something shivered within me. “Even now, after all of these years, I am at a loss. But on that day I promised myself that if I ever found you drowning—if I ever found you in need of saving—that I would do anything in my power to help you.”
A tear slipped down my cheek and hung on the edge of my jaw. Henry moved his hand from my shoulder and brushed the tear away. Then he leaned back, away from me, and sighed. “But you do not confide in me.” He lifted one eyebrow. “Perhaps I have not earned your confidence?”
My lips trembled, and with a shaky breath I said, “No. You have.”
He sat there, waiting, as if he would wait all night long if he had to. And suddenly, I had to tell him. Not what had happened with Sylvia, but what I was doing here, in front of this cage, crying. I wrapped my fingers around the bars of the cage again, but this time I did not shake it. I did not want to scare the bird again. But the bird took flight anyway, and suddenly words were forcing themselves up my throat and pouring out of my mouth.
“I feel caged. Always. I feel like I am this bird, trapped and stifled and caged, and I keep looking for a way to escape, but I am barred at every turn.” I drew in a breath, and looking at the confusion on Henry’s face, I said, “Perhaps you cannot comprehend—you are a man. Your life is different in so many ways. But have you ever ...” I drew in a deep breath, feeling my heart aching. “Have you ever wanted something so much it hurt? That the wanting actually caused you physical pain?”
He was perfectly still, watching me with those dark eyes. “Yes,” he said in a quiet, solemn voice.
“That is how
I feel about India. I want to go so badly the wanting hurts. But I am afraid that I won’t ever go, and I’m afraid that I will never realize this dream, and if I don’t realize this dream, then it’s possible I won’t realize any dream. And I’ll just live a bleak, dreamless life without adventure or joy or choice or—or—living.” My breath caught. “When I think about it—when I think about how stuck I am, and what is expected of me, and what I am allowed and not allowed to do, and how little power I have or will ever have, simply because I was born a girl—I feel a million wings inside of me, beating so hard it hurts.”
Now my voice wavered as fresh tears spilled out. “And I cannot even play Mozart without Herr Spohr telling me it is wrong for me, and if I cannot have India or Mozart, then what am I left with? How am I going to live inside this cage that is my life?” I shook my head, feeling wild and undone, as tears streamed down my face. “All I can think is that I will end up like this poor bird. I will beat myself against the bars of my cage until I am too exhausted, and then I will give up and live the rest of my life without a song and inside a forgotten room.”
My voice cracked, and I pressed my lips together, sealing off any more words that wanted to be set free. I could not look Henry in the eye as I struggled to control my emotions. It was silly—comparing my sorrow at losing my dream of India to Henry’s sorrow at losing his father. It was silly of me to feel so deeply about this. That was what I supposed Henry thought. He had never understood my desire to go to India. And I was suddenly, achingly afraid that he would dismiss my words or fail to understand their sentiment or dismiss my dream as something trivial.
Instead, he said, in a careful voice, “So you are this bird. In this cage.”
I nodded.
“And you see only one option for yourself: to beat yourself against the bars until you are exhausted and give up all your dreams.”
I nodded again, and then dared to look at him. He was watching me with an expression of compassion mixed with affection. After a long moment of looking at me, he looked back at the dark bird in its cage. Then he did something with the cage—some small movement that made the door swing open. He reached inside, and I held my breath as I watched him catch the bird. He was so careful, and so gentle, as he cupped it in his hands and pulled it free of its cage.
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