Chapter 8 #2
Lady Compton took no notice of her discomfiture. “I have been meaning to get some new gowns made up as well. Shall I call on you with the carriage later this week so we can see Miss Neeley together?”
Helena murmured a thankful acceptance, just as a commotion sounded in the hallway outside the drawing room. Perking up her ears, Helena could hear a high, wheedling voice, followed by the sounds of remonstrance in deeper tones.
“Oh dear. Would you mind meeting, Gerald?” Lady Compton asked. “I promised him that if he was very good at his lessons this morning, he might meet my new friend.”
“Of course,” said Helena, barely having time to speak before the parlor door burst open and having no time at all to inquire who “Gerald” was before he was upon them.
“Remember your manners, Master Gerald,” said a stern voice, and the round-faced eight-year-old hurtling towards the sofa stopped precipitously to hold out a sticky hand and offer a “how-do-you-do?” The young man trailing him grimaced apologetically at Lady Compton.
“No need to worry, Mr. Whitmore. It is quite all right,” said Lady Compton.
“I was just about to send for Gerald to make introductions to Mrs. Aldine.” The ladies rose to their feet, and Helena shook Gerald’s proffered hand.
“Mr. Whitmore is Gerald’s tutor,” said Lady Compton by way of explanation.
Helena had assumed as much, but the explanation still did not explain who Gerald was.
He could hardly be the child of an elderly couple like Sir Anthony and Lady Compton.
“No, no, my dear,” said Lady Compton, preemptively removing Gerald’s hand from the seed cake platter. “You may take a seat, and I will serve you some food. Mr. Whitmore, will you join us?”
"Yes, thank you,” said the tutor. He had a thin, plain, and intriguing face, dark enough to be something other than fully English.
As the ladies seated themselves again on the sofa, he took one of the armchairs opposite, smiling faintly at Helena but keeping one eye firmly planted on his young charge.
“Gerald, tell us what you have been studying,” said Lady Compton encouragingly.
“Oh, it’s just writing, writing, and more writing,” said Gerald, flopping about in his chair and littering the upholstery with stray crumbs.
“Master Gerald is practicing his penmanship,” said Mr. Whitmore severely. His tone indicated that the penmanship still left much to be desired.
“What are you writing?” asked Helena politely.
Gerald scowled.
“He is copying the opening chapter of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. ‘Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.’ And so on and so forth.”
“Oh my,” said Helena, in true bewilderment. “I’m afraid that I am not at all clever enough to have read that.” She directed her words to Gerald, hoping to capture him in conversation rather than his tutor. “How is it?”
“It is frightfully dull,” said Gerald, leaning in confidentially. “I could see it would be with the opening line: ‘All Gaul is divided into three parts.’ What do you make of that? Could anything be less interesting?”
Mr. Whitmore cleared his throat while Helena looked on with sympathy and Lady Compton with amusement.
“I’m afraid that all I write are letters to my friends,” said Helena.
“But it does help to have good penmanship so that they don’t mistake my words for something else.
For instance, I may write to my friend Miss Cecil that I’ve met a boy named Gerald, and I shouldn’t want her to squint up her eyes and think it says I met a boy named Harold, would I? ”
“No, I suppose not,” said Gerald grudgingly. “But it would be a lot easier to write my name than words like quaestor and Helvetii.”
“Perhaps you might write Mrs. Aldine a letter for your penmanship tomorrow,” said Lady Compton. “Would that not be an excellent exercise, Mr. Whitmore?”
The young man opened his mouth in surprise and then closed it again. Clearly, he did not see the educational value of the activity in comparison to copying out the great Caesar, but he was loath to contradict his employer.
“All right then,” said Gerald, edging toward the plate of seed cake for another piece. “I suppose I could write a letter if I get let off my copy work for a day or two.”
Indulgently, Lady Compton added two more pieces of cake to his plate. “Gerald keeps at his books all morning and then has horseback riding and dancing and music lessons in the afternoon. A growing boy must be kept busy, mustn’t he?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Whitmore.
“Do you play the pianoforte?” asked Helena, looking at the instrument in the corner.
“When I have to,” said Gerald honestly.
“Oh, yes! Play a song for us,” said Lady Compton, once again eager to have the boy exhibit. Helena could not tell if it was from some sense of maternal pride or if she thought it would be good for the boy to practice in front of an audience.
“I would rather hear her play a song,” said Gerald, licking some crumbs off his fingers, pointing at Helena with his other hand, and ignoring Mr. Whitmore’s frowns of disgust.
“Oh, do you play, Mrs. Aldine?” asked her hostess. “But of course you do! You have such long, delicate fingers you must be the perfect pianist.” Rising from her seat, Lady Compton advanced on the pianoforte and began to search through a box of music. “Mozart, I think.”
Helena acquiesced with a minimum of prompting, and thus it came about that she was seated at the piano and filling the drawing room with music when the double doors opened softly to admit two more listeners.
Oblivious, Helena played on, crescendoing through scale runs and arpeggios, lightening her touch with staccatos, and pouring her soul into the smooth legatos until she reached the final page of the third movement.
“Your wife plays like an angel,” said Lady Compton. Helena glanced up from her music to see that Sir Anthony and Mr. Aldine had joined them. Her face took on a tinge of pink, but she managed to keep the notes unspoiled as she finished the cadenza to the sonata.
"Yes, so she does,” said Mr. Aldine. He stared at her, his face full of some restrained emotion, his eyes as dark and deep as her morning cup of coffee.
“Brava, my lady,” he said as her fingers found the last chord.
He held out a hand to assist her to rise from the bench, and then, instead of letting go of her fingers, raised them almost to his lips.
Helena felt the whispering touch of his index finger on the bend of her wrist where he had kissed her yesterday evening.
"Yes, brava!” Lady Compton looked at the eight-year-old keenly. “Shouldn’t you like to play that well one day, Gerald?”
"I suppose,” said the boy grudgingly. “But I should prefer Mrs. Aldine for a teacher. She wouldn’t flick my hand when I play a wrong note!”