Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Are ye all right, mum? It’s Friday-faced ye are today.”
“Aye, ye look a mite knocked up. Been dipping in the Blue Ruin?”
“No, Philippa,” Lucasta answered, forcing a smile. “I do not drink gin.”
“Well, ye look done to a cow’s thumb. Ye’ve been trotting too hard, trying to get us into shape for the concert. We’re such regular dunces, I can’t doubt yer a deal fagged.”
“You’ve been doing wonderfully, Camilla, working very hard to learn your songs. I’m quite proud of you all.”
“It’s ’im,” Hester guessed. “The swell as comes to hear you sing wi’ us. What’s ’e done, then? Cutting shams? On the rocks? Found out e’s a ladybird, or a side-slip somewhere?”
Lucasta coughed. “Do you mean J—Lord Rudyard?”
“Aye, ’im, the Corinthian. The one danglin’ after ye.”
“I can say with authority that he is not dangling after me, Hester.” Lucasta’s heart squeezed, and for the tenth time in an hour, she told herself to stop thinking of Jem.
“Well, ’e’s a nonesuch, top o’ the trees, and if he’s trying to rivet ye, I say ye let ’im, even if ’e does have a by-blow stashed somewhere about,” Hester advised.
“Likely he does,” Isadora agreed. “Why else’d he want to be a guv’nor here?” Her eyes widened. “D’ye suppose it’s one o’ us?”
“Don’t be a gudgeon, ’e’s trying to cut a wheedle with Miss Lucasta.
” Hester, one of the older girls who had won the coveted honor of giving a solo performance, fixed Lucasta with a grim look.
“Mind ye don’t take Spanish coin from ’im, now!
A girl lets ’er guard down, and afore she knows—” She snapped her fingers— “she’s leavin’ a bundle at the gate with a note and a wee remembrance. ”
Many of the infants signed onto the rolls of the Hospital came with some identifier pinned to their blanket, a piece of fabric or a small token by which the surrendering parent hoped to identify their child when circumstances improved.
The hospital staff kept careful records of these tokens, though they were rarely called upon.
Most foundlings lucky enough to survive their childhood left the gates of the Hospital of their own volition, with a set of new clothes and a few coins donated by benefactors.
“It is time we focused on the task at hand,” Lucasta said briskly.
“The concert is a fortnight away. Eliza needs to practice her solo of ‘Au claire de la lune.’ Isadora, Camilla, Philippa, we’ll run through your trio of ‘The Trees They Grow So High.’ And I’m very glad we can practice our hymn today with Mr. Handel’s organ, which I have wanted to play my whole life. ”
“What about your solo, Miss Lucasta? Aren’t you going to do ‘The Bells of Aberdovey’?”
Lucasta’s heart pinched again. That was the song Judith had wanted them to perform. She’d practiced for hours in the parlor at Rose Hollow, to the great delight of Mrs. Cadogan. But she might never see Judith or Mrs. Cadogan or the halflings, as Jem called the younger ones, again.
Her hands trembled at the thought. She’d not seen Jem since the masquerade, days ago.
He’d seemed even more furious with the sudden appearance of Frotheringale than he had been with Lucasta, but she’d not had time to protest before Trevor whisked her away into a dance.
Between the attentions of the Pevenseys, the Gorgons, and Bertie, claims to her hand from no less than a dozen gentlemen who were fulsome in their compliments, and demands from nearly as many young ladies wanting to quiz her for information about Trevor, there had been no opportunity for either Frotheringale or Jem to approach Lucasta even if they’d wished it.
And Jem, she feared, didn’t wish to approach her ever again.
“I’m afraid I won’t be performing, girls.” It took all Lucasta’s training to keep her voice steady. “My accompanist, sadly, has proven unable to keep our engagement.”
“Then you won’t sing at all?”
“I have no plans to.”
“That’s a right shame, it is, Miss Lucasta. A right shame.”
“The way of the world, girls, is that we rarely get what we wish for. Glimpses, sometimes, but that is all.”
Lucasta turned her attention to the console of the great organ with its pipes stretching to the ceiling.
The girls milled about her on the tiered seats of the balcony, enjoying this unusual view of the hospital’s glorious chapel.
At other benefit concerts, professionals performed for admiring crowds, and the children were allowed to listen.
This was the first time any of the girls had performed.
It was a dream they’d never thought to harbor.
Lucasta played the opening chords of the hymn they were rehearsing, “Come Thou Font of Every Blessing.” The resonant, full-throated sound of the organ reached like a fist into her belly and pulled up every painful emotion swirling there, accompanied by tears.
The layers of rich sound blasted open all the parts inside her that felt hopeless and miserable and stuck.
Lucasta’s dream, fostered at Miss Gregoire’s, had been to have a music conservatory of her own, a small school of dedicated students whose musical training was in her charge.
She’d imagined a gracious room with windows, full of her favorite instruments, and when she’d thought further, perhaps a set of rooms above that providing living quarters for her and possibly a companion who also had no other place in the world.
Now, as she pressed a different keyboard and a new rank of pipes mingled a fresh set of tones with the first, she permitted herself to acknowledge the new dream that had come into being.
In this dream, she walked onto the stage of a beautiful opera house in a glorious gown and sang for a crowd there to hear her, just her.
She traveled wherever she was invited, filling palaces, theatres, country houses, and foreign castles with her voice.
The studio where she practiced and trained students still had sets of windows and every kind of instrument she could afford.
But her private rooms, which held her private life, held a different kind of companion than she had ever dared imagine for herself—a partner of the heart, someone with whom she shared bed and board.
A husband.
She released the keyboards, and the sound ended.
Echoes reverberated through the chapel, bringing the air alive.
The girls stared with wide eyes. Benedicta, who had been obliged to leave her wheeled chair on the first floor and let Lucasta carry her up the narrow stairs to the balcony, sat on a bench with her eyes closed, swaying as if she felt the music pass through her.
“They won’t take this away from us, will they, miss?” Eliza, sitting close by her, spoke barely above a whisper.
“What do you mean, Eliza? You fear they will take the concert away from us?”
She nodded. The girl faced in her direction, though Lucasta knew that the clouded eyes had long since ceased to discern light and shadow. “If milord is angry with us. He won’t take it away, will he?”
Eliza was the only one among the girls who had expressed no trepidation about how they might be perceived during their performance, or how she might dress.
Her only care was that she perform her solo, a popular French children’s song, with the correct pronunciation.
She trusted no one but Lucasta to accompany her on the violin.
A shaft of affection pierced Lucasta’s heart as she regarded the girl.
Eliza’s quiet strength and humor reminded her of Judith, though Judith, who had been sheltered all her life, tended more towards playfulness and mischief, while Eliza was more somber.
Both girls faced their world with a dignity and courage Lucasta wished she could cultivate in herself.
Neither were floored by obstacles, nor discouraged by what the world saw as their limitation.
They carried forward, spirits high, making the best of what they had.
And they never held a grudge when something was denied them.
Lucasta could do no less.
“We’ve engaged half a dozen very famous people to sing for our concert,” Lucasta answered, “and I hope their names will help sell the rest of the tickets. The governors could not stop our concert even if they wished to, and if they try, I shall chain myself to this organ console until they let you sing.”
Eliza’s smile was beautiful. “Thank you, Miss Lucasta. For what you’ve done for me, and for all of us.”
Lucasta walked home with a new firmness in her stride, determined to push back the gloom over her heart.
So a man she respected had turned on her with disdain.
So a friendship she cherished had been severed.
So her term as society’s brief toast was at an end; she always knew that was an illusion. She still had her music.
That would have to be enough.
“All right, then! What is Frotheringale doing here, that miserable worm? What does he want?” the Baron barked.
Lady Pevensey sat tense and distraught, the firescreen she was painting streaked with unruly blobs. Trevor was crisp and pressed in riding attire, but his hair was disheveled, and red spots on his cheeks looked as if someone had struck him across the face.
It was the Baron’s glower that gave Lucasta a shiver. There was no fire laid in the parlor, and a damp chill pervaded the room.
Lucasta took a step backward at the Baron’s fury. She was accustomed to quiet contempt. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
The Baron advanced, a vein in his temple throbbing. “Of course you know! Trevor says he declared himself before all your friends. Did you accept him?”
“I did not.” Lucasta spotted the paper in his hand, the seal broken. The handwriting was familiar. “Is that letter for me?”