Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
ST brIAVELS, IT WASN’T
Ella
Streams of students passed me, the halls resounding with the noise of hundreds of people going to their first class of the new term.
Greetings were hollered, coffee chugged, and junk food stuffed into gaping maws.
A woman with a shaved head veered around me, sending me daggers for getting in her way.
St Briavels, it wasn’t.
But that was good. Right?
I drew in a deep breath and trod on to my lecture hall, easy to find—I’d already had orientation, right after I’d arrived in Manchester.
Heading in through the open door, I climbed the stairs then slid into one of the few remaining seats. To my left, a man slouched in his chair, messy brown hair in his eyes and one leg partially in my floorspace. He didn’t move it. I sat gingerly, crossing my legs the other way.
A woman took the aisle seat. “Fucking early tutorials. What a bunch of bull.” She pulled her laptop from her bag and opened it, a number of chat boxes already active. “What’s your name?” she said at the screen.
It took a second to realise she was talking to me.
“Ella,” I replied. At boarding school, we’d been taught the correct way to introduce yourself, and I stifled the urge to give her a winning smile and a polite set of information-prising questions.
My roommate in my digs didn’t know anything about me, certainly not my title or where I lived.
I intended to keep it that way. A fresh start.
“Topaz.” The woman pushed her bobbed peroxided hair behind her ear with multi-coloured fingernails. “Don’t even ask.”
All right then.
At the front of the room, a woman marched in. She reached the lectern and cleared her throat. The babbling noise stopped, and the milling students sat.
“I am Professor Maran, first chair violin with the London Festivus Orchestra. You lucky few who have made it into my class either by skill or luck should understand one thing.” She swept her gaze over the room, and an awed silence greeted her.
“I am a new appointment to the university and did not have a hand in your acceptance into this unique and privileged opportunity. If you think being a big fish in your small school pond has my interest piqued, guess again.”
Beside me, Topaz gulped.
The professor continued, “As department head, I have established my own priorities. The hours my predecessor put aside for instrument practice are not sufficient. You’ll find a new schedule in your inboxes with an increased performance requirement for your first term. We will start as we mean to go along.”
More performance? It was only meant to be a third of the course, including instrument practice. I figured that would mean one or two live performances—there wouldn’t be time for more.
Professor Maran went on to give us her in-depth career background and her high expectations of us.
Nearing the end of the session, she tapped her laptop and pulled up a slide on the screen.
It outlined a task. “From this moment on, you’ll be working in groups of four, preparing your first assignment—a performance in four weeks’ time.
Your immediate neighbours now are your working partners. ”
Four weeks?
“Guess that makes us work buddies,” I said under my breath to Topaz.
“Lucky you, choosing the seat next to mine. Planned that nicely,” drawled a voice from my other side.
Twisting around, I frowned at the rude guy. “Why did you say that?” My words came out too loud and directly in a pause where the tutor drew breath.
Professor Maran’s attention landed on me like a ton of bricks. I sensed it even across a room of people.
“And you are?” she asked, staring directly at me.
Oops. “My name is—”
“Stand, please,” the woman ordered.
Heat painted my face. I rose. “Ella Fitzroy. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The professor glanced at a paper on her desk. Then she tilted her head, regarding me once more. “Ella, can you tell me what you are doing on my course?”
“To learn. I intend to have a career in music.”
“I see. Musicians are ten a penny. Just look around you. After graduation, half of your fellow students will have jobs in coffee shops and not even a sniff of an orchestra seat.” She peered at the paper again. “You are far from being an excellent performer. How do you intend to stand out?”
I resisted the urge to wither under her scrutiny. “I don’t plan on approaching any orchestras, if that’s what you mean. That isn’t why I’m here.”
But as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. The professor had introduced herself by her achievement—first seat violin was a highly sought-after position. I’d just made out it wasn’t worth my notice. “What I mean is—”
“Orchestras approach you, not the other way around. And the point I am making is that each of you, from this moment, needs to develop your professional reputation. In your case, Ella, I recommend you don’t lie about your name. It’s an asset few have.”
I gaped. “I didn’t lie—”
“Elinor, Lady Fitzroy, is the correct way to address you, according to my helpful notes. Fitzroy is the name of the dukedom, correct? Not a legal surname.”
A ripple of nervous chatter came from the other students.
“Earldom,” I mumbled. Then I cleared my throat. “We use it as a surname.”
“Ah, my mistake.” The professor’s eyes gleamed, her badass new teacher routine nicely underway. She turned her attention to a new victim in the other corner of the room, and I sank back down, my face on fire.
“Nice one, Your Highness,” the man next to me said. “Way to make our group look bad before we’ve even played a note.”
“Ignore Donovan,” Topaz whispered to me, with a glare to my space-invading neighbour. “The rest of us do.”
“You two know one another?”
“Orchestral summer camp,” Topaz added. “Unfortunately for me, we were in the same section. As was Ivor.” She indicated past Donovan to another man, heavy-set, with his attention fully on the tutor. He’d be the fourth in our group, I guessed.
And they all knew one another.
I was the outsider all over again. So much for an anonymous beginning with equals. With a swift, forced smile at Topaz, I returned my attention to the front.
University was starting out nothing like I’d expected. But that was good. I needed the change, the kick up the backside, the expanded horizons. I’d make the best of it.
Six weeks in, and my make the best of it plan was laughing in my face.
Ivor regarded me over his music stand, his small eyes narrowed in annoyance. He gave an exasperated gasp. “How can you not know Wieniawski Violin Concerto no. 2?”
“I do know it. It’s pretty, but I’ve never played it.” I dropped my bow hand to my hip, trying to keep cheerful despite yet another chorus of you don’t belong from our group’s resident snob.
Ivor wasn’t a bad guy, but he was perpetually frustrated with me. Last week, after our horrible first performance was done, I’d dyed a chunk of my hair blue. It was my little act of rebellion after nearly choking onstage—I’d needed the release of doing something wild.
Ivor had huffed and puffed about acting like a professional—a valid point, if we were looking for employment. And he took great offence at the fact that I was more or less self-taught.
The frequent debate in our group was over the best teaching technique—the Russian school or the Suzuki method. I knew enough to follow the conversation but I hadn’t lived the same life my course mates had.
When I’d described the fortnightly tutorial I’d had at St Briavels and the online course I followed, even Topaz had winced.
And because the world hated me, practically the entirety of my first term now had to be dedicated to practice and performance.
For the first stage show, Professor Maran had given us the evil task of making a piece of music she chose fit our quartet’s specialisms. We had Ivor on clarinet, me and Topaz on violin, and rude Donovan surprisingly proficient on the piano.
It hadn’t gone well.
For the second, due just before the Christmas break, we got to choose our own for our group to perform.
I badly wanted to put forward one of my own pieces, but our classes had so far barely touched on composition. That would be in term two in January. I could hardly wait.
“Look, Ivor,” I said. “It’s not a good piece to choose. We barely scraped through the expo with the Beethoven mangle. This time, we should try something different. Try and stand out. Don’t you think?”
Ivor shook his head, his jowls wobbling. “I wasn’t putting it forward for us to play, I was merely pointing out a piece that you could—no, should—have in your repertoire by now.”
He was always doing this—telling me off for what I didn’t know.
“I actually have a suggestion for our next piece.” I raised a hand to gather the group’s attention.
“Oh, here she goes,” Ivor muttered.
“How about The Gravel Road, from The Village? James Newton Howard.”
Blank faces stared back.
“It’s a beautiful, moving piece.” Poignant, actually. It had made me cry when I’d listened to it yesterday. It made me think of Gordain, and missing him overwhelmed me once again.
It had been months since our time together at the castle, and I knew he was doing okay—my brother had told me he’d taken the private pilot training and passed. I also knew he’d stayed with James and Beth at Belvedere for a weekend after he’d gone for a job interview.
I wondered in which city. I wondered if he liked it. I wondered if he thought about me at all.
I hadn’t asked James anything.
Even so, my heart wasn’t so willing to give Gordain up.
My idea of dating and having fun? Not so much of that had happened. I was too busy to feel lonely, but listening to that piece of music had taken me right back to being held in his strong arms.
“I Googled it. A film score?” Topaz looked up from her phone. “That isn’t going to fly with Prof. She’s a traditionalist through and through.”
“Yes.” My blood warmed. “And that’s my point. Everyone is going to choose pieces she’d play, not thinking about their own strengths and standing out.”