28. The Pianist
The Pianist
“What happened to Arnie?” I ask Ms. Wilder in the afternoon when she brings Henri back to the practice room.
A stubborn exhaustion lingers behind my eyes, like every hour of sleep was restless, though I don’t remember waking one time until the sun was brightening my room.
Her lips press into a thin line. “I’m sure someone has told you.”
“The gist, yes,” I say.
“It’s best not to bring it up.”
“But I think I could better, um, serve the family and Henri if I knew what, exactly, to avoid talking about.” It’s a valid excuse, if you ask me.
Henri ignores our conversation, making his way toward one of the windows with a book in his hand.
“Arnie passed too soon, Miss Doyle.” Ms. Wilder turns to me fully. Her gray hair is braided down her spine, and the thin bones of her wrists peek out of the sleeves of her shirt, one of them adorned with a simple yet expensive-looking gold bracelet.
No one really talks about it.
He doesn’t know he’s dead.
“I just—” I swallow, unsure how to breach the topic without offending her. Surely she knows something, having worked for the family for so long.
Bastien Arnaud Beauchene isn’t dead, but they are pretending he is. Henri believes his brother is dead. Everybody speaks as though Bastien—Arnie—truly died fifteen years ago, and I can’t understand why.
“I’ve heard…” I’m not sure how to bring this up without rousing her suspicion. “He drowned in the pond. That the nanny wasn’t watching him.”
“Yes.” Ms. Wilder raises a brow. “It was quite tragic.”
“Were you…”
“Are you accusing me of something, Miss Doyle?” Her eyes narrow.
“No! Of course not.” Just like Maxim, she’s worked for this family for quite some time. I can’t say the wrong thing. Their loyalty to this family is obvious, their patience for outsiders thin. That’s what I am—an outsider. Temporary, in their eyes.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about. It happened so long ago.” She waves a hand.
“I don’t mean to imply anything.”
“There’s nothing else to know,” she says, and suddenly she’s staring at me down the bridge of her nose. “It was a tragic accident. The family grieved, but you’d be wise not to mention it in front of the Beauchenes if you want to keep your head.”
Somehow, I don’t think she’s exaggerating.
“I just wonder what he was like,” I say. “Henri—I think he misses him. Or, wants to miss him. I don’t know what to tell him.”
“There is nothing for you to tell.”
“Maybe he looks up to him.” I shrug.
She doesn’t say anything for a second, her gaze falling to the young boy in the window, and the sternness to her brow softens, just a little.
“Arnie was training just as Henri is. In fact, his tutors had made significant progress with him before the accident.” All suspicion falls away as she reminisces.
“He was on track to being a prodigy—already he was garnering attention for his skill. Invitations to prestigious schools once he was old enough.” She laughs.
“Held back only by the size of his hands, really. But he learned to overcome that pretty quickly.”
Henri swings his leg absentmindedly. The book is the worn copy of Through the Looking Glass they read for his English lesson.
“They want Henri to be at his level,” I say, watching the boy trace each line with a finger as he reads.
Ms. Wilder pauses. “They want him to be successful,” she says, carefully. “They want him to make something of himself and not rely solely on the family’s name.”
“They…” I frown. “They put a lot of pressure on him. He’s only eight.”
She sighs. “Better to start now.”
“Is it?”
We turn to each other again. I’ve learned nothing about Arnie’s death that I didn’t already know before, but I feel that she and I have come to some sort of understanding.
“They are gentler with him than they were with Arnie,” she says, and I can hear the displeasure in her voice. “Believe it or not. Leo—Mr. Beauchene made Arnie his ‘project.’ I think after…” She shakes her head. “He keeps his distance from Henri. They both do.”
If their expectations and treatment of him are gentler than they were with Arnie—with Bastien—
“Thank you, Ms. Wilder.” I give her a smile. “I just want to help him. He’s just a kid.”
That trace of sadness still pinches the corners of her eyes.
“He likes you,” she says. “And thanks to you, he’s enjoying his lessons with me, as well.
He’s improving overall.” She pats my arm, turning to leave.
“He has his entire world on his shoulders. But such is the way of life around here. Families like the Beauchenes don’t persist through the generations without the heavy hand of legacy. ”
The mid-winter air is sharp. Even when there are no fierce gusts to steal my breath, the bitterness tears at me, digging its fingers into my flesh, seeping into my bones.
I’m lost to my thoughts, though, hardly noticing the bite, as Henri leads the way along one of the paths. If the cold bothers him, he doesn’t show it; he refused to wear his knitted hat, the tips of his ears and nose turning pink, though I did manage to convince him to wear his gloves.
Only once we reach the pond, am I brought back to the present.
Henri’s led us to the east side of the grounds, where a frozen sheen sits atop the water.
It’s a couple inches thick, but not strong enough to hold any weight.
Even though I’ve been in this house now for a few weeks, I haven’t yet made my way here.
The pond on the eastern side of the grounds. The pond where Arnie “died.”
I freeze in my steps when I realize where we are. Henri keeps going, trotting through the dead, gray grass. There’s a dusting of snow from last night, enough that each step is a crunch, his route recorded in the white powder.
The pond is large enough to swim in during the summer months, but small enough that any sort of boat would be excessive. I eye the perimeter, wondering, morbidly, at which point of the silty bank did Arnie supposedly meet his end.
It’s like Henri knows the direction of my thoughts. “I don’t like my brother,” he says, crouching a few feet away from the edge of the pond.
I frown. “You don’t?”
“My parents talk about him all the time. But he’s dead. Why do they always talk about him if he’s not here?”
My teeth cut into the sensitive flesh of my lip, biting down, drawing blood. Harder, until the pain signals in my brain are screaming.
Henri doesn’t notice, drawing in the snow with a stick.
“Maybe they miss him,” I say.
“I don’t miss him.” He scrapes another line into the ice. “I hate him.”
My frown deepens. “That’s not very nice.”
“All they talk about is him.” The stick scrapes the ice with more fervor, back and forth, gouging line after line across the surface. “They told me I’m not as good as him on piano.”
“You’re younger than he was,” I say, forcing the words to come out gentle.
Did he hear my conversation with Ms. Wilder?
I’d thought we were quiet enough. I make a mental note not to bring it up around Henri anymore.
“And we’re working really hard, aren’t we?
It doesn’t mean you can’t get there someday. ”
“Father says I’m not working hard.” Scrape. Scrape.
“I think you are. I know you are.”
Scrape. “I think they love him more than me.” Scrape.
The chill from the winter air penetrates through my coat, my limbs shaking, shivers reverberating through my hands, in fists in my pockets. “That’s not true.”
But Henri is smart, and I know nothing I say to him will change his mind.
“I like you,” I say instead. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” he admits, begrudgingly. The stick falls from his gasp, landing against the ice with a dull thud. “But they’re going to take you away from me, too.”
We make our way back inside right before dinner. Ms. Byrne meets us right in the foyer, instructing Henri to stomp his shoes off on the front step before coming into the warmth. Instantly, I begin to thaw, the shivers subsiding the moment I step past the threshold.
“You’ll freeze to death if you keep staying outside so long,” she says, giving me a look. “Or catch a cold.”
“The air is good for you,” I say, because it’s something I’ve always heard growing up.
Nevermind that Henri and I both look quite frozen already.
“Upstairs,” she tells Henri. “Let’s warm you up. Into the bath with you. Quick, it’s almost dinner.”
Henri obeys as he always does.
“Mallary.”
Reece.
He stands across the foyer. Was he waiting for us to return? Waiting for me? A slight pink flushes at his cheeks as though he himself had just ventured outside. His hand is bandaged from the elbow down, the stiff white wrapping looking cumbersome.
“What is it?” I unwind my scarf.
“I was looking everywhere for you.” And then he falters, as though he hadn’t meant to admit that out loud.
“What do you need?”
“Oh, nothing.” He smiles sheepishly. “I just thought that maybe you’d be free for a little while.”
“I have to go,” I say, glancing toward the hall. “I need to practice.” My watch says it’s half past six. A little too early, but the extra practice wouldn’t hurt.
“But dinner—”
“I’m not hungry.” I flash him a smile, and I know it looks fake, but I can’t be bothered. “Catch me tomorrow?”
To his credit, he deflates only a little. “Sure. Or maybe I could listen to you play? I’ll stay quiet, I swear.” He’s undeterred.
I’m already halfway up the first flight of stairs. “You’d be too distracting.”
“You think I’m distracting?” I can hear his shit-eating grin.
My eyeroll is involuntary. “In your dreams, Reece.”