I felt as though I were choking. I could not stay in that room.
I turned; the Julius Caesar tapestry seemed to swim before my eyes. I groped for the handle of the door and I was outside.
He knows, I thought. He chose those pieces deliberately. He wanted to play on my emotions; he wanted to taunt me, to trick me into betraying myself; he wanted to amuse himself as a boy does when he puts two spiders in a basin and watches their reaction to each other.
In such a way he taunted Edith. And now his attention was turned to me. I obviously interested him. Why? Could it be that he knew more about me than I had believed possible?
He had taken the trouble to find out what Pietro had played on that night. Perhaps it would have been mentioned in some of the papers of the time.
How much else did he know about me?
On the day preceding the dinner party Alice came to tell me that Edith was sick and I went along to her room to see her.
This was the apartment where Charles I had lodged during the Civil War. The actual room led out of the main chamber and was occupied by Napier, while Edith used the larger bedroom. In it was a huge bed over which was a dome upheld by four columns engraved with flowers. The bed head and tester were ornamented with gilt figures and the hangings were of blue velvet. It was a very elaborate bed—and I remembered that this was the bridal suite. The door leading to the next room—the chamber in which a king had lodged—looked less elaborate as far as I could see. The bed was a carved wooden four-poster and beside it were a pair of wooden steps used for stepping into the bed. That room doubtless looked as it had done in the days of the Civil War—but the furniture in this one was a later and more elegant period.
It was the first time I had been in the bridal suite and I felt embarrassed because I thought of Napier here with Edith and I wondered what their relationship could possibly be like with so much fear on her side, so much contempt on his.
There was a consul table attached to one wall, over which was a tall mirror with a gilded frame; I noticed the secretaire-cabinet of satin wood and golden Honduras mahogany with fluted columns. This must be the most elegant room in the house—and that grim chamber leading from it made a strong contrast.
My quick survey of the room was over in a few seconds for it was Edith whom I had come to see.
She was sitting up in that ornate bed looking small and lost with her lovely golden hair in two plaits which hung over each shoulder.
“Oh, Mrs. Verlaine, I feel…terrible.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She bit her lip. “It’s tomorrow night. I have to be hostess, and they’ll be such terrifying people. I can’t face them.”
“Why should they be terrifying? They’re only guests.”
“But I shan’t know what to say. I did wish I needn’t go.” She looked at me hopefully, as though asking me to produce some reason for her absence.
I said: “You’ll get used to it. It’s no use avoiding this one. You’ll have to face up to the next. And I’m sure you’ll find it’s not so bad.”
“I thought you might…you might suggest that you…did it for me.”
“I!” I was astonished. “But I am not even going to the dinner. I am merely coming down to play for the guests.”
“You would do it so much better than I would.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but I am not the mistress of this house, I am merely employed here.”
“I thought you might speak to Napier.”
“And suggest that I take your place? Surely you must see how impossible that is.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Edith. “Oh, I do hope I shall feel better. But he would listen to you.”
“If someone is to speak to your husband surely you would do that better than anyone else?”
“No,” said Edith, putting a hand momentarily over her eyes. Then she added: “He does take notice of you, Mrs. Verlaine…and he doesn’t take notice of many people.”
I laughed, but a terrible uneasiness had come to me. He was interested in me. Why?
I said briskly: “You should get up now and go for a long walk. Stop worrying. When it is over you will be asking yourself what there was to worry about.”
Edith lowered her hands and looked at me earnestly.
What a child she was. My words had made some impression on her.
“I’ll try,” she said.
How silent it was in the big hall! There was the piano on the dais. Banks of flowers would be brought in from the greenhouses. Tulips and carnations, I imagined. The seats were already there. It was like a concert hall…a unique one, with the suit of armor standing guard at the staircase—the weapons on the walls, the arms of the Stacys entwined with those of the Napiers and the Beaumonts.
I should be there—in my burgundy velvet—looking as I had looked on that fateful night.
No, different. I should not be a member of the audience; this time I should be there on that dais.
I went to it. I sat at the piano. I must not think of Pietro. Pietro was dead. If he had been here in this audience I should have been afraid of faltering, of earning his contempt. I should have been conscious of him, his ears straining to catch the false note, the lack of sureness…and I should have known that while he trembled for me, yet he hoped that I should give a less perfect performance than his.
I played. I had not played these pieces since. I had told myself that I could not bear to. But I played now and I was caught up in the excitement which the master had felt when he composed them. It was there in all its glory, that inspiration which came from something not of this world. It was wonderful. And as I played I did not see Pietro’s long hair flung back in the agitation of creative interpretation. To me the music meant what it had in those days before I knew Pietro. I was exalted as I played.
When I stopped it all came back so vividly; I could see him bowing to the audience. He had looked a little tired and strained and he never had looked like that after a performance…not immediately after. That came later after he had left the platform, when the flatterers and sycophants had left, when we were alone together. Then the effect of all that he had put into the evening would begin to show.
I saw him, lying back in the chair in the dressing room…Pietro…who would never play again.
A low chuckle behind me. For a moment I thought he had come back, that he was there laughing at me. If anything could evoke the return of his spirit surely that music would.
Miss Stacy was sitting in one of the seats. She was wearing a dress of pale pink crepe material and little pink bows were in her hair.
“I crept in when you were in the middle,” she said. “You play beautifully, Mrs. Verlaine.”
I did not answer. And she went on: “It reminds me of the old days so much. Isabella used to be so nervous. You’re not. And afterwards she used to cry in her room. It was because she wasn’t pleased with her performance and knew she could have done better if she’d gone on with her teachers. When I sat there listening I thought…I wouldn’t be surprised if this brought the ghosts out. It’s just like it used to be. Suppose Isabella couldn’t rest. Suppose she came back…Well, the hall would look just as it did on those nights when she played…all the same…only someone different at the piano. Isn’t that exciting, Mrs. Verlaine? Don’t you think it would bring the ghosts out?”
“If they existed, yes. But I don’t believe they do.”
“That’s a dangerous thing to say. They might be listening.”
I didn’t answer. Instead I closed the lid of the piano. And I was thinking: Yes, it would be an occasion for ghosts. And I wasn’t thinking of the ghost of Isabella Stacy but that of Pietro.