“I owe you a debt, sir,” I said, as Mr. Crane and I headed toward the back room beside the parlor, which my father had determined best for our lessons. Mr. Crane had not, I noted with some pleasure, removed my hand from his arm. “You have quite rescued me from odious company.”
Mr. Crane laughed, a warm, rich sound. “I had hoped I was not too bold, nor overstepping. But it did seem that you had no particular desire for that gentleman’s company.”
“How correct you are, Mr. Crane,” I said. “Sadly, what is obvious to you is not to Brom, nor to my father.”
We went inside the small room, and I saw that Mr. Crane had already been preparing: an instrument case was already inside, as well as a few books of songs.
All disagreeable thoughts of Brom Bones disappeared as Mr. Crane opened the case. “Oh! A guitar, yes?” I asked excitedly.
“Indeed it is.”
“How wonderful! There is no one in Sleepy Hollow who has one. We did entertain some travelers one evening who thanked us by playing some music, and one of them had a guitar. I thought it the most delightful instrument.”
“I think so, too,” Mr. Crane said. “It is quite versatile in the styles for which it can be used, which has made it useful for me. And I’ve found I have rather a talent for it.” He smiled politely at me. “You will have to tell me if I am correct, however.”
“Oh, I am sure you are just splendid,” I said. “Before we begin, would you play something for me?”
“I would, but…” He hesitated. “I am quite certain your father is not paying me to serenade you, Miss Van Tassel.”
I waved a hand. “No matter,” I said. “He will not know; and you would bring me such joy, truly. It is so seldom that I get to hear music.”
His smile sparkled, warm and genuine. “Very well,” he said. “But then I wish to hear you sing.”
“I shall be happy to.”
Mr. Crane placed his guitar on his knee and began to strum and pick at the strings, producing a rich, vibrant sound. Perhaps Mr. Crane’s instrument was of a finer quality than the one I had heard previously, or perhaps he was a superior musician—or both—but the sound was much smoother and warmer than I had anticipated. He began to play a lovely, cascading sort of melody that called to mind a stream running peacefully through the forest. I closed my eyes, letting it wash over me, pull me in as the music played for dancing when we hosted parties never did. It seemed to tell a story and paint a picture all at once, of a leaf gently borne on a current of water, content to be always in soothing motion. Of a bird soaring over the treetops, kept aloft on a gust of wind. Of a girl wandering through the forest, content to be alone, never wondering what it might be like to have someone beside her.
As he stopped playing and I opened my eyes, I felt altered. I knew that now the girl would begin to wonder what life might be like were she not alone.
* * *
Given Mr. Crane’s calm demeanor, I had expected he would be a rather relaxed and even complimentary teacher. This did not prove to be the case.
It began well enough. He had me sing a scale for him, up and back down again, with his guitar accompaniment. “Good,” he said when I’d finished. “Very good. Your father is quite correct, Miss Van Tassel. You do indeed have a lovely voice, one of the finest I’ve heard.”
I beamed at the compliment.
“A lovely voice, however,” he went on, “can only take one so far. I would now like to get a sense of your ear, if I may.” He plucked the first note of the scale. “Start here, if you will, with your scale again.”
I began to sing once more, but this time Mr. Crane did not play along. Instead, after playing the first note, he dropped out altogether. I faltered, tried to go on, but so lost my place that I could not. “I … I am sorry,” I said. “I do not know what happened.”
“Not to worry,” he said. “It is partially my fault, for I did not warn you I would not be playing along with you. Start again”—he plucked the first note of the scale twice—“and this time know I shall not be accompanying you. This is your first note; the rest is up to you.”
Yet even though I was prepared to sing unaccompanied, I lost my place again. I did manage to at least find my way toward the end, landing on the correct final note, which Mr. Crane confirmed by playing for me.
“Again, if you please,” he said.
If I did better this time, it was only just.
“As I thought,” he said. “Your voice is lovely, Miss Van Tassel, but you must begin to employ your ear as well. Only then will you be certain you are singing the correct notes, and thus keeping the tune of the song—or in this case, the scale—as a whole.”
“But this is silly,” I said. “I sing all the time, when I am out of doors, or alone in my room, and it always sounds right.”
“Perhaps it does, and perhaps you find it easier to keep tune within a song,” he said. “Many do. Yet with no instrument of your own to allow you to check, and no trained ear to hear you, how can you be sure you are singing the correct notes?”
I remained silent.
“You see, then,” he said. “There is more to singing than just a fine voice. You must have a fine ear as well. And luckily for you, a fine voice I cannot teach, but the ear I can.”
“May we not try a song now?” I asked, widening my eyes in what I hoped was an innocent, fetching expression. “I am sure I will do better with a song.”
“No. Not yet. First you must perfect the major scale, and then, and only then, shall we move on.”
I sighed loudly, wondering what I had gotten myself into, then began the wretched scale again. This time, Mr. Crane stopped me on my first wrong note—only the third one I had sung. We continued in this manner for the rest of the lesson, by the end of which I had improved somewhat, but not enough to satisfy either of us, it seemed.
“A good start,” Mr. Crane said, putting his guitar back in its case. “Perhaps by the end of the next lesson you will have mastered it.”
I left the room without bidding him goodbye. For goodness’ sake, it is not as though he is training me to grace the opera stages of Europe, I thought crossly as I stalked up to my room to fetch a book of poetry. I sing only for my own enjoyment, and sometimes that of our guests. And so far I do not enjoy this.
I called for Nox as I stepped outside. He came bounding around the corner of the house, panting and tongue lolling, no doubt having spent the morning in a playful tussle with his brother, who guarded my mother’s geese and chicken flocks. He fell into step beside me, and I headed off the Van Tassel property, across the Albany Post Road, and into the woods, determined to shake off my unsatisfying singing lesson.
Yet later that afternoon, perched on the bank of the stream, I found myself lowering the book and singing the first notes of the scale to the trees and birds and to anyone else who might hear me. I had no other audience that I could see, but that did not always mean much here, not in the woods of Sleepy Hollow.
I sang it again, and again, and again, until I thought I had it right. Until I thought Mr. Crane might approve.