“Well, Miss, if Mr. Gilbert hasn’t even told you—” Lucy the housemaid sniffed disconsolately.
That afternoon Perdita Halley was alone in the music room at the Knights’ house, practicing. It was unusual for her to be quite so alone. The music room was just across the hall from Uncle Gilbert’s library. He did bookbinding, and usually, while she did scales, she could smell leather and neat’s-foot oil and three different kinds of glue. Not today. “He went out this morning, Miss, all mysterious,” Lucy continued. “And he was upset, but no telling why.”
Any change in routine was upsetting to the young housemaids and the middle-aged housekeeper and butler. They liked things as quiet as a woods-pond. Even battle-ax Mrs. Martin, the housekeeper, was already beginning to work up a panic for the wedding, which wouldn’t be until Christmas. “Don’t worry, Lucy, we shall find out about it soon.”
“I hope so, Miss. He wore the wrong tie with his suit today, and that isn’t like him at all.”
Perdita was working today on a new piece of music. One hand held the magnifying glass over two inches of notes, the other hand learned the fingering. She worked her way through the music two inches at a time, trying not to think too hard of how she would make rhythm and sense of them until she had the notes down. Slow measure in the right hand, a springy beat like a jump rope on the top of the octave line. Left hand, waltz until measure 5. Right hand changing articulations in measures 9-10 and in 11-12. The right-hand part was all thumb and fifth-finger substitutions, enough to give you palm cramps just thinking about it. Perdita practiced slowly, relaxing her hands as she learned, building up toward the right tempo. She peeked forward to the second section, looked at the first measures, a formidable black blur on the page, and sighed. She had to learn that fingering today. And all this morning she had had fittings for her wedding clothes, which cut dreadfully into practice time.
“Miss? Miss, something awful!”
Lucy burst open the door without knocking. “Oh, Miss! Miss Emma Blackstone’s maid has just come from next door and says Miss Emma heard they’ve found the little boy. Master Richard. And he’s alive!”
“Lucy, what?” Miss Emma went everywhere and heard everything, but only half of it was true. “I think we would hear first.”
“Master Harry wants to see you downstairs.”
She jumped up off the piano bench and found her way past Lucy’s black-and-white bulk into the hall. In the dark she was immediately blind as a bat; she felt her way down the familiar stairs.
“Miss Emma says he was locked up in a madhouse,” Lucy whispered behind her, “and when they found him all he could say was ‘Blood and horror! Blood and horror!’ His hair’s completely white and he doesn’t remember so much as his own name.”
“Oh, Lucy, hush. That is nonsense. What is that sound?” There was a confused shouting from outside the door.
“People outside, Miss—” Downstairs the door burst open, spilling light in a white cloud into the hall. Lucy screamed as if she had been bit by snakes, but with an undertone of triumph. “Oh, Miss, reporters!” Lucy rushed forward and Perdita held her back.
“You can’t come in!” Mr. Phillips, the old butler, was actually yelling. Mrs. Martin was screaming behind him, “We will call the police!” The light wavered, wide then narrow, as if Mr. Phillips were trying to close the door against resistance.
“Miss Perdita, you stay away from them,” Mrs. Martin said. A camera flash went off in her face; she squeezed her eyes tight.
At least she had talked to reporters once or twice after recitals. “Mr. Phillips, don’t you let any of them get inside.” She squared her shoulders and eased open the door.
“Miss Halley! What is Harry Boulding going to do?”
“Is the wedding off?”
She raised her voice as high as she could make it. “We don’t know anything, this is a surprise to us, and your cameras are hurting my eyes. You must wait outside. Lucy will serve you tea. As soon as we know something, we will tell you at once.” She hoped the food would distract them. “But you must wait outside or we must call the police.”
Mr. Phillips put his shoulder to the door and the hall went completely black, suddenly quiet.
“Journalists!” Mr. Phillips said under his breath. “Disgraceful.”
“Tea, Miss?” quavered Lucy.
“Yes, and sandwiches and whatever else we have. Tell Mrs. Stelling, and take Mr. Phillips with you.”
“And if you talk to anyone, girl, you’ll have no reference from me,” Mrs. Martin said.
“Where is Harry?”
She found him in the dining room. The blinds were closed; she closed the door too. He must have heard the reporters in the hall and for a moment she wondered that he hadn’t come to throw them out. By that she knew how hurt he was.
“You didn’t have to give them food!” he whispered at her angrily, then stopped himself. “Pet, I don’t mean it. You know I’m not angry at you.”
“Oh, Harry!” She sat down beside him and put her arms around him.
“I'm going out of this house and I’ll never come here again.”
“Shhh, Harry.”
“This man isn’t Richard. I’ve met him, Pet. He doesn’t even pretend to be Richard. My ex-uncle doesn’t know anything about him—not anything—” He walked up and down the room, then sat down again beside her. “I'm not going to suffer like this.”
She held his hand and he snatched it away. He pounded the table with his fist as if he wanted to splinter the heavy mahogany.
“Come with me, Pet. We’ll get married at City Hall today, then we’ll move to another city. Come on.” He stood up and tugged at her.
“Harry, it’s a mistake, it will all come out right. You’ll see.”
He fell down to his knees and buried his face in her lap. “It won’t come out right. Nothing in my life has ever been fair. Love me, Pet. Love me forever the way I love you.”
Outside in the hall there were loud voices again, then a slam. “I won’t stay here,” Harry said.
“Yes, go over to Joe’s house, stay with him.”
“I wonder if Joe’s still my friend when something like this happens. The only person I don’t wonder about is you. I’m getting married to you if it’s the last thing I do in my life. I'm going over to Bucky’s,” said Harry grimly. “I’ve got a few things to say to him. You stay here. If Gilbert comes back, tell him he’s never seeing me again.”
When he was gone, she made her way up the stairs. Upstairs in the music room she brushed the music aside.
What if this person were Richard Knight? Gilbert would be glad and Harry would hate him. How could she choose between Gilbert’s happiness and Harry’s?
“No,” she said aloud. Harry was still Gilbert’s adopted son. It would be terrible for all of them. Harry would hurt too much, and so would Gilbert and herself and even the unknown Richard Knight.
She automatically put the music back in its folder and the magnifying glass away in its drawer. Then she began playing from memory, the finale from Haydn’s Sonata in C Minor, with its anxious, passionate theme. She reached and held the skein of the music, half in each hand and the whole in her body until she and the music melded and there was no piano, no thoughts, no body, only passionate fear and hope, only the prayer that those she loved best would win through. And when it was done she sat back, feeling as if she had cried for an hour, with her resolution taken.
If this was Richard Knight, the whole family must learn to live with him. And she must learn to love him as much as she loved Gilbert and Harry.