Intermezzo

INTERMEZZO

by

Eleanor Anne Cox

A Regency Love Story

SHE WAS ALONE

She had only her music, talent, and ambition to become a great concert pianist. A woman of gentle birth. Adela now lives as a companion and piano instructor in the household of her cousin. Lord Waterston. A cold, powerful patron of the arts, he can either launch or destroy Adela’s career. For he had touched her heart and it would take but a moment to light a passion she never knew existed.

One

Charles Henry Beaumont, Lord Waterston, brushed a speck of lint from his exquisite coat of blue superfine, sipped his wine, and with a great show of patience, replied to his visitor, “No, I simply will not do it. How could you think I would even consider it. To be sure, my dear aunt, I have, for any number of years, tolerated your abhorrently Whiggish tendencies...”

“Abhorrent, Charles!”

“Abhorrent, Sophia. Certainly in our family
any
Whiggishness must be held to be noxious in the extreme, but in spite of the very natural aversion on my part, I have tolerated your eccentricities. I have even, however modestly, contributed to all your numerous little causes—the home for orphaned children of Welsh coal miners, the fund for the widowed wives of naval officers, and if I remember correctly,
two
schools for the education and rehabilitation of reformed adolescent pickpockets. But enough is enough. You have, Sophia, in one form or another, appealed to my virtually nonexistent sense of benevolence in hundreds of ways, but never before have you had the effrontery to ask me to welcome one of
your
pet charities into
my
home and I will not do it.”

“Oh, dear Charles, you
are
being difficult. I am not, you will recall, asking you to take a charity into your home but a cousin.”

“Gammon. I may have some slight quantities of family feeling, but that feeling does not extend to ugly little second cousins and particularly not to second cousins I have thus far been fortunate enough to have avoided.”

“Nevertheless, Charles, she
is
a member of our family and we cannot allow it—we simply cannot allow it to continue. A young lady of our family living alone in abject poverty and teaching hourly lessons on the pianoforte. It is an intolerable situation!”

“To be sure
quite
intolerable. Imagine listening, for hours on end, to fubsy-faced juveniles butchering Mozart.”

“Your levity, Charles, is quite wasted on me. Our cousin, Miss Trowle, is starving, alone, and neglected. Surely, even you must experience some
slight
degree of compassion.”

“Compassion! For someone who is
teaching
little assassins to murder Mozart—I should say not. It is Mozart for whom I feel the compassion.”

“Rubbish, Charles, must you always be quite so behind the times in your thinking? Surely even you realize that this is the nineteenth century and Mozart has been dead these twenty years or more.”

“Just so, Sophia, and I cannot help feeling that it was those legions of incompetent little teachers of music who hastened his demise and now they—the monsters—continue to murder his music.”

“And how can you assume that
your
cousin,
your uncle Horace’s
godchild, is musically incompetent?”

He sipped his wine and smiled. “And now, my dearest aunt,
you
are trying to gammon
me.
Horace’s godchild indeed! Horace and I were quite close and he never mentioned it—or rather her—to me. Are you quite certain that this
additional
connection is not merely a product of your own overly quixotic imagination?”

“Imagination indeed! Did Horace never once tell you of the great love of his life?”

“I suppose you are referring to the quiet little mouse of a child he fell in love with at twenty, who subsequently abandoned him to marry an illiterate baron of imposing dimensions and a mind the size of a pea. Yes, I know of her, but I cannot think that Uncle Horace pined for her long.”

“There, my dear Charles, you are quite out. My cousin Emily—the mouse you refer to—was a lovely child, although she did suffer perhaps from an
excess
of gentleness. Emily, poor dear, allowed herself to be browbeaten by everyone—first by her parents and then by her husband, and now she is even being maligned by you. She did not
abandon
Horace. She was
forced
into the marriage with Trowle, and Horace, much like her in some respects, did not have the courage to fight it. He was a second son, presumably penniless, and not excessively brave himself. But he did love her and I believe he loved the child—his godchild. Unfortunately, Emily died some time ago and the pea-brained baron, as you so aptly describe him, had already made it quite clear, between his own bouts with drink and women, that he had no use for Horace. Again, with his classic lack of courage, Horace withdrew.”

“How very touching to be sure. And now you expect me to take this product of a mouse and a pea brain into my home? Sophia, you go too far.”

“Charles, I will not be bullied or intimidated by you. We are neither of us
shrinking
people. If only in memory of your dear uncle Horace, you must give this unfortunate child a home.”

“Child
is it now? I believe you said she was an antidote of six and twenty. In any case, Rebecka doesn’t need piano instruction from a down-and-out hack teacher who is the unfortunate product of a mouse and a pea brain. I intend to take the child to Clementi himself for instruction.”

“Adela Trowle may be an antidote but I have it on good authority that she is a very fine pianist. Moreover, Becka at ten needs a young cousin and companion as well as a series of highly qualified impersonal instructors. And never try to convince me that your intended, the ever so exquisite Lady Diana, is a fit companion for an effusive child like Rebecka. Diana Rathbone, when she marries you, will not take kindly to a precocious ten-year-old—a sniveling ward with a penchant for the piano. Really, Charles, I begin to think that I am doing you a great service in bringing dear cousin Adela to your attention.”

“
Lord,
did no one ever tell you, dearest Aunt Sophia, that you are enough to put a saint out of temper?”

“Perhaps, but you are no saint, nephew.”

“
Peace, Sophia!
I capitulate! I will consent to
interview
Uncle Horace’s presumptive godchild.
If she
is suitable and
if s
he can play and
if
she is sufficiently an antidote to offer no competition to my dearest Diana, I will agree to give her a home. But someday, my dear aunt, you will overstep your bounds. I will not always be harassed into acts of charity. If for no other reason than that I have gone to a great deal of trouble to surround myself with beauty, and your objects of charity are so very often
not
beautiful.”

Adela sat with her hands in her lap and her lips in a forced half-smile while she listened to little Hester Eliot murder the Mozart sonatina—murder it for the third time. Each discordant sound, each brutalized phrase, each hesitation before a chord grated on Adela’s ears as if it were chalk screeching across a board. But Miss Adela Trowle continued to smile. The Eliots paid well for the lessons, and therefore little Hester, indeed
any
student,
must
be tolerated.

“Thank you, Hester. That was quite pleasant and I am sure that if you can manage to practice a bit more this week you may have the sonatina in acceptable form by next week when I come.”

Adela watched Hester tuck away the music, thanked Mrs. Eliot for her few shillings, gathered together her reticule and bonnet, and left. There would be two more lessons on Russell Square and then she could escape back to the shabby room in Hans Town and to her own piano.

Adela Elizabeth Trowle was twenty-six, single, and plain, with a face that was rigidly closed, to the world. Unnoticed and unnoticing, she passed through the streets of London, her head bent into the harsh wind and her music clutched in her arms. Adela loved no one—anymore—and she needed no one and nothing save a minimum of food for subsistence and a room to house her piano. In fact, except for her single-minded determination to become a great pianist, Adela Elizabeth Trowle simply did not think upon the future.

Of course Miss Trowle had not always been twenty-six and an antidote. Once, years ago, she had been a glowing happy little girl—the laughing daughter of Theodore and Emily Trowle. And although her father had never been more than just barely tolerable, her mother had been a gentle loving person.

From the beginning, the love between mother and daughter had been extraordinarily deep. Emily Trowle had not only nurtured her daughter with kindness, she had even taken upon herself Adela’s education and, in particular, Adela’s first years of instruction on the piano. When nature blessed Adela with a baby brother, her happiness seemed complete. Emily Trowle, unfortunate in her marriage, had chosen, like so many women, to live in and through her children and she was able to create, for those children, a world of great peace and joy.

Then quite suddenly—or so it seemed to Adela—her mother went into a decline and quietly died. After years of a brutal marriage, Emily Trowle had finally withered away into an almost welcome death. The night of her death she called her children to her and informed them very seriously that their mother would have to be going to visit God and the angels, and while their mother would miss them, they must be strong.

“And Adela,” she added, “please, promise me that, come what may, when I am gone, you will take care of Jon.” Adela solemnly promised her and holding her baby brother in her own slight arms she watched her mother die.

Take care of Jonathan? It seemed strangely inappropriate. At four the child had the clarity of character, moral presence, and quiet strength that were to sustain his older sister through the ordeal of their mother’s death. It was Jonathan who would comfort Adela, it was he who would hold her hand at the graveside. Later, it was his smiles that would chase away her tears. In time, with Jon’s help, Adela seemed to recover from the loss of her mother.

When Jon was five, Adela’s godfather Horace called and brought a silver flute for the boy and a sheaf of music for Adela. It was the last time Adela was to see Horace Beaumont, but his beneficence had illuminated their existence. Jon’s skill with the
instrument seemed
, like so much else, to come to him by nature. It was as if he had been born simply to play the flute.

The years passed. Jon and Adela would spend long hours playing duets, managing the small kitchen garden and the house, and just being children.

Adela grew into adolescence, and despite the mundane responsibilities of managing her father and his home, she was happy. Jonathan was never any trouble. He was never naughty as were other boys, and while he laughed often, it was like the laughter of his flute, pure joyousness uncorrupted by malice. Jonathan Trowle had a kind of perfect faith and Adela had learned to sustain herself in the shelter of that faith.

Jonathan was a child with an almost infinite capacity for love and endless quiet patience. And, perhaps, most important, he believed in Adela. He
knew
his Adela was strong and beautiful and capable of moving the world. Adela, he was sure, could do anything, and when he looked up into her eyes, she felt that she truly could do anything. Of course, somewhere in her being, Adela knew that she was
not
strong and beautiful and capable of moving the world. There was a sort of recurrent fear that, perhaps, some day Jon would need her and she would not be able to help. Fortunately, such moments of self-doubt were fleeting, and like most people entrusted with the care of a child, Adela had learned to ignore them.

The relationship between Jon and his father had always been strange. When they encountered each other, which was seldom, the older man would invariably turn away almost in embarrassment. Theodore Trowle had expected a son who would grow up like himself—someone whose only interests were gambling, wenching, and drinking. By the time Jon was three it was clear that there was a sanctity about him that was thoroughly incompatible with those very earthly pursuits. And perhaps even worse for Trowle, his son Jon was invariably patient, trusting, and understanding. Trowle could tolerate Adela’s barely concealed scorn but not the innocent understanding in Jon’s eyes. Theodore Trowle was not a deep or a religious man, but with a kind of primitive instinct, he understood that Jonathan was not really his son but some sort of demon sent to remind him daily of his own pathetic state of sin. And so with a sort of animal cunning Theodore Trowle began to avoid his own children.

The children, for their part, did not miss his company and found themselves quite able to manage the household and plan their futures without him.

Between the two of them they decided that Jon would be a vicar.

“Yes I will be a very good vicar you will see Della,” said Jon. “And you will come up to Oxford with me and marry a don and he will play the violin and I will marry a harpist and we will have two families of musicians and we shall live as neighbors and have an orchestra and we shall laugh all the time. And,” he added with childlike simplicity, “we shall get up to all sorts of mischief. Wait and see Della.”

One afternoon when he was ten, Jon began to feel ill. At first, Adela thought it a minor sort of illness because Jonathan was never ill. She sent for a doctor with her pin money. The doctor came, examined Jon, and took Adela aside. He told her that her brother had the smallpox. Adela looked at him and said very politely, “I beg your pardon but you are quite mistaken.” She turned back to the bed.

Unfortunately the doctor was not mistaken and the fever grew worse. For her own protection the doctor attempted to have Adela removed from the sickroom, but she would not be moved.

The evening of the third day Jon awoke to find Adela in tears. He smiled up at her reassuringly as always. “Come, don’t fret, Della. Everything will turn out for the best. Only you must promise me not to cry.”