Sweeter than Birdsong Read online

  No one moved. Cyrus and the other young men regarded Kate with interest. The slender young lady smoothed her brown skirts as she took her seat. One of the other girls leaned over and whispered something.

  Courtesy of Kate Winter and Frederick Jones, Ben had already found two perfect voices, and no one else wished to volunteer. The singing audition need not continue any further, so he could now move on to the readings. He shuffled through his papers to find the essays.

  Someone cleared his throat. Ben looked up to see Cyrus making his way to the piano. As he passed the ladies, he inclined his thin frame in a sweeping bow, but his hair bounced around on his head and marred his intended effect. A few young ladies giggled as he strutted to the front. He placed his hand on the piano like an Italian tenor and struck a pose.

  Ben glared at his brother’s back. Why must Cyrus make a fool of himself?

  He leaned around the piano and addressed his brother. “I believe I am already familiar with your melodious voice, my friend.” He pounded out two ominous minor chords for emphasis. The assembled company laughed again.

  “Are you saying that I may not have my chance?” Cyrus loaded his voice with tragic melancholy.

  Ben shut his mouth and modulated into a major key. Cyrus was not going to go gently. Best to get it over with.

  “Very well. You may sing ‘Oranges and Lemons.’” He played the first chords.

  Cyrus took a step toward the audience and lifted his hand to his ear, as if listening to something. He manufactured an expression of delighted surprise and belted out the first line at the top of his voice. “Oranges and Lemons, say the bells of Saint Clemens—”

  “That will do, thank you!” Ben snapped, amid peals of amusement from the ladies.

  Cyrus stomped back to his friends and a round of applause.

  Ben was determined to forestall any similar performances from the others. “Shall we move on to the readings?”

  The audition continued, as several of the gentlemen and ladies read from the prose selections. When the readers finished, Ben paused a moment and shuffled parts in his head. Six readers, two solo singers, and the rest for ensemble singing.

  He turned to the group. “I thank you for your interest. The piece will benefit from all of your talents, so I will arrange the music and the readings to include everyone here. Mr. Jones and Miss Winter will be our solo singers.”

  Cyrus raised his fist in the air. “Three cheers for the director! Hip hip—”

  “That’s quite unnecessary.” Ben grew warm around the ears and neck. He fumbled with his music and readings. No one ever had such an infuriating, troublesome younger brother.

  The ladies stood and grasped their satchels in their neat line only ten feet away from Ben. They were so delicate in their white lace blouses and full skirts. He rose to his feet to respect their departure, in Otterbein tradition, and the other gentlemen did the same.

  As Miss Winter lifted her brown leather case by its shoulder strap, it caught on the wide edge of her skirt. She grabbed for it, but her startled gesture upended it so her papers shot out and slid across the floor. Her face colored deep pink.

  His heart went out to her, shy as she was. He could not leave her without assistance. Looking neither left nor right, Ben walked to her and crouched over the papers to collect them. It took him only a moment—he would spare her this indignity. He rose to his feet.

  He had miscalculated the distance between them—he was very near her. He smelled something delicious that hinted at wildflowers and fresh fields. She seemed startled at his closeness as well, and took a step back. Her dark hair set off her delicate bone structure, and her deep blue irises were threaded with light.

  “Miss Winter,” Mrs. Gourney called from the other side of the room.

  The young lady turned and started for the door. Ben watched her retreating back until the door closed behind her.

  He turned to find his brother observing him from the corner of the room, his eyebrows at a devilish slant.

  Ben did not like that look at all. “Come along, Cyrus.” He picked up his music. “We have work to do with Father.”

  “You were very solicitous of Miss Winter, Ben. I don’t suppose that has anything to do with those limpid blue eyes.” Every word Cyrus spoke was like the jab of a cattle prod.

  “Keep your idle fancies to yourself.” Ben closed the piano lid and strode to the door.

  Jealousy on Cyrus’s part, no doubt, but still maddening. Any gentleman with a heart would go to her aid, especially after her recent classroom catastrophe. And yes, she was exceedingly beautiful, but that had nothing to do with it. Cyrus was a heel. The subject of Miss Winter was closed.

  Seven

  THE IRON GATE HAD BECOME HER ENEMY. KATE STUDied it with dislike through her bedroom window as she sat in her reading chair. How would she make her way past the gate’s forbidding black spirals and twisted poles, but still take her valise with her? Walking out with nothing but the clothes on her back seemed monstrous. It was more civilized—and therefore less frightening—to leave the house with a second dress and some personal toiletries.

  Perhaps her obsession with the gate was the fault of the book Rasselas, for the prince in that novel lived behind a gate in his valley prison. Her copybook lay open in her lap with the passage she had transcribed.

  The iron gate, he despaired to open it, for it was watched by successive sentinels, and was, by its position, exposed to the perpetual observation of all the inhabitants.

  Perpetual observation—an insurmountable problem for Kate, as well as Prince Rasselas. No means of departure had appeared, despite her tentative requests sent up to where she imagined God must be, far away in his heaven. He was too far away to hear, apparently, as he had always been.

  The bell rang at the door downstairs. She stood and replaced her copybook in the bookshelf.

  The bell rang again, tinny and insistent. Perhaps she would not go down at all. She could stay up here and look out her window and drink her afternoon tea in peace. She did not care for the teatime calling hours, when Westerville’s prominent citizens stopped by to visit the Winter family home. Nonetheless, she would have to go downstairs, or face her mother’s wrath later.

  Tessie’s voice floated up from the foyer as the maid opened the front door and greeted someone in her lilting accent.

  It might be the gossipy Bogler girls, or Rose Everett, her sharp criticism veiled in sugary compliments. Most of their callers were members of the Methodist church the Winters attended. There were several families there whose company Kate thought she might enjoy. Unfortunately, they were not the ones who paid these formal visits.

  Downstairs, a male voice replied to Tessie.

  A gentleman—Kate hoped it would not be some awful repetition of last month’s visitor from Columbus—the one with whom she had not been able to summon any conversation at all. And whoever it was, let her mother not come home until he had departed.

  She hurried to her armoire and took down her second-best gown, a blue silk with flowing sleeves and a neckline perfect for attaching her prettiest collar. Her mother insisted on appropriate attire for every tea. One never knew who might come calling, she said. Kate unbuttoned her everyday dress and drew her arms out of the sleeves. The voluminous skirt tangled around her head. Changing without Tessie’s help was a difficult business, but Kate needed to learn. If she left town on her own, she would not have a maid. She finally extricated herself with a gusty sigh of relief, laid the brown dress on the bed, and began the slow process of donning the blue one.

  As Kate adjusted the yards of skirt over her arms, drew the gown over her head, and straightened it over her corset, Tessie arrived, out of breath.

  “Oh, Miss Winter, not ready yet?” Her middle-aged face tensed with alarm. “I didn’t remember you would need to change—I’m sorry, miss.” She bustled around the circumference of the dress, pulling the blue skirt into its graceful folds so it cleared the floor by an inch.

  The Winte
rs were one of a few families in town with the luxury of an Irish maid. At night, Tessie boarded with another family, but from dawn to dusk she managed the Winter abode. She answered the door, cleaned, cooked, polished silver, and dressed the three ladies of the house. And she kept her position by never, ever displeasing Ruth Winter.

  She circled Kate and squinted at her hairstyle. With a disapproving click of her tongue, the maid moved closer and tucked an errant lock behind Kate’s combs.

  “Who is calling, Tessie?”

  “I do not know him, miss.”

  “And you did not take his card?”

  “I’m sorry, miss. He laid it on the table and I was all in a flurry to come up and tell you. I left it there.”

  Not an ideal situation in the least. But the maid’s creased forehead asked for pity.

  “Don’t fret,” Kate said. “Perhaps Leah may go downstairs while I finish.”

  Leah loved gowns and formalities, but was not sensible enough to play hostess alone. Still, it would only be a few minutes, and Tessie could wait in the parlor as chaperone.

  The maid looked dubious, but ducked out of the bedroom. Kate heard her murmuring at Leah’s door across the hallway. Doubtless, Leah was dressed and had been ready for the past half hour. She would jump at the chance to be the lady of the house. Their mother had gone out to call on the Whites, but she would expect her daughters to receive guests in proper style until she returned.

  Tessie slipped back into the room and bustled over to Kate to fasten the gown’s scores of tiny buttons, all the way from waist to neckline.

  Leah’s heels thumped down the stairs. Tessie and Kate locked gazes, then the maid scurried out once more. Leah had no common sense—she could not go down without Tessie.

  Kate walked over to the doorway to listen to the voices rising over the banister. Leah was talking with the anonymous male visitor, and true to form, she was monopolizing the conversation. At least Leah’s unending babble was better than Kate’s conversational void.

  She started down the first flight of stairs as every mute disaster of her parlor history presented itself to her memory, each giving her stomach a turn. As her skirt swept around the landing, the parlor came into view through its white double door frame. The visitor was seated in the French toile wing chair. He had tilted his head to listen to Leah, who chattered at him without pause. That bronze-colored hair was familiar—the young gentleman was Ben Hanby’s friend Frederick Jones, the other singer from the audition. She must think of something to say to him, but she was distracted by the beginnings of clamminess at the sides of her dress. Thank goodness the deep blue fabric would hide perspiration, a horror not even to be mentioned in polite company. But her throat felt tight again, and an ache began in the center of her forehead.

  Kate crossed the foyer with light step and lingered out of his sight by the door frame. Against the far wall, Tessie waited in her black and white uniform, hardly noticeable, guarding their reputations.

  “Where in the world did you get such fetching boots?” Leah said to Frederick.

  His even features twitched before he resumed a good-natured smile. She didn’t think a man would like to hear the word fetching applied to any item of his wardrobe. “I would have to ask our manservant,” he said.

  A manservant—Kate had never met a young man of her age with a personal servant to buy his boots. Frederick did cut an impressive figure in his frock coat. He sat very straight in the chair, his bronze coloring even more vivid and healthy against the blue and white fussiness of the parlor.

  Leah’s gaze traveled to Kate. Frederick spotted her and stood up. He was a head taller than Kate and very imposing in the parlor, which did not seem large enough to contain such masculine vigor. “Good afternoon, Miss Winter.”

  “Good afternoon,” Kate said. “And welcome to you, Mr. Jones.” An uncomfortable pause followed—only the first of many, she feared. She seated herself beside Leah as her mind scrambled but found no purchase in a solid topic. The musicale was the only subject they held in common, and she certainly did not want to discuss it in her sister’s presence.

  “Would you like some tea?” Leah asked him.

  Frederick murmured a polite thank-you. Kate lifted the pot to pour.

  “It comes as no surprise to me that Ben Hanby picked you to sing,” Frederick said.

  The teapot quivered in the air. She set it down and glanced at her sister.

  Leah stared, her cloying artifice dropped. “You are going to sing in the musicale?”

  “I don’t know.” A curt answer would deter further questions. She did not like to lie, for she was not, in fact, going to sing in the musicale. “Mr. Hanby seems to wish me to sing.”

  “Mother will be delighted.” Leah spoke like an actress relishing her role in a stage drama. The long ringlets beside her face shuddered with her dramatic inflection.

  Frederick leaned toward Kate, very earnest. “You mustn’t go back on your word now. Not with that splendid voice of yours.”

  She could not flee and could not think of a new subject. Her heart drummed to a faster rhythm. But she could not blame him. He did not know she had been compelled to audition by her mother’s iron decree.

  Leah jumped in. “I hear you have quite the singing voice yourself, Mr. Jones.”

  Leah must have been talking to the Bogler girls, with their cooing and gossip about the wealthy, handsome member of the Philomatheans. Though Kate avoided such talk like a noxious odor, Leah lived for it.

  “I would so love to hear you sing.” Leah sounded like a bad actress again, drawing out her vowels in her idea of an English accent.

  Kate wanted to cringe—she picked up the teapot instead and aimed for a perfect pour into the cup. Her sister had worn her best pink gown in addition to styling her dark hair around her face like Little Bo Peep. Leah was a pretty girl, but she was so forward.

  Frederick shifted on the edge of his chair. “I must confess that I came here on a mission. And, of course, I obtained your mother’s consent to call.”

  Kate passed him a cup and saucer.

  Leah filled the silence. “Mr. Jones has just invited us to a spring social on his family’s farm this Saturday afternoon.”

  Frederick set his cup on the low table between them and regarded her with his hazel gaze that reminded her pleasantly of the woods. “Miss Winter, I wonder if you might like to ride there with me in my buggy.”

  Leah’s rosebud mouth hung open.

  Still no words came.

  When Kate finally thought of something and opened her mouth to say it, her tongue hardly worked. “And will Leah be coming with us?”

  Frederick hesitated and gazed outside through the filmy curtain over the window. “I fear my buggy is too small for three to fit comfortably. But I would not miss your sister’s company for the world, and so I will be delighted to see her arrive with your parents.”

  “Oh.” Kate picked up her saucer and touched the handle of her teacup, examining the milky brown liquid with close attention. “I must ask my parents if I may go in your buggy. I will, if they agree.” She had to glance at Frederick then. It was a small room.

  He smiled. “I’ve already asked your parents. They gave consent.”

  Had he spoken to her father, or only her mother? Please let it be only her mother, who at least would not have reeked of spirits during such an exchange.

  “And while I’m delighted to show you my buggy, your company will be the true pleasure,” he added.

  Kate’s face burned. They did not teach responses to such statements at Otterbein.

  “Well, I must be off to invite the other families.” Frederick bowed slightly. “Miss Winter.” He nodded to her sister. “Miss Leah.”

  Kate rose and followed him to the door, the dutiful hostess. The dutiful, mute hostess. She wanted to kick herself in the shins, if that were not an impossibility. Tessie scurried in front and opened the door to let him out.

  He was more solid than Kate had noticed befor
e, his shoulders massive beneath his well-tailored coat. He paused on the doorstep and donned his hat in the afternoon sunlight. Backed by the green lawn, he looked quite the ideal gentleman on a stroll. What if he could somehow sense her thoughts? Her face pulsed hotter.

  His eyes rested on her for a moment and he smiled. “I’ll await the pleasure of your company.” He turned and walked down to the fine buggy that stood at the hitching post.

  Tessie closed the door and melted into the dim recesses of the back hall.

  “My, my, my.” Leah had followed Kate and taken a position next to the stairway. She raised her eyebrows like a naughty sprite and tapped her fingers on the banister where it curved to an end.

  “Oh, do be kind. What shall I do?” Kate murmured. She could hardly go driving with a young man when she could not speak more than five words to him. It would be a disaster.

  Leah placed one hand to her forehead in the style of a tragedienne. “Oh heavens, what shall I do?”

  No help would come from her sister. Kate ignored her and crossed to the foot of the stairs.

  “Are you really going to be in the musicale? Did you sing for Ben Hanby? Isn’t Frederick Jones a catch?” Leah’s animation set her long curls bobbing.

  Kate fought the urge to press her hands over her ears and started up the stairs.

  The doorbell rang again. Leah stopped and looked at the door. Kate paused and then descended the stairs again. Had Frederick forgotten something?

  Tessie went to answer the door, but nodded her head toward the parlor. The young ladies of the house must go prepare to receive callers, should it be necessary.

  Kate resumed her seat in the parlor chair, arranging her skirt around her. At the door, a young woman’s voice drifted past Tessie, her words indistinguishable.

  “Please come in, miss,” the maid said.

  A girl younger than Leah rounded the parlor door frame and stood there, uncertain. Kate rose. How well she understood feeling out of place and awkward. “Good afternoon,” she said.

  “Good afternoon. I’m not dressed for visiting,” the girl said.