The Firebird

Something changed in the way the air settled between them, and had they been walking outdoors Anna might have believed that a storm was approaching. It brushed on the back of her neck and her spine and made everything at the periphery darken a shade so that Edmund’s half-smile and his face and his eyes were the things most in focus.

And then he was standing, and taking the cards from her hand, and the whole world came back in a rush as she heard, from the hallway, the sound of male voices and laughter.

The rest of the guests had arrived.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Dinner was a miserable affair, and her duet was a disaster.

Anna doubted whether anybody else had even noticed, but for her the trouble had begun before the bread was served. She had at first been truly pleased to see that Nan and Mary had come with Vice Admiral Gordon this time, in a bid, no doubt, to better even out the sexes at the table. But with Nan all tongue-tied sitting at Sir Harry Stirling’s shoulder, being no help whatsoever when it came to conversation, and Mary on the other side of Edmund, talking nonsense with the dark-haired, dark-eyed Irishman, Anna had been left adrift.

Ordinarily she would have taken an interest in the lively interchange between the general and Vice Admiral Gordon, at her own end of the table. Gordon, who’d been sitting just across from her, had tried to draw her in on two occasions that she’d noticed, but she’d been distracted by the sound of Edmund’s laughter mixed with Mary’s, and as ever, she had been aware of Mr Taylor’s obvious regard.

She had been bothered more today than she had ever been before that her own feelings could not equal Mr Taylor’s, for in truth he was exactly as a man should be. His looks were pleasant, and his manners even more so, and he was a good and even-tempered man who’d be, she had no doubt, a faithful husband and good father. He had prospects, he had friends, and he was clearly half in love with her, and yet her heart would not return the sentiment, no matter how she willed it to. A heart, so Anna had decided, was a cruel and stubborn thing.

And then, midway through dinner, when the general and Sir Harry had been speaking about Captain Hay, who was just then arranging for the passport that would let him leave St Petersburg, Sir Harry had looked straight across at Edmund and asked, ‘And have you decided, yet, the date of your departure?’

Edmund, with a shrug, had answered, ‘No, but it would look to be the middle of July, just at the moment.’ Only that, and nothing more was said, as though the matter of his leaving had been common knowledge to them all.

It had affected her. It shouldn’t have, she knew, yet after that one short exchange she’d found it difficult to focus, and when all of them had moved into the drawing room and she had tried to play the harpsichord with Mrs Lacy, she had played so very poorly that the faint applause that followed had, she thought, been more from gratitude the piece was finally over than from praise.

Nor did she think it a coincidence that Father Dominic excused himself immediately after that to see to his devotions.

She made light of it. ‘Perhaps if I had played for Captain Deane, he’d have departed Russia earlier than Sunday last.’

The others hastened to assure her she’d done better than she knew she had. Except for Edmund, who before this had been watching her with what approached impatience, and who now appeared the only one well pleased that she had failed at her performance.

‘’Tis the song,’ he told the gathering. ‘It speaks of home and hearth and things domestic. Sure, our Mistress Jamieson wants something more adventurous. Where is your song,’ he asked her, ‘of “The Wandering Maiden”?’

She had folded it already and returned it to her pocket before sitting down to dinner, but she only said, ‘I do not have it.’

‘It was well loved, from the look of it. Do you recall the words? For our hostess knows so many tunes, she may know that one, too.’

Mrs Lacy, to Anna’s relief, had not heard of ‘The Wandering Maiden’. ‘Is it to the tune of “The Wandering Young Man”?’ she asked Edmund.

‘It is not,’ he replied, then unfolded himself from his lounging position to stand as he said, ‘But play that, if you will, for it is a good tune on its own.’

Mrs Lacy looked delighted as he crossed the drawing room towards the harpsichord. ‘And will you sing it for us, Edmund? We have not heard you sing since Christmas.’

He did sing it, standing next to Mrs Lacy while she played, with Anna sitting just beside her. She had guessed that, from the deepness of his speaking voice, he would not be a tenor when he sang, so she was not surprised to hear the richer timbre of a baritone, nor was she much surprised that he sang well, for singing seemed, in truth, to run within the blood of many Irishmen.

The song surprised her, though. Where ‘The Wandering Maiden’ was weeping and sad, this song spoke of a man who’d been pushed to the brink of frustration by what he perceived was the torturous treatment the woman he loved had been giving him, and to that end he addressed his song, not to some wide and uncaring world, but directly to his lady-love.

Edmund, singing in the role of the young man, aimed all his words in turn towards the women in the room, so that he seemed to be accusing Mrs Lacy at the first of being beautiful and cruel, before his gaze moved on to Anna with the lines,

‘Sometimes your eyes doth me invite,

But when I enter, you kill me quite,

and the more increase my fire.’

His gaze did seem to hold a dark and languid heat as it held hers a moment longer than it needed to before it moved to Mary, making her the object of the young man’s next reproach, then Nan, till all the others in the room were well amused.