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The double doors to the drawing rooh the crack Beth pushed the doors open and paused on the threshold Ian Mackenzie sat at Isabella’s polished piano, staring at the empty music stand in front of him His wide shoulders moved as his hands found and played notes, and his booted foot flexed as he worked the da it red

I can play this piece note for note, he’d said at the opera house But I cannot capture its soul He ht not think he could capture the soul of this piece either, but the music wove around Beth and drew her to him She walked across the room to the piano as the notes floated around her, loud and sweet She could bathe in theh on the keyboard, then ended with a low chord that used all of Ian’s fingers He let his hands stay in place, sinews stretching, as the last undulations died away

Beth pressed her hands together "That was splendid"

Ian snatched his fingers from the keys He looked quickly up at Beth and away, then placed his hands back on the keyboard, as though he drew comfort from the feel of the ivory

"I learned it when I was eleven," he said

"Quite a prodigy I don’t think I’d even seen a piano when I was eleven"

Ian didn’t do all the things a gentleht to do: rise when she entered the room, shake hands with her, make sure she sat somewhere comfortable He should ask after her fa equally banal until a quiet and efficient servant brought in a tray of tea But he re to re

Beth leaned on the piano and smiled at him "I’m certain your teachers were impressed"

"No I was beaten for it"

Beth’s s a piece perfectly? Rather a strange reaction, isn’t it?" "My father called me a liar because I said I’d only heard it once I told hiht a liar, because what you’ve done is unnatural I’ll teach you never to do it again’"

A gruff note entered Ian’s voice as he echoed the htened "That’s horrible"

"I was often beaten I was disrespectful, evasive, difficult to control"

Beth i everywhere but straight at his father while thehis eyes in pain and fear as the cane caan another piece, this one slow and sonorous He kept his head half bent, his strong face still as he focused on the keys His thighthe nized the piece as a piano concerto by Beethoven, one the tutor Mrs Barrington had hired for Beth had liked Beth had been a mediocre player, her hands too orn and stiff to learn the skill The tutor had been haughty andof her, but at least he’d never beaten her

Ian’s large fingers skimmed the keyboard, and slow notes filled the rooht claim he couldn’t find the music’s soul, but the strains of it called too vividly to mind the dark days Beth had suffered after herin a corner in the hospital ward, her ar as her mother’s consumption stole her last breaths Her beautifulto Beth for strength, was now ripped from the life that had terrified her The hospital had turned Beth out after they laid her rave Beth had not wanted to return to the parish workhouse, but her feet had taken her there She’d known she had nowhere else to go They at least had given her a job, since she could speak well and had a er children and tried to co them, but all too often they fled the workhouse to return to the more lucrative life of crime

It was only the in-between people like Beth ere trapped She didn’t want to resort to selling her body to survive, feeling nothing but disgust for irls Nor could she find respectable eoverness or nanny She had little education, and middle-class wo care of their precious tots She’d finally persuaded one of the parish wo machine The woman had eventually produced a third-hand one whose B and Y keys stuck, and Beth had practiced and practiced on it

When she got a little older, she reasoned, she could hire herself out as a typist Perhaps people wouldn’tas she worked quickly and efficiently Or she ht write little stories or articles and try to persuade newspapers to buy them She had no idea how this was done, but it orth a try

And then one day, while she was pounding away at the machine, the new vicar of the parish ca the B key, and Thohed

A tear rolled swiftly down her cheek She put a quick hand on Ian’s, and the piece stumbled to a halt "You don’t like it," he said, his voice flat

"I do--only, could you play soaze skiht "I don’t knohether a piece is happy or sad I just know the notes"

Beth’s throat squeezed If she wasn’t careful, she’d start blubbering all over hih sheets until she found so that made her smile