Page 7 of One Last Regret

I stay awake late into the night hoping to hear the promised music that Amelia speaks of. I hear nothing, however, and even my dreams—long a blessing and a curse to me for their vividness and their tendency to awaken the deepest secrets of my subconscious—reveal nothing. I wake wondering if perhaps their truly is no secret music and Etienne is simply overly concerned with his daughter’s active imagination.

But then there was the terror in Josephine’s eyes. No, there is a secret here. I am sure of it. That could explain why the children are homeschooled rather than placed in a local private school or sent away to boarding school. Perhaps that secret is known among the community and keeping the children home is a way to protect them.

But you’re not here forthatsecret, are you?

I sigh. I’m not here for that secret, but then again, I have stumbled across many secrets that have led me to useful discoveries about Annie. Perhaps fate has led me here for the same reason.

Still, there’s no use prying at something when I have no idea where to look. Besides, I can’t neglect the children to focus on my own problems. I’ll take today to introduce them to their lessons and learn how they might best benefit from my instruction.

As promised, the children are awake and dressed already when I leave my room at six-thirty. I find them both downstairs tuning their instruments. Well, Amelia tunes hers. Gabriel is practicing scales to warm up. As I observe, he finishes the scales and launches into a simple melody.

I am not a musical genius nor anything close. Because of that, I can’t properly articulate to you what I feel when Gabriel’sfingers move over the keys of that piano, nor could I tell you what about the player or the instrument makes it the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard in my life. I can only tell you that I’m utterly transfixed. It is as though the soul of the universe were laid bare and its meaning and purpose translated into raw emotion through the piano.

And he’s only warming up! Good lord, what shall I feel when he plays in earnest?

“Listen to this, Mary!” Amelia says brightly. “I’m learning to play Vivaldi!”

She launches immediately into a dazzling recital of Vivaldi’s Spring Concerto. I am amazed at her speed and prowess with the instrument. For one so young, she has an ease in her playing that suggests decades of experience. She is indeed, as she tells me last night, very good.

But as impressive as her playing ability is, Gabriel’s piano playing is on an entirely different level. Amelia is skilled and immensely talented. Gabriel has his finger on the fabric of melody itself.

Boy, listen to me! He’s only warming up. He’s not done anything particularly virtuoso. No doubt it is the instrument that sounds so perfect. I’m sure Gabriel’s good, but I don’t know enough about music to trust my opinion of it.

Then he begins to play in earnest, and I know instantly that I am right about him. He plays Claire de Lune, perhaps the most well-known classical composition for piano of all time, but when he plays, it is as though I hear it for the first time. His eyes are closed, and his body sways in time with the music, but his hands! Goodness, it’s as though they have a mind of their own. They move over the keys like water flowing over smooth stones, like… well, come up with any metaphor you like. It is perfect. Utterly perfect. He has inherited his grandfather’s gift. Even Amelia stops her violin and stares at him in rapture.

The door opens, and the music abruptly stops. A mellow voice calls to Gabriel, “Showing off for your new governess, I see.”

Gabriel flushes beet red and looks down at his keys, grinning bashfully. I turn toward the sound of the voice to see a handsome man around my age dressed in a brown suede suit and wearing polished black shoes. He carries himself with the swagger of an old-time jazz musician, and indeed, that’s exactly what he looks like to me. He smiles and bows deeply. “Charles Gilroy, ma’am. Pianist ordinaire and teacher extraordinaire.”

“He’s lying,” Amelia informs me. “He’s really good.”

“And someday,” a second voice—this one less mellow but still kind—interrupts, “you will be too, Amelia, if you can focus on your own practice and not your brother’s.”

Amelia sticks her tongue out at a thin, balding man in a gray pinstripe suit. The gentleman—Mr. Franz, I assume—remarks drily, “Very ladylike of you, Miss Amelia. Shall we practice violin perhaps, or would you rather blow raspberries?”

Amelia giggles. “That’s okay. I’m ready to practice. Bye, Gabriel! Bye, Mary!”

She skips out of the parlor, and Franz gives me a resigned look as he follows her. I am enough a student of human nature to see the affection behind his forced impatience, though.

“We should get to practicing too,” Gilroy says.

It takes me a moment to realize he’s waiting for me to leave. I smile at him and say, “Of course.” To Gabriel, I say, “I look forward to hearing you play again.”

He releases a small sound that might have been, “thank you.”

That’s progress. He’s starting to sort of speak to me. Not bad for only twelve hours.

I leave the room, and shortly after, I hear the piano again. It is hauntingly beautiful, but for some reason it doesn’t pierce my soul as it does before. Perhaps I need to be there to watch it, orperhaps Gabriel plays differently when he’s not in the middle of a lesson.

Normally, I would make myself breakfast and coffee or tea at this time, but instead, I choose to explore the house a little more. Josephine showed me the main rooms on the first floor, but she only showed me my room on the second floor.

This is another habit of mind that Sean decries. He calls it snooping. I call it curiosity. And even he can’t deny that my curiosity has revealed many secrets that shouldn’t remain hidden.

In this case, my curiosity is toward my sister. I don’t know why I’ve been led here, but I am convinced there’s a reason. Maybe it has nothing to do with this house and only has to do with New Orleans. Maybe it doesn’t even have to do with this city but only the memory that’s resurfaced of Annie’s old history with music. Either way, I must know what this house is hiding.

The second floor is rather disappointing. It contains only bedrooms, most of them not in use. Nothing hidden in closets, nothing written in journals or slipped in between mattresses. Just ordinary bedrooms. In my past places of employment, the most damning secrets were found in studies and master bedrooms, but I’m not going to sneak into Josephine’s room while she’s sleeping in her bed.

That leaves the attic.

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