you are an amazing person.”
She cast him a quick, startled glance.
“Sometime last week when your stepmother tried to convince me to dance with your lovely sister, Mrs. Ashford spent a remarkable amount of time highlighting your nonexistent charm and skills. Yet here you are so earnestly wanting her to do well, when she would have the opposite thoughts for you.”
“Shh, she’s my half-sister, and despite everything I do love her and hope for her dreams to come true,” Poppy finally said as Rebecca stood to curtsy to the crowd.
The applause was very muted, and it was only when Rebecca realized how little applause she was receiving that her face flushed in chagrin. Then her eyes fell directly on Poppy, clapping and sitting beside James. A look of pure malice stole over her features before quickly being replaced with one of fury.
Poppy gasped to see her sister glaring at her so. Rebecca fled the stage and out of the ballroom, sobbing. Poppy considered going after her sister to comfort her but decided such overtures would not be welcomed and she was to play after the next performance.
The next performer was a young man with a florid complexion and carroty hair and he was accompanied by an older woman who was clearly his accompanist. She looked like a governess of some sort. Her playing was correct and accomplished and she played the introduction to a medley of nautical airs, which the young gentleman sang out in a jolly warbling tenor, ending with Arne’s Rule Britannia, which received rousing cheers from a group of his cronies and considerable applause.
“You are up next,” James said. “Are you still nervous?”
“No,” Poppy whispered. Such a fib. This was her very first musicale and she was not only an observer but a participant. “Perhaps a tiny bit anxious.”
Poppy stood up and strolled up the side aisle to the steps to the piano. She waited for the young man’s bow and thanks to end before taking her place at the piano. Poppy turned and gazed at the audience and smiled. Her glance swept past the faces of her furious stepmother, and the obviously incensed Lavinia and back to where James sat waiting for her to begin.
The dratted man winked, and Poppy briefly looked away, so she did not grin like a silly goose. She would ignore the rest and play only for him. Poppy breathed deeply and let her fingers pull the music from the keys of the instrument in front of her. Then she was lost in the melodies of Chopin as the crowd sat silently, letting the sound reach deep into their shallow souls. As she played the finale she paused and glanced at Lord Sanders, unsure whether she should play her second piece or perhaps make her curtsy and retire. As the last notes melted away the applause thundered through the room. “Encore, encore,” was yelled and the clapping went on.
She stood and curtsied, then looked to Lord Sanders.
He banged his cane once more, “Superb, magnificent, Miss Ashford, please honor us with another piece…”
So, Poppy sat back down and played the lyrical romantic strains of Mendelssohn to an audience enthralled by the beauty of the music. Once more she reached the final flourishes and allowed the notes to flow through her to the end. Then she stood and curtsied and descended from the dais to another eruption of applause and demands for “More, more!”
As Poppy passed her stepmother and Lavinia to return to her seat, she noticed their faces violently contorted in their anger. They would never forgive her for it and would surely blame Poppy for Rebecca’s earlier mortification. There were several more acts, before James was summoned to perform. Schubert’s Erlkönig or the Elf King, this was a settling of Goethe’s poem, while normally performed by a soprano, it was apparently, James’s tour de force.
Poppy was not sure whether she should change the key or not, from the rumbling minor bass telling the haunting tale of the wicked Elf King and a terrified child. James produced a mellow baritone which he modulated to fit the eerie tale. He moved and acted out the story, sending chills running up and down the spines of his watchers. His voice might not have had the full power of an opera soloist, but his performance was powerful and moving. His applause was brilliant, and Poppy joined the crowd in their applause.
The rest of the evening proved magical and exhausting. Poppy met so many people who effusively complimented