“I’ll play it for you,” said Michael in a low voice. He turned, looking for some possible source, hoping against hope it wasn’t an instrument, a harp, a fiddle, something that required a player, because if it was, then he could not rise to the moment.
He felt heartbroken himself, impossibly sad, unable to enjoy the great relief he ought to have been feeling. And for one moment his eyes moved over Rowan, and she too seemed lost in sadness, veiled in it, her hands clasped, her body very upright against the stair railing, her eyes following the dancing figure who had begun to hum a distinct melody, something that Michael knew and loved.
Michael discovered the machines—modern stereo components, designed to look almost mystically technical, with hundreds of tiny digital screens, and buttons, and wires snaking in all directions to speakers hung at random intervals along the wall.
He bent down, tried to read the name of the tape inside the player.
“It’s what she wants,” said Stuart, staring still at the woman. “Just start it. She plays it all the time. It is her music.”
“Dance with us,” said Tessa. “Don’t you want to dance with us?” She moved towards Ash, and this time he could not resist. He caught her hands, and then embraced her as a man might embrace a woman for a waltz, in the modern intimate position.
Michael pressed the button.
The music began low, the throb of bass strings plucked slowly—flowing out of the many speakers; then came trumpets, smooth and lustrous, over the shimmering tones of a harpsichord, descending in the same melodic line of notes and now taking the lead, so that the strings followed.
At once Ash guided his partner into wide graceful steps, and a gentle circle.
This was Pachelbel’s Canon, Michael knew it at once, played as he’d never heard it, in a masterly rendition, with the full brass perhaps intended by the composer.
Had there ever been a more plaintive piece of music, anything more frankly abandoned to romance? The music swelled, transcending the constraints of the baroque, trumpets, strings, harpsichord now singing their overlapping melodies with a heartrending richness so that the music seemed both timeless and utterly from the heart.
It swept the couple along, their heads bending gently, their wide steps graceful and slow and in perfect time with the instruments. Ash was smiling now, as fully and completely as Tessa. And as the pace quickened, as the trumpets began to delicately trill the notes, with perfect control, as all voices blended magnificently in the most jubilant moments of the composition, faster and faster they danced, Ash swinging Tessa along almost playfully, into bolder and bolder circles. Her skirts flared freely, her small feet turned with perfect grace, heels clicking faintly on the wood, her smile ever more radiant.
Another sound was not blended into the dance—for the canon, when played like this, was surely a dance—and slowly Michael realized it was the sound of Ash singing. There were no words, only a lovely openmouthed humming, to which Tessa quickly added her own, and their faultless voices rose above the dark lustrous trumpets, effortlessly traveling the crescendos, and now, as they turned faster, their backs very straight, they almost laughed in what seemed pure bliss.
Rowan’s eyes had filled with tears as she watched them—the tall, regal man and the lithesome, graceful fairyqueen, and so had the eyes of the old man, who clung to the arm of his chair as if he were very close to the limit of his resources.
Yuri seemed torn inside, as if he would lose control finally. But he remained motionless, leaning against the wall, merely watching.
Ash’s eyes were now playful, yet adoring, as he rocked his head and swayed more freely, and moved even more quickly.
On and on they danced, spinning along the edge of the pool of light, into shadow and out of it, serenading one another. Tessa’s face was ecstatic as that of a little girl whose greatest wish has been granted her.
It seemed to Michael that they should withdraw—Rowan, Yuri, and he—and leave them to their poignant and gentle union. Perhaps it was the only embrace they’d ever really know with each other. And they seemed now to have forgotten their watchers, and whatever lay ahead of them.
But he couldn’t go. No one moved to go, and on and on the dance went until the rhythm slowed, until the instruments played more softly, warning that they would