“Verdi!” The count’s eyes lit with pleasure and he darted to the pianoforte in the corner.
His fingers, long and limber, were perfectly suited to the keyboard, and he played beautifully, with great feeling. The notes trilled under his fingers as he began the prelude to a lively folk tune, which Tiberius sang with competence if not virtuosity, until the count moved into his beloved Verdi. It proved too low for the doctor, so Stoker stepped up to the piano and began to sing, his baritone round and supple. It was not as elegant as Tiberius’, but it had more feeling, and more than one eye gleamed brighter as the last notes died away.
Then the count began to play “Già nella notte densa” and Beatrice joined him in the duet.
The performance was bravura. Beatrice’s voice was a high, pure soprano, but with a lushness that blended at the end with her husband’s rendition of Otello into something quite magical. It was almost enough to make one forget Desdemona’s end, I reflected dryly.
When they finished, the count immediately swung into a peppytune, gesturing for us all to join in. “It is ‘Funiculì, funiculà’; surely you know it, my friends!” He pounded out the sprightly rhythm and we sang with gusto, Timothy Gresham proving the greatest surprise as he thundered out a deep and thoroughly unlikely basso profundo.
As the last note died away, Beatrice suddenly seemed to falter. She paled and the count sprang to her side, murmuring into her ear as he put an arm out to support her. She looked up and smiled wanly. “I am sorry, friends. I hope you will not think me unmannerly, Tiberius, if I retire? I am fatigued, the travel...”
She let her voice trail off and Tiberius rose, beckoning to Timothy Gresham. “Beatrice, you will let Timothy attend you, I insist.” She made to wave him off, but the count murmured once more in her ear and she assented with a wan smile. Together, the two men helped her up the stairs. Tiberius poured another measure of port for himself, but no one else partook. The pleasure of the evening, dimmed with the appearance of the men in a curious mood, had been entirely eclipsed by Beatrice’s sudden turn. A chess game was begun between Stoker and Merry whilst the rest of us passed the time in desultory conversation. Elspeth Gresham was blinking furiously, as if fighting off sleep, and the clock struck midnight before Timothy reappeared.
Augusta looked up. “Is Beatrice better?”
The doctor rubbed at his rabbity nose, his expression one of concern. “For now. Heart troubles, she told me,” he said soberly.
“Is it serious?” his sister asked.
He gave her a reproving look. “Elspeth, you know I cannot say.” But his expression was eloquent in its gravity. The little contessa was clearly quite unwell, and her prognosis could not have been a good one.
Augusta made an exclamation of gentle dismay. “How dreadful! Poor Pietro. They seem so happy together.”
Sir James patted her hand. “Then they must make the best of the time they have,” he told her. A minute expression of exasperationflickered across her face before she mastered it. I understood it well enough. It was unthinkable that this vital and contented young woman should be so unwell—unthinkable and deeply unfair, I mused.
The news dampened what little amusement had been left in the atmosphere. Tiberius looked about and addressed his guests. “I think a good night’s sleep is what we all need. It promises to be a fine day tomorrow and we ought to make an early start to see the estate at its best.”
Everyone nodded agreement and rose to move into the hall, where Collins waited with footmen holding the Greshams’ wraps and lighted candles for the rest of us. Elspeth was weaving slightly, and her breath was heavy with the smell of port as she bade me good night.
“Mind you drink a good glass of barley water before you retire,” I advised. “Or you might find your head a little sore in the morning.”
She smiled and her eyes went from side to side, as though she were seeing two of me and trying to decide which to address. Just then her brother came to her holding out a heavy cloak of serviceable green wool.
“Come now, Elspeth, let us get you home,” he said with a chuckle.
He tied her cloak under her chin for her with gentle fingers and patted her arm. “I am rather sleepy,” she admitted.
He pulled a rueful face over her head as he led her away. Collins was handing candles to the others as Tiberius turned to Merry with an oblique look. “Merry, would you be good enough to show Sir James and Lady MacIver back to their suite on your way up?” He smiled at the MacIvers. “I know you’ve already settled in, but Cherboys is a veritable maze and we haven’t given you bread crumbs to leave a trail.”
Merry yawned broadly as he took his candle, shuffling up the stairs like a small bear. Only Stoker, Tiberius, and I remained, affording us the opportunity to compare notes from the evening’s events. But before I could suggest a council of war, Stoker took his candle and bowed from the neck. “Good night to you both.” He followed Merry up the stairs, taking them two at a time and leaving me staring after him in considerable irritation.
“Are you quite certain there is nothing amiss, Veronica?” Tiberius asked lightly.
“Certainly not.”
“I notice, and you will forgive my frankness on such matters, my dear, that my brother goes alone up to his virtuous and solitary bed.”
I opened my mouth to utter a witty riposte but somehow could not, in that moment, manage anything other than the truth. “We are not entirely as we were,” I admitted.
“Then you are fools, the pair of you,” Tiberius replied. He gave me a long look. “Veronica, I hope that you have, in the course of our acquaintance, come to know that you may confide in me,” he said simply. The usual theatricality of his gestures was absent; his tone was gentle and his expression warm with regard.
I swallowed hard. “I am not much in the habit of confidences,” I admitted. “I have, perhaps, been too long upon my own.”
“You confide in Stoker,” he pointed out.
“Not as much as I should,” I said with some bitterness. “Besides, that is entirely different.”
“Yes, I believe it is.” He paused, uncomfortable as always, it seemed, with genuine emotion. “I am sorry to see the two of you having troubles. I rather thought you were the one woman upon the face of this good earth who might understand him.”
