It certainlyfeltbetter—more fluid, more like a real composition—and by the end of the theme she actually found herself getting a small sip of that dizzying pleasure she used to find in performing before an audience.
Applause startled her: her father, Miss Slight, and the younger Mr. Frampton had evidently returned while she was playing. The latter two waxed enthusiastic—but it was the proud light in her father’s eyes that tied Sophie’s tongue and lodged like a ruby in her breast.
It was an early sunset, being so late in the year, and the long orange streamers of light sliding between the buildings felt quietly triumphal as the two of them walked home to the instrument shop.
Mr. Roseingrave was in raptures over William Frampton’s calculating engine, which apparently only partially existed. “He’s built one section of it, to prove the soundness of the idea—but there is no way for him to complete the project. The precision required of the parts is simply impossible in sufficient quantity. Yet the machine obviously works! It would do precisely what he designed it to—if only the world would allow for its creation.” He clasped his hands behind his back, and sighed. “It is the inventor’s curse, I think—to have so clear a vision, and to be unable to bring it to fruition.”
“Perhaps the world will change, someday,” Sophie said.
She imagined being in a concert hall, or a royal pavilion, hands flying over the keys. Sending her own arrangements of notes out into the air, to be heard and appreciated and lauded.
But there were so many things standing between her and that vision—time, money, and the ever-shifting whims of luck and happenstance. She thought of Mr. Frampton’s apparatus, all those mechanical dreams. Then she thought of his father, missing his violin—and her mother, retired from public performance. “I have to wonder,” she said. “Is it better to have had a dream and lost it, or to have a dream that you know you will never achieve?”
“Neither,” her father said at once. “The worst thing is to never dream at all. To go through life with the inward eye shut tight, never dazzled by the light of inspiration, or warmed by the—the sunbeams of, I don’t know, imagination? Acclaim?” Sophie snickered, and her father shook with a self-deprecating laugh. “I am better at building pianos than composing panegyrics.” His eyes turned thoughtfully to his daughter, as they turned a corner into the street that led them home. “You and the elder Mr. Frampton seemed to have got on splendidly in our absence.”
Sophie nodded. “He is very kind—and very critical, in the best way.”
“A rare combination.”
Sophie chewed her lip thoughtfully, and said: “I might bring Mother for a quiet visit, just the three of us,” she said. “He expressed a wish to meet her. He misses having other musicians to talk to.”
Mr. Roseingrave sobered a little at this. “Your mother has said much the same since she left performing. She still writes to her friends, but I know she misses the musical evenings she can’t enjoy the way she used to. We both love music, of course—but I’m such a technician. She is an artist.” His mouth curved again, the particular fond smile he wore only when speaking of his wife. “It is a good union—but often it is good because we are so different. I hope to see you find such a match yourself, someday.”
“As the artist or the technician?” Sophie asked. It was a deflection from what she truly wanted to ask:What if I find someone I cannot marry?
What if she’s a woman?
“Whoever you please,” her father replied affably, and she had the eerie sense he was answering the unspoken question instead of the other one. “As long as you’re happy.”
Sophie blinked back sudden tears at this—but they had reached the shop door, and her father went inside, beaming as his wife came forward to greet him. “Clara! You were missed, my dear. Let me tell you...”
Chapter Seven
The St. Hunger’s Day Fair had finally arrived, and Maddie buzzed like a swarm of bees had taken up lodgings in her breast.
The whole household woke early for a hasty breakfast, bites snatched in between the sorting of goods and the loading of the cart. Within the hour the four of them were trundling out into the dark streets. Their breath fogged in the chill air before dawn as they hailed friends and fellow traders, streams of people bundled against the cold, all moving toward the field beneath the ancient oak.
The fair had once been a cattle fair, centuries back when Carrisford was entirely farmers and local fiefdoms. But since the wool and silk trades had moved in, and the traders and shopkeepers with them, St. Hunger’s Day had become a celebration of garments and fabric and clothing goods. Handweavers and shoemakers and tailors and merchants of all kinds brought wares with them—some carefully chosen for the occasion, others the unsold remains of the year’s work, now marked down to low prices that would hopefully give the maker some return on their labor.
By the time the sun rose, the fair was in full swing. The field became a labyrinth of stalls and tents, each one thronged with people and swathed in all manner of textiles. Secondhand dresses and summery frocks competed with bolts of last year’s brocade and boys’ shirts, long outgrown by their first wearers. Everywhere hands reached out, testing the weight of a skirt, spreading the lapels of a jacket, handing over coins for a waistcoat shimmering with peacock embroidery. Naturally the food sellers were there, too: the scents of roasting meat and cakes and hot cider and ale breezed through the lanes like eager hounds tumbling over one another in excitement.
Maddie helped set up John and Emma’s stall first: shoes and slippers glittering on the table like some hasty to-be-princess’s castoffs. Maddie made her way to the Weavers’ Library booth, shining with satin and brocade, where Maddie’s silk ribbons could flutter like castle pennants from a string stretched from one corner pole to the other.
Business was brisk—it had been a bleak month, and people in Carrisford were eager to celebrate—but just before noon Maddie bid farewell to a customer, put her coins away, and pulled one closely wrapped bolt of cloth from beneath the booth where it had lain hidden since they arrived.
Alice smiled at a prosperous-looking lady who’d stopped to stare yearningly at a length of silver silk. The girl smiled back but moved on, her regret achingly clear. Alice glanced at Maddie, her eyes flicking to the bolt of fabric under her arm. “Good luck,” she whispered.
Maddie squeezed her hand once, and slipped out into the fair.
She walked past the aisles where many of the Jewish old-clothesmen had set up, and stopped as she passed by the Samsons’ stall, bursting with colorful garments they’d brought from the great London rag markets and pawnshops. Mr. Samson grinned at Maddie’s wave. “Will the yellow silk work out alright?” he asked.
“It’s perfect,” Maddie assured him. “You are a wonder, Mr. Samson.”
He pinkened with pleasure. Maddie hefted the fabric beneath her arm and continued toward her goal.
Beside the food and drink stalls, plenty of traders had come with toys and books and other small goods, eking out the last sales before Christmas. Here was the booth the Roseingraves had set up, small harps and whistles and guitars out for sale, and sheet music pinned up on the tent flaps like feathers on the wings of some enormous bird. Maddie tamped down on a wave of mischievous heat when she spotted the round little figure at one corner of the stall, tilting a violin to show off the shine of the varnish to a skeptical buyer. The man shrugged and moved away.
Sophie’s smile faltered and her shoulders sagged. But only briefly. She called out to one of the younger siblings, handed over the violin, and before long four Roseingraves were demonstrating the quality of their instruments with an impromptu concert. An old country tune, simple enough for the younger ones to master, the violin singing over a cello and the strum of a guitar. Eyes bent their way, and fairgoers began stopping to listen.
