Lovely War(88)

THIS WAS THE crucial moment. All my work was about to go up in flames. I lose enough loves to misfortune, stupidity, and selfishness, not to mention disease and deadly war. I couldn’t let Hazel get on that London-bound train. I searched desperately. I had only minutes to avert a tragedy.

Her footsteps carried her blindly along, seeing nothing through a film of tears.

Up ahead stood an old vicarage. Knitting on the porch was the vicar’s elderly wife.

I’m not proud of what I did next.

In my defense, this sort of thing happened to Mrs. Puxley several times in any given day.

I gave her a back spasm. She cried out in pain. I knew she’d be theatrical about it.

Her cry reached Hazel even through her despair. She hurried up the walk.

I know it wasn’t sporting or nice. I never said I was either. But I’m not a monster. The remainder of her week was spasm-free, and her husband kissed her cheek, twice.

May I continue? Thank you.

Mrs. Puxley was so doubled over that when Hazel offered to help, the white-haired lady saw only a violet skirt and a pair of elegant shoes such as Parisian girls can buy off the rack whilst the ladies of Chelmsford only dream of them, and faintly disapprove.

The skirt and the shoes helped Mrs. Puxley indoors and onto a sofa, found cushions for her head and knees, and fetched a drink of water. Despite her pain, she got a good look at Hazel.

“Who are you, my dear?” she asked. “You’re not from around here.”

“No,” replied Hazel. “I’m from London. I came to the neighborhood to visit a friend.”

Mrs. Puxley winced as another nerve chose to express itself. “Well, you’ve been an angel of mercy to me,” said she. Mrs. Puxley, that is. Not the nerve.

“Is there anyone I should summon for you?” inquired Hazel.

“It’s the maid’s day off,” moaned Mrs. Puxley, “and my husband is at a funeral in town.”

“Shall I get you some aspirin?” asked Hazel.

“Nasty German stuff,” answered Mrs. Puxley. “I don’t believe in it.”

The old lady seemed so frail and pitiable that Hazel didn’t know how to leave.

“You keep on glancing at the piano, my dear,” observed Mrs. Puxley. “Do you play?”

“I do,” Hazel said, “though it’s been a while.”

“Play something for me,” said Mrs. Puxley. “Something gentle, for my poor nerves.”

Hazel hesitated. She had no music with her, and it had been months. She had come straight to Chelmsford from France. She hadn’t even stopped at home to see her parents. She could go see them to celebrate finding James, she had thought, or to cry on their shoulders if—

If.

So many ifs. Never had she imagined this one—James, alive, refusing to see her.

“My dear?” inquired Mrs. Puxley. “Are you all right?”

“Oh.” Hazel tried to smile. “I’m fine.”

“There’s no need to play if it’s upsetting to you,” said the vicar’s wife.

“No, no.” Hazel rose quickly. “I’m happy to.”

So she played, for Mrs. Puxley, Beethoven’s “Pathétique.” The second movement. “Adagio cantabile.”

Beethoven’s “Pathetic,” Aubrey had called it. She sent up a little prayer that he was out there somewhere, safe.

And she understood now, in a way that she never had before, the sorrow and longing wrapped up in Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Number 8 in C minor, opus 13. They flowed into her playing from her broken heart. This was what she’d needed. This salve for her wounded soul.

“My dear,” Mrs. Puxley whispered breathlessly, after the last notes had reverberated throughout the house, “who are you?”

“My name is Hazel Windicott,” said she.

“Are you an accompanist? Do you give lessons?”

Ah. Hazel tried to think how to answer. “I was doing war work,” she explained, “but circumstances forced me to leave my position, and I came here.” She wished the older lady would stop questioning her and let her play. So brief a taste, after months without music, was agony.

Mrs. Puxley very nearly salivated. “You mean to say,” she whispered, “that you are completely unattached at present?”

Her unfortunate choice of words pricked Hazel’s heart. She was very much attached, even if her beloved was no longer.

“I had planned on returning to some other kind of war work, if I could find it,” she said, “but my hope, eventually, is to prepare for auditions to a music conservatory.”

Her words surprised her. Yes. She would apply. Where was her fear of performing for others now? Gone, along with so many other childish things. Whatever else her future held, she would play the piano. Because she wanted to. Not because anyone expected it of her.

“I should hope you do intend to study at a conservatory,” Mrs. Puxley said decisively. “With a talent like yours, it would be a crime not to.”

Hazel had played at enough piano competitions to know hers wasn’t a legendary talent. But there ought to be a seat for her somewhere, at some reputable music school, if she worked hard.

“You have a beautiful piano,” she said. “A lovely tone, and the room has fine acoustics.”