Page 66 of The Heir
“Hello, Morgan. Can you hear me?”
She whirled on him, jaw gaping.
“I can hear you,” she whispered, incredulous. “I can hear your words. Say more.” She turned and waited for him to position the speaking tube again.
“Let’s try this with the piano,” Val suggested, and she heard his words, or much more of them than she’d heard before. She couldn’t see his mouth when he used the speaking tube, so she must be hearing him. It felt like a tickling in her ear and like so much more.
“I remember this.”
“You remember how to speak,” Val said into the tube. “I thought you might. But come, let me play for you.”
He grabbed her by the hand, and she followed, Sir Walter Scott forgotten in the hay as they ran to the house. He led her straight to the music room, shut the door, and sat her down on what she’d come to think of as her stool. It was higher, like the stools in the ale houses, and let her lay her head directly on the piano’s closed case. Val took the tube and put it wide end down on the piano. He leaned down as if to put his ear to the narrow end of the tube.
“Try it like that.”
Morgan perched on the stool and carefully positioned the tube at her ear. Val moved to the piano bench and began a soft, lyrical Beethoven slow movement, meeting Morgan’s eyes several measures into the piece.
“Can you hear?”
She nodded, eyes shining.
“Then hear this,” he said, launching into a rollicking, joyous final movement by the same composer. Morgan laughed, a rusty, rough sound of mirth and pleasure and joy, causing Val to play with greater enthusiasm. She settled in on the stool, horn to her ear, eyes closed, and prepared to be swept away.
She’d been wrong. She wasn’t infatuated with Val Windham; she was in awe of him. He’d brought her music and the all-but-forgotten sensation of a human voice sounding in her ear. All it had taken was a simple metal tube and a kind thought.
“Good God almighty.” Dev glanced across the library at Westhaven. “What’s gotten into the prodigy?”
Westhaven looked up from his correspondence and focused on the chords crashing and thundering through the house.
“He’s happy,” Westhaven said, smiling. “He’s happier than I’ve heard him since Victor died. Maybe happier than I’ve ever heard him… He tends to stay away from Herr Beethoven, but if I’m not mistaken, that’s who it is. My God…”
He put down his letters and just listened. Val could improvise melodies so tender and lilting they brought tears. He could be the consummate chamber musician, his keyboard evoking grace, humor, and elegance. He knew every drinking song and Christmas carol, all the hymns, and folk tunes. This, however, was heady repertoire, full of emotion and substance.
And he plays the hell out of it, Westhaven thought, amazed. He knew his brother was talented and dedicated, but in those moments, he realized the man wasbrilliant. More gifted than any Windham had ever been at anything, transcendently gifted.
“Jesus Christ, he’s good,” Dev said. “Better than good. My God…”
“If His Grace could hear this,” Westhaven said, “he’d never say another disparaging thing about our youngest brother.”
“Hush.” Dev’s brow knit. “Let’s just listen.”
And they did, as Val played on and on, one piece following another in a recital of exuberant joy. In the kitchen, dinner preparations stopped. In the garden, the weeding took a hiatus. In the stables, grooms paused to lean on their pitchforks and marvel. Gradually, the music shifted to quieter beauty and more tender joy. As the evening sun slanted across the back gardens, the piano at last fell silent, but the whole household had been blasted with Val’s joy.
In the music room, watching Morgan smile up at him, Val had a queer feeling in his chest. He wondered if it was something like what doctors experienced when they could save a life or safely bring one into the world, a joy and a humility so vast they could not be contained in one human body.
“Thank you,” Morgan whispered, smile radiant. “Thank you, thank you.”
She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight, and he hugged her back. There were some moments when words were superfluous, and holding her slight frame against him, Val could only thank God for the whim that had made him pick up the tube. He let her go and saw she was holding out the tube to him.
“You keep it,” he said, but she shook her head.
“I cannot,” she said clearly.
“Then let’s leave it in here,” Val suggested. “You can at least use it when we speak or when you want to hear me play.” He put it on top of the piano, puzzled and not a little hurt by her unwillingness to keep the thing. He’d first thought to get her one when he’d seen a pair of old beldames strolling in Brighton, their speaking tubes on chains around their necks like lorgnettes.
Morgan nodded solemnly but put the tube inside the piano bench, out of sight.
“You don’t want anyone to know?” Val guessed.
