to the courtyard. The windows at the street end were shuttered, and candles had been lit there.
“I’ll tell madame you’re here,” the woman said, and continued up to the next floor.
As she waited, Louise inspected the room. Alone in the middle of it stood a rosewood piano. The floor was polished timber, dark as pitch. The walls were of plain white plaster. A brass chandelier hung from an ornate plaster rose on the ceiling. Looking at the way that house had been put together, she was reminded of a shipwright’s work: construction that was solid to the point of crudity, yet shaped by its journeyman maker to follow lines of taste and elegance. Apart from the piano, there were two sofas and a few other pieces of mahogany furniture.
Louise went over to the piano. It was a London-made Broadwood, probably the Drawing Room Grand. She could imagine its journey, packed in boxwood and bound up with ropes to cross the ocean, then up the river by steamboat for unloading onto the levee, and then a final, rattling half mile on a wheeled cart to bring it here.
How did they get it up to the second floor? Probably over the balcony from the street, with block and tackle. Now here they were, Louise and the piano. Two exiled Europeans, a long way from home.
She did not sit and play. She could accompany herself, but not well. It was for this reason that she’d mostly made her living from recitation—it was a fairly simple matter to hire a meeting hall or a YMCA to give passages from
However, she’d been finding that they did not understand her so well in the South. In Philadelphia, her accent had been a professional asset. Here they asked her to repeat her words, and not just for the pleasure of hearing her speak.
For her part, she couldn’t quite adapt to the local mixing up of language with French words rendered unrecognizable by American pronunciation. So out came the sheet music, and back came the vocal exercises.
She’d been exercising every morning. Whenever she could find a place to boil a kettle, she’d breathe in some steam. Louise had always assumed that her singing voice was something that she’d be able to call upon at will. But over the past few weeks, she’d discovered that it was just like any other neglected gift. She’d intended to keep it in use, but somehow over the years she’d never quite turned intention into action.
She sang well enough. Had she kept it up, she might now be sounding better than ever. But now she was coming to realize that she’d never again sing quite as well as she once had.
Well, as long as she could fill a room and please an audience. The smaller the room, the easier it was on both counts. Private events were the best of all—not only did she get to meet and charm her listeners beforehand, but the occasions made less of a mark in the public record. They might not be hugely rewarding, but for once money was not an immediate problem due to the contents of Jules Patenotre’s strongbox. Right now, it was more important for her to seek out and meet people of use and influence.
Someone was coming down the stairs. It was Mrs. Blanchard. She moved slowly, one hand on the mahogany banister and the other being supported by the servant woman. Louise had only met her once before today, and then only briefly; one of her sons had conveyed this invitation and handled the initial arrangements. She was elderly and frail, and movement took so much of her concentration that it was impossible to guess at her character from her expression. She might be kind, forbidding, impatient—anything at all from sweet old lady to terrifying matriarch. Her hair was pinned up, and she wore a full cotton dress in a pleasing lavender shade.
Louise hovered awkwardly as the two of them moved to one of the sofas, where Mrs. Blanchard lowered herself with care. On the way down, she looked up at the servant woman and said, “Sophie, will you ask Euday to come?”
“He downstairs,” Sophie said.
Mrs. Blanchard settled the last few inches and then, finally, was able to turn her full attention to Louise. “So, Miss D’Alroy,” she said. “What will you take?”
Louise said, “A glass of water?”
“Take a cordial,” Mrs. Blanchard said. “The water’s not so sweet today.”
Sophie left them, and there were a few moments of silence. Louise looked around and said, “Can I assume this is the room where I’ll be performing?”
“Assume away,” Mrs. Blanchard said. Her expression was stony, but her manner seemed warm. It was as if great age had robbed her face of animation and taken the strength from her limbs, leaving the person inside able to show herself in only small ways.
She said, “What do you think of my house?”
“I think it’s fine,” Louise said. “I think the whole town’s very fine.”
“Well, you can say that,” Mrs. Blanchard said. “But you never saw the old New Orleans.”
“I take it times have changed.”
“Oh, have they. This was the richest city in America, and you knew it. We had the cotton and we had the river. Then came Mister Lincoln’s war, and after that the railroads. Now it’s one of the poorest. We can still put on a show, but it’s not the place it was. There are some terrible people out there. I have Sophie lock the gates at night.”
“Even so,” Louise said. “There’s something welcoming about this part of the world. I’m finding I feel at home here.”
“And you’ve missed feeling that.”
“Since I left my own home? I suppose I have. I’ve been away for a long time.”
Mrs. Blanchard said, “You’re a very pretty girl.”
“I’m no girl,” Louise said. “But thank you.”
“And you sing like an angel. You’re giving me the feeling that you think your heart is empty. But you’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Louise said, unaware that she’d given any such impression.
“Yes, you are,” Mrs. Blanchard said. “People can lie. To others and to themselves. But I’ve heard you, and I’ll guarantee that music always finds you out.”
At this point, Sophie returned with a tray bearing a glass of cordial for Louise. She was followed into the room by a young black man in a brown suit with a high-collared shirt. He carried a brown derby hat in his hands and was in his twenties, no more than twenty-six or-seven.
Mrs. Blanchard said, “Euday, this is Miss D’Alroy. She’ll be singing for the gathering this weekend. Do you have your music with you, Miss D’Alroy?”
“I do,” Louise said, reaching down for the portfolio she’d brought along. “I’m afraid it’s been rather well used.”
The young man held out his hand for it and said, “I happen to believe that’s no drawback in a good piece of music, ma’am.”
He took the portfolio from her and carried it over to the piano. As he seated himself and took out the manuscript pages, Mrs. Blanchard raised her voice to say, “I had the tuner to it yesterday.”
“I thank you for that, Miz Blanchard.”
As the young man was looking through her pieces, Mrs. Blanchard said to Louise, “When Euday was ten years old, his mother came to my door and asked if I needed someone to clean my house. She was looking for a place with a piano. She needed somewhere they’d allow her boy to practice while she worked.”
Louise, knowing that the young man was within earshot and unable quite to bring herself to speak as if he wasn’t there, spoke loudly enough to make it clear that she was including him and said, “You taught yourself?”
“That’s what he tells them in those terrible places where he plays of an evening. No, he didn’t teach himself.” She raised her own voice again. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of a classical music education.”
Euday grinned without looking up from the scores. “No, ma’am,” he said. “Miss D’Alroy?”
“Yes?”
Now he looked up. “You’ve written something on ‘The Last Rose of Summer.’ Would it help if I were to transpose the key for you?”
“If you can do that.”
“I can.”
He carried on looking through. Mrs. Blanchard said to Louise, “Would you prefer me to leave while you practice?”
“It makes no difference to me.”
“I’ll just sit quietly, then. Forget I’m here.”
