voice could take her.
She was going to follow her dream.
Anne and Susanna had both shed tears over her, though both vehemently declared that she was doing the right thing. But they would miss her dreadfully. Their life at the school would not be the same without her.
But they would never
And they would hear of her progress and her fame, Anne told her, and burst with pride over her.
She was simply not going to accept the notice, Claudia declared. She would hire a replacement teacher until Christmas. If by then Frances wished to return, her position would be open for her. If not, then a permanent replacement would be made.
“You will not fail whatever happens, Frances,” she said. “If you go on to sing as a career, then it will be what you were born to do. If you find that after all the life does not suit you, then you will return to what you do superbly well, as numerous girls who have been at this school during the past three years will testify for the rest of their lives.”
And so the day of the concert dawned and progressed in the usual pattern, with every possible disaster threatening and being averted at the last possible moment—dancers could not find their dancing slippers and singers could not find their music and no one could find Martha Wright, the youngest pupil at the school, who was to be first on the stage to welcome the guests and who was finally found shut inside a broom closet, reciting her lines with tightly closed eyes and fingers pressed into her ears.
Susanna was peeping around the stage curtain shortly before the program was to begin to see if anyone had come—always the final anxiety of such evenings.
“Oh, my,” she said over her shoulder to Frances, who was arranging her music on a music stand, “the hall is full.”
It always was, of course.
“Oh, and look!” Susanna continued just when she had seemed about to drop the curtain back in place. “Come and
Frances always resisted the temptation to peep. She was too afraid that someone in the audience would catch her at it. But she could hardly refuse when Susanna looked at her with such saucer eyes and flushed cheeks—and then impish grin.
Frances looked.
Strangely, though they were more to the middle than the left, it was her great-aunts she saw first. But before she could react to the joy that welled up in her, she realized that Susanna had never met them and would not therefore recognize them. Her eyes moved left.
The Earl of Edgecombe sat next to Great-Aunt Martha, and then Lady Tait and Lord Tait and then Amy and then . . .
Frances drew a slow, long breath and allowed the curtain to fall into place.
“Frances.” Susanna caught her up in a hug despite the curious glances of a few of the girls who were busy in the wings. There were tears in her eyes. “Oh, Frances, you are going to be
Frances was too numb to feel anything except bewilderment.
But there was no time for feelings. It was seven o’clock, and Claudia always insisted that school functions begin promptly.
Anne appeared with Martha Wright, squeezed her thin shoulders and even kissed her cheek, and sent her out onto the stage.
The dress rehearsal during the afternoon had proceeded as badly as it possibly could. But Miss Martin had cheerfully assured girls and teachers alike that that was always a good sign and boded well for the real performance during the evening.
She was proved quite right.
The choirs sang in perfect pitch and harmony, the dancers were light on their feet and did not get tangled up in their ribbons even once, the choral speaking group recited with great verve and dramatic expression as if they were one voice, Elaine Rundel and young David Jewell sang their solos to perfection, Hannah Swan and Veronica Lane played their duet on the old pianoforte without hitting a wrong key, though it must have been clear even to the least musical ear in the audience that the instrument had had its day and was not likely to have many more, and the skit Susanna’s group performed, depicting teachers and girls preparing for a concert, drew laughter from the audience and applause even before it was finished.
The evening ended with a speech by Miss Martin, outlining some of the more significant achievements of the year, and then the presentation of prizes.
Frances never afterward knew how she had got through it all. Every time she was on stage conducting a choir and turned to acknowledge the applause of the audience, she saw either her great-aunts beaming up at her or the earl and Amy. She never once glanced at Lucius. She dared not.
But she knew he was smiling at her with that gleam in his eyes and that tight-lipped, square-jawed expression that demonstrated pride and affection and desire.
And love.
She no longer doubted that he loved her.
Or that she loved him.
The only thing she had doubted was the possibility that there could ever be any future for them.
But the Earl of Edgecombe was with him. So were Amy and Lord and Lady Tait. So were her great-aunts.
What could it mean?
