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“Lucille?”
Lucille barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes as Edith finally spoke up. She’d intentionally prolonged her playing, because Edith had been clearly waiting for her to finish.
“Yes, Edith?” she said, turning slightly on the piano bench.
“I’ve been practicing,” said Edith hopefully, and she produced an instrument case from behind the sofa. “I just thought-- you play piano so much, and I wanted to...” she trailed off, her eyes searching Lucille’s face for some sign of approval.
Lucille allowed herself a small smile. “Let’s hear you, then,” she said, and Edith’s expression of relief was almost comically desperate. She unclasped the case, lifted her viola out of its bed of crushed velvet, and brought a chair over so she could sit facing Lucille.
“I tuned it earlier,” she said, and eagerly put her instrument to her shoulder. The viola crushed down Edith’s puffed sleeve, and she had to adjust the stiffened fabric to make way for her bow, but when she set horsehair to string, Lucille smiled in earnest.
Edith had learned Mendelsson’s “Lift thine eyes to the mountains" presumably in homage to the Sharpe words. It wasn’t an ideal piece for solo viola, being a choral work originally, but Edith seemed to be following the topmost line and it worked.
The younger woman was no beginner, Lucille could tell. She had beautiful intonation, and though her intervals seemed a little out of practice, it was nothing that regular practice wouldn’t fix. When Edith finished the tune and lowered her bow, Lucille motioned for her to keep playing, and filled out the underlying chords as she remembered them.
Edith was even more golden and luminous when she smiled like this. And for the first time, Lucille didn’t feel a surge of resentment.
“Why did you choose viola?” asked Lucille, as Edith put more rosin on her bow.
“Why did you choose piano?” countered Edith good-naturedly.
“Touché,” said Lucille.
Later, Edith admitted she’d learned viola because her mother had played it, and Lucille could only nod blandly and say “So did I.” She didn’t trust her voice to stay steady if she said more.
~~
Thomas went away to the post office to fetch machine parts, and came back with new strings for Edith, a brocade-and-velvet bench cover for Lucille, and a book of viola sonatas for both of them.
“Oh, these are so easy,” said Edith, looking over Lucille’s shoulder as she thumbed through the pages.
“I know Lucille prefers to play simpler music and embellish it herself, so I found some easier pieces,” he said, shaking snow off his boots.
“They’re lovely,” said Lucille, and she held the book out to Edith. “Here, let’s play this one first. It’s Schubert’s Heidenröslein.”
“I know that song,” said Thomas. “The words are by Goethe, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but unless Lucille wants to sing this, we shan’t have any words,” said Edith, and she pointed out a passage in her viola part and made a mad hopping motion with her hand. Lucille actually giggled, and Thomas stared at her.
“Why don’t you go lay this out on the piano and tune up, and I’ll make us some tea,” said Lucille warmly. Edith took the book and set off up the stairs, humming, and Lucille turned under the stairs into the kitchen. Thomas followed her.
“Tea? Now?” he hissed.
Lucille shook her head. Then, deliberately, she took the tin of poison off its easily accessible shelf and opened one of the higher cabinets. Standing on tiptoe, she thrust the poison into the cabinet and pushed it out of reach.
“Yes,” she said, brushing her hands off. “Tea. Find me the blue willow china set, would you?”
Thomas stood stock-still until she flapped her hands impatiently at him, and then he darted over to her and kissed her swiftly on the mouth.
“I love you,” he said, and then took her hands and kissed them too. “And we’ll never be apart again. Not ever.”
“The china, Thomas,” said Lucille severely, but she couldn’t help but smile at him.
~~
“How well do you learn by rote?” asked Lucille, one day after they’d played through their usual repetoire.
“Quite well,” said Edith. “I picked up ‘Lift thine eyes” from hearing the choir practice it in church.”
Lucille nodded approvingly. “Play along with me, then,” she said, and then she played Thomas’s lullaby, steadily and slowly, with no ornamentation, no flashy passagework, just the simple melody in octaves with both hands. Edith picked it up, phrase by phrase, and they played it over twice together before Lucille branched out again, letting Edith play the melody by herself while she again filled in the accompaniment.
“You take the melody,” said Edith, after they’d cycled through the song a few times. Then she added a counterpoint, constantly moving in complement to the melody, and Lucille ornamented the melody to match it. Then she abandoned her chordal accompaniment entirely and let Edith fill in the harmonies.
The whole house seemed to resonate with the lullaby, and Thomas finally noticed the music over the ticking of his inventions. He made his way downstairs, breathless, and arrived at the library doors to find Edith and Lucille completely absorbed in their playing. He’d always loved to listen to the lullaby, whether it was crooned in his ear or built up to the point of unrecognisabililty on the piano, and with the beautiful alto strains of Edith’s viola, the song was finally complete, and even the house itself seemed to know it.
They finally wound down, Edith droning the bass notes of the chords and Lucille playing the simple melody again. They removed bow from strings, and fingers from keys, and slowly looked up at each other as the last echoes faded throughout the house.
Edith set down her viola on her chair, and held out her hand. Lucille placed her hand in Edith’s, and was surprised to find the other woman’s fingers were warm.
Thomas shifted a little in the doorway, and Lucille and Edith finally noticed him and both started a little guiltily.
“That was beautiful,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
“Yes,” agreed Lucille, and she squeezed Edith’s hand in hers. “We’ll have to write down that counterpoint, it was lovely.”
“I hardly remember what I played,” said Edith sheepishly. “It ran away with me, a little.”
“I’m sure we’ll come by it again,” said Lucille, and then she kissed Edith’s fingers, impulsively. “For luck,” she said. “Thomas, come in or stay out, don’t lurk in the doorway like that.”
Thomas laughed and came in, and Lucille and Edith played the lullaby until the light faded from the windows.