“Barbara,” said Genevieve with absolute certainty. “He married her!”
“Got her pregnant first, I hear,” said the Duchess. “You know her, Genevieve?”
“She was at school with us,” she cried. “I should be happy for her, but, oh, what will Glorieta do? She loved him.”
“Perhaps,” said the Duchess, “it will turn out better for her, in the end.”
The Marshal decided that Genevieve should go to the concert with Duke Edoard. Not alone, however. Colonel Leys and Delia would accompany her, awaiting her outside the private box. So chaperoned, Genevieve went.
Afterward, she had no idea whether she had been charming to Edoard or whether she had even known he was there. All she could remember was the music, which had made her think of Stephanie’s book. Where was the bit about music? She sought the book eagerly, finding it at last upon the shelf and leafing through it until she came to the lines she had remembered:
Our teachers tell us that each world has a song that is begun with the first life on a world, a song that sounds within the world to foster life and variation. All living creatures are a part of the song which shall be sung forever, until the last star goes out.
Our teachers tell us that sometimes living creatures do not wish to be part of the song, they do not hear it, they rise up against it, they cry that they are larger than the song and more important than the music, and when their words drown out the song, then the world begins to die. Within the song, we are an immortal resonance. Outside it, we are like the tinkle of a tiny hell, gone quickly into nothing.
For many ages our people, the kaikaukau whetu, sang with the spirit of earth.
Then came a time when those who could not hear the song became many, and their voices drowned out the song, and the singers knew they must depart if the song was to go on living . . .
And when that time came, all happened as he had said. The ships were prepared and the song entered into them, and we went with the song into the depths. And when we were gone, lo, the Old Earth died for there was no music left within the world.
Delia’s husband returned a few days later, and soon afterward, Delia whispered into Genevieve’s ear what arrangements had been made and where the Blodden girl would be kept in safety. During her tour of the royal art gallery, Genevieve passed this on to Alicia.
“The place she will go sounds very common indeed,” she confessed. “I hope Lyndafal will not mind it.”
“Lyndafal loves life,” said her mother softly. “She will mind nothing so long as she is alive.”
Aufors remained busy, and Genevieve caught only glimpses of him coming or going. Some days passed in relative quiet, except for the Marshal, who blustered about, here and there, interfering with the servants and bothering Genevieve with suggestions about the outside workers, several of whom were still laboring at long-deferred and much-needed repairs to the house. The Marshal had not yet recovered from his annoyance at the way the Lord Paramount had treated them, or at Genevieve’s “misinterpretation,” so he defined it, of that occurrence. He was therefore inclined to carp at everything, though he remained blessedly nonverbal about the specifics of what annoyed him. Almost, Genevieve thought with a wry smile, as though he thought someone might be listening.
Genevieve herself made occasional clearly annunciated excuses for his bad temper: his gout was acting up, his bed was not comfortable, he was worried about his favorite horse. On one occasion when Delia, in Genevieve’s bedroom, started to say something about their private arrangement, Genevieve laid her fingers across Delia’s mouth and shook her head. If any servant from Langmarsh had been asked to install a listening device, Delia would have known of it, but Delia could not know what some stranger workman might have done. Thereafter, she and Delia spoke of any private matter out in the stableyard.
Veswees delivered the first dress about the time the house began preparing for the second dinner party. The gown was a marvel of cut and line, made of a fabric woven in Sealand, a soft blue with barely discernable green and darker blue stripes, cut so the stripes spiraled around her body from the high collar to the hem. Even Genevieve had to admit she looked quite wonderful in it, nose and all, though the collar required that her hair be dramatically “up,” as Veswees said. “Very high, Marchioness. Very high indeed.”