(no subject)
Chapter 2: Family Honour
Erin Rosepetal Desdemona spent so much of her childhood on her piano that she was completely oblivious to the teatime chats her parents were having with various respectable families in the nearby districts. It probably would have profited her greatly to be privy to these quiet chats, for they were centered for the most part on her and certain inevitable aspects of her future as a wealthy, relatively attractive female of one of the old families.
The tea room was made for negotiations of this sort - negotiations of subdued financial haggling glossed over with metres upon metres of cream damask and chaste mahogany. This was the only other room to contain an instrument, a 17th century antique harpsichord that even Erin couldn't quite play properly because she couldn't understand why everything sounded so gothic and staccato. The room was furnished with green chinese padded chairs that glimmered with a yellow sheen when the light hit upon them. It was on one of these chairs that Lady Geraldina Morgraves holding a dainty cup of orange pekoe sat chatting with Lady Desdemona.
"Is that your Erin upstairs on the piano? What is it that she is playing? It sounds frightfully familiar, but I cannot seem to recall..."
Lady Desdemona stifled a mortified chuckle.
"Oh, that is merely a warm-up. We are moving her on to Mozart soon and she is practicing her crescendi. Uh - your Simon plays quite well, does he?"
"Oh yes. He performed the Fantasia in A minor in front of the Duke last Tuesday. He was so moved he started sobbing uncontrollably after the second key change, and his courtiers looked alarmed briefly and then followed suit. So you can imagine how it was impossible for my dear Simon to continue his performance."
"Of course." Lady Desdemona resisted feeling a pang of parental jealously firstly because one does not like to admit such things to oneself, but also because she was genuinely not ashamed of her child. She had a feeling that with Erin the best had not yet come and the flagship was only a few metres from the horizon. She also could not afford to lose her wits in the next few crucial minutes because at any moment a subject that was very close to her heart and wallet was about to be touched.
Continued when I get back.
Erin Rosepetal Desdemona spent so much of her childhood on her piano that she was completely oblivious to the teatime chats her parents were having with various respectable families in the nearby districts. It probably would have profited her greatly to be privy to these quiet chats, for they were centered for the most part on her and certain inevitable aspects of her future as a wealthy, relatively attractive female of one of the old families.
The tea room was made for negotiations of this sort - negotiations of subdued financial haggling glossed over with metres upon metres of cream damask and chaste mahogany. This was the only other room to contain an instrument, a 17th century antique harpsichord that even Erin couldn't quite play properly because she couldn't understand why everything sounded so gothic and staccato. The room was furnished with green chinese padded chairs that glimmered with a yellow sheen when the light hit upon them. It was on one of these chairs that Lady Geraldina Morgraves holding a dainty cup of orange pekoe sat chatting with Lady Desdemona.
"Is that your Erin upstairs on the piano? What is it that she is playing? It sounds frightfully familiar, but I cannot seem to recall..."
Lady Desdemona stifled a mortified chuckle.
"Oh, that is merely a warm-up. We are moving her on to Mozart soon and she is practicing her crescendi. Uh - your Simon plays quite well, does he?"
"Oh yes. He performed the Fantasia in A minor in front of the Duke last Tuesday. He was so moved he started sobbing uncontrollably after the second key change, and his courtiers looked alarmed briefly and then followed suit. So you can imagine how it was impossible for my dear Simon to continue his performance."
"Of course." Lady Desdemona resisted feeling a pang of parental jealously firstly because one does not like to admit such things to oneself, but also because she was genuinely not ashamed of her child. She had a feeling that with Erin the best had not yet come and the flagship was only a few metres from the horizon. She also could not afford to lose her wits in the next few crucial minutes because at any moment a subject that was very close to her heart and wallet was about to be touched.
Continued when I get back.