Carrie Brown - The Stargazer's Sister

He continues to draw, but he reaches out to her with his other hand, palm up, surprising her.

After a moment, she puts her hand there, and he closes his fingers around hers.

“How much better,” William says, “now that you are here, Caroline.”

—

WHEN WILLIAM AND HENRY prepare to go out that night to the street, Lina says she will remain inside, that she has tasks to complete. Henry can assist William in her place.

“Another time, I hope,” Henry says, bowing, as she prepares to go upstairs.

It is only a formality, him speaking this way, she thinks. It is just what people say. She knows that he will be happier if he can be alone with William.

It only occurs to her later, when she looks out the window of the music room at William and Henry in the street with the telescope, that perhaps William was laying claim to her in some way with that gesture, that hand opening and expecting hers to rest in it. He was telling Henry that Lina is not free to leave him and love another. That indeed she would not choose to do so.

After a moment, before one of them can sense her there, looking out at them, she turns away from the window.

—

THE NEXT WEEK BRINGS another book loaned to William from a fellow astronomer. It is part of her regular duties to copy such books, even this one in Latin, which she cannot read, and today the task gives her one of the headaches from which she sometimes suffers, the flashes of light and queer blank spots in her vision. William frequently prepares papers on his investigations. These, too, she copies, but she has fallen behind, and many pages await her. She sits by the window in the parlor reserved for music lessons, where the light is good, but when William leaves the house for an errand, she puts her head down on her folded arms, willing the pain to pass.

She is woken sometime later by Stanley, by his hand jostling her shoulder.

“He’s back,” Stanley says, quietly.

Lina sits up, blinking. At least the headache is gone. Usually there is no remedy for them except sleep.

“Thank you,” she says. She touches her hair.

Stanley moves away, but he lingers in the door, a worried expression on his face.

“It’s all right, Stanley,” she says to him. She smiles to make him feel free to go.

She looks down at the papers before her. There are so many of them, an infinity of papers.

—

THAT WEEK, William begins holding rehearsals at the house with the performers he has engaged for the spring concert series. He composes chants and anthems and psalm tunes for the choir, the morning and evening services set in two different keys. The speed with which he transposes music astonishes her.

Yet every penny goes toward the household’s needs and his pursuits in astronomy. He wants no horses, no comforts, no fine furnishings or clothes. Painful moments between Lina and William occur when there are not sufficient funds to pay their creditors, and Lina must present to William the difference between what they owe and their income.

“Every time I must go off somewhere to perform, I lose time,” he complains.

That week during one of her music lessons, they argue.

“You are ready, Lina!” he says impatiently. “Anyone listening to you would say what I say. It has been months! You are ready. ”

She feels guilty; it is true that if she began to sing in public, William would not have to pay another performer.

But she is not ready, she knows. She is not ready inside.

Gradually, though, she has begun to gain confidence in front of his pupils, mostly young ladies in town for the baths, including “dear Miss Farinelli,” as William refers to her. He bends — archly, Lina thinks — over her white little hand.

Miss Farinelli’s behavior around William is besotted. She issues peals of laughter, ringlets jiggling.

Though Lina feels less shy now, sometimes she has to contrive an excuse to leave the room when Miss Farinelli comes for her lessons, though William prefers for Lina to stay and sing duets. Miss Farinelli’s pitch wobbles without a counterpoint.

One afternoon that week, Lina sees Miss Farinelli to the door.

When she returns to the music room, William has seated himself at the harpsichord again. He is in the midst of composing a sonata for it. He does not look up when Lina enters.

“Thank you for your help,” he says, speaking over his playing. “Dear Miss Farinelli would go straight over the cliff without you to hold her back.”

Lina smiles. “It is true that she cannot carry a tune. But her bosom is very practiced at heaving.”

William laughs, plays a few more measures, his eyebrows lifted.

“I believe,” Lina continues, “that her bosom is in danger of escaping her dress entirely, if you continue to encourage her to sing in the higher octaves.”

William laughs again. He stops playing and writes something on the score before him.

“Miss Farinelli is a delightful creature,” he says.

“You’re enjoying looking at that bosom,” Lina says.

“I have looked inside her head, too,” William says. “And do you know? It’s a perfect miracle. There is absolutely nothing there.”

Lina goes away to the kitchen. She stuffs a brace of chickens. For a while there is a pleasant feeling of sunlight in her chest. She sings to encourage it, but as the afternoon wears on, her happiness fades.

One day, she thinks…one day William will take a wife.

Or a wife will take him.

—

TOWARD THE END OF APRIL William finally asserts that she is ready for her first performance at the Octagon, and that he will have no more delaying tactics from her. The evening she is to sing, he has been busy finishing a small mirror, and they are both late getting ready. At last they race out of the house and through the streets. She is breathless when they arrive — she will never be able to sing! Why must William always require her to be doing ten things at once? — but in the vestibule outside the big room of the chapel, where she can hear the musicians tuning their instruments, there is no time to worry. William adjusts his wig, tugs the tails of his coat, pats her on the head as if she were a puppy, and then throws open the doors, bowing to the audience, who greet him with smiles and applause. He indicates Lina with his hand — there is further applause — and then he sits down at the harpsichord.

She comes to stand beside him. She feels every eye upon her. She clutches her hands together and looks at her brother.

The audience is arranged in small groups in the little parlors throughout the room, the women in a rainbow of dresses that Lina can tell, even at a glance, are expensive. People have turned expectantly toward her. Silence fills the room, the musicians poised. She is aware of her face beneath her wig — she has powdered it and dotted rouge on her cheeks — and she suffers a moment of paralysis. She has no guide for such ministrations; perhaps the effect is terrifying, especially with the green of her dress. But William has nodded at the first violin, and the music has begun, and then he looks up at her, smiling.

She has had months of training from William, endless solfège exercises— solfeggio per gli dissonanzie, per la falsetta, and per la sycopatione. Now, almost without realizing she has begun, she hears herself move effortlessly into the music.

I heard a voice from heaven.

—

AFTERWARD, SHE IS KISSED. There are cakes and sweet wine. Ladies press her hand between their own, offer greeting cards, say she must call, how delightful, of course Mr. Herschel’s sister would have such a divine voice. Where has he been keeping her?

Mr. Herschel, they say, teasing, why have you been hiding this little jewel from us?