Free Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell Page B

over her sister’s shoulder.
    “I notice things. You don’t. You’re always reading philosophy or Rousseau.”
    “I notice what’s important, not nonsense. Don’t let the wax drip! When were these written? I wasn’t even twelve years old. Matthias Aldgasser. Oh, dear God, Matthias! He became a priest, had to, because he preferred ... don’t listen, Sophie. He preferred—”
    “What did he prefer?” the youngest girl cried, bouncing on the mattress.
    “Hush, or we’ll stuff a pillow over your face. He was ... there was a scandal. Never mind; it would corrupt you to know.”
    “I’m already corrupted having stolen the book,” Sophie said. “I’ll have to make my confession and do penance, say at least a full rosary on my knees on the stone church floor. Don’t push, Aloysia.”
    “I’m not,” Aloysia whispered. “I don’t think we should be looking at this at all. You could bunch a shawl under your knees, Sophie. And since when are you interested, Mademoiselle Maria Josefa?”
    Still they turned more pages. “Ah, this list is more recent,” Josefa said. The rest of their small room was now in shadow, with the shapes of their hanging dresses and hats like the ghosts of their lives watching over them. Josefa glanced toward the mirror, where she could see only the reflections of their dark faces and the sputtering light of the candle.
    Constanze pulled the quilt over her knees. “Even if they are more recent, half these men are married already. The decent ones are snatched from the shelves as fast as fresh bread in the market, and the ones left we wouldn’t want to rub bare feet with under a quilt.”
    “They’d be rubbing something more than that!” Josefa whispered with a smile. “Sophie, did you eat the very last marzipan chocolate?”
    “Will you be still?” Constanze ran her finger down a few more pages. “Why, now it becomes fantastical!” she murmured seriously. “Look here. Here’re her plans for you, Aloysia; your name’s on the top of the page. Here’s the name of a Swedish baron. She can’t be serious. Where does she get such ideas? Sweden’s very cold in winter, and they say the days are only a few hours long. You wouldn’t be able to borrow things from us, Aly, if you lived so far away.”
    Aloysia wound her curls around her fingers. “I wouldn’t need to borrow anything if I married a baron. And it’s not as if she got the name from a book she read. The Baron visited here some months ago; he may have been at the court concert last night as well, but I couldn’t see everyone’s face when I was concentrating on the sixteenth notes in the duet. And Mama described him only once, rather vaguely. Did you steal this book just to tease me? Perhaps you don’t care what you do, but I care very much! I’d have all the dresses I wanted then, all of them!”
    “And what about Monsieur Horn Player Leutgeb, Mademoiselle Go-Hide-in-the-Dark?”
    Aloysia pulled the book away so suddenly they heard the page tear, and all four looked down at it in horror. Constanze rummaged in a box under the bed until she found some paste, and they mended it as neatly as they could, heads together, fingers smoothing the page as if it were a holy relic.
    Aloysia’s eyes shone with tears again even as they finished. “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll tell her I ripped it accidentally. Or maybe she won’t notice. Put it back under the barrel carefully. Leutgeb’s nothing to me. I don’t like everyone knowing my thoughts; you can’t know them anyway. You couldn’t understand them. You’re not me. You haven’t my reasons. And I will marry well, and you’ll be fortunate if I let you visit me!”
    She withdrew under her quilt, turning away from them a little, and did not look up when Constanze came back from returning the book to the kitchen. Though she closed the door as quietly as possible, her bare feet creaked the boards.
    “Safely back?” one girl whispered.
    Constanze nodded grimly. “Is