Free Duet for Three Hands by Tess Thompson Page B

chair, dabbing under her eyes. “Frank agreed to have the wedding at the lake house, away from Atlanta society. Then, we’ll just announce the marriage. People will talk, but it’s the best we can do. It’ll help that Nathaniel’s so esteemed.”
    “This Mr. Fye ain’t heard about that Waller girl’s party?”
    “He doesn’t run in society. Doesn’t have to worry about such things. His talent excuses him from that, I suppose. He’s what my grandmother would’ve called painfully shy. But he’s humble and intelligent. Has these eyes that seem to take everything in at once.”
    Mama took a cup and saucer from the hutch and poured a cup of light green liquid that smelled of fresh mint from the pot on the stove. “This here’s the tea I made for you.” Mama set it in front of her. “Mint leaves and a new herb I heard about that’s good for bad stomachs.”
    “Thank you, Cassie.” Mrs. Bellmont sipped from the cup. “Oh my, such a refreshing taste.” She rested her forehead in her hand and closed her eyes for a moment before looking back at Mama.
    “It’s all so rushed. I can’t tell how Frances feels about him, other than she’s talked of nothing but moving to New York since we came home. I hope she’ll be happy, Cassie. As difficult as Frances has been, a mother always wants better for her child than she’s had herself.”
    “There ain’t no such thing as a happy marriage, anyhow,” said Mama.
    “I always thought there might be. For other people.”
    “No one we know.”
    “He’s a good man. Of that I’m certain.” Mrs. Bellmont sipped her tea. Mama scooped a pile of potatoes into a bowl. “Nathaniel’s kin are fishing people up in Maine. Poor, like we were, Cassie.”
    “Except we can’t play the piano,” said Mama.
    Mrs. Bellmont laughed. “We certainly can’t.”

Chapter 7
    W hitmore
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    I n his mother’s upstairs study at the lake house, Whitmore sketched Jeselle’s face, sitting next to the open window. Above Sequoyah Lake, the northern Georgia sky was the same brilliant blue of the native blue jays twittering and hopping from pine to pine. They sang loudly this afternoon, calling out to one another as if in protest of the changing season. October had brought autumn overnight, it seemed, the air crisp and the leaves beginning to turn. Soon geese would arrive from the north, decorating the sky as Whitmore took his morning rows across the brown lake.
    Jeselle sat in the reading chair; light from the window illuminated one side of her face while the other remained in shadow. Her glance skipped furtively between the window and the book on Mother’s desk, To the Lighthouse , by Virginia Woolf. “I know I’m too young to read it yet because it’s—what did your mother say it was?”
    “Radical.”
    The sound of a car’s motor drifted in from the open window. His stomach fluttered, knowing it was Martin and Frances back from fetching Nathaniel at the train depot. He looked out the window to the dirt road. The black Rolls Royce, with Martin behind the wheel, made its way slowly, bouncing in potholes, flinging small rocks from under its tires, and coating the short, fat pines with a fine, rust-colored powder.
    Mother called to them, the sound travelling up the wishbone stairs. “C’mon down, children.”
    They stared at one another for a moment. Whitmore shuffled to his feet, plunging his hands into his dungarees. “What kind of man can he be?” he whispered.
    “The kind to marry Frances,” she whispered back.
    “We’ll just stay out of his way.”
    “Same as we do with Frances.”
    “And Father.”
    When they reached the wishbone stairs that led to the first floor, Jeselle took the right side, skipping steps, and Whitmore the left, taking them one at a time, so that despite the difference in the length of their legs, they arrived in the foyer at the same time. Cassie and Mother were just coming from the music room, where the French doors were wide open, bringing the