Chapter 7: Tea with the Dowager

The Yellow Drawing Room was yellow, old and a little green at the edges.

The Dowager Duchess sat at the far end of it with a stick across her knees.

She was sixty-three and thin as a rake, with a lace cap.

Her sharp black eyes went over me once, from the hem of my dress to the top of my head.

"You are the tuner," she said.

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Sit. Not there. Where I can see your face."

I sat.

A maid poured tea and went out, and the door shut.

The duchess did not touch her cup.

"My son," she said, "has not come down to dinner in five days without being late."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"I'm not. It is the most interest he has taken in anything since his father died."

She tapped the stick on the carpet.

"Tell me about the piano."

I told her.

I told her the short of it, and she stopped me halfway.

"You say it like a prayer you've said too often," she said.

She listened with her head cocked.

"And you'll finish by the nineteenth," she said.

"If nothing goes wrong."

"What might go wrong?"

"Nothing, if the room stays dry."

"Hm." She looked at me for a while.

Then she said, in the same tone, "My nephew tells me you slept in my son's room."

My cup rattled once on its saucer.

"Barnabas is a man who counts doors," she went on, "and he told me you went into one and came out of it."

"I did, Your Grace."

"Do you intend to deny it?"

"No."

"Do you intend to apologise?"

"No."

Her mouth twitched.

It was not a smile, but it stood next to one.

"Good," said the duchess. "I cannot abide a girl who apologises for a thing she did on purpose."

I put down my cup.

"I am a tuner, ma'am. I am not your son's pastime, and I've told him so."

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