The Reason a Piano Tuner Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Last String

At five the room was grey, and the string was still giving.

I brought it up a hair and listened.

I brought it up another hair.

Everard sat on the bench with his back to the keys and said nothing.

He had washed his face at the ewer and put his shirt to rights.

He looked as he always did, big and plain and patient.

At a quarter past five my father came in.

He wore his nightshirt under his grey coat, with the sling over the top.

He had not taken the time to put in his teeth.

"I couldn't sleep," he said. "I heard a note in the floor."

"You can't have. You're deaf in that ear."

"I felt it, then. Through the bed."

He took the chair by the wall, and put his good ear to the room.

I turned the hammer.

The string came up, and up, and my own ears felt the moment it reached the place where it wanted to stay.

I stopped.

I set the hammer down on the bench.

I did not play it, yet.

I waited a full minute with my hands in my lap, because a note needs to settle before you ask a question of it.

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