Hervey 11 - On His Majesty's Service by Allan Mallinson

severe as it sometimes did. Indeed, he listened with increasing pleasure, for poor ear though some might say he had (his sister, for one), his taste was not confined, as Elizabeth teased, to marches. What Kezia played this morning was not music to dance to – or rather, he could not imagine her lowering herself to play jigs – but dance was exactly what the music invited. And it was strange, for as a rule Kezia would spend an age in scales, chords, arpeggios and all the other exercises of the keyboard which he knew of from his sister’s practice, but rarely anything to which the exercises were a prelude. It was almost as if her music were to be kept, so to speak, in a vault, to be taken out only on some special occasion, and under strict guard. He was fully conscious of the need for drill, of course – for constant practice was the foundation of execution, whether before an audience or the enemy. But to practise to exhaustion, as frequently it seemed to him was Kezia’s intent – to subdue, as it were, the keyboard, like a rough-rider with an unbroken colt – these things he could not understand. Not that their time together had been long – not at all; but it had been long enough for him to perceive that for a part of every day that they lived together they did so in what might be, to all intents and purposes, separate worlds.
    He was at first reluctant to disturb her; she had ill disguised her annoyance once when he had interrupted her playing, so that she miskeyed and had to begin again the sequence of scales, but he thought it poor form for a husband returned from months away to have to wait on a perfect cadence. He went into the music room as quietly as he might, though when Kezia looked up from the Broadwood which had been his wedding present to her, she smiled as she continued with the lively tune. It was not the smile of a Henrietta, or a Kat, but it registered a certain happiness, perhaps even pleasure.
    When the music was finished – or it seemed to him that it was finished (there was a rather fine descending passage which ended with a final-sounding chord) – she smiled even broader. ‘There, Matthew, is it not the most charming piece?’
    ‘Charming indeed.’
    ‘In point of fact it is quite astonishing,’ she declared, and then frowning ever so slightly, added: ‘I had your letter last evening, but did not expect you until tomorrow.’
    Hervey raised his hands as if a supplicant, but self-mocking. ‘What is the music? I shall not guess who is the composer. You would only despair of me.’
    ‘ Rondo à la Krakowiak ,’ replied Kezia, soberly, closing the sheet music with something of a flourish. ‘You can have no idea how difficult it is to play – rubato and strict rhythm at one and the same time.’
    Hervey had little idea of what she spoke, but would readily concede that it sounded difficult. ‘The composer – Russian, evidently?’
    ‘Polish. A prodigy of but eighteen called Chopin. They say his left hand plays as a metronome while his right is all liberty. I confess I am far from mastering it myself; the syncopation is extraordinary.’
    Hervey still had only the faintest comprehension, but the music plainly enlivened her – as it had him. ‘Chopin. Polish.’ He had had cause to fear the Polish lancers at Waterloo – le Régiment de Chevaux-Légers Polonais de la Garde Impériale … He would not mention it.
    ‘Yes, Polish,’ said Kezia, as if she was herself intrigued by the fact. ‘The Krakowiak is a peasant dance.’
    ‘Well, I liked it very much indeed,’ said Hervey, advancing to the piano to kiss her, which she allowed rather than welcomed, rising and gathering up the music in the same motion as the touch of lips.
    ‘And do you know why you like it so?’ she asked, with a sort of frown that was both playful and yet somehow disapproving.
    Hervey, not allowing himself to be put off, feeling that the smile could not be wholly unconnected with his homecoming, returned it