The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton

Author:Jessie Burton [Burton, Jessie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2022-05-19T17:00:00+00:00

After a dinner of rabbit, that Nella enjoys to a degree, despite finding it much more basic and blander than anything Cornelia might make, and rather suggesting he needs a better cook in his life, they return to the pale-green room. Otto looks as if this is the longest afternoon of his life. Jacob asks Thea if he can show her his harpsichord, and pinioned by the politeness required, Thea acquiesces. Otto and Nella remain on the sofa with their glasses of wine, and for fifteen minutes regard in silence the stilted show across the other side of the room. It could be a lovers’ scene, the young woman seated at the instrument, her head inclined, the suggestion of mesmerization by the beautiful keyboard, and the magnificent wooden inlay of the box in which it sits.

‘At what point will he realize that she cannot play?’ Otto murmurs.

‘He didn’t ask her over there for that,’ Nella murmurs back.

Jacob takes the seat and begins to move his fingers over the keys. The precise twang of the harpsichord fills the room, note after note spiralling to the ceiling. Nella can see her niece’s expression of surprise that Jacob is adept and musical: it was not what Thea was expecting. A man interested in dry cases of the law, in accruing money, in fancy leather slippers; by Thea’s rigid way of judging people, it should not follow he has talents that bleed into her sphere. It is inconvenient to Thea’s argument against him, and Nella feels hopeful.

Jacob plays a few more phrases and stops, abashed. ‘After two sons, my mother longed for a daughter,’ he says, pressing a key. It echoes through the room. ‘I came along, but she trained me anyway in the softer arts.’

‘You are very good,’ Nella says. ‘How pleasing to see that the instrument is not just an ornament.’

‘All beautiful things should have a purpose,’ says Jacob. He turns to Thea. ‘They should not be left in a corner uncelebrated, unseen.’

In the silence that follows, Jacob rises to his feet. ‘Mistress Thea, should you ever wish to come and play it, I would be more than obliged. It is no lute, so I cannot carry it over to you on the Herengracht. You would have to come here.’

Thea knows it is her cue; she knows that this is a generous gesture, and a pointed one, made within the sight and earshot of her father. Jacob’s offer is legitimate and sanctioned, and if it is accepted, what other offers might follow on its heels?

They all wait to see what Thea will say. She looks with concentration at the harpsichord. ‘Thank you, Seigneur,’ she says. ‘But it is too precious an instrument. I fear my fingers might break it.’

Jacob smiles, closing the lid over the keys. Nella is furious, but she can do nothing about it now, and soon it is time for them to leave. He is going to Leiden for a couple of weeks on business for his mother, he says.

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