She started to read, but her voice was barely there. She paused, cleared her throat, ignored the little demon inside her that was telling her to run down the steps and down the aisle and out of the door, and forged on. Her voice found itself. As she read on, it became clear and true:
‘She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called “petites madeleines,” which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature.
‘Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?’
By the time she reached the last three sentences, she had hit her stride. She lifted her eyes and looked out as she spoke the words. The congregation was rapt, and she felt a surge of joy that she had managed to do for Julius what had seemed impossible. She smiled as she finished, and closed the book, calm, composed. And confident. She felt confident.
Luckily for Sarah, there wasn’t a dry eye in the church when Emilia played her piece on Julius’s cello.
She stood at the front of the church and spoke before she began.
‘My father gave me a love of books first and foremost, but he also gave me a deep passion for music. I was five when he first let me play his cello. He taught me to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” one Sunday afternoon, and I was hooked. I went on to do my grades, though I was never as good as he was. We played together often, and this was one of his favourite pieces. It’s “The Swan”, by Saint-Sa?ns.’
She gave a little nod, sat in her seat, picked up her bow and began to play. The notes were achingly sad, their melancholy sound echoing round the church, sweet and lingering. Sarah could feel them make their way into her heart and break it. She fell on her knees onto the prayer stool in front of her and buried her head in her arms, trying not to sob. She breathed as deeply as she could to calm herself until the last note died away. There was a silence, punctuated only by other members of the congregation sniffing and clearing their throats and wiping away their tears, and then someone began to clap, until the entire church was united in their applause. Sarah gathered herself, sat up, and joined in. She knew how very proud Julius would have been, how much he had loved his daughter, and she wished she could tell Emilia of the way his eyes had shone when he spoke of her.
Emilia felt elated when she finished playing. She had spent the last two weeks rehearsing every night until she was note perfect, but she was still afraid that she would freeze midway through, or her fingers would betray her. But they hadn’t. And then she sat and listened to the quartet play Elgar’s ‘Chanson de Nuit’. Somehow under Marlowe’s direction they made the music not sad but uplifting. Emilia didn’t think her battered little heart could take it, but as the last notes faded away she was still breathing. She was still alive.
Thomasina was making her way out of the churchyard, through the toppled gravestones. She needed to be back at school to teach the last lesson of the day. She felt a hand on her arm. She turned, and saw Jem smiling at her.
‘That was a really great reading,’ he told her. ‘I wish I’d had the nerve. But there aren’t many readings about cheese, and that’s all we had in common.’ He made a lugubrious face, but it was obvious he was joking.
Thomasina laughed.
‘Thank you. I was really nervous.’
‘You didn’t look it.’
‘Really?’ Thomasina was surprised. She’d thought her fear would have been apparent.
‘Not at all. My mum loved those books by the way. Thank you …’
‘I’m really pleased.’
They stood for a moment, the autumn leaves scuttling around their feet.
‘I’ve got to go,’ said Thomasina. ‘I’ve got a class.’
‘Yeah, and I’ve got to get back to the shop.’ He held up a hand. ‘See you.’
He strode off down the path towards the town and Thomasina watched him go, feeling as if she should have said more – but what more could she have said?