The Great Grey

For some, music was a passing thing that existed in the church, drinking songs, sea shanties, and whatever entertainment snuck into the market. Peter liked to imagine music would become such a deep part of people’s lives that they would have it at their fingertips whenever they wanted. To plan for the future, one must understand the past. For Peter, this meant collecting pieces of musical history where he could. His music studio in Westminster was a showcase of his collection. The best pieces went home with him, but the visually stimulating instruments became décor, littering the walls of the once great dance studio that became a miniature music hall. The only instruments not adorning the walls were the three sisters. Two grandstand pianos and a harpsichord that seemed dwarfed by the company of her big sisters.

Peter often teased the harpsichord as the little big sister, as it was the older of the three instruments, even if smaller. He adored her elegant baroque woodwork. Something felt lost with modern design. Things were elegant but seriously lacked in detail. Peter had no pupils come to his studio at that hour. He should have been home, but via a friend of a friend, Peter managed to arrange a meeting with a woman who had a particular knack for antiquities. She did not bother with a storefront, which meant she was so good at her work that she did not need to bother herself with a shop, or her collection was primarily fenced goods that could not be displayed in shop windows lest she wanted to be accused of theft. Peter did not care how she got the goods as long as she had them. He needed something new for his collection, new to him but hopefully foreign. Peter started to gain interest in pieces not easily acquired in London. When someone knocked at the studio doors, Peter rushed to the door like a boy eager to meet Father Christmas. He recovered nicely, stalling and slowing his stride just before the door, so he opened it with the grace of a man who was not acting like a child on Christmas.

“You must be Mrs. Saint Clair. Please, come in. I hear you may have a few instruments in your collection. As you can see, I have plenty of room to add to mine.”

With a sweep of his right hand, Peter gestured to the various blank spaces on the walls, which were otherwise decorated with various instruments. He glanced after her to ensure her husband was also not waiting in the wings to be invited into the studio. She was a Mrs., not a Miss. He had no idea she was a widow, only the proper form of address to use with her.

After what happened to her father and her husband, Amira had been forced to liquidate what assets and artifacts they still had in their possession. Decades of financial abuse had left her with their immense debts, and she had spent the better part of the last two years trying to recover from the pit of their destitution. An angel had surely guided her here after all this time, but the grace of that double-edged gift did not extend upon English soil. Since arriving back in London, she had pinched every penny to the point that she was ready to eat pennies herself… until it arrived.

Amira had just returned from reviewing the employment advertisements posted at the park when she found the parcel waiting for her, propped up against the door to the room she was renting. It sat there, taunting her in the dim gaslight of the hall corridor, brown paper wrapped carefully around a contoured box. She had stared at it for far too long, her hazel-green eyes devouring the sight of the distinct, waisted shape. The woman did not need to open the parcel to know what the box contained, and her heart had stammered out an unsteady rhythm, the same frantic cadence that now beat in her chest as she stood on the threshold of the Westminster studio of one Mr. Scrymgeour.

Their connection was new. Tenuous. She did not even have a face to the name she had been given, not before he swung the door inward and she was presented with the sight of him. Oh! He was so much younger than she had been led to believe, and the expressions that fluttered across her face in that brief instant nigh revealed a veritable bevy of insight. Curiosity. Frustration. Annoyance. Intrigue. Why had Samir lied to her? Had it been intentional, or had her father's former companion been equally misinformed? 

It was not that Peter's age mattered—it did not—but there was still something about this fact, or lack thereof, that had Amira tightening her fingers around the violin case in her hands. Had it been a risk to bring the instrument all this way with her? She was not sure she could trust the housekeeper not to meddle in her belongings had she left it back at the room she was renting. 

All of this dashed through her mind at record speed, during which she gave Peter a bright, dimpled grin, chasing away the dregs of doubt that might have haunted her features moments prior. "Good day, Mister Scrymgeour," she greeted with the easy, husky tones of her native mixed British-French accent. "Just the one, I am afraid," Amira continued as she took Peter's cue to enter the studio. No husband followed her—and there was the briefest, subtlest glance behind her to the departing coach as if to confirm that fact—and she switched the case from one hand to the other as she started to make her way inside. "However, I hope I shall make it worth your while," she added confidently, although her tone began trailing off into a softer murmur as she turned her attention toward the other instruments already present in the man's collection.