The Princess and the Pauper (2 page)

The music faded away.

She stepped back inside her room and heard
the notes again. Curious, she walked over to the window and opened
it. The song grew louder. She peered below and across the street
but saw no musician on the pavement. She wondered if perhaps the
violin player was in the park, but it was too dark and too far away
to see for certain. Instead, she settled back in the window seat
and listened to the beautiful, haunting lullaby. Soon her eyes
filled with moisture and tears streamed down her cheeks.

~ * ~

“
Rees!” Emily slammed the
book closed and hopped off the large chair. “You’re supposed to
knock before entering a room. Don’t you know that?”

He dropped the bucket of coal
beside the hearth.
“You’re not supposed to be in the study. Don’t
you
know
that?”

She
blushed. “I know. I was just . .
.”

“
Snooping.”

“
I was
not
snooping.”

The boy was impossible. She had tried in
vain to teach him manners for the past two weeks, but he refused to
obey convention.

She rounded the tall desk. “I would
never snoop.”

“
Then why were you reading
your father’s account book?”

She gasped. How could he have recognized
the account book from across the room?

“
I’m mistress of the house,” she
said with a huff. “I’ve every right to look at the account book—and
make sure the servants aren’t robbing us blind.”

He scoffed. “You were looking to see if
your papa had bought you another gift. Admit it,
princess.”

She hated it when he called her
princess. He didn’t say the word with endearment, like Papa. She
hated it even more that he could read
her
like a book and guess her intention. She
would never admit the truth, though.

“
How d
o you know it was the account book?
Have
you
been snooping?”

He
shoveled coal into the stove. “I have
eyes.”

“
That doesn’t answer my
question.”

“
I don’t care what’s in your
father’s account book so why would I spy?”

“
Maybe you want to see how much
your grandfather owes Papa? Maybe you want to change the amount and
cheat us?”

He released the small shovel; it
clattered to the floor. “I’m no cheat. If I didn’t want to pay the
debt, I’
d run
away. But I’m here, aren’t I? Now say you’re sorry.”

“
How dare you talk to me
that way.”

“
Apologize,” he demanded, his
eyes flashing.

“
No. I said nothing
wrong.”

“
You called me a
cheat!”

“
Maybe you are,” she
countered.

He shook his head.
“No wonder you have
no mates.”

“
I
—I have plenty of friends.”

“
Where are they? Why don’t they
ever come to the house? You’re a liar, princess.”

Her bottom lip quivered, but she’d
sooner choke than cry. “You’re just a poor shop boy. You don’t know
anything.”

“
I know
it’s better to live and work in my
grandfather’s shop than here in this ugly house with a spoiled,
rotten girl like you!”

He stormed from the room,
leaving her swallowing
bitter tears.

~ * ~

Emily sat in the window seat,
sniffing and wiping her nose
with a kerchief. She had pulled out all her fancy
clothes and toys, for the possessions had brought her happiness in
the past, but tonight the pretty things failed to make her
smile.

“
Wicked boy,” she
mumbled.

He deserved
a whipping for treating her in
such contemptible fashion. Papa should bruise his backside good and
proper, then he’d learn his place in the household.

She half-smiled at the wishful
thought.

The music started.

Forgetting the loathsome
boy,
Emily
quickly opened the window and sighed. She had come to depend on the
magical melodies for comfort and consistently missed her bedtime,
waiting instead for ten o’clock to come around and for the music to
begin.

She imagined the musician played solely
for her pleasure, that she alone heard the sweet notes, and not
even her papa knew about the secret songs coming into her window
late at night.

The music
suddenly stopped and a scraping
sounded from above. She glanced upward just as a pebble rolled off
the roof and dropped to the ground.

She gasped. The musician was on
her
roof!

Without another thought, she bounded from
the bedroom in her bare feet, making nary a noise as she hastened
through the dimly lit hallway and climbed the second storey stairs,
leading to the third level. There, in the center of the servant
apartments, was a skylight and ladder.

She tiptoed toward the ladder
and
looked up
at the smoky, starless atmosphere. The music was playing again, and
her heart beat faster at the thought that she would
finally
meet her secret
violinist.

She
mounted the rungs, careful not to
step on the hem of her long white nightdress, and ascended the
steps. It took some effort to push open the thick pane of glass. A
hinged prop snapped into place, holding the glass at an angle.
There was plenty of room for her to wriggle through the space and
crawl onto the roof.

Her nightdress
was ruined, covered
in soot, but she cared not a whit. She was on top of the world, the
city so vast before her, and she turned on her hands and knees in
search of the mysterious musician she had so longed to
meet.

A shadow soon captured her
notice, seated on the south side of the roof. The figure seemed
small in the moonlight, like a pan from the fairy
world
, and
she imagined the sprite had come from his enchanted land just to
play for her, just to make her happy.

She crawled around the wide brick chimney.
He grew bigger as she approached him. His hands quickened as he
unleashed his passionate song, and in her eagerness to reach him,
she slipped over a metal tile and landed flat on her
face.

The melody ended abruptly.

“
Who’s there?” he
whispered.

She sniffed and pinched her
bruised nose, regaining her balance before she looked up at . . .
“
Rees!
”

She reared back and lost her
footing
again—this time sliding down the roof.

“
Help! Help!”

He was on his belly in a second and
snatched her wrist. For a moment, she doubted he had the strength
to hoist her up, his hand slipping over her wrist, but he soon
growled with determination and pulled her back from the roof’s
edge.

Her knees and shins were raw
with scratches. She was sha
king so hard, her teeth rattled. Breathing shallow
and fast, she shimmied closer to the chimney and pressed against
its sturdy surface. Tears filled her eyes as she realized she had
almost fallen three storeys to her death.

“
You stupid girl! What are
you doing here?”

He was also out of breath—and angry as a
riled bee. She turned away from him, so he wouldn’t see her cry,
but she couldn’t stop the sobs from escaping her throat: the ugly,
hiccupping sobs.

“
Stop it,” he hissed.
“You’re going to wake the dead with your wails.”

But she couldn’t contain the tears and
cried louder and stronger.

At som
e point during her bawling, another
sound entered her ears. At length, she quieted until only the
soothing lullaby resonated on the roof.

Rees quit playing when she settled
down.

“
Are y
ou all right, princess?”

“
I’m fine.”

“
What are you doing here?”
he
asked
again, though he’d lost some of the heat in his voice.

She wasn’t about to
admit the truth,
that she had thought him a romantic fairytale creature, that she
had faithfully listened to him play for weeks, that his music had
touched her, comforted her.

“
I couldn’t sleep,” she said
instead. “I wanted to see who was making so much noise.”

He placed the violin in its case and
locked it. “I didn’t mean to keep you awake. I won’t make any more
noise.”

He walked across the roof like an
acrobat on a tightrope.

“
Wait!” She hugged the
chimney for support. “You can’t leave me here.”

“
Hurry up,
then.”

“
I can’t! I’ll
fall.”

He was already making his way down the
skylight.

“
Rees,
please!
”

She waited, heart in her
throat.

At last
he popped back through the
skylight.

“
Spoiled, rotten girl,” he
muttered. “Give me your hand.”

She reached for his outstretched fingers.
He grabbed her palm and squeezed until her bones ached, but she
pinched her lips together to keep from protesting.

After guiding her across the
roof, he
all
but shoved her down the skylight.

“
Don’t go traipsing where you
don’t belong,” he admonished for the second time that day, and
since it was
her
house, she was piqued beyond words.

He picked up the violin case he had
set on the floor and headed for his room.

“
Wait.”

“
What now?” he demanded in
a whisper.

She looked around, then down at her
feet, dirty and smeared with blood. “I’m bleeding.”

“
So?”

“
So I can’t leave behind bloody
footprints. Papa will . . .”

She wasn’t sure what Papa would do,
for she had never been in trouble.

“
He should wring your neck,” Rees
said sourly. “I doubt he will, though.”

“
I should think
not.”

Grumbling, he
pulled her inside
his room and shut the door. “Sit.”

A low burning lamp illuminated a chair
in the corner of the small room, and she took the seat.

Rees set the instrument on the bed, then
moved to the table where he soaked a towel in a bowl of water. He
handed her the linen.

“
Wash up. Quick. If your papa
finds you in here, he’ll wring
my
neck. Never mind this is all your
fault.”

She wiped the grime off her
f
eet and
legs, all the while inspecting the cramped space. Except for basic
furniture, like a bed, table and chair, there was nothing in the
room to make it comfortable, nothing to tell her anything about the
boy—apart from the violin.

“
Where did you get the
violin?”

“
I didn’t steal it,” he
insisted.

“
I didn’t say you
did.”

“
Oh? I’m a cheat, but not a
thief? It’s mine, princess. It’s always been mine.”

“
I believe
you,
” she
shot back.

He had to have owned the instrument for a
long time, she reasoned, for he played it like a master, better
than any of her music teachers. He must have practiced for years.
He didn’t even need a music sheet in front of him. But she couldn’t
tell him any of that, not after she’d called his beautiful music
“noise.”

She said instead, “Who gave you the
violin?”

He turned away from her.
“
It’s not
your affair.”

“
It’s a fine instrument. It
must have cost a small fortune.”

“
Stop snooping.”

“
I have eyes, Rees. It
is
a fine instrument.
Do you deny it?”

He faced her, cheeks
flushed.
“No,
I don’t deny it. It’s the finest instrument ever made by the
greatest maker. Better than
Guarneri
! Better than Stadivari!”

She was taken aback by
his
grand
claim. “Who made it?”

“
My
grandfather.”

He turned away from her
again
as if
he regretted telling her the truth, and she was sorry for that
because she just wanted to talk with him.

“
It’s time to go, princess.” He
snatched the towel from her hand
and pulled her to her feet. “Get
out.”

“
Unhand me!”

He opened the door and pushed her into
the hallway.

“
I was just trying to be
civil
,
Rees.”