AN: Two more chapters and the story will be finished.
Thanks for all your comments :)
Pineapple0215: I will think about a better word to use there. It was supposed to be surprise, yes. Thank you for your kind comment :)
HarnGin: Yep, Lydia is very much improved.
liysyl: Glad you like it :)
Next chapter is 100% written, just needs some tiny tweaks. Will be posted in ~24 hours or so.
Because FFNet still doesn't allow us to use links, I'm posting a number of links relevant to this chapter on my blog: fanfik-wordpress-com (replace dash with dot). There will be also a footnote about sources of information posted there.
If anyone wants to find me somewhere else, I'm srebrnafh on Tumblr and SrebrnaFH on ArchiveOfOurOwn. All my new stories are posted only on AO3 and nothing new will be added on FFNet. I have at least 3 P&P stories plotted/planned, so if you wish to read them (at some point in the future), head over to AO3.
Edit: Certain errors were corrected after the first posting, but there were no changes to the content of the chapter.
While Monday was spent in a lazy fashion, as they strolled between all the interesting points their helpful (if sleepy) concierge marked for them, called the girls to wish them a happy New Year and then indulged in a long session in sauna, Tuesday began early, with Elizabeth being up before the dawn in fact, and quite soon (but after a hearty, warming breakfast) she learnt why Jane had been so insistent on them visiting the hypermarket, even though they had no need for any kind of grocery shopping.
Yarn. A whole aisle of yarn.
And not the cheap kind of acrylic that she had seen here and there in Tesco's symbolical knitting offer or in Lidl, but actual proper wool. In all the possible colours and combinations.
William seemed to be quite amused by the tiny little whimper that escaped her at the sight.
"Would you prefer me to play the typical downtrodden male partner who sits in front of the shop and looks alternately bored and worried or can I watch you go crazy here?"
"William!" she squeaked. Honest to God squeaked.
"I will watch," he crossed his arms and smiled indulgently. "Just to make sure you don't try to buy more than can fit in our suitcases after we discard all the clothes."
She ended up picking way too much (in her estimation) and yet most definitely not as much as she would have wished to buy, simply because the offer was so varied and tempting. The two bags of yarn they carried to the rental were accompanied by a randomly picked array of interesting-looking food that seemed to promise it would keep until their return home.
"You know we have at least two more cities to visit, right?" William's face twisted in an attempt to control a smile and she scrunched her nose at him.
"Yep. And if needed, I will pay for additional luggage, whatever it takes. Now, let's go and see some interiors, hm? There are some museums Jane suggested we should see."
"Absolutely, Mrs Darcy. Design Museum first."
They were already sitting in the car, slowly making their way towards the planned spot, when Elizabeth asked, slightly distractedly, "And what about tomorrow?"
"Ah," her husband sent her a little smile. "Well, we have a whole day for more sightseeing, because the flight is in the evening."
"Wait a moment," she sat up, "I thought we were staying in Finland?"
"Absolutely. We are just not staying in Helsinki - well, our things are, but we are flying for one night - and a day - to Rovaniemi."
"To Rov... Oh, that's ridiculous, William."
"Actually, that's supposedly the best time to try to catch Northern Lights."
"Oh," she frowned and shook her head. "But there is no way to predict there will be anything to see."
"That is true, but even if there is nothing else, we will have seen Rovaniemi. And a plane is the most reasonable way to get there. An hour of flight versus ten hours by car."
She could only shake her head.
Northern Lights. As if.
#
There actually was a good, proper, high-density and rather bright Aurora Borealis. Elizabeth was slightly surprised, but made the best of the phenomenon and managed to record the whole sequence, despite the temperature (according to the thermometer - minus thirteen and that was without windchill). They spent the rest of the night trying to chase the frost out of their bones by first having a session in the sauna and second, burying themselves under a small mountain of blankets in the tiny, but well-heated, hotel room.
Due to a very, very late morning, they decided to skip visiting specific sights and spent the rest of the day wandering around the town, buying postcards and mailing them, searching for some appropriate gifts for the girls, taking photos and checking the offer of the plethora of cafes scattered around the town. By the time they had to get back on the plane, Elizabeth's handbag had grown twice in size and they were quite content in the way the trip was going so far.
The next day in Helsinki was equally pleasant and on the morning of the 5th they packed their luggage (the yarn almost fit into Elizabeth's suitcase, even without the need to discard any clothes) and drove to Tampere. After a day enjoying the particular offer of that town, they drove to Turku and boarded the overnight ferry to Stockholm.
Swedish capital turned out to be surprisingly sunny in comparison to Helsinki, but Elizabeth wasn't going to complain. At all. Sun was good. After the day spent in Rovaniemi (in the middle of the winter!) she was happy to catch some sun at last.
Not that they had a lot of time to just relax, as the trip plan as drafted by Jane placed them in at least two museums, monuments or parks a day. Starting with Vasamuseet and the Water Museum on the morning of their arrival and up to the day of their departure, they had seen everything that was to be seen in January in Stockholm, or at least so it seemed.
There was also, of course, the very important event to be celebrated on the 6th of January - William's birthday. Which they did, among others, by visiting the third museum on Djurgårdsslätten, and one that Jane seemingly forgot to include, most probably because Jane's and Lizzy's musical tastes almost never overlapped and Jane had always regarded Elizabeth's favourite band with a certain disgust.
Despite the fact that it was supposed to be a celebration of William's birthday, he was the one who made the largest amount of shopping, as he left the museum shop about a thousand kronor poorer and two books (and assorted gadgets) heavier.
"It is a gift for me," he smiled, shouldering the tote with 'Chiquitita' lyrics printed on it. "I will be the one who gets to listen to you play them."
"And we have something for Rose, too. Now I only need to choose something for Mina..."
"I suppose access to your grand store of yarn may be actually treated as a gift that will still be in use by the next Christmas."
"No way!" she gasped and grasped for her throat. "I'm not allowing any of them anywhere near my yarn!"
"You were the one to give her that mill thingy. Now you have to provide yarn for it."
"Knitting mill," she corrected. "And I suppose I should, true... But she needs to get something of her own anyway."
"Has she ever been into building models? As in, planes or ships or... well, anything?"
Elizabeth sat for a moment, watching the waves outside of the water tram they were now on.
"No, I don't think so. Never really thought about it, to be honest. She never said she wanted to try anyway."
"Ah, well," he shrugged. "We'll find something, I'm sure."
The evening ended in a rather lovely little cafe close to their hotel, over a plate of hot-served chocolate pie, which Elizabeth sampled with curiosity and quickly wrote down the name of.
"Adding a new thing to your repertoire?" her husband smiled after scraping the rest of the chocolate from the plate.
"One never knows when one may need something fresh," she said in a portentous manner.
"Mhm. And I suppose some grocery shopping is also in order?"
She frowned at the suggestion and added more milk to her tea.
"I've been given to understand that there are some interesting, locally-produced baking ingredients being sold in almost any grocery shop in Sweden."
"There are interesting baking ingredients being sold in almost any grocery shop in Britain," Elizabeth pointed out. "But I concede, we should at least check the offer, if not to buy then to make sure I haven't ignored something actually useful."
"I suppose we should."
Finally, on the tenth, having visited several more fascinating places (and shops) they ended up repacking part of their luggage, with the overnight bag (after Rovaniemi again stored in Elizabeth's case) now carrying most of the yarn and a number of little objects they deemed safe for taking in the hand baggage. The sudden upsurge in their luggage volume was not only due to some (very, very carefully considered) baking-related acquisitions, but was exacerbated by the fact that numerous craft shops around Stockholm also carried Finnish yarn, and several other varieties, including some rather interesting Estonian wool that was calling to Elizabeth. Very, very loudly.
"You knew what you were signing up for when you married me," Elizabeth reminded with as much dignity as one can gather when trying to close one's suitcase by sitting on it, while William kept snickering over his luggage on the morning of their departure. "Now shut up and help me with this zipper."
They were still inside the luggage pieces limit for their flight to Amsterdam, but who knew what would happen once they got their shopping, pardon, sightseeing done in Holland?
Leaving their possessions in hotel's storage for that last day, they decided to skip the visit to Skansen (which Jane had suggested as a light option for the shortened day) in favour of another walk through the Gamla Stan.
"We could come here in the summer," William suggested. "Bring the girls. They would enjoy the ZOO and the little houses, I suppose."
"It is a rather uncommon way to manage a ZOO," Elizabeth agreed as she set the brochure aside and pulled her jacket on. "But I think they would, yes. I think we could manage a week somewhere in your busy schedule of overseeing the house being built...?"
"I think that if we plan in well, we could manage two weeks," he tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. "Now, please, use your superior navigating skills and find me that shop with ships on display. I want to have a look at the lamps on display there."
"But only if I'm allowed to drool at the one that has this big loom."
"Absolutely."
#
Although their suitcases were just a tiny smidgen over the allowed weight, nobody really cared, and Elizabeth's carry-on elicited only some slightly raised eyebrows from the man running it through the scanner, so apparently, yarn in bigger amounts showed as something weird when x-rayed. Last-minute shopping was done (freshly baked kanelbullar and some salmiakki caramels) and they could relax and say farewell to the Scandinavian part of their honeymoon.
"We have to redo your birthday at home," she murmured, trying to find a better angle at which to lean on her husband's arm. "You deserve a proper home celebration. My birthday was a pretty big thing this year and yours seems..."
"Sh," he dipped his head and kissed her. "You were there. It was a very good way to celebrate my first birthday as a married man."
"Well..." she sighed and rubbed her cheek on his shoulder. "Just don't forget that you are also a father of two quite grown daughters. They will be demanding a chance to celebrate your day properly."
"Well, if they do, they do. I will surrender myself to their mercy."
"Don't worry, I'll be there to console you in your suffering."
William shuffled the papers he had pulled out of his coat pocket and made a sound of interest.
"What?" she didn't even open her eyes.
"Well, one thing for sure, we will be bringing home some more food," her husband laughed softly. "She had written us a travel schedule that includes both Edam and Gouda. I think I can see a pattern here."
"We can buy her a wedge of one of these, I suppose. We'll see what looks interesting."
"We will. Now, maybe you should take your ibuprofen just in case? I'm afraid I might have seen a kid or two when we were boarding, who knows what kind of ruckus they are going to raise."
She blindly reached for her handbag. Yes, a pre-emptive attack at her migraine could be a good idea.
####
Mom was sending them photos every day and it was kind of... weird. Seeing their parents so far outside the context of their own house or the neighbourhood, looking just like any other people out there...
But it wasn't the only weirdness of their little world right now.
When their parents had departed for their well-earned trip, Rose was kind of afraid the house would fall asleep. Because Mom wasn't there to make it run and Dad wasn't there to push the machine onward and... But their aunts and uncles were there and Rose spent the rest of the day trying to vanquish Evan at poker (unsuccessfully, but she suspected him of cheating), assisting Johnny with Serpentina, trying to work out how Mina's knitting mill worked and in general being very busy and happy about it.
Mina, having already patched up her relationship with uncle Richard, found in him a new partner for vocal practice, and with aunt Georgiana gone for the evening ("Lucy has a great spot on her roof to watch the lights") the two had taken over Mom's piano and were being very silly about it, singing random show tunes in exaggerated voices.
Adele had been the one that Rose most worried about. Not as in "will she do anything bad" but "will she be OK", because... well, they were cousins and it was proper to have a good relationship with one's cousin. And Adele was the surprise of the week, in fact. With their grandparents gone and aunt Lydia apparently going all nice and soft-spoken (OK, fine, that was a gross exaggeration), Adele was suddenly free to do stuff she barely tried before. She joined them or Jackie at any pursuits that promised to be colourful, required effort or would require her to change clothes due to being completely soaked. Anything was good, from colouring books to hide-and-seek to building snow castles. She silently took part in the movie-watching sessions in their room (making it four, with Jackie), she rolled some snow for a snowman, helped to set the table and then to collect the plates and gleefully learnt how to throw a proper snowball.
Rose was sure she would never forget the little "yee-haw!" that Adele had emitted when she finally managed to throw the ball accurately and hit uncle Charles smack in the butt.
Aunt Lydia was, to everyone's surprise (that included aunt Jane, and Rose had heard her say this) both attentive and very much not hovering. She went out with everyone when they played in the snow but pointedly did not try to make sure Adele was wrapped up to the point where she was unable to move and actually took part in the snowball fight that erupted on the back lawn at some point during the evening.
It felt weird to come back from the little outing to no parents and no directions as to what they should be doing, but magically Mina took over at some point, directing everyone to where aunt Kitty and uncle Ted had been setting the table for all of them.
The supper done, all kids were very intent on staying up and watching the festivities on TV, so the gathered around the one set in the corner of the dining room, but pretty soon the youngest ones began flagging, with Evelyn falling asleep on the sofa next to aunt Jane, Johnny climbing into his father's arms and whining until he fell asleep and Jimmy openly demanding to be put to bed. By midnight, only uncle Richard and Evan were left to oversee the eldest four and they whiled the time away by playing Monopoly (with Evan snagging the best cities and lording it over his fiancé mercilessly whenever he collected the fees).
Jackie fell asleep almost immediately after the new year was rung in and had to be carried upstairs and put to bed by Evan, and Adele was obviously making a valiant attempt at staying conscious and failing as she slowly made her way to the room she shared with her mother.
#
New Year looked like nothing specific at all. Mostly it looked grey.
The other pertinent factor in the way they experienced that particular morning was that everyone was leaving. Well, everyone except for aunt Mary and Jimmy. There would be several more blessed days of home laziness with their aunts and their little cousin, but it would not be the same as having all their family there.
"There will never ever be another Christmas like this," Mina declared decisively. "I mean, with everything. The whole... whole thing around it."
"The school concert."
"The competition."
"Aunt Georgiana and Miss Yang."
"Adele."
"No aunt Catherine."
"No grandma and grandpa."
"Everyone coming here."
"Aunt Kitty having a new baby."
"Uncle Richard and Evan."
They stood in silence for a moment.
"Mom and Dad," Mina said finally.
"And us."
"And us."
#
Jimmy was a sweet kid and despite certain limitations to what he was willing to play with, it was still fun to spend time with him. Mina, having more experience in taking care of him and guessing what he meant when his vocabulary failed him (which it did on regular basis) led their activities, but Rose was more than happy to follow.
They built things out of his blocks, listened to music, played on his mini piano, rolled the ball, and, when he expressed a desire for a walk in the evening, they walked around the house, explaining the paintings on the walls and the contents of the rooms, allowing Jimmy to touch almost everything (apart from real actual antiques), watching as he tried to process the way various things worked and felt and sounded.
"Why is he like this?" Rose asked once they handed him off to aunt Mary and finally hid in their own (very quiet) bedroom. "I mean... this stuff, with touching different things. Evelyn is like a year older than him, right? And she is... Like miles away from where he is."
Mina sighed and rolled to her side to look at her sister.
"His mother was drinking a lot when she was pregnant. Aunt Mary told Mom and I kind of heard it. She was drunk when they took her to the hospital to have him, so she was already kind of accused of neglect, and it turned out she had been taking drugs, too, probably. And she left the hospital, signed off all her rights and told them to get the kid adopted if anyone wanted him. And aunt Mary was volunteering in that place where kids are kept temporarily when they are waiting for a court decision. They need a lot of people to care about the babies because they are all sick or something. So she was working there like a few hours every day, mostly hugging the babies."
Rose frowned.
"Hugging the babies? What for?"
Her younger sister looked at her with a "duh" expression that worked even without the sound.
"Because then need it? Like, babies need human contact. Holding, carrying, hugging. And if there is one nurse for eight or ten babies, she can mostly change their nappies and feed them, but she will never have enough time to, you know. Be nice to them. And then she gets tired and kind of doesn't have time to really take proper care. So they have volunteers come in, sometimes nursing students, but sometimes just people who like children, and they sit and hold the babies. Just that, sit and hold, or carry them around, or put them in a sling and walk with them."
"And aunt Mary..."
"She went there because one of her friends from the university was setting up a group to help that place. And she found Jimmy there. So once they did all the paperwork and she applied to be a temporary guardian and Mom kind of co-signed that she will help her if needed, she got him, and then later she full adopted him."
"Oh," Rose turned to her back and looked at the ceiling. "This is a nice idea. I mean, this kind of volunteering."
"I..." Mina bit into her thumbnail and gnawed on it for a moment. "I was thinking about doing something. Maybe not like this, but something."
"In your copious free time?"
"Well, I have some. And now that we are all caught up at school and our grades stopped looking terrible, I could think about it."
"What would that be?"
A shrug.
"I could ask uncle Richard, I suppose."
Rose propped herself on her elbow and looked at her sister in surprise.
"Why uncle Richard specifically?"
"Because he is helping the Army Cadets who are doing that award that Teddy is working on. I could try to get the bronze one."
"You want to try to do the same as Teddy? I mean, he is a big, muscled and whatever rugby boy and you are..."
"Yeah, make fun of me. I know I don't have a biceps like yours, but that doesn't mean I'm weak."
"OK, OK, fine. Just saying. Isn't that programme for people who, you know, are better at physical stuff?"
Rose was surprised to find herself nose to nose with her twin.
"Do I have to remind you why I got my detentions this year?"
"Uhm. No, thank you. The question still stands."
"No, actually, it is not. It is for people who want to improve. I'm not going to join the Army Cadets, come on. I've read the description of this award programme and I think I just need to talk to whoever is the local program contact. I could talk to them about setting up the right plan."
"You are totally serious."
"Absolutely. Deadly."
"This is going to be unbearable," Rose complained. "You and Mr Rugby Captain Model Student Army Cadet... blergh. The perfect little pair of songbirds, too. What am I going to do with myself, now that your social life will be even more active?"
Her sister snorted and fell back on her bed.
"You will pick up your horse riding again and maybe one day you'll impress one of your fellow riders with your ability to pick up two bales of hay at the same time. Or you could start hitting the gym and move up to bench-pressing small ponies."
"Mina!"
"What? Ponies are cuuuuute."
"Oh, shut up, you."
#
On the Wednesday morning, Teddy was waiting for them - well, for Mina - in front of the school building. The remnants of the allergic reaction gone, his polar fleece scarf covering his throat (probably rather pointedly), he looked ridiculously happy to see his girlfriend. Rose shrugged and left them to their sweet, sweet looking into each other's eyes (they most probably didn't have that much to talk about, considering they had been either talking or texting every day over the break) and went on to see how their class fared after the holidays.
There were some people missing, but considering that several others were sneezing and coughing slightly, these absences were rather easy to explain. So was the fact that several of the teachers were not in and the Wednesday schedule was reduced to half of their normal subjects, the rest of the lessons spent on such engaging activities as "draw winter landscape", "describe your holidays" (in place of Rose's French lesson) and "describe your dream holidays" (in case of Mina's Italian lesson). It was also the first day of school since the carol contest, so all three of them were walking the corridors in some kind of micro-celebrity aura.
Well, not exactly. Because of course there were the jealous ones. Always. Everywhere.
Mostly the girls from Teddy's homeroom class, in fact. Rose noticed their sneering at her and Mina somewhere around the second break and managed to get Marika to follow up with her sister and get back to them during lunch break.
"So there is this thing that apparently Mina has been using Teddy to get better at things and steal his due rewards from him and they feel it's their sacred duty to ensure that she'll never get a chance like this again. They are in fact planning something that is supposedly going to convince him that she is below him and unworthy of his attentions," Marika snorted and slurped some of her tea noisily. "Sorry. Anyway, they want to 'show it to the usurper' and I'm not sure what it is, but it's supposed to be related to music. Somehow. Frankly, Mariana thinks they are all a few fries short of a Happy Meal and says Teddy had been avoiding them like plague."
"Yep," Teddy interjected suddenly - and morosely - sitting down next to Mina. "They are plain crazy. And pains in the seat, all around. They had already tried to corner me and were spewing some idiocy about age difference and mentality and... Geez, it's two years difference, at the maximum, I mean, if there is someone from my year that was born in September and someone from your class that was born in August, that would be a total of two years. But it's less than half a year between me and the two of you. Total rubbish."
"So, they are unhappy with you because you are hanging out with someone from a younger class."
"Actually, they also think Mina is a usurper, a newcomer who came in and snagged their classmate and..." Marika trailed off, frowning. "Ah. And annoying little pipsqueak."
"A pipsqueak?" Rose repeated, incredulously. "And what are they, dramatic contraltos? I've heard a few of them trying to sing during their so-called cheerleader practice. Would not recommend, and I'm not the one with a trained ear."
"Don't even remind me," Teddy shuddered theatrically. "They wanted to be let out on the grass during some of our games. After several minutes listening to their screams, the coach asked them to get out because they were distracting the players. No idea how the guys in American football can stand it."
"Generations of conditioning," Marika snapped her chewing gum. "OK, lovebirds, you have five minutes. Come on, Rose, let's give them a moment. But we are watching you, so nothing too risky, clear?"
The blush on Teddy's cheeks was a sight to behold and Mina presented her fine throwing skills by hitting Marika with a well-aimed grape.
#
Everything came to a boil when three different classes were herded into the gym and placed under the care of Miss Yang as a replacement teacher for three others, who had apparently fallen victims to various respiratory infections.
"Very well," the diminutive musician said in a resigned tone. "We won't be able to do anything reasonable in these two and a half hours, but there is something I'd like to try. As some of you already know - there was supposed to be a general announcement, but... well, whatever. Since our old choir mistress, Mrs Witherspoon, had left the school with the New Year, I was given a new task. I am supposed to set up a proper choir here at the school. Mrs Witherspoon didn't have enough energy to do a proper audition or to find more people willing to participate, so all I would have to work with would be the few brave singers who participated in our Christmas event and the competitions last year."
Rose frowned and searched for her sister in the crowd. Mina was standing next to Teddy (because of course their broken-up day plan would put them in some shared hours with just the right group from Year Ten), who was whispering something to her frantically. Ah, so Year Tens knew, while their class had been left in the dark. Curious.
"I know - I am very sure of it - that there are many more people in this school that would be quite good as choir singers. It would require certain dedication and spending two to three additional hours a week at school, but it would count towards some additional credit and would be greatly appreciated as support for the school community. Also, there may be performances outside of school, once we are up to the challenge."
There were some sighs and moans from the crowd, but they quickly quieted as Miss Yang started dividing them into groups.
"Now, gentlemen, you will stand to the left. Ladies, to the right. We will divide you further into high and low voices and work on getting you coordinated. There is no mandatory participation, so anyone who doesn't feel like it can move to the back of the room at any moment and just watch, but I'd like to at least hear you all try. I already know how some of you sing, and I will not waste time on hearing these people again, so whoever sang in the Christmas concert or in the folk song competition can sit down in the right section. Mina, sopranos, here at the front. Teddy, you are a baritone, but I will have you work with the basses, so back of the boys' section. Vincent, tenors, front... Nobody else here for the moment, fine. We have no altos identified yet, but whoever I deem an alto, sits at the back of the girls' group, vis-a-vis Teddy. Very well. Let's begin. First up, Tatiana. I will play a sequence of notes and I want you to repeat it as well as you can. Now, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!"
Mina relaxed, leaning on the wall, as she prepared herself for two hours of tedium and toothache, as some of their classmates were less than able to repeat the sequence.
Rose retired to the end of the room immediately, mumbling some things about it being quite enough for her to learn one new thing at a time.
"Very nice, Josie. What you have is a mezzo-soprano, I suppose. A rather darkish one, specifically, and with very nice lows. That means you are our first alto."
Josie scrunched her nose.
"How come I'm an alto if I'm a soprano?"
"A mezzo-soprano. It means you are able to go rather high, if you need to, but your comfortable range is much lower than, say, Mina's. Mina can easily pull off the very high stuff - unless she has had an infection recently, of course - but she will never be able to sing low without forcing herself, and that could lead to injury. So I will not ask you to go that high, because your voice would be wasted on that, but I will give you parts that require you to use that low part of your range."
"Ah," Josie blushed slightly and shook her head. "So I'm a soprano, but I am an alto. Complicated."
"I will tell you all later where the names came from and how to understand the way the choir is organised, but for the time being, let's get through the sorting, OK?"
"Mrs Witherspoon never really did stuff like this," one of the boys remarked with slight surprise in his voice.
"Well, this happens when someone doesn't have enough energy to do this properly. I have and I will spend some hours with you explaining the way the voices are divided in a choir and what is the meaning of each. Steffi! Your turn!"
Mina tensed up, shooting a quick glance in the direction of her boyfriend, who rolled his eyes and nodded. Aha. One of these girls.
Rose eyed the scene from the back of the room as she noticed the little exchange and made a face as soon as she saw her twin looking in her direction.
Steffi was not bad, as such.
She just didn't know how to listen to the piano. Or how to listen to Miss Yang. Or how to listen, in general.
Also, she didn't know how to hold one note consistently.
"I think I'd do better if we went lower," she complained. "I mean, I'm obviously an alto, so why should I bother with this end?"
Rose saw the twin facepalms (of her twin and said twin's boyfriend) and it looked as if Miss Yang was close to the same gesture herself.
"Very well," she said with a pleasant smile. "Try this."
And they went down the scale. And Steffi followed the scales, but as soon as she hit something that Rose could only describe as "warbling", Miss Yang stopped playing.
"This. This sound you were making? This is a bad sound. I said this already today, and I expect everyone will listen as I repeat it right now. Trying to sing far beyond your comfortable zone, especially lower, may result in vocal cords being damaged. You can try singing high and get a throat ache that will pass soon, but if you try to force yourself into singing too low, you may actually break something. And I can hear it when someone is forcing it. Steffi, sopranos. Your range will need working on, but you're not an alto, never."
"B-but...!"
"Next!"
And so it went. There were better voices and weaker voices, there were a few people that sat next to Rose and watched the proceedings and there were some who complained about the placements they were given.
That applied in particular to most of Teddy's female classmates, who were, as one, classified as sopranos and were forced to sit next to Mina.
"I don't expect to get you all trained as solo singers, but I am certain you can all be made into good choir singers. Singing in the choir will strengthen your singing skills in general however and I encourage you all to practise as much as you can. Those of you who have a wish to learn more are welcome, and I will be reserving an hour every day for meetings with you, more if needed - the headmaster had been rather... generous in what he is willing to provide in order for this to be all set up properly."
"But what if someone is training outside of the school?" one of the new sopranos - Pauline - raised her hand. "I mean, will anyone be allowed to join, just like that?"
"Well, I will be delighted to have anyone who wishes to participate," Miss Yang frowned. "I'm not sure what would be the downside of having someone already trained among us."
"Well, I was just wondering, too," Steffi joined Pauline, smiling widely. "Because if this is supposed to be a new choir, wouldn't participation of people who have received some training elsewhere somehow make it harder for the rest of us to learn?"
Rose looked up the rows of girls, to the place where the shortest of them sat, ramrod straight, looking stonily straight ahead. Ah-ha. Mina knew what they were trying to do. Rose could smell the rat and so could her sister. Especially if the rat was fifteen years old and singing weak soprano.
"Well, obviously there are some advantages to everyone starting from the same level," Miss Yang shrugged. "For example, everyone is on the same level of 'pretty much abysmal' at the beginning and nobody is suffering overly due to listening to others in the voice that sing much less proficiently. However, there is an overwhelming advantage of having someone who has already had some training... And that is, specifically, having one or two persons per voice who already know what they are doing and can help the others."
"Also," Vincent stood up, "What sense would it make to try to remove someone just because they are better than you are? I mean, I could potentially be a bit resentful towards Teddy, because he won both contests we had last year here, but hey, I'd rather have someone in the basses who knows his elbow from his... backside and can read the score correctly. I'm not, like, a profi at sight singing, but I am learning, my mother got me individual lessons and stuff. But Teddy is like miles ahead of me in this stuff. So what, should I want him off the choir? Should Charlie want me off the choir, because I know how to sing scales? What sense would it make?"
"I mean... well, not all..."
Rose snorted and shook her head.
"Shut up, Darcy, you aren't even in the choir!" Diana - Steffi's bestie - rounded on her. "You don't get a vote on this!"
"Well, I could be," Rose found herself standing up. "And, unlike some, I could accept that my younger sister is better than I am. It's not like I don't know this. It's just that, unlike some, I'm not insanely jealous of what she has."
Mina's face was as red as a brick as three classfuls of people focused on the sisters.
"Actually, Miss Yang, now that I had some time to think about it, I might possibly try to, you know, check what kind of range I'd be singing in if I could maybe potentially join the choir."
"I would never pressure you to do that, Rose," the teacher watched her with surprise, but she made an inviting gesture towards where others stood when singing, "but you are welcome to try."
Rose's legs were about as soft as pudding as she walked up to the piano and sighed, trying to relax and get rid of the tightness in her throat.
"Let's get it over with," she joked weakly.
Miss Yang played the same sequence of notes as for everyone else and Rose tried to repeat them. By the look on several faces in the audience, it didn't go all that well, despite the fact that she felt the sounds were exactly right.
"Hm," the teacher played another sequence, higher. Rose sang. Still not good.
"Miss Yang?" Mina was standing next to the piano. "Can I try something? I mean, when I started to learn, I couldn't make the connection between the piano sound and the human voice, but... Mom sang with me. And then I could do the exercises correctly. So..."
"Very well. Go on then."
"Miss Yang, could you play me the A? And then a major second from it? And..."
Rose stopped paying attention, focusing on her sister.
Miss Yang played something and Mina sang that note. Clear, stable, specific note. Suddenly, now that she could hear it in Mina's voice, it made sense. She had been singing too high. Because the piano sounded somehow higher, but on the other hand, her sister's voice was exactly right.
Oh.
Rose repeated the note.
Two notes, in descending tone.
Repeat.
Three notes, descending. Again, the same, but starting a bit higher. And another bit. And these three notes - or the distances between them - were what Mina kept repeating as she went up, dragging Rose steadily towards the higher range. Finally, they broke off as Rose's voice went all squeaky and whistly.
"Breathe," her little sister suggested, handing her a bottle of water. "And drink something. And we'll go down now."
And so they did. Not very far, definitely not as low as the few altos managed to get, that much Rose could tell. She wasn't sure what were the names or the values or whatever of the notes that she was singing, but as long as it was with Mina and not with just the piano, it worked fine.
The room was rather quiet as they finished, Mina watching Rose as if she had been given the best Christmas gift ever.
"And that is one of the reasons to have more experienced people in the choir," Teddy's words broke the silence. "Like Mina said, at the beginning it's hard to learn to sing the same thing as is being played. Some people can. Some can't. I couldn't, just like Mina couldn't. My grandma sang for me, because when she was teaching me, I was just a kid, before my voice broke, so I was singing soprano, and it worked. So OK, fine - if you don't want someone who is better than you in the choir, your business. But it's plain stupid."
Rose noticed Miss Yang sitting back and watching them with narrowed eyes.
"And if someone makes Mina leave, well, sorry, Miss Yang, but I'm not staying either. And, I suppose, neither is Rose, so you'd be one trained and one untrained soprano weaker. And one bass, too. Sorry, Jake," he nodded at the only other boy sitting with him in the basses section, but Jake only rolled his eyes and shrugged.
"I'm not exactly sure what kind of little... social problem is this," Miss Yang pronounced (and Rose could predict aunt Georgiana would sit them down that very evening and interrogate them thoroughly), "but I will not allow any kind of... ostracism or mobbing or bullying. Who wants to sing, stays. Who doesn't want to sing, leaves. Simple as that. There will be no forcing people to attend and no banning people from attending unless someone actually earns themselves a ban. For example due to undermining others. Are we clear on this point?"
A few people mumbled a "Yes", but there was stony silence coming from the soprano section. Rose saw her sister rolling her eyes rather expressively.
"Rose, are you sure you want to join? I mean, you never wanted to sing before, and this is not exactly the most comfortable..."
"No... Well, yes, I want to. If only to prove to some that I can defer to my younger sibling if needed. Because come on, what kind of stupid do you have to be to think about kicking out someone who is better than you and willing to help?"
"Oh God," her sister moaned suddenly. "Now you'll be expecting me to learn to ride a horse, right?"
Rose smiled widely.
"A pony will be fine. Ponies are cute, right?"
#
Nothing whatsoever happened for the rest of the week and even Teddy's classmates kept a reasonable distance from the trio. There were several more e-mails from Mom with megabytes and megabytes of photos and some exclamations about the things she had seen and bought in Finland. Their classmates made appreciative sounds when Rose showed them the recording of the Northern Lights (during one of the not-lessons on Thursday) and there were some questions asked regarding Rovaniemi which proved that despite being older than people who typically believed in Santa Claus, most of their classmates would have been more than willing to visit the Santa town. Even the weather reported by Mom didn't deter them.
The expected interrogation came on Sunday, once aunt Mary and Jimmy had departed and three Misses Darcy were left to their own devices. Aunt Georgiana made them all tea, brought some biscuits from the kitchen and sat them down in the library to Have A Talk. Her opening was direct and effective.
"What the hell is happening in your school? Lucy said that the choir audition felt like a standoff between two gangs - or some kind of Mean Girls reenactment."
"Well..." Mina wavered. "That was because of the girls from Teddy's class."
Rose snorted.
"They are jealous as hell and first they tried to prove that Minnie is somehow deficient in the singing department and then tried to get her excluded from the choir."
"Are they delusional!? Lucy would never pick some random stupid girls over Mina. What sense would it make to kick out the strongest soprano...?"
Rose giggled into her hands while her sister sighed, but their aunt's honest astonishment was a bit of a validation to their need for justice.
"Not that 'sense' has a lot to do with their idiotic ideas. No, they posed it as making sure everyone is starting from the same level of education, but Miss Yang told them that it's of course fun to have nobody around that is singing worse than you. And they didn't even catch on that it also could mean that Mina would not have to suffer their... squawking. And then Vincent made fun of them that he doesn't want Teddy off the choir, even though Teddy beat him in the contests, and they were all really surprised because they didn't think that getting rid of 'people who had previous training' meant Teddy would have to leave, too."
"Which is plain stupid of them," her sister found her voice finally. "And then Rose showed them."
Aunt Georgiana cocked an eyebrow at them and waited.
"Rose... Rose just stood up and told them she will show them that she doesn't have anything against following me in the choir, so why should they. And then she tried to sing the scales and it was even kind of OK, but just a bit high, so I did that thing that Mom did for me when I couldn't hit the right notes and sang the scales for her to repeat, and Rose repeated them without problems. And then Teddy stood up and told them that getting rid of trained people is idiotic and anyway he would leave if someone tried to make us leave and..." she shrugged. "And they were all seething and Miss Yang told them that she wouldn't tolerate any bullying, so now they are all sour and whiny because they as good as signed up for the choir and they will have to sing with Rose and me in one group."
"And they showed that they are stupid in front of everyone, three classes worth of people," Rose added with satisfaction. "Nobody picks on the Darcy girls and gets away with it."
#
"I wonder what they are doing today."
"Stockholm. Until Thursday."
"Mhm. I wish we could have gone with them."
"This is their honeymoon, silly. But we can ask them to take us someday, I suppose."
Rose sighed.
"At least they will be back in time to start all the preparation for the Valentine auction."
Mina groaned softly.
"We will have all these people here... I'm not sure. I mean... Isn't it a lot of strangers in our home?"
Rose rolled her eyes and sat up.
"They never come up here, unless it's someone from the family or invited to stay. So, the upper floors are strangers-free. Then on the ground floor, we have all the estate workers standing in key spots and Dad hires a few nice guards that make sure nobody touches the displayed objects. We make sure everything normal and everyday is removed from downstairs anyway, so it looks like an exposition, like these houses that had already been turned into live museums."
"Aren't you worried that Pemberley will become one of them?"
Rose considered this carefully for a moment.
"No, actually. I will be happy to move. And yes, well... It is my home. But it's also become this awful place that eats a lot of Dad's time and nerves and I will be happy to see it renovated properly and put to use. Because right now there are five of us, living in the space meant for... forty? I mean, with the unused parts, the servant hall, the cellars, the studies and all that storage... We are wasting money and space like this. The new house is supposed to be more compact, everything thought out better, to match what we need now and not what our ancestors liked to have five hundred years ago. Like here, we have a TV in the dining room, because it would look stupid in the salon, or in the big hall, but looks silly anyway. Dad told me he wants the new house to actually meet our needs so that it was a house for us and not us having to adjust to the house."
"And there will be no ghost of Aunt Catherine hovering over it."
"Oh, yes. Definitely."
"OK. So, what can we two do to make that whole auction preparation go easiest? Dad will be very busy and I suppose Mom will try to help him, too. What can be done by us?"
"Well..." Rose rolled to her side and looked at her twin, who was on her back, hands behind her head, looking at the ceiling. "We still have a week until they are back, so we should have a lot of time to think."
"Something that will allow Mom to use her hand less," Mina pointed out. "And something that will actually make her happy. It doesn't have to be useful, but it has to be nice."