A Piano Lesson
The following Monday, as Edward started the first full week of summer break, he found himself on the way to a piano lesson. After some discussion between his mother and aunt on Saturday while he had been practicing scales, it was agreed that he should not abandon his lessons because of the demands of the portrait. Instead, his music lessons were simply reshuffled into the new order of things. With his new schedule, his piano teacher, Mrs. Baxter, had agreed to move his lessons to Monday and Thursday mornings for the time being.
Aunt Patricia had of course weighed in. She thought this was another delightful opportunity for Edward to get used to his dresses, and she even offered to take him to the lessons so Marian might have some quiet mornings at home. Aunt Patricia took it upon herself to call Mrs. Baxter and explain the situation in advance. She even relayed how darling Edward had been in his lacy yellow party dress while playing scales on Saturday. When she brought him to his lesson on Monday morning, he was nattily dressed in his pretty pink frock, frilly white anklets and black Mary Janes. His shiny pink hair ribbon was tied neatly in place, and Edward felt the snug embrace of his ever-present corset hugging tightly underneath.
Mrs. Baxter greeted Aunt Patricia quite calmly and set Edwrda’s lesson book on the stand as if nothing about the morning was unusual. Edward sat down very stiffly on the piano bench, very self-conscious of his frilly pink panties and mindful of his confining corset. He was careful to arrange his skirt demurely at his aunt’s prodding.
Only after setting up the sheet music did Mrs. Baxter comment on his attire. She blinked over the rim of her spectacles, first at Aunt Patricia and then at Edward, who wished the piano bench might swallow him whole. “Well,” she said after a small pause, “that is a very lovely dress. Did you pick it out yourself, Edward?”
“Uhh, no Mrs. Baxter,” Edward said quietly, “My Aunt… Aunty Patricia gave it to me.”
Aunt Patricia practically beamed at that.
“It’s… it’s for the portrait,” he explained reluctantly.
“So I understand,” Mrs. Baxter replied, settling herself beside him tactfully, “It is certainly a charming gift, and that pink seems to suit you.”
“Thank you,” Edward muttered meekly. He swallowed hard and felt his cheeks warm.
Aunt Patricia couldn’t resist piping in with a pleased look, “that’s exactly what I thought when I saw it too.” She added, “his Aunty knew he would be adorable in it!”
With that, Mrs. Baxter moved into the lesson, “Now let’s get our wrists level and shoulders relaxed.”
As he placed his fingers on the keys, a glum thought returned to him. This was his summer vacation, the long free stretch he had spent months waiting for. Yet piece by piece it was now being claimed by the portrait. It seemed his whole holiday was turning into one long, suffocating sitting.
Mrs. Baxter adjusted quickly, “Now, middle C.”
Wearing a dress to piano changed the feel of the lesson in ways Edward could not ignore. The bench seemed narrower when he had to arrange a skirt over it. The pedals felt farther away when he was conscious of his frilly anklets and Mary Janes.
Still, once his hands found the familiar pattern of the piece they were working on, he was distracted a bit. For the forty minutes or so, he was not exactly free from the portrait, but he was able to think of something else. Still, seeing his pink-polished nails dance over the black and white piano keys made him feel even more docile and girlish if he pondered it too long. It was better to focus on the music.
When his lesson ended, Aunt Patricia guided her nephew back to her car. Edward had murmured goodbye to Mrs. Baxter as he felt propelled along by his aunt for the short ride home. He didn’t have anything else planned until his next sitting tomorrow, and he was hopeful his aunt would be done with him for the day. It seemed, however, that she already had something else on her mind, and Edward began to fret silently. Her body language was just too… purposeful.
No sooner had they entered the front door than Aunt Patricia turned to her sister with that bright, insistent expression Edward had already learned to dread. “Marian, to continue our conversation from the other day, we really must be practical,” she said, as if the matter had already been decided and only needed to be announced. “Edward simply cannot manage with only these two dresses, not with his sittings and appointments and lessons. He needs some more things, and we ought not put it off any longer.”
Marian opened her mouth as if to suggest that the matter could wait, but Aunt Patricia lifted her hand in a soft refusal. “No, Marian, truly, I insist.” Then, she announced with an eager look, “I’ll take him to Morgan & Tate’s this afternoon at least to look if nothing else.” She looked at Edward with a beaming smile, “and you, my darling, needn’t worry your pretty little head about any of it. Your Aunty has made up her mind.”
Edward knew Morgan & Tate’s was the fanciest department store in town. It was in the same shopping center where they had gone to lunch on Saturday. Any hope Edward had of escaping the for rest of the day vanished, and all his worries about an “expanded wardrobe” now proved well-founded. The first pink dress had been humiliating enough when it was only part of Miss Vale’s recommendations, almost a uniform for entering the world of the portrait. The second yellow dress, Aunt Patricia’s “gift,” had raised the stakes. Standing near the staircase in his pink frock and frilly anklets, Edward now felt trapped.
His mother gave a sympathetic smile, but she soon acceded to her sister’s wishes. “Go with your aunt, Edward. It may be pleasant for you two to spend some more time together away from the studio.” It seemed she was trying to put the best spin on things. The hint of disagreement she had displayed on Saturday was nowhere to be found today.
“You needn’t look so solemn,” Aunt Patricia assured him, “Just follow Aunty’s lead. Aunty knows exactly what to do, and it’s going to be such fun!”
“Fun for who, exactly?” Edward thought glumly. “Isn’t looking… how shopping begins, Aunty?” he asked rather weakly.
“Precisely, sweetie!” Aunt Patricia replied, pleased by his grasp of procedure and easily turning his timid objection into agreement. And off they went. She seemed to be in an almost jovial mood. With Marian staying behind, it would be just the two of them this afternoon, and that seemed to make Aunt Patricia’s manner even more overbearing and insistent, perhaps even unfettered.
Topic: The Portrait of Edward Gray (Read 7352 times)
