On the triplets’ eight cakeday, Lord Krelian and Lady Ashelia presented a grand piano for their little Thalia. Lady Ashelia insisted that their bookish daughter learned the piano, for having musical aptitude was already becoming a tradition among the young noble females in Daltina.
Thalia, far from being pleased, was horrified at the thought of her time being squandered by ‘nonsensical stuff’, away from her father’s library where she usually spent her brightenings reading books on children’s literature – stories that involved dragons, mages, knights and damsels-in-distress.
Lady Ashelia believed she had done everything she could do to entice her tiresome daughter to leave the library and learn the piano, initially cajoling her, which easily degraded into threatening that she will have all the books in the library burned down. Thalia, young though she was, was wise enough not to believe this. She knew that her mother won’t do something so incredulously stupid, and she retorted to her by saying calmly that “father will be angry if you burn those books.”
Enraged, Lady Ashelia finally decided that she will have to use force to deal with this mildly annoying problem with her daughter’s stubbornness. She ordered two of the house guards to take Thalia forcefully to the Manor’s tea room where the grand piano was placed. They held Thalia’s wrists and ankles while the diabolic child wriggled angrily, cussing at them with the more colorful elements in a soldier’s vocabulary. They had to drag her kicking and cursing, and screaming so loud that the guards had actually believed that she was being possessed by eight evil spirits. One of the guards actually uttered the word ‘adjurators’.
Finally, the girl quieted down when she heard music – music so divine and pure that it could have only come from the harp of a celestial being. Clear, silvery tones pleased her young ears. The quality of the instrument’s sound was much different from Aliya’s harp. While the sound of her sister’s harp was subtle and humble, this sound had clarity and more power; a sound that, in Thalia’s mind, matched her own personality.
The guards, believing that the evil spirits inside Thalia’s body had been exorcised by the beautiful music, stopped clutching her wrists and ankles, and allowed her to stand on her feet. Curiously, the little girl walked towards the source of the music, and saw not a celestial being plucking a harp but a beautiful woman playing the grand piano in the Tea Room.
For the first time in her short life, she found herself in love with something other than her books. She was in love with the music of the pianoforte, the strength and precision of its silvery tones. The pianist played a melancholic but propitious piece, and Thalia felt her heart fluttered with the music. Closing her eyes, her body swayed as the music tickled her little ears. Finally, the music stopped, and the girl was snapped back to reality by the sound of clapping hands.
“That is very beautiful, Miss Hainsworth,” Lady Ashelia said softly, clapping her well-manicured hands bedecked with an assortment of jewelries. There was a hint of triumphant smile on her lips, knowing that her daughter had been taken with the music.
The pianist stood from her seat, and lowered herself into a deep curtsy twice, showing her station as a mere commoner and nothing more. In truth however, she appeared to be of noble birth; her movements were fluid and graceful, her bearing prim and proper. Her eyes were blue, and her hair possessed the colour of wheat, tied neatly into a bun on her head. She wore a plain lavender dress made of cotton, and her features were delicate and sweet. “Thank you, your ladyship. That piece is called the ‘Faerie Sonata’.”
“I know,” Lady Ashelia said dryly, taking offense as if the commoner had just underestimated her knowledge in music. The Lady turned to her daughter, one hand extended toward the pianist to introduce her. “Thalia, this is Miss Maria Elisabeth Hainsworth, and she will be teaching you how to play the piano. I apologize but I must be off now, as I have matters of import to attend to. Miss Hainsworth, please take care of Thalia.” Lady Ashelia held her skirts about her and walked out of the Tea Room as regally as a queen would.
Elisabeth smiled at Thalia, and bended over to have a better look of the little girl’s face. “Serale, Thalia. You’re very cute. How old are you?”
“Hi, Miss Elisabeth,” Thalia said, looking curiously back at the pianist’s face. She held the side of her skirts, and curtsied quickly “I’m eight. You know, I’ve read lots about the pianoforte, and attended a few piano concerts too, but you played the ‘Faerie Sonata’ differently from the others. Your melody tickled my ears. It’s like you captured the true essence of fairies. I’ve never seen a fairy yet, mind you, but I read about them too. They’re small, naughty and tiny …and small, and they have cute wings. Isn’t it nice being able to fly? You know I sometimes wonder how it was like to have wings. I also read fairies can do magic tricks, and they’re quite matri-uh—“ Thalia frowned, as if trying to search for the right word in her mind.
“You’re a smart girl,” Elisabeth observed. “You love reading books, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do! I love reading books!” Thalia exclaimed, and then quickly enumerated names of authors and books – many of which Elisabeth did not even recognize. The pianist chuckled, finding the girl so cute for trying to look smart.
“I see. I won’t have a hard time teaching you then,” Elisabeth said with a smile.
Thalia grinned. “Well, I’m not quite sure about music. You see, I never really actually cared about music before, and my sister Aliya always gets mad at me whenever I don’t listen to her when she sings and plays the harp. Her harp just makes me sleepy, and I always thought her voice was awful. One author says that the pianoforte is actually just a horizontal harp, and you struck the keys instead of plucking them. I think the piano sounds stronger than the harp though.”
This information was new to Elisabeth, even though she has been playing the piano for several patterns already. Elisabeth had taught the basics to other noble girls before, but she often found them dull and wearisome. She was sure she will enjoy teaching Thalia. “They’re both string instruments, so maybe the author has a point.”
The little girl shrugged. “Anyway, I don’t think you’ll have a hard time teaching me. My governess says I am the smartest of us three sisters. Nathalia can’t even do proper math. She’s quite good in Multiplication, but she’s stupid when it comes to Division. It’s quite simple really, and I don’t understand why she can’t figure things out,” Thalia gloated, smiling impishly.
“We’ll see if you really learn quickly then. Perhaps we should begin your training now, young mistress?”
“Sure,” answered the little girl with a lilting voice.
Taking a seat on the piano stool, Thalia observed her own grand pianoforte. It was made of maple and beech, painted perfectly black. The keys were made of spruce for lightness, instead of the traditional ivories and ebonies. It was an expensive musical instrument shipped from Jaedaxia’s La Colouir de Musique.
Elisabeth pulled a nearby chair, and placed it beside the piano stool. Thalia cleared her throat, as if she were about to say something.
“What is it?” asked Maria Elisabeth with a curious tone.
“Did you know, according to the famous Jaedexienne musician Anette de Courson, that—“
By the gods, this girl talked too much!
Secrets :
NPC Profile:
Name: Maria Elisabeth Hainsworth
Physical Description:
A beautiful young woman with blue eyes and pale blonde hair, fair-skinned and with features that could make any hearty male sigh in love at first sight. For a commoner who lives in Daltina, Maria Elisabeth is unusually pretty. She prefers wearing plain lavender clothes, and always has her hair tied in an updo. If not because of her simple dress and her lack of adornments, she would easily blend in with the nobility.
Background:
Raised in Cheapside, Maria Elisabeth Hainsworth is the only child of a poor merchant. Her father, being proud of his daughter’s beauty, worked hard so that he could buy her a simple piano as a gift. Elisabeth easily learned how to play the piano, and with the help of a willing teacher, she was able to acquire formal training. She now helps her father by teaching the basics of playing the piano to noble children.
_________________________ OOC: This is a flashback thread; Thalia was just eight ordinations old here. It also serves as a piano training thread for her. ^__^
The very first thing that Thalia was to learn on playing the piano was proper posture. Instructing the little girl was not as smooth as Miss Elisabeth had surmised for Thalia complained every now and then. The teacher had to add some cushions on the piano stool to make the Thalia’s small shoulders, elbows and hands align properly with the height of the piano.
“Don’t slouch,” Miss Elisabeth instructed. “Keep your back straight and upright. No, no, no, not that way. There. Proper posture requires that you keep yourself upright, but leaning a little forward is fine, as long as you don’t slouch. You’re slouching again.”
“I do not see the relevance of this to playing good music!” Thalia moaned as she tried to straighten her back up in a strange position.
“Comfort is important for a pianist so that she could focus on playing the instrument without obstructions,” Miss Elisabeth pointed out. “If you play the piano with a wrong posture for long, your muscles will start to ache, and will possibly cause you to make mistakes. Proper posture makes it easier for you also to breathe. Now keep your neck upright and don’t bob your head in any direction. Very good. You may move your eyes freely, of course.”
The little girl whined that she did not feel comfortable at all, but Miss Elisabeth graciously ignored her protests. Since Thalia was short and was only a little more than a babe, her feet did not reach the pedals yet. The elbows and shoulders looked a lot better now, but the child was leaning away from the piano because her feet have nothing to rest on. Miss Elisabeth remedied this by politely asking the nursemaid to get a footstool where Thalia could rest her small feet. Sitting up straight with good posture and with both feet flat on the stool or floor was important because playing power came from transferring the weight of the body into the keys.
“Now place your hands on the ivories, dear. Like this,” Miss Elisabeth helped Thalia align her wrists correctly on the keyboard. “Keep your hands upright, but don’t make them look too rigid either.”
“Like this?”
“Very good, Thalia.” Elisabeth smiled.
“I never thought that it was this difficult,” Thalia complained, her fingers curving awkwardly on the ivories.
“Who ever told you that playing that pianoforte was easy? Just because you’re smart does not mean that you can play the piano too easily. Don’t curve your fingers. You will not make any good sounds if you bend your fingers like that,” Miss Elisabeth instructed.
It took almost two candlemarks for Thalia to be able to attain the correct posture. She was almost on the verge of giving up entirely. If she got the hands right, her arms and shoulders were out of alignment. If she got the shoulders aligned, her fingers barely reached the keys. Then her elbows were uncomfortably inched up. Then her fingers were too stiff. Then her torso was too bent forward. She was right at the edge of abandoning the whole notion when Miss Elisabeth said, “That looks closer. Now relax.”
Fleur Déviante (Closed)
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