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If it weren’t improper for a lady of her stature to travel without a maid, she would’ve thrown the little chit overboard. Oh, there were excuses and apologies and even tears, which Lily loathed—the girl would drown in the saltwater of her own tears before she hit the ocean. None of which changed the fact that she hadn’t packed Lily’s diamond necklace in its proper place, leading the retinue of servants to turn the whole cabin upside down and making Lily very late for dinner.
They’d finally found it, tossed carelessly in one of the pockets meant for Lily’s designer shoes—thank goodness they had found it, because Lily wasn’t opposed to having the girl clapped in irons and tossed below deck (or whatever they did these days) until communication with the distant shore could verify that the necklace had merely been forgotten and not stolen by the blubbering girl.
So it was in a somewhat dark humor that Lily finally entered the dining room that evening. Of course she looked perfect—pale turquoise gown, the abused diamonds, hair bobbed in the latest style—but everyone was too busy eating to notice her entrance. Well, fine then. She didn’t want to be bothered by a bunch of dullards anyway. Perhaps she was late enough that a fashionable young man had grown bored of eating alone and would send her a note. Although if one didn’t she was perfectly capable of remaining mysterious and enjoying her dinner on her own—for now.
There was a setup for a full band at the front of the room, but she had apparently missed the appetizer show; the only music came from the lone piano player, gently tickling the ivories as people ate and chatted. There was a piano player on this ship who was supposed to be very good and she was looking forward to hearing one of his improvised jazz numbers. She wondered if the slight fellow at the piano now was him, or the substitute. Probably the substitute, they would want the star resting up for the dessert show.
Lily stopped at the bar for a drink and to scope out the best empty table to appropriate. There weren’t many choices—it seemed that everyone in first class had turned out to eat in the dining room on their first night aboard. As she waited for her drink Lily focused on the piano music. She didn’t recognize the song—it might just be melodious noodling, really. Or maybe she’d heard it at the theatre or cinema—it reminded her of a story, very specific, about a young woman traveling with her fiancé to meet his family for the first time.
The girl was terribly nervous; they came from money and she didn’t, and she was worried they would think she was gauche, or worse, a gold-digger. But then came the part of the story where the girl realized how much her fiancé really loved her for herself, and that she didn’t have anything to worry about after all—a happy ending.
It didn’t really sound like the kind of story Lily usually saw, but it was so clear in her mind, so strongly associated with—a young couple sitting at a table near the front of the room. Lily started, sloshing her drink in an undignified way, and resisted the urge to run up to the diners and pinch them as a check of reality. They looked exactly like the couple she had been idly picturing while listening to the music. He was handsome and debonair, at ease in a setting of money and taste; she was pretty, but her expensive dress sat a bit stiffly on her and she played self-consciously with her large engagement ring. Engagement ring only, no wedding band. Still, as the reassuring music played, the young couple turned to each other and smiled the warm, secret smile of true love, and the man clasped his fiancée’s hand firmly in his own.
What a remarkable coincidence, Lily thought as she descended upon a table off to one side that gave her a good view of the room. Well, considering the luxury of the setting, and the propensity of wealthy men to marry women who were rich only in their personal attributes, perhaps it wasn’t so terribly unlikely to find a couple who more or less fit the story Lily had imagined, who fit the music. She signaled for the waiter to bring her first course.
The piano music took a new direction suddenly. It wasn’t sinister exactly, but sneaky and secretive, slightly disharmonious, as if something were out of place. Or someone. Automatically scanning the crowd Lily’s eyes fell upon a young man who had just entered. His tuxedo was a bad fit and his eyes skittered nervously from side to side; he affected an air of snobbishness but ducked away from the stewards quickly in fear. He was no wealthy eccentric, the music seemed to say, but a baggage-class imposter who had stolen a fine suit of clothes and was masquerading among the rich, for what kind of personal gain she couldn’t say. She would not have paid him much mind had the music not put this entire scenario, marvelously, into her head.
“Who is that gentleman over there?” Lily asked the waiter who brought her soup.
He looked and, as well as the staff was trained here, was chagrined to admit he didn’t know. “Shall I enquire for you, madam?”
“Yes, do,” Lily pushed.
Run, run, you’re about to be discovered, the music said to the young imposter, and he followed that advice, dashing out before the steward could reach him.
Now Lily turned her attention fully on the piano player. Surely the messages in the music couldn’t be a mere coincidence, her overactive imagination—not twice in a row, and so accurately. The piano player was twentyish, slim, rather more striking than handsome, though not so striking that he would stand out in a crowd. He enjoyed playing the piano, that much was obvious, but he understood that his purpose at the moment was to be pleasant and unobtrusive, not showy. The mere playing, of any kind, seemed to give him sufficient joy. He watched the diners as he played—there was no music on the stand—but idly; he didn’t engage them or seem particularly interested in any as more than inspiration for his next piece. Lily cut carefully into her chicken and waited to see whom he would choose next.
The music took on a slightly melancholy, nostalgic tone. An elderly woman was traveling without her husband for the first time, because he had died a few months ago. They often made voyages like this one and she kept thinking of all the things they’d done together, all the things they would never do again. Lily was not particularly sentimental, but the story told by the music made her vision blur and her nose tingle—it didn’t just say, “An old woman is now alone,” it somehow conveyed both the enormity of the woman’s loss and the little, specific things she missed so much. Lily could feel, through the music, the woman’s longing to hear her husband make one more terrible pun or to see him light up one more stinking cigar in close quarters.
Lily put down her fork and sipped her drink as though she were dying of thirst, to hide the baleful expression on her face. Surely, she thought, desperate to put something else in her mind, such music wasn’t good for the passengers’ digestion? The tale of fifty years of moonlit strolls across the deck, with the husband always insisting the wife take his jacket against the chill breeze—it was sweet and beautiful but too powerful. Lily would choke if she tried to eat right now.
Oddly, however, when she glanced furtively around the room, she saw that the other diners didn’t seem to be nearly as affected as she was. Oh, the mood was quieter than it would have been had the young man played something light and jaunty, but there was no one else almost weeping into their entrée.
Except… except for an older woman seated near the back. Lily could see her eyes were wet, unfocused; clearly she was lost in thought, musing on those strolls and cigars. After a moment the music changed, subtly, to a message of hope and comfort, an encouragement to remember the good times without sorrow, and to know that her husband would always be with her. Lily turned quickly back to the piano player as the older woman smiled gently—but he wasn’t looking at her, or anyone really, he was just staring off into the middle distance and playing.
Still affected by the emotional music Lily tried to force her mind into a more analytical mode. This man must be the musician she had heard about—mostly she had heard of his ferocious jazz compositions that people danced to all night, but no mere understudy could make the music he did. He seemed able to speak to someone’s very soul with the melody he generated—to mirror their own turbulent emotions, and also to give them consolation or advice.
But was he doing so consciously? He didn’t seem to be especially concerned with the passengers he played about—he didn’t even watch them closely. Yet, each person recognized their theme when they heard it, if only subconsciously, and reacted to its message—without subjecting the rest of the room to an emotional rollercoaster.
That Lily could also interpret the story of the music was not surprising; her people were more attuned to such things than others. And she could tell that this young musician was far more remarkable than he first appeared.
**
The captain received her graciously in his office the next morning, offering her a generous helping of expensive brandy despite the early hour. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Morgan?”
Lily smiled slightly at the address. “Actually, Morgan is just a name I travel under,” she began, unhurried. It was an important piece of information she was about to reveal, but it was best to start negotiations of this sort with a gesture of trust and goodwill. And possibly intimidation. “My real name is LeGray. Lily LeGray.” She could see from the captain’s expression that he recognized it at once. “You’ve heard of my family, perhaps?”
“Oh, of course, who hasn’t?” he replied quickly. He was a powerful man in his own universe—this ship—and he commanded with confidence; but he wasn’t too proud to acknowledge the forces that were larger than him. “I’m quite honored to have you aboard my ship, Lady LeGray.”
“We don’t travel much,” she admitted, “but when we do, we must have the best.” He took the compliment matter-of-factly, as it was given, realizing it wasn’t the sole purpose of her visit. Lily paused for another moment to sip her drink, then went on. “You have a remarkable piano player on this ship.”
A captain on a ship crossing the Atlantic five times a year must be very worldly, and immediately he knew the direction her remark was headed. It was not difficult to see how uncomfortable it made him. “Yes, 1900 is indeed a very remarkable person,” he agreed cautiously.
“1900. Such an odd name,” Lily commented, momentarily avoiding the as-yet-unspoken issue. She was the one who could afford to be patient, after all. “How did he get it?”
“Well, that was when he was born, January of 1900,” the captain explained. He leaned forward on his desk, fixing Lily with a serious gaze. “He was born on this ship, in fact, to a poor immigrant I suppose, and left behind when all the passengers disembarked at New York.”
“Really.”
“Yes, he was found by one of the coal-shovelers and raised below decks,” the captain went on. “He started playing the piano when he was eight or so. No one taught him, he just picked it up. And that’s what he’s been doing ever since.” The captain paused a moment. “He’s never left this ship.”
Lily’s eyes widened in surprise, despite her efforts to remain composed. “He’s never been off the ship? Not even for—a day trip?” It was the only example she could come up with.
The captain shook his head. “Never. This ship is his home, the only world he’s ever known. And I’ve never heard him express any desire to leave it.” Lily frowned and sipped her drink absently. That could make her plan more difficult, as the captain realized. “So, you see, I’m not sure you would find it worth your while to pursue the matter,” he added. “I don’t think 1900 would be happy living on land.”
Lily thought rapidly, but no brilliant plan came to her. At least not right away. “But you are able to sell him, are you not?” she ascertained. He nodded reluctantly. She set her drink down and scooted to the edge of her chair—she didn’t want to show an unladylike eagerness, but she felt her patience slipping away as the magnitude of this complication became clear. “People have wanted to buy him before?”
“They have,” the captain confirmed. “But they wanted to take him off the ship, and I couldn’t do that to him. Not just so he could entertain someone with his music.”
Lily was shaking her head before he finished. “No, no, 1900 has a power which is highly prized by my people,” she tried to explain. “I’m not talking about the mere ability to produce pleasant noises from an instrument. I’m talking about the power to sense someone’s emotions, someone’s problems and history, and to transform them into music that touches that person, helps them, sympathizes with them. The power to use music to communicate what can’t be said in words. Surely you’ve noticed it, Captain!” she insisted.
“1900 is very talented,” the captain allowed cautiously. “He seems to make up songs on the spot that would have the best composers—“
“But it’s so much more than that,” Lily interrupted, rude but not caring. “His music speaks to people. Maybe-maybe with most people, the only one who can hear it is the person he’s speaking to, and they don’t even seem to realize what’s happening, really. But I—my people—we can all hear it and appreciate it.” She realized belatedly how animated she’d become and tried to sit back in her seat with dignity.
“Then you would certainly want to take him back to your people’s ancestral lands,” the captain suggested after a moment. “I just don’t know if that would be the best place for him.”
Lily took a breath and straightened her spine. She was a LeGray. A LeGray bold enough to venture out into the world to see its wonders. And, having found such a wonder, she was not about to let it slip through her fingers. Her eyes took on a cat-like gleam as she gazed at the captain. “Well. What can I do to convince you otherwise?”
[Lily is allowed to buy 1900. He doesn’t seem to mind and totally falls for her during the voyage. However, as they near New York he realizes he’s expected to leave the ship with her and he panics. He hides somewhere on the ship—he knows plenty of little hidey-holes—until they set sail again, then reappears. Lily has been forced to book passage for the way back because he was hiding, and because the ship books up quickly she might’ve had to move to a lesser cabin. Not to mention that all her other plans have been disrupted. So when he saunters back in, she’s quite upset with him and punishes him by withholding the affection he’s come to crave. He even has to sleep in his old bed, alone.
I think he’ll have to make a dramatic gesture to get back into her good graces—sleeping outside her door during a storm so he’s half-frozen in the morning, for example. They reconcile, but the arrival of the ship in London looms over his head. I think eventually they’ll have to decide to remain on the ship, together, and encourage her people to come to them and thus travel more.]