Mr. Ellison placed his case beside the chair. "I want you to know that, if asked, I'll say what I remember."
Matilda looked at him. "You understand what that may cost? Some invitations, perhaps?"
He gave a nervous smile. "I have lost worse things."
"You do not owe me this."
"No, but I owe the truth something." He opened the folder he carried and removed two old rehearsal parts. "You taught me this passage before Mrs. Dracott ever publicly claimed the piece. I remember because I argued with you for ten minutes."
Despite herself, Matilda smiled. "Fifteen."
"Then I stand corrected twice." He laid the pages on the table. "My notes are dated."
Matilda looked at the penciled markings: her own corrections ran through the margins; the date preceded Hester's public announcement by months.
"Will you say this before witnesses?" Matilda asked.
Mr. Ellison hesitated only once. "Yes."
When he left, Matilda stood by the window and watched the rain streak the glass. She had the incomplete printer's proof, the altered manuscript page, the earlier rehearsal copy, the dated notes, Mr. Ellison's testimony, and the complete score sealed with Mr. Harby. The proof was no longer a single, fragile thread; it was becoming a chain.
Yet Hester still had reputation. Beckham still had access. The room tonight would be filled with people who knew their names and barely knew hers.
Mrs. Albright came to stand several feet away. "You can still choose not to go."
Matilda looked at her. "I know."
"No one could call you cowardly."
"Someone would. Someone always does." Matilda returned her gaze to the rain. "That is not why I have to go."
She thought of the black shoes, the blank title page, the final variation. She thought of the moment she had told Hester no, and the strange discovery that the walls had not fallen.
"If I stay away, Hester will speak for me again."
"And if you go?"
"Then at least one voice in the room will be mine."
A maid entered, carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper from Falconhurst Hall. "Miss Matilda?"
Matilda froze; the handwriting on the label belonged to Mrs. Canning. She opened the parcel carefully. Inside was a small wooden box. For a moment, she did not understand. Then she lifted the lid: the ivory satin slipper lay within, faintly stained where the blood had dried into the fabric.