1

OVERTURE

The harpsichord is a reticent instrument, chiming delicately in the background of the music. For an audience (at the rehearsal in which we were engaged, for instance) the sound would be as variable as the candlelight flickering among the cobwebby roof timbers of the ancient ale-house that sheltered us, the Turk’s Head. Among the violins and basses the harpsichord could no doubt be heard only as a hint of sound – a metallic ping-ping – and perhaps even that would be suggested more by the energetic movement of my hands than by any actual sound. If the instrument was heard clearly, it would be because the band had faltered or lost its place. (Which with this band happened all too frequently.)

I am not fond of playing the harpsichord. I am not a reticent man. Give me a church organ any day, filling the stone vaults with a thunder of noise.

But there were no vacancies for a church organist in the town, so I was forced to be content with my engagement in the Concerts. And I did not take kindly to sitting at the back of the band rather than in the harpsichord’s usual place at the front. I had been relegated to that position by the enmity of, as the papers say, a certain person. So there I was, sitting in semi-darkness even in the light of midday, gazing between the bobbing figures of my excellent-hearted but musically deficient gentlemen employers and the all-too-few professional players they employed to keep them in time and tune, biting my tongue and restraining an impulse to lean forward and whisper in a few ears. (I am not a silent man, either.) The ear of Mr Ord in the second violins, for instance, who persisted in trilling every held note and looking about him with a sly smile as if for compliments. Or the ear of young Henry Wright, our only player of the tenor violin, who bit his lip in concentration as he carefully played every note just fractionally flat. No, I knew my place – though a certain person would allege otherwise.

As the harpsichordist to the Concerts, I was charged with ensuring that, no matter what happened among the gentlemen amateurs who sawed away at their violins, the harmony would continue. I must bring down the chords decisively so that every man could pick up his place again when he lost it. Should the violins, playing an air, collapse completely, I must play the tune – and smile when an elegant gentleman murmured, with raised eyebrows, “I didn’t know the harpsichord part had that melody, Patterson.” I must not say, “Only since you have given up playing it for its difficulty, sir.” Not if I wanted to keep my wages.

Of course there was one gentleman who might be able to say such things. That certain person, the leader of the band, ought to have been using the rehearsal to say – diplomatically – certain things that needed to be said. Why did he not turn to the enthusiastic gentlemen on the cellos and murmur, as I would, that he admired them most when they played their most delicate pianissimo? (To put it in other words, would they please, sirs, play more quietly!). Why did he not make it clear to Mr Ord that the only player who may ornament the melody is the leader of the band?

Ladies and Gentlemen of Newcastle upon Tyne and its Environs in this year of our Lord 1735, behold our leader, our adored, exquisite, posturing leader, that damned black violin in his hand, waving his bow-stick as enthusiastically as sly Mr Ord, then plunging into a morass of passage-work of the sort that gentlemen amateurs love to gape at. Trills here, mordents there, a cascade of notes from top to bottom of the strings, a sawing away in alt like a pig squealing at slaughter. I once heard Mr Ord say admiringly that if our esteemed leader played any higher, he would be off the strings altogether. But, damn it, what was it for? Did such scraping engage our passions? Our pity? Our piety? Not at all. It engaged only, as it intended, our admiration.

Monsieur Henri Le Sac’s playing succeeded, of course, in quietening the music lovers who had come to gossip knowledgeably over our scratchings. (Those who attended rehearsals were generally those who did not choose to mix with the common sort at concerts, or who liked to know the pieces in advance so that they could talk learnedly of them later.) In the front, Lady Anne, elegant as always despite her plainness, had naturally been silent all along; she could hardly chatter while her protégé displayed his skills. Her cousin too, by her side, had been coolly restrained throughout; she looked so bored I wondered why she had come at all. Others were more animated. The ladies Brown, coming out of duty to papa on the cello, fluttered their fans to cool their flushed and adoring faces; and Fleming the stationer, in his massive old-fashioned periwig, listened attentively to the sound of the fiddle strings he supplied at cost price. My friend Demsey at the back scowled through the entire rehearsal; he of course had had a prejudice against Le Sac and his cronies ever since that unfortunate contretemps over the newspaper advertisement.

In truth (and it is a truth that made me sigh heavily) our esteemed leader was an excellent technician. Somewhere in his youth in Switzerland, Le Sac had an careful master who trained his nimble fingers and taught him to draw an excellent tone from his violin. A pity he did not also teach him manners. Or morals.

Of course, from where I sat, I could only see his back. A dark-coated back – dark blue, I fancied. Le Sac had excellent taste in clothes and, for all his squat, stocky figure, set them off well. I sighed over that further injustice. I am not a plain man, but no matter how hard I tried I never quite seemed to be in fashion. I did not have the money for it. Le Sac’s hair was dark and his own – wigs are the very devil to wear when you bob about as much as he does in performance. Occasionally, as he dipped into a phrase, I could see his profile, the sharp nose, the distant gaze, the high forehead. Some even called him handsome. I did not think so, but then I daresay I was prejudiced.

A final flurry of notes and we were set at liberty for a few minutes while Le Sac received the tribute of his patroness. I slipped out of the room and rattled down the back stairs into the tavern yard. The sunlight startled me – I am always so wrapt up in the music that I forget the time. An ostler led a horse clip-clop across the yard and nodded at me as I pissed against the wall. A voice behind me said: “Bloody ale. Lousy stuff.”

The spirit of old Hoult, the former landlord, inhabits the scene of his death as all spirits must do. One dark night five or six years ago, Hoult crept out to add a few coins to his secret hoard and was found dead in the frost the next morning. Mrs Hoult, his unbeloved wife, went some while later to look for the hiding place, argued with the spirit of her husband (who refused to give up his treasure), and dropped down dead on almost the same spot. They bicker in death as they did in life.

I laced myself up again. “Lousy ale? I thought you passed the recipe on to your son.”

Hoult’s spirit had lodged itself temporarily in the wall by the door. “He’s never had the knack, Mr Patterson, sir. Always messes things up. Why d’you think I never let him touch the business while I lived?”

His wife cackled from the lamp-bracket. “And you were better?”

Demsey clattered out to me, grabbed my coat sleeve. “Charles! That damned fellow – looked straight through me!” His round face was red with fury. “Pretended he knew nothing about it.”

“About what?”

“That latest advertisement,” Hoult said. He had moved to a stray shaft of sunshine on the wall and added apologetically, “One of the maids overheard you talking about it. The gossipy maid – the one that died two years back.” The communication of spirits is legendary; it is said they can pass a message from one end of the town to the other before a man can draw a breath.

“Oh, shut up, Hoult!” Demsey cried. “Go and intrude on someone else’s private conversation!”

Old Hoult sniffed, and the stones in the wall lost a certain sheen just as young Hoult emerged and blinked at the sunlit yard in happy complacence, as his late father did many a time before him.

“What has Le Sac to do with the advertisement?” I said tolerantly and prepared myself to pretend to listen.

“Le Sac? Not him. You have the fellow on the brain!” Demsey was beside himself. I’ve seen him work himself into a frenzy this way and young Hoult must have too; he was looking our way in some concern.

“Not Le Sac,” Demsey repeated. “That crony of his who has the nerve to call himself a dancing master.”

“Ah,” I said. “Nichols.” It was the same old story, the one we have all heard a dozen times these past three years. Demsey, like the assiduous businessman he is, goes off to London every summer to learn the latest dances so he may bring them back to the eager young ladies and gentlemen of this town. Nichols, who is not so handsome nor so young and much more disapproving in his manner to his pupils, sees an opportunity to increase his meagre practice and sets in the paper an announcement, something of this sort:

We hear from London, that a certain Mr D----y, dancing master in this Town, is not to return but has set up a School in Clerkenwell, where he teaches the Sons and Daughters of Lord A---- and Lady Y----.

Some years Demsey is said to remain elsewhere (Bath last year, if I recall correctly) but the general purport of the announcement is the same. And every year Demsey must tour every rich house in the town to leave his card and say, yes, he is returned and yes, he will open School again next week.

Demsey had stopped speaking and was glowering at the stairwell. The man himself stood there, staring at us over the bridge of his nose, imitating the haughty mien of the worst kind of gentleman. He kept his distance from young Hoult, I noticed.

“Ah, Mr Light-Heels,” I said, then covered my mouth as if stricken by my faux-pas. “Forgive me, I cannot imagine what I was thinking. Mr Nichols. Am I wanted? Do we begin again?”

“If you can tear yourself away from such riff-raff company,” he said. He has a voice like a turkey. Young Hoult smirked in my direction.

So it was back to the shadows at the back of the band where I must know the music by rote for all the light there was to read it. Light-Heels Nichols stood where I could see his disdainful profile as he cradled his violin in his arm. Le Sac regretfully took his leave of his patroness and strode to the pile of music books at a side table. What were we to play now? Some concerto violino by Corelli, perhaps, or Geminiani? Or one of Le Sac’s own works, so that he could show off his skill in the solo passages?

One thing was for certain; it would not be my music. I had the audacity to give him a piece for violins when I first came back from London, when I did not know him. He has not yet finished tearing it to pieces.

The wainscoting to my left acquired a sudden sheen. “You know,” old Hoult said conversationally, “I never did like music. Or musicians. But I except you.”

“Most generous.”

“No airs about you,” he said. “Never look down on folk.” The room was full of murmuring; Le Sac was still searching through his books. He straightened with a face like fury. Old Hoult said, “O – ho,” and disappeared.

The music, it seemed, had been stolen.

 

2

CONCERTO FOR SOLO HARPSICHORD
Movement I

It was midnight when I came at last to Mrs Hill’s in the Fleshmarket. When I pushed into the ale-room, it was almost deserted except for a few glum miners hunched over their tankards, listening unwillingly to the raucous singing (a bawdy song I had not heard before, strophic with a distinctive Scotch snap). The spirits singing the tune were an oily patina across a table in a dark corner of the room and sounded drunk. Everyone who departs this life in an inn is drunk, except perhaps for the landlord. But I never encountered Mr Hill; he was killed, I understand, in a brawl among Scotch keelmen on the Key.

Demsey glowered from a far corner, his eyes as bright as the brass buttons on his immaculate coat. His hands cupped a full tankard; another was set beside it for me.

“Damn Light-Heels,” he said as I sat down. “Five pupils, damn it, five!” He added sourly, “What kept you? The concert must have been over hours ago.”

“Not what, who.” I sighed. The memory was not one I wanted to dwell upon. We had filled in the gap in the concert with one of Mr Handel’s overtures (a fine piece of work for once) but our esteemed leader had not been inclined to let the matter of the missing music rest. He had steered clear of accusing me directly, but had indulged in many loud comments about his ‘enemies’ while casting significant glances at the harpsichord. I gulped down Mrs Hill’s excellent ale.

“How in heaven’s name does he suppose I made off with his precious band-parts? Am I supposed to have tucked them beneath my coat-tails and smuggled them into some secret cache? I was never out of sight of half a dozen people!”

Demsey was plainly having trouble thinking. “Why?” he managed at last.

“The missing work is one of his own compositions. His favourite, he swears.”

“No, no.” Demsey shook his head. “Why you?”

“Oh, I am violently jealous of him, he supposes, and will seize every opportunity to do him down.” My face had burned at that hint, as it burned now. And Le Sac’s wide dark eyes had gleamed at me; he had known, oh yes, he’d known, how much I envied him his pre-eminence in the Concerts. I took up Mrs Hill’s ale again. “It is not important. Le Sac will have reached home and no doubt found the books still sitting on his table. Or his apprentice will say he took them to read upon his sickbed.”

“And there is another thing,” Demsey said violently. “His so-called phil –philanthropy towards his apprentice makes me sick.”

“You cannot condemn a man for his kindness to an injured boy.”

But Demsey was right. Any sensible man would have sent the boy back to his parents until his broken arm healed and it was seen whether he would play again. Le Sac, however, made pious noises about his duty as a Christian loudly enough for everyone – everyone of consequence, at least – to hear.

Demsey banged down his ale and roared at the spirits on the other side of the room to be quiet. They did not even hesitate in their rollicking rhythms. “Le Sac – Nichols – they’re both the same. One thing on the surface, another below it. I’m off home. Sleep off this damned ale.”

A hazy recollection of Demsey’s routine prodded at me. “Don’t you teach in Durham tomorrow? Damn it, Hugh, you will have to be up before dawn to get there.”

“Sleep on the horse,” he said thickly.

We parted at the inn door, shivering in the chill night air. I offered to see him to his lodgings, but he shook me off and staggered away, mumbling. I had seen him worse, much worse, yet still get home safely, but I would have been glad to accompany him. I was wide awake and not pleased with my own company. Le Sac’s face kept rising before me; I saw constantly those gleaming eyes and too-knowledgeable smile. Truth to tell, what I really envied him was his facility in composition. Vapid though those rants of his were, with their cascades of notes and meaningless extravagances, they were still ten times better than the pretty tunes I turned out. Which was why I had not set quill to manuscript paper for months.

In the wider spaces of the Bigg Market, I drew breath and slowed. The bright shining of the moon lit the dark corners and doorways where thieves generally linger, and gleamed on a faint glittering of frost, the first harbinger of winter. I heard the distant call of a drunk and a raucous laugh. My mind was dulled, cut off, curiously detached. I felt despondent; it is unpalatable to know that your dearest wish in life is beyond your capabilities.

So I wandered I don’t know where until I found myself in Caroline Square, that newly built monument to our beloved Queen. As I stood beneath one of the trees of the central gardens, the elegant facades of the houses seemed to lean mockingly over me, the new white stone gleaming in the moonlight, darkened windows reflecting back the crisp night sky with its speckle of bright stars. Only two of the householders had hung out their lanterns, so the place was nearly dark, although lights flickered behind two or three of the uppermost windows.

The house directly ahead of me belonged to Lady Anne, Le Sac’s patroness. Lights still showed on the first floor. Perhaps the lady lingered awake after the stimulation of the concert; perhaps she had brought Le Sac back here to bestow on him the honour of a glass of wine and the illusion, for a short while, of being an equal. Le Sac was too intelligent to mistake such patronage for genuine friendship, but he was a businessman and would accept the benefits it brought.

Approaching the house, I stumbled on a stone and caught at the railings to prevent myself falling. For a moment the world tilted oddly, seemed to blur. Perhaps I was more drunk than I had thought. A sudden chill made me shiver, a deeper darkness suddenly descended. I panicked, grabbed at the railing, found nothing.

The flickering lantern light returned.

I was no longer in Caroline Square. I was standing on an ordinary street, hemmed in by houses of the sort wealthy tradesmen or the gentry occupy, old but well-kept for the most part. A few lanterns burned over the doors; raindrops touched softly and damply against my hands.

The house immediately in front of me was well-lit; lamps hung over the door, candles guttered behind curtains on the upper storeys. From one of the rooms at the front, just behind the railings, bright light fell across the street like a pool of water. I walked forward in a daze and looked through the window. Inside was a scene of revelry; eight or ten ladies and gentlemen sat at a table that was laden with food. Footmen were reaching to remove the soup tureen, replacing it with a platter of fish wrapped in pastry. Guests were laughing; one gentleman was whispering to his pretty young neighbour.

I looked from one figure to another. A stout, red-faced man of middle age sat at the head of the table; the lady at his right looked very like the wife of the mayor. I shifted to see the other end of the table. There was Lady Anne, in full rig with satins rippling, one ringlet falling across her shoulder, bending to listen to the elderly gentleman on her left.

I strained my ears but could hear nothing. It was a dumb show in front of me. Perhaps the thickness of the glass muffled the sound. The pretty girl looked straight at me, looked away. She had plainly not seen me.

Cold was in my bones, like the worst ice of winter. My foot slipped, I pitched forward…

And found myself once again gripping the railings in Caroline Square.

The moon was extinguished behind a cloud; huge cold drops of rain slapped against my face. I ran. I am not ashamed to admit it. I ran through the near-deserted streets, ignoring the jibes of drunks and whores, ignoring the dirt and the dark corners, the curious spirits and the excited dogs. I was drunk, yes, I was drunk. I kept repeating that litany to myself – it had all been an ale-induced delusion. What else could it have been?

By the time I turned into my own street, I was almost calm again.

And there, at my door, was a posse of people: three or four neighbours, a woman of the streets, and lanky Thomas Bedwalters, the parish constable. And, of course, Le Sac.

 

3

CONCERTO FOR SOLO HARPSICHORD
Movement II

I wished them all at the very devil and tried to brush past them to the door. But Bedwalters turned on me a weary gaze.

“Mr Patterson, sir,” he said. “We have been waiting to see you for some time.”

Somehow I found myself apologising to him. Bedwalters is the kind of man everyone apologises to. “I trust you are not cold.”

“No, sir. I had a pint of ale before I came out, expressly for the purpose of fortifying myself against the chill air.”

“I require my music!” Le Sac cried. “Patterson, return to me my music!”

He was wrapped in a heavy greatcoat that made him seem squatter than usual and his cheeks were so red that it would have been easy not to take him seriously. Yet, staring at his flushed face, I had the impression that he sincerely believed I had his music.

My landlady’s spirit gleamed brightly on the door knocker. “I have been explaining to these gentlemen,” Mrs Foxton said, “that I cannot allow them into your room without your permission.”

Her words caused an outburst from the posse gathered around Bedwalters. Phillips the brewer cried out that women had no business obstructing the law, especially not dead women. Monro the cheesemonger sniffed and said that private concerns must inevitably give way to public matters for the sake of society. Shivering and feeling sick, longing only for my own company, I waited for Bedwalters to restore order.

“It is, I understand,” he said, “within my powers to request that those persons not directly concerned with this matter should retire to their homes.”

No one questioned whether it was indeed within his powers. No one ever questioned Bedwalters. I once ventured into the room of his writing school and spied two very small scholars laboriously but industriously inscribing letters in fearful silence; in equal silence, the neighbours withdrew, putting on an air of dignity that suggested they followed Bedwalters’s instructions only because they chose to. Only the street-walker remained; she closed up behind Bedwalters, setting her head against the back of his shoulder and stroking his arm.

“I must regain my music,” Le Sac said. “I will regain it.”

“Mr Patterson,” Bedwalters began again, apparently oblivious to the street girl. “It is my understanding that you were present when certain books of music were abstracted from the Long Room in Hoult’s tonight.”

“I was present when their loss was announced,” I said carefully. I was still trembling. I made an effort to be calm and pay attention to the matter in hand.

“I trust you are examining the rooms of everyone so present,” Mrs Foxton said sharply.

“If it is necessary, I will,” Bedwalters agreed.

Silence. Bedwalters regarded the doorknocker steadfastly; Le Sac glared at me. The street walker traced imaginary patterns on Bedwalters’ shoulder.

“I believe it is your decision, Mr Patterson,” said Mrs Foxton. “Will you let them up?”

“Oh – yes, certainly.” No other course of action seemed possible. After all, what harm could it do? The book of music was not in my room. The sooner they looked, the sooner they would be gone and leave me to my aching head.

Mrs Foxton swung the door open. We all trooped in, Le Sac treading upon my heels and the girl entwining herself with Bedwalters. (Did Mrs Bedwalters know of the girl, I wondered?) The hallway was dark and empty; when Mrs Foxton swung the door shut again, we were in blackness like a coalpit.

Bedwalters’s voice floated out of the darkness. “Are there no other tenants in the house?”

“Miners,” I said.

“Ah,” he said. (The irregularity of such men’s lives is known to all.)

“This is a reputable house,” Mrs Foxton snapped. “And will be as long as I own it.”

“Dead persons can own nothing!” Le Sac scoffed.

A light flared in the darkness. The street girl held up a candle and slipped a tinder box back into the recesses of her clothing. Bedwalters was blinking. Mrs Foxton lay like condensation across the glass of a picture on the stairway. “Until my heir is discovered, this house is mine,” she said firmly.

Mrs Foxton’s ‘heir’ – a brother of a pious bent – sailed for Philadelphia some years before his sister’s death and has not yet been made aware of that event. I explained as much to Bedwalters, glad to have something to distract my mind, although I made no mention of the popular belief that the brother is long dead without issue. Mrs Foxton had once, in a rare incautious moment, referred to the fever that was prevalent on board ships bound for the colonies. She was a shrewd woman and had no doubt always intended to retain possession of her own affairs, both before and after death.

We climbed the stairs, the street girl leading the way with her hand cupped about the candle to protect the flame. A thin grey twist of smoke drifted upwards into the darkness. My room is on the third floor; in front of the door I set my body between the lock and my guests so I could palm the wedge that kept it closed without their noticing I had no key. As I released the wedge Le Sac swept past me, heading straightway for the table upon which I customarily write.

“Mr Sac!” Bedwalters protested, shocked. But for once he did not get the obedience to which he was accustomed. Le Sac was apparently beyond reason. He leant upon the table to seize up the nearest books (Corelli’s concertos). But the broken leg of the table gave way and threw all the papers and books into his lap; he toppled backwards, grabbed at the nearest support – Bedwalters – and dragged him down too. They sat upon the floor, as the volumes slid one by one to the floor around them with great crashes. I started to laugh; they looked at me with astonishment.

“I did remind you to repair that, Mr Patterson,” Mrs Foxton said from the door-hinge.

Le Sac rifled my books and papers, impatiently muttering over Bedwalters’ more sedate and polite searching. He even tore open my fiddle case – not, I believe, to see if I had hidden anything there but to snort at the poor quality of the instrument. As it happens, it is a violin by Agutter, once of London before – alas! – he came home to this town to die; it is a fine instrument, although mild in its manner of speaking. It does not, however, look very distinguished, and Le Sac had his snort.

He did not, however, have his music. He glared over Bedwalters’ shoulder into my cupboards, at my meagre stocks of food, of raven quills and of ruled paper. He flicked through my letters – including the last letter from my mother (at which I nearly set upon him) – and insisted on Bedwalters turning over my mattress. When he was for pulling up the floorboards, however, Bedwalters stopped him.

“I do not imagine any benefit from the exercise, sir. I have tramped upon all the boards and there are none loose.”

And down the stairs they went, one by one, the girl leading the way with her candle, Le Sac huddled in his greatcoat and muttering some nonsense in French, and Bedwalters bringing up the rear.

“I shall see the visitors out,” Mrs Foxton said loudly – and then softly, so only I might hear, “while you get the boy out of the attic cupboard.”

 

4

CONCERTO FOR SOLO HARPSICHORD
Movement III

The boy was very ugly. He looked at me pleadingly from a face covered in red scabs that he had scratched; some were bleeding still. In the dim light of a candle, I could see that he hugged a violin case to his thin chest and over the case, like some hairy animal, an old tow wig. His own hair was as threadbare as a child’s toy, stringy dark strands barely covering his reddened scalp. And he smelt rancid.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded. My head was pounding; I really did not wish to deal with Le Sac’s apprentice or any such matters now. What was the boy’s name? Wilson, Wilkinson…no, Williams. “If you have run away from your master, you must know I cannot shelter you.”

“Turned off,” he said and burst into tears.

So much for my commendation of Le Sac’s generosity. I dragged the boy down the creaking stairs into my room, and told him to sit on the bed while I lit a branch of candles. By the time I could pay attention to him again, he had stopped snivelling and was holding out a letter to me. I turned the crackling paper over – it was addressed to Jas. Williams on the Key. A chandler, evidently. The seal that held the paper’s edges together was already broken.

It is, we are taught, impolite to read letters addressed to other people. There are times, however, when temptation overwhelms good principles, and I had been tried much that night. I unfolded the stiff paper and read.

Sir,

I return with this letter your Boy. He is no longer able to fulfil his Duties as Apprentice since his Arm is broke. I hereby acquit him of all Obligations to me.

Your Obt. Servt, Henri Le Sac.

I glanced up at the boy. “I don’t suppose he gave you your premium back?”

“Him?” the boy said scornfully. “Give money away? Never!” I liked him better for that flash of spirit, but there was no doubt that his situation was unhappy. His father had probably saved for years to pay his son’s apprentice premium. If Le Sac did not return the money, he might well be unable to find the sum a second time.

“Well,” Mrs Foxton said from the latch. “Hear the boy play.”

The boy jumped up eagerly and turned his back to open his violin case upon the bed. “What are you doing?” I whispered to the gleam on the tarnished metal. “I can’t afford to take on an apprentice without a premium.”

“Hear him play,” she said again, then more loudly to the boy, “Come on, hurry up!”

I thought her sharpness might overset him again but he turned, face glowing, with his violin in hand – a small one as befitted his age (twelve? thirteen?). I saw the injury the accident had caused; it had been the left arm broken and it had healed with an odd kind of twist; when he lifted his violin to his shoulder, it seemed to stick out from his body at an impractical angle.

Presumably Le Sac felt that this would always prevent him from playing well. But I disagreed; he played very tolerably. There was something to be desired in the expression of the slow melodies and a great deal too much flamboyance in the fast passages – a certain carelessness, even – as might be expected from a pupil of Le Sac. But nothing that might not be mended.

“You could do very well with an apprentice,” Mrs Foxton murmured in my ear as I leant against the door jamb. “Three shillings and sixpence every time he plays in the band. Train him up a bit and he might be fit enough for a solo – that would be five shillings a night. Then there are the dancing assemblies – three shillings sixpence a week in winter. He could increase your present income by, oh, a third.”

Old habits die hard, or, in Mrs Foxton’s case, do not die at all. She had always been an excellent businesswoman. And she was right – even without a premium, the boy could prove profitable. But what would Le Sac say? He had already accused me of stealing his books; would he not also accuse me of stealing his apprentice?

“Anyway,” Mrs Foxton said, “the boy’s father might well be able to afford a second premium. He’s a chandler, isn’t he? He’ll be coining money. Ships’ merchants are all rogues.”

The late Mr Foxton had allegedly been a chandler, I recalled, in Sunderland-by-the-Sea. I say allegedly, because no one had ever proved there had been a late Mr Foxton, though no one had ever said as much to his widow, alive or dead. But what really decided me was that vicious snort of Le Sac’s as he had looked upon my Agutter violin. I could not compete with him in the Concerts, and even his nonsensical compositions were better than mine; but I could in this one thing do him a bad turn by doing someone else a good turn. Ignoble of me to think in such a way, I know, but Le Sac irresistibly invited such thoughts.

So I agreed. I bedded the boy down on the floor with a blanket and next morning went down with him to his father’s shop. The Key was crowded with sailors, hauling coals on board the keels anchored there, smoking vile-smelling tobacco and spitting into the water that slapped up against the river walls. In the chandler’s shop coils of rope and unlabelled sacks were piled high, a dog panted from a heap of nets. I gagged, the moment I walked in, at the stink of tar and soap and piss.

The boy’s father was a good bargainer but he was anxious to be rid of a runt of a son who started heaving and wheezing when he came too close to the clouds of flour in the store. In the end, I took a guinea from the fellow and he promised me five shillings every week for the boy’s food. I bore George (for that was his name) off to the nearest breeches shop and used part of the guinea to buy him clothes decent enough to play in at the Concerts.

If I had known what would happen, I wouldn’t have looked at the boy twice.

 

5

SONG FOR THREE VOICES

Sly Mr Ord was the first to remark on the matter, pouncing on me the moment I set foot in his house the next day (to instruct his grandson upon the harpsichord). I was feeling somewhat better; I had decided that the strange events in Caroline Square the previous night had been a drunken delusion and determined not to think of the matter again. (What else could it have been?)

Mr Ord’s fingers pinched my arm. “Naughty boy,” he scolded with the cosiest of chuckles, and wagged a finger. “Causing such uproar!”

“I, sir?”

He drew me to one side of the hall to prevent his footman hearing our conversation. “I’ve just come from his house. For my lesson, you know. Of course it would be more proper if he came here but one must make allowances for Genius.”

“Of course,” I agreed, perfectly aware that Genius would unhesitatingly run to the house of the titled. Sly Mr Ord, unfortunately for his dignity, had made his money in trade. “I take it, sir, that you refer to Monsieur le Sac?”

“Who else, who else? He has taken it very ill, you know.”

I thought of the boy I had left at home, assiduously copying music. My heart sank.

“He says you have stolen the boy.”

I looked into those sly eyes and understood – gratefully – that Mr Ord had made his money not by chance, but from shrewdness.

“Of course,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “That is mere wild talk. But we must make allowances for the continental temperament. The French, you know.”

“Swiss,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Besides, the lad’s father says that Le Sac wrote him a letter repudiating the boy. And between you and me –” he prodded my arm with a plump finger – “the father called the letter disrespectful. Of course one must also make allowances for the language problem, though why foreigners can never speak English when it’s so easy, I cannot fathom.” He sighed. “Well, even Genius has its weaknesses. And Le Sac can hardly say you stole the boy when he had cast him off.”

“So I judged.”

“But I thought you would want to know the state of affairs,” said sly Mr Ord. In truth, he did not seem sly any longer. “You can be sure I have told my friends there is no truth in the accusations. But…” He sighed again. “You had better not have done it, sir.”

I was concerned by the hints in his words that accusations had spread widely, but I murmured, “You are very kind, sir.”

Mr Ord shook his head so vehemently the flaps of his wig flew up and down. “I like you, Patterson. I would hire you myself, you know, to learn me my violin, for Le Sac gets a little impatient from time to time. But, as I say, we have to make allowances for Genius.”

And, thanking heaven for the small mercy that I had not to struggle day upon day with Mr Ord’s propensity towards shakes and other ornaments, and feeling a twinge (but no more) of sympathy for Le Sac who did, I proceeded to shrewd Mr Ord’s library and his eager, but heavy-handed, grandson.

Demsey caught me near mid-day at the door of Nellie’s coffee-house in the Sandhill, as I was about to step inside for a pie. He slapped me on the back and shouted for the entire town to hear. “Well done, man. Well done!”

“Demsey –”

“I’ve not known a better trick!”

“I would not call it –”

“Think me up a similar game to play with Light-Heels!”

A pair of Scotch sailors went past, cackling in their unintelligible patois. I bundled Demsey into the coffee-house. “In heaven’s name, keep your congratulations close, man. It was not as you think.”

“Of course not.” He grinned and tossed back a stray lock of black hair. Demsey keeps that irritating lock for show; his mere flick of it makes all the young ladies swoon. It is the oddest thing; Demsey in his street clothes looks but a lout, noisy and argumentative; but put him on a polished floor, in evening dress and a pair of dancing slippers, with a kit-fiddle in his hands, and he is the lightest, most elegant man you ever saw. Which is why all the young ladies long for his classes, and all the young ladies’ mamas seriously consider sending them to Light-Heels Nichols.

The noise from the crowd in the coffee-house was fearsome. We raised our voices to shout at each other as we stumbled over legs and tripped over sleeping dogs. The acrid stink of the brew pervaded every corner, combined with the delicious savoury aroma of Nellie’s famous meat pies; a rustle of papers accompanied the clink of dishes and the scrape of knives upon plates.

A cat scampered across my path; I stumbled and trod on a shoe. Or rather a pale blue slipper encasing a slender foot. A newspaper was drawn down and green eyes looked coolly over its folds.

“Lady Anne,” I said, bowing. “Forgive my clumsiness.”

She regarded me for a moment, her delicate lips pursed in thought. “Perhaps,” she said and drew up the paper again.

Demsey pulled me to a table deep in the back corner of the room. “Damn women. Shouldn’t allow them in here.”

Lady Anne, in her blue and pink satin splendour, was the only female apart from the serving girls. “Lady Anne goes where she chooses.” It crossed my mind to talk to her of what had happened in Caroline Square – but admit my drunken state to a woman? No, it would be halfway round the town within hours and in the ears of concerned mamas who would talk to fond papas. The result would be lessons cancelled and pupils taken elsewhere. A teacher, particularly one allowed into family homes, must be of a saintly disposition, or at the very least discreet.

We ordered game pie and broke our fast hungrily. Demsey pulled a bedraggled letter from his pocket and made me read it. It was a fulsome encomium from M Bagieu of Paris, extolling the dancing prowess of M Hugo Demsey and detailing his proficiency in this dance and that dance and all the other dances that were the present rage in the French court.

“Hugo,” I remarked, handing the paper back. “Are you turning Italian, my dear Hugh?”

He waved pastry at me on the end of his knife. “If I did, it would be sound commercial sense. The Italians are all the rage now.”

“I like Italian music,” I said. “Corelli, Geminiani –”

“Vivaldi?” he suggested, as slyly as Mr Ord.

“Fit only for children,” I said severely. “As you well know. Come to think if it, not even fit for them if you want them to grow up with decent musical taste. Defective in harmony and no idea of how to write a decent melody. In fact –”

But I was interrupted by a swirl of blue satin and the heavy thump of a chair. Lady Anne sat down.

“Mr Patterson.”

“Lady Anne.”

“My lady,” Demsey said. The lady took no notice of him.

“I hear you have clashed with Monsieur le Sac.”

“Then you have heard incorrectly, madam.”

“The matter of a boy.” She raised thin eyebrows. “A boy who was his apprentice and is now yours.”

“He got the better bargain,” I said. “He got – and kept – the premium.”

She threw back her head and laughed as freely as any man. The gesture exposed even more – if such a thing was possible – of her chest. I say chest for Lady Anne was not the most well-endowed of women; her figure was scrawny although her skin was soft and fair. Her arms were her best feature and she knew it, taking care to display and use them obtrusively. Her hair, uncovered, was a brownish shade. One does not pry into such matters as age but I fancied she was thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old – perhaps a decade older than myself.

“If you do not make a profit from the boy,” she pointed out, “what other reason can you have for taking him on other than to spite Monsieur le Sac?”

“But I will make a profit, Lady Anne. Three shillings and sixpence for every concert he plays.”

“That seems a paltry return.”

“You were born the possessor of a fortune, madam.”

“True,” she said curtly. I fancy she was offended. “But there are more creditable ways of making a living than exhibiting yourself on a public stage. Even to be a tradesman is more respectable.”

“What about being a dancing master?” Demsey said sourly. He had been reddening with anger throughout our conversation, chiefly I believe at being so contemptuously ignored.

I nudged my foot warningly against his under the table. “I assume you have said the same to Monsieur le Sac, my lady?” Did my anger show in my voice? I think not.

The lady shrugged. “He is a foreigner. They have lower standards. I am told that in France they even tolerate musicians socially.”

“How unfortunate,” Demsey said savagely.

I indicated the crowded coffee-house. “Is this not a social occasion?”

“One cannot govern whom one meets in public,” she said disdainfully. “One can, on the other hand, pick and choose who sits at one’s own dinner-table. No musician will join me there, I assure you.” She leant forward. “I have an investment in Monsieur le Sac, sir, and I do not desire to see that investment threatened by a young man of little talent who chooses to indulge in petty enmities out of envy and jealousy.”

“That is a comprehensive assessment of my character, madam,” I said as coolly as I could. “And I would let no man utter it unchallenged. You take advantage of your sex.”

“So I do,” she agreed, rising. “And you can be sure I do it deliberately. Be warned, Mr Patterson.”

And she swept from the room in a flurry of satin and lace.

 

6

BATTLE PIECE
Movement I

I left Demsey to finish another slice of pie and strolled out upon the Key. A fitful sun shone, although there was little warmth in it; nonetheless the sailors on the Key were sweating as they heaved cargo across the cobbles and hung it on pulleys to haul it on deck. There was a smell everywhere of fish and of coal. Downriver, a great plume of smoke billowed into the air from the saltworks at Shields, close upon the sea. Today the smoke was almost pleasurable to look at, a thing of odd beauty; but I have known days – and many of them – when it comes rolling up over the town and lies heavy and stinking in the hollows, setting everyone who ventures out of doors coughing. Demsey jokes that the smoke is the reason that we have no singers of note in the town but must send south to the cathedral at Durham for them. We should banish the smoke by the erection of windmills surrounding the town, he says, and the man who builds the mills will earn a great reward from the Corporation, for the clear air will encourage native singers and so spare us the airs and graces of their lordships from the sacred precincts.

My mind was not at ease. It seemed that everyone was intent upon thrusting me into conflict with Le Sac. First Mrs Foxton with her urgings to accept the boy, then Mr Ord with his glee – and Demsey likewise – and Lady Anne who took offence at my interfering with her investment. Demsey’s pleasure in the affair was nothing, merely a delight at seeing a crony of his enemy discomfited. But the others… I was uncomfortably suspicious that Lady Anne at least, and Mr Ord too perhaps, had games afoot in which I was a mere pawn.

I walked down the Key towards the Printing Office, wending my way between coils of rope and heaps of stone with the lady’s voice, murmuring of investment, accompanying me. I found the term an odd one to apply to a man rather than a cargo of wood or coal. It is not uncommon for a wealthy benefactor to patronise a musician but it is generally from a love of the Divine Art itself, or from a desire to be in the fashion.

I glanced at two gentlemen, plainly merchants, in conversation at the side of a keel – and stopped. One of the gentlemen, the younger – was he not the fellow who had whispered to the pretty young girl at the dinner table, in that strange vision when I had seemed to have been transported from Caroline Square?

He saw me staring at him, gave me a chill look. I walked on. Clearly it had been nothing unusual after all. Lady Anne had been entertaining, I had glimpsed the party in a drunken stupor and imagined the rest, the impossible alteration of the surroundings.

And yet – who had been the middle-aged man I had seen at the head of the table? And why had not Lady Anne’s cousin been present?

The Printing Office was at the far end of the Key; I dodged barrels and piles of shit and roaming dogs. This matter of Lady Anne and Le Sac was more to the point. The gentry were notoriously fickle; if Lady Anne had taken against me it might rebound greatly to my disadvantage. Might the lady and Le Sac be conducting a discreet affair of love? A man of Le Sac’s stamp might enter such an affair cynically, for mercenary reasons. And they say the French – damn it! Ord’s mistake was infectious. The French may be amorously inclined but the Swiss, for all I know, may be as frigid as the tops of their mountains. And I would swear the lady had not an ounce of the softer passions in her.

The Printing Office was a scurrying melee of men, running backwards and forwards with fragments of paper or staggering off with heaps of parcels. Clearly it was printing day. I made my way to the house behind the office, standing back from the Key down a narrow alley. An ugly old house, but as solid and well-built as I have seen in a long time, with thick walls that kept sounds from straying from one room to the next.

The old uncle’s spirit swung the door open for me. “Master Patterson!” he said jubilantly. “Come ye in, come ye in.”

The spirit clung to the door jamb as I entered the dark chill hall. He always calls me master, for he knew me when I was in frocks, and he knew my dead father and all my dead baby brothers and sisters too. He himself died three years since, in this very hallway, in the breath between one step and another. I was there and caught him as he fell lifeless and laid him down gently, and he has never forgotten that service.

“My niece has been practising,” he said. “I’ve seen to that.”

Elizabeth practises without being told, like many of my female pupils. She knows it will increase her chances in the marriage mart. She has always been a sensible, practical child.

“That piece you left her last time,” the uncle said. “You wrote something like it for me, I recall, years back, before you went off to London. You never did tell me how you did there.”

“I held a concert,” I said.

“Just one?”

“Just one. At Hickford’s Rooms.”

He oohed in appreciation. “I’ve heard of them. Where the lords and ladies go.”

“Not many came when I played,” I said ruefully.

“Too many fish in the sea, eh?”

“Too many musicians in the capital, certainly. And I am not Italian enough.”

He cackled. “Change your name. Call yourself Carlo something or other and you will make your fortune.”

Teaching can be tedious and it can be exhilarating. With pupils like Elizabeth Saint, it is merely a tolerable way to earn a living. She is assiduous, listens carefully to what I say and executes everything exactly as I require. The sun through the garden window was warm on my back, and roses bloomed on bushes that autumn had almost stripped bare of leaves. From time to time I put my hand on the wood of the new harpsichord to assure myself it was not too warm in the sunshine. We were chaperoned, of course. Her older, widowed sister yawned in a corner; the governess sat at the table and copied out sums for her pupil’s later solving. And I murmured and encouraged and corrected while my mind puzzled over the merchant I had recognised on the Key and the events of the previous evening. I came to no conclusions.

It was dark when I came to the front door again and looked out on the evening. The chill in the air nipped at my nose and hands, and I pulled my coat close and shivered. Suddenly the air tingled and the maid that had opened the door for me yelped and jerked back.

“Go, go, shoo, shoo,” said the uncle, and the girl fled indignantly. “Master Patterson, don’t go yet. Stay awhile.”

“I have another lesson to give at the other end of town.”

“Then go out through the garden.”

“And clamber the hill past Butcher Bank? I would come to my pupils stinking of offal!”

“I warn you, Master Patterson,” he said. “Do not go yet.”

Perhaps I was influenced by his tone of voice – the same tone he had used when I was five years old and intent upon escaping my father’s instruction. (Papa was not a good teacher.) I was tired, weary with teaching and with constant speculation on that other matter. “I must go,” I said and stepped out into the alley.

I regretted my impulsiveness almost as soon as I reached the Key. In darkness, the Key has a different character, a reeling and rolling and dancing character, a singing and shouting and whistling nature, all accompanied by the loud good humour that can change to violence in an instant. I remembered that so-effective message system the spirits use and wondered if the old uncle had heard something that had alarmed him. Just like him not to tell me, to expect me to do as I was told as if I were still a child. But then, I had not given him much time to explain.

I hurried along, seeing my way by lanterns that guttered at the doors of brothels and taverns, dodging the sailors that leant towards me with breath stinking of sour ale. The wind had changed and was bringing the smoke of the coal-pits and the salt works in billowing clouds stinking with sulphur that clung in my throat and made me cough. The smoke collected here along the river; higher up in the town, in the gardens of Westgate and of Northumberland Street where the richer sort live, there would be hardly a trace of it. And Caroline Square would surely hold no whiff of corruption at all.

I turned to climb the Side, that narrow winding street that leads up to Amen Corner and the church of St Nicholas. The organist there is half-dead and half-drunk and so deeply in debt he will never be able to recover. I have long hoped for his dismissal and the ensuing election for the post. I flatter myself that no one in this town can match me on the keyboard and the forty pounds per annum paid by the Town Corporation would allow me to rent a larger room. Except that the organist, Mr Nichols – for he is elder brother to a certain dancing master – lingers and lingers beyond reason. I was feeling angry, resentful, ungenerous.

The Side, like all streets, should have lanterns outside every private establishment; but many men are careless of civic duties, others have no money and, here at least, one or two have gone out of business and removed themselves, leaving houses empty. The Side therefore was lit by a single lantern outside a house about halfway up and I trod carefully, conscious of the shadows reaching out to me from alleys and doorways. Only a fool walks about the town on his own after dark (only a fool and a man with a living to earn), and even then he keeps to ways that are well-lit. But to retrace my steps and go by Butcher Bank after all would make me late, so I went on, nerves prickling with apprehension.

I failed to hear them, even then. Something slammed into my back, hurling me forward to crash into a wall. Hearing shouts behind me, I found myself on my knees, my hand slapping into a dog turd. Heart beating fast, breath in a flurry, I scrambled up, ready to defend myself.

But I was an unintended victim. Someone had hurtled out of an alley and knocked me flying as he passed. I could see him stumbling desperately down the Side, panting, only yards in advance of the two men pursuing him.

And even as I saw the cudgels hanging from the beefy hands of the assailants, I recognised their quarry.

Light-Heels Nichols, the dancing master.

 

7

BATTLE PIECE
Movement II

God help me, I almost turned and ran. Not out of cowardice but from the motive of self-preservation. In affairs like this ribs get cracked and heads get bloodied but, worse, hands get trodden upon and broken – an eventuality no musician can regard with equanimity. But Christian feeling took over and I stepped into the fray, roaring. One of my father’s favourite maxims: “Charles,” he would say, “make as much noise in the world as you can.” No doubt he had not had a brawl in mind.

I grabbed the collar of the nearest villain, lugged him backwards. His hands flew up; I plucked the cudgel out of his grasp, and swung it at his head. He went down with a gasp. I rounded on the other fellow. Nichols was down on the ground, curled up as the remaining villain kicked at his most private possessions. I swung the cudgel. At the last moment, the ruffian realised his danger and ducked. He slipped and I thought I had him, then he lunged away and was off down the street.

Poor Nichols was writhing and groaning on the cobbles. The dark street was still deserted. No one had come out to see what was happening. Wise souls; I have bolted my own door against brawls before now, particularly in London.

“Guggle, guggle,” said Nichols and spewed up his last meal at my feet. I leapt back and avoided the worst of it but the stench almost turned my stomach. He crouched against the wall, clutching his groin and making noises like a man about to expire.

“You are most fortunate, Mr Nichols,” I said, “that I was about when those villains tried to rob you.”

“Rob!” His voice ended on a squeak. “Why should they rob me? What do I have?”

“A watch,” I pointed out. “And a ring upon your finger. Perhaps a guinea or two in your pockets. Ruffians have killed for less.”

“Nonsense!” He straightened. I saw an idea dawn in his face. “I have been set upon deliberately! By that fellow Demsey!”

“Now, sir,” I said soothingly. “You are confused.” Damn him for getting that idea – but I won’t deny it had been the first in my mind.

“And you’re a crony of his!” Nichols drew back in alarm. “You’re in league with him! You knew he’d set those fellows on me and came to watch the fun!”

“If I were in league with Demsey,” I pointed out, “I would not have intervened to save you. But if it will reassure you, I will leave you and let you find your own way home.”

Fear crossed his face. The moon, though still full, was half-hidden by clouds, and the head of the Side, rising above us, was in darkness. I did not much like the look of it myself but I flattered myself I was not a coward, or a dancing master.

“You may take this cudgel, sir, to guard you,” said I. And I held up the stick I had taken from the first ruffian.

My luck was still running foul. As I raised the cudgel, we heard the clatter of hooves. A shadow moved in the darkness at the foot of the Side, then a black horse came up the narrow hill into the light of a torch and out again. Its rider was dressed in black to match; at first he was merely a pale shape of face in the night. Then a voice called out: “Nichols, c’est vous?” and I recognised the abrupt tones of Henri Le Sac.

He reined in the horse beside us so sharply that the animal’s head jerked up. Metal gleamed in a flicker of moonlight. I found myself looking into the muzzle of a pistol.

“Monsieur Patterson,” said Le Sac. “I trust you have good reason to be attacking my friend Nichols.”

“I can probably invent one,” I said in the most affable tone I could contrive. “But you misjudge the situation. I was helping him fight off two ruffians.”

“But how philanthropic!” he said, almost as cordially. “And I suppose these ruffians are now run off?”

“As a matter of fact…” But of course, when I looked round, I saw that the ruffian I had laid flat had taken advantage of our attention being elsewhere to make his escape.

“It’s that fellow Demsey,” Nichols cried. “He set the rogues on me and this one came to watch.”

“Nonsense,” I said briskly – for I fancied I had seen the pistol rise. “I was on my way to a lesson, which I may say I am now missing. I was just setting Mr Nichols back on his feet.”

“He was in league with them!”

But Le Sac was lowering his pistol. The moonlight glinted off his horse’s harness and revealed the dark shapes of a violin case and a bag of clothes slung behind. He must be on his way back from a lesson in the country. “My dear Nichols,” he said with a sigh. “You do not understand people. Monsieur Patterson is not a fool. And,” he added, turning his attention to me, “neither am I, sir. I know it is not poor Nichols who engages your attention.” He leant forward confidentially. “I tell you frankly, Monsieur Patterson, there is not room for both of us in this town!”

And as I stared at him in astonishment, he jerked on the horse’s reins and the animal clattered past me, so close that I felt the warmth of the sweat on its flanks. Nichols stumbled after them.

“A real pair of fancy men,” said a female voice from the wall behind my shoulder. The spirit sniffed, then added coyly, “Give me someone plain and honest any day, I say.”

If the words were meant for me, I did not regard them as a compliment. And an invitation from a spirit is of little use to a man.

“We did try to warn you,” she said, “since the old uncle takes such an interest in you. I could see those rogues were up to no good, hiding in the alley. And knowing you came this way every week…”

She seemed on the verge of coyness again. I said sharply, “Do you know where Hugh Demsey is?”

“The other tip-toeing gent? Now there’s a handsome fellow. Wait on.” Did I hear a murmur of voices? A moment later, she resumed. “Never could get the hang of those fancy dance steps, you know. And gentlemen did like it if you could tread a measure or two. What? Oh, much obliged. He’s in his school room. Down Westgate.”

I was angry as I started off towards Westgate and in a very short time I was cold as well. The clouds began to deposit a chill rain upon me, whitish drops like sleet splattering on my face and darkening my greatcoat. Around St John’s Church I almost lost my way in the darkness and stumbled into a horse trough, splashing myself with water. On, up past the vicarage, past the trees of the vicarage garden and on to the street of tall narrow houses this side of the West Gate itself. This is a part of the town where people of the genteel sort live, so lamps are more conscientiously placed above house doors. Past the impassive face of the Assembly Rooms on the left, where old Mr Thompson was causing such havoc since he died in the middle of a country dance. Past Bedwalters’s writing school on the second floor of a neat but shabby house.

And then the more welcoming facade of the clockmaker’s with the clocks nodding behind the glass window. An archway leads back to the clockmaker’s workshop behind and a side door, usually unlocked, gives access to a narrow flight of stairs to the floors above. On the first floor is Demsey’s school room; on the second lives a widow who supports her children by painting delicate miniatures; and in the attic is Demsey’s own lodging. This was old Harris’s dancing school, bequeathed five years since to his last and favourite apprentice. He had the consideration to die at home so Demsey is spared the trial of his old master muttering instructions and admonitions over his shoulder, as he did in life.

I climbed the stairs. They creaked and gave advertisement of my coming so that when I pushed at the half-open door of the school room, Demsey was already looking towards me. He stood in the middle of the long narrow room, surrounded by brilliant branches of candles. The chairs had been stood in line around the walls and Demsey had evidently been gathering up orange peel abandoned by his scholars. Scuff marks in the polish of the floor gave the room an abandoned forlorn air.

I trod carefully across the polished boards towards him, knowing from experience how easy it was to slip when not wearing dancing slippers. Demsey – silently waiting my approach – was in his formal best, all peacock blue in his coat and a darker turquoise in his knee breeches that fitted as snugly as any mama might fear. He watched me coolly. “Is it raining, Charles?”

Looking down, I saw that my boots were leaving a muddy trail. That and his cool manner, so unlike his normal mien, disconcerted me. “I am missing a lesson because of you,” I snapped. “I can ill afford to lose that money!”

I saw a frown between his brows; I went on without pause. “I have faced down two ruffians with cudgels and I have been threatened with a pistol. I have been accused of complicity in an assault and informed that sooner or later I must leave this town and find another place. And all because of your schemes!”

He tossed the orange peel into a basket laden with such rubbish.

“Did you tangle with my surprise for Nichols, then?” he said with a frankness that took my breath away. “I’m sorry if you were inconvenienced.”

“Inconvenienced!”

“But he cannot think you have any quarrel with him.”

“He knows me to be a friend of yours. That is cause enough.”

“As for the other matter…” He frowned again. “I did not think him man enough to own a weapon.”

“Not him! His crony, Le Sac, came upon us, all eager to defend his bosom friend and to find reason to discredit me and run me out of town. God knows why he dislikes me so!”

“I daresay it is because you have more true musicianship in your little finger than he has in his entire body.”

He spoke in such a casual manner that I hardly took his words in at first. He gave me a sideways glance as he straightened the last of the chairs.

“I do not flatter you, Charles. I save that for my pupils. If I may give you one piece of advice, it is to abandon those abominable compositions and to concentrate upon what you do best – managing people. If Le Sac was not here, the gentlemen would all be running to you to direct the Concerts and to tell them what to do in that charming manner of yours.” I fancied I saw the trace of a smile. “Your greatest asset is tact, Charles. Le Sac is totally devoid of that admirable virtue but he contrives to escape condemnation because he is a Genius.”

Astonished that he should speak to me in such a manner, I flung at him: “I do not need advice from you! And as for my compositions, I have had many compliments paid to them. I am thinking of putting forth proposals for publication.”

“No, no, don’t!” he said with a return of his usual impulsive manner, the first heat of emotion I had seen upon him. “The gentlemen would buy, certainly – they always buy the latest novelties – but they would laugh at you in private. And the writers in London…”

The mention of London stung. I saw he knew it as soon as he uttered the word. Try as I do, I cannot forgive the ignorant lords and ladies who give acclaim to the worst of the musicians there, providing they be foreigners. To their own, they give nothing but indifference.

“I believe I am capable of judging my own work with some discernment,” I said. “You will see the notice in the paper when I do choose to publish. Damn it, Hugh, do you not even consider what this affair tonight will do to my reputation if it gets about?”

“Your reputation?” he repeated.

“If Nichols or Le Sac should spread the tale… No one wants a drunkard and a brawler to teach his children!”

“I see,” he said, then lost his temper and roared at me. “Your reputation, your pupils!” I tried to interrupt; he raised his voice louder. “And you lecture me on selfishness?”

“I won’t lose my livelihood because of your stupid pranks!”

“What about my livelihood?”

“To the devil with your livelihood,” I said recklessly.

“I see,” he said frostily. “In that case, there’s nothing more to be said.”

“No, there is not,” I said and slammed the door behind me.

 

8

BATTLE PIECE
Movement III

Someone was talking to me from a great distance. I mumbled and turned over, not wanting to wake, or to leave the bed. Oh God, that argument with Demsey, that ridiculous scheme of his! The encounter with Le Sac, Nichols’s accusations – it all returned to me with force.

“Master!”

Groaning, I struggled up. My head ached. How long had it been before I slept, turning over and over and listening to George’s snores? Now George’s poxed face hung over me, bleeding from the middle of his cheek; I must somehow persuade him not to scratch. His breath was sour too; ale, I fancied, and rather stronger than one normally allows youngsters. He was holding out a letter, and I took it without knowing what I did. “What time is it?”

“Nearly nine, master.”

“What!” I struggled from my bedclothes. “Bring me water. Quickly!” I started hunting under the mattress for my clothes. “I’m late.” I had lost a lesson the previous night and now I was late for another. And for Master Thomas Heron too! “Did you take those messages?”

“Yes, master.” He was scratching at his neck now.

“Stop that! And get that water.” At least the fond parents would have received my excuses for not turning up last night and perhaps they would not be too offended. I found myself still holding on to the letter. “Who is this from?”

“Mr Heron’s servant left it, sir.”

George scuttled out of the room as, with foreboding, I broke the letter’s seal. The elegant lines of copperplate were brief and to the point. Mr Heron was always careful to regulate the persons who came into positions of influence with his son and did not choose to allow him to associate with those who had connections with ruffians, &c, &c. I crumpled the note and tossed it down upon the table. Claudius Heron was a fastidious man and where he led, others would no doubt follow. Damn Demsey.

George came back into the room with a ewer of water. I splashed it on to my face and aching eyes, dragged on my clothes. Should I see Le Sac and ask him to correct the impression that had got about? There was no point in seeing Nichols; the man would simply gloat over me.

“Will it do, sir?” George asked anxiously.

I realised that I had been unwittingly staring at the table and a neat pile of manuscript paper. George had evidently been assiduous in his work the previous day; four or five sheets were copied out with painstaking neatness – one of my concerti for violins.

George was nervously shrinking back. I wondered if Le Sac had been generous with blows. “It is very neat,” I said. He still looked uncertain; I tried for a lighter tone – no point in frightening the boy. “And what do you think of the music itself?”

The boy’s eyes flicked to mine, then away again. “It’s very nice, sir.”

Nice. Such a useful word; it may mean anything you choose or nothing at all. I had rather he had condemned it outright.

A chill in the air greeted me as I hesitated on the doorstep. Perhaps Heron would be the only one to credit the rumours? I could but hope, and seek ways to repair the damage his dismissal of me would cause to my income. I must begin to make use of George. I turned for the Assembly Rooms in Westgate, low in spirits but determined.

I was lucky enough to find the Steward of the Rooms drinking a morning bowl of coffee and inclined to be talkative. He has a partiality for scientific instruments and a yearning for good listeners, and bore me off to an inner room to show me his latest acquisition – a finely wrought orrery. I did my best to admire its workings, and allowed its owner to explain in detail the movements of the planets before dropping into the conversation the information that I had acquired something new myself – a young but excellent apprentice who might be of use to the dancing assemblies. The Steward’s face brightened.

“Indeed?” he exclaimed. “I can be rid of that drunkard Ross at last! Bring the boy to play to me tomorrow. If he’s fit, I’ll take him on.”

His eagerness for George’s services was the one brightness in the following days. I took George to play for him and the boy was promised a part in the Assembly band. But upon that day and upon the next but one (the intervening day being the Sunday), I had three more letters in imitation of Mr Heron. I slept but little, lying in bed working through in my mind how much money I had lost, brooding over how to recoup the loss and pay the next quarter’s rent. On the Monday, I rode out to Shields for a concert given for the benefit of an actress in the theatre company, and was promised more work by Mr Kerr of the Beehive Inn, who hires his room there for concerts. But I have had past experience of Mr Kerr’s good intentions and knew better than to rely on them.

Having arrived home late on the Monday evening, I slept later than usual upon the Tuesday and spent the morning teaching the daughters of Forster the carriage-maker. Forster himself, a lean man with flaming hair and cheeks, met me at the door of the house and slapped me on the back. “Never mind, Patterson, I know better than to believe such tales.” He meant to reassure me, I know, but he did not.

Around lunchtime, I walked down to the Key for a bite at Nellie’s coffee-house, looking about me as I went in, looking for Demsey or any of the gentlemen who had dispensed with my services, to avoid the embarrassment of having to pass the time of day. I encountered only Lady Anne’s cool gaze as I made my way to a corner and called for a serving maid. Lady Anne returned her gaze to her paper.

I drank ale, ate a chop and walked out again upon the Key in a thin chill sunshine that was tempered by a river breeze. As I reached the first of the coal barges bobbing at anchor, a merchant walked past me; I started, half-thinking I recognised him but no – it was not the fellow from the party I had seen. In heaven’s name, could I not get that incident out of my head? I had been drunk, that was all…

“Mr Patterson!”

Turning, I saw Lady Anne striding towards me with a masculine gait. The river breeze whipped her skirts about her legs and tangled her ringlets. As ever, she was unaccompanied by maid or footman, and had no hesitation in raising her voice in an unladylike manner.

“Mr Patterson,” she said again as she came up to me. She was breathing heavily with exertion and her thin chest rose and fell quickly. Her cheeks were becomingly pink.

“I have heard, sir, that you are accused of an assault last Thursday night upon Monsieur le Sac and his friend the dancing master.”

“There is no truth in that accusation, my lady,” I said stiffly.

She nodded. “So Monsieur le Sac has informed me.”

“Le Sac?” I echoed incredulously.

“He tells me that you came upon the brawl by chance, as indeed did he. These rumours are all the fault of that prancing peacock Nichols.” She looked at me shrewdly. “Mr Patterson, I have the greatest admiration for Monsieur le Sac’s musical gifts – he is, as you must know, my protégé. He is also, I assure you, an honest man, if somewhat vain and arrogant. He has,” she said, forestalling me as I would speak, “many amiable qualities.”

I thought I detected a note of irony in her voice and did not know quite how to reply. “He has conceived a dislike for me.”

“No less, I warrant, than you have for him. You are, after all, rivals.”

“I had rather not be,” I said wearily. We shifted to allow a cart to pass. The wind blew the dry stink of coal towards us, and I thought I heard a spirit call from the water. “If we are talking of professional matters, my lady,” I said, “there can be no argument in the matter. Monsieur le Sac is a better performer than myself, although I flatter myself that I am the better composer.”

She shrugged, the folds of her cloak whispering against the silk of her gown. “I can say nothing in favour of his compositions, certainly. They are meant to show off his gifts, nothing more.” To my astonishment she took my arm and leant upon it. “Come, Mr Patterson, let us walk and you may tell me exactly what occurred.”

I hesitated but she was insistent, so as we strolled along towards the Printing Office I recounted my encounter with Nichols. Lady Anne was an excellent listener and I found myself oddly enjoying the tale. She laughed heartily when I hinted at Nichols’s injuries. “And Le Sac?”

I told her of Le Sac’s arrival. “A pistol,” she pondered. “I suppose he bought it for his travels in the country. A post-boy was robbed on Gateshead Fell a week or so back.”

“I heard the story.”

“Well,” she said with greater decision in her voice. “I cannot allow you to be blamed so unjustly, Mr Patterson. Do you have any idea who was behind the attack? Was it merely thievery, or was there some deeper purpose?”

“I cannot say, madam,” I said carefully. I turned to face her. “Forgive me, Lady Anne, but the last time we spoke on the subject of Monsieur le Sac you gave me to understand, in no uncertain terms –”

She laughed; the wind caught her hair and drifted it back from her face. “Give it its true name, Mr Patterson. I was abominably rude to you, for which I apologise. I was in a foul temper that day. Can you forgive me?”

I regarded her with some reserve. Her contrition seemed genuine, yet so had her animosity that day in Nellie’s coffee-house. Still, she appeared to be in earnest in wishing to help me and I would have been a fool to refuse her.

“We must save your reputation at any rate,” she said, tapping me on the arm and sending me a darting, sparkling glance. “Come, Mr Patterson, let us turn about and take ourselves out of this cold gale. Walk me back to the coffee-house and I will see what I can do for you. I am a woman who likes to see justice done.”

And all the way back to the coffee-house she kept me amused with outrageous tales of her late father, who had been a Justice of the Peace and prone to making distinctive judgments. Some of the stories carried with them a certain oddity, although in what respect I could not quite define; I took it she was merely spinning tales to cheer me.

We parted outside the coffee-house; Lady Anne turned and drew her billowing cloak about her. The sunlight gleamed on the ringlets that fell across her shoulder.

“You must drink tea with me, Mr Patterson. I have some new scores from… from a friend, and I think you would enjoy seeing them. The style is somewhat similar to your own work.”

“I am most flattered, my lady.”

“Tomorrow, then,” she said. “At four.”

She was swift to keep her word. When I returned home a few hours later, I found another note awaiting me from Mr Heron. He had, he said, sent me word a few days ago under a misapprehension – had been grievously misinformed – offered regrets – hoped that Master Thomas would see me the following day. I was pleased both by the purport of the letter and by its manner of expressing its message; Claudius Heron was generous in the matter of admitting his fault. Which is more than one expects from most gentlemen.

So I went to bed in a better frame of mind than when I got up, looking forward both to professional duties and a little social entertainment.

 

9

TRIO
for two sopranos and a tenor

Unlike Lady Anne’s other visitors, I came to her house in Caroline Square on foot. The early evening light was sufficient to show me the way to the shelter of the trees opposite the house. There I paused, enjoying the fragrance of the last roses and the freshness of damp earth. The air held a hint of rain; looking up, I saw darkening clouds to the east. I had not been in the square since that unsettling night of the concert; looking around now, I thought how ordinary it appeared. It had been night, of course, when I was last here, and uncertain lamplight and deep shadows can make a place seem threatening when in reality there is nothing to fear. Yet I still hesitated to cross that last stretch of road to the door of the house.

“Good day to you, sir,” said a voice from the bushes. The voice sounded tipsy and, for a moment, I even fancied I smelt a whiff of ale. Then I realised I was hearing a spirit, speaking with the extreme politeness of the very drunk. “Can you tell me how I came here? For I do not have the least idea.”

“Do you remember a carriage, perhaps?” I suggested, thinking he might have been the victim of an accident. I had no wish to linger but it is good policy to be polite to spirits. They have great power of doing harm if they choose, by the whispering of secrets. And, conversely, they have an equal power of doing good, as I had learnt the night of the attack upon Nichols.

“Carriage? I wonder.” He hummed and hawed. “I remember the church. That’s it, ’twas Sunday and I remember the ladies and gents coming out of church. The big church.”

“St Nicholas.”

“That’s it! And there was that organist fellow, what’s his name?”

It was hardly difficult to remember, I thought gloomily. Nichols at St Nicholas – the name had a depressing appropriateness. A drop of rain fell warm and fat upon my hand. “Nichols,” I said, tasting annoyance. “His brother’s a dancing master.”

“No, no, that’s not the name.” He hiccupped. “Patterson! That’s it! Father was a town musician.”

“You are quite mistaken,” I said. “Charles Patterson is no organist. Yet.”

“Wrong, sir!” he cried in good humour. “Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

“I would be the first to know if it was true,” I pointed out. “I am Patterson.”

“Nay, sir, he’s a gentleman. He dresses well. Um…” He sounded doubtful now. “Yet when I look closer…”

More drops of rain. I began to be afraid that my dress, whether it was that of a gentleman or not, would be ruined before I came to my engagement. “I assure you I know my own name.”

“Got a brother,” he said with an air of triumph. “Makes stays.”

I burst out laughing. “All my brothers and sisters died in their infancy, sir, and none of us were acquainted with any staymaker!”

“I am right,” he said obstinately. “And then I turned to walk down this street and there was a cart and I stumbled and – and –” He started to sob; maudlin drunk, God help us, as well as dead. I bade him a polite goodbye and hurried through the thickening rain to the door.

At the railings, the feelings took me again.

I felt a shock like the buffeting of an icy gale, stumbled, flung out my hands. But they met only empty air. Daylight snapped into darkness. I fell, felt stone bruise my hands. Not again, please God, not again. Another scene was already forming in front of me – tall houses on an elegant street as before. But this time they did not stay in place; they were overlaid by the trees of the square. Darkness and light flared in my eyes as the two settings flickered and mingled, houses, trees, houses…

I lay on my back, staring up at the trees of the gardens as, at last, the surroundings settled firmly into the reality of the square. Voices were shouting. Hands took hold of my shoulders. A footman stared at me from the house steps with amused contempt. Closer, a woman’s voice said, “Are you unwell, sir?”

I looked into cool grey eyes. They belonged to a woman of perhaps forty, very finely but plainly dressed. Lady Anne’s cousin. Her dark blonde hair was dressed high upon her head; one gleaming ringlet hung down against the white skin of her neck.

“Are you ill, sir?” she repeated.

“A – a little dizzy.”

“Come into the house.”

So I made my entrance into the house where I had hoped to come so elegantly, on the arm of a supporting woman, attended by a knowing look from a footman who plainly thought me as drunk as the spirit in the gardens. He took my coat away to be brushed and brought it back a few minutes later together with a brandy requested by the lady. We sat in a withdrawing room, the lady looking on as I wretchedly shivered and trembled. Staring down at my hands, I saw a fine embedding of stones in the heel of my right hand.

I struggled to be calm. The lady had no qualms about remaining alone with me, I noted, which made her as careless of convention as Lady Anne. She addressed me in matter-of-fact tones, as if nothing untoward had happened, although her gaze was steady and watchful. She was, I realised, allowing me time to gather my wits and compose myself.

“We have not been introduced,” she said as I sipped the unwonted luxury of fine brandy. “I am Esther Jerdoun, Lady Anne’s cousin. And you are Mr Charles Patterson, music teacher.”

She could not have summed up our social positions more nicely. Reddening, I sat on the edge of my chair and attempted an apology. She shook her head – a fine head with a clear profile outlined against the red-and-white-striped satin of her chair.

“I am grateful for your help, Mrs Jerdoun,” I said, carefully according her the courtesy of the title as convention requires, though I did not know if she was married or no.

She waved away my gratitude. “Lady Anne, I believe, invited you to look at some scores she has acquired. She has an extensive collection of music, although I am afraid I do not know the precise score to which she alluded. She is still at dinner with her friends.”

I remembered that other dinner party I had glimpsed through the window, days before. “You do not eat with her, madam?”

“I had a headache earlier in the evening and preferred to dine alone. If you are feeling recovered, Mr Patterson, perhaps you would care to see the library?”

I was hardly certain I could stand, but I knew she was still pursuing her aim of putting me at my ease, and followed her from the room. She talked on quietly, pointing out the attractions of the house, not waiting for responses, not asking for any. I was grateful for her consideration and did my best to be interested.

It was a very splendid house, decorated in the most fashionable (and no doubt expensive) style. Cherubs cavorted on plaster ceilings among swags of leaves and fruit, and looked down on cream wallpaper thinly striped with blue; chairs almost too delicate to sit upon stood beneath portraits of high-nosed ancestors; porcelain vases and vast bowls of fragrant potpourri stood upon marble tables. In the hall, a staircase swept up to the floors above; from a distant room came the sound of laughter.

Mrs Jerdoun led me to the rear of the house, opening doors on to an echoing chill space. The walls were lined with bookcases; the polished wooden floor gleamed in the light of many candles. The only furniture – positioned under a tall window – was a closed harpsichord and its stool. I ran my fingers over the elegant beading along the lid’s edge.

“I would open the instrument for you,” Mrs Jerdoun said apologetically, “but my cousin keeps the key. We found the servants would toy with it while we were out, and it goes out of tune so easily.”

I nodded. “Do you play?”

“Not at all. I have no patience for it. Nor for singing. I find such amusements trivial.”

So much for music. Perhaps Mrs Jerdoun thought from my silence that she had offended me. “Forgive me for plain speaking but I am impatient with the hypocrisy indulged in by most women. Their great interest in music lasts only to the end of the marriage ceremony.”

“I wonder anyone ever plays music,” I said with some asperity. “Ladies regard it as a means to show off their charms and catch a husband while gentlemen consider serious practice requires too much exertion and is therefore unbecoming.”

“It is,” she said decisively. “It is a craft, and no gentleman should involve himself in anything so beneath his station.”

“There is an element of craft in it, certainly – although a better word would be science. But it is also surely an Art.”

“Certainly not.”

“Is it not Art, madam, to convey in one’s compositions the passions of the human soul – joy, grief, exaltation?”

“Do you speak of Monsieur le Sac’s works?” she said dryly.

“Hardly. But consider the acknowledged masters…”

“I would prefer not to,” she said, moving away to snuff a candle that was guttering wildly. “Besides, I can acknowledge a man expert in his work without considering him an artist. The man who made these candles, for instance. He has produced an object that is of excellent quality, admirably suited for its purpose. But that is merely to say that he has learnt well when he was an apprentice and knows how to apply the techniques of his craft. It is the same with music.”

I was intrigued and admiring. It is not usual to find a lady with such strong and well-expressed views. But this was an unusual household altogether; her cousin was not conventional in her manners, and as for the house itself…

My hand trembled on the lid of the harpsichord. I cleared my throat, determined to banish thoughts of what had happened on my arrival. “But consider the music used in divine worship.”

“A mere tool to sharpen our awareness of the words of the gospels. Though even there – ” She frowned in contemplation of the drift of smoke from the extinguished candle. “Even there, it is fit only for the generality of people. Any man or woman of common sense can judge the truth or otherwise of God’s word without such aids.”

The truth or otherwise. Did that suggest she doubted the word of God? We were approaching dangerous ground. I pointed out a second dying candle and we moved naturally on to consider the books around us. Mrs Jerdoun was proficient in both French and Italian, which I much envied her, my Italian being merely tolerable and my French greatly deficient. She seemed surprised that I knew any.

She took down a book of engravings, of the ancient ruins in Rome, and in speculating upon the purpose of the remains I contrived to lay aside the remembrance of my unorthodox arrival. Mrs Jerdoun had visited the ruins and had interesting tales to tell; she was describing an ancient pillar when the doors were thrown open. In swept Lady Anne, in yellow satin and old gold lace, fanning herself and laughing at something one of her guests was saying. Ladies and gentlemen both together, elegant in bright colours, indolent in manner and tinkling in laughter. Even Mr Claudius Heron, a gentleman of about forty, in a light-buff-coloured suit which complemented his pale colouring (he too wears his own hair in defiance of fashion) raised a faint smile at the sally of a young lady. And from her privileged position at the head of the throng, her expression visible only to Mrs Jerdoun and myself, Lady Anne raised her eyebrows to the ceiling as if to say ‘Heaven help me!’

She introduced me to her guests, an honour I had not anticipated. Mr Heron cast me a frowning look but acknowledged me civilly, if curtly. Upon Mrs Jerdoun remarking that we had been looking at the engravings of Rome, a general conversation began in which I was kindly included. Her ladyship’s guests were prepared, it was clear, to follow her lead and accept me, if not as an equal, at least as tolerably worthy of notice. Heron particularly was generous enough to convey his personal apologies for his misunderstanding of my encounter with Nichols.

But my attention was distracted by the servants bringing in chairs for the company and tea tables with all the necessary paraphernalia. All the chairs, I noted, were being placed at one end of the room as if to leave the other end, around the harpsichord, free.

A servant came in with a music stand.

I flushed, answered one lady’s questions at random. Could Lady Anne have brought me here merely to afford her guests after-dinner entertainment? But if so, what an invidious position she had put me in by introducing me to them as an equal. There is always a clear division between the entertainer, who is paid, and the entertained, who pay.

But no, Lady Anne was indicating a chair, and praying me to sit down and tell her how I preferred my tea. I was to listen. Perhaps one of the younger ladies was to entertain us upon her harp; that would be unexceptional, if trying to the musical connoisseur. One of the footmen was unlocking the harpsichord and propping up its lid, revealing gorgeous paintings of dancing nymphs. A few songs from the young lady, then? But from the hall came the sound of a footman greeting a newcomer and a scuffle of preparation. Footsteps approached the door. I was seized with a hot premonition of disaster.

The doors were opened. In the space, pausing for a moment so that we might appreciate his elegance, was Henri Le Sac. He was to entertain; Lady Anne’s behaviour clearly indicated that I was to be entertained. She could not have prepared a greater insult.

 

10

DUET FOR HARPSICHORD AND VIOLIN

What was I to do? The moment Le Sac set eyes on me he would take offence, and indeed I would not blame him. Here was I, greatly his inferior in performance, set to lord it over him as if I was one of the gentry. How could he tolerate that? Yet if I offered to play, which might satisfy Le Sac (particularly as I would be at the lowly accompanying instrument), I would set Lady Anne’s guests against her for having the audacity to introduce them to a mere performer.

And while I delayed and hoped to fathom Lady Anne’s motives for playing such games, Le Sac glanced round and saw me.

For a moment he was blank-faced, then drew back in disdain. “Milady,” he said, “you desire this person to accompany me?”

Nothing, his tone said, could possibly be less welcome. All eyes turned to me; with a frown, Claudius Heron said, “Do you play tonight, Patterson?”

Silence. Then Esther Jerdoun said, “Mr Patterson is my guest. He came to examine some music books in my possession.”

There was a collective sigh of relief, as if the company regarded Mrs Jerdoun as some eccentric whose will must be humoured. Only Claudius Heron continued to frown, and to look from myself to Le Sac to smiling Lady Anne in turn. Not a man to be fooled easily and his previous mistake over the brawl must have made him wary.

I hurried into speech. “But I would be honoured if Monsieur le Sac would consent to my accompanying him. Though I cannot of course hope to do the pieces justice.”

So the proprieties were preserved. Lady Anne was considered to have been most kind to her eccentric cousin; I was most obliging in helping to retrieve the situation. And, as I was clearly not being paid to play, it was possible to regard me (for this night at least) as a gentleman amateur. My dish of tea cooled on the table as I disposed myself on the harpsichord stool, and Le Sac bent to fetch out his music. He swung with a flourish and a smile for his audience, and presented me with the harpsichord part; his eyes met mine and I saw by their glitter that there was one person in the room who was not appeased.

I say one, but there was another also. As I glanced across at Esther Jerdoun, I saw her cast her cousin a look of annoyance and reproof. Lady Anne lounged in her chair, one leg crossed mannishly over the other, swinging a slippered foot and smiling a smile of triumph. I had seen that look before, on a dozen of my older pupils; it was the enjoyment of a chance to cause consternation.

It was not an evening I care to remember, although the harpsichord was excellent. Le Sac was determined to make life as difficult as possible for me. He speeded up and slowed down outrageously, drew out melodic phrases to a perfectly ridiculous extent then unexpectedly galloped away at top speed. He cut sections out of the music and repeated others that were not meant to be repeated so that I constantly appeared to be unsure of my place. In short, he was every accompanist’s nightmare.

But his audience – with the exception of Mr Heron, who sat stony-faced throughout – loved every moment. They gasped at every rapid dash of notes, every dramatic flourish, no matter how coarse and meaningless. In truth, there was nothing of worth in the entire piece – it being one of Le Sac’s own compositions – and my only consolation was that the harpsichord part had been copied out by George and was therefore eminently readable. Unlike Le Sac’s part which, I saw over his shoulder, was an illegible scrawl.

He came at last to the end and enjoyed the applause with great flourishing bows in the continental style. I did not share the applause; not only would it not have pleased Le Sac but it would have underlined my status as a performer and I was still trying to walk that fine line between guest and hired help. But as Le Sac turned to his music case for another solo, Esther Jerdoun stood up and spoke in a voice that cut through the conversation.

“Monsieur le Sac, I am sorry to inconvenience you but I must reclaim my guest. We have not yet concluded our business.”

Le Sac looked outraged but he was powerless to object. I was tempted, as I bowed to him, to point out that he should have brought his own accompanist. But he was as much a victim of Lady Anne’s playfulness as I was; I kept silent.

So Mrs Jerdoun and I withdrew to the far end of the library where we conducted our conversation in low voices while Le Sac fiddled away unaccompanied, with renewed energy. As she lifted down a music book from the shelves, she said, “Forgive me if I seem abrupt. But my cousin’s habit of setting people at each other’s throats annoys me greatly.”

I opened the book – Geminiani’s Opus 8 – to give credence to our conversing. “It sometimes seems –” I hesitated for fear of offending her – “that Lady Anne enjoys an uproar.”

She shook her head. “It is something more than that, I think. I have been in France and Italy for some years, you know, and when I returned, a twelvemonth ago, I found Anne greatly changed. Of course, she was a girl of only ten when I saw her last, so perhaps I should not be surprised. Here, sir, is another book of Italian violin pieces. What do you think of Signor Vivaldi?”

I winced. “You wish the truth?”

She smiled. “Indeed, sir.”

“Defective in harmony and poor in melody.”

“Alas.” She sighed. “I have always found him a pleasant diversion.”

“Did you not say you found music trivial?”

“I do indeed, but it has some useful effects. It is particularly good for easing social relations. One may talk to all the world at a concert and see one’s neighbours in a congenial setting, and that must be of benefit to society.”

One could say the same of the horse races, I reflected. “Then far from being a trivial occupation, madam,” I said, “music and its practitioners –” I bowed – “are performing a great service to the world.”

She laughed. Heads turned; Le Sac played more loudly. I did not care; I found the lady’s company most agreeable.

“I must allow you the final word, sir,” she said, reaching for another book. “You argue excellently. Let me show you another volume. This was obtained recently by my cousin. She thinks most highly of these concerti.”

It was a handwritten volume, but most unfortunately the first page, with the author’s name upon it, had been torn out. I hummed a few bars of the first tune and found myself agreeably taken by it. The accompanying parts were simple but that is not a bad fault; perhaps the players for whom the composer wrote were not expert. Rather like the gentlemen in our own concert band.

“Indeed, I like these very much,” I said and then gave way as the lady’s cousin beckoned to her. Mrs Jerdoun went to Lady Anne and I leafed through the volume. Oddly, the handwriting was not dissimilar to my own neatest hand.

Esther Jerdoun returned to me. “My cousin says that if you wish to borrow that volume, you are most welcome.”

I could hardly refuse; I bowed and Lady Anne inclined her head. Mrs Jerdoun beckoned to a servant and he took the book away to wrap it against the weather. As we waited at the back of the room I said, somewhat hesitantly, “Was your husband French, madam?”

“I am not married. My mother’s second husband was French and I adopted his name as my own. He was an official of their government.”

Unmarried. Ridiculous to take such pleasure in the thought; there was a great gulf between us, both in station and fortune.

The servant returned with the book; I took it, kissed the lady’s hand, then took my leave of Lady Anne in the same manner. Claudius Heron nodded to me civilly. In the hall, the servant returned my greatcoat; clasping the book in my arms, I stepped out into a heavy drizzle, breathing a sigh of relief for my escape.

But I knew it would not be for long. Le Sac was not a man to forgive slights. My safe, dull life was beginning to collapse about me. I had earned Nichols’s enmity (through no fault of my own) and Le Sac’s (for no reason at all – or rather an imagined rivalry) and I had quarrelled with Demsey. I was somehow a pawn in a game Lady Anne was playing, though what that game was, or what purpose it had, I could not tell. And I was in danger of losing my living, or would be, if Le Sac had his way.

And more than that, there was that other puzzle which I could not fathom. I hurried for the shelter of the gardens, passing that place where I had twice fallen, as quickly as I could. Nothing happened. Had I imagined it after all?

More than my living, I began to fear for my sanity.

 

11

FULL PIECE

Halfway home the heavens opened and spat all the venom they possessed at me. A vicious wind seized my tricorne from my head and drove a deluge of rain on to my hair, plastering it to my face. It lifted the tails of my coat and splattered my breeches and stockings with mud; passing carts splashed puddles over my shoes. I tucked the book under my coat and ran the last streets. In the dryness of my own room, George was curled into a ball on the floor, snoring noisily into his blanket. I stripped off my wet clothing, hung it over the chair to dry, and slipped silently into bed, falling asleep at once.

Rain was still falling when I woke in the morning, pattering against the window and obscuring my view of the sodden street below. I rose with some weariness. It was the day of the weekly concert – the worst day to rain, for only the most ardent music-lovers turn out in such weather. And I would have to face Le Sac once more. Well, I would not be blamed for what had happened; it was Lady Anne’s doing. She had been generous to me but for all that she was a shallow frivolous woman, as Le Sac must already know.

I prepared myself with my usual care as was my wont on concert days, calling up the fellow on the floor below – apprentice to a barber – to shave me. He came with such speed and readiness that it was obvious he knew the day as well as I and was ready to earn his fee. (I warrant he never told his master he earned it.) And while he shaved me, I turned over that other matter which still unsettled me.

I had not been drunk last night, neither had I felt ill. Moreover, the strange events only took place in Caroline Square and only near that house. I wondered what Esther Jerdoun had seen – merely a man stumbling and falling? Surely if she had seen anything else, she would have commented upon it. Had the spirit in the square seen anything? (And would he make sense if I asked him?)

There was one solution to the problem – avoid that square. Avoid Lady Anne and her schemings too. But Lady Anne was not the only occupant of that house and I found myself reluctant to avoid Esther Jerdoun. No, this would not do. A man may admire but he should not entertain preposterous notions which are beyond his reach, however pleasing they may be.

I dressed neatly, though not ostentatiously, and supervised George’s preparations. He had spent the time while I was being shaved in leafing through the volume I had brought home from Lady Anne’s.

“These are much better, master,” he said with enthusiasm when I called him over. “When did you write these?”

“They are not mine, you dolt.”

“But it is your hand, master.”

I should have been glad to own to the authorship of them if I had been able. I turned George round, brushed him down, and made him put on his tow wig. His own straggly hair showed beneath the wig; I trimmed the ends and tucked them in. By all commonsense, he should have shaved his head entirely but his scalp was so scabby that it was patently out of the question. Still, he looked presentable. I combed my hair (for like Le Sac I too wear my own) and we set out for the rehearsal.

Hoult’s Long Room was engaged for a dinner on this night so the concert was to be held at the Assembly Rooms on Westgate. I had misjudged the time and we were almost late for the rehearsal. I was surprised to be met at the door by the Steward. “Ah,” he said with a sigh of relief. “You’re here at last.”

I was about to offer apologies when we heard loud voices from the upper room; I thought I recognised one or two directors of the Concerts. And was that Claudius Heron speaking more moderately? That murmur certainly belonged to sly Mr Ord.

“You had better go up,” the Steward said. “Try your hand with them. I can’t calm them down.”

In trepidation, I went up, followed by George in an even worse state. “It’s him,” he quavered. “He doesn’t want me here.”

I emerged into the Long Room. The music stands had been set up at the end of the room in their usual places, with chairs for the two cellists and a stool for myself at the harpsichord. But only Henry Wright hung awkwardly over his music, his tenor violin in his hand and an air of embarrassment about him. The other gentlemen were in huddle near the top of the stairs, each trying to speak the loudest.

For a moment, my arrival went unnoticed. Then Mr Ord darted forward and seized my arm. “Here he is! Now all shall be well.”

A silence. “Good,” Claudius Heron said in his usual severe manner.

“Is something amiss?” I asked.

Mr Jenison (one of the minor scions of the celebrated family of that name and the prime mover of the Concerts) said, with ill-concealed irritation, “First violin’s ill.”

“I understand,” Mr Heron elaborated, “that he was caught in the rain on his way home last night.”

What a wealth of meaning there was in that simple sentence! First, a reminder that Le Sac had made his way to his hostess’s house on foot, which clearly marked him as inferior. Second, a reminder of my own status, for I too had done the same. Third, Mr Heron had of course been warm and dry in his carriage, driven by servants – the mark of a gentleman.

“Burning up with fever!” Mr Ord did not sound distressed but quite the opposite, almost merry. “Out of the question that he should play today. So you see,” his plump fingers dug into the flesh of my arm, “we have no musical director.”

Another silence. A stray slant of watery sunshine chanced through the windows and lit the empty music stands. The floor, polished for dancing assemblies, smelt of beeswax. I was conscious of a great feeling of relief.

“You must stand in, Patterson,” Jenison said. “Mr Wright, will you do me the kindness of fetching the music-books from their cupboard? I have unlocked it already. The programme is decided. We will be short of violins, of course.” His gaze lingered on George. “Is this the boy?”

His slight emphasis on the definite article suggested he too knew all George’s history.

“Indeed,” I said, seizing my opportunity. “He has had a good solid foundation in music. He will do very well on the back desk.” They were all looking at me for direction, I realised, and I felt a surge of exultation. “Perhaps Mr Heron,” I went on, bowing, “will consent to lead the band?”

“Certainly not,” he said firmly. “Quite out of the question for a gentleman. Put the boy there.” But he was plainly pleased to have been asked.

So we settled ourselves to rehearse. I ordered the harpsichord to its proper place at the centre of the band and sat down to make sure it had not gone out of tune in the moving. The gentlemen shuffled music on the stands. At least the bad weather had kept all but the players indoors so we had had no spectators to witness our wranglings, and the petty humiliations that I suffered even in this moment of pleasure. Jenison, for instance, would never have ordered Le Sac to play this piece or that; he would have made suggestions in quite a different tone of voice. It was perhaps fortunate, therefore, that I had no quarrel with Jenison’s choice of music; he was an excellent judge and knew what audiences liked to hear.

George settled himself in the leader’s place, a small figure compared to the gentlemen looming behind him. He cast me a sly look of satisfaction; I would have been better pleased to see some nervousness there. But off we went into an overture by Mr Handel and to my surprise it went rather better than I had hoped. George played well and the gentlemen were agreeable to watching for my nod. Even more fortunately, Mr Ord was not particularly familiar with the piece and, in his concentration, quite forgot to trill except upon the last possible occasion. The gentlemen seemed subdued without their idol; I, on the contrary, was elated. I had not been fully aware of how lowering an effect Le Sac’s presence had upon me.

In the middle of the rehearsal, we broke for wine that was carried in from the tavern opposite. When two or three gentlemen accosted Jenison to plead for their own favourite pieces to be included in the programme, I took the opportunity to stroll across to Wright – who stood a little apart, regarding his tenor violin with some dissatisfaction.

“Patterson,” he greeted me. “I cannot get any notes out of this thing. I’ve half a mind to give it up altogether – I’m sick of it.”

Young Mr Wright is one of those gentlemen who never picks up his instrument to practise but nonetheless fancies himself a great expert. The instrument itself, needless to say, is to blame for every fault; it is badly made, the bow-stick is too light or too heavy, the strings will not speak properly, &c., &c. But the prospect of losing our only tenor, no matter how erratic his playing, filled me with alarm.

“How odd,” I said swiftly. “I was only just reflecting how greatly improved you are upon the instrument.”

He turned on me a startled expression and a hopeful one. “You think so? I thought, from the way Monsieur le Sac sighs over me, I was as bad as ever.”

For once, I sympathised with the Swiss. But I merely said, “If I may be so bold as to offer a suggestion?”

“Yes?”

“A small alteration in the position of your hand upon the bow-stick.” I demonstrated what I meant; he copied my instructions, then tried it upon the strings.

“Good heavens! Why, that is much easier!” And he ran off a passage with a great deal more pleasure.

We resumed and went through the remaining pieces with such ease that we finished long before our usual time. The rehearsal broke up in as high spirits as it had started, though in considerably better humour. I was even more pleased to be accosted by Jenison just as I was about to leave, and asked to put in a solo of my own.

“The audience expects some fire, Patterson,” he said. “Play something to take their fancy.”

Something like Le Sac’s vapid, showy pieces, he meant. Over ale in Nellie’s coffee-house, I contemplated what I might play. I could not compete with Le Sac for virtuosity, and in any case I would prefer to play something with more heart. Yet a slow piece, no matter how moving, would not please an audience. Finally, I decided upon a piece I had written some years before – a lightweight piece intended to amuse rather than edify, based upon some popular Scotch tunes. Perhaps, in the audience’s enjoyment of recognising favourite melodies, my lack of virtuosity would go unnoticed.

I drank my ale and contemplated the prospect with pleasure. At least Lady Anne’s petty games had produced an unexpected result in my favour. I must make the most of the opportunity and show the gentlemen there was more than one musician in the town. As for that other matter – well, no doubt there was some perfectly rational explanation. All things are susceptible to explanation, or so the Steward of the Assembly Rooms insists.

I had told George to get himself some small beer and a pastry, and to keep out of my way (for I had no wish for company while I considered my music) but I heard a commotion at the door and he came pushing through the crowd to reach me.

“Have you heard the news, master? About the dancing fellow?”

I was seized with a sudden fear. “Which one? Nichols?”

“The other one, master.” I recognised George’s look, the way he leant upon the table, the way he rushed at his words. The eager gossip. Telling tales that he knows will be unwelcome, and greedy for the effect he hopes to produce. He really was an obnoxious boy. “You know him, don’t you, master?”

Even as Le Sac’s apprentice, he must have seen me about the town with Demsey a dozen times. “Slightly,” I said. “Go on.”

“Caught them red-handed, they did!”

“A full tale, George,” I said. “And now, before I send you back to your father with a letter like Le Sac’s!”

He drew back at my vehemence and hurried on. “There’s another word for it, a French one. Mr Sac used to talk about it. Her mother walked in on them.”

Dear God, what was he suggesting?

“He was giving a lesson.” The stench of George’s breath washed over me. “A private lesson at the lady’s house. And the young lady’s ma walked in. Kissing and cuddling, they were.”

“Rubbish!” I said sharply. “Where was the chaperone?”

“The what, master?”

“The governess! The married sister!” Two or three fellows nearby glanced round curiously at my raised voice. I said more quietly, “No one would leave a young woman alone with any man, let alone one who is personable and unmarried. Where did you hear this?”

“Everyone’s talking about it, master.”

“Damn it, it’s mere gossip!” I did not believe it, could not believe it. If it were true, Hugh was ruined. No parent would allow their daughters to be taught by him.

“No, it’s true, master. Really.”

I sent him off with a flea in his ear and a threat that if he spread the rumour further, I would turn him off straightway. The story was preposterous. Demsey was no scoundrel to take advantage of a girl’s innocence, nor a fool to be trapped into a compromising situation; he had nothing but contempt for the silly girls he taught. Moreover (I had reassured myself greatly by this time), even if the governess had been got rid of on some spurious excuse, even if Hugh had been trapped into some indiscretion, no family would allow the story to become known. The girl’s reputation would be lost for ever.

The obvious explanation occurred to me as I got up to leave. This was Nichols’s revenge for the attack upon him. He had spread these rumours to discredit Demsey. Well, it was none of my business. Demsey had brought this trouble upon himself and he must deal with it. He had made it amply clear it was nothing to do with me.

So I went off to the concert; the gentlemen played with spirit, George acquitted himself well and my solo piece was well-received and much complimented.

“All in all, not a bad night,” said Mr Jenison, handing me my wages and George’s. He felt it necessary to point out that he had rewarded my services that day with an extra payment of two shillings and sixpence. He was, after all, although he did not say so, saving ten shillings on the Swiss’s wages that night. I thanked him but he waved away my gratitude.

“And thank goodness,” he said, “Mr Le Sac will be well for our next concert.”

 

12

CATCHES AND GLEES

As I entered the Printing Office the following morning I encountered Nichols, counting through some coins as he walked. He sneered when he saw me. “In alt this morning, eh, Patterson? Think a good deal of yourself now, do you? Applauded by all the ladies and gentlemen? Well, enjoy it while you can.”

“Le Sac is on the mend, I take it?”

He looked me up and down. “Compared to him, you’re a nobody.”

“Oh, I quite agree,” I said cordially. “But at least I know my own limitations.” I smiled with meaning. “Some people never recognise their inferiority.”

I was feeling, I admit, very pleased with myself and life. I had woken, late, to hear from Mrs Foxton that a lady had called for me and left her card. The card, on the table at the foot of the stairs, read Mrs Jerdoun in flowing script; underneath, the lady had written in an elegant copperplate: Mrs Jerdoun much enjoyed the Scotch airs last night. I laughed at this reminder of our argument over the value of music.

Then Mrs Foxton had offered me the second-floor room at the end of the week when the present lodger vacated it. It would be a shilling a week extra but was a great deal bigger. So I had come out in a good mood, determined to forget that parting comment of Jenison’s.

Nichols leant closer. “I got Demsey and I will get you, Patterson. Make no mistake about that.”

Suddenly chilled, I caught at his sleeve. “Is that an admission that the accusations against Demsey are untrue?”

He laughed and shook himself free. “Ask the young lady.”

Thomas Saint, the printer, watched him go, shaking his head. “I try to be Christian, Mr Patterson, but there’s a man I can’t abide.”

“An acquired taste,” I said lightly. “Mr Saint, I wish to put an advertisement in your paper.”

He lifted the sheet I gave him to the light, reading it barely an inch from his face.

Proposals for Publishing. That favourite harpsichord piece played lately at the Subscription Concert, the Subject of the Rondeau, the favourite Song of Lewie Gordon.

He stared into the air for a moment while his lips silently performed calculations, then named me the price. “I like a good Scotch tune myself.”

Outside again on the Key, I paused. I had some time before my first lesson of the day and I was tempted to go down to Westgate to see Hugh. Nichols’s certainty of success made me uneasy. Surely he did not have the girl’s co-operation in the matter? While I stood irresolute, I heard the rattle of carriage wheels on the cobbles of the Key and was surprised to hear my name called peremptorily. Turning, I saw Lady Anne framed in the window of a carriage door. As I made my bow, she flung open the door and jumped down. Her servants, I noticed, made no attempt to offer assistance but began to root under the box for a number of parcels.

“I called upon you at your rooms, sir,” Lady Anne said gaily, “and was told you had come this way. My compliments on your performance last evening.”

“You are most kind, my lady.” I bowed once more. “I did not see you in the audience.”

She laughed. “When you sat with your back to us, sir? I am not surprised. Of course I was there – to see the results of my plotting.”

“I fail to understand –”

“Had you not guessed, sir? I sent Monsieur le Sac home in the worst of the rain without offering a carriage.” The breeze drifted a strand of hair across her face. Behind her, the river glittered in the sunshine; her servants carried parcels into the Printing Office. “Did you not know he was susceptible to chills and fevers?”

“He has never confided in me, madam.”

How odd to find myself suddenly indignant on Le Sac’s behalf. Lady Anne had behaved abominably towards him. And for what? Merely her own mischief. She stood as if expecting me to comment further, a vision in a gown of severe cut, burgundy-red touched with white lace; jewellery of gold and diamonds hung about her neck and wrists. She seemed extraordinarily overdressed for a mere ride about town.

I would not let her go unchallenged. “I do not understand, Lady Anne, why you should disadvantage your protégé in my favour.”

She smiled at me impishly. “But you know what we fashionable idlers are like! Always in search of novelties. We are wild for one thing today and tomorrow are looking for some new distraction.” She turned to her servants and instructed them to drive to the coaching inn to send the remaining parcels on to London. “I have an appointment at the Guildhall,” she said. “Walk me there, Mr Patterson.”

No, I refused to be a distraction, or a novelty. Musicians must always be polite and fawning to the gentlemen and ladies who pay their wages, but against this I rebelled. “I have a lesson to give here, madam.”

“Come, you will be only a little late.”

I drew back. “I regret, my lady, but a prior engagement must always take precedence.”

She regarded me coolly and I thought for a moment that my favour with her would be short-lived in the extreme. Well, so be it. But she smiled again and said, “Very well. But come to me for tea again tomorrow. This time I will promise you no surprises.”

Tea? In Caroline Square? But before I could refuse, she walked away.

It was a trying afternoon. I could not get the lady out of my mind. I was irritated by her games and by her arrogant assumption that I would do as she wished and be grateful for it. And the invitation to the house in Caroline Square! I had decided that I would not go there again, but how could I refuse? If I found some excuse to stay away, the lady would merely issue another invitation.

Then, as I was about to go off to another lesson, I discovered that I had left at home some music-books I needed. To go to the lesson without them would be more than inconvenient, for I had intended to introduce a good pupil to a new composer, but to go home for them would make me late. There was nothing for it but to rush back – and I dashed up the stairs to my room, only halting as I came to the last landing and saw Hugh Demsey standing against the railing, looking down at me.

“I have been waiting for you, Patterson.” His voice sounded strained but his face was calm and composed. “I would be grateful for a word; I will not keep you long.”

I performed my sleight of hand with the door wedge. “I am late for a lesson.”

He followed me into the room. The grey daylight was somewhat dim (the houses opposite blocked out much of the brightness) but the room was still clearly untidy. I snatched George’s abandoned blanket from the floor and tossed it upon the bed, then started looking through the volumes on the table for the books I wanted. Demsey did not speak but I was damned if I would prompt him. But as he continued silent I turned, books in hand. He was staring down at the floor and I saw only the top of his black head and the bow in his hair at the nape of his neck.

“So,” I said, irritated by his silence, “you’ve come for my help, have you? You want me to speak for your character, against this accusation dreamt up by Nichols?” I waited but he stood still. “It’s nonsense, man, and everyone will know it. The girl will protest her innocence!”

He lifted his head but still said nothing. Stung further by annoyance, I said, “You have only yourself to blame –”

He said in a low voice, “I came to apologise,” turned upon his heel and walked out.

I sank down upon the bed. I cannot express how poor an opinion I had of myself at that moment. To take out my own frustrations upon him… I leapt up and hurried after him.

As I started down the stairs, I heard the street door slam.

A succession of pupils on Pilgrim Street kept me busy until the evening. In this, the smartest end of town, the rich shopkeepers and tradesmen believe that their sons and daughters will be taught better if their teachers are given a proper sense of their place – that is, if they are kept waiting in a draughty hall for an hour or more. The young ladies and gentlemen have rarely put fingers to harpsichord or violin since their last lesson and can be heard running furiously through the piece (skipping the most difficult passages). A man has plenty of time to sit and contemplate how abominably he has behaved. To abandon a friend in need is unforgivable; I could not imagine that Hugh would abandon me. How could I have allowed my own preoccupations to affect me so?

So I found myself, not long before midnight, climbing down the hill from Northumberland Street towards Westgate and Harris’s old dancing school. I had no expectation of finding Demsey at home – even if I did find him, it was unlikely he would talk to me – but I had a note of apology in my pocket to slip under his door.

The house was quiet as I climbed the stairs to the dancing school. It was that rare thing – an unspirited house. As indeed, now I came to think of it, was Lady Anne’s house. The silence was almost palpable, and made me uneasy. Such loneliness, such emptiness, seemed almost unbearable. How could Demsey tolerate living here, constantly alone? Even the floor above was silent; the widow and her children were clearly not at home.

The door to the school room stood ajar. The lock had been turned but had failed to catch, as if it had been done in a hurry. A stray streak of moonlight laid its finger across the floor and showed dim shadows of chairs lined against the walls. I bent to pick up a curl of orange peel. Something about the room disturbed me; I stood for several minutes before realising what it was. The floor was unpolished. Surely it should have been readied for tomorrow’s lessons?

I climbed to the top floor, almost expecting what I saw. The door to Demsey’s attic room was closed and locked but I knew where the key was kept, prised up a length of broken floorboard and found it. It turned smoothly; I ducked inside the room, nearly banging my head on the low ceiling. A table, an unsteady chair, a bare bed beneath the oddly shaped window in the eaves – nothing else.

Demsey had gone.

 

13

CONCERTO FOR SOLO VIOLIN
Movement 1

By the time I reached home, I was too low in spirits to be annoyed at seeing Bedwalters the constable and Le Sac outside the door, arguing with Mrs Foxton. Of the neighbours, only Phillips the brewer hung out of his window with a guttering lamp, to advise Bedwalters not to allow dead women to interfere with the law.

“Mr Patterson,” said Bedwalters formally, “I must again ask your indulgence but I am investigating a most serious matter.”

“What is it this time?” I asked wearily. “More music disappeared?”

“Mon violon!” Le Sac cried hoarsely.

My heart turned over. I think there are few people in this world who can understand the attachment a musician has towards his instrument. That black violin of Le Sac’s would have been worn to his hold, fitted snugly upon his shoulder. His fingers would instinctively have known their places upon the strings; his ear would recognise its every tone. It would have travelled with him from town to town and country to country, lying on the seat by his side like a companion; its surface would have been polished lovingly by his hand. To lose it would have been like losing a child. I know the fondness I have for my own fiddle, though I am principally by nature a keyboard player. How much more violent then must have been Le Sac’s emotions?

He was shaking and red-faced; by the light of Phillips’s wavering lamp, I could see sweat dripping down his round cheek. Even from this distance, I could feel the heat burning from him. “You have it stolen,” he croaked. “You want I should leave this town. I will leave – only give me back my violon.”

I knew it was not a bargain he would keep, even if I had been in a position to agree to it. Once he had the violin in his hands again, he would refuse to go. And, oh God, why had I not thought of it before – the violin was gone and Demsey was gone. Had he stolen it, in some obscure plan to punish Nichols by attacking his friend? Or did he intend to trap Nichols as Nichols had trapped him with the young lady? Would the thing be found hidden in Nichols’s lodgings? No, surely not. It made no sense. But my tired, befuddled mind was beyond making sense of anything.

Bedwalters was regarding me mildly. “I regret to have to ask you this again, sir, but it would be most amiable of you to agree that your rooms be searched.”

“I cannot agree!” snapped Mrs Foxton.

“See – he has it!” Le Sac cried and fell at once into a fit of coughing so loud we had to wait until the fit died away before we could hear each other speak.

I was too weary to argue. “Come up, then,” I said. “Have your search and be gone. I need to be up early tomorrow.”

We climbed the stairs, Le Sac panting and wheezing like an old man. By the time we reached my room, he was a flight behind us and Bedwalters stood at the banister with a candle to light his way. I rapped upon the door and a sleepy voice said, “Master, is that you?”

“Yes. Let us in.”

I heard the soft pad of footsteps and the click of the wedge being removed from the inside of the door. The room was in darkness and little of Bedwalters’s light from the landing seeped in. I felt my way across to the table. It took me three attempts to make a spark from the tinder-box but when the candles were alight, they showed me George, seated upon the edge of my bed, yawning widely, his feet kicking at the rumpled blanket on the floor. Then his eyes widened and he scrambled back upon the bed towards the corner of the wall.

“He’s come for me!”

“You!” Le Sac declaimed from the doorway. He stood with one hand upon the jamb, a picture of scorn. “What use are you to me? You have no musical Genius! Give me my violon and I will not care if I ever see either of you again.”

“I haven’t got it!” George quavered. Tears squeezed down his face, glittering in the candlelight.

The search did not take them long. A glance in the few cupboards, a turning over of the mattress, a shifting of the books on the table. George huddled in a corner, shivering in his nightshirt, while I leant against the table and tended the candles to prevent them from being blown out by the draught of their movements.

“I don’t have your violin,” I said at last as Le Sac prowled restlessly about the room. “I am sorry for its loss – ”

“Hypocrite,” he spat and turned on his heel.

By mid-morning, the theft was posted all over the town; Le Sac must have persuaded Thomas Saint to open up early to print the bills. I first came across a copy on the wall of Barber’s bookshop in Amen Corner behind St Nicholas’s Church, and stood reading it in the spit of a cold rain that was already staining the paper.

Whereas an old Violin, black, without a Maker’s Name, and the Bow of spotted Wood, fluted from one End to the other, in a black Case, has been stolen from the Home of its Owner, in Low Friar Street, this 16th Inst. Whoever will deliver it whole to any of the undermentioned Persons shall receive one Guinea Reward and no Questions asked. At M. Le Sac in Low Friar Street; at Mr Barber’s, Bookseller and Stationer; at the Golden Fleece in the Sandhill. NB No greater Reward will be offer’d.

The matter of the violin and Demsey’s disappearance weighed heavily on me all day, so I walked down to Caroline Square in an uneasy state of mind. I was not inclined for company, and I did not trust Lady Anne not to spring another surprise. But it was undoubtedly true that her favour could do me great service professionally; and I found myself anticipating with some pleasure the opportunity to talk again with Mrs Jerdoun.

Still there was that other matter, which endlessly troubled and mystified me. At the entrance to the square I hesitated, looking across to the house with elegantly proportioned windows, sweeps of expensive curtains just visible through the glass. I did not wish for the repetition of the strange events that had happened to me there, yet I found myself thinking that perhaps only by such repetition would I find out their true significance. If such an event did occur again, I resolved I would face it in a rational manner, calmly looking for an explanation. So I hesitated, but went up to the house with resolution.

Nothing happened.

The footman showed me to the library to await the tea tray. I occupied the few minutes I was kept waiting by browsing through some of the volumes absentmindedly, still distracted by the one puzzle when I came upon another – an inscription in a commonplace book, in manuscript. The book looked very much the sort of thing an organist might keep to record short pieces or to note down the works of other composers. In the front was inscribed: Thomas Powell, organist, St Nicholas, 1725.

I had never heard of such a man. Unless, of course, the name of the church misled me. There was also a St Nicholas church in Durham, but surely it had no organ. The book was much the same size as the book Lady Anne had lent me and I stood for a moment, fingering the cover, wondering. And then, inexplicably, shivering with sudden cold.

I looked up and saw in front of me a door standing open into a small room, very elegant in pale golds and blues, the sort of room in which a lady might sit. A book was laid closed on a small table, needlework beside it as if the lady had only just laid her work down and got up. I stared blankly at the room, knowing it had not been there before. Taking a deep breath, I moved forward. The carpet was thick beneath my feet; the delicate scent of dried herbs drifted from a bowl on a mantelshelf over an unlit fire. I reached down and opened the book on the table. It was a prayer book, of the kind often used for private devotion, and inside the cover had been listed the names of children with the dates of their births. Lady Anne was there, but not Mrs Jerdoun. The old paper was darkened where fingers had stained the pages.

A glimpse of movement in the corner of my eye. I glanced up and saw, through the window, a carriage pass down the street.

For a moment, I stared out into the street where there should have been a square. Then I thought I heard a voice; I turned and went back into the library. And as I passed through the door between the two rooms I shuddered again, as if with cold – and turned to see no door, no blue and gold room, only a wall behind me.

The ladies came out of dinner together, amiable and talkative, although I sensed some constraint on Mrs Jerdoun’s part. Lady Anne was anxious to ask after my health, having heard from Mrs Jerdoun that I had felt unwell on my last visit to the house. “I do trust,” she said wickedly, “that you have not caught Monsieur le Sac’s chill.”

“Not at all, my lady,” I returned, choosing not to rise to her bait. “I have been admiring your library. I had no chance to look closely on my previous visit but I had thought there was another room, there.” I indicated the wall behind us. “In that corner of the library.”

She stared at me, astonished. “No, never. Only the servants’ stair. Are you certain you are quite recovered?”

Somewhat irritated, I reassured her. She then asked after my apprentice, whose playing at the concert she commended. “Though I fancy, if he intends to make a living out of his skill, he will need to grow up a great deal more handsome than he promises to.”

The lady herself, of course, was exquisite as usual, the splendour of her gown and jewels and the subtlety of her rouge almost making me forget that she was remarkably plain. Something in the animation of her face and the glow of her skin in the brilliant light of many candles was infinitely becoming.

Esther Jerdoun said consolingly, “Children often grow out of spots. Once he does, he may not be so bad.” She too was elegant in a silvery white gown and her fair hair glinted in the lights. Her manner was cooler than her cousin’s; I both preferred it and trusted it more. There was a frown between her eyes as she regarded me, before flicking her gaze towards the corner of the room I had indicated. I was tempted to raise the matter again, but Lady Anne was already speaking.

“If Mr Patterson can but persuade the boy to wash more often, I shall be pleased. Tell me, sir, what do you make of this business of the stolen violin?”

Suspecting Demsey as I did, I did not wish to discuss the matter. I made some bland remark about how grievously musicians feel such losses.

“That must be it, then,” she said thoughtfully. “I offered to buy him another but he rejected the idea so vehemently I feared for his health!” There was an edge to her voice which suggested she had not liked Le Sac’s manner. “Well, Mr Patterson, this may work in your favour. You may yet direct more concerts.”

“I would dearly love the chance to direct the Concerts, madam, but I would like to earn the place through merit, not at the cost of another man’s misfortunes.”

“Regrettably,” Mrs Jerdoun said, “we often prosper at other people’s expense.”

Lady Anne laughed and tapped my arm. “That is a jibe at me, sir. I was very ill when I was a girl, and if I had died Esther would have inherited my father’s wealth.”

Flustered by her frankness, I glanced at Mrs Jerdoun. “My cousin likes to tease, Mr Patterson,” she said imperturbably. “She is fond of games.” And I fancied she cast me a warning glance.

What the devil was I to do about Demsey, what indeed could I do? The more I considered the matter, the less likely it seemed that he would have taken the violin. His quarrel was with Nichols, not Le Sac; if his intention had been to place the blame on Nichols (by secreting the violin in his rooms, for instance), surely something would have been heard of it by now? But if it had been an attack on Le Sac, the only enemy I could attribute to the Swiss was myself; and I had not taken the violin nor asked anyone else to do it for me. So was it merely a simple matter of a thief making off with the instrument? And why did I feel that there was something deeper – something as yet unknown – about the affair?

As to the matter of the house in Caroline Square…

Early on Sunday evening I went out with determination, as if I was merely taking the air, walking with my prayer book in hand to give myself an air of respectability. The ladies were out at church; I saw them walking sedately down to St Nicholas together. Few of the servants remained, by the look of it, and the square was altogether quiet.

I walked round the square twice. Nothing happened. I walked past the house, turned and went back again, to no purpose. The square remained silent, the chill was merely the chill of the first hint of frost and the flickering lanterns remained in place. Even the spirit was silent.

On Monday, I received a kind note from a Mr Parry, player of the treble harp, who was evidently visiting the town.

Sir,

Your Name has been mentioned to me as one of the musical Gentlemen of this Town, who may do me the Honour of accompanying me on the Harpsichord at the benefit Concerts I intend holding in Hoult’s Rooms at the Turk’s Head on the 22nd and 25th Inst. I would of course offer the customary Rates, &c. I would be much obliged if you could send me at the Turk’s Head, whether you are able or no.

Y^r. Ob^t. Serv^t.

Thomas Parry.

I scribbled a note, dragged George from the copying upon which he was engaged and told him to take the note to the inn. He looked at me with big anxious eyes.

“I haven’t finished the concerto, master.” He was copying one of the pieces from Lady Anne’s book.

“There is no hurry. You can finish it later.”

“I don’t feel well, master. I think Mr Sac passed on his illness to me.”

He was clearly making excuses. “You have nothing to fear from Le Sac, George,” I said wearily. “He cannot make you go back to him.”

He took the note unwillingly and went out, dragging his feet. But he came running back before long, out of breath and more eager than before. “The gentleman asked if I played too, master, and when I said yes, he said to bring my violin and he’d hear me and say if he wanted me to play! Oh, and he sent this note –”

Parry’s brief note appointed a time on Wednesday the 21st, two days hence, for a rehearsal. I folded the paper into a book where I generally keep such things and George went back to his copying.

We neither of us slept well that night. As I lay in the darkness, I could hear George wriggling upon the floor, constantly turning over. It seemed strange to me that he should still fear Le Sac. To be honest, I thought the less of him for it; he must know that Le Sac had no legal hold over him any longer. As for myself, I was preoccupied by puzzles that nagged at me night-long: Demsey, the violin, the strange room I had seen, the games Lady Anne insisted upon playing. And a growing conviction that all these things were somehow connected.

And – the last thing I recall before an uneasy sleep claimed me, just as the sky was lightening into dawn – that peculiar inscription in Lady Anne’s music book. The elegant flourish of an unknown signature: Thomas Powell, organist, St Nicholas, 1725…

 

14

CONCERTO FOR SOLO VIOLIN
Movement II

I woke the following morning in a determined mood. I might not be able to do anything about the strange events I had experienced in Caroline Square, or Lady Anne’s games, but on some matters I could take action. Fortunately, one of my pupils sent word that she was taken ill, so I had time and leisure to act. George was sullen and sour-faced; I could not bear his fidgeting and sent him off to Akenhead’s, the stationers, to fetch more paper and ravens’ quills.

In the affair of the violin at least, I could see my way clearly. How could any thief have imagined he might dispose of it? It was a Cremona fiddle and would fetch a pretty penny, but only if sold to some person with musical knowledge. And such a person would at once be suspicious, particularly if the violin was offered by someone down at heel. Of course there were unscrupulous gentlemen who would accept goods without asking questions, but then the payment offered would be much lower.

And where might the thief offer the instrument for sale? Not in Newcastle or Durham or even Sunderland, in all of which places Le Sac had played; the violin might be recognised there by its unusual colour. Somewhere further afield, then – Edinburgh or York? London would be the safest place of all, but a thief would surely want to dispose of his booty as quickly as possible and not sit in a post-chaise with it for days on end.

I inscribed my first letter to Mr Ambrose Brownless, organ-builder of the City of York, reminding the gentleman of his kindness to me a year or two before, when I had been travelling north from London, and thanking him for his hospitality on that occasion. “And if I may trouble you further, sir,” I wrote. “I am in search of a violin which has gone astray, (no one is quite sure how)…”

Finishing the note, I added the address and sealed it, then wrote another letter to an old acquaintance in Edinburgh. When George returned, I gave him both notes together with a shilling, and told him to make haste to the Post Office to send them off. He laid the bundle of quills upon the table. “Out again, sir?”

“Now,” I said sharply. “And then meet me on the Sandhill. It is time you had your lesson.”

He hung back. “Why not here, sir?”

“Because I have no instrument, fool! We’ll use the harpsichord belonging to the Concerts – the one stored at Hoult’s.” (I was not sufficiently aforehand with the world to afford such an expensive instrument.)

His face fell further; he hated the keyboard and played it only under protest, because I told him no musician could hope to earn a living knowing one instrument alone. I planned to start him on the German flute, too; it is an instrument many gentlemen play, and can be very profitable. I said nothing of that, however; he was surly enough already.

“Go,” I said.

He went, although it was plain he was mutinous.

After putting ready the books I needed for George’s lesson and the practice of my own which I intended afterwards, I walked to the foot of the Side, to the office of Mr Jenison’s agent, who keeps the key to the Concerts’ instruments, feeling a good deal better for having done something about at least one of the matters that besieged me. There was a great bustle about the Golden Fleece next to the office. A coach stood ready for departure and I found George already gawping at the preparations. I left him there while I went up the stairs to the agent’s for the key; perhaps letting him gaze his fill on the commotion would put him in a better temper.

I came to the foot of the stairs again just as the coachman climbed into the box of the coach and decided to stay where I was rather than struggle through the crowd. And while I was standing there, my attention was caught by an ostler leading out a glossy chestnut horse; behind him came a lady, striding out to mount the animal, flouting the proprieties outrageously by wearing breeches (although a long, full greatcoat somewhat disguised the fact) and flinging herself astride a man’s saddle. Surely only one woman could scorn convention like this and face down any criticism – Lady Anne.

But as the lady turned to send her horse trotting along the Key, I saw that I was wrong. Not Lady Anne but her cousin, Esther Jerdoun. I hardly knew whether to admire her or condemn her. The women in that house were altogether out of my common experience. As was the house itself.

Fortunately, George was full of the joys of the coach. We made our way to the Sandhill in silence; I was thinking of one thing, George was talking of another, and he was in such good humour that he submitted to his lesson upon the harpsichord with at least tolerable willingness. I felt giddy; my head was full of Esther Jerdoun’s figure, still most shapely for a woman of forty. But after all, a man may admire where he chooses, provided he keeps his admiration a secret to all but himself.

Our rehearsal with Mr Parry the following day went well. He was a large man, fair in his colouring though I had imagined all Welsh quite dark. He was also blind, or very nearly so, but a casual observer would not know it, for he found his way about easily by keeping very near to the wall and running his fingertips lightly along it. Those hands were huge yet very delicate, and to see such large fingers plucking the finest of harp strings and producing soft tender tunes was disconcerting. He had adapted some violin airs of Handel and Purcell to his instrument and required us to provide the accompaniment; he himself played all by heart, and was very clear in what he wanted and very complimentary when we provided it. All in all, we had a merry time of it, playing happily for several hours.

But, alas, when it came to the concert itself, Parry’s better judgment deserted him. We played two pieces by Handel which went very well, and the first solo airs Parry performed were Scotch and very pleasant. But an entire concert filled with airs and jigs, and reels and strathspeys, and strange Welsh tunes the like of which I had never heard before and never wish to hear again (and which I suspected Parry of fabricating himself, though he claimed they were so old that their origins were lost in the mists of time) – well, there are limits to how much one wishes to hear of such short pieces.

The audience, which was happily large, applauded enthusiastically; many hurried forward at the end of the concert to chat to Parry who towered over them all. I saw Nichols hanging about with a request that Parry might play for his class the following day. And Mr Jenison was also there, hands in pockets, frowning.

“That boy of yours, Patterson,” he said suddenly. “Very tolerable player. I warrant it was you who taught him to play an adagio like that. That French fellow just rushes at adagios – I’ve always said foreigners can’t play them well. Haven’t the sensibility for it.”

He did not meet my eye. That French fellow – hardly the way to refer to a favoured employee. (I prevented myself just in time from murmuring ‘Swiss’.) Had Le Sac offended Jenison in some way? I caught Claudius Heron’s gaze instead as he walked past; “Very good,” he said, and walked on.

Esther Jerdoun came up to me with a smile as Jenison turned away. The lady was dressed in grey but the light caught the shiny fabric and turned it to shimmering silver; sapphires glittered in her ears and around her throat.

“I enjoyed the Handel greatly, Mr Patterson,” she said in a tone of voice I thought rather loud. “Tell me, what opera was that overture from? I had not a handbill – they were all gone before I arrived.”

But she did not allow me to answer; she lowered her voice and spoke swiftly. “You need not concern yourself about the violin. It is recovered.” She raised her voice to its former pitch. “I have always thought Handel’s instrumental music much under-rated. Do you not agree?”

I answered mechanically, hardly knowing what I said. Her mouth smiled; her head nodded, her elegant hand drifted across the decorated lid of the harpsichord. And her eyes were sharp and warning.

“Now it’s to the bottle!” Parry said suddenly and swept his arm round George. The contrast between the giant and the child was ludicrous. “Shall we introduce this lad to the pleasures of fine wine, Mr Patterson? Oh, I beg your pardon, madam.”

Perhaps he had caught the soft sound of the lady’s dress sweeping the floor as she turned. Mrs Jerdoun inclined her head. “I merely lingered to express my pleasure at your playing, Mr Parry.”

She was an astonishing woman, I thought, as Parry, George and I went down the back stairs of the inn into the parlour. She was capable of surprising me in a way that, oddly, her cousin did not. I supposed outrageous acts were expected of Lady Anne. But I longed to ask a host of questions. Where had the violin been found? Was it known who had taken it? Why did she clearly intend its discovery to be kept a secret? Or was it merely the manner of its discovery? I had a sudden recollection of her riding out the previous day; had she herself found it?

And, above all, was Demsey implicated in the matter?

I was in a fever to know what had happened. But it was not until mid-morning of the following day that I had any further news. I was not in a good temper and the first lesson of the day had been with a recalcitrant unco-operative girl who had grown up sufficiently to discover the benefits of charming men into doing as she wished but not sufficiently to be able to work the trick. The day was sunny, although a chill breeze blew a hint of winter into the brightness, and after the lesson I went down to the Key to the Printing Office to buy a copy of the last week’s Courant, which I had missed. Thomas Saint, in handing me my change, said, “I hear that French fellow has his fiddle back.”

“Swiss,” I said automatically. Then, recollecting that I was not supposed to have heard of the matter, I added, “Indeed? How?”

“One of the grooms belonging to Lady Anne found it.” The breeze took hold of the outer door and gently tapped it against the jamb, sending quivers of sunshine across the papers stacked on the office floor. “Lady Anne’s cousin had sent the fellow on an errand to Darlington. He stopped for a bite at the Post House and saw them carrying out the parcels for the coach. The wrapping on one of them was torn and he thought he saw a violin case within. Of course, he raised the alarm and they opened the parcel and there it was. Addressed to some rogue in London, I hear.”

I was astounded. “Do you mean to say the thief put it on the coach as if it was an ordinary everyday parcel?”

Saint chuckled and seized at some bills that lifted from his desk in the breeze. “Some folks have a good helping of audacity, do they not? That’s the top and tail of it. Of course the groom brought it back with him, the French fellow parted with the reward without a murmur and Lady Anne rewarded the groom as well. Everyone’s happy – except the thief, of course.”

I listened to the tale with mounting incredulity. I had never heard such nonsense. If the thief had rid himself of the instrument as soon as possible, which would have been sensible, it would have got much further south than Darlington. Five days since it had been stolen – almost time to reach London. And to send such a delicate item by a coach was unthinkable. The instrument would have been smashed to pieces before Doncaster or Newark; ostlers and inn-keepers have clumsy hands. But if the tale was not true, what had really happened? I knew of only one person who might be able to tell me.

I begged a piece of paper from Saint and penned a letter to Esther Jerdoun.

Madam,

At our last conversation you referred to a matter about which I would be grateful to have further information. I would appreciate your being so amiable as to indicate the truth of matters which are currently the subject of much unreliable gossip in the Town. I remain, madam,

Y^r most ob^t. Serv^t.

Chas. Patterson.

I sent Saint’s boy with the note; when I returned home that evening, a reply was waiting for me.

Sir, it read, I do not believe there is any advantage in discussing the matter further. It was signed E. Jerdoun.

With such a curt dismissal I was, I supposed, meant to be satisfied.

I was not.

 

15

CONCERTO FOR SOLO VIOLIN
Movement III

Before I went to bed, I scratched out letters to two or three acquaintances whom I thought might know Demsey’s whereabouts. Mr Hesletine, for one, organist of Durham and a man whom it is well nigh impossible to avoid offending. His temper was like an ague – swift to come on and slow to mend again. Seven or eight years ago, he was nearly dismissed his position for abusing one of the prebendaries of the Cathedral. But he and Demsey, for some reason, have always dealt very well together, which is more than might be expected from the disparity in their ages (Hesletine is near fifty) and the similarity in their tempers. Last time I was in company with both of them, a year back, the whole afternoon was occupied by them shouting at each other with the greatest goodwill in the world. They parted the best of friends.

So one letter went to Hesletine asking if he had seen Demsey in the last week. Another went to the Post House in Durham, in case Demsey had passed south. A third to the Assembly Rooms in Sunderland, in case he lodged in that town, and a fourth – I considered briefly – to the publisher Hamilton in Edinburgh. My request in this last letter I mixed in casually with an enquiry over publishing terms for my Scotch Songs for the Harpsichord, performed at the last Concert. I left the letters on the table with a note to George to dispatch them and went to bed, if not satisfied, at least content I had done all I could.

The next day was the day of Parry’s second benefit and I rose early to be done with all my errands before the evening. We had rehearsed our pieces the day of the first concert so there was no midday rehearsal to distract me. I went first down to Caroline Square, with some considerable trepidation but equally with determination, to see Esther Jerdoun, tucking Lady Anne’s book of concerti under my arm as an excuse for my visit.

It was a dull grey day and the spirit in the square was muttering morosely. That particular patch of ground upon which I had twice stumbled looked like every other part of the road; I stood looking at it for some time. Then one of the other gentlemen who lived in the square came out and gave me a measuring look, plainly wondering if I was a thief. Heart pounding, I walked up to Lady Anne’s door. Yet again, nothing happened.

A footman answered my knock but before he could speak, I heard a shout from within the house. Lady Anne, berating some unlucky servant. An object crashed to the floor. The footman flinched.

“Is Mrs Jerdoun at home?” I asked.

“She has gone out, sir. And –” Another shout arose behind him. “Lady Anne is not receiving visitors.”

“I’ll return another time,” I said, and made a relieved retreat.

Thwarted in my attempt to press Mrs Jerdoun for an explanation, I went about my other business of the morning, walking down to Thomas Saint’s to find out whether there had been any replies to my advertisement for subscribers to my Scotch music. Without at least two hundred or so, I could not hope to raise the money to have it engraved and printed. Eight subscribers had kindly put their names down. I put a brave face on it and told Saint to run the advertisement a second week, but I was plainly going to have to call upon the ladies and gentlemen personally to obtain their patronage.

As I walked back along the Key, through the busy bustle of carts and yellow-waistcoated keelmen, the smoke drifting along the river caught in my throat and made me cough. I climbed up to Fleming’s shop on the bridge – I had yesterday snapped the topmost string on my violin and used the last of my stock to replace it – and at the door, stood back to allow a lady to leave the premises. It was Mrs Jerdoun, in a sensible if drab gown of a chocolate-brown colour. She clutched a parcel of books.

“Mr Patterson,” she said coolly, and made to walk on.

“Madam.” I stepped forward. Her quick frown of annoyance was not encouraging. “I have heard wild tales about grooms and Darlington Post House, and I had hoped you at least would tell me a true tale.”

“A true tale, Mr Patterson? Do any of us know the truth?”

I thought she was trying to avoid answering me. “I would have thought you would, madam, better than anyone.” She hesitated. “You recovered the violin yourself, I believe,” I added.

“Very well, Mr Patterson,” she said curtly. The wind – it is always windy upon the bridge – whipped her hair about her face. “I did indeed find the item in question, in Darlington Post House where it had, most fortunately, been overlooked for several days without being sent on to London. The landlord of the Post House had been somewhat exercised by the handwriting upon the label. I, on the other hand, recognised it at once.”

She glanced round as two gentlemen walked past and waited until they were out of earshot. Then she turned her cool grey eyes upon me once again.

“It was your hand, sir.”

I could think of nothing to say. I had not even wit enough to protest my innocence.

“I felt it wisest to disguise the matter as best I could,” she said. “I told the landlord the instrument had been sent on by mistake, bribed the fellow into silence and brought the violin back with me. The label – I daresay you will be relieved to hear – I tore into pieces and buried deep in the bogs of Gateshead Fell.”

She glanced away to the shops on the other side of the bridge, her cheeks flushed. “There is, I assure you, sir, no reason to fear. My cousin’s groom is a reliable man and does and says as he is instructed, and acts the fool if he is challenged. He will not say anything outside the script I gave him. You may rest easy – your name will never be associated with the matter.”

I found my breath at last, though I felt my cheeks blanching. “Madam…” I began, but she turned away.

“There is nothing more to be said, Mr Patterson. I would be obliged if you do not refer to the matter again.”

She walked quickly away, crossing the bridge towards Gateshead Bank. I could only stand and stare after her, my clothes tugged by the river breeze and my mind in a turmoil. She thought I had stolen the violin.

I shifted as another customer came from the shop, and numbly went in to complete my own errand. Fleming is taciturn; I think I left without exchanging more than a dozen words with him. I walked down from the bridge and up Butcher Bank towards Pilgrim Street, hardly noticing the passers-by. Esther Jerdoun’s opinion of me distressed me but I did not find it strange that she should suspect me. Everyone associated with the Concerts must be aware of the argument between Le Sac and myself. My friend was known to quarrel with his. But the label – that was the puzzling thing. I knew, as Esther Jerdoun could not, that it was a forgery.

Kicking at the leaves that had fallen from the trees in the gardens between the houses, I contemplated Light-Heels Nichols. He would have had access to Le Sac’s lodgings and might have been able to contrive a means of carrying the violin off even with Le Sac lying ill there. But why should he do such a thing? To implicate Demsey, since Hugh’s disappearance at the same time as the violin must inevitably have lent credence to any such tale? But then why my handwriting on the label?

And – I halted beside a garden wall – what proof did I have that the label had ever existed? Or that the violin had ever been in Darlington? Lady Anne was plainly playing games with me for her own pleasure; why not her cousin too? Were the ladies cut from the same material?

I was not at my best during the lessons that day and my pupils came off rather easy. Nor was I in a good mood for Mr Parry’s second concert. I had made a firm decision. That house in Caroline Square, and the ladies in it, was the centre of all my present woes; its owner was intent upon setting me at odds with Le Sac, Mrs Jerdoun either believed me a thief or was playing a game of her own, and even the house itself was playing tricks on me. I would certainly go there no more, whatever invitations I might receive. I would avoid the ladies, except for the demands of common politeness when we met, and that would be the end of it.

Old Hoult sensed my black temper as I climbed the back stairs to the upper room of the Turk’s Head. “Cheer up, lad,” he said from the banister at the head of the dark steps. “His tunes aren’t that bad – although some of them may be a bit outlandish.”

The thought of two hours of reels and laments set my spirits plummeting.

The Long Room was brightly lit, every candle in the glittering chandeliers flickering gently in the draughts. Some of the audience were already gathered in clumps in window embrasures and around some of the most comfortable chairs. George stood near to the music stands, frowning at a handbill; I was pleased to see that the boy had dressed in his best and had managed to desist from scratching his spots. He smelt rather better, too, so he must have followed my orders to wash. He started when I came up to him and was clearly only a little relieved when he saw who I was. His irrational fears still annoyed me, but I chose to ignore them for the sake of peace.

“Is that the bill for the night?”

“No, master.” He held the paper out to me. “Mr Nichols gave it me at the door.”

It was an advertisement for a concert the next day. With profuse apologies for the shortness of the notice, M. Le Sac offered a benefit concert at the Turk’s Head, and extended his grateful thanks to Signor Bitti, of the York Concerts, who was travelling between that city and Edinburgh, and who had kindly consented to play upon the harpsichord and to offer several solos upon that instrument.

“Sig-nor Bit-ti,” George read laboriously. “Do you know him, master?”

“I know of him,” I said grimly. “Hebden of York speaks highly of him. But then he has a wild fancy for anything Italian.” John Hebden is not above calling himself Signor Hebdeni in the wilds of Scarborough where he fancies they will not be quick-witted enough to recognise his Yorkshire accent. Still, he is an excellent judge; no one can ever accuse him of hiring a bad musician. But it mattered not to me whether Sig-nor Bit-ti was excellent or not; this was one concert I would not appear in.

There was a numerous and brilliant company at Hoult’s that night. Some I recognised from Parry’s first concert; others had heard of the gentleman’s powers and come to see for themselves. Young Hoult had to fetch in extra chairs from below and, when they had been disposed around the walls and across the place, the room looked very full indeed. The bright, warm glow of satins and silks under the candlelight was very fine, and there was only a faint miasma of sweat overlaid by perfumes of musk and lavender.

As rooms filled with a multitude of people will, Hoult’s Long Room became hot and the air stale; I saw George surreptitiously slipping a finger under his cravat to ease it, and felt the sweat trickle down my own cheek. Unluckily, the members of the audience were almost all clutching Le Sac’s handbills and used the papers to fan themselves, so universally that our renderings of Handel were accompanied by a regular flap, flap, flap. But once the music was begun, my mind settled, for it is impossible to play well with only half a mind on the job. Parry performed much the same pieces as before, with a few Irish tunes thrown in, and I saw one or two ladies wipe away tears at his most plangent melodies.

I occupied moments when the harpsichord was silent by looking about the audience. Mrs Jerdoun I spotted at once, seated against the far wall; she was dressed in palest lavender and did not look my way. Her cousin, I saw to my surprise, sat across the other side of the room conversing with Mr Jenison. Had the ladies quarrelled? Well, it was none of my business any longer; I was resolved to avoid them altogether.

One person I did not see until the interval between the acts was Mr Ord; indeed, I did not see him at all until he clutched at my sleeve. Parry had generously provided refreshments and Ord held a glass of Hoult’s best wine between his fingers. He waved Le Sac’s handbill at me.

“This – this Bitty fellow. Do you know him?” His round red cheeks were glistening with heat.

“I have heard he is an excellent player.”

Ord pursed his lips. “And do you play in this concert, sir?”

“I am not needed,” I pointed out. “Signor Bitti is to play the keyboard.”

“In the band as well as the solos?”

“I have not heard precisely, but that would be my understanding.”

“Ah,” Ord said and nodded. “Well, Patterson – what do you say to that Irish jig in the second selection of airs? Most excellent, eh?”

“Very unusual,” I said, temporising.

At the end of the concert, I sent George off to bespeak one of Hoult’s pies – there is nothing like extended playing to work up an appetite – and started to pack away my music while the crowds thronged around Parry. Jenison’s crisp voice sounded above all, offering congratulations. Then, as I turned to lower the harpsichord lid, I was startled by Lady Anne who swung up behind it and leant towards me. She was clearly in a better temper than she had been in the morning, her face flushed and laughing, her hair in elegant disarray. Leaning forward upon the closed lid, she afforded me a view of her slight breasts, enclosed in gold satin. Diamond drops lay on her white, flawless skin.

“I have been doing you a good turn,” she whispered, with a quick dart of her eyes here and there as if to ensure she was not overheard.

I was annoyed by the way she seemed constantly to seek me out, and alarmed too that others might draw erroneous conclusions from her behaviour. We had already attracted some attention. “How so, my lady?” I asked warily.

“I have been extolling your qualities to Mr Jenison.”

“I am most grateful, madam,” I said dryly.

“And I have been pointing out how admired the Italian players are in London nowadays.”

I realised she had not been glancing round to ensure that no one overheard but quite the opposite, for Jenison himself was walking up behind me.

“I fancy, madam,” he said with some directness, “that I do not need fashionable fribbles in London to tell me what is good and what is not.”

She inclined her head. “I think we both agree, Mr Jenison, that certain persons have a natural judgment that can recognise quality wherever it appears.”

When she said certain persons, she clearly meant you and I. Her smiling glance indicated that I also was to be included.

“I have always been entirely sure, Lady Anne,” Jenison said, “that England produces talent to match anything that is found abroad.”

“Better, on some occasions,” the lady agreed and cast another significant glance in my direction, which caused me both embarrassment and annoyance.

“English musicianship,” Jenison pronounced, his gaze momentarily fixed upon the visionary distance, “is of a more solid and durable quality than that found anywhere else in the world. Lady Anne, may I escort you to your carriage?”

“Why, thank you, sir. But I seem to have mislaid my cloak. I think I left it in the window embrasure.”

“Allow me, my lady.” He bowed.

Lady Anne watched until he was out of earshot before leaning closer. “Wait until tomorrow, Mr Patterson, and you will reap the full benefit of what I have done.”

“My lady –”

But she was gone and I was left, annoyed and irritated, to dwell on Jenison’s doubtful compliment (to be durable is all very well but who wishes to be regarded as solid?), and to worry over what Lady Anne might have done this time.

 

16

BASS SONG

Parry was a sociable man and kept me eating and drinking in Mrs Hill’s until the small hours of the morning. I was a willing participant, drinking more than I ought in order to forget my worries. George fell asleep after a huge piece of pie; I roused him after a while and sent him home, too sleepy to protest. When Parry did at last tire, I bade him a cheerful goodbye and lurched off to tell Lady Anne and Esther Jerdoun exactly what I thought of them and to insist that I would have nothing more to do with them. I saw hardly anyone in the darkness, except for the women of the streets; I don’t recall what I said to those who accosted me but they went away in flounces of anger. I was fortunate that no thieves attacked me, though I heard someone yell at me as I walked into Caroline Square.

I would not be intimidated, I would not be manipulated. I walked straight across the square to the house, making sure that I lingered on that particular place in the road. And when the familiar shiver took me and I saw first darkness and then the tall looming presence of the houses in that elegant street, I was exultant. I stood in the middle of the street and I shouted at the top of my voice…

And then I shivered again and stared stupidly at the man who was shaking my arm. “For God’s sake, man!” Claudius Heron snapped. “Be quiet!”

I squinted at him. “What are you doing here?”

A shade of annoyance crossed his face, no doubt at my disrespectful tone. I ignored it, laughing drunkenly. “Been out on the town? Entertaining some lady?”

His lean pale cheeks reddened. “Patterson,” he said, “you will regret this tomorrow. Let me take you home.”

“I hope she was worth the money,” I said. Heron, I dimly remembered, was a widower. “Would it not be more convenient to find a servant in your own house?”

“Patterson!” he said, scandalised, then sighed. “Come with me. No –” I had attempted to extricate myself from his grip. “Aren’t you cold? It’s a cold night. You must go home.”

“A cold night,” I said. “Made me shiver… Didn’t you feel it?”

He frowned. “There was something odd – ”

“Cold and dark – and a street, not a square. And when I shouted, windows went up and someone shouted back and… and then you came. You must have seen the street! Old elegant houses.”

Another sigh. “I shouted,” he said. “I saw you reeling drunkenly down the street and came after you. For God’s sake, man, think of your reputation!”

I considered this. He was right. I nodded. “You’ll be dismissing me again.”

He swore and slung my arm over his shoulder.

After that, I remember nothing.

I was woken at an appallingly early hour by a loud voice. When I struggled on to my elbow, wincing at the bright sunshine slanting into the room, I saw George backing away from a large presence.

“Patterson!” the presence cried. “Still abed? For God’s sake, man – it’s a wonderful day!”

I groaned and tried to pull the sheets over my head. My eyes were sore and my head was one huge, throbbing ache. And I was remembering the encounter with Heron, wondering if there had been more I didn’t remember. I had invited him to dismiss me, I recalled. In heaven’s name, how had I allowed myself to be so foolish?

“Get up and dressed, man,” the presence said. “We’re wasting drinking time!”

My stomach churned as I struggled to sit up. The last thing I needed was an encounter with Tom Mountier – good friend though he was, and in my opinion the finest bass voice in England. But he has a habit of not confining his singing to his professional duties at Durham Cathedral, or at our Concerts, but of breaking into song on the least pretext. And my tormented head wanted no recitals that morning.

“In heaven’s name, Tom, do you never think of anything but drink? George, fetch me washing water.”

The boy disappeared downstairs and Mountier perched himself on my chair while I hunted beneath the bedclothes for my breeches. Thomas Mountier is a fleshy man; his height enables him to call himself well-built but another few years of indulgence will make him fat. If the drink doesn’t kill him first.

He contemplated me while I dressed. “Who’s the lad?”

“He’s my apprentice. Le Sac passed him on to me, in a way.”

His black eyebrows shot together and apart again, and his wig bobbed. Mountier’s face could never hide his feelings. I peered at him. “Are you here to sing at his benefit tonight?”

“Purcell,” he agreed. “‘To arms, Britons, to arms!’”

“You could sing that in your sleep.”

“I have.” He grinned.

“How was Edinburgh?”

The grin became a grimace. “Full of censorious tradesmen. Mr Mountier, could you not sing somewhat more softly? Mr Mountier, that song you propose – is it not a little, er, wanting in gentility?” His imitation of a pedantic Scotch accent was excellent. “And then you go along to their so-called concert and face an audience of no more than five ‘gentlemen’ who can’t even play instruments but talk so learnedly you’d think they’d invented the science.”

“Ah, a private meeting. But they paid you well?”

“Hah!” He made a parsimonious pout. “But you’re not Italian, Mr Mountier. I may not be Italian, I told ’em, but I was the rage of London concerts a couple of years back.”

I buttoned up my waistcoat. “What then?”

“Damn it, Patterson, you know what then. They asked me why I hadn’t stayed in London and I said, there are times when a man has to put devotion before fame, and they pursed up their presbyterian mouths and said that in that case I ought to be satisfied with the piddling salary the Dean and Chapter of Durham pay me for singing in their heathen cathedral.” He made another face. “I beat them up to what they pay their precious Italians.”

George came back with the water and I rinsed my face and hands. “Piddling salary, the man says! I’d accept fifty pounds a year if offered it.”

“You should have seen what I was getting in London,” he bemoaned. But we both knew he could not go back to that; the drink was catching up with him much too quickly.

“When did you get back?”

“Yesterday.”

“And came straight here? Aren’t you supposed to chant the psalms at evensong at least now and again?”

“I get one of the others to do it for me. He’s glad of the extra money. But I must be back tomorrow or I’ll miss matins at St Nicholas. Can’t neglect my other pious duties as parish clerk, you know.”

“Do you ever sing in the cathedral?”

“Not if I can help it, my boy. Those prebendaries – they believe in it all, you know. Po-faced, the lot of them. And talking of someone else who can’t abide all the posturing and posing, Hesletine gave me a note for you.”

I unfolded the paper, edging away from the too-bright shafts of sunlight that dazzled from the page. The note from Hesletine, the Durham organist, was brief. He had unfortunately not had the pleasure of Mr Demsey’s company for several months.

“Are you ready, man?” Mountier said impatiently. “No, not you, youngster, we’re going to drink far too deep for you!”

We walked out, leaving George pouting. As always I felt dwarfed by Mountier. He cleared his throat as we came into the sunny street and stood on the doorstep humming and watching a carter trying to negotiate a pack of dogs outside the tavern.

“Now I come to think of it,” I said, “I had forgot you were parish clerk at St Nicholas. So you’ll know it well. St Nicholas in Durham, I mean, not St Nicholas here.”

“Charles,” Mountier said severely. “You’re babbling.”

“Damn it, I’m making perfect sense. I’ve heard of a fellow called Thomas Powell who was organist at St Nicholas’s church. But he was never organist at St Nicholas’s church in this town, so I wondered if he was organist at St Nicholas in Durham. See, it is all perfectly clear.” Oh God, my head ached.

“If you say so,” Mountier said with good humour.

“Well, was he?”

“Was who what?”

“Was Thomas Powell,” I said very carefully, “organist at St Nicholas’s church in Durham?”

“You’re still half asleep, Charles,” Mountier said with delight. “He can’t have been. Church hasn’t got an organ. I suggested a violin once.” Mountier shook with laughter. “Should have heard the churchwardens – shocked to their core. A violin in church, Mr Mountier? How can you suggest such a thing?” He slapped me on the back. “Come on, man, we have some serious drinking to do. And don’t worry – we’ll not lose track of time. We’ll be there for the rehearsal.”

“You may be,” I said. “But I am not invited to play. Signor Bitti from York plays the harpsichord.”

“Bitti? Very tolerable player. Pleasant fellow, too – speaks damn good English. But surely he doesn’t play with the band?”

“Mountier,” I said wearily, “if I were to explain all the intricacies of the affair, we would still be standing on this doorstep next month.”

“But we have time!” he cried. “We have all morning to drink in!” And with the carter at that moment passing us, we strode off along the street.

We spent the morning in Mrs Hill’s in the Fleshmarket. In daylight, when the butcher’s stalls are set up, the street stinks of offal and buzzes with flies that have constantly to be waved away. Mountier, with his unquenchable interest in food, insisted upon examining the choicest cuts of meat until thirst drove him at last into Mrs Hill’s. Yet neither food nor drink had caused him to forget what I had said. He made me tell him everything (although I remained silent upon my suspicions of Demsey and mentioned Mrs Jerdoun as little as possible) while he downed a great quantity of ale and grew steadily more cheerful, if such a thing was possible. He called for his tankard to be filled again and again, yet it was remarkable that when he arose finally and went for a piss in the necessary-house behind the inn, we had precisely the time required to get to the Turk’s Head for the beginning of the rehearsal.

Against my better judgment, I agreed to accompany him. I was interested to see Signor Bitti; anyone of whom Mountier spoke in favour must be excellent. A large number of people had turned out for the rehearsal, the day being fine, and I was happy to be able to lose myself in the press at the side of the room, although my view of the harpsichord was not as good as I had hoped.

Contemplating the very small band of players gathered around Le Sac, it was clear that the other performers were not as prompt as Mountier (although doubtlessly they would be more sober). I was just wondering if Signor Bitti had after all cried off, when Mountier came into the room by the rear stairs. He was all smiles, his arm around the shoulder of a slender fashionable gentleman of tender years, eighteen at most. The young gentleman wore an embarrassed smile but when he laughed at some joke of Mountier’s his entire demeanour changed. He was really astonishingly handsome.

They weaved across the room – in part to avoid the congregated ladies and gentlemen, in part (I was certain) because Mountier could not walk a straight line. I realised to my horror that I was not as well hidden as I had hoped and that they were coming straight towards me. I glanced in Le Sac’s direction and saw him staring at us, his face twisted with anger.

Mountier introduced us, voice as loud as a bugle horn, and the gentleman – who was indeed Signor Bitti – and I made our bows. He was, I saw, nervous and Mountier’s next words made him more so.

“Patterson is our usual harpsichord player,” Mountier roared.

“Oh? But I would not wish…” Bitti stammered. “I – If you –”

“I am greatly looking forward to hearing you play,” I said warmly, to put him at his ease. “It is not often that we have the chance to hear someone so up to date with the latest London novelties.”

This was something of a lie, as we flatter ourselves on our knowledge of the metropolis, being in regular contact with all the best publishers in London and corresponding regularly with promoters of concerts in the capital. Le Sac’s presence, too, must indicate that I had understated our pretensions. But Signor Bitti clearly recognised what my words were meant to convey – a disclaimer of offence. He bowed and went with Mountier to talk to Le Sac. I heard Le Sac loudly ask after the health of his ‘good friends’ – a number of eminent musicians whose names clearly impressed such listeners as Henry Wright.

Time wore on and still the other band members did not arrive. Signor Bitti tried out the harpsichord and frowned over its tuning; Wright attempted a passage, unsuccessfully, on his tenor. Dr Brown rubbed a speck of dust from the impeccable polish of his violoncello. A gentleman with a German flute edged in with an apology for his lateness, and two cellists arrived breathless ten minutes later. But it soon became clear that no one else would arrive, leaving the band woefully thin and bottom-heavy; indeed, I thought the rehearsal could hardly go on. With only one violinist apart from Le Sac, and a poor player at that (for it was Nichols), how could they maintain the accompaniment while Le Sac played his solos?

And as I looked round the impatient ladies and gentlemen, my eyes set upon Lady Anne standing by the entrance door. I looked away at once but not before she had given me a mischievous look. I recalled her words the previous night: Wait until tomorrow and you will reap the benefit of what I have done. Was this her doing? But why should she wish to humiliate Le Sac in this way?

They were forced at last to begin, starting with a solo of Mountier’s so that Le Sac could play in the band. No doubt they hoped that latecomers would arrive before the violin solos needed to be rehearsed. Le Sac was red-faced with anger. I looked about the room as they tuned, searching for those regular members of the band who had not yet arrived. Mr Ord and Mr Heron, for instance – where were they? Not that I looked forward to meeting Heron after the events of last night. I had written him a note of apology from Mrs Hill’s, but I was certain there would be undesirable consequences from that incident. How in heaven’s name had I allowed myself to become so drunk!

Despite the gross deficiencies of the band, Signor Bitti played quite brilliantly. In Mountier’s songs he was reticent, allowing the soloist to dominate, never intruding. In his own solos he combined both dexterity and expressiveness, not indulging in virtuosity for its own sake but always subordinating technique to the demands of the music. I was so taken with his playing that I hardly noticed Le Sac sawing away on his precious black violin or Mountier, with perfect diction and pathetic delicacy, first rousing tears in the eyes of the ladies, then, with bellicose bombast, inciting us all to warlike and patriotic sentiments. No one could have imagined him drunk. But Signor Bitti took my chief attention and, at an interval in the rehearsal, I went to him to express my appreciation and, greatly daring, to ask for a lesson.

“But I leave first thing tomorrow,” he said, the radiance dying from his face. “And I cannot put it off, for I am contracted to the Musical Society in Edinburgh.”

I apologised for inconveniencing him and attempted to withdraw. “But I return in a month,” he said. “And we may meet then. I will write to you from Edinburgh and tell you the date of my return.”

I had no expectation that he would remember but I thanked him and withdrew, unfortunately not looking where I went. I walked straight into Le Sac.

His face was livid with fury. “I will break you, Patterson,” he hissed. “I will break you for what you have done here today.”

 

17

QUARTETTO

I had not intended to go to the evening concert itself but the prospect of hearing Signor Bitti again was irresistible. I walked into Hoult’s Long Room close to the starting time. The room was crowded and noisy, and more than a little stuffy; on such occasions no one will open windows for fear of draughts. It was strange to find myself on this side of the music stands, and I looked about for a seat close to people who could be trusted not to commiserate with me upon my exclusion from the band. A movement caught my attention: Lady Anne was beckoning to me from the far side of the room. I was annoyed to have fallen so quickly into her clutches but I could not ignore such a direct invitation.

I went across to make my bow and she patted the chair next to her.

“Pray sit down, Mr Patterson. You may keep me right and tell me where I should applaud and where keep silent.”

She was in no need of such elementary tuition. “You must show your appreciation, Lady Anne, where you feel it to be deserved.”

She considered me for a moment, then, with a bow of her head in my direction, softly tapped her hands together.

“Madam –” I protested.

She held up a hand to silence me. “No, no, you are quite right. I must show approbation for all things Le Sacian, must I not? I am after all his patron.”

I hesitated but could not keep silent. “When we spoke last night, my lady, you implied I would reap the benefit of your actions.”

She fanned her hot cheeks gently with the handbill. “A word or two in the right ears,” she agreed, smiling. “A hint to the gentlemen that they might not like to be connected with foreign interlopers.”

“Do I take it then, my lady,” I persisted, “that it is as a result of your hints that the band was so thin at the rehearsal?”

“I flatter myself that certain gentlemen –” she was nodding in Jenison’s direction – “seem to find my reasoning sound.”

I stared at the empty end of the room where the stands, loaded now with music, stood deserted. I found myself resenting such interference when it disadvantaged a player as good as the Italian.

Lady Anne was smiling at me, but watchfully, I thought.

“Will you inform me, my lady, why you take such an interest in me?”

She tapped my hand playfully with the handbill. “Every good musician needs a patron.”

“I thought, madam, that you were Le Sac’s.”

“I grow weary of foreign airs, Mr Patterson. I find myself more and more appreciating good honest English virtues.”

I would have liked a generous patron, but not Lady Anne. A woman who deserts one man in favour of another – without first making the situation clear to the deserted party – may do so again.

At that moment, Mrs Jerdoun walked past. I saw her glance our way, then walk on without a word. Lady Anne chuckled. “My cousin is out of charity with me. We have quarrelled over a trifle; she will have forgotten by tomorrow.”

A lady and gentleman of her acquaintance came up and she turned to converse with them. She did not introduce me; I was a tradesman, to be patronised but not indulged. Across the room, Mrs Jerdoun had settled herself in a window embrasure and I was briefly distracted by a fugitive memory. Yes, of course, the two ladies had also sat apart at Parry’s concert; the quarrel must already have lasted rather longer than Lady Anne cared to have known. Perhaps Mrs Jerdoun was avoiding us both.

The seats were filling up and the first musicians came in. Le Sac had evidently persuaded a number of gentlemen to change their minds and the band was almost its usual size. In fact – I looked at all the heated faces, earnest and nervous, behind the stands – yes, almost all the usual players were there, Wright and Ord among them. The only one who had not yielded to persuasion was Claudius Heron. I did not know whether to be glad or sorry that he was not there; I had not received a response to my apology.

Mountier came panting up the back stairs, hesitating by the harpsichord with an air of panic. He hurried across, leaning over me with a waft of stale ale. “Patterson, Patterson, what am I singing?”

I gave him my handbill and he tottered off with it, only to come back several minutes later to ask the same question again. I reminded him as best I could, given I had not read the handbill, being too preoccupied. When he was gone, Lady Anne tapped my arm.

“That young thing over there, with pink ribbons. That is the Lindsay girl, the one your friend was accused of making fast and loose with.”

I looked round and saw the ‘young thing’ Lady Anne described, all white and virginal, a halo of yellow curls, a round, smiling face and a sideways, knowing look. Who was she smiling at? Yes, to be sure – Light-Heels Nichols, just walking up with his fiddle in his hands.

The concert was a great success. From the opening notes of the full piece which began the first act, the numerous company was plainly prepared to be pleased. With great good humour, Mountier treated them to a simple, rollicking Scotch song, then Signor Bitti played a solo of his own composing. Le Sac, smiling serenely, sat through it all, keeping himself low and quiet, leading the band with such ease that he had time to glance around and nod at acquaintances at the front of the company.

Some confusion arose over Mountier’s next song; he stumbled forward and started on a hunting song, which he was supposed to sing in the second act. The rank and file in the band were startled and there was much hasty (and noisy) sorting of music, some worried looks and hurried whispering. Signor Bitti, however, played on with unruffled composure, although I knew he must have had quite another song in front of him – playing from memory (and faultlessly) an accompaniment which he had seen only once before, at rehearsal. Le Sac too was unperturbed; he sat back at his ease, violin under his arm, as if he had never intended to play in this song.

And then Le Sac rose magnificently, silencing the last ripples of applause for Mountier, and launched into what I must – if I am to tell the truth – describe as some of the most brilliant playing I have ever heard. It was as if Signor Tartini himself had come among us. I warrant no one in the room paid one moment’s attention to the band’s soft accompaniments; Le Sac dominated the entire company with that black violin and the bow of spotted wood. A rolling, dancing, sparkling scatter of notes spilled from his hands and from that instrument of mere, once mute, wood. And when the display was over, I sat back both elated and cross. Elated by the virtuosity of it, and cross because I was excited by empty passage-work. Admiring of his technique, and low-spirited because I recognised that I would never have such skill. Uplifted by the mob crying for more, and saddened that I would never know such applause for my playing.

I slipped from my place. Lady Anne did not look round. Outside, in the Bigg Market, a cool breath of night air only dampened my spirits more. I could hear the applause echoing from the room behind me. The music began again as Le Sac encored the piece.

I wandered down the length of the Bigg Market and came to where the church of St Nicholas stood darkened and silent. A torch burned outside Barber’s bookshop beyond. Nichols’s brother, the organist, still lived, still deep in debt and drink, and had hired a young man from Gateshead, the son of the organist there, as deputy. I had not the skill of Le Sac or Bitti, nor the patrons, nor the position.

I do not recall ever being so downcast.

The next day I occupied by moving my few possessions to my new room – an undertaking that would have been frowned on by many people (had they known it) as it was a Sunday. The room was larger than my old lodging, and rather more regular in shape; I was able to set one corner aside for George, which delighted him. Mrs Foxton had provided the room with two chairs so that George and I were able to work at the same time and, as the window opened, which my old one had not, I was better able to bear George’s smell. He had given up his fear of Le Sac at last, I noted, and ran out on an errand without complaint. When he did not return immediately, however, I glanced out into the street and saw him in conversation with Lady Anne in her Sunday finery. Lady Anne again! No doubt she had been to church at St Nicholas, but what could be her business with George? I expected her to come up but George came back alone.

“What did the lady want?”

“Lady, master?”

“Lady Anne.”

“She wanted to know if you were well, master. She said you left the concert early last night.”

I only half-believed him; he would not meet my gaze. I suspected something more; perhaps Lady Anne had given him a penny for some information. She was a fickle woman whose interest must always be engaged by something or someone new; she had tired of Le Sac and I was her latest toy.

A note from Mountier came as I was about to step out to take the air after my labours. The note was addressed from Hoult’s.

My dear fellow. Come and haul me out of my bed and drink an hour or so with me. I cannot bear to go back to that sanctified nest of colliers and prebends without good ale to fortify me.

Yours,

Tho^s Mountier.

Despite my depression, I was forced to laugh over the note and its writer’s fecklessness. I had no doubt that the prebendaries had told Mountier to be back for matins and that he would be expected at his St Nicholas to line out the psalms for evensong. Or possibly the other way round. Indeed, he should have gone back last night immediately after the concert; the prebendaries would be horrified to believe he contemplated travelling or, indeed, drinking on a Sunday. But one cannot tell a good and generous friend that he is behaving stupidly and will one day pay for it. I scribbled on the note: Alas, some of us do not have such strong heads! and sent the messenger back with it. After my experiences in Caroline Square with Claudius Heron, I was wary of drinking too much.

I set aside the unsettling thoughts that reflection brought on and spent most of the rest of the day composing. The work went well and I had scrawled several sheets before the evening, leaving them for George to copy neatly the following day. Then in the evening I went out to take the air, and encountered Claudius Heron on the doorstep, about to knock and leave his card.

We looked at each other in some confusion; I started on another apology but he waved me to silence. “There is a difference between foolishness and malice,” he said. “We all do foolish things.” And he walked away, leaving his card in my hand. When I looked at the back of it, he had scrawled Mr Heron expects Mr Patterson for his lesson at the usual time.

Monday was chill and blustery, as unpleasant as its predecessors had been inviting. On the Key, the wind blew in the smell of the sea, and the seagulls wheeled and screeched overhead. The smoke from the salt-works at Shields rolled in clouds upon the horizon, great billows and waves such as the sea exhibits on stormy days. Sulphur caught in my throat. But I was in a better mood today after my efforts of the previous day.

If my compositions were not as good as Le Sac’s and my performance poorer – well, the Swiss was twenty years or so my elder and had more experience in these matters. I must have faith in my own abilities and not allow unjust criticism and opposition to deter me. And when I came to the Printing Office, Thomas Saint’s smiling face as he presented me with a sheaf of letters seemed to reward me for my new spirit of determination. Fifty-four new subscribers for my music! I had despaired too early. I would ask Mountier to mention the matter to his fellow members of the cathedral choir. Hesletine might subscribe too. And Hebden of York was fond of Scotch tunes.

I went to Lizzie Saint’s lesson much restored.

 

18

DEAD MARCH

But when I came out of doors again, the stink of sulphur almost overwhelmed me; the alley that led down the side of the Printing Office was dark as midnight. I stood at the entrance to the alley, covering my mouth with my handkerchief, and stared appalled upon the scene before me.

The Key was a river of smoke, eddying and drifting in a wind that dragged at my clothes and hair. As the smoke swirled, it covered everything in a pall of dark grey, then tugged itself apart again, offering glimpses of cobbles, heaps of coal, bundles of charcoal, ballast stones abandoned in huge hillocks. The screams of seagulls echoed as if from a great distance; faintly I heard shouting – confused and alarmed, frightened even – as if some calamity had occurred. A man stumbled out of the smoke, coughing and retching - a collier by his clothes and the ingrained black lines on his hands and face. He pushed past me, swearing through his coughing, and stumbled on.

At last I understood. No seagulls made those unearthly noises but the spirits of drowned sailors, calling from the water for assistance, pleading to be lifted from the river, crying out for rescue. Sailors who had fallen from the keels, or cast down by wreck, or thrown over by drink or malice or the impenetrable workings of fate. Each of them tormented, each crying for help.

I thought of following the collier. Behind the Printing Office, an alley twists round to the back of All Hallows Church; from there it climbs the hill to the more salubrious areas of Pilgrim Street, where the smoke and stench would be far below. But I had told George to wait for me outside the office of Jenison’s agent, so we could collect the harpsichord key for another practice. So, feeling my way with one hand on the wall of the house to my right, I edged forward into the smoke – and fell over a coil of rope into a pile of grimy empty baskets.

I lost my handkerchief when I fell, scrabbled among the baskets for it in vain, finally picked myself up and started off again without it. A mountain of ballast was piled up ahead of me; I was forced to leave the wall to go round it and was immediately unsure of my direction. The shouting persisted all around me now, disorientating and unnerving. A blurred darkness loomed; cautiously I went on and the smoke eddied and parted, and showed me a knot of seamen sprawled upon the cobbles, as if taking their ease in a meadow, smoking begrimed pipes phlegmatically.

“Watch your step,” one called to me. “Spirits are up.”

I went on, feeling for every step. In the darkness of the smoke ahead, I saw a still darker shape – the scarecrow-thin figure of the rector of St Nicholas, the Rev Moses Bell, standing at the side of a huge upturned basket. He was lifting a hand in blessing and consolation, muttering prayers in tones that varied between compassion and fear. Beyond him, in billows of smoke, nuggets of black soot seemed to drift, sometimes plainly visible, sometimes almost illusory.

The Rev Mr Bell saw me, raised his hands helplessly, murmured his endless prayers. I stumbled on into the mist. I knew that my way must be in a straight line along the Key, and so I kept a straight line. Or so I thought until a voice spoke at my feet.

“Come you to join me, sir?”

I looked down and glimpsed a ripple of dark water barely inches in front of me. Another step, and I would have fallen into the river.

“If you’d just oblige me, sir –” Did the spirit have a Scotch accent? “If you would help me up. This place stinks like a shithouse.”

“I cannot,” I said. “There is nothing I can do.”

“Come, sir. Ain’t it our Christian duty to help them in need?”

“Yes, but –”

“It’s little enough I’m asking. Just a helping hand.”

“You cannot leave this place,” I blurted helplessly, wanting to help, wanting to flee. “You’re dead. A spirit.”

Silence. I heard the slap-slap of water against the Key and I thought One day someone will say the same to me, and Dear God, let me never come to this. I have never given much thought as to where I would prefer my spirit to linger its hundred years or so beyond death; but, God, let it not be in the river, among the smoke and the lost souls, the sailors who babble in foreign tongues and cry out for lost familiar scenes, the lunatics who fling themselves into the dark poisonous water and regret it at once as they sink deeper and deeper into death.

I heard a voice raised behind me and, edging round, saw Mr Bell gesticulating a yard or so away. I stumbled back to him and together we fumbled our way along the cobbles.

“Two or three times a year I am called to this unpleasant duty,” Bell said. “My predecessor, Mr Greggs – when I was a chaplain – told me not to worry over it. Tell them you can do nothing, say a blessing or two and go home. But it goes against all I believe in, Patterson, to be so uncaring.”

“Yet there is nothing to be done,” I said. The wailing of the spirits, drifting all around us, was still unsettling me. The black specks in the smoke came so close I instinctively tried to knock them away; looking down, I saw my sleeve speckled with black and did not know whether the marks were made by spirits or mere flecks of soot.

“There was one there…” Bell jerked his head. “He was murdered, pushed over the side of his ship. He knows who did it but the villain was never brought to justice; he ran off to Bristol and sailed to Barbados, it seems. The spirit asked me when the villain was coming back. Do you know the worst of it, Patterson? The murderer sailed with the Quaker fellow, Fox!”

Full seventy years must have passed since George Fox left England for Barbados. Seventy years in which to bemoan unfinished justice. It would, I reflected, be all the same in another seventy years when the cheated spirit had faded beyond even a whisper in the wind and no one would know his story; but nevertheless the tale struck me cold. There must always be a lingering fear that one day such a fate will befall oneself.

I hesitated but the need to ask was not to be denied. “You must get into every part of the town?” I said.

“Of course,” he said, surprised.

“I wondered –” There was no help for it; I plunged on. “If you had ever had a glimpse, however strange and unexpected, of – of another world…”

His face lit up with radiance and delight. “Indeed, Patterson, indeed I have. It is all that sustains me at times like this. The glimpses we are all vouchsafed of God’s heaven, of the saints sitting at his right hand…”

With sinking heart, I realised that he was talking of something altogether different. Well, it had always been the faintest of hopes.

The Rev Mr Bell turned towards the Side to climb the hill and the smoke soon swallowed his dark figure. I felt my way along the walls of the Sandhill and found the Golden Fleece by the sound of horse’s hooves and the chinking of harness. As I came to the arch into the inn, the stench of horse dung briefly choked me. A few yards further and I saw a hunched figure low to my right. A quavering voice said, “Master?”

George was sat upon the lowest step of the stairs to the agent’s office, hugging himself in his fright. “I heard voices!”

“Just the spirits.”

“In the river? I hope I don’t die in the river.”

I stood, listening to the cries and shrieks still echoing from the pall of smoke around us. “Amen to that,” I said.

We climbed the steps to the agent’s. A lamp hanging above loomed out of the thinning smoke, shedding a miasma of oil and lavender from its guttering wick. Lavender bunches had been hung outside the door at the top of the stairs and rustled as I brushed against them. I was about to open the door and go in when I heard voices.

“Why don’t we go in, master?” George said, his voice muffled through his hand cupped over his mouth against the smoke.

“Shhh.”

We bent our heads to listen. I felt guilty at setting a bad example to the boy but was unable to resist the temptation. For the voices – a trifle hoarse from the stench and the smoke – were Jenison and Le Sac.

“I will not be refused,” Le Sac said.

“It is most unreasonable.” Jenison’s annoyance was evident in his voice. “The usual rate is ten shillings. That is more than adequate.”

“Fifteen,” Le Sac said peremptorily. “I will accept nothing less. It is the fee paid in London.”

“This is not London,” Jenison said. “Thank goodness. I flatter myself we have a better idea here of how much money is really worth. And fifteen shillings for one rehearsal and a concert is asking a great deal, sir. You are already paid ten and I for one am of the opinion that that is generous.”

I struggled to stifle a cough – the damn oil and lavender were clogging my throat as much as the smoke. Le Sac was continuing.

“Ten shillings is nothing.”

“It is ten days’ wages for one of my labourers, sir.”

“Any man can shift stones or till the land. Is there another who can lead your band for you, and choose your music, and entertain you?”

A pause, before Jenison said, “I daresay Mr Patterson could have a good stab at it.”

George prodded me with glee but I was cursing. This could only increase Le Sac’s antagonism towards me.

“In any case,” Jenison went on, “we have to remember, sir, that music is not one of the necessities of life. Can you eat it, drink it, shelter under it? Oh, I grant you, it has its uses, else I would not be one of the directors of the Concerts. It encourages trade in its way and provides an employment for the ladies who might otherwise be idle, and it gives a place a good character when visitors find we are so respectable as to have a set of concerts. But it is not necessary, sir – it is a luxury. And to be spending fifteen shillings on a luxury when I have the other performers to pay, and the room to hire, and the candles to buy, and all the rest of it – no, sir, you ask too much.”

“Then I will not play,” Le Sac said with an air of triumph. “See then how many people support your luxury.”

“They may do what they choose,” Jenison said. Le Sac had plainly forgotten that the music lovers had already paid their subscriptions and the money was safely in Jenison’s pockets.

“You cannot do without me, sir!” Le Sac cried. “You saw last night how they adore me!”

“Well, if I cannot,” said Jenison, “I will happily do nothing at all. I would rather abandon the Concerts altogether than pander to a – a French –”

The door of the office was thrown open and Le Sac stalked out, head held high. We drew back quickly. He smiled coldly when he saw me and said something in French. As I have said before, my knowledge of that language is abysmal but I gathered the general meaning of his remarks from his tone and the expression upon his face.

“Mr Patterson,” said Jenison from the office. “How opportunely come.”

So I came into the direction of the Concerts, for a while at least, since I was certain that either Le Sac or Jenison would give way within a few days. And I had no doubt that Jenison saw me as someone he could control more easily than the Swiss. When I suggested I had works that might grace the Concerts (thinking of Lady Anne’s volume of pieces), he frowned as if I was guilty of great presumption and was only mollified when I offered to send George’s copies of the volume to him, implying that his judgment was better than my own. (I vowed to slip one of my own pieces in with the volume.) Demsey may be right in saying I know how to handle such men as Jenison, but it can be hard and dispiriting work.

Nevertheless, I was pleased when Jenison promised me seven shillings and sixpence for each concert day. With George’s three shillings and sixpence for playing as leader, each concert would earn me as much as Le Sac’s despised fee. I hoped merely that they would not come to an agreement until the passing of at least one concert, so I could show what I could do and flatter the gentlemen into thinking me the better bargain. At last one thing was turning in my favour.

I had reckoned without sly Mr Ord.

 

19

CANZONET

I would have been still better pleased had the concert been on its customary day. But it had been put off a day for the convenience of several of the gentlemen players who had another engagement. I calmed my impatience, though not without difficulty.

In the morning, a reply to one of my letters came from Mr Hamilton, the publisher in Edinburgh. The letter was welcome in two respects. First, he sent me a list of twenty-six subscribers for my music, which I carefully added to my ever-growing store. Second, most astonishingly, he told me he had seen Demsey.

I had the honour [he wrote] of Mr Demsey’s Company at Dinner a se’nnight ago. [I checked the date of the letter – last Saturday.] He was, I thought, sombre but in good Heart and gave me much lively Intelligence of Affairs in your Town, the which I was glad to have for it is many Years since I was there, and, owing to the present uncertain State of my own Health, unlikely I shall ever be there again. Mr Demsey was, he informed me, on his way to Aberdeen, although what the Purpose of his Visit was, and how long he intended to remain there, I cannot tell. I have recently receiv’d by Ship from France, several of the latest Concerti…

I scanned the rest of the letter; it consisted of business matters only. What the devil was Demsey doing in Aberdeen? And at this time of year? Thomas Saint’s wife comes from Dundee, I recalled, and she has often spoken of the winter gales and snows in that part of North Britain. Perhaps Demsey intended to set up there as a dancing master; but what call could there be for the elegancies of life in such a god-forsaken spot?

I was pondering whether to go and quiz the good lady when George came in, clutching the latest edition of the Courant. Thomas Saint has evidently taken to publishing on Tuesdays as well as on Saturday. George was looking puzzled.

“I saw Mr Ord, sir, and he asked if I’d read the paper yet. When I said I hadn’t, he bought me a copy.” He sounded both awed by such largesse and uneasy over the possible cause of it.

I took the paper from him and scanned the front page; it was crowded as usual with advertisements. Did Le Sac plan another benefit, perhaps for the week of Signor Bitti’s return? It would be too hard upon the heels of the first concert, but perhaps he wanted to convince Jenison of his popularity.

The faintest gleam of light slid between the hinges of the door. Mrs Foxton said, “The third page, sir, at the bottom of a column.”

I passed over the national news upon the second page and glanced at the local correspondence. An account of a high wind at Morpeth, tragic death at Sunderland, three drowned at Shields, the Bishop’s return to Durham, births, marriages…

“Which column did you say, Mrs Foxton?”

“I know not. I saw Mr Phillips reading as he passed the window and noted how he had the paper folded. He seemed to find the matter amusing.”

My heart sank as I found the piece at last. It was a letter, printed in the smallest type Thomas Saint had, for it was a long letter and he had been hard put to to get it all in.

Sir,

Pray allow me the advantage of your columns to put forward the case of a modest young man who has been most harshly treated.

Oh God, I thought, the writer cannot refer to me? Other phrases leapt to my attention. Where Genius can command, it has the power to be generous to those less fortunate. A reference to Le Sac clearly, and a less than happy compliment to myself. Yes, and here was the demand for fifteen shillings – only, we are told, what is commonly offered in London.

I was reading snatches aloud. Mrs Foxton snorted at references to Genius. George was staring open-mouthed; no doubt he didn’t understand half of the rolling, pompous phrases. The writer must have spent his entire day on this rubbish, and poor Thomas Saint must have been up half the night setting it in type. Unless, of course… I scanned the column again; there was nothing in it that might not have been written last week, except for the matter of the fifteen shillings; which might have been inserted at the last minute. But that would imply a well-planned campaign against Le Sac.

To make such Demands is unworthy of one whose Heart ought to be softened by the divine Art of Musick… No, no, never mind all that.

The affair of the missing Music Books [oh God, not that again] transpired to be a mistake – the books, we are told, were merely mislaid. As for the Violin, we shall doubtless never know the thief who sent it on its journey south, but the Swiss Gentleman should think twice before he makes Accusations. He should recall that the Instrument was stolen from his own Rooms, under his very Nose, while he lay ill in Bed; and that the modest young Man he hints about never had access to those Rooms.

I stopped reading. How had the thief taken the violin?

“Go on, master,” George urged.

“Read it all.” Mrs Foxton had moved to the table next the door and gleamed upon the unlit tallow candle. “It is best to know everything, however bad.”

I read the rest of the column, preposterous as it was. “There is much written of Le Sac’s manner,” I said. “It talks of an insult to the young man – that is supposed to be me, clearly – in not asking him to play at his benefit Concert.” I stopped, amazed. I had been disappointed, yes, principally for the sake of the money, but how could anyone say it was an insult when the substitute was Signor Bitti?

As for righting the supposed insult – this letter was more likely to send Le Sac running in alarm to make his peace with Jenison and I would lose my chance to direct the Concerts. I was seized by a sudden rage and tossed the paper into a corner of the room. “How can anyone write such drivel? It can only make matters ten times worse!”

The letter was signed AMATOR JUSTICIAE. Lover of Justice. “Amator Discordiae, more like,” I said in disgust.

I was not left in doubt of Le Sac’s reaction for long. He sent me a note scribbled in an execrable hand and in French so colloquial I understood less than one word in ten. I pondered long over whether to seek a translation. I could not ask one of the gentlemen of the Concerts in case the note contained wild accusations against me; moreover, I doubted such men as Jenison and Ord would know any language but their own. Claudius Heron might, I supposed, but after our last encounter I judged it best not to test his good will too much. A pity Demsey was not here; his French was fluent (and colloquial) to a degree – all those visits to Paris to learn the latest dances.

I was tempted to throw the note into the fire but Le Sac was devious enough to send me a letter I could not understand and then claim he had told me this or that important fact. I had but one alternative; only one person could oblige me with a translation without exclaiming over the contents of the note. Lady Anne, despite her plottings, or perhaps because of them, would understand any accusations Le Sac might have made.

I was conscious of the irony in asking Le Sac’s patroness to decipher the threats of her protégé but I felt reckless. I was surrounded by people who wished to take my life into their control and to use me for their own purposes, and I was not inclined to allow them to do so. I had had enough of mysterious plottings. If I had a quarrel with Le Sac, I would prosecute it myself.

My first lesson of the day was in the upper reaches of Northumberland Street, almost upon the Barras Bridge. After the lesson, I was walking down towards the town through a stiff breeze blowing leaves about me from the gardens, when a horse clip-clopped to a halt beside me. I looked up into the face of Claudius Heron.

“Do you go to the Key, Patterson?”

“To Caroline Square.”

“I will walk with you.”

He swung himself down and fell into step beside me, leading his horse and glancing about. Not, I fancied, out of interest in the few passers-by, but as an excuse not to look directly at me. The embarrassment of that last encounter still hung between us.

“I am very pleased with my son’s progress,” he said. “His harpsichord playing is much improved.”

“He works hard.”

“Of course.” Heron’s profile, which he kept turned to me, was in the classic style, most elegantly proportioned; his figure was trim despite his age (he was forty-one or two) and his demeanour as cool as ever. “He has expressed a wish to learn the German flute.”

That I doubted but I did not say so. “A very gentlemanly instrument.”

The wind lifted the skirts of Heron’s riding coat and slapped them about his thighs. The horse tossed its head and tugged at the reins. “You will start him on the instrument the next time you come.”

I was about to speak when he added, “And I will have my lesson first.”

“Your lesson, sir?”

“Upon the violin.”

“I had thought –”

“Yes?”

“That you studied with Monsieur le Sac.”

“I am of the opinion,” he said, turning his head to me for the first time, “that music is an art for gentlemen. Monsieur le Sac is not a gentleman.”

“Indeed,” I murmured.

We soon parted, and I turned west to walk down towards St John’s Church and Caroline Square. The prospect of instructing Mr Heron was daunting, and would require every ounce of tact I had; it was a challenge, however, that I found myself anticipating with some pleasure. What I did not look forward to was Le Sac’s reaction to losing a pupil, especially a wealthy one.

Caroline Square was quiet, touched only by the rustling of the leaves on the trees in the central gardens. I walked boldly across the square towards the house. If the strange events were to happen again, so be it. Every time they happened, I gathered more information. (Would not the Steward of the Assembly Rooms congratulate me on my ‘scientific’ attitude?) I had learnt that within those events I could see other people but apparently was not seen by them; I could walk about and touch and hear, and feel the ground beneath my feet. The events could occur as well within the house as without and no one else experienced such events (remembering Lady Anne’s astonishment at my hints). But wait, had not Claudius Heron felt the chill too? Had he not heard me shouting?

Still, at least these strange events had never yet threatened me with any danger, merely discomfort and confusion. And today, as on the last occasion, they did not occur at all. I cursed. I had steeled myself to confront the mystery, to no purpose.

A servant answered the door; Lady Anne, he informed me, was absent on business and not expected back for some hours. I stood irresolute.

“Very well,” I said at last. “Ask Mrs Jerdoun if she will spare me a few moments of her time.”

I was left to wait in the withdrawing room while the servant went in search of Esther Jerdoun. I was conscious of my temerity in approaching a lady with whom I was on bad terms – worse, one who thought so ill of me – but there was nothing else to do.

She came into the room quickly, dressed in a gown of pale green, with tiny embroidery of white. “Mr Patterson,” she said brusquely, “I must apologise to you.”

Disconcerted, I stuttered. “Apologise, madam?”

“I have been most unforgivably rude with you, and with no excuse other than my own ill humour.”

I was silent, remembering what she believed me capable of. Her cool direct gaze creased into a frown.

“Are you well, sir?”

“A trifle – distracted. No matter.”

“You were unwell the other day.”

That was my opportunity. “There is something about this house –”

She nodded. “My cousin likes it greatly but I confess I feel it has a cold air. I am never quite warm here. Are you sure you are not ill?”

“You have not seen anything unusual here?”

She frowned. “Of what kind?”

No, she had seen nothing unusual; I knew that by her puzzled manner. And she had her own preoccupations. When I merely shrugged, she went on. “Do you come about that letter in the Courant? I assure you I had nothing to do with it. Indeed, I thought it most ill-judged and told Mr Ord as much.”

Ord! I sighed and explained about Le Sac’s note. She took it from me, exclaiming at the handwriting and frowning over one or two words that are evidently only to be found in the Swiss form of the French language.

“I suppose we are lucky he did not write in Romance,” she said. “Though I daresay it would still have shown the same poverty of mind, the same ungentlemanly character, the same conceit.”

“If you could just give me the general meaning, madam?”

She did so, glossing over the worst of it, by her own admission. It was of no moment. Le Sac claimed that I was the author of that ‘scurrilous nonsense’ in the Courant and accused me of being intent, out of jealousy, upon destroying him. In short, he accused me of all the evil designs he himself had conceived against me.

I folded the paper away and rose to take my leave. Mrs Jerdoun asked if I would take tea with her, but I could not regain the easy manner I had had upon my previous visits. Despite her apology, I could not forget her suspicions of me. I declined. She looked as if she would say something more, then merely nodded. Yet, on the threshold of the room, she paused, hand upon the door.

“Mr Patterson,” she said. “What I am about to say may seem ungenerous, bearing in mind whose house this is, and whose guest I am. But I must warn you, sir – beware of my cousin.”

Our gazes met – my own astonished – and she added, simply, “She is a dangerous woman.”