1890s
When the twins were coming up to their seventh birthday, Cedric Thumbprint offered to give them piano lessons. He told Madame he thought they were very musical – particularly Morwenna. He could try them with one or two simple exercises to see if they took to it, he said. It was only an idea, of course.
‘He’s being very kind,’ said Rhun, indulgently.
‘It makes a change from him being a silly old fool,’ said Madame, not realizing Daisy was in earshot. ‘I caught him writing a bank draft for £2,000 to the Baskerville creature last week, did I tell you about that?’
‘No!’ Rhun was horrified.
‘It was the money that came to him from that grandfather who founded the shop. Baskerville told him she wanted it for a sick brother. Doctor’s fees and a stay by the sea for his health, she said. Sick brother and stay by the sea my backside,’ said Madame angrily. ‘I was so furious I tore the draft up and I went straight round to see the Baskerville; she’s got the most horrible set of rooms you ever saw – grubby pink satin cushions and simpering dolls lying on couches, and a sort of sleazy feeling, as if none of the beds are ever made. I threw the pieces of the draft in her face and I told her what I thought of her in no uncertain terms. Then I said she could find somebody else to suck blood from.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She called me a string of names, and threw a scent bottle at me. Fortunately I dodged in time,’ said Madame, ‘but the bottle smashed against the wall, so Baskerville lost an entire bottle of Otto of Roses, all over the carpet. The place’ll stink to high heaven for days. Anyway, Thaddeus is going to make sure she doesn’t come to the house again.’
‘Poor old Cedric,’ said Rhun, rather sadly.
‘He’d have been very poor indeed if she’d cashed that £2,000,’ said Madame. ‘Still, if he can teach the twins how to play the piano, even in a basic way, it would be useful to them later on. I shall insist on paying Cedric a proper fee, of course. And it might take his mind off being lovelorn.’
The lessons went well. Mervyn had declined to learn to play, but he liked to go to the Thumbprints’ flat and listen to his sister playing. The twins liked the Thumbprints, who gave them afternoon tea as if they were grown-up, pouring it into perilously fragile china cups which they were terrified of dropping and breaking, and serving warm scones and jam. There were books everywhere, because books were their world.
Daisy liked the Thumbprints, too. Thaddeus often talked to her about the straits to which his grandfather had been put in order to come to England and to London, and begin the bookshop. Cedric told her about Belinda, and how he had been taken in by her.
‘I’d thought she was a shy, sensitive soul,’ he said, sorrowfully. ‘But in fact she was simply after the bit of money our grandfather left to Thaddeus and to me. She didn’t have a sick brother who needed sea air – she didn’t have a brother at all, in fact. So I’m very grateful indeed to Scaramel for stepping in. But I shall think of it as a lesson learned – part of life’s rich tapestry. And as Vanbrugh wrote, “Love, like fortune, turns upon a wheel, and is very much given to rising and falling”.’
Daisy had no idea who Vanbrugh might be, but whoever he was, his words seemed to give Cedric some comfort, which was all that mattered.
The twins ransacked the trunks in the flat to find their mother’s old song-sheets and music scores, and carried bundles of music up to the Thumbprints’ flat, to try them out under Cedric’s tutelage. Cedric enjoyed this; he said they were embarking on a musical odyssey, and Rhun went off to write an ode about it.
Most of the squirrelled-away music was lively and a bit saucy, and bounced along. But one afternoon, when rain was darkening the street outside, and the Thumbprints had gone out to collect some food for a little supper party they were giving that evening, Daisy went up to the top landing to put up some lace curtains she had rinsed for the Thumbprints. While she was clambering onto the windowsill, she heard music from their flat that sent such a chill through her entire body; she almost fell off the sill.
It was obviously Morwenna who was playing – she had permission to go into the upstairs flat to practise any time she wanted. But it was also obvious that this was unfamiliar music she was trying to play, because it was hesitant and stumbling, as if she was feeling her way through unknown notes. Daisy stood absolutely still, clutching the folds of curtain, her heart thudding against her ribs. There was no need in the world to suddenly feel this thrumming fear, but she did feel it, because she recognized the music, and she had prayed never to hear it again.
Then Mervyn’s voice said, a bit uncertainly, ‘I don’t think I like that very much, whatever it is.’
‘I don’t think I do, either. There’s words to it, as well, though.’
Don’t sing them, Daisy thought, standing on the shadowy landing. Oh, Morwenna, please don’t sing them, because it’ll bring it all back …
But Mervyn must have joined Morwenna on the piano stool, because when Morwenna began playing again, the two small young voices rang out.
‘Listen for the killer for he’s here, just out of sight.
Listen for the footsteps ’cos it’s very late at night.
I can hear his tread and he’s prowling through the dark.
I can hear him breathing and I fear that I’m his mark.’
‘That’s scary,’ said Mervyn, after a moment.
‘I know. I don’t know what it’s meant to be, not really, do you? I’ll play the rest, though, ’cos if I don’t I’ll wonder what it was like.’
‘All right. But then we’ll stop.’
The twins’ voices came again.
‘Now I hear the midnight prowl,
Now I see the saw and knife.
Next will come the victim’s howl.
So save yourself from him, and run …
… run hard to save your life.’
Silence closed down, then Mervyn started to say, ‘Don’t let’s ever play that again …’ Before he could say any more, Daisy had tapped at the door of the flat, and had stepped inside, calling out.
The door to the room that the Thumbprints used as a study was open, and she saw the twins seated at the piano, staring at the music score propped on the stand.
They had turned at the sound of Daisy’s voice, but for both of them the smile had a puzzled look.
Daisy said, ‘I heard you playing from outside.’
‘Did you? It was this – something I found in one of those old trunks,’ said Morwenna, a bit uncertainly. ‘It’s quite old. I don’t know what it is, but we don’t like it very much.’
‘We’re going to burn it,’ said Mervyn.
Daisy went over to the piano. ‘I think it’s something your mother found or was given – oh, years ago, it was. She didn’t like it very much, either.’ She noticed Morwenna was shivering slightly, but she said, carefully, ‘I don’t think we’ll burn it, though.’
‘Why not?’
Daisy thought: because once upon a time, it was written by a very famous composer … And once upon another time, it was used to fight back evil and madness … And that evil madness might have died in a dark old river tunnel, but it might not …
But she only said, ‘Well, one day it might mean something to somebody. It might even be worth money. Let’s just put it back where you found it.’
They nodded, and the three of them went back down to their own flat. Mervyn pulled out the trunk in which they had found the music, and Morwenna knelt down and placed the music at the bottom of the trunk. Mervyn reached in to pull a bundle of other other papers over it, to cover it.
Then the door to the flat was pushed cheerfully open, and Madame was calling out to know if anyone was at home, and if so whether anybody had thought to put a kettle to boil for a pot of tea, because it was as cold as a nun’s embrace outside.
The twins did not mention the music again, and nor did Daisy. None of them told Madame or Rhun about finding it.