The Music Box Enigma

by R. N. Morris

  She didn’t answer, except to scratch the back of her right hand with the nails of her left.

  He had no sympathy, only disgust. ‘Look at the state of your hands!’

  ‘I can’t help it! It’s all the washing I have to do.’

  ‘Aren’t there women who take in washing?’

  ‘I can’t afford that!’

  ‘Well, don’t look at me. I cannot be expected to sacrifice more than I have already. Really, Anna, I have to say it. You have brought this on yourself, you know.’

  There it was. She gave a bitter laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Do you think that I impregnated myself? Or that this is the result of … what do they call it in biology? Aphids do it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Parthenogenesis. Isn’t that the word?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Well, how do you imagine I got pregnant?’

  ‘Of course I know how you got pregnant. As for the bounder responsible, you have not thus far revealed his name, so we have never been able to get any satisfaction from him.’

  ‘Satisfaction! Do you mean to challenge him to a duel?’

  ‘You are being wilfully obtuse. You know that I meant recompense. I think I have a right to expect the fellow to contribute something. I’ll give you one thing, Anna. You were ahead of the game with this having a baby out of wedlock business. It’s quite the fashion now, so I believe. Girls are falling pregnant everywhere these days, courtesy of their soldier sweethearts. You don’t even have that excuse, do you? Your beau clearly knocked you up long before war broke out.’

  ‘Do you have to use such a vulgar expression?’

  ‘It is a vulgar act.’ Paul wrinkled his nose distastefully.

  Anna felt a vindictive urge to prick her brother’s pompous hypo-crisy. ‘You would not believe it if I told you who the father was.’

  ‘Do you mean to say it is someone I know?’

  ‘Oh, yes. You know him very well!’ Anna realized that this tremendous secret gave her power. It was thrilling to dangle the knowledge she had withheld from her brother – from everyone – in front of him.

  The baby’s crying had entered a new phase. It had lost its force, become mechanical, as if he was only going through the motions now. He seemed to have given up hope that anyone would come and was crying only to keep himself company. It was an inexpressibly sad sound.

  Brother and sister looked at each other in awed despair.

  ‘Who is it? Who is the father?’

  ‘Can you not guess?’

  Paul’s face was set in an angry frown. ‘Don’t play games with me, Anna. If you mean to tell me, tell me.’

  Anna could not help smiling. He was hopeless – clueless, in fact. Just like a man, he had no idea what was going on right under his nose. For Paul was also in the Hampstead Voices. He was a tenor, and like her he had one of the better voices in the choir. Both of them were often selected for solos. She remembered Aidan nervously joking that he hoped Paul was not thinking of enlisting as he couldn’t afford to lose one of his stars. Paul had assured him that that was hardly likely. At thirty-five, he was above the upper age limit for enlistment. And besides, he believed he would serve his country better at the bank than at the Front.

  The siblings had inherited their musicality from their mother, who had also sung with the Hampstead Voices before her illness. Indeed, it was to honour her memory that they had both joined.

  So Paul had been in as good a position as anyone to notice the affair. Perhaps, though, as her brother, he had been excluded from much of the gossip that had circulated. However, Anna saw it as typical of his male self-absorption, exacerbated by his longstanding lack of interest in his little sister.

  ‘How is the rehearsal for the Christmas concert going?’ She made her tone light and casual.

  He waved a hand impatiently. ‘Don’t try and change the subject.’

  Anna grinned. Really, he was so stupid. ‘Who says I’m changing the subject?’ Something of her usual anger flared in the question.

  Paul’s expression clouded in confusion. ‘Oh, I know you think it was unfair, the way you were asked to leave.’

  ‘I wasn’t asked to leave. I was forced out.’

  ‘But what you must remember, Anna, is that you have brought this upon yourself.’

  ‘So you have said!’

  ‘You can hardly blame Sir Aidan …’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘In fact, I believe that Sir Aidan was very much inclined to allow you to stay. Once you had had the baby, of course, and suitable arrangements had been made. A return to the choir in a year or so was not out of the question, if only you had behaved reasonably. It was quite naturally expected that you would give the child up for adoption. Why you have persisted in this perverse course of action is beyond anyone’s understanding. And it is to no one’s benefit, least of all yours, judging by the state of your hands and this flat. It was, I think, Lady Fonthill who insisted on your removal. She was no doubt guided by the moral example it would set to the other female voices. The younger women in particular, I mean.’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘Stop saying ha!’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘Oh, you really are insufferable!’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘You’re such a child.’

  A wave of unexpected emotion came over Anna. She was cast back to being six years old again, forever dismissed by her big brother, so remote, aloof and superior.

  She felt hot tears trickle down her face. A jagged arpeggio of sobs broke from her throat. It was a shocking sound. It even seemed to have silenced the baby’s crying.

  A look of horror came over Paul. He shrank back into the sofa, repulsed by her display of emotion.

  ‘I’m so alone. I have no one.’

  Paul’s face flushed bright red. ‘What good does this do? Come on now.’ He averted his gaze to stare in fascination at his own boots.

  Anna dabbed at her eyes with the cuff of her dress. She was aching for someone to hold her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Paul’s arm jerk out towards her as if he had sensed her need and was on the verge of acting on it. But his hand went towards his face where he vigorously rubbed a sudden itch on his nose.

  ‘I will give the baby up. As you said, it is the best thing. The best thing for the baby.’

  ‘If that is what you wish.’ Paul’s tone was suddenly constrained.

  ‘I do appreciate everything you have done for me.’

  Paul waved his hand dismissively.

  ‘And I know I have brought this on myself, as you keep on telling me.’

  Paul’s gaze shifted from his boots to a threadbare patch in the carpet.

  ‘This is not how I thought it would be, you know.’

  ‘No. I dare say it isn’t.’

  ‘He … he led me to believe … that he would leave his wife.’

  ‘He is a married man?’

  ‘Yes. He is a married man!’

  ‘Good God, Anna!’

  ‘Can you not, for one moment, refrain from judging me?’

  ‘I merely wish to point out to you how it must appear!’

  ‘I am well aware how it must appear. How it must appear is the least of my concerns.’

  ‘Evidently. Otherwise you would not have got yourself in this mess!’

  ‘Have you never fallen in love, Paul?’

  The colour in her brother’s face deepened. ‘Oh, let’s not muddy the waters!’

  ‘It’s all very well for you. For you men. You can sow your wild oats and not worry about the consequences!’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Oh, I’m not judging you. Whatever you do, I don’t judge you. Perhaps you visit prostitutes? I don’t know. I don’t care.’

  Paul’s eyes widened in outrage. ‘I never thought I would hear … language like that from my sister. If mother and father were alive now …’

  ‘Well, they
’re not, are they? It’s just you and me. And …’ Anna turned her head in the direction of the bedroom where her son was now sleeping in his cot. ‘I just honestly, honestly want you to be happy, Paul. And I don’t think you are. I think you’re miserably unhappy. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry if it’s my fault. If it’s because of me. Because of this. Because of the baby. Because of the shame of the baby. Because of the burden we are on you. But I honestly don’t think it is. Because I think you were unhappy before this, Paul. I think you were angry before this. I think this just gives you something to point your anger at.’

  She had not known she was going to say all this. Still less had she known how he would respond to it. She certainly had not expected the massive sigh that he heaved up from somewhere deep within him.

  She took it as encouragement to go on. ‘I think you’re angry and upset and grieving. And you can’t allow yourself to be happy. And you mustn’t allow anyone else to be happy. Least of all me. But don’t worry. There’s no chance of that. If it’s any consolation, I would say I’m almost certainly as miserably unhappy as you are. So that’s good, isn’t it?’

  Paul shook his head pensively. ‘If I ever get my hands on the cad who has done this to you …’

  Anna glared with alarm at her brother. Of course, he didn’t mean it. He was speechifying. His words sounded like something he’d read in a novel.

  Her voice came out as a sibilant whisper: ‘It’s Aidan. The father. It’s Aidan.’

  His face expressed more than simple shock. He was bewildered by her revelation. ‘Sir Aidan?’ As if the title was all that was needed to disprove the allegation.

  She nodded and watched his eyes skitter wildly. He seemed to be casting about for the last scraps of meaning as they vanished from the world.

  FIVE

  Friday, 18 December, 1914

  The parcel was left on the doorstep.

  The doorbell was rung, but by the time Marie opened it, there was no sign of anyone. In fact, at first she thought she was the victim of a game of Knock, Knock, Ginger. She was about to slam the door in the face of a squally gust when some instinct impelled her to look down.

  It was a cube of approximately five inches by five inches by five inches, wrapped in brown paper that was becoming rapidly sodden in the driving rain. Marie clicked her tongue against her teeth in disapproval. Really, this was not like Mr Beevor, their regular postman, who would always ensure parcels and packages were delivered into someone’s hands. But she noticed as she stooped to retrieve the parcel that it did not bear any postage stamps of any kind, and so had not been delivered by the Royal Mail. Mr Beevor was not at fault, after all.

  The only writing on the parcel was SIR AIDAN FONTHILL. There was no address, which suggested that it had been delivered in person by the sender. Which, when you thought about it, made the whole thing all the more strange.

  The mail was normally delivered to its recipients on a silver tray kept on the table in the hall. Somehow the practice had arisen that Marie would take Lady Emma her correspondence and Mr Callaghan would take Sir Aidan his. This strict regime of a female servant for the mistress and a male for the master was insisted on by Lady Emma for reasons Marie could only guess at. She gathered that the previous girl had been something of a looker. Evidently, she had caught Sir Aidan’s eye. Evidently too, Lady Emma had been highly displeased by this eye-catching business.

  By all accounts, there had been quite a to-do. The girl had left suddenly. Under something of a cloud, although the gossip was that not only was she provided with a favourable reference, but also a financial inducement. The rumoured amount varied from ten shillings to a hundred pounds. What the true figure was, if indeed there was a settlement, Marie did not know. What she did know was that henceforth no female servant, whether a looker or not, was to be trusted alone in a room with Sir Aidan.

  Marie set down the parcel on the tray. She straightened her pinafore in front of the big mirror that hung on the wall by the front door, ideally placed for the lady of the house to give one last appraising glance at herself before going out for the night. Although, from what Marie had observed of Sir Aidan, she suspected he was as likely to be the one checking his appearance.

  She pursed her lips critically at her own reflection. Marie did not like mirrors. She was occasionally obliged to look into them because her position required her to be well-presented at all times. Whenever she did so, she avoided focusing too closely on what was above the neckline. It was not that she was ever shocked by the red wine birthmark that stained half her face. Of course not. She could have drawn, and coloured in, a perfect map of it from memory.

  Even without her birthmark, she knew that she did not have what it took to catch Sir Aidan’s eye. She was a dumpy wee thing, sure enough. And without the birthmark hers would have been a very ordinary face.

  Marie doubted that Sir Aidan very much regretted being deprived of the opportunity of seducing her. As for any of the other female servants, well, there was no accounting for taste, she supposed. That said, the children’s nanny was a pretty young thing, but a nanny could not properly be counted as a servant, and Marie did not suppose that Sir Aidan would be so foolish as to try anything on with the girl who was charged to look after his children.

  She lifted her gaze to confront at last the burgundy sprawl around which her thoughts so often shaped themselves. One hand came up, the fingertips tentatively exploring the surface of her skin where it appeared to be stained. She half-expected the flesh there to glow with a fiery heat, as if its dark colour was caused by a flood of hot blood.

  It did not, of course, but perhaps it did make her more sensitive. She often imagined herself inside other people’s skins. And whenever she saw another slighted, she felt their wrongs almost as keenly as her own.

  Sometimes she could not help thinking that she had been hired solely on account of her disfigurement. And so, perhaps, she ought to be grateful to it. It had landed her a good situation. The pay was generous enough for her to send a shilling home each month, and even now and then set aside something for herself.

  That said, as good as her position was, she knew herself to be friendless here.

  Marie met her own gaze without self-pity. The clenched lump she felt in her chest was the grip of loneliness on her heart. She accepted it without complaint.

  Whenever it came upon her, as it did now, she would lose herself in thoughts of home. She would try to picture Ma and Da’s dear faces, anxious and careworn with love, the quick and easy smiles of her younger sisters, Edie and Maggie and Bridie. That way Bridie, the youngest, had of rolling her top lip in with her bottom lip, a shy, nervous, lovable tic.

  She would try to remember some of the things they said. Their quick wits and ready cheek. And the weight and warmth of them against her body.

  The longer she spent away from them, the fainter their laughter echoed in her mind. The harder she had to concentrate to summon them.

  And so, she did not hear the door to his study open, nor his footsteps in the hall.

  In fact, the first that she knew of his presence was his laughter.

  ‘Admiring yourself in the mirror! Goodness me. I’ve seen it all now.’

  It wasn’t his words so much that stung. After all, she might have given voice to a similar sentiment herself if she had suspected for one moment that it was vanity that prompted her to stand before this or any mirror. No, what drew a blush as dark as her birthmark to the rest of her face was the angle of his smile, which was precisely calibrated to express his contempt.

  SIX

  Fonthill watched the maid (what was her name now … he never could remember the ugly ones) as she scuttled away out of sight. They all seemed to come out of the woodwork and disappear back into it. Like so many black beetles. He imagined that this one, with the blotchy stain all over her face, was some kind of exotic species. He had no idea how many maids they employed. He left all that to Emma. To him they were mostly interchangeable, apart from Deirdre. Deirdre
had been different. Deirdre had been irreplaceable.

  Indispensable, you might say.

  But Emma had dispensed with her. Emma had sent her packing.

  Fonthill let out a short sigh of regret. Then shrugged. It was perhaps for the best. These diversions had a habit of turning into entanglements if allowed to drag on beyond their course.

  But there were more pressing matters at hand. Once again, he had mislaid his reading glasses. He hated having to wear the things, which was probably why he had a habit of carelessly discarding them about the house. Unfortunately, he could not read scores without them. This made it particularly difficult when conducting. He was forced to choose between being able to see the score or the faces of the choir.

  His hunt took him into the drawing room at the front of the house. The room was dominated by the twin portrait of himself and Emma by Augustus John which hung over the fireplace.

  It had been made on the occasion of their engagement more than ten years ago. It had been Emma’s idea, both to have the portrait done in the first place and to commission John to do it. At the time, Fonthill had been aware of a vague reluctance on his own part, which he had not been able to articulate even to himself, except to raise objections to the choice of artist.

  Of course, Emma had taken his resistance the wrong way.

  ‘Why do you not want to do it?’ she had demanded. ‘Is it because you’re ashamed to be in the same picture as me?’

  Naturally, he had laughed at such a preposterous suggestion, and wisely kept to himself the idea that it prompted: that perhaps it would be better if they had two separate portraits done, which they could hang side by side as a pair.

  ‘Is it because you don’t, in your heart, want to marry me?’ she had persisted.

  The question had shocked him. And he had protested at its injustice. Of course he wanted to marry her. He wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of asking her if he hadn’t.

  ‘Sometimes I think you don’t even love me, Aidan.’

  Oh, how typical of a woman! To turn an argument over something quite specific (a painting) into a generalized discussion of … of, well, of that. To drag love into it, in other words.