Music Macabre

by Sarah Rayne

  I do hope that you’re still tangling enthusiastically with Liszt and Scaramel, because I might have found another intriguing piece for the jigsaw.

  You remember I said I’d look for traces of Scaramel here? I thought it was a very long shot indeed – and I think you did, as well, although you were too polite to actually say so, of course.

  But I hit on the idea of searching through back numbers of old French magazines – the gossipy kind – early versions of Hello! and those other ones that have reports of all the celebrities and the riotous parties and scandals. Scaramel was a bit of a celebrity in her day, and we know she was in Paris because of that framed playbill at Linklighters. So I thought she could have got into a few gossip columns while she was here.

  I mentioned at the agency that I had promised to follow up a few bits of research for you, and they were interested. I didn’t give anything away about your project, of course, just general information. Somebody suggested Le Charivari, and then somebody else offered to make an introduction to the present incarnation of La Vie Parisienne. The original magazine apparently closed in 1970, but a paper of the same name started up in 1984, and the thought was that their offices might have old copies of the original set-up.

  I dashed along to the offices the next day and it turned out that they did have old copies from the original set-up! Not all of them, of course – there were expressive mutterings about Les Boches and the devastation inflicted during WWII – but there was still quite a lot of archived stuff.

  At first I couldn’t think where to start, but I remembered you emailing about that memorial concert for Liszt – you thought Scaramel had organized it – so I thought that might provide a starting point, because it meant she must have been in Paris in 1896. So I started with that year, and I found an article about her! It’s only a kind of gossip column item about a birthday party, but it gives a slightly different slant on things, and there are one or two names that might be useful. The staff let me photocopy the article, and I said if it formed any part of your final work, you would arrange to give them a suitable credit. (Was that all right?)

  I’m sending the photocopy as an attachment, with my translation. I’m also sending a request to all the appropriate gods that they ensure both copies reach you intact … Is there a god of the internet, or would somebody like St Christopher, who looks benignly on travellers, be best, or maybe Mercury with winged heels? Anyway, I hope they’ll reach you uncorrupted and inviolate.

  I’m missing you a huge amount, Phin, dear.

  Arabella

  Phin smiled at the last sentence, and opened the attachment marked ‘Translation’. Across the top, Arabella had typed, ‘From La Vie Parisenne, dated August 1896.’

  It was a report of a party held a week after the formal ‘Liszten to the Symphonies’ memorial concert, and it was apparently to celebrate the birthday of someone whom La Vie Parisienne called ‘le très distingué’ Welsh poet, Rhun Rhydderch. Beneath this, Arabella had put, ‘Could this be the mysterious Welshman who wrote the murder song?’

  LIVELY EVENING AT MAISON DANS LE PARC

  A lavish birthday party was given at Maison dans le Parc by the English nightclub entertainer, Scaramel, to mark the birthday of her close friend, the distinguished Welsh poet, Mr Rhun Rhydderch – known among the English community as ‘Rhun the Rhymer’.

  The couple have been staying in Paris for the last three months, and are often to be seen in Paris’s cafés and nightclubs. Readers will no doubt recall the dazzling performance that Scaramel gave at the Moulin Rouge last month, which brought several encores. [See photograph on page 4].

  Here, Arabella had added a note in italics: Phin – sorry couldn’t find photograph – page 4 doesn’t seem to have survived.

  Scaramel looked stunning for the occasion, wearing a gown of emerald silk, which our fashion editor tells us is from the house of M’sieur Worth.

  The tables were presided over by no less a personage than Monsieur Alphonse himself, and a number of English performers had travelled to Paris for the birthday celebration.

  Several of them provided entertainment on the restaurant’s small dais after supper.

  Two charming sisters, Fancy and Frankie Finnegan, tap-danced, and Miss Dora Dashington (Dances to Delight You), treated the company to a spirited rendition of ‘A Little of What You Fancy’, with a gentleman wearing a hat playing the piano, accompanied by a personage with an English banjo.

  Mr Thaddeus Thumbprint [sic] appeared dressed in the manner of Mr Charles Dickens, and read extracts from The Pickwick Papers, which were brought to life by three English actors, enacting the scenes.

  It is unfortunate that a small altercation marred the later part of the evening. We understand that an English singer, Miss Belinda Baskerville (‘the Gentlemen’s Choice’), was preparing to give her own performance, but was prevented from it by Scaramel, on the threefold grounds that her style and the song she proposed to sing would not suit the occasion, that she had not been invited, and that she was seldom able to hit more than one accurate note in ten.

  Scaramel stalked majestically to the door of the restaurant, and held it open, tapping one foot impatiently as Miss Baskerville collected her cloak, fan and gloves. M’sier Alphonse himself escorted her across the restaurant – ignoring, with his customary tact and politeness, the stares of the diners – and snapped his fingers to an underling to find transport for the lady.

  Our photographer was again on the spot, and captured an image of her flouncing into a hansom cab outside Maison. [See page 9].

  Again, Arabella had added a note of apology: Phin, again no trace of any photo of the flouncing Baskerville!

  Readers will know that Scaramel’s hospitality has become famous in Paris, even in the short time she has been here, and may recall how this magazine reported on a dinner hosted last month at Maison, when she entertained the English author, Mr H. G. Wells, and several other notable names, including M’sieur Anatole France, who fell off his chair and had to be helped out to a cab – an incident our photographer was sadly unable to capture.

  ‘She certainly had style, that Scaramel,’ Arabella had written at the foot of the article. ‘Might you be able to follow up one or two of these names? I don’t mean H. G. Wells, obviously. But there’s certainly Rhun the Rhymer Rhydderch, and wasn’t Belinda Baskerville on the wall at Linklighters? She sounds a bit of a handful, and clearly she and Scaramel had an ongoing feud.’

  Phin remembered seeing a playbill featuring Belinda Baskerville’s name at the restaurant, although she had not, until now, occurred to him as a possible line of enquiry. It was interesting to see the Thumbprints name mentioned, as well. But other than Rhun Rhydderch, who probably could not be traced after so long, he could not see that any of this was going to get him much further.

  As he was climbing into bed, he found himself wondering why Scaramel had gone to Paris in the first place. Had it simply been to arrange that Liszt memorial concert? Or had there been something else – something in London she had wanted to escape from? Such as the consequences of having committed murder?

  But Phin did not want Scaramel to have been a murderess. He wanted her to remain in his mind as the insouciant, defiantly disreputable lady who had frequently shocked London, and who had delighted Parisian society. The lady who had danced for the Prince of Wales and other luminaries of the day, and had cavorted across the stage of the Moulin Rouge and enjoyed public and dramatic quarrels with rivals. He had a vague idea that all this was probably the fantasizing of a hopeless romantic, or that he might be seeing things through rose-coloured – or maybe whiskey-tinted – glasses.

  Even so, he did not want to find that Scaramel had scuttled out of England like a hunted creature fleeing the gallows.

  EIGHTEEN

  1890s

  ‘Leave London?’ Daisy looked at Madame with a mixture of disbelief and panic. ‘Leave England?’

  ‘Yes, but only for a few months. Probably only three – say five or six at the
very most. But we’d be leaving all the … the bad memories behind for a while, Daisy. All of them.’

  All of the bad memories. All of the secrets and the menace …

  Daisy said, ‘But where would we go?’

  ‘France,’ said Madame. ‘Paris.’ Her eyes started to dance. ‘I’ve had invitations,’ she said. ‘To appear in nightclubs. Moulin Rouge even – no, I know you’ve never heard of it, but believe me, Daisy, it’s very famous indeed. If I can’t cause a few flutters in the audiences there, then I’m no kind of entertainer!’

  ‘But where would we live? And would the twins come?’ The enormity of the whole thing was engulfing Daisy.

  ‘Of course the twins would come,’ said Madame. ‘It will be very good for them. Travel broadens the mind. As for where we live – you remember the lady who brought the music we used for “Liszten”? The music her father wanted me to have?’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ said Daisy, hastily, because even now she could not bear to remember that strange music.

  ‘Well, it’s partly because of her that I’ve decided to accept the other invitations,’ said Madame. ‘She wants to arrange a memorial concert for her father in Paris – it’s ten years this summer since he died. I said I’d take charge of it. It’ll be interesting and worthwhile.’

  ‘But you can’t speak French,’ said Daisy, a bit helplessly.

  ‘Oh, that’s a small detail. We’ll find people who can interpret. Wait a moment and I’ll show you the letter,’ said Madame, foraging in the desk. ‘It’s here somewhere … This is it.’

  ‘There is an apartment which I could arrange for you to have for a few weeks, my dear friend,’ said the letter. ‘A delightful place, with a small balcony overlooking the river. The rent would be a modest affair. If you come, I will send letters of introduction around for you. As you know, I do not live in Paris, but I grew up there, and I know people.

  ‘Most of my time is spent here in Bayreuth. The Festival, which I direct here – to keep alive the music of my beloved husband, Richard – takes up most of my time. If ever you can travel here, you would be most welcome to stay with me as my guest. That is something I should greatly enjoy. For the rest – I am very happy to make these arrangements in gratitude for the concert you are arranging for my father, and also in appreciation of the good memories you gave to him near the end of his life.

  I am yours very affectionately,

  Cosima Wagner.’

  Daisy had supposed that going to France – going to Paris – would be a relatively simple matter of packing their clothes and some of Madame’s favourite possessions, and getting on a train. There had to be a boat at some point, too; she knew that, of course, although she did not know how that worked. Madame would know, though.

  But it had not occurred to Daisy that the Maida Vale flat would have to be dealt with in any way. In Daisy’s world you walked out of your house and left a key with the man who collected the rent (when you could afford to pay it), and went on to wherever you were going.

  But Madame said the lease did not allow her to leave the flat empty for longer than one month, and since they would be away for at least three, there would have to be what was called a sublet, which was a word Daisy did not know. She felt she was learning a good deal, although she was not sure if she was entirely understanding all of it.

  But Madame said she was buggered if she was going to pay out good money to lawyers, who were the most cheating race of bastards in the world. Daisy thought it was to be hoped Madame did not use such language in front of the twins, because it would not be good for them to grow up thinking they could use words like bugger and bastard, and one or two more that Madame sometimes sprinkled around when she was annoyed or impatient. Still, Daisy and Joe – Lissy and Vi, too, of course – had all grown up in a place where people cursed and swore without thinking about it, and somehow they had all acquired an understanding of which words you could and could not use when you needed to be polite.

  Rhun made enthusiastic plans to visit them while they were in Paris. He would not intrude on his beloved’s riverside apartment, he said; he would find himself modest rooms on the Left Bank for a week here and there. On the Rive Gauche he would be among kindred spirits – he would become part of Parisian café society. Nowhere else in the world could you dine in a restaurant where presidents and poets, artists and anarchists – and very likely a clutch of courtesans – were gathered together at adjoining tables.

  But this flat, said Rhun, looking around the rooms, must be sublet in a businesslike way. Property had to be respected, and they did not want to end up with a set of crooks living in the house, spoiling the nice furnishings, defacing the expensive wallpaper and goodness knew what else, not to mention upsetting the neighbours.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Madame, thoughtfully. ‘You sometimes talk quite good sense, Rhun – no, that doesn’t mean I shall marry you, because I don’t want to marry anyone.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever want to get married?’ asked Daisy, curiously, after Rhun had gone.

  ‘Maybe once I did.’ An unfamiliar expression crossed Madame’s face. ‘Yes, maybe once there was someone,’ she said, then appeared to give herself a small shake. ‘It wasn’t to be, though. It wasn’t possible.’ Her face held the very rare shuttered look, and Daisy knew not to press her.

  Then, two days later, Madame said, ‘Daisy I know what I’m going to do about this flat.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to let Thaddeus Thumbprint take it over.’

  This turned out to be a very good plan. Thaddeus Thumbprint was the owner of the bookshop above Linklighters – the shop that had sold some of Joe’s sketches. It appeared that he had been looking for somewhere larger to live for a while, on account of his own little house being too small to house his collection of books, and so shockingly damp into the bargain that all of his furnishings were becoming mildewed. Also, his cousin was going to come into partnership at Thumbprints and it would be useful and practical if they could share a house. Or an apartment.

  Nobody could pronounce Thaddeus’s surname, so everyone called him simply Thaddeus Thumbprint. He did not mind at all. His family were all very proud of the shop, which had been started by his grandfather, who had come to England in the days of old King George – the one people said had been as mad as a March hare.

  The two cousins were delighted to have the Maida Vale flat for three months, or a little longer; it would give them time to look round for something more permanent, they said. Daisy was called in to the sitting room to watch Thaddeus Thumbprint sign his name on a legal piece of paper that said he could live in the flat for up to six months. She had to write her own name to say she had seen him do it. Rhun wrote his name as well, to say the same thing.

  ‘Witnesses to the deed, the both of us,’ Rhun said to Daisy. ‘It’s a very solemn and important matter to witness a legal transaction.’ He had added his name with so many flourishes that Daisy wondered if anyone would ever be able to read it. She was grateful, though, to the retired schoolmistress in Rogues Well Yard who had taught her to write a neat, clear hand.

  Thaddeus Thumbprint was delighted with the flat. It was charming, he said, and everything in such good taste – although perhaps there would be no objection if he just moved the scarlet brocade chaise longue out, and brought in his own? And he might, if Scaramel did not mind, put the black silk bed sheets away in the linen cupboard, and make use of his own which were best Egyptian cotton.

  He was a wispy, mild-mannered little man, given to wearing high-wing collars and rimless spectacles which he frequently pushed up on to his forehead, and then thought he had lost them. His cousin was mild-mannered, as well, although not quite so wispy. Thaddeus could undoubtedly be trusted to pay the various charges for the flat, and to do so on time each month. He would look after the flat and he certainly would not hold wild parties or permit raucous behaviour on the premises. The two gentlemen would probably give small supper parties for their friends, at whi
ch they would discuss scholarly and learned subjects and chuckle over passages in books that hardly anyone read and could not understand anyway.

  The neighbours in the flat below, who had hammered crossly on the door during one of Madame and Rhun’s livelier bouts of love-making, came up to be introduced to Thaddeus and his cousin. They were very pleased to be having such well-behaved and congenial neighbours, and although they did not quite say that they hoped Madame would take up permanent residence in Paris, Daisy could see that they were thinking it.

  Everything was going very well.

  Daisy had not expected to like Paris, but even though it was not home and never would be, she discovered she was able to enjoy it. She loved the buildings and the bustle which was not so very different from London, really. There were marvellous shops and cafés, and after a while Daisy even began to understand a little of what people were saying. She started to recognize a few words here and there, and presently she found enough courage to go into a shop and buy things, mostly by pointing, but managing to make herself understood. People did not seem to mind that she could not speak French; they smiled and shrugged and said, quite kindly, Ah, les Anglais, which Madame said meant, Oh, the English. She and Madame went to the famous fashion houses, and Madame bought the most beautiful gowns and lengths of silk and velvet for making up that Daisy had ever seen. There was lace-trimmed underwear, fine as cobwebs, and hats so elaborate you would almost be afraid to wear them.

  There were nightclubs too, of course, and also some theatres where Madame was invited to perform.

  ‘That’s Cosima Wagner’s doing,’ she said, winking at Daisy. ‘I’d better tone down my act, hadn’t I? Out of respect for her papa.’

  She did tone it down, but not very much and not for very long.

  She certainly did not tone it down for her performances at the Moulin Rouge, or for Rhun’s birthday party, which they celebrated in a French restaurant with a number of Madame’s performer friends travelling to Paris to join in.