The Violin

by Lindsay Pritchard

  Marie spent a moment tuning the strings whilst admiring the workmanship on her precious new instrument.

  “I did get Monsieur Charot to tune it properly but you are right, it may have been disturbed by its secret journey down to our chateau.”

  Once Marie had tuned it to her satisfaction, she raised it to her shoulder and chin with an expression towards the Comte that was full of meaning and gratitude.

  The response of the violin to the bow was speedy, full of warmth and penetrating. The tone was deep and bright and carried to the far end of the study and back. Marie felt each note reverberate in her frame as she played an excerpt from a new violin sonata by a young prodigy called Beethoven, a new favourite of hers.

  When she had finished, it was almost as if the clarity and beauty of the piece were still in the room. The Comte and Comtesse broke into spontaneous applause.

  The celebratory concert at the chateau was received with rapture. That night Marie slept in a Louis XV bed with the violin at her side.

  *

  Over the next few years the combination of her youth, beauty and talent melded synergistically with the Italianate. Her horizons broadened from France and concerts were arranged in Prague, Vienna, Berlin and London. Still only in her late teens, she attracted a devoted following and her likeness appeared in newspapers and on theatre billboards. Her portrait was painted and hung in the foyer of La Scala Milan.

  It was in Italy in 1820, not yet twenty years old, that her life abruptly changed. On a short tour of Italy, she was introduced to another young prodigy called Niccolo. The young man, some eight years her senior, was music director to the court of Napoleon’s sister, Elise, in Lucca where he was commissioned to give four performances a week and to conduct the opera. Word of his virtuosity was beginning to spread and Marie was exhorted to see him.

  “He plays like a man possessed.”

  Despite her own talent, she was spellbound when she sat in the audience at the church of Saint Boniface. Niccolo was tall, gaunt, long-fingered, long-haired and exuded a sort of mania. Marie was astonished by the artifices and bravura displays of flying staccatos, rapid double-stopping, trills and whirlwind fingering. Niccolo completed his performance by ostentatiously cutting two of the violin strings and asking the audience to nominate a piece of music. He played the pieces as if on four strings and the audience gasped to see it.

  Marie asked her agent, the steadfast Henri Boulleau who accompanied her everywhere on tour, to arrange a meeting. Niccolo, who had heard of Marie, was pleased to agree and the two met backstage at the Opera House in Lucca. The tall demonic-looking man with long arms and disproportionately elongated fingers stood, bowed and kissed her hand as they met.

  “Paganini,” he said. “Je suis enchanté de faire votre connaissance.”

  “Marie Renard. Having heard you play, I am also delighted to meet you.”

  “But your reputation also goes before you. I have not heard you play myself but all reports suggest that you have a special talent.”

  Marie was flattered that such a celebrity would know of her. She blushed adorably.

  For his part, Niccolo, a man with a weakness for a good-looking woman, was captivated by the beauty and freshness of Marie. As they sat and conversed, Marie felt his dark eyes boring into her. He was not by any means conventionally handsome but there was a brooding aura about him and he fixed his attentions obsessively on her, which both frightened and attracted her.

  Niccolo told her that he was born in Genoa and it seemed that he was fated to play music and compose. His father had taught him the violin and mandolin, but he had been a hard taskmaster depriving him of food and water until he was note-perfect. He was made to practise, he recounted, ten to twelve hours a day and was soon giving concerts in Genoa from the age of only nine. He had eventually tired of this exploitative regime and explained that he had followed his brother to Lucca.

  “And here I am – musician to the court and free to play and compose as I choose. Perhaps you will allow me to play some of the caprices that I have written and you shall accompany me, yes?”

  Niccolo had an animal charm and further meetings followed, with Marie becoming increasingly enthralled by his extraordinary talent and his interest in her.

  *

  Boulleau took her on one side and said, quietly, “A word of warning, if I may. Although I have no personal knowledge of this and, as you know, I am not the sort of person to retail rumours, nevertheless it is said that Signor Paganini is a man of – how shall I say this – dubious morals and principles. Although clearly a brilliant man he is rumoured to have certain weaknesses and predilections.”

  Marie asked him to elaborate.

  “He is certainly a man for the gaming tables. More seriously, it is rumoured that he is romantically involved with a married woman. Madame Laplace, lady-in-waiting to the Emperor’s sister. There are even – I am sure – scurrilous rumours that the Emperor’s sister herself has a penchant for him. They do say that he is a lothario with base appetites, which he satisfies with anyone he can find. Of course this may all be scandal-mongering but I only speak with your best interests at heart.”

  Marie replied politely, “Thank you for your concern, Monsieur Boulleau, but towards me there is only charm and correctness. And I must take this opportunity to watch and learn. There is no doubt but that he is a young maestro and it will be beneficial to my career.”

  Marie was fascinated and intrigued by Niccolo in a way that she had not experienced before. They practised and played together. One day, shortly before she was to leave for Paris, Niccolo asked her to come and visit him in his house, a four-storey edifice in a quiet cobbled street near Santa Maria della Croce.

  “I would like you to accompany me on the piano as I wish to try a new composition, and, if I may, try your Italianate violin whose tone I admire so much.”

  Marie agreed. She told Boulleau of the arrangement and he sucked his teeth and made a disapproving face. However, Marie was determined not to let this opportunity slip.

  *

  It was a hot August Saturday afternoon, although cool inside the thick stone walls of Paganini’s house.

  “I am writing a first violin concerto. It is in a very early stage but perhaps you can help me with your critique?”

  Marie was suitably flattered. She sight-read the piano accompaniment as Niccolo stood by her turning the pages and pointing out the construction of the piece. She felt his pulsating presence close by and felt an empathetic red-blooded passion as the music accelerated irrepressibly. Then, when she began again and he started to play, she was barely able to focus on the music as she listened to Niccolo bowing for his life in an inspiring, ecstatic, almost raving rendition. The Italianate had never been so tested but stood the assault and flooded the house with such carrying power and rang clear and true.

  The piece finished with an accelerando of notes and the two of them finished, breathless, flushed and aroused.

  Niccolo laughed. Then without a word he took her hand and she rose from the piano stool. He led her, willingly, across the room and into his bedroom. He made love much as he played, with demonic frenzy. For Marie, resistance was futile. Her mind willed her to stop but her body responded willingly and eagerly.

  He made no attempt to seduce her but simply took his pleasures. He disarranged the minimum of clothing necessary. After a few sharp thrusts, as Marie winced at the pain, he climaxed inside her, yelling out as he did so.

  He slumped in his bed, all passion spent – with little interest now in Marie. They lay side by side and Marie rearranged her clothing, wondering what she had done but knowing that it had been inevitable from the moment they met. Niccolo slumbered a little. As the sun went over the building and the room darkened she heard him get up and tread softly to the music room, where he played a plaintive air on her violin as she listened guiltily, confused.

  And
the ghosts of John Johnson, Maundy Cubitt, Joshua and Millie Underman, Faith Cross, Thomas Linley and Hugh Wortley all gathered to listen.

  Later, he courteously showed her out into the evening air, kissing her hand as he had when they first met.

  Marie’s sojourn in Italy was shortly over but, despite a series of subtle and polite notes to the great man, he remained enigmatically unavailable.

  Marie returned to Paris and never heard from him again.

  *

  Back to a more routine way of life, Marie continued with a series of concerts in Paris. Something had changed. She no longer felt like a girl. She was more confident. She accepted several offers from handsome well-connected young men to dine, see a play or go to the opera. But these encounters were on her terms and none became an affaire du coeur, despite the ardour and suitability of one or two.

  One day, whilst discussing plans for a further tour in Henri Boulleau’s office, she confided that she had not yet met anyone to whom she could give her heart. Henri stood, went around the desk and knelt by her chair, taking her hand.

  “Then give it to me. I have always loved you. I may not be high born and I know I am not handsome but you will always have my devotion.”

  Marie had never looked at him before in a romantic way. He was fifteen years her senior and a plain man – but she did not turn away his intentions and soon it was only Henri Boulleau who was squiring her to parties, balls and musical theatre. Marriage was spoken of and Marie met his parents and sisters and felt secure with her new family. Her mother was delighted to see her beautiful daughter settled with a good and dependable man.

  By early 1821, however, everything changed. Marie was clearly pregnant. Her relationship with Henri was traditional courting and therefore there was only one possible father – the only man she had ever given herself to. Eventually, she and Henri had to speak about the matter. He was heartbroken but nevertheless offered to stand by her and treat the child as his own. She would have none of it and cooled their relationship, conclusively closing the door.

  “It is my own fault, my disgrace and I must bear the cross myself. I have ruined my reputation but I will not also ruin yours. It is not the child’s fault that they will be brought into the world but I have the means to support another life and I will make the best of it. The child will want for nothing and will have its mother’s love to guide and steady it as it grows.”

  Marie came to term and spent her confinement in her mother’s apartment. The child was born – a boy – but there were complications. Marie was able to cradle the boy after he was born but, within a day or two, she weakened. At the age of twenty-one after soaring like a meteor in her short time, Marie’s life dissolved in a shower of stars and memories.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  In contrast to the elegantly pointless life of Hugh Wortley and the coruscating but tragically short span of Marie Renard, life in Derbyshire in the mid-nineteenth century was unremittingly grim.

  A dark pall of smoke lay permanently over the district as industrialisation blackened the skies. Coal, clay, peat and ironstone workings pockmarked and hummocked the landscape. Factories, railways, machinery and canals demanded iron, coal and coke. A growing population needed clay for earthenware and pottery. Farms and builders called for lime to fertilise the fields and make cement. The earth gave up its reserves of sand, gravel, lead and gypsum as demand grew exponentially for the raw materials and fuels that the teeming villages and towns greedily consumed.

  In the village of Tunstead, near Buxton in Derbyshire, John Handyside eked out a meagre existence. With a family of five – and growing at the rate of one new mouth a year – any income he earned was immediately swallowed in rent for their small two-bedroomed cottage and food for the table.

  His wife, a small, round, cheerful woman called Ellen, constantly worked to maintain the household. She cooked, washed, fetched, carried, stoked the fire and served bread, cheese, porridge and the occasional rabbit stew to her tumultuous brood. Sometimes the older children would earn a few shillings at harvest time or would pick bilberries at threepence a quart to sell. But the burden fell principally on John.

  He had done a span in the colliery but the owner had replaced him and many others with mechanised mining and winding. He would turn his hand to the digging of canals, shovelling coal into smelters or coke ovens or quarrying firestone which went to build bridges and the splendid houses in nearby Buxton, where well-to-do factory owners would live, or for hotels where moneyed Londoners would come to stay in order to take the waters.

  Over the years John had spilt much sweat and not a little blood, but still the landlord and the purveyors of food at the local market absorbed what little money he earned. Labour was plentiful and so came cheap. Conditions were dirty and unsafe. Hours were long.

  So John took it into his head that he must be responsible for himself rather than stay a wage slave. He surmised that somewhere in this market of selling, buying and bartering there would be room for a middleman, a merchandiser, a supplier. A man of good character, unafraid of hard work, reliable and trustworthy.

  Early ventures of knife-sharpening, baking and cobbling faltered either because of a lack of skill and aptitude or a heavy-handed refusal of competing local traders to give ground. When the money dried up, Ellen was not impatient. She knew that John was a good man and that he would do his utmost to support the family. In turn, although sometimes quietly exasperated by the trust John showed in people who turned out to be rogues and shysters, she gave her unqualified support – even if dinner was sometimes bread and dripping.

  One evening in March, 1851, John came home and threw off his boots whilst Ellen made him tea and the children clamoured for his attention. Once they were settled and with the youngest dandling on his knee, John told Ellen of his new idea.

  “I’ve been up to that place Grin Low, back of Buxton. You’ve never seen such a place like it. Men and women up there living like rabbits in holes. They’ve got them lime kilns going day and night and they do everything – work, eat, sleep, right up there on the hill. When it gets dark they sort of disappear into their holes in the ground for the night, coming out again in the morning and getting on with the lime burning.”

  Ellen said, “I’ve heard about them but never been up there to see them. What you got in mind, any road?”

  John enthused, “Well, they got to have fuel up there, coal, peat and the like and seems they all do it one by one.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, they’ll send out for supplies when they’re getting low, but that takes a pair of hands away, get what I mean? So I’m thinking that if someone was to stock them up on a regular basis maybe for a small turn on the cost they might be interested. What do you think?”

  Ellen was naturally concerned that this was another of John’s schemes.

  “How you going to get all that up there then? You’re not going to carry it all up are you?”

  “Ah well, you see, I’ve thought of that. Old man Butterley, you know, him who used to collect old iron? Well, he’s about past it now, with his legs. I heard his horse and cart were up for sale. Well to tell you the truth…” John looked a little sheepish, “I’ve gone and bought it.”

  Ellen looked both surprised and worried.

  “Where you got that sort of money from then? I thought we was on our uppers and if you’ve got money lying around there’s a few feet around here that need to be shod before you go getting your horse and cart!”

  John continued enthusiastically.

  “That’s the beauty of it. I didn’t have to give old man Butterley the money. That came from a business loan.” The latter words invested with importance.

  Ellen was concerned.

  “You borrowing money? How you going to pay it back? Who’d you borrow it from?”

  “All in good time. I’ll pay it back. You know that Benjamin Outram at th
e pawnbrokers? Well he’s into lending money so long as he knows he’s going to get his interest back. So he lent me thirty pound.”

  Ellen expressed shock but did not want to appear unsupportive.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing? We could get into serious trouble. Already seven mouths to feed.”

  John sought to calm her.

  “Don’t you worry. It’s all in hand. Outram gets his interest paid back at two shillings and sixpence a week which comes out of what I get paid. I reckon if I can get myself about a hundred customers up there, if I work hard, I can make a profit and pay back the capital as I go. We’ve got money to be going on with and I’ve got a horse and cart and nice little business. You know I’m a hard worker. I’ll make a go of it.”

  Ellen frowned.

  “Oh John, I hope you’re right this time. Suppose they don’t want you to bring them their coal up. Old Outram – I’ve heard about him. He’ll have your teeth as soon as look at you.”

  “I’ve already spoken to a few of them up there. They say they’re interested. Will save them all time, which means they can turn out more lime which means they’ll make more money. I just wonder why nobody’s thought of it before. All I need to do is get someone to look at these papers Outram has given me. He wants me to sign some agreement.”

  He flourished a folded document of thick parchment, which he withdrew from a pocket in his jacket.

  “That’s exactly why I’m having it all read before I sign it up. I’ll go round to the scrivener and let him look over it.”

  And with that, the discussion moved on to the necessaries of life; food, children’s needs, and the decline of Ellen’s mother in her rented room in a dank house in Pentecost Road about a mile away.

  “She’s going to have to come and live here. I can’t leave her up there to suffer,” said Ellen.