by Roz Southey
“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 occu
pied 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,
Thos 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 D
ear 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.