by Roz Southey
“And the ale?”
“The seamstress went for it. I can’t go out, sir. He’ll be waiting for me.”
“Nonsense!”
“It was me he wanted,” he cried hotly. “He sent those ruffians for me!”
“George, I won’t have this!” But shouting made my throat burn. I fell to coughing so hard my eyes began to water. The whole thing was preposterous; how could he think that the oafs would have mistaken a grown man for a twelve-year-old boy? I dried my eyes upon the blanket.
“Where were you last night? Why weren’t you here?”
He hung his head. “I did start to practise, sir.”
“And then?”
“Tommy the cheesemonger’s boy came by and shouted up there was a juggler in the Bigg Market. And a fiddler, sir.” That, I supposed, was intended to try and convince me he had had his musical education in mind when playing truant.
“George,” I said, forcing myself to speak quietly. “When I took you on as apprentice, I vowed to myself that I would not beat you. I flattered you by thinking you were not the sort of boy that needs chastisement. After your experiences with Monsieur le Sac, I would have thought you would be eager to please me.”
He took a deep shuddering breath and looked up at me from under his lashes. Then he took up the money I had laid upon the table. “Yes, master.”
“Then fetch me food and do not disobey me again.”
He fled from the room and I heard his footsteps clattering on the stairs.
“About time,” Mrs Foxton said from the door. “Boys need beatings.”
“I lack the strength,” I said, falling back upon the bed.
I must have slept, for when I woke a new jug of ale and a potato pudding lay upon the table beside me, together with a note from George. The note, in the boy’s neat hand, said he had gone to take a message to my pupils to tell them I could not attend them that day. I was loath to lose the money but pleased to see that George was at least trying to behave responsibly. I was even more irritated at the loss of income when, an hour or so later, the apothecary sent up a boy with his bill for attending me. Apparently Heron had not considered the expense of the consultation.
In late afternoon I woke again and took some exercise about the room. George, I saw, had been in again while I slept and spent some time copying out the concerti from Lady Anne’s volume. Mrs Foxton, who came when she heard me moving about, said he had gone out to eat about five minutes earlier. After a moment’s consideration, I followed him, wrapping a muffler around my throat, partly to keep warm, partly to hide the livid bruises my mirror had shown me.
The fresh air revived me, although I couldn’t help looking around in case my attackers were loitering in the area; I resolved to be home before dark. I set myself the task of buying a new piece of music from Barber’s bookshop behind St Nicholas’s Church and sauntered that way through a crowd of Scotch carters haggling over prices. Joseph Barber himself was in the shop and I had to wait until he had finished selling a walking cane to an elderly gentleman. He is a man of much good humour and made great play with my croak of a voice.
“But in truth robbery is not to be laughed at,” he said, after doing just that for ten minutes or more. “These days a man can get hit over the head for a penny or two. Though I have heard –” He looked at me thoughtfully, his ruddy face with its flaring eyebrows suddenly sober. “I have heard robbery was not their aim, in your case.”
“I know not,” I said, thinking hard for a way to change the subject.
“And now this duel they’re proposing…”
“Duel?” My voice cracked on the word. “Who is to fight?”
“Why, the Swiss and that boy of yours.”
I had a vision of Le Sac and George facing each other across a brace of pistols. Preposterous! I rubbed my aching brow.
“Mr Barber,” I said, “I would be much obliged if you would explain it all from the beginning, slowly and, if you please, very quietly.”
22
PHANTASIA
Lady Anne was sitting in her withdrawing room over a dish of tea with Mrs Jerdoun. In my agitation I had blundered into the house with not a thought for the dangers – which had not appeared – and now stood at the door of the room staring wildly at the ladies. Lady Anne turned in astonishment.
“Mr Patterson! My dear sir! You look exceedingly troubled. Pray sit down and tell us what has happened.” She signalled to a servant to bring another dish.
I sat but could hardly restrain my anxiety. Lady Anne was as light-hearted as ever; even in my distressed state I perceived that the orange gown she wore was unflattering to her colouring and clashed with the red-and-white-striped satin of her chair. There was an air of reserve about Mrs Jerdoun.
“I hardly know where to begin.”
They were startled by my croak of a voice. I outlined quickly the attack upon my person. During my tale, the servant returned with a dish and Lady Anne, listening intently, poured the tea. Afraid that its heat might scald my sore throat, I left the brew until I came to the end of my story.
“Do you know, sir,” Lady Anne said at last, when I had finished, “whether this was merely an attempt at robbery, or something more sinister?”
“Nothing was stolen, madam.”
Lady Anne glanced at Mrs Jerdoun – who sat upon the edge of her chair looking at me as gravely and coolly as had Claudius Heron – then returned her gaze to me. “One name comes inexorably to mind in connection with this matter.”
I forestalled her. “I cannot think, Lady Anne, that anyone would have cause to set ruffians on me.”
“No? Perhaps you do not understand the continental temperament.”
Mrs Jerdoun rose and walked across to the fireplace, poking with an elegantly shod foot at the desultory embers among the ash. I started to rise politely but she waved me seated again. Her face was turned away from me.
I sipped my tea warily. “Too much has been made of – of certain disagreements between myself and the gentleman in question. I acknowledge his superiority to me as a musician, though I confess I envy his place as musical director of the Concerts.” Here Esther Jerdoun turned and gave me a steady look. “So when the gentlemen asked me to take that place, I thought it foolish to refuse, believing in any case that it would only be for a short time, until the argument between the gentlemen and Monsieur le Sac was resolved. But since that time some of the gentlemen – annoyed with what they believe to be Monsieur le Sac’s presumption – have chosen to conduct their quarrel in public.”
“That letter in the Courant,” Lady Anne said, laughing. “I recognised old Ord’s style at once. And there have been broadsheets posted about the town. Have you seen them, Esther?”
“I thought them too ranting and vulgar to take notice of,” her cousin said. Yes, there was certainly some coolness still between the ladies.
“It is the matter of the duel that concerns me,” I said.
As Mrs Jerdoun looked up sharply, Lady Anne sighed. “I have the greatest admiration for you gentlemen, Mr Patterson, but to meet with swords at dawn seems to me to be an extreme way of settling a violinist’s wages.”
“Not at dawn,” I said gloomily. “Next Wednesday afternoon, between two and three o’clock at Mrs Hill’s in the Fleshmarket.”
“You will have the watch down on you!” Mrs Jerdoun said in horror.
“They would not enjoy the experience.” I had no more stomach for the tea and put the dish down on the polished wood of the table. “It is to be a musical duel. It has been proposed that Monsieur le Sac and my apprentice George compete, in the presence of the best judges of the science of music in this part of the country, to see which is the better violinist.”
“The boy?” Lady Anne echoed, looking nonplussed for once. “Why the boy?”
“Monsieur le Sac is evidently aggrieved that his place as leader of the band has been taken by a twelve-year-old. He considers it an insult.”
“But it is not the boy who insults him,
” Lady Anne pursued, leaning forwards. “The boy merely does as he is told. It is the man who puts the boy in that place who insults Le Sac and that, surely, is you, sir. Why does he not duel with you?”
She seemed disturbingly eager to see myself and Le Sac at odds but I acknowledged she had a good argument. “I have only heard of the matter at second hand, my lady. But evidently comments were made that George played as well as Le Sac and that the Swiss was no loss to the Concerts. That seems to have spurred him into action.”
“He is a fool,” Esther Jerdoun said contemptuously. “No one with any judgment could fail to see the truth of the matter. The boy is good for his age but he cannot match Le Sac. The man demeans himself by agreeing to such a preposterous contest.”
I nodded. “I’m afraid there is some plot behind the plot, so to speak – a plan to humiliate Le Sac.”
“You fear, in short,” said Lady Anne, “that the contest will not be a fair one. Tell me the exact terms.”
The fire was burning more strongly and Esther Jerdoun moved her full skirts away with care. She turned to pace across the room. From the long windows at the far side of the room the gardens of the square could be seen, bedraggled by the early chills of winter.
“Each player is to bring with him an accompanist and a piece of music in which he is well practised. Each piece will be played, then exchanged and played again by the other party.”
“To test their sight reading,” Esther Jerdoun said, pacing restlessly. “Le Sac will give the boy one of his impossible compositions.”
Lady Anne shook her head. “No, no. The boy was his apprentice, remember. He will know Le Sac’s hand and perhaps even remember the pieces. But in general terms you are correct. Le Sac will produce a piece of virtuoso playing which is impossible except after years of practice. Who are to be the judges, Mr Patterson?”
I laughed shortly. “That depends upon which side you support, madam. Le Sac’s partisans insist upon Mr Nichols, organist of St Nicholas.”
“Brother to Le Sac’s crony! And the boy’s supporters?” She smiled impishly. “That is to say, Mr Ord and Mr Jenison?”
“They want Thomas Mountier of Durham.”
“Known to be your friend.” She glanced at Esther Jerdoun, who was shaking her head. “I agree – quite unacceptable. In any case, he is surely a better judge of vocal music than instrumental.”
“When he is sober,” Mrs Jerdoun said sourly.
Lady Anne tapped her fingers upon the rim of her tea-dish and bit her lip thoughtfully. “Mr Patterson, you have not finished your tea. Drink up, sir, you need strength.”
The brew was chill but I sipped obediently while Lady Anne considered. Esther Jerdoun toyed with straightening the china ornaments upon a small table.
“Hesletine of Durham would be a better choice,” Lady Anne said at last. “He knows both you and Le Sac, I think? And he is such a cranky, obstinate man, so confirmed in a sense of his own good taste, that it would be next to impossible to influence him. Mr Patterson, would you be distressed to see your boy lose this contest?”
“I would think it only just. But is it fair to allow the boy to compete, knowing that he must be defeated? He will lose confidence in his own ability. And he will be disadvantaged if he becomes known merely as the boy who lost the duel.”
Lady Anne sighed and set down her tea-dish. “You are quite right. An effort must at least be made to stop the affair. I take it, Mr Patterson, that you wish me to undertake that task?”
“I have not come here without making the effort myself, Lady Anne. I called upon Mr Jenison. He said it was not an affair that concerned me and I should stand well clear of it. Mr Ord said that I must trust them to know what they were doing and that I could not help but benefit from the matter.”
Mrs Jerdoun laughed harshly. “Such men always believe that they know best.”
Lady Anne shot her a swift look. “Indeed,” she said dryly, and I fancied some feeling in her voice. “But I agree that you should not be seen to be involved, Mr Patterson. If Le Sac has taken so strongly against you, your interference can only make matters worse. Whereas I – as Le Sac’s patroness – must carry some weight.”
“You may as well save your time and strength,” Mrs Jerdoun said. “Nothing will prevent the contest. Too much pride is involved.”
Lady Anne smiled and I saw a mischievous delight in her eyes. “We shall see.” She rose in a rustle of silk and I hurriedly got to my feet. “Come, Mr Patterson, I will see you to the door. You are not to worry. We shall win this particular game.”
“Life is not all games,” Esther Jerdoun said sharply. “We are talking of men’s livelihoods.”
Lady Anne cast her a mocking look. “My cousin thinks I am much too frivolous, but I assure you I take this matter quite as seriously as anyone could wish!”
Glancing back as Lady Anne laid her hand on my arm, I met Mrs Jerdoun’s gaze. Her last remarks, I knew, had been intended for me, as a warning. But surely Lady Anne could not toy with us all at such a serious juncture?
Lady Anne flung open the door and we proceeded into the hallway. A servant hovered at the foot of the stairs but Lady Anne dismissed him and he walked away through the door to the servants’ hall. Lady Anne turned to me.
“I fancy you think the worse of me, Mr Patterson, for not having restrained Monsieur le Sac’s vanity before this time. But –”
And then the whole house seemed to shudder.
The walls wavered around me; I saw Lady Anne shiver and shimmer. I tried to reach out to her. Then the walls settled, as steady as they had been before, unchanged – no, had not a landscape hung on that wall below the stairs? It was now a portrait of an elderly man with a big old-fashioned wig. I turned on my heels, trembling, my head and throat throbbing, saw furniture that I did not recognise, a mirror that had not been there before…
And a stout, ruddy gentleman came noisily down the stairs, calling my name. I turned. It was the gentleman at the dinner party I had glimpsed – the one who had sat at the head of the table on that earlier occasion when I had looked through the window.
I could not speak a word. The pain in my head was squeezing at my eyes and making the gentleman’s face blur and fade. I glanced round, looking for the only certain thing in this place, for Lady Anne – but she was gone. Had she ever been here? Had she come into this insane place with me or had I left her in the hall of her house? The man was speaking to me again and that frightened me more than anything. Before, I had been a spectator, looking on a scene as if in a theatre; but now, now I was required to speak and act…
The man took hold of my arm. I felt his warmth, the hardness of his grip, the stink of his breath on my cheek. “You have come in perfect time, Patterson. You received my note?”
I would not panic; I would not be overcome. I licked my dry lips. “Indeed…”
“You’ll play for my niece’s wedding, then? Good, good.” He barked with laughter. “Never known a busier fellow – all those damn pupils and the Concert series. Which reminds me –”
He was walking towards the door. I went with him in a kind of fearful daze. What else could I do but walk through this strangeness, letting it unfold around me? Who was this gentleman? How did he come to know me? Why was this house both so familiar and so strange? Where was Lady Anne and the familiar reaches of Caroline Square?
The door stood open (in my daze, I had not noticed the fact before) and the day outside was chill and sunny. I looked out on the street that I had only seen in darkness before. By daylight it looked of no great significance, neither busy nor quiet, not shabby yet not especially grand. A few carts trundled up its length, followed by a carriage with the blinds drawn down. A woman who passed inclined her head to my companion; she was of a respectable middling sort – the wife of a tolerably well-off tradesman, perhaps.
Two men lounged against a sedan chair at the pavement’s edge. They straightened as they saw us and hurried to the chair’s poles.
“You’r
e a good man, Patterson,” the gentleman said, regarding the scene with some satisfaction. “I said as much when we appointed you to St Nicholas. And that music of yours – good decent stuff.”
He seemed to wait for a reply; I said mechanically: “Thank you, sir.”
“Well, I must be off.” He nodded goodbye to me. I expected him to climb into the chair but no, he strode away along the street. The chair, expensive as it was, was mine.
I stood on the doorstep, looking at the bearers. What if I was to get into the chair, allow the men to carry me away? Would I find the rest of the town subtly changed, with people I did not know but who knew me, with different streets and buildings, with perhaps even stranger, as yet unknown phenomena? If I walked away from this house would I ever get back to the people and the places I knew?
I put my hand to the smooth paint of the door. It was chill under my fingers. And the chill spread up my arm, into my heart and my head, and I was falling, falling.…
23
SINFONIA CONCERTANTE
Movement I
Lady Anne swept into my room, laughing aside the protests of Mrs Foxton who hung upon the door jamb. Startled, I raised myself on one elbow against my pillows. I had been lying fully dressed upon my bed, trying to ease the throbbing in my head and the turmoil in my mind, staring into the shadows of the room and the dark of that madness last night. I could still feel the light touch of Lady Anne’s fingers on my arm as the walls had begun to waver, still smell the man’s sour breath, still see the gaudy livery of the sedan chair bearers…
Mrs Foxton’s shimmer reflected the late afternoon light and worsened the pain behind my temples. Lady Anne was dressed in a pale gown with a velvet cloak thrown about her shoulders; her face was flushed and her hair awry.
“Oh, stop your fussing, spirit!” she cried. “Go and talk to that sallow-faced seamstress. Leave us alone.”
I protested. “Your reputation, Lady Anne –”
“Never mind her reputation,” Mrs Foxton said shrilly. “Think of your own. Think of the rumours about Mr Demsey.”