The Piper's Tune

by Jessica Stirling

  ‘What does Dada say to that?’ Forbes asked, huskily.

  ‘He says that’s all right then.’

  It was their third outing together. So far they had done nothing but sip tea, nibble little gammon sandwiches and sniff at each other like puppy dogs.

  Forbes sensed that this was no ordinary wooing, no ordinary, uncomplicated seduction, for Sylvie was Albert Hartnell’s daughter. Whether he liked it or not, Albert was part of the equation, and Forbes could not discount the possibility that he was being set up.

  ‘Do you tell your dada everything?’ he asked.

  ‘Not everything. Only what he needs to know,’ said Sylvie.

  ‘What do you say about me?’ Forbes asked and then revised the question. ‘I mean, what does your dada have to say about me?’

  ‘He says you’re rich.’

  Forbes blew out one cheek. ‘Does he now?’

  ‘I think you are. I think you are and you’re not telling me.’

  ‘Why would I not be telling you?’

  ‘In case I ask you for money.’

  Forbes paused, swallowed tea-tasting saliva from the back of his throat, then asked, ‘Money for what?’

  ‘The Mission, the Coral Strand.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  ‘What did you think I meant? For myself? For me?’ She laughed, a glassy little sound, far from being a giggle. ‘I would never ask for money for myself, not from a gentleman, however nice he seemed to be.’

  ‘Am I nice?’

  ‘Very nice. The nicest man I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Aye, but you haven’t met that many men, have you?’

  ‘A few,’ she stated, matter-of-factly. ‘Quite a few.’

  ‘In what context?’ said Forbes.

  ‘In the context of collecting for the Fund.’

  ‘How long has Albert had you out on the road?’

  ‘Since I was tiny, as small as I can remember.’

  ‘Don’t you mind?’ said Forbes.

  ‘Why should I mind? It is good work, and God—’

  ‘Yes, there is God to think of, I suppose,’ said Forbes.

  ‘Are you a Roman Catholic?’

  ‘I told you before, Sylvie: no, I’m not.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Why? Don’t you like Papes?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t object to them,’ Sylvie said. ‘But I could never marry one.’

  ‘Marry … ah, yes, marry,’ said Forbes, briefly caught off guard.

  ‘Or a Jew or an Indian gentleman.’

  ‘Hindoo.’

  ‘Hmm. Hindoo.’

  ‘Not even if he was nice,’ Forbes said, ‘and rich?’

  ‘You’re not a Hindoo,’ Sylvie said, not seriously.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Forbes said. ‘I might be, you know.’

  ‘Hindoos wear turbans.’

  ‘Sikhs wear turbans, I think. I don’t know what Hindoos wear.’

  ‘Perhaps they wear nothing at all,’ said Sylvie thoughtfully.

  He felt the chug of desire once more, stronger than before.

  He said, ‘Anyway, I’m not one of those, any of those.’

  ‘Then I could marry you,’ Sylvie said, ‘if I wanted to.’

  ‘Is that what you want, Sylvie, to be somebody’s wife?’

  ‘Or a missionary,’ she said. ‘I think I am going to be a missionary.’

  ‘In a foreign field?’

  ‘No, here at home.’

  ‘Is that what Dada and Mama want you to do?’

  ‘It’s what I want to do. I only do what I want to do.’

  ‘And what is that exactly?’ said Forbes.

  ‘I haven’t quite made up my mind. I’m still waiting to find out.’

  He took coins from his trouser pocket and placed them on top of the bill that a waiter had laid on his tea plate. The waiter seemed surprised that they were leaving so soon. Obviously the fraternal pretence had failed. Forbes eased from behind the brass-topped table.

  The aged female quartet hidden behind the palm fronds were playing a version of the Scarlatti Caprice, one of Pappy’s favourites: Forbes did not want to be reminded of his grandfather just at that moment.

  ‘I’d better get you back,’ he said.

  She rose too, light as a soap bubble, and took his hand.

  ‘Put me back, you mean,’ she said. ‘Put me back where I belong.’

  Looking down at her Forbes felt thoroughly wicked and at the same time completely disarmed.

  ‘We had better go,’ he said.

  And Sylvie, in a whisper, answered, ‘Yes.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  A Musical Evening

  Tom had long since trained himself not to be impressed by the trappings of wealth. Even so, as he approached the Franklins’ mansion at half past seven o’clock on that soft March evening, he experienced a twinge of awe at the sheer scale of the building. He had always respected the Franklins’ professional abilities rather than the sham quality that Robert Burns had called ‘the guinea stamp’. It wasn’t a Burns’ song that he had brought along with him as his party-piece, however, but Andrew McConnachie’s setting of Joseph Grant’s ‘The Blackbird’s Song is Sweet’. Tom was no soloist but he knew enough about musical evenings to realise that as a member of the Brunswick Choral Society he would be expected to take part in the programme.

  As he climbed the steps to the front door, a hackney cab clattered over the brow of the hill from the direction of Woodlands Road, and at the same moment a small, very spluttery horse-less carriage negotiated the broad corner from Park Gate. He checked. He was tempted to wait for the occupants of the vehicles to enter before him so that he might slip meekly in behind them. How daft! he thought. I probably know the Franklins as well as anyone. Taking a firm grip on the handle of his old canvas music case, he rang the bell.

  The door opened instantly. ‘Tom! How good of you to come.’ Much to Tom’s surprise, Owen Franklin ushered him across the threshold as if he were a long-lost son. ‘By God, I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see a friendly face. Nothing in there but choristers – not that I’ve anything against choristers – but you know how clannish they are when they all get together. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, most of them are girls.’

  Owen Franklin’s protracted greeting puzzled Tom. It seemed just too effusive, too hearty to be entirely sincere: ‘Brought your music, I see. Good, good. Lizzie will take your coat. Do you want to hang on to the case? Put it up by the piano, that way it won’t get lost. Hah, somebody at it already by the sound of it.’

  From behind the partly open door of the drawing-room came the strains of a piano being played very, very well: one of Edvard Grieg’s early Norwegian pieces, Tom thought, though a bumble of conversation almost drowned out the melody. He heard a girl’s laughter. Four or five servants were assembling tables in the hallway and from the mouth of the stairs floated delicious smells of cooking. Someone was smoking a cigar. Owen Franklin’s home seemed warm and welcoming and Tom puts his doubts behind him.

  The doorbell rang. ‘Ah, that’ll be the Lucases. I thought I saw his motoring car weaving down the street. Know Jack Lucas, do you? You should, Tom. Pumps.’

  ‘Oh,’ Tom said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go in, lad. Help yourself to drink. Go on, don’t be shy. You’ll find plenty of folk you know. We’ll make up a programme shortly.’ He angled Tom towards the drawing-room door and just before a booming voice called out, ‘Owen, you old rogue, back home from your bloomin’ cave, are you?’ he caught Tom’s eye and with a peculiarly gentle smile, said, ‘Cissie will take care of you.’

  ‘Thank…’ Tom began but Owen, arms extended, had swung away.

  ‘Jack, damn me!’ the old man roared at the latest arrivals. ‘Did I send you an invite? Must have been a mistake.’

  Tom glimpsed the younger of the Lucas brothers wrapped in a huge brown, flapping motoring coat, goggles stuck up on his brow. Behind him, almost blotted out, was his windblown young wife, Olivia. He had see
n the couple at concerts and had done business with Lucas senior whose company made pumping equipment. Perhaps, Tom thought, this was a gathering with a bit of purpose. He hoped so; he would certainly be more comfortable talking business than singing ‘The Blackbird’s Song’.

  Then, from within the drawing-room, leading him on, came the sounds of the Norwegian peasant dance, and the laughter of girls.

  Holding his music case against his chest, Tom went in.

  * * *

  ‘Isn’t that him?’ Pansy said.

  ‘Isn’t that who?’ said Cissie.

  ‘Your swain, your postcard lover?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Cissie, blushing.

  She had been blushing since a quarter past six o’clock, for Mama’s maid, Nancy Coutts, had been sent upstairs to help her into her corsets and when it came to tight lacing Nancy Coutts had less conscience than Torquemada. By strength of arm and sheer determination she had managed to reduce Cissie’s waist to fit the boned high-necked Russian blouse that Cissie had bought for the occasion. The effect, even Cissie had to admit, was dramatic. Whatever there had been to spare about her middle had been pushed up to fill the blouse’s pouched front which was some compensation, Cissie supposed, for not being able to breathe.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so coy,’ said Pansy. ‘I know Tom Calder. He isn’t a stranger. He seems to have been about for ages.’

  ‘I don’t know what gave you the impression that—’

  ‘Martin told me.’

  ‘Told you?’ Cissie said.

  ‘What happened in Portsmouth,’ said Pansy.

  Cissie hesitated. Tom Calder had just entered the drawing-room and was loitering, lost, by the door. There were twenty or thirty guests already present. Mercy and her husband were fighting one of their duels at the piano in the window bay, she aloof and composed at the keyboard, he itching to take a turn. They never played duets together, so Mercy said, for while they were very much in love there were certain stresses that no marriage could hope to survive and an accurate rendering of four-handed harmony was one of them.

  Cissie said, ‘What did happen in Portsmouth?’

  ‘I know, and you don’t,’ said Pansy, who knew nothing very much about anything. ‘Anyway – look, you’re too late. You’ve missed the boat.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Cissie and, abandoning her sister, headed past the punch-bowl and sherry glasses at a fair old rate of knots.

  ‘Mr Calder – Tom?’ said Lindsay.

  ‘Miss Franklin,’ the manager said.

  ‘I did not expect to see you here.’

  ‘Didn’t your father mention that I had been invited?’

  ‘No. I’m not sure he knew. In any case, I’m pleased to see you.’

  ‘I’m pleased to be here,’ Tom Calder said.

  ‘Would you like to me introduce you?’

  ‘I think your cousin may wish to do me that honour.’

  ‘Cousin? Forbes, do you mean?’

  ‘No. Ah … Cissie, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Cissie,’ Lindsay said, then, voice lifting with something that may have been amusement, repeated, ‘Cissie?’

  ‘Your grandfather indicated…’

  ‘Cissie,’ said Lindsay again. ‘Well, well, well,’ just as the cousin in question barged indignantly out of the crowd.

  ‘Tom!’ Cissie exclaimed. She was red-faced and breathless. ‘Tom! How wonderful to see you. How marvellous of you to come.’ She snared his arm.

  ‘Entirely my pleasure,’ Tom murmured. If he was discomfited by the girl’s enthusiasm, he managed to hide it. ‘Lindsay was just going to—’

  ‘Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay, that’s all I ever hear.’ Tiny beads of perspiration clung to Cissie’s brow and her cheeks glowed with indignation. ‘Isn’t one enough for you, Lindsay Franklin? Do you have to have them all?’ And with that she snatched Tom away and drew him after her towards the piano in the window bay.

  She stopped short of the couple who were squabbling at the keyboard and, pressing herself against him, looked up into his long, lugubrious face.

  ‘Thank you for writing to me,’ she whispered, ‘for the postcard.’

  Tom had not forgotten the postcard. He was, in fact, beginning to regret having yielded to a casual impulse to drop a line to Cissie. He had, he supposed, felt vaguely sorry for her while distance separated them. But when he looked down into her eyes, he felt that sense of pity well up again, less vague this time. This was no act, no coy or flighty performance: Cissie Franklin was desperate for attention. He glanced up, saw Lindsay watching them from across the room, brows raised questioningly. Behind Lindsay, Forbes McCulloch was watching too, a scornful smile on his sleek, handsome face.

  Tom set down the music case, leaned it against his calf.

  He bowed, reached for Cissie’s hand and lifted it to his lips.

  The hand, ungloved, felt lead heavy, fingers cold. He pressed his lips to her knuckles. He felt a quiver go through her and saw tears in her eyes. And somewhere between his breast-bone and stomach, he experienced a weird little click, like a ratchet slipping his sympathy into another gear.

  Cissie turned away. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what…’

  ‘I do,’ Tom said.

  He put a hand on her shoulder and, like the lover he had once pretended to be, fished out his pocket handkerchief to wipe away her tears.

  * * *

  ‘Did you know he was coming?’ Lilias said. ‘Did you bring him here?’

  ‘Certainly I knew he was coming. I invited him,’ Owen replied. ‘It’s my party after all, this is my house and I can invite—’

  ‘It isn’t your house.’ Lilias regretted her outburst even as she charged on with it. ‘It’s our house, and I should have been consulted.’

  ‘Why?’ Owen said, smiling over his daughter-in-law’s shoulder at Olivia Lucas and Miss Broughton, younger daughter of the Anglo-French shipping agent, Auguste Broughton, who were carrying laden plates from the buffet table into the dining-room. ‘Why should I have to ask your permission—’

  ‘You know how sensitive she is,’ Lilias interrupted.

  ‘Cissie? Cissie isn’t sensitive. She’s lonely.’

  ‘Nonsense! She has just as many things to do to occupy her time as the rest of us. I mean to say, Pansy isn’t—’

  ‘Pansy isn’t in love.’

  ‘Oh, love, is it?’ Lilias said: it was her turn to bestow a brilliant, brittle smile on passing guests, to pretend that nothing was wrong. ‘I suppose you think that all you have to do is trail some man, any man, across my daughter’s path and she will automatically fall in love with him?’

  ‘Nothing wrong with Tom Calder, dear.’

  ‘I did not say there was.’ Lilias sipped from a cup of strong fruit punch to cool her temper. ‘I just do not want you interfering in my daughter’s…’ She hesitated. ‘Has Calder expressed an interest in Cissie? Has he had a little private word in your ear?’

  ‘How could he? I haven’t seen him in months.’

  ‘There are such things as telephones.’

  Owen shook his head ruefully. ‘For heaven’s sake, Lilias! Do you think Tom Calder would have the temerity to telephone me to express an interest in my granddaughter? Preposterous. He’s an employee – and a gentleman. He’d never stoop to that sort of thing and I wouldn’t let him. What do you take me for?’

  ‘I’m not at all sure what I take you for these days.’

  ‘Not a fool, though.’

  ‘No,’ Lilias conceded. ‘An interfering old devil, but not a fool.’

  ‘The girl isn’t happy.’

  ‘Oh, I’m well aware of that. But is having a middle-aged widower trail after her going to make her any happier?’ Lilias said. ‘Doesn’t Calder have a daughter about Pansy’s age tucked away somewhere?’

  ‘I believe he has,’ said Owen. ‘But that doesn’t make him Methuselah.’

  ‘First you bring Forbes here for Lindsay…’

  �
��Rubbish!’ said Owen, not forcefully. ‘I found him a place with the firm because Kay requested it. It seemed a fair request to me considering he’s my grandson, just as much as Martin or—’

  ‘Stop twisting my argument.’

  ‘Argument? I’m not arguing with you, Lilias. You’re the one who’s doing the arguing. Look, I’m wanting my supper and I do have to talk to my guests, so why don’t we just let this matter rest. Let the lass enjoy herself for once.’

  ‘I warn you, if that man trifles with Cissie’s—’

  ‘Dear God!’ Owen exclaimed and with an exasperated shrug turned his attention from Lilias to the dishes arrayed on the buffet table.

  * * *

  ‘Will this do for you?’ Cissie asked.

  ‘Perfectly,’ Tom answered.

  ‘Not too uncomfortable?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. Really.’

  They were seated on the staircase just below the first landing.

  Cissie steadied her plate on her lap, leaned against him and whispered, ‘We can look down on everyone from here, can’t we?’

  ‘That we can,’ said Tom.

  ‘The dining-room will be so crowded.’

  ‘I prefer it here,’ Tom said.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘It’s not every evening I get to eat my supper sitting on a grand staircase with a beautiful young woman for company.’

  ‘Are you teasing me, Tom Calder?’

  She held her fork in one hand, twirling it a little. Her face was turned towards him and now that her tears had dried her eyes seemed luminous and trusting. She had been brought up in a house full of siblings and was probably used to being teased. None the less, Tom was unsure whether she expected it of him or whether her need was so great that she had lost her sense of humour. He decided not to risk it.

  ‘I’ve never been more serious in my life.’

  ‘Where do you live?’ said Cissie.

  ‘In a residential boarding-house, the Queensview.’