Broken Harmony (6 page)

“Master!”

Groaning, I struggled up. My head ached. How long had it been before I slept, turning over and over and listening to George’s snores? Now George’s poxed face hung over me, bleeding
from the middle of his cheek; I must somehow persuade him not to scratch. His breath was sour too; ale, I fancied, and rather stronger than one normally allows youngsters. He was holding out a
letter, and I took it without knowing what I did. “What time is it?”

“Nearly nine, master.”

“What!” I struggled from my bedclothes. “Bring me water. Quickly!” I started hunting under the mattress for my clothes. “I’m late.” I had lost a lesson
the previous night and now I was late for another. And for Master Thomas Heron too! “Did you take those messages?”

“Yes, master.” He was scratching at his neck now.

“Stop that! And get that water.” At least the fond parents would have received my excuses for not turning up last night and perhaps they would not be too offended. I found myself
still holding on to the letter. “Who is this from?”

“Mr Heron’s servant left it, sir.”

George scuttled out of the room as, with foreboding, I broke the letter’s seal. The elegant lines of copperplate were brief and to the point. Mr Heron was always careful to regulate the
persons who came into positions of influence with his son and did not choose to allow him to associate with those who had connections with ruffians, &c, &c. I crumpled the note and tossed
it down upon the table. Claudius Heron was a fastidious man and where he led, others would no doubt follow. Damn Demsey.

George came back into the room with a ewer of water. I splashed it on to my face and aching eyes, dragged on my clothes. Should I see Le Sac and ask him to correct the impression that had got
about? There was no point in seeing Nichols; the man would simply gloat over me.

“Will it do, sir?” George asked anxiously.

I realised that I had been unwittingly staring at the table and a neat pile of manuscript paper. George had evidently been assiduous in his work the previous day; four or five sheets were copied
out with painstaking neatness – one of my concerti for violins.

George was nervously shrinking back. I wondered if Le Sac had been generous with blows. “It is very neat,” I said. He still looked uncertain; I tried for a lighter tone – no
point in frightening the boy. “And what do you think of the music itself?”

The boy’s eyes flicked to mine, then away again. “It’s very nice, sir.”

Nice
. Such a useful word; it may mean anything you choose or nothing at all. I had rather he had condemned it outright.

A chill in the air greeted me as I hesitated on the doorstep. Perhaps Heron would be the only one to credit the rumours? I could but hope, and seek ways to repair the damage his dismissal of me
would cause to my income. I must begin to make use of George. I turned for the Assembly Rooms in Westgate, low in spirits but determined.

I was lucky enough to find the Steward of the Rooms drinking a morning bowl of coffee and inclined to be talkative. He has a partiality for scientific instruments and a yearning for good
listeners, and bore me off to an inner room to show me his latest acquisition – a finely wrought orrery. I did my best to admire its workings, and allowed its owner to explain in detail the
movements of the planets before dropping into the conversation the information that I had acquired something new myself – a young but excellent apprentice who might be of use to the dancing
assemblies. The Steward’s face brightened.

“Indeed?” he exclaimed. “I can be rid of that drunkard Ross at last! Bring the boy to play to me tomorrow. If he’s fit, I’ll take him on.”

His eagerness for George’s services was the one brightness in the following days. I took George to play for him and the boy was promised a part in the Assembly band. But upon that day and
upon the next but one (the intervening day being the Sunday), I had three more letters in imitation of Mr Heron. I slept but little, lying in bed working through in my mind how much money I had
lost, brooding over how to recoup the loss and pay the next quarter’s rent. On the Monday, I rode out to Shields for a concert given for the benefit of an actress in the theatre company, and
was promised more work by Mr Kerr of the Beehive Inn, who hires his room there for concerts. But I have had past experience of Mr Kerr’s good intentions and knew better than to rely on
them.

Having arrived home late on the Monday evening, I slept later than usual upon the Tuesday and spent the morning teaching the daughters of Forster the carriage-maker. Forster himself, a lean man
with flaming hair and cheeks, met me at the door of the house and slapped me on the back. “Never mind, Patterson, I know better than to believe such tales.” He meant to reassure me, I
know, but he did not.

Around lunchtime, I walked down to the Key for a bite at Nellie’s coffee-house, looking about me as I went in, looking for Demsey or any of the gentlemen who had dispensed with my
services, to avoid the embarrassment of having to pass the time of day. I encountered only Lady Anne’s cool gaze as I made my way to a corner and called for a serving maid. Lady Anne returned
her gaze to her paper.

I drank ale, ate a chop and walked out again upon the Key in a thin chill sunshine that was tempered by a river breeze. As I reached the first of the coal barges bobbing at anchor, a merchant
walked past me; I started, half-thinking I recognised him but no – it was not the fellow from the party I had seen. In heaven’s name, could I not get that incident out of my head? I had
been drunk, that was all…

“Mr Patterson!”

Turning, I saw Lady Anne striding towards me with a masculine gait. The river breeze whipped her skirts about her legs and tangled her ringlets. As ever, she was unaccompanied by maid or
footman, and had no hesitation in raising her voice in an unladylike manner.

“Mr Patterson,” she said again as she came up to me. She was breathing heavily with exertion and her thin chest rose and fell quickly. Her cheeks were becomingly pink.

“I have heard, sir, that you are accused of an assault last Thursday night upon Monsieur le Sac and his friend the dancing master.”

“There is no truth in that accusation, my lady,” I said stiffly.

She nodded. “So Monsieur le Sac has informed me.”

“Le Sac?” I echoed incredulously.

“He tells me that you came upon the brawl by chance, as indeed did he. These rumours are all the fault of that prancing peacock Nichols.” She looked at me shrewdly. “Mr
Patterson, I have the greatest admiration for Monsieur le Sac’s musical gifts – he is, as you must know, my protégé. He is also, I assure you, an honest man, if somewhat
vain and arrogant. He has,” she said, forestalling me as I would speak, “many amiable qualities.”

I thought I detected a note of irony in her voice and did not know quite how to reply. “He has conceived a dislike for me.”

“No less, I warrant, than you have for him. You are, after all, rivals.”

“I had rather not be,” I said wearily. We shifted to allow a cart to pass. The wind blew the dry stink of coal towards us, and I thought I heard a spirit call from the water.
“If we are talking of professional matters, my lady,” I said, “there can be no argument in the matter. Monsieur le Sac is a better performer than myself, although I flatter myself
that I am the better composer.”

She shrugged, the folds of her cloak whispering against the silk of her gown. “I can say nothing in favour of his compositions, certainly. They are meant to show off his gifts, nothing
more.” To my astonishment she took my arm and leant upon it. “Come, Mr Patterson, let us walk and you may tell me exactly what occurred.”

I hesitated but she was insistent, so as we strolled along towards the Printing Office I recounted my encounter with Nichols. Lady Anne was an excellent listener and I found myself oddly
enjoying the tale. She laughed heartily when I hinted at Nichols’s injuries. “And Le Sac?”

I told her of Le Sac’s arrival. “A pistol,” she pondered. “I suppose he bought it for his travels in the country. A post-boy was robbed on Gateshead Fell a week or so
back.”

“I heard the story.”

“Well,” she said with greater decision in her voice. “I cannot allow you to be blamed so unjustly, Mr Patterson. Do you have any idea who was behind the attack? Was it merely
thievery, or was there some deeper purpose?”

“I cannot say, madam,” I said carefully. I turned to face her. “Forgive me, Lady Anne, but the last time we spoke on the subject of Monsieur le Sac you gave me to understand,
in no uncertain terms –”

She laughed; the wind caught her hair and drifted it back from her face. “Give it its true name, Mr Patterson. I was abominably rude to you, for which I apologise. I was in a foul temper
that day. Can you forgive me?”

I regarded her with some reserve. Her contrition seemed genuine, yet so had her animosity that day in Nellie’s coffee-house. Still, she appeared to be in earnest in wishing to help me and
I would have been a fool to refuse her.

“We must save your reputation at any rate,” she said, tapping me on the arm and sending me a darting, sparkling glance. “Come, Mr Patterson, let us turn about and take
ourselves out of this cold gale. Walk me back to the coffee-house and I will see what I can do for you. I am a woman who likes to see justice done.”

And all the way back to the coffee-house she kept me amused with outrageous tales of her late father, who had been a Justice of the Peace and prone to making distinctive judgments. Some of the
stories carried with them a certain oddity, although in what respect I could not quite define; I took it she was merely spinning tales to cheer me.

We parted outside the coffee-house; Lady Anne turned and drew her billowing cloak about her. The sunlight gleamed on the ringlets that fell across her shoulder.

“You must drink tea with me, Mr Patterson. I have some new scores from… from a friend, and I think you would enjoy seeing them. The style is somewhat similar to your own
work.”

“I am most flattered, my lady.”

“Tomorrow, then,” she said. “At four.”

She was swift to keep her word. When I returned home a few hours later, I found another note awaiting me from Mr Heron. He had, he said, sent me word a few days ago under a misapprehension
– had been grievously misinformed – offered regrets – hoped that Master Thomas would see me the following day. I was pleased both by the purport of the letter and by its manner of
expressing its message; Claudius Heron was generous in the matter of admitting his fault. Which is more than one expects from most gentlemen.

So I went to bed in a better frame of mind than when I got up, looking forward both to professional duties and a little social entertainment.

9

TRIO
for two sopranos and a tenor

Unlike Lady Anne’s other visitors, I came to her house in Caroline Square on foot. The early evening light was sufficient to show me the way to the shelter of the trees
opposite the house. There I paused, enjoying the fragrance of the last roses and the freshness of damp earth. The air held a hint of rain; looking up, I saw darkening clouds to the east. I had not
been in the square since that unsettling night of the concert; looking around now, I thought how ordinary it appeared. It had been night, of course, when I was last here, and uncertain lamplight
and deep shadows can make a place seem threatening when in reality there is nothing to fear. Yet I still hesitated to cross that last stretch of road to the door of the house.

“Good day to you, sir,” said a voice from the bushes. The voice sounded tipsy and, for a moment, I even fancied I smelt a whiff of ale. Then I realised I was hearing a spirit,
speaking with the extreme politeness of the very drunk. “Can you tell me how I came here? For I do not have the least idea.”

“Do you remember a carriage, perhaps?” I suggested, thinking he might have been the victim of an accident. I had no wish to linger but it is good policy to be polite to spirits. They
have great power of doing harm if they choose, by the whispering of secrets. And, conversely, they have an equal power of doing good, as I had learnt the night of the attack upon Nichols.

“Carriage? I wonder.” He hummed and hawed. “I remember the church. That’s it, ’twas Sunday and I remember the ladies and gents coming out of church. The big
church.”

“St Nicholas.”

“That’s it! And there was that organist fellow, what’s his name?”

It was hardly difficult to remember, I thought gloomily. Nichols at St Nicholas – the name had a depressing appropriateness. A drop of rain fell warm and fat upon my hand.
“Nichols,” I said, tasting annoyance. “His brother’s a dancing master.”

“No, no, that’s not the name.” He hiccupped. “Patterson! That’s it! Father was a town musician.”

“You are quite mistaken,” I said. “Charles Patterson is no organist. Yet.”

“Wrong, sir!” he cried in good humour. “Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

“I would be the first to know if it was true,” I pointed out. “I
am
Patterson.”

“Nay, sir, he’s a gentleman. He dresses well. Um…” He sounded doubtful now. “Yet when I look closer…”

More drops of rain. I began to be afraid that my dress, whether it was that of a gentleman or not, would be ruined before I came to my engagement. “I assure you I know my own
name.”

“Got a brother,” he said with an air of triumph. “Makes stays.”

I burst out laughing. “All my brothers and sisters died in their infancy, sir, and none of us were acquainted with any staymaker!”

“I am right,” he said obstinately. “And then I turned to walk down this street and there was a cart and I stumbled and – and –” He started to sob; maudlin
drunk, God help us, as well as dead. I bade him a polite goodbye and hurried through the thickening rain to the door.

At the railings, the feelings took me again.

I felt a shock like the buffeting of an icy gale, stumbled, flung out my hands. But they met only empty air. Daylight snapped into darkness. I fell, felt stone bruise my hands.
Not again,
please God, not again.
Another scene was already forming in front of me – tall houses on an elegant street as before. But this time they did not stay in place; they were overlaid by the
trees of the square. Darkness and light flared in my eyes as the two settings flickered and mingled, houses, trees, houses…