Broken Harmony (7 page)

I lay on my back, staring up at the trees of the gardens as, at last, the surroundings settled firmly into the reality of the square. Voices were shouting. Hands took hold of my shoulders. A
footman stared at me from the house steps with amused contempt. Closer, a woman’s voice said, “Are you unwell, sir?”

I looked into cool grey eyes. They belonged to a woman of perhaps forty, very finely but plainly dressed. Lady Anne’s cousin. Her dark blonde hair was dressed high upon her head; one
gleaming ringlet hung down against the white skin of her neck.

“Are you ill, sir?” she repeated.

“A – a little dizzy.”

“Come into the house.”

So I made my entrance into the house where I had hoped to come so elegantly, on the arm of a supporting woman, attended by a knowing look from a footman who plainly thought me as drunk as the
spirit in the gardens. He took my coat away to be brushed and brought it back a few minutes later together with a brandy requested by the lady. We sat in a withdrawing room, the lady looking on as
I wretchedly shivered and trembled. Staring down at my hands, I saw a fine embedding of stones in the heel of my right hand.

I struggled to be calm. The lady had no qualms about remaining alone with me, I noted, which made her as careless of convention as Lady Anne. She addressed me in matter-of-fact tones, as if
nothing untoward had happened, although her gaze was steady and watchful. She was, I realised, allowing me time to gather my wits and compose myself.

“We have not been introduced,” she said as I sipped the unwonted luxury of fine brandy. “I am Esther Jerdoun, Lady Anne’s cousin. And you are Mr Charles Patterson, music
teacher.”

She could not have summed up our social positions more nicely. Reddening, I sat on the edge of my chair and attempted an apology. She shook her head – a fine head with a clear profile
outlined against the red-and-white-striped satin of her chair.

“I am grateful for your help, Mrs Jerdoun,” I said, carefully according her the courtesy of the title as convention requires, though I did not know if she was married or no.

She waved away my gratitude. “Lady Anne, I believe, invited you to look at some scores she has acquired. She has an extensive collection of music, although I am afraid I do not know the
precise score to which she alluded. She is still at dinner with her friends.”

I remembered that other dinner party I had glimpsed through the window, days before. “You do not eat with her, madam?”

“I had a headache earlier in the evening and preferred to dine alone. If you are feeling recovered, Mr Patterson, perhaps you would care to see the library?”

I was hardly certain I could stand, but I knew she was still pursuing her aim of putting me at my ease, and followed her from the room. She talked on quietly, pointing out the attractions of the
house, not waiting for responses, not asking for any. I was grateful for her consideration and did my best to be interested.

It was a very splendid house, decorated in the most fashionable (and no doubt expensive) style. Cherubs cavorted on plaster ceilings among swags of leaves and fruit, and looked down on cream
wallpaper thinly striped with blue; chairs almost too delicate to sit upon stood beneath portraits of high-nosed ancestors; porcelain vases and vast bowls of fragrant potpourri stood upon marble
tables. In the hall, a staircase swept up to the floors above; from a distant room came the sound of laughter.

Mrs Jerdoun led me to the rear of the house, opening doors on to an echoing chill space. The walls were lined with bookcases; the polished wooden floor gleamed in the light of many candles. The
only furniture – positioned under a tall window – was a closed harpsichord and its stool. I ran my fingers over the elegant beading along the lid’s edge.

“I would open the instrument for you,” Mrs Jerdoun said apologetically, “but my cousin keeps the key. We found the servants would toy with it while we were out, and it goes out
of tune so easily.”

I nodded. “Do you play?”

“Not at all. I have no patience for it. Nor for singing. I find such amusements trivial.”

So much for music. Perhaps Mrs Jerdoun thought from my silence that she had offended me. “Forgive me for plain speaking but I am impatient with the hypocrisy indulged in by most women.
Their great interest in music lasts only to the end of the marriage ceremony.”

“I wonder anyone ever plays music,” I said with some asperity. “Ladies regard it as a means to show off their charms and catch a husband while gentlemen consider serious
practice requires too much exertion and is therefore unbecoming.”

“It is,” she said decisively. “It is a craft, and no gentleman should involve himself in anything so beneath his station.”

“There is an element of
craft
in it, certainly – although a better word would be
science
. But it is also surely an
Art
.”

“Certainly not.”

“Is it not Art, madam, to convey in one’s compositions the passions of the human soul – joy, grief, exaltation?”

“Do you speak of Monsieur le Sac’s works?” she said dryly.

“Hardly. But consider the acknowledged masters…”

“I would prefer not to,” she said, moving away to snuff a candle that was guttering wildly. “Besides, I can acknowledge a man expert in his work without considering him an
artist. The man who made these candles, for instance. He has produced an object that is of excellent quality, admirably suited for its purpose. But that is merely to say that he has learnt well
when he was an apprentice and knows how to apply the techniques of his craft. It is the same with music.”

I was intrigued and admiring. It is not usual to find a lady with such strong and well-expressed views. But this was an unusual household altogether; her cousin was not conventional in her
manners, and as for the house itself…

My hand trembled on the lid of the harpsichord. I cleared my throat, determined to banish thoughts of what had happened on my arrival. “But consider the music used in divine
worship.”

“A mere tool to sharpen our awareness of the words of the gospels. Though even there – ” She frowned in contemplation of the drift of smoke from the extinguished candle.
“Even there, it is fit only for the generality of people. Any man or woman of common sense can judge the truth or otherwise of God’s word without such aids.”

The truth or otherwise
. Did that suggest she doubted the word of God? We were approaching dangerous ground. I pointed out a second dying candle and we moved naturally on to consider the
books around us. Mrs Jerdoun was proficient in both French and Italian, which I much envied her, my Italian being merely tolerable and my French greatly deficient. She seemed surprised that I knew
any.

She took down a book of engravings, of the ancient ruins in Rome, and in speculating upon the purpose of the remains I contrived to lay aside the remembrance of my unorthodox arrival. Mrs
Jerdoun had visited the ruins and had interesting tales to tell; she was describing an ancient pillar when the doors were thrown open. In swept Lady Anne, in yellow satin and old gold lace, fanning
herself and laughing at something one of her guests was saying. Ladies and gentlemen both together, elegant in bright colours, indolent in manner and tinkling in laughter. Even Mr Claudius Heron, a
gentleman of about forty, in a light-buff-coloured suit which complemented his pale colouring (he too wears his own hair in defiance of fashion) raised a faint smile at the sally of a young lady.
And from her privileged position at the head of the throng, her expression visible only to Mrs Jerdoun and myself, Lady Anne raised her eyebrows to the ceiling as if to say ‘Heaven help
me!’

She introduced me to her guests, an honour I had not anticipated. Mr Heron cast me a frowning look but acknowledged me civilly, if curtly. Upon Mrs Jerdoun remarking that we had been looking at
the engravings of Rome, a general conversation began in which I was kindly included. Her ladyship’s guests were prepared, it was clear, to follow her lead and accept me, if not as an equal,
at least as tolerably worthy of notice. Heron particularly was generous enough to convey his personal apologies for his misunderstanding of my encounter with Nichols.

But my attention was distracted by the servants bringing in chairs for the company and tea tables with all the necessary paraphernalia. All the chairs, I noted, were being placed at one end of
the room as if to leave the other end, around the harpsichord, free.

A servant came in with a music stand.

I flushed, answered one lady’s questions at random. Could Lady Anne have brought me here merely to afford her guests after-dinner entertainment? But if so, what an invidious position she
had put me in by introducing me to them as an equal. There is always a clear division between the entertainer, who is paid, and the entertained, who pay.

But no, Lady Anne was indicating a chair, and praying me to sit down and tell her how I preferred my tea. I was to listen. Perhaps one of the younger ladies was to entertain us upon her harp;
that would be unexceptional, if trying to the musical connoisseur. One of the footmen was unlocking the harpsichord and propping up its lid, revealing gorgeous paintings of dancing nymphs. A few
songs from the young lady, then? But from the hall came the sound of a footman greeting a newcomer and a scuffle of preparation. Footsteps approached the door. I was seized with a hot premonition
of disaster.

The doors were opened. In the space, pausing for a moment so that we might appreciate his elegance, was Henri Le Sac.
He
was to entertain; Lady Anne’s behaviour clearly indicated
that
I
was to be entertained. She could not have prepared a greater insult.

10

DUET FOR HARPSICHORD AND VIOLIN

What was I to do? The moment Le Sac set eyes on me he would take offence, and indeed I would not blame him. Here was I, greatly his inferior in performance, set to lord it over
him as if I was one of the gentry. How could he tolerate that? Yet if I offered to play, which might satisfy Le Sac (particularly as I would be at the lowly accompanying instrument), I would set
Lady Anne’s guests against her for having the audacity to introduce them to a mere performer.

And while I delayed and hoped to fathom Lady Anne’s motives for playing such games, Le Sac glanced round and saw me.

For a moment he was blank-faced, then drew back in disdain. “Milady,” he said, “you desire
this
person to accompany me?”

Nothing, his tone said, could possibly be less welcome. All eyes turned to me; with a frown, Claudius Heron said, “Do you play tonight, Patterson?”

Silence. Then Esther Jerdoun said, “Mr Patterson is
my
guest. He came to examine some music books in my possession.”

There was a collective sigh of relief, as if the company regarded Mrs Jerdoun as some eccentric whose will must be humoured. Only Claudius Heron continued to frown, and to look from myself to Le
Sac to smiling Lady Anne in turn. Not a man to be fooled easily and his previous mistake over the brawl must have made him wary.

I hurried into speech. “But I would be honoured if Monsieur le Sac would consent to my accompanying him. Though I cannot of course hope to do the pieces justice.”

So the proprieties were preserved. Lady Anne was considered to have been most kind to her eccentric cousin; I was most obliging in helping to retrieve the situation. And, as I was clearly not
being paid to play, it was possible to regard me (for this night at least) as a gentleman amateur. My dish of tea cooled on the table as I disposed myself on the harpsichord stool, and Le Sac bent
to fetch out his music. He swung with a flourish and a smile for his audience, and presented me with the harpsichord part; his eyes met mine and I saw by their glitter that there was one person in
the room who was not appeased.

I say one, but there was another also. As I glanced across at Esther Jerdoun, I saw her cast her cousin a look of annoyance and reproof. Lady Anne lounged in her chair, one leg crossed mannishly
over the other, swinging a slippered foot and smiling a smile of triumph. I had seen that look before, on a dozen of my older pupils; it was the enjoyment of a chance to cause consternation.

It was not an evening I care to remember, although the harpsichord was excellent. Le Sac was determined to make life as difficult as possible for me. He speeded up and slowed down outrageously,
drew out melodic phrases to a perfectly ridiculous extent then unexpectedly galloped away at top speed. He cut sections out of the music and repeated others that were not meant to be repeated so
that I constantly appeared to be unsure of my place. In short, he was every accompanist’s nightmare.

But his audience – with the exception of Mr Heron, who sat stony-faced throughout – loved every moment. They gasped at every rapid dash of notes, every dramatic flourish, no matter
how coarse and meaningless. In truth, there was nothing of worth in the entire piece – it being one of Le Sac’s own compositions – and my only consolation was that the harpsichord
part had been copied out by George and was therefore eminently readable. Unlike Le Sac’s part which, I saw over his shoulder, was an illegible scrawl.

He came at last to the end and enjoyed the applause with great flourishing bows in the continental style. I did not share the applause; not only would it not have pleased Le Sac but it would
have underlined my status as a performer and I was still trying to walk that fine line between guest and hired help. But as Le Sac turned to his music case for another solo, Esther Jerdoun stood up
and spoke in a voice that cut through the conversation.

“Monsieur le Sac, I am sorry to inconvenience you but I must reclaim my guest. We have not yet concluded our business.”

Le Sac looked outraged but he was powerless to object. I was tempted, as I bowed to him, to point out that he should have brought his own accompanist. But he was as much a victim of Lady
Anne’s playfulness as I was; I kept silent.

So Mrs Jerdoun and I withdrew to the far end of the library where we conducted our conversation in low voices while Le Sac fiddled away unaccompanied, with renewed energy. As she lifted down a
music book from the shelves, she said, “Forgive me if I seem abrupt. But my cousin’s habit of setting people at each other’s throats annoys me greatly.”