Chords and Discords (6 page)

“He’s paying me well.”

“How well?”

“Twenty guineas.”

He whistled. “There’s something shady going on.”

“That’s the point.”

A late arrival was throwing bags up on to the roof. “Hugh, you’ll miss the coach!”

“Tell Bairstowe to go to the devil, Charles. You know what happened last time you got involved in something like this. I nearly died!”

“You’re not going to be here this time, Hugh. You’ll be in Paris, remember.”

“Then you’ll get yourself killed.”

“Not a chance of it,” I said soothingly. “You’ll miss the coach.”

“You’ve got to promise you won’t do it.”

“I need the money.”

“Bairstowe of all people! The rudest man I ever met. Don’t do it, Charles.”

“Too late. I’ve already agreed to help. Hugh, get in that coach.”

“But – ”

I took him by the elbow and pushed him into the coach. An ostler tossed up the steps behind him and the horses lurched forward. And it was only then that I remembered I’d been trying to
prevent him going.

I walked out on to the Key after the departing coach, watching it rattle across the bridge. I still thought I’d get a note from Darlington, pleading for help.

I had four lessons that morning. The first was at the house of Thomas Saint, the printer, who publishes the
Courant
every Saturday. I can rely on his daughter to practise assiduously; she
has a musical gentleman in view as a prospective husband. My second lesson, however, was with the Revd Brown’s youngest daughter, who requires all my tact and diplomacy. She adores her papa
and wants to emulate him in playing the cello; it is the very devil to persuade her that it is not an instrument fit for ladies.

I was early for the first lesson; I bought gruel at the Cale Cross and idled along the Key towards the Printing House. My anger of the previous day had dissipated although I still longed to
follow Hugh’s advice and tell Bairstowe to go to the devil. But I needed the money so I might as well grit my teeth and get on with the matter.

I had lost sleep from mulling it over. There was no proof the threatening notes had existed or that poor Tom Eade’s death was anything but an accident, though I firmly believed that
William Bairstowe thought he was in danger. But one small thing gave me pause – I had been told conflicting stories about Eade. Bedwalters had said he was courting the Bairstowes’ maid,
but the mother had referred to a fisher girl. It might be nothing – the mother might have been mistaken – yet it nagged at me.

Thomas Saint’s daughter was as attentive as ever, Mr Brown’s as rebellious; I bit back irritation and looked forward to the afternoon which promised much better, in the shape of the
Heron family.

The Heron house is an old one, standing in one of the most genteel parts of town, upon Northumberland Street. Outside, it bears the imprint of previous centuries, with stone lintels like raised
eyebrows over the windows; inside, it is as modern as Heron’s considerable fortune can make it. The son, Master Thomas, is a reluctant harpsichordist with clumsy hands, but his father, whom I
instruct on the violin, is more purposeful and more talented; if he were not a member of the gentry I would say that he could make a good musician. As it is, he does as I suggest, listens to
criticism without taking offence and practises between lessons; I cannot ask for more than that. Moreover, he has taken to giving me a glass of wine before I leave and lingering in conversation
with me. I fancy he prefers a little rest before returning to business; he is not a man who takes much pleasure in life.

So, after the lesson, we repaired to the library which was warmed by a good fire. Heron poured wine, and went straight into the attack, just as I was being soothed by the warmth of the room and
the comfort of his chair.

“Debts, Patterson?”

My heart sank but there was no avoiding the question. “Always,” I temporised.

He nodded. “Three weeks until the end of the quarter. A difficult time.”

He certainly does not speak from experience. Claudius Heron has never known a moment’s poverty in his life. I sat back in my comfortable chair, and tried for a good-humoured tone.
“Especially,” I said. “When half the town is
out
of town.”

“So that is why you are contemplating this business of Bairstowe’s?”

I laughed, reluctantly. “Do you know everything, sir?”

“I was talking with Bedwalters this morning.” Heron settled in the chair opposite me and contemplated the ruby luminescence of his wine. “He is not a pleasant man –
Bairstowe, that is.”

“Not one that knows the meaning of tact, certainly.” Sunshine was seeping in through tall windows, gleaming on the polished wood floor, and glistened on Heron’s pale hair. (He
wears his own, gathered in a bow at the nape of his neck, in defiance of fashion.)

“He has a vicious temper,” Heron said. Heron himself is irrevocably cool; I have only once seen him angry and it is not an experience I wish to repeat. “His father was the same
and he suffered the inevitable fate.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“He died of an apoplexy. I am told he clutched his head, fell down in the street and died on the instant. He was barely fifty years old. The men die young in that family.”

My own father was forty-two when he died; I smiled uneasily.

“So,” he said. “Do you continue?” He looked at me over the rim of his glass. “I would have thought that matter before Christmas would have been sufficient
excitement.”

It was the first time he had referred to the affair; there was no hint in his voice of the fear that had seized us both on the occasion itself.

“Needs must,” I said lightly. “In any case, this matter can hardly be of the same kind. And Tom Eade deserves the truth. Whatever it is.”

“Eade?”

“The lad who died.”

“Bedwalters says it was an accident.”

I sighed. “I’m inclined to believe him.”

Heron was silent for a moment, no doubt turning over what both I and Bedwalters had told him. I looked at him at my leisure. A slight, reserved man of forty years or so, with no liking for
anyone at all in the world and no friends that I could discover. I would not exchange Heron’s wealth for my friendship with Hugh, irritating though Demsey could be, but a guinea or two of
Heron’s fortune would be welcome.

“Does Bairstowe name any particular person as his attacker?” he asked at last.

“No.” I sipped the wine. “Though he mentioned several persons as his enemies.” I laughed to show I did not take Bairstowe seriously. “Including yourself,
sir.”

He stared at me for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet. “Bring your wine.”

He led me through a succession of rooms I had never seen before, all exquisitely and expensively furnished. Plaster work ceilings displayed astonishing craftsmanship; huge mirrors hung between
long windows – both kinds of glass would have cost several times my annual income. Brocaded chairs stood on Turkish carpets; curtains framed tall vases. All the rooms were impeccably kept but
I doubted they were often used; Heron was a widower, and he and his son lived frugally. These public rooms were probably used twice a year for receptions or dinner parties.

We came into a dark wood-panelled gallery, hung with pictures of Herons from centuries past. A wooden floor was polished to perfection; square panels of coloured glass in the windows depicted
coats of arms. “Yes,” Heron said. “It is archaic, I know, and in the most extravagantly bad taste. All this wood was the height of fashion fifty years ago – it was used
throughout the whole house when I inherited the property.”

“It must have been horribly dark.”

He nodded. “I thought I had found a use for the gallery at last.” We walked down the echoing room, towards a huge shrouded something that stood against the far wall. “I decided
to convert it into a concert room.”

I thought of trying to make a harpsichord heard in that vast empty space. Heron was looking faintly amused. “Clearly, something with considerable carrying power was needed, and, like a
fool, I thought Bairstowe was the man to provide it.”

He bent to a covered pile on the floor beneath the windows, tugged at the concealing sheet and whisked it away. Beneath was a pile of organ pipes – and a long gouge in the glossy wooden
floor. Glancing up, I saw a gaping hole where something had been poked through the stained glass panel in the nearest window.

“His organs do have an excellent reputation,” I said reluctantly.

“So I have been told by several fine judges,” Heron said. “But Bridges of London is equally good. And I am tolerably sure that he would not have irretrievably damaged
centuries-old floors and windows.”

He pulled down the covering from the shape on the wall and revealed the framework for the proposed organ. Heron had thought large – not a full-size organ as one might find in a church but
something bigger than a chamber organ. I peered closer; the woodwork looked dusty.

“How long is it since he did any work on it?”

“Several months. First he was called in to tune the organ in the Song School in Durham, then it was Mrs Jenison’s harpsichord that needed repair. Then it was illness, then he was
waiting for a new supply of wood. And, finally, I read the paper last week and discovered he is to exhibit a new organ at the Cordwainer’s Hall next week.”

“He has lost interest in this project,” I concluded.

“He has still been taking my money for supplies,” Heron said dryly.

“I had heard he was apathetic about his trade now. I wonder why?”

“Despair?” Heron suggested.

I glanced at him but he was as urbane as ever. “There is, after all,” he said, “very little of worth in this world. A fine wine.” He gestured with his glass.
“Pleasant conversation with a friend. Nothing more.”

I was embarrassed, as always, by Heron’s cynicism, and by his implied compliment to myself. We stood, silent for a moment, in the echoing gallery, with the wind whistling in through the
hole in the window and disturbed spiders scurrying from the pile of organ pipes.

“I had meant to apologise,” Heron said, astounding me. “For the decision of the Gentlemen Directors of the Concerts.”

I did not know what to say. A gentleman apologising to a musician? Unheard of.

“I tried to persuade them to give you a benefit,” he said.

“I’d rather not speak – ”

“And as for this business of the Italian woman,” he said, instantly changing the direction of the conversation. “The matter will be simply ruinous. They cannot recoup their
costs.”

“So I judge.”

“Well,” he said. “So be it. They will learn. I – ”

A discreet cough behind us; we turned to see a servant, in dark-blue livery, standing in the middle of the polished floor. “A message for Mr Patterson, sir,” he said deferentially.
“From Mr Bairstowe.”

The message had been brought by the maid, Tom Eade’s bereaved lover. She was a slip of a girl maybe seventeen years old, timid and wary, with eyes permanently cast down,
and answered all our questions in a soft Scotch accent. Jennie, she said her name was, Jennie McIntosh, and Mr Bairstowe wanted me urgently to ‘see what has been done now’.

Heron insisted upon coming with me and we walked down to Silver Street together. We must have made a strange group: the demure maid, the self-possessed gentleman in his brocaded coat, and the
tradesman (myself) in drab brown with green cuffs. A crowd of eager beggar children gathered around us as we walked down Pilgrim Street into Silver Street but I had nothing to give them and Heron
merely looked on with distaste.

The alley to Bairstowe’s manufactory looked worse in daylight than it had at night; the light displayed the dog turds and discarded apple cores all too clearly. Distantly, I heard the
sound of singing.

William Bairstowe came striding out of the house into the chill, cluttered yard, and sent the maid back inside. He baulked when he saw Heron. “What the devil are you here for?”

Heron was unperturbed by the rudeness. “I came to see how the work on my organ goes on.”

Bairstowe sneered at him. “You want to see how the work goes? Well, come look.” He gestured melodramatically at the workshop.

The door was jammed half-open; we sidled in through a narrow gap to behold a scene of chaos. Pipes and lengths of wood were scattered everywhere, tools cast down from their places and trampled
underfoot. An adze had been smashed into the half-made soundboard along the grain, splitting a great portion of it away. Leather had been tossed in a corner and liquid poured over it; the pungent
reek of piss was unmistakeable.

I thought I heard a new voice, but when I glanced around I saw only Heron, examining the lock on the door.

“Aye,” Bairstowe said. “That’s the way he came in. Broke down the door.”

I kicked at the soundboard. There was plainly no salvaging it.

Bairstowe swore at me. “Stop gawping, damn you, and get down to earning your ten guineas!”

Ten guineas? He had offered me twenty. In fury, I started to speak but Claudius Heron interrupted. “I believe the sum was thirty guineas,” he said lazily.

We both looked at him. He stood nonchalantly just inside the door, his hand on the lock he had been examining. His tone was bored. Bairstowe started to speak but Heron said again, “Thirty
guineas.”

“I offered – ” Bairstowe stopped under Heron’s steady gaze. “Yes, yes,” he said hurriedly. “Thirty guineas. Of course. Get going, man. Get
going!”

“When I’ve had a good look around,” I said, determined to assert myself.

I trampled over the smashed pipes and the crushed lead, deriving a great deal of satisfaction from the crunching and crackling of the debris under my feet. I examined the windows and the door,
and looked for footprints in the dust and the sawdust. Bairstowe stood in the middle of the floor and glared at me; Claudius Heron hardly moved. I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was
looking for, and I found nothing. Or rather – only the one thing Claudius Heron had already noted.

We went out in the street again, Heron and I. I took deep breaths of the cold March air and tried to calm my temper. The faint sun that had gleamed through the windows of Heron’s house
came out from behind the clouds again and mitigated the worst effects of the chill wind. Below, we caught a grey glimpse of the Tyne, and of the bank of Gateshead on the other side.