The Piper's Tune (24 page)

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.'

‘Where is that?'

‘Off the Crow Road, in Partick.'

‘Is it comfortable?'

‘Comfortable enough for me.'

‘Good company there?' Cissie said.

‘It's quiet,' Tom answered, ‘very quiet in fact.'

‘I get so tired of crowds, don't you?'

‘Sometimes.'

‘But you don't mind your own company?'

‘I get tired of that too occasionally.'

‘Were you tired of your own company when you wrote to me?'

Tom looked down at his plate. The servant had been overgenerous; he doubted if he could do justice to four slices of cold roast beef, two portions of salmon mayonnaise and a lump of potato salad.

‘Mildly homesick more than anything,' he said.

‘And were you thinking of me?'

‘Martin and I – we'd been talking about…'

‘About me?' said Cissie, frowning slightly.

‘About home in general, about the things we missed.' Tom was stretched; it wasn't a question of being tactful, he had to be cunning as well, and deceit did not come easily. ‘I thought of home quite a lot when I was in Africa. If I'd known you better I'd have written to you then, Cissie. Would you have answered?'

‘I'm not much of a letter-writer,' Cissie said, then added quickly, ‘Yes, I'd have answered. It's better, though, to be together, to talk like this, don't you think? If you go away again, I'll write. Now that we know each other, we'll have lots more to write about.' She peered at him, frowning. ‘Are you going away again?'

‘I hope not,' Tom said.

‘It wouldn't be Africa, would it?'

‘I doubt it,' Tom said.

‘I suppose,' Cissie said, trying to make light of it, ‘I could come with you, with the team, I mean. High time I saw more of the world.'

‘There are better places to visit than the Niger,' Tom said.

‘Do you have a child?'

‘Yes, a daughter.'

‘What's her name?'

‘Sylvie.'

‘She's not as old as I am, is she?'

‘I wouldn't think so,' Tom said. ‘She's fifteen.'

Cissie nodded. She steadied her plate, broke off a fragment of salmon mayonnaise with her fork and ate it absently. She seemed to be thinking of other things – more questions, perhaps. In profile she was not unlike Lindsay. Tom considered volunteering more information about Sylvie but he was apprehensive lest Cissie and his daughter had met at some point, at school say.

‘I'm twenty-two,' Cissie said. ‘I'm older than Lindsay, you see. He really was far too young to take an interest in me.'

Owen Franklin's guests were well into the spirit of the evening.

Noisy and cheerful, they transported cups of punch, glasses of wine and plates of food from drawing-room to dining-room.

A programme of sorts had been arranged. Already Mercy had played a complex Chopin
étude,
her head held high and haughty while her husband turned the pages for her. Mr Arthur had opened the batting for the Brunswick choir with ‘White Wings They Never Grow Weary'. Amanda Bailey, the Brunswick's prettiest soprano, had made the light fittings ring and Mr James Holcomb, heir to the Pressed Steel empire, had embarrassed everyone by croaking out ‘Turn the Mangle, Joe', just before supper was called.

Tom looked down at the heads below.

Owen's guests were those and such as those: choristers, shipping people, pretty young women whom Tom had noticed at concerts in the City Hall or in boxes at the Royal when the D'Oyly Carte were in town. He wondered why he had been invited. He tried to pretend that he did not know the answer but it was all too obvious that the old boy had asked him along to court Cissie.

Tom said, ‘Heaven knows, it's not my place to criticise a member of your family but…' He shrugged.

‘I thought Forbes was right for me.'

‘I'm not sure he's right for Lindsay either,' Tom ventured.

‘Lindsay can take care of herself.'

Perhaps she was right. Perhaps Lindsay would be able to make something of the Dubliner. Tom tried to blot from his mind the disparaging manner in which George Crush and Forbes McCulloch talked of women.

‘Do you like Lindsay?' Cissie said.

The question was too direct to be avoided.

Tom said, ‘Yes.'

‘Is she not too young for you?'

The question was skewed towards an unfavourable answer. He thought for a moment before he replied: ‘I've always regarded Lindsay as a very intelligent young lady,' he said, ‘but she – how can I put this? – she doesn't seem quite mature enough to be a good wife just yet.'

‘So
you
wouldn't marry her?'

He shook his head, lying first by gesture then by word.

How could he tell Cissie that he would marry Lindsay Franklin like a shot if she had not been so far above him. Age had nothing to do with it. He was just the right age, the proper age to take a wife again. He'd had most of the rough edges knocked off over the years, and was materially settled. If he fancied a wife then in an ideal world Lindsay would have been his first choice.

He managed to laugh. ‘No.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes, I'm sure.' Still smiling, he said, ‘Miss Franklin, for a well-brought-up young lady you ask far too many questions.'

‘Do I?' she said, pleased. ‘Let me ask you one more then?'

‘What now?'

‘Are you on the programme tonight?'

‘Yes.'

‘Doing what?'

‘I've brought along the sheets for “The Blackbird's Song”.'

‘Don't sing that,' Cissie said.

‘Why not?'

‘Do you know “The Kerry Dancing”?'

‘Yes, but I'm not convinced I can do it justice,' Tom said.

‘I have the music. I'll accompany you. I'll lead you through it. Any key that suits your range.'

‘I'm not rehearsed,' Tom said. ‘Couldn't you manage…'

She leaned against him again and crooned, ‘“Oh, the days of the Kerry dancing. Oh, the ring of the piper's tune. Oh, for one of those hours of gladness…” Isn't it a beautiful melody?'

‘It is,' Tom agreed.

He wondered why she had chosen that particular song, why she insisted upon it. She seemed far too young to be dreaming of days that were gone.

‘Please, Tom, sing it for me.'

And Tom, gently capitulating, said, ‘If you insist.'

*   *   *

‘Sickening, isn't it?' Forbes said.

‘What is?' said Lindsay.

‘How she's throwing herself at him.'

‘I don't think she's throwing herself at him at all.'

‘He walks in off the street…'

‘Absolute rot!' said Lindsay. ‘Pappy invited him.'

‘And we know why, don't we?' said Forbes.

‘I expect you have some theory about it,' said Lindsay who, without definite reason, felt testy and defensive. ‘And I expect you're going to expound it whether I like it or not.'

‘What's got into you all of a sudden?'

‘You,' Lindsay said.

‘Not yet.' He grinned. ‘Soon, I hope, but not yet.'

‘For God's sake, Forbes!'

‘Tut-tut! Such language. No, she's desperate. She'll take anything. Even old Long Tom there. She won't find what she's looking for in his trousers.'

‘You really are foul sometimes.'

‘It's true, though,' Forbes said. ‘Doesn't she realise she's making a damned fool of herself, whipping him upstairs, hogging him all to herself.'

‘Tom doesn't seem to object.'

‘Sure and he doesn't object. It's the way in, isn't it?'

‘The way in?' Lindsay said. ‘If you mean —'

Forbes laughed. ‘Such a nasty thought didn't even cross my mind. It's her money he'll be after, not her endearing young charms.'

‘Cissie doesn't have any money.'