Music at Long Verney Read online

  Music falls on listening faces

  As the rain on children falls,

  Wandering in woodland places

  Where . . .

  Calls, sprawls, appals? The music flourished like a wren and left off. The young man who had been sitting in the window seat, fidgeting, twisting himself round, got up and left the room. Knows his own mind, thought Oliver. The others sat on. The fiddlers did a little tuning, listening to their plucked strings like animals that hunt by ear.

  “May I ask what you two are doing here?” The young man had come out of the house. His voice was loud and aggressive.

  Oliver’s was clear and cold. “We were listening to the music.”

  Jane Elphick leaped to her feet, threw open the nearest window, leaned out of it. “Basil! It’s Mr and Mrs Furnival.”

  “Oh, oh, oh!” Moaning, stumbling over feet, without glancing at Anthony, Naomi ran from the room. After a pause, Anthony got up and followed her. Outside was Naomi, making a fool of herself, Basil scorning Naomi, the Furnivals looking like tramps.

  The musicians raised their bows, hesitated, decided to go on, for this was the sort of thing one expects from the rich, and began the minuet.

  “I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to apologise, I feel so disgraced, so upset, so terribly upset, so inhospitable. The very last thing in the world I wanted to happen. You see, it was all got up at a moment’s notice, at the very last moment; otherwise of course I would have asked you –” On she went, making bad worse.

  “The best thing you can do, Naomi,” said her husband, “is to ask Mr and Mrs Furnival to come in for the rest of the quartet. Haydn. Your house is acoustically perfect, Furnival. Basil! Go to bed.”

  “Oh, will you, will you? Oh, please do! And please may I offer you something to warm you? Some vodka? A little soup? You must have got so cold, standing here.”

  There was nothing for it. With the poor woman in such a state and saddled with a husband who said “acoustically”, they must be civil and go in. They went in, rejected the soup, drank the vodka. With all this going on, the Maria Teresia Quartet broke the minuet after its trio section and sat looking at the music before them.

  “It’s painful, isn’t it, hanging about in the dominant,” Anthony remarked to Jane Elphick.

  “Oh, do you think so?”

  The musicians thought so and finished the minuet. There was some tentative applause, swelled by social agony into a brisk patter.

  The players began the slow movement.

  The Furnivals had been put side by side on a sofa. Cushions were offered them but were repudiated. They sat bolt upright in listening attitudes. Their long thin red hands were relaxed. Their long thin legs, too long for the height of the sofa, were sharply bent at the knee. Their shoes were muddy. Each wore a whitey-brown raincoat, identical except for the sexual differentiation of buttons. Sibyl had a handkerchief knotted under her chin; Oliver held an old tweed hat dangling between his knees. It had a few fishing flies stuck in the band.

  Their feet, thought Naomi, their poor wet feet. They’ll catch cold. They’ll die. She could not take her compassionate gaze off them. They were aware of it, but gave no sign that they were aware. If only she could put them to bed, run hot baths for them, pour in bath essence, warm her largest towels for them – they would need large towels, they were both so very tall. But it was impossible. They sat in their own house, listening to music, waiting for the music to end, identically dignified, impassive, and ridiculous. One can only hope they are enjoying the candles, thought Jane Elphick. They were church candles, made of beeswax, slow-burning, sweet-smelling, beyond the purse of any but the richest altar – and these Simpsons burned them like so many rush lights.

  The slow movement farewelled itself. Oliver flicked a glance at Sibyl. The players attacked the allegro vivace. They’re overdoing it, thought Anthony. His evening had been ruined; the joy with which he had listened to the first movement was irreparably past recall. What am I to say, what am I to say? thought Naomi, swept on in the allegro vivace as if in a millrace. And that – And that – Is that! It was finished.

  Yes, this time it was really over. The company applauded, the players rose and bowed, everyone began to talk. The Furnivals got up. Sibyl turned to Naomi. “Thank you so much. It was delightful. Now we must be going.”

  It was the thing Naomi should have thought of and didn’t think of. Anthony, however, had thought of it. “You must let me drive you back,” he said – a trifle hastily, but he did not want Naomi flustering in. They demurred, then agreed. Anything rather than have a fuss.

  Back in the gamekeeper’s cottage they revived the fire with some fir cones, looked at the clock, were surprised that it was not later. The music had seemed as if it would go on forever. But the room looked lovely by candlelight.

  “On the whole, Oliver, I’m quite glad we went. The music was far above my head and I never liked vodka, but I enjoyed our walk and the room looked lovely.”

  “It didn’t seem so cold as it used to, either. And we can’t blame Rudge. If they took it into their heads to come back at a moment’s notice, how was he to know? Loathsome boy, though. Their son, I suppose. I ought to have knocked him down.”

  “It’s a reason for not seeing them again.”

  “True, Sibyl, true. How right you always are.”

  Immune from any consideration of awkwardness, innocent of harm, impermeably self-righteous, they went upstairs to bed.

  The Inside-out

  IT WAS A lightless afternoon in february, not cold but with a stale cold in the air. The removal van stood outside Ullapool. Furniture was being unloaded and carried in. It was furniture the two children had known all their lives, but it looked quite different out-of-doors: gaunt, and sorry for itself. It was abashing to find that the backs of familiar wardrobes and chests of drawers were just unpainted deal. Ullapool was built of greyish brick; it was a semi-detached house and the other half of it was called Sorrento. Each half had a small garage attached to it. Other greyish brick houses of the same height extended on either side. All but one had garages. That one had a gravel path and a side gate of wood trellis, and behind the gate was a holly.

  A strong smell of straw, sweat, and burlap came from the van. It was an interesting smell, and Clive and Stella snuffed it as they stood on the pavement, keeping out of the way. Inside the house Mother was running to and fro, telling the removal men where to put things; Father followed her silently, as if he might be found useful; from time to time he made a suggestion and Mother’s voice became patient as she explained why it wouldn’t do. So they had taken themselves off to the pavement, and watched the furniture being carried into Ullapool – more and more of it; and, after the furniture, crates, some nailed down, others without lids, holding things like frying pans and baking dishes swaddled in crumpled newspaper. And their feet began to grow cold, and the smell from the van made them thirsty, and they thought poorly of Ullapool, though when they arrived and ran about its emptiness they had rather liked it.

  “I think it’s a beastly house,” said Stella – so loudly and clearly that one of the removal men said she would feel quite different when they were properly in and the beds made up, Missie. He was a local man and felt a concern for these strangers coming into the house where the mad old lady had ended her solitary days. He went on with a crate that was so heavy it made him grunt, and was halfway upstairs with it when Mother called out, “Kitchen, man, kitchen!”

  It was then she noticed them standing on the pavement, and said something to Father, who came out and said, “Why don’t you explore the garden? It’s got a summerhouse. The back door’s open.”

  In the garden it seemed much nearer nightfall. It was choked with weeds and grasses of last summer, full of straggling thickets of privet and laurel, overhung by conifers. Everything was matted, entangled, overgrown, and intensely still. Some plumes of pampas grass wagged slowly in the light breeze. They seemed to be the only living thing there. As though it w
ere part of its territory, the garden enclosed a different texture of sound: the thump of distant machinery, soft snortings of ejected steam, the clank of a freight train, whistles, the drifting cry of hooters from river tugs – noises that had been screened from the children by passing traffic when they were in the street. When they turned back and looked at the house, it already seemed quite a long way off. A light went on in an upper window.

  “I don’t think it’s such a particularly beastly house,” said Clive.

  “It’s pretty beastly.”

  He went ahead, partly because he was the elder and in double figures, partly because he was enjoying himself. It was the first time they had been in a garden other than the public garden at Worple. When Mother said, “Now that your father has been moved to the bank at Burheaton, we’ll have a house with a garden,” they had imagined a bowling green, swings, a Jubilee Clock, lawns, and a motor mower, just as when they were babies, at the mention of their father’s bank, they imagined him rolling down it.

  The garden seemed endless; endless and directionless, because at every tenth step he had to turn aside to skirt a bush, to avoid a bramble patch. Stooping under a branch, he almost fell into a bathtub. Its white paint had mostly scaled off; what remained had a fish-belly shine. It had sifted up and was half full of a soup of dead leaves. They stirred the soup with their fingers, and tried vainly to turn the rusty taps.

  “Hush, Clive! I believe I heard something. Don’t breathe so hard. I believe it’s hens.”

  “Wild hens, like in India,” he said.

  “Oh, goody goody!”

  But hearing the noise again and listening more attentively, it seemed to him that the hens were in Sorrento.

  Dense laurel hedges secluded them from the gardens on either side. A slimy network of bindweed hung on the Sorrento hedge like lace curtains, and strands of barbed wire ran inside it. Spiked iron railings backed the other hedge. Considering his reaction to this, Clive summed it up as an inside-out feeling. You couldn’t get out; nobody could get in; and you wore the feeling not quite sure whether you liked it or didn’t like it. Inside-out. It depended which way you put it on. He turned to consult Stella – she was sometimes quite intelligent – and she wasn’t there. The inside-out feeling tightened on him. But she was close by, hidden behind a bush. With an entranced countenance she was pulling strands of ivy off the trunk of a yew tree. “Come and pull, Clivey! It’s a wonderful feeling.” He pulled for a little, and it was a wonderful feeling; but the smell of ivy was oppressive.

  “All those little feet holding on . . . There!” Another length of ivy fell on the ground.

  “Oh, come on, Stella! We’ll never get it all off, and it’s everywhere. Come on and explore for something else.”

  Glancing back at the yew, she saw that the bark they had stripped was a dull red, like a graze.

  “I hope we haven’t hurt it. Miss Harper, who took us in Botany last term, said ivy kills trees.”

  Clive agreed that it had rather a killing smell.

  The endless garden ended in a brick wall, too high to be seen over. Beyond it, puffs of white smoke rose into the untrammelled sky, keeping time with the soft snortings.

  “But we haven’t found the summerhouse,” said Stella. “We must find the summerhouse.”

  “It’s there. At least, it was there.”

  An iron frame projected from the wall. A cloak of sedge lay below. When they tried to pick it up, it fell to pieces in their hands.

  They did not dwell on the disappointment; by now they were wholly in love with their garden. “We haven’t seen half of it yet,” said Stella. “I’m sure I saw some flowerpots near the bathtub. We could plant roses in them and make a bower round it. And grow water lilies in the bathtub like the water garden at Worple.”

  “I know something else, too,” said Clive. “There was a scraggy place in the hedge, just after the bath. We could have a squint at Sorrento through it.”

  Lights had gone on in most of the houses, and curtains been drawn. “Everyone’s having tea,” mused Stella. “I wonder if the Burheaton baker has barley scones, like at home.”

  Clive said firmly he didn’t suppose so. For the bathtub glimmered before them, and the scraggy place in the hedge was at hand.

  “Don’t tear your clothes, for goodness’ sake. Remember, it’s your good suit.”

  He squirmed into the laurels. The barbed wire had been pulled aside. He got his head and shoulders through.

  “Stap my vitals!” The school had done Scenes from Sheridan last term, and this phrase had caught his fancy.

  “Stap my vitals! They must live on them. Stella, come and look.”

  The whole of Sorrento’s garden could be seen at a glance. At the near corner was a wire-netting enclosure, very neat, with some saddened hens in it. At the farther corner was a glittering glass house. The garden hadn’t a weed in it, hadn’t a tree in it, hadn’t an inequality. And across it ran rows and rows of Brussels sprouts, exactly aligned, all of the same height, orderly as a regiment on the parade ground.

  “I call it perfectly revolting,” said Stella, and broke into laughter.

  They squirmed back, and stood upright in their own garden, and its comfortable dusk closed round them. But now there was a compacter darkness overhead. Looking up, they saw a boy lying along the bough of a tree that rose out of the hedge. He looked as reposefully dangerous as a panther, and as watchful. He was some years older than they. His expression had a maturity of balefulness.

  “Hullo,” said Clive.

  The boy said nothing.

  “Hullo,” said Clive again, and Stella said, “Good evening.” Still the boy said nothing.

  Ostentatiously addressing his sister, Clive remarked, “Spying.”

  “Trespassing,” she replied; and because she was the more frightened of the two, she added scathingly, “Sorrento!”

  The boy gathered himself together as if he were going to leap on them. It was his voice that leaped. “I loathe you!”

  They walked away, careful not to hurry, trying not to stumble over the brambles. A voice from Ullapool cried “Tea” on a falling third. They ran. A door closed.

  The boy stared down into the lost paradise, the succouring shelter from which he was driven out. The bough began to quiver with the vehemence of his dry sobbing. Tomorrow he would buy a slingshot.

  Flora

  A FOOTPATH BRANCHED off the track across the heath and vanished like a wild animal among the bushes. One would not have supposed it led to a dwelling – one might not have noticed it at all, if one’s attention had not been arrested by a white plastic rubbish bin. This assertion of civilisation made the surrounding landscape more emphatically waste and solitary. But the footpath, twisting past thorn brakes and skirting boggy hollows, led to a house – the residence of Hugo Tilbury, D.Litt., F.R.S.L., named by him Ortygia. Edward, who knew the way, walked ahead. It seemed a never-ending way; I had plenty of time to muse on the donnish associations of the name and why it carried overtones of retirement, but it was too late to ask. Edward disliked conversation on country walks, alleging that one cultivated voice would scare every bird, beast, and butterfly within hearing.

  He came to a pause under a group of tattered conifers and said, “There it is.” Before us was a neat red brick cottage with a single chimney and a water butt. In front of it was a plot of dug ground, with some cabbages growing unwillingly in the peaty soil, fenced with wire netting against rabbits. The cottage looked unwilling, too – as if, being so up to date and rectangular, it felt demeaned by its situation and wanted neighbours.

  Ortygia’s door was open. Edward knocked on it, and a reedy voice said, “Come in.” We entered a room containing a bicycle, some gardening tools, several pairs of gum boots, a pile of neatly folded sacks, two pictures standing face to the wall, a narrow, painted wardrobe with a mirrored door, and a fish kettle. Everything was clean and orderly, as though it had been made ready for an auction. From this strange anteroom we went into a si
tting room, where Mr Tilbury rose from a wooden armchair and said, “Ah, Edward!” He was a short, sturdy old man with bushy eyebrows and a trimmed beard. Turning a bright, unseeing glance on me, he took my hand in a firm grip and remarked that Edward had brought me, and that I was Flora – or was I Dora? He hoped the walk had not tired me. I praised the surrounding expanse of heath. “A protective custody,” he said.

  Motioning me to an armless wooden chair, he began to talk to Edward. They talked. I sat. Their talk had the embowering intimacy of two experts, so I felt free to study the room. It was clean and bare as an empty snail shell – Mr Tilbury’s shell. There was a fireplace filled with fir cones. Each of the walls had a door. As two of the doors were above floor level, I supposed they were cupboard doors. A highly polished sham-antique oak table was planted on a central mat, brushed and threadbare. A fairground vase, assertively pink, stood on the windowsill with some heather in it.

  I was sufficiently tired by my walk to feel chilled, and, from feeling chilled, to feel intimidated. To rouse my spirits, I began to nurse rebellious thoughts. Mr Tilbury, so perfectionist in clean, bare surfaces, probably ate his dinner off the floor – if he ever dined. There was no whiff of nourishment in the air, and the chimney pot, as I now recalled, had no smoke coming from it. Perhaps he was an exquisite epicure, and behind those cupboard doors kept caviar, foie gras, artichoke hearts, ranks of potted delicacies from Fortnum & Mason. This was too much to suppose: I decided that what he kept in his cupboards was skeletons – skeletons on strings; that when we had gone away he would fetch them out and make them dance to their Daddy, their heels clattering on his bare boards, and that before he put them away he would polish their sallow bones.

  Meanwhile he and Edward were talking about calligraphy with never a sensual thought in their minds. Taking a sharp pencil and a piece of scribbling paper from his pocket, Mr Tilbury drew the terminating twiddle by which one could infallibly distinguish between the work of a French and a Burgundian scribe, and when Edward said yes, he saw, Mr Tilbury put the pencil and paper back in his pocket. It was then I noticed that there was no wastepaper basket in the room.