The Piper's Tune (11 page)

‘How long have you known him?' Forbes asked.

Cissie felt her advantage slip slightly. She increased her pace to close the gap between her and the man in the striped blazer. From the rear he looked a little like one of those dandies that were the source of music-hall jokes; not a handsome chap, he had –
je ne sais quoi,
she thought – presence, character, something like that. ‘Years,' she answered. ‘Absolute years.'

‘He thinks you're just a kiddie.'

‘He does not.'

‘You can tell by the way he treats you.'

‘How does he treat me, Mr Know-All?'

‘Like a kiddie,' Forbes said. ‘Not the way I'd be treating you if you'd give me half a chance. Anyhow, he's a only draughtsman.'

‘He's our chief designer and a department manager,' Cissie said. ‘There's nothing wrong in keeping company with a manager.'

‘He's more taken with Lindsay than he is with you.'

‘He is not.'

‘Sure and he is. Just look at them together.'

‘Stuff and nonsense!' Cissie said haughtily, though she had a very uncomfortable feeling that Forbes might be right.

*   *   *

Lindsay said, ‘I take it you know what's going on?'

‘I have a vague idea, yes,' Tom answered.

‘I hope you don't mind being dragged into it.'

‘Not in the slightest.'

‘He's
such
a painful young man, so pushing and conceited.'

‘Is that why you like him?' Tom said.

‘I do
not
like him,' Lindsay said. ‘It's Cissie he fancies.'

‘Fancying girls at his age –
tut, tut,
' Tom said.

‘I'll bet you weren't so forward when you were seventeen.'

‘No, but I'm not a Franklin,' Tom said.

She glanced at him quickly. ‘Is that what you think of us?'

‘The Franklins have always done well by me,' Tom said, ‘as well as a person in my position can expect.'

‘Your position?'

‘Department manager.'

‘You're our principal designer.'

‘I'm really just an engineer at heart.'

Lindsay laughed. ‘My father says that engineers don't have hearts.'

Tom laughed too. ‘He's not far wrong.'

‘That was during the strike, of course. Did you down tools with the rest?'

‘I'm not a member of the Amalgamation.'

‘You were on our side, you mean?'

‘I'm on nobody's side but my own,' Tom said.

Conversation lagged: Lindsay wondered if she had offended him. The fact that they sat side by side on the board of management was immaterial. He would always be the worker, she the drone. Then she noticed that he was staring at a woman and child in the crowd, a girl, small and doll-like in a frilly dress and a tiny bonnet that barely concealed her ringlets. The girl clung to the woman's hand as if the bustle of the park scared her but when she caught sight of Tom she scuffed her high-button boots into the gravel and acted more coy than shy.

‘Who is that?' Lindsay enquired before she could help herself.

‘No one.'

‘If you wish to speak with them, please do.'

‘No.' Tom hesitated. ‘I do not wish to speak with them,' and walked on, stiff now and resolute, leaving the woman and child behind.

*   *   *

‘Tom Calder,' Lindsay said.

‘What about Tom Calder?' her father said.

‘Does he have a family?'

‘I believe there's a daughter,' Arthur said, ‘farmed out somewhere.'

‘Farmed out?'

‘Looked after by a relative, that sort of thing.'

‘No wife?'

‘She died some years ago.' Her father looked up from his dinner plate. ‘Why the sudden interest in Tom Calder?'

‘We met him in the park this afternoon.'

Miss Runciman said, ‘Was the daughter with him?'

‘No. He walked with Cissie and me for a while. He even took tea with us.'

‘Tea at the Hill?' said Miss Runciman.

‘In the park.'

‘They serve tea in the park now, do they?' Nanny Cheadle said. ‘What's the world coming too? It'll be dancing next.'

‘What age is Mr Calder's daughter?' Lindsay asked, after a pause.

‘About twelve or thirteen,' Papa answered. ‘Calder had some time off at the birth, I seem to remember, then again when his wife passed away.'

‘Before he went to Africa?'

‘Long before.'

‘Is this the same Mr Calder who sings in the choir?' Miss Runciman said.

‘Yes,' Lindsay answered.

‘Ah,' said Miss Runciman. ‘I recall him. Tall gentleman, rather grim.'

‘He isn't at all grim when you get to know him,' Lindsay said.

‘Well,' Miss Runciman said, ‘in my experience gentlemen with tragic pasts frequently develop hidden depths to compensate. How old is he, I wonder?'

‘Ancient,' Lindsay said. ‘Absolutely ancient.' And, before the housekeeper could press her further, swiftly let the matter drop.

CHAPTER FIVE

A Kiss and a Promise

For as many summers as Lindsay could remember, the Franklins had holidayed at the Bruce Hotel in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. Rothesay was not regarded as a particularly fashionable resort but it had the advantage of being easily reached by boat from Glasgow and offered a multitude of diversions, from sea-water bathing to golf and tennis, and jolly concert parties in the Winter Garden. This summer, however, the pattern had changed. It wasn't off to the seaside but into the country that the Franklins trekked when the shipyard closed in mid-July. They steamed out of Queen Street in a first-class railway carriage and disembarked a couple of hours later at Perth railway station. There they were led by a team of porters to a horse-drawn charabanc that transported them across the Tay into the hills and forests of
terra incognita
where, for reasons that still remained obscure, Owen Franklin had chosen to hide himself away.

It was a two-hour drive but the weather was fair and the younger members of the family, Lindsay included, joined enthusiastically in the choruses that Martin insisted they sing ‘to let the old man know we're coming'. Metalled roads gave way to tracks, small towns became hamlets, hamlets mere isolated cottages and then, at last, the horses clopped into the tiny community of Kelkemmit and on a hill among the pines across a dark loch the house of Strathmore hove into view, not giddy or grand but, to Lindsay at least, a bit of a disappointment.

‘Is that it?' Cissie sang out. ‘Martin, are you sure?'

‘Ask Mama if you don't believe me.'

The driver, a youngish chap with hair like burned heather, called back, ‘Aye, yon's the big house. We will be there in ten minutes.'

‘What is it?' Pansy asked. ‘I mean, what was it? I thought it was a castle. It doesn't look like a castle to me.'

‘Nah, nah, it was never a castle, miss,' the driver informed her. ‘It was Miss Pringle's home for many a year. Before that it was the old colonel's house and before that even, the priests' house.'

‘Priests?' said Johnny. ‘Good Lord!'

‘It was a long time ago,' said the driver. ‘There is no trace o' the fathers left now, sir, never fear.'

‘Just the odd priestly ghost stalking the corridors perhaps?'

‘Johnny, don't
say
that,' Pansy begged.

‘Whooo-ooo! Whooo-ooo-hooo!'
Johnny called out in a wavering voice and winced when all three of his sisters simultaneously punched his arm.

*   *   *

He waited for them on the strip of gravel that fronted the house. He had been waiting for half the day. Below him four or five sheep grazed the ragged shelves of grass that dipped down to the loch. All around were strips of pine forest and steep, smooth-shouldered hills. In the seven weeks that he had been in residence Owen had come to realise that he did not like Strathmore or the empty impartiality of the hills that surrounded it.

Fortunately Giles, a city-born servant, had quite taken to country living. He had quickly established contact with tradesmen and farmers; had hired a cook and two girls to attend to cleaning and laundry; had bought a pony and trap at Perth sales and arranged for the animal to be stabled with Mr Tasker whose farm lay a quarter of a mile away, deeper into the hills. It was Giles who took out the rod of an evening, went down to the loch and came back, grinning, with a basket of trout to serve for supper or breakfast. Owen, however, could not shake off his melancholy. He even refused to climb to the summit of the ridge behind the house to admire a view that Giles assured was ‘magnificent, sir, just magnificent'. He, Owen Franklin, had seen all the views he ever wanted to see and would have exchanged every mountain and shining loch in Perthshire for just one crowded brown acre of Clydeside.

He heard them singing long before the charabanc came in sight. He had ample time to assume a cheery air and pretend that he had done the right thing by retiring to the country. He even managed a smile when the conveyance finally lurched out of the trees and the horses, sensing journey's end, put a bit of effort into a trot. ‘Lilias!' he shouted. ‘Donald! Is that you hiding there, Pansy? By gum! I'll swear you've grown taller since I saw you last,' and rocked back and forth with affected delight, arms spread to welcome the children to his humble abode in the hills.

*   *   *

Cissie removed her bonnet and rubbed the elastic red mark on her plump chin. She placed the bonnet on a marble-topped washstand and seated herself on one of the two iron bedsteads that were tucked under the slope of the roof. She bounced up and down experimentally, and said, ‘Solid granite.'

‘A hard mattress is good for the spine, so they say,' said Lindsay.

‘Not
my
spine,' said Cissie. ‘Look at this place. I wouldn't expect a scullery maid to sleep here.'

‘It's the country,' said Lindsay. ‘We're supposed to rough it.'

‘Where are the boys?'

‘On the floor below, I think.'

‘It's all very well for them. They're used to mucking in.'

Lindsay removed her bonnet and travelling cape. She seated herself on the bed directly beneath the grimy skylight. She unlaced her boots.

‘What's Pappy
doing
here?' Cissie went on. ‘I mean, if he's tired of living with us in Harper's Hill he could sail to New York, or cruise the Mediterranean, or rent a villa in the south of France. Why Perthshire?'

‘Perhaps he's in search of a quiet life.'

‘He's not turning into a hermit, is he?'

‘Ask him.'

‘You ask him,' Cissie said. ‘Oh no, don't bother. He obviously thinks this place is paradise. Did you see the grin on his face?'

‘He was just pleased to see us, that's all,' Lindsay said.

Cissie tugged two long pins from her hair and shook her head.

‘What are we going to do here for two whole weeks?'

‘Enjoy ourselves, I suppose,' said Lindsay.

‘How? There isn't even a tennis court.'

‘Croquet?' Lindsay suggested.

‘On that lawn, with those – those creatures?'

‘Sheep,' said Lindsay. ‘Chin up, Cissie. The boys will think of something exciting for us to do. Climb a mountain, perhaps. I've never climbed a mountain before, have you?'

Cissie did not deign to answer.

‘Do you know what?' she said, at length. ‘I'm almost beginning to wish that Forbes had travelled with us.'

‘Oh, Cissie! I thought you hated him.'

‘I do, but at least he'd cheer the place up.'

‘No,' Lindsay said. ‘Forbes isn't the cheering type.'

‘When is he due to arrive?'

‘Monday afternoon some time, I believe.'

‘Is he travelling up with your father?'

‘Somehow I doubt it,' Lindsay said.

The skylight darkened as clouds scudded across the blue and the attic bedroom turned even more gloomy. The cousins glanced upward.

‘Rain?' Cissie said.

‘Inevitably,' said Lindsay.

*   *   *

It had never been the Franklins' habit to travel with servants. There had been no need for servants when holidays were taken at the Bruce Hotel. Besides, Lilias was the daughter of a school-mastering couple, respectable but not well to do, and she was too thrifty to hand over to hirelings tasks that she was quite capable of doing for herself. She loved her husband not just for what he had given her materially, though, but also for the sort of man he was, frank, generous and devoted, lacking the sharp little edge of acerbity that had showed itself now and then in his father and brother and especially in his sisters, Helen and Kay.

Lilias had shed few tears when Helen Franklin had passed away and Kay had run off with Daniel McCulloch. She had no particular fondness for Kay and was not disposed to like Kay's son. She had accepted Forbes into her home only to please her father-in-law, because, in principle if not practice, Harper's Hill was not her house at all. Forbes was a good-looking boy, that she would concede, but the flaws in his character soon became too obvious to ignore. Unlike Donald, she was not prepared to forgive Forbes his transgressions merely because of his youth. She did not trust him an inch.

She tried to warn Cissie not to become too fond of her Irish cousin but Cissie was prickly and would not listen. Even Lindsay, normally so sensible, was unwilling to discuss the newcomer and Lilias was forced to accept that nothing she could say or do would slacken the hold that the young Dubliner had over her children. She regretted that Forbes would join them on Monday, that even on holiday she would have to suffer his egregious smiles and sly, slithering glances and catch the whispered innuendoes that her daughters, and Lindsay, seemed to find so fascinating.