The Piper's Tune (50 page)

‘If you don't love Forbes any more,' Cissie said, ‘and you do love Geoffrey Paget … I mean, there is such a thing as divorce.'

‘One needs grounds for divorce,' said Lindsay, ‘and not caring much for one's husband would not, I imagine, be sufficient for the court. Besides which, I will never desert my children.'

‘I think that's very wise, very admirable.'

‘Do you?'

‘A romance,' Cissie said, ‘not an affair.'

‘There's nothing romantic about it,' said Lindsay curtly. ‘I didn't ask for it to happen. I wasn't on the lookout for another chap. It isn't a flirtation, Cissie. I care about Geoffrey and I believe he cares for me. The feeling is both comforting and uncomfortable at one and the same time.'

‘Perhaps it's just as well he's going away.'

‘No,' Lindsay said. ‘No.'

Cissie, nonplussed, said, ‘Well, at least you're keeping your feet firmly on the ground. I'm glad of that – for the children's sake.'

Eleanor Runciman had volunteered to accompany Lindsay to Sandyford Avenue that afternoon. Philip had been left behind with Winn, for hot weather and strong sunlight did not agree with him and he had been a little out of sorts for a day or two. Eleanor, too, was anxious about the submarine's trials. She was still Arthur's confidante and knew how much importance attached to the results. She had offered to take the two boys, Harry and Ewan, out to visit the Victoria Park, a far piece for little legs, but Lindsay had no doubt that they would be sustained by the purchase of ice-cream along the way and a glass of lemonade when they got there. She wished now that she had gone with them, for she was beginning to find Cissie's remarks just a little irksome, and the parlour stuffy.

In the hallway, the clock chimed the half-hour; half-past three o'clock. Though Cissie's apartments were spotless, sunlight slanting through the bay window found a few loose motes of dust and expanded them into a pale silvery ribbon. Beyond, the red sandstone facade of the tenements on the other side of the avenue, flattened by sunlight, seemed to exist in only one dimension.

Cissie had just reached for the hot-water jug to refresh the teapot when the doorbell rang. The cousins glanced at each other in mild bewilderment.

‘The boys are back early,' Cissie said.

‘Perhaps it's too hot for them,' said Lindsay, frowning.

They listened to the padding of the maid's shoes on the carpet of the hall, heard the outer door open and the strange sifting emptiness of the tiled close; voices, low voices, not gruff or grumbling but very light and airy, almost blithesome in the flocculent air of the August afternoon.

A moment later Jenny, the day-maid, came into the parlour and said in a puzzled tone, ‘There's someone here to see you, ma'am.'

‘Who is it, Jenny?'

‘I don't know, ma'am. She says her name is McCulloch, Mrs Forbes McCulloch.' And before the servant had finished speaking, little Sylvie Calder waddled past her and, smiling, entered the room.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Night Without End

It was half past eight o'clock before Tom got home. Cissie was in the dining-room and looked as if she had been sitting there for hours, rehearsing not anger or even patience but a deliberate meditative calm. He assumed that she had been concerned for him and that the lucid little occupations of motherhood had not kept her from fretting after all.

‘Did it go well, dear?' she asked as soon as he appeared.

‘It went very well,' Tom informed her. ‘Very well indeed.'

He moved across the room, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, as if it were she, not he, who had been in peril that day.

‘Tom, have you been drinking?'

‘I had a brandy at the Coventry.'

‘The Coventry?'

‘The hotel in Helensburgh.'

‘With Forbes?' Cissie said.

‘Forbes was there too, yes. He went down with us on the first run.'

‘Geoffrey arranged it, I suppose?'

‘He did.'

‘And you?' Cissie remained motionless at the dining-table. ‘Was it as bad as you imagined it would be, Tom?'

He grinned and made light of it. ‘Worse.'

‘At least you survived,' Cissie said solemnly.

‘Fortunately, yes.'

He removed his jacket and unfastened his collar. He was still clammy with the aftermath of the morning's ordeal. In fact, he had consumed two light ales as well as a brandy. Six naval officers had been present at the drinks party and unless he had misinterpreted Commander Coles's compliments, it seemed probable that the
Snark
would be accepted and commissioned and that more Admiralty contracts would come Franklin's way. Reason enough for celebration: if he'd been slightly less eager to tell his tale to Cissie he might have lingered at the party instead of catching the early evening train home.

He seated himself at the table and took Cissie's hand. ‘I've been a pig for the past week or two, dearest. Please forgive me?'

‘You had every right to be nervous. There's nothing to forgive.'

Tom placed his hands behind his head and rocked placidly on the dining chair. It was late in the evening now. Sunlight had cooled to pale blue shadow and ridges of pink and gold cloud lofted high above the rooftops. He would not be required to attend the speed tests at the Gareloch tomorrow, thank the Lord. Peter Holt would cover them.

‘I really was terrified,' he said. ‘But in a queer way I enjoyed it. She really is a superb machine. She slid down smoothly and surfaced without a hiccup. Sixty feet below the surface and you'd hardly have known you were underwater at all. Captain Bridges really knows his onions, of course. Talking of onions, darling, what's for supper?'

Cissie said, ‘Your daughter called this afternoon.'

The legs of the chair came down with a thump. ‘My daughter?'

Cissie watched him closely. ‘Your daughter Sylvie.'

‘Good God! I didn't even know she was back in Glasgow.'

‘When did you last see her?' Cissie asked.

‘Oh, not for years. Five years at least. I wrote to her care of the Coral Strand offices but my letters were returned unopened. I thought – I don't know what I thought – that she had found a niche for herself in London.'

‘You didn't try very hard to find her, did you, Tom?'

‘I suppose I didn't, really.'

‘Apparently she didn't go to London at all. She never left Glasgow.'

‘What?' said Tom again. ‘But why didn't she—'

‘She's expecting a child.'

‘Sylvie married? That's excellent. What does her husband—'

‘She isn't married,' Cissie said.

‘I see,' Tom said. ‘I see. But where's Albert? Where's her stepfather?'

‘She claims he abandoned her,' Cissie said.

‘Is it – is it Albert's child?
Could
it be his child?'

‘It isn't his child,' Cissie said, white-faced.

‘Who then? Who is he? If he thinks—'

‘It's Forbes McCulloch.'

‘Surely you're mistaken.' Tom was bewildered. ‘Forbes? Our Forbes?'

‘Lindsay's husband, yes.'

‘Absolute nonsense!' Tom protested. ‘Sylvie doesn't know McCulloch. She's never even met the man.'

‘I'm afraid she has, Tom. She claims to have known him since he was a student. She met him at some drinking club in Glasgow which he used to frequent quite regularly. She claims that Forbes promised to marry her.'

‘She's making it up.' He got unsteadily to his feet. He knew that Cissie was telling the truth but he continued to protest, to deny the cold, hard fact that Sylvie had come back into his life. ‘My daughter's always been a bit fanciful. It's my fault, I suppose. My fault, yes. I shouldn't have let her go off without a word. My only excuse is that her mother cheated and deceived me and I took it out on Sylvie. I wanted rid of her.' He heaved in a breath. ‘But this story she told you – no, that's a lie. It must be a lie. I'll bet that Albert's behind it. He'll be after money again. Forbes! How could Forbes
possibly
be the father of her child? Sylvie's lying, she
must
be lying.'

‘Lindsay believed her. Lindsay thinks she's telling the truth.'

He opened his mouth, sucked air. ‘Lindsay?'

Cissie nodded mournfully. She was close to tears now, afraid of a past that Tom never talked about, of what might be revealed now that his daughter had returned and how it would affect her husband and her marriage.

‘Do you mean to say that Lindsay was here when Sylvie called?'

Cissie nodded again and softly began to cry. He sat down and reached for her hand.

‘Poor Lindsay,' he said. ‘Poor, poor Lindsay.'

Cissie sniffed. ‘What are you going to do?'

‘What
can
I do, dearest? Lindsay isn't
my
wife.'

‘About your daughter, I mean. She's convinced, utterly convinced that Forbes intends to divorce Lindsay and marry her instead.'

‘How can she possibly believe that?'

‘Because he told her so. Because he promised.'

‘Bastard!' Tom spat the word out. ‘I'd like to go over to Brunswick Park right now and kill that little bastard.'

‘Oh, Tom, no.'

‘No,' he said. ‘No, of course I won't.'

‘You'll have to help her. Sylvie, I mean.'

‘How far is she gone?' Tom asked.

‘She's due soon to judge by the size of her.'

‘How has she supported herself all these years?'

‘Forbes has been keeping her as his – his mistress.'

‘Where?'

‘She refused to tell us,' Cissie answered.

‘Forbes will know where to find her.' Tom released his wife's hand, got to his feet and reached for his jacket. ‘I'm going over to Brunswick Park.'

‘Please, Tom, don't. Not tonight.'

‘Cissie, I have to. You said yourself…'

‘Tomorrow, yes, but not tonight, Tom. Please.'

‘Why not do it now? Why not?'

‘Because I want you to stay here with me.'

He was flooded with guilt and anger. He had laboured hard for security and, to achieve it, he had let Sylvie slip from him. He had seized his chance for happiness and had never regretted it. Cissie was everything that Dorothy had never been. What they said about blood and water was untrue: he cared less about Sylvie than he did about Cissie, or Lindsay for that matter. Cissie was right. He was too angry to confront Forbes McCulloch tonight. Tomorrow he would try to track down Albert Hartnell and wring the whole, sorry story from him. He seated himself once more. He did not understand the circles that fate had drawn around him, could not read the pattern, the grand design. Perhaps, like the
Snark,
the whole of life was nothing but an accumulation of separate bits and pieces that teetered on the edge of breakdown and disaster but that somehow mysteriously continued to function.

He beckoned Cissie to him and took her on to his knee.

He held her loosely, head against his chest, and stroked her hair.

‘I don't want you to leave me, dearest,' she said.

‘I won't.'

‘Not ever?'

‘Not ever,' Tom Calder said.

*   *   *

Keeping the secret to herself proved the easiest thing in the world. Cissie had promised to tell no one except Tom what had occurred and Lindsay had urged her cousin to dissuade Tom from rushing over to Brunswick Park that night. For the girl, for Sylvie, Lindsay felt only a thin, irritating pity. She too had obviously been taken in by Forbes's callous charm, the charm that made no distinctions between them, that dictated that one became lover and one wife by a process not of adaptation or by choice but solely to satisfy his whim. Sylvie's illusions were pathetic. She had swallowed all Forbes's lies without question and had become enchanted by them.

From the moment the drawing-room door had opened and the girl had entered, belly thrust out before her, a jaunty summer hat perched on her golden curls, Lindsay had recognised not a rival but a nemesis. She had glimpsed the girl in the Kelvingrove seven or eight years ago when Tom, Cissie and she had first come together to experiment with flirtation. She had seen her again at the launch of the
Hashitaka
when Forbes had become agitated and had dragged her away from the rail. She had had no inkling then that the silly child was Tom Calder's daughter or Forbes's mistress or that the same silly, shadowy child would one day become her saviour.

She had felt no animosity, hardly even surprise when Miss Sylvie Calder had introduced herself and, with a gaiety that was anything but infectious, had accepted a chair at Cissie's tea-table and helped herself to a scone. She had drunk tea, had eaten buttered tea-bread, had explained herself and her situation, had issued her ultimatum and within a half-hour had gone off again, waddling out of the apartment shortly before Miss Runciman had brought the children back from the park. It had all been very genteel, very civilised. At first Lindsay had experienced no jealousy, no sense of outrage at having been systematically deceived by her husband for so many years. Instead, she had felt strangely liberated from the constraints that marriage to Forbes had placed upon her, as if she, like Pappy, had finally found a purpose in adversity.

Geoffrey: she thought at once of Geoffrey. The time-honoured tradition of tit-for-tat meant that she was free now to become Geoffrey's lover or, if she wished, his wife. Given the circumstances, the court would surely support a petition for divorce without quibble. Suddenly she was in a position to be shot of Forbes, not just Forbes but the whole McCulloch clan – Winn, Blossom, Gowry, even Aunt Kay – in one fell swoop, to shake them out of her life and her father's life and send them packing back to where they belonged.