The Music Box Enigma

by R. N. Morris

  There had been tears, of course. And so, he had been forced to concede. There would be a picture. It would be of the two of them together. And it would be painted by that insufferable Welshman.

  Ah, but he should have seen the whole business as a sign of the trouble that lay ahead. For one thing, Emma was not as mollified as he felt she ought to have been by his concession. The atmosphere in the sittings was inexplicably prickly. It did not help that Emma comported herself in such an undignified way. As fawning as she was towards the famous ‘genius’, she was proportionately frosty towards her own fiancé. Naturally, at the first opportunity, Fonthill had discreetly warned her that she was making a fool of herself. He reminded her too that John was the son of a solicitor, and as such was owed no deference from them.

  But she had not the grace, or the sense, to heed his well-intentioned words. She had laughed in his face! And roundly insisted that Augustus John was the true aristocrat – an aristocrat of art, whatever that meant. Fonthill had hoped that he had as much reverence for the artistic path as the next man, but societal standards had to be maintained. It was at that point that John had returned to the studio from whatever business had called him away.

  Fonthill and Emma had fallen into an immediate sulky silence. By his conceited smirk and ironically cheery manner, John let the lovers know that he had detected the friction between them. Perhaps he had even been listening at the door. Fonthill wouldn’t have put it past him. He had proceeded to be excessively charming to Emma and excessively condescending to Fonthill. The nerve of the fellow!

  It went without saying that he hated the resultant painting, as his instincts had told him he would.

  First, there was the crude lading on of paint. Oh, no doubt there was some flashy skill involved, but why could these modern artists not paint with any finesse? After all, one would not expect a concert violinist to stand up and play like a gypsy fiddler.

  As for the portrait of himself, Fonthill could not deny that it bore more than a passing resemblance to the man he had been ten or so years ago. Even so, he did not recognize himself. It both was him and was not him.

  The artist succeeded in converting Fonthill’s natural pride in his own powers into an empty swagger. The tilt of his head, the swelling of his chest, the firm line of his mouth, even the unwavering gaze of his eyes, became indications of imposture rather the deserved confidence of a born leader. The picture had the effect of making him feel more than a little ridiculous.

  The couple were shown with Fonthill standing behind the wingback armchair upon which Emma was seated. It was almost as if one had to look over her to notice him. And whereas John’s representation of Fonthill bordered on merciless caricature, his portrait of Emma was, to Fonthill’s eye, exceedingly flattering. He made her seem both wiser and more beautiful than she actually was, while seeming to present her truth.

  From the outset, of course, Emma had expressed the utmost satisfaction in the painting. The more so because she knew he hated it.

  Well, let her have it. Let her mock him with it before their friends and passing strangers alike.

  If that was how she chose to punish him, then he could handle it.

  But this latest threat. Well, suffice it to say that he did not like the sound of that one bit.

  It was dashed awkward, there was no question, the way Emma had caught him coming out of the nursery like that. He would have to be more careful from now on, that was all there was to it. If he behaved himself with the nanny, then there was every chance that the whole thing would blow over and they could get back to normal.

  Of course, the essential problem was the institution of marriage itself, which simply did not reflect the reality of the relationship between the sexes. It was patently unreasonable to expect a man like him – a man of huge appetites and unbounded energy, a man in whom the élan vital surged and pulsed – to be bound by the absurd restrictions of monogamy. Was it not the case that marriage was in essence a legal and, if we ever dared to be honest about it, a financial arrangement, into which love had no business intruding? Indeed, the very idea of romantic love could be said to be a late invention. To be fair, in many ways, it was an invention he approved of. He clearly had nothing against love per se. But the mistake many people made – and he included his wife among them – was to believe in its unchanging permanence. As well as its exclusivity.

  There was no term to love. It might last an instant or a lifetime.

  And, he maintained, it was perfectly possible to fall in love with many people at the same time.

  If love was a force that existed, independent of individuality, between the male and the female sex (he would leave aside those perversions of it that he had witnessed at school) as a universal principle, therefore it followed that it could exist between any given woman and any given man at any time, provided the attraction was strong enough. Human constructions such as matrimony and morality could have no sway over it.

  One of his former lovers, Lady Amelia Saville, had once accused him of being a greedy boy. He had not argued with her on that point, although he had taken issue when she had said that she did not believe he had ever truly loved anyone except himself.

  She had made the observation that for him love was a mask that he put on to attain his object, which was purely the biological act.

  ‘That said,’ she had added, ‘it is a mask that suits you.’

  She also intimated that it did him credit that he at least felt it necessary to don the mask. It was a courtesy on his part, a compliment paid to the woman in question. ‘Without it, you see, it’s all so sordid.’

  Over the years, he had thought about what she had said and decided that there was probably something in it.

  Except, more and more, he was growing impatient with the mask. Wouldn’t it be better, he thought, if men and women could be honest about their sexual natures and needs? He knew that women were as capable of enjoying sex as men. In fact, from some of the female climaxes he had been present at, he rather suspected that Teiresias had it right when he maintained that women experienced by far the greater pleasure in the sexual act. And Teiresias should know, having lived both as a man and a woman.

  Of course, most women did not have the courage for such honesty. They played an elaborate game with themselves, pretending to a virtue that did no one any favours.

  The older he got, the less time he had for such games.

  Less time too for his wife’s attempts to curtail the natural expression of his life force. For if she was not prepared herself – as she was increasingly not – to fulfil her duty as the primary recipient of his sexual exuberance, what right did she have to close down his opportunities for seeking outlet elsewhere?

  Emma looked down at him from the portrait. Although it had been fixed a decade ago, her expression seemed extraordinarily attuned to the current moment in their relationship. Haughty and mocking, but worst of all, triumphant. As if she had him right where she wanted him.

  A scowl tensed across Fonthill’s face as he turned his back on the painting. A gritty clatter drew his eye towards the window. The weather had turned brittle, the wind hurling bullets of ice against the panes. Glass rattled against frame in complaint. Fonthill felt the shiver of a wheedling draft.

  It was not a day to be out in, he thought complacently, at the same time as his attention drifted to the figure of a man loitering on the other side of the street. A hailstorm had settled in, darkening the morning and smudging the view out of the window into a grey blur. But as far as Fonthill could tell, the figure appeared to be a man in a belted raincoat with the collar turned up against the elements and a flat cap on his head. And he appeared to be looking directly at the house.

  SEVEN

  ‘Metcalfe?’

  ‘Masters.’

  A squall of wind took hold of the shop awning under which the two men were sheltering and snapped it through itself, then whipped it back and forth with an angry clatter. Pellets of ice hurtled into Masters’ face. He cl
osed his eyes against the onslaught, then bowed his head before being driven back into the shop doorway. Metcalfe was right behind him. The two men were now squeezed together like sardines – except they were like two sardines in an otherwise empty tin. Metcalfe had a habit of standing far too close to a chap. It wouldn’t have been so bad if – well, not to put too fine a point on it, if he didn’t smell.

  Roderick Masters inched away from his unwelcome companion. But what small space he managed to create Metcalfe soon invaded.

  Masters shook his head in irritation. ‘What are you doing here, Metcalfe?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You can’t just repeat the bally question. I asked first.’

  ‘I got wet.’

  Masters could feel the dampness soaking through his clothes. He took off his cap and shook the excess water from it. ‘Yes. Me too. Wet through.’

  ‘Have you been to see Sir Aidan Fonthill?’

  ‘Sir Aidan what? No. What makes you say that?’

  ‘He lives near here. Fonthill House, 63 Netherhall Gardens, Hampstead. It’s that street there.’ Metcalfe’s arm shot out at right angles to his body. ‘Do you know who else lives on Netherhall Gardens? Sir Edward Elgar. He lives in Severn House, 42 Netherhall Gardens, Hampstead.’

  ‘What of it?’

  Confusion clouded Metcalfe’s features, though he continued to hold his arm out in front of him.

  Masters went on: ‘I loathe and detest Elgar. His music is intellectually bankrupt. It lacks authenticity. And originality. It is sentimental twaddle, straining for effect. It panders to the worst nationalistic instincts of the Englishman. It is nostalgic and vulgar and showy. It strives too consciously to please the ear.’

  At last, shakily, as if in shock, Metcalfe lowered his arm. ‘Sir Aidan Fonthill has chosen one of his songs to be performed at our Christmas concert.’ Metcalfe began to hum the melody to ‘A Christmas Greeting’, his falsetto voice carrying the first soprano part. ‘I have the music here.’ He held up a slim brown leather music portfolio, which he was carrying in his other hand.

  Masters looked away. ‘Sir Aidan Fonthill is a fool and a philistine.’

  ‘Do you say that because he has refused to include your new composition in the programme?’

  ‘That has got nothing to do with it. There are other composers besides myself and Elgar, you know. Where is the Schoenberg in his programme?’

  ‘Schoenberg? He’s Austrian.’

  ‘What of it? Music knows no boundaries!’

  ‘I do not think Sir Aidan would consent to have an Austrian composer in the programme. Winston Churchill will be in the audience. Winston Churchill is a member of the government. We are at war with Austria. And Germany.’

  ‘Very well, Stravinsky then. The Russians are on our side, I believe.’

  ‘It is a Christmas concert. I did not know that Stravinsky has written Christmas music. Has Stravinsky written Christmas music?’

  ‘That is precisely the attitude that is stultifying this country’s cultural life. I am surprised at you, Metcalfe. Why must only Christmas music be performed at a Christmas concert?’

  ‘That’s what the audience expects.’

  ‘Then we must educate them.’

  ‘They do not want to be educated. They want to be entertained.’

  ‘And there you have put your finger on the very crux of the problem!’

  Metcalfe’s startled expression gradually relaxed into one of thoughtful reflection.

  The two men stood without speaking for some time, cowed by the stamina as well as the ferocity of the downpour.

  ‘Will you be coming to the concert?’ asked Metcalfe at last.

  Masters let out a contemptuous snort. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  ‘I shall be playing.’

  ‘I know you will.’

  The two men had been contemporaries at the Royal College of Music, and before that were students together at Haberdashers’. Despite these connections, they had never been friends. At RCM, Masters studied composition under Parry, while Metcalfe had studied the piano. For as long as Masters could remember, Metcalfe had been a precociously talented pianist. His obsessive dedication to his chosen instrument was either a refuge from the difficulty of human interactions or the cause of his social inadequacy. At any rate, he had always stood out as something of an oddball. As soon as they had arrived at the college, Masters had sought to distance himself from him. And yet, like the proverbial bad penny, Metcalfe had the habit of always turning up.

  Masters screwed his face into a frown. ‘Anyhow, how do you know about the piece I gave to Fonthill? Did he show it to you?’

  ‘No. He left it in the Great Hall at UCS. That’s where we rehearse. I don’t think he wanted it any more. It was on the floor.’

  ‘On the floor!’

  ‘I picked it up.’

  ‘Oh. I see. You did, did you?’

  ‘Yes. He had dropped it on the floor.’

  ‘Dropped it?’

  ‘Yes. “Rubbish,” he said. And then he dropped it.’

  ‘Rubbish? Is that what he said?’

  ‘Yes, rubbish.’

  ‘I’ll give him bloody rubbish!’

  ‘I picked it up.’

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘It had your name on it. Roderick Masters.’

  ‘I know what my bally name is.’

  ‘It said “Mistletoe”. Words by Walter de la Mare. Setting by Roderick Masters. That’s how I knew it was yours.’

  ‘Did you play it?’

  ‘I played it.’

  Masters waited for the other man to deliver some kind of verdict on the piece. When none was forthcoming, he said, ‘Well, I would very much like it back, if you’ve finished with it.’

  ‘It’s interesting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your piece. It’s interesting.’

  ‘You liked it?’

  ‘I said it was interesting.’ Metcalfe hummed a line from the setting, now singing in his natural voice, a high tenor.

  ‘You remembered it!’

  ‘Of course. I remember every piece of music that I play.’

  Masters felt a twinge of disappointment. Metcalfe’s memory of his work was indiscriminate, and therefore meaningless.

  ‘It’s interesting,’ repeated Metcalfe.

  ‘Yes, you said that.’

  ‘It’s interesting, because it does not resolve. The ear wants it to resolve but it does not.’

  ‘That’s deliberate. I wanted to express a feeling of longing – of unrequited yearning.’

  ‘It’s a minor sixth. There. At the end.’ Metcalfe sang the interval.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘There are many strange intervals in it. It sounds as though it was written by someone who does not understand the principles of Western music.’

  ‘I would prefer to say that it is written by someone who is challenging the principles of Western music.’

  ‘It is not in any definite key.’

  ‘That is deliberate too. It is to express the eerie, supernatural quality of de la Mare’s poem.’

  ‘You forgot to put the bars in.’

  ‘No. There are no bars. No time signature. I wanted it to be somehow outside time, you see. In keeping with the mood of the poem.’

  ‘And you wanted Sir Aidan Fonthill to include this in the Christmas concert he is organizing in order to raise funds for Belgian refugees?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s very difficult to sing.’

  ‘It’s perfectly possible to sing. You yourself just sang an excerpt from it.’

  ‘Yes, but I am an accomplished musician. The Hampstead Voices are all rank amateurs. It is beyond them.’

  ‘But it’s not rubbish, is it? He said it was rubbish. It isn’t that.’

  ‘No. It’s … interesting.’

  ‘I take that as a great compliment, coming from you.’

  Masters felt himself scrutinized by his
companion for an uncomfortable minute.

  ‘Why should you care what I think?’ The question was asked flatly, without self-pity. It seemed that Metcalfe was genuinely interested to know the answer.

  Masters could not help but feel embarrassed. ‘Naturally, I value your opinion, old chap.’

  ‘Do you? You have never sought my opinion. On anything. You have never shown the slightest interest in my opinion.’

  ‘Well … we haven’t really ever …’

  ‘You have never shown the slightest interest in me.’

  ‘I … don’t think that’s fair … I have always admired you as a musician. I have followed your … progress with interest. From a distance, admittedly.’

  ‘All the time that we were at the Royal College of Music, you never once spoke to me.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true … Is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I could equally say that you never spoke to me!’

  ‘I did. I tried to. But you ignored me.’

  ‘I don’t think … I mustn’t have …’

  ‘You were with your friends. It was in the refectory. I said, “Hello, Masters.” You looked straight past me. As if I wasn’t there. And then you said something to your friends. And all of them laughed at me. You laughed at me too.’

  ‘No! My dear fellow, no! You must have got the wrong end of the stick there. I assure you, we weren’t laughing at you. We couldn’t have been. It’s just that I didn’t see you, I’m sure. If I had, I would have … I would have … well, I would have invited you to join us.’

  ‘You cut me so many times that in the end I stopped saying “Hello, Masters” because it was obvious that you did not want to be my friend.’

  Masters’ face was drenched from the melting hail. But a wrench of emotion streamed warmth into the icy moisture. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He felt Metcalfe’s gaze scour his face. Whatever the other man was looking for from him, he seemed to find. He gave a small nod of satisfaction at last.

  EIGHT

  Sir Aidan laid the score to Elgar’s ‘A Christmas Greeting’ open on his desk.