Music Macabre

by Sarah Rayne

  She did, though, dress with unusual decorum and behave with an unexpected dignity for the memorial concert. Daisy was extremely relieved at that.

  And home did not seem so very far away when there were letters coming to them. Thaddeus Thumbprint wrote quite often – he and his cousin had settled in very well, and he liked to send little reports of the flat, and of how the shop was doing. He and his cousin were going to start a little literary society there on Thursday evenings. They would invite writers and novelists and journalists to give little talks.

  ‘Rhun has already agreed to give a talk,’ wrote Thaddeus. ‘Cedric and I think our grandfather would have been very pleased to see our prosperity.

  ‘I must let you know that a small patch of damp appeared in the small sitting room overlooking the park. It was beneath a window and seems to have been caused by a leaking gutter immediately outside. The lease states clearly that I am responsible for ensuring the rooms are kept in good order, so I have had the gutter repaired, and have had the room newly wallpapered, with the damp plaster renewed. We chose what we think is a very tasteful silk stripe wallpaper in maroon and biscuit colour. I enclose a small sample, together with a piece of maroon brocade, which has been made up into new curtains for that room. It all matches beautifully.’

  Reading this, Madame said that when they got back she would have to have the entire room redone, because she could not possibly live with maroon and biscuit. Still, at least the Thumbprints were taking good care of the place.

  There was occasionally a letter for Daisy, too.

  ‘Dear Daise,’ wrote Lissy.

  ‘I got Bowler Bill to write this for me – ain’t much of a one for the writing and stuff, as you know. He don’t mind writing it, and he’ll see about sending it in the post, too.

  ‘He told us all about seeing you for Rhun’s birthday and the posh party you had. Wish we could’ve come to that, but I ain’t never been out of London, nor I don’t want to. My Albie says wild horses wouldn’t drag him across that English Channel! Funny, that, him having that Spanish mother. We called the kids Spanish names, though. Sort of a nod to her.

  ‘I been helping at the Ten Bells of a Saturday night – making the pies mostly. Means a few extra bob every week, and very nice too. We was none of us ever afraid of hard work, was we? I’m bringing my girls up that way – Lita’s been helping me with the pies, she’s getting to be a real good cook. I told her, there’s money to be made from good cooking, gel. Both the girls send their Auntie Daisy lots of love.

  ‘Joe’s still at Linklighters, and them two old boys from the bookshop keep an eye on him. I reckon he’ll be all right, our Joe. I reckon we’ll all be proud of him one day.

  ‘Ma got together with Peg the Rags and they got a little stall in a couple of the street markets now. Me and Vi, we got some smashing bargains there – real good stuff for trimming bonnets, and bits of fur and some nice lengths of lace, too. We found Ma better rooms, as well. ’Bout time she got out of that rat-hole. Bit shabby at first, but we spruced them up a treat – my Albie even painted the walls. He said best not ask where he got the paint. You know Albie! Seth Strumble, that has a market stall alongside Ma and Peg, brought his street-barrow to help with the move. Should have seen us all carting the stuff through the streets! Right old laugh we had.

  ‘We all miss you.

  ‘Fondest love from us all, Lissy.’

  Daisy was pleased to hear from Lissy, and she was pleased about Ma’s new rooms as well. She asked Madame about sending a bit of money to help with the new place; she had no idea how such a thing might be done, she said, and she did not want to send money in an envelope through the post. But Madame knew what to do, and she arranged everything, and insisted on adding a couple of guineas extra.

  ‘For your ma to buy something special for the new place,’ she said.

  ‘Dear Scaramel,’ wrote Thaddeus Thumbprint, a few weeks later, ‘all is well with our world here. You might be interested to know that my cousin, Cedric, recently met a former fellow-performer of yours, Miss Belinda Baskerville. The encounter took place at Linklighters, where Miss Baskerville had been entertaining a Thursday-night audience. Cedric had been presiding over one of our literary circle meetings earlier, and he met her afterwards. A purely chance meeting it was.

  ‘I recall that you and Miss Baskerville seemed to have some kind of small misunderstanding on the occasion of Rhun’s birthday party at Maison dans le Parc. (What a lovely occasion that was – those of us who could travel to it still talk about it. And didn’t the dear twins present their bouquets beautifully!)

  I do not know the rights of that little altercation between you and Miss Baskerville, of course, but I am sure it will have been something very trivial, for we have both found the lady to be a charming and sympathetic companion. She and Cedric have taken supper together several times now, and last week she came to luncheon here in Maida Vale, on which occasion she brought with her Miss Frankie Finnegan. A very lively occasion, that was! We ate at the oval table which you have in the dining room, and Cedric cooked mushroom omelettes for us, with a gratin of potatoes, and a dessert of peaches in brandy. Miss Baskerville was very taken with the rooms, and greatly enjoyed looking round them.’

  ‘Dear God,’ said Madame, reading this missive aloud to Daisy. ‘Frankie Finnegan’s as nice and kindly a soul as you can get and so is her sister, but the Baskerville will corrupt those innocent Thumbprints, and she’ll very likely bankrupt Cedric. Purely chance meeting indeed! And snooping around my rooms! I’m not having that! It’s time we thought about going home.’

  NINETEEN

  1890s

  Going home was not, of course, quite as easy as stepping onto a train and then a boat, which was what they had done when they left London a few months earlier. It was, though, considerably easier than Daisy had dared to hope it might be. This was to a great extent because the Thumbprints had written to say that the large ground-floor flat of the house had just become vacant.

  ‘And this is only the merest suggestion,’ wrote Thaddeus, ‘but we did wonder whether – what with you having that much larger household now – you might want to consider taking it over? Cedric and I would very much like to stay in these upstairs rooms if so.’

  ‘We’ll do it,’ said Madame, at once. ‘That’s a very nice set of rooms indeed. They open on to the gardens – there’s one of those glass doors, as I recall. Just right for the twins to run in and out. One of the sitting rooms is rather small, I think, but I remember a deep linen cupboard that might be knocked through. It would open up that room very satisfactorily. I daresay it wouldn’t be much of a job to knock a couple of walls down. We’ll have to paint and repaper everywhere as well, I should think, but we’ll go to Fortnum and Mason or one of those Knightsbridge places.’

  ‘Cost a lot of money,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Yes, but I haven’t cavorted across all those Parisian stages without getting paid. And Cosima was unexpectedly generous over the arranging of that memorial concert, too. We can afford it.’

  Daisy had enjoyed Paris, but she was glad to be back in London. She was glad to see Joe and Ma again. Lissy and Vi too, of course. Joe was still in the rooms with the Linklighters’ barman, working at Linklighters most evenings. He still drew everything he saw, though. The Thumbprints were planning to arrange a little exhibition of his work in their shop window. As Lissy had written, they would all be proud of Joe one day.

  It was very good indeed to be back – even though workmen began tramping through the Maida Vale flat, knocking down parts of walls so that there was a big airy drawing room. Everywhere was covered with ladders and dustsheets for days; pots of paint and plaster were carried in and out, and the rooms were filled with the sounds of hammering and sawing, and men cheerfully whistling. Madame said it would be worth it in the end, but Daisy said it was a wretched nuisance and she was never done cleaning up.

  Still, in the end everyone was satisfied – or, if they were not, they were too polite
to say so.

  Linklighters put on a special evening – a gala performance, they called it – to welcome Madame back to London, and on to their own stage. Scaramel was delighted. It would be a wonderful evening, she said.

  The Thumbprints designed posters and programmes. Joe helped them and Thaddeus Thumbprint insisted on paying him a small fee.

  A midnight supper would be served after the performance. Daisy had managed to get Lissy along to help with that, and Lissy brought Lita with her – Lita had some really good ideas about food. Daisy was very pleased indeed that she had been able to put this bit of work their way.

  Invitations were sent to all kinds of important people, and Madame said it was a pity the Prince of Wales could not attend. He would certainly have done so in the past, but now that the Queen, game old girl, seemed finally to be failing, Bertie was starting to take his responsibilities more seriously. But he could tell a few ripe old tales, and so could a great many of the ladies he had known. One day, when the twins were a bit older, she would tell them how he had slyly twanged a garter off her leg while she was dancing near the edge of the stage, and had said he would wear it next to his …

  ‘Next to his heart?’ said Morwenna hopefully as Madame paused. ‘That’s what princes in stories do for their ladyloves.’

  Madame laughed, and said, well, it had not exactly been his heart the Prince had meant, but it had been somewhere private anyway, at which Daisy hustled the twins off to their beds, because you could not have young ears hearing about such behaviour from a man who would one day be the King of England.

  Madame occasionally expressed a friendly curiosity that Daisy had never had a young man – there were plenty around Linklighters and here in Maida Vale, she said – but Daisy had never wanted that kind of relationship for herself. Not after all the things she had seen as a child. Not after living with Pa in Rogues Well Yard.

  Come over here to me on the bed, my little love … Let’s put your hand here … She could still hear his voice in her dreams sometimes, quiet and sort of treacly. She could still feel his hands, rough-skinned and jagged-nailed, forcing her own hands down between his legs.

  ‘Feels good, don’t it, Daise …? And when you get a man of your own, you’ll know what it’s all about, wontcha …?’

  That had been the start. Later there had been other things, far worse. Painful things. Pa forcing himself inside her body – her own voice crying out, begging him to stop. But he had been panting and his breath had been sour in her face; his hands pinned her down on the bed, and he did not care how much he hurt her.

  ‘Always hurts first time, Daise,’ he had said. ‘Won’t kill you … You squeal like that an’ I’ll make it hurt worse …’

  Afterwards he had said, ‘Don’t you go crying to your ma ’bout this. She don’t care what we do … She don’t care what I do with any of you … Any case, I’ll take my belt to you if you tell her …’

  The memories had stayed with Daisy all these years. She knew they would never go away, and she knew, as well, that she would never forget how she had struggled with leaving Ma and Joe and going to live with Madame all those years ago. But Lissy and Vi had urged her to do it. They would look out for Joe, and for Ma too, of course, they said. They would not let Pa get up to his evil ways with Joe – not that it was likely. It was the girls Pa liked. They had looked at one another when Vi said that, and although none of them had said anything else, understanding had been there between them.

  So in the end Daisy had accepted Madame’s offer, although she had asked if she could be sure of visiting her family at least once a week. Madame had agreed immediately. Families were important, she said.

  At first it had seemed all right. On the same day each week, Daisy took a tram to Rogues Well Yard – it was a good feeling to have a few coins in her purse to pay the tram driver, and Madame often gave her a few odds and ends of food to take for Ma. Leftovers, she said, even though Daisy knew they were not always leftovers at all. But Ma was pleased to have the food, and always asked Daisy to be sure to thank her kind mistress.

  And then had come that day that burned itself into Daisy’s mind. When she looked back, she saw the day as a kind of grisly marker jutting up out of the years: like a bloodied milestone that had been set down at the side of a road. Later, there had been other milestones, of course.

  It had all seemed entirely ordinary at first. It had been a dark afternoon, with a thin, spiteful rain falling, but there had been part of a leg of ham to take with her, carefully wrapped in waxed paper to keep it fresh. Daisy had hopped down from the tram, and walked quickly along the alley, swinging the food basket and going lightly up the narrow stairway that was shared with several other families. She was looking forward to seeing Ma and Joe and to giving Ma the ham, and she was hoping Pa would be in the Cock & Sparrow, which was likely if he had any money. It was unusual not to see Joe waiting to meet her off the tram tonight, but there could be any number of reasons for that.

  She went across the yard with the huddled buildings on each side, up the steps to Ma’s rooms, and pushed open the door, calling out that she was here, and that Madame had sent them some ham.

  At first she thought no one was at home. Still, if Pa had gone along to the Cock & Sparrow, Ma might have gone with him to get one of their pies for supper. Joe might have gone, too.

  Then somehow – she did not know how – she was aware that someone was here after all. She called out again, and there was a kind of scuffling and a half-cry from the inner room, where Ma and Pa had their bed. When Daisy and her sisters were at home they had slept in a corner of this main room; Joe had a pallet in the far corner.

  Joe. Daisy had always known she had what was almost an extra sense where Joe was concerned. That sense reared up now, so strong it was almost like a hand pulling her forward. She ran across the room, not noticing that she had let the basket with the ham fall to the floor, and pushed open the inner door, banging it against the wall.

  That extra sense had been right. Joe was there – he was lying on the bed, his small face distorted with pain and fear, his face streaked with tears, and the dark hair that felt like silk to the touch, tumbling over his forehead. He was naked, his small limbs spread out, white and thin, and unbearably vulnerable.

  Pa was half kneeling over him, his breeches open, his hands clutching Joe’s small hands, forcing him to perform the intimacies that once they had forced from Daisy, and from Vi and Lissy as well. Terrible. Ugly and vicious and warped. And only the start of what would happen later on.

  Daisy did not pause to think or reason. She flew straight at Pa, not thinking or caring that he was a big, heavily built man, with shoulders and neck like a bull. Her small hands beat at him in blind fury, and she could hear someone shouting words like filth and devil and evil. It was a shock to suddenly realize it was her own voice screaming those words – that she was using gutter expressions that she had always tried not to use. She did not care. It was all true.

  Joe had tumbled off the bed, and Daisy saw him reach for a shirt and the ragged breeches he always wore, and scramble shakily into them.

  Pa had fallen back against the wall, his face the ugly purple hue it always was when he was angry or drunk.

  ‘Get out of this place,’ said Daisy, shaking with such rage she could hardly speak. She aimed a vicious kick at him, feeling a surge of triumph when he yelled in pain. ‘Don’t come back, and don’t never touch Joe again, or I’ll take a knife to you,’ she shouted.

  ‘Bitch,’ he said, spitting out the word. ‘Useless bit of rubbish, you are.’

  For a terrible moment Daisy thought he was going to grab her and force her on to the bed, but as he clutched ineffectually at his open breeches, she could see that the warped arousal had already wilted.

  She laughed. ‘You’re the useless one. Look at you. Much use as a melting candle, you are. Bugger off, ’fore I take the bread knife to you.’

  She had not really believed he would go, but he stumbled across the
room, cursing her, his small mean eyes glowering when he looked back over his shoulder.

  Daisy watched him go down the stairs and stagger across the yard, then she went back to Joe and knelt down in front of him.

  ‘Joe, you won’t have to face this again. I’m going to make it all right. I’m going to make you safe.’

  He shivered and wiped the back of his hand across his face.

  ‘Did I ever let you down?’ said Daisy. ‘Or lie to you?’

  He gave a small, scared shake of the head, and looked up at her. It tore at Daisy’s heart to see the trust in his face.

  ‘I ain’t lying now, and I won’t let you down, neither. You won’t see that evil creature again, no one will.’ She got up. ‘Where’s Ma – getting pies for supper, is she? You stay where you are, and you’ll be safe, I promise you.’

  She folded him in a quick hug, and went out.

  It was almost completely dark by this time, and the rain had lain a faint mist over the streets. The ground was uneven, but Daisy almost ran, because she wanted to catch up with Pa.

  All around her, she could hear the familiar street sounds – cheerful shouts of people, footsteps, wooden wheels rattling across the cobblestones. Then she saw him, making an unsteady way along the street. She quickened her footsteps, but kept close to the buildings, so that the shadows hid her. The hatred was scalding through her, because this monster, this evil creature, could force Joe to bring him to an obscene satisfaction, just as he used to do with Daisy and her sisters. Hands, first. Later, he used their bodies … Sluicing them out, Vi had once called it, saying it with such angry bitterness that Daisy had understood Vi was covering up the memories by using the language of the streets and the terms of the prostitutes.

  Not for the first time, Daisy wondered whether Ma had ever known what had gone on. Even if she had, she would have been too scared to do anything about it. A bloodied nose, a broken arm or cracked ribs would have been the result – for Ma and probably for Joe, as well. As for throwing Pa out – Ma would not have the courage.