The Moonlit Garden

by Bomann, Corina

  “Come in, Gabriel.”

  Gabriel gave Lilly a brief wink, and she responded with a wide smile as he was shown into the living room.

  Ellen had planned everything meticulously. She had prepared nibbles and a nonalcoholic cocktail as an aperitif, followed by pasta Milanese with the obligatory veal escalope—they had agreed to serve something Italian in honor of their visit to Cremona—and an excellent tiramisu, for which Lilly had immediately demanded the recipe.

  Jessie and Norma had been given a pizza and as a special treat were allowed to eat it in their rooms, which they were delighted about. The music they were playing was not too loud, though it was audible enough to drift down to the living room, but Ellen didn’t mind.

  Unfortunately Dean had been unable to get home in time, since the building site was still placing great demands on him, but he had promised to join them later, not least because he wanted to know what Gabriel thought of the supposed code in the sheet music.

  As they ate, Lilly and Ellen took turns telling him of their experiences. Gabriel listened keenly and looked with interest at the copies of the newspaper articles.

  “You’ve found a real treasure there,” he said as he picked up the copy with the photo of a young Rose next to Mrs. Faraday. “I don’t know this photo, actually, and the same goes for the other articles. Mrs. Faraday probably had the editions of the newspapers sent to her, but a lot was destroyed in the war. Because of the air raids, some chests containing archive material were put into safe storage—material that never turned up again after the war. We assume that it was destroyed or that it’s moldering away in some attic.”

  “So what else do you know about Rose?” Lilly asked. “You promised us some new information.”

  Gabriel gave a broad grin and raised his hands. “Fine, fine, I surrender. No need to get the torture instruments out.”

  “We never intended to go that far,” Ellen replied. “But you’ve just vastly improved your chances of dessert.”

  “It can’t get any better than this wonderful main course, but as an inquisitive man I’m looking forward to it.” He straightened up in his seat and looked as if he were delving into his memory. “Before you went to Cremona, I had another good look through our archive but didn’t find much new there. As you know, Rose Gallway was a particularly interesting former student of ours. The information we have about her had already been collected and archived by my predecessors. But they missed one thing. Perhaps it didn’t seem particularly important to them, but when I was looking through the files, it hit me like a bolt of lightning.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Our music school used to have a boardinghouse where pupils who weren’t from London lived. At a certain time of year, Mrs. Faraday would travel far and wide, investigating talented young people recommended to her by music teachers. The boardinghouse was run by one Miss Patrick, about whom little is known apart from her dates of birth and death. But she was an avid collector of information and documents relating to her charges. The moment Mrs. Faraday decided to bring a girl to her establishment, Miss Patrick entered the scene and made an entry in her house journal.

  “These house journals—there was one for each year group—contained reports on the conduct of the pupils, although only major disciplinary incidents were recorded. But there were also lists of things that were acquired—and their dates of origin. As soon as a new pupil arrived, she wrote down everything she knew about the girl. Rose must have given her a fairly detailed report, as there’s a lot on her page.”

  “So why didn’t your predecessors take any notice of it?” Ellen asked after taking a sip of wine.

  “Because they believed these journals were nothing more than yearbooks full of cost accounts and edifying stories that Miss Patrick had noted down. But not only did they fail to see that these edifying stories mainly came from the girls themselves, they also didn’t notice the beautifully presented fact sheets among all the petty details.”

  “Well, don’t keep us in suspense—what was it you found?”

  Gabriel took a small envelope from his pocket, which Lilly guessed contained a couple of copies. He didn’t take them out, but replied, “We already knew that Rose Gallway came from Sumatra, and we also knew her date of birth, May 9, 1880. But there’s quite a sensational fact about her parents.” Now he took one of the copies from the envelope. “Her mother’s forename was Adit, and she was from the village of Magek, while her father was an Englishman.”

  “You can’t really tell that from her appearance,” Lilly said with a nod. “She looks more Italian or Spanish.”

  “Her eyes are a bit exotic,” Ellen said, tapping the copy of the photo of Rose as a very young girl. “It’s particularly obvious in this picture.”

  Gabriel nodded. “You’re right, but Europeans sometimes have almond-shaped eyes and deep black hair. The photos don’t give the slightest hint that her mother was a Minangkabau, whose tribe lived around the center of the island.”

  Lilly raised her eyebrows. Ellen put her espresso cup down.

  “Who are the Minangkabau?” asked Lilly, who was hearing the word for the first time.

  “A traditional Sumatran tribe who live their lives according to the adat, a set of rules governing the society, in which the women were in charge.”

  “A matriarchy,” Ellen remarked. Gabriel nodded.

  “That’s right. Of course, it’s Islamic there, and only men are allowed to study the Koran, but property is inherited through the female line. Every family has a headwoman who is honored by all her descendants. The eldest daughter is chosen to take over the leadership of the clan, while her sisters either swell the family ranks or establish a new clan.”

  He unfolded the sheet of paper and handed it to Lilly, and in doing so seemed to deliberately brush his hand against hers. How soft his skin felt, and how strong his fingers! It was the hand of a musician, but also the hand of a practical man.

  Somewhat perplexed, Lilly turned her attention to the photocopy. It contained no background information on the Minangkabau, but Rose must have stated with pride that her mother belonged to the tribe. And there was more—the fact that she had lived in Padang and had gone to school there, where she had caught the attention of her Dutch music teacher, who insisted that she have violin lessons.

  “Let me guess!” Ellen said as she looked at it. “Rose’s mother was a servant for an Englishman who got her pregnant.”

  Gabriel gave a short laugh. “Ellen, where did you get such a bad impression of nineteenth-century men?”

  “Well, isn’t that the usual cliché? Whenever the English colonial overlords employed native staff, they brought children into the world with some of the women.”

  Gabriel still wore a look of amusement. “Yes, that may be the usual cliché, stoked by plenty of novels and films, and I don’t doubt that it did happen. But it looks like things were rather different here.”

  Gabriel fell silent and looked between the two women, his gaze finally resting on Lilly. She could tell her cheeks had begun to glow with excitement, and she felt butterflies in her stomach.

  “In fact, it seems that Rose Gallway had perfectly respectable origins. Her father was a warehouse supervisor in Padang, an Englishman, and he married Adit in the proper way. The amazing thing is that she lived with her husband. I’ve been doing a bit of research on the Minangkabau. It seems that their customary practice is for women to remain in their mother’s house and have a kind of long-distance marriage with their husbands, who, in the eyes of their families, belong to their own mothers. Any children who are born belong to her house, not his.”

  “So Rose’s mother broke with tradition.”

  “You could say that. It doesn’t necessarily mean things stayed that way, though. The Minangkabau are a very traditional people—perhaps she changed her mind and went back to them. I think that’s our starting point. All trace of Rose vanished on Sumatra. Once her career began to decline, she traveled back there without explai
ning to anyone what her intentions were. I assume that her visit was something to do with her parents. Perhaps there are still traces of her and her family in Padang and Magek. As property is inherited down the maternal line, her name should be known—even if there are no church records, the Minangkabau might have kept records of their forebears. Or at least oral histories.”

  “Then there’s nothing else we can do but travel to Indonesia,” Ellen remarked, although her expression suggested that she wasn’t serious.

  “That would be one possibility,” Gabriel agreed. “The other would be to request documents from there. There are some very good music schools in Indonesia that might be prepared to help me.”

  Lilly sat there as if turned to stone. She felt that it would not be enough merely to request documents from Indonesia. She had to follow in Rose’s footsteps. She had to go to Sumatra!

  “So, that story must have earned me at least a portion of dessert—what do you think, ladies?”

  A little later, after polishing off the tiramisu and settling down in the armchairs around the hearth, they resumed their conversation about the rose violin and its owner.

  “Have you found anything new about Helen Carter?” Lilly asked, suppressing her thoughts about how she would get to Indonesia.

  “Of course I looked for her in the house journals, too, but the good Miss Patrick had died by then, and her successor was a little less detailed in her bookkeeping. The new arrivals were still noted, but the entry about Helen didn’t tell us much new. Her parents were James and Ivy Carter from Padang, she was born on December 12, 1902, and the old Mrs. Faraday, who was still traveling widely at eighty-three to inspect talented youngsters, became aware of her because people were enthusing about this new prodigy. Helen is said to have taught herself most of her skills, as was often the case with musical geniuses like that. After the earthquake in 1910, her name crops up fairly frequently, until she was finally visited by Mrs. Faraday. She must have been invited to come and study with her, because in 1911 Helen Carter entered the conservatory as one of the youngest pupils ever admitted. Mrs. Faraday took personal charge of her in the early years but then had to hand over Helen’s lessons to her teachers when she suffered a stroke. She cared for Helen until her death in 1916 and made her the star she was in 1919 and 1920—the start of the Roaring Twenties.”

  “And then the accident happened.”

  “Yes, the accident in which she was hit by a bus and the world was deprived of a star. Helen survived but never played again, as her left hand was mutilated.”

  “That must have been terrible,” Ellen murmured, looking at her own hands. “If music is your passion . . . When I was a child, I sometimes wished something would happen to my hands. After an initial enthusiasm for playing the violin, I lost interest, but my parents insisted I continue. I did, for their sakes, but Lilly will confirm to you how much it got on my nerves.”

  “Oh yes,” Lilly interjected before Ellen continued.

  “But I can imagine what it would feel like to have given my heart and soul to it. To suffer an injury that prevented me from following my calling would have been dreadful—comparable to my institute burning down.”

  “You can get insurance against it these days,” Gabriel said. “I know a number of professional musicians who have insured their hands for substantial sums of money—higher than their lives. But there was nothing of the sort in those days. And I don’t believe that a passionate musician could ever be compensated with money for losing the ability to play. Their financial security would be ensured, but what’s that compared to passion?”

  “Could that be why Helen married, because she had no choice and would have been ruined otherwise?” Ellen asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. She would have chosen a man with her heart. There’s no indication that she had any financial motive in marrying.”

  “Then at least she found love,” Ellen murmured gratefully.

  For a few minutes they were silent, each lost in their own thoughts.

  Gabriel finally turned to Lilly. “Don’t forget, you promised me that I could play your violin. Have my stories at least earned me the right to hold it in my hands?”

  Lilly blushed. She should have shown him the violin before now—how impolite of her!

  “Of course. I’ll just go and fetch it.”

  As she jumped up, she felt Gabriel’s eyes between her shoulder blades. Back with the violin case, she carefully lifted the instrument from the red lining and handed it to Gabriel. He turned it over, full of awe, looked briefly at the rose, and then turned it back to study the front.

  “Rose Gallway’s violin. I would never have believed I’d have the pleasure of holding it in my hands. Sometimes miracles do happen.”

  “And you really have no idea how the violin came into Helen Carter’s hands when it had belonged to Rose Gallway?” Ellen asked pensively.

  “We think Rose must have sold or pawned it. Or perhaps it was stolen from her. It’s possible that Rose could have been the victim of a burglary—that would explain the violin’s disappearance.”

  “But was there no one to keep an eye on it? Even then musicians had such things as managers or agents.”

  “True, and in Rose’s case we know who that agent was. His name was Sean Carmichael, and he was quite a go-getter. He saw the potential in Rose at an early stage. Unfortunately her decline hit him quite hard; perhaps he even dropped her. We’re still looking into that, and now that you’ve brought it up, I’ll make it my next priority to look into his story.”

  With that he set the violin under his chin. Lilly was about to ask if he felt like playing “The Moonlit Garden,” but he had already begun. She realized with surprise that he was playing the very piece. He had clearly learned it thoroughly.

  Overcome, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself in a garden—a garden with wild flowers, trees with low-hanging garlands of leaves, thick bushes in which small animals were concealed. Above the scene hung a moon that made all the colors seem pale but stole nothing of the beauty from the place.

  The vision remained for a few minutes until Gabriel finished playing. He slowly lowered the bow and looked at the violin in wonder.

  “It’s no surprise that people used to say Helen Carter was a descendant of Paganini. If I can get a sound like that from the violin with my modest abilities, what would it have sounded like in the hands of a genius like her? Or Rose Gallway, whose talents were perhaps even greater?”

  Before Lilly could protest, they heard a car approaching, and a little later Dean appeared in the living room.

  “I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said with a sigh. “That building site’s driving me crazy.”

  “Dean, this is Gabriel Thornton.” Ellen introduced him to their guest. “And I think we’ve got a couple of stories left over for you.”

  It was not until long after midnight that Gabriel took his leave. Lilly led him outside.

  “That was a really lovely evening,” he began with a shy smile, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Your friend and her husband are very nice.”

  “They’re wonderful people. I’ve got a lot to thank them for. They’ve always been there for me, especially after my husband died.”

  Gabriel seemed to remember. “Yes, you told me about that on the plane. It’s good to have people you can rely on. I wish I’d had such good friends to fall back on after my separation from Diana.”

  “Your wife?”

  Gabriel nodded, and for a moment he looked so vulnerable that she longed to take him in her arms, but she held herself back. She sensed that he liked her, but that still didn’t give her the right to throw herself around his neck.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, unable to think of anything better.

  “There’s no need to be. Diana and I weren’t meant for each other—it’s as simple as that. And my mind was so much on my job that I neglected my friends. I got what I deserved. But you make mistakes in life in order to learn from them, don’t you?
”

  He smiled at her and then took something from his pocket.

  “I’ve got something for you here,” he said softly.

  Lilly saw that it was the second photocopy, the one that he had not removed from the envelope earlier. It was a transcript of a legend bearing the title “The Forgotten Girl.”

  “Our good Miss Patrick must have picked up this story from Rose. It’s a well-known Indonesian legend as far as I can tell—it appears in a few collections. Unfortunately we have no evidence that Rose composed ‘The Moonlit Garden,’ but this shows the influences on her during her childhood. I read that the legends are told through the medium of shadow puppet shows in Indonesia. Perhaps she used to watch them when she was young.”

  “Maybe. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. You know that if I find anything else I’ll let you have it.”

  “When will we see each other again?”

  Gabriel gave her a wide smile. “You still owe me dinner, don’t you? This evening was very nice, but I consider it more of a business meeting.”

  “What kind of dinner are you thinking of?”

  “It should be more of a private affair, don’t you agree?”

  Lilly blushed. When had she last had a meal in private with a man?

  “I hope I haven’t shocked you,” Gabriel added, noticing her hesitation.

  “No, not at all. And . . . you’re right, perhaps we should do that.”

  “Only if it’s what you really want. I want you to know that I’m not helping you merely because I want to go out with you. You’d get my help anyway, but I thought—”

  “Friday,” Lilly burst out. “Are you free then?”

  Gabriel raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Yes, of course. And if I find there’s something else on my calendar, I’ll cancel it. You’re one for snap decisions, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. And who knows, perhaps . . . ”