The Piper's Tune

by Jessica Stirling

  ‘It was Paget, wasn’t it?’ Forbes said. ‘He put you up to this, didn’t he?’

  ‘No,’ Lindsay said, and left it at that.

  Forbes smiled, and dandled his foot in mid-air. ‘Where is your sailor boy right now? Is he waiting outside in a motor-cab to cart you back to his bed?’

  ‘No,’ said Lindsay again.

  ‘You’re staying in a hotel, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘How long are you going to remain there?’ Forbes asked. ‘I mean, sweetheart, haven’t you got everything you want by now? I mean, you’ve got rid of my mother, my sisters, probably even my brother. You’ve got me all to yourself at last. Isn’t that enough for you?’

  ‘How much did you have to pay Gowry to take her away?’

  Silence for a moment: ‘I didn’t know he had taken her away.’

  ‘Well, he has,’ Lindsay said. ‘He’s taken her to Ireland, I believe, where the baby will be born.’

  ‘Really? So that’s where old Gowry-Wowry’s disappeared to, is it?’ Forbes said. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Tom. They called on Tom and Cissie before they left.’

  ‘Scrounging the price of the fares, I expect.’ He shook his head. ‘I might have guessed it. Bloody Gowry just wanted Sylvie for himself. God knows why!’

  ‘For the same reasons as you wanted her, probably,’ Lindsay said.

  ‘For your information I gave her up ages ago,’ Forbes said. ‘Haven’t clapped eyes on her in months. So Gowry meant what he said, did he?’

  ‘Good for Gowry,’ Lindsay said.

  Forbes brought his arms from behind his head. ‘I didn’t pay him to run off with her, you know. I didn’t know he’d skedaddled until this very minute. I’ve been looking for the bugger for half the day.’ He cocked his head. ‘Did you have anything to do with this, Linnet? Did you shell out, too?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right,’ Forbes said. ‘That’s my brother gone. You’ve cleared my family out good and proper, Lindsay. Isn’t that enough for you? Do you have to ruin me financially as well?’

  ‘That isn’t my intention, Forbes.’

  ‘What is your intention then?’ Forbes said. ‘To have more to spend pampering your sailor boy?’

  Lindsay did not deny his allegation. She wanted him to believe his own insinuations, to convince himself that she was no better than he was, that one black did make a white. She felt disloyal to Geoffrey and yet – the little ticking mainspring within her was working well – she felt so close to him that she was almost sorry for Forbes who had nothing left to cling to now except the hope that she would allow him back into her life.

  Forbes would never understand how she cared for Geoffrey or what there was between them. How could Forbes possibly know that without the knowledge that Geoffrey believed in her, even loved her, she would not have presumed to push him so far? She had not taken up with Geoffrey just to punish Forbes for his callous infidelity, however, for that long, ragged betrayal meant less to her than anyone, even Forbes, might imagine. What she did now she did out of pride, Franklin pride, to correct the mistakes that Pappy had made and to set her own course for the future for herself and her sons and, perhaps, for their sons too.

  ‘Those are my terms, Forbes,’ she said. ‘Take them or leave them.’

  ‘Terms. You’re my wife, Lindsay. You don’t make terms. No matter what you think I’ve done, you don’t make the terms of our marriage.’

  ‘In that case,’ Lindsay said, rising, ‘we will leave it to the lawyers.’

  ‘What? Old Harrington?’

  ‘To the court.’

  ‘I see,’ Forbes said tightly. ‘It’s a nice little threat, Linnet, a nice little bit of blackmail, but it isn’t going to wash, not with me.’

  ‘That’s what Geoffrey said you’d say.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘That’s what he hoped you say.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘He predicted that you would take profit over marriage.’

  ‘You’re lying to me, Lindsay. He said nothing of the kind.’

  ‘Oh, but he did,’ said Lindsay. ‘Do try to understand, Forbes, that I don’t particularly wish to come back and live with you. I’d prefer a new life with Geoffrey Paget – and make no mistake, I have that choice – but I do have the children to consider and for that reason I’m prepared—’

  ‘You’ll never get the children.’

  ‘I already have the children.’

  ‘What? Jesus!’ He looked up at the ceiling, wariness finally tinged with panic. She glimpsed in him now something of what Cissie had seen; not tears, not contrition but the bizarre vulnerability of a man trapped by his own hubris. ‘Where are they? What have you done with the boys?’

  ‘They’re perfectly safe,’ Lindsay said. ‘They will always be perfectly safe with me, Forbes. Besides, what do you want with them? Are there not plenty more to come, here or in Ireland?’

  ‘Bitch!’ he said, without much rancour.

  ‘I want the transfer of four points from the sixty-fourth part of your stake in Franklin’s,’ Lindsay said calmly. ‘I do not want to ruin you or deprive you of income. You will continue to share in annual profits and take a salary, and you will still be a partner, of course, very much a partner.’

  ‘But you’ll have the lion’s share?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you really believe that all I care about is money?’

  ‘No, I think you care more about power.’

  ‘I didn’t marry you for your money, Linnet.’

  ‘Why did you marry me, Forbes?’

  ‘Because I thought you’d make a good wife.’

  ‘How disappointed you must be,’ Lindsay said. ‘I suppose that a good wife would be satisfied with an apology, some show or sign of remorse from her husband, an assurance that he really loved her and that no one else mattered.’

  ‘I do love you, Linnet, you know that.’

  ‘Do I?’ Lindsay said. ‘No, Forbes, I don’t think I do.’

  ‘What are you going to do with the kiddies?’

  ‘Nothing. Eleanor and my father will bring them home shortly and put them to bed,’ Lindsay said. ‘By your definition I may not be a good wife, Forbes, but I’m not wicked enough to use the children against you. All I want is a larger share of the partnership just in case you decide that the next girl you take up with is worth the sacrifice of your home and family.’

  ‘God, that’s calculating.’

  Lindsay felt her resolve beginning to crack. She strove to bear in mind that she had Geoffrey behind her and a legion of new possibilities, that she did not need Forbes now or require him to bend to her will. It could not be a contest, a struggle between equals. She had never quite grasped the fact before that what had made Pappy, Donald, her father and her cousins too, so different, was that they were males, born with the knowledge of how to compete without compromise. She, like most decent women, lacked that knowledge, that instinct.

  ‘I have to be calculating, Forbes,’ she said, ‘otherwise you may take me for a soft mark again.’

  ‘You were never a soft mark, Linnet,’ Forbes said.

  ‘And Sylvie Calder, what was she?’

  ‘How the hell can I answer that one?’ Forbes said. ‘If I tell you she was just a bit of fun you’ll think even less of me than you do now. And if I tell you I really cared for her…’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘At first, yes. I did. I cared for her quite a lot.’ He made as if to rise, to reach for her, but Lindsay stepped quickly away. ‘I didn’t care for her the way I cared for you. No, that’s not just sweet talk, Linnet, that’s the truth.’

  ‘You just got tired of her and wanted a change, is that it?’

  ‘She wanted me to marry her.’

  ‘Ah, I see. That was never part of the bargain, was it?’

  ‘I had no bargain with Sylvie,’ Forbes said. ‘I had an understanding, I suppose, an arrangement that I thought she unders
tood perfectly well. But no, no, no, she had to have me all to herself.’

  ‘What was your understanding with me, Forbes? Do you remember?’

  ‘Oh, God! Not the love, honour and obey song-and-dance, Linnet. You’re not going to warble that old tune, are you? You knew what you were getting into when you married me.’

  ‘No, Forbes, I did not,’ Lindsay said. ‘But you thought you did.’

  ‘Is Paget really waiting outside for you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stay then. See the children. We’ll all have supper together.’

  ‘Geoffrey’s waiting for me at my hotel.’

  ‘My God! First you tell me you want terms, you demand bloody terms for what I did, then you waltz out of here and into bed with your sailor boy.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think you don’t want me back. Is the price too high, Forbes, is that it?’ Lindsay made towards the door. ‘I must go. I’ve no wish to keep Geoffrey waiting.’

  Forbes got to his feet. ‘He’s leaving for London on Monday, or did he neglect to mention that interesting little fact?’

  ‘I know perfectly well he’s leaving on Monday,’ Lindsay said.

  ‘What will you do then, sweetheart?’ Forbes said.

  ‘Go with him, perhaps,’ said Lindsay.

  ‘Never! You’ll never leave the boys, or the firm, or your father.’ He straightened and fashioned the swaggering little gesture that she both loved and hated. ‘Or me,’ he said. ‘Or me.’

  ‘Well, Forbes,’ Lindsay said, ‘I hope you’re willing to take the chance.’

  And then she left.

  * * *

  Sunday would be their last day together. She did not know when she would see him again or if she would ever see him again but, oddly, she took on trust Geoffrey’s assurances that they would meet as often as his duties allowed and that, with luck, he would be back in Scotland before the year was out.

  In the morning, after breakfast, they attended church together, sat together, sang together in the strange echoing surroundings of the old Tron Kirk, unrecognised in the packed congregation. After lunch, they went walking, not in Kelvingrove but on Glasgow Green where Lindsay had never been before. She tried to imagine how difficult it must be for Sylvie Calder, a stranger in a new country, but she could not hold her concern for the girl in mind for long. Although she was content to be with Geoffrey, there was in her an odd impatience, as if she had merely stolen time out from the front line and that reality lay not here but elsewhere.

  Geoffrey was very understanding. He did not press her, did not attempt to push his way into her other life.

  She had told him of her meeting with Forbes, of the ‘terms’ she had offered her husband and his reluctance to accept them. She did not have to explain to Geoffrey why she needed terms at all, for he had always understood that what she felt for him was infinitely more complicated than what he felt for her and that her marriage was not over until her husband chose to end it. There were, he knew, no measured miles, no marker buoys, no gauges to record what proportion of their relationship was love and what necessity, or just where selfishness planed into friendship. He had, however, become part of her life, an important part, and that, for the time being, was enough for both of them.

  * * *

  It came as no great surprise when Forbes capitulated.

  Perhaps there should have been a meeting, a confrontation between the two men in Lindsay’s life, but there was not.

  When she returned to the hotel to dress for dinner she found a printed message on a silver tray on the dressing-table in her room, a simple, two-word message relayed through her father.

  It said: ‘Forbes accepts.’

  And that was when the pain began.

  Rationally she had always known that she could not have all that she wanted, a past with Forbes and a future with Geoffrey. Choice not compromise was the reality that she had tried to avoid. She had leaned on Forbes finally, as she had leaned on Geoffrey, and now she must pay for it.

  She lay on the bed in her hotel room and wept quietly for a quarter of an hour, weakened by the tensions of the past few days and by the knowledge that she would have to begin rebuilding her life to the pattern that had been handed her. And she wanted Geoffrey, wanted Geoffrey desperately, to justify her love by having him hold her naked in his arms. With an intensity that shook her to the core of her being, she wanted the future that Geoffrey offered, its mystery, its novelty. She wanted Geoffrey to be her love, her lover and her saviour. And yet she also wanted Forbes, her children, the ruined marriage that must be rebuilt, the opportunity that her grandfather had offered her to fulfil a role in the closed little world of the Franklin family.

  Now the decision had been made.

  She supposed that she might still back out, throw everything to the winds, but even as the thought crossed her mind she discarded it.

  Tomorrow morning, early, Geoffrey and she must say goodbye.

  There was, however, always tonight.

  * * *

  When the old-fashioned horse-drawn hansom rolled up to the kerb, Sergeant Corbett immediately leaped out of the office doorway with more alacrity than seemed right in a man of his years.

  He had obviously been watching out for her and was quick to take the portmanteau from the hold and offer her a hand down the step.

  ‘Am I expected, Sergeant?’ Lindsay asked.

  ‘Aye, Mr Forbes told me to look out for you.’

  ‘And I’m late,’ said Lindsay.

  ‘Been away, Mrs McCulloch, have you?’ Sergeant Corbett asked as he lugged the portmanteau towards the door. ‘Bit of a holiday, was it?’

  ‘Bit of a holiday, yes,’ Lindsay answered. ‘A day or two, that’s all. I came directly from the railway station.’

  ‘Like me to keep the case in my cubby while you’re upstairs?’

  ‘If you would, Sergeant, thank you.’

  Even the commissionaire seemed unsure. She wondered what tales had been circulating around the yard, what sort of gossip George Crush had managed to generate. It hardly mattered. In a week or two it would all blow over and some other sensation, small or large, would take its place.

  She stood in the foyer looking up at the staircase.

  She had a thin little ache within her, not entirely unpleasant, and an empty feeling in the region of her heart that would not be filled until the first letter arrived from the south.

  She had told the sergeant the truth, or part of it; she had come from the railway station. She had seen Geoffrey off on the London train at half past eight o’clock. He had been at his smartest, in uniform, cap squared, his baggage, worn and rather salt-stained, on the porter’s barrow at his side. He did not, Lindsay noted, travel as lightly as she had imagined he would.

  They had kissed in the corridor of the hotel.

  They’d kissed again, almost without touching, on the railway platform. He had boarded the train at the last possible moment, just as great white plumes of steam had rolled back from the locomotive and the guard’s whistle had shrilled. Lindsay shed no tears: she had nothing left to weep for. Geoffrey hadn’t moved inside but leaned casually in the compartment window, glancing this way and that – then at her. Then at her. Smiling at her. Trim and reassuring, and satisfied.

  ‘Write to me, darling,’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘I will,’ she’d told him, as couplings clanked and the carriages began to draw tightly away. ‘I will.’

  She hadn’t walked after the train. She’d stayed where she was, motionless, until the curve of the track carried him out of sight. She’d felt very alone, however, when she returned to the hotel to settle her bill and collect the portmanteau; very alone in the hansom too, clipping through the Glasgow streets in soft August sunlight, alone yet not alone, sad yet not sad, somehow oddly eager to arrive at where she belonged.

  She hesitated. She knew what awaited her upstairs, the curious faces of men who were her partners, not just in shipbuilding but in life, her father and uncle, cousi
n Martin, Tom Calder too, and Forbes, her husband.

  She went quickly upstairs and along the corridor, opened the door of the boardroom and stepped inside. It looked almost as it had done that day eight years ago when she had nervously attended her first management meeting, the panorama of the Clyde, lean and brown and sinewy, spread in the window, berths and sheds and jib cranes scattered untidily on the shores. She could smell tobacco and mingled with it the distinctive odour of the river and its industries that still brought a lift of pride to her heart.

  Donald was seated at the head of the table, Mr Harrington by his side. Her father and Tom had their heads together discussing a diagram that Tom had drawn on his pad. Martin, arms folded, was watching the door, ready to greet her with a cheerful nod and a wink. And Forbes, grim and anxious, was over by the window, his shoulders resting against the glass. When he saw her, his expression changed and he could not quite disguise the relief in his eyes.

  ‘There you are,’ he said gruffly. ‘It’s about time too.’

  ‘Ah, Lindsay,’ Uncle Donald said. ‘I’m so glad you could come.’

  She lingered, at a loss, at the table’s end.

  How would they regard her now? Would they admire or condemn her for wresting power from her husband, for forgiving him his transgressions only at a price? Did they, perhaps, wonder what she had been up to all day yesterday, and all night too perhaps, with the First Lord’s right-hand man?

  Well, Lindsay thought, as she pulled out a chair at the table, they’ll just have to wonder, won’t they, for I’m not going to tell them.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ she said, smiling, ‘don’t you think it’s time we began?’

  Also by Jessica Stirling

  The Spoiled Earth

  The Hiring Fair

  The Dark Pasture

  The Deep Well at Noon

  The Blue Evening Gone

  The Gates of Midnight

  Treasures on Earth

  Creature Comforts

  Hearts of Gold

  The Good Provider

  The Asking Price

  The Wise Child

  The Welcome Light

  A Lantern for the Dark