Page 8 of A Lady’s Fortune

‘Thank you, Stowe,’ Leonora said, placing her case of tuning instruments on the piano stool.

‘May you take some tea?’ His old eyes were looking distinctly more cheerful at the advent of these two ladies in his care.

Leonora answered, ‘Thank you. I’m afraid tuning is a time-consuming business; we’ll be here for some time.’

‘You take as long as you need, Miss Appleby. It’s good to have some life in the house.’

Leonora was inspecting the instrument when the retainer returned. He placed a silver tray with teapot, bowls and some small pastries on the table by Nanny P then caught Leonora’s eye. ‘His lordship was always keen on playing music. While he was a prisoner in France he found an old instrument there; kept ’im sane, he says.’ As he turned away, he muttered, ‘Don’t know ’bout that – he’s not what he was.’

With that enigmatic statement, he left the room, pulling the door to, but not quite catching it on the latch. Leonora wondered if he hoped to hear some of the music she would play, for nothing brought a house to life more quickly than the sound of a piano-forte echoing through empty rooms. Perhaps the silence, like the sombre light, lay as heavily on the servants as on visitors?

Mrs Priddy poured out the tea. ‘Come, my dear, have some refreshment before you begin.’ She nibbled on one of the pastries and wrinkled her nose. ‘This is at least three days old. It’s more like a rock cake,’ she grumbled, but continued to eat.

‘What did Stowe mean? The new Earl is not as he was?’

‘Well, I haven’t seen him since he’s returned from the war but when I knew the Rokeby boys, they were thick as thieves, though so different in character. Perhaps his brother’s death and the horrors of war have altered him.’ Nanny P picked up another pastry and was lost in her own memories.

Leonora put on her apron. The inside of the instrument was filled with dead insects and wood dust, and Leonora picked up her small brush and whisked the debris from the strings, then sat down to play to see just how out of tune it had become. By the dereliction in the main house, she suspected it had not been played for many years.

She began Clementi’s Sonatina in C major and winced as certain notes were so out of key that the jarring sound was almost painful. Even Nanny P looked up, an expression on her face like she had chewed on a piece of sourest lemon. ‘My dear! What a jingling jangle. I hope it won’t prove too difficult to put right.’ She had settled deep into the sofa with her knitting in her lap. Leonora had asked what she was making but had only received the answer, ‘a christening shawl’. Nanny P was using the finest gossamer thread and it seemed such a labour of love that any child would be full-grown by the time it was finished.

Starting on the central octave, Leonora picked up her rubber wedge and slipped it under the second string of middle C to damp off its sound while she worked on tuning the first. Her tuning wrench fitted over the wrest pin and as she struck the tuning fork, the thin sound filled the room. Playing the ivory key with her left hand, she turned the wrench with care until the two sounds aligned. In this way she worked from middle C to lower C and began to move down into the bass notes.

The occasional comments from Nanny P had ceased and Leonora glanced across to see her asleep in the glow of the firelight. Stowe brought in a candelabra ready for Leonora to light with a taper from the fire as the day began to fade, and put another couple of logs in the grate to keep the flames high.

Leonora was tired and hungry and thinking she might leave the last two higher octaves until another day. She played the Clementi through one last time, pleased that the necessary notes were those she had managed to retune. The music swelled forth and she imagined it echoing through the dusty house beyond. Making music was central to her life, it banished loneliness and filled the spaces in her heart with love. Leonora felt a quickening of excitement as she moved into the lyrical Andante section when a shaggy dog’s head was laid lightly on her knee. She was so engrossed in the music that this unexpected interloper barely broke her concentration.

Little did she know that a man stood in the shadows by the door, watching. Lost to the music, Leonora played on for a minute or so until the natural break at the end of the Andante. From the doorway, her face could only be seen in profile, her skin luminous in the candlelight, her expression rapt as she listened closely for any anomalies in the notes. There was a smudge of dust on her cheek and her homely dress was covered by a plain calico apron. Her chestnut brown hair was piled in an untidy bun on her head, tendrils already escaping, which she brushed impatiently off her brow. The air still seemed to vibrate as the last notes died away.

Leonora paused, about to start the final Vivace section, and in that moment of quiet, noticed the dog. She looked up and turned towards the door with a gasp as she saw the Earl standing in the encroaching dusk.

‘I’m sorry to have startled you, Miss Appleby.’ His voice was quiet and amused. He did not sound in the least sorry as he walked towards her with a marked limp. ‘You have wrought some sort of magic on that poor instrument of mine. Thank you. Even Achille seems soothed by the music.’ In the flickering light of the candelabra, his face looked leaner, his scar more prominent, his eye patch, sinister. The great wolfhound padded to his side. The Earl’s eye glittered as he watched Leonora’s almost imperceptible recoil as she saw him fully for the first time. A grim smile twisted his mouth.

‘I’m afraid I still have two of the upper octaves to tune, sir, but it’s late and I must take Mrs Priddy home.’ She nodded towards the sofa and Alistair Rokeby noticed for the first time the elderly figure asleep in the corner, her cap slightly askew.

His expression instantly lightened. ‘Oh, how good to see Nanny Priddy again. She was but young when my distracted mother called her in for advice on my brother and me.’ He walked towards the fire but seemed reluctant to wake her. Turning back to Leonora, he said, ‘But we have all aged. And some have not survived the cruel exigencies of this world.’

Leonora was taken aback at his bleak tone. She sought to reassure him in a small way, saying, ‘Mrs Priddy is remarkably well, you will be pleased to know.’ She glanced back to meet his gaze. The severity had returned to his face.

He watched her ruffling the fur behind his hound’s ears. ‘You were playing the Clementi. Before you go, Miss Appleby, could you just let me hear the last section, the Vivace, I believe. Music so consoles the spirit, don’t you think?’

Leonora was struck by the emotion in his voice. She was about to sit down on the stool again when she was arrested by a thought. ‘My lord, I’d like it if you would play it. You can then tell me if you approve of my tuning.’

She moved away from the instrument as he looked at her, a question on his face. Then he smiled and took her place at the keyboard and began to play. Leonora watched his face transform, seeming to lose its years of suffering. As his fingers picked out the cascade of notes, his head moved with the music, his eyes closed, his mouth smiling with some fond memory. Abruptly, he stopped in the middle of a cadenza and looked up at her, the spell broken. ‘I’ve forgotten what comes next.’

Leonora moved to stand behind him and leant over to play the next phrase. She was thinking only of the music but being so close to him, could not ignore the fiery energy radiating out to meet hers. She stepped back. Immediately, Lord Rokeby picked the tune up again and his hands continued the sparkling melody to the end. It was then Leonora noticed his damaged right hand and the rough stub where his middle finger should have been. It was shocking to see, and yet it did not impair his ability to play the notes with fluency.

Alistair Rokeby’s voice was quiet. ‘Thank you, Miss Appleby. The tone is as good as I remember it before I went to war.’

‘There are still two more octaves to tune, if you’d like me to complete the task.’

He had sprung to his feet, his gruff, supercilious manner returned. ‘I don’t wish to trouble you further.’ His dog stood tall by his side, its relaxed windswept look a foil to his master’s tense demeanour.

‘It is no trouble. It’s a fine instrument and I enjoy its resonance. It’s mellower than mine.’ Leonora was not going to be cowed by his off-putting humour. ‘I could come for a few hours tomorrow afternoon.’

Mrs Priddy stirred from her sleep and looked up. ‘Nora my dear, are you finished?’ She then noticed the brooding figure beside her mistress and struggled to her feet, straightening her cap. ‘Master Alistair! How you’ve grown!’ She saw his scarred face and for a moment her expression registered shock. Then, walking towards him, she apologised for her presumption of address. ‘I mean, of course, Lord Rokeby.’ And she dropped a quick curtsey.

His face lit up with a smile as he took her hand. ‘You’ll always be Nanny Priddy to me, and no doubt I’ll always be Master Alistair to you, the wild, harum-scarum boy, despair of his family!’