Torn. Karen Turner

you understand it?” he asked.

      With our recent hostilities still so near the surface, my hackles rose immediately. “Of course,” I snapped. “I’m not a fool, you know.”

      “I never suggested you were, Miss Prickle, but generally the empty-heads who profess to enjoy these works, do so because it’s fashionable. They’ve not the slightest idea what our most expressive Master Shelley was on about.”

      “Well, I’m not one of those empty-heads,” I said firmly, and rising with much dignity, stalked out, Jemima trotting behind. Congratulating myself on my cleverness, it was only as I shut my bedroom door that I realised how silly I’d been. Patrick had clearly sought a conversation and in trying to act grown up I’d proved myself the opposite.

      Master Baxter returned and lessons resumed. Simon and Patrick began preparing for their journey to Oxford and, even though they’d be commencing midway through the term, Simon was as excited as a boiling pot. Patrick, conversely, seemed rather apathetic, and I recalled his bitter words about life being planned for him. Still penitent over my childish behaviour, I resolved to redeem myself before his departure and awaited a likely opportunity – that presented itself sooner than I’d expected.

      I was passing Patrick’s door one afternoon when I heard the jaunty sounds of his violin. Now, music had ever been one of my great loves, and I had knocked at his door without a second thought.

      The playing within ceased abruptly. “Yes?”

      I opened the door. He was seated cross-legged on the rug before a cosy fire, the violin positioned beneath his chin.

      “I heard you playing. May I come in?”

      As usual his expression gave nothing away but he bade me enter with a jerk of his head. Holding the instrument by its neck, he rested its body on his knee watching as I shut the door.

      “It’s beautiful,” I nodded towards it and sat before him on the rug.

      “It is a Strad,” he said simply.

      “I know.”

      “How?”

      I looked up sharply but his face showed only interest.

      “The signature on it. I saw it at Christmas when you laid it on the settee.”

      “Well, there you go …” he said, “and you’d be right for it bears the moniker of Senor Antonio Stradivari himself. But all that means is that the instruments are crafted to his design. Many are misled: the signature does not prove authenticity.”

      I must have looked perplexed for he added, adopting a perfect imitation of Master Baxter, “But I heppen to know, young leddy, that this particular specimen is genuine.”

      “Oh? How so?” I rejoined.

      “Well, young leddy, since Gerrard Washburn’s father, the then Earl of Thorncliffe, personally brought it back from Stradivari’s shop in Cremona – he toured Italy and France in his youth, you see. But without the benefit of such information,” he leaned forward, dropping the charade, his voice low,” you need only touch and hear it to know its pedigree. Here …” he passed the instrument and I held it with respect.

      “Feel the wood … its texture … it’s like silk. And this …” he plucked a string. “Feel it? It’s alive.”

      I did feel it. Almost afraid, I reverently returned the instrument to him as he continued. “But to play it, to hear its voice, is to truly demonstrate one’s respect – one’s passion,” he whispered.

      “Well then,” I addressed the violin, “Sing for me, Senor Stradivari.”

      Pat made much of cracking his knuckles and flexing his fingers, took up his bow and positioning the instrument below his chin, began to play.

      With eyes closed and face set dreamily, he played a haunting, mournful tune I didn’t recognise but which prompted me also to close my eyes and lose myself in the glorious chords.

      For several minutes I listened, spellbound, as the notes lulled and swayed me, swelling, filling the room. I breathed them in, as they lifted me on a crest of sound and held me suspended on resonant threads, building dynamically to a violent crescendo that burst through to the other side, retreating in a final, plaintive minor chord.

      My throat constricted with the beauty of it.

      Motionless for a long moment, I sat with eyes closed, breathing as one in a trance. When finally I opened my eyes, I met his green gaze. “That is how you know a genuine Stradivarius,” he said huskily, letting the instrument rest on his thigh.

      His eyes, smoky and deep, continued to hold mine with an intensity of emotion that tightened my chest. The urge to touch him was a physical thing yet I remained motionless, afraid to break the spell.

      Suddenly the door burst open and Maeve, Missy in her arms, and Anne barrelled into the room. “Oh Pat that was marvy,” his sister gushed, oblivious to the weight of feeling between her brother and me.

      “We heard from the hall,” Anne added. “May we join in?”

      “Play that Congreve – oh what’s the name of it? My favourite one.” Maeve plumped to the rug beside her brother, settling Missy on her lap.

      Anne carefully arranged her skirt about her and added, “Yes a Congreve, and we shall sing along.”

      A warm wave of well-being washed over me. Patrick’s eyes had continued to hold mine, and now we smiled as one conspirator to another. Without comment, he raised the Strad and launched into his sister’s favourite tune and she began to sing in a thin pure tone. Upon recognition, Anne and I joined in.

       False though she be to me and love, I’ll ne’er pursue revenge; For still the charmer I approve, Though I deplore her change.

       In hours of bliss we oft have met: They could not always last; And though the present I regret, I’m grateful for the past.

      We made our way through many more songs before the afternoon was over and, each time Patrick’s glance met with mine, the thrill of something shared ran through me.

      Mother joined us for supper, and large though she was now, she seemed in good spirits.

      Retiring to the parlour afterwards, she and Eleanor stitched baby clothes. Eleanor’s habitually disapproving face beneath the flaming red wig did not inhibit the merriment of the evening as a giggling Maeve told us how Tom, the baker’s son, had inadvertently baked his mother’s entire store of apples saved for the winter.

      “She wanted to dry them, you see – out in the sun – sun-bake them. He thought she said to bake them.”

      Simon and I laughed heartily for we were well acquainted with the unfortunate Tom’s lack of sense. While Mother’s mouth twitched slightly, Eleanor’s expression never changed. “When Mother Croft came home from the market,” Maeve continued, “she found every single one of them shrivelled and brown like those shrunken heads you see in books about natives in the africas … oh, poor Tom.”

      “Poor Tom indeed,” Lord Thorncliffe remarked from behind a newspaper. He turned to his son and Simon, “Seems there’s still much trouble on the continent.”

      “Oh Gerrard, why ruin a pleasant evening with talk of war.” Mother grumbled.

      “Good grief, woman! Our troops have been there since July last year!”

      “If it were that important, Isabella Camelleri would have mentioned it in her letter. She reports that things are wonderful in Italy at the moment.”

      “Well it is affecting us … damned difficult getting a good brandy these days.”