I greeted her. She cantered around me like Queen Boadicea, pointedly unresponsive. “How humid the air is today,” I small-talked sarcastically. “I rather think we shall have rain later, wouldn’t you agree?” She said nothing. “Your dressage is more polished than your manners,” I told her. Nothing. Shooting guns crackled across the fields, and Eva reassured her mount. Her mount is a beaut—one can’t blame the horse. I asked Eva for the pony’s name. She stroked back some black, corkscrew locks from her cheeks. “J’ai nommé le poney Néfertiti, d’après cette reine d’Egypte qui m’est si chère,” she replied and turned away. “It speaks!” I cried and watched the girl gallop off until she was a miniature in the Van Dyck pastoral. Fired artillery shells after her in elegant parabolas. Turned my guns on Château Zedelghem and pounded Ayrs’s wing to smoking rubble. Remembered what country we are in and stopped.
Past the sundered beech, the meadow falls away to an ornamental lake, ringing with frogs. Seen better days. A precarious footbridge connects an island to the shore, and flamingo lilies bloom in vast numbers. Now and then goldfish splish and gleam like new pennies dropped in water. Whiskered mandarin ducks honk for bread, exquisitely tailored beggars—rather like myself. Martins nest in a boathouse of tarred boards. Under a row of pear trees—once an orchard?—I laid me down and idled, an art perfected during my long convalescence. An idler and a sluggard are as different as a gourmand and a glutton. Watched the aerial bliss of coupled dragonflies. Even heard their wings, an ecstatic sound like paper flaps in bicycle spokes. Gazed on a slowworm exploring a miniature Amazonia around the roots where I lay. Silent? Not altogether, no. Was woken much later, by first spots of rain. Cumulonimbi were reaching critical mass. Sprinted back to Zedelghem as fast as I’ll ever run again, just to hear the rushing roar in my ear canals and feel the first fat droplets pound my face like xylophone hammers.
Just had time to change into my one clean shirt before the dinner gong. Mrs. Crommelynck apologized, her husband’s appetite was still feeble and demoiselle preferred to eat alone. Nothing suited me better. Stewed eel, chervil sauce, the rain skittering on terrace. Unlike the Frobishery and most English homes I have known, meals at the château are not conducted in silence, and Mme. C told me a little about her family. Crommelyncks have lived at Zedelghem since far-off days when Bruges was Europe’s busiest seaport (so she told me, hard to credit), making Eva the crowning glory of six centuries’ breeding. Warmed to the woman somewhat, I admit it. She holds forth like a man and smokes myrrhy cigarettes through a rhino-horn holder. She’d notice pretty sharpish if any valuables were spirited away, however. They’ve suffered from thieving servants in the past, she happened to mention, even one or two impoverished houseguests, if I could believe people could behave so dishonorably. Assured her my parents had suffered the same way, and put out feelers re: my audition. “He did describe your Scarlatti as ‘salvageable.’ Vyvyan spurns praise, both giving and receiving it. He says, ‘If people praise you, you’re not walking your own path.’ ” Asked directly if she thought he’d agree to take me on. “I do hope so, Robert.” (In other words, wait and see.) “You must understand, he resigned himself never to compose another note. Doing so caused him great pain. Resurrecting hope that he might compose again—well, that’s not a risk to be undertaken lightly.” Subject closed. I mentioned my earlier encounter with Eva, and Mme. C pronounced, “My daughter was uncivil.”
“Reserved” was my perfect reply.
My hostess topped up my glass. “Eva has a disagreeable nature. My husband has taken very little interest in rearing her like a young lady. He never wanted children. Fathers and daughters are reputed to dote on each other, are they not? Not here. Her teachers say Eva is studious but secretive, and she’s never tried to develop herself musically. I often feel I don’t know her at all.” I filled Mme. C.’s glass, and she seemed to cheer up. “Listen to me, lamenting. Your sisters are immaculately mannered English roses, I am sure, Monsieur?” Rather doubt her interest in the Frobishery’s memsahibs was genuine, but the woman likes to watch me talk, so I painted witty caricatures of my estranged clan for my hostess’s amusement. Made us all sound so gay, almost felt homesick.
This morning, a Monday, Eva deigned to share breakfast—Bradenham ham, eggs, bread, all sorts—but the girl spouted petty complaints to her mother and snuffed my interjections out with a flat oui or a sharp non. Ayrs was feeling better so ate with us. Hendrick then drove the daughter off to Bruges for another week at school—Eva boards in the city with a family whose daughters also attend her school, the Van Eels or some such. Whole château breathed a relieved sigh when the Cowley had cleared the poplar avenue (known as the Monk’s Walk). Eva does so poison the air of the place. At nine, Ayrs and I adjourned to the music room. “I’ve got a little melody for viola rattling about my head, Frobisher. Let’s see if you can get it down.” Was delighted to hear it, as I’d expected to start at the shallow end—tidying up sketchy MSS into best copy and so forth. If I proved my worth as V.A.’s sentient fountain pen on my first day, my tenure would be well-nigh assured. Sat at his desk, sharpened 2B at the ready, clean MS, waiting for him to name the notes, one by one. Suddenly, the man bellowed: “ ‘Tar, tar! Tar-tartar tattytattytatty, tar!’ Got that? ‘Tar! Tatty-tar! Quiet part—tar-tar-tar-tttt-TAR! TARTARTAR!!!’ ” Got that? Old ass obviously thought this was amusing—one could no more notate his shouted garble than one could score the braying of a dozen donkeys—but after another thirty seconds, it dawned on me this was no joke. Tried to interrupt, but the man was so engrossed in his music making that he didn’t notice. Sunk into deepest misery while Ayrs carried on, and on, and on . . . My scheme was hopeless. What had I been thinking about at Victoria Station? Dejected, I let him work through his piece in the lean hope that having it complete in his head might make it easier to duplicate later.
“There, finished!” he proclaimed. “Got it? Hum it back, Frobisher, and then let’s see how it sounds.”
Asked what key we were in. “B-flat, of course!” Time signature? Ayrs pinched the bridge of his nose. “Are you saying you’ve lost my melody?” Struggled to remind myself he was being totally unreasonable. I asked him to repeat the melody, much more slowly, and to label his notes, one by one. There was an acute pause that felt about three hours long while Ayrs decided whether or not to throw a tantrum. In the end, he released a martyred sigh. “Four-eight, changing to eight-eight after the twelfth bar, if you can count that far.” Pause. Remembered my monetary difficulties and bit my lip. “Let’s go all the way back, then.” Patronizing pause. “Ready now? Slowly . . . Tar! What note is that?” Got through a hideous half hour with me guessing every single note, one by one. Ayrs verified or rejected my guess with a weary nod or shake of the head. Mme. C carried in a vase of flowers and I made an SOS face, but V.A. himself declared that we call it a day. As I fled, I heard Ayrs pronounce (for my benefit?), “It is desperate, Jocasta, the boy cannot take down a simple tune. I might as well join the avant-garde and throw darts at pieces of paper with notes written on ’em.”