The Piper's Tune (5 page)

Once, when Lindsay had been convalescing from mumps, he had extracted the boat from its case and had brought it up to her bedroom. He had filled the internal boiler and fired it with shavings and had held it so that she could watch the tiny rods stir and click, the ratchet wheels spin, smoke wisp from the tall funnel and, at last, the paddle wheel begin to turn. Papa had smiled down at her, grinning above the boat, not showing how anxious he was to dispel her dullness and to bring back her liveliness.

Even now, a dozen years later, she could still remember the astonishing speed with which that tiny wheel had turned.

Leaving Miss Runciman to fetch the tea, Lindsay went upstairs and entered the library. She found her father seated not behind but upon the pedestal sideboard. The curtains had been drawn, the fire in the grate was low. He had pulled out one of the swivel jets to light the sideboard but there was no evidence of work on hand. He had unlaced one black shoe, just one. It dangled from his foot as if he had lost interest in taking off the other.

He sighed when Lindsay came in, and said, ‘I suppose you want to know what's going on?'

‘Of course I do,' Lindsay answered.

She seated herself on the chesterfield, quite upright, her small, wing-like shoulders pressed back as if she might fly at him at any moment.

‘I've asked Miss Runciman to bring us tea,' she said.

‘I'm not— yes, come to think of it, I could do with something.'

‘Had you no inkling that Pappy intended to retire?'

‘None. Absolutely none.'

‘Has he never talked of it?'

‘Oh, yes indeed,' her father said. ‘He's been yapping about it for years. Whenever things got on top of him at the yard he'd threaten to pack it all in and retreat to a hut in the Highlands to practise his fly-fishing.'

‘I didn't know he fished.'

‘He doesn't,' her father said. ‘Never cast a rod in his life. That's why none of us took him seriously.'

‘He's not crying “wolf” now, by any chance?'

‘Not this time.' Her father reached behind him and plucked his copy of the cream-laid sheet from the worktop. ‘This may not look like much more than an office memorandum, Lindsay, but believe me it's serious stuff.'

‘I rather thought it might be,' she said. ‘I want you to explain it to me.'

‘What is there to explain? Obviously Pappy wishes to ensure that Franklin's remains a family firm and that your generation has a stake in its future – nominally at least.'

‘Nominally?'

‘Well, you'll have no active part in running the business.' Her father sat back, braced on his hands. ‘What your grandfather has done is draft a new deed of co-partnery which will form the basis of a legal document that will entitle you to receive a small percentage of our profits every year.'

‘What will I have to do to justify this windfall?'

‘Not a blessed thing,' her father said. ‘You've no capital to contribute and I doubt if Pappy expects you to serve an apprenticeship.'

‘I don't see why not,' Lindsay said.

‘No. No. No, no, no.' Her father shook his head. ‘Don't go embracing any fancy ideas, Lindsay. Don't imagine you'd be accepted into the College of Marine Engineers or the Maritime Institute just because you're a partner in Franklin's. That's not on.'

It hadn't occurred to Lindsay that it might be, as her father put it, ‘on'. With the exception of drawing-office tracers and a few clerks and stenographers, the shipbuilding industry had no place for women.

Her father continued, ‘I hope you appreciate just how even-handed your grandfather has been in allotting you a share in the partnership. Of course, you will have to accept some liability.'

‘Liability? What does that mean?'

‘If ever we happen to go bust,' her father said, just as Miss Runciman brought in the tea tray, ‘you'll go down the drain with the rest of us.'

‘Are we in danger of going bust?'

‘Certainly not,' her father said and, hopping from his perch, made for the rack of hot buttered toast as if he hadn't eaten a thing all day.

*   *   *

In spite of many lessons and umpteen hours of practice, Lindsay was no more than proficient on a keyboard. She had no innate musical talent and – something her father could not understand – very little ‘ear'. At best her performances were stiff, at worst clumsy. She envied her cousins, Mercy in particular, for their ability to sit down at a piano and busk a tune or sight-read any sheet of music that was placed before them. The closest Papa and she came to musical rapport was when she accompanied him at parlour soirées or picked out one of the Brunswick Park Choral Society's new arrangements while he got to grips with its harmony and tried to hide his dismay at her lack of musical flair.

There was more rapport between them that Sunday night than there had ever been in the piano alcove in the parlour. Leaning on their elbows, bottoms stuck out, they pored over the deed of co-partnery that set out the reconstitution of the firm:

Even to Lindsay it was obvious that Pappy wanted his sons to have sole authority and to transfer responsibility to their shoulders without upsetting the ship-owners and naval authorities who supplied the contracts. Pappy would not retire penniless, of course. He retained a stake in the firm and had personal equity in two or three ship-owning companies and shares in several of the cargo vessels that Franklin's had built for the Niger Flotilla. Even so, Papa told her, it was remarkably unselfish of the old devil to bow out before age or infirmity undermined his judgement.

‘The current value of our assets is around two hundred and forty thousand pounds,' her father said. ‘By no means large compared to some firms but not bad for a family-owned concern. The limitations of the site at Aydon Road have worked to our advantage, you see. We've never had space to tender for warships or transatlantic liners, so instead we build stern-wheelers and shallow-draught side-wheelers, craft so economical that you can operate them on fresh air and occasional handfuls of grass.'

‘Like the ones for the Niger?' said Lindsay.

‘Clever design, that. Simple to operate and maintain. We sent a small crew of experts over to Burutu to establish a repair shop and ensure that we stayed in the good graces of the Royal Niger Company. Don't think the chaps enjoyed it much, though.'

‘Martin tells me that steam launches bring high profits.'

‘Absolutely,' her father answered. ‘Profit on delivery of a launch runs at about seventeen per cent compared with three or four per cent on a cargo ship.'

‘And now we're moving into torpedo-boats?'

‘You have been talking to Martin, haven't you?'

‘Listening, mostly,' Lindsay said. ‘Am I a partner, Papa? I mean, am I really and truly a partner in Franklin's?'

‘You are, there's no denying it.'

‘Martin will not be pleased,' Lindsay said.

‘Nonsense, he won't mind a bit.'

‘Owen Forbes might be less understanding.'

‘Who? Oh, yes, your Irish cousin. Can't say I'm wild about the idea of taking on an outsider.' Her father leaned against the edge of the sideboard. ‘I don't suppose I should look upon him as an outsider, though McCulloch will never have the authority that Martin has.'

‘Will Martin inherit the major portion of his father's holding when Donald retires?'

‘Assuming we're all spared, yes.'

‘When you retire, if ever you do…'

He let out a bark of laughter. ‘Dear God! Retirement. Still, still, I suppose we
do
have to think about these things.'

‘I'm sorry,' Lindsay said. ‘I didn't mean to sound morbid or mercenary.'

‘No, dearest, you're quite right. I mean, I might pop off at any time. Stranger things have happened.'

‘Papa, please don't say that.'

‘Well, I might. People do.'

‘You won't die, not for a long time yet.'

He drew in breath, held it, let it out again. ‘To answer the question you haven't quite managed to ask, Lindsay: if Franklin's is still a family concern when I slip this mortal coil then, yes, you will inherit my holding.'

‘I see,' said Lindsay. ‘Well, if my destiny is going to be bound up with Franklin's, the sooner I perk up and take an interest the better.'

‘A long eye to the future, do you mean?'

‘Precisely,' Lindsay said. ‘When's the next partners' meeting?'

‘Monday week.'

‘In the boardroom at Aydon Road?'

‘Yes.'

‘Am I permitted to attend?'

‘Absolutely. You're a partner now and no one can stop you.'

‘In that case, may I go with you?'

‘Of course,' Papa answered and then, for no apparent reason, leaned over and kissed her on the brow.

*   *   *

Sleep did not come immediately. It had been a long day, not dreary and by no means uneventful but somehow not so exhausting as other more frivolous Sundays that she'd spent at Harper's Hill. Her premonition had had substance after all. Perhaps Martin had given her a hint. In the past few months he had become uncharacteristically sober, spending more time with his father and grandfather as if he were being drawn into maturity by responsibilities that neither she nor his sisters could be expected to understand.

Lindsay lay on her back in bed, the lace edge of the sheet pulled up to her nose, and stared at the plaster cornices above her.

The bedroom was in the ‘old' part of the house, whatever that meant, since the whole building wasn't much more than thirty years old. The webby look of the high plasterwork intrigued her. She liked to imagine that the craftsmen had lost interest halfway through the contract, had toddled off to dinner one midday and had simply failed to return. The rosebuds and vine leaves did not seem quite complete, as if they were still forming themselves into unpredictable shapes that would take a geological age to settle.

She had never been frightened of being alone in this room. There were always reflections, a faint sifting radiance that the curtains didn't exclude, pattern and texture altering according to weather, the seasons and her changing moods. Tonight her mood was strange: anticipation tinged with regret that her grandfather would no longer be a consolidating presence in Harper's Hill and that Forbes would never know what life had been like in Glasgow in the ‘good old days'. That any memories he and she might share would begin with an April evening grey with the threat of rain.

Owen Forbes McCulloch: new cousin, new partner.

She pursed her lips against the lace.

‘Owen Forbes McCulloch,' she whispered, then, with a wistful sigh, turned on her side to sleep.

CHAPTER THREE

The Ladies' Man

For Lindsay history had never been much more than a matter of memorising the dates of famous battles and equally boring events such as the Repeal of the Corn Laws whose significance was lost on all but a few beastly swots and whose relevance to the average Glaswegian, male or female, was barely one point above zero. Her geography too was a little on the shaky side. If pressed, she might have managed to locate Peking or Korea in the colourful atlas that her father kept in the library. But Glasgow was Glasgow! Home was home! What did famine in Poona or riots in Milan matter when the Carl Rosa Opera Company were ‘doing'
Carmen
in St Andrew's Halls or Daly's were displaying the latest spring styles in white and French regattas? Until she attended her first meeting of Franklin's board it had not even occurred to her that what happened in Cuba or on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire could affect the price of Aunt Lilias's new tea-gown, let alone the cost of bread.

The partners' meeting was scheduled for nine thirty and would be followed by the regular weekly meeting of departmental managers.

Lindsay and her father rode to Aydon Road in a hired hackney. Arthur Franklin preferred to use cabs rather than maintain a rig of his own, for Aydon Road was situated no more than a mile from Brunswick Crescent and in fair weather he liked to walk there and back again.

Lindsay was dressed in a pale brown outfit of Amazon cloth that Nanny said put years on her, which was, of course, the intention. She had even managed to unearth a hat that kept her unruly bubbles of blonde hair firmly in place. Nevertheless she was nervous and felt less like a woman than a dressed-up child. In spite of her uncertainty, she was not inclined to be intimidated. When her father suggested that she might care to leave the boardroom before the managers' meeting she jumped in with, ‘Why should I?'

‘I'm not saying you have to, exactly.'

‘But you would prefer it if I did?'

‘Well – candidly – yes, I would.'

‘I won't say a word.'

‘You'll be bored, you know.'

‘Are you afraid that my presence will offend the managers' sensibilities?'

‘Of course not,' her father said gruffly. ‘Stay if you wish.'

‘Tell you what, if Forbes stays I will too. New boys together. How's that?'

‘McCulloch won't be at the meeting.'

‘Why not?'

‘He's started work at Beardmore's.'

‘No favours?' Lindsay hid her disappointment.