The Piper's Tune by Jessica Stirling

Author:Jessica Stirling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Winter Rains

The fixing of a wedding date, the purchase of an engagement ring, the family celebration, oddly sober and unmusical, that followed the official announcement, together with Forbes’s obsession with ‘getting the house just right’ left Lindsay rather out in the cold. She saw little of Forbes in the autumn months and even when they were together they were seldom alone. Matrimonial rituals, it appeared, were not designed to bring a happy couple closer together but to drive them, at least temporarily, apart.

The house rang with the thud of mallets, the rasp of saws and a shrill and constant whistling without which, it seemed, carpenters and joiners could not properly function. Eleanor Runciman retreated to the basement kitchen. Even there she could not avoid the interminable racket and knew that weeks of disturbance lay ahead, for Forbes had told her that woodworkers would be followed by plumbers, plumbers by plasterers and plasterers by painters and decorators, all culled from Franklin’s employment roster.

Donald had been less than delighted by this appropriation of part of the labour force. He had pointed out that Martin had paid out of his own pocket for work done on Rosemarket House, where Aurora and he would set up home, and had suggested that Forbes should do the same. An argument ensued between the brothers, and Arthur – who actually agreed with Donald but felt obliged to defend his soon-to-be son-in-law – was drawn into a quarrel that only Pappy’s intervention prevented from becoming a feud. He, Pappy, footed the bill for labour and materials and, to be even-handed, offered to do the same for Tom and Cissie in their newly acquired apartment in Sandyford Avenue, an offer that Tom politely but firmly refused.

Domestic matters did not distract the Franklins from turning profit on their current contracts, in meeting delivery dates and conducting trials to the satisfaction of their several clients, including Mr Kimura, who turned out to be an even worse sailor than Martin and had to be ferried off the Hashitaka before she had covered a sea mile out into the Gareloch. There was another launching almost identical to the first except that the little Kimuras did not put in an appearance and the weather was at its worst, a day of blinding grey rain driven by a strong southwesterly. Lunch afterwards was a damp affair and that evening, for no obvious reason, Lindsay had a fit of panic about her wedding and wept into Eleanor Runciman’s broad, boned bosom.

No panic for Martin and Aurora Swann. They were married in style in St James’s Church in Aurora’s home parish and everyone who was anyone in the shipping trades received an invitation to the service and to the reception in the Congleton Halls thereafter. The Swanns, it seemed, were intent on setting a benchmark for grandeur and expense that the Franklins would be hard pushed to top. Tom and Cissie were quite prepared to settle for a quiet wedding in St Anne’s but Lilias

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