Free Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken

music stand, gestured with it, and they all began to play.
    Dido glanced about her. Wet as she was, she did not think it right to sit on one of the gray velvet seats, so she settled herself cross-legged on the white marble steps that led down to the musicians' plinth in the middle.
    Wisht I had a bite to eat, she thought, sighing—for she knew full well how long her father and his mates were capable of going on, once they all got to playing together.
    After a few minutes, though, the sheer beauty of the music made Dido forget her need for solid nourishment. Pa really can toss it out, she thought happily and dreamily. She was interested, though not at all surprised, to see that as soon as he began to conduct, the last traces of alcoholic fud-dlement dropped away from Mr. Twite, and he became wholly intent on the matter in hand. Dido felt certain that
the music the group was playing was his own, for she recognized several themes in it—the one she had once used to call Calico Alley; and Black Cat Coming Down Stairs, and another one which she remembered without a name; it was very sad ... They were all cleverly knit together, like strands in a piece of woven material, so that first you heard one of them, then another, then they twined round each other to make a new strand, then that crossed over yet another and showed itself in a different character, cheerful instead of gloomy, or dark instead of bright. It's like that thing you look through, with mirrors, and the pieces all slide about, thought Dido, remembering a peep show at the Battersea Fair. If this margrave of Bad What's-his-name can get Pa made master of the king's music, then it's no more than he deserves. Pa's music is the best I ever heard; and I reckon he
ought
to have a house in the Strand with twenty footmen...
    She sat rapt, with her elbows on her knees and her chin propped on her doubled fists; almost an hour had passed before a slight noise behind caused her to turn her head. She saw that a large, rather fat man, grandly dressed in a velvet suit, had come in and sat himself down in a gilded chair with silk cushions that stood on a small marble platform by itself. Mr. Twite continued conducting the music, regardless of the new arrival, but the other four players hesitated a moment, and the rhythm was lost. The margrave—for Dido guessed that it was he—gestured them to go on playing, so they stopped, went back a few bars, started again, and finished the piece.
    "Bravo, gentlemen," said the margrave. "That was most pleasing. I am obliged to you."
    He had a light, high voice.
    Pleasing, thought Dido, it was a lot more
than, pleasing. A whole
lot more.
    "Now you"—the margrave nodded imperiously at the harpsichordist, the hoboy and fagott players—"all of you retire. I wish to speak to Bredalbane."
    The players bowed and retired with silent speed.
    "No doubt, Bredalbane, this is your daughter?"
    The margrave's eye rested coldly on Dido.
    "Dido!" hissed her father. "Make your curtsy to his excellency!"
    How's a person going to curtsy when they're wearing sopping-wet middy's breeks? thought Dido crossly. Instead she got up and ducked her head politely at the nobleman, then sat down again, despite her father's reproving scowl and warning gesture.
    "Yes, my lord—this is my little Dido—the neatest little craft as ever sailed along Battersea Reach."
    Pa's allus silliest when he's scared, thought Dido; what is there in this fat fellow to scare him so? Why don't Pa stand up to the margrave of Thingembob?
    She lifted her eyes and met those of the margrave.
Blimey,
she thought—
now
I see what has got Pa so rattled. This man is like—What is he like? He's like summat I've seen somewhere not so long ago...
    Chasing the memory, which slipped away from her like
a fish in dark water, she studied her father's patron. The margrave of Nordmarck was tall, and fat, but not immensely so; his black hair appeared to be dyed, but there was quite a lot of it; his color was