Secret Lament (20 page)

A shadow moved. My heart leapt – but it was only a cat lightly running across the road. A white cat lurid in the darkness. Silence again.

I started walking. It was still uncomfortably warm. I should have borrowed one of Esther’s pistols. Or at least found myself a stout walking stick. Or a kitchen knife? I should at least
have picked up a knife.

My footsteps echoed in the empty street. I tried to tiptoe. I could hear my breathing. I nearly broke into a run. The quicker I got out of these streets the better. But that would be admitting
to panic –

I quickened my pace. A spirit murmured out of the darkness high above me. “Dark nights. I always hated dark nights.” Heart racing, I broke into a run, tried to fall back into a walk,
could not. I jogged on past the vicarage gardens. The sound of drunken singing, very distantly. A spirit? Or living men?

God help me, it was a living man. Reeling out of the shadows shrouding the garden and peering at me in a drunken stupor. He still held a bottle.

I recognised him at once. One of the ruffians. He peered at me, pointed waveringly. “You’re – you’re – Hey!” I heard more footsteps. Damn it, he was not
alone.

There was no point in delaying. I put my head down and went for him. He staggered aside at the last moment and only my shoulder caught him, spinning him backwards. I clenched my fist and swung
at him.

He stumbled. I connected only with air.

There were two others, staring blearily at me from an alley. God, but they were drunk. I barged into one of them, then pulled away. Discretion is always the better part of valour and discretion
was telling me to run.

Something caught my ankle.

I went down, hit the cobbles with a thump that jarred the breath out of me.

The fellow had a fist around my leg. He tried to lever himself to his feet. Somehow his bottle had been broken; he had it by the neck and was waving the jagged ends at me. Beer dripped on to my
face. He was weaving and staggering and his aim was not going to be good, but at this distance he could not miss.

And I could not move. I gasped for air, willed my legs to kick out. There was a roaring in my ears. The men were laughing, jeering –

The clatter of horse’s hooves.

The men yelled, veered away. I heard their footsteps as they ran off. Still gasping for breath, I looked up into the face of a man sitting on a chestnut horse. He was smirking.

“Well, Charles,” he said. “It’s nice to be able to rescue you for a change.”

My good friend, the dancing master, Hugh Demsey.

Late nights never profit a man.

[
Instructions to a Son newly come of Age
, Revd. Peter Morgan (London: published for the Author, 1691)]

It took us an hour to wake the owner of a tavern at the top of Westgate where Hugh usually stabled his horse, and to rub the animal down and feed it. In the stable that smelt
of hay and horse shit, and warmth, Hugh was as cheerful as a man in drink. I suspected that he
was
in drink.

“Nonsense,” he said, struggling under the weight of his saddle as he slid it from the horse’s back. “I only had three or four beers while I was waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For the farrier to shoe the horse.”

He had set off from Houghton-le-Spring in late afternoon, it transpired, confident that with the long days he could still get home in the light. But the horse had cast a shoe and Hugh had had to
go miles out of his way to find a blacksmith. Then the fellow had had to stoke up his fire again, and send for his apprentice who had gone off courting, and the blacksmith’s wife had been
very hospitable, and all in all it had been almost dark when Hugh set off again.

“And coming across Gateshead Fell in the dark wasn’t fun, I can tell you,” Hugh said, rubbing the horse down. “I still haven’t forgotten the fellows who left the
post boy for dead and stole his letters.”

“They were hanged the other week at York,” I said dismissively. “Why didn’t you just stay overnight with the blacksmith? It sounds as if his wife had taken a fancy to
you.”

“That’s precisely why I didn’t stay!” Hugh forked hay for the horse, patted its flanks and reached for his bags. “And what an ungrateful thing to say when
I’ve just saved your skin. Come to my rooms and tell me everything.”

We walked down the street towards Hugh’s lodgings. I could not help but glance about in trepidation in case the ruffians still lingered, but we reached the building in safety and climbed
the narrow stairs past the clockmakers on the ground floor, Hugh’s dancing school on the first floor, the widow and her children on the second, up to Hugh’s attic room. Hugh owns the
entire building, having inherited it from his late master; he does not look it and he certainly does not flaunt it (except in his clothes) but he is a wealthy man.

The attic was stiflingly hot, having been shut up for several weeks; it was difficult to draw breath. Hugh flung open the window, wafted a few papers around futilely and dropped on to his bed
with a relieved sigh.

“It’s been a long day. I was teaching all morning and afternoon.”

I perched on the only chair in the room, an uncertain old dining chair that had seen much better days. Hugh had not bothered to light a candle and we sat in a darkness relieved only by the faint
light of a lantern that still burned in the street outside.

“I’m grateful to you for coming back so quickly.”

“Eh?”

“After getting my note.”

“What note?”

“The one I sent you asking you to come back.”

“Never got it.”

Then I remembered I had never sent it. I fished in my pockets and found it, crumpled and bedraggled where I had thrust it after Bedwalters interrupted me.

“Come on, Charles,” Hugh said with relish. “Tell me all about it. What mess have you got yourself into this time?”

I told him in detail, from the beginning, lingering lovingly over Mazzanti’s comments on my violin playing, his exaltation of Julia’s very few merits, the attempts on his life. Hugh
whistled when he heard of Ned’s courtship of Julia and muttered something to the effect that Ned was the most foolish idiot he had ever met. I told him about Ord’s infatuation and he
obliged me by getting indignant on Lizzie Saint’s behalf – she was one of Hugh’s pupils too. I told him about discovering Julia’s body, and about Corelli.

Hugh was silent for a moment at that. “As a matter of fact – ”

“Yes?”

“It’s owing to Corelli I’m here. I met the fellow.”

“What!”

“In Houghton-le-Spring. In a tavern last night when I was having a nice quiet chop. Said he was a friend of yours.”

I snorted.

“Then he said – Wait!” Hugh rose up off the bed and crawled to shut the window again – in case someone passing in the street overheard us, I presumed. In the darkness, he
was an outline against the faint lantern light outside. “He said he was a government agent, looking for spies. Is that true, Charles?”

“The devil it is,” I retorted. Then honesty reared its head. “He says Mazzanti is a spy. God knows he might be – the situation in Europe’s complicated enough. And
in America. And if Mazzanti is a spy, it might explain why someone is trying to kill him.”

“He has stolen secrets that must never be allowed to get into the wrong hands!” Hugh said melodramatically, then came back down to earth. “Corelli’s no government agent,
Charles. I’ve met one or two of those in Paris and they’re a different sort of men altogether. If you ask me, Corelli’s a thief, trying to gull honest men out of their
guineas.”

I nodded. “I’d come to that conclusion myself. Did he try anything of the sort on you?”

“No.” Hugh shifted uneasily. “He came straight up to me, said I’d been pointed out to him and that he knew you. He said he was worried about you.”

“Worried?” I said, startled. “Why?”

“Said you’d tangled with some ruffians and they were after you. Well, I know what
that
is all about – don’t forget I was there during that business in March when
you offended them, Charles. Though you didn’t say they were still after you. I’d wager he was genuinely concerned, you know.”

“I can’t imagine why. I still haven’t completely ruled him out as Julia’s murderer. Or the accomplice of someone else who was.”

“Never said a word to me about the Mazzanti girl.” Hugh was silent for a moment, the only sound in the dark room our quiet breathing. “He wasn’t a happy man, Charles.
Kept a sharp lookout for strangers, insisted on sitting with his back to the wall, wouldn’t stay longer than he had to. And I fancy…” he hesitated. “I fancy he was in a
rage, Charles. He was having to bite his lip all the time, stop himself bursting out in a fury.”

“At what?”

I dimly saw Hugh shrug.

We mused over Corelli’s behaviour a while longer. He had told Hugh he intended to catch a ship at Sunderland, so either he had changed his mind or his intimation to Mrs Hill that he
intended to go to Shields had been a deliberate misdirection. But at the back of my mind all the time we talked was the question of how honest I could be with Hugh. I had Ord’s letters on me,
and the ribbon I had found in the herb bushes outside Esther’s kitchen window; I would happily sacrifice Ord’s infatuation but Esther’s reputation was a different matter.

I told him about Ord. Hugh condemned me for taking the letters but not for any reason of morality; he thought I should have left them for Bedwalters to find and let Ord take the
consequences.

“He’s the most supercilious, patronising fellow I know. Have you read them yet?”

“They’re private correspondence, Hugh!”

“And he could be a murderer.”

I shuffled a little uneasily. “That’s what I was going home to do as a matter of fact.”

I saw his teeth gleam as he grinned.

“And the other matter, Charles? What else are you not telling me?”

I sighed and told him about Esther’s intruder. It was a relief to talk about it, to express my concern. Hugh listened without comment. He probably would have guessed that Esther and I were
comfortable enough with each other for her to turn to me for help, for we had all taken a part in that fracas in March that led to my disagreement with the ruffians; he had seen us together then
and had cautiously uttered one or two warnings a day or two afterwards. Which, of course, I had ignored, even while I realised I was foolish to do so.

When I had finished, Hugh was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “You’re taking a devilish risk, Charles. The town is full of people who think they know exactly how society should
be, and they have the power to get what they want. And to ostracise people who won’t do as they say. And then she’ll have no reputation, and you’ll have no living.”

“I’m interested in a murderer,” I said, obstinately. “That’s the issue in hand.”

“Meaning that you’re not going to listen to me. Again.”

“You don’t – you
can’t
– understand fully.”

“I do,” he retorted. “I understand that when people start saying,
You can’t understand how I feel
or some such thing, they’re just about to do something
really stupid and don’t want to be talked out of it.”

“The ribbon,” I said, between gritted teeth.

He sighed. “Very well. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. You think Mrs Jerdoun’s would-be intruder is Julia Mazzanti’s murderer.”

“In all probability, yes. The ribbon proves that.”

“So he’s trying to murder Mrs Jerdoun too?”

I winced. “It’s a possibility. But I can’t imagine why. I’m not sure that the two women ever met.”

“They must have something in common.”

I gestured helplessly. “Nothing.”

Hugh swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I’m exhausted, Charles.” He stripped off his coat. “I’m going to sleep. And if you’ve any sense you’ll
bed down here until it’s light. Wandering the street at night is never a good idea, let alone when you’ve offended half the scum of the town. And give up all this traipsing about town
in search of murderers. Leave it to Bedwalters.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t tell him about the ribbon. He’d ask where I found it and I’ll have to tell him about Esther.”

“Bedwalters will keep his mouth shut.”

I shook my head. “I can’t be certain of that.”

“Then get Mrs Jerdoun to give him the ribbon.”

“That wouldn’t work either! She’d have to tell him why she knows it’s significant, which would mean admitting to her – her – ”

“Intimacy?” Hugh suggested.

I ground my teeth. “Her friendship with me. Anyway, I haven’t told Esther about the ribbon.”

Hugh collapsed back on to the bed with a groan. “Charles, Charles! How do you get yourself into such messes?”

I took a deep breath. I’d never told Hugh about the world that ran alongside our own or my ability to step through into it. Only Claudius Heron knows about that. Should I tell Hugh? Or
would he think me mad?

He rolled over to the far side of the bed and curled into a ball. “Go to sleep, Charles.”

I tugged off my coat and hung it neatly over the back of his chair, sat on the edge of the bed to tug off my shoes.

“Corelli did say one odd thing,” Hugh said out of the darkness.

“What?”

“He said it was all his fault. That if he’d had any sense, none of this would ever have happened. Do you think he was complicit in Julia Mazzanti’s death?”

I lay down and stared into the darkness. Corelli had been horrified to see Julia’s body. I was certain he had not had time to kill her himself but was her death a consequence of something
he had done, a consequence that he had never intended? And if so, what?

The love between a woman and her daughters is one of the greatest blessings life has to offer.

[Letter of Lady Hubert to her eldest daughter on the birth of the latter’s daughter, September 1731]

Hugh was his usual sleepy self in the morning; he had once told me he never felt awake until midday. I found this almost more annoying about him than anything else; everything
had to be said three times before he finally repeated it correctly. We established, eventually, that he intended going down to the printing office to put a notice in this week’s
Courant
, announcing he was returned to town early and was available for lessons.