Secret Lament (26 page)

“Damn it, if that’s all you can contribute to the situation, go home! I need some sleep.”

In truth, the whole affair was catching up on me, even though I had somehow missed half the day. I eased myself out and felt drowsiness creeping over me.

Hugh stuck out a foot and prodded me in the leg. “Hey, wake up! You don’t get away so easily. I want to know where you were all day. It wasn’t anything to do with the Julia
Mazzanti thing, was it?”

Reluctantly, I dragged myself back into a sitting position. Outside, an owl hooted; otherwise the town was silent.

After a moment, I said, “You’ll not believe me.”

“Not with Mrs Jerdoun!”

“No!” I said irritably.

There was nothing for it. I told him about the other world, about how I had originally found it (or rather, how it had found me), how I could step through to it. How it bore so many resemblances
to our world, yet was in some ways so different. How I existed there too, but spirits did not. How Julia Mazzanti existed there, still alive, so like her counterpart and so different. How I could
only seem to visit that world in times of crisis, how I had at first feared it but now began to be fascinated by it. How I was coming to believe that what I learnt there might help me solve the
mystery of Julia’s death in this world.

He did not believe me.

And I order especially that my son take good care of all his sisters, and ensure that no fortune hunter comes near them.

[Will of Frederick Carlisle, 25 December 1712]

Hugh and I argued about the matter at great length. He had a huge store of reasons why I was wrong, why I was mistaken, why I was just plain confused and imagining things.

“I am not imagining it,” I said irritably. “Ask Heron.”

That was at about six in the morning and it silenced Hugh at last.

“Heron was there?”

I explained.

“Damn it, Heron’s a sensible man.”

“Hugh!” I said, outraged. “We’ve known each other since childhood and you’d rather believe Heron than me!”

“Yes,” he said unequivocally. “For one very good reason. The fellow doesn’t have an ounce of imagination in him. He couldn’t possibly make up a story like
that.”

Heron hadn’t lacked imagination in his story about the letters, I reflected wryly.

“Damn it,” I said. “I need sleep.” And I turned over and ignored his mutterings.

I dozed restlessly until around seven then got up and splashed water on my face. I could contain my anxiety about Esther no longer. Hugh was still sleeping; I left him to snore and went off to
Caroline Square.

Once, not so long ago, I would have approached Esther’s house in Caroline Square with trepidation; for some time it had been the only place where I could step through to the other world,
and I had had no control over the act. But now I knew that I could to some extent choose whether I came or went, so I marched up to Esther’s front door with no fears at all, and rapped at the
knocker.

The servant, Tom, came almost immediately, impeccably dressed in his livery and beaming at me. He was plainly a man who had had a good night’s sleep.

“We did it, sir!” he said enthusiastically, as he let me in. “Run him off, we did. Not a sign of him last night.”

Esther’s maid Catherine came running down the stairs as cheerful and bright as Tom. “Come on up, Mr Patterson. Mrs Jerdoun said I was to show you in as soon as you came.”

So I went up the stairs after her and before I knew it I was walking through a door into what was plainly a private dressing room, and looking at Esther lounging in a chair with a dish of hot
chocolate in her hands. She was still in her night robe with a gown drawn over the top of it; her feet were bare and her fair hair was loose over her shoulders and down her back. I stopped dead, my
heart leaping into my mouth; she looked beautiful beyond expression.

And she looked up at me with an amused, sly look that told me this encounter was not accidental. She had intended me to find her this way.

I kept my back to the door, trying to control my breathing. I cleared my throat.

“Tom says your intruder has abandoned you.”

“Alas, yes,” Esther said with mock distress. “He took pity on us and let us sleep undisturbed.” Her amused look lingered a moment longer, then she frowned and put down
the dish with a snap on the table by her side. “You’re hurt,” she said.

She got up. I couldn’t move quickly enough to stop her taking hold of my arm, and reaching up to where I had been bleeding earlier. She pushed back the hair at my temple. Her fingers were
warm and smelt faintly of roses; her hair drifted across my cheek. I drew back.

There was a calculated look in her eye as if she could divine exactly what I was thinking and feeling. A smile drifted across her face; she remained where she was, close enough for me to embrace
her. When I did not, she sighed, said coolly, “Very well, tell me what happened.”

She settled herself back in her chair and indicated the chair opposite her.

I should have refused. I did not. I was in no danger of forgetting the difference between Esther’s position and mine, in age, wealth and social standing, but I was weak enough to indulge
myself a little. To use Hugh’s metaphor, I knew the difference between shallow water and deep dangerous currents. I eased myself down, started talking to distract myself from her closeness.
But hardly had I started than Catherine came in with a dish of chocolate for me.

“Cook says would you like some breakfast?”

Esther nodded. “And bring something for Mr Patterson.”

Long before the breakfast arrived, Esther had flown into a temper. It straightened her spine, stilled her fingers and hardened her jaw. She stared directly at me with cold rage.

“You went to Heron for help?”

“I couldn’t think of anyone – ”

“It did not occur to you that I could have helped?”

“It occurred to me, yes – ”

“Then why did you not come?!”

“It would have ruined your reputation,” I said.

Esther put down her dish, pushed herself from her chair, prowled about the small room, straightened the curtains which were still drawn, pinched out a guttering candle. “This is
abominable. Not to be endured!”

I wasn’t entirely sure to what she referred. “I didn’t want to – ”

“Something must be done.” She gripped the back of her chair, gave me a long hard look. “This wretched situation cannot go on.”

Now I did know what she was thinking of. I didn’t want to discuss the matter. I found myself suddenly in sympathy with Ned, and with Ciara Mazzanti; some things are better ignored.

“It is abominable that two grown people cannot do what they wish without society prying and complaining. We are not children!”

“Rules are there for a good reason,” I said, as levelly as I could.

“To facilitate the working of society, not to hamper it!”

“If Julia Mazzanti had not defied her father,” I said, “she might be alive now. Instead, she tried to elope, and that exposed her to fatal danger.”

“Julia was a foolish child,” Esther said. She took a deep breath to calm herself, leant on the back of her chair. “I am thirty-nine years old, Charles, and I have lived on my
own good sense since my father died when I was twenty-three. I think that by now I know the ways of the world!”

“That does not prevent the dangers,” I pointed out.

“But it does mean I know how to deal with them,” she retorted. “Oh, really, Charles, how could anyone who knew us both think you a fortune hunter and me a fool who would fall
for a villain’s blandishments?!”

“Ord, Jenison, half the ladies in town,” I murmured. “No, all of them.”

She resisted for a moment then laughed shakily. “Charles, Charles!” She looked at me a moment longer. “I cannot persuade you to thumb your nose at society?”

I thought her right, in all respects. Why should society condemn us for not fitting into its conventional categories? It is hardly fair, yet it is not possible to ignore the fact that it does.
So we are forced into a situation where we do as society requires, or accept the consequences if we do not. No wonder there are so many secrets in the world.

“No,” I said. “Your reputation depends on society’s good will.”

She came round the chair to sit down again. “And your living too. I must not forget it. Charles…” She hesitated, then went on, with some determination. “I have a
confession to make. I was the one who bought you the ticket for the organ – the ticket that won you the prize.”

I breathed deeply. This had been another matter I had been avoiding assiduously. I had always known that it must be Esther or Heron who had bought the ticket; if it had been Heron that would
have been at least tolerable, if oddly secretive and roundabout for so direct a man, but for it to come from Esther! What would society at large say if it was known? It would inevitably think the
worst.

She was looking uneasy at my silence. “I thought that if you had a little more money, it might make your feel a little more my equal.”

I laughed, bitterly. “A hundred guineas makes me feel a great deal better, but it hardly compares with your thousands.”

“No,” she agreed, and added impishly, “but at least you would not come penniless to a marriage.”

At that moment, Catherine scratched on the door.

By the time the table and chairs had been rearranged, the curtains drawn back to let in the sunshine, the candles pinched out, and a breakfast of breathtaking variety set out,
the moment to respond to Esther had gone. I was reprieved for the moment, but I knew it was only a temporary respite. Esther would raise the topic again. Marriage! How could I drag her into the
furore that would cause?

I was ravenously hungry, could not remember the last time I had eaten. As I worked my way through eggs, ham, devilled kidneys, meat pie and local black-skinned cheeses, I finished the tale of my
encounter with Bedwalters. Esther, I noted, was not one of those women who pick listlessly at food; she ate steadily, and with every sign of enjoyment.

At the end of my recital, she sipped at the remains of her chocolate contemplatively, stared at the sunshine striping the wall, then said, “What else aren’t you telling
me?”

I had contrived to omit the ribbon from the tale but as the need to do so had only occurred to me at the last moment, I supposed she had divined that the tale did not quite hang together.

She continued to muse. “The only reason you might leave out something,” she pursued, “is that the matter concerns me.” She set her head on one side, gave me a reproachful
glance. “Charles, if you think anything would frighten me, I despair of ever teaching you my character!”

I gave in. It was a relief to do so. I dislike having secrets from my friends and in truth I am a bad liar. I told her about the ribbon and where I had found it. Esther raised an eyebrow.

“My intruder is the murderer?”

“I have come to that conclusion,” I said reluctantly.

“But it doesn’t make sense!” She frowned. “You think he has some grudge against me personally? But I have nothing at all in common with Julia Mazzanti.”

“He must think you have.”

She shook her head. “Preposterous. There is nothing, can be nothing. I never spoke to the girl or her parents. I have had nothing to do with them – in fact I cannot even recall
talking about them except to you. I was not even at the rehearsal for the Signora’s concert.”

She sat up straight suddenly.

“Charles,” she said in an odd voice. “I am wrong. We do have one thing in common, Julia and I.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “You.”

Nothing ever reforms a thief, sir. There is nothing to do but step down hard on them and keep them underfoot. That is what transportation is for!

[Letter from JUSTICIA to Mayor of Newcastle upon Tyne, printed in the
Newcastle Courant
, 15 May 1736.]

I stared at her in horror. Did the murderer know about my relationship with Esther? Had he believed me to be courting Julia? If Mazzanti had told Bedwalters that story, he
might have told others too. No, no, if all that was true, it would be a reason to attack
me
, not Julia or Esther. Then why was the murderer trying to get into this house?

“The house,” I said, weak with relief. “It’s the house. He’s not after you – he simply wants to get into this house!”

Dear God, was the murderer someone else who could step through?

“Charles!” Esther reached across the table and shook my arm. Her warm fingers sent a tingle down my spine. “How is the house significant?”

I had to tell her about the linked worlds. Unlike Hugh, she did not keep interrupting me with expressions of incredulity nor she did she snort or make deriding noises. But at the end of the
tale, I saw her take a deep breath as if steeling herself to do something unpleasant.

“Charles – I – ”

“I know, I know. It sounds preposterous. But Claudius Heron will corroborate everything I say.”

I noted wryly that Esther, like Hugh, was more influenced by that than by everything I had said before. She frowned. “You swear this is the truth?”

“I swear.”

“You do not think you could be mistaken?”

“No.”

“Dear God,” she said. “It is bad enough knowing that every day you walk out of my life, and I only know if you are well or ill, alive or dead, by the gossip or chance remarks
of other people, or when you visit under cover of some acceptable excuse. But to know that when I don’t see you, you might be in some other world, entirely, completely out of
everyone’s
reach! Charles.” She leant across the table and seized my arm again. “You must promise me you will never go into this other place again.”

I drew back, startled. “That’s not possible – ”

“Then at least not alone.”

“I can’t do that either,” I protested. “I can never predict when the world will open up. Oh, I am beginning to be able to say whether I go or stay, but – ” I
searched for words. “It’s like a door. If the door is unlocked, I can choose whether I go through or not, but if it is locked, I cannot do anything. And sometimes it opens unexpectedly
and I have no choice whether to go or stay.”