Secret Lament

by Roz Southey

  So Mazzanti had been the architect of his own downfall. That did not surprise me. “One of these attacks is going to be successful sooner or later.”

  Corelli shrugged his coat from his shoulders. “Never,” he said confidently, then smiled at my surprise. “The worst of men always live charmed lives. I hear they were burgled last night.”

  He wanted to know all about it; he wanted to know very much, brushing off my casual dismissal and pressing me further. “It’s no use asking,” I said. “I don’t know.” I eyed him curiously. There was something that didn’t quite smell right about him, even apart from his ludicrous name. He was good-humoured and pleasant enough but his interest was too great for it to be casual.

  His gaze slipped from Mazzanti to Julia and back again. It was the father that interested him most, I thought, and wondered why. One possible explanation came to mind. Mazzanti would certainly have creditors who might be getting impatient for their money; it would not have surprised me if Corelli had been sent by one of them. He would naturally be interested if anyone was threatening Mazzanti and might kill him before his debts were paid.

  For the first time, he wafted a hand across his face as if to cool himself. “You look like a busy man,” he said.

  I did not dignify that with a reply.

  “I need advice,” he said. “I’m thinking of setting myself up as a fencing master, and a teacher of French and Italian. Do you reckon there’s a market for it in the town?”

  I did not believe him for a minute. He was looking for an excuse to justify his lingering in Newcastle. “Fencing, yes,” I agreed. “Foreign languages? I doubt it.”

  He grinned. “You surprise me. Allow me to treat you to a beer or two and pick your brains on the best people to apply to. Where should I set up my school? Who is likely to patronise me? The trades people or the gentry?”

  It was clearly an attempt to get me on my own and pump me for information; I was ready to wager we would talk more about the Mazzantis than about fencing. But devil take it, I was merely kicking my heels here and acting as consoler for all the miseries of the company. And if Mazzanti was dunned by his creditors, it would be some small measure of revenge for the annoyances he had inflicted on me. In any case, a man ought to pay his debts.

  “I have an engagement in an hour or so,” I said. “A rehearsal of Signora Mazzanti’s solos for the Race Week concerts.”

  “I’m happy to wait,” he said.

  9

  No one can ask for a straight path, sir. There are daily difficulties that call for our full attention.

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

  The rehearsal was in the Assembly Rooms on Westgate Road and I had expected it to be a quiet affair. The Signora was an experienced singer and would not need extended practice of her songs. A little effort to get the band to play in time and tune and an hour would be more than ample.

  But I walked in to find a full complement of gentlemen, all the directors of the winter concerts presumably come to hear what they were paying so large a sum of money for. (One hundred guineas!) Mr Jenison, director in chief, greeted me at the door with some impatience. “Ah, Patterson. At last. We are all ready for you.”

  I glanced around. Three or four violinists stood at the end of the room, with the Rev. Mr Brown, who was tuning his cello. The harpsichord was positioned to one side. Signora Mazzanti was ensconsed in a comfortable armchair, picking at a bowl of sweetmeats. I began to understand what Jenison meant.

  “You wish me to direct the band?”

  He must have heard the frost in my voice. They had replaced me with John Mazzanti but still expected me to stand in for him when they demanded it.

  “Signor Mazzanti is still engaged at the theatre, directing his daughter’s performance,” Jenison said. “Someone must deputise for him here.”

  Signora Mazzanti was near enough to hear what he said; she reddened, I noticed. But she merely said, in a little girl’s voice, “Mr Jenison…”

  “Dear lady!” And he swooped on her, bore her up to the front of the room solicitously. And this from a man who openly regrets that the whole world is not English. But then Italian musicians have a certain glamour about them, a cachet which allows one to turn a blind eye to their unfortunate birth.

  Signora Ciara Mazzanti also had a wonderful voice, and an innate, instinctive musicianship that was a joy to work with. She was not in the least disconcerted by the wrong notes in the band, or by having to repeat the opening of her first song three times so I could be sure all the band would start at the same time. More than all that, she had the ability to silence every one of the listening gentlemen and that is rare indeed.

  Although, as I closed up my books at the end of the rehearsal, I did hear one gentleman say: “A pity she’s so fat. Past her best.”

  Corelli and I spent the evening in the taverns, starting respectably at Mrs Hill’s in the Fleshmarket and working our way down the social scale from there. At least that way we drank decent beer while we could still appreciate it. I left my violin with Mrs Hill for safekeeping which was as well because some time in the evening Corelli left his coat in a tavern and couldn’t remember which.

  He was good company, even if he did ask too many questions. I started by asking “why do you want to know?” to every question and ended by giving him practically an entire history of the town. He asked about me too – even in my hazy state at the end of the evening I had the feeling he already knew a great deal about me before he started asking. By then, it struck me as flattering rather than odd. I was a great personage – everyone in the town knew about me.

  Corelli wanted to know about the Mazzantis too and I gave him a blow by blow account of the attack at the theatre. I even told him about the ruffians who were after me and he exclaimed in horror at their audacity; we talked at great length about the evils of society and agreed that the country was going to the dogs, Walpole or no. He told me about the low orders in Venice and Ferrara, all of which I promptly forgot. I told him about the last time Hugh Demsey was in Paris and was attacked by some knife-wielding thug; Hugh did a cotillion around him and got the fellow so confused he ran off in despair.

  I wished Hugh was in town now, instead of in Houghton-le-Spring. He’d help run off the ruffians. And talking to him always clears my mind.

  We were drunk well before eleven. We were not the only ones. I saw Philip Ord at one point, on his own, distinctly the worse for wear, going into Mrs Hill’s just before midnight. Heaven help us, even Proctor the psalm teacher was wandering the streets forlornly. And in a tavern on the Keyside, I glimpsed Ned and Richard with a fellow I did not know; they were arguing violently and Ned stormed off on his own.

  When I heard St Nicholas’s church clock strike midnight, I decided to go home. I was not sure where I was but I was grubby and sticky with spilt beer and surprisingly hungry – I couldn’t remember whether I had eaten or not. I remember saying goodnight to Corelli, who was lodging at Mrs Hill’s, and I remember turning for home. But then I found myself staring up at St Nicholas’s church spires and realised that I was going the wrong way.

  I knew in some distant instinctive way that I needed to cross the High Bridge over the Lort Burn to get to the other side of town and my lodgings. I thought I knew where High Bridge was but St Nicholas’s spires were falling over and I needed to hold them up so I was hampered somewhat. As I struggled with them, I called out for someone to give me a helping hand. A fellow came trotting up. Or possibly two. Or more. He was filthy but seemed remarkably helpful. He patted me on the back.

  The next moment I was lying in the gutter, my head was exploding and my guts were on fire.

  There were three or four of them. I smelt the bitter reek of gin as one leant over me, leering. He seemed to be in charge. I had fought a man who looked remarkably like him two months ago, I remembered, beaten him too. He didn’t seem to be pleased.

  I curled into a ball on the h
ard cobbles of the street, suddenly sober. A kick landed in my back and I screeched in pain. Then someone kicked me in the head and the world exploded in lights. Lightning streaked across my sight. I could hear someone screaming. It was me.

  And then the sound of shouting and of running feet.

  Silence.

  Corelli propped me against the churchyard railings, forced me to drink spirits from a bottle he pulled from his pocket. I choked, spat and vomited up all the beer I had drunk into the gutter.

  I lay back against the railings, exhausted, while Corelli squatted on his haunches in front of me. He looked none too healthy either but he grinned, despite his obvious weariness. “They didn’t even resist – just ran away from me. Six of them!”

  Perhaps they had been frightened at the bulk of him. More like, they preferred easy prey.

  I staggered to my feet; Corelli grabbed me and pulled me upright. “I’m grateful you came by.”

  “Taking the air,” he confessed, as if it was a mortal sin. “Trying to stop my head spinning.”

  I squinted at him. I was not so drunk now. Fresh air was not a convincing excuse; had he been following me? But why the devil should he?

  I stumbled; he slipped my arm over his shoulder – I protested but only for form’s sake.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “The High Bridge.”

  “You’ll have to show me where that is.”

  I nearly collapsed as we moved off; there was a stabbing pain in my back that wanted to double me up. As we limped along, I noticed that Corelli was keeping a sharp eye out for trouble. I ought to be doing that, if only I could think straight.

  I couldn’t remember if I had thanked him; I said, “I owe you…”

  “Nothing,” he said, firmly. “This is payment for all your free advice about my fencing school.”

  I couldn’t remember talking about his fencing school. I couldn’t remember anything we’d talked about. Everything was hazy. I limped on – and came to an abrupt halt as Corelli stood stock still.

  He was looking down Amen Corner, the street that runs round the back of St Nicholas. In the middle of the cobbles, just before the street turns a corner to the right, was a white heap.

  We looked at it for a long moment.

  “A sack,” I said, finally. “Or abandoned copies of the Courant.”

  We both knew it was not. Corelli left me clinging to the railings and went quickly down the street. I hobbled after him. My head throbbed, my back ached and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that pale heap abandoned on the cobbles.

  It was a white bundle of muslin and lace and ribbons. As I reached the place, Corelli was lifting a layer of cloth and revealing what lay beneath. A pale face, frozen in death.

  I had been wrong. No one had murdered John Mazzanti. They had taken his daughter instead.

  10

  We must not close our eyes to the dangers of life.

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

  Aches and pains forgotten, I bent to tweak away a further inch or two of fabric. The light was poor – the nearest of two or three lanterns that burned in Amen Corner was twenty yards away – but the bruises on the girl’s neck were very visible. The dark marks of fingers.

  “Strangled,” Corelli said. I glanced at him. One of the lights was behind him; he was a dark shape squatting down beside me, his face hidden by the shadows. But I heard his fury in his voice.

  Julia Mazzanti lay face down on the hard cobbles, her left cheek pressed into the ground, her once pretty features distorted. Blood was matted in her hair at the left temple and stained the length of looped ribbon that tied up the long blonde strands. Some of the hair trailed free, stiff with blood. Her hands were by her neck as if they had been raised to prise away her murderer’s hands; scratches from her nails marked the fair skin by the bruises.

  I drew back to take in the full slight length of her – and saw blood on the white muslin. I was beginning to feel a fury as great as that which obviously possessed Corelli.

  “I’d lay odds she’s been raped.”

  I was scanning the surrounding area of cobbles to see whether the attacker had left some clue as to his identity – a button, a scrap of torn cloth, even a dropped piece of paper – when I heard Corelli’s shocked whisper. He had drawn back slightly and the light fell across his horrified face. Dear God, he had the air of a man of the world; he must know the injuries men are capable of doing each other. But he stared numbly at the girl’s body as if this was the last thing he had imagined might happen.

  “Corelli!” I raised my voice and spoke loudly. There is no point in being sympathetic on occasions like this – only brisk efficiency stops people falling apart. “We must alert the constable, Bedwalters. You must go for him – I’d take half the night to get across town with this sore back.”

  He pulled back so quickly that he almost overbalanced. He put a hand on the cobbles to steady himself. “No.”

  “It’s not far,” I said, talking as calmly as I could. “Bedwalters is a writing master – he lives at his school on Westgate.”

  He scrambled to his feet. His face was shadowed and unreadable. “I don’t want to get involved in this.”

  “Damn it – ”

  “I’m not going.”

  “You can’t walk out on a murdered girl!”

  He snarled at me. “You go if you’re so concerned!”

  My back was aching with bending over the girl; I stood to face him. “Bedwalters lives next to the Assembly Rooms,” I said evenly. “You can’t miss the house.”

  “Go yourself!” he roared. And walked off.

  I could not believe the callousness that would leave a young girl dead and uncared for on the cold cobbles of a public street. I drew the thin muslin over Julia Mazzanti’s head and called for a spirit. After a moment, I heard the thin wail of a child, two or three years old, crying for her mummy. Damn it, there must be more spirits than that in the street! But I had to walk out of Amen Corner and down the street into one of the poor alleys around the Castle Gate before any replied to me. Half of them must be feigning deafness; that feeling of distrust returned in full force now. Not that living men were much better – how could Corelli walk away?

  The spirit who finally answered had been a middle-aged woman in life by the sound of her, who clucked and tutted and promised to send a message for Bedwalters straight away. I walked back to Amen Corner. There was a pain in my back and a stitch in my side and I found it difficult to catch my breath. I had to stop once or twice, leaning against a wall to ease the pain. At last I turned back into Amen Corner –

  There was a man bending over the body.

  I thought at first it must be Bedwalters. Perhaps he had been close by and received the message almost at once – spirits can send a message across town in the time it takes a living man to draw a breath. But the figure was too slender and slight a figure to be Bedwalters. Uneasily, I called out. The man’s head jerked up. Damn the poor light. He took a step or two backwards. Did I see a flash of light on metal? A knife? I bellowed in rage. The man jerked back.

  Then he started to run, and I started to run, and he was gone down a side street in a flash, and I was left staring at empty air and cursing.

  And after that, there was nothing to do but sit on the stone base of the churchyard railings and wait for Bedwalters. And pray that the ruffians did not come back.

  11

  Died: Suddenly, Miss Julia Mazzanti, in the 17th year of her age. By her death, the theatre has been robbed of a promising ornament.

  [Newcastle Courant 19 June 1736]

  I sat in the drawing room of Mrs Baker’s lodging house listening to the sounds of grief. The door was ajar to the hallway; it was a small house and sounds carried. Upstairs, John Mazzanti was shouting with rage – I heard Bedwalters the constable raising his voice unwontedly in an effort to calm him. Across the hall, Ciara Mazzanti was sobbing, melodra
matic hysterical wails; Mrs Baker’s soft consoling murmurs were hardly audible.

  And there was Philip Ord too, raising his voice to snap at Bedwalters. Ord was closer, halfway up or down the stairs.

  The ornate clock on the mantelpiece ticked; a fox barked outside in the street. I could not stop thinking about the events of the night, as if reliving them might somehow change them.

  Bedwalters had taken twenty minutes to reach Amen Corner; he must have been in bed and needed to dress. He looked worn, as he increasingly did these days. He stared down at me as I hunched against the stone base on which the churchyard railings stood, then at the bundle of white fabric. He bent to examine the body.

  I was disorientated, still half-drunk and aching, still stunned by Julia’s death. I could not get out of my mind that vision of Julia in the other world, that exact copy in looks yet subtly different in demeanour. In my stupefied state, I kept thinking that it was she who had died. But I gathered my wits sufficiently to give Bedwalters an account of the night. I explained away my dishevelled state by telling him Corelli and I had tangled with robbers, not wanting to have to admit to my argument with the ruffians. I could see Bedwalters thinking we must have been easy prey; drunken men always are. Bedwalters does not drink or at least nothing more than the communion wine. I told him everything else truthfully, about the shot at the theatre, the attacks on Mazzanti in London and York, about the attempted burglary at the lodging house. And at the end of the recital I was no wiser for all the words I’d expended and doubted that Bedwalters was either.

  “Why Julia?” I said stupidly. My head was thick with drink. “If it had been her father, that would have made sense.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then said, “She was abused, Mr Patterson, grossly abused. Perhaps there is nothing more to it than that.”

  “A passer by who took advantage of the fact she was on her own? Her father is attacked three or four times but she is the one who dies? I don’t believe it. Too much of a coincidence.”