Secret Lament

by Roz Southey

  “Did Mazzanti see the intruder? Could he describe him?”

  “Not he!”

  “Was anything stolen?”

  “Not a penny.” She contemplated a slice of the pheasant, speared it with the point of her knife. “There was one odd thing though. Miss claimed the fellow had tried to throw her downstairs.” She nodded at my surprise. “Aye, I thought she was imagining it too. But after what happened last night… ”

  I finished off the meats in silence. If the burglary had been an unsuccessful attempt to kill Julia, how did that relate to the attempted burglaries at Esther’s house? From what she’d told me, she’d been injured as a result of her own courage in tackling the intruder. But what if that had been his purpose in trying to get into the house?

  Nothing made sense. What connection did Esther have with Julia? She’d told me they’d never met. And, if there was a connection, it would surely rule out the idea that a passer by had taken advantage of finding Julia in the street. And who could it be?

  Philip Ord was known to both ladies, I thought, and he had a motive. What if Julia had threatened to use those letters against him? Had the burglary been an attempt to find the letters and remove them from Julia’s possession?

  Philip Ord – a murderer?

  I’d seen him on the night of the murder, hadn’t I? At Mrs Hill’s, I thought.

  Ord?

  Mrs Baker got up to clear away the meat and bread, and to set down a huge bread pudding. I brought my attention back to the present. I was after information and I would not get it if I daydreamed. “Where are Signor and Signora Mazzanti now?”

  “He’s out organising the funeral. Chaplain of All Hallows was first on the list to be honoured with a visit, then the organist and the undertaker.” Mrs Baker cut up the pudding. “Oh, and the tailor – he doesn’t have mourning, he says. She’s being looked after by Mrs Jenison and Mr Heron. You know, sir, I never met a lady who so expected to be looked after. I daresay the quality are like that, but the rest of us know it’s hard work that brings home the meat.”

  I nodded absently. If Mazzanti was looking for the organist of All Hallows, he would be out of luck; the organist was in London introducing his mother to the youngest of his six children. I was his deputy and Mazzanti would no doubt be seeking me out before long. I had better practise the funeral psalms. Not that I was likely to be paid, if William Wright’s assessment of the Mazzantis’ financial dealing was correct. Still it meant that Mazzanti and I would have to have a conversation; I’d have plenty of questions for him.

  Mrs Baker tucked into her pudding. “Mrs M seems to think that now his highness will dedicate himself to her again. They’ll console each other, weep on each other’s shoulders and devote the rest of their lives to her singing.” She snorted. “Any fool can see her days are over.”

  “She has a wonderful singing voice.”

  “She’s almost as old as I am,” Mrs Baker said tartly.

  “That proves my point,” I said. “I never met anyone whose days are so clearly not over.”

  She told me to get away with me, but her smile of pleasure at the flattery lingered. “I stick to what I say,” she added. “It doesn’t matter how you look when you’re letting out lodgings. When you get up on a stage, though, that’s different. You’ve got to attract the gentlemen. And it’s a rare gentleman that likes a mature woman.” She preened herself a little. “His highness will find another young lady,” she said. “Mark my words.”

  I thought of Athalia.

  “Not that Mrs M’ll see that,” Mrs Baker said, waving her tankard at me. “She’s the sort of lady who doesn’t see what she doesn’t like. The day after the burglary she never gave it a second thought but went straight out visiting the next morning as if it hadn’t happened. And Miss – she sent a note off.”

  I considered for a moment. “Fixing up the elopement?”

  Mrs Baker nodded approvingly.

  “Are you sure? How do you know?”

  “Saw her. She gave the paper to a boy in the street.”

  “Did you hear where she told the boy to take it?”

  She shook her head. “Too far off.” She paused for a moment, looked at me shrewdly. “Want to see her, do you? The body, I mean.”

  I did not. I had seen quite enough in Amen Corner. “No, but I’d like to look at her room.”

  “Well, so you shall. They’ve laid Miss out in the spare room, her own room being a trifle disordered.”

  She finished off her bread pudding, stacked the dishes and wiped down the table. Then, in the airy kitchen bright with the last sunshine of the day, she took up a candle and lit it. We went out into the shuttered gloomy hall; as we went up the dark stairs, our shadows danced and flickered, the banisters cast grotesque shadows.

  At the top of the stairs we saw the three doors, all closed and the tiny narrow stair to the attics. Up here the heat was heavier than ever. “The maid lives out with her mother in the tavern,” Mrs Baker said. “I have the top floor to myself. Keeps the place private for my lodgers.”

  We paused outside one of the doors. Mrs Baker was in contemplative mood. “She’s a nice girl,” she said. “The maid, I mean. Not bright but plenty of commonsense. Though I daresay she’ll have her head turned by some good-looking young man one day, just like young Miss M.” She sighed. “What makes young girls so foolish?”

  “Youth, I suppose,” I said lightly. I felt hypocritical; older men do foolish things too. Look at Ord. Look at myself. “Young people fall in love so easily.”

  “Falling in love is easy and harmless enough,” Mrs Baker retorted. “It’s the falling into bed that’s foolish.”

  I stopped with my hand on the door, turned to stare at her. Dear God, why had I not thought of that before?

  “Julia was pregnant,” I said.

  19

  THE LADY’S MISCELLANY Available at Willliam Charnley’s on the High Bridge.

  [Newcastle Courant 24 April 1736]

  Julia was pregnant. Somewhere there was a man who had bedded her and fathered her child. Someone who didn’t want to acknowledge the child. Someone who was married or as good as. Someone who wanted to get rid of her. Ord? The pair had met in late March; it was now mid-June – he could have been the father.

  “Are you sure?” I asked Mrs Baker.

  “I’m the mother of five children myself,” she said comfortably. “I’m sure.”

  “Did her mother know?”

  Mrs Baker laughed. “Not her! I told you, she doesn’t see anything she doesn’t like. And his highness certainly didn’t know. Can you imagine how he would have reacted if he did?”

  She threw open the door. I hesitated, feeling a little daunted, then went in.

  The room in which Julia had lodged was small, with one window that gave an unattractive view of the next house across a narrow alley. I went straight across to the window; starlings cocked their heads at me from the sill and flew off in a flurry of annoyance as I threw up the sash.

  The alley outside was one of those dank places where the sun never penetrates even in weather as hot as this; a cat was slinking along and paused, one foot raised, to stare up at me. The alley was scarce wide enough for two persons to pass, and to put up a ladder to the window would have been well-nigh impossible. The faint lingering possibility that Julia’s elopement was traditionally romantic died. Julia must indeed have gone out of the front door – which confirmed the spirit’s evidence.

  I turned to glance over the room. Mrs Baker was still at the door, looking both interested and expectant. A narrow bed with a great wooden headboard and foot, and a heap of neatly made bedclothes, was topped with a beautiful pastel-shaded patchwork quilt. A small table to one side of the bed held a candlestick with a half-burnt candle; a set of drawers stood on the other side of the room, an old-fashioned bowl on top full of dried flowers. A travelling trunk rested by the window, covered by a shawl; a stool had been pushed against the wall beside it.

  And the clutter! Mrs Ba
ker had been understating the case when she referred to disorder. Every available surface was covered with knickknacks and ornaments. A scatter everywhere of scent bottles, all half-used, combs, brushes, a cheap trinket or two, hair ribbons of every hue. A book on top of the trunk had a ribbon in it as a bookmark – surprisingly, it was a book of sermons. I flicked through it. It had been for show; half the pages were uncut.

  A paper or two: the Lady’s Miscellany, a copy of the latest Newcastle Courant. The latter was folded with the inner pages displayed and I saw a paragraph ringed. I bent to read it.

  We hear that Miss Mazzanti has lately made a great impression with her depiction of the Portuguese Princess and is shortly to appear as Lucy Locket in London. It is a great triumph for Mr Keregan to have obtained her services and we hear that she will sing in the Race Week concert.

  Julia was to sing in the concert? It was the first I had heard of it. And not a mention of her mother. I wondered what Claudius Heron had thought when he read that paragraph. Or the Signora for that matter. Perhaps that had been another of the things she thought it politic to ignore.

  Mrs Baker coughed gently. “If you don’t mind, sir, I have one or two things to do in the kitchen… ”

  I was startled. “Oh. Yes. Of course.”

  She smiled and gave me another of her significant looks. Her gaze rested for a moment on the travelling trunk.

  I waited until I had heard her steps recede down the stairs. I was already feeling guilty. It was one thing to have a look at the room – I was probably not the only person Mrs Baker had shown the room and most of the others would have had only the most prurient interest. But it was quite another thing to go rooting amongst the dead girl’s private possessions.

  The worst of it was that Mrs Baker plainly trusted me not to take anything, but if I saw Ord’s letters I would certainly abstract them. Not only had I agreed to return them to him – I needed to know how far the affair had progressed. I wanted to know if Ord indeed could be the father of Julia’s child. That fact would have ruined his chances with Thomas Saint and his daughter and been ample reason to want to be rid of Julia. Of course I could only know such things by reading the letters and that was hardly civilised behaviour, but Ord’s behaviour to me was not very civilised either. And neither was murder.

  I dragged the shawl off the travelling trunk and dumped it with the books and papers on the patchwork quilt. The trunk had a key in the lock but was unlocked; I threw back the lid.

  A miasma of scent rocked me back on my heels; I waved my hand in the air to be rid of it. Another shawl lay across the top of the trunk, as if it had been laid there to protect what was underneath. I lifted it off – and saw, lying on a froth of white material, a yellow ribbon embroidered with blue flowers, each with a spark of brightness at the heart.

  I ran the ribbon through my fingers. At one end it was stiff with a spot or two of blood. I saw in my mind’s eye that still body on the ground, gauzy fabric rucked about her, one thin layer drifting over her head. I had drawn back the layers of muslin and seen Julia’s dishevelled hair…

  Yes, there had been one of the yellow ribbons in her hair. In one side of her hair. On the other side, the hair had hung limply.

  Julia must have had two ribbons in her hair. The murderer had taken one as a souvenir.

  I bit back the nausea in my throat and laid the ribbon carefully aside. If Julia’s attacker had been after monetary gain he would have taken both ribbons; to a poor man they would have represented riches. Could the man I had seen bending over the body later have taken it – an opportunist thief who had not had enough time to take both ribbons? No, I remembered distinctly that there had only been one ribbon when Corelli and I first found her.

  I must hurry before Mrs Baker returned. I lifted out the delicate dresses made of yards of fabric, expensive embroidery, spotted with pearls or edged with lace. Each would have kept me for several months. Undergarments, stockings, more ribbons. Under a chemise, I felt something hard.

  I dragged out a wooden box, long and thin with charming if awkward carvings on the top. Just the sort of place a young girl might keep personal treasures. I eased back the lid.

  The box was full of newspaper cuttings. We hear Miss Mazzanti is to honour us with her presence… The latest sensation is a certain Miss M ---- whose virginal beauty and charming innocence… Half the regional papers of the country were there – from Bath, Oxford, Exeter, Leeds…

  At the bottom of the box, beneath all the cuttings, were the love letters, in a little bundle wrapped with pink ribbon. Nine letters, the folds pressed flat. I hesitated to pull the bundle apart to check that they were indeed from Ord but luckily a few words were visible; I read – your ever loving… . and recognised Ord’s hand.

  I slipped the bundle into my pocket.

  Mrs Baker was humming over a bowl of dough; flour dusted her arms and the apron she had donned over her purple dress. She smiled knowingly at me as I came back into her hot kitchen. I had put back Julia’s dresses as tidily as I could, and left everything there except the letters, but the consciousness of their presence in my pocket was making my face burn.

  “Funny, isn’t it?” Mrs Baker said. “How one little girl can fascinate so many. I even had the psalm teacher in here earlier on.”

  “Proctor?”

  “Wanted to see the girl’s body. Well, I thought he’d say a prayer over her, or sing a psalm, but no, he bursts into tears and weeps and wails till I thought the whole street would hear.” She turned the dough out on to the floured table; the sunshine laid long fingers across the wood. “I had to ask him to go.”

  Poor Proctor, still feeling guilty at leaving Julia to her fate. I slipped Mrs Baker a coin or two in thanks; she beamed at me and I saw myself out.

  The sun was behind the houses as I left Mrs Baker’s and the street was already in twilight. I was wondering what to do next. It was too early to go to Esther. I would creep in the back way when it was fully dark; to arrive early would run the risk that she had visitors or was perhaps entertaining friends to dinner. Finding somewhere to read Ord’s love letters would be best; I would look for a tavern and read them over a beer.

  But oh dear God – what a furore there would be if Ord turned out to be the murderer! Would Bedwalters dare to do anything? But wait – how did the attacks on Mazzanti fit in with all this? Surely Ord could not have carried them out – he was certainly in Newcastle at the time of the attacks in London and York.

  I turned to go down the Side to the Keyside, to one of the sailors’ taverns. The streets were full of people, both purposeful and idle, walking home with baskets, or gathering idly to chat. A merchant climbed down from his horse to lead it up the hill.

  Someone grabbed at me.

  20

  The idea that comedians are men and women of loose morals is not at all correct; they are god-fearing decent people.

  [Reminiscences of a theatre manager, Thomas Keregan (London: published for the Author, 1736)]

  I swung my fist – a couple of women close by scattered in alarm. “For God’s sake!” I drew back.

  Ned Reynolds was breathing heavily. “Charlie! For God’s sake, don’t desert me too!”

  I stared at him. He was dishevelled, in crumpled and stained clothes, smelling of drink, yet plainly stone cold sober. Behind him, an alley led to a flight of steps climbing the Castle mound, house doors on either side. On the bottom step was a jug of ale and a tankard.

  I shuffled Ned back into the alley, sat him down on one of the steps. “I’ve been looking for you all day. Where the devil have you been?”

  “Hiding,” he said with bitter self-contempt. “Trying to pretend nothing’s happened. Trying to get drunk. I’ve heard about the way you solve mysteries, Charlie. Well, this one’s no mystery. Anyone can see what an idiot I am!”

  “It’s a mystery to me,” I said firmly. I had never seen Ned like this before, confident, brash, ruthless Ned reduced to a self-pitying heap. “Why the devil were you cou
rting Julia? And don’t tell me for her money, because I’ve never known you care about that. Nor for respectability – when did you last meet a respectable actor?”

  He laughed shakily, then his face crumpled. “Richard,” he said thickly, burying his head in his hands. “To protect Richard.”

  I sat down beside him, pitched my voice low so that casual passers by climbing the hill could not hear.

  “Julia found out about you?”

  He snorted in derision. “She didn’t need to dig too far. Devil take it, Charlie, does everyone know? Have we been that careless?”

  “No one in the company would give you away.”

  “One did,” he said dryly. “Guess who, Charlie.”

  I sighed. “Richard himself.”

  He nodded, rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the cobbles. “She befriended him, chatted away to him, told him all about her triumphs. He adored her, Charlie – he was starstruck, told me all her bon mots as if they were pearls. And of course, since she told him all her secrets, he told her his – or hinted at them at any rate.”

  “And then she tried to blackmail you.”

  He nodded. “Not overtly, of course. She started to hint that she was interested in me. At first I thought she was just trying to annoy her father – whenever she was with a man, he’d rush into a fury and try and run the fellow off.”

  I poured myself beer, into Ned’s tankard. “She was his sole source of income.”

  “The Signora’s too old, I take it.”

  “Not in voice, but in looks, yes.”

  He nodded. “Well, after a while I realised she was serious. She said she wanted me to marry her. That’s how she put it. Not that she wanted to marry me but she wanted me to marry her. When I laughed at her, she turned nasty. She said that if I did as she told me, she would keep quiet about Richard. She even said that once we were married, we could do as we liked and she’d pretend she didn’t notice, that she’d turn a blind eye to what was going on.” He laughed bitterly. “Do you know how much contempt you can get into just a couple of words, Charlie?”