Secret Lament

by Roz Southey

  Proctor is an excellent singing teacher. What would the Proctor of my world not have given to have Julia as a pupil? I reminded myself again that this was a different world from my own, and a different Proctor – he would bear a substantial resemblance to the man I knew, but there might well be pertinent differences. Perhaps here he was more decisive, less meek, less – I hesitated, but I could not deny it – Proctor was a frightened man; he feared the world, and his religion, real though it was, was a defence against that world.

  Ciara Mazzanti turned away from what she feared, Ned ran away from it, Proctor took refuge in God. I thought of Esther and what she was asking of me. Was that not what I was doing too? Running away? Pretending that if I ignored the situation it would go away? Was I as timid and fearful as the others whom I despised for their timidity?

  “You look shocked, Mr Patterson.” Julia leant a little closer, spoke more softly. “You saw a certain affecting little scene when you arrived no doubt.”

  I brought my thoughts back to the present. “It was very dark.”

  “Come sir,” she mocked. “Let’s have honesty.”

  Was her mind running on the same lines as mine? “Is that buried as deep as truth?” I countered.

  She laughed. “Oh much deeper, sir.” She eyed me consideringly; there was no denying she was a daring woman, to broach such a topic openly, rather than merely to pretend it had not happened. “Well, do not judge me harshly, sir. You know how little power we women have, sir – at least allow us at least our power to attract.”

  “And to manipulate?” I murmured.

  “But of course,” she said, wide-eyed in innocence. “We see a man whom we think will help us in whatever we desire, then attract him, then use him.” Her voice hardened and I remembered that she had been struggling to put off the embrace with the unknown man. She was not as honest as she appeared; she was acting out her defiance to deflect my disapproval. “What else is there to do, Mr Patterson? If I could act directly, I would, but society thinks me too weak and silly.”

  I thought fleetingly of Esther. She had the advantage over Julia of being of age and a wealthy woman, but even so, I could not imagine her stooping to manipulation – it was in itself a form of dishonesty. Yet who was I to judge Julia? Or any woman?

  “I do not think you silly,” I said. “In truth, I admire you for your frankness.”

  “Then perhaps,” she said impishly, “I should marry you?”

  I recognised this for the tease it was. “God forbid!” I said, equally lightly, “I would make a very bad husband.”

  She laughed with more genuine amusement. “And I would be a termagant wife, sir!” She sobered, hesitated, then lifted her head proudly. The lantern light from outside sparkled on her earrings and on the necklace at her throat. “I will have control of my own life, Mr Patterson. I will earn my own money, spend what I like, marry whom I like or not marry at all. And – ”

  She broke off as a voice sounded behind her. Lights sprang up at the back of the theatre, outlining the scenery and casting huge shadows on the theatre walls. I heard someone call for beer. Then a man came walking down the length of the theatre towards us with a lantern held high. Mazzanti. In the distorting flickering light, he looked harassed; a thin sheen of sweat gleamed on his forehead. He was thinner than in my own world.

  “Mr Patterson, have you come to watch the rehearsal?”

  “At this time of night?” I said blankly.

  “We are behindhand because of dear Julia’s illness.” He gave her a fond, caressing look; she glanced off in another direction. “Are you sure you are quite recovered, my dear? This is not another false dawn?” He smiled at me. “She was ill yesterday too and we thought she had recovered but – alas – no.”

  The unctuous false concern in his voice grated. Julia said, without looking at me, “I am a great deal better, yes. I will go and change into my costume.”

  She walked off quietly, with no backward glance. But I had not missed the point of the conversation; it looked as if this Julia, like her counterpart in my own world, was with child. More importantly, in this world, her father knew.

  “She is a sweet child,” Mazzanti said, startling me by the syrup smoothness of his voice. “Do come and watch a while, Mr Patterson. We do not play the music tonight of course but I think you will still find it interesting. Julia is so graceful, do you not think, so beautiful?”

  He cocked his head and smiled at me, like a merchant watching for a reaction to his wares. He was trying to sell her to me! He knew about her pregnancy and was looking for a marriage to save her reputation. And a wealthy husband too, one who could be guaranteed to be generous to his wife’s family, particularly if he had taken from them their one wage-earner.

  Mazzanti hovered, easing me into a chair and extolling Julia’s virtues still further. She was an excellent manager, knew how to run a household, was frugal and could make a joint of meat go further than any woman he knew. She was quiet and respectful and of course deferred to the judgement of her betters. In short, although he did not directly say so, she would be an ideal wife.

  I hurried to deflect him into another subject. “You are going to London soon, I hear.”

  “Indeed. Julia is to make her first appearance in the capital. She will of course be a great success.”

  A large one, no doubt, if she was pregnant.

  “Many gentlemen will admire her,” he said, waving to another member of the company to hurry with their task. He treated me to tales of Julia’s triumphs here, there and everywhere. A viscount had admired her in Exeter, a rich knight in Bristol. In Manchester, two merchants had almost fought over her. All of which might, possibly, be true, but I doubted any would have made a respectable offer for her – a disreputable one, possibly.

  “She is of an ideal age to be thinking of marriage,” Mazzanti said, abandoning roundaboutation. “Although, alas, the idea of her leaving me is torture. A daughter is always dear to her father’s heart.”

  “No doubt.” I wanted to ask if the father of Julia’s child was so very unsuitable as a husband but courage failed me. Even if he told me, the same might not be true of my own world. Here for instance, John Mazzanti was clearly more inclined than his counterpart to find respectability for his daughter. Moreover, I was not the Charles Patterson who rightfully belonged to this world and I had no right to say or do anything that might make life difficult for him. I should not encourage Mazzanti but remain polite and non-committal. But his brazen canvassing made that difficult.

  Just then Julia came back on to the stage. One of the company was at the edge of the stage, bending to light the candles that outlined it. Julia, in the demure virginal white of a heroine, stood talking to a middle-aged man of dissolute mien.

  Mazzanti cursed. “She will marry to spite me,” he said sharply. “I know she will!”

  He leapt up on to the stage, took hold of the man’s arm and led him away. Julia stood a little irresolutely in the middle of the stage, but she was, I noticed, smiling wryly.

  I got up. The rest of the company were hurrying into the theatre; some of the faces were familiar, though others were strangers. Not everyone in one world had their counterparts in the other. And there was a difference in their demeanour towards me; even those who knew me gave me a distant respectful nod as if I was a little above their station. In this world, I was rich, well-known, almost a gentleman, or as much of a gentleman as a musician could ever hope to be. If nothing else, the incident reminded me of the dangers of drawing conclusions from one world and applying them to the other.

  But if I could learn no lessons from this world about events in my own, why was I here at all? Why did I have this ability to step between worlds and why did the ability only seem to manifest itself at times of crisis when events in the two worlds echoed each other?

  Was it merely chance, of no significance whatsoever? Or was there something here that could help me find the man who had killed Julia in my world?

  I looked
at the woman standing on the stage, accepting a shawl from a young girl with an armful of clothes. This Julia Mazzanti was a strong-willed woman; I was sure she was not the kind of woman to put her child out to a wet nurse or a baby farmer and never see it again. She would unhesitatingly take on what she regarded as her duty. Married or no, she would accept the child as her responsibility.

  That would hardly please her father, but there was one man who might have more at stake than Mazzanti in making sure the child was never born. The child’s father. Had he killed the Julia in my world?

  And might he think the same in this world? Was I here to prevent Julia dying here too?

  27

  FOR SALE At Usher’s Deal Yard, Timber of all Kinds, suitable for Housebuilding, Furniture making, &c. Orders promptly fulfilled.

  [Newcastle Courant 13 March 1736]

  I suddenly panicked that my counterpart would also arrive and that I would find myself face to face with him. I retreated to the door of the theatre and looked out on to the dark night. The rain had stopped and the clouds were scudding away; stars glittered in a translucent sky.

  It was time to go home, back to my own world. I took a step or two out into the darkness, expecting it to shift to bright June sunshine.

  Nothing happened.

  I stood in the warm darkness lit only by the moon, cursing. What the devil did I have to do to control this ability?

  Then, simultaneously, I noted three things. Firstly, the moon was full. Secondly, it was stiflingly warm. Thirdly, the theatre behind me was silent and empty.

  I had stepped back. I had stepped into my own world without noticing it, gone from a chill autumn night to a stuffy June night at the full of the moon. When I had left it, my own world had been in the middle of a day; now it was so late that the timber yard was shut up and locked against the world, and there was not a light in the place. I had been right; time did indeed move at a different pace in that other world. What had taken half an hour at most had allowed hours to pass in my own world.

  I hoped it was only hours, not days.

  The timber yard gate was locked and barred from the outside; I rattled it to no effect. There was a smaller gate at the back of the yard somewhere but that would no doubt be locked too. Perhaps I could spend the night in the theatre – there would probably be sufficient costumes to make a comfortable bed, maybe even a little food. Not that I was hungry or tired – it still felt mid-morning to me. Still…

  I heard a dog bark.

  I stood very still. The dog sounded close.

  It bounded from the shelter of a pile of timber.

  A huge black shape raced towards me silently into the full glare of the moonlight. It might be a guard dog or a rabid wild dog – either way it was dangerous. I stepped back, took a deep breath then ran for the wall. At the last moment I leapt, grabbed for the top of the wall, hung for a moment by one arm before I could get a purchase with the other. Then I scrambled up to the top and sat astride, looking down at the snarling dog. A big ugly brute with a wide collar. Clearly Usher’s guard dog.

  I wriggled round until I could let myself down the other side of the wall, dropped to the cobbles. Behind me, the dog barked then subsided to yelps and frustrated whines.

  I turned to go.

  Then I saw the three ruffians waiting for me.

  28

  No Godfearing man or woman dare walk the streets at night. Something must be done, sir!

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

  I had one advantage over the ruffians: they were drunk and I was not; they had apparently been drinking for hours and could hardly stagger along. I wished fervently I’d thought to borrow a stick of wood from Usher’s yard but even so I had the upper hand almost from the start. They got in a blow or two, connecting more by luck than by judgement, and one blow to my cheek half dazed me. But they were falling over each other and their own feet, and were kept awake only by their own fury. I snatched a cudgel from one of them and laid him out with it, skipped away from another.

  There was only one nasty moment when I misjudged my position and got myself boxed in by them; at the same time, I saw two or three more men stagger out of the shadows. One man and a cudgel was no match for four or five others, and I couldn’t run because I was surrounded. So I slipped the bar on the timber yard gate and it wasn’t locked after all, as I had hoped, and the dog came raging out.

  We scattered.

  I raced off down the Side – totally the wrong direction if I wanted to get back to my lodgings but any way was good, as long as it was away from those ruffians. I heard a shriek as the dog found a victim. Then I was on the moonlit Sandhill, and running across to Butcher Bank and the climb to Silver Street. By the time I stopped outside All Hallows’ Church, winded and desperate for breath, I was alone and safe.

  I was tempted to go to Esther’s house to see if the intruder had returned; I had intended to go back, I had told her I would be there. But I had no idea of the time and the church clocks refused to oblige me by striking. It might be three or four o’clock in the morning; I could not wake everyone up in the small hours. Clearly the best thing to do was to go home. I kept to the sides of the streets where the moonlight did not reach, started at every cat that crossed my path and made it to my lodgings without any further incident.

  I could hardly expect to escape the spirit of my landlady, demanding to know why I was out so late, though I silently eased open the outer door of the house in faint hope that I might. But she was on me at once, her bright gleam whipping the door out of my hand and clicking it shut with a snap.

  “Upstairs, Mr Patterson, quickly!”

  The stairs were pitch black and I stumbled half a dozen times as I climbed. The drawing room clock chimed once and fell silent. Not as late as I had feared; why then was Mrs Foxton in such a flap? The miners in the house came home much later than this.

  The door to my room flew open, letting out a flood of moonlight from the uncurtained window. Hugh Demsey grabbed my arm, pulled me inside. The gleam of Mrs Foxton’s spirit, following us, whisked the door closed.

  “Where the devil have you been?” Hugh demanded.

  How was I to explain? I ummed and aahed.

  “Charles, for God’s sake!” His voice changed. “What the – did you know you’re bleeding?”

  One of the candles lit itself, courtesy of Mrs Foxton. Hugh snatched it up, pushed me in front of my fragment of mirror. In the flickering candlelight, I saw blood running down my cheek from a cut under my hairline at the right. I hadn’t noticed – I’d thought I was sweating with running.

  “The ruffians caught me,” I said, wiping away the blood with my handkerchief. “Why the flap, Hugh?”

  “Bedwalters,” Mrs Foxton said grimly.

  “He’s after you.”

  “What!?”

  “I went down to the Printing Office this morning,” Hugh said, “I overheard Bedwalters and Mazzanti talking. Mazzanti said you’d been making advances to Julia; he told Bedwalters that Julia was frightened of you.”

  I swore. I remembered that Mazzanti had accused me of something of the sort in his own drawing room but we had both known the accusations weren’t true – he had been defending himself by attacking someone else. But to go as far as to take the tale to Bedwalters!

  “And,” Hugh pressed, “Ord’s told him he saw you talking to Julia – intimately.”

  “Ord!” I said in outrage. That devil! To accuse me when he’d asked a favour of me! And such a favour too! He must be desperate to divert suspicion from himself but why in heaven’s name did he not see the consequences for himself? What was to prevent me telling Bedwalters about the letters?

  There was a hammering at the door.

  “Oh God,” Hugh said. Mrs Foxton’s spirit disappeared.

  “Bedwalters is talking of arresting you!” Hugh said frantically. “This is all your own fault!”

  “My fault?”

&n
bsp; “He only wanted to talk to you until he realised you’d left town.”

  “I did not leave town!”

  “Of all the times to disappear!” Hugh said in despair. “Couldn’t you see how suspicious it would look?”

  “It wasn’t my fault!”

  Mrs Foxton’s spirit came back, sliding between the door and the frame.

  “Quick, Mr Patterson, out of the back and over the wall. Mr Demsey, help him. I’ll delay the constable.”

  And she disappeared again.

  “This is preposterous,” I said, trying to dig the letters out of my coat pocket. “Look, I’ll talk to Bedwalters. I’ve got evidence.” I waved the letters.

  “Not now!”

  “But they’ll give the lie to Ord’s story.”

  “Do you want to end up in gaol?!” Hugh demanded, bundling me towards the door.

  “No, no!” I dug my heels in. “If I must go, there’s something I must take.” I pushed Hugh on to the landing. “Check that the way is clear.”

  Hugh was right; I had to go. But I had one crucially incriminating piece of evidence in my possession: Julia Mazzanti’s ribbon. If Bedwalters searched the room and found it, I’d be in trouble for sure. I snatched up the mattress, retrieved the ribbon and stuffed it into a pocket. I also slid two guineas out of my store from the sale of the organ.

  By the time I was finished, Hugh was in the room again, snatching at my sleeve. We ran for the servants’ stairs, were only just on them when we heard footsteps pounding up the front stairs. Bedwalters must have brought helpers – he himself was not capable of such speed.

  At the foot of the servants’ stair, Hugh threw his weight against the door to the yard and it flew open. Across the moonlit yard, the back gate was bolted and locked. Hugh made a cradle of his hands, I stepped in them and scrambled over the wall, then reached down to help Hugh up. There were sounds of banging from the house, and shouting.

  We dropped down into the cobbled street. I seized Hugh’s arm.