by Roz Southey
Heron was halfway to the door; he swung back. “Which is?”
“Mr Mazzanti reports that one of his daughter’s possessions has been stolen.”
“Stolen? What?”
“A ribbon, sir.”
I felt abruptly hot. A ribbon. Which I had pushed into my pocket at the last moment for fear Bedwalters would search my rooms. Damn, damn, damn.
“It was taken from Miss Mazzanti’s hair by the murderer, sir. If Mr Patterson would not object – ”
“You want to search me,” I said.
“Damn it,” Heron said furiously. “I thought we had dealt with this! But you are still accusing Patterson – ”
“On the contrary,” Bedwalters said. “I am attempting to exonerate him.”
A moment’s silence. I found I was holding my breath and let it out gradually. If Bedwalters searched me, he would find the ribbon. Five minutes earlier, I had been willing Heron to silence, now I wanted him to demolish Bedwalters again with that bullying, imperious manner.
“Oh, very well,” Heron said irritably. “Let’s be done with it!”
31
New ideas should always be regarded with suspicion until they are proven beyond doubt.
[Instructions to a Son newly come of Age, Revd. Peter Morgan (London: published for the Author, 1691)]
Apologetically, Bedwalters asked for my coat and waistcoat. I stripped them off and handed them to him one by one.
He went through each pocket in turn pulling out my meagre possessions and placing them in little piles on one of the low tables. The candlelight flickered over my grubby and bloodstained handkerchief, on three guinea coins and a handful of pennies and farthings, on my resin box which I had stuffed into my pocket the other day at the theatre and forgotten about. There was a loose button whose provenance I could not recall, and a scrap of note, which Bedwalters looked at closely. Fortunately it was the notepaper on which I had scribbled figures for Thomas Saint’s bill before writing the account out neatly.
My heart stammered when he pulled out the thin bundle of letters from Philip Ord to Julia Mazzanti. The thin pink ribbon around them and the tiny silk rose tucked beneath the ribbon made it painfully obvious what they were.
“Damn it, Patterson,” Heron said, without missing a beat. “Why the devil did you not tell me you had retrieved the letters?”
I had told him, so I kept quiet. Heron held out his hand imperiously. “Those are mine, Bedwalters. If you please.”
Bedwalters looked from one to the other of us. It must surely have been in the back of his mind that love letters were not in Heron’s style. I said nothing. I was half-inclined to tell Bedwalters the truth; it would be awkward explaining to Ord but if he had been planning to elope with Julia, it would not hurt him to have to face the consequences. But to tell Bedwalters the truth would have been to brand Heron a liar which was plainly impossible.
“Patterson was retrieving them for me,” Heron said. “From the lady in question. You understand – once an affair is over, it is only proper that letters and such like should be returned. Patterson was acting as my intermediary.”
I prayed that Bedwalters would not ask the identity of the lady. An affair! Was there a spirit in Bedwalters’s house? If so, the story would be halfway round town by dawn and half a dozen ladies would have their reputations in shreds.
“The lady’s name… ”
“I cannot divulge it,” Heron said inexorably.
Bedwalters looked at me a moment longer.
“You’re looking for the ribbon, man!” Heron snapped.
“Do you give me your word, sir,” Bedwalters said to me, “that you did not write these letters to Miss Mazzanti?”
“Neither to her nor to any woman,” I said, relieved to be able to tell the truth. “You know my hand, Bedwalters – look at the superscription.”
He turned the bundle over and looked at which could be seen there, shifting the pink ribbon slightly. I had glanced at the topmost letter and knew that Ord had merely scrawled Darling in a dashing script as the direction.
Bedwalters looked a moment longer then silently handed the bundle to Heron. He was staring at me as he did so, in a manner that plainly said he knew something untoward was going on. Damn Heron for this; damn myself for bringing him into the matter. And yet – Heron was displaying a great deal of trust in me despite what might be considered to be incriminating evidence.
Heron slipped the letters into his coat pocket and proceeded to rub in his triumph. “I rely on your discretion, Bedwalters.”
“Of course.”
“If the story gets about, the lady might suffer.”
I intervened. Bedwalters had suffered too, more than enough. And it was time to bring this farce to an end.
“There is another pocket you have missed in the coat,” I said, and pointed it out. It was the pocket into which I had stuffed the ribbon. All I could do was to let Bedwalters find it, tell him the whole story of Esther’s burglar and hope he believed me.
The ribbon was not there.
Hugh leapt out of the darkness of my room and practically bowled me over. “What happened!? Why are you back? Mrs Foxton says she’s been told you’ve seen Bedwalters.”
I hoped Mrs Foxton was keeping herself to herself and not eavesdropping. She usually respects her lodgers’ privacy. Except for the miners.
I disentangled myself and locked the bedroom door. Sufficient moonlight came in through the window for me to see the room clearly, albeit drained of colour. I slumped on the bed.
“He didn’t find it.”
“Find what?”
“The ribbon.”
“What ribbon? The one taken from the girl’s body?” Hugh crawled on to the bed and sat with his back to the wall. “The one you found in Mrs Jerdoun’s garden?”
I longed for some more of Heron’s brandy. The non-appearance of the ribbon had been a shock and I was still worried about what had happened to it. Most likely it had dropped out of my pocket as I clambered over one of the half dozen walls I had scaled that night. Which meant that it probably lay in the back alley behind Mrs Foxton’s house, or – heaven forbid – in Heron’s garden. But all I could do was bid Bedwalters a civilised farewell and walk off across town with Heron again. Heron had handed me back the letters without comment and had insisted on seeing me to my door with his footman before returning to his own house. And now here I was, telling Hugh as much as I could remember of the night’s events.
And worrying about Esther. While I had been distracted by all this, was the murderer trying to gain access to her house again?
I heard the church clock strike four.
“You’re swimming in dangerous waters, Charles,” Hugh said at last with distinct amusement. “With Mrs Jerdoun particularly.”
“I am not,” I said sharply. “I am carefully avoiding doing anything of the sort.”
He chortled.
“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 cou
ld 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.
32
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.”