Secret Lament

by Roz Southey

  In the silence that followed, the door shifted open a little further and I saw Esther, sedate and respectable in a dark gown and mantle, on the threshold. She raised her eyebrows at me in query. I nodded. I had asked her to leave her intervention as late as possible but I didn’t think there was any point in having Ciara Mazzanti here any longer. We could deal with her later.

  Esther touched Ciara’s arm. “Let’s go,” she said with the firmness of a schoolmistress. “We’ll go to my house. You can be comfortable there.”

  Ciara leant gratefully on her, murmuring something in broken terms. She started to turn away then swung back, her gaze darting from me to her husband. She pulled away from Esther, came across to me, putting a plump hand on my sleeve. “Mr Patterson.” She had to look up at me for she was not particularly tall. “Mr Patterson, thank you.”

  “For what?” I said startled.

  “For rescuing me. Alas – ” She seemed to consider dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief then thought better of it. “Alas, it is too late for my daughter.”

  “Much too late,” I said brutally. “You could have rescued her years ago if you’d had a mind to.”

  She continued to look up at me with mute appeal. Then something slipped in her face. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she said pleadingly. “I didn’t like what he was doing, but I had no other choice but to accept it. How could I survive without him?” She turned to Esther. “You know, don’t you? We women all know what it’s like to be dependent on a man.”

  “Better to live without money than without conscience,” Esther said, with all the no-nonsense of a woman who has never had to worry about such sordid things.

  Signora Mazzanti gave her a mocking smile. And went off with her, as docile as a doll.

  The room was silent after the two women had gone. Mazzanti ground shattered glass underfoot and cast me a sidelong glance. “No point in my trying to put you off any more, is there, Patterson?”

  “No,” I said. “You killed Julia.”

  He shrugged. “If Ciara had been a different woman, none of this would have happened.”

  His indifference infuriated me. I said, as coolly as I could, “Julia was pregnant and desperately looking for a husband, and she wasn’t above using blackmail to find one. She couldn’t marry the father of her child, of course, because that was you.”

  He pretended to yawn. “I doubt we can be certain of that. My dear Patterson, do you honestly think she gave me no encouragement?”

  I balled my fist, digging my nails into my flesh to prevent myself shouting. “But you knew that marriage wouldn’t necessarily be the end of the matter. Once Julia was out of your hands, she might say anything to anyone. Suppose she married Ord, for instance, and he realised the child was not his – might she not try and fend off his anger by confessing to him what had really happened? She might even – shall we say, overdramatise – in an attempt to deflect his anger. No, sir, you knew that you could not relinquish her to any other man.”

  He contemplated the wall.

  “You heard her leave the house,” I said. “You looked out of the window and saw her. You saw her walk off, and Proctor walk after her. So you followed.” I bit back revulsion. “Did you watch Proctor raping her?”

  “I lost them,” he said grandiloquently. “Such a rabbit warren of streets in this town.” He looked only mildly interested. “She was dead when I found her.”

  “No,” I said. “Proctor raped her, but he didn’t kill her. You did that. You must have been desperate if you were willing to destroy your sole source of income.”

  He betrayed his first sign of unease, running his tongue across dry lips. “Desperate,” he said. “Yes, mad with despair. It was an accident. She died when she hit her head against the wall.”

  “She was strangled,” I said, uncompromisingly. “And if you are trying to convince me that you killed her in an excess of emotion, on the spur of the moment, you may as well desist now. This was a planned murder – you decided on it the moment you knew she was pregnant.”

  I saw his fists clench. The candlelight shone on a ring on his little finger.

  “You hatched a plot,” I said. “You hired your son to shoot at you. You told him it was for the sake of publicity, to bring you to the attention of sensation-loving audiences – but that was not your chief motive, was it?”

  He said nothing.

  “You wanted to create the impression that your life was in danger. You suggested that it was some aristocrat you had offended by being over-familiar – though innocently so, of course – with his mistress. Julia’s death might then be construed as part of a campaign against you. That’s what you claimed was happening, wasn’t it? Of course, your son might give you the lie but he is hardly a credible witness in view of his political activities.”

  The silence this time was very long indeed. The old house creaked a little, and outside the owl hooted again. I could hear my own breathing. I waited. Mazzanti had his back to me. I rested my hand on my coat pocket, feeling the hard edge of the heavy pistol. I had not discounted the possibility that Mazzanti would try to get away by violence and I was prepared to shoot if he attacked me, though given my incompetence with pistols, I hoped he would not.

  He turned to me at last. “So,” he said, “you are going to tell the constable I killed my daughter.” He sneered at my silence. “No, of course not. You cannot prove your allegations. And if you could – ” He swaggered a step or two towards me. “I know all about the lady, sir.” He nodded at the door, as if Esther still stood there. “I have been asking some questions of my own, sir. You give the lady a music lesson every day.” He smiled maliciously. “That was my own name for it, sir. I am giving my daughter a music lesson – pray do not disturb us on any count.”

  I said nothing.

  “I will tell all I know,” he said. “You dare not give me away!”

  I walked to the door. “Are you certain, sir?”

  In the hallway, I heard him call after me but I did not go back. He was right – I would not risk Esther’s reputation and he knew it. All I could do was leave him in fear, the sort of fear his daughter must have lived in. He called once more but I was already in the street.

  Esther’s carriage had already gone, taking Esther and Ciara Mazzanti to the house in Caroline Square. But Hugh was still waiting for me, standing in the shadow of the doorway, pistol in his hand, glancing about for any danger.

  “Have you left him?”

  “What else can I do?”

  “You can’t let him get away with it! He killed his own daughter.”

  I rubbed my eyes wearily. “What do you suggest I do then?”

  “Tell Bedwalters.”

  “We’ve no evidence.”

  “Then – ” Hugh gestured with the pistol.

  “Then we’d be the ones strung up. And for filth like Mazzanti? I think not.”

  I started walking down the street, knowing that Hugh would follow me. After a moment’s hesitation, he did so.

  “What if he slips off to this other world?”

  “There’s no evidence he can do that.” I glanced at him. In the moonlit darkness, his face was shadowed and unhappy. I stopped and turned to face him. “Hugh, about that other world… ”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said sharply, putting out a hand to touch the nearest wall. He added, “You haven’t told anyone else about it? It’s just Mrs Jerdoun and I who know?”

  “And Heron,” I reminded him.

  “You mustn’t tell anyone else,” he said insistently. “Devil take it, Charles, what in heaven’s name do you think other people would make of it – the ruffians who’ve been after you, for instance – what would they make of it?”

  I kept silence. Ruffians like that are no more and no less superstitious than the rest of mankind; they are merely more open about it. They’d say it was a manifestation of evil and I was in league with the devil. And sooner or later, someone would decide to take action on the matte
r.

  We turned up the street.

  “His wife will talk,” Hugh said, as if struck by a new hope. “She’ll give him away.”

  I thought not. Ciara Mazzanti was after vengeance and her own safety today but tomorrow she would be comfortable again and basking in the sympathetic attentions of Mrs Jenison and the other ladies. And she would decide there was no point in dwelling on unpleasantness.

  I glanced back. The moonlight was shining down the length of the street, catching on something bulky, striking small metallic glints. A shadow moved in a doorway. Then the moon slid behind the clouds and when it rode out again a moment or two later and I looked again, the shadow was gone.

  45

  All will be clear one day.

  [Lady Hubert to her eldest daughter, September 1733]

  Claudius Heron pulled out the chair opposite mine and signalled to the serving girl to bring him coffee. Nellie’s coffee-house was crowded and abuzz with the latest political gossip; no one paid any attention to me as I sat and wrestled with scribbled sums to see how much I could afford to give Ned and Richard, without leaving myself short of money before my next bills were due to be paid. I had been in possession of what was for me wealth for precisely one month and a half.

  Heron waited until the girl had brought his coffee. Then he said bluntly: “Mazzanti’s dead.”

  It was extraordinarily difficult to know how I should react to this news. “Oh?”

  “Stabbed. In his own house, in the early hours of this morning. One thrust of a sword, straight through the heart.”

  Heron waited; I said: “I always thought he was born to be murdered.”

  He leant back in his chair. “Rather odd, do you not think?”

  “How?”

  “Three previous attempts had been made on his life, all attempted shootings. Yet now he falls victim to a mysterious swordsman.”

  “Perhaps his attacker decided a pistol was not very effective.”

  “He was remarkably effective at missing, certainly,” Heron said.

  Damn the man’s perspicacity. “I was very grateful for that myself,” I said lightly.

  Heron lounged at his ease. He was in one of his light-coloured coats and looked rather cooler than he had recently. A trifle relieved too, as if a weight had been taken off his mind. “You do not ask after his wife.”

  “Do you think she stabbed him?”

  “Hardly,” he said dryly. “Where would the Signora have found a sword? In the theatre costume box?”

  “They’re all wooden,” I said absently.

  “Though she does say that there is more than one wronged husband who would have been glad to see him in his grave. Personally, I find that a rather unconvincingly melodramatic response – after all, the divorce court does exist.”

  Someone close by raised his voice to say that Walpole was the greatest fool living; half a dozen others shouted him down.

  “Come, come, Patterson,” Heron said. “You will not convince me that Mazzanti’s relationship with his daughter was a good one. It is merely a question of how bad it was.”

  I met his gaze. “As bad as it could be.”

  He nodded. “Then he is better dead.” He was silent for a moment, toying with his dish of coffee. “You will not be pleased that I ask, I know, but it is best to know what one faces. You did not – ”

  “No, I did not,” I said, forcibly.

  He was not perturbed by my annoyance. He said, “Then Mazzanti’s killer has escaped. It is regrettable, but not necessarily a bad thing.”

  “No,” I said shortly. Particularly as I was certain it meant there was one less spy in England.

  He said nothing for a moment, nodded acknowledgement to an acquaintance who passed. “Did Fowler tell you how we met in London?”

  “No.”

  He half-smiled. “He was in despair, I think, and reckless who knew or saw what. I persuaded him that that was a foolish point of view. I persuaded him that what you do in private has no meaning or significance – unless it is known.”

  I stared at him. It was hardly a Christian viewpoint; the Bible says clearly otherwise. It says moreover that God knows all the secrets of our hearts, that ultimately nothing can be a secret from Him. “That is a very bleak philosophy,” I said.

  He nodded. “But a very practical one. The Mazzantis lived by it very successfully for some time. Not happily, I grant you, and not morally, but nonetheless they survived in a harsh world. It was only when matters threatened to become public, when the girl became pregnant, that their affairs started to unravel. If they could have found a husband for the girl, perhaps they would all survive still.”

  “And what about the matter of conscience?” I demanded.

  “Mazzanti does not seem to have had one.”

  “He committed a crime against his daughter,” I said shortly. “That’s the kind of secret that should never be allowed.”

  Heron turned his cool gaze on me. “Secrets are much maligned, Patterson. It is only by keeping secrets that society holds together. Do you understand me?”

  I wasn’t sure I did.

  He drank his coffee and took his leave, pausing on his way out to exchange a word or two with another gentleman. Was Heron referring to Mazzanti’s death, or to the matter of the other world? Well, he need have no fear on either account, for I had no intention of speaking out on either matter.

  But there was one thing left. I reached into my pocket and took out the note that I had found pushed under my door this morning. It was the politest of notes.

  Mrs Jerdoun expects the honour of Mr Patterson’s company at dinner…

  That was almost all it said. There was a date, a time for dinner, a conventional sentiment or two. And the added note: We will be alone.

  Like Ord, but with more calculation, Esther had put her feelings in writing.

  What is done in private has no meaning or significance – unless it is known. Was I to live by Heron’s bleak philosophy? With Ciara Mazzanti’s dreadful example before me? This was not the same situation surely? Who could be hurt by this besides ourselves?

  No doubt Ciara Mazzanti had said much the same.

  I folded the note, put it in my pocket and went out into the street where the sun blazed hot as ever.