The Ladder Dancer

by Roz Southey

  ‘Except, that is,’ he retorted, ‘that one thing that is above all essential. Good birth, good breeding. You are not a gentleman, sir, and never can be.’

  I took a deep breath. It was not wise, not wise in the least, to talk about the birth and breeding of some of Ord’s late associates— the ‘lady’ he’d once been intent upon marrying, for instance. Not wise to reveal the story I alone knew the truth of. And definitely not well-bred. But irresistible.

  ‘I have one attribute of good breeding at least,’ I said. ‘As you well know. Discretion.’

  He flushed. I laid the tickets on his desk, gave him a polite thank you and retreated.

  I was furious; for Ord to presume to condemn me – particularly when he’d benefited from my activities in the past – was offensive in the extreme. But he couldn’t be ignored; he had a great deal of influence. People would listen to him and they might not have his leavening of respect for Esther.

  The rain was pattering down again as we stepped out into the street. Esther drew her cloak about her and I turned to ask if she wanted me to hire a chair to carry her home. She was just telling me, with some asperity, that she wasn’t in her dotage yet, when I caught a glimpse of movement across the street.

  The girl, Kate, hurriedly whisking herself out of sight into an alley.

  ‘Charles,’ Esther said as we turned into Westgate and walked up the hill. ‘I was thinking that you will need a music room.’

  I stared at her blankly, still thinking of the girl and her dead baby brother. ‘The harpsichord’s in the library.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But you have said yourself that it catches the sun too much there and goes out of tune. I was thinking: there is the boudoir my late cousin used to use; that would make an admirable music room. A little redecoration—’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  There was a pause. Esther stared meditatively into the hedge of the Vicarage garden. The leaves dripped rain on to the cobbles. ‘The Ords’ redecoration brought it to mind.’

  ‘I know it did!’

  ‘I could send to London for wallpaper samples. And the harpsichord stool is very worn; we could do with new. Then shelves, of course, for your music.’

  ‘I have no wish for a music room,’ I said. ‘The library’s quite adequate.’ First a breakfast room, now this!

  More staring into the hedge; Esther said, ‘Let me see if I have this right. You do not wish to take advantage of my money.’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘You would much rather have nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You would prefer me to continue to deal with it.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Very well.’ She smiled beatifically at me. ‘Then I think I will do the back parlour out as a music room. I will send to London for wallpaper samples and a new harpsichord stool.’

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again.

  ‘Exactly, Charles.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘You cannot have it both ways.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘You could of course refuse to use the room once it is done,’ she mused.

  ‘That would be petty.’ I sighed. ‘If I’d known you could run rings round me like this, I’d never have married you.’

  ‘Really? Is that true?’

  I grinned at her ruefully. ‘No. Not in the least.’

  She smiled and my heart turned over. No, I thought, not in the least.

  Fourteen

  A son should always reverence his father.

  [A Gentleman’s Companion, August 1735]

  I watched for Kate all the way home, to the extent that Esther started looking round too.

  ‘Have you seen someone you know, Charles?’

  ‘The girl,’ I said. ‘Kate. She seems to be following me.’

  Esther smiled wryly. ‘An admirer! Should I be jealous?’

  ‘She still wants to be my apprentice.’

  ‘I think I will have that talk with Mr Orrick,’ Esther said thoughtfully. ‘Persistence should be rewarded.’

  ‘She’s the sort of girl who won’t ever be satisfied,’ I warned her. ‘Give her a little and she’ll demand a lot more.’

  ‘She sounds like a woman after my own heart!’ She gave me a mischievous look.

  ‘Esther,’ I said, ‘pray do not look at me like that in public.’

  We turned into Caroline Square and started across to the house in the corner.

  ‘We’re nearly home,’ Esther pointed out.

  I got up very late on Wednesday morning; if only Ord knew, he’d have to admit I had at least one characteristic of the better-bred. Although my reason for rising late would never have been admitted to in polite society; relations between husband and wife should be cordial, but never warm. I suspected that Ord, contrary to all expectations, was in love with his wife, but would die before he said so.

  Esther was lazy and sleepy at breakfast, daintily feeding herself fragments of bread. When I asked what she planned to do that day, she murmured something about letters, which made me think the wallpaper samples would not be long in arriving. I went out, annoyed at having been manoeuvred into spending more money but immensely admiring of how it had been done.

  If I was to make a success of my career as a musician to counter the wealth I’d acquired from Esther, I had, perforce, to spend the morning selling subscription tickets. But during the polite nothings I murmured to the ladies and gentlemen, under the repeated reassurances that Mrs Patterson was very well, thank you, my mind was busy with the question of that poor baby, and with Cuthbert Ridley and how the devil I could find out more about him. I could ask Heron, but not without confiding my suspicions, and they were too nebulous even for my satisfaction.

  And in the way of these things, as soon as I decided to put Ridley out of my mind and think about him later, I encountered him in Nellie’s coffee-house when I went in for a bite to eat. The rooms were crowded with gentlemen sizing up their investments with the aid of the latest London papers; somewhere in those pages, I thought, were references to Esther’s securities, accumulating interest pound by pound by pound. I looked round for somewhere to sit, and saw Ridley.

  I stared in astonishment, for he was engaged in animated conversation with one of the serving girls. His face was lit up, his eyes aglow and one of his hands rested on the girl’s back, very low down. She was, of course, encouraging him with all the sauce at her command, which was considerable; such girls depend on a shilling or two from fond customers. Claudius Heron had been right, I reflected; all the stuttering and wringing of hands had been mere pretence. There wasn’t a trace of it now.

  The girl winked at me as we came face to face, then hurried past. I sank into the empty seat opposite Ridley. He’d taken, with considerable rapidity, to twisting his fingers together nervously.

  ‘And how do you like Charlotte?’ I asked, borrowing her wink.

  He stared at me for a long moment, then the slowest and slyest of smiles started to curve his lips. ‘I’m told,’ he said, ‘you’re a newly married man. A rich woman. Related to a duke, they say.’

  I wondered if he was one of those men who are only at ease with their social inferiors.

  ‘She’s related to an earl.’ In fact, Esther doesn’t recall ever seeing her noble relation; she was two years old at their last encounter. In addition to which, she is merely the daughter of a younger daughter of a younger daughter, which makes her particularly insignificant.

  ‘And twenty years older than you,’ he said, with an odd kind of triumph.

  ‘Twelve years.’

  ‘Pots of money, eh, Patterson? Don’t know another one for me, do you?’

  Fortunately Charlotte came back at that moment; if she’d been half a minute later, I’d probably have hit Ridley. It was not so much what he said, but the expression on his face as he said it. A knowing slyness combined with immense enjoyment.

  Charlotte put an enormous slab of pie and a tankard of ale in front of Ridley. I’d la
y any odds he’d already had several tankards elsewhere. She’d brought me coffee, which she knows I usually take at this time of day, and smiled prettily at me.

  ‘Cold meats, Mr Patterson? We’ve a lovely apple preserve.’ And, still smiling, she bent to whisper in my ear, as if making an assignation. ‘Watch him, sir. I never met anyone I trusted less.’

  She pranced away through the crowds, making sure we had a good view of her back. Ridley’s eyes lingered, I noticed. Well, that was hardly to his discredit.

  ‘Fifty would do it,’ he said.

  I frowned. ‘Fifty what?’

  ‘Guineas.’ He held out his hand like a beggar. ‘It’s a real goer.’

  ‘A horse?’ I asked warily.

  ‘A grey,’ he said. I looked sharply at him but he was slicing up his pie with great dedication. ‘Everyone knows greys always win. And it’ll only cost you fifty guineas. Then we can run it. Start with the local races, work up to the big ones at York. It’ll wipe the board. Grey Lightning.’

  ‘That’s its name, I take it.’

  ‘Sired by Thunder.’

  Miraculously, I’d actually heard of Thunder. It had won the big race at Newcastle only two months before. ‘I don’t want to own a horse.’

  ‘Could make you a fortune.’

  I sipped coffee, watched as he dug his fingers into the pie and levered out big chunks of meat; he stuffed his mouth, licked his fingers clean. A gentleman passing glanced down at me, a cynical smile curving his lips. ‘But as you pointed out not a minute ago,’ I said, ‘I already have a fortune. Through my marriage.’

  ‘You can never have too much money!’

  I disagreed with that, fervently, but that was none of his business.

  Charlotte brought me a plate with meats and bread and the promised apple preserve, and took herself off again with remarkable speed for a woman who regards a chat with a man as the best part of her working day. I was tempted to copy her example; Ridley was remarkably unpleasant. But then I’d never know what had happened last Friday when the child died.

  ‘You like horses?’ I asked.

  ‘If they win!’

  ‘You rode up from London, I take it.’

  He grinned. ‘Can you see me in a post chaise making polite conversation while the miles crawl by?’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. Charlotte was right; the apple preserve was delicious. I tried another tack. ‘What made you come back at all? If I had a chance to settle in London . . .’

  He made a face. ‘Family.’

  ‘I’d have thought they’d be pleased to see you well settled.’

  ‘Want me under their eye.’ He leant across the table grinning, and lowered his voice. ‘Know my elder brother, do you?’

  ‘Only by sight.’

  He gave me a significant look. ‘Coughing.’

  ‘Coughing?’

  ‘All the time.’ He dug in his fingers again, waved a piece of pie crust at me. ‘And blood in it. One of these days, there’ll be a notice in the paper. Died of a painful and lingering illness . . .’

  I stared at him. Not shocked, because illness and death is part of the normal course of life, but surprised. ‘I’d no idea. But you have another brother.’

  ‘In Narva with my father. Nasty place, Narva. Like all these foreign places. Thieves and robbers everywhere. And then there’s the ships. Ships can founder, go to the bottom in a flash.’ He made a whooshing noise and gestured broadly with his hands, spraying gravy across the table. Heaven help any family, I thought, whose future depended on Cuthbert Ridley.

  I sat back, and fragments of other conversations drifted to me. About the latest price of coal, returns on government stocks, the difficulties in Europe, the squabbles between Austria and France and the damage it was doing to trade. ‘You must have come home the day the woman was knocked into the river,’ I said casually.

  He squinted at me. ‘Oh?’

  ‘And her child drowned.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ He grinned.

  ‘It was your first night at home,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell me you sat quietly in the house.’

  He winked.

  ‘Went out looking for fun?’

  He gave me a smirk.

  ‘In a brothel? Best brothels are on the Key.’

  He was staring at me with some calculation now. Despite the drink, he’d clearly sensed something significant in my questioning. I said as lightly as I could, ‘Did you see anything?’

  ‘I was otherwise engaged,’ he said, pronouncing his words carefully.

  ‘But?’

  He grinned at me over the top of his tankard. ‘I may have.’

  ‘Such as?’

  He stared a moment longer, speared a chunk of meat on the end of his knife, looked as coy as Mrs Annabella ever did. He leered at another serving girl who walked past, followed her for a moment with his eyes. ‘It was foggy.’

  ‘So you saw nothing?’

  ‘I heard her. She screamed.’

  ‘The woman who fell in the river?’

  ‘There was a pig.’ He grinned broadly at me. ‘Did you see the pig? Squealed like it was being stuck. She sounded just like a pig. And whoosh!’ He threw up his hands again. ‘Up went the baby and down again and such a splash.’ He gulped down beer. I clenched my fists under the table.

  ‘Were you alone?’

  He roared with laughter. ‘Me? At the Old Man? Never.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘She? They!’ He poked at my shoulder. ‘Never take one when two are available!’ He spoke rather too loudly and an elderly gentleman nearby leered at him with salacious interest.

  ‘Who were they?’ I asked. ‘What were their names?’

  He gave me a reproachful glance. ‘Who worries about their names? Not making friends of them for life! A little financial transaction—’ He mimed the passing of money, then grinned and made an obscene gesture. ‘A little . . . intimacy. Don’t want to live with ’em. Although,’ he added on second thoughts, ‘they’d be more fun than my mother.’

  He roared at Charlotte for more beer; she was across the far side of the room, chatting to one of the other girls. ‘You ask a devil of a lot of questions, Patterson.’

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  ‘Had a good time with this woman, did you?’ He sneered at me. ‘The baby that died – had a personal interest there, did you?’

  ‘I did not,’ I snapped, then added more moderately, ‘I merely want to catch the fellow responsible for its death.’

  At least two gentlemen were glancing across at us, as if we were talking too loudly. Charlotte slapped down another tankard in front of Ridley and made off again with all speed. Ridley wagged a finger at me.

  ‘Take my advice. Never meddle in other people’s business. Not wise. You’ll come a cropper, mark my words.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’ I asked, but he was deep into slurping the new beer. I wondered if he’d been drinking all night. Then he fixed on the remains of the pie and speared another lump of meat. He belched. ‘Never go near water. Nasty stuff. Nor boats. They’ll go down, you know.’

  ‘Your father and brother?’

  ‘Both of ’em. And then I’ll have it all. That’s worth coming back for, ain’t it? I’ll stand over the coffins, wringing my hands, supporting my mother . . . God, but she can weep! And then I’ll sell the lot and be off to London again. There’s nowhere better to live than London!’ He gestured widely, still chewing. ‘Take what you can get, Patterson. Sell all her lands and property, and come to London with me. I’ll show you where the best gaming can be had.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ I said, barely restraining my distaste.

  ‘We can combine our worldly wealth and run a game ourselves. I’ve done it before with a friend.’

  ‘Then go back to that friend.’

  ‘Turned respectable on me!’ He waved his hand in the air. ‘Well, all right, I admit there may have been disagreements. But we can clean out. And there’ll be dozens of women. Good solid rumbusti
ous women. Not like that wishy-washy spinster of yours!’

  I stared at him. He grinned. And it occurred to me he was saying exactly what he knew would cause most offence. He was playing games with me.

  ‘I’ve business to do,’ I said, pushing back my chair.

  His laugh followed me out of the coffee house.

  Fifteen

  Do not be led astray by those governed by fashion and frivolity.

  [A Gentleman’s Companion, March 1731]

  I thought I’d conquered my anger by the time I got home but Tom, hovering just inside the door, took one look at my expression and straightened. ‘There’s a note for you, sir.’

  ‘Another one!’ I took it from him, turned it over. It looked like Hugh’s writing. ‘Where’s Mrs Patterson?’

  Tom opened his mouth. A gleam sprang up on the bottom of the banister. ‘She’s out shopping!’ George yelled.

  I fancied I could hear Tom grinding his teeth. ‘This is going to have to stop, George,’ I said levelly. ‘I told you to let Tom do his job.’

  ‘I was, master!’ George said. The slyness in his voice was close cousin to Ridley’s, which only made me more annoyed. ‘I let him tell you about the note. Then I told you about the mistress. You know I always look after her!’

  I regarded the gleam with misgiving. That note of jealousy again. ‘George—’

  The spirit’s voice became more strident. ‘I always keep an eye on what she’s doing, master!’

  He probably did. Spirits usually know all about the affairs of the living. But such scrutiny can easily become intolerable. I needed to talk to Esther, to reassure myself that George was not becoming intrusive. Something would have to be done. George would always remain a boy; for the next eighty or so years – almost certainly our entire lives – we’d have to live with him. If we didn’t find a way to control him, our only escape would be to move.

  It might yet come to that. ‘Nevertheless,’ I said, ‘I was asking Tom a question. You interrupted a conversation, which is rude.’

  ‘He’s rude!’ George retorted. ‘He’s always swearing at me.’

  Tom reddened. ‘I don’t!’ He looked briefly absurdly young. ‘I don’t, sir!’