The Ladder Dancer (26 page)

I’d promised Jenison I would keep him up to date and I went up a windy Westgate to his house, feeling that the trip was becoming very familiar. But as I raised my hand to knock at the door, Claudius Heron came up behind me.

The breeze was flicking his hair across his forehead; he said without preamble, ‘I have been looking for you – Gale told me where you were headed. Ridley is nowhere to be found. No one has any news of him, neither living man or spirit.’

I had no time to say anything; the door swung open and a footman stood back to let us in. We were left in the elegant hall while he went to see if his mistress was at home. There was a new picture at the foot of the stairs, a fine portrait of Jenison himself.

‘I have been presented with a dozen bills today,’ Heron said, lowering his voice. His hand was tapping regularly against his thigh in barely repressed anger. ‘He has told all the tradesmen I would pay. Tailor’s bills, wine merchants, shoemakers – even a butcher’s bill. He is racking up impressive debts already. This cannot continue.’

‘He could still be at the Old Man,’ I said. ‘I don’t trust the people down there one little bit. And the spirits on the Key can be uncooperative.’

Heron nodded. ‘I have sent my manservant down to enquire. He may hear something different.’

A noise behind us; we both turned. The door to a side room had opened. Mrs Annabella stood in the doorway, looking disconcerted. She was wearing one of her girlish, befrilled gowns. ‘Oh, I had no idea.’ Her gaze settled on me, a watery gaze ready to shed tears at any moment. ‘He’s not—’

‘No,’ I said, firmly. I hoped fervently I’d not be the one to tell Mrs Annabella that the object of her affections had indeed passed away. Though I thought she looked a little disappointed – failing a true love culminating in the triumph of marriage, a love lost for ever would probably suit her inclinations very well. I immediately felt ashamed of my cynicism; I was as bad as Ridley, ridiculing her in such a fashion. But in an odd way, Nightingale’s death would be a blessing for her; if he’d lived, she would have been doomed to disappointment and distress; now she could hold on to a dream of what might have been.

The footman came back and ushered us into the drawing room where we had one of the most tedious conversations of my life. Jenison was apparently out on business and once I’d delivered my message we none of us had anything to say. Mrs Annabella wavered between eagerness for the latest details and the faltering air of a woman doing her best to forget her woes. Heron was almost silent, patently impatient. Mrs Jenison looked more haggard than ever and more withdrawn, although she did her duty by us as guests conscientiously; I wondered if I should suggest to Esther that she should pay another visit. Even my compliments on the new portrait of Jenison aroused no enthusiasm; Mrs Annabella managed to say that it was ‘very like’ but her tone was doubtful.

We escaped at last. Heron muttered in exasperation as we stood on the street again. ‘I have had sufficient irritation for the day,’ he said brusquely. ‘Come to dinner. Bring your wife and let us have some music. Ridley and Nightingale may go to the devil for a few hours.’

Perhaps I should have spoken to Esther before agreeing; when I told her later, in the drawing room, she shrieked. ‘Charles, why didn’t you tell me earlier! I cannot possibly get ready in time!’

Kate was painstakingly copying out notes on to manuscript paper; it was difficult to tell the notes from the blobs of ink she’d spilt. ‘Am I going to wear my yellow dress again?’ she said, frowning. ‘It’s dirty.’

‘You’re not coming,’ I said.

She fired up at once. ‘Why not?’

‘It’s a private dinner.’

She looked stubborn. ‘I want to come.’

‘No.’

‘I will!’ she shouted.

‘No,’ Esther said.

Kate stood breathing heavily, biting her lip. As I thought, Esther was already licking her into shape.

‘Mr Heron is not holding a dinner party,’ Esther said. ‘It is merely for his intimates.’

‘Heron?’ Kate said sharply. ‘Is that the gent with the sword?’ She surprised me by adding, ‘I like him. He’s dangerous.’ She sounded as if she relished the idea. ‘If I stay, can I have some pie for supper?’

‘I’ll get cook to send your dinner to your room,’ Esther agreed.

‘All right, I’ll stay,’ Kate said as if it was a great favour, and danced out.

Esther looked after her with some amusement. ‘Do you think Heron would like to be thought of as dangerous? It is not a very gentlemanly attribute.’

‘Perhaps not, but I agree with Kate. And I think Ridley is likely to find it out soon enough.’

Kate was waiting in the hall to see us off when I came down an hour or so later. Tom was busy lighting candles; I lowered my voice, said to Kate, ‘I know you’re hiding something from me.’

She reddened but glared. ‘I’m not!’

I bore in mind Esther’s injunction about treating her gently. ‘You’d do better to tell me now.’

‘There’s nothing,’ she said sullenly.

‘Very well. But remember you can tell me at any time, whenever you wish.’

She looked obstinate.

Esther came down the stairs in a gown of white silk spotted with tiny pink roses with even tinier green leaves. ‘Here,’ Kate said, eyes narrowing. ‘You ain’t walking to the dinner, are you?’

‘Not in this dress,’ Esther said, with amusement. ‘Heron has sent his carriage. We must go, Charles. We must not keep the horses waiting!’

‘A carriage!’ Kate said eagerly, and dashed outside to stare in admiration at the magnificence in the street. ‘I’m going to have a carriage,’ she said, marvelling. ‘Not this colour though.’ Heron’s carriage was a dark plum colour. ‘I’m going to have a pale-blue one,’ she said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Esther shudder.

I was surprised, but pleased, to find Hugh in Heron’s stylish drawing room, drinking his host’s best wine appreciatively and swapping tales about fencing. Dancing masters frequently teach fencing too, and the only reason Hugh does not, as far as I can tell, is that he doesn’t need to – there are more than enough young ladies desperate to make eyes at him, to keep him dancing from morn to night. Before I knew it, both Heron and Hugh were pressing me to buy a sword and offering to teach me how to use it. Esther, unfortunately, thought it a good idea. ‘All gentlemen carry swords, Charles,’ she pointed out.

‘But not if they can’t use ’em,’ Hugh said severely.

Heron nodded. ‘Carry one and you
will
one day have to use it.’

‘Only trouble is,’ said Hugh grinning, ‘Charles is an abominable dancer. No sense of rhythm. And if you can’t use your feet properly, it’s a bit of a handicap for a sword fighter.’

‘I don’t want to fight,’ I said. ‘I’m quite happy without a sword.’ Truth to tell, I was feeling uneasy. Heron was smartly, and expensively, dressed as befitted a gentleman; Hugh was magnificent in lilac and plum, and Esther’s gown was new and gorgeous. My ‘best’ coat was dull and patently cheap; as I had at the Jenisons’, I felt distinctly shabby, particularly amongst the elegant sophistication of Heron’s Chinese wallpaper and Roman statuettes. I wondered whether I could encourage Mr Watson the tailor to produce my new coat more quickly by the payment of a little extra something, then reflected I was thinking exactly as Jenison would. Or Heron. No, Heron would just look at Watson in a certain way and have the man volunteering to deliver the coat in minutes.

Heron said repressively, ‘All skills can be learnt if the inclination is there.’

I hardly dared look at Esther. Swordplay, estate management – Heron had hit on the nub of the matter. I had no inclination to learn either.

I managed to change the subject and we went in to dinner in a panelled, very masculine dining room, with a polished mahogany table and heavy silver cutlery that shrieked expense. Heron’s taste in food runs to the elegant too – he has a French cook apparently – a fact which sparked off talk of Paris. Esther had lived there as a child and longed to see it again. Hugh and Heron both know it well and advised me extensively on where to stay and what to visit; they seemed to assume we’d take a somewhat belated bridal trip there. I was gripped by a sense of unreality. Paris, Rome? Devil take it, I was a provincial musician with an income of under a hundred a year and the likes of me don’t go to Paris.

We didn’t banish Esther alone to the drawing room after dinner; instead we all repaired to Heron’s library. He got out his violin and I opened up the harpsichord. Esther and Hugh murmured disconcertingly in a corner. I thought I heard Hugh mention my name; I glanced up at them – and saw, through a window behind them, a pale face.

The window looked out on to a terrace and night-shrouded gardens. I went across to draw the curtains. It was difficult to see anything outside; all I could see in the window glass was the reflection of the candles and Esther’s pale dress. Had I imagined it? I was certain I’d seen something,
someone
. Someone small. Childlike. Was Kate following me again? How had she got it into her head I was in danger? What was she not telling me?

In the reflections, I saw the drawing-room doors open, and a footman look round for Heron. I drew the curtains and turned back. Heron was just dismissing the servant.

‘I regret,’ he said, ‘we must postpone our music. Someone has tried to kill Ridley.’

Thirty-Five

Gentlemen never frequent low taverns.

[
A Gentleman’s Companion
, February 1731]

I felt, as always, uneasy in the Old Man Inn, very much a fish out of water. Heron kept his hand on his sword throughout and, oddly, looked much more at home despite his fine clothes. I began to think Kate was right – he did look dangerous. And the livid bruise that branded his left cheek gave him a certain credibility with the regulars here – I saw them admiring it.

It had plainly been out of the question for Esther to accompany us. In her costly dress, she’d be an easy target for the insults of the ruffians at the Old Man, and while that wouldn’t probably concern her in the least, it would distract me. She’d not even raised the suggestion but immediately accepted Heron’s offer of his carriage home. Hugh had been harder to persuade but, eventually, reluctantly agreed that a one-armed man would be severely handicapped if it came to a fight. I fancied he was feeling more tired than he liked to admit.

Ridley had been carried to an upstairs room, so small it barely accommodated the bed and a cane-bottomed chair riddled with mildew. A window looked out on to the filthy chare to the side of the inn and was speckled with dead flies hanging in ancient spiders’ webs. The room plainly didn’t please Gale the surgeon, who was fastidiously avoiding touching anything he didn’t have to.

Ridley himself lay on the bed, grinning at Gale’s mutterings over the wound in his shoulder and occasionally pinching the serving girl who was primly standing holding a bowl of blood-stained water. Heron and I waited in the doorway while Gale worked; Heron set his back against the doorjamb so he could glance easily down the passageway to the stairs, plainly ready for possible trouble. I saw Ridley’s gaze stray to Heron’s sword and then to his profile, and I glimpsed – fear? surprise? But then the insolent grin slipped back into place.

Gale put a wad of cloth over the wound and held it in place with one hand while he wound bandages round Ridley’s chest. ‘It’s only a scratch.’ He glanced at me. ‘Done with something none too sharp again.’

‘Blunt be damned!’ Ridley protested, laughing. ‘It nearly killed me!’

‘Nonsense,’ Gale said curtly, gesturing at a bruise on Ridley’s forehead. ‘You fell and knocked yourself out – the villain must have thought he’d done enough damage and run off.’

The girl, dismissed, sauntered past us with her bowl of water, allowing it to slop over the sides as she went. Both Heron and I were on the lookout for mischief, however, and stepped back in time to prevent ourselves getting splashed.

‘I’ll put in my bill first thing tomorrow,’ Gale said.

‘As you wish,’ Ridley said, grinning still.

Gale hesitated. ‘And I’ll tell the boy who brings it not to leave until he has his money.’

‘He’ll have to wait a long time,’ Ridley said. ‘I don’t have a penny.’ He looked up at Gale’s scandalized face. ‘So what now? Are you going to unwrap me and take the soiled bandages away with you?’

‘I’ll pay,’ Heron said, wearily. ‘On his mother’s behalf.’

Gale muttered his thanks, gathered up his instruments and left with affronted dignity.

‘I don’t intend to be grateful, you know,’ Ridley said.

I strode across to him, lifted up his right hand. He was too surprised to resist. The hand was scratched: one substantial graze across the palm, two or three smaller scratches across some of the fingertips. I checked his left hand; that too was scratched, though not so badly.

‘The wound is in your left shoulder,’ I said. ‘You were attacked from the front by a right-handed person. You put up your hands to defend yourself and caught hold of the knife, at least once, perhaps more.’

‘That’s very clever,’ Ridley said with mock admiration. ‘Or were you hiding behind a heap of baskets, watching?’

‘You were attacked on the Key?’

‘Alas,’ he said. ‘I was drunk!’

‘And still are,’ Heron muttered.

‘And your attacker?’

‘Caught me by surprise!’ Ridley said, beaming. ‘Never saw a thing.’

‘So you can’t identify him?’

‘Haven’t the slightest idea.’

‘But, as we’ve just agreed,’ I said, ‘you were facing your attacker. Moreover, you grabbed hold of the knife, which means you can’t have been further than arm’s length from him. So what did he look like?’

He was amused. ‘The fellow was too short.’

‘What?’

‘A midget. No more than two feet tall. His face was on a level with my knees – never saw it.’

‘Then how did he manage to stab you in the shoulder?’