Secret Lament (11 page)

Bedwalters hesitated; Heron turned away, poured himself wine and downed the glassful in one gulp. “She was eloping,” Bedwalters said.

We stared at him.

“With whom?” Heron demanded.

Bedwalters shook his head. “We do not know.” He reached into a pocket and unfolded a note, looked at it for a moment then held it out to me. I took the note to the single branch of
candles on the sideboard; Heron looked over my shoulder.

Dearest father
[the note read]
Love cannot be denied. I am flying to my love despite your refusal to entertain his proposals. Your ever loving daughter, Julia.

Heron snorted in derision. “Dramatic twaddle.”

“It is somewhat melodramatic,” Bedwalters agreed. “It is not a quote from a play, Mr Patterson?”

“Not that I know of. But Keregan would be a better man to ask.” The wording of the note made me uneasy.
Dearest
father? And
your ever loving daughter
. What odd phrases
to use in such a note – I would have expected something a little more defiant. And was the word
proposals
significant? Did she mean a formal request for her hand in marriage?

“You think the writer of this note might have killed her?” Heron asked.

“He would have had no need to do anything of the sort,” I said. “She was ‘flying’ to him – he could have borne her off and taken advantage of her somewhere
warm and comfortable.”

“Unless she changed her mind,” Bedwalters pointed out. “He might have tried to force her to go with him.”

“But to rape her in the street? What kind of man tries that?”

“A fool,” Heron said. “I presume there is a chance some spirit overheard the whole?”

“Alas, no,” Bedwalters said. “There is a chambermaid in this house who died in the attics; I asked her spirit to enquire for me. No spirit apparently heard or saw anything. He
may have forced her into an unspirited alley.”

I turned the note over. The paper was worn and dog-eared; the folds had dirt in them and had plainly been made some time before. On the reverse side, the word Papa had been written with a great
flourish; below, something had been crossed out vigorously. I angled the note to better catch the light. It was a date. After a struggle, I made it out: 26 March 1736.

I stared in disbelief. “It is an old note.” I showed Bedwalters the date.

“She had tried the trick before,” Heron said contemptuously.

Bedwalters looked tried almost beyond endurance. “If she had,” he said, “the note would have been in the hands of her father.”

“Maybe it was,” Heron said dryly.

“You’re suggesting Mazzanti left it out?” I said, incredulously. “To persuade us that Julia was eloping? But why?”

Heron laughed shortly. “Perhaps he killed her himself.”

Bedwalters and I exchanged glances. This was just Heron’s innate cynicism talking, but nevertheless it was undoubtedly true that the note was puzzling.

“Perhaps she intended to elope in London but was prevented,” I suggested. I recalled that Ord had been in London in March. “She kept the note and used it here for the first
time.”

“Intending to elope with the same man both times?” Heron asked sceptically.

“It’s too much to believe surely that she had plans to elope with two different men?”

Bedwalters nodded. “If it’s the case that her inamorato murdered her, then at least we have narrowed down the possibilities. The man must have been in London in March and here
now.”

This of course eliminated me, I thought with some relief, but I could not avoid saying again, with some reluctance, that it was unlikely her lover would have needed to attack her in the street.
Heron said nothing; Bedwalters merely stood silent for a moment then turned back to the door. “I believe I need to talk further to Mr Mazzanti.”

We followed, of course.

The house was small; upstairs were only three rooms and the stairs to the attic. Philip Ord and John Mazzanti were trading insults at the foot of the attic stairs; on either
side the doors to the rooms were firmly shut. Ord was accusing Mazzanti of exploiting Julia without regard for her welfare, Mazzanti was accusing Ord of trying to seduce his daughter. I thought
both accusations were probably true.

Bedwalters said, in a quiet voice, “Gentlemen.”

Both men looked round; Ord glowered at me, sneered at Bedwalters, then flushed when he saw Heron’s cool gaze.

“I believe you have no more business here, Mr Ord,” Bedwalters said implacably. “Mr Heron will let you out of the house – he is going down to comfort Mrs
Mazzanti.”

It was a masterly stroke, getting rid of both gentlemen at once. For a moment, I thought neither would co-operate; Ord was red with fury, Heron tight-jawed. But the laws of civilised behaviour,
inculcated in us all, and in particular the gentry, since birth, won; Heron drew back to usher Ord ahead of him, which was strictly impolite, as Heron was the older, wealthier and better-connected,
but it established at once who was the master. Ord clattered off in a great rush and could be heard furiously tugging at the bolts of the door.

Bedwalters apparently had no intention of requiring me to go, which I took as a compliment, and as a tacit admission that his question to me earlier had been a matter of form. He regarded
Mazzanti steadfastly, the note in his hand. “Where did you find this?”

Mazzanti looked half-drunk, half-dazed. “On her bed,” he said thickly. “I told you.”

“When?” I said.

“When we laid her body there.” He might be half-dazed but he was still capable of guile. “The labourers were there,” he said. “They saw it.”

“When did you put it there?” I asked.

He swung a fist at me. I was half-expecting it and ducked, but stumbled against the wall. The muscles in my back groaned in pain.

Bedwalters took hold of Mazzanti’s flailing arm. “If you would leave this to me, Mr Patterson. You have seen the note before, I believe, Mr Mazzanti.”

Now Mazzanti looked more confused than ever. “Before?”

Bedwalters showed him the crossed-out date. “She eloped once before in March – in London, I presume.”

“No.” Mazzanti put a hand to his head. “No.” He swayed. “Never. She was a dutiful daughter.” He drew himself upright with some difficulty. “She would
never run away. I was going to make her the best actress in London. The richest.”

He started to weep, a thin keening sound; he stood at the foot of the stairs, his face contorted, a thin mewling sound drifting from his half-open mouth. A single tear trickled down his cheek.
Bedwalters reddened with embarrassment; I hovered, without the slightest idea of what to do.

“Come downstairs, sir,” Bedwalters said at last, and, hand on Mazzanti’s arm, helped him down the stairs to the hall. I limped behind, stumbling on one of the stairs, which
creaked alarmingly. Mazzanti was still weeping. Our descent was noisy and brought Heron out of the drawing-room. Through the half-open door behind him, I could hear the women conversing, Mrs Baker
in soothing murmurs, Signora Mazzanti in broken, helpless phrases. I had a brief glimpse of the Signora, holding a crumpled handkerchief; she seemed no longer to be sobbing. Heron’s presence
had apparently had a calming effect.

Mazzanti shook off Bedwalters’s grip and, only a little unsteadily, made his way past Heron, into the drawing room. “Do not fear, my dear,” we heard him say. “We will not
be penniless. I will find someone else to take Julia’s place.”

He closed the door, very pointedly.

Heron broke the silence. “She is not a woman of business,” he said. “I have recommended lawyer Armstrong to her if she and her husband require assistance.”

I have become accustomed to hearing what Heron did not say; the Signora, he implied, was one of those women who sink thankfully into the metaphorical arms of a capable man; I suspected she had
hinted that Heron might like to fill the part and he had recommended another. Thank God Esther was not of that kind.

“There is little more I can do here, I fancy,” Bedwalters said. “It looks very much as if the girl was eloping and was attacked by a chance passer by. She had a little money
and jewellery on her person and that was untouched, so robbery could not have been the motive. Whoever attacked was a villain of the worst kind. I will put the hue and cry in Thomas Saint’s
paper on Saturday and I will attempt to find the man with whom she intended to elope.”

He cast a glance at me. “Could it have been one of the theatre company, do you think, Mr Patterson?”

Dear God. Ned.

Never be surprised at the unexpected vagaries of your acquaintances; it is not polite.

[
Instructions to a Son newly come of Age
, Revd. Peter Morgan (London: published for the Author, 1691)]

Nobody is more suspicious than a man hovering on a doorstep at three in the morning, shivering in the unexpected chill of a cloudless June night. Behind me, I could hear the
murmur of Mazzanti’s voice in the drawing room and Mrs Baker’s sharp protests. Bedwalters had just gone, striding off towards his house on Westgate Road; Heron’s carriage had been
waiting for him, the coachman walking the horses up and down the street. He had driven off without a word to either of us.

My own lodgings were not far away but I still lingered, going over in my mind the route Julia would have had to take to get from this house to Amen Corner. Not an easy one and she was a near
stranger to the town too, with only two weeks’ acquaintance with it. And I warrant she would not have walked very far during her stay. Why had she gone to Amen Corner? Had she been attacked
there or elsewhere? If elsewhere, why should her body have been taken to Amen Corner? And Amen Corner, as it turned out, had very few spirits in it; a three-year-old girl is no danger as a
witness.

Bright stars flickered over my head, the Great Bear swung slowly round the pole star, the full moon rode high down the street, making it almost light as day but washed of all its colour.

Had Ned killed Julia? I did not doubt that he was capable of it – I had seen him in huge tight-lipped rages. But he had apparently wanted to marry the girl – why should he kill her?
Had she spurned him?

A lazy voice spoke above my head. Mrs Baker had relit the extinguished lantern on our arrival to light the way for the barber surgeon, and a spirit lodged on the hook from which the lantern
hung.

“Busy tonight,” the spirit said. A young man in life by the sound of him, and, I’d warrant, dissolute.

“I didn’t know Mrs Baker’s house had a spirit,” I said.

“Chambermaid,” he said. “Keeps herself in the attics. I’m next door.” I looked closely and saw the hook was indeed hammered into the neighbouring house’s
masonry.

“Pity,” he added. “She was just the kind of girl I like.”

“The chambermaid?”

“Nah,” he said. “The other one. Yellow curls, yellow ribbons. Kept her head down but gave you a sly glance out of the corner of her eye.”

Those ribbons again. And something started to nag at me; I had seen something without properly noticing it…

“You saw her come out of the house last night?”

“Midnight,” he agreed, sliding down the lantern hook to hang on its lowest curlicue. Moonlight gives the gleam of spirits an odd greenish tinge. “The bewitching hour. She was
certainly one to bewitch a man.”

I did not disagree. “How did she leave the house?”

Now he was surprised. “By the door, sir. How else?”

Perhaps I had been infected by the melodrama we acted out at the theatre. I’d been imagining she’d climbed down a ladder into the arms of her lover – wasn’t that the
traditional method for elopements?

“She was alone?”

The spirit chuckled. “Except for my good self.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“A word or two, sir. She was not in a good mood but I restored her humour with a compliment or two. She was – ahem – waiting for someone.”

“Her lover?”

“So she said.”

“But he didn’t arrive?”

“Never a sign of anyone,” he said. “She sighed, and she walked about, and she sighed some more, then she muttered, then she cursed. The entire history of a love affair in ten
minutes, sir. Then she stalked off to the corner and was gone. Never saw her again till you brought her back dead.”

“Did you see which way she turned at the corner?”

“Right. Certainly right, my dear fellow.”

Right
? But to get to Amen Corner she would have had to turn left.

“Are you going, sir?” the spirit asked with sudden querulousness. “I have told you everything and you have not reciprocated. I am annoyed, sir, annoyed.”

Never offend a spirit; they can do you too much harm. I turned back to him. “If you like a good tale – ”

“I do. I do.”

“Then I promise to come back and tell you one – when I know it myself. In the meantime, I would be much obliged if you could ask your fellow spirits if they can trace the
lady’s movements last night.”

“Umm…” Heavens, but he was lazy; he sounded as if pondering if he had energy enough to stir from the lamp hook. Then: “It’s a deal, sir. Anything to beguile an
hour or two. God, but it’s dull being dead!”

The streets at night are unnervingly quiet and the sounds of carousal that come from every tavern on every corner only make the silence in the streets more complete. Lights are few and far
between, even in those streets where householders are conscientious and put out their lanterns; in any case, in the early hours of the morning, many are guttering and dying. As I turned from street
into street, the sense of being watched, of having a gaze steady upon my back, was almost tangible. I told myself that the ruffians would be out housebreaking or lying dead drunk in some house but
could not quite convince myself.

There was something I had to do before going home, something that made me brave the streets longer than I had to. I was going after Corelli. The hard-hearted villain who would leave a young girl
lying dead in the street rather than get involved, who sought out the constable in the afternoon with some wild story of spies, but who ran off rather than face him in the evening. I knew what that
meant. Corelli was a trickster with some sort of knavery in hand, involving money, no doubt; my only surprise was that Bedwalters had been taken in by his tricks.