by Roz Southey
I explained my contretemps with the unknown assailant. Hugh crossquestioned me on every detail before finally exploding. “But it’s appalling, Charles! Who the devil would attack you out there?”
“Poachers?” I offered, without much hope of being agreed with.
“Nonsense! When did you hear of poachers doing anything but creep away with their ill-gotten gains!”
“It’s either that or believe Nell’s murderer took the trouble to travel seven miles north on the off-chance I might know something or that he might get a chance to attack me!” I watched as he subsided into disgruntled silence. “I know it doesn’t make sense, Hugh. Now tell me, how is Bedwalters?”
He sighed, peered out into the drizzle. I saw how weary he looked. “Won’t budge. And Mrs McDonald just takes his rent and says how useful it is to have a man in the house!”
“Having a resident constable isn’t exactly going to help business.”
“He isn’t a constable any longer. The vestry of All Hallows have dismissed him.”
“Then the vestry of All Hallows are hypocrites,” I said. Suddenly everything about this matter annoyed me. Particularly the plight of Bedwalters. “Everyone knew about the girl,” I said. “She used to go everywhere with him if he was called out at night. That’s how I first met her. And everyone pretended they didn’t know. When it suited them.”
“That’s the point though, isn’t it?” Hugh said. “You can do anything as long as you keep it quiet.”
“You’re beginning to sound like Claudius Heron.”
We went out into the drizzle and walked to All Hallows parish and the shabby streets where Nell had lived and died. Women were already out looking for potential customers; on one corner, workmen repairing a dilapidated roof were enjoying their attentions. One or two more respectable women hurried past with hard stares.
Maggie was lounging against the door of Mrs McDonald’s house; she smelt of gin. She grinned, displaying a gap in her teeth, jerked her head. “He’s still here.”
“We’ve got to get him home!” Hugh said exasperated.
She put out a hand to block our way. “Leave the poor bugger alone. He was sweet on her and kept her from harm more than once. And he’s always been polite to the rest of us. If it makes him happy to stay here, leave him be.” She turned to glare at the workmen. “Makes a change to have a decent man in this house.”
Inside, I heard a woman shrieking with laughter. A mangy cat shot out of a room and bolted for the street. A man upstairs shouted for a chamberpot.
We hesitated on the threshold of what had once been Nell’s room. The door was wide open. Bedwalters had shifted the table into the middle of the room and was standing over it. Head down over a slate, scratching away, was a girl, no more than twelve years old, with a ludicrously elaborate hairstyle falling out of its pins. Bedwalters was nodding encouragingly. “That’s right, Adele. Now, what comes after the ‘d’?”
Laboriously she wrote another letter.
“Excellent. And next?”
In his distress, Bedwalters had returned to his chief occupation, that of writing master.
He glanced round, saw us, smilingly dismissed the girl. She started up with a glowing face and dashed off into the back of the house where she could be heard calling out excitedly: “I can write! Look, I can write!” Bedwalters regarded me with a steady gaze.
“It’s good of you to come, Mr Patterson. I’m sorry you’ve been inconvenienced.”
“It’s nothing. I was glad to get away, if truth be told.”
He stood his ground in the centre of the room, like a man who owned it. Or at least like a man who was up-to-date with his rent. “I know what you intend to say, Mr Patterson. You hope to persuade me to go back home. I will not.”
There was no arguing with that quiet tone of voice; he’d made his mind up and would not be moved. As always with Bedwalters, I was tempted to apologise for questioning him.
“What will you do?” I asked.
“Teach. As always.” He noticed that I’d involuntarily glanced at the empty bed. “We buried her last night.”
I nodded. It’s not a good idea to allow a spirit to see the body that once housed it. “I’m sorry to have missed the funeral.”
“Mr Demsey was there,” he said, inclining his head to Hugh. “For which I was very grateful.”
He offered us wine but we declined. We arranged a time to return and parted at the door of the house. Hugh had a trip to London to arrange and I wanted a few questions answered. The matter of the books troubled me. It must surely be a coincidence that Nell had been killed over a book and that Fischer had lost one but, as I had the time, it seemed sensible to find out what I could. If I could find Fischer’s book, I could show it to the spirit and discover once and for all if it was the one she’d kept for her killer. If not – well, I could restore it to its rightful owner.
I walked down Pilgrim Street, heading for the Key. But as I came up to the end of Silver Street, I took it into my head to go to All Hallows church and say a prayer over Nell’s grave. The town was still relatively quiet and I passed only two or three labourers and one of the organist’s children, sitting on the doorstep, stroking the family cat.
The gate to the churchyard squeaked open; I hesitated, remembering the last time I’d been here and had had a view of the world that runs alongside our own. But on this occasion, nothing happened as I pushed open the gate.
Nell’s grave was easy to find for the earth was still raw; a simple wooden cross with her name painted on it stood at the head of the grave, but I suspected that Bedwalters would somehow find the money for something more prominent. I found myself offering not a prayer, but an apology. For not keeping her safe, for not intervening to make her life easier, for being part of a society that condemned her to the life she had led. She was a woman who had deserved more.
I shivered and pulled my greatcoat tighter, belatedly realising what the shiver meant. I looked up. The graveyard lay around me, silent and ghostly in bright moonlight. A frost lay whitely over the grass, stiffening it. I looked down at the grave. It was grassed over, the blades stiff and brittle. At its head stood a sturdy gravestone. Nell Ross, it read. Shamefully snatched away in the 18th year of her age. She was loving and beloved. And then the appropriate dates.
It was like intruding on Bedwalters’s grief. I took a step backwards. The frost dissolved, the night lightened and shifted back into day, into thick cloud. Rain dampened my coat.
10
The coffee in the drinking houses is passable.
[Letter from Retif de Vincennes, to his sister, Agnés, 18 July 1736]
Thomas Saint’s printing office stands at the end of the Key. The day being Friday, the office was crowded with men shifting bundles of the latest edition of the Newcastle Courant to be sent out to all the local towns; Saint himself was distractedly ticking off items on a long list. I hesitated to interrupt him but he glanced up and saw me, and his face brightened at once.
“Mr Patterson! I thought you were out at Mr Alyson’s house.”
“I’ve just come back for a day. On business.”
“Did you by any chance – ” His face glowed, transforming him from a rather plain middle-aged man in a respectable wig, to a warm and loving father. “Did you by any chance see Lizzie? She’s supposed to be staying there.”
“She is indeed,” I said reluctantly. “They came yesterday.”
“And she’s well and happy?”
I was careful with my words. “She looked very fine indeed.”
“Mrs Ord,” he said with a satisfied chuckle. “Well, I admit, I was wrong. When she first told me she admired Mr Philip Ord, I thought she’d end up disappointed. But he took after her and she got her way. A fairy tale, is it not, Mr Patterson?”
Ord had been courting a play actress at the same time as betrothing himself to his bride, and I knew of at least two widows who’d been his mistresses at various times. I didn’t think Lizzie had much chance of s
tilling his wandering eye. Although he might be more discreet about it to avoid offending his wealthy father-in-law.
“Dreams do sometimes come true,” I said, trying not to sound sanctimonious. “Mr Saint, I’m trying to trace a book – ”
“Another of your mysteries, Mr Patterson?” he asked with good-humoured indulgence.
“Lizzie – I mean Mrs Ord – recollected being shown it two or three years ago.”
He excused himself to deal with a boy who was picking up the wrong parcels. When I described the book to him he remembered it well.
“It was Mr Hodgson brought it in.”
“Mr William Hodgson?”
“That’s right. Less than two weeks before he died. He said he’d bought the book from a house sale. Someone out in the country who’d gone bankrupt. He wanted it rebound.”
“It was in a bad state?”
“Very. It had been mistreated at some stage.” Saint wandered off into technicalities which confused me. “I said I’d do the work for him, of course. Wouldn’t have been much trouble.”
“Lizzie said he wanted it printed.”
“He was thinking about it. Wondered if anyone would be interested in buying a copy. I told him straight, Mr Patterson, no market for it.”
“I thought psalm books sold almost as well as the Bible.”
“Better!” Saint nodded at a shelf full of books for sale. “You can always bring out a new edition – small enough for a pocket, or big enough for a lectern, smart enough for a lady to hold, dignified enough for a gentleman to feel comfortable with. But words only, Mr Patterson. Saving your presence, no one wants tunes. Everyone knows them already.”
That was true enough – I knew that from my experience as deputy church organist. But only if you stick to four or five old favourites. Anything unfamiliar is greeted with stony silence and we’ve never sung that one before meaning and we don’t want to now.
“In any case,” Saint said, “you know yourself how expensive music printing can be, Mr Patterson. All that engraving takes time. And that means you have to set the price of the book high.”
“What did Mr Hodgson say to that?”
“Oh, he was philosophical about it. Said it had only been half an idea.”
“Did you rebind the book for him?”
“Never got a chance.” Saint looked regretful. “We were about to negotiate terms when an old friend of his came by and he said he’d be back later to deal with it. Then of course he died.”
“And you don’t know what happened to the book?”
Saint shook his head. “Sold with the rest of his library, I daresay. Charnley took the lot off the hands of his heirs at a knockdown price – they wanted quick money, I’m told. A pity – I wouldn’t have minded a look at what he had. Some treasures there, I’ll wager.”
“You’ve not seen it since.”
“Never.”
Saint had a dozen questions to ask about Lizzie: what had she worn? What had she said? Had she kept warm on the boat from France? She’d not been seasick? And was there any sign... No, I said, reddening, I hadn’t see any sign of Lizzie being with child. It was nearly midday before he let me go and my stomach was reminding me I’d had nothing to eat since a snatched breakfast of coffee and bread.
I walked back along the Key, detouring round the gangs loading ships, the barking dogs harassing them, the women eyeing the sailors, the respectable elderly gentlemen handing out tracts in the hope of saving souls. At the end of the Key is the Tyne Bridge, where Charnley’s bookshop is situated. The bridge is venerable, so much so that cracks have zigzagged their way from one buttress to another and find their echoes in the houses and shops that stand against the parapets. A prison and a chapel cluster among the buildings and there are dozens of spirits, all of them eager to chat. I dodged a flock of sheep, hastily returned the greeting of a prim female spirit and ducked beneath a low door into Charnley’s bookshop.
After the noise outside the shop was eerily quiet, a dim place where old books stood regimented on older bookcases, ordered by some mysterious system no outside observer could hope to fathom. Prints filled any spare space on the walls depicting religious subjects: the killing of the Innocents, the Crucifixion, the harrowing of hell. I wondered if anyone had ever engraved the more cheerful moments of scriptural history, like the wedding at Cana. If they had, Charnley didn’t have them.
A spirit said, “Can I help you, sir?”
I don’t generally patronise Charnley’s shop; I looked around the gloomy interior for a moment or two before I saw the spirit gleaming on an inkpot.
“I was hoping to see Mr Charnley.”
“I generally deal with customers, sir.”
The elderly, rather fussy voice suggested the living man had once been Charnley’s shopman, still performing his duties long after death. It must be invaluable to have all that expertise on call – not to mention the savings from not having to pay him.
“I’m trying to trace a book that was once in the library of Mr William Hodgson,” I said. “A manuscript of psalm tunes.”
“Ah,” said the spirit, oozing unctuousness. “And you wish to purchase this book?”
“I’m acting as agent for a man who wishes to do so, yes.”
The spirit shot away into the back of the shop.
After a few minutes, Charnley himself came out to talk to me, a bitter-looking man in his late forties, wearing a grey wig and black coat. Most of the religious tracts distributed on the Key come from his printing presses. He boasts there is nothing in his pamphlets to offend the most delicate of sensibilities.
He remembered the book but didn’t think much of it. “The tunes were just the usual popular rubbish.”
“My interest isn’t musical,” I said. “I believe it had a German inscription at the front?”
“To my beloved son, Luther,” the spirit said. “Signed by Melchior Friedric Fischer, Shotley Bridge, 1722.”
“It was bequeathed to a Philadelphian gentleman of my acquaintance,” I said, “but it never reached him. I was wondering if you still had it.”
There was a heavy pause. A thin smile curved Charnley’s lips.
“Stolen. I had a shopboy who left it lying around instead of putting it aside for the gentleman who requested it. The book was purloined. I dismissed the boy, of course.”
“Young people nowadays are so lazy,” the elderly spirit said.
“Disrespectful,” Charnley said. “Caring only for the pleasures of the world.”
“Indeed,” said the spirit comfortably.
“Did you report the theft to the constable?”
Charnley’s smile turned into a sneer. “You mean Bedwalters the writing master? The one who has abandoned his duties and responsibilities for a dead whore?”
The spirit tut-tutted.
“Well,” I said, deciding to go before I lost my temper. “If you no longer have the book I want, I can keep my money in my pocket, can’t I?”
And I turned on my heels and walked out, feeling self-righteous in my indignation.
Outside, I hesitated in the drizzle, wondering if it was time to meet Hugh – we’d arranged to meet in Nellie’s coffee house before going back to Mrs McDonald’s. The female spirit slid down the wall and settled on the corner of a shelf built on the front of the shop to house a dozen very old, very damaged books.
“I saw him,” she said primly.
“Who?”
“The fellow who stole the book!”
I stared at the virulent gleam of spirit. “The book of tunes?”
“The lad put it outside on the shelf,” she said. “This shelf. Charnley told him to. Said it wasn’t worth waiting – the gentleman might never send to America at all. Get a penny or two for it, he said. Put it with all the other rubbishy stuff.”
The worst thing, I thought, was that Charnley had been happy to blame an innocent lad for his own misdeeds. “And someone stole it?”
“Young man, dark hair, dreadful clothes.” S
he sniffed. “An apprentice, I warrant. Just came along whistling, glanced round, picked up the book and walked off with it. I did call out thief,” she added, “But the street was busy and no one heard. And then I decided not to call again. About time Charnley was on the wrong end of life, even in a small way.”
“You didn’t know the apprentice?”
“Never seen him before. Nothing more I can tell you.”
“I’m very grateful.”
She cackled with laughter. “Don’t worry – you’re doing me a favour. I’ve been waiting years to get my own back on Charnley and that shopman of his.” And she whizzed back up towards the eaves, calling back, “He’s a liar, sir. A sneaking snivelling liar!”
Around midday, I found Hugh in the coffee-house on the Sandhill, sitting in a corner with a newspaper open in front of him; he was chortling over the latest sensational London trial.
“Listen to this, Charles!” He waved me to a seat. “Lady Monro told the court that she had never been in company with the gentleman in question except with several other persons present. Mr Elder asked if she had not on one occasion sat her maid behind a screen while she and the gentleman engaged in intimate activities on a drawing room chair...”
“Hugh,” I said, wearily. “Just at the moment, Lady Monro can go to the devil as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been talking to Charnley.”
“The devil you have.” He threw the paper aside. “Then you need something stronger than coffee!” He signalled to a serving girl to bring some ale. “Was he his usual dreadful self?”
“Why did you not warn me his shopman was a spirit?”
“Is he? Well, I’m not surprised. No living man would put up with him. Do you know, he stood outside the Assembly Rooms for every dancing assembly last year distributing tracts railing against trivial amusements? It’s not trivial to me, I can tell you – it’s my living he’s trying to abolish. Did he have the book?”
“He had once.” I told him the gist of what I had learnt. “What I don’t know is where the book is now, what it has to do with poor Nell’s death and even if there’s any point in running after it!”
