Sword and Song

by Roz Southey

  Another long look. “You’ll do,” he’d said at last, heaved himself off the wall and went back into the house. I’d supposed that meant we were on good terms again.

  The light straining into the sky dimmed the bright full moon that still rode high. I sat on the churchyard wall, unwrapped the cloth I’d brought with me and broke apart the bread and wedge of cheese inside. I was, I realised, ravenously hungry.

  A seagull screeched. I was desperate for sleep, but tried to remain alert. I could hear footsteps, echoing, as sounds do in the quiet of the dawn. I glanced down Silver Street and saw someone walking up towards me. A slim figure wearing a greatcoat over dark breeches, topping the outfit with a wide-brimmed country hat.

  My heart turned over. As she came closer, I saw that Esther was smiling. I’d not been able to persuade her to stay at Blackett’s and I’d not tried particularly hard – I wanted her by me, I trusted no one with her safety but myself.

  “Sensible boots,” she said, with a gesture, “nothing more than a greatcoat flapping around me. I cannot tell you how good it feels!” A few pale strands drifted from the hair tucked up under the hat. “To have the freedom to stride out rather than to mince along in a ladylike fashion... Wonderful!”

  “You’ve given up then on convention,” I said, teasing. “You’re abandoning respectable ladylike behaviour?”

  “Convention,” she said ruefully, “is much overrated.” She sat down beside me, took the bread from my hand, broke it apart and gave me half back. Her scent of roses tantalised me. “Convention could have killed us last night.”

  “It was my fault,” I said. “I underestimated our opponents. I thought they’d follow to try and retrieve the book before attacking us. Instead, they decided to take us by surprise.”

  Esther contemplated the bread in her hands. Her scent was making my senses reel. And the breeches. She knew it too; she cast a sideways glance at me. She frowned. “Does that mean – ” She glanced around. “Are they following us now?”

  “Footsteps echo in the quiet streets,” I said. “You think it’s merely your own steps until you stop, and the echo continues. Yes, they’re here somewhere, watching.”

  She raised a cool eyebrow at me. The thought that she might have been killed last night seized me, a wild panic. I said, “Marry me. Please,” then reddened. Of all the gauche, embarrassing, awkward ways to propose...

  She was smiling. “Yes,” she said. “Of course.”

  I took her hand –

  And at that moment, the door to a house opposite opened and two servants came out gossiping. We snatched our hands away. Esther started to laugh. “I suppose convention is not so easy to cast off!”

  I sighed. “I suppose we’d better be about our business.” I stood, held down a hand to help her up. This time she accepted my help, with a smile. I folded the cloth around the remains of the bread and cheese and stuffed it in my pocket.

  “You know who they are,” she said.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “The breeches were the clue.”

  She dusted herself down. “The fact that they were dark?”

  “The fact that they were there at all,” I said.

  I pushed open the churchyard gate, allowed Esther to precede me. She was frowning. “I suppose I will make sense of what you say when we find the map in the book. But will they not attack us as soon as we have it?”

  “Not in the street,” I said. “He wants to kill me, but he wants to get away with it too, and that requires a little privacy.”

  The grass in the churchyard was wet with dew. The day was beginning to warm; a few lazy clouds drifted overhead. “We’re in danger of forgetting Nell,” I said. “If she’d not been murdered, none of this would have happened. And her murder was because of that book.”

  I shut the gate behind us; we started along the path, side by side. “Nell’s spirit told me the murderer gave her sixpence for keeping the book,” I said. “But when I searched her room, the money was not there – she had only three pennies and two farthings. He took it back, Esther. I know there’s nothing a spirit can do with money, but nevertheless it was rightfully hers and he took it back. That act of meanness is almost worse than all the rest.”

  The paths crunched under our feet; a bird flew up, startled. In the strained light of dawn we skirted the tall tombstones, carved with angels and curlicues and eternal protestations of love and remembrance. Nell’s grave was still raw earth, still had only a rough wooden cross at its head. Esther looked down with a murmur of regret. “I never knew her. What was she like?”

  I considered. “Young. And constant in her love for Bedwalters.”

  I had a moment’s forewarning, and drew Esther’s arm through my own. A little thrill of cold; I shivered, Esther gasped. Then I blinked as daylight bright enough to dazzle flooded the graveyard. And there was the sombre stone – Loving and beloved...

  I looked round for passers-by. Esther was clutching my arm; looking down, I saw a faint alarm on her face but she said nothing.

  I led the way across the graveyard towards the undercroft behind the church. The sun drifted into the shadow of a darkening cloud; I felt a spot of rain on my face. I was mentally uttering a prayer that the book would still be there. I knew from past experience that time moved at a different speed in this world – months might have passed here where only days passed in my own world. I could only hope I’d hidden the book well enough to escape notice, and that no one had found it.

  At the back of the church, we found the entrance to the undercroft. I went down three steps to it, checked its metal grill. The lock was rusted through and the door swung outwards; Esther held it open for me as I fumbled in my coat pocket for my tinderbox, struck a spark and lit a candle stub. The light danced over the stones of a passageway and the crumbling mortar of a barrel vault.

  I had to stoop although Esther was just able to stand upright. Holding the candle in front of me, I made my way to the end of the long passage, to a cave-like room held up by one thick clumsy pillar. Boxes and barrels were piled along one wall. “Contraband?” Esther asked evidently surprised.

  I handed her the candle stub; she held it high as I went to the wall where I’d hidden the book. I counted bricks left and right, up and down, and found the loose bricks easily enough but nearly broke my fingernails trying to remove them from the wall. When I’d originally hidden the book, I’d gouged out the loose mortar with a key and the bricks had come out easily, but they resisted me now for several minutes before they tumbled out with a rush. I pushed a hand into the dark cavity behind, felt with relief the edge of the book. As I eased it out of the cavity, something fell from the top of it – a stalk of grass, with a feathery, delicate seed head. The grass was green and bright, as if it had just been picked; perhaps, I thought with a shiver, I’d just missed myself putting the book in here...

  I unwrapped the paper, angled the book so that as much light as possible fell on it. The spine hung by two or three threads, the hard covers of front and back were battered and rubbed.

  I opened the book and laid it, pages down, on top of a barrel. I tugged gently at the damaged front cover. It gave a little, but the glue that bound it to the board below was still good. I turned the book round and eased a nail under the back cover. With a dry crackle, the cover shifted and came away. And between cover and board –

  Esther peered over my shoulder as I struggled to remove the extra sheet of paper without damaging it. It slid a little way, then stuck. I could get only the very tips of my fingers to it and it was painstaking work. I edged it from side to side, gently easing it out.

  “Music paper,” Esther said. “Hand-ruled.”

  It was not what I’d been expecting. I’d been expecting a map, or a legal document at the very least. The paper had been folded into four; I opened it carefully. It was not new paper but not very old either. There was music on it; the writing – both words and musical notation – was neat, rather unformed, obviously that of a young person.

 
It was a song, a melody line with words underneath, and a figured bass for the harpsichordist to play from. Esther squinted at the words. “Sweet Damon, when asleep you lie...”

  “Damon and Thyrsis,” I said. “I penned an ode about that pair when I was eighteen or so. My first serious composition. I use the word serious lightly. I’ve done my best to lose it.”

  “It’s explicit,” Esther said, with a trace of disapproval. “Hardly suitable for a young girl to write.”

  “A young girl?”

  “Read the title, Charles.” Esther pointed at the words. To my dearest beloved, Edward Edmund Alyson on his eighteenth birthday, 21st August 1730. From yr own love, Margaret.”

  I stared at it for a long moment then burst out laughing.

  “Charles!” Esther said irritably. “What is the matter?”

  “The date,” I said. “Look at the date!”

  41

  They have found the fellow who held us up and have slapped him in prison to await the Assizes. He will hang, I guarantee it, he will hang!

  [Letter from Retif de Vincennes, to his brother, Georges, 10 August 1736]

  I looked about the small room with distaste. I couldn’t bring myself to sit on the straw-mattress in case it was bug-infested so I propped myself against the window sill instead. From outside the lodging house came the sounds of the Key, the rattle of coal being poured into a hold, the cry of an apple seller, angry shouts from a drunk.

  “I blame myself,” the spirit said. It was hovering on the back of the unsteady chair. “I should have taken notice of what was going on, instead of chattering away like an old woman.”

  “You weren’t to know he was a murderer.” I wiped white mortar dust from my sleeve. Those crumbling stairs were highly unpleasant.

  “I knew there was something wrong with him,” the spirit retorted. “I knew he was up to no good. I should have acted on it.”

  “There are plenty of petty thieves about. They don’t all turn into murderers.”

  “I didn’t look,” the spirit said sadly. “You have to live with them, you see. If you’re at outs with fellows living in the house, it gets so uncomfortable. And they move on so quickly as a rule. They come for a few months, go somewhere else. Why fight them? Leave them alone and they’ll go, and it’ll be peaceful again.”

  “You’re not the only one,” I said. “I wager there were other people who didn’t look.”

  “You looked.”

  “He killed someone I knew. I couldn’t not look.”

  There was a sound below, at the foot of the outside stair. “Hide!” I whispered. “Quickly!”

  The spirit slid down the chair leg and disappeared into a crack between the floorboards.

  The steps creaked worse than ever – I wondered how long they’d last. The whole place was on the verge of disintegration; every time I came up the stairs I thought they were leaning further into the wall. And that the wall was leaning too. I waited.

  He emerged from the stairwell, hesitated in the doorway. Then he smiled at me, winningly, charmingly. “No more subterfuge, eh, Pattinson?”

  “I have it now!” I said. “You mangle people’s names when you want to establish some sort of authority over them, to put them at a disadvantage. Well, two can play at that game, Mr Allinson.”

  His fist clenched on his sword. He was dressed for travel, I noticed, but his clothes were still bright, a rich summer sky blue. A sword was entangled in the skirts of his coat and he stood legs apart with his hands at his sides like a man ready to fight. There was no sign of our contretemps last night, or of that shot I’d put through his left arm. It had probably been only a graze. He still had that arrogant tilt of head, that faintly amused smile.

  He was still confident of victory.

  “The spirits gave you my message, then?” I said.

  “My dear Pattinson,” he said, smiling. “You know I’m always delighted to chat to you. But I’m very much afraid your fifteen guineas is gone for good.”

  “I have the book,” I said. “The one you killed Nell for.”

  His smile widened. “I thought you had. But you hid it so well!”

  “And I have what was secreted in its pages.” I held up the music paper.

  He took a step forward, stopped. It was the first sign of unease I’d seen in him.

  “You couldn’t bear to throw it away,” I said. “Not since it was written by your beloved Margaret.”

  Perhaps I sounded cynical; he said, “You wouldn’t know what love is. You’re just after that woman’s money.” He was still smiling, still unbelievably confident. Did nothing dent his arrogance?

  “I know how the constable felt about the girl,” I said. He nodded encouragingly so I went on. “Keeping the music was dangerous, so you stole a damaged book and hid the song between its covers. But you were still concerned it might be found. When you met Nell you thought it a good opportunity to hide it where no one would think to look – just for a few days until you could make a hiding place for it. But then you worried she might have seen the song, so you killed her too.”

  “I discovered the constable was one of her regular customers,” he said grinning. “So, yes, I decided to kill her. Once she was a spirit and confined to that house, all I would have to do was stay clear of the street and I’d be safe. She was just a whore,” he added, amused. “Was she one of your haunts too, Pattinson?”

  I bit back anger; I’d not win this battle if I lost my temper. “And the chapman? He was a decent honest man.”

  Alyson shrugged. “He was in the way. And are you alone, Pattinson? No dancing master hidden in the wainscoting to leap out at me? No servant to rush to your defence? I object to your attempts to suborn my butler, by the way.”

  “And I object to your attempts to threaten my betrothed,” I returned. “And while we are on the subject of ladies – what about your mistress?” I waved the song at him. “The ‘lady’ married to an archbishop’s tutor now permanently in residence in Rome. Isn’t she just a whore?”

  He had the sword half-out of the sheath before he recollected himself and slammed it back down. I was relieved; I’d been beginning to think I would never shake that self-assurance. “I rather think,” I said, “the lady didn’t know about Nell’s death until afterwards – you had an argument over it at Long End, didn’t you? But after that, she threw herself into the fray with gusto. A pity she isn’t a better shot – she wasn’t supposed to hit you in the woodland attack was she? I was the target that day. Were you trying to kill me, or just deter me from investigating further?”

  “You were so damn persistent!” he said with mock outrage. He looked like a man relishing the situation. “But do tell, my dear Pattinson, what gave us away?”

  “The clothes,” I said. “It all came down to the clothes. On the various occasions we saw our attackers, we saw two men. But we were fooled. Your wife wore breeches.” I of all people should have known better, I reflected. “Once I realised our attackers were a man and a woman – that, naturally, narrowed the field of suspects somewhat.”

  “Naturally,” Alyson agreed. “You don’t seem particularly scandalised, Pattinson – and I thought you were a deeply conventional man. But Ridley did tell me you and he had seen Mrs Jerdoun in breeches – perhaps you like the idea. I wondered then if you’d make the connection.”

  Poor William Ridley, I thought. I owed him an apology for suspecting him of involvement in this affair.

  “And you made an error in respect of clothes, too,” I pointed out. His face darkened – clearly not a man who liked criticism.

  “That night on the bridge over the canal,” I explained, “you wore shoes suitable for the house, not boots – hardly surprising as you had to get back to the dining room and pretend to be too drunk to know what was going on. Boots would have been out of place. But you should have cleaned your shoes off before traipsing mud in.”

  “I thought you’d assume it was a servant.” He was grinning again.

  “No, th
at was out of the question. The attacker wore dark clothes under his greatcoat and the servants have gold and scarlet liveries.” I gestured at his blue coat. “You yourself usually wear bright clothes, but for the first time you were wearing dark ones that night.”

  “Very clever,” he said, but there was an edge in his voice.

  “I admit I got sidetracked by the idea of a servant being involved,” I conceded. “Who else could have left the notes? Those were your doing of course. You tried to take advantage of that misapprehension by putting the book in Crompton’s room.”

  Alyson was still grinning broadly but his hand was tight on his sword. “You have it all worked out, I see. And I suppose you must have worked out that while you and I were arguing over that last matter, Margaret was purloining the Colonial’s sword from his room?”

  “Are you that poverty-stricken?”

  “Not at all. We simply thought we ought to do the job properly. We’d inadvertently stolen one half of the gentleman’s inheritance – why not all of it?”

  “For the fun of it?”

  “For the satisfaction,” he corrected. “But you haven’t explained it all yet. What about that time here, when you and I were both attacked by the murderer?”

  “You faked it,” I said. “You sent Hugh round to the front of the house out of the way. Then you went up the stairs before me – you had the only light. You took advantage of the turn in the stairs to blow out the candle without my seeing you do so, then shouted and came back down against me in the darkness. With a knife in your hand. Your aim was just as poor as your wife’s, of course.” He didn’t like that insult; his smile slipped. “You pretended to chase someone – you had enough time to get into the yard before Hugh and I came on the scene.”

  He shifted an inch or two. “So,” he said, as if it was a matter of no real importance. “Tell me why we did it? Why is that song so important?”

  I unfolded the music paper.

  “To my dearest beloved Edward Edmund Alyson on his 18th birthday, 21st August 1730.” I looked up at him. “Families are so troublesome, aren’t they? They can let you down so badly. Even before you’re born.”