Secret Lament

by Roz Southey

  She could not remember her words. She was rehearsing a love scene with Ned and stuttered over a commonplace: “Tonight, but – but – ” I saw a flash of annoyance in Ned’s eyes. That was much more like the man I knew. No one is more dedicated to his profession; it is a point of honour with him to do the best he is capable of. Which is considerable.

  “The book!” young Richard said eagerly and snatched the playbook from Athalia Keregan’s hands.

  Before he could hurry to Julia’s side, Proctor leapt up and seized the book from him, shyly presenting it to the lady himself. But Julia was already turning away, receiving the correct lines from her father. Proctor stood ignored at her side.

  I have never seen a man so disconsolate. Proctor looked so woebegone that I leant forward to say something consoling. But the spirit leapt in first, sliding up the wicker work of the costume box and gleaming on a broken piece of cane. “She’s not worth it,” he said, in his broad accent. “There’s not a woman in the world worth crying over.”

  Proctor gasped and leapt away.

  I stared at him as he stood trembling on the edge of the stage. This was nervous behaviour even for the unworldly Proctor. Mr Keregan took his arm kindly. “Proctor, my dear fellow. Come and say good day to my wife – she’ll be delighted to see you again.”

  He bore Proctor off and the spirit hung on the edge of the basket. “Not my day,” it said, philosophically. “Anything wrong with me, Patterson, you reckon?”

  “Not in the least. It’s the heat, I daresay. Everyone gets tetchy when it’s so hot.” I glanced towards the window again. Yes, the fellow was still there, grinning in at me.

  We should have given up then, before tempers frayed still further. But we played on, sweating and drinking ale by the tankard-full, getting hotter and more irritable by the minute. The sun slanted in through the windows, dazzlingly bright and fiendishly hot; even the spirit retreated to the coolest corner of the barn-like warehouse.

  Mazzanti grew, if anything, more annoying, snapping at Ned for talking privately to Julia, complaining loudly when Proctor, clearly still upset, played a hatful of wrong notes. Young Richard grew very quiet, looking from Julia’s face to Ned’s with real unease; did he believe Ned was really attracted to the girl? Athalia muttered over the attention Julia was getting; her mother breathed yet more heavily. My violin was suffering so badly in the heat that I could hardly play a line in tune and Mazzanti made sure I knew it. I toyed with the idea of knocking him down with one well-aimed blow.

  And the ruffian still grinned in through the window.

  Mazzanti let us go at last, with a final contemptuous: “We will have to do better tomorrow. If you could all make sure you know your songs and your words…”

  I pushed my violin into its case, slung it over my shoulder and strode off the stage. If I stayed a moment longer, I would say something unworthy of a respectable, god-fearing man. Or, worse, do something. The thought of punching that sour face grew ever more attractive.

  I barely got as far as the door before the fellow strode up. “Where the devil are you going, violino?”

  Yes, someone was going to do away with him soon and if he picked at me again, that someone was going to be me.

  “If you want me to play for you,” I snapped, “you could at least do me the courtesy of using my name!”

  His lip curled. “Think a lot of yourself, I see.”

  “I could say the same thing.”

  I swung away, then stopped, heart racing. The dark-haired ruffian who had been staring through the window all afternoon – surely I had just seen him again. But there was too much of a crowd. We were jostled by workmen; a man with half a tree trunk across his shoulders blocked my view…

  Mazzanti was snapping at me again. Something whined, hissed between us, thumped on the door jamb. We stood for the briefest of moments in startled immobility. Then Mazzanti ducked back inside the warehouse.

  I ran the other way. After the man who had fired the shot.

  2

  The political situation is at the present time very complex.

  [Letters from London, Newcastle Courant, 5 June 1736]

  I glimpsed a figure behind one of the huge stacks of Baltic timber and dashed for it. The heat struck me as soon as I was out in the open, like the heat from a bread oven when the door is opened. What chance did I have of catching the ruffian in this heat? And with the violin bouncing against my back too?

  I reached the stack, swung round it, found the open gate of the yard. A cart rumbled past in the street outside. I grabbed for the side of the wagon. “Did you see a fellow running?”

  The carter grunted and jerked his whip. I tripped on the cobbles, staggered upright again and found a side street.

  It was well-nigh deserted. No ruffian, no grinning filthy villain. Only a burly man halfway down it, wrapped in a heavy coat as if it was midwinter. He carried a bag over one shoulder and was staring back down the street.

  I stumbled to a halt, out of breath, gasped out my query again. “Did you see – a fellow – running?”

  The man turned to me; he had a good strong face, sallow skinned. “I saw him,” he agreed with good-humour. He was a little out of breath himself. “I only wished he’d seen me. Sent me flying against the wall.” He brushed dust from his coat. “You’ll not catch him now. He’s long gone.”

  I went after him anyway. I was damned if I’d let ruffians intimidate me. But the hot air clogged up my throat and sent the sweat running down my back in rivulets; by the end of the street, I knew I could go no further. In any case, as I looked right and left, I saw such a bustle and a hurry of people – women with chickens and children with hoops and men with heavy bags of tools – devil take it, I’d never find the fellow.

  The man in the coat came up behind me, stood contemplating the crowds. “What’s the villain done?”

  “Shot at me,” I said shortly.

  “At you?”

  I turned to eye him – I didn’t like the incredulity in his voice, as if he didn’t think me worth shooting at. He gave me a benign stare. He was a good-looking man, very dark in hair and eyes; the sallow skin branded him a foreigner although he had no accent and sounded entirely English. About a decade older than myself, thirty seven or so, I guessed and three or four inches taller than me, and I am not short.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Never believe a chaplain. I met one on the coach down from Edinburgh who said nothing ever happens here.”

  “Scotch, was he?”

  “Well-nigh incomprehensible.”

  “Then how do you know what he said about this town?”

  He grinned. “Touché! My dear sir, I invented the whole tale.” The frankness with which he admitted lying took my breath away. “You ask why. Of course you do. The last two weeks of my life have been the dullest of my entire existence and here you have plunged me straight into excitement. I must thank you. Allow me to buy you wine – or would you prefer beer?”

  I was so thirsty I could have drunk the Tyne dry. And sitting in a crowded tavern with my back to a wall was probably a lot safer than walking the streets.

  The fellow professed to know nothing of the town, having arrived barely an hour before, so I took him down on to the Key, to one of the sailors’ taverns, all rushes and wooden benches and the stink of sweat and coal. But it served a surprisingly good beer and we took it out into the cool shadows of the keels waiting at the wharfs.

  I lowered myself on to a crate of candles waiting to be loaded on board one of the keels. My companion stretched and arched his neck, stripped off his coat and dumped it in a heap over his bag. Under the coat, he was dressed in drab brown, clearly with an eye more to practicality than fashion.

  “I have not introduced myself,” I said. “Charles Patterson, at your service.”

  “A violinist?” He gestured at the case on my back.

  “I prefer the harpsichord. But I play whatever I must to earn a living.” In truth, I preferred the organ, but my opportuni
ties to play are limited to acting as deputy at All Hallows’ Church.

  He inclined his head. “Domenico Corelli, at your service.”

  I spluttered through my beer. “Domenico – ”

  “The great composer himself was my father.”

  I did not have the honour of being acquainted with the gentleman in question because he died when I was three years old. But I knew he had no son called Domenico.

  “Illegitimate, of course,” he murmured.

  “I am a musician, sir,” I said tartly. “You cannot pull the wool over my eyes!” I began to think him not as respectable as he looked and told him so.

  He fanned away a little cloud of flies. A trickle of sweat ran down his cheek – he was not as impervious to the heat as he had pretended. “And you, sir?” he said lazily. “Are you respectable? What sort of respectable man has fellows shooting at him?”

  “Ruffians,” I said shortly. “They tried to rob me a couple of months back and I fought them off. They didn’t like it and they have long memories.”

  He sipped at his beer as if it was an overlarge glass of wine. “And no one was hurt, I take it?”

  “Hurt?”

  “When they fired at you? I see you came away safe but were there others around you?”

  I swore. I had a momentary vision of John Mazzanti ducking back into the theatre. Or had he fallen? I tossed back the beer. “I had better go see.”

  He stood, lazily, a big man and, I realised with some surprise, intimidating. “Then if you’ll direct me to a decent inn with comfortable rooms?”

  I gave him instructions to get to Mrs Hill’s in the Fleshmarket and turned back to Usher’s timber yard.

  My legs were aching by the time I had climbed the Side and reached the gates of the timber yard. I have never enjoyed weather as hot as this; it weakens me and leaves me disinclined to do anything. I wove my way across the yard towards the warehouse that served as our theatre, tired of darting looks left and right to be certain I was not being followed. The worst of it was that it was all my own fault; I had taunted the ruffians when we clashed – I should have had more sense.

  All was chaos inside the theatre. Some of the timber yard apprentices had been attracted by the excitement and were laughing and shouting about the back of the theatre, miming firing a pistol and shrieking, “Bang, bang!” At the stage’s edge, Julia was drooping in the arms of Ned Reynolds, who looked both embarrassed and annoyed; young Richard was hovering behind them unhappily. Proctor looked on from a corner – the psalm teacher clutched his bassoon case to his chest almost as if he thought it would protect him. Above, the spirit swung from cobweb to cobweb singing a rousing hunting song.

  On the stage itself, Mrs Keregan sat in majestic isolation and indifference on one of the costume boxes, chewing her way through a large chunk of bread. Below her, the rest of the company were gathered in a huddle and I heard the mellow, soothing tones of Gale the barber surgeon.

  Athalia saw me and came dancing across, her red curls bobbing. “I don’t suppose you caught the villain?”

  I bridled at her mocking tone, said brusquely, “No, I didn’t.” I noticed with some satisfaction that her face was flushed with the heat and was almost redder than her hair. I pushed past her and marched up to the affecting little scene.

  Mazzanti was sprawled in a chair, his eyes closed as if he was in a faint. One hand clutched affectingly at his chest; little moans escaped his lips. Gale had removed Mazzanti’s coat, rolled up one shirt sleeve and was bleeding him to relieve the shock; Julia, who cannot have been able to see a thing for Ned’s encircling arms, murmured distractedly, “The blood, the blood…”

  “Was he hit?” I demanded.

  Gale glanced up at me. “Mr Mazzanti has suffered a great shock.” In other words, no.

  “Most distressing,” kind-hearted Mr Keregan murmured. “It must be most upsetting to be shot at – ”

  So it was to be Mazzanti who had been attacked, not me. Well, I was not tempted to claim the dubious honour. I had friends who would have been distressed to know I was in danger, and I had long since decided not to tell them.

  Julia groaned and pushed herself from Ned’s arms. He let her go without protest; I caught his eye. He was grim-faced; his mouth twisted in a cynical curl. What the devil was he doing?

  Mazzanti moaned as his daughter caught hold of his trailing hand. I fancied she must have accidentally dug her sharp nails into his fingers for he started with pain. His eyes opened; he stared at her.

  “Dear father,” she said brokenly. “You are safe now. We are all here, we will look after you.”

  He feebly tried to wave her away; she brushed away a tear. “And I had thought there was no danger here…”

  “Danger?” I said sharply.

  She turned her lovely face up to me. Her hair glinted in the sunshine, bright ribbons gleamed amongst the curls. “This isn’t the first time he’s been shot at.” She gripped his hand forcing another grunt of pain from him. “Twice before. Once in London and once more on our way north.”

  Mazzanti struggled to sit upright. “It is nothing. Nothing at all. Just some madman.” He wiped a hand across his brow, leaving a faint trace of blood. “Nothing of any moment at all.”

  I stared down at him. I had told myself half a dozen times in the few days I had known him, that Mazzanti was the kind of man his acquaintances long to murder. Could it be that the shot I had thought meant for me, had really been aimed at him?

  3

  We must strenuously condemn this modern tendency to lawless behaviour.

  [Letter from JUSTICIA to Mayor of Newcastle upon Tyne, printed in the Newcastle Courant, 15 May 1736.]

  “Was he hurt?” Esther asked absently. She twitched a curtain back into place as we passed through the drawing room into the library of her house. The evening was cooler than the day but not by much.

  I swung my violin off my shoulder and laid it carefully on the harpsichord stool. “He says so.”

  Mrs Esther Jerdoun (the title is purely honorary and the lady, I thank God, unmarried) comes from an impeccable family with aristocratic connections (albeit remote). She is my most constant pupil; I give her a lesson in harpsichord playing almost every day. But more than that, she is my delight. I met her more than half a year ago and fell under her spell at once. The strong sunlight is perhaps a little unkind to her, showing that she is a woman of mature age – thirteen years older than my twenty-six years – but she is still lovely in face and figure. I could have looked at her for ever, at the tiny strands of pale gold hair clustering at the back of her neck and gleaming in the sunlight, at her faint smiles and cool mischievous glances…

  And, dear God, here I was again, longing for what was out of my reach, in all respects. Her age, her social position, her wealth all come between us. She was one of the two people whom I thought might have bought me that ticket for the organ; I avoided asking directly if she had – how could I take such a favour from a woman about whom I felt so strongly?

  And there was of course the question of how she felt about me…

  She stared out of the window into the garden at the back of the house. “Perhaps the ball ricocheted?”

  “It did not,” I said forcibly. “We dug the ball out of the door jamb.”

  She was still musing over the sunlit roses. I looked at her with some concern. She is the most practical of women, the most astute, the most down-to-earth. But here she was, staring absent-mindedly out of the window into the enclosed garden beyond, as if I was not even in the room.

  “Does it matter?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said sharply, then bit my lip and brought my attention back to the matter in hand. I had not told her about the ruffians and I did not intend to tell her; she would worry. So it was difficult to explain why I thought Mazzanti might be lying. “He said later that he had offended some rich aristocrat in London by dallying with the actress the lord had in keeping. His Lordship evidently sends his hirelings from time to ti
me to remind Mazzanti to keep away from the lady.”

  I reconsidered Mazzanti’s hurried man-of-the-world explanations, confided with a knowing air to the men in the company. They were just about unlikely enough to be true. Yet it struck me that there was something else, something he was hiding… That look in his eyes when Julia started telling me about the previous attempts on his life – I could have sworn he was genuinely afraid.

  Esther glanced round at me, broke suddenly into a wry smile. “Oh, Charles, do forgive me! I am in the very worst of humours but I should not take it out on you.”

  I could forgive her anything when she used my name like that. We had fallen into this casual way of speaking, in private at least, some weeks ago; it was inappropriate and unwise but I could not regret it.

  She took a little key from her pocket and unlocked the harpsichord; I helped her fold back the lid and prop it up, revealing a garland of dancing nymphs and shepherds. I pressed a few keys to see if it was in tune – hot weather plays havoc with such things – but I was distracted by the way Esther lingered beside me. Her perfume was bewitching; the pale green of her wide gown complimented her colouring perfectly. But there is more than that: an air of decision, of cool independence – these are the things that I –

  No, the word is inadmissible. A foolish self-indulgence.

  She traced the dancing nymphs with idle fingers as I adjusted the tuning. We were alone in the room; Esther’s maid, Catherine (whom we told everyone chaperoned her mistress during the music lessons) had taken herself off to examine the linen cupboard as she usually did. This of course was disgraceful. A single man and a single woman – no matter how unequal their ages or status – are not to be trusted in a room together for fear they will be overwhelmed by the worst of human nature. Or for fear, rather, that everyone will assume they have been.

  For that reason, when I first started teaching Mrs Jerdoun the harpsichord two months ago, we used the harpsichord at the Assembly Rooms, with Catherine sewing industriously in one corner and the gregarious Steward of the Rooms easing in and out from time to time to enquire hopefully if we had everything we needed. A perfectly innocuous situation – nothing secret about it at all. But not long since, we had, without discussing the matter, removed to Esther’s house.