by Roz Southey
‘This will do,’ I agreed. Heron put his hand on my arm and I started to take that one step forward that would take us back to our own world—
A heavy weight descended on my shoulders, and bore me down, down . . .
Thirty-Nine
A truly civilized society is one in which every man and woman knows their place.
[A Gentleman’s Companion, October 1735]
I hit hard flagstones with a force that took the breath out of me. Heron was shouting somewhere close by. For a moment the crushing weight lay heavy on my back; I heard a grunting breath in my ear, and something else, almost like a sob.
Then the weight lifted; I heard Heron say, ‘Move one inch and I’ll put this sword straight through your windpipe. And don’t think I won’t do it.’
I managed to roll on to my back, wheezing for breath. Behind me, in the faint light of dawn, Ridley stood cringing, the point of Heron’s sword at his throat.
I tried to speak but I didn’t have breath enough. Heron said, ‘We are back. All three of us. Ridley played piggyback to get here.’
I squinted at them, managed to drag myself to my feet with the help of the stairs. ‘But that means—’
‘Exactly,’ Heron said. ‘He cannot come and go on his own.’
‘But he did!’
‘Actually,’ said another voice, sounding amused, ‘he did not.’ And Esther, still in greatcoat and breeches, appeared on the other side of the steps.
With her hand on Kate’s shoulder.
Hugh’s lodgings were unquestionably the best place to go, being nearest, but he was not best pleased to be woken at dawn yet again.
‘What the devil are you doing here!’ he demanded, staring at my sodden clothes. ‘Been taking a dip with your clothes on, have you?’
‘It is Sunday, isn’t it?’ I asked, supporting myself wearily on the door jamb. ‘Sunday morning?’
Hugh was bewildered. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s good.’ I heaved myself off the doorjamb wearily. ‘I’m supposed to be playing the organ at All Hallows today.’
We trooped in. Hugh stared at Kate and Esther, frowned at Heron’s dishevelled and wet state, then opened his eyes wide when he saw Heron’s sword at Ridley’s back.
‘We didn’t want to have to drag Ridley through the streets at swordpoint any further than we had to,’ I explained.
‘I can see that might cause comment.’
‘He deserves it!’ Kate said mutinously. ‘Spit him! Run him through!’
Heron pushed Ridley down on to the one hard chair Hugh possessed. He put down the sword, but didn’t sheath it, standing guard. Ridley glanced around the room, quick eyes darting here and there as if he was contemplating an escape plan.
‘Besides,’ I said, ‘this is an unspirited house. No one can overhear us.’
Hugh sighed. ‘Except the widow below. You didn’t wake her up again, did you?’
Fortunately, Hugh had gone to bed wearing shirt and breeches, still presumably finding it too much of a struggle to get out of his clothes one-armed when he was tired; he was decent enough for female company therefore. Esther and Kate sat on the edge of the bed; Hugh stood by the door and I leant against the wall near Ridley, ready to react if he tried any tricks. My shoulders were stiffening from carrying his weight and I felt bruised all over. I was dripping water on Hugh’s floor and my wet clothes were beginning to feel clammy and my skin chill.
It was not a pleasant atmosphere. With six of us in the tiny attic room it was decidedly stuffy and the smell of wet cloth began to be overpowering. Ridley, with a grin, wrung out the skirts of his coat on to the floor. Hugh glared.
‘He used Kate,’ Esther said. ‘Made her take him into the other world.’ She turned a sympathetic gaze on the girl.
Kate was still wearing the white dress but it was grubbier than it had been. She looked slightly damp but had patently escaped the worst of the rain in the other world. She kicked at the edge of the bed. ‘I ran off, didn’t I?’ she said sullenly. ‘Soon as we got there. Thought he’d be stuck there for ever!’ She glared indignantly at me. ‘And you had to bring him back!’
‘It wasn’t entirely voluntary,’ I said. ‘Start from the beginning and tell me everything. How did he know you could step through into the other world?’
She squirmed, started kicking the bed again. Hugh seized an old cloth and rubbed it along the wet floor with his foot.
‘Go on,’ Ridley sneered. ‘You tell ’em. Tell ’em how I found you standing over the body.’
‘I never!’
‘Blood all over her,’ Ridley said gleefully. ‘And the knife in her hand.’
‘You— you—’ Words failed Kate; she stared at us wildly. ‘I didn’t do it! Honest, I never touched Mr Nightingale!’
‘Kate was wearing the yellow dress,’ I said, starting to shiver. ‘I saw her later and there was no blood on the dress. And I doubt very much Nightingale was stabbed with a knife.’
‘It was scissors,’ Kate said, sticking her tongue out at Ridley. ‘A big pair.’
‘Kitchen scissors?’ Esther suggested.
‘Which would explain the tearing around the wounds,’ I said. ‘Kitchen scissors would be sharp but not as sharp as a knife. So what did happen?’
Ridley was grinning but he let Kate have her say. ‘I went down the Stair like I said – when I thought Mr Nightingale might have gone off the wrong way. And I found him with the scissors still in him!’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘It was horrible! Then I heard someone coming and hid in a doorway. It was all blocked up or I would have tried to go in.’
I remembered that doorway.
‘And then he came along.’ She nodded at Ridley. ‘And starts laughing when he sees Mr N lying there.’
‘Charming fellow,’ Hugh said, looking for somewhere to wring out the cloth.
‘And then he saw me.’
‘That yellow dress,’ Ridley said cheerfully. ‘Pretty obvious, even in the dark.’
‘I was scared,’ Kate said. ‘So I tried to run.’
‘Into the other world?’
She nodded. ‘And he grabbed me!’ she said indignantly. ‘So he came too!’
‘And you ended up in that field.’
‘And he had the scissors with him – I thought he was going to kill me!’
‘I should have,’ Ridley said, with a grin that was half snarl.
‘He buried them. In a hole under the hedge.’
I looked at Ridley. He gave every appearance of enjoying himself, although I noticed he was leaning away from Heron’s intimidating silent presence. The sword point was on the floor, but Heron was patently not relaxing his watch. Odd how being sodden merely made him look even more dangerous; I just felt ruffianly.
‘You buried the scissors so you could use them to blackmail the person who’d attacked Nightingale,’ I said. And then, I thought, he’d bought another pair afterwards; his attack on me with them had been opportunism – I suspected his real intent had been to flaunt them at Nightingale’s attacker, to make it clear he knew how the attack had been carried out. But he must have had second thoughts and decided only the real article would be persuasive.
‘He wanted to get them back again,’ Kate said. ‘That’s why he wanted me to take him there tonight. Wrote me a note to say so.’
‘Thought you couldn’t read,’ Hugh said. He pushed the cloth under the bed with his foot, leaving it next to the chamber pot.
‘It wasn’t a real note,’ Kate said scornfully and fished a piece of paper out of the recesses of her dress. ‘Here.’
Esther took the damp note, unfolded it and held it out for me to see. It was a sketch of a pair of scissors, drawn with a spluttering pen in thin greyish ink. The sort of inferior writing equipment usually found in inns. I remembered Ridley calling for pen and paper in the Old Man just as we were leaving; typical of him to flaunt his audacity in front of us, daring us to understand what he was doing.
‘That’s what he said he
’d send if he wanted me to take him back for the scissors,’ Kate said. ‘If I got a note like that, I had to meet him in that alley off the Clothmarket.’ She added again, ‘What did you want to bring him back for?’
‘I want to know the name of Nightingale’s attacker.’ I looked down at Ridley. He was brushing at the muddy knee of his breeches, apparently concerned about nothing else at all. ‘The evening Nightingale was attacked, you’d been following him around, hoping to provoke him.’
‘In the Turk’s Head, for instance,’ Hugh said.
‘But what happened? Did you lose him?’
Ridley sneered; Heron’s sword lifted slightly. Esther sighed. ‘You really do not like to make things easy for yourself, do you?’
‘Having lost him,’ I continued, ‘you went to the Fleece thinking Nightingale must go back there sooner or later. And while you were waiting for him, you saw someone hurrying out of the alley.’ I glanced at the others and explained; ‘The attacker must have followed Nightingale down the Castle Stair because Nightingale was attacked first from behind – an attacker coming from the street would have attacked first from the front. So, if the attacker came down the steps, it would have been natural for him to run off into the street – which is what Ridley saw. In fact, I think he saw the entire attack.’ I stared down at Ridley. ‘Am I correct so far?’
He grinned, sat back and folded his arms. The attempt at dignity was spoilt by the water trailing down his cheeks from his sodden wig.
‘Then,’ I said, ‘you started your blackmail attempt. You’ve been following the attacker ever since – hoping to intimidate him.’
He said nothing.
‘Or perhaps to get more information on his activities. At any rate, you were following him when he went into the Fleece and stole Nightingale’s watch.’ I reflected that I still didn’t understand that incident; why had the attacker not finished Nightingale off then? ‘And you saw me there at the same time and decided to tease me. By talking to the sailors and making sure I knew you’d been there, you not only made trouble, you also hoped to draw my attention away from the real culprit. Leaving him to your own tender mercies.’
Ridley grinned, looked round each of us in turn. The coldness of my clothes was beginning to make me shake uncontrollably. Heron’s sword point, I noticed, was rock steady. ‘Come on,’ Ridley said. ‘We’re all sensible people here. What’s wrong with trying to get a little money?’ He smiled at Esther then looked up at me. ‘You don’t see anything wrong in it. And while we’re at it, how many people have seen the lady in such very feminine apparel.’ He smirked, and his gaze lingered on Esther’s breeches. ‘Very nice.’
I started forward but both Hugh and Heron stepped into my path. Esther sighed with melodramatic weariness. ‘I suppose you will grow up at some point,’ she murmured.
Ridley flushed brightly.
Hugh gave me a warning look. I bit back the anger, forced myself to return to the point. ‘The attacker didn’t like being threatened so tonight he tried to dispose of you. Only you were lucky and escaped his clutches. And your immediate reaction was to call for Kate and go and get the scissors. I presume he didn’t believe you had any evidence against him.’
Ridley said nothing. Again.
‘Well, here’s my best offer,’ I said. God knows it went against the grain to offer Ridley any kind of a deal, but I didn’t see any other way of dealing with the affair. ‘Give us the name of the attacker, and we’ll pass it on to the constable and he can remove a dangerous man from our midst. And in return—’
I met Heron’s eyes. Only he could make any kind of offer that would tempt Ridley. He looked stony-faced – I couldn’t read his expression. Eventually, however, he stirred, said brusquely, ‘An increase in your allowance and lodgings of your own. But no more help than that. Any trouble you get yourself into from now on is your own affair. After this, I wash my hands of you. And without my cooperation, you will get nothing more out of your mother.’
Ridley looked up at him. ‘I want the whole of my inheritance. My grandmother’s money. Now.’
‘No,’ Heron said, uncompromisingly.
‘That’s what I want.’
‘It is not legally possible. The money is held in trust until you marry.’
‘You can do it somehow,’ Ridley said, grinning. He crossed his arms and tried for a kind of damp dignity. ‘If you want the information, that is . . .’
And no amount of cajoling would shake him from that position.
Forty
Be assured: anything to your discredit will sooner or later become common knowledge.
[A Gentleman’s Companion, November 1732]
In the early light of day, I lingered at the door of Hugh’s lodgings with Esther and Kate, talking quietly to avoid waking the widow and her children. Kate was still inclined to be defensive, kicking at the wall of the alley and staring out at the deserted street as if she was eager to be off.
‘Why did you go along with Ridley’s demands?’ I asked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me everything when we talked last time?’
She was as uncooperative as Ridley, hunching her shoulders against me and mumbling something almost inaudible.
‘Really, Charles!’ Esther said. ‘The answer is obvious.’ She looked at Kate. ‘He threatened Charles, did he not? He said he would hurt him if you did not cooperate.’
Kate flushed bright red, mumbled again.
‘That’s why she was out so late the night the watch was stolen,’ Esther said. ‘You told her to go into the house but she followed you down to the Fleece, just to make sure you were safe.’
Kate refused to meet my gaze. I was almost as embarrassed as she was. ‘Thank you,’ I said at last.
That brought her head up. ‘Only did it cos I got an interest,’ she said defiantly. ‘If Mr N’s dead, there’s only you left to help me, ain’t there?’ And she flounced off into the street.
Esther was smiling. ‘She refuses ever to let herself be caught at a disadvantage!’ She lowered her voice. ‘Charles, she is really remarkably good at that business, you know – stepping through into the other world. She knew exactly where and when you and Heron would be coming back; she had no doubts whatsoever – she led me there straight away.’
‘I’ve no doubt she could teach me a thing or two,’ I admitted.
‘That is not what worries me,’ she retorted. ‘I think we need to teach her a thing or two, about caution and discretion!’
We went out on to the street; I was relieved to see Kate loitering outside the clockmaker’s shop, peering through the shutters at the treasures inside. ‘Here,’ she said, her gaze settling admiringly on Esther. ‘Can I have a pair of breeches too?’
They went off and I lingered in the warming day until Hugh came down behind me and stood looking out on Westgate and the early risers. A farmer came in to the market, a chapman walked stolidly out to the villages and the fairs. A single cow plodded down the street, urged on by a small boy with a bunch of twigs. It wasn’t raining – I’ve never been so glad of anything in my life. A thin line of sunlight touched me and began to dry my clothes.
‘Thought you had to play in church this morning,’ Hugh said. ‘Hadn’t you better get some sleep?’
‘It’s hardly worth it,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to be up again in an hour or two. Besides, I promised Heron I’d help him get Ridley back to the Old Man. He’s given up trying to make him stay at his mother’s.’
‘He’s still trying to get the fellow to talk,’ Hugh said, rubbing at his left arm and adjusting the sling.
‘Any success?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think he’s going to hell in a handcart and we might as well wash our hands of him and let him go. Nothing short of an act of God is going to stop him.’
‘He’s like a child playing games,’ Hugh said. ‘Having a wonderful time setting all the grown-ups in an uproar.’
‘He’s no child,’ I retorted. ‘He’s the one who caused that baby
to drown. That’s what rankles, Hugh! An innocent, with no way of protecting itself – and he’s going to get away with causing its death!’
Hugh nodded. ‘But he didn’t attack Nightingale.’
‘No,’ I admitted.
‘So we’ll have to look elsewhere. Who else might want to?’
I stared at the cow that had stopped to nibble at the grass beyond the railings of the vicarage gardens. ‘Nightingale quarrelled with half a dozen people that night, and some of them were unsavoury characters. And he flirted with a good few married ladies at the concert, annoying their husbands. Philip Ord, for instance.’
‘Good God! You can’t think Ord attacked him!’
The idea was tempting but I shook my head. ‘Ord would have done it face to face. Although, on second thoughts, he’d probably have thought Nightingale not a gentleman which means he’d never have dreamt of fighting him himself. He’d have sent a couple of servants to give Nightingale a thorough beating.’
‘Then was it a robbery after all?’
‘His watch wasn’t taken until later. And he’d no money on him.’
‘But if the robber was disturbed . . .’
‘He’d have grabbed the watch at least.’
Hugh snatched at my arm. ‘It’s the watch, Charles! The watch is what he was after. He couldn’t get it on the night, so he went back for it. There’s something special about the watch!’
‘It wasn’t its monetary value,’ I retorted. ‘It was cheap and nasty.’
‘Sentimental value then? It could have been some relative, someone come up from London to kill him.’
‘It had to be someone Ridley knew,’ I said slowly. ‘How could he have blackmailed someone if he didn’t recognize them? Which argues it was someone local.’
‘Not necessarily! Ridley’s just come north from London! Perhaps it was someone both he and Nightingale knew there!’
I had to admit this possibility. ‘But how could we ever find out? Short of a trip to London – and even then it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.’
