by Roz Southey
“I suppose we are lucky he did not write in Romance,” she said. “Though I daresay it would still have shown the same poverty of mind, the same ungentlemanly character, the same conceit.”
“If you could just give me the general meaning, madam?”
She did so, glossing over the worst of it, by her own admission. It was of no moment. Le Sac claimed that I was the author of that ‘scurrilous nonsense’ in the Courant and accused me of being intent, out of jealousy, upon destroying him. In short, he accused me of all the evil designs he himself had conceived against me.
I folded the paper away and rose to take my leave. Mrs Jerdoun asked if I would take tea with her, but I could not regain the easy manner I had had upon my previous visits. Despite her apology, I could not forget her suspicions of me. I declined. She looked as if she would say something more, then merely nodded. Yet, on the threshold of the room, she paused, hand upon the door.
“Mr Patterson,” she said. “What I am about to say may seem ungenerous, bearing in mind whose house this is, and whose guest I am. But I must warn you, sir – beware of my cousin.”
Our gazes met – my own astonished – and she added, simply, “She is a dangerous woman.”
20
CHORUS
Le Sac’s supporters did not wait for the next week’s paper but instead had a broadsheet printed indignantly refuting Mr Ord’s claims. I read it on the coffee-house wall at midday; by the time I reached the spot, the paper was already tattered at the corners by the wind. All the insinuations of AMATOR JUSTICIAE were rejected; the paper claimed that fifteen shillings was not an unreasonable wage for so distinguished a performer and asserted that Le Sac was not in the least motivated by greed or vanity. All these slurs, I read, were put about by a so-called modest young man who was jealous of Le Sac’s eminence.
There was some truth in this accusation, I had to confess, but none of it was my doing. I could not be blamed if certain gentlemen chose to exert themselves on my behalf, or rather – for I had no illusion about the matter – if they chose to exert themselves against Le Sac. For the one thing no gentleman will tolerate is hubris on the part of those that are his inferiors.
I went into Nellie’s coffee-house and found a quiet place by the window to drink and muse on my present situation. Esther Jerdoun’s words the previous evening still astonished me. She had gone on to warn me that Lady Anne loved to make others dance to her own tune, reminded me of the trick she had played on Le Sac the night he came to play and hinted that Lady Anne had her own aims with regard to the gentleman, and that I was part of her schemes. Nothing of this was new to me.
But the harshness in Mrs Jerdoun’s voice had taken me by surprise. Why should she speak so vehemently against her cousin? Was this merely another game that the ladies were playing against each other? Many an apparently loving pair of sisters or cousins have hated each other with cold passion.
I drank coffee and idly observed the streets. The mysteries seemed insoluble; if only I could be clear of them… But I knew I did not wish to be clear of Esther Jerdoun at all. In an effort to distract myself, I pulled from my pocket the list of subscribers for my music. The list numbered more than ninety now and the prospects of publication were increasing. Perhaps this would be a good day to canvass more support. After all, patronage of my music would imply rejection of Le Sac.
When George and I came to Hoult’s for the concert rehearsal at noon, only half the gentlemen were gathered. I found Mr Ord tuning his violin ineffectually and wondered whether to mention AMATOR JUSTICIAE. But a fear that Mrs Jerdoun might be mistaken held me back. Instead, I pulled out a copy of the proposal for my harpsichord pieces.
“My dear fellow,” Ord said as soon as he saw the paper. “Of course I shall subscribe. Put me down for six copies – my nieces are wild about all things Scotch and the music will make delightful presents for them. Heron, my dear fellow, you will put your name down for Patterson’s music?”
The gentleman inclined his head.
“And Jenison – you too.”
So I found myself patronised by Mr Ord and gathered ten names for a total of eighteen copies. All the time, however, I was watching the faces and counting those who did not arrive. It was inevitable that some of the gentlemen should support Le Sac; Henry Wright, for instance, was absent, which left us with no tenor violin. I had been prepared for that, but the woeful state of the cellists (only one arrived out of four) left us with almost no bass. We had the instruments themselves, of course, and Mr Ord volunteered to play the tenor, but the defect in the lower parts was very audible.
Apart from that, the rehearsal went tolerably. George had gathered confidence as first violin but his youth and inexperience left the way clear for me to direct from the harpsichord unchallenged. Jenison had perhaps anticipated the problem with the performers and had chosen music we knew well.
We worried over Mountier, who did not arrive until the end of the rehearsal, apologising that “the damn horse had gone lame”’ (by which we guessed that he stopped too long in Chester le Street for refreshment). He was almost drunk as usual and, as the gentlemen wished to leave, we agreed that I alone should accompany his songs. We rehearsed only a short time, since we both knew the songs well, then parted; I went to a lesson; Mountier (as it transpired later) went to get even more drunk.
So to the evening. Jenison arrived with the son of his agent who played very loudly upon the cello with a poor tone, but in excellent time, and Mountier stumbled in noisily in the middle of the overture but sang his songs perfectly. All in all, it went a great deal better than I had feared. It was inevitable, however, that the next morning should bring crowings of delight from Le Sac and his supporters. I saw the man himself as I was about to step into Fleming’s for harpsichord wire; he lifted his head, smiled triumphantly and strolled on. By the time I reached Nellie’s, a second broadsheet had been pasted over the first.
To read it, you would have thought the concert a disaster. Mountier’s drunkenness I could not deny, nor the raucous quality of the cellos, but Mr Ord upon the tenor was most unjustly vilified. (Did they suspect, perhaps, that he had written the letter in the Courant?) He had in fact been much better than upon his usual violin and had rather enjoyed the responsibility his sole possession of a part had given him. As for George – poor George. His age was enough to condemn him. What can be the quality of a Concert led by a twelve-year-old boy?
At Jenison’s agent, where I went for the harpsichord key, I found Ord seated at a desk under a window smeared with drizzle, a pile of paper stacked in front of him and a quill laid beside it. He chortled at me as the agent sent his boy for the key.
“Have you seen their latest efforts, Patterson?” His round face was shiny with excitement; the lamp which the agent was lighting against the gloom outside glinted in his eyes. “They are struggling, are they not? They say anything to keep their man in the public eye. After all, his absence was not much remarked upon last night, was it?”
I had, in fact, been asked three times if Le Sac was ill and the audience had been noticeably thinner after the interval when it had become obvious Le Sac did not perform.
“Well,” Ord said, puffing himself out, “I flatter myself I have a better way with words than these foreigners and a better case too. We shall see what they think of my next offering.”
I looked with foreboding at the pile of paper, gleaming in the lamplight. Rain splattered against the window.
“Would it not be better, sir, to treat their accusations with the contempt they deserve and remain silent?”
“My dear Patterson!” he cried in horror. “And let the whole town think I have run away defeated?”
Not much of the ‘whole town’ was interested in the matter, judging by the slight interest shown in the broadsheets. But Ord was plainly set upon the matter; there was nothing I could do but murmur, “I defer to your judgment.”
He twinkled at me as the agent’s boy brought the key. “Oh, I have plans, Patterson,
grand plans.” He tapped his nose. “But more of that later.”
I left the office with foreboding and a sure knowledge that I would not like Ord’s plans. In heaven’s name, was the whole town mad over plotting and planning?
I was glad to see one or two people at Hoult’s who complimented me upon the concert, particularly the harpsichord solo I had played (a piece from Lady Anne’s volume). Several remarked that George had played very well and if they added “for a boy of his years” I could not take offence, for I thought the same myself. The praise was enough to encourage George to concentrate upon his lesson on the harpsichord and then to send him willingly home afterward to practise on his violin. I spent the afternoon practising on the harpsichord at Hoult’s, much to my benefit, and turned out to go home in the early evening. The drizzle had not long cleared and a warm dampness was fragrant in the air. A spirit spoke to me from the arch of an inn.
“Mr Patterson, sir? I carry ye a message from Dick Kell.”
“The fiddler? At Mrs Hill’s?”
“The same, sir. He wonders if you would come and see Mr Mountier on to his horse.”
I sighed and turned back. What in heaven’s name was Mountier still doing in Newcastle?
The last butchers’ stalls were being packed away as I came into the Fleshmarket and Mrs Hill’s was full of company in bloodstained aprons. Half the butchers, it seemed, congregated here after a long day’s business. I stood upon the doorstep, almost gagging at the stink of old meat.
Dick Kell spoke from a barrel to one side of the door. “Charlie lad, well met. How’s that father of yours?” Kell was as bluff-voiced and beery as he had been in life.
“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him for years.” My father, luckily, died in Durham, at the Red Lion there – a place which I take good care to avoid on my rare visits to that city. We were not on the best of terms in life and he has not changed his opinion of me since.
“Pity,” Kell said. “Many’s the good chin-wag I’ve had with him over a pint of ale.”
“I was told you wanted to talk to me about Mountier. I can’t see him.”
He snorted with laughter. “Over by yon wall.”
Pushing through the crowds, I found Mountier lying face down upon a bench, a hand trailing to the ground. He was snoring. A bloody handprint marked his coat in the small of his back; when I eased him over, I saw his watch was gone.
Dick Kell was a grease stain on Mountier’s shoulder. “His horse is in the stable. I’ve had one of the lads saddle it up if you can but get him sober enough to mount it.”
“Why on earth call me? One of the ostlers could have done it.”
“Too busy, Charlie lad. Now how d’you want to go about it? Water? There’s some in the rain butt out back.”
The stink of bad meat was making me irritable. Worse, I saw, as I looked down, a thin trail of sinew and gristle trailing from the skirt of my coat in a smear of blood. “Let him sleep it off.”
“Nay, Charlie. He’ll just wake up and ask for more.”
“Then let him get drunk again.”
“Weeelll…” Dick Kell was keeping something from me. He had always been a protective man, lying easily, with a chuckle, to keep his friends in good odour with those who might otherwise hurt them. “As a matter of fact,” he went on confidingly, “he said the high-ups there at the Cathedral –”
“The Dean and Chapter?”
“If you say so,” he said doubtfully. “You know I never did get the hang of anything to do with the church.” Kell had always been one for whom religion was a harmless mumbling. “Anyway, they’ve said he has to be back. Don’t trust him, I reckon.”
No one could blame them, I thought. The Dean and Chapter are always jealous of their reputation and Mountier’s increasing drunkenness would have exasperated a far more lenient body. I sighed. “Very well, show me the water butt.”
I threw water over Mountier – three bucket-loads before he stirred and then he only mumbled and shook himself to be rid of the moisture. By the time I had got him upright and forced him, with Kell’s encouragement, to stagger out to the horse in the yard, it was dark. I saw him trot off down the Fleshmarket with some trepidation. The horse, however, seemed to know its way and was a great deal more sober than Mountier.
So I was late and yawning when I let myself into the house. Mrs Foxton’s voice drifted from the back of the house, from the room behind the stairs where the seamstress lodged. The silence upstairs seemed to suggest that George had long since fallen asleep over his practice and I was eager to follow his example. I came to the door of my room – and heard a creaking of floorboards. Looking up, I saw two men on the landing above.
I knew at once they were trouble. They looked very like the ruffians Demsey had hired. I grabbed for the wedge in the door of my room. No, of course, I now had a key. I fumbled in my pocket, felt the metal slip out of my fingers and settle deeper. Then they were upon me. Their silence was terrifying. I opened my mouth to call out, tasted rancid cloth and stinking flesh. An arm forced my teeth against my lip. I struck out wildly, heard a grunt. Then something rough caught around my neck and tightened, so that I could not breathe…
21
SOLO
I came to myself slowly, aware only that I lay upon a hard surface and that my throat burned. I opened my eyes to darkness that hurt, and squeezed them shut again.
“Mr Patterson,” a voice said insistently. “Mr Patterson!”
Wood. I lay upon a wood floor. And the voice, yes, that was Mrs Foxton. I rolled over with a groan. My head pulsed and throbbed.
“Can you rise, sir?” Mrs Foxton said. “Mr Patterson!”
I crawled into a sitting position against the wall.
“Find your key, sir,” Mrs Foxton said patiently. She was somewhere above me – on the door perhaps, or one of the paintings on the stairs. “Your key, sir. In your pocket. That’s it. No, don’t go to sleep. Put the key in the lock.”
Struggling to my feet would have been impossible. I dragged myself on to hands and knees, and poked tremulously in the direction of the lock. The movement set me retching; the coughing set my damaged throat on fire. I found the lock at last and turned the key. The door swung open. I toppled into the room.
By stages, I got myself to the chair by the table. The chair scraped away from me and I almost fell to the floor, but finally got myself on to the seat. I dropped my aching head into my hands.
“Well done, sir,” Mrs Foxton said approvingly, as if I was a child. “And well done too for fighting off those brutes.”
My memory was hazy but I knew I had done no such thing. “I thought –” But all that came out of my bruised throat was a hoarse croak. The villains must have been disturbed; perhaps they had heard Mrs Foxton and run off. I crept to the bed, crawled on to it and curled up, struggling to ease my pounding head.
I remember little after that. At some point, George came in; I heard him say something. Perhaps I mumbled something in return. But nothing was clear until I woke to find sunshine lying aslant my bed, stinging my eyes. A man was leaning over me, and after a moment I recognised Claudius Heron. The sunshine gleamed on his lean face and on his fair hair that, unusually, was a trifle disordered, as if he had been hurrying. But he was outwardly as impassive as ever.
“Does your head ache?”
“Like the devil,” I croaked, trying to sit up. He made no attempt to help me but watched until I was still. He was, I noted, as impeccably dressed as always, still wearing his greatcoat.
“I have had the apothecary examine you,” he said, sitting upon the edge of the bed. “He says there is nothing seriously amiss. Your landlady told me what happened. Did you see the ruffians?”
“Too dark,” I managed.
“It was Mr Sac!” I had not seen George until he blurted out the words. He had been standing behind Heron and my first thought as he moved into my line of vision was how unkempt and vulgar he was, compared to Heron’s cool elegance. But he was also wide-eye
d and fearful. I sighed; I had hoped he had conquered his fear of Le Sac.
“It is unwise to jump to conclusions,” Heron said. “Even an honest man may have rash supporters who think they know how to please him.” (Did that mean he too suspected Le Sac?) “From what I’ve heard, this was no chance attempt at robbery. They were waiting for you.”
I tried to speak, choked. Heron signalled to George and he poured me ale. It was weak stuff but it soothed and cooled my throat. “They were outside my former room. Not knowing I had moved.”
Heron hesitated. “Do you have any other enemies, Patterson?” He said other as if he took Le Sac for granted. “Anyone who might wish to harm you?”
“I trust not.”
“You are not in debt?”
“Most definitely not,” I said forcibly.
“Good.” He rose. “I shall have the matter investigated. Who is the parish constable?”
“Mr Bedwalters, sir,” George said.
“The writing master? I shall speak to him. In the meantime –” That impassive expression did not change; did he ever smile or scowl? “I suggest you keep yourself at home.”
“I have a living to earn, sir.”
That provoked some expression of emotion in him, a displeasure that twisted his thin mouth, as if the very idea was distasteful.
“Very well. Then make sure the boy is with you at all times. Boys have strong lungs and loud voices and, in my experience, need little provocation to use them.”
Looking at George’s fearful glance, I could not imagine he would be much use to me.
I was not wrong. When Heron had gone, I gave George money to fetch food, but he refused to leave the house.
“You went out to find Mr Heron,” I pointed out.
“I didn’t, sir!” George protested, on the verge of tears. “I didn’t fetch him. He was walking past the end of the street.”
