Secret Lament (6 page)

The Guildhall, an impressive though extraordinarily ugly building, sits between the Keyside and the Sandhill, and is always festooned with notices for one thing and another: the theatre
performances, the dancing assemblies in Race Week, the Races themselves. And – I stopped as I passed – a new notice dazzling white in the sunshine, offering a reward of one guinea for
information on who had shot Mazzanti.

I read through it with some impatience. Mazzanti was making the most of his opportunity. Notices like this would keep the shooting alive in people’s minds and, as far as Julia’s
appearances in the theatre and her mother’s appearances in the concerts were concerned, that was all to the good. Advertisement of any kind attracts audiences. But the offer of a reward was
foolish in the extreme; half the petty thieves in town would be besieging his door with false information.

The whole affair was irritating me. I stood in the hot shade, watching the carters battle along the Sandhill and two women arguing over a basket of eggs, and half the gentlemen of the town
discussing the latest news from Georgia and Florida, and frowned over the matter. If I could have dismissed it as simply an attempt by Mazzanti to gain extra profitable notoriety, I would not have
been concerned. But my experiences at Esther’s house the previous night suggested that it was something altogether different.

I was not thinking of the burglary, which was clearly either a chance event or an attempt by the ruffians to punish me – I could deal with either of those possibilities. But what teased me
was that I had again stepped through to that other world that ran alongside ours, so similar and yet so different. It was the third time such an experience had occurred, and on the two previous
occasions there had proved to be an intimate connection with events in our own world, as if the shock and commotion caused by dramatic events in our world had prompted the gateway to open to
similar events in the other world.

And in that other world, I had not seen the ruffians who threatened me. I had seen Julia Mazzanti. Were the Mazzantis at the heart of something strange? Were they what linked the two worlds at
this time? And, if so, why?

I sighed and turned for Nellie’s coffee house. John Mazzanti was the most obnoxious of men and if no one murdered him sooner or later, I would be extremely surprised. But it was none of my
business; I would not be dragooned into the affair. I had enough to occupy me with the ruffians and Esther’s burglar, and nothing, not even my growing fascination with the interlinked worlds,
was significant enough to distract me from those matters, particularly where Esther’s well being was concerned.

I had not calculated that the matter would not leave me alone.

Travel is regarded as an everyday matter in this country. The gentlemen hop into their carriages and make off for the metropolis on the merest whim. Even the dreadful weather
does not deter them.

[Letter from Philippe de Breton to his sister in Paris, 1 March 1736]

Nellie’s coffee-house was crowded and the snatches of conversation I overheard were all political. One elderly gentleman was insisting to a friend that Walpole was doing
a fine job running the country; the friend said dismissively that Walpole was the worst thing that had ever happened to us. The first gentleman said Walpole was right to keep us out of European
affairs; the other insisted that we risked losing a huge amount of influence by doing so. A military looking man in the corner gave his newspaper a sharp irritated snap and muttered something about
the damage to trade in the American colonies.

I looked for a quiet corner. I have never taken an interest in politics – it seems irrelevant when you are preoccupied with the day to day business of earning a living. All I wanted was a
bite to eat and something to drink, before I went back into that furnace of a theatre. But someone was signalling to me from a cluster of armchairs in a window embrasure: Claudius Heron. Heron is a
gentleman of considerable wealth and astuteness who does me the honour of being my patron, and is the other person who might have bought me a ticket for that organ. He is widely read and
well-educated, and can be a pleasant conversationalist – when his jaundiced view of human nature does not take possession of him.

He was with a small plump man, with an alarmingly red face and an irascible expression; a ludicrously tiny wig perched on top of a rotund head. Heron himself wears his own hair and, like many
other fair-haired people, bears the heat badly. A trickle of sweat ran down his cheek as he waved me into an empty chair.

“Patterson, you know Wright, don’t you?”

I could not say I knew him as we had never been introduced. But I recognised him by sight – William Wright of Dockwray Square in Shields was an eminent shipowner. I bowed and the gentleman
harrumphed back; it was plain he had no idea why Heron should have sought my company.

“Wright was telling me about John Mazzanti,” Heron said.

The girl came to serve me and I ordered ale and game pie.

“Fellow’s a fraud,” Wright said irritably.

“He can’t play the violin certainly,” I murmured. Heron gave me a sharp look; he was one of the gentlemen who decided that Mazzanti was good enough to take my place in the
concerts – though, to do him justice, he had argued against it.

“Doesn’t have a penny to his name!” Wright said stridently, attracting attention from men around us. He was wearing a thick coat more suitable for winter than summer, a rich
shade of plum. No wonder he looked hot and irritable.

“But his wife sang for Handel last winter,” I said. “She was rumoured to have earnt two hundred guineas.”

“Then they’ve spent it,” Wright snapped.

“The daughter,” Heron murmured.

“Over-indulged,” Wright said.

“And Signora Mazzanti is not beyond extravagance herself,” Heron said, in a tone that suggested this was only to be expected of women. Though he would have used exactly the same tone
for a spendthrift man. “She has an excellent voice, of course. Have you heard her sing, Patterson?”

Praise from Heron was praise indeed. I accepted my pie and ale with a smile to the girl that brought it. “When I was in London, I went to the Haymarket Theatre to see her but she was
ill.”

“You will have a pleasant surprise at the Race Week concert then,” he said. “There was a time she could silence the crowds with the first note.”

In her youth, he meant; only the young nubile singers had powers like that. Once they are grown older and fatter, the crowds continue chattering even if the voice has matured and grown even more
golden.

“I don’t care how well they can caterwaul,” Wright snapped. “The fellow’s a damn leech. He fastened on me in London and he hasn’t got his teeth out of me
yet.”

Did leeches have teeth? I wondered. But then Wright was notorious for loving the bagpipes. He didn’t need my encouragement to tell his story – again, for he had plainly told it
already to Heron.

“I was at Drury Lane, damn it, enjoying the company and getting an eyeful of the actresses.” He leered at me. “You only get the sour-faced hussies up here, you know, the
good-looking ones all stay in London. Stands to reason – that’s where they make the money, on their feet and on their backs.” Heron made a gesture of distaste; Wright ignored him
and plunged on with his tale.

“And I’m hardly outside, climbing into my carriage at the kerb, when I hear this bang!”

I swallowed a mouthful of pie hastily. “A shot?”

“Women shrieking all over the place! Men shouting for the barber surgeon! And when I got there, the Mazzanti fellow is standing there with blood streaming down his face and his wife
swooning in the arms of a gentleman. And d’you know all it was? A damn ricochet shot. Hit the wall, stone chipped, flew up in his face and cut him. Damn it, Heron, any more coffee?”

Heron signalled to the nearest girl.

“Should have walked away but he clutched at me, asked me to protect him!” He snorted. “Any Englishman could have protected himself. But there was that pretty little daughter of
his pleading with me for help.” He grinned. “Couldn’t resist her. Took them back to their lodgings in my carriage. Next thing I know I’m agreeing to let them travel north
with me.”

He regaled us with tales of horror from the journey north – how Mazzanti had never had enough money to pay for his family and beds, how Signora Mazzanti had been finicky over her food, how
Julia had made up to every ostler, stable lad and boot boy in every inn they stopped at. How they had wheedled him into letting them use his servants, for they had none.

“Taken ill,” he said, contemptuously. “That’s what they expected me to believe! I kept the bills, sir, all of ’em – presented the fellow with them when we got
here. And what has he paid me?”

I was obviously expected to contribute to the conversation. I said: “Nothing?”

“Not a farthing! And I don’t believe I’ll ever see any of it!”

“I was told there was an attempt to shoot Mazzanti on the way north,” I said respectfully. Another sharp look from Heron – he knew me too well.

“York. On a Sunday! Outside the Minster. You’d have thought they’d be Papists, wouldn’t you, being foreigners, but they came to church, bowed and sat and stood in all the
right places.” He preened himself. “The little thing’s not all bad – she was very respectful to me, chatted away inconsequentially like they all do. Very nice, very
nice.”

“And the shooting?”

“Damn near took the Precentor’s hand off. William Mason, you know. Decent fellow. Very decent about the injury, though it bled like the devil. Missed Mazzanti by a hair’s
breadth.” He collapsed into gloom. “I wish they’d got him.”

“Then you would never have got your money back,” Heron pointed out.

Wright snorted. “Never will.”

I could not resist an ignoble impulse. “Why do you not approach him in person, sir?”

“Don’t know where to find the fellow.”

“He will be at the theatre in Usher’s timber yard,” I said. Mazzanti had been devilishly rude to me yesterday; an unpleasant encounter with a creditor was only a small price to
exact.

“Devil take it, is he?” Wright wrestled himself out of his chair. “Damn it, if I don’t do it. Much obliged to you, sir, much obliged.” And to my horror, he stopped
as he passed me, fiddled in his waistcoat pocket and pushed a coin at me. “Much obliged.”

The coin was a penny, about what I’d give a boy to take a message for me. I had a grim view of where Wright thought I was in the social scale. No wonder he had been horrified when Heron
beckoned me over.

Heron’s face was set hard in anger. He did not speak for a moment; the girl brought the extra coffee Wright had asked for but not stayed to drink. Heron leant forward and poured me a cup
– a kind of apology, I thought.

“I hear Mazzanti was shot at yesterday,” Heron said, sitting back with some effort. The heat outside was bad enough; in the coffee house, even with the windows open, it was stifling.
He looked almost overwhelmed by it.

I won a little time by sipping coffee. I did not want to tell Heron about my encounters with the ruffians; not only would I have to admit to the scuffle that had earned me their enmity, which
would not reflect well on my own behaviour, but I was certain Heron would insist on taking action against the fellows, calling out the constable, or putting out the hue and cry. And if that
happened, sooner or later the entire business would come to Esther’s ears and she would worry.

“Apparently,” I said.

“And you gave chase.”

“The fellow got away.” I sighed. “It was much too hot to be running through the streets.”

“Did you get a close look at him?”

I shook my head and frowned. “Do you have any particular interest in the matter, sir?” He had after all known, or thought, that I would be interested in Wright’s stories on
Mazzanti.

Heron hesitated. “I wondered,” he said finally, “if the shot had been meant for you.”

Damn it, he knew about the ruffians already!

“I’d advise you to take care, Patterson,” he said. “Except that I’ve made the same plea in the past and you have never taken any notice of me.”

I winced. “I beg your pardon, sir. Matters always seem to overtake me. But in this case, I’m inclined to think Mazzanti is the target of the assassin. The attacks in London and York
would indicate that.”

“It indicates the assassin is an abominable shot!” he retorted. “And to try and kill him under such circumstances! Ridiculous!”

“The crowds, you mean?” I had not thought of that; the London street would have been crowded with playgoers, in York the worshippers would have been taking their leave. Here in
Newcastle the theatre company and the sawyers were moving about. “You’re right,” I said. “Why not merely trap him in some dark deserted alley?”

Heron swore. “Now I’ve encouraged your interest. Leave it, Patterson, for God’s sake. Have you not learnt from your experiences last time?”

I grimaced. “I beg your pardon, sir, but I’ve never been able to let a puzzle go. And my interest was already piqued.”

I told him about the glimpse I had had of Julia Mazzanti in that other world. Heron is the only man in this world who knows about that other world, for on one occasion he was even dragged into
it with me. I felt some relief in telling someone what had happened and outlined my theory about dramatic events opening up the gateway. He listened to me with increasing grimness.

“I can honestly say that that was one of the worst experiences of my life,” he said. “There was a time you shied away from it too.”

I nodded. “Once. When I didn’t know what was happening. Does it not intrigue you, sir? Do you not admit to even a trace of curiosity about that other world, about what it
means?”

He shook his head wearily. “I know what it means. It means trouble. Disaster. Danger. I got you out of it last time, Patterson – I don’t guarantee to do the same
again.”

The most exhilarating time is at rehearsal, when the creations of the masters take shape, lovingly delineated by the best geniuses in the acting profession.