Secret Lament (34 page)

“Proctor,” Hugh said. “Who’d have thought it?”

“You could say that he murdered her for love,” Esther said.

Hugh snorted. “He conducts a secret affair with her, gets her with child, then kills her when she won’t talk to him. Funny kind of love.”

Esther flushed. “You are harsh, Mr Demsey.”

“I’m right,” he retorted.

“But Julia was not unfaithful,” she pointed out. “It was a tragic error that Proctor could not have known he was making. He did not know he had slipped through to another world
and that the woman he saw was not his lover.”

“But if he’d never started the affair in the first place,” Hugh said ruthlessly, “the confusion would never have arisen. That’s what comes of doing things in an
underhand way.”

I let them talk. I had not wanted to leave Julia Mazzanti so suddenly. How mysterious the whole affair must seem to her; she was owed an explanation for her lover’s strange brief
disappearance and for the panic in which he had run from her. All her life she would agonise over that mystery. But perhaps I had never any choice in the matter once Proctor was dead; perhaps the
reason for my stepping through at this time was concluded. The worlds had moved away from each other and would not touch again until another crisis.

And there was a taste of bitterness in my mouth. I had speculated that I had been transported to that other world in order to save Julia Mazzanti from the fate that had overtaken her counterpart
in my own world. But I had not. I had not saved her life – I had destroyed it.

In the midst of life…

I woke with a start as sun touched my eyes. I was hot and uncomfortable. Blankets were rumpled around me. I struggled to sit up, nearly fell out of the armchair, clutched at
the arms.

I was in Esther’s tidy estate room, my feet up on a footstool almost under the table Esther used as a desk, the chair back up against the shelves. A dish of cold chocolate stood on the
table at my elbow. I stared with bleary eyes at the massive tomes of accounts, at the boxes of legal documents – titles to estates here and there, maps of farmland, correspondence with agents
–

Groggily, I stretched, rubbed at my eyes, extricated myself from the chair and the blankets. I felt sticky and grubby, as if I needed a good wash. My chin prickled with stubble.

With difficulty, I pieced together the events of the previous evening: Proctor’s panicked flight, his death, Julia Mazzanti’s bitter grief. The makeshift story we had invented to
fool Corelli and the others. Esther’s quietness and Hugh’s loud scorn. That was what unnerved me most. They had both been shaken by their experiences in the other world – that was
natural enough – but I sensed something more, in Hugh particularly. As if his faith in the solidity of the world had been overset; he kept putting out a hand to touch things – chairs,
walls, windows – as if to make sure they were real.

The door opened. Esther came in bearing a tray which held two dishes of chocolate and a plate of bread and cheese. She was in deshabille again, wearing an elaborate beribboned, belaced robe over
her nightgown. Her hair was loose about her shoulders.

Through the open door, I heard the hall clock chiming. Ten o’clock. I started up. “I must go!”

Esther set the tray down on the table. “We must talk, Charles.” She interrupted as I started to speak. “Don’t give me any more of your ifs and buts – ”

“It’s Julia Mazzanti’s funeral today,” I said. “It’s at eleven and I am playing the organ.”

She sighed, said nothing for a moment. “Very well,” she said at last. “We will talk tonight instead.”

She paused a moment. I was searching for something to say. The memory of those hundred guineas nagged at me.

Esther regarded me for a long moment, then handed me a dish of chocolate with the utmost composure. “I wish you would understand, Charles,” she said, “that the choice is not
merely yours.”

By the time I had got home, washed and put on my best clothes, I was late and had to go to the church unshaven. Fortunately, all the music I needed for the funeral service was
already locked in the cupboard beside the organ, but it would be a close-run thing whether I got to the church before the mourners.

I had hardly got to Pilgrim Street before I came up with the funeral procession; I heard it before I saw it. A trumpet blared through the hot narrow streets and drums thudded hollowly, setting
loose shutters rattling. Mazzanti must have enlisted the help of some regiment from Tynemouth.

I caught up with the tail end of the affair where the sightseers strolled along with the children and the beggars – funerals were good times to earn a little money; there were always
plenty of people willing to give tangible thanks it was not them in the coffin. The front of the procession was somewhere ahead; I cut through an alley or two and spied the corpse in a carriage
laden with flowers. The horses were weighed down with plumes. And dear God, he had hired a couple of choristers and two singing men from Durham Cathedral to sing some anthem in Italian, some Romish
music, I guessed. I stood listening for a moment with great pleasure to a boy with the voice of an angel. Now, if Julia Mazzanti could have sung like that!

Behind the coffin and the choristers came the chief mourners. John Mazzanti was impressive in a very new black coat, pressing a black silk handkerchief to his eyes and occasionally letting out a
sob, horribly embarrassing Mr Jenison and the other directors of the concerts who had turned out to lend their support. No doubt Mrs Jenison and the ladies were having an equally difficult time
coping with the abandoned grief of Signora Mazzanti. They say of course that foreigners are more demonstrative than the English, but nevertheless there was something that seemed staged about the
whole affair. The Mazzantis were weeping for the loss of their own future rather than the loss of a daughter.

Mrs Baker materialised beside me, watching in amused contempt. “All the gentlemen of the concerts are here, I see,” she said, admiring the solemn posse immediately behind the
carriage. About tenth in line was Philip Ord, pale and respectful; he saw me, looked arrogantly away. None of the theatre company were there, I noted. “They haven’t found her spirit
then?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” I agreed. “I’m told Bedwalters has had men out, scouring the streets.”

“It happens,” Mrs Baker said. “Sometimes they just don’t want to talk.”

Sometimes, I’ve even heard it suggested, a spirit never disembodies at all. I’ve never known that happen myself – perhaps it’s just a tale.

“I knew a fellow once,” Mrs Baker said. “When I was a girl, oh, nine years old. A vagabond who killed another in a drunken stupor. He thought he’d hide the deed by
carrying the body off somewhere else.”

On the principle of course that the spirit remains in the place of death; move the body and the law may never discover the spirit, and thus never know what has happened. That was what the
murderer had done with Julia’s body, of course, in moving it to Amen Corner. I had an uneasy picture of Proctor staggering along under Julia Mazzanti’s weight; she had been a slim thing
but he was not particularly large himself.

“What happened?” I asked, half-distracted.

“Silly fool never made sure his victim was dead. Came round and started shouting for vengeance – right outside our front door!”

I laughed dutifully. Proctor must have managed it somehow because that was what had happened.

Mrs Baker nodded at the singers. “I’d have thought Mr Proctor would be there – he was so gone on the child.”

“He had an engagement in Carlisle,” I said hurriedly.

It was time I went off to the church; I turned away just as the singers started on another ornate anthem. Then I heard my name called and turned to see Ned Reynolds hurrying up behind me.

“I’m glad to see you,” he said breathlessly. “I’ve remembered!”

“Remembered what?” I asked blankly.

“What I had meant to tell you. Remember, I told you last night? Something Julia said puzzled me – I thought it might be of use to you in solving this puzzle.”

I opened my mouth to tell him it was too late, that the matter was settled. Then I thought better of it. As far as Ned was concerned, Julia’s murderer and Esther’s intruder was still
at large.

“Go on.”

“It was that time Julia made it clear she knew about Richard and me,” Ned said. He glanced round but the crowd were all intent on the funeral procession; nevertheless he drew me
aside, and looked round closely for spirits who might overhear us. “The time she said I had to marry her. We were in the theatre – in a back corner where no one could hear. She’d
just put her deal to me and I didn’t know what to say or do. And as I was staring about, I saw Mazzanti come in from the timber yard. I was hoping he’d see us and come across to
separate us. To rescue me.” His mouth twisted unpleasantly. “I told you, Charlie, I’ve always been one to hope trouble will go away if you ignore it.”

What did that remind me of? I wanted to stop him, to grasp at that fleeting memory, but he went on. “But he didn’t see us. He spotted Proctor, the psalm teacher. The poor fellow was
doing nothing much, just hanging around in hope of a word with Julia, but Mazzanti went across to him straightaway and began to berate him.”

The memory would not return. “What did he say?”

“Don’t have the least idea – they were too far away. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.” He shifted to allow a gaggle of excited children to rush past.
“Julia saw me looking and turned to see what was interesting me so much. She said – ” He frowned, obviously trying to remember the exact words. “
Look at them both
.
Two bullocks fighting over the same heifer
.”

I stared at him. A host of disparate facts suddenly flooded in on me. Corelli’s mother – a young servant girl; Ciara Mazzanti’s aging, plump helplessness. Her dependence on her
husband to manage her career and their joint reliance on Julia’s income. Proctor’s repeated protestations that he had not killed Julia. Someone else who like Ned dealt with troubles by
pretending they did not exist. Julia’s desperation to find a husband; Ord’s sarcastic comments about her lover –
Married, I suppose
. And the living Julia’s last
comment.
Are you going to keep silent too? Like my mother.

Her mother. Dear God.

Marriage, my dear, is only a means to an end. It is our way to comfort and to security and, if we let it, it can be our way to happiness and even joy too.

[Lady Hubert to her eldest daughter on her wedding day, 12 October 1730]

St Nicholas’s church clock was striking two in the morning as I came up to the door of Mrs Baker’s lodging house. The lanterns in the street had almost all burnt
out and the full moon was drifting in and out of gathering clouds. The night was as hot and stifling as ever.

I didn’t think it mattered that Julia Mazzanti’s spirit had not been found. I knew what she would say. She would tell us that she had met with Proctor in the street, that he had been
mad, he had claimed to be already her lover and had then attempted to assault her. She had fallen as she struggled and hit her head on the cobbles. She had been dazed, perhaps even unconscious, so
she had known nothing more. Everything would point to Proctor as a killer. And given that the innocent Proctor of this world would sooner or later return to the town, it was just as well Julia
could not accuse him.

Everything seemed plain. Julia’s killer had been tragically confused and deluded; we had caught him and he had died. Yet one thing could not be denied. Proctor had said he had not killed
Julia. He had admitted to raping her and to running off scared, leaving her unconscious. Then, he said, his conscience had prompted him to go back and he had done so. And he had found her dead.
That was what he had said:
I found her dead.

Proctor had not killed Julia. Someone else had come along and taken advantage of Julia’s unconscious state to strangle her. But I didn’t think for one moment that the murderer had
been an opportunist thief or a casual passer by. Like Heron, I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in a wily man keeping an eye open for an opportunity to solve a problem that is
beginning to threaten all too urgently.

The knocker on Mrs Baker’s door was still shrouded in crepe; I lifted my hand to knock then changed my mind. The last thing I wanted was to raise the whole household. Let Mrs Baker sleep
on. The spirit of the maid was reclusive and would not leave the attics. Good – I had business I didn’t want interrupted. With one last glance back at the corner of the street where
Hugh and Esther lingered, I peered in at the drawing room window. The shutters had been drawn and barred but there was enough space where they met to allow a thin gleam of candlelight to shine out.
Mazzanti must still be up. I tapped on the glass.

It took four attempts to rouse him. At the last attempt, one of the shutters folded back and I saw his face, grotesque in the candlelight. He looked haggard, which was hardly surprising in a man
who had lost a daughter and his only source of income in one fell swoop. He was not wearing his wig and the grey stubble on his head shadowed all the bumps and hollows of his skull.

I gestured towards the front door. He mouthed obscenities and waved to me to go away. I mimed banging on the front door. He swore again, hesitated, then dragged himself towards the door of the
room. He was far more drunk than Ned Reynolds had ever been.

After what seemed an age, I heard the bolts being drawn on the front door. He turned the key with such a clatter that I thought Mrs Baker would come down anyway. She did not – perhaps she
was used to Mazzanti’s clatterings during the night. The door was dragged open and I confronted him face to face; he was hollow-cheeked, red-eyed and slack-mouthed.

He stank of brandy.

He dragged himself back towards the drawing room, leaving me to shut the door; when I went into the room after him, he was pouring himself another brandy. The stench in the room almost made me
gag.

“Despise me, eh, Patterson?” he said. He turned and pointed a wavering finger at me. “Yes, I know you do. I’ve always known it. That’s why I set that constable
after you.”