Sword and Song (9 page)

I stared at this missive in bewilderment. Why did he say I’d not replied? He should have got my letter hours ago – late last night.

I went in search of the servant to whom I’d entrusted my letter to Hugh. He was nowhere to be seen. The footman on duty in the hall was six and a half feet tall, as handsome as any girl
could wish, and remarkably simple. After explaining my problem to him three times, I began to suspect his simplicity might be deliberate.

Fortunately, just as I was having difficulty containing my annoyance, the butler arrived. He dismissed the footman with a nod and enquired with extreme politeness how he might help me. I would
have been more mollified if I hadn’t seen the footman go off with a huge grin.

I gritted my teeth in an effort to be civil. “Crompton, is it not?”

He was a few inches taller than myself, a man in his late forties, with a well-muscled body under the fine cloth of his livery. His wig was neat and well-kept. “Indeed, sir.”

“I gave a servant a note to send off for me yesterday and it doesn’t appear to have arrived.”

I expected him to give me some emollient platitudes but I saw something unexpected in his eyes – a sudden stillness. “To whom did you entrust the note, sir?”

I described the footman. I saw his jaw set hard. “I will – ” the slightest of hesitations – “
deal
with the matter, sir. I suggest that if you wish to send
another letter you give it directly to myself.”

The footman, I thought, would regret his decision to pocket my money and ignore my orders.

“Thank you.”

“And – ”

I was turning away but hesitated. “Yes?”

“I apologise, sir,” he said, “for the misunderstanding when you arrived.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. The butler went silently out of the hall and I was left wondering why on earth he should voluntarily have raised a matter so embarrassing to himself.

Before dinner, in the drawing room, Alyson was in high good spirits, extolling the virtues of horse-riding in fine country. William Ridley was telling everyone who’d listen to him, and
everyone who didn’t want to, about the iniquities of a neighbouring landowner who insisted on claiming woodland that belonged to other people. Heron came in as quietly as usual; Esther, I
noted, seemed tired and worn. I accidentally caught her eye; she looked away.

I didn’t meet the Ords until we sat round the dinner table, and then I was shocked at the change I saw in Lizzie. I’d not seen her since the day before her marriage, when she’d
prettily thanked me for all my teaching and presented me with a hand-made pair of slippers. She’d been a girl then, sixteen years old, with artfully naïve dark ringlets and a fresh open
look about her.

The woman who sat opposite me seemed ten years older. Her hair was dressed too elaborately for one so young; her cheeks were rouged too heavily. Her dress aged her too; it was very fine and
expensive no doubt, but the low neckline showed off her immature breasts too cruelly, and the heavy fall of material at the back seemed to drag her down.

She looked dully at me, as if she hardly recognised me.

Her husband did not look at me at all.

Casper Fischer, beside me, was as full of his family history as ever and glad of a new audience. Lizzie Saint, now Lizzie Ord, picked at her food listlessly without comment but Philip Ord was
bored by the talk of sword makers and tanneries and not afraid to show it – he was barely polite. A man of thirty-three or so, he plainly wanted to be talking politics with a gentleman across
the table; Fischer, catching on quickly, was happy to join in but his Colonial view of the matter was not welcome, and he wanted a deeper discussion than the languid complaints about government and
trade that the other two gentleman favoured.

“My view, sir,” he said, with incautious directness, “is that Mr Walpole is going about the matter in an entirely incorrect fashion – ”

“What the devil do you mean by that!” Ord demanded, red with anger.

One of the singing ladies said loudly, “Mr Patterson, I hear Mr Handel has a new opera. Have you heard it?”

“Handel always has a new opera,” Heron said dryly, “and all the plots are equally nonsensical.”

“But some of the music is extremely beautiful,” the lady protested.

I launched into an explanation of the first opera that came to mind and the singing ladies laughed and joked over the antics of Handel’s leading actresses, and retailed the latest
scandals. A few sly remarks were made about castrati singers, and their attributes, or lack of them. Under cover of the merrymaking, I leant towards Fischer. “I’m afraid you hit on a
sore topic.”

He regarded me wryly. “Is that a tactful way of suggesting I should not talk politics, Mr Patterson? Shall I talk about my book after all?”

“A book?” said the musical lady. “I like a good book.”

Fischer, casting me a humorous look as if to say he was doing his best to be unexceptional, obliged with a description of his inheritance, explaining about the psalm tunes his grandfather had
collected. This led to much condemnation of the tunes currently in use – too slow, too old-fashioned. “Why should church music be so dull?” one of the ladies asked.

“I think I’ve seen the book,” Lizzie Ord said.

All eyes turned to Lizzie. She flushed. It was the first time she’d spoken and I fancied I saw a mixture of fear and determination in her eyes. She was the youngest here
by far and must feel very out of place, particularly as she’d not been brought up in this world. Lizzie Ord was the daughter of a printer, and her father’s money was even now sustaining
the finances of her gentlemanly, but cash-strapped, husband.

“It had a black cloth cover,” Lizzie said. “Very dilapidated and worn – the spine had almost come away and was hanging by a thread. The sewing of the folios was giving
way too.”

I tried to catch her eye. Lizzie, if she was not careful, was about to show she knew more than a lady should about trade.

“There was an inscription in German on the flypaper,” she said. “At least, Papa said it was in German. He read it out to me though I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it. But
I do remember it mentioned Shotley Bridge because I at once thought of the German swordmakers there.”

“And when was this?” Fischer asked.

Lizzie was sounding more confident now; she even managed a little smile. “About two years ago. Someone brought it in to show Papa. He said he wanted it rebound and he even asked if Papa
would print it. But when Papa told him how much it would cost, he said it was much too expensive. Music printing is, you know – it’s all the copper and the engraving –”

I broke in quickly to avoid unladylike talk of money. “Did you recognise any of the tunes? Were they all English or had some been brought over from Germany?”

“I hardly think anyone is interested in such matters,” Philip Ord said in a bored voice.

A silence. Ord’s reaction was hardly grateful, considering I’d been intent on rescuing his wife from a social error. At the other end of the table, Esther said, “I have long
thought that more attention should be paid to the history of music. After all, we embrace the lessons of ancient Rome and Greece when it comes to architecture and art – why should we so
neglect the history of music?”

“Indeed,” Heron agreed urbanely. “I am told there was much excellent church music composed even as long as two centuries ago.”

“But it must sound so old-fashioned!” declared one of the musical ladies. And so the awkward moment was smoothed over; conversation picked up again in a lively manner, with William
Ridley grumbling that he’d no taste for Romish music, and Alyson musing on the likelihood that it had been sung in foreign languages.

I retreated to the drawing room almost as soon as dinner was finished. Fischer had been ready for a cosy chat but I could not endure Ord’s cold stare any longer. Besides, I hoped for a
conversation with Lizzie, partly to wish her well, partly to ask for more details about the book.

The ladies were apathetic when I arrived in the drawing room. Lizzie Ord was sitting dully beside her silent hostess and a sleepy elderly matron; there was plainly no prospect of talking to her
at present. I retreated to the harpsichord. My mind reverted inevitably to Nell and Bedwalters who would have been so out of place in this company. Why should Philip Ord’s own loveless
marriage be considered acceptable, and Nell and Bedwalters’s relationship contemptible?

Someone moved close to me. I knew at once who it was by the faint scent of roses. Esther. She held two dishes of tea, put one directly into my hands, and shook her head as I attempted to rise
politely. My heart was beating ridiculously quickly. She said loudly, “Do you have any Scarlatti, Mr Patterson?”

I have endless Scarlatti sonatas off by heart but I pretended to look among the music piled on the top of the harpsichord. Esther idled around the instrument until she stood with her back to the
rest of the company. “Ord has not forgiven you yet, I see,” she said.

I met her cool gaze. She knows all about my previous encounter with Ord; I told her about it when we were in good charity with each other. The best of charity. When I was still entertaining
foolish romantic notions.

I nodded. “He’s not a man who likes being obliged to others.”

“He was not here last night, however,” she mused. “I cannot conceive he would carry enmity so far as to attack you.”

“You heard – ” I stopped, remembering her brief visit to the drawing room that morning. Had that been to make sure I was unharmed? No, I must not let my imagination stray too
far...

“Of course I heard,” she said acerbically. “The entire servants’ hall knew within minutes. My maid Catherine told me about it when I woke.”

“The general opinion is that it was poachers,” I murmured.

“Nonsense!”

I sipped tea. Esther pretended to leaf through the music on top of the harpsichord. We both tried not to look at each other.

“You were not badly injured?” she said after a moment.

“It was little more than a scratch.”

“Do you think he meant to kill you?” Her tone was carefully casual.

I shook my head. “He could have put a knife in my back and I’d never have had a chance.”

She seemed to grip the tea dish more tightly. “Then he wanted to frighten you.”

“Apparently.”

“He believes you endanger him.” She cast a glance at the other ladies, picked up a piece of music at random and handed it to me. It was a Corelli violin sonata. “Are you
investigating anything other than this matter of the constable’s girl?”

“No. And I know nothing much of that!”

I covertly studied Esther as I pretended to look at the music. I could hardly believe that, given the acrimony of our last meeting, she had again voluntarily approached me, that we were talking
in so civilised a manner. Could it mean that she’d at last given up hopes of persuading me to marry her and accepted the inevitable? Or perhaps it was the opposite; she still hoped to convert
me to her way of thinking...

Absurd how happy I felt at the thought that I’d not alienated her irrevocably. Any alliance between us was unthinkable. I had to make that clear.

My voice stuck in my throat. Our gazes met...

The drawing room door opened and Edward Alyson sauntered in with the other gentlemen, full of drink and good humour. I saw his gaze go straight to his wife, sitting by the unlit fire. A smile
curved his lips, she sat up, eyes shining...

“She is a clergyman’s daughter,” Esther said dryly. “An unequal marriage. Like the Ords.” She didn’t trouble to lower her voice; I glanced round uneasily to
see if anyone was listening. “But apparently it is acceptable when it is the
lady
who is elevated by the alliance.”

One of the gentlemen started telling a long and involved story about a carriage accident, which had the entire room in gusts of laughter, engrossed in the tale. Esther leant forward.

“Take care, Charles,” she said urgently. “The man was thwarted in his last attack – he may decide to try again. And I could not bear it if anything happened to
you.”

Before I could gather my wits to reply, she walked away.

Alyson was all excitement when I asked him if I could return to town the following day.

“To see the girl’s spirit? To ask who killed her?” His eyes lit up with pleasure. “You might catch the fellow. Catch a murderer! How exciting!”

“He’s probably left town already,” I said. We were standing in the hall, out of the way of the noisy party who had taken to trying to better each other with accounts of perils
suffered; there were tales of shipwreck, highwaymen and pirates. Most of the tales were fuelled by drink and Alyson had been encouraging the worst excesses of exaggeration. But now he’d been
captured by something more exciting. His enthusiasm made him seem like a boy – I felt abruptly a decade older than him, rather than a mere three years.

“A man with that kind of audacity will never run!” Alyson said. “He’ll brazen it out. He’s probably going about his everyday business with no one the wiser. And the
spirit will give you his name!”

“I doubt it,” I said.

“Or at least tell you what he looks like!”

“I really don’t think – ”

“I’ve half a mind to come with you!” he said. His face lit up. “Damn it, I will.”

I was desperately searching for a way to dissuade him when Ridley came out of the drawing room. “Go, Alyson? Go where?”

“To Newcastle.” Alyson grinned. “Hunting for a murderer.”

“Tomorrow? You can’t.”

Alyson’s face darkened. He was plainly not accustomed to being told what he could or could not do.

Ridley didn’t seem to notice. “Lawyer’s coming back, remember? So we can sort out the details of the court case.”

Alyson grimaced. “We’ll put him off a day or two.”