Chords and discords, p.21
Chords and Discords, page 21
“And while he was wandering about the house trying to find the interloper,” Catherine said, “someone pushed a note under the door, and Mrs Jerdoun went down to fetch it. I think the unknown spirit must have warned her it would be there. According to George, she picked up the note, read it, went back upstairs, dressed and went out. He thinks there was someone waiting outside but naturally he could not go out to check.”
That, of course, is the worst of being confined to the place of one’s death.
“Did he not speak to Mrs Jerdoun? Ask her what was happening?”
Catherine looked at me with a rueful smile. She was not a particularly attractive woman, in her thirties perhaps, short and undistinguished in person, with mousy brown hair. But the smile transformed her face.
“He died as a boy, Mr Patterson, at that age when women are a source of growing fascination but extreme embarrassment. He would not dream of going anywhere near Mrs Jerdoun’s rooms. He can hardly bring himself to utter a word to her, he adores her so much. But he had the sense to come and wake me. Though I wish he had done it sooner.” She drew her cloak closer about her against the chill night. “She was gone long before I worked out what had happened.”
We had walked up into the Bigg Market in the thin moonlight and now turned down towards St Nicholas’s church. Even at this late – or early – hour, lights burned in some of the taverns. The sound of laughter and of singing drifted through ill-fitting windows and doors.
“I found the note,” Catherine said, dragging a piece of paper from the folds of her cloak. “She must have thrown it on the bed when she went back to dress. Her nightrobe was on top of it.”
The moonlight was not bright enough to allow me to read the note so I moved to the pool of light cast by a lantern above a shop. The top of the paper had been torn off unevenly and the superscription had been misspelled: Mrs Jerdoon, it said, in an untidy childish scrawl.
I stood looking at the note for a moment without taking in what it said. A childish scrawl. Had the writer of this note also written the threatening notes to William Bairstowe? At any rate, the scrawl surely made it clear that Mrs Jerdoun’s disappearance was connected to William Bairstowe’s affairs. Catherine was hovering at my elbow in increasing anxiety. I read the note.
We have the musicl gentlman, it read. If you want to see him agen, bring 20 ginease.
They had trapped her. They had led her to believe they held me prisoner but were willing to ransom me. But in heaven’s name, why?
And then the full force of the plan burst on me. They now had a weapon to use against me. They could threaten to harm Esther if I did not do as they wanted. But what was that? Did they merely want me to abandon my interference or did they want something more specific? The deed, for instance?
I stood there in the cold street, torn between desperate anxiety for Esther and a strange kind of pleasure that she had rushed straight off to try and rescue me, despite the risk to herself. But how had they known that Mrs Jerdoun’s safety was so important to me? And who were they? God, Esther’s well-being depended on my help and I had not the slightest idea where she might be or who was holding her!
A shout came from the nearest tavern, the sound of men brawling. Catherine was looking at me steadily, calmer now. “Mrs Jerdoun is no swooning weakling, sir. They’ll not find her easy to deal with.”
“I know that,” I said, with a ghost of a laugh. “Do you know if she took any money with her?”
“She might have,” she said. “She had some left over from her travelling but I don’t know where she kept it.”
“Or jewellery?”
“No, sir. That was my first thought. I checked it before I came out. There is not a piece missing.” She looked at me anxiously. “What are you going to do, sir?”
“Go after her.”
“But where?” She leant forward, her face reddened by the lamplight. “I questioned George, sir, to find whether any place was mentioned. But he heard nothing.”
I was looking again at the note, as if it might somehow inspire me. My attention was caught by the top of the sheet. The paper had been folded over, then torn along the fold. But at the right side, it had torn unevenly, leaving a small triangle of the piece that had been removed. And on that tiny triangle seemed to be a mark –
I angled the paper this way and that under the uncertain light of the lantern. Yes, it was a printed line, a fragment of a curlicue of extravagant decoration.
Like an ornamental decoration to the letter Y, perhaps.
“Sir?” Catherine pressed.
“I saw a paper very like this earlier today.” After seeing Richard Softly, I had thrust the fisher girl’s note into a coat pocket; I fished it out, crumpled and faintly grubby. Catherine peered over my arm, as I held the two papers close together.
“They are very similar,” she said. “If that piece had not been torn away, they could have been much the same size. Oh!”
I had shown her the outside of the fisher girl’s note at first; now I turned it over and she saw the letterheading, the name of John Holloway in beautiful elaborate swirls, with a curl or six under the Y.
I stood at the foot of the Side in shadow, staring at Holloway’s shop which caught the full glare of the moonlight. It stood closed and silent, the light lining its ancient timbers and leaning windows. The street was utterly deserted; I heard only the faint hoot of an owl, the sharp bark of a fox.
The note had to be from Holloway. He had torn off his letterhead to hide his identity, not knowing that Softly had stolen a sheet for his sister and that I would recognise it. He must have spent the day in Shields, as Hugh’s note had told me, then returned to hear the news of what had happened to his brother-in-law. That had spurred him to capture Esther to use as a weapon against me. Did that mean there was something untoward about Bairstowe’s apoplexy after all? Holloway must think I knew something he wanted kept secret. But in heaven’s name, what?
I bit hard on fear, and tried to think logically. Holloway had kidnapped Esther. Would he have hidden her in the shop? Surely not – suppose she shouted for help? Of course, to prevent such an eventuality, she could have been tied up, a cloth tied about her mouth. Even the possibility filled me with rage.
I crossed the road and walked purposefully for Holloway’s shop. As I came up to the door, I could hear whispering – the never-ending conversations of the multitude of spirits who inhabited the place. Then one of the spirits said distinctly: “Quiet!” A silence began like a pool at my feet, spread out like ripples, eddied and finally settled on the entire building.
I walked down the alley to the back of the house. There was not a light anywhere. If Holloway was here, he was hiding from me. I was inclined to think I was wrong; he had taken Esther somewhere else. But in God’s name, where?
I could at least leave a message for him.
“Spirits!” I called. My voice echoed oddly in the emptiness of the confined yard, startling me with its harshness. “Tell Holloway I want the lady. If any harm comes to her, I’ll make sure he hangs for it.”
Silence. I snapped: “Is that understood?”
A faint whisper – like an echo. “Understood...”
And, as I started back down the alley towards the street, a second murmur: “Do you understand?”
At the last moment, I did understand. I swung round but it was already too late. A flurry of footsteps, a snatch of heavy breathing, the heavy reek of gin –
Then pain and darkness.
31
There is a strong case to be made for demolishing these noisome chares; they are the haunts of the very lowest kinds of rogues.
[ANON, Letter to Newcastle Courant, 6 March 1736]
After a time, I seemed to dream of floating, of rocking as in a ship or a carriage. Of sliding across a floor. Of being smothered in stinking blankets.
And woke to a worse reality: I lay in darkness, on cold stone. I could smell vomit, and the reek of damp rot. My head felt as if it would burst with pain.
A rat squealed.
I tried to turn over, gasped in pain, had to wait until dizziness subsided. I put out a hand into the darkness, felt the cold rough stone of a wall. Pulling against it, I dragged myself to my feet. Dizziness almost overwhelmed me; I leant back thankfully.
Men’s voices in the distance. A rustle closer by – the rats, no doubt.
At least I was still fully clothed. I felt in my pockets. My few coins had gone as had the two notes.
I felt my way about the room. The walls were slick with damp and mould, and stank of the sewer. My fingers touched wood. A door, rotting but still firm where it needed to be, about the hinges and the lock. There was no window. I must be in the cellar of one of the houses in Ratten Row – perhaps even the one Hugh had been locked in.
I battered on the door, shouted. No answer. I considered kicking the door out, then realised it opened inwards. I battered again. And heard a bolt being drawn.
I jerked back just in time to prevent myself being bowled over by the door. The newcomer was outlined against a candle on a stair behind him. A tall man, cadaverous in ragged clothes. “Shut your noise!” His temple, I noticed, was bleeding from a wound high on the hairline; dried blood streaked the left side of his face.
“Did she do that to you?” I said, savagely, and launched myself at him.
He was taken by surprise, toppled backwards, but struck out all the same. His fist landed on my side. I gasped for breath, kicked back. He grunted, fell, and his head struck the bottom stair. Bone cracked. He lay still.
I vaulted over him, scrambled up the stairs in the poor light of the flaring candle. There was no door at the top of the stair – I found myself in another stinking room, lit through an open doorway on its far side. Moonlight flooded in from a narrow yard. A means of escape lay before me.
Not without Esther.
I turned on my heels. A rickety stair led up from one corner of the room; I could hear drunken voices singing above. No one seemed to have heard my scuffle with the ruffian.
A soft voice called: “Charles? Charles!”
My heart leapt. I glanced about the room. The moonlight slanting in from the yard showed me a door on the far side of the room. I leant close to it and whispered: “Esther?”
She must be close behind the door. She said, prosaically: “I heard you shouting. The door is locked.”
It was not. A stout bar had been wedged across it; the bar was tight and would not shift. I battered at it with the palm of my hand, felt it move slightly. Then it gave way with a clatter; breathlessly, I stared over my shoulder at the stairs.
No sound but the drunken singing. They could not have heard. I lifted the bar from its sockets and dragged the door open. Moonlight gleamed through a small window high in one wall of the bare room and showed me Esther Jerdoun; her pale hair was loose about her shoulders, her breeches covered by a long coat. She was holding a pistol. And smiling.
“I anticipated rescuing you, and now you are rescuing me.”
“I wish we were both safe at home,” I said dryly.
“Amen to that.”
I was keeping my distance, not for fear of the pistol but for fear of seizing her and embracing her in sheer relief. I stared at the weapon. “Have you used that thing?”
“Alas, yes,” she said. “It is empty. But it makes a useful club. I hit one fellow over the head with it and none of them have come near me since.”
“I think I met your victim just now.”
We stood looking at each other in the glow of moonlight, both of us smiling. Then she murmured: “Do we stand here talking for an hour or two then?”
I seized her hand. “No. Let’s be out of here!”
We had reached the door to the yard when we heard shouting upstairs and the thud of footsteps on the stairs. What had alarmed them I didn’t know and I didn’t want to stay and find out. We ran outside. Damn it, Hugh was right – the yard was enclosed. There was no way out except back into the house.
Except –
In front of us was a wall, perhaps ten feet high. In the deep shadow cast by the moonlight, I held out my hands; without hesitation, Esther stepped into them and clambered up on to the wall. From the top, she reached down for me. I took hold of her hand, scrabbled at the rough stones. The men burst screaming and shouting into the yard as I dropped down the other side.
Another yard, another house. I flung myself against the back door. It burst open.
We were precipitated into a room crowded with sleeping bodies – seven or eight men bundled in grimy blankets on the floor. Esther leapt over them and flung open a door on the far side of the room. We glimpsed a window giving on to the street, and saw men rushing along to burst in the front door.
“Up!” I said breathlessly, thinking of what Hugh had told me. “Go up!”
The stairs were narrow, uneven and rotten. Following Esther in a rush, I stubbed my toe on every step, fell twice, came out into a room where an old woman sat rocking and moaning over a young girl wrapped in an old shawl. The room stank of death. Men were shouting below, footsteps clattered on the floorboards on the stairs behind us.
We scrambled up to the next floor, struggling for breath. “Where are we going?” Esther gasped.
“These houses all connect with each other, probably in the attics.”
Up to another floor, crowded with sleeping bodies who mumbled as we accidentally kicked them. The windows were squares of old newspaper pasted on to rotting frames letting in bright moonlight. The stench of urine was appalling. I clambered up again to the attics, Esther close behind me. Half the stairs were missing – I put my foot in a gap and pitched forward. Men burst into the room behind us. I dragged my foot out of the hole, crawled on and up.
Behind me, Esther cried out. I glanced back. A man below her on the stairs had hold of her ankle.
She kicked out at him but he held on. I started back to her but she called: “Go on, go on!” Her hands were at her throat; a second later, she swung her cloak in a great arc. Its folds enveloped her attacker. He yelped, fell back on top of his fellows.
We crawled up the last steep stairs. The attic was as full of sleepers as the rooms below. I ran the length of it, seeing a dark gap in the wall on the far side. A hole had been knocked through the bricks beside the chimney stack and the gap shored up by beams that looked like old ship’s timbers. As Esther raced past me, into the attic of the next house, I threw my weight against one of the timbers, felt it shift, tried again. It toppled and I ducked through the hole just as the makeshift lintel gave way. There was a rumbling and a roar, and the wall caved in. The roof above cracked; slates started to slide and crashed down into the attic.
We stumbled to a halt, stone dust rising around us; I jumped as a slate crashed to the floor behind me. Moonlight gleamed through the new hole in the roof and showed us the contents of the attic.
It was a treasure trove. Boxes of candles, casks of beer, coils of rope, bolts of cloth. Clothes were heaped in one corner – I spotted Hugh’s coat, recognising it by the gleam of the huge buttons.
“Stolen goods,” I said. Bedwalters would be delighted to hear of this – if he could get together a band of men audacious enough to raid the house.
“Men on the stairs!” Esther said breathlessly. Voices. We were cut off from our original pursuers by the debris, but the men in this new house were coming to see what was happening. And the holes in the roof were still tearing apart, albeit more slowly; rafters hung loose, and the lime and horsehair plaster that rendered the roof watertight peeled away and dropped down around us. Stone dust trickled down the wall.
I seized a coil of rope. “Knock out that window!”
The frame was covered only by paper. Esther seized a slate from the floor and threw it at the window. Remnants of glass behind the paper shattered and fell tinkling into the alley below. I tied the rope to a full cask in the centre of the attic, dropped the end of the rope out of the window. “Can you climb down?”
“Of course.”
She swung herself out of the window even as the first of the men from below burst in. His way was blocked by fallen rubble from the roof. I saw him snarl and lift his hand. I ducked. A pistol shot whined over my head. I groped around for something to throw at him, found nothing better than a sackful of candles, tossed them one after another in his direction.
“Charles!” Esther called. “Quickly! Come down now!”
I scrambled to the window, tossed down Hugh’s coat to her. Another pistol ball whistled past my ear, smacked into the stone of the wall and fell flattened to the ground outside. Then I was over the sill and sliding down the rope, heedless of burns to my hands.
Halfway down, I felt the cask shift. The rope went slack. I fell – but it was barely four feet to the ground and Esther steadied me.
“Run!” I gasped.
We ran. Along the chare. It was so narrow that the moon hardly penetrated it; we stumbled from one wall to another. The cobbles were filthy, littered with shit, human and animal, scattered with debris that tripped us. But there was the end of the chare, framing a sliver of moonlit Key –
And there was Mary Bairstowe.
32
There are certain things, sir, that should never go outside the family. These things are not the business of strangers.
[AMOR PACIS, Letter to his Son, printed for the Author, Newcastle, 1735]
She stood in the moonlight like a sour-faced Gorgon. “Take hold of them,” she said. I glanced back, saw men advancing from the houses.
“No,” Esther said, and lifted her pistol. If she thought she could intimidate Mrs Bairstowe with an empty pistol, I knew her to be wrong. But she simply said: “Go to the devil,” and fired.
Mrs Bairstowe did not so much as flinch as the shot whistled past. A man took the pistol out of Esther’s hand. “Thank you kindly, lady, but I’ll take my own back.”
Esther met my gaze and smiled ruefully. “I took the weapon off one of the sleepers in the attic.”
