The Ladder Dancer (3 page)

‘Yes,’ I agreed ruefully. ‘You’re right.’ And I ought to remember, I thought, that there were more good things than bad.

‘For one thing,’ said the spirit. ‘You’ll never have to pay for another whore!’

I went on, hurriedly. ‘I confess I came for information.’

‘One of your mysteries?’ The spirit had helped me with another only a month ago. Then it said, more sombrely, ‘Not the child?’

I nodded. ‘Something about that affair strikes me as not quite right.’

‘Didn’t see it,’ the spirit said, with a note of regret. ‘But there were plenty in the inn that did. Went rushing out as soon as they heard the screams.’

Which meant, I reflected, that they’d
not
seen it and probably only had their information at second hand. ‘What do they say?’

He chuckled. ‘Every possible story under the sun, sir! But I hear you were there. Did you not give evidence at the inquest?’

I did. And I said unequivocally that the horseman rode straight for the woman. Everyone else had said the fog was so thick no one could see an inch in front of their faces and the fellow was likely not to blame. Anyway, the woman had been drunk and had probably staggered into the path of the horse. The coroner, who’d been in the comfort of his own home at the time and hadn’t the slightest idea how foggy it had been, but did know the poor drank too much, had implied it had been the woman’s own fault and said that in future she’d do better if she kept out of the way of gentlemen in a hurry.

‘Do you know the woman who was knocked down?’

The spirit sniffed. ‘I know her kind. She’s a whore.’

‘She lost a child,’ I said. ‘I don’t know a woman, whore or lady, who’d not be distressed about that.’

The spirit sounded good-humoured. ‘With respect, sir, I’ve known a good many whores in my time. Plenty of them drink in the Old Man. And there’s none of them that don’t find children a burden.’

I stifled my irritation; annoying him would do no good. Spirits have a tendency to brood on offences and to bear grudges; they have little else to occupy them. ‘But the child was an innocent victim,’ I pointed out.

‘True, true,’ he said with an air of philosophy.

I was beginning to think there was nothing to be gained here. ‘Do you know of anyone who saw the incident but didn’t speak at the inquest?’

‘There’s Brewer,’ the spirit said. ‘The pig man. He’d just brought the animal for the ship’s crew and was having a beer with them before going home again.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’

‘Up by St Ann’s chapel somewhere.’

‘And he didn’t testify? Do you know why not?’

‘He’s dumb, sir. And none too bright, either.’

I sighed.

‘There were some whores,’ the spirit said. ‘One of them had a customer in the alley.’ It laughed. ‘Couldn’t get it up, poor devil. Drunk out of his mind.’

‘Did you know him? Or the women?’

‘Never saw much,’ the spirit said. ‘Not in that fog. I heard ’em, but no one used names. No call for it in that kind of transaction.’

I bid him goodbye and wandered across the Key to stare at the river and Gateshead Bank on the other side, with the tower of St Mary’s church peeking above the trees. There seemed only one thing to do. I needed to speak to the woman herself. Perhaps she’d known the man on the horse. Perhaps he’d been a customer; some whores are not above threatening a respectable man they’ll tell his wife about his activities. Most men are sensible and know the threat can be averted with a shilling or two; to kill the woman seemed a ridiculous over-reaction. But perhaps she’d unluckily picked on a man with a vicious temper. The horseman had been
very
angry; I’d felt the fury coming off him in waves, caught that brief glimpse of furious mouth and set jaw.

So it might pay to talk to her. Which was not a pleasant prospect as, according to the evidence at the inquest, she lived on the Sandgate, just outside the town wall: one of the poorest, and most dangerous, areas of town.

Four

A gentleman is known by the company he keeps.

[
A Gentleman’s Companion
, July 1732]

The Sandgate lies at the far end of the Key, beyond the ruins of the old town walls. Hovels cluster at the river’s edge, dwarfed by the tall ships that moor here. Almost every accent you hear is Scotch and the whole place reeks of gin.

They have their own watchmen here but none of them are elected or paid. They’re purely self-appointed but they put the watchmen in the more respectable parts of town to shame. One was following me from the first step I took beyond the ruins of the town wall: a thin young man with a coat so torn and grimy it looked as if it was about to fall off his back. Where I walked, he walked; when I stopped, he stopped.

I looked about in some trepidation. I was unarmed and outnumbered. All around were little knots of people: sailors for the most part, of the worst sort, shouting and laughing together. Women slouched in doorways, watching the street apathetically; children played dully with sticks and stones. All, all stinking of gin.

And not one friendly face amongst them.

Except for one young man hurrying from an alley, who stopped when he saw me and blinked in surprise. A young man so nervous, he clasped his hands together to stop them shaking; he had to clear his throat before he spoke to bring his voice above a whisper. Edward Orrick, curate of All Hallows, who’d married Esther and myself only a month ago.

‘Mr—’ (The little cough.) ‘Mr Patterson. Are you here— Do you come to see—’

‘The mother of the baby that died.’

‘Indeed,’ he said eagerly. His face fell. ‘She is, sadly, that is, I’m sure you realize—’

‘Distressed.’

‘Indeed. And— er—’

‘Drunk.’

He looked embarrassed, glanced round, realized we were the centre of curiosity. ‘Did you wish to, if you want—’ He gestured back into the alley.

‘I’d like to see her, yes.’

The alley was narrow and filthy underfoot, littered with dog turds. A dead rat rotted against a wall. On the eaves above, spirits clustered, hanging from broken gutters and slates that teetered perilously on the verge of falling. Orrick was apparently oblivious to it all. He ducked under a low doorway on the right. I followed, hesitated on the threshold to let my eyes adjust to the gloom within.

We’d walked directly into a downstairs room of average size, with one glassless window covered by newspaper, and a biting draught cutting through. A flickering candle was stuck by its own wax to a brick that protruded slightly from the wall; it made no impact on the dimness.

At least fifteen people were crammed inside the gloomy hovel. There was a heap of clothes in the far corner that was probably an elderly man; a dazed-looking child of indeterminate sex leant against him. A woman of middle-age and a youth of about eighteen were lounging against one wall; the young man was idly kicking his toes into the back of a woman hunched on the floor. The rest were children, the youngest barely a year old. And the silence was terrible. So many children ought to be wailing, complaining, scrapping with each other. Instead, they looked at me in sullen dulled silence.

Even a casual glance told me I’d made a pointless journey. No one here would give me any information, as a matter of honour.

Orrick was saying in his soft, gentle voice, ‘Now, madam, I’ve brought you a visitor. Mr Patterson, the gentleman who saw what happened.’

The woman cross-legged on the floor didn’t even raise her eyes.

‘Gin,’ Orrick whispered to me.

‘You going to do something useful,’ the young man said loudly. ‘Or have you just come to gawp?’

The woman beside him said, ‘It’s a shilling to gawp.’

‘Now, now,’ Orrick said reprovingly.

She ignored him. ‘Shilling to view or out you go.’

‘I came to help,’ I said.

‘Oh, in that case,’ the youth said, ‘it’s an extra sixpence. Cheap at the price. A nice clear conscience you’ll have afterwards. Ain’t that worth the money?’

‘It wasn’t her fault,’ I said. ‘She wasn’t to blame for the child’s death.’

‘Tell that to the crowner,’ he said.

The woman on the floor spoke for the first time. ‘Gin,’ she said.

‘Two shillings,’ said the lad. ‘My last offer, sir.’ He sneered.

I glanced round the assembled company. A girl of twelve or thirteen years old stared fixedly back. The old man in the corner broke into sobs.

‘I think we’d better,’ Orrick murmured. ‘Perhaps we should—’

I nodded.

We walked back through the narrow alley into the street. The self-appointed watchman was standing against a wall, still watching, still sneering.

‘Sometimes,’ Orrick said, gripping his hands together tightly, ‘I feel they don’t, they refuse—’

I couldn’t guess what he wanted to say. I wasn’t sure he knew himself. Perhaps just an expression of helplessness or bewilderment.

A noise behind us. I looked back to see the young girl had followed us out on to the street. Her brown hair was lank and unwashed; she was dressed in layer upon layer of rags, with a too-large pair of clogs bound to her bare feet with strips of cloth. She too was watching us, with a calculating smile.

‘They don’t
want
to be helped,’ Orrick said flatly.

We walked back to the town wall together. Orrick’s head was bent; he stared at the cobbles under his feet as if examining them for some meaning. The young man still leaned against the wall, although he shifted his position to follow our progress. The girl kept pace with us, a few yards behind. Planning to dip her hand into one of our pockets, no doubt. I didn’t feel any inclination to criticize her; in fact, I was rather wishing I had one of Esther’s sovereigns in my pocket; the girl clearly needed it more than I did.

Under the ruined town wall Orrick stopped, as if he wanted to say one more thing before he crossed the border into another country. He looked at me directly. ‘
Was
it an accident?’

‘No.’

He nodded, slowly. ‘The world is very wicked,’ he said, and walked heavily on.

I looked after him for a moment then glanced back. The girl stood in the middle of the road, head lifted, still with that calculating look. I wondered if she’d given up the idea of picking my pocket and was going to beg instead. It would be the height of folly to give her any money; it would all go on gin. But why not? There was probably little else in her life to please her.

She sauntered insolently up to me, hands holding tight to the rags that passed for a shawl. I reached into my pocket, held out a penny on my palm. She stared at it then lifted her eyes to mine. Blue eyes in a face that wore an expression too old for it. She shook her head.

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I want more than that.’

There was something more than mere insolence there, something that made me uneasy. ‘How much then?’

She considered, then smiled wolfishly. She was about to speak when someone behind me started shouting.

I glanced round. A middle-aged man, heavy and red-faced, lumbered towards me. A merchant by the look of him. He shouted at the girl. ‘Get away with you! Go back to your hovel now, do you hear me?’ The girl gathered her shawl around her, smirked, then turned and walked off, head high.

‘Slut, sir,’ the merchant said. ‘They all are. The mother got so drunk she drowned her own child! Don’t have anything to do with them, sir.’ And he stalked away to where a boy held a horse for him.

When I looked back, the girl had disappeared.

Five

In the warmth of a well-regulated family circle, true contentment may be found.

[
A Gentleman’s Companion
, January 1731]

I was itching to carry on hunting for the man who’d killed the child but tickets for the winter concerts still needed to be sold. I had a living to earn; I was determined to carry out my resolve to match Esther’s wealth with my own. And music is more than a profession to me. It’s a passion that’s survived even the tedium of teaching apathetic children and adults of little or no taste. To run my fingers over a harpsichord keyboard or the neck of a violin is a refuge from the troubles of life. Losing the chance to pass on that passion to other people would be like cutting out part of my soul.

So I walked up from the Key on to the long stretch of Westgate, towards the house of Robert Jenison and his family in the genteel part of town, not far from where I myself now live in Caroline Square. To sell concert subscription tickets to the gentleman who is himself the chief organizer of the concerts and the most assiduous attender. But the Jenisons regard themselves as leaders of Newcastle society and consider it only right they should be formally petitioned, even begged, for their support.

I’ve never been comfortable in the Jenisons’ house. They have a passion for the new. Every time I venture into Mrs Jenison’s drawing room there is a new sideboard or a new table, new curtains or new pictures. The pictures are generally productions of the lady herself or one of her three married daughters; a little while back, they all had a passion for feather pictures, arranged to simulate landscapes.

The result of all this newness is, somehow, to produce a room that is supremely uncomfortable and incredibly cluttered. Footstools hide between chairs to trip you up, miniatures and ornaments cluster on side tables ready to fall over at the least jog of your elbow. Even the door to the next room – probably a private withdrawing room – is decorated with a fan made of preposterously large feathers. And today I could not help but contrast the comfort and clutter with the unfurnished hovel I’d just left.

I took my place with caution on a new blue-upholstered chair and smiled at the two ladies who confronted me.

‘Bring the tea, Simkins,’ Mrs Jenison said.

The servant withdrew; Mrs Jenison, a plump middle-aged woman, fidgeted, straightened an ornament on a table, avoided my gaze. Her face was flushed.