Broken Harmony (29 page)

“And what will you do then?”

“I will thankfully retreat to your world and abandon my prior self altogether,” she said mockingly. “I would do so now, except that this world has its uses.”

“You prefer my world? Why?”

“My dear Patterson! In your world I am an independent heiress with no man to tell me what to do or say. Here I am merely a daughter, suffered to have a small allowance and constantly
nagged to marry this man or that, who in his turn will tell me where to go and what to do. Which would you prefer?”

I pondered on the matter – not on her reasons, which could not be denied, but on her actions. The curtains were heavy, soft velvet at my back; with my hand behind me I tugged
surreptitiously on them, to see how easy they might be to pull down. The curtain rail, unfortunately, seemed good solid oak.

“And Le Sac?”

“Alas, poor Henri. The contact between the worlds cannot be entirely controlled; occasionally the passage opens up of its own accord. Henri was with me on one of those occasions. I
involuntarily stepped through, and he came with me. I flatter myself that no one could have reacted more swiftly – I knocked him unconscious, I may say – but unfortunately he did not
accept my explanation that he had stumbled and fallen and dreamt the rest.”

“You should have killed him then,” I said dryly. “It would have saved you a great deal of trouble.”

“I was younger,” she sighed, “and naively over-confident. I had lived by my wits for ten years or more and believed myself to be able to carry off anything, certainly able to
fool any mere man.”

“But surely he could not blackmail you over this? Who would believe him?”

“No one,” she agreed. “But Henri was always very quick to see the implications of any situation. If I was from this world, I could not be the real Lady Anne from
his
world. He even travelled to the village in Norfolk where my counterpart had lived, to look at the church registers. He found proof of her death. And if she was dead, sir, all the wealth that I had
inherited in her stead should have gone to someone else.” She smiled, with real malice. “In
that
world, your world, there are no male heirs living, only one female.”

“Esther Jerdoun,” I said.

“Indeed. Henri had all the evidence he needed to prove I was an impostor.” She looked almost admiring as she spoke of Le Sac. “He did not need to prove my origins or explain
about a world no one would believe in. He simply needed to threaten to tell Esther that I was not her cousin.” She sighed again. “I am afraid I underestimated dear Henri. As, alas, I
have underestimated you.”

I leaned against the wall, a handful of curtain in one hand behind my back. If I could tempt her across to me, perhaps I could tangle her in it. “I suppose it will not do if I promise to
keep your secret?”

“No, it will not,” she agreed, raising the knife. “You would never let the boy’s murderer go free.”

“Nor Le Sac’s,” I said. “And you were nearly the murderer of Demsey.”

“I was aiming for you,” she said. “I was always a poor shot. Though, to do myself justice, you escaped the first shot by chance, before he knocked you aside. Mr Patterson, I
must ask you to go back into the bedroom and dress.”

“Dress?” I echoed incredulously. Certainly, I would feel more at ease with my clothes on, but I could not understand why she insisted upon it. “In heaven’s name,
why?”

“I explained before,” she said impatiently. “I cannot kill you here for fear your spirit will escape to your own world. So I must take you elsewhere. And if I am to walk
through the streets with you, you will draw considerable attention bare-footed and in a dressing robe.”

Reluctantly, I moved past her into the bedroom. The clothes the servant had laid out for me lay like a dark stain upon the white counterpane. I turned my back on her and began to dress. I could
not endanger Hugh, yet I would not go quietly to my own death. I turned back as I buttoned my waistcoat.

“George,” I said, “pray go downstairs and tell someone what is going on.”

His voice came from the table at the head of the bed. “But they don’t listen, master.”

Lady Anne laughed. “There are few spirits in this world, Mr Patterson. The dead go straight to whatever realm they inhabit and do not linger in the place of their death. Those few that for
some reason do remain – or that we imagine remain – we call
ghosts
and are afraid of them. We certainly do not enjoy a chat with them.”

“Go down, George,” I said again.

“But they won’t hear!”

“Go
down
!” I roared, and I caught a glimpse of his hurried going, upon the bedpost, upon the door handle. Lady Anne, smiling, gestured towards the wall. “We will go this
way, sir, by the servants’ stair. There is, I am afraid, no escape.”

37

MARCH

The servants’ stairs were pokey and dark; my candle lit only a step or two and the peeling paint on the walls. Muffled voices echoed distantly; male laughter, a shout,
sharp words. I thought of snuffing out the candle and running while Lady Anne was disadvantaged by the darkness, but in a house I did not know I could only fall or lose my way. And that threat to
Hugh, always that threat…

At last the dim candlelight showed me a door. “Open it,” Lady Anne commanded. I did as she bid; outside, the night air was cold; the moon glimmered fitfully on the cobbles of a back
lane.

She reached over my shoulder and plucked the candle from my grasp, setting it upon a small table just inside the door. She pinched the flame, and smoke drifted upwards.

“Go out, Mr Patterson.”

I stood my ground. The further I went from this house the greater the danger. I was conscious, too, that I was leaving the only friend I had in this world, since George could not leave the place
of his death. But Lady Anne slipped her arm through mine and I felt the prick of the knife below my ribs as she turned a laughing face to me.

“This way, sir. And smile for me. We are a loving couple out for a late stroll.”

She pulled me on, laughing for the benefit of the two men who lounged at the street corner, dressed in the rough clothes of miners. As we came up to them, they pushed themselves from the wall
and I braced myself for a fight. But to my astonishment, they took one look at Lady Anne, halted in mid-movement and drew back, saluting her respectfully.

She did not speak until we were out of earshot of the men. “I told you, sir, that this world has its uses. Have you ever broken the law, Mr Patterson?”

“Never,” I declared. Then, because honesty impelled me, I added, “Leaving aside a few pranks when I was a boy.”

She laughed. “I break the law frequently. The only reason more people do not do so is because they fear they will be caught. But when you can escape to another world – why, what is
there to stop you?”

We were walking down a hill; I did not recognise the street from my own world but the wisps of smoke that came drifting up to us told me we were heading towards the Key. A gaggle of whores
passed us, giggling, three-quarters drunk. They looked once at us and were instantly silent, hurrying past as if they were children trying to get out of the reach of schoolteachers. A hundred yards
further on, they burst into giggling again.

“There, sir,” said Lady Anne, gazing back at them, “go a considerable source of my income. In return for my protection and organisation, they give me a proportion of their
profits. A large proportion, of course. And those gentlemen we passed, who are light-fingered in the extreme, need someone to buy their newly acquired property and dispose of it for
them.”

I was startled. “But your inheritance –”

“Insufficient, sir. How many gowns do you think it pays for? How many horses? No, I must also have my…
business
interests.” She caressed my arm. “In my world I
earn money and in your world I spend it. A most excellent arrangement, do you not think?”

I found it impossible to speak. On to a road I knew – Westgate. I looked up at the houses as we passed and saw windows brightly lit. A cat-fiddle screeched out a jig. I recognised
Demsey’s school-room.

“The differences between our two worlds fascinate me,” Lady Anne mused. “You are uncommonly like your counterpart here, sir, but that is not the case with everyone. Your friend
Demsey, for instance, in this world is twenty years older, a fussy and choleric man, not much liked.”

I looked up at the house again. Strange to know that a man lived and worked there whom I did and did not know. A man very different from my friend who, for all I knew, lay dead in my world. I
opened my mouth to call out but shut it again. Lady Anne murmured, “Most wise,” and pushed the knife against my flesh.

“I cannot understand why I co-operate with you,” I burst out. “I go peaceably to prevent your injuring me, yet I know full well you intend to kill me in the end.”

“Think of Mr Demsey,” she recommended.

We walked cautiously on, down the Side, through the pools of light cast by the flaring lanterns. “If you kill me,” I said, “my absence will be noted. In my own
world.”

“I have made provision for that.”

“Provision?” I echoed.

“Come, sir,” she chided. “Do you not see that I have planned everything from the start?” She was apparently agreeably occupied in studying the windows of the shops.
“After our first contretemps in the coffee-house – do you remember that, sir? – it occurred to me that you might be useful. You are known to be violently jealous of Le
Sac.”

“Am I?” I said with some gloom, reflecting that perhaps I had been quite as obvious and foolish as Demsey had been over Nichols.

“I therefore fomented the argument between you and Le Sac by arranging the theft of his violin. I had that idea after the loss of the music – or its mislaying, I should say. You know
he found the book later at the house of a pupil?”

“I guessed as much.”

“I forged your writing on the violin’s label to incriminate you, and encouraged poor Henri to think of you as the culprit. You can imagine I was not well pleased when Esther proved
more perceptive that I had believed her to be and retrieved the instrument. She does not suspect half the truth, of course. She merely thinks me mixed up in something shady – but that has
made her meddling enough!”

I thought back to my encounter with Esther Jerdoun on the bridge. I had thought she was accusing me of stealing the instrument when in fact she had been trying to reassure me that Lady
Anne’s plottings would not affect me. Her manner, which I had put down to condemnation, must have been a natural embarrassment and anger at the conduct of her cousin.

“Then,” Lady Anne continued, “to incite your hatred of Henri, I sent those ruffians to attack you. You are my plan of last resort, sir.”

I frowned. “In what respect, my lady?”

“It was possible that Le Sac’s –‘suicide’ would not be convincing. I required an alternative solution to the mystery, in case his death was questioned. In short,
sir, I will manufacture evidence which suggests that you killed the boy yourself, out of a belief that he had been conspiring with his old master against you – indeed, a belief that Le Sac
never cast off the boy at all but used him as a conspirator to get inside your household. Le Sac found out and confronted you, so you killed him too.”

“You will not get Le Sac’s spirit to support that story.”

“Come, come, sir. You spoke to him yourself. He will do anything to torment me. I have simply to persuade him it is to my disadvantage that he keeps quiet and he will do it. Bear in mind,
sir, that you will disappear, which will itself suggest your guilt. It will be assumed you fled for fear of being discovered.”

“Demsey knows what happened,” I pointed out.

She laughed softly. “The dancing master may not survive, sir. And as for my cousin …”

With fear squeezing my heart, I stopped. “What of her?”

“You must see, sir, that I must be rid of her. In a little while, when it will not look too suspicious.”

I fell silent. We walked on, on to the Key. Torches burned outside the shops and brothels, and on the low keels at rest along the wharves. I smelt the acrid dryness of the high piles of coal and
heard a dog barking. And I knew now that only I stood between Lady Anne and the success of her ruthless plans. Only I could save Hugh and Esther. And I could only save them if I first saved
myself.

We walked on. High on the hill across the river, a light flickered around St Mary’s church in Gateshead. Ahead, I saw the bulk of the building that in my world was Thomas Saint’s
printing office. In this world, it stood empty and derelict, a shell with rafters gaping. Around the ruined walls lay a great litter of slates and laths, fragments of stone and brick. A dog sniffed
and pawed at the rubble.

The pressure of Lady Anne’s arm on mine halted me. We stood looking across to the trees and hidden buildings on Gateshead Bank. Overhead, stars swam in a thin stream of smoke; below, water
slapped gently against the wharves. The tide was at its highest, perhaps beginning to ebb. Lady Anne glanced back along the torchlit Key and I saw that the nearest bystanders were some distance
off. Whores, by the look of it.

I shifted uneasily, but Lady Anne was already pulling away from me. The dog was pattering towards us in idle curiosity.

“I have a problem, Mr Patterson.”

“Indeed?” I said dryly.

“Oh, indeed.” She laughed. “Think of it. Mr Charles Patterson, the respected organist and composer, is called upon to examine a body which looks uncannily like his own. So
alike indeed that it might be a twin. I do not want to avoid a scandal in one world to create another in a second.”

“You seem to be making life difficult for yourself in both,” I said.

She shook her head. “A momentary difficulty. Simply, Mr Patterson, I need to ensure that your body is never found.”

Instinctively, I knew her plans and, without thinking, protested. “The river – no!”

“The tide is just turning, and will carry your body out to sea.”

The memory of the spirits weeping and wailing in the billows of smoke rose up before me. Not that, I thought in panic, and took a step back. The dog hesitated, then padded on.