Sword and Song by Roz Southey Page B

yet been done. I thought Walpole’s latest doings would probably occupy a good few minutes but since we were unanimous in condemning the government entirely, that
conversation petered out quicker than all the rest.
    Our ingenuity failed us at last. We sat in embarrassed silence until, luckily, someone knocked on the door. Bedwalters opened it to reveal a middle-aged woman of respectable appearance, a letter
in her hand. She looked from one to the other of us in nervous apprehension then her gaze settled on Bedwalters. “I’ve had a note from the landlord, sir, and I was
wondering...”
    “Of course I’ll read it to you,” Bedwalters said. “Do come in.”
    “I can pay, sir – ”
    “We’ll get some food,” Hugh said brightly and dragged me out of the house. Behind we heard the woman explaining how her husband was in the navy and she had four children;
Bedwalters murmured in sympathetic understanding.
    “It’s the damnedest thing,” Hugh said. “I could swear he’s almost happy.”
    We had to go some distance before we could find a shop whose wares we felt happy eating. “All Hallows vestry have elected a new constable,” Hugh said, as we rejected a dark hole of a
house with a few loaves on a dusty table in the window. “Philips the shoemaker.”
    “His sons sing in church. Nice voices.”
    “His daughter’s one of my pupils. One of those girls who always whine.”
    “Philips himself is decent enough.” I squinted against the lowering afternoon sun. “A trifle strict, perhaps.”
    We found somewhere clean, bought a large bread pudding and a jug of ale and carried them back to Mrs McDonald’s.
    We’d hardly set foot in the house when we realised something had happened.
    The door to Nell’s room was shut. The entire population of the house stood in doorways, at the foot of the stairs, in the kitchen. All the women, young and old. A girl of sixteen or so was
trying to stifle tears; Mrs McDonald was patting her on the back. We heard low voices from Nell’s room.
    “We’ll come back,” I said.
    It was almost an hour before Bedwalters came out to us. We were sitting on the cobbles of the street sharing the ale and pudding when we heard footsteps and looked round to see him in the
doorway.
    “She would like to talk to you, Mr Patterson.”
    I scrambled up and shook the dirt from my coat skirts. When I went back into the house, the women were nowhere to be seen, clearly going about their business as usual. We ventured into
Bedwalters’s room in some trepidation. The spirit gleamed on the edge of a cheap print hung above the bed – an unsteady fluctuating brightness.
    “Mr Patterson,” the spirit said.
    “I’m sorry to meet you again under such circumstances.”
    “No need to worry, sir,” she said softly. “It was going to happen some day.”
    “It should not have happened,” Bedwalters said, with sudden vehemence. “I should have protected you.”
    “I need to know as much as possible, Nell.” I spoke soothingly more for Bedwalters’s sake than the spirit’s. “We need to know what happened.”
    She told us in a quiet voice so calm it was eerily out of place. Hugh, face set hard, sat down on the uneven chair, leaning his arms on his knees; I thrust my clenched fists in my pockets and
hunched into my damp greatcoat. To hear such a terrible tale told in such a tranquil voice was almost more than I could bear. Only Bedwalters seemed composed, watching the gleam with steady
dedication.
    It had been like any other day, Nell said. She’d been working. She and two of the other girls enjoyed a gossip in a tavern then went out to ply their trade.
    “Where did you go?” I asked.
    “Down on the Keyside, sir, as usual. But it was very quiet. Hardly anyone about. Not many ships in. The tide was running out, you see, and most of them had set sail.” The young voice
sounded almost amused. “You wouldn’t think there’d ever be a shortage of sailors, would you, sir? But when I went