The Ladder Dancer Read Online Free PDF

not.’ He dismissed the problem with a wave of his hand. ‘In any case, the dancing is a mere novelty. I’ve hired him for his singing.’
    ‘Handel,’ Mrs Jenison said. ‘And Vivaldi.’
    ‘Indeed?’ I said hollowly. I’ve never dared tell Jenison how much I dislike Vivaldi; Jenison adores his music.
    ‘You should have heard him, Patterson!’ he said warmly. ‘Quite astonishing! I’ve never heard anyone imitate the trumpet so well.’
    ‘I’ve often said we should have trumpets in the band,’ Mrs Jenison said.
    This suggestion was easy to deal with; it had been raised before, and I had my answer ready. ‘Unfortunately,’ I pointed out, ‘we’d have to bring in musicians from a military band.’
    ‘Soldiers?’ Mrs Annabella said, sitting up and clearly thinking of smart uniforms.
    Her brother frowned. ‘I think we all know how the military behave, Patterson; we don’t want their sort in respectable company. But Mr Nightingale is an admirable solution. We can have our trumpets without the attendant unpleasantnesses!’
    ‘Admirable,’ I said. ‘Excellent.’ Vivaldi wrote a trumpet concerto, I recalled, and wondered if I could avert a very trying situation by claiming we were mere provincials and the shops didn’t stock the music.
    The door opened; the servant said with sonorous politeness, ‘Mr Claudius Heron.’
    Mrs Annabella sat up. Her hand went to her hair to pat it into place; she straightened her petticoats, pinned a gentle smile to her face. Good God, I thought, it’s Heron she’s after. A widower with extensive estates, coal mines aplenty, ships on the river and an elegant town house. The young son was a disadvantage, of course, but not an insuperable one.
    Heron – my patron – lingered in the doorway, his gaze slipping from one to another of us. A slight fair-haired man in his forties; to use Mrs Annabella’s phrase, he was not in the first flush of youth. But lean and handsome, and a man who had every confidence in himself and his position in the world. Just the sort to appeal to a maiden lady.
    I wondered if Mrs Annabella had ever been on the wrong side of his cynical tongue.
    Jenison was making the necessary polite noises of greeting; the footman was waiting his chance to continue his interrupted announcement. For there was someone else behind Heron, a nervous-looking young man who was wringing his hands together and reminding me uncannily of the Rev. Mr Orrick.
    The footman took a deep breath. ‘Mr Cuthbert Ridley.’
    I caught my breath. Cuthbert Ridley . And I saw again a bag flung over a horse’s back, and gold intertwined letters embossed into the leather.
    CR.

Six
    A gentleman should always be at ease, neither too forward nor too reticent.
    [ A Gentleman’s Companion , October 1735]
    I knew of Ridley, of course, as one knows of the younger sons of gentlemen one meets now and again. His father’s a Director of the concerts – although he’s travelling somewhere in the Baltic at this time – and two of his elder brothers occasionally turn up to yawn their way through concertos and symphonies, and ogle the young ladies in the interval. Cuthbert, I fancied, had been at Oxford, then somewhere in London, studying for the church, or the law, or something of the sort.
    I scrutinized him as he bowed to the ladies. Tall, ungainly, possibly a few years younger than myself, twenty-three or twenty-four years old. His fresh raw skin and rash of freckles made him look younger. Under a fashionable tiny wig, which sat on his head like a feather on an egg, there was a stubble which suggested his own hair was probably red. He had a habit of fidgeting with his hands and when he sat down, he kept his gaze fixed on his knees, and mumbled and blushed.
    Mrs Annabella was concentrating her attention on Claudius Heron. ‘Your son is well, I hope?’
    Heron hesitated, as if it took him a moment to remember he had a son. ‘Very well, madam.’
    ‘Such a charming boy.’
    Heron paused. ‘He