Free Secret Lament by Roz Southey Page B

need advice,” he said. “I’m thinking of setting myself up as a fencing master, and a teacher of French and Italian. Do you reckon there’s a market for it in the
town?”
    I did not believe him for a minute. He was looking for an excuse to justify his lingering in Newcastle. “Fencing, yes,” I agreed. “Foreign languages? I doubt it.”
    He grinned. “You surprise me. Allow me to treat you to a beer or two and pick your brains on the best people to apply to. Where should I set up my school? Who is likely to patronise me?
The trades people or the gentry?”
    It was clearly an attempt to get me on my own and pump me for information; I was ready to wager we would talk more about the Mazzantis than about fencing. But devil take it, I was merely kicking
my heels here and acting as consoler for all the miseries of the company. And if Mazzanti was dunned by his creditors, it would be some small measure of revenge for the annoyances he had inflicted
on me. In any case, a man ought to pay his debts.
    “I have an engagement in an hour or so,” I said. “A rehearsal of Signora Mazzanti’s solos for the Race Week concerts.”
    “I’m happy to wait,” he said.

9
    No one can ask for a straight path, sir. There are daily difficulties that call for our full attention.
    [ Instructions to a Son newly come of Age , Revd. Peter Morgan (London: published for the Author, 1691)]
    The rehearsal was in the Assembly Rooms on Westgate Road and I had expected it to be a quiet affair. The Signora was an experienced singer and would not need extended practice
of her songs. A little effort to get the band to play in time and tune and an hour would be more than ample.
    But I walked in to find a full complement of gentlemen, all the directors of the winter concerts presumably come to hear what they were paying so large a sum of money for. (One hundred guineas!)
Mr Jenison, director in chief, greeted me at the door with some impatience. “Ah, Patterson. At last. We are all ready for you.”
    I glanced around. Three or four violinists stood at the end of the room, with the Rev. Mr Brown, who was tuning his cello. The harpsichord was positioned to one side. Signora Mazzanti was
ensconsed in a comfortable armchair, picking at a bowl of sweetmeats. I began to understand what Jenison meant.
    “You wish me to direct the band?”
    He must have heard the frost in my voice. They had replaced me with John Mazzanti but still expected me to stand in for him when they demanded it.
    “Signor Mazzanti is still engaged at the theatre, directing his daughter’s performance,” Jenison said. “Someone must deputise for him here.”
    Signora Mazzanti was near enough to hear what he said; she reddened, I noticed. But she merely said, in a little girl’s voice, “Mr Jenison…”
    “Dear lady!” And he swooped on her, bore her up to the front of the room solicitously. And this from a man who openly regrets that the whole world is not English. But then Italian
musicians have a certain glamour about them, a cachet which allows one to turn a blind eye to their unfortunate birth.
    Signora Ciara Mazzanti also had a wonderful voice, and an innate, instinctive musicianship that was a joy to work with. She was not in the least disconcerted by the wrong notes in the band, or
by having to repeat the opening of her first song three times so I could be sure all the band would start at the same time. More than all that, she had the ability to silence every one of the
listening gentlemen and that is rare indeed.
    Although, as I closed up my books at the end of the rehearsal, I did hear one gentleman say: “A pity she’s so fat. Past her best.”
    Corelli and I spent the evening in the taverns, starting respectably at Mrs Hill’s in the Fleshmarket and working our way down the social scale from there. At least that
way we drank decent beer while we could still appreciate it. I left my violin with Mrs Hill for safekeeping which was as well because some