Starling cleared all the dirty plates and glasses, all the empty bottles and filthy clothing from the room. She emptied the night soil from the pot, swept the floor and rubbed the furniture, relaid the fire and replaced all the candles. And all the while she could feel the letter in her pocket, swinging with her skirt, threatening to rustle and give her away. She itched to make her escape, to find a private place, and read it. When she was done she thought to just slip away, but at the doorway she paused. Curiosity gnawed at her, almost as strong as the urge to read the letter she’d stolen. Cautiously, Starling walked up behind Jonathan. He had not moved from his place by the open window, and stood with his arms hanging limply by his sides.
‘Sir? Should I close them up now?’ she asked. Jonathan did not reply. She stepped a little closer and peered around at his face. His eyes were shut and he was breathing as slowly and deeply as one asleep. Was it possible to sleep on your feet? Starling wasn’t sure. A moist breeze scurried in from outside, and pushed at his hair and the untidy loops of his cravat. It smelled of wet grass, of damp stone and mushrooms – of the deep autumn that had settled over England. It was cold enough to pucker Starling’s arms into gooseflesh, but Jonathan looked almost serene. At once, she thought of ten different ways she could rouse him, anger him, disturb him. But she did none of them; she had the letter to read, so she slipped quietly from the room and went down to the coal cellar for privacy.
Rachel halted as the Alleyns’ front door closed behind her, and took a deep lungful of fresh, chilly air. She could hear the distant bleating of sheep on the high common, the tuneless clank of the bell-wether’s clapper, leading the herd. If she shut her eyes it was almost like being out of the city entirely, like being at Hartford Hall, perhaps; at the far end of the long oak avenue that ran, straight as an arrow, across the parkland. For a moment she longed to be there, to walk with the illusion of never having to return to any of it – her old job at Hartford, or her new job as Mrs Weekes. The thought troubled her. She opened her eyes to reality with a sinking feeling inside. Her second meeting with Jonathan Alleyn had been almost as unsettling as the first, especially in its outcome; for although there’d been none of the violence and peril of before, that time she had left convinced that she would never return, whereas now she was leaving having pledged to. Her throat was as dry as paper, and she swallowed with an effort; she felt strangely light-headed, and her thoughts refused to coalesce. Stepping into the house behind her felt like stepping out of time and place; into a world where the rules she was so familiar with no longer applied, and anything might happen. It was exhausting. She put a steadying hand on the railings as she descended the steps at last.
Movement in the courtyard below caught her eye, and she looked down to see the red-haired servant crossing from the coal cellar to the kitchen door.
‘You there!’ Rachel shouted down to her. The girl froze and glanced over her shoulder, looking as guilty as sin. When she saw Rachel, her eyes widened in surprise.
‘What are you-’ she began to say, then closed her mouth and moved to go inside again.
‘Wait!’ Rachel called. She leaned over the railings to get a better look at the girl, and was surer than ever that she’d been the one at the Moor’s Head on her wedding day. ‘I must thank you,’ she said. At this the girl turned again.
‘Thank me, madam?’ she said.
‘Yes. It was you who… persuaded Mr Alleyn to unhand me, when I first met him last week. Wasn’t it?’ The servant looked uneasy, and hesitated before she replied.
‘Aye, madam.’
‘Were you watching us, then? And listening?’ said Rachel, to which there was no reply. ‘No matter. I am glad you were. I am glad you were there. And thank you for helping me.’
‘Very good, madam,’ the girl said curtly. She turned to go again.
‘Wait – didn’t I see you at the Moor’s Head? A few weeks ago, on the day I was wed. Didn’t you serve us wine that day?’ The serving girl turned again, and looked so angry that Rachel knew she was right.
‘You must be mistaken, Mrs Weekes,’ she said grimly. Rachel didn’t press her further; she was already sure she was right, though she couldn’t say why it bothered her so much to know.
‘Will you tell me your name?’ Again, the servant seemed to seek a way not to answer before conceding to.
‘Starling,’ she said. ‘I must get on, madam. There’s much work to be done.’
‘Well. You have my thanks, Starling,’ Rachel called as the girl vanished through the door. Mrs Weekes, she called me. So she knows exactly who I am, too.
She found Richard in the cellars at Abbeygate Street. With the onset of autumn, he had taken to lighting a little brazier in the middle of the room to keep the casks and bottles at an even temperature. The room smelled faintly of cinders and smoke, amidst the wood must and wine smells of the stock. It was a strangely restful place, only ever softly lit. Richard was drawing off white wine from a barrel into a bucket. The smell of it was sharp and vinegary, and he wrinkled his nose. He’d rolled up his sleeves, and in the wan light his hair shone softly, and the skin on the backs of his broad hands was smooth and tanned. Rachel watched him for a while, soothed by his methodical movements as he worked, and the mild, diffuse expression on his face. In that moment, she could see what it was about him that she was trying to love. She took a long, slow breath, and sought to fan this tiny flame.
‘How now, Mr Weekes?’ she greeted him. Richard looked up with a smile.
‘My dear. Is aught amiss?’
‘No. I only wanted to tell you about my latest visit to Lansdown Crescent.’
‘Oh yes?’ To the denuded barrel of wine he added a bucketful of fresh milk, then a handful of salt and one of dried rice. Then he began to stir the mixture with a long pole. Rachel watched, fascinated.
‘What are you doing to that wine?’
‘It’s foul.’ Richard grimaced. ‘This whole batch from Spain tastes like horse piss. This treatment will improve it no end, given a few days to work.’
‘Won’t the milk turn sour? And spoil it further?’ she asked, Richard shook his head.
‘It will settle out. You’ll see. Now, tell me of your visit.’
The sounds of sloshing and the gentle clonk of the pole against the barrel filled the cellar. Rachel seated herself on the corner of one of the racks, and drew a pattern in the sawdust with the toe of her shoe.
‘Mr Jonathan Alleyn came downstairs to talk to his mother and me, on this occasion,’ she said.
‘In truth? That is good, good. So he is not so very unwell?’
‘Perhaps not. Or, perhaps not all of the time. He does limp badly, however.’ She did not say that he had seemed like a dead man still standing, from the pallor of his skin and the unhealthy sheen upon it; and the way his eyes shone like glass, and the bones of his face and hands stood proud beneath the skin. She did not say that the sight of him had made her recoil.
‘And what did he say this time?’
‘He apologised for… his ill-behaviour last time. He said he had been suffering a great deal that day from the pains in his head, and that it hadn’t been the best time for me to visit.’ At that point he’d glanced quite coldly at his mother, and there’d been anger in his eyes that was older and deeper than this polite reprimand. When he’d looked again at Rachel his face had shown… something. Something she hadn’t expected, and wasn’t sure of. A slight awkwardness, almost sheepishness. He’d said he had little recollection of what they’d spoken of that day, but that he had a knock on his head he couldn’t account for, and remembered her running from the room in haste. At this he’d grimaced, one corner of his mouth pulling to the side in displeasure.