‘What was she like? Alice Beckwith?’
There was a long pause, and though Starling’s eyes were fixed on Rachel it seemed that they looked right through her, into the shadow behind her that flickered on the wall. For a while, Rachel thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then she took a quick, deep breath.
‘One day we went to have tea with the vicar and his wife in Bathampton… The place was newly built, and the vicar that proud that he showed her the whole house, even down to the servants’ floor and the kitchens. Alice was pleased enough, and saw nothing inappropriate in being below stairs. She gave herself no false airs.’ At this, Starling flicked her eyes over Rachel. ‘She didn’t see servants or lord and ladies, poor people or rich people. She only saw people. In the kitchens, Alice noticed the dog wheel, set up to turn the spit, with a little white dog that had to run and run to turn it, hour after hour. If it got tired the cook would put a hot coal in behind it, so it had to run or be burned. Alice wept when she saw it. She wouldn’t let it continue a second longer.’ Starling smiled, but looked sad. ‘She made such a fuss with her crying and her accusations that the dog was released at once – the vicar had little choice. She brought it back to the farmhouse and nursed it, and the vicar’s kitchen maid had to turn the meat until they had a clockwork jack installed instead. That was what Alice was like. She could not bear to see cruelty, and there was no cruelty in her. Not a jot. She was too good for this world, and people who speak ill things of her are far wrong.’ Starling broke off her story and wiped her hands unnecessarily on her apron. She took another deep breath and looked down at the floor, eyebrows drawn together. And this girl misses her still, Rachel thought.
‘I must get to work now, Mrs Weekes,’ Starling said at last.
‘Could we talk again, perhaps?’ said Rachel, catching the girl’s arm as she went to go past her.
‘I daresay,’ Starling muttered, and pulled her arm away; she vanished into the stairwell on quick feet. Rachel waited a moment, and then went back to the kitchen and caught the eye of the cook.
‘Get what you wanted, madam?’ the woman asked, still clearly nonplussed by her presence.
‘Yes, I suppose so. After a fashion.’ She paused, and felt her conscience prick her. ‘I thought I ought to tell you… when I went into the girl’s room, I am sure I saw her concealing something beneath her bed. A bottle of ale from the pantry, it seemed,’ she said.
‘Starling? I’m sure you’re mistaken, madam. Do go on up, and I shall call for Falmouth…’
‘No, I am not mistaken. She was stealing, I am certain of it,’ Rachel insisted. The cook gave her a steady, blank look.
‘I am sure you are mistaken, madam,’ she said tonelessly. Rachel’s cheeks flamed.
‘Well, then,’ she said, flustered. The cook said nothing more, and only watched her, so Rachel turned and went back to the stairs, fleeing the woman’s disrespect.
1807
The rescued dog had been a small, wire-haired terrier with short legs and the tips of both its ears missing, most likely burned away. They named it Flint. It had lost patches of hair here and there, so that pink skin showed through. It stank, and shook constantly, and its breathing was laboured. When Starling held her nose and wouldn’t stroke it, Alice gave her a disappointed look that stung her.
‘Shame on you, Starling. It’s not the dog’s fault it has been brought so low. Where is your pity?’ she said, so Starling stroked the dog’s head, and it licked at her fingertips. ‘See.’ Alice smiled. ‘See, he likes you.’
‘You reeked like a ferret when we first took you in,’ Bridget pointed out. She had a soft spot for dogs. They made Flint a bed in a warm place, and for three weeks he lay in it, wheezing, rising now and then to potter around the kitchen and cock his leg against the furniture. Alice nursed him as best she could, but still he died, and when he did she wept till she wore herself out, and had to go upstairs to lie down.
‘Alice must have loved Flint very much,’ Starling said to Bridget, as they scrubbed parsnips for lunch. Bridget grunted.
‘She only needs an excuse, sometimes, to let out what’s inside her. She only needs a reason to release it, and reset the balance. Best just leave her to it.’
‘What do you mean? What’s inside her?’ said Starling. Bridget ignored her, and carried on scrubbing.
Later, Starling took up some tea and lay alongside Alice for a while, drawing patterns on the backs of her hands, which Alice found soothing. Starling thought about what Bridget had said, but couldn’t fathom her meaning.
‘Flint’s gone to heaven now, hasn’t he, Alice? Do animals go to heaven?’ she said, carefully.
‘No, dearest.’ Alice’s voice was sluggish and dull.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the Bible says so. Only humans have souls which can go to heaven.’ Starling thought about this for a while.
‘That’s not fair,’ she concluded, at last, and Alice dissolved into fresh tears.
‘No, it’s not fair. It’s too unfair that he should die now, when he had found kindness and rest. It’s too unfair! If I had only known sooner that such cruelty was going on when I had the power to stop it…’ Starling tried desperately to think of a way to change the subject, to divert Alice from her misery. ‘Alice, after I came here, did anybody come to find me? Did anybody come looking for me?’ But this question, a matter of simple curiosity to her, made Alice weep anew.
‘No, dearest,’ she said, shaking with grief. ‘Nobody came for you.’
‘I’m glad they didn’t,’ Starling said quickly.
‘Are you?’
‘I don’t care who they were, not really. Sometimes I like to imagine them, but… I only want to stay here with you, so I don’t need to know about them.’
‘You only want to stay here? For ever?’ Alice turned her head to face Starling, and opened her bloodshot eyes. ‘You only want to live in ignorance of your true heritage, your true family? You only want to go on at the whim of one man, who has the power to prescribe your life to you, though you know not why?’
‘Who, Lord Faukes? He doesn’t prescribe my life…’ Starling trailed off. Does he? she wondered. ‘You prescribe my life, Alice. You’re my big sister, after all.’
‘You are no more free than I am, Starling.’ Alice sniffed, and stared at her intently. ‘You and I are every bit as trapped and used as poor Flint, on his wheel. Don’t you see?’ Starling was mystified. Life at the farmhouse held everything she thought she needed. She could think of few ways in which it might improve. ‘But I will find a way,’ Alice whispered then, and a spark kindled in her eyes. ‘I will find a way to change it, and Jonathan will help me.’
‘What’s Jonathan going to do?’
‘He’s going to marry me,’ Alice whispered, and she shut her eyes again, and seemed more serene. Starling was still trying to puzzle out her meaning when she realised that Alice had fallen asleep. She watched her sister’s pale and lovely face for a while, suddenly feeling as though there was much she did not know.
The following month was June, and Bridget packed up some clothing, and several pots of home preserves as presents, and prepared to make an overdue visit to her niece in Oxford.
‘Now, you’ll be all right? There is plenty of food in the larder – I’ve left you a mutton pie, and the peas are coming all the time – keep picking them. There’s-’
‘Dear Bridget, you’re only going for a week! We shan’t starve, nor the house cave in,’ Alice interrupted her. ‘Besides, you’ve been training Starling these past four years – what kind of teacher would you be if she couldn’t cope with a few simple meals in your absence?’
‘Hmm.’ Bridget seamed her lips together for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Well, then,’ she said, tying the ribbon of her straw hat under her chin and hefting up her basket. ‘Behave yourselves.’ With that she went out and climbed up beside the yardman in their little wagon; he was to take her up to the Bath road, where she could catch the stagecoach. Alice and Starling stood side by side to wave her off, and once she was out of sight Alice turned to Starling, and smiled.