‘I am well, Mr Weekes. How was business today?’
‘It was brisk, and that’s good. More and more families arrive every day now, for the season, and thanks to word of mouth, and most especially word of Mrs Alleyn’s mouth, my new Bordeaux is much in demand, as is a sweet rose port, lately in from Lisbon.’
‘That is excellent news, indeed.’
‘It is all happening, Rachel. Just as I’d hoped… I have you, the best wife I could wish for, and my business grows… The house is transformed by you, come alive. And soon we will have a finer place, not one over the shop… a house we can fill with children.’ He smiled, and put one hand to the side of her face. His fingers smelled of wood dust and wine-steeped cork, and Rachel shut her eyes, leaning into him.
‘Yes. I should like that very much.’
Richard’s other hand came to rest on her belly, warm and heavy. His touch was somehow proprietary and reverent at the same time, and this time she welcomed it.
‘And what of you? How went your visit to the Alleyns today? Less upsetting than the last time, I hope?’ he said.
‘Yes, much less so.’ Rachel thought of the awful things Jonathan Alleyn had said to her, and the way he snapped; the way his eyes filled with rage and pain at a moment’s notice. And then she thought of the copper mouse, and how he’d fallen asleep to the sound of her voice. She was unsure what she wanted to say to Richard about it – he was so strange and volatile when it came to Mrs Alleyn and her son. ‘He seemed content to be read to. I stayed perhaps an hour with him… and there were no mishaps, not like before.’
‘That is excellent. Excellent, Rachel. And… you were paid?’
‘I was not. Mrs Alleyn made no mention of it before I went up to her son, and afterwards… afterwards I could not find her. I saw only the servants. Speaking of which, I saw one of them just now, doing something rather peculiar.’
‘Oh? Saw one of which?’
‘The Alleyns’ kitchen maid – the red-haired one, who I also saw at the inn on our wedding day. She helped me the first time I met Jonathan Alleyn – she helped me when I was attacked. But I saw her just now, taking a barge boat out of the city with food she had taken from the house.’
‘How can you possibly know this?’ Richard took his hands away from her, sitting forward slightly.
‘I saw her. I saw her at the house, taking something – a bottle of ale. She was putting it into a sack, and then just now I saw her taking that sack and boarding a barge on the canal… I’m certain of what I saw, and yet…
‘What?’
‘When I tried to tell the cook about it, the woman would hear nothing of it. Do you think I ought to tell Mrs Alleyn?’
‘No.’ Richard rose abruptly and walked to the window, even though the shutters were closed. His back was poker straight, his arms folded.
‘What? How no? Surely-’
‘It is not your business!’ Richard kept his back to her, speaking to the chipped paint and woodworm holes of the shutters. ‘And it is scarcely any way to repay the wench if she did indeed help you.’
‘I know. But, surely, if the girl is thieving… If she is being stolen from, Mrs Alleyn-’
‘You told the cook, and that was dutiful. You need do nothing more. It is not your place to involve yourself in such things.’ His voice was hard, flat. ‘And how did you happen to be down at the river, to see this girl board a boat?’
‘I… well, I saw her in the street, so I… followed her,’ Rachel said reluctantly.
There was a silence. Richard turned to face her, and with a jolt of fear she saw the anger again, suffusing his face like a rising tide.
‘I am sure there are better things you could do with your time than run around after serving girls, on business of their own that is none of yours. Wouldn’t you agree?’ he said softly.
‘Yes, Richard.’ Rachel blinked, and looked away. But after another pause, she could not help but speak again, could not help but try to explain herself. ‘I only wanted to… confirm to myself, whether or not the girl was up to no good…’
‘I will hear no more about it! You are to have nothing to do with the likes of Starling! Do you hear me, Rachel? You are to have nothing to do with her!’ He ground the words out, and she could no more fathom the cause of his anger than she could think of a way to assuage it. When she opened her mouth nothing came out, and she was forced to try a second time.
‘Yes, Mr Weekes. I understand it.’ It was little more than a whisper. Richard gave a single curt nod, and strode to the foot of the stairs.
‘I am to bed. Are you coming?’ He held out a hand to her, one that trembled ever so slightly. Is that just anger, or something else? Rachel rose without a word, feeling like a fool who erred and knew not why. As he lay her down with impatience in every caress, Rachel realised that he’d named the girl. Starling. He’d known exactly who she’d been talking about, though he’d always professed ignorance when Rachel had mentioned the girl before. He knows her. For some reason, this realisation made her eyes fill, and she couldn’t tell if they were tears of confusion, or pain, or anger. There is a beast in all men. She shut her eyes tight, and thought of the copper mouse; its little feet running, its bright and beady eyes. She thought about it all the while, until Richard was asleep and she could breathe again.
Jonathan Alleyn was so quiet in the days after Mrs Weekes’s visit that Starling began to worry. His black mood, his state of disarray, was like a downward spiral that once halted could be hard to jerk back into motion. She wanted him weak, and vulnerable, and restless. She needed him to be so, because that was all that mattered to her. It was all she could do. So she spent the day wondering how to torment him, and decided that she needed to start, as she ever did, by making him drink. Plain wine was not strong enough; she needed something else. Once he began drinking, he would fall back into despair. She thought of Dick Weekes, and the way he had brushed her aside. For that pale cow, who has helped not a jot. Starling ground her teeth, and refused to be thwarted. She’d been peeling potatoes; when they were done she swept the skins into her apron and carried them out to the midden, then went downstairs, right down into the bones of the house, where the leaching damp caused the stone walls to powder and weep green mould.
Before, Dick had doctored the wine for Jonathan with some clear, tasteless spirit he got in from Russia; she didn’t know what it was called, or where she could come by more. The remnants of the house’s wine stock was laid down in the low, cramped cellar beneath the kitchen. The front few racks had some newer bottles, supplied by Dick, but further away from the foot of the stairs were racks holding odd relics – bottles left by residents from a previous time. A time when the house was alive and occupied; when there might have been guests for dinner, and card parties, and small dances in the front parlour sometimes. The sawdust on the floor had rotted down to a hard mat that smelled of fungus and made Starling’s eyes itch. She searched for something she could add to his wine without spoiling the taste of it, but there was only some ancient brandy, which stank to high heaven when she pulled the cork. She put it back in disgust, and went up to the still room. There was proof spirit there, used by her and Sol for making lemon water and spirit of peppermint. She uncorked the bottle, but hesitated. If he should keel over dead… That’s what Dick had said. He will not, surely? Starling stayed frozen a moment more, caught in an agony of indecision. Then she took a tiny sip from the bottle. It scorched her tongue, made her cough and spit. She restoppered the bottle and hung her head in defeat.