[ebooktalk] another book

• From: "David Russell" <david.russell8@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
• To: <ebooktalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2013 16:56:41 +0100

Hi

I will try to find a book description shortly.


David

Bath, 1821.
Rachel Crofton escapes the binds of her
unhappy employment as a governess by
marrying a charming self-made businessman.
She sees a chance to create the family and
home she hat so long been without, but her
new life soon takes an unexpected turn.

Through her new husband's connections,
Rachel is invited to become the companion
of the reclusive Jonathan Alleyn, a man
tortured by memories of the Peninsula
War, and tormented by the disappearance
of his childhood sweetheart, Alice.

Starling, foundling servant to the Alleyn
family, Is convinced that Alice, the woman
she loved as a sister, was stolen from her. Did Alice run away? Or did something
altogether more sinister occur? Starling
is determined to uncover the truth. Others
want only to forget, and will go to extreme
lengths to do so.

Rachel's arrival has an unsettling effect
on the whole Alleyn household, and suddenly
it seems that the dark deeds of the past will
no longer stay contained. Shattering truths
lurk behind Bath's immaculate facades,
but the courage Rachel and Starling need
to bring these truths to light will come at
a very high price.

THE MISBEGOTTEN is a haunting and
passionate tale of two women who will risk
everything to unravel oppressive and
insidious lies,
KATHERINE WEBB
grew up in rural Hampshire and read
History at Durham University. She has
since spent time living in London and
Venice, and now lives in Wiltshire.
Having worked as a waitress, au pair,
personal assistant, bookbinder, library
assistant, seller of fairy costumes and
housekeeper, she now writes full time.
Also by Katherine Webb

A Half Forgotten Song
The Unseen
The Legacy
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Orion Books,
an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House, 5 Upper Saint Martin's Lane
London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK company
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Katherine Webb 2013

The moral right of Katherine Webb to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior permission of both the copyright owner
and the above publisher of this book.

All the characters in this book are fictitious,
and any resemblance to actual persons living
or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.

isbn (Hardback) 978 1 4091 3146 5 isbn (Export Trade Paperback) 978 1 4091 3147 
2
isbn (Ebook) 978 1 4091 3148 9

Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd,
Lymington, Hants

Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St [ves pic

The Orion Publishing Group's policy is to use papers that
are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made
from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and
manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the
environmental regulations of the country of origin.






w w w ,< >rluttb< >( ikn.co.uk
How hard is the fortune of all womankind,
Forever subjected, forever confined,
The parent controls us until we are wives,
The husband enslaves us the rest of our lives.

('The Ladies' Case', trad. Ci8th English song)
Thy heart is bound to another,
Wound tight, like a lovers' tree;
Both may fall, but not one, or the other;
In between finds no place for me.
So let me, then, like a briar rose be --
And grow myself around both of thee.
1803



The day the child walked in from the marsh was one of
deadening cold. A north wind had blown steadily all day,
making ears and chests and bones ache; the child's bare feet
crackled through a crust of ice on the watery ground. She came slowly towards 
the farmhouse from the west, with the
swollen river sliding silently beside her and the sun hanging low over her 
shoulder, baleful and milky as a blind eye. A
young woman quit the farmhouse and crossed the yard towards
the chicken coop. She didn't see the child at first, as she wrapped her shawl 
tightly around her shoulders and
turned her face to the sky, to watch a vast murmuration of
Starlings that was coming to roost in the horse chestnut tree. The birds 
chattered and squealed to one another, shifting in flight like a single 
amorphous being, like smoke, before they
vanished as one into the naked branches.
The child kept walking, right through the gate and into the yard. She faltered 
when the young woman did notice her ¦nd call out -- not hearing the words, just 
the sound, which
Startled her. She stopped, and swayed on her feet. The farmhouse
was large, built of pale stone. Smoke scattered from its
chimneys, and through the windows of the lower floor a warm yellow light shone 
out onto the muddy ground. That light pulled irresistibly at the child, as it 
would a moth. It
spoke of heat, of shelter; the possibility of food. With jagged little steps 
she continued towards it. The yard ran slightly uphill towards the house and 
the effort of the climb caused her to zigzag, stumbling left and right. She was 
so close, so nearly able to DUt out her hand and soak it in that golden
glow. But then she fell, and did not rise again. She heard the
young woman cry out in alarm, and felt herself handled,
gathered up. Then she felt nothing more for a time.

The child woke later because of the pain in her hands and
feet. The unfamiliar warmth of her blood caused them to itch
and throb and tingle unbearably. She tried to fidget, but was
held too tightly. She opened her eyes. The young woman
from the yard now held her on her lap, wrapped in a blanket.
Beside them, a fire roared in a cavernous fireplace. The heat
and light were staggering. There was a beamed ceiling over
her head, and lambent candles on a nearby shelf, and it
seemed like another world.
'You cannot mean to put her out - not with it so cold!'
said the young woman. Her voice was soft, but passionate.
The child looked up at her and saw a face of such loveliness
that she thought it might be an angel that held her. The
angel's hair was very, very pale, the colour of fresh cream.
Her eyes were huge and soft, and very blue, fringed with
long lashes like tiny golden feathers; she had high cheekbones,
an angular jaw, and a pointed chin gentled by the hint
of a dimple in it.
'She's a vagabond, make no mistake about it.' This was an
older voice, grim in tone.
'What does that matter? She's a child, and she'll surely die
if she spends another night without shelter, and food. Look look
at her! Nothing but bones, like some poor chick cast out
of the nest.' The young woman looked down, saw that the
child was awake, and smiled.
'She'll be unlatching the door for her people in the night --
you mark my words. She'll let them in and they'll carry off
everything we have, including your virtue!'
'Oh, Bridget! Don't be so frightened, alwaysl You're a
slave to your suspicions. She will do no such thing -- she's just a child! An 
innocent.'
'There's none so innocent in this house as you, Miss Alice,' Bridget muttered. 
'I speak from prudence, not from fear. Which way did she come?'
'I don't know. One moment she was not there, the next, she was.' The young 
woman pulled a feather from the child's hair with her fingertips. 'It was like 
the starlings brought her.'
'That's naught but fancy. She'll be crawling with lice and
vermin -- don't hold her so close to you! Can't you smell the rot on her?'
'How can you speak like that about a child, Bridget? Have you no heart?' Alice 
cradled the child closer to her, protectively.
The child pressed her ear to Alice's chest, and heard the way her heart raced, 
even though she seemed calm. It raced and it faltered and it stumbled over 
itself. She felt the rapid rise and fall of breath beneath her saviour's ribs. 
'To put her out would be tantamount to murder. Infanticide! I will not do it. 
And neither will you.'
For a moment, the two women glared at one another. Then Bridget got up from her 
chair and folded her scrawny arms.
'So be it, and on your head the consequences, miss,' she laid.
'Good. Thank you, Bridget. Will you kindly fetch her tome soup? She must be 
hungry.' Only once the older woman had left the room did Alice relax a little, 
and press her spare hand to her chest. She looked down at the child and ¦miled 
again. 'Arguing with Bridget always sets my heart
Stammering,' she said breathlessly. 'What's your name, little one?' But the 
child could not reply. Her tongue felt frozen in her mouth, and her mind was 
too crowded with the sensations
of heat and tingling. 'You need have no fear now. You will be safe and warm 
here, and you will have food. Oh, look
-- here's another!' Alice said, teasing a second feather from
the child's hair. 'We shall call you Starling for now.' Starling
gazed at this angel and in that instant forgot everything --
where she had been, who she belonged to, her name before,
and the hunger raking at her insides. She forgot everything
but that she loved Alice, and would stay with her always, and
do everything to please her. Then she slept.
1821



The day of the wedding was one of signs and portents.
Rachel tried not to see them, since the higher half of her mind
knew better than to believe in them, but still they kept
coming. She could well imagine her mother scolding such
frailty of thought, but with a smile to soften the words. Nerves, my dear. 'Tis 
nothing but a touch of nerves. Nevertheless,
Rachel kept seeing them, and the signs seemed like
warnings, one and all. A solitary magpie, strutting on the
lawn; a mistle thrush singing on the gatepost. She stepped on
her petticoat as she put it on, and tore it along the waistband;
M she unwound the rags from her hair, every curl fell flat
Immediately. But it was the first dry day in over a week - that
Was surely a good sign. Early September, and the weather
bad turned stormy during the last days of August, with heavy
rain and strong winds that tore down the still-green leaves.
HUchel had hoped it would still be summer when she wed,
4ut it was definitely autumn. Another sign. Arms aching, she
0ave up on her hair and went to the window. There was
jatunshine, but it was low and brittle -- the kind of sun that got
to your eyes and was blinding instead of warming. This will
the last time I stand at a window of Hartford Hall, wishing I
somewhere else, she reminded herself, and this thought
umped all the warning signs. In the morning she would
(Wake up to a new life, in a new home, as a new person. A
.Swife; no longer a spinster, a nobody.
Rachel's mother would have brushed away these supposed
Igns, for sure, and reassured her daughter that the match was
fair one, given the circumstances. Anne Crofton had been a
practical woman; kind and affectionate but wholly pragmatic.
She hadn't married Rachel's father for love, but out of good
sense; though love later grew between them. She would have
approved of the cautious way in which Rachel had considered
Richard Weekes's proposal before accepting. He was
lower than her in birth, to be sure, but his prospects were
good, his business flourishing. His income was more than
enough to keep a wife in modest comfort. His manners were
a little coarse but there was no doubting his charm; and with
innate charm, Rachel could work to shape the rest. A rough
diamond, to which she could bring a shine. And however
more rarefied her birth had been, the fact remained that her
current status was lowly. All these things she could hear
her mother say, when she shut her eyes at night and missed
her parents with a feeling like a terrible ache in her bones.
And in her father's voice . . . well, he would have said less.
Instead, she would have seen the misgiving in his eyes, because
John Crofton had married for love, and always said it
had made him the happiest man alive.
But Rachel had an argument ready for him, as well: she
knew that Richard Weekes loved her. Thus she entered into
the match on much the same footing as her parents had, and
hoped to be as happy as they had been. Rachel hadn't
believed in love at first sight - not until she'd met Richard
for the first time in June, and watched it hit him like a
thunderbolt. He'd come to Hartford Hall with a selection of
Bordeaux wines for Sir Arthur Trevelyan to sample, and was
waiting for the gentleman in the small parlour when Rachel
came into the room to find a deck of cards. Outside a summer
storm gathered, brought on by a week of torpid heat; the sky
had gone dark and odd flickers of lightning came and went
like fireflies. Trapped indoors, her two younger charges were
restless and bad tempered, and she'd hoped to distract them
with whist. She hadn't known that anybody was in the room
so she entered with unladylike haste, and frowning. Richard
leapt up from the chair and tugged his coat straight, and
Rachel halted abruptly. They faced each other for a suspended,
silent moment, and in the next second Rachel saw it
happen.
Richard's eyes widened, and words that had formed in his
mouth were never spoken. He went rather pale at first, and
then coloured a deep red. He stared at her with an intensity
that seemed to border on awe. For her part, Rachel was too
taken aback to say anything, and her murmured apology at
Intruding also died on her lips. Even in the wan light from
outside, which made his burning face look a little sickly,
Richard was arrestingly handsome. Tall and broad at the
shoulder, even if he did not stand up as straight as he should.
He had light brown hair the colour of umber, blue eyes and a
square jaw. In spite of herself, in the face of such scrutiny,
Rachel blushed. She knew she wasn't beautiful enough to
have caused such upset with her face or figure alone - she
was too tall, her body too flat and narrow. Her hair was the
palest of blonds, but it was fine and wouldn't curl; her eyes
were large, heavy-lidded, but her mouth was too small. So
what else could it have been but realisation? The realisation
that here was the person he'd been looking for, without even
knowing it; here was his soul's counterpoint, the one who
Would bring harmony.
There was a mist of sweat on Richard's top lip when at last
Sir Arthur's footsteps were heard, and they were released from
the spell. Rachel dipped him a graceless curtsy and turned to
leave, without the deck of cards, and Richard called out:
'Miss . . . forgive me,' as she walked away. His voice was
deep, and smooth, and it intrigued her. She went back upstairs
to the children's rooms feeling oddly breathless and
distracted. Eliza, the eldest daughter of the house, was curled
up in a window seat reading a book. She looked up and
scowled.
'What's the matter with you?' she said, loading the question
with scorn. It was lucky for Eliza that she was dark and
delicate and pretty. A plainer girl would not have got away
with such a waspish personality, but at fifteen Eliza already
had a great many admirers.
'Nothing at all to concern you,' Rachel replied coolly.
There had been times during the six years that Rachel had
been governess at Hartford Hall, more times than there ought
to have been, when her fingers had itched to close Eliza's
mouth with the flat of her hand.

For a few weeks after that, Richard Weekes appeared here
and there, unexpectedly, claiming to be on business in the
area. Outside church; near the grocer's shop in the village; on
the green on a Sunday afternoon, where people gathered to
gossip and plot. He came to Hartford a number of times,
ostensibly to ask after the latest wines he'd delivered, and
how they were drinking. He came so often that Sir Arthur
grew irritable, and dealt with him brusquely. But still Richard
Weekes came, and he lingered, and when he caught sight
of Rachel he always found a way to speak to her. And then
he asked for her permission to write to her, and Rachel's
stomach gave a peculiar little jolt, because there could be no
mistaking his intentions from that moment on. He wrote in a
crabbed hand, each character stubbornly refusing to join up
with the next. The prose was coloured by quirks in spelling and grammar, but 
the messages within it were sweet and
ardent.
She'd had only one proposal of marriage before, even
though, in the days before their disgrace, her family had been
wealthy and well respected. Rachel was never beautiful, but attractive and well 
spoken enough to arouse interest in more
than one young gentleman. But she never gave them any
Ctuse to hope, or encouraged them at all, so only one ever plucked up the 
courage to ask for her hand - James Beale,
die son of a close neighbour, on his way up to Oxford to read
philosophy. She'd turned him down as kindly as she could,
feeling that she ought to wait - wait for what, she couldn't lay. There was 
loss in her family already, by then, but it
was not grief that stopped her; only the want of something he could hardly put 
her finger on - a degree of conviction,
perhaps. She was not romantic by nature; she did not expect
her soul to take flight when she met the man she would
marry. But she did hope to feel something; something more. Some sense of 
completion, and certainty.
Richard Weekes fumbled his proposal when he came to it,
tripping over the words with his cheeks flaming; and it might have been that 
sudden show of vulnerability that convinced
.Rachel, in the moment, to accept. They'd been out walking,
with the children to chaperone them, on a warm afternoon in late July. The 
countryside around Hartford Hall, near the
Village of Marshfield to the north of Bath, was more golden
Chan green, drowsy with warmth and light. It had been a hot
year, the wheat ripening early and the hay fields rife with
wild flowers - poppies and cornflowers and tufted vetch. They came to the top 
corner of a sloping cattle field, where
ie air was scented with earth and fresh dung, and stopped
the shade of a beech tree while the children ran ahead
rough the long grass, like little ships on a waterless sea --
fell but Eliza, who seated herself on the low stone wall some
Mistance away, opened a book and turned her back to them
conspicuously.
i 'This is a beautiful spot, is it not?' said Richard, standing
beside her with his hands linked behind his back. He had
Itripped off his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and Rachel 
noticed the solid build of his arms, the scuffed
and weathered look of his hands. A working man's hands,
not those of a gentleman. He wore long, well-worn leather
boots over snuff-coloured breeches, and a blue waistcoat just slightly too big 
for him. Bought second-hand and never altered.
That does not make the man any less worthy, Rachel thought.
'This is one of my favourite views,' Rachel agreed.
Beyond a line of birches and willow pollards at the bottom
of the slope, the land rose again, sweeping up, chequered
with fields. High above them a young buzzard was calling to
its parent across the cloudless sky, its voice still whistling and
babyish, though it soared half a thousand feet over their
heads. The skin felt tight over Rachel's nose, and she hoped
it wasn't sunburned. Her straw hat was making her forehead
itch.
'You must never want to leave Hartford,' said Richard.
'There are plenty of places, I am sure, that I might come to
love as much. And places left may always be visited again,'
said Rachel.
'Yes. You might always return to visit.' After this, Richard
Weekes seemed to sense that he had assumed too much. He
looked down at his feet, shifting them slightly. 'You grew up
near here, you said?'
'Yes. My family lived in the By Brook valley, not six miles
from here. And I spent three seasons in Bath before . . .
before my mother was taken from us.' Before everything fell
into pieces, she did not say.
'Forgive me, I had no wish to summon sad memories.'
'No, you did not -- they are happy memories, Mr Weekes.'
After a pause, Richard cleared his throat quietly and
continued.
'I imagine you have some acquaintances then, in Bath and
around? People you met during your seasons there?'
'Some, I suppose,' said Rachel awkwardly. He didn't seem to understand that all 
such society had ceased with her
father's disgrace; she found that she had no particular wish to
enlighten him. She had spoken of losing her parents, and he'd teemed to accept 
that as reason enough for her to have taken t post as governess, without any 
connotations of shame or
.penury. 'But it has been a good many years since I was there.'
'Oh, you will not have been forgotten, Miss Crofton. I am
entirely convinced of that. It would not be possible to forget
you,' he said hurriedly.
'A good many people come and go from the city,' she
demurred. 'Did you grow up there yourself?'
'No, indeed. I grew up out in the villages, as you did.
My father was an osder. But life in the city fits me far better.
Bath suits me very well -- I would not want to live anywhere else. Though there 
is sin and hardship there, of course, same as anywhere, and it's more visible, 
perhaps, where so many
people live in close quarters.'
'Life can be cruel,' Rachel murmured, unsure why he
jtwould mention such things.
'Life, but also men. I once saw a man beating a small child
a starving, ragged boy no more than six years old. When I
forestalled the man he told me that an apple had fallen from
jhis cart, and that the child had filched it from the gutter. And
for this he would beat the wretch with his stick.' Richard
;hook his head, and gazed out into the sunshine, and Rachel
Waited. 'In the end it came to blows. I fear I may have broken
his jaw.' He turned to look at her again. 'Does that shock
you? Are you appalled, Miss Crofton?' ¦i; 'Does what shock me? That a cruel man 
might beat a
child over an apple, or that you might step in and punish
him?' she said severely. He tries so hard to make me know he is
brave, and just, and sensible. Richard looked anxious, so she
smiled. 'The cruelty to the child was by far the worse evil, Mr
Weekes.'
Richard took her hand then, and suddenly Rachel was all too
aware of Eliza's rigid back and listening ears, and the distant
laughter of the other children. A breeze trembled through the
beech leaves and fluttered a strand of hair against her cheek. Now it comes.
'I have already told you how much I . . . admire you,
Miss Crofton. How much I love you, as I have never loved
another. You must marry me.' Richard's voice was so tense
that this proposal came out as a clipped command, and his
cheeks blazed with colour. He looked at his feet again,
though he kept hold of her hand. It was almost like a bow,
like supplication. 'It would be an advantageous match, I
do believe, for both of us. Your gentility and your manners
are . . . so admirable, Miss Crofton. Your acquaintances in
Bath . . . our combined resources, I mean . . . can only . . .
can only lead to a shared future of far greater -1 mean to say,
please marry me, I beg of you.' He coughed, regrouped. 'If
you would do me the great honour of being my wife, then I
swear that I will devote my life to your every comfort and
care.' He was breathing deeply, looking up as if he hardly
dared to. Two proposals, near a decade apart; this one somewhat
the less graceful, but doubtless will be the last. Rachel did not
feel certain, but the sky was the most brilliant blue, and his
hand was as warm as his flushed cheeks, and his eyes were
frantic as he waited for her answer to his clumsy words. The
sun glanced from the sloping lines of his cheekbones and
jaw. A beautiful face, and all coloured up for the love of me. She
felt her heart swell, then, and crack open just a little bit; a
glimmer of feeling that was unexpected, long absent, and
brought tears to her eyes.
'Yes. I will marry you, Mr Weekes,' she said.

Rachel and Richard were to marry in the chapel next to Hartford
Hall and then travel at once to Bath, to Richard's house,
where they would live.
(!' 'What street is the house upon?' Eliza pounced, when she lieard of this 
plan.
'I forget. Kingsgate, perhaps?' said Rachel, inventing the ' Rime evasively. 
The house was in fact in Abbeygate Street, Iflnd her heart had sunk when she'd 
told this to the head f Horse, Mina Cooper, and watched that kind woman trying 
to ( fold something good to say about the address. dare say it is HUich 
improved since I was there last.
'Kingsgate? There is no Kingsgate that I know of. It can't be near any of the 
better streets, if I haven't heard of it at
all.'
'It is possible that there are things in this world that you don't yet know of, 
Eliza.' There were things, for example, that Rachel now knew about Richard that 
few others did. That in spite of his youthful looks, he was already past 
thirty. That his favourite thing to eat was bread dipped in the hot
gutter where mushrooms had been sauteed. That he was Hraid to ride, having been 
thrown badly as a child. That phough his father had been a lowly ostler, 
Richard had raised Pniself up through hard work and good taste and selfm

Fucation, to become one of Bath's most successful wine d spirits merchants.
All these things he told her, without her asking him; like a
laying himself bare -- letting her know the good and the at once, so that she 
might know him completely, and it ide her trust him. He didn't seem to notice 
that he'd asked
r little in return, or that she'd volunteered scant informam
about herself. And for each thing he told her, a dozen
rther questions were asked in a distant recess of her mind, 'his curious 
observer was subtle as a shadow; it was like ,e echo of a voice, coming up from 
a deep place; a part of
herself she had somehow become separated from, in the years of loss and grief 
that had followed her happy childlOod.
But it was a voice she cherished; which, when heard,
gave her a pang of loss that went deeper than flesh, and of
joy at hearing it again, however softly. On the subject of
Richard Weekes it was almost childlike, full of fascination,
shy pleasure, and fleeting doubt.
Sir Arthur and Lady Trevelyan dutifully declared that
they would miss Rachel, when she told them she would be
leaving. She suspected that what they most regretted was
having to advertise for a new governess. Only Frederick, the
youngest child, seemed to genuinely grieve at the thought of
losing her. When he threw his arms around her waist and
buried his face in her skirt to hide his tears, Rachel was
stabbed with regret.
'You're a good boy, Freddie, and I will miss you a great
deal. I hope we will visit each other often,' she told him.
'I doubt that,' Eliza chipped in. 'Bath is so dull and . . .
reduced, these days. We shall be travelling more often to
Lyme from now on, I should think. And even if we did come
to Bath, I dare say we would move in somewhat different
circles.' In her increased unkindness, Rachel read a touch of
sorrow in Eliza, too. She feared that Eliza was one of those
people who would only ever be able to express themselves
through anger, so she found it in herself to cross over to the
girl and kiss her cheek.
'Be happy, Eliza. And try to be kind,' she said. Eliza
scowled furiously, pulling her face away. She stared resolutely
out of the window, looking as though she would love
nothing more than to throw open the casement and fly away
through it, into the world beyond, far from her home with all
its walls and doors, its straight lines and straighter rules.

A knock at the door made Rachel turn from the window. Her
wedding gown -- in truth her only good gown, of pale fawn
cotton, short-sleeved and gathered beneath the bust - shifted
around her ankles. She felt the failed curls of her hair brush
her neck, and wondered if it was too late to do anything
bout them. It was Eliza who came into the room, not
waiting for her knock to be answered.
'If you're ready to wed the shopkeeper, Father has
brought the barouche to the front for you. I said it was fifty
paces to the chapel and easy to walk, but he insists that a
carriage is in order for a wedding,' she said, sounding bored. She was wearing 
a beautiful dress of cream satin, edged with
intricate embroidery, finer than anything Rachel possessed. ¦Rachel thought 
this a final act of tactlessness from her former
charge.
'Thank you, Eliza. I am ready.'
'But. . . your hair . . .'
' 'My hair will have to do. It's windy out, anyway. And
ifcesides, Mr Weekes will not mind.'
> 'He might not, but perhaps you ought. Here, sit down
moment.' Eliza picked up some discarded pins from the
ressing table and set about fixing up some of the stray
sses. 'You should have had Bessie come and help you,' she
Uttered.
'As you have so often reminded me, Bessie has enough to
without dressing my hair for me.'
'It's your wedding day, Miss Crofton. And why you refuse
wear a false front of proper curls, I'll never know. Miss
rofton, Miss Crofton - I thought you might like to hear it a
W last times, before you become Mrs Weekes.' 'It's good of you to attend a 
wedding you so disapprove
said Rachel, amused.
'I never said I disapproved. Mr Weekes is . . . well. Right
ough for you, I suppose.' Eliza shrugged.
» 'A good and honest man, and one who loves me. Yes, I
ould call that right enough,' said Rachel, and in the mirror the saw Eliza 
blush slightly, her lips thinning as they pressed
gether. A thought occurred to her then - that Eliza might
somehow envy her. She'd caught the girl out, more than
once, spying on Richard Weekes from a window. He cut a
romantic figure, and he was handsome -- more than handsome
enough to enchant a fifteen-year-old girl. Rachel knew
she shouldn't let this please her, because Eliza was really just
a child; but still, when she rose from the table at last it was
with a good deal more resolve.
Down the wide staircase with its sweeping balustrade,
along the rich Turkey carpet in the hallway, towards the tall
front doors. Rachel's reflection accompanied her, flitting from
one vast mirror to the next like a companionable ghost, and
there was something profoundly comforting in this duality.
The temptation to see her reflection as a separate person was
strong. She didn't dare turn her head to look, because she
knew what she would see -- only herself; no companion at her
side after all. She would likely never step inside such a grand
house again, but Hartford Hall was also cold, and unyielding.
There had been little laughter, in spite of the children, and
few guests. Rachel had always found it a sad and quiet place,
after the warmth and jollity of her childhood home and the
constant girlish chatter at boarding school. She pictured the
way her father and little brother, Christopher, had wrestled rolling
on the hearthrug, digging at each other's ribs until
laughter rendered them helpless; she tried to picture Sir
Arthur behaving that way with Freddie, and couldn't imagine
it. But perhaps she'd brought some of the quietness with
her to Hartford, in mourning the loss of her parents; because
some measure of herself had died along with them, or so it
felt.
Her mother went first, from a seizure; her father three
years later, when grief had led him into ruin, and scandal, and
the house and all their furniture had been sold to set against
bad debt. The doctors had been mystified as to what actually
caused his death, but Rachel, who'd seen the look on his face
U she kissed him goodnight for the final time, was quite sure her kind and 
gentle father had died of shame. The thought was too painful, so she tried not 
to think it. There was the
magpie, perched on the gatepost as the carriage rolled her ¦way from the front 
doors. One for sorrow. Rachel raised two
fingers to salute him, in spite of all better sense.
Nerves. Nothing more. Life was about to change for ever,
after all. She could be forgiven for feeling anxious, especially
ilince she was alone in all her decisions, with no recourse to advice from a 
parent or older sibling. Perhaps I am only in
Want of a second opinion. She had come to know and trust
(Richard, but their courtship had been swift. Sometimes when e smiled it seemed 
that other, more serious thoughts
vered behind his eyes; and sometimes when he was serious, 's eyes danced in 
silent merriment. Sometimes she looked up to find him watching her with an 
expression that she didn't
icognise and couldn't decipher. Such things are learnt in time. "will learn to 
read him, and he will learn to read me. But he told er that he loved her, over 
and over again, and swore his
evotion to her. And she'd seen the effect she'd had on him,
hen they first met. Still, her heart was thumping as she
ade her solitary walk down the aisle to join him in front of
e altar. She had no male relative to accompany her -- long
fore her mother died, her brother Christopher had been
rried off by a fever, at the age of nine; Sir Arthur drew the
le at taking on this familial duty himself. The bride's side
the chapel was populated almost exclusively with absent
ople, but she pictured them there as she made her way past,
d she pictured them glad, and approving of her choice. She
Id herself straight, and walked with measured steps.
Richard was wearing his best blue coat and a crisp white
neck tie, with his hair combed back and his jaw clean-shaven.
He was strikingly lovely; his eyes were clear and apprehensive as he watched 
her approach. He stood close enough to her for
their arms to press together as the parson gave the welcome.
There seemed a promise in the touch - that soon there would
be nothing, not even cloth, between their two skins. Rachel
felt anxious at the thought. The sunlight through the chapel
window was warm. She could smell Richard's shaving soap, a
slight aroma of camphor from his coat, and the vital, masculine
smell of new sweat. She cast her eyes sideways as the
clergyman spoke on, and saw Richard staring fixedly at the
effigy of Christ on the cross that hung above the altar. Small
knots were working at the corners of his jaw, but when he was
called upon to speak, and make his vows, he turned towards
her and couldn't keep from smiling. Try as she might to be
calm as she spoke her part, Rachel's voice was so quiet and
strangled that the parson struggled to hear it. When it was
done, Richard raised her hand to his lips and shut his eyes,
bowing before her.
'Mrs Weekes. You have made me the happiest man alive,'
he whispered, and then laughed delightedly, as though he
couldn't keep it in.



Starling blew angrily at a lock of her reddish hair that kept
falling into her eyes. Her hands were sticky with onion juice,
so she didn't want to brush it back; the smell of food and
cookery lingered on her long enough as it was. In spite of the
chunk of stale bread impaled on the point of her knife - a
safeguard that Bridget had sworn by - her eyes were stinging
from the fumes, and just then her nose began to itch as well,
so her teeth were already clenched in irritation before Dorcas
came sidling up to her. Dorcas smoothed her apron repeatedly
with the flats of her hands, and smiled a quick, thin
smile. She hovered there, in the corner of Starling's eye, like
some insect looking for a place to land. Starling took a deep breath, put down 
the knife and raised her eyebrows. Dorcas's
imile became a scowl, and Starling could see how much she
loathed asking a favour of a lowly kitchen maid.
The sun had only just set and the lamps not yet been lit, so the fire sent 
shadows capering up the walls like devils.
'Will you do it today, Starling? You know how bad he was yesterday,' Dorcas 
burst out. The skinny housemaid, With her horse's teeth and her narrow, 
lashless eyes, was
wearing, though whether that was from discomfort or the heat of the cook fires, 
Starling couldn't tell.
'Is that anyway to talk about the master?' Starling was too cross to make it 
easy for Dorcas. Let her beg me, she thought.
, 'Don't play me the high and mighty, Starling. You know vwhat I'm talking 
about,' said Dorcas. Starling studied her, nd saw real fear in the girl's eyes. 
She hardened her heart
gainst it.
'What I don't know is why you expect me to do your Work for you, Dorcas 
Winthrop. I don't see you down here
hopping endless onions for the soup.' Dorcas's nostrils . flared in distaste.
'I'm upper housemaid. I don't do kitchen work.'
'You're the only housemaid, so go do your own work and leave me be.' Starling 
turned back to the onions, feeling the
Other girl's impotent rage as she backed away.
The kitchen of the house on Lansdown Crescent, in Bath, d a vaulted ceiling and 
tall windows to compensate for eing below street level. The windows looked out 
onto a
Harrow, shadowed courtyard, and let in little light. It was a pace nestled 
amongst the foundations of the building, carved llto the ground, supporting the 
house above in more ways ihan one. Starling sometimes thought of it as like an 
animal den, a warren through which the servants moved, day in, day Out, with 
grime under their nails and dried sweat in their
clothes, blinking at the light of day. The cook, Sol Bradbury,
, chuckled as Dorcas finally slunk reluctantly up the stairs.
'You're wicked, you are, Starling. It'll end with you going
up, and you know that.'
'Perhaps. But she nips at me like a flea, that one. I can't
find the will to make it easy on her,' Starling replied.
The gentleman of the house, Mr Jonathan Alleyn, had
indeed been worse than usual in the past few days, for which
Starling felt gratified. It was her doing, after all. He was ruled
by his moods and dreams and the pains in his head; the
disarray in his dark and cluttered rooms reflected the disorder
in his mind. Starling had many ways to goad him. Earlier in
the week she'd learnt, from an old soldier drinking in the
Moor's Head, the exact tattoo of French marching drums.
She'd beat out this rhythm on the hearth as she swept it,
ostensibly to knock the ashes from the shovel and brush.
When she'd finished, Jonathan Alleyn had been sitting with
his eyes tight shut and his nostrils white, his whole body
wrought hard with stress, so tightly that it shook. No more
than you deserve, Starling had thought, pleased at this result,
and that he went downhill the rest of the week. Yesterday,
Dorcas had been pale and goggle-eyed when she finished in
his rooms. Starling curled her lip at the memory. The girl
was as gutless as a rabbit. She tucked the offending strands of
hair more firmly under her cap and went back to the onions.
Sol beat the batter for a plum cake, quietly singing a bawdy
song.
In minutes Dorcas was back, tears streaking through
smudges of soot on her cheeks.
'He's gone mad! This time he's gone quite mad!' she cried,
all shrill and staccato. Starling couldn't help but chuckle.
'Don't you dare laugh at me, Starling! No decent person
should have to go into those rooms! It's worse than anything
the devil could devise! And he's like a demon himself... I
think his soul must be black as tar! As black as tar!' Dorcas
clamoured.
'What is all this now?' It was Mrs Hatton who spoke -- the
housekeeper; a small, brisk woman with iron-grey hair and a
careworn face. The three women in the kitchen stood up
itraighter, and buttoned their lips. "Well? Out with it, one of you.'
'It's Mr Alleyn, ma'am. He ... he ... I went to set up the room for the night 
and he . . .' Dorcas dissolved into tears
again, stretching her mouth into a wide, upturned crescent.
'Saints preserve us. There now, Dorcas! I'm sure he didn't
mean you any harm.' The housekeeper fetched out her handkerchief
and handed it to the housemaid.
'But I'm sure he did, ma'am! I think he has gone mad this
time! He snatched up the smuts bucket and threw it at me! If I
hadn't ha' dodged it might ha' knocked all my teeth out. . .'
'Perhaps no bad thing,' Starling muttered. Dorcas shot her i a look of pure 
venom.
'Starling, nobody asked you to speak, said Mrs Hatton,
xasperated. Dorcas wept on.
'And . . . and he called me such namesl I shouldn't have to
hear such things. And I did nothing to deserve it!'
'That's enough. Now, calm down. You have work to do,
and--'
'No! I won't go up there again! Not now and not tomorrow
neither! It's not natural, what he gets up to! He s not
jnatural, and no decent person should be expected to . . .
to . . . have to see him, or serve him! And I won't, even if it
means I'm dismissed!' With this Dorcas ran from the kitchen.
Sol Bradbury and Starling exchanged a look, and Starling
fought hard not to smile.
'Lord, not another one running out,' Mrs Hatton muttered;
for a second, her shoulders sagged in exhaustion. 'Starling,
stop smirking. Go up to Mr Alleyn, if you please, and make
his rooms for him. You'll need to bank the fire well, there's a
nip in the air tonight. He'll ask for wine but I have it from the
mistress that he's not to have any - the pains in his head have
been bad this week, poor soul. Any one of us would be as
volatile, had we to live with such suffering. Now, please,
Starling -1 don't want to hear any argument.' She raised one
finger in warning, and then walked out in pursuit of Dorcas.
Starling smiled at her retreating back. It served her well
to let Mrs Hatton believe that she was reluctant to go into
Jonathan Alleyn's rooms. It would have caused suspicion,
after all, if she seemed keen to go in, though keen she was. A
strange kind of keen, because her pulse always raced and her
breathing came faster, and on some level she knew she was
afraid of him. Not afraid of the look of him, or the contents
of his rooms, or of his rages, like the other girls; she was
afraid of what she might do, and what he might. Because she
had known Jonathan Alleyn since she was a little girl, and she
knew things about him that the other servants didn't. Things
nobody else knew.
She found the supper tray that Dorcas had abandoned on a
table in the hallway outside his rooms. He had two adjoining
chambers on the second storey of the house, on its west side,
sharing a wall with the next house along the crescent. The
room where he slept was towards the back of the house, plainly furnished but 
dominated by an enormous canopied
tester bed, its wooden posts all gilded, its drapes of heavy
crimson damask. Linked to this via double doors, the room at
the front of the house was supposedly his study, and had an
enormous bay window arching over the street, giving a far
reaching view of the city and the hills around it. A view
almost always hidden by closed shutters. This room had filled
a succession of housemaids with horror. Starling paused and
strained her ears for the sound of Mrs Hatton's footsteps, or
anyone else who might be near, before adding a bottle of
wine to the supper tray. A bottle she'd got especially, from
Richard Weekes; dosed in secret with extra spirits to make it
Itronger. Mr Alleyn would drink it, she knew, even if he
realised it was doctored. He didn't seem to be able to stop
himself. Perhaps - she almost smiled to herself at the idea perhaps
he even thought she did it to please him.
Starling listened hard for a moment. She steadied herself. There was silence 
from within; no sound of movement, or ipeech, or violence. He would be waiting 
in the dark, but
Starling was not afraid of the dark. Jonathan Alleyn never lit his own lamps; 
he liked to sit as the gloom gathered around him. She'd once heard him say that 
the shadows soothed him. Well, she would banish them. Why should he be soothed?
Behind her, the lamp on the wall made a soft tearing sound U it guttered in a 
draught. That same draught brushed the back of Starling's neck, and made the 
skin there tingle. That's
fill it is, she assured herself. Just a cold ephyr where a door has
hen left open. It was not fear. She refused to be afraid of
Jonathan Alleyn, even though the worst and biggest thing (the knew about him, 
which nobody else knew, was that he
!j«ras a murderer.
., He would be waiting within, nothing to betray his whereabouts
but the ruddy gleam of the fire reflecting in his eyes. "oryou, Alice, she 
pledged silently, as she knocked smartly at
the door, and went in.



Sir Arthur's generosity extended to loaning the barouche to
Rachel and her new husband for the drive into Bath for the
wedding breakfast. As soon as they'd climbed down outside the Moor's Head inn, 
the carriage pulled away, and her connection
with Hartford ended to the sound of iron-shod hooves
clattering on cobblestones. The wind funnelling down Walcot
Street was brisk. Richard tipped two strong lads to carry
Rachel's trunk south to the house on Abbeygate Street, then he held out his 
hand to her.
'Come, my dear. Come in out of this breeze,' he said,
wrapping her hand around the crook of his elbow. Just then,
the abbey bells began to strike the hour, and Rachel paused.
'Wait,' she said. 'It's been many years since I heard those
bells.' She looked down the street into the thick of the city,
where pale stone buildings clustered in all around, and the
cobbled streets ran with carts and carriages, donkey traps,
servants hurrying on their masters' business. There were
dowdy maids with laundry bundles, scuffing their feet along
in the wooden pattens that kept their shoes out of the muck.
There were housekeepers and cooks with baskets full of fresh
meat and vegetables; sweating bearers carrying the wealthy
uphill in smart sedan chairs; street hawkers and urchins and
fashionable ladies with their pelisses buttoned tight against
the weather. Rachel took a deep breath and smelled the
dankness of the river; the sweet reek of rubbish in the gutter;
freshly baked bread and roasting meat; a cloud of beery
fumes and tobacco smoke from the inn. A mixture of smells
she'd grown unused to, living in the sterile calm of Hartford
Hall. 'Not since I came here with my parents in the
season. My little brother too, before we lost him.' It was a
fond memory, but Richard mistook her, and thought her sad.
'Forget all that, Mrs Weekes.' He squeezed her hand,
pulling her towards the door of the inn. 'I'm your family
now, and this is a new beginning. For sure, Bath is much
changed since you were last here - new buildings are finished
all the time; and new folk come in. Fine people too, the right
sort,' Richard said, and Rachel smiled at him, not caring to
explain herself.
The Moor's Head had low ceilings heavy with beams and
a red brick floor worn smooth from long years of use. There
was a racket of voices and laughter already, in spite of it
being just five in the afternoon, and cheering broke out when
Richard appeared. He grinned and clasped hands with several
men who were already well soused, judging by their red cheeks and heavy eyes. 
Rachel smiled uncomfortably as they toasted her with tankards of ale and shook 
her hand more roughly than she was used to. The smoke made her eyes ting, so 
she blinked frequently. Richard wore a grin from ear to ear until he glanced at 
Rachel and saw her discomfort. His smile faltered.
'Sadie, is our table ready?' he called out to the girl behind the bar, who was 
moon-faced, with deep brown curls, abundant
bosom and apples in her cheeks.
'Aye, Mr Weekes, just as you asked. Go on up as it please
you,' said Sadie. Just then a man came to stand in front of them; portly, with 
a lined face and a filthy grey wig that had
flipped down over one ear. He patted Rachel's hand clumsily.
'Well, young sir, I declare you have done mighty well for
yourself. You told us she was a beauty, but we none of us
expected you could ensnare such a fine creature as this, hmm?' said the man, 
slurring slightly. His breath was sour with
brandy but his face was kindly, and Rachel inclined her head
graciously at the compliment. Her new husband scowled.
'Of course she is fine. Finer than me, certainly. But I hope to raise myself 
up, and to deserve her,' he said stiffly.
'You are too kind to me, and do yourself a disservice, Mr
Weekes,' Rachel told him.
'Well, I never saw a bride so radiant. No, indeed. You are the loveliest thing 
to grace this poor place in as long as I can
recall,' the man continued. 'Let me--'
'That you could even recall the time of year would come as a surprise to me. 
Come, my dear. This way.' Richard led
Rachel away, as the elderly man was drawing breath to introduce
himself. He looked crestfallen as they departed, and
Rachel turned to smile in farewell.
'Who was that man?' she said, as Richard led her to the
foot of a crooked wooden stair.
'That? Oh, nobody. His name is Duncan Weekes. He's
my father, if truth be told,' Richard muttered, keeping his
hand in the small of her back to urge her onwards.
'Your father?' Rachel was shocked. Richard led her into a
cosy room on the upper storey, where the wooden floor
rolled and undulated, and the leaded windows were hazy with
city grime. But the table that had been laid for them was well
scrubbed, and laid with china plates and wine glasses. Rachel
took her seat, and noticed that the china was chipped in
places, the cutlery stained. She was proud to find herself not
as disheartened by such things as she might have expected. 'I
understood you had little contact with your father?'
'As little as I may, truth be told,' said Richard.
'And yet . . . you must have invited him here today, for
the wedding feast?'
'Invited him? No, I did not. But... we have some of the
same acquaintances, perhaps. He must have heard we would
be coming here.'
'You come here often, 1 divine. You seem to have many
friends here.'
'Friends, some. Clients others, and some acquaintances that perhaps I once 
enjoyed, and now can't quite be rid of.
But never mind them - today is about us. Here, try the wine.
It's Constantia, shipped all the way from the Dutch colony
on the Cape of Good Hope. A rare treasure, and I have been
keeping this bottle for my bride for some years now. I can't
tell you how happy I am to finally be able to raise a glass of it
in a toast to you, my love.' He filled two glasses, handed one
to her and entwined their wrists.
'Happy to have found your bride, or to be able to try the
wine at last?' Rachel teased.
'Both.' Richard smiled. 'But you are undoubtedly the
greater pleasure. To you, Mrs Rachel Weekes.'
The wine sank hotly into Rachel's empty stomach.
'It's delicious,' she said, and tried not to dwell on the fact
that her new name made her a stranger to her own ears. Since
childhood she'd envisaged her wedding feast as a rather
different affair. She'd imagined her parents with her, and
Other family, and a white embroidered tablecloth beneath a
feast set out on silver platters and fine porcelain; herself far
younger, not past her bloom at twenty-nine as she now found
herself, and having endured years of the pitying looks aimed
at an old maid. But she could never have hoped for a more
handsome groom, nor one so devoted to her. 'Mr Weekes,
shouldn't we ask your father to join us? Whatever has passed
between you, it doesn't seem right that he should be so near
8t hand, and yet excluded from our celebration,' she said.
Richard didn't answer at once. He took a long swig of the
wine and then turned the glass by its stem on the table top.
'I would rather have you all to myself,' he said at last,
looking at her with a smile that did not quite tally with the
look in his eye.
'I fear that you are ashamed of him, and don't want me to
know him. Please, I assure you, you need not worry. Duncan
Weekes is now my father too, after all, and I should very much like to come to 
know him . . .'
'You only say so because you don't know what he's like.'
'Perhaps. But a wedding is a time for family, don't you
think? He seemed kindly ... a touch disordered, perhaps,
but--'
'No,' said Richard, and there was such a note of finality in
his voice that Rachel didn't dare press the matter, for fear of
souring the mood.
So they feasted alone, and once the Constantia was finished
more wine was brought in by the serving girl, Sadie, along
with a huge platter of roast lamb cutlets, a whole trout in
butter and parsley sauce and a dish of curried root vegetables.
Richard emptied his glass thrice for each time Rachel emptied
hers, and soon his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were
bright, and his voice as he spoke grew blurry. He told her
about his business, and how he hoped to grow it; how soon
it would be before they were able to move to better accommodation;
how their son would join him in the wine and
spirits trade, and their daughter would marry a baronet.
'I fear that you may find our rooms somewhat . . . less
than you are used to,' he said at one point. 'I hope you will
not be disappointed.'
'What right have I to be disappointed?' said Rachel. 'I
who have near nothing, save the clothes I stand up in?
Hartford Hall was not my home, and my family home was
lost to me years ago. All that you have you have worked for,
and got for yourself, and that is far more than I can claim.
And you would share it all with me ... I shall not be disappointed.'
'And
yet, in truth, you are accustomed to fine surroundings,
fine food and the company of well-mannered people . . .'
'I am accustomed to the company of bad-tempered children,' she said, taking his 
hand and squeezing it. 'That was
not the life I wanted. This is.' She smiled. Love, whispered
the echo in her head. Love is what's needed, and what you
should become accustomed to. So love him.
Richard kissed her hand, all pleased and relieved, and
Rachel wondered at a strange feeling of detachment that
grew in her as the evening progressed.
She felt slightly as though she was watching a scene in
which she had no part; watching things that were happening
to another person altogether. Some important part of her had slipped away, and 
gone in search of other things. It was the
same odd numbness that had begun with the first death in her
family and grown through each one that came after, and she
had hoped that the way Richard had touched her heart when
he proposed had marked the beginning of its end. At length
Rachel pushed her glass away from her, and held her hand
over it when the girl came to fill it. A few drops of wine
splashed from the jug onto her fingers, and she looked up to
remonstrate with Sadie only to find that it wasn't the dark
haired girl who poured it, but a red-head. A pretty girl with
elongated, broad-set eyes that looked clever and too knowing.
She had a short nose, tilted up at its tip; brown eyes and a wide mouth shaped 
by a lazy curve. Her hair was a coppery
colour, like autumn leaves, and long strands of it hung down
from her cap. She had halted in the act of pouring the wine, and stood quite 
still, staring most peculiarly; her gaze seemed
to pass right through Rachel, and settle on some other place
or time entirely.
'What's the matter?' said Rachel, her own tongue loosened by the wine she'd 
drunk. The serving girl blinked; shut her
mouth with an audible click of her teeth.
'Beg pardon, ma'am,' she said, in a low voice.
'Your cloth, please, to dry my hand.' Rachel held out her
hand for the dish rag hanging over the girl's shoulder.
'I'll take some more.' Richard pushed his glass towards the
girl, and looked up. He too seemed to notice that this was not
their normal server, but he said nothing. He only watched the
girl guardedly, and for a moment all three were locked in
mute immobility.
'Your cloth, if you please,' Rachel said again.
'Beg pardon,' the girl repeated. She set down the jug with
a thump, turned abruptly and left the room.
'Well! What on earth got into her, I wonder?' said Rachel,
but Richard didn't answer her. He picked up his glass to
drink, found it empty, and put it back down irritably.
'Sadie!' he bellowed towards the open doorway, and moments
later Sadie reappeared to take up the wine jug. Rachel
kept an eye out, but the curious red-haired girl did not return.
The house on Abbeygate Street was all in darkness when
they entered. Richard lit a single candle to guide them up the
stairs to the bedchamber, so Rachel could form no impression
of her new home other than of a clinging coldness on the
lower floor; narrow, creaking wooden stairs and a spacious
but low-ceilinged upper room with a rumpled tester bed at its
centre. The air smelled as though the windows had been a
long time shut; the bed as though the sheets had been much
slept upon. All of which is only the lack of a woman's touch, Rachel assured 
herself. Richard put the candle down on the
nightstand and came to stand opposite her at the foot of the
bed. He laced their fingers together, swaying slightly on his
feet; in the candle's glow his face was soft and smiling.
Rachel's smile was more uncertain, and she wished then that
she'd drunk more wine at dinner. She'd wanted to be fully
aware of this night, of this crucial moment in her life. There
were only her and Richard to remember it, after all, but now
it came to it she was afraid and didn't know what to do,
and wished to be less aware than she was. Richard kissed her
gently, opening her mouth with his, and Rachel waited to feel
something other than the urge to recoil from the wine gone
sour on his breath, and the taste of lamb grease on his lips. Mother did not 
love Father at first. And Father was a good man. Richard's kisses grew harder, 
and more insistent, and soon he
was pulling at her clothes.
'Rachel, my sweet wife,' he murmured, kissing her neck.
Unsure how to behave, Rachel reached up and began to unpin
her hair, as she normally would before bed. The pins
pattered onto the floor as Richard swept her from her feet,
and crumpled onto the bed on top of her.
She would have liked more time to become acquainted
with his body. The differences with her own intrigued her --
the heft of it, the breadth of his shoulders, the fairness of his
skin across which, she could just make out in the candlelight,
freckles were scattered. He was so solid, so warm. She sank
her fingers into the flesh of his upper arms, and pictured bones as thick and 
smooth as the mahogany arms of a chair. The
weight of him pressed on her chest and made it hard to
breathe. She would have liked to see the thing between his legs, to know how it 
behaved, to feel it with her fingers before it touched her elsewhere, but she 
had no chance to. Breathless and still muttering disjointed endearments, 
Richard pushed his way into her, remembering only too late to be gentle. He
groaned as he moved, to and fro, and Rachel clasped his
shoulders tightly, screwing her eyes tight shut at the discomfort
and the strangeness of it. He is my husband. This is
proper. She studied the sensation, which by the end was
merely uncomfortable, and tried to feel satisfied that this was a duty done, a 
milestone reached. A pact sealed, irrevocably. am his now, she thought, and 
only then realised how strange and limited a kind of freedom marriage might be.
1803



When the sun was well risen on the second day, Starling was
fed a breakfast of milk porridge sweetened with honey. She
ate until her stomach was full to bursting. Outside, a weak
and chilly sun lit the world. The starlings had flown from the
horse chestnut tree, and a small flock of spotted white hens
were scuffing their feet in the yard. They ate breakfast in the
kitchen, where a fresh fire snapped in the hearth; sitting at a
scrubbed and pitted oak table on benches that wobbled on the
uneven floor. Alice was wearing a blue dress with a wide lace
collar, a little frayed at the cuffs but still finer than anything
Starling had ever seen up close before. The older woman,
Bridget, wore brown wool, and an apron. Starling could not
quite make out the bond between the two. They seemed to
be young mistress and older servant, but then, they did not
always speak to one another that way.
'How old are you, Starling?' Alice asked her. Starling
stared at her, wide-eyed. She didn't know the answer, so she
stayed silent.
'She won't know. How should she know? Where she's
from they don't celebrate birthdays. Most likely her mother
dropped her in the field she was working, and made no
particular note of day or month. Or year,' said Bridget.
'So her people are farm workers, now? Well, Starling - be
happy. You have come up in the world overnight. Yesterday
you were a vagrant and a thief, now you are a farm labourer's
child,' said Alice, smiling. She had plaited her fair hair to either side of a 
central parting, and coiled the plaits into a
knot at the back of her head. Starling thought her impossibly
lovely. Bridget grunted gracelessly.
'Mock all you want. This new cosset of yours could be a
faery's changeling for all you know.'
'A faery! Would you like that?' Alice said to Starling,
laughing. 'When I was a little girl, I should have loved to be
a faery!'
'Well, then. 1 see I shall get nothing sensible from you
until the novelty of this new pet has worn off,' said Bridget.
Starling stayed silent, but she listened, and she watched
Bridget cautiously. While the women's attention was elsewhere,
she reached out for the honey spoon and put it,
drizzling honey, into her mouth. The taste exploded on her
tongue, sweet and heavy and fragrant.
'Oi! Filthy little beast!' Bridget cried, reaching for it.
The wooden ridges rattled against Starling's teeth as Bridget
pulled the spoon away.
'Oh, let her have it, Bridget! Can't you see she's starving?'
said Alice.
'If she's to stay she must learn to be useful, and she must
learn some manners, and she'll not learn them by being
indulged in all things by you, miss,' Bridget declared. 'I raised
you up well enough, did I not? And you've never been allowed
to suck the honey spoon, Miss Alice. Not in my kitchen.'
'I was never half starved, nor neglected as she has been.
But very well, Bridget.' Her voice took on a tone of calm
propriety. 'Starling, you are to put the honey into your bowl,
if you would like more.' Starling poked out her sticky tongue
and licked at the slick of honey on her chin, and Alice dissolved
into laughter once more.
The two women set a tin tub in front of the fire and filled it
half with water from the pump, and half with hot water from
a huge copper kettle. Starling watched them curiously, and
had no idea of the purpose of the tub until Alice rolled up
her sleeves and held out her arms to her. Starling went to
her obediently, and only resisted slightly as Alice began to
unfasten her filthy, rotting clothes. She made her arms rigid,
to show her displeasure as the cool air of the kitchen reached
her skin.
'Oh, I know this seems strange, little one. But it is most
necessary, and you will feel much better without all that
grime on your skin. I saw at once that there were three things
you needed -- sleep, kitchen physic, and a bath. Well, we
have had one and two, so now comes three,' she said. Starling
squirmed, and twisted away. Nothing good had ever happened
to her that began with her clothes being taken from
her. 'Stop,' Alice said gently. She put her hands on either side
of Starling's face and looked her in the eye. 'It will not hurt,
and no harm will come to you. Do you trust me?' Starling
thought for a moment, then nodded. 'Good girl,' said Alice.
Alice stripped away each filthy garment. Bridget brought
in a cake of soap and a comb, linen cloths and a scrubbing
brush with mean-looking bristles. Starling eyed the brush
suspiciously. Her clothes consisted of a long-sleeved dress
which had been stitched together from mixed scraps of fabric
and tied around the middle with a length of twine, then two
layers of coarse wool undergarments -- leggings that came to
the knee, and baggy vests. All were filthy and stinking, and
so stained that their original colour had been quite forgotten.
Lice crawled in all the seams and Alice pinched a flea that
had landed on her arm, crushing it with her thumbnail. The
discarded clothes were thrown into the fire, and the two
women stared mutely at Starling's naked body for a minute.
'Saints preserve us,' Bridget muttered, and for the first
time Starling saw pity in the older woman's eyes. They were
looking at the scars and bruises all over her body. Alice put
out soft fingers and traced the length of one wound, which
had left an angry red welt from Starling's bony left shoulder
to the bottom of her hollow ribs. Frowning, Alice turned her.
Her back bore the diagonal slashes of having been beaten
with a cane or thong. Old scars beneath newer ones, crisscrossing;
a cobweb of injury that would haunt the skin for
ever. The backs of her thighs had marks that looked like
splodges, raised and shiny. 'These are burns, for certain,' said
Bridget, and Starling felt the woman's rough fingers examining
her. The touch made her shiver, and goose pimples
scattered over her damaged skin.
After a while, Alice turned her to face them again; there
were tears in her eyes, but she smiled. Bridget wore a thunderous scowl, and 
Starling shied away from her.
'Well,' said Alice breathlessly. 'You are quite safe from
whoever treated you this way here, Starling. Whoever your
people were, we are your people now. Isn't that right,
Bridget?' Bridget chewed at her bottom lip as if reluctant to
answer, but then she said:
'There was never a child so wicked that it deserved such
punishment. I've a balm of rosehips and apple that will help
soothe those scars. Once she's clean.' She went out of the
kitchen towards the still room, and Alice smiled at Starling,
wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
'See, there -- Bridget has a sharp tongue and a hard way
about her, but underneath it all her heart is like butter, and
quite easy to melt. In you get.'
The water in the tub was soon dark with dirt. Alice soaped
her all over and rubbed her with the cloths, ignoring the stiff
brush, much to Starling's relief. Her hair took the longest
time. It was snarled up in knots and rat tails, caked with mud
and filth. There were burrs caught up in it, and twigs and
pieces of hay. Alice worked through it with her fingers,
soaped it, combed it out as gently as she could, until eventually
it was clean. Great clumps of it came loose and floated
around in the soapy water like spiders. The winter sun shnn«»
in through the window, and when Bridget came back into the
kitchen she paused.
'Such a colour! Who'd think it, under all that grime?'
'What colour is it?' Alice asked, tipping her head this way
and that as though to see better.
'Much the same as that copper kettle, and the fire it's
sitting over.'
'Oh, how lovely! Alas, to my eyes it is only brown,' said
Alice. Starling tipped her head curiously at Alice.
'Well, she looks far more like a little girl now, and a bit
less like a muckworm,' said Bridget, nodding in approval.
As it dried, Starling's hair sprang up into loose curls which
seemed to delight Alice all the more. They sat in the parlour,
a grander room than Starling had ever seen, though the
furniture was plain and faded, and the floor of bare stone.
Starling was clothed in an old dress of Alice's, which was too
big and trailed on the floor behind her. The woollen stockings
were too big as well, and crept down to rumple around
her ankles. Her feet were stuffed into leather slippers, tied on
with string.
'And now she's a scarecrow again,' said Bridget, and Alice
chuckled.
'Only for a little while. Only until we can get her some
clothes of her own. We'll go to market on Thursday, and find
some cloth. Bridget can stitch you some dresses, and when
you're bigger, you'll fit into my old things just fine.'
'Your outgrown dresses might fit her in time, but they're
too fine for a servant. She'll have to have others.'
'A servant? Starling isn't a servant. She's my family, now.
I always wanted a little sister,' said Alice, tucking Starling's
red curls behind her shoulders, and smoothing them down.
'Your sister? Now, Alice . . .' Bridget began, but she saw
the look on Alice's face, and seemed to lose heart for the
argument. 'She must learn to be useful. It is essential. You
may not always be able to keep her.'
'She will be useful! Of course she will. I will teach her to
read and write, and be a lady . . .'
'And I will teach her to cook and clean, and have a
livelihood.' Bridget's voice was laced with dry humour, and
Alice smiled.
"Very well, then.'
'If she is mute, things will be harder,' said Bridget.
'No, she is not mute,' Alice said. She cupped Starling's
chin, and gazed at her. 'Fear has chased her voice away,
that's all. It will return, when she's ready.'
'There is another problem, of course. Perhaps the biggest of all, which you 
haven't yet considered.' Starling's heart
sank. She wanted to stay. She longed to stay. Alice glanced
anxiously at Bridget, as if fearing what she would say next.
'Your benefactor. He comes this Saturday. And who knows how happy he'll be to 
find he has another mouth to feed?
And an urchin mouth at that.' Alice took a deep breath, and
Starling felt a tremor pass through her. 'You must prepare
yourself to do as he says,' said Bridget, more gently than
usual. Alice suddenly looked so sad that Starling felt a pang of desperation. 
She opened her mouth, but a whistle of empty
air was all that came forth. She swallowed, and coughed a
little, and tried again.
'I'll be good,' she said, and Alice cried out in delight.
1821



It was easy enough to leave the house on Lansdown Crescent
after hours. Starling's room was little more than a cubbyhole
adjoining the cook's room, along a shadowy corridor from
the kitchen. She had a narrow wooden bed and a rickety
nightstand for the pot; no windows, but a rag rug on the floor
to keep the chill off her feet. If Sol Bradbury was already
in bed then she slept like a dead woman, snoring softly with
her chin nestled into the pillowy flesh of her neck. If she
was awake, then as long as Starling was reasonably discreet,
the woman said nothing. They had an understanding - Sol
Bradbury didn't see Starling going out when she should have
stayed in, nor did she comment when odd small items of food
and leftovers went missing from the pantry; and Starling
didn't see Sol Bradbury drinking brandy in the mornings, or
tipping the grocer's boy coppers that weren't hers for gossip
about her friends and neighbours. The housekeeper, Mrs
Hatton, kept herself above stairs once Mrs Alleyn had retired
for the night; she and Dorcas had their rooms on the top floor.
Starling made her way to the Moor's Head, to see her
friend Sadie and to keep a tryst with Dick Weekes. She
would need more of his doctored wine before long, but she
was eager to see him anyway, however jealously she guarded
all evidence of her favour. It would not do for Dick to know
that she liked him overly well. He was devilishly easy on the
eye, and never short of followers; dopey-eyed girls without
a thought to share between them, who giggled and pouted
at him wherever he went, all too keen to part their lips for whatever he cared 
to put into their mouths. But Dick Weekes
was the type that needed something sharp to temper the
sweet; that needed something off-kilter to keep his attention. And I am just 
the right amount of sharp and off-kilter. Starling
thought, with a smile. The inn was crowded with drinkers
and players, travellers and doxies. The heat and stink and
press of bodies always cheered Starling after a humdrum day
of work, and she smiled a crooked smile at Sadie as she
reached the barrels and taps.
'All the usuals to keep you busy,' she said to her friend, as
Sadie poured her a cup of frothy beer.
'And some unusuals too - see that man there, the tall one
with only one eye? You ever seen him before?' She pointed
out an ill-favoured man with a gaunt, sour face and a leather
patch over his missing eye. His greasy hair was salt and
pepper, and hadn't been combed in a while.
'No, I never saw him. He's wearing a fine enough pair of
boots, though. Why do you point him out?'
'He says he's loved me a long time, and watched me from
afar. He says if I meet him in the yard afterwards, he'll make
me an offer I can't refuse.' Sadie chuckled, and Starling rolled
her eyes.
'He'll make you his whore, and thrash you if you refuse.'
'Aye, most likely. Perhaps I'll meet him though.' The
plump girl shrugged. 'He might be as good as his word.
Those are fine boots . . . maybe he's rich, and soft-hearted,
and will marry me and give me a life of idleness.'
'Maybe. And maybe I shall marry King George next Wednesday
at noon. If you meet with him have Jonah watch you,
for heaven's sake. And keep your wits about you.' Jonah was
the stable boy at the Moor's Head, a hulking lad of sixteen
years, quite in love with Sadie. 'Is Dick about?'
'Dick Weekes? Not yet. Stay and talk a while, till he gets
here.'
Richard Weekes came in not lonir afterwaiJ«
dandy as he ever did, all loose hair and smiles. Sadie nudged
Starling and nodded towards him, and Starling took her
leave, planting a kiss on Sadie's fat cheek. She waited until
Richard had shrugged off his coat in the heat of the inn, then
pressed a brimming tankard into his right hand as she clasped
his left and pressed it to her chest. She smiled a wicked smile
at him, the way he liked.
'How do you do, Mr Weekes?' she said.
'Dying of thirst, but otherwise well. Leave off a moment,
then, and let me drink.' He smiled.
'Leave off, he says! Why, you will break my heart, talking
that way,' she said mockingly.
'Your heart?' Richard laughed. 'A thousand men with a
thousand cudgels couldn't break your heart, Starling no
name.' Starling leaned closer to his ear, standing on her toes.
'Not a thousand but just one, and just one cudgel too.' She
let her hand brush over his crotch, and felt his prick stir in
response.
'You're eager tonight, aren't you?'
'I can't stay out for long. Dorcas has taken to getting up
after midnight to drink milk. She says she has nightmares comes
clattering around the pantry like a blind heifer. She'd
love to find me out, and run to tell Mrs Hatton. How my dissipation
would scandalise.' Starling shook her head in irritation.
'So, come, Mr Weekes. Take me somewhere quieter, if
you please.'
'It would be my pleasure. Just let me drink this at least. I
meant it when I said I was dying of thirst.'

'Can't we go to your rooms?' Starling suggested. Dick had
brought her out through the back door, to the yard behind
the pub, and was trying to usher her up the ladder into the
hay loft above the stables.
'No. Not any more.' Dick put his arm around her
shoulders, and squeezed her left breast too hard. Starling
twisted away and slapped his cheek. 'Tease,' he scolded her.
'Clumsy joskins,' she retorted. 'That hurt. What do you
mean, not any more?'
'In two days' time I shall be married. I can hardly bring
my new bride to a bed that's ripe with your stink, can I?' he
said lightly.
'I'm surprised to hear you'd take a wife so squeamish,' said
Starling. She swallowed against a sudden tightness in her
throat. Somehow, she'd thought all Dick's talk of marriage
would come to nothing this time, as it had several times before.
He usually backed away in the end, finding some fault
in the girl; tiring of her, or declaring that he could do better.
'Don't you think she might smell me elsewhere - on your
flesh, perhaps?'
'Rachel Crofton is sweet, and innocent. She suspects
nothing of the kind.'
'Not yet, perhaps . . .'
'Not ever. And if she discovers anything from you, I
will have your teeth out. Do you hear me?' Dick's voice was
hard; he took her upper arm in a bruising grip. Starling
grinned in the half-light.
'You mean to say, she believes you to be sweet and innocent,
too?' she said. Dick released his grip and gently rubbed
away his fingermarks.
'Yes, just so. Apologies, Starling. I am on edge. I
want ... I want everything to go well. With the wedding,
and for my new wife. She is a fine creature, clever, and
accomplished . . . with her by my side, my fortune and
position can only improve,' he said. Not clever enough to spot
Dick Weekes for the tomcat he is, Starling thought, contemptuously.
'My
soul is consumed with i»»alr...= ---- -:- "
sound as though you love this sweet and innocent and clever
and educated Miss Rachel.'
'Aye.' He smiled, somewhat foolishly. 'I believe I do.'
Starling stared at him, and for a minute found nothing to say.
He was a dark shape, his face outlined by second-hand light
from the pub. Starling stepped back into the deep shadows in
case her dismay was plain.
'Then perhaps, after she is home, you won't come to meet
me any more?' She tried to say it lightly, as if she barely
cared. Dick hesitated, as though the thought hadn't occurred
to him.
'Perhaps not, Starling. Perhaps not.' His words, so careless,
stabbed at Starling. She had a sensation like falling, like
things being taken from her control. She smiled, as she
always did to conceal such feelings.
'We'll see. Perhaps this milk-white angel of yours will
keep the hunger sated for a while, but variety is the spice of
life, as Sol Bradbury likes to say. Come then, let me give you
something to remember me by.'
She led him up the ladder into the hayloft, and there teased
and coaxed and mocked him until his face was ruddy and his
teeth clenched in a seizure of utter lust and frustration, and
then she straddled him and rode him hard, feeling her own
pleasure spread up her spine like a warm tide rising. Afterwards,
she laced her small breasts back into her bodice and
watched Dick angrily as he caught his breath. Her senses
always seemed heightened at such times, and suddenly she
could smell the reek of horse piss from the stables, and the
cloying scent of Dick's sweat and seed. She wrinkled her
nose, and wiped herself with a switch of hay. Dick ground his
fingertips into his eyes, where dust from the hay was irritating
them, then blinked at her and grinned.
'Oh, I shall miss you, Starling,' he said.
'We'll see,' she replied, shortly.
'What do you mean?'
'What I say. Now, I ask a privilege of you, since we are to
part.'
'What?' He was instantly suspicious. 'I already said I will
not lace the wine any stronger. If Mr Alleyn should keel over
dead . . .'
'Nothing to do with him. I want to meet your new bride. I
want to meet Mrs Rachel Weekes, and understand why I am
so suddenly set aside.' And perhaps I will spill some blood-red
wine on her pure white gown while I'm at it.
'You can't,' he said at once. 'I wish to . . . draw a line.
Between this old life, and the new one starting.'
'Don't be ridiculous!' said Starling, annoyed. 'A new wife
cannot make you a new man. You'll still be Dick Weekes,
son of Duncan Weekes . . . nothing will change that.'
'Shut your mouth, Starling. I mean to start anew, and you
won't stop me. I won't let you stop me.' He caught her wrist
and held it tightly, not letting go when she struggled.
'Leave off!'
'Not until you swear to be discreet.'
'If you let me meet her, I will swear it.' They struggled a
few seconds more, then Dick released her arm.
'Very well. Two nights hence, I shall bring her here for our
wedding feast. You can play the serving wench for a time, or
something. Or merely watch from a quiet place. But you will
not speak to her. Understand?'
'A wedding feast at the Moor's Head? Ah, lucky Miss
Rachel. Truly, she is bringing you up in the world . . .'
'Understand?' he pressed.
'I won't give you away. You have my word.' You will do
that yourself, she thought, defiantly, when you come running
back to me.
To Rachel's relief, there was more to the house on Abbey
gate Street than she'd first realised. Steps led down from
street level to the main area of the shop, which had its own
door, and a sign painted onto the wall above it: Richard
Weekes & Co. Fine Wine & Spirits Merchants. The room on
this lower level was cool and clammy, the brick floor slightly
damp. Barrels were stacked in wooden racks from floor to
shadowed ceiling, and glass bottles of all shapes and sizes
filled shelves against one wall. It was a dark and crowded
space, and the air had a ripe tang to it, a pungent mix of wood
and fruit, mould and alcohol. Through a door in the rear wall
Richard had his tiny office, containing a desk with a simple
stool pulled up to it, and a shelf laden with ledgers and
receipt books. The desk was scatted with pen shavings, spent
candle stubs and spots of ink.
Behind the house was a small yard, closed in by high walls
furred with moss and slime. The yard had a stone sink built
against one wall, the necessary house against another, and a
shallow gully that ran into the sewer. It was poorly ventilated,
and smelled accordingly rank. Rachel peered around it,
and her heart sank. When Richard had told her there was
a courtyard, she'd pictured a small garden where she might
plant some herbs or flowers, and sit to read in either the
morning sun or the evening, depending on which way the
house faced. This yard was more like the damp inside of a
cave. Within moments Rachel felt the walls begin to loom
over her, and she stepped hurriedly back indoors, keen to
conceal her dismay.
'I have always sent the laundry out, and it's probably best
you continue to do so, rather than trying to dry it out here,'
said Richard, apologetically.
Upstairs, at raised ground level, was a kitchen-cum
parlour, a good sized and better-lit room divided into two
halves - one half of simple utility: the stove, a work table,
shelves holding a few pieces of pewter plate, candlesticks
and cooking pots. The other half was more formal, with an
upholstered armchair, settle and ottoman that had finely
turned - if battered -- legs. They'd been positioned with their
backs to the kitchen, as if not wishing to be associated with it.
'The parlour furniture came from Admiral Stanton's
widow, when she was forced to sell up. I had it at a very fair
price at auction,' Richard told her proudly. 'Do you approve?'
He ran his hand along the back of the settle. Rachel
nodded, feeling a pull of sympathy towards the faceless
Widow Stanton, for her sad decline in life. She knew exactly
how it felt to see people perusing and haggling over the
things you owned and loved. Richard was watching her,
expectantly.
'They will do very well, Mr Weekes,' she assured him.
'In a similar manner, I mean to gradually work towards
furnishing the place in a better fashion for you, my dear.' He
took her hand, and kissed her fingers.
The room had two large windows, one overlooking the
yard, the other facing north onto the parade of shops, inns
and accommodation on the opposite side of Abbeygate
Street. By looking north-east from this one, Rachel could
see the roof of the abbey. On the top floor of the house was
the bedchamber where, the night before, Rachel had ceased
to be a maid. Its beamed ceiling sloped to either side of the
bed, and its window was smaller, tucked into the eaves of the
roof. Rachel realised that the body of the house was hundreds
of years older than its updated facade hoped to suggest. She
ignored the smell of damp plaster, and turned to smile at her
husband.
'I shall be very comfortable here. And I'll help make it
even more cosy for us,' she said.
Past the jumbled rooftops and chimney pots of their near
neighbours, the sweeping curves of Bath's smarter --1
crescents were visible, on the hills to the north. Rachel could
make out the elegant march of Camden Crescent, high above
the rest of the city; its tall facades uniform, pale, and immaculate.
There, when she was fifteen, she'd spent three
months one autumn and winter season with her parents and
her little brother, Christopher. Her memories of it were a
blur of tea invitations, card parties, outings and dances in the
assembly rooms. Now Rachel wished she'd paid more attention,
and cemented such happiness more firmly in her mind --
as if she could have fashioned it into something she could
keep for ever. But she remembered standing at one of the
front windows in their apartment and looking down on the
tangle of older, poorer streets around the abbey and wharves,
and wondering about all the many lives that went on there, of
which she would have no knowledge, and take no part. She
smiled at the thought, with an odd mixture of wistful irony,
and determination.
"What is it? What makes you smile?' Richard asked her,
brushing a lock of her hair away from her face.
'I am beginning to feel at home already,' she said, deciding
to make it true. She felt Richard's arms encircle her, and in
truth the sensation was already less peculiar, less alarming.
There was no food in the house, so Richard fetched fresh
bread, cheese and a slice of ham pie for their breakfast. Then
he took her on a tour of the street, introducing her to the
neighbours she needed to know -- Mrs Digweed, who took in
the laundry, a woman vastly fat and startlingly ugly, with
hands like a man's and a broad smile for the world; Thomas
Snook, who owned the stables around the corner, on Amery
Lane, and hired out his horse and cart to Richard for
deliveries. The horse was a squat, piebald thing, with feathery
feet and sleepy eyes; Rachel remembered it from the times
Richard had delivered barrels to Hartford Hall. Richard rubbed the horse's 
forehead cheerfully, and said: 'This is
Trooper, and never was a horse less aptly named. "Dawdler"
would be more like it, but he's a serviceable chap. In a year or
so I hope to be able to buy a smarter cart than Tom's, one
with my sign painted along the side, rather than carried with
me on a board. And for that cart I shall need a smarter animal,
I fear, Trooper. Something with less hair, and more spirit.'
He patted the animal's sturdy neck, and Trooper sighed, as
only a bored horse can sigh.
There was a small cobbled square called Abbey Green,
just along from Abbeygate Street, and the lone plane tree
growing there had crisp bronze edges to its leaves. The sky
was overcast, and Rachel suddenly wished it was spring, not
autumn. Spring would have made everything feel more
promising, more like a new beginning. Later, once Richard
had gone about his business, Rachel stood for a while in her
new home, and wondered what to do. She knew Richard had
a housekeeper, Mrs Linton, who visited on certain days, but
the woman had yet to put in an appearance. She glanced
around at the cobwebs high up in the stairwell, and the
ground-in dirt on the floorboards, and thought that Richard
had lived too long alone, and that Mrs Linton was either
unfit, or had been left too much to her own devices, and
grown idle. In the sudden quiet, Rachel took a steadying
breath. She had never minded an empty room before, but
suddenly the emptiness seemed to ring; it seemed to mirror
and amplify the odd, empty feeling inside her. She shut her
eyes, and tried to summon thoughts to fill it, to quell the
strange and sudden panic she felt. Just then, she would even
have wished Eliza Trevelyan back into her life, with all of her
arrogance and scorn.
Rachel went upstairs and set about making herself a
dressing table of sorts, on top of the small chest of drawers
where Richard's clothes and sundries were kept. She opened
each drawer in turn, hoping to find an emntv nn» »hp»
could use, but all contained oddments of dress and accoutrements
- worn-out gloves and stockings, boot buckles and
tobacco boxes and combs with broken teeth. In the end she
moved everything in the top drawer to one side, and put in
a few of her own possessions. She did not have much --
handkerchiefs and gloves, her sewing box, hairpins and what
few beauty compounds she used: a small pot of rouge with a
tiny, shell-handled brush to apply it; some heavy cream,
scented with roses, for her hands; a pot of Lady Molyneux's
Liquid Bloom, which had been a present from Eliza at
Christmas last. For you sometimes appear so pale at breakfast,
it's like you we died in the night and not realised. But the gift,
meant as a criticism of sorts, had rather backfired on Eliza,
because a few drops of the stuff rubbed into her cheeks did in
fact make Rachel look lovely. She laid an old handkerchief
on top of the chest and set out her hair brushes on it, and then
unpacked her most treasured possession -- a musical silver
trinket box.
Her parents had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday,
before any stain of scandal or hardship had touched the
family, and the grief of losing Christopher had softened
somewhat from the dagger strike of his sudden death. It had
been her mother's and her grandmother's before it was hers;
an item only as big as one of her hands, standing on little
lion's feet. The top was patterned with vines and flowers,
forming a vignette around a brightly enamelled peacock;
when the lid was lifted, providing the screw underneath was
wound tight, it played a lullaby. The inside of the box was
lined with deep blue velvet, and a lock of her mother's tawny
hair, tied with a ribbon, was pinned carefully to one side.
Rachel touched it gently with her fingertips. The hair was
straight, and smooth, and cold. She shut her eyes and tried to
recall Anne Crofton's face in every detail, even though she
knew it was a cruel thing to do to herself, and only reiterated
her mother's absence.
Also in the music box was the only other precious thing
she owned, which had also been her mother's -- a pair of pearl
drop earrings with tiny diamonds on the studs. She'd hidden
them in her bodice as the bailiffs had taken everything out
to their wagon, past her father on the front steps, sitting with
his boots unlaced and his face gone slack in shock. The
bailiffs would have taken his boots too, if Rachel had not
come out to stand over him, fierce as a lioness, shaming them
into a retreat. She wanted to keep the box on display, but
she hesitated. It seemed somehow boastful, like a deliberate
attempt to show up the plainness of the room. Reluctantly,
she wrapped it in its linen cloth and put it back in the drawer.
Then she rose, and went to stand by the bed to watch out of
the window. There was a small, foxed mirror on the wall; she
positioned herself so that her reflection hovered in the corner
of her eye, and at once felt a little less alone.

Richard was away from the house or ensconced amongst the
barrels in the basement for much of the day, but for the first
two weeks of their marriage they ate supper together every
night, at the small table in the kitchen, with their food and
faces lit by the yellow warmth of an oil lamp, discussing the
housekeeping, the business, their hopes for the future. One
evening, when Rachel had been talking about her parents,
she looked up to find Richard watching her with a compassionate
expression.
'You miss them a great deal, don't you?' he said.
'Yes. In truth, I do. My mother has been a good many
years with God, but still I feel her absence, and the lack of
her advice, her . . . good sense and her kindness. And that of
my father, of course. But I can do nothing but try to accept,
and not rail against the loss. I can rememkdr t4i« K<.»--. --¦
we had together, when Christopher was still with us, and I
was very young.' Young and full of feeling, not numb and
quiet, as now, said the shadow inside her head; but such
observations were not for sharing.
'Rachel.' Richard covered her hand with his, and smiled.
'I want so much for you to be happy again. For us to be a
family,' he said.
'I am happy,' said Rachel, and again she felt something stir
inside her, the warmth of gratitude towards him. He does truly
wish to make me happy. But there was also a fleeting barb of
doubt, of deceit, when she spoke. will be happy soon, she
amended, silently. When he grows to fill my heart.
'We are alike, you and I. In our experiences ... we have
both lost our families, the people who raised us and loved us.
I ... it is hard, not to dwell in the past. The temptation to do
so is very strong.' He squeezed her fingers, and in his eyes was
some desperation she didn't yet understand. 'But we all need
somebody to share life with. To understand us, and carve a
future with us. I am so happy to have found you, Rachel.'
'And I you. But . . . your father . . .'
'My father is lost to me,' said Richard, curtly.
'I'm sorry for it, Mr Weekes.'

As a wedding gift, Richard had presented Rachel with a new
book by John Keats, since he knew her love of reading. One
evening she asked him to read it to her, and he took the book
with a look of distaste and anxiety. He did his best, but it was
clear that he did not enjoy the experience. The lines of the
poems were stilted, the rhythm lost; the meaning hard to
follow when read as he did - as words on a page, not as the
deepest thoughts of a man, rendered beautiful with language.
For as long as she could, Rachel listened to 'The Eve of Saint
Agnes' made blunt and bewildering, but Richard's rendition was like listening 
to a melody played on an ill-tuned piano,
and she found after a while that her jaw was clenched tight,
and her eyes too, and she longed for the noise to stop. When
silence fell she looked up to find Richard watching her, his
expression one of defeat.
'I fear I am not a very good reader,' he said quietly.
Rachel coloured up with guilt.
'Oh, no! You did fine, Richard. It's only a certain way of
speaking, and comes easily with practice,' she said.
'Well.' He closed the book and put it into her hands. 'It's
hard to change the way one speaks.'
'Oh, I didn't mean ... I meant only that reading poetry is
rather more like . . . acting in a play, than reading straight, as
from a periodical,' she said, trying to undo any slight he
might have felt.
'A skill I've never had call to acquire,' he said, a touch
crossly.
'No more have you that call now, if you do not wish it.
Shall I read to you for a while, instead?'
'As you wish, Rachel. I'm very tired.' So Rachel opened
the book and immersed herself for some minutes in the
wonderful images, the strange beauty of it. She concentrated,
and shaped each line as best she could, seeking to delight her
husband, to prove her love of poetry well founded. But when
she finished his chin had sunk onto his chest in slumber. She
wondered whether to wake him and lead him up to bed, but it
still seemed too forward a thing to do. So she sat in silence
for a long time, with only the sifting sound of ash settling in
the grate for company.

Strange and conspicuous though it made her feel, Rachel
took to walking the streets of Bath alone, without an escort.
But whether it was a symptom of her age, her faded looks,
or the unfashionable nature of her dress, she soon began to
notice looks of disapproval, appraisal, and even amu««««
aimed at her as she marched along Milsom Street. She
wondered if she was mistaken for a servant out on some
errand for her mistress. Milsom Street was wide and airy,
a parade of shops and businesses running south to north
through the middle of the city, its paving stones swept
cleaner than the rest. Carriages and carts and people hurried
to and fro, causing a constant clatter of hooves and wheels
and chatter; barrow boys and hawkers shouted their wares
above it all in voices gone ragged. Some of the shops Rachel
remembered from years earlier were still in business -- like
the milliner where her mother had bought her a new hat,
trimmed with silk roses and a green velvet ribbon. One
afternoon she stopped in the abbey square. Of course the
vast abbey and assembly rooms and hot baths were just as she
remembered them, and it struck her hard that though they
had not changed, she had. She did not belong to them in the
way she once had.
Her family had never been rich, but were better off than
most. Her father, John Crofton, was the squire of a small
estate of four farms, and had owned several hundred acres
of rolling countryside where sheep and cattle grazed. The
manor house where Rachel had grown up was long and low --
built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth -- with thick stone walls,
mullioned windows and a roof that sagged between its
rafters. An ancient wisteria snaked across the entire facade,
producing a throng of hanging purple flowers each May and
June. It was a comfortable home, well worn-in by centuries
of habitation. In Rachel's room the wooden floor sloped so
pronouncedly that she and Christopher often used it in games
-- setting their marbles to roll across it towards a particular
target. It was a house in which the children's laughter was
encouraged to ring out, and come echoing down the twisted
wooden stair, never hushed or reprimanded.
John Crofton wus entirely happy in the midstream where
he swam. He did not fret about cozening his superiors, or
waste time trying to ingratiate himself with those who held
themselves lofty and aloof. Instead, John and Anne socialised
with friends they were genuinely fond of, so that supper
parties and teas and music evenings were merry, jovial
affairs. On one occasion they were invited to dine with Sir
Paul Methuen at the impossibly grand Corsham Court, which
seemed the sort of place from which Rachel's parents might
emerge for ever altered, chastened or mesmerised in some
way. But the Croftons returned from their evening laughing
about how dull Sir Paul had been, and how preposterous the
other guests had made themselves, in seeking his favour.
They were not invited back again, and cared not one jot.
The two years that Rachel was away at a boarding school
for young ladies, she pined for the manor house, and visited
her family as often as was permitted. The three seasons that
the Croftons spent in Bath introduced Rachel to a greater
scale of society, and to the different fashions and foibles of
city life, but the same Crofton rules applied - there was no
attempt at social gain, only the pursuit of enjoyment and
diversion with like-minded people. If Rachel or her parents
happened to meet a young man who might be a suitable
match for her, then he would be judged on his temperament,
his interests and his inclination to industry, not by his name
alone. She never did meet anybody there that she admired in
that way, however. Handsome faces almost always turned
out to be attached to vain and foolish boys. She preferred
walking with her mother and friends, shopping for oddments
with which they could improve a dress or a pair of shoes, or
could send out as gifts; and seeing Christopher, who hated to
be left behind, come bounding down the stairs upon their
return.
As Rachel left the abbey square and resumed her walking,
Christopher's face camp --'-
steps faltered. A thin, avid face beneath a thatch of sandy
blond hair, so much darker than her own. He'd had honey
brown eyes and a sharp, straight nose that the summer sun
scattered with freckles. The fever that took him was brutally
quick. He complained of feeling dizzy at bedtime on Monday,
and was dead by sunset on Wednesday. He'd been so vibrant,
so full of life and mischief, none of them could believe it had
happened. They sat with his small corpse for hours, all three
of them, simply staring and trying to make sense of what they
saw.
With a gasp, Rachel stopped abruptly in the street, suddenly
unable to breathe. People parted around her, jostling,
but none stopped to offer her any assistance. She heard a tut
of disapproval, and looked up at an elegant elderly lady, who
turned her face aside at once, gazing loftily away. Who are
these people? Rachel turned off Milsom Street then, and did
not return to it.
Her route led her past the Moor's Head, where gulls
wheeled above in a rare flood of sunshine, calling out their
mocking cacophony. The pavement was crowded with
people and tangled with their voices, but then Rachel realised
with a start that one voice was calling her name -- a name she
was still unaccustomed to.
'Mrs Weekes! Won't you pause a moment?' Rachel turned
to see Duncan Weekes, now her father-in-law, crossing the
street towards her on none too steady feet. She almost turned
away and pretended not to see him, remembering Richard's
curt statement that his father was lost to him. But should 1
blank the old man in the street, then, when he is now also my
family as well? And after two hours of walking, she couldn't
help but feel relieved to see a face she knew. Duncan Weekes's
brown coat might once have been decent, but it had worn
through at the elbows, lost three buttons and had grease stains
on the cuffs. His wig was as crooked as it had been the first
time she saw him, and his face was ruddy, the nose a pitted
ruin of broken blood vessels, knotty and purple.
'Mr Weekes, how do you do?' she said. A smile crowded
his eyes with folds of pouched skin.
'Mrs Weekes! I am all the better for seeing your lovely
face, my dear. How do you do? And how fares my son?'
'We are both very well, sir, thank you. I was just out
walking . . .'
'Very good, very good. I'm happy to see you again. And
how are you finding our fair city of Bath? Is it to your liking?'
As he spoke, Duncan Weekes swayed, just a little. He peered
at her closely, his eyes roving her face with a kind of
meandering but relentless scrutiny that Rachel found almost
intrusive. His breath was sour, and he spoke with a strong
West Country accent.
'Oh, very much, sir,' she said. 'I'd been here before,
several times, with my family. It's wonderful to become reacquainted with it.'
'And where are your family now, my dear?'
'They have . . . passed, I regret to tell,' she said. Duncan
Weekes's face fell, and he nodded.
'A sad thing, as well I know. You have my sympathies, my
dear. Richard's mother, my own dear Susanne, was taken far
too soon, when Dick was still just a lad.'
'Yes, he told me he scarcely knew his mother.'
'Oh, he knew her well, and loved her better. But he was
just eight years old when she died, so perhaps his memories
of her grow dim,' said the old man, sadly.
'What was she like?'
'Well, the handsome face my son inherits did not come
from me, I dare say you can divine.' He smiled. 'To me she
was as lovely as a summer's day, though she had a temper
that could scare the birds into fliirht five mil»= -- J
voice to match. So perhaps not a lady as refined as you, my
dear, but a lady as dear to me as my own breath.'
'I am not so very refined,' Rachel demurred.
'Oh, nonsense. Nonsense.' The old man paused, and his
eyes explored Rachel's face again, full of that strange scrutiny.
'Tell me . . . where did he find you?'
'He . . . we . . .' Rachel stammered, given pause by his
odd turn of phrase. 'I was governess to a client of his, outside
Bath. It was there that we met.'
'Outside Bath, you say? Well, well.'
Duncan Weekes paused, nodding in thought. 'I could not
be happier for my son, to have taken one such as you to wife.
I have seen him strive to rise above the lowly situation of his
birth . . . And he has done it, for certain. For how else would
he win such a lady, if he had not made himself worthy?'
Duncan smiled again, but his eyes were full of questions.
Rachel reflected for a moment, and thought of the long and
lonely path that had led her to accept Richard's proposal. Would that it were 
as simple and true a matter as his fair face,
his self-improvement, and my admiration of both.
'I have wanted to apologise to you for . . . for the abrupt
way in which my husband dealt with you at our wedding
feast. I should have liked for you to join us, since we are
family,' she said, a touch awkwardly. Duncan Weekes hesitated
before replying, and his tired eyes blurred a little.
'Ah, but you are a kind girl, as well as a fine one. My son
harbours a staunch grudge against me, and has these many
years. He is angry with me. Aye, still angry.' He shook his
head.
'But whatever for?'
'Matters long past. The list is a long one, and there are
doubtless things upon it that I do not even remember . . .'
Duncan trailed into silence, and looked away as if not
wishing to meet her eye. Rachel was sure that she was not
being told the whole truth.
'Forgive me -- it's no business of mine what has passed
between you. But I can see that it saddens you, and I'm sorry
for it. Perhaps if I speak to my husband, sir ... I might be
able to persuade him to let bygones be bygones?' she suggested.
'Do
not risk his displeasure on my behalf, Mrs Weekes,'
he said. Rachel considered for a moment, then took his hand
and held it in hers. His fingers were thick, the knuckles
ridged with old scars and arthritis. He seemed so tired, so sadly disordered; 
but his hand in hers soon felt conspicuous,
and she was made uncomfortable by her own gesture.
'I can make no promise of success, sir,' she said. 'But I
understand the importance of family; I hate to see such a
valuable thing cast aside, so I will try.'
Duncan Weekes suddenly looked uneasy. He cleared his
throat, and his next words sounded wary.
'Have a care, my dear; wiser not to speak of me to my son.
Old wounds are not easily healed, and he has some of his
mother's temper, as well as her looks.'
'I have never seen him show a temper,' said Rachel,
releasing his hand. She suppressed the urge to brush her
fingers on her skirt.
'Indeed?' Duncan frowned, but then his expression softened.
'And indeed, who could show a temper to someone as
sweet and kind as you, my dear. Perhaps you might come
and visit with me sometime? I should be honoured to have
you ... we might take a brandy together, to toast your
marriage, since I was absent from the feast.'
'I will have to ask my husband, of course, but I should
like--'
'If you ask him, he will refuse it,' Duncan interrupted,
anxious again. 'He wnnU h- ----- - ' '
dear, if you ask him outright. He might even seek me out to
offer a reprimand.'
'I'm sure he would not, sir . . . and I must ask him -- of
course I must.'
'Then that is a great pity, for I had hoped you might
indeed come.' Duncan Weekes tucked his fingers into his
waistcoat pockets and looked away along the street, his face
losing all animation. Rachel wasn't sure what reply to make
to him. The old man was shivering slightly.
'You must carry on, sir, and not stand about to get chilled
here in the street. But do give me your calling card, so that I
will know where to go,' she said.
'My card? My card . . .' he muttered, patting his pockets
absently. 'My card. Yes. I fear I have none, my dear. But
I will tell you the place, if you can remember it?' Rachel
committed it to memory, and as she took her leave Duncan
Weekes caught her hand again. 'But do have a care, sweet
girl,' he said earnestly. 'Do have a care.'

That night she lay close to Richard, after they had made love.
She'd tried, as she did each time, to find the physical pleasure
that her mother had hinted at, on the few occasions when
they'd spoken of marriage and what Rachel could expect. But
while there was no longer any pain, there was no real
pleasure either. Nothing other than a faint ache that she was
curious to explore; a feeling that might be satisfying to
pursue, like the pressing of a bruise. But Richard had always
come to his climax, gasping for breath in the crook of her
neck, before she'd had a chance to examine the feeling
properly. She told herself that she was happy to give satisfaction,
without needing to take any for herself, but at the same
time couldn't help but feel mildly disappointed.
But the warmth of Richard's body, lying tangled with
hers, was comforting. He felt solid, and real; something like
an anchor when she had started to feel oddly cut adrift. She
clasped her fingers tightly into the dense flesh of his shoulders,
and pressed her cheek into the top of his head.
'Are you all right, Rachel?' he whispered.
'Yes, my love,' she said. She felt him smile.
'That's the first time you've called me that. Called me
your love,' he said.
'Do you like me to?'
'Very much so. I like it . . . very much.' Richard's voice
was muffled, but she could hear that he was moved. She
kissed his hair, and shut her eyes tight, suddenly afraid that
she would start crying. She could not have said what the tears
were for. 'Are you . . . are you happy, here? With me? You
have no regrets?' he asked. Rachel did not answer at once,
and Richard pulled back, rising onto his elbows above her so
that she could just make out the shape of his face in the weak
light from the street outside. 'Rachel?' he said anxiously. She
put up her hand, cupped it around his chin.
'I have no regrets,' she said, hoping that this answer, to
only part of his question, would be enough. Richard smiled
again, and kissed her hand.
'You are an angel, my love,' he said, his voice thickening
with somnolence. He returned his head to her shoulder, his
chin digging into her collarbone, and was asleep within
moments.
Rachel lay awake a long while. She could smell the faint
grease of Richard's hair, and the bitter tang of the coal smuts
in the grate. When he plants a child within me, my love for him
will grow along with it. Then we will truly he a family, and all
will be well. Through the walls came sounds of movement and
words; the bass rumbling of a man's voice, raised in anger.
The wooden skeleton of the building creaked with footsteps.
A cold draught seeped in around the window frame, and
touched Rachel's face with a promise of the winter that »>¦
coming. When she slept, it was to dream of a sparkling river,
fast running and lively with sunlight. She both loved and
feared this river, in her dream, with a foreboding like gathering
thunderclouds. She seemed to hover above the water's
surface, suspended somehow; she heard a shout of fear, and
it wasn't her voice. There was a smell of green summer all
around, and the notion that the pretty river wanted something
from her.
The next morning, Rachel waited until Richard had had
something to eat and drink before she raised the subject of
his father. He was often sullen and unhappy first thing after
waking, and she had quickly learnt not to talk too much, or
too loudly, until he had breakfasted. She fetched him slices of
bread spread with honey, and some boiled eggs, putting them
down around him as he stared at the table top and swigged
from a tankard of ale.
'You won't guess who I chanced upon yesterday,' she said,
lightly, when the moment seemed right.
'Oh?' The word was spoken low, and barely interested.
'Your father, Duncan Weekes.' Rachel sat down opposite
Richard, and her smile faltered in the face of his bleak
expression. 'We happened upon one another in the street,
and . . .' She trailed off. 'He asked after you. Asked how you
were,' she said instead.
'It is no business of his how I am, and you've no business
talking to him. About me, or about anything else for that
matter.' Richard's voice was low, but his words shocked
Rachel.
'But, my dear, he is yomfatkerl And since I have none, he
is my father now too--'
'No, Rachel! He is not your father! Not one whit!'
'Haven't we spoken of the pain of losing family, Mr
Weekes? Haven't we spoken of how important such people
are, and how we wish to be a family to one another?'
'I have disowned that man. He is no longer my father! Do
you understand?' Richard thumped the table top with his
hand, making the cutlery and his wife jump. Rachel's heart
hammered, but she persevered; she was sure she had the right
of it, that she could persuade him. Have a care. She remembered
Duncan Weekes's words, but rejected them.
'No, I do not understand. What can he possibly have done
to turn you away from him like this? And . . . even if you
feel yourself aggrieved ... he is but an old man, and clearly
poor and in need of our charity . . .'
'If I feel myself aggrieved? Do you doubt me, then? Do
you think I would turn away from my father on a whim}' Richard's voice was 
rough with anger; he jabbed a finger at
her as he spoke. 'How dare you? That man would not be half
so poor if he did not drink his every wage within a day of
being paid it! He is a sot, and a fool, and he has blighted my
life in ways you can't possibly imagine! He killed my mother
-- did he tell you that? So do not seek to lecture me on how I
should or should not treat him! You will have nothing to do
with him, or by God I will hear about it!'
Rachel flinched away from him, from his raised voice and
his pointing finger, and the anger stringing his body as tight
as piano wire. She was robbed of speech by the shock of it;
she had never been spoken to that way before, had never
even heard such anger before. Richard glared at her, then
picked up his mug to take another swig of ale, as Rachel
simply sat and stared, her cheeks flaming and her mouth and
mind empty of words. She was still trying in vain to find
something to say when Richard stood and drained his drink.
'I must be gone,' he said, calmly but coldly. 'Let us hear no
more about this.' He strode from the room with a scowl on
his face, and Rachel sat in his wake feeling as though she'd
been stripped naked in nnKK- --
took a long time for her heartbeat to return to normal, and
for her ringers to stop shaking.



Nine nights since Dick Weekes's wedding and still Starling
could not sleep. She lay on her narrow bed in the flawless
dark of her room, and listened to Sol Bradbury huffing and
mumbling in her sleep. There was a stale smell, sharp and
feral, rising from her own body, and she realised she'd
forgotten to wash. She clenched her fists tight, angry with
herself. She'd been sleepwalking through the days since she
set eyes on Dick's new wife -- on that face -- with only a small
portion of her mind tuned to any task and the remainder
caught up in what she had seen, and what it might mean. One
day she hadn't noticed that the spit jack was jammed, and a
shoulder of pork had been charred to cinders on one side.
She'd ruined three gallons of ginger beer by adding too much
yeast, so that those bottles that hadn't exploded tasted vile.
Even cheerful Sol had started to tut and sigh at her vacant
expression and distracted frown.
When Starling pictured Dick Weekes's bride, her breathing
quickened involuntarily. She pictured large, heavy-lidded
blue eyes, high cheekbones and a pointed chin with just the
hint of dimple in it, a small, neat mouth, a stony pallor on
smooth skin, and pale hair the colour of fresh cream. It could
not be a coincidence. There had to be some meaning to this
woman's sudden appearance in Bath, and there certainly had
to be some way in which Starling could use her. This was the
chance she'd been waiting for, the chance she'd been longing
for. She was not yet sure what would happen but the first
step, she decided as the solid black of night began to pale,
was that Dick Weekes must introduce his wife to Mrs
Josephine Alleyn, mistress of the house on Lansdown Crescent.
There was no other way that this new Mrs Weekes
could be brought into the house, no way Jonathan Alleyn
could be confronted with her alarming face, than by her first
being seen by his mother, Josephine.

The next day, Starling was still mulling over how she would
bring this about when a serendipitous opportunity presented
itself. Dorcas still refused to go anywhere near Jonathan
Alleyn, so Starling continued to see to his rooms. The day
had dawned overcast, and drizzly. Viewed from the upper
storey of the house, the city and the river valley were cloaked
in mist and murk. Still, Starling saw Jonathan flinch as she
threw open his shutters. He was tall and lean; long cheekbones
in a fox-like face with a pointed nose and an angular
jaw; long fingers, furrows across his forehead. He had dark
brows above dark, watchful eyes, and his hair, greasy and
knotted, grew in unkempt waves down to his shoulders. He
had slept in his chair again, fully clothed, and he hadn't
shaved for days. There was a letter in his hand. One of
Alice's, Starling guessed at once. Her heart gave a funny little
jump in her chest. The paper was old and rumpled, torn at
the edges. He'd been sleeping with it clasped to his chest, as if
for comfort. Beg her all you want, Starling thought. It's too
late. She can't forgive you now, and neither will I. Jonathan
stared at her for a minute in apparent confusion, and she
braced herself, but then his head fell back against the chair,
and his eyes slid away, fixing on the window glass.
'Get out. Leave me be,' he murmured.
'Your breakfast is on the table behind you,' said Starling,
knowing he would not touch it. He rarely ate anything before
noon, sometimes nothing until dark fell. Sometimes nothing
at all, all day.
'Leave me be, I said.' His voice was cracked and hollow.
Starling drifted away from him to the fireplace. She swept
out the cold ashes, laid in kindlinat and fr««h --'
it. There was a smashed glass on the floor by his desk, and
she swept that up too, and only realised, as she was ready to
leave the room, how quiet and kind to him she was being. It's
the letter, she thought at once. When he took Alice's letters
out of whatever secret place he kept them, it was like some
trace of her came into the room; some ghost of her came into
Starling's heart, laid soft fingers on the hurt and the anger,
and gentled her. No. I will not be gentled. She ground her
teeth together and called to mind the reason why Alice was
not there herself, to make everyone more gentle: the fact
that Alice was gone. The thought cut her, and reopened the
wound from which her bitterness flowed. She turned and
looked at the top of Jonathan's head, just visible over the
back of his chair. His arm had flopped to the side now;
Alice's letter dangled precariously from his fingertips. If he
lets it drop, like something of no import, then I will kill him here
and now. But Jonathan did not let the letter fall.
Starling took several slow steps towards him. She could
tell from his breathing that he was drowsing again, and she
listened for a while because there was something pleasing in
the sound -- its simple rhythm; its vulnerability. He murmured
in his sleep, his voice deep and indistinct at first, then
rising to sound pitiful, frightened, almost childlike. Cautiously,
Starling moved to his side. His head had lolled
forwards, chin to his chest. She knelt down to look into his
face, and saw his eyeballs switching to and fro beneath the
lids. There was a crease between his brows and his breathing
was faster now, less even. He dreams. He dreams in fear. She
found herself leaning closer and closer to his face, fascinated.
His lips moved, not quite giving shape to the sounds in his
throat. What do you see, Mr Alleyn? What do you see thai
frightens you so? He gave a low moan then, and his hands
jerked up, clenching into fists. Alice's letter was crumpled between his 
fingers, and Starling stared at it, wondering if shf
could prise it free without him realising. She reached for
it, pinched it and pulled gently, but Jonathan held it fast.
Holding her breath she pulled harder, but the paper would
not come free.
'No!' Jonathan cried out, and Starling was on her feet and
backing away from him in an instant. But he was sleeping
still. 'No,' he said again, in that high, plaintive voice. 'No,
no, no ... I never meant to. I have ... I have . . .' His eyes
had flickered open a fraction, showing a ghastly sliver of
white. His mouth moved constantly. 'There is blood! There
is blood . . .' he muttered, and then moaned again, a sound of
intense anguish.
'Yes,' Starling whispered, suddenly cold right through to
her bones. 'Yes, I know. There is blood on your hands.' At
the sound of her voice Jonathan flinched, and shifted in his
chair. His eyes stilled, and he said nothing more. Sleep easy
while you can, for I will find a way to prove your guilt.
It wasn't the first time she'd heard Jonathan talk that way.
Sometimes, when he'd been drinking or had one of his headaches,
he seemed to fall into a kind of waking trance, and
would speak to people who were not in the room, as though
he heard questions in the empty air. A lot of what he said --
most of it -- made no sense at all. But sometimes he would say
something chilling, something that reeked of guilt and violence;
and when he did Starling was reminded of the moment
her suspicions became certainty, after Jonathan came back
from the war for the final time, in 1812. That was three years
after Alice's disappearance, and no one in the house at Box
was allowed to say her name. Jonathan lay in bed for several
weeks with his leg all bandaged and stinking, and would see
nobody.
Starling was a servant in that house, nothing more; she had
to adjust herself - her feelings and her behaviour. She could
not just speak to Jonathan- ™-- -u-
thought of the smooth, bright face she'd glimpsed when first
she saw him, she could hardly believe that this ravaged,
hollow-cheeked creature was the same man. Eventually she
found a way into his room, and she was incautious, and
hadn't yet learnt to be wary of his rages. She rushed right up
to him, took his hand unguardedly and begged to know if
he'd had word from Alice, or planned to search for her now
his leg was healed. Jonathan pulled his hand away and dealt
her a blow across her face that laid her flat out on her back,
dazed and stupid. He was calm as he did it, all empty-eyed
and absent. From then on she knew she would have to be
more subtle if she wanted to glean anything from him; she
knew he was not the same man she had known, and she
began to fear what he was capable of.
And then, one day not long after that, she took a jug of
warm spiced milk to his room and found him panting and
sweating at the pains in his head, pacing the room, gripping
his skull with both hands and muttering a steady stream of
nonsense. And she heard him say it. She heard it for the first time, and she 
turned as cold and unfeeling as ice, all over.
The crash of the milk jug as it hit the floor brought another
servant running, and brought Jonathan wheeling towards
her, teeth bared in the incoherent fury of his suffering, and
all dissolved into chaos and strife for a while. But she had
heard it, clear as day. She had heard him say it. She is dead.
Oh God, she is dead. Starling did not sleep that night - did not
even close her eyes. The long, empty hours distilled all her
fears and confusion into a cold, hard conviction. She knew
that Jonathan Alleyn was her enemy.
From then on, she tormented him in any way she could.
She found a thousand little ways in which to make him suffer,
to madden him, to prevent his rest. For why should he rest, when she could not? 
Why should he rest, when Alice was
stolen and gone? She worked to make him betray himself;
she worked to make him confess, and unmask himself to the
world. And when he did neither of these things she worked
on, ever on, driving and provoking him. Years later, when he
attempted to take his own life, she had the chance to let him
die. She could have made an end to it, but when the moment
came she saved him. She stopped him. Death would be a
relief, after all -- it would bring rest. And she would not let
him rest.

In the hallway outside Jonathan's rooms on Lansdown
Crescent, as he still slept with Alice's letter clasped in his
hand, Starling found Mrs Alleyn waiting for her, tall and
serene. Jonathan's mother was past fifty years of age, but still
very lovely. In her day, it was said, she had been one of the
most celebrated beauties in the West Country. Starling had
first met her when she was forty, in the first awful weeks after
Alice disappeared, and indeed she had been beautiful then.
Now her cornflower-blue eyes sat surrounded by fine lines,
and there were deep creases bracketing her mouth, which had
begun to lose the curve in its upper lip. But her cheekbones
were still high and smooth, her brows still delicately arched,
and her jaw still firm. Her hair had once been a deep, dark
brown, the colour of molasses; now it was iron grey, swept
back against her skull but for some precise ringlets to frame
her face. Many women half her age were not half so handsome.
Starling curtsied at once.
'Starling! How is it you are upstairs? Don't tell me my son
has seen off another housemaid?'
'I don't think she has quite run away yet. Mrs Hatton
hopes to persuade her to stay.'
'But she will not go into my son's rooms?'
'No, madam. She will not'
'Foolish creature.' Josephine Alleyn sighed. 'He is heartsick,
and unwell. He is not a danger to anybody.' Starling said
nothing to this, and Mrs Alleyn studied her closely. 'What is
it, girl? You look as though you have something you would
say?'
'No, madam,' said Starling.
'You do not mind, then -- helping my son when others will
not?'
'No, madam. Only . . .'
'Speak.'
'It makes it rather hard, to do all my work downstairs,
when I have duties upstairs as well.'
'I see. What do you suggest? That I raise you to housemaid,
and employ a new kitchen maid in your place?'
'If it please you, madam. There might not be another girl
better fitted to serve Mr Alleyn than I am.'
'Ah, but the very reason he does not shock you is the
very reason that keeps you below stairs, Starling.' Mrs Alleyn
smiled, not unkindly. 'I fear you are better suited to the
kitchen and still room.' Starling heard the unspoken implication
of this quite clearly: You are a hedge rat. And you
belonged to Alice. 'But perhaps, if you are to continue with
this extra work upstairs from time to time, it ought to be
reflected in your salary. I shall speak to Mrs Hatton about it.'
'Thank you, madam.'
'Well. Now tell me, how is Jonathan this morning?'
'He is quiet, madam. He does not eat, and his bed had not
been slept in,' said Starling. Mrs Alleyn took a breath; her
eyes reflected a deep anxiety.
'He . . . does he shake? Do you think it is the pains in his
head again?'
'I think not, madam. He seems only tired today.'
'Well then, I shall visit him now.' The older lady drew
herself up, full of resolve. 'Be about your work, Starling.' She
halffears him herself, Starling thought. She turned to go, but
after a few steps she paused, glancing back. Now is your
chance. Mrs Alleyn's hand had frozen halfway towards
knocking at her son's door. 'What is it?' she said.
'I saw Mr Weekes, the wine man, just the other day.
He asked to be remembered to you. He is lately wed, and
begs leave to present his new bride to you, if it please you,
madam.'
'Young Richard Weekes, married at last?' Mrs Alleyn
smiled slightly.
'Yes, madam.'
'And is his bride quite fit to be met?'
'By all accounts, she is most refined. Perhaps ... a deal
more refined than Mr Weekes himself. She struck me as a
somewhat. . . singular lady.'
'Indeed? In what way?'
'Perhaps you might be the better judge yourself, madam.'
'Well, then, I should be interested to meet her. Curious
that he did not call to make this request himself. But you may
pass on a message for him to call on Thursday, at four, if he
pleases.'
'As you say, Mrs Alleyn.' Starling curtsied and turned
away, her heart thumping.
She knew that Mrs Alleyn would wait until she was out
of earshot before going in to her son, but she still heard
the shouts when she did enter, and the thud of something
thrown across the room. Starling carried on to the lowest
floor, checked that the coast was clear, then took a jar of
pickled eggs from the pantry and added it to the bag of such
items she kept pushed far back beneath her bed. Thursday, at four. She must 
make sure she could watch, if possible, the
exact moment that Josephine Alleyn set eyes on Rachel
Weekes.
At the thought, some r<"a»l»«« -----
made it impossible to keep still. She suddenly realised that
she had no idea how Mrs Alleyn would react to a person who
looked so like Alice, the girl she blamed for her son's illness
and decline. And she realised that she herself longed to see
the new Mrs Weekes again - however painful it had been the
first time, feeling that wild surge of joy, dashed in the next
instant when she realised that this was not Alice returned.
Still, the novelty of such an uncanny likeness was fascinating.
Starling longed to look again, and to compare -- to verify her
first impression that this woman's face was the mirror image
of that which haunted her memories. And if Josephine Alleyn
is incensed at the sight of her, throws her out and refuses to have
her hack . . . then it is all over before it has begun. She paced the
cramped floor of the bedchamber, turning so many times it
made her dizzy. But the thing was set in motion now, and
could not be stopped.
1803



The day that Alice's benefactor was to visit was one of
driving rain. It fell in stair rods, straight down from a leaden
sky, pocking the ground outside and slithering down the
chimneys to fizzle in the fireplaces. Alice ran repeatedly to the
kitchen window to look for his arrival, all nervous excitement,
seeming far younger than her seventeen years. Starling
noticed that Bridget had dressed in her best clothes, and wore
a spanking clean apron, and that Alice had taken particular
care with her pale hair that morning. The wan light of the
day glanced from its ringlets. Bridget had run up a plain,
long-sleeved dress of grey wool for Starling; she loved the
feel of it brushing her ankles, and the warmth of it. They'd
also bought her some second-hand shoes from a pedlar who
came to the door, and though they were a good fit they
seemed intolerably constricting to Starling, and she kicked
them off whenever Alice's attention was elsewhere.
'Be still, Miss Alice! Don't excite yourself so,' Bridget
admonished her. Alice sighed, and sat back down again. But
when the rattle of the gate was heard she was back at the
window at once. Her eyes went wide and she clapped a hand
to her mouth.
'He is come . . . and . . . and Jonathan Alleyn is with
him!' she gasped through her fingers. Bridget was all business.
She took off her apron and folded it quickly into a
drawer, and tucked some stray hairs more neatly into her cap.
'Alice, to the parlour. Pick up your sewing and do not stir
until I bring them in. Starling, child, go upstairs and do not
come down until I fetch you. Do you understand me?'
'Yes, Bridget,' said Starling. Her voice was still a small
thing, a piping sound so quiet it was almost lost in the roar of
the rain outside.
Starling almost did as she was told, but not quite. She
stopped at the top of the stairs, where the wooden rails
turned, and crouched there with her skinny knees tucked
under her chin. She was in shadow; nobody would see her
unless they looked right up at her. It was the perfect place
to eavesdrop, and to see whoever came into the hallway;
she saw two gentlemen, one old and one young. They were
dressed as finely as lords, though their coats were sodden and
dripping from the hems, and their boots were spattered with
mud. The older man was stout and florid, though not unhandsome.
He had great hands the width of dinner plates,
and wore a curled grey wig under his black hat. When he
smiled his cheeks rode up to near swamp his eyes. He greeted
Bridget very cheerfully, and far more courteously than a
servant might expect, with a wide smile and a how do you do? But Starling saw 
that Bridget's reply, and her curtsy, were
stiff and reserved. The gentleman did not seem to notice or
to mind.
'And where is my young ward?' he said, his voice startlingly
loud and deep. It boomed up the stairs to where
Starling hid, and she flinched. She could not have said
where or when she had learnt to fear raised male voices.
'I will take you to her, sir,' said Bridget, and led the pair of
them to the parlour.
The younger man, who Starling had yet to examine
properly, seemed only just grown, perhaps even slightly
younger than Alice. He glanced up as he passed the foot of
the stairs, looking straight at her as if he'd known she would
be there, and when their eyes met he blinked once but
showed no other surprise. Starling held her breath, but he
neither paused nor gave her away as he followed the older
man out of sight. She was left with the impression of a tall,
thin figure, angular and yet graceful; vivid brown eyes in a
long, fox-like face; pronounced cheekbones and dark waves
of hair. It had seemed that he'd smiled, just a little, as he
looked away.
The parlour door opened and Starling heard Alice speak.
'Lord Faukes! How wonderful to see you! How kind of
you to come. And you too, Mr Alleyn . . .' She trailed off,
unable to keep her favour from sounding in her voice. 'How
do you do? Please do come and sit down. Bridget, would you
be so kind as to make us some tea? Or perhaps you would
prefer hot toddy after your gruelling ride in this weather?'
'That would be most welcome, Miss Beckwith,' said the
younger man, Jonathan. Then the parlour door closed, and
Bridget returned to the kitchen, and Starling heard no more.
She shut her eyes, and waited to discover her fate. Beckwith. It was the first 
time she'd heard Alice's full name, and it made
her anxious and jealous at once. Two days before, she'd
eavesdropped when Bridget and Alice had thought she was
asleep. Bridget had warned that this man, these men, might
take her away and give her to the poor house, and even
though Alice had declared she would not let them, a tremor
in her voice had said that they might, and that Alice would
not be able to stop them. No, no, no, Starling silently prayed.
Her wait at the top of the stairs seemed to last for ever.
Cold, slippery dread made her insides roil; her legs stiffened
up from crouching. When at last Bridget came to fetch her,
the older woman held out a hand to her and led her down
the stairs without saying a word. Starling trembled from head
to foot. At the parlour door, she fought the urge to run. A
memory came to her then, of a man's hands holding her, of
pain and fear, of biting and scratching and fighting to be free.
She remembered what to do, if these men tried to irrah k«r
The three of them turned to look at her when they entered
the room, but only Alice smiled.
'Starling,' said Alice, beckoning. Starling went to her
obediently, took her hand and gripped it tightly. 'This is
Lord Faukes, my guardian and benefactor. And this is his
grandson, Jonathan Alleyn. What do you say?'
'How do you do, sirs,' Starling whispered, and curtsied.
Jonathan Alleyn smiled; it lit up a face that otherwise had a
quite serious caste. His eyes were dark and yet sparkling, and
they studied her with a kind of calm confidence that made
Starling squirm and want to hide behind Alice's skirt. But
she didn't. She faced them squarely, though it took every
ounce of her will. 'Please do not take me away from here,'
she added, and Alice shushed her hastily, smiling.
There was a pause, then Lord Faukes gave a sudden har of
laughter that made her jump.
'How old are you, child?' he asked.
'We think I might be seven, sir,' Starling replied, which
made the man chuckle again.
'Poor, rootless creature. No wonder you like it here,
and want to stay, if you've been living out of doors, and
beaten, until now. The question is, have you any right to
stay? Hmm?' He leaned forward in his chair, and Starling
was fascinated and horrified by the way his belly bulged out
behind his shirt and waistcoat, and rolled down over his
trousers.
'Lord Faukes, Starling is--' Alice began, but the old man
cut her off.
'Now, now, Alice. You have said your piece.'
'I am learning to cook and clean, and to read and write,'
Starling piped up in desperation.
'Is that so?'
'The child is clearly no idiot, for all her low birth. She
certainly seems bright enough to acquire the skills she might
need . . .' said Jonathan, but his grandfather waved him to
silence. The young man cast an apologetic glance at Alice,
whose eyes were huge. There was another pause as the old
man seemed to think. His gaze never once left Starling; she
did not blink, or look away. After a while, he grunted.
'She's bold enough, I'll give her that. But this is not one of
your orphaned chicks or broken-legged rabbits, Alice. She
is a child, and will grow to be a woman. What then? Will
you take responsibility for her, for all those years until she is
grown? Think, before you answer.'
'Yes, sir,' Alice said at once, placing her hands on Starling's
shoulders. The old man gave an exasperated shake of his
head.
'And you, Bridget? You can usually be relied upon to
think more with your head, and less with your heart. What
say you?' Bridget was still standing by the door, her hands
clasped in front of her. All eyes turned to her, and she shifted
uncomfortably.
'Bridget?' said Alice, quietly imploring.
'I think ... I think the girl could do well. If she were
allowed to stay on. She's quick to learn, and does as she's
told, for the most part.'
'Which gives no answer one way or the other; but I can
hear what you would rather say.' Lord Faukes leaned back in
the chair, and drummed his fingers on its carved wooden
arms for a moment. 'Very well, then,' he said, with a nod.
Alice gasped.
'She can stay?'
'She can stay. But--' He was cut off as Alice flew across
the room and threw her arms around him exuberantly.
'Oh, thank you! Thank you, kindest and best of men!
Thank you, sir!' she cried, covering his face in kisses until he
had no choice but to laugh, and pat her shoulders.
'There, there. A little more decorum, Alice! She can stav
but she is to be a servant in this house, not a sister.' He raised
a warning finger. 'A thing that is born wild, stays wild, and
can never be entirely trusted. She can be a helper to Bridget,
until she is ready to go abroad and find her own position.
You shall have a little more money for her upkeep, which
will be all the salary she shall have. You will make no effort
to turn her into a lady, for she will never be one. Do I make
myself clear?'
'Yes, sir,' said Alice. She had come to rest on her knees
beside him, with her head pressed to his thighs and her arms
clasped around him. In the pause that followed, Lord Faukes
looked down at her with an expression that was helplessly
fond, and affectionate. A deeper flush of colour crept into his
cheeks, and when Starling glanced at Bridget, she saw that
the older woman wore a hung, guarded expression, and
hovered on her toes as if fighting the urge to step forward
and pull Alice away.
During the time it had taken to decide the course of
Starling's life, the rain had stopped.
'Shall we go out for a while, before we dine? We could
walk into Bathampton, or just to the bridge,' said Alice, as
the two men rose from their seats.
'Alas, we cannot stop to eat with you today. We have
other business to attend to. Besides, your dress and shoes
would be ruined, my dear! The ground is like hasty pudding
between here and the lane,' said Lord Faukes. Jonathan
looked from his grandfather to Alice with an air of slight
desperation.
'A ride, perhaps? We could ride along the river a ways?'
he said.
'Oh, yes! Let's,' Alice agreed at once. 'It's always so long
between your visits. Must we cut this one short so soon?' 'There simply isn't 
the time, child.' Alice and Jonathan
were visibly crestfallen at this news. 'Come, Jonathan, we
must be back to Box for suppertime.'
'But, at least I might show you our new sow? I will not
spoil my shoes - I can borrow Bridget's pattens. Come and
see her -- she is the fattest creature you ever laid eyes upon!'
Alice urged.
'Come and see the sow? Why on earth--'
'I should like to see her,' Jonathan interrupted his grandfather.
His eyes were on Alice, and they shone. 'Very much. I
mean, if she truly is as fat as you say,' he added, lamely.
'Oh, very well.' Lord Faukes sighed. 'Alice, please take
my grandson to see the pig. I hope her corpulence does not
detain you both for very long. I shall stay here, in the warm,
and have another piece of Bridget's excellent shortbread.'
The old man shook his head and sat back down again, lacing
his hands across his middle.
Bridget handed the plate of shortbread to Starling to take
through to Lord Faukes, but Starling wasn't paying attention.
She was watching as Jonathan helped Alice into her cloak;
watching how Alice steadied herself with a hand placed
lightly on his shoulder as she slid her feet into the pattens,
even though Starling had seen her perform the same action
without aid a dozen times or more. They did not look at her,
or ask her to come with them to the pigsty. They went out
into the yard side by side, deep in conversation, walking so
close together that from time to time their sleeves brushed.
There seemed to be a circle around them, a wall that nothing
else might scale or penetrate; and outside that circle the world
suddenly felt a little colder.
'Like a pair of moonstruck calves,' Bridget muttered,
puckering her lips as she closed the door behind them. 'Run
along with that plate, child. Don't keep Lord Faukes waiting.
He is your master, now.1 Starling did as she was told, then
ran to the upstairs window from whirh th- ~"»'I " '
behind the house. There stood Jonathan and Alice, paying no
heed to the saddleback sow which had come to the rail to see
if there was food. All of their attention was on each other.
Starling watched them steadily, never blinking, trying to
decide if she would love or hate this Jonathan Alleyn for the
way he held Alice spellbound.
1821



After their argument over Duncan Weekes, Rachel felt
strange and constrained around her husband. She had begun
to understand just how much bad blood lay between them,
but if Duncan Weekes had been responsible for Richard's
mother's death, surely he would have been punished by law?
She pictured the old man, with his fumbling steps and almost
desperately kind compliments, and the fathomless sadness in
his eyes. Could it possibly be true? She longed to know. Here
was something she and her husband shared, after all - the
loss of a beloved mother. She knew very well how that pain
could linger. She wanted him to know that she understood
his suffering, that sharing it might ease it. That he should lose
his father at the same time seemed too hard, but had she any
right to attempt to reconcile them, if blame truly lay with the
old man?
So Rachel could almost understand why Richard had been
so angry with her for talking to Duncan Weekes. Almost, but
not quite, since she couldn't have known his grievance. He
has his mother's temper, the father said. Do such tempers not
burn out as quickly as they flare? But with his eyes snapping
and his face tensed up in fury, she'd hardly recognised him;
the thought of it made her bite her tongue when her instinct
was to raise the subject and talk it through calmly, as husband
and wife. Richard seemed to sense her thoughts, and was
wary, watchful; tensed as if ready to berate her again. This as
much as anything kept her silent. But then when he'd come
home on Tuesday with an invitation for them both, and a
between them seemed forgotten. Rachel had felt knots of
worry in her stomach relax. You have your whole life to come to
understand his grief. You need not rush him.

After their midday meal on Thursday, they made ready.
'Do hurry, Rachel. We are to be there at four o'clock, and
we dare not be late.' Richard was agitated as he tugged his
cravat into a more voluminous shape, and brushed crisply at
traces of sawdust on his coat sleeves.
'My dear, it's not yet ten past three, and a matter of twenty
minutes' walk from here to there . . .'
'Do you intend to gallop there? You can't arrive glowing
and gasping for breath, with your hair all loose like some
blowsabella, Rachel!'
'I have no intention of galloping, I assure you,' she said
coolly. Sensing her tone, Richard stopped correcting his
outfit and came over to her. He put his hands on her arms,
and squeezed gently. His expression was sweet, almost
boyish. An excited flush suffused his face.
'Of course you don't. I am only trying to impress upon
you the . . . importance of this acquaintance. Mrs Alleyn is
a very great lady, much esteemed in the highest circles of
Bath society. She has been something of a patroness to me; a
loyal client of exquisite taste, since the very early days of my
business . . .'
'Yes, all this you have already said, and I am delighted to
be invited to meet her.'
'I'm delighted too. I had not heard from her in some
time . . . not from her personally, though the household
continues to buy its port and wine only through me. It's
you, Rachel.' He gave her a little shake, breaking into a
smile. 'You have occasioned this invitation. And now we are
invited as guests into as fine a house as you will ever have seen . . . Well,' 
he corrected himself, perhaps remembering
her upbringing and her employment at Hartford Hall. 'As
fine a house in Bath, anyway. I do hope she approves.'
'Of me?'
'Indeed,' said Richard, returning to the mirror and recommencing
with his tie.
'As do I,' Rachel murmured, suddenly more nervous than
she had been. And if she does not, what then? asked the echo in
her head, mischievously. Rachel hushed it.
However excited her husband seemed, she, who knew a
little more of higher society and its workings, had no doubt
that their invitation was some form of continued patronage.
They were like as not invited as vassals, rather than as
esteemed guests, but she decided then to make as good an
impression as she could. He hopes to impress this Mrs Alleyn
with me, so let me play my part as best I can. She put on her fawn cotton dress 
again, though it was too lightweight for the
weather, and draped a tasselled shawl -- soft grey, patterned
with sprigged roses -- around her shoulders. She took her
mother's pearl earrings from her trinket box and screwed
them securely to her ears.
'Do you think she might not approve, then?' Rachel
couldn't help asking, as they left the house at last. To her
chagrin, Richard seemed to consider the question for a
moment. Seeing her expression, he smiled.
'Please don't worry, my dear. It's only that . . . the lady
has had great difficulties to suffer, in spite of her grand
station in life. She can be somewhat . . . hesitant, to warm
to people. But I am sure she will warm to you, dear Mrs
Weekes.'
'What difficulties has she suffered?' Rachel asked. She saw
a tiny flicker of impatience cross Richard's face, but then he
took a deep breath.
'Rumours abound, so perhaps it will be better that I tell
you the full truth, as I understand if «™»- -- -- --- '
years back, I forget the exact time, it emerged that her son --
her only child - had been engaged in secret to a most
inappropriate girl, even though he was intended for another
from birth ..."
'Oh, poor children . . .' said Rachel.
'Not so - Jonathan Alleyn was a man grown by that time,
and ought to have known better than to bring such scandal
upon his family.'
'What made the girl so inappropriate? Hadn't he fortune
enough for both of them, if she was poor?'
'It wasn't her lack of dowry so much as her lack of
breeding and manners, as I understand it. But I don't know
for certain -- I never saw the creature. I only know what the
servants have tattled: that the family objected to the match in
the strongest possible way.'
'And so he wed her? This inappropriate girl?'
'Not a bit. She showed her true colours before it came
to that - she abandoned him, and eloped with another man,
and thus proved herself as fine as any cow turd stuck with
primroses. Her low nature won out, in the end. She made an
utter fool of the man, and left him broken-hearted.'
'Feckless girl!' Rachel breathed, somewhat taken aback by
Richard's language.
'Quite so. She was not heard of after she fled, which ought
to have been the end of the matter.'
'Was it not?'
'Alas, no. Her betrayal seemed to lead to a kind of . . .
collapse, in Mr Alleyn. A madness of some type, from which
he never recovered. His wild behaviour meant that many of
Mrs Alleyn's old acquaintances cut all ties with her. These
days he keeps largely to his rooms, which is a mercy, perhaps.
But the damage is done. His affliction weighs heavy upon the
lady, constantly.'
'You mean he ha9 not improved, in all this time?'
'It's hard to say.' Richard shrugged. 'No one has seen him,
not for years. So I cannot say. But the whole experience
wounded Mrs Alleyn very deeply. She is . . . somewhat
fragile, now; she does not trust easily.'
'Indeed, poor lady.' They walked in silence for a while.
Rachel lifted her skirts carefully over the puddles on the
pavement, not all of which were water. Poor son, the echo in
her head whispered, softly and sad. 'The poor man's heart
must have been in tatters, for the girl's betrayal to cause such
lasting damage,' she mused aloud.
'Perhaps, but I think his mind must have been frail to
begin with, don't you? To be so undone?' Rachel considered
this, but said nothing. After a minute, Richard added: 'Say
nothing of what I have told you to Mrs Alleyn.'
'Of course, I wouldn't,' Rachel assured him.
They made their way slowly across the city, climbing the
steep hill of Lansdown Road at a pace that bordered upon not
moving at all, such was Richard's fear of arriving dishevelled.
Rachel looked up at her husband's handsome face as they
neared the top, smiling apprehensively, tightening her hand
around his arm. Richard's answering smile was distracted,
and he loosened her fingers absently.
'You will crease the sleeve, my dear,' he said.
Number one, Lansdown Crescent, sat at the eastern end of
the curved street. The house reared up four storeys above
street level, and gazed imperiously to the south-east. The
rain that morning had left dark, sorrowful water marks on
the stone, as though the windows had been weeping. The
house had a bay front, to match its opposite number at the
far end of the row, and was fenced in by iron railings painted
Prussian blue. There was an elegant filigree lamp-post on the
corner of the pavement outside, and the main door opened
through the side of the house, from an alleyway leading to the rear of the 
crescent. Th» Ar>~.-' '
columned portico, and reached by a fan of stone steps. To
the left of this a set of steeper, narrower steps led down
through the railings, to a lower level courtyard at the front
of the building, and the servants' entrance. In front of the
crescent the ground dropped away steeply, so that even the
trees at the bottom of the slope would not hinder the residents'
southerly views. Behind and beyond the crescent the high
common stretched away, a sweep of pasture dotted with
sheep, bordering the edge of the city. They were high above
the river and the air was noticeably clearer and less humid.
There was a faint tang of chimney smoke on the breeze but
also a freshness, a purity which suggested that the lower
reaches of the city sat huddled in a pall of their own stink.
As they paused to take in the house's grand situation, a
curricle drawn by two smart grey horses turned into the
crescent, and Richard stepped forwards hurriedly.
'Come, my dear. We must not be seen to stare like a pair
of simple come-latelys,' he said, and automatically began to
descend the small stairs to the tradesman's entrance. Rachel
pulled his arm to stop him. With a pang of sympathy, she saw
that he felt as unused to his surroundings, as conspicuous in
them, as she had first felt in Abbeygate Street.
'Mr Weekes, if we are invited here as guests, surely we
ought use the main door?' she said quietly. Richard blinked,
and a slow blush crept into his cheeks.
'Yes. Of course,' he muttered, sheepishly. He cleared his
throat as they climbed the front steps, cleaned his boots as
best he could on the scraper, and tugged at the hem of his
jacket as he rang the bell.
The door was answered by a liveried manservant, tall and
monolithic, who allowed them ingress in spite of his obvious
disdain. From the inner hallway rose a wide stone staircase,
turning around on itself to the top of the house. A rich carpet, the colour of 
blood, was laid down on it, and the edge of
every riser had been scrubbed as smooth as skin. The air
smelled of beeswax and flowers; and oranges, from a bowlful
of spiced pomanders on a side table. The ceiling, far above
their heads, was patterned with elaborate plasterwork and lit
by a sparkling glass chandelier. The walls were hung with
painted paper, showing an intricate design of long-tailed
birds and oriental blossoms in gold, teal and crimson. Two
enormous mirrors faced each other on either side of the hall,
so that ranks of Richards and Rachels stood shoulder to
shoulder in both, stretching back into infinity. Here's an army
of us, now, ready to conquer Mrs Alleyn, said the voice in
Rachel's head, and she smiled inwardly.
The butler led them to a huge doorway on the left of the
hall. Rachel's heels tapped quietly on the stone floor, and
she felt the strongest sensation of being watched. The hairs
on the back of her neck prickled, and she glanced over her
shoulder, seeing nothing and nobody behind her. And yet
there was something unexpected, and somewhat uneasy
about the house. It was too quiet, she decided. There was
no music, there were no voices. No footsteps on the stairs or
in the servants' passageways behind the panelling; no muffled
sounds of industry from below stairs, no guttering of flames
in hearths. Even the sounds of the street receded to nothing
as soon as the door was shut behind them. Rachel swallowed,
and fought off a sudden, inexplicable impulse to flee the
place. It seemed as though time had halted, as though the
house slept, or perhaps held its breath. Her chest burned, and
she realised that she was doing the same. Richard's face was
stiff with nerves; his fingers twitched, his eyes were restless.
'Mr and Mrs Weekes, madam,' the butler announced,
bowing to the room's occupant as Richard and Rachel
walked past him.
'Thank you, Falmouth.' The ladv »--'
an old-fashioned gown of green silk brocade, niched and
over-embellished with bows and ribbons. She was standing
on the far side of the room, by the window, feeding seeds to a
canary through the delicate bars of its gilded cage. If she had
been there for two minutes or more, she would have seen
Richard begin to descend the servants' stair, Rachel realised.
She hoped that Richard wouldn't think of it. The room was
choked with drapes and furniture, the walls dark with large
paintings, their gilded frames gleaming dully. The canary
cheeped, and its voice came loud through the still air. With
the light behind her, it was hard to make out the lady's
features distinctly. 'How do you do, Mr Weekes? It has been
some months since I saw you,' she said, brushing fragments
of seed from her fingers.
'Mrs Alleyn.' Richard bowed deeply, so deeply that Rachel
glanced at him in surprise. He'd shut his eyes, and seemed
to gather himself. What does he fear? 'Please allow me the
honour of presenting my wife, Mrs Rachel Weekes,' he said,
as he straightened up at last. Mrs Alleyn came a few steps
closer to them, smiling graciously. At once, Rachel noticed
her great beauty, and was about to curtsy when the older
woman halted, and her smile faltered.
'Good heavens,' she murmured indistinctly, pressing the
back of one hand to her lips. Her eyes grew very wide.
'Madam, are you unwell?' Richard asked, stepping forward
to offer his arm. Mrs Alleyn waved him away.
'I am quite well.' She stared at Rachel for a few seconds
more, silent, until Rachel, bewildered, made her postponed
curtsy and said:
'It is an honour to meet you, Mrs Alleyn.' Do 1 shock her,
somehow? Does she think she knows me?
'Well,' said the older lady. 'Well. A pleasure, Mrs
Weekes. Please accept my blessings on your recent marriage.'
'You are most kind, Mrs Alleyn.'
'Do come and sit down,' said Mrs Alleyn, and with each
moment that passed she regained more composure, until
Rachel grew unsure of her first intuition - that it was
something about her own appearance that had given the
lady pause.
The conversation moved politely from the change in the
weather to Richard's business, and who was coming to Bath
for the season. Mrs Alleyn gave all the names and addresses
she could think of, providing Richard with a list of potential
clients.
'I shall mention you to them, when I write,' she said.
'You have my thanks, as ever, Mrs Alleyn. I have a
shipment recently arrived into Bristol of a very fine Bordeaux
wine, one of the best I have ever tasted.'
'Ah! How wonderful. Jonathan will not be pleased, but I
cannot change my tastes in this: it is the finest-flavoured wine
to be had.'
'Jonathan must be your son, Mrs Alleyn? Does he not care
for Bordeaux wine?' said Rachel. There was a tiny pause, and
Richard gave her a look of mute appeal that told her she had
erred in some way.
'My son fought the French in Spain and Portugal, Mrs
Weekes. And though he accepts that the war is now over, he
cannot be reconciled to the old enemy. He would prefer that
I buy wine from Spain, or Germany.'
'And the King would agree with him, for the crown tariffs
on French wine still greatly limit our imports.'
'I can't see what is to be gained in bearing such grudges,'
Mrs Alleyn said with a sigh. 'But I am in the minority, I am
well aware. An acquaintance recently wrote to chastise me
for tactlessness! But 1 fail to see why we should have to drink
unspeakable rotgut from Soain r>A oil>-- " ¦
1
all of the Bordeaux for themselves! It seems a curiously
backward way to punish them, in my opinion.'
'You are quite right, Mrs Alleyn,' Richard agreed, readily.
'And it grieves me also.'
'But it keeps the prices high,' she said, smiling knowingly.
Richard shifted uncomfortably. 'Oh, I understand how business
works, you need not look shamefaced. And I trust you
not to charge an overly inflated price. To me, in any case;
though I must buy in small amounts, and hide it from
Jonathan.' She smiled again, but this time the expression was
colder.
'Does your son live here with you, then, Mrs Alleyn? I
had not realised,' said Rachel. Again came a pause, a significant
look from Richard. 'It must be a comfort to you, to . . .
have him so near to you,' she stumbled on.
'Indeed,' said Mrs Alleyn, tersely. 'I quit our house in Box
after my father died. It was far too large for a woman alone,
and I thought that the city would offer more opportunities
for society and company. When he had recuperated from the
war my son joined me here.' The words came in such a frigid
tone that Rachel found no way to reply. The silence stretched
on, and Mrs Alleyn watched her without blinking. When
Rachel tried to find something light and innocuous to say, she
found her mind entirely blank.
Eventually, Mrs Alleyn turned her unsettling gaze to
Richard, and asked after his progress with an introduction
she had made. Rachel breathed more easily, and decided not
to speak again, however many times Richard turned, and
smiled, and urged some comment from her. She held her
tongue, and smiled politely, and tried not to notice the way
Mrs Alleyn kept glancing at her, almost reluctantly, as if she
couldn't help herself. Rachel saw an inexplicable mixture of
calculation and curiosity in her eyes, and it increased the
feeling she already had of the house being watchful. She was
glad when, after forty minutes or so, Mrs Alleyn dismissed
them with exquisite good manners. As they crossed the
hallway once again, a flash of movement and colour caught
Rachel's eye. Through a narrow door behind the main staircase,
where the back stairs led down to the cellars, a servant
was watching them - a red-haired girl with long eyes and a
keen expression. With a start, Rachel recognised her as the
girl who'd served them, just the once, at their wedding feast.
The girl who'd also paused and stared at her peculiarly, just as
Mrs Alleyn had.
'I did advise you not to ask about her son, did I not?' said
Richard, as they walked away down Lansdown Road.
'No. You did not,' said Rachel. 'You said only to mention
nothing of the misfortune that befell him with the girl he was
engaged to ... I thought Mrs Alleyn might like to speak of
him, since I gathered she has little opportunity to.'
'The whole subject of her son is one she feels most acutely.
Perhaps too acutely to discuss with a new acquaintance.'
'Well, how could I know if you didn't warn me?' said
Rachel, rattled. She felt uneasy in a way she couldn't explain. The lady 
thought she knew this face. Something about that
realisation gave her a peculiar, expectant thrill. 'Mr Weekes --
I think I just saw the serving girl from the Moor's Head,
working there as a servant.'
'Sadie?' He shook his head. 'I'm sure not.'
'No, the other one. The one who served the wine one
time, and spilled it on my hand. You must remember -- the
red-haired girl?'
'No. There's only Sadie working there at the inn, and why
would she be at the Alleyns' house on Lansdown Crescent?'
'I do not say that I saw Sadie, I say that I saw the other
girl . . . I'm sure of it,' Rachel insisted.
'Well. I'm sure you must be mistaken I «»"¦-->-- <
did well, though, my dear. I'm sure Mrs Alleyn approved of
you.'
'I am not so sure. She watched me most peculiarly, and
you must have noticed when you introduced me - how
startled she seemed. Do you think she thought she recognised
me from somewhere?'
'How could she recognise you, my dear? I did tell you
that she is not always the easiest company. I'm sure she
wasn't watching you with anything other than the curiosity
of making a new acquaintance . . .'
'It startled me to learn that her son was there above us all
the time, hidden away.'
'Yes -- forgive me. I thought you'd understood. His
infirmity goes beyond a mere darkening of the spirits -- he
was injured in the war as well. One leg is all but useless, and
he suffers terrible headaches, I am told. Pains that last for
days, and obliterate all thought.'
'Poor man,' Rachel murmured.
'As I said, I have seen him but once or twice in all the
years since his downfall. He is a strange and difficult man,
impossible to know.'
'Such suffering might make any one of us strange or
difficult.'
'You have such a kind heart, my dear,' Richard said,
squeezing her hand where it rested on his arm. He seemed
to have relaxed in the short distance that they'd walked from
the Alleyns' house, his nerves dissipating to leave him buoyant,
almost jubilant. 'She is a fine lady, is she not?' he said,
smiling. 'And beautiful, though none so lovely as you.'
Rachel smiled at the compliment, but she still wondered
about Mrs Alleyn's strange exclamation, and repeated glances;
and she wondered about the red-haired serving girl she'd
glimpsed at the top of the stairs. And while she could not have
said what any of it meant, or if it was significant, it only added
to her unusual suspicion that she had been watched, and that
much had gone unsaid.

From the hill where Lansdown Crescent sat, aloof, the rest of
the city was a tangled mess. As they descended into it there
seemed to be less light from the sky, even; the air thickened
with the stink of human endeavour. Rachel stepped around
piles of horse muck and oily puddles, but could not keep her
shoes from getting spattered. Pattens, she made the mental
note. must acquire a pair of pattens. Richard left her near the
abbey, to meet with a man on business, and Rachel walked a
convoluted route back towards the house above the shop. She
was starting to enjoy the noise and bustle of the narrow
cobbled streets, which in places were scarcely wide enough to
allow two people to pass without their shoulders bumping.
What had once seemed like crowding had come to feel more
like community.
Since her retreat from Milsom Street, she had taken to
exploring the narrower streets behind and between, where
the backs of buildings piled on top of one another as they
marched up and down the city's steep hills. Everywhere were
tangled gutters and gables and rough cobble walls; chimney
pots like rows of broken teeth, stable doors and sink holes,
outdoor stairs and crooked sheds; all making a mockery of
the strict and serene facades that faced the front. Here Rachel
was not noticed, she was not remarkable. She drifted through
the hotchpotch, learning its hidden paths and places; the
steep, mossy steps that carved unexpectedly beneath a terrace
of houses; the butcher's shop built into the arches beneath
a road, where cooks and housekeepers queued for the best
cuts in Bath. Here there were no confectioners selling fudge
or candied fruits, no glovers with wares in silk or kid leather.
Here there were coopers selling barrels and baskets, and
cobblers hammering new soles nmn 1 '
were rag shops and haberdashers, and communal bake ovens
for those too poor to have their own. Rachel had begun to
feel that she knew the city better now than she ever had
before.
Buying a paper cone of hot chestnuts from a barrow boy,
she checked over her shoulder a couple of times, to be sure
Richard was nowhere around, before turning into the street
that led to Duncan Weekes's lodging house. She hadn't been
sure that she would visit him until that exact moment, but
curiosity convinced her to. It had been several days since
she'd spoken to her father-in-law outside the Moor's Head,
and she now understood that Richard would never consent
to her calling on him. Just as the old man foresaw. He warned
me not to ask, but he lied about the bad blood between them,
and the cause of it, she thought, uneasily. How could he refer to
his wife's death as 'matters long past'? Richard had said such
damning things about his father that Rachel was having
trouble reconciling his portrait with the sad old man she had
met, who had praised her kindness and gentility. Underneath
the blame and anger there must be love. Is there not always love
between parent and child? She thought of Mrs Alleyn, whose
life had been so blighted by her son's misadventures and
persistent affliction. But she does not abandon him, and I should
not abandon Duncan Weekes so very easily. Not until J have his
version of these events.
She had the worrying feeling that she might come to
regret her decision, but she needed to know; because if what
Richard had told her was true, then perhaps any love between
him and his father had indeed died, and the reconciliation
Rachel hoped for would be impossible. It was
disquieting, that she should feel too nervous of her own
husband to ask him what exactly had befallen his mother. Keep that curiosity 
secret, urged the soft voice in her mind.
Still, the sadness in Duncan's eyes fretted at her memory, and
he had praised Richard with unmistakable pride. He loves his
son, that much is clear. And he seems to have precious little else
left to him. Duncan Weekes was the only kind of father that
remained to her, but as she made her way to him, Rachel
prepared herself to sever all connection with him should
Richard's condemnation prove well founded.
The building she came to was tall and narrow, cramped
awkwardly between warehouses and workshops in the southwestern
reaches of the city, near the riverside with all its mud
and stink. The walls were streaked with soot, the windows
opaque. Washing lines were strung from the upper storeys,
and threadbare clothes hung limp in the still air. On the front
steps sat a little girl no more than three years old, dressed in a
canvas pinafore and a tattered cap. She gave off a strange,
unwholesome smell, like fish and milk. Rachel bent down
with a smile.
'Hello, little one. Do you live here? What's your name?'
she said. Shining wet trails ran either side of the child's
mouth, from her nose to her chin. She regarded Rachel with
steady, wide eyes, and said nothing. Rachel took out her
handkerchief and tried to wipe the girl's face, but she shied
away, got up and ran down the steps. Just then the door
opened, and a woman with a pinched face came out carrying
a basket on her hip. She squinted suspiciously at Rachel as
she slipped in through the open door.
Inside it was cold and damp. A gloomy hallway with bare
floorboards, where the sounds of footsteps and voices and
children crying came creeping through the walls. There was a stink of tallow 
and ammonia. Duncan Weekes's lodging
was on the lowest floor of the house, so Rachel went to the
stairs at the far end of the hallway, and down into stagnant
darkness. Small as it was, the basement was divided into
two rooms, and Rachel turned to the one on the right, as instructed. Her hand 
was shaking sliuhtlv as sh« raU«»J ;» --
knock. She thought of the rooms on Abbeygate Street, and
how poor she'd thought them at first. Now the place where
her father-in-law lived put a knot of shame and disgust in her
stomach, and she fought hard to smile as she heard the bolts
slide back within. Duncan Weekes looked almost frightened
as he peered out, eyes all rheumy and bloodshot. His wig was
off, revealing the scanty grey shreds of his own remaining
hair, and without it he seemed smaller, denuded. He smiled
and gave her a slight bow, and all the while radiated a kind of
anxious shame.
'My dear Mrs Weekes - it is so kind of you to call, so
kind ... I had not thought you would. I fear the condition of
my lodgings must disgust you . . .'
'Nonsense, Mr Weekes,' Rachel murmured, but could not
make herself convincing. She smiled to belie herself, and
handed him the cone of chestnuts as she came inside. 'Here --
they're still warm.'
'Thank you. Too kind. Come now -- come and sit by the
fire.' Duncan Weekes bustled clumsily, clearing a cup and a
half-empty bottle of wine from the mantelpiece, and the
fallen pages of a newspaper from the single armchair by the
hearth. He had but one room, and that was cramped and
dark. A narrow bed was against the back wall, with a trunk at
its foot; beneath the only window, which was high in the wall
and let in little light, stood a plain desk and a bentwood chair,
and next to the door was a chest of drawers. The fireplace
was mean - just a small grate for coals, a sooty hotplate for a
kettle, and nothing more. It cast a meagre circle of light and
warmth. Duncan Weekes fetched the bentwood chair and sat
down opposite her, awkwardly, with his hands on his knees.
'And how are you, my dear? How is my son?' he said
keenly. There was wine on his breath, and she saw his glance
drift to the bottle he'd removed from the mantel. He snatched
his eyes back guiltily, his face wearing a constant apology.
He is ashamed. Of himself, as much as his poverty. And so eager
to befriend me. Rachel felt a renewed resolve -- that if she was
wrong to disobey her husband, still it had not been wrong to
come to these poor lodgings, to take this first step.
'I am well, as is Richard, thank you, sir. I ... I did speak
to him about you, but. . .'
'He would not hear it?' said the old man, sadly.
'Not yet. His . . . pain over the rift between you is yet
strong, and persuasive. Perhaps, with time . . .'
'A great deal of time has passed already, my dear, and
none of it has dulled his anger. He spoke sharply to you,
when you mentioned me?' Duncan Weekes's watery eyes
fixed on her, full of concern.
'I ... a ... a little, yes. I am sure he did not mean . . .'
'Poor girl. You are too kind and good, to be reprimanded
over the likes of me. I am but a ruin of what I once was. 'Tis
scant wonder my boy wants nothing to do with me.'
Butterflies took flight in Rachel's stomach. She swallowed
before she spoke again, and found her throat dry.
'Forgive me, sir, but I must have it from you. My husband
. . . my husband told me that you killed his mother.
Does he speak the truth?' Her voice shook audibly; there was
a long and deafening silence afterwards. Duncan Weekes
stared at her, his eyes gone wide and empty. Rachel suddenly
realised that she had no idea how he would react to her
terrible question. Fool! To come here, and be alone with him,
and say such a thing Rachel started up to her feet and made
for the door.
'Wait! Don't go yet, I beg you!' Duncan called after her.
Rachel paused, and glanced back. The old man's eyes were
no longer empty, or alarming. His whole body had collapsed
in misery, shrinking in on itself as though she'd kicked him.
'Forgive my silence, only . . . only you did shock me so. It
did shock me, to hear you say it,' he said.
'Then ... it is not true?' Rachel whispered.
'I ... I cannot say it is wholly untrue. Alas, I cannot say
so.' He wiped at his eyes with a juddering hand. 'But you
must believe me, please, when I say that I never had any
intention of harming my Susanne. I loved her more than any
man ever loved a wife, and never laid a finger upon her in
anger . . . For all she did upbraid me often, and point up my
many failings.' A fragment of a desolate smile crossed his
face. 'I loved her truly, and meant her no harm.' Rachel
stayed where she was for a moment longer, then took a step
back towards the chair. Duncan Weekes's sorrow was like a
physical thing, like something she could touch.
'Do you ... do you swear this to me, sir?'
'I swear it upon my very soul, Mrs Weekes.'
Tentatively, Rachel sat back down. She found she had
little trouble believing him; her every instinct told her that he
was not a violent man.
'Can you . . . can you tell me what harm befell her?' she
said. The old man shook his head. A single tear was flung
from his cheek, splashing onto the hearth with a tiny sizzle.
'If you must hear it, then I must tell it. But I beseech you --
do not make me. It is my constant shame; it is like a wound
that runs right through me, and to speak of it turns the blade
in that wound. It is unbearable, my dear girl. It is unbearable.'
'Then
speak it not, sir,' said Rachel, decisively. 'It matters
only that her death was . . . accidental. And that you are
sorry for it.'
'A sorrier creature would be hard to find,' said Duncan, so
quietly. Rachel thought for a moment.
'And . . . afterwards, you raised Richard yourself? From
when he was eight years of age? And . . . this rift lay
between you all that long while?'
'No, not all tliut while. I ... 1 compounded my sin, you
see -- I lied to him. Lies of omission, perhaps, but lies all the
same. He was a young man by the time he found out what
fate befell her, from what source I cannot say. And his
grievance was made all the worse for knowing that I had
kept the truth from him.'
'You were an ostler then, 1 think?'
'That's right, Mrs Weekes. And a coachman, too. I was all
my life in some such employ - I've a gift with horses, you
see ... I can gentle them, and coax them on. They only want
soft handling, you see; they only want a little reassurance,
and a little tenderness. But after I lost Susanne, I ... I drank
all the more, to forget my sorrow. I am the architect of my
own decline, and I deserve none of your pity.'
'Does our faith not teach us to forgive, sir, upon the
repentance of wrongdoing? I believe that includes . . . forgiving
oneself.'
'How may a person forgive themselves such a thing? How
do I forgive myself, when I have blighted my boy's life so
terribly? 1 have much time to think, now, in these twilight
years, and my thoughts are bitter ones, of regret for all the
wrong choices I made and all the ways in which I have fallen
short.'
'You are hard on yourself, Mr Weekes. You seem to me to
be a . . . kind man. I'm sure you have tried to do right -- and
any one of us may fall short. God can expect nothing more of
any man than that he perceives his own faults, laments them
and strives to improve upon them . . .'
Rachel thought of her own father, of the shame that had
eaten away at him; wasted him, like a canker. She reached out
and took Duncan's gnarled hand. It was dark with grime,
some unknown dirt worn into the creases and the bed of each
nail. 'Such thoughts will prey upon you, sir,' she said gently.
'There must be some joy in life, must there not? You must allow some hannir>»»» 
-- '
many years after I lost my own family. But now I have
Richard, and a new life with him, and I feel that the time has
come to be joyful again."
'There ought to be happiness for those that deserve it, aye.
For those good of heart and deed such as you,' said Mr
Weekes. 'For an old fool like me, the chance has come and
gone.' He cleared his throat, and his treacherous gaze wandered
to the bottle again before he could wrest it back. 'But
that you came to visit me -- and stayed to hear me . . . that
gives me much happiness.'
'I fear I have brought you no joy this day,' said Rachel. 'I
had better leave now -- the evenings draw in, and I should be
home before my husband.' She stood, smoothing her skirt
with both hands.
'But you will come again, my dear?' Duncan Weekes's
expression was so full of hope that it pained her.
'I ... I am not sure, sir. I would have to conceal any such
visit from my husband, and it. . . troubles me a good deal to
do so. To lie is a terrible thing.'
'But you have it in your power to do what I have longed
to these many years, my dear.' He stood up and clasped her
hand in both of his, finding a tremulous smile. 'You have it in
you to make my boy think kindly of me once more. Or at
least to bring me word of him, and how he fares.'
'I . . .' Rachel hesitated, shaking her head.
'Please! Please, dear girl. Do call again. You cannot know
the good you would do.'
For a moment Rachel stared into his eyes, all couched as
they were in lines of age and desperation. Will you make an
old man beg you?
'Perhaps the greater sin would be to let a family member
languish, all unnoticed . . .' She stopped herself short of
saying in poverty. 'To let bad blood and misunderstanding
continue, when perhaps 1 could make it right. . .'
'Bless you, Mrs Weekes. And thank you.' Duncan let go
of her hand, walking unsteadily to the door to see her out.
'Can I bring you aught, next time? A little food perhaps?'
she asked. Duncan shook his head.
'Only your good self, and word of my boy. But . . . you
must be careful, dear girl. You must be careful not to . . . not
to make any difficulty for yourself on my account,' he said,
anxious again. Rachel tried to brush off the warning, but
it came too soon after the shock of Richard's anger, and as
she left the building it was with a trapped feeling like the
beginnings of fear. No. I do not fear my husband, who loves me.
The sun was setting earlier every day, and as dusk fell
countless lamps and torches were lit in windows and over
doors, flooding the streets with an uneven yellow light that
glanced from the filthy water in the gutters and almost made
it pretty. Rachel took a deep breath of the chilly air to rid her
lungs of the dankness of Duncan Weekes's room. She walked
briskly until she was on better streets, and stopped off to buy
a pie for supper, and once she was home she stoked up the
stove to warm the kitchen-cum-parlour, and looked around
with new appreciation of her home. She thumped the pillows
on the bed to raise them, shook the spiders out of the drapes,
scoured the pot and brewed tea, suddenly needing to be busy,
and to have no time to stop and think about Duncan Weekes.
Because if she thought too much about his sad eyes and the
filth he lived in she might speak again, unbidden; and try as
she might to be calm and courageous, the thought of another
confrontation filled her with dread. She was so conscious of
guarding her words that she said precious little when Richard
did arrive home, only smiling and fetching him the things he
wanted. But he was tired, and smelled of the inn, and did not
seem to mind her silence.
The next day a card was delivered to the house, and
Rachel found that whilp -'--11 1
was not surprised at all. It was an invitation to number one,
Lansdown Crescent, that afternoon; an invitation addressed
to her alone. Rachel ran her ringers along the crisp edge of
the card, and wondered what it could mean. The parlour
suddenly seemed every bit as still and watchful as the house
on Lansdown Crescent, and her skin prickled. She waited for
her husband to return, and practised what she would say
when he did. She was almost sure that Richard would be
happy to hear about it, but then, his own exclusion from the
invitation might temper that. In the end, she was asleep
before he came home. He woke her as he came to bed,
clumsy and befuddled in the darkness, and she feigned sleep,
until his hands, which had roved her body, went still, and
he started to snore. Carefully, Rachel pushed his hands away
from her and shifted to one side, so that no part of them
touched.



'You asked for me, madam?' said Starling. Mrs Alleyn
looked up from the silk divan she was seated on, and raised
her eyebrows. Her eyes glittered.
'You are well aware of the reason.'
'Madam?' said Starling.
'Enough!' Mrs Alleyn burst out, rising abruptly to pace the
carpet. Starling's stomach lurched, but she cleared her face of
expression, and waited. 'You yourself said she was a singular
woman -- the new Mrs Weekes. You herded me into meeting
her with no warning of how greatly she resembled that
wretched girl! You must have known what my shock would
be.' Mrs Alleyn glared at her kitchen maid. Though Starling
bridled at the words that wretched girl, and the tone of bitter
disgust with which they were spoken, she knew better than to
argue. 'Well? What say you?'
'I only thought that you would be interested in meeting
her, madam.'
'Indeed. Have a care, Starling - you were her servant,
before you were mine, I know, but you have been mine these
twelve years since. I should have no cause to question where
your loyalties lie.'
'My loyalty is to you, madam. Always,' Starling lied.
'I should hope so. She abandoned you as callously as she
abandoned my son, let us not forget. Your place in this
household is a boon that can be withdrawn, let us also not
forget. Few others would have taken you on, given the circumstances.'
"I am grateful to you, madam.'
'Well.' Josephine Alleyn grew calmer. She sat back down
on the divan. 'The resemblance is truly uncanny. Upon first
glance,' she said.
That was true enough, Starling thought. She had watched
from the stairs as Mrs Weekes was leaving, and this time
she'd been able to pick out a few subtle ways in which the
woman did not resemble Alice. It had not been quite the
same as that first startling moment, when it had seemed as
though the dead walked. 'It is a strange world, when two
people can be born so alike and yet be wholly unconnected to
one another,' said Mrs Alleyn.
'Not wholly unconnected, madam. For now they have you
in common,' said Starling, carefully. This was the crucial
time, the crucial moment, for if she could not convince her
mistress that Mrs Weekes was of use to them, then any
chance of using the woman to goad Jonathan, and make him
betray himself, would vanish. Behind her shoulder, Starling
could feel the painted eyes of Lord Faukes, Josephine
Alleyn's father, staring down at her from a large canvas
above the fireplace. She felt her skin crawl. Starlina AAn like to look at hu 
tn"---
of a stomach, or the big blunt hands, or the way his smile
crinkled his eyes in that kindly, treacherous way. Mrs Alleyn
was looking at Starling strangely, and a flutter of nerves
made her speak again, ill-advisedly. 'It was my thinking that
it could benefit your son, madam, to meet this woman who
looks so like Alice--'
'I will not hear that name!' The words lashed out, sharp as
a whip crack, and Starling cursed herself inwardly for forgetting.
'I
beg pardon, madam,' she said hurriedly.
She waited in silence. Mrs Alleyn turned her head to gaze
out of the window and did not speak again for some moments.
In the wan light of the afternoon she was pale and
lovely; eyes haunted by sadness, face haunted by beauty.
'How do you think it could benefit my son to set eyes
upon this creature who, though it be no fault of her own, is
the very image of the one person at the root of his distress?
The one person I should most like him to forget?' She spoke
without looking at Starling.
He'll never forget her. I won't let him. Starling fought to
keep her tone neutral.
'Well, madam ... it seems to me that Mr Alleyn would
benefit from company. You have said so yourself, time and
again, that it would do him good to be out in society more,
and to allow visitors to call on him . . .'
'He will not hear of it, as you know. I have tried every
argument.' Mrs Alleyn bowed her head, and suddenly wore
her despair quite openly. She drew in a long breath, and
when she raised her face again it was marked by pain. 'Upon
occasion, he will not even see me. His own mother.'
'Yes, madam. I had thought that . . . perhaps her familiar
face might convince him to tolerate her,' said Starling. Mrs
Alleyn frowned, so she hurried on. 'Al-- the girl he once
knew was most dear to him. At one time. And I know he
thinks of her still . . .'
'How do you know?'
'He . . .' Starling hesitated. If Mrs Alleyn knew of Alice's
letters, she would turn Jonathan's rooms upside down to find
and destroy them. 'He mentions her sometimes, when I am in
hearing.'
'Go on.'
'She was dear to him, and there is a chance, is there
not, that he might permit Mrs Weekes to visit him, for that
reason? She seems a gentle and godly sort. Might she not
somehow draw htm back to himself? It ... it cannot have
escaped your notice that Mr Alleyn has been declining of late.
In his spirits, I mean.' must tread carefully. 'Declining as he
did at the time of the . . . accident.' It was no accident that
had opened Jonathan Alleyn's veins with the broken neck of
a glass bottle, five years earlier. They both knew what he had
intended. Josephine paled.
'You think he is that unwell again? You think he would . . .
he might ... do some harm to himself again?' The fear was
loud behind her words.
'His descent has been rapid of late, madam, and it continues.'
'But...
I want him to forget her! That is the only way . . .
She poisoned him! I have banished every trace of her from this
house, and yet, and yet . . . still he mentions her? After the
way she betrayed him? And all the years that have passed?'
There were tears in the older woman's eyes; they sparkled,
unshed, full of desperate disbelief.
'He does, madam.'
'Well, cannot tolerate it -- I cannot tolerate her. I have no
wish to see that woman's face again -- it is not her fault, but
the fact remains: she is a walking reminder of that blight on
our lives, and 1 will not see her.' The older wnm"-'- --:--
shook just slightly. Starling felt desperation getting hold of
her tongue again.
'But only think what he might do, if he should decline any
further, madam . . . Surely if it might raise his spirits, just a
little, to see her . . .'
'Do not press me, girl! You forget yourself! You may
have known my son since you were a child, but you remain a
servant in this house and I have no need of your counsel! Do
you think yourself irreplaceable, because you do not fear to
serve him?'
'No, madam.' Staring knew when to be meek.
The two women faced each in silence. Starling kept her
eyes on her feet, where her scuffed leather shoes looked so
out of place against the glorious patterns of the carpet, all
purple and green and gold.
'Is this some mischief of yours?' Mrs Alleyn asked eventually.
Her anger had gone; she sounded small, and afraid.
Tears still glimmered in her eyes.
'No, madam. I only want what's best.'
'And . . . you truly think it could help him to see her? To
be reminded?'
'Since time and . . . obliteration have not worked, madam,
then perhaps Mrs Weekes . . . that is, perhaps a small taste
of what was lost might give him ease instead.' Mrs Alleyn's
tears never fell. She blinked them away, and gathered herself.
'If you are wrong . . . if he is made worse by her . . .'
'I am sure he will not be, madam,' Starling lied again
without a second's hesitation. She gazed at her mistress, her
face a perfect facsimile of sincerity. Mrs Alleyn thought for a
second longer.
'Very well, then. Perhaps it cannot hurt to try. I will invite
her,' she said, and Starling's heart soared. Oh, but it can. It
can hurt to try.
Starling shut the drawing room door quietly, her ringers
fumbling with the handle. They were shaking. Her whole
body was shaking; her pulse thumped loudly in her temples.
She swallowed, and felt the dry skin of her throat pull tight. She poisoned 
him! The words rang in her ears. As if anybody
who had ever known Alice could truly believe that. It baffled
her that a lady like Mrs Alleyn could be so deceived. In the
silence of the hallway she watched her hands as they
juddered, fingertips and broken nails all blurred with movement.
Then Alice's hand took hers, and held it tightly.
Starling shut her eyes and saw the palest golden hair lit up
with sunlight, and smiling blue eyes with lashes like tiny
feathers. Find me some poppies, my chuck, and I'll make you a
scarlet crown.
Alice could not see the red petals against the green grasses
that grew along the river's wide shoulders. Hand in hand, the
two girls ran along, walked to catch their breath, then ran
again. The ground was waterlogged, and seemed to bounce
beneath their feet. There were cowpats here and there, bejewelled
with amber dung flies. They shrieked and leapt and
dodged them. Here.1 Here are some poppies! Starling heard her
own voice, heard Alice laughing as they sat down abruptly,
breathing in the warm smells of damp earth and trampled
grass. The poppy stems were tough and hairy; she picked
them and passed them to Alice, who plaited them into a
garland. I shall have a crown of flowers like this when Jonathan
marries me, said Alice. And so shall you. Whichever flowers you
wish for, you shall have; and you shall carry my train for me all
the way to the church.
'Starling!' An angry whisper startled her. Starling opened
her eyes to the dim light of the hallway; golden hair and
sunlit eyes faded away like spectres. Dorcas was glaring
at her from the servants' door. 'Don't tarry there! What's
in your head?' she hissed. Starling didn't stav to anm»'
Mrs Alleyn would surely invite Mrs Weekes again soon. She
didn't have much time to make ready; to make Jonathan
Alleyn ready. She meant for him to be at his darkest when he
first set eyes on the woman who was not Alice. She meant for
him to be ready to break, and she meant to be there when he
did.



Rachel felt the weightiness of things unsaid, hovering between
herself and Mrs Alleyn. She wasn't sure how long she
could go on ignoring it. It was stormy outside, and her
shoulders were damp with rain from her walk to Lansdown
Crescent. When the wind blew it made the flames in the grate
flutter; a draught curled in under the door, cold around their
ankles. She tried not to shiver, sipping her tea. The pauses
between their stilted exchanges were growing longer and
longer every time. Mrs Alleyn cleared her throat delicately.
'Tell me, what social engagements have you planned, Mrs
Weekes?' she said.
'There is . . . nothing of note upcoming, I confess,' said
Rachel.
'But you will be going to the assembly rooms, surely?'
T ... do not know, Mrs Alleyn. Mr Weekes has made no
mention of any such plans . . .'
'Well, of course he hasn't, my dear Mrs Weekes. He is a
man, and men who are married have little need for dancing.
But a woman must have such things to look forward to, and
to dress for. Must she not? He must take you, tell him 1 said
so,' she declared. Rachel smiled politely.
T shall indeed tell him, Mrs Alleyn. Do you care for
dancing, yourself?'
'Yes, I . . . well. I used to, many years ago.' Mrs Alleyn's
lovely face fell. 'It has been a very long time since I danced.
My husband loved to, even after we were married. He was
such a happy soul, so full of merriment.' She looked away
across the room, and sighed slowly. 'The last time I danced
was with Jonathan, shortly before he went away to the war.'
'And never since?' said Rachel, guessing it to be well over
ten years since that dance. Mrs Alleyn swallowed, and looked
back at Rachel.
'And never since,' she said flatly.
There was another uneasy silence. Mrs Alleyn arranged
and rearranged her hands in her lap, and moved to pour tea
from the pot when their cups were already full.
'And this fine gentleman here,' Rachel gestured at the
large portrait in oils that hung above the hearth. 'Pray tell
me, who is he?'
'That is my father, Sir Benjamin Faukes. He was a great
man ... a very great man. He had a most distinguished
career in the navy. I returned to live with him when my
husband died, when Jonathan was still very young. He ... he
was a kind and very loving man.' Mrs Alleyn paused. 'I think
he'd hoped I would marry again one day, and be happy, but it
was not to be.' Rachel studied the painting, which showed a
corpulent but dignified man, jovial eyes couched deep above
crimson cheeks.
'He cuts a most handsome figure,' she murmured. 'I was
also blessed with a kind and gentle father. He was a gentleman
. . . master of a small estate to the north of the city. I
grew up there, and my little brother too. For a time.'
'You have lost him?' Mrs Alleyn leant forwards slightly,
her eyes keen.
'When he was but a child, still. Such a dear boy. It
was . . . very difficult for my mother and father.'
'And for you, I dare say?'
'Yes. And for me,' said Rachel, quietly. Mrs Alleyn
nodded in sympathy.
'The world can seem cruel to inflict such losses, can it
not?'
'I am sure God has a plan for us all, Mrs Alleyn.'
'Are you, indeed? Well spoken, Mrs Weekes,' Mrs Alleyn
murmured, in a tone that was hard to decipher.
Silence fell again; outside, the wind played a mournful
note. 'You must be wondering why I asked you to call again,'
Mrs Alleyn said at last. 'So soon after our first meeting, 1
mean,' she added, hurriedly. Rachel smiled at the unintentional
slight.
'I'm sure I was simply pleased to be invited,' she demurred,
and Mrs Alleyn gave her a knowing glance, tinged
with apology.
'Forgive me. In truth . . .' She hesitated, turning her
porcelain cup in its saucer. 'In truth, I wish to introduce you
to my son.'
'I see,' said Rachel, uneasily. She sensed that Mrs Alleyn
was trying to find a way to broach the subject of her son's
condition. 'My husband has told me that your son suffers
from ... an illness, brought on by the war,' she said, to ease
the way. The older lady drew in a long breath.
'Mrs Weekes, I must be honest with you. My son is
considered by many people to be . . . unfit for polite society.
The headaches, and the nightmares he endures . . . they can
cause him black moods. He has . . . some strange obsessions,
since he returned from the fighting. He speaks the contents of
his mind too freely. And the things he says can be ... he is
not always . . .' She broke off, and her eyes gleamed.
'Mrs Alleyn,' Rachel said softly. 'Forgive me, but I am left
to wonder why you wish to introduce me, in particular, to
your son?'
'Well might you wonder.' Mrs Alleyn sighed, and turned
to gaze out at the sky for a moment. 'He has few friends left.
He has no visitors. I know he is . . . partly to blame for that.
But oughtn't a true friend . . . make allowances?' She shook
her head. 'But one by one they have all stopped calling, and
writing. I can see that you have married beneath yourself.
Forgive my candour, and I mean no slight to your husband. I have known Richard 
Weekes for a good many years, and I
know he will try his best for you. But you have finer manners
than his, and a more godly heart. It is plain.'
Rachel blushed. What she knew to be true she was not
yet prepared to hear from another's lips. She said nothing,
feeling heat bloom over her skin.
'Well,' she said stiffly, and could not think what to add.
'Well,' she said again.
'I have offended you. I am sorry for it. Perhaps I, too, am
becoming unfit for polite society. I have no stomach left
for the cant and hypocrisy of English manners.' Mrs Alleyn
pressed her lips together and waited, and Rachel felt as
though she was being tested. She found that she wanted to
please this strange and beautiful woman, and not only because
Richard esteemed her so highly.
'You merely surprised me, Mrs Alleyn,' she said.
'Good. There is strength in you, Mrs Weekes. I cannot
quite put my finger on it, but ... it is the kind of strength
my son needs.' Or that I will need, in meeting him? Rachel
wondered.
'Will he be joining us today?'
'Yes. That is ... I had hoped--' She broke off, as at that
moment a soft knock announced a servant at the door. Rachel
looked up quickly, but it was not the red-haired girl. This
one had small eyes and a thin, ferrety face.
'Beg pardon, madam. The master says he won't come
down today. He is . . . indisposed,' said the girl, bobbing at
them.
'Thank you, Dorcas.' Mrs Alleyn sounded weary, and
disappointed. Silence fell w<~ --1 "
nature of thing was covered by the handy term indisposed. The
atmosphere in the room was becoming unbearable. Rachel
shifted in her chair.
'Well, another time, perhaps . . .' she murmured.
'Will you go up to him?' Mrs Alleyn said suddenly. Rachel
sat shocked for a moment, but the urgent appeal on the older
lady's face prompted her.
'If you wish it,' she said.

Jonathan Alleyn's rooms were on the second floor of the
house. The two women went up the sweeping staircase in
silence; Mrs Alleyn wore a tense, pinched expression. At his
door they paused, and the older lady smoothed her hands
down the length of her bodice. Rachel was suddenly afraid of
what might lie within -- what could cause the man's own
mother such distress.
'Please . . .' said Mrs Alleyn. 'Please try not to . . .' But
she didn't go on. She closed her mouth sadly, knocked
at the door and opened it without waiting for a response.
'Jonathan,' she said, somewhat stridendy, as she swept into
the room. Rachel followed close on her heels, like an anxious
child. 'There is somebody I'd like to--'
'Mother,' a man's voice cut her off. 'I told you I did not
wish to meet any more of your pointless quacks.' Mrs Alleyn
stopped so abruptly that Rachel almost ran into her. 'I told
you I didn't want to seeyou. Not today,' he added.
'This is Mrs Weekes. I thought you--'
'You thought of yourself, I don't doubt. As you generally
do. Leave me be. I'm warning you.' Mrs Alleyn tensed
visibly. Rachel struggled to see where the man's voice was
coming from. The shutters were closed, and no lamps were
lit. In the dull glow of the coals, she caught the outline of a
figure, slumped in a chair behind a vast and cluttered desk.
She suddenly felt an odd foreboding, a feeling of entrapment.
Her breath was caught behind her ribs like a bubble.
'Perhaps another time,' she said again, weakly, and turned
to go. Mrs Alleyn caught her arm.
'I said get out1.' Jonathan Alleyn suddenly bellowed, and
only his mother's hand gripping her arm prevented Rachel
from obeying. The man sounded deranged. Mrs Alleyn
turned, and leaned close to Rachel's ear.
'Please,' she whispered. 'Please try.' And then she was
gone, closing the door behind her.
For a moment, Rachel didn't dare to move. She didn't dare
to make a sound, in case the man realised she was still there. What is this? 
Why am I here? She cast her eyes around, and
could see a little more as her eyes grew accustomed to the
darkness, and her unease increased the more she saw. The
room was set up as a study, with a great many shelves and
cupboards, each laden with books and strange objects she
couldn't identify. Some appeared to be scientific instruments,
with glass lenses and adjustable wheels, notched cogs and
ebony boxes to hold who knew what. Others looked like
toys. Like children's toys. There were star charts pinned to
the walls, and a painted globe showing a map of the world.
On the shelf nearest her shoulder, she recoiled from the dead
eyes and snarling mouth of a fox, stuffed and mounted in
a pose of extreme aggression. On the desk were scattered
papers and pens, more strange instruments and three large
glass jars, each filled with liquid and greyish, bulbous things
that Rachel decided not to look too closely at. There was a
strange smell like rotting meat, faint but revolting. It made
sweat break out along her brow. On the wall above the fire
hung a painting of a scene from hell -- human figures being
torn limb from limb and consumed by gleeful demons, their
faces stretched in m»i----:- 1'
'Do you like the painting?' the man asked. His voice was
hoarse now, and quiet. Startled, Rachel glanced back at him.
'No,' she said, truthfully, and he gave a hollow chuckle.
'It's by a man called Bosch. A man who dreamed similar
dreams to me. Did you think you were invisible, standing
there, quiet as a mouse? My eyes see a good deal better than
yours in this light. I am used to it.'
'We would both see a good deal better if the shutters were
opened,' said Rachel, in the same brisk tone she would have
used with Eliza. She turned slightly as if to cross to the
window, but stopped when he spoke again.
'Do not touch the shutters.' His voice was cold, and hard.
He was no child in a temper. 'Who are you? Why is my
mother so keen for me to meet you?'
'I ... in truth, I am not certain,' said Rachel. Faced with
all the strangeness of the man, of his room, of her situation,
her mind abandoned decorum and produced only truth.
'Your mother suggested I might do you some good, by my
company.'
'Why? Are you a healer?'
'No.'
'Are you a . . . nun? A saint, perhaps? Or a whore?' he
asked. Rachel's tongue froze in shock, so she could not reply.
'One of those three, then. I wonder which?' His tone was
mocking. 'Nun, saint, or whore.'
'None of those,' she managed at last.
'A pity. I could have used a whore's company. She will not
have them in the house, though. My mother. A great irony,
given that all women are whores; be it for coin, status or
safety that they sell themselves. Come closer, into the light. I
can't see your face properly.'
Rachel moved woodenly, feeling as though she'd stumbled
into a strange and unsettling dream. She had never been in so
alien a situation, not even when she'd stood over her father as
all their possessions were taken out into the street. She went
around to the far side of the desk and stood in front of
Jonathan Alleyn's chair. She felt the meagre warmth of the
coals on her face, and when she looked at him she almost
recoiled. He was gaunt and deathly pale, with hollows beneath
his cheekbones. She made out lines across his brow and
at the corners of his eyes, and streaks of grey in his unkempt
hair. He was tall but too thin, his shoulders jutting out
beneath his shirt, legs long and lean. A hand, curled into a
fist and held against his mouth, was ridged with tendons, and
his eyes were unsettlingly bright. He drew breath to speak
again, but when Rachel met his gaze his voice trailed away,
even as his lips still moved. His hand dropped down, and his
mouth hung slightly open. This was it, Rachel realised. This
was why she had been sent. 'Alice?' he whispered, and in his
voice was a broken heart, an ocean of hope and pain and loss.
Rachel swallowed, and didn't dare to speak. So it is Alice that
they see, when they look at me. This man and his mother. The
girl who left him, it must surely be? Tears ran from the corners
of Jonathan's eyes, shining with the firelight. His face flooded
with such hurt, such misery that for a second Rachel wanted
to reach out and wipe his tears away. Her hands rose and
strayed towards him, and he snatched at them roughly,
pulling her down to kneel in front of him. She tried to pull
away but he held her fast, his grip unbreakable. 'Why?' he
whispered. His breath stank sharply of spirits. 'Oh, why did
you do it? Why did you leave me?'
Rachel stared into his ravaged eyes, transfixed. She could
hardly think straight; her heart was jumping in her throat.
'Mr Alleyn,' she gasped, at last. T . . .' At the sound of
her voice he blinked, and his face hardened. The look of pain
and hope in his eyes faded away, and anger replaced it. One
hand clasped her chin, and turned her face towards the fire's
orange light.
'What trick is this? You are not her. Answer me!' he
rasped.
'I am Rachel Weekes, and--'
'Who? Who?' He shook her, and she tried again to twist
out of his grip. In an instant he released her chin, and his
hand locked around her neck instead. 'Answer me, or by
God I will choke the life from you! I swear it!' He brought
his other hand to reinforce the first, and Rachel scrabbled at
them, trying to prise her fingers beneath his, to no avail.
Panic surged through her, making her clumsy.
'I am Rachel Weekes! I know no Alice! I... I was invited
by your mother!' she cried. 'Let go of me!'
'My mother? So this is some game of hers, is it? I should
have suspected as much. But how dare you, madam? How dare you come to me and 
pretend to be what you are not?'
'I did no such thing--' She tried to argue, but could not
get enough air. His hands around her neck were like iron,
and bright spots began to swirl in the corners of her eyes. He
was all she could see; his face grim and terrible, rearing over
her, teeth clenched in murderous fury. Behind him, the room
swirled in darkness. She batted at his hands, his arms and
face, as though such feeble blows might make him loosen
his grip; where her windpipe was crushed there was a deep,
stabbing pain. She felt insubstantial, weak; her every effort
futile. He will kill me, came the realisation in the back of her
mind, oddly calm, even as her heart pounded in terror and
her lungs burned for air.
'Let her go!' a woman shouted. Rachel felt other hands
tugging at Jonathan's fingers. 'Leave off, I say!' There was
a flurry of movement, a struggle, and Rachel looked up in
time to see the hearth brush strike her assailant's head with a
ringing percussion. Soot showered him and he reeled backwards,
coughing. Released from his grip, Rachel fell to the
floor, gasping for breath. She tried to see who had saved her,
but the woman had darted out of reach of Jonathan Alleyn's
rage, into the shadows. He stood, rubbing at his eyes, snarling
in fury.
'Starling, you treacherous bitch!' he shouted. Rachel
struggled to her feet, and fled. She bolted down the stairs,
past Mrs Alleyn who waited for her at the bottom.
'Mrs Weekes? Are you well?' she called out in consternation,
as Rachel raced by. Rachel didn't stop to speak,
or collect her cloak. She rushed out into the rarefied air of the
crescent, heedless of anything but the need to escape.



Starling dissected their meeting, over and over -- Jonathan
Alleyn and Rachel Weekes. She ran it by her mind's eye as
she boiled a ham, as she scraped the scales from a sole, as she
scalded the distilling jars and peeled apples for a pie. As the
bustle of dinner being prepared and sent up went on around
her; the steady exchange of hot plates for cold ones, returning
from Mrs Alleyn's table all but untouched. The lady of the
house dined alone most nights, with a place set for her son,
ever empty, by her side. Starling felt as though she'd stepped
aside from it all, like there was a wall around her, muffling
everything. She thought about what had happened, and
wondered why she felt no satisfaction. Not quite no satisfaction,
perhaps. Hadn't she wanted him to reveal himself? To
show that he was a murderer? And hadn't he obliged her, by
near strangling Dick's new wife? But she'd known there was
violence in him, that was nothing new. Was that how he did it,
then? With his hare hands around her neck?
Alice's narrow neck, fragile as a bird's; soft skin and
downy hair, catching the light. Jonathan's strong hands with
their long, elegant fingers. Once he had sat Starling on his
knee in front of the old piano at the farmhouse in Bathampton,
and though it was tunl»«« <"«-- - ¦
teach her a song to play. She'd watched his hands closely. His
nails were so clean, and perfectly shaped; the knuckles and
joints stood proud along his fingers. As he'd played she been
mesmerised by the movement of tendons beneath his skin, so
she hadn't paid any attention to the notes he was playing.
When he'd said your turn, and she hadn't known where to
start, the look of disappointment on his face had stung her
somewhat. To distract him she'd grabbed his hand in both of
hers and nipped one of the fingers, laughing when he gasped,
and then darted away to find Alice. Your little termagant bit
me, he said, when they found her in the yard, but he was
smiling as he said it.
And yet. And yet. Why did you leave me? That was what
he'd asked her. Starling paused near the top of the servants'
stair and leaned against the wall, turning her face to the small
window to look up at the night sky. The moon was bright,
the stars clear and stark. She could feel the chill coming
through the glass, drifting down to settle on her face. It had
been a cold autumn so far, and promised a cold winter. The
air smelled gritty and old. Starling shut her eyes, furious with
herself. What did you expect? For him to cry: It cannot be! I
murdered thee! Idiot. She had prepared him as well as she
could in the short time available to her. She'd taken him more
of the strengthened wine, and made as many sharp noises as
she could as she straightened his rooms. She'd tipped the
food meant for him into a sack to dispose of later, so that his
stomach had nothing in it but the spirits. The dead rat she'd
left under his desk three days earlier was really beginning to
stink, filling the air with the smell of its decay. She hoped it
made him feel as though death itself was stalking him.
Why did you leave me? It was that phrase that bothered
her. That was not what a murderer would ask of his victim,
surely? That made it sound as though he really did believe
the lies that were told about Alice having another lover,
about her absconding with him, and leaving them all behind.
Unless . . . unless that was the reason Jonathan had killed
her? His motive had long puzzled Starling. She knew more of
men now than she had known then, a good deal more, but
still she was sure that he'd loved Alice. He'd loved her for
years. He and Alice had grown up side by side, though they'd
spent more time apart than they had together. But if Jonathan
had thought, for some reason, that Alice planned to leave
him . . . that could well have been enough to make him harm
her. Not the Jonathan from before the war, but the Jonathan
from afterwards. The Jonathan who came back from Spain,
so very different from the boy who'd set off to fight all full of
ideas about honour and glory. But Alice would never have
left him. Alice loved him more than air. Starling let her head
fall back against the stone wall with a thump.
There was no way she could rest. She finished up her
work, threw her shawl around her shoulders and let herself
quietly out of the house. Her boot heels rang against the
swept stones of the pavement. Beyond the light of the guttering
streetlamps was the black swathe of steep pasture in front
of the crescent, and beyond that, to the south and east, the rest
of the city -- a shadowed labyrinth in the darkness. The
pinprick sparkle of lanterns looked like a feeble echo of the
stars above. Alice would have sighed at the beauty of it, but
knowing that only gave Starling a sour taste in her mouth,
and she turned her eyes away, refusing to be beguiled. She
walked so briskly to the Moor's Head that she was breathless
when she arrived, and damp beneath her clothes. It was
stifling as ever inside the inn, ripe with the stink of people,
of sweat and dissolution. Dick Weekes was there with some
of the old crowd, and Starling was happier to see him than she
would ever admit. She got a drink from Sadie and sauntered
over to his table.
He was laughing at some <"<'» w"' c~"
looked up and saw her. He was all russet brown and handsome;
lips curved into a subtle pout. Starling hated the feeling
that seeing him gave her - a pang of some deep longing or
other. The touch of his hands, perhaps, or his desire for her.
The way he would let her talk, on and on, propped on one
elbow above him after their love play.
'It didn't take you long to find your way back in here,' she
said loudly, above the din. 'I'm surprised the missus let you
out, tonight of all nights.'
'What's special about tonight?' said Dick, frowning.
'Oh, nothing. Only I imagined she'd be somewhat rattled,
after her visit to the Alleyns today.'
'Bring your arse to anchor, wench,' said old Peter Hawkes,
who as ever could not tear his eyes from her red hair and tight
bodice. Starling shrugged and pushed herself a space on the
bench beside Dick. The other men at the table turned away,
uninterested, and Dick only looked blank.
'You mean, you didn't know?' said Starling. 'She never
told you she was going? Or had been?' She shook her head
slowly, arching her brows. 'Such secrets, so early in a marriage.'
Dick's nostrils flared. How he hated to be teased.
'I've not seen my wife yet this evening. But I'm sure she
will tell me herself, when I do,' he said curtly.
'Perhaps. Perhaps I shouldn't have let her secret out. But
then, I'm more allied to you than to her, I suppose.' Starling
let her hand rest on his thigh, and leaned closer to speak into
his ear. 'I'll need some more strong wine. As strong as you
can make it.'
'You'll not have it. Not from me.' Dick took a long drink,
then stared down into his cup as if to close himself off from
her. 'Let it rest, Starling. Let the poor bugger rest, won't
you? What's he ever done to you, anyway? What has all
your scheming brought about? Nothing at all, that's what.'
'He's a murderer. He killed his betrothed, my sister . . .'
'Who says so, apart from you? Who in the whole country
of England says so, apart from you}' His words were hard, and
they stung her. 'Who even thinks Alice Beckwith is dead,
apart from you? She's probably living in some northern
county, happy as a lark with husband and bairns, and all the while you stew 
away like some witch at her cauldron,
plotting to avenge a murder that never took place!' He pointed
an angry finger at her. A tiny worm of doubt twisted in
Starling's gut, just for a second.
'Alice would never have left just like that ... I know the
truth of the matter,' she said.
'So you say. But it wouldn't be the first time a woman was
wrong, now would it? You think you were a sister to her,
but you weren't. You're some vagabond's brat, taken in as a
hobby. Of course she'd leave you, if she saw fit. Do you
know how ridiculous you sound, going on and on about
her? Do yourself a favour, and give it up. It's not just him
you hurt, you know. I was there myself the other day. Mrs
Alleyn . . . she sickens alongside her son. Because of you.'
'It's his own guilt that sickens him -- I've heard him confess,
so I have! I only want the truth to be known.'
'No, you don't. You don't want to hear the truth, that's
your problem. Alice Beckwith got hot for another man, and
ran off rather than face up to her benefactor. Will you spend
your whole life trying to pretend it was otherwise?'
Starling was shocked into angry silence for a moment.
'You're wrong,' she said at last, but Richard ignored her.
'I'd have known if she had another lover.' She took a long
swallow of her beer, though her stomach was clenched tight
and she found it hard to swallow. Still Richard kept his eyes
in front of him, and Starling could only look at the side of his
face. She suddenly felt frightened, and couldn't say why. A
curl of brown hair hung in front of his ear, and befor sh»
knew it she had reached out and tucked it back for him. Dick
twisted about, and knocked her hand away.
'I meant what I said, Starling,' he said coldly. 'There'll be
no more of that, between you and me.' She stared at him,
her mouth falling open. 'Take Mr Hawkes here out the back,
if you must rut. He's always wanted to dance the blanket
hornpipe with you, haven't you, Hawkes?' Peter Hawkes
leered at her, and dipped his grizzled chin in assent.
'You're a devilish good piece. I'd like to see if you've the
ginger hackles down below, as well as up top,' he said.
'My thanks for the offer, sir.' Starling rose from the bench.
'But I'd rather couple the old horse in the stable than have
you touch me.' She walked away with her head up high, so
that Dick wouldn't see the knife he'd stuck into her, wedged
between her ribs. She felt the wound of it go deep; it made
her breathless.
'Aye, wench, but only take a look and you'll find I'm
hung just like that horse that's caught your eye!' Peter
Hawkes called after her, and the men dissolved into laughter.
She chose a soldier, little more than a boy, already drunk
and half slumped in a bench with his comrades. The brass
buttons on his jacket were brightly polished, but his breeches
were stained here and there with spilt wine. He had soft
blond hair, like a baby's, and gentle brown eyes all befuddled
from drink. His voice wavered between a boyish squeak
and a man's tenor. She drank with him and his friends, and
draped herself over him, ever closer, until in the end she was
sitting in his lap. She let his tentative, uncertain hands quest
upwards from her hips to the narrow span of her waist, and
then even further. When she judged him quite far gone
enough she whispered in his ear, and helped him to stand.
As she led him towards the back door she looked over at
Dick and saw him watching her, scowling, his eyes dark and
angry. Just as she'd hoped. She shot him a spiteful smile as
she lifted the lad's arm and placed it around her shoulders.
In the yard Starling kissed the boy quickly, all over his face, turning him 
this way and that until he pulled away
suddenly, his eyes sliding out of focus. She stepped neatly to
one side as he threw up into the gutter; a watery stream of
curdled wine. As he was doubled over, coughing and spitting,
she dipped her fingers into each of his pockets and relieved
him of the last of his coins. The stink of his vomit made her
recoil, and she swayed, suddenly weak right through her
body.
'Let this be a lesson to you, sweet boy,' she told him,, not
unkindly. 'Come tomorrow you will have lost your money,
your dignity and your good health, and yet will have kept the
maidenhead you're so keen to lose. You will not awake a
successful man. Never drink more than you can hold.' He
groaned piteously, and she patted him on the shoulder, quite
sure he had no idea who she was, or where he was, or why.
'There, there. Your friends will soon come out to find you.'
With that she left him and slipped out of the yard into the
dark streets of Bath, with tears she hadn't been aware of
shedding cold on her cheeks.



For a long time after she ran from Lansdown Crescent,
Rachel couldn't keep still. Her hands shook, and her legs
trembled, and she felt the ridiculous urge to burst into tears
even though the threat of danger was long gone. She warmed
herself some spiced wine but could not drink it, and made
a cold supper that she could not eat. She wanted Richard
to come home so that she could be comforted, but darkness
gathered in the narrow street outside until she could no
longer see to watch for him. When it was late and he was
still not home, she took a candle up the narrow stairs and
fetched the twist of her mother's hair from her trinket box.
She pressed the cold, slippery lock to her lips and breathed in,
trying to find some scent of Anne Crofton still on it. There
was none, but it comforted her nonetheless, and the shuddering
inside her that threatened to become sobs eased off. Soft
hair, soft hands. Everything soft and gentle about her, even when
she scolded, the voice whispered, in memory. Rachel lay
down on the bed to wait. Her neck was sore, the muscles
stiffening from the strain of trying to break away from
Jonathan Alleyn. When she shut her eyes she saw his face,
the flood of misery and hope that had filled it, followed by
that gleam of fury, so terrible, like nothing she had seen in a
person's eyes before today.
She was drifting, her eyes still wide and stinging dry,
when the door finally banged below, and she heard Richard's
footsteps on the stairs. She sat up, her head aching, and attempted
to pat her hair into better shape. The candle had
burned down to a nub. Richard was scowling when he came
in, and his steps were heavy, clumsy; boots scuffing on the
floor, catching on the corners of the furniture.
'Richard! I'm so glad you're come home. The most . . .
unsettling thing happened to me today--'
'You went to see Mrs Alleyn again.' Richard cut her off,
standing over the bed with his face half lit, half hidden in
darkness.
'Yes . . . how did you know?'
'Not from you, that's clear enough. Not from my wife,
who ought not to keep things from me!' His voice rose, and
Rachel blinked. Sweat shone on his top lip and brow, and she
could smell the stink of the inn on him.
'I ... I was going to. But it was so late when you got
home last night, and you seemed so distracted, I didn't want
to . . . bother you with it.'
'And this morning, before I went out?' he said. Rachel
hesitated.
'I thought it of little consequence,' she said quietly. In
truth she couldn't say for sure why she'd kept the invitation
from him, only that there had remained a nagging doubt over
his reaction to the news.
'You thought it of little consequence,' Richard echoed,
sarcastically.
'I meant to tell you, of course I did. And I am trying to tell
you now. Oh, Richard -- it was terrible! Mrs Alleyn did insist
upon me meeting her son, even to the extent that I had to
go up to his rooms, for he would not come down to us.
And then . . . and then ... he flew at me! I don't know the
reason why, for certain -- only that he seemed to mistake me
for somebody else ... He flew at me and half killed me,
Richard! I was so afraid ... I think he's quite mad!'
She stopped to catch her breath, and steady herself. She
waited for him to reach out for her, and soothe her, but
instead he sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, and kept
his back turned.
'Richard? Didn't you hear me?' said Rachel, putting a
hand on his shoulder. He jumped as if he'd forgotten she was
there.
'What nonsense is this?' he muttered. 'Of course he's
not mad, only . . . troubled. Of course he didn't attack you.'
'But ... he did! I swear it!' Rachel cried. 'Look! Look
here at my neck, if you doubt me. See the marks his fingers
left!' She pulled her shawl aside and turned her neck to
the light, where deep red fingerprints still marked the skin.
'Look!' Reluctantly, Richard glanced briefly at her neck, and
his frown grew even deeper. He stayed silent. 'But. . . have
you no words of comfort for me? Doesn't it move you, that I
was attacked?' she said, bewildered.
'Of course it does. Of course ... I am sure he did not
intend to harm you. He is a gentleman. His mother is--'
'His mother left me alone in his rooms! She left me alone
for him to do as he pleased! And what kind of gentleman
would deal out violence to a ... a blameless person who
had come to call? I tell you, they are gentlefolk neither one of
them!' Rachel began to sob, as much from exhaustion and
disappointment as from her former fear.
'I will not hear you speak ill of the Alleyns. Were it not
for Mrs Alleyn's kindness, and her patronage, I would be
nowhere. I would be a lowlife, serving others for a living,
instead of a business man of good repute, rising all the
while . . .'
'I don't understand you, Richard. Are . . . are we to be
so grateful to her for your advancement that her son may
strangle me and go unreproached?'
'I say only that . . . allowances must be made. Jonathan
Alleyn is not a well man ... it is unfortunate that he . . .
reacted badly to you. But you should not have been in his
rooms!'
'Unfortunate? And if that serving girl hadn't been there
to make him stop, and he had killed me, would that be
unfortunate too? Or would that be merely regrettable?'
'What serving girl?'
'The red-headed one. The one I told you about before,
that I thought I saw---'
'Enough about this now. You're home, safe and well. No
harm has been done . . .' Richard turned to her now, and
put out a hand to take one of hers. Rachel stared at him in
astonishment. 'It was a fine thing that Mrs Alleyn asked you
to see her again. Perhaps next time it will be a card party, or
tea? Let us hope so, for she truly must be taking a shine to
you, hmm?' He squeezed her hand and smiled, but his eyes
stayed troubled, almost afraid.
'Next time? Richard ... I can't go back there. I won't!
You don't understand what it was like . . .'
'Enough, now. You've had a fright, and you're not talking
sense. Of course you will go back, if you are invited. We must
hope that you are.' His grip on her hand had grown tighter,
and almost hurt.
'Richard, I--'
'You will go back.' He said each word slowly, clearly, and
in his hand hers was a small, weak thing that could not free
itself.
Rachel said nothing. She did not understand Richard's
loyalty to the Alleyns, so profound that her own well-being
could be brushed so easily aside. She did not understand his
insistence that she go back, even if she didn't want to. She did
not understand why he offered her no gentle embrace, but
only began to unbutton his breeches as he laid her back on
the bed. She did not understand why, when she told him she
was too tired and upset to make love, he carried on and did it
anyway.
1805



Jonathan and Alice wrote to each other constantly, each letter
begun as soon as the one before had been received and
devoured, so that missives passed between them like a lungful
of air, breathed in and then out, tirelessly. Whenever the letter
carrier called with something, Alice rushed to be the first
person whose fingers touched the envelope; as if some vital
essence of Jonathan might linger on it, and pass to her
through her skin. Then she stole away to find some private
place in which to read -- in her room, or tucked into the
window seat in the back parlour, or in the barn - with perfect
concentration on her face, and a smile tugging at the corners
of her mouth, ebbing and flowing according to the contents of
the letter. Each letter was read twice, three times, even four.
Then Alice would place it carefully in a polished rosewood
box, and sit down with paper and pen to begin her reply.
More than once, Starling opened the rosewood box and
tried to read one of the letters. She knew she shouldn't, but
that didn't make the temptation any easier to resist. Her
reading was coming along, under Alice's tuition, but still she
could only make out one or two words of Jonathan's impossible
writing, with its curls and flourishes and slanting
loops. It was as though he'd designed it deliberately so that
none but Alice could read it. And of course she never saw
what Alice wrote to him in response. When she asked, Alice
would say something like: I'm telling him about how well you
are doing in your lessons, and how much of a help you are to
Bridget. And about the owls nesting in the old tree, and to ask
when he and his grandfather will next visit us. Then she'd give
a nod and a smile, as if to say there, be satisfied. Starling
chafed to know what else she wrote. The scant words she
could pick from Jonathan's script were usually dull things
like clement, mother, city and season; only occasionally did she
see more exciting things, like cherish, captive, and adore.
Starling always knew when Alice was keeping secrets - it
wasn't difficult to tell, because Alice wasn't very good at
keeping them. Not that she divulged them, unless they were
silly and minor, and hers to divulge: a cake they were to have
for tea, or some small present she'd bought for Starling,
which was meant to be saved for the day they'd chosen as her
birthday but would always be handed over sooner. When she
had a secret that was not hers, or was important, she kept it,
but the strain of doing so wrote itself all over her face. A tiny
line appeared between her brows, and a distracted look in
her eyes, as though what she could not tell ran constantly
before them. Her lower lip stayed open, away from the
upper; ever ready to speak. So she was for five days after
one letter from Jonathan came, and Starling ached to know
what she knew. Then, on a cool and breezy day, Alice
wandered into the kitchen with studied calm, carrying a
cloth-bound book of poems and her shawl. She went to
stand by the window, and Starling, who was helping Bridget
rub salt into a joint of bacon, noticed how high and tense her
shoulders were. Eventually, Alice turned to them with an air
of tremendous nonchalance.
'I think I might take Starling on a walk into Bathampton
today. The weather seems set fair,' she said.
Bridget looked out at the skirling clouds and wind-bent
trees, and pursed her lips doubtfully.
'If it's fresh air you want, you could go and see if there are
any goosegogs ready for picking yet,' she said.
'Oh, there aren't. I checked them earlUr am><--
hurriedly. 'You'd like a trip into the village, wouldn't you,
Starling?' She was slightly breathless, her voice a little high.
'Oh, yes. Can I, Bridget?'
'What about this bacon, then?'
'It's almost done . . . leave it and I'll be sure to finish it
later. Please?'
'Go on then, the pair of you. Never mind leaving me with
all the work,' said Bridget. Starling jumped down from the
stool she was standing on, and untied her apron.
'Run and get your hat, my chuck.' Alice's smile was irrepressible.
The
farmhouse sat on the wide strip of land that lay
between the river and the newly made canal that linked the
River Kennet in the east to the River Avon at Bath. The
Avon, wide and fast-flowing, passed to the north of the house;
and to the south, a path led to a hump-backed bridge across
the canal and then straight on to the high street. But that day,
Alice stepped onto the gravelled towpath beside the canal
instead.
'Let's go this way today,' she said brightly. Turning west
would have taken them the two miles into Bath; turning east
led them along the southern edge of Bathampton. The wind
bowled along the canal's flat surface, pulling and puckering
it; it made their skirts and the ribbons on their hats flutter. As
they dodged piles of dung left by the barge horses, Starling
was still fascinated to see water in the canal. For a long time
it had been a muddied trench where teams of navvies had
hacked and worked to shore up the earth, reinforcing the scar
they cut so that it would not heal again in their wake. Now
boats and barges were free to travel along it, moving cargos
with far greater ease and economy than by road. The water
had been glassy and clear for a month after the canal was
filled. Now it was as green and cloudy as watercress soup,
and it had a dank, clammy smell, like rain and rotting leaves.
A third of a mile or so along the towpath, a large inn called
the George sat beside the canal, and another bridge crossed
the water, linking Bathampton to a lane that went to Batheaston,
on the north bank of the river. Alice stopped at the
foot of this second bridge, and looked around.
'Shan't we go on into the village?' said Starling, confused.
'In a while. Or perhaps we could go into the inn, today?
And have something to eat?' Starling was always hungry and
nodded at once, but Alice was looking along the lane towards
Batheaston, her face lively with expectation. The hand that
held Starling's held it tightly. For a while nothing happened,
and Starling watched a barge approach and slide by, its cargo
hidden under sheets of canvas. The bargeman clucked his
tongue at the horse when it baulked at the shadows beneath
the bridge. He was weather-beaten and lean, and had a pipe
clamped between teeth the colour of mahogany.
'Where are you going?' Starling called to him, shy but
fascinated. He squinted his eyes at her and took his pipe into
his hand.
'I'm for Newbury, bantling,' he said.
'How long will it take you?' Starling disengaged her hand
from Alice's to trot along the towpath behind the horse.
'Four days, maybe somewhat less - don't run up the rear
of that horse or he'll kick you skywards. Depends on the
number already waiting at Foxhangers.'
'Where's that? Why should people wait?'
'You've a good many questions, chickabiddy. There's a
great big hill, this side o' Devizes. They've not yet fathomed
how to make the canal climb it. We've to unload everything
and take it up by rail wagon before we can go on along
the water once more.' By this time Starling had followed the
barge a goodly way from the bridge, so she stopped, and he
soon drew ahead.
'How should water climb a hill?' she called after him, but
the bargeman just gave her a wave, and turned his back.
She picked a few handfuls of forget-me-nots as she walked
back to Alice, who hadn't seemed to notice her absence. A
moment later, her arm shot out and grabbed at Starling for
support.
'Oh! Look!' Alice gasped, staring along the lane. 'Look,
Starling - Mr Alleyn has come!' Starling followed her
gaze, and saw, far off, a gentleman who might have been Mr
Alleyn, on a grey horse.
'Is it him? He isn't due to visit,' she said, puzzled. She took
hold of Alice's arm where it grasped at her. Through the skin
of her wrist, Starling felt the older girl's pulse racing and
stumbling along. Alarmed, she tugged to get Alice's attention.
'Be calm, Alice. Please, be calm,' she murmured. Alice
smiled down at her, and took a deep breath.
'I'm quite well, dearest.' But Starling had seen what
happened sometimes, when Alice's heart stuttered like that --
had seen her turn pale as milk, and sway on her feet; had
seen her faint dead away on three occasions, fits which left
her weak and dizzy for days afterwards, and confined her to
bed. Miss Alice's heart is a fragile thing, Bridget told Starling,
in serious tones. Do all you can to keep it easy. 'Look -- see! It is Mr 
Alleyn.' Starling looked again, and as the figure drew
nearer she could clearly recognise Jonathan Alleyn, riding
alone.
When Jonathan saw them waiting he urged his horse into a
trot, and dismounted in a graceless rush to stand so close to
Alice that if either one had moved they would have touched.
Neither spoke, and Starling watched in astonishment until
Jonathan finally seemed to recover himself, took a step backwards
and brought Alice's fingers to his lips. There was colour
high on his slanting cheekbones, and he smiled as though he
couldn't prevent it.
'Miss Beckwith, how fortunate to chance across you like
this.' Starling wondered who the performance was for, since
she knew at once that this meeting was the secret Alice had
been keeping. 'And Starling -- how tall you are growing!
Why, you're near to Miss Beckwith's shoulder now.'
'Bridget says I'll be as tall as her within a year, at this rate,'
Starling told him proudly. 'How came you here, Mr Alleyn?
Were you coming to call at the farmhouse?'
'Well ... I had some business in Batheaston, so I happened
to be passing and I thought I would call in . . . but
now I find you here, perhaps we could go into the inn for
a while?' he said, as if only then thinking of it. Starling
smiled. One did not pass Bathampton on the road from Box
to Batheaston.
'By chance, we had just decided the same thing,' she said.
'Come then,' said Jonathan. Alice was still breathless, and
Starling kept tight hold of her hand as they went towards the
door.
The George Inn occupied an ancient stone building,
huddled and hoary, with tiny leaded windows and cracked
chimney pots. It had many chambers inside, all with nagged
stone floors worn into sagging curves, and soot-stained walls
under low, oppressive ceilings. Jonathan led them to a bench
away from any windows, near a hearth that had been swept
clean for the coming summer. The other customers in the
place were gentleman farmers talking business, travellers on
their way into Bath and a few bargemen, who were rougher
and poorly dressed. Loud, bawdy laughter broke out nearby,
and Jonathan frowned.
'I wonder if this is indeed the right place for you, Miss
Beckwith,' he said, but she only laughed.
'I'm not as sensitive as you think me, Mr Alleyn. I like it
here. Starling and I have come here before now, and with
Bridget sometimes, on holidays.'
'I ate devilled kidneys here last time, but I didn't like them
at all,' Starling added.
'Well, then. We shall be quite comfortable here for a
time.' Jonathan smiled. They ordered some beer, and a plate
of lamb chops to share, and Starling sat, a little bored, as the
two of them talked.
They talked of Jonathan's family, and of his home, which
was a grand manor house at Box, further to the west. He
lived with his mother and his grandfather, since his own
father had died when he was very young. They talked of his
schooling, and his desire to buy an officer's commission into
the army, which made Alice's eyes glow with fearful admiration,
that he might put himself in harm's way. 'My mother is
not enamoured with the idea. She would rather I went into
the navy, where there are better prospects for promotion and
wealth . . .'
'But you do not wish it?' said Alice.
'I ... I am quite ashamed to say it, but the sea makes me
terribly ill. The few times I have gone aboard a boat have
made me quite sure I never wish to again, if I can help it.
Much less commit myself to a career upon it!'
'But you would follow in the very footsteps of Lord
Nelson - he also suffers, I have read. And I've heard that
such illnesses can pass, once a person becomes accustomed.'
'So they tell me. But if they are wrong, and I am doomed
to feel that wretched every time we set sail - oh, Alice, the
very thought makes me quail!' he said, with a rueful laugh.
Starling goggled at him in outrage, but neither one of them
seemed to notice that he'd used Alice's Christian name in
a public place. 'I mean to enrol at Le Marchant's college at
Marlow, and become a cavalry officer.'
'Marlow? But ... it is so far away . . .' Alice said quietly.
'I shall visit home very often, I promise. Very often.' He
spoke earnestly, and for a long moment their eyes stayed
locked together, and some unspoken message passed between
them that Starling could not read. 'I mean to ... I mean to
visit Miss Fallonbrooke, before I go,' Jonathan said softly.
Alice's eyes grew wide.
"Who's Miss Fallonbrooke?' asked Starling, but they both
ignored her. She folded her arms crossly and kicked at the
table leg, but they ignored that too.
'Oh?' said Alice, and it was more of a breath than a word.
'I wrote to her . . .'
'You wrote to her?' Alice's face fell.
'Only to ask for a meeting, Alice. Only for that. And
I made it plain that . . . that is, in my tone, I sought to
convey . . .' He broke off, frustrated. 'I mean to speak to
her ... of freeing ourselves from the intentions our parents
have imposed upon us. I have reason to believe that she finds
them as . . . onerous as I do.'
'What reasons, Mr Alleyn?' Alice looked as though she
was suffering under some tension she could hardly stand.
'I had word that. . . she, too, loves another,' said Jonathan,
gazing at Alice in supplication. For a second, Alice radiated a
simple, uncomplicated joy. But then her face clouded again.
'I shall be nineteen at my next birthday,' she murmured,
sounding inexplicably sad. 'I pray that the visit ... is a
success. I pray that what you heard is right, for only she can
release you. Only that way can you conduct yourself as a
gentleman should.' Jonathan looked distraught, so Starling
fidgeted, kicking her legs some more, and chipped in:
'How old are you, Mr Alleyn?'
'I am not quite eighteen, Miss Starling. But I will be soon,'
he said, turning to her, looking relieved at the interruption.
'I shall be nine very soon. We think.'
'Nine! No wonder you're as tall as an elm. And far too big
to be frightened of ghosts, I am sure.'
'Ghosts? What ghosts?'
'This building was a monastery, in ancient times. Before
old King Henry ordered them to disband. I have heard tell
that the ghosts of the monks who once lived here still walk
the halls and passageways.'
'In truth, Mr Alleyn?' Starling was agog.
'In truth. In fact, I believe I saw one not a minute ago,
peering over your shoulder to see if you'd left a lamb chop
for him.' Jonathan smiled, and Starling gasped, craning her
head about to check for spectral monks.
'You mustn't tease her so!' Alice admonished, laughing.
'If a ghost monk sneaks up on me, Alice, can I throw
something at him?'
'Indeed you may, dearest. Be on your guard,' said Alice,
fondly.

When they parted, an hour or so later, Alice waited by the
bridge until Mr Alleyn had ridden right out of sight. She
watched forlornly, with her arms folded; and when at last he
vanished, she sighed.
'Come then, Starling. Let's go back and see how Bridget is
getting on.'
'Aren't we going into Bathampton at all, then?' Starling
was disappointed.
'Well, we've been gone a good long while already . . .
perhaps she might wonder where we are.'
'And how surprised she'll be when we tell her Mr Alleyn
came riding and found us!' said Starling. She said it deliberately,
to find out what she should and should not say to
Bridget, who was somehow both Alice's servant and her
mistress. Part of her knew that she had only been invited
along to make it decent for Jonathan and Alice to have lunch
together. She was at once proud of this important role, and
also had the nagging feeling that something might be owing
to her for it. Alice paused.
'Perhaps she would not like to hear it. Perhaps she would
be cross that we did not bring him to the farmhouse, where she
could see him too,' she said. Starling thought for a moment.
'If we walked back along the high street instead of the
canal, we might find something to take her, so she won't feel
so left out. And so she'll know we've been busy, all this time,'
she suggested. Alice gave her a look that was half disapproving,
half grateful.
'A small present for her, to make up for us leaving her
alone today,' Alice agreed.
So they crossed the bridge and walked the length of Bathampton, and bought a 
handkerchief stitched with poppies
and wheat sheaves from a huckster, which seemed to
please Bridget well enough. And while Alice was too bright
and nervy, and flew her anxiety like a pennant for the first few hours they 
were back, Starling found she had no such
trouble with keeping a secret. She turned the memory of their
visit from Jonathan over and over, like a precious stone in
her pocket, and found that not telling Bridget was almost as
much fun as the visit itself had been.
'Who is Miss Fallonbrooke?' she asked again, as Alice
tucked her into her blankets that night.
'Beatrice Fallonbrooke is just a girl who has never done
anything to harm anybody.' Alice sighed, and looked away.
'She is the daughter of a very wealthy man, and she is intended for Jonathan.'
'But . . .you're going to marry Jonathan!' At this, Alice
smiled.
'Yes, I am, dearest. But the course of true love never did
run smooth. It is no fault of Miss Fallonbrooke's that she
presents an obstacle.' She smiled again, though her eyes were
sad. 'You must not mention her, Starling. It is a secret that
Jonathan shared with me, and now I have shared it with you.
We must keep it secret. Can you do that?'
'Yes, Alice.'
'Good girl.' Alice sealed the promise with a kiss, pressed to
her forehead, and Starling slept soundly, well fed on secrets
that were now hers to keep.
1821



My Dear Mrs Weekes,

I do hope this note finds you well and quite recovered from any
distress you might have felt upon recently meeting my son, Mr
Jonathan Alleyn. I am more grateful than you can know that you
agreed to speak with him, in what must have seemed very
peculiar circumstances. I can only apologise if his behaviour
towards you seemed in any way uncouth. He suffers a great deal,
and has been so long out ofpolite company that I fear he forgets
himself and his good manners upon occasion. I pray that you will
find it within you to forgive this, and see only the troubled soul
that plagues him.
I can quite understand that the meeting was not a pleasant one
for you, but it has given me cause to hope. My relationship with
my son has been much strained both by past events and by his
current malaise, and I regret to impart that he rarely confides in
me. It causes me great distress. Forgive the candour of this letter
-- I thought it best to speak plainly: Jonathan has asked to see
you again. It has been far too many years since he made any such
request of any visitor, and it fills my heart with joy that he makes
it now. So 1 must ask, though I have little right to: will you call
here again at your earliest convenience? Whatever passed
between you and my son upon your last visit, it must have had
some beneficial effect, and so I have much to thank you for
already. But I beg you now, please call again.

Yours &c
Mrs Josephine Alleyn
For several days, Rachel carried Josephine Alleyn's note
around in her pocket, and spoke of it to no one. She took it
out and reread it often, and thought about throwing it into
the grate and forgetting she had ever seen it. Surely if she
did, she wouldn't be invited to Lansdown Crescent again,
and that would be the end of it. She would never have to see
them again -- the man who had attempted to throttle her, and
his beautiful, unreadable mother, so highly regarded by
Richard. When she thought of the house, and of Jonathan
Alleyn, waiting in his darkened rooms like some ghoul, she
shivered. Even his mother, who was gentility itself, and so
graceful, had a lost and mournful air. She put Rachel in mind
of a porcelain doll - lovely but frozen, and liable to shatter.
But then, when Rachel thought what life must be like for
Josephine, trapped with a mad and invalid son who scared all
callers from the house, she felt a stab of pity, and of guilt.
So she kept the letter, and never quite managed to throw it
into the fire, however sure she was that she would not see
Jonathan Alleyn again, even if attacking her had indeed been
beneficial to him.
Though Richard Weekes chafed at the cost of the extra
housekeeping Rachel had arranged, he chafed even more
about widening their social circle, and about obeying Josephine
Alleyn, and so was persuaded to fund them an evening
at a public ball in the Upper Assembly Rooms. Rachel wore
her new gown, recently back from the seamstress -- plainly
cut, wide across her shoulders and low at the neck, but of a
wonderfully soft, heavyweight satin, silvery in colour, with
long sleeves and a sheer muslin overlay. In spite of it, and the
coat she wore over it, she felt the cold as they walked out of
Abbeygate Street in search of a pair of chairs to carry them since
even Richard Weekes's sense of thrift would not allow
for arriving at a dance on foot. It was early October, and in the
mornings the cold glass of the bedroom window was misted
over with their night-time breathing. The air had a bite, even
on sunny days; the leaves of the plane tree in Abbey Green
had turned leathery brown and yellow, and made a clattering
sound when the wind shook them. Rachel wrapped her arm
tightly around Richard's, and felt the breeze teasing her hair loose from its 
pins.
They arrived at around seven o'clock to a melee of
carriages and sedan chairs; horses and people alike throwing
their heads and stamping their feet. The scene was lit by oil
lamps high up on the portico above the entrance, and by the
glow from the tall windows, and Rachel felt a flicker of
excitement. The place and the racket of footsteps and hooves
and voices had not changed at all since her last assembly,
when she'd been sixteen years old; only the fashions and
everything about her own life were different. She glanced at
Richard, in his best coat and cravat, who looked as tense as a
schoolboy called up before the master. He was worried that
they would have no acquaintances within, and would drift
about all evening making no impression -- which was entirely
probable, Rachel knew, since the assemblies were always
so crowded that even if you knew twenty people in the
room, you might not manage to find any of them. But that
evening she felt no urge to reassure Richard, so she merely
gave him a thin, incomplete smile, and said nothing as they
went inside.
A wave of heat poured out through the doors, and after
the cold of the evening it felt smothering. From the cloakroom
they moved through to the main ballroom, where the
cacophony was almost too loud for conversation, and the
press of bodies made it hard to move. Above it all, on a
central balcony, the orchestra was playing a lively tune, and
the floor had already filled with dancing pairs, who added
the pounding of feet and the rustle of cloth to the swelling
din. The room was a sea of faces, either flushed and happy
or scowling and harried; the smell of sweat, perfume and
powder was everywhere. Five vast glass chandeliers hung
from the distant ceiling, glittering with hundreds of candle
flames, banishing shadows from the elaborate plasterwork
and columns of the walls. Rachel knew better than to stand
directly below one of the lights. Once before, when she'd
attended as a girl, the heat from the revellers had caused the
candles to soften and droop, dripping hot wax into carefully
coiffed hair and propped decolletages. Rachel felt a flush
creep into her cheeks, and her underarms prickled with perspiration.
Her dress was unfashionably plain, but at least the
vogue for wearing few ornaments suited her situation.
The air of merriment was infectious. Rachel relaxed and
began to glance around at their fellow guests. She could feel
Richard's expectation.
"Well? Do you see any acquaintances here, Mrs Weekes? I
understood you had some, in Bath?' he asked, impatiently.
'Had, at one time, indeed. But I see none yet. Shall we
take a turn on the floor for the next dance, Mr Weekes?' she
said, raising her voice to be heard. Richard looked hot and
unhappy, and answered her question with a shake of his head.
'I shall need something to drink first of all.'
'Very well. Can you see no acquaintances of your own, Mr
Weekes? Some of your clients, perhaps?'
'I'm looking, I'm looking,' he muttered, and they resumed
their slow procession around the room. Then, against all
expectation, Rachel did see some faces she knew. An elderly
couple, a Mr and Mrs Brommel, who had been her neighbours
the year her family had taken the apartment in Camden
Crescent. Mr Brommel wore a heavily powdered wig, and
Mrs Brommel a gown of burgundy velvet cut after the fashion
of twenty years past. She had been quite deaf when Rachel
knew her before, and her condition had not improved with
the passage of thirteen years. It took a great deal of prompting
for her to know who Rachel was, and when she finally
exclaimed:
'Rachel Crofton, yes of course, I remember your family
now,' still Rachel suspected that she did not. Rachel thought
Richard would be pleased, as the introductions were made,
but he didn't seem so. Perhaps the Brommels were too old,
their garb too dated, their conversation too slow.
They moved on, into the Octagon room, where men
and women played cards and gambled in a cluttered maze of
tables and chairs. The roar of voices was lower, and underneath
it was the soft slap and scrape of cards, the rattle of
coins and dice and occasional exclamations of delight, or
muttered displeasure. A steady stream of revellers made their
way across the Octagon from the hallway and the ballroom
to the tea room, and vice versa, and were scowled at by the
players for the distraction they caused. At the far side of the
room was the doorway to an additional card room, quieter
and more private, where the stakes were higher and the mood
more sombre. Richard and Rachel paused by the hall doors to enjoy a breath of 
cooler air, and then Richard stood up
straighter, and smiled.
'There! Captain Sutton!' he cried, and was off at once
towards a wiry-haired man in military dress. 'Captain Sutton,
what a great pleasure to find you here,' he said, smiling as he
gave a short bow. 'And Mrs Sutton, you are looking extremely
well.' This was spoken to a tiny woman with mousy
hair and lively blue eyes. She and her husband both appeared
to be past forty, with touches of grey in their hair; they had
an air of open happiness and vitality that immediately put
Rachel at her ease.
'Mr Weekes! Well met, sir; and who is this charming
young lady?'
'Captain Sutton, may 1 present my wife, Mrs Rachel
Weekes? Mrs Weekes, this is Captain Sutton, a valued client
and acquaintance of mine, and his wife Mrs Harriet Sutton.'
'How do you do?' Rachel said, as she curtsied.
'How do you do. And may I offer you my congratulations
on your recent marriage,' said Harriet Sutton; a soft and
gentle voice, perfectly matched with her appearance. Captain
Sutton towered over his wife, though he was not of excessive
height. Mrs Sutton stood only as high as his shoulder, and her
narrow frame and tiny hands were childlike. The captain was
not a handsome man -- his nose was too large and too bent,
and his ears stood proud of his skull -- but like his wife's, his
voice and expression were so genial it was impossible not to
warm to him.
With the introductions made and a polite conversation
about health, family and recent events exchanged, the men
drifted away towards a game of pontoon while the ladies
found seats against the wall. Mrs Sutton had a painted fan
which she used constantly, and angled so that Rachel might
also feel the benefit.
'Do you often come to the assemblies, Mrs Weekes?' she
asked.
'This is the first time as a married woman, and the first
time in thirteen years, truth be told,' said Rachel. 'I came as a
girl, with my family. But then we left Bath and I had not been
back since, until I wed Mr Weekes.'
'Ah! So you are no stranger to our lovely city.' Mrs Sutton
smiled. 'I have heard people say that Bath is out of fashion
now -- the haunt of invalids, widows and spinsters! Let such
nay-sayers stay away, I say. It has been our home these past
twenty years, and I would live nowhere else. My daughter
has known no other home.'
'And how old is your daughter?'
'She is nine years old now. Her name is Cassandra, and
she is a source of constant delight to her father and me.' Mrs
Sutton laughed at her own effusiveness, and Rachel hid her
surprise that the girl was not older, since Mrs Sutton herself
was no longer young.
'That is a very beautiful name.'
'She is a very beautiful girl. Thankfully, she has inherited
only a measure of my stature, and nothing whatsoever of my
husband's beauty.' She smiled. 'You have the joy of motherhood
all before you yet, Mrs Weekes, and I envy you.'
'Well, yes.' Rachel fumbled for something to say. 'I do
look forward to the condition, of course.' She shouldn't say
that she couldn't envisage raising a child in the small, dark
lodgings in Abbeygate Street, where he or she would always
have no choice but to share the one bedchamber with them;
yet something about Mrs Sutton encouraged confidence. 'Mr
Weekes's business increases all the time. Before long we
hope to move to more spacious lodgings, so our family will
have more room to grow.'
'Ah, it can be hard, in the early days of a marriage. When
I first wed Captain Sutton, we had just one room to live in,
at a boarding house near his regiment. We slept on a bed of
our own clothes, since the mattress was so thin! My family
were none too pleased with my choice, I can confess. I did
not marry for fortune! Thankfully, things have improved
since then. We have an apartment on Guinea Lane now. And
you must come to call! Do you know where that is?'
'I think I do - near the Paragon Buildings?'
'Just so. So, have you remade any old acquaintances in
Bath since your return?'
'No, I... I was just a girl when I was here, and not a great
deal out in society. I met Mr and Mrs Brommel just now,'
she said, but Mrs Sutton didn't know them. 'I have made just
one other acquaintance of late. A client and patroness of my
husband, a Mrs Alleyn, who has a very fine house on Lansdown
Crescent.'
Mrs Sutton put one hand to her mouth in surprise.
'Oh! But I know Mrs Alleyn, of course,' she said. 'My
husband fought alongside Jonathan Alleyn against Napoleon's
French.' As she spoke, a new gravity came into her tone, and
Rachel understood that she knew of Jonathan Alleyn's decline.
'His mother was once one of the most celebrated beauties in
Bath. I understand she is beautiful still, though I have not seen
her in a good few years.'
'Does she never come out into society?'
'I daresay she does, but only rarely. And never to a public
ball any more. I think she prefers quieter gatherings, of close
friends.'
'I have met her on two occasions now.'
'So . . . you understand that she is greatly troubled,' Mrs
Sutton said carefully.
'This last time, I also met her son, Mr Jonathan Alleyn,'
said Rachel. At this Mrs Sutton's eyes opened wide, and she
grasped Rachel's hand.
'In truth? You saw him? How was he?'
'He was . . . clearly most unwell,' she said. To her surprise,
Mrs Sutton's eyes glittered with tears, and she blotted
them with her gloved fingertips before giving herself a little
shake.
'Forgive me. I cry at the slightest thing -- ask anybody. It's
only that... a more tragic tale would be hard to imagine.'
'Do you understand what ails him, then?' asked Rachel,
curious in spite of herself.
'Indeed. Thanks to my husband's close association with
him during the war . . . Perhaps I ought not to say. It is not
really my place to, and perhaps Mrs Alleyn would not thank
me, if you are to be further acquainted with her.'
'It is my feeling that his current condition cannot solely
be ascribed to the treatment he received from Alice,' said
Rachel, tentatively. In the back of her mind, her shadow
companion stood up, and called for her attention.
'But, then you know some of it already? You know about
Alice Beckwith?'
'I know a little. Only what my husband has told me, and
then Mr Alleyn . . . mentioned it. He loved Miss Beckwith a
great deal, I think.'
'Truly. As much as any man ever loved a woman. There
was some impediment to their being wed, I know not what
it was. Yet they were betrothed, and determined to marry.
Jonathan went into the army, and went with my husband to
fight the French in Portugal and Spain, in the year 1808.
Early in 1809 they returned to England, and were billeted in
Brighton when he got word from Miss Beckwith that she was
breaking off their engagement. Captain Sutton has told
me ... he has told me just how grievously Mr Alleyn took
this news. He took leave of his regiment and rushed home
immediately, only to find that she had already taken off with
a new suitor, and presumably wed him forthwith. Mr Alleyn
never saw her again, and had no word from her since that last
letter she sent him in Brighton.'
'But. . . where did she go? What became of her?'
'Nobody knows. She and her new companion made good
their escape. Alice Beckwith was the legal ward of Mr Alleyn's
grandfather, you understand - of Mrs Alleyn's father. So her
disgrace was a disgrace to them all.'
'And so it is this alone that has driven Mr Alleyn to . . .
that has left his health so ruined?'
'In part. It is at the root of it, to be sure. He waited for
word from Miss Beckwith for as long as he could, but to no
avail. Then he returned to the war, and did not set foot on
English soil until after the siege of the fortress of Badajoz, in
1812. He was injured in the battle, and fought no more after
that. And upon his return he ... he was most altered. Those
of us who knew him before could hardly believe how altered
he was.' Mrs Sutton shook her head sadly. 'I'm talking too
much, I know I am. But you must know, if you are to call on
them, how greatly that family has suffered. And that Jonathan
Alleyn was one of the gentlest souls I have ever encountered.
Before the war.'
'Gentle? Truly?' Rachel thought back to the violent fury
in his eyes, and her hand went unbidden to her throat, where
the marks of his fingers had only just faded. She swallowed,
and could not make the two versions of the man meet up.
'Oh, yes. He was a sweet, kind boy. Young man, I should
say. Thoughtful, and prone to introspection, perhaps, but
bright and loving and full of joy. To remember him as I last
saw him . . . oh, it breaks my heart!'
"When was that?'
'It must be four years past, now. We took my daughter
along to see him. I thought... I thought a child might help to remind him that 
there is still good in the world. But he
ordered us to leave, and bade us not return.' She sighed. 'To
my shame, we have heeded his wish. Cassandra was so upset,
so frightened by the way he spoke to us. I forgive him, of
course, but I will not put her in that position again. I had
hoped ... I had hoped he would realise - there is still time
for him to make a new life, to start again. To find a wife and
have a family. It isn't too late. Though he seems older than
his years, he is young enough to begin anew.'
'He doesn't seem to want to try,' Rachel murmured. Mrs
Sutton might still see the sweet boy she knew in him, but
Rachel had seen only a man, dark and mad and violent.
'No. I fear you're right. I hope it wasn't ill-mannered of me,
to speak so much about them? But I sense that you are a gentle soul too, and 
will understand that I only hope to mitigate for
him any . . . extreme impressions you might have formed.'
'It is a sad story indeed.' And I look just like her. I look
enough like this faithless Alice to make them both mistake me.
But I know of another. I know of another who also wore this face. She swallowed 
against a sudden hollow feeling beneath her
ribs, a strange bubble of expectation. Could it be?
'Can you tell me, where did Miss Beckwith come from?
Who were her parents?' she asked.
'I cannot tell you.' Harriet shrugged. 'But you must come
to call, Mrs Weekes. Promise that you will,' she said impulsively.
'I
do promise -- it would be my pleasure, and I should very
much like to meet your daughter. Before my marriage, I was
governess to a family. I find that I miss the children a great
deal.'
'I should be delighted to introduce you to her. Oh, look
-- it's nearly nine. Let's go in for tea before the mad dash
begins.'
There was already a crush of people around the tables of
food and drink that had been laid out beneath the arches at one
end of the tea room. People jostled and reached and chafed
with impatience, like a flock of pigeons around spilt grain.
Rachel and the captain's wife managed to snatch some jellies
and a glass of punch each before retiring from the throng to sit
in a quieter part of the room. They talked of simple things,
and Mrs Sutton shared harmless pieces of gossip about the
people they saw, introducing Rachel to some of them. They
were in conversation with a doctor and his wife when Richard
and Captain Sutton emerged from their card game, late on
in the evening. Richard was flushed, his eyes bloodshot in a
way that Rachel was fast coming to recognise, and she took a
steadying breath. He looked angry, and downcast, and was
barely able to be civil as he was introduced to the doctor and
his wife.
'Are we come too late for tea?' said Captain Sutton.
'No, I think not - but make haste, or it will all have been
eaten,' said his wife.
'Mr Weekes -- may I bring you something?' Rachel
offered, since Richard didn't look like he had the energy left
to fight his way to the food.
'No, indeed. My thanks. Unless it be a cup of punch,' he
said, his voice low and sulky.
'Allow me,' said Captain Sutton, making his way towards
the tables.
'Is everything all right, Mr Weekes?' Rachel asked, in a
low voice at Richard's ear.
'Yes. I ... I had little luck at the table, is all.' Richard found a weak smile 
for her. His lips were pale, and stood out
against his reddened cheeks.
'Not too much was lost, I hope?' Rachel asked, carefully.
'Nothing that I can't recoup, at some later date.'
'Here now, have this to combat the heat in here!' Captain
Sutton handed Richard a glass, and he gulped at it gratefully.
'And how have you enjoyed your evening, Mrs Weekes?'
'Oh, very much, thank you, Captain Sutton. Save for one
thing, that is.'
'And what is that?'
'I have not danced once,' she said.
'Well now, that will not do at all, and if it does not offend
you to stand up with so ancient a partner, I would be glad to
escort you to the floor. By your leave, sir?' he asked Richard,
as he held out his arm to Rachel. Richard waved them on with
a sickly smile and sank into a nearby chair. They joined
another couple in a well-known quadrille, which Rachel
had learnt from Eliza's dancing master years before. Captain
Sutton was a lively partner, more graceful than his appearance
suggested, and Rachel was smiling and out of breath by the
time the music stopped. 'There now - will that suffice?' he
asked cheerfully.
On the way home, Rachel looked out of the chair's small
window at dark streets and rain-streaked walls sliding past,
and thought. Hearing the story of Jonathan's fall into madness
made her much more sympathetic, both to his plight and
the pain it must cause Mrs Alleyn; but if he had banished a
good, close friend like the captain, why on earth would he
wish to see her again? It could only be because she resembled
his lost betrothed, Alice Beckwith, but apparently his urge
was to hurt her for it, not to love her for it. But Rachel was
curious, in a way she hadn't been before. Curious to know
what he would say to her if they met again; curious to know
more about the girl she so resembled. My mirror image. My
echo. Harriet Sutton's words gave her courage, and the
evening had been the most uplifting since her wedding day.
She knew, by the time she'd helped Richard out of his sedan
and up to bed, that she would go again to the Alleyns to find
out.


On Friday the coalman came with his filthy wagon and sacks,
his wheezy, broken-winded horse and his wizened face netted
with sooty wrinkles. The coal cellar was underneath the
pavement in front of the house, accessed by a door from the
courtyard below street level. That door had a weak latch, and
Starling took up her usual position, bracing it shut with her
back as the coal was poured in through a small hatch in the
pavement. With each sack that was upended came a thudding
at her back, a pattering noise and a cloud of black dust that
curled out around the door to gather in her hair and clothing.
She felt sharp little grains in her eyelashes when she blinked.
She braced her feet against the flagstones, feeling them slide
where the stones were damp and slimy. I am a doorstop, she
thought ruefully. Alice brought me up a sister, Bridget trained
me as a housekeeper, and now I am become a doorstop. In the
silence after the last load came down the horse coughed, and
the coalman halloed down to her. Starling stayed a while in
the gloomy courtyard, quiet with her thoughts. She heard
Lord Faukes's voice, unwelcome as it was: But you were a
starveling guttersnipe, so be content. Ever with a smile in his
voice to belie the barbs in his words.
Starling washed her face and hands under the pump,
wincing at the water's bite, then stood with a stiff-bristled
brush and swept the soot from her clothes and hair. Through
the kitchen window she heard Sol Bradbury singing 'Proper
Fanny' as she crimped the crust on an eel pie, and through
the corridor window Mrs Hatton was berating Dorcas for
something. Intrigued, Starling stepped closer to the window
to listen.
'Oh, madam, please don't make me!' Dorcas quailed, in
that shrill, wobbling voice of hers.
'Dorcas, this cannot go on! I understand that Mr Alleyn is
not an easy man to serve, but serve him you do, and those
rooms must be cleaned at some point. The stink in there is
starting to crawl out underneath the door, for heaven's sake.
There must be some forgotten dinner plate or something in
there, going foul. At least go up and find what it is, and clear
it out. Throw the windows open for as long as you can . . .'
'But he has devilish things in there, Mrs Hatton -- wrong things!'
'There's nothing in there that can hurt you. You know as
well as ] do how rare it is for Mr Alleyn to come downstairs.
We may not have this chance again for some time . . .'
Starling blinked, unsure whether she'd heard correctly,
then she rushed inside to where the two women were standing.
'I'll
do it, Mrs Hatton,' she said hurriedly.
'Thank you, Starling, but really, Dorcas is the housemaid,
and she must--'
'Is he truly come downstairs?' she interrupted.
'That he is. He has a visitor.' There was interest in Mrs
Hatton's voice, however much she tried to hide it. For a
moment the three women stared at one another in wonder at
this unlikely turn of events.
'I'll see to his rooms,' said Starling, and went up the stairs
on nimble feet.
She crept over to the parlour door and listened for a moment, to check that it 
was true. Sure enough, Starling
heard three voices within -- Jonathan Alleyn, his mother, and
another female voice that she didn't recognise. She wasted no
time wondering but hurried on, climbing the stairs two steps
at a time. The visit might be short, and even if it wasn't
Jonathan might conclude his part of it at any moment. She
burst into his rooms, holding her breath, and ran to open
the shutters and the windows. The smell was quite awful.
Grudgingly, Starling hooked the remains of the rat out from
under his desk with the poker, and cast it into the fire. She
could still be cleaning his rooms when he came back up, that
would cause no outrage; she could not be caught searching
them, however. Opportunities to do so were precious rare,
since he spent so much of his time ensconced within. Even
when he'd passed out with drink, she didn't dare. He woke
with the ease of a soldier, as readily as a guard dog. Several
times she'd been sifting silently through the papers on his
desk, only to look up and find his eyes on her, watchful and
unblinking. She shivered at the memory. His silent scrutiny
was somehow worse than his rages. Starling had no idea
where he kept the letters. He had all of Alice's letters, she was
sure of it -- the ones she had written to him, as well as the
ones he had written to her; the ones she'd kept in her
rosewood box, which had vanished from her room right after
she had. Right after he killed her.
She opened the drawers of his desk in turn, running her
fingers through the contents. Papers and journals; bills,
receipts and military missives; small instruments like magnifying
glasses and tweezers, and other things she could not
guess the purpose of. One drawer was filled with tiny metal
pieces - cogs, wheels, screws and spindles. It rattled as if full
of money when Starling opened it, and she frowned, pausing
to listen for any sound of his approach. Her heart thumped in
her ears, sounding like footsteps. She continued to search
until the desk was exhausted, but there was no sign of the
rosewood box, or of a bundle of letters. Cursing, Starling
went to the shelves next, which were laden with books and
more strange instruments, and the glass specimen jars that so
terrified Dorcas.
Jonathan had acquired them some years earlier. He'd gone to watch the 
dissections of several human cadavers at the
hospital, though his mother declared such things an abomination;
he'd been friends, for a while, with one of the doctors
she sent to see him, who had dark theories about opening
the skulls of living patients. Then the jars had started to
appear -- pale shapes preserved in alcohol solutions. A two
headed piglet, all wrinkled and white; a grey thing of wriggling,
convoluted ridges, with two halves and a stem, which
reminded Starling of the huge fungi that sometimes grew on
the floodplain at Bathampton; a tiny creature that almost
resembled a human baby, though its head was far too big and
its body too small, and its eyes were nothing but large dark
shadows either side of the translucent stub of a nose. The
liquid in the jars sloshed as Starling reached her questing
hands behind them, and her skin crawled away from them.
She did not like to think about their origins, or how they
would smell if the lids were opened up.
Then, from beneath her feet came the unmistakable sound
of the parlour door opening, and footsteps in the hallway.
Desperately, Starling returned to the desk and scrabbled
through the jumbled papers and detritus on top of it. She
nicked her finger on a scalpel, and left a drop of her blood
on the blade. She heard the click of boot heels on the stone
stairs. Then she saw a letter, just one; unsealed, the paper
dog-eared and wrinkled. She stuffed it into her pocket and rushed into the 
bedchamber, where she was shaking up the
eiderdown as Jonathan Alleyn came back into his rooms.
Starling held her breath. He stopped as soon as he was
through the door, as if trying to work out what was different,
then turned his head towards the open shutters, the raised
windows. She waited for the barked command for her to
close them, but to her surprise Jonathan walked slowly over
to the curving bay window, and stood in front of it, looking
out at the damp, crisp autumn day.
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 IVeekes, 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.
'And what else? Did Mrs Alleyn say aught of note?'
Richard asked, still stirring the barrel. The air had ripened
with the odd, unhappy smell of wine and milk combined.
'How long must you stir that brew?' Rachel asked.
'Half an hour or more, to be sure all has been taken up. Go
on, tell me of Mrs Alleyn.'
'She was obviously delighted that her son had come
downstairs and was willing to meet and take tea with us.' A
brittle kind of delighted, which was poised at all times to
revert to nerves, to remonstration, to apology. 'We spoke
of our interests, and I told them of my love of poetry and
reading ... Mr Alleyn agreed that reading could be a greatly
soothing balm to a troubled mind. He also declared an
interest in philosophy, and expressed regret that he is unable
to read a great deal any more.'
'Oh? Why can't he?'
'It's too great a strain on his eyes, he says, and brings on
the pains in his head. He finds that he can't concentrate to
read more than a page of printed text.' She paused in her
recounting of the conversation, just as the three of them had
paused, and Rachel had seen an idea, a tremulous hope, come
upon Mrs Alleyn. Perhaps . . . she had begun to say, and
Rachel had known at once what she would suggest. Perhaps
you might come and read to my son, Mrs JVeekes? From time to
time? You have a pleasing voice, and a clear diction . . . Rachel
had swallowed, but with them both watching her, the mother
alight with hope and the son bewildering, unreadable, her
instinctive refusal had died on her lips. For a moment she'd
wondered at this, at being welcomed so readily into the circle
of so great a family. She, the wife of a wine trader. But then,
with a blink, Mrs Alleyn had added: You will be compensated
for your time, of course, Mrs Weekes. An employee then --
governess to a grown man; companion to an invalid. Rachel
had felt slighted, even somewhat hurt, to be reminded so
bluntly that she was not their equal, and was not expected to
give her time freely, out of friendship. 'I have been asked to
return and read to him. As a . . . regular habit. Mrs Alleyn
has offered to remunerate me for my time. I thought ... I
thought that perhaps it would be more seemly to refuse.'
'To refuse her request?'
'To refuse the payment, Mr Weekes. One does not rise in
society by being in the employ of those higher than oneself,
after all,' she said. 'Better to be unpaid, and therefore charitable.
Better to be there as a . . . friend and acquaintance,
rather than as an employee.'
For a while there was quiet but for the clonking and
sloshing of the barrel.
'I can see the sense of what you say, Rachel,' Richard said
at last. 'But . . . that you alone should be invited there, and
not the both of us together, on more than one occasion, tells
me that this is how we are viewed already. That this is what
Mrs Alleyn had in mind for you all along -- that you could
be employed in service to her son. For if it was merely to
be sociable, why was I not invited back with you?' Rachel
made no reply. She hadn't guessed that Richard would see
their position so clearly. He was ever ready to climb, it had
seemed, rather than to admit that the Alleyns were too high
to reach. 'And, in truth ... an extra income would be most
welcome,' he added.
'Indeed? But I thought your business was . . .'
'My business increases, but so do our . . . outgoing costs.'
'Which costs, Mr Weekes?' Rachel asked, carefully. Richard
had the good grace to look away, and frown uncomfortably.
'The extra housekeeping we have taken on. The extra . . .
food, your new clothes, and . . . sundries,' he muttered, not
meeting her eye. The money you lose to drink and the gaming
tables, Rachel thought, and an angry blush coloured her face,
that she alone should be blamed for their want of funds.
'Well then, I suppose I shall have to accept. I have no wish
to become a financial burden to you, husband.' She stood,
smoothing the back of her skirt and turning to go upstairs.
'Rachel,' Richard called. She turned, expecting an apology,
or some words of thanks. 'Be sure to let me know, when
you discover it, how much she intends to pay you.'

Rachel filled the kettle from the pump then went up to the
kitchen and set it on the stove with quick, angry hands. It
was perfectly reasonable that the wife of a working man
should be paid to provide some service to a wealthy family,
and yet, in truth, she had thought to leave employment
behind her and devote herself to being a wife, nothing more
and nothing less. It was not truly Richard she was angry
with, more herself - that she had been foolish enough to
think herself invited as an equal, albeit the lesser of equals.
And she was afraid. The thought of being alone with
Jonathan Alleyn, of perhaps being in his rooms again, made
her pulse speed up and her thoughts scatter. The memory of
his hands around her neck, and the unbreakable strength of
them, was too fresh. She was not sure she could do it, in spite
of his calmer demeanour this time. And when they looked at
her, both of them, they saw her echo; they saw in her the
memory of another. Is it reading they want, or is it Alice's face? Under 
Jonathan's gaze she'd felt unsure of what to do with
her expression, or her voice. It felt as though anything she
said would sound like a lie; like she had something she ought
to hide, when she did not. Nothing felt natural any more, not
even breathing. The air simply sat in a lump at the top of her
chest, and made her feel dumb. He loved Alice Beckwith, who
had this face. He can tell me of her. It was that, more than
anything, which urged her to return to him.
Rachel brewed a pot of tea, then went to the window and
looked out over the city. To the north, on the hill, she could
see Lansdown Crescent. She could see the curved bay front
of the Alleyns' house. She could see, just, the exact windows
of Jonathan's room. In reverse, it would be impossible to
pick out the Abbeygate Street house - the jumble of buildings
was too confusing. How well this reflected their lives,
also, she thought: the Alleyns grand but set apart, easily
recognisable and yet isolated too; then she and Richard, part
of the commingled soup of humanity pooling in the river
valley, in the heart of the city. She wondered if a man could
really mourn a betrayal for so long - for twelve long years.
She wondered if losing Alice could truly be all that ailed
Jonathan Alleyn.
Unbidden, the red-haired serving girl with the name of a
bird came into her mind. Mrs Weekes, she called me. She
knows who I am, and it was her at the inn, at our wedding feast. Rachel tried 
to work out what nagged her memory about
that, and then realised it -- the girl had been as struck by
her appearance as Mrs Alleyn and her son had. She saw Alice
too, when she looked at me. She knew this Alice well. Rachel
wondered how she might talk to the servant, about this girl
who'd worn the same face as her, and had disgraced herself
for love; because the shadow in her mind had been ever more
alive since she first heard of Alice. That distant voice, that
echo, grew ever louder, and begged her attention, until
Rachel sometimes caught its movement as a flicker in the
corner of her eye. As with mirrors, she didn't dare turn to
look because she knew it would vanish, and she so longed to
have it near. To have her near. Could it be?
January nth, 1809, Corunna, Spain

My Dearest Alice,

I scarcely know how to write to you, my love. In truth, I can
scarcely write to you, the cold has injured my hands and made it
near impossible. We have reached the coast at last, we are at
Corunna, hut there are no ships. The ships were supposed to
await us here but there is nothing but the wide ocean horizon --
how unimaginably vast it seems, after so long a time spent
watching my own feet marching. The French are close behind us.
We face the prospect of having to fight them here, when we have
been starving for weeks, and frozen half to death. My heart is so
heavy, my love, only thoughts of you keep it beating. Suleiman
is dead. Bravest, most valiant and noble creature. Oh, how it
grieves me! I cannot bear to relate to you the manner of his death
-- suffice to say it is a bitter injustice, a most terrible injustice,
when he made it through the mountains with us, all the way, as
so many others fell or gave up. He was steadfast, the most
courageous creature I have ever known, and a truer friend I never
had, other than you, dear Alice.
I know I am cowardly to despair. We have reached the coast,
after all, when it seemed for some weeks that we would not. The
men are in grievous poor shape. They are thin, and exhausted,
and much beset by frostbite and illness. We have lost thousands
on the march through the mountains. I have seen . . . oh, but I
should not write of what I have seen, because I would not wish to
pain you. But I have seen things, and done things, which will
haunt me ever after. I have done things, my dearest. Things I can
never tell you. There is such a stain of shame upon my heart, I
fear you will perceive it and love me no longer. And then I would
die, Alice. I would die. A shadow of dread looms over me, and it
is the sure knowledge that I am worthy of you no longer. But I
will not speak of it, and can only hope you willjorgive me. Yours
is the sweetest and test soul I ever knew. Can you forgive me a
weaker one? A corrupted one? The Spanish call us 'Caracho'. It
means something foul. It is a curse word. It is a name we deserve.
I await the means to send you this letter. I long to see you, or to
have a few words from you.

Yours most faithfully,
Jonathan Alleyn

Post script, January ijth. The ships are coming, Alice. This
letter will travel the first leg of its journey to you with me. I will
send it on when I land; we are bound for Brighton, I believe. We
will be two weeks at sea, all being well. I will see you soon. To
write those words makes my spirits soar.

The paper of the letter was as creased and stained as a
blacksmith's hands; one small sheet, the writing cramped and
filling the margins, Jonathan's lettering as hard as ever to
read. There was a smudged thumbprint in the bottom right
hand corner, in some reddish brown substance Starling didn't
like to touch. Soon it would have to go back. That very
evening, in fact, when she took up his supper tray. If he
happened to notice it gone, or guess that she had taken it, he
could dismiss her, long association or no, and then she would
have nothing, and be nowhere. But the date of the letter
made her hands shake, and made the back of her throat ache.
We will be two weeks at sea, he had written, on the
thirteenth day of January. Alice had vanished on the eighth
of February, 1809. That was the last day Starling had been
happy, out of all the long days that came after it. The last day everything had 
been as it was supposed to be; and everything
after was humiliation and fear, and a chaos of grief and anger.
February the eighth, 1809. And the day after that, Jonathan
came to the farmhouse door, all desperate and grim, like
some part of him had died. The deranged ghost of himself,
eyes wild with something like fury, something like despair,
something like guilt. A fine alibi, to demand to see the person
you have murdered. On the eighth day of February, Alice had
gone out alone first thing in the morning. She went to meet
Jonathan, Starling knew. She knew it like she knew the sky
was above her head and the earth was beneath her feet. Alice
went to meet Jonathan, and could not forgive his blackened
soul, or these things he wrote of, that shamed him so. And so
he killed her. Starling shut her eyes, feeling such bitter rage
and disappointment welling up inside her it was almost
unbearable. By itself, this letter told her nothing new, and
could not prove his guilt. She ground her teeth together as
she jammed it back into her pocket.
Suleiman. The word whispered in her memory; she remembered
learning it for the first time -- rolling it around her
mouth until she had committed it to memory. Few other
words had such a clear provenance in her personal lexicon.
Suleiman was Jonathan's horse, and she first saw him, and
learned his name, on a late summer's day in 1807, the year
before Jonathan set sail to Portugal to fight the French. She
remembered sitting in the meadow grasses by the river with
Alice, counting bumblebees and damsel flies with bodies like
blue enamel darning needles. Then they heard the cattle stir,
disturbed from their grazing as Jonathan cantered nearer. He
grinned down at them as he reined to a halt, and the horse
blew out hard through flared nostrils. Starling scrambled to
her feet and backed away, and the horse reared up on its hind
legs, startled. Alice's face lit up in admiration; she went
fearlessly to lay a calming hand on the horse's shoulder. Its
neck was an arch of muscle and blood vessels beneath a coat
that shone like polished wood.
'liasy, boy. "l'is only Starling and she'll not hurt you,'
Alice murmured. 'Oh, Jonathan! He's magnificent. What's his
name?'
'His name is Suleiman,' Jonathan told her, and they both
laughed.
'What's so funny?' Starling demanded, cross that she had
been afraid of the horse.
'Suleiman the Magnificent,' said Alice, as if that explained
everything. Starling scowled.
Jonathan dismounted and began to relate the horse's
pedigree to Alice, and Starling stopped listening. She walked
as close to the animal as she dared. It wasn't like the farm
horse or the barge horses that went plodding by every day,
or even like the grey mare Jonathan usually rode. Suleiman
was bright bay, his coat a rich gingery brown but for his legs
and nose, which were glossy black. His mane and tail were
black too -- what was left of his tail, anyway. Like the barge
horses', it had been docked to six inches. Suleiman flicked
this inadequate stump at the flies that settled on his flanks,
and the fact that he could not reach them made him more
restless still. Starling put out tentative fingers and touched his nose, which 
felt like the finest suede leather. The horse blew
damp air onto her hand, and Starling looked right into his
eyes, and was smitten.
'Can I ride him?' she asked, interrupting Jonathan.
'Well . . . I'm not sure that would be wise, Starling. He is
very sensitive, and strong,' said Jonathan. He showed Starling
his hands -- there were blisters and shreds of pulled skin
between his fingers from battling with the reins.
'Oh, please! Please let me! Just here in the meadow. I'll
only walk him ... I promise not to fall off.' Jonathan still
argued that she might get hurt, but Alice persuaded him,
blushing when Starling hitched up her skirt and petticoat,
showing them both her long drawers as Jonathan boosted her
into the saddle.
'You are too grown up for that, now, Starling,' Alice said.
'If you ride again it must be with the side saddle.'
Jonathan kept careful hold of one rein, and Suleiman rattled
his teeth against the bit and pulled for his freedom. He seemed
perplexed by such a small jockey, and danced from side to
side, casting looks over his shoulder as if to ask after the
meaning of it. With her pulse racing, Starling knotted her
fingers through the coarse black hair of his mane, and hung
on. The scent of crushed grass rose up around them, ground
beneath Suleiman's hooves. His slightest movement made her
wobble in the saddle, and fight for balance, but for a few
heavenly moments she rode the magnificent horse, and she
loved it, and she loved Jonathan for letting her. In the end,
Suleiman lost patience with walking in small circles, and
danced into a canter. Starling gave a small yelp and slithered
off to one side, landing with a thud in the long grass. Alice
rushed over to her, but Starling was laughing, delighted.
'Will you teach me to ride, Mr Alleyn?' she said breathlessly.
'Oh, will you? Please, please?' Jonathan glanced at
Alice, who smiled.
'I see no reason why not,' he said, and Starling loved him
even more. 'But not today. Today, we picnic' He reached
into the saddlebag, and drew out a large pork pie wrapped in
a handkerchief, and a bottle of beer.
After they'd eaten, they lay side by side in the grass. The
sunlight was strong, dazzling; it cast a brilliant halo around
everything, so that their faces were too bright to make out,
and expressions had to be guessed from laughter and words,
from the silhouette of a smile. They were at a place where the
river curled in a long, lazy arc through the meadow, and a
shallow shelving beach of muddy pebbles had formed, the
water eddying gently past. Starling lay on her back and blew
dandelion clocks, watching the weightless seeds drift away
into the blue. Alice and Jonathan were taking it in turns to
read sonnets, back and forth. Their voices were hushed and
private, carrying messages only they could unravel; the
rhythm of the words lulled Starling quiet for a time. When
silence fell she rolled her head to one side and watched
Jonathan. He was staring away into the distance, lost in
thought. A trickle of sweat wound through the hairline at her
temple, and she rubbed at the tickle.
'Can I paddle, Alice? I'm boiling. Please?' she said, sitting
up and squinting at her.
'If you're careful, and don't go out into the current.' Starling
grinned as she wriggled out of her dress and boots. 'What were
you thinking about, just then?' Alice asked Jonathan. He
shrugged.
'Nothing. Everything,' he said, and then smiled. 'Sometimes
my thoughts run away with me, and I get caught in the
twists and turns of them.' He cocked his head at the river.
'How about it?'
'You can't mean . . .'
'I'm roasting as well, and you must be too.' He grinned.
'I haven't been into the river since I was thirteen! It's
not. . . suitable,' Alice protested, smiling.
'There's nobody around to see. I know how modest you
are, Alice Beckwith. A swim won't alter that.'
'Hurray!' Starling cheered, as they both got to their feet
and began to shed their shoes and stockings. Alice lowered her face as she 
unlaced her dress, looking up at Jonathan
through her eyelashes. The air between them seemed to
thrum. As the girls waded into the water their white petticoats
billowed up around them, swelling with air. 'We look
like dandelion seeds,' said Starling.
The river's cold stole their breath. Alice took the longest
time to submerge herself. She stayed in the shallows, smiling
uncertainly and exclaiming at the feel of mud between her
toes. Shadows marked the ribs at the top of her chest, and the
thin ridges of her collarbones. Wisps of pale hair hung around
her neck, and water droplets sat like jewels on her skin.
Starling took all this in, admiringly, and when she looked at
Jonathan he was staring too, with an expression of complete
surrender.
'I bet I can swim to the other side and back,' he said,
paddling his arms beneath the surface.
'No! You mustn't!' Alice's voice was wrought with alarm
at once. 'You mustn't try! The current is very strong, even
in the summer. Jonathan, don't!' she cried, when he cast a
speculative look across the water. She sounded close to panic.
'All right, I won't,' he said, calmly enough. He waded
closer to the bank, then pulled up a handful of green weeds
and came after Starling with them, grinning like a fiend; she
squealed and tried to flee through the dragging water. Alice
laughed, and the moment of her fear was forgotten.
Before long a small wooden boat came along, carrying two
men; a younger one pulling the oars and an older one tending
to their nets and lines and eel traps.
'Do you know them?' Jonathan asked, as the boat approached.
Alice looked anxious for a second, then relaxed
and shook her head.
'No. ] never saw them before. Did you, Starling?' Starling
shook her head.
'Then we should play the simple country hobnails, and say
that we know no better,' Jonathan declared. 'Well, Starling,
can you manage it? Can you talk like a hobnail from the
village?' He smiled at her.
'Aye, sir,' Starling replied, in her best Bathampton accent.
Alice grimaced. Soon the dip of the oars brought the boat
alongside them, and they halloed the fishermen quite cheerfully.
The younger man grinned bashfully at Alice, and
waved to them, but the older man tutted and darkened his
face.
'Have you no shame, young 'uns?' he muttered. "Taint
decent, baring yourselves for all to see.'
'We b'ain't bare naked, sir,' Starling replied. 'Why, these
'un drawers o' mine reach fairly down past the knee bone,
see.' She lay back in the water and waved her feet at the river
men, and Jonathan dissolved into laughter. He had a low,
pleasing laugh; it bounced along, like a ball dropped onto a
hard surface.
'Hoggish wench,' the older fisherman muttered, and resolutely
turned his face away as the boat passed them by.
Starling was giggling when she felt Alice's hands grasp her
around her ribs.
'These 'un drawers o' mine?' Alice echoed. 'Where on
earth did you learn to talk like that?' The question hung for
a moment in the summer air, and both were reminded of the
first lost seven years of Starling's life, before she'd found
Alice.
'You were quite brilliant, Starling,' Jonathan declared, still
laughing. 'The finest hoggish wench I ever heard.' They
stood close together, the water up to their waists and the
reflections of it dancing in their eyes and under their chins.
Starling glowed with Jonathan's praise, and had a feeling
inside as though her heart was swelling up to bursting. They
stayed that way for a moment, and when Starling looked
down she saw that Jonathan was holding Alice's hand with
fierce resolve beneath the water's surface; their fingers woven
together tighter than the reeds on the riverbank. They gave
each other a long look, and Starling noticed how fast the rise
and fall of Alice's chest had become. Embarrassed, pleasantly
scandalised, she flung herself backwards into the water again,
sending up a huge plume of water to soak them.

When Alice and Starling returned to the farmhouse later that
afternoon, hand in hand, Bridget took one lonk to.:
bedraggled hair and the wet patches on their clothes, and
widened her eyes in outrage.
'You've never been in the river, Alice!' she gasped. Alice
chuckled.
'But it was the perfect day for it, Bridget. You should
come with us, next time.'
'You'll not catch me submerging myself like that -- it's not
wise, miss, not wise at all. What if you've taken a chill? And
look at the grubshite you've made of your clothes!'
'Bridget!'
'Pardon my language, miss, but, reallyV Bridget's admonishments
followed them into the house, and continued as
she filled the washrub to rinse the river from them; but the
invectives soon lost their heat, met with the girls' indefatigable
good cheer. Starling was careful not to wash too well
because she liked the mineral smell of the river on her skin,
and in bed she cupped her hands to her face to breathe it in,
feeling a wonderful echo of that swelling feeling she'd had,
lulling her to sleep.
The short time Starling had spent astride Suleiman that day
turned out to be her first and last riding lesson. After that,
Jonathan was away with the army, training and preparing,
assembling his kit, then away to Portugal, in the summer of 1808. The times 
that he did come to the farmhouse without
his grandfather he wanted to spend with Alice, not teaching
Starling to ride. She had never paused to think about what
happened to Suleiman, not when Alice had vanished and
everything got turned upside down and destroyed. cannot
hear to relate to you the manner ofhis death. Starling swallowed,
and every time she read or thought of the words Jonathan had
written she felt a tug of deep sorrow, of angry outrage, that
the world had turned out to be so ugly, and so cruel, when
Alice had taught her to think it was fair and lovely. It was a
cold and heavy feeling.
Was this the letter that had convinced Alice to separate
herself from Jonathan? Had it caused some crisis in her? She
had been harder to read, full of fear and nerves and sudden
storms of weeping after Jonathan set sail, and worst of all in
the last three months before she vanished, following her
fateful decision to visit Lord Faukes in Box. The last three
months before Jonathan came home again, all black inside,
half mad with grief and violence; a stranger wearing a
familiar face. No wonder she loved him no more, no wonder he
killed her for it. Starling played this scenario over and over,
until it started to feel like fact. Perhaps letters like this one
had been what killed Alice's love for him to begin with -- have done things . . 
. things I can never tell you. There is such a stain ofshame upon my heart. . . 
I am worthy of you no longer -- and then when she saw him again, it was 
confirmed. Something
had happened to Alice, in those last three months.
Some spark inside her had died, and though she was clearly
full of secrets, they no longer lit her up and made her flit
about like a firefly. They were heavy on her shoulders, and
exhausted her; and when Starling asked her, late at night,
what the matter was, Alice only shut her eyes and said I can't
bear to tell you. Starling had been left to wonder what could
possibly have been so bad. Being kept in ignorance had been
torture then, and it was torture still.

That evening, Starling slid the letter back into the mess on
Jonathan Alleyn's desk as he lay on his bed with the drapes
closed, so she couldn't even see him. His rooms were darkened
again, the shutters latched. There was no sound at all,
and at the faintest rustle of paper as she returned the letter his
disembodied voice came across to her, like a ghost:
'Touch nothing on my desk. Leave me be.' Bridling,
Starling put down an uncorked bottle of wine for him with a
loud report. It was ordinary wine - she'd run out of the
strengthened stuff Dick had once mixed for her. She could
only hope that Jonathan would drink enough of it to damage
himself. There was a slice of chicken pie on the tray she'd
carried up as well; she picked up the plate, tipped the pie into
the fire. As she crossed towards the door she paused, and
turned to face the closed drapes.
'Whatever happened to Suleiman? Your horse?' she asked.
There was a long, loaded silence, and she began to think he
would not answer.
'Suleiman ... my good friend. I . . . We ate him.' Jonathan's
voice was thick with revulsion, with sorrow. Starling
swallowed convulsively; his words caused a lightning bolt of horror and rage to 
shoot down her spine.
'Murderer!' she hissed. 'You will burn for it!' She flew
from the room, tears springing in her eyes.



Captain and Mrs Sutton's lodgings were in a tall, narrow
townhouse on the north-east side of the city. As Rachel
walked across town, the frigid air seemed to press needles
into her skull, just between her eyes. The mist on the inside
of the bedroom window had become a fine layer of ice
crystals, tiny and perfect and dead. On days like this at
Hartford Hall, in the heart of winter, the chambermaid would
have been in to Rachel's room to stoke up the fire an hour
before it was time to rise. The soft sounds of her doing so
would reach Rachel, comforting and familiar, as she lay
nestled beneath the thick eiderdowns and blankets on the
bed.
Rachel was shown into the Suttons' parlour by an elderly
female servant who had tired eyes and a faded dress. It was
a small room, but well furnished. Harriet Sutton had been
sewing, but she put down her work and rose with a smile.
'Mrs Weekes, how good to see you again. Tea, please,
Maggie. Unless you'd prefer coffee, or chocolate, Mrs
Weekes?'
'In truth, some chocolate would be lovely,' said Rachel.
'I agree. Something to ward off this wretched chill wind.
Chocolate for both of us then, Maggie.'
'Very good, madam.' The old woman curtsied slowly, as if
not sure of her knees.
'Now, come and sit by the fire, Mrs Weekes -- you look
quite blue!' Mrs Sutton took Rachel's cold hands in her warm
ones, and drew her forward to sit in the fireside chair.
'I've never known it be so cold this early in the season,'
said Rachel.
'Aye. It bodes ill for a hard winter. I pity the poor what is
to come,' Harriet said gravely. Then she smiled. 'And we will
have to go to the assembly rooms more often, just for the
warmth.'
'I'm not sure I will be there much. I don't think Mr
Weekes enjoyed it a great deal last time,' said Rachel, carefully.
After the losses he'd made at their last ball, they could
scarcely afford to go again soon.
'But the Mr Weekes I know loves nothing better than a
dance, and good revelry!'
'Well.' Rachel shrugged. 'Perhaps he grows more sober
as time passes,' she said. She remembered the stiffness of
Richard's arm beneath her own; the fixed, distracted look on
his face. She had a sinking feeling inside. In all, he had grown
less and less jovial, less and less cheerful, with each day that
had passed since their wedding. 'How long have you known
my husband?' she asked.
'Oh, a good many years, now. When Captain Sutton first
went into the army, and became friends with Jonathan Alleyn,
that was when he first met Mr Weekes.'
'Oh? While Mr Weekes was at their house, perhaps? On
business?'
'Well,' said Harriet Sutton, looking slightly uncomfortable.
'Not exactly business, no. Mr Duncan Weekes, who I
am sure you must know, was coachman to Lord Faukes, Mrs
Josephine Alleyn's father. For years and years. After his wife
died, Duncan Weekes and your husband had their lodgings
above the coach house. This was not at Lansdown Crescent,
you understand, but at Lord Faukes's great house, in Box.
Your Mr Weekes grew from a boy to a man during that time.
But I am sure he must have told you as much?'
At that point the servant came in with a tray and their
cups of chocolate, and Rachel was grateful for the chance to
compose herself. Small wonder then, that Josephine Alleyn
thinks of me as her servant, since I am indeed wedded to one of
her servants. An ostler, he said his father was. She thought back
to Richard's stories, his confessions to her during their brief
courtship, when he had seemed to lay himself bare. Yet how
carefully and completely he had concealed this truth about
himself. With a jolt, she realised how little she might really
know her husband.
'In truth, no. He had not mentioned it. There is some . . .
bad blood between my husband and his father. Mr Weekes
does not speak to me of Duncan Weekes. I hope I might
reconcile them. Perhaps I will manage it, in time,' she said, in
a strained voice.
'Oh! Forgive me, my dear Mrs Weekes, if I have spoken
out of turn! I didn't mean to talk about your own family as if
I knew better.' Harriet took Rachel's hand and squeezed it,
to make good her apology. Her expression was open and
mobile, and once again it put Rachel at her ease. She felt that
here was a person with whom she could speak freely, with no
fear of misunderstanding. Trust. She inspires trust, and how
greatly I need such a person close to me.
'But in this case you do know better, that much is clear.
There's no need to apologise,' said Rachel. 'It is my
impression that Mr Weekes would rather forget his . . . start
in life, and focus on his future.'
'A wise man, then, and a philosophy we should all espouse.
Our birth should not define us so much as what we
do thereafter, surely?' said Harriet.
'But society runs contrary to that very idea, though it is a
pleasant one.' But J am not a gentlewoman any more, though I
was born one. 'In this country it seems that those who are born
lowly must remain lowly, no matter how they strive or what
they achieve; and some that are born gentlefolk remain so in
spite of their base actions and debauchery,' she said. Harriet
Sutton's expression grew troubled.
'We live in an unjust society indeed, to be so wilfully blind,'
she murmured. 'I think you are speaking of Mr Jonathan
Alleyn, when you speak of base actions.'
'The family are a great deal on my mind, in truth. I am to
return there to act as reader and companion to Mr Alleyn,'
said Rachel, and smiled slightly at the expression of disbelief
that flooded her friend's face.
'But ... I am all astonishment, my dear! I had never
thought. . .'
'Nor I, after my first encounter with the man! Here's the
secret, though - it seems that I bear a strong resemblance to
Alice Beckwith.'
There was a pause, and Harriet sipped her drink delicately.
'I
do not understand,' she confessed at last.
'Nor I, Mrs Sutton. But both Mr Alleyn and his mother
reacted strongly in . . . recognition, when they first saw me.
And their servant too, who must have known Miss Beckwith.
And so, for some reason, he can tolerate my presence. His
mother thinks it would do him good to be read to. She thinks
it would soothe him, and ... aid his recovery.'
'But. . . this is mn«t ""-- w-- '"'
of course ... at this sign of improvement in Mr Alleyn. But I
cannot think how a reminder of -- forgive me -- a person who
betrayed and wronged him so terribly would be of help.'
'Nor I, Mrs Sutton, nor I. But there it is -- I am to return
there on the morrow and read for him,' said Rachel, feeling
herself tense up at the idea. And if he flies into a rage again,
and kills me this time, at least I will be paid for my trouble, she
thought. But he knows. He knows all about Alice, the echo
whispered, keenly.
'My dear, I hope ... I do hope you can help him. Few men
find themselves in such a dark place as he. How it would
gladden all our hearts to hear that he can be woken from his
nightmare.' Harriet Sutton's tiny face was serious and sombre,
but her voice betrayed little hope, and Rachel felt the knot of
tension in her gut tighten ever more.
'Come, now, on to the main reason for my visit -- other
than to see you again, of course, Mrs Sutton. But you did
promise to introduce me to your daughter,' said Rachel.
Harriet Sutton beamed, and went to the door to call. Cassandra
Sutton was a thin, delicate little girl, tall for her age of
eight years. She had a soft, olive-toned skin and greenish eyes,
and hair as black as crow feathers.
'How do you do, Mrs Weekes?' she said shyly, and Rachel
was enchanted.
'Well now, this must be the prettiest little girl I have ever
seen,' she said warmly, and Cassandra fidgeted, pleased and
embarrassed. 'How do you do, Miss Sutton?'
"Very well, thank you, madam,' the child replied with
immaculate manners.
'Come, Cassandra. Come and sit with us a while.' Harriet
Sutton held out her hand to her daughter and the girl hopped
onto the couch beside her. Her small, even face was dominated
by a pointed nose and thin, dark eyebrows; there was
something elfin and endearing in her appearance, and not one
jot of Eliza Trevelyan's pride or sullen temper.
'I should very much like to have a daughter like you. But
my husband would rather have a big strapping son, to work
alongside him,' said Rachel.
'Perhaps you could have both?' Cassandra suggested. 'I
should very much like to have a brother.'
'Well,' said Harriet, her smile turning a little sad. 'You
might have one, one day. We will have to wait and see what
God has in store for us, won't we?' The look she gave Rachel
was full of quiet resignation, and Rachel understood that
there would be no more children for Captain and Mrs Sutton.
From the age her new friend and the captain appeared to be,
she guessed that their marriage had weathered a good few
barren years before Cassandra was born.
'I had a brother,' said Rachel, and wished at once that she
had not. She swallowed the sadness that choked her whenever
she thought of Christopher. 'His name was Christopher,'
she added, because there was a silence after she'd
spoken, and both mother and child seemed to know instinctively
not to ask where her brother was now.
'Christopher is a good name. We have a bear called Christopher,
don't we?' Harriet put her arm around her daughter
and squeezed. 'Now, why don't we go into the music room,
and you can show Mrs Weekes how well you've been learning
to play your guitar?'

After her visit, Rachel went to Duncan Weekes's lodgings,
rapping her cold knuckles on the flaked and splitting door,
and calling down at his small window. She had promised to
visit again, even though she had little news to give, and she
was deeply curious too - she wanted to ask her father-in
law about his time in service with the Alleyns, and about
Richard's upbringing with them. After a while it seemed clear
that the old man was not at home, and nobody else came to
open the outer door to her. She walked on, towards Abbey
gate Street, thinking hard, trying to guess why her husband
would have kept the nature of his long acquaintance with the
Alleyns from her. Could it be as simple as not wanting to
admit, out of pride, that he had been their servant? Or their
servant's son? But then, he had told her about his father's
lowly profession, and even boasted at how far above it he had
risen. Perhaps he would rather have Rachel think he'd built
his own success, and not been hoisted into it by a charitable
former employer. He had told her that Mrs Alleyn had been
a patron, and loyal customer . . . now it was a good deal
clearer why such a grand lady should concern herself with
the business of a young wine merchant.
Rachel walked quickly, agitated. Her breath streamed
behind her, a wake in the cold air. She intended to confront
Richard, and insist that he tell her everything about his
relationship with the Alleyns. But he was not in the cellar,
or upstairs either, so she had little choice but to wait. He got
back after dark, and reeking of wine, though she could not
tell for sure if that was due to the amount he had drunk, or
the splashes his work left on his clothing. He smiled and
kissed her cheek, but his face darkened when she asked him
about the Alleyns, and about his father's job as coachman.
'I told you as much, already,' he muttered, sitting in a
chair to pull off his boots and warm his damp feet by the fire.
The rank smell of his stockings drifted over to Rachel.
'No you didn't, Mr Weekes. You told me only that your
father had been an ostler, and Mrs Alleyn an important
patron of your business.'
'Just so. If you had asked me more, I would have disclosed
it. But you have had the whole story already, it would seem.
Some might consider it disloyal, to ask others for gossip
about your own husband.' He leaned his head back and gazed
at her, eyes heavy with fatigue, but watchful.
'I did not ask about you, I asked about the Alleyns. Since I
am soon to work for them, too. Mrs Sutton understandably
assumed that I knew of your association with the family.'
'Well, what matter if you had not had the full story? It
changes nothing.'
'Mr Weekes, I--'
'You what?' Richard cut across her, two short, hard
words. Rachel flushed.
'I don't understand why you felt you had to keep this from
me. That's all.' And why you are so loyal to the Alleyns, and yet
so touchy at any mention of them. Richard shrugged, and shut
his eyes.
'It has been a long and wearying day, my dear. Let us have
no more of this. Is there no food in this house, for its master?'
Rachel waited, in case he would say something more or she
would find the nerve to speak on. When neither one happened
she rose, frustrated, and went to prepare him a supper
plate.

The following day was stormy. A strong wind blew out of a
slate-grey sky, clearing away the smog of coal smoke and
mist, and carrying flecks of biting sleet that felt like splinters
on Rachel's face as she walked to Lansdown Crescent. She
walked as slowly as she could, to postpone her arrival at the
Alleyns' fine house, with its dead air and watchfulness, its
strange, sad occupants. She took several deep breaths, and
reminded herself of her duty to her husband; her sense of
charity towards Josephine Alleyn; her desire to learn about
Alice. She had no idea how long she was expected to read to
Jonathan Alleyn, or to sit with him, but she hoped not more
than an hour or two at most. There was no binding agreement;
she could leave at any time. She was employed there,
but she was not a servant. All these things she reminded
herself, as she climbed to the front door.
Josephine Alleyn saw her first. She was by the canary's
cage again, speaking words of soft entreaty to the bird. The
canary cocked its head at her, eyes sharp and unblinking, but
it said nothing.
'Ah, Mrs Weekes. It is good of you to come. My little bird
here is silent and sad. Nothing I can feed him or say to him
seems to cheer him,' she said wistfully. She passed the bird
another sunflower seed, but it only looked at it, and did not
take it.
'I understand that whistling to them sometimes encourages
them to sing,' said Rachel. She hovered by the door, unsure
whether to go further into the room or not.
'Oh? A pity. A lady should never whistle. Such a coarse
habit, and it creases the mouth. Perhaps Falmouth might
be persuaded to give it a try. But then, I never once heard a
jolly sound come from that man, in more than twenty years
of service. I fear his company might make my poor canary
even sadder.' Josephine looked over at Rachel with a wan
smile.
'Some other music, perhaps? Do you play, Mrs Alleyn?' Anything but the shroud 
of silence in this house.
'I used to. My father loved music, and I often played the
piano for him before I married, and then after my husband
had died, when I returned to live with him. My husband died
when Jonathan was only five. Did you know that? Poor boy,
he really never knew him. Lord Faukes was more like a
father to Jonathan than a grandfather.'
'He was lucky, then, to have such a grandfather.'
'Lucky? Yes . . .' Josephine sighed, and fell into thought,
and Rachel waited uncomfortably.
'Will I be sitting with your son in this room, Mrs Alleyn,
or in some other?' she asked at last.
'What? Oh, no. He will not come down. I will take you up
to him.' The older lady turned and walked slowly towards the
door, her face immobile, betraying nothing of her thoughts.
Rachel's heart sank. Back to his rooms then, to the darkness and
the vile smell and the feeling of being confined, just like that poor
canary.
She tried to remain calm, as they climbed the stone stairs
in silence. Josephine Alleyn walked with her all the way to
her son's door, and by the time they reached it she was
wearing an equal measure of hope and doubt on her lovely
face. Rachel tried desperately to think of Jonathan Alleyn as
he had seemed the last time she called -- apologetic, uncomfortable,
and even nervous -- rather than as she had first
met him: violent and inebriated. They almost seemed like
two distinct people. Oh, let him he sober at least. She would
not stay if he was drunk, she decided there and then. There
would be little point in reading to him if his mind was addled. Josephine 
Alleyn knocked on her son's door and then opened
it, then stepped aside and ushered Rachel in, alone. 'Perhaps
the Bible, if all else fails,' Mrs Alleyn whispered, before she
closed the door. 'Perhaps the Bible would help him back into
the light.'
The room was in near darkness again, and at once Rachel
was on edge. The stink of death and decay had gone, however,
so she was able to breathe more easily. She turned,
and saw Jonathan Alleyn sitting in an armchair in the bay
window. His long legs were thrust out in front of him, his
elbow rested on the arm of the chair, fingers pressing lightly
into the side of his face.
'Mr Alleyn--' said Rachel, nerves making her voice blare
out abruptly. Jonathan quickly raised his fingers in protest.
'Please, not so loud. Do come and sit, Mrs Weekes.' He
gestured at a wooden chair that had been placed opposite
him, near enough for her hem to brush the tips of his boots as
she sat down in it. It was cool by the window; a draught crept around the 
shutters, and Rachel shivered.
'It will be very hard for me to read with so little light," she
said, more quietly.
'To read?' he said. A strip of light lit one of his watchful
brown eyes, and sculpted itself into the contours of his face --
the hollows in his cheeks and beneath his brows. His scrutiny
again gave her that conspicuous feeling, that sense that all
her words and expressions were false. It is her he sees. As if
reading her thoughts, Jonathan Alleyn frowned. 'In truth,
you are not so very like her. Like Alice. It is only a ... an
initial resemblance. You are taller, and narrower, your eyes
are more grey than blue. Your hair is . . . your hair is just as
pale as hers; your face . . . remarkably alike. But much of the
similarity goes once speech and expression animate your
features,' he said. Rachel felt absurdly disappointed, almost
insulted. But much time has passed; the years will work changes. 'When I first 
saw you my vision was blurred . . . the headaches
do that sometimes.'
'Well, I never claimed any connection to Alice
Beckwith . . .'
'No more you did. You came in ignorance. I ... I must
apologise again for my reaction. For laying hands on you. It
was inexcusable.' He spoke in a flat voice, with no marked
emotion or expression, and only a slight frown to give his
words credence. Rachel began to form an acceptance of his
apology, but it wouldn't come. She laced her fingers in her
lap and studied them.
'Laying hands on me? You half strangled me.' The words
burst out, unbidden. Shocked at her own frankness, she saw a
look of surprise and then despair fill Jonathan's face.
'I barely remember,' he muttered. 'It has vanished into the
dark spaces.'
'Well,' said Rachel, not quite understanding him. She
rearranged her hands. 'How are you today? You're not
suffering a headache now?'
'No, madam. Though the term "ache" scarcely gives a
true idea of the sensation. It is more like a knife, twisting
slowly in my skull. Like a thunderstorm, caught between my
temples.'
'Have you consulted a doctor over it?'
'My mother has sent every doctor, quack and hedge witch
in England to me at some time or another,' he snapped. 'All
they do is bleed me, which makes me weak, then tell me to
rest. None of it does any good. Only wine . . . only wine
eases it. For a time.' He shut his eyes for a moment then leant
forwards suddenly, moving so quickly that Rachel jumped.
'It's the things 1 have seen, you understand? It's the things 1
have seen and the things I have done, clawing away at my
mind like rats!'
'Things . . . things you saw in the war with the French?'
Rachel ventured, cautiously.
'Oh, how much you know, about the war and what
happened there, and about Alice . . . How much everybody
knows and how all the voices chatter on and how well
informed everybody is about my infirmity! About my very thoughts? he snapped, 
leaning back again, disgusted.
'In truth, sir, I know very little. I was only trying to--'
'You know nothing,' he stated flatly.
Stung, Rachel sat silent for a moment. There was a slight
sound from the far end of the room, where a doorway led
through to his bedchamber. She thought at once of the red
haired servant. Starling. Was she watching them again?
Keeping guard?
'It was nothing. Only the house shifting in this wind,' said
Jonathan.
'Last time . . . last time 1 was here there was a girl,' said
Rachel. Jonathan grunted.
'Yes, that one. She gets everywhere. Sneaks around this
house like a cat, far too bold for her own good.' He shut his
eyes and pressed his fingertips into his temple again.
'A curious name. Has she no other?'
'No. She is a curious girl, given her curious name by
another girl, the sweetest that ever lived.'
'You mean ... Miss Beckwith? Did Starling belong to
her, then?' said Rachel, puzzled.
'You are not here to question me about Alice Beckwith.'
He spoke in that flat, adamant tone again, cold and hard as
steel. Rachel swallowed to ease her dry throat.
'Why am I here, sir?' she asked eventually, steadily.
'You're here because my mother will not stop trying to fix
what cannot be fixed. You're here because you bear a passing
resemblance to a woman I loved, a woman I would have
married, a woman who--' He cut himself off, took a deep
breath. 'I don't know why you're here. There is no need for
you to be. You may go.'
'I understood I was here to read to you. To assist you in
that, when it is beyond you these days?'
'To assist me?'
'Yes. What would you like me to read?'
'You didn't bring something with you? Something wholesome
and healing, something that will be good for my soul?
Psalms? A book of sermons?' The question was sour. He
wishes me gone. For a second Rachel almost stood up to leave,
but something kept her in her chair. It would feel like failure,
she realised, should she leave so soon, having achieved so
little. Give every endeavour your best effort, her father had said,
over and again, usually in reference to a page of unconjugated
Latin. But what is my endeavour here? To help this man,
or to know what ails him? To know Alice, who changed everything.
'I'll choose something from your shelf, shall I?' she said, in
as light a tone as she could muster.
Jonathan said nothing as she went over to the wooden
shelves that filled one wall of the room. She ran her eyes
along the spines of his books, many of which were dusty and
faded, and had names she could barely understand, or which
were written in foreign languages. There were other things
on the shelves as well - strange implements, mechanical toys
and little jointed wooden figures, like the ones her mother
had sometimes used for her drawing studies. There were the
three glass jars with their pale, fleshy occupants that seemed
to look back at Rachel. She recoiled from such dead, unnatural
scrutiny. For a while, she was so intrigued with her
exploration of the shelves that she forgot her purpose in
looking. She ran her fingers along a smooth wooden tube,
nine inches in length and screwed together from two sections,
widening at one end like a funnel.
'It's for listening to a person's chest. To their heart,
and their breathing, and all the strange mechanisms of the
body.' Jonathan spoke quietly, close behind her. Rachel
hadn't heard him approach, and tried not to show her unease.
'Oh,' she said.
'A Frenchman has invented it, lately; a man by the name
of Laennec. Shall I show you? The sound is quite incredible.
As though skin and bones and flesh have been peeled away,
and the heart is left naked to be examined.'
'No, I don't want that,' said Rachel, alarmed. 'Your mother
told me that you hated the French, and all things French. That
you would not even have French wine to drink.'
Jonathan's expression darkened. 'She knows nothing of
what I think, nor how I feel. It is quite astonishing, how much
she misunderstands . . .'
'I believe it pains her a great deal that--'
'Stop. You know nothing, Mrs Weekes, and you make
yourself sound foolish.' Rachel bit her lip angrily, and said
nothing. She took a step away from him, along the shelf, until
her eyes fell on a tiny toy mouse.
It was life-sized -- a little more than three inches long, with
a delicate whip of a tail. Its body was made of thin, overlapping
scales of copper, the edges crenulated to mimic the
look of fur. Its tail was a piece of leather, stiff enough to stand
out behind it, everything else was made of the same bright
copper but for its eyes, which were round jet beads, large and
lustrous. It was attached to a piece of ebony wood, as though
it had been walking across it when it had frozen, and turned to
metal. Rachel picked it up gently, and examined it. The detail
was exquisite. Individual horse hairs had been attached to give
it whiskers; it had tiny copper claws, and its ears were tiny,
perfect circles.
'You like it?' Jonathan asked, his tone softening.
'It's charming,' said Rachel.
'Look -- see what it does.' He took the copper mouse from
her, turned it around and wound a key that fitted into the
wooden base, and then held it out on his palm. As the key
wound down, the little mouse moved. Its feet pattered along
as though it was running, then it paused, and lifted its nose
as if to sniff at the air. Its tail curled higher and it sat back
on its haunches, front paws dangling under its chin. Then it
returned to all four feet and ran on. Again it performed this
cycle, as Rachel watched, delighted; then after a minute or so
the spring wound down and the mouse fell still.
Rachel looked up, smiling.
'I have seen something like this before,' she said. 'A
schoolfriend of mine had a box, and when the key was
wound, the scene on the lid came to life, and little skaters
slid about on a frozen lake. But it was just a flat scene, not a
real creature like this. It's wonderful. . . where did you come
by it?'
'I made it,' said Jonathan.
'Truly, Mr Alleyn? How came you by such skill?'
'I was trying ... I read a treatise on such mechanisms by a
Swiss man, a maker of clocks. And I have taken apart several
other such toys, to learn how they function. Most of my efforts
were failures, but then this little mouse . . . continues to run.'
His tone was strange, almost embarrassed.
'It is exquisite, Mr Alleyn. And a fine skill to have taught
oneself as a hobby, to be sure,' she said encouragingly, but
her words had the opposite effect. Jonathan frowned, and
turned the copper mouse over in his hands.
'A hobby?' He shook his head and thought for a while.
'The philosophers have it that animals have no souls. That
without a soul, the body is just a machine, like this. It
performs mechanical functions with no thought, no governing
mind. There was an automaton built by a Frenchman, the Canard Digerateur -- do 
you know of it? The digesting duck?
It can eat grain and digest it, just like a real duck. Does that
not prove that animals are mere machines?' He paused, and
Rachel shook her head, baffled. 'But if they have no souls,
why is their blood hot, like ours? Why do they show fear?
Why do they hunger? Why do they fight for life? Why will a
cow stand and fight a wolf rather than let her calf be taken?'
'I do not. . . but animals cannot have souls. It is written. . .'
'In the Bible? Yes. A great many things are written in the
Bible.'
'Surely, you do not doubt the word of God?'
'I doubt God a great deal, Mrs Weekes, as would you, had
you seen and done what I have seen and done. And if animals
have no souls, than perhaps neither has man. Perhaps we are
all but machines.'
'You cannot truly think so.'
'Can I not? What can you understand of what I think?
You have no knowledge of what man can do to his fellow
man. I tell you, if there is a soul then there is also a beast in
all men, which would take over all thought and deed if it
could, and wreak havoc'
'There is not a beast in all men, sir,' Rachel protested
quietly. Jonathan's voice had risen as he spoke, and she feared
to provoke him. His words frightened her; they sounded like
a warning.
'You're wrong,' Jonathan said abruptly. He looked down
at the copper mouse, and then thrust it into her hands. 'But
keep this trifle, if it pleases you. Let it remind you of what
I've said today.' He strode back to his chair in the window
and threw himself into it. Carefully, Rachel put the clockwork
toy back on the shelf where she'd found it.
Desperately, she scanned the books for something appropriate
to read, and was relieved when she finally spotted a
small volume of poetry by Dryden. She took it down and
returned to sit opposite Jonathan Alleyn. His head was tilted
back and his eyes were shut. As Rachel began to read she
wondered if he'd fallen asleep, but he interrupted her at once.
'You choose poetry over philosophy, over science and
reason? How like a woman.'
'I am more accomplished at reading poetry than the
more . . . esoteric tracts you have available.'
' "Yet when the soul's disease we desperate find, Poets the
old renown'd physicians are, Who for the sickly habits of the
mind, Examples as the ancient cure prepare." Is that what
you hope? That my soul's disease can be cured with poetry?'
'Not cured perhaps. Only cheered. Who wrote that verse
you spoke?'
'Sir William Davenant.'
'Then you must know some poetry, and take pleasure in
it? Or you did, at one time?' said Rachel.
'I knew another, who did,' said Jonathan. He closed his
eyes wearily, so Rachel begun to read again. She kept her
voice low, and her tone soft, and read for half an hour
without any reaction from Jonathan Alleyn, save for at one
verse. When she read:
' "I feed a flame within, which so torments me, That it
both pains my heart, and yet contents me: 'Tis such a
pleasing smart, and I so love it, That I had rather die than
once remove it" ', she saw a flicker of movement, and looked
up to find him watching her through barely opened eyes. Her
voice faltered and she lost her place in the text, and felt
herself foolish and clumsy. Then she read on, and Jonathan
closed his eyes once more, and when she got up to leave she
was sure he was sleeping.
Rachel shut the door behind her, and with the quiet click
of the latch felt herself sag. Her head felt light and was
throbbing softly, and her stomach rumbled. She hadn't eaten
anything at breakfast, such had been her nerves over this
appointment, but it was more than that that ailed her. It was
him, and his torment; the shifting dark things behind his
eyes, and the way he wore his rage for all to see. To keep the
world from seeing something else about him? He seemed to
leach the strength from her, with his gaze that was so full of
things she did not understand that it might as well be empty,
and the hard, uncompromising way he spoke. He made her
manners and her poise and her decorum seem like paper cutout
things, painted and unreal; and without them to cover
her, she felt bare. Rachel went downstairs and knocked softly
at the parlour door, but there was no reply. She tried the
other receiving rooms, but they were similarly empty. She
stood alone in the cavernous hallway for a moment, unsure of
what to do. It seemed rude to let herself out, to leave without
a word. In the end, she turned towards the back of the house,
and found the servants' stair that led down into the basement.
At the foot of the stairs was a broad, bare corridor leading
left and right, lit by candle lamps in wall sconces which
guttered at her arrival. From the right came the herby, smoky
smell of the kitchen, along with sounds of industry. Rachel's
stomach growled again, and she turned towards it. It was a
wide, vaulted chamber, dominated at one end by a massive
inglenook containing the stove and bread oven, and a roasting
fire in an open grate. She heard the pop and sizzle of hot
fat, the creak of the jack wheel turning in the chimney. A
squat woman with meaty arms was cracking eggs into a
basin, humming to herself and quite unaware of Rachel. As
Rachel drew breath to speak, the woman glanced up.
'And who might you be, dithering in my kitchen?' she
asked. Rachel stepped forwards.
'I have been visiting with Mr Alleyn, and I ... I could
not find anyone upstairs . . .' The cook wiped her hands on
her apron and curtsied inelegantly, looking flustered and
annoyed.
'Beg pardon, madam, I had not known you . . . But you
should not be downstairs, as a guest. . .'
'No -- I know. My apologies. But, perhaps ... I am not
quite a guest, you see. I am in the employ of the household,
for my visits.' Rachel took a step further into the kitchen and
glanced at the fire where a joint of pork was turning.
'Well, you should no more be below stairs for all that,
madam. Go on up, if it please you, and I'll call for Falmouth
to see you out. . .'
'I was wondering if I might have a word with Starling?
And perhaps . . .' Rachel could not quite find the courage to
ask the cook for something to eat; the woman was clearly
irritated by the intrusion into her domain. There was a basket
of pears on the table. Rachel eyed it wistfully, and was sure
that the cook noticed her gaze, but she did not offer her
one. Rolling her lips together so that her chin puckered, the
woman went to the doorway to call along the corridor.
'Starling! Someone wants a word with you!' There was
a pause, in which Starling did not appear, and the cook
muttered a curse under her breath. 'She's in a world of her
own of late, that one. Go back up, madam. Please. I'll send
her up to you,' she said.
'No, it's quite all right. No need to fetch her, I shall go
along and find her,' said Rachel, returning to the corridor.
The cook paused, and then shrugged.
'Last door at the end, on the right.'
Rachel went along and knocked at the last door she came
to; since it was open, she stepped through it. The room was
split into two, and through the inner doorway she saw the
red-haired girl, down on her knees, putting a bottle of ale
into a jute sack. The girl jumped up when she heard Rachel
come in, quickly kicked the sack underneath the bed and then
turned with naming cheeks and furious eyes. Rachel took a
step back and forgot what she had been about to say.
'This is my room,' the girl blurted out.
T know. I . . . beg your pardon.' Rachel joined her hands
awkwardly, and then remembered that she was the girl's
superior. She drew herself up, several inches taller than Starling.
T want to ask you some questions. It won't take long. I
am sure you have . . . duties to attend to.' Rachel glanced
down to where the corner of the jute sack was still visible,
poking out from beneath the bed. Starling glowered at her, but
there was fear in her eyes as well. A loose tendril of ginger
hair hung in front of her face, and moved in time with her
breathing.
'Questions about what? Madam,' said the girl, curtly.
'About Mr Alleyn -- I understand you have known him the
longest of all the servants. And about Miss Alice Beckwith.'
'Alice?' Starling faltered. Her eyes widened, and some of
the anger left her. 'You know about Alice?'
'Precious little. Only that «h» 1 w- "
and is partly to blame for his malaise. And that ... I look
like her. Or so I am led to believe.'
'She never treated him ill! She never treated anyone or
anything ill, not in her whole life!'
'You knew her well?'
'I . . . she raised me. As a sister.'
'A sister}'
'Aye, a sister! Partly. As a servant too, perhaps ... I knew
her from when I was a child.'
'And ... do I look very like her?' Rachel asked, almost
shyly. Like the girl a man loved so much that losing her has
ruined him. Starling stared at her with an expression Rachel
could not read.
'That you do, Mrs Weekes. At first. You are older than she
was when she disappeared, of course. And . . . your expressions
are different. Your voice. It is a passing resemblance,
nothing more.'
'That's just what Mr Alleyn said,' Rachel murmured. At
this, Starling blinked, and incredulity flooded her face.
'He speaks to you about her? About Alice?'
'But a little. Perhaps he will speak more in time.'
'Then . . . you are to call again?'
'Yes.' Rachel drew her shoulders back, and tried to sound
resolute.
'And ... he does not alarm you?'
'Why should he?' said Rachel, and then felt foolish, since
it was this girl who had prevented Jonathan strangling her a
little over a week ago. 'He does not alarm you, that much I
know.' She remembered the hearth brush striking Jonathan
across his head. How could a servant act that way, and yet
not be dismissed?
'I've known him a long time indeed,' said Starling, flatly.
'What was she like? Alice Beckwith?'
There was u 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.
'Well,' she said. 'What shall we do today? Since it's
holiday time you don't have to do your lessons. Not until
Bridget gets back.'
'And can we have chocolate this evening?'
'We can. Every evening!'
'Huzzah!' Starling shouted, running out across the yard
into the sunshine, and sending the chickens scattering.
Later that day Alice went for one of her solitary walks,
just for half an hour or so while Starling put a slab of pork
belly in the oven to roast, and shelled peas to go with it.
When Alice got back she was secretive - Starling was wise to
it in an instant; a misaimed pea bounced across the work top
and rolled onto the floor.
'What is it, Alice? Is Mr Alleyn coming? Have you seen
him?'
'I have not. But ... a little bird told me that we should
make ourselves look festive, and be waiting on the far side of
the miller's bridge by middle morning tomorrow.' Her eyes
were dancing with excitement, a happier countenance than
any she'd worn since Flint died. Starling hopped from one
foot to the other in agitation.
'Who says so? What little bird? Is it Jonathan? Where are
we going?' she demanded.
'I don't know, dearest. But I think it will be fun.'
'Will we visit away from Bathampton, do you think?' This
was something Starling longed to do. The world, only heard
and read about, seemed impossibly huge and thrilling to one
who had no memories before the farmhouse.
'We'll just have to wait and see, my chuck,' said Alice.
It took a long time for Starling to succumb to sleep that
night; her anticipation of the day to come kept her mind
alight and humming, and got her up at dawn. She was out
and about before the yardman, even; while the air was still
as cool and fresh as rainwater, and dew soaked the summer
grasses. The sky was a pale, pristine blue, so high up and far
away that looking up felt like falling. Swallows and house
martins arrowed across it, adding their wheeling voices to
the dawn chorus. Starling could smell the pea flowers and
lavender in the kitchen garden; the damp stone of the farmhouse;
the sweet greenery of the meadow; the familiar, reassuring
stink of the muck heap. The chickens muttered at
her as she reached beneath them for the eggs, but it was so
early that not all had laid yet. She tipped the previous day's
kitchen slops into the sow's trough and stayed awhile to
stroke her piglets, which had skin as soft and pink as her own ears. But after 
all of that the shutters were still closed over
their bedroom window, and Alice was therefore still abed, so
Starling went to pester the horse in his stable. She could not
be still.
After breakfast Starling chafed even more, as Alice washed
her hair for her and combed it dry, tucking and fussing her
red curls into their proper places. She put on her best white
cotton dress, spat on a rag and rubbed her leather shoes into
a semblance of cleanliness. Only then, when much primping
and styling and beribboning was done, did they quit the
house and set off towards the bridge. They paid the toll to
cross and went up the lane towards Batheaston, and there
waited in the shade of an ash tree because the climbing sun
had grown hot. At the sound of a single set of hooves approaching,
Alice's hand on Starling's shoulder squeezed;
Starling looked up at her, grinning, as Jonathan Alleyn
came into view, driving a small trap with a pretty spotted
pony in the traces.
'Good day, fair cousins,' he called to them, with a wide
smile. His
there was a light tan on his skin from the bright spell of
weather.
'And to you, cousin,' Alice replied, pointedly.
'Why are you calling each other--' Starling began to say,
but got an elbow in her ribs from Alice. 'Ouch! You didn't
have to! Where are we going?' she asked, as Jonathan held
out his hand to help them climb up in turn.
'We're going somewhere where nobody will recognise any
one of us, or know that we are not three cousins, out together
for the day. And . . . we're going to a fair,' said Jonathan.
Starling gasped, and goggled incredulously at Alice, who was
beaming. Bathampton had a May Day fair; it was a small
event, where the village children danced ribbons around the
pole, tea and ale were drunk and ferrets raced, and that was
enough to make it a gala day for Starling. Jonathan clicked his
tongue at the pony, and they moved off. 'Bridget left on her
visit as planned, then?' he said.
'She did, and will not be back until Tuesday next. And . . .
Lord Faukes?'
'He and my mother are in London this month and I find
myself quite recovered from the slight head cold that prevented
me accompanying them.'
Alice and Jonathan chattered and laughed as the spotted
pony walked up and down the hills, and trotted along the flat,
covering the eight miles north and east towards Corsham.
Starling paid little mind to what they said, she was too busy
staring around at the rolling hills, all bright and summer
green; at the farmhouses and hamlets they passed; at the
village of Box, with its stone cottages and pretty gardens. A
good way back from the road in Box, she saw the dormer
windows, gabled ends and tall chimney stacks of a very large,
grand house, hidden by a screen of cypress trees.
'See, there,' said Jonathan, pointing to it. 'There is my
grandfather's house, where I live.'
'But I can hardly see it. . . can't we drive up to it, just for
a second?' said Alice, eagerly. Jonathan shook his head.
'I dare not . . . I'm sorry, Alice -- I mean, cousin. The
servants would surely see us, and wonder. And they cannot
be relied upon to say nothing at a later date.'
'Oh.' Alice's disappointment lasted seconds; soon she was
merry and laughing once more. Starling looked back at the
massive roof, and had the peculiar feeling that the house was
watching her in return.

Corsham was a bigger town than Starling had ever seen
before. It had an ancient high street between undulating stone
houses, paved with buff slabs and cobbles. There were flags
and flowers hanging from every shop front and lamp-post,
and the scent of food was everywhere - hot pies, strawberries,
fresh fudge and cinnamon buns. Starling's mouth
watered as she breathed it in; her stomach rumbled audibly,
and Jonathan laughed.
'Famished already, little coz? Fear not. I have a fistful of
pennies with me, for this very purpose. You can eat whatever
you wish.'
'Anything I wish? Truly?' Starling breathed.
'Not more than one cone of fudge, and one of honeycomb,
or you'll be sick,' Alice qualified. The high street and the
square by the church were crowded with people and stalls;
everything was for sale, from gloves to garden tools and corn
dollies; jam to pig's ears and liver pills.
From the church square, a long carriage drive led up to the
towering, intricate walls of Corsham Court, a house so huge
and elaborate that Starling could only stare at it in amazement.
'Who
lives there?' she asked.
'A man called Methuen. We dine there, sometimes,' said
Jonathan. At this UtU c--u--
him in near disbelief. It suddenly seemed inappropriate that
they should be in his company.
'You have been invited to dine ... in that house?' Alice
murmured. She'd gone a little pale, and Jonathan looked
confused for a moment.
'Oh -- but have no fear, Miss Beckwith. Cousin Alice, I
mean.' He smiled reassuringly. 'The family are not at home.
There's no chance of my being recognised.' They walked on,
and neither of the girls spoke. For a while, their Jonathan
seemed a different creature entirely, and they were in awe of
him, until he looked across and smiled his slightly bashful
smile, and so went back to being the man they knew.
'What's it like inside?' Starling couldn't help but ask.
Jonathan shrugged.
'Opulent. Ugly, for the most part. In the richest possible
way. As you would expect, from what has been done to the
outside of the house. He has some very fine paintings, however.'
The silence resumed, Starling and Alice both hoping
that Jonathan wouldn't realise that neither one of them had
the first idea what to expect of the interior of such a place.
A pipe, fiddle and drum band were playing in the square,
and people had begun to dance; simple country dances that
involved a good deal of spinning, promenading and galloping.
The dancers' faces grew red and sweaty in the heat of the
day, but it didn't slow them any, and the spectators clapped
and stamped out the time, on and on. The three of them
meandered from one end of the fair to the other, seeing all
there was to see, grazing from the food sellers, admiring
the hawkers' wares. Starling ran this way and that, panting
for breath, wanting to see and do it all at once. She was
bewildered and enthralled by the myriad of strange faces, the
crush of people, the noise and throng and chaos. It made her
heart race and her head spin. She felt, for the first time in her
life, like a citizen of the wider world, and she loved it. She
only slowed for one thing -- a song of perfect loveliness. In
a quiet corner on the edge of everything, an Irish girl was
singing with an old man to accompany her on the fiddle;
they'd placed a grubby felt hat on the ground in front of
them, and a few coins had gone in. They were battered and
weather-worn, their clothes were worn out, but the fiddle had
a hoarse, bittersweet timbre, and the girl's voice was as
unadorned and beautiful as any of them had ever heard.
'Myyoung love said to me, my mother won't mind,' she sang,
and all who heard her stopped to listen. 'She placed her hand
on me, and this she did say: it will not be long, love, till our
wedding day . . .' Alice glanced at Jonathan, and caught him
studying her. A blush flared over his long cheekbones, and
he looked away, abashed. As the Irish girl's song ended, and
her spell was broken, Jonathan rummaged in his pocket and
found a coin for the hat.
'Come,' he said. 'Let's go back for another of those
delicious gooseberry pies.'
Soothed by the song, Starling quietened a little. She
straightened her skirts and tried to walk with more decorum,
like a proper young lady -- moving through the fair, stepping neatly between 
and around the other revellers. When she
glanced back, Alice had taken Jonathan's arm; they walked
with their eyes on each other, not on where they were going --
they followed Starling blindly. She was their pilot and captain,
just then, so she changed course, humming the song she'd just
learnt, and led them back to the lady with the marshmallow,
and the liquorice-flavoured fudge. Later on they walked a
distance across Corsham Court's parkland, opened to the
public for the day, and rested in the shade of an ancient oak
tree. They were full of food and laughter and sunshine, and drowsy from it all; 
shooing lazily at the buzzing flies, watching
the brilliant light flicker down through the leaves. There
came a roar from the edge of the park, as the winning tug
o' war team pulled the losers into a mud patch; a sudden crescendo
of noise and applause that pattered and echoed against
the back walls of the townhouses.
'I wish every day was like today,' said Starling. Jonathan
had lain back with his head on his arms, and shut his eyes;
Alice sat as close to him as she could without touching.
They'd stopped calling each other 'cousin' so ostentatiously,
since nobody was listening. There was nobody there to tell
them they shouldn't be; they were at their liberty, for once,
and unconcerned.
'And I,' Alice agreed.
'Except we would all be as fat as your old sow if it were
so,' said Jonathan.
'No, indeed.' Alice laughed. 'We would dance it all away.'
'It will not be long, love, till our wedding day' Starling
sang softly. 'I loved that song, didn't you?' She picked the
feathery seeds from a stalk of grass and scattered them to the
balmy air.
'I did. Very much,' said Alice.
The sun grew fat and was lowering in the west before they
returned to the paddock by the inn where the spotted pony
had been turned out for the day. He was dozing with one rear
hoof tipped on its toe, occasionally whisking his tail at the
midges; he seemed a trifle put out to be called upon to move.
Starling fed him a piece of fudge to cheer him up. Behind
them the band and the dancing went on, though many of the
stalls had been packed away.
'Can't we stay a bit longer?' said Starling, as Jonathan
lifted the collar over the pony's head; but she yawned as she
spoke, and Alice smiled.
'I think you've had enough excitement for one day,
dearest,' she said. Starling didn't argue. Though she wouldn't
admit it, her head was pounding from all the sunshine and
sugar; it felt too heavy for her neck, and she longed to put
it down somewhere. The sounds of the fair receded behind
them as they moved off into the failing light, with bats flying
silently over their heads. Starling nestled into Alice's side,
and felt her sister's arm settle over her shoulders; she shut her
eyes, and knew herself safe. The rattle and sway of the trap,
and the creak of its wheels; the soft, soft air, and Alice's arm
around her, like armour. She glanced up only once and saw
Alice resting her head on Jonathan's shoulder. Above them a
few faint stars had come out, and Starling wished that the
journey would never end. She wished to not arrive back at
Bathampton, because just then everything was exactly as it
should be; everything was perfect.
1821



'You want to watch that one,' said Sol Bradbury, slapping egg
wash onto a pie crust with broad, messy brushstrokes. 'Came
in here bold as brass and told me she'd seen you stealing.'
'She never said so?' Starling replied, shocked.
'She bloody did. You need to be more careful. If Dorcas
or Mrs Hatton ever sees then that's the end of you, and
naught I can say will save you. I sent Mrs Weekes on her
way, but you'd best hope she says nothing to the mistress.'
'She'd better not, or I'll see her off.'
'Oh? And how will you do that if Mr Alleyn half throttling
her didn't scare her none?' said the cook. Starling frowned and
said nothing for a while. She crushed peppercorns in a pestle
and mortar, pushing so hard that the stone surfaces creaked
together, and set her teeth on edge. How dare she? She could
hardly believe the woman's temerity. She seemed such a thin,
pale thing, so prim and bound up with manners above her
station. Her voice was so quiet, so modulated, Starling couldn't
imagine her ever shouting, or cursing, or arguing. And yet
she was dogged, and determined, and she kept coming back.
Starling hadn't considered that, when she'd contrived her
meeting with Jonathan. She'd thought only of planning the
moment, of gauging his reaction, of hoping to prise some
revelation from him. Now it seemed she was stuck with Dick
Weekes's wife turning up when she was no longer wanted.
Starling was almost sure that Mrs Weekes had gone straight out
after her visit to the kitchens. She was almost sure she hadn't
stopped to speak to anyone else about what she'd seen below
stairs. It seemed best to get rid of the evidence, however.
After the brief dinner service was done, and still simmering
with an anxious kind of anger, Starling took the jute sack
from under her bed, and made a quick inventory. There was
the beer she'd purloined earlier that day, to go with the jars
of pickled eggs, a thick slice of dry bacon, some figs, almonds
and half a wheel of hard cheese, almost down to the rind but
still with some edible parts. Starling went into the kitchen on
soft feet and pinched the leftover bread, already sliced for
upstairs and going stale, then she set off with her haul,
ducking quickly out of the basement door even as she heard
Dorcas's weary footsteps shuffling on the stairs. It wasn't the
best time to go, it wasn't the right day. She wasn't expected. How dare she. 
Starling cursed Dick Weekes's wife with silent
vitriol as she marched down the hill into the city.



Rachel was dawdling outside the Roman Baths. The early
evening was already chill and dark, and a raw breeze angled
through the damp streets, but Rachel had grown weary of
sitting in the silent house, waiting for Richard's return. So
she wandered the nearby streets instead, watching people and
horses and carriages; gentlemen emerging from the baths
with their damp hair steaming; children playing in the gutter,
keeping an eye out for anything that was dropped or would
be easy to steal. They played in the drifts of dead leaves
beneath the plane tree in Abbey Green, throwing them up
into the air and laughing as they fell like rain around them.
Rachel smiled as she watched them, and wished for a child of
her own. Something to devote herself to. She eavesdropped
on snatches of conversation, and carried a basket over her
arm in the pretence of being out on some errand, but even as
this cheered her up she felt herself becoming a parasite,
drawing on the lives of others. She'd been searching her
purse for the pennies to buv a halml f
handcart full of hot coals, when she saw Starling hurrying by,
unmistakable with her red hair catching the torchlight; pretty
in spite of her sour expression.
Weeks after her move to Bath, Rachel still saw precious
few faces that she knew. The Alleyns' servant was walking
down Stall Street, heading south at a smart lick that made the
woollen skirts of her dress billow and flap. Tucked under her
arm was a bulging jute sack, which Rachel recognised at
once. Her heart picked up with some nameless excitement,
and without thought she left the apple seller and made after
Starling as quickly as she could. This girl had spoken the
only kind words about Alice Beckwith that Rachel had yet
heard, and she found herself wanting to hear more. Then
she remembered the humiliating way the cook at Lansdown
Crescent had treated her, and found herself equally keen to
know the purpose of the bag of stolen food. The girl was
easy to spot in the weaving mass of people, but she moved
quickly, straight-backed and with her chin jutting out in front
of her, like a challenge to the world; Rachel almost had to run
to keep up with her. Her pattens made her clumsy on the
cobbles, and she skidded as she hurried along.
At the bottom of Stall Street Starling didn't pause, carrying
on into Horse Street and then over the river via the old
bridge. There she slowed, and turned to the east, to where
the river curled northwards and the canal branched off it. She
seemed to search amongst the boats and barges there. Rachel
waited in the shadow of the bridge, and then followed at a
safe distance. The wharf side was all mud and filth; her feet
sank so deeply that she felt it seeping through the seams of
her shoes, in spite of her pattens. The smell of the river was
foul, even with the weather as cold as it had been; a dank,
fishy reek, with putrefaction at its heart. Rachel took shallow
breaths, following as discreetly as she could as Starling went
along the wharf, speaking to the boatmen in turn. She means
to sell her stolen goods, then?
It was mostly men, down on the wharves; men working and
talking and making deals; spitting, eating bread from dirty
handkerchiefs and swigging from bottles. A few gaudy young
women loitered here and there, with messy hair and smudged
rouge on their faces. They smiled and called out to the
workers, and with a jolt Rachel realised that they were
whores. She suddenly noticed some of the men giving her
curious, measuring looks, and one of them grinned a mouthful
of ruined brown teeth at her. Rachel pulled her shawl tighter
around her neck, and kept her eyes down. She almost turned
to flee back over the bridge, back to safety, but her nameless,
insistent curiosity was stronger. Starling had stopped to speak
to one man aboard a barge. A thick-legged patchwork horse
stood by patiently, harnessed to the craft, and Rachel crept
closer, straining her ears to hear what they were saying. Their
breath steamed around them, pale in the torchlight.
'That's too much -- come now, it's a short enough distance,'
Starling told the bargeman, who was wizened and dirty. In the
darkness it was hard to make out what his boat carried, but
from the looks of him, Rachel guessed it was coal.
'I needn't carry the likes of you at all, if I so choose,' the
man pointed out, but his face wore half a smile.
'You're a rogue, Dan Smithers. A penny, then, and a song
as we go.'
'A penny, and a taste of your lips.'
'A song is all you'll get from my lips, or I'll gut you with
your own hook. Take it or leave it.' Starling put her hand on
her hip, and the bargeman laughed.
'I bet you would, an' all. Hop aboard then, for I'm behind
time leaving as 'tis.' Starling tucked the sack under her arm
and jumped lightly onto the deck. Dan Smithers called out
to his horseman, and the animal threw its weight into the
harness. The barge eased away towards the mouth of the
canal, from where it would pass beneath the pretty iron
bridges of Sydney Gardens, and then out of the city. Starling
settled herself down on top of the cargo, and as the boat
vanished into darkness Rachel heard her voice, surprisingly
sweet, drifting back over the water, singing a sad song about
lost love.
Not selling the food then, but taking it somewhere -- to
someone!1 Resigning herself to not knowing, Rachel hurried
back from the waterside, over the bridge and away from the
bald, ugly stares of the river men. Against the pale yellow
horizon, the black skeletons of trees stood stark on distant
hills, and Rachel was suddenly saddened by her own curiosity
about the red-haired girl, by the urge she'd felt to take
part in her life, when she had no business to. She walked
quickly back to Abbeygate Street, and only once she was
standing in front of the shop, looking up at the lit parlour
window that told her Richard had come home, did she realise
that she didn't want to go inside. She stood on the pavement,
staring up stupidly, as if she had any other option. Richard
might not necessarily be drunk, she reminded herself. He
might be sweet, and tired, and tender for once. But he would
want to lie with her, as he always did, and the prospect left
her cold. How else do you hope to get with child, then? the echo
voice chided her gently.
For a minute or two she stood on the pavement, and
absurdly wished herself aboard the barge with Starling, drifting steadily out 
of the city, rather than going into her home,
and to her husband's bed. The servant girl always moved
with a purpose; always had a steely gleam in her eye. She was
not cowed, even when Rachel caught her thieving. Whereas I
am constantly cowed. By my husband, by Josephine Alleyn, and
her son. And her cook. Rachel's shoulders sagged wearily at the
thought. And as she stood there, she remembered something
Starling had said to her earlier that day. She was too good for
this world. She remembered the serving girl's obvious grief,
and the significance of the words became plain to her. Starling
believes that Alice Beckwith is dead. Rachel had a sudden
strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, like a warning, and
she waited a while longer in the street, trying to decipher it.
But the night breeze bit at her fingers, and the streets were
emptier now, and she could not linger for ever. So she
squared her shoulders, and lifted her chin like Starling did,
and went inside to Richard.
His mood was light and affectionate, and Rachel felt some
of her anxiety dissipate. Richard took her hand and smiled as
she came in, and led her to sit with him on the sofa. He had
closed the shutters, and banked up the fire; the room was
close and cosy with warmth and low light.
'How are you, my dear Mrs Weekes?' he said, leaning his head back to look at 
her. With the firelight glowing on his
skin and hair, and curving into the contours of his face,
he was angelic. It was hard to imagine the angry way he
sometimes spoke to her. There is a beast in all men; that was
what Jonathan Alleyn had said. But he had been speaking
about himself, and Rachel refused to believe it.
'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 n«r ™» j -- -- ¦
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.
She went down to the Moor's Head, but Sadie was cross
and tired, and had no time tn li«<-»" »~ l--
around for familiar faces, but the only ones she saw belonged
to people she had no wish to speak to. So she left again, and
walked slowly along the street until she came to the foot of
the abbey, a vast hulk of medieval architecture that dwarfed
the new townhouses surrounding it, like a bear sleeping
amidst cats. She gazed up at the carvings around the doorway;
the massive Gothic window above. There was a stone
ladder on the right-hand side of the facade, with tiny angels
climbing its many, many rungs. That is like life, Starling
thought. An endless ladder, and sometimes it is too hard to keep
climbing. Suddenly, she felt very small. She felt small, and
lost, and unbelievably tired, standing in the dark at the foot
of the huge building. She swayed, and for a second she was
seven years old again, starving and beaten, standing outside
the farmhouse at Bathampton, too weak to take the final step
towards it. The city rushed around her in a giddy blur, she
tottered, and would have fallen if strong arms hadn't stopped
her, appearing from nowhere to catch her under her arms.
Bewildered, Starling twisted around and found Richard
Weekes looking down at her with a strange expression on his
face. The starry sky wheeled behind him, the buildings and
street were a blur, and for a moment his face was the only
thing she could see, the only thing that made sense. With a
cry, she threw her arms around his neck, and held on to him tightly. An 
inexplicable sob made her chest clench painfully.
After a moment, Dick disengaged her arms, his fingers
gripping tightly when she tried to hold on to him.
'Leave off, Starling!' he said, with a shove that made her
stumble again.
'Dick, I--' Starling broke off, and shook her head to clear
it. For an awful moment, she'd been about to declare her
need for. him.
'What are you doing, standing here mooning up at the
abbey at this time in the evening?'
'I was just ... I was walking back. It's none of your
business what I do, is it?' She took a deep breath to steady
herself, drew back her shoulders and ignored the treacherous
little voice inside her head that said: Let him want me again.
Let him. But though Dick did reach out to her then, it was to
take her arm in a painful grip and give it an angry wrench.
'It is my business when what you do involves my wife.'
'What are you talking about? Let go!' Starling pulled
against him, but it only made him hold her tighter.
'I'm talking about the way my wife keeps having cause to
mention you. She's seen you here, she's seen you there;
you've helped her with Mr Alleyn, she's seen you stealing,
and taking a barge out of the city . . . what in hell are you
playing at? I told you to stay away from her!'
"What? She's seen me do what?' Starling frowned in
confusion. 'I'd have nothing to do with her if it were up to
me! How is it my fault if she comes creeping around the
Alleyns' house? If she spies, and follows? How can I help
that? It was you that brought her to meet them, you that
brought her into my way!'
Richard paused, and seemed to think, but he did not let her
go. Starling's arm was going numb where he held it; a tear
slid down her cheek and she hoped he would not see it in the
darkness.
'Why were you watching her? Why were you in the room
when she met Mr Alleyn?' he said at last.
'It was a good job I was, or he might have killed her!
Haven't I always told you what he's like? He's a murderer, as
she nearly found out first hand--'
'You're up to something, Starling, and I want to know
what it is. Speak.'
'Are you drunk? Leave off!' Starling tried to twist away
but Richard caught her other arm as well, and shook her.
'Speak! Are you trying to turn her against me? Have you
spoken to her about me, about us? If you have, I swear, I
shall--'
'I've said nothing! As little as I can! It's her that seeks me
out!'
'I don't believe you. You knew of her visit to Jonathan
Alleyn -- her first visit. You knew to spy on them . . . what
was the meaning of it? I will hear it, Starling, or I will have
your teeth out . . .' He spoke vehemently, with his face
thrust into hers; flecks of spittle flew from his lips to land on
her. He spits on me now, like this, when just weeks ago it was
kisses that left such traces on my skin.
'There's something . . . there's something about her you
don't know. That you can't know . . .' Starling said reluctantly.
He shook her again.
'What?' The word fell hard, like a blow.
'She looks . . . she looks just like Alice. Alice Beckwith.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Your Rachel Weekes looks just like Alice Beckwith! My
mistress, slain by Jonathan Alleyn!' Starling swallowed,
breathing hard. 'That's why he near killed her.'
There was a moment of stillness then. Starling waited,
trying to ignore the pain in her arms; Richard stared into her
face and some unreadable expression smothered his anger for
a second. But only for a second. He released Starling, pushing
her away so hard that she staggered. Then he laughed a
bitter, joyless laugh that echoed across the square.
'Alice Beckwith!' he cried, and then laughed again, throwing
his head back and appealing to the heedless sky. 'I will
hear no more about Alice bloody Beckwith! Dear God, Starling,
you have plagued me with her so much her very name
sets my teeth on edge!'
'You wanted to know the reason they invited her back,
and the reason he flew at her, and the reason they have arranged to keep her 
visiting . . . well, there is the reason.
You wanted it and I've given it to you. Alice Beckwith. Mrs
Weekes is the spit and image of his lost sweetheart. Now you
have the truth of it don't harp on at me if you like it not,' said
Starling. Dick ran his hands through his hair and down over
his face, then folded his arms and glared at her.
'I know how Mrs Alleyn feels about that girl -- the
Beckwith girl . . . What reason could she possibly have to
encourage her son in his obsession?'
'She thinks it will help him, in the long run. For he has a
visitor now at least, some link to the outside world. If she
must put up with Mrs Weekes's face to get him that, then it
seems she is willing to.' Again, Richard paused to think.
'And you knew of this -- you knew of this likeness from
your first sight of my wife.'
'Of course. It was like seeing the dead walk. She chilled
my blood, truth be told; though your wife is older, of course,
and not as fair.'
'You saw her first of all, at our wedding feast. Did you . . .
did you have anything to do with our invitation to Lansdown
Crescent? With me being asked to present my wife to Mrs
Alleyn?'
'Well, you didn't think it was through any merit of yours, did you?' said 
Starling, recklessly. Richard clamped his jaw
shut and looked away. In the dark, she couldn't see the blush
she was sure would be mottling his skin. She swallowed, and
felt her tenderness towards him coming on in the guise of
regret, and shame for mocking him. She raised a hand to
touch his arm but thought better of it. 'Dick, I'm sorry. I
didn't mean . . .'
'Didn't mean what?' His voice was cold.
'I didn't mean to . . . keep this from you. But you broke
with me, and told me to speak no more about Alice ... I
only wanted to see if ... to see if seeing her brought out
some confession in him. In Mr Alleyn. I thought that if he
saw her, he would--'
'You're behind it all, then? This is all your plan? And what
is that plan? Do you intend him to fall in love with my wife?
For her to betray me for that mad cripple? Is that how you
plan to be reunited with me?'
'What? Are you simple? No, as I said, I only--'
The blow caught her off guard; it came backhanded,
across her right cheek, and it knocked her to the ground.
The world spun around her again; she tasted blood in her
mouth. She grazed the heels of her hands against the filthy
flagstones of the abbey square, and could feel grit in the cuts,
stinging. Fury made her forget her fear and she glared up at
Richard, baring her teeth as she struggled to rise.
'Stay, or I will knock you down again.' Richard held his
knuckles in front of her face in warning, so Starling sank
back to her knees, chest heaving, eyes snapping with rage.
'Now hear this -- you will not approach my wife. You will
not speak to my wife. You will mind your business and your
tongue, and you will say nothing of Alice Beckwith to her. If
she learns about it, then I will know where she got it from. I
will not have you infect her with your madness, Starling.' He
stepped back and looked down at her coldly. For a second,
Starling thought he would kick her. She braced herself to
dodge it but he only turned and walked away, boot heels
pounding the stones.
Just then a party of young people walked into the square,
chattering and laughing, and Starling silently thanked them
for driving him off. She began to rise but her legs were watery
and weak. So she stayed there, and wrapped her arms around
her knees, feeling the freezing ground numb her skin through
her skirts. Her head was throbbing from the knock he'd given
her, and she found one of her back teeth loose, wobbling in the
bloody gum. She laid her left cheek against her hands, and
stared into the shadows at the foot of the abbey. But Rachel
Weekes already knows about Alice. She resolved to avoid
Richard Weekes from then on. It would mean no more visits
to the Moor's Head, or to Sadie. Where then shall I go? Silent
stone faces stared down at her from the abbey walls, and gave
her no answers. Her breath steamed in the moonlight. This
ladder is too tall for me. She stayed a long time, and lost herself
in reverie. She thought of sunshine and soft hands; she
thought of the lovers' tree.
i8o8



It was during the last summer of Alice's life that Starling
discovered the lovers' tree. She was out with Bridget, running
errands in Bathampton on a warm, lazy sort of day in
July; soft white clouds sat sedately in a powder-blue sky. The
housekeeper was getting leaner and wirier with each season
that passed; she carried her basket over an arm that was
nothing but bone and sinew beneath freckled, weathered
skin. There was more grey than brown in her hair, and her
face had started to sink inwards, hollowing out between the
bones of cheek and jaw. But this paring down only seemed to
make Bridget tougher, and quicker. She walked with smart
steps, and was terse with all the shopkeepers and craftsmen
they dealt with, not stopping to gossip when Starling wanted
to dawdle and look around her.
She especially wanted to dawdle around the butcher's
shop, in spite of the iron stink of blood and offal, because
Pip Blayton, the butcher's son, was just a year older than her
at thirteen, and she found herself curious about him. Pip was
tall for his age, and his shoulders were starting to widen. He
looked like he'd been stretched; his body was long and
clumsy, but his face was nice, in spite of the pimples that
scattered his forehead. He had sandy hair that he hid behind
whenever Starling looked at him, dipping his chin so that it
fell over his forehead as heat torched his cheeks. Even though
Starling was still small she had tiny, budding breasts and a
slight curve in her hips that hadn't been there before. Her
face was still her face, but it was subtly different, changing in
tiny ways that made it more of a woman's face, less of a
child's. Starling liked to see Pip blush; she liked to watch him
trying to ignore her. And when she smiled at him, Bridget
gave her such a censorious look that it made her smile wider.
'Who are you, Grinagog, the cat's uncle? You mind where
you flash that rantipole smile of yours, Starling. You'll get
yourself in trouble, soon enough,' Bridget said, as they
carried on away from the shop.
'What kind of trouble?' Starling was deeply curious about
this.
'Never you mind.'
'If I knew what kind, maybe I would know how to stay
out of it?' she pointed out.
'If you knew what kind, you'd rush into it ever the
quicker. I know you too well, my girl,' said Bridget, which
only made Starling even more curious.
After five years with Alice and Bridget, there was a good
deal Starling was curious about. The farmhouse and the
village of Bathampton were her whole world, and however
much she loved that world, it had begun to seem a little small.
She often thought wistfully of Corsham, and the fair Jonathan
had taken them to the year before. She wanted to feel that
excitement again, that sense of belonging to a loud and
colourful throng of people. Sometimes, Starling walked the
other way along the canal -- west, towards Bath. It was only
two miles to the edge of the city. She walked until she could
see its rooftops and crescents, and there she would stop and
stare, watching ribbons of smoke rise from a thousand
chimneys; seagulls wheeling around the markets and middens;
church spires thrusting up towards heaven here and there; and
the huge towers of the abbey. On days when a soft west wind
was blowing, it carried the faint rattle of hooves and cartwheels
on cobbled streets, and the yell of men's voices along
the wharf. The city seemed like a huge and wonderful melee
after the sedate, ordered pace of things in Bathampton. It was
almost frightening, but at the same time deeply compelling.
But when Starling asked Alice if they could go into Bath
on a visit, Alice's face always fell. She tried again, one spring
day when they had both walked far to the west, along the
river, and were gazing at the clustered buildings of the city
together.
'I should like to, Starling. But Lord Faukes says we should
not,' Alice said.
'But. . . why not?'
'I cannot say, dearest. He says he thinks it would be too
great a strain on me. On my heart.' Alice looked down at her
hands, at her fingers, which were slowly shredding a posy of
bluebells. 'And that the city is no place for innocent young
girls. So perhaps because it's more that we would have no
escort, no acquaintances . . .'
'But . . . couldn't he take us with him one day? Or Mr
Alleyn?'
'I have asked.' For a moment impatience made her words
clipped, but then Alice hung her head and her voice lowered
to almost nothing. She looked ashamed. 'But I'm afraid the
answer is no.' She took Starling's hand and squeezed it
apologetically, and Starling didn't understand what Alice
could possibly have to be ashamed of. They stood in silence
for a while, and Starling thought hard about what she would
say next.
'Well, we need not tell them. It's an easy enough distance
to walk - it wouldn't take long. We could go, you and I, and
explore, and say nothing to Lord Faukes, or to Jonathan,
though I'm sure Jonathan would not betray us.' Alice smiled
slightly, but then her face fell serious.
'Of course Jonathan would not betray us. But you would have us deliberately 
disobey the man who keeps us? The man
who let me take you in, when he had no cause to other than
kind indulgence?'
'But ... we went to Corsham fair last year, and that we
kept a secret from him. Wasn't that disobedient too?'
'Yes, perhaps it was, but he had never specifically said to
me that I should not go to Corsham, as he has with Bath.'
'But he would never hear of it, Alice--'
'But we would have done it, nevertheless. We would be
the betrayers, don't you see? And we would always know it.
And besides . . . the chickens always come home to roost, as
our good Bridget would say. A lie will always come back to
haunt you. If somebody should see us, and word of our
disobedience reach Lord Faukes . . . well then, how kindly
do you think he would feel towards us? We who owe him
our home and our food and our well-being?' She smiled
faintly at the look of sullen disappointment on Starling's face;
leant over to kiss her forehead. 'Don't pull such a cross-patch
face, Starling! What is there in Bath that we do not have here,
in Bathampton?'
'I don't know! That's why I want to go! Why must you
always be so obedient to him? How can you not want to
explore--'
'I am obedient because I would have a roof over our heads
- yours and mine!' Alice said angrily. Starling blinked,
stunned. It was the first time Alice had ever raised her voice
to her. 'Of course I want to explore -- of course I want to go
abroad, and go to dances, and make new friends! But I am
told I may not, and I have no choice but to obey. Don't you
understand that?'
'He would not be so very angry, would he?' Starling
mumbled.
'Would you care to chance it?' said Alice, fixing her with a
warning gaze.
'Maybe.' Starling shrugged, half rebellious, half cowed.
'Well, when you are older, and independent of us, you
may go where you please,' Alice said flatly, and Starling
halted her argument at once, because this spoke of a time
when she would not always be at Alice's side, and she did not
want to hear of such a time.
Starling kicked the heads off a few blameless dandelions
by her feet, and could not look at her sister. She felt a
horrible kind of embarrassment to be scolded in such a way,
and searched for some way to make things normal again.
'Alice . . . why is Lord Faukes your benefactor?' she
asked, as lightly as she could. 'I mean, what happened to
your real parents? Who were they?' Alice turned her head to
look north, across the river towards Box and Batheaston. A
soft breeze blew wisps of her hair around her chin, and
fluttered the blue ribbon of her hat.
'I don't know, Starling,' she said, her voice soft and sad.
'Haven't you asked him?'
'Of course I've asked him,' she said, exasperated, and
Starling sensed some hard kernel beneath Alice's decorum
for the first time; some hungry thing too long ignored. 'He
says my father was an old friend of his, a man he loved. My
mother died and ... in his grief my father would have given
me away to strangers, and so Lord Faukes took me and kept
me safe, and found Bridget to look after me. And then my
father also died . . .' She turned to look at Starling, wistfully.
'Whoever they were, they are dead. Of that much I am sure.
And I must have been a source of shame to my family, must 1
not, to be kept in ignorance even of my parents' names, so
that I may never try to find their kin? My kin.'
'Are you a secret, then?' said Starling, scowling in
thought.
'Of course I am. Have you only just realised?' Alice
smiled bitterly. 'Jonathan is not even allowed to speak about
me to his mother. Lord Faukes has forbidden it.'
'But why would he, Alice?'
'Don't you see, Starling? The only person who could tell
me is Lord Faukes, and he will not. And if I demand to
know, I risk his displeasure. So I am trapped. I will never
know, and I must endeavour to be content at that.'
'Perhaps . . . perhaps when you come of age some bequest
of your father's will come into effect, and you will find it all
out, and have a fortune and a great house.'
'It is a pleasant enough story, dearest. But let us not pin
our hopes too highly upon it.'
'But when you are one and twenty, you will be free to
leave his care anyway, won't you?'
'If I choose it, yes. But where would I go, Starling? What
would I do? I have nothing. I know nobody outside of
Bathampton.'
'You have Jonathan,' Starling pointed out, doggedly.
'Yes. I have Jonathan. I have only Jonathan,' Alice said
quietly, and then they walked back to the farmhouse in
silence.

In the darkness late that evening came footsteps and the glow
of a candle flame around the bedroom door, and Starling was
awoken, and padded silently towards it to listen. The floorboards
were cold beneath her bed-warmed feet; she pulled
her nightdress tight around her. On the landing were Bridget
in her night cap and Alice with her hair tied up in rags. The
candle was in Alice's hand, held between them, lighting their
faces from below so that their eyes looked hollow and unearthly.
'Why
does he keep me here, Bridget? Who am I to him?'
said Alice. Bridget's mouth was a tight, flat line; at her sides
her arms hung tense and uneasy.
'You're his ward, miss. You're kept here in comfort, and
in safety, and lucky for it.'
'Safety from what? And why am I his ward, and kept
secret? Who were my parents?'
'That I cannot tell you.'
'Cannot? Or will not?' Alice pressed. Bridget said nothing,
and Alice gazed at her with little hope or expectation.
'Where does the name Beckwith come from? My father, or
my mother? Or is it a fiction, like everything else? I have
asked in the village, I have asked people passing through, for
years and years. Nobody has heard of that name, here or
anywhere else.'
'It is your name. Be content with it.'
'Be content?' There was an incredulous pause. 'Are you
his, Bridget, or are you mine?' Alice whispered.
'I am both,' said Bridget, and in her voice was some pent
up emotion, something that twisted in pain like a fish on a
hook.
T think I'm like a bird kept in a silver cage. Something
charming for him to look upon, and even to love. But something
owned, that will never have its own destiny, or the
freedom it was born with.'
'Not all are born into freedom, Alice. Perhaps it is better
to appreciate the silver cage, when others have a cage of mud
and sticks.'
'A cage is still a cage, Bridget,' Alice said coldly. Starling
held her breath, but they said nothing more. Alice went back
downstairs, though it was bedtime, and Bridget stood for a
long while, not knowing she was watched. Her mouth stayed
in its tight, flat line, and her eyes gazed out through the wall
of the house, into the far distance. Her face was as empty as a
broken heart, and though Starling wanted to hold her, at the
same time she knew she must never let on that she'd seen the
older woman in a moment of such profound and terrible
nakedness.
In the end, Alice's twenty-first birthday came and went
with no visits from lawyers or uncles or executors of hidden
wills. Only Lord Faukes came, with gifts of white kid gloves
and a beautiful evening gown of turquoise silk overlaid with
the finest silver lace any of the three women had ever seen. A
ball dress that Alice would have no occasion to wear. Lord
Faukes bade her try it on, and she dutifully twirled and posed
for him, and even danced with him a little on the parlour
floor, though there was no music and he looked grotesque as
her partner - too old, too fat. In his meaty hands Alice was
doll-like, so fragile he might destroy her on a whim. Lord
Faukes's face shone with pleasure at seeing her in the dress.
Alice smiled and said again and again how much she loved it,
but Starling still noticed the look of bitter disappointment
behind her eyes, and the way her smile fell at once from her
face when her benefactor's back was turned.
'Perhaps they don't know how to find you, and will come
a little late with news?' Starling whispered into the darkness
of their bedroom that night, when she could tell Alice was
not sleeping.
'Nobody is trying to find me, Starling,' Alice replied, and
Starling didn't argue because she thought it was probably
true.
'Then we are sisters more than ever, Alice, because we are
both cut off from the people who had us as babes, and our
pasts are secrets that we shan't ever know about. But we are
our own family, are we not?'
'We are our own family,' Alice agreed, but Starling could
not tell from her voice what Alice was feeling.

On the sunny July day, a year after that, once Bridget had
hustled Starling away from Pip Blayton at the butcher's shop,
the pair of them walked past the George Inn and along the
lane that eventually crossed the river and went on to Batheaston.
'We've to pay the miller for that flour he delivered on
Monday. I didn't have the coins about me when he called,'
said Bridget, when Starling asked.
'I can do it, if you want. You don't need to walk all the
way with me,' said Starling, who loved the freedom to
dawdle. Bridget was flushed and breathing deeply, so she
paused and gave Starling a shrewd look through screwed-up eyes.
'You'll give Miller Harris the money, and nobody else,
and no going back to make calf eyes at Pip Blayton?'
'Of course!' said Starling, with an almost straight face.
Bridget rolled her eyes and hefted her basket higher up her
arm. She fished some coins from her pocket, handing them to
Starling.
'There, then. Go on and take it to him, and mind you
hurry back. Good girl.' She gave Starling a nod and a purse
of her lips, which was as close as Bridget generally came to
smiling. On light feet, Starling carried on alone.
The bridge marched across the wide span of the River
Avon on hefty stone arches. The water was deep and clear;
its bed was cloaked with vibrant green weeds which wafted in
the current, sheltering trout and perch and other fish. On the
far side, coming from Batheaston, there was a toll house
where a man with a face full of grog-blossoms sat and sipped
brandy all day long, collecting coins from those who wished
to cross. Starling hung over the parapet and watched the
mill's huge wheel turning, throwing up jewels of sunlit water
and a sodden, river-bottom smell of wood and minerals and
muddy life. The slap and splash of it was hypnotic. Starling
stared, the sun hot on the back of her head, until Miller
Harris popped his head out and shouted at her. She paid him
Bridget's coins and sauntered back over the bridge, stopping
on the home side, facing west, to look for fish and throw in a
few pebbles from the dusty lane. She almost didn't see Alice
against the blinding brilliance of the sunlit water. Starling
shaded her eyes with one hand, and looked again.
The figure was perhaps three hundred feet from the
bridge, by the water's edge where the bank dropped steeply
from the meadow. In the dappled shade along the bank it was
hard to see her, but Starling was sure it was Alice. Nobody
else was so lathy slim, had hair so arrestingly pale, or wore a
dress the colour of lavender. Alice was picking her way
gingerly along the water line, using the gnarled tree roots as
stepping stones and the low branches as handholds. She
stopped when she reached one tree, a weeping willow which
snagged the shining water with its silvery tendrils. As she
stepped beneath its branches, Starling lost sight of her. She
moved a little further along the bridge to find a better
vantage point, but from no angle could she see through the
willow's draping leaves. Then, a moment later, she saw Alice
emerge again, going back along the bank to the spot where
she could climb up to the meadow. As she reached open
ground, Alice looked around, as if to check for observers.
Starling thought about waving to her but something stopped
her, and instead she sank a little lower behind the stone
parapet.
Starling knew she ought to go back to the farmhouse.
Bridget would know she was dawdling, and would want help
with the cleaning and their lunch. Alice had been heading
that way; Starling could ask her what she'd been doing on
the river-bank. A farm wagon pulled by heavy horses came
rumbling over the bridge just then, so Starling had to move.
But she didn't go straight home; she climbed over the fence
and picked her way down through the trees to the meadow
marsh. The bank dropped four feet straight down to the
water's edge but Starling was bolder and more nimble than
Alice. She clambered down through the roots of the weeping
willow, grasping at handfuls of snaking, whip-like branches,
until her feet landed with a squelch in the mud where the
water was lapping.
The tree's trunk had split into two early in its life; the
partition began just a foot or so above the ground. The two
parts of it had wrapped around one another, twisting tight
together. Its bark was rough but looked as supple as skin;
the trunks locked like mighty arms in a perpetual, sinuous
embrace. The drooping branches shielded Starling all
around, and turned the light a fresh green; it felt private,
magical, like a fairy dell. Just above her head, Starling saw a
dark crack between the two trunks. Some animal or disease
had caused a narrow opening to form, a slight gape between
the loving arms. Then Starling saw the carving, just beneath
the opening. It was not new; the bark had healed and swollen
around the cuts, so that they sat deep in the wood. Six or
seven years' growth at least, Starling estimated, since the cuts
were made. Before I was even here. When I was still . . .
wherever I was before. It was a simple carving: two initials, J & A. The middle 
symbol had been carved with curving
flourishes, so that it touched on both of the letters, joining
them up. Starling's heart quickened with some strange emotion.
She reached up, and slid her hand into the hollow.
She groped around inside, flinching as she felt an insect
hurry away from her intruding fingers. There was a square of
folded paper inside, and with her heart bumping even harder,
Starling drew it out and opened it. There, in Alice's neat
script, were the words: Sunday, after church, before noon. My
love. Starling felt a jolt in her stomach, and there seemed to
be a little hitch in the world, a little moment in which it
stopped turning. She tried to swallow but her throat was dry.
She folded the note back up, with fingers that shook, and
then hesitated. She'd been about to put it back, but the same
impulse that had stopped her waving to Alice now stopped
her again. There were times, not many, when Jonathan came
to visit the farmhouse with his grandfather; other times when
he came to meet Alice and Starling somewhere, and Starling
had always known that those meetings were to be kept secret
from Bridget and Lord Faukes. Now it seemed that there
were other visits, other meetings, of an even more secret
kind. So secret that not even Starling could know of them.
She sat down on a huge root protruding from the bank,
noticing as she did so that the root had been worn smooth
and clean by being sat upon many times before. Starling bit
her lip in dismay, and with an angry little sound she started to
cry.
She hated to cry; she almost never did. There was some
latent memory in her, some buried knowledge of pain and
fear so great that there had seemed nothing in the world
worth crying over since then. But this betrayal cut with a
poisoned blade. She wiped at her face and gulped and forced
herself to stop. She had been included in their affair in so
many ways -- in their friendship, even in their letters, though
Alice knew nothing of that; to find herself excluded from
so much more was intolerable. Little cracks appeared in the
very foundations of Starling's world, and she was suddenly
afraid, horribly afraid; as though the cracks might gape open,
swallow her down and cast her back to that time before the
farmhouse, before Alice. Fear, anger, hurt; they swelled to a
crescendo in the few short minutes Starling sat on the root
beneath the willow tree. When they receded she felt calmer,
and had a strange new hardness in her heart. She stood, and
cast the note into the river. The water carried it swiftly away,
twirling it, spinning it about. Starling watched until it slid out
of sight, then she climbed back out into the sunshine and
walked home with no one thought coming clearly to her
mind.
Back at the farmhouse. Bridiwt wao r...«;~-rr- <
into the oven, and hardly bothered to scold Starling for taking
so long. A look was enough, weary and long-suffering.
'I'll fetch some angelica for the custard,' said Starling.
Alice was in the kitchen garden, sitting on a metal bench
surrounded by rosemary and lavender, thyme and bay. She
had her legs tucked underneath her and was reading a clothbound
book of poems. She looked up and smiled as Starling
came out to sit with her.
'And how are you, little sister?' she said with a smile. The
sun made her eyes shine like the river. Starling nodded, and
stayed mute. She couldn't seem to find any words to say. She
sat on her hands on the edge of the bench, and kicked her
legs back and forth, and could not look at Alice. 'Starling,
what is it? What's wrong?' Alice laid down her book and
reached out one hand to touch Starling's arm. For a second,
Starling wavered, and felt treacherous tears prickling the top
of her nose again. She wanted to demand to know why she
had been excluded, not trusted, lied to. But then that new
hardness seemed to get in the way. It sat at the top of her
chest, like a plug, and stopped the words, the tears, from
bubbling out. She glanced over and saw that Alice had kept
one finger on the page she'd been reading. Marking it, ready
to flip the book open and pick up again, as soon as Starling
had stopped bothering her.
'Nothing,' she snapped, getting up from the bench. She
bent, swiped up a handful of angelica flowers, and turned
back to the kitchen door. 'Bridget needs me.'

Come Sunday the weather turned, bringing a warm, grey
drizzle, solid from heaven to horizon as though the clouds
had simply lowered themselves to ground level. The three
residents of the farmhouse joined the villagers of Bathampton
for the Sunday service in the ancient church of St Nicolas,
and as they walked back along the canal, Starling watched
Alice carefully. There were pink spots in her cheeks, and her
eyes were restless; she looked more animated than a person
coming from an hour and a half in church should, but there
was nothing else to give her away. Had Starling not known
otherwise, she would never have guessed her sister had a
secret, and this was another betrayal. This Alice seemed an
entirely different person to the one in whom secrets fizzed
uncontrollably, like the bubbles in beer.
'Did you hear Mrs Littlewood, calling us the three birds
from the hen home}' she asked.
'Pay her no mind, Starling. She's a common scold, that
one,' said Bridget.
'What does it mean, though?' Starling pressed.
'It means we haven't a man about the place, and it means
she envies us, for she has Mr Littlewood to deal with and we
all know what type of man he is,' Bridget muttered. Alice
made no comment. The wet day made their hair and clothes
hang limply. Alice had chosen a time when Starling and
Bridget would be busy, preparing the Sunday meal. A time
when she could slip away unnoticed, to walk or read, as
she almost always did. How many of those times in the past,
Starling thought now, had Alice in fact been keeping trysts
with Jonathan?
As they returned to the house, unbuttoning coats and
untying their hats, Alice paused.
'I might keep mine on, and walk on for a little while,' she
said casually.
'Oh, can I come? I need to stretch my legs after sitting
through that boring service,' said Starling.
'For shame, show more respect,' Bridget admonished her.
'I think the vicar gave an admirable sermon today . . . mind
how you speak on the Lord's day.'
'Yes, Bridget. So, can I go with you, Alice? Please?'
Starling looked her straight in the eye, until Alice had to look
away.
'Oh, but you hate the rain, dearest,' she said vaguely. 'And
Bridget should not be all alone with so much work to be
done.'
'It's not really raining . . . and you're only going a little
way, you said.'
"I think . . .' Alice paused, fiddled with the front of her
coat. 'I think you should be kind, and stay to help Bridget. I
shan't be long.' She smiled sweetly enough at them, and then
turned and wandered away without another word, pausing to
wave from the gate.
'Mind you don't get soaked through, if the rain gets
worse,' Bridget called after her.
'Or if it does, be sure to shelter under a tree!' Starling
added, and had the unhappy satisfaction of seeing Alice's
smile flicker.

Alice came back an hour later, damp, bedraggled and forlorn.
Her hem was muddied and her face wore open disappointment,
and at once Starling felt guilty to have made her sad.
She thought of the little note, sailing heedlessly downstream
towards Bath. 'Didn't you enjoy your walk?' she asked, and
though she tried to sound easy, her voice was tight and
wobbled slightly. Alice looked at her strangely.
'I enjoyed it well enough. The weather is perhaps . . . not
the best,' Alice replied. Bridget grunted.
'Well, it weren't the best when you set out, so there's no
shock in that,' she said, with a slight roll of her eyes.
'Indeed,' said Alice, with a small, strained laugh.
'Did you have to shelter under a tree?' Starling asked, and
again that tightness was in her voice. Alice walked to the far
side of the room and beckoned Starling over while Bridget's
eyes were on the stove.
'You left your footprints in the mud, dearest,' she whispered,
and Starling's guilty heart jumped into her throat.
'What do you mean? What mud? I never--' She broke off
under Alice's steady, sad scrutiny.
'He did not come. I shan't see him now for weeks; he will
be going to war soon and must stay with his company,' she
said. Starling squirmed away from her blue eyes, from the
hurt look in them. 'Starling, did you take my note?' she
whispered. Starling said nothing; she only hung her head,
shamefaced. Alice took a deep, unsteady breath. 'I know . . .
I know why you might be angry with me,' she went on. 'I
can explain why we had to keep everything secret, but not
here, and not right now . . .'
'I ... I don't know anything about a note.'
'Starling, please. Don't lie.' Alice spoke so softly, so
sweetly, that Starling could hardly bear it. She thought of
the lies Alice had told to her -- lies of omission, lies of
secrecy; all the years that had passed since she and Jonathan
had carved their initials into the tree; all the times they had met, and kept 
it from her. Had kept their love -- a special,
better love - only for each other. She was so angry, so
ashamed, it caused a pressure to build in the hard place inside
her, as if the plug would not hold, and something would
force its way out.
'It's not me who's the liar!' she cried, and Alice blinked in
shock. Bridget looked up from the far end of the room.
'What's that? What are you two conspiring over, eh?' she
called. Starling wheeled to face her, feeling off balance,
almost frantic. She felt Alice's hand on her arm.
'Please, don't say anything!' Alice hissed. Her eyes were
full of fear, and though Starling quailed, she could not stop
herself.
'Alice has been meeting with Jonathan in secret! They're
lovers! But he is engaged to Beatrice Kallonbrooke!' she
blurted out. In the corner of her eye she saw Alice's hands fly
to her mouth, her eyes going wide in horror. Bridget dropped
her wooden spoon with a clatter, and stared at Alice with a
terrible expression. Silence fell in the kitchen, and in it
Starling was sure she could hear the cracks at her feet, the
cracks in the world, opening even wider.
1821



Rachel was ushered in to her next appointment with Jonathan
Alleyn so quickly that she was still out of breath from the
long climb up to Lansdown Crescent. The grassy slope in
front of the buildings was still crisp and grey with frost where
it sank into a shaded hollow; the sky was flat white with
cloud, giving no clue as to where the sun might be. There
was no breath of a breeze. Mrs Alleyn greeted Rachel at the
foot of the stairs, as the butler took her hat, gloves and pelisse
from her, and she smoothed the front of her dress. There was
that same awkwardness between them, which Rachel was
sure they both felt -- of her being not quite a guest, not quite
a servant. Neither one knew quite how to behave, nor was
Rachel ever sure of the reception she would be given. The
older woman was by turns warm then cold, stiff then easy,
sharp then distant. Impossible to know.
'Perhaps you'll join me to talk for a moment, when you've
finished your reading?' said Mrs Alleyn, as they turned to
climb the stairs.
'It would be my pleasure,' Rachel replied. And during that
time I must somehow work out how to ask for my payment, or Mr
Weekes will want to know why I have not.
'I had hoped Jonathan would come down today, but . . .'
Mrs Alleyn trailed off, apologetically.
Then were ever stubborn, and wont to have things their
own way.' Rachel smiled, to imply no criticism, but Mrs
Alleyn's face went stiff.
'How right you are, Mrs Weekes,' she murmured.
Jonathan Alleyn didn't rise as she entered the mnm _ v..
hadn't before, and this simple omission put her on edge. She
had never known a gentleman not rise for a lady's entrance;
she didn't know if his failure to do so made him less the
gentleman, or her less the lady. Jonathan had opened one
fold of the shutters, and the window just a fraction, so that
the frigid morning air drifted in. He wore only dark blue
breeches and a white linen shirt, the sleeves of it rolled up.
The fire had died in the hearth and the room was heavy with
cold, scented with wood and the damp grass of the crescent.
Rachel squared her shoulders and went over to him. She
could see gooseflesh on his bare arms, but his face had a faint
sheen of sweat, where it was not covered by several days'
growth of whiskers. An empty wine bottle and a stained glass
were on the floor beside him; the stale smell of his unwashed
body hung about him.
'Mr Alleyn . . .' Rachel trailed off as he turned abruptly to
look at her. He seemed to have trouble focusing his eyes.
'Are you well? You look feverish . . . It's so cold in here. Let
me call for a servant to make up the fire--'
'No, leave it. I am too hot. . . only this cold is keeping me
alive, I think,' he said, in a rough voice.
'But, if you have a fever, we must call a doctor to--'
'To bleed me? I have bled enough, Mrs Weekes. Please
sit, and say no more on it. I am quite well.' Shivering
slightly, Rachel complied. Jonathan's eyes followed her
every move; they were the only lively thing in his gaunt face.
'I brought a book from home this time. It's the new poems
by Keats ... a wedding gift to me from my husband,' she
said. 'And a selfless one, since I think he cares not one jot for
poetry,' she added, more softly. Perhaps my husband would
prefer Byron.
'Why would he, Mrs Weekes?'
"I beg your pardon, sir?'
'Why would Kichard Weekes care for poetry? He is an
unlettered oaf, and a covetous fool, for all his pretty face. Or,
at least, he was when I last knew him.' Jonathan took a deep
breath and sat up straighter in his chair. He propped his
elbows on the arms of it, steepled his long fingers in front of
his mouth. His nails were bitten and ragged.
'Well, I ... I suppose a person might change, and improve,'
Rachel murmured. Only a few weeks ago she would
have leapt to Richard's defence. Now it seemed loyalty
enough to say as little as possible about him.
'They might. But such improvements tend to be skin deep
only, in my experience. Tell me, how came you to be married
to him?'
'How do you imagine, sir?' said Rachel, with some asperity.
"We met at the house of my former employers. I was
governess in Sir Arthur Trevelyan's household, at Hartford
Hall. Mr Weekes and I met when he came to discuss wine
with Sir Arthur . . .' She thought back to that moment, the
moment she'd seen love storm through Richard like an invading
army. It gave her a strange pang almost like nostalgia,
or perhaps regret.
'And it seemed a good match to you? You who are clearly
educated, and have been raised a gentlewoman . . .'
'Aye, sir, it seemed a good match. I would scarcely have
consented to wed if it had not.'
'I'm curious, that's all. I would understand more of the
ways women think, if I could. More of the reasons why they
act the way they do.' He gave her a tiny, wintery smile.
'Not all women act in the same way,' Rachel pointed out,
carefully.
'No indeed, though everything they do has the one thing
in common - that it is unfathomable to me.'
'What about the situation is hard for you to understand,
Mr Alleyn?' Rachel felt tension clipping her words.
'Well, you cannot love him. 1 wonder what, then, made
him seem a good match, when he is . . . what he is, and you
have all the semblance of a lady. Was it simply his handsome
face?'
'I'm not a child, Mr Alleyn, to be so confused by good
looks. A good many years have passed since you were . . .
out in society. Perhaps a good many things have changed
since then. And he loves me . . .'
'Does he? Truly?' Jonathan leant forwards in his chair
with sudden intensity.
'Yes!' She thought of Richard's anger, of the way he
sometimes spoke to her; his unwanted touch, and the way
her body had begun to recoil from it. She hoped none of it
showed in her face.
'And do you love him?'
The question hung in the air between them, and Rachel
felt a flush begin to spread up from her neck. The choice was
between truth and loyalty, between integrity and propriety,
and it was not one she knew how to make.
'You cannot ask me such things,' she said at last, quietly.
Again came his fleeting smile, as cold as the crystals of frost
on the window glass.
'Your reticence is answer enough. And here I am torn --
for I could not have admired you for loving such a man, yet
nor can I admire you for marrying beneath you, when you
did not love him . . .' Humiliation made Rachel angry.
'Why should it matter whether you admire me or not, Mr
Alleyn?' she said stiffly. 'When we first met you told me that
all women are whores, be it for coin, status or safety that we
sell ourselves.'
'Did I say as much?' Jonathan leant back, his eyes sliding
away uncomfortably. 'I can't remember it.'
'But you stand by it, perhaps? Well, ask yourself this,
sir, if it is true: what choice does a woman have but to settle herself 
somehow, for one of those three things?'
'And which one made you settle, Mrs Weekes?'
'It is none of your concern. Your mother pays me to come
here and read to you, and that is what I shall do.'
"Whether I will it or not?'
'Do you wish me to leave?'
'Far be it from me to thwart another of my mother's great plans.' He leant back 
with a scathing wave of his hand.
'You are too kind, sir,' said Rachel, stung, in spite of
herself. Jonathan watched her steadily for a moment, through
narrowed eyes. Then he blinked, and his eyes softened.
'Forgive me,' he said curtly.
In the uncomfortable silence that followed, the sound of
children's laughter drifted up through the window from the
street below. Clearing her throat, Rachel began to read. As
often happened, she soon got lost in the words, in the beauty
and intensity of the images they conjured, and time passed
rapidly, without her noticing. She felt a deep sense of calm,
of being outside of herself, and of the world. Her heartbeat
was slow and steady until Jonathan interrupted her, as she
was halfway through 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'.
'Enough. Please. Read something else,' he said hoarsely.
Rachel returned to the cold gloomy room with a start, and to
the thin, haunted figure sitting opposite her.
'You do not like the poem?'
'It speaks of things I have no wish to hear about. Enchantment,
and betrayal . . .'
'But I have not yet read to the end, you will see that--'
'He is alone, is he not, and driven half mad by his love?'
'Well . . . yes. In truth,' Rachel admitted.
'No more of it, then. 'Tis a lie, that misery longs for
company. The suffering of others does nothing to ease my
own.'
'And what do you long for, sir?' she asked. Jonathan
stared at her for a moment, as if bewildered by the question.
'I want what I cannot have. I want to unsee things I have
seen, and undo things I have done . . .'
'And surely you know that can never be done? So another
way must be found.'
'Another way?'
'A way to be at peace with what is past, and to . . . turn
your back on it.'
'Really? Another way?' Jonathan laughed then, but it was
a bitter sound. 'And if those things took the very heart and
soul of you, and left only the brutish parts? What other way
is there then?"
'No one but God can take your soul,' said Rachel.
'Aye, madam -- God, or the devil.'
'You should not say such things. I'm certain--'
'No, you are not certain. You are naive, and inexperienced.
Go now, and leave me in peace. I made no promise to
hear a sermon.' He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of
his nose with his fingers. With anger making her hot in spite
of the chill, Rachel stood and walked smardy over to the
door, where she paused.
'I'm no child or servant, sir, to be commanded stay and go' she said, her voice 
tight with emotion. 'Perhaps I know
nothing of you, and what you have seen, but do not forget
that the reverse is also true.' She shut the door behind her
with greater force than was needed.

Josephine Alleyn was in the garden. The sun had burned
through the low cloud and mist and was slanting down,
touching the dying plants with a lemon-coloured light, the
ghost of summer's warmth. The garden was as wide as the
house, and twice as long; surrounded by high walls and laid
out in the Italianate style, with pathways curving this way
and that between dwarf box hedges and naked rose bowers.
An ornamental Dond was at the centre of it all, its fountain
still and silent, a thin sheet of ice over the black water. Mrs
Alleyn was sitting in the far corner, where the sunshine was
strongest, and she cut such a lonely figure that Rachel felt
a stab of pity for her. She was well wrapped in furs and
woollen shawls, but she was not reading, or writing, or
drawing; she was simply sitting, with her face turned to the
sun and her eyes closed. Rachel cleared her throat quietly, so
as not to alarm her.
'Forgive me, Mrs Alleyn,' she said. 'I have finished with
Mr Alleyn for today.' Josephine Alleyn opened her eyes
and blinked at the light. The sunshine was so bright that it
smoothed the years from her face, and Rachel was struck
again by her beauty, which in her youth must have been truly
exceptional. For a long moment Mrs Alleyn did not speak,
and Rachel waited uncomfortably, her toes going numb in
her shoes.
'Mrs Weekes. Thank you,' she said at last, and her voice
was thin and frail.
'Are you quite well, Mrs Alleyn? Shall I call for somebody?'
said Rachel. The older lady waved her hand, and
seemed to come back to herself.
'No, no. I was only . . . lost in thought, for a moment.
The older one gets, the more power memory has to enthral, I
find. To enthral, and sometimes to overpower. Do sit with
me a while, Mrs Weekes.' She twitched her cloak to make
room for Rachel to sit down beside her. The stone bench was
bone-achingly cold. 'How did you find him today?'
'He was . . . calm. He seems to have a touch of fever,
however. It would be prudent, perhaps, to watch him these
next few days, in case it turns any worse.'
'Yes.' Mrs Alleyn blinked. 'Yes, I will do so. I will be sure
he is checked,' she said.
'Forgive me, Mrs Alleyn . . .' Rachel began. 'I can't help
but notice that your son seems to be . r»o»n»fiJ «f-- c--
some reason? When it seems to me that you have only ever
supported him in his infirmity . . .'
'Resentful?' The older woman smiled sadly. 'That's a
gentle euphemism, my dear.' She turned her face to the sun
again, and took a steady breath. 'In truth, he barely tolerates
me.'
'But why should it be so? He can't blame you for the war,
or for his abandonment by Alice Beckwith.' Mrs Alleyn
winced at the mention of Alice's name.
'Of course he blames me, Mrs Weekes. Children always
blame their mothers, sooner or later. Even if he can't put into
words what it is that angers him so . . . We raise them in
love, you see. We raise them in love, and teach them to find
the world a wonderful place. And when it is not, they feel
betrayed. They feel as though we have betrayed them. So no
matter how much we love them, how much we try to make
all well for them, sooner or later they blame us, and are
wroth with us.'
'That is a sorrowful thought, Mrs Alleyn,' Rachel murmured.
'Indeed.
We are a sorrowful little family these days,
Jonathan and I.' Mrs Alleyn turned to Rachel with a touch
of urgency, as if needing to mitigate. 'I tried to warn him,
you see. When I found out about his . . . liaison with that
girl, I tried to warn him that she was beneath him. That she
was unworthy of his heart and not to be trusted with it. He
wouldn't listen of course. Young men never do.'
'You had objections to the match?'
'Objections? Alice was little better than a farmer's child!
She was my father's ward - an act of kindness on his part,
performed for an old acquaintance when the girl was born
in . . . unfortunate circumstances. She was merry-begotten,
you see - nobody's daughter. She was of no name, of no con---?i™
nf no fortune. Jonathan was betrothed to another,
from birth . . . Foolish boy; he threw the match over for a
wench only kept from ruin by my father's good heart.' Mrs
Alleyn shook her head angrily. 'Oh, he wept over it, he was
sorry to grieve us, but he would not give her up. Thank
heavens the war took him off before he could do anything as
foolish as marry her.'
Rachel absorbed these words, and was puzzled. Thank
heavens the war took, him off? The war that near destroyed him? There was a 
touch of steel about Josephine Alleyn, she saw
then; a touch of the indomitable.
'So, when Miss Beckwith abandoned him in his absence
. . .' she ventured.
'He blamed me, of course; though I had no contact with
the wretched girl. Still he blamed me, as the one who always
told him that she was not worthy of him.' But he loved her.
He loved her enough not to care. Rachel said nothing for a
while, feeling a strange sense of outrage on Alice Beckwith's
behalf. She was nobody's daughter. Those words gave Rachel a
faint prickle of joy. They spoke of mysterious origins, of a
foundling child. Yes, whispered the echo in her mind. A child
that was lost.
'May I speak frankly, Mrs Alleyn?' she said.
'You may, Mrs Weekes. Manners and propriety have little
place in this house any more, as you have must already have
gathered.'
'Whether it is the war that has done it, or his treatment by
Alice Beckwith ... or whether it be those two things combined,
it seems to me that your son has lost faith in the world,
and in mankind. As you yourself have said, he seems to feel
betrayed, and wishes to have no part in his own life any
more.'
'You think . . . you think he wishes to die?' Mrs Alleyn
breathed, stricken.
'No, madam! No indeed. I think he wishes ... to have
nothing more to fear. To never expose himself to the risk of
further pain. But in hiding away as he does, he traps himself
with his memories and his nightmares. In truth, I believe the
biggest, perhaps even the only, barrier to his return to health,
and to a normal life, is that... he does not wish for any such
return.'
Silence fell in the garden, and Rachel waited fearfully,
worried that she had said too much. A robin flew to the top
of a nearby pergola, feathers puffed for warmth, and treated
them to a cascade of liquid song. The air was so still that
Rachel saw the tiny wisp of its breath as it sang.
'You see things very clearly, Mrs Weekes,' said Mrs
Alleyn at last. There was a note of despair, a note of defeat
in her voice. 'I suppose my next question must be, can you
think of any way to change his mind?'
'In truth, I cannot.' Never had Rachel felt less qualified for
any task. 'But you told me that it was unusual, and progressive,
for him to even consent to see me, and be read to.
So I will continue to, if you wish it. I will challenge his
despair however I can, though I can make no promise of
success.'
'I wish it, thank you, Mrs Weekes.' To Rachel's surprise,
Josephine took her hand. The woman's fingers were profoundly
chilled, and her grip first tightened and then loosened,
as if unsure of itself. How long has it been since she took
anybody's hand? Rachel swallowed, loath to say what she was
about to.
'I beg your pardon, Mrs Alleyn; I wish that I did not have
to mention it, but. . . my husband is bound to query me later
on, over . . . your offer to reimburse me for my time with
your son . . .' Rachel hung her head, embarrassed.
'Poor girl. You are too good for the likes of Richard
Weekes,' Mrs Alleyn muttered. She pulled her hand from
Rachel's and turned away from her slightly, as if to distance
herself again. Rachel's head came up in an instant, and it was
Mrs Alleyn's turn to look uncomfortable.
'I understood that you thought highly of my husband, as
your former servant. That you had done a great deal to aid his
elevation to a man of business . . .' Rachel said, too quickly,
feeling something like panic. Mrs Alleyn pursed her lips, and
when she spoke, it was coolly.
'I spoke out of turn. I meant no slight to Richard, only a
compliment to you, my dear. For what he is, Richard has
done very well. He has worked hard and deserves the rewards.
But you are a finer wife than he could ever have hoped
for, and I know he would agree with me. Forgive me. I have
known him a good deal longer than you, but I forgot myself
to speak so freely about him in your presence. I spoke too
truly when I said that manners and propriety had abandoned
us here.'
'Why have you helped him so much? Why do you still
keep ties with him, when he left your service so long ago?'
said Rachel. Mrs Alleyn's mouth twitched to one side, but
it was not a smile. It was a curious expression, a mixture of
warmth - even affection, or the remnants of it -- coupled with
distaste.
'Richard Weekes . . . was always deeply loyal to me. He
served me faithfully throughout some turbulent times in my
father's household. I value loyalty, and always reward it.
That said, much of his success is due to his own diligence,
and is none of my doing.' Her tone brooked no argument.
'Of course.' Rachel thought of Richard's nerves when they
had first come to call at Lansdown Crescent; she remembered
the way he had bowed so low, and trembled. Her mind was
alight with enquiry.
'And you shall have money to show your husband. Come
now, let us go in, and I will deliver it.'
'You are too kind, Mrs Allevn.' saiH Uafh-i
Josephine had grown stiff from the cold, so Rachel helped
her to rise and they walked back into the house arm in arm. A
flash of flame red caught Rachel's eye as they reached the
steps, and she looked up thinking that the robin had returned.
But it was Starling she caught a glimpse of, turning hurriedly
away from a small window halfway up the house. Rachel's
skin prickled. She was watching me again. This girl who so
offends my husband that he will not confess to knowing her. She
remembered Richard's command that she have nothing to do
with Starling. She remembered his anger flaring, his voice
rising, and afterwards the rough way he had handled her in
bed, not looking her in the eye. She tensed as she contemplated
what he might do or say if he found her out in
what she was about to do, but in the end it didn't make her
hesitate.
As the front door of the grand house closed behind her,
Rachel darted quickly through the little gate in the railings
and down the servants' stair. She knelt by the courtyard door
and took out the note she'd carried with her from home that
morning, written after Richard had left the house. Fingers
shaking with nerves, she pushed the paper under the door
and was up the stairs again with such haste that her feet
slipped on the smooth stone - for a heart-stopping moment
she thought she would fall. She paused to catch her breath,
then crossed the street and set off down the hill into Bath
with more decorum, wondering whether Jonathan Alleyn
would be watching her from his window as she went. She
resisted a powerful urge to turn and look.



Starling went to the abbey in the grip of mixed emotions. She
was excited, and curious, and also afraid; pleased, and for
some reason angry as well. Like as not the anger had to do with the tone of the 
missive. I would speak to you again. Meet
me . . . Starling was ever wont to resent being ordered. She
wrapped her shawl around her tightly, wedging the corners
beneath her arms. The inside of the huge building was always
cool, even in summer. The heat of a sunny day couldn't
penetrate the thick walls; walls so ancient that the stones
seemed fused with dust and age and the slow grinding of
gravity, so that the abbey was no longer like a manmade
thing, but a structure pushed up from the bones of the earth.
In winter, the cold seemed to radiate up from the floor, down
from the ceiling, and in from all four corners of the echoing
space within. A verger was drifting from place to place,
lighting candles; a few pews were occupied by the pious and
the homeless, and a thin man who stank of the midden was
sweeping the floor. The scratch of his besom only seemed to
deepen the hush around it. In the shadows beneath the organ
loft, Starling saw the person she had come to meet.
Rachel Weekes was standing beside a massive pillar,
shifting from foot to foot with her face pinched up in worry.
Starling felt her disgust increase. The woman could not have
looked more conspicuous, more as though she had a secret.
Her arms were folded tightly against her tall, narrow body;
her face was white under a faded green hat that matched her
faded pelisse. Starling strode up to her with such purpose that
she had the satisfaction of seeing Mrs Weekes flinch, and
draw back. For this chicken-breasted creature Richard takes to
beating instead of loving me.
'Thank you for coming,' said Mrs Weekes, quietly. 'After
I left the note, I wasn't sure if . . .' She trailed off, uncomfortably.
'You
weren't sure if I could read?' Starling guessed. She
felt her mouth pull to one side in disgust. 'Well, I can. Better
than most. And I've a fair hand, as well,' she added.
'I'm sure you have,' said Rachel Weekes, and Starling felt
her irritation rise again, to be caught bragging.
I'Well, I'm here. What do you want?' she said. Rachel
IWeek.es was looking at her strangely, and Starling rememjibered
the bruise on her face. A pinkish bloom where Dick
jljhad hit her, that had swollen the cheekbone and made the eye
on that side bloodshot.
j'Did somebody beat you?' the woman blurted out, all
jf!sudden consternation. Starling took a moment, deciding what
and what not to say.
jljl'Aye, somebody did; a blow, not a beating. For having
spoken to you, madam. So let us have the reason for this
(jjmeeting made plain, so I can be away and nobody the wiser.'
j'Somebody hit you for talking to me?' Rachel Weekes
Isounded incredulous. 'Who?'
:'Can't you guess?' said Starling. She glared at Mrs
IIWeekes, and had the satisfaction of seeing, in her eyes, that
J ishe could indeed guess.
1'I don't believe you,' she whispered.
'Oh, I think you do.' Starling watched the woman shift
"Iuneasily. She took a deep breath. 'What do you want with
'ijme? He told me never to speak to you again, nor approach
I'llyou. I don't think it occurred to him that you would approach
me.'
'You and my husband are . . . you are . . .' She could not
bring herself to say the word.
'We were lovers. Yes. Not since you wed though.' Starling
cast a brief look at the crucifix over the altar, in case
Jesus could hear her.
'How long before we wed did you . . . did it . . .
cease . . . ?' The woman's voice was a strangled whisper,
shaking with emotion. Starling did not flinch.
'Two days before. He wed you still wearing the scent of
me, I do think.'
Starling's heart clenched at the cruelty of her own words,
with the thrill of being able to wound her rival so. was
wounded, too. But in the next instant, she felt deflated. Mrs
Weekes put out a hand to steady herself against the wall; her
face had turned ashen, and was so full of horror that Starling
at once felt the need to make amends. She tried to resist it. Alice would 
embrace her, and call her sister, and comfort her. But
I am not Alice. Still, she felt her resolve waver and her anger
seep away. The woman looked abject in her misery. Starling
almost put out her hand, but could not quite do it. 'Mrs
Weekes . . .' she said, but was unsure what else to add. The
woman raised her eyes, expectantly. 'Aren't you angry?' said
Starling, eventually. 'Aren't you angry with me? With him?'
'I am angry only with myself,' said Rachel Weekes, her
voice tight and trembling. 'I've been a fool. An utter fool.
And it cannot be undone, can it? It cannot]' She dissolved into
a storm of tears. The verger looked over at them curiously,
and Starling shushed her, herding her further back into the
shadows.
'Shh! Quiet, people are looking. What can't be undone?'
'The marriage!' Rachel Weekes gasped, between sobs that
shook her chest.
'Well, no. That much is true. I was fool enough to love
him but not fool enough to marry him, at least,' said Starling,
almost to herself. Though I would have, if he'd asked. I'd have
been fool enough then. At this, Rachel Weekes grew calmer,
and stopped crying.
'You loved him?' she said. Starling glared at her in silence.
'Then he has treated you very ill . . .' She looked at the
bruise on Starling's face, and seemed poised to begin weeping
again. Starling tried to distract her from it, and was surprised
to hear Bridget's words coming out of her mouth. Two
mothers I had, one soft, one hard.
'Well, there's no point crying over spilt milk,' she said
wryly.
To her surprise, Rachel Weekes laughed; a startled snatch
of laughter.
'My mother used to say that,' she said.
'Everyone's mother says that sooner or later, I reckon,'
said Starling. 'What's done is done; there's nothing between
him and me now. As far as I know he has been true to you,
since you wed.'
'No.' Rachel shook her head. 'I have been much deceived.
But then, perhaps 1 deceived myself most of all,' she
murmured. She sounded calmer, dejected. Starling felt a stab
of worry.
'Don't challenge him about this, will you? Don't tell him
we've met, for pity's sake! It would go ill for both of us. You
must swear not to tell!'
'I won't tell. I won't . . . challenge him,' said Rachel
Weekes.
'I can't stay here all day - I must get back to the house.
Was this what you wanted from me, then? To know that you
married a knave?' said Starling.
'No, that was not it. . .' Mrs Weekes wiped her face with
gloved fingers, and took a deep breath. 'I wanted to talk to
you about Jonathan Alleyn. And about Alice Beckwith.'
Starling froze at the mention of both their names together.
She couldn't remember when she'd last heard them spoken in
the same breath. Jonathan and Alice. J & A; carved into the
flesh of the lovers' tree for ever. She swallowed.
'Well? What of them?'
'When we spoke before, at the house, you said to me that
Miss Beckwith had been too good for this world.'
'I spoke the truth. What of it?'
'Do you think her . . . dead, then?' Rachel Weekes had
stopped crying, and now a strange light was in her eyes, a
strange eagerness that Starling mistrusted.
"I know she is dead.'
'How do you know? Were you still in touch with her,
after she absconded?'
'After she . . . ? No, you don't understand a thing! She
never absconded. She never had another lover, and she never
left her home with another . . . She was killed! That's the
truth of it!' Whenever she spoke of it, Starling's pulse
quickened with desperation; the terrible frustration of knowing
the truth but being believed by no one. But Rachel
Weekes's eyes had gone wide with shock.
'She was killed? You mean . . . murdered?'
'Aye, murdered! By Jonathan Alleyn!'
'By . . . God above, you cannot mean it?' Rachel Weekes
said breathlessly.
'I would not say such a thing lightly.'
'But . . . what happened? Will you tell me?' she said.
Starling stared at her for a moment, and realised that nobody
had ever asked her to describe that day before.

The last time Starling ever saw her, Alice had been winding
the front of her hair into rags before bed; patiently wrapping
each lock around a strip of cloth, and then twisting it up and
tying it near her scalp. The back of it she left to hang loose,
down between her shoulder blades. When she unwound the
rags in the morning, the curls were never quite as neat as she
wanted them -- her hair was too fine, too wilfully straight.
Most nights Starling didn't wake when Alice came up, but
that night, that last night, she woke from a dream of running
and never tiring to see her sister at the dressing table, fixing
her hair in this way. At once, Starling felt safe. Her dream,
though it had almost been wonderful, had left her with the
uneasy feeling that she was not quite normal, not quite real.
But there was the smooth pallor of Alice's skin in the mirror,
and the way she curled up her toes and crossed her feet to
one side of the stool, and everything was real and right again.
The morning sun woke Starling, casting a spear of light
across her face through the gap between the shutters. Low,
chill, winter sun that told her she had overslept. It was early
February, the year 1809. Alice's bed was already empty, so
Starling hurried out of the blankets, wincing at the cold in the
room, pulled on her everyday wool dress and stockings, and
went downstairs to help. Bridget was at the stove, cooking
drop scones for breakfast in a black iron skillet.
'Hey ho, Bridget,' said Starling, yawning. 'Where's
Alice?'
'Up and out already, far early this morning,' said Bridget,
always curt and grumpy at that time of day -- her back ached,
the first hour or two she was up. 'I heard her go. She's not let
the hens out or fed them,' she grumbled.
'I'll do it.' Starling swung her shawl around her shoulders,
tied her hair in a knot at the nape of her neck and stuffed her
feet into her pattens. There was frost on the ground and in
the trees, frost sparkling on every tendril of wild clematis that
grew along the front wall of the yard. Her breath made
miniature clouds against the brilliant blue sky. Alice loved
such mornings - crisp and still and beautiful; she didn't feel
the cold as much as it seemed she ought. Starling searched,
but Alice wasn't in any of the barns, at the sty or in the stable
with the horse. She shielded her eyes and stared out along the
river, looking for the tell-tale flash of colour that would mark
Alice's approach -- her bright hair, her blue dress, her pale
pink shawl of warm lambs' wool, which she sometimes
wrapped around her head when it was this cold, laughing
and saying she would make a fine shepherdess. There was no
sign. Shivering, Starling fed the hens and let them out of the
coop, quickly gathered the eggs and hurried back inside.
Alice did not return in time for breakfast. Bridget and
Starling ate it without her, neither one acknowledging any
concern. Starling didn't want to betray herself, didn't want to
be the first to say it; as though whoever first expressed fear
would be responsible for giving it cause. But at lunchtime the
two women, Bridget past fifty, and Starling just thirteen years
old, gave up pretending that all was well. Gradually, they
stopped going about their chores and drifted to the kitchen
window to look out in hope. The sun had melted the frost by
then; the world was green and brown and grey again, dowdy
and unremarkable. Unable to hold her tongue any longer,
Starling took a deep breath and turned to face the older
woman.
'Bridget, where is she?' she said in a small voice. For a
moment Bridget didn't reply. They exchanged a look of
shared unease. Then Bridget cleared her throat.
'Go on into the village and ask a few faces.'
'It was so icy this morning . . . and it must have been dark
when she went out. What if she fell? What if some harm has
come to her?'
'Then we will find her and scold her for her lack of good
sense,' said Bridget, curtly. 'Go on into the village.'
So Starling ran from the butcher's shop to the baker's,
stopping everyone she saw along the way. She went along
the river and along the canal, a good distance in either
direction, asking fishermen and bargemen and rovers. She
went across the bridge and asked the miller and the toll man;
she knocked on the door of the parsonage, and checked in
church. She steeled herself and went into the inn, which she
had never done by herself before. She asked the serving girls,
the inn keep, the travellers eating their stew and potatoes. By
sunset she could think of nowhere else to go, no one else to
ask. She will be home in the kitchen when I get back. Some small
mishap detained her, that was all. She pictured Alice seated by
the fire, with a hot cup of tea in her hands and a sprained
ankle propped up in front of her. She pictured it so clearly
that she ran back to the farmhouse in her haste, burst inm
kitchen all breathless, and could not understand why the
room was dark, the fire gone out, and Bridget still stood at
the window with her face pinched up in fear. In that exact
moment the ground seemed to shudder beneath Starling's
feet, and everything suddenly seemed breakable. She felt
queasy and helpless, and sharp-fingered panic scrabbled in
her gut.
'We must send word to Lord Faukes on the morrow, if
there is still no sign of her. He will know what to do,' said
Bridget, in hollow tones.
Neither one of them could go to bed, so they sat in the
kitchen through the night, cold and sleepless, until the sun
rose once again. There was still no sign of Alice. Bridget paid
the yardman's boy three farthings to run a message directly
to Lord Faukes in Box, and half an hour later the rattle of the
front gate roused the two of them from their chairs, hope
flooding through them. The door was thrown open before
they reached it, and the person that came through it stopped
them in their tracks.
'What's the meaning of--' Bridget began to say, only to
cut herself off in astonishment.
'Mr Alleyn?' Starling breathed, not quite believing it was
him.
'Where is she? Where is she?' Jonathan Alleyn gasped,
fighting for breath. He staggered into the kitchen, looking
around wildly as though Alice might be hiding behind the
table. There were cuts and gashes on the backs of his hands,
crusted with filth. 'Alice!' he shouted. And then the smell of
him hit them, and shocked them even more. Starling clapped
her hands over her nose and mouth.
'Saints preserve us! He reeks of the slaughterhouse,' cried
Bridget. In truth, the stink he gave off was worse than blood. It was blood and 
rot and burning; excrement, putrefaction and filth. His clothes - his red army 
jacket and breeches
were so stained and tattered it was hard to recognise them.
His hair was long and matted, his face unshaven. He had
always been lean but now he was painfully thin. Beneath the
clothes his body was like sticks and shards; no softness, no
flesh. What skin they could see behind the dirt and bruises
was a ghastly greyish white. There was a long tear in the
shoulder of his jacket, a messy darkness beneath that gave off
the worst smell.
Gagging, Starling followed him as he crashed through into
the parlour.
'Alice!' he shouted to the empty room. Starling stood in
his way, forcing him to stop.
'Mr Alleyn! How are you here - here and not at the war?
Where is Alice? Have you been with her?' she asked desperately.
Jonathan looked down at her and didn't seem to
recognise her at all. His eyes were feverish and wild; the
hands that grasped her shoulders shook violently, but had an
inhuman strength.
'Where is she? The letter she wrote ... it cannot be.
I won't believe it! Where is she?' His voice rose from a
whisper to a shout, spittle flying from his lips. His fingernails
bit into her.
'We don't know where she is! Do you know? Have you
seen her? What's happened?' said Starling, her words garbled
by tears that came on suddenly, half closing her throat.
'You're not well, Mr Alleyn . . . please . . .' But Jonathan
shoved her to one side, and continued his search, trailing his
stink behind him until it was in every corner of the house.
When at last he came back to the kitchen, Starling stood
shoulder to shoulder with Bridget, frightened and bewildered.
'I
must find her. I must tell her . . .' Jonathan said indistinctly.
He seemed to be losing control of his tongue; the
sounds he made were strange and disjointed.
'He is afire with fever,' Bridget said quietly. 'We mustn't
let him leave as he is.' At this, Jonathan's head whipped
around and he glared savagely at them.
'Who are you? What have you done with Alice? What
have you done?' he bellowed. It seemed to take the last of his
strength. His hand was on his sabre, trying to free it from its
scabbard, as he sank to his knees. 'You cannot keep me here,'
he whispered. And then he collapsed.

Some weeks later, when the fear of harm coming to Alice had
evolved into the agony of grief, the bitter torment of not
knowing, Starling managed to see Jonathan again. She and
Bridget had been made to quit the farmhouse in Bathampton,
and Starling was in service to Lord Faukes, at the house in
Box. She needed to be near Jonathan, since he was her best
link to Alice. She needed to be near him, because he could set
about finding her. He could stand up and deny the stories
being told about her, and be believed. He could do something. And when Alice 
came back, and found the farmhouse at
Bathampton let to strangers, she would come to Box second
of all, Starling was sure. She would come to find Jonathan
and Lord Faukes. She would come for her sister. For days
Jonathan lay unconscious, and doctors came and went from
his room. For days after that he would see no one. Starling
was forced to wait, driven to distraction with impatience.
When she did at last sneak into his room he was much
changed. The stink was gone; he was clean, his wounds
bandaged. He could stand, and walk -- she had seen him. Yet
he did not walk; he did not ride. He did nothing.
When Starling appeared in his room he did not seem to
think it amiss. If he was surprised that she'd walked out of his
secret life in Bathampton and into his everyday one in Box,
he showed no sign of it.
All.vn. why do you not search for her?' she whispered.
Since losing Alice, Starling was less sure of herself, less brave.
She was less sure of everything around her, other than that
Alice would not have abandoned her willingly. And she was
horribly, horribly lonely.
'There's no point,' he said roughly, not looking at her.
For a moment his mouth kept working, as if he would say
more. He frowned; his eyes were swollen, and had lost their
sparkle. 'She's gone,' he said, eventually.
'You cannot believe what they are saying about her. You
cannot believe she had a lover, and has run off with him. You
cannot!'
'Can I not?' he said, grinding out the words. He shook his
head. 'The letter she wrote to me,' he said. 'I wish I could
remember! And my lord grandfather, and my mother. All tell
the same story. And even Bridget has confirmed it. . .'
'What? Remember what? What has Bridget confirmed?'
Starling's heart felt weak and damaged. When it pounded
like it did then, she worried that it might come apart. Her
head ached unbearably, with disbelief, with shock, and
desperation.
'She has left with another. She is gone.'
'She would neverl You know that. Mr Alleyn, she loves
you! She wants to marry you -- it's all she's ever wanted! And
she made me her sister . . . she would never just abandon us!
Why aren't you out looking for her? How can you believe
them? You know it's not true! You know it!' She grasped his
arm to make him see. 'Someone has taken her! Or hurt her!
Do something!'
'What would you have me do, Starling?' Jonathan
wrenched his arm away from her. Two of her nails bent
backwards and tore, but she felt nothing. 'Do you call my
grandfather a liar? And my mother? Do you doubt what
Bridget saw? Do you doubt the letter Alice wrote to me? Do
you doubt every piece of evidence that she has run away?'
His face was a snarl, and tears ran down it.
'Yes, I doubt them. How can you not?'
'You are a fool, girl. She no more loved me than she was
sister to you. Both were lies! It was all fiction,' he said, and
Starling recoiled, stung.
'What letter did she write to you? Where is it? Let me
read it,' she demanded.
'I . . .' He hesitated, frowning. 'I have lost it.'
'Lost it? What did it say?'
'I ... I cannot remember. I was not ... I was not
myself. . .'
'But you are well now, sir. Please. You must do something.
You must try to find her. Anything could have
happened to her -- gypsies might have taken her ... or
robbers left her injured somewhere . . . You must search, Mr
Alleyn! You can't believe what they are saying!'
'Enough! I will hear no more. She's gone! Do you hear?
She's gone?
'No! No, she's not. She wouldn't,' Starling moaned, tears
blinding her.
'Yes. She is gone.' Just then, Jonathan stared into her eyes
with such conviction and despair that Starling felt the seeds
of a terrible suspicion germinate.
And as the months passed, and Jonathan returned to the
war in Spain, and no word ever came, her suspicion grew and
grew, flourishing like weeds in the waste ground of her grief.
For even if Starling allowed herself to think that Alice would
abandon her, she did not believe that she would go so
completely, and never send word. Never send a note to say
goodbye, or to explain why she had acted in secret. But no
word ever came, and nobody in the house at Box would even
speak of Alice Beckwith, and Starling could not understand why Jonathan, who 
had loved Alice, would believe what was
said about her. She did not believe that he believed it. So,
when she thought back to his ravaged eyes and the cold,
bitter way he had said she is gone, it seemed that he must
know more. That he must know things he would not say.
There'd been blood on him when he came to the farmhouse
that day, blood aplenty. Spatters and smears of it, all
over his clothing. And he had been raving, unhinged; he had
spoken of a letter that none but he had seen or read, the
contents of which had upset him terribly, yet which he now
claimed he could not remember. Still some part of her kept
its trust in him, though; kept it for three more years until
he came back again, his leg wound finishing the war for
him. Some part of Starling would not believe Jonathan could
harm Alice. Until that man she no longer knew hit her for
mentioning Alice's name. Until she heard him say it out loud,
clear as day. She is dead. Then all trust vanished, and all hope
with it.

There was a pause after Starling finished her story, and she
glanced over her shoulder to make sure the verger and the
caretaker weren't listening. Rachel Weekes seemed dumbstruck.
She shook her head minutely.
'How can that be? Mrs Alleyn says her son got word of
Alice's disgrace while he was fighting overseas ... He wasn't
even in the country. Or do you say he killed her after she ran
away?'
'No, no.' Starling shook her head in frustration. 'Mrs
Alleyn lies, to cover for her son . . . she doesn't want it to
be true, of course she doesn't. She's a noble lady, but as a
mother her first loyalty is to her son ... He was returned!
Alice got word that the men were returning, and stopping
in Brighton to recover from the fray. She wrote to him
there ... I know not what she said. But he came to
Bathampton the day after she vanished. The very next day!'
'Wait,' said Rachel Weekes, shaking her head. 'I can't
follow you ... he killed her because she loved another?'
'No!' said Starling, louder than she'd meant to. Several
heads turned towards them. 'No, she had no other lover. She
never did - I would have known about it if she had.' Starling
felt the tiniest pull of doubt as she said this. She remembered
what Bridget had said - what she'd claimed she'd seen. She
thought of the way she'd betrayed Alice to Bridget after she
discovered the lovers' tree, and shame smouldered in her gut.
Could Alice have hidden things from her, after she proved
herself so untrustworthy?
'Why then would he kill her?'
'I ... I think she might have tried to break it off with him.
Their engagement, which had been a secret one. I know his
family did not approve of the match.'
'Indeed not.'
'After Mr Alleyn had gone off to the war, Alice went to
Lord Faukes's house in Box, one day. Where Mrs Alleyn
lived, with Jonathan as well. She was never the same after she
came back from there that day. I think Lord Faukes told her
plainly that she could not marry Jonathan.' And what Lord
Faukes wanted, Lord Faukes got. Starling pushed the memory
away, her gorge rising. 'There must have been some grave
reason, some terrible threat ... or perhaps it was something
Jonathan had said or done - perhaps he was the betrayer! But
whatever the reason, I think she wrote to Jonathan to break it
off.'
'This is what Captain Sutton has told me. That Mr Alleyn
had a letter from her in Brighton, and he left at once for
Bathampton.'
'Who is Captain Sutton?'
'A friend of Mr Alleyn's, or was. They were in the army
together, and my husband is acquainted with them. I have . . . become friends 
with his wife.'
At the mention of Richard Weekes, both of them fell silent
for a moment. Starling felt her cheeks grow hot. She felt
absurdly embarrassed, and jealous, that Rachel Weekes
should share an acquaintance with Jonathan that she knew
nothing about. Folly. He is not your pet, nor your prisoner. But
in truth, that was how she had come to think of him - as her
possession. He was at the centre of all her thoughts; him, and
what he had done.
'There is the proof of it,' she said, half strangled. Why,
Alice? Why?
'She said Jonathan took the news very badly indeed.'
'Yes. Badly enough to kill her.'
'But surely ... he would have been discovered in his
crime, if he had done something so terrible? Her body would
have been discovered somewhere . . .'
'Not necessarily.' Starling swallowed against a sudden
hard lump in her throat. 'If he cast her into the river, and
she was swept a goodly way before she was found ... if she
was found at all . . . nobody would know who she was. And
nobody was looking for a body . . . they all thought she'd
run away with another, because that's the story that was put
about.'
'Put about by whom?'
'By Jonathan Alleyn, and his mother. By Lord Faukes. By
the gossips in Bathampton, who had always wondered about
poor Alice, and jumped at the chance to malign her.' By
Bridget. Oh, how could you, Bridget?
'I still don't understand why you think otherwise,' said
Rachel Weekes. That strange urgency was still in her eyes,
fiercer than ever.
'I know otherwise, because I knew Alice. She would never have betrayed 
Jonathan. She would never have betrayed
anybody. She loved him, and she was true to him all her
life. She loved her home, and she loved . . . she loved me,
and Bridget. She would never have gone off and left us all. Never.'
'You are quite certain.' It was not a question, and a sudden
calm came upon Starling. She does not scoff; she listens.
'I know it like I know the sun will rise in the east,' she
said.
Rachel Weekes was watching Starling with a kind of
steady amazement. Her tears had left her face mottled, but
her eyes had dried; she seemed to consider several different
things to say before choosing.
'Jonathan Alleyn is a tortured soul ... he said to me he
wished to undo things he had done. And there is much
violence in him, I have seen it. But to do so evil a thing . . .
You truly believe it? You would have it that Mrs Alleyn lies
to cover his crime? That she has done so all these years?'
'Yes, she lies. Of course -- what else would a mother do?
Jonathan is all she has in this world, after all, especially now
her father is gone.' In that, we are alike; though our hearts be
worlds apart.
'When did Lord Faukes die?'
'He's seven years in his grave.' Seven years I pray God he's
spent roasting. Starling fought the urge to spit at the mention
of him. 'Jonathan Alleyn loved Alice, once. But he was
different after the war -- he was not the same man, nor has
been since. You saw how he behaved, when he first saw you!
He might have killed you too.'
'Aye, he might have,' Rachel murmured. Her eyes were
distant, thoughts racing behind them. 'But why have you not
denounced him, if you are sure of his crime?'
'A public accusation?' said Starling, in disgust. 'Who
would believe the word of a servant over people like them?
Nobody. And I would lose my position, and all access to the man. Why do you ask 
me all of this? To know the man you
are sent to comfort?' Starling demanded, suddenly suspicious.
Rachel Weekes shifted her feet, looking almost sheepish.
'Yes, to know him ... to know what I am to deal with.
But also to know ... to know Alice. The one whose face I
share. The one he loved so dearly. Tell me, who were her
parents? Mrs Alleyn says she was nobody's daughter.'
'She said that?' Starling chewed her lip for a moment.
'Alice herself often wondered, but none of us knew who her
parents were. Lord Faukes would never disclose it.'
'And he was the only one who would have known, I
suppose.'
'He and the parents themselves, whoever they were. But
to know Alice you need know only this: that she was all
kindness, all decency; all generous and gentle soul.' Starling
took a deep breath, teetering on the slippery edge of the
chasm of grief inside her. She feared that if she fell in, she
would never climb out again. She collected herself. 'Alice
would have forgiven Jonathan for killing her. That's what
she was like. She forgave people . . . there was no malice in
her. No rancour or spite. To know Jonathan Alleyn you need
know only this, that it is truly a fine line between love and
hate.'
'Then I am wed to a liar, this we know, and am possibly
in the employ of a murderer,' said Rachel Weekes, as she
absorbed these words. Her voice was heavy and wretched,
but she did not sound afraid. Starling looked at her curiously.
'Then you believe what I have told you? That he killed
her?'
'We ... we have not yet had the full story of what passed
between them, I am sure, and I pray it is not so. But I believe
he could have.'
For a long moment the two of them simply stood in the
abbey's pooling shadows and watched each other. Starling
was not sure what else she should say, and it seemed that
Rachel Weekes was also confounded.
'It would not be wise for us to meet again,' Starling said
quietly.
'But I will be at the house many times. I will be there this
Wednesday ... if you want to talk to me again.'
'It was you who wanted to talk to me, remember?' Starling
pointed out, and saw Rachel Weekes flinch, stung.
'But I am well placed, am I not, to try to discover the truth
of the matter?' she ventured.
'Why would you want to do that?' Suspicion flared in
Starling again.
'Because--' Mrs Weekes broke off. Her eyes searched
Starling's face, as though the answer might be there, and
Starling felt something tremulous in the pit of her stomach,
like sparkles of joy that faded as soon as they lit. Ye Gods, but
she is the very image of my sister. 'I have thought, since I first
entered that house, that it seemed frozen; sleeping, or perhaps
only waiting,' said Rachel Weekes. 'Now I understand what
it was that made time stop. It was Alice, and the way she
vanished. She haunts that house . . . she haunts Jonathan
Alleyn and his mother. Such secrets . . .' She paused, shook
her head slightly. 'I ... I am told I must keep going there,
but I ... I cannot do so, and not know the truth,' she said
vehemently. 'The truth will set us free,' she murmured.
'Perhaps it could set me free.'
'I don't think the Bible was referring to such dark truths as
these,' said Starling. Rachel Weekes frowned, in obvious
thought.
'But twelve years have passed since Alice was seen ... In
twelve years you have found out nothing new?' she said.
'Twelve difficult years, I assure you.' Starling scowled
defensively. 'I stayed on in their service only to this end . . .
only to keep my enemy close. It is nine years since Mr Alleyn
got back from the war for good, and he was more than half
mad when he did. I had conversations with him then that he
claims not to remember now -- not remember at all. Then for
years he was near insensible with opium . . . He dreamed
four years away, and drank the rest. . .'
'He does not remember that time? Then ... is it not
possible . . .'
'That he does not remember killing her?' Starling shook
her head. 'I do not believe it. Perhaps he wishes to forget, but
I do not believe that he has. That he could'
'Then it is this knowledge, you believe, that torments him
so?'
'Should it not torment him to know that he slew the one
person who loved him best in all the world?'
'But he knows what you suspect of him? Then . . . how
can you be safe there? How can you not fear what he might
do to you?'
'You need not fear for me. I can manage Jonathan Alleyn.'
'It has been so long since Alice was lost,' said Rachel
Weekes. She studied Starling with wide, pitying eyes, and
Starling recoiled. No one had looked at her that way in years;
Alice had been the last person to. It made her feel vulnerable,
somehow weaker, as though she might crack. 'How have you
borne it?' the woman asked.
'What choice have I had?' Starling replied, curtly. What
have I become in those years, that I cannot stand to be comforted? 'If Mrs 
Alleyn knew what I was about . . . But she lies for
him, I know. She knows more of the truth than she lets on.'
'Perhaps she also lies to herself,' said Rachel, softly. 'A
mother's love is a powerful thing. I have ... I have begun to
know the lady, a little. Perhaps, in time, she might speak.'
'You must not say anything of what I have told you! Not
to them . . . they must not know that I know, or in an instant
they would be rid of me!' Panic made Starling's voice rise.
If they send me away, if they do that, what have I then? She had
the sudden, fearful sensation of losing control.
'I shan't speak of this to them. I ... I don't know what I
will do.'
Starling thought quickly. It had been a relief to speak the
truth and pass on her suspicions; she had not bargained on
recruiting an ally -- a person with her own ideas and plans. A
person easily shocked, and likely to betray herself. She could
ruin everything.
'Do nothing,' said Starling. 'It would be better if you
didn't see him any more. If you went no more to Lansdown
Crescent. It would be safer for you, and easier for me.'
'I must go. My husband commands it, and I would feel. . .
duty bound to Mrs Alleyn to do so, even if he did not. What
should I do?' said Mrs Weekes. Starling took a moment to
decide, chewing the inside of her mouth. Her unease remained;
the sudden fear of unanticipated change.
'If you would be a friend to me, then I ... Mr Alleyn has
Alice's letters. All of her letters, his letters to her as well. She
kept hers in a rosewood box about as long as my forearm,
and in all the chaos of the days after she vanished . . . only
once I had recovered my wits enough to look for it did I find
it gone. No one else would have taken it, and I have seen him
reading them, upon occasion. He clings to them as though
they might assuage his guilt. There could be some clue in
them, as to what manner of thing made her break with him.
For if it was grave enough that she would do that, then it
is grave enough that he might kill her for the same. For
insulting him.'
'Do men kill over insults?" asked Mrs Weekes, softly.
'Only every day. See if you can find where he hides the
box, and in it the other letters. For all the times I've searched his rooms, 
I've found it not - it must be in some secret place.
If you can find it out, tell me. I need to know what she wrote
to him in Brighton.'
'All right. I will try.' Rachel Weekes's expression betrayed
scant hope of success.
'Say nothing of this! To anyone,' Starling whispered
fiercely. Rachel Weekes gave a quick, anxious nod, but made
no move. She hardly knows where to go next, or what to do. Starling left her 
there.
She was loaded with a new and different mix of emotions
as she ducked out into the crowded square. The fear was still
there, but the anger gone; a nagging foreboding now, and the
excitement even stronger, and beneath it all the unease that
came from having so long trusted nobody, and suddenly
finding trust assumed by another. Why should she trust me any
more than I her? And yet she does. She does not scorn the things I
told her. She does not side blindly with the Alleyns, as she might. As if the 
world had lurched slightly and come out of its
old rut, it suddenly seemed as though the future would be
different; life would change. But for better or worse, Starling
couldn't tell. Isn't that what I intended when I brought her into
that house? For twelve years they have woven such lies that I
have not managed to penetrate them. Could she be the one to do
it? Starling did not trust the woman, nor understand her one
bit, but she felt less alone than she had before; less alone than
she had since she was parted from Alice.



Rachel walked with little idea of her destination. She was
distracted; she left her feet to find their own path and they
stopped on a quiet corner of an unswept street, where rubbish and muck were 
piled high in the gutters and only the ice on
the puddles kept her feet dry. A starving cat came to sniff her
shins, hoping for food, but when Rachel lowered her hand to
stroke it, it ran away. She leaned against the wall and shut her
eyes for a moment, trying to marshal her thoughts. She'd
known even before the girl had spoken. She'd known as soon
as she'd seen the bruise on her face, and had thought of the
way Richard had named her, in his anger. Starling. Named
her even though he'd made every effort until then to deflect
Rachel's interest in the girl, and feign blindness to her
existence. And she was pretty enough, though her face was
pert and her red hair dishevelled. There was a sharpness
about her; the liveliness of her expression spoke of intelligence,
and wit. But Starling was afraid of Richard too; it was
clear from the way she'd made Rachel swear to not reveal
their meeting. It would go ill, for both of us. Rachel took
several deep breaths to calm down. And he was with her right
up until we wed. As we courted, and he said he could not live
without me. And she loved him. Did he love her? Could he have,
if he beats her now?
Long minutes later the cold begin to work on her, stiffening
her fingers, making the joints ache. To keep herself from
thinking about Richard, she thought about Jonathan Alleyn
instead. Somehow, during her visits to him after the first one,
she had written off his violence towards her as an aberration;
he'd been so much calmer since, more sober. Black tempered,
and alarming, but never violent again; yet she couldn't deny
that she'd witnessed that tendency in him, even if Starling's
story hadn't had the ring of utter conviction. And all her
conversations with him told her one thing above all - that he
was tortured by regret and self-loathing. Could he have killed
Alice? Is that what torments him so? The thought made her
mouth go dry, and anxiety flutter in her stomach. Let it not be
so. Yet she was confounded to find that she feared him no
more now than she already had; though the thought of
how she would even begin to discover where he kept Alice
Beckwith's letters was already troubling her. The one and
only time she'd mentioned Alice's name, he had cut her off
abruptly. At least he is no worse than he appeared to be when I
first met him, unlike someone else. She stood up from the wall
and set off with greater purpose, towards Duncan Weekes's
house.
The old man had been sleeping, though it was early in the
evening; he opened the door with a befuddled expression and
his cap still on, blinking owlishly. His cheeks were rough
with coarse white stubble; he smelled of stale skin, tallow and
brandy.
'Mrs Weekes . . . dear girl... I had not expected you,' he
mumbled. He stood up straighter, but it caused him to wince.
'Forgive me, 1 ... 1 wanted to talk to somebody. I
shouldn't have called at this hour . . .' Rachel stammered.
Duncan seemed to focus on her face; on her puffy, red eyes.
'Come, come.' He ushered her into the chilly room. 'Are
you all right? Has something happened?'
'No, that is . . . yes . . .' Rachel put her hands to her face
and tried to keep hold.
'Please, sit, Mrs Weekes,' Duncan said kindly. 'Be easy,
you are safe here.' Rachel glanced up at this; it seemed an odd thing for him 
to say. As though he expected her to be
unsafe elsewhere. 'You look chilled to the bone. Can I pour
you a tot of brandy, to warm you?'
'Yes, please.' Rachel noticed that he poured himself one as
well, and swigged it down before he handed hers to her. She
sipped it, felt the fire in her throat, and coughed. Duncan
smiled briefly and set about reviving the fire, which had all
but burnt out while he slept. The few sticks and coals he
tipped onto it were the last in the bucket.
'Ah,' Duncan murmured, indistinctly.
T will fetch more, if you tell me where the bunker is?'
'No, no. Do not trouble yourself,' he said, and looked so
uncomfortable that Rachel suddenly guessed the truth.
'There is more coal, isn't there? You do have more?'
'Not today, not today,' he said, with fragile good cheer.
'I've been in a bit of bad bread, lately. But tomorrow I have
some work, down on the wharf. I shall buy coal when the day
is done, and be warm as toast by nightfall.'
'But what of tonight?'
'Well. I have your company to warm my heart, do I not?'
He smiled wearily as he sank into the chair opposite her, and
Rachel felt tears well up in her eyes again.
'Mr Weekes . . .'
'Here now, none of that. Tell me what troubles you, my
dear, and do not fret over me. I'm a tough old bird, you'll
see.'
'I . . . it's Richard. My husband.' And your son. Rachel was
suddenly unsure whether to continue, but Duncan gazed at
her with such sympathy that the words were out before she
could stop them. 'I found out that he ... he has been
wenching. Right up until the very moment we wed!' She
hung her head, ashamed, and wept again as much from embarrassment
as sorrow.
Clumsily, Duncan Weekes put out a gnarled hand and
patted hers.
'Oh, my poor girl. And my foolish boy!' He shook his
head.
'What should I do?' said Rachel, desperately.
'Do?' Duncan Weekes smiled sadly. 'Well, you can do
nothing, my dear.'
'Do nothing? But. . . but he has ... he has . . .'
'He has kept his wedding vows, you say?'
'As far as I can discover, yes.'
'That then is something to be thankful for, is it not?' said
the old man, softly. 'Thankful?'
'My dear girl, young men with pretty faces - and even
those without them - will always know more of . . . the
world, than young ladies. It was ever so. The world is full
of rantipole girls who'll accept a promise, or even a compliment,
as betrothal enough to consummate. Of course
you're shocked -- you have been brought up good, and
virtuous. But a good many young women have not that
advantage, and are led more by their senses than their good
sense, if you follow me. Richard has always drawn the morts
to him; and like any young man, full of vigour and good
health, to expect him not to indulge himself would be like
setting sweet flowers before a bee and then bidding it not to
sup.'
'Then such behaviour is to be condoned? Accepted?'
'Condoned, no, not at all. I say only that it would be a rare
and virtuous young man who approached the altar on his
wedding day as pure as the day he was born. Perhaps it is
behaviour that is to be . . . expected. The sadness here is that
you have found it out, and been wounded by it. Far better
that a young lady continues in marriage happily unaware of
such past transgressions.'
'You mean to say that ignorance is bliss?' said Rachel,
bitterly.
'Sometimes, aye, it is.'
'Then restraint and virtue in men is naught but an illusion.'
'Not
an illusion, a reality, my dear. It perhaps only wants,
now that you know of his folly, an adjustment to what you can understand as 
virtue. I say again, he has kept to his vows
to you -- that is something to take comfort in, surely?'
'Perhaps,' said Rachel, listlessly. She glanced up, and
Duncan Weekes smiled apologetically. 'I should not have
brought this complaint to you. You are his father. It was
wrong of me, and I'm sorry.'
'No, it was not wrong. You are to come to me whenever
you need to.'
'Nothing is turning out the way I had envisaged it,' she
murmured.
'Ah, my dear girl - nothing ever does! Only try to forgive
my boy. What's done is done, and can't be altered. He loves
you, I am sure of that.' Rachel considered this, but said
nothing.
They sat in companionable silence for a while, as the
coals began to seethe and smoke in the hearth -- the brandy
warmed Rachel far more than the meagre fire. Through the
ceiling and walls came a faint, sweet song, repeated over and
over, and the thin wail of an unhappy baby. Rachel fumbled
in her pocket and drew out her purse. There was money in it
to buy supper, and she passed it all to Duncan.
'What's this?' he said startled.
'Please, take it. Take it and buy some fuel for your fire.'
'You need not provide for me, my dear. Thank you, but
I--'
'Please take it, or I will be forced to go myself to buy the
coal, and then I'll have smuts all over my dress. Take it. It's
not right that Richard and I dine in warmth by a merry
hearth, while you shiver here alone; and I have had my fill of
wrong things for today.'
'You have a kind heart, Mrs Weekes.'
'Please, call me Rachel. We are family, are we not?' Duncan
Weekes's face showed his pleasure, even as he fingered the
coins uneasily.
T do not think Richard would thank you for giving me
this, Rachel.'
'He will not hear of it.' With luck, he will not notice. 'I'll
say I bought ribbons with it. Ribbons always befuddle a
man, my mother used to say. They know that women must
have them, but cannot fathom out the why.' She smiled, and
Duncan chuckled. Rachel finished her brandy and rose to
leave, then a further thought occurred to her.
'May I ask you one more thing, sir? Mrs Alleyn said
something to me that lingers in my mind. She said that
Richard had been exceptionally loyal to her, during a time of
strife. I understood that she meant in years past, while you
both were still in her service. Perhaps it is not my business,
but I am curious ... I wondered if you knew when she
might mean?'
She arranged her skirts and shawl, and only then realised
that the old man hadn't answered. She looked up, and was
struck by the expression on his face. Duncan's jaw hung
slack, a little open; his eyes were huge and uneasy.
'What is it?' said Rachel, startled. Duncan shook his head
slightly, and closed his mouth.
'I cannot say,' he said, his voice rough. He cleared his
throat nervously and rubbed the palms of his hands against
his shirt. Rachel stared at him.
'Mr Weekes?' she said. 'Do you know what time she
spoke of?'
'No, child. I do not know. Whatever it was, it's long past
now. I would not trouble yourself with wondering.' He could
not look her in the eye. He patted his pockets as if searching
for something, and ran his tongue over his cracked lips.
'Perhaps you're right,' she said softly. What frightens him
in my enquiry? 'It was only a passing curiosity.' Duncan
Weekes sagged visibly in relief, and nodded. She took her
leave of him and went back onto the deadened street, where
the darkness was complete, the sky a fathomless black. She
walked back to Abbeygate Street with a sense of foreboding
that bordered on fear. She thought of the welt on the side of
Starling's face; she thought of the two of them lying together,
all the time Richard had been courting her. She had no idea
how she would react when she next set eyes on her husband.
The house was in darkness, and Rachel waited a while in
the kitchen, with dinner set out all around her. She found she
had no appetite for it, as the evening grew old and Richard
did not appear. Her own relief at his absence troubled her too
much. am bound to him, for all time. What will life be, if I am
already pleased when he keeps away? She went upstairs to bed,
and sat awhile with her trinket box on her lap, carefully
unpinning the lock of her mother's hair from the lining
and holding it to her lips. The hair was smooth and cool;
scentless, unfeeling. She shut her eyes and tried to conjure
Anne Crofton into the room; tried to hear what advice she
would give her daughter. must learn to love him, there is no
other choice. She knew that her mother would have said
something similar, if she could. She sent out a different
prayer instead. might have found her, Mother. Tell Papa --
know you are with him. I might have found her. And she will
anchor me, when now I am cut adrift.
For a second, Rachel could almost hear her mother -- the
gentle creak of the boards beneath her tiny, slippered feet; the
swish of her skirts and the soft sound of her breathing. But
when she opened her eyes the room was empty, of course,
and she felt the ache of despair, like a bruise that didn't heal,
but grew deeper all the while. A memory came to her then,
unexpectedly -- of her mother's voice rising in fear. Rachel
concentrated, frowning, trying to make it clearer. A sunny
day, and water sparkling; excitement, laughter. Her father's
hands around her ribs, lifting her; and then that shout from
her mother, high and panicky, and in its wake was emptiness.
Nothing more would come but the shine of summer colours
on water: blue and green and white.
Rachel wanted to sleep with the lock of hair in her hand,
but didn't dare in case she ruined it somehow. In case the
ribbon came undone, and scattered the precious stuff. She
pinned it back to the velvet, stowed her box away in the
drawer, and went to bed. When Richard came in it was night,
Rachel didn't know the hour. The room was frigid, and
pitch-black. He came in with no candle, stumbling and loud,
and landed heavily on the bed. Rachel lay perfectly still with
her knees drawn up in front of her and her elbows tight to
her ribs. She fought the urge to scramble away from him, and tried to breathe 
evenly, so that he would think her sleeping.
'Rachel,' he said, his whisper loud enough to rattle the
darkness. He reeked of spirits. The mattress sagged as he
leaned over her; still she did not move, nor speak. 'Rachel.'
He pulled her shoulder, trying to roll her towards him. For a
second she resisted, but then realised she could not do so and
yet feign sleep. So she let him turn her onto her back, and
could not keep her breathing steady. It juddered in her chest.
She felt his lips on hers, his skin ice-cold from the frosty
night; felt his hand brush clumsily across her breasts, cupping
each one and squeezing, too roughly; he moved it lower, to
her crotch, and pushed his fingers inside her, and the casual,
thoughtless way he did so appalled her. Yet still she did not
move; she barely breathed, paralysed now by the dread of
what he would do next, whether she was sleeping or awake.
She felt entirely powerless to stop him, to dissuade him. She was entirely 
powerless in that, and always would be. But then
he sagged bonelessly against her, his head heavy on her
chest. 'Oh, why}' he murmured, indistinctly. 'Why can't you
love me?'
Rachel held her breath and made no reply. She had no
reply to give him, after all; only that she had wed in hope of
coming to know and love him, but that the more she knew
him, the less she loved. Soon he was asleep, still lying heavily
across her, making it impossible for her to either escape or
rest.

After meeting Starling in the abbey, and hearing what she'd
had to say, Rachel felt Alice's absence even more. As though
the gap she'd left was a tangible thing, a space with edges and
depth and echoes; as unfathomable as the way she'd vanished,
so completely -- like a murmured word in a crowded
room. Rachel felt it everywhere she went, but nowhere
stronger than in the house on Lansdown Crescent, where
the residents wove their lives, one way or another, around
this gaping hole. Treading carefully on such dangerous
ground. But Rachel felt it in her own home, too, where
Alice had never been. Strangely, she felt the girl missing
from her own side; she felt Alice missing from her memories,
and from her dreams of the future.
Rachel visited Jonathan Alleyn twice each week, reporting
to his mother afterwards, when she could be found. The lady
of the house was often secreted away in some part of the
house that Rachel didn't know. She sensed that Mrs Alleyn
was lonely and might perhaps welcome somebody to talk to;
but at the same time, she had not been made welcome enough
to feel comfortable knocking on doors in search of the lady.
The weather grew ever colder, and stormier. Rachel came
to dread the wind, rolling down the hill as she climbed to
Lansdown Crescent, making the strenuous walk even harder;
blinding her eyes and tugging at her clothes. She wore the
weather like a garment by the time she arrived -- stained and
dripping for rain; pink-cheeked and sniffling for frost; dishevelled
and breathless for wind.
Rachel saw Starling more often than she saw Mrs Alleyn.
The red-haired servant seemed to have free run of the house,
though she was a kitchen maid. She was a near constant
presence; appearing in the corner of Rachel's eye, flitting up a
stair, or beckoning her from the servants' door to come and
exchange a word. And since there was far more to be said and
done at the Alleyns' house than there was in her own, Rachel
came to anticipate her visits with a kind of eager anxiety. She
thought about them whenever she wasn't there; about what had recently passed, 
and what she would do on her next visit.
Richard was away from Abbeygate Street more and more, and
when he was home didn't seem to notice her increasing preoccupation.
He rarely asked what she did at Lansdown
Crescent; only took the money and pocketed it with a distracted
smile, and bade her always to send his warm greetings
to Mrs Alleyn.
Rachel's visits were sometimes very short; far shorter than
the time it took her to walk there. On one occasion, Jonathan
was asleep when she knocked softly and entered; slumped
over his desk with a quill in his hand, ink stains all over his
fingers. His crossed arms hid what he'd been writing; an
empty wine bottle sat next to him, and a stained cup. Rachel
had the idea of looking for Alice's box of letters then, but
the thought of being caught doing so made her skin crawl. Besides, Starling 
said she'd already searched. I must find some
way to ask him. Often he sat dumbly while she read, gazing
out of the window or directly at her with a startling intensity,
saying nothing. When he did that, Rachel found her heart
racing in such frenzy that it made her voice shake, and
spoiled her reading. Sometimes, she found herself stealing
glances at him when his attention was elsewhere; at his
face, his hands, his body inside his clothes. That he was a
murderer, and that she could sit so close to him, seemed
unreal. Each time she thought it a jolt of fear and amazement
went through her.
One mild Wednesday afternoon, Rachel walked in on
Jonathan in the grip of one of his headaches. He was sitting
in the dark with the shutters latched, and when she opened
the door the light from the hallway made him recoil. He was
at his desk with his head gripped in his hands, trembling;
his skin pale and shining with sweat. When Rachel asked,
shocked, if she should leave him, he could only give a curt
nod, keeping his mouth and eyes tightly shut. Another time
she walked into one of his nightmares. He was in his sleeping
quarters, and Rachel hesitated to go near him, for decency's
sake; but the noise he was making was terrible to hear, and
she worried that he might be feverish again. She lit a lamp
and, steeling herself, went to his bedside. He was lying on it
fully clothed, and there was no evidence of him having been
drinking. He was panting and his body made panicky movements
-- arms and legs jerking as though he was trying to run
from something. His head twisted to and fro on his neck, and
he was muttering, spitting out odd words that made no sense.
'Mr Alleyn,' said Rachel; quiet and fearful. She cleared her
throat and said his name again, more strongly. 'Mr Alleyn,
wake up. You're having a bad dream . . .' At the sound of
her voice his body went still, but he continued to breathe
rapidly and gave a low moan, as if he was in pain. Tentatively,
Rachel put her hand on his forearm and squeezed
gently. 'You must wake, sir,' she said. And in a heartbeat, he
did just that.
His eyes flew open, and he lunged towards her, catching
her hand as she tried to retract it.
'Is she dead? Is she dead?' he said, in a voice that rasped.
Fear washed coldly over Rachel. She remembered his hands
around her throat on their first meeting, and the way she'd
felt her own death come crowding in like a swarm of flies.
'Mr Alleyn, please let go. It's only me. Mrs Weekes . . .
you were having a nightmare.'
'I tried to make it right,' he whispered, still clasping her
arm. His eyes looked through her, tortured and afraid. His
body was wracked by a sudden sob, and Rachel knelt down,
trying to prise his fingers from her arm.
'Tried to make what right, Mr Alleyn?' He caught her
other hand too, squeezing her fingers. Tears streaked down
his face.
In spite of her fear, Rachel's heart softened at the sight of
such anguish, and she stopped struggling against him.
'It was only a nightmare, Mr Alleyn. Rest now. You're
safe here.' But am 1? This man is a killer. But in that moment
he didn't look like a killer; he looked like a frightened boy.
Gradually, Jonathan let himself be soothed, and was asleep
again within moments. The next time Rachel called, he
seemed to have no memory of the incident.
Starling seemed impatient, as if she had expected some
instant revelation. Often, the girl appeared by Rachel's side
as she left the Alleyns' house, and walked partway down the
hill with her, always taking her on some hidden route
through a tiny alley rather than being seen out on the main
street. She walked briskly to keep up with Rachel's longer
strides, and tucked her hands into her armpits for warmth.
Rachel always asked to hear something else about Alice;
always wanted to know her better. Starling seemed happy to
talk about her, as though she'd long wanted the opportunity
to do so. Her face lit up when she did; a warmth and
animation that sloughed off her habitual expression of suspicion
and displeasure. So Rachel learnt of Alice's penchant for
marzipan, and hatred of oysters; her skill at the piano and her
flat, tuneless singing voice; her grace, and intelligence. How
she had educated Starling, as her own governess had educated
her.
'Mrs Bouchante, she was called. A widow, from France.
She taught Alice until she turned sixteen and then left, so I
never met her. Alice said she smelled of bitter almonds, and
that her skin was as dry as a lizard's,' said Starling, with a
smile. Rachel heard about Alice's colour blindness, and her
heart that fluttered and kept its own time; about her love of
animals, and the little drawings she did of the insects and
flowers they saw along the riverbank. 'I wish I had one to
keep. To remember her by. She sent most of them to Lord
Faukes.'
'What was Lord Faukes like?' asked Rachel one day. 'Mrs
Alleyn says he was a good and great man.' Starling stopped
in her tracks at this, closing off in an instant.
'He was all guts and garbage; a man who took without
asking. He's good now he's dead, and I'll say nothing else
about him,' she snapped. 'See you again, Mrs Weekes,' was
all the farewell she gave as she turned and walked back up the
hill, leaving Rachel startled.
When Rachel next saw Jonathan, he was restless and
unable to keep still. He had deep shadows under his eyes, as
he paced from chair to desk to window and back again,
limping on his lame leg. Rachel watched him uneasily. His
movements were jerky, and unpredictable. He spent a good
deal of time rummaging in the drawers of his desk, searching
for something with a frown of distraction.
'What are you looking for?' she asked at last, exasperated.
Jonathan looked up with a start, and then froze as if confounded
by the question. He stood up slowly, his hands
hanging limply at his sides.
'I ... do not remember,' he said, troubled.
'Please, come and sit down. Have you not slept?'
'No, no. I cannot sleep. I do not sleep,' he muttered, and
began leafing randomly through the papers on his desk. 'The
note. The note from the lovers' tree,' he said quietly. 'I was
looking for it. I thought ... I thought perhaps I had read it
wrong. Perhaps there was something in it, some clue I had
missed.'
'The lovers' tree? What is that? What note?'
'The note! Not written by my hand, and not by hers . . .
whose then? That is the question!' His hair was falling into
his face and he scraped it back impatiently with fingers that
shook. He is exhausted. Without thinking, Rachel moved towards
him. She put one hand on his arm to still him, then
took his hand and drew him towards his chair, surprised by
the warmth of his skin.
'Mr Alleyn, please come and sit down. Come and sit with
me. You are overwrought,' she said softly. And now I hold
that hand that would have choked the life from me, she thought,
wonderingly. He would have killed me, and I am told he has
killed another. Why then can't I feel that, in my heart? Why
don't I believe he is a murderer? As if caught off guard by her
touch, Jonathan let himself be led. He sat down on the edge
of the chair, still frowning absently, and when she took her
hand away she felt his fingers cling to hers, just for a second,
as though he would have liked the touch to remain. That
harrowing look of pain and regret was in his eyes, and Rachel
felt pity gnawing at the unease he caused her.
'You were looking for a note from Alice? A note she left
you?' Rachel asked. With a swell of nerves, she saw her
moment to ask. 'Perhaps it is with all the other letters? I will
search for it amongst them, if you tell me where?' The words
sounded so duplicitous to her own ears that her mouth went
dry, but Jonathan didn't seem to notice.
'Other letters? What other letters?' He shook his head,
and when he spoke his voice was heavy with despair. 'No, it
was a note for Alice. Not written by me, but left in our secret
place. A place only she could have told him about. The
other . . . person.'
'The lovers' tree? It was a place you used to meet at?' she
asked, and Jonathan nodded. 'And this . . . other person,
who left her a note. You think that it was a sweetheart?' Starling swore it 
could not be so. But if he saw a note?
'I was told ... I was told she'd been seen with another. I
did not believe it, not for a heartbeat. Still, I do not. . . And
yet. . . and yet. . .' He shook his head, perplexed. 'I found a
note left for her, with a time and day to meet. It was not
signed . . . but it was not in her hand. Who, then, was she to
meet?' he said, in quiet desperation. Rachel thought for a
moment, her strange but ever strengthening loyalty to Alice
Beckwith shaping her answer.
'It could have been entirely innocent, could it not, Mr
Alleyn? People are ever quick to impugn a lady for the most
harmless of gestures . . .'
'That's why I wished to read it again! But I can't find
it. . . I've looked everywhere ... I searched all night. What
if I . . . what if I never saw it? What if my mind is playing
tricks on me again?' He chewed savagely at his lower lip, and
Rachel saw a thin line of blood spring up where he tore the
skin.
'Stop. Stop doing that.' She took his hand again, pulled it
away from his mouth. 'You're exhausted, and you need to eat
something . . .'
'I will not eat until--'
'You will eat, sir. I will see you do so, or I will come no
more; for I won't sit by and watch you sicken.'
'Watch me sicken?' He almost laughed. 'Madam, I sickened
years and years ago.'
'That much I can see, and perhaps it is time for you to stop
revelling in it so,' said Rachel, crisply. Jonathan frowned as
she went to the door and called to Dorcas to bring coffee,
bread and cheese.
'Let me have some wine if I must take something.'
'It's not yet noon, sir. And there are more than enough
wine-soaked men in my life as it is.' Jonathan watched her
steadily as she came to sit back down. 'Do not eye me so, sir.
I know your opinion of my husband well enough; I'm sure I
don't need to explain any further.'
'You are different today, Mrs Weekes. You are bolder.'
'I am tired too, Mr Alleyn.'
'The kind of tired that sleep does not cure?'
'Yes. That kind.' For a moment they looked at one
another, and neither one blinked.
'Then perhaps we begin to understand each other,' Jonathan
murmured at last. Rachel looked away, suddenly self
conscious.
When the tray was brought up Rachel had some coffee as
well. She cut a thick slice of bread and topped it with cheese
for Jonathan, and watched him steadily while he ate. He
seemed to recover his appetite as he did so, reaching for more
without her prompting. The hot drink steamed the window
glass, obscuring the view of brown autumn trees and city
roofs. It gave the impression of the room closing in around
them, isolating them from the rest of the house, the rest of the
world. Rachel was surprised to find this comforting.
'You said to me before that you wished to unsee things
you had seen, and undo things you had done,' she said at last.
'Will you tell me which things?' Jonathan stopped eating at
once, letting the last piece of bread fall from his fingers.
'Why would you wish to hear such things?'
'Because . . . because I do not understand you, Mr Alleyn.
But I wish to. And because I think, perhaps, long years of
holding these things to yourself, and staying silent, have not
helped you to forget them. Perhaps if you spoke of them, if
you shared them . . .'
'You would take up half my burden for me?' he said
bitterly. Rachel watched him, silently. He chewed his final
mouthful and swallowed it laboriously. 'Such things are not
fit for a woman's ears.'
'Oh, what is a woman, but a human being?' Rachel replied,
irritated. 'You haven't borne the knowledge with any great
stoicism, or grace. Why should I fare any worse than you?'
Jonathan stared at her and, slowly, his face filled with something
like dread, and she understood that some part of him
wanted to speak, and yet feared to.
'It is not the knowledge I must bear, but the deeds,' he
said. 'I have never spoken of them.'
'Try it, sir. Only try it, and then let us see,' she said.
'I don't know where to start.' Rachel thought quickly; to
ask him outright about Alice would get her nowhere.
'Tell me how your leg was injured. Tell me of that battle,'
she suggested.
'Battle? No, indeed. It was at B . . . Badajo{.'
His voice failed him, as if the word were too much; it was
spoken in a hoarse whisper, raw and fearful. 'It was no battle.
It was a hell on earth, a heinous orgy of destruction and
grief. . . No.' He shook his head vehemently. 'I cannot start
there, for that is the end, not the beginning.'
'Tell me of the beginning of the war, then. I was still
young, at that time. My father didn't encourage me to hear
much about it, but I saw news of our victories on the side of
the mail coach. They would decorate it with ribbons, too.'
'You were still young? As was I, Mrs Weekes, as was I. I
was that concerned with assembling my baggage, and with
turning out my horse just so, that I'd given almost no
thought to fighting. To why we were going; to what a war
would be. I had not known what it would be. Jars of coral
tooth powder and pomade, with silver lids -- that's what I
spent my last few days trying to find. Isn't that a perfect
folly? That's what I thought I needed. A jar of hair pomade
with a silver lid.' He shook his head incredulously.
'You were a cavalry officer, then?'
'Yes. Moths - that was the first thing. Do you believe in
signs, Mrs Weekes? Portents, I mean?' he said intently,
leaning towards her with a gleam of desperation in his eyes,
as if he could somehow change any of what had passed.
'I . . .' She had been about to deny it. 'I should not; yet I
see them, sometimes.' The morning of my wedding, when that
thrush sang its heart out, keeping its eye on me. Trying to warn
me.
'Enlightened thought calls them the product of a weak and
superstitious mind. But perhaps we do not yet understand all
there is to know about this world, and this life. I think such
signs should be heeded.' Jonathan nodded gravely. 'The first
sign I saw was the moths. I took a wound -- you will laugh to
hear how. Some fierce battles were fought, that first summer
of 1808. We fought the French in Portugal, before we even
crossed into Spain. We landed like conquering heroes and
told the Portuguese people their time of oppression was over,
even though we'd already lost men and horses in the surf,
trying to land the boats . . . Before we even set foot on the
peninsula, we lost men. But still we thought we were invincible.
On the very first march, men fell out of line in the heat.
I remember looking at the dust cloud above us and thinking
we would all be smothered beneath it. The troops were green
novices, weakened by the sea crossing. They'd joined up for
a wage, or a meal, or for the glory the recruiters told them
would be theirs; and I was as green a novice as any of them,
for all I was an officer, and mounted upon a fine horse. My
first wound . . . my first wound was a scorpion sting.'
Afterwards, he knew to shake out his boots before putting
them on in the morning. The sting felt like a jab from a red
hot needle, in the arch of his left foot; he kicked the boot off
and watched, revolted, as the half-crushed creature limped
away. It was yellowish-brown, about the length of his thumb.
He examined the wound but there wasn't much to see at first
-- a small hole leaking clear fluid, around which the immediate
area had gone white, the outer area a mottled red. The
pain of the initial sting soon faded, to leave a low throbbing
only. Jonathan rinsed his foot with cold water, then pulled on
his boots and thought no more of it.
A battle was brewing; they were at the village of Vimiero,
and the French were coming. His blood rose at the thought --
he had yet to be tested in any real way against the enemy;
he was excited and afraid; he was keen to know how he
would prove himself as an officer. Within two days, however,
Jonathan could think of little else but the pain in his
foot. Had he been an infantry man, and not mounted on
Suleiman, he would not have been able to march. He would
have been left behind, his company command replaced. At
the end of the second day he slept with his boots on. He was
sure that if he ever got his left boot off, he would certainly
never get it back on again. His head was pounding, he felt
weak and dizzy. The foot with the sting was so hot he
worried that it might set fire to his stocking. It felt huge,
heavy, and very wrong. He kept the boot on for a second
reason too - he didn't want to look at his foot.
Then came the heat and fury of the battle at Vimiero, and
Jonathan learned how he would prove himself in the fray
- capable, outwardly calm, while inside his heart shuddered
in outrage. When it ended the British were victorious, the
French routed and in retreat, though there were heavy losses
on both sides. Wellesley and several other senior officers wanted to pursue 
them, all the way to Lisbon. They were
denied this by high command; the French were to be allowed
to take their wounded and retreat unmolested. They were
even, eventually, to have the use of English ships to leave
Portugal, a decision for which the British commanders would
be recalled to London to give account. On the strewn and
smoking battlefield, French and British soldiers greeted one
another as they searched the fallen for men they could save.
They shared a few words, a laugh, a pinch of tobacco. Dazed
and exhausted, Jonathan watched them with a growing sense
of unreality; for if the men did not hate one another, how
could they kill one another? Why would they? He was
baffled by it; felt apart from the rest of them for being
unable to understand. That was his first real taste of battle,
and it left him numb, bewildered, and frightened.
When he dismounted from Suleiman at day's end, Jonathan
couldn't even set his left foot down. Captain Sutton, his
company second in command, noticed the way he grimaced
and hovered the leg. He forced Major Alleyn to sit down on
the crumbled remains of a village house, and when pulling at
the boot caused him to scream in agony, Sutton cut it from
his leg instead, using a short, sharp utility knife. The stink
that emerged with the bloated foot caused them both to
blench. Captain Sutton helped him to the field hospital, gave
him brandy and then left to return to the men.
The surgeons worked in open-sided tents under big,
yellow lamps. They worked right through the hot night,
engaged in what was often a futile battle to save the gravely
wounded men. Since his foot was not life-threatening,
Jonathan sat to one side and waited his turn, watching
in mounting horror. The surgeons sawed and they stitched;
they dipped their hands inside men to pick out shrapnel; they
fished for musket balls with long forceps; they plastered over
belly wounds, no matter what damage had been done inside
the man. When they ran out of plaster, they packed wounds
with cotton rags and the shirts of dead men, and when they
ran out of those they did not pack them at all, but left them
open to the night sky and waited for the men to die. Which
they did, crying piteously for God or their mothers until their
voices left them. The night clamoured with the sounds of
their agony. Jonathan sat, and he watched, and he waited. It
took around twenty minutes to amputate a leg through the
hip joint, he learned. Only a stick of wood kept that man
from biting through his own tongue. There was nothing to
relieve pain but watered-down rum, which the men vomited
back up in their shock. The smell of blood and rum and bile
was everywhere, impossible to escape -- to breathe was to
breathe it in. Sweat ran from the surgeons' heads into the
wounds they were trying to close.
It was near sunrise before Jonathan was seen to. He
climbed onto a table upon which, moments before, he'd seen
a man pass his last moments with blood and piss leaking from
his shattered body. He felt the man's fluids seeping through
his own shirt and breeches. The surgeon took one look at his
bloated foot and then glared at Jonathan with disgust dawning
through the wooden exhaustion on his face. He looked disgusted that Jonathan 
should trouble him with so trivial a
wound, and Jonathan was disgusted with himself as well. He
was disgusted with the war, and the ways of men, and the
whole world. He stared up as the surgeon cut away his
stained stocking. Underneath, his foot was darkly purple,
huge and stinking; a crusted layer of pus had dribbled from
the scorpion sting and dried on his feverish skin. It smelled
like foul meat and corruption. Calmly, the surgeon took up
his bloody scalpel and sliced open the skin around the sting,
so that all the poison and filth inside could run out. A splatter
of rank and rotting blood, to join the unspeakable mess on
the floor. Jonathan was too exhausted, too shocked at the
pain to make a sound. He gazed up at the lamps, and that's
when he noticed the moths. Huge black moths, the biggest
he'd ever seen -- the size of the palm of his hand. They circled
the lamps, drawn to the light, on wings as black as pitch and
so velvet soft that they made no sound at all. In his near
delirium, Jonathan saw them as the souls of the men who had
died that night, trying to find a way back into the light, into
life. He took them as a sign, a stark warning, that they were
all dead men.

'I should have heeded that warning,' Jonathan said to Rachel.
'I should have fled. Better to have been called a coward
outright, perhaps, than to have carried on, and been a part of
what came later. To this day I cannot abide the smell of
rum . . . The smell of it returns me there, to that night, and
it's like a nightmare ] can't wake up from.' Jonathan's face
was colourless in the wan light of the day; beads of sweat had
broken out on his forehead. For a while Rachel feared he
might faint, but he did not; he stayed hunched in his chair.
Rachel swallowed, struggling for something to say.
'I have heard it said that war changes a man; that he is
forced to address his own true nature, his own essence, by the
extremity of his situation . . .'
"War changes a man, it is true. For the most part, it
changes him from being a person to being meat. Meat and
offal, to be left lying for flies and stray dogs to consume.' He
glanced up at her. 'You flinch at this, Mrs Weekes? It is the
truth, and you wanted to hear it.'
'I know I did. And I do. The truth is important, for
nothing festers like a falsehood, this much I know.' She
watched him as she said this, in case it would have some
effect on him, but there was nothing. Only his dark, pained
eyes in his pale face, and the sense of a vast tide of feeling
pent up behind both, causing chaos there.
'Some things are worse than falsehood, I think. Some
falsehoods can be kind,' he murmured.
'You carry a great weight of experience inside you. A
great weight of bad memory.'
'So great I can never be rid of it, and it taints everything I
have done or will ever do since. I can do no right, now; not
after the wrongs I have done. After Badajoz . . . after Badajoz
I did a kind thing. A good thing, I think, though many
lies were woven around it. It was the last thing I did in that
war, my last action in it, and with it I hoped somehow to
begin to make amends. But I can't think of it without
thinking of everything else, of what compelled me to do it.
Every single thing I have done since the war is tainted by
the things I did during the war. Do you see?' Suddenly, he
clasped his head in his hands as if it hurt him. "I could give
everything I owned to a poor man in the street, and it would
not be generosity. It would be a symptom of my guilt, my
disease.'
'In war a man is compelled to fight, and to kill. It is duty,
sir, not sin,' Rachel ventured.
'Compelled to kill, yes. To kill in battle, when under
attack, or in the defence of others. Would that that was all I
did, during those years.'
'You mean to say you killed when you should not have?
You killed . . . innocents?' she whispered.
Jonathan's eyes bored into hers, and when he spoke his
voice was as cold and sharp as a blade.
'I have seen and done things that would send you screaming
from this room, Mrs Weekes.' Rachel's heart beat faster;
nervous tension made it hard to breathe.
'In war--'
'On the march towards the Spanish border in the autumn
of 1808, after we had allowed the French to leave the field,
defeated and weakened, or so we thought, they fled before
us, destroying everything in their path. All food, all water
supplies, all shelter. We came to a village where every last
soul had been put to the sword, for the crime of having
us come to their aid. A young girl ... a young girl, not
more than fourteen or fifteen lay in the middle of the street.
Her face was comely, even in death. She had been crushed
beneath a vast stone that they'd placed on her chest so that
she could neither breathe nor move as they ravaged her.
Who knows how many times -- the lower parts of her body
were a ruin. Nearby lay the corpses of a man and woman,
and of smaller children, three or four of them. Her parents
and siblings, it seemed, who had been made to watch this
most brutal spectacle before being slain themselves.' He
paused and swallowed convulsively, and Rachel fought to keep her horror from 
showing.
'A while later, two or three miles from the village, we
came upon a French infantryman who'd been left behind by
his comrades. He was wounded in both legs -- not severely,
but he'd grown too weak to carry on. But he had a good deal
of life left in him. He lived a good long while.' Jonathan
gazed at Rachel, and now his eyes were quite empty. 'There
was a man amongst our foot, an Irishman called Mclnerney.
The raped maiden had borne a likeness to his daughter, he
said. The wounded Frenchman lived long enough to plead
for mercy as Mclnerney took off his skin, a strip at a time. A
good many of us watched him, including myself; we did
nothing to hinder him. But this bloody revenge did nothing
to slake the men's anger. If anything we grew angrier still.
That beast part had awoken in each one of us, and every vile
thing we did and saw from then on only made it stronger.
That is what war does to men, Mrs Weekes. That is what it
did to me.'
'Enough!' Rachel gasped. Her hands flew to cover her
mouth. She'd been trying to show no reaction but this was
too much, and the room was spinning. Jonathan gave her a
pitying look.
'Now you wish you hadn't urged me to speak. I should
apologise, because you had no idea what you were asking,
but I cannot. I live with these things. This is what I know
the world to be, and if you understand that, then you will
understand why I want no part of it.'
There was a pause in which neither one of them spoke.
Rachel struggled to compose herself.
'Don't cry, Mrs Weekes,' Jonathan said quietly. He
reached out as if to cover her hand with his, but she snatched
it away and saw him retreat, turning in on himself again.
'Forgive me ... it is only that . . .' She shook her head,
helplessly.
'It is only that I repel you now, more than when we first
met, though my room stank of death that time -- one of
Starling's little pranks -- and I near killed you.'
'No! It is only that . . . when the fight is to stay in
command of oneself, the slightest kindness from another
can . . . can be the ruin of composure. Is it not so?' She
blotted her eyes and looked up to find the ghost of a smile on
Jonathan's face.
'And you wonder why I baulk from telling it all to
you. You wonder why I baulk from that kindness,' he said
bitterly.
'I'm quite all right, Mr Alleyn. Only unaccustomed to
hearing . . . such things.' She took a deep breath. Jonathan
had sunk back in his chair and was gnawing at his lip again.
'You need to rest. You need to sleep, sir,' she said.
'You have some measure, now, of what I see when I close
my eyes,' he replied.
'Perhaps a tonic of some kind ... a sleeping draught?'
Jonathan shook his head.
'Such oblivion is dangerously compelling, Mrs Weekes.
For . . . for years I relied on tincture of opium to liberate me
from this. It brings on a wonderful kind of living death ... a
release from all thought and care. At one time I lay near to
death because if it. Only my mother saved me then, removing
the stuff from me, and leaving me to suffer in its absence.
She saved my life, I think, though I did not thank her for it at
the time. I'm not sure I thank her for it now. It would be
simpler to die, I sometimes think.'
'Our lives are God-given,' Rachel said softly. She shrugged.
'It is not for us to decide when we relinquish them, and what
would be simpler is not pertinent.'
'Is that so?' he said, his mouth twisting in disgust.
He stared blackly at her for a moment, and then erupted
out of his chair. 'You say it is for God to decide, then? Does
God put (runs in men's hands? Does God make men rape
young girls to death? Does he take aim with flying shrapnel
and artillery fire? Does he place one fateful finger on each
man on a battlefield and say "fever, gangrene, dysentery"?
No!' His voice had risen to a shout, and Rachel didn't dare
reply. He seemed to tower over her so she stood up, knotting
her fingers in front of her to keep them still, and watched as
Jonathan strode to the bookcase and fetched down one of the
large glass jars he kept there. It took some effort to lift it; the
liquid inside sloshed. Rachel could sense the weightiness of it,
and inside was a wrinkled, knobbed thing, trailing tentacles
from its underside. 'Do you know what this is?' he said.
'No,' Rachel whispered.
'This is a man's brain. He was a criminal -- a murderer, in
fact.' Rachel stared at it in horror.
'How . . . how came you to have such a thing?'
'I befriended one of the doctors my mother sent to me.
An anatomist. He thought he could cure the pains in my head
by cutting a hole in my skull the size of a sovereign, to
relieve the pressure. By exposing my brain to the sun and sky
I would be cured, so he proclaimed. What do you think?
Should I have let him?'
'Sweet Lord, no, he would have killed you, surely?' said
Rachel. Inside the jar the brain was moving, the cords
beneath it wafting like the sentient tendrils of some creature.
She began to feel queasy.
'He said not. He said he had experimented up in London,
upon a woman who'd been driven quite insane by the deaths
of her six children. He thought the procedure would let the ill
humours out of her mind, and restore her reason.'
'And did it?' Rachel's voice was near strangled.
'Well, she raves no more. She speaks no more either, nor
walks, nor eats. They feed her through a tube, and when they
stop, she will die.'
'Why do you tell me this?'
'I would make you see, Mrs Weekes. I befriended this
doctor, though 1 did not let him carve my skull. I went with
him to watch the opening of cadavers brought down from the
gallows; I ... I wanted to learn how the body worked. I
wanted to find the place inside a man where the soul resides; I
wanted to be sure, again, of its existence. Because otherwise
we are just machines, aren't we? Like the digesting duck --
like that copper mouse? So I watched, and I studied, and this
is what I found out: we are just machines, Mrs Weekes! We
eat and we sleep and we shit and then we do it all again, just
like the other beasts that walk this earth. And when we die
it is because another man has broken some part of us --
removed some cog from the machine so that it may not run.
And this, this--' He shook the brain in its jar so that the fluid
sloshed and the lid rattled; he took one slow step towards her,
then another. 'This is what decides it. Not God. Not fate. So
I ask you, Mrs Weekes, if another man may decide when I
should die, why then should I not decide it for myself?'
Jonathan Alleyn stood in front of her, eyes snapping;
holding the jar out in front of him like some gruesome gift.
His hands were white with the effort of gripping its smooth
sides; shudders ran up his arms.
'We are not mere machines, sir. I am sure of it. Man was
made for a higher purpose ... in God's image . . .' said
Rachel, shakily, fighting the urge to run from him. She could
not take her eyes from the greyish thing, the dead thing, in
the jar. Is that truly what I keep inside my skull? It seemed
desperately wrong that it should have been torn away from
its owner and kept in such a hideous manner, for living eyes
to look upon. Such things are meant to stay hidden.
'In God's image?' Jonathan laughed then - a mirthless
sound. 'Then God is a murderous bastard, Mrs Weekes, and you are a wilfully 
stupid woman.' Rachel flinched, cut by the
insult.
'What then of love?' she said desperately. "Where in that
machine of blood and bone does love reside, Mr Alleyn?'
'Love?' he spat. He stared at her blankly as if he didn't
know the word, and then his eyes blazed anew. Anger
disfigured his face, turned his lips bloodless and thin, put
deep furrows between his brows. It made him look bestial
indeed. 'Love is an illusion. Love is a myth. Love is a story
we tell ourselves to make living more bearable! And it is a lieV he roared, 
lifting the jar high above their heads.
Rachel froze. Jonathan's sudden rage assaulted her like a
flare of agony, so intense it slowed time, and made everything
else hollow and unreal in comparison. In that moment,
she glimpsed its black, ravaged heart; the look in Jonathan's
eyes chilled her. He can't even see me any more. Then his arms
came down abruptly, swinging with tremendous force. At the
last second Rachel managed to take a step backwards, and so
the jar exploded into shards at her feet, not over her head.
Silence rang in her ears. The reek of spirits rushed to fill
the room, stinging her eyes and nose, bringing tears to blur
her vision. There was a stinging from her leg, too -- blood
was welling from a cut above her ankle, a neat slice through
stockings and skin. The murderer's brain had come to rest on
the toe of her right shoe. When Rachel moved her foot she
felt its soggy weight. It rolled away sluggishly, shining wet
and looking more alive than it should. Her gorge rose; she
shuddered and clamped her hands over her mouth. Jonathan
was breathing hard, staring straight ahead without blinking;
his empty hands hung at his sides. A sliver of glass had flown
up and nicked his cheekbone, and a thin line of blood ran
straight down from it, looking like a scarlet tear. Gradually,
Rachel saw some awareness return to his expression; he
blinked, and then his eyes widened, and he swallowed. As if
released by this, she stepped past him hurriedly, her heel
grinding a fragment of broken glass into dust. Her walk
became a run, and she left him there, standing in silence, as
she pulled open the door and fled.
At the bottom of the stairs two figures were waiting for
her -- Starling rushing from the door in the panelling, and
Josephine Alleyn coming from the front parlour. Rachel
stopped and leant on the newel post to catch her breath.
'Mrs Weekes! I heard a terrible noise, I feared . . .' Mrs
Alleyn chose not to say what she had feared. Her face had
worn panic, but soon resettled itself.
'He ... the jar ... I think . . .' Rachel fought for words.
'I am not injured,' she said.
'But, you are. Your ankle . . . come -- come at once and sit
down. Starling, why do you loiter? Send up some tea, and
some warm water and cloths.'
'Madam,' Starling muttered, scowling as she vanished.
Josephine led Rachel through to the parlour, and seated her
on the couch.
'I do hope my son has not . . . What is that dreadful
stench?' Mrs Alleyn recoiled, putting her fingers under her
nose.
'Oh, I can hardly tell you!' Rachel cried. She felt the liquid
sloshing around in her shoes, between her toes, and nausea
washed through her again. 'It was one of his . . . specimen
jars. The h-human brain. He . . . dropped it.' Mrs Alleyn
leant away from Rachel, revolted.
'Please," she muttered. 'Take off your shoes and stockings
immediately. Falmouth! Take these things away. Clean and
dry the shoes, if you can, but do not bother with the stockings
- burn them. And send Dorcas to my room to find a clean
pair for Mrs Weekes.'
'My thanks, Mrs Alleyn,' said Rachel, wearily.
The stockings that Dorcas brought were knitted silk, far finer and softer than 
Rachel's woollen ones. Josephine Alleyn
watched her wash her feet and put them on with an expression
that hovered between compassion and froideur.
'Tell me, Mrs Weekes, was this a deliberate attack by my
son?' she asked, at last.
'I do not think so. That is ... he meant to smash the
thing, in his anger . . . but I do not think he meant to injure
me.' But he would have, perhaps, had I not stepped back. Without
even knowing he did so. The thought sent her a shiver.
'What had angered him so?'
T ... it was my fault. I spoke of love. I thought to . . .
soothe him, to reassure him, when he had grown agitated.
But the effect was quite the opposite.'
'Yes. It would have been,' said Mrs Alleyn. When Rachel
looked up she found the older woman studying her. 'But you
must know, Mrs Weekes -- you who have also lost people --
that love can be as cruel a thing as any under the sun.'
'Yes, I suppose it can be.'
'When I first invited you here to introduce you to
Jonathan, I told you, did I not, that I sensed some strength
in you?'
'You did, Mrs Alleyn.'
'That was the strength I sensed, for it is in me too. It is the
strength that comes from suffering, and surviving it. My son
does not have it, and so his wounds do not heal.'
'You speak of your own grief at losing your husband, and
your father?' At this, Mrs Alleyn's face fell out of its steady
composure for once. Her eyelids flickered down, her lower
lip shook, just for a moment.
T had but two years of marriage to Mr Robert Alleyn,
before his untimely death forced me to return to my father.
They were the happiest two years of my life,' she said, words
weighty and cold with sorrow. In that moment, Rachel saw
Mrs Alleyn differently. She saw a woman, alone and afraid,
rather than a grand and powerful lady. Impulsively, she took
the other woman's hand in both of hers and held it tightly, as
much for her own comfort as for Mrs Alleyn's,
'I do fear that I shall never be that happy,' Rachel said,
with quiet yearning. 'For such love -- passionate love -- I have
never known.'
As though a door had closed, Josephine Alleyn retreated
from her.
'Do not wish for it,' she said. 'Such love will use you ill,
like as not. It used me ill. It used my son ill.' She stared down
at their clasped hands so pointedly that Rachel released her
hold, confused.
'But you would not wish to have never felt it at all,
surely?' she said. Mrs Alleyn did not answer at once, and
thoughts paraded behind her eyes.
'Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps I value the lessons it taught
me, more than anything. The strength that losing it gave
me. A woman needs that strength, to survive the ordeals this
world will devise for us. The ordeals men will devise for
us.' She said this so grimly that Rachel did not know how to
answer.
When Falmouth returned her shoes Rachel immediately
smelt the preserving spirits still on them. She didn't ever
want to put them back on her feet, but saw little option. Mrs
Alleyn wrinkled her nose and scowled.
'Well. You will have to wear them to go home, Mrs
Weekes, I cannot lend you any of mine. I have always had
very dainty feet, but yours . . . But then do burn them, and
find yourself another pair. This should cover your expenses,
and you may keep the stockings.' She fetched coins from a
nearby drawer and handed them over.
'You are very kind, Mrs Alleyn.'
'But are you, Mrs Weekes? And are you kind enough?'
'I don't understand.'
'Will you come again to my son, in spite of this . . . latest
mishap?' She asked it abruptly, almost impatiently. If 1 say
no, she will waste no more time with me.
'I ... I must have a chance to rest, and to think, Mrs
Alleyn.'
'To think?' she echoed, and then waved her hand. "Very
well. Take your time, Mrs Weekes.'
When Rachel got home she gave her shoes to a pauper,
and found that the foul smell had got into the stockings Mrs
Alleyn had given her. She dropped them, pinched between
thumb and finger, into a pail of soapy water; then sat near
the front window and waited for Richard, lost in thought.
Jonathan Alleyn filled her mind: the things he had told her
about the war; the way he had lost control in his anger. Is
Starling right about him? Could he have done Alice harm, even if
he didn't intend it, and doesn't remember it? The thought was
somehow more troubling to her now than it had been in the
beginning. But not killed her, said the echo, in hope. Not that. If there truly 
had been a letter for Alice from some unknown
other person . . . could that person not also have made her
disappear? Or helped her to? She could be alive.
A knock at the door startled her up. It was a smut-faced
boy with a note for her; she gave him a farthing and he
scampered away. The note was written on a small scrap of
paper, the torn cornet of a bigger sheet. The ink was as black
as soot, the writing well slanted and done with extravagant
loops, untidily, as if hurried. The note contained few words,
but those were enough to still her. Forgive me. Jon." Alleyn. Rachel folded 
this tiny note into her palm and held it until the
paper turned as warm and soft as skin. The other note is the
key to this -- the note to Alice from the lovers' tree. Did she betray
him for another? Is it the war that plagues him, or his secret
guilt? I must know.
For several days, she did not return to Lansdown Crescent.
She needed to let herself settle, to take a breath, to
understand what she thought and felt a little better. To
understand why she kept Jonathan Alleyn's note tucked into
her trinket box, and reread it as if it contained some important
and complicated instruction that she needed to learn by
heart. It had been too long since she'd visited Duncan
Weekes, so she took him a beef pie, still warm from the
oven. They sat to either side of his mean hearth and ate it
from plates on their laps, with a mug of hot watered brandy
each, talking about small things and pleasant memories. The
old man seemed in good spirits, and Rachel was keen to clear
her thoughts for a while, so she mentioned nothing of the
Alleyns, or her difficult involvement with them.
She went with Harriet Sutton and Cassandra to buy new
shoes with the money Mrs Alleyn had given her, on a day of
such pervading chill that the chief topic of conversation was
the distant dream of the coming spring and summer; the
picnics and boat trips they would take together; the short
sleeved dresses they would wear, the flowers in their hat
bands.
'With the coins she gave you, you could buy a far finer
pair,' said Harriet, as the cobbler measured Rachel's feet, and
she chose a style from his design book.
'I know. But this way we can all go and have tea afterwards,
and I can treat us to cakes to go with it. If you would
like to?'
'Oh, can we?' said Cassandra, her face lighting up.
'Those old shoes of mine were far too lightweight for
walking right across the city two times in the week, as I now
must. A simple, sturdy pair like this will serve far better.'
'And Mr Weekes will not mind? Your spending money on
us?' Harriet asked this quietly, for Rachel's ears only.
'He will not know of it,' she replied. 'And if he did, why
should he begrudge me the rare pleasure of entertaining
friends? I know, in truth, that he wishes me to be out in
society more.'
'Oh, I am sure he would not begrudge it.' Harriet smiled
again, but her eyes showed some misgiving. 'But perhaps we
are not quite the society he would encourage you into.' She
thinks of the money he lost at cards, and she knows it was not the
first time. She knows how he hoped I would make him richer. Rachel found that 
she was not embarrassed by this, but
grateful for her friend's understanding. 'It is an adjustment,
is it not?' Harriet went on, kindly. 'The pocket money my
father used to give me was far more than I had to spend
during my first years as Captain Sutton's wife.'
'Well, perhaps that is also true for me. But it has been
many years since I had any money to spend whatsoever. Do
not discourage me from enjoying a small bonus such as this,'
said Rachel, with a smile.
'Oh don't, Mama! Don't discourage her,' said Cassandra
imploringly. She turned from examining the many-coloured
swatches of fabric and leather on the counter, her black hair
swinging like a sombre pennant.
'Listen to how she pleads! I never knew a girl more
enamoured of cake as this one,' said Harriet. 'Or one so
spoilt by her parents to have become so.' Cassandra widened
her eyes, quite artfully, her demeanour gravely slighted. 'See
how she tricks me!' Harriet laughed.
'Cassandra, my dear girl, I can think of no better reason to
trick your mother than for cake,' said Rachel mischievously.
'But in this instance you are quite safe - no such tactics are
needed. Cake will be had.' The little girl went back to the
swatches, and Rachel smiled at her mother. 'Let me, dear Mrs
Sutton, to thank you for all of your many small kindnesses
since we met,' she said.
But Rachel could not stay away from Lansdown Crescent
for good. Jonathan Alleyn took a deep breath when he saw
her.
'I didn't think you would come again,' he said stiffly.
'Well,' said Rachel, as she stepped into his study. She
wrinkled her nose. 'The stink of that. . . liquid still lingers.'
'The ethanol ... I know. Starling has scrubbed and
scrubbed, much to her distaste. But to no avail.'
'I daresay it will fade, in time.'
'As will the memory of what caused it, I hope. Mrs
Weekes,' he said, looking down at the offending patch of
floor. 'Mrs Weekes, forgive me. To behave in such a manner
was . . .'
'Unforgivable?' she supplied. Jonathan glanced up in
dismay, and relaxed a little when he caught the humour in
Rachel's eyes.
'Yes. Unforgivable. But here you are. I am . . . glad.'
'Your temper is your enemy, sir. You must not let it
command you.'
'Yes. It was not always so, but. . .' He rubbed at his face,
then yawned uncontrollably.
'Have you still not slept since I saw you last?' said Rachel,
incredulously.
'Perhaps I have ... a little. I don't remember.' He looked
up again with a bitter smile. 'Sleep is the soul's ease, remember,
and I have none.'
'Let's not have this again. I do not believe we can lose our
souls, or even that they can change. Like life, they are God
given, and immutable, and if I risk another of your rages to
say so, then so be it. But perhaps the soul may be wounded;
perhaps it may sicken, and retreat deep inside us,' said
Rachel. Jonathan slumped, as if her words exhausted him.
'Some things are easy to say, more difficult to prove.' He
turned away and sat in the chair behind his desk, staring
listlessly at the clutter that covered it.
Rachel thought for a moment, and then went to the
shelves. 'Do you mean to cast another of my specimens at
me, in revenge?' said Jonathan.
'No. I mean to show you some proof.' She held out her
hand to him, and in her palm sat the clockwork copper
mouse. 'You were meditating on what made people, and
animals, different from automata, you told me. Was it really
necessary to craft such an exquisite toy in the process? Or did
you do it for the pleasure of it?'
'I ... I don't know.' He frowned.
'This is a beautiful thing, Mr Alleyn. Truly, a beautiful
thing, and it came from within you. From your heart and soul
to your hand.' Rachel wound the key and watched the little
mouse run. Jonathan watched it too.
'I was thinking of Alice, when I made it,' he said. 'She
loved ... all creatures. Small, furry things; helpless things.
She had a pet harvest mouse for a while, when she was a child.
It had lost a leg to the farmer's scythe, and she nursed it. She
kept it in a tinder box, and named it Harold.' He paused,
watching the mouse run as if he'd never seen it before. 'Did
you ever hear such a ridiculous name for a mouse?' He smiled
at the memory. Rachel swallowed, ever uneasy in the face of
his shifting emotions. They seemed to race through him like
clouds in a blustery sky.
'There, then,' she said softly. 'It is as I said. Your soul is
intact, sir. It's only your heart that's broken.' Jonathan Alleyn
gave her a long look, and when the copper mouse stopped
running he took it from her, and held it in his cupped hands.
'You . . . you slept once before, as I read to you, Mr Alleyn. I
wonder if you might again?' she said.
'I'm in no mood for poetry, Mrs Weekes,' said Jonathan.
'And sleeping in this chair makes my body ache.'
'I brought something other than poetry to read today.
Something to take your thoughts away from your own
troubles, and fix them on far-off times and places. Why not
recline, while I read it?'
'You mean to tuck me into bed like a child?'
'I mean to do no such thing. But if it's sleep we're aiming
for, then you may take yourself to bed without fear of embarrassing
me.'
Jonathan watched her steadily for a while, and then
rubbed at his eyes so fiercely that he turned them red. He
rose unsteadily and crossed to the far end of the room, to the
doorway that led through to his shadowy sleeping quarters.
There he paused.
'When I thought you would not come again, I ... I liked
it not. Will you . . . will you come again soon, Mrs Weekes?'
he said. Rachel faltered to hear him sound so vulnerable. Does he need me, now?
'As soon as you wish it, Mr Alleyn,' she said. Jonathan
nodded, and turned away from her. Rachel heard the bed
creak as he lay down upon it.
'Whatever it is you plan to read, I'll hear precious little of it
if you remain right over there,' he called out to her. Rachel
approached the darkened threshold, and knew that she must
not cross it. She fetched the chair from his desk and positioned
it near the doorway, then took out the book she'd brought
with her, brand new, the spine pristine.
'I haven't read this yet myself, so we will begin it together.
It's a novel by Sir Walter Scott, and the title is Ivanhoe.'
'A novel? I don't care for novels.'
'How many have you read?' she countered, and was met
with silence. 'As I thought. A good many gentlemen claim to
have no interest and find no merit in a fictional story, when
they haven't given themselves the proper chance to sample
one,' she said.
'Men's minds have greater cares and responsibilities than
women's. What is there to be gained from wasting time
reading the fancies of others? Such things are for the
entertainment of young boys.'
'Listen, and perhaps you will find out what's to be gained,'
Rachel replied, tartly. There was a loaded silence from the
unlit room, and so she began to read.
She read for an hour or more, until her mouth was dry and
she had reached that state of deep tranquillity that came when
she was carried away by a piece of writing. Finding herself at
a natural pause in the text, she listened. From the darkness
the only sound was of heavy, regular breathing. He sleeps. Rachel closed her 
eyes for a moment, filled with a powerful
sense of satisfaction. Before leaving she sat a while in silence,
and found herself wishing she might look in on him in his
sleep, and see his face in repose for once, free from anger and
fear and misery.



Starling had been waiting for Mrs Weekes to quit the house
for a good long while. Her visits to Jonathan seemed to
grow longer every time, and Starling struggled to find good
reasons to remain within earshot of the front door closing.
When at last she heard it, she darted quickly up the servants'
stair and caught the woman's attention with a stifled hiss. Mrs
Weekes turned quickly, with a startled expression that was
almost like guilt. Starling was suspicious at once, and realised
how flimsy a thing her trust yet was. It bothered her that she
knew not what passed between Jonathan and Mrs Weekes in
his rooms. Does she keep things from me? Mrs Weekes was
so pale; walked with her back so straight and her shoulders
so still. She walks like a statue might. Like an effigy of Alice. Next to her, 
Starling felt short and scruffy. She felt again like
the guttersnipe she'd once been, and it made her prickly,
defensive.
Together, they walked a short distance away from the
house, keeping close to the high wall of the garden so that
they would not be seen from inside, then turned to face one
another.
'Well, then,' said Starling, for want of a better commencement.
'Well.
Your face has finally healed; I'm glad to see it,' said
Mrs Weekes.
'I've healed far worse wounds in my time. You've said
nothing to Dick Weekes? Good,' she said, when Rachel
Weekes shook her head. 'And what did you discover from
Mr Alleyn today? Have you found Alice's letters?'
'No. I mentioned them to him some days ago but he . . .
he didn't know what I was talking about. Starling, I don't
think he has them. He was looking for something in particular,
though -- a note he said he found in the lovers' tree.
Do you know of such a place? He said there was a note to
arrange an assignation, left in that place, but not written by
him or by Alice -- though it was addressed to Alice.'
'He's lying,' Starling said at once, though the news made
her stomach turn over. There can't have been.
'He was confused ... he seemed to think it might be a
letter sent to Alice from the man she eloped with. He'd been
searching for it in his room; he wanted to read it again in case
it would tell him something new. But how could it, after so
many years?'
'It's you, Mrs Weekes. The way you look so much like
her . . . You're bringing it all back to him.' As you are
bringing it all back to me.
'But why has he not mentioned this note before? To
anyone?'
'It is an invention. There's no such note, and Alice had no
other lover. He seeks to deceive you, Mrs Weekes!'
'It did not seem that way. He was not calculating. He was frantic . . . 
confused . . .'
'In what way confused?' Starling demanded. Mrs Weekes
seemed taken aback by her tone -- she was always so sensitive,
yet so measured. It ruffled Starling all the more, and
impatience gnawed at her every thought.
'He ... he did say he wasn't sure he had seen this letter,
truly. But it seemed to me that he had.' Rachel Weekes
sounded uncertain.
"Well, how can you be sure if he had, if he is not sure and
the note cannot be found?' said Starling, tersely. When Mrs
Weekes made no reply she took a deep breath to calm down,
clenching her teeth. I should not have encouraged this woman to
interfere. Dick's wife was disturbing things -- upsetting the
fine balance she'd wrought between Jonathan's sanity and his
madness; tipping it the wrong way. Rachel Weekes wore a
reproachful look on her pale, serious face.
'He spoke of your pranks. "One of Starling's little
pranks", he said, when he mentioned the stink in his rooms
the first time I called. What do you suppose he meant by
that?'
'How should I know what he meant? He is only half sane
at the best of times, and hardly knows what he's saying.'
Guilt nudged at her. Somehow, knowing that Jonathan was
aware of her persecution made her feel almost embarrassed;
like a child caught out.
'He doesn't seem mad to me. Only . . . disturbed,' Rachel
Weekes said stubbornly. 'Sick in spirit.'
'Aren't they one and the same thing? You have a very
forgiving soul, Mrs Weekes, or perhaps it is only a short
memory.'
'I have not forgotten how he attacked me; believe me, I
have not. But he was not himself that day. As I come to know
him a little better, I can see that he was not himself.'
'And what of more recently, and the smashed jar? He was
not drunk then - why did he attack you?'
'I ... we were speaking of love and fate, and of. . . self
murder.'
'You condemned it?' said Starling.
'Of course I did,' said Rachel Weekes. Starling grunted.
'Well, that would do it.' She glanced up at the woman's
incomprehension, and took a deep breath. 'He tried to end
his own life. A few years ago.'
It was after his mother ordered all caches of opium
removed from his rooms, and he was locked inside to rail
and curse against her and God and the world. For days the
door stayed locked, and nobody went in to him. Wild sounds of destruction were 
heard; vile curses bellowed out in pain
and rage. Starling saw Josephine Alleyn standing with her
back against his door, listening in silence, all ashen and
clammy with anguish. When peace returned they opened the
door just long enough to push through a tray of food and
water. And so it continued.
It was weeks before Jonathan was well enough for life,
such as it was in that house, to go on. He was skin and bones
when Starling next saw him, appallingly thin. Death's head
upon a mop stick. His sunken face was that of a stranger, and when he saw her 
shock he smiled bitterly.
'What's the matter, Starling? Don't you like to see me
suffer?' The smile crumbled away; he hung his head. 'If Alice
could see me now,' he whispered. 'If she could . . .'
'If she could see you now she would despise you,' said
Starling, knowing it was not true. She fled into his bedchamber,
stood in darkness to catch her breath. The loud
sound of breaking glass called her back out. Jonathan was a
soldier; he knew which wounds bled the worst. He'd stabbed
the bottle into the top of his thigh, near his groin, and his leg
was already glossy with blood. For a second, Starling did
nothing. For a second, she held the power of his life and
death in her hands, and it filled her mind with fire, and rang
in her ears. No. You shan't rest. She ran forwards, splayed her
hands across the wound, shouted so loudly for help that it
made her throat ache.
Rachel Weekes gasped; a sharp intake of breath as though
she'd been slapped.
'He said I was wilfully stupid,' she said quietly. 'Perhaps
he was right.' She shook her head. 'How great must his
torment have been, to do such a thing? How deep his wounds
must go.' Her words brought Starling back to the present,
with the memory of that moment hurting her throat anew.
'What wounds he has he gave to himself. It is his guilt that
torments him; and that violence is his true self -- any gentility
is but a mask.'
'Perhaps so.' Mrs Weekes looked sad, and seemed to think
for a moment. 'He himself would argue that conclusion, I
think.'
'Well, then -- oughtn't he to know?' said Starling. There
was a pause.
'Mr Alleyn has begun to talk to me, at least. To confide
in me. He has begun to tell me about the war,' said Rachel
Weekes, hurriedly, as if she couldn't bear the empty air.
'About the war? What use is that? You must make him
confide in you about Alice. The war did not sit well with
him, that much we all know. He came back mad and violent,
that much we all know. Countless other men came back and
managed to continue with their lives without resorting to the
murder of innocents.'
'Did they?'
'Aye! Better, stronger men than he, I think.'
'Or less moral ones, some of them; less impressionable
ones.'
'What is this? Why do you try to make him a poor lost
lamb? I've known him near all my life, Mrs Weekes, so do
not seek to tell me what he is!' said Starling, feeling horribly
unnerved each time the woman spoke. It was like looking
down from a high place, a feeling of losing balance, teetering.
She couldn't trace the cause of it, so she summoned anger to
burn it away, and had the satisfaction of seeing Rachel
Weekes flinch. She would turn my head, if she could. She
would make me doubt the things I know.
'I don't forget that. I only ... I only tell you how I find
him,' she said quietly.
'Then perhaps you are a poor judge of character, and
situation, and should not pretend you can be of help to me; or
to Alice.' Starling glared at her, and Mrs Weekes drew her
shoulders back, taking a breath.
'I can be of help. I want to know what happened to Alice.'
Starling thought for a moment before she next spoke, gazing at the garden wall.
'I read a letter of his -- one he wrote to Alice from Spain,
before he came back from the war the first time. Before he
came back and . . . killed her.'
'And did you not find the others, with that letter?'
'No, it was on his desk, by itself. It must have been the last
letter he wrote to her. In it he spoke of the shame he felt --
that he had done bad things, and that if she knew them she
would love him no more.'
'Yes. I believe he has seen and done much that haunts
him.'
'I hope it haunts him! I hope he sees her ghost in every
dark corner of the room!' And J wish I did. I wish I saw her too. 'If he speaks 
to you of the war, then try to find this out. Try
to find out what he did that shamed him so, that first year of
the war. I think he told Alice, and she could not accept it.'
'I'll try. He . . .' Rachel Weekes broke off, swallowing
hard. 'He has told me things lately that made my blood run
cold. Things he saw, the way the war was waged on the
common people of the peninsula, as well as between the
opposing armies.'
'It's never a pretty thing, I've heard tell.' Starling nodded.
'I have met soldiers old and new, and when they drink, they
drink to forget.'
'Who did you take food to, the week before last?' Rachel
Weekes suddenly burst out.
'What?' said Starling, startled. A rosy blush swept up from
Mrs Weekes's neck.
'I ... I saw you, in the city. That is to say . . .'
'Oh yes.' Starling fixed her with a flat glare. 'I've not
forgotten that you told on me, to Sol Bradbury. Tattled on
me for thieving.'
'Weren't you thieving?' Rachel Weekes retorted, flustered.
'I ... I thought to do the right thing, in reporting it,'
she said.
'Shows what you know about rights and wrongs, doesn't
it? And Dick said you'd seen me take a boat. Why did you
follow me?'
'I just ... I happened to see you in the street, and I was
curious. I saw you board a barge and go out of the city, and
I--'
'And you what?'
'I envied you.' The words were little more than a whisper,
and somehow they made all the ire in Starling melt away. She
smiled, though she didn't quite know what pleased her.
'You envied me?' she echoed, and shook her head. 'You
wouldn't say so if you'd smelled Dan Smithers's breath close
to.'
'Perhaps not,' said Rachel Weekes, with a cautious smile
of her own. Do I frighten her?
'I took it to an old acquaintance, fallen on hard times.'
Starling paused, considering, before adding: 'One who knew
Alice of old. Perhaps the only other person but me that
recalls her fondly. That recalls her at all, outside of this
household.'
'Will you go again to this acquaintance?'
'I daresay I will, in due course.'
'Could I go with you?' Again there was that urgency to
the woman, that keenness that Starling did not quite understand,
or trust.
"Why would you want to? It would bring down your
husband's wrath, if he found you out.'
'He will not . . .' This was spoken with less certainty. 'I
will be careful.'
'But why would you want to? It's a cold journey at this
time of year.'
'I want to ... be free of the city for a while. And I want to
talk to another person who knew Alice. It might help me to
understand her better,' she said. Starling considered her for a
moment. She suddenly saw that Mrs Weekes needed something,
very badly, but Starling had yet to divine what that
thing might be. She shook her head.
'You want to understand her? She's dead, Mrs Weekes.
You can't know her now, I fear. You're too late.' Her own
words made Starling pause; they grazed the raw edges of her
own grief. 'You speak as though you're infatuated with her,
and yet you never saw her, nor spoke to her.'
'I see her in the mirror, you forget. And I see her in your
words, and in . . . the words of others.'
'Differing accounts indeed, I am sure.'
'Truly. And I must know the truth, if I can find it out.'
'To what end though?' Starling pressed, doggedly. But it
seemed that Rachel Weekes had no answer to this question.
After a pause, and with a pleading look in her eyes, she said:
'I could bring food. I could bring meat and bread, to pay
for my presence on the visit.'
'Very well.' Starling relented. It could do no harm to me,
surely? She risks more by it. 'I will go again next Monday
night, at around five in the evening.'
'On All-Hallows' Eve?'
'Are you afraid of ghosts, Mrs Weekes?'
'I think it might be wise to be.'
'That is the arranged time, though. Meet me over the
bridge, on the south wharf. And don't be late, because I
won't wait if Smithers is ready to depart. It's a wearying walk
in the dark, if the boat has gone.' Mrs Weekes looked pleased
enough at this, and though Starling kept a stern face as she
turned away, she found that she didn't mind the idea of having
the tall woman's company on the dark and joyless trip along
the canal.
i8o8



In the kitchen at the farmhouse, there was a suspended,
ringing moment after Starling blurted out Alice's and Jonathan's
secret. When it ended she was sent upstairs, but she
did not quite go all the way. She sank into the same spot by
the banisters from which she'd first seen Jonathan and Lord
Faukes, though it was harder for her to fit there than it had
been, and there was such a restlessness in all her limbs it was
near impossible to remain quiet or still. For a long time, Alice
only wept, and that was the hardest thing of all to bear. She
wept with a kind of frantic need that prevented Bridget from
saying anything at all. Starling heard the scrape of chair legs
on the kitchen floor, and the kettle coming to the boil on the
range.
'Alice, child, stop now,' said Bridget, after several long
minutes. 'Take a deep breath, slowly now. Be calm, be calm.
Take a sip of tea.' She heard the trembling rattle of a china
cup in its saucer.
'Bridget, you must not tell him! Promise me! Please, I beg
you, for he will prevent us from ever seeing one another if
you do, and he will like as not cast us out and we will have
nothing and be ruined! And I will never see him again!' Alice
gabbled.
'All this you knew, and yet you continued your liaison --
you indulged your feelings, and encouraged them to grow.
All this you knew, and also that I am employed by Lord
Faukes, and must obey his commands.' Bridget spoke heavily,
wearily.
'I indulged my feelings, and encouraged them to grow?
No, I am compelled by my feelings, Bridget! You must know,
you must understand . . . haven't you ever been in love?'
Alice's voice was shaking. Starling knew she would be pale,
wild-eyed. Do not let her take one of her turns because of what I
said.
T fancied 1 was once, and it was no more prudent than this
love you have for young Mr Alleyn. My father stepped in and
prevented our becoming too attached to each other, and
before I had shamed myself publicly. It was a painful separation,
I shan't deny it. But now I see the sense of it, and
you must see the sense of removing your affections from Mr
Alleyn.'
'The sense? No, I see no sense in that! I see no sense in
separating, or being kept apart, when our souls are wound
tight together and have been these many years! You must
have seen it? You must have known the way we feel for each
other?'
'I've known it, yes. Anyone with eyes in their head would
know it, seeing you together in the same room. Even Lord
Faukes knows it, though he does not know you would
disobey him like this, and meet with his grandson in secret --
as I did not know it. Alice, what were you thinking? He is
engaged to another! And even if he were not, he is destined
to make a fine marriage, into a noble family.'
'Would I not make a fine wife for him?' said Alice, in a
tone of such misery that Starling couldn't stand it.
'You are as fine to me and those that know you as any
high-born lady, Alice, but that is not the way the world
works, and no amount of love or wishing will ever change it.
You have no name. You have no family, and no fortune.
Jonathan is the son of a noble lady.'
'He does not love Beatrice Fallonbrooke! And he will not marry her; he has 
sworn it to me. These past three years, he
has tried to remove himself from the engagement. Only his
honour and duty to the lady prevent him from renouncing
her publicly.'
'His honour? How honourable is it to lead you a dance
like this, and break your heart, when he knows he cannot
wed you? He will be cut off if he does. You would have
nothing, and nowhere to go. All doors would close to you.'
'If we were wed, I would happily live under a hedge with him!'
'Foolish girl! Think! Think about what would happen!'
There was a long silence. Starling didn't dare breathe, and
her chest burned. Her pulse was thumping painfully in her
head; she tried shutting her eyes but it only got worse.
'Please don't tell him,' Alice whispered then.
'I am duty bound to. He will separate you, I fear. We will
be moved away, too far for any secret meetings to take
place.' Bridget's voice was flat, unhappy.
'Moved away? No! Please, Bridget... I won't survive it.'
'You'll survive it because you'll have to. What choice is
there? Be grateful it was me Starling told on you to, and
not Lord Faukes ... I don't know what would happen if
he found out the full story.' Bridget's voice was laced with
warning. In the silence that fell again, Starling heard Alice
draw in a deep, gulping breath. She thought then about
running down to the kitchen, throwing herself down in
front of them and saying something, anything, to undo what
she had done, and mean their lives would not be turned
upside down, and Alice's heart broken. She found that not a
single muscle in her body would respond to the command.
The numbness of sheer panic held her, and her shame was
like a heavy weight pushing down on her.
'Believe me, I would rather not have to leave this house.
We have been comfortable here, these twenty years . . .'
Bridget muttered then. Alice gave a gasp.
'Then do not tell, dear Bridget! Pretend as though nothing
has changed! As though Starling had not spoken, or I had
denied it all and you believed me!'
'I can't do that... if it were found out. . .'
'It will not be! How could it be?' Alice's voice was bright
with desperate hope. 'Don't shake your head, Bridget - tell
me you will stay silent, and we can remain here in Bathampton,
and all will be as it was before!'
'Alice! This is not a game!' Bridget cried. 'Lord Faukes
loves you, and has always been gentle with you. But make no
mistake, he is a powerful man, and he will have things his
way. I have seen how he deals with those who defy him . . .
And in the not trifling matter of his grandson's marriage?
You wouldn't be able to throw yourself into his lap and weep
your way out of that one, mark my words.'
'He will not hear of it, Bridget.' Alice sounded calmer, and
resolute.
'And you must swear to see Jonathan in secret no more.
You must separate yourself from him. Swear it, Alice; because
sooner or later these things are found out. They always
are.'
'I . . . I--'
'Swear it to me, Alice, or I will have to report it now. You
would leave me no choice. Jonathan Alleyn is not for you,
however much you care for him.'
'Very well, then. I swear it.' This was spoken in a small,
strangled voice.
'You must talk to Starling. I thought her loyal to you, to
both of us.' Bridget gave a sigh. 'She has proved otherwise.'
At this, Starling's limbs awoke. She scrambled up and flew
down the stairs, running out of the house as fast as her feet
would carry her, because she could not stand to hear what
either one of them would say to her.
She roamed along the canal for a long time, then high onto
the ridge above the western edge of Bathampton, from where
Ralph Allen's folly looked down -- the turreted and crenellated
wall of a sham castle, newly built to embellish the view
from the gentleman's town house. Starling stared up at it and
wondered at the power some men had, to change the world
to suit them better. When we others must just do as we are bid,
and be meek and malleable. She thought about what Bridget
had said of Lord Faukes - he will have things his way. She
remembered the sudden warning she'd felt, nameless and
wordless, deep in her bones, during one of his visits a year or
so before.
She'd fetched him a glass of port while he was alone by the
fire in the parlour, and he'd taken hold of her wrist to prevent
her turning away. Normally she stayed out of his sight as
much as she could; she tried to draw as little attention to
herself as possible.
'Wait a while, girl. Starling,' he said, smiling so that his
cheeks turned his eyes into crescents. Starling did as she was
bid. She pulled experimentally at her arm but his grip, though
gentle, was quite unbreakable. She let her hand hang limply
at the end of her wrist. In some hindquarter of her brain, she
divorced herself from it completely; if she had to leave the
limb behind to free herself, she would do it. She watched
him in silence as his thumb moved around to press into the
vulnerable underside of her wrist, where the blood was warm
and close to the skin. He massaged her in small circles,
considering, and the prickling feeling this gave her went
straight to that hidden part of her mind that knew to bite, and
kick, and run. She balanced her weight evenly on both feet,
poised slightly on her toes, ready. She started to shake. 'Do
not fear me, girl. Why should you fear me?' he said, with a
chuckle. do not fear you, Starling realised. I hate you. 'How
old are you now?'
'Rising twelve, we think, sir,' she said reluctantly.
'Quite the little maid,' he said cheerfully, and laughed
again though his eyes never left her, and it was not mirth that
filled them but a kind of hunger. Starling glared at him then,
and let everything she was feeling fill her face. Lord Faukes
recoiled, though he did not let go her hand. 'Mind your
manners, little vixen. I had a horse once look at me the way
you just did. I was forced to beat that mare bloody, so I was.'
'Yes, sir.' Starling looked down instead, because she could
not keep the hate from showing.
'That's better.' Lord Faukes dropped her wrist and laced
his hands across his gut, shifting his weight. The chair
creaked. 'Remember who owns you, girl. Remember to
whom you are beholden.' In that instant Alice came in from
the stables with her cheeks glowing and her hair unravelled,
and went to embrace the old man with a smile. For a second,
Starling wanted to step between them - Alice had no idea
how to bite or kick or run. But she could not, since there was
no excuse to other than every instinct she possessed, commanding
it.
Alice found her eventually, as the sky was turning milky
pale and a sliver of moon had risen. Starling had found her
way to the lovers' tree, and was sitting in the shadows on the
protruding root, quiet and numb and miserable. She started
to cry when she saw Alice approaching, because the shame
was intolerable. Alice sat down beside her, all serious and
calm. Her pale hair caught the last of the light, but her eyes
were in darkness.
'Don't cry, Starling. I know why you told Bridget,' she
said. 'I know why you were angry. You wanted to hurt me
some, because I have hurt you, haven't I, dearest?' Starling
only wept more, messily; snot and tears slid down her chin.
Alice's arm went around her shoulders and squeezed. 'You
are so quick and bright; it's easy to forget how young you
are.' She sighed softly and fetched out a handkerchief to wipe
Starling's face. 'You and 1 have been so close, since you first
came to us. It must be impossible for you to understand why
I met Jonathan in secret, as well as the times I met him with
you, and at the house. It has to do with the kind of love
we feel, and my . . . particular situation. Perhaps you understand
a little more of that now, after hearing what Bridget
had to say earlier on.' Starling glanced up and saw that her
eavesdropping was no secret. She dissolved into fresh tears of
misery; for a while Alice let her cry. A weak breeze shifted
the willow whips.
'Now I need to know how close we are, Starling,' said
Alice, after a while. She whispered the words, so that they
seemed spoken in part to the darkness and the silent sliding
river. Starling gulped and sniffed and tried to read her expression.
'What
do you mean, Alice?' she said.
'I have sworn to Bridget that I will detach myself from
Jonathan. I had no choice but to swear it. But I shall not do
it. I will not do it!' Alice took Starling by the tops of her arms
and stared into her eyes. 'You betrayed me before because
you were hurt and angry. But you betrayed me to the one
person who had best reason to keep my secret with me.
Perhaps it was deliberate, perhaps not, but betraying Jonathan
and me to Bridget was really hardly a betrayal at all.'
Starling waited, hardly breathing. She'd never heard Alice
sound so serious. 'I will not detach myself from Jonathan, and
he will not detach himself from me. It would be utterly
impossible. So I will break the vow I just made to Bridget,
and break it willingly, and if the time comes that Jonathan
and I must flee from our families to be wed, then I will go
eagerly, though I should be disgraced for ever. I tell you this
now because you will have guessed it, I know. If not at once
then sooner or later. So I ask you now, Starling -- will you
betray us again?'
'Never!' Starling gasped.
'Think before you answer, dearest. It will be harder to
keep this secret now. Bridget will be watching . . . she will
doubtless make you promise to tell her if I do not keep to my
word.' Alice's fingers clutched Starling's shoulders, gently
but insistently.
'I will lie to her too, I don't care! But you must promise
me one thing,' said Starling, desperately.
'What is it?' Alice sounded wary, worried.
"When you go . . . when you go away with Jonathan, you
must take me along with you. You mustn't leave me!'
'Starling, dearest. . .'
'You must not leave me! Promise it!' Alice pulled her
closer, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
'I promise it; and that is a promise I will keep.'
They waited until they were both calm, and composed,
and resolute, before returning to the farmhouse, and to
Bridget's stern unease. As they went in Alice turned to smile
at Starling, and it was that smile that reassured her, and told
her she was forgiven and loved. It was that smile that made
the ground under her feet turn back to solid rock from
shifting sand, and convinced her to ignore that sparkle of
instinct that came again, with the shadow of Lord Faukes
looming large in her mind; the urge she felt to take hold of
Alice's hand and run, right then, immediately and far away.
1821



Overnight, frost had settled on every stone of the city, every
leaf and blade of grass of Barton Fields, where Rachel and
Richard met Captain and Mrs Sutton to walk. Mist lay thick
over Bath, snaking along the river as though the water had
breathed it out. It crept up the lower slopes of the city, so that
only the upper crescents rose clear of it; an elegant harbour
along a shifting white shore. Cassandra Sutton was swaddled
in coat and woollen shawls, with gloves on her hands and
leather boots laced high up her legs. She walked ahead and
then skipped back to them, to show them whatever she'd
found - acorns, or fir cones; once a massive horse chestnut
leaf, golden brown and crusted with ice. The exercise made
her cheeks pink and her eyes shine, and the child looked as
vibrant as the spray of crimson hawthorn berries she next
brought to show them.
'Cassandra, do not run about so, I beg you. You're a
young lady now,' said Harriet Sutton.
'But if I run I'll keep warm,' the little girl pointed out, and
smiled winningly at them as she turned and trotted away
once more. Her teeth were a flash of white against the darker
colouring of her face.
'Cassandra!' Harriet called after her, but her tone was
amused, not reproachful.
'It does children good to run, and fill their chests with
fresh air,' said Rachel.
'True enough. But Cassandra is coming to that age when I
think I ought to instil a touch more decorum in her, perhaps.'
'Oh, she is but nine years old, is she not? I think she could
safely be allowed to run wild for a couple more years.'
Rachel smiled. 'When I was her age, my father still took me
fishing for tadpoles. We would stand for hours in the muddy
edges of a stream, dipping for the poor creatures. I think he
longed for a boy, to take on such outings! Once Christopher
was born, I was allowed to become his daughter, rather than
his son. I was about Cassandra's age when that happened,
and I turned out well enough, I suppose.'
'Indeed you did. You turned out very well indeed.'
Harriet looped her arm through Rachel's as they walked;
Richard was walking further behind, with Captain Sutton.
'Harriet, may I ask you something?' said Rachel.
'Of course.'
'Does your husband ever talk about his time in the war?
The war against the French, I mean?'
'In truth, very little.' Harriet Sutton sighed. 'I do not press
him on it, since it seems to me that it pains him to speak of it.'
'Do you think it. . . troubles him? The things he has seen
and done?'
'My husband is a good and kind man; I'm certain such
violence troubles him. But he does his duty to king and
country. His duty as a solider.' Harriet turned her head to
look at her husband. 'The army needs men like my husband,
to bring a measure of decency to the grotesquery of the
battlefield.'
'Indeed.'
'What makes you ask?'
'Mr Alleyn has lately begun to speak to me of his time in
the war. Of the things he saw and did,' said Rachel. And they
are things that turn my stomach. 'I can't imagine how any man
could come through the same and remain innocent of heart.'
'Yes. I have heard of other soldiers who find it impossible
to return to their old lives when they come home. They find
society meaningless; their days pointless; their wives and
families . . . frivolous.'
'And what becomes of these men?'
'Gradually, they resettle, and find peace.' Harriet shrugged.
'Or they do not, and turn to drink and dissolution, or
retreat from the world.'
'Or retreat into drink and dissolution, all three,' Rachel
murmured. Harriet smiled sadly.
'What does he tell you?'
'Such things . . .' Rachel shook her head. 'Such things that
I begin to understand why his memories torment him so.
Why he has lost his faith in humanity.' And then I read him a
tale of adventure and chivalry, and he sleeps, like a child.
For a while they walked in steady silence, watching
Cassandra as she darted here and there beneath the naked
limbs of a horse chestnut tree, filling her coat pockets with
glossy nuts.
'I am glad,' Harriet said then. Rachel turned to look down
at her diminutive friend, confused. 'Jonathan Alleyn's heart is
good. I know this to be true. And war may change a man's
mind -- change his outlook and his behaviour, change the
very way he thinks, perhaps. But it cannot change a man's
heart.'
'But perhaps, if they behave badly enough, it matters not
that their heart remains what it always was. Not everything --
not every deed -- can be forgiven, after all.'
'Can it not? Is that not what Christianity teaches?'
'I don't know.' Rachel thought of Alice, and the way she
had vanished from the world. She thought of the Portuguese
girl Jonathan had spoken of, crushed beneath a rock and
ravaged. 'I don't know,' she said again. Harriet squeezed her
hand.
'Don't give up on him, Mrs Weekes,' she said softly.
'Nobody has grown as close to him since he returned from
the war as you are now. You are doing him good, I know it.
And you are doing good, by your time and your . . . willingness
to see past the wall he has built around himself.'
Rachel nodded vaguely.
'I hear such things about him, from . . . others, that I
hardly know what to think,' she said.
'You can trust my own account, I hope. I know him to be
good.'
'But, how do you know, Mrs Sutton? How are you so
sure?'
'I ... I cannot say. Forgive me. Tell me, what does your
husband make of your progress?'
'He makes nothing of it. He knows nothing of it,' said
Rachel. 'He cares only for the wage I am paid by Mrs Alleyn.
He never asks me what I do there, or how I fare.' Try as she
might, Rachel couldn't keep the unhappiness from her voice,
and alongside it was something new; something like contempt.
She hoped that Harriet Sutton wouldn't hear it, but
the look her friend gave her was troubled, and she didn't
speak for a good few moments.
'The first year of marriage is a voyage of discovery,'
Harriet said eventually. 'And perhaps it is inevitable that
not all things we discover will be to our liking.' She smiled
sympathetically, and Rachel looked away. Suddenly, her own
distaste for her husband shamed her.
They had reached the end of the track across Barton
Fields, and waited for the men by the path that would lead
back into the city, and to a coffee house where they could
warm themselves. Rachel smiled warmly at Richard to disguise
her true feelings. His return smile was thin and uneven,
as though he tasted something sour in his mouth, and
Rachel's heart sank even further.
'Well, I think we've earned something hot to drink, and
perhaps something sweet to eat, to warm us, hmm?' said
Captain Sutton, sweeping his daughter into his arms and
touching the tip of his long nose to hers. 'Cassie! Your nose
is like an icicle!'
'There's nothing so warming as having one's family
around one, I think,' Harriet remarked to Rachel and Richard,
who had linked arms without speaking to one another.
'Quite so,' said Rachel, but Richard spoke at the same
time, and more loudly.
'I have found little warmth in my own, lately,' he said,
then closed his mouth tightly, letting his eyes slide angrily
over Rachel's face before looking away into the mist. Rachel
was mortified and didn't know where to look. There she
stood, arm in arm with her husband, their faces turned away
and a wall of unspoken hard feeling between them.
Late in the evening, Rachel found herself wondering about
Richard, and his habitual long absences at night. At first she had assumed he 
was with clients at inns or private houses, or
with traders; that his frequent drunkenness was the result of
toasting and sampling and the sealing of deals, or somehow
otherwise linked to his business. But after his comment to
the Suttons, she was no longer sure. Duncan Weekes had
counselled her to be glad his son had not broken his wedding
vows to her, and to forget about any prior indiscretion. But
what if he does break them? She didn't dwell on the question,
since the answer was what "indeed -- she could do nothing to
stop him, except to expose him and try to shame him into
behaving better. But even that, she found, did not interest
her. She was not interested in improving him. The realisation
came as a shock, and if it was true then she should also be
uninterested what he got up to when he was not at home. He
would say it was not her business, and he would possibly be
right. But I would still know, she decided. I would know the full
story of what I have wed.
Kacliel wrapped up against a light rain, only heavy enough
to glaze the cobbled pavement. She went from place to place
with her brows furrowed and her hood drawn forward to
hide her face from passers-by. She could not bring herself to
enter an inn alone, but she peered in through windows, and
through doors when they were thrown open by people
coming and going. A cloud of talk and laughter and warmth
and stink wafted out from within each time, and caused her
a curious mix of revulsion and loneliness. She saw ruddy
faces, and smiling eyes; she saw arguments and tears, and
lovers dipping their heads together in secretive corners that
the candlelight barely reached; she saw men drinking alone,
staring at nothing, swallowing down mouthfuls of spirits like
food. But she did not see Richard Weekes in any place she
visited, and after two hours of searching she gave up, cold
and oddly disappointed. Do I want him to be a reprobate, then?
To excuse myself for not loving him? On the pavement she
almost stepped on a man, sitting with his feet in the gutter.
'Beg pardon, sir,' she muttered, as the toe of her shoe got
caught in his coat tails. The man swayed but made no reply,
and Rachel paused. 'Mr Weekes? Is that you?' She bent down
to see his face. There was a cut above Duncan Weekes's right
eye, which had dribbled a crusted line of blood down to his
jaw; he sat with his eyes shut and his mouth slack, stinking of
brandy and piss. 'Mr Weekes -- are you well? Can you hear
me?' said Rachel, more urgently. She shook his arm and his
head came up, slowly, eyes opening a fraction to see what
trouble he was in.
'Rachel! How charming to see you, my dear girl. Do come
in, come in. Sit by the fire and warm yourself.' His voice was
a slur, hard to understand. Rachel bit her lip anxiously.
'We are not at home, sir. We are on the street by the
Unicorn. What happened to your eye? Were you attacked?'
'My eye?' the old man mumbled. 'My eye?'
'Come, sir - you must rise. It's far too cold a night to be
sitting out like this, and we wouldn't want you apprehended
for doing so. Come, I cannot lift you, you will have to help
me.' Rachel grasped him under his arm and urged him to
rise; his coat sleeve was wet through, and filthy. For a while
Duncan didn't move, and Rachel was left to tug at him
futilely, but then a pair of passing young men saw her plight;
they hefted Duncan to his feet with ease, grinned and tipped
their hats to Rachel when she thanked them. Slowly, she
coaxed Duncan Weekes to walk. 'Let's away to somewhere
warmer, somewhere kinder,' she murmured, as they stumbled
along.
'Forgive me, child. Forgive a foolish old drunk,' Duncan
said thickly, and then coughed; his chest sounded clotted and
unwholesome. Rachel found her throat too tight to reply.
They were not too far from his lodgings, and when they
reached the door Rachel patted his pockets until she found
the key. His room was wholly black, and little warmer than
outside. She manoeuvred Duncan onto his bed and then tried
to light the fire, but found no coal or wood to do so.
'Didn't you buy coal, Mr Weekes? Didn't you buy some
fuel with the money I gave you?' He only stared at her
in abject apology, and Rachel understood what her money
had been spent on. 'Well, then,' she said, helplessly. 'Well.
Blankets, then.' She lit some candles, which gave the illusion
of warmth with their yellow light; piled as many blankets as
she could find on top of the old man, and fetched water and a
cloth from the washstand to clean the cut on his face.
'I lost a hand of pontoon, when I'd bet a shilling. I did not
have the shilling,' he confessed, trying to smile. 'Lucky he
only gave me this small cut and not a sounder hooping, eh?'
A bruise was spreading out from the wound, and he winced
when she dabbed at it. 'It will make my head thump all the
worse, come morning.'
'Oh, why do it? Why ruin yourself with drink, sir?'
Rachel exclaimed suddenly. Duncan Weekes's face sank
down.
'It's like a command you have to answer, though you
know the master for a base villain,' he said softly.
'You, and my husband, and Jonathan Alleyn . . . the stuff
makes fools and firebrands of all of you!' She squeezed out
the cloth in the bowl. The water was icy.
'Miserable fools, yes. It makes us lose the things we love
most.' Duncan Weekes's rheumy eyes shone. The candle
flames were caught in them like little sparks of life. Rachel
stared into them.
'What happened to your wife, Mr Weekes?'
The old man sighed; shut his eyes for a moment before
answering her.
'She'd been away one Christmas, to visit her nephew. I
was meant to go to Marlborough, where her nephew would
leave her, and accompany her on the last leg of the journey
by stage. But I ... I drank away my fare, and fell into a
stupor. So she came back alone, and being last to board, since
she had waited as long as possible for my arrival, she had no
choice but to ride on the roof. We suffered a spell of bitter
winter weather, at the time. Bitter. By the time the stage
reached Chippenham, they found her . . . they found her
succumbed to the cold.'
'Oh, Mr Weekes,' Rachel breathed.
'Grog is the devil itself. It was grog and my own weakness
for it that killed her, sure enough. So you see, I can't blame
my boy for hating me,' said Duncan, bitterly. 'But then,
perhaps the devil is in us to begin with, and the grog only
gives him free rein. Aye, perhaps 'tis so! It is in the Alleyn
family. I have seen it. I have seen their devil for myself!' The
old man's eyes widened, and he grasped her hand where she
tended him. 'Oh, be careful, my dear! It worries me deeply
that you have taken that man into your circle, into your life.'
'I have come to know Jonathan Alleyn better. I do not fear
him as once I did.'
'Jonathan Alleyn . . . perhaps not, perhaps not. But the
others . . .'
'But, there is only he and his mother remaining,' she said,
confused. Duncan shook his head.
'They all have his blood. And she is her father's daughter,
right enough,' he said, in a voice gone small and frightened.
'Richard will tell you ... he will tell you I was dismissed
from them for my drunkenness. That's what he will tell you.
But it wasn't so. It wasn't so!'
'Why then, Mr Weekes?' Rachel whispered, squeezing his
hand tightly.
'Because I saw I saw them! And what I saw could not be
mistaken. And they both knew it . . . they both knew what
I'd seen . . . And I told her. I told her.'
'Told who what? What did you see?'
'I understood then ... I understood them, then, and I was
happy to go, after that. I knew how much my boy wanted to
stay on, but I was happy to go after what I saw . . .' Oblivion
was tugging at him, closing his eyes, making his words lose
shape and sense.
'But what was it, Mr Weekes?' Rachel shook him slightly,
desperate to know. His eyes opened again, struggling to
focus on her face.
'Oh! Poor girl, I fear you have fallen into dark hands . . .
dark hands. That family has evil secrets, and their hearts are
black ... I sawV He sank back again, and his breath came
rattling through his teeth, wheezing and rank. The smell of
it made Rachel recoil; it carried the stink of infection. She felt
her heart thudding. She held Duncan's hand and tried to
warm it, but in the end hers only grew colder, and the old
man slumbered on, restless but dogged, so she left him.
All-Hallows' Eve was a bright, crystalline day; the low sun
thawed an early frost to leave everything glittering with
water. From a thousand chimneys, a thousand ribbons of
smoke rose straight up into the still blue sky. Rachel spent
the short daylight hours writing a letter to the Trevelyans,
stitching an old tippet into a better semblance of fashion, and
trying to make pastry that was neither tough and leathery,
nor too fragile to lift. All the while, she could hear Richard
down in the cellar. A steady stream of callers came and went;
she heard laughter and hushed discussions; the rumble of
rolled casks, the creak of the barrow wheel as stock and
supplies were brought to the store or taken away. Today of
all days, Rachel fretted. She thought up half a dozen excuses
she could give Richard for going out of the house so close to
nightfall, and even wondered about sneaking out without
seeing him at all, and she was so nervous about it as five
o'clock approached that she ended up pacing the kitchencum-parlour
from one window to the other, gazing out in
search of answers.
She sighed quietly in relief when, at half past four, Richard
came up to announce he was going out.
'Where will you go?' Rachel asked, in spite of herself.
Richard looked impatient for a moment, and then unhappy.
He crossed to her and kissed her cheek, raising a hand to
stroke her hair.
'I have some business to attend to,' he said, and Rachel
stifled the retort that she did not believe it. It would be to an
inn, or a gaming table somewhere. She remembered what
Richard had once said about his father -- that he wouldn't be
half so poor if he didn't drink his wages away. Hypocrite. And
you seem to increase such expenditure all the time. With a pang
she wondered if she was to blame for Richard seeking his
entertainment elsewhere, but she wanted him to go out, after
all, so she said nothing more.
'Will you be late?'
'I'll be as late as I need to be, Rachel,' he said, irritated.
'Don't wait for me, but eat, if you're hungry.'
'Very well.' I just hope your business keeps you out later than
mine will keep me. Richard pulled on his gloves and left
without another word. Rachel counted to a hundred once the
door had slammed shut, then hurried into her own coat and
gloves and headed for the river.
On the far side of the bridge she looked left and right,
trying to pick out Starling's small figure from the crowd of
river men and traders, urchins and apprentices. In the failing
light the torches dazzled her eyes and made it hard to see.
Behind her, the city bells began to strike five and she felt a
flutter of panic, until a hand grasped her arm and she looked
down into Starling's heart-shaped face.
'I thought you'd changed your mind,' she said, steering
Rachel through the crowd by her elbow.
'No, I--'
'Hurry - he won't wait. Did you bring food?'
'What?'
'You said you'd bring some food.' Starling paused, and
glanced at Rachel accusingly.
'I . . . I'm sorry. Richard was in the house until the very
last moment ... I couldn't. I was worried about getting
away without him knowing.'
'Never mind.' Starling resumed her march through the
muck and garbage of the riverside. They reached the same
barge Rachel had seen Starling take before, and the girl went
on board in one smooth jump. Rachel peered at the gap of
inky water between the boat and the wooden jetty. 'Come
on, then,' said Starling, seating herself on the sacks of coal.
Rachel glanced at Dan Smithers, who gave her a lopsided
grin that showed teeth gone brown; the upper and lower
canines had worn away on one side into a perfect round slot
for his pipe shaft.
'Make the jump, ma'am, if you would have a ride,' he said,
still grinning. Squaring her shoulders, Rachel gathered her
skirts and crossed the gap with a single long stride. She lost
her balance, unprepared for the way the barge would move,
and staggered forwards onto the coal sacks. Dan Smithers
chuckled.
'A gentleman would have offered me his hand to board,'
Rachel pointed out, coolly, but the bargeman only laughed.
'Aye, ma'am. No doubt a gentleman would 'ave.'
Starling smiled at her indignity, though not unkindly.
When she was like this - unguarded, in her element, she
had a kind of buoyant confidence that Rachel admired, and
envied. There was something resilient and indefatigable
about her. Soon they were sliding beneath the ornate iron
bridges of Sydney Gardens, between steep stone walls. The
voices of walkers and hawkers and sweethearts echoed down
to them; disembodied words drifting like ghosts along the
water. Rachel shivered and pulled her coat tighter around
her. Then they were out of the city and in darkness, save for
the lamps on the prow and stern of the barge - two single
flickering flames to hold back the night. There was no sound
but the soft slapping of water on the hull, and the muffled
clop of the horse's feet. Rachel saw the first stars of the
evening coming out, and excitement filled her; she felt as
though she were escaping, somehow. But you will only have to
go back again.
'It'll be a hard frost tonight,' said Starling, her words
causing pale shreds of mist to obscure her face. She was
sitting cross-legged, her face half lit by the lamp on the prow,
fiddling with a loose thread that trailed from her mittens. She
is half a young lady, half a tavern wench.
'How old are you, Starling?'
'Possibly four and twenty.' Starling shrugged.
'Possibly?'
'I've never known for sure. We always used my height to
guess, but I was tall as a child and am not so tall now. So
perhaps all our guesses were wrong.'
'Doesn't your mother know?' said Rachel, confused.
'I daresay she does, but since I've never known her, that
doesn't help much.'
'You're an orphan?'
'I don't know.' Starling tipped her head to one side to look
at Rachel, and continued. 'I walked into the farmyard one
winter's day, wearing only rags. I was small -- six or seven
years old. Alice took me in, and cared for me.'
'But if you were six or seven, you must remember your
life before that, surely?'
'I do not.' Starling shrugged again. 'I think I chose to
forget; and forget I have. I sometimes have odd feelings, like
warnings. Intuitions, you could call them. About people, or
happenings. I think they might be lessons I took from that
life before, but that's all I've kept. The intuitions, and the
scars.'
'The scars?'
'It seems I was beaten a good deal.'
'Oh. That's terrible.'
'I have no memory of it, so it's no trouble to me.'
'And Alice decided to keep you? Did she try to find out
where you came from?'
'Not very hard, if she did.' Starling smiled briefly. 'Not
when she saw how I'd been treated. If they'd wanted me
back, they'd have come looking, wouldn't they? I was only
small. I couldn't have walked so very far in the winter, with
no shoes on my feet. They must have been nearby, and as
happy to be rid of me as I was to stumble into Alice's care.'
'So that's why you have such a singular name?'
'Alice used to say that the starlings had brought me to her.
They were making a row, coming in to roost, and then there
I was, barefoot on the muddy yard with feathers in my hair.'
Starling smiled as she spoke, and Rachel saw how much she
enjoyed this legend about her beginnings.
'So she raised you as her own?'
'As a sister, more or less. Alice was only seventeen or so
herself when I appeared. It was a funny kind of upbringing --
Alice treated me as her kin, and Bridget taught me how to be
a good servant.'
'Who is Bridget?'
'She was Alice's housekeeper, but also her guardian, and
her gaoler. She was employed by Lord Faukes . . .' Starling
paused, swallowing. 'She was employed by Alice's benefactor to serve her, but 
also to keep her confined to the house and
village of Bathampton. Alice never went further than the
edge of it her whole life.' Starling turned her face away sadly,
as a vixen's harsh shriek echoed across the water. 'Apart from
one time,' she added, so softly that Rachel almost didn't hear
her. 'It's Bridget we go to see tonight; she's old now, and
infirm, and much reduced from when I first knew her.'
The cold was making Rachel wheeze; biting her hands and
feet. Her teeth rattled together. Sudden movement in the
lamplight startled her but it was only a barn owl. It ghosted
along in front of them for a while, as noiselessly white as
snowflakes, then vanished into the darkness like a secret.
Rachel looked over and found Starling watching her with
eyes gone huge in the lack-light.
'It's not much further,' she said, as the yellow shapes of lit
windows came into view up ahead. 'Can you see the house?'
She pointed, and Rachel made out some tall chimneys and the
straight line of a roof, perhaps three hundred feet back from
the canal. 'That's the house I grew up in. That was the house
where we lived, the three of us. Child, maid and crone.'
'Is Bridget a housekeeper, still?'
'No, she's too ill to work; she lives on charity. She has no
family of her own left. Only me.'
'She is lucky, then, that you take the time to visit her.'
'What else should I do? At times there's been little love
lost between us but. . . she is there in my earliest memories,
and she was kind, in her own way. She is my family, too. All
the family I have now.'
'You could wed, and make your own family,' said Rachel.
'Perhaps I will, one day.' Starling looked down and picked
at her glove again. 'The beard-splitters I meet aren't the kind
of men I'd care to wed.' She glanced up apologetically, and
Rachel was glad of the darkness to hide in.
When they arrived, Rachel disembarked more deftly than
she'd boarded, and followed Starling onto a bridge across the
canal. As the barge slipped away eastwards its lamps looked
like tiny will-o'-the-wisps, dancing over the dark water.
'How will we get back again?' Rachel asked, suddenly
afraid.
'If we're lucky, there'll be a boat heading west that'll let us
ride. If not, it's a brisk walk back, not much more than an
hour. We might even feel warmer if we walk. What time
must you be back?'
'I don't know. Sometimes my husband . . .' Rachel paused.
It was too easy to forget that Starling knew her husband well;
perhaps better than she did herself. 'Mr Weekes usually stays
out late,' she finished, in a stunted voice.
'Yes. That sounds like Dick Weekes. Always off caterwauling,'
said Starling, tonelessly. They made their way
along the deserted village street. There were lights on in
windows but no sounds of music or voices from within;
Rachel found the stillness eerie.
'Where is everybody?' she whispered.
'Those that aren't in the pub will be tucked up indoors. It
is All-Hallows' Eve, after all. They've no wish to see their
dead walking.' In the borrowed light of a doorway Rachel
saw the flash of Starling's feral grin.
'I should quite like to see some of mine again. Even if
they were in spirit form,' Rachel said softly. Starling's grin
evaporated.
'Yes. So would I.'
At the top of the street they turned off onto a muddy track,
pitted with frozen puddles and tunnelling between overgrown
yew hedges. At the end of it huddled a row of three
tiny cottages, single-storeyed, each with two small, square
windows to either side of a narrow doorway, and a squat
chimney poking up through the centre of the roof. They
caught a whiff of the cesspit, and the reek of old ashes.
Starling strode purposefully to the middle cottage and rapped
her knuckles against the wood. She lifted the latch without
waiting for an answer.
'Bridget, it's me! And I bring a friend with me.' She
glanced briefly at Rachel as she stepped inside, as if embarrassed
to have used the word friend. Rachel followed close
behind her, hoping for warmth, but, like at Duncan Weekes's
lodgings, the temperature barely rose inside the cottage. The
air was stagnant; the only light came from a single candle on
the mantelpiece, above a stove in which the last embers of a
fire were dying.
'Bridget?' Starling called again, passing through a doorway
on the right. Rachel waited in the first small room. The
floor was bare, and the only furniture a crooked table with
a stool tucked under it, a wooden cupboard, and a rocking
chair which sat facing the stove. Everything felt stiff with
cold, from the bones of the house to the very air itself. From
the other room she heard the rustle of a straw mattress, and
murmured words. 'You can come in now - and bring the
candle,' Starling called.
Holding the candle before her made everything else recede
into shadow, but Rachel saw Starling perched on a three
legged stool by a narrow cot bed, and in that bed lay a
shrunken figure with cheekbones like knife edges and deep
rings under its eyes; wrapped in so many layers of blankets
and shawls it was hard to tell where the bed ended and the
person began. 'Bridget, this is Rachel Weekes, lately married
to Dick Weekes, the wine man. Mrs Weekes, this is Bridget
Barnes. Come closer so she can see you.' Rachel did as she
was told, noting how keenly Starling watched Bridget's face. Of course. She 
waits to see her reaction to me. To this face which
is only half mine. But if Starling had been hoping for anything
as dramatic as Mr Alleyn's response, she was disappointed.
Bridget simply stared, without blinking, for such a length of
time that Rachel found herself staring back, deep into the old
woman's sunken eyes. They registered recognition, but no
surprise; only a deep, slow-turning sadness.
'Well. I suppose there were only so many faces God could
create. Sooner or later he had to make the same one twice,'
said Bridget. She sounded breathless; her voice was thin and
the air seemed to only penetrate the topmost portion of her
lungs, so that she had to take constant small snatches of it.
'You're welcome here, Mrs Weekes. Though your presence
might cause a stir, on this of all nights.'
'Thank you, Mrs Barnes,' said Rachel.
'We saw nobody, as we came to you. Nobody who might
think her a ghost,' said Starling.
'It's Miss Barnes,' Bridget pointed out. 'I never did marry.
Perhaps if I had I would be tucked up warm in the house of
my son or daughter now, instead of in this sty; though I
shouldn't complain of having the almshouse when there are
plenty that haven't.' She stopped and took several breaths to
catch up, coughing wheezily. 'The damp in the walls plays havoc with my chest,' 
she said, to nobody in particular.
'Well, I may not have a warm and comfortable house I can
take you to, but I do have some things for you. Look here some
candle stubs, more beer, a ham bone, some dried fish
and peas and . . .' Starling pulled an earthenware jar from her
sack with a slight flourish. 'Honey! I didn't even steal it. I
bought it for you, Bridget,' she told the old woman proudly.
'Well, now, I'm sure you didn't need to go and spend your
money on me, girl,' Bridget muttered, but Rachel could see
how pleased she was.
'No, I didn't,' Starling said haughtily. 'So be happy that I
did, eh?' For want of somewhere to put it down, Starling sat
cradling the honey in her lap. She reached out with one hand
to twitch the bedclothes straighter, and as she turned her face
away, Rachel saw it was etched with worry. This woman is her
only family, and she is a frail and expectant thing.
Under Starling's direction, Rachel helped to carry in more
wood from a pile behind the cottages. The eerie stillness in
the shadows beneath the frozen trees made them hurry back
inside.
'Is there no coal?' said Rachel, and Starling shook her
head.
'There never is. I thought about bilking some from Dan
Smithers, but though he's my friend he'll not carry me if he
thinks I'm stealing from him.'
'I have some money. We should have bought some from
him,' Rachel pointed out, opening the stove and feeding in
some smaller twigs to get it started again.
'Open both vents on that stove, or it'll take an hour or
more to light!' Bridget called from the bedroom. There was
no water in the kettle, and with a sigh Starling went back out
into the darkness, to the pump on the street, and Rachel was
left alone with Bridget, feeling suddenly awkward.
She hovered in the front room for a while, until Bridget
called her back to the bedside.
'Lord, I hate this darkness,' she grumbled. 'It's early
evening, but could be the dead of night. My eyes can see to
do nothing past four in the afternoon! And shan't now until
April next.' Rachel took Starling's place on the three-legged
stool.
'Spring does seem a long way ahead,' she said. Bridget
grunted.
'You must forgive me for not rising. I'm not so much the
invalid I seem, but today my chest is heavy and I have no
strength. It comes and goes, some days better than others.
Perhaps this will be my last winter; perhaps not.' She spoke
matter-of-factly; without fear or self-pity. 'Your face wakes
old pain. Old grief. Why have you come?'
'I am . . . employed at the Alleyns' household, on Lansdown
Crescent. As reader and . . . companion to Mr Jonathan
Alleyn . . .'
'To Jonathan Alleyn? So, Starling hasn't poisoned him
yet, then, or slipped an adder into his bedclothes.' Bridget
spoke scathingly.
'No. Not yet.'
'Well. I'm not surprised. For all her bluster and spite, she's
a sensible girl. She has a good job there, and she knows it.
Where else would she go, for heaven's sake, if she left the
Alleyns?'
'I ... do not know. She seems to hate him, though. Her
master. And to hate the mistress a little as well.'
'She has to hate him; what else can she do? She blames him
for Alice leaving us. Easier to think him a murderer than to
accept the other idea.'
'You do not think he did it?'
'No. But who can know, especially after all this time?
There were so many secrets, so many meetings that I knew
nothing about. I turned a blind eye as much as I could. Who
was 1 to thwart their plans? Lord Faukes would have cast us
all out if he'd found it out, but Alice loved Jonathan so keen
- loved him like breath. And I loved Alice.' She shrugged;
coughed a little.
'It seems most who knew Alice loved her. All but
Josephine Alleyn.'
'All who knew Alice loved her. Josephine Alleyn met her
only once; her hatred was for what Alice was, for what she
represented, not for Alice herself.'
'And what was Alice to her?'
'A scandal, of course. A rich man's by-blow with no name
of her own, born in shame.' Rachel's heart squeezed in her
chest.
'You know of Alice's birth?' she said, her throat going
tight with nameless fear.
'It doesn't take a genius to fathom it. She was placed into
my arms one day, a little girl with a sunny smile and hair like
silk. Lord Faukes brought her, and put her into my arms, and
I saw the way he favoured her. What man has tenderness for
a child, unless it is his own blood?'
'You say Alice was Lord Faukes's child?'
'I cannot prove it, and it was never spoken of. But why
else do rich and powerful men sponsor nameless young
children? And keep them tucked away, out of sight and
mind?'
'How old was she when he brought her to you? How old
was Alice when you saw her first?' Rachel pressed, leaning
forward and pinning Bridget with her gaze. The old woman
frowned in thought.
'Small, still. Not more than three years of age. I never
knew where she'd been before that -- I knew better than to
ask.' Suddenly, Bridget's eyes swam and her mouth twisted
up, and when she spoke tears misshaped the words. 'I was
as much of a mother to that girl as whoever it was that
birthed her. Mother and nurse and servant. Does Starling
ever think of that? She goes on like she's the only one that
misses her.'
Rachel shut her eyes. Three years old. Abi . . . was it you? She struggled to 
keep her composure.
'Do you ... do you think Alice is dead?' Bridget looked
up sharply at her strangled tone, then shook her head.
'She ran away. She had enough cause to, if she'd come to
accept that she could not marry Mr Alleyn. I never heard
from her again after that morning she went out. She loved to
walk ... it wasn't strange that she went. I heard the door
swing just after dawn, before the sky was proper lit. I
thought to myself, "I do not need to rise just yet. Alice has
gone out, she will bring the eggs on her way back in. Starling
will light the fires." That's what I thought, as I lay there all
lazy and warm. And that was the last sound I ever heard from
my Alice. She should . . . she should have sent us word! She
must have known how we'd worry, and that we would have
kept any secrets she wanted us to. She should have sent us a
word.' Bridget settled her chin as she spoke, but there was
more pain than rebuke in her voice.
'It surprises you that she did not?'
'Yes. But then,' Bridget shrugged. 'Letters get lost.'
'The Alleyns are sure she eloped with another, but Starling
insists that Alice had no sweetheart other than Jonathan.
That she would never have been untrue to him . . .'
'She deceives herself,' said Bridget, abruptly.
'What do you mean?'
'I don't like it any more than she does, but I know what I
saw with my own eyes. I saw Alice, with another man.'
'What other man?' Rachel asked, her heart beating harder. Let her be alive.
'Don't you think I'd have sought him out if I knew? I
was . . . pleased. I saw him only once, from the back. They'd
been talking on the bridge by the inn, and then he went off
towards the toll bridge. Their talk was lengthy and . . .
impassioned. A quarrel, almost. I saw him from far away as
he went, and only from behind, but I was glad. Surprised, to
be sure, but glad. She couldn't have Jonathan, you see. They
must have told you? Josephine Alleyn must have told you?
Jonathan was forbidden to marry her; she was nobody. She
might even have been his own kin . . . but even if that
weren't so, she was too far below him. I daresay they made
plans to run away, or to wed in secret, but they'd been in love
since they were bairns. He'd have done it already, if he was
going to. Wouldn't he? That's what I tried to tell her, though
she wouldn't hear me. If he truly meant to wed her, he'd have
done it long before. Loving him was only ever going to break
her heart. So when I saw her talking to this other one, I was
glad.'
"Who was he? What did he look like?'
'He was nobody He was a stranger who asked her for the
time of day, nothing more!' Starling's voice was tight. She
stood in the doorway with the full kettle in one hand and a
sloshing pail in the other, knuckles crimson from the cold and
eyes glittering with anger.
'I know what I saw, Starling! There was more to it than
that!'
'You know no such thing! What would you know?'
'What would I know, who raised her up and knew everything
she did -- even the things you thought you kept secret?'
'They were planning to run away! She and Jonathan!
And they were going to take me with them ... If you saw
her speak to some man, then perhaps he was helping them,
somehow. Perhaps he was a friend of Jonathan's come to
bring her news of a plan he didn't dare write down.'
'If you believe that you're naught but an idiot, girl!'
Bridget snapped, and then coughed, and spoke more softly.
'Why go searching for a complicated answer, when there is a
simple one right in front of you?'
'Because,' said Starling, and then stopped, swallowing.
'Because Alice loved me. She called me her sister. She
wouldn't have just left me here -- left me to Lord Faukes.
She promised.'
'She loved you, for sure. And she loved me, in her own
way. But we all thought she loved Jonathan Alleyn more,
Starling, and yet she betrayed him. I saw her, and I know
what I saw.'
The two of them stared at one another. Their argument
had the weary, scarred sound of one that had been had many
times before, and hurt them both every time. Starling turned
away to put down the pail and set the kettle on the stove.
Rachel sat in silence, huddling into the shadows by the bed,
still electrified by the news that Alice had come into their
lives aged three, not newborn. Her heart thumped so hard
that it seemed to shake her all over; Bridget turned a beady
eye on her, and seemed to see it.
'But you have not answered my question, Mrs Weekes,'
she said. Rachel looked up at her, feeling absurdly guilty.
'Why have you come here?' In the silence that followed the
question, Rachel sensed Starling's listening ears. Suddenly,
she wanted to tell them. She wanted to tell somebody what
she dared to hope, but that hope was such a fragile little thing
- a house of cards that could tumble down if someone trod
too heavily close to it. But if she spoke it out loud, it might
also coalesce. It might also make it true. Rachel swallowed,
licked her lips, and spoke.
'I had a sister. Her name was Abigail. A twin sister,
identical to me,' she said. In the other room, the silence grew
even more acute.
'Her favourite colour was blue; I remember that quite clearly. Lavender blue; 
and mine was yellow. On our last day
together, Mama tied back our hair with ribbons to match our
favourite dresses -- lavender for Abi, primrose for me . . .'
That warm and sunny day; a day of light and air as soft as a
gentle caress on your skin; a day of whispers and secretive
giggles, caught behind small hands. Their brother Christopher
was not yet born; the two girls were their own whole
world, and their parents were the stars around which they
spun. They had two languages -- one for each other, and one
for other people. A language of intuition and odd, fluting
syllables; in truth they barely needed to speak at all, since the
one knew instantly what the other wished to say. They were
old enough to walk and run, to climb onto chairs and down
steps. They were old enough to loves stories and songs, and
to play games with their dolls and toy horses. They were old
enough to have a favourite colour, and a favourite food, but
they were no older than that. That day they were going to
visit their grandparents, a destination not quite as exciting as
the carriage ride that would take them there.
The girls loved to ride in the carriage. They could never
sit still and straight on the leather seats, as they were
instructed to. They fidgeted and bounced here and there,
and craned to watch from the window; they knelt on the
seats, and played on the floor as it rocked and rattled. Their
mother, Anne, just smiled and took pleasure in their delight;
she told their nurse not to reprimand their antics too firmly.
The girls loved the horses, too. Before setting off, they each
took a turn in their father's arms; he held them near the
animals' blinkered heads and let them stroke the coarse
whorls of hair between their eyes.
'Take care to keep your fingers far from his mouth, Abi,'
warned their father, John Crofton. They loved the pungent
smell of the horses, particularly when they'd been running
awhile and had sweat foaming on their powerful shoulders.
The horses had bright chestnut coats with white legs and
cream-coloured manes and tails. Their father had got them
for a good price because red horses with four white legs were
said to be unlucky. Tosh and palaver, said John Crofton. The
little girls dreamed of being allowed to ride outside, on
the box, sitting next to the whip. Then they could watch the
manes fly and hear the hooves strike and the wheels clatter;
they would feel the wind streaming in their hair and see the
world rushing by, like flying.
But even their libertarian mother was adamant -- they
could not ride on the box, and they weren't allowed to lean
out of the window unless the carriage had halted or was
moving very slowly, with no trees or hedges nearby to snag
them or lash at their eyes. At the ford was one good place,
since the crossing was always made cautiously. The road
slipped into the By Brook and vanished along the rocky
bottom to emerge the other side, muddy and rutted, some
thirty feet away. It was early in the summer and spring had
been full of downpours; there were still days of torrential
rain, after which the landscape gently seethed when the sun
returned, steaming as it warmed and dried. So the By Brook
was running high; it was deeper than usual at the ford, and
faster. The water shone; a green, unbroken skin undulating
over the rocky bed, reflecting the vibrant colour of young
beech boughs overhead. They heard the coachman, Lenton,
holler to the horses, an elongated easy that slowed the carriage.
They heard the first great splashes as the horses started
into the water.
TheI' the girls shouted at once, each desperate to be the
first to look out. Their father smiled indulgently.
'Rachel first, since you were first to pet the horses before
we left, Abi.'
John Crofton dropped the window as low as it would go,
and held Rachel's small body on his knee so that she could
curl her fingers over the sill and stick her head out. Droplets
of water landed on her face like rain, kicked up by the horses.
She gazed down at the white plumes where their legs churned
the river, and smelled their sweat and the clean river scent;
the sticky leather of the harness. The water came well above
the horses' knees, covering their white socks. Their tails
trailed in it, tugged downstream. The carriage slowed right
down, and wobbled side to side over unseen rocks. Rachel
looked up at the back of Lemon's grey head. He was sitting
straight, knees wide; tweaking at the reins, keeping them
slow. Then the carriage tipped slowly, the left wheel riding
up high onto some obstacle on the riverbed. It inched up
to a high point and then stopped altogether. Rachel gripped
the sill tighter as she was pulled towards the other side of
the carriage. She felt her father's hands tighten around her
middle. She felt thrilled, and yet safe.
'Hup now. Easy on, easy on.' The coachman's voice
stayed low and calm; the horses leaned into their collars, but
the carriage stayed stuck.
'The wheel must be wedged in some crevice,' said Anne
Crofton. 'Can you see anything?'
'Hop down, little girl, and let me look,' said their father.
But Rachel didn't want to relinquish her vantage point, and
hung on.
'I want to see! My turn!' Abi cried suddenly. She reached
up and grabbed the window's edge. She jumped, pulling on
her arms to lift herself up. All of her weight was against the
door. At that moment the carriage jerked forwards, and
righted itself abruptly, and in the next instant the latch
popped open, the door flew wide, and Abi was gone.
'Abigail!' Their mother's voice was a piercing, incredulous
shriek. For a sickening moment Rachel was also airborne;
her father's hands tightened convulsively, gripping
her ribs so hard that it hurt. There was water and the wet,
black side of the carriage beneath and behind her, then she
was inside again, thrust far back into a seat and left.
'Abigail -- catch her! Lenton, catch her, man, catch herY John Crofton was in 
the river, over his knees and struggling
against the current. He lurched, could not find safe footing;
had to keep one hand back to grip the wheel for support. The
horses tossed their heads and plunged at the sudden noise and
movement; Lenton was caught up with them, wrestling with
the reins.
'Abigail! Oh, my baby! My baby!' Anne Crofton was
hysterical; Rachel hardly recognised the sounds coming out
of her mouth. Her mother was leaning out of the carriage
with her arm flung out and her fingers splayed as though she
might somehow reach Abi and pull her back to safety. But
the river was fast, and deep enough, and the girls were only
just old enough to climb onto chairs and down steps, not out
of heedless rivers. Rachel stood behind her mother in the
unsteady carriage, and looked out. Far down the river, where
it curved out of sight beneath dappled green trees, a fragment
of lavender blue was racing out of sight.
'She drowned?' Starling's voice made Rachel jump; all the
grim inevitability of the story was in it.
'We had to think so. We grieved as if she had . . . but we
never found her, you see. We never found her . . . body. My
father and our man went the whole length of the By Brook,
to where it joined the Avon -- here, at Bathampton -- asking
in every village and cot along the way. But nobody had
found a little girl, alive or dead, in the water. We were so
young; I remember that day only as snatches of colour and
sound and scent. I don't remember her falling, not exactly,
but I remember the colour of her dress, and how pretty it
looked in the water. And I have always had the feeling . . .'
Rachel paused, and took an uneven breath. 'I have always had the feeling that 
she wasn't gone.'
'So when you were told about Alice Beckwith, who you
looked so similar to, you thought it could be her? Your sister?'
said Bridget.
'The accident happened not ten miles from here in the By
Brook valley, and that river runs here, to join the Avon! And
now you tell me that Alice was brought to you aged three
years or so . . . don't you see? It has to be her!'
'Poor girl.' Bridget was shaking her head. 'I can see why
you would want to believe it. But you have a similar look to
her, not an identical one, and Alice was some issue of Lord
Faukes's, I'm convinced of it.'
'But you don't know it!'
'No, I do not know for sure. But don't agitate yourself
over it so, Mrs Weekes!'
'Don't agitate myself, when I may have found my sister,
lost to me these twenty-six years?' Rachel felt panicked,
desperate; she felt Abi fading, slipping away from her. Stay,
dearest.
'But you have not found her,' said Starling, a grim silhouette
in the doorway. Her voice was hard, and even. 'Alice is
long dead. You have not found her.'

Rachel sat in silence for the rest of the visit. She rose from the
bedside and went to sit by the stove, which was finally giving
out a little heat, as Starling made a soup of the dried fish and
some barley she found in the cupboard, and took a bowl of
it to Bridget. She watched as Starling put a smooth lump of
stone on to heat as she swept the floors, then wrapped the
stone in rags and slid it under the blankets near the old
woman's feet; then she brewed a pot of tea and sweetened a
cup with honey for each of them. All the while, she and
Bridget exchanged comments about her work and the Alleyn
household, and what provisions and charity might come in
before Starling next visited, and who had been caught with
whom, canoodling behind the church. There was no more
talk of Alice or Jonathan, or the other man in Alice's life;
as if a truce had been called until the next time. There was
no more talk of Abigail, and Rachel sensed them parting
around the subject like a stream around a fallen branch; as
though she had brought something shameful, embarrassing,
to the cottage. She said nothing, feeling cowed and angry,
and foolish too. What if it is not folly to believe it? Jonathan
found a note . . . and Bridget saw another man. What if she
ran away, and is alive somewhere? The thought was so sweet
it was almost unbearable, and Rachel swallowed hard. Even
if she didn't remember me, she would know me as soon as she
saw me.
There were no boats heading west, so Starling and Rachel
walked back to Bath along the towpath, side by side. The
moon in the icy sky made everything strange and grey; the
canal, the landscape, their skin and eyes -- even Starling's
bright hair. For a long time neither one of them spoke. They
walked quickly, the cold clenching in their chests.
'Will we pass the lovers' tree?' Rachel asked, at last.
Starling shook her head.
'No. It stands back the other way, towards the river. And
it would be folly to go so close to the river's edge in darkness.
If you stumbled in at this time of year . . . We can go
another day, in the light, if you want.'
'I would like to.' There was a silence before she spoke
again. 'It must have been terrible, not knowing what happened
to Alice. Terrible then, and terrible now.'
'Yes,' said Starling, with a note of suspicion in her tone.
'But I do know what happened to her.'
'But you are not sure. It ... it can be a way to grieve, I
think. Or rather, a way to postpone the grief, and to divert it.
After my little brother died my father chased after every doctor in England for 
an explanation. For a definitive answer
- what was the illness that took him, how did it work, where
did he acquire it, how might it have been prevented. It... it
drove him to distraction for a while, but it did not bring
Christopher back.'
'I know she's not coming back,' Starling whispered
tersely. 'I only want justice for her.'
'If she is dead then justice does not interest her. It is only
for you that you seek it.'
'Should her killer go unpunished, then? Should his crime
stay hidden?'
'No. I only mean that . . . that perhaps you ought not let
your grief blind you. You ought not let it insist upon an
answer when perhaps there is none. Or perhaps you truly
have it already.'
For a moment Starling made no reply, and when she did
speak her voice was low and angry.
'What answer?'
'Why didn't you tell me that Bridget saw Alice talking
with another man?'
'Because it means nothing! It was innocent! Alice was
pretty . . . men often tried to catch her eye.'
'But Bridget knew her as well as you did -- wouldn't she
know what she saw? And what of the note Mr Alleyn spoke
of, from the lovers' tree? Don't the two things together
perhaps suggest that--'
'No! No, they do not! It's all a veil, can't you see? You
want her to have run away because you want her to be your
sister, and living. But she did not; and she is not!' Starling's
voice rang out loudly. She quickened her pace as if wanting
to leave Rachel behind.
'You . . . you cannot have it both ways, you know,' said
Rachel, striding to catch up with her. It was a thought she
hadn't entirely meant to voice, but there was no way to take
it back. She braced herself for Starling's response.
'What do you mean?'
'You cannot have Alice flawless, and yet murdered by
Jonathan Alleyn. He cannot have all the blame for her vanishing.'
'Speak
plainly.'
'They loved each other, that much is known. They were in
love for years. Do you mean to tell me Alice would reject
Jonathan when he came back from the war, because he was
disturbed? Haven't you told me she was a most forgiving
woman, and kind-hearted to all?'
'Yes. She was.'
'Then would she have rejected him if he came back in a
poor state? Even if he had done bad things in the war?' There
was silence. 'Would she?' Rachel pressed.
'No.' The word was small, and unwilling.
'Then what cause would he have to murder her?' Again,
silence. 'The only possible cause would be that she did
indeed try to leave him for another.'
'No! Faukes must have frightened her into it, somehow.'
'But she was quite prepared to defy Faukes and elope with
Jonathan, you told me. You don't want it to be so, and I
understand. But Bridget saw her speaking with another man,
and Jonathan found a note - an invitation to meet, written to
Alice in writing he didn't know.'
'That is no proof! Where is this note, then?'
'If he did not find it, Starling,' Rachel said gently, 'what
other reason could he have to harm her?'
They walked on for a while, their steps steady and measured
in the dark. Rachel felt oddly calm, oddly removed from
the scene she inhabited. She felt as though she was gliding
past the world, drifting along to one side, powerless. A pair
of watching eyes. Just like on my wedding day. I exist only on
the edges of this. 'There is another explanation.'
'What?' Starling leapt at this small offering.
'He did not kill her.'
'Then who did? This other man she met?'
'So you can conceive that she was meeting another? That
she loved another? Then can't you conceive that she ran
away with him, in truth? That she was too ashamed to face
you and Bridget because of it; too ashamed to face Jonathan?
She wrote to him to break it off. Captain Sutton was there
with him in Brighton when he got that letter.'
'She would not leave us. She would not leave me. Jonathan
killed her!'
'Only if she was untrue to him. That could be the only reason. Don't you see, 
Starling? You can't have it both
ways!'
'And this is how you honour the one you hope is your lost
sister?'
'I would rather have her faithless, and cowardly, than
dead,' Rachel said softly.
'Alice was neither of those things!'
'Then you prefer her to be dead?' The words were pitiless
to Rachel's own ears, and she awaited an angry rejoinder that
didn't come. After a minute or so Starling blew her nose, and
Rachel saw her cheeks all silvery wet.
'I wish you hadn't come,' said Starling, quietly. Rachel
couldn't tell if she meant on the visit to Bridget that night, or
to Bath, and into Starling's life. She heard an echo of her own
loneliness in the words; wanted to put her arm around the
girl, but didn't dare.
'What did you mean when you said Alice left you to Lord
Faukes?' she asked instead. Starling didn't answer, but Rachel
noticed the way she tensed, her shoulders curling inwards just
fractionally, as if to absorb a blow.
They paused at the foot of the bridge that would lead them
to Bath's inner streets, as though unwilling to return to their
lives in spite of the late hour, the cold, and the unease between
them. Rachel thought of Richard, and what she would say if
she found him home, waiting for her. That is my life, in spite
of my reluctance. I chose it and I can't change it. He is my only
chance for a family. It was an unavoidable truth. Unless. Unless
I can find Abi. She followed Starling's gaze to Lansdown
Crescent, in the high distance, and knew then where she
would rather go. The realisation hit her like a slap, a jolt that
went right through her. Should we switch places? But if Starling
had once wanted Richard Weekes, Rachel knew she wanted
him no longer. She was clever enough for that. Her will is bent
on proving Jonathan Alice's murderer. Now I must bend to proving
he is not. Their parting glance was full of unspoken things,
and Rachel didn't ask, though she wanted to, when or if they
would meet again in private. She tried not to dwell on how
much she would rather have carried on at Starling's side, to
Lansdown Crescent, to the dark and disordered rooms on the
second floor, and their dark and disordered inhabitant. Be
alive, Abi! Be alive, and run off, as Bridget believes. As all
others believe. Let Jonathan not be your murderer, and me not
destined to lose you twice.
The house above the wine shop was empty and unlit.
Relieved, Rachel let exhaustion swim into her body; from the
cold, and the wearying intensity of all she had heard and said
that night. She went slowly up to the bedroom with a taper
to light the lamp, undressed and brushed out her hair. Her
stomach felt hollow, but she didn't want to eat. She closed the
shutters and went to the dresser where her trinket box was
kept. She craved her mother's advice like never before.
Seconds later her heart fled her chest, sinking like a stone.
The box wasn't in its normal place. She scrabbled through
gloves and stockings, combs and neckties; through each of
the drawers and then throughout the rest of the room, though
she knew she hadn't put the box anywhere else. But there weren't that many 
places to search, and soon she was forced
to stop, sit down on the bed, and accept that the box, with her
mother's lock of hair pinned inside, had gone. At once she
guessed its certain fate, and then she wished even more to be
Starling, and free; rather than Rachel, and trapped.
By the time Richard returned the abbey bells had rung
eleven and the streets outside were quiet; Rachel's anger was
cold and hard, unlike anything she had felt before, and
underneath it was a bud of fear that threatened to bloom --
the fear that wherever her treasure had gone, it might not be
retrievable. It made her incautious; she didn't notice that
Richard was frowning even as he came into the room, face
flushed, skin clammy in spite of the cold outside. She didn't
notice that his shirt had been pulled loose from his belt, that
his knuckles were grazed and crimson. She rose to her feet
and met him with a tumble of tight words.
'Where is it? My trinket box?'
'Your what?' said Richard, but the guilty cast his frown
took told her the truth.
'It was my mother's. If you've sold it you must get it
back.'
'Leave me be, can't you? I have had a trying time of it this
evening.'
'I daresay you have. It must be a trying business, staying
out so late all the time, and drinking so much. Where is it?
You had no right to--'
'I had no right? You are my wife, Rachel. Or had you
forgotten? Everything you once owned belongs to me.'
'That box was precious to me! It was my mother's before
it was mine! You knew how much it meant to me.'
'It was just a thing, Rachel! An object that served little
purpose in itself, but which has paid a number of bills.'
'Your bills, not mine! Your debts from the gaming tables, I
don't doubt.'
'Mind your tongue, Rachel. 1 won't be wedded to a shrew,
and I won't be spoken to like that in my own house. Or out
of it. Not by you, or anyone.' Richard's face darkened still. A
vein ran up the middle of his forehead, cast into relief by the
lamplight; it spoke of something building up inside.
"What did you do with what was inside?' Rachel was
shaking with fury; her mouth was dry.
'There was nothing inside -- naught but a scrap of paper,
and those earrings, which fetched a little extra.'
'A little extra? They were worth a great deal, you stupid man! And the lock of 
hair? Please tell me you kept that.
Please.'
Rachel shut her eyes to await his answer -- she couldn't
bear to see it writ large across his face. So she didn't see his
fist before it hit her, slamming into her mouth and jaw. She
sat down abruptly, put her hands to her face in shock. There
was a moment of ringing numbness and then pain bloomed
through her head, squeezing like a giant fist until she thought
it might crack the bone. There was blood on her fingers when
she brought them away, blood in her teeth and on her
tongue; a metal taste of iron and salt.
She looked up at the sound of footsteps. Richard loomed
over her. She thought he would put out his hand to help her
up, but he did not.
'Never speak to me that way,' he said, in a voice she barely
recognised. He was shaking now -- a tremor of barely held
violence. His fingers twitched, and Rachel waited for a
second blow. It did not come. Richard turned away from
her, fetched a handkerchief from the drawer and tossed it at
her. The blood from her lip left scarlet kisses on the linen.
She had never felt more alone.
Unsteadily, Rachel got to her feet.
'If you insult me again, I will . . .' Richard trailed off,
glancing at her, and she saw his tension begin to ebb away,
and shame come to fill its shoes.
'You'll what?' she said. Beat me harder, like you beat
Starling? A wave of misery crashed over her, because she
realised she wasn't surprised that it had come to this, nor so
soon. She was not surprised that Richard had hit her. And he
will hit me again, that is a certainty. She felt utterly defeated.
'You are my wife. You must show me the proper respect,
Rachel! It's not my wish that things be this way between us.'
'Respect cannot be beaten into a person.'
'I disagree, and I pray you do not make me prove it,' he
said coldly. Rachel shivered, a sudden clench of fear twisting her inside.
'There was a lock of hair in the box. Pinned to the lining.
A lock of my mother's hair, and the last piece of my family in
my possession. Is it gone then, with the rest?'
'I saw nothing inside but the earrings.' At this, Rachel did
begin to cry. The tears were hot and blinding. 'Such keepsakes
are worthless, in truth,' Richard said gruffly.
'It was not worthless to me!'
'If you were a better wife, a warmer one, and more loving,
I would not be gone as much. If you had widened our circle,
as you were supposed to, I would not need to pay as much
for my entertainment. Instead the only friends you make are
madmen, or existing acquaintances of mine who can afford
but a single bottle of sherry come Christmas!'
'So this is my fault? My fault you are dissolute and drunk,
and fritter away your money at the tables?'
'Yes!' Richard's sudden bellow was shocking. Rachel felt
a dribble of blood ooze onto her chin. 'Come now and make
amends. Come and be my wife.' He held out his hand to her,
turning to the bed.
will die before I let him take me tonight. Rachel stepped
towards him, closer to the light. She left the blood on her
chin, and let her mouth open to show her bloodied teeth. She
could feel her bottom lip swelling, the cut stinging like a
burn. She stared at him, steady and cold as the grave, and did
not take his hand. After a moment, Richard dropped his hand
and turned away, as if he couldn't stand the sight of her.



Alice would never have left me to Lord Faukes. But of
course, Alice hadn't known what that man was like -- her
ostensibly kindly benefactor. He will have things his own way. Starling 
wondered, as she rose from her cold and sleepless
bed the next morning, if Bridget had known when she gave
Alice that warning just how right she was; how vile and
corrupt a man Lord Faukes had been, whom Alice treated
like a grandfather, and kissed and embraced whenever he
came to call. Aged twelve, Starling had come to think of him
as like a fruit gone bad, still keeping a glossy thick rind to
give the appearance of wholesomeness, when inside the flesh
was a rotten pulp, riddled with worms, eaten away by decay.
The thought of it made vomit burn in the back of her throat. Never was a man 
less deserving of Alices kisses. And Rachel
Weekes asks me what did I mean by it. She hears things all too
clearly. Starling remembered all the times Bridget had bade
her keep out of Lord Faukes's way, all the times she'd sent
her hurrying from the room on some errand when the old
man had tried to talk to her, or take her hand, or give her
some titbit. She remembered the way Bridget had hovered
and stared when Alice embraced the old man; poised, watching,
fighting the urge to pull Alice away. She knew. But if she
thinks Alice was Lord Faukes's child, what danger could she
have imagined her to be in from him? Starling decided not to
think about it; not to think about Lord Faukes. She even shut
her eyes to banish the images, but her memories spun on
nonetheless. She stumbled on the stairs; grabbed at the wall
for support.
Nine days after Alice had last been seen, Lord Faukes
came to the house in Bathampton and Starling found out just
how completely her world had ended. The atmosphere inside
the house was unbearable, like a breath held so long that it
threatened to burst. Bridget was silent and as grim as the
grave; already in mourning, already shut off from the world
-- from Starling, who was still waiting in mounting terror and
confusion for Alice to walk back through the door. For she
had to, surely; she had to. When they heard the sound of a
horse approaching, both knew it would be news. Starling ran
into the yard, so overwrought with relief she thought she
might scream. She thought it was Alice returned, and when
she saw that it was Lord Faukes she thought he must have
brought word of her; news of when she would be coming
back. Bridget stayed seated at the kitchen table, only lifting
up her face to show the new, deep lines criss-crossing her
skin, as though grief was a whip that lashed at her.
Before their master was even off his horse Starling was
at his side, closer than she would normally stand, made careless
by need. But she didn't take his hand to implore, or even
touch his sleeve. The rot beneath the rind; she could still
smell it, however distracted she might be.
'You have word of Alice?' she said, and did not curtsy or
bid him good day, or wait for him to speak first. Lord Faukes
glared at her, long and steady, as he handed the reins of his
horse to the yardman. He walked on towards the door, and
she trotted alongside.
'She did not manage to make you any less brazen-faced,
then, eh?' he muttered, distractedly. Once indoors, he
handed Starling his hat and gloves and went through to the
parlour to sit down. 'Bring me brandy, girl. Bridget, I would
speak to you.' His voice was grave, but even. The women,
old and young, glanced at one another. They could read
nothing from his words, so they did as they were bid. When
Starling took in the brandy, Bridget was already standing in
from of him with her hands laced together, quite still and resigned.
Starling wanted to stay but Lord Faukes said brusquely:
'Be gone with you, little wench.'
For ten minutes Starling waited alone in the kitchen, and
just like the first time she'd waited for news from the parlour,
time grew sticky and slow, stretching itself out near to
breaking point, like a string of tar. They seemed unbearably
long, those last few moments in her life in which Starling had
hope; the possibility of joy. When Bridget came out her face was grim and 
still, giving nothing away. Starling rushed to
meet her.
'Bridget, tell me. What news is there? Where's Alice?'
'I don't know where she is, child.' Bridget pressed her lips
together briefly, clamping off the words. 'But she's gone, and
I think ... we must be ready not to see her again.'
'What? What do you mean? There is news, then? Tell me
it!' Starling gripped the older woman's hands, felt how cold
and dry they were. Like there was no blood beneath the skin
at all.
'Come in here, Starling, and stop clamouring so. I will tell
you what you need to know,' Lord Faukes called from his
chair, the same parlour chair he always chose, though his hips
wedged into it tightly, his flesh moulding into the wood and
fabric. Half reluctant now, Starling went to stand in front of
him. 'Bridget. I have a yen to eat veal for supper. Go into the
village and see if there is any to be had.'
'Sir, I doubt that at this late hour there will be any--'
'Go on and look for some, I say!' His sudden bark burst
the bubble of decorum that had perched, fragile, over the
household. Starling felt a warning again, scratching away at
the back of her mind as though it wanted out. But she had to
know what he would tell her about Alice. She was caught,
like a fish on a hook. Bridget glanced from her master to Starling and back 
again, her clenched knuckles even whiter,
spots of crimson in her cheeks and her eyes full of some
desperate want that she could do nothing to fulfil. With
wooden steps she made her way to the door and went out of
the house, not even pausing for her coat or hat, or for coins
to pay the butcher.
Only once they were alone did Lord Faukes look up at
Starling, and clear his throat.
'Alice has disgraced herself beyond redemption. She will
never be welcome here again; I shall have no more to do with
her.' He spoke without anger, but also without doubt.
'What disgrace? What do you mean? Where is Alice?'
Starling pleaded.
'You will not see her again.' His words landed like blows,
each one shaking her more than the last.
'What?'
'She has run away with a man; a lover. Feckless, ungrateful
girl. She has eloped to be wed, since she knew I would not
allow it. There. It is as painful to me as it is to you, I hope
you realise. She has deceived us all as to her true nature. Or
perhaps she was corrupted by the wild influence of another.
Or others.' At this he gave her a steady look, hard and considering.
'Tell me truthfully. Did you know of this liaison?
Of her plans to behave to so ruinously?'
'I don't understand.' Starling shook her head. 'She has run
away with Jonathan? But ... he was here after she went
missing; he came looking for her . . .'
'What nonsense is this, with Jonathan? Of course not with
my grandson! He would not act so wrongly! I don't know the
name of the man she has gone with. If I knew it, believe me I
would find them all the faster. Jonathan is at Box even at this
moment, deeply upset by it all. I do not deny that I knew of
some . . . attachment between them. A cousinly affection.
But the idea that the two of them would collude in such a
way is . . . preposterous.'
'But they planned to marry! They have written to each
other and spoken and thought of little else since I have
known them!'
"Written, you say?' said Faukes, eyeing her severely.
'And . . . and she has taken nothing with her -- no clothes,
none of her possessions ... all are still here!'
'Of course she's taken nothing -- you shared a room, did
you not? She could hardly pack a trunk without you knowing
it, could she? Whoever she has left with, she must think he
has the means to clothe her anew.'
'But Jonathan . . . Alice . . .' Starling struggled to set her thoughts in 
order. She put her hands to head to keep them all
in. 'Alice loved Jonathan! She would never run away with
anybody else!'
'Do not contradict me, wench!' Faukes shouted, his face
mottling with blood. 'It's more than you deserve that I take
the time to explain the situation to you!' He thumped the
arms of the chair with his hands, making the frame of it
shake. He was as solid and strong as the wood itself, Starling
thought. She rolled onto the balls of her feet, ready. None of
this is true. She was as certain of it as she was of her own
heartbeat.
'Forgive me, sir. But I . . . I . . .'
'You do not want to believe it, any more than Bridget did,
or Jonathan or I. But it does no good to deny facts when they
are put plainly in front of you. The girl has made a mockery
of all she has been given, and she will have nothing more from me or my family. 
This house will be let. I will see you
and Bridget put into positions elsewhere, if you will accept
my help with due gratitude, and be good and obedient, the
pair of you. And you will speak no more of Alice Beckwith.
The girl is dead to me; I will not hear her name.'
'How do you know, sir?' Starling whispered, her throat
too tight for speech. 'How do you know of this elopement?'
'She wrote a letter, delivered to my house in Box.'
'May I see the letter?'
'So, she taught you to read? No, you may not. I flung it
into the fire, it angered me so. There. Take this bitter news
and be reconciled to it, for it cannot be changed. Perhaps I
might find room for you in my own household. Eh? What do
you say to that?' Lord Faukes levered himself out of his chair
as he spoke and stood over her, head and shoulders taller.
Starling took a step backwards. 'I shouldn't mind seeing such
pretty, flaming curls every day.' He reached out a hand as if
to catch a lock of her hair, and Starling stepped back again.
'No!' she managed to cry.
Her backward step made her catch her heel on the corner
of the couch. As she fought for balance he dealt her a backhanded
blow to the side of her head that made her ears ring,
and she twisted as she fell, landing hard on her stomach
across the arm of the couch, which drove all the air out of her
in one rushing exhalation. Before she could think or try to
rise she felt the weight of him bearing down on her. His hand
was on the back of her neck, gripping hard, pushing her face
into the seat so that she could hardly breathe, let alone fight
him. She reached over her shoulder, nails scrabbling at his
sleeve, seeking skin. She couldn't reach any, could not make
her arms bend behind her to find his cheek or eyes or mouth;
any soft part she might have been able to injure. She had
nothing to bite but the dusty fabric in front of her face. Her
own breath was hot and suffocating, clamped over her nose
and mouth like a swaddling cloth.
'I've tamed wilder things than you, girl,' said Lord
Faukes, his voice tight with lust and amusement. 'But fight
on, if it please you. The harder won victory is always the
sweeter.' Starling felt air touch the backs of her legs as her
skirt was lifted; felt her skin bruised as her drawers were torn
away; felt that bone-deep warning, that knowledge she
should not have had of what was coming. Knowing it made it
hurt no less, and made it no less shaming. Her vulnerability,
her failure to prevent what was happening filled her with a
terrible rage, as incandescent as it was futile. She shrieked it
out into the muffling cushions -- every curse and threat and
insult she knew, and then wordless cries when his thrusting
began, tearing into her. It was not over quickly. Lord Faukes
was not a young man; he took his time to take his pleasure.
Sometime afterwards, Bridget rushed in, eyes and mouth
wide open, to find Starling still leaning over the arm of the
sofa, staring at nothing, her jaw knotted tight at the hinges as
she ground her teeth together.
'I knew it... I knew it as soon as I saw him ride past me,
all red in the face and loose in his limbs! The foul old bastard! May he rot!' 
Bridget cried; the first and only time Starling
heard her curse somebody. 'May he rod Are you injured?
Can you rise?'
'Don't touch me,' Starling ground out, and she felt Bridget
hesitate, startled at her tone. There was a pause, a measured
beat in which Bridget changed tack, subtly and effectively.
'Well, you can't stay there all day, bung upwards and
bleeding on the carpet. Come up and let's get you clean.'
'I won't ever be clean. And let the carpet go to bloody
hell. Let the next lot worry about the stains on it, for we
won't be here much longer, he says.'
'No more we will. But clean you shall be, Starling. The
traces they leave can always be rinsed away.'
'Not always. That was not the first time.'
'I guessed as much.' Slowly, Starling peeled herself up
from the sofa, standing gingerly. Blood and seed ran down
her leg and she shivered in revulsion. She met Bridget's gaze,
saw that the older woman was near as aggrieved as her by
what had happened.
'Only Alice stopped him until now,' she said, and Bridget
nodded.
'Forgive me. You couldn't know the danger. I'm sorry I
went out.'
'I knew it. And you had no choice but to go.'
'I had a choice, but I was too much the coward to take it.'
Bridget's breath suddenly hitched in her chest; she thumped a
fist into her ribs and groaned. 'But no more! No more! I will
call him master no more!' she cried out, then made a sound
like a sob but dry, hollow.
'Don't cry, Bridget. Help me to wash instead. You're right
-- I can't stand the stink of him on me.'
'How much older than your years you sound, Starling.'
Bridget scrubbed her face with her hands, then let them fall to
her sides. 'You always did. Come then. I'll put water on to
heat, and fetch the tub.'
Starling sat in the tub with her body stinging, the hot
water too harsh on the lesions and bruises; she felt calm,
almost dead.
'How will it be without her, Bridget?' she murmured.
'We have no choice but to find out, my dear,' said Bridget;
a term that had always been reserved for Alice, until then.
'You're not bleeding each month yet, are you? At least there
should be no child, then. And you are not a child any longer,
Starling. You must choose where you would go, what you
would do. This will not be the only time -- that much I can
assure you. If you continue to accept the wages of that man,
this will not be the only time.'
'You will go your own way, then, Bridget?'
'I will. And take you with me, if you'll go.'
'What about Alice? How will she know where to find us?'
'Alice is gone, girl. One way or another. Though it breaks
my heart to say it.'
'She will come back, 1 know she will. She wouldn't just go
and leave us. And what about Jonathan? She'd never leave
him for another! You know it as well as I do!' At this she saw
Bridget pause, and choose not to tell her something. She had
no will to demand to hear it. But she decided there and then
that she would stay in Lord Faukes's service. That she would
stay near Jonathan, in a place that Alice would return to.
Bridget seemed to know it too.
'I would have kept you with me. Kept you safe and found
you work. Remember that, in the times that are coming,' said
the older woman, gravely.
'You can't keep me safe. Only Alice could do that.' She
didn't mean to be cruel but she saw the remark hit home.
Bridget's face pinched, and she said nothing more, fetching
more hot water and clean towels in silence. Starling sat and
she thought and she waited. She waited to find out how life
would be from then on.

must find her last letter. Starling carried on up the stairs
without thinking, to the second floor of the house on Lansdown
Crescent. She didn't pause to check where Mrs Alleyn
was, or Mrs Hatton, or Dorcas. A smell of cinders and baked
fish lingered in the stairwell. Never once had she believed that
Alice had written a letter to Lord Faukes, to tell him of her
elopement; she knew a bare-faced lie when she heard one. Her
thoughts were troubled, turning this way and that, trying to fix
on something clear. Damn Mrs Weekes and her theories. Could
she be Alice's sister? When Mrs Weekes had described the
way her infant sister died, Starling had remembered Alice's
sudden fear on the day they'd swum in the river at Bathampton.
Remembered how close she'd come to panic when
Jonathan suggested swimming out into the current. Could that
have been a distant memory, resurfacing? A nameless warning, like those that 
Starling's early years had left her with? Starling shook her head, muttering 
refutations beneath her
breath. Alice was my sister. Rachel Weekes muddies the water,
nothing more. She is a fantasist.' The reason why Jonathan
killed Alice was in Alice's last letter to him, sent to Brighton,
and it was not that she had fallen in love with another. It had
to be something else, something which had brought him
hurrying back to Bathampton; something which had turned
him wild and mad.
She was at his door and breathing hard, and then inside
without knocking. At the sound, Jonathan came from his
bedchamber with his shirt untucked and rumpled, his hair a
mess in front of his eyes.
'Starling? What's happened?' he said, tilting his head at
her; his tone so normal, so understated that Starling took a
step backwards. Time and reality skidded around her. Here is
the man I hate. Does he not know that I hate him? 'Are you
well? You're so pale.'
'Am I well?' She reeled slightly, putting out her hands for
balance. 'This is all wrong,' she murmured, dizzily. Past his
bedraggled figure, on the cluttered desk, was a knife. A
pewter blade, dull in the low light; a blunt instrument for
the breaking of seals and the splitting of figs. Blunt, then, but
still lethal, if used with enough force. Starling stared at it as
Jonathan watched her, bewildered. Three steps were all that
were needed, she calculated. Three quick steps, a turn and a
strike, and whatever truths he knew would bleed out of him
and drip through the fancy plasterwork of the ceiling below.
She rolled onto the balls of her feet, balancing herself.
'Starling,' said Jonathan, pinching the bridge of his nose
with his thumb and forefinger. He sighed. 'You remind me of her sometimes. Did 
you know that? Just in your . . .
gestures. Your facial expressions. Just sometimes.' Starling
blinked, and lost sight of the knife behind a haze of tears. She
shook her head vehemently.
'I wish you had died instead of her!' she said. Jonathan
didn't flinch.
'So do I,' he said.



The proper thing to do would be to stay indoors until the cut
and swelling on her lip had fully healed, but Rachel found she
cared less and less for what was proper. One side of her chin
was greenish grey with bruising, and the cut had knit into a
stiff black line. As he dressed, Richard kept his eyes turned
away from her, and wore his guilty scowl.
'You will not go to the Alleyns looking like that,' he said,
pulling on his boots.
'I have an appointment. I will keep it.'
'But, your face . . .'
'What of it?'
'You should send a message and say you're unwell,' he
suggested, as sulky as a child. Rachel felt a whole new
emotion just then, one she had never known before -- an exhausting blend of 
fear and contempt.
'But I am quite well, Mr Weekes. And I'm sure my
appearance will cause no particular outrage in that house,'
she said stiffly. Richard didn't see fit to argue further; he went
down to the shop without another word and Rachel was left
to wonder if that was how things would be between them, for
the rest of their lives. Anger, violence, disappointment. For both
of us, it seems.
By the time Rachel had climbed to Lansdown Crescent the
sun had turned the milky sky a blinding white, and behind
that a touch of blue was beginning to glow. Frost furred all of
Bath's window glass; the air was entirely still. November was
promising to be cold and sharp. Jonathan rose from behind
his desk when Dorcas showed Rachel into his rooms; he
smiled, but it melted from his face when he saw her.
'What happened here?' he said seriously.
'A small mishap, nothing more.'
'He beats you?'
'This was the first time, and my fault, in part. I quarrelled
with him.'
'The first time is rarely the last. What was the quarrel
about?'
'I--' Rachel broke off, unsure if it would sound petty and
sentimental to him. 'It was a trifling thing, to be sure. I had a
silver box that belonged to my mother. And inside it I kept a
lock of her hair, pinned to the lining. The box is . . . sold.' It
still made her sad, and somehow more alone.
'Sold by your husband, without your knowledge?'
'Yes. A childish thing to mourn, I know. But mourn it I
do.'
'Perhaps, but to have a piece of the child you were can
be a precious thing,' said Jonathan, softly. 'I can scarce remember
what it was to be a child. Who I was then, before all
of this . . .'
'Perhaps it does no good to. The temptation is always
there to imagine what that child would make of me now. Of
the life I have chosen for myself.'
'Nobody can know the outcome of things, before they
are begun. You should not blame yourself,' Jonathan said
quietly. Rachel turned to gaze out of the window, where the
sky was now brilliantly blue. The rooms around her seemed
stifling in comparison.
'Come. Let's go out for a walk. I can't bear to stay cooped up inside today.'
'I don't go out.' Jonathan shook his head with a frown.
'I know, and it's high time you did. Come. The fresh air
and exertion will do us both good.'
"I don't care to be seen. My leg, and all the tattlers . . .
And I can't abide crowds,' he said. Rachel thought for a
moment.
'How about sheep? Can you abide sheep? I daresay they
will have nothing much to say about you, or your leg. Come.
I insist.'
Dorcas and the butler, Falmouth, watched in undisguised
amazement as Jonathan came downstairs and asked for his
coat and hat. They watched in more amazement as he left the
house, squinting in the sunshine, with Rachel on his arm.
'They will run and tell my mother I am cured,' he said
drily. He kept his arm, and Rachel's hand on it, clamped
tightly to his ribs, and Rachel felt the tension running through
him.
'It is only a walk,' she said carefully. 'Quite a commonplace
thing.' Jonathan kept his eyes fixed on the ground in
front of him, ignoring the glances they got from passers-by gentlefolk
and dallying servants both.
'People are staring,' he muttered. 'Damn their eyes!' His
weak leg twisted and buckled slightly as he walked, giving
him a jolting, uneven stride.
'Let them stare. They're most likely looking at my lip and
wondering if I kicked you in the leg to retaliate,' said Rachel.
Jonathan laughed. It was the first time she had ever heard
it, and straight away she loved the sound, and the way it
bounced along. In the sunlight his skin was terribly pale, but
the shadows under his eyes and cheeks looked less severe.
She could see the grey running through his dark hair more
clearly, yet at the same time he seemed younger, as uncertain
as a youth.
They reached the far end of the crescent and passed
through a gate onto the high common. The grass was ankle- length and tussocky, 
drenched in dew and frost-melt, glittering
in the sunshine. They walked for twenty minutes or more, climbing steadily, 
until the city was behind and below
them, and the only sounds were the occasional bleats of sheep
and piping of birds. The uneven ground was hard work for
Jonathan, and he had been so long without exercise that he
was panting by the time they stopped and turned to look
back. The dew had soaked their feet and the hems of their
clothes. Rachel's toes were damp and numb, but she didn't
mind it at all. The blood was thumping through her veins;
she felt warm, and well. They stood side by side to catch
their breath, and squinted down at the tangled streets of the
city, where the last shreds of mist lingered like ghosts.
'This is as far as I have been from my rooms in nine years
or more, I think,' said Jonathan.
'No wonder you've been so unhappy,' said Rachel. Jonathan
looked down at her, but said nothing. 'I prefer to look
the other way -- away from the city. To look at the far
horizon. Somehow it always makes problems seem smaller,'
said Rachel. Jonathan turned obediently to the west, where
the River Avon shone like a discarded silver ribbon, winding
through fields and trees still clad in the remnants of their
autumn colours.
T came to Bath with my mother because I didn't know
where else to go, or what else to do. I didn't care, because
I wanted to die,' Jonathan murmured. 'Now it seems I will
never leave.'
'Of course you could leave, if you wanted to.'
'And go where, and do what?'
'Wherever you choose; whatever you choose. Take a wife,
begin a family. You have that freedom; you have that choice.
Don't you see? You can do that. You need not stay trapped
here, as I must.' If I persuade him well enough he will do it, and
I will see him no more. The thought jolted her heart. Better
that, though, than him continuing in torment.
'The rules are harsher for women than men.' Jonathan
narrowed his eyes against the light, and they were unreadable.
'But you could still leave him, if you were strong enough to
do so.'
'And go where? And do what?' She smiled, sadly. 'I would
be a pauper, reduced to beggary, or whoredom. I would have
no employment, no society. No. I have no choice but to
remain by my husband's side.' Whatever lightness of mood
she had felt suddenly vanished, and she took a deep breath.
'Then I will remain as well,' he said. 'Who else would sit
and read tales of adventure and derring-do to me, a mad
cripple?' He smiled, and Rachel smiled back at him.
'You are not mad, or crippled,' she said.
'Then what am I?' he asked.
Wounded. Haunted. A killer. The person I most yearn to see. 'You are a good 
man, war wounded and much troubled by
the past.'
'And you are the soul of tact and diplomacy,' said
Jonathan. 'Do you think I can't see the other thoughts that
whisper to you behind your eyes?'
'What do they whisper?' she asked. He sees me? In
response Jonathan only smiled again, took her hand and
raised it to his lips, pressing a kiss into her chilly skin. Rachel
felt the touch of his mouth right down to her bones, like a
burn or a bruise, but sweeter. For a moment she couldn't
remember how to breathe. Because a week or so past he might
have killed me, and now he kisses me? she wondered. No, said
the echo, only because he kisses you. She suddenly thought
how Starling would react to his gesture, and felt a little sick.
As if he sensed this, Jonathan dropped her hand at once. He
looked at her for one second more, his expression shifting,
ambiguous, then he turned to the horizon again.
'May I ask you something delicate, Mr Alleyn?' Rachel
said weakly.
'I think you have earned the right to.'
'What makes you so angry with your mother? I mean,
long years living together under . . . difficult circumstances
may well breed discord, I know, but it seems to me that there
is more to it than that. That you blame her for something,'
said Rachel. Jonathan folded his arms, shielding himself. He
did not break off his stare into the west.
'Yes, I do blame her. She is the reason ... I think. I mean,
I can't know because I know she lies, and does not tell the
whole truth even when she deigns to tell me some of it. But
she is the reason Alice wrote to me.'
'I don't understand.'
'Alice's last letter to me. She wrote to me, a letter that
reached me in Brighton.'
know. Rachel managed only in the last instant not to say
this out loud.
'She said . . . she said we had to part. That we could never
be together, or marry. That it would be an abomination. That
was the word she used. Abomination. To describe our love,
that had been as strong and blameless as the sun since we
were just children. She said . . . things between us could
never be as they had been before. We should not meet again.'
Bridget was right, Rachel knew in that moment. Why else
do rich and powerful men sponsor nameless young children? And
if Alice had been Lord Faukes's child, she would have been
Jonathan's aunt. Oh, poor girl, if she found that out. Rachel
swallowed, she shut her eyes for a second, and Abigail
flickered in the far corner of her mind, ever fainter. Rachel
reached for her. Josephine could have been wrong. Perhaps Lord
Faukes only adopted her. Found her, and adopted her, she
thought desperately.
'And there was more ... I know there was! If only I could remember. . .'
'You do not have the letter still?'
'I can hardly remember that day. I had just got back to
Brighton ... I was injured, exhausted, half mad, half starved.
I can barely remember my journey back to Bathampton at all.
It's like some strange, dark dream. And when 1 came to
myself I didn't have the letter in my possession. I must have
dropped it, or cast it away. But -- abomination. I remember
that word; I did not dream it.' He shook his head. 'It was the
retreat back to Corunna, you see . . . from the moment we
marched into Spain, it was near impossible to write, and
when I did write there was nobody to take the letters. She
had no word from me for weeks and weeks, so she went to
Box to see if they had news,' said Jonathan, shaking his head
slowly. 'Oh, Alice Why did you do that? If only she hadn't.
She must have thought that they would welcome her - she
must have thought that they'd find common ground, in their
love and fear for me. She wasn't to know that my mother --
and my grandfather -- had rules she couldn't hope to know
about.'
'So your mother told her something to make her flee?' How much has he guessed?
'Yes. When I arrived back to find her gone, they spun me
the yarn that she had run away with another, and forsaken
me. Mother told me she'd left a note, to my grandfather, to
explain and apologise. They said she was a disgrace, a pariah,
and I was to forget her.'
'But you didn't believe them.'
'When my mother lies, I can tell. She has lied all her life,
and though I can't discover the truth, still I know she lies.'
His voice had turned hard and angry.
Rachel thought hard, searching for sense in the conflicting
tangle of all that she had heard said.
'But you said to me, some time ago, that you'd found a
note from Alice's . . . new companion. A note for her, to
arrange an assignation.'
'Yes, 1 . . .' He broke off, and frowned. 'I'm sure I did. But
it was ... I was not myself in those days. I have forgotten
much . . . there are stretches of time I can't account for. Dark
spaces. They are one of the things I brought back from Spain
with me. Dark spaces.' He shook his head again, and Rachel
felt a chill go through her. The first time I came to read to him,
he said those words to me -- dark spaces. When he could not
remember throttling me. She thought of the brain in its heavy
jar, teetering above her head, and the blank, blind look in his
eyes. 'But the note has gone, if I did find it. It has gone.
Perhaps I destroyed it. Perhaps I . . . never saw it. A nightmare,
it might have been. Brought on by the lies my mother
and my grandfather told.'
'Starling suggested as much.'
'What?'
'I . . .' Rachel hesitated, unwilling to reveal the extent of
her contact with Starling. 'We have spoken, Starling and I.
She was curious about my face . . . my resemblance to Alice.'
She held her breath but Jonathan sounded sad rather than
angry.
'Yes. She loved Alice as much as I did.'
'She does not believe that Alice was keeping other company.
That she ran away with anybody else.'
'I know. She thinks I killed her.' He looked at Rachel and
smiled at the shock on her face. 'We have had many years in ¦which to fling 
hurtful and violent things at one another,
Starling and I.'
'But, she also told me . . .' Rachel paused again, unsure if it was right or 
wrong to speak. 'They had a housekeeper.
Bridget Barnes.'
'Bridget saw Alice speaking with another man, shortly
before she vanished,' said Jonathan.
'You know already?' said Rachel. Jonathan was still
breathing deeply, his chest rising and falling emphatically.
'Yes. My grandfather got it from her, and told me. But
still, I . . . won't condemn her. I know when my mother is
lying. Whoever this man was, and why ever Alice went away
with him, she can only have thought it was for the best. They
must have deceived her in some way. Or perhaps taken her
against her will.'
'But you always seemed so angry with her - you seemed
to blame Alice for abandoning you!'
'And I did, for a time. Perhaps I still do, in darker hours;
for I cannot think why she would go, and why she would
stay away all this time. What could have been so terrible that
we could not have surmounted it, together? So then, I think
again - they must have forced her away somehow.'
'Why would they, when she had been prepared to break it
off with you? Your family didn't want the two of you to wed.
Alice went to them and revealed your intentions, and something
was said to frighten her. She wrote to you to break it
off. Why then would they go further?'
'I don't know! Don't you think I've asked myself these
things, time and time again? The only people who know are
Alice and my mother. One cannot tell me, the other refuses
to.'
'So you think . . .' Rachel was finding it hard to speak.
Her voice was trapped in her throat, choked by her heart.
'You think that Alice is still alive?'
'Yes, of course. I pray that she is. I would rather ... I
would rather have her alive somewhere, in love with another,
sparing me not a thought... I would rather that than she be
dead. Only Starling ever thought that would be better.'
'So would I,' said Rachel, but quietly, and Jonathan didn't
seem to hear. They stood a while, each lost in thought, with
the sun shining in their eyes and a buzzard circling high overhead,
riding the warm air as it rose from the hill. Rachel let
i-- ai-ma hancr down by her sides and tried not to wish that
he would unfold his arras and take her hand again. She felt
childish, foolish, to think it. What would 1 gain from such a
gesture? Again, the echo answered her, as softly as a pent
breath gently released. Everything.
i8o8



By early November it had been more than six weeks since
any news of Jonathan had reached the farmhouse in Bathampton.
When he'd come to tell them, that summer, that
he was going to Portugal to fight the French, Starling hadn't
had the first clue where Portugal was, or why the French
should be there instead of in France, and they'd spent a while
hunting out the atlas and poring over maps of Europe. Her
betrayal of Alice after her discovery of the lovers' tree
seemed forgotten, as did their plans to run away. The war
with France had postponed everything, and as if she guessed
as much, Bridget had met the news of Jonathan's departure
to the Peninsula with a kind of sombre relief. Jonathan was
pulled in half; spoke in one breath of glory and duty, and in
the next of how much he would miss them all, and long to
return. Whenever he mentioned it, Alice's eyes swam with
tears which she refused to shed in his presence. But once he'd
taken his final leave of them, they fell like rain.
Jonathan's letters came each week, sometimes in twos and
threes. He wrote nearly every day, but the letters were sent in
groups, as and when they could be. He filled every available
inch of the paper, the writing so cramped it was harder than
ever to decipher. They came smeared and splodged sometimes;
they came smelling of smoke, or gunpowder, or the
prickling scent of dust. One came burnt, with an uneven black
ring through the middle and a reek of cinders, the words
inside the circle lost for ever. Alice snatched them all up and
devoured them, and once she'd read each one to herself
several times, she would read them out loud to Bridget and
Starling; but always with pauses, gaps where she censored the
words, and glanced up at Bridget with a look at once apologetic
and defiant. And then the letters stopped, and they could
only wait. After two weeks without word, Starling got bored
and turned her attention to other things. But for Alice, the
burden of waiting got heavier and heavier every day.
She woke Starling up one night, while the room was black
and cold. She hadn't lit a candle, and her grasping hands
seemed to come from nowhere, like the darkness itself come
alive. Starling scrambled back, trying to break away.
'Hush, hush! It's me!' Alice whispered, tense and urgent.
Her throat sounded tight.
'What's wrong? What's happened? I can't see anything!'
'I had a terrible thought, dearest.' Her voice was a homeless,
breathy thing. 'What if Jonathan has been killed? If
Lord Faukes has had word of him . . . perhaps he would not
think to inform us. He doesn't know of our . . . bond, after
all, does he? What if that's it, Starling? What if he's dead and
they haven't told me?' Starling could think of nothing to say,
and the invisible hands gripped her wrists ever tighter, until
the nails cut in. 'I shall have to go there. I shall have to go to
Box and ask.'
'Alice, no! You're not allowed!' said Starling.
'But I must know,' said Alice, and then she said nothing
more.
Come morning, Starling and Bridget woke to find Alice
gone. With nerves making her stomach feel watery and ill,
Starling told Bridget where she had most likely gone.
Bridget's lips turned bloodless and pale. It was less than five
miles to walk to Box, but steep, and might take Alice an hour
»nd a half if no traffic agreed to carry her. After three hours,
Starling began to watch for her, keeping an eye out of the
nearest window, whatever room she was in. Bridget was grim
and silent, and worked with a single-minded intensity that
betrayed how anxious she was.
'Lord Faukes loves Alice,' Starling said to her at one point.
'He will be kind to her, I think.' But Bridget merely grunted.
'You know little enough of men, or of the world, Starling
no-name.' Which put Starling's nose out of joint so that she
resolved not to speak to Bridget again until Alice got back.
Just half an hour later, Starling was watching from the kitchen
window when she saw Alice's familiar willowy figure approaching.
'She's
back!' she shouted excitedly, forgetting her vow at
once. Alice marched across the yard and through the door,
shoulders stooped and chin dipped into her chest. She turned
and slammed the door shut behind her, then stood swaying,
leaning forwards until her forehead touched the wood.
"What is it? Is he dead then?' Bridget demanded.
'Bridget! Don't say that!' Starling cried.
'Better to know. Well, Alice? What news?' But Alice only
stood with her face to the door, and did not answer. When
Bridget and Starling turned her, they were shocked. Her face
was ashen, almost grey; her lips had a bluish tinge, eyes wide
and staring. She shook so badly that the tremors were more
like convulsions, jarring through her body.
'Alice!'' Starling threw her arms around her.
'Leave off, girl! If she's faint that won't help!' said Bridget.
With her ear pressed to Alice's chest, Starling heard her
heartbeat, racing and stuttering, just as it had the first night
Starling had met her. It skipped beats, then fired in short,
staccato bursts; a pause and then a flurry, with no rhythm, no
pattern; it felt as though a small and desperate animal was
trapped behind her ribs. Then there was a long pause
between beats, longer than the others, and Starling looked
up as Alice's eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled " m flnnr.
The doctor came and bled Alice into a white porcelain
bowl; he told them she must rest and drink dark ale to fortify
her. Alice slept deeply for twenty-four hours, her face so
white and her body so still that she might have died. Starling
crept into the room now and then, to reassure herself with the
gentle waft of Alice's breath on her cheek. When she woke
up they fed her, and made her drink beef broth. They washed
her, and brushed her hair, but for two days Alice said
nothing, and only stared straight ahead. There were shadows
under her eyes like bruises, smudged purple; faint blue veins
crawled under her skin. Starling built up the fire in the grate
but it did nothing to banish the chill and the gloom from the
room. At the end of the third day she crawled onto the bed to
lie beside Alice.
'He's dead, isn't he?' she whispered. She could think of
nothing else that might have rendered Alice so low. 'Bridget
believes it. Is it true?' She couldn't imagine it; couldn't
imagine Jonathan not existing any more. Real people didn't
die; not real people that she had seen and touched and spoken
to. She could not grasp the weight of it, but it gave her that
same watery, sick feeling, churning inside her. 'Is he dead,
Alice? Is that what Lord Faukes told you?' She didn't really
expect an answer but she got one, though Alice's voice was a
puny murmur of sound.
'No, Starling. Jonathan is not dead. Not that they had
heard.'
'Oh, AliceV Starling cried, joyfully, turning to embrace
her. 'Then why are you so sad? Did he chastise you? Lord
Faukes? Was he cruel? Even if he was, even if we have to
leave Bathampton . . . well, it doesn't matter because Jonathan
will come back and marry you and look after us. All will
be well, Alice!' She beamed at her big sister. 'All will be
well.' But Alice shook her head minutely, and two fat,
swollen tears dropped onto her cheeks, one from each eye, in
perfect unison.
'No. Nothing will be well. I am . . .' She blinked, searching
for the words. 'I cannot marry him. I can never marry
Jonathan.'
1821



Starling waited while Rachel Weekes went in to Mrs Alleyn,
to give her usual report on her visit with Jonathan. The
reports had been getting shorter and shorter, though the
visits grew longer and longer. Starling had a strange feeling
about that. A kernel of mistrust in her gut; hard and bitter as
an apple pip. And now they walk out together, arm in arm. I
wanted her to torment him with that face, but she heals him. She
was restless with frustration. All her years of hard work, all
the little punishments she had meted out; all of it was being
undone by something she herself had set in motion. When
she heard the front door close she darted out and up the
servants' stair, glaring at Rachel Weekes as they moved away
together along the garden wall.
'What are you doing? Are you on his side now?' Starling
snapped, the words surprising her. She hadn't been aware of
thinking them.
'What?'
'Walking the high common like . . . like . . .'
'Like what?' said Rachel Weekes. She seemed distracted,
and Starling noticed her split lip, the bruise on her jaw.
'What did he beat you for?' she asked, in all curiosity. It
seemed that Rachel Weekes's marriage had followed the
same course as her own liaison with Dick, only more rapidly.
She still felt angry with the woman for marrying him, but
now it was because she'd been stupid enough to saddle
herself with him. Rachel's attention settled onto her more
steadily.
'What's wrong, Starling?' she said levelly.
'What do you mean?' Starling was taken aback by her tone;
affronted. 'You know what's wrong. I thought you wanted the
same as me -- to find out why he hurt Alice, and to prove it. But now I think 
what you want might have changed, mightn't
it? What now, are you in love with Jonathan Alleyn?'
'No,' said Rachel, with a kind of startled outrage that
spoke volumes.
'Hard luck if you are. You're married to Dick Weekes,
until God parts you. And Jonathan loves Alice, not you.'
There was a pause, and Rachel stared hard at Starling until
she could hardly bear it. The weight of the taller woman's
gaze seemed to crush her.
'What have I done to you, to make you try to wound me
so?' she said.
'You were supposed to be on my side!' Starling sounded
childish to her own ears. She folded her arms in disgust, to
hide the tremulous, unhappy feeling that was growing inside
her. 'Tell me what you found out today.'
'I asked him about Alice's last letter to him. He said she
called their love an abomination. She said they should never
see each other again.'
'Abomination ... I hardly know what that means.'
'It means that Bridget was right, perhaps, about Alice
being Lord Faukes's child. If the love she and Jonathan had
was incestuous . . .'
'No.' Starling shook her head. The idea made her sick to
her stomach. 'Alice couldn't have been Faukes's child. No
man so vile could sire such a sweet girl.'
'What did he do to you? Lord Faukes, I mean?'
'What do you think he did? What do all men of power do?
They take without asking.' Starling heard the bitterness in
her own voice; the ugliness. Rachel Weekes's face reflected
her pity, and disgust. Starling spoke on, to deflect it. 'What of ...... na 
Bister - what of that? Now you say it was not her?'
'I ... I want it to be. I want Alice to be Abi . . .'
'But she could be . . . she could be, couldn't she? If she was Lord Faukes's, 
wouldn't he have had her from birth?
Wouldn't he have brought her to Bridget sooner?' What are
you saying, mindless fool? Alice was your own sister, not hers.
Starling sighed sharply through her nose. 'Anyway, it
matters not, and can never be known for sure. But do you
believe now that Mr Alleyn killed her? That he had reason
to?'
'I don't ... I don't know.' Rachel frowned, and looked
down at her hands. She cradled one in the other, and rubbed
her thumb over its surface as if to check for a wound or a
mark. 'He spoke of . . . dark spaces. Dark spaces in his
memory.' The words, spoken reluctantly, sent a thrill through
Starling.
'It is as I said - see how he begins to build the story that he
was out of his mind, and can't remember doing it? That's
what he's hiding behind, and how he'll end up forgiving himself.'
'No.
I don't think he'll ever forgive himself. He's no
longer sure he saw a note to Alice. The one he said he
found in the lovers' tree. He says it might . . . have been a
nightmare.'
'I knew it! I knew it.' Starling's throat was aching tight; she
thought she might scream, or laugh.
'What of the man Bridget saw her talking to?'
'What of him? We will never know who he was. And
anyway, it was innocent. It was nothing.'
'Why should Alice argue with a man in the street?'
'It matters not! He is almost ready to confess to you! I am
certain of it. You must press him more. When will you come
again?' She grasped Rachel's hand to force her concentration,
her words tumbling eagerly, shaking with excitement.
'And what then?'
"When he confesses? Then I will . . .' Starling trailed off.
There was such a sudden, ringing emptiness in her head that
she noticed the damp, gritty smell of stone all around; she
noticed the chill in the air making her nose run, and the
stinging under her thumbnails from peeling oranges that
morning. She had no idea how to answer Rachel Weekes's
question.
'Have you tried asking him?'
'What?' Starling whispered, distracted.
'The things you want to know . . . have you tried asking
him at any time, in all the twelve years since you both lost
her?'
'Yes, of course I have! I asked, over and over, in the
beginning. But he was only ever silent about it -- about her.
About everything!'
'Fresh back from the war, he would have been? Full of
misery and guilt and the horror of it. . . And I wonder how
kindly you asked him, Starling. And were they questions, or
accusations?' Rachel Weekes made the reprimand so gentle
that Starling barely noticed the sting. 'Have you asked him
since, or have you only sought to keep him as mired in despair
as you could?'
'He deserves no kindnesses from me. Or anyone.'
'Are you sure?' Starling thought on it a while. She knew
the answer; she had always known the answer. He deserved
no kindnesses -- and hadn't this pale facsimile of Alice near
enough confirmed his guilt, just now? And yet Starling stayed
silent, and was silent for so long that the time to reply came
and went. Mrs Weekes took her hand and squeezed it in
parting, and as she walked away Starling was left with the
ghost of her warmth on her fingers.
Since you both lost her. Rachel Weekes's words flew around
in her head like snowflakes, settling on her with a freezing wnioVi rime and 
again. No. I lost her. He took her. Starling
went up to Jonathan's rooms with cheese and grapes for his
lunch, without even being asked, and found herself standing
in front of him. He was in his chair by the window, where she
most often found him of late; his back turned to the dark,
cluttered contents of his rooms so that he could watch the
world instead, with light on his face and his eyes far away. A
trail of footprints led the way to him, flecks of grass and
damp autumn leaves that had come in on his boots from the
common. When he looked up at her his face was calm, and he
almost smiled to see her. Starling clenched her fists and this
fledgling smile vanished. He seemed to tense himself, ready
for whatever she would throw at him. Have you tried asking
him? So many questions sprang into her mind, and each one
gave her a feeling of pressure behind her eyes. She blinked
furiously at it. Why did you kill her? How did you kill her?
Where did you hide her afterwards? How can you bear to draw
breath? Why should I not kill you too?
'Why . . .' she began, her voice so constricted she had to
try again. She was confounded by everything she might ask.
Jonathan gripped the arms of his chair as if he might leap up
and flee, but his eyes were clear. He is sober. When did I last
look into his eyes, and see them sober? 'What . . . What did
you do, on the way to Corunna, that shamed you so? What
did you do, that made you hate yourself so?'
Jonathan stared at her in silence. If he deduced that she
had read his letter, he gave no sign of it.
'You have told me often that I will burn in hell,' he said,
eventually. Starling held her breath. 'But I have seen it
already. I have seen hell, and it is not hot. It is cold. As cold
as dead flesh.'
'What do you mean?' Starling whispered.
'You have never asked me about the war before.'
'I . . . you did not want to talk to me.'
'I did not want to talk to anybody. Not until Mrs Weekes
made me.'
'She . . .' Starling swallowed; could not tell what she felt.
'She said I should ask you the things I want to know.'
'And this is what you want to know? Then you shall hear
it,' said Jonathan. Suddenly, the look on his face made
Starling want to stop him, made her want to not hear it, but
it was too late. He took a deep breath; began implacably.
'Before the retreat came the advance, of course; in the
autumn of 1808. We advanced into Spain divided, with no
maps, poor supply lines and only some ill-informed Portuguese
scouts to guide us. It was folly, before it even began.'
He paused, shook his head. 'But orders had come from
London, and had to be obeyed. The army was to be divided
into three parts to travel more covertly; those three parts
were to take three different routes, and reunite at Salamanca.'
The man in high command, Sir John Moore, was overheard
to mutter of the recklessness of it. The sky and ground were
still dry, and a dense pall of dust hung above the army, but
Jonathan felt a deep foreboding. He realised that it would
be a miracle if all eventually reached Salamanca before the
winter, and without starving to death. Huge, black moths
beat their silent wings in his mind.
He rode Suleiman to a high ridge and sat for a while with
Captain Sutton at his side, watching the long columns of men
and wagons and horses as they moved out. Most of the men
were cheerful, pleased to be on the move. He heard snatches
of song and laughter; the roll and beat of the marching
drums; the high-pitched whistling of piccolo flutes -- sweet
sounds above a background din of squawking chickens,
lowing oxen and rumbling, creaking wooden wheels. The
women -- wives who'd drawn lots in London to be allowed to
follow their men; prostitutes, washerwomen, gin sellers and ----<nim hangers-on 
- had been told to stay in Portugal.
They'd been warned of the hardships ahead -- the columns
were travelling light; there would be no wagons to carry
them, they would have to follow on foot, and there wouldn't
be enough food. Still many of them followed, as stubborn
and single-minded as the pack mules many of them were
leading. Jonathan watched them pass by behind the men,
skirts already filthy to the knee, and he feared for them.
'Why do they come? Why didn't they listen?' he said to
Captain Sutton, and the captain gave a shrug.
'They travelled all these many miles to be with their men.
What have they in Portugal to stay for? It is an alien land,
and if they stay not with the army, then there is no point at all
in their being here.'
'We will never manage to keep all fed.'
'We must hope to find food as we go. Fear not, Major; I
am sure we will bring them through it.'
But the captain didn't sound sure; he sounded full of the
same doubt that Jonathan felt. When the weather broke and
the rain started, the air itself turned grey and the ground was
soon a quagmire. The mud was a hindrance to those at the
very front of the lines. To those behind, when many hooves
and feet had churned it already, it was a sucking, debilitating
nightmare. Jonathan checked Suleiman's feet every evening,
cleaned and dried them out as best he could; but he could still
smell the rankness of thrush taking hold, and feel the heat
and swelling of mud fever in the animal's heels. It was the
same for the men -- they were not dry from one day or week
to the next. It was impossible to keep tents or kit, skin or
boots clean; the mud got everywhere. They stopped singing;
the pipers stopped piping. Their feet bloated, blistered,
cracked. In startlingly quick time, the chickens were all slain
and eaten. There was no food to be found in the barren
landscape, and what farms and villages they passed had most
often been gutted and laid waste by the retreating French. All
their enemies had left them were horrors and corpses. At the
end of each day's march, as Jonathan tried to care for
Suleiman's feet, he whispered to his horse of the warm stables
awaiting them in Salamanca; the sweet meadow hay that
would be piled high in his manger; the oats he would have
in his nosebag, fresh and tasty instead of mouldy from the
constant damp. Suleiman shivered and heaved a sigh as he
listened to this, as if he didn't believe it, and Jonathan's own
stomach rumbled as he spoke.
Moore's section of the army, with Jonathan, Captain
Sutton and their company within it, was the first to reach
Salamanca, in late November 1808. They were weak, exhausted,
underfed. They were rife with dysentery, sickness
and lice, and they were told to be ready to move again at
once, because a French force ten times their number was
at Valladolid, a mere four or five marches away. French
numbers in Spain swelled all the time; Napoleon himself had
arrived to lead in the centre and south -- the emperor was
quite determined that Spain would remain a part of his
empire. When Jonathan heard this news he felt a cold fist of
fear in the pit of his stomach. He was ashamed of his reaction
and tried to hide it as he passed on the alert to his company,
though he saw it mirrored in some of their faces. Others
showed excitement at the prospect of a fight; some were
clearly furious, though Jonathan could not guess at what;
some showed nothing but weary acceptance. A drawn-out,
hollow expression, which made their eyes look dead.
'It will be a relief, will it not - to fight at last instead of
marching?' said Captain Sutton carefully, as he and Jonathan
shared a flask of wine in the captain's billet later on. Naked
candle flames juddered and flapped in the draughty room,
sending shadows careening up the walls. Jonathan looked s.ittnn in the eve and 
knew that the captain saw his fear. He
knew, but did not despise him for it. Still Jonathan flushed
with shame as he raised his cup.
'A relief, indeed,' he said, then drained the drink down.
Wherever a wine cellar had been discovered in the city, it
had been raided. Huge barrels had been rolled out into the
streets and drained, and sat empty with a few collapsed,
insensible men around each one. More than one man had
drunk himself to death already. And still the cold rain fell.
'Without fear there can be no valour,' said Captain Sutton,
softly. He was older than Jonathan by fifteen years, and had
seen battles and wars before this one. He was a good man,
and kind; he helped his inexperienced senior officer wherever
he could, and Jonathan was grateful, even though this care
made him feel like a child swimming out of its depth.
In the middle of December they quit Salamanca again. Sir
John Moore had resisted for as long as possible, hoping for
the other army contingents to reach the city; hoping for the
arrival of Spanish allies to reinforce them. None came. But
then word came that the French had moved south; that they
thought Salamanca deserted, and had no idea of the British
force in occupation there. There was a chance to strike an
unanticipated blow; a chance to divert the French from
harrying the beleaguered Spanish in the south, and Moore
took it. He marched them north-west, towards Saldana,
where a famous commander called Soult, dubbed the Duke
of Damnation by the men, was in command of a large French
force. After a stationary month, one of few comforts and
scant food, the men were almost happy to march again,
especially if there would be a battle at the end of it - the
waiting wore them down; they wanted to fight. Jonathan
thought of the violence and death they had seen so far, and
couldn't understand their eagerness. But he kept this to
himself, close-guarded; just like he kept his doubts and all
his misgivings about his chosen career to himself.
'It will soon be time to give the enemy a taste of our
mettle, men -- and our steel!' he bellowed to his company,
and they gave him a resounding cheer as they marched. The
words were bitter in his mouth, and sounded hollow in his
ears. Behind the saddle, Suleiman's ribs arched out, plainly
visible beneath his too-thin coat. When the wind blew the
horse shivered, but did not baulk. Jonathan felt the shudder
pass up through his own body, as though he and his horse
were one being. Lend me your courage, brave friend.
Jonathan wrote to Alice constantly, and managed to resist
telling her of the fear he felt, and his disgust at the bloodlust
of his compatriots. He managed not to describe the way they
all seemed to be growing less and less human as the weeks
wore on. They grew more bestial, more brutish and cruel even
in their most basic characteristics: they were hairier,
ragged, and they stank. The war was shaping them to its own
ends. He wrote none of that, and instead wrote of the longing
to return to her which occupied his every waking moment,
and haunted his dreams as well. Then their surreptitious
march was cut short -- they encountered a company of
around seven hundred French cavalry, and engaged them in
a short and brutal fight which finished when the French were
all slain. Thus Soult was alerted to their march on Saldana,
and their whereabouts.
Word was sent south; the main French force halted,
turned, came back for them. When Jonathan was passed the
dispatch with this news, he felt his guts turn watery and his
legs soften with panic. He bit it down and awaited orders, but
they had no other choice than to flee. Within days they might
be surrounded by so many thousands of French that any
battle would be a massacre. There was no choice but to
retreat, back to the coast in the west. On Christmas Eve 1808,
the British turned towards the mountains. The officers had to
herd their reluctant men - the troops wanted to stay and fight
the Duke of Damnation, or Napoleon himself - to fight anybody, rather than 
climb a mountain range in wintertime,
with no supplies. They knew that the mountains would be
every bit as deadly as any such battle might be.
Jonathan was sure he could feel the French behind them.
He sensed them like a huge black cloud, or like a wave about
to break over their heads. He had the constant unnerving
feeling of being watched, crept up on. He gave short shrift to
his disobedient men, although he stopped short of having
them flogged. Men under other officers were not as fortunate.
Some took a hundred lashes for a muttered complaint; two
hundred for straying away from the columns; three hundred
for cozening mutiny. They were left with their backs in tatters,
unlikely to live, and loving their commanders no more than
before. Run! Jonathan wanted to scream at them. What is the
matter with you? Run, while you can! The words stayed trapped
in his mouth, straining to get out, as the rain turned to snow
and the wind grew teeth and claws. His men took the obvious
conflict within him as a sign that he hated the order to retreat
as much as they did. It made them love him more, and if he'd
had any laughter left he would have laughed at this irony.
It was cold enough to freeze the blood in their veins. Each
night the snow set with frost, turning hard and razor sharp.
Men who had lost their boots in the sucking mud of the plains
now walked barefoot, on feet gone black with frostbite,
shapeless with swollen bruises. One man had worn his right
through to the bone. He was kneeling in snow, looking down a rocky slope at the 
milling French not far below them, when
Jonathan came up behind him. The smooth, grey knobs of
his heel bones protruded through the lacerated soles of his feet. The sight 
gave Jonathan a dizzy feeling, as if he teetered on the lip of a precipice, and 
was about to fall. When the man saw him looking, he grinned at Jonathan.
'A fair sight to frighten the Frenchies, eh, sir?' he croaki»H
in a voice as broken as his body. 'Don't fret for me, sir; they
pain me not at all.' There was a dull, feverish light in his
eyes, and Jonathan moved away without talking to the man,
afraid of him because he was clearly dead but still marching;
dead but not yet aware of it.
To begin with, the rearguard of the British force was
harried constantly. Again and again they had to turn, draw
up lines, and repel the French pursuit. Make ready! Present.1 Fire! Shouted 
out, over and over again. Jonathan heard the
four words in his sleep, and woke with his hand curled
around the hilt of a sabre he wasn't holding, his arm aloft,
ready to fall to the accompanying roar of musket fire. He led
one short, vicious fight to hold a river crossing, after which
the little stream was left crammed with corpses, both French
and British. Jonathan surveyed the scene with his ears ringing
from the guns; the burbling water sounded like music,
like silver bells. There was smoke in his eyes and mouth; his
throat was so dry he couldn't swallow, and there was nothing
in his canteen. He went to the water's edge and knelt in the
freezing mud, and scooped up water that was colder than ice,
and red with blood. He drank it down nonetheless. It soothed
his throat, and tasted of iron. On the far bank lay a young
French soldier, still just a boy. He fed the red waters from a
wound to his face -- half of which was missing. But the boy
lived for a little while longer; Jonathan met his eyes and
found he couldn't look away. He sat down in the filth and
stayed with this dying lad, whose blood he had drunk with
the water. There was no rancour in either of them; no anger
or spite; no blame. Only a shared acceptance of what had
been done, and could not be undone. When Captain Sutton
hauled him to his feet Jonathan blinked, and saw that the boy
was dead.
In the coming weeks death was always with them. There inturies. old and new; 
there was starvation; there was
illness and disease; there were skirmishes, and there was the
all-consuming cold. Then death, as if bored, began to find
new and creative ways to take them. There was a strange
reaction to some supplies of salt fish and rum that finally
reached them -- when consumed in quantity it blasted
through the men's starving systems with devastating results.
There was a swirling fog one day, so thick and white that the
eye could not pick out what was ground and what was not. It
hid the precipitous drop into a canyon, and more than one
man stepped off the edge, all unawares. A pair of mules
stumbled off as well, taking a cartload of wounded men with
them. All were too weak to cry out as they fell - including
the mules. Childbirth claimed one young girl, who remained
seated in the snow in a crimson swathe of her own blood,
cradling her baby as she waited to die. The child was born
too soon; it moved weakly for only a minute or two before it
died. Jonathan stopped beside the girl for a while. She sat
mute and immobile, not struggling to rise; she looked very
beautiful against the snowy ground, with her dark, dark hair
and her silvery eyes. Jonathan stayed and waited with her,
but he could think of nothing to say or do for her, and death
seemed in no hurry to claim her. So he walked on, burrowing
his face into his greatcoat.
The next time their path led them alongside a yawning
nothingness, an empty drop in which the wind moaned and
snow skirled, Jonathan saw a man step off the edge, quite
deliberately. Horses collapsed underneath the men they carried
and were butchered and eaten, if time on the march
allowed. Dogs suffered the same fate. Otherwise, the men
chewed the leather straps from their kit and uniforms for
lustenance. By the middle of January 1809, as their path
began to descend towards the fertile plains that would lead
them to the sea, the retreat through the mountains had killed
five thousand of them. Jonathan walked beside Suleiman with
his arms around the horse's neck. He was too weak to walk
unaided, but Suleiman was lame in both his front legs, and
winced at every step, and Jonathan could not bear to mount
him, however much Captain Sutton urged him to. So he half
walked and was half dragged by his horse, and when he tried
to check Suleiman's front feet to find out the problem, they
were so hard-packed with ice he had no way of telling. The
horse's coat was matted and bedraggled; it clung to his stark
bones, hard with mud and frost. Jonathan tried to murmur
encouragement as they went, but after a while his words
became nonsense, and his lips cracked and bled when he
moved them, so he only thought what he wanted to say. Keep
going, my brave friend, for I will perish here without you. I'm
sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I brought you here, brave creature.
When they reached the low plains the milder air was like a
lover's kisses, soft on their faces and hands and in their lungs.
There was winter grass for those horses and mules that had
survived, but still nothing for the men. Starvation made them
all a bit mad; it gave them a glint in their eyes like feral dogs.
And Suleiman would not eat. He showed no interest at all in
the brownish grass that was suddenly all around him; without
the numbing ice in his feet he was in such pain that he
trembled all over, all day long. It tore at Jonathan's heart to
see him suffer so. There was no reproach in the horse's eyes,
no blame, but there was also no fight, no spark. On a mild,
damp day on which the men finally caught the tang of the
sea, Suleiman's shuffling walk halted, his knees buckled and
he lay down. The men trudging behind them parted around
the fallen horse without a pause or a thought.
Jonathan knelt beside his horse's head. He tried to lift it
onto his lap, but it was too heavy and his own arms were far
too weak. For a while he was content to let the horse rest. He J~kkl«X tome 
water into Suleiman's mouth, but it ran back
out again. Only after an hour had passed, and Captain Sutton
came to find him, did Jonathan begin to see the danger.
'Major Alleyn, sir, we must move on. We'll make camp on
top of the next rise, if we can reach it by sundown,' said the
captain, rousing Jonathan with a hand on his shoulder.
'Come, sir, we will find you another horse from the lines.'
"What? I need no other horse. I have Suleiman,' he said,
shaking his head.
'A valiant creature, indeed, Major Alleyn, but I fear he is
spent. Come, let us end it for him the more swiftly, and be
onwards.'
'You will do no such thing!' Jonathan struggled to his feet
and staggered as a wave of woozy exhaustion swept over
him. 'He will make it. He is not spent. Come, Suleiman, up!
Up, my brave boy! We are nearly at camp!' He tugged on the
reins, his voice growing louder and louder. He leaned with
all his weight, but Suleiman did not even raise his head.
'Sir--'
'No! I will not hear of it! Up, Suleiman, up! Fetch me some
brandy, Captain. That's all he needs, a little brandy for
strength!'
Captain Sutton fetched a tot of brandy in a tin cup and
dutifully handed it over, though his eyes said that he knew a
lost cause when he saw one. Frantically, Jonathan lifted
Suleiman's chin, peeled back his lips and dribbled the
brandy onto his tongue. The horse's gums were greyish
white, and the brandy had no effect.
'Come up, Suleiman! Up!'
'Leave off him, man, the poor beast is done for,' remarked
mother officer, walking past with the bandy-legged gait of a
;-llfetime spent in the saddle. Frantically, Jonathan fetched his
crop from behind the saddle and gave the horse a whack
across the rump. It left a welt in his fur, but the muscles
beneath the slack skin didn't even twitch. Jonathan could
hardly see for the tears burning his eyes. He had never hated
himself more. With a gasped breath he hit Suleiman again.
'You must get up!' he shouted. With slow surrender,
Suleiman blinked his uppermost eye. Jonathan dropped the
crop and collapsed beside him, weeping uncontrollably. He
smoothed the thin coat around the horse's eyes and ears; a
gentle stroking to make up for the blows he'd delivered. 'I'm
so sorry, my friend. I'm so sorry,' he murmured, over and
over again. He felt Captain Sutton's hands on his shoulders,
coaxing him away.
'There's nothing more to be done, sir. There's nothing
more you can do for him. Come away. Come away now.'
Jonathan rose unsteadily and allowed himself to be led away.
'That's right, sir. Best leave him now. No more to be done,
and it upsets the men to see you so distraught. Best to leave
him; I'll make sure he's taken care of.' They'd gone only
fifteen or twenty paces when a shot rang out, and Jonathan
turned to see a man standing over his fallen friend with a
smoking pistol in his hand.
'I made it down the mountain only because of him. My
friend. And see now how he is rewarded for all his strength
and bravery.' Jonathan loathed the tears on his face, and
scrubbed at them angrily.
'There never was a better horse, Major Alleyn. But there
was nothing more to be done.'
That night, Jonathan sat in his tent at his folding field
desk, quill pen poised over a piece of blank paper. He'd been
trying to write a letter to Alice, the first one in weeks, but
there didn't seem to be anything he could write. To tell her
anything was to invite her into the hell in which he found
himself. To tell her anything was to tell her what he had
become, and risk her loving him no longer. He was a man
who watched newborn babies die in the snow; a man who irank the blood of dead 
comrades. He was a man who feared
battle; a man without valour, who reviled the passionate
violence that his country needed from him. He was a man
who had left Suleiman lying on a grassy plain to die -- that
beautiful, powerful creature she had called magnificent, in the
water meadow at Bathampton the summer before. He was a
man who wanted to go home, and see nothing more of war,
ever again.
Christmas had come and gone. Bathampton and everything
in it seemed to belong to another world completely; a
world in which things as sweet and pointless as Christmas
could exist. The page stayed empty as the minutes crept past,
and when Captain Sutton came in Jonathan was glad of the
interruption. The captain carried a plate, and on it was a thick
steak of roasted meat and a slice of bread; the smell of it made
Jonathan's stomach twist in painful anticipation. But the
captain didn't speak as he put the plate in front of Jonathan.
He opened his mouth as if to, but then he said nothing, and
would not meet Jonathan's eye. So Jonathan suddenly knew
exactly where this meat had come from, and he stared at it
with perfect horror. He was relieved when Captain Sutton
left again at once, and didn't stay to watch him eat it. To
watch him eat of his own horse. But eat he did, though it was
with the sure knowledge that he would never be himself,
would never be as he had been before, ever again.
'We reached Corunna the next day. That was how close
Suleiman came to finishing the march. But part of me is glad
„he didn't make it -- the lame horses . . . the lame and the
iweak were shot instead of being allowed to take up valuable
jpace and supplies on the journey home. He would have been
shot even if he had finished the journey. This is how men
repay their loyal servants and companions.' Jonathan fell
ililent, and in the wake of his words the air felt colder, and
harder to breathe.
'And you wrote to Alice from there. That day that you
reached Corunna, you wrote to her and told her of your
shame.' Starling's voice was small and weak in the aftermath
of his brutal speech.
'Yes. I wrote to her there. I dreamed of her. I thought of
her as a man dying of thirst thinks of water. She was the only
thing that drove me to survive.'
'And then she wrote to you in Brighton, and told you that
you must for ever part.'
'They landed the boats at night, so that the people of
England would not see our frightful condition. So that they
would not be out in the streets to smell the stink of death and
defeat on us,' Jonathan murmured.
'And you came at once to Bathampton. And you killed
her,' Starling intoned.
'No!'
'But how do you know? You came at once, and I saw how
deranged you were. You say you can't remember clearly
from that time, that you have dark spaces from those days
when she vanished, so how do you know? How do you know
you didn't?1 Starling's voice had risen to a shout but Jonathan
didn't flinch. He stared up at her, wide-eyed.
'Because I would have cut my own heart out of my body
first,' he said.
'You are sure of that? As sure as she loved you?' Starling
trembled as she fixed her eyes on his, and did not look away.
Jonathan's face was naked, somehow; without wine or opium
he was wide open to her scrutiny, and though he said nothing
Starling saw doubt in his eyes -- unmistakable, rising like
flames to consume him.



know when my mother lies. Josephine Alleyn was sitting in
the parlour when Rachel was ushered in. Jonathan's mother j -- jn her hands, 
and no embroidery. Nothing to
occupy her as she waited. A gilt clock on the mantelpiece
ticked loudly, and Rachel noticed that the canary's gilded
cage was empty. She decided not to ask what had become of
the bird. Something about the older woman's absolute stillness
made her uneasy. Her blue eyes were clear and steady,
and younger than her years, but Rachel could read nothing
in them beyond an unusual intensity. No candles had been
lit, and the wan light of day leached the colours from the
room. The robin's-egg blue silk divan; the cerise drapes at
the windows; the greens and golds of the carpet. All were
rendered greyer, weaker. My mother lies. Rachel tried to
smile as she came to stand in front of Mrs Alleyn, but the
older woman did not ask her to sit.
'You walked out with my son, I believe, on your last visit.'
She spoke without tone, without any particular emotion.
Again, Rachel felt some warning. It's only because of what
Jonathan said, and he speaks from years of bitterness.
'Yes, Mrs Alleyn. I thought it would be beneficial . . .'
'So it was your idea, and not Jonathan's?'
'Yes, madam.'
'I see. And do you think it was proper of you, to suggest
such a thing? My son is an unmarried man . . .'
'But I am a married woman, Mrs Alleyn, and retained as
companion to your son.'
'To read to him within this house, as I recall our arrangement.'
'Forgive
me, Mrs Alleyn. I had not meant to cause offence. I only hoped to cheer your 
son with some fresh air, and a
change of. . . vista. I understood that my role was to cheer him.'
'To cheer him, perhaps. Not to flirt with him, and expose him to public 
ridicule.'
'What ridicule have I exposed him to, Mrs Alleyn?' Rachel was at a loss. The 
accusation made her even more nervous.
'Cajoling him into leaving the house - for I cannot
imagine he went willingly -- when his appearance is so
dishevelled, and his health so reduced. And on the arm of
the wine man's wife! Not to mention in your current state
of. . . injury.' She nodded to indicate the cut on Rachel's lip,
still visible though the bruising had faded. 'I'm surprised at
your boldness, going about so openly with your face thus
disordered. And what if he had fallen, or taken a chill? Do
you have any idea how disastrous that could be for my son?'
Rachel stood in stunned silence for a moment. Without
raising her voice or changing her tone, Josephine Alleyn had
thoroughly upbraided her, and cut her to the quick. The wine
man's wife. Her cheeks burned in humiliation, but she felt a spark of defiance 
as well.
'Forgive me, Mrs Alleyn. If I . . . overstepped my role, I
am truly sorry. But it seemed to me, in fact I am sure, that the
walk did Mr Alleyn a power of good. We walked out of the
city and onto the common, so as to suffer no unwanted
scrutiny.'
'You walked the length of the crescent before you reached
the common, however. Do you have any idea how the
neighbours watch me? Watch us, my son and I? They are always watching, and 
wagging their tongues.'
'Such . . . rumours and falsehoods that are spread about
your son can only have been undermined by seeing him in
the flesh, and well enough to walk out, surely, Mrs Alleyn?'
'You were asked to read to him, Mrs Weekes. Nothing
more.'
'Yes, Mrs Alleyn.' Josephine Alleyn watched her calmly
for another long moment, then blinked slowly and turned her
head away. At once, the tension in the room seemed to
lessen, and Rachel breathed a little easier.
'If it is true, what you say, and my son was revitalised by this walk, then he 
will be encouraged to walk more often.
Properly attired, of course. But it is not for you to accompany
him, Mrs Weekes,' said Josephine.
'I do not think he would like to walk by himself,' Rachel
murmured. Josephine's gaze returned to her at once.
'Then I shall walk with him. Or I will invite one of his
gentlemen friends to do so.'
'Yes, Mrs Alleyn.'
'I hear from your tone that you don't think he will go with
them. Do you think you have special powers over him, Mrs
Weekes?'
'No, Mrs Alleyn. No special powers; or powers of any kind. Only the . . . 
beginnings of trust, and friendship.'
'Trust? And he does not trust me, you mean to say? His
own mother?'
'I am sure he does, madam,' said Rachel, hastily. My
mother lies.
'And how does this trust show itself to you? Tell me. Does
he confide in you? What does he speak to you about, if you
have not been reading all these weeks, but making friends
instead?'
'He speaks of his experiences in the war . . . Of their
terrible nature. He speaks of growing up, and of his grandfather.'
Rachel met Josephine Alleyn's cool gaze and hesitated
before going on. 'He speaks of Alice Beckwith, and the
loss of her.'
Josephine Alleyn reared backwards slightly, as though
Rachel had struck her, but she quickly recovered herself.
'How could he not, when you look so much like the
wretched girl?' she said tersely.
'Forgive me, Mrs Alleyn, but I had understood that it was my resemblance to Abi 
that led you to engage me here in the
first place?'
'Abi? Who is this Abi?'
'Abi?' Rachel blinked, startled. 'Alice. I meant to say
Alice.'
'And so it was. But I think now ... I think now that
perhaps that was a mistake.' She watched Rachel carefully for
her reaction, and Rachel struggled to keep her face composed
when fear sizzled through her, so quick and surprising that
the hair on the back of her neck stood up.
'I think that it is partly not knowing exactly what . . .
became of Alice that hinders his recovery, and keeps his mind
trapped in . . . circles of questioning, and wondering,' she
said.
"What do you mean, not knowing what became of her?
She eloped. She disgraced herself and insulted my family.
What more is there to know?' Josephine frowned in consternation.
'Miss
Beckwith wrote to him before she disappeared. A
letter that reached him in Brighton, just after he landed back
from Spain--'
'A letter? Impossible!' For the first time, Josephine Alleyn's
voice rose, and colour appeared in her cheeks. 'I beg
your pardon, Mrs Weekes. It is . . . painful for me to speak
of that girl. After what she did. And after we learned of her
intentions towards Jonathan, she was forbidden to contact
him. I had assumed that she would have enough respect for
my father to comply with his wishes.'
'You knew, of course, of the profound affection that
existed between your son and Miss Beckwith.'
'He was young. He . . . his head was turned by her. That
was all. He could never have wed the girl, it would have made
him a laughing stock.' Josephine twitched her skirts, though
they were perfectly draped. 'Pray tell me, what did the girl say
in this letter to Brighton?' The question was carefully spoken, her composure 
impenetrable once more.
'I do not know exactly, Mrs Alleyn, other than that she
wrote to break off all connection with your son.'
'Well. Strange that she had the decency to do that, before
acting so abominably.'
'Strange indeed,' said Rachel, attempting to emulate Josephine's
tonelessness. She didn't altogether manage it. Mrs
Alleyn watched her for a while, as if thinking something
over. Then, to Rachel's surprise, the older woman smiled
benignly.
'My dear Mrs Weekes, forgive me if this conversation has
seemed . . . censorious in tone. But I take my son's well
being, and my family's good name, most seriously. It would
be to the greater good if from this day you consulted with me
beforehand on all matters regarding any extra . . . activities.
Stick to reading, Mrs Weekes. I know what's best for my
son. And perhaps it would be more . . . tactful of you not
to encourage him to speak so openly about private, family
matters.'
'Yes, Mrs Alleyn,' said Rachel, when it became clear that
she would not be released without having agreed.
'You may go up to him now.' Mrs Alleyn waved her
fingertips in an elegant gesture of dismissal. Rachel turned
and left her, on legs that felt shaky after the encounter. She
, couldn't tell if what she felt was anger, fear, or embarrassment.
She
climbed the stairs, through the column of old air that
ran through the Alleyns' house like slow, dying blood. It
caught in her chest, and she was gasping by the time she
reached Jonathan's rooms. He was there to open the door for
her, ready for her knock. He smiled, but then cocked his head
quizzically at her breathlessness.
'I might come down next time, to meet with you. We
needn't always stay in my rooms. Although, I do prefer to be
away from . . . prying eyes,' he said, and Rachel shook her
head. 'What's the matter?' he asked.
'Abi! I said Abi, instead of Alice . . . just now, to your
mother . . .' Rachel spoke almost to herself, and shook her
head again, in disbelief. She swallowed. There was a hard
lump in her throat; her face felt hot and ugly.
'Abi? Who's Abi?' Something about hearing her sister's
name on Jonathan's lips was so sweet that Rachel couldn't
stand it. Her chest shook, and tears wet her face.
'Why do you weep? Come.' He took her hands and led
her to the armchair by the window. 'Sit. Tell me what has
happened.' Rachel sat down and pressed her eyes with her
fingertips.
'Your mother . . .' she began, but couldn't decide what to
say.
'My mother what?' said Jonathan, bleakly. Rachel looked
down at his long-fingered hands, cradling hers, and tried to
calm down. Outside, the wind tossed the trees and seethed
through the cracks and corners of the city, sounding like a
hungry ocean. The house creaked and shifted around them,
as draughts nosed through doors and windows, down chimneys
and under roof tiles.
'No . . . it's nothing. It's only . . . she questioned me just
now, on the wisdom of our . . . recent walk . . .'
'And this questioning has left you in tears?' He spoke
angrily, ever ready to flare up against his mother.
'No! No, it was not that ... I made a mistake, that's all.
We were talking about . . . about Alice. And I said my
sister's name instead.'
'Your sister? I had no idea you had a sister -- you've never
mentioned her.'
'She ... is lost. Drowned. It's thought by everyone --
everyone but me -- that she has been dead these twenty-six wears ..."
'Then she must have been a tiny child when she was lost.'
'Yes. Not yet three years old, and swept away by a river in
spate.'
'But that is a bitter cruelty, to have lost a sister and a
brother both. And her name was Abi?'
'Yes. Abigail. But don't you see?' Rachel stared into
Jonathan's face, searching it, hoping that he would make the
connection. If he thinks it could be true, then it could be. It could
be. But Jonathan only looked puzzled. 'Abigail was my twin
sister; identical to me. Nobody is quite sure of. . . the details
of Alice's birth. She was delivered into Bridget's care as a
child of around three years, not as a baby. Abi was carried
away by the By Brook, which runs to join the Avon at Bathampton
. . . And . . . and . . . our faces, Jonathan! We wear
the same face!'
For a long moment neither one of them spoke. Rachel's
tears went cold and stiff as they dried. She hardly dared to
breathe, and then Jonathan stood and turned to the window,
folding his arms. His shoulders were broad, sharp protuberances
under the faded blue cloth of his coat; he'd tied his hair
back with a thin black ribbon at the nape of his neck.
'I don't know . . .' he said at last, quietly. 'It is a strange
thought, that Alice might have had a sister, and that you are
she.' He turned to face her again. 'I can understand why you
would want it to be so.'
'I have always felt that she was not gone . . . Throughout
my life, I have always felt Abigail's presence in the back of
my mind, and heard her voice, like a shadow, but one that
comforts me . . .'
'Her shadow indeed, perhaps. Many people believe that
our loved ones never truly leave us.'
'No, it is more than that ... I can't explain it very well.
There was a bond between us, something special and strange.
And I never truly felt that bond break, though I can hardly
remember having her with me; I can hardly remember those
days. Yet I never truly felt her to be gone.' She gazed up at
Jonathan imploringly, longing for him to believe it too.
When she saw doubt in his eyes, her throat ached.
He sat beside her again, took up her hands and pressed her
fingertips to his lips, and again his kiss made her feel both
weak and strong, and quietened all her thoughts.
'You have Alice's kind heart. And you have the mirror of
her face, but there are many differences between you. You
are taller, and stronger in frame. You are stronger in other
ways too . . . you have greater resolve. You are braver . . .'
he said.
'All that could be the result of growing up, surely; of
growing older?'
'And why would my grandfather take in and sponsor a
foundling child, of unknown parentage? He was generous to
his own, but he was no great philanthropist. . .'
'Abigail. . . Abigail was the sweeter of us two. My mother
always said so. She was the sunnier, the more ready to laugh.
Perhaps she charmed him, and he took pity on her . . .'
'If anybody could have charmed Grandfather, it was
Alice,' Jonathan conceded. 'But it does not stand to reason,
my dear Mrs Weekes. How would he have come by her?'
'By serendipity! By that same force that means I might find
her now, after so many years, and after I thought myself cut
off from family for the rest of my days. By that same force!
For there must be some balance, some fairness, must there
not? We can't always suffer only loss, and never also feel
God's kindnesses, can we?'
'God's kindnesses?' Jonathan echoed, with a bitter smile.
'Dear girl, I don't believe in any such thing. Some balance?
Some fairness? No. There is none to be had.' Rachel hung her head, but then 
felt his fingers lifting her chin towards
him. His face was mere inches away, and in the light from the
window she saw coppery flecks in his irises, hidden till then.
'Take this current unfairness, for example. For years I have
punished myself for the things I have done. And how is this
balanced? That you seek me out, and find me, and yet come
to me already wed to the least worthy man I can think of.
And you speak of God's kindnesses?'
Rachel opened her mouth to answer but it was empty of
words. There was only the shine of light in his eyes and the
feel of his skin against hers. All sensation, all awareness,
seemed to crowd into the places where he touched her, so
that nothing was missed, nothing not noticed. He regrets that I
am wed. As simply as that, her mind cleared of all other hopes
and fears, leaving a sudden, perfect clarity that, while it
lasted, felt like the answer to everything. If he kissed me now,
I would be his. Part of her yearned for him to do so, but
behind that came relief when he did not. This relief clamoured
to be heard; it grew into the perfect calm of the
moment like threads of ice growing into water. It was fearful
relief, it had doubts; it sent her the black, frightening thought
that the hand now holding hers was the one that had taken
her sister's life. If that is true, I will know he is right -- there are
no kindnesses in this world. But I must know.

The Pump Room was so warm that the flecks of sleet on
Rachel's clothes melted at once, and soaked through. She was so distracted that 
she hardly noticed. The long, elegant room
was crowded with people, walking and sitting and sipping at
their beakers of hot water. It was the same water that filled the hot baths; 
steaming, raw from the earth and smelling faintly of
eggs. There was a crush of wheeled chairs by the doors, as
invalids were brought in for their dose. Rachel paced a circuit of the crowded 
room until she saw Harriet Sutton with a cup
in her hand, talking to a group of middle-aged women. Rachel cut through the 
throng to reach her side.
'Ah, Mrs Weekes! How lovely that you could join us. Let
me introduce you to our little circle of health-seekers.'
Harriet took her hand, smiling as she introduced her friends.
Rachel chafed with impatience as her manners kept her there,
curtsying and exchanging pleasantries, until sufficient time
had passed that she could draw Harriet to one side. The tiny
woman took a sip of her water and grimaced. 'Do you know,
I am quite convinced that drinking this must be truly beneficial,
though I've never noticed any particular effects, one
way or the other, for why else would we be counselled to
drink something that tastes so peculiar?'
'I do not know, Mrs Sutton. I wanted to ask you, if I may,
about . . . about the time Mr Alleyn left Brighton for Bathampton.
When he received Alice's letter. You told me that
your husband was with him, as he read it?'
'Yes, he was.' Harriet's face turned grave. 'Are you all
right, Mrs Weekes? You seem . . . anxious.'
'Forgive me.' There are dark spaces in his memory. Of all
the things Jonathan had said to her, it was these two words
that troubled her the most. Dark spaces. 'I feel that I am . . .
I'm perhaps close to finding out what became of Alice
Beckwith. And I need to know ... I need to know whether
she is alive or dead.'
'Alive or dead?' Harriet breathed. 'But what is this? What
are you suggesting?'
'I can't explain here . . . but I will soon, I promise. I--'
'You can't mean that Jonathan did her harm?'
'I know you think him incapable of it, but he has told me
himself of the terrible things he saw and did in Spain and
Portugal, and that his memories of the return to Brighton and
then to Bathampton are . . . unreliable.' Dark spaces, in which
dark things might have happened. Harriet was looking at her
strangely, with something almost like fear, or a warning.
'Your husband was with him when he got the letter, and
when he set off. I wanted to ask . . . was he violent? When
he read the letter, did he fly into a rage?'
Harriet looked around uneasily, as if fearing to be overheard.
'When
he read the letter, he wept,' she said. Rachel shut
her eyes for a moment, as relief swept through her. 'But in a
man grief and violence often go hand in hand.'
'Yes,' said Rachel, softly. And if he killed her, my sister? If
he hilled her 1 won't ever be able to forgive him. 'He speaks of
trying to make it right. Of atoning.'
'Listen to me, Mrs Weekes. Jonathan Alleyn is a good
man. I live with the proof of it, every day. I'm sorry to make
such a statement and not explain myself fully, but there are
things that happened at war, with my husband and Mr
Alleyn, that I have been sworn never to speak about. He is a
good man, and there was nothing in that letter that should
have made him attack the girl . . .'
'You saw the letter?' Rachel interrupted, confused.
'Yes, I--' Her friend broke off, and looked down at her
hands. 'I have it still.'
'You have the last letter that Alice wrote to Jonathan?
How is this?'
'He dropped it, after he read it. It was left on the floor as he rushed at once 
to catch the mail coach west. My husband was perplexed as to what could have 
caused such a reaction. He picked the letter up, meaning to return it to Mr 
Alleyn ¦when he returned. But Mr Alleyn didn't re-join the regiment r a good 
long while, and what with everything that
ppened with the girl's elopement, my husband thought it tter to . . .'
'To keep it from him?' s 'He didn't wish to deepen a wound so fresh and 
painful. Jonathan Alleyn was ever one to brood and . . . lose himself thought. 
My husband thought that if he had the letter to
pore over, it might only serve to torment him. I said that if he
didn't mean to return it, he ought to destroy it, but he said
that the right time might come to return it to him.' Harriet
frowned guiltily. 'There was nothing in it to make him
violent. . .' she whispered. 'Only to make him grieve.'
'Will you give it to me, to take back to him?' said Rachel,
gravely. In a man grief and violence often go hand in hand . . .
is that what hides in the dark spaces? The thought made her
stomach turn over, and for a second she thought she might be
sick. She clamped her teeth together as Harriet nodded
unhappily.
They walked back to the Suttons' apartment, and Harriet
fetched the letter from a small drawer in her bureau. She
hesitated as she held it out to Rachel, who felt a shiver of
anticipation when she saw the small square of folded paper.
'You do understand, don't you? Why my husband never
returned this note?' said Harriet. Her eyes were wide in a
worried face.
'His intentions were good. But the time has come to lay
the matter to rest,' said Rachel. Harriet nodded.
'Stay a while if you want. You must want to read it,' she
said. Rachel looked up guiltily, and Harriet gave her a gently
knowing look. 'I think that you, too, have the best of
intentions. And far easier to read it here than out in the cold
wind.' Rachel took the letter, sat down on the very edge of an
armchair, and opened it.
When she left the Suttons' apartment minutes later, Rachel
went straight to Duncan Weekes's rooms, but found them
empty. The letter was in her pocket and her hand kept
straying to touch the paper through the fabric, to check its
safety. Her mind was clamouring as her rapid pace carried
her through the city. Sleet fell from a collapsed sky, stinging
in her eyes and forming small, wet drifts in the gutters. She
felt as though she must hurry, must race to save Alice,
though what had been done to her, or what she herself had
done, was long past, and couldn't be changed. Her father-in
law's name was in the letter, and the suggestion that he knew
more than he had ever said, so her path led, inevitably, to the
Moor's Head. Rachel peered in through the window. The
rippled glass deformed the faces of the inn's patrons, but
since she saw no sign of her husband she steeled herself and
went inside.
The transgression made her feel naked; eyes turned towards
her, blatant and speculative. Keeping her face down,
Rachel went to the bar where Sadie, whom she recognised
from her wedding day, was leaning on her elbows, looking
bored.
'I'm looking for Mr Duncan Weekes,' she said to the girl.
'He's over there.' Sadie hooked her thumb towards the far
corner of the room. 'But I doubt you'll get much sense from
him. He's proper swallowed a hare this afternoon.'
'He's what?'
'He's mauled. He's drunk. Been snoozing at his table these
three hours gone,' said Sadie. Rachel followed her gesture to
the back of the inn, where her father-in-law was resting his
head on the table, a pewter beaker knocked over beside him
and a puddle of spirits creeping close to his scalp. In spite of
all the noise, Rachel heard the wet rattling in his chest as she
sat down beside him. She shook his arm gently.
'Mr Weekes? Father? Wake up, please.' The old man
mumbled something and slowly raised his head. His eyes
were bloody and exhausted. When he saw her, he did not
mile. If anything, his face turned even sadder. 'How are you,
Mr Weekes?' Rachel asked, pointlessly.
'I cannot seem to find my feet today,' he croaked, and
Rachel fought not to recoil from the stink of his breath. That
is not debauchery hut the taint of decay. He must he
doctor. With a pang of anxiety she realised that he wasn't
drunk at all, only weakened by illness, and unable to rise.
'I need to ask you something, sir. I have Alice Beckwith's
last letter to Jonathan Alleyn. She says . . . she says you told
her the truth about his family, and about Lord Faukes. She
says that you told her what they feared to, and that she was
an abomination. Mr Weekes? Are you listening?'
'They all have his blood,' Duncan mumbled. His expression
was haunted.
'You mean that. . . Alice was Lord Faukes's child? Is that
what you told her?'
'Not just his, not just his. Don't you see? I saw them.
I . . . saw them.' Duncan wiped his mouth with a hand that
trembled. He shook his head, bewildered. 'What letter have
you, my dear? She wasn't to send any letters. I heard them
say so. Any letter she wrote was to be intercepted, and not
sent.'
'Intercepted by who?'
'Whoever she handed it to.' He shrugged, and shook his
head again. 'That poor girl. That poor, poor girl. I should
never have told her. It was the grog, my dear; the grog is the
very devil.'
'So her other letters were delivered to Lord Faukes instead?
She writes in this one . . .' Rachel drew the paper from her
pocket. 'She writes that she has sent many letters, and is
desperate to hear from him.'
'All went to Box. They can't have known of that one you
have there, I'm sure of it.'
'Mr Weekes.' Rachel gripped both of his hands in hers;
stared into his eyes. 'Please tell me what you told Alice. Tell
me what you saw.'
Duncan Weekes picked up his fallen cup and peered into it, with little hope or 
expectation.
'I never told my boy. Perhaps that was a kindness, in all
this rotten cruelty. He loved her, you see.'
'Richard? Loved who?'
'He loved Josephine Alleyn. With all the fire and fury with
which a young man falls in love.' Rachel froze. She thought
of the tremor that had run through Richard when he'd introduced
her to Jonathan's mother, and his long, deep bow. He loves her still.
'But. . . she is twenty years his senior!'
'What matters that? She was beautiful, noble, refined. The
most beautiful lady, and he was enslaved by her. He'd have
done anything she asked of him. That's why he was so
incensed when we were laid off. He had the blue devils for
months after. So I never told him what went on in that house.
That was a kindness, was it not?' Duncan gave her an
imploring look but Rachel was too shocked to respond. She
waited for what he would say next, and when all that came
was silence, she swallowed.
'I ... I must hear it, Mr Weekes,' she said.
Duncan Weekes tried to clear his throat but ended up
coughing, and it made him wince.
'You must by now have heard something of Lord Faukes,
from the Alleyns?' he said.
'Fine words from them, and ... a differing account from
Starling.'
'Who is Starling?'
'A servant in that house,' said Rachel. Duncan nodded.
'Aye, she'd have fewer fine words about him, I don't
doubt it. Poor wench.' He spoke slowly, heavily. 'The
serving girls at Faukes's house in Box all knew to keep out
of his way. From his wife's lady's maid, while that lady yet
lived, to the lowliest pot-washing scullion. If they were
young, and comely, they knew their time would come. And
the more comely they were - and the younger they were
the more careful they had to be. But all the care in the world could not 
protect them at all times, for ever. If the master
sent for them, or came down to their quarters, they could
not deny him.' Duncan Weekes swallowed with an effort, and
his face wore disgust. 'Indeed, denying him only seemed to
increase his enjoyment of them. Some of them came to accept
it, and stayed on. The master was generous with wages, and
time off in the year; more generous than other lordly folk
about. So the girls weighed it up, and some found that it was
worth suffering his occasional assaults. Others had no such
fortitude.'
Duncan's own sister urged him to put in a word with the
house steward, and beg a place in the household for the
daughter of a cousin of hers. Duncan put her off as long as he
could, but his sister was a shrewish woman, with sharp eyes
and a sharper tongue, and she would not be fobbed off for
long. So Duncan tried to quash his misgivings, and spoke to
the steward. The girl was taken on as second still-room maid,
and the day she arrived Duncan's heart sank at the sight of
her. She was a tiny thing, not more than thirteen, skinny and
dark but with enormous green eyes that lit up her face;
glassy, empty and afraid. Oh, why were you not fat and hairy
and sour of breath? Duncan thought. He told the girl, whose
name was Dolores -- told her twice, three times -- to keep
herself out of the master's eye. But Lord Faukes came down
to see what new gift had been brought for him, and smiled
delightedly when he saw.
Duncan dogged the girl's steps as much as he could. He had
vague ideas about protecting her, at least until she was a little
older, but when the time came, of course, he could do nothing
at all. Her terrified cries echoed through the lower halls of the
house. Duncan could only sit and listen, and drink. So drink
he did. So much, that night, that when Dolores stumbled out into the darkness, 
with bloodied lips and bruises on her neck,
and wandered off towards her old home, he couldn't even get
to his feet to follow her. He asked his sister, later, if the girl
had made it back to her mother, but received only the hardest
glare of her hard eye in answer. Dolores was not seen at the
house in Box again.
One girl named Sue, pug-nosed and pugnacious, sussed
the lie of the land immediately -- she had the clever, calculating
look of a girl who knew too much of the world. After
Lord Faukes's first two tumbles with her she called herself his
mistress, and sought to elevate herself to the upper serving
positions. She went with him willingly, nipping her skirts and
flirting like a doxy; calling him Lord Gundiguts to the other
servants. The cook called her a buttock, but Sue was
unrepentant. It availed her not at all, however, since Lord
Faukes liked to take, not be given. She was dismissed when
her belly began to swell, and Duncan saw her one last time,
scowling on the back step with a screaming babe on her hip,
as the steward handed over a few coins for the child. There
were other bastards as well -- born to tavern wenches,
servants and farmers' daughters. People of no import. They
were sent away with money, if they were lucky, and still
comely; sent away with curses and warnings if they were not.
Only one misbegotten child was lavished with all of Lord
Faukes's love and care. Only one.
When the master's son-in-law died and his daughter
Josephine returned to live in Box with her young son,
Jonathan, Duncan Weekes and the whole household were
pleased. Lord Faukes's appetite had worsened since Lady
Faukes had died, and they hoped his daughter's presence
would help to calm and moderate him. Duncan was standing
next to his own son, Richard, when Josephine Alleyn arrived
in a smart chariot drawn by a team of four grey horses. He
heard his son's intake of breath as Josephine descended.
Richard was still only a child, but Josephine Alleyn was as
lovely to look at as any queen of hearts. She wore a long
pelisse of umber-coloured velvet over a dark green dress,
with a matching hat over her mahogany hair. Her eyes were
a deeper, richer blue than any he'd seen. No good will come of
loving her, Duncan silently warned his boy. So the household
was cheered by Josephine Alleyn's arrival, though the lady
herself was cool and reserved and, Duncan thought, sad to
her very bones. But she was a widow, he reminded himself;
that would surely account for it. And for a while Lord
Faukes's visits below stairs, and his escapades in the cupboards
and dark corners of the house, did lessen. Before long,
Duncan found out why.
One fine May day, Lord Faukes and his daughter were to
visit friends in Bowden Hill. Duncan waited on the box of the
coach while Richard held the door. He was too young to be a
footman, but Josephine Alleyn liked his face, and seemed to
find some gentle amusement in the proud way he thrust out
his chest to make up for his lack of height. Their route led
them through the village of Lacock, and then across a series
of narrow bridges that traversed a flat, boggy area of streams
and reed beds. One of the bridges was blocked by milling
sheep, and Duncan was forced to halt the coach.
'Clear the bridge!' he shouted to the elderly shepherd, who
gave a nod and waved his crook unhurriedly at his animals.
The horses snorted and fidgeted as the flock milled around
their legs. The stink of their dung and their oily wool was
ripe. 'Hop down, lad, and stand nearside of Santi's head.
Keep her steady and the others will follow,' Duncan instructed
his son. 'I'll stand by the coach to keep them clear.'
'Go wide, you wretched muttons,' Duncan muttered, as he
climbed down and felt his boot slide in something soft and
fresh on the road. He took up a position by the door of the
coach and waved his arms to drive the sheep further from it.
The curtains had been closed behind the windows, so he
didn't knock to explain the delay in case Lord Faukes or his
daughter were dozing. But as the last stragglers trotted past,
and Duncan Weekes turned, movement caught his eye. The
coach rocked slightly, as though something went on within,
and the curtains crept open, just a crack. Without even
meaning to, Duncan saw inside. It was only for a second,
but that was long enough -- the scene struck him with all the
awful clarity of the night sky lit suddenly by lightning.
Josephine Alleyn sat with her head tipped back, her lustrous
eyes fixed on the ceiling. Her father's mouth was on her neck,
questing hungrily, one hand squeezed her breast, his other
reached under her skirts, between her thighs, out of sight.
There was a straining of fabric in Lord Faukes's crotch, and
an expression of perfect emptiness on Josephine's face; as
though wherever her thoughts were, they were far, far away.
It was a look of acceptance, disconnection; a look of numb
oblivion. It was not a look of surprise.
The moment that Duncan stood there, immobilised by
shock, felt like hours. He turned away as soon as he could;
forced his stiff, unresponsive legs to climb, and nicked the
horses on so sharply that they plunged in the harness, and the
shepherd was forced to hop smartly out of the way.
'What's got into you?' said Richard, grabbing the box rail
for safety. Duncan blinked at his son. He hadn't even
checked that the boy was back aboard before he'd driven
on. He glanced over his shoulder at the coach and knew that
speed would carry him no further from what he'd seen, or
from what he served. So he brought the horses back to a
steadier pace, and reached under his seat for the bottle of
brandy he kept there for cold, night-time journeys. He drank
half of it down in one go, and lowered it with a cough to see
disgust on his boy's face. 'You suck on that like at your
mother's dug,' Richard chided, copying the language he
heard in the stables. 'It'll get you kicked out one dav nM
man. You'd best hope I'm full trained as coachman the day
that happens, or where will we be?' By the time they reached
Bowden Hill Duncan had emptied the brandy bottle, but it
had done nothing to expunge that lightning-bolt scene from
his mind.
So Duncan had his suspicions already, when he learned
about Alice Beckwith. A servant will learn the secrets of a
household, however close-guarded they be -- this he knew
already, and could not forget no matter how drunk he got.
He heard Lord Faukes talking to his grandson, when they
came to the stables for their horses. He heard Faukes tell the
boy that Miss Beckwith, who they would ride out to visit,
was the love-begotten daughter of a good friend of his, and
that he had agreed to care for the girl, but since she was a
bastard born, Mrs Alleyn would not approve, and would stop
their visits, and so Jonathan must not tell her. Duncan
Weekes heard the little lad, who adored his grandpa, swear,
in his piping voice, to keep the secret.
Other things overheard taught him that Alice Beckwith
was kept at Bathampton, with a servant and a governess. He
learnt that Faukes doted on the girl, and planned to marry
her off as well as he could, eventually, when the time was
right. When, twice a month or so, Lord Faukes came for his
saddle horse and rode out alone, or with his grandson, for the
afternoon, Duncan could guess where they were going. He
knew of Alice Beckwith, and he had his suspicions; for no
other man in the county was as likely to have sired a bastard
as Lord Faukes. He had many other such children, and none
of them were treated with anything like the same care and
attention; why would he lavish it on the by-blow of a friend?
A friend who was never named, or visited? Alice Beckwith
was special, that much was plain. Duncan could not un-see
what he had seen in the carriage; he could not un-hear
Faukes forbidding his grandson to tell his mother about the
girl. He could not undo the conclusions that he came to. He
could only drink; and drink he did, knowing full well that he
and at least one other in that house were going to hell.
So, when the young girl with the unusual face and the pale
hair walked up to the main door of the house on a windy day
in the autumn of 1808, and then came running back out again
not ten minutes later, Duncan guessed who she was. It was
past noon, and he had drunk enough brandy by then to
knock most men out, but Lord Faukes was away from home,
and if Josephine went anywhere she asked for Richard to take
her, so he knew he wouldn't be called upon to drive that
afternoon. He was making his weaving way from the stables
towards the inn in the village when Alice Beckwith stumbled
out of the door and down the steps, then hastened towards
the gate and right into his arms. Her face was wet, and she
shook like a little bird in shock.
'Steady there, my pretty maid,' Duncan slurred at her.
'And who might you be?'
'I'm A-Alice Beckwith.' After she spoke she fell into fresh
sobs.
'There, there, child. Nothing is as bad as all that. Alice
Beckwith - yes, I know you. The one kept at Bathampton the
special one. Why those gravy-eyes, when you have such
noble parents? When you have such a cozened existence?
You have turned your face quite red, child,' he said, taking
her hand and trying to soothe her. He blinked owlishly,
struggling to focus his sluggish mind, his blurred vision.
'Cozened? Noble? How can you . . . What do you know
of me, sir? What do you know of my parents?'
'You came in search of your lord father, I don't doubt.
And now you weep to find him not at home? Weep not,
sweet girl. He will be home again 'ere long . . .' He paused
after he said this, and frowned, befuddled. For a moment he
couldn't imagine why any young woman would want to see
Lord Faukes.
'My lord father?' she echoed, staring at him in shock. 'Is it known, then? Has 
the secret been kept only from me, and not
from the rest of the world? What cruel joke is this?' she
gasped, breathing so fast it hurried her words.
'Cruel -- ah, yes! Cruel indeed. A cruel man, he is,'
Duncan mumbled, still not quite finding the thread. Before
him, the girl shook and wept. She raised trembling hands to
her face, and seemed to think hard.
'You spoke of. . . my parents, sir,' she said at length. 'Do
you know . . . something of my mother, then?'
'Your mother? Hmm? A fine lady, yes, and a great beauty,
is she not? My son is deep in love with her, though he is less
in age than you, I would say. But there are few that would
not find her lovely.'
'You know who she is, my mother? How do you know,
sir?' Alice grasped at his hands imploringly. 'Was her name
Beckwith?'
'Beckwith? Beckwith -- no, indeed. I do not know the
source of that name - your wet nurse, perhaps.' Duncan
shook his head and smiled at the girl because she seemed
sweet, and in distress. He patted her hand. 'There, there. Dry
those tears, young miss,' he said, having forgotten why she
might be crying.
'I have so many more to shed, sir,' Alice whispered. 'I can
scarce bear to think how many.'
'Oh come, now - why so? You are young and fair, and
your parents are wealthy. And though you be a secret and a
shame, see how bonny you are! You are not to blame, miss,
no indeed.'
'I am a shame, sir? You know this? Am I a shame to my
lady mother - is that why she knows me not?'
'Forsooth, how can you not be? For no woman in history
lay willingly with her own sire, and I declare that Mrs Alleyn
is no different - for I saw them, miss - how I wish I had not!
I saw him about his blasphemy, and I saw how verily
disgusted she was.' Duncan shook his head, but it made the
ground lurch and his stomach heave, so he stopped.
The girl had gone very quiet, very still.
'I ... I don't understand,' she said, but from the way she
gasped out the words, robbed of breath, it seemed that she'd
begun to. Duncan had the vague and disquieting sense that
he'd said too much.
'Hush and do not tell!' he said anxiously. 'Good girl, good
girl. It is a very great secret. Even from the other servants,
from which a house usually has none. Only I have found it
out.' He tried to tap the side of his nose but missed; tried to
smile but could not. 'But take heart, child. You've not yet
grown into all of her beauty, but you may yet, and who could
have guessed so fair a maiden could come from so foul a
union? You have her blue eyes, and though her hair is dark
and shines so well, still I have heard that a good many men
prefer a fair head, such as yours. So weep not, dear girl, weep
not.' He waved his arm magnanimously and threw himself
off balance, staggering. Alice Beckwith was staring straight
ahead, abject, her face a sketch of perfect horror. Duncan
could not fathom her distress but he somehow felt he'd been
the cause of it. 'May I help you at all, young lady?' he said
tentatively.
'No, sir. You have helped me enough,' she said, in hushed and deadened tones.

Duncan Weekes was watching Rachel, bleary-eyed and hunched in on himself. 
Rachel's stomach was turning with nerves and disgust.
'You mean to say, you believe that Alice was Josephine Alleyn's child . . . 
sired by Lord Faukes, her own father?'
She swallowed, and tasted something bitter in the back of her
throat.
'She was special to him. She was dear to him.'
'That is no proof,' Rachel said, her voice choked. am
an abomination. 'Josephine Alleyn speaks very highly of her
father. She reveres his memory, and their good name.' My
mother has lied all her life.
'I drove her to the church when he died, Mrs Weekes,'
Duncan said gravely. 'She shed not a tear for him, and as 1
drove her home when he was safe in his grave she wore a
smile behind her veil. She wore a smile, and was less sorrowful
than I ever saw her previous.' He took without asking. And
this is Jonathans family.
'Oh, God. But... I cannot believe it -- not of Mrs Alleyn!
And you told Alice this?'
'You need believe nothing of Mrs Alleyn. She was
innocent and helpless. You need only believe it of Faukes,
and there'll be women a plenty that will vouch for his
character; for what he wanted he took. And, God forgive
me, I did -- I told Miss Beckwith.' Duncan's chin sank to his
chest, his mouth wrenched down at the corners by misery. He's good now he's 
dead. Rachel remembered Starling's
words. Alice would never have left me to Lord Faukes. Duncan
coughed painfully; wiped his mouth with a filthy handkerchief. 'I heard she ran 
off, not long afterwards. I heard
she ran off to who knows what fate, and from the look on her
face when I spoke to her ... I ask you, who could blame
her? That poor girl.'
For a long while, the pair of them sat in silence. Rachel
could hardly believe all she'd been told, but a dark thought
was growing in her mind, unbidden and irresistible. Grief and
violence often go hand in hand in a man. And if she told him this
about his family -- and hers -- how strong must his grief have
been? It was hot and stuffy in the inn but Rachel shivered.
She would have been his aunt and his sister both, if it's true. But
what proof is there, other than this old man's guess? There could
be no proof, she realised then, other than to hear it from
Josephine Alleyn herself. No proof because it is all a mistake
and supposition, and it is not so? No proof because Alice was a
foundling? And I know, yes I know, who lost her.
'Where was Alice before Faukes brought her to Bathampton?
And how could Josephine have borne a child before
she was wed, and it be kept a secret?' she said. Duncan raised
his shoulders wearily.
"Who can say where the babe was? Somewhere else, with a
wet nurse paid to keep her lip buttoned. The year before . . .
the year before Josephine was wed, Faukes took her to
Scotland for half a year. The retreat was to help them both
recover from the continued grief of losing Lady Faukes, it
was said. But there could have been another reason, too. The
timing of it, from the age I took the Beckwith girl to be,
would have been fitting. When they returned to Box she
quickly wed and made her escape.'
'She told me . . .' Rachel swallowed. 'Mrs Alleyn said to
me that those two years she was wed, and away from Box,
were the happiest two years of her life entire.'
'Well might they have been, poor accursed lady.'
'But why would she return to her father, then, when she
was widowed?'
'What he wanted, he took,' Duncan said softly. 'She was
always in his power. Always.'
Just then, a voice behind her shocked Rachel even more
than the story she was learning. It was loud, and incredulous.
'What the bloody hell is this?'
'Mr Weekes, I--' Rachel gasped. She struggled to her feet; the chair legs and 
her skirt and the table seemed to catch at her.
'You what?' Richard's eyes were flinty with anger.
'Now, my boy, you must not chastise . . .' Duncan
Weekes began. He tried to rise but couldn't. Richard caught
Rachel's arm in an iron grip and towed her towards the door.
'Let go!' said Rachel.
'Richard, you mustn't be sharp with her!' Duncan called
after them, weakly. Richard swung back to point a trembling
finger at his father.
'I'll deal with you later,' he said, and Duncan fell into
fearful silence.
They burst from the inn onto the cold, grey street. There
was no more sleet, but the fog that had barely lifted all day
was like a wet, frigid blanket.
'What have you been doing?' Richard took both of
Rachel's upper arms and hauled her close to him. 'I forbade you to know that 
man, and yet here I find you, fast friends!'
'He is my father now, too, Mr Weekes. And he is poor,
and sick, and I am fond of him! We need to send a doctor to
him, and soon. He is not a bad man,' said Rachel, indignation
making her brave. She could feel Richard's grip bruising her
arms, crushing the flesh down to the bone.
'What do you mean by that?' He gave her a shake, his lips
curled back, snarling like a dog.
'He drinks, but then so do all men in Bath, it seems. But he
does not go whoring, or lie, or beat his women!'
'What?' For a second, Richard seemed dumbstruck, and
Rachel felt fear building, coming to smother her defiance.
'I know about Starling; about you and her. And I'm sure
there have been others,' she said. Richard's eyes grew huge.
'By God, I'll kill that little slut!'
'It was your violence to her that led me to the truth about
you!' Richard released her and ran his hands through his hair.
Then he stood half turned from her, with one hand over his
mouth, watching her askance. 'I know all about you. I know
you loved another as well - Josephine Alleyn! No wonder
she has been so helpful to you. Were you lovers, too? Tell
me!' Richard raised his hand to slap her, and Rachel shut her
eyes. The fog swirled around them. 'Do it then, sir. Why
keep these things behind closed doors? Why not thrash me in
the street, where all can see you do it?'
For a moment Richard stayed in that pose, arm pulled
back to unleash a blow, his whole body harder than stone.
Then he let the arm drop and turned to face her again, still
angry but somehow defeated.
'Rachel. You were supposed to love me,' he said. 'You
were supposed to make things better.'
'You give me nothing to love,' she said.
'Truly, no woman has ever loved me,' he said flatly.
'What strange fate is that - to be given this handsome face,
and then let no woman love me?'
'I believe Starling did, at one time.'
'Starling?' Richard shook his head. 'She loves only Alice
bloody Beckwith. And Jonathan Alleyn.'
'Jonathan? She hates Jonathan.'
'Hate, love. Aren't they oft-times the same thing?' He
stared at her, and she could no longer read what was in his
eyes. 'Perhaps in time I shall come to hate you, too.'
'What do you mean?' said Rachel, shaking so badly that
she couldn't keep her voice steady.
'We've a long time together, Mrs Weekes. Our whole
lives. If there's no love now then there's plenty of room for that other to 
grow.' His gaze was cold and unyielding, and
Rachel felt his words weigh heavy on her; a burden of truth she had no choice 
but to carry. 'Go home and wait for me,' he said. The freezing mist chilled 
Rachel through her clothes. She shook her head. 'You will do as I tell you.'
'Where will you go?' she said.
'That's none of your concern.'
'You'll go inside and upbraid your poor father. Won't
you?'
'That old cuff?' Richard shook his head. 'I have more
important things to do. My father will die soon enough, by
the looks of him. I shan't waste any effort on him.' Richard
took a step closer to Rachel and smiled cruelly. 'I shall save
that for you, dear wife.' He turned and walked away. The
words were like a blow to the stomach, and Rachel felt her
strength ebbing away. He can, and he will. I am his. She
swayed, and felt despair stealing over her like a shadow.



Starling dreamt of horses with bullet wounds, their eyes
bulging in agony as blood streamed from the black wounds
in their skins. She woke clammy with sweat, weak and
shaking. Jonathan's description of the war in Spain wouldn't leave her mind, 
though she told herself resolutely that it
changed nothing. She couldn't help but think that to have
lived through such horrors would make anybody numb to
violence, and more prone to it, and that should -- and did --
make her more convinced than ever that Jonathan had killed
Alice. But at the same time, inexplicably, she found some of
her hatred of him leaching away. It does not excuse what he
did. It can f be forgiven. She seemed to have the ghost of his
stink in her nostrils. The metal and rot smell he'd had when
he turned up in Bathampton in the ruins of his uniform, fresh
from Corunna. She knew now that it was the smell of a
person who has walked long miles with death riding on their
shoulder like some malevolent imp, all needle teeth and
poisoned claws. She blew her nose a dozen times, and sniffed
deeply at pungent ingredients in the kitchen -- cinnamon,
cloves, pickled beets and peppermint oil.
'What are you, kitchen maid or truffle hog?' said Sol
Bradbury, perplexed, but Starling only shrugged. If he did it,
and I finally know it for true, then what should I do? She was
swirling coffee beans in a skillet over the fire, waiting for
them to roast, when she realised. It makes no difference at all. She froze, and 
stayed that way until the acrid smoke of the
burning beans brought Sol over, cursing and flapping a cloth
at the pan. It makes no difference at all.
Towards the middle of the afternoon she took to the
streets, wrapping up against the fog with the vague but
pervading urge to go home. She went down to the wharf
but there was no sign of Dan Smithers, and no other boat
moored up that planned to leave eastwards inside the next
hour, so Starling set off along the towpath on foot. It was the
longer route out of town but she didn't want to wait. She was
at a dead end, after years of struggling through a maze of
doubt and enquiry and conviction. Suddenly, she had no
more energy; her anger had burnt itself out like the stub of a
candle. What's the point? It is as Mrs JVeekes said -- none of it
will bring her back to me. None of it will change things for me. When she 
reached the edge of Bathampton, with numb
cheeks and clumsy feet, she paused. Her route had automatically
been taking her to Bridget's cottage but now she
stopped, and turned north, towards the house that was the
first home she remembered.
Starling walked up to the yard gate and stood there,
staring at the exact spot on the muddy ground where she'd
first set eyes on Alice. My saviour. My sister. The trees had
grown taller, naked but for a few ragged leaves remaining.
Rooks had come to roost rather than starlings; they cawed
and clattered down at her, their voices echoing peculiarly.
Hunched in the fog, the house looked like the ghost of the
place she knew. There was a yellow light glowing in the
kitchen window, just as there had been then; and smoke
rising silently from the chimney, a darker grey than the
murk. Chickens still pecked and scratched the ground; there
was the stink of pigs from the sty; a haystack in the open
barn; a brown horse's head, drowsy-eyed, leaning over the
stable door. Starling studied it all and made believe that she could walk right 
up and push open the front door, and that
Bridget would be standing at the stove, ruddy-faced from the
heat, and Alice would be by the fire with her feet tucked
up underneath her, reading poems or a novel or one of
Jonathan's letters. The thought put a lump in her throat that
ached like a twisted joint, and she teetered, on the verge of
stepping forwards as if it all was true. am no different now,
after all of it, than 1 was that first time. I still have nothing. I
still am nothing.
She walked on past the George Inn, and then turned
towards the toll bridge. She passed a few farmers and
villagers along the way, none of whom she recognised, or
who showed any interest in her. The mist and cold made
people hunker into themselves; keeping their eyes low, their
voices mute. Starling stopped on the bridge and leaned over,
staring down at the smooth, grey water. She couldn't smell
its dank perfume -- the sodden air and the tang of wood
smoke on it were pervasive. The stone of the parapet leached
the last warmth from her flesh, but she let it. She could
see the lovers' tree; a skeletal, drooping mass at the river's
edge, almost obscured by the gloom, looking like a hunch
shouldered figure. There was frost on the broken meadow
grasses; frost on the scarlet rosehips and hawthorn berries in
the tangled hedges along the lane. In the slow eddies near the
riverbank, a thin crust of ice rode the lapping water. Starling
stared at the lovers' tree until her eyes ached and watered
from it. And then she saw movement in the shadows underneath
it.
Not daring to blink she waited to see it again, thinking she
must have dreamed it. But there was movement again a
moment later, and she was not mistaken. There was a figure
standing beneath the branches. Starling gulped in a huge
breath, and felt a desperate kind of hope. If she did run away,
if she lives . . . she would come back here. She would. Without
hesitation, Starling pushed a path through the hedge, scratching
her arms and legs on blackthorn, and clambered down to
the meadow. She hurried through the long grass with her
skirts bunched up in her fists, breathing hard and sniffing at
the drip on the end of her nose.
'Alice!' she called, as she drew near. The fog swallowed
her voice. Behind the cascade of willow whips she could see
the dark shape of a person. It made no response to her call; it
made no move at all. Starling jumped down onto the hard
mud at the water's edge, slipped and fought to keep her
balance. 'Alice, is it you?' She hurried forwards again, but
was suddenly uneasy. The prickle of a warning, at the back
of her skull; just like she'd had many times before.
The shadowed shape was too big to be Alice. Too big to
be a woman at all. Starling slowed to a halt just beyond the
tree's embrace. 'Who's there?' she said, trying to keep her
voice even, strong. It will be hard to run on this ice. But I am
smaller, lighter. But whoever was waiting still ignored her.
Starling took a deep breath; blood was pounding in her ears.
She parted the branches with her hands and stepped into the
deeper shadow. And finally the figure stood up from its seat
on the protruding root; stood up and turned to face her, and
Starling cried out in alarm. 'You!' she said, as the air rushed
from her lungs in astonishment.



Rachel paused by the front door of number one, Lansdown
Crescent, her hand halfway to the bell pull. Dorcas would
answer it, or the manservant Falmouth, and they would take
her to Mrs Alleyn. That's not who I wish to sec. She retraced
her steps and went down the servants' stair instead, letting
herself into the corridor outside the kitchen. She slipped past
the kitchen door, checking in the still room and pantry before
she reached Starling's room; all were empty. In the kitchen,
Sol Bradbury was nodding in a wooden chair near the
inglenook; a huge, half-peeled apple was going brown in her
lap, cradled like a pet. There was no sign of Starling, and
Rachel cursed silently, anxiously. For months she's shadowed
me around this house, now when I need her, when I have this
letter to show her, she vanishes.
'Mrs Weekes. How odd to find you here. Did you lose
your way?' Rachel spun around to find Mrs Alleyn at the foot
of the stairs, her hands linked calmly in front of her, her face
a stony mask. At the sound of her voice, Sol Bradbury was
wide awake and peeling industriously, blinking away her
somnolence.
'I . . . I--' Rachel stammered.
'I saw you coming along the street and wondered where
you'd got to. I wasn't aware that you had an appointment
with my son today.'
'Indeed, I do not, madam. I only . . .'
'You only what?' said Josephine, in that level way of hers.
Rachel's mind went blank, the silence rang. 'Perhaps you
wanted to see me about something? I can't imagine there's
anything you might need to discuss with my servants.'
'Yes, Mrs Alleyn. That is so,' said Rachel, still frantically
trying to think what to say.
'Come, then. This is no fit place for a conversation, and
I too have something I desire to tell you.' The older
woman turned with an elegant sweep of her dress, and went
back up the stairs. With dread stealing over her, Rachel followed.
Mrs
Alleyn led her into the front parlour, and settled
herself on the couch. 'Now, tell me what brought you here today?'
'I wanted to . . .' Rachel paused, and looked at Josephine's
lovely face. Whatever happened to Alice, you know all about it,
don't you? She summoned all her courage. 'I've been speaking
a great deal of late to my father-in-law, about his time in
your service.'
'Mr Duncan Weekes?' Josephine blinked, seeming to
readjust herself minutely. 'He was a good coachman. He
had a marvellous way with the horses. Such a shame his . . .
affliction meant we had to let him go. My father was rather
fond of him, in truth.'
'Yes. I have heard a great deal of your father's affection
for his staff,' said Rachel. Josephine Alleyn's lips thinned into
the smallest of smiles; her eyes glittered. 'He has also told me
about the time Alice Beckwith came to visit Lord Faukes at
Box.'
'Mrs Weekes, I can't for the life of me discern what possible
interest you might have in Alice Beckwith, a common
girl who made an outcast of herself twelve years ago.'
'Did she? Did she make an outcast of herself, or was she
cast out?' She will not have me back here again, Rachel knew in
that moment.
'I'm sure I don't understand what you mean.' Josephine
Alleyn's voice was like ice. 'Now let us come to what I wished
to say to you, Mrs Weekes. It's clear to me that your . . .
employment with my son is leaving you tired and overwrought.
It's only to be expected, after so many weeks of
close contact with an invalid--'
'Your son is no invalid, madam!'
'Please don't interrupt me. When I said that manners had
abandoned us here, I did not expect to be taken quite so
literally. The task is clearly too much for you, and I will not
hear of you continuing, and risking your own health by
doing so.'
'And that is your final word on it?' said Rachel, after a
stricken pause.
'I never change my mind, Mrs Weekes."
'May I . . .' Rachel took a breath. 'May I go and explain
my coming absence to your son?'
'I have already informed him. Now.' Mrs Alleyn stood,
her back immaculately straight.
'But . . . I'm helping him! He's been getting so much
better.'
'You have my thanks, I'm sure. But to continue is quite
out of the question. I was mistaken about your . . . suitability
for the role. Do not let me detain you further.'
'It pleases you to keep him shut away, does it not? Far less
trouble to you, less scandal. Far less chance of him learning
the truth about Alice, and about your noble father!' said
Rachel. Josephine's face went rigid with anger.
'Go no further, Mrs Weekes, into matters that are none of
your concern. It would be a shame if your misconduct meant
I could no longer support your husband in his business. You
saw yourself in; now kindly see yourself out.' Rachel had no
choice but to obey her. Falmouth opened the front door for
her, a golem without the least flicker of an expression on his
face. But Rachel hesitated on the threshold. will be allowed to see him no more.
'I demand to be permitted to take my leave of Mr Alleyn,'
she said, turning with her heart in her mouth. Josephine
stood on the parlour threshold, her arms loose at her sides.
'I thought I had made it quite clear--'
'He would wish to see me. If you refuse me I will make it
known to him that . . . that you have turned me away.'
'Oh? And how exactly--'
'I will make it known to him.' Rachel spoke with such
quiet resolve that Josephine made no reply. For a moment
they simply stared at one another, a silent war which Rachel
won. Without another word, she started up the stairs.
She felt hunted; she felt Josephine's hard, angry eyes
follow her every step. By the time she reached Jonathan's
rooms she was almost running. She knocked and let herself
in, closing the door fast behind her. The floorboards creaked
under her feet like the deck of a ship. And the storm beneath us
is just now breaking. Jonathan got up from his desk. There
was ink on his fingers; his hair was clean and had been cut to
skim his collar at the back. His face was clean-shaven. He
looked so different that Rachel hesitated.
'Mrs Weekes, I didn't expect you today, though I am
delighted you've come. See how I have tidied . . .' He trailed
off, so she knew she must look desperate.
'Your mother has told me I must not come again. That I
will no longer be admitted,' she said breathlessly. 'She said
she'd already told you of this decision, but I wanted to ... I
wanted to be sure.'
'She lies. She said nothing to me,' said Jonathan.
'I had feared as much.'
'What has happened between you? You look as though
she has hounded you up the stairs!'
'I feel as though she has!' Rachel almost smiled, but it
would not come. She felt too desperate, too afraid. 'I came to
speak to ... to speak to you, but she found me first and I . . .
said some things to her about . . . about Alice. And about
your grandfather. I let it be known that I had begun to
suspect. . . That I had developed a greater interest in Alice's
disappearance than perhaps I should have.' She stopped,
shook her head and tried to put her thoughts in order. Will
I accuse him outright, then? 'But 1 fear that if we are to see
each other henceforth, it will have to be in some other place.'
'What things about my grandfather?' Jonathan frowned.
'No -- you must not let her prevent your coming, Mrs
Weekes!'
'She is the mistress here, and if she tells the servants not to
let me in ... It would be impossible, to attend under such
circumstances.'
'I own this house, and the servants - not my mother. I will make them let you 
in.' Jonathan's eyes were intent, his voice
rose indignantly. Rachel shook her head.
'No. No, I could not. Not knowing that it angered her,
that she had forbidden it. My husband . . . my husband
would not permit it. She has some hold over him still --
some powerful hold. He was in love with her, you see.
Perhaps he still is.'
'Who? Richard Weekes in love with my mother? Who
says so?'
'His father, Duncan Weekes. He's known it of old. Since
Richard was a young boy, he says . . .' Rachel shook her
head, still confounded by it. Josephine Alleyn, and Starling,
and others no doubt . . . all called him theirs before I did; some
might call him theirs still. It is as well that I love him not.
Jonathan thought for a while, and then gestured to the
chairs by the window.
'Come. Sit,' he said, more gently. 'Let us discuss this,
please.'
'It's hopeless, sir. I can come here no longer - you must
see, it would be impossible? If my husband forbids me -- and
he will, should your mother decree it -- then we could not
hope to keep our appointments secret.'
'You must agree to still visit, however. You must.'
'How can I?' Rachel stared hopelessly at him. 'I am not
the mistress of my own destiny -- it is bound to his. To him.
He has already found out that I see his father against
his wishes ... I have not yet discovered what the full consequences of that 
will be. And he would find out in an
instant if I went against him with regard to you, and your
mother. He might beat me, sir. He might indeed do something
worse.'
'Mrs Weekes . . .' Jonathan paused uncomfortably. 'You
must not let him. You must not abandon me so easily. I beg
you. I ... I cannot do without your friendship. That is, I
would not want to.'
'You would not?' she breathed. They sat apart, not touching,
but Jonathan did not look away from her, even for a
second.
'Your visits are the only thing that makes life bearable,
Mrs Weekes. In all the long years since the war, no one else
has managed to . . . return a fragment of my former self to
me. I have been so afraid, all these years, of the . . . lost, dark
places in my mind. In my memory. Only you give me the
strength to look into them. Please. Do not abandon me now,
at the behest of two people who cannot understand. Not
when you have shown me that forgiveness is possible.' After
this he fell silent, and his face darkened, and Rachel thought
of the letter in her pocket. It seemed to weigh more than a
piece of paper should; her hands began to shake. Why do I not
hand it over to him? Do I fear him, still? Do I fear the effect it
might have? For a moment she wished she didn't have it; she
wished she knew nothing, that her face was hers and hers
alone, and no question of a vanished or murdered girl could
come between them. To be with Jonathan, there in that
room, and to hear him say such things, would be enough to
make life happy. Why couldn't it have been so?
Rachel turned her face away. Outside, a man came with a
taper on a long pole to light the streetlamp on the corner; the
fog devoured its weak glow just a few feet from the flame. was going to show 
the letter to Starling, not to Jonathan. Rachel
wasn't sure whether the letter would bring Starling any joy.
Combined with what Duncan Weekes had told her, she knew
that Starling would be newly convinced of Jonathan's motive
for killing Alice. She could have ruined them with what Duncan
told her. No wonder they tried to stop all her letters. Yet still my
courage near failed me when I was told I could see him no more. So she stayed 
silent a while longer, with the letter heavy in
her pocket, and some other weight fettering her heart.
Jonathan cleared his throat softly.
'Mrs Weekes, I must tell you something,' he said. He was
watching Rachel intently, and at once she sensed bad news.
'What is it?'
'I have been thinking a great deal about what you told
me . . . about your sister, who was lost, and the possibility
that she might have lived a second life, as Alice.'
'Yes?' Suddenly Rachel was alive with nerves; the blood
seemed to swell in her veins.
'Something had been plaguing me over it. Mrs Weekes,
how old are you?'
'I am twenty-nine, sir. I will be thirty next spring.'
'Then it is as I thought. I fear that. . . Alice was not your
twin sister; she could not be. Alice was a year and a half older
than me. If she lives, she is thirty-five now. You are too
young.'
And as simply as that, Rachel's hopes were destroyed.
There was silence after Jonathan spoke. The words fell dead
from his lips, and landed at Rachel's feet like little bones, cold
and hard. There was a writhing feeling in her chest, and she
gasped at it. Tears burned her eyes. Ahi, no. Don't go. But she
couldn't bargain or riddle her way around this; she could not
argue it might not be so. Even after everything she'd heard
from Duncan Weekes, and Bridget, after everything she had
come to believe of Lord Faukes and Josephine Alleyn, still
her mind had clung to the idea that they might all be lying, or
mistaken; that it was all talk and rumours and no proof; that the little girl 
Lord Faukes had put into Bridget's arms, and
sponsored all her life, had indeed been Abigail. It had never
occurred to her to check that most fundamental thing she and
her twin had in common -- their birthday. Rachel bowed her
head and wept in utter disappointment; she felt so cold, and
so tired.
Outside the window the world seemed to stretch away,
endlessly grey and empty. Say something to me, she implored
but the voice in her mind stayed silent. Then 1 am alone. She
felt desolate then, as though she could never again move
from the chair where she sat, because she would never have
the strength to, would never have the cause. This was why my
heart was numb. To save me from ever feeling this way again.
'Do not weep so, Mrs Weekes. Please. It would have been
a wondrous happenstance, I know, but . . . wondrous things
rarely prove to be true,' said Jonathan, gently.
'Wondrous? Perhaps.' Rachel shook her head. 'But it was
the one thing I was hoping for. You break my heart, sir.'
'Losing your sister breaks your heart, and I am sorry for
it. But I had to tell you, did I not?'
'Oh, why? Why could you not have just left me in
ignorance, and with hope?' she cried.
'Because it was lies, Mrs Weekes,' he said grimly. 'Two
girls were lost, not one.'
'But I had hoped that it was otherwise, Mr Alleyn. I had
hoped so much,' said Rachel, brokenly. 'It was the one thing
that could have given Alice a happy ending.'
'What do you mean?'
'If she was Abi, and not Lord Faukes's, then there was no
cause for anyone to harm her. If she was Abi, the two of you
could have defied them, and wed. And if she was Abi she
might indeed have run away with another, and perhaps be
alive somewhere. But I cannot believe any of that if she was
Alice. I cannot imagine Alice a happy ending.'
'What are you saying? What do you mean, if she was not
Lord Faukes's?' Jonathan was frowning now, that darkening
look that she had learnt so well, and learnt to avoid. But she was too sad and 
sorry to be cautious, then. She took out the
letter and handed it to him. 'What is this?' He stared at it as if
she offered him a live snake.
'It is Alice's last letter to you. The one that reached you in
Brighton.'
Jonathan froze. Still held in mid-air, the letter began to
tremble. Clenching his teeth, Jonathan snatched it from her,
and Rachel saw a tremor pass right through him. He closed
his hand, crumpling the paper tight inside.
'How came you by this?' he said, grinding the words out.
'I was given it, to return to you, by ... by Harriet
Sutton.'
'Sutton? Then he--' Jonathan swallowed, his throat constricting. 'He had it all 
the while, and kept it from me? My friend. . . why?'
'He ... he didn't want you to dwell on her, I think -- on
Alice. Once you were back with the army, and preparing to
fight again . . .'
'It wasn't for him to decide that.'
'No. No, it wasn't. But he could have left it where you
discarded it, and it would have been lost. . .'
'Damn him!' Jonathan burst out. He stormed out of his
chair and paced the floor beside her, his face contorted with
anger. 'And you have read it, I take it?' he snapped. Rachel
looked away in shame.
'I'd thought she was my sister--'
'Even if she was, you had no right!'
'No. I had none,' she said.
'But you made it your business, to enquire into mine. You
and the rest of the world alongside you.' Jonathan stopped
pacing and looked down at her with that blankness she had seen before. Where is 
it he goes, when he is most angry or
afraid? Slowly, Jonathan flattened the letter out and slid it
into his pocket.
'Aren't you going to read it?' said Rachel, wiping her face
with her gloved fingers.
'Not here,' he said coldly. 'Not now.'
'She writes of the other man--'
'Say nothing more!'
Jonathan half turned away from her and covered his
mouth with one hand, and Rachel was suddenly, horribly
reminded of Richard, and the pose from which he'd raised his
arm to strike her, just hours before. When Ifirst met this man
he would have choked me to death, were it not for Starling. 'How
long have you had this letter? How could you keep this from
me? I trusted you!' he said savagely. Rachel stood and moved
away from him. She thought of the heavy glass jar, thrown
down at her feet, and his blind empty eyes as he'd done it. So
much that is good, and so much that is bad, contained in this one
room. Suddenly, she couldn't bear to be enclosed by those
four walls for a second longer. Jonathan's face was terrible;
he took two steps towards her, and Rachel fled.
She quit the house on Lansdown Crescent, and knew it
would be for the last time. She would visit no more; see
Jonathan no more. Who is he, in truth? The man I thought I
knew, or the man Starling knows? She hurried down the steps
and turned west along the crescent, away from the city
centre. She wanted to quit Bath too, she realised then. She
wanted to quit Richard, and her home, and everything she
had found out since her arrival. I want none of it. I am alone;
so let me be alone. Rachel began to cry again; the ache in her
chest was agonising, and made it hard to breathe. There was a shout behind her.
'Wait!' She turned to see Jonathan following her, shrugging
on a black coat. He was a monochrome creature: pale
skin, dark hair, dark clothes, as though life and pain had
robbed him of colour. He limped more than ever in his haste;
hunching his shoulders and turning his face away from
passers-by.
'Leave me be!' Rachel called back to him. She turned and
carried on walking, past all the mournful buildings with their
streaked stone and watchful, empty windows. She was at the
gate to the high common when Jonathan came up behind her.
He caught her arm as she unlatched the gate.
'Wait, Rachel. Where are you going?'
'Away from here! Away from--' Rachel coughed and
sniffed; her face was wet, chilled.
'Away from me?' he said darkly. 'Do you think ... do
you honestly think I killed her?'
'Didn't you?' she cried. 'Wouldn't you have killed me,
twice over, if Starling hadn't stopped you one time, and I
hadn't dodged you the other?' She twisted her arm and he let
it go. Rapid thoughts shifted behind his eyes.
'But I loved her,' he murmured, brokenly. 'I loved her.
How, then, could I have harmed her?' Rachel's pulse was
racing, it made her head feel bruised.
'Because of what she told you! Because of what she alludes
to in that letter, and what she then told you when you saw
her - when you came back to Bathampton all mad and
undone!' she said. 'Can you claim to remember differently?'
'I . . . I . . .' He shook his head. Rachel felt the last pieces
of hope crumbling down around her feet, till there was
nothing left.
'I told Starling that she must have loved another, that that
would be the only reason you might have to harm her, but I
was wrong, wasn't I? She was innocent all along. She was
innocent.' Jonathan said nothing, but he nodded. 'You said to
me once that you had killed innocents,' Rachel said softly,
full of dread. 'You said you had done things that would send me screaming from 
the room. You said you'd tried to make it
right, but nothing would.' Still Jonathan only stared, and
stayed silent. Rachel could hardly find the breath to speak;
there seemed no air to breathe. 'You've killed innocents,' she
said again.
'Yes!' he said.
'Do not flinch from the memory of it -- what right have
you to do that? Look at it, and tell me what you see!'
'I can't.'
'You must1. It's there, in the ... in the dark spaces in your
thoughts - I know it. Did you kill her?' Rachel shouted.
Jonathan would not look at her. His eyes were fixed on the
shifting fog, searching. 'Didyou kill her?' Rachel said again.
Gradually, a change came over Jonathan. His eyes grew
wider and lost their focus, so flooded with guilt and horror it
looked like it would drown him. He took a slow, shuddering
breath. 'Did you?' Rachel demanded. 'Didyou murder her?' The words rang between 
them.
'Yes,' he breathed then, the word like a poison, killing all
it touched. A sob punched through Rachel's chest and made
her wail.
'Oh, God, how could you? I did not believe it! I believed
she lived! I believed I ... I defended you! When all this time
Starling has denounced you, I argued against it, but she was right It was all 
black lies, and you are the blackest of all! How
could you?' She slapped his face; a feeble blow, puny compared
to the pain she was feeling, but it seemed to rouse him. He grasped at her 
hands, and she fought him off.
'Wait, Rachel, I--'
'No! Let me go!' She wrenched herself free and fled
rough the gate, up onto the waiting white expanse of the
mmon.
She slipped and struggled up the hill, wanting nothing but to be away from him, 
away from all of them and everything the knew. The grass was as icy and white 
as the air, sliding
beneath her feet. Her breath came in uneven gulps, and she
was half blinded by tears. So I have nothing, only a husband
who grows to hate me, as I hate him. The grief she felt was like
losing her father and mother again; like losing Christopher.
She remembered the cool, unnatural feel of her little brother's
cheek on her lips, as she'd kissed him in his casket. It was
excruciating. Abigail! She reached out for the echo in her
mind and it was there, weaker, fainter, but there. Her shade
then, only ever her shade. A memory, nothing more; or just my
own mind seeking to comfort itself. When she had no more
breath to run she halted, bending forwards, body heaving.
'Rachel, wait!' She heard his shout, not far away, and it
sent a jolt right through her. He is coming after me. She
twisted around, unable to tell which direction his voice had
come from. Nothing was visible in the mist but the uneven
ground, and to her left, a stand of black, tangled hawthorn
trees at the bottom of a steep dell in the hillside. Fighting for
breath, Rachel gathered up her skirts and continued to climb
the hill. Her head was throbbing. There is indeed no fairness;
no kindnesses. He did not lie about that. 'Rachel, come back!'
His voice sounded closer yet, as if he was hard on her heels,
and Rachel sobbed in panic as she toiled onwards.
She had reached a point where the land seemed to flatten
when she could go on no further. She sat down on the frosty
grass, laid her head on her knees, and let her lungs fill and
empty like bellows. Within minutes she felt the sweat on
the back of her neck and along her spine begin to cool, and
then chill; she felt damp creeping in through her skirts. For
a long while, she felt nothing else. She thought she heard
another shout, perhaps from Jonathan. But it was wordless,
and seemed a long way away, so she paid it no mind. What
matter if he comes and kills me this time, anyway? The only
person who might care was Duncan Weekes. Perhaps Starling would care? Perhaps 
not. She will never see Alice's letter, not
now I have given it to Jonathan. And she's searched for it for so
long. Rachel shut her eyes and tried to think of nothing. Into
the empty space came a memory of the By Brook, bright and
glorious in summer light. Abi's small body bumping against
hers, fighting for space at the carriage window; pale, pale
hair, finer than spun silk; a lavender-blue dress; her mother's
face, full of happiness for the last time. After that day there
would always be a shadow behind Anne Crofton's eyes, all
the deeper once Christopher also died. Rachel heard the
frightened shout, saw the flash of distant blue in the lively
water, rushing away, so quickly. She stopped herself, frowning.
She pushed the thoughts back, concentrated hard on the
memory of that small body next to hers; the blue dress, the
pale hair. Abi. How can I do without you, dearest?
She drifted for a while, beset by sparkling glimpses of
memory, and stinging shards of pain. When she opened her
eyes it was because shivers were wracking her body, her
every muscle cramping with cold. The light was failing, the
grey all around deepening by the minute; she could see
nothing around her, not even her own shadow, and a new
fear gripped her. What madness was on me, to run out here,
away from help? She stood up and spun in a circle, desperately
searching for something familiar, some landmark or path to
lead her back towards Bath. All she had were her own
footprints, crushed into the frost; not easily visible but there
for the following. She'd taken two steps with her eyes fixed
Upon them when she realised that Jonathan might also be
following them, coming up behind her; slower on his lame
leg, but still coming. How long did I rest? Does he still follow? On legs weak 
with fatigue, she turned to traverse the hill, the
ground sloping treacherously under her feet. She meant to
make her way down on a route parallel to that she'd previously
taken, just in case Jonathan was still behind her. The
arkness deepened with every second that passed; her eyes
blurred with the strain of seeing. At one point her ankle
crumpled sideways, twisting painfully and making her cry
out. must get back to the city. The thought of being lost on
the common at night was terrifying. He cannot see me, at
least. She felt a deeper chill at this thought. And neither can
anybody else.
A pair of partridge erupted up from near her feet and she
yelped in fright, pulling up short and holding her breath to
listen. There was no other sound. The silence seemed to
crowd in around her, amplifying the racket of her blood as it
sang in her ears. Pointlessly, she turned about, gazing blindly
into the gathering dark. Downwards. It is the only option, the
only way back to safety. The safety of my home, she thought,
bitterly. Then, with a jolt of relief, she saw the deep dell
she'd skirted on the way up -- that steep, rounded bowl in the
earth with stunted, straggling trees knotted at the bottom.
She was hurrying past it when something caught her eye. A
colour, when all else was white or grey or black. Cautiously,
she went closer to the edge, straining her eyes to see. And
then she did see. A crumpled black shape, at the bottom by
the hawthorn trees; twisted and lying at odd angles. Jonathan. He had fallen 
down the slope and lay with bright red droplets
scattered around his head like the spent petals of some
macabre flower; as still and silent as ice. Rachel fell to her
knees; skeins of suffocating dread rose up and wrapped
around her.



'What are you doing here?' said Starling, made stupid and
slow by amazement. Her breath plumed in front of her face;
there was a stink of unwashed skin and alcohol.
'What am I doing here? This is my place.' Dick Weekes swaved drunkenly as he 
took a messy swig from a bottle of
brandy. Starling edged back until she felt the leathery touch
of willow branches on her shoulders.
'Your place?' She shook her head. 'This is Alice's place;
Alice's and Jonathan's.' She glanced at their initials on the
tree and saw that the carving had been obliterated; gouged
out by a mass of angry knife marks.
'I come here sometimes. Lately, a great deal. I come to
visit her ghost, and see if she forgives me yet.' Dick smiled
Wearily, but there was no mirth in his eyes, only misery.
'Whose ghost? What are you doing here?' Starling
couldn't make sense of the scene: Dick Weekes in Alice's
secret place.
'Alice's of course, you bloody halfwit!' he snapped, sitting
back down on the root. He sank his head into his hands,
elbows on his knees, and Starling stared at him.
'You knew Alice? But you . . . you didn't know her! How
could you know her? All this time I've known you, you've
never said . . .'
'All this time.' He chuckled then, a nasty sound; looked up
at her with savage eyes. 'All those times you straddled me,
and slid yourself down my shaft to the baubles, you were
doing the goat's jig with the man who killed your precious
Alice Beckwith. Is that not a neat folly?' He waved the
brandy bottle aloft as if to make a toast. Starling stared; mute,
Itunned. 'And she was meant to make it better. That other
one, the one I married,' he mumbled. 'She was meant to love
le and forgive me, and make it better.'
'It was you Bridget saw on the bridge, talking to Alice that The. It was you 
she went out to meet; who wrote her a note
d left it here at the tree . . .'
'We were seen? I tried to avoid that. But by God, she was
stubborn wench! She would not love me.'
'What did . . . why . . .' Starling shook her head. She
clasped at her stomach, suddenly feeling like she would
vomit.
'I was to woo her. I was to lure her away. I was to tempt
her into loving me, and disgracing herself. I was to make
Jonathan Alleyn discard her.'
'By who? By who were you sent to do these things?'
'By his lady mother, of course. By Josephine Alleyn,
another one who did not love me.' He took another swig,
his voice heavy with self-pity, slurring from his drink
thickened tongue. 'With my glorious face, she said, I could
not fail. With my glorious face.'
With a bump, Starling sat down in the mud. Her muscles
were unresponsive; she struggled to take in what Dick was
saying.
'After Alice went to Box, after she went to Lord
Faukes . . . When she recovered . . . she was quiet and
secretive. She was sad . . . she wrote letters, but no letters
came back.'
'Her letters were not sent. Not a one. All were intercepted
and carried back to his lordship. I was to make her ruin
herself and abandon Mr Alleyn before he returned from
overseas. She was to tell him nothing, and do nothing to
hasten his return.'
'One letter was sent,' Starling said woodenly.
It went on a February day not long before Alice's death,
when the sky was a threatening mass of cloud, and there were
tiny flecks of rain on the breeze. In those days Alice still went
out alone, and at strange times, but rarely with Starling or
Bridget. She was keeping a secret, Starling knew - possibly
more than one; the kind of secret that gradually, inexorably,
wore a person away. Her eyes looked bruised all the time,
and she never smiled. Even at Christmas, which Alice loved,
she'd been sombre and sad, picking at the roast goose on her plate and offering 
no opinion on the decorations.
'Won't you tell me, Alice? Won't you tell me why you
can't marry Jonathan?' Starling whispered, lying nose to nose
in bed one night. She pulled the blankets up over their heads,
so that Alice would feel safe and Bridget would not hear.
'I cannot.'
'Then promise not to leave me!'
'I have already . . .'
'Promise it again!'
'I promise--' Alice broke off, and hesitated. 'I promise not
to leave you, Starling,' she finished. But somehow this
promise, extracted in darkness, did nothing to reassure Starling.
She knew that change was coming, she just could not
tell the shape of it.
Since the lovers' tree Starling was determined to prove
steadfast and true to her sister, so she didn't keep cajoling her
to speak, but only tried to cheer her. She fell back on that
childish recourse of pretending all was well in hopes of
making it so; begging Alice to read with her, to teach her
poems, to go with her on walks and errands -- all without
success, until that cloudy day, when at last she agreed to go
out. They went into the village, and Starling noticed Alice
staring into the faces they saw, as if calculating, or searching
for something. On the way back Starling waved and called
out to a familiar barge travelling west, and Alice grabbed at
her arm.
'Do you know that man?' she said, as they stepped back to
allow the plodding horse to pass.
'Yes, that's Dan Smithers,' said Starling.
'Would he do a small favour, if you asked him? Is he an
honest man?'
'I think he would. I think he is.'
'Then bid him take this letter for me, and send it on from
Bath,' said Alice, urgently, pressing the folded paper into her
hand.
Starling ran on a few paces, and called out.
'Mr Smithers! Will you carry this letter to Bath for us, and
send it on?'
'What'll you pay me, bantling?' Dan called back, taking
his pipe out from between his teeth.
'I have a farthing . . . and I can sing you a song, if you
like?' At this the bargeman laughed and moved to the edge of
the deck, reaching out to take the letter.
'Keep your farthing, girl. Only a goosecap would cast
chink over water.' He tucked Alice's letter into his shirt and
drifted on his steady way.
"Will he do it?' said Alice, watching the bargeman's retreating
back with a strange, hungry look in her eyes. 'Will
he send it?'
'Of course.' Starling shrugged. Alice sighed then, and the
hand that held Starling's squeezed it tight, as if for courage.
'Then we shall soon see,' she said; words as desperate and
hopeless as a faithless prayer.

'Jonathan Alleyn got that letter - it was that which brought
him rushing back here, from Brighton,' said Starling. The
frosty ground she sat on was eating into her flesh, but she
could hardly feel it.
'Well, it made no difference,' said Dick.
'It did to him. It did to Mr Alleyn.'
'It made no difference to Miss Beckwith.'
'Why did you kill her? Why? She was good . . . only ever
good! She was my sister.' Starling could hardly speak for the
grief crushing her.
'I never meant to! Do you think I meant to?' Dick erupted
to his feet. The brandy bottle flew from his hand and landed
in front of Starling, the last drops splattering out. 'Do you think I meant to? 
1 did not. I . . . she was kind, like you said.
I wanted her to love me.' He laughed again, high-pitched and
strange.
'You're mad.'
'I was meant to make her love me, and the bitch made me want her to! How's that 
for a twist of fate.' He lurched to one
side and retched violently, sending a spew of rancid brandy
onto the riverbank. 'But by God, she was stubborn.' He
coughed, spat, wiped his chin on his hand.
'She wouldn't betray him. She wouldn't betray Jonathan
Alleyn.'
'Clung to thoughts of that Hopping Giles like a nun to
Christ's bloody cross. She only agreed to meet me because I
swore I would open my own veins if she refused. She tried to
talk me out of it - out of all the devotion and unending love I
professed, as ardently as any bleeding poet. She sat patiently
and listened to me harp on, and then told me sweetly that it
could not be; that her heart belonged to another for all of
time, even if they could not marry. When I said I would
drown myself in the river if she didn't consent to an elopement
she just gave me a look, all grave and sedate, and said
"Do not, sir, I beg you. Only try to forget me, and find
another to love."' He strained his voice into a grotesque
parody of Alice's.
'She was true to him,' Starling whispered. 'When she
would not betray, did Mrs Alleyn bid you kill her?'
'No! Not . . . not baldly put, not like that. I knew she
esired it, though. But I never meant to. I only . . . thought
frighten her. To scare her into obeying me, and accepting me. . .'
'To scare her into loving you? You're a pitiful fool, Dick
eekes.'
'And you were my whore, Starling,' he sneered at her.
'What did you do to her?'
'I only struck her. Just a blow, to that pretty face. I shook
her a little first, and made threats . . . She said if I loved her I
would let her be, so I gave her a blow across the chops, and
she fell down, and . . . and ... it wasn't enough to kill her! It
wasn't enough for that! But she was pale as death itself, lying
there on the ground, and she gasped like a landed fish. The
only colour she had was the blood on her teeth. I thought she
was playing me for a fool ... I thought she was feigning
injury. But then she . . . she stopped gasping.' He shook his
head as if bewildered. 'Dear God but I've seen her gasping
like that, and those red teeth, in a thousand dreams since
then.' He shuddered. 'But it wasn't enough to kill her ... it
wasn't! I've hit enough women to know what force to use.'
'You dog.' Starling could hardly speak. Her body was
shaking so hard her teeth rattled in her skull. 'You dogl Her
heart was fragile ... it could not stand a shock, or too much
agitation.'
'It wasn't my fault. She wasn't supposed to die.'
'Where?' The word was a barely unintelligible moan. 'Where?' Starling tried 
again.
'Here. Just here. She lay where you lie now, more or less,'
he said woodenly. He shook his head again, and tears bloated
his eyes. For some reason, the sight of them made Starling
angrier than she'd ever been in her life.
'No, where is she now}'
Slowly, unsteadily, Starling got to her knees, and then to
her feet. She curled her hands into fists, though it seemed to
take every last bit of her strength. Dick ignored her, still
staring at the spot on the ground where Starling had sat
down. He tottered; staggered to keep his feet.
'At least, I thought, Mrs Alleyn would love me for it.
What better way to get the girl out from under her feet? But
none of it.' He stooped to pick up the brandy bottle, nearly
pitching forwards as he did; peered into it and then cast it into the water 
with a feeble overarm throw when he found it
empty. 'This is my place,' he mumbled. 'We were dismissed
soon after. Father, and me along with him. I'd made myself a
murderer at the age of eighteen, for her, but she didn't even
want to see me after. Didn't even let me kiss her any more, or
touch her breasts like before. She'd made me think . . . she'd
made me think I could have all of her, if I did as she asked.
She made me think that.'
'All this time ... all this time . . . Where is she now, you
bastardly gullion?' Starling shouted, finding a storm of rage
to give her strength. With a snarl she flew at him, clawing at
his eyes with their lying tears. Befuddled and slow, Dick
fought her off, clumsily trying to grab at her hands and strike
her at the same time.
'All this time you've been plaguing Jonathan Alleyn, and
for naught, Starling! For naughd I can't say that hasn't
cheered me, from time to time.' He grinned at her then, a
cruel and sickly expression.
'Bastard!' Starling screamed, and with all her strength she
shoved him in the chest, wanting nothing more than for him
to vanish; to be no more. Dick reeled backwards, caught his
heel on a root and launched full length into the river.
The splash was a huge white plume in the gathering dark;
the sound seemed impossibly loud. Starling stood on the
bank, chest heaving, and watched as Dick surfaced, coughing
and spitting and shaking the water from his eyes. The water
wasn't deep enough to drown him. More's the pity. But I
thould run. I should run before he climbs out. But Starling was
rooted to the spot. Dick stood, and the black water was at his
chest; he seemed to have trouble breathing.
'I'll choke the bloody life from you, you bitch!' he said,
fcut his voice sounded thick and peculiar, and as he began to
wade towards the bank his movements were jerky and slow; like it was deep snow 
he strode through instead of water.
'Where is she now? What did you do with her?' said
Starling. Dick didn't reply. His attention seemed to have
turned inwards, to his own body. Spasms juddered through
him; he scowled in confusion.
'Cold,' he muttered, through chattering teeth. 'It's too
cold. My legs . . . cramp has my legs . . .' He stumbled then,
and the water closed over his head again. 'Starling, help me!'
he called when he surfaced, panic creeping into his voice. 'I
haven't the strength!'
'Seems to me a man in the prime of life, who knows just
how much force to use when he hits a woman, should have
no trouble climbing a riverbank,' said Starling, icily. 'Unless
he's drunk himself weaker than a kitten, of course.' She
stared down at Dick, not moving, not blinking.
'Help me!'
'I will not.' Dick's face had gone as white as the fog; his
breath came in snatches, hissing out between locked jaws. He
made for the bank again and this time reached it, his fingers
snapping the thin ice where water met earth. He scrabbled at
the bank, found a root and curled his fingers around it, but
when he pulled at it his grip slithered free. He stared at his
hands as if he no longer owned them.
'Starling, help me. Please. Pull me up, for I cannot do it. I
cannot.' His legs rose in the water behind him, floating of
their own volition. He craned his head back to keep his face
clear of the surface. His puffing breath made little scuffs on
the water.
'Tell me where she rests.' Starling gazed down at him,
feeling calm now, feeling safe.
'If you help me out, I will tell you. I swear it,' he said. The
current had Dick's legs, pulling, turning his feet towards
Bath. His eyes bulged in fear and he flapped at the root with
hands that would no longer flex. 'Pull me out! Pull me out
and I will show you the exact spot! Else you will never know,
Starlingl You will never know!'
'No, tell me now!' There are only seconds. The current had
edged Dick away from the bank. He stared at the root that
might save him, splashed and paddled to no effect.
'St-Starling, please,' he croaked. In seconds he will be out of
reach. Starling glanced around for a fallen branch with which
she might hook him, but saw none. She took a step closer to
the edge, closer to him, and hesitated, frowning in indecision.



Captain and Harriet Sutton were at table when Rachel was let
into the hall by their elderly servant. She could no longer feel
her hands or feet, or her heart. Her head was ringing and she
couldn't marshal her thoughts, or pick any one free of the
tangled whole. Harriet came rushing out to her, alarmed, still
swallowing a mouthful of food; her husband the captain was
not far behind her, keeping a more tactful distance; and
behind him Cassandra peeked out, keeping to the safety of
her father's shadow.
'My dear, whatever has happened? You look terribly pale
-- come and sit by the fire, your hands are like ice,' said
Harriet, as she took Rachel through to the parlour.
'Something terrible ... I am so sorry.' Rachel sat down,
unsure what to say now that she was given the chance. The
parlier events on the common had an unreal caste in her
memory, as if they could not really have unfurled that way. 'I
so sorry to intrude upon you like this, Mrs Sutton,' she
anaged to whisper. 'It's only that I ... I wasn't sure where
se to go.'
'But, has something happened at home, my dear? Has
mething happened to Mr Weekes?'
'At home? No.' Rachel shook her head. 'No, it is Mr
lleyn.'
'Jonathan Alleyn?' The captain broke in, brusquely,
hat has happened to him?'
'He is . . .' Rachel swallowed; her throat was dry and
tight. 'He ... I think he is dead.'
'What?' Harriet breathed. Rachel grasped at her friend's
hands when it seemed she might pull them away.
'He killed Alice Beckwith! I never thought so . . . not
truly . . .'
There was a hung moment; Captain Sutton was the first to
break it.
'Cassie, you are for Bedfordshire. Maggie,' he called over
his shoulder to their servant. 'Take this young lady up to
bed, if you would.'
'But Papa, what about the butterscotch syllabub?' Cassandra
protested gently. Rachel looked up at the sound of her
voice, and found the little girl's dark, liquid eyes regarding
her with curiosity and a touch of fear. I must sound like a mad
woman.
'You may take a dish upstairs with you. Go on now, be
gone.' Obediently, Cassandra turned and left them, her long
hair swaying behind her. Captain Sutton came further into
the room and closed the door behind him. 'He killed Miss
Beckwith? Are you certain of this?' His tone was heavy with
something like dread.
'He confessed it to me! He said ... he said . . .' Rachel
struggled to remember his exact words. 'We were speaking
of Alice -- I'd given him back her last letter, you see. And
he was . . . most upset by it ... He fell . . .' Rachel shut
her eyes, because suddenly her head was lanced with pain.
'We were up on the high common and he . . . slipped, and
fell into a deep hollow. I think he must have hit his head.
Harriet. . . there was so much blood!'
'But you don't know if he lives? How is this? Did you not
stay to find out?' Harriet was no longer holding Rachel's
hands but gripping them, so tightly that Rachel felt her finger bones grind 
together.
'I . . . I'd been running from him. In the fog . . . Harriet,
I . . . was frightened! He was so angry, and disordered ... I
thought he might do me harm, if I were to face him. After he
fell, I found my way back down from the hill, and I sent the
first men I encountered up to where Mr Alleyn was, to fetch
him down. And . . . then I came here.'
Suddenly, Harriet Sutton released Rachel's hands and put
her own to her mouth, her eyes stretching wide. Her husband
took a step forward and put his hand on her shoulder to
steady her.
'He was trying to fetch you back, on rough ground, in
frozen weather and at sunset . . . you led him up there and
left him struggling after you - a man made lame by battle? He will freeze, if 
nothing else!' said Captain Sutton, with
quiet intensity.
'What? No . . . I . . . that wasn't the way of it, truly! I never meant for him 
to follow. I didn't even mean to go up onto the common. I only . . . fled, and 
did not think, until I i was there. But. . . but, he is a killer! Don't you 
believe me?' 'I will send for news at once,' said the captain, leaving the room 
for a moment.
'Of course you did not mean to endanger him,' said Igrriet, soothingly. When 
her husband returned, the two of em shared a long look. 'But he did say that he 
killed Alice kwith? Did he say those words?' Harriet asked, softly, e blinked, 
and tears streaked down her face; she turned to
husband again. 'Oh, my dear, what if he is dead? Poor Alleyn!'
'I don't understand.' Rachel looked in bewilderment from friend to the captain 
and back again. The Suttons seemed
Communicate in silence for a moment, and then Harriet i a tiny nod.
'We must tell her, my dear,' she whispered, and the n looked down at his feet 
with a frown.
'Tell me what?' said Rachel. Captain Sutton let out a pent
breath in a rush, his shoulders sagging in defeat.
'Mr Alleyn did kill a woman, Mrs Weekes. But it was not
Alice Beckwith. It was Cassandra's mother.'
Rachel frowned, still not understanding.
'Cassandra? Your daughter, Cassandra? What can you
mean, Mr Alleyn killed her mother?'
'Her real mother, Mrs Weekes,' said Harriet, softly. 'For it
had become clear, a long time before he brought her to us,
that my husband and I would not be blessed with children of
our own.'
'Cassandra is another woman's child? But . . . whose?
Who was she? Why would Jonathan kill her?'
'I will tell you,' said the captain. 'But I must beg you, Mrs
Weekes. I must beg you to divulge none of this to anybody,
not even to your husband, though I am loath to introduce
secrets into a marriage.'
'Fear not.' Rachel's voice was leaden. 'We have many
already.'
'Nobody but my wife and I and Jonathan Alleyn know
this truth. Not even Mr Alleyn's good lady mother.'
'I will speak of it to no one.'
'Then you have my thanks, for that if for little else.' The
captain sank into a chair opposite the two women; hands on
his knees, suddenly like a small boy. 'It happened at Badajoz.
After the siege, and the . . . madness that followed it.'
'Badajoz?' The name rang in Rachel's memory. "I have
heard of it. Jonathan . . . that is, Mr Alleyn, spoke of it once.
Is that not where his leg was injured? The last battle he
fought, before he was forced to come home?'
'Indeed. I'm surprised to hear he spoke of it. Most of us
who were there would prefer to forget it, I think. It was a
massacre. A massacre the likes of which I had never seen
before, nor ever have since - for which I am profoundly
grateful. I will not describe it in detail. Not to ladies.' The
captain broke off and cleared his throat, though it sounded
dry and clear. Rachel saw a measure of the same tension
around the man's eyes as when she'd coaxed Jonathan to
speak of the war. 'We paid most heavily for our entry to the
city, and . . . when it was taken . . .' He paused, his jaw
closing with an audible click of his teeth. 'When the city was
taken, there was a mutiny of sorts. Looting and . . . violence,
towards the defeated soldiers and the city's residents both. It
was indiscriminate and it was . . . hellish. It was like hell.'
'My dear, enough. Do not speak on if it pains you,' said
Harriet.
'Major Alleyn kept his head, though his leg was severely
wounded by then, and he made me keep mine. We went into
a church to . . .' He nicked a troubled glance at his wife. 'To
prevent a desecration. There was a struggle, a fight. I left in
pursuit of some of our own men, far the worse for wine. And
then, some minutes later Major Alleyn came out, carrying a
newborn infant.'
'Our Cassandra,' said Harriet, with a tiny smile. She
looked at Rachel and took her hand again. 'He saved her. In
the midst of all that.' Captain Sutton nodded.
'I never asked what had gone on within. Major Alleyn was
doused in blood, not all his own. He was beside himself. He
said, over and over, that he had killed her. He had killed her.'
Captain Sutton laced his fingers together, squeezing so
hard that the skin blanched. 'I glanced in and wished I had
not. But a woman who must have been the child's mother
was inside, amongst the dead. Major Alleyn would not let go of the babe. He 
cradled her like she was his own. But of
Course a soldier can't keep a child at war. I suggested we find
lome Spanish woman to take her, but he would not hear of it.
He told me that the country was cursed, and that if he left her
there she would surely die. And he was probably right. Then
he remembered my own dear wife, and our sad state of
childlessness.'
'And he brought her back with him when he came. To
give to you,' said Rachel. Her voice sounded strange to her
own ears. After Badajo I did a kind thing . . . so Jonathan
said, one time.
'Yes.'
'He said to me ... he said to me that he'd tried to make it
right. That the last thing he'd done in the war had been a
good thing, but that it could not make right what had gone
before. He was speaking of this. Of the murder of one innocent,
and the saving of another,' she said.
'Yes, he must have been,' said Harriet. The captain stood
and paced the hearthrug.
'You cannot call it murder. Not with Major Alleyn. He
was trying to restore order in the men! He was trying to
prevent their bestial behaviour . . . If indeed he killed her, he
surely cannot have intended to.'
'We have never asked him. And now I fear we never
shall,' Harriet murmured.
'But . . . but we were speaking of Alice, when he told me
he had killed her! We weren't speaking of the war, we were
speaking of Alice . . .'
'Cassandra's mother haunts him constantly. That much I
know. She and the war are with him always,' said Captain
Sutton. 'But perhaps now he is at peace,' he added, in a hard
voice that hit Rachel like a blow.
A long and steady silence fell. The fire seethed gently, and
from upstairs came the muffled sound of footsteps -- the light,
rapid patter of Cassandra's feet; the more stately tread of the servant. Rachel 
tried to think back over everything Jonathan
had said to her about Alice, and about the war; everything
Starling had told her about him, and about her lost sister. She
tried with little success to make order of it all, and with more
success to maintain her belief in Jonathan's guilt. She had to
still believe it, because the alternative was unthinkable. Have
I believed the worst of him? Have I caused the death of an
innocent man?
'But he is a killer,' she said, almost to herself. Harriet let
go of her hand.
'He is a good man. He saved an innocent life when all
around was chaos and death. He gave us the greatest gift a
person could give,' she said passionately.
'And if he did kill Alice, what then? He does not remember
that day,' said Rachel. 'Does saving Cassandra excuse
him of that? Even he did not think so - he told me so
himself!'
'If he harmed Miss Beckwith . . .' Harriet trailed off, and
looked at her husband. 'If he did, then no. Nothing absolves
him of that.'
'Except death, perhaps, for then the Lord will be his judge.
By your actions we may never know the truth. I for one will
not believe it. Not ever. But then, I have fought alongside
him. He is my blade brother, and so I know him better than
either of you.' Captain Sutton spoke in stony tones, then rose
and left the room without looking at Rachel or excusing
himself.
Harriet Sutton invited Rachel to stay longer, and take a
bed for the night. She didn't ask why Rachel was reluctant to
return to Abbeygate Street - she didn't seem to need to. But
when Rachel refused the offer Harriet didn't press her, and
Rachel saw relief in her eyes. She couldn't blame her friend,
though it hurt nonetheless. She had broken into their family,
and made a breach through which all they held dear might be
threatened. will tell no one. Slowly, she walked towards
Abbeygate Street, along dark streets like tunnels through her
caved-in world. She would have to confront Richard, and tell
him what had happened that day; and he would beat her for
her association with Starling, and for prying into the Alleyns'
lives, and for accusing Jonathan and then leaving him lying
on the frosty ground, surrounded by blood. For doing anything
to upset Josephine Alleyn, whom he loved dear. Loves dear?
Was I mistaken? Didn't Jonathan tell me he killed Alice? She. stopped on the 
cobbles of Abbey Green, where the fallen
plane tree leaves had been rained and rotted into a slimy
mulch in the gutters. Torch flares in the darkness flung
dizzying lines across her vision, and suddenly the strain of
thinking was utterly debilitating. She wanted nothing more
than to lie down where she stood and let it all carry on
without her. Did I lead him to his death? She stumbled on, and
as she turned the corner into Abbeygate Street she saw a
figure huddled on the steps of the wine shop.
Rachel paused, thinking from the way the figure hunched,
leaning on the railings, that it was her husband or her fatherin-law,
far gone in drink. But the person was too small to be
either of them, and as she approached she recognised Starling,
curled with her arms around her knees, shivering under
her shawl.
'Starling, what are you doing here? If my husband sees
you he will thrash us both.' Rachel glanced up at the windows
in alarm, and relaxed a little when she saw them unlit.
Starling raised a pale face to her.
'Neither one of us needs worry about that any more,' she
said.
'What do you mean? Wherever he is, he could be back
any moment. . . it's late.' As she spoke, Rachel realised that
she had no idea of the hour. The afternoon and evening had
blurred nonsensically. She shook her head in confusion.
'I'm telling you, you don't need to worry about him any
more,' said Starling, more firmly. She stared up at Rachel
with her hard eyes, and Rachel's stomach lurched.
'Oh, mercy . . . what have you done?' she whispered.
The? Nothing at all. The fool fell into the river. He was
drunk, as usual.'
'He fell? How do you know this?'
'I happened to be passing. It... it was at the lovers' tree.'
'At Bathampton? I don't understand . . . why was he at
Bathampton? Why were you?' Starling stood up stiffly.
'Can we go inside? I will tell you everything, but I can't
stand this cold any longer.'
'Mr Weekes might return, and find us---'
'He won't.'
Rachel opened the door and led her inside. Starling went
straight to the stove, and the squeal of protesting metal as she
opened the hatch was piercing. She reached for kindling and
coals from the bucket, and blew on the old embers to relight
them. Her hands knew exactly where to go for these things,
and for the andirons, and Rachel realised that this wasn't the
first time Starling had been in her home. In light of all that
had happened she found she did not care one whit. She knelt
down beside Starling as the coals began to glow, and the pair
of them stayed that way, warming their hands in silence a
while. When Rachel glanced across at the red-haired girl, she
saw that her gaze was fixed, unfocused, far away.
'I . . . you were right,' said Rachel, shakily. 'You were
right about Jonathan Alleyn. He killed Alice, and now . . .
and now I think he is dead. He . . . What has really happened
to my husband?' Slowly, Starling's face turned to her, and the
coals glowed in her wide eyes with their peculiar, lost
'expression.
'It was your husband that killed Alice. I had it from his
wn lips,' she said.
Rachel could only stare at her, dumbly, as the full story of
'hat had happened at the lovers' tree came out; she was glad
e was on her knees already so she couldn't fall down.
'Josephine Alleyn said to me . . .' Rachel's voice was
small, shrunken in astonishment. 'She said to me that my
husband had shown her great loyalty. It was this then. Don't
you think? She meant this pretend wooing of Alice; this
being rid of her.'
'Yes. I think so.' Starling still stared, and never blinked.
'Do you see, Mrs Weekes? Do you see what they've done to
me? The very people I've served, and lived beside, and
loved . . . these very people were the self-same that took
her from me. My sister. Do you see?' she said, and Rachel
knew she meant the cruelty of it, the injustice. She nodded. 'I
have been tricked. I have been so wrong,' said Starling.
'We have both been wrong, about a great many things.'
Rachel paused, swallowing hard. 'Jonathan Alleyn had
nothing to do with it at all,' she said numbly. Behind
the numbness a grief was building, swelling up like a black
bubble.
'Nothing. He loved her and never harmed her, and these
past nine years since he came back from Spain I have done all
I could to torment him, and make him suffer! I have cursed
him every way I know how!' Starling's chest shook so that
her words were uneven. 'But he said it ... I heard him say
he'd killed her ... he said her blood was on his hands . . .'
'But by her he did not mean Alice,' Rachel murmured.
Starling's expression showed her confusion, but just then
Rachel remembered something that hit her hard. 'Oh! When
we met. . . when I met Richard Weekes for the first time, he
reacted most viscerally. I ... I thought it was lovel He told
me it was love, and I took his reaction as proof of it. But it
was recognition. He saw Alice! Just as you did; just as Mrs
Alleyn and Jonathan did.'
'Just so.' Starling nodded. 'I knew he started out in Lord
Faukes's service; I had no idea he ever met Alice, or even knew of her 
existence. He said her face has haunted him - his
guilt, is more like it. He said he hoped to make amends
by . . .'
'By marrying me?' Rachel whispered. Starling nodded.
'But I don't understand . . . don't understand why Mrs
Alleyn went to such lengths to be rid of her! Wasn't it
enough to send her off knowing that they would never
consent to the marriage?' Starling went on.
'No, it was not enough.' Why didn't I see it? Why didn't I
see that if Alice's origins gave Jonathan a cause to harm her, they
gave his mother an even greater one? 'She was his aunt, and his
sister both. She was an abomination, through no fault of her
own,' said Rachel, with a bitter feeling. Starling only stared,
her mouth falling open, as Rachel took her turn and told her
everything that had happened that day since she'd read the
letter that the Suttons had long hidden.
Starling turned and stared into the burning coals again.
'Perhaps I should pity her then,' she said eventually.
'Perhaps I should pity Josephine Alleyn, to have had that
monstrous buck fitch as her father, and suffered his attentions
nonetheless . . . But I can't pity her. I can't, if she took it out
on Alice when it was none of her fault. And if Alice was her
own daughter . . . How could she?'
'For the honour of her family name,' Rachel said.
'Honour? What honour had she left?' Starling replied,
bitterly.
'Precious little, indeed. Little enough to make the remainder
all the more valuable, and to make her guard it like
jewels, and do anything she could to keep word of what Alice
had found out from ever reaching Jonathan's ears. Bad
enough that Alice should tell him she was Lord Faukes's
issue; worse beyond tolerance that she should learn the full
truth from Duncan Weekes, and share that too.'
'Then that old man killed her, as surely as his son did.'
Starling's face clouded in thought. 'But Josephine can't have
known, can she -- what old Weekes told Alice that day?'
'Duncan Weekes meant her no harm,' said Rachel, firmly.
'Alice . . . Alice must have written of it. In all those letters
that were intercepted, and carried to Box instead. If Lord
Faukes read them, then to be sure, Josephine Alleyn would
have learnt of their contents.'
'I have served her ever since Alice was lost. I have served
that woman almost half my days.' Starling drew in a huge,
shuddering breath, and Rachel glanced at her in alarm.
'What will you do?' she said.
'I will finish what you started.'
'What do you mean?'
'You have killed Jonathan Alleyn this day, you say--'
'Not killed. I--'
'And I have rid us of Mr Weekes. That only leaves the one
who was behind it all. Because . . .' Suddenly her face
crumpled in anguish. 'Because if Alice is dead, and Jonathan
too; Dick Weekes . . . And Bridget lies dying . . . then I
have nobody. I will not leave Josephine Alleyn in peace a
second longer.'
'You cannot mean to attack Mrs Alleyn ... or do her
harm?' Rachel was shocked.
'Harm? I had not thought to harm her. But then, why
should I not?'
'Because . . . your own life will be forfeit if you do!'
'I ... I don't care.' Starling got to her feet, her hands
clenched into fists, resolution on her face. Rachel scrambled
up beside her.
'You must care! You must not attack her! Promise me!'
Rachel cried.
'Why? Haven't you heard your own words this past hour?
Why should you care for her?'
'I do not care for her! 1 care for you.' Rachel grabbed at
Starling's arm to stop her leaving. Starling glared at her
suspiciously.
'What?'
'If. . . if you go and do this, if you harm her and go to the
gallows for it, then . . . then I too will have no one. Do we
not have each other? Am I not your friend?'
Rachel released Starling's arm and let her hand drop to her
side. The cast-iron body of the stove clinked and popped as it
heated. Then Starling broke off her gaze and turned again for
the door.
'Perhaps you are. But I must go, even so,' she said.
'What should I do?' Rachel asked. Starling hesitated,
looking back over her shoulder.
'You can only wait. Not everything that goes into the
river is found. I think that's where Dick put Alice, once
she was dead; like as not she was carried out to sea, all
undetected. Food for fishes and . . . gulls.' She swallowed
convulsively. 'If Dick is found, and recognised, they will
come to tell you. You must seem surprised at the news, and
grief-struck. Can you do that?' she said. Rachel nodded. 'It
will be in the next few days, if it is at all. You can only wait.'
'And then what?'
'Your life is your own, Mrs Weekes.' Starling glanced
around at the room. 'You have a home, and a business to run,
or sell, or seek management for. I'm going now to Lansdown
Crescent.' She gave Rachel one more look, steady and sad. 'I
will send word.'
Starling closed the door behind her, and when the clatter of her footsteps had 
gone from the stairs, Rachel was left ¦alone. She stood for a long time in the 
empty room. My
husband is dead. I am free again. I am nobody again. But then,
he only married me because I reminded him of Alice; I never was
anybody in the first place. She stood until her legs felt wooden, as though the 
blood ran too slowly through them. Then,
because there was little else she could do, she went to bed.
She was exhausted, and sleep dragged her down before she'd
even shut her eyes. Her last waking thought was laden with
guilt and treachery and relief - it was knowing that her sleep
would be undisturbed by Richard's late returning and unwanted
touch. But she dreamt of Jonathan, and the copper
mouse. She dreamt that she was the copper mouse, that it was
a figure of her that he'd made; her every tiny detail rendered
in bright metal with meticulous care. She felt herself cradled
in the palm of his hand, and there felt safe for the first time
since her parents had died. She knew herself loved. Then she
half woke to darkness, and remembered her last sight of
Jonathan, crumpled and bloody on the frosty ground.

Starling had bade her wait, and wait was what Rachel did.
She stayed indoors at first, and when there was a knock at the
door she jumped to her feet, breathless with fear. But there
was no news of Richard; the man who knocked was a client
of his, trying the house when he'd found the shop floor
empty and closed.
'I would have words with your husband, madam, pray
send him out,' said the man. He was claret-faced and well
heeled; all bluster and high dudgeon.
'Mr Weekes is . . . not at home, sir.'
'Then pray tell me where I may find him, for he has much
to answer for. That last cask of sherry he delivered to me was
supposed to be a mellow Lisbon, sweet and well aged -- for
that I tolerated his high prices. Instead it is new, and hot, and
scarce drinkable -- though I can taste the honey with which
he's tried to improve it. . . And the hogshead of rum I had
from him is so well baptised a child might drink it and find it
mild!' The man raised a finger and pointed it steadily at
Rachel's face. 'It will not do, madam -- never let it be said that
I, Cornelius Gibson, will stand to be bilked in this manner! I
mean to call him to account, and you may tell him that,
madam - he will be called to account, and word will spread
that he is a pedlar of balderdash, and no honest man.' With
that, Cornelius Gibson stalked away down the steps, rapping
an ebony walking stick smartly at his side. Rachel shut the
door and leaned against it to catch her breath. When I am his
widow will I be ruined all over again, by his debts and his frauds
and dishonesty?
In the afternoon she went out in search of Duncan
Weekes, but found him not at home, nor at the Moor's
Head, nor at any other inn she passed by. She went home
again to her lonely vigil, but it was not for long. Moments
after she closed the door there came a knocking at it, and
something about its slow, ponderous rhythm gave her a
shiver of prescience. This is no angry customer. They have
found him. Nerves fluttered in her stomach as she opened the
door to a tall, thin man in a brown coat and a greasy black
hat. He had a hooked nose and pinched cheeks, and eyes like
nuggets of coal.
'Mrs Weekes?' His voice was soft and oddly mellow.
Rachel nodded. 'Madam, I am Roger Cadwaller, the wharf
constable. It is my sad duty to report that a corpse was taken
from the river this day, and that some amongst the river
traders have named it Richard Weekes, your husband.' The
thin man spoke without emotion, and paused as if expecting
Rachel to comment or cry out. Then he really is dead. I must Mem surprised, and 
grief-struck.
'He ... he has not come home,' she managed, in a tiny
voice.
'No, madam. And will not, I fear.'
'Where is he?'
'He is with an undertaker, behind Horse Street. Will you
'Come? Why?' Rachel's heart lurched. Do they think I
killed him?
'Aye, madam. You must look upon him, if you can, and
name him your husband so that there can be no doubt it is
he.' The man hadn't blinked since she opened the door.
Rachel couldn't keep her eyes still.
'Very well,' she whispered.
She followed Roger Cadwaller for a few minutes, down
Stall Street and into Horse Street, then off into a tiny alley.
The day was dead and cold; a steady drizzle sifted down from
low clouds. The constable stopped by a set of narrow steps and guided her down 
them, between tall flanking buildings,
to a damp and shadowy courtyard. From there he led her to a
door that hung off-kilter, its black paint peeling and flaking
away. The constable knocked, and they were admitted at
once. must seem surprised, and grief-struck. Rachel put one
hand to her mouth in sudden outrage at her own dispassion.
Her steps faltered, and she threw out her other arm to the
wall for support. Neither Roger Cadwaller nor the wizened
old undertaker who inhabited the place spared more than a
glance at such behaviour. am not surprised. I am not grief
struck. I am horrified. Rachel's stomach and legs felt watery
weak. She absolutely did not want to look at Richard's dead
body, but the two men led her on inexorably. Down more
steps was a vaulted cellar, cold, dimly lit by a single pane
of smeared glass in a high slot of a window. There, on
a wooden table, stripped down to his drawers, lay Richard
Weekes. There was an odd ringing in Rachel's ears, and the
room and everything in it seemed to recede from her. No, it
is I who am receding. She moved unsteadily to stand beside
him.
Richard's hair was matted with river mud and shreds of
weed, but his skin was flawless and pale, unmarked by any
injury. Yet even without a wound on him, there was no
chance of making believe he was still alive. Something about
his stillness, the way he seemed smaller than he once had, the
marble smoothness of his face -- all screamed of lifelessness.
He had no more scent than the stone walls around him.
Rachel knew that if she touched him he would be cool, and
too solid; the flesh gone dense and leaden without the spirit to
buoy it up. The hair on his chest and arms looked too dark,
too wiry. His mouth was closed but his jaw had fallen slack,
robbing him of the firm line his chin normally took; his
eyelids were swollen and purplish. But even so, even lifeless,
his face was beautiful. Rachel stared at it for a long time, and
couldn't tell what she was feeling. You did not love me, but
you did love. You were violent, but you did not mean to kill. You
never forgave your father for the loss of your mother, but he also
did not mean to kill. Was there good in you, or only bad? She
came up with all these questions and more, but no answers;
her heart was empty -- she had no grief for him.
'It is him,' she said, long moments later when the undertaker
had begun to fidget with impatience.
'My thanks, madam,' said the constable, in his smooth,
unfeeling voice.
'How came he to ... be in the river?'
'We shan't know, madam. He had no quarrel that any saw
or knew of. The men who pulled him out pressed him well,
to force the water from him in hopes of reviving him. The
dregs that came out were ripe with the red tape.'
'The red tape?'
'Brandy, madam,' said the constable. Rachel blinked, and
nodded to show she'd understood.
'The water's cold as a witch's kiss, missus,' said the
Undertaker. 'Like as not he stumbled in, beetle-headed and
boozy, and was undone by the bite o' it before he even knew
hisself drowned.' The constable winced at the man's rough ipeech.
'I see,' Rachel whispered.
'The river men that knew him said he was a man who was
wont to . . . sample too much of his own wares,' said the
constable.
'He was a borachio, just like his father before him,' Rachel
said flatly. I'll make no excuses for you, Richard. 'It was rarer
to see him sober than otherwise.' They stood a moment
longer in silence, each one watching Richard's pale corpse as
though it might sit up and nod ruefully in confirmation of its
fate. If they 're waiting for me to kiss him farewell, they '11 wait
for ever. 'Have you told his father of this ill fortune?'
'No, madam. Do you know his whereabouts?'
'Yes.' Rachel turned her back on her late husband. 'I will
tell him all that's happened. And I will be back to make
arrangements for the burial,' she said to the undertaker.
'As it please ye, missus.' The old man nodded. With that
Rachel fled the room, hurrying out of the cellar, along the
alley and up onto Horse Street, where she gasped in a huge
lungful of mucky air to dispel the scentless, stony pall of
death.
She walked slowly to Duncan Weekes's rooms, carrying
with her the worst tidings a parent can ever be given. She
thumped on the street door until her knuckles and the heels
of her hands were stinging, and eventually a grey-haired
woman in a filthy dress, red-eyed and white-lipped, let her
in with a scowl. Rachel went downstairs and knocked
at Duncan's door for some minutes; there was no sound of
movement from within, so she tried the latch. The door was
not locked; it swung open with a creak.
Inside it was as frigid as ever, and shadows lurked in all
the corners. There was no fire in the hearth; no candles or
lamps alight. A sour smell hit her, and by the overturned
hearthside chair she saw a splatter of vomit on the floor.
Rachel looked towards the bed with a mounting, stifling
sense of the inevitable. Duncan Weekes lay there, huddled
under his blankets so that only his face was showing. He was
as still and lifeless as his son. Rachel crouched beside him.
'Mr Weekes? Father?' she said, though she knew it was
futile. The old man's eyes were screwed tight shut, brows
beetled and drawn together; his mouth was slightly open, lips
blackened. The old woman who'd opened the door for
Rachel appeared behind her, and peered over her shoulder
at the corpse.
'The barrel fever, no doubt,' she said, with a sniff. 'Or
mayhap the old man's friend. I've heard his churchyard
cough, these past few nights.'
Absently, Rachel tucked the blankets tighter around Duncan's
chin. knew he was sick, yet I did nothing, and let it slip
from my mind. 'I'm so sorry, Mr Weekes,' she whispered,
stricken. There are no kindnesses.
'I've a boy you can send for the undertaker, if you've a
penny for him,' said the old woman.
'Very well.' Rachel found a coin in her pocket. 'He is
Duncan Weekes, and his son Richard Weekes lies with the
undertaker behind Horse Street.'
'I know the one.'
'Fetch the same man, if you please. Father and son can lie
together awhile. I'd always hoped to reunite them.'
'Fate will play these cruel japes on us,' said the woman,
nodding. The coin vanished into the palm of her bony hand
and Rachel left, walking away with a feeling that her head
Was swelling; it felt light, and strange. How truly I spoke, when I said that I 
had no one.
More than ever before, Rachel felt apart from everything
and everyone else. She walked for a long time, and felt
invisible; as though she was less real in the world than the
people she passed. could vanish without trace; just like Abi.
Just like Alice. She felt like a boat with its line cut, and
nothing to keep the current from tugging her away. She was
laden and heavy with guilt and sorrow, so much that she
could hardly feel anything. Just the ringing echo of it all in
the big empty space inside her.
The city closed in on itself for the night. Lamps were lit
and shutters closed; the doors of inns swung to against the
weather, and people hurried towards their homes, not dallying
in the street with the drizzle and the leaching cold. These
three days have been the longest I have ever lived. Rachel tried
to imagine what life would be like from that moment; with no
husband, no family; no visits to Jonathan or causes to hope. Will the Suttons 
still be my friends? I am a threat to them, and
the captain blames me for Jonathans fall. It seemed impossible
that she should be expected to continue, to bear it all. Weary
and shivering, she reached Abbeygate Street and climbed the
steps. Inside there would be no welcoming warmth or light
for her; yet however sad a place it was, it was her only home.
As Rachel pushed the door a scrap of pale paper caught her
eye, fluttering across the boards like a tiny ghost. She bent
and picked up the note, returning to the streetlamp outside
for the light to read it by. She read it twice and then shut her
eyes, sinking onto a nearby step as a storm of joy and relief
took her balance. Mr Alleyn asks for you. Come at once.
Starling.



The house at Lansdown Crescent was abuzz when Starling
returned to it. It was only hours since she'd left to go to the
lovers' tree, since she'd seen Dick there and learnt the truth,
and then gone to share that burden with Rachel Weekes, yet
it felt like weeks. In the sudden bustle and thrum of gossip
her absence seemed to have gone unnoticed, and she slipped
back into the stream without a ripple.
'There you are! You picked a ripe time to go off. . . pass
me that beef bone, and get grinding some salt, will you?' said
Sol Bradbury when Starling appeared in the kitchen. Starling
cocked her head curiously at the cook. She didn't sound
troubled enough to have had news of Jonathan's death.
Obediently, Starling picked up the heavy blade bone, still
with some shreds of roast meat upon it, and took it to the
cook. Sol dropped it into a huge pan of water on the stove,
moving neatly aside of the splash.
'Why?' said Starling. 'What's going on?'
"What's going on! The master has cracked his head and
lies abed all insensible, and the mistress is running half mad,
and swears if she sees Mrs Weekes again she'll have her guts
for garters. Dorcas keeps fainting at the sight of the
blood . . . The doctor's with Mr Alleyn now, and I'm to
brew up a beef broth for when he wakes . . .'
'He is not dead?' Starling's heart gave a jolt that left her
breathless.
'Dead? Heavens, no! What, girl -- is this not trouble
enough that you go asking for more?'
'No. I only . . .' Unthinkingly, Starling turned for the
stairs and went up.
She hardly spared a glance for a rotund man who was
letting himself out of Jonathan's rooms; she recognised him
vaguely as one of the many doctors who had come and gone
over the years, having done nothing to help with the pains in
Jonathan's head. Inside, the room was brighter than she'd ( ever seen it before 
-- candles had been lit in every wall
Sconce, and along the hearth; on the desk and nightstand.
The room was soaked in the golden glow of them all, the deep shadows banished; 
and as if a spell had been broken, the
looms that had frightened away a succession of housemaids Were made 
commonplace. Untidy, cluttered with unusual
things, but no longer threatening. It is only secrets that scare
. It is not knowing,- it is the things we cannot see. Jonathan lav
at the centre of this flood of light in the far chamber, pale skin
and dark hair stark against his pillows, and a red stain seeping
slowly through a bandage around his head. Starling went to
stand at the foot of the bed, and then noticed Josephine,
sitting in a low chair at the far side of it. Hatred scorched
through her, and then her mistress spoke.
'He will not die, the doctor says. He has broken his wrist,
but the blow to his head was not grave, only bloody. He will
not die. He will wake.' Josephine spoke to nobody; she spoke
to the room and the Gods, to all and none. She spoke to tell
fate how things would go, and to dare it to deal otherwise.
Starling looked at her for a long moment. Josephine's eyes
were wide in an immobile face. She watched her son with
steadfast intensity. She loves him, and yet it was her doing -- the
thing that has grieved him most all his life. And she knows it. Starling 
expected to feel angry, but did not. She took Alice.
She did it full knowing, and has hidden it ever since. She has let
me serve her, and suffer her father's lusts as I waited for news of
Alice. She has fed me lies. All this she reminded herself, but
still the anger would not come, and she was left to search for
reasons why not. Because that beast was her father, and he took
from her as much as from me. Because she is Jonathan's mother,
and right now she is as full of fear as a person can be.
'I can pity you, but I do hate you also,' she murmured.
Josephine Alleyn blinked and turned to look at her.
'What did you say?'
Starling was silent for a moment. She remembered Rachel
Weekes's fear for her, and her own desire to come and wreak
vengeance on this woman. But Jonathan was not dead, and so
everything had changed. no longer have nobody. I kave him. She returned her 
gaze to the man in the bed and probed
her heart to see what remained, now that her misplaced
hatred had blown away like smoke. She remembered him
laughing at her antics the day they swam in the river at
Bathampton, before he went to Spain and everything changed.
A shard of grief cut through her then, for all they had
lost since that day - both of them.
'I'm glad he will recover,' she said. Josephine Alleyn
looked at her son again and seemed to forget what Starling
had said before. She reached out and took his hand, tenderly,
gently.
'He is all I have,' she murmured, and Starling understood
then that Alice would be avenged, and all the grief of her
death would be paid for at last. Because I have much to tell
him, when he wakes. And then you will lose your son, Mrs
Alleyn.
Jonathan showed no signs of waking. Josephine remained
with him for a long time before retiring to bed, demanding to
be fetched back if there was any change. Starling volunteered
to stay with him then, as the long night crept by, one breath
at a time. She sat vigil, and she waited, and she did not sleep.
Faintly, she heard the long-case clock in the hallway strike
two, and at that exact moment she remembered that Rachel
Weekes had returned Alice's last letter to Jonathan. She got
up so quickly that her chair tipped over and clattered to the
floor, and she froze, ears straining for any sign that the noise
had roused Josephine. None came. Jonathan's long black coat
was hanging from the corner of the armoire, and she crept
over to it, feeling for the stiffness of paper in the pockets.
When she found it she returned to the bedside on soft feet,
righted the chair and watched Jonathan's face for a long time.
She couldn't shake the suspicion that he would guess what
he was about, wake and snatch the letter from her or chase ller from the room 
with curses; like all those times before
when she'd searched for this exact piece of paper. No. He is
innocent. I must keep reminding myself of this. With a slow
Inward breath to steady herself, she opened the letter.
Oh, why do you not write? I have a suspicion about it. I have
written so many times, these past weeks, and remain desperate to
hear from you. You may be dead, injured, lost; or you may have
had word from your mother, and shun me. I have no way of
knowing, my love! It is cruel. Here is what I suspect -- however it
distresses me to write it. Since always we have handed our letters
to the yardman here at the farm, to take up to the coaching inn
and send on for us. Yesterday I walked along to the bridge and I
saw our yardman hand what looked to be my letter to a scruff
lad, who made off with it. I am quite sure the boy was not in any
way connected to the mail or the inn. Can it be that none of my
letters have reached you, Jonathan? But this one will -- I have a
plan for it.
I went to Box and I met your mother. I know I ought not to
have, I was not invited. I did not think to meet her, I sought
only Lord Faukes, to find out if there was word of you. But it
was your mother I met, Mrs Josephine Alleyn, so I confessed my
reasons for going to her. She said such things, Jonathan! She
was so angry, and so cruel. She hates me, and gave me news of
my parentage that appalled me. And if this was not enough, soon afterwards I 
was given to understand why she might hate
me even more -- the coachman told me such things. Such dark,
dark things. I will not relate them in this letter, in case it too
goes astray. It was in my earlier letters to you -- the ones which
have gone unanswered. Forgive me for it, dearest Jonathan. In
my distress, I did not stop to think. The words came pouring out
of my pen, and now these tidings are out in the world
somewhere, and could do you harm. Forgive me. The coachman
was in his cups, and yet. . . and yet, he seemed so sure. He told
me what even Mrs Alleyn feared to. Oh, I am an abomination! I
am accursed. Do not come home to them, Jonathan -- they are
liars, and not what you think they are; and if you must come
back, do not come to me. The pain of seeing you would be too
great.
There is another thing. A man has appeared, with rough
manners but a charming nature. He courts me as though his very
life depended upon it. I know his face -- I have seen it before, I'm
sure of it. But I cannot think where; he is not from Bathampton.
He begs to marry me, to take me away to Bristol or wherever I
choose to live. I have done all I can to dissuade him but still he
comes again and again to visit me, and says he will die without
me. I thought -- my darling, I must confess it -- thought for one
moment, one dark day, that I should go with him -- that I should
vanish, and be sure you never had to set eyes on me again. For one
moment, I thought it. Lord Faukes has not visited here since I went
to Box. I feel some judgement coming, hanging over me like the
sword of Damocles. So for one moment I thought I should go with
this charming charlatan. For charlatan he is. But I could never do
it, my love. I could never let you think I had forsaken you, for once
I had gone they would surely tell you lies about me. Oh, how can I
write such things about your family and about the man I have
known and loved all my life as my benefactor? That seems a cruel
joke now. My life has been a cruel joke, from the very beginning.
I am an abomination, my love. But I can call you that no
more. Our love is an abomination. I feel my heart breaking,
Jonathan. It is tearing in two, and I do not know if I will survive
it. But you and 1 must remain apart, now and for ever. I will stay
here and await my fate, once they have decided it. And if we
never see each other again then let me swear it now -- I loved you
truly, and will love you ever.

One who is always, but can never be, yours.
Alice B

Starling read the letter right through twice; she held the
paper to her lips, and breathed in any last lingering traces of

her sister. All these terrible things she knew, and never told me.
All this she bore alone. After the lovers' tree Alice had
promised to keep no more secrets from her, but this one she
had kept. Did she think I would love her less? If she'd asked me
to run away with her and live in a cave, I'd have done it. Starling
sat in her chair and wept quietly for a while. Then, as dawn
seeped its grey light into the room, she felt a flicker of
urgency. He had to wake, so that she could speak to him
before Josephine returned. He had to hear what she would
say without interruption, or denial. The house was silent; not
even Dorcas was up yet, clonking the shutters or riddling
cinders from the ashes. Starling leant over the bed, and
reached out to touch Jonathan's uninjured arm.
'Sir,' she said, her voice a dry whisper. 'Mr Alleyn, you
must wake.' She shook the limb gently. It was warm and
limp. What if they are wrong, and he will not wake? She
grabbed up his hand and shook harder, then leant forwards
and slapped her fingers against his cheek, fear making her
rough with him. 'Wake, Jonathan! Alice needs you! I need
you!'
Jonathan's brows pinched together. Without opening his
eyes, he spoke.
'Peace, Starling! Your voice is like a hammer to my skull.'
He was groggy and hoarse, but he didn't sound confused; he
knew her. Starling exhaled in sharp relief.
'You've hurt your head, Mr Alleyn,' she said, as softly as
she could. 'And your wrist. You fell, up on the common.'
'On the common?' Jonathan's eyelids fluttered open, and
he gazed up at the swags of the bed canopy in thought. 'Yes.
I remember. I was trying to find Mrs Weekes. She ... I said
something, and only afterwards realised how it must sound to
her. She ran off into the fog . . .'
"I know. She is quite well. That is - well, there is much to
tell you.'
'You know? How do you know?' He turned his head to
face her and winced at the pain of movement.
'We have become friends, she and I. I think. But listen
now -- can you listen? Are you awake? There are things I
must tell you.' She stood and looked down at him, and
Jonathan met her gaze with eyes full of apprehension.
'I am awake,' he said carefully.
So, in a quiet voice, Starling told him all of it. She told him
about Dick Weekes and the lovers' tree; about Duncan
Weekes and what he had seen and told to Alice the day she
went to Box; about Rachel Weekes and why Dick had
married her; and then everything Dick had said before he
went into the river. Jonathan listened to it all without moving
a muscle or making a sound; almost without any reaction at
all, other than a look of pain that built like gathering clouds.
When she finished she held her breath and waited.
'Am I to be happy at these tidings, Starling?' he said, at
last.
'Who could be? I speak only as one who has mourned her,
and yearned to know of her fate, as you too have mourned
and yearned. But this is the truth; we have it now, however
black and bitter it may be.'
'And the man who killed her. Rachel Weekes's husband.
He is dead. You're sure of this?'
'He is dead. Worthless wretch that he was.'
'Worthless wretch perhaps, but one who also mourned
her, it seems, in his own inadequate way. A puppet of my
mother's. I should disbelieve you at once, and cast you out.'
'You know I speak the truth.'
'For years you accused me, and were wholly convinced of my guilt.'
'I know. I ... am sorry for that.'
'And now you are convinced that my mother was behind it
all instead.'
'Your mother, and your grandfather -- who I know was a
bad man, and not at all what he seemed from the outside;
though you loved him, and Alice did too.'
'You know he was bad? How do you know?' Jonathan
said angrily.
'Because . . . because he had knowledge of me, sir, against
my will. The day he came to tell me I would see Alice no
more, and times again after that, before he died. I swear to
you by the air I breathe, this is the very truth.' Jonathan
turned away as though he couldn't bear to look at her;
Starling saw a tear streak from his eye and vanish into the
pillow. 'You don't know the full story of how he died, do
you, sir?'
'He died of apoplexy,' Jonathan intoned. 'A sudden fit,
and painless.'
'He died on top of Lynette, the new upstairs maid. She put
up a good fight, and his heart gave out in his chest. And,
Lord love you, sir, you were the only person in that house to
mourn him.' If he does not believe me, I will go from here and
never see him again. 'And . . . we would have known it all far
sooner -- we would have known that Alice was Faukes's
child, if Captain Sutton had only given you back this letter at
once.' She handed Alice's letter to him, and when he took it
there was a tremor in his hand. 'It confirms all we have
learned.'
She waited while he read it, and watched the muscles of his
jaw moving under his skin, alive, and playing out the fight of
his feelings.
'My mother has lied all her life; this I already knew.' His
voice was forced out through clenched teeth.
'Sir . . .' Starling whispered. 'Sir, might I have one of her
others? One of her other letters?'
"What?'
"I should dearly love to have one of Alice's letters to keep.
Just to have something of hers, you understand -- some
keepsake, touched by her hand.'
'I have no other letters of hers.' Jonathan frowned at her.
'What letters do you think I have?'
'All of hers - those that you wrote to her, and that she
wrote to you. Yours she kept in a rosewood box in her room,
and it vanished after she did. I thought you took it? Did you
not take it, sir?'
'No.' Jonathan shook his head. 'I did not take it. And hers
to me I ... I destroyed.' His voice failed him for a moment.
He shut his eyes. 'All of them. When I returned and thought
that she . . . when I believed, at first, what I was told of her
conduct. I wish I had not. I ... I wish I had not.'
'But if you do not have them, who does? And what of the
letter I took from you -- one that you wrote to her, your last
from Spain, from Corunna, soon before she died?'
'I know not who took them. My grandfather, I daresay.
And that letter from Corunna ... I never sent it. She never
saw it. It stayed in my pocket all the way back to Brighton,
and then came with me to Bathampton after I received her
letter. I never got the chance to send it. I have always had it.'
'Oh.' Starling felt even this small hope fade away. 'Then
that letter, recently returned to you by the Suttons, is all that
exists of her; all there is to prove she ever lived, except what
we remember.'
'Yes. Between them, they did obliterate her.' Jonathan
looked down as he spoke, his brows shadowing his eyes, his
mouth a bitter line. 'Fetch my mother to me now.' Silently,
Starling obeyed.
She knocked softly on Mrs Alleyn's door and was summoned
inside at once. The older woman's face was hollowed out by fatigue but her eyes 
lit with hope and happiness when
Starling said that her son asked for her. Enjoy this, madam ur
last moment without blame. Starling trailed her back to
Jonathan's room, and at the door Mrs Alleyn turned and
frowned at her.
'Why do you pester my steps like a tantony pig? Go now
and bring up the beef broth, and some tea. And perhaps a
little brandy.'
'No, madam. I am no longer your servant,' said Starling,
and the words made her heart lurch with fear and elation
both. A thrill that made her fingertips tingle. There. I have
cast myself off.
'What? How do you say no? Go at once, and--' Something
in the way Starling stood, resolute, with her face full of
knowing, pulled Josephine up short. 'Well then,' she said
instead, incredulous, but almost resigned. The first sparks of
a terrible anger were in her eyes. 'Be gone, if that is so,' she
said. Starling shook her head.
'I serve your son now, madam. Only he can send me
away.' Josephine glared at her a moment longer, and turned a
little paler. She must wonder what gives me the strength to speak
to her thus. She must wonder, and she must know. It was not
anger that blanched her, Starling saw then. It was fear. She
pitied Josephine again, for what was to come, and for what
she had suffered, the hand she'd been dealt. But it was none of
Alices fault. The chickens will always come home to roost,
Bridget used to say. With a haughty expression that looked
like a mask Josephine carried on to her son's bedside, and
Starling went behind her like a vengeful shadow.
Jonathan had edged his way up the bed, to sit straighter.
There was a glaze of sweat on his face and he was breathing
deeply, flaring his nostrils.
'Jonathan! Dear boy, it gladdens my heart to see you
woken, and well,' said Josephine.
'Does it?' His eyes were hard.
'Of course . . . why would you think to question?'
'Because you lie, Mother. You have lied to everyone all
your life. You lied to my father, and you lied to the world,
and you lie to me. You killed Alice Beckwith with a lie.'
There was a frozen moment, and then Josephine shot Starling
a glare like the jab of a knife.
'What has this wretch been saying to you? What lies has
she told? She is a mendacious rat, a muckworm ... I only
kept her because your grandfather instructed me to . . .'
'Grandfather told you to keep her?' said Jonathan. He
looked at Starling, and she had no need to say anything
more. 'And there, I thought you had done it to be kind. How
foolish of me.'
'Jonathan, what is the matter? Why do you attack me -- I
who have only ever loved and cared for you--'
'I don't think you're capable of love,' said Jonathan. He
continued before Josephine could reply. 'Richard Weekes has
told me everything.'
'What?'
'I said Richard Weekes has told me everything. Your little
puppet, that foolish boy who thought himself in love with
you, all those years ago. He has told me you sent him to coax
Alice away. To make her betray me in any way he could. To
goad her into an elopement . . . and when that failed he
killed her. On your instruction.'
'Lies.' Josephine's voice was almost lost; it was a breathy
whisper, crushed by fear and anger. 'It is lies. How dare
he . . . how dare he!'
'Do you deny it?'
'Yes, I deny it! It is base lies, every word!'
'Alice came to visit you one day, to ask for news of me.
You told her . . . you told her that she was my grandfather's
bastard. Didn't you? You told her that and then sent her
away. You thought that would end our connection to one
another for ever. But Duncan Weekes met her that day too,
and he told her something else. Do you know what else he
told her?' said Jonathan. Josephine only watched him now,
her face as still as stone. 'Do you know what your coachman
saw, peeping through the curtains one day?'
'Enough! I will hear no more!' Josephine exploded. She
threw up her hands as if to cover her ears; turned away from
the bed and made for the door.
'Stay!' Jonathan shouted. 'Mother you will stayY The
command was like a whip crack which nobody might disobey.
Starling shrank back from the bedside, seeking a
friendly shadow in which to hide. There were none to be
had. This might break him.
Josephine turned to face her son but came no nearer to the
bed this time.
'Do you deny it?' said Jonathan. 'I knew you for a liar.
I've always known. But I never knew what you lied about,
until now. And I can forgive you for it ... of course I can.
Such evil . . . such a sinful blight on our family, on all my
memories, it turns my stomach to even think it! But it was
not your doing. Not that part.'
'I beg you, continue no further with this,' Josephine whispered.
'It's
too late for that. I know. Do you deny it?' he demanded.
In response, Josephine only stared at him, her eyes
filling with tears. She took a long, shuddering breath.
'You were never meant to know about your grandfather!
My whole life I have guarded against your ever knowing!'
Her face distorted with horror.
'I understand. I understand that you sought to . . . protect
me. From such ugliness. But now I must have the truth.
Because I have tortured myself, Mother. Do you understand?
I have tortured myself for the loss of Alice for twelve long
years, trying to think what happened to make her leave me. I
even thought, in dark moments ... I even thought I'd killed
her! When 1 came back after Corunna, and my mind was
disordered ... I have lain here and thought myself a
murderer, and a madman, and all the time you knew! You knewV
'She was an abomination.' This was more like a growl than
speech; low and brutal, vicious with hatred. Starling's heart
stirred at the sound of it. 'When she came to Box and asked
for my father, I knew at once she was some issue of his. But
the more I looked at her, the more I thought. . .' She trailed
off, shaking her head. 'I knew. I knew who she was, then,
though I thought that child had been dispatched at her birth,
into the far north. I confronted my father. 1 made him tell
me . . . Oh, Jonathan! It stilled my very blood that she still
walked the earth! She was an abomination]'
'She was innocenA And I will have the truth, for her sake
and for mine, because this house -- all our fortune -- is mine,
and if I think you are lying to me, ever again, I swear I shall
put you out and you will end your days a washerwoman, or
begging in the hedges.'
'You would not! The shame of it!'
"I have no shame left, Mother; I'm surprised to hear that
you do. So speak truly now, and let us have it all. Am I my
father's son?'
'Yes. You are . . . perfect. You are my salvation--'
'Alice was your daughter. Yours . . . and my grandfather's.'
To this, Josephine gave only more silence, as if she
could not bear to say it.
Tears swelled in Jonathan's eyes and dropped onto his
cheeks. 'But I loved her, Mother. I loved her so dearly. You knew that.'
'She wasn't meant to exist! I was ... I was so young when she was born. She was 
taken away at once; it made me sick to
even look on her, to hear her wail. Oh, I wanted to drown
her right then! But my father told me she'd be adopted away and would never 
know of her parents. He told me this, and I
believed him, like a fool. Then I married your father, and
moved away from him, and ... it was like waking from an
evil dream. It was like life had started anew, and all the old
tyranny could be forgotten. But my father, he ... he kept her
instead; he raised her up in comfort, close at hand. He loved her.' As she said 
loved Josephine's lips curled back from her
teeth; she turned it into a curse word.
'You didn't know she was nearby, all those years? At
Bathampton? You didn't know Grandfather saw her regularly
-- that he took me to meet her?'
'Of course I never knew! I would never have allowed it to
continue -- never! And he knew it ... I was kept ignorant
for that very reason. But when she . . . when she turned up
at Box, asking after you, and after her benefactor, Lord
Faukes ... I knew then. I knew. My aunt Margaret had that
milky pale hair, just the same as hers.' Josephine's eyes
widened. 'Only look at the miniature downstairs in the parlour
and you will see.'
'My grandfather was not at home when Alice called. You
were cruel to her. Vicious to her.'
'She asked me for news of you, her beloved . . . that's
what she called you. He is my beloved, and this silence is more
than I can bear. When I realised what my father had done . . .
that he'd let you know her . . . that he'd let that creature fall in
love with you . . .' Josephine stopped and put her hands to
her midriff, clamping her jaws tight shut. She looked like she
might vomit; spitting up these truths that revolted her so.
'There was no quicker way to be rid of her, and to ensure she
would renounce you, than to tell her. Half of the truth, if not
all of it.'
'But why did you not stop there? She wrote to me to say
we could never wed, she wrote to me of her broken heart.
Why was that not the end of it? Why send Richard Weekes
after her, why kill her?' Tears ran freely down Jonathan's
face; he didn't seem to notice them.
'I didn't think ... I didn't think, when I told her. Your
grandfather was furious with me . . . because, of course, she
would tell you. She would telljyou. We could not allow it. I
wanted her sent away -- far away. I wanted her reduced to a
hedge whore, where no one would listen to her!'
'She was innocentV Jonathan's voice was raw.
'She was an abomination] But your grandfather . . .' Josephine
shook her head incredulously. 'He loved her too
well. What fools and devils are men! He loved her, and
would hear of no harm coming to her. But he made sure she
could send no letters to you, while he thought on what to do
about her. But he must have known, right away, that there
was no solution. None but mine. And from her letters, we
learned what Duncan Weekes had told her - that treacherous
old fool. And we learned that she would tell it all to you, the
first chance she got.'
'So you sent Richard Weekes to ruin her.'
'And if she would not be ruined willingly, then he would
take her against her will, carry her away somewhere and stain
her for ever. But he did better than that, wastrel that he is. He
did better than that.'
'He did better.' Starling echoed the words in the silence that
followed, unaware at first that she'd spoken out loud.
Jonathan and his mother turned to her abruptly, as though
both had forgotten she was present. 'Even Dick Weekes
wanted to please her, by the end. Did you know that? What
he did to her tormented him, and I don't think he could
forgive himself. That's the kind of person she was. Bridget
always used to say that two wrongs never made a right, but
that's what happened with Alice. You and Lord Faukes so
wrong, and Alice coming out so right. God must have taken
pity on such a cursed birth and decided to bless her in every
other way. By the time he killed her, even Dick Weekes
wanted her heart,' she said.
'I care not whether he loved or hated her. What he did
that day was the only good and useful thing he ever did,' said
Josephine.
'A good thing?' Jonathan whispered. 'You say he did a
good thing?'
'It was for the best! Jonathan, my dearest boy -- what life
could you have had with her, knowing that you were so close
related? Knowing that whatever feelings you had were a sin?'
'Whatever feelings? Let me tell you what they were,
Mother, though you have ever refused to hear it: loved
her. I loved her like part of my own soul. Or perhaps its
whole . . . perhaps she was my whole soul, for it felt as
though she took it with her, when she went.'
'You must not say such things -- the very words appal me!
She was an abomination. She should never have lived, and did
nothing better than to die!'
'We could have lived on in this knowledge, grievous as it
was! We could have called each other cousin, and quashed all
thought of passion, and been content to know that the other
was safe. Even now, even having seen my anguish all these
years, even after I have pulled my mind apart to guess her
fate, even now you exult in her death?' Jonathan's eyes bored
into his mother's, but Josephine never flinched.
'She should never have been born. She did nothing better
in her life than to die.'
'Then I will see you no more. You are the abomination,
Mother, and it is a symptom of your affliction that you cannot
see it. Go away from me.'
'What do you mean? Jonathan, my son, I--'
'Go away from me' His roar split the air like a thunderclap.
A tremor ran through Josephine; she tottered slightly,
and raised one arm for balance. Then, with the immaculate
care of one at a cliff edge, she turned and walked to the door.
'We will speak again,' she said, barely audibly, on the
threshold. Then she left.
For a long time Starling didn't dare move or make a
sound. She had never seen such anger. She stayed where she
was, in the corner of the bedroom with her back to the wall,
and listened to the blood thumping in her ears. Behind it, the
quiet sounds of the house awakening could be heard; the
opening and closing of doors, the scrape of an iron in a
fireplace. From outside came the keening of seagulls as they
laid claim to the city's rubbish. Their voices were high and
woebegone. Gradually, the heaving of Jonathan's chest decreased;
he grew calmer, and sat under a pall of such deep
sadness that it was almost tangible. If Alice was here she would
cradle your head, and stroke your hair, and murmur of better
things until your heart was less sore. But Starling didn't dare.
After ten minutes or so, Jonathan put his fingertips to his
eyes and rubbed them hard.
'Starling,' he said quietly.
'Yes, sir?' She suddenly felt almost shy of him, ashamed of
everything that had gone on between them since Alice
disappeared. Jonathan looked at her with red-rimmed eyes.
'I feel as though my head might explode,' he muttered.
'You are injured, sir,' she said.
'Yes. But it's not that. Will you . . .' He paused, and for a
moment seemed almost as shy as she. 'If you sent word that I
wished it, do you think Rachel Weekes would come to see
me?'
'I am certain of it, sir,' Starling replied.



There was no answer to her ring at the front door of the
Alleyns' house, so Rachel let herself in through the servant's

entrance, bold as brass, and went all the way up the back
stairs to the second floor. She felt like a thief, a trespasser
intruding where she didn't belong, but she had Starling's note
clenched tight in her palm. She carried it like a talisman from
which hope and courage flowed. As she came through the
door in the panelling and onto the landing, she froze. Mrs
Alleyn was standing in front of the naked window at the end
of the corridor, as still as a carving, with her back to Rachel
and her face to the black glass. She must have heard Rachel's
approach, but gave no sign of it, and Rachel's exclamation of
surprise died on her lips. It was still dark enough outside that
Josephine could have seen little but her own reflection, staring
back at her. Rachel saw the ghostly echo of herself in
the glass. My own image, she thought, sadly, nothing more. Suddenly, her heart 
tumbled into the pit of her stomach.
Jonathan's mother stood too still, was too removed. Has he
died after all?
'Mrs Alleyn!' she cried out, before she could stop herself.
Josephine turned slowly. Her face was empty of expression;
she didn't seem surprised to see Rachel, and she said nothing
to her. After this moment of dispassionate study, she turned
away again. Rachel went a few steps closer and stopped right
outside Jonathan's rooms. 'Your son has asked for me, Mrs
Alleyn,' she said. 'Is he within? Mrs Alleyn?'
'If he sent for you then go to him, and leave me be.'
Josephine's voice was as cold and raw as a winter wind. With
a shiver, Rachel knocked on Jonathan's door and slipped
through it at once.
The shutters in Jonathan's rooms were closed, the fire
was burning merrily and candles lit all the walls. Rachel
was temporarily bewildered by the abundance of light and
warmth where there had only ever been darkness and a
stony cool before. There was a smell of beeswax, smoke and
spiced wine.
'Starling? Is that you? Is there still no word?' Jonathan's
voice came from the bedroom. Rachel tried to answer him
but joy stole the words. She walked in silence to the doorway
where she saw him, sitting up in bed in a crumpled white
shirt, one arm bound up with a splint. There was a long,
stitched cut on his forehead, couched in bruises. He looked
up and saw her, and for a long time he did not speak. He took
a slow breath, and his eyes shone.
'Mrs Weekes,' he said, at last. 'You have come.'
'Could you doubt that I would?' she said.
'When last I saw you, you were running from me.'
'I ... I was upset. Everything you'd said . . . my sister,
and Alice. I thought... I thought. . .'
'I know what you thought.'
'And do you know what I now know?'
'Yes. Starling has told me all.'
'Then you two are reconciled. I am glad.' Rachel swallowed
painfully.
'Reconciled? I suppose we are. She and I should have been
united in all of this, through all these years. It was only
mistakes and suspicions; only lies and silence that drove a
wedge between us. But to Alice she was a sister. So to me,
perhaps, she should have been the same. In my own grief and
disorder I never considered Starling's plight, but she needed
my protection. It was wrong of me. Selfish.'
'In times of ordeal, such omissions can be forgiven. She
will forgive you, I know. That you loved and never harmed
Alice will be enough for her.'
'And what of you, Mrs Weekes? Can you forgive?'
'I have nothing to forgive you for. I accused you,
wrongly. I led you into danger, and injury. I should ask
rather that you forgive me.'
'But I am a killer. You were right about that.' Jonathan
sounded grim, sickened. Rachel walked closer to his bedside,
and he didn't take his eyes from her.
'How are you? The wound on your head looks quite . . .
bad,' she said. Jonathan grimaced.
'It is not grave. It should be bandaged still, but the heat
and pressure of it were too much, and I tore it off. In truth,
my head thuds like cannon fire.'
'I should go, and let you rest. Sleep and make yourself
well.'
'Seeing you makes me well,' said Jonathan. 'Don't go yet.'
Rachel smiled, but then it faltered.
'My husband is the one. All this time, he is the one who
killed your Alice,' said Rachel. Jonathan looked down at his
hands.
'I know. But he was not the only one. I . . . her heart. Did
you know that Alice could not see colour? At least, not all
colours. She tried to hide it from me, but I knew. As if a flaw
like that could have made me think less of her. She was
colour blind, and her heart was weak. She often used to grow
faint if she got overexcited, or was shocked by something.
Starling said . . . Starling said that was what killed her, in the
end. Dick Weekes only hit her, and her heart could not cope
with the fear.' Anger made his voice shake.
'Yes. She says Mr Weekes claimed not to have intended to
take her life.'
'Yet take it he did, but he was not solely to blame. You
have seen the books on my shelves, Mrs Weekes. I told you
that at one time I studied medicine, and anatomy, in order
to . . . understand how human beings work. What drives us
-- where the soul resides, and if it can be lost.'
'Yes, I remember.'
'I have read that in unions where people are . . . too
closely related, their offspring will often miscarry before birth, or be born 
weak, and flawed. And die young. It is the
same in animal husbandry. Stock books are kept carefully, to
ensure such consanguinity does not occur.' He stopped with a
gentle shake of his head.
'You mean to say that . . . that Alice's constitution was a
result of her . . . unusual birth?'
'It is just as I once said to you, Mrs Weekes. We are
merely animals, after all, subject to the same rules that
govern all of God's creatures.'
'Then you know of your grandfather's . . . relationship to
Alice?' She gazed at him searchingly. He looked up, his face
stricken.
'His, and my mother's. And so mine too. Starling has told
me everything.' Jonathan's brows pulled together, which
made him wince.
'Everything? That was no kindness on her part!' Rachel
cried. 'She need not have--'
'Yes, there was need. It is better that I know,' Jonathan
interrupted.
'What will you do?' Rachel whispered.
'Do? About this crime against Alice? I see precious little
that I can do. The only one who could have declared my
mother's part in it is dead, Starling says. Drowned in the
river.'
He hesitated then, and seemed to remember that it was
Rachel's husband he spoke so heedlessly about. 'Forgive my
callousness,' he said.
'There is nothing to forgive. He is dead. I ... I have seen
him with my own eyes.'
'My condolences, Mrs Weekes,' Jonathan said cautiously.
Rachel thought for a moment.
'I ... I do not grieve,' she confessed, in a small voice. am set free.
'His father, Duncan Weekes, might speak against my
mother, if I asked him to. If a case against her was to be
made. He knows things about . . . my family . . . that
nobody else knew, until these last few days. You are grown
quite close to him, are you not? Do you think he would . . .'
Jonathan frowned. 'But then, who would take his word, poor
and drunk as he is, over my mother's?'
'Duncan Weekes lies next to his son. Sickness and poverty
have taken him.' As Rachel spoke, guilty tears crowded her
vision.
'And for him you do mourn. Poor creature,' Jonathan
murmured.
'He was a good man, beneath his weaknesses and sins. A
poor creature indeed.'
'Then,' said Jonathan, pausing to think, 'then there is
nothing to be done. I will see my mother no more. That will
have to be punishment enough for her.'
'She waits outside. She haunts your door like a sentry.'
'I will not see her.'
"What she did . . . what she did, she did to protect you.'
'And to protect herself. To hide her sins. You cannot ask
me to forgive her.'
'I ask nothing. I only say ... I only say that to have
family is a blessing, and one not to be sloughed off without
due thought.'
'A mixed blessing at best, Mrs Weekes. And this day mine
feels more like a curse. You have a deeply forgiving nature,
Mrs Weekes, this I have come to learn. But you should not
forgive indiscriminately. People must pay for their crimes.'
'Indeed.' Rachel studied him for a moment. 'You have
paid for yours, Mr Alleyn. I have met Cassandra Sutton.'
Jonathan shut his eyes for a moment, and looked ill.
'Starling . . . Starling said as much,' he said. 'But you
cannot forgive me. You do not know what I did.'
'I know the outcomel A live, healthy child--'
'The child of a murdered woman! A child robbed of her
mother.'
'Cassandra Sutton has a mother, and a father. No -- you
must listen. She has a mother and father who love her very
much. She is bright, and sweet, well cared for. She has been
robbed of nothing. Her current happiness is all your doing,
and you should be proud.'
'Proud?' Jonathan laughed then, a taut and empty sound.
'There is nothing from that time, from that war, of which I
can be proud.'
'I know how you came to rescue Cassandra. Captain
Sutton said--'
'Captain Sutton does not know. Captain Sutton was not
there, in that church. What occurred was between the child's
mother, and me. And you cannot forgive me, because you cannot know.'
'Then . . . tell me, Mr Alleyn. Tell me.' Jonathan stared at
her, and for a while she thought he would not speak. He must.
This is the only way. She suddenly knew that this was the final
step in a long and wearing climb; that by taking this last step,
the path would go easier from there on. Let it be so. She sat
down in the chair at his bedside and leaned forward, reaching
for his hand. 'You must tell me about Badajoz,' she said.
'Badajoz.' The air left Jonathan's chest, streaming out like
surrender. He shut his eyes again, and then he spoke.
He spoke of the three years of war after his return from
Bathampton, leaden-hearted because Alice had gone. Three
years in which he lived by rote, and fought with silent, grim
distraction. After the flight from Corunna the French had
flooded back in to retake Portugal, but in April 1809 Sir
Arthur Wellesley returned to Lisbon to take command, and
the French were driven back towards the Spanish border
once more. Jonathan and his fellow officers struggled to keep
order in the ranks; the men were restless, and disobedient.
After battle they turned thuggish and cruel. Jonathan noticed
the empty look in their eyes and knew he had it too; the selfsame
brutishness. Wellesley called the men scum, and rabble.
He hanged them for plundering, but it did no good. Jonathan
was popular with the rank and file of his company; he
understood their anger and their fear, the way they were
losing themselves. He did not reprimand them for acting like
animals, when the war required them to be animals.
And yet the heart of him looked on, and recoiled in horror
from the bloodshed and the pain and the wanton destruction.
At Talavera, after they'd pursued the French through a burnt
and ruined landscape into Spain, he was with the light dragoons
as they charged headlong into a hidden ditch. He was
catapulted from his horse as it fell, and heard the crunch as
the beast's two forelegs snapped. He had not named the
animal -- he hadn't named any of his horses since Suleiman --
but still its screams cut through his battle fog like knives. He
didn't blink as he put his pistol to the horse's head and pulled
the trigger. The British and Portuguese were outnumbered
by almost two to one at Talavera, but they won what would
be proclaimed as a glorious victory on the sides of mail
coaches at home. The battlefield was almost four miles long,
and two miles deep. Towards the end of it a grass fire started,
racing across the parched ground and burning many of
the wounded alive. Scores of those that did not burn died
of thirst instead, under the merciless Spanish sun. Jonathan
searched through fields of crack-mouthed, black-tongued
corpses to find Captain Sutton, who'd been knocked insensible
by a clod of earth thrown up by artillery fire. Jonathan
took him into the shade of a cork tree, and sat with him there
until his wits returned. A wounded French rifleman dragged
himself over to share the shade; he shared his water and his
tobacco tin with Jonathan as well, and made remarks about
the heat and the search for food, as they sat with their eyes
stinging with the smoke of their burning comrades.
After that great battle, Wellesley was made Lord Wellington.
French troops arrived in Spain in ever increasing
numbers, but Spanish guerrillas and Portuguese partisans
were everywhere, slitting the throats of sentries and harrying
smaller troop movements. Back and forth the advantage
went; an ebb and flow of men across the Spanish border like
the sea around a mid-tide mark. By the end of the year the
men were more afraid for their next meal than they were of
battle. The looting and pillaging continued, as did the
hangings. As the autumn grew old, starvation circled them
like carrion crows. Jonathan punched new holes in his belt
with the tip of his sabre when it would no longer fasten tight
around his shrinking middle. The two warring sides sent out
foraging parties to look for food. These men met frequently,
and greeted each other courteously, sharing tips and insights
into the terrain, into water supplies and edible plants.
Jonathan wondered what would happen if they all, on both
sides, just declared peace and refused to fight any more. The
thought was so bittersweet that Captain Sutton found him
crying like a child one day, sitting cross-legged on the
muddy ground with autumn rain soaking him.
'Up, and be doing, Major Alleyn,' the captain told him
kindly. 'You're that sodden, the men might think that you
weep. It will do them no good to think it.' He put an
arm around Jonathan's bony ribs and half carried him out of
sight of the men, who were carousing - dancing to a fiddle
and pipe with a kind of desperate levity. It was the tenth of
October, 1810; King George Ill's birthday in the fiftieth year
of his reign. They'd butchered a donkey that the retreating
French had hamstrung and left to die. Jonathan ate the
roasted meat alone in his tent, and thought of Alice, and of
Suleiman.
At the battle of Fuentes de Onoro, in spring the following
year, a truce had to be called at the end of the day so that
both sides could clear the bodies from the ruined village.
There were so many that the narrow streets were near
impassable. Jonathan stepped on an outflung hand by mistake,
looked down and saw that it was tiny, no bigger than a
woman's or a child's. The arm it belonged to, and the rest of
the body, was buried beneath others, five or six deep, so he
never had to see who had owned the hand - the delicate
finger bones he'd ground beneath his boot heel.
They moved on to Badajoz, a fortified town in a strategically
important location near the Portuguese border. Betrayed
by its own governor, Badajoz had fallen into French hands,
and been heavily garrisoned. The allies laid siege, digging
in as winter approached. There was heavy, relentless rain.
Jonathan had seen wounded soldiers burn to death after
barde, now he saw them drown in waterlogged mud. The
men, hard-bitten and proven, grew idle and restless over that
winter of 1811. They occupied themselves with scorpion
baiting, cock fighting and horse racing; with picking the
fleas out of their clothes and bedding and hair; with whoring
and wrestling and hunting for game; with watching friends
sicken and die from festering wounds and outbreaks of a
plague-like sickness.
Jonathan came down with a bout of fever, and lay listless
and sweating in his tent for five days. Captain Sutton visited
often, wet his lips with wine, and tried to cheer him with
funny stories about the tomfoolery of the men, but Jonathan
could not raise a smile for him. In their japes and their games
and their contests he saw the lust for violence, coiled inside
each one of them like madness; like embers that might burst
into flames in a second, and consume the last of the man's
humanity. These were the men who were invested to retake
Badajoz on the twelfth of March, 1812. These men made
brutal by all the fear and pain, hunger and violence; made
brave and savage by their own suffering, and half mad by
all they had seen. Jonathan looked over them as they approached
the city, and he feared them. Lord Wellington
might see a rabble, but he saw a pack of wolves, liable to turn
on each other, on their officers, on him. Captain Sutton kept
close to him as the siege was set and the barrage began.
Jonathan felt his friend's eyes upon him, measuring. He
wondered what madness the captain saw in him; whether he
saw the fear and sorrow and the yearning to hide away from
it all, or whether he saw the urge to kill and destroy, to vent
his rage on all around him. Both were in him, and when he
pictured Alice's face it fed both sides of him equally -- the
surrender, and the fury.
The artillery barrage succeeded in making three narrow
breaches in the town's crenellated walls. The French waited
inside in their thousands; any attempt to storm the breaches
would result in a slaughter. Wellington could see it; Jonathan
could see it; the lowliest foot soldier could see it. Nevertheless,
the command came for the attack to begin at ten in the
evening, under cover of darkness and with the French
unprepared. But some sound was heard; some inadvertent
tip-off betrayed them. The French set fire to the body of a
British soldier and hurled it out from the walls to cast light on
the advancing men, and as easily as that the element of
surprise was lost. The British charged, right into a series of
traps the French had set for them. They were blown up by
mines, drowned in flooded ditches. They were impaled on
iron spikes, and on makeshift barriers of sword blades; the
momentum of men behind ensuring the death of the vanguard.
Those that reached the breaches were slain in their
hundreds, and all the while the French inside hurled out
insults and taunts; goading them, laughing.
'you must not laugh at us!' Jonathan roared as he came
close enough to the walls to hear it. He was standing on the
bodies of the fallen; he was sprayed with flying blood,
drenched in sweat. He knew that the beast in them all was
awake, and that the laughter of their enemies ran like fire in
their blood; a red frenzy that turned them from men into
something both more and less. It kept the attack alive; it
stormed the walls, and pressed into the city; it opened the
breaches to the onrushing men; and after two hours in which
nearly five thousand of the allied besiegers were slaughtered,
it sealed the fate of the city of Badajoz.
The wolves were unleashed, and nothing could rein them
in. They were the sum total of all they had seen and suffered,
all they had been required to do and to bear. They were a
vision of mankind stripped of all decency and pity, and they
were hell-bent on revenge. Women were raped, and raped
again. Children, even crawling infants, were kicked around
for sport, stuck with bayonets. Men were tortured, killed,
torn to pieces, be they French invader or Spanish resident.
Men looted, men desecrated, men ravaged and pillaged; men
turned on one another and fought to the death over spoils as
trifling as a piece of food or a bottle of wine. Over the right
to rape a woman before she died, or afterwards. Their
officers could not hope to control them. Their officers dared
not try, for fear of being torn apart themselves; the men were
blind drunk on brandy and wine and blood.
Jonathan wandered through it all without seeing it, for the
first twelve hours or so. He found a dark cellar, entirely
empty; lay down on the dirt floor and slept a while. He did
not feel as though he possessed his own body; he felt like a
ghost, drifting unseen amongst it all. Only when he awoke
and rose did he notice the pain in his leg, and the way it
would not take his weight. He looked down and found a
chunk of wood thrust straight through his calf. The exit
wound was a chaos of black clotted blood and shards of grey
bone. The sight caused no emotion in him at all. He stumbled
out into the violated streets. A cloudy day had dawned, but
the light brought no respite to the degradation of Badajoz.
The men went about in packs, under no command. Jonathan
did not speak to any, nor interfere with the things he saw. He
did not dare, since to interfere was to see it, to take it in; and
to see it was to run the risk of losing himself for ever.
But Captain Sutton found him, and brought him to a
group of five men, the sparse remnants of his company, who
had banded together for safety from the pillage.
'Thank God you're alive, Major! I had feared the worst. If
anyone can restore some order here, it's you, sir.' Captain
Sutton splinted up Jonathan's shattered leg, tearing strips
from his own uniform to bind it. 'But I should get you to the
surgeons first. Come,' he said.
'No!' Jonathan cried. He remembered the surgeons: the
stink of rum and bile and open bowels; the mound of severed
limbs that piled up outside the window of a Talavera convent
where they'd set up their tables. Huge black moths, circling
the field lamps. The pain in his leg was coming in waves now,
a rising beat of agony, but he would not submit to the
surgeons. 'No! I can stand. I can walk. Let us bring a halt to
this madness.'
'Are you sure, sir?' Sutton wasn't convinced, but Jonathan
stood, using an abandoned musket as a crutch.
Talking had returned Jonathan to himself, however reluctantly.
Nausea bubbled in his gut as they moved cautiously
through the ruins of the town; smoke skirled around them
from a hundred different fires. They broke up fights and
issued orders that were sometimes heeded; more often
ignored. They hastened the passing of soldiers and citizens
who had been left in dreadful agony, deliberately, and with
no hope of survival. They pulled a man from a barrel of
brandy only to find that he had drowned himself in it, and
was beyond reprimand. They fired their guns to scatter a
group of men squabbling like magpies over the gilded
treasure from a plundered church. And as the hours passed,
Jonathan's heart grew sicker and sicker with it all. He knew,
with complete certainty, that not one man of them would
ever feel himself possessed of his whole soul again. They
must lose a part of it, or risk the corruption spreading to
every corner. All too often, it was clear that this had already
happened.
It was the woman's screams that drew them. Many women
wept noisily, or prayed, or were mute or unconscious as they
were violated. This woman screamed with such anger and
outrage that Jonathan flinched away from the sound. He did
not want to witness what would cause her to make such
sounds. Grim-faced, his small band of men rushed towards
the church from which her voice came echoing. She was at
the far end of the aisle, near the dais where the altar sat. It
was a small church with a pretty rose window high in the
wall, its glass miraculously intact, lighting the scene of
torment playing out below in shades of blue and gold. A
group of ten or so British soldiers surrounded her, and had
been with her for some time by the looks of it. She had been
stripped naked, and struggled to rise even though her lower
body was awash in blood. Each time she got to her knees she
was kicked back down, and as Jonathan approached a man
climbed on top of her, and began his work again. She
screeched with that wild rage, and the hair stood up on
Jonathan's arms.
'Enough!' he bellowed. He levelled his pistol at the man
with his breeches down. 'You will desist, there. That is an
order!'
For a startled moment the men all turned to look at him
and were silent; and Jonathan's heart, which was speeding so
fast that he couldn't feel its separate beats, filled with the
hope that they would obey him. But then the one who
appeared to be their leader, a big man with close-cropped
hair and a pocked face, snarled.
'You can buss the blind cheeks, sir. We've paid with our
blood, and now we'll have our sport.' Behind him, the
woman's face, which for a moment had mirrored Jonathan's
hope, crumpled into desperation again.
'I order you to leave her be,' said Jonathan, but the hand
that held the pistol had begun to shake, and even though
Captain Sutton and their few loyal men stood to either side of
him, he felt the shreds of his authority evaporate. He put a
bullet in the lead man, but his aim was off; the wound was in
the shoulder, and did not fell him. And then the two groups
fell upon each other like bitter enemies, not like the comrades
they'd so recently been. Jonathan and Captain Sutton were
outnumbered, but their small band fought with right on their
side, and for once that seemed to count for something.
Nevertheless, most of the woman's rescuers fell to her tormentors
before it was done. One of them, a lad no more
than seventeen, was driven off down the aisle with his foe
hard behind him, a hunting knife gripped in his hand.
Moments later Captain Sutton went the same way, pursuing
two others who fled before him. Jonathan was left alone to
fight the lead man, the man he had shot, with his bare hands.
They fought gracelessly, grappling at one another, Jonathan's
crippled leg offset by the bullet wound in the other
man, which spattered blood onto both of them. His opponent
was bigger and stronger, but he was also drunk, and Jonathan's
slim frame belied the wiry hardness of his muscles.
The lead man got his hands around Jonathan's neck and
would have crushed his windpipe if Jonathan hadn't gouged a
thumb into the bullet hole in his shoulder, pushing until he
found where the bullet had lodged against the bone, still
burning hot. The man roared and thrust him away, so
violently that Jonathan staggered and went to his knees. In
front of him was another man's musket, spent, the bayonet
stained with blood. As he stood, Jonathan grabbed it by the
muzzle and spun about, swinging it as hard as he could. The
butt caught the pock-faced man across the side of his head
with a hollow knock and a splintering sound; he dropped like
an empty sack, and didn't move. The sudden silence roared
in Jonathan's ears. He felt as though his blood was simmering
in his veins, poisoned. As he turned to leave, a scuffle of
movement behind him jolted him into action again. Hands
closed on his arm, and he wheeled around, thrusting blindly
with the bayonet. He felt it meet resistance; felt that resistance
part around the sharp steel. Then he looked down into
the Spanish woman's face, and knew himself a murderer.
She made a strange gulping sound, as if trying to swallow
the air instead of breathing it. Jonathan knelt and tried to
hold her up as she sank forwards, to stop her pushing herself
further onto the blade. He didn't dare pull it free; he'd seen
that done too many times, and knew the spurt of blood and
rapid death it would bring. In his horror and shame he tried
desperately to think of a way to save her, a way to undo it,
when he knew there was none. He turned her carefully onto
her back, and knelt with his arms around her, cradling her
naked body. There was blood on her breasts; bruising on her
neck. Her face was long and hard-boned, but her mouth was
beautiful, sensuous and full. She tried to speak, but could not.
She gulped at the air some more, staring at him with such
intensity that he knew she was desperate to tell him something.
'I'm
sorry,' he murmured, wretchedly, over and over. 'Lo
siento, lo siento . . . forgive me, I beg you.' He rocked her
gently but it made her whimper in pain, so he stopped. Still
she gave him that piercing look, her black eyes shining in the
jewel-coloured light from the window. She raised one hand
and reached it towards the wooden pews flanking the aisle;
her fingers grasped at nothing. Her hands were slender, and
elegant; there was blood underneath her fingernails, and the
smell of her sweat and her skin was in Jonathan's nostrils.
In that moment, the only thing he was aware of, in all of
existence, was the woman dying in his arms. She turned her
face to her outstretched hand, murmuring in her throat, a
sound too weak to be words. Then she stated back up at
Jonathan for a moment, and he was looking into her eyes at
the exact moment life left them. A tiny, cataclysmic shift; as
simple and irreversible as the passing of time.
Her reaching arm dropped, her head lolled to the side, and
Jonathan felt that he was living through the worst and
blackest moment of his life. And when he followed her gaze
and her gesture to the pews, and found her baby hidden
there, he understood why she had bled so much, and why she
had been so outraged at the thought of her own death. The
child was no more than a few days old, tiny and unaware,
wrapped in a grubby blanket and unharmed, untouched. Its
eyes were closed, edged with black lashes; a peaceful face
below a mass of dark hair. The woman had refused to accept
her fate for the sake of this child but Jonathan had robbed her
of everything, anyway. He lifted the baby into his arms and
ran his stained finger gently down its cheek. Its skin was so
soft he couldn't tell if he was touching it or not. He knew at
once that any chance of saving himself lay in saving this one tiny life, pure 
and miraculous amidst all the corruption.



Neither Mrs Weekes nor Jonathan Alleyn seemed to notice
that Starling had returned to the room. She carried a jug of
bishop - warm, watered wine in which a roasted orange
bobbed - and stood quietly in the doorway between the two
chambers, where she heard the latter part of Jonathan's tale

and all the anguish with which he told it. Mrs Weekes lifted
his hand when he fell silent; she held it to her cheek, and the
gesture struck Starling violently. Rachel Weekes looked so
like Alice in that moment, with her face bowed and her pale
hair shining, that it gave her a wrenching feeling inside. It's
because she loves him. That's what makes her look like Alice. With this 
realisation came a flash of jealous fire, which lasted
only an instant and was followed by a strange emptiness, like
loss.
'She would forgive you. You must see that,' said Mrs
Weekes.
'Would she? I think not. She wanted so much to live, for
her child. She was determined to live, and she survived the
brutal treatment she was given only to die by my hand,' said
Jonathan.
'She wanted her child to live. That's what she wanted more
than anything. The battle had nothing to do with her, but
that woman gave birth to her baby amidst it all, and somehow
keep her safe until that moment. And you did what she
wanted -- you kept Cassandra safe. I think she would forgive
you.' The pair of them stared at one another for a moment,
and Starling saw that Jonathan hardly dared to believe it.
'Mrs Weekes is right -- what happened was an accident.
You didn't rape her, you meant to save her - and you saved
the babe. This was no crime,' said Starling, and at once felt
that she'd intruded into their intimacy. She stiffened, and
colour came into her cheeks. She deposited the jug of bishop
on the side table to cover her discomfort.
'Everything that happened there was a crime,' said Jonathan.
'But
not one you are responsible for,' Rachel Weekes
insisted.
'Then, this story does not make you despise me?' he said.
Rachel Weekes watched him steadily.
'Nothing could,' she said.
Starling saw how easily their hands stayed clasped; how
unabashed they were. Their touch seemed at once casual and
essential, to both of them, and Starling was excluded. Their
feelings put up a barrier to her, just as the feelings between
Alice and Jonathan had done, years before. She was powerless
to do anything about it; she felt herself diminishing,
becoming less substantial because of it. She could only watch,
and try to find a voice with which to reach them.
'What will you do now, Mrs Weekes?' she said, and was
surprised to hear how hard her voice sounded. Rachel
Weekes looked from Jonathan to Starling and then back
again, and it was her turn to show confusion.
'I must ... I must bury my husband, and my father-in
law. I must sell the business, or find a manager. I must . . .'
She frowned, letting go of Jonathan's hand and smoothing
the skirts in her lap. 'I must find a situation, I suppose,' she
concluded, then looked up at Jonathan Alleyn with questions
writ large on her face. She doubts him, but she dares to hope.
'Mrs Weekes. You have some onerous tasks ahead of you.
If I may be of any assistance, during any of it, you must
please tell me,' said Jonathan. Rachel Weekes said nothing,
but gave a tiny nod. 'I plan to leave Bath,' Jonathan went on.
'I've stayed here too long. This house has been my gaol and 1
would be free of it. Let my mother stay here, and reflect on
all that has passed. I could go ... I could go to the house
at Box. There are tenants in it, but they may be given
notice . . .' Here Jonathan paused, and glanced at Starling.
'Then again, no. Perhaps that place has as many unhappy
memories as this one,' he murmured. 'I may even sell it.
There are plenty of other places I could go.'
'I think a change of situation and surroundings would be
most advantageous to your continued recovery, Mr Alleyn,'
said Rachel Weekes, in a constricted voice that shook slightly.
He studied her for a second, perplexed.
'But, Mrs Weekes . . . Rachel,' he said. 'I will go nowhere
unless you will accompany me.' For a heartbeat Rachel
Weekes did not react, then her smile broke over her face
like the sunrise.
Starling's throat squeezed tight, aching, as she watched
this exchange and felt herself sliding away from them, quite
alone. Her eyes burned and she turned, stumbling blindly for
the door and the corridor outside, where Mrs Alleyn waited --
another invisible person, another unwanted remnant of the
past, with no place in the now.
'Starling, wait!' The voice that called her back was Rachel
Weekes's. Starling pivoted clumsily on her wooden feet.
'What will you do?' Rachel asked.
'I know not,' Starling replied. 'It matters not.'
'You cannot mean to serve Mrs Alleyn from now on,
surely?'
'No. I shan't serve her.'
'Then . . . will you come with us instead?' Us. Already
they are become 'us'. But they were too new an entity; it was
too soon, and Mrs Weekes seemed to flounder after using
the word. 'That is, will you come with me?' she corrected
herself. Starling gave her as hard a look as she could find; a
glare as weighty as she could make it.
'You'll have need of a servant, no doubt. Perhaps I might
prove too costly for you, though,' she said. Rachel Weekes
blinked, and looked hurt.
'No, I . . . have little need of a servant, in truth,' she said.
'But I have great need of a friend.' The two of them watched
one another, and then Rachel Weekes smiled; a fleeting,
transient expression. She doesn't know if I will accept her or
spurn her. She gives me that power. Starling swallowed. You
cannot replace Alice. She'd meant to say it out loud, but
couldn't bring herself to. How could she, when this tall, pale
creature had fought for Alice alongside her, as if she had
known her, as if she too had loved her? Starling's face was
frozen; she was afraid that if she moved a muscle, all would
fly out of her control. 'Will you then? Come with me?'
Rachel Weekes asked again. And this time Starling managed
to nod.
'I will,' she said.
After the fair in Corsham Jonathan dropped them off on the
Batheaston side of the miller's bridge, holding Alice's hand as
he helped her down. Then he flicked the reins and Starling
and Alice watched him vanish into the gloaming; the haze of
day's end wrapping itself gently around him, and muffling
the metal ring of the pony's hooves. Alice put her arm
around Starling's shoulders and they set off towards home
with the slow, tired, contented feeling of a perfect day spent.
The sun's remembered warmth was in the stones of the
bridge; Starling put her hand on the parapet and felt it. The
river was low and sluggish, easing sleepily between its banks
and glowing faintly with borrowed light from a fat, baleful
moon that had risen.
Alice was still humming the tune that the Irish girl had
sung at the fair, and Starling picked it up.
'How did it go?' said Alice, smiling.
' Then she made her way homeward, with one star awake, as
the swan in the evening moved over the lake,' Starling sang.
'Only this is a river, not a lake, and I can't see any swans.'
'Oh, we need not be so literal, I think.' Alice laughed.
'No, but it would have been perfect if there had been
swans on the river just now.'
'Your singing voice is so lovely, little sister. Far lovelier
than an actual starling's.' Starling glowed at the praise. She
tipped her face up to the blue-black sky.
'There's more than one star out, too. I count . . . seven no,
eight,' she said.
'Sing some more.'
'She laid her hand on me and this she did say, it will not be
long, love, till our wedding day . . .'
'I felt as though she was singing just for me, when I heard
that song today,' said Alice, dreamily. 'I felt she was singing
it just for Jonathan and me. Did you see how he blushed?'
'Yes. But don't say that -- the girl in the song died, remember?'
'Oh,
so literal again! Well, perhaps not that part. But the
first verse, and the refrain.' Alice sighed, and then threw her
arms wide, laughed again. She turned to Starling, taking both
her hands and spinning her around until both were giddy and
giggling. 'He loves me well, does he not?' she asked, breathlessly.
'You
know he does,' said Starling, embarrassed. Alice
grew calmer, her face softer, still wreathed in smiles.
' "If it were now to die, 'Twere now to be most
happy . . ." Oh, I feel just like Othello, Starling! I'm so
happy, I could die,' she said. 'So perhaps every word of the
song was for me, after all.'
Starling walked on again, pulling Alice along by her hand.
She couldn't place the warning she felt just then. She looked
back over her shoulder but there was no one else on the
bridge; no one in the lane ahead of them.
'Perhaps I'll sing the song to Bridget, when she comes
home,' she said.
'You must, dearest. You know how she loves your singing,
even if she won't say so. Only don't forget to say you
heard it from a pedlar in the village.'
'I'll say I heard it from Dan Smithers, the bargeman. He's
always warbling old tunes.'
'Good idea.' Their voices made a bird clap its wings in the
leaves overhead. 'You know, Starling, when I marry Jonathan,
he will be your brother.'
'He will?'
'Of course. You're my sister, so he will be your brother.
Do you know what that means?' Alice glanced down at
Starling, swinging her arm in time with their languorous
strides. 'It means no harm can ever come to you. It means
you will always be looked after, and kept safe.'
'But having you for my sister means that already, doesn't
it?'
'I wish it did, dearest.' Alice turned her face to the moon;
she was grey and silver, bathed in its light. 'But women alone
are never safe. Not truly. It is the men who rule us that
decide it all.'
'Are we not safe at Bathampton, then? You and me and
Bridget?' Starling was troubled by this news.
'We are safe. But only because of Lord Faukes, and his
good grace. Do you see? But when I am wed to Jonathan,
then he will be our family. And that is the safest thing of all,'
said Alice. Starling thought about this for a moment.
'A brother like him would be a good thing,' she decided.
'When will you marry him?'
Alice chuckled. 'Just as soon as I can.'
In the distance a dog barked, and they heard the clatter of
a gate latch closing. Alice sighed. 'As soon as he is free, and it
can be no secret, and be celebrated instead. People like him
are rare, I think -- people in whom the goodness runs right
through. People like that should be cherished,' she said.
Starling felt a little guilty as she considered this.
'I'm not like that,' she confessed, sombrely.
'Nor I. But we that aren't can always strive to be. And you
and I can cherish each other regardless, can't we?' said Alice,
putting her arm around Starling's shoulders again. They
reached the George Inn, and turned along the towpath to
take them back to the farmhouse. The more that Starling
thought about it, the more she wanted it. She pictured life
after Alice was wed, and it looked like a wide, open space in
which there was freedom, and peace, and no more warnings
in the back of her head. A place full of Alice's smiles, and
Jonathan's pleasing laughter. 'I shall very much like having
Mr Alleyn for my brother,' she said quietly, as they carried
on towards home through the warm, unhurried night.
By February, the three of them were ready to leave Bath.
The weather had set fair, though the air was still freezing; the
sun was richer, softer, seemed finally to hold the promise of a
spring not too far away. With the furniture sold from the
house on Abbeygate Street, Rachel watched her trunk loaded
onto a cart that creaked and clattered away, just five months
after it had arrived. But how much longer it seems. A lifetime. The cart would 
go on ahead of them to the new house near
Shaftesbury, a market town snug in the rolling, wooded hills
of Dorset. It had taken time to find a house to rent, and for
Rachel to settle her husband's affairs. There was little of the
business left to sell once the main part had been set against
Richard's debts, left here and there all over Bath. At inns and
gambling halls; with his tailor; with their landlord. The
remainder of his stock, and his account books, were sold to
a rival. Duncan and Richard Weekes lay side by side in the
dank little cemetery on the southern edge of the city. Rachel
had been there a few times over the winter, to say a prayer
and lay flowers on their graves. Would I come to the son if the
father did not lie beside him? Perhaps she would, she decided,
compelled by the guilty heart of a wife who did not grieve, if
nothing else.
Once the cart was out of sight Rachel went upstairs to the
kitchen-cum-parlour and listened for a while. Through the
walls and ceilings came all the usual muffled sounds, of
voices and footsteps, scrapes and thuds, snatches of song.
The shutters were closed, but a shaft of sunshine eased
between them and cut across the floor. Rachel stood in the
light and felt its feeble warmth. Soon there will be nothing of
either of us here but the dust we leave. She was glad of it, she
could not wait to go; and yet she felt the need to observe the
moment, and not let it pass unheeded. She shut her eyes and
imagined how different everything would have been if she
had not, by pure chance, resembled Alice Beckwith. would
have stayed at Hartford, unwed all my life. Or I would have
lived here, married to a man made miserable by his own guilt and
failings. And he would have beaten me for it, and ruined us with
bad debt. I would never have known Jonathan, or Starling. Or
happiness. And the city of Bath would go on just as it ever
had, and the troubles and laughter of the lives all around
would carry on seeping through the walls, and she would
have no part in any of it, from that day. Her boot heels were
loud on the wooden boards as she left the house at last,
locking it behind her and handing the key to the landlord's
clerk.
At number one, Lansdown Crescent, the carriage and four
was waiting in the side alley, and Falmouth was overseeing a
pair of boys as they loaded and secured an array of boxes and
trunks.
'I'll have that one inside with me,' Starling told Falmouth,
as Rachel approached. 'Oh, never mind. I'll put it in myself,'
she muttered, taking her own dowdy bag from the frigid
butler and climbing up into the carriage.
'You should let them do it, Starling. You're not a servant
any more,' said Rachel, smiling. Starling rolled her eyes.
'I am as I ever was - pitched halfway between gutter and
gentry, and owned by neither one,' she said, climbing down
again, putting her hands on her hips. She wore her plain
servant's dress, but the work apron that normally covered it
was gone. Her coppery hair was hidden beneath the only
good hat she owned, a straw bonnet with a lilac ribbon that
had previously been saved for church. 'Your things have
gone on ahead?' she said.
'They have. And Mr Alleyn?'
'Around here somewhere.' As Starling spoke, Jonathan
appeared in the doorway, narrowing his eyes against the
light. The cut on his head, from his fall on the common, was
a faint red line. A reminder I'll always have, of how wrong it is
possible to be.
'Mrs Weekes,' he said, coming carefully down the steps.
His lame leg had grown stronger, as he used it more, but
stairs were still hazardous. He gripped the railings tightly,
but refused to use a cane. He did not smile; there were still
shadows under his eyes, and he was as pale as ever. Come the
summer that will change.
'Mr Alleyn, are you well?'
'Tolerably.' He took her hand and kissed it.
'You have not slept,' she said.
'No. But tonight I will, I think. In a strange and blameless
room.' He smiled briefly; kept hold of her hand. 'Are you
ready, my dear Mrs Weekes?' he said quietly.
'I am, sir. I have been to see Captain and Mrs Sutton, to
take my leave.' At mention of them, Jonathan's face darkened.
Rachel squeezed his arm. 'I told them we would write
to them soon. And I ... I would speak with your mother, if I
may. Just a word of farewell.'
'You will not find it a fond one.'
'No. I do not expect to.'
Rachel found Josephine Alleyn in the grand front parlour,
in the exact place she'd been when Rachel first saw her standing
in the window by the now empty canary cage. Why
does she not remove it, or get another bird? She was wearing a
severe dress of midnight blue, long-sleeved and high at her neck; a swaddling 
of darkness to show her displeasure.
'Mrs Alleyn,' said Rachel, determined not to be cowed by
her composure, or the chill that radiated from her.
'Oh, leave me be, can you not? You come to gloat, I
assume.' The older lady kept her face to the window, as if
determined to turn her back to everything that went on that day.
'No, madam.'
'No? And how long was your husband in the ground
before you became engaged to my son?' She spoke savagely.
'Scant weeks indeed, Mrs Alleyn,' said Rachel, evenly.
'But I need not answer for it to you, I think, who'd kept
Richard Weekes in thrall all his life.' At this Josephine turned
at last, with a wintery smile.
'Yes. It was I that had his heart, not you. It was never
you.'
'And you are welcome to it, madam.' Rachel heard her
voice shake; she took a slow breath to steady it. 'To the
memory of it, anyway.'
'What do you want, Mrs Weekes? Haven't you done
enough? Haven't you stolen my son from me -- and isn't
that enough?'
'Can you not be happy, that he wishes to move on? That
he starts to forget his pain, and has a chance of happiness
now?'
'I shall never be happy to be separated from him. If that is
all you came in to say, then leave me in peace and get you
gone. It pleases me no end to know I will never see your face
again. That face.'
'I pray you might,' Rachel said quietly, and Josephine
frowned. 'What I came to say is this: I know the pain of
losing family. I know the loneliness of believing yourself
separated from them for ever. I know how you must . . .
suffer, now.'
'And you delight in it?' Josephine whispered, shaking with
feeling in spite of herself.
'I do not. Jonathan . . . your son knows loss and suffering
too. You told me he hadn't the strength for it, and that was
why he did not heal, but you were wrong. He only needed
some way to set it down, and break from it. He will always
remember it, but his anger will burn itself out. I believe he
will forgive you, in the end; and I will try my best on your
behalf. I will try to remind him of how greatly you have
suffered, and how greatly you suffer still.'
For a long time Josephine only stared at her. A tremor
passed through her, a shiver of pain, or revulsion, Rachel
couldn't tell.
'Leave me be,' Josephine whispered.
'It will take time - he needs time. But I will not forget, I
promise you. Family is too precious a thing to set aside.'
'I wish you had never come here. I wish that wretch
Starling had never convinced me to let you in!' Josephine
spat.
'But she did, and now all can move on. I hope ... I hope
one day your anger will also burn itself out, Mrs Alleyn. Or
you risk that it consume you utterly. I ... I will write to
you, if you wish it.'
'Mrs Weekes, I have never once got any of the things I
wished for.' With that, Josephine turned back to the window,
her shoulders rigid above her straight spine, draped in inky
darkness. She was a silhouette against the sunlight; a single
still figure, like the drawing of a woman, all hollow inside.
'Farewell, Mrs Alleyn,' Rachel murmured, dropping into a
curtsy that nobody saw.
Outside, Jonathan handed her up into the carriage. He
frowned at her serious expression but did not ask what had
passed between his betrothed and his mother. Starling sat
perched on the edge of the leather bench inside, looking
desperately uncomfortable, as though she ought not to have
been there at all. When Sol Bradbury appeared on the
servants' stair, she swore and climbed out again, rushing
over to the cook and hugging her. Once she was back and
seated the coachman stirred up the horses, and Starling
turned to look back at the house, craning her head out of
the window. Jonathan did not look back, and neither did
Rachel. He gripped her hand so tightly it was almost
uncomfortable, and kept his eyes set straight ahead. Rachel
felt Josephine's sorrowful scrutiny like a cold shadow behind
them.
'We must stop in Bathampton,' said Starling, as Lansdown
Crescent passed out of view behind them. 'I must see
Bridget.'

The carriage waited at the side of the Batheaston road. Jonathan and Rachel 
stood on the miller's bridge, against
the parapet; looking west, downstream along the river. The
sunlight on the water was blinding, the sky too bright to
make out the edge of Bath. Below, along the riverbank, the
lovers' tree stood where it ever had; a little older, a little
more gnarled. It trailed its long fingers in the water, and
didn't feel the chill. Rachel had imagined it as a more graceful
tree, and further from the road, out of sight of passers-by.
Perhaps in some secret dell somewhere. She looped her arm
through Jonathan's, and waited for him to speak.
'I scratched out our initials. I wish I had not,' he said,
shielding his eyes with one hand. 'I remember it now.'
'Your initials?'
'Mine and Alice's. An A and a J. We made them when
we were ten years old -- painstakingly, I might add. It took
me hours to do. When I found the note there, after she
vanished ... I took out my knife there and then and
destroyed the carving.'
'Richard Weekes's note, it must have been,' Rachel said
softly. Jonathan glanced at her.
'Would it upset you to see it?' 'You have it? I thought it lost?'
'So it was. I found it as I emptied my rooms. It had fallen
through a split in one of the drawers of my desk, and was
caught beneath it all this time.' He handed it to her; a small
square of paper, yellowed with age. She knew the writing at
once, and thought of the letters Richard had written her when
they were courting, all full of love and promises. That
crabbed hand with each letter drawn separately, laboriously.
She'd burnt them all, in one bundle and without feeling,
as she'd packed up her own few things. 'Is it his hand?'
Jonathan asked.
'Yes.' Rachel nodded. 'Of course it is.' He took the note
back and looked down at it, frowning; it fluttered in his
fingers.
'One day, only,' he said softly. 'She went to meet him for
the last time the morning before my return. I missed her by
just a single day.'
He read the note once more and then let the breeze take it.
The paper vanished into the sunlight; they glimpsed it further
downstream -- a yellow fragment, hurrying away. The breeze
rattled the winter trees beside the bridge; the river made a
quiet slithering sound. Behind them the sluice gates were
closed, the race dry, and the mill wheel sat silent and still.
'Your eyes are sad, love. Tell me your thoughts,' said
Jonathan. 'Are you sorry to leave Bath behind?'
'No. How could I be?' Rachel smiled, tightening her arm
around his. 'I was thinking again, as I have before, how
strange it was God gave me this face. Gave it to Abi and me,
and also to Alice.'
'But it is not the same face. Similar, but not the same.
When 1 first set eyes on you, I saw Alice, but I was mad and
addled then. I saw what I wanted to see. Now when I look at
you, I see only Rachel.' He reached up, brushed his thumb
across her cheek. 'It is this woman that I love, and she is very
different to the girl I loved before. And I like to think it was
fate, besides.'
'Fate?'
'Your face is the only reason we met in the first place, so it
cannot be chance. It cannot be, when you are the one person
who could make me . . . who could help me to be whole
again.'
'I like that idea.' Rachel smiled, wryly. 'Then my first
marriage was not a catastrophe, but a means to a better end,'
she said. Jonathan grimaced.
'Speak not of that. Speak not of him,' he said.
'Very well,' Rachel agreed. 'No more, from this day.' She
stared down in to the brilliant water, until its rushing made
her dizzy. 'We have all three of us lost a sister to this river,'
she murmured.
'What?'
'You, and I, and Starling. This river took Alice and Abi
both, and vanished them without trace; yet it spat up Richard
Weekes within hours of him entering it. Perhaps the river has
a spirit that only welcomes the good of heart, and rejects the
others.' She saw Jonathan's face darken, as it did at any
mention of his blood relationship to Alice, or when Richard
Weekes was named. 'Forgive me,' she said hurriedly. 'I
thought out loud, and should guard my words better.'
'No, never do that,' said Jonathan. 'Never guard your
words -- promise me. There has already been far too much of
that in my life. Always say what you think, and what you
feel, and I will do the same. Even if you think I would rather
not hear it. Promise me.'
"Very well. I promise it,' said Rachel. She looked up
at Jonathan's serious expression; saw the cares that still
crowded him. 'My heart had been half dead since my family
died. For years, that part of me slept . . . but you woke it,
Jonathan,' she murmured. She put her fingertips to his mouth
and felt his breath catch; he pulled her hand away and kissed
her lips. A soft and silent kiss that made the sky widen and
the ground seem deeper; that pushed the world away from
them, because only they could know the elation it caused.
When they broke apart it was not far. Jonathan curled his
hand around the back of Rachel's neck and leant his forehead
to hers, with his eyes closed, serene.
When she heard footsteps, Rachel looked up reluctantly.
'Look, here she comes,' she said. Starling was coming along
the lane from Bathampton, carrying her hat in one hand, its
lilac ribbons trailing out behind her. The sun shone in her red
hair, and made her squint. Suddenly, for the first time, Rachel
could see how young she still was. Without her anger she
seemed less certain, more tentative and anxious. Her diffidence
around Jonathan bordered on shyness. She knew how to
act when she could hate him. Now, she doesn't know.
'Did you see her? Was she well?' Rachel asked her.
Starling nodded, and took a position next to Rachel, leaning
over the bridge.
'Yes. She . . . wept when I told her of Alice's fate but she
thanked me also. For giving her the truth of it, once and for
all. She even . . . she even said sorry. For not believing me
all these years when I said Alice was slain.' Starling cast a
guilty glance at Jonathan.
'Will she be all right, do you think?' said Rachel.
'She will grieve, of course. Her health is not improved, but
spring is coming. I told her I would send word when we
arrive; I told her I would send money.'
'She does not wish to travel into Dorsetshire with us?
Some lodgings could be found, I am sure . . .' said Jonathan,
but Starling shook her head.
'Too old to travel, she claims. Bathampton is her home.
She--' Starling cut herself off, frowning and examining the
stonework. She gouged a strip of lichen from a crevice with
her thumbnail, so Rachel knew that she didn't like what she
had to say next. 'It was Bridget that took Alice's letters. Her
rosewood box . . . On Faukes's order, after I let slip to him
that you and Alice wrote to each other, sir. She took the box
and gave it to him, soon after Alice vanished. He did not give
her a reason. I suppose they wanted to destroy all evidence of
the bond between them. Between you and Alice, sir.'
'But . . . she knew all this while you were searching for
them!' said Rachel.
'She said she feared to tell me,' said Starling, sounding
puzzled. Rachel smiled at her.
'Yes. In her place, I think I would have feared to tell you
too.'
'I am not so very fierce,' said Starling.
'You are.' Rachel and Jonathan spoke near in unison.
Rachel put a hand on Starling's arm, apologetically. 'That is,
you were.'
For a while they watched the water, each lost in their own
thoughts. Then Starling asked, tentatively:
'Mr Alleyn, did Alice ever tell you anything about where I
came from? 1 often asked if she'd ever found anything out, or
if anybody had come looking for me, but she always denied
it. I thought, perhaps, she had found out something she did
not want me to know . . .'
'No.' Jonathan shook his head. 'No, she did not. As far as
I know, she never tried to find out. She was too afraid that
she would uncover some reason to have to give you up.'
'Then I will never know,' said Starling.
'I'm sorry, Starling,' said Rachel.
'No, do not be. 1 ... I am quite happy not to know. It was
something Alice and I used to share - the mystery of our
undisclosed beginnings. Look what sorrow finding hers out
brought her. I would rather my story started when she picked
me up out of the mud at the farmhouse that day. That is the
only history I need; the only family.'
'There's wisdom there,' said Jonathan.
'And look -- look what Bridget gave me.' Starling took a
small, cloth-bound book from her pocket. 'One of Alice's
poetry books -- one that she often read from. Bridget hid it
about her when we were removed and the house cleared out.
She also wanted a keepsake. When she told me about Alice's
letters, and I said I had so longed to have something of
hers . . . She felt bad about it and gave me this book.' She
handed it to Rachel with due reverence. 'Look inside the
cover.'
' This book belongs to Alice Beckwith, and it is her favourite --
pray do not leave it out in the rain, Starling,' Rachel read, and
smiled. The handwriting was small and precise, slanting
forwards elegantly.
'I did the very thing with another one of hers -- a novel
she'd been teaching me to read from. It was quite ruined,'
said Starling.
'So there -- you have a letter of hers, of sorts, and one
addressed to you,' said Rachel.
'And this proves that she lived. This means she can never
be forgot.'
'She never would have been,' Jonathan said quietly. 'So,
then, I can let this one go. You do not mind?' He took Alice's
last letter from his coat pocket. T ... I do not want to keep
it. Her last words to me should not be ones of such sadness
and pain.' Starling stared hungrily at the letter for a moment,
but then she shook her head.
'You are right. It should not be kept to remind us,' she
said. Jonathan smoothed the paper between his fingertips for a moment, as if to 
remember the feel of it. Then he let it go
into the water, without another word. They watched it spin
away in silence.
When it was out of sight, Starling hung her arms over the
parapet and stared down at the lovers' tree. Jonathan and
Rachel had already taken their leave of the place, and so they
waited for some sign that she was ready, and did not hurry
her. It went unspoken between them that they would never
return to that same spot; that it must stay in the past, and not
haunt the future. So they waited, and the breeze fluttered
Starling's lilac ribbons, and the red strands of her hair; and in
distant treetops rooks clattered and muttered to one another.
Then, with a whistling rush of air, a pair of swans flew low
over the bridge and skated down onto the water, sending up
dazzling waves from their feet. They were incandescent with
light. Calmly, the birds folded back their wings, crooked
their necks and moved into the gentler current near the bank.
Starling gasped and watched them intently; then she turned
to Rachel and Jonathan, smiling unguardedly.
'Come, let's not linger here any more,' she said. Jonathan
nodded, and they moved away towards where the carriage
waited, and did not look back.
As ever, my profound thanks go to the whole team at Orion
for all their expertise, support and hard work; and especially
to Eleanor Dryden and Genevieve Pegg for their enthusiastic,
insightful and exacting treatment of the manuscript.
Many, many thanks to my agent Nicola Barr for being so
talented, skilful and patient.
A big thank you to my friends and family, who are always
behind me all the way, handing out books and only ever
feeding back the good comments; and this time especially to
Sarah Green, for her infectious enthusiasm about Bath and
her guided walks - even with that knee.


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