The Misbegotten (58 page)

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! I 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 seem 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?’

‘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.
I 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.
I 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 speech.

‘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’ll 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.
I 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.