The Misbegotten (59 page)

‘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.
I 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 Jonathan’s 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 rooms 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 us. It is not knowing; it is the things we cannot see.
Jonathan lay 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.
I no longer have nobody. I have 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 she was about, wake and snatch the letter from her or chase her 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.

My Dearest Jonathan

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 scruffy 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 – I 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 I 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.