The Dark Unwinding (10 page)

“Questions, Miss Tulman?”

“How close is the estate to rebuilding its reserves?”

Mr. Babcock lit like a candle. “We are sustaining already! Mostly from the exports of porcelain figures, hand-painted, very desirable, and we are doing well with custom decorative iron, and brass….”

“How close, Mr. Babcock?”

“Five years,” he said.

Five years. And I had the distinct feeling this might be erring on the side of optimism. The fire settled again in the gleaming hearth, and I heard the discordant chiming of the clocks come faintly through the walls. Four on a Monday morning. Mr. Babcock had ridden through the night and pulled me from my bed to have this discussion, and for the first time it struck me that he could not be responding to my letter. At best that letter could only now be arriving in London. Someone must have written immediately upon my arrival, and Mr. Babcock had come like the wind. Mrs. Jefferies, perhaps? I wasn’t sure, but she had certainly known he was coming; the drawing room had been cleaned. Once again I found the shrewd eyes studying me.

“What do you want from me, Mr. Babcock? You didn’t ride through the night to explain my family history.”

“No indeed, my dear.” He settled back in his chair. “You are quite astute. I hope to engage you in a game of subterfuge. I want you to keep Alice Tulman out of Stranwyne.”

“For five years,” I stated.

“Until our little plan has come quite to fruition. When Robert is of age he will begin receiving his allowance, as stipulated. This has been planned for and might well keep things quiet for a time, and when all must become known, well … in your grandmother’s own estimable words, profit speaks louder than a parson. We are only in need of time.”

“And how, exactly, would you expect me to keep my aunt away and in ignorance?”

He chuckled. “That question is beneath you, my dear. You would lie, of course. You would tell her that there is not the first crumb of provable evidence that your uncle is not in full control of his faculties.”

“And when she wishes to climb into a carriage and see for herself?”

“She will receive a letter that the entire estate is experiencing an unfortunate outbreak of typhus. Or cholera. Very catching. Very nasty.”

I raised a brow. “And when your quarantine is over?”

“If the bug to visit Stranwyne persists in biting, Alice Tulman will receive a most flattering invitation to spend a few months elsewhere. There are ladies your aunt would puff like a peacock to be associated with, ladies who live on the other side of England and owe me the odd favor or two. We need time, Miss Tulman.”

I bit my lip. He was asking me to spend five years in Aunt Alice’s morning room, playing a game of hide-and-seek, a game that could end in no other way than with me being found. And when all was discovered, Aunt Alice would take her revenge, I could depend on that. I would be cut off completely, with no way to support myself.

Mr. Babcock sighed. “I would ask you to think on this, Miss Tulman. I can see from your face you are not favorably disposed. But do consider, my dear, no matter how we all got here, that the villagers of Stranwyne do not deserve to be turned out of their homes. And neither does your uncle belong in a lunatic’s cell, merely for the crime of being created differently from his fellows.” He rolled his bulk out of the chair. “And now I am off. It has indeed been pleasant to meet you.”

I looked up in surprise. “You are leaving at once?”

“Indeed, this very moment. Court is in session tomorrow at midday, and I shall have to change horses several times if I’ve any hope of being in it. I have spoken to Mrs. Jefferies, and she has informed me of the current arrangement. I will return before your thirty days is up, to understand your intentions. Send word, if you’ve need.”

I stood. “Mr. Babcock, I have one other question for you.” He paused, one arm reaching awkwardly behind him in an effort to pull on the jacket. “Do your fees come out of Stranwyne’s reserves?”

I had thought he would be offended, but he nodded approvingly as he struggled into his coat, smiling as he did up the straining buttons. “Really, my dear, you are strikingly like your grandmother. I hope, very much, in more ways than one.” His face darkened. “But do believe me, Miss Tulman, when I say that choosing allegiance in favor of your aunt would not be … advantageous to your person, that such a choice would cause you rather more harm than good. That is sound advice. It should be attended to.”

Mr. Babcock bowed, but I did not return the curtsy; I was trying to decide if I had just been threatened. He moved toward the door, but turned back to me before he got there. “And upon my honor, Miss Tulman, I have not taken a fee for my services since the day of your grandmother’s death.”

And with that he whisked a hat onto his head, and the front door slammed. I sank back down into my chair, surrounded by the emptiness of an enormous room in an enormous house, listening to a carriage rattle fast down the drive.

I
brooded over the dawn from Marianna’s window, polishing Mary’s shoes, thinking of what the misshapen little lawyer could have meant by doing me “rather more harm than good.” He was trying to frighten me, I decided, and all for the sake of my grandmother. Mr. Babcock had said that my grandmother and I were alike, but I could not see how that could be. I had never inspired love or even admiration in another human being, much less unshakable loyalty that endured beyond the grave. What kind of woman must she have been, and why had I been the one chosen to tear down everything she had struggled to build?

I sighed, put away the cleaning cloth, and stretched. Now that Mr. Babcock was gone, I was extraordinarily tired, but there was no point in going back to bed. I tiptoed into the bathing room, setting Mary’s boots beside the connecting door. Mary had carved out a place of her own by dragging a small stove and bed into the tiny chamber between the bathing room and what I called the library. I hoped she was asleep in it, and that finding her boots clean would end our little disagreement. Slipping on my own boots, which I’d found polished by the same door, I went into the corridor, past the portrait of my guardian, and down the stairs. It was our morning for trying the fish in the canal, and I stood for a moment at the landing, wavering: left to the kitchen, the gardens, and through the Lower Village; or right to the chapel, the parson, and the tunnel.

Deciding that my grandmother would not have been a coward, I turned right, walking briskly, though I would not run, my back rigid through the silence and chill of the parson’s chapel. I measured my steps through the tunnel, climbed the stairs to the workshop, through my uncle’s sitting room, and stepped into the sunshine, letting out a breath of relief.

The sky was hazy with a hot sun behind it, water thick in the air as well as between the banks of the canal, where my uncle, Ben, Lane, and Davy waited for me beside the loading dock. Work had been stopped and the area cleared of people, an amount of bother I had not bargained for when I suggested the idea; I had forgotten my uncle’s inability to be near a crowd. But Ben was giddy with an excitement that was infectious, and even Lane, sprawled back on his elbows in the grass, seemed unusually relaxed. Davy had one hand on the grazing Bertram, his head on Lane’s knee.

“Miss Tulman!” Ben called, beckoning to me from the water’s edge. “Come have a look at this!” Uncle Tully stood a little way in the water, soaking his pant cuffs, holding the fish while Ben wound some type of thin rope or string around the tail. Ben was being very careful to tie the knot without touching the toy. “The string will make sure our fish does not go to its final resting place on the bottom of the river,” he said as I approached, “and this …” He shook a thin wire that now stuck up and out from the fish’s back, brightly colored flags tied at every few inches. “… this will show us whether our little fish maintains its depth.”

I smiled at his sun-pinked face and scraggling whiskers, and turned to my uncle. “And how are you this morning, Uncle?”

Uncle Tully leaned close to my face, keeping a tight grip on the fish. “Splendid!” he yelled, making me jump. I heard Lane’s chuckle.

“I am very glad you are so splendid, Uncle,” I said, recovering myself. “Everyone should always be so splendid.”

I had not meant much by that statement, had hardly even thought of what I was saying, but Uncle Tully’s face became quite serious as he looked at me. “You are right, Simon’s baby. I think that you are right. People should be splendid, all the time. That is what Marianna said, and you said it, too. That is right. Just so. People should be splendid if we can make them. It is very true, little niece. You said it, and so did Marianna.”

I gazed into my uncle’s bright blue eyes, thoughtful, as Ben said, “There!” and finished his knot. “Now, Miss Tulman,” he continued, “if I could ask you to go stand on the dock? We will set the fish swimming right at you, and when it approaches I will pull on the string to slow it. If you could catch the string and help me remove our fish without dragging it through the mud on the canal bottom, I would be most grateful.”

“Of course,” I replied, and took my place at the dock. Lane observed, brows down, on the alert as my uncle walked with Ben down the canal, Ben with the length of string, my uncle splashing through the shallow water of the bank.

When they were far down the canal I saw Uncle Tulman wade in up to his waist, his coattails floating. I waved from my designated perch, and Ben held the string from the bank, ready to run along beside the fish’s course. Lane moved Davy’s head gently from his knee and stood, using the red cap to shade his eyes. Uncle Tully placed the fish in the water, bubbles and foam streaming upward, and I could just hear Ben call, “One, two, THREE …”

Uncle Tully released the fish on the count of two, and it took off in a streak, the thin, flagged pole sticking up like a fin from the water, moving so quickly that Ben lost hold of the string almost immediately. The flag came at me in a straight line, running free.

“Catch it!” Ben cried.

I scrambled to my knees on the boards of the dock, arm toward the water, but it was hard to move in the tight sleeves and petticoats. The bubbling streak blew beneath me. I snatched at it, overreached, and would have gone headlong into the canal had hands not grabbed my waist and pulled me upright again. A splash came from the other side of the dock, and I tried to turn my head to see even as Lane was setting me on my feet again. Davy’s sodden curls popped up from the water, arms extended upward as he struggled to hold the whirring fish. Ben splashed in, took it from him, and stilled the mechanism.

The hands around my waist were very warm. I felt the heat of them leave me as Lane took two steps across the dock, reached over, and pulled Davy up and out of the water, which I was relieved to see was not deep. “Well done,” he said quietly. Davy stood dripping on the wooden platform, his dimple showing.

“Did you see it?” Ben was saying to me, his eyes wandering lovingly over the fish. “Two flags out the entire run. Not a change in the depth! Perhaps a longer string next time, wound around a wooden bar, for grip, and a bit of a head start …”

“No, no, no, NO!” Every head turned at the bellow, and I saw my uncle come charging up to the dock, arms out, face red and fingers clutching, drips of water flying out behind him. Lane moved toward my uncle, but I stepped in front of him, hands on hips.

“Stop that,” I said sternly. And Uncle Tully did. He froze in his tracks, his face going slack. “Mr. Aldridge didn’t want to take your fish away, he just wanted to keep it from being lost.” I took the wet fish from Ben and placed it in my uncle’s arms. “It makes me quite unhappy to see you act so, Uncle Tully, and it is certainly not splendid.”

His forehead creased as he stared at the wet metal in his hands. “It makes you unhappy?”

“Of course it does.”

My uncle thought about this for a few moments before he looked up, his eyes very wide. “Then I shan’t!” he shouted.

I smiled at him then, and his returning look was so childlike, so utterly trusting of me, that I experienced a twist of pure, hot hatred for my aunt Alice.

Uncle Tully moved off slowly toward the workshop, muttering to himself as he cradled his fish, until about halfway there, seeming to suddenly recall that he was in an area usually crawling with people, he broke into a dead run, careening around the corner toward the green-painted door.

“That was wonderful, Miss Tulman,” Ben said, “I can’t thank you enough for the opportunity. Just fascinating …”

“Yes, well done,” the low voice said from behind me, very quiet, and I felt myself flush. I was quite certain he was speaking to something completely different than Ben.

“I’m going to try to follow up on my advantage, I think,” Ben said, mostly to himself. “It isn’t Saturday, but perhaps Mr. Tully would allow me to come … after all …” He wandered off after my uncle, still talking, lost in some kind of mechanical dream.

I turned around to find Lane grinning at the dripping boy beside him. “Well, Davy,” he said, “you’re something of a hero now, aren’t you? I think you’ve earned a reward. How would you like to go rolling?”

The dimple jumped out again.

“Go on and get dry, then, and I’ll see you there.”

Davy scooped up Bertram and trotted off toward the village. I looked back at Lane, wanting to ask, but found the gray gaze already on me, appraising. He put his hands in his pockets. “You are showing unexpected talents, Miss Tulman. I wonder how far that streak might go.”

I lifted a brow. “I’m quite certain I am equal to anything you might have in mind, Mr. Moreau.”

He grinned at me then, and I could not decide what that smile meant. It was not approving, or encouraging, or even particularly friendly. I might have called it wicked. “Well, come along, then, Miss Tulman,” he said.

I straightened my back and followed, spirits sinking under the sudden apprehension that what I had just agreed to was some sort of revenge.

I stood with Lane in near darkness on the far eastern end of the house, in a wing that followed the terraced gardens and the contour of the land right down a hill. We waited at the bottom of three consecutive stairways, before two massive doors that were closed, the one high window blocked by vegetation and allowing only the barest sliver of daylight. The silence pressed down, warm and uncomfortable.

“Davy’ll come soon,” Lane said. “Bide your time.”

I peered at him through the shadows. I had not complained of the wait.

“You sway back and forth when you’re impatient,” he explained.

I stilled my rocking feet, a little embarrassed, and looked the other way, wondering what other things about me Lane might have stored up in his head, ready to pull out and use at a moment’s notice. I was certain he had brought me here to frighten or humiliate me in some way, but he’d done nothing alarming, or at least not yet. I tried to fill the awkward space. “Were you born in England, Mr. Moreau?” I had been curious on that point ever since the day he mentioned Moors, and my conversation with Ben Aldridge.

“Yes. On the estate. I’ve never been off it, actually.”

“Really?” I glanced at him, surprised.

“I walk out beyond the tunnel sometimes, and a ways down the river. I reckon that’s off the estate.” He took off the red cap, twisting it in his hands.
And that is what you do
, I thought,
when you are uncomfortable
. “My dad only came to England after France lost the war and Napoléon was exiled. We spoke French at home until he died, but I have never been there. To France, I mean.”

I wondered where he could have seen a wolf, to make it so real. “Would you ever want to leave here, to see another place?”

He paused, the red cap going still. “I would like to see the sea. But I’d always want here, I think, to be coming back to.”

There was nothing I could say to that. We stood for a minute or two, and when the silence again became too uncomfortable I said, “You don’t sound all that French, Mr. Moreau.”

He shrugged. “I can sound as French as I need to. My dad insisted on that. Didn’t want me going back like an Englishman, I suppose.”

“To France, you mean? Why would your father want to send you back to France?”

“Why, to carry on the cause of the Bonapartes, Miss Tulman. What else?”

I could see his sly grin in the dim, waiting for my reaction, but I only said, “Your father remained loyal to Napoléon, then?”

“When the news came that the new president of France was none other than the nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte, my dad stayed up all night shouting
‘Vive Napoléon le Grand’
and drank himself to the floor with smuggled French wine. So, yes, Miss Tulman, I would say he did.”

I pretended to examine my dress, thinking what it must have been like to grow up the son of a man who fought on the wrong side of Waterloo, but then Davy’s head suddenly appeared right in front of me, Bertram with him. I jumped.

“Where did you come from?” I gasped. Lane laughed, and Davy just dimpled.

“Davy knows the house better than I do,” Lane said. “It’s a country all to itself, isn’t it, Davy?” He mussed the boy’s damp hair, and went to tug on one of the closed doors. Davy set down the rabbit and pulled on the other, and then both doors slid backward into the wall. A pale bit of light was on the other side, and a set of stairs the full width of the opening, maybe ten feet across, falling down into the gloom. “Wait here,” Lane said, and both he and Davy trotted off down the steps, Bertram’s ears flopping as he hopped after Davy.

I rocked back and forth until I heard gas ignite, and light blazed up the stairwell.

“All right,” Lane’s voice echoed. “Come down!”

My feet stepped downward thirty-two times, and when they stood on the polished wood at the bottom of the stairwell, I could only stare at what was about me. I was in the largest room I’d ever seen, larger than the chapel or the workshop. The lower walls were pink, of course, the upper walls all mirrors trimmed with gilded scrollwork. But it was the chandeliers that were the wonder, eight of them marching down the length of the room, each at least the width of my own bedchamber at Aunt Alice’s, glowing and glimmering with hundreds upon hundreds of individual gaslights. The giant mirrors doubled and tripled the blaze, throwing sparkles from every wall.

Lane came from the other end of the room, and my breath caught in my throat. He was not walking, but gliding, like a ghost or a spirit. He placed one hand on the banister and slowed to a stop.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“A ballroom. And almost completely underground. See up there?” He pointed to a glass-and-iron cupola that rose upward from the center of the ceiling. “That sticks right up into the gardens. Roses are growing over our heads, or at least they do when anyone tends them, and at night when the lights are lit, the garden glows, too. Mr. Tully thought of it, so we could have a ballroom and a garden, and work for the carpenters and the gas fitters and the foundry. We made the chandeliers ourselves….”