The Misbegotten (27 page)

‘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 to listen to her. Starling glanced 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 façade, 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.