The Misbegotten (4 page)

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 stronger. 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 speech, 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 as it guttered in a draught. That same draught brushed the back of Starling’s neck, and made the skin there tingle.
That’s all it is
, she assured herself.
Just a cold zephyr where a door has been left open.
It was not fear. She refused to be afraid of Jonathan Alleyn, even though the worst and biggest thing she knew about him, which nobody else knew, was that he was a murderer.

He would be waiting within, nothing to betray his whereabouts but the ruddy gleam of the fire reflecting in his eyes.
For you, 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 sting, 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 slipped 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, I 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 at 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.