The Dark Unwinding (13 page)

“And this is the infirmary, Miss Tulman,” Ben said, indicating a new stone building with a roof of slate. “For the sick, or mothers … Ah, Mr. Cooper! Good afternoon. May I present Miss Katharine Tulman to you?”

A wiry little man in a dusty black coat stepped down from the infirmary door. He eyed me warily, adjusted three heavy-looking leather-bound volumes beneath one arm, tipped a fraying top hat, and then took off down the street, his gait reminding me of a twitching spider. I turned to watch him go.

“Well, almost all sugar, Miss Tulman,” Ben sighed. “Mr. Cooper is our resident surgeon, and current head of the Upper Village committee. Plucked from a workhouse by Mr. Babcock, of course, after he paid off a tidy sum of Mr. Cooper’s gambling debts, if the rumors are true. But the villages needed a surgeon. Should any sickness occur outside his expertise, a boat is sent for a physician in Milton, a personal friend of Mr. Babcock’s. The teachers for the schools have come in much the same way as Mr. Cooper, and there is even a parson who …”

A warm hand slipped into my bandaged one, and I found Davy at my side, Bertram on his shoulder. I smiled at him, but he tugged at my hand, yanking my arm, trying to pull me in the opposite direction.

“David,” Ben said sharply, “let go of Miss Tulman this instant.”

Davy pulled at my sore hand, his eyes wide and dark.

I leaned down and whispered, “What is it, Davy? Is something wrong?”

He looked up at me and went still, his dark eyes boring into mine, straining, it seemed, to put thoughts into my head. I straightened, unsure of what to do. Davy steadied the bunny and tugged again. I winced, and glanced once at Ben. His usual amiable expression had been replaced by stern disapproval. I leaned down again.

“Davy, I’d like to finish my walk with Mr. Aldridge now. Why don’t you come with me? Would you like that?”

Davy did not let go of me, but instead of pulling he went still again, his eyes now on his bare and dirty toes.

“Come along, then.” I moved experimentally, to see if he would follow, and he did. We walked slowly down the street together, an unexpected pleasure budding at the feel of the child’s hand in mine. “I believe you were telling me about the parson, Mr. Aldridge,” I said over my shoulder. Ben was close behind, catching up.

“Yes. I was going to say the parson gives a rather inspiring sermon, now that his thirst for drink cannot be quenched.”

“And why can’t his thirst for drink be quenched?” I adjusted Davy’s hand. The child was sweating.

“Didn’t you know, Miss Tulman? Spirits aren’t allowed, not in either village. Not that a little doesn’t come in, here or there, of course.” I caught his look, and the way it darted quickly away from me. “But the villagers are wary of rule breaking. The benefits of living here are too good. So any little excesses that might occur are not … encouraged …”

Ben did not finish his sentence, his gaze deliberately taking in the opposite side of the street, and I experienced a humiliation just as unanticipated as the pleasure of before. Obviously he thought these words applied particularly to me. What had Mary or her mother been saying about my little “excesses”? I said the first thought that came to my head, to cover my confusion. “I wonder, Mr. Aldridge, if you ever had occasion to see my father at Stranwyne?”

His forehead wrinkled. “I don’t believe I did, Miss Tulman. Forgive me, but when did Mr. Tulman die?”

“Fourteen months after my birth. At sea.” The street was increasingly deserted, lined with dwellings now and little cowsheds and gardens. Davy’s head leaned into the bunny that rode on his shoulder, but other than the pressure of his hand, he made no sign that I was there.

“Was your father with the navy, Miss Tulman?”

“Oh, no. He was a merchant. His ship foundered in a storm.”

“My father died at sea as well. So we have that in common.” Ben turned and opened a little white gate, and I saw a path leading to the twenty-fifth building on our left since entering the High Street.

“And here is my own cottage,” he said, sweeping his arm across the view, “or my aunt Daniels’s, I should say, rest her soul. The childhood home that is mine once more. At least until I take up my teaching position in September.”

I studied the modest little house at the end of the path, lime-coated and thatched, much older than the other buildings of the village. A garden wild with untended color rambled off to one side, its edges mixing with the grasses of the lawn, and one of the windows was open, propped with a boot. I wondered if anything inside that place would show me something of Ben’s soul, as Lane’s room had done.

“Won’t you have a cup of tea with me in the garden, Miss Tulman? The flowers have persisted in blooming past all neglect, and it’s really rather …”

“Davy?”

He was pulling my hand again, this time straining backward with the effort, staring not as if he would tell me something, but in that blank way I hated so much to see. I stumbled forward, Bertram squirmed, and then all at once Davy dropped my hand and was off like a shot, away across the High Street and into a wooded area that must eventually lead back to the big house. I watched him run, rubbing my hand as he disappeared among the trees.

“That boy takes advantage,” Ben said. I looked back at him inquisitively over my shoulder. “Don’t think me harsh, Miss Tulman, but David is a very intelligent child. He knows just what he is doing.”

“He is also a mute child, Mr. Aldridge.”

Ben shrugged. “They had the physician out here to look at him, you know, and he could find no malformation or physical trauma that would cause David to not speak. And yet the child is allowed to do as he pleases, to run wild.”

Ben shook his head while I brushed away some of the dirt Davy had left on my hand, frowning. There were other traumas in the world besides the physical.

“Come and help me put the kettle on, Miss Tulman. We’ll have our tea in the garden, as I suggested, shall we?”

I looked back to the woods. Davy’s behavior bothered me, though for different reasons than Ben’s. He had not seemed willful or rude to me; he had seemed frightened.

“Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Aldridge, but I think I should go after him. Or at least let Mr. Moreau or Mrs. Jefferies know that something is wrong. But I do appreciate the tour of the village.”

Ben inclined his head, but I did not turn to go. “Mr. Aldridge, would you …” I paused. How did one invite a young man to party? Not like this, more than likely. I took a breath. “I would like to invite you to a little celebration, in honor of … my birthday. In a little more than two weeks’ time. You will … be here, still?”

Ben’s brows rose slightly, though whether from surprise or the awkwardness of my invitation I wasn’t certain. “Why, of course, Miss Tulman. I am honored.”

I smiled in relief and waved as I hurried away. When I looked back he was still watching me, but there were no laugh lines around his eyes.

I
stood on the last rise of moorland before I descended to the house, turning circles in my own footsteps, shading my eyes from the setting sun as I looked for Davy. I went to the garden, the greenhouse, the kitchen, and even peeked into the dimness of the chapel and the ever-grinning parson, but I did not find him or Mrs. Jefferies. Mary had chicken with new potatoes and my cucumbers waiting for me, along with a fair dose of chatter, most of which I was not listening to while the room slowly darkened into night. I was lost in my thoughts until I took a sip of my tea and flinched.

“You’ve forgotten the sugar, Mary,” I said, interrupting something she was saying about the ne’er-do-well exploits of a village girl.

“Oh, no, Miss! Wasn’t you listening? I told you, it went bad, and I had to be throwing it out. I —”

“Sugar doesn’t go bad, Mary. You don’t mean it had … vermin?”

“Are you meaning bugs, Miss?” Mary began polishing a candlestick with gusto. “’Cause if you’re meaning bugs, I don’t know what sort of maid you’re thinking I am, to go and be letting bugs crawl into a lady’s sugar. I’m certain there ain’t a bug in the world that wouldn’t be scared of crawling into my lady’s sugar, on account of being squashed. Now I meant to be borrowing more sugar from my mum, but I had so many things going ’round and ’round in my mind, what with parties and such …”

“Mary, do we have any sugar?”

“… though my mum says I oughtn’t to be saying ‘party’ at all, but ‘function.’ ’Tis a ‘function,’ Mum says, or some other such …” Mary’s hands went still on the candlestick and she looked up suddenly, discovering I had spoken. “What, Miss?”

“Mary,” I said slowly. The mention of her mother had reminded me. “There is something I want to say to you, that we must be quite clear about. You must never, under any circumstance, relate private matters about your mistress, not even to your mother. It is essential that a lady be able to … trust that her affairs will not become the affairs of an entire village. Is that understood?”

Mary’s mouth was a perfect circle. “Why, Miss! I never did such a thing! I swear it!”

I grimaced. Likely Mary had not even realized it when she did. “I’m sure you didn’t intend to, Mary, even if —”

“But I never said a word about my lady being tipsy! It was never passing my lips! Not once! What do you take me for, Miss?” Mary’s freckles were blending into a tinge of angry pink.

“As long as it never happens again, Mary.” I waited for her to speak, but she just polished the silver as if she wished to rub it into oblivion. “Do we have any sugar?” Mary frowned into her reflection. “Never mind, then. I’ll just run down and get some from the kitchen.”

“Well, I’m thinking you should, Miss, if you’re wanting it that bad.” She picked up the next candlestick. “Lord knows I’ve got enough to do.”

I sighed and lit a candle, careful to choose a holder Mary had not yet polished, and slipped out the bedchamber door.

The corridor was dark, as usual, my candle throwing light in a scant semicircle on the carpet. I caught a glimpse of the portrait of my guardian and held up the candle to have a better look at her. I wasn’t sure exactly why I thought of her as my guardian, but her presence outside my door was a comfort. Maybe it was just that her face struck me as the epitome of sense. I turned away, thinking that I should remember to ask someone who she was, when footsteps, very light and very quick, moved away from me in the darkness, toward the stairwell at the end of the hall.

I froze, fear tickling the nape of my neck as the footsteps pattered softly down the stairs. The laugh in the chapel came unbidden to my mind, but then my back straightened. Someone was in the habit of running about Stranwyne; I wanted to know who it was. I crept along the hall, glad that I had not bothered to put on my boots, and tried to peer down the stairs, but it was utterly dark beyond my candle. I hesitated for a moment, then blew out the light.

Blindness fell down like a blanket. A floorboard groaned to the left beyond the landing; my hand found the rail and I hurried down the stairs. I put my foot close to the wall on the ninth step, to avoid the squeak, realizing that whoever had gone down before me had known to do that as well. I turned left at the landing, and listened.

Not a rustle of cloth, not even breath. But my eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, and I could see a door about halfway down the corridor slightly open, the door that connected this section of the house with the rest of the central block. I moved swiftly down the hall, the floorboards groaning, wondering what might be waiting at the end of the corridor, watching me come. The open door swung slightly in the draft, and I stepped through.

I was on a wide landing with railings, almost circular, at the head of a set of stone steps, a sort of grand entrance to the private apartments of the house, a place I had mused might have once been outdoors. Thick stone showed through the peeling plaster, and there was no gaslight here. But the newer room just beyond had a gas sconce lit, a little dust-sheeted morning room, and the glow threw light at the bottom of the stairs.

Down I went, my stockinged feet silent on the stone, through the morning room, and around to the back corridor that led to the kitchen. The kitchen fire was out, but at the next corner, light of a different color leaked around a closed door, flickers of soft yellow and orange. I put my ear to it and listened, then opened the door.

Candles were lit, leaving the gas sconces dark, the flames shining on ornaments that had been crammed onto every surface: china plates, a silver candelabra, crystal, bronze statues, a painted screen, and other jumbled things I could not immediately identify. Yellow brocade glimmered on two matching settees, and the room was clean, sparkling even. I could smell soap and polish beneath the wood and coal smoke.

I wandered amongst the tables, one or two odd chairs, and a marble-topped bench, then approached the hearth. Two upholstered chairs faced each other before a small fire, a table set between with an elegant little supper of bread and carrots and fowl upon it. Steam still rose from the plates. I looked about the empty room. A small wooden door with a window, probably leading to the garden and badly in need of paint, was in the far corner, and I noticed that the walls were plain, no moldings or decorative relief, the floor beneath the thickly woven carpet made of flagged stone. This was only a workroom of some sort, maybe even a buttery. The brocaded furniture, carpet, and fancy ornaments must have been collected and brought here from other parts of the house. I looked again at the ready meal by the fire, sat down on the settee, and waited.

I counted the statues, organizing them into male, female, and animal in my mind, numbering the inoperative gas lamps while the steam from the plates began to fade. There must be a dozen ways into Stranwyne if someone was determined to get in. Perhaps there were villagers using the building to their own purpose, not as afraid as they were purported to have been. But surely Mrs. Jefferies would be aware of this room?

When the hearth flames had settled into an orange ember glow, I rose from the settee, lit my own taper, and blew out the other candles one by one. I left as quietly as I had come, took a few steps down the hall, stopped, turned, and went back into the room of the ornaments. A book lay displayed on a table beside the door, thick and embossed with gold, a painting of a jungle scene complete with snake and stalking cat on its cover.
Travels in South America
, the title read, and then I saw that next to it stood a silver wolf, teeth bared, the same wolf that I had seen in Lane’s room. I shook my head, picked up the book, and took it with me as I went to procure my dish of sugar. I stole softly back to Marianna’s room, seeing nothing more alarming than dust, hearing no sounds beyond the swish of my own skirt.

I was in the garden the next morning before the sun was fully over the hills, sitting on a small stool between the cabbages and the greenhouse. This time I knew what I was waiting for, and it was not long until I saw it: a tattered blue jacket, brown curls, and a lump of speckled fur, coming wraithlike from the garden door. I let him get close before I spoke.

“Davy,” I said softly.

The child jumped as if I’d shouted, and made to run.

“Wait,” I called, then softened my voice. “Wait. I have something for you.”

Davy slowed and then turned, his curiosity getting the better of him, his large eyes locking on what I held out. It was the currant-and-raisin bun from the day before.

“And I’ve something for you to look at while you eat it.” Still holding out the bun, I slowly pulled the book from the bag at my feet.

I sat that way for some time, arms aching from holding out the book and the bun, Davy staring at them both, undecided. Then he adjusted Bertram on his shoulder and came lightly toward me, his bare feet leaving no marks in the foliage and grass. He tugged on my arm, looking once toward the garden door.

“Do you want to eat it somewhere else?”

But he neither nodded nor shook his head, just pulled. I snatched up the bag and followed the tug on my sleeve through the door, off the path, and straight into the moor grasses, wildflowers brushing the width of my skirt. The birds jumped and twittered.

“Where are we going?” I whispered. I don’t know why I whispered, and I don’t know why I asked, because he was not going to answer. I followed him up and down the gentle swells, tripping over the hummocks, until we had climbed a small hill. But the hill had no summit. It was like a shallow bowl at its top, hollowed out smooth with short grass yellowing from the lack of rain, a large, flat stone standing up like a finger at its center. The grasses grew tall around the edges, and when Davy sat beside the stone, Bertram in his lap, I knew the only creatures in the world he was not hidden from were the birds of the air. I came and sat on the grass beside him. Bertram hopped down to graze.

“Is this your place, Davy?” I asked, more to fill the silence than to know his answer. I handed him the bun, which he tore into eagerly. “Is it a secret place? Shall I not tell?”

His large eyes looked up at me over the bun, wide and serious, and I stared into their blackness. They were very expressive eyes, like windows of nighttime, and somehow I was sure that Davy would not want me to tell.

“All right, I shan’t, then,” I said, answering as if he had spoken. “Not unless I know you wish me to. Is that a bargain?”

He took another bite of the bun, his gaze dropping to the book in my hand. I set it in his lap, and he turned the pages slowly as he chewed, stopping often on the pictures, which were vivid: tropical birds of fantastic colors, monkeys, and the depiction of an openmouthed crocodile, water dripping from jagged teeth. He lingered long on that one.

When the bun was gone, I said, “You were frightened yesterday, Davy, and I don’t know why.” His eyes darted up, instantly fearful.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said immediately, “but I wish I could know. Would you like to learn how to read and to write down what you want other people to know?”

He looked again at the book, silent, one brown finger on the picture of the crocodile.

“And if you knew how to read,” I coaxed, “you could know what this book is telling you. See this word?” I moved his hand aside and pointed. “This word says ‘crocodile,’ and the rest of the words tell what the crocodile eats and how it behaves. Would you like to be able to read that?”

I could see nothing but the top of his brown curls, bits of leaf sticking out of them.

“Look,” I tried again. “I’ve brought paper, and a pen, and ink.” I drew them out of the bag. “Let me show you.” I opened a small copybook to a blank page and uncorked the inkwell. I set the ink beside the stone, dipped the pen, and wrote a large letter
D
.

“See,” I said, “this is the first letter of your name. There are twenty-five more letters, and when you know them all you can mix them up to make as many words as you wish. And when you know the words, you can copy them down yourself and tell whatever you’d like, and all without talking. Here.” I put the pen in his hand, guiding it to a slight dip in the inkwell and back to the page. “Try the letter
D
.”

We sat there, breeze sighing as the sun became a yellow ball to heat up the grasses, Davy’s hand hovering above the page until the ink began to dry. I helped him dip the pen again.

“Don’t worry if it doesn’t turn out well,” I said. “Just try.”

But still he did not touch the pen to the page. I put my hand on his, thinking to guide him, but he leapt up from my touch as if stung, sending the pen flying and nearly knocking over the ink. He hurried across the little dell and snatched up Bertram, holding the rabbit close, as a low voice from behind me said, “What’s all this, then?”

I twisted around. Lane was there, the red cap on his hair, a rifle in one hand and a brace of dead pheasants in the other. He laid down the birds and the gun and stepped into the little bowl of land as I faced forward again, feeling guilt for I knew not what. Lane folded his length down onto the ground, leaning back against the stone, once again reminding me of a cat, dark and sleek. “Well?” he said again.

I lifted my chin. “I thought perhaps Davy could learn to read, and to write, so that he could … so that he …” I left the sentence unfinished.

“I see,” Lane said, and picked up the open book on South America from the ground. Davy, fear evidently gone, came and sat down beside him, trying to imitate Lane’s lithe stance against the rock, an impossible and slightly comical task for a boy with a short, round body and a bunny in his lap. I discovered the gray eyes on me, hard and accusing. “Is something funny?”

“No,” I said, straightening my face.

Lane frowned down at the book for a moment, then leaned close to Davy. “Do you see that crocodile there? Do you know what it’ll do if you try and touch it?”

Davy looked up into Lane’s face, dimpling, and reached a tentative finger toward the picture.

“Bite off your hand!” Lane yelled suddenly, snapping the cover shut as if the book would eat the child’s finger. Davy’s hand jerked back, and his dimple deepened at Lane’s laugh. My brows went up. Males were strange creatures.