The Misbegotten (22 page)

That evening, Starling slid the letter back into the mess on Jonathan Alleyn’s desk as he lay on his bed with the drapes closed, so she couldn’t even see him. His rooms were darkened again, the shutters latched. There was no sound at all, and at the faintest rustle of paper as she returned the letter his disembodied voice came across to her, like a ghost:

‘Touch nothing on my desk. Leave me be.’ Bridling, Starling put down an uncorked bottle of wine for him with a loud report. It was ordinary wine – she’d run out of the strengthened stuff Dick had once mixed for her. She could only hope that Jonathan would drink enough of it to damage himself. There was a slice of chicken pie on the tray she’d carried up as well; she picked up the plate, tipped the pie into the fire. As she crossed towards the door she paused, and turned to face the closed drapes.

‘Whatever happened to Suleiman? Your horse?’ she asked. There was a long, loaded silence, and she began to think he would not answer.

‘Suleiman . . . my good friend. I . . . We ate him.’ Jonathan’s voice was thick with revulsion, with sorrow. Starling swallowed convulsively; his words caused a lightning bolt of horror and rage to shoot down her spine.

‘Murderer
!’ she hissed. ‘You will burn for it!’ She flew from the room, tears springing in her eyes.

Captain and Mrs Sutton’s lodgings were in a tall, narrow townhouse on the north-east side of the city. As Rachel walked across town, the frigid air seemed to press needles into her skull, just between her eyes. The mist on the inside of the bedroom window had become a fine layer of ice crystals, tiny and perfect and dead. On days like this at Hartford Hall, in the heart of winter, the chambermaid would have been in to Rachel’s room to stoke up the fire an hour before it was time to rise. The soft sounds of her doing so would reach Rachel, comforting and familiar, as she lay nestled beneath the thick eiderdowns and blankets on the bed.

Rachel was shown into the Suttons’ parlour by an elderly female servant who had tired eyes and a faded dress. It was a small room, but well furnished. Harriet Sutton had been sewing, but she put down her work and rose with a smile.

‘Mrs Weekes, how good to see you again. Tea, please, Maggie. Unless you’d prefer coffee, or chocolate, Mrs Weekes?’

‘In truth, some chocolate would be lovely,’ said Rachel.

‘I agree. Something to ward off this wretched chill wind. Chocolate for both of us then, Maggie.’

‘Very good, madam.’ The old woman curtsied slowly, as if not sure of her knees.

‘Now, come and sit by the fire, Mrs Weekes – you look quite blue!’ Mrs Sutton took Rachel’s cold hands in her warm ones, and drew her forward to sit in the fireside chair.

‘I’ve never known it be so cold this early in the season,’ said Rachel.

‘Aye. It bodes ill for a hard winter. I pity the poor what is to come,’ Harriet said gravely. Then she smiled. ‘And we will have to go to the assembly rooms more often, just for the warmth.’

‘I’m not sure I will be there much. I don’t think Mr Weekes enjoyed it a great deal last time,’ said Rachel, carefully. After the losses he’d made at their last ball, they could scarcely afford to go again soon.

‘But the Mr Weekes I know loves nothing better than a dance, and good revelry!’

‘Well.’ Rachel shrugged. ‘Perhaps he grows more sober as time passes,’ she said. She remembered the stiffness of Richard’s arm beneath her own; the fixed, distracted look on his face. She had a sinking feeling inside. In all, he had grown less and less jovial, less and less cheerful, with each day that had passed since their wedding. ‘How long have you known my husband?’ she asked.

‘Oh, a good many years, now. When Captain Sutton first went into the army, and became friends with Jonathan Alleyn, that was when he first met Mr Weekes.’

‘Oh? While Mr Weekes was at their house, perhaps? On business?’

‘Well,’ said Harriet Sutton, looking slightly uncomfortable. ‘Not exactly business, no. Mr Duncan Weekes, who I am sure you must know, was coachman to Lord Faukes, Mrs Josephine Alleyn’s father. For years and years. After his wife died, Duncan Weekes and your husband had their lodgings above the coach house. This was not at Lansdown Crescent, you understand, but at Lord Faukes’s great house, in Box. Your Mr Weekes grew from a boy to a man during that time. But I am sure he must have told you as much?’

At that point the servant came in with a tray and their cups of chocolate, and Rachel was grateful for the chance to compose herself.
Small wonder then, that Josephine Alleyn thinks of me as her servant, since I am indeed wedded to one of her servants. An ostler, he said his father was.
She thought back to Richard’s stories, his confessions to her during their brief courtship, when he had seemed to lay himself bare. Yet how carefully and completely he had concealed this truth about himself. With a jolt, she realised how little she might really know her husband.

‘In truth, no. He had not mentioned it. There is some . . . bad blood between my husband and his father. Mr Weekes does not speak to me of Duncan Weekes. I hope I might reconcile them. Perhaps I will manage it, in time,’ she said, in a strained voice.

‘Oh! Forgive me, my dear Mrs Weekes, if I have spoken out of turn! I didn’t mean to talk about your own family as if I knew better.’ Harriet took Rachel’s hand and squeezed it, to make good her apology. Her expression was open and mobile, and once again it put Rachel at her ease. She felt that here was a person with whom she could speak freely, with no fear of misunderstanding.
Trust. She inspires trust, and how greatly I need such a person close to me.

‘But in this case you do know better, that much is clear. There’s no need to apologise,’ said Rachel. ‘It is my impression that Mr Weekes would rather forget his . . . start in life, and focus on his future.’

‘A wise man, then, and a philosophy we should all espouse. Our birth should not define us so much as what we do thereafter, surely?’ said Harriet.

‘But society runs contrary to that very idea, though it is a pleasant one.’
But I am not a gentlewoman any more, though I was born one.
‘In this country it seems that those who are born lowly must remain lowly, no matter how they strive or what they achieve; and some that are born gentlefolk remain so in spite of their base actions and debauchery,’ she said. Harriet Sutton’s expression grew troubled.

‘We live in an unjust society indeed, to be so wilfully blind,’ she murmured. ‘I think you are speaking of Mr Jonathan Alleyn, when you speak of base actions.’

‘The family are a great deal on my mind, in truth. I am to return there to act as reader and companion to Mr Alleyn,’ said Rachel, and smiled slightly at the expression of disbelief that flooded her friend’s face.

‘But . . . I am all astonishment, my dear! I had never thought . . .’

‘Nor I, after my first encounter with the man! Here’s the secret, though – it seems that I bear a strong resemblance to Alice Beckwith.’

There was a pause, and Harriet sipped her drink delicately.

‘I do not understand,’ she confessed at last.

‘Nor I, Mrs Sutton. But both Mr Alleyn and his mother reacted strongly in . . . recognition, when they first saw me. And their servant too, who must have known Miss Beckwith. And so, for some reason, he can tolerate my presence. His mother thinks it would do him good to be read to. She thinks it would soothe him, and . . . aid his recovery.’

‘But . . . this is most strange, Mrs Weekes! I am delighted, of course . . . at this sign of improvement in Mr Alleyn. But I cannot think how a reminder of – forgive me – a person who betrayed and wronged him so terribly would be of help.’

‘Nor I, Mrs Sutton, nor I. But there it is – I am to return there on the morrow and read for him,’ said Rachel, feeling herself tense up at the idea.
And if he flies into a rage again, and kills me this time, at least I will be paid for my trouble
, she thought.
But he knows. He knows all about Alice
, the echo whispered, keenly.

‘My dear, I hope . . . I do hope you can help him. Few men find themselves in such a dark place as he. How it would gladden all our hearts to hear that he can be woken from his nightmare.’ Harriet Sutton’s tiny face was serious and sombre, but her voice betrayed little hope, and Rachel felt the knot of tension in her gut tighten ever more.

‘Come, now, on to the main reason for my visit – other than to see you again, of course, Mrs Sutton. But you did promise to introduce me to your daughter,’ said Rachel. Harriet Sutton beamed, and went to the door to call. Cassandra Sutton was a thin, delicate little girl, tall for her age of eight years. She had a soft, olive-toned skin and greenish eyes, and hair as black as crow feathers.

‘How do you do, Mrs Weekes?’ she said shyly, and Rachel was enchanted.

‘Well now, this must be the prettiest little girl I have ever seen,’ she said warmly, and Cassandra fidgeted, pleased and embarrassed. ‘How do you do, Miss Sutton?’

‘Very well, thank you, madam,’ the child replied with immaculate manners.

‘Come, Cassandra. Come and sit with us a while.’ Harriet Sutton held out her hand to her daughter and the girl hopped onto the couch beside her. Her small, even face was dominated by a pointed nose and thin, dark eyebrows; there was something elfin and endearing in her appearance, and not one jot of Eliza Trevelyan’s pride or sullen temper.

‘I should very much like to have a daughter like you. But my husband would rather have a big strapping son, to work alongside him,’ said Rachel.

‘Perhaps you could have both?’ Cassandra suggested. ‘I should very much like to have a brother.’

‘Well,’ said Harriet, her smile turning a little sad. ‘You might have one, one day. We will have to wait and see what God has in store for us, won’t we?’ The look she gave Rachel was full of quiet resignation, and Rachel understood that there would be no more children for Captain and Mrs Sutton. From the age her new friend and the captain appeared to be, she guessed that their marriage had weathered a good few barren years before Cassandra was born.

‘I had a brother,’ said Rachel, and wished at once that she had not. She swallowed the sadness that choked her whenever she thought of Christopher. ‘His name was Christopher,’ she added, because there was a silence after she’d spoken, and both mother and child seemed to know instinctively not to ask where her brother was now.

‘Christopher is a good name. We have a bear called Christopher, don’t we?’ Harriet put her arm around her daughter and squeezed. ‘Now, why don’t we go into the music room, and you can show Mrs Weekes how well you’ve been learning to play your guitar?’

After her visit, Rachel went to Duncan Weekes’s lodgings, rapping her cold knuckles on the flaked and splitting door, and calling down at his small window. She had promised to visit again, even though she had little news to give, and she was deeply curious too – she wanted to ask her father-in-law about his time in service with the Alleyns, and about Richard’s upbringing with them. After a while it seemed clear that the old man was not at home, and nobody else came to open the outer door to her. She walked on, towards Abbeygate Street, thinking hard, trying to guess why her husband would have kept the nature of his long acquaintance with the Alleyns from her. Could it be as simple as not wanting to admit, out of pride, that he had been their servant? Or their servant’s son? But then, he had told her about his father’s lowly profession, and even boasted at how far above it he had risen. Perhaps he would rather have Rachel think he’d built his own success, and not been hoisted into it by a charitable former employer. He had told her that Mrs Alleyn had been a patron, and loyal customer . . . now it was a good deal clearer why such a grand lady should concern herself with the business of a young wine merchant.

Rachel walked quickly, agitated. Her breath streamed behind her, a wake in the cold air. She intended to confront Richard, and insist that he tell her everything about his relationship with the Alleyns. But he was not in the cellar, or upstairs either, so she had little choice but to wait. He got back after dark, and reeking of wine, though she could not tell for sure if that was due to the amount he had drunk, or the splashes his work left on his clothing. He smiled and kissed her cheek, but his face darkened when she asked him about the Alleyns, and about his father’s job as coachman.

‘I told you as much, already,’ he muttered, sitting in a chair to pull off his boots and warm his damp feet by the fire. The rank smell of his stockings drifted over to Rachel.

‘No you didn’t, Mr Weekes. You told me only that your father had been an ostler, and Mrs Alleyn an important patron of your business.’

‘Just so. If you had asked me more, I would have disclosed it. But you have had the whole story already, it would seem. Some might consider it disloyal, to ask others for gossip about your own husband.’ He leaned his head back and gazed at her, eyes heavy with fatigue, but watchful.

‘I did not ask about you, I asked about the Alleyns. Since I am soon to work for them, too. Mrs Sutton understandably assumed that I knew of your association with the family.’

‘Well, what matter if you had not had the full story? It changes nothing.’

‘Mr Weekes, I—’

‘You what?’ Richard cut across her, two short, hard words. Rachel flushed.

‘I don’t understand why you felt you had to keep this from me. That’s all.’
And why you are so loyal to the Alleyns, and yet so touchy at any mention of them.
Richard shrugged, and shut his eyes.

‘It has been a long and wearying day, my dear. Let us have no more of this. Is there no food in this house, for its master?’ Rachel waited, in case he would say something more or she would find the nerve to speak on. When neither one happened she rose, frustrated, and went to prepare him a supper plate.

The following day was stormy. A strong wind blew out of a slate-grey sky, clearing away the smog of coal smoke and mist, and carrying flecks of biting sleet that felt like splinters on Rachel’s face as she walked to Lansdown Crescent. She walked as slowly as she could, to postpone her arrival at the Alleyns’ fine house, with its dead air and watchfulness, its strange, sad occupants. She took several deep breaths, and reminded herself of her duty to her husband; her sense of charity towards Josephine Alleyn; her desire to learn about Alice. She had no idea how long she was expected to read to Jonathan Alleyn, or to sit with him, but she hoped not more than an hour or two at most. There was no binding agreement; she could leave at any time. She was employed there, but she was not a servant. All these things she reminded herself, as she climbed to the front door.