The Misbegotten (32 page)

The morning sun woke Starling, casting a spear of light across her face through the gap between the shutters. Low, chill, winter sun that told her she had overslept. It was early February, the year 1809. Alice’s bed was already empty, so Starling hurried out of the blankets, wincing at the cold in the room, pulled on her everyday wool dress and stockings, and went downstairs to help. Bridget was at the stove, cooking drop scones for breakfast in a black iron skillet.

‘Hey ho, Bridget,’ said Starling, yawning. ‘Where’s Alice?’

‘Up and out already, far early this morning,’ said Bridget, always curt and grumpy at that time of day – her back ached, the first hour or two she was up. ‘I heard her go. She’s not let the hens out or fed them,’ she grumbled.

‘I’ll do it.’ Starling swung her shawl around her shoulders, tied her hair in a knot at the nape of her neck and stuffed her feet into her pattens. There was frost on the ground and in the trees, frost sparkling on every tendril of wild clematis that grew along the front wall of the yard. Her breath made miniature clouds against the brilliant blue sky. Alice loved such mornings – crisp and still and beautiful; she didn’t feel the cold as much as it seemed she ought. Starling searched, but Alice wasn’t in any of the barns, at the sty or in the stable with the horse. She shielded her eyes and stared out along the river, looking for the tell-tale flash of colour that would mark Alice’s approach – her bright hair, her blue dress, her pale pink shawl of warm lambs’ wool, which she sometimes wrapped around her head when it was this cold, laughing and saying she would make a fine shepherdess. There was no sign. Shivering, Starling fed the hens and let them out of the coop, quickly gathered the eggs and hurried back inside.

Alice did not return in time for breakfast. Bridget and Starling ate it without her, neither one acknowledging any concern. Starling didn’t want to betray herself, didn’t want to be the first to say it; as though whoever first expressed fear would be responsible for giving it cause. But at lunchtime the two women, Bridget past fifty, and Starling just thirteen years old, gave up pretending that all was well. Gradually, they stopped going about their chores and drifted to the kitchen window to look out in hope. The sun had melted the frost by then; the world was green and brown and grey again, dowdy and unremarkable. Unable to hold her tongue any longer, Starling took a deep breath and turned to face the older woman.

‘Bridget, where is she?’ she said in a small voice. For a moment Bridget didn’t reply. They exchanged a look of shared unease. Then Bridget cleared her throat.

‘Go on into the village and ask a few faces.’

‘It was so icy this morning . . . and it must have been dark when she went out. What if she fell? What if some harm has come to her?’

‘Then we will find her and scold her for her lack of good sense,’ said Bridget, curtly. ‘Go on into the village.’

So Starling ran from the butcher’s shop to the baker’s, stopping everyone she saw along the way. She went along the river and along the canal, a good distance in either direction, asking fishermen and bargemen and rovers. She went across the bridge and asked the miller and the toll man; she knocked on the door of the parsonage, and checked in church. She steeled herself and went into the inn, which she had never done by herself before. She asked the serving girls, the inn keep, the travellers eating their stew and potatoes. By sunset she could think of nowhere else to go, no one else to ask.
She will be home in the kitchen when I get back. Some small mishap detained her, that was all.
She pictured Alice seated by the fire, with a hot cup of tea in her hands and a sprained ankle propped up in front of her. She pictured it so clearly that she ran back to the farmhouse in her haste, burst into the kitchen all breathless, and could not understand why the room was dark, the fire gone out, and Bridget still stood at the window with her face pinched up in fear. In that exact moment the ground seemed to shudder beneath Starling’s feet, and everything suddenly seemed breakable. She felt queasy and helpless, and sharp-fingered panic scrabbled in her gut.

‘We must send word to Lord Faukes on the morrow, if there is still no sign of her. He will know what to do,’ said Bridget, in hollow tones.

Neither one of them could go to bed, so they sat in the kitchen through the night, cold and sleepless, until the sun rose once again. There was still no sign of Alice. Bridget paid the yardman’s boy three farthings to run a message directly to Lord Faukes in Box, and half an hour later the rattle of the front gate roused the two of them from their chairs, hope flooding through them. The door was thrown open before they reached it, and the person that came through it stopped them in their tracks.

‘What’s the meaning of—’ Bridget began to say, only to cut herself off in astonishment.

‘Mr Alleyn?
’ Starling breathed, not quite believing it was him.

‘Where is she? Where is she?’ Jonathan Alleyn gasped, fighting for breath. He staggered into the kitchen, looking around wildly as though Alice might be hiding behind the table. There were cuts and gashes on the backs of his hands, crusted with filth. ‘
Alice
!’ he shouted. And then the smell of him hit them, and shocked them even more. Starling clapped her hands over her nose and mouth.

‘Saints preserve us! He reeks of the slaughterhouse,’ cried Bridget. In truth, the stink he gave off was worse than blood. It was blood and rot and burning; excrement, putrefaction and filth. His clothes – his red army jacket and breeches – were so stained and tattered it was hard to recognise them. His hair was long and matted, his face unshaven. He had always been lean but now he was painfully thin. Beneath the clothes his body was like sticks and shards; no softness, no flesh. What skin they could see behind the dirt and bruises was a ghastly greyish white. There was a long tear in the shoulder of his jacket, a messy darkness beneath that gave off the worst smell.

Gagging, Starling followed him as he crashed through into the parlour.

‘Alice!’ he shouted to the empty room. Starling stood in his way, forcing him to stop.

‘Mr Alleyn! How are you here – here and not at the war? Where is Alice? Have you been with her?’ she asked desperately. Jonathan looked down at her and didn’t seem to recognise her at all. His eyes were feverish and wild; the hands that grasped her shoulders shook violently, but had an inhuman strength.

‘Where is she? The letter she wrote . . . it cannot be. I won’t believe it! Where is she?’ His voice rose from a whisper to a shout, spittle flying from his lips. His fingernails bit into her.

‘We don’t know where she is! Do you know? Have you seen her? What’s happened?’ said Starling, her words garbled by tears that came on suddenly, half closing her throat. ‘You’re not well, Mr Alleyn . . .
please
. . .’ But Jonathan shoved her to one side, and continued his search, trailing his stink behind him until it was in every corner of the house. When at last he came back to the kitchen, Starling stood shoulder to shoulder with Bridget, frightened and bewildered.

‘I must find her. I must tell her . . .’ Jonathan said indistinctly. He seemed to be losing control of his tongue; the sounds he made were strange and disjointed.

‘He is afire with fever,’ Bridget said quietly. ‘We mustn’t let him leave as he is.’ At this, Jonathan’s head whipped around and he glared savagely at them.

‘Who are you? What have you done with Alice?
What have you done?
’ he bellowed. It seemed to take the last of his strength. His hand was on his sabre, trying to free it from its scabbard, as he sank to his knees. ‘You cannot keep me here,’ he whispered. And then he collapsed.

Some weeks later, when the fear of harm coming to Alice had evolved into the agony of grief, the bitter torment of not knowing, Starling managed to see Jonathan again. She and Bridget had been made to quit the farmhouse in Bathampton, and Starling was in service to Lord Faukes, at the house in Box. She needed to be near Jonathan, since he was her best link to Alice. She needed to be near him, because he could set about finding her. He could stand up and deny the stories being told about her, and be believed. He could do
something.
And when Alice came back, and found the farmhouse at Bathampton let to strangers, she would come to Box second of all, Starling was sure. She would come to find Jonathan and Lord Faukes. She would come for her sister. For days Jonathan lay unconscious, and doctors came and went from his room. For days after that he would see no one. Starling was forced to wait, driven to distraction with impatience. When she did at last sneak into his room he was much changed. The stink was gone; he was clean, his wounds bandaged. He could stand, and walk – she had seen him. Yet he did not walk; he did not ride. He did nothing.

When Starling appeared in his room he did not seem to think it amiss. If he was surprised that she’d walked out of his secret life in Bathampton and into his everyday one in Box, he showed no sign of it.

‘Mr Alleyn, why do you not search for her?’ she whispered. Since losing Alice, Starling was less sure of herself, less brave. She was less sure of everything around her, other than that Alice would not have abandoned her willingly. And she was horribly, horribly lonely.

‘There’s no point,’ he said roughly, not looking at her. For a moment his mouth kept working, as if he would say more. He frowned; his eyes were swollen, and had lost their sparkle. ‘She’s gone,’ he said, eventually.

‘You cannot believe what they are saying about her. You cannot believe she had a lover, and has run off with him. You cannot!’

‘Can I not?’ he said, grinding out the words. He shook his head. ‘The letter she wrote to me,’ he said. ‘I
wish
I could remember! And my lord grandfather, and my mother. All tell the same story. And even Bridget has confirmed it . . .’

‘What? Remember what? What has Bridget confirmed?’ Starling’s heart felt weak and damaged. When it pounded like it did then, she worried that it might come apart. Her head ached unbearably, with disbelief, with shock, and desperation.

‘She has left with another. She is gone.’

‘She would
never
! You know that. Mr Alleyn, she loves you! She wants to marry you – it’s all she’s ever wanted! And she made me her sister . . . she would never just abandon us! Why aren’t you out looking for her? How can you believe them? You know it’s not true! You know it!’ She grasped his arm to make him see. ‘Someone has taken her! Or hurt her! Do something!’

‘What would you have me do, Starling?’ Jonathan wrenched his arm away from her. Two of her nails bent backwards and tore, but she felt nothing. ‘Do you call my grandfather a liar? And my mother? Do you doubt what Bridget saw? Do you doubt the letter Alice wrote to me? Do you doubt every piece of evidence that she has run away?’ His face was a snarl, and tears ran down it.

‘Yes, I doubt them. How can you not?’

‘You are a fool, girl. She no more loved me than she was sister to you. Both were lies! It was all
fiction
,’ he said, and Starling recoiled, stung.

‘What letter did she write to you? Where is it? Let me read it,’ she demanded.

‘I . . .’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘I have lost it.’

‘Lost it? What did it say?’

‘I . . . I cannot remember. I was not . . . I was not myself . . .’

‘But you are well now, sir.
Please.
You must do something. You must try to find her. Anything could have happened to her – gypsies might have taken her . . . or robbers left her injured somewhere . . . You must search, Mr Alleyn! You can’t believe what they are saying!’

‘Enough! I will hear no more. She’s gone! Do you hear? She’s gone.’

‘No! No, she’s not. She wouldn’t,’ Starling moaned, tears blinding her.

‘Yes. She is gone.’ Just then, Jonathan stared into her eyes with such conviction and despair that Starling felt the seeds of a terrible suspicion germinate.

And as the months passed, and Jonathan returned to the war in Spain, and no word ever came, her suspicion grew and grew, flourishing like weeds in the waste ground of her grief. For even if Starling allowed herself to think that Alice would abandon her, she did not believe that she would go so completely, and never send word. Never send a note to say goodbye, or to explain why she had acted in secret. But no word ever came, and nobody in the house at Box would even speak of Alice Beckwith, and Starling could not understand why Jonathan, who had loved Alice, would believe what was said about her. She did not
believe
that he believed it. So, when she thought back to his ravaged eyes and the cold, bitter way he had said
she is gone
, it seemed that he must know more. That he must know things he would not say.

There’d been blood on him when he came to the farmhouse that day, blood aplenty. Spatters and smears of it, all over his clothing. And he had been raving, unhinged; he had spoken of a letter that none but he had seen or read, the contents of which had upset him terribly, yet which he now claimed he could not remember. Still some part of her kept its trust in him, though; kept it for three more years until he came back again, his leg wound finishing the war for him. Some part of Starling would not believe Jonathan could harm Alice. Until that man she no longer knew hit her for mentioning Alice’s name. Until she heard him say it out loud, clear as day.
She is dead.
Then all trust vanished, and all hope with it.

There was a pause after Starling finished her story, and she glanced over her shoulder to make sure the verger and the caretaker weren’t listening. Rachel Weekes seemed dumbstruck. She shook her head minutely.

‘How can that be? Mrs Alleyn says her son got word of Alice’s disgrace while he was fighting overseas . . . He wasn’t even in the country. Or do you say he killed her after she ran away?’

‘No, no.’ Starling shook her head in frustration. ‘Mrs Alleyn lies, to cover for her son . . . she doesn’t want it to be true, of course she doesn’t. She’s a noble lady, but as a mother her first loyalty is to her son . . . He
was
returned! Alice got word that the men were returning, and stopping in Brighton to recover from the fray. She wrote to him there . . . I know not what she said. But he came to Bathampton the day after she vanished. The very next day!’