Her father was sitting up in the meager bed. He was reading an old newspaper, but he laid it down and looked at her coldly as she came in.
“New dress, I see. More than I could ever have bought you.”
She ignored it, and sat on the bed. He seemed weaker.
“How have you been, Papa?”
“As you’d expect. I exist, Sarah. I do not live. I think of you, up there. A servant in our house.”
She felt sure he was desperate to know all about it, but would never ask. She began to describe the wonders of the library but he cut her short at once, angrily. “Please. I have no desire to know the details of my destroyer’s dissolute life.”
“He’s not like that.” Sarah took an exasperated breath. “He’s quite likeable, really.”
“Indeed.” Her father coughed painfully. “You seem to have taken to his servitude easily enough. You obviously don’t feel the shame of it. Still”—he waved a bone-frail hand and picked up the newspaper—“that’s to be expected. Your mother had no feeling for the family. You have always taken after her.”
White-faced with sudden fury she stood, hot tears prickling her eyes. She couldn’t trust herself to say anything. Stalking past Martha she snatched her shawl and said, “I’ll be back next week.”
But she wondered if she would.
In Newhaven Cove the wind was whipping up a storm, but she didn’t care. It blew her hair all over and she let it. Tonight was All Hallows Eve. Tonight the wind would blow the ghost ships to land, and all the spirits of the drowned would climb the cliff path to the church. She watched the waves crash on barnacled rocks, spray flying as high as her own anger.
He was old. All the joy, all the excitement had withered out of him, so that all he could brood on were his misfortunes. She’d never be like that. She’d never let herself grow old. And it would go on until he died, because even twelve shillings all found wouldn’t change things. He’d die in a damp bed in someone else’s cottage, a man with no hope and nothing left but pride. There was nothing she could do about that either.
Unless she really sold her soul to the devil.
Turning, tired with anger and a bitter grief, she came across footprints. They crossed the ridged beach, crisscrossed by wandering paws, rock pool to rock pool. She followed them, walking fast, but she had to scramble to the cliff base before she found the tramp. He was sitting on a rock, gazing out to sea.
“Hello,” she said.
The tramp turned. His red, coarsened face broke into a toothless grin.
“Well, if it isn’t the angry girl. Still angry too. Better dressed, though, and a mite cleaner. Saw that in the chapel, I did.”
She sat by him, kicking sand from her boots. “I didn’t see you.”
“I was there. All watching thee, they were, the parish busies. And how is it, working for the Prince of Darkness?”
She laughed. “Is that what they call him?”
“ ’Tis what I call him. Don’t thee trust him, mind. Not an inch. The devil incarnate, that one. Even his Hall built over a chasm that leads straight to hell.”
Sarah forced down her fear. “Rubbish. You don’t know him.”
“Don’t I?” The tramp stood up. “That one and I go way back. I could tell ye things about him . . .”
“What things?”
The tramp studied her. “How brave art thou?”
“Brave enough.”
“Aye?” He nodded gravely. “Well, look now. I’ll be outside, in the Bear Garden, before dark. Don’t come out after. Reckon you can get me summat to eat?” She nodded, rubbing the dog’s dirty fur.
“Well, bring it. And in return I’ll tell thee some home truths about thy precious Lord Azrael.”
He shuffled off down the path toward Mamble. At the bend he turned, hitching up his belt of rope. “Be careful. Don’t tha make any agreement with him. No wagers, mind.”
For a long time, cold, ignoring the rain, she watched him go.
In the library, Azrael was sitting at the telescope, preoccupied. Behind him Scrab fussed around with a feather duster.
As she took off her coat, she felt his dark eyes watching her.
“Sarah,” he asked quietly, “who was that you were talking to?”
She turned, surprised; saw the lens cap was off, the brass tube tilted down. Scrab, now sweeping a burnt, twisted mass of glass off the floor, grinned to himself.
“Have you been watching me?” she snapped.
He looked abashed. “It was accidental.”
“Oh, was it! Well you’ve got no right. I can talk to whomever I want!” Then she remembered he was her employer and took an angry breath. “It was just some tramp, anyway.”
Azrael looked worried. He got up and wandered to the fireplace, crunching on the glass shards without noticing. Scrab scowled up at him. “Watch yerself!”
“I don’t want you to speak to him again,” Azrael said.
Sarah stared. Then she said, “Why not?”
He picked up a small glass globe and shook it gently. Hundreds of tiny white snowflakes swirled and drifted inside. “He reminds me of someone I once knew. A troublemaker. A liar.” He looked at her sidelong. “I don’t want him on my land. I don’t want you to speak to him.”
“You can’t tell me whom to speak to.”
He put the globe down, watching the flakes settle. Then he said, “You work for me now, Sarah. Don’t forget that.”
His face was troubled.
“You don’t own me,” she said. “Yet.”
But she knew a threat when she heard it.
ten
The Bear Garden was cold. And so was she. The tramp was late.
She glanced up at the house, uneasy and defiant. After sitting in her room for an age telling herself not to be reckless, she’d grabbed her shawl, sped down through the kitchens and out into the smoky purple twilight. Maybe Azrael was afraid of what she’d find out. The yew trees beyond the terrace were already black shapes, monstrous. Small statues of dancing bears capered on columns of stone higher than her head. She didn’t like them, or their stony stillness. She kept thinking the one by the gate had turned its head to look at her.
An owl hooted in the wood.
Sarah paced restlessly up and down, trying to keep warm. Her breath smoked and the sky in the west was clouded. It must be getting late. She had no idea of the time; none of the clocks in Darkwater Hall ever worked, even though she’d wound the library clock herself. Tonight was All Hallows Eve—the Night of the Dead. She didn’t want to be out in it. If he didn’t come now, she’d leave the food and go in.
There was candlelight in the laboratory. As she glanced up at it she saw the window shutters being closed; for a second she caught Scrab’s stooped outline.
Then a stone rattled on the path.
The tramp was very quiet. He crept in through the gate like a shadow, slightly breathless, the dog slinking behind.
“That you, girlie?”
“Yes. Over here.”
She’d put the food on the bench in a little wicker shelter she sometimes sat in; there were a few of them around the gardens.
“There’s none but us?” The tramp sounded wary.
“No.”
He came inside and sat down, smelling of wood smoke and onions. It was darker in here; she crouched by his feet, wrapping the shawl tight about her shoulders to keep warm. “I’ve brought bread and potatoes and some cheese. It’s in the sack. Now tell me what you’ve got to tell, and be quick.”
He rummaged in the dirty sacking, smiling his toothless grin. “Ah, yes. Tonight’s that night, eh?”
She stared, struck by a thought. “You won’t sleep out in it, will you?”
“I sleep where I like. On the beach, or his lordship’s woods. Maybe a barn. Maybe the church porch.”
“But tonight . . .”