‘And if he did kill Alice, what then? He does not remember that day,’ said Rachel. ‘Does saving Cassandra excuse him of that? Even he did not think so – he told me so himself!’
‘If he harmed Miss Beckwith…’ Harriet trailed off, and looked at her husband. ‘If he did, then no. Nothing absolves him of that.’
‘Except death, perhaps, for then the Lord will be his judge. By your actions we may never know the truth. I for one will not believe it. Not ever. But then, I have fought alongside him. He is my blade brother, and so I know him better than either of you.’ Captain Sutton spoke in stony tones, then rose and left the room without looking at Rachel or excusing himself.
Harriet Sutton invited Rachel to stay longer, and take a bed for the night. She didn’t ask why Rachel was reluctant to return to Abbeygate Street – she didn’t seem to need to. But when Rachel refused the offer Harriet didn’t press her, and Rachel saw relief in her eyes. She couldn’t blame her friend, though it hurt nonetheless. She had broken into their family, and made a breach through which all they held dear might be threatened. I will tell no one. Slowly, she walked towards Abbeygate Street, along dark streets like tunnels through her caved-in world. She would have to confront Richard, and tell him what had happened that day; and he would beat her for her association with Starling, and for prying into the Alleyns’ lives, and for accusing Jonathan and then leaving him lying on the frosty ground, surrounded by blood. For doing anything to upset Josephine Alleyn, whom he loved dear. Loves dear?
Was I mistaken? Didn’t Jonathan tell me he killed Alice? She stopped on the cobbles of Abbey Green, where the fallen plane tree leaves had been rained and rotted into a slimy mulch in the gutters. Torch flares in the darkness flung dizzying lines across her vision, and suddenly the strain of thinking was utterly debilitating. She wanted nothing more than to lie down where she stood and let it all carry on without her. Did I lead him to his death? She stumbled on, and as she turned the corner into Abbeygate Street she saw a figure huddled on the steps of the wine shop.
Rachel paused, thinking from the way the figure hunched, leaning on the railings, that it was her husband or her father-in-law, far gone in drink. But the person was too small to be either of them, and as she approached she recognised Starling, curled with her arms around her knees, shivering under her shawl.
‘Starling, what are you doing here? If my husband sees you he will thrash us both.’ Rachel glanced up at the windows in alarm, and relaxed a little when she saw them unlit. Starling raised a pale face to her.
‘Neither one of us needs worry about that any more,’ she said.
‘What do you mean? Wherever he is, he could be back any moment… it’s late.’ As she spoke, Rachel realised that she had no idea of the hour. The afternoon and evening had blurred nonsensically. She shook her head in confusion.
‘I’m telling you, you don’t need to worry about him any more,’ said Starling, more firmly. She stared up at Rachel with her hard eyes, and Rachel’s stomach lurched.
‘Oh, mercy… what have you done?’ she whispered.
‘Me? Nothing at all. The fool fell into the river. He was drunk, as usual.’
‘He fell? How do you know this?’
‘I happened to be passing. It… it was at the lovers’ tree.’
‘At Bathampton? I don’t understand… why was he at Bathampton? Why were you?’ Starling stood up stiffly.
‘Can we go inside? I will tell you everything, but I can’t stand this cold any longer.’
‘Mr Weekes might return, and find us-’
‘He won’t.’
Rachel opened the door and led her inside. Starling went straight to the stove, and the squeal of protesting metal as she opened the hatch was piercing. She reached for kindling and coals from the bucket, and blew on the old embers to relight them. Her hands knew exactly where to go for these things, and for the andirons, and Rachel realised that this wasn’t the first time Starling had been in her home. In light of all that had happened she found she did not care one whit. She knelt down beside Starling as the coals began to glow, and the pair of them stayed that way, warming their hands in silence a while. When Rachel glanced across at the red-haired girl, she saw that her gaze was fixed, unfocused, far away.
‘I… you were right,’ said Rachel, shakily. ‘You were right about Jonathan Alleyn. He killed Alice, and now… and now I think he is dead. He… What has really happened to my husband?’ Slowly, Starling’s face turned to her, and the coals glowed in her wide eyes with their peculiar, lost expression.
‘It was your husband that killed Alice. I had it from his own lips,’ she said.
Rachel could only stare at her, dumbly, as the full story of what had happened at the lovers’ tree came out; she was glad she was on her knees already so she couldn’t fall down.
‘Josephine Alleyn said to me…’ Rachel’s voice was small, shrunken in astonishment. ‘She said to me that my husband had shown her great loyalty. It was this then. Don’t you think? She meant this pretend wooing of Alice; this being rid of her.’
‘Yes. I think so.’ Starling still stared, and never blinked. ‘Do you see, Mrs Weekes? Do you see what they’ve done to me? The very people I’ve served, and lived beside, and loved… these very people were the self-same that took her from me. My sister. Do you see?’ she said, and Rachel knew she meant the cruelty of it, the injustice. She nodded. ‘I have been tricked. I have been so wrong,’ said Starling.
‘We have both been wrong, about a great many things.’ Rachel paused, swallowing hard. ‘Jonathan Alleyn had nothing to do with it at all,’ she said numbly. Behind the numbness a grief was building, swelling up like a black bubble.
‘Nothing. He loved her and never harmed her, and these past nine years since he came back from Spain I have done all I could to torment him, and make him suffer! I have cursed him every way I know how!’ Starling’s chest shook so that her words were uneven. ‘But he said it… I heard him say he’d killed her… he said her blood was on his hands…’
‘But by her he did not mean Alice,’ Rachel murmured. Starling’s expression showed her confusion, but just then Rachel remembered something that hit her hard. ‘Oh! When we met… when I met Richard Weekes for the first time, he reacted most viscerally. I… I thought it was love! He told me it was love, and I took his reaction as proof of it. But it was recognition. He saw Alice! Just as you did; just as Mrs Alleyn and Jonathan did.’
‘Just so.’ Starling nodded. ‘I knew he started out in Lord Faukes’s service; I had no idea he ever met Alice, or even knew of her existence. He said her face has haunted him – his guilt, is more like it. He said he hoped to make amends by…’
‘By marrying me?’ Rachel whispered. Starling nodded.
‘But I don’t understand… don’t understand why Mrs Alleyn went to such lengths to be rid of her! Wasn’t it enough to send her off knowing that they would never consent to the marriage?’ Starling went on.
‘No, it was not enough.’ Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I see that if Alice’s origins gave Jonathan a cause to harm her, they gave his mother an even greater one? ‘She was his aunt, and his sister both. She was an abomination, through no fault of her own,’ said Rachel, with a bitter feeling. Starling only stared, her mouth falling open, as Rachel took her turn and told her everything that had happened that day since she’d read the letter that the Suttons had long hidden.
Starling turned and stared into the burning coals again.
‘Perhaps I should pity her then,’ she said eventually. ‘Perhaps I should pity Josephine Alleyn, to have had that monstrous buck fitch as her father, and suffered his attentions nonetheless… But I can’t pity her. I can’t, if she took it out on Alice when it was none of her fault. And if Alice was her own daughter… How could she?’