When she heard footsteps, Rachel looked up reluctantly. ‘Look, here she comes,’ she said. Starling was coming along the lane from Bathampton, carrying her hat in one hand, its lilac ribbons trailing out behind her. The sun shone in her red hair, and made her squint. Suddenly, for the first time, Rachel could see how young she still was. Without her anger she seemed less certain, more tentative and anxious. Her diffidence around Jonathan bordered on shyness. She knew how to act when she could hate him. Now, she doesn’t know.
‘Did you see her? Was she well?’ Rachel asked her. Starling nodded, and took a position next to Rachel, leaning over the bridge.
‘Yes. She… wept when I told her of Alice’s fate but she thanked me also. For giving her the truth of it, once and for all. She even… she even said sorry. For not believing me all these years when I said Alice was slain.’ Starling cast a guilty glance at Jonathan.
‘Will she be all right, do you think?’ said Rachel.
‘She will grieve, of course. Her health is not improved, but spring is coming. I told her I would send word when we arrive; I told her I would send money.’
‘She does not wish to travel into Dorsetshire with us? Some lodgings could be found, I am sure…’ said Jonathan, but Starling shook her head.
‘Too old to travel, she claims. Bathampton is her home. She-’ Starling cut herself off, frowning and examining the stonework. She gouged a strip of lichen from a crevice with her thumbnail, so Rachel knew that she didn’t like what she had to say next. ‘It was Bridget that took Alice’s letters. Her rosewood box… On Faukes’s order, after I let slip to him that you and Alice wrote to each other, sir. She took the box and gave it to him, soon after Alice vanished. He did not give her a reason. I suppose they wanted to destroy all evidence of the bond between them. Between you and Alice, sir.’
‘But… she knew all this while you were searching for them!’ said Rachel.
‘She said she feared to tell me,’ said Starling, sounding puzzled. Rachel smiled at her.
‘Yes. In her place, I think I would have feared to tell you too.’
‘I am not so very fierce,’ said Starling.
‘You are.’ Rachel and Jonathan spoke near in unison. Rachel put a hand on Starling’s arm, apologetically. ‘That is, you were.’
For a while they watched the water, each lost in their own thoughts. Then Starling asked, tentatively:
‘Mr Alleyn, did Alice ever tell you anything about where I came from? I often asked if she’d ever found anything out, or if anybody had come looking for me, but she always denied it. I thought, perhaps, she had found out something she did not want me to know…’
‘No.’ Jonathan shook his head. ‘No, she did not. As far as I know, she never tried to find out. She was too afraid that she would uncover some reason to have to give you up.’
‘Then I will never know,’ said Starling.
‘I’m sorry, Starling,’ said Rachel.
‘No, do not be. I… I am quite happy not to know. It was something Alice and I used to share – the mystery of our undisclosed beginnings. Look what sorrow finding hers out brought her. I would rather my story started when she picked me up out of the mud at the farmhouse that day. That is the only history I need; the only family.’
‘There’s wisdom there,’ said Jonathan.
‘And look – look what Bridget gave me.’ Starling took a small, cloth-bound book from her pocket. ‘One of Alice’s poetry books – one that she often read from. Bridget hid it about her when we were removed and the house cleared out. She also wanted a keepsake. When she told me about Alice’s letters, and I said I had so longed to have something of hers… She felt bad about it and gave me this book.’ She handed it to Rachel with due reverence. ‘Look inside the cover.’
‘This book belongs to Alice Beckwith, and it is her favourite – pray do not leave it out in the rain, Starling,’ Rachel read, and smiled. The handwriting was small and precise, slanting forwards elegantly.
‘I did the very thing with another one of hers – a novel she’d been teaching me to read from. It was quite ruined,’ said Starling.
‘So there – you have a letter of hers, of sorts, and one addressed to you,’ said Rachel.
‘And this proves that she lived. This means she can never be forgot.’
‘She never would have been,’ Jonathan said quietly. ‘So, then, I can let this one go. You do not mind?’ He took Alice’s last letter from his coat pocket. ‘I… I do not want to keep it. Her last words to me should not be ones of such sadness and pain.’ Starling stared hungrily at the letter for a moment, but then she shook her head.
‘You are right. It should not be kept to remind us,’ she said. Jonathan smoothed the paper between his fingertips for a moment, as if to remember the feel of it. Then he let it go into the water, without another word. They watched it spin away in silence.
When it was out of sight, Starling hung her arms over the parapet and stared down at the lovers’ tree. Jonathan and Rachel had already taken their leave of the place, and so they waited for some sign that she was ready, and did not hurry her. It went unspoken between them that they would never return to that same spot; that it must stay in the past, and not haunt the future. So they waited, and the breeze fluttered Starling’s lilac ribbons, and the red strands of her hair; and in distant treetops rooks clattered and muttered to one another. Then, with a whistling rush of air, a pair of swans flew low over the bridge and skated down onto the water, sending up dazzling waves from their feet. They were incandescent with light. Calmly, the birds folded back their wings, crooked their necks and moved into the gentler current near the bank. Starling gasped and watched them intently; then she turned to Rachel and Jonathan, smiling unguardedly.
‘Come, let’s not linger here any more,’ she said. Jonathan nodded, and they moved away towards where the carriage waited, and did not look back.
Acknowledgements
As ever, my profound thanks go to the whole team at Orion for all their expertise, support and hard work; and especially to Eleanor Dryden and Genevieve Pegg for their enthusiastic, insightful and exacting treatment of the manuscript. Many, many thanks to my agent Nicola Barr for being so talented, skilful and patient.
A big thank you to my friends and family, who are always behind me all the way, handing out books and only ever feeding back the good comments; and this time especially to Sarah Green, for her infectious enthusiasm about Bath and her guided walks – even with that knee.
About the Author
KATHERINEWEBB was born in 1977 and grew up in ruralHampshire, England. She studied history at Durham University, has spent timeliving in London and Venice, and now lives in Berkshire, England. Having workedas a waitress, au pair, personal assistant, potter, bookbinder, libraryassistant, and formal housekeeper at a manor house, she now writesfull-time.
