In the yard Starling kissed the boy quickly, all over his face, turning him this way and that until he pulled away suddenly, his eyes sliding out of focus. She stepped neatly to one side as he threw up into the gutter; a watery stream of curdled wine. As he was doubled over, coughing and spitting, she dipped her fingers into each of his pockets and relieved him of the last of his coins. The stink of his vomit made her recoil, and she swayed, suddenly weak right through her body.
‘Let this be a lesson to you, sweet boy,’ she told him, not unkindly. ‘Come tomorrow you will have lost your money, your dignity and your good health, and yet will have kept the maidenhead you’re so keen to lose. You will not awake a successful man. Never drink more than you can hold.’ He groaned piteously, and she patted him on the shoulder, quite sure he had no idea who she was, or where he was, or why. ‘There, there. Your friends will soon come out to find you.’ With that she left him and slipped out of the yard into the dark streets of Bath, with tears she hadn’t been aware of shedding cold on her cheeks.
For a long time after she ran from Lansdown Crescent, Rachel couldn’t keep still. Her hands shook, and her legs trembled, and she felt the ridiculous urge to burst into tears even though the threat of danger was long gone. She warmed herself some spiced wine but could not drink it, and made a cold supper that she could not eat. She wanted Richard to come home so that she could be comforted, but darkness gathered in the narrow street outside until she could no longer see to watch for him. When it was late and he was still not home, she took a candle up the narrow stairs and fetched the twist of her mother’s hair from her trinket box. She pressed the cold, slippery lock to her lips and breathed in, trying to find some scent of Anne Crofton still on it. There was none, but it comforted her nonetheless, and the shuddering inside her that threatened to become sobs eased off. Soft hair, soft hands. Everything soft and gentle about her, even when she scolded, the voice whispered, in memory. Rachel lay down on the bed to wait. Her neck was sore, the muscles stiffening from the strain of trying to break away from Jonathan Alleyn. When she shut her eyes she saw his face, the flood of misery and hope that had filled it, followed by that gleam of fury, so terrible, like nothing she had seen in a person’s eyes before today.
She was drifting, her eyes still wide and stinging dry, when the door finally banged below, and she heard Richard’s footsteps on the stairs. She sat up, her head aching, and attempted to pat her hair into better shape. The candle had burned down to a nub. Richard was scowling when he came in, and his steps were heavy, clumsy; boots scuffing on the floor, catching on the corners of the furniture.
‘Richard! I’m so glad you’re come home. The most… unsettling thing happened to me today-’
‘You went to see Mrs Alleyn again.’ Richard cut her off, standing over the bed with his face half lit, half hidden in darkness.
‘Yes… how did you know?’
‘Not from you, that’s clear enough. Not from my wife, who ought not to keep things from me!’ His voice rose, and Rachel blinked. Sweat shone on his top lip and brow, and she could smell the stink of the inn on him.
‘I… I was going to. But it was so late when you got home last night, and you seemed so distracted, I didn’t want to… bother you with it.’
‘And this morning, before I went out?’ he said. Rachel hesitated.
‘I thought it of little consequence,’ she said quietly. In truth she couldn’t say for sure why she’d kept the invitation from him, only that there had remained a nagging doubt over his reaction to the news.
‘You thought it of little consequence,’ Richard echoed, sarcastically.
‘I meant to tell you, of course I did. And I am trying to tell you now. Oh, Richard – it was terrible! Mrs Alleyn did insist upon me meeting her son, even to the extent that I had to go up to his rooms, for he would not come down to us. And then… and then… he flew at me! I don’t know the reason why, for certain – only that he seemed to mistake me for somebody else… He flew at me and half killed me, Richard! I was so afraid… I think he’s quite mad!’
She stopped to catch her breath, and steady herself. She waited for him to reach out for her, and soothe her, but instead he sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, and kept his back turned.
‘Richard? Didn’t you hear me?’ said Rachel, putting a hand on his shoulder. He jumped as if he’d forgotten she was there.
‘What nonsense is this?’ he muttered. ‘Of course he’s not mad, only… troubled. Of course he didn’t attack you.’
‘But… he did! I swear it!’ Rachel cried. ‘Look! Look here at my neck, if you doubt me. See the marks his fingers left!’ She pulled her shawl aside and turned her neck to the light, where deep red fingerprints still marked the skin. ‘Look!’ Reluctantly, Richard glanced briefly at her neck, and his frown grew even deeper. He stayed silent. ‘But… have you no words of comfort for me? Doesn’t it move you, that I was attacked?’ she said, bewildered.
‘Of course it does. Of course… I am sure he did not intend to harm you. He is a gentleman. His mother is-’
‘His mother left me alone in his rooms! She left me alone for him to do as he pleased! And what kind of gentleman would deal out violence to a… a blameless person who had come to call? I tell you, they are gentlefolk neither one of them!’ Rachel began to sob, as much from exhaustion and disappointment as from her former fear.
‘I will not hear you speak ill of the Alleyns. Were it not for Mrs Alleyn’s kindness, and her patronage, I would be nowhere. I would be a lowlife, serving others for a living, instead of a business man of good repute, rising all the while…’
‘I don’t understand you, Richard. Are… are we to be so grateful to her for your advancement that her son may strangle me and go unreproached?’
‘I say only that… allowances must be made. Jonathan Alleyn is not a well man… it is unfortunate that he… reacted badly to you. But you should not have been in his rooms!’
‘Unfortunate? And if that serving girl hadn’t been there to make him stop, and he had killed me, would that be unfortunate too? Or would that be merely regrettable?’
‘What serving girl?’
‘The red-headed one. The one I told you about before, that I thought I saw-’
‘Enough about this now. You’re home, safe and well. No harm has been done…’ Richard turned to her now, and put out a hand to take one of hers. Rachel stared at him in astonishment. ‘It was a fine thing that Mrs Alleyn asked you to see her again. Perhaps next time it will be a card party, or tea? Let us hope so, for she truly must be taking a shine to you, hmm?’ He squeezed her hand and smiled, but his eyes stayed troubled, almost afraid.
‘Next time? Richard… I can’t go back there. I won’t! You don’t understand what it was like…’
‘Enough, now. You’ve had a fright, and you’re not talking sense. Of course you will go back, if you are invited. We must hope that you are.’ His grip on her hand had grown tighter, and almost hurt.
‘Richard, I-’
‘You will go back.’ He said each word slowly, clearly, and in his hand hers was a small, weak thing that could not free itself.
Rachel said nothing. She did not understand Richard’s loyalty to the Alleyns, so profound that her own well-being could be brushed so easily aside. She did not understand his insistence that she go back, even if she didn’t want to. She did not understand why he offered her no gentle embrace, but only began to unbutton his breeches as he laid her back on the bed. She did not understand why, when she told him she was too tired and upset to make love, he carried on and did it anyway.
1805
Jonathan and Alice wrote to each other constantly, each letter begun as soon as the one before had been received and devoured, so that missives passed between them like a lungful of air, breathed in and then out, tirelessly. Whenever the letter carrier called with something, Alice rushed to be the first person whose fingers touched the envelope; as if some vital essence of Jonathan might linger on it, and pass to her through her skin. Then she stole away to find some private place in which to read – in her room, or tucked into the window seat in the back parlour, or in the barn – with perfect concentration on her face, and a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, ebbing and flowing according to the contents of the letter. Each letter was read twice, three times, even four. Then Alice would place it carefully in a polished rosewood box, and sit down with paper and pen to begin her reply.