More than once, Starling opened the rosewood box and tried to read one of the letters. She knew she shouldn’t, but that didn’t make the temptation any easier to resist. Her reading was coming along, under Alice’s tuition, but still she could only make out one or two words of Jonathan’s impossible writing, with its curls and flourishes and slanting loops. It was as though he’d designed it deliberately so that none but Alice could read it. And of course she never saw what Alice wrote to him in response. When she asked, Alice would say something like: I’m telling him about how well you are doing in your lessons, and how much of a help you are to Bridget. And about the owls nesting in the old tree, and to ask when he and his grandfather will next visit us. Then she’d give a nod and a smile, as if to say there, be satisfied. Starling chafed to know what else she wrote. The scant words she could pick from Jonathan’s script were usually dull things like clement, mother, city and season; only occasionally did she see more exciting things, like cherish, captive, and adore.
Starling always knew when Alice was keeping secrets – it wasn’t difficult to tell, because Alice wasn’t very good at keeping them. Not that she divulged them, unless they were silly and minor, and hers to divulge: a cake they were to have for tea, or some small present she’d bought for Starling, which was meant to be saved for the day they’d chosen as her birthday but would always be handed over sooner. When she had a secret that was not hers, or was important, she kept it, but the strain of doing so wrote itself all over her face. A tiny line appeared between her brows, and a distracted look in her eyes, as though what she could not tell ran constantly before them. Her lower lip stayed open, away from the upper; ever ready to speak. So she was for five days after one letter from Jonathan came, and Starling ached to know what she knew. Then, on a cool and breezy day, Alice wandered into the kitchen with studied calm, carrying a cloth-bound book of poems and her shawl. She went to stand by the window, and Starling, who was helping Bridget rub salt into a joint of bacon, noticed how high and tense her shoulders were. Eventually, Alice turned to them with an air of tremendous nonchalance.
‘I think I might take Starling on a walk into Bathampton today. The weather seems set fair,’ she said.
Bridget looked out at the skirling clouds and wind-bent trees, and pursed her lips doubtfully.
‘If it’s fresh air you want, you could go and see if there are any goosegogs ready for picking yet,’ she said.
‘Oh, there aren’t. I checked them earlier,’ Alice replied hurriedly. ‘You’d like a trip into the village, wouldn’t you, Starling?’ She was slightly breathless, her voice a little high.
‘Oh, yes. Can I, Bridget?’
‘What about this bacon, then?’
‘It’s almost done… leave it and I’ll be sure to finish it later. Please?’
‘Go on then, the pair of you. Never mind leaving me with all the work,’ said Bridget. Starling jumped down from the stool she was standing on, and untied her apron.
‘Run and get your hat, my chuck.’ Alice’s smile was irrepressible.
The farmhouse sat on the wide strip of land that lay between the river and the newly made canal that linked the River Kennet in the east to the River Avon at Bath. The Avon, wide and fast-flowing, passed to the north of the house; and to the south, a path led to a hump-backed bridge across the canal and then straight on to the high street. But that day, Alice stepped onto the gravelled towpath beside the canal instead.
‘Let’s go this way today,’ she said brightly. Turning west would have taken them the two miles into Bath; turning east led them along the southern edge of Bathampton. The wind bowled along the canal’s flat surface, pulling and puckering it; it made their skirts and the ribbons on their hats flutter. As they dodged piles of dung left by the barge horses, Starling was still fascinated to see water in the canal. For a long time it had been a muddied trench where teams of navvies had hacked and worked to shore up the earth, reinforcing the scar they cut so that it would not heal again in their wake. Now boats and barges were free to travel along it, moving cargos with far greater ease and economy than by road. The water had been glassy and clear for a month after the canal was filled. Now it was as green and cloudy as watercress soup, and it had a dank, clammy smell, like rain and rotting leaves.
A third of a mile or so along the towpath, a large inn called the George sat beside the canal, and another bridge crossed the water, linking Bathampton to a lane that went to Batheaston, on the north bank of the river. Alice stopped at the foot of this second bridge, and looked around.
‘Shan’t we go on into the village?’ said Starling, confused.
‘In a while. Or perhaps we could go into the inn, today? And have something to eat?’ Starling was always hungry and nodded at once, but Alice was looking along the lane towards Batheaston, her face lively with expectation. The hand that held Starling’s held it tightly. For a while nothing happened, and Starling watched a barge approach and slide by, its cargo hidden under sheets of canvas. The bargeman clucked his tongue at the horse when it baulked at the shadows beneath the bridge. He was weather-beaten and lean, and had a pipe clamped between teeth the colour of mahogany.
‘Where are you going?’ Starling called to him, shy but fascinated. He squinted his eyes at her and took his pipe into his hand.
‘I’m for Newbury, bantling,’ he said.
‘How long will it take you?’ Starling disengaged her hand from Alice’s to trot along the towpath behind the horse.
‘Four days, maybe somewhat less – don’t run up the rear of that horse or he’ll kick you skywards. Depends on the number already waiting at Foxhangers.’
‘Where’s that? Why should people wait?’
‘You’ve a good many questions, chickabiddy. There’s a great big hill, this side o’ Devizes. They’ve not yet fathomed how to make the canal climb it. We’ve to unload everything and take it up by rail wagon before we can go on along the water once more.’ By this time Starling had followed the barge a goodly way from the bridge, so she stopped, and he soon drew ahead.
‘How should water climb a hill?’ she called after him, but the bargeman just gave her a wave, and turned his back.
She picked a few handfuls of forget-me-nots as she walked back to Alice, who hadn’t seemed to notice her absence. A moment later, her arm shot out and grabbed at Starling for support.
‘Oh! Look!’ Alice gasped, staring along the lane. ‘Look, Starling – Mr Alleyn has come!’ Starling followed her gaze, and saw, far off, a gentleman who might have been Mr Alleyn, on a grey horse.
‘Is it him? He isn’t due to visit,’ she said, puzzled. She took hold of Alice’s arm where it grasped at her. Through the skin of her wrist, Starling felt the older girl’s pulse racing and stumbling along. Alarmed, she tugged to get Alice’s attention. ‘Be calm, Alice. Please, be calm,’ she murmured. Alice smiled down at her, and took a deep breath.