‘And how are you, little sister?’ she said with a smile. The sun made her eyes shine like the river. Starling nodded, and stayed mute. She couldn’t seem to find any words to say. She sat on her hands on the edge of the bench, and kicked her legs back and forth, and could not look at Alice. ‘Starling, what is it? What’s wrong?’ Alice laid down her book and reached out one hand to touch Starling’s arm. For a second, Starling wavered, and felt treacherous tears prickling the top of her nose again. She wanted to demand to know why she had been excluded, not trusted, lied to. But then that new hardness seemed to get in the way. It sat at the top of her chest, like a plug, and stopped the words, the tears, from bubbling out. She glanced over and saw that Alice had kept one finger on the page she’d been reading. Marking it, ready to flip the book open and pick up again, as soon as Starling had stopped bothering her.
‘Nothing,’ she snapped, getting up from the bench. She bent, swiped up a handful of angelica flowers, and turned back to the kitchen door. ‘Bridget needs me.’
Come Sunday the weather turned, bringing a warm, grey drizzle, solid from heaven to horizon as though the clouds had simply lowered themselves to ground level. The three residents of the farmhouse joined the villagers of Bathampton for the Sunday service in the ancient church of St Nicolas, and as they walked back along the canal, Starling watched Alice carefully. There were pink spots in her cheeks, and her eyes were restless; she looked more animated than a person coming from an hour and a half in church should, but there was nothing else to give her away. Had Starling not known otherwise, she would never have guessed her sister had a secret, and this was another betrayal. This Alice seemed an entirely different person to the one in whom secrets fizzed uncontrollably, like the bubbles in beer.
‘Did you hear Mrs Littlewood, calling us the three birds from the hen house?’ she asked.
‘Pay her no mind, Starling. She’s a common scold, that one,’ said Bridget.
‘What does it mean, though?’ Starling pressed.
‘It means we haven’t a man about the place, and it means she envies us, for she has Mr Littlewood to deal with and we all know what type of man he is,’ Bridget muttered. Alice made no comment. The wet day made their hair and clothes hang limply. Alice had chosen a time when Starling and Bridget would be busy, preparing the Sunday meal. A time when she could slip away unnoticed, to walk or read, as she almost always did. How many of those times in the past, Starling thought now, had Alice in fact been keeping trysts with Jonathan?
As they returned to the house, unbuttoning coats and untying their hats, Alice paused.
‘I might keep mine on, and walk on for a little while,’ she said casually.
‘Oh, can I come? I need to stretch my legs after sitting through that boring service,’ said Starling.
‘For shame, show more respect,’ Bridget admonished her. ‘I think the vicar gave an admirable sermon today… mind how you speak on the Lord’s day.’
‘Yes, Bridget. So, can I go with you, Alice? Please?’ Starling looked her straight in the eye, until Alice had to look away.
‘Oh, but you hate the rain, dearest,’ she said vaguely. ‘And Bridget should not be all alone with so much work to be done.’
‘It’s not really raining… and you’re only going a little way, you said.’
‘I think…’ Alice paused, fiddled with the front of her coat. ‘I think you should be kind, and stay to help Bridget. I shan’t be long.’ She smiled sweetly enough at them, and then turned and wandered away without another word, pausing to wave from the gate.
‘Mind you don’t get soaked through, if the rain gets worse,’ Bridget called after her.
‘Or if it does, be sure to shelter under a tree!’ Starling added, and had the unhappy satisfaction of seeing Alice’s smile flicker.
Alice came back an hour later, damp, bedraggled and forlorn. Her hem was muddied and her face wore open disappointment, and at once Starling felt guilty to have made her sad. She thought of the little note, sailing heedlessly downstream towards Bath. ‘Didn’t you enjoy your walk?’ she asked, and though she tried to sound easy, her voice was tight and wobbled slightly. Alice looked at her strangely.
‘I enjoyed it well enough. The weather is perhaps… not the best,’ Alice replied. Bridget grunted.
‘Well, it weren’t the best when you set out, so there’s no shock in that,’ she said, with a slight roll of her eyes.
‘Indeed,’ said Alice, with a small, strained laugh.
‘Did you have to shelter under a tree?’ Starling asked, and again that tightness was in her voice. Alice walked to the far side of the room and beckoned Starling over while Bridget’s eyes were on the stove.
‘You left your footprints in the mud, dearest,’ she whispered, and Starling’s guilty heart jumped into her throat.
‘What do you mean? What mud? I never-’ She broke off under Alice’s steady, sad scrutiny.
‘He did not come. I shan’t see him now for weeks; he will be going to war soon and must stay with his company,’ she said. Starling squirmed away from her blue eyes, from the hurt look in them. ‘Starling, did you take my note?’ she whispered. Starling said nothing; she only hung her head, shamefaced. Alice took a deep, unsteady breath. ‘I know… I know why you might be angry with me,’ she went on. ‘I can explain why we had to keep everything secret, but not here, and not right now…’
‘I… I don’t know anything about a note.’
‘Starling, please. Don’t lie.’ Alice spoke so softly, so sweetly, that Starling could hardly bear it. She thought of the lies Alice had told to her – lies of omission, lies of secrecy; all the years that had passed since she and Jonathan had carved their initials into the tree; all the times they had met, and kept it from her. Had kept their love – a special, better love – only for each other. She was so angry, so ashamed, it caused a pressure to build in the hard place inside her, as if the plug would not hold, and something would force its way out.
‘It’s not me who’s the liar!’ she cried, and Alice blinked in shock. Bridget looked up from the far end of the room.
‘What’s that? What are you two conspiring over, eh?’ she called. Starling wheeled to face her, feeling off balance, almost frantic. She felt Alice’s hand on her arm.
‘Please, don’t say anything!’ Alice hissed. Her eyes were full of fear, and though Starling quailed, she could not stop herself.
‘Alice has been meeting with Jonathan in secret! They’re lovers! But he is engaged to Beatrice Fallonbrooke!’ she blurted out. In the corner of her eye she saw Alice’s hands fly to her mouth, her eyes going wide in horror. Bridget dropped her wooden spoon with a clatter, and stared at Alice with a terrible expression. Silence fell in the kitchen, and in it Starling was sure she could hear the cracks at her feet, the cracks in the world, opening even wider.
1821
Rachel was ushered in to her next appointment with Jonathan Alleyn so quickly that she was still out of breath from the long climb up to Lansdown Crescent. The grassy slope in front of the buildings was still crisp and grey with frost where it sank into a shaded hollow; the sky was flat white with cloud, giving no clue as to where the sun might be. There was no breath of a breeze. Mrs Alleyn greeted Rachel at the foot of the stairs, as the butler took her hat, gloves and pelisse from her, and she smoothed the front of her dress. There was that same awkwardness between them, which Rachel was sure they both felt – of her being not quite a guest, not quite a servant. Neither one knew quite how to behave, nor was Rachel ever sure of the reception she would be given. The older woman was by turns warm then cold, stiff then easy, sharp then distant. Impossible to know.