‘I lost a hand of pontoon, when I’d bet a shilling. I did not have the shilling,’ he confessed, trying to smile. ‘Lucky he only gave me this small cut and not a sounder hooping, eh?’ A bruise was spreading out from the wound, and he winced when she dabbed at it. ‘It will make my head thump all the worse, come morning.’
‘Oh, why do it? Why ruin yourself with drink, sir?’ Rachel exclaimed suddenly. Duncan Weekes’s face sank down.
‘It’s like a command you have to answer, though you know the master for a base villain,’ he said softly.
‘You, and my husband, and Jonathan Alleyn… the stuff makes fools and firebrands of all of you!’ She squeezed out the cloth in the bowl. The water was icy.
‘Miserable fools, yes. It makes us lose the things we love most.’ Duncan Weekes’s rheumy eyes shone. The candle flames were caught in them like little sparks of life. Rachel stared into them.
‘What happened to your wife, Mr Weekes?’
The old man sighed; shut his eyes for a moment before answering her.
‘She’d been away one Christmas, to visit her nephew. I was meant to go to Marlborough, where her nephew would leave her, and accompany her on the last leg of the journey by stage. But I… I drank away my fare, and fell into a stupor. So she came back alone, and being last to board, since she had waited as long as possible for my arrival, she had no choice but to ride on the roof. We suffered a spell of bitter winter weather, at the time. Bitter. By the time the stage reached Chippenham, they found her… they found her succumbed to the cold.’
‘Oh, Mr Weekes,’ Rachel breathed.
‘Grog is the devil itself. It was grog and my own weakness for it that killed her, sure enough. So you see, I can’t blame my boy for hating me,’ said Duncan, bitterly. ‘But then, perhaps the devil is in us to begin with, and the grog only gives him free rein. Aye, perhaps ’tis so! It is in the Alleyn family. I have seen it. I have seen their devil for myself!’ The old man’s eyes widened, and he grasped her hand where she tended him. ‘Oh, be careful, my dear! It worries me deeply that you have taken that man into your circle, into your life.’
‘I have come to know Jonathan Alleyn better. I do not fear him as once I did.’
‘Jonathan Alleyn… perhaps not, perhaps not. But the others…’
‘But, there is only he and his mother remaining,’ she said, confused. Duncan shook his head.
‘They all have his blood. And she is her father’s daughter, right enough,’ he said, in a voice gone small and frightened. ‘Richard will tell you… he will tell you I was dismissed from them for my drunkenness. That’s what he will tell you. But it wasn’t so. It wasn’t so!’
‘Why then, Mr Weekes?’ Rachel whispered, squeezing his hand tightly.
‘Because I saw! I saw them! And what I saw could not be mistaken. And they both knew it… they both knew what I’d seen… And I told her. I told her.’
‘Told who what? What did you see?’
‘I understood then… I understood them, then, and I was happy to go, after that. I knew how much my boy wanted to stay on, but I was happy to go after what I saw…’ Oblivion was tugging at him, closing his eyes, making his words lose shape and sense.
‘But what was it, Mr Weekes?’ Rachel shook him slightly, desperate to know. His eyes opened again, struggling to focus on her face.
‘Oh! Poor girl, I fear you have fallen into dark hands… dark hands. That family has evil secrets, and their hearts are black… I saw!’ He sank back again, and his breath came rattling through his teeth, wheezing and rank. The smell of it made Rachel recoil; it carried the stink of infection. She felt her heart thudding. She held Duncan’s hand and tried to warm it, but in the end hers only grew colder, and the old man slumbered on, restless but dogged, so she left him.
All-Hallows’ Eve was a bright, crystalline day; the low sun thawed an early frost to leave everything glittering with water. From a thousand chimneys, a thousand ribbons of smoke rose straight up into the still blue sky. Rachel spent the short daylight hours writing a letter to the Trevelyans, stitching an old tippet into a better semblance of fashion, and trying to make pastry that was neither tough and leathery, nor too fragile to lift. All the while, she could hear Richard down in the cellar. A steady stream of callers came and went; she heard laughter and hushed discussions; the rumble of rolled casks, the creak of the barrow wheel as stock and supplies were brought to the store or taken away. Today of all days, Rachel fretted. She thought up half a dozen excuses she could give Richard for going out of the house so close to nightfall, and even wondered about sneaking out without seeing him at all, and she was so nervous about it as five o’clock approached that she ended up pacing the kitchen-cum-parlour from one window to the other, gazing out in search of answers.
She sighed quietly in relief when, at half past four, Richard came up to announce he was going out.
‘Where will you go?’ Rachel asked, in spite of herself. Richard looked impatient for a moment, and then unhappy. He crossed to her and kissed her cheek, raising a hand to stroke her hair.
‘I have some business to attend to,’ he said, and Rachel stifled the retort that she did not believe it. It would be to an inn, or a gaming table somewhere. She remembered what Richard had once said about his father – that he wouldn’t be half so poor if he didn’t drink his wages away. Hypocrite. And you seem to increase such expenditure all the time. With a pang she wondered if she was to blame for Richard seeking his entertainment elsewhere, but she wanted him to go out, after all, so she said nothing more.
‘Will you be late?’
‘I’ll be as late as I need to be, Rachel,’ he said, irritated. ‘Don’t wait for me, but eat, if you’re hungry.’
‘Very well.’ I just hope your business keeps you out later than mine will keep me. Richard pulled on his gloves and left without another word. Rachel counted to a hundred once the door had slammed shut, then hurried into her own coat and gloves and headed for the river.
On the far side of the bridge she looked left and right, trying to pick out Starling’s small figure from the crowd of river men and traders, urchins and apprentices. In the failing light the torches dazzled her eyes and made it hard to see. Behind her, the city bells began to strike five and she felt a flutter of panic, until a hand grasped her arm and she looked down into Starling’s heart-shaped face.
‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ she said, steering Rachel through the crowd by her elbow.
‘No, I-’
‘Hurry – he won’t wait. Did you bring food?’
‘What?’
‘You said you’d bring some food.’ Starling paused, and glanced at Rachel accusingly.
‘I… I’m sorry. Richard was in the house until the very last moment… I couldn’t. I was worried about getting away without him knowing.’
‘Never mind.’ Starling resumed her march through the muck and garbage of the riverside. They reached the same barge Rachel had seen Starling take before, and the girl went on board in one smooth jump. Rachel peered at the gap of inky water between the boat and the wooden jetty. ‘Come on, then,’ said Starling, seating herself on the sacks of coal. Rachel glanced at Dan Smithers, who gave her a lopsided grin that showed teeth gone brown; the upper and lower canines had worn away on one side into a perfect round slot for his pipe shaft.
‘Make the jump, ma’am, if you would have a ride,’ he said, still grinning. Squaring her shoulders, Rachel gathered her skirts and crossed the gap with a single long stride. She lost her balance, unprepared for the way the barge would move, and staggered forwards onto the coal sacks. Dan Smithers chuckled.