‘Yes, of course. I pray that she is. I would rather… I would rather have her alive somewhere, in love with another, sparing me not a thought… I would rather that than she be dead. Only Starling ever thought that would be better.’
‘So would I,’ said Rachel, but quietly, and Jonathan didn’t seem to hear. They stood a while, each lost in thought, with the sun shining in their eyes and a buzzard circling high overhead, riding the warm air as it rose from the hill. Rachel let her arms hang down by her sides and tried not to wish that he would unfold his arms and take her hand again. She felt childish, foolish, to think it. What would I gain from such a gesture? Again, the echo answered her, as softly as a pent breath gently released. Everything.
1808
By early November it had been more than six weeks since any news of Jonathan had reached the farmhouse in Bathampton. When he’d come to tell them, that summer, that he was going to Portugal to fight the French, Starling hadn’t had the first clue where Portugal was, or why the French should be there instead of in France, and they’d spent a while hunting out the atlas and poring over maps of Europe. Her betrayal of Alice after her discovery of the lovers’ tree seemed forgotten, as did their plans to run away. The war with France had postponed everything, and as if she guessed as much, Bridget had met the news of Jonathan’s departure to the Peninsula with a kind of sombre relief. Jonathan was pulled in half; spoke in one breath of glory and duty, and in the next of how much he would miss them all, and long to return. Whenever he mentioned it, Alice’s eyes swam with tears which she refused to shed in his presence. But once he’d taken his final leave of them, they fell like rain.
Jonathan’s letters came each week, sometimes in twos and threes. He wrote nearly every day, but the letters were sent in groups, as and when they could be. He filled every available inch of the paper, the writing so cramped it was harder than ever to decipher. They came smeared and splodged sometimes; they came smelling of smoke, or gunpowder, or the prickling scent of dust. One came burnt, with an uneven black ring through the middle and a reek of cinders, the words inside the circle lost for ever. Alice snatched them all up and devoured them, and once she’d read each one to herself several times, she would read them out loud to Bridget and Starling; but always with pauses, gaps where she censored the words, and glanced up at Bridget with a look at once apologetic and defiant. And then the letters stopped, and they could only wait. After two weeks without word, Starling got bored and turned her attention to other things. But for Alice, the burden of waiting got heavier and heavier every day.
She woke Starling up one night, while the room was black and cold. She hadn’t lit a candle, and her grasping hands seemed to come from nowhere, like the darkness itself come alive. Starling scrambled back, trying to break away.
‘Hush, hush! It’s me!’ Alice whispered, tense and urgent. Her throat sounded tight.
‘What’s wrong? What’s happened? I can’t see anything!’
‘I had a terrible thought, dearest.’ Her voice was a homeless, breathy thing. ‘What if Jonathan has been killed? If Lord Faukes has had word of him… perhaps he would not think to inform us. He doesn’t know of our… bond, after all, does he? What if that’s it, Starling? What if he’s dead and they haven’t told me?’ Starling could think of nothing to say, and the invisible hands gripped her wrists ever tighter, until the nails cut in. ‘I shall have to go there. I shall have to go to Box and ask.’
‘Alice, no! You’re not allowed!’ said Starling.
‘But I must know,’ said Alice, and then she said nothing more.
Come morning, Starling and Bridget woke to find Alice gone. With nerves making her stomach feel watery and ill, Starling told Bridget where she had most likely gone. Bridget’s lips turned bloodless and pale. It was less than five miles to walk to Box, but steep, and might take Alice an hour and a half if no traffic agreed to carry her. After three hours, Starling began to watch for her, keeping an eye out of the nearest window, whatever room she was in. Bridget was grim and silent, and worked with a single-minded intensity that betrayed how anxious she was.
‘Lord Faukes loves Alice,’ Starling said to her at one point. ‘He will be kind to her, I think.’ But Bridget merely grunted.
‘You know little enough of men, or of the world, Starling no-name.’ Which put Starling’s nose out of joint so that she resolved not to speak to Bridget again until Alice got back. Just half an hour later, Starling was watching from the kitchen window when she saw Alice’s familiar willowy figure approaching.
‘She’s back!’ she shouted excitedly, forgetting her vow at once. Alice marched across the yard and through the door, shoulders stooped and chin dipped into her chest. She turned and slammed the door shut behind her, then stood swaying, leaning forwards until her forehead touched the wood.
‘What is it? Is he dead then?’ Bridget demanded.
‘Bridget! Don’t say that!’ Starling cried.
‘Better to know. Well, Alice? What news?’ But Alice only stood with her face to the door, and did not answer. When Bridget and Starling turned her, they were shocked. Her face was ashen, almost grey; her lips had a bluish tinge, eyes wide and staring. She shook so badly that the tremors were more like convulsions, jarring through her body.
‘Alice!’ Starling threw her arms around her.
‘Leave off, girl! If she’s faint that won’t help!’ said Bridget. With her ear pressed to Alice’s chest, Starling heard her heartbeat, racing and stuttering, just as it had the first night Starling had met her. It skipped beats, then fired in short, staccato bursts; a pause and then a flurry, with no rhythm, no pattern; it felt as though a small and desperate animal was trapped behind her ribs. Then there was a long pause between beats, longer than the others, and Starling looked up as Alice’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled to the floor.
The doctor came and bled Alice into a white porcelain bowl; he told them she must rest and drink dark ale to fortify her. Alice slept deeply for twenty-four hours, her face so white and her body so still that she might have died. Starling crept into the room now and then, to reassure herself with the gentle waft of Alice’s breath on her cheek. When she woke up they fed her, and made her drink beef broth. They washed her, and brushed her hair, but for two days Alice said nothing, and only stared straight ahead. There were shadows under her eyes like bruises, smudged purple; faint blue veins crawled under her skin. Starling built up the fire in the grate but it did nothing to banish the chill and the gloom from the room. At the end of the third day she crawled onto the bed to lie beside Alice.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ she whispered. She could think of nothing else that might have rendered Alice so low. ‘Bridget believes it. Is it true?’ She couldn’t imagine it; couldn’t imagine Jonathan not existing any more. Real people didn’t die; not real people that she had seen and touched and spoken to. She could not grasp the weight of it, but it gave her that same watery, sick feeling, churning inside her. ‘Is he dead, Alice? Is that what Lord Faukes told you?’ She didn’t really expect an answer but she got one, though Alice’s voice was a puny murmur of sound.
‘No, Starling. Jonathan is not dead. Not that they had heard.’
‘Oh, Alice!’ Starling cried, joyfully, turning to embrace her. ‘Then why are you so sad? Did he chastise you? Lord Faukes? Was he cruel? Even if he was, even if we have to leave Bathampton… well, it doesn’t matter because Jonathan will come back and marry you and look after us. All will be well, Alice!’ She beamed at her big sister. ‘All will be well.’ But Alice shook her head minutely, and two fat, swollen tears dropped onto her cheeks, one from each eye, in perfect unison.