‘And now she’s a scarecrow again,’ said Bridget, and Alice chuckled.
‘Only for a little while. Only until we can get her some clothes of her own. We’ll go to market on Thursday, and find some cloth. Bridget can stitch you some dresses, and when you’re bigger, you’ll fit into my old things just fine.’
‘Your outgrown dresses might fit her in time, but they’re too fine for a servant. She’ll have to have others.’
‘A servant? Starling isn’t a servant. She’s my family, now. I always wanted a little sister,’ said Alice, tucking Starling’s red curls behind her shoulders, and smoothing them down.
‘Your sister? Now, Alice…’ Bridget began, but she saw the look on Alice’s face, and seemed to lose heart for the argument. ‘She must learn to be useful. It is essential. You may not always be able to keep her.’
‘She will be useful! Of course she will. I will teach her to read and write, and be a lady…’
‘And I will teach her to cook and clean, and have a livelihood.’ Bridget’s voice was laced with dry humour, and Alice smiled.
‘Very well, then.’
‘If she is mute, things will be harder,’ said Bridget.
‘No, she is not mute,’ Alice said. She cupped Starling’s chin, and gazed at her. ‘Fear has chased her voice away, that’s all. It will return, when she’s ready.’
‘There is another problem, of course. Perhaps the biggest of all, which you haven’t yet considered.’ Starling’s heart sank. She wanted to stay. She longed to stay. Alice glanced anxiously at Bridget, as if fearing what she would say next. ‘Your benefactor. He comes this Saturday. And who knows how happy he’ll be to find he has another mouth to feed? And an urchin mouth at that.’ Alice took a deep breath, and Starling felt a tremor pass through her. ‘You must prepare yourself to do as he says,’ said Bridget, more gently than usual. Alice suddenly looked so sad that Starling felt a pang of desperation. She opened her mouth, but a whistle of empty air was all that came forth. She swallowed, and coughed a little, and tried again.
‘I’ll be good,’ she said, and Alice cried out in delight.
1821
It was easy enough to leave the house on Lansdown Crescent after hours. Starling’s room was little more than a cubbyhole adjoining the cook’s room, along a shadowy corridor from the kitchen. She had a narrow wooden bed and a rickety nightstand for the pot; no windows, but a rag rug on the floor to keep the chill off her feet. If Sol Bradbury was already in bed then she slept like a dead woman, snoring softly with her chin nestled into the pillowy flesh of her neck. If she was awake, then as long as Starling was reasonably discreet, the woman said nothing. They had an understanding – Sol Bradbury didn’t see Starling going out when she should have stayed in, nor did she comment when odd small items of food and leftovers went missing from the pantry; and Starling didn’t see Sol Bradbury drinking brandy in the mornings, or tipping the grocer’s boy coppers that weren’t hers for gossip about her friends and neighbours. The housekeeper, Mrs Hatton, kept herself above stairs once Mrs Alleyn had retired for the night; she and Dorcas had their rooms on the top floor.
Starling made her way to the Moor’s Head, to see her friend Sadie and to keep a tryst with Dick Weekes. She would need more of his doctored wine before long, but she was eager to see him anyway, however jealously she guarded all evidence of her favour. It would not do for Dick to know that she liked him overly well. He was devilishly easy on the eye, and never short of followers; dopey-eyed girls without a thought to share between them, who giggled and pouted at him wherever he went, all too keen to part their lips for whatever he cared to put into their mouths. But Dick Weekes was the type that needed something sharp to temper the sweet; that needed something off-kilter to keep his attention. And I am just the right amount of sharp and off-kilter, Starling thought, with a smile. The inn was crowded with drinkers and players, travellers and doxies. The heat and stink and press of bodies always cheered Starling after a humdrum day of work, and she smiled a crooked smile at Sadie as she reached the barrels and taps.
‘All the usuals to keep you busy,’ she said to her friend, as Sadie poured her a cup of frothy beer.
‘And some unusuals too – see that man there, the tall one with only one eye? You ever seen him before?’ She pointed out an ill-favoured man with a gaunt, sour face and a leather patch over his missing eye. His greasy hair was salt and pepper, and hadn’t been combed in a while.
‘No, I never saw him. He’s wearing a fine enough pair of boots, though. Why do you point him out?’
‘He says he’s loved me a long time, and watched me from afar. He says if I meet him in the yard afterwards, he’ll make me an offer I can’t refuse.’ Sadie chuckled, and Starling rolled her eyes.
‘He’ll make you his whore, and thrash you if you refuse.’
‘Aye, most likely. Perhaps I’ll meet him though.’ The plump girl shrugged. ‘He might be as good as his word. Those are fine boots… maybe he’s rich, and soft-hearted, and will marry me and give me a life of idleness.’
‘Maybe. And maybe I shall marry King George next Wednesday at noon. If you meet with him have Jonah watch you, for heaven’s sake. And keep your wits about you.’ Jonah was the stable boy at the Moor’s Head, a hulking lad of sixteen years, quite in love with Sadie. ‘Is Dick about?’
‘Dick Weekes? Not yet. Stay and talk a while, till he gets here.’
Richard Weekes came in not long afterwards, looking as dandy as he ever did, all loose hair and smiles. Sadie nudged Starling and nodded towards him, and Starling took her leave, planting a kiss on Sadie’s fat cheek. She waited until Richard had shrugged off his coat in the heat of the inn, then pressed a brimming tankard into his right hand as she clasped his left and pressed it to her chest. She smiled a wicked smile at him, the way he liked.
‘How do you do, Mr Weekes?’ she said.
‘Dying of thirst, but otherwise well. Leave off a moment, then, and let me drink.’ He smiled.
‘Leave off, he says! Why, you will break my heart, talking that way,’ she said mockingly.
‘Your heart?’ Richard laughed. ‘A thousand men with a thousand cudgels couldn’t break your heart, Starling no-name.’ Starling leaned closer to his ear, standing on her toes.
‘Not a thousand but just one, and just one cudgel too.’ She let her hand brush over his crotch, and felt his prick stir in response.
‘You’re eager tonight, aren’t you?’
‘I can’t stay out for long. Dorcas has taken to getting up after midnight to drink milk. She says she has nightmares – comes clattering around the pantry like a blind heifer. She’d love to find me out, and run to tell Mrs Hatton. How my dissipation would scandalise.’ Starling shook her head in irritation. ‘So, come, Mr Weekes. Take me somewhere quieter, if you please.’
‘It would be my pleasure. Just let me drink this at least. I meant it when I said I was dying of thirst.’
‘Can’t we go to your rooms?’ Starling suggested. Dick had brought her out through the back door, to the yard behind the pub, and was trying to usher her up the ladder into the hay loft above the stables.
‘No. Not any more.’ Dick put his arm around her shoulders, and squeezed her left breast too hard. Starling twisted away and slapped his cheek. ‘Tease,’ he scolded her.