‘He’s what?’
‘He’s mauled. He’s drunk. Been snoozing at his table these three hours gone,’ said Sadie. Rachel followed her gesture to the back of the inn, where her father-in-law was resting his head on the table, a pewter beaker knocked over beside him and a puddle of spirits creeping close to his scalp. In spite of all the noise, Rachel heard the wet rattling in his chest as she sat down beside him. She shook his arm gently.
‘Mr Weekes? Father? Wake up, please.’ The old man mumbled something and slowly raised his head. His eyes were bloody and exhausted. When he saw her, he did not smile. If anything, his face turned even sadder. ‘How are you, Mr Weekes?’ Rachel asked, pointlessly.
‘I cannot seem to find my feet today,’ he croaked, and Rachel fought not to recoil from the stink of his breath. That is not debauchery but the taint of decay. He must be seen by a doctor. With a pang of anxiety she realised that he wasn’t drunk at all, only weakened by illness, and unable to rise.
‘I need to ask you something, sir. I have Alice Beckwith’s last letter to Jonathan Alleyn. She says… she says you told her the truth about his family, and about Lord Faukes. She says that you told her what they feared to, and that she was an abomination. Mr Weekes? Are you listening?’
‘They all have his blood,’ Duncan mumbled. His expression was haunted.
‘You mean that… Alice was Lord Faukes’s child? Is that what you told her?’
‘Not just his, not just his. Don’t you see? I saw them. I… saw them.’ Duncan wiped his mouth with a hand that trembled. He shook his head, bewildered. ‘What letter have you, my dear? She wasn’t to send any letters. I heard them say so. Any letter she wrote was to be intercepted, and not sent.’
‘Intercepted by who?’
‘Whoever she handed it to.’ He shrugged, and shook his head again. ‘That poor girl. That poor, poor girl. I should never have told her. It was the grog, my dear; the grog is the very devil.’
‘So her other letters were delivered to Lord Faukes instead? She writes in this one…’ Rachel drew the paper from her pocket. ‘She writes that she has sent many letters, and is desperate to hear from him.’
‘All went to Box. They can’t have known of that one you have there, I’m sure of it.’
‘Mr Weekes.’ Rachel gripped both of his hands in hers; stared into his eyes. ‘Please tell me what you told Alice. Tell me what you saw.’
Duncan Weekes picked up his fallen cup and peered into it, with little hope or expectation.
‘I never told my boy. Perhaps that was a kindness, in all this rotten cruelty. He loved her, you see.’
‘Richard? Loved who?’
‘He loved Josephine Alleyn. With all the fire and fury with which a young man falls in love.’ Rachel froze. She thought of the tremor that had run through Richard when he’d introduced her to Jonathan’s mother, and his long, deep bow. He loves her still.
‘But… she is twenty years his senior!’
‘What matters that? She was beautiful, noble, refined. The most beautiful lady, and he was enslaved by her. He’d have done anything she asked of him. That’s why he was so incensed when we were laid off. He had the blue devils for months after. So I never told him what went on in that house. That was a kindness, was it not?’ Duncan gave her an imploring look but Rachel was too shocked to respond. She waited for what he would say next, and when all that came was silence, she swallowed.
‘I… I must hear it, Mr Weekes,’ she said.
Duncan Weekes tried to clear his throat but ended up coughing, and it made him wince.
‘You must by now have heard something of Lord Faukes, from the Alleyns?’ he said.
‘Fine words from them, and… a differing account from Starling.’
‘Who is Starling?’
‘A servant in that house,’ said Rachel. Duncan nodded.
‘Aye, she’d have fewer fine words about him, I don’t doubt it. Poor wench.’ He spoke slowly, heavily. ‘The serving girls at Faukes’s house in Box all knew to keep out of his way. From his wife’s lady’s maid, while that lady yet lived, to the lowliest pot-washing scullion. If they were young, and comely, they knew their time would come. And the more comely they were – and the younger they were – the more careful they had to be. But all the care in the world could not protect them at all times, for ever. If the master sent for them, or came down to their quarters, they could not deny him.’ Duncan Weekes swallowed with an effort, and his face wore disgust. ‘Indeed, denying him only seemed to increase his enjoyment of them. Some of them came to accept it, and stayed on. The master was generous with wages, and time off in the year; more generous than other lordly folk about. So the girls weighed it up, and some found that it was worth suffering his occasional assaults. Others had no such fortitude.’
Duncan’s own sister urged him to put in a word with the house steward, and beg a place in the household for the daughter of a cousin of hers. Duncan put her off as long as he could, but his sister was a shrewish woman, with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue, and she would not be fobbed off for long. So Duncan tried to quash his misgivings, and spoke to the steward. The girl was taken on as second still-room maid, and the day she arrived Duncan’s heart sank at the sight of her. She was a tiny thing, not more than thirteen, skinny and dark but with enormous green eyes that lit up her face; glassy, empty and afraid. Oh, why were you not fat and hairy and sour of breath? Duncan thought. He told the girl, whose name was Dolores – told her twice, three times – to keep herself out of the master’s eye. But Lord Faukes came down to see what new gift had been brought for him, and smiled delightedly when he saw.
Duncan dogged the girl’s steps as much as he could. He had vague ideas about protecting her, at least until she was a little older, but when the time came, of course, he could do nothing at all. Her terrified cries echoed through the lower halls of the house. Duncan could only sit and listen, and drink. So drink he did. So much, that night, that when Dolores stumbled out into the darkness, with bloodied lips and bruises on her neck, and wandered off towards her old home, he couldn’t even get to his feet to follow her. He asked his sister, later, if the girl had made it back to her mother, but received only the hardest glare of her hard eye in answer. Dolores was not seen at the house in Box again.
One girl named Sue, pug-nosed and pugnacious, sussed the lie of the land immediately – she had the clever, calculating look of a girl who knew too much of the world. After Lord Faukes’s first two tumbles with her she called herself his mistress, and sought to elevate herself to the upper serving positions. She went with him willingly, flipping her skirts and flirting like a doxy; calling him Lord Gundiguts to the other servants. The cook called her a buttock, but Sue was unrepentant. It availed her not at all, however, since Lord Faukes liked to take, not be given. She was dismissed when her belly began to swell, and Duncan saw her one last time, scowling on the back step with a screaming babe on her hip, as the steward handed over a few coins for the child. There were other bastards as well – born to tavern wenches, servants and farmers’ daughters. People of no import. They were sent away with money, if they were lucky, and still comely; sent away with curses and warnings if they were not. Only one misbegotten child was lavished with all of Lord Faukes’s love and care. Only one.
When the master’s son-in-law died and his daughter Josephine returned to live in Box with her young son, Jonathan, Duncan Weekes and the whole household were pleased. Lord Faukes’s appetite had worsened since Lady Faukes had died, and they hoped his daughter’s presence would help to calm and moderate him. Duncan was standing next to his own son, Richard, when Josephine Alleyn arrived in a smart chariot drawn by a team of four grey horses. He heard his son’s intake of breath as Josephine descended. Richard was still only a child, but Josephine Alleyn was as lovely to look at as any queen of hearts. She wore a long pelisse of umber-coloured velvet over a dark green dress, with a matching hat over her mahogany hair. Her eyes were a deeper, richer blue than any he’d seen. No good will come of loving her, Duncan silently warned his boy. So the household was cheered by Josephine Alleyn’s arrival, though the lady herself was cool and reserved and, Duncan thought, sad to her very bones. But she was a widow, he reminded himself; that would surely account for it. And for a while Lord Faukes’s visits below stairs, and his escapades in the cupboards and dark corners of the house, did lessen. Before long, Duncan found out why.