The Dark Unwinding (14 page)

When they were done amusing themselves by pretending that the book would consume pieces of their limbs, I said, “I was wondering, does Mrs. Jefferies sleep in her own cottage at night?”

Lane’s brows came down. “Aunt Bit? Of course she does. Davy with her.” Davy’s dimple faded, and he stroked his rabbit.

“I was wondering because last night I heard footsteps in the corridor, and then … someone had a fire lit and a supper made in a room downstairs, just around from the kitchen. The room had been cleaned, and furniture and ornaments had been moved from other parts of the house. I thought perhaps your aunt would know.” I couldn’t mention the wolf, of course, but I watched for Lane’s reaction to this information. There wasn’t one.

“Aunt Bit had one of her headaches and went to her bed early last night,” he said. Bertram hopped out of Davy’s lap, and Davy got up and followed him to the edge of the dell. Lane frowned as he watched him.

“And there have been other times …” I said, forcing out the words. “The first day I came. Someone was in the chapel, and they … laughed. I thought people from the village might be …”

“And you’re sure you really heard it?”

The gray eyes were on me again, cold and sparing me nothing. Had I heard someone laugh? Was I certain of that now? There were so many things I’d thought I’d seen, and hadn’t. I tucked my bandaged hand into the billowing worsted and looked away. I could not answer.

“Which room is it you saw?” he asked eventually.

“Three doors down from the kitchen, around the corner.” I wished I’d gone back there this morning, to be sure. How I loathed myself for not knowing. I watched Davy offer a spray of wild onions to the rabbit while a sudden breeze waved the grasses.

“Just what is it you’re up to, Miss Tulman?”

I looked at him, still leaning back against the stone, and though his position had not changed, I could easily perceive that he had. He was coiled and tense, ready to spring. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean. What are you doing with Mr. Tully, winding clocks and painting things and spending all that time in the workshop? What are you doing with Davy in this hollow? What do you hope to gain by it?”

I looked down at my skirt.

“You’re still going to turn us out, aren’t you? Can you deny it?”

I held silent. What could I say?

“You are going to turn us out. I don’t care what Mary Brown runs about telling the whole village, you’re going to send every last one of us to the streets. And you’ll take Mr. Tully, too, and when you do, it’ll kill him. You know it will. You know it the same way I do. You might be the only other person in the world that knows it like I do.”

His words were soft and measured, like velvet-covered blows. I closed my eyes against the pain.

“You know it, and yet you smile and kiss his forehead and plan a party. A party, for God’s sake! And what are you doing strolling about with Ben Aldridge and letting little girls give you gifts? What are you doing here at all?”

I held my breath, tears threatening my eyes. I wanted to tell him that none of this was what I would have chosen. That I was having a party because I’d never been to a party, and that it was helping me forget what was to come. That I was exchanging my uncle’s life for a scrap — maybe less than a scrap if I could not trust my own mind — but if a scrap was the only life I was likely to have, then I would have to take it, no matter what came after. The outcome for Uncle Tully would be the same either way.

But of course I said none of that. I breathed and opened my eyes, feeling sore and bruised inside, watching my hand clutch the worsted. Davy sat on the edge of the dell, Bertram in his lap, while Lane’s jaw worked in and out, in and out.

“Aunt Bit says Mr. George left his wife a great deal of money,” he said suddenly, “and that you live in a fine house on a London square. She says there are shops and museums and theaters, and people packed like sausages so that you could never be done with the exploring of it.”

He waited for me to confirm or deny. I only whispered, “I have never been to a theater, and I have never … explored London.”

“You’re telling me you go chasing footsteps through Stranwyne in the middle of the night, but that you’ve never wandered out your own front door?”

That was very true. I bit my lip and said nothing.

“All right, then what do you do there?”

I could have said I keep the ledger books for Aunt Alice and organize her receipts. That I write letters to her bill collectors, dust and tend the fire, and pluck the dog hairs from her dress. That I keep track of the housemaid’s movements and go to market when we must discharge another cook because the wages have been spent on baubles for my indigestive cousin. That I have lived so many of my days cramped in one crimson room with a woman who despises me that it’s no wonder if I was going mad now. But I said none of that either, though Lane’s low voice answered, “I see,” just as if I had. I looked up and saw that Davy was gone.

“We tried to teach him to read and write, you know,” Lane said. “But he wouldn’t learn. I think he could learn, but he wouldn’t. I reckon he doesn’t want us to know what he’s thinking. Aunt Bit seems to know though, and without him having to tell her.”

I remembered that certain expressiveness in Davy’s eyes, and wondered if, with practice, I couldn’t do the same. The wind ruffled my hair.

“Please lie for us,” he said. “Just for a little while.”

The softness of the request — a request I could not grant — hurt me so much more than his anger had. Again I held my breath. But then his tone changed.

“What happened to your hand?”

I tucked the bandaged hand back into the folds of my skirt, but Lane reached across the space that separated us and grabbed it out again. He held it up in front of me.

“Untie it,” he said. I shook my head, but he slipped the knotted end over my fingers and unwound the ribbon of cloth, my stomach growing sicker as each fold fell away. The ugly scabs stood out red against my skin, individual marks in a half oval. He turned my hand over, and gazed at the corresponding set. “You did that yourself, didn’t you?”

I shook my head again, but it didn’t matter. He flung my hand into my lap and stood. “If you’ve got one good deed left in you, use it for yourself, Miss Tulman. Get rid of it, before you hurt more than can be fixed with a bandage.”

He picked up the rifle and pheasants and was gone over the lip of the dell, leaving me with the blowing papers of the copybook. I let the tears come. It was horrible to be considered a drunkard, but the truth was so much worse that part of me thought I should probably be grateful. But I wasn’t grateful.

I let myself cry until I quieted, breath shuddering as I gradually became aware of bird wings and hot wind and rustling, and when I opened my eyes Davy was sitting on the edge of the little hollow, his chin on his knees. He came silently across the dell, picked up the book about South America, and settled cross-legged before me. He looked intently at the pages, eyes darting, and after a few moments, paused. Before I knew what he was about he had found the pen, got ink on its end, and put it to the page of the book. Then he dropped both book and pen and flitted away, disappearing over the edge of the dell.

I picked up the book from the grass, sorry to see such a nice thing ruined, and looked at what he had done. It was the acknowledgments page, giving credit to the artist who had created the pictures, a Mr. David Woolsey, but now the
David
had a thin black line traced below it.

I closed the book carefully and looked up at the empty dell. Davy could read. Both Ben and Lane had been right. Davy was not incapable of sharing what might be in his head; he was merely unwilling. And I was not going to be able to change that. Or anything else. I gathered up my things and hurried from the little dell.

I
went back to Marianna’s room and locked the doors, refusing to come out even at Mary’s nonstop insistence. I told her I did not feel well, that I did not wish to eat, that I would sleep, and it was long before she gave up and left me in peace. But I did not sleep. I sat in the stuffy room, staring as the sun moved slowly across the wallpaper, until the light finally dimmed and disappeared. What foolishness to think I could have this time, that I could pretend none of this was happening. Ben might let me, and Mary, and Uncle Tully could not comprehend, but Lane and his aunt were not going to stand for it. And how could I blame them? What would I do with an erratic, inexplicable girl bent on taking away everything I loved?

At length I did sleep, however, and when I woke the next day the sun was slanting from the very top of Marianna’s windows. It must have been going on noon. I moved quietly about the room, not quite ready to face Mary’s questioning, and finally sat down at the dressing table. My hair was wild where I’d slept with the pins in, the shadows beneath my eyes showing through my skin.

I opened the drawer to find my brush, but it was empty. Mary had put my hair things in the left drawer instead of the right. I ran the brush through my tangles and pinned it all up again before moving everything back to the correct drawer. I had slept in my dress and it looked it, but I didn’t much care. I unlocked the door to the corridor and made my way silently to the kitchen.

It was amazing, I thought twenty minutes later, how a bit of bread with butter and milk could change one’s outlook. I hurried back up through the twisting corridors and stairs, and gave my customary glance to my guardian before I turned the knob and walked into Marianna’s room.

But I was not in Marianna’s room. I was in the library, with the cobwebs and the dusty lounges. I stood in the dirt and shut the door behind me, a sense of wrongness and confusion making my head spin. I allowed the whirling to still, then took careful steps through the filthy room. I would not go back to the hall, would not check the location of my guardian’s portrait. It did not matter. I tried to open the connecting door, the one that led to Mary’s little bedroom, but it was locked. I knocked lightly.

“Mary?” I called.

The door flew open. “Lord, Miss. You gave me a fright! Whatever are you doing coming through here? I keep this door locked, you see, ’cause you can never tell what might be coming through a door, though locks don’t keep out the things I’m worrying over, Miss, if you understand me. Not that I’ve seen the first —”

“I just fancied a look at the library, is all. How nice you’ve made your room, Mary.”

Mary’s freckles stretched with pleasure. The little stove was polished to a bright shine, fresh curtains hung at the windows, and a quilt was spread over the bed. None of it was pink.

“I just needed a bit of different, you know, Miss. That one color can wear on a person’s nerves. Now what in the name of heaven’s been the matter with you, Miss?”

“I …”

“I mean, how can I go and be a proper lady’s maid with the doors all locked? That’s a barrier to my job, that is. And some of us has got work to be doing, if other people are going to up and decide to be giving a party. There’s —”

“Mary,” I said, firmly enough to stop the flow, “I’ve decided that wasn’t such a good idea. It was … silly of me, to think —”

“What are you talking of, Miss? ’Tis only what young ladies are supposed to be doing, that’s what my mum says, and, Miss, if you don’t mind me saying, it better be you or it’s nobody.”

“Mary …”

“Now I know what you’re about to be saying, Miss, ’cause I’ve been thinking it all out for myself, and unless you’re thinking of inviting every lass from Upper and Lower, which couldn’t be fitting …”

“Mary,” I sighed.

“… or unless you’re thinking that you and Mrs. Jefferies is making up a party, then I don’t see how you can be doing it. My mum is none too sure of you, begging your pardon, and things being what they are, I can’t be tramping down there to tell her you’re inviting young men to a party in your own bedroom.” Mary’s eyebrows were straight up her forehead. I was a bit stung.

“But that was only because of Uncle Tully! His mother’s rooms are the only place … I mean he wouldn’t be … It’s difficult to explain, but it doesn’t matter because —”

“I know it, Miss, I know! That’s why I was thinking about the library, then, what you just came through? That would’ve been part of the old mistress’s rooms, and there’d be nothing improper in —”

She stopped abruptly, head cocked to one side. A knock was coming faintly to us through the walls. We moved through the connecting doors to Marianna’s room just in time to hear it again at the bedchamber door. Mary clapped her hands together.

“Visitors!” she hissed, her eyes alight. “Quick, Miss, stand over there!”

She jerked my sleeves once to straighten them, then pushed me toward the hearth. When I’d regained my balance, she patted her hair once and flung open the bedchamber door.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Moreau,” she said.

My eyes widened, both at the name and the voice that had said them. Mary’s imitation of my accent had been quite credible. I moved into the sight line of the open door and saw Lane standing, red cap bunched in his hands, looking slightly bewildered. Just behind his head hung the portrait of my guardian. I turned back to the hearth.

“I … wondered if … Miss Tulman might like to go rolling,” I heard his voice say. “In the ballroom.”

Shock and surprise made my forehead crease, sending shivers of uncertainty to dance along my spine. I looked over my shoulder, careful not to focus on the portrait, and found the gray eyes already on me, expressionless, just letting me decide. Mary turned from the door she still blocked with her body, her round eyes also seeking mine. I studied a hole in the carpet. I wasn’t certain I wanted another conversation with Lane; I was still aching from the last one. But he had requested, not insisted, and I had never stopped wondering about how much of our last trip to the ballroom had been real.

“All right.” I steadied my voice. “You may tell him yes … that I …”

I looked up to see that Mary’s eyes had grown rounder as she gazed at me, her head jerking once to the side as if she’d experienced some sort of spasm.

“… that I would and …”

Her neck spasmed again, eyes growing larger.

“… and Mary shall …” Mary gave one more jerk of the head toward Lane. “… shall accompany us, of course.”

Mary sighed in relief, then slammed the door in Lane’s face. She grabbed me by the arms and sat me hard on the bench in front of the dressing table. “Fix your hair, quick!” she whispered, “and I’ll be doing your dress!”

“Just a minute!” I called through the door. “Mary,” I said, holding my voice low, “my hair is fine, and don’t make such a fuss. He only wants …” Actually I had no idea what he wanted.

“Don’t be daft, Miss! I’ve never once been seeing Lane Moreau knock on a girl’s door, and there are plenty who wouldn’t have minded if he had, no matter what their papas had to say about a Frenchman….” She paused. “Or maybe because of what their papas had to say … but anyway, if he did come knocking, they’d be brushing their hair when they was bid!”

Mary ran like a demon for water and a cloth while I capitulated and opened the drawer on the right side of my dressing table. My hair things weren’t there. “Mary, did you move the hairbrush?”

“I didn’t move it, Miss, you did. Remember? It’s on the left, now.” She dipped a cloth in the basin and began sponging frantically at the wrinkles in my dress. I opened the left-hand drawer without comment, took out the brush, and tried to better arrange my hair. Mary’s breath whooshed from her nose and she slapped away my hand.

“Stop trying to pull it all back so! What’s wrong with you, Miss!” She pulled loose a small piece of hair, one of the wisping curls that so vexed me, and to my horror, snipped it off, cheek length, with a pair of scissors. My mouth dropped.

“Hush!” Mary ordered. She snipped five more times, and when she was done, hair lay all over the dresser, a match of what was locked in the wardrobe drawer, and I had a few twining curls around my face. “Now come on!” she said, and shoved me off the bench.

I let the wind set flight to my newly cut curls as we glided down the floor of the ballroom. It had taken a few minutes to regain my previous skill, but soon my feet remembered themselves and kept me upright. Mary sat at the bottom of the steps, having refused Lane’s offer of skates, stating her lengthy opinion that putting wheels on one’s feet was the “devil’s own foolishment.” She propped her chin in her hands and gazed at the sparkling lights instead. Lane showed me how to lift one skate and cross the other, so that we could roll in wide circles around the edge of the ballroom without need for changing direction. Other than that, we did not speak.

We were making our seventh circle in this way, and I was concentrating on the feel of my speed when Lane said, “You didn’t go to clock-winding.”

I glanced at him sidelong. I knew he had brought me here for a reason, that he must have something to say, but this was not what I had expected.

“Mr. Tully was upset,” he continued. “And then you didn’t come to the workshop, and he was upset again. He didn’t have playtime.”

“He didn’t?”

“No.” Lane had his hands in his pockets, gazing straight ahead as he rolled, the dark hair blowing as if in a storm. “Mr. Tully hasn’t missed playtime since his mother died, that’s what Aunt Bit said. I told him you were resting, that you didn’t feel well, and then he was afraid you were ‘going away’ and wouldn’t get to count your years. He had a tantrum over it. I had to wrap him in his blankets so he could sleep.”

I did not know how to respond to this, so I said nothing. We began our ninth circle. The roar of the wheels reverberated around the ballroom.

“I shouldn’t have spoken my mind the way I did,” Lane said. “My temper is too hot, and I let it get the better of me.”

“It’s no matter,” I replied, rolling on a little faster. I didn’t want to hear him apologize; how could I have expected him to think differently? He caught up to me easily.

“Come back to the workshop. Have your party. Mr. Tully needs those things now, even if … no matter what happens … after that.”

I bit my lip. Now he wanted me to pretend as well. Surely that had been a failed experiment. But for my uncle …

“Will you come?”

I caught sight of our reflections in the passing mirrors. Lane was watching me, waiting for my answer, his jaw tight, the muscle working in and out, in and out. I nodded my assent without meeting his eyes, and he put his hands back in his pockets. We made our twelfth turn in silence, passing Mary, who now lay full length on the steps, eyes closed, arms tucked comfortably behind her head.

“I reckon,” Lane said at length, “that you must feel it’s … a wrong thing, to lie to your aunt….”

I made a noise of disbelief at that, and he reached out and yanked me to a stop, pulling me around to face him. “Then why won’t you lie? Why? You understand him! Better than I do in some ways and I’ve had the running of him since I was a boy. If you won’t do it for us, then for God’s sake do it for him!”

His voice rang against the wood, glass, and gilding. I waited for the sound of it to die before I spoke. “My aunt will find out the truth and take Uncle Tully away no matter what I tell her. And Stranwyne, too. And if she finds I’ve lied to her — when she finds I’ve lied — she’ll leave me to the streets without a thought.” I pulled my arm away. “I can’t keep Uncle Tully out of an asylum, and I can’t keep the villagers out of the workhouse. The only person I can possibly save is myself.” I pushed my wheels against the floor and rolled away from him. I was no Joan of Arc. His voice came from right beside me.

“You needn’t always live with your aunt.”

“She is my guardian. She’ll hold my purse strings until she dies.”

“Have you no inheritance of your own?”

I shook my head. He swore softly, and we began our fourteenth circle.

“Then you will marry.”

Again I shook my head. It had been made plain over the course of too many years that there was nothing in or about me to draw the attention of a man. Even now it was so. Lane had only brought me here to get something he wanted. Perhaps he had come to the same conclusion as the village: sugar, instead of vinegar. He reached out and pulled me to a stop again, gently this time. I turned my face away.

“Lie for him,” he said. “Please, Katharine.”

I could not answer; there were no answers to give, but I also couldn’t breathe. It had seemed so natural when he said my Christian name, thoughtless even, and yet never had I heard it spoken in such a way. In his voice, my name had almost been … beautiful. My eyes were drawn upward, slowly, and then I was drowning in a gaze that covered me like a calm gray sea, a look I’d seen only one time before and told myself I’d imagined.

“Just say you’ll think on it,” he said. “We don’t have to talk of it again. But say you’ll think on it, and that you’ll come back to the workshop. For Mr. Tully.”

I nodded, still mesmerized, and he took both my hands in his, pulling me to the center of the ballroom. I did not resist.

“I’m going to teach you how to spin,” he said. “Davy showed me, he …” But he loosened his grip on my right hand, which I had not bothered to bind up again. “Did I hurt you?”

I looked down at the red-marked hand he still held, pale against his tan. “No,” I whispered. “It’s healing.”

“Good. Then we’re going to spin.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“It’s easier than the other things you’ve done. All you have to do is hold on.” A hint of a smile showed at the corner of his mouth. “But you really do have to hold on. Turn your feet like this and cross your arms. Don’t let go now!”

His long fingers encircled my wrists, my pulse beat a staccato against them, and I could feel the warmth of him stealing into me. I hung on as he began to skate sideways, picking up speed, until I looked up and said, “No, wait. Stop!” He slowed instantly, forehead creasing. “You’re going the wrong way around.”