The Dark Unwinding (15 page)

He relaxed back into a grin and rolled the other way, turning clockwise, swinging me in a circle, and soon we were swinging each other, faster and faster, until the lights were a blur and I knew I could not hold on and would go flying across the ballroom. I shrieked, and Lane slowed our speed as Mary sat upright with a start.

“Again?” he asked. I nodded, a smile spreading over my face as he tightened his grip. The way his eyes stood out against his skin fascinated me. And then I didn’t care that he was pretending, if I was making a fool of myself, that he was my uncle’s servant, or if every single bit of this was false. I wanted it anyway.

We spun until I shrieked with delight and a little fear, and then again, and again, always stopping just before I lost my hold. I was dizzy, breathless with laughter, and all my carefully combed hair had come down.

“How could you have done this with Davy?” I gasped. “Surely he couldn’t hang on? You’re too heavy.”

“Oh, it’s different with Davy, to be sure.” Lane leaned over, whispering in my ear. “Davy goes air borne.”

My eyes widened even as I laughed and tried to get away, but his grip was too strong. “Don’t you dare,” I warned him.

“Ready?” he asked, grinning like a dark and very handsome devil. “I’d hold on tight, if I were you….”

And he spun me again, though he never let my feet leave the ground.

That night in Marianna’s room, Mary was working the tangles back out of my hair when she said, “Do you speak French, Miss?”

“French? Only a very little, Mary.” A very little.

“Enough to be writing letters in it, Miss?”

I winced as she pulled the brush through a tangle. “Goodness, no. I’ve never written a word in French in my life. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, somebody was sending letters in French, and I told them it wasn’t you, and I was right, don’t you see?”

I did see, indeed. Ben had mentioned before that the letters were being watched closely. I would have watched them, too, if I lived in the village. “Mr. Moreau speaks French, Mary. Maybe it was him.”

“Fancy you knowing that, Miss.” I caught her face looking smug in the mirror, and she leaned close to my shoulder. “You know I think you’re right canny, Miss, to keep him guessing like that.”

I turned to look at her, and her eyes widened innocently.

“You know what I’m meaning! To not be telling him right out that you won’t be saying nothing to your relations about Stranwyne! To keep him wondering, like. ’Tis a lesson to me, on how to string your young man along….”

“Mary.” I turned fully around on the little bench, and she stopped brushing, waiting for me to go on. Obviously she had not been napping on the stairs. “Listen carefully to me. Mr. Moreau only wants —”

“I know, Miss, he —”

I held up a hand, and Mary clamped her mouth closed.

“I don’t need you spreading such talk about the village. He merely wants something from me, that’s why —”

“To lie for us, I know, he —”

I looked at her again, and she put a hand over her mouth.

“He wants something from me, that is why he took me to the ballroom today, no other reason.” Lane had told me once that he would do anything for Uncle Tully, and I was certain that was true. He was trying to manipulate me, most likely. Would hate me, probably, before all this was done, but for now I would taste the sugar, if for no other reason than I could not resist it. But when I looked into Mary’s freckled face, her hand clamped over her chin to ensure her own silence, my conscience pricked. It was one thing to pretend because one wanted to; it was another to serve lies to someone who had no idea what they were getting. “Mary, you do understand that I told Mr. Moreau nothing but the truth?”

Mary’s words were muffled by her hand. “No, you didn’t.”

I waited long before answering her, the shortness of her sentence catching me off guard. “Didn’t what?”

She dropped her hand. “You didn’t tell him the truth. You never told him once you’d be lying to your aunt.”

“Oh, Mary,” I breathed. Her faith was a blow I hadn’t seen coming. “When I go back to my aunt’s, I will have to tell her the truth.”

“No, you won’t.”

I waited again for her to go on before discovering my mistake. “Yes, Mary. I will.”

“No, you won’t. I’ve already told my mum you’ll be lying to the old witch, certain as certain.”

“Mary, I’m very sorry, you can’t imagine how sorry, but that decision is already made. I’ve no choice in the matter.”

“You won’t do it, I’m telling you.”

“Mary …” I hesitated. “When my time here is over, you … you do understand that I’ll be leaving Stranwyne, and that I won’t be able to take you with me?”

“No,” she said placidly. “I don’t understand that. You won’t be leaving Stranwyne.”

I looked into her comfortable face, utterly bereft of doubt, and felt a chill trickle down my back. The room must have a draft. I turned away without answering and heard the rattle of a cup and saucer on my dressing table.

“Have your tea, Miss,” she said happily. “Sleep well.” And she trotted off through to her own room, cheerfully slamming the doors in between. I studied myself in the mirror while sipping my tea. If Mary could live a lie, then so could I. Apparently it’s what we had all decided to do. I drained the teacup. I had nineteen days.

W
hen I opened my eyes, I thought I was flying. My nightgown whipped around my knees as the corridors of Stranwyne whizzed by, dark, dusty, or gaslit and clean, some that were familiar, some I had never seen. I held out my arms to feel the passing air, laughing, the joy of it almost more than I could contain. I flew around the clocks, listening to their many happy ticks, and then zipped through a different door and was lifted right off my feet, floating up a winding set of stairs. And then it was dark, a pearly, shimmering dark, and I could see the stone floor of the chapel far below me, nothing between us but a cool expanse of lovely air.

The parson was down there. He would laugh when he saw me floating; we would both laugh. I stretched out my arms for the stone floor, wanting to feel the rush of wind, but I could not get there. I frowned, waving my hands, but I was held back, and the floor moved farther and farther away from me. I struggled a little more, but even my sight was receding. The shining dark shrank to a pinpoint, and then for a long time the world was black, strange colors twisting one upon the other, writhing through my mind like insects.

When I woke I was cold, aching, on a hard surface that chilled me through, breath shuddering against the nightgown that stuck clammily to my chest. I was on my back in a puddle, and I had no idea where I was. As my sight came back, I perceived shadows on a ceiling, the wet hair on my forehead, the smell of old stone and stagnant water, and a muttering that echoed softly from the walls. I stirred, and the muttering stopped.

“Did my little niece wake up?”

I sat up. I was in the gallery of the chapel, beside the stone rail that looked over to the floor below, and my uncle sat cross-legged just a few feet away, rocking back and forth, twisting fistfuls of his coat. His white beard spread with his smile, and then the smile disappeared.

“I was thinking you might not wake, Simon’s baby. You didn’t go away?”

“No, Uncle,” I whispered.

“That’s good. That is splendid. People should only go away when they’re too tired. That is what’s best. You’re not too tired?”

“I don’t think so.” I was very muddled.

“And if you had gone away you would not have so many years to count, would you, little niece? That would not be so fun.”

“No.” I sat up farther, shivering in my soaked nightgown, though I wasn’t sure if all my trembling was from the cold. “Uncle,” I said slowly, “can you tell me … why I’m here?”

Uncle Tully frowned. “You got confused, little niece. Sometimes people get confused. They forget. They make mistakes. You forgot about stairs.”

I hugged myself, trying to stop the shaking. “I forgot about … stairs?”

“Yes!” My uncle’s eyes were two points of blue in the dark. “You wanted to go down, and you forgot about stairs. And you didn’t want to remember. And then you went to sleep, and you wouldn’t wake up. You got confused.” He leaned back again, rocking a little. “Sometimes people get confused. That’s what Marianna said.”

Memory was starting to come back to me, visions of the floor of the chapel. I got to my feet and looked over the rail.

“Don’t forget again, little niece!”

Moonlight was flooding the grimy windows, and I saw the stone flags spreading ghostly gray far beneath me, but not so far away as I remembered. I looked at the marbled rail that was beneath my hand, remembering the feel of the same cool stone beneath my bare feet, and of flying, floating to the floor. I backed away, eyes on the rail, and sat down on the edge of a raised stone step, where benches would have once been. Had I really been standing up there?

“And when I pulled you down you went right to sleep, Simon’s baby, and I had to get the rainwater. Water wakes people up. Only it didn’t this time, and I thought you’d gone away. But I waited, to make sure.”

“Rainwater?” I asked eventually. My mind was working slowly. I could not seem to move away from the memory of that floor so far below us, from the believing that I could float there.

“Water from the bucket,” said my uncle, “for catching what comes from the ceiling.”

I looked at the puddle on the floor, touched my sopping nightgown, and then smelled my hands. That water must have been there for quite some time. “Thank you, Uncle,” I said.

“You got confused,” he said again.

“But Uncle Tully …” I looked up again. “What are you doing here? Isn’t it late?”

“No, no. Not late. It’s early, quite early, so early that it was only late thirteen minutes ago.”

I took that to mean it was twelve minutes after midnight. I must have slept right through the chiming of the clocks. I had gone to bed at nine, or maybe half past, I couldn’t remember. What had I been doing in between? Perhaps I didn’t want to know.

“But why were you in the chapel, Uncle?” The irony of the question was not lost on me, since I didn’t know why I was there myself.

“For clocks!” he said. “And the ticking. Clock ticking is very nice. You know exactly when the ticks will come, unless you forget to wind them. It is always easy to know what a clock shall do. And it tells you things that are important, like when … Are you sad, little niece?”

The horrible truth was only just hitting me, that if Uncle Tully had not been there, listening to what his clocks told him, that my body would now be a broken heap on the chapel floor. And that it would have been no one’s doing but my own. A cold emptiness took the place of my other thoughts. I think the feeling was despair. I wiped at my eyes. “It’s just that … I don’t like to be confused, Uncle Tully,” I said, “and I’m … very cold.”

My uncle got up and stood next to me, and then his coat dangled near my face. I wrapped it around my shoulders. It was warm. He sat down beside me, not too near, reached out, gave one of my arms the briefest of pats, and then sat on his hands. He was wearing a long nightshirt that fell below his knees, and his feet were bare.

“I think I should tell her a secret,” he said to himself. “Should I? Shall I? I think I shall!” His voice echoed slightly before dropping to a confidential whisper. “Sometimes I get confused.”

I couldn’t help but smile at him. “Thank you for telling me, Uncle.” Then my smile faded as another thought struck. “Do you think … that perhaps we might not tell anyone else about my … being confused?”

Uncle Tully rocked on his hands. “I don’t know, I don’t know, Simon’s baby. Who do I not tell? Mrs. Jefferies brings the tea, and Lane knows what is right. I could ask Lane….”

“Never mind,” I said quickly. I was feeling more alert now, and it would not do to agitate him. Probably the less he thought on the subject the less likely he was to mention it. “But could I ask you to do something else for me, Uncle? Something that is important?”

He leaned forward again, the blue of his eyes bright and intense.

“Could you walk with me … to Marianna’s room? You know the way, don’t you? I don’t want to … get confused, or …” I lowered my gaze, hoping I would not cry. It was difficult to admit these things, even to my uncle. “I don’t want to make another mistake, on the way.”

“Oh, yes! Yes, yes! That is right. You should go to Marianna’s room! That is just so. Come on, then. Come on!”

So I followed after my uncle, the end of his nightshirt flapping against skinny calves as he bounded confidently through the stairways and corridors. When we reached Marianna’s door, he stopped, still bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

“See!” he whispered happily. “We did not forget at all. No mistakes!”

“No, Uncle.” I opened Marianna’s door, and saw the key sticking out of the lock from the inside.
I must have done that
, I thought, though I did not remember.

Uncle Tully stepped inside his mother’s room, wringing his hands together, turning around and around in his own circle, the right way, of course, as I had done when looking for Davy. The fire was nearly out, but there was a soft glow on the wardrobe and the walls. “You made it clean,” he said, accomplishing only a very loud whisper. “That is splendid. That is as it should be.” But then unease spread all over his face. “But you are not sitting. That isn’t right! It isn’t right….”

I dropped quickly into my chair beside the hearth, where I normally sat with my tea before bed, sorry that I was getting my favorite place wet, but more concerned about upsetting the delicate balance of my uncle’s comfort. He gazed at me as I sat in the chair, happiness radiating from his face. “Yes,” he said, “that is where you sit, where you both sit. That is just the place you both belong. Just so.”

I looked back into my uncle’s beaming smile. It was Marianna he was seeing sitting in that chair, and the knowledge stabbed me, ripping right through my middle. Marianna would have never betrayed him. “Uncle Tully,” I whispered, “may I give you a kiss good night? I forgot to ask … the last time.”

Uncle Tully frowned and began twisting a section of his nightshirt. Then he came to my chair and suddenly thrust out his neck, eyes squeezed shut as if trying not to see something dreadful. I kissed the place where the prickling beard met his cheek, and he was out the door, arms pumping. Then his head popped back around the doorjamb. “Don’t forget playtime, Simon’s baby!”

When his footsteps were gone, I shut the door and locked it, hung his coat on the back of a chair, to let the damp spots dry, took the metal bucket from the hearth and shoveled some glowing coals into it. I carried the bucket into the bathing room, opened the rose-petal door, and loaded the little firebox below the water cylinder, first turning the key in the door to Mary’s room, though it wasn’t likely I would wake her; she truly did sleep like the dead. I twisted the water from my nightgown into the basin and laid it on the hearth chair beside Uncle Tully’s coat. Then I sat on the floor, naked but for my dressing gown, waiting for the water to get warm, watching heat ebb from the remaining coals.

When the water was hot, I filled the tub and slid inside, letting the warmth soothe the chill that had not quite gone from inside me, unbraided my hair and washed it, scrubbing every inch of my skin, then scrubbing every inch dry when I was done. I put on a clean nightgown, removed the sash of my dressing gown and carefully made a knot with it around the bedpost. Marianna’s bed was warm, the pillows soft, but I did not lie down. I made a decision. If I was going to live a lie, then that lie would not be for me alone. There were eighteen days, and if those days were to be Uncle Tully’s last, then by God they would be the happiest I could make them, no matter who I had to hurt, including myself. The trogwynd blew, a soft note that might sing me to sleep. I looped the end of my sash around my wrist, and tied myself to the bedpost.

The next morning I found a trail of pink wallpaper when I ran my finger through the dust on the library wall. So I borrowed an old dress of Mary’s — with her permission, this time — and we covered up our hair, tied on aprons, opened the windows, and set to cleaning.

“Lord, Miss,” Mary giggled. “What a sight you are!”

I could only imagine. Mary’s freckles were lost in a haze of dirt that had settled on her face as we beat the dust from the pillows, curtains, and rugs. When it was almost playtime, I left Mary to it, took off the kerchief and apron, my hair blousy, and walked the moor path to the Lower Village, a basket on one arm and Uncle Tully’s coat over the other.

But I veered from the path first, climbing the rolling hills, and found Davy’s shallow hiding place. It was empty, but I placed the book about South America beside the little standing stone, draped with a protective cloth and a note tucked beneath its cover, along with a carrot I had pulled from Mrs. Jefferies’s garden. Other creatures might get the carrot first, but perhaps not. I found the path again and followed it down to the village, my face warm by the time I reached it, but I was surprised when I got there. Doors were shut, windows shuttered, the dock quiet as I passed. I rang the little bell at the green-painted door, mystified.

After a few minutes, Lane opened the door and left it open, hurrying back out of the room as soon as he had. He was sweaty, dark tendrils sticking to his forehead. “I’ve left the … I’ve left something hot!” he called over his shoulder.

I came in and shut the door, hanging Uncle Tully’s coat on a hook.
Lane must be melting silver
, I thought. I wished I could watch him, but I didn’t think he’d like me to. I was unpacking my basket when he came back, wiping his hands on a greasy cloth. They were nearly black.

“Done,” he said with satisfaction, then saw what I had set on the table. It was an old sherry bottle, corked. He frowned at it.

“Does my uncle like lemonade?” I asked him quickly. “The lemons came from the boat yesterday, and it’s so very hot, I thought he might find it pleasant. But there was only this old bottle to put it in. I found it in the back of the larder. Empty. I brought cake as well.” I began folding the rumpled blankets on the little cot where Uncle Tully slept, pretending not to notice the way Lane’s shoulders sank in relief at the innocent contents of my bottle. “Where is everyone? There’s hardly anyone about on the street.”

Lane hesitated for a moment, then shut the door to the hallway carefully, so it wouldn’t make noise. “There’s been a death in the Upper Village,” he said quietly. “Mr. Turner was sick in the infirmary. An old man, probably not long for this world, in any case, but he was found dead this morning, on the floor with a knock to the head. The committees are meeting, to discuss what should be done, and as anyone that wants to can attend such a meeting, I reckon they’ve all tried. But it’s better if Mr. Tully doesn’t know.”

I glanced at the closed door. “He’s in the workshop?” Lane nodded, coming to pick up the bottle, examining it once before reaching up to the shelf for a glass. I remembered Mr. Turner. He’d not liked the sight of me the day I walked by the canal with Ben Aldridge. “But surely he just fell?” I said. “If he was old and ill?”

“Probably. But there were some things missing from the infirmary as well, and a window had been broken. That’s serious business. We don’t have theft in the villages. Mostly people can get what they need without it. That’ll have to be looked into.” He paused, swishing the lemonade in the glass. “And just so you know, I’ve looked into that … into what you told me, about the room down from the kitchen, with the candles and the ornaments and such, and … I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that anymore.”