by Jo Baker
They descended through woods, into the nutty scent of beech-mast and the peaty smell of this year’s first fallen leaves.
After the quiet of the road, Meryton was a bombardment. Iron-shod hooves and iron wheel-rims on cobbles; shouts, catcalls, laughter. The streets were choked. Ostlers and footmen yelled, horses whinnied; passers-by rapped on carriage windows, passengers waved frantically at acquaintances spied across the street.
The stream of gigs and chaises and cabriolets thickened and slowed at the Assembly Rooms, where they discharged their cargoes. People pushed eagerly up towards the doorway, the young and light and keen weaving briskly around the grey, heavy older folk. Through the windows, James glimpsed the already teeming interior. He pulled up at the curved stone steps.
It was one of those strange handicaps that afflicted gentlefolk, that they could not open a door for themselves, nor get in or out of a coach without someone to assist them. An old man with a heron’s stoop and full livery stepped forward and opened the door, so that James did not have to get down and do it himself.
The young ladies streamed out like chicks from a hencoop, rustling gowns, each of them clasping the unknown servant’s hand for just a moment—a strange intimacy to allow him, it seemed to James—their faces radiant with the evening. And then Mrs. Bennet, splendid in mauve, clambered out, and sailed away, her daughters tucking themselves in around her, talking and laughing and waving to other new arrivals. Then they disappeared into the crush, where it already seemed too full to accommodate another soul.
“God’s sake, man! Get a move on! Get that old hulk out of the way!”
Someone slapped the back of the carriage. James clicked his tongue, told the horses to walk on.
Along the side wall of the Assembly Rooms a row of carriages waited, the overflow of the inn yard and the livery stables. The coachmen gathered there too, passing a bottle, calling out to him to join them for a sup, and he nodded them a good evening, but instead unhitched the horses and brought them back to a trough in the Market Square. When they had drunk, breaking the moon into shards and ripples, he led them back to the coach, to wait.
There was a hum of voices from inside the Assembly Rooms. Peals of laughter, and not words themselves but the shapes of talk in the air, the burr of it. Then the music started; voices fell away, and there was a thundering of feet on the wooden floor.
He buckled the horses up in blankets. Across the street, the coachmen sung out dirty words to the pretty tune. A pair of them performed a clumsy jig.
The mare clopped a hoof down on the cobbles. He patted her neck.
What was astonishing was the peace of this place. Like a pebble dropped into a stream, his arrival had made a ripple in the surface of things. He’d felt that; he’d seen it in the way they looked at him, Sarah and Mrs. Hill and the little girl. But the ripples were getting fainter as they spread, and he himself was by now sunk deep and settled here; time would flow by and over him, and wedge him firmer, and he would take on the local colour of things.
But Sarah. Those clear grey eyes of hers; you could see she was always thinking. She peered at him like he was a slipped stitch: unforeseen, infuriating, just asking to be unpicked.
A yell startled him back to himself. One of the coachmen took a swing at another, and missed, staggering. There were shouted insults, laughter. James breathed on his hands, looked away.
There had been times, in the past years, when he had felt more acutely alive. When circumstances had conspired to keep him painfully alert, on his toes, on the qui vive, thinking three steps ahead. But that night, as he drove the carriage back from Meryton, the chill air on his face, the full moon low on the horizon and the call of a curlew across the high fields, he was happy not to think, and just to be.
And when the coach wheeled up the driveway and the horses stopped unbidden at the front steps, and Sarah, sleepy-eyed and holding a candle, opened the door and let the ladies in, he found himself strangely moved by it all. It was the warm candlelight, perhaps, after so long under the cool moon; it was also the girl’s face, all soft and frowning with sleep, and the young ladies shivering at the night air and speaking quietly now, so as not to disturb their father. A scene of such simple certainty that you would think the world was just like this all over, always had been, and always would be.
Sarah, having presented the family with the tea things, dragged herself up to bed, the candlelight dancing off the walls; she would clear up their cups and plates in the morning. Though it was, now she came to think of it, already morning. She had sat up late so that Polly and Mr. and Mrs. Hill could sleep; there was no point in them all being exhausted the next day. And so that she could read alone: she had raced guiltily through her newly acquired book, which was volume one of two, and which was, she was sure of it, not quite respectable, for all Elizabeth had lent it to her. All those attempts on the young maid’s honour, all that convenient fainting; the mere thought of being asked to read any of that out loud of an evening made her feel hot and bothered. Pamela was clearly for private contemplation.
There was, however, another reason for her taking it upon herself to wait up. Until she’d seen it with her own eyes, she could not feel quite certain of James’s return. She would have lain awake half the night anyway, listening out for the carriage wheels on the gravel, the sound of the front door. Whatever anybody else might think of him, she knew him for the fly-by-night, drop-of-a-hat, here-today-and-gone-tomorrow fellow that he clearly was. And when he did finally go, flitting off no doubt just as suddenly as he had arrived, she wanted to be the first to have intelligence of it.
Polly was deeply asleep, breathing heavily, the whites showing through the slits of her eyes. Sarah blew out her candle and slid in beside her, shivering, clinging to the cliff-edge of the bed. She lay blinking in the darkness. What did it matter, anyway, if he stayed or went? What did it signify to her?
James lay awake too, cheek on his pillow, looking out sidelong at the dark. The old pain was bearable, because it had to be, because it would never be entirely gone. And it was something, was it not, to have this to come back to? A pillow, a pallet, a quilt. Four walls and a floor. A roof over his head. His breath plumed in the night air. It was something to come home.
Mrs. Hill was not asleep either. She lay looking up at the cold stars through the skylight, while Mr. Hill snored beside her, mouth gaping like the grave. She thought, Wherever you are in this world, the sky is still above you. Wherever you are, God still watches over you; He sees into your heart.
… they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the neighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the head quarters.
The Militia had marched through the town, men on foot, officers on horseback. It was, Mrs. Bennet announced while Mrs. Hill was helping her off with her bonnet in the vestibule, quite as good as a circus.
“Oh, I wish you could have seen it, Hill. The officers in their regimentals, looking so handsome and brave.”
Outside, James heaped the pile of Mrs. Bennet’s purchases into Sarah’s arms, then went to lead the coach away. Mrs. Hill glanced out after him. There was something different about him; he looked—his features darkened by the shadow of his tricorn hat—quite washed out.
He had been worked hard, from the moment he had joined the household. Every time the coach was brought out, it was James that must drive it. Whenever there was company, it was James that must wait on them. Long drives, late nights, days spent darting around the place like a shuttlecock, serving dinners and teas to the Longs and Gouldings and Bingleys and Lucases; even when not actually in the presence of the family and their guests, he could never be properly at rest, but was obliged to wait in readiness for the bell; he could be summoned at any instant to supply further jam, or hot water, or another bottle of that excellent sherry wine, late into the night. The poor boy must be exhausted.
“What’s the matter, Hill? I don’t believe you are even listen
ing!”
“I am, ma’am, of course.”
Sarah picked her way up the steps with the pile of packages, watching James’s departure from the corner of her eye. She also had noted his changed demeanour. Sarah, though, did not think that he looked tired; she thought that he looked worried. As though something had crawled in under his skin, and left him feeling itchy and unclean.
“Well, take notice, Mrs. Hill, for I am determined that Mr. Bennet will call on the officers, and we shall invite them for a Family Dinner, two full courses, mind …”
People just kept on not saying. This was what Sarah could not understand. She slipped past Mrs. Hill, who was helping Mrs. B. out of her pelisse, and carried the purchases down the hall. She could not comprehend how it was that nobody, not Mr. Bennet, not even Mrs. Hill, both of whom could usually be relied upon for their perspicacity, had noticed anything untoward about this young man. The very fact that he was happy to work as an underservant at Longbourn, when he could have commanded better wages at a better house or in other trades, was suspicious in itself. And he had appeared out of nowhere that day, as if he’d been hiding in the cupboard under the stairs. And ever since, in all the weeks that he had been with them, they had learned nothing of him, beyond the stories—or rather the lies—that he had chosen to tell them.
She pushed the breakfast-room door open with a hip, crossed the carpet, and tumbled the packages down on the tabletop. And he slogged away like a navvy; it was unnatural, the way he went at his work: this was not the begrudging half-arsery they were used to from the local labourers; he was brisk and thorough, as though shovelling out the necessary house was a task that merited method and precision, rather than just a strong stomach and a clothes peg on the nose.
She arranged Mrs. Bennet’s purchases on the table, righting the paper-wrapped bottle from the apothecary’s, smoothing out the haberdasher’s parcel and turning the neat flat box from the confectioner’s shop the right way up. So what was different about today? What had made him so distinctly uncomfortable?
He would have seen what Mrs. B. had seen in Meryton: the officers on horseback, sabres glinting at their sides; the soldiers marching smartly, muskets shouldered.
Sarah, a hand dimpling the soft package from the draper’s shop, went cold.
The Militia.
So he might be a criminal. He could be a murderer. He might have slipped the noose at Newgate, for all they knew—she’d read about it in the newspaper: those desperate men, the scapegallows and chancers who bribed or sneaked or fought their way out of gaol, dodged the hangman, and made a run for it. He’d fled London and made his way into the country, deep into Hertfordshire, where nobody would know him or know what he had done. He’d probably wrung a good character out of some poor victim or dupe, or an accomplice had written it for him, and then he’d used it to worm his way in here at Longbourn—a shiver grew at the back of her neck—and now he’d rob the house while they slept.
He’d murder them in their beds.
After all, what did anybody really know about him?
Well. She would know. She would find out. And they would thank her for it.
Her chance came one evening when James drove the family to Lucas Lodge, where there was a large party invited; the family was not expected back until after supper. This meant, as Mr. B. pointed out with some degree of resentment, as he clambered into the carriage, that it was Liberty Hall for the remaining servantry until then.
Some took more advantage of it than others.
Mrs. Hill took it as her chance to sort through the contents of the linen closet, which she had been meaning to do for some months; she would check for rust-mould, scare away the moths. Polly was to assist her in the folding and refolding; the child would benefit from the opportunity to practise the proper method. Mr. Hill, meanwhile, found a more pleasant use for his time, though in all fairness an audit of the wine cellar was also long overdue. He had his own little chair down there, and a corkscrew and a glass, and if Mr. Bennet happened to remark that his store of Canary or sherry wine had been depleted rather sooner than might have been expected, it was easily explained: a bottle had turned to vinegar, and was being made use of in the kitchen.
Sarah, finding herself thus briefly unobserved, snatched up a lantern, lit the candle with a spill and slipped out of the kitchen door. She skimmed across the yard and into the stables. In the candlelight, the empty stalls looked clean and soft. The place smelt of fresh straw. Whatever else James was, he was thorough: before he came the place had used to look—and smell—like a midden. She bundled her skirts up, and climbed the ladder into the loft.
No one had ever told her not to go into a manservant’s lodgings. But then no one had ever told her not to fly up to the roof and perch beside the weather-cock. It was a thing that did not even need forbidding, being so very far beyond what could be reasonably expected of her.
She emerged, head and shoulders, into space, and set her lantern on the bare-boarded floor. The room was clean; it smelt of hay and horse and leather and sawn wood. She clambered fully up. Under the eaves was a neatly made bed covered with an old patchwork quilt. She recognized some of the patches: the blue sprig, the yellow stripe; it belonged to the house; Mrs. Hill must have turfed it out for him. Above the head of the bed he had fixed a shelf; he’d left a few books there, and a spare set of men’s linen, clean and carefully folded. She came close, holding up her lantern to read the books’ spines, her skirts pressing against the edge of the bed, her head tilted. Hooke’s Micrographia. Gilpin’s Observations—she had read that; she had followed Gilpin up one side of the country and back down the other. These were both from Mr. Bennet’s library—they were bound in his tan-and-red calfskin. The others were probably stolen. A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade. A cheap volume, well worn, by one William Wilberforce. He had not lied about that, then, at least. She turned, and lifted her light; she scanned the room. A chair, a table, his dark everyday coat hanging from a peg. Nothing of any great value or importance lying out; but if you had something you really needed to hide, you would put it—where? She ducked down and peeked under the bed. An old canvas backpack lay slumped on its side: there you go. She dragged it out, her skin prickling with anticipation. The straps were soft with wear; the bag had probably once been black but had faded out to grey. It could have been a pedlar’s pack: this seemed to confirm everything.
Something rattled inside. Money.
On her knees beside the bed, she worked to open the buckles. A man like him with a bag of coin? It could not have been honestly got. She would spill it out onto the kitchen table and announce where she had found it. And Mrs. Hill would be all amazement, and then she would praise her, and then thank her, and then she would beg her to run as quick as she could all the way to Meryton for the constable, or—even better—the Militia. And Sarah would return with a platoon at her heels, and everyone would be astonished by her pluck, her quick wits, and her good sense, and they’d cart him off to gaol to wait for the assizes.
He would notice her then; he would find himself obliged to notice her. And everybody else, who had thought he was so wonderful, would now see that she was in the right.
The second buckle came undone and she reached inside; the handful was strangely light and sharp. She drew it out into the candlelight.
They were pale, and fine, and cool to the touch. She had seen these things before. They were not money. The young ladies made picture frames and decorated boxes with them. They were sea-shells. She tipped them out onto the floor. One was shaped like a fan; it was pink and ridged on one side, and smooth as a saucer on the other. One was pale, chalky, and twirled out like a poke you’d get hot chestnuts in. One had had its outside worn away, and she saw a tiny staircase spiralling up inside. One—and she really wanted to slip this one into her pocket—was a deep inky blue on the outside, and sheened like pearl on the inner surface. She shifted them around on the floor, lining them up; she held one and then another to the light to study it: a
fan, a spiral, a donkey’s ear.
She should be gone. At any moment Mrs. Hill and Polly would be finished with their linen closet, or Mr. Hill would come stumbling up from the cellar, blurry with drink and wondering where everybody, and his supper, was.
She lifted the fan-shaped shell and turned it round, and ran a thumb down its ridged back. She sniffed it: it smelt neutral, clean, and a little of the canvas bag that it had been in. She touched it with her tongue and it was faintly salt. The mystery of James shifted and re-formed itself. She thought, How alone he is, that he must keep these secrets here.
She thought, I have no call to see this, not at all.
Sarah scooped up the shells, slid them back into the bag and buckled it. She bundled everything under the bed. Two rungs down the ladder, her lantern swinging, she stopped and looked round: had she left any sign that she had been there? But she had not stopped to think before she’d tugged the bag out and rifled through it, so there was now no way of knowing if she had put it back as it should be. She could only hope and pray that she had.
And that, when he returned, James would not just take one look at her and see right through her, and see what she had done.
She need not have concerned herself that James would see through her, because, in the event, he did not look at her at all. He just scrambled down from the carriage box, and helped the ladies out, and then he led the horses off. She stood in the vestibule with an armful of bonnets and cloaks, shivering in the draught from the open door, and watched the rear carriage lamp swing in the wind as the coach moved away. How could it be, that he could occupy her thoughts so entirely for hours and days together, that he could be the first notion that crossed her mind in the morning, and the last niggling worry at night, when—it was perfectly clear to her—she did not so much as wander across his consciousness from one day to the next? She dragged the discarded clothes to the cloakroom, and hung them up. She would take a leaf out of his book, she decided; she would do her best not to think of him at all.