Sweet Songbird

by Sweet Songbird (retail) (epub)

  The day of the party dawned unexpectedly clear and bright. The winter sun, low in the sky, dazzled the eye, and the wind cut in from the sea like a knife. The household was awake and about its business long before daybreak. By midday Kitty felt as if she had already done two full days’ labour. Later in the afternoon she and Anne were dragooned by Miss Alexander into helping with the decorations of the Great Hall. Huge swags of greenery had been brought in from the woods, colourful paper flags were heaped haphazardly upon the floor. At the far end of the hall, beneath the gallery, estate carpenters were at work erecting a sham tower, complete with turrets.

  ‘What on earth is that?’

  Anne was agog with excitement. ‘It seems that Cousin Percival saw a mock medieval tournament last summer. At the Cremorne Gardens. Tonight is to be—’

  ‘—a mock mock tournament?’ Kitty suggested with raised brows.

  Anne, in exasperation that was not altogether feigned, slapped her arm lightly. ‘Oh, don’t be so tiresome! I think it might all be quite fun.’

  Kitty did not allow herself to dwell upon the indecorum of such celebrations in a house whose last master was barely six months dead. If Anne chose to drown her grief in gaiety, no matter how tasteless, why question it? ‘It should certainly be interesting.’ She bent to pick up an armful of greenery. ‘What are we supposed to do with this?’

  ‘Some of it’s to hang from the gallery. The rest is to be put in the window embrasures, so – to make it look like a woodland bower, you see?’

  Kitty eyed the tall embrasure doubtfully. ‘The gallery I don’t mind. But I don’t see why either of us should risk breaking our necks for Precious Percy.’

  Anne giggled a little at the open use of their private nickname for her cousin. ‘Why don’t we get Matt to help? I saw him a little while ago—’

  Kitty glanced round. Her brother was nowhere to be seen. ‘Good idea. I’ll get him.’

  ‘Off you go then.’ Arms laden with greenstuff, Anne started to ascend the stairs of the gallery. ‘I’ll start up here.’

  Kitty hurried across the courtyard to the stables. The air was brilliant with cold, the lowering sun stark and red as blood in the bare branches of the trees. She stopped for a moment, watched as a flight of sea birds carved its way through the lucent winter sky. She started up the wooden steps that led up the outside wall of the stable building to her brother’s little room. Ahead of her a robin sat upon the handrail, head cocked, watching her interestedly. She stopped, smiling. Took one more careful step. The robin hopped companionably ahead of her. Not wanting to startle it she moved quietly up another couple of steps. It perched upon the rail outside the door and twittered at her. Still smiling she slowly climbed the rest of the stairs. It did not move. It was still sitting there on the rail when she quietly opened the door.

  Her brother’s startled recoil as he flung round to face her screamed guilt with no word spoken. She stared at him. He had been standing at an open drawer of a battered washstand that stood beneath the skylight window. Guilt invested every line of his face and his body as he stood there, his hands clenched upon something that glinted in the sun-reddened light that fell through the window above him.

  ‘What have you got there?’ A lifetime’s experience of her brother and his flawed talent embittered her voice.

  He stepped back from her, put his hand behind his back.

  She walked to him, hand outstretched. ‘Show me.’

  He stood like a statue. His lean, slant-eyed face, so much like her own, and usually constantly on the brink of a smile, carried an expression of defiance that almost stopped her heart with dread. Not again. Surely not?

  ‘Show me,’ she said again.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘And I suspect,’ she said, tiredly, ‘that it has – or should have – equally little to do with you. Show me.’

  The authority of years told. Very slowly he brought his hand from behind his back. Something warm and smooth and heavy dropped into her extended palm. She looked, aghast, cold with shock.

  The watch ticked quietly, the soft gold of its case glowed in the light of the sunset. She had seen it before. She lifted her head.

  He looked away from the blaze of her eyes. ‘He’ll never know I took it! He’s drunk as seven lords already, and likely to stay so for days! He’ll just think he’s lost it—’

  The crack of her hand upon his cheek was like the shot of a pistol. He stared at her, the imprint of the blow glowing like fire against the whitening face.

  ‘What else?’ she asked, quietly, and then, as he neither moved nor spoke, ‘What else, I say?’ she screamed.

  Sullenly he stepped back. She looked into the drawer. Cufflinks. A tie pin. Pearl studs. ‘Great God,’ she said, bitterly. ‘You fool. You stupid – selfish – thieving – fool!’

  His set mouth did not move, and yet he flinched, as if she had struck him again.

  ‘Why him?’ she asked. ‘Why – of all of them – him?’

  ‘I’ve been – looking after him—’ he muttered. ‘He has no servant of his own. Kit—’ He looked at her, suddenly pleading, his face appallingly vulnerable, appallingly young. ‘I swear he don’t know he’s got half this stuff! He wins it at the tables. An’ – he leaves it about all over the place! I couldn’t help myself. I swear it!’

  She felt, all at once, as if every vestige of strength had left her. She sat down, very hard, upon the straw mattress of the slatted bed. The watch still ticked in her hand. ‘We have to put them back. Now. Before he discovers they’re missing.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes!’

  They stared at one another. Matt’s eyes slid from hers.

  Feverishly Kitty started to gather the trinkets from the washstand. ‘You go over to the house: Anne wants your help in the hall. Tell her – tell her I’ve gone to see Cook about something.’ She pulled her kerchief from about her neck, tumbled the things into it and tied a firm knot.

  ‘No,’ he said, quieter this time.

  She glared at him.

  ‘If—’ he swallowed, ‘—if anyone’s to take them back, it should be me.’

  She surveyed him for a long, cold moment. Then, ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it should. But I can’t trust you, can I? If you got your thieving hands on these things again God only knows what you’d do.’ She picked up the kerchief. ‘Now – hurry.’

  She walked up the small staircase that led to the east wing bedrooms openly, kerchief swinging in her hand. Who, after all, would think to question her? There was no danger.

  Stoically she ignored the frantic fluttering of her heart.

  Outside Archie Alliston’s room she paused, listening. All was quiet. Firmly she put a hand to the knob. There was no danger. She had every reason to be here. The fire to be laid. The bed to be turned down. There was no danger.

  She pushed the door. It swung open.

  The room was empty.

  The pounding of her heart eased. She ran to the bed, pushing the door closed behind her as she went, hearing the latch click as it caught. She dropped the kerchief on the bed, fumbled with the knot. Chinking musically, watch and jewellery tumbled onto the counterpane, as they had before. Now; where had she put these things for him when she had unpacked the other day?

  ‘Well. What – have – we – here?’

  He was leaning against the door, bottle in hand. Her brain registered numbly that he must have been standing there, by the latticed window, when she entered the room. The opening door had concealed him from her.

  She stood like a statue, mouth open, guilt personified.

  He walked with drunken care to the bed, stood looking down at the glinting gold and pearl. ‘A thief?’ he asked at last, thoughtfully and interestedly, and tilted the bottle to his lips.

  ‘No!’

  He raised sardonic brows. The smell of brandy hung about him like a cloud.

  ‘That is – I found the things. Found them! I was bringing them back!’ Her scattered sense
s began to collect themselves. He had seen her – must have seen her – enter the room carrying these things. Whatever he might think, or guess, he could not possibly believe or prove that she had stolen them?

  ‘Found them,’ he repeated, and let the malicious amusement sound in his voice. ‘Indeed?’ The bottle tipped again.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’ The word was like a crack of a whip.

  Silence.

  ‘A pretty tale,’ he said, his voice quiet again.

  ‘Please – you saw me come in! You saw that I was carrying these things – bringing them back – you must have done! You can’t pretend to believe I stole them—’ She was on the verge of pleading.

  ‘I?’ he asked, gently. ‘I saw?’

  She stared at him in disbelief and fear. ‘You know you did,’ she whispered.

  He said nothing.

  She watched him, her heart in her throat. ‘But – you will say otherwise?’ she said, her tone half-questioning, wholly incredulous.

  He lifted the bottle and drank again, deeply.

  ‘But – why? Why would you do such a thing?’

  Footsteps were hurrying down the corridor towards them. He walked, leisurely, to the door.

  ‘Why?’ she asked again, urgently, as if this one question were the most important in the world.

  He opened the door. ‘Girl!’

  Rosie, hurrying past, stopped in alarm. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Fetch Sir Percival here. At once.’

  Rosie threw a swift, inquisitive glance towards the white-faced Kitty. ‘Yes, Sir. At once, Sir.’

  He closed the door very quietly. Kitty stood as if turned to stone, watching him. ‘You can’t do this.’

  ‘Oh, but I can.’ He paused, smiled. ‘I am.’ He put the almost empty bottle on the dressing table, turned to face her, his handsome head limned bright against the bloodshot evening sky. ‘You ask me why?’ He paused. ‘Had a man insulted me in front of my friends as you did, I might have thrashed him for it. I might have killed him. I – might – even have laughed. But – eventually – I would have forgiven him.’

  ‘But for God’s sake what did I say that was so—?’

  ‘It was enough!’ The words cracked across hers, stopping her protest. ‘To be insulted, publicly, by a slip of a girl? Oh, no. That, my dear, is utterly unforgivable.’ He shook his head. ‘Utterly. You spoke to me of lessons. Here is one you would do well to remember. You may take a man’s heart if you can. You may squander his fortune and make three kinds of a fool of him. But you injure his pride at your peril.’

  ‘Pride?’ She spat the word, fatal temper rising, ‘Pride? And what is pride without honour, Mr Alliston?’ She stopped, fighting her fury, cursing her tongue that was in its own way as destructively unruly as her brother’s thieving fingers. ‘You know I did not steal these things—’ she began more quietly.

  He lifted a hand. ‘Do I? And yet – there you stand, my poor possessions wrapped in your kerchief. What am I supposed to believe?’

  ‘I told you,’ she said, stubbornly, ‘I found them.’

  He looked at her steadily. ‘And I asked – where?’ And, in that instant, as clearly as if he had told her, she saw that he had known. Had known of Matt’s weakness. Had known the boy would not be able to resist the temptation of easy pickings. He had hoped to trap her brother to spite her. And, beyond all his hopes it was she who had walked, blindly, into his trap. Her only escape would be to betray her brother. And that she could not do.

  Silence hung between them. He waited. She stood stone-faced, saw drunken anger grow in him at her defiance, knew that she was damaging no one but herself with her bravado and was utterly unable to do anything about it.

  Footsteps approached, rapidly.

  ‘You speak of pride, Mr Alliston?’ she asked, bitterly and softly. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word.’

  * * *

  He lied, as she had known he would – as she knew he might not have done, had she held her temper and her tongue. He had come into the room, he said, and found Kitty taking things from the dressing table and hiding them in her kerchief.

  Kitty stood like a statue, saying nothing, looking at no one. What was the point? She was numb with shock.

  Sir Percival was outraged. ‘So. It runs in the family, does it? What have you to say for yourself?’

  She looked, for the first time, directly into Archibald Alliston’s eyes and said nothing.

  ‘Dumb insolence won’t help you, girl.’ Sir Percival turned away. ‘Take her to the cellars,’ he said to the burly manservant who stood behind him. ‘I can’t spare anyone to take her to Southwold and the magistrates today. The slut shall not spoil my birthday.’ He swung back upon Kitty. ‘You learned no lesson, apparently, from what happened to your brother. You’ll regret that, believe me. I doubt you’ll like the way the magistrates will deal with you.’

  Somewhere, distantly, Kitty heard Anne’s voice, lifted in distress. Amongst the group of servants who had gathered by the door, attracted by Sir Percival’s raised voice and Rosie’s quickly-spread news, Matt stood, silent.

  So they marched her to the cellars, her arm in the painful grip of the fearsome Collins, in her ears the buzz of voices as the onlookers, scandalized, delighted, whispered of bad blood and long-nursed suspicions.

  The last sound she heard before the heavy door was locked and bolted upon her was the sound of Anne’s voice – protesting, tearful. The last sight was of Matt’s still, white face.

  (iii)

  She had no light and no protection from the biting cold apart from her everyday woollen dress, which served her ill against the dank and biting chill of her prison. The darkness about her whispered with terrifying life, shifting, scuttling, peering in curiosity and growing boldness at this unexpected intruder. At first, sunk in almost mindless oppression, she hardly noticed her physical discomfort: but before long, despite herself, the miserable cold roused her and she found herself to be shivering uncontrollably.

  People had died of cold, so she’d heard. Well, so be it. Perhaps it would be for the best. Anything – even death, at this miserable moment – seemed preferable to the ordeal that she knew awaited her tomorrow.

  Something near her moved, squealed as she kicked out at it. Nausea stirred. She had always hated rats.

  With eyes that had grown accustomed to the darkness she looked around. Stout kegs and barrels, the night-run goods upon which Sir Percival and his cronies dined so well each night, surrounded her. Afraid of the rats and the tangle of her long skirts she pulled herself to her feet, then scrambled up onto one of the barrels, tucking her feet beneath her, wrapping her skirt tightly about her legs and ankles. Though not comfortable, at least it gave some security. She sat in a stupor of cold and misery. Her brain seemed to have ceased to function altogether.

  She sat so for an age. Above her, faintly, she heard the sound of music. It roused her a little. She moved her cramped limbs, rubbed her hands, wincing at the pain. How could it be – how could it? – that she, Kitty Daniels, should be huddled here, bereft, deserted, accused and with no reasonable defence, whilst above her strangers danced and celebrated as if there were no such thing as care in the world?

  She wrapped her arms about her cold body. For the first time she felt the rise of tears.

  ‘But I tell you – I insist—’ the raised voice came from beyond the door – ‘you know who I am. You cannot – shall not – deny me access to my own cellars.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss, but you’re wasting your breath. The master’s instructions were—’

  ‘I don’t give a pin for his instructions!’ Anne was doing her best, but even muffled as her voice was Kitty could hear that her attempted forcefulness was a pitiful failure. Timid tears sounded all at once in her voice. ‘I – I insist that y-you l-let me speak to Kitty.’

  Kitty clambered from the keg, and barking knees and elbow painfully in her haste, scrambled up the steps to the door. ‘Anne?’

  Th
ere was a moment’s silence. ‘Kitty! Oh, Kitty!’ There was movement beyond the door, a banging upon the wood, and then a sharp, outraged exclamation. ‘Let me go! How dare you!’

  ‘Master’s orders, Miss. No one – absolutely no one – to see or speak to the girl till morning. Now – you can run along like a good girl, or I can call someone down here to carry you. Which is it to be?’ The man’s voice was grim and brooked no argument.

  ‘Kitty! Kitty – they won’t let me see you! But – Kitty – I know you didn’t – all right! – I’m going—’ Anne’s voice faded to silence.

  Kitty stood for a long, lonely moment, leaning against the door, her forehead pressed hard against the ancient wood. It was a nightmare. It must be. None of this could possibly be truly happening—

  At last she pushed herself away from the door, made her way back to the barrel, settling herself once more. Her head ached with terror and defeat. What would they do to her? What?

  She huddled into herself, resting her forehead upon her drawn-up knees. The cold, perhaps mercifully, was dulling her senses, quelling her power to think, deadening even her fear a little. She closed her eyes, and for the first time since the confrontation with her brother that afternoon she allowed the tears to slide, cold and desolate, down her cheeks. It was a long, long time before they stopped.

  The sound that roused her brought her heart to her mouth and, cold as she was, the sweat of fear to her forehead. She lifted her head, listening, ears straining. The party in the house above her was now in full swing – thumping feet, the sound of music, raised voices, laughter. Then through it all she heard it again – a harsh, grating noise, very close. The sound of breathing. Someone – something – moving in the darkness.