‘Give you my books?’ She laughed. It sounded like a twig cracking.
‘My vault is perfectly safe. Safer than having them in the bindery with you.’
‘That’s it, is it?’ She shook her head and sat back against her pillows, gasping a little. ‘I should have known. Why else would you bother to come? You’re after my books. Of course.’
He sat up straight, and for the first time a hint of pink seeped into his cheeks. ‘There’s no need to be—’
‘How many of your own books actually end up in your vault? You think I don’t know how you pay for your new bindery and your – your waistcoats?’
‘There’s nothing illegal about trade binding. It’s merely prejudice.’
‘I’m not talking about trade binding,’ she said, her mouth twisting on the words as if they tasted bitter. ‘I’m talking about selling true bindings, without consent. And that is illegal.’
They stared at each other for a moment. Seredith’s hand was a white knot of tendons at her throat; she was clutching the key she wore round her neck as if it was in danger of being wrenched away from her.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ de Havilland said, getting to his feet. ‘I don’t know why I bother.’
‘Neither do I. Why don’t you go home?’
He gave a theatrical sigh, raising his eyes to the cracked plaster on the ceiling. ‘I’ll go home when you’re better.’
‘Or when I’m dead. That’s really what you’re waiting for, isn’t it?’
He made a little mocking bow in her direction and strode towards the door. I leant back against the wall to let him pass, and he caught my eye and started, as if he’d forgotten I was there. ‘Hot water,’ he said. ‘In my bedroom. Immediately.’ He slammed the door behind him with a bang that made the walls tremble.
Seredith looked at me sidelong and then ducked her head, plucking at the quilt as if she was checking that the pattern was complete. When she didn’t say anything, I cleared my throat. ‘Seredith … If you want me to make him leave …’
‘And how would you do that?’ She shook her head. ‘No, Emmett. He’ll go of his own accord, when he sees that I’m recovered. It won’t be long.’ There was something sour in the way she said it. ‘In the meantime …’
‘Yes?’
She met my eyes. ‘Try not to lose your temper with him. You may need him, yet.’
But that flicker of complicity wasn’t much consolation, as the days went on and de Havilland showed no sign of leaving. I couldn’t understand why Seredith put up with him, but I knew that without her permission I couldn’t tell him to go. And knowing that it was my own fault that he was there didn’t make it easier to bite my tongue when he poked quizzically at the lumps in a salt-pork stew, or threw me a couple of shirts and told me to wash them. Between my chores, looking after Seredith and the extra work he made, there was no time for anything else; the hours passed in a blur of drudgery and resentment, and I didn’t even set foot in the workshop. It was hard to remember that a few days ago, before de Havilland came, I’d felt as if the house belonged to me: now I was reduced to a slave. But the worst thing wasn’t the work – I’d worked harder than this, at home, before I got ill – it was the way de Havilland’s presence filled the house. I’d never known anyone who moved so quietly; more than once, when I was stoking the range or scrubbing a pan, I felt the chill touch of his gaze on the back of my neck. I turned round, expecting him to blink or smile, but he went on watching me as if I was a kind of animal he’d never seen before. I stared back, determined not to be the first to look away, and at last he let his eyes travel past me to what I was doing, before he drifted silently out of the room.
One morning he passed me at the foot of the stairs as I carried a basket of logs in for the range. ‘Seredith is asleep. I’ll have a fire in the parlour.’
I clenched my jaw and dumped the wood in the kitchen without answering. I wanted to tell him to build his own fire – or something more obscene – but the thought of Seredith helpless upstairs made me swallow the words. De Havilland was a guest, whether I liked it or not; so I piled a couple of logs against my chest and carried them across the hall to the parlour. The door was open. De Havilland had turned the writing desk around and was sitting with his back to the window. He didn’t look up when I came in, only pointed to the hearth as if I wouldn’t know where it was.
I crouched and began to brush the remnants of the last fire out of the grate. The fine wood ash rose like the ghost of smoke. As I started to lay kindling I felt that creeping sensation at the base of my skull; it felt like a defeat to glance round to see if he was looking, but I couldn’t stop myself. De Havilland leant back in his chair and tapped his pen against his teeth. He regarded me for what felt like a long time, while the blood began to hum in my temples. Then he smiled faintly and turned his attention back to the letter he was writing.
I forced myself to finish the fire. I lit it and waited until the flames had taken hold. Once it was burning well I stood up and tried to brush the grey smears off my shirt.
De Havilland was reading a book. He was still holding his pen, but it lay slackly between his knuckles while he turned the pages. His face was very calm; he might have been looking out of a window. After a moment he paused, turned back a page, and made a note. When he’d finished he caught sight of me. He put down his pen and smoothed his moustache, his eyes fixed on mine above the stroking hand that covered his mouth. Abruptly his vague, interested expression gave way to a gleam of something else, and he held out the book.
‘Master Edward Albion,’ he said. ‘Bound by an anonymous binder from Albion’s own bindery. Black morocco, gold tooling, false raised bands. Headbands sewn in black and gold, endpapers marbled in red nonpareil. Would you care to have a look?’
‘I—’
‘Take it. Carefully,’ he added, with a sudden sharp edge in his voice. ‘It’s worth … oh, fifty guineas? Certainly more than you could ever repay.’
I started to reach out, but something jarred in my head and I pulled back. It was the image of his face, utterly serene, as he read: words he had no right to, someone else’s memories …
‘No? Very well.’ He put it on the table. Then he looked back at me, as if something had occurred to him, and he shook his head. ‘I see you share Seredith’s prejudices. It’s a school binding, you know. Trade, but perfectly legitimate. Nothing to offend anyone’s sensibilities.’
‘You mean—’ I stopped. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking what he meant, but he narrowed his eyes as if I had.
‘It’s unfortunate that you’ve been learning from Seredith,’ he said. ‘You must be under the impression that binding is stuck in the Dark Ages. It’s not all occult muttering and the Hwicce Book, you know – oh.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘You’ve never heard of the Hwicce Book. Or the library at Pompeii? Or the great deathbed bindings of the Renaissance, or the Fangorn bindery, or Madame Sourly … No? The North Berwick Trials? The Crusades, presumably even you know about the Crusades?’
‘I’ve been ill. She couldn’t start to teach me properly.’
‘The Society of Fine Binders?’ he said, raising an eyebrow. ‘The Sale of Memories Act of 1750? The rules that govern the issuing of licences to booksellers? Heavens, what has she taught you? No, you needn’t tell me,’ he added, with a flick of disdain. ‘Knowing Seredith, you’ve probably spent three months on endpapers.’
I turned away and picked up the full pan of ashes. My face was hot.
As I left, trailing a cloud of ash-dust, he called after me, ‘Oh, and my sheets smell musty. Change them, will you? And this time make sure they are properly aired.’
When I went to collect Seredith’s tray, later that afternoon, she was out of bed: huddled at the window in her quilt, her cheeks flushed. She smiled when I came into the room, but there was an odd blankness in her eyes. ‘There you are,’ she said, ‘you were quick. How did it go?’
‘What?’ I’d been changing de Havilland’
s sheets.
‘The binding, of course,’ she said. ‘I hope you were careful when you sent her home. If you tell them they’ve been bound, sometimes they can hear you, even though … Only in the first year or so, while the mind adjusts, but it’s a dangerous time, you have to take care … Your father could never explain why, why that one thing gets through, somehow … But I wonder … I think, deep down, they know something’s missing. You must be careful.’ She fretted, chewing on nothing as if she had a tooth loose. ‘Sometimes I think you started too young. I let you bind them before you were ready.’
I set the tray down again; I tried to be gentle but the china jumped and rattled. ‘Seredith? It’s me. Emmett.’
‘Emmett?’ She blinked. ‘Emmett. Yes. I’m sorry. I thought, for a moment …’
‘Can I …’ My voice cracked. ‘Can I get you anything? Do you want some more tea?’
‘No.’ She shivered and pulled the quilt closer round her shoulders, grunting a little, but when she looked up her eyes were bright and sharp. ‘Forgive me. When you’re as old as I am, things sometimes … blur.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, stupidly polite, as if she’d spilt something. ‘Shall I …?’
‘No. Sit down.’ But for a long time she didn’t say anything else. Cloud-shadows swept past, over the marsh and the road, as swift as ships.
I cleared my throat. ‘Seredith … a moment ago, who did you think I was?’
‘He thinks I’ve kept you in ignorance, deliberately,’ she said. From the new acid in her voice I knew she meant de Havilland. ‘He thinks I’m a crotchet-monger. A stubborn, backward old stick-in-the-mud. Because I think the craft is sacred. He laughs at that. It’s all about power, for him. Money. He has no … reverence. I know,’ she said, although I hadn’t said anything. ‘I know too many people still think we’re witches. People spit over their shoulders when they talk about binders – if they talk about them at all, that is. People like your parents – well, your grandfather was a Crusader, wasn’t he? Your father at least had the decency to be ashamed of that … But that’s only ignorance. The way he does things—’
‘De Havilland?’
She snorted. ‘That absurd name … No, it’s all wrong. Binderies full of men who don’t understand what they’re doing – books for trade … We make books – we make beautiful books – out of love.’ She twisted round, and her face was as hard as I’d ever seen it. ‘Love. Do you understand?’
I didn’t, exactly. But I had to nod.
‘There’s a moment when you start a binding, when the binder and the bound become one. You sit and wait for it. You let the room go silent. They’re afraid, they’re always afraid … It’s up to you, to listen, to wait. Then something mysterious happens. Your mind opens to theirs, and they let go. That’s when the memories come. We call that moment the kiss.’
I looked away. I’d never kissed anyone except my family.
‘You become each person you bind, Emmett … Just for a little while, you take them on. How can you do that if you want to sell them at a profit?’
My legs started to cramp suddenly. I shuffled my feet to ease the ache and then stood up to pace to the mantel and back to my chair. Seredith followed me with her eyes. A cloud blew across the sun, blurring her wrinkles and softening the shape of her face. ‘I don’t want you to become the sort of binder he is, Emmett.’
‘I’d rather slit my own throat than be like—’
Her laugh had a dry painful rattle in it. ‘So you say now. I hope it’s true.’ She huddled deeper into the quilt until it bunched over her shoulders like a deformity.
There was a silence. I curled my toes in my boots; I was cold, all of a sudden. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘I think I will have that tea, now, please,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling a little better.’
‘Yes.’ I crossed the room and opened the door so clumsily it almost hit the wall.
De Havilland stepped back; he’d been standing just outside. ‘I need to speak to Seredith,’ he said. ‘Get out of my way.’
I stood aside. Something in the tilt of his head told me he’d been listening. I hoped he had been; I wanted him to have heard what I’d said.
‘And wipe that insolent smile off your face,’ he added. ‘If you were my apprentice I’d have you whipped.’
‘I’m not your apprentice.’
He pushed past me. ‘You may be, soon,’ he said, and slammed the door.
That night I found myself walking downstairs in moonlight so bright I hadn’t needed to light a candle. There was something strange about the way it clung to me, whispering at every step like cobwebs breaking. But I was searching for something. That was the only thing that mattered.
I was cold. My feet were bare. I looked down at them and the moonlight shimmered, billowing, moving as I moved. I was dreaming; but the knowledge didn’t wake me. Instead it seemed to lift me up and carry me. Now I was in the workshop. Everything here was covered with a bloom of light. My shirt brushed the bench and left a dark smear, and the glimmering dust clung to the fabric. What was I looking for?
I went towards the door in front of me, the one that led down to the storeroom. But when I went through it – it didn’t open, it dissolved under my touch – I was in the other room, the one with chairs and a table. It wasn’t night any more. There was a young man sitting with his back to me. It was Lucian Darnay.
He turned as if he was going to look at me, but the world slowed down and before I caught sight of his face the dream gave way under my feet. For a second I was falling, dropping blindly through empty space; then I jolted awake, my heart pounding, my limbs still humming with tension. It took me a long time to master the muscles in my arms, but at last, when they would obey me, I sat up and wiped the sweat off my face. Another nightmare. Only it hadn’t exactly been a nightmare; in spite of the fear, the strongest feeling was a kind of desperation, as if another split second would have shown me what I’d been looking for.
I’d thought it was the middle of the night, but I heard the clock strike seven and realised I’d overslept; it was time to stoke the range, and make Seredith’s tea. I slid off the settee and went into the hall, with the blanket wrapped round my shoulders like a cloak. I stood in front of the stove for a long time, as close to it as I could get, until it warmed me through.
‘I would like some tea, please.’
I whirled round. De Havilland lowered himself into a chair and rubbed his brow with two fingers as if he was trying to get rid of a smudge. He was wearing a pale blue dressing gown embroidered with silver, but underneath he was fully dressed and his waistcoat and cravat were the ones he’d been wearing the day before. There were purplish shadows under his eyes.
At least he’d said ‘please’. I didn’t answer him, but I put the kettle on to boil and measured a spoonful of tea into the pot. The tea caddy was so old that the green-and-gold pattern was speckled with rust, and flakes of paint came off on my fingers when I opened it.
He yawned. ‘How often does the post come? Is it once a week?’
‘Yes.’
‘Today, then.’
‘Probably.’ When the water boiled I poured it into the teapot. Steam rose into my face, stinging my cheeks with heat.
‘Good.’ He got out his watch and started to wind it. The cog made a metallic scratching sound that made my back teeth tingle. The tea hadn’t brewed for long enough but I poured it anyway; in the thin porcelain of de Havilland’s cup it looked hardly darker than piss. He frowned at it, but he raised the cup to his mouth and sipped without commenting. Then he set it down with a precise clink, exactly in the centre of the saucer.
I got out the tray and laid it, not with the blue-and-white china, but with one of the pottery cups that Seredith and I used. There was no point taking her bread and butter – when Toller came I’d ask him to bring us some rennet, and then I could make her some junket – but for now I picked a few bits of dried apple out of the jar and added a spoonful of honey
to the cup. I was so eager to get away from de Havilland that I slopped tea on to the tray as I picked it up.
He looked up as I walked past. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m taking Seredith her breakfast.’
‘Oh.’ His eyes flickered as if something behind me had caught his attention. But when his gaze came back to me it was steady. His irises were the same pale brown as the weak tea. One of the points of his moustache was fraying; I had a prickling, hateful urge to reach out and rip it off his face.
‘No need for that,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid she died in the night.’
VIII
It was so quiet in Seredith’s room that it was like walking into a picture. Everything apart from the window was dim and shadowy. Beyond the glass the first morning light made a band of pale blue on the horizon. A cobweb was strung across the corner of the window pane like a sail. Flecks of dirt or dead grass had speckled the window sill, even though the latch was closed; but whatever wind had driven it through the gaps had died, and there was no sound, from anywhere.
He had put coins on Seredith’s eyes to keep them closed. One was a sixpence, the other a half-guinea; the effect was grotesque, like a wink. It didn’t matter, though, because the thing on the bed wasn’t really Seredith any more. I stood at the foot of the bed and tried to remember that gaunt, shrunken face with its blind lopsided stare speaking to me, teaching me … But the room felt empty. Even her hair, her nightdress, had turned into inhuman, organic things, like mould or fungi. I tried to examine myself for some glimmer of grief or shock, but my brain disobeyed. The only things that seemed worthy of notice were the details: the faint metallic smell like melting snow, the dry stain in the glass beside the bed, the fraying lace just below Seredith’s chin.
What was supposed to happen now?
I reached out and touched the quilt. It was so cold it felt damp. Suddenly, absurdly, I wanted to bring her more blankets and build another fire in the hearth; it seemed lazy – unkind, even – to let her lie here in this icy stillness. I wanted her to have the dancing light and the whisper of the flames to keep her company … But what fool would heat a room with a corpse in it? And I could imagine de Havilland’s face when he saw me climbing the stairs with a basket of logs. I turned away. There was no point in speaking, or straightening her collar where the ruffle was half folded inwards, or brushing her sleeve as I passed; she was gone, completely and finally gone, and to pretend otherwise was sentimental.
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