Outside, in the little passage, there was a sack hanging from the wall. He dropped the parcel in. ‘The books for the vault go in here. The bank only sends the armoured coach once a month, so we keep the door into the street locked and no smoking, all right? You lose a book, you lose your job. Books for trade are kept through there until de Havilland collects them.’ He pointed at the door opposite us. ‘See this box here? Cards go through that slot. Every evening they go to the old bat for filing. Got it?’
‘I think so.’
‘Right.’ The two men who had gone to get the luggage were trudging, heavily laden, across the yard. Hicks pulled the door open for them. They puffed and grunted as they carried the boxes inside and into the workshop. ‘What’s all that, then? Your indenture fee?’
‘In a way.’
He opened his mouth, squinted at me, and shut it again. After a second he said, ‘Well, you’d better come in and start making yourself useful.’
They set me to wiping the benches – smuts from the stove stained the rag black as soon as I wiped it over the wood – and then to sweeping. The light was fading fast, and I thought they’d stop work when it was dark; but when it was too dim to make out the dust on the floor they lit lamps and went on with what they were doing. It was cold everywhere except next to the stove, and the greasy, acrid smell of coal turned my stomach. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but no one asked me if I was hungry.
‘You can empty the pail into the dustbin at the back,’ Hicks said. ‘It’s next to the coal shed – oh never mind, I’ll show you. You can bring some coal in at the same time. Stoke the stove and then you can call it a day, how’s that? Coming out for a pipe, Johnson?’
I followed them down the passage to the far end of the building. The street outside was a narrow, badly-lit lane. It was hard to believe that the row of tall elegant houses was only the other side of the bindery yard. A jumble of walls, jutting corrugated-iron roofs and sheds spilt out on to the unpaved road, and the frost-hardened mud had formed deep ruts, glinting with long streaks of ice. Hicks jabbed his thumb at a low lean-to. I emptied my bucket into the dustbin and began to load the coal scuttle. A dog was howling in one of the cottages opposite. Someone swore at it, and then at a baby that started wailing.
‘Gentlemen,’ a shrill voice said, ‘gentlemen, please …’ I looked up. An old woman was picking her way through the frozen channels of filth. Hicks swapped a glance with Johnson and flicked away the match he’d used to light his pipe. ‘Don’t turn away from me, gents. I know what you’re thinking but I’m not begging. You’re binders, ain’t you? Well, I’ve got something you’d like.’
‘We’re not binders,’ Johnson said. ‘You want the binder, go knock at the door in Alderney Street.’
‘I tried. That bitch at the door won’t let me in. Come on, gents … I’m desperate, all right? But I promise you I’ve got some lovely stuff. Men’ll be queuing up for my memories. Honest.’
Hicks drew in a lungful of smoke and the ember brightened in the bowl of his pipe. ‘It’s Mags, isn’t it? Listen … It’s a nice offer. But that’s not our job. Even if …’ He stopped.
‘Come on. I won’t charge much. A couple of shillings, that’s all, for years and years. All the best bits. Whatever you want. Sex. Men beating me. There was a murder in my street, I saw it happen—’
‘I’m sorry. Why don’t you try one of the backstreeters? Fogatini might be interested. On the corner of the Shambles and Library Row. He might be more—’
‘Fogatini?’ She spat, thickly. ‘He’s got no taste. He said he didn’t sell the one from last month, but that’s just an excuse, he’s as dry-fisted as a lizard.’
Johnson said, suddenly, ‘Where’s your kids, Mags?’
‘Kids? Ain’t got no kids. Never had a husband, either.’
‘Lived like this all your life, have you?’ There was a bitter edge in his voice that wasn’t quite mockery. ‘You sure of that?’
She blinked and wiped her forehead with the inside of her sleeve, in a strange, disjointed gesture; and suddenly I saw that it wasn’t age that had ravaged her face and given that set blankness to her eyes. ‘It ain’t kind to laugh at me.’
‘I’m not laughing. You’ve sold enough. Go home.’
‘I just need a couple of bob. Come on, gents. A genuine slice of life on the streets. Plenty of dukes and earls would pay guineas for that. It’s a bargain.’
‘Mags …’ Hicks tapped his pipe against the side of the lean-to, although he hadn’t finished it. ‘You’ve asked before, remember? When Johnson here took you inside for a cup of tea? Or did that go along with everything else, last time?’ There was a pause. Mags dragged her hand back and forth over her forehead. ‘Never mind. Go and find a better way to earn your living, or there’ll be nothing left of you.’
‘Earn a living?’ She gasped a laugh and flapped her ragged cloak at him like a dark bird. ‘You think this is a living? A life? I don’t care any more, I want it all gone, I’d rather be one of them drooling lunatics you see outside Fogatini’s when he’s gone too deep, I want there to be nothing left of me—’
Johnson pushed in front of Hicks and took her by the elbow, swinging her round so hard that one of her legs buckled and she nearly fell. ‘That’s enough. Get out of here. Or I’ll call the police.’
‘All I want is a couple of shillings – one shilling, then. Sixpence!’
He dragged her a few yards down the road and then pushed her. She reeled, glared at him as if she might spit in his face, and then picked her way through the seascape of dirt. As she rounded the corner I heard her cough, a deep throaty sound as if that was her real voice at last.
Johnson strode back towards us. ‘It’s a foul night. I’m going in.’
Hicks nodded and pushed his pipe into his pocket. Neither of them waited for me; I loaded the last few handfuls of coal into the scuttle and followed. As they went through the door I heard Hicks say, ‘Does she have kids, then?’ and Johnson answer, ‘Three, living. They’ll be in the workhouse. While some lucky bastard reads all about motherly love.’ Then the door closed behind them.
When I’d stoked the stove I picked up my sack from the corner of the room, and one of the others said, ‘Upstairs. The room at the back.’ No one said good night to me. I climbed the stairs, my legs shaking with fatigue. When I came to the little window on the landing I could see my breath. Ferns of frost had already crept across the dingy glass.
The room was tiny, and dirty, and bitterly cold. In one corner there was a sagging bedstead, with a couple of blankets trailing across it; I tried not to think about how many bodies had slept there before me. I could just catch the gleam of a chamber-pot underneath, and I breathed shallowly, afraid of what I might smell. But after a minute the cold got too much and I sank down on the bed and wrapped myself in the blankets; they stank of damp and must, but it might have been worse. The mattress had clumped into hillocks and the ticking had worn so thin I could feel the feathers pricking me. I felt as if I’d never be warm again.
Someone shouted in the street outside. I wrapped the blankets round my shoulders and got up to look out, but the single street-lamp was too feeble and the window pane too encrusted with soot for me to see anything. Whoever it was fell silent. Now there was only the sporadic howling of a dog, and a baby crying. I could feel the greasiness of coal in the grain of my fingertips and crunching between my back teeth. The longer I stayed here the deeper it would get; until nothing would wash it away completely, until even my bones were black.
I shut my eyes. An image came to me, as sharp as a memory: Alta at the door of the dairy, dropping her bucket – her eyes wide with delight – and then running across the yard to hug me. I could almost smell the earthy, ammoniac tang of the pigsty, and the creamy sweetness of new milk draining away from the upturned bucket. At home no time would have passed since I left; it would still be late summer, everyone would be the same, the jobs that I hadn’t finished would be waiting for me. Or – no – if only
I could unravel further, to before I started to fall ill: right back to last winter, when I still knew who I was. Back to when I worried about the thorn hedge in the High Field, or whether Ma would notice I’d used her good knife to skin a rabbit. But it was stupid to wish something impossible. I opened my eyes and wiped them on my sleeve.
I couldn’t go home. But if I was still here in a few days’ time, de Havilland was going to send me to the Darnays, for my first binding.
I was afraid. The realisation should have made it easier; but as soon as I’d thought it, I knew I couldn’t run away. After I had been to the Darnays, and it was all over … then I could choose. Maybe I’d think of somewhere else to go – or find a way to return to the bindery, where I belonged. But until then, I had to stay. Or I would be frightened for the rest of my life, without even knowing what I was frightened of – except that it had to do with Lucian Darnay, and the nightmares.
I lay down on the bed. The pillow was waxy with old hair oil. I curled into myself as tightly as I could, ignoring the scratchy lumps of mattress, and stayed very still. At last I began to warm up a little, but the cold held me hovering on the edge of sleep. Through my dreams I heard the banging of doors and the shouts of a drunken scuffle, and the chiming of clocks all over the town; but I suppose I must have fallen asleep properly at last, because when Hicks banged on the door in the morning I woke disorientated and heavy-headed, struggling to remember my own name.
X
Three days later, de Havilland sent me to the Darnays’. He’d summoned me the afternoon before, sending Miss Brettingham, his secretary, into the workshop with a note; when I went to see him – in a cluttered, over-furnished sitting room that was hung so thickly with pictures that the walls hardly showed – he was distracted, poring over a huge marbled ledger while his fingers riffled through a pile of flimsy bills. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘you. Mr Darnay is expecting you tomorrow evening. I’m sending him a delivery at the same time, so don’t forget to pick it up from Miss Brettingham. In her office, opposite the waiting room.’ He raised his eyes and looked me up and down, wincing. ‘I shall send some appropriate clothes over to your room tonight. Make sure you wash, will you?’ He gestured with his pen, dismissing me, and tutted as it flicked specks of ink over his accounts.
‘But I—’
‘I don’t have time. I’m leaving for Latworthy Place first thing in the morning, and I have a lot to do. If you have questions, please ask someone else.’
‘Who?’
‘That one, for example. Go.’
When I went up to my room at the end of the day I found an unfamiliar suit on my bed: pale grey, with a blue waistcoat and a clean stiff-collared shirt. It was so out of place in that dirty little room that from the doorway it looked as if an aristocrat had crawled on to the bed to die. When I took a step closer and held up my candle I saw there were shiny shoes, too, and a brushed felt hat, and an ivory box that contained cufflinks and a collar-stud. There was no need to try any of it on; I already knew that everything would be uncomfortable and ill-fitting. I laid it on the cleanest bit of floor, and tried to ignore it; but all through the night I was conscious of its flattened limbs reaching out for me.
The next afternoon I did my best to wash off the day’s grime and then shave in icy water, but I’d been right about the clothes and when I walked past the workshop Hicks whistled and called, ‘Hey, lads, look at His Nibs,’ and the others dissolved into gales of laughter. De Havilland had taken his carriage to Latworthy, and I had to take a cab; I’d never hailed one before and I stood for ages on the pavement of Alderney Street before a cabbie finally drew up and asked me pityingly if I was lost. For a moment I thought I’d forgotten the Darnays’ address. Miss Brettingham had shown me the ‘delivery’ – the chest that de Havilland had filled with books – and I manhandled it on to the seat before I hauled myself up, wishing he could have sent it by post.
I watched Castleford roll past us, but my heart was beating so fast that only fragments seemed to emerge from the blur: a row of new houses, a pillared portico on a corner, shop windows hung with bright swatches of fabric. I could almost believe that it was all an elaborate hoax, and if we’d taken another route I could have peered sideways and seen how flimsy the houses were, how they were only painted greyboard … I didn’t recognise myself, either. I was an impostor, in this silvery-grey suit and pale waistcoat, clenching my toes in shoes that were too tight. I tried not to imagine trying to bind someone, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’d fail, and nothing would happen at all; or – worse – it would bring the binder’s fever back, and I’d lose control of myself, drown in the black fever-visions, be taken off shrieking to a madhouse … And what if Lucian Darnay was there, watching? I didn’t want to think about him, either. The faint, bitter taste of dread spilt onto the back of my tongue.
The cab rattled on, over the bridge and past the castle – a great mass of ochre stone, half-ruined – and suddenly there was more traffic. Carriages materialised alongside us, close enough to touch. For a few minutes we seemed to be carried in the current; then, at last, the cab slowed and turned into a side street. It was quiet here, and there were rows of bare plane trees along the edge of the roadway.
‘Here.’
‘What?’ I craned forward to hear him.
The cabbie pointed with his whip. ‘Number three,’ he said. ‘See the “D” on the gate? This is it.’
I got out of the cab and managed to drop the chest on to the pavement at my feet with a thud. I’d been so preoccupied that I hadn’t thought about how to pay the cabbie, and for an instant I panicked; but my hand had already gone into my pocket, and I felt the cool weight of a sovereign against my fingers. Perhaps de Havilland – or Miss Brettingham – had been unexpectedly thoughtful; or more likely the suit hadn’t been washed since it was last worn.
The cab drove off. I took a deep breath. In front of me the gate was knotted like a vine, a wreath of iron tendrils surrounding that elaborate D. A gravel drive led across a wintry, cross-quartered lawn to a wide front door set with panels of stained glass. The house was double-fronted, built of old red brick, with tall curtained windows with light behind them. There were symmetrical urns and knobs along the top where the roof met the facade. A house this big would have two entrances, wouldn’t it, like de Havilland’s – one for gentlemen, and one for ordinary people. I tried to remember Miss Brettingham’s instructions. Be respectful, but not obsequious. Remember you are representing Mr de Havilland … The tone of her voice had left me in no doubt that Mr de Havilland was a great man, and I could scarcely hope to live up to him.
That meant the front door. I crouched to pick up the chest, feeling the ache already creeping across my shoulders. A few months ago I couldn’t have lifted it at all. I was supposed to give it to Mr Darnay – before anything else, give it to him – only him, no one else, you understand? – but it would be all I could do to get it into the house. Sweat was already starting out on my forehead. My shirt collar rubbed, and I imagined it beginning to wilt, stained grey by the smoke in the air.
Did I imagine the quiver of a curtain at one of the upper windows? I told myself I had; but I could feel a gaze following me down the path, and I was glad to get to the front door. I wedged the chest against the doorframe and managed to ring the bell; then I stood there, my arms trembling under the weight. In front of me the stained-glass panel – a lamp and its flame surrounded by a green ribbon – juddered and leapt. A tremor hummed in my knees, too strong to be the distant vibration of carriage-wheels on cobblestones. My breath was coming very fast.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ someone said.
But it didn’t matter who she was – a quiet voice, a lace cap, a pimple on her forehead – because I could see past her into the hallway; and Lucian Darnay was there, halfway down the stairs, and the ground lifted off its anchor and rocked on a sea of darkness.
Somehow I stayed on my feet. Somehow, when Darnay – Lucian – no, Darnay took the chest out of my arms and le
d me through to another room, I managed to follow, fighting for my balance at every step. Somehow I even heard myself answer him, although I didn’t know what he’d said, or what I replied; somehow I sat down and blinked until the world swam back into focus. I was sitting at a polished table, an oval of ebony that gleamed like a mirror. It was a dark room, and although there was grey daylight at the windows the lamps on the wall had been lit. There was a fire in the grate. The fireplace was the colour of raw meat, veined with fat; the wallpaper was a darker shade of the same colour, mottled with burgundy flowers. Against the wall on the far side of the room there was a tall glass-fronted case full of curios. I squinted at the shapes, trying to see past the glare of the gaslight to make out what they were: a plume of feathers, a flight of butterflies under a bell jar, the disembodied grin of a huge jawbone … My ears still rang, like someone running their finger round the rim of a glass, but it was almost faint enough to ignore.
‘My father will be down in a minute. Will you take something? A glass of sherry? We’ve just finished lunch, I’m afraid. Dinner isn’t till eight.’
‘Thank you.’ It was a relief when he turned and busied himself with a decanter. I exhaled a long breath and squeezed my legs together to stop my knees shaking. He didn’t remember me. The first time we’d met, he’d stared at me as if he despised me. Now there was nothing, no recognition in his eyes, no trace of hatred or fury – only a trace of contempt that I guessed from the cast of his face was habitual, and nothing to do with me.
‘There.’ He put the glass down in front of me, and I made myself meet his eyes.
‘Thank you.’ My voice came out steadier than I’d expected. I took a sip of the sherry, and felt the warmth of it run down my throat.
‘These are for my father, I take it?’
‘Yes.’ I should have moved to stop him before he opened the chest, but he flicked open the clasps with such assurance that it was done before I could say anything. He lifted four or five books and turned them over to look at their spines before dropping them back into the chest with deliberate disdain. He paused once, frowning at the book I had half-glimpsed when de Havilland was packing it, pale and flecked with red-gold like embers on a table; but in the end he flung that one back with more force than the others. As he examined them I had time to observe him. He had changed; the shadows under his eyes were gone, and his face had filled out. There was a flush on his cheeks that would be florid in a few years’ time, and his eyes had a kind of dullness to them, like smeared glass; but all in all he was handsome. It was hard to believe that he was the same man I’d seen at Seredith’s, the one whose gaunt, bleak face had given me nightmares.
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