The Binding

by Bridget Collins

  ‘I’d like to. Thanks.’

  ‘And this time I’m not just asking out of – oh. Good.’

  We looked at each other. It was too dark to see his expression; there was only the white shape of his face. Suddenly the room behind him – the dark bulk of the range and the gleaming rows of copper pans, the scrubbed stone floor and the faded prints on the walls – was unfamiliar. The pantry door was open, and the jars gleamed dimly like rows of polished stones.

  ‘I’m just …’ I gestured wildly. ‘Upstairs. Won’t be a moment.’ I turned and pushed out into the hall. ‘Darnay’s staying to dinner,’ I said to Alta on my way past.

  ‘What? You invited him? Why?’ She grabbed my elbow and I nearly stumbled.

  ‘Why not?’

  She peered up at me. The passage was full of the blue half-light of a spring evening, so that the speckled pink of her dress was deepened to mauve, and the wall behind her smudged with shadows. The window was open, and a west wind blew in over the fields, driving the sour yard smells away; it had the sweetness of new grass – the scent, not of warmth, but the promise of warmth. Suddenly, standing there, I felt the spring, like the hairs rising on the backs of my arms. I shook her away, and laughed.

  ‘What’s going on? Emmett? Wait, are you two friends?’

  Her voice was a mixture of relief and suspicion and – something else, something not quite as comfortable. I swung myself round the newel post and up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She called my name again, with a plaintive note; but I was on the landing by then, and didn’t turn back.

  I suppose, after that, we were friends. There was always a current under the surface, treacherous as a weir-stream, threatening to drag me under; but whenever I felt it start to tug I could move away, and after a while it was easy to pretend it wasn’t real. That sense of danger, the fierce electricity that had made my hackles rise the day Darnay came into our lives – it had been nothing, just irrational dislike, and now I knew him better I could relax.

  And it was as if Alta had seen the last barrier go down. I never said that now, if he asked, she had my permission to marry him – not that my permission would have mattered, anyway – but she seemed to feel that somehow, tacitly, I had. She launched herself into love as though she was hurling herself from a cliff: she seemed alight with happiness – incandescent with it – as if the new, golden world of being Darnay’s wife was ripening within easy reach. Of course, she was a child, and like a child she cared about the trappings, the dress she’d wear, the house they’d live in, the ring he’d give her; once I walked past her sitting on a gate with Cissy Cooper, and before they saw me and burst into stifled giggles I heard Alta say, ‘… and a long veil! Edged with lace, you know the flowery patterns with pearls sewn in—’ That didn’t worry me; what made me lie awake at night were the other times, when the woman she’d be in ten years shone through her face, and I caught a glimpse of how much she wanted him. She moved differently now, light and languid at once; she let her fingers trail across the surfaces of things as if she’d only just discovered the sense of touch. She’d lost her appetite, and even the shape of her face had changed: her mouth was wider, her cheekbones more prominent.

  But Darnay went on treating her as he always had: joking, teasing, as easy with her as if they were brother and sister. Maybe it was because he was so sure of her. Or maybe, I thought once, horrified, it was contempt … But no. Darnay was unvaryingly kind to her; the only person he treated with an odd, goading affability that might have been disguised scorn was me.

  I could have gone mad, thinking about it. So I didn’t. There was more than enough to think about, anyway: spring was gathering speed, and the first crops were starting to sprout, in the garden as well as in the fields. The sap was rising, and when the other jobs were done Ma would send us out to gather wild garlic or gallons of dandelion flowers for wine. When we stood at the edge of the bluebells in Lord Archimbolt’s wood, I laughed aloud at the spectacle: no wonder Alta was head-over-heels, it was the season for it. I almost felt like I was in love too.

  That week everyone’s spirits were high, because that Sunday was Wakening Fair. I’d never enjoyed it since I bought that book from the man with the stall, and Pa had been so angry; but this year I looked forward to it, and not just because it was a holiday. As I walked there with Darnay, Splotch and Alta – with my parents straggling behind, arm in arm as though they were as young as we were – I saw it all with new eyes. There were the tents, the strings of flags and the smoke of cooking fires, and everywhere people in their best clothes, flashes of colour and flushed faces, laughter and the clink of money changing hands, and the watery sun sparkling off overflowing tankards. At my side Darnay paused and whistled to himself – half amused, half daunted – and I laughed. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

  ‘Yes, actually. I’ll buy you a pie,’ he said.

  ‘I can buy us pies, Darnay, we’re not paupers.’

  ‘All right, I only – never mind.’ Splotch was going mad, tugging and choking at the end of her rope. We made a beeline for the nearest stall. Once we’d got our pies – after two gulps Splotch licked her chops and looked up hopefully for more – we turned down one of the narrower paths and wandered aimlessly between the rows of tents and trestles. Alta stopped, naked greed on her face, in front of a table of jewellery. Darnay followed her look and said, already reaching into his pocket, ‘How much are the blue beads?’

  ‘Oh – thank you – Lucian, you shouldn’t have.’

  Darnay turned away, dismissing her thanks with an easy gesture. For a second I disliked him intensely – the young lord, dispensing largesse – but he caught my eye and winked. At the next stall he bought three painted wooden eggs and flipped one towards me so quickly I almost fumbled it. ‘Darnay,’ I said, as he passed the other to Alta, ‘these are meant to be symbolic, you buy them for your sweetheart.’

  ‘And I have,’ he said, showing me the one he’d kept for himself. ‘For goodness’ sake, Farmer, it’s an egg. Don’t look at me like I’m trying to buy your soul.’

  I laughed, with an effort, and shoved the egg into my pocket. Somewhere a bell rang, and Alta tugged me forward. ‘Come on, or I’ll be late.’

  ‘You won’t be late. It’s the little girls first, not you. The ribbon dancing,’ I added to Darnay, who was looking quizzical. ‘You know, there’s a big erect pole with ribbons tied to it, and the girls dance round it and sort of knot it to death.’

  ‘It’s pretty,’ Alta said. ‘And Perannon Cooper’s the Queen of the Wakening, Emmett – you’ll want to see that.’ She waved at a clump of girls who were waiting in the centre of the green, gave Darnay a quick smile and ran to join them. They were all in their best dresses, pale as primroses, and a crown of straggling flowers was wilting on every head. Most of them had left their hair loose; only Alta had pulled two slim plaits back from her forehead, as if she wanted to look different. As she joined them there was muffled laughter and they all turned to stare at us. Cissy Cooper pointed at Darnay, tried to turn it into a ladylike wave, and then convulsed with giggles.

  ‘I feel like a cake in a bakery window,’ Darnay said.

  I snorted with laughter. That was precisely the way they were looking at him: hungry, envious, wistful … All except Alta, who knew the cake was already hers.

  Darnay swivelled nonchalantly sideways, one hand raised to shield his face. He was blushing. ‘Do you desperately want to see the ribbon dancing? Or could we just … slip inconspicuously away?’

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you.’ I didn’t say that he couldn’t ever be inconspicuous, especially not here, where every girl had her eye on him; instead I let him lead us back into the thick of the crowd, and tried to ignore Alta calling his name behind us. Once we had room we broke into a run, until at last we were at the far boundary of the fair, where the shabbiest stalls were dotted about like abandoned lean-tos. ‘Thank goodness,’ he said, leaning over to catch his breath.
‘Girls that age are frightening in groups, aren’t they?’

  ‘Packs,’ I said.

  ‘Covens.’

  I grinned. ‘You don’t have sisters, then?’

  ‘Two, actually. Cecily and Lisette. Both older than me.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know that.’ It was funny how little I did know about Darnay; he’d never even mentioned his parents. I was about to say so when his face changed and I turned to see what had caught his attention.

  The book stall. It was set apart from the other trestles, knee-deep in the taller grass; there was a half-empty barrow next to it that had left bruised tracks in the ground. It could have been the same man I had bought a book from, years ago – a greyer, leaner, shiftier version – or someone else. It didn’t matter. The books were the same. Piles of coloured leather spines, gold-patterned; a few plainer ones; one or two with great metal clasps, the pages edged with spots of mildew … I took a step towards the stall. My heart sped up, for no reason.

  Darnay gripped my arm so hard I almost yelped. ‘What the devil are you doing, Farmer?’

  ‘Nothing. I just—’ I blinked.

  ‘Don’t you know what they are?’

  ‘I just want to look.’

  His eyes narrowed. Without another word he spun round and walked away so fast that Splotch choked and scrabbled after him on the end of her lead. I stood still, hesitating. The ribbon-dancers’ pipe melody sang in my ears, high and shrill, coming and going on gusts of wind. The man at the stall was looking in another direction, his hair greasy under his hat; the stall itself was crooked and precarious, as if it might collapse at any moment. But the books shone in the quick spring sunlight, deep blues and reds and dusty gold-tooled green …

  It was like snapping a thread: a second of effort, and then I ran after Darnay. ‘Hey! Wait! For goodness’ sake—’ But I was too out of breath to carry on. I knew he’d heard me, but he sped up, jogging through the deep grass and down into the hollow. I dodged the trees and caught up with him just as a low branch swiped him across the forehead. ‘What’s going on?’

  He turned to spit words at me as if we’d been fighting for a long time. ‘You like them, do you? Books? Do you have a secret stash somewhere? Something to keep you warm on a winter’s night? Someone else’s humiliation spread-eagled on a page, so you can read it over and over while you—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You ought to be ashamed.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You think it’s all right, do you? For people’s lives to be sold at a fair, to keep the peasants amused in the long winter evenings?’ He hissed out a long breath through his teeth, and sagged against a tree. The swinging branch had left a thin streak of red above his eyebrow. After a moment he raised his eyes to mine and stared at me; I didn’t know what he was looking for, but at last he looked away. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, as if I’d passed a test. ‘You really don’t know?’

  ‘No.’

  He ran his fingers back and forth along the scratch on his forehead. Finally he said, ‘They’re people’s lives, Farmer. Stolen. Sucked out. Memories of the worst things that have ever happened to them.’

  ‘What?’ I stared at him. ‘You mean, people write down—’

  ‘Write down? No! They get bound into a book, and that makes them forget.’ He scowled. ‘It’s – a kind of magic, I suppose. A dirty, sordid sort of magic. People pretend it’s something glamorous – something kind – but it isn’t. “Poor Abigail, she’s been through so much, wouldn’t it be easier if we took her memories away?” And then men like that one get hold of the books and sell them for other people to …’ He ground to a halt. ‘You knew that. You must have known that.’

  I shook my head. ‘I knew that there was something … wrong. But it can’t be like that – I don’t believe it.’ But I did. That was why my parents went pale at the mention of books, why they’d never told us about them. In my head, uninvited, I saw the shadows of a camp the night before a battle; and I saw Pa, furious, about to hit me. Perhaps I was lucky not to have read the rest.

  ‘But you must have seen books,’ he said. ‘Even school bindings are memories. Didn’t your teachers tell you?’

  ‘At school we learnt from slates. And samplers, and letters.’ I shrugged, although my shoulders felt tight and painful. ‘Never books. People round here don’t read books.’

  His face had the thin, strained look it had used to have. It seemed hours before he nodded. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘There’s no reason why you should have known. The nearest binder is an old witch who lives miles away on the marsh, and why should you know about her? My uncle told me. Not that he bothers much with anything that isn’t in a bottle.’

  There was a silence. Splotch was sniffing at something, straining at her lead. Darnay didn’t move. His eyes were lowered, but there was nothing at his feet but trodden-down grass and leaf-mould, and gnarled tree-roots just breaking the surface. A burst of birdsong clattered out over our heads, and a cold wind blew the scent of earth into my face. I put my hand into my pocket and curled my palm around the painted egg that Darnay had given me.

  ‘Darnay …’

  ‘What?’

  I didn’t know what I’d wanted to say. After a moment he pushed himself upright and walked past me, along the path that led up over the ridge. The trees grew too close for us to walk abreast, so I followed him, glad that he couldn’t see my face. I didn’t want him to glimpse the obscure wash of shame that I felt when I remembered that book, and Pa’s fury. Splotch gave a whine of excitement and darted sideways, and Darnay almost stumbled over her; but instead of laughing he tugged her sharply back to him, so that she had to abandon whatever she’d found.

  He stopped at the top of the little rise, where the trees ended. From here you could see the New House on the horizon, almost veiled by the freshly green trees, and the ruins of the castle and the glint of the moat in the valley below. There was a thick grey storm coming towards us, in pleats and hanks of dark cloud. The sun came out in a final extravagant blaze of light, turning everything gold; then the clouds closed in on it again.

  ‘Would you like to be my secretary?’ Darnay said.

  It took a second for the words to make sense. ‘What?’

  ‘I need a secretary. It would be well paid, of course. It wouldn’t be hard, just writing letters and advising me and things like that. Don’t,’ he added, with a sudden sharp turn of the head. ‘Please, just once, listen to what I’m saying. I want y— I need someone who can think clearly, who isn’t taken in by all the nonsense. Yes, you’d be paid. But I’m not asking you to be my servant. And if you didn’t like it, you could leave.’

  I turned my head and stared at the approaching storm. Its edges were like the lip of an oyster, a frill of pearl-grey against dark cloud. He was asking for a servant. For a moment I imagined myself running his estate: managing the woods and the farmland, an office in the New House, what Ma and Pa could do with my wages …

  ‘I have a job already,’ I said. ‘You may have noticed.’

  ‘I know that. But you don’t want to stay on your father’s farm forever. Do you?’

  I clenched my toes in my boots, feeling the give and suck of the mud beneath my feet. ‘It’ll be my farm when he’s old.’

  ‘All right, but—’

  ‘All right what? It’s not good enough?’ I turned to face him and drew myself up, to make the most of the tiny gap in our heights. ‘You mean, obviously, if someone had a choice, they’d choose to be you rather than me?’

  ‘Stop it!’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not saying that. I’m offering you something else. That’s all.’

  ‘I don’t need something else.’

  There was a silence. I kicked a clump of grass until it lay flat, smeared with clots of mud. I knew exactly how I’d use Darnay’s estate. Pa wouldn’t be able to argue with me, or tell me I was too young to know what I was talking about; I could make it yield twice what it did now and
leave enough for the poachers … When I glanced at Darnay, he was watching me; there was a tightness around his eyes and mouth as if he was trying not to show what he was thinking.

  He said, ‘Would you be prepared to try?’

  I clenched my jaw. I wasn’t sure I could bear to take orders from him. And when he and Alta were married …

  ‘If I don’t,’ I said, ‘how will you find someone else?’

  ‘It’s you I want. If you don’t, then I’d rather have no one at all.’ His expression changed. ‘What did I say?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Emmett—’

  ‘No.’

  He shut his eyes. It was a gesture of defeat. Then he sighed and started to make his way down the hill into the field, towards home. ‘Your damnable pride,’ he said, without energy.

  ‘Pride? Me?’

  He didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure if he’d heard. I walked behind him. The mud gathered again on my boots and weighed me down.

  I said, to break the silence, ‘Doesn’t your uncle want to choose someone, anyway?’

  ‘It’s none of my uncle’s business. When I go back to Castleford I’ll be working for my father, running factories.’

  ‘Wait.’ I stopped. ‘I thought you were – you’re going back to Castleford?’

  ‘When my father judges me to be suitably chastened.’ He glanced over his shoulder and stopped walking too. ‘Why, what did you think? I was sent away as a punishment. It was my uncle’s house or the insane asylum. I won’t be here for ever. That’s why I wanted y— Forget it. I’ll be fine.’

  I dug my heel into the mud, grinding until I felt the grass break and the clay push up over my instep. ‘What about Alta?’

  ‘What about her? I’m asking you.’ He started walking again so suddenly I nearly slid over trying to catch up with him. The clouds had clotted into a shadowy mass, and everything was tinged with grey. On the other side of the valley a pale curtain of rain had blown across the New House and the ruins.

  We reached the stile at the bottom of the hill. Darnay climbed it without a word, and then stood waiting for me, his back still turned. The bluebells here had gone over, and the last muddy slope was covered with flattened, faded leaves. A raven cawed and fell silent.