Birdcage Walk
Page 26
There is Diner, still sleeping quietly as if he has passed all his nightmares to me and is at peace. I sit up, huddling the bedclothes around me. It is so cold. I find myself listening to catch Thomas’s cries, but of course he is not here. I miss him not with my mind but in my body, as I miss Mammie. He is safe and warm, and if he wakes, Philo will cuddle him and give him her finger to suck until it is time for her to feed him.
Diner is a dark bulk, turned away from me. I shiver again. I feel as if I have woken not from one sleep but from a thousand, and that I have come up through layer after layer until at last I am fully awake.
My mother would be ashamed of me. She never flinched, no matter how much she was vilified for what she wrote. She went on steadily, and shrugged when she was lampooned as a harridan in breeches. Anger was a torch to light her way, and she was never deflected. Mammie would not have rested until she had discovered why Lucie lay close by in her unmarked grave.
I should not be here. I know it for certain, as if a wave of knowledge has broken at last and is carrying me with it. I must get up, find my clothes by touch in the dark and put them on. I can move like a shadow when I want and he will not hear me. Listen to his breathing, so soft and steady. He will not wake. I will not wait to question him: that can come later. First I will take Philo and Thomas and all the money that remains to me and go south into Somerset to find Hannah and Will Forrest. We shall all be safe there.
I put my bare feet down on the cold floor. My clothes are on the wooden chair, which is all that is left of our fine bedroom furniture. I fumble on my shift and petticoat. There is no Philo to help me put on my stays, and I cannot do it myself in the dark. I leave them and feel across the floorboards as if I were fishing in a sea of wood, until my fingers snag my stockings.
The last of my money is wrapped in a cloth bag. Since Philo left I have kept it hidden deep in the flour jar.
‘Go now,’ says the beat in my head, ‘go now,’ but I cannot listen to it. I cannot feed Thomas, pay Philo her wages and buy food for the winter without money. I knot my loose hair back: it does not matter. It will be covered by the hood of my cloak.
I slip to the door. It opens noiselessly and I am round it and out of the room without looking back at the bed where he lies.
I feel my way down the dark staircase to the kitchen. There is the space under the stairs where Diner hoped to build his plunge-bath: that will not happen now. There is still heat in the stove because I banked it up with slack to keep the fire alive. I break the crust of the fire and push in a spill. It smoulders until light breaks out and flowers along its length. I light the candle on the table before my fingers burn.
The kitchen springs into light and shadow and there is a scuttle from the corner. I must set a mousetrap, I think, then remember that it is too late for this too. The fat-bellied flour jar gleams. I take up the candle from the table and crouch beside the jar. The lid is heavy and it knocks against the rim as I lift it. The clang makes my body stiffen. I set down the candle carefully, and plunge my hand into the cold silkiness of the flour. The bag is not there. It must have fallen deeper. I dig down, searching for an edge of cotton. I stretch my arm and feel as deep as I can, sifting down until my nails grate against the base. There is nothing.
‘What are you looking for?’ asks Diner behind me.
My hand clutches, and is still. Terror floods me. My mind whips like a snake. ‘I am measuring the flour for tomorrow’s bread,’ I say.
‘A strange time of night to be baking.’
‘The stove is still hot. I cannot waste fuel.’
‘You are lying to me, Lizzie. Stand up. Look at me.’ A glove of flour falls away as I take my hand from the jar. I stand up, slowly, to make time. ‘You think I do not know you, Lizzie. What were you looking for?’
‘Something of my own, that I had lost.’
‘You have nothing of your own. You are my wife. All that you have belongs to me. All that you are belongs to me. You would be glad of it, Lizzie, if you loved me.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Do you think I do not watch you? I saw you tuck away your guineas where you thought I would not find them. I have given everything to you, Lizzie. I have held nothing back. I have trusted you entirely.’
His face is not clear behind the dazzle of candlelight. His voice is hoarse. I am more afraid of him than I have ever been of anyone and yet some other feeling pulses against the tide of fear. I am not sure whether it is pity or love.
‘You have no reason not to trust me still,’ I say.
‘Then why are you dressed? Why are you not in my arms and naked to me? Why do you run from me, hide money from me and go walking alone?’
I begin to hope that he does not fully suspect me. He does not know that I have seen Lucie’s grave and he has no idea of my intentions.
‘I wanted to buy a dress,’ I say. Grey silk glistens for an instant, and is gone.
‘A dress,’ he repeats. He is silent for a few moments, and when he speaks again his voice has changed. ‘How can you be so simple? Do you still not understand our situation?’
I make my voice small and penitent. ‘I am a married woman, and yet I have never had a silk dress.’
‘Good God! Is this the liberty your mother preached to you? You want a silk dress while we are falling into ruin?’ He makes a sound like a laugh but it is not a laugh. ‘Never mind. What does it matter if we go to hell in one handcart or another? We shall go far away, Lizzie, to another town where I am not known. I can work. We are not likely to starve. Only I am not sure yet …’ His voice dies. He stares ahead of him into the candlelight without blinking. ‘I am so tired, Lizzie,’ he says.
‘Shall we go back to bed?’
His gaze flicks over me, suspicious. ‘There is no time for that. Those men will be back again at daylight. The rest of my creditors will come for me more leisurely but they will surely come, and if I am not to end the day in a debtors’ room in Newgate we must outpace them.’
‘I will fetch my cloak,’ I say, and begin to move towards the kitchen stairs, casually, as if this were any other day and any other outing. But his arm shoots out and seizes mine.
‘We will get it together,’ he says. ‘From now on, Lizzie, we shall have no separation. We shall always go together.’
26
‘We will eat now,’ says Diner, ‘since we have a long journey ahead of us.’
I stir the porridge round and round in the pan as it cooks. The bubbles rise to the surface, break and spit. Diner has lit all the candles in the kitchen and set them on the table and dresser. The kitchen has not been so bright for months. But I cannot relish the light. It means that Diner does not intend to return here. He is burning his boats. A saying of Mammie’s goes round and round in my head: You cannot have light without darkness. I jump at the sound of Diner paring sugar from the loaf with a sharp knife.
‘We may as well sweeten it,’ he says as he takes the spoon out of my hand, drops the sugar into the porridge and stirs.
‘We could bring the sugar with us, rather than waste it,’ I say.
‘Ever the housewife, Lizzie.’ My body clenches at his derision. I want to slap the spoon out of his hand but I subdue myself. I cannot anger him now.
He adds, as if explaining to a child: ‘The sugar is too heavy for us to carry. We must travel light if we are to reach our destination.’
‘We shall need food, wherever we go.’
He nods, but he is not listening to me. I will make a bundle of the oats and the heel of yesterday’s bread, and whatever else I can pack into it. Probably not the cabbage, which is as big as a man’s head. I find myself smiling, in spite of everything. And salt; we shall need salt. But when I start to prepare the bundle, Diner pushes it aside.
‘It is not worth it,’ he says.
‘But we must eat.’
Diner’s face contracts into a frown. After too long a pause he says, ‘We have money enough to pay for our meals. Any cottager will be gl
ad to share his meal in exchange for a few pence.’
It is clearly an afterthought and his lack of concern alarms me.
‘We cannot walk into the woods and fields and expect to be fed,’ I say, but he smiles at me, showing his teeth.
‘You have no faith in me, Lizzie. I promise you that you will not be hungry.’
I turn away so as not to see his smile, and stir the pot again where the porridge is sticking. It is done. I ladle it into bowls, taking as long over it as I can, then I lift my spoon to my mouth, taste, swallow. Each spoonful takes a little more time. I look down into my bowl so that he will not see the calculations which race through my mind. As soon as we are in the street I will break and run. If I can delay us for long enough it will be morning before we leave the house, and there will be people about. This night cannot go on forever. You cannot have darkness without light.
‘It is past five o’clock,’ says Diner, consulting his watch. ‘Eat up, Lizzie. We must be gone before daybreak.’
We swallow our porridge in silence. I am about to gather the bowls when Diner stops me. ‘There is no need to do that.’
‘I must put more wood on the stove.’
‘For what?’
‘Or at least make up a bundle of clothes. We won’t find clean linen in a cottage.’
He looks at me, calculating. I cannot read the thoughts that thicken his gaze, but I give him back look for look: clearly, I hope, and without defiance. He must not believe that I fear to look at him.
‘Very well,’ he says. ‘We shall pack up some things. I will come with you to choose them.’
We go up to our bedroom, each carrying a candle. My fingers shake as I pick out my warmest short gown, mittens and a quilted petticoat along with a change of linen. I roll them into a bundle and tie it tightly. I am about to choose some of his clothes when he stops me. ‘No need for that,’ he says, and I do not dare to question him. He keeps me always within reach of his arm. ‘You are very slow today, Lizzie.’
‘It is not yet morning. How can we travel in the dark?’
‘We will take a candle lantern. The snow makes the ground light enough. Make haste or I shall begin to think that you are dawdling.’
He ushers me ahead of him out of our bedroom. Although he stays at my elbow, he does not touch me. He stops and looks back at our bed, the tall windows, the beautiful floor. He holds his candle high until the shadows leap and flicker. At last he lowers it and then he closes the door. I go downstairs ahead of him, into the hall, to fetch my cloak and boots. Still he is within an inch of me. He waits until I am done before he puts on his own coat and boots, and unbolts the door. A flood of freezing air comes in. Again he lifts the candle high to look at the trampled snow and the marks the men have made on the door with their boots and fists, and then he opens the candle lantern and sets light to it before putting his candlestick on the floor.
‘You should blow it out,’ I say.
‘Why?’
‘It might start a fire.’
‘And if it does, it will save someone else the trouble of torching the place. Don’t you think they will do that? It seems to me very possible. Put down your candlestick, Lizzie.’
The flame gutters and then steadies as I set down my candle beside Diner’s.
‘Should we not blow out these candles and take them with us for the lantern?’
‘I have candles enough in my pocket.’
He takes my arm and draws me outside, and then he pulls the door shut behind us. I hear him lock it with the long iron key, and then he turns away from the house until he is facing over the pavement, the grass beyond and then the Gorge. He raises his arm, lifts it high, stretches back and hurls the key as far as it can go. I do not hear it fall and I do not question him. I grip my bundle in my left hand. I have slipped some shavings of sugar into the pocket of my petticoat.
‘Take care, there is ice here,’ he says in his ordinary voice. We are arm in arm, as we have been so many times. I look back and there is our house, with a faint glow from the candles coming through the fanlight above the door. There is the black, jagged line of the terrace, unfinished, never to be finished now. The snow sends up its whiteness and the light from Diner’s lantern is enough to make our shadows stretch and shrink. We reach the pavement but he does not turn towards the centre of Clifton. Instead we go down the steps to the track and then turn left towards the little winding path that zigzags steeply down through scrub and trees to the bottom of the Gorge. I pull back and dig the heels of my boots into the snow.
‘Why are we going down here?’
‘It is the quickest way to the water.’
‘Yes, but we should go down through Clifton and the Hot Well. We can take the Rownham ferry at first light.’
‘This will be quicker, Lizzie. Hold on to my arm. I will not let you fall.’
The path is steep and the snow here is not much trodden. I see movements out of the corner of my eye, as if creatures are whisking out of sight at our approach. There is no starlight down here, but our lantern shows the way. It is so cold that my jaw aches. It feels as if we are no longer walking on the earth, but into the bowels of it. I force myself to see the path as it is in daylight, winding coolly down. I have walked it many times. It is perfectly safe and soon there will be labourers tramping down here on their way to the ferry and the quarries on the other side of the Gorge.
A shriek makes me catch my breath.
‘A rabbit,’ says Diner. ‘A fox has taken it.’
We walk on, slipping and sliding in spite of our boots. The way seems longer than I have ever known it, but at last we are down. The path widens, opens, and there is the river. Its muddy banks are almost covered: the tide is high. The water coils and twists in the starlight like a living thing.
‘The tide will soon be on the turn,’ says Diner. ‘It will be hard to row at first, but then it will be easier.’
‘The ferrymen are used to it, I suppose,’ I say.
As if I had not spoken, Diner continues: ‘But I will manage well enough.’
‘Surely you will not row,’ I say. ‘It is madness in this dark.’
‘Look there, Lizzie.’ He takes my hand and guides it to the east, towards the distant Mendips. ‘What do you see there?’
He is right. There is pallor in the sky, a smudge along the line of the horizon which spreads as I watch.
‘Dawn is coming,’ says Diner. ‘We will have light enough for the crossing.’
I was afraid of the darkness but the day ahead makes me more fearful still. There is not a soul here but for the two of us: no traffic on the river, even. But the river is no longer quite black. It is changing colour as wan light spreads from the east.
‘The ferry runs at daybreak,’ I say.
‘But the ferrymen will remember us. I have no wish to be pursued into Somerset by my creditors.’
Diner grips my arm and hurries us towards the Hot Well, or so I think until he stops some way off. There are stone steps leading down to where a boat sits, its oars shipped. She rocks on the sway of the water.
‘Be careful on these steps, Lizzie. Hold tight to my hand.’
There are twelve steps. I go down carefully, with the smell of the river filling my head. I have always been so afraid of this water that no one can see into, thick as it is with silt. It is here now, just below me, roiling and sucking at the steps. If I fell, nobody would know. Diner holds me and guides me down to the step above the last.
‘Stand well back, Lizzie.’
The boat has swum out a little way on the current, despite the rope that holds it. The gap is perhaps a yard. Diner pushes himself off from the steps and leaps into the bottom of the boat, which staggers under his weight. He pulls out one of the oars and holds it towards me. ‘Lean back, Lizzie. Brace yourself and pull hard.’
I pull as hard as I can. The river sucks against me and then gives way and the boat slides alongside the steps.
‘Now, take my hand,’ he says. ‘Jump!’
I can see everything quite clearly in the grey light. There is no ice at the edges of the river, although the cold is numbing. It must be because the tide that swells up through the Gorge twice each day fills the river-water with salt and keeps it from freezing.
‘Move to the middle, Lizzie, and sit tight there.’
I gather my skirts close. The knot is undone now, and Diner hurls the rope back over the steps. I think: This is not the way the ferrymen secure their ropes. They untie the knot from the bollard, pull the rope into the boat and coil it there. But I suppose there is more than one way to cast off a boat. I pull back my hood to scan the desolate stretch of water. How wide it is. There is a ship moored over by Rownham’s Mead, waiting for the tide perhaps. But its sails are furled and it hangs so still it might have been moored there for years. I know it has not. I know it is no ghost ship. It is only the whiteness of the snow on the pastures that makes everything so queer and unlike itself.
Diner has taken both oars. He glances behind him, digs deep into the water with his right oar to turn us, and we shoot out into the current. He is right: the tide has not yet turned. The water swirls and eddies as the surge of the river meets the surge coming up from the sea. A few weeks ago – years ago, it seems – I would have been chilled by the sight, but now I am indifferent. It is not the river that frightens me.
He is taking me across the river into Somerset, I tell myself. He wants us to go away where no one knows him.
I grip the sides of the boat and taste iron in my mouth. I am sitting still but my heart beats fast, as if I were running.
Diner ploughs the oars in deep to keep us steady as the water slaps and swills. I catch hold of the boat’s sides, and cling to them. We are balanced now, with our bow pointing across the river. Other boats are putting out, scudding close to the banks or pushing against the current as we are. Muffled figures bend to their oars. They are rowing in another world and I know that if I cried out they would not turn.