I shut the door behind me and went down the stairs. It was strange how the floorboards and banisters stayed solid, how they gleamed and dulled as my shadow passed over them, and how the creak of my footsteps was just a little too distinct: as though they were working hard to remind me that I was here and alive, while Seredith had slid into thin air.
‘In here.’ De Havilland’s voice, from the parlour. He had never once used my name.
More than anything I wanted to open the front door and walk out. If I went now and kept on walking I could be home by tomorrow morning. I’d stride into the farmyard, tired but triumphant. Alta would pause at the door of the dairy, blinking at me, until she dropped her bucket with a clang and threw herself into my arms. I’d tell Ma and Pa I was better, and we’d go back to how it was before. What would they be doing today? There was a drainage ditch that needed digging in the Low Field, and this clear cold weather was good for drawing turnips. Maybe Ma would have set up the smoker in the farmyard; for a moment I could smell thick woodsmoke and the hint of blood. It was like trying to imagine being a child again.
‘In here, now. I know you’re there.’
I turned away, my insides aching. I couldn’t go home. Even if my family were pleased to see me, I didn’t belong there any more; I was a binder now, whether I liked it or not. And what if the binder’s fever was still in my blood, like an ague? Perhaps I had to be a binder to keep it at bay. If I went home now, I’d always be afraid. I crossed the hall to the parlour, and made sure my voice was steady. ‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘At last.’ He was sitting on the settee, with an empty teacup and plate on the table him. He was glaring at the hearth. He’d made a fire, but it was too tightly packed; I knew that in a minute it would subside into nothing. ‘It’s perishing in here. This chimney doesn’t draw properly.’
As if on cue, the flames sighed and flickered out. I didn’t answer.
He clicked his tongue and glanced furiously at me, as if it was my fault. ‘On the writing table are two letters. When Toller comes, give them to him. Do you understand?’
I went to the table and picked them up. Dr Ferguson, 45 The Mount, Castleford and Elijah Oaks, Undertaker, 131 High Street, Castleford. ‘Is that all?’
He stood up and took a few steps towards the window. Outside a bird skimmed across the water, throwing a bright trail of droplets, and the rushes dipped, silvery, in the breeze; but when he turned back to me it was as if he’d been looking at a dungheap. ‘Sit down.’
‘I’d prefer to stand.’
He pointed to a chair and smiled at me. I tried to stare him out, and failed. ‘Good,’ he said, when I lowered myself into the chair. He paused, nudged the remains of the fire with the poker and sighed before he resumed. ‘Seredith’s death,’ he said, still stirring the ashes, ‘was … regrettable.’
I didn’t answer. Absurdly I found myself listening for movement upstairs.
‘Although she was old. It is natural, after all. One generation fades as another matures. The old order gives way to the new. And so on.’
‘Can I go?’
He raised his eyes to me. Could I see a sort of distant surprise in his face, or was it a trick of the light? ‘No,’ he said. ‘I believe we have much to discuss. Please sit still. I find your fidgeting distracting.’
I bit my lip.
‘I am your master now. I am therefore responsible for you.’ He said it as if he were reading aloud. ‘Apparently you have some promise,’ he paused fractionally as if to suggest scepticism, ‘and it is clear that there is no question of you staying here.’
‘I can’t stay here?’ As soon as I said it, I realised how impossible it was. The thought of leaving was like a sudden rush of cold air into a wound.
‘Certainly not. With whom? I have no intention of remaining in this house longer than I am obliged to. Seredith was an eccentric. Worse than a Luddite, resisting progress. I am afraid you have not been given the best opportunity to develop our art. Living like this, like a peasant …’ He gestured with the poker as if to indicate me, and the room around me. ‘Her insistence on the – manual – part of the work, those incidental skills which any man with a modicum of dexterity can demonstrate … Accepting all the clients who came to her … Taking no pride in her work …’
‘She did take pride in her work.’
‘None of those things,’ he went on, as though he hadn’t heard me, ‘prepares you adequately for the great dignity of being a binder. A true binder has no need to sew or cut or …’ He drew a limp loop in the air with the poker as if to suggest tasks he didn’t even know the name for. ‘A true binder, boy, has clean hands.’
I looked automatically at his hands. They were as white as a peeled willow switch.
‘But you have to make the books,’ I said. ‘Someone has to make the books.’
‘Naturally. In my workshop in Castleford I have several good workers. They produce some very fine …’ Again, that gesture with the poker. ‘Covers, and so on. But they are replaceable, that is the point. What I do – what we do, that is the true art. To cheapen it with glue and dust and grime under one’s fingernails is sacrilege.’ He smiled thinly. ‘I had encouraged Seredith for a number of years to employ an artisan so that she could concentrate on her true calling. When I heard she had apprenticed you I thought that for once she had heeded my advice. But then she told me that you would be a binder yourself, and that moreover you’d had the binderbound fever so badly she didn’t dare let you set eyes on a book.’ His smile contracted, as though a stitch had pulled tight somewhere. ‘Don’t worry, boy, I have no intention of asking you questions about that.’
The blood roared in my ears. ‘I’m all right now.’
‘I should hope so.’ He put the poker back in the stand and turned to look at a picture on the wall. I hadn’t realised how relentless his regard had been, but now I felt a surge of relief. ‘As it happens,’ he said, tapping the frame to adjust the angle, ‘it is useful for me that you are in fact a binder. Next week I have been requested by Lord Latworthy, and one of my usual clients in Castleford is also in need of my services. You will do for him, I think.’
‘What? Me? I can’t—’
‘I agree that you are not the deputy I would choose, given a free hand and all the time in the world. But the subject is a servant, I believe, so the binding itself will require very little finesse. To my client himself you will be polite, tactful and discreet – I trust you can perform that role creditably enough, Seredith never liked a fool …’ He paused and flicked a glance over his shoulder. ‘Then, when I return, I will be better able to assess your talent and deal with you accordingly. If you are indeed a binder, I will take over your training. If not, you can earn your living in my workshop, with the craftsmen.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t understand what you don’t understand,’ he said, with a sort of bemused softness. ‘It is quite simple.’
‘No. You see …’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve never bound anything. Anyone. I didn’t know what it was until … Seredith told me, the night before she got ill. I can do some of the finishing work, but the – the other bit, the—’ I didn’t have words for it. That room, that clean, bare, terrible room … ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how it works. I can’t do it.’
‘How it works is a mystery, boy.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose you mean … the procedure. My goodness, she really didn’t teach you anything, did she? Luckily it’s easy enough, you merely have to lay hands on the subject and listen. As long as you take paper and a pen and ink, and make sure you’re both sitting down, and that she’s consented, you can hardly go wrong. There is the small matter of managing the memories – making sure you don’t go too deep, and so on – but I’m sure your – er – apparently exceptional talent will see you through. A maidservant is not very important, after all.’
‘But—’
‘It is unfortunate that you have no experience, but you will do your best. Bearing in
mind, it goes without saying, that your future depends on it.’
‘But—’
‘You had better pack a bag. If Toller delivers those letters today we will be leaving here tomorrow. From then on you will be living under my roof, and I don’t know when you will be able to return.’
I opened my mouth to speak, and he swung swiftly round. For a split second he simply looked at me – where had I seen that look before? – and my stomach tightened. Then he reached out for Seredith’s teacup, held it up as though to propose a toast, and dropped it. It smashed. I looked down at the talons of blue-painted china.
‘And,’ he said, very calmly, ‘you will stop arguing.’
I didn’t have much to pack. I had the few clothes I’d brought with me, and a few useful bits and pieces – a box of needles and thread, my folding knife, a razor and comb, and a nearly empty purse. It seemed a sparse collection when I spread it out on my bed, even when I added the things Seredith had given me: a couple of bone folders, curved and smooth with years of use, a magnifying glass, a pair of scissors, a paring knife and a cobbler’s knife. I thought suddenly of the silver ring I’d found in the workshop, and wondered if I should take it to sell, just in case; now Seredith was dead, no one would know who had left it here, or why. Whoever they were, they were long gone. But it was still stealing.
I bundled everything into my sack and dumped it downstairs in the parlour – de Havilland was in my room, of course – and then stood for a long time at the window, watching the light change in the clear sky. When Toller had come I’d given him the letters and tried not to think about how convenient it was that Seredith had died that night, and not the night after, when de Havilland would’ve had to let another week pass before he could send for the undertaker. Now there was nothing to do but wait. It was like a vigil, except that Seredith was alone behind a closed door. More than once I thought about lighting candles and sitting beside her, but my skin crawled at the thought of the deep chill in that room, and those mismatched coins staring blindly at the ceiling.
Once I’d packed, de Havilland retired to my room and shut the door. Maybe he was sleeping, but in any case I didn’t hear anything. When the sun went down I went up and knocked, because even his voice would have been better than the silent shadows. He didn’t answer. Both bedrooms were equally quiet, as if he was dead too.
I shuddered and laughed at the same time. I was getting fey; the best thing was to go downstairs and warm up. I wasn’t hungry, but I made myself tea and gulped it down, thirsty for the heat. Then, without thinking about it, I went into the workshop.
The shapes of the presses and the clutter on the workbench were just visible against the last veil of light in the windows. It had been a long time since I’d been in here. Dust lay like a reproach on the bench; there was a damp odour in the air that explained why Seredith had always kept the stove going. I held my lamp up to the coloured tiles, but the glass mantle was so stained with soot that I struggled to make out the shades of russet and jade and earth.
Seredith’s apron was on the floor, under the hook where it was supposed to hang – although she’d hardly ever taken it off. I picked it up, and the leather was cold and stiff. How long had it been here, forgotten, on the floor? She’d worn it so long that the bib and waist kept the shape of her body, and it smelt of her, of glue and whetstone and soap.
It hit me then, that she was dead.
I hadn’t realised I’d loved her till that moment. At first I tried to stay quiet, in case de Havilland heard; but after a while I didn’t care, and no one came. I crawled into a corner of the workshop like a child, and buried my face in the old stained leather, blotting out the space and the darkness. Seredith wasn’t in that desiccated body upstairs; she was here, I was holding her. I could almost hear her sigh of amusement mixed with sympathy, and her voice: ‘Come on, now, lad, you’ll make yourself ill again. All right, lad, it’ll be all right …’
In the end it soothed me. Somehow a sob turned into a yawn. I folded the apron into a pillow and wedged it between my head and shoulder. Slow tears rolled into my collar and dampened my chest. When I blinked my eyelids grew heavier and heavier. For a moment I danced on the edge of darkness; and then, out of a gentle maelstrom of fragments, I found myself walking downstairs. There was something strange about the moonlight, the dusty glimmer of it, the silky sound it made as I moved through it. I knew I was dreaming – the same familiar dream – and the realisation set the fragments whirling again, threatening to settle in a different pattern. I glimpsed the corner of the bindery, the shapes of lay press and board-cutter; then in a fog of moonlight I was on the stairs again, and the only thing that mattered was that I was searching for something. This time I knew that I had to go through the door at the far end of the workshop; and when I got there it would be the other room, and Lucian Darnay would be sitting at the table, about to look up at me.
The world shivered and melted in an instant. I jerked upright and a pain shot through my neck and shoulder. I was on the floor, chilled to the bone. A fold of Seredith’s apron was digging into my cheek. There was the sound of a door shutting very near to me, and footsteps going down the steps on the other side.
I crawled out from under the bench, wincing at the crick in my neck – Ma would say it served me right for falling asleep on a cold floor – and got unsteadily to my feet. The desperate urging of the dream hadn’t quite left me, and my heart was beating faster than it should have been; but the footsteps and the closing door had been real, and a line of lamplight spilt along the sill. It was so faint I could only just see it, but it was there. Someone – de Havilland – was down there. And now I could make out muffled sounds: thumps, a clatter of something falling, a thin voice humming snatches of melodies.
I opened the door. For an instant I was back in my dream, and I expected to be in the other room, looking at Lucian Darnay’s back – I was close, so close, he’d turn and when he met my eyes I’d know. I reached out and held on to the doorframe. In front of me the steps led down to the storeroom as I’d known they would. It took me a moment to shake off the clinging sense of desperation; then I was standing in the lower room, dazzled by the sudden blaze of light. There were three lamps, perched on the table and an upturned bucket at the side of the room, as if he’d wanted to eradicate the dark entirely. He’d pushed the clutter and boxes back against the wall, pell-mell, and a huge chest sat in the centre of the floor, its lid flung back. From where I was I couldn’t see what was in it.
De Havilland stepped back, his arms full of books. The whole wall behind him was yawning open, swinging on hidden hinges, the bronze boss throwing a snub-nosed shadow on the plaster; the darkness beyond was deep, not a cupboard but a room. The walls of the vault were lined with shelves, but they were mostly empty. Only a few ranks of spines remained, where the books were too high to reach easily. The gold tooling caught the light, glinting in lines or leaves or names: Albert Smith, Emmeline Rivers née Rosier. De Havilland hummed a bar of a tuneless melody, paused, and then reached out for one more volume, leaning back and contorting himself so that he didn’t drop the rest.
‘What are you doing?’
He looked round, and the high jaunty humming stopped. ‘Apprentice,’ he said, his voice sibilant and slushy. ‘What are you doing? Out of bed at this hour? I don’t believe Seredith would have stood for it.’
‘I was in the workshop. I heard you.’
‘I am doing some very important work,’ he said. He took a few staggering steps to the chest and collapsed forward to let the books drop into it. His movements were looser than before, and he reeled as he raised his head. There was a brandy glass on the shelf inside the vault door, with nothing but an amber glint at the bottom. ‘Since you’re here, pass me one of those boxes, will you? I think any more and this will be too heavy to lift.’
I took a deep breath. Seredith was upstairs, and he was here, ripping books off the shelves, drinking, singing.
I didn’t move. He pushed past me
and upended a box on to the floor, kicking the debris aside so that he could thump the box down next to the chest. I caught a whiff of alcohol on his breath as he swung back to the vault and selected another armful of books. I bent and picked up a scorched centre-tool that had slipped out of its handle, but there was nowhere to put it. In the end I laid it carefully on the same bucket where the lamps were perched.
De Havilland turned round again, holding four or five books this time. I could see from their spines that they were good, expensive bindings – one was thick with gold, and the top one was bound in a kind of leather cutwork that must have taken hours – but he didn’t even read the names before he put them in the box. I drew closer and saw that the chest was nearly full. More books. Lovely things: one like an inlaid box, another like a lace handkerchief, one half-concealed that looked as though embers had sprayed out across scrubbed pale wood.
‘What are you doing with—’
He’d ducked into the vault again. ‘No,’ he said, tried to push a book back on to the shelf it had come from and missed. It opened in a splash of paper and thumped to the floor. ‘No, no’ – more books, and now he wasn’t even trying to put them back, they all flapped and fell like dead birds – ‘yes, lovely …’ That one he put into the box, with a gesture that might have been careful if he’d been sober. ‘Yes, yes – oh wait …’ He’d added the last of them to the yes box, but now he blinked and took it out again, squinting at the spine as if it had bitten him. It was bound in grey-green silk, blind-tooled with patterns of overlapping leaves, with here and there the glimmer of silver, like reflections on a river. I wanted to reach out and pluck it out of his grasp. ‘Whoops,’ he said, and giggled. ‘Lucian Darnay. Might be a bit tactless to send that one.’
The Binding Page 11
