I looked down at the heap of dark green leaves, which were already starting to lose their gloss. ‘I’m going to fetch more pins,’ I said.
‘Good idea. Oh come on, Alta, does it have to be absolutely perfect?’
I went into the kitchen and started to root through the dresser drawer, looking for pins. Ma was rolling out pastry on the table, lightly dusted in flour and as flushed as Alta. ‘Oh – Emmett – get down that jar for me, will you? And while you’re here, will you stoke up the range? And measure out a pound of sugar, will you, and put it on for caramel? Where did your father go? He promised to pluck the goose.’
When I finally got back to the parlour, they were kissing.
I froze in the doorway. No. They were dancing. She was in Darnay’s arms, but he was twirling her round, navigating smoothly past the furniture, their heads close together. Darnay was humming, a sort of melody that dropped into a breathless ‘One – two – three—’ and then ‘Side – together – good – blast, my fault—’ before he tried to pick up the tune in the same place. ‘La la la – yes, that’s right – la,’ he sang, and Alta giggled. ‘Stop it, I can’t – that was definitely your fault.’ They ground to a halt, laughing.
‘Let’s go again.’
‘You mustn’t get tired.’
‘I won’t.’ She smiled up at him, her breath coming quickly. She looked … beautiful. And his hand on her waist was elegant, aristocratic, a hand that had never done a day’s work and would never need to.
‘Well, I’m getting tired,’ Darnay said. He pushed a wisp of damp hair off her forehead and let go of her as if it was all one gesture. ‘What about the rest of these garlands? Didn’t your brother go to find some pins?’ He looked at the doorway, and saw me.
‘Emmett!’ Alta said. She skipped towards me, light-footed, as if she was still dancing. ‘Lucian’s teaching me to waltz.’
‘I saw.’ I put the box of pins down and concentrated on prying off the lid.
‘Did we look good?’
‘I can see Darnay knows what he’s doing.’
‘I’ve never done it before, Em, you can’t expect me to do it properly straight away. I just need to practise.’
She reached for Darnay, but he laughed and shook his head. ‘Sorry. I don’t have your stamina.’
‘All right then, show Emmett what to do. Then by the time you come back I’ll be perfect.’
I said, ‘Alta, you’ve only just been allowed out of bed.’
‘I think I should be going,’ Darnay said at the same time.
‘Oh no! Please, Lucian. Just a few minutes. It’s Turning Eve tomorrow, you’re meant to be kind.’
He bit his lip, half-smiling, and caught my eye. ‘Why don’t you teach him, Alta? Now you know what to do.’
‘All right, I will. But you have to stay and correct me when I teach him wrong.’ She manhandled me sideways, so that we were facing in the same direction. ‘Copy me. You step forward, side, together, like this – see? One, two, three …’
I tried to follow what she was doing. Darnay looked as if he was trying to bite back a grin.
‘No, like this – oh, you’re so slow!’
Darnay said, ‘Give him a chance, Alta.’ I paused and glanced at him, but he was watching my feet. ‘Don’t rush him. You weren’t much faster yourself.’
Alta sighed and tugged at my elbow. ‘Got it? Now, if you stand there and I stand here – you put your arms like this.’ She tried to fold me into shape, like a puppet. ‘And then you lead, one – two –three – oh, for goodness’ sake!’
‘What did I do? I thought I got it right.’
‘You’re meant to lead. It’s not meant to be me pushing you around. It’s different when Lucian does it.’
‘I’ll bet,’ I said, under my breath.
‘Lucian, show him.’ She grabbed Darnay’s arm and pulled him towards me. ‘Show him what it’s like.’
I started to say, ‘I don’t—’
Darnay said, at the same time, ‘I’m not—’ We fell silent, staring at each other. Darnay’s expression was guarded, and his cheeks were pink. ‘I don’t think your brother wants my help,’ he said. ‘Especially not with waltzing.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Alta said. ‘Just show him.’
Darnay didn’t move. He was waiting for something. Belatedly, stupidly, I realised what it was. ‘It’s all right,’ I said, in a tight, unfamiliar voice. ‘Show me.’
‘You want me to dance with you?’
I took a deep breath. ‘If you want. If that’s what Alta wants.’
He looked at me for a long time, his face unreadable. ‘Won’t it … make your skin crawl?’
‘No,’ I said, as steadily as I could. ‘I don’t think so.’
He narrowed his eyes as if I were an animal he was thinking of buying. I felt the blood building in my own cheeks, hotter and hotter. I looked away.
He laughed. It was a strange, wary, pleased sort of sound; the sound of winning without knowing why. ‘I think you were doing pretty well, actually,’ he said. ‘Your feet are fine. You need to get used to it, that’s all.’ He reached out, and hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Show him! Such a fuss about nothing,’ Alta said. ‘Honestly, boys.’
Darnay took a step closer to me. I flinched and felt him draw back; before I had time to think about it, I made myself reach out and take his hand, the way Alta had taken mine. It was warmer than I’d expected, and sticky with sweat: it felt ordinary, friendly, like Ma’s or Perannon Cooper’s. ‘Go on, then,’ I said. ‘If we must.’
‘Ready? One, two, three – one two three, one two three …’
He was stronger than I expected. We waltzed round the room, and suddenly I understood what Alta meant: I hardly had to do anything, just let myself go. But it was like an embrace, sickeningly close, so close I couldn’t catch my breath. One two three …
I stumbled. He let go of me instantly. ‘There. Now, you can show Alta.’
‘Yes.’ I blinked, trying to stop the room from spinning. The momentum wouldn’t release me. I took a step sideways and reeled. Darnay caught my elbow to hold me steady. The heat of his hand seeped through the fabric of my shirt like water. I pulled away – foolishly, instinctively – and he sprang back, his face suddenly frozen. ‘Thanks, Darnay,’ I said, but it sounded thin.
‘Alta!’ Ma was standing in the doorway. ‘What are you doing? I said you could come down here if you stayed on the settee!’
‘Oh – I was—’
‘Back to bed. Excuse me, Mr Darnay. Happy Turning.’ Ma bundled the blankets into her arms and flapped at Alta. Alta sighed, gave Darnay an intimate flash of a smile, and followed her.
Darnay and I were left alone. He looked at me as if he was about to speak, but abruptly he picked up his cloak and went out into the hall. I hesitated, staring at the forlorn pile of forgotten ivy garlands; then, in spite of myself, I went after him.
He was out in the yard. Fine snow had started to fall. He saw me, but he pulled on his gloves without pausing, as if I was part of the scenery.
‘Are you going back to Castleford for the Turning?’
‘No.’ He adjusted his gloves, and then glanced at me as if he wasn’t sure why I was still standing there. ‘My uncle celebrates the Turning, in his own way. Or so the cook says. We’ll get a haunch of venison, champagne, claret, port … Seven courses, the gold-plated china, the best silver. Just the two of us in a dining room the size of a barn.’
‘Right.’
‘Oh, it’ll be fun, I expect. He’ll be dead drunk by the second course, and then I can sit and watch him decay into his plate.’ He pulled his coat-collar closer round his chin. ‘I won’t be back here for a few days, if that’s why you’re asking.’
‘Come to dinner here.’
‘What?’
He stared at me through the gathering dusk, flakes of snow clinging to his eyebrows. I swallowed. ‘Ma and Pa would like you to. And Alta, of course. There’s enough food. We alwa
ys invite the labourers and their families, one more won’t make any difference.’
‘You’re inviting me to Turning dinner?’
I raised one shoulder, but he went on staring at me until I muttered, ‘Yes.’
His face changed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘But—’
‘You don’t really want me to, do you?’ He gave me a wry smile, as if I’d made a bad joke.
‘I wasn’t—’
‘May your darkness be quiet and the light come sooner than you need,’ he said. It was the old, formal salutation at the Turning. Then he swung himself into the saddle and left me standing in the snow, shivering.
XV
Spring seemed to come earlier than usual. There were a few more snowstorms after the year had turned, but not many; and by the second full moon the snow was pockmarked and lacy, dissolving into piles of brown-edged slush. Until it was gone altogether, and every step plunged you ankle-deep in mud – and then overnight the trees woke up and sucked the water out of the ground, and the air smelt of greenness and growing. I’d always loved the first days of spring, when suddenly the prison of winter broke wide open; but this year it was like discovering an unknown country, as if seeing it through Darnay’s town-bred eyes made everything new. Now that Alta was well again, and had chores to do, he wasn’t there every day, or for hours at once; but he kept coming, and somehow he fitted in around the life of the farm so smoothly that he began to be a part of it all. He hovered at the edge of everything, not in the way exactly, but difficult to ignore: walking up to the High Field with Alta when she brought lunch to the sowers, sniffing the wind obediently when Alfred predicted rain, recoiling, his eyes watering, from the stench of chamber ley when we walked past the barn where Pa and I had been pickling wheat. The weeks when I stayed in the shepherd’s hut for the lambing, Alta would come up in the evening with dinner; more than once he came with her and we sat for a long time drinking tea, not saying much, while the stars grew brighter and brighter. Once he was there when a lamb was born. Afterwards he knelt in the muck, his face lit by moonlight on one side and lamplight on the other, as he wiped the lamb’s muzzle clean with straw. He had blood and mucus down his shirt, but he didn’t seem to see it; he just leant over the lamb, staring, and finally looked up at me with an incredulous grin. I said to him, ‘You see? It wasn’t hard,’ and he shook his head and laughed.
And there was Splotch, of course. We all joked about her excitement the first time she sensed a rabbit, revelled in her speed as she found her feet and ran, imagined the richness of the woody, earthy scents in her nose. As we walked home one evening from the field where we’d been turning the dunghill – directed by Darnay, who’d got tired after ten minutes of working beside us – Alta said, ‘I wish I could smell like her.’ I smirked and said, ‘Actually you do, stinker,’ but I knew exactly what she meant.
It was then, while the rest of us were too busy to watch him, that Darnay should have tried to insinuate himself into Alta’s bed, if that was what he was after; but he didn’t. He was never alone with her for long; often it seemed that he’d deliberately arrived when Pa or I would be in the farmyard, and he’d ask if he could help with whatever I was working on. At times, when he was throwing a stick for Splotch or trying to coax her away from a rabbit hole, I’d watch him and tell myself that we’d all been mistaken, that all he wanted was Splotch and some company. It must have been lonely, up at his uncle’s house, and he never mentioned anyone else; maybe even his friendliness was skin-deep, and he was dallying with us out of sheer boredom. Then I’d look at Alta, and my insides would twist, because if he didn’t care for her then she’d eat her heart out wishing. But when I heard him whistling as he rode into the yard, or caught his eye as he kissed Alta’s hand in greeting, I couldn’t kid myself any longer. He was as happy as she was; as if just being with her was enough. At least for now.
By then, Splotch was old enough to leave Springle. I thought about telling Darnay to take her home and not to come back; but somehow every time the words rose to the tip of my tongue I found myself swallowing them again, putting them off for another hour, or another day. I couldn’t bear to think what it would be like once Splotch had left for good. Darnay gave us money for her food, but apart from that she wasn’t exactly his but more or less ours. It had been so long since Springle was a pup that I’d forgotten what it was like, and how we could spend every spare moment playing tug-of-war or throwing sticks, or knotting bits of rope for her to chew. The dark brown blot on Splotch’s back had gone black and her tail had been docked to a stub, but she was still small. When she wore herself out I’d put her into the canvas sack I sometimes used for poaching, with her head poking out of the top. Then Alta would walk along beside me, whispering, ‘Rabbits!’ and giggling when Splotch pricked up her ears; and once Darnay announced, to no one in particular, ‘And here is Mademoiselle Emmie, modelling the latest fashion from the capital – note how the reticule worn stylishly over the shoulder displays an unusually excitable fur tippet …’
A few days later, though, I’d been pruning the thorn hedge on the slope of the High Field, and I hadn’t brought the bag with me; so Darnay ended up carrying her back in his arms. Before we were halfway home he was muttering to her, ‘You spoilt lump, I can’t believe I’m doing this, soon you’ll be demanding a sedan chair,’ but when I offered to take her he shook his head. ‘No, it’s all right, she’s not heavy.’
‘So why are you complaining?’
‘I’m enjoying it.’ He grinned.
I rolled my eyes, but his good humour was infectious. We went down the lane abreast of each other in companionable silence, while Alta wandered behind, singing under her breath. I stepped in front of Darnay to open the gate of the Upper Field – it was fallow, and there was a shortcut that took us home – but as soon as we were through it Splotch started wriggling and whining. Darnay swore under his breath, and tried to hold on to her. ‘She’s got the scent of something. Stop it, Splotch. Stop.’ But she didn’t, until we got to the far edge of the field, where the wall of our courtyard met the hedge; then she gave a final spasmodic struggle. ‘Splotch, you half-witted cur, calm down!’ Darnay said, elbowing his way awkwardly through the door in the wall. Then he added, in a different tone, ‘Damn. She’s pissed on my shirt.’
Alta snorted with laughter, and tried to convert the sound into something polite and ladylike.
Darnay put Splotch on the ground. She streaked away into one of the corners beside the barn where the rats liked to hang about. ‘Oh, hell,’ he said, looking down at his chest. ‘I’m soaked, and I stink.’
‘You’d better change,’ Alta said.
‘It’s all right, I can ride home like this. It’s not too cold today, that’s something.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said. ‘Alta, go and get one of my shirts, will you?’ I didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘Come into the kitchen, Darnay.’
He followed me. I put a bowl of water on the range to take the chill off it. Behind me, I felt him hover in the doorway. ‘Farmer …’
‘Yes?’
‘You don’t have to lend me anything.’
I turned round. ‘What?’
For once he seemed to struggle for words. ‘If you’d rather not – I mean, I know you don’t like it.’
‘What on earth are you blathering about?’
He hesitated; then he said, in a joking tone that wasn’t joking, ‘Well, last time I borrowed one of your shirts you nearly throttled me.’
I felt the blood rise in my face. ‘If I remember rightly,’ I said, ‘you offered to take your clothes off.’
‘Technically they were your clothes.’
‘How about I promise not to throttle you, and you promise not to take off anyone’s clothes?’
‘What about my pissy shirt? Can I take that off?’
‘Shut the door. If Alta catches sight of your naked flesh she might fall into a swoon.’
‘In that case maybe you should av
ert your eyes, too.’
I grinned. I couldn’t help it.
‘Just clean yourself up, Darnay.’
He nodded to me in mock obedience and shut the kitchen door. I ducked into the pantry for a new slice of soap. When I came out he was already stripped to the waist. He wasn’t as thin as he had been; he wasn’t well-built either, but the long hours of walking and fresh air had put a layer of muscle on his ribs and chest, and his stomach was flat, not concave. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and reached for the soap.
I turned away. In spite of the jokes it made me uncomfortable to see him like that, like a labourer splashing off a day’s dirt; especially when I was fully dressed, although I didn’t know why that should make a difference.
There was a knock at the door. I opened it a fraction, plucked my spare shirt out of Alta’s hand and shut the door on her as she said, ‘I brought the one without darned bi—’
‘Ah,’ Darnay said, drawing it over his head, ‘thank you.’ It fitted him pretty well, although he had narrower shoulders than me. ‘Wait – is this the very shirt that drove you to fury?’
‘No,’ I said, before I could stop myself. ‘Shut up, Darnay.’
He laughed, with an easy, triumphant note, and adjusted the cuffs. I didn’t care any more that it was getting threadbare; he never seemed to notice how old or dirty my clothes were.
‘Can I come in yet?’ Alta said. ‘What are you two doing in there?’
‘Just a second,’ I said, and heard her sigh and tap the door with her fingernails.
Darnay was fully dressed now. He rolled the wet shirt into a ball and put it on the kitchen table. I hadn’t lit a lamp, and in the dimness the pale bundle looked like a rose. Darnay stood still, watching me. At last he said, very quietly, ‘What is it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, so quickly the syllables ran into one another. ‘I was an idiot. Sorry.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘No, I mean – all the time …’
‘It’s all right, Farmer.’
‘Stay for dinner. It’s nothing fancy, probably just pie or something but I know Ma wouldn’t mind—’
The Binding Page 20
