The Binding

by Bridget Collins

  ‘I remember the way. Go back to work. And don’t tell anyone we’re here. Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’ She waits for Emmett to dismiss her with a gesture. Then she scurries away. When she gets to the door she fumbles with the handle for a long time before it finally turns. Then the door closes behind her.

  Emmett breathes out. He bends over, bracing himself against the wall. He’s shaking as much as she was. After a moment he stands up straight. ‘Come on. It’s this way, I think. Maybe I should have let her show us. I wasn’t thinking.’ He pushes open a different door. An identical passage disappears into darkness like a tunnel. It’s painted green-and-cream like the servants’ quarters at home. He hurries along, counting doors. At last he stops and pushes one open. He swears under his breath. He tries the next. Then he grabs my arm and pulls me through.

  We’re in the main hall. On our left there’s a great marble-balustraded staircase. A drawing room opens on the other side. We go down a long wide gallery paved with lozenges of daylight. Huge paintings hang on the walls. Battles. Hunting scenes. Bared teeth and blood.

  We walk to the last door at the end. My head pounds with the effort it takes not to run. Emmett opens the door. He exhales slowly. He steps to one side like a footman to let me pass. Then he follows me through the doorway.

  The library is a tall, light room. High mullioned windows on two sides look out on an avenue of limes. The other walls are bookcases. More books than we had at school. A gleaming spiral staircase leads to a walkway above our heads. The fireplace is carved white marble. Plump cherubs balance heavy tomes on their dimpled knees. Nymphs peep between vine leaves, their eyes wide. Satyrs write. There’s the end of a fire in the grate, still flickering. Fire-buckets filled with sand stand ready on either side. The armchair on the hearthrug holds the shape of someone’s body. I imagine Latworthy taking coffee in here before he left for my wedding: relaxed, amused, flicking idly through my book. A mixture of hope and shame pulses, deep in my gut. But if he was reading my book, he’s put it back on the shelf. Everything is in its place.

  A desk stands in front of the windows. I pull out the narrow wooden chair and sit down. My palms are slick with sweat.

  Emmett shuts the door and shoots the bolt across. He laughs under his breath. Finally he pulls off his gloves and pushes his hair off his face. I was right before, when I thought he was wearing a ring. It’s a thick silver band, set with a blue-green stone. The sort of thing de Havilland might wear, or my father. Not ugly, but surprising. He wasn’t wearing it yesterday; he must have stolen it from somewhere. He turns to me. ‘Lucian? What’s the matter?’

  I pull one drawer of the desk open. It’s full of creamy paper. The other drawer is locked.

  ‘What is it? Are you all right?’

  I tilt the inkwell. It’s nearly empty. I hold it still, wondering if what I can see is ink or shadow. I clear my throat. ‘Would you have done it?’

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘Bound her. The maid. If she’d refused …’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  I put the inkwell down. I swing round to face him. I keep my voice level. ‘You threatened to take all her memories. Even her name.’

  He blinks. A smile comes and goes at the corner of his mouth. ‘Of course not. I couldn’t.’

  ‘You threatened to.’

  ‘No, I mean I couldn’t. It’s not possible. You need someone to let you bind them, you can’t just … I’m a binder, not a wizard.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘You need someone’s consent. Always. Even with Nell.’

  ‘I thought …’ My voice breaks. I find myself adjusting my cravat. I check my cuffs. They’re dirty. My stomach is churning. ‘Good. That’s good.’

  ‘You didn’t think – seriously, Lucian?’

  ‘No, I thought I’d ask, that’s all.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Better to be quite clear about these things.’ He scratches his head and looks away.

  ‘Don’t laugh. How could I have known?’

  ‘I’m not laughing,’ he says. His eyes are bright hazel, like rain on growing wood. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt her.’

  A clock strikes somewhere. I jump to my feet. He straightens and looks round. Suddenly his face is different: alert, concentrated. We don’t have much time.

  ‘Right.’ He turns on his heel in a circle.

  I look round too. I open my mouth. But there’s no need to say it. We can both see how many books there are. I start to scan the nearest bookcase. Names. Names and names and names. Any of them could be mine. ‘There’s no kind of order to these.’

  ‘Those are too old, anyway. Your book is silk, not book-cloth or leather. It’s a kind of grey-green.’ He runs his finger along the shelf nearest to him, so quickly he can’t be reading the spines. He glances over his shoulder. ‘It’s all right. We’ll find it.’

  I look round. Hundreds of books. Thousands.

  ‘No … no … no …’ He steps sideways. His fingernail flicks over the backs of the books. In the quiet it sounds as loud as a child dragging a stick along railings. He gets to the corner of the room. The clock strikes again. Fifteen minutes gone. We look at each other. ‘There has to be an order to them. They’re not alphabetical. There has to be …’

  I shrug. I can’t think.

  He steps back and surveys the bookcases. ‘Look for the colour. Unless he’s had library covers put on …’ He stops, as if the thought is too heavy to hold. ‘I promise we’ll find it. We just have to look. We can’t give up.’

  I nod. At the Town Hall the first carriages must be rolling away. What is Honour doing right now? What is my father doing? Lord Latworthy will be on his way back here. I raise my head and look out of the window. But you can’t see the drive. There’s only the avenue of bare limes, pointing upwards like black feathers. Brownish grass. A mound of snow that’s sooty at the edges. A raven flashes out of nowhere. Its call is like cloth ripping, a little at a time.

  Emmett says, ‘What are you waiting for?’

  I turn back into the room. He’s staring at me. He looks white and strained. As if he cares about this as much as I do. If he gets caught here it’ll be transportation. At least my father will make sure I stay out of gaol. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Just look, will you?’

  ‘Yes.’ I head towards the spiral stair. The iron treads ring dully as I climb.

  Emmett mutters, ‘No … no … no …’

  Up here the covers are more varied. It’s harder to be sure I’d spot a grey-green spine. I go back to reading the names. I can feel time being used up like oxygen.

  ‘Damn it. I can’t see the names properly. This lowest shelf …’

  I glance over the railing. He’s tugging at the lock, trying to break open the bookcase. ‘Don’t be stupid! Break the glass.’

  ‘Yes. Right.’ He shoots a look at the door to the rest of the house. He pulls his elbow back and jabs it into the glass. It shatters with a deafening, world-wrenching smash.

  Silence. For an instant I hear footsteps running towards us. I realise it’s my heart.

  Emmett puffs out his breath. He reaches gingerly through the jagged hole in the pane and picks out the books one by one. He checks the spines, throws them into a pile, reaches for more. He sags. ‘No.’

  ‘Keep looking.’ But he’s a statue, staring down at the book which has fallen open in his grasp. ‘Are you reading that?’

  He snaps it shut. He sways. ‘Sorry – I can’t – I didn’t mean to …’ He reels to the desk and puts the book down. ‘It gets hold of me and I see it. Sorry.’

  ‘Damn it, Farmer!’

  ‘I said I can’t help it! I’m a binder, it sucks me in.’ He’s gone even paler than before. ‘At least we know they’re not fakes.’

  I turn back to the shelves. Names and names and names. Not mine. Once I see Darnay and it’s like an electric shock. But it’s Elizabeth Sassoon Darnay.

  Sassoon was my grandmother’s maiden name. She was cold to
us all, distant, haughty, hardly pausing as she searched every room for something she never found. But the book isn’t like that. It’s pretty. There are gold-and-blue irises curling over the brown leather. I press my finger against the glass. I want to know what happened to her. But I don’t have time.

  Emmett climbs the stairs behind me. I move aside to let him go past. But he doesn’t. He bends over the banister at the top. His eyes are closed. His face is white.

  ‘What’s the matter? Farmer?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘You look ill.’

  ‘It was the memories. Bluebell woods – his daughter’s wedding …’ He catches my eye and tries to smile. ‘It’s horrible, that’s all. They stole his life.’

  ‘Yes.’ In the back of my mind I can see William Langland, lying in the thin downland grass. Butterflies dancing in the hot air. A cloudless sky above him. Or raising his bride’s veil, bending to kiss the freckle at the side of her mouth. I turn away, crossing my arms across my chest. My mouth is sour and dry.

  Emmett shifts. I don’t look round. I don’t want him to see my face. I can still feel his arms round me, the night we spent together, the slow warmth seeping into my bones. But that’s gone. Over. I look up at the plaster on the ceiling. Frozen white fruit hangs above us, hard enough to break your teeth.

  Abruptly, he moves towards me. I turn automatically, ready to reach out for him. I’m about to say something. I don’t know what.

  He pushes past. I stumble backwards into the bookcase. ‘It’s there. I think – yes!’

  For a blank instant I don’t know what he’s talking about.

  ‘Your book. It’s there!’ He wrenches the handle of the bookcase. ‘These must be the illegal ones. The ones where people are still alive, or their families … Look.’

  He’s right. Grey-green, with my name on the spine in silver. Lucian Darnay. I should be glad, but waves of cold run through me. Maybe I never really believed it was real.

  I look away. I let my eyes rest on the nymphs carved on the fireplace. Their smooth thighs and parted lips. The satyrs lounging with their pens erect in their hands. I clear my throat. ‘Good. Take it and we’ll go.’

  ‘Of course, what do you think I …?’ He breaks off. He wrenches the handle. He puts his whole body weight into it and hisses with the strain.

  I push him out of the way. ‘Why are you wasting time? Just break it!’

  There’s a grille. An iron grille, behind the glass.

  I stare at it. The metal is dark and decorative. It’s knotted with tendrils and spirals and buds. It looks like something growing. Or something dead. The bars are too close together to let anything pass through.

  The clock strikes again. Emmett looks at me and then back at the bookcase. ‘We can get it out somehow.’

  ‘Somehow?’

  ‘Yes. Break the glass, and … Maybe we could …’ He tails off. The silence answers my question better than the words.

  I take a deep breath. For a moment everything looks like it’s trompe l’oeil: the plasterwork, the books, the furniture. Like Lisette’s old dolls’ house. Even the trees and sky outside are like a drawing on paper, pressed against the glass. I could be made of wood and wax.

  I turn my back on him. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ I go down the spiral staircase. He doesn’t follow me. ‘Leave it, Farmer.’

  ‘What? You’re not – you can’t give up. Lucian!’ He glances down over the banister, at the fire in the hearth. ‘Wait, what am I thinking? We don’t have to get it out. If we break the glass we can burn it here. Get the tongs – and one of those sand-buckets, I don’t want to set the whole house alight.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on! If Lord Latworthy gets back …’

  ‘I said no!’ There’s a silence. Over the fireplace a smug little cherub chortles over someone’s secrets.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he says, at last. ‘Why did we come here, if not for your book?’

  I draw in a long breath. ‘I want my book,’ I say. ‘I want it – safe. I want to keep it somewhere out of sight. I want to know that no one can read it. That’s all.’

  ‘But don’t you want to know?’

  ‘No.’

  More silence. I look up. He’s leaning on the banister, hair falling over his eyes, cheeks flushed. With his brown coat and leather knapsack he looks out-of-place. A thief. A binder. I don’t even know what he wants. He says quietly, ‘Why not?’

  ‘Let’s go.’ I glance at the door, but the thought of running into someone makes me shiver. I turn to the window. A magpie hops along the paving just outside. It pauses and slirts its head at me. There’s something sparkling in its beak. I step closer. No. I’m imagining it. There’s a headache starting in my temples. I unlatch the nearest casement. It’s narrow but there’s room to squeeze through.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ A pause. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of—’

  ‘Oh, really?’ I swing round. ‘I saw you when your book was burned. I thought you were dying.’

  ‘I meant the memories.’

  ‘Don’t you dare …!’ I catch myself. We both glance at the door. I lower my voice. ‘Whatever I did, I chose to get rid of it. I chose. All the things my father does – it must be worse than that, worse than anything I can imagine … So don’t you dare tell me that I should want it back.’

  ‘All I’m saying …’ He hesitates. For a moment a shrill hum swells in my ears, as if he’s on the brink of saying something I won’t be able to hear. ‘You don’t have to be afraid. I promise. Burn it.’

  ‘Stop telling me what to do!’ He winces, and I’m glad. ‘It’s my life, Farmer. I choose.’

  ‘Please, Lucian. Trust me.’

  ‘Trust you?’ I spit the words at him. I can remember how he wept and vomited the first time I saw him. Now he’s looking at me the same way I looked at him then. Pity, and contempt, and disbelief. It hurts so much it takes my breath away. ‘Why should I trust you? Because we fucked, once?’ He bends over the banister, his face lowered. I take a step towards him. ‘You think you know better than me? Well, Nell’s dead. De Havilland’s dead. Because of you. So tell me, why should I trust you?’

  Somehow, in spite of everything, I expect him to have an answer. He raises his head and meets my eyes. But he doesn’t reply. For a moment it’s as if he’s not there any more. He’s gone somewhere I can’t follow.

  I turn back to the unlatched window. I push it as wide as it will go. The magpie flies away. I catch the blue-green sheen of its feathers, like black pearl. The raw air makes my eyes sting. I clamber on to the window sill, swing one leg over and duck through the casement. I land with a painful, undignified grunt in the flowerbed. The side of my ribcage smarts where I’ve knocked it against the window frame. I glance from side to side, but there’s no one in sight. I set off down the path between the skeletal limes.

  Behind me there’s the rattle of the window as Emmett scrambles through, and the crunch of wintry plants underfoot. He’s running after me. I keep walking.

  ‘Where are you going to go, Lucian? Back to the Town Hall?’

  I shrug. I can’t look at him. Looking at him would be like deliberately putting my hand in a flame.

  He’s beside me now. He’s breathing hard. ‘And what happens to your book? You’d rather leave it here?’

  ‘I know where it is now. I’ll get my father to buy it.’

  He snorts. ‘And naturally after today your father will pander to your every whim.’

  I still don’t look at him. A few miles away, the Town Hall will be emptying. My father will be saying goodbye to the guests, making jokes, complimenting the women, smiling as if this was exactly what he had in mind. In a little while I will have to go home.

  ‘Or you could ask Lord Latworthy,’ Emmett says. He catches my arm and spins me round so that I have to meet his eyes. He gives me a sharp derisive smile. ‘If he was at your wedding. I’m sure he’d give it up without a second thought, if you just explain
ed that you wanted it back.’

  Lord Latworthy’s face flashes into my mind’s eye: avid, predatory, curious. That was why he wanted me, last night. I was a specimen. I swallow, refusing to let Emmett see how queasy I feel. ‘Maybe he would,’ I say. ‘Maybe we could come to some arrangement.’

  There’s something in my tone that makes him blink and falter. ‘All right,’ he says slowly. ‘And then what? Even if you get your hands on it … What will you do with it? Keep it in a bank vault, out of sight?’

  ‘Yes, exactly!’

  ‘And lie awake worrying about who else has the key? Get up in the middle of the night and walk halfway across Castleford to check it’s still there? Get bound again, so you can sleep at night?’

  ‘Bank vaults don’t work like that, you can’t go and open them yourself whenever you want—’

  He doesn’t seem to hear me. ‘You’ll be afraid. You’ll be constantly afraid. For ever. Is that what you want?’

  I force myself to face him. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I say.

  He lets go of me. He steps back. My arm aches where he was touching me.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asks, and I know he’s not talking about my book any more.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I dare say I can numb my fear and self-loathing with alcohol and meaningless liaisons.’

  ‘Leave off, Lucian.’

  ‘Why do you care? You’re off to Newton to find a job. You never have to see me again.’

  He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else, but in the end he only nods. He fumbles with the strap of his knapsack. A gust of cold wind flicks fragments of twig and leaf into our faces.

  I walk away. My eyes are stinging worse than ever. I break into a stumbling trot; I want to get as far away from him as possible. But a few steps later I realise he’s not following me. I glance round.

  He’s running back towards the house.

  It takes me a second to understand what he’s doing. Then I’m pelting after him, sliding on the mud-slick grass. I shout after him, ‘Hey!’

  He doesn’t even pause. He launches himself through the window, swears, and stumbles into the room clutching his elbow. By the time I’ve climbed through he’s crouching by the hearth, digging in the fire with the tongs.