I awoke in horror as he was twitching and thrashing above me, his teeth clenching around my heart, and I stared into the darkness of the box-room, stifling my panicked breathing so as not to wake the others in the house, not knowing if I had killed him or spared him.
The following morning I took myself into the gold-tooling booth in order to prepare the ‘case’ for Diprose’s peculiar commission. His instruction that I should not work on it in the presence of others suited me, for it took me away from Din for the day in both body and mind. The mechanics of attaching the cords to the boards would be complicated: I would have to construct the boards out of one thick and one thin piece of strawboard, instead of one single piece of millboard. Strawboard was softer and less durable, but this approach would enable me to sandwich the cords in between for a secure finish. It was a blessed relief to be preoccupied with something other than my feelings for the man.
It was not hard to prepare, but I found the leather strangely unwieldy. It was stiff to work with, and did not take stretching or glue well. Either it had been very badly tanned – which would have been surprising, given the previous quality of Diprose’s materials – or it was indeed the skin of an exotic animal. I traced my fingers over it. It had a strange beauty, and the light played beguilingly on its uneven surface. Several pastings were required.
I did not work on Sunday during daylight hours, but once the household was asleep I started the finishing process. It was very simple – just the Noble Savages’ arms and Knightley’s Latin pseudonym – but the leather did not respond well to heat and glair, and I had to work long into the night to get a decent finish. I was tired, and worried that I was about to get a cold, or the dreaded influenza. There was also an ache in the pit of my stomach. It did not feel like something I had eaten, or not eaten, akin to hunger though it was.
The church bells rang three times, and I was finished. I wrapped the casing in a piece of red velvet, and placed it back in the strong-box. I cleared up the remnants of leather. There was one particularly wide strip that appealed to me, and I placed it in the drawer of my desk, thinking that I would use it to make a novelty bookmark for Lucinda out of it. The rest of the leather went into the calico bag of scraps. I swept the floor, blew out the candles, and locked up.
And then I recognised the feelings for what they were. I had felt like this before, on Christmas Day. I was lonely: I craved company, gentleness and honesty. I craved Din.
Chapter Twenty
As I was going by Charing Cross,
I saw a black man upon a black horse;
They told me it was King Charles the First –
Oh dear, my heart was ready to burst!
The next day had scarcely begun in the bindery for Din and me, when we were disturbed by a scuffle in the parlour. I opened the thick wooden door to find Pansy and Sylvia having a loud argument, with Lucinda standing anxiously between them, clutching Mossie.
‘I en’t ’er slave, I en’t. I’m working for you, aren’t I, mum, an’ not ’er. I do what I can to make ’er day a bit nicer, an’ I’ve ’eaved ’er into ’er stays and tugged and primped and preened ’er for hours, but I en’t gonna do everyfin’ like a friggin’ lady’s maid. I’m sorry, mum. Your notice said sew an’ fold an’ nurse an invalid an’ a child. Not a toff an’ a baby as well. I’m sorry mum, I am. I’ll try and do better, I will. D’you want me to leave nah? I’m sorry. I won’t mind lookin’ after the baby, I won’t.’
I looked at Sylvia. Her face was clean, her hair was immaculate and high under the bonnet she had been wearing when she arrived, and her extraordinarily firm figure revealed that she was wearing a corset again. As she put on her white kid gloves, she flashed her eyes up to me from below the feathered brim. Oh yes indeed, the lady was ready to be looked at again; she was back to something resembling her old self.
‘We were a mere five minutes upstairs, altering my toilette. The girl is full of untruths.’ Then she said, more softly, ‘I’m going back to Jocelyn. I simply asked her to look after Nathaniel for the morning. I will return, of course, in time for his next feed. If he gets hungry, she can give him a paste. That’s all I asked. Don’t look at me so, Dora.’
‘You’re going back to Jocelyn? Will he take you back?’
‘Your insolence is uncalled for. He needs to see me. He will be missing me, regretting his actions, and desperate for news of me and his son. I will tell him that the jaundice has passed, and that his son has skin no darker than his own.’