Darkwater

nine

Church was strange.

Azrael sat in the Trevelyan pew—she had never seen him there before. Darkly elegant, he listened to the sermon with scholarly reserve, raising an eyebrow now and then, or flicking a speck of dust off his knees, so that old Mr. Martin the rector got flustered and lost his place in his notes.

In her new dress Sarah felt everyone was looking at her. Mrs. Hubbard certainly was, over the rim of a gilt pince-nez, and behind her Major Fleetwood, his wife, and seven children, all identically dressed. Demure, Sarah smiled down at her gloves.

Over the chancel arch, there was a Doom painting. She had stared at it countless times before, but today it held her eyes as the doleful hymns of the service were sung, and the sea fog dimmed the candles and made old men cough. On the left a hideous demon grimaced and capered; his black, tailed attendants forcing damned souls into the grinning mouth of a vast hell; inside was all fire and torment. Small naked figures were being pulled out of their graves, wealthy and wailing, some with crowns, some with miters, tearing their hair, wringing their hands. It reminded her of Azrael’s strange eagerness over the cards. She’d heard stories from Martha about men who’d sold their souls. To the devil.

He hadn’t been joking.

The fear she had felt swept back, and she fidgeted, dropped a glove and picked it up. And for a moment, as she glanced back up at the picture, she saw herself in it, a small white-faced creature half out of a grave, wailing, and her father and grandfather and all the faces from the paintings screaming silently around her, so that she froze in her seat, eyes widening slowly, the mists of sea fog obscuring the ancient plaster.

And then they were only small, indistinct sinners again, lost in disintegrating, flaking paint.

She shivered. On the right, things were better. She preferred this side. Just above Azrael’s head the blessed spirits ascended, ranks of beautifully delicate winged angels in white, guiding the righteous up ladders. The top of the painting was long lost. Ghosts of figures loomed there, brilliant, barely seen.

Azrael caught her eye, and winked darkly.

Mr. Martin lost his place again.

“Are you sure?” Martha said anxiously. “You really like it there?”

Sarah unpacked the fruit and cake and sweetmeats Azrael’s cook had given her. “Yes, I told you! It’s fine! These are for Papa. Don’t tell him where they came from.”

“He’ll know,” Martha said drily.

“How has he been?”

“Tormented.” The stout woman sighed, hitching the baby up on her hip. “So fretful. Sits all day and says nothing. You’d best see for yourself, Sarah.”

Reluctant, she turned. Even after only a week at Darkwater the cottage depressed her. She saw now how dim and smoky and filthy it was, and she knew for the first time something of the despair her father must have felt, how heartbroken he and his young bride must have been, on that terrible day fifteen years ago. She stared at the row of cracked plates with loathing. She knew one thing already. She could never live here again. And suddenly she hated it that Martha had to live here, that all of them had to endure it, the squalid cottages, the boys with no shoes, the red raw hands of the fishwives, salt-swollen at the harbor. She hated it that they worked so hard, in the fields, down the mines, Jack out at sea for days, and all for so little. Martha could barely write her own name. And was proud of the cracked plates, because there were six, all matching.

It made Sarah despair. Because there was nothing she would ever be able to do.

For any of them.

Her father was sitting up in the meager bed. He was reading an old newspaper, but he laid it down and looked at her coldly as she came in.

“New dress, I see. More than I could ever have bought you.”

She ignored it, and sat on the bed. He seemed weaker.

“How have you been, Papa?”

“As you’d expect. I exist, Sarah. I do not live. I think of you, up there. A servant in our house.”

She felt sure he was desperate to know all about it, but would never ask. She began to describe the wonders of the library but he cut her short at once, angrily. “Please. I have no desire to know the details of my destroyer’s dissolute life.”

“He’s not like that.” Sarah took an exasperated breath. “He’s quite likeable, really.”

“Indeed.” Her father coughed painfully. “You seem to have taken to his servitude easily enough. You obviously don’t feel the shame of it. Still”—he waved a bone-frail hand and picked up the newspaper—“that’s to be expected. Your mother had no feeling for the family. You have always taken after her.”

White-faced with sudden fury she stood, hot tears prickling her eyes. She couldn’t trust herself to say anything. Stalking past Martha she snatched her shawl and said, “I’ll be back next week.”

But she wondered if she would.

In Newhaven Cove the wind was whipping up a storm, but she didn’t care. It blew her hair all over and she let it. Tonight was All Hallows Eve. Tonight the wind would blow the ghost ships to land, and all the spirits of the drowned would climb the cliff path to the church. She watched the waves crash on barnacled rocks, spray flying as high as her own anger.

He was old. All the joy, all the excitement had withered out of him, so that all he could brood on were his misfortunes. She’d never be like that. She’d never let herself grow old. And it would go on until he died, because even twelve shillings all found wouldn’t change things. He’d die in a damp bed in someone else’s cottage, a man with no hope and nothing left but pride. There was nothing she could do about that either.

Unless she really sold her soul to the devil.

Turning, tired with anger and a bitter grief, she came across footprints. They crossed the ridged beach, crisscrossed by wandering paws, rock pool to rock pool. She followed them, walking fast, but she had to scramble to the cliff base before she found the tramp. He was sitting on a rock, gazing out to sea.

“Hello,” she said.

The tramp turned. His red, coarsened face broke into a toothless grin.

“Well, if it isn’t the angry girl. Still angry too. Better dressed, though, and a mite cleaner. Saw that in the chapel, I did.”

She sat by him, kicking sand from her boots. “I didn’t see you.”

“I was there. All watching thee, they were, the parish busies. And how is it, working for the Prince of Darkness?”

She laughed. “Is that what they call him?”

“ ’Tis what I call him. Don’t thee trust him, mind. Not an inch. The devil incarnate, that one. Even his Hall built over a chasm that leads straight to hell.”

Sarah forced down her fear. “Rubbish. You don’t know him.”

“Don’t I?” The tramp stood up. “That one and I go way back. I could tell ye things about him . . .”

“What things?”

The tramp studied her. “How brave art thou?”

“Brave enough.”

“Aye?” He nodded gravely. “Well, look now. I’ll be outside, in the Bear Garden, before dark. Don’t come out after. Reckon you can get me summat to eat?” She nodded, rubbing the dog’s dirty fur.

“Well, bring it. And in return I’ll tell thee some home truths about thy precious Lord Azrael.”

He shuffled off down the path toward Mamble. At the bend he turned, hitching up his belt of rope. “Be careful. Don’t tha make any agreement with him. No wagers, mind.”

For a long time, cold, ignoring the rain, she watched him go.

In the library, Azrael was sitting at the telescope, preoccupied. Behind him Scrab fussed around with a feather duster.

As she took off her coat, she felt his dark eyes watching her.

“Sarah,” he asked quietly, “who was that you were talking to?”

She turned, surprised; saw the lens cap was off, the brass tube tilted down. Scrab, now sweeping a burnt, twisted mass of glass off the floor, grinned to himself.

“Have you been watching me?” she snapped.

He looked abashed. “It was accidental.”

“Oh, was it! Well you’ve got no right. I can talk to whomever I want!” Then she remembered he was her employer and took an angry breath. “It was just some tramp, anyway.”

Azrael looked worried. He got up and wandered to the fireplace, crunching on the glass shards without noticing. Scrab scowled up at him. “Watch yerself!”

“I don’t want you to speak to him again,” Azrael said.

Sarah stared. Then she said, “Why not?”

He picked up a small glass globe and shook it gently. Hundreds of tiny white snowflakes swirled and drifted inside. “He reminds me of someone I once knew. A troublemaker. A liar.” He looked at her sidelong. “I don’t want him on my land. I don’t want you to speak to him.”

“You can’t tell me whom to speak to.”

He put the globe down, watching the flakes settle. Then he said, “You work for me now, Sarah. Don’t forget that.”

His face was troubled.

“You don’t own me,” she said. “Yet.”

But she knew a threat when she heard it.