The Binding. Bridget Collins

our art? You are too set in your ways.’

      ‘That’s enough!’ She thrust her tea aside, slopping it over the patchwork. ‘I am not coming to Castleford.’

      ‘This inverse snobbery is hardly in your best interests. Why you prefer to rot away in this godforsaken place—’

      ‘You don’t understand, do you?’ I had never heard Seredith struggle to control her anger, and it made my own gorge rise. ‘Apart from anything else, I can’t leave the books.’

      He put his cup down on its saucer with a clink. The signet ring on his little finger glinted. ‘Don’t be absurd. I understand your scruples, but it’s quite simple. We can take the books with us. I have space in my own vault.’

      ‘Give you my books?’ She laughed. It sounded like a twig cracking.

      ‘My vault is perfectly safe. Safer than having them in the bindery with you.’

      ‘That’s it, is it?’ She shook her head and sat back against her pillows, gasping a little. ‘I should have known. Why else would you bother to come? You’re after my books. Of course.’

      He sat up straight, and for the first time a hint of pink seeped into his cheeks. ‘There’s no need to be—’

      ‘How many of your own books actually end up in your vault? You think I don’t know how you pay for your new bindery and your – your waistcoats?’

      ‘There’s nothing illegal about trade binding. It’s merely prejudice.’

      ‘I’m not talking about trade binding,’ she said, her mouth twisting on the words as if they tasted bitter. ‘I’m talking about selling true bindings, without consent. And that is illegal.’

      They stared at each other for a moment. Seredith’s hand was a white knot of tendons at her throat; she was clutching the key she wore round her neck as if it was in danger of being wrenched away from her.

      ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ de Havilland said, getting to his feet. ‘I don’t know why I bother.’

      ‘Neither do I. Why don’t you go home?’

      He gave a theatrical sigh, raising his eyes to the cracked plaster on the ceiling. ‘I’ll go home when you’re better.’

      ‘Or when I’m dead. That’s really what you’re waiting for, isn’t it?’

      He made a little mocking bow in her direction and strode towards the door. I leant back against the wall to let him pass, and he caught my eye and started, as if he’d forgotten I was there. ‘Hot water,’ he said. ‘In my bedroom. Immediately.’ He slammed the door behind him with a bang that made the walls tremble.

      Seredith looked at me sidelong and then ducked her head, plucking at the quilt as if she was checking that the pattern was complete. When she didn’t say anything, I cleared my throat. ‘Seredith … If you want me to make him leave …’

      ‘And how would you do that?’ She shook her head. ‘No, Emmett. He’ll go of his own accord, when he sees that I’m recovered. It won’t be long.’ There was something sour in the way she said it. ‘In the meantime …’

      ‘Yes?’

      She met my eyes. ‘Try not to lose your temper with him. You may need him, yet.’

      But that flicker of complicity wasn’t much consolation, as the days went on and de Havilland showed no sign of leaving. I couldn’t understand why Seredith put up with him, but I knew that without her permission I couldn’t tell him to go. And knowing that it was my own fault that he was there didn’t make it easier to bite my tongue when he poked quizzically at the lumps in a salt-pork stew, or threw me a couple of shirts and told me to wash them. Between my chores, looking after Seredith and the extra work he made, there was no time for anything else; the hours passed in a blur of drudgery and resentment, and I didn’t even set foot in the workshop. It was hard to remember that a few days ago, before de Havilland came, I’d felt as if the house belonged to me: now I was reduced to a slave. But the worst thing wasn’t the work – I’d worked harder than this, at home, before I got ill – it was the way de Havilland’s presence filled the house. I’d never known anyone who moved so quietly; more than once, when I was stoking the range or scrubbing a pan, I felt the chill touch of his gaze on the back of my neck. I turned round, expecting him to blink or smile, but he went on watching me as if I was a kind of animal he’d never seen before. I stared back, determined not to be the first to look away, and at last he let his eyes travel past me to what I was doing, before he drifted silently out of the room.

      One morning he passed me at the foot of the stairs as I carried a basket of logs in for the range. ‘Seredith is asleep. I’ll have a fire in the parlour.’

      I clenched my jaw and dumped the wood in the kitchen without answering. I wanted to tell him to build his own fire – or something more obscene – but the thought of Seredith helpless upstairs made me swallow the words. De Havilland was a guest, whether I liked it or not; so I piled a couple of logs against my chest and carried them across the hall to the parlour. The door was open. De Havilland had turned the writing desk around and was sitting with his back to the window. He didn’t look up when I came in, only pointed to the hearth as if I wouldn’t know where it was.

      I crouched and began to brush the remnants of the last fire out of the grate. The fine wood ash rose like the ghost of smoke. As I started to lay kindling I felt that creeping sensation at the base of my skull; it felt like a defeat to glance round to see if he was looking, but I couldn’t stop myself. De Havilland leant back in his chair and tapped his pen against his teeth. He regarded me for what felt like a long time, while the blood began to hum in my temples. Then he smiled faintly and turned his attention back to the letter he was writing.

      I forced myself to finish the fire. I lit it and waited until the flames had taken hold. Once it was burning well I stood up and tried to brush the grey smears off my shirt.

      De Havilland was reading a book. He was still holding his pen, but it lay slackly between his knuckles while he turned the pages. His face was very calm; he might have been looking out of a window. After a moment he paused, turned back a page, and made a note. When he’d finished he caught sight of me. He put down his pen and smoothed his moustache, his eyes fixed on mine above the stroking hand that covered his mouth. Abruptly his vague, interested expression gave way to a gleam of something else, and he held out the book.

      ‘Master Edward Albion,’ he said. ‘Bound by an anonymous binder from Albion’s own bindery. Black morocco, gold tooling, false raised bands. Headbands sewn in black and gold, endpapers marbled in red nonpareil. Would you care to have a look?’

      ‘I—’

      ‘Take it. Carefully,’ he added, with a sudden sharp edge in his voice. ‘It’s worth … oh, fifty guineas? Certainly more than you could ever repay.’

      I started to reach out, but something jarred in my head and I pulled back. It was the image of his face, utterly serene, as he read: words he had no right to, someone else’s memories …

      ‘No? Very well.’ He put it on the table. Then he looked back at me, as if something had occurred to him, and he shook his head. ‘I see you share Seredith’s prejudices. It’s a school binding, you know. Trade, but perfectly legitimate. Nothing to offend anyone’s sensibilities.’

      ‘You mean—’ I stopped. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking what he meant, but he narrowed his eyes as if I had.

      ‘It’s unfortunate that you’ve been learning from Seredith,’ he said. ‘You must be under the impression that binding is stuck in the Dark Ages. It’s not all occult muttering and the Hwicce Book, you know – oh.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘You’ve never heard of the Hwicce Book. Or the library at Pompeii? Or the great deathbed bindings of the Renaissance, or the Fangorn bindery, or Madame Sourly … No? The North Berwick Trials? The Crusades, presumably even you know about the Crusades?’