The Binding

by Bridget Collins

I imagined him sinking gently into the mud, up to his knees, then his waist.

He was behind me. I’d only looked at him for a second, but I could still see his face as clearly as if it was reflected in the window: white, smudged with shadows, with red-rimmed eyes. A deathbed face, a face no one would want to look at.

The sweet scorched smell of the tools on the stove was making my head ache. I reached for the smallest, an intricate center tool that never came out properly in gold. I wondered how it would feel to bring it down on the back of my other hand. Or his.

The shape of it made me think of something—half-remembered nightmares, a flash of Lucian Darnay’s face, his hungry black eyes. The darkness hung in front of me for a long time, like a fog; only there was something new in it, a flash like teeth, sharper than I could bear. Not hatred—but something that would have torn me apart if it could.

It all gave me pleasure, an unfamiliar sensuous pleasure, where everything—the neatness of a blade, the wind in the chimney, the yeasty smell of stale paste, the logs collapsing into ash in the stove—was distinct and magnified.

I took a deep breath. It was too easy to imagine sitting here, in this seat; I ought to put myself in Seredith’s chair.

“You will be out on the streets. My father will make sure of that. You condescending—you impertinent—” He stopped, breathing hard. “A man—a boy like you . . .” I said, as quietly as I could, “It’s your name, isn’t it? It’s just a name.”

“A game,” he said. “How amusing.”

“Lucian Darnay,” he said, and bowed to her. It was a low, sweeping bow, so exaggerated it seemed to take an hour; but she beamed and curtsied back as though she hadn’t noticed the mockery.

Darnay smiled and swept his hair back from his forehead. He was wearing my best shirt. The cuffs were starting to fray, and it was yellowish round the collar with age.

“I see you’ve helped yourself to my trousers too.” He turned round. There was a faint wash of red along his cheekbones, but his eyes were level and steady. “Your mother offered. She said you wouldn’t mind. But perhaps you’d rather I took them off?” “Of course not.” “If it’s an imposition—” Abruptly he started to draw the shirt over his head. I caught a glimpse of his hip above his waistband, jutting under bone-white skin.

HELLO?

“Cissy says that sometimes witches come in the night—no, listen, Em—and they leave you a pile of gold, and when you wake up, your memories are gone. So what if I already know him, only I’ve forgotten, and we’ve actually been in love before and that’s why—”

“Why would you want a terrier?” “I just . . .” He took a long breath. Something came and went behind his eyes. “Does it matter? I promise I’ll look after her.”

In the lamplight his face was tinged golden, like an ancient idol. A draft swirled a few stems of hay along the floor, and I felt a shiver start at the base of my spine. I clenched my teeth, determined not to let him see.

“Don’t be silly,” Alta said. “Just show him.” Darnay didn’t move. He was waiting for something. Belatedly, stupidly, I realized 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.”

CHRIST

“And here is Mademoiselle Emmie, modeling the latest fashion from the capital—note how the reticule worn stylishly over the shoulder displays an unusually excitable fur tippet . . .”

“If I don’t,” I said, “how will you find someone else?” “It’s you I want. If you don’t, then I’d rather have no one at all.”

Hell of a job offer

His hand was burning through my shirt, right over my heart. When I undressed tonight, I’d find the print of it on my skin.

Darnay was standing in the half-ruined doorway. His shirt was buttoned wrong, and one corner hung lower than the other. I opened my mouth to speak, but all I could do was smile.

There was a rose he picked in the shadow of the wall and pushed into the buttonhole of my shirt, and when I winced he leant forward and licked away the tiny line of blood where a thorn had scratched me.

“I know why you hated me,” he said. “Because you wanted me, and you were scared.”

“Yes? Relax, for goodness’ sake, you look like you’ve just caught your hand in a fan belt.” He laughs. That happens, once every few months or so, to men in his factories: they lose their arms. And their jobs, obviously.

Half a year, as worthless as the bits of rubbish that I found in the bottom of my trunk when I came home: a torn jeweler’s receipt, a few pheasant’s feathers, a broken wooden egg painted with flowers.

“Your tailor?” I can’t place his accent exactly, but he’s from somewhere even more provincial than Castleford. He sounds like my uncle’s cook.

“Lucian.” He starts to laugh. He doesn’t stop. I drag him to his feet again and steer him towards the nearest doorway. I fight to keep us both upright. I’m weak at the knees with triumph and euphoria and fury. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

He nods. We stare at each other. The sun flares behind him, spilling red through the gap between the tenements. It glitters in his hair. His temple and jaw and the tip of one ear glow scarlet. Unexpectedly, as sudden as the flood of sunlight, he smiles at me. It changes his face completely. I can’t remember anyone looking at me like that, ever. It makes the sunset redder, the scent of soot and paraffin sharper, the cold ache in my fingers more intense. The wind sings in a chimney somewhere above us. A crumple of paper whispers and swoops across the cobbles. The horn of a distant factory blares. He reaches out and brushes my cheek.

He smiles. It’s a crooked, reluctant smile, but there’s no mockery in it. For a split second color dances on the edge of my vision, a sense of light and space as if someone has lifted the lid of a box.

It’s good. Medicinal. It feels virtuous and nourishing. Not like my father’s expensive stuff, which I drink to get drunk on. Heat and sweetness pool on my tongue. This is like drinking sunlight.

He spreads his hands over the hottest part of the stove. Then he lowers them, slowly, until he’s nearly touching the metal.

I’m so tired. I have to pull away. If he looks at me, he’ll see . . . But my head is spinning. If I fell now, he’d catch me.

As if he knew me already, knew my body right down to my bones.

“What is it you think you did, Lucian? What’s worth dying for?”

Under everything is happiness so deep and rich it’s like dark wet earth. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know why it’s there. But I could reach out and grab a fistful of it.