What happened to it? She refused to say more.

Chapter Thirty-One

What did Shakespeare know? Love must alter, or it can’t survive.

Her appetite had swelled during my early days with her. Walnuts that had to be cracked out of their shells, hard yellow cheeses, Linux’s roasted goose with potatoes roasted in fat, French madeleines. I’d taken my meals upstairs with her, on the pewter trays. But now it was back to broths and eggs, and hunger often forced me downstairs. One night, Linux had made a gooseberry tart and the pot of tea was steaming as usual on the table, with all of them sitting around it. She put the knife down and passed her hand over her mouth when she saw me.

‘Booted back down, then?’ she said.

A knocking on the jamb. Madame. She’d just come in from some ball. I rose to my feet. Earlier, I’d helped her into her long gown, lined at the bosom with gauze thin as smoke. I will not need you there tonight, she’d said. I am sure you will be glad of the rest, no? Her long white gloves were still pulled up to her elbows.

‘Where is it?’ she demanded, looking straight at me. A tremble along her jaw.

‘Where is what?’

‘You know.’

‘I do not.’ My throat went tight, bridled with humiliation. With all the others watching. Pru’s eyes on me, her mouth twisting.

‘My tincture. It is not in the usual place.’

‘Your medicine, Madame?’ said Linux, her own lips smoothed into a smile. ‘I could come up if you like? Help you look?’

‘No, Mrs Linux. I would not like. Because Frances knows where it is.’ She tilted her chin, tapping a hand against her skirts. I was in those days always at the mercy of her mood.

‘But I don’t,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen it.’

Linux’s face pulled like a lace through a boot. ‘What if I sent you up some nice chamomile, Madame? Would you like that? Or you could sit down here awhile? There’s a lovely tart.’

The next day was hot but with a bluster to it. The park was quiet. We walked in silence, passed not another soul. The trees and flowers and the lake wove in and out of my eyes. The leaves were like little green planks floating on an ocean. There’d been no opium for me that day, and pain roared through my head. I felt cornered by the pair of them. And nothing could stop the fear that crawled up my throat. Never let your lady get bored. I stopped on the path. Black birds looped high and sometimes circled low to fill my ears with song or to perch on branches and stare.

‘I would move up into one of those elms . . .’ she said, her head turned to the sky. We were friends again. ‘Or I would make myself a little bed close to the Serpentine, sleep under a blue-black sky, make love to stars. La! What would they say about eccentric Meg Benham then?’ She turned towards me; her eyes glittered. ‘I am sorry I accused you . . . last night . . .’