The Lady's Slipper

by Deborah Swift

  ‘The woman was killed last night, and we already know from other witnesses that you were at the Fisks’ having dinner. But where was your wife, sir? Answer me that.’

  Thomas looked to her in confusion. Alice struggled and tried to speak but was silenced by the sweaty palm over her mouth and nose. It was so tight that she could not open her mouth.

  ‘At home, I suppose, where else would she be?’

  ‘Not according to some,’ said the constable. ‘And there’s talk of witchcraft. She will be held until further notice.’

  Alice redoubled her efforts, squirming her cheek against the rough hand that smelt of horse and metal and kicking out at the men’s ankles. ‘Tomcat,’ one of them said, as her pointed leather boot caught him on the shin. Helpless, she felt herself lifted by her arms over the threshold and dragged into the dark towards a waiting carriage.

  It made no sense. Nothing was making any sense. How could Margaret be dead? Alice’s feet and gown were trailing in the mud, her heels made a scraping sound, the rancid armpit of a soldier was pressed against her throat. Above her in the sky she caught a glimpse of a sickle moon before it was swallowed by cloud.

  In the doorway of her house, the stout silhouette of her husband was sharp against the gold glow of the hall sconces–the man she thought she knew, up until five minutes ago, the man she had lived with for five years, who never said boo to a goose, who had suddenly turned, boiled up like scalded milk. When she managed to momentarily free her mouth from the soldier’s hand she called out to him, ‘Thomas,’ but the silhouette did not even quiver; it remained a black outline, unmoving, a flat likeness of her husband, cut from stiff black paper.

  Pinioned to the seat of the carriage by the two soldiers, she watched helplessly it moved off, seeing its lanterns reflected in the summerhouse windows as they passed. A moment of sheer panic assailed her–the lady’s slipper seedlings, who would tend and water them? Thomas would not know to do it. Her hand felt for the bronze key to the summerhouse on its length of ribbon and her fingers closed round it, gripping it tightly, fingernails cutting into her palm. But it must be a mistake. Thomas would sort out the misunderstanding. From the back window, she screwed her head round to see if he followed on his horse, but she could see and hear nothing, only the lights of the village fading to pinpricks, and the view from the windows sinking into the hood of the night.

  Chapter 21

  Stephen was not surprised to see that his father was drunk. Geoffrey dismounted clumsily in the driveway, ignored Stephen completely and zigzagged up the steps, having abandoned his horse with its reins flapping, where it wandered off and had to be rounded up and caught by four of the lads. Stephen followed him as he shoved his way past the sundry items lying in the hallway that his mother had discarded or dropped as she fled. Geoffrey blundered into his chambers and slammed the door, and Stephen knew better than to go after him.

  He was nervous about talking with his father. His mother had always been the arbiter between them, and it was only recently that Geoffrey had begun to treat Stephen like a man and coach him in the necessary duties of estate management. Stephen was desperate to know if there was any chance his mother might be allowed to return. He did not know where she would go, could not imagine her anywhere else but in her cushioned armchair, sewing before the fire, or combing her soft yellow hair before the looking glass in her chamber. Who would replace the flowers fading in the vases? Who would play the open-lidded spinet now ominously silent in the withdrawing room?

  Also, despite visiting the Quaker meeting at Lingfell Hall, and being on tenterhooks in case he should be unmasked by the traitor Wheeler, he had been unable to uncover any evidence for a plot against the king. When eventually his father summoned him to his quarters, he was shocked at his father’s appearance. Stephen thought he himself had been hit hard by his mother’s departure, but his father looked like a ship without a wind. His breeches were muddy and crumpled, his waistcoat was stained with food and his cravat dangled unevenly over his chest.

  Stephen noticed a Bible open on the table, which was unusual, because his father hardly even paid it lip service and it was always put away immediately after morning prayers. His face was sunk into his neck, but his skin looked unusually smooth and grey as ash. His moustache was unkempt over dry, cracked lips. He was clutching a tankard–his father never drank ale, only wine and port, and the hand that held the handle had skinned knuckles and fingernails full of dirt.

  ‘Father?’ Geoffrey waved his son to a chair. ‘Is my mother—’ Geoffrey cut off the question.

  ‘Are you stupid? I said she was not to have it. The plate will go straight to that scoundrel Hetherington’s bookmaker. Your mother is gone for good. Don’t dare to mention her again, Stephen.’

  The look in Geoffrey’s eyes made Stephen’s innards turn to water. In this mood he knew better than to cross him, he could read anger simmering under the surface. Stephen lit a small clay pipe to calm himself, and savoured the smoke a moment before daring to speak.

  ‘I have been to Lingfell Hall,’ said Stephen awkwardly, ‘and met with Wheeler.’ His father’s eyes refocused themselves with difficulty.

  ‘I have found out that they are planning a rebellion against the tithe laws and are going to set a guard on the barns to stop your men collecting.’

  ‘The devil they will. What else?’

  ‘Naught else, sir. They are mostly rough men, and homely women, sir, they do not seem like an army to me.’

  ‘And you know what an army looks like?’ came the cutting reply.

  Stephen bit his lip. ‘Sir, there was no mention of anything concerning the king, or his troops—’

  ‘The fact that they do not mention an insurrection does not mean they do not have it in mind. What is Wheeler doing up there?’

  ‘He is one of their brethren, praying and so forth. There is no sign he intends anything else. He says he has given up his house and intends to live a simpler life.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that? That a wolf has become a lapdog overnight?’

  ‘He told me he finds the life hard.’

  ‘Gone soft, has he?’ A bitter laugh. ‘What more?’

  ‘I have told you, sir, nothing more. That is all there is to tell. They are planning to withhold their dues.’

  ‘And you did not delve deeper? Has he flummoxed you too? I thought you had more wit than that.’

  Stephen coloured at his father’s harsh tone and looked at his carefully roughened boots.

  ‘I cannot tell that to Lord Esham and the committee,’ said Geoffrey, ‘that you have been taken in by them, my own son. I am already a laughing stock–thanks to Ralph Hetherington. And now there will be this–look, there goes the cuckold Fisk, and his idiot son, who could not see a rebellion when it was dangling like a nosebag in front of him.’

  ‘I will go back, sir,’ said Stephen hastily. ‘I think I can win Wheeler’s confidence. I will go back to the Hall tomorrow, and try to find out the real reason he is there.’

  ‘My good name depends on it. But be careful. It sounds like you are blinded by the trees and cannot see the wood. Use your eyes, boy. And do not let him catch you off guard under any circumstances. He can be…’ His voice trailed away as if he had momentarily lost sight of the conversation and had seen something over by the bookcase. Suddenly he snapped back. ‘Now leave me be, and if you should see Patterson, send him here, I have an errand for him.’

  Stephen found himself summarily dismissed, and wandered into the gloomy drawing room. The dust was already gathering on the polished mantel. There were still half-packed trunks in the hall. His mother would not be returning. Her absence would make the time hang even more heavily on his hands. His father had not seen fit to give him any further duties or to suggest they ride out together to check the grounds and the new building work on the boundaries. The fires remained unlit, and there was a blank space on the wall where a portrait of his grandfather used to hang. Next to the chair was a side table with a
n embroidery hoop. He picked up the cotton cloth, feeling the silky threads under his fingers where the half-finished butterfly had begun to emerge under his mother’s nimble fingers. He unfastened it gently from the hoop and, folding it neatly into four, put it in the front pocket of his satchel.

  As he left the room he saw Patterson heading for the back stairs. He ignored him, skulking back behind the door, for he had no desire to face him again, to look upon the recrimination of his black eye, nor did he have any desire to deliver his father’s request.

  Over the following week, Stephen continued to dress in his rough tweeds and ride up to the Hall for the morning meeting. He kept his gloves on, for his knuckles were bruised by his encounter with Patterson and he knew this would certainly give him away if it were to be noticed. Quakers did not hold with fighting for any reason.

  When he rode up the valley, more often than not he would hear familiar hoofbeats behind and Richard Wheeler would draw up beside him, smiling under his brown felt hat. To his surprise, Stephen began to enjoy his new, fabricated personality. Sam, the mythical Quaker version of himself, was quiet and thoughtful, hardly ever spoke, listened instead of giving an opinion. It was restful to be like this, not to be giving servants orders, or be concerned with keeping up appearances, or having to keep track of his father’s ideas of who was beholden to whom.

  He told himself his silence was to avoid giving himself away, so that he could find out about the plot against the king. But he warmed to his new quiet self. As the days wore on and he had seen no suspicious talk, nor had Richard Wheeler given any indication he was anything other than a misguided man whose faith was sadly at odds with his own, Stephen was inclined to believe that his father was wrong and there was no plot against the king.

  More than that, he began to enjoy his visits, particularly the discourses on their journeys to and from the Hall. Richard Wheeler treated him as an adult, asked for and valued his opinion. Richard confided in him the circumstances of his conversion by George Fox, and although it sounded strange to Stephen’s mind, perhaps even heretical, there was no doubting Richard’s sincerity. So strongly was Richard possessed by the spirit and love of God, and so strong was his sense of purpose, that Stephen began to feel a little envious. Richard was so certain in his conviction, and Stephen began to feel his life impoverished, dry and empty in comparison. He wondered how it might feel to have a vocation, to be needed, to do things purposefully instead of just being in the sway of events.

  On one of their return journeys they stopped to shelter under a tree whilst the looming clouds shed their rain. Stephen, under the guise of Sam, asked Richard whether he thought, as did his father, that all women were of feeble virtue. Richard wiped the rain off his hands and onto his jerkin, and said, ‘No. That is surely untrue. I am sure we are all of equal virtue. Look at Dorothy. She is certainly not weak, nor Hannah Fleetwood, who is enduring prison conditions that would break many men, for her faith. It is a question of whom or what thou usest thy whole strength to serve, irrespective of whether thou art a man or a woman.’

  Out of Richard’s mouth, it sounded a noble ideal, to serve with one’s whole strength. Stephen felt as if he was not serving anything, or anyone. But he nodded as if to agree. Since his mother had left, he had received no word from her, despite her promise. Stephen looked down the valley at the sheeting rain. He was unsure whether to return to London or to go and seek out his mother. He had heard rumours his mother and Ralph Hetherington had taken ship for Ireland.

  ‘Let us hope this clears soon, it is a long stretch to Burton,’ said Richard, shaking the water off his hat and replacing it again over his springy hair.

  Stephen had forgotten he was supposed to live in Burton. He wondered what sort of a house he was supposed to inhabit there. It would be a cheerier place than Fisk Manor, that was for sure. For his home had remained exactly as it had been when his mother left. His father had dismissed all the indoor servants except the kitchen staff, so the house was cold as a crypt. Grey dust blew out of the grates into the rooms; candles burnt down and were not replaced in the chandeliers. Whenever he got home Stephen looked for his father to tell him his news, but more often than not found him slumped in bleary-eyed stupor, or heard him prowling the corridors at night walking up and down–back and forth, back and forth, in his hard-soled outdoor boots. By night Stephen could hear him moaning as if in pain.

  None of this could he tell Richard. Fortunately for Stephen, his counterpart Sam was a good listener, and Richard was used to Sam’s taciturn demeanour.

  ‘Shall we risk it?’ Stephen said, looking up at the brightening sky.

  Richard nodded and gathered up his reins. ‘On Sundays I go over to the gaol at Lancaster to take provisions for Hannah and Jack. Meat and bread, warm blankets and so forth. ’Tis a long ride. I wonder, wouldst thou join me for a meal, and then ride out with me?’

  Stephen was taken aback and did not know how to answer. If his father knew he was to dine sociably with the man who had killed his grandmother, he would never forgive him. On the other hand, perhaps his father would see it as a way for Stephen to worm his way further into Richard’s favour to uncover the anti-royalist plot. Stephen hesitated, trying to weigh it all in his mind.

  ‘No need to be embarrassed, Sam. It would be a pleasure to have thy company.’

  Stephen looked at Richard’s expectant face, his straight back, his rain-soaked shoulders broad and relaxed. This man had once been a good friend of his father, too, before the war, and it made him wonder. Stephen was curious on his own account to know more about Richard Wheeler. He did not seem to be the ruthless man his father had described.

  ‘I would like that very much.’

  ‘It is settled then.’

  The two men rode on down the track, the muddy rainwater gushing past the horses’ hooves in honey-coloured streams. Stephen did not know how he was to broach the fact with his father that he was mistaken about the Quakers. His father would not want to be told there was no anti-royalist plot, nor would he want to confess this fact to the committee. It would not be a pleasant conversation, and Stephen had a feeling that somehow he would be to blame. His father never admitted fault if there was someone else who would carry it.

  After the men went their separate ways, Stephen did not hurry home. He had no desire to answer his father’s questions. His answers would displease him, and Stephen did not want to see the thin veil of disappointment fall over his father’s face, closely followed by the inevitable virulent temper. His father was more and more distracted and morose, sunk within himself. Sometimes he looked past him, as if seeing invisible demons over Stephen’s shoulder. Also, Stephen did not want to be subject to the surly ministrations of Patterson and the other servants. Since the incident of the plate, Patterson glared upon him as if he were the Devil himself.

  He chewed his lip. There was no telling how Richard might react should he find out he was not Sam Fielding, Quaker convert, but Stephen Fisk, spy. He was an impostor at the Hall, but he was also an impostor at home; he began to think there was no Stephen Fisk, just a name, and underneath, a whirlpool of swirling contradictions. When the heavens opened again, Stephen did not push his horse forward into a trot but loitered next to the woods, rain dripping off his nose and down his neck, staring deep in thought at the blurred roofline of Fisk Manor, which rose grey and dismal through the sheeting rain.

  ‘Fetch me my horse!’ Geoffrey was impatient. He had been confined in the house long enough. He had woken with a hangover fit to shear sheep but he knew he could not let himself stay in his midden any longer. Since the death of the old woman and Emilia’s departure he had avoided facing anyone. While Emilia was packing he had been seized by a terror that he might have left some sign behind on the old woman’s body, so he had galloped out to the ditch to see if he could find a way to bury or conceal it completely.

  When he got to the spot where he had dumped it he was astonished to find it gone, and in alarm he had scoured under the hedges for t
he best part of an hour, but there was no sign of it. With a sense of foreboding he had promptly gone to the Wagon and Horses and consoled himself with a measure of ale. If his name were to be linked with the murder, even if he were to claim it was in self-defence, it would be disaster. He knew that all prisoners’ houses and lands were forfeit to the Crown. The thought of forfeiting his land filled him with fear. So he had ridden home and had stayed indoors since, trying to reason out his excuses.

  He knew he must make an appearance before any questions were asked. As for Emilia, he was damned if he would let his wife’s antics embarrass him. He would have to face the world sooner or later. He must act as if all was well with him, as if he was in complete control. As if he gave not a jot for Emilia, and knew nothing of any murder. He must see someone reliable in the village who would then testify that all was well with him. He would ride over and see how Mistress Ibbetson was faring with his orchids.

  He hoped she would have got over her recalcitrance about their business arrangement. With women, it was best to give firm guidance. He thought guiltily of Emilia; he should have kept her on a tighter rein, he could see that now. But Mistress Ibbetson would fall in with his wishes because that lazy goat of a husband had no business head on him, anyone could see that. Mistress Ibbetson would make a few extra pounds through his scheme, and he would have the prestige of being a pioneer in the use of this medicinal plant. For there was no doubt it worked. Like a miracle, his skin was softer, the itching had stopped. Even now, he could scarcely believe it.

  When he got to the Ibbetsons’ he tethered his horse as usual by the mounting block and rapped the brass knocker sharply against the door. When nobody answered he sauntered round the back and went down the path to the summerhouse. When he pushed the door it did not give, so he tried harder to force it open. When it remained obstinately shut, he banged on it with his fist. Still no answer. He peered in through the windows, but it was dark in the interior and he could not see anything, except the dim faces of the portraits of Alice’s sister, looking out with their spectral eyes.