“She has the mark. They will come,” the Crone said simply.
A sudden loud knock on the door made both girls jump. A wisp of fear flickered in the Crone’s eyes and then it was gone, replaced by a look of grim expectancy.
“Into the back room with ye both!” she whispered. “Hide yourselves so as not to be found.” The knock sounded again, this time louder and more impatiently. The Crone grabbed Tess by her arm. “Ye’ll come to know things, Quintspinner. Do not doubt your inner voice. It will not fail ye, if ye choose to hear it.”
The knock swelled into a fierce pounding. Tess and Cassie barely had time to slip behind the curtain into the small back room before the front door burst open admitting two strangers. In the murky back room the two young women crouched behind a narrow open-face cupboard. Its sway-backed shelves were laden with jars and small lumpy sacks. Other than a few hand tools leaning against the far wall, and a grimy straw mattress lying on the floor, the room was empty.
“Surely you have no reason to keep us waiting out in the filth of your street,” one of the strangers began. His voice was deep and he spoke with the clipped words of an educated man. “However,” he sniffed with great distaste, “it may have been more pure of air than in here, after all.” He sniffed again. “What is that particular scent?”
“Only tea, Sir. An’ perhaps the blend of the herbs an’ roots,” the Crone offered.
“Yes, I suppose there’s no accounting for peasants’ fondness for things from the bog, disgusting as that may be ….” His voice trailed off and although Tess and Cassie dared not look out past the thin sheet separating the two rooms, they could hear the shuffle of the gentlemen’s shoes and the click of heels on the floor as the visitors shifted their weight from foot to foot, obviously looking about the room.
The deep voice spoke again. “You are aware, I am sure, that each time in the past year, when I sought out your debatable services, it was on behalf of George Augustus, Prince of Wales.”
“I’ve not forgotten nor misunderstood Your Sir’s visits to me,” the Crone replied.
“And do you recall your words to me during our last encounter, the one for which not even I, the Prince’s own courtier, could dissuade him from seeking your dubious advice with regards to his newborn son’s safety? I speak, of course, of the delicate matter that arose between the Prince and his father, His Majesty, King George. In fact, I speak specifically of the King’s appointment of Lord Chamberlain, Duke of Newcastle, as one of the sponsors of the child.”
“I am aware of that of which ye speak, Sir.”
“It was a matter in which you advised that although the Prince greatly objected to this godparent arrangement, that such an appointment would result in no harm.”
“I do recall my own words, Sir.”
“But … perhaps not even as great a seer as yourself,” he sneered, his contempt for her plainly audible and barely in check, “is aware of the circumstances which have transpired from that appointment.”
The Crone remained silent. Any reply from her now would only be construed as a hostile challenge by the courtier.
“At the child’s christening, the Prince of Wales and the Lord Chamberlain publicly spoke words of disagreement to one another, leading his Lordship to mistakenly believe that the Prince had issued to him, a challenge to a duel. His Highness, King George became enraged by the Prince’s participation in the argument and he has therefore banished the Prince and his wife from the royal residence within St. James Palace.”
There was an audible gasp from the Crone.
“I see you may be taken aback by the news,” the courtier chuckled, and then his voice became hard and full of malice. “They must now reside at Leicester House,” he hissed, “but His Highness has decreed that their children are to be separated from them and left behind at St. James under the care of the King.”
“Is the male child alive and thus far healthy?” the Crone interjected.
“Alive? Yes. Healthy? For the time being. But how long can a child thrive and flourish without the love and care that only his mother can provide to him? Hmm?” He took a step forward and slammed his fist upon the table. “Safe! You predicted him to be safe!”
Tess’s ears began to itch once more. Can it be? She must be spinning the ring!
Recovering his composure, the courtier cleared his throat and continued. “I see that you are in possession of a piece of jewelry fine enough in appearance so as to properly belong to the Prince himself. I believe that I might be able to obtain the Prince’s forgiveness of you if I were to present him with such a gift from your miserable self–”
The high pitched hum in Tess’s ears had changed in tone, from a pleasant harmonious sound to a shrill squeal that seemed to be stabbing somewhere inside her skull.
“Ye’ll not come to have a spinner in your possession while there is breath in my body!” the Crone cried.
“As you wish, useless old woman!” the man growled. “I had heard it talked about, that your so called power of predictions was gained from a talisman of some sort. I just had no idea that it would have another, more worldly value to me!”
A heavy thud of a stool and that of a body hitting the floor together was mixed with a bitter shriek of agony from the Crone. Blindly grabbing a bag of roots off a shelf Tess sprang into the forward room, a defiant cry escaping from her throat. Swinging the bag overhead, she brought it crashing down upon the courtier’s head. The man screamed in fear and shock as the skin on the back of his skull split open in a spray of blood. Cassie jumped past Tess, screeching with equal volume and slicing the air with a short handled pitch fork.
The unexpected onslaught was too much for the startled men. Clutching his head, the courtier lurched for the doorway, followed quickly and nearly overrun by his companion, the two of them disappearing into their waiting carriage. The carriage bolted away as the perfectly paired horses strained forward in their harnesses under the sting of the driver’s whip.
Breathing hard, Tess and Cassie looked at one another in amazement at the success of their sudden attack. A low moan arose from the floor behind the table.
“Oh my God!” Cassie blurted, “The Crone! She’s hurt!”
Tess knelt by the woman’s body and was horrified to see a spreading blood stain widening on the floor around the woman’s head. Blood seeped from both nostrils and joined another trickle oozing from one corner of her mouth. She attempted to speak but her lips spewed only bubbles of blood and saliva. The Crone motioned weakly that Tess should bend nearer. As she did, Tess’s face hovered close to the dying woman’s.
“The ring,” the woman gurgled softly. “It must be yours now. Find it,” she whispered.
“Find it? What do you mean?” Tess cried.
With great effort the Crone held her trembling hand close to Tess’s face.
“Find it … yours …” she slurred and her hand dropped into Tess’s lap. Tess looked down and screamed.
The Crone’s fourth and fifth fingers were missing. Hacked from her hand. The wound had at first streamed dark blood but it no longer flowed, and the spilled blood was already clotting, as blood does when a heart no longer beats to push it through the vessels. The Crone’s chest rose and fell one last time in a soft wet exhalation.
“Tess! We have to get out of here! They may come back!” Cassie shook Tess by her shoulder. Tess scrambled around on her hands and knees, sweeping the floor with her hands in obvious search of something.
“What are you doing? Didn’t you hear me? We have to leave!” Cassie tugged hard on Tess’s dress collar.
“Help me find them, Cassie!”
Find what?”
Her fingers! The ring! Hurry!”
Cassie dropped to her hands and knees and the two of them scanned the floor.
“They must have taken the fingers with them,” Cassie said. “I don’t see them anywhere!”
“Keep looking!” Tess commanded, but the room was small and it took only a minute longer to prove
that Cassie was right. Neither fingers nor ring had been left behind on the floor.
“It’s no use, Tess, we have to go! How are we ever going to explain this, if someone finds us here?”
“We can’t just leave her like this,” Tess sobbed, her panic dissolving into tears. She straightened the Crone’s legs out and arranged the tattered skirt’s hem neatly over the worn slipper tops. Reaching slowly up to the woman’s face, Tess gently closed the eyelids with her fingertips. Finally, she placed the injured hand upon the woman’s chest and reached to place the other over top of the gruesome wound. As Tess pried open the fingers of the second hand to spread them over the first, she gasped. Held tightly in the hand, even in death, were two fingers with the spinner ring still in place.
Their disappearance and late return home from the market was held secondary in importance to another household situation that was in full blown crisis when Tess and Cassie slipped in through the back door and entered the kitchen.
“Oh my heavens! Where have you girls been! The Doctor, he’s been in a right state about you bein’ gone and now he’s beyond reason, what with his wee son an’ all!” Mrs. Hanley scurried into the kitchen and gathering both girls to her ample bosom, pressed them to her in a fierce hug.
“Charley? What’s wrong with him?” Tess wasn’t sure if she felt more annoyance that her baby brother was the centre of her father’s attention again, or relief that he had taken the attention away from their fateful day trip into the market.
“Ooh! It’s just awful!” Mrs. Hanley fretted, and then with a quick look over her shoulder, she continued in a hushed voice. “Even from down here, we heard Mrs. Willoughby screamin’ an’ carryin’ on somethin’ frightful. The Doctor ran up to her room an’ found her at the side of the wee lad’s crib, pointin’ at him an’ callin’ for her husband. An’ that poor babe, well, he was takin’ a fit. Oh, his eyes was rolled back just so, and his little body was shakin’ so hard you’d have thought he was dyin’! And so Dr. Willoughby was callin’ an’ callin’ fer ya’ to come an’ calm Mrs. Willoughby, so’s he could tend to the babe. But of course ya’ wasn’t here, neither of ya’, was ya’?” Her tone had changed from excited story teller to reproachful caretaker. “An’ wherever it was that ya’ was, it not bein’ here, it couldn’t have been at a worse time, what with the visitor arrivin’ at the door an’ all….”
“A fit? Is Charlie alright? What did father do? And who was the visitor?” Tess felt her heart fluttering with a fresh sense of panic.
“Ah, the Doctor was near as worked up as his wife, with their son lookin’ like that, but no sooner did the fits pass, when a man arrived, dressed in fine clothes an’ demandin’ the doctor’s presence to attend to himself. That’s when Dr. Willoughby started yellin’ fer ya’ both again, but findin’ neither one of ya’ here, he grabbed his medical satchel an’ left in a hurry with the gentleman. Said he’d need to treat the gentleman at the gent’s own residence, bein’ as how he’d probably need to sedate him an’ so thought it best that the fellow be treated in the comfort of his own bedchambers. Told me that when ya’ returned, Cassie was to tend to young Charles an’ yerself was to tend to the Missus, Tess.” She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “An’ me darlin’s, I have never seen him in such a rage….”
Dr. Willoughby arrived back home shortly after the evening meal had finished. He summoned both girls to his study, where they found him sitting behind his great desk. He wore a look of outward calm, but his hands, curled into fists so tight that his knuckles were white, belied his emotions.
He cut directly to the heart of the matter. “Explain yourselves.”
“It was my fault!” Cassie began but Tess quickly cut her off.
“There was no fault of either of us at all! We just went to the market to do the day’s shopping–”
“Tess was attacked!” Cassie interjected.
“Attacked? How so? And by whom?”
“A man, a filthy foul-smelling man, knocked me to the ground, but I bit him and he got up and ran–,” Tess admitted.
“And an old woman took us to her place for a cup of tea–,” Cassie carried on.
“You went to a complete stranger’s house? Unaccompanied at that?” Dr. Willoughby asked in frank astonishment. “What could you have possibly been thinking?”
“Father, it wasn’t just anybody, it was … the Crone,” Tess ventured to say, hoping that such a detail would be in their favor. It was not.
“The Crone?” he roared and sprang up from his chair. “A filthy old woman idolized by the superstitious peasants?”
“She’s not filthy!” Tess shouted back “She was a Spinner! She had the ring! And she knew things! And–,” her voice close to breaking, she fought to control the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes, “–and those things got her killed! By someone connected to the Prince of Wales!”
Her father’s eyes widened in disbelief. Tess continued on, her words tumbling out in a jumbled recount of the afternoon’s attack on the Crone, and of their counterattack on the Crone’s two assailants. Dr. Willoughby sunk back down into his chair, speechless.
“So we came directly back here. And we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to cause you any worry. And we thought that you might call the sheriff to report her murder,” Tess finished.
Her father stared intently at them, his nostrils flaring and his cheeks flushing with color. He looked from girl to girl before speaking.
“How dare you!” Each word was weighted and delivered with controlled anger. “I cannot believe what I am hearing!”
“But Father! We only meant to go to the market–”
“It is quite one thing to fabricate such a story to hide your impetuous behaviors, no doubt an attempt to cover up some illicit meeting with unsuitable and unsavory young men, but to go so far as to implicate the entourage of the Prince of Wales … well, I am stunned and shamed beyond words!”
“But Father!”
“Do not disrespect me any further with your lies and embellishments!” he shouted, slamming his fist down on the desk. “I will not have it! Do you hear me? As of this moment, you are both confined to your room until I say otherwise.” He paused and stared at them both before continuing. “I have just come to an immediate decision, spurred on in no small part by your actions this afternoon and your mendacious behavior just now.” His mouth pulled down at the corners, his lips forming a thin disapproving line. “We shall be leaving this residence. We shall be relocating at once.”
“What?” Tess and Cassie simultaneously gasped.
“I have been offered an appointment. A position, by the Royal Family–the very one that you attempted to discredit with your fabrication. The offer has come just this very afternoon, actually.” He waited for the effect of his words to sink in. “And as it is a posting for chief physician of a royal colony, it will mean a great deal more money and security for this family. I must admit that I had had some reservations about leaving London and embarking on such a bold adventure, but now,” and his eyes narrowed to a glare, “now I see that I must remove you both from any further temptations to forge your own carnal relationships.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes and forehead with his hand. “Perhaps Elizabeth was right. We have procrastinated far too long in this business of finding a suitable marriage partner for either of you.”
“But Father!”
“Not another word out of either of you! I have decided! Now off to your rooms until the traveling plans have been concluded. I will call for you at such time. Pack up whatever you hold dear, but no more than two trunks apiece. Now go.”
Sitting in the common drawing room between the girls’ bedrooms, Tess and Cassie mulled over the news.
“Moving? Where will we be going to, do you think?” Cassie asked nervously. It was her unspoken worry that at some point she would cease to be considered a part of the family. She wondered now if she was included in the relocation plans. She replayed the doctor’s words in her head, and then decided that
yes, he had spoken of leaving right away, and had also mentioned marriage arrangements for them both. She hoped that meant continued inclusion for her.
Tess did not answer. She was lost in thoughts of her own. Her father’s accusation that they had fabricated the afternoon’s events to cover for a supposed scandalous liaison left her outraged. How could he mistrust them so much? Tess sprang to her feet and strode over to her dresser.
“I’ll show him! Then he’ll have to believe us!”
“What do you mean? Tess what are you going to do?” Cassie’s voice was wary.
Tess spun around and stretched her left hand out. The spinner ring sparkled on her fifth finger; the tiny band fit perfectly there. “I’m going to show him this, Cassie. This is proof that things happened exactly as we said.” And with that, she left the room, closing the door behind her before Cassie could object.
Her father was still in his study, poring over papers at his desk. He looked up in surprise as Tess entered the room.
“Are you contradicting a direct order that I gave you?” he frowned.
“Father, we are telling the truth about what happened this afternoon. It happened exactly as we told you. I have proof.”
“You have witnesses willing to collaborate with your story of fantasy?”
“It was not fantasy!” Tess replied, her voice shaking with indignant anger. “Here is the ring!” She thrust her hand forward. Dr. Willoughby’s face remained impassive and as smooth as a stone wall. Coming from around the back of his desk, he approached Tess and grabbed her hand to examine the ring. Silently he scrutinized it, and then met Tess’s eyes with his own.
“Where did you get this?” His voice was cold.
“The Crone said I was to have it. Those were her last words to me before she died!” Tess felt relief flood over her. He could not dispute the ring.
Her father’s next words stunned her.
Quintspinner Page 6