“So this is where you ran off to.” Her mother’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “What’s so special that I had to come looking for you? Oh, that is pretty. A nice example, but…” As soon as she stopped looking at the chatelaine and looked up at Xanthe, she could see what was happening. Flora maintained that when her daughter was listening to a piece, she was visibly changed. Changed in a way she could never properly explain or describe, but it was always the same.
“Give me our buyer’s card,” Xanthe said, holding out her hand.
“It’s going to be expensive, Xanthe, love. All that silver…”
“Mum, I have to buy it. You know I can’t leave without it. Not now that I’ve found it.” She might more accurately have said not now it had found her.
“But you won’t want to sell it, will you?”
“Not straight away, no, but eventually I will be able to. It will be OK, trust me.”
Flora sighed, resigned to the inevitable, and as always slightly thrilled by her daughter’s gift. She had seen the same look on Xanthe’s face before, heard the same note of excitement in her voice. She passed her the buyer’s card. “Try not to completely blow the budget.”
Xanthe glanced up at the auctioneer. He had taken his place on the platform set up at the end of the barn, and his assistant was already bringing out the first lot, a small watercolor. She checked the lot number on the chatelaine. Six! There was little time for her to make her case.
At that moment they were joined by a familiar, debonair figure.
“Well, well, well, Flora Westlake. Fancy bumping into you out here in the provinces. And the heavenly Xanthe, too. What a happy coincidence.”
“Theo Hamilton,” Flora gave him a frosty smile. There was no love lost between them. While she always admitted a grudging admiration for Theo’s expertise, particularly on all things Georgian, she did not like the man and never entirely trusted him. He was a flamboyant character, well known in the trade, always to be seen in his trademark velvet jacket and silk cravat. “I never imagined you venturing beyond Chelsea,” said Flora.
“Me? Oh, darling, I love a bit of the English countryside now and again. Good for the soul, or so they tell me,” he insisted.
“Something must have tempted you out,” she said.
He gave a coy smile. “You know me too well, that’s the trouble. I’ll confess to an interest in a set of sublime Finchley dining chairs. You should see the workmanship on the carvers! Utterly divine.” He paused, lost for a moment in the thrill of the chase for beauty that all true devotees of the antiques business feel. “But what about you? I hear you have a new venture starting up, somewhere nearby?” He waved his hand in a vague and dismissive way, as if anywhere between Great Chalfield and London was uncharted territory and not worth getting out of the car for.
“That’s right,” Flora was unruffled. “Xanthe and me, together. We’re opening a shop in Marlborough.”
He gave a little laugh. “How quaint! And what has caught your attention, gorgeous girl?” he asked. Xanthe did not wish to tell him. Did not wish him to see the treasure she had unearthed, fearing that he might try to bid for it himself. But his expert eye searched the cabinet for the one item of any real value and quickly found it. “Oh! A lovely little chatelaine. Quite scarce these days. Such a wonderfully girlie item,” he declared.
“I think it’s a quality piece,” Xanthe said, torn between wanting to defend the thing and not wanting to raise his interest in it.
He leaned closer to the glass of the cabinet, taking out his eyeglass to study it more closely. “Yes, rather fine. But not much of a seller, sadly. The dear old general public are not renowned for their taste, I fear. You’re not planning to bid on it, are you?” he asked, without looking at either of them.
Xanthe glanced at her mother. Neither of them spoke. Unfortunately, Theo read a great deal into the silence.
“Darlings, one must never buy with one’s heart. That way bankruptcy lies.”
As he was making this gloomy pronouncement, a sales assistant sidled through the crowd with a key. She unlocked the cabinet and removed the chatelaine. Instinctively, Xanthe reached out and touched it. The silver should have been cool, but to her it felt so hot it almost burned her fingers. The humming in her head grew louder, and the sensation of fear returned, and for a second she clearly saw a tangled woodland, dark and wildly overgrown. It was a fleeting image, but powerfully clear and vivid.
Theo Hamilton had not yet finished. “A piece of silver frippery? Dear me, what would Philip say?”
At the mention of her husband’s name, Flora straightened herself up on her crutches. “You’d better go and stand somewhere the auctioneer can see you, Xanthe,” she said calmly, with a stern glance at Theo.
Xanthe hurried to the front of the room and found a space to one side where she would be visible to the auctioneer but also able to watch the room for competing bidders. The earlier lots were swiftly sold, and at last the moment arrived. She could detect a buzz of excitement as the chatelaine was held up. She had to pray that this excitement did not translate into bids.
The auctioneer had a voice that sounded dependable, knowledgeable, and likeable—the perfect combination of qualities for someone selling things that came without guarantees and were worth precisely as much as he could persuade an interested person to pay.
“Lot number six, a silver chatelaine, mostly Victorian, though some parts of it thought to be earlier. It is hallmarked as being made in Bristol. A fine, quality piece, I think you’ll agree. Rare to find one with so many attachments still in place. Who’ll start me off at one thousand pounds? One thousand, anyone?”
Xanthe held her breath. If someone put in such a high bid at the outset, the thing would quickly go way beyond her reach.
“Come along now, ladies and gentlemen.” The auctioneer continued to play his part in the game of want-it-don’t-want-it that the buyers insisted upon. “Let’s say eight hundred then?” He scanned the room for a twitching number card, a decisive nod, or a waving sales catalog, but found nothing. “Don’t be shy now. It’s a lovely piece. The clasp is engraved with oak leaves and acorns in a style typical of the day. I’m told the pages in the notebook are original, some even bearing writing, and the stopper of the scent bottle is intact and removable. Shall we say seven hundred and fifty? Who’ll give me seven hundred and fifty?” There was a pause, and then, “Ah, seven hundred I have. Eight hundred anywhere? At the back, yes, eight hundred, thank you.”
Xanthe’s heart sank. There were two bidders in the room, and by the way in which the price was going up, they were both determined to win the lot. The price jumped up in hundreds with sickening speed and then slowed to fifties.
“Eleven hundred and fifty. Any more, sir?”
The second bidder was losing his nerve.
“Twelve hundred, anyone?”
Xanthe took a deep breath and, catching the auctioneer’s eye, gave a firm nod.
“Twelve hundred I have. A new bidder. Twelve fifty…”
The original buyer wasn’t giving up so easily. Xanthe nodded again. She could feel her mother’s eyes boring into her all the way from the back of the room. She was painfully aware that she was spending a large portion of their entire budget for restocking the shop, but she had no choice. The chatelaine had hold of her and it would not let her go. The bidding went on, the price rising horribly.
“Thirteen … thirteen-fifty … fourteen. That’s fourteen hundred. Another fifty from you, sir? No?”
He was backing out!
“Anyone else?”
Xanthe’s heart was pounding. Fourteen hundred pounds was a high price, but she was beyond caring.
“Oh, a new bidder, on the internet. I have fifteen hundred pounds.”
The whole room gasped. A fresh bidder at this point meant the price could climb much higher. Xanthe felt herself overcome by a recklessness she was powerless to control.
“Sixteen hundred pounds!” she called out, breakin
g with both etiquette and common sense. She heard Flora say her name. How was she going to explain this to her? How could she make her understand?
The auctioneer’s voice seemed to come from far, far away. “Sixteen hundred and fifty … seventeen hundred…”
There was a terrible silence.
“Any more, ladies and gentlemen? The bid is in the room.”
The internet buyer had stalled. Would he go again?
“Are you all done at seventeen hundred pounds?” He hesitated, his gavel raised, sweeping the room in a final search, then bang! He brought his hammer down with a sharp rap upon the desk. “Sold!”
Xanthe held up her number with a shaky hand. She was still shaking when Flora came to stand beside her.
“I’m sorry,” Xanthe said. “I had to. I just had to.”
Her mother gave a shrug and a small smile. “It sang to you.”
“But, it was a lot of money.…”
“Xanthe, love, I understand. Now, let me get to that seat so I can put down these sticks and do some bidding of my own.”
* * *
At a distance of but a few miles yet also several centuries, Mistress Merton felt the connection, knew that it had been made. The girl’s gift had led her to the chatelaine. The silver link to her own daughter was now linked to the one, the only one, who had the ability to use it. It remained Margaret’s task to see that she did not fail.
3
They left Great Chalfield a little after three, having bought sandwiches from the pop-up cafe for lunch. Flora had withstood the rigors of the day well, and it was not her habit to complain, but Xanthe could see she was struggling by the time they had everything loaded into the car. She found her a bottle of water so she could take some more painkillers before setting off. If Xanthe felt bad about squandering so much of their budget on the chatelaine, she felt even worse when she thought of how most of what Flora did she did through pain. What manner of daughter was she if she failed to hold that truth in her mind? There were occasions when she wished her mother would allow herself to give in to her own frustrations, to vent her own anger and temper. There were times when her stoicism had the effect of making Xanthe feel inadequate. She was certain that, were their situations reversed, she would not be blessed with the same fortitude and patience.
“I’m sorry,” Xanthe said as she steered the taxi along the twisting road toward home. “About the chatelaine, I mean.” Even as she said it she knew she would buy it all over again if she had to. It was not an easy life, being pulled between her love for her mother and the overwhelming, otherworldly connection she felt to certain objects.
“It’s OK. I know how much these special pieces mean to you.”
“This one is different from the others.”
“How different? More expensive perhaps?”
Xanthe took her eyes off the road to check her mother’s expression and was relieved to see a wicked grin.
She felt herself relax, happy to have her mother’s understanding yet again. “I can’t explain,” she told her. “It just…”
“—sang to you. I know, love.”
“We will sell it. One day. Let me clean it up, take a good look at it. Listen to it. Find out its story.” She was about to say more, but at that moment a car came tearing around the bend toward them. It was traveling at a reckless speed and the driver scarcely had control, letting it drift over the white line onto the other side of the road. Flora uttered an oath. Xanthe swerved as best she could, but the road was narrow with high hedges on either side, so that there was really nowhere to go. There was a thud and a smashing noise, and she felt the impact shudder through the car. Slamming on the brakes she brought the cab to a halt.
“Idiot!” she shouted at the disappearing car. “He must know he hit us.”
“Well, he’s not stopping to talk about it.”
He certainly was not. In seconds he was out of sight. Xanthe, shaking a little, got out of the car to check the damage. The noise had been the sound of the side mirror being hit and snapped off. She walked back and retrieved its shattered pieces from the road. “Shit,” she said to herself. It was ruined beyond repair and replacement parts for old taxis were hard to come by. When she returned to the car, her mother put a hand on her arm.
“Are you OK?”
She nodded. “Bit shaken. We were lucky.”
“Your poor car.”
“Cars can be fixed,” she said, trying to put from her mind how close they had come to a serious accident. “Come on, let’s get home. I want to see what you bought.”
Flora brightened at this and chatted for the rest of the journey about the lovely pieces she had been able to get for the shop. Even so, when they drew up outside the front door she struggled to get out of her seat.
“Go on in and sit down,” Xanthe told her.
“You can’t unload all those things on your own.”
“Yes, I can.”
“I want to help.”
“And I want a cup of tea. I’ll fetch some milk before I come up. Now, will you go and put the kettle on? Please?”
Flora hesitated for a moment and then nodded, heading for the apartment with determined, frustrated stabs at the ground with her crutches as she went. Xanthe climbed into the back of the taxi and started to sort through the boxes. All the while, she was aware of the presence of the chatelaine and longed to take it somewhere quiet so that she might sit with it and hear what it had to tell her. She wanted to know why it had made her feel such awful fear. She always felt something, but not such a shocking sense of foreboding. First, however, there was stock to be seen to, and her mother to consider.
As she clambered among the paper-wrapped treasures, a young woman appeared in the car doorway. She was dimpled and smily, with bright red lipstick and her hair in shiny waves. She wore court shoes and tan stockings with a floral apron tied over her dress, which was pinched at the waist and had a gloriously full skirt. Xanthe was accustomed to wearing vintage clothes herself, but the woman’s whole look was so authentically from another era that for a moment she thought she might have stepped out of rehearsals for a play set in the fifties.
“Hello,” she said. “I’ve brought you a little moving-in present.”
Only then did Xanthe notice she was carrying a small tray of the most delicious looking cakes. She scrambled back out of the car.
“Wow, those look fantastic,” she said, her mouth starting to water. Until that moment, she had not realized how hungry she was. “Thanks so much.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m from over there,” the young woman said, pointing back to the chintzy cafe opposite which had a bunting-strewn sign declaring it to be GERALDINE’S TEA SHOP. “That’s me. Gerri to one and all,” she explained, passing over the tray and holding out her hand. She laughed as the two tried to shake hands while doing the swap.
“I’m Xanthe. God, I could eat all of these right now. They smell fantastic!” She wanted nothing more than to dash upstairs and share the cakes with Flora, but felt she should at least try to be neighborly. “My mother’s making tea. Why don’t you come up? Oh, sorry, not much of an offer to someone who has their own cafe! And we don’t even have any milk yet.”
“I can’t leave the tea shop. I’m on my own today. But another time, I’d love to. And I can let you have a drop of milk. Ohh!” She peered in at one of the open boxes. “What gorgeous china. I only use vintage stuff for my customers. I can see I’m going to be spending rather a lot in your shop if you’re going to stock things like that.”
“We can do a trade: cakes for cups.”
“Now that I like the sound of.”
When Xanthe had finished unloading and was about to move the car, Gerri reappeared with a bottle of milk. Xanthe thanked her and when she commented on the broken side mirror asked if there was a garage nearby who did repairs.
“There’s Walkers at the top of the high street,” she said, “but for an old car like yours you need to go and see Liam. His workshop is down by
the river behind The Feathers pub. You can’t miss it.”
At last, tired and laden with the final box of purchases, Xanthe went inside. She was surprised to find Flora in the shop talking on the landline. She could tell by her expression that all was not well. She set down the boxes and waited. When Flora finished the call she said, “That was Roland.”
“And…?” It was a measure of how often she had to speak to her divorce lawyer that they were on first-name terms.
“Well, the good news is the phone is working.”
“I can see that, Mum, stop stalling.”
“It seems your father has decided not to accept the terms of the divorce settlement after all.”
“What? But it was all agreed.”
“He’s changed his mind.”
“Or his shiny new woman has changed it for him.”
“Does it matter? The point is, he thinks the figure is too high and that I’m not entitled to half the value of the business because he owned it before we married.”
“And was running it at a loss before you took the reins. I can’t believe he’s trying to do you out of what is rightfully yours!”
“Nothing about Philip surprises me anymore,” she said, and her tone was so weary Xanthe’s heart ached for her while her blood boiled at the unfairness of it all. “Looks like we’ll have to get this place open and turning a profit very soon indeed because, from what Roland told me, it’s going to be quite a while before we see any money from the settlement at all. Once these things are contested they can take months and months.”
The Little Shop of Found Things--A Novel Page 3