“I ask again, how came you here?”
She wanted to be truthful, but that was not a sensible option. Instead she attempted to remain focused on her reason for being there.
“I want to help Alice,” she said, and seeing the interest this sparked in his expression went on, “You don’t believe she has done anything to deserve being taken away by the sheriff, do you?”
“I do not. She is an honest girl. Hardworking. With a quiet mind. She has known hardships in her life and overcome them.”
“And she was happy here?”
“Happy as one can be who has lost their family and their position in life. But then, if you know Alice, you will know her history.”
“I know she needs a friend now. Someone to prove her innocence.”
“And that someone is you?”
“I want to help, but I need to know more of what has happened here.” Xanthe worried that he might ask how she came to know her, where they had met, or why she thought it was her business to defend the girl. These questions might have been in his mind, but he did not ask them. Perhaps he was waiting to see what she had to offer. Waiting to see if her actions would speak for themselves.
“Something of value went missing from the house. Something belonging to Mistress Lovewell.”
“And Alice is accused of stealing it?”
“The maid is no thief,” he said again.
“Then why did Mistress Lovewell accuse her? Why does she think Alice would steal something, risking her position, her home, her liberty, maybe her very life?”
He hesitated then, as if answering might be dangerous. As if he might unintentionally reveal something of his own opinion of his employer. And reveal it to a stranger at that. Xanthe needed to gain his trust. To show him that she was truly on Alice’s side and that he had nothing to fear from her. There was something she was becoming increasingly sure of, but still lacked proof. To voice her thoughts was to take a risk, but she could see no other way.
“The thing that was stolen,” she said, lowering her voice a little, “it was part of the mistress’s chatelaine, wasn’t it?”
His eyes widened. Clearly this was not common knowledge, and yet she, someone from outside the household, knew of it.
“The needle case and scissors were precious to the mistress,” he explained. “And they were of the finest silver. Valuable.”
Xanthe took an informed guess as to what might be the girl’s position in the house. “And Alice was accused of stealing them because she is the mistress’s maid? As such she helps care for her pieces of silver and her jewels, doesn’t she?”
“The mistress was certain she was the only one who could have taken it. Mistress Lovewell wears the chatelaine every day, so it is only ever from her sight at night. Alice is the only servant permitted to enter the mistress’s bedchamber.”
“But even if she could have taken it, why would she?”
“It seems the mistress did not concern herself with the girl’s intentions.”
“And did they find the thing in her possession?”
“They did not. It remains lost.”
“Then surely they cannot keep her locked up. They have no proof.”
Willis regarded her as if she were simple. “The word of a servant is a flimsy, weightless thing when put against the word of a great lady,” he said flatly.
He was right of course. Where was the need of proof in such a society? Mistress Lovewell was clearly a woman of power and influence. Alice’s life was in her hands. It came to her then that the missing chatelaine attachments could be the key to her freedom. If she could find them, could return them, then there would be no case against Alice. Which meant she should not go after the girl, but should stay at the house, for wasn’t it most likely that they were there somewhere still? So long as it had not been removed by someone else. This was a worrying possibility.
“Have there been any visitors to the house, Mr. Willis? Anyone else you might suspect of taking the silver?”
“The family are social enough when they’ve a mind, but there have not been functions or gatherings of late. And no hawkers or traders have called.” He narrowed his eyes at Xanthe again. “Save for yourself.”
“Mr. Willis, I believe you have a theory.… Won’t you share it with me?” she asked, holding his gaze.
“Talking out of turn can get a person into a great deal of trouble,” he said.
“I know. And I know it is asking a lot of you to trust someone who is a stranger to you. But I am here only to help Alice, truly I am. Anything you can tell me that might save her…”
He considered this for a moment and then said, “The mistress had her doubts about the maid. ’Twas Master Lovewell who took her in, against his wife’s wishes.”
“Didn’t she trust her? Or was it just that she didn’t like her?”
“She liked her well enough, for Alice is a likeable child. No, it was her background that did not sit well with the mistress. Her husband held that Alice’s past should not be a bar to her future, but the mistress was not comfortable with showing herself to be in sympathy to a person whose family were executed as traitors.”
Xanthe opened her mouth to start on a whole heap of questions that instantly formed in her mind. Traitors! But Willis held up his hand.
“I’ll speak no more on the matter. You may stay the night, but be gone before the master is about in the morning. I wish you well with your task, but I can do nothing further. To do so would put Peter in peril too, and that I will not risk. Not for anyone.”
“I understand.”
He pointed at a stack of horse rugs. “Sleep there,” he said.
“Oh, I’m very comfortable in the hay, thank you.”
“That’s as may be, but my horses don’t want their breakfast tainted. The blankets will do for you.”
“Of course,” she said, stepping away from his precious hay. “I wasn’t thinking.…” But she was now talking to herself, as Willis was busy sweeping the cobbles between the stalls and muttering soothing words to the horses. She had been dismissed.
Later, as she lay awake, breathing in the warm, fuzzy fumes of the horses and listening to the sounds of them contentedly chomping, she wondered how long she would be compelled to stay in the past. How much time would move on at home? When would her mother notice her absence? The thought of how frantic she would be to find her daughter simply vanished caused a tightening in Xanthe’s chest. It was while she was being tormented with such thoughts that young Peter returned with a chunk of bread and a piece of cheese.
“There’s this, too,” he said, passing her a small jug of beer.
“You are a kind boy, but you must be careful. If someone caught you taking food from the pantry…”
“Oh, they won’t catch me,” he laughed lightly. “I’m like a shadow in the house. I come and go as I please. I know where the candle stubs are to be found. No one has ever seen me, nor will they.” He sat and watched her eat, staring at her as if she were the strangest sight he had ever seen. Which quite possibly she was.
“Tell me, Peter, how long have you been here at Great Chalfield?”
“I came two years since,” he said. “My ma died when I were born, and my pa had to go away to find work. Master Lovewell took me on to help Mister Willis.”
“And you are happy here?”
She could tell by his expression this question struck him as odd. Of course, the value put upon happiness, upon the importance of the individual, is such a modern idea. Peter knew his place, and it was a lowly one. His personal happiness was in all likelihood not something anyone had ever bothered to ask him about before. She tried another approach.
“Do they treat you well, the family?”
“I have my own bed in the hayloft,” he pointed up above. “And two sets of clothes. I get half a day off a month, as well as time for church twice on Sundays. And at Christmas last year the master gave me a crown!”
Xanthe had her answer. “They certainly sound l
ike good employers. I mean, good people to work for. But I thought, and I might be wrong about this, but, well, Mistress Lovewell seems the type that might be a bit … sharp sometimes?”
He nodded. “You don’t want to go getting her riled. Our mistress is a great lady of the area, you have to understand,” he said, and she heard Willis’s instruction being repeated for her benefit, “great ladies have a lot to consider. They have responsibilities. Often times they appear sharp when in truth they be so busy, so taken up with all they must do and all the people they must care for, why, ’tis only natural they should be short of good temper.”
“Well, I think she’s very lucky to have you, Peter. You are clearly a good worker and very loyal.” A thought struck her. “You are clever too, I can tell. I bet you know what month it is.”
He laughed. “A fool could tell you ’tis October.”
“And can you name our king?”
“Certainly! James the First, and I his loyal subject!” he told her with laudable sincerity.
“And the year is?”
“Sixteen hundred and five, and I shall turn twelve on Christmas Eve.”
“Excellent! I can see why the mistress keeps you here. It’s a pity she took against Alice so, isn’t it?”
This time he shook his head. “Alice never stole nothing, but the mistress never had a day’s peace since Alice came into this house.”
“Why ever not?”
He looked at the ground, picking up a piece of straw to poke at the dust, not quite daring to meet her eye any longer. When he spoke his voice was little more than a whisper, but she heard his words quite clearly.
“Mistress Lovewell might be a great lady,” he said, “but everybody’s the same underneath. Everybody looks out for themselves when they are afraid.”
“Mistress Lovewell, afraid? She doesn’t look like she’d scare easily.”
He turned his face back to her then, his eyes showing that he too knew about the fear his mistress felt. “She’s not frightened of ordinary things, not like me being afraid of the dark,” he said, glancing up at the hayloft. “But, oh yes. The mistress is frightened all right. They all are.”
“But what are they frightened of?”
Peter would have answered but Willis’s gruff voice called to him from the stable doorway.
“Peter! Stop your jabbering now. Get to your bed. ’Twill be morning soon enough.”
The boy scuttled away without another word, leaving Xanthe to wonder what on earth it could be that had the whole family scared, and what that had to do with Mistress Lovewell wanting to get rid of Alice.
9
Xanthe snatched a few hours of sleep but was too keyed up to rest properly. Every time a horse sneezed or a dog barked or a door slammed somewhere, she sat up, listening, waiting, not quite knowing where she was. She could not cease worrying about home and Flora. How long had she been away now? What would happen if her mother had a bad night and went looking for her, only to find her bed empty? She forced herself to put her mind to what needed doing. She must find the missing needle case and scissors. She must begin her search, without being seen, as soon as possible. And the obvious place to start was inside the house.
She rose stiffly from her bed of horse blankets and crept over to the window. A misty autumn dawn was rising, giving a blurry edge to the trees and buildings as they were slowly revealed, drawn out of the receding night. She had a good view of the house itself, and of the grounds sweeping away toward the steam in the distance. She wondered how far Alice had gotten before they caught her. Had she raced away in that direction for a reason, or just run blindly anywhere to escape? Xanthe was about to risk making her way inside the house when the main door to the stables opened and Willis appeared. She should not have been surprised to find him up with first light.
“You’d best be off,” he said. “Master Lovewell will be breaking his fast soon and then be about his business. He is a man of many ideas and connections and has not time to lie long in his bed. If you are discovered, there will be questions.”
“I will go soon, I promise, but I need to get back into the house.”
“’Twill serve no purpose, and I say you will be found out.”
“I will be quick. I want only to find the needle case. How else can I prove Alice’s innocence?”
“It could be any place. Could be hidden.”
“But if you are certain Alice did not take it, who would hide it? One of the other servants?”
“You cannot accuse folk!”
“I won’t, I promise, but if you say none here could have stolen it, then it must be merely misplaced, an accident.…”
“The mistress does nothing without purpose!” he snapped.
“What do you mean? Do you think she has framed Alice to get rid of her? I mean, you suspect a trick by your mistress?”
“I will say no more.” Willis had become agitated. He strode to the small door that led out the back of the stable block. “You must leave now. If you follow the footpath to the bridge over the river you can be beyond sight before anyone is about.” When she hesitated, he added, “It will not go well for Peter if it is discovered he helped himself to food for you.”
It seemed Peter was right. Everyone was afraid, even Willis.
She had no alternative but to go. As she left she turned and said, “Thank you. For not giving me away. I am grateful.” He merely nodded in reply and closed the door after her. She set off walking, knowing he was likely watching. Only when she had reached the cover of a small copse of birch trees did she risk stepping off the path and hiding. From there she watched the house and waited. She decided that as soon as she saw any of the family leave the house she would creep back, seize the moment, and search for the scissors and needle case. If Willis’s suspicions were correct she need only search one room: Mistress Lovewell’s bedchamber.
An hour later, just as she was beginning to think her plan hopeless, she saw Willis take the best carriage to the front of the house. Moments later, the mistress and the girl Xanthe surmised must be the mistress’s daughter, still carrying her little dog, came out of the front door. Master Lovewell waved them off and went back inside. Xanthe hurried back, relying on the fact that Willis, and the rest of the household, would be too busy with their chores to notice her. She had reached a small outhouse that served as the dairy when she heard carriage wheels again. This time she was able to watch through a small, glassless window. The carriage was drawn by two handsome bay horses, and looked expensive, but not as grand or as elaborate as the mistress’s. The driver reined in the horses, and three men got out. The first was middle aged but with a stride and purpose of a younger man, wearing a sweeping cape and a matching green felt hat. Behind him came a young man with a swagger in his step, and then another man who also looked to be in his twenties. He had a serious face, slightly stern, with black hair that fell forward to partially obscure his eyes. Even at a distance she could see he had about him a restless energy.
The front door opened, and Master Lovewell came hurrying out again. He greeted his visitors warmly and seemed particularly delighted when the older man handed him what looked like a rolled-up map or set of drawings. They all made their way into the house. When he reached the door the darkest of the young men paused, as if sensing he was being watched. He turned, looking around him, until he was looking directly at Xanthe. She gasped and quickly stepped back into the shadows. He stared toward the window for a moment longer and then followed the others inside.
Her heart was racing. What would she have done if she had been discovered? What did she think she was going to do, simply walk into the house, trot up the stairs, and start searching the private quarters of the lady of the house? Suddenly it all seemed desperate and impossible. She felt almost overwhelmed by fatigue and worry, and by the thought of how very far she was from home. She found that she was holding her locket, stroking the smooth, worn gold, which was warm from lying against her skin. She held it in front of her and opened it. I
t helped to see her mother’s cheerful face smiling back at her. And then, as Xanthe looked at the photo, as she felt the pull of home and of all that she knew and loved, everything began to fade. She glanced anxiously about and saw the light of the day itself was dimming, darkening, blackening.
“No!” She could not stop herself shouting. “No, not now! Not yet!”
But she was powerless to prevent what was happening to her. She had the sensation she was falling backward, tipping, plummeting, being engulfed by a weighty darkness, and then suddenly all was blackness again as the centuries flew past her.
* * *
It took several, bleary moments to shake off a curious feeling of dislocation and confusion when Xanthe arrived back in the jail. She was short of breath, as if she had been running fast and hard, and her head pounded. Every time she opened her eyes she was almost overcome by a dizziness and a highly unpleasant bout of nausea to go with it. She sat upon the gritty floor, trying to steady her breathing and calm her ragged nerves. She was surprised to discover that it was dark. Nighttime. But which night? The one when she had left, or the following one? She had spent a whole night in the stables, but had time moved at the same rate in her own era during her absence? A sudden surge of fear drove her to her unsteady feet. Was the ghost waiting for her? What would she do now that she had returned, and more importantly, returned before she had a chance to help Alice? She tensed, listening, searching for that cold presence. To her relief, she could detect nothing. She searched the floor blindly, feeling for the rest of the chatelaine. As soon as she had found it she hurried from the jail and crept back into the house, tiptoeing up the stairs and into her room. She checked her phone. Ten minutes past twelve. And the date was the same as the day she had left. She distinctly remembered the clocks downstairs in the shop striking twelve, which meant all the time she had spent in the past had only amounted to a matter of minutes back home. Roughly ten hours in the seventeenth century equaled ten minutes in the present day. She had no way of fathoming a why or a how for this, so that it was simply something else to make her head swim.
The Little Shop of Found Things--A Novel Page 10