The Little Shop of Found Things--A Novel

by Paula Brackston

  “Come, come, girl,” the master chivvied. “Do not keep our guests waiting. What song have you for us?”

  “By your leave, Master Lovewell, sir, I shall sing ‘The Willow Song’ to start,” she told him. He gave a little nod of approval, which encouraged her sufficiently to pitch in. As she sang, a respectful air of listening came from the guests, which surprised her. Although the song was gentle and melancholy, they seemed to like her voice and were content to listen to it, at least to begin with. As she went through the verses, however, some began to fidget. She reached the end, but only just, sensing the mood in the room was changing. She had to regain their interest. She forced herself to change her stance to reflect the manner of song she was about to deliver. She was a performer, not a servant, though heaven knew it wasn’t easy feeling like one, dressed the way she was. More out of desperation than anything else, she snatched the cap from her head and tossed it over her shoulder. As luck would have it, it was Joshua who caught it, with a whoop of glee, making everyone laugh. Xanthe pulled the pins from her hair and shook it so that her ringlets tumbled down around her shoulders. While everyone was still a little stunned—she heard Mistress Lovewell gasp and dared not meet her eye—she firmly placed her hands on her hips and proceeded to walk as saucily as she knew how up and down the space in the center of the hall. “And now,” she told them, “I shall sing something altogether different. Perhaps you know it? It’s called ‘The Counterfeit Bridegroom’! At this there were squeals of delight and peals of laughter. She strode about, trying to glance at everyone and no one in particular, doing her best to avoid the mistress, but noticing Clara cheerfully clapping her hands as she began to sing the bawdy song that was more commonly heard in taverns than grand houses. Xanthe sang with verve and gusto, holding nothing back.

  Come all ye young frolicsome jilts of the town

  Whose trade like yourselves is uncertain

  Since whoring and other professions goes down,

  I’ll show you new way to good fortune!

  And it felt good. Just for those few moments, when her voice worked its magic, when the music took her, when the audience were completely caught up in the song and the fun of it all, it was good to be singing again. She knew that her mother would have been proud. When she came to the end of the song Joshua leaped to his feet.

  “Again! I say, again!” he cried, and the rest of the guests shouted their agreement.

  So she sang it again. Twice. Each time with a little more confidence. If the mistress disapproved she did not show it, for her guests were loving every minute of it. They were entertained, and they would remember the evening for it. Master Lovewell even joined in the chorus. Finally, Xanthe shook her head and said she would make way for the musicians and the dancing. She knew she had done well, and she almost managed to slip away with her reputation and position secured. Almost. When she went over to Joshua to ask for her cap back, he smiled and shook his head.

  “I don’t think our songbird should vanish back into her disguise as a servant,” he said, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, “but I have duties to attend to.”She held out her hand, but he merely frowned at the wretched cap.

  “Such an ugly thing should not hide such pretty hair. Nor should we be deprived of such talent.” He jumped to his feet. “I say our songbird should be allowed to stay and join in the dancing!”

  All around him people shouted their agreement. She tried not to look as panic-stricken as she felt. She could never manage one of their complicated dances, having no idea of the steps, a fact which would quickly become obvious to everyone. How would she explain that? She was supposed to be a singer, part of a troupe of players, of course she should know how to dance.

  “If you please, sir…” she tried again, but Joshua was unstoppable.

  “What say you, Master Lovewell?” he called across the room. “Shall she be permitted to stay and dance, or will you return our little songbird to her cage of servitude?” There were raucous jeers and boos at this idea.

  The master hauled himself to his feet again and announced with mock formality, “She shall stay!”

  There were further cheers and some laughter, and Clara clapped her hands and the musicians up in the gallery began to play, and Joshua was in the process of bowing at her to ask for the dance when Samuel darted out from behind the table and snatched up her hand.

  “The first dance is mine, I believe,” Samuel said, and led Xanthe toward the quickly gathering throng of dancers.

  17

  In the gallery the consort of musicians struck up what was, by seventeenth-century standards, a lively tune. Around Xanthe, women curtsied to their partners. Her mouth went dry. She froze. This was it. Surely this was the moment she was to be found out. Shown to be a fraud. Samuel still had hold of her hand, which was by now trembling.

  “Mistress?” he said softly, his voice questioning her sudden apparent inability to move.

  “I can’t,” she murmured.

  “What’s that you say?” He stepped closer to try and catch her frantically whispered words.

  “Forgive me,” she said, “but I cannot dance.”

  “You cannot?”

  “Not … dressed like this,” she told him, indicating her servant’s clothes. “It would not be appropriate. I should be ridiculed. Laughed at.” When he looked as if he might protest at this she hurried on, “Mistress Lovewell would be displeased, and I fear she would send me from the house the minute the party is over.”

  This seemed to strike him as a real possibility. Quickly, he pulled her hand through his arm and led her off the dance floor and back to the table. He signaled for an extra chair to be brought, and one of the serving boys swiftly set a place for her beside him. She sat down, relieved but her heart thumping, and glanced anxiously in the direction of the top table.

  “Fear not,” Samuel reassured her, “I wish to talk with you, for I would question you further on your knowledge of the Drillington screen. Your mistress will not object. I shall speak up for you, should the necessity arise.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and meant it, painfully aware of how close she had come to being exposed as a fraud. As Samuel took a carafe of wine and poured some into a silver goblet for her, she experienced a flashback to drinking wine with Liam in the garden. How different the occasions. How different the men. Where Liam was as open and sunny as the Wiltshire countryside, Samuel was an enigma, and a dark one at that. What on earth would he make of the real Xanthe Westlake, she wondered. Could a man at the beginning of the seventeenth century ever really see a woman as an equal?

  And so they talked of the screen. While all about them the revelry grew more and more boisterous, the dancing more and more exuberant, he quizzed her upon the carvings, the steepness of the arches, the finish of the wood, the thickness of the uprights, every tiny detail, all of which she struggled to recall as the wine found its way to her tired brain. After twenty minutes she noticed Mistress Lovewell staring at her with fierce disapproval. Samuel’s wishes might only count for so much, and she could not risk setting her employer against her. She rose to her feet.

  “I thank you, sir, for the wine, and for the opportunity to rest awhile, but I must return to my duties.”

  He stood up. It was a small gesture but one that suggested he no longer saw her as a servant. She noticed Joshua watching, his expression one of amusement. His attention was quickly claimed by Clara, however, who had threaded her way through the crowd to insist he dance with her.

  Samuel bowed a farewell and then a thought struck him.

  “Tell me,” he asked, “are you able to draw?”

  “Draw?”

  “If I furnished you with pen and ink and paper, might you be able to draw what you recall of the screen?”

  “Well, I can render a passable likeness,” she said, thinking of her sketchbook back home. Her drawings were quite good, but to pull so much detail out of memory—she wasn’t certain s
he could do it. She went on, “But I’m not used to using ink, and I’ve already told you all I can remember.”

  “Please, say at least you will consider it.”

  He put his hand on her arm again and gave her such a beseeching look she did not have it in her heart to say no. And in any case, she had to consider how he might, in some way, be able to help her. She had not been successful in tracking down a judge among the guests, and still she did not know where the chatelaine pieces were hidden. It would not harm her cause to have someone of influence owing her a favor. She would just have to think hard about what she had seen on her visit to Drillington and to dredge up from her mind images from the documentary she had watched.

  “If my mistress does not object…” she said.

  He smiled then. It was a fleeting thing, but in that brief moment his features were transformed, lightened, warmed. “I will speak with her at the first opportunity,” he said, finally, slowly, removing his hand from her arm.

  * * *

  The day after the party involved hours of clearing up, which was every bit as exhausting as the preparations had been. The Lovewells were nowhere to be seen, presumably recovering from a very late night, enormous amounts of food, energetic dancing, and no doubt nursing sizeable hangovers. The guests who had stayed over emerged in dribs and drabs throughout the day, summoning their carriages and drivers, to be borne away as gently as the rutted roads and gusty winds would allow. There was no sign of the Applebys, and Jayne told Xanthe with a sigh in her voice that the master had halted work on the house and stables for a day or two so that the family could rest without the annoyance of builders and their noisy ways. Xanthe was surprised to find herself a little disappointed that she would not be doing the drawings for Samuel. She quickly convinced herself that this was only because she had hoped to build up his trust so that he might help her free Alice. At least with the family shut in their bedchambers and the house quiet, she was able to do a little snooping and searching. Alice had chosen such a clever hiding place for her rosary, but how would Xanthe ever find the silver pieces? She took the attachments she still had out of her satchel and sat with them, hoping for perhaps a glimpse of something or somewhere that might lead her to the needle case and scissors. But nothing came. No vision. No voices. Nothing.

  She took every possible chance to search in bedchambers, passageways, storerooms, and outhouses, but she was searching for some very small things in a very large house. That night she lay awake trying to invent a better approach. If Alice had not had the time to return the chatelaine pieces to her mistress’s room, she must have been in danger of being caught with the things on her. Did that mean she still had them when the constable and the sheriff turned up to take her away? Xanthe cast her mind back to her first proper visit to Alice’s time, when she had seen them trying to put her in the carriage. She had broken free for a moment and run off. They had taken a while to get her back. Where had she run to? She might well have put the pieces somewhere then, knowing that she would be searched. But Xanthe had been in the stables and had not been able to see exactly where Alice had gone. At least it set her thinking that she must have put them somewhere outside the house. Which made her realize, with a sinking heart, that she had been looking in the wrong place all along! She silently cursed herself for being so dim-witted. The worst thing was, if the house was an enormous place to search, outside was impossibly vast. She had seen Alice break free of the men and run, but where? How far did she get? Xanthe stood and looked out of the window of the first-floor landing, where she was supposed to be cleaning. The Great Chalfield land swept away as far as the eye could see. If Alice had made it past the stables, the gardens, and the barns—which she might not have done—there were acres of rolling greenery, a small stretch of woodland, the road, ditches, and a valley with a stream in it. It would take weeks, months to search it all. And with all the rain that had lately fallen, such tiny items could easily have sunk deep into the mud.

  Xanthe’s best hope was still that Alice would have had time to think about her offer of help and be ready to trust her. She had to go and see her again. She thought about the cold weather and how Alice must be suffering in the damp stone building and decided to plead with Mary to be allowed to take her some more warm clothes and bedding. She knew she would beg if need be. She wondered again how Flora was coping without her, too. She kept telling herself it was only a short time, a matter of hours that barely formed days, and that her mother’s flare-ups occurred rarely. In her heart, however, she knew it was the threatening presence of Margaret Merton that made her stomach turn. If she had had any choice in the matter she would never have left Flora under the watchful eye of such a dangerous companion.

  Mary’s response to her request was not at all what Xanthe had expected. Instead of pursed lips and a rant concerning work to be done and not enough hours in the day to do it, she looked saddened. She looked at Xanthe carefully, still trying to explain to herself her interest in Alice, and then said levelly, “You cannot go to her in Marlborough, because she is no longer there.”

  “What?”

  “She has been moved to the jail beneath the courthouse in Salisbury.”

  Xanthe swore under her breath. “When?”

  “This morning, so Willis tells me. He heard it from the saddler who delivered some of the repaired harness. The magistrate’s wagon came through, doing the rounds of the blind houses. They scoop up the prisoners as if they were picking stones from a plowed field, throw them in the back of the thing, caged and heaped together, innocent and guilty alike, and haul them off to await trial at the court.”

  “But Salisbury is miles away. When will the trial be?”

  Mary tutted, losing patience. “Now why would anyone bother to tell me that? Alice is beyond your reach now, girl. There is nothing any of us can do for her save pray.” Mary turned on her heel and went about her work, all brisk efficiency, but Xanthe could see by the set of her shoulders, by her rapidly blinking eyes as she passed, that even Mary, made of iron, was close to tears. She had given up hope.

  “You think she’s doomed, don’t you?” Xanthe snapped, unable to stop herself, angry at how quickly the woman was defeated. “Well I’m not giving up on her so easily!” She stomped down the stairs and strode out of the door at the back of the house. She could hear Mary calling her name, but if she did not get out, did not put some distance between herself and such contagious despair, she might not be able to stop herself from saying unforgivable things. Things that would see her sacked. She needed some air and marched through the kitchen garden, ignoring the surprised stares of the gardeners. The weather was horrible, gusty winds rattling the few remaining brittle, brown leaves on the apple trees in the orchard, heavy clouds blotting out any autumn sun there might have been. She allowed the elements to blast her, let the cold air and the uneven ground and the lowering sky thrash her anger from her. She felt, at that moment, useless. Helpless. Hopeless.

  At last she came to a huge oak tree. She leaned back against its rough bark, staring up into the crooked branches. Most of the leaves had gone and lay in rusty heaps at her feet. How could she begin to search even one tree, one heap of leaves? As she stood there she noticed a horse and rider approaching. They came galloping up the driveway, swift and sure-footed, and she could see it was a fine horse, fast and sleek, though its rider was dressed soberly. Not one of Master Lovewell’s noble friends, then. Soon she was able to recognize the visitor: Samuel Appleby. The drive described a curve from where it left the road and turned up to the house, so he did not see her standing close against the oak tree, disguised in her muted servant’s clothing. He must have known there was to be no work on the stables or house that day. And he was coming alone. Was he there simply to see her? For the sole purpose of asking her to draw the screen for him? It seemed likely. It also seemed likely that she needed a friend now more than ever, if she was not to fail in her mission. She experienced a shudder at the thought of what that failure might mean. If Samuel car
ed so much about his work, he might just be prepared to strike a bargain with her. Her help in return for his. At that moment, it did not feel like her best option, it felt like her only option.

  She leaned into what was fast becoming a gale and strode back to the house. The wind whipped the door from her hand as she opened it and blew through the passageway, disturbing the rug and rattling the pewter jugs and tankards on the tallboy. Mary stuck her head out of the kitchen.

  “There! I was to send Peter running for you. What were you thinking? Disappearing like some will-o’-the-wisp! And the state of you! Here, straighten that cap and brush those leaves from your skirts. The Lord knows, but people will think you sleep in a hedge.” Before Xanthe had time to make apologies, Mary continued, “Master Samuel is asking for you. You are to go up to the library. He’s there with the master. Well don’t stand gawking and gaping, girl, go! Make haste!”

  She did as she was told, hoping that Mary would not notice the mud she was shedding from her boots as she ran up the stairs.

  The library was a lovely room in the oldest part of the house, walls lined with shelves and bookcases crammed with leather-bound volumes, two tapestry sofas, and full-length windows overlooking the herb garden. It had a huge stone fireplace, in which a fire had been hastily lit. Master Lovewell had his nightgown under a silk house robe and wore an embroidered cap on his head. Clearly he had not been expecting the visitor. When she entered the room Samuel, who had been standing by the window, walked toward her. He was still wearing his narrow-brimmed black hat and short cape. Not for the first time Xanthe was struck by his restlessness. It was as if good manners kept him in check, otherwise he would be allowing himself to hurry everywhere, to rush at things almost recklessly, to speak out on things about which he was required to be silent. She imagined how he might be in the twenty-first century. It crossed her mind that he had been born into the wrong time. He would have been much better suited to her world, where he could say what he liked and be whoever he wanted to be. At least he was free to express himself through his work, which was clearly hugely important to him.