The Little Shop of Found Things--A Novel

by Paula Brackston

  “Ah!” exclaimed Master Lovewell. “It seems the girl is found. Come in, my dear. Shut the door, let us not invite the weather to join us.”

  She closed the door and bobbed what she hoped was a polite and correct curtsy.

  “Forgive me, sirs, I had just stepped outside.”

  “No matter,” the master waved his hand, eager to get to the point, no doubt so he could get back to his bed. “Master Samuel requires your assistance in the matter of the new screen for the Great Hall. He tells me you are familiar with the one at Drillington? Excellent. Then I am happy for you to be of use to him.”

  “It would aid me greatly,” said Samuel, addressing not Xanthe but her master, “if you might spare your maidservant, Master Lovewell. A matter of hours only, I am sure of it. However, I would need to take her to my own home.”

  “Your home? Can she not talk with you here? Have we not ink and paper for sketches and such in this house?”

  “Indeed I could want for nothing here,” he assured him, “it is only that in my studio I have sections of the screen already prepared. I wish to have the girl look at them, at the carvings, at the style. I am hopeful she will confirm the accuracy of my design, as well as be able to supply me with drawings of what she recalls. The weather is too wild, the road too rough, to risk transporting the pieces. Better for her to see them at my place of work.”

  So the conditions were too awful for his bits of wood, but she could be dragged through the countryside no problem at all! Yet again Xanthe was reminded of the low value put on servants.

  “I see,” said Master Lovewell, considering the idea while keeping his rear end as close to the warmth of the fire as was safe. “And you suppose her knowledge of the original will be … accurate?” He looked at her as if he couldn’t imagine anything of quality being stored in her mop-capped head.

  “I do,” Samuel told him.

  “Well, I have sent Willis about his errands, and my driver is gone for the day. There is the cart, but—”

  “Please, do not put yourself or your household to trouble on my account,” Samuel said. “My horse is strong and well mannered. The maid may ride with me.”

  “Oh? Then I see no further obstacle,” said the master with a happy grin, sensing he could wave them off with no further interruption to his day of leisure.

  He might not have seen a problem with the idea, but then he was not to know that Xanthe could not ride. Her entire experience of horse riding was an hour-long pony trek in the Lake District as a child, but it was impossible for her to admit to the lack of this vital skill. The majority of people in the seventeenth century knew how to sit on a horse. In any case, it did not appear that Xanthe had any choice in the matter.

  She was given a moment to dash upstairs and fetch her borrowed cape and then meet Samuel outside the front of the house. On her way she encountered Mary, who would not let her leave the house in her laughable boots a second time, fearing for the reputation of the household. She had Jayne fetch a pair of shoes that she insisted were more suitable. They felt horribly flimsy and girly, and Xanthe would far rather have worn her own Dr. Martens, but this was not a moment for argument.

  She found Samuel waiting for her outside, standing next to his black horse, holding its bridle as if it were the tamest, quietest thing in the world. To her it looked dauntingly tall and lively. She must have let some of her fear show on her face because Samuel patted the horse’s neck.

  “Raven is a gentle creature,” he insisted. “He will convey us swiftly and safely.”

  “I’m sure any horse of yours would not dare misbehave,” she said, trying to sound confident and relaxed but unable to keep a frightened squeak out of her voice.

  As he helped her up into the saddle she was certain she caught a look of amusement on his usually inscrutable face. Her nerves made her irritable, but she resisted snapping at him. She needed this man to help her; she had to hold that thought. He’d sat her sideways, but she knew she would fall off if she tried to ride like that, so she quickly hitched up her unhelpful skirt and shifted so that she was sitting astride. Samuel opened his mouth to comment on this but evidently thought better of it. He swung himself up behind her with practiced ease, wrapping one arm around her waist while holding the reins in his free hand. He uttered a word to Raven, and the horse plunged forward. Before Xanthe had time to think further about it they were cantering down the driveway, the wind whipping past her ears, threatening to snatch the cap from her head. She clung to Raven’s long mane, too nervous to do anything but sit tight and trust Samuel to know what he was doing. She thought longingly of her taxi and how much she would rather be traveling in it at that moment. The thought of what Samuel would make of a London black cab made her give a yap of laughter. Unfortunately, Samuel interpreted this as a sign that she was enjoying herself, so he urged his horse to go faster. When Raven jumped through a deep puddle, lurching slightly as he did so, Xanthe felt herself slip to one side. Samuel quickly tightened his arm around her, pulling her close to him, without for one second slowing their speed. She forced herself to stop worrying. In fact, she did feel safe. Safe and yet daring at the same time. After all, she was not required to do anything but sit and hold on, and Samuel was clearly an expert horseman. She had ridden pinion on a big motorbike once, and remembered the buzz of excitement that had given her, but it was nowhere near as thrilling as charging through the stormy countryside on such a powerful horse with a strong man holding her tight.

  Without warning it began to rain heavily. What started out as a sharp, cold shower quickly developed into a serious downpour. Her cap was soaked in a minute, and she could feel water forcing its way through the wool of her cape. Raven’s mane became saturated and difficult to hold. Samuel let the horse pick his own way over the uneven, stony road that was fast becoming waterlogged. Mud splashed up at them as they cantered on. By the time Marlborough came into sight, Xanthe was wet through and aching. It seemed all sorts of muscles she did not usually call upon were required to work just to stay upright in the saddle. They slowed to a trot once they reached the town, clattering up the high street, past the inn and the town hall, up beyond the church at the far end. The street opened onto a green with houses on three sides. Raven needed no urging to find his way home and without being asked turned beneath an archway that led to a barn. An ostler ran out into the rain and helped her down. Her legs were weak when she tried to stand. Samuel issued orders for the horse to be rubbed down, thatched with hay, and rugged up before being given water to drink. Only then should he be offered a feed of warm bran mash. All this was shouted above the noise of what was by then a full-blown storm.

  “Come!” Samuel took her arm and steered her across a courtyard, under another brick archway, and through an iron gateway. She glimpsed a garden before they reached the rear door of the house and he bundled her inside. Once through the door he removed his hat, dropping it onto a nearby chair, and called out, “Philpott! Where are you, man?”

  There came the sound of scurrying footsteps and a thin, balding man appeared. He had pale eyes and an expression that seemed to say he was constantly disappointed by life but rarely surprised.

  “And there you are drenched through and through!” He took Samuel’s cape from his shoulders, shaking rainwater from it and muttering darkly about October chills bringing Christmas grief.

  “Enough of your doom-mongering, Philpott,” said Samuel. “Take the mistress’s cape. Is the fire lit? Good. Bring us toddies. And oatcakes. And paper and ink. No, wait. We will go to the studio a little later.”

  Philpott gingerly took what was in fact Jayne’s cape between finger and thumb and gave Xanthe a glance that took in everything in a well-schooled second: her strangeness, her youth, her servant’s clothes, and, she felt, in particular, the fact that she was a woman. For this was a man’s house, that much obvious even in the dimly lit hallway where they stood. There were no flowers, no herbs to perfume the rooms, the paneling was unadorned, not a picture or a wall hangin
g or so much as a bolster on a window seat. She followed Samuel through to what she guessed was the main reception room. It had two tall windows at one end, giving onto the green and the town beyond. The furniture and furnishings were of excellent quality—the antique dealer in her could not help put a price on the elegant table against the wall between the windows and the wrought iron sconces on either side of the mantlepiece—but things had clearly been chosen for function rather than frivolity. Even the dark-red rug, the one concession to color and comfort, had a masculine feel to it.

  “Here.” Samuel pulled a wooden chair closer to the hearth. “Sit you down. The fire will soon drive the rain from your clothes.”

  She was happy to do as she was told. The cold had got to her, adding to her tiredness from hard work and not enough sleep, on top of the unfamiliar effort of horse riding, so that she was shivering. Her teeth began to chatter. Samuel looked alarmed.

  “No, this will not do,” he said, taking her hands and pulling her to her feet again. “Forgive me, but this must go.” He took off the sodden headgear and dropped it onto the fireguard where it set up a hissing. The few pins she had in her hair were not equal to the weight of it when wet, so that it fell down in waterlogged ringlets. She shook her head, much like a dog trying to rid itself of water, causing the fire to spit and set up more hissing.

  Samuel laughed. “I have not seen such a sorry sight since last I joined the hunt with Lord Avebury! The hounds looked just so.”

  Xanthe raised her eyebrows at him. “Perhaps you should take a look in the mirror,” she said, forgetting her place.

  He turned to check his reflection in the large looking glass that hung over the fireplace. They both looked ridiculously soggy and bedraggled. He turned back to her a little sheepishly.

  “You make a fair point, mistress. We are neither of us at our best, nor fit for company.”

  “Unless it is a spaniel,” she suggested, thinking of Pepito and his own floppy ears and glossy ringlets.

  Philpott came bumbling into the room carrying a tray with steaming cups and plates of oatcakes. He set the things down on the low table in front of the nearest sofa. There was a pot of honey with a drizzler next to the freshly baked biscuits. Samuel handed her a chunky ceramic cup. She sniffed its contents warily.

  “Milk,” he promised. “With just a pipkin of rum. Philpott swears by it as a cure for all ills, do you not?” he asked his manservant.

  “Better safe than sorry, sir,” he said, putting more logs on the fire, taking a poker to the embers, and generally fussing around. “A west wind brings sickness, and there’s no better answer to that than good food and a little rum. And dry clothes,” he added, pointedly looking at them both.

  “We shall fare well enough by the fire. Thank you, Philpott,” Samuel told him.

  Dismissed, the doleful man gave a nod and left them.

  “Please, eat as you will,” Samuel said, nodding at the tray.

  She had not realized how much she missed eating something sweet. The Lovewells liked their sugar, but it was a rich man’s treat, and none of it found its way to the servants. The sight of the golden honey almost had her drooling. She took a small pewter plate and piled on warm oatcakes, holding the drizzler high to allow plenty of honey to swirl over them. She considered sitting on the sofa to be nearer the food, but she needed to dry her clothes and hair. Taking her feast back to the hearth she indicated the rug.

  “Would you mind?” she asked. “It’s the only way I’ll get my hair to dry.”

  Samuel looked puzzled, as if the idea of a woman sitting on the floor was completely baffling. Before he could protest she plonked herself down, folding her legs beneath her, turning her back to the heat of the burning logs, and tucking into the crumbly oatcakes. After so long without chocolate or cake she thought then that she had never tasted anything so delicious. For a moment she was reminded of Gerri’s wonderful baking and felt a pang of homesickness, wondering whether Flora would have been over to the tea shop while she was away. She looked up to find Samuel watching her in astonishment. She stopped, mid chew, horribly aware that there was honey running down her chin. She tried to wipe it off with a finger as casually as she was able. “These are very good,” she said, being careful not to spit crumbs.

  To her surprise, Samuel helped himself to a plateful and came to sit on the floor opposite her. He gave a brief smile and then began devouring his food. For a few minutes they both ate hungrily and gulped their hot toddies while the fire crackled and spat and their hair and clothes steamed gently. There was something incredibly companionable, almost intimate, about that shared silence, that shared moment. Xanthe felt bad about using it, but knew that she must.

  “Master Samuel,” she started cautiously, choosing her words with care, “I am happy that I can help you in some small way with your work. I will do my very best to draw what I remember of the screen, and to recall as many details as possible.”

  This time it was Samuel who struggled to stop honey dropping from his biscuits into his lap. He quickly licked his fingers. In the firelight he looked less stern, somehow. Younger. More relaxed. It occurred to Xanthe that he was always the shadow to his brother’s sunshine. He was quite different when he was not with Joshua.

  “Your knowledge will be of great use, I am certain of it. It is my immense good fortune that you arrived at Great Chalfield when you did.”

  “As a matter of fact, it is the misfortune of another that keeps me here,” Xanthe said. “There is someone else who has need of my help, but I fear I will not be able to do enough.”

  “Someone else?”

  “A girl. A maidservant at Great Chalfield. Her name is Alice, and she was taken in by the Lovewells when she … lost her family. She has been the victim of a terrible misunderstanding, accused of a theft she did not commit. You may have heard her name mentioned while you were at the manor house?”

  “I believe so,” he said, giving nothing away in his voice.

  “You will certainly have heard of the jail in this town,” she went on.

  “You are referring to the lockup?”

  “Yes. It is there that Alice was first taken when she was arrested, there that I was able to speak to her. A dreadful place. Constructed not just to hold people but to torment them, having no light, precious little air, only cold darkness and rough stone. It is beyond my understanding why such a place would be built, why a young girl should be locked away from everything and everyone when she is convicted of nothing, not yet even given a chance to be heard.”

  At this, Samuel stopped eating. He placed his platter on the floor, and his face once again looked closed and distant, the tension returned to his body. He raised his eyes to hers and held her gaze. “I know the place of which you speak,” he said. “How could I not? For it was I who built it.”

  18

  Suddenly Xanthe found that she could scarcely swallow her food. Samuel could not have known the impact this revelation would have upon her. How could he? He could tell by what she had said that she hated the place, that she considered it cruel, which might have struck him as strange, as such lockups were commonplace at the time. What he could not have realized was how personal this one was to her. How it connected her to home, to her real life. How it linked the future to the past. How the suffering that lingered in it entered her soul every time she went near the place. And this was the man—this clever, talented, complicated, and she believed, kind man—who had created the thing. Did that make the link between the two of them stronger? Or was it a point that would always stand between them? That he could build such a place, and that she was someone who knew a little of what it must be like to be thrown into one and locked away?

  “We are a young company of architects, mistress, only recently recognized as such.”

  “Please, you don’t need to explain.”

  “I feel that I do. That is, I wish to.” He turned to stare into the fire as he spoke, flickering shadows playing across his face. “My father was a mast
er builder, and he himself the son of a master builder. The family built their reputations in the stone of their creations over many years. The work was hard, steady, respectable, and provided a good living, but the times in which my forefathers lived were more dangerous even than these. Allegiances shifted with the tides. To declare one’s friendships or one’s relationship to God was to risk everything, for what was in the morning acceptable could by the morrow be deemed traitorous. Many of my father’s friends were unable to keep their footing on such treacherous ground. Many were … lost. My father prevailed due to a combination of wits and skill. With so many newly ennobled, the demand for grand houses, or improvements to ones no longer considered sufficiently grand, brought about a need for men like him. As years went on, men like us. My brother and I followed our father’s craft, though now it is at last considered a profession. In truth, Joshua’s talent does not lie in the conception of buildings, nor in draftsmanship, but he is adept at business and is content to see himself as the merchant of the family. We did not, you will understand, achieve our position of stability, of safety, without climbing many steep steps. We chose our commissions with care, and those that were of a civic nature saw us rooted in the order of the day. We could not risk giving offense by turning down the task of providing the community with a means to maintain a peaceful society. To do so would be seen as disagreeing with the ruler who made the very laws that govern the country. It fell to me to design and oversee the construction of the lockup.”