The Little Shop of Found Things--A Novel

by Paula Brackston

  “Mistress Westlake.” Joshua was still looking at her more hungrily than his father was regarding his food, but his tone was altered somewhat—there was less joshing, more respect, she thought. “I stand rebuked and deservedly so.”

  It was Samuel’s turn to laugh. “My little brother brought to heel!”

  Joshua laughed off the jibe. “I have ever known my place with women, Samuel. I also know life does not have to be all grim endurance each and every day. Something you might remind yourself, from time to time.”

  “You do not know me as well as you suppose you do, brother. I am not incapable of merriment, it is only that I, for the most part, concern myself with matters that demand my serious attention. Matters that concern us all. Or should do.”

  Master Appleby and Joshua exchanged glances, and Xanthe sensed an ongoing conversation she had not heard the beginning of.

  “Have a care, Samuel,” his father said.

  “I believe we may speak freely before Mistress Westlake. I am of the opinion she would share my views on matters of social justice, of liberty, of the right of the people to determine their own fate.”

  “Samuel…” His father sounded another note of caution, but his son would not be so easily silenced.

  “Can we not speak freely in our own home? If not, then we have, in faith, allowed ourselves to become mute subjects, our tongues imprisoned behind the bars of our teeth, our thoughts no more at liberty than that poor girl who found herself in what is, after all, a lockup that bears the Appleby name.”

  “It is not our lockup, Samuel,” said Joshua. “No more than the extension to Lord Avebury’s house is ours, beyond our having built it.”

  “Only two days ago,” Samuel went on, “I was in conversation with Francis Tresham. He sees as I do that our individual freedoms, our rights to the very thoughts in our own heads, for pity’s sake, they are being taken from us one by one, as the pebbles can be taken from a beach. In this way the loss at first goes unnoticed, until it is too late, and all that remains is the shifting sand beneath what once was.”

  Joshua shook his head. “Francis Tresham is a dangerous man, as are many of your acquaintances.”

  “Enough!” Master Appleby brought his sons to order. “Let us choose a subject more suitable for the company we are fortunate enough to have.”

  After that exchange the conversation was kept to less-contentious subjects and soon, oiled by the wine, the mood relaxed. After the rigid hierarchy and grandeur of Great Chalfield, Xanthe enjoyed being in the presence of intelligent, liberal-minded people. Slowly she was able to let down her own guard. She detected an amount of social conscience within the family, even though they expressly avoided talking politics again. These were people who knew what it was to be poor. They had made a success of their profession at a time when it was new for this to mark a family out as acceptable or even noteworthy. Their work as architects was valued, and modest wealth had followed. They had not forgotten their more humble origins, though, that much was clear. She also saw that beneath Samuel’s quiet seriousness lay something of a firebrand who took the fate of the common man to heart. Although he kept his feelings guarded, Xanthe still felt the bond they had established while they worked together. She liked being in his company. She liked sharing his passion for his work. She liked sitting there, with his family, watching him gradually relax a little more. She liked him.

  * * *

  It was after midnight when they eventually went to their rooms. Philpott had reappeared to clear the table, the candles were extinguished behind them as they went up, and she was given a small lamp and shown to her own bedchamber at the rear of the house. She had forgotten how tired she was until she sat on the edge of the high bed and pulled off her shoes. It had been a long day, with an early start, an exhilarating but exhausting ride into town, taking a soaking, working in Samuel’s studio, and then a lengthy, entertaining but slightly charged evening. At least she felt she had won over some allies to Alice’s cause. She had no way of knowing if any of the Applebys had sufficient influence to intervene, to fight in her corner and make a difference, but she was as certain as she could be that they would try. And it felt a relief not to have everything resting upon her own shoulders. With each passing day she was reminded in one way or another just how powerless she herself was. Alice needs more than me if she is not to end up hanged, Xanthe thought. It could be that her knowledge of the Drillington screen and her meeting Samuel would be the things that tipped the balance in Alice’s favor. At last Xanthe felt there was hope. Real hope.

  Wearily, she took off her dress, shift, and petticoat. A nightdress had thoughtfully been found for her and was laid out on the bed. It was simple, white cotton, with long sleeves, loosely gathered at the neck, with just a little lace at the front. She wondered, fleetingly, if it had belonged to Mistress Appleby once. How differently she was treated in this house. The Lovewells, for all that they liked her singing, saw her as a servant. A breed beneath them and somebody not to be given a second thought, except when she might be of use. The Applebys seemed to accept her, if not quite as an equal then at least as someone worthy of respect and consideration. She slipped the nightdress over her head and shivered as the cool cotton touched her body. Outside, the storm was still blowing with fearsome force, and the temperature in the room was low even for autumn. The bed looked wonderfully inviting, with its deep feather mattress, over-stuffed pillows and bolsters, thick blankets and bedspread of crewel work in blues and reds. She was just pulling back the covers, eager to climb in, when she heard a light tapping at the door. She snatched up her shawl and threw it around her shoulders, crossing it over at the waist.

  “Who’s there?” she asked.

  “Mistress Westlake?” The reply was so softly spoken and muffled by the door she could not be certain who it was.

  Xanthe stepped forward and lifted the latch, opening the door just a few inches. Joshua was standing on the landing, his jacket undone, his shirt untucked. He smiled, his eyes in shadow, but still able to twinkle somehow. Like most good-looking men, he knew the effect he could have on a woman. Some used it like a weapon, some did not. Joshua was most definitely of the kind that did.

  “Such a turbulent night,” he said. He kept his voice low and moved closer to the door. “I was concerned that you might not be able to rest. That you might be afraid.”

  “Of the wind?” she asked, hoping her own voice told him just how ridiculous he sounded.

  “It played on my mind, mistress, that you are, after all, in a strange house, unaccompanied, a woman alone.…”

  “You forget, Master Joshua, I am accustomed to traveling, for it is a necessity of my work. And I am often alone. Also, I believe I have a very able chaperone in the room above mine in the shape of Amelia’s grandmother.”

  “A good woman indeed,” he said, nodding. “Alas quite deaf. Has been so for many years.” As he shared this gem of information, he placed his hand on the door and gently but firmly pushed at it.

  Xanthe pushed back, jamming her foot behind it, wishing she still had her good heavy boots with her.

  She opened her mouth to protest, biting back the instinct to tell him exactly what she thought of him in very twenty-first century terms, when a door further down the hallway opened.

  “Joshua!” Samuel’s fury at finding his brother at her door was unmistakable. In three strides Samuel was upon him, grabbing Joshua by the collar and dragging him backward. “For shame, brother!” he hissed at him.

  Joshua laughed. “Samuel, what ill temper! Could it be you are driven to such rage only because I was quicker to the sweet mistress’s door than you?”

  At this Samuel slammed his brother up against the wall. Through gritted teeth he snarled at him. “Do not seek to dress me in the same colors you would choose for yourself! It was my knowledge of the workings of your mind and your incontinent desires that brought me from my bedchamber!” He gave Joshua a shove in the direction of his own room. “Get thee hence, and do not
speak to me on the morrow, for I may be less willing to rein in my anger when I am rested.”

  Joshua gave a shrug and a smile, holding up his hands as if to say the prize was worth a try but of little consequence. Samuel watched until his sibling had shut himself in his room and then turned to Xanthe.

  “I beg pardon for my brother, mistress. You do not deserve such treatment. Father would view such behavior toward a guest with horror, as do I.”

  “No damage done. Please don’t let it sour things between you and your brother. He was just … being himself.”

  He regarded her closely for a moment, though she wondered if he could read her expression at all in the gloom of the hallway. Had she made too little of the incident? Did he think she wanted Joshua to come to her room? She hated that idea, that he might think that of her. And she realized then that it was not because of her precious reputation that she cared, it was because she did not wish him to think she would have chosen Joshua over him. Because, in fact, the opposite was true.

  Samuel bid her a rather formal goodnight and left her then. She closed the door, leaning against it for a full minute before the chill of the room drove her from her thoughts and into the high bed with its warm, heavy bedclothes.

  19

  Samuel and Xanthe were both up and breakfasted before Joshua was awake. Master Appleby had agreed to try to talk to the magistrate on Alice’s behalf, and as she knew this was her best hope, Xanthe felt less frantic, and more able to give herself over to helping Samuel. Neither of them mentioned the incident of the night before, and any awkwardness quickly vanished once they were back in the studio working together. She had a sharp pang of homesickness when he showed her a piece of stonework that he had commissioned for the planned extension to the manor house. It was a gargoyle, beautifully detailed and carved, and Flora had always had a soft spot for the gruesome little creatures, snapping them up if she ever found any at auctions or salvage yards. It was strange to meet a brand new one, the stone still smooth, not yet pitted by weather or adorned with mosses and lichens.

  “It will look very fine on the new wing of the house,” she told Samuel. “You enjoy your work, don’t you?”

  “I do, though there are aspects of it that test me,” he said.

  She laughed. “The patrons? I can’t imagine the Lovewells are easy to please.”

  “They are paying the piper; they must call the tune. Even so, I am often conflicted when they request something that I consider unsuited to the building, or a poor fit. And yet I know I am blessed to be creating buildings that will last for generations, buildings that will stand as examples of how what can be imagined can be brought into being. I confess to sinful pride at the thought of our work surviving through the decades. Mayhap centuries.”

  “Centuries,” she agreed.

  “You believe so?”

  “I’m certain of it.” She thought of Great Chalfield in her own time, its exquisite seventeenth-century additions still there, still doing exactly what Samuel hoped they would do; withstanding wars and fickle fashions and weather and fires, so that hundreds of years of history continued within their walls. She wished she could tell him. Wished she could let him know that he succeeded, he created wonderful things that would live on. And that thought led her to the next unavoidable one: Samuel’s work would survive into her own century, but of course Samuel would not. A shiver wriggled down her spine. She was talking to a ghost. She was standing so close to him, breathing in his warm scent of sandalwood and beeswax and woodsmoke. Close enough to see his broad chest rise and fall. To feel the life in him. To see the faint blue pulse in his throat. And yet, he was already long gone, in her own reality. Nothing left in his grave but dust and bones. Xanthe’s head hurt with the madness of it all.

  Samuel, knowing nothing of the chaos he was causing in her mind, continued to speak about the Lovewells. “I am fortunate that the times have produced such families, in truth. Their desire to show themselves as elevated in society has resulted in a great deal of work for master builders and architects alike. It is because of them that I am able to do what I do. It does a man no good to set himself above others, for that way I would not see one stone set in place. Master Lovewell has the ambition and the riches to build a great house. I merely provide the expertise.”

  “Oh, I think it’s more than that. It’s not just about knowing how to build something,” she insisted. “It’s about vision and passion. Nothing lasting and beautiful was ever made or built without them.”

  “Or without the ebb and flow of political change in the land. New nobles, families newly in favor, these come about only after alterations concerning those in power. And a new king is the clearest example of this.”

  “And the Lovewells are clear examples of new money.”

  “Ha! New money! I like this expression. You have a curious way of putting things, Mistress Westlake.”

  “Please, do you think you could stop calling me that? I realize it is … unusual, but I’d much prefer it if you called me Xanthe, at least while no one else is around.”

  He hesitated, then softly said, “Xanthe,” trying the name out. “Xanthe,” he repeated, and she felt goose bumps prickle her arms. “A curious choice, but maybe not so for a child of minstrels and troubadours.”

  “We are an unusual bunch of people,” she agreed, hoping that would make him feel more comfortable with such informality.

  “Very well. But you, then, must call me Samuel.

  “I will. Samuel,” she said, and then found that they were both standing there, staring at each other. She tutted and looked away, affecting interest in a piece of marble in the corner of the room, babbling on about Italy and shipping heavy stone and the cost of the thing. But all the while she was simply trying to shake off the way she had felt when he had said her name.

  “Did you know,” he said suddenly, “that it was Mistress Lovewell who chose to take Alice in? It was she who knew the girl’s family.”

  “I didn’t know that. I always assumed it was her husband; I don’t know why. He just seemed, well, kinder. As if it was the sort of thing he might do, particularly if Clara talked him into it. Something Willis told me made me feel Mistress Lovewell was against having the girl in her home.”

  “Alice’s mother and Mistress Lovewell grew up together.” He paused and then looked at her closely, as if watching for her reaction, when he said, “They were both of them raised in the Catholic faith.”

  “Mistress Lovewell is a Catholic?” Xanthe was amazed. Why would Alice have had to go to such lengths to hide her rosary, to keep her own beliefs secret, if her mistress was also Catholic?

  “No longer,” said Samuel. “She renounced her faith when she married. She has made a point of being a visibly devout Protestant ever since that day.”

  “But she still felt some allegiance to her childhood friend? She must have, to have taken a known Catholic and daughter of executed traitors into her home, even as a servant.”

  Samuel said carefully, “The thought entered my mind that it might suit Mistress Lovewell to be rid of the girl. It may be that the threat of being tainted by her past proved harder to endure than the mistress had anticipated. And, she may have come to fear for Clara’s safety, to doubt the wisdom of what may have been an impulsive act of charity. She would, ultimately, be happier without the girl, I believe.”

  “And if Alice were convicted of a crime then the mistress couldn’t be blamed for severing all contact with her, could she?”

  “It is a … possibility.”

  A cold heaviness settled in the pit of her stomach. “Which means she’s not going to be ready to believe in Alice’s innocence, however much proof is put in front of her.”

  Samuel nodded. “If you are able to find such proof it would be prudent to ensure it is revealed as publicly as possible. Better not to put in Mistress Lovewell’s way the temptation to … obscure the truth.”

  She looked up at Samuel. “Thank you,” she said. “For caring about Alice. Y
ou cannot know what it means to me.”

  “Life is full of hidden perils,” he said. “If we cannot help one another when we are able to do so, then I fear for all our futures.”

  She thought of the distant future. Of her future, where there was no Samuel, and she found it was painful to imagine. She made herself bring her attention back to where she was, to his reality.

  “Joshua said last night, at dinner, that one of your friends is dangerous? Why would that be so?”

  He hesitated before saying “There are men far braver than I who put themselves at risk for the greater good. Joshua would rather we protect our own. He considers it enough that we do what we must for our family, no more.” He paused and then added, “I find myself, at times, unable to remain merely a bystander to world’s events. In particular those about which I have the opportunity to be of use. To do something to save lives, perchance.”

  “You are not afraid? For yourself and your family?”

  “Can we allow ourselves to be ruled by fear?”

  Xanthe thought about how fear of what Margaret Merton might do to her mother had been the galvanizing force behind her own actions. However much she told herself she was helping Alice, it was exactly fear, more than anything, that drove Xanthe now. Fear for someone she loved. “It is easier to be brave for oneself,” she said quietly, “than for someone we care about, don’t you think?”

  Samuel nodded. He seemed to consider something for a moment, studying Xanthe closely, and then made his decision. He offered her his hand.

  “Come with me,” he said. When she hesitated he said, “Please. There is something I wish you to see. Something … important. I can trust to your silence, can I not?”

  “Of course.” She took his hand. She needed his help. She had to prove she could be trusted.

  Samuel led her to the rear of the workshop and opened a narrow door that gave way to a flight of steps leading down. He took up a lamp and descended the flight ahead of her. The steps twisted along a rough stone wall and into a low-ceilinged cellar. Samuel hung the lamp on a hook. As Xanthe’s eyes adjusted to the gloom she could see there were barrels and crates and piles of sacks.