The Little Shop of Found Things--A Novel

by Paula Brackston

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, but you have to let me go.” She made herself slip from his arms and take his hand. “Please, take me to the jail.”

  For a moment he did not speak. She wished she had answers for him. To leave him wondering about so many things was a terrible thing to do, but how could she explain? Where would she begin? After that, he did not question her further and they walked the short distance to the other side of the high street. As they went across the empty patch of ground where the antique shop would be built a full two centuries later, she felt a shiver, as if they were walking over her own grave. At last they came to the blind house.

  “It is unoccupied at present,” Samuel said, indicating the door standing open.

  As they moved closer to it she felt that same oppression begin to weigh her down. Even standing outside it she could hear the whispered pleas and curses of those who had passed through it. She knew she could travel home from another point, if the locket still worked, but this seemed right, somehow. And it was, as she had told him, the strongest link with Samuel that she had. He had built the blind house, and now it was part of her home in her own century. They would always be connected through it.

  He took hold of her hand. “Alice was grateful,” he said. “She asked me to tell you that you will be ever in her prayers. She considered you heaven sent.”

  She smiled. “No, not from heaven. Somewhere a little nearer home.” She reached inside her bag and took out the silver thimble she had brought as a possible bribe but never got to use, the rest of the coins, and Alice’s rosary. “Will you see that she gets these?” she asked him.

  He took them, pausing to run the rosary through his fingers. “She was fortunate to have such a champion as you,” he said.

  “Is that how you see me, Samuel? A champion? After what you saw, the way I vanished … Please, don’t despise me.”

  “Despise you?”

  “I didn’t want to deceive you. I promise you, if I could I would tell you everything, but…” She shook her head. “I am not some … ghost.”

  “Xanthe, my sweet.” He pulled her toward him one last time, wrapping his arms around her and looking down at her with such tenderness. “I do not understand. I do not know what I saw or what any of it means. I know one thing only: the woman I held in my arms, she is no phantom.” He kissed her then, gently. A slow, lingering kiss, full of unspoken promises and unfulfilled longing.

  When he stopped she made herself pull away a little.

  She tried a smile. “Do you remember once, you told me you thought I came from a distant land, unmapped territory? Keep that thought. It’s about as close to the truth as we can get.”

  She slipped out of his grasp, taking her hand from his, and moved toward the open door of the jail. At the entrance she turned to look at him one last time.

  Samuel held out a folded piece of paper.

  “Please,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Take this. Read it when … when you have made your journey.”

  She ran her finger over the red wax seal on the letter. “You knew. You knew that I would have to leave, didn’t you?” She held tight to the note, worrying that it might not successfully travel with her, but knowing there was nothing more she could do but cling to it.

  “I doubted the certainty of anything after what I witnessed. How could I even be sure I would see you again? I could not. But I hoped that I would. Even though I believed it would be but a fleeting encounter. It was in that spirit of hope, allowing at the same time that we must part again, that I penned some words, inadequate words.” He gestured at the letter.

  “Thank you,” Xanthe said. Fighting back tears, she turned toward the jail once more.

  “Tell me one thing and one thing only, Xanthe, my love. Will you come back to me?” he asked, the break in his voice the saddest thing she had ever heard. Sadder still for knowing that she herself was the cause of it.

  She put her hand on the door to steady herself. She looked at him one last time, and acknowledged that in her heart she hoped it wasn’t over. That she would see him again, one day, somehow.

  “If I can, Samuel, if there is a way,” she told him.

  And then quickly, before she lost the will to do it, she stepped into the blind house, took hold of the gold locket, opened it, and closed her eyes.

  26

  That journey back through time was a draining experience. Instead of falling into a dizzying blackness through which she usually passed quickly, she was plunged into a nightmarish world of glimpsed faces, flashes of light, and a discordant chorus of voices. And one voice louder than the others, unfamiliar to her, yet seeming to address her directly as if he knew her. A brief sight of a man’s face, with pale, pale eyes.

  “Who are you?” his voice rasped. “Where do you go?”

  And then he was gone and there was only the jumble of terrible cries and moans that grew steadily louder. She felt as if she were being thrown and jostled and struck on all sides. Why was this time so different? Was it because the chatelaine had done its work and was no longer guiding her? Or was it her own deep resistance to leaving the past, to leaving Samuel? Whatever the cause, it was a brutal passage through the centuries and one that, for a terrible moment, she feared she might not survive. What if she was to be trapped in this chaotic nothingness? Lost in a manner of limbo, neither in one time or the other? The lurching and twirling began to make her feel as if she were losing her mind, no longer knowing which way was up, or back, or how to right herself, or turn around, or go forward.

  And then it stopped.

  She came to a jarring halt, crashing onto the floor of the blind house, at the same time hitting her head hard against the wall. She lay where she fell, battered, bruised, and bewildered. The sense of the suffering of hundreds of people was with her even then, the cries of the lost growing fainter at last. She found she could not properly come to her senses. Could not open her eyes and focus through the dimness of the jail, could not hold on properly to consciousness. The fight went out of her, and she let herself be claimed by a deep but restless sleep.

  * * *

  When next she woke, the voices had stopped chattering, the shouts and cries fallen silent. She hardly dared try to move, her body felt so stiff and sore. She felt the letter still in her palm, and her heart lurched at the thought of Samuel, of leaving him, of what he might have written. She tucked the precious note into her waistband. Blinking, she saw daylight falling through the open door of the blind house. She could hear birds singing. The sound of a telephone ringing. A lawnmower. She was home. Properly home this time. She tensed, listening for the reed-thin voice of Mistress Merton, waiting for the arrival of that dreadful presence. But it did not come. She could feel nothing of her.

  “She’s gone,” she whispered to herself, hardly daring to believe it to be true and yet knowing that it was. Alice was safe, Margaret could rest now, her duty to her daughter complete after so many lonely, anguish-filled years.

  Xanthe got up, surprised to find that aside from a tender spot on her forehead, she had no other injuries. It was as if all the pain she had experienced had been just illusions, however real they had felt at the time. She was wobbly but otherwise unharmed. She needed to think. She still had to get back in the house without Flora seeing her emerge from the garden. Xanthe retrieved the chatelaine from the dusty floor and put it into her leather satchel. As she handled it, this time, she felt and heard nothing. Its silence was a shock to her after having had such a powerful connection with it. She took off her outer clothes so that she was once again in her gypsy skirt and cheesecloth shirt, and bundled up her mismatched disguise. She peered around the door. The garden was empty, the back door open. As she crept out and retrieved her bag from the butterfly bush she could hear the radio playing up in the kitchen. It sounded as if the day was properly underway and her mother was up. After stuffing all the things she had brought back with her into her backpack she did the only thing she could do: hope to luck and stride
out across the lawn. Once again she felt the curious disconnect of going from late autumn to summer so quickly. Gingerly, she stepped through the back door. The door to Flora’s workshop was closed, so she hurried past it. She had her foot on the first stair when she saw her. Flora appeared from the kitchen to peer down the stairs at her daughter.

  “Xanthe? You’re home early! What a lovely surprise.”

  “Mum!” It was all she could do not to give way to sobbing at the sight of her mother. She sprinted up the stairs and threw her arms around her.

  “Well!” Flora laughed, hugging her back. “I missed you, too.”

  All the fear for her mother that Xanthe had carried every step of her far, far journey threatened to undo her, now that she could at last release it. “You’re OK?” she asked, hoping Flora would not notice the tremor in her voice. She pulled back to study her mother’s face. “Really, are you well? How have you been while I’ve been away?”

  “Perfectly fine. No more flare-ups.” She smiled, and then said, “I didn’t hear the doorbell.”

  “No? Doesn’t always work. It’s pretty ropy. I think it needs a new clapper,” she told her. “We’ll have to get it fixed before opening day.”

  “You look done in. Difficult time?” she asked.

  “Sort of.” She nodded, squirming at the lies but trying hard to remember what she was supposed to have been doing. “All worked out in the end, though.”

  “Did he decide he couldn’t live without her after all?”

  “What?”

  “Eva’s unsuitable boyfriend. Did he come back?”

  “Oh, yes. He did.”

  Flora tutted loudly. “Men! What a fuss. Come on, I was just about to fix lunch. I found some soup!” she said, using her crutches to turn herself around and head back into the kitchen.

  Xanthe followed her as far as the doorway and then paused.

  “Actually, Mum, I think I’ll have a shower first. Feel a bit grimy from traveling, you know.”

  “OK, love. You go ahead. I’ll save you some of this,” she said, waving a packet of instant vegetable soup in the air.

  As soon as Xanthe was locked in the bathroom she took out Samuel’s letter. She slipped her thumb beneath the wax seal to break it and unfolded the thick parchment. She noticed that already the edges of the paper were beginning to crumble. Samuel’s bold handwriting filled the page.

  My dearest love,

  How do I find words to speak to one who is not of my own world? How do I find thoughts to still my own seething mind when I try to fathom what it was I witnessed last night? You were there and then you were not. As if you had melted away with the night, the dawn light extinguishing your own. In truth, I cannot capture here how altered I am by having known you. All I know is that the greater part of that alteration is not brought about by your magical disappearance but by your more magical presence. Which I hope with all my heart to feel again, and in that hope I pen these inadequate lines, that you may know

  you have my heart,

  always,

  Samuel

  “Oh, Samuel,” she murmured sadly. “I’m so sorry.”

  * * *

  She had never appreciated a shower so much in her life. She stood motionless, letting the water cascade over her head and course down her body. She had not thought about how she would miss being clean. It was bliss to wash away the grit and filth of days traveling on muddy roads, wearing rough, cumbersome clothes, and sleeping inside the blind house. At the same time, she experienced a pang of sadness at the thought that she was also washing away the scent of Samuel from her skin, from where he had held her hand, put his arms around her, kissed her. As if she were performing a final act of separating herself from him. She must have been in the shower an unusually long time because Flora starting calling her.

  She joined her at the kitchen table and reached across and took hold of her hand.

  “How are you, Mum, really?”

  “Good. Really. Arthritis has been holding itself down to a dull roar. Sleeping OK. Busy, busy, busy.”

  “I missed you,” she said.

  Flora must have noticed the weariness in her voice. She took hold of her daughter’s hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze.

  “And I missed you. Who else is going to appreciate all my hard work on that walnut desk, or my repairs on that silver candelabra I found under the pile of rugs? Now, eat up.”

  They shared stale bread and slightly lumpy soup.

  “This is truly awful, Mum.”

  “Nonsense. Perfectly good vegetables in there somewhere.”

  “Have you been shopping since I went away? Have you had anything decent to eat?”

  “Don’t fuss. I can survive a few days without your cooking. Anyway, I’ve been much too busy to eat. Did you see how lovely the shop looks as you came in? I’m really pleased with the way it’s all come together. But there is still heaps to do. Opening day on Thursday!”

  “I thought it was going to be Saturday?” she said, gulping water to push down the bread and promising herself she would go shopping before the next meal. Suddenly life was all about mundanities: looking after her mother, getting the business up and running, household stuff. How could she even think about things like that when all the time her heart was aching? And nobody knew, not even Flora. And she could never tell her. Her mother was chatting on about having brought the date of the grand opening forward because it was market day and busier and would not be competing with the local county agricultural show on the Saturday. Xanthe tried to take it all in but was in a daze of tiredness, relief, and confusion over her feelings for Samuel. After lunch they went downstairs and she helped put out more antiques in the shop and price things up and work on displays and generally immersed herself in what had to be done. And so the afternoon passed, followed by takeout, despite her best intentions, and then collapsing into bed where she finally allowed herself to sleep.

  * * *

  The next two days passed in a flurry of activity. Xanthe welcomed it. The busier she was, the less time she had to brood. As she helped her mother prepare the shop for the opening, she tried to replay in her mind all that had happened, from when she first arrived in the stables at Great Chalfield, to when she tore herself from Samuel and stepped back home through the blind house. It all seemed so long ago now, as if it had happened to her in another life. And she worried about her actions. She spent ages, as she polished an eighty-four-piece silver cutlery set, thinking of what the possible consequences of what she had done might be. Alice was saved, that much she knew, but what if she had never found the chatelaine? What if she had never journeyed back and saved her? Had she somehow crucially altered her own present by changing Alice’s future? The thought that she might have started some terrible chain of events that she could not possibly have foreseen, nor know about, worried her more and more. It was only in the small hours of Wednesday night that an answer came to her that seemed to make sense. The present that she knew, the way things were in her time, could only have come about if she had traveled back to the past. Her finding the chatelaine, her answering Alice’s call for help, those things were necessary to shape the past and bring about the future as it was. She had to believe this. It did work. She was a part of how things had turned out, not an alternative version, but the one she was meant to live in. If she hadn’t gone back, hadn’t taken the decision to help Alice, well, that would have resulted in a different future from the one she knew. From what she knew to be “normal.” At first this thought comforted her. She had not brought about some far-flung catastrophe by doing what she had done. All was well. She had done the right thing. But then, as she thought about it some more, the weight of the responsibility of this hit her like an avalanche. What if she had not gone back? What if she had not found the chatelaine? Or had not bought it? Or had messed up when she was at Great Chalfield and seen Alice hang? How different might things have been?

  By the time the day of the opening arrived Xanthe and Flora were both exha
usted. Still, Flora was buoyed up with excitement, whereas Xanthe had never felt less like partying. The thought of being upbeat and dealing with people the whole day made her weary. But this was her mother’s big day, the proper start to the new life she had dreamed of and planned for. For her sake, she did her best to pull herself together, find one of her better sixties boho dresses, and put on a bright smile. At eight o’clock that morning they were both in the shop, running a cloth over the display cabinets, stringing up a line of vintage bunting, and generally making tiny final adjustments. At last Flora stood, hands on hips, and surveyed their handiwork.

  “Well, Xanthe, love, I think we’ve done all right.”

  “Better than all right, Mum,” she said. “It looks wonderful, really it does.”

  And it did. The freshly painted walls gave the main room of the shop a light, clean background against which to set all the wonderful treasures they had found. Flora’s restored and rejuvenated small tables, cupboards, and chairs stood prettily around the room, with carefully chosen pieces placed on them: vintage blankets and quilts, silk tasseled cushions, a dressing table set, silver candlesticks, pewter lanterns, two writing boxes with exquisite marquetry inlay, a gleaming top hat, and an assortment of vases. One piece was particularly successful: a charming little bookcase, with delicate carving that extended over part of the glass doors, nicely showing off the shelf of antique leather-bound books Xanthe had rescued from the original stock.

  On the walls they’d hung three of the nicest mirrors from Mr. Morris’s collection, a Victorian oil painting of a farm scene, and three 1930s enamel signs advertising Pears Soap. At the back of the room stood the writing desk, wrapping paper and ledger at the ready, the cash tin in the top drawer. Maybe one day they would be forced to buy a proper till, but Xanthe was actually quite glad they hadn’t been able to afford one yet.

  There were two display cabinets. The first was tall and showed off the finest pieces of china, which included some Wedgwood, three elaborately decorated Spode dishes, and a Minton tea set. The other case, placed in the window to get the best light and so that it could be seen from both inside and outside the shop, housed jewelry and prized silver items. Pride of place, right at the center, lustrous and shining, sat the chatelaine. Her mother had been surprised that she was ready to part with it so soon, but Xanthe knew it had served its purpose. It no longer sang to her. Of course, it still had two pieces missing. Perhaps Mistress Lovewell had not wanted to wear a daily reminder of the whole incident with Alice and so had chosen not to put them back on their chains. Or perhaps they had become separated again, somewhere in the intervening years, as many attachments did, particularly ones that could be useful. Either way, the chatelaine itself went on. It had become what it always should have been; a beautiful example of early silverwork that was both ornamental and useful. It had been passed down through generations, altered, added to, sold on, no doubt cherished for centuries. Xanthe was happy to be able to hold it without feeling it vibrate or hearing it hum or picking up whispers or snatches of visions, because she knew that meant Alice was safe. On the other hand, it also meant that it had lost its power. She could no longer use the chatelaine to transport herself back in time, back to Samuel. In truth, she would be happy if someone bought it, as now it was a painful reminder of what could never be.