Liam leaned forward, gesticulating with his fork. “Your daughter has been very cagey about her special talent, Mrs. Westlake. Plays it down every time I try to ask her about it.”
Xanthe helped herself to another beer. It wasn’t a secret, the fact that some of the antiques they found spoke to her, giving her glimpses of their past, but it wasn’t easy to talk about it without her feeling she must come across as a little bit bonkers. “Yes, well, I might find something special, I might not. Can’t know until I get there. More rice, anyone?”
She let the subject drop, but privately she could not help being excited at the prospect of this kind of house clearance. By all accounts the old lady’s house was something special in itself, and the village had a reputation for being one of the prettiest and best preserved in Wiltshire. They were almost certain to find some interesting and beautiful things for the shop, and that was what mattered. She told herself firmly that it might even be for the best if nothing in particular sang to her. No more mysteries. No more traveling back through time. She had to root herself in the here and now.
* * *
Arriving in Laybrook the next day, however, it was all too easy to believe she and her mother and even her black cab had journeyed to a bygone age. The little village was picture-postcard perfect, shown off to its best advantage beneath the flattering winter sunshine. The last of the russet leaves held fast to oak and ash, with evergreen climbers glossy over low stone walls. Road signs and markings had been kept to a minimum. Cottages, shops, pubs, and houses had all been painstakingly preserved, with not a modern window or clumsy extension anywhere to be seen. The National Trust had bought the village some years earlier and now managed it with meticulous care, but this was not a museum. Laybrook was a thriving community, and the beautiful houses were homes to real people living real lives. The house that had been home to Esther Harris for decades was a fine example of simple but elegant eighteenth-century English architecture. Lavender House was two stories of warm, tawny stone, its long windows balanced along classical lines with an imposing front door. The woodwork was freshly painted white, contrasting crisply with the rich stone, while the door itself gleamed in deep French navy. Dark gray stone tiles clad the steeply pitched roof, a chimney at either end. Unlike many of the smaller, terraced houses in the village, this one was detached, and set back from the street by a neat, paved front garden which was in turn enclosed behind a low wall topped with black iron railings. Two clipped bay trees stood guard on either side of the iron gate.
Xanthe parked the cab directly outside the house and opened the door for her mother. The fog of the previous day had gone so that the village was dressed in late autumn sunshine. Even so, she was glad of the old college scarf she had tucked into her vintage tweed jacket before they set out. She made a mental note to dig out her winter coat when they got home, and next time to team her tea dress with warmer leggings.
“Ooh,” said Flora, planting her crutches firmly onto the pavement and taking in her surroundings. “How very lovely. No wonder they use this place for films.”
“It is fairly gorgeous,” Xanthe agreed. She felt a tingle of excitement, a prickling of her scalp, and wondered briefly if it signified something special inside the house. Something that was waiting for her. The thought, after recent events, caused anxiety to knot her stomach. Shaking off the idea, she told herself it was only the normal excitement of the treasure hunt.
“Let’s get started,” she said. “The nephew promised he’d be here by nine. His name’s Lionel. Sounded like the whole business of inheriting anything is a bit of a chore for him.”
They made their way to the front door and Flora used the key she had been sent to let them in. The hallway echoed as they stepped onto the broad boards of the floor. There were very obvious spaces where large pieces of furniture had already been removed, as well as light patches on the walls being the ghosts of the paintings that once hung there. A polished wooden staircase led up from the center of the hall, with a narrow passageway on one side toward the back of the house, and doors off right and left to the reception rooms.
Flora took her notebook from her backpack and consulted a list. “There won’t be anything in here. Let’s try the sitting room first. There should be a corner cabinet, a Persian rug, a chaise longue and, according to the nephew, ‘a lovely fire screen.’ We’ll see. One man’s lovely is another man’s ghastly.”
The screen turned out to be mediocre and the chaise too big to fit in the shop. The rug was somewhat marred by sparks from the open fire beyond it. Xanthe knelt down to inspect it more closely. It felt wonderfully soft as she ran her hand over the rich reds and blues of the pattern. As a child all such rugs had made her think of a magic carpet, and this one was no exception. She liked to think of all the children who had sat on it, perhaps playing with a favorite teddy bear, or driving a toy car along the geometric pattern at its edges. She wondered how many Christmas presents had been unwrapped on it, right there, in front of a crackling fire, and how many beloved dogs had stretched out upon it to luxuriate in the warmth from the hearth.
“It’s not perfect,” she told her mother, “but it’s still nice. I think it would sell quite quickly.”
Flora was scrutinizing the corner cabinet. “This is Victorian. Bit brown. Looks like this was used to display silver. The nephew must have already snaffled that. This is in good nick though.”
“We could use it in the shop.”
“Or I could rub it down and transform it with a new coat of paint. Dark wood’s still pretty unfashionable. It would have a completely different feel if someone painted it … oh … mole’s breath gray?”
“You’re the woman to do it,” said Xanthe.
Deciding they would make a low offer for the cabinet and think about the rug, they moved back through the hall and up the rather fine staircase. There were two floors of bedrooms and bathrooms. Xanthe let her mother check the ones on the first floor and took herself up the second flight to the attic rooms. She could hear the echo of her mother’s crutches as she stick-stepped her way across bare floorboards.
“These rooms are pretty much empty already,” she called up. “The beds might have been nice; pity not to have had a chance at those.”
“We haven’t room for beds, Mum,” Xanthe reminded her. The smaller rooms on her floor would have originally housed the servants. The ceiling was boarded with modern insulation but still the unheated space was chilly. Xanthe could only imagine how cold the winters must have been for the maids living up in the rafters of the house. In times gone by the servants themselves served as insulation, helping to keep their employers warmer in the rooms below. Xanthe was reminded of how cold, even in autumn, her bedroom had been at Great Chalfield Manor. She thought wistfully of Jayne and wondered how her fellow kitchen maid was faring.
“Oh!” Her mother’s delighted shout brought her back to the present. “A lovely escritoire! Come and have a look.”
At last they went back downstairs to the dining room. As they let the door swing open, Xanthe and Flora gasped in unison. For Flora, it was the sight that greeted them that so impressed her. For Xanthe, it was the sound of a clear, high note, like the ringing of a celestial bell, that caused her to catch her breath and even throw her hands to her ears. Flora was too taken up with their find to notice her daughter’s gesture. If she had seen how strongly Xanthe had reacted to the contents of the room she would have known instantly that something was singing to her. Some special object, filled with the vibrations of its own history, was calling to her. As it was, she was entirely focused on the treasures in front of her.
“Now that’s what I call a collection!” she said.
The dining table and chairs had evidently been taken away, so that the main part of the room was empty. The far wall, however, had been given over entirely as a place to house the objects of Esther Harris’s passion. On deep shelves, behind glass doors, sat dozens and dozens of chocolate pots. Some were copper, some fine china, some pewter, o
thers silver. One or two were enameled. There were pots with wooden handles; pots with stirrers and pots without; pots with matching cups and saucers; pots with silver spoons and sugar bowls and tongs. There were graceful eighteenth-century porcelain examples with exquisitely painted decorations depicting flowers or finely dressed ladies. There were beaten silver pots engraved with swirling initials or coats of arms. There were sinuous pots in the art nouveau style and angular art deco ones with tiny wedgelike cups on ebony trays.
“Wow!” muttered Flora, hurrying forward to scan the shelves, taking in the range and beauty of what they had found.
Beyond the briefest of glances, Xanthe barely saw the true extent of the collection. She was irresistibly drawn to a single pot. She stepped forward, placing her hand on the glass, submitting to that unmistakable song, giving in to her gift. From anyone else this particular pot might not have earned a second glance. It had no elaborate rococo curls, nor was it fashioned from translucent French porcelain. This pot was made of copper, burnished to a deep shine over hundreds of years, dented in places, its simple shape and plain wooden handle suggesting that it had been made not for show but for function. Similar in size and shape to a modern coffeepot, the chocolatiere differed in one or two crucial details. The handle was set at right angles to the slender gooseneck spout. This was to allow the pot to be gently swirled as it was poured, the better to mix the grainy chocolate with the hot milk. The wooden half of the handle was shaped to fit the palm of the hand and to protect it from the heat of the pot. The lid had a hinged finial, which lifted to reveal a vital hole. Xanthe had seen such pots before and knew that a stirring stick, or “molinet” as it was known by aficionados, would be lowered into the liquid so that it could be stirred before pouring, to blend the mixture and keep it from separating, making sure that the chocolate was evenly distributed.
Xanthe closed her eyes. The glass beneath her hand seemed to vibrate. Above the keening note she could hear something else: a rumbling. What was that? Wheels, perhaps? Over a rough road, maybe? And something more. Water. Not the trickle of a brook or the rough sound of a rocky river, but a low thrum, suggesting a surge of deep, fast-flowing water. She waited for a vision, for a glimpse of what the pot was trying to show her, but nothing came.
Flora’s voice reached her despite her dreamlike state. “Some of these are really special. Look, Meissen, Limoges … lovely bit of chinoiserie going on there. And those two have to be Viennese. Good grief! This lot must be worth a small fortune. Way out of our budget, I’m afraid.… Xanthe?” After a moment her daughter turned and Flora realized Xanthe’s attention had been entirely taken by the single, unassuming pot. “Xanthe, love, have you found something?”
Xanthe opened her eyes and looked at her mother, her face confirming what Flora had already worked out.
At that moment they heard the front door open.
“Hello? Anyone about? Mrs. Westlake?” called a breezy male voice from the hallway.
Xanthe and Flora exchanged anxious glances. Both knew the price of the collection would be way beyond their means. And both knew that Xanthe absolutely had to have that copper pot.
“In here,” Flora sang out as casually as she was able.
Esther Harris’s nephew, middle-aged and middle management by the look of him, came striding into the room, hand outstretched in greeting, confidently accommodating Flora’s need to adjust her hold on her crutches so that she could shake it.
“Lionel Harris. You got the key to work then? Well done. The front door can be a bit tricky. Poor old house needs some work. Apart from the outside, which the Trust insist is kept up, my aunt was inclined to let things slide. I see you’ve found her coffeepots. Can’t think why she had such a fondness for the things. Don’t recall her ever even drinking the stuff. But there it is, each to their own. I suppose one or two of the prettier ones have their charm.”
Xanthe forced herself out of her reverie, shook the man’s hand, and tried to avoid her mother’s gaze. Lionel had revealed so much in such a short time it was difficult to process it. First, it was obvious to Xanthe, he had not known his aunt well. If he had he would surely have discovered what her collection really consisted of. Second, and here was the dilemma she knew Flora would be facing at precisely the same moment, he evidently had no idea how valuable the collection was. It was possible they could get a real bargain and turn a sizeable profit. But that would mean hiding the truth from him to strike a good deal. Xanthe could imagine many dealers she knew rubbing their hands together at the prospect of such a transaction. Less scrupulous members of the antique trade considered it no more than sound business, and if the seller was too lazy or too naive to find out the true value of what he had then that was his problem.
Flora, on the other hand, would never stoop to such low practices.
And yet, Xanthe could not walk away from that pot. Their only hope was that he might be prepared to split the collection.
Xanthe smiled. “Miss Harris must have been collecting for a long time.”
The nephew shrugged. “My father and she weren’t close. She hardly ever visited.”
“And you don’t want to keep any of these for yourself?” she asked.
Lionel Harris gave a dry bark of a laugh. “My wife said she won’t give them house room. Mind you, that’s not to say they don’t have a value,” he added, letting the thought sit there, waiting, presumably, for an offer.
Xanthe heard her mother tut under her breath. However much she prided herself on being a levelheaded businesswoman, to hear a lifetime of collecting reduced to nothing more than money, and to have so much craftsmanship and beauty reduced to a figure, would not sit well with her.
Xanthe nodded. “You’re right,” she said, knowing it was what the man wanted to hear, “some of them are quite sought after. And of course there is always a price to be had for silver.” She let him enjoy his moment and then went on. “Problem is, a collection of this size, well, nobody’s got room for it. We’d have difficulty shifting so many pots to the same person. And, to be honest, we don’t have enough storage space for all of them. Ours is a small shop.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Lionel. “Business rates in Marlborough are a nightmare. How about you just choose the ones you think you could sell? I can let the charity shop take what you don’t want.”
Flora’s mouth fell open at this. Xanthe knew they couldn’t let him give away objects that could be worth tens of thousands of pounds without knowing their value. But if they talked the pieces up too much he might realize what he had and not let them have any. Xanthe thought quickly. It was true that the collection as a whole could be worth a great deal, but it was also a fact that few collectors existed who would be interested. Getting him to split it up might not be doing him out of what he could get, but they had to at least alert him to the real value.
“There are one or two that we’re interested in. They’d fit with our stock, you see. Your best bet for the others would be to put them in an auction.”
“Really? Would it be worth the bother?”
“Oh yes,” Flora insisted. “We can let you have the number of a good auctioneer. He’ll see they go into the right sale. You might be surprised how well they do.”
“All right, sounds like a plan,” he said. “Which ones do you want?”
Xanthe and Flora both waited, just for a moment, determined not to show any real eagerness, wary of seeming too enthusiastic.
Flora waved a stick at the shelves. “I’m quite taken with that flowery set with the cups and saucers. I think they might be Austrian. That silver one is Georgian and lovely, but a bit pricey for us, I should imagine. Art nouveau is always popular, so we could make you an offer for those two over there. And the one with the Chinese dragon, I like that. Xanthe, anything take your fancy?”
Xanthe’s pulse began to race. The ringing in her ears grew louder. “Oh, you know me, Mum, I like the rustic stuff,” she said, pointing at the copper pot. To her it felt so important, so fi
lled with powerful history, she found it impossible to believe that Lionel Harris wouldn’t be able to see how special it was.
“What, that funny old thing with the dents?” he asked. “I suppose you know what young people want. How much for those five then? Sorry to press you, but I’ve a lunch meeting in Salisbury, and there’s the rest of the house to get round yet.”
Xanthe didn’t trust herself to handle the deal. Flora did her best to sound nonchalant.
“Well, if you throw in the little corner cabinet in the sitting room I think we could go to 3,000 pounds.”
To his credit, Esther’s nephew did a fair job of hiding his surprise. Even so, Xanthe saw a fleeting expression of delight cross his face. He cleared his throat and strode up to the shelves, studying the pots as if, suddenly, he knew what he was talking about.
“Three thousand, you say? Hmmm.”
They waited. The sound of a church bell ringing drifted in through the thin glass of the window.
“Of course pretty china will always find a buyer,” he said, looking hard at the set Flora wanted. “How about we make it three and a half?” he asked at last.
Xanthe tensed. Her mother’s choices were sound enough, but it was still a niche market. And yet again she was asking her to spend money they scarcely had to buy something she wouldn’t want to part with, at least not for some time.
Flora made a show of considering the offer, appearing to do some mental calculations. “Well, that is rather more than I’d like to pay, we do have our markup to consider.…” When Lionel didn’t budge she smiled. “Tell you what, throw in the Persian rug and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
An hour later, the rest of the house toured with no great finds, Xanthe tucked the bubble-wrapped copper chocolate pot safely into the back of the taxi, swaddling it in the rug, her hands trembling ever so slightly as she did so.
“Soon have you home,” she whispered to the strange treasure. “And then you can tell me your story. Promise.” At the same time she promised herself that whatever it revealed to her, there would be no more jaunts to the past. Not this time. It was just too dangerous.
Secrets of the Chocolate House Page 2