She took off her boots, removed the pins from her hair and shook it loose and then, shivering, climbed under the blankets fully clothed. Exhaustion swamped her, so that within moments she had fallen into a profound, heavy sleep, where her dreams were haunted not by Samuel’s darkly beautiful face, but by the pale, gaunt features of Benedict Fairfax.
* * *
Xanthe was woken before daybreak the next morning by Edmund shaking her.
“Up with you! The mistress will have something to say about sluggardliness. Quick sticks!” he urged her, before turning on his skinny heel and disappearing back down the narrow attic stairway.
Xanthe rubbed her eyes and crawled stiffly out of bed. In the half light that the lifting night allowed she tackled her hair, wrestling it into a bun and retying her scarf on top of it. The cold air of the loft space soon found its way through her layers of clothing so that she was eager to pull on her boots and descend to the warmth of the ground floor. She found Edmund setting a fire in the hearth.
“There’s a washbowl in the pantry out back,” he told her, not for a second taking his eyes off his important task. “Be quick now. Mistress Flyte likes the room swept fresh each morning before we have a bite to eat.”
The pantry turned out to be a room several degrees colder than the attic due to the large slabs of stone and thick walls designed to keep milk cold. Hefty churns stood near the back door, some apparently empty, others with ladles hanging from their lids, filled with fresh, foamy milk. Xanthe found the washbowl and jug and prepared herself for the cold of the water. She had not, however, reckoned with a thin layer of ice which she had to break before she could fill the bowl and then splash her face. She gasped, thankful that she wouldn’t be staying long enough to have to wash her body the same way. She all but ran to the little shed outside that housed the toilet. The slates on the roof showed a rosy sky through the gaps as dawn broke. Xanthe had to clench her teeth to stop them from chattering. This was no place to linger.
Back indoors, Edmund had succeeded in getting a cheerful, if smoky, fire going. He worked the bellows at it furiously, sending wild flames and sparks up the chimney.
“There’s a broom behind you. The faster you sweep the sooner we eat,” he told her.
Xanthe set to her task. The room still held the echo of men’s laughter and chatter from the previous evening. With the smoke not yet having taken hold of the space, it smelled of polished wood and warm milk and brandy and, deliciously, tantalizingly, chocolate. Somewhere upstairs a clock struck the hour. Seven o’clock. Just getting light. Xanthe estimated that the time of year must then be mid-February at the latest. This puzzled her. On her previous trips to the past, she had calculated that time passed at a different rate than in her own day, and that difference meant that for every ten hours she was gone from the twenty-first century, ten days passed in Samuel’s time. But this didn’t fit with how much time had gone by since she last stepped back through the blind house. She had left Samuel just before August Bank Holiday in her own era, and approximately nine weeks had passed since then. Which meant months and months should have elapsed for Samuel. Years, in fact. But Mistress Flyte had talked of the “events of last autumn,” referring to the Gunpowder Plot. Which meant only a few months had passed. In one way this was a relief. She had not stopped to think that several years might have passed in Samuel’s life. How would he have changed? How would his life have moved on? It was comforting to think the gap had only been from November to February. What was worrying, though, was the dawning realization that this meant the time difference between the two centuries when she traveled was not fixed. Sometimes it went much faster in the past, sometimes it progressed almost at the same speed as her own time. Which meant she could never be certain, never plan her visits, never know for sure when she would arrive home. She felt a momentary panic. What if the system had reversed itself? What if weeks, months, years were passing back in her own century? What would poor Flora be going through? She shook away the thought, sweeping the floor with increasing vigor to stave off driving herself mad with such an idea. She couldn’t know. Couldn’t do anything about the movement of time, in Samuel’s era or her own. She would just have to press on with what she needed to do as quickly as possible.
A hammering on the door made her start, she had been so deep in thought. Edmund scooted past her and drew back the bolts. The baker’s boy carried in a large tray of loaves and cinnamon rolls, placing it on the counter. The aroma made Xanthe’s mouth water.
“Mistress Flyte made you man of the premises, has she, Edmund?” he asked, wiping his brow with the back of a floury arm.
“She’s not yet risen.”
“All right for some.” The baker’s boy leaned on the counter and stared at Xanthe, taking in her less than normal clothing and inexpertly tied hair. “Got yourself some new help, I see.”
Edmund frowned. “You’d better get yourself back before your father misses you. Doesn’t take two minutes to cross the bridge. I wouldn’t want to be on the blunt end of his bad temper.”
“Oh, I’m not afeared of my father. Besides, can’t leave afore I’m paid for the bread now, can I?”
Edmund’s frown deepened. “I’ll fetch you your money,” he said, and hurried up the stairs to find his employer.
The baker’s boy took the opportunity to stare openly at Xanthe. She stopped sweeping and put a hand on her hip, tilting her head, meeting his stare. “If you’ve nothing better to do I can find you a broom, you know.”
“What, and leave off watching a person sweeping so finely? ’T’would be a shame. You are more refreshing to mind and soul than Edmund, I’ll tell you that for nothing.”
Xanthe was about to put him in his place when Edmund came racing back down the stairs.
“The mistress—she’s not there!”
“What do you mean?” Xanthe could sense the boy’s panic.
“Not in her bed, not in her rooms. Nowhere to be found. Gone!”
The baker’s boy straightened up. “Mayhap she went out to fetch something.”
Edmund shook his head, his eyes wide. “The door was bolted when I let you in. From the inside.” He turned to Xanthe. “Had the milk been delivered?”
“Sorry?”
“Were the empty milk churns gone or are they there still?”
“I’m not sure, I think I did see some empty ones.…”
Edmund disappeared toward the back of the building and returned, breathless, only moments later. “The yard door is unbolted.…”
“Well, there you are then,” said the baker’s boy, shaking his head at such unnecessary drama. “Your mistress will have stepped out to fetch something. She’ll return directly. I do not doubt it.”
“But she never goes out before we have our bite to eat. Never. Not one morning in all the years I’ve been here! And never through the yard door. She only ever uses it to let the milkman in. Her bed has not been slept in. I tell you, she is gone!”
Xanthe could see the boy was truly distressed. She leaned her broom against the wall and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Edmund. I’m sure there’s a simple reason for her absence. All will become clear. We’ll look for her together. Will you help us?” she asked the baker’s boy, who puffed himself out with importance at the thought of being needed.
“I shall go back into town and ask if anyone’s had sight of her,” he said, enjoying Xanthe’s smile of thanks.
“Edmund, you know the town better than I. Come, we will go out the yard door and begin our search there.”
“But we cannot leave the chocolate house.”
It took her a full minute to persuade him they could lock up the premises and leave it for whatever time it took to find Mistress Flyte. After all, they could not throw open their doors to customers without her.
Xanthe ran upstairs and fetched her heavy greatcoat, Edmund pulled on a felted woolen jacket, and they re-bolted the front door, making their way out the back. The yard opened ont
o a cobbled street wide enough for the milkman’s cart but comprised mostly of the backs of houses and shops, so that it was quiet and not overlooked a great deal. The cobbles felt uneven beneath Xanthe’s boots, and it struck her how new and unworn they were compared to the almost flattened ones in her own little street in her own time.
They had gone no more than a few dozen yards when Edmund let out a cry.
“Oh my dear Lord in heaven! Look! Look there!”
She followed his horrified gaze and saw a figure, crumpled and twisted, lying in the gutter. It was clearly a woman, her skirts soaked in filth, frost upon them, her hair loosened from its pins. Edmund gasped, too horrified to look closer. Xanthe crouched down beside the stricken woman, gently placing a hand on her arm, knowing before she could clearly see her face that this broken, beaten creature was indeed Mistress Louisa Flyte.
Edmund could not bear to come closer. “Is she…?” Nor could he form the word.
Xanthe put her fingers to the old woman’s throat and felt a pulse. It was faint and stuttering, but a pulse nonetheless.
“She’s alive! Mistress Flyte? Can you hear me?” Xanthe could see a nasty head wound and suspected some of her fingers were broken. It was impossible to tell what other injuries the woman had sustained, but it had clearly been a brutal attack, and one meant to kill her. Xanthe considered what she should do. She knew it would be dangerous to move her, but no ambulance was going to come to their aid. No paramedics running with a stretcher.
“Help me take her inside,” she said to Edmund.
As gently as they could, they turned Mistress Flyte over. Edmund was a bony youth, but he was strong. He slipped his arms under his employer’s, lifting her head against his chest, while Xanthe lifted her legs at the knees. Together they made their awkward progress back along the cobbles. At one point their patient gave a low moan.
“Oh!” gasped Edmund. “We are causing her to suffer more!”
“Don’t stop!” Xanthe urged him. “We have no choice. Out here in this cold she will certainly die.”
They struggled on. By the time they had reached the main room of the chocolate house the baker’s boy had returned with no news and was able to help them take her upstairs to her bedchamber. It was pitiful to hear her moan as they moved her, but Xanthe told herself it was a good sign. She was regaining consciousness. There was hope.
“I will need to undress her to tend to her wounds,” Xanthe told the men. “Edmund, why don’t you go and make us all some hot chocolate? I’m sure you know how.”
He drew himself up. “The mistress has me do it when she is occupied talking to the patrons,” he assured her.
“Good. Bring me some in a shallow cup. Mistress Flyte must take some too if she is able.”
After thanking the baker’s boy for his assistance and promising him a hot drink for his trouble, Xanthe was left to do her best to nurse the old woman. It was slow work, taking off her filthy dress, some of which she had to cut away. Each piece she removed seemed to reveal another injury, and in places the fabric was pressed into the bloody flesh. Some wounds even bore the print of a boot.
“Who did this to you?” she asked, expecting no reply. Mistress Flyte’s eyes flickered once or twice as if trying to make sense of where she was and what was happening, but she was not yet able to speak. “Who would do such a thing?” Xanthe knew that footpads and robbers lurked in all towns, preying on the unsuspecting and unwary. But Mistress Flyte was a woman of keen intelligence. She was evidently used to managing her own affairs. She would not, Xanthe realized, have opened that back door late at night without good reason. Without, perhaps, being asked to do so by someone she knew. Someone who had made the ultimate betrayal.
When Edmund appeared with hot chocolate and bread she sent him to fetch boiled water and clean cloths. While she waited she took a fine cotton nightdress from the linen press and tore it into strips for bandages. She thought about sending for the apothecary but decided to wait. Her own rudimentary first-aid knowledge would probably be as good as any quackery that might do more harm than good and, possibly, spread word of the fact that the old woman had not only been attacked, but that she still lived. If whoever had beaten her had meant to kill her, it was best, for the time being, that they thought they had succeeded. Xanthe didn’t like to think of Edmund and herself having to fend off an attacker while also trying to nurse their mistress. She took stock of her patient’s wounds. All the fingers of her left hand were broken, apparently stamped upon; she had extensive bruising over her chest, suggesting cracked ribs; her legs were also bruised and cut in places; and then there was the worrying head wound. It seemed her attacker had delivered a blow with some sort of blunt object, on the right side of the head, above the ear. As the old woman wasn’t conscious it was impossible to tell if she was concussed, but it seemed likely. Remembering her schoolgirl first-aid lessons, Xanthe checked for straw-colored liquid in the ears—a sign of a fractured skull. She was relieved to find none. When Edmund brought the water he had also given her a pot of ointment, its ingredients indeterminate, which he assured her Mistress Flyte applied to all cuts and abrasions as it aided healing. Looking at the broken, bandage-wrapped person on the bed Xanthe feared it would take more than a sweet-smelling balm. She asked Edmund for small pieces of wood and strips of clean linen so that she could make a rudimentary splint for the damaged hand and then sat on the edge of the bed while she waited.
To her surprise, Mistress Flyte at last opened her eyes.
“Fear not,” Xanthe told her gently, “you are in your own bed. You are safe now.”
Mistress Flyte winced as she tried to move and quickly lay still again. She tried to speak but her voice was a whisper. Xanthe held the cup of chocolate to her lips and helped her sip. The old woman screwed up her face and found her voice.
“Ugh. Edmund has boiled the milk! He knows better than to do that,” she said.
Xanthe smiled. “His mind was elsewhere. It is a good thing you will be here to remind him,” she said. When Mistress Flyte raised her eyebrows Xanthe nodded. “You were close to death, mistress. Had Edmund not raised the alarm when he did, with your wounds, and the night so cold…”
The old woman closed her eyes. “He is a good boy,” she said.
“Did you see your attacker? Who would want to do this to you?”
“We are none of us without our enemies. Do not leave the chocolate house to Edmund alone. He will not know … whom to trust.…” So saying, she drifted into a fitful sleep before Xanthe could question her further.
Xanthe had to acknowledge to herself, with a sinking heart, that there was no possibility of her going to Laybrook to find Samuel now. Who else would nurse Mistress Flyte? Her recovery was still not certain. And what if her attacker returned? She could not abandon her, not after she had helped her.
Once the old woman was sleeping a little more comfortably, Xanthe went downstairs. She found Edmund at the front door turning away customers. He was doing what seemed the most sensible thing, but was it? Surely business as usual would be better. People who knew her would be alerted to the fact that something was seriously wrong if she let her beloved chocolate house remain closed. Surely Edmund could make the chocolate and she could keep up with serving and playing host. Just for a few hours.
“Wait,” she called after the would-be customers. “Gentlemen, stay.”
A stout man with a drooping mustache stepped forward. “We understand Mistress Flyte is indisposed.”
“That is correct, sir.”
“So is the chocolate house open or no?”
“Our mistress would not hear of your good self, or any of her valued patrons, being turned away. Come, take a seat by the fire,” she said, holding the door open and ushering them in.
Edmund’s mouth dropped open. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
“It’s what Mistress Flyte would want. We carry on. The chocolate house is open. And please don’t keep telling everyone she is gravely ill. Don’t tell them
anything. Be vague, Edmund. Put your worry about your mistress aside and all your attention into making the chocolate. I know you will do a fine job. Now, show me what needs to be done.”
The youth protested a little further but quickly gave in when Xanthe assured him his employer would be impressed and grateful if he managed to see to the customers. And that she would no doubt reward him. More than that, she told him, Mistress Flyte would be pleased that her careful training had enabled him to properly make the hot chocolate. At that, he turned the sign in the door to open, tightened his apron, and told Xanthe to follow him. Under his direction, they fetched flagons of milk from the churns in the pantry, stoked up the fire, set candles on the tables, put milk over a flame on the stove behind the counter to warm, unwrapped the precious cocoa, and laid out bread and cinnamon buns on pretty china plates. Within an hour, the room was nearly half full, and the murmur of soft voices gave the place a low-level buzz of good humor and lively conversation. Xanthe insisted Edmund show her how to make the hot chocolate, convincing him he couldn’t do it all himself. It wasn’t complicated, but there was clearly an art to getting the milk exactly the right temperature. And some customers were particularly picky, wanting this spice, or that strength, or this particular vessel. At first Xanthe found she and Edmund could keep up quite well, but by lunchtime they were overwhelmed and struggling. When a customer became irate because of the wait it was all Xanthe could do to resist giving him a piece of her mind.
At one point, without thinking about it, she snatched up the special copper pot, her copper pot. At once, it vibrated in her hand, setting up such a high-pitched whine that she fumbled with the lid and dropped it. It made a horrible clatter as it fell upon the unforgiving stones of the hearth in front of the stove. Cursing under her breath she picked it up and dusted it off.
Secrets of the Chocolate House Page 8