“Come quick!”
Edmund’s shout from the floor below made her all but drop the chocolate pot. She raced to the top of the attic stairs. The boy below beckoned urgently.
“Come quick…’tis the mistress!” And with that he dashed back toward the bedchamber.
Xanthe followed, fearing what she would find. As she entered the room she half expected to see a weeping Edmund standing over the lifeless body of Mistress Flyte. She could not have been more wrong.
“Why, Xanthe, how fatigued you look.” The old woman’s voice was thin but unwavering, and her eyes retained their focus as Xanthe came to stand at her bedside. “And poor Edmund is quite worn out. I fear the chocolate house has been a heavy burden, as have I.…”
“Oh, no, mistress!” Edmund insisted. “’T’was no trouble at all.”
She reached out and patted his hand. “I am fortunate indeed to have such a young man as you in my employ. And Xanthe, has she proved useful?”
Xanthe fancied she saw the faintest smile on the old woman’s lips.
Edmund treated the question with great seriousness.
“She has shown herself to be a fair apothecary, a good maid, and hard-working, but…”
“But?”
“She has no feel for the chocolate, mistress. Nor would I advise giving her the best porcelain to carry, not if you wish to see it returned in good order.”
Xanthe could not help laughing at this accurate description of her talents. Edmund blushed deeply.
“Thank you, Edmund,” Mistress Flyte said. “I will not keep you from your bed longer.”
So dismissed he backed from the room, the relief of having his beloved mistress well again written all over his youthful if weary features. Once they were alone together the old woman reached for Xanthe’s hand.
“I owe you my life,” she said, already visibly tiring. “I am indebted to you.”
“You took me in, gave a stranger a chance.…”
“I think you understand that I do not see you as a stranger, for I recall telling you that I know what it is you are.”
“Ah, you remember that?”
“And more besides. You are a diligent nurse.”
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was doing was even safe.”
“You are a resourceful girl. As you will need to be.”
“I have so many questions.”
“I imagine so.”
“The first of which is, do you remember who attacked you?”
“I did not see my assailant.”
“But you unlocked the door, you went outside late at night.…”
“I heard my name called. I believed I knew who it was who called me. I fancied I recognized the voice.” Mistress Flyte looked, for a moment, deeply saddened, and turned her face away. “Forgive me, I am fatigued.…”
“Here, let me help you.” Xanthe made her more comfortable and then left her to sleep. She plodded back up to her own room, pausing only to remove her boots before falling into bed. The relief of knowing that the old woman would live, and that tomorrow she would at last be able to talk to her about so many things, removed the last of her determination to keep going, so that she quickly fell into a heavy, dreamless slumber.
7
What Xanthe had not considered was the fact that Mistress Flyte’s first concern, now that she was well enough to fret, was the chocolate house. She had both Xanthe and Edmund running up and down the stairs all the next morning, bringing her a tally of chocolate and spice stocks, details of the takings, news of which customers had been in while she had been ill, and so it went on. Between meeting her demands for information and carrying out her instructions and serving in the chocolate house, there was no time for questions. No time to find the answers that Xanthe knew she must have before she left. She promised herself she would see Mistress Flyte on her feet, satisfy herself that the old woman’s recovery was assured, and then she would talk to her. She dared not wait any longer.
Edmund rose to the challenge of continuing to keep customers happy, showing himself to be talented in at last learning the ways different patrons preferred to take their drinks. What he lacked, what Xanthe suspected he might never acquire, was the easy manner of a host. Nor did he have his mistress’s interest in politics, so that he was quite oblivious to the whispering in corners and intense huddles around tables that went on in the business he was running. Xanthe began to notice there were cliques, or small groups of men who always sat together, always seemed engaged in earnest conversation, while others appeared to be more interested in smoking their pipes or enjoying their hot chocolate. She thought about how strange it felt not to see many women there. In the twenty-first century, chocolate was surely a predominantly female passion; she could imagine lots of her friends, Gerri and her mother included, who would love such a place. But there was evidently more to the chocolate house than its delicious and reviving beverage. It was about gathering. About a place to meet. A place slightly on the margins, so new and expensive was its delicacy. A place that was beginning to mark people out as having dangerous alliances, however. How much longer would people use it if they were going to be dragged across the road to the lockup on the say-so of men like Benedict Fairfax? Xanthe wondered.
It was nearly four in the afternoon before Xanthe finally had the opportunity to leave Edmund and go upstairs, taking two fine china cups of aromatic hot chocolate with her. She set them down on the bedside table in Mistress Flyte’s chamber, drawing up a chair to sit near. She handed the old woman her drink, helping her to sit comfortably with it before settling down with her own.
“You have regained a little color, mistress,” she told her. “Do you feel stronger?”
“Thanks to your ministrations and Edmund’s chocolate I feel my strength wonderfully restored. On the morrow I shall at last rise from this sickbed and resume my duties. And you must make your way to Laybrook. I have detained you long enough.”
Xanthe searched for the words to ask what she wanted, to start in on the difficult topic of traveling through time. Mistress Flyte saw her hesitation and read much into the silence.
“Ask what you will, child. You have earned the right. You undertook the dangerous task of journeying through time solely for my benefit. I, of all people, know what you risked.”
“Please, don’t tell me that. That’s something I prefer not to dwell on.”
“As you wish. Nonetheless, such action when you are so inexpert, that is to say, so newly come to the business of spinning through the centuries—well, it was courageous, and I will be forever grateful.”
“Believe me, you took as great a risk as me. I wasn’t certain how you would respond to the medication I brought for you.”
“It was not as unfamiliar to me as you might imagine.”
“Oh?” Xanthe was confused for a moment but then a realization came to her. “Of course, many of the old remedies, that is, the cures from this time, they must have contained antibiotics. I mean, the apothecaries and herbalists wouldn’t have called them that, they might not have known how they worked, but I suppose trial and error would have led them to the right things sometimes. Like honey, doesn’t that have high levels of antibiotics in it? Oh, sorry, silly question. You’ve never heard the word before now.”
Mistress Flyte smiled slowly. “Let us say that a person does not reach my age without acquiring broad wisdom. Some sought, some given, all useful.”
Xanthe leaned forward on her chair. “You told me, when you were feverish, that you knew who … what I was. You said something about spinners of time?” When the old woman nodded Xanthe continued. “Well, how did you know? How did you know about the chocolate pot, come to that? Can you hear it too? Do you connect with objects the way I do? And what about Fairfax; you said he could travel through time too. How do you know that? And how will he have heard about me?”
Mistress Flyte raised a hand, laughing lightly. “Upon my word, what a torrent of queries! You must allow yourself time to absorb
all this newfound knowledge. It is a great deal to come to terms with. There will be some adjustment needed.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have the luxury of time. As you said yourself, I need to get to Laybrook and help Samuel, and anything you can tell me about this incredible ability that seems to have come to me out of nowhere…”
“No, not that. You have always had the gift of connecting with the past, have you not?”
“Well, yes, through some of the things I find.”
“Or that find you.”
Now Xanthe smiled. “That’s what Mum always says. That a treasure hunt works both ways. And once something has found you, you shouldn’t ignore it. It was meant, finding it, being found.…”
“Your mother is an astute woman.”
“But I’ve always been able to detect the stories some of the treasures hold. When they want to show them to me, that is. This traveling backward and forward through time though,” she shook her head, “this is something else! I worked out that the blind house in our garden, back in Marlborough, that it is some sort of point of energy which seems to change things. It sits on the intersection of two ley lines. It has the effect of changing the connection I have with objects from just showing and feeling to, well, going places.” She laughed a little at the understatement of this. “But what if I’d never moved to Marlborough? What if we hadn’t bought the shop?”
“You are prepared to believe that personal objects find you, why would you not accept the same of a building?”
“The shop, the blind house … they found us too? The way the chocolate pot did? And the chatelaine before that?”
Mistress Flyte shifted on her bed, her injuries still causing her pain and discomfort. “It is important you learn to relinquish control, child. Your path will be easier if you understand that it is one chosen for you, not the other way around.”
Xanthe was too tired to decide if the old woman was being deliberately obtuse, or if it was simply a case of their use of language being so different. Either way she was struggling to fully make sense of what she was being told. She could see that Mistress Flyte was quickly tiring and had to hide her frustration. There were so many things she wanted to know, but the old woman’s health was still fragile. She needed her rest, not least so that Xanthe would feel able to leave her to Edmund’s care in the morning.
“I’m glad to see you recovered, mistress. Promise me you will not overexert yourself, not return to your duties fully too soon. I worry.…”
Mistress Flyte held up a hand. “You have nursed me to reasonable health. Do not concern yourself with me further. I will write you a letter to take to Samuel’s cousin in Laybrook, by way of introduction. You can go there. It will be a safe place for you to stay while you do what you can for young Appleby. Now, to your bed. You will need your wits about you if you are to prevail over Benedict Fairfax.”
Xanthe got to her feet. “Tell me one more thing. If Fairfax is a time spinner too, what would he want from me? He can travel to what time he wants without my help, presumably. And I’m no threat to him. I just want to protect Samuel.”
Mistress Flyte turned and gazed at the pulsing flame of the candle beside her bed, and Xanthe saw again an expression of sadness cast a shadow over her fine features. She looked different, somehow, in these moments when she was caught thinking about Fairfax. “Who can fathom the workings of such a singular mind?” Mistress Fairfax said slowly. “What cannot be denied is that ambition can tarnish a man’s heart. You will have to tread with caution. He is a Spinner of long standing, though he is not as gifted nor expert as he wishes to be. It happens that some are more natural in their abilities…” she smiled at Xanthe, “… while others must work harder to acquire the skills they need. And in that work, in that study, some equip themselves, over time, with further useful talents, such as the ability to detect the presence and activity of other time spinners. Fairfax knew you were coming. He was waiting here for you, was he not? It is entirely likely he was aware of your earlier journeys. You did not encounter him during your previous travels to this century?”
Xanthe started to shake her head but then experienced a vivid flash of memory. She saw, in her mind’s eye, a tall, angular, pale man in a broad-brimmed hat standing across the green from her when she had visited Alice in the blind house. Now it came back to her. “Yes!” she said. “It must have been him. I knew he was somehow familiar. I saw him when I came to help Alice.”
“And he saw you. Was it a seemingly chance meeting?”
“Well, yes. I mean, no one outside the household knew where I was going. And even they didn’t know until practically the last minute, as I had trouble persuading Mary I should be allowed to go. Nobody could have told him. And it was cold, a stormy day. I remember that because I can remember thinking how bleak and awful it must have been for Alice to be locked up in that stone building with nothing to keep her warm. So it was odd that this strange man was apparently just hanging around on the green. It was as if he was waiting for someone. Expecting someone.”
“Expecting you,” said Mistress Flyte.
“He didn’t approach me.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“No. The jailer was around. And Willis, I think. But I have heard his voice. Now I know it was his, not just another of the many voices I hear when I am traveling. I’ve glimpsed his face too sometimes, when I’ve been falling through time. Yes, it was definitely him. Watching me. Stalking me, practically.”
“Biding his time for the right moment. Which has come. Now that he has shown himself to you, made himself known, he will be ready to make his next move.”
“Which is likely to be what? I still don’t see why he needs me.”
“That I cannot tell you precisely, child. Rest assured, he would not waste his energies on you if he did not consider you crucial to his own ambitious plans. There is something he wants from you.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and it seemed to Xanthe that it was not her physical suffering that was causing her pain now as much as a memory, the echo of a past experience that made her look suddenly older and more frail.
“I am sorry to press you, mistress,” Xanthe said, “but there is so much I need to understand. The more I know about how all this works, and the better I understand Fairfax, well, the stronger chance I have of helping Samuel.”
The old woman opened her eyes again. “Chance has very little to do with it,” she insisted. And then a thought appeared to come to her. She leaned forward, her voice urgent. “There is something that could help you greatly. I wonder … Yes, it would make perfect sense! The blind house led you to it. The chatelaine, the chocolate pot, why not this too? For is it not equally vital? Tell me, child, in all your collecting of found things, and indeed of those things finding you, have you perhaps been united with a very particular book?”
“A book? Which one? What’s it called?”
“It may have no words written on the cover, or a single word, mayhap. It is so very old, it has been rebound many times, and different book binders have different notions about what would be suitable for a repository of such powerful knowledge. I saw it once, a long, long time ago. Held it in my hands.… Would that I had been able to keep it! Alas, such a prize provokes envy among those who know its worth. I know better than to believe I could keep such a gift, for it must go where it will. Where it is most needed. The time has come for it to have a new keeper, and I accept this.” She sighed heavily. “The vastness of time swallows up small items. To find a single book in the midst of all that has been and all that will be is to locate a single grain of sand upon the shores of a great ocean.”
As Xanthe listened to the old woman’s words something in her own memory began to stir. Some faint image, a connection, a glimpse of something that had, at the time when she had seen it, seemed insignificant, but now appeared crucial to what she was trying to do. When she had sorted through the boxes of stock in the shop, the ones they had inherited from Mr. Morris, the previous owner, there h
ad been books. Quite a number of books. Most of them had been water damaged or nibbled by mice or were marred by mildew, but some she had kept as part of the bookcase display. She remembered now the humble-looking leather-bound book that had worn gold lettering on it, flowing and deep set, making up the single word: Spinners. Excitement gripped her. She had dismissed the book as a dry tome about the history of a rural craft and not paid it any attention. It had to be the one Mistress Flyte was talking about. It had to be.
“I think,” she said carefully, watching the old woman closely, “that I might just have found it.”
Mistress Flyte sat forward. “Truly? You believe it is the very book?”
“Well, it’s certainly old, and the only word on it was ‘Spinners.’ No author, no publisher, nothing else. I thought it was to do with wool. My God, I could so easily have thrown it out! I only kept it because the leather cover is still in good condition. People buy books like that to look nice on their shelves and bookcases, pretty much regardless of what’s between the covers.”
“You have it!”
“But it can’t be what you say it is. I mean, if it’s that important, and if it’s about spinning time, and if I am a time spinner, then why didn’t it sing to me?”
Mistress Flyte smiled, her whole face lit up with excitement on hearing of this discovery. “The book was waiting.”
“Waiting?”
“For the right moment. The perfect moment to reveal itself, its true value, to the right person. To you.”
“Well it might have ended up in the rubbish bin! I could have done with knowing about it sooner. If there are instructions about traveling through time … think of the mistakes and difficulties I might have avoided. Why didn’t it sing to me when I found it, when I held it? Why wasn’t that the right moment?”
Leaning back in her seat, wincing slightly at the movement, the old woman explained, “There is an order to these things. One that cannot be upset. From a child, you have been listening to the singing of objects and felt the vibrations of their stories. Now a grown woman, you found your way to the right place so that you could begin your work as a spinner of time. And so you have started your travels, each journey a test not only of your courage and integrity but of your suitability as a Spinner.”
Secrets of the Chocolate House Page 11