by Maeve Friel
‘What is that?’ said William, sharply.
‘Nothing, just old stones falling down from the tower.’
‘No,’ said William. ‘Listen.’
For a moment, they could hear nothing but the distant clip-clop of a horse’s hooves as a carriage crossed the bridge. Then, quite clearly, they heard a sneeze, and then another.
William frowned at Annie and put his finger to his lips. He tiptoed towards the wall: deep in the shadows sat Sam Price, clutching a clump of grass and rubbing his knees.
‘What are you doing here, Sam Price?’ demanded William.
‘Trying to climb up,’ said Sam.
‘Into the castle? But there’s nothing in there. It’s all in ruins,’ said William.
‘I know,’ answered Sam, ‘but I’ve got to hide somewhere. I’ve run away.’
‘You clot,’ said William. ‘Where do you think you can hide in a town this size?’
‘I’m not going to stay in Ludlow. I’m running away to sea. I’m not going to work another day for Bessell. See what he gave me?’ He pointed at a cut under his eye. ‘And all because I spilt a bag of soot on Mistress Allen’s best rug.’
William whistled. He looked from Sam’s small sooty face to his sister’s.
‘Well, Annie,’ he said, solemnly, ‘is there anywhere in all of Dinham where we can stow this young man away until his ship comes in?’
‘Yes,’ said Annie, thinking quickly. ‘Come on. I’ll show you.’
Chapter 4
Lucien Bonaparte was a light eater but a fussy one. He had always tended to have indigestion but the condition had got steadily worse. Ever since he had fallen out with his brother, the emperor Napoleon, and put himself in self-imposed exile, he had felt unsafe. For years war had been spreading all over the Mediterranean and beyond as his brother’s ambitions grew. Lucien had had to become suspicious, until he was hardly able to tell the difference between friend or foe. It had done his stomach no good.
Eight months earlier, he had boarded a ship at Civitavecchia in Northern Italy to sail with his family to the newly independent United States of America. But the British Navy had run him down, afraid that he would plot against them once he arrived in America. For months he and all his household had been held as prisoners of war in Malta. Then, for reasons he could not understand, they had brought him to England. He was a free man, yet not a free man. He could write his poetry, attend a ball or take supper with the leading families of Ludlow – but he could not leave. He could not send or receive mail without allowing a lieutenant-colonel of the British Army to read it. He looked out his bedroom window at the frozen limbs of the trees on Whitcliffe Common opposite, at the clammy ribbon of fog which lay down in the hollows of the river valley and shuddered, remembering the golden light of Rome. His stomach rumbled. He rang the bell for his personal cook to bring him a light supper before going out to the ball. He did not yet trust the English to feed him.
The kitchens of Dinham House at five o’clock were far from quiet. All hands were on deck for there was dinner to be made for the children and the servants themselves, a late supper to be got ready and served at midnight after the ball was over, and tea and small cakes to be taken upstairs at once to the music room for all the young ladies and the tutor and the chaplain and Madame Alexandrine herself. A large ham was rattling in an iron pot on the stove and a plucked goose lay on a table waiting to be stuffed. The cook was standing over a bowl with flour up to her elbows, mixing pastry for the hot mince pies. Every so often, she glanced with a look that could kill at the Frenchman’s personal cook. He had taken two of the brown speckled eggs she had been keeping back for her own supper, not to mention a bottle of the best brandy from the cellar, and was making up some strange concoction to calm Prince Lucien’s stomach. Maids, butlers and footmen flew in and out with trays.
In the midst of all this commotion, Annie arrived back unnoticed. She had sent Sam to hide overnight in an outhouse next to the stables and William had agreed to come back in the morning to take him up to the abandoned shepherd’s hut above Whitcliffe. After that, he would have to take his own chances. Ludlow was a long way from the sea. In the meantime, Annie had promised to find him something to eat, for he had had nothing all day.
There was a tray sitting on a side-table, already laid out with a china plate, a set of silver cutlery and a glass of wine. Though Annie didn’t know it, it was the tray the French cook had been getting ready for Lucien. She picked it up and walked as confidently as she could to the pantry. She took a chicken drumstick, a large spoonful of potted rabbit, a small wheaten loaf and a wedge of cheese. Then, hardly daring to breathe in case someone asked her what she was doing and where she was going, she nipped out through the scullery, past the well-room and out to the shed next to the castle wall where Sam Price was hiding.
Sam heard the footsteps coming near and pressed himself against the wall. It was pitch-dark but he was used to the dark. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t afraid of it any more as he had been when he had first been forced up the chimneys. At least, here in the shed, he could move around or stretch out his legs when he wanted, not like up some chimneys where he could hardly wriggle through the opening and he was in constant terror that his shoulders would jam in some narrow flue. His greatest fear was that one day he would be stuck forever, unable to move either up or down. The door creaked open.
‘Sam?’ whispered Annie.
‘Here,’ answered Sam, pushing the door back. With his sooty face and clothes, he was almost invisible but for the whites of his eyes and his teeth.
‘I’ve brought you supper, but you must stay here and eat it in the dark for I didn’t dare take a candle. I’ll come back later for the tray.’
‘And can you bring a blanket? It’s bitter cold in here.’
‘You don’t ask for much, do you?’ said Annie, annoyed. ‘Do you know what trouble I would be in if I was caught pinching that food for you? Just be grateful I haven’t gone to tell Master Bessell where you are.’
‘Oh, Annie, you’d never tell on me, would you? I was only joking about the blanket. Have a sip of my wine.’ He grinned lopsidedly, for he had recently lost another two baby teeth, and held out the glass to her.
‘Do you think he’s found out you have gone and is out looking for you?’ asked Annie, mollified.
‘Who knows? As likely as not, he’ll be drinking all evening in the Mug House and won’t know I’ve gone until he wants me to take his boots off at bedtime. I have to get out of Ludlow, Annie, for he’ll kill me if he catches me.’
‘And how are you going to do that? Everyone knows you to see. And Bessell will put up a reward for you.’
‘Nah, he’s too mean for that,’ Sam said thoughtfully, picking up the chicken drumstick and licking it, ‘but he might come after me.’
‘Where will you go? Have you no family?’
‘I expect there’s some round Diddlebury that know me but none that would take me in. My father gave me away to Master Bessell, or sold me most probably, a couple of years back. I daren’t go back there.’
‘He sold you?’
Sam nodded. ‘One night in the Elephant & Castle. First thing I knew about it was being shaken out of bed and told to get my clothes on.’
‘But didn’t your mother stop them?’
‘I haven’t got a mother,’ said Sam, matter-of-factly. ‘She died the same day I was born. I’m going to go to Bristol, Annie, to get a job on a ship as a cabin boy.’ His eyes were shining in the darkness. ‘Have you ever seen the sea, Annie? I saw a painting of it once in a house I was working in. It’s blue, blue as the sky, and it goes on for ever and ever.’
‘No, I never saw the sea, nor am I sure I’d want to if it goes on for ever and ever. They sent my father over the sea and nobody has ever heard from him since.’
Outside, carriage wheels rolled over the cobbles. The horses snorted. Their hooves clattered in the rear courtyard as the coachmen shunted them into their harnesses.
‘Listen, Sam, do you hear that? They’re bringing up the carriages to take everyone to the ball. I have to go back in. Mrs Stringer will be looking for me.’ She put her finger up to her lips. ‘You must be quiet as a mouse, Sam Price, or someone will hear you and then we’ll both be in trouble. I’ll be back as soon as I can. There’s probably some stuff in here you can wrap yourself up in if you get cold. Just remember, not a sound.’
Chapter 5
Libby was home alone. A cattleman had called earlier to say there was a letter for Mrs Kezia Spears just come in on the mail coach from London.
‘I just happened to be in the square when the coach came in,’ the man explained. ‘I heard the bailiff shout across to Master Evans; “You’re Kezia Spears’ landlord, aren’t you?” he said. “Well, there’s a letter here for her you might want to give her.” I saw William was just on the other side of the square. He was coming out from Quality Square with his handcart all piled up with hatboxes and I thought Evans might have called him over but he just put the letter in his pocket without even looking at it and marched off. I reckoned you might want to go and fetch it right away,’ he went on, rather embarrassed. ‘I expect it’ll be from John, won’t it?’
Libby’s mother could not believe her ears. She went all to pieces. There was only one person in the whole wide world who would send her a letter for she knew no one outside of Ludlow. It had to be from John, alive and thinking of her still after the long years of silence.
‘This is the best news I have heard for many a year! A thousand times thank you!’ Kezia said. ‘But where is the letter now? Where can I go to fetch it?’
‘Evans is going to the ball, isn’t he? I dare say you’d find him if you go to Castle Square. I’d walk up there with you myself but I’m off to Hereford market in the morning and still have the cart to load up.’
‘Libby,’ Kezia had said to her daughter when the man had gone, ‘will you wait here for me and be a good girl? It’s too cold to take you out on a night like this and I shall get up to the square and back faster if I go alone.’
Libby’s bottom lip had turned inside out.
‘No, Libby,’ said Kezia, warningly. ‘You mustn’t act like a baby. You’ve nothing warm enough to wear out on a bitter night like this. You stay here and finish stitching that glove. I’ll be back before the candle’s half way burnt down.’
She undid her apron and folded it on the table. As Libby looked on with wide, frightened eyes, her mother pulled on her coat and wrapped another shawl around her head and shoulders. ‘I will only be gone for a few minutes, Libby,’ she pleaded. ‘Then, when I get back, we’ll read the letter from your father and have our supper.’
‘Does this mean you won’t have to marry Mr Evans?’ Libby asked.
Kezia kissed her tiny daughter on the top of the head. ‘Don’t worry, my pet, I will not marry Mr Evans.’ She lit a fresh candle and placed it in the centre of the table.
‘Ten minutes, my love, and I’ll be back.’
Libby heard the heavy iron key turn in the keyhole and her mother’s light steps going down the stairs to the street. At first she sewed a little more of the glove she was working on but with no one to watch over her, she soon got bored and threw it aside.
I hate gloves, she thought, with feeling. When I am big, I shall never wear them.
The room was so cold even the insides of the windows had frosted over. She clambered up on to a window-sill, and cleared a small round peephole in one of the panes so that she could keep a watch for her mother’s return. The street was empty. The wooden slats beneath the eaves rattled in the cold east wind. The leather skins hanging above her head trembled in the breeze. The tallow candle in its saucer tilted and fell over. With her back to the table, Libby did not notice the flame of the candle licking around the discarded glove, catching the apron strings, running along the table cloth, spreading down the leg of the table. By the time she smelt the smoke, it was too late, the wooden floor was ablaze. There was no way out.
The ball in honour of Ludlow’s distinguished visitors was to be held in the Assembly Rooms, the long hall that occupied the upper storey of the tumbledown Market Hall in the Castle Square. It was not that the hall itself was tumbledown. A great deal of public money had been lavished upon it. New glass chandeliers had recently been installed and its springy dancing floor would not have been out of place in a more important city like Bath or even London. People in Ludlow liked to think that nobody could find fault with their orchestra, a band of men who could rise to any occasion. And if they didn’t always know the tune or the beat to the bar, you had to admit that they were always willing to please.
Nevertheless, stangers to Ludlow were never very enthusiastic at the sight of the Assembly Rooms. The lower part of the building was occupied during the day by the market traders so it smelt of fish and cabbages and barnyard manure. Most of the ball-goers that night arrived up the stairs with fans fluttering and handkerchiefs clamped to their wrinkled noses.
Everybody who was anybody was there: the aldermen and councillors with their wives, all the best families of the town and neighbourhood, the Sneades and Charltons, the judges, the lawyers, the merchants. There was even a lord or two and a bishop. The square was chock-a-block with carriages arriving and departing, their owners shouting out last minute instructions about when the drivers should return. The poor were out in force too, milling around the doors of the White Horse Inn and the carriage set-down points, hoping to earn a tip or two by holding the reins of the horses, or simply gawking at the finery of the ladies.
Kezia Spears could not get through the crowds. Women elbowed her out of the way as she tried to steer a path towards the inn, thinking she was pushing in front of them to get a better view of the French princesses’ ball gowns. There was an ugly mood in the air. A lot of soldiers were in the town, among them war veterans at a loss to know why, in the middle of the war with France, the brother of the tyrant Napoleon was being honoured in Ludlow. Some of these men had served under Admiral Nelson at the great Battle of Trafalgar six years earlier; some had lost limbs, others had lost their hearing from the booming of the cannons and were still stone deaf. They did not know that Lucien and his family were under parole, a form of house arrest – they just heard the hated name Napoleon and wondered if the sacrifices they had made were all in vain.
When the first of the carriages from Dinham House drew up and Lucien Bonaparte and his wife Alexandrine stepped down, a huge jeer went up from the crowd of men standing at the front door of the White Horse.
‘Long live the Royal Navy!’
‘Remember Trafalgar!’
‘Down with Napoleon Bonaparte!’
‘Hurray to that. And down with France!’
A party of militiamen rushed forward into the crowd, bayonets drawn, seized the hecklers and hustled them away. Lucien Bonaparte coldly ignored the disturbance. He steered his wife and daughters past a noxious heap of rotting cabbage stalks and led them up the staircase to the Long Hall.
Kezia squeezed past the crowds into the tap-room of the White Horse. The bar was full of coachmen and ostlers who pressed up against her and made lewd remarks when she asked the innkeeper where she might find Mr Evans. The air was blue and thick with the smell of tobacco smoke and spilt ale. The breath of the customers was stale and sour and the atmosphere was still threatening as if more trouble might break out at any moment. The master glover was nowhere to be seen. Dejectedly, Kezia began to push her way back out on to the street.
In the few minutes that she had been inside the inn, the crowds of people had moved away from the square. The sightseers and gawpers were no longer hanging around the entrance to the Assembly Rooms but had drifted to the other end of the High Street. People were craning their necks, trying to see over the heads of those in front.
‘The fire engine’s been called out from the parish church,’ she heard someone say.
‘… a house down by the Corve …’
‘It’s one of the tan
ners’ cottages,’ said a man in front of her.
In the far distance she could hear the clanging of the night watchman’s bell and the shouts of ‘Fire! Fire!’
‘Let me past,’ she screamed, all interest in her letter forgotten. ‘I must get past.’
People plucked at her shawl and sleeves to hold her back but she pushed against them and forced her way out of the crowd. She picked up her skirt and ran, sliding and slipping on the icy cobbles, straight through the dark lanes, round by the Bull Ring, on past the brightly-lit Feathers Hotel, and down the hill towards the terrace of black-and-white timbered cottages. As she got nearer, she could see the red glow in the sky, the tell-tale jets of sparks, could smell the acrid smell of burning wood. It was her house that was on fire.
The road was blocked by three fire-engines, their horses and crews. Two of the crews were standing idly by, enjoying the spectacle. They were from the fire insurance companies and would not help out once they had seen that there was no brass plaque on the wall to show that fire insurance had been taken out on the house. The other one belonged to the parish and would come out to assist at any fire, whether for a pauper or a rich man. Two of its crew were feeding out the canvas and leather hose while two others stood either side of the manual pump, trying in vain to pump up water from the river Corve which ran behind the house. The river had frozen solid. Kezia’s neighbours were kneeling on the bank, frantically hammering at the ice with pick-axes to get to the water beneath. Several empty leather buckets lay uselessly on the bank.
Kezia stood outside her home, screaming Libby’s name. The women from the cottages round about had come out on to the street. Several of them tried to hold her back from the flames, but she covered her head with her shawl and plunged headlong into the blazing house.
There was a slow, steady splintering noise which grew louder and louder. A huge beam swung out from the house and fell into the road with a sickening thud. The house collapsed in upon itself.