The Lady's Slipper

by Deborah Swift

  Irritated, Geoffrey marched back to the front door and hammered loudly. He was about to turn away in frustration when the door opened a crack, and a thin-faced girl opened it warily.

  ‘You took your time. Tell your mistress I am here.’

  ‘She’s not in, sir.’

  ‘When will she be back?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir. Could be weeks.’

  ‘Weeks? Where has she gone? She was doing some business with me–she cannot just go off when she feels like it. Where is your master? I would speak with him.’

  ‘Out at the counting house.’

  ‘What’s your name, girl?’

  ‘April, sir. If that’s all, sir.’ She made as if to shut the door but Geoffrey slipped his foot into it.

  ‘When she gets back, give her my card.’ He held it out, and the girl relented and opened the door a little.

  ‘Told you, sir, she might not be back–she’s in gaol. I don’t know when…’ Then, seeing his expression, which clearly said he did not believe a word of it: ‘They say she’s killed someone, and there’s witchery in it too.’

  Geoffrey looked at her a moment in confusion before he realized she was serious. He said, ‘That is ridiculous. I will go and tell them so. Her interest in herbs is artistic, not medicinal. She cannot have killed anybody.’

  But even as he was saying the words he could sense the girl’s discomfort was genuine and that something untoward had certainly happened. The girl was hovering half in and half out of the doorway, looking uncomfortably at Geoffrey’s polished boot which was still holding the door ajar. She looked up at him and whispered, ‘They say she did. Stabbed her, and left the poor old woman in a ditch, they say.’

  Geoffrey took a step backwards. As he did, the door gently shut in front of his stupefied face.

  Chapter 22

  Alice heard the noise of large doors opening and the slow scrape of wood against flagstones. It was pitch black outside and she could see no lights through the barred window of the wagon. They had decided to transport her at night from the local cell to the gaol at Lancaster. When they had told her she was to be kept at Lancaster until the trial, it had filled her with cold terror, for Lancaster’s thick forbidding walls had housed many a prisoner, now dead for their transgressions. It was known to everyone as the Hanging Gaol. From the cells they said you could hear the snap of the rope and the last strangled cry as the executioner pulled away the plat form to leave the bare feet dangling in thin air.

  The wheels of the carriage sounded loud and the horseshoes echoed oddly as if they were passing through a cavern. It must be the prison yard, because she could hear groans and shouting from all sides. They bundled her out of the carriage, her hands tied together with a length of fuse from an army musket. She shivered, for she had not regained warmth in her bones since they took her to the town gaol in the rain. Her good blue dress had been soaked through and had never properly dried. It smelt musty and sour now, like a sack of damp grain that had been left in a cellar. Her hands were bloodless and numb with cold. Her teeth chattered together so much that her jaw ached.

  The soldiers shoved her forward. A fat gaoler with feet bursting out of his shoes nodded to them as if expecting them and went ahead with an iron ring like a bucket handle, clanking with keys. She caught a glimpse of the night sky, twinkling with an array of bright stars, but it was as if she had tumbled to the bottom of a well; dark masonry surrounded her; there were wet cobbles underfoot, slippery as river stones. They stumbled in through a smaller iron door which clanged shut behind them, then a wall sconce revealed a flickering passageway with stone steps leading down in a spiral. The walls and stairs were running with a thick green slime of damp, and behind the stench of mould and sewers, the tang of human urine stung the back of her nostrils.

  As they reached the bottom of the stairs it was ominously silent. A sharp left turn and they were confronted by another narrow door, which the gaoler opened with much clanging and rattling of the lock and chains. When it was open she was pushed forward with a sharp slap in the small of her back into the putrid-smelling blackness. She fell forward and landed heavily on her hands and knees, where she felt a damp earth and flint floor, with a few wisps of straw. Almost immediately she scrambled to her feet again and wiped her hands on her skirts, something she had taken to doing frequently, as if the cleanliness of her hands would somehow convince people of her innocence.

  She took some steps forward with her arms outstretched until she reached a wall. It was a cell of about eight feet compass. Turning her back to the wall again, she slowly slithered down the damp stones and wrapped her skirts around herself, awkwardly, as her wrists were still bound together and this hampered her movements. She had heard the gaol was infested with rats. If she could tuck the heavy fabric of her skirt in around her ankles it would keep them warm and guard them against vermin.

  She listened. Faint echoes of retreating boots passed above. A rustle, as if something was moving. She pulled at her skirts and shrank back against the wall but the noise stopped abruptly. Listening more intently she thought she could hear breathing, and held her own breath to listen more closely. What if there were someone else in the cell with her?

  She called out, ‘Who’s there?’ but there was no answer, and when she could hear no more sounds, she let her chin drop down onto her chest to try to sleep. It was a fitful sleep, broken by confused dreams and by the pain in her stomach, which was hollow and churning with hunger. The night passed slowly, her bones ached, the only warmth her breath–blown onto her bruised wrists.

  At sunrise the gaol creaked into life like a giant machine. Noises of scrabbling, hammering, rattling. Distant shouts and screams, more carriages coming and going and boots on cobblestones. Groans of misery, strange caterwauling and the noise of spoons scraping on wooden plates. Her cell was still dark for there was no window to the world, just the door, with a foot-square barred window that could only be opened from outside.

  Eventually this little aperture opened and a lump of hard bread landed at her feet. Mercifully the hatch was left half-open so a glimmer of greyish-green light pooled in the centre of the dark. Alice stooped to pick up the bread between her outstretched fingers, but stopped short, staring.

  She had been right, there was someone else in the cell. But the body was motionless, like a heap of old sacks thrown in the corner. Merciful heavens, had she been here all night with a corpse? It could have been there for weeks. Terrified of what she might see, she crept towards the ragged bundle.

  It was a woman, unmoving, barely alive. Her face was white, quite pretty under the grime, but too thin. As Alice looked the woman gave a shuddering sigh and turned over. Alice recoiled. The whole right side of her face was mangled and swollen and disfigured by bruises. Her eye was closed and her cheekbone shapeless with a deep suppurating cut. Nausea made Alice bring her hands to her mouth. Her stomach was empty, she retched, but no bile came. Repulsed, she tried to move away without disturbing the woman, back to the other side of the cell. The woman heard her and agitated, tried to move further into the corner, moaning.

  Alice realized she must be afraid and spoke quickly to reassure her. ‘My name is Alice. Alice Ibbetson, from Netherbarrow.’

  No response.

  ‘They have thrown us some bread.’

  Alice was going to break it and pass her some, but then became aware that she probably would not be able to eat it, when one side of her mouth was swollen so. She did not want to go near her, for the sight of the wound made her feel queasy, but she picked up the hard lump and seeing a pail of water began to soften the bread in the water and roll it between her fingers. The water was icy cold, and probably stagnant, but the woman would starve to death without sustenance.

  As Alice approached, the bread held awkwardly between her bound hands, the woman cowered further into the dark recess of the cell.

  ‘Do not be afraid. I cannot hurt you. See–my hands are tied.’

  The woman’s eyes looked up at Al
ice from her disfigured face, questioning, but she did not speak.

  Alice squeezed the excess moisture from the bread and held it gently to the woman’s lips. ‘You must eat. It is soft, I have wetted it. Please try to eat.’

  After a little coaxing the woman’s lips began to move and Alice fed her as she painfully swallowed bit by bit, until the damp morsel of grey dough was all gone. Alice did not look at the woman’s face, she dare not, it made her sick to do so, but she focused on watching her mouth opening for the next piece as though she was feeding a helpless baby bird. She had meant to save half the bread, but the woman’s mouth kept opening and she could not bring herself to stop.

  When the woman’s eyes began to close in sleep, Alice settled back in the opposite corner of the cell. Her mind raced round the knot of questions that kept repeating in her head. Why had Thomas not come yet? Even at the town gaol, she had had no visitors since her arrest. She wondered if Geoffrey knew. Perhaps they were meeting together to clear up the misunderstanding. They must be doing all they could to get her out, she thought. Thomas would come. Probably today.

  She pushed away the sobering memories of Thomas’s angry words before the constable came, and his guilty look, which was tantamount to a confession. What a fool she had been not to notice what was happening right under her nose. She gathered her skirts more tightly round her ankles. Ella Appleby. She would never have believed he could be so taken in.

  Restless, she stood again and walked the few paces to the door. She listened, but there were no sounds except the sounds of someone bleating like a lost sheep somewhere further down the corridor. She moved back and forth, fretting over the fate of the lady’s slippers. They would be unable to survive a drought and it was already four nights since she had been taken. Why had she not left the flower where it was? Since she had taken it, her life seemed to have become out of balance, like a badly loaded cart teetering on the brink of toppling over.

  She was amazed anyone could seriously think she would murder an old lady like Margaret. She was surprised to admit to herself that someone of Margaret’s bizarre appearance was her friend. But they had shared a love of plants that could not have been faked. She had felt an odd kinship with her, something beneath words and outside appearances.

  She thought back to when Margaret helped her restore the ailing plant, and to her encounter with Wheeler when he nearly killed her with his gun. Wheeler. His eyes had been burning with a strange fire when he had appeared at her house; she had thought it made him attractive then. A good man, honourable and godly. What a moon-calf she was! She had not realized he was such a zealot. She clenched her fists and hammered them against the wall, angry with herself for her own gullibility.

  It must be he who was responsible for her arrest. There was no other answer. There was nobody else who had seen her and Margaret together. Nobody else with whom she had a disagreement. He must have used Margaret’s death as an excuse to put her out of the way whilst he retrieved the orchid. She imagined him going to Thomas and demanding the orchid back, and Thomas letting him take it, not understanding. As these thoughts came, she grew taut with frustration. Picking up a handful of the damp and mouldy straw she began to shred it between her fingers, picturing Wheeler searching her summerhouse in his big brown boots. She hated him.

  ‘What’s the matter? What day is it?’ The woman groaned in the corner.

  Alice turned at the sound of the voice. ‘’Tis Friday,’ she said. A pause. ‘How long have you been kept in here?’

  ‘It is hard to say. Every day is the same.’ Her voice was feeble and hoarse. Alice knelt next to the woman and took her hand. She squeezed it, compassion tightening about her heart.

  Against the reality of another’s suffering, her fixation with the lady’s slipper faded into a phantom, instantly forgotten. She took a cup of water and brought it to the woman’s lips.

  Later, for the first time, she gained insight into her own obsession. She had been besotted in her determination to procure the plant and keep it for herself. She had sought to have a measure of control over nature, a task she recognized now would always be doomed to failure. Nature could not be bound so tightly as she would have it.

  So in her blindness she had lied to Wheeler and been oblivious to her husband’s infidelities. With dread she wondered if Wheeler too was so possessed by the lady’s slipper that he would see her hang rather than give it up.

  After three more days, Alice was losing hope that Thomas or Geoffrey would come to her aid. Her companion in the cell was clinging onto her skimpy thread of life despite injuries that included a broken shoulder as well as the blows to her head and face.

  After a while the woman had thanked Alice for the bread, and Alice had managed to find out her name was Hannah. It was not clear what crime she had committed, but Hannah’s constant entreaty was to find out what had happened to her husband, Jack.

  Alice could do nothing to help her though, for she had only seen the fat greasy face of the gaoler since her arrival, and when she had enjoined him to speak with her, he had merely closed off their wooden window with a slam so hard it rebounded to its half-open position again.

  ‘Wait!’ she had cried through the gap, but received no reply. Alice did her best to wash and clean Hannah’s wounds, despite her tied hands, using the none-too-clean hem of her dress and stagnant water from the pail. Alice had tried and failed to undo the fuse that was knotted so tight it cut into the flesh of her wrists.

  ‘Help me, Hannah,’ she said.

  Hannah’s white fingers were hardly able to grasp, and Alice’s were stiff and numb, unable to reach the knot which had tightened as it dried.

  ‘The pail,’ whispered Hannah. ‘Like the bread.’

  ‘Oh yes, Hannah,’ said Alice gratefully, ‘let’s try.’

  She dipped her hands in the pail to soften the cord in the water. There was a thin layer of ice over the surface, which, strangely, burnt her hands like fire, but she soaked it well.

  ‘It’s working. Help me now.’

  Fraction by fraction they loosened it between them, Hannah picking away with her thin fingers, until at last it fell away and Alice was able to rub her grooved wrists and bring some feeling to her hands. To have the proper use of them after all this time was such a relief that Alice’s spirits lifted and she started to work for their survival.

  ‘Come on, sit up.’ She lifted Hannah into a propped-up sitting position and, tearing off a strip of petticoat, used it to make a sling for her shoulder.

  From then on, she tried to keep them both as clean as she could, given the lack of utensils and the condition of their water. No more bread came, though she hit the door and cried out for hunger.

  In the day she walked and walked in circles to keep warm, and clapped her hands together to bring the blood to them. She rubbed her rosy fingers over Hannah’s skeletal joints, thin as twigs of silver-birch. At night they huddled together for warmth, Hannah’s grisly head lolling on Alice’s shoulder whilst Alice prayed, sang, told the stories she used to tell Flora of rescuing knights and journeys to far-away lands–anything to keep the flame of hope alive.

  On the sixth day the door of the cell swung open and the gaoler’s flabby figure appeared with two more lackeys. Alice stood up, blinking in the unaccustomed light, and from habit brushed herself down.

  ‘Trial’s this day next week,’ said the gaoler, addressing Alice, ‘and the hanging’s the day after. Not much time between them, so I reckon you’ll need the parson before then.’

  ‘But I haven’t done anything wrong. Please, won’t you get word to my husband, Thomas Ibbetson of Netherbarrow…’

  ‘No one’s been to vouch for you, not a soul.’ The gaoler rubbed his yellowed whiskers, a half-smile on his lips. ‘So I’m telling you that the parson will come Monday to do what he can. And my advice to you is to repent and confess, and save your soul. Not a hare’s chance of saving your body.’

  Alice set her shoulders back in an attempt to keep her dignity, spe
aking in her most reasonable tone. ‘There’s been a misunderstanding. My friend Sir Geoffrey Fisk will reward you if you tell him I am here.’

  ‘You must think I have chaff between the ears. Everyone’s talking about you, looking forward to the trial.’ He grinned. ‘Word is, you poisoned your parents and your sister, and a good few others too. And not a one has said otherwise, not your husband, nor your high-ranking friend.’

  She could not take this in. He must be saying these things from spite. But a cold mist of dread began to settle about her.

  ‘And what about her?’ She pointed to where Hannah lay, barely breathing in the corner.

  ‘Trial for all the Quakers later that same day. Not much likelihood of a hanging, though, unless they decide on treason.’ He looked rueful. ‘Likely a longer sentence.’ He looked at Hannah with contempt. ‘They don’t believe in parsons anyway–’ he spat on the ground–‘so state of her soul’s her own business.’

  ‘Let me speak with the parson and see if he can find out what is the matter with my husband. He must be ill, or he would have come.’

  ‘No one’s been. And I can bet a coach and four no one will.’ With that he shifted his bulk from the doorway and the two lackeys followed, slamming the door back into its place and sliding the rough window shut, returning them to the murky half-light.

  ‘Thou art a good woman.’ Alice turned at the sound of the small hoarse voice. ‘No matter what they say about thee, thou art kind.’

  ‘Oh, Hannah.’ She leaned towards her and, feeling the wasted arms fasten around her neck, wept for them both.

  Chapter 23