The Lady's Slipper

by Deborah Swift

About twenty people emerged from the barn, most bent double or crawling, without their coats and racked with coughs. Once outside, they took in great lungfuls of air; they were almost indistinguishable in the dark because they were black with smoke; some nursed burns where they had tried to put out the fire with their bare hands.

  When he turned to go back in, Richard appeared from the haze. He would recognize him anywhere, even though he had a kerchief tied around his nose. He was walking slowly with an old man leaning up against him. He recognized Old Ned Armitage, John’s father, from the flour mill.

  ‘Sam, my friend,’ Richard said, his voice cracked with smoke, ‘thou art here after all. I am glad to see thee.’ He clapped Stephen on the shoulder. ‘Canst thou find this man some water?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said. ‘But Richard, the constable’s men—’

  ‘The water first, Sam–time for the rest later.’

  Stephen remembered his horse, where he kept a flagon of water in the saddlebag.

  ‘Stephen.’ His father’s voice was loud and imperious. He turned to look guiltily over his shoulder where his father was picking his way down the slope on his fine-boned horse.

  He turned to face him. ‘Come away now, Stephen,’ said his father. ‘If you want our land to prosper there is no place for soft hearts.’ His father pointed to the crowd of gagging and retching people. ‘They are lawbreakers, they would steal what is rightfully ours.’

  ‘Sam?’ Richard said, looking direct into his face with his steady brown eyes. Stephen flinched as though he had been struck; he looked down at the ground.

  ‘Stephen. Go on home. We do not need your help, now. Tell Patterson to have something ready for me–these looters have made me miss my dinner,’ his father said.

  ‘Sam?’ asked Richard again. ‘Elizabeth told me she could find no Sam Fielding in Burton. Tell me this is not so.’ His voice was tight. Stephen dragged his eyes from the ground and looked up at him in mute appeal.

  ‘I can see he had you fooled.’ His father laughed, but it was mirthless. ‘This is my son, Stephen.’ He looked at Richard contemptuously. ‘And you would do well to remember it. He will be squire here after me.’

  Then he turned to Stephen and said, ‘Tithes will be paid here, as is the law of the land. And there has clearly been wilful damage to my property.’

  Stephen wished the ground would swallow him up. Richard stared at him in disbelief before he turned away to go over to the other Quakers.

  Rawlinson arrived then, with his men.

  ‘Never fear, Geoffrey, they will be taken to gaol until they can be brought to trial for these offences,’ Rawlinson said. He rode over to the Quaker group and dismounted, shouting for the constable. ‘Bind them.’

  The group of men and women did not move but let themselves be bound or chained.

  ‘Do we have to take them too?’ asked one of the constable’s men, seeing Rawlinson roughly dragging a little boy to his feet.

  ‘The children too,’ said Stephen’s father. ‘It is better they learn early. Besides, I do not want orphan children begging at my door.’

  ‘There are too many to take in one wagon,’ said Rawlinson. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Take this man first,’ said Geoffrey pointing at Richard, who was still propping up John Armitage. ‘My son tells me he is the man who planned this little rebellion.’

  Richard’s eyes travelled over Stephen’s blue breeches, hardly stained with smoke, his fine gold lace cuffs, his heeled shoes with silver buckles, unmarked by mud. A look of disgust crept over his face.

  ‘I took thee for an honest man.’ Richard’s words were charged; they cut through the air like a bolt of lightning, straight into Stephen’s heart. ‘But thou hast betrayed me. Betrayed us all. Half killed us for a few sacks of corn.’ He nodded at the rapier hung at Stephen’s side before saying scathingly, ‘I see thou art truly thy father’s son.’

  Stephen looked away.

  ‘Stephen,’ his father said, ‘your horse is wandering loose up there. Go fetch it down before it breaks a leg in its reins.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Richard. ‘Hast thou seen Isaac? He ran out the back before the doors were closed. We heard a shot. Hast thou news of him?’

  Stephen swallowed. He could not speak. His eyes were full of tears.

  Richard’s eyes darkened and his face turned stony.

  ‘Son, your horse.’

  Stephen ignored his father. ‘I would not harm thee,’ he said to Richard, and it was Sam blurting out his words. ‘I am not who you think I am,’ he said miserably, trying to explain but knowing it to be hopeless.

  Richard threw him a look of contempt. ‘Get thee out of my sight.’

  Stephen turned away and walked quickly up the hill. He heard his father’s voice shouting his name but he ignored it. His name no longer felt like it belonged to him. When he looked back it was to see Richard jostled into the carriage along with Ned Armitage and the Taylor brothers, the tallest and strongest-looking men of the group. By the time Stephen was astride his horse, the prison cart had set off down the track and the fire in the barn was reduced to a glimmer. The smell of smouldering straw filled the air, bitter like a draught of aloes.

  Stephen turned the nose of his horse upwind and opened the gate to the top field. He rode slowly, searching the ground, until he saw the slumped figure lying motionless on the ground. Even before he dismounted and turned him over, Stephen knew who he was–he knew the round horn buttons on the tweed coat very well, for he had noticed one was missing, the buttonhole empty, at last Sunday’s meeting. He knew the brown twill breeches and the old-fashioned boots polished to a high sheen.

  Isaac was already stiff, and his face was set in an expression of surprise. His eyeglasses were missing and it made him look younger. Or perhaps it was just that his wrinkles were gone now, his face smooth, as if his cares had melted away. A wound in his neck had drained his face of blood so that he was white as the moon which hung above–a lopsided quarter moon.

  Stephen sat down next to the still figure, wondering where all the words, all the stories, all that life had flown to. He recalled Isaac inviting him to his very first meeting at the Hall, and his familiar drone as he talked at the daily meetings. Isaac always brought news of other Friends, characters like Naylor, the heretic, news of Fox’s trial and how the followers in the south stood up for him in court, tales of bold Quaker women preaching in far-flung places of the globe. This man had gathered them all together and brought them into the chilly meeting room, breathed flesh into them with his speech, so that Stephen and all the others saw their pictures, vivid and life-like, felt for them as if they truly were their brothers and sisters.

  Now Isaac was dried up, cut off from his source. Stephen knelt next to him and prayed. His tears continued to seep out, but whether from smoke or emotion he could not say. He prayed for Isaac’s soul to be delivered unto heaven, but he prayed for himself too, for he felt it was his fault Isaac was lying there, all breath stopped. True, he had not fired the shot, but he had told his father that the Quakers intended to hold the barns, and precipitated this tragedy.

  Isaac meant no one any harm; he had likely been unarmed, peaceable, standing up for his beliefs, and perhaps he would have negotiated if he had been given the chance, been given the chance to talk. For that was what he did best. What had made him run like that, this old man, with his bandy legs and back bowed from penning ledgers?

  ‘You silly old fool,’ Stephen whispered, but his words were full of affection.

  Stephen closed the waistcoat over Isaac’s chest, fastened the five remaining buttons, laid him out as straight as he could. As he did so, the only noise was the sound of the horse pulling on the grass and chewing contentedly, unconcerned. Its placid munching made Stephen feel suddenly that all the ills of the world were brought about by him and men like him. Richard’s face loomed in his mind, full of confusion, looking to him, Sam. But Sam did not exist. He had only ever been make-believe. He must reconcile himse
lf to being Stephen Fisk. That was the truth of it. Richard’s words echoed in his head. ‘Truly thy father’s son.’ He saw again the look of utter revulsion on Richard’s face when he realized who he was. Stephen let out a great howl of pain, like a wounded dog.

  Chapter 29

  Alice held Hannah close as she read from the small tract. The candle Richard had brought burnt steadily, standing on a ledge formed by an ill-shaped stone that jutted out from the damp wall behind them. It cast a faint yellow glow in the hitherto greenish dark. This illumination had been both a joy and a horror, as with increased light they were able to perceive the full squalor of their surroundings.

  Hannah’s wound was terrible to see, her face a ruin of blood and bone. Hannah had so far not dared to explore it with her fingers–and Alice had forbidden her to do so, warning her the dirt on her fingers might cause the wound to fester. But the real reason was she feared that if Hannah should know the true extent of her injuries, she would lose all hope. Already the fever came and went; some nights Hannah was wet with perspiration and delirious, fighting invisible demons of fire, or calling out raggedly for the Angel Michael and his flaming sword to dispatch her into the next world.

  In the small flickering light Alice saw with repugnance the ticks on their clothing, the beetles that crept from their midden, the scattered rat droppings and the mould. When Richard Wheeler had brought them a meal it had hurt their stomachs, so hungry were they, and they struggled to keep it down. But both women were as pleased with the other gifts as with the sustenance. Striking the flint was such a familiar ritual that when Alice first heard the ring of it, it made her feel human again, and aroused in her a renewed sense of dignity.

  The light, small though it was, was cheering.

  ‘’Tis a sign of the Spirit,’ said Hannah.

  This simple light set Hannah straight away to murmur prayers, then later to a rapt contemplation. She listened intently where she lay, one hand clasped tightly to the other where it poked out of the makeshift sling. On occasions Alice feared she was dead, for when she prayed she entered a stillness so attentive she appeared to have been sculpted from marble, as though a word from the Almighty might strike her, even through these impenetrable walls, at any moment.

  When Alice had first picked up the tract and fingered the embossed cover, the frontispiece announced it to be A Compendium of Repentance; the subtitle was ‘A short description of the Key which opens the Divine Mysteries, and leadeth to the Knowledge of them’. Alice was indignant when she read the title.

  ‘Does he intend to lecture me even now?’ she said to Hannah, and put it down to take up the more familiar Bible.

  ‘Oh please read it to me, Alice. I have no book-learning, and Richard must have thought it would speak to us.’

  ‘If you’re sure then. I want hope, not the fear of hell and brimstone.’ She began to read it aloud.

  The chapbook said that ‘the in-spoken word of grace draws all, even the most ungodly, if he be not altogether a thistle’. Alice took hope from the words, ‘even the most ungodly’.

  However, no comfort was to be had from the parson’s visit. It was brief and he looked as though he was there under sufferance. A pale, slight man who looked to be shrinking inside his clothes, he outlined the facts of the case to Alice with an air of impatience. He told Alice that Sir Geoffrey Fisk was to give evidence at the trial, but that he did not wish to visit her where she was confined. Her husband would be present too, but probably would not be called as a witness as his evidence could not be relied upon. He also stated that she had a poor prospect of being released and she would likely hang.

  This gloomy news was imparted with no trace of emotion. He was dubious when she had protested her innocence and advised her to set herself to repent. She was told to kneel whilst he said a perfunctory prayer asking God to drive out evil from her heart, to which Alice replied a frustrated ‘Amen’.

  But he had refused to pray with Hannah, or to fetch a bone-setter or herbs for her condition. His view was that Hannah had already given her soul over to Satan, and so was not worth even prayers.

  ‘How can he call himself a man of God?’ Alice was incredulous. ‘He who lacks all human charity?’

  Alice was so angry she picked up the tin plate that had lain dry and empty for more days than they could count and threw it at the door. It clattered to the ground, barely dinted, and the noise was thin, muffled by the thick walls. She began to kick at the door, thudding over and over with her boot.

  ‘Please stop,’ said Hannah.

  Alice aimed another vicious kick at the door, before propping herself up against the wall. ‘But, Hannah, you heard him. I am condemned before I even have a chance to say a word.’

  ‘Thou wilt have thy chance at the trial. Have faith,’ came the weak reply.

  ‘God must have deserted me. Why else would I be here?’

  ‘God never turns away one who truly wants to know him.’

  Alice sighed. She did not share Hannah’s trust.

  ‘Richard said he will find a way; he will rally my friends and they will help us,’ said Hannah. ‘He is a man of his word.’

  ‘Why should any of them help me? They do not know me.’ She paused. ‘And, Hannah, I have not been honest with Mr Wheeler, and he knows very well I have lied to him. Why should he attend to me now?’

  ‘He will help thee, because thou art my friend, and because I will tell the Friends thou hast a good heart.’

  ‘Oh, Hannah. If only.’

  But there was really no choice. Lacking all other friendship, she would have to put her trust in Richard Wheeler–if anyone was an instrument of God, then perhaps it was he. Hannah had explained about Richard’s conversion–that he had voluntarily given up his land and his house to pursue a life of honesty and peace, an action Alice found extremely difficult to comprehend.

  She still missed her large childhood house, her fine things; all lost in the war, vanished in a roar of smoke and flame, an idyll torn from her by Cromwell’s men, the very ground on which she stood. She envied Richard Wheeler the choice; at least he had that, whereas she had simply been displaced along with anyone else who opposed the Puritan way.

  Alice began to pray, not the way she was wont to pray before, but in Hannah’s way. She opened out her heart, listened with all her might for an answer, still and sober, as if her life depended upon it, which, she thought grimly, it probably did. No answer came, but in her mind’s eye she saw the lady’s slipper, where she had originally seen it, innocent then, the flower head quivering slightly as she felt the touch of the breeze on her face. As if indelibly printed in her thoughts, she saw again the pale blue sky, the vivid green of the grasses, and recalled Wheeler’s smiling face as he heard her first exclamation of delight. The flower had remained always the same, she realized, it was she who changed, her own thoughts and moods that shifted, rolling in and dispersing like clouds. All flowers were like this, she thought. Preserving a lost innocence, outside man-made time, the flower of a thousand years ago repeating itself over and over to every generation, reminding the world of nature’s order.

  Whilst the candle wavered over her silent kneeling form, she remembered how she had felt when she had first taken the orchid secretly from her basket in the dark summerhouse, how it already seemed to be diminished away from its natural habitat. If she had listened more carefully to herself, she would have realized then that her world was dying. Her first action had set in train a series of unstoppable events, so that now the flower was likely to die of drought; there would be no more lady’s slippers, and she alone was responsible.

  She considered how her talent, her enthusiasm for painting, her desire to control and perfect nature had somehow come to turn into its opposite. Perhaps this was the way of the world–that an innocuous desire can become a lust by only a small sleight of hand.

  She picked up the Bible, peeled open a page at random and began to read.

  No man can serve two masters.

  The famil
iar words of St Matthew. When she came to the verses, Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, a salt tear trickled down onto the page. Something began to soften and let go inside her, something that had been frozen a long time. She must be at peace, there was nothing else left for her to do. Her tears were not her usual noisy, dramatic outburst, but a thing of beauty, a mixture of pain and pleasure.

  Later, she read the verses again out loud to Hannah, whilst they had light, for the candle was guttering and they must save the others for the morrow.

  Hannah murmured, ‘’Tis good to hear thee read.’

  Alice continued: ‘Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.’

  Chapter 30

  ‘Beg pardon.’ Ella elbowed her way roughly to the front of the crowd where she could get a better view of the passing procession. Today was the day of the quarter assizes and most of Lancaster had turned out to watch, so there was not much room on the narrow streets. Ella wanted to position herself on the hill leading to the castle, where she would be able to see the cavalcade wend its way up. This was always the slowest section of the route as several of the men were very elderly and the whole cavalcade had to pause whilst they caught their breath. But this was the best vantage point to get a look at them, so it was popular.

  A tall woman in a voluminous shawl tried to block her with her shoulder, reluctant to lose her front-row place, but Ella pulled a face at her and wormed her way past. She felt herself to be a cut above, now that she was dressed in a warm woollen dress befitting her new position as housekeeper to Thomas Ibbetson. She had cajoled and pressed him about a new dress as soon as she had started to live in. She withheld her attentions until he gave way, though she had decided to go to the seamstress herself–he would have had her in some dark, unbecoming servant’s colour.

  She looked down at the fine lawn chemise jutting out over her bosom, and at the full warm skirts of a bluish-grey, like the blue of the Welsh slate on the church roof. She was sure Thomas had meant her to have a grey like a wet Maundy Monday, but when he saw her in her new dress it was not on her shoulders long enough for him to disapprove. She smoothed her hands down the bodice and assumed an air of superiority, glaring up at the lofty woman whom she had forced to shuffle aside.