The Gilded Lily

by Deborah Swift

  ‘Am not. Who said that? It’s just—’

  ‘Go on, Ell. You shout – they’ll listen to you.’

  Ella stood a little back from the edge. Her bravado had returned as soon as Sadie challenged her. ‘Oy!’ she yelled, ‘you going downriver?’

  One of the men started and let go of his oar. ‘What the—?’

  ‘We need a ride,’ she called. ‘You got any room?’

  ‘Damned fool woman, made me lose my oar,’ said the man, ignoring her and floundering over the edge of the boat to retrieve it. ‘Charlie, paddle over a bit, I can’t reach it.’

  The oar floated towards them and Ella began dragging the trunk towards the jetty. She signalled silently to Sadie, who scrambled past, her head down, to drag all the other bags and baskets to the edge.

  ‘We can pay you,’ Ella said, throwing her winning smile at Charlie, who stared from under his slouch cap first at her, and then more dubiously at Sadie and the jumble of bags on the jetty.

  Ella leaned forwards and unwrapped her shawl to show her white throat, smiling at him as she withdrew a small bag from her stays. Sadie just waited and watched. She saw Charlie smile back – no man seemed able to resist Ella’s dimples once she had a mind to use them.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Charlie said. She knew then that their lift was secure.

  ‘Come on, let’s not waste our time,’ scowled the other man, slotting the oar back into the rowlock. ‘Pull on those oars.’

  ‘Wait a while, the ladies have said they’ll pay.’ He smiled up at Ella, who beamed back. Sadie hung behind her like her shadow.

  Ten minutes later their luggage was on board and Ella had been helped into the prow. Sadie saw her hands clinging to the wooden seat although her face was haughty and serene. She would never admit she was afraid of anything. Sadie, meanwhile, was squashed up with the trunk digging into her thigh and a pile of baskets and boxes wobbling on her knee. She pressed one hand on top of her load but peered sideways at the passing trees, looking for the houses and taverns that would signal their arrival.

  ‘Where you going?’ she heard Charlie say.

  ‘London,’ Ella said.

  ‘Very droll,’ Charlie’s friend said. ‘He means where shall we let you off?’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Ella asked.

  ‘St Olave’s Wharf.’

  ‘Well, that’s mighty strange, that’s where we’re bound too,’ Ella said.

  Sadie hid her smile behind a wicker basket. The dawn was coming up and the sky had lightened. Now there was a pale yellow smudge on the horizon so that she could make out distant spires and rooftops, and there were more taverns by the side of the river and jetties with punts tied alongside. The river was sluggish, but soon it became more of a highway with small craft appearing from nowhere, some under brown sail and some under manpower. Near the edge horses trudged the bank, pulling long barges of goods wrapped in oiled canvas, and punts skimmed by, stacked with barrels of ale. In the pall of mist on the surface of the river it looked as if the men were gliding upright, standing on the water.

  The sides of the river became more crowded until she saw at last the city walls and a jumble of blackened half-timbered houses. She realized she was holding her breath trying to take in all the new sights and sounds, and had to let it out in a long sigh. But then she would catch her breath again as some new wonder came into view. By now the river was thick with craft of every shape and size and the air was a Babel of men and women, all shouting to each other in an accent Sadie could barely fathom. She wrinkled her nose; there was a smell, like something rotting.

  ‘Oh my word,’ said Ella, pointing ahead to a huge mountain of a bridge so log-jammed with boats trying to get through that the river itself was all but invisible underneath them. Some boatmen had clearly given up and made their way to the jetties, but on the other side of the bridge the banks were thick with boats waiting to carry them on.

  ‘We’ll never pass through there,’ she said, but Charlie and his mate rowed steadfastly, making for one of the larger barges loaded with crates of squawking chickens, just ahead. It was pulled by a grey Percheron horse with hooves the size of trenchers. The barge thrust everything else out of its way as the horse trundled up to the bridge. There it was unharnessed and the barge continued to move by its own momentum under the bridge. Once on the other side the horse was hastily put back in traces. Their boat simply followed close behind in the barge’s wake. Sadie saw Charlie wink at Ella. Ella was white-faced. A small tic moved in her cheek but she forced a tight-lipped smile. Sadie peered over the side at the water but withdrew as she saw a scum of jetsam and a bloated dead rat, partly submerged in the water.

  A few minutes later they drew up at a wharf, the boat lurched and Charlie threw the rope out to the ground. Several ragged children with grey faces and enormous eyes fought with each other to take the rope and tie it round the post, screaming insults, kicking and punching each other in their hurry. Their arms were thin as kindling, they looked half starved. One of the lads armed with a broken spar of wood swung it out until the others cowered back, making himself room until, triumphant, he grabbed the rope and in a deft movement wound it round a mooring. Charlie alighted and threw him a coin. He snatched it from the air and scurried away. The rest of the filthy gaggle of children left them be and ran further up the bank to where another boat was just landing.

  Ella sat stock-still, clinging to the wooden seat. ‘Here, let me help you,’ Charlie said, offering his arm.

  Sadie jumped out and began to heave their luggage onto the wharf.

  ‘Careful, it’s heavy,’ said Ella.

  After a few moments, Charlie’s companion reluctantly lent a hand. Sadie vaguely heard Ella ask about finding lodgings but paid no attention to the conversation, she was too busy looking round, amazed at all the comings and goings, clutching her shawl to her stomach.

  As she was staring, a huge woman, long-stemmed pipe still asmoke in her mouth, loaded up a basket with carrots from a barge stacked with crates of vegetables. She swung the basket onto her back as if it weighed nothing and swayed off along the quay. Sadie stared at her departing rump.

  ‘Hey,’ Ella shouted. A wiry child with sticking-out ears had picked up one of their baskets and was dodging his way through the crowd.

  Ella lunged towards him and grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Oh no you don’t, you little mongrel,’ she said, seizing the basket back.

  Charlie took hold of him by the waist and delivered a punch to the side of his head so the boy reeled and stumbled. ‘Sorry, mister,’ he said, but Charlie kicked out at him another vicious blow to the shins. ‘That’ll learn you,’ he said, hitting him again with a sideways look at Ella. The boy crouched, shielding his head with his skinny arms.

  ‘Oh please stop,’ Sadie said. Charlie and Ella turned to look at her and the boy made a grateful escape. Charlie continued to stare at her face, likely he had not noticed it in the dark.

  ‘Why wasn’t you watching our bags, you lummock?’ Ella said, back to her usual self now she was safely on dry land. ‘We could have lost that basket then. ’Tain’t no use staring into the air like a halfwit. Wake up, can’t you.’ Sadie flushed and looked down.

  ‘Maid like you needs a buck to look out for you,’ Charlie said to Ella.

  ‘Have a care.’ Charlie’s friend was suddenly at his side. ‘What about Joan?’ he whispered.

  ‘What about her?’ Charlie was sullen.

  ‘Come on, now. The ladies don’t need our company.’

  Ella smiled at him. ‘Oh but we do. Charlie promised he’d help us fetch our bags to the Bear’s Head. We’ve no lodgings yet, see. And my sister, well, she’s only thirteen and we’re fair worn out with travelling . . .’

  Thirteen? Sadie took a sharp intake of breath and looked down at her feet, embarrassed. Ella knew full well she was way past her fifteenth birthday.

  ‘We’d be that grateful if you’d help us with our trunks.’ Ella looked up at the two men through her
eyelashes.

  ‘Well, I . . .’ Charlie’s friend said, but Ella picked up a box and thrust it out towards him. Sadie saw the reluctance still on his face, but nevertheless his arms reached out to take the box. Within a few minutes the two men were carrying the trunk between them, piled with all the boxes, leaving Ella and Sadie to follow behind with the handbaskets.

  The Bear’s Head had a sign hanging half off, with a picture that must have once been a bear but now was so worn that only a vague silhouette and pig-like eyes were visible beneath a layer of grime. They went through the squat wooden door into a tavern full of low-lying smoke, as airless and sunless as the bottom of a barrel.

  ‘Is this it?’ Ella said. She sniffed, turned to Sadie and shrugged her shoulders. A brass bell stood on the bar. Ella shook it till the clapper brought the alewoman.

  ‘Bring them in,’ Ella said, beckoning impatiently to the two men. They struggled through the door with the luggage. Ella supervised them, until they had dumped it, then brushed them aside to haggle heatedly with the alewoman, leaving the men standing uncertainly under the lantern in the passage. ‘You can go now,’ Ella said, handing them a single token.

  ‘Now just wait a minute—’ Charlie said.

  ‘Well, if you don’t want it—’ Ella said.

  ‘Thank you for bringing our things,’ Sadie spoke quickly, to try to stave off an argument. Charlie’s friend stared at her as though he had only just seen her. His eyes rested on her cheek a fraction too long. He pulled them away to look at Ella, but they slid back to Sadie. Sadie ignored him, acted busy by repacking one of the baskets.

  ‘Come on, Charlie, let’s go.’ He tugged at Charlie’s sleeve.

  Charlie was hovering, still trying to attract Ella’s attention, but Ella was oblivious, persuading the alewoman to let them have a room at the front overlooking the street. Finally his friend took him by the elbow and propelled him out of the door. Ella did not turn to bid them the time of day as they went.

  They took a room for one night and Sadie watched Ella count out the coins from Thomas Ibbetson’s black leather purse. She remembered seeing it in his chamber, and how she watched Ella slide it into her palm, then tie it into the string of her skirt and tuck it down inside. Now Ella was counting out an enormous sum for just one night in this filthy tavern.

  Their room was furnished with a stiff horsehair bed, propped up with an old chopping-board where the leg had been broken off, a side table with a dusty washbowl and jug, and a window looking out onto the street. Together they brought up their things, carrying them between them and bumping the trunk up the stairs. Ella began to unpack straight away, laying out a few of the lady’s things on the washstand as if they were her own.

  Sadie went straight over to the window, rubbed away the layer of greasy dust with a fingertip until the window squeaked. Below, folk on horseback rode by and tradesmen carried goods on their heads. From here she saw right inside their baskets – nosegays of dried flowers, orange-coloured salted fish, bundles of lace and ribands, dried wafers of apple threaded on strings. The apples made her wonder where they had come from, whether they had come from the country, maybe from a farm near their home in Westmorland.

  ‘Ella, where do you think apples come from in London? Are there apple trees in the city?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’ Ella brought out some crocheted gloves and arranged them on the table, patting them gently into place. She had found a silver-backed brush to tease her soft brown hair into waves over her shoulders. Then her face darkened and she put the brush down and shook her head as if to shake some unruly thought away.

  She turned to Sadie with a false gaiety. ‘Isn’t this fine?’ Ella said. ‘No more slaving in Netherbarrow, we’ve left all that behind. A whole city waiting for us. Nobody knows us here. We can be anything we like, start over.’

  Sadie looked at Ella’s hopeful face and wanted to believe it, but for her Netherbarrow seemed as much a part of her as the stain on her face. She shivered, unable to quash the feeling that the past clung on and would let neither of them go so easily.

  Ella walked to the window beside her and stared out as a cobbler’s boy set up his mending last in the street. ‘There must be thousands of young men in the city,’ she said. ‘How’d you fancy it, Sadie? A London lad!’

  Sadie laughed, but it was a brittle sound. Her heart sank. How could she have been so stupid? So it was not to be just the two of them after all. She watched Ella stroke her hair over her shoulder. Ella was set on finding a young man, already planning on making it a threesome though she had been in London less than half a day. And then Sadie would be on her own. Her throat tightened; there were so many people in London it made her feel as if she were drowning. She came away from the window, she had no taste any more for the sights of the city.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Ella went on, ‘we’ll find work and proper lodgings. A room, just for the two of us. Now we’ve sold the mule, we’ve enough here so’s we won’t have to share.’ She tapped the purse where it lay against her skirts. ‘Shall I go out and find us some snap? A pork pie, or a suet muffin?’

  Hunger took over her judgement. Ella meant nothing by it, just talk – that was what it was. Sadie beamed. ‘Gradely, Ella.’

  Ella pulled on the crocheted gloves. ‘You can stay here and mind us things.’

  Ella hurried out onto the street, looking about to get her bearings. There was a pall of mist over everything, and the stench of coal. Opposite was a narrow alleyway where there were stalls set up. The street was thronging. Ella blew out through her mouth, a long sigh. Free. She was free. She looked around. Netherbarrow seemed a dark and distant dream already. London was altogether another world. Not a speck of green in sight – no hills, no trees and no gossiping neighbours. Nobody to whisper about her behind her back. The Ibbetsons would never find her here.

  She pulled her shoulders back and ran across the road with a little skip. She smiled at everyone she passed – the cobbler lad, a boy selling lampreys in a wriggling mass in a big bowl and a woman hawking oranges from a basket balanced jauntily on her head. She even gave a smile to the pieman, who was a youth of about her own age, his skin marked with the pox, his hair tied up in a greasy pigtail. She paid tuppence for the pies, ignoring his leers as she took the purse from her bodice.

  ‘You wanna watch out,’ he said, ‘put that purse somewhere less tempting.’

  Ella smiled pleasantly, but turned away, thrusting her wrapped parcel into her basket. Lads like him were beneath her. She’d enough money to afford a chamber and a new gown – she was going up in the world. She’d have to help Sadie though, make sure she got some proper employment. Like a babe she was – a proper greenhorn. At home, if a piglet or a kitten was born weak or with some sort of deformity, her da would have dispatched it, with the blade of his shovel. But you couldn’t do that with people, could you? And the stronger ones had to look out for the runts in the litter, that was always the way of it. Still, London might toughen Sadie up.

  She worried about Sadie’s face, though. In the village some had taken against her – thought it was ill-luck to be seen abroad with her. It made her angry when they did that – it hurt, as if somehow the taint stuck to her as well. And Sadie was a sweet-natured soul, always ready to believe the best of folk. Likely the poor thing would be hard-pressed to find a sweetheart, so she’d need some useful craft to keep her occupied without a man to take care of her. Sooner the better, Ella thought. She didn’t want her hanging round her apron, putting off all the young bucks.

  Ella saw a man climb out of a shiny black sedan and dismiss the bearers with a wave of his hand. They jostled the contraption away up the street. The people stepped aside to let them stagger by. The occupant was elegantly dressed in claret brocade with a broad-brimmed hat over a full wig. A footman walked a few steps behind him, his hand on his sword. She watched covertly as he walked over to the market and a wave of anger washed over her. She hated the way he ignored his servant and those steppin
g out of his path. Immediately the anger was replaced by longing.

  Someone like him, she thought, that’s the sort for me.

  Chapter 3

  The Rectory,

  Netherbarrow by Kendal,

  County of Westmorland

  27th day of October 1660

  To Mr T. Ibbetson Esq.

  Sir,

  It is with regret I inform you your brother is gravely ill. I have no doubt that his sudden collapse has been brought about by the unfortunate fate of his wife. I fear your brother is no longer capable of managing his affairs, so I appeal to you to come without delay. It grieves me to see your brother thus brought down. Needless to say, he is daily in our prayers.

  Yours faithfully,

  Charles Goathley

  Rector of the Parish of St Mary’s

  Titus Ibbetson clutched the piece of paper in one hand, steadying it on his knee. The sky was sullen with rain, and damp had blurred the ink, but he almost knew the words by heart, he had read it so often. The journey through a never-ending wasteland of mud and trees had taken its toll on his patience, and he snapped at his wife Isobel when she kept complaining about the state of the track. He could not think of anything else except the fact that his twin brother Thomas was seriously ill.

  The village was scarcely more than a clutch of rough pigsties, and at first he was unsure if this really was Netherbarrow, so he stopped a sleepy farm labourer with his hoe over his shoulder to ask for the Ibbetsons’ house. He pointed them ‘up yonder, second house past the green’. Titus scanned the horizon; there were indeed several more imposing dwellings clustered together around the church.

  He had never understood why his brother chose to live in this hellhole of a village and not in the more prosperous town. When Titus had asked him, he had replied that he could not abide the smoke of Kendal, and the country air was good for his shortness of breath. Though Titus had to confess, from this distance his brother’s house looked substantial enough, a square stone box half covered in ivy, with large glazed windows.