The Gilded Lily

by Deborah Swift

  ‘Oh, shall we let her go and play that again! I haven’t played chase since I was a child!’ said Wycliffe, holding her by the ankle with both hands.

  Sadie struggled to free herself, but Sedley ran to help and clung onto her. Tears of frustration seeped from the corners of her eyes.

  ‘Go on then, I’ll let her go and we’ll have another chase,’ said Sedley.

  They stood away, leaving her sitting on the grass. She saw then that Lutch and Foxy had taken Ella and were holding her fast. Ella caught her eye and shook her head. She looked beaten. Jay Whitgift lounged in the doorway watching, an expression of amusement on his face; he was playing with a stick rapier, idly tossing it up and catching it.

  ‘Oh, Whitgift, she’s spoiling our sport, she won’t run,’ said Sedley. ‘You didn’t tell us she would give up so easily. You said she was wild.’

  ‘How can he help it if she’s too dim-witted to run?’ Wycliffe said. ‘Come on, let’s take her inside.’

  In the brighter light of the chamber a tall man with a horribly disfigured face helped himself to a glass of port from a decanter. Sadie could not help but stare at the metal cover over his nose, though she tried not to. She had been on the receiving side of such stares. The man looked irritable and his hooded eyes flicked round the room.

  ‘Are these they?’

  ‘This one’s wild as a cat,’ said Wycliffe, hanging onto Sadie’s arm. ‘We had a job to hold her. She’s quieter now, though.’

  ‘Let’s take a look at them. Then I’ll decide if they’re worth my silver.’

  She caught Ella’s eye. Ella shook her head, and Sadie stayed motionless as Wolfenden circled them. ‘I told Allsop to expect a surprise – he’s waiting in the drawing room.’ He thrust his hand into Ella’s bodice and pinched her on the breast. Her eyes widened slightly but she did not react. ‘This one’s the one that recites, isn’t she? She’s a bit thin, not much meat on those bones. A man likes something he can sink into, isn’t that right, boys?’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Wycliffe. Sedley brayed like a donkey.

  Wolfenden walked round Sadie, lifted her chin with a rough hand. She looked impassively into his face, seeing how his skin was festering around the nose, how his hair seemed to be worn away into wisps under his heavy wig. When he spoke his lips were cracked over yellowing teeth.

  He slopped back into his chair, a disappointed scowl on his face. ‘She won’t do, Whitgift. She’s not what I imagined. She’s like a mouse.’

  Sadie held her breath, keeping silent. Perhaps they would let them go.

  ‘I know she looks quiet now,’ Wycliffe said, ‘but you should have seen her before – she was that wild we had to hold her down.’

  Wolfenden’s face registered a little more interest.

  ‘Yes, you can still see the mud and wet on this one’s gown, where we had to wrestle her onto the ground,’ Sedley said.

  ‘Where?’

  Jay walked over and turned her round by the shoulders. She felt a hand brush down her back, but she stayed rigid. Sadie’s skin crawled. Jay turned her back to face Wolfenden, whose eyes were glinting now with something like greed. He leaned forward in his chair.

  ‘She ran like the blazes. Hitched up her skirts to show her bare knees and everything,’ said Sedley.

  ‘Bare knees?’

  Jay lifted her skirt with the tip of his stick rapier. Wolfenden leaned over. His voice turned husky.

  ‘Lift your skirts, girl.’

  Sadie did not move. She was sinking inside. She cast her eyes to Ella while Jay bent over and twitched up her skirts. She heard Wolfenden exhale, and saw the beads of sweat break out on his brow.

  ‘All besmirched with mud,’ he said. His voice was breathy.

  Sadie looked down. Her bare ankles were white against the vibrant red and blues of the rug, her legs wet and dark with dirt.

  ‘She’ll do.’ He drew a pouch from his coat and held it out to Jay. ‘We’ll get some sport out of them somehow.’

  Jay let go of her skirts and they covered her feet again. He pocketed the purse with a small bow.

  Wolfenden stood up unsteadily and said, ‘Allsop’s waiting in the drawing room. If he don’t want them, then I’ll tup this one myself.’

  ‘No!’ Ella protested, struggling wildly, but Foxy put his hand over her mouth. She sank her teeth into his palm.

  ‘You bitch,’ he said, letting go in surprise and shaking his hand. ‘She bit me.’

  Wolfenden laughed. ‘That’s what I like – a bit of spirit. This way.’

  Chapter 42

  Walt was restless. He took out all the watches one by one and wound them. Tindall was still searching through the back warehouse with Ibbetson’s inventory, but they had turned up nothing that could conclusively belong to him. Walt was worried about Jay. He hadn’t seen him all day, and he needed Jay to tell him where that seal had come from. He didn’t want a constable asking questions. He knew he wasn’t supposed to make loans on goods, but there was such a demand, it would have seemed churlish not to fulfil it, like turning away a plate of food. And he remembered when times had been hard well enough, when the crops were burnt in the days of shaking.

  And he did not like it when Nat disapproved of his son. It was as if he was disapproving of Walt himself, it gave him a pang inside. He hoped Jay might have come home by now, but although he had heard carriage wheels several times, he had seen nothing of Jay. He was probably at the Frost Fair. Walt himself had been along there earlier in the week and had been amazed by the scale of it. In his day they hadn’t been such grand affairs with troops mustering, and crowds thick as at the coronation parade.

  When the bell rang for his office he hurried to the door, expecting to see Jay standing impatiently as he always did with his hat in his hand ready to duck under the lintel. But when he opened the door it was to see a stout constable in the king’s livery, and behind him Ibbetson, in a long dark cape and a tartan muffler against the cold.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ said the constable. ‘May we come in?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Walt, his heart sinking. Now he wished he had not set Nat on searching the warehouses. He felt old all of a sudden, and tired. He would have liked his friend with him. He sighed as he shut the door.

  ‘Have you found out where this seal came from?’ Ibbetson said.

  ‘One of my men is on it now,’ Walt said faintly.

  ‘Your son is not here then, to explain how he came by it?’

  ‘No. He’s out.’

  ‘And it is he, who is in charge of the Gilded Lily, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Walt said, ‘but it’s shut right now. They’ve taken the business to the Frost Fair. Everyone’s up there nights now.’

  ‘Ask him again about the girls,’ Ibbetson said.

  The constable frowned, ‘I was getting to that. Do you know if he employs two sisters there – Sadie and Ella Appleby?’

  Ibbetson sat down on the leather chair Nat usually sat in.

  ‘Well, he does have two girls, but they are Miss Johnson and Miss Bennett,’ Walt said.

  ‘Does one of them have a stain on her face?’

  ‘A stain?’

  ‘Like a big red mark from here to here.’ Ibbetson drew his hand over his face.

  ‘No.’ Walt did not understand. ‘They’re very pretty girls. What would Jay need a girl like that for?’

  ‘It’s just that we found some jars from the Gilded Lily in her room.’

  ‘Well, I’m not surprised, sounds like she needs it. Every girl buys their salves and pomades from my son’s emporium. The Lily’s the talk of town.’

  Ibbetson stood up again and said, ‘I’m still not satisfied. There’s the business with the seal. Tell him about the warrant to search his chambers.’

  ‘Now hold your fire,’ Walt said. ‘I’ve said Jay’ll be back soon, then I’ll have a talk to him. Come back tomorrow.’

  ‘It won’t wait,’ the constable said. ‘Someone’s given us informatio
n that links this place to the murder of a young girl. If you won’t open up, then we’ll force entry.’

  ‘What? I don’t understand. What’s all this talk of young girls and murder?’

  ‘Where is your son, Mr Whitgift?’ the constable said.

  ‘I’ve said. He’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘He’s just wasting time,’ Ibbetson said.

  The constable sighed in irritation. His voice had the resigned tone of someone who had had a very long day. ‘Come on, old fellow, we’ll break the lock anyway if you don’t let us in.’

  ‘All right, all right. I have a key. I have keys to all the buildings. I’ll just have to find it.’

  Walt opened his desk drawer to find the key to Jay’s office. Jay did not know he had this key, and Walt felt a little guilty about it. Jay would have been very annoyed to think that his father had a key to his private chambers, but Walt had not been up there in months. He used to go up regularly because he liked to see what his son was doing, handle his fine things. It made him proud. But now he hated those stairs, they hurt his knees and he was frightened of taking a tumble. These days Jay never offered to give him his arm and take him up.

  Walt unloaded various grubby items from the drawers onto the table whilst Ibbetson frowned and tutted. Eventually he found the key with its faded green tassel.

  ‘I think this is it.’

  ‘Right then. Lead the way. We need to find the ledger and see if we can find an address, or something to trace that seal,’ Ibbetson said.

  Walt sighed and made a great show of putting on his cloak and scarf and a beaver fur hat which he pulled down over his ears. He plucked a lantern from the table and set off without so much as a glance behind. But he heard their footsteps behind him as he limped across the yard.

  When the door was open he led the way up the stairs, feeling his knees creak mutinously with every step. ‘Careful,’ he said, ‘there seem to be a few boxes on the stairs.’ He must have a word with Jay about those crates, they could cause someone to trip.

  He pushed open the door, but it would not open very wide, something was jamming it. Walt held out his lantern for a better view. He stopped dead, astounded, unable to go a step further. The room was piled high. There was scarce room to breathe for boxes and baskets, crates and chests. Some of the piles were teetering at an alarming height. Not a square inch of wall could be seen.

  ‘Wait there,’ he croaked, finally able to speak.

  ‘We’ll come up if you don’t mind,’ the constable said.

  ‘No, no. I’ll look for the ledger. You go back down.’ Walt wiped his brow. He could not understand it. What was all this? Supplies for the Lily? He squeezed his way carefully through a narrow passage towards the desk, marooned like a valley between mountains. He was afraid that he might knock into something and send a stack tumbling about him. When he got to the desk, he could see there were more small cabinets and chests and cases piled beneath it, and small jewellery cases and tea caddies crowding round the edges. In front of him was a cabinet with rows of small drawers. He had no time to take this in, though, because he heard the constable call from the doorway, ‘Are you in there, Mr Whitgift?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Walt faintly.

  ‘What’s in the boxes?’

  ‘I don’t know. Requisitions most likely. Pots and jars for the Gilded Lily. You know, the ladies’ chambers.’

  ‘Let’s have a look then.’ The constable bent to pick up one of the nearest boxes. The stack behind him swayed slightly as his back nudged into it. Walt put his hand out to steady the stack as the constable lifted his hand out of the straw to reveal a tortoise-shell and gold card case. He handed it to Walt. Walt stared. It was an expensive item, that he could tell. The constable dug deeper down and found several more, all gold, all polished to a high sheen. He lined them up in a row on the only remaining space on the desk. Walt could not believe what he was seeing. Where had they come from? What was all this gold doing in his son’s chamber? He was stunned, could not take it in.

  ‘Where are the ledgers?’ Ibbetson’s voice broke in.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Walt was stumbling over his words now. ‘I can’t see them, I mean, I don’t know where he keeps them, you see I don’t come up here much, but I’m sure he’ll be back soon enough to tell us where they are . . .’

  The constable meanwhile was pulling a silver-backed looking glass from a drawer. ‘There’s a few dozen more of these in here,’ said the constable, accusingly.

  ‘Just stock,’ Walt mumbled.

  But the constable had an intent expression on his face. Shining the lantern close to the cabinet he was examining another drawer. Walt caught a glimpse of something flash and twinkle in the light as he drew it out, before the drawer was shut and another opened. The constable pulled a whole drawer out and pushed aside the other small cases and boxes, leaning over it so that his shadow was projected eerily on the towers of crates as he picked out one object after another.

  Ibbetson said, ‘The ledgers won’t be in there. The drawers are too small.’

  The constable was too engrossed to answer. Walt leaned on the table; he felt as though his legs might give way.

  At last the constable turned, and fixed Walt with a grim look. ‘For the last time, where is your son?’

  ‘Out. On business,’ Walt said.

  ‘If I’m not mistaken, one of those bracelets in the drawer belongs to Mrs Cecily Rowlands. But I’ll need a second opinion. I believe these goods to be stolen property. The bracelet has an inscription on the inside from her husband that is most particular, and I must enquire exactly how your son came by it. And just look at all this stuff.’ He gestured round the room.

  ‘Just a few bits for the shop,’ Walt said.

  Ibbetson said, ‘My God. I’ll bet my brother’s belongings are in here somewhere. Let me see.’ He reached up to take down a crate precariously balanced on top of several others.

  ‘Careful,’ Walt said.

  ‘No, sir, don’t touch anything,’ the constable said. His voice had taken on a new authority. Ibbetson put down the crate. ‘There’s a small fortune in here. I want it thoroughly checked. Is there a boy available?’

  ‘No,’ Walt said, hoping to stave off the inevitable. ‘The lads are down at the Frost Fair.’

  ‘I need a runner to fetch the guard. You are not to leave the premises, and when your son comes home, he must wait for us here. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes. But I’m sure he can explain it all,’ Walt said. The constable was treating him like an old man. It upset him. His thoughts ran round his head like rats in a trap, asking what all this stuff was, but a small voice inside him was whispering that it already knew.

  ‘Look at this,’ said Ibbetson. ‘Looks like a notebook of some sort – best take this. Maybe it will have the information we seek.’

  ‘I thought I said not to touch anything, sir.’ But he held out his hand for the calfskin book, flicked it open for a look, raised his eyebrows. He went very still, sucked in his breath, then tucked the book deliberately into the pouch at his belt.

  The constable’s eyes had turned hard. ‘Let us descend,’ he said. ‘I cannot do more without help. Mr Ibbetson, go find a boy, get someone to send for the king’s guard. I’ll wait in the office, keep my eye on Mr Whitgift.’

  Ibbetson looked disgruntled but manoeuvred his way back to the door, and Walt heard his boot heels clatter down the stairs and the noise of crunching snow as he strode across the yard. Walt followed the constable’s broad back. ‘Better lock it,’ said the constable tersely.

  ‘Oh. Oh yes,’ Walt said. It felt strange to lock the door again now he knew what was behind it. And he dreaded to think what might happen when Jay came back. He walked to the office in silence and slumped into his chair. The fire had sunk to cinders in the office and the room seemed grey and dull.

  A few moments later the office door burst open and Ibbetson came in, followed by Nat Tindall, who appeared anxiously at his shoulder
.

  ‘Ah, good day again, Mr Tindall,’ the constable said. Nat looked guiltily at his feet and slid out of view into the yard.

  ‘The son’s at Allsop’s,’ Ibbetson said, breathless. ‘Trinity Lane. Mr Tindall asked the nightwatch, and he saw him go out. Jay Whitgift told him to send his men straight there in the box-wagon. And wait till you hear this – the watch said he saw them open up the Gilded Lily and hand two girls into the wagon. He said it was too dark to see their faces, but he says the wagon’s gone on to Lord Allsop’s.’

  ‘In that case we’ll apprehend Whitgift there,’ said the constable. ‘I’ll ride and fetch some back-up. Like as not we’ll have need of it. And better have men to wait down here in case he returns.’

  It was all happening too fast for Walt. He couldn’t make sense of it.

  ‘Tindall.’ The constable put his head out of the door and shouted for him. He shuffled in, looking sheepish. ‘Wait with the old gent until my men arrive. Make sure he stays where he is.’

  ‘Old gent’ was it now? Walt caught his friend’s eyes and felt ashamed. He dropped his chin to his chest.

  ‘I’ll ride on ahead, sir, meet you at Allsop’s,’ Ibbetson said, top-buttoning his riding cloak.

  ‘Don’t go in, though. Safer to await some protection,’ said the constable.

  ‘Of course not.’ Ibbetson and the constable hurried out of the door together. From the yard came the sounds of the horses sidestepping as they mounted them, and then the squelch of hooves receding into the distance.

  When the sounds had died away, Walt turned to his friend. ‘Don’t say anything, Nat. I know, I’ve been stupid. Did you know? About all the stuff, I mean?’

  ‘No, Walt. You weren’t to know.’

  ‘Happen there’ll be an explanation.’

  Nat merely shook his head.

  ‘Will they bring him home?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’ll need to go through the evidence.’

  ‘They said something about a murder. A young girl.’

  Nat dropped his gaze and looked at the floor.