The Little Shop of Found Things--A Novel

by Paula Brackston

  The stairs turned down into a little hallway, to the rear of which was a room with a bench and sink. It was clear this was where Mr. Morris had worked on restorations and repairs. It was possible to get to the garden through a door at the far end of the hallway. The first room on her left was the one that housed the mirrors, and then the passageway opened out into the main part of the shop. Xanthe wandered into the shop and stood at its center, trying to make sense of the muddle. In the half-light of the early morning, everything had taken on a slightly blurred look, with softened edges and muted colors. The business, contents, and building had been sold after Mr. Morris’s death, and to judge by the dust, no one had touched anything since his passing. There was a sense of everything having been left just as it must have been when he was still running the shop. As Xanthe browsed through the stock, she was alert, as always, to the possibility of something special. She could not look through such a collection of antique pieces without hoping for a connection, for something with a story to tell. Her senses strained in the way a person listens hard for a familiar voice among the babble of chatter in a crowded room. There was a fair amount of china, including one or two pleasant Wedgwood plates; a good deal of “brown” furniture, mostly occasional tables, nothing spectacular; lots of boxes of old books; a cabinet of mostly Victorian jewelry; a stand of walking sticks and gentlemen’s umbrellas; in short, lots of things that were nice enough, but nothing that stood out. And as yet, nothing that sang. She pulled books at random from an overstuffed box. There were one or two on local history, another entitled Spinners. Xanthe knew the history of crafts could be popular, so she set the books aside in a pile to keep. They could be used to show off one of the better bookcases, if nothing else. There were paper bags, tissue paper, and sticking tape on the Edwardian desk that served as a counter. There was no till. Opening one of the heavy drawers, she found a small metal box. The key was in the lock. Inside were a few five-pound notes and a handful of change. Xanthe moved her attention to the ledger underneath it. Turning to the last entry, she could see Mr. Morris had ceased trading on the second Thursday in May, a little under three months earlier. It felt like an intrusion, reading his spidery handwriting, as if she were looking over his shoulder as he wrote down the sales for that day. They were few and paltry. If the new shop was to succeed, changes would have to be made, and the first of those was surely the finding of original, tantalizing, and irresistible stock.

  “Xanthe?” Flora called down the stairs. “I’ve got the kettle on. Come and have breakfast.”

  It appeared Xanthe was not alone in finding it difficult to sleep. As she left the main room of the shop to join her mother for breakfast, Margaret Merton watched her go. Out of a habit long fallen into uselessness, she smoothed the phantom fabric of her skirts with her fine, long-fingered hands. This girl’s inclination to dress for comfort and her own peculiar style rather than modesty and elegance were at odds with Margaret’s own preferences. As a young woman she had been beautiful and slender. A prize contested by wealthy and powerful suitors. It had been her misfortune to choose one not, ultimately, powerful enough to save her. As a married woman she had become well-respected and known for her grace and her wit. She could never have imagined wandering a house in a state of near undress, her hair disheveled, her feet bare as Xanthe’s were. And yet, this wild girl, this person so lacking in the qualities Margaret had striven to install in her own dear daughter, she was to be her godsend. Her hope personified. Her daughter’s salvation. For she knew now what had woken her from her incomplete sleep. She knew what it was that had caused her to stir to action, to witness the progress of the newcomer. She had seen it, clear as anything could be, that object, that thing on which a greater value had been placed than the life of her own child. It had returned to the place where it had once played such a vital part in her daughter’s life. It was closer now than it had ever been to Mistress Merton, and it lay in the path of this untamed girl, waiting.

  The kitchen was no less chaotic than the shop, but here the clutter was caused by packing cases rather than old stock. Xanthe found Flora digging deep in a crate, in search of mugs.

  “I’ve found coffee but we’ll have to have it black,” she said. “Breakfast is over there.”

  Xanthe sat at the worn pine table. “Shortbread biscuits, cheese triangles, and marmalade?” she asked, examining the few edible things among the scrunched-up newspaper and piles of plates.

  “You’ll have to spread it with a spoon. The knives seem to have gone missing. I expect they’ll turn up,” she said, turning off the gas beneath the kettle.

  Flora was a woman of many talents, but cooking was not listed among them. It was not that she was unable to do it, simply that she detested supermarkets and was always far too engrossed in her antiques to remember to shop for food. This had led to her becoming more of an inventor than a cook, having to create meals out of the strangest combinations of ingredients. Xanthe had been brought up to expect the unexpected when it came to dinner, and as a result could not be perturbed by the most curious concoctions. Even so, this particular combination was new.

  As they ate their crumbly breakfast and sipped the bitter coffee, they made their plan for the day. Flora had arranged their arrival to coincide with a local antiques sale.

  “Perfect timing,” she insisted. “We can get over there early, seeing as we’re both up. Have a good poke around before the auction gets underway.”

  “Some people might have begun by sorting out all the stock that’s here before running off to buy more,” Xanthe pointed out, rescuing a blob of marmalade from the front of her jumper.

  “You can hardly accuse me of running anywhere,” she laughed.

  Xanthe grinned, as ever humbled by her mother’s ability to laugh off her pain and disablement. More than eight years had passed since her diagnosis of a cruelly painful form of arthritis and still her humor, her love of life, her determination, remained undiminished.

  “You know what I mean,” Xanthe said. “There’s a load of stuff to be gone through, never mind the unpacking and generally getting the flat organized.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about all that. I find those sorts of things usually take care of themselves. I don’t want to waste time on the flat now. We need to get the business up and running, Xanthe. That has to be our priority.”

  “Yes, but we do have to live here, too. You know, properly live, not just exist in heaps of craziness,” Xanthe reminded her, waving at the eye-high stacks of boxes and pointedly spreading more cheese with a spoon.

  “And so we shall. And it will be lovely. Just you and me. We don’t need anyone else.” She sounded bright enough, but Xanthe knew her too well. She could hear the catch in her voice every time she came close to mentioning her husband. Flora glanced at Xanthe, conscious of the fact that she too could be hurt by memories. After all, they both knew what it was like to be betrayed by someone they loved. “Besides,” she said, steering the conversation back onto safer ground, “we’ve a marvelous sale to go to. By all accounts something special. Not to be missed.” She fished in her bag and pulled out the catalog, waving it beneath her daughter’s nose. “China, silver, jewelry, oodles of lovely things. Have a look.”

  The front cover declared this to be a SALE OF FINE ANTIQUES AND COLLECTIBLES taking place at the beautiful Great Chalfield Manor. Xanthe always felt a tickle of excitement when browsing through a sale catalog, but this time, as she took the glossy booklet from her mother, she felt something else. Something stronger. She was on the point of opening it, ready to scour the pages to see if she could identify what it was that she was connecting with, but she found herself hesitating. In all those years of having things sing to her, all those dozens of special objects, she had never reacted to a mere picture before. For some reason she could not quite fathom, she didn’t wish to “meet” whatever it was at such a remove, seeing its captured image and a few basic lines of description. She felt compelled to wait. To come face to face with it. To hear it call to
her. To discover it and touch it. That was the way it should be.

  “Xanthe?” Flora had noticed her reluctance to open the catalog.

  “Actually, I’ll read it when we get there,” she said, getting up from the table. “Think I’ll go and see if I can get the shower to work. Wash off some of this dust.”

  “Well, don’t be long. It’s a twenty-minute drive from here. We need to get going if we are to steal a march on the other buyers. And anyway, I want to start hunting for treasure!”

  Xanthe hurried to get ready, spurred on by the thought that today she would find something truly special. Or, more accurately, today something special would find her.

  2

  The drive through the Wiltshire countryside was both soothing and uplifting. As they left Marlborough the road climbed up onto the chalk downs that gave the area its distinctive rolling hills and far-reaching views, as well as its famous white horses. These were enormous “drawings” cut into the ground to expose the gleaming white of the chalk beneath. Some of these hill figures were centuries old, others even prehistoric. Despite their great age, the bright green of the late-summer grass that surrounded them made them stand out as if newly cut into the soft turf. On some of the hilltops, there were small copses of oak, ash, and birch trees, all fuzzy with their summer leaves. Xanthe could well imagine the way the colors of the landscape would soon change with the altering seasons, and thought how pleasing the scenery would be when spangled with a heavy frost or covered in layers of fluffy snow.

  There was little traffic with which to contend. What passed for rush hour here was no more than a few private cars and delivery vans and the occasional school bus, all periodically held up by a tractor. The roads were twisty and narrow and not good for passing another vehicle, so that traffic meandered along in a mismatched procession, forced to slow their pace. It was a reminder to Xanthe and Flora that their whole lives would now be lived to a different beat. Xanthe’s black taxi drew a few curious glances, but at least out of London she was unlikely to be hailed by a would-be passenger. At last they turned up the driveway of the ancient manor house.

  “Oooh!” Flora leaned forward to get a better view. “How very lovely.”

  And it was. Not in a grand, ostentatious way as was the habit of some big houses. Great Chalfield Manor simply stood there among its lovingly tended gardens, as solid and tangible and beautiful a link with history as you could wish to find. The style of the house was typical of the late medieval period when it had been built, although there had been later additions and improvements that gave it an asymmetrical and appealingly higgledy-piggledy layout. It was constructed of the local warm, honey-colored stone, with large, deep-set, mullioned windows and lots of tall chimneys, and even gargoyles. Every doorway was a work of art in itself, arched and broad and fitted with ancient oak doors, studded with ironwork. Xanthe followed the wooden signposts toward the graveled car park.

  “Looks like you were right to get here early,” she said, searching for somewhere to park in the already crowded area. There were plenty of everyday cars, but also a worrying number of four-by-fours, vans, and estate vehicles, which usually indicated the presence of dealers. Which also meant that prices could be quickly pushed up.

  “Over there!” Flora pointed at a single space near the end of a row. Xanthe was just about to swing into it when an old red sports car came from the other direction and sped into the spot.

  “Oy!” she yelled out of the window as a young man climbed out of the open-topped classic car. “I was going to park there,” she told him. Her London habit of needing to fight for everything when it came to traffic would take a while to fade.

  He grinned and gave a shrug. “Sorry. Didn’t see you there. But now that I do, wow, nice wheels. Haven’t seen one of these in such good nick for a long time.” He started prowling around the taxi, running his hands over the bodywork and giving it a thorough inspection.

  “Never mind that,” she said, leaning out of the window to continue berating him. “How about finding me another space, since you’ve pinched mine?”

  He walked around to stand at the driver’s door. “She’s in fantastic condition,” he said, patting the bonnet. He was good-looking, tall, with closely cropped hair and an easy smile. Experience had made Xanthe wary of handsome men. She was not about to be caught off guard with a little car flattery just because he thought he was attractive enough to get away with it. He grinned but she did not return the smile. “Sorry,” he said again. “Very ungentlemanly of me. Just to prove I am not a complete thug, I will indeed find you somewhere else to park.”

  True to his word, he threaded through the stationary vehicles and those beginning to queue up behind the taxi, seeking out a gap. At last he found one and waved Xanthe over. As she maneuvered her cab into the space, he appeared at the window again.

  “There you go. Nice and shady here. Got to look after a beauty like this,” he said, his gaze fixed firmly on the car.

  She wound the window up, which was hard to do quickly with an old manual system.

  Flora tutted. “You could have said ‘thank you,’ Xanthe.”

  “For what? He pinched my space to begin with.”

  Flora rolled her eyes and let the matter drop, but she had already made her daughter feel something of a shrew. It was not, after all, the young man’s fault that he looked how he did. More importantly, it was not his fault that she felt about men the way she did. He was not, after all, Marcus.

  It was a short walk through the gardens to the house. Flora managed the gravel skillfully on her sticks, her bag slung over her shoulder. Xanthe’s heavy boots scrunched along the paths. She had chosen to wear the only thing that was not crumpled beyond use after being in a suitcase, which was a vintage tea-dress, dark green with tiny brown leaves on it. She liked the way it was so at odds with her Dr. Martens, and had shrugged on a favorite tweed jacket to keep off the morning chill. The sale was being held in the enormous barn opposite the house. Xanthe was disappointed not to be gaining entrance into the manor itself, but the ancient barn was a thing of beauty in its own right, with its hipped eaves and thick, mossy stone tiles. By the time they had followed the eager line of people in, paid for their buyer’s ticket, and made their way into the central bay where most of the lots were set out, the sale was about to start. It was easy to see that this was no house clearance or small, provincial auction, but a quality sale. Flora nudged Xanthe and nodded at two antiques dealers she knew well. It was a sign of important pieces being listed that they had chosen to come to the auction in person rather than bid online or by phone as many did.

  Flora had marked things in the catalog that she thought looked worth bidding on, and she began to seek them out. Xanthe let her go on, deliberately hanging back, allowing the crowd to slowly separate them. She knew there was one specific piece here that she needed to find. That she needed to hear, through all the bustle and noise of the auction room. She glanced about, looking for anything that might stand out. The abundance of lovely things was quite something, and part of her felt remiss at not paying greater attention to the matter of obtaining stock for the shop, but for now she would have to leave that to Flora. She drifted past tables of gleaming china, noticing a gorgeous Minton tea service and a good deal of Spode. One side of the area was entirely given over to eighteenth-century furniture, a lot of it French and very good. In the far corner there were rugs, half unfurled, Turkish and Persian, their colors rich and glowing, suggesting exotic countries, warm climates, and unfamiliar beauty. But she heard nothing from them. She felt nothing beyond the pull of their loveliness and the quality of their craftsmanship. Nothing that truly moved her.

  And then, as she neared a low, glass-topped cabinet beneath one of the long, loophole windows, she was struck with an almost overwhelming sense of anxiety. She was so shocked by this unexpected emotion, this onslaught of fear when there was nothing remotely frightening to be seen, that she stood motionless, uncertain as to what to do next. She knew that this
feeling was being brought about by something in the barn, but it was stronger than anything she had experienced before. It was not the usual gentle buzzing in her head, the dreamlike, floating sensations she experienced when she connected with a piece. This was so much more powerful. More urgent, somehow. She took a step forward. The feeling increased. She turned, searching, convinced now that what was trying to find her was in the display cabinet. And when she placed her hand upon the glass, she knew she must be close, for to her it seemed that the very glass itself was vibrating, possessed of an energy that felt easily strong enough to shatter it. She peered into the cabinet, which was low and contained two shelves of jewelry and silver. There was a charm bracelet, a snuff box, a vanity set, a collection of silver chains, and two trays of rings. And then she saw it. The second she set eyes upon it she knew, for at that moment it sang to her so clearly, so desperately, that there was no possibility of her being mistaken.

  It was a chatelaine, made of lustrous silver, evidently early nineteenth century judging by the style and the items it was comprised of. A chatelaine was a belt or clip—in this case a clip—worn at the waist or hip of the lady of the house. Most, like this one, had several chains dangling from the clasp, and to the end of these chains would be attached various useful or beautiful things. Fashions and fads over the centuries had thrown up many different types of chatelaine, but this one boasted a selection of fairly common appendages, even if they were uncommonly pretty. There was a tiny coin purse made of silver mesh; a miniature scent bottle; a dear little silver notebook, still with its original pages by the look of it; and a buttonhook. There were also two chains with nothing attached to them. It was not unusual to have incomplete sets of attachments. Xanthe had seen chatelaines before and could see that this was a fine example of one, but there was nothing particularly noteworthy about it. Nothing beyond the fact that it was causing her pulse to race and setting up a high-pitched humming in her head. Even amidst the hubbub of the sale room she could hear distant whispers: the breathy voices of people no longer living. Frightened voices. Whatever its value, whatever its price, she knew she had to have it.