The Little Shop of Found Things--A Novel

by Paula Brackston

  “My name is Margaret Merton,” she said, her voice dry, insubstantial, an echo of a whisper. “I have waited so very long.”

  “Waited?” Xanthe did not allow herself time to ponder the madness of talking with a ghost. “Waited for what?”

  Margaret tilted her head a little, and the faintest hint of a smile visited her lopsided features as she breathed a reply that made Xanthe’s stomach turn over. “For you,” she said. “For you.”

  “But, I don’t know you. How could you have known I was coming here? Coming to live here?” Xanthe asked, taking a step back.

  “I knew that someone would come, one day. Someone who could help me. Someone with a gift such as yours.”

  “A gift?”

  “The chatelaine found you,” said Margaret, lifting a painfully thin hand to point to the silver at Xanthe’s waist. “It sang to you. You found it because of the shop. And now you are here.” She paused to gesture at the jail. “Now we can begin.”

  Xanthe could not find the courage to ask what it was the specter wanted to begin. At that moment she was struggling to make sense of what was happening. First the powerful connection with the chatelaine, then the fact that she had traveled back through time, and now, now she was talking to a ghost. A ghost who, it seemed, had plans for her. Instinctively, she began to back away, but each step she took Margaret Merton matched.

  “Leave me alone!” Xanthe gasped.

  The ghost suddenly circled round her, moving with unnatural speed, coming to stand behind Xanthe. Between her and the garden, effectively trapping her in the doorway of the jail. While reason told Xanthe she could have run straight through the apparition, she could not bring herself to do it.

  “I have not waited these many, slow years to step aside,” Margaret said coolly. “I have need of your assistance. Alice has need of you.”

  “The … the girl in my vision? The one I saw? That’s Alice?” Xanthe tried to move past Margaret as she spoke, but the phantom moved silently and swiftly, pressing forward again.

  “Alice is alone,” the ghost told her, her own voice trembling as she spoke. “I cannot go to her. It has been my lot to linger, to drift in this purgatory, waiting, hoping. Now that hope is to be fulfilled. You can go in my stead. You can help her!”

  Xanthe began a shout of protest, but it was too late. Margaret Merton jumped forward, causing her to leap to one side as a reflex. So sudden was the movement, and so unsteady was Xanthe on her feet for fear of what was happening to her that she lost her balance. She fell. And as she fell, as she twisted and put her hands out to break that fall, she saw at once what was inevitable. She was falling across the threshold of the jail, and even as it happened, in that giddy instant, she knew she would not reach the cobbled floor. Would not feel the grit and dirt of ages hard and real against her palms, her knees, her shoulder. For she had already begun another more profound descent as she plummeted down through the steep, deep centuries once more.

  8

  This time the transition was far more swiftly achieved. Whether or not it was because she was actually wearing the chatelaine, Xanthe could not be certain. When she had stepped into the jail it was to the accompaniment of Margaret Merton’s voice urging her on, beseeching her to find Alice, to go to her aid. There was a sense of pressure against her ears and in her head, and then it was done. She was standing, gasping for breath, no longer in the jail, but in a large, airy room, with wood-paneled walls and deep, wide windows. She was perplexed to find that the chatelaine had yet again failed to travel with her. Or at least, most of it had. Why? Why did it not stay on her like her clothes, mercifully, did? A quick check showed her that the parts that had not traveled were the older ones, which meant all of the chains bar two, the clasp, the key, scent bottle, and buttonhook. She was just left holding the notebook and coin purse. She quickly tucked them into her pocket.

  The room was unfamiliar to her, though it looked like the interior of many a grand manor house she had visited in the course of her work. The heavy carved wood of the chairs, the tapestry bolsters and cushions, and the style of the paintings suggested a time at least three hundred years before her own. No electricity, not even gaslights. Instead there were sconces for candles on the walls as well as candelabra on the tables and mantlepiece. She was relieved to note that there was no sign of the ghost, nor of her oppressive presence. She could detect a faint smell of woodsmoke, although the fire in the wide hearth was out. She struggled to take in the enormity of what was happening. She had traveled through time again, and again she had emerged into a place other than where she had started. The ghost of Margaret Merton had meant her to go there, had been determined she would. Xanthe knew as soon as she had entered the blind house she had been powerless to stop herself falling back though the centuries. How would she get home? If she had no control over traveling through time, how could she return to her own time again? A cold wave of dread swept over her.

  “Don’t panic,” she told herself. “Think, girl. Just think it through.” She rubbed her arms as she paced the room, trying to keep out both the cold of the day and the chill of fear she knew was no friend to rational thought. She quickly told herself that she had returned home after her last brief journey to the past, even if she did not know how she had done it. Therefore, it was possible. And then there was Margaret Merton. The ghost wanted her to help Alice and knew all about her connection with the chatelaine, knew that she had a special gift with certain things that found her. The ghost had made sure that she went back into the blind house, so she must have known that this was the door through to earlier times. “OK, so if I do what she wants, why wouldn’t she let me go home again? She would have no more reason to keep me here.” Saying it aloud did not, unfortunately, make Xanthe’s logic sound any more convincing. That she was putting her trust in a terrifying phantom, that this might be her only route home, was a far from comforting thought.

  There was no time to think further, as at that moment she heard a commotion outside. Creeping over to the window, taking care to peer out from behind one of the folded-back shutters so that she could not easily be seen, she observed the scene taking place. A plump man and a taller woman were standing on the driveway, and a carriage was being brought up. Xanthe leaned forward so that she might see more. There she was! The girl she had seen before. The girl she now understood to be Alice. She was held firmly by a rough-looking man, who began to drag her toward the carriage. He was speaking to her gruffly, and Xanthe could hear her shouts of protest.

  “No! Mistress, please! I have spoken only the truth! Master Lovewell, I beg you, do not let them take me!” The girl was crying as she spoke, but the couple did not answer her and made no move to stop what was being done. Xanthe could see there was another woman standing with them too, younger, dressed more elaborately than the others, and holding a small dog in her arms. The manner in which they all watched Alice’s distress, so dispassionately, so apparently without caring, was chilling.

  “Please, Mistress!” Again she tried to appeal to them, but the older woman merely looked away, stepping back a little from the man who must have been her husband. It was then that Xanthe saw the chatelaine hanging from the woman’s waist. Even from that distance she was certain it was the same one, not just because of the attachments—there were two keys, the buttonhook, and the scent bottle, and another chain still missing an attachment—but because of the clasp, with its distinctive curved shape. There was no mistaking it. This was the same chatelaine, minus its Victorian additions. When the woman moved again it did not rattle about like it had when Xanthe had worn it. Instead it just lay neatly against the fine wool of her skirts, glinting in the low sunshine.

  At that moment, the struggling servant girl managed to break away from the man who was trying to bundle her into the carriage. He gave a shout as she hitched up her skirts and ran. The small dog, stirred up by the drama and giving way to its instinct to chase anything that moved, jumped from his mistress’s arms and tore away after the girl, y
apping as he went. The middle-aged couple still did not move, but the carriage driver joined the other man in running after Alice. Xanthe willed her to get away. Her youth and fear were giving her an edge over the men, so that soon the gap between them widened.

  Xanthe felt rather than heard someone enter the room. Turning, she found a boy of about twelve standing behind her, his mouth open as he took in the sight of this curiously dressed stranger. He stood as if frozen for a moment. There was no chance for her to hide. There was nothing for it but to speak to him, to grab the chance to find out what she could. The idea that if she succeeded in helping the girl then Margaret Merton would somehow let her return home was all she had to work with.

  She took a step toward the boy. “Hello,” she said gently, “can you help me? Can you tell me if that is Alice, the girl they are trying to send away? What is it that she’s done?”

  He was so shocked when she spoke, and so apparently amazed at what came out of her mouth, that he turned on his heel and fled. Xanthe cursed herself for being an idiot. Of course she not only looked odd, she must have sounded like someone from a foreign land, too. The clothes people were wearing, the interior of the house, all seemed to point toward her being in a year somewhere in the fifteen or sixteen hundreds. Merely forming this thought sent a tremor of fresh excitement and fear through her. It was all so very real that it was easy to forget the impossibility of what she was doing. It was likely the boy would return with someone else to show them the bizarrely dressed woman spouting nonsense. What would they do with her? She had no prepared story to tell people, which suddenly seemed a serious oversight. She would be of no use to anyone locked up as a lunatic. Quickly and quietly she left the room, peering into the hallway to make sure it was empty before hurrying toward a passageway that looked as if it might lead to a door at the rear of the house. It was then that she realized where she was. This was Great Chalfield Manor, where the auction had been held. Where she had found the chatelaine. Of course it had changed in many ways, but the core of the building was still easily recognizable. As she reached the dark oak door, she could hear more shouting coming from the front of the house. Whatever the girl had been accused of, it sounded as if it mattered very much to the lady of the house that the girl be dealt with. Xanthe was sure it was the lady’s voice she could hear raised and strident, issuing orders and despairing at how incompetent everyone appeared to be. Her husband’s voice was little more than a soothing murmur. He was having scant success in calming her down, by the sound of it, which gave Xanthe hope that the girl might have gotten away.

  Cautiously she lifted the heavy iron latch. The door opened onto a beautifully tended herb garden, all low box hedges clipped into loops encircling bushes of rosemary, thyme, lavender, and a wide variety of useful-looking plants. Beyond this was a rose arbor and she could just make out an orchard. Hearing footsteps to her right, she turned left and ran along the back of the house. She risked sprinting across the curve of the driveway that passed between the wall of the house and the stables opposite and was fortunate not to be noticed as she dashed in through the main door of the barn, trusting to luck that everyone would now be too taken up with catching the runaway to see her. The interior of the stable block was divided into stalls at one end. Three slightly startled horses turned to look at her briefly before going back to the feed in their mangers. Xanthe made her way to the other end of the building. Here there was a large cart as well as a small, one-horse gig parked up. Through the open door she could see three people still standing at the main entrance to the house, and away in the distance, at the edge of the parkland where the pasture dipped down toward a deep-set stream, she could just make out the fleeing girl and her pursuers.

  “There she is!” This shout was not about the fleeing servant, it was about Xanthe. She wheeled around to see the boy from the house pointing a trembling finger at her. A tall, rustically dressed, elderly man stood beside him.

  She held up her hands. “Please,” she began, choosing her words with care, “I mean no harm.”

  “She was asking about Alice,” the boy said.

  “What business have you here?” the man asked, taking a step toward her.

  Her mind was racing. As she searched for a plausible reply, the man looked her up and down. He frowned.

  “You one of the players staying in town?”

  “Oh,” she said cautiously, “the players…”

  “I heard the mummers were up for the harvest fair. Be you one of them?”

  Mummers and players? A traveling theater, perhaps? He thought her clothes were some sort of costume. She nodded. “I am,” she said, not daring to elaborate.

  He seemed about to question her further, but the sound of voices coming nearer stopped him. She looked about for somewhere to hide. She had to trust that she might be able to win the cooperation of the servants if she trod carefully, but she would surely be on more dangerous ground with the master and mistress of the house. In desperation, she flung herself into a pile of hay, burying herself as deeply as she was able. She heard the boy gasp and knew that he and the man could give her away if they chose to.

  “Willis? Willis, fetch my husband’s horse this minute!” The woman had a tone of voice and a manner of speaking that did not invite argument.

  Xanthe held her breath. She was completely at the mercy of the old man and the boy. They had no reason to help her beyond the wish not to get someone else into trouble. After what seemed like an eternity the old man answered.

  “Right away, Mistress. Shall you be wanting to ride out, too?”

  “Certainly not. Master Lovewell must go after that wretched girl, as it seems the sheriff is incapable of doing his job without assistance. I shall wait in the house upon their return,” she said. As she strode out Xanthe had a clear view of the chatelaine, and could hear the high ringing in her head of it calling to her again. At least she now knew that she had indeed found the girl Margaret Merton had begged her to help, and that she had found the girl the chatelaine was leading to, and that there was no mistaking the fact that they were one and the same. What she did not yet know was how on earth she, a powerless outsider from another time, was to do anything to save her.

  She stayed hidden in the stables as the drama unfolded outside. Had she traveled back in time just to be a helpless bystander? Would the chatelaine allow her to return home if she proved ineffectual at saving Alice? Would the ghost stop her from getting home if she failed? However frustrating the situation was, she knew that to rush in and act without thinking would not help Alice, and would almost certainly end badly for herself. Willis took out a saddled horse for his master, but by then word reached them that the girl had been captured. All Xanthe could do was watch as Alice was dragged back to the carriage and taken away. The sun was dropping toward the far western hill, lengthening the shadows of the tall trees and casting a warm light that would soon turn to dusk. She had no option other than to bide her time, hoping that she might find a way to reach the girl under cover of darkness.

  She emerged from her hiding place, dusting hay from her clothes, and put on her friendliest face for her unlikely allies. Willis, she discovered, was the groom, in charge of the horses. His own family had worked for the Lovewell family for two generations. He was a man of few words but told Xanthe that she could stay in the stables for a short while as long as she kept hidden. It would not do for him to be found harboring a stranger. It was a selfless act, the simple wish of a person who knew what it was to be nobody and to want to help another, and she was humbled by it. The young boy’s name was Peter. He was officially a stableboy, but it sounded to Xanthe as if he was in truth more of a general lackey. He complained that he was forever being asked to carry out duties that took him away from Willis and their beloved horses. He came to sit beside her on the hay.

  “Do theater players have fine horses?” he asked.

  “Some do,” she said cautiously. “But we are a very small … troupe.”

  “If we see to our du
ties well, the mistress allows us to go to the harvest fair market. Last year I wished very much to watch the mummers, but Willis dragged me away. Said I was too young and their story too bawdy.” He threw a frown at the older man. It was the typical scowl of youth thwarted by the older generation, yet filled with affection. Xanthe marveled at how little some things change over the centuries. Peter looked at her suddenly, a new thought lifting his features. “Might you perform some story for us?” he asked.

  “Now, Peter…” Willis tutted at him.

  “Only a short piece,” he pleaded. “Something of knights. Or dragons!”

  With his floppy brown hair, pale blue eyes, and eager expression, he was a hard person to say no to, but if Xanthe attempted any acting she would be found out in a minute. “Well, actually, I’m more of a singer.”

  “A minstrel?”

  “Yes. A minstrel. I don’t take a part, I … sing,” she explained, feeling a little relieved. If she were called upon to sing, at least she could do so convincingly, although already she was frantically trying to bring to mind a song that would fit the times.

  Before the boy could request something, Willis stepped in. “Peter, you have duties to attend to.”

  “But…”

  “If you please,” Willis said. There was a steely note to the old man’s request, and the boy got to his feet without further complaint.

  “I shall return later,” he whispered to her.

  Willis put a hand on Peter’s arm as he passed. “Not a word to anyone, mind. Else there will be trouble for all of us.” When Peter nodded he let him go and then turned to Xanthe. “Now then, maid. If you are to stay here I shall have answers from you.” He looked at the ground before her feet as if avoiding staring at what he must have considered immodest clothes.

  “I’m grateful for your kindness,” she told him, trying hard to use language that might not sound jarringly modern or even completely incomprehensible to him.