by Maeve Friel
‘Annie Spears,’ said the housekeeper, as soon as she appeared in the kitchen shortly after six o’clock, ‘it’s about time you got yourself down here. Draw half a dozen buckets of water and put the pans on to boil for the water jugs. Make sure you wait until it is good and hot, mind, or the men will be complaining they cannot shave.’
Annie dragged herself off to the well-room to fetch the water. She had slept badly and was so tired she felt she might be sick. All night she had been tormented by dreams of buildings burning down and the grotesque figure of Napoleon being set alight. The memories of her mother and little sister were so painful she had to shut her eyes to stop thinking of them. As she cranked up the wooden bucket to fill it with water, she was thinking of William and wondering if she dared ask Mrs Stringer to let her go round to Quality Square and see him. It was ages since she had seen Sam too, and she hoped William might know how he had fared since the Frenchman found him in the shed. Surely he would not have run away from Ludlow without coming to say goodbye to her.
She carefully set down the full bucket of water on the floor and lowered another into the deep well. There was something about Sam that bothered her, something important nagging away at her brain. She had even been dreaming about him earlier that morning when Mrs Stringer banged on her door and startled her out of her sleep, but, try as she might, she could not remember what the dream had been about.
The tray and silver cutlery. The blood drained from Annie’s face. That was what she had been dreaming about. She had clean forgotten to go and get the silver tray that she had used to carry Sam’s supper out to the shed the night he had run away, the night her mother and Libby had been killed. She would have to go and get them and put them back in the pantry. If anyone else came across them, they might think Sam had stolen and hidden the lot until he could come back and get them. He was in enough trouble without being accused of being a thief.
Annie hauled up the last bucket of water and carried it into the kitchen. Mrs Stringer had her back to her, busy tapping the bottoms of the bread rolls to see if they were fully baked. Arthur’s boot brushes and cloths still lay on the table where he had been working but the boots were gone. There was nobody else around.
She tiptoed out before anyone could shout an order at her and quietly crept up the back stairs to the yard. The top half of the stable door was open and one of the grey carriagehorses stuck its head out and watched her as she scurried across the yard. She pulled back the stiff bolt of the shed door and went inside, drawing the door closed behind her. The shed was dark as pitch and smelt damp and unpleasant like any room that has been shut up for a long time. She wrinkled her nose and peered into the blackness. When her eyes had grown more accustomed to the dark, she began to feel her way around, steering a passage around all the stuff that had found its last home in the shed. There were piles of old furniture, chairs with sagging bottoms and tufts of horsehair spilling out of them, wooden boxes full of door handles, coils of rope, a stack of garden rakes and spades, something that might have been a yoke for an ox.
In one corner, against the wall, she came across a pile of cushions and fraying curtains that had probably belonged to an old coach. This would have been Sam’s little nest, she thought. She slipped her hand under the cloth and immediately pulled it out again when it brushed against something bony. Gingerly, she lifted up the cloths and felt around again. It was the remains of the chicken leg that Sam had had for his supper weeks earlier. Beside it, she found the tray, the silver cutlery and the wine glass. She popped the cutlery and glass in her apron pocket, tucked the tray under her arm and darted out of the shed.
She hadn’t gone more than a few yards across the yard when the horse gave a loud warning whinny. The noise made her jump and she let the silver tray clatter noisily to the ground where it skeetered off across the cobbled courtyard. As luck would have it, it came to rest against the door jamb of the coach-house just as Arthur the footman and a uniformed army officer came out leading two saddled horses. Lucien Bonaparte, sleek and handsome in full riding gear, followed behind them.
Arthur stooped down to pick up the tray. He saw Annie’s terrified face but could do nothing to help her.
‘What are you doing outside, girl?’ demanded the officer.
Annie could not speak. She stood frozen to the spot in the middle of the yard.
‘No harm done, sir. Just an accident, sir,’ Arthur began but the officer would not let the matter rest there. He walked forward, took the tray from Arthur’s hand and examined it closely.
‘It is a fine silver tray, I have to agree, with the Powis crest upon it. What is your name, girl?’
‘Annie Spears, please, sir.’
‘Well, Spears, perhaps you would like to explain to us what you are doing carrying a silver tray outside at first light? Even King George’s horses at Windsor do not have their oats served up in such style.’ He bent down and tilted up Annie’s face so that her eyes directly met his. She was so frightened she could not think of anything to say. The officer repeated his question and shook her lightly by the shoulder.
‘Thieving is a hanging offence, as well you must know. Did you think you could get away with it, eh?’
Annie shook her head miserably. Facing her, Lucien Bonaparte stood impassively looking on, striking his horsewhip gently against the side of his boot as if bored by the whole affair and anxious to leave for his morning ride.
‘What else have you got?’ demanded the officer.
Annie put her hand in her deep apron pocket and pulled out the silver knife and fork, the crystal goblet. ‘I wasn’t stealing them. I was putting them back.’
Arthur closed his eyes in dismay.
‘Hold my horse, Arthur.’ The officer passed his horse’s reins to the footman and seized Annie roughly by the shoulder. ‘By God, girl, you will regret this. I shall send for the sergeant-at-arms at once.’
Lucien Bonaparte swung himself into the saddle of his grey mare. ‘Is it necessary to miss our morning ride for the sake of a petty thief? In another hour, the market square will be full of folk, and God knows, I don’t want to see them any more than they wish to see me. It will only provoke more unpleasantness. Come, Lieutenant-Colonel, Arthur will keep the girl in his custody until we return.’
He turned his horse towards the gate. The other horse which Arthur was holding tightly on a short rein pulled away hard and tried to follow it. Its hooves slipped on the wet cobbles.
‘Whoa, there, girl,’ said Arthur.
The officer was torn between his duty to escort Lucien and his responsibility to deal with the thieving servant. The horses snorted nervously. Arthur, seeing that he was dithering, held out the reins.
‘Do not let her out of your sight,’ the lieutenant-colonel warned, stepping on to the stirrup and swinging himself on to his saddle. ‘Keep her secure till I return. We shall soon get to the bottom of this affair.’
‘You are done for, now, Annie,’ Arthur said as soon as they were gone. ‘Why did you take those things?’
Annie told the sorry story in between sobs as Arthur led her up the front steps and into one of the small parlours at the back of the house.
‘It would have been better to have left the silver in the shed there to rot, but it is of no matter now for the harm is done.’
‘What will happen to me, Arthur?’
‘I will be honest with you, Annie, so that you understand the trouble you are in. Your father is a transported convict, and you have no family here to put your case. When the sergeant-at-arms sees who you are, he will have you down for a felon like your father, no matter what you say.’
‘They will throw me in jail?’
Arthur looked long and hard at Annie’s tear-streaked face. ‘Worse than that. If they caught you, you could end up swinging at the end of a rope in Shrewsbury Jailhouse. So,’ he said quickly, grabbing hold of Annie for her face had turned so white he was afraid she might faint, ‘I’ll help you get away. You are lucky that Lucien needs an es
cort when he goes for his morning canter or the officer would have dealt with this himself.’
He walked over to the window and looked down towards the river and the common. In the far distance he could see Lucien and the officer galloping over the linney. ‘He’ll send for the sergeant-at-arms as soon as they return from their ride so we don’t have much time. I’ll show you where you can hide but you must leave Ludlow as soon as it grows dark. The townfolk are sure to raise a hue and cry to search for you once they know you have gone.’
‘But where shall I go? Where can I hide?’ Annie grabbed hold of Arthur’s hand. ‘God save me, Arthur, I had better let them arrest me for I will never survive out there on my own. Let them hang me for my life is not worth living.’
Arthur took both Annie’s hands in his. ‘You will survive.’ He drew Annie over to the fire-place. ‘This is your only hope, Annie. Most of the chimneys in this house are connected,’ he explained. ‘If you climb this one, you will find a ledge on your right hand side. There is a narrow passage through to the other side, leading down into the fireplace in the music room. They haven’t lit fires in there since the ladies stopped giving their afternoon concerts. Stay on the ledge until you hear the parish clock strike four o’clock this afternoon. You will hear the bells for I often used to hear them when I was a sweep. Come down into the music room then. I will leave a window a fraction open but you must take your chances after that.’
‘But I cannot climb a chimney. I do not know how to climb.’
‘It is your only chance. You must press your back against the chimney wall and push with your feet. Good luck, Annie Spears, and may God protect you.’
‘What about you? What will you say?’ Annie asked.
‘Don’t worry about me. I will be all right. I will think of some explanation.’
‘Will you tell William what has happened?’
Arthur nodded, then turned sharply on his heel and left. Annie heard the door lock behind him. She looked up the empty black hole of the chimney, then stepped into the grate.
Chapter 8
William Spears was proud to be a hatter. In the two years that he had been apprenticed to Abraham Smart, he had watched and practised every one of the processes until he was almost as good as Abraham himself. He knew just how much fur or silk to measure out for a hat, how to bathe it in hot water, then roll and stretch it, steam it on the block, cut and shape and stitch the silk lining, add the trimmings, the buckles or bands. He had learnt every task, down to the final brushing that made the hat lustrous and shiny. It was hard work but better than most for the Smarts treated him fairly. He wished his father could see the fine silk top hat he had made for himself.
Mrs Smart was a hatter like her husband; she made ladies’ silk bonnets trimmed with frills and long, matching bow-ties and, by special commission, parasols of shot silk with carved ivory handles. The Smarts needed William for they had no children of their own – but they were far from sentimental about him. When his mother had been killed, they were happy to have him live in with them but stopped paying him his weekly wage. ‘It is for your own good, so that you may learn the value of money,’ Mrs Smart said. ‘Victuals cost money.’ Fortunately, Mr Smart was not as sensible as his wife and gave William the occasional tip of threepence or sixpence.
‘Wills,’ he said, ‘you play your cards right by me and I’ll see you don’t go short.’
William did not easily trust people but he liked the mad hatter. Almost the worst thing in his life after the shock of learning that his father had been sent away to the farthest corner of the world was seeing how their friends and neighbours had treated them. Slowly but surely he had seen them shun his mother’s company. His father’s work-mates at the tannery crossed the road rather than speak to them. They did not care that his sisters, first Annie and then little Libby, were almost broken by the long hours of sewing gloves. D’arcy Haggitt, the headmaster of the grammar school, never missed an opportunity to remind the school assembly that William Spears was the son of a convict, a charity case whose fees were generously paid by the glover Mr Evans. William used to burn with anger and shame. He was ashamed of his father, ashamed of being the son of a transported convict, no matter how often Kezia told him to love his father, and believe in his innocence. He had hated his mother for making little Libby work, keeping her awake until midnight, prodding her with a needle to stop her falling asleep. When he saw that she would rather have both Libby and Annie working than take charity from the parish, he had left school, saying that he had had enough of book-learning and would find a job. Evans had promptly put up the rent, leaving them no better off. Now both his mother and sister were dead and his heart was broken. He began to understand how that villain, Evans, had been manipulating Kezia, forcing her towards a marriage she did not want but perhaps felt she could not avoid. Above all, he felt guilty and confused. He wished he had loved his mother more. More than anything, he wished he could be with his father.
On the morning of Annie’s capture at Dinham House, Abraham Smart and William were in the upper workshop setting up new blocks for Abraham’s experimental collapsible opera hat when they heard a commotion coming from the market square around the corner.
‘Sounds like some excitement in the town, Wills,’ said Abraham, looking over the top of his half-moon glasses. ‘Do you want to go and see if a felony has been committed?’
‘If you say so, Mr Smart.’
‘I do say so, Wills, and you can run an errand for me at the same time. There are leather hatboxes waiting for collection at the saddler’s down Fish Lane. You fetch them, and Mrs Smart will be pleased to give you double helpings of pudding at dinner-time, won’t you, my dear?’
He glanced over at Mrs Smart who was sitting at the window stitching a rich burgundy silk lining into an Easter bonnet that the glamorous American actress, Miss Brooks, had ordered. She did not even glance in their direction, but sighed loudly as if to suggest that pudding was the last thing on her mind. Her husband carefully removed two gold sovereigns from his waistcoat pocket and pressed them into William’s hand. ‘Hold them tight in your pocket, William,’ he said, tapping the side of his nose with a long finger. ‘There may be thieves about.’
A crowd of people were standing jeering in front of the town stocks as William rounded the corner. The bailiff was trying to fasten Israel Bessell, the sweep, into the leg and neck braces. Bessell was extremely drunk. His head lolled forward as if the muscles of his neck could no longer support its weight. His eyes rolled. His legs and arms thrashed the air uselessly. The bailiff could hardly keep him still long enough on the bench to lock him into place.
‘And you can stay there until you sober up, you good-for-nothing scoundrel,’ said the bailiff, fastening down the last lock.
Bessell belched loudly.
‘Cor, what a stink,’ someone shouted, holding their nose.
‘Clean him up, then,’ shouted someone else; so, to great applause, a carter picked up a bucket of water that his donkey had been drinking out of and hurled it in Bessell’s direction. The sweep growled like a dog, then let his head drop forward and promptly fell asleep.
As the crowd drifted away from the stocks, a party of militiamen marched into the square and drew up in front of the castle gates. The lieutenant colonel from Dinham was there and his sergeant-at-arms, shouting for the people to gather around. William forced his way through the crowd to hear what they were saying.
‘What is going on?’ he asked the man standing next to him. ‘Who are they talking about?’
‘A servant from Dinham House has bolted, it appears. Annie Spears by name.’
‘Annie?’ The blood drained from William’s face. ‘What do they say she has done?’
‘She was making off with some silver, as far as I can make out. They had placed her under house arrest but she made a run for it.’
‘It’s not possible. Annie is no thief.’
A hand grasped William’s shoulder.
‘This is the
brother of the girl you seek, a right bad’un like his father, I expect,’ said Mr Evans in a loud voice for all the crowd to hear. ‘Perhaps he can tell us where she could be hiding.’
William pulled away from him. ‘Let go of me. My sister has done no wrong. And I would not tell you where she was hiding even if she had robbed the mails.’
He ducked down to wriggle free from Mr Evans’ grip and tried to move away through the crowd.
‘Stop that boy,’ cried Evans.
A pair of labourers who had just come into the square and so did not know why the crowds had collected, heard the glover’s cry, saw William darting away, and jumped to the conclusion that he must be a pickpocket. They turned on their heels to chase after him and, like a pack of over-excited hounds following the call of the huntsman’s bugle, the crowd in the square turned and followed them.
It was useless for William to stop, stand his ground and declare his innocence. He made off down a narrow lane at the corner of the square with the mob snapping at his heels. A horse and cart, almost as wide as the lane itself, was coming towards them. Frightened by the shouts of the men bearing down on it, the horse reared up, toppling the carter from his seat. William seized the chance to slip through the narrow gap. Then, in the darkness of the overhanging jetty of a tailor’s shopfront, he caught a glimpse of royal blue livery, the costume of Napoleon’s French servants. One of them stepped out to block his way. William ducked and weaved to get past into one of the even narrower alleys between the houses. Suddenly, there was a silver flash, the flick of a knife. William kicked out at his attacker. The knife flew up into the air and rattled over the cobbles. The first of the crowd to get past the horse behind him gasped. William ran on with the yells of his pursuers ringing in his ears. ‘Did you see the knife? That rascal pulled a knife.’
He darted down an open doorway and into a passageway that led to the back of a house. Here there were more houses, a teeming warren of mean dilapidated slums and dismal yards with groups of ragged barefoot children squatting in the rubbish. He bolted past them, cleared a wall, came down near the town walls, fled under the arch and raced blindly on down towards the river. He shot across Ludford Bridge and into the woods of Whitcliffe. Only then did he realise that he could no longer hear the yells of the crowd. He had thrown them off. Panting with exhaustion, he sank down on to a large stone to catch his breath. On the opposite bank of the river, the castle and its steep forbidding walls loomed grimly over him.
