The Gilded Lily (4 page)

‘Look at his face,’ she said. ‘Someone’s killed him. Suffocated him with his own pillow and left him for dead.’

‘No, surely not. Not Thomas. No one would want to kill Thomas.’

‘But –’ She touched a forefinger towards the pillow, her eyes wide.

‘Calm yourself. You are being fanciful.’

‘Your own brother lying there like that, you cannot tell me it’s not suspicious. I tell you, Titus, ’tis not right. I have a feeling, just here.’ Her hand pressed the
space between her eyebrows.

‘You and your feelings. Not now, I say. Come away and leave him in peace.’

Isobel’s narrow eyes ranged around the chamber, taking in the open kist, the strangely bare surfaces. ‘Odd things have gone on here – Devil’s work. His wife accused of
witchery, and now this.’ She pointed to the kist. ‘Look at that, not a speck left, not even a button.’ At this she began to weep and he had to drag her away, prop her on his arm
to help her down the stairs.

Titus could not quieten her. It was as if he was viewing her through thick glass, standing outside a window looking in. He bundled her in the carriage and sent a farm boy for the local
constable. The news of Thomas’s death soon seeped out, with villagers arriving in dribs and drabs to stand silently watching them whilst they waited for the wretched constable to arrive.
Titus slammed the door on the locals and shut himself in the cold parlour. He was shivering, his teeth chattered together, the noise of them penetrating the silent room. Here too all the drawers
were out and there were half-empty cutlery boxes on the floor as if someone had left in a hurry. He began to put them back, to tidy it, to restore order.

A sound in the garden made him jump and he spun round. He ran to the door and hurled a lump of coal from the scuttle to shoo some barefoot lads away – surely they had something better to
occupy their time? Soon more gawping strangers clustered at the windows of the carriage where Isobel had shut herself in and was weeping, her veil pulled over her face. Titus rubbed his
coal-stained palms on his buff breeches, where they left a black smear. He stared at it thinking, no matter, he would be in mourning tomorrow and all his clothes would be black.

Surely Thomas had not been suffocated. Isobel was mistaken, he was sure; her weaker constitution made her prone to the vapours and these odd notions. Nobody had any reason to dislike Thomas, he
had always been the good one: mild-tempered, easygoing – some might say idle – nodding at everyone and everything like he was still a small boy. His mother had told everyone that he,
Titus, was the roguish one who would get himself into trouble, and not the beaming angelic-faced Thomas. Thomas had never had any self-discipline or sense of duty at all, thought Titus. A lump came
to his throat. He swallowed and drew himself upright. He would not cry. He had always had to help Thomas, ever since he was a small boy, whereas he himself had never in his life asked anyone for
help. Silly fool. He couldn’t help him now.

When the country constable finally arrived, in his too-small coat, he insisted on interviewing Titus as if he was at fault. Isobel remained in the carriage, pretending the whole affair was
beneath her. It became clear from the constable that the housekeeper, Ella Appleby, and her sister had planned the whole robbery together. The mule and cart were missing from the stable, and nobody
had seen either girl since the night before. The constable rocked on his heels and asked questions in his barely intelligible Westmorland drawl. Titus gritted his teeth. It was frustrating, to be
confined in Netherbarrow when the Appleby sisters could be halfway to Lancaster by now.

Finally, he could bear the constable’s questions no longer.

‘Should you not take horse after them?’ he asked.

‘Better give me full particulars first. Let us make a stock list of the items missing from the gentleman’s cabinets.’

‘Good sir, I do not know all my brother’s possessions. And besides, it is of no earthly use to inventory items of cutlery when my brother is dead, his house has been ransacked and
the miscreants are galloping further away by the minute. If you will not go after them, then I will do it myself. Excuse me.’

‘You’ll not be catching them now. Not before nightfall any-hows.’

Titus scowled and climbed into his carriage. ‘We’ll see,’ he shouted. ‘Lancaster,’ he said to the driver, despite Isobel’s teary protestations. As the
carriage lurched forth, he caught sight of the Rector and Mrs Goathley hastening towards them up the hill, so he leaned out of the window and requested that they arrange for someone to sit with his
brother until he returned. Mrs Goathley said she would sit there herself, though no harm would come to him, no more than he had already suffered.

As the carriage lumbered down the track, Titus turned and looked back at the diminishing village. He suppressed the overpowering urge to go back, to tell Thomas to stop jesting, to stop being so
idle and to get up and get dressed. He felt a lurch in his stomach, like a child’s seesaw when someone suddenly jumps off. Their lives were bound together. That Thomas could be dead was
impossible. Thomas had always been a part of his life, since he was a few minutes old and had slipped out of the womb after Titus, his cord still wrapped round Titus’s ankle.

A lump rose to his throat; he gripped Isobel’s hand as the carriage bumped on the uneven track. He wished he had visited his brother more often, but he was always so busy. And Thomas was
always needing something. His business ventures often ran into trouble and then he would come bleating to Titus for help. Lately his requests for assistance had become tiresome. Titus owned he
should perhaps make more effort to stay in touch. He would make the time. But then he realized there was no more time.

‘You’re hurting,’ Isobel said, pulling her hand away. ‘Thank goodness we are leaving this festering climate. I cannot wait to be home. Some strange malady is at work
here, best not to tarry.’

‘We are not going home. Not until we find them.’

‘What?’

‘You heard. You were witness to the exceeding speed of the Netherbarrow law,’ he said. ‘If you want something doing properly, best to do it yourself. I have no confidence in
that constable. I am going to find those girls and make them return every last farthing.’

‘But I have a dressmaker’s appointment the day after tomorrow . . .’

‘For God’s sake, Isobel, have you no sense of propriety? My brother is dead and you see fit to chatter about your dressmaker? One word more, and I’ll put you off and you will
walk home from Netherbarrow.’

Isobel turned her back to him with a heavy sigh and they continued the journey in silence. After a while, Isobel said, ‘What about Alice?’

Titus did not answer. Of course he knew they should inform the wife, but Titus had never been able to bear her. She was no use at all to Thomas as far as he could see. Titus never saw the point
of her wasting her time with her insipid paintings, her hair all hanging wild and in disarray, her sleeves dribbled in paint. And besides, the constable had informed him she was in the gaol at
Lancaster. Accused of meddling in the black arts. It was outlandish – bizarre – that any member of his family should be so accused. He would not want his hands tainted with that. Did
not he have enough to deal with? His friends in the guild would laugh at him. No, he told himself, find the thieving sisters first and restore order to Thomas’s estate. The wife would have to
wait.

Lancaster. Preston. Warrington. Newcastle-under-the-Lyme. Eccleshall. At each town they had reports that the girls had just left. Desperate and sleepless, for this was now
Titus’s fourth uncomfortable day in a tooth-rattling carriage, he made several wild goose chases, until he got word of a mule and cart sold just outside Lichfield. They galloped there, to
discover no trace of the girls or the goods.

Isobel refused to get back in the carriage. ‘No more,’ she said.

‘We will try Coventry, now get in.’

‘No. I refuse to go a single furlong more. What if we never find them?’

Titus looked at her blankly. ‘Get in, or I shall go without you else. You are wasting time.’

Isobel sat down on the carriage step and began to weep. ‘I want to go back.’

‘I will not return to Netherbarrow until I find them.’

‘Not Netherbarrow,’ she blubbed, ‘home. I want to go home.’

‘We are going to Coventry. Now stop greeting, it does nobody any good,’ he snapped. Her crying annoyed him. Men were not allowed such displays of feeling. She didn’t
understand, he could no more think of Thomas not existing than he could think of waking up without an arm.

Isobel wiped her eyes again and climbed back into the carriage. She twisted her kidskin gloves in her hands and stared out of the window.

‘We will take respite at an inn on the way,’ he said, but Isobel did not reply.

That evening Titus was forced to leave the coach and four at Coventry, for he could not make the beasts go any further no matter how much he told the driver to apply his whip. The ostler at the
inn had nearly set on him and had insisted he change horses. But there were no matching pairs to be had, so he had been forced to take a single mount. It wasn’t much of a horse for the money,
a ridge-backed roan with splinty legs. He thwacked it a cutting blow to keep it to speed. A great anger had seized him, he scarcely knew what he did.

Isobel had not hidden her relief that the lack of a coach meant she had to stay behind in Coventry. He had shouted at her like a common man then, but worse, he had also had to leave behind his
driver and negotiate the wild countryside to Banbury unaided, and be forever unsure if he was on the right road.

But they couldn’t be that far ahead, and he was convinced he was on their tails. The bitter wind drained the blood from his hands and blew his sparse hair into his eyes. He was cold and
hungry, and unused to the saddle. Rage at the fact that he was forced to take horse like this made him kick the horse’s ribs until it galloped wildly into the wind. The cold stung his eyes,
but then he could tell himself it was the wind, not grief, that made his eyes water so.

Madame Lefevre’s, Perruquier, Friday Street, London
January 1661

Sadie heard the slap of the leather measuring tape a fraction before she felt its sting on the back of her neck. Nobody spoke. It was silent except for her sharp intake of
breath. She shot upright in an instant, the back of her neck hot and tingling, but she knew better than to turn round, for Madame Lefevre would still be there, raking the room with her eyes, ready
to pounce on any shirker with the stab of a pin in the back. Or worse, the whip-like crack of the measuring tape, perfected through years of vengeful practice. This was her usual habit, to punish
the nearest girl if any one of them stopped for breath.

Sadie watched Ella hurriedly grasp the bone handle of the hook and bend again to the wig block, her face flushing scarlet, for she was the one who had been staring into space.

Still smarting from the lash of the tape, Sadie doubled her speed, her thin white hands flashing over the pins, working each single hair through the tulle netting, twisting and knotting it
before laying it flat against the base. Half the block in front of her was already covered with a long dark fall of hair. She looked down. Her fingers were thick with grease, the skin rough with
tiny cuts. You would not think that horsehair could be sharp, but it was – edges like razors making countless small cuts. The hairs snagged in the cuts making her work slow and painful.

In, out, twist, pull. In, out, twist, pull. Over and over, twelve hours a day.

Across the room, Ella’s work remained a small patch, sprouting like black moss. Madame Lefevre clacked across the room on her heels and poked Ella in the back.

‘Get on with it, or she’ll get another.’ She came round the front of the bench, swept up the wig block and inspected it. ‘Barely covered a farthing’s worth. No
dexterity. Your fingers are too fat and clumsy. Like potatoes.’

Madame Lefevre held the wig block up above her head to show it to everyone. Her eyes were like cinders even through her thick glass lunettes.

‘Look at it. Just about fit for a farm labourer. And how many of those do we get in here?’ She gave a mirthless laugh.

Some of the other girls sniggered, until silenced by a look. Madame Lefevre was the only one allowed a sense of humour in the wigmaker’s. She banged the block back down so the pins on the
bench sprang up.

Ella stared back at her, her blue eyes unblinking. Sadie was uneasy. She knew Madame Lefevre detested this the most – not Ella’s lack of skill, but her refusal to be broken. Madame
Lefevre expected to be able to pull everyone’s strings, to dandle everyone to do her bidding. Ella’s mutinous demeanour was guaranteed to rile her, but so far she had kept her on
because Sadie had an uncanny knack with the knotting.

The bell on the door sounded. Madame Lefevre reluctantly let Ella fall from her gaze, like a cat dropping a mouse to which it would return, and hurried upstairs into the front of the house,
hitching up her stiff black skirts. Sadie watched her slightly stooped, angular figure go.