Alice in Love and War (12 page)

Christian laughed. “Why do you do that?”

Alice felt herself blushing. “To keep it safe. It’s all I have of my father – and the maids at the inn would take it from me if they knew.”

“
Would
they?” Christian frowned. “Come back to the kitchen. You must be hungry. I’ll send for some bread and pottage.”

“Mistress Aubrey, I have to go back.”

“But eat first, to give you strength. It’s dark already. We’ve sent a boy to return the gloves and tell the innkeeper’s wife where you are. Don’t fear.”

But Alice was alarmed. “What will he say about me? About what happened?”

“Only that you were taken ill and fainted, and that Lady Weston chooses to keep you here till you recover.”

She called Bess, and asked for food for Alice; and when it was brought she sat with her on the settle while she ate. In that large kitchen they were some distance from the others and not likely to be overheard. After a while Christian said, “You are not quite what I first thought, Alice Newcombe.”

“Not a baggage train whore?” Alice retorted, with a burst of spirit. She knew that was what they must all have believed her to be.

“Not an ignorant girl, fit only for rough tasks. What work have you done since your father died?”

“Farm work, on my uncle’s farm. Dairying, and suchlike.”

“Did you like the dairy work?”

Alice paused. “Yes,” she said, surprised to admit she had liked anything at Tor Farm. “Yes, I did. It was clean work, and suited me.”

“And yet you left?”

Alice explained: told the woman briefly about her life at Tor Farm, about Robin, and the baggage train, and the King’s Arms.

“So you are not happy at the inn?”

“No. I’m only waiting there. Waiting for Robin…” Her voice had turned husky.

“Oh, you poor child! Did he know?”

“Yes. I told him.”

“And still he left you? But if he is with his parents it may perhaps be difficult. Can you write to him? Tell him what has happened to you?”

Alice looked down. “He never gave me his address.”

They fell silent, and Alice knew that Christian was thinking, as Lady Weston had, that Robin had abandoned her. She thought it herself, often, but always pushed the thought away. “Thank you, mistress,” she said, and put down her bowl on the hearth. “That was good.”

Christian smiled. “You look a better colour now.” She stood up. “Wait here. I must speak to Lady Weston before we send you back to the inn.”

Alice sat quietly when Christian left, trying not to attract attention to herself. The kitchen women talked together as they prepared supper for the household. A door opened, and a lad came in shivering and hugging his arms. It was the boy Christian had spoken of, Alice realized, back from his errand to Mistress Tyrrell.

“You look perished, Walt,” said the cook.

“I am. Gone bitter cold, it has. Roads’ll freeze tonight.”

Christian returned soon after. She looked purposeful. “It’s dark, Alice, and slippery underfoot, and you are not yet fit to walk. You must stay the night here and we will see about getting you back in the morning.”

Alice felt too exhausted to argue. She had no desire to arrive late at the inn and face the curiosity and questions of Mistress Tyrrell, still less endure Sib and Nell’s attentions. It was easier to do as she was told.

“Joan, come! We’ll make up a bed in the room next to mine,” said Christian.

A little later she reappeared with a candle and led Alice into a large dining hall, then upstairs and along a wood-panelled corridor to a pleasant room containing a curtained four-poster bed, a washstand, a chest, and a toilet table and stool. From this room a doorway led into a smaller room, little more than a closet, and cluttered with boxes and piles of cloth. There the women had made up a bed for her with clean sheets, and provided a chamber pot.

“Sleep now,” said Christian. “You must be tired. But I have put you here, near me, so that you may call me in the night if you are in pain, or need help. In the morning I have something I want to show you.”

Twelve

Alice
woke early, after a deep sleep. For a moment, she could not think where she was, and reached out, expecting to encounter the warm solidity of Robin’s body beside hers. But the bed was narrow and cold. She remembered then, and felt empty, hollow, both in body and mind. Her baby was gone. Robin was gone. There was no one in the world she belonged to. She looked at the shrouded bales and boxes stored around her and the pale winter daylight showing between the gaps in the shutters and felt tears leaking from her eyes.

After a while she got up to use the chamber pot. There was blood, but not too much, and she felt recovered, if weak. She went to the window and opened the shutters. The view was from the back of the house. She saw outbuildings, stables and a boy – Lady Weston’s fair-haired young groom – coming down the stairs from the loft, yawning and pulling on his jerkin. Ice glittered on the stones of the yard. Beyond the buildings were fields and trees, white with frost. The sky was barely light, pale as a pearl; but to her right, in what must be the east, a pink glow was spreading.

A new day. The sight gave her hope, and she chided herself for succumbing to self-pity. She was among kindly people and would be spared the taunting of Sib and Nell, at least for a time. And Christian Aubrey had said last night that she had something to show her. What could that be? She closed the curtains again, and put on her stays over the borrowed shift and began lacing them. From somewhere in the house she heard children’s voices: perhaps the family who had come from Oxford?

When she was dressed and her hair combed – with her fingers, since her comb was at the King’s Arms – she tapped on the connecting door between her room and Christian’s. “Mistress Christian?”

No answer. She opened the door and looked in. She caught a flicker of movement, and thought at first that someone was there – then saw that it was her own reflection in a mirror. She felt drawn towards it. She had not seen herself for many months.

The mirror was a small one in a carved oval frame, standing on the table with a comb and several little glass and china pots beside it. Her aunt too had possessed a bedroom mirror, though not so fine as this one, and Alice had been in the habit of glancing into it when she swept the room or made the bed. Now she felt instinctively that she must look different. She had a lover and had been with child. Surely some subtle change must have occurred in her appearance? But the face she saw, though somewhat dark-shadowed under the eyes, was the same as ever: young, pale, grey-eyed, and framed by mouse-brown hair that hung unfashionably straight and slack to below her shoulders. At Tor Farm she had coiled and pinned her hair out of sight under a cap; or curled it, for feast or fair days, with Jenefer’s help, using tight twists of rag that were uncomfortable to sleep in. Her aunt, whose own hair curled becomingly from beneath her cap, had said Alice was without beauty – and yet Robin had made her feel beautiful. She bit her lower lip and pinched her cheeks to redden them, and instantly looked prettier. Perhaps that was how Robin saw her?

Christian Aubrey came in, and Alice jumped guiltily, even though she had not touched anything.

“You look better this morning,” Christian said.

“I am. Thanks to you and the lady, Mistress Christian.”

“Good. Then put your cap on and come downstairs with me.”

“You wished to show me something?” Alice was intrigued, and a little anxious, wondering where they were going, and whether it would matter that she was so dishevelled. “My hair… I’ve lost its pins.”

“Oh! You will do very well as you are.”

They went downstairs and into the hall, which was now occupied by what seemed at first to be an army of little boys, all running about and squealing, pursued by a nursemaid holding coats and boots. It resolved itself into two boys of five or six years – only one of them breeched; the other still in petticoats but wielding a toy sword – and a baby, just old enough to pull himself up to standing and try to join in with the others.

The eldest child grabbed at Christian’s skirts. “Cousin Kit, we’re going to the lake!”

“Then take care.” Christian widened her eyes at the nursemaid, who rolled hers in return, before swooping to catch the second child and pinion him in his little fur-trimmed coat.

“Lady Weston’s grandchildren,” Christian told Alice. “She dotes on them.”

She took a key from her belt and opened a door into a room that seemed immediately familiar to Alice – so much so that she gasped in surprise.

She noticed the smell first: a strong, sweet spicy mixture of cinnamon, cloves, anise, coriander, orange peel; and, underneath that, the more subtle fragrances of herbs – lavender, meadowsweet, thyme – and the bitterness of wormwood. There were flowers too: above all, a wondrous summery scent of roses. The room was in semi-darkness, but when Christian opened the shutters Alice saw, all around, shelves of phials and ceramic pots, carafes, mixing bowls, pestles and mortars, a set of scales, sieves, spoons and, at the far end of the room, two stills: a simple pewter one and a glass alembic.

She turned to Christian in amazement. “This is a preparation room! An apothecary’s workroom!”

Christian smiled. “We call it the still room. All houses of the gentry have such a place where the ladies work. It is where we make remedies, cordials, sweet waters and the like; confections for feast days; wash-balls and lotions: everything the household needs. I have sole charge of this still room now. Lady Weston has never had much interest in it. Cis – her youngest daughter, Lady Cecily – and I used to work here together, but Cis was married in May, and is gone to Buckinghamshire. I like to gather the herbs myself, and dry them – we have a drying cupboard – and I make washing waters and keep a stock of remedies.”

Alice was looking along the shelves. All the containers were neatly labelled: rhubarb, mugwort, aniseed, senna, cassia; several bottles of rose water and more of aqua vitae.

She approached the glass still. “What do you distil?”

“Rose petals, in great quantity, for rose water. Herbs, for their oils. And wine, for aqua vitae. Is it all familiar to you?”

“Yes. But my father’s room was more cramped – crammed with medicines. And some different ingredients. Myrrh, gold, mercury, crushed bone. Poisons under lock and key.”

“Less rose water, more purges?”

“Yes.” They smiled together.

Alice said, “You are lucky to have such a workplace, mistress.”

“I am. But, Alice, I need a still-room maid.”

Alice’s heart gave a jump. She guessed what was coming.

“With my cousin Cis gone, there is much to do, and you have experience in this work. You will understand about the need for care and cleanliness, and you can read and write. I spoke to Lady Weston yesterday and she is willing to take you on—”

“Oh, but – I’m waiting for Robin!” Alice burst out. “When Robin comes I’ll go with him. We’ll be married.”

Christian was silent, and Alice said desperately, “You don’t believe he will come back, do you? Neither of you believes it. But you don’t know him. He
will
come; I’m sure of it.” It was less than a month since Robin had left. She would not give up hope yet.

“We understand that you are waiting,” said Christian. “But until he does come, it seems you have nowhere to live but the King’s Arms, with wenches you dislike. Would you not rather be here? Would you like to work with me?”

Alice looked around at the still room; inhaled its familiar smell. She hadn’t objected to her work at the inn, but this would be a hundred times better. And she’d be away from Sib and Nell.

“I would, Mistress Christian. Nothing would please me more than to work in such a place. But Robin said the king’s army will be on campaign again by May. I could not be bound as maidservant for a year.”

“We would not bind you at all. You would be free to leave whenever you wished. If you left in the spring, we’d pay you then. You see, you have nothing to lose.”

Alice agreed. Indeed, she felt, like Lady Weston, that God must have brought her to this place, at this time; for it seemed that she was not only welcome but needed.

“I must tell Mistress Tyrrell,” she said. “I hope she will not be offended.”

“She will not dispute with Lady Weston,” Christian assured her. “You’ll have belongings to collect?”

“Yes – my pack. Oh!” A dreadful thought struck her. “If Robin comes he won’t know where I am!”

“The people at the inn will tell him.”

“Not Sib! If she gets to him first, she’ll send him astray, for sure.” It had been her one comfort, these last weeks, to know that when Robin came he would alight at the inn, that she would see him straight away.

“Alice!”
said Christian. “We are but half a mile from the King’s Arms. If this man loves you, he’ll find you soon enough.”

She knew it was true. And yet she wanted to
see
the carrier arrive, to see Robin the moment he appeared.

“You may walk down to the inn whenever you have free time,” Christian told her. “But Christmastide is almost upon us. If he is at home with his parents he may not come now till after Twelfth Night.”

“Christmas…” She had quite forgotten it.

“We’ll be busy,” Christian said. “It’s Christmas Eve next Tuesday. Our cook has been making plum puddings and mince pies. And we shall need washing waters and cordials, sweet wine, sweetmeats for the children…”

Alice was surprised. “Then you’ll celebrate Christmas openly, as a feast?”

“Of course.”

“But we heard that this year it was to be a fast day, strictly observed, by order of Parliament.”

“We heard that too. But Parliament is in London. And Lady Weston says that if the Members of Parliament wish to deny themselves they may do so, but here at Weston Hall we will celebrate Christmas as we have always done, with feasting and music, though our resources are much reduced because of the war. I hope you don’t fear to join us?”

Alice laughed. “No! Even at Tor Farm we enjoyed Christmas. I can’t believe most people will fast.”