Garlands of Gold (22 page)

On the eve of the shop’s opening she took a last look around before going upstairs. The counter was waxed and well polished and the rows of shelves on the wall behind her held displays of her wares, interspersed with some of the lovely French pots, which would not be for sale. Somehow she had at the back of her mind the vision of a truly elegant shop where she could preside and all her beauty products would be in pots and flasks as lovely as those in the chest that was stored upstairs. Was it a dream that her mother had had for her? She often wondered about it. But until then she would not part with any of those in the collection.

On the shop’s opening day Saskia wondered at first if Robert happened to be in London would he call on her as he had done on the first day she had had the stall, but he did not appear. She was busy all day, for the cottage with its new sign, standing alone as it did in the countryside, caught the attention of all who passed by. Previous customers came to see what else she had to sell and to congratulate her on her venture. Other grander folk, who had not halted their fine coaches for a wayside stall, now alighted out of curiosity to see what was for sale.

As Saskia locked up for the night she did not see Robert come riding up in the darkness outside. He had been at his London residence for a few days before he had to return to York on the morrow where he was still engaged in the building of a fine mansion of his own design. He had been determined to stay away from Saskia, still angered by her rejection of him, and yet he had felt compelled to come and see what she had done to the cottage. At least, that was what he had told himself, but in his heart he knew that he hoped for a glimpse of her.

Now he reined in and watched the cottage where her lamp showed that she was on her way upstairs to bed. When he had seen her draw the curtains across her window he rode on into the city, his rage increased as he thought of her discarding her clothes and how eagerly he would have bedded her if such a chance had come his way. As soon as he found another woman with enough beauty, charm and sexual appeal to banish Saskia from his mind he would wed her.

In the bedchamber Saskia had undressed and had slipped a robe over her night shift to sit down and brush her hair. Afterwards she crossed the room to adjust the arrangement of some of her favourite little French pots on the chest of drawers as she did sometimes for her own amusement, for it always gave her pleasure to handle them. Now she brought forward one with a painted scene of two lovers meeting on a bridge and then she set back two others that were equally delightful. Over past weeks she had recounted every piece in the chest and had carefully listed each one in a sequence of pages at the back of her book of receipts. She thought with a smile that she was like an old miser relishing his money, although with her it was the beauty of the pots that gave her delight.

Suddenly hearing a sound that puzzled her, she went to the front window and looked out. The landscape was illumined by a full moon and she could see nothing that was untoward. She supposed it was a fox on the prowl or some other creature of the night that she had heard, but she was still not wholly satisfied and took up her candle-lamp to go downstairs to check that both the front and back doors were securely fastened. Only then, finding all was well, she was reassured and went back upstairs to bed. She was soon asleep.

Yet concealed in the deeper darkness of some trees, a rough-clad man, unshaven and sharp-eyed, had seen her come to the window and had held his breath for a few moments as he silently cursed the emptied gin bottle that he had thrown aside. He had not expected it to smash against some obstacle in the darkness. Then as the minutes passed he relaxed again. The candle in the upper room had been extinguished. Yet he was still tense as he fingered the coins in his pocket, which would be doubled when his assignment was done. The donor was an upper-class maidservant that had sought him out in one of the taverns that he frequented, although on whose recommendation he did not know. He would wait another hour and then he would carry out his task.

Thirteen

S
askia awoke coughing and choking from the smoke billowing about the room. Tired from her busy day she had been in a deep sleep, but now, realizing in horror what was happening, she sprang from her bed. Grabbing her robe from its peg, she thrust her arms into it before darting to the head of the stairs. There she stopped, terror-stricken and drew back. There was no escape that way, for the flight was already a furnace, the flames greedily leaping up each wooden tread. She thought in despair of Grinling’s looking-glass. There was no way that she could get to it. All she could save was the strongbox in her room. As she seized it and hurled it through the open rear window she heard Acorn whinnying in the stable, frightened by the proximity of fire and smoke, and to her horror she saw that the stable roof was already alight.

Swinging round to the wash bowl on its stand in the corner, she snatched up a towel and dipped it deep into the ewer of water to soak it as a cover for her head and to shield her face. Then darting once more to the rear window she looked down to judge her chances of escape that way. Cascading sparks and the crackling of straw overhead told her that the thatch was burning fiercely. There was the flat porch roof over the back door. If she could lower herself to get a foothold on to it she should be able to lessen a fall.

Then as she put her foot over the window sill somebody was shouting to her. She recognized Ted Robinson’s voice.

‘We’re here! George and me will catch you!’

‘Get Acorn out of the stable!’ she shrieked, clutching the windowsill with both hands.

‘Joe is seeing to her!’ Ted Robinson shouted back in his deep voice. ‘You get yourself ready now to jump.’

Not daring to look down, she found a foothold on the porch roof below, but almost in the same instant she slipped. She crashed against the porch roof and screamed as she fell, but Ted and George staved off the worst of her landing. Then Ted snatched her up in his arms and ran with her away from the burning straws being thrown wide like a wild fireworks display from the flaming thatch.

George shouted to her. ‘Anybody else in the cottage?’

‘No,’ she cried, still clutching at Ted as he lowered her to the grass well out of range of the sparks.

‘Do you think you’ve broken any bones?’ Ted asked, his big red face hovering anxiously over hers.

She shook her head, aware of pain, but it seemed to be all through her and she could not locate the source. ‘Has Acorn suffered burns?’ she asked fearfully, drawing breath between coughing.

George answered, adding his face to his father’s over hers. ‘No. Joe was quick to lead her out of danger. Folk are coming from everywhere, bringing buckets with them, to see what they can do to help.’

‘Take some deep breaths, girl,’ Ted said, propping her up a little with his arms, almost causing her to pass out with pain.

As she tried to obey him she saw that people were moving around everywhere, the flames illumining their concerned faces as they trampled unknowingly over her herb garden. Some had formed a chain filling buckets from the nearby stream and she could hear the pump handle being worked hard. Yet she feared their task was hopeless, for the fire had gained such a hold. Amid the shouting and the crackle of flames she heard Kate’s voice calling.

‘Ted! George! Where are you?’

‘Over here!’ Ted answered, getting up from his knees at Saskia’s side. Kate came panting up with a blanket in her arms, clearly having run most of the way from the farm.

‘Wrap the girl up in this blanket,’ she instructed her husband, ‘and bring her home! Now!’

Effortlessly, he carried Saskia in his arms all the way, telling her jovially that she weighed much less than his prize pig in a vain attempt to take her mind off the scene they had left. Kate kept a few paces ahead, clicking her tongue at what she thought of as his nonsense. She carried the foreign-looking strongbox and wondered what it held.

At the farmhouse Ted left Saskia in his wife’s care and then returned to the site of the fire. Although there was nothing to be done to save the cottage, which now resembled a giant bonfire, there was the need to be sure that sparks did not ignite anywhere else. All knew that the Great Fire of London had been started by a fire in a baker’s shop and the speed by which it had spread was still fresh in everyone’s minds. When dawn came nothing remained of the cottage except smouldering ashes and blackened timber. Ted and George and the last of the watchers finally dispersed.

Joe had gone to find Acorn, whom he had left tethered to a distant tree, but the mare was still nervous and wild-eyed. Joe spoke to her soothingly all the way to the farm and then put her in the stables with a feed to quieten her.

Kate made Saskia rest in bed for two days. She was badly bruised and Kate, able to tell that the girl had cracked a rib and perhaps two, would have bound her up if the local wise woman had not always said it was better for nature to be left to heal ribs. At Saskia’s request Ted had searched in the debris for the chest that had held the containers she had treasured, but it had been completely destroyed and only a few blackened bits of broken china were all that remained of the collection. There was also no trace of the looking-glass that she had cherished.

She wept desolately when he told her. Although she tried to tell herself that since Grinling’s marriage had put an end to all her secret hopes it would be as well that she had nothing to remind her of her lost love. Yet the looking-glass had been a work of art in itself and she had treasured it so much.

Ted, not knowing the importance of the looking-glass attempted to console her in a clumsy, good-hearted way. ‘Don’t distress yourself over some old china and a looking-glass,’ he said, not knowing the significance of her loss. ‘Be thankful that you’re young and strong and can begin all over again.’

Going back downstairs he found his wife in the kitchen and told her how desperately upset the girl was over what he thought had probably been an old china tea-set lost in the flames.

‘As for the looking-glass that has been destroyed too,’ he said. ‘I told her that I believed you had one that she could have instead. Joe won it for you at that fair we went to last year.’

‘Yes, she can have it,’ Kate replied willingly. ‘Maybe if she came down here with me for an hour or two it would stop her dwelling on the loss of her nice little home.’

She took with her Saskia’s newly washed robe, for it had been mud-stained and grass-flecked from her fall. As she went bustling into the bedchamber, she held it out in front of her.

‘Put this on, Saskia, and come downstairs for a while. It will do you good to get out of this bedchamber.’

Saskia obeyed her listlessly, wincing at the pain in her rib. ‘You’re being so kind to me.’

‘Nonsense! We’re here on this earth to help each other.’

Kate assisted Saskia down the narrow stairs and settled her in a comfortable chair by the hearth. Immediately the house cat jumped up on to her lap and she smiled as she stroked it, rewarded by a deep purr. Kate, smiling at them both, dived into her apron pocket and brought out one of the little French pots that Saskia recognized immediately. ‘I found this in the pocket of your robe,’ Kate said, holding it up. ‘It’s lucky I didn’t break it when I plunged the garment into the suds.’

Saskia had uttered a low cry of joy and held out her cupped hands to receive it. She remembered now that she had been adjusting its position on the top of the chest of drawers just before she had caught the unusual sound outside. Without being aware of it she must have put the pot into her pocket as she turned to the window. There was not the least doubt in her mind or anybody else’s that the fire had been started deliberately. The only clue was the empty gin bottle that lay smashed against a large stone at which it had been thrown.

She gazed at the pot in her hands. How pretty this little survivor was in every way! How delicately painted with a pair of lovers meeting on a bridge in a rose garden! She turned her radiant face towards Kate. She had known in that instant of seeing the pot again that she would start to replace her heritage by building up a collection just as her mother had done. It was like a lifeline being held out to her and mentally she gripped it with all her strength. She would fill the gap that the fire had left in her life.

‘Now I can begin again!’ she exclaimed fervently.

Word of any fire spread quickly in these sensitive times and news of the destroyed cottage soon reached
La Belle Sauvage
. As a result Elizabeth arrived at the Robinsons’ farm, followed by Wilkins, her coachman, carrying a large wicker basket, to find Saskia seated by the hearth in the farmhouse kitchen. Elizabeth was not far from her time and was awkward in her movements as she embraced Saskia in sympathetic understanding before settling herself in a chair on the opposite side of the hearth.

‘Tell Wilkins where to find your room upstairs,’ she said. ‘I’ve packed a few useful things to tide you over for the time being.’

Saskia, still pale from pain, was lost for words at her friend’s thoughtfulness, for she was clad in one of Kate’s dresses that was too big for her and too short. When she attempted to express her thanks Elizabeth waved her words away.

‘You must let me know if there is anything else that either Grinling or I can do for you. He doesn’t know about the fire yet as he is out of town for a few days, having gone to measure up for carvings to surmount a number of doors in a house near Horsham. He will be devastated when he hears what has happened. I had a look at the remains of the cottage as I came by.’ She shook her head sympathetically. ‘Was nothing salvaged?’