The Gilded Lily (22 page)

She brought the candle over and looked at her reflection, turning the mirror this way and that. Whenever she did this, she felt a pang of disappointment. The face that stared back always seemed
to be somehow different from what she thought she was, more ordinary. Just a thin-faced girl with mousy hair. Tonight in the eerie shadows her face just seemed a little darker on one side. It
looked just like anyone’s face, yet everyone made such a fuss about it. Folk stared at her, and when they talked to her their eyes scanned back and forth as if they could not decide which
side of her face to look at. Ella used to tell her that the red mark was the spot where God had left his hand just a little too long and the heat of it had branded her. She said it was a secret
sign and that it meant God was looking after her. Sadie had stopped believing the tale a long time ago, knew it to be just one of Ella’s fantasies, but she wanted it to be true, wanted to
feel that there was someone strong to rely on, to watch over her. She set the glass back on the table, face down.

The cacophony of bells from the local churches tolled six. From habit, Sadie began to gather up her cloak for the nightly wood-gathering. She put on the cloak, but it was a full fifteen minutes
before she moved. Dare she go out? There was a little oatmeal left to make flatbreads and she badly needed the cheer and warmth of a fire. Recently the weather had turned bitter. She could see her
breath. Already there was talk of beggars dying from the cold, their clothes frozen into the mud so they had to be prised away before they could be dumped outside the city gates. The ground was too
cold to dig.

Besides, Ella would not be back yet. Come on, girl, she said to herself, it’s a moonless night, best chance yet to get a few sticks. She mustered the courage to go outside. On the stairs
she shivered, half from cold and half from fear.

‘Is that you, Dennis?’ A querulous voice drifted up from the hall. Sadie halted and listened, rooted to the spot. She heard no movement from the rooms downstairs. Dennis had said his
ma was bedfast, thank goodness, so she would not come out to the hall. A whisper of air sucked in as she opened the front door.

Outside, the world smelt of mildew and water. The Thames slid by like a cold black snake, with scales of thin ice that parted and re-formed, never quite solidifying. It had frozen over once,
they said, and become a solid white road, turning into its opposite overnight. They said that in Bess’s reign horses and carriages drove over it, while the ice creaked and moaned like an old
lady with an attack of the croup. And London came to a standstill, its throat cut, with no trade able to get in or out of the city.

Today it was alive with the black shadows of wherries and skiffs and looming barges with oilskin-covered loads. In the darkness their moving lights sometimes made the ice fragments glitter so
that the river became momentarily enchanted, before descending again into watery gloom.

On the banks there were a few other dark figures scavenging. Sadie had a length of twine wrapped around her hand to tie up anything she might find. She tucked her skirts into her waistband and
looked for any jagged shapes sticking out of the mud. She pulled out a few claggy pieces of driftwood and tied them together. When she stopped to recover and looked up, her breath stood in white
ghosts before her.

Over by the bridge was a group of silhouettes all pulling at something. Curious, Sadie moved closer so she could see what they were doing. There was a lot of activity with shouting and people
running hither and thither carrying off loads in their aprons. Sadie saw a woman dash past, her apron full of something black.

Coal. A barge must have spilt its load of coal. Three lads stood up to their waists in the icy water hauling out the heavy sacks from the sludge. They cursed and yelled at those on the shore who
had slit open the sacks they had already landed and were making off with it whilst they watched, helpless, in the current. Sadie did not even have to think. She ran towards the group, her small
bundle of sticks banging against her back. A small curly-haired boy in oversized boots was trying to drag one of the sacks away, but it still had too much coal in it to move easily and he struggled
to shift it.

‘Shares?’ panted Sadie.

The boy nodded. Together they dragged the sack up the bank. An old woman hobbled after them and tried to get her hands into the sack as they towed it by, but the lad kicked out at her legs until
she tripped and skidded in the mud, tumbling away down the bank.

The boy was wiry and determined. She let him lead her, like a terrier dragging a hare. Hiding behind the shelter of a boathouse wall, they stopped and silently divvied up. A light spilled out of
the tavern further up the street giving them just enough light to see by. The boy had a small pallet waiting there with strapped-on wheels. It was already loaded with a fish crate half full of
sticks and rags, as well as a collection of metal horseshoes, clog irons and wheel bands. They shook half the coal into the crate, looking behind them all the while lest someone should hear and
take it off them. That left Sadie with the sack, which was about quarter full.

The boy stuck out his hand. Sadie smiled and took it. He looked up at her, a gap-toothed grin splitting his face before it was replaced with a sudden look of puzzlement. Oh mercy. She had
forgotten about her face. In a flash Sadie covered her head again with her hood. He had seen it. She wordlessly shouldered the bag of coal and hurried away.

She kept hobbling as best she could until the end of their street, where she stopped and put the load down for a breather, scanning behind her before turning into the blind alley. There was no
sign of the boy, or anyone else. She broke into a half-run again, anxious to get safely indoors. She dumped the coal and sticks by the door and eased it open.

‘Dennis?’

Blast. Ma Gowper had heard her again. She must have sharp ears – she seemed to be able to hear a needle drop. Sadie paused, keeping still. The tap of footsteps behind her.

‘Sadie?’

She whipped round to see Ella coming up behind her.

‘Hush.’ Sadie put her fingers to her lips.

Ella grasped Sadie’s shoulders and shook her. ‘What are you about? I said to stay indoors. You’re too easy to get a fix on.’

‘Sshh.’ Sadie indicated the Gowpers’ door. ‘She’s awake.’

‘Good evening, Widow Gowper,’ called Ella loudly. ‘It’s only me, Miss Johnson. Dennis will be along shortly.’

‘Who’s that with you? And what’s with all the racket?’ shouted Ma Gowper.

‘No one, just me.’

‘Come along in then, won’t you, and give me the time of day.’

Ella raised her eyebrows. ‘Upstairs,’ she mouthed, before entering the Gowpers’ rooms. A waft of stale urine filled the hall.

Sadie left her clogs at the bottom and carried her load up the narrow staircase. Even though she trod carefully, the sticks crackled against each other and the coal rattled in the sack.
Ella’s face appeared again from the door and glared up at her.

‘There’s nobody there, Widow Gowper, it’s just the wind,’ Sadie heard her call.

At the door to their room Sadie gently put down the coal and struggled to get the key out of her bodice, but stopped short. The padlock was twisted and hung loose on its haft. She touched it,
not believing what she was seeing. Worried now, she unhooked it and stood for a moment with its weight in her hand. It would take a jemmy or a crowbar to do this. But she had only been gone a
half-hour, maybe a little more.

She put her ear to the door. Nothing. She was dimly aware of Mrs Gowper’s voice, below, ‘What? What?’ and Ella’s high-pitched voice in reply. But not a sound from the
room. She pushed the door gently with one hand, preparing to run. It swung open and she peered into the darkness. She let out her breath. There was no one there. Gingerly she stepped over the
threshold, as if entering someone else’s territory. As she made her way to the rush box to fetch a light, her feet encountered objects on the floor that shouldn’t be there. She lit the
light.

The room was untidy as if someone had left in a hurry. The bedclothes had been thrown off, the shelves emptied, and the one remaining basket was upside down, its contents strewn on the floor.
Sadie picked it up and righted it. She knew already what she would find. There was no sign of the candlesticks, or the fan, or the silver punch ladle. They were gone, as she had known they would be
the instant she had stepped into the room.

Ella’s red shape appeared at the door.

‘What are you thinking of, making such a racket?’ she whispered. ‘Mrs Gowper says there’s been noises from up here –’ she stopped mid-sentence, taking in the
scene in front of her – ‘since the last church bells,’ she tailed off lamely. ‘Sadie, what’ve you done?’

‘We’ve been robbed,’ said Sadie in a tight voice, folding up a blanket.

‘What?’ Ella seemed unable to grasp it.

‘Someone battered the lock.’

‘Who?’

‘Well, how should I know? They didn’t leave a calling card, if that’s what you mean.’ A picture of Mercy and her brother came into her mind. ‘Whoever they were,
they must’ve been dead quiet to get past her.’ She pointed at the stairs.

Ella took another step into the room, but stood looking round helplessly.

‘Come on, help me get things straight so’s we know what’s gone,’ said Sadie.

‘The fan . . . the candlesticks, the—?’

‘Gone. There’s not a stick left. Come on. Help me.’

Ella followed at Sadie’s shoulder and plied her with questions. ‘What made you go out? I said not to go out.’

Sadie ignored her and continued to pick things up from the floor.

‘Did you go out to give notice at the wig shop? Sadie. Look at me. Why were you running when I got home? I said not to go out. And now this happens. Did anyone see you?’

‘It could be Da,’ Sadie said.

‘No,’ Ella said. ‘For God’s sake, will you forget about him. I’d know if he’d been here. I’d smell him. He would have waited as well, to see if he could
get anything else off us. You know it’s not Da. Did you tell Dennis what we’d got in here? You didn’t, did you?’

Sadie shook her head.

‘Did you tell Dennis?’

‘Course not. Anyroad, it wouldn’t be him.’

‘I know. He’s been at Whitgift’s. But he might’ve told someone else. Gold’s got a mouth on it once someone knows.’

‘I didn’t tell anyone.’

‘Well, we can’t exactly call the constable, can we?’

Sadie put the broken platter she was holding on the table and sat down, giving Ella her full attention. Her voice wavered as she spoke. ‘What’ll we do?’

Ella was pacing the room. ‘Ma Gowper kept saying there was noises, but I thought she meant you. Why did you go out? We agreed. You weren’t to go out. Not now them notices are up.
It’s too risky. What were you about?’ Her eyes were accusing.

‘I went scouting for wood. We’ll freeze else. It were dark. Too dark for anyone to see me.’ Her thoughts went back to Mercy’s pointing finger as she ran down the street,
and then to the look on the scavenger boy’s face. She pushed the thoughts away. ‘But I had a stroke of luck,’ she went on, ‘I got coal. So’s we can have a fire and a
hot supper for once.’ Sadie pointed to the door. ‘The sack’s there. There’s kindling too.’

Ella sat down. ‘Never mind the bloody kindling, we’ve just been robbed. That gold seal?’

Sadie nodded, biting her lip. She did not want to look at Ella.

‘If they find out where that came from, we’re in trouble. It’s got his initials on it. He showed me. His twin brother will be looking out for it.’

‘I know. I’m not daft. That’s why I wanted to get rid before.’

‘No. That’s why I hung on to it. So’s he couldn’t trace it.’

Sadie raised her eyes. ‘Too late now, anyways.’

She stood and went to the window. She was surprised how much all the objects had meant to them, and how quickly they had come to regard them as ‘theirs’ even though she knew full
well where they had come from. Every now and then Ella would look up and ask, ‘The snuffbox?’, ‘The mirror?’ and Sadie would nod. Then there would be silence whilst they
remembered the look and feel of the missing thing. Their small hoard had represented their future, the hope of better things ahead and their insurance against hunger and cold. They felt naked
without them. And it was unsettling to think a stranger had been in their room. Sadie shivered to think of some unknown man’s hands picking over her clothes, searching in their cupboards,
seeing all their secrets.

The mirror particularly seemed to upset Ella.

‘How’m I going to keep on at Whitgift’s with no mirror?’

‘I can tell you how you look.’

‘Don’t be stupid. It’s not the same. We’ll have to get another.’

‘After we get a new candlestick. I can’t sew with no light.’

‘No, before. Because if I lose my position, we won’t be able to afford anything else.’

‘How long is it again till you get paid?’

Ella glared at her. They both knew the answer anyway. Ella turned away and drew her purse out of her bodice. She was about to open it, but then saw Sadie looking and pushed it back inside.

‘How much you got?’ Sadie asked.

‘Three shilling, that’s all,’ Ella said quickly, fiddling with the drawstring round her neck.

‘Just about enough for a new lock. A stronger one. Shall I light the fire?’

‘Suppose so.’ Ella went to the cupboard. ‘Hey, will you look at that! They’ve even thieved our barley and cheese, and the bit of whey. Bloody jug’s gone
too.’

Sadie went and peered over Ella’s shoulder. ‘They must’ve been hungry.’ A thought came to her. ‘Bet it was those lads. The ones that were kicking that dog. They saw
us bringing our load in here that first day. They looked hungry enough, they fair fell on your apron when you said it had bread in it.’

‘The thieving beggars, they’ve even stolen our supper.’ Then, more accusingly, ‘They must have watched for you to go out.’

‘There’s a peck of oatmeal left. They can’t have been that hungry ’cos they didn’t take that.’

‘I’ve a good mind to go after them,’ Ella said, but she stayed where she was.