The Lantern Moon (5 page)

Annie and William stood shoulder to shoulder in the damp cemetery beside the graves of their mother and little sister. The queue of mourners had filed past, one long sorrowful face after another, shaking their hands and telling the children how sorry they were for their trouble. Afterwards they gathered in small whispering groups behind the monuments of long-dead Ludlovians, or outside the graveyard gates, cheerfully exchanging their versions of how the fire broke out. Somehow the story had spread that Kezia had gone to have a look at Alexandrine Bonaparte. The shoemaker declared that it was no more than her just deserts for leaving her daughter alone while she went to gawp at toffs in their finery. A laundress from Frog Lane knew for a fact that Libby had always been in the habit of playing with fire while Walter Lloyd, the sexton, said the family had all gone to the bad. Wasn't John Spears as rotten as last year's windfalls? If it was ever true that virtue was rewarded and ill
deeds punished, then you need look no further than the Spearses. They were a bad lot.

Luckily, Annie and William did not hear any of these lies. They were numb with grief, shrinking within themselves, wishing only that they were dead too. They could not understand why Libby had been locked in the house alone for they knew nothing of the letter that their mother had gone in vain to pick up and the only man who could tell them, other than Leonard Evans himself, was the cattleman who had called to Kezia – and he had already left for Hereford. They only knew that they were now utterly alone in the world, with no one but each other to care what would become of them.

‘Are you coming then, Annie?' Mrs Stringer took hold of Annie's shoulder and began to lead her away. ‘Say good-bye to your brother, girl.'

‘Where are you taking her?' asked William, taking Annie's other arm. He was shocked that they were to be separated again so soon. He had hardly had a chance to speak alone with her since the Reverend Gwynn had come to the hat factory the night before with the news.

‘Back to Dinham House, of course,' Mrs Stringer replied. ‘What is there to do but carry on working till the parish decides what is to be done with you and your sister? It'll stop her brooding. Life must go on.' Mrs Stringer did not mean this to sound unkind. She had herself lost four children and a husband in the cholera epidemic of 1803. She reckoned she
would have lost the will to live if she had not kept herself busy.

‘What do you mean until the parish decides! Decides what?' said William, indignantly.

‘Well,' Mrs Stringer began uncertainly, ‘I expect the guardians may want to put you in the workhouse.'

‘The workhouse?' exclaimed William and Annie together. ‘Why should they do that?'

‘I'm not saying that is what they are going to do, William. Only that they might. On account of your being homeless orphans.'

‘We are not orphans,' said William.

Mrs Stringer sniffed. ‘As good as orphans, for what use is your father to you in a penal colony at the far side of the world? Where is he now to rear you and bring you up like Christians?'

William and Annie stared at her with loathing.

‘We have our work,' said William. ‘We do not need the parish.'

Mrs Stringer's eyes narrowed. ‘Only as long as Bonaparte stays in Ludlow and there is work for Annie at Dinham,' she said, ‘and as for yourself, William Spears, it is well known that Abraham Smart is not fit to look after anyone. Everyone knows he is mad.'

‘Our mother said we should never have to go to the workhouse,' declared Annie, looking towards her brother for support.

‘No, and nor shall we,' agreed William. ‘We'd rather run away to London and take our chances there. And Abraham Smart is no madder than you are.'

Mrs Stringer pursed her lips. But for the yellow beard, she thought, young Spears had a look of his father about him, another criminal in the making.

‘I expect Master Smart will be wondering where you've got to, young man,' she said, sharply. ‘Annie, come along now and dry those eyes.'

Annie tramped after Mrs Stringer, feeling as miserable as it was possible to be. In less than twenty-four hours she had lost everything, her mother, her little sister, her home and possibly even her brother, for if they were to be put in the workhouse, he would be with the men and she with the women. All that lay ahead of her now was skivvying, her days spent from first light until long past sunset fetching and carrying, running up and downstairs answering to the calls of master, mistress and all the other servants who ranked above her for she was the very least, the lowest, meanest thing in the whole household.

‘Come along there, Annie Spears.' Mrs Stringer had stopped in the road ahead of her and was waving her arms frantically for her to catch up. ‘There's screaming coming from the grounds. What can it all mean?' The housekeeper broke into a clumsy run around the castle walls towards Dinham House. Annie picked up her skirt and raced past her for she had recognised the screams at once. They were
coming from Sam Price.

The outhouse door between the house and the castle wall was swinging open. Annie ran towards it. The screams got louder. Inside the shed, one of the French manservants had taken hold of Sam by the back of his shirt and the seat of his trousers. He had him dangling at arm's length, trying to avoid the boy's thrashing legs.

‘Put me down,' shouted Sam. ‘Put me down.'

The Frenchman too was shouting at the top of his voice, a babble of exotic words that neither Annie nor Mrs Stringer could understand. When he saw that he had an audience, he lowered Sam to the ground and dragged him into the courtyard.

‘He bit me, the little animal.'

‘I never did,' shouted Sam, kicking out again at the servant's legs and catching him right in the shin.

A window on the first floor of Dinham House was abruptly thrown open and Lucien Bonaparte's head and shoulders appeared above them. Even Sam, seeing his black expression, had sense enough to shut up.

‘What is this commotion? How can a man write with all this noise? Be quiet at once.'

The manservant, still holding Sam firmly by the back of his collar, launched into a lengthy explanation.

‘This boy was trespassing,' he declared. ‘I found him asleep under a pile of rags in the shed. When I discovered him, he attacked me. What do you want me to do with him?'

‘He's the chimney sweep's boy, your excellency,' said Mrs Stringer, bobbing awkwardly on her fat legs, ‘I dare say the ungrateful boy has run away.'

Bonaparte looked from his own affronted servant to the stout, red-faced Mrs Stringer.

‘I just want peace and quiet, Madame. Is it too much to ask?' His tummy was particularly bad that morning. He burped an acid blast of air out the window.

Mrs Stringer opened her mouth to speak but Lucien put up a hand to stop her.

‘Get rid of him.'

Mrs Stringer dipped down in another lop-sided curtsey. ‘Begging your pardon, sir. I shall send a message to Master Bessell, the sweep, and tell him to come and take the boy away directly.' She reached out and gave Sam a cuff around the ears to show Lucien she had the measure of the local ruffians. The window up above shut with a decisive bang.

‘Don't send me back to Mr Bessell, please, ma'am,' Sam implored. ‘I promise I'll clear off. I won't bother you again.' He looked across at Annie with eyes filled with tears. ‘I was waiting for William to come,' he said, ‘He told me he'd show me where the shepherd's hut is.'

‘He couldn't come. Sam, my mother and Libby are dead. There was a fire in my house last night,' Annie said to him. ‘William and I have just come from the graveyard.'

Sam struggled out of the Frenchman's grasp and launched himself at Annie but Mrs Stringer, warily watching the
upstairs window, would not allow them to speak any longer. ‘Go on in to the kitchen,' she said brusquely, poking Annie in the back. ‘Tell the cook I'm back and that I shall be wanting a cup of tea to revive me after all this trouble.'

Annie gripped Sam's small dirty hand and hurried him towards the basement steps.

‘Annie,' he whispered, patting the crown of his top hat to steady it firmly over his ears, ‘the next time I run away, no one will ever catch me.'

The freezing weather gave way soon after that to heavy rain that burst the banks of both the Teme and Corve rivers at Ludlow and churned up the streets and squares into a quagmire of mud. Annie rarely left Dinham House, except early on Sunday mornings, when Mrs Stringer took her to the parish church of St Laurence. Each week she sat in one of the back pews, straining to catch a glimpse of William but, if he was there, she never saw him. She had had no news of Sam since the afternoon Mr Bessell the sweep had dragged him screaming from the kitchen at Dinham.

The Bonaparte household had settled down to a sort of routine, with its own rhythms. Lucien spent the best part of his day studying – he was writing an epic poem about Charlemagne – while the younger children worked with their French tutor on their reading and writing or had English conversation classes with a local scholar. Madame Bonaparte and the two eldest girls were much in demand by the ladies of the town and soon were in the habit of going to take tea
in the grand houses of Broad Street. In the afternoons they played cards in the parlour or took dancing lessons. Lucien's eldest step-daughter was thought to be the most beautiful creature in Ludlow and it was not long before rumours started that she was to marry one of the Charltons, a young man of considerable landed property. So, for a time at least, all was well. If it was a sort of imprisonment, Lucien and Alexandrine agreed, it was not too uncomfortable. In the evenings they arranged little concerts in the music room for themselves and their visitors or went to the theatre at the bottom of Mill Street where an extraordinary American actress, the beautiful Miss Constance Brooks, was playing Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, to full houses. The minor disturbances outside the Assembly Rooms on the night of the ball were forgotten.

Paul-Marie, the baby, had picked up some English words.

‘Annie,' he said, looking up at the long staircase as Annie led him out to take him to bed, and holding his hands up above his head, ‘carry me'. He could not yet say his r's properly.

‘No,' she said, ‘you're too heavy. Walk.'

‘Carry.'

‘No. Walk.'

‘Annie carry.' He smiled doubtfully. Then his lower lip turned out. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. His face had turned quite red.

‘Breathe,' pleaded Annie, grabbing him under his arms
and running up the stairs. When the wailing finally came, it was loud enough to bring Christine-Egypta running from her bedroom on the first floor.

‘What is it? What has happened?'

‘Nothing, miss, he is all right,' Annie stammered. The din that Paul-Marie was making made it impossible to say any more. He was thrashing around, hitting out at her face with tight, angry fists. It hurt more than you would have thought. Annie leant away from him and patted his back, desperate for him to calm down. ‘I didn't do anything,' she said, embarrassed.

‘Give him to me,' said Christine-Egypta, taking him roughly from Annie. ‘Be quiet at once,' she commanded him in French, and instantly, the baby stopped the racket.

‘You see, he is just being méchant.'

Annie looked puzzled.

‘Naughty.' The French girl smiled at her. ‘Come, I have something to show you.'

She beckoned at Annie to follow her into her bedroom. Annie hesitated. ‘Come,' Christine-Egypta repeated.

In the bedroom, Christine-Egypta undid the catch of a tiny jewellery box on her dressing-table and drew out a gold locket.

‘Look,' she said, opening the miniature heart and holding it out for Annie to see. The locket held a little picture. It was the face of a young woman, beautiful and delicate, as pretty as Christine-Egypta herself.

‘Is it you?' asked Annie shyly.

‘No, she is my mother. Catherine-Christine Boyer was her name. She died when I was very small.'

‘My mother is dead too,' said Annie.

‘I know,' said Christine-Egypta. ‘I heard Arthur and Mrs Stringer talking about you. You must be very sad.'

Annie nodded. She was afraid that she might cry. ‘My little sister was killed too,' she said.

Downstairs there was a loud ringing of bells and a shout from Mrs Stringer.

‘Annie Spears, where are you?'

‘Go, Annie Spears,' said Christine-Egypta, smiling, ‘I will take Paul-Marie to bed.'

Annie dipped a little curtsey and went running from the room.

A few days later at the beginning of March, the peaceful atmosphere in Dinham House was shattered. News had reached England that the British fleet had suffered great losses in battle against the emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. There were mounting rumours that he was planning to invade England while its army and navy were occupied fighting alongside the Spanish. As these stories spread, the people of Ludlow looked at Dinham House and wondered just what Lucien Bonaparte was doing there. Until then, most people had paid little attention to Lucien and his family. He minded his business. They minded theirs. Even the wasters and ne'er-do-wells who hung around the doors of
the inns had got used to seeing the exotic visitors on their daily walks around the castle walls and rarely turned up to jeer or gawp at them. But, from one day to the next, the mood in the town turned ugly.

It seemed to have started with a number of sheep farmers arguing in the square one market day. They were discontent, as farmers were always inclined to be. The ones who were looking to buy sheep thought the prices were too high and the quality of the beasts poor, while those who were selling declared they were being robbed and forced to undersell their ewes and lambs. Their rumblings spread to other passers-by. The price of wheat was shocking. King George was mad. The Prince Regent was a scoundrel. There were louder mutterings that this interminable war against the French was impoverishing the entire country. It dragged on and on from year to year with no sign of victory. Napoleon Bonaparte was a scourge upon the whole of Europe.

‘And yet,' said a voice, ‘That tyrant's brother, Lucien Bonaparte, is a guest in our kingdom.'

‘Not just in our kingdom,' said another, ‘but in our town.'

That afternoon the children's tutor came home outraged that he and his charges had been insulted by ruffians when they were strolling in the castle grounds. The abbé, Lucien's personal chaplain, was spat at as he walked down by the river. The same evening, after dark, the silence of the empty streets outside Dinham House was broken. An angry mob came surging down the road, marching either side of a
wooden cart on which stood an enormous effigy of Napoleon Bonaparte, complete with his distinctive admiral's hat. Their voices grew louder, hurling insults and roaring at the tops of their voices for ‘Bony's brother' to come out of his house.

Their faces were contorted with hatred. They thumped the air with their fists and brandished flaming torches above their heads. To Annie, looking down upon them from the window of the attic room where she had been trying to sleep, it seemed they were no longer Ludlow faces that she could recognise but one single slow-moving monster, a dragon breathing fire.

The procession drew up outside the gates of Dinham House.

‘Come outside, Bony, come out,' they chanted. The din brought Lucien and all the men in the house to the door. As soon as they saw him, the rioters pushed their torches into the bales of hay in the cart. Immediately the effigy of Napoleon took light. An enormous flame shot heavenwards. The shocked faces of Lucien and his household were suddenly lit up by the bonfire of his brother's likeness. Invisible to everyone else at the scene, Annie looked down on the flaming cart, the blazing straw-filled figure and the thick plume of black smoke which rose up from it. The crowd seethed around the entrance to the house. She could hear them jeering and laughing. A couple of young men tried to climb over the gates but were beaten back by Lucien's servants.

They are going to burn the house down with me and everybody else in it, she thought.

The sergeant-at-arms was slow in arriving and the crowd had dispersed. Not a single arrest was made that night.

Everything changed after that. You could have cut the atmosphere in the house with a knife. The music room concerts came to an abrupt stop. There were no more invitations to dinner, no more games of cards for the ladies. Lucien dismissed the English cook and would eat only food prepared by his own French chef. His suspicion was infectious. Alexandrine became fearful and withdrawn and pestered her husband every day to ask Lord Powis when they could leave Ludlow for the larger house he had promised them. As the Bonapartes became unhappier, Mrs Stringer became more tyrannical and made Annie's life a misery.

One morning, Christine-Egypta came in to the nursery where Annie was helping one of the French maids give breakfast to Paul-Marie and his little sister, Letitia. Annie wiped the baby's mouth with his bib and smiled, pleased to see a friendly face.

‘You can go now, Annie Spears,' Christine-Egypta said coldly, without even looking directly at her. ‘Brigitte can give them their breakfast by herself. Papa says you are not to come upstairs again.'

Her cheeks burning with embarrassment, Annie took herself downstairs to the basement. Was she never going to hear a friendly word or see a smiling face ever again?

One morning, a week or so after the burning of the effigy, Annie crept silently out of her attic bedroom and made her way down to work. It was still quite dark and only she and the other servants were about. A maid came panting up the stairs with a large lump of red-hot coal from the kitchen hearth to reset the fires in the bedrooms and public rooms. In the kitchen, Mrs Stringer was kneeling on the floor, riddling the ashes of the stove and gently squeezing the bellows to get the oven hot enough to bake the breakfast bread. Arthur was polishing a pair of men's riding boots for Lucien, who was in the habit of going out for an early morning ride with an English officer before the rest of the town was up and about.

‘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.