31

Appliqué: ornamental needlework in which pieces of fabric are sewn onto a larger piece to form a picture or pattern.

The house was deep in mourning, we dressed in black each day and visitors continued to arrive at the doorstep with flowers and long faces. Some of them, the ladies in particular, even wept.

But I was happy, perhaps happier now than I had been for many months, waking each morning with a smile. So happy, in fact, that I had to stop myself humming as I went about my tasks, for fear of being considered disrespectful. Once we had sorted out the vicarage, from here onwards the three of us could live the lives we wanted without interference or fear.

Nothing could break our family bonds now.

Louisa and Peter would be able to live quite comfortably on the money that Ambrose had left them. I even began to consider how we might be able to live together – perhaps Mr Boyson might be able to offer us larger premises for the shop, or a smaller house nearby where all three of us could live. I felt confident that now Ambrose was gone there would be no more talk of rent rises, and we could resume our normal friendly relations.

Fate had brought us the opportunity to build ourselves a wonderful future and each day of tedious work, sorting, packing and boxing up all of their belongings, brought us closer to that new life. At least, that was how I saw it.

But progress was infuriatingly slow. Peter was reluctant to relinquish a single toy, shirt or pair of outgrown boots. Louisa took hours deciding whether she could live without a certain much-chipped mixing bowl, or a pair of gloves even though they were split between the fingers. Having been accustomed to living frugally in two small rooms, it astonished me how they had accumulated so many belongings. I supposed that if you have the space, you tended to fill it.

The weather was still warm and dry and I longed to get into the fresh air, but Louisa was reluctant to leave the house. ‘It would not be thought seemly for me to be seen taking my leisure so soon afterwards. What if someone calls and I am not here to receive them? Besides, I cannot face meeting anyone in the street. If they offered condolences I would surely start cry.’

‘Then do you have any objection if Peter and I go out?’ I said. ‘He needs the sunshine for his health, and a short walk would help to improve his strength. It cannot be good for him to be cooped up in this dusty house all the time.’

He accepted without hesitation. ‘Can we call on Gabriel, Auntie?’

I glanced at Louisa. ‘Yes, of course. But remember, dear one, you are still in mourning and must comport yourself appropriately – no silly games. There will be time enough in the future for that.’

Gabriel’s mother is a woman of many words. She offered us her condolences at great length, saying how sorry everyone was, what a good man Ambrose was, how everyone in the parish respected him greatly, how we would miss him so much, it would be hard to find anyone who matched his dedication, the church would not be the same again, and so on. She turned her attentions to Peter, embarrassing him with her prattling about how well he looked, thanking the Lord for his good mercy in sparing him, and what a terrible disease it was and how unfair that their small village should have had to suffer so.

‘Peter and I are going for a short walk in the orchards,’ I said, at last finding a moment to interrupt her as she took a breath. ‘Would Gabriel care to join us?’ Her son arrived at the doorstep and on seeing Peter bounded out with a shriek of delight, clasping his friend in such a fierce embrace they both fell to the ground and began wrestling like puppies.

I walked a few discreet paces behind but close enough to eavesdrop on their chatter as the two boys pulled ahead, arm in arm.

‘What was it like?’ Gabriel asked.

‘It?’

‘Having the typhus.’

‘Oh, that. Weird, horrible. Like being in a dream most of the time.’

‘Still, I’m glad you’re well now. Oh, I should have said first, I’m sorry about your father.’

‘Yeah.’ They walked in silence for a short while.

‘At least you didn’t cry at the funeral.’

‘It was odd. I didn’t feel anything much then. It’s now we’re packing everything up it makes me sad.’

‘Packing, why?’

‘We’ve got to leave the vicarage.’

‘What? You’re moving?’

‘Yes, silly. We have to let the new vicar come and live here.’

‘But you’ll stay in the village, Peter? You can’t move away, because . . .’

‘We might move to London, Mother says. To live with my aunt.’

‘But that’s miles and miles away. I’d never see you.’

‘I know. But I think I can persuade her to look for somewhere nearby.’

‘Yes. Tell her you have to stay. I’d miss you.’

‘I’d miss you too, Gabe.’

Each evening Louisa and I would review our progress and make plans for the following day. We opened a bottle of the squire’s blackberry wine and took to drinking what we called a ‘nightcap’, although it was usually some hours before bedtime. The wine was delicious: sweet and tart at the same time, full of the sunshine that had ripened the fruit and mellow like the autumn in which the berries had been plucked from the hedgerows. Although neither of us said it, the wine was all the more enjoyable for the freedom in which we could drink it.

I told her of the boys’ conversation that afternoon.

‘They are such good friends,’ she said. ‘It would be sad to break them up. But as the days go by I wonder whether staying in Westford Abbots is such a good idea.’

‘Why so, dearest? I thought you loved this village?’

‘Indeed I do, or rather did. But would we forever be considered the grieving son and widow, wearing black and living in the shadow of everyone’s undying loyalty for Ambrose? In the face of his reputation it will be hard enough for the new incumbent to gain the respect of the congregation without the daily reminder of his family still living in the village.’

‘But do you also not have friends here you would be sad to leave?’ I knew, of course, that although she had many acquaintances, hardly any were close enough to be regarded as friends.

She shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I cannot bear to think about it at the moment, dearest. It is all too sudden.’ She took out her handkerchief, dabbing the corners of her eyes. ‘Leaving this place seems like accepting that he will never come back, that we will have to live the rest of our lives without the only man I have ever loved.’

The genuine depth of her feeling for a man whom I’d considered brutal, self-absorbed and more wedded to his God than to his family never ceased to amaze me.

Slowly, Louisa began to regain her emotional strength. She smiled from time to time – I even overheard her and Peter laughing, a joyful sound. Life was returning to the family like a bright sunrise after a long dark night. Even though in public we were expected to be in mourning, at home we were beginning to enjoy the freedom to be ourselves. The ruler of all things had gone, and we could decide what to do and when to do it. I began to see what life might be like with the three of us living together as a family.

Yet with each passing day I became more restless. September was just around the corner, when ladies returning from their summer seasons would turn their thoughts to new gowns, cloaks and hats for the winter. Mrs T. was very capable and I trusted her implicitly with the cutting out, sewing and finishing, but she did not have the way with customers that I had developed over the years; how to appear in accord with their ideas while actually suggesting another style, or design of fabric that would suit them far better. Neither did she have any aptitude for pricing, tending to quote too low for the true value of the job, leaving little or no margin for profit.

It is a trade based almost entirely on word of mouth. The businesses that thrived were those most persistently attentive to the whims of fashion and the fluctuations of fabric prices. I could not let that slip. The livelihoods of five people were dependent upon me, as well as my own.

At last, I felt compelled to tell Louisa that I would have to return to London the day after the morrow, while reassuring her that I would come back to Essex in two weeks’ time to finish the packing and, when it came time, to help them move.

It was on the afternoon of my last day that it happened. She’d asked me to make sure all of the cupboards and drawers in the ‘guest room’ – my usual chamber – were completely emptied. The wardrobe is a great heavy thing in dark oak, wide and capacious with double doors and a deep drawer beneath. The cupboard itself was empty so I went to open the drawer, but it was warped and refused to budge. Fearing that I might pull off the handles by wrenching too fiercely, I gave a knock to each side with the heel of my palm to straighten it.

At last, with an ease that sent me reeling backwards, the drawer opened. It was empty save for some fronds of dried lavender that must have been placed there many years before to ward off moths. In the corner was a torn piece of plain tissue paper that I assumed was rubbish. But when I went to crumple it in my hand I felt a sudden pain in the heel of my palm, so sharp that I cried out, thinking I’d been stung by a sleepy wasp. As I dropped it, a piece of cream worsted fell free from the paper, with a needle threaded through it. A bead of blood was already starting to form on my palm.

The shock of the needle prick and the sight of the red blood must have shifted something in my mind, like layers of curtains being pulled apart to reveal a distant landscape, a landscape of memories that had remained concealed, or perhaps suppressed, for many years. The reminders had always been there, of course; the sharp pain in my palm when I first took up the pagoda silk, the faint smell of lavender, my dreams of brilliantly coloured birds and the gnarled old apple tree in the vicarage garden that had always seemed especially magical. But until now these had come only in brief, disconnected fragments.

For all of my early years I was in the power of others, bounded by rules and in daily fear of being punished for breaking them, sometimes severely. Even in my first few days at the vicarage I must have understood that, benign though he appeared to be, Ambrose held the keys of power over my sister, and thus of my own future happiness. I was allowed into the family on his terms. Perhaps it was that overriding, gut-wrenching dread, the dread of my misdemeanours being discovered, of being cast out of paradise, that had caused me to bury those memories so deeply.

Now, all of that fear had gone and as I sat back on my heels, sucking my bloodied hand, the fragments began to coalesce, merging into a scene so powerful that in my mind’s eye I could recollect every detail, even all these years later.

It was on one of those days after my arrival in Westford Abbots for the very first time, long before I knew that I was expecting Peter, long before our arrangement for his adoption, long before I became a seamstress. I had just turned sixteen and oh, the joy of having my own room, a comfortable bed to lie on, a choice of books to read and all the time in the world, even in the afternoon, to read them. Louisa popped her head around the door.

‘Ah, there you are. You look content.’

‘More than I have ever been in my whole life,’ I said, without a shadow of exaggeration. ‘I could not be happier.’

‘I have to slip out to take some things to the church for Ambrose. You stay with your book, dearest. I’ll be away for only an hour, promise,’ she said. ‘Then we shall take tea.’

On reaching the end of my chapter I decided to stretch my legs. Looking out of the window over the garden, the fruit already starting to ripen on our favourite old apple tree in the corner, I felt myself fizzing with exhilaration and wonder at my good fortune. What remarkable circumstances had rescued me from the oppression of Tobias’s attentions and the arduous duties of a housemaid, and led me to this beautiful place in the heart of my new-found family? And here I was, enjoying for the first time in my life the comforts of my own private chamber.

I went to the dressing table – a dressing table! – and sat on the stool, turning my head this way and that in the mirror, fancying myself as a beautiful society lady. In my head I spoke to an imaginary maid: ‘I shall wear the shot green silk tonight, Mary, with the emerald necklace and earrings his Lordship gave me. They complement my eyes so well, he says.’

Miming her ladyship’s actions I reached into the drawer, pretending to take out a jewel box and opening it, cradling the jewels in my hand before arranging them around my throat and fixing the clasp at the back of my neck.

Now I was ready for the gown and went to the wardrobe. Hanging inside I discovered what must have been Louisa’s winter garments: a few dresses in plain wool and linen and a long woollen cape, but no gown of shot green silk. Extreme inquisitiveness had brought me trouble many times in the past, and now it led me astray once more. I opened the heavy drawer beneath and discovered various folded shawls, two muffs and a box of gloves. The smell of lavender was sweet to my senses.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor I began to try them on, first the muffs and then the gloves. I had never had any of my own, you understand, and just wanted to know what they felt like. In winter, we housemaids would simply pull our sleeves around our hands, or wrap them in the ends of our shawls. The sensation of each individual finger clothed in its own tube of leather felt so luxurious that I almost wished it were winter already.

When I went to put them away I discovered something else that had previously been hidden beneath the gloves. It was a small piece of pale cream worsted, about a foot square. As I drew it out into the light I could see that someone was attempting to craft a sampler. In the centre, slightly askew, was a cross-stitched square inside which a few letters and numbers had been outlined in pencil, ready for the embroidering. At each corner of the square were tacked four pieces of colourful silk figures, ready for being appliquéd onto the wool ground to create a decorative frame.

From my experience of sewing I knew that the would-be creator of this sampler had set themselves a very ambitious task, because appliqué needs a neat edge, and silk frays in a heartbeat.

Just then I heard the front door downstairs, and Louisa’s cheery call: ‘I’m back, Agnes. The kettle is on.’ Guilt-ridden and fearful of my misdemeanours being discovered, I hastily began to shove everything back into the drawer. But as I did so a needle that had been threaded into the back of the sampler pricked the palm of my hand, and the blood blotted a bright red stain onto the plain cream wool. I sucked at it and tried to rub it away, but the spot remained stubbornly bright.

Now all these years later I held in my hands that very same sampler, still unfinished. But what now caused me to gasp was the design of those pieces of fabric tacked to the sampler ready to be appliquéd. There was the exotic bird, the twisted tree, the fiery dragon and the silver-roofed pagoda. It was that silk, the Chinoiserie brocade woven for Henrietta Howard, the precious royal silk that our mother had somehow got hold of and used as a token when she took me to the Foundling Hospital.

Sitting at the foot of that same wardrobe I understood at last why, on that day we brought the bundle home from the auction, that silk had felt so familiar and had both fascinated and unsettled me all at the same time. It was burdened with powerful emotions from that long-ago day, of curiosity, guilt and fear. But questions now flooded my mind: whose sampler was it? Louisa was no seamstress, which would account for the uneven cross-stitching. Where had she obtained the silk? Had it been left to her by our mother, or discovered after her death? Now, surely, was the time to ask.

As I wrapped it back into the tissue paper I noticed a small brown mark of dried blood on the pale worsted.

In the hours that passed after discovering the sampler my resolve began to falter. Was it fair, so soon after Ambrose’s death, to risk asking Louisa to reveal distressing memories? Yet how could I delay, when this sampler must hold the key to the mysteries I had for so long desired to understand?

I was due to return to London the following day to make sure that all was well at the shop, and though I planned to return again the following week, this might be my last chance to discover the truth.

That evening after Peter retired Louisa and I went to the drawing room, as usual. I have always loved this space, so light and peaceful, with windows on two sides giving an outlook into the garden. A golden afterglow of sunset filled the room and we threw open the windows to breathe in the sweet evening air, so welcome after our dusty tasks.

She brought in two wine glasses and the second bottle of the squire’s blackberry wine.

‘Here’s to my dearest sister,’ I said. ‘To your love and your courage. I’m sorry I have to leave you tomorrow, but I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’

‘Thank you, dearest. Having you here at my side has meant everything to me.’ She smiled, and in that smile I could see signs of her former sweet self, now that the strain of the past few weeks was beginning to lift.

Still I hesitated, reluctant to disturb this pleasant scene; just the two of us in amicable company, knowing that Peter was safe and well in the room above and – God forgive me – without fear of Ambrose and his unpredictable moods. But the hidden presence of the sampler seemed to nip at my shoulder. Now that it had emerged from its long hiding, its secrets must be told.

I went to retrieve it from the dresser drawer where I’d hidden it. ‘I found this when I was turning out the wardrobe in my chamber,’ I said, as casually as possible, handing it to her. ‘Is it something you want to keep?’

The shock of recognition was clear. Her face drained and her fingers shook as she placed her glass on the side table. She looked up at me and then back at the sampler again.

‘Perhaps I could help you finish it?’ I said, trying to keep my voice calm and steady. ‘Those Chinese figures are very beautiful, are they not? I recognised them at once; they’re from the same silk I showed you that I’d bought at the auction with Anna. Do you remember?’

A long silence followed, save for the harsh alarm call of a bird in the garden warning of a cat, perhaps, or an approaching jackdaw? She took a breath and for a moment I hoped she might be about to speak, but she sighed and fell quiet again.

‘Louisa?’

At last, she looked up and sat back in her chair. ‘My dearest, I hoped you would never have to know.’

‘Know what, sister?’ Now my heart filled with dread, and I wished I’d left the sampler hidden. Sometimes it is better not to know. But it was too late to take it back.

‘It is a dark and difficult chapter of my life that even now it troubles me to recall.’

‘Then stop, dearest. I don’t want you to be further hurt. Let’s forget I even mentioned it.’ I went to take the sampler from her hand but she pulled it back, gripping so fiercely I feared she might prick herself on that same needle.

‘When you showed the silk to me at the shop that day I feared the whole edifice of our deceit might come tumbling down. But you seemed to forget about it, and when you raised it again, I persuaded you not to pursue it.’

Edifice of deceit? A cold hand crept into my chest. Had I been deliberately deceived?

She took up the bottle of wine and refilled her glass before passing it across to me.

‘I can see that the time has come for you to know the truth.’