Page 43 of Linenfold (The Alice Chronicles #4)

Morning arrives slowly, a mean and reluctant daylight.

Thick cloud smothers the sun and dims the day.

This morning, Alice’s back aches abominably and it is difficult to stand without supporting herself by one hand on table or door jamb.

Lighting the bread oven is beyond her. Olivia enters the kitchen as she is rubbing her back.

Olivia is as fresh and glowing as if she has just come from her own bedchamber, hair shining, barely a lock out of place.

‘Alice, you should not even be up. Sit down there and let me help. Ah, your loaves are already knocked back, I see. Come, Mollie, show me where the tinder box is. We shall start the bread oven.’

Alice moves to the door and places the bar across.

‘I don’t want anyone creeping in here while our backs are turned.

’ As the others turn to look in enquiry, ‘And no one is to go outside alone. You must go in pairs at all times until Lewis and John Pearce are found. Grace?’ as the dairymaid puts her head round the door, ‘that goes for you too, and bar the dairy door.’

‘Quite right,’ Olivia agrees. ‘That way, we can get on with our work without worrying. Rose, do you help me with these loaves.’ Cheerfully she ties Alice’s apron round her own waist and empties out bowls of dough to divide and shape them on the kitchen table.

Olivia’s presence lightens the gloom. Even Maureen bustles.

Alice has hardly slept, ears stretched all night for unusual sounds in the house, wishing she were on the chamber floor instead of up in the attics out of hearing.

Her hair hangs dull and wispy, its red fire at a low ebb.

Her eyes feel puffy and a heaviness of anxiety weighs her down, the knowledge that both Lewis and Pearce are out there, perhaps close to the house, hiding, waiting their moment.

She has no doubt that she has not heard the last of these two.

Juliana wakes to the usual morning sound of the bustling Freemans household.

How did she go to sleep without finding out why Olivia suddenly left with Joe from High Stoke and Philip’s man Jackson?

‘I’ll be back soon,’ Olivia had called as she hurried out.

‘Keep the doors barred.’ And Juliana hadn’t waited up, but now wishes she had.

She hates to be the last to find out what is going on.

They will all be down in the kitchen. And she will walk in and Olivia will have told them and will repeat to herself while all the rest look on, already knowing. What a fool she will feel.

But Juliana is nothing if not philosophical. She sets her face in cheerfulness, ready to accept whatever explanation Olivia gives as though it is of passing interest only. Ready to murmur that yes, she thought it might be so.

What she is not prepared for is that Olivia, who is always in the kitchen early, is nowhere to be seen.

‘Where’s the mistress?’

There are spread hands, murmurs of, ‘She didn’t come back last night,’ and ‘The master didn’t, either.

’ Juliana nods in politely unconcerned fashion.

At least she is no less aware than they.

Within she is churning. Something changed Olivia’s intention.

And Jack’s. Have they found that treasure?

What is Philip doing? Is he all right? Jack told them yesterday when he called by during the search for the two Frenchwomen that one of them was not a woman after all.

One of the maids is asking her if she will take breakfast and Juliana is pulled back to the present.

She nods and goes to the hall where the family always eat.

Calm down, she tells herself. Olivia warned her the other day about excessive reaction.

Displaying her choleric humours when she saw Philip peck Alice on the cheek was just such a case.

It was entirely innocent, just Philip being spontaneous about a discovery in that riddle.

And what did I do? Juliana thinks. Made it perfectly clear that I like him and was jealous.

But then she chuckles to herself. She likes it that Philip is impulsive.

So refreshingly different from would-be suitor Obadiah, who hasn’t an imprudent bone in his straight, black-clad body.

And then, Philip was so funny afterwards at supper about the seven veils, she couldn’t help forgiving him, could hardly contain her laughter.

The four of them, Jack, Olivia, Philip and Alice, take their breakfast in the dining parlour at the front of the house.

‘Jack and I are going back home to make sure all is well and keep the children indoors for now. We’ll be back later for a space. It’s all right,’ she says at Alice’s look of alarm, ‘we’re going by the road, it’s well enough frequented that we’ve agreed it’s safer than across the fields.’

‘I’ll go with my men to search for Pearce and Lewis,’ Philip says. ‘Your men should stay around the house until we find them.’

‘What do you want to do about Honorine?’ Alice asks him. ‘We cannot hold her indefinitely.’

‘All that can be decided later,’ Olivia assures her. ‘She is secured, I saw you take her breakfast, and she’s not causing any trouble. I’m more concerned about you, Alice, you look exhausted. You really must be careful of the baby, this close to your time.’

‘It’s several weeks yet.’

‘Why do you not lie down for a space? Philip can let you know if anything happens.’

Alice smiles. ‘I don’t want that climb to the attics, Olivia. I’ll just sit here.’

‘Not the attics, you’ll come up to the main chamber. Jack and I have no further need of it. We’re both more grateful than we can say and the least I can do is see you comfortable before we leave.’

The relief of being able to relax, let go of household tasks, persuades her. Some ten minutes later, as Olivia draws the coverlet over her, ‘Try to sleep. Let me screen your eyes with the curtain – good heavens! Where did this come from?’

Alice laughs. ‘It’s horrible, isn’t it? It was a gift from His Lordship for our hospitality. I thought to pay him back by hanging it where he would have to look at it, poor man. He said it’s French crewelwork.’

‘It’s like no French crewelwork I’ve ever seen.’

‘An apprentice made it, apparently.’

‘She has much to learn.’ Olivia draws the curtain to shield Alice from the daylight. ‘There. You’ve had a lot to deal with these past few days. Enjoy your respite. I’ll see that the household have what they need. Do you want another hot brick?’

‘No, this one is wonderful.’ She pushes her feet down the bed, closing them on the wrapped brick.

From the door Olivia asks, ‘Shall I send Betsy up to make sure all is well?’

‘She’s gone to do the Sandersons’ washing this morning. No, I’m well, Olivia, I thank you. Baby is quiet at the moment.’ Alice closes her eyes. Even as Olivia softly drops the latch, she is starting to drift.

Breakfast is over and still Olivia and Jack have not returned.

Juliana starts to imagine what might have happened.

It was well for Olivia to be accompanied, but why did it need two of them to conduct her to High Stoke?

And what has happened there that prevents her return?

The Freemans household seem to be taking it all very calmly but they don’t know about the treasury.

Once more, Juliana tells herself not to dispense with reason.

Perhaps as it was late and dark, they simply decided to stay and will be back later.

They’ve sent no message to suggest otherwise.

Juliana paces up the hall and back. She sits down again.

It is the not knowing that is so hard to bear, spectres rising out of uncertainty.

What if Philip was injured in some way last night and Olivia was sent for to use her skills in healing?

The two Frenchwomen they seek – woman and man, rather – could be dangerous if they are desperate.

If Philip sighted them, he would go straight after them regardless.

And two of them against one, they could drag him from his horse, beat him senseless.

He could have lain outside in the freezing cold for hours before being found.

Olivia would leave Freemans without telling Juliana why, for fear of frightening her.

As if I am still a child after all, she thinks.

It has to be something so serious they feel they must keep it a secret until they have prepared me to hear the worst …

Juliana starts up, scraping back her chair. The fastest way will be across the fields. She makes for the stables.

For a while Alice slumbers fitfully, waking at a footfall, a door closing, voices filtering up the back stairs, life melding with dream, drifting back and forth.

Pictures of the last few days come to mind.

Master Cranley stepping alongside her across the clearing, his quaint language, his outrage at Juliana.

Master Corvin and John Calvin. Jack in the Red Lion with Pearce’s calculating eyes on him.

The beautiful crewelwork coverlet awaiting her baby, woman’s craft raised to an art for the child of a dead man.

And the man who is not dead, thanks to Mollie and Ned. And herself. Life. Tree of life.

Alice pushes herself up, pulls the bed-curtain towards her, looks at the close lines of chain stitch forming the trunk and limbs of the embroidered tree-of-life.

The chainéd limbs thus spread

What was it Master Cranley said? “Craftiness”, crafty, craft. “Eve”. Woman. Woman’s craft. Embroidery.

She runs a hand over a lumpily stitched fruit, squeezes it between thumb and fingers. Something hard inside, under several layers. Cruel shields . Shields of crewelwork. Something is in there, held under the stitching on the harden-linen backing. The hardened raft .