i b8cff8977b3b1bd2 by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page A

besom, Oi wonder I”
    “What’s that!” cried Lucy, staring at Elizabeth’s scarlet face. “What are you talking about, Cook?” The woman reached up to a cupboard, brought down the

crumpled dirty sampler and held it out. Lucy gasped as she looked at the straggling Elizabeth and saw the rest blank. “Oh . . .” she breathed. “You wicked, lying child! You said it was finished, that you would give it to my mother today!” The girl was genuinely shocked; not even Harry had ever exhibited deceit and disobedience of this magnitude.
    Elizabeth said nothing. She felt some guilt, but stronger yet was despair. She had been so sure that the goblin would help her, and he had not; so sure that she would get to the Fair with Jack and she could not. She had prayed the Lord Jesus for fine weather too. Prayers were not answered, charms failed. There was nothing.
    “Come with me,” said Lucy, breathing hard and grabbing the ear lobe again. “I shall take this straight to your father, and then to my mother, and may God forgive you.”
    A frenzy like the fireworks on Guy Fawkes’ Day suddenly exploded in Elizabeth’s chest. “I don’t care if He does. I hate God!” she shouted.
    She ducked so violently that Lucy lost hold of the ear. The child turned and ran through the buttery, slamming its door in her astounded aunt’s face. She flew through the scullery where a sleepy boy was peeling onions, and past the pantry, which Lucy had that moment unlocked on her way to the kitchen. On the shelf by the door there was a silver dish full of rare dates imported from the Levant, which were Adam’s favourite delicacy. He had once given Elizabeth a taste, and she had liked it almost as well as marchpane. She did not know that she saw the dish as she ran past, or how it came to be clutched in her arms, she had no plan but frantic flight as she darted out into the dripping courtyard across the slippery flags to the stable. She wedged herself between a water barrel and the stable wall as Lucy peered out of the door across the courtyard. The girl was young and active but she had been impeded in the chase by her full silk skirts, and now, seeing no sign of Elizabeth through the sheets of rain, she shut the door and went to rouse the household.
    In the stable a groom whistled as he curried one of the horses. Elizabeth dared not go there for refuge. She peeked gingerly around the side of the barrel and spied the bakehouse. There was a small disused door that led from its loft to the garrets of the main house. The boys had shown it to her, though their elders had long forgotten its existence. She acted again without thought, streaked back across the courtyard and into the bakehouse, which was still warm from the ovens and smelled of recently baked bread. Clutching her dish of dates, Elizabeth climbed the ladder to the loft, opened the low door and entered the great shadowy attic. There were but two tiny cobwebby windows, high up in the gables; near to one was an old black chest carved in the Gothic manner of long ago. Elizabeth sat down on it, shivered, and began to cry.
    She cried for a long time before wiping her eyes on the bedraggled damp skirt of her blue gown. It was then that she consciously saw the dates. Fear trickled down her spine like the drip from her hair. I can’t ever go back, she thought, they’d never forgive me, never. Even Mama. She began to cry again, thinking that one day years from now they would come up here and find her bones heaped on the chest. “Mouldering bones,” the sexton at St, Sepulchre’s always said. She glanced fearfully into the shadows. There was a rusty suit of armour hanging from a peg and a queer helmet a hundred years old that had belonged to a Winthrop. There were piles of dusty chests and a broken spinning wheel, and the looming brick bulk of the great kitchen chimney. The rain pattered on the tiles above her head. I’m so hungry, she thought. Her hand went out of itself and took a date. The