Free The Lady's Slipper by Deborah Swift Page B

hoped one day, with practice, to be as great a painter as the French woman, Louisa Moillon, whose paintings of fruit and flowers were much in demand and fetched high prices. Geoffrey owned a small panel by her, and it had a quality of stillness she much admired and wanted to emulate. When Alice had shown early talent for painting, her mother had hoped she would paint miniatures and had taken her to see a number of exquisite portraits by Nicholas Hilliard. But except for her sketches of Flora, she found painting people tiresome, and the miniature too constrained. Instead she loved to paint her father’s plant specimens, the flowing beauty of natural forms.
    She set out the fern on the table and began to layer in more shadows in the centre of the plant. This time of year there would be an early sunset and she was anxious to make the most of the precious daylight hours–the changing light often meant a piece had to be put aside when the weather was too dull.
    She was soon happily engrossed in the lacy texture of the leaves, until the light changed again, and she leaned back in her chair to look out of the window for the passing cloud. The sky was clear. Maybe she was imagining the change in light. But then she caught a glimpse of something brown–a dark shape, something moving through the greenish glass of the window. She went closer to look out. A face loomed up in front of her, peering in from the outside. She gave a cry of surprise and stepped back. The face continued to stare at her through the glass. Alice recovered her composure and went to the door. Warily, she opened it a crack.
    ‘Yes, what is it you want?’
    ‘Mistress Ibbetson?’
    ‘Yes,’ Alice said, repeating, ‘what do you want?’ The woman was shabbily dressed, her cloak was old and mended, and her collar and cuffs rubbed and grey. Obviously a servant. Two shrewd brown eyes in a round moon face looked out from under the hood.
    ‘I am Margaret Poulter.’ She paused, looking at Alice inquisitively. ‘Margaret Poulter,’ she said again, smiling a grey-toothed smile, ‘the herbalist.’ She shuffled in and dropped a heavy brown leather bag on the flagstones.
    She wasn’t behaving at all like a servant, how odd. The name took a few moments to register. Alice’s mouth went dry, and her stomach turned to liquid as the facts clicked sickeningly into place. This was Margaret the herbalist, the one Wheeler had told her about, who was thought to be something of a witch. This nondescript woman with her grey hair sticking out like a hedgehog was Margaret Poulter. Alice wiped her hands nervously on her skirts. She was not what Alice had imagined at all.
    Unsure how to respond, she merely nodded, but her mind was racing. If Margaret Poulter was a witch then it would be best to try to keep calm and not antagonize her. The woman was looking with interest at the portraits of Flora. ‘By, what a bonny lass,’ she said.
    ‘Can I help you?’ Alice did not like the old woman looking so close up.
    She did not seem to hear, but moved to bend over the fern on the table.
    ‘This seems a good healthy specimen.’ Margaret plucked off a leaf and held it to her nose. Alice refrained from saying anything, she did not dare, but hoped she wouldn’t do it again as the picture of it was as yet unfinished.
    ‘Mash the leaves, and it is good on open wounds, in particular if you mix it with woundwort. It will stem the bleeding.’ She flung off her cloak and laid it over the back of a chair.
    Alice realized with dismay that she was intending to stay some time.
    ‘Now then, where is this wild orchid of yours?’
    She thought quickly.
    ‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’ She led the way out of the summerhouse with the old woman hurrying a pace behind–over towards the orchard, past the beehives and out of the garden gate. Hearing Margaret’s uneven footsteps still behind her, she turned past the box trees and into the lane next to the house. Here she stopped and knelt