They were standing outside the Bell Inn, both of them looking up at the building, stark white against the belt of grey sky above, in a shared sense of unveiled astonishment at what someone of her station in life had managed to achieve.
‘It really is marvellous,’ Mr Claringbould said, shaking his head.
Ann forced herself to contain her giddiness and maintain her propriety, as Miss Bowler had shown her. With a gentle bow of her head, she held out her hand.
‘Ah,’ Mr Claringbould said, taken aback, then shaking her hand. ‘On behalf of J. Minet, Fector & Co. bank, I should like to express our sincerest of wishes for the future success of this fine establishment.’ With a nod, he placed his top hat back onto his head and strode off in the direction of Dover.
At last, Ann could relax. She exhaled at length, releasing her taut stomach muscles, and watching with dismay as her shawl protruded out in front of her. Had Mr Claringbould noticed her little secret? she wondered. Now four months gone, it was becoming almost impossible to hide. The only person in whom she had confided had been Miss Bowler, who had taken the news surprisingly well, with a blithe and diplomatic, ‘You have lived a varied and vibrant life, Ann; you have seen, I am sure, the best and worst of our society and the manner in which it operates. Use that knowledge to strive to bring your child into a different world to that into which you were born.’ Miss Bowler had tactfully skirted—as she always did—the issue of Ann’s early life, at which she had only ever hinted during their weekly sessions.
The chill from a flurry of overnight snow pervaded the early morning air and began to leach the heat from Ann’s blood. She looked at the closed door, then down at the key in her hand; a sharp feeling of disbelief that she actually owned the inn prevented her from moving.
‘Come on, Ann,’ she whispered to herself, her left foot stepping down into the untrodden snow with undue cautiousness, as though there might be something lurking unseen underfoot. She took another pace to the door, her breath reaching forwards as she raised the key to the lock.
A drift of snow, whipped and buffeted from the sea wind last night, gracefully arced upwards from the ground in a smooth curve, hugging tightly to the base of the door, as Ann turned the key and swung the door wide.
Inside was no warmer. In fact, there was a coldness to the air which carried with it a sense of permanence, despite the fact that it had been vacant for just a small handful of weeks. She glanced at the fire, catching a glimpse, through the open space, of the bar on the other side. The fire grate was unsurprisingly empty, containing just a small pile of ash and a stubborn chunk of blackened wood.
Ann stood still, twisting slowly around to soak up the place fully. It had been left furnished, but without any alcohol, something George Ransley had promised to rectify, as soon as she be ready.
Another smile erupted on her face; the cause of this one not being found in an amazement at what she had achieved, but rather in relief at the realisation that she was free once again. Free from the Aldington Gang, free from the Walnut Tree Inn and free from Braemar Cottage.
Small rippling echoes from Ann’s boots on the stone floor predicted her steady progress through the building to the wooden staircase. She shivered as she began to climb the stairs, all the while feeling as though she were an intruder. Upstairs were three rooms of a comfortable size. The vendor’s definition of furnished was stretched to the extreme up here: one room was entirely empty and with bare floorboards; another held a Windsor chair, a thin bedstead, dresser, wardrobe and an old threadbare rug; the third contained an empty wooden tea chest and what looked like a discarded mahogany table with three legs, which rested on the apex where the fourth leg had presumably once been. Somehow, the sparseness motivated and excited her all the more: anything she did to improve the place, any new furniture which she might purchase, would all be her own.
Ann returned to the room with the bedstead: her bedroom, she decided. It was a curious and strange feeling to have possessions, now. She had spent her entire life owning nothing at all but the clothes in which she had stood. Now she had an entire business and her own home. She stooped down to look through the leaded windows, but a layer of thick grime, compounded with the fresh falling snow, gave little view to the outside. She could just make out the indistinct movement of horses and carts as they rattled past on the busy Dover-to-Folkestone road.
Ann shivered as she left the room and made her way back downstairs. She stood, an elbow resting on the wooden bar top, thinking about her mother and what she would have made of Ann’s success. Her thoughts roamed the maze of indefinable early childhood recollections to the point when her mother had met Isaac Bull, the itinerant apothecary who had taught Ann the rudiments of his trade.
A loud rapping at the door startled Ann, flinging her memories back into the past. She hurried to the door and pulled it open. There, almost as a dark lopsided silhouette against the fast-falling snow, stood James Carter, squinting against the blizzard.
‘You be a-picking a beautiful day for this,’ he said, his voice echoing in the room behind her.
‘Shall we be doing it another time?’ Ann said, quickly standing to one side and gesturing for him to come in.
James shrugged, but did not move. ‘Now be as good a time as any…’
‘Let’s go, then,’ Ann said,
