She followed the crowd of buyers and browsers up the wide steps and through the imposing double doors. Her mind kept traveling to times past, imagining the footmen and butlers and maids scurrying about as the upper classes, dressed in their finery, went about their glamorous lives. How many important aristocrats had visited this house? How many giggling girls had swept out of the entrance in rustling silk gowns, hurrying down the steps to waiting carriages that would whisk them away to grand balls in other equally grand houses? How many messengers had hammered on those very doors bearing news from the Napoleonic Wars, or details of the Crimean campaign, or updates on the health of the king or queen of the day? So much history was held within those fabulous walls. So many lives lived to the rhythms of bygone eras, so many hearts beating to times spent and gone. She realized that she was experiencing more than a pleasant bit of daydreaming; she was yearning for the past. It was as if her Spinner self craved it. As if the past were a long-lost lover and she felt the separation keenly. Xanthe knew, if she was completely honest with herself, that she was hoping something at the sale would sing to her. More than hoping, she was praying for it, to whatever deity watched over Spinners and their journeys. She needed a found thing to call her back. She accepted that she was no longer waiting for something to find her; she was actively, fervently seeking it out.
The entrance hall was no less jaw-droppingly splendid than the exterior of the house. She tried to take it all in: the grand staircase, the larger than life-sized portraits, the marble floors … she made herself dizzy twisting her head this way and that, trying to see everything while still moving on toward the ballroom where the auction would take place. She felt annoyed with herself for not having come to the viewing day, which would have allowed her plenty of time to examine the lots before the bidding started. She had thought that studying the catalogue would be good enough, but now she began to doubt the wisdom of that. The house was vast. There would be so many interesting things to see, and little time in which to examine them properly. And now that she had arrived late she had put herself at a further disadvantage. She moved to a corner of the hallway and pulled the catalogue from her bag, flicking to the second page to remind herself of the most imminent lots that she had marked out. She was interrupted by a familiar voice at her shoulder.
“Ah, the lovely Xanthe Westlake. Such prettiness in such sublime surroundings, dear heart. My morning is complete.” Theo Hamilton greeted her with his customary effusiveness. On this occasion he sported a mustard velvet jacket with polka-dot cravat at his throat.
“Looking dapper as ever, Theo.” She put on her best smile. “Are you here for something in particular or just hunting for the unexpected?”
“A little of both. I confess I am in love with a Louis XIV chiffonier. Alas, I fear it will be hotly contested.” He turned to wave pointedly to another dealer on the far side of the hall. “So I must allow myself to be the plaything of serendipity. I will go where I am sent.”
She smiled at how flippantly Theo threw out the idea of chance leading him to the best buys when she herself was the one who could be pulled irresistibly to certain items. It was as she formed this thought that she became aware of a slight dizziness and the sound of distant bells ringing. The dizziness could be explained by an insufficient breakfast, or it could be the start of an object singing to her. The bells were a surprise, not only because she had never been called by such a sound before, but because she now realized they were the same bells she had heard when leaving The Feathers. The pealing she had taken for her mother and her friends practicing at St. Mark’s had in fact been an aural glimpse of something that was singing to her. It made sense, now, that they had sounded odd on that occasion. Something in that great house, about to be auctioned. But what? And where? She needed to shake off Theo and start searching.
“Well, don’t let me keep you from those happy discoveries,” she told him, moving toward the ballroom.
Theo was not to be so easily got rid of. “But tell me, darling girl, how is your mother? The shop still afloat?” Without waiting for an answer he went on. “I bumped into your father the other day. I must say his auction house goes from strength to strength. I paid a ruinous price for a chaise. He must be fair raking it in. I mentioned how I had run into you at Great Chalfield and found you buying such charmingly girlish things. A chatelaine, wasn’t it? How much did you part with for that piece? Remind me.”
“More than I should have,” said Xanthe without missing a beat. “Luckily for me we sold it for a seriously masculine profit. Now, I’m sorry, Theo, but I have other soppy purchases to make.”
“Bon chance!” he called after her as she strode away.
She ground her teeth, determined not to let the man provoke her into a bad mood. The bells in her head were now accompanied by a high-pitched buzzing, and the dizziness had increased. At the entrance to the ballroom she paused at the pop-up desk to get her bidding number and paddle, before hurrying to the far side of the enormous room, which was already filled with eager auction goers. She cast about frantically for a sign of what could be calling to her, but there were too many people to see much, apart from the lots which were being taken up onto the temporary stage where the auctioneer sat. She found a spot against the wall and opened her catalogue again, flicking through to see if there was something that could be triggering such a strong response. She was relieved that at least this time, despite the unusual sounds, there did not seem to be the awful fear and dread attached to the object as there had been to the chatelaine. Nor was there even the urgency with which the chocolate pot had sung to her. This found thing, whatever it was, appeared to be announcing its presence with strength, importance, clarity, and insistence, as the sensations and sounds were growing more powerful by the moment.
Xanthe found the mysterious object in the catalogue at the exact moment the auctioneer announced it, so that he appeared to be reading over her shoulder, causing her to shiver. There was no photograph with this particular lot, which was why she had not noticed it when she had first gone through the listings. She looked up as the auctioneer spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen, a beautiful lot here,” he intoned in his calm, professional voice. He pointed his gavel to the right as the assistant held up the item. There was a collective gasp in the room. Even the stony hearts of the dealers could not fail to be moved by the delicate beauty of the antique wedding dress in front of them. “An Edwardian wedding gown, believed to date around 1908. The lace is still in fair condition, showing some repairs. The embroidered bodice is particularly fine … what am I bid? Who’ll start me at 300 pounds? Anyone?”
In the pause that followed, Xanthe’s head was filled with a cacophony of bells, along with the more familiar high notes in which her found things usually sang to her. The dizziness continued and was accompanied by a slight blurring of her vision, into which fragments of images danced. She glimpsed a face, flowers, a swirl of water, a sweep of lawn, each snatched vision tumbling one upon the other in just that brief moment.
The auctioneer continued.
“I have 275 pounds on the internet, who’ll give me 300 pounds? Thank you, 300 pounds I have. And fifty. 400 pounds. And fifty…”
Xanthe craned her neck to try to spot the bidder. It seemed to be a two-way tussle between a buyer on the net and another in the room. The piece was climbing with alarming speed. She held her nerve, waiting until the first bidder dropped out. At £500 she made her move.