I had always been fascinated by the treasures the cabinet held, shells in which you could hear the sea, a tiny turtle shell, butterflies with wings of brilliant blue. But the moment I saw the alligator I burst into tears, believing it to be real. It looked very angry and not at all pleased to be stuffed.
‘It is only a baby alligator,’ said my father, holding it for me to see. ‘It will not bite.’
I would not go near it. I knew it was secretly waiting until we had left the room and then it would come alive.
This thought terrified me so much and gave me such nightmares that Danes would light all the candles to make sure that the alligator would not come in. She never said I was being a ninny, not once, and secretly I felt she was as scared of that alligator as I.
Winter finally departed and spring arrived, catching everyone by surprise. Windows were thrown wide open and carpets were taken outside and beaten, as if our house were a great blanket being shaken free of its fleas. Everything was washed and polished until the house smelt of lavender and beeswax, with bunches of fresh flowers filling the rooms. All our clothes were aired, our linens were cleaned and Master Thankless the tailor was sent for. New gowns were ordered and old gowns altered.
In amongst all this excitement a very strange thing happened. A parcel was left outside our garden gate. No name was written on it and there was no indication of where it was from. The mysterious package was brought inside and left on the hall table to be claimed. Every time I saw it sitting there I would feel a tingle of excitement.
Finally my mother opened it, carefully looking for any clues as to who might have sent it. Inside was the most beautiful pair of child-size silver shoes. They had tiny silver stitches on them and the letter C embroidered on their soles. I knew they were meant for me.
‘Can I put them on?’ I said, jumping up and down with joy.
My mother said nothing, but took the silver shoes over to the window to examine them. They shimmered and glimmered as if they were made out of glass. They whispered to me, ‘Slip us on your dainty feet.’
‘Please,’ I said, pulling at my mother’s skirts, ‘let me.’
‘I think not,’ said my mother quietly. She took them back to the table and much to my surprise wrapped them up again.
Seeing them disappear like that was almost too much to bear. I felt my heart would surely break if they could not be mine.
‘They are meant for me,’ I said desperately. ‘They have the letter C sewn on their soles. C is for Coriander.’
‘I said no,’ said my mother. Her voice had a sharpness to it that I had never heard before. It alarmed me, for I could not understand why such a wonderful present should make her so out of humour.
‘I am sorry, Coriander,’ she said, softening, ‘but these shoes are not for you. Let that be an end to it.’
An end it was not. It was the beginning.
I felt the loss of the shoes like a hunger that would not go away. I knew they were still in the house. I was sure I could sometimes hear them calling me, and when I followed the sound it always led me to the door of my father’s study.
As it turned out, it was not the alligator that I should have been scared of, but the silver shoes. They came from a land no ship can sail to, a place that is not marked on any map of the world. Only those who belong there can ever find it.
3
The Silver Shoes
Something changed in my mother after the silver shoes arrived. She seemed worried and would not let me out of her sight. Then another strange thing happened. I was playing in the garden. The Roundheads were trying to catch me so I had hidden out of sight under the garden bench: I had to, because I was a royal prince disguised as a girl. It was a good place to hide. No one knew I was there, not even the Roundheads, and this way I got to listen to all sorts of grown-up conversations, my mother having many friends and visitors who came to ask her for advice and remedies.
Honestly, I had no idea that the heart could cause such trouble and strife. It could be broken and still mend. It could be wounded and still heal. It could be given away and still returned, lost and still found. It could do all that and still you lived, though according to some, only just.
Mistress Patience Tofton was one of the visitors. I had not been listening that much until I heard the name Robert Bedwell. Then my ears pricked up, because I often played with his sons. They lived just down the river from us in Thames Street. He must, I supposed, have had a wife once and the boys a mother, but I had no memory of her.
Patience Tofton was all words and tears.
‘He will be wanting a wife of letters,’ she wept bitterly, ‘a younger wife than me. I am too long a spinster.’
That was the silliest thing to say. Why, Master Bedwell was no spring chicken himself. He would be pleased to know that Patience Tofton, who was pretty, with fair hair and all her own teeth, should like him at all.
I peeped out from under the bench. My mother was talking to her kindly and softly, her words lost to me, and she kissed Patience on both cheeks.
‘It will be all right, then?’ asked Patience, getting up to leave.
I leapt out from my hiding place and said, ‘Of course he will marry you! Do not take too long about it. Your two children are keen to be born.’
After I said it I thought perhaps I should not have. It took Patience Tofton by surprise, I can tell you. She went a greenish white, then fainted, falling like a bush that has been chopped down.
I went into the house, thinking it best to disappear until I heard the click of the garden gate. Then I looked out of my bedchamber window to see Master Bedwell helping Mistress Tofton home.
Later that day my mother came and sat on my bed.
‘What made you say that to Patience?’ she asked.
‘I know not,’ I said, for in truth I did not. ‘I just know that she will marry Master Bedwell on Midsummer’s Day and they will have a son and a daughter.’
‘That is all?’
‘Yes,’ I said, giving it some thought. ‘Well, that much I feel certain about.’
‘Coriander,’ said my mother, looking into my eyes, ‘you are like me. But remember, you must keep your thoughts away from your tongue.’
‘I will never say another word about any of the thoughts I have tumbling in my head,’ I said apologetically.
‘That would be a pity,’ laughed my mother. ‘Let us agree that you can tell them to me and your father and Danes, but no one else.’
‘So can I have the silver shoes?’
‘No, Coriander. Believe me, they are not the right shoes for you.’ She sounded so sad. ‘I had shoes like those once. I walked in them for seventeen years. I want you to have different shoes, shoes of your own choosing, not shoes that will take you where you should not be going.’
‘But they are of my choosing,’ I cried. ‘I want them.’
‘Oh Coriander, you are not old enough to understand,’ said my mother. ‘You must trust me. I know what is best for you.’
But what could be better than the silver shoes?
In our family much was made of the anniversary of my birth, and I was given presents to mark the day. This year my mother had arranged for us to take our barge upriver. I woke early on the day and lay in bed as the sunlight reflected watery shadows round my chamber, listening to the street criers as they made their way to the bridge. As soon as the watchman called the hour I ran down the corridor towards my mother and father’s bedchamber. I felt like a top spinning with excitement.
‘Today is my day! Wake up!’ I cried. I pulled back the drapes on the huge oak four-poster bed and jumped into the middle of it.
‘I know it,’ laughed my father. ‘And the street knows it too.’ He leant down and brought out a box from under the bed.
I opened the box with trembling fingers. I was sure I knew what was in it. And there they were: plain, dead, heavy silver leather shoes. A sad imitation, a hopeless copy. Nothing like the silver shoes that had been left by the garden gate.
I felt tears welling up in my eyes and a lump in my throat.
‘I am sorry, poppet,’ said my father. ‘You cannot have those shoes. We hoped you would be happy with these instead.’
I climbed out of bed, all the excitement of the day gone, fighting back tears of disappointment.
‘Try them on,’ said my mother.
I did. They hurt and pinched my toes. I turned to leave, feeling miserable.
‘Coriander,’ called my mother. I looked back into the bedchamber. The floor had become a sea and the bed a ship, seen from a great distance. I could hear their voices calling me from far away. It lasted a minute or less. Maybe I dreamt it. Maybe I did not. It was an image that came to haunt me, and I have often wondered what would have happened if I had done as I was told and left the silver shoes alone. Would everything then have been all right?
I made my way slowly and sadly back to my bedchamber, where Danes was waiting to dress me.
‘Ah, what is the long face for, my little sparrow?’ she said. ‘Do you not like your new shoes?’
I said nothing.
‘Oh well, you will not be wanting your present from me, then,’ said Danes, taking out from her apron pocket a parcel tied up with silk ribbon. Inside was a sewing box in the shape of a frog, beautifully embroidered, with needles, a thimble and a tiny pair of scissors as well as a fabric book of all the different stitches. So thrilled was I that for a moment I forgot my grief over the shoes.
I was left alone with my little parcel while Danes went to attend to my mother. I could hear my father calling for hot water, and the silver shoes calling for me. For a moment I thought I must have imagined it, yet I could see where the call was coming from as if it were a wisp of smoke from my father’s pipe. I got up and followed it down the stairs to the study.
‘Coriander, Coriander, slip us on your dainty feet.
We are waiting, soft and silver, we will dance you down the street.’
I stood there listening, and finally I took my trembling courage in both hands and opened the door.
The study was dark. The alligator stood unmoving and all-seeing, king of the ebony cabinet, the key on its ribbon hanging out invitingly over his teeth.
I closed the door and stood with my back against it, my hand still on the handle, my heart beating like a drum. Quietness filled the room. There I stood. A decision had to be made. Did I have the courage to do this? I told myself that I did. I just wanted to see the shoes one more time, that was all.
I tried to move a chair over to the cabinet so that I could climb up and reach the key. The chair was far too heavy so I dragged it instead, as quietly as a chair can be dragged, then waited to make sure no one had heard me. I climbed up. Standing on tiptoe I was faced with the alligator. He looked more frightening close up, as if at any minute he would spring into action.
Did I really want to see the shoes that much? Oh yes, I did, and more. I half shut my eyes. Shaking with fear, I reached into the alligator’s mouth and grabbed the key. If the alligator snapped his jaw shut I did not feel it, I did not see it.
I climbed down and opened the cabinet. Inside were many tiny drawers beautifully inlaid with cedarwood. I was not sure which one to choose.
I stood very still holding my breath and then I heard it again, this time no more than a whisper.
‘Coriander, Coriander.’
I pulled open a drawer at the bottom and there they were, the most magical pair of shoes in the world. They were like glass. They were like diamonds. They were like stars.
Oh, I thought, what harm if I just tried them on?
The shoes fitted as if they were made for me. I stood marvelling at their beauty. How long I stood like that, I do not know. It must have been some time because to my alarm I heard my name being called, and not in a whisper.
‘Coriander, Coriander! Where is the child?’
I quickly tried to take the shoes off, but they would not leave my feet. It was as if they were attached to me. In a panic of getting found out, I managed to close the drawer and put the key back into the alligator’s mouth just before Danes opened the door.
‘Coriander, what are you doing here, you ninny?’ she said. ‘We have been looking high and low for you. Come, the barge is about to leave.’
The good thing about living by the river was that we had our very own water gate and mooring, so that there were proper steps down to our barge. Therefore there was no need to lift my skirt too high, and my shoes went unnoticed. I told myself that in the evening I would take them off and put them back, but just for today they would be mine.
We were rowed upriver past Whitehall, where the city gives way to open fields and pastures, the water losing its look of mercury and becoming clearer like the air. There in a meadow full of flowers our bargemen pulled the boat out of the river up on to the bank. Everyone then set to the task of making a day of doing nothing as comfortable as could be. Baskets of food were put under the trees, bottles of wine left to chill in the water and fishing lines set up for those in need of some sport.
While all this was going on I slipped away out of sight and sat down on a grassy bank, hoping that this time the shoes would come off. I pulled at them, and they slipped off with no trouble at all. I thought that I must have imagined they would not come off. I put them safely under some leaves where I knew no one would find them.
My mother too took off her shoes and stockings and, lifting her skirts, chased me round the meadow, her hair coming down, my cap flying off as we ran round and round until we fell in a heap of giggles. I made her daisy chains and found flowers for her hair. I paddled in the river, watched little fishes swim over my toes, was twirled like a windmill in my father’s arms.
The day drifted past. It was time to retrieve my silver shoes. I was careful to keep my skirt well pulled down as we lay under the oak tree on an array of rugs and cushions like Roman emperors, eating our feast with dappled sunshine for our candles. My father had even arranged for three musicians to play sweet songs to us. In all this enjoyment I forgot what I had done until much later, when we were once more homeward bound.
The night rolled in over the river and stole the day away. The watermen lit lanterns on their boats so that the river twinkled and danced with lights. I was sleepy after such a wonderful day of fresh air and food.
My mother said suddenly and sharply, ‘Coriander, where did you get those shoes?’
I was immediately wide awake and realised to my horror that my shoes were showing.
‘I...’ I stammered. I knew I was in trouble. ‘I am sorry, but the other shoes pinched.’
‘That was naughty,’ said my mother, looking disappointed.
‘You mean to say,’ said my father, who had his arm round me, ‘that you got up on a chair and put your hand in the alligator’s mouth to get the key?’
I nodded.
‘Well, well. I am impressed. Quite a brave thing to do for someone as scared of that alligator as you.’
My mother said nothing and looked away. I knew she was not pleased.
‘Oh, Eleanor my love,’ said my father, ‘I know she should not have done it, but it is Coriander’s day. Why not let her have the shoes and be done with it? I think she has earned them.’
‘They are the best pair of shoes I have ever worn,’ I said. I felt so excited that I hardly dared move in case he should change his mind.
My mother turned and stared at the shoes. ‘They came off easily?’ she asked me.
‘Yes, they did,’ I replied. I was not telling the truth.
‘There. Perhaps we are just making too much of it,’ said my father. ‘What harm can come from a pair of shoes?’
My mother said, ‘Plenty, and you know it, Thomas.’
4
Raven’s Wings
I was still reeling from my triumph of having been given the silver shoes. My mother had said no more about them and I knew I had been forgiven. They were mine and that was all that mattered. I was determined to wear them the
next day when I went with Danes on her usual errands.
‘They will be ruined in all that mud and muck,’ sighed Danes, tucking my hair into my cap and patting down my skirt. I was not going to say so, but I knew her to be right. My shoes were not suited to the rude streets of London.
‘No, they will not. They are magic shoes,’ I told her.
‘Magic, are they?’ said Danes, getting down the wicker basket from the shelf in the kitchen. We were going to take some potions to a cloth merchant’s wife who lived in a house on the bridge and had had much trouble of late.
My mother came into the room with a bunch of herbs.
‘You are not going in those shoes, my love, are you?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said stubbornly, ‘I am.’
‘They will be ruined.’
‘They are never going to be ruined,’ I assured her, ‘because I put a magic charm on them this morning.’
‘Do you not think,’ said my mother, smiling and bending down, ‘it would be better if you put a charm on them so that they always bring you safely home?’
We both looked at my shoes and studied them solemnly for a moment or two.
‘Very pretty,’ said my mother at last. ‘I once -’ she began, but then she stopped what she was saying and gave me a kiss. ‘Off you go.’
It was, I remember, a pleasant spring morning with the promise of heat. The narrow street at the front of our house was full of people bustling and jostling, making their way towards the bridge. I held tightly to Danes’s hand. Not being very tall, all I could see were skirts and legs coming towards me and pushing past me. Hawkers, apprentices and watermen were shouting. Then into the mix of noise and people came a gaggle of hissing geese. They sounded like a hundred fish-women arguing over the price of their wares. I pulled on Danes’s apron and begged her to carry me. I found geese worrying.