The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin

by Tobin, Sophia

  She looked up at the ceiling, and took a breath. Above her was a painting of a classical scene, in a frame of carved plaster, of such richness and complexity that she could not take it all in. ‘Jupiter,’ said Mr Chichester. Beneath the god’s feet was a golden sunburst, from which hung a rain of crystal drops: an enormous chandelier, its diamond-cut drops ready to reflect the light of a hundred candles.

  ‘You will see it lit,’ he said. He stopped half a yard from her, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘Breathtaking, isn’t it? Not quite Devonshire House or Lansdowne House, but still a miniature work of art. All my aunt’s work. She lived here alone, you know, for many years after her husband died.’

  And she was a miser in the servants’ bedrooms, thought Joanna, who had fought to have even a small table in her room. One woman: all these candles, all this damask, all this gold and glass. One woman to breathe this air. The pleasure she had taken in the room curdled. ‘How is your aunt, sir?’ she said.

  ‘Tolerably well, but not well enough to return to London,’ he said. ‘She dictated a letter commanding me to open up the grand rooms and use them. She says she has seen nothing of me in the London papers, and is disappointed. As her favourite nephew, I must obey her commandments. A small gathering and a long letter would satisfy her. I only just ordered for the dust covers to be taken off the furniture.’ He put his hand on the gilt carved arm of one of the chairs. ‘Extraordinary.’ His head bowed, he looked up at Joanna. ‘I see you appreciate beauty,’ he said. ‘I admit I am rather fearful of ladies and their teacups around these silks.’

  ‘What kind of gathering, sir?’ said Joanna, mentally running through Harriet’s gowns and their suitability for such an occasion.

  ‘I think a hundred for tea and bread and butter one evening won’t do any harm,’ he said. ‘Will my wife manage that, do you think? Are two hours of pleasantries within her power?’

  Joanna curtseyed.

  ‘I did not mean to burden you, the other evening,’ he said.

  ‘Please, sir, do not think of it,’ she said.

  ‘I have confidence in you, that is all,’ he said. He smiled, and his face looked boyish, despite the formality of his fine clothes. ‘I would like to think of us as allies. I will be away for a few days. Some urgent business. Mrs Holland tells me my wife has been eating oysters by the barrel, and I can only surmise that she is perhaps not looking after herself and the baby as she should.’

  Nasty old bitch, that Holland, thought Joanna. She said nothing.

  ‘While I am away, watch my wife,’ he said. ‘Perhaps make a note of what she eats, and what she asks for; her general health. Please see that she eats nourishing food, suitable for her condition. It would do me good to know there is someone caring for her in that way.’ He put his hand on hers briefly; the heat of his touch warmed her cold skin. ‘I trust you, Joanna,’ he said. ‘You will have whatever you wish for: extra fires, ink, paper, more candles. Things that befit your status in this house.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Joanna.

  When Harriet returned, she was in a sulk. ‘I saw Miss Williams at church,’ she said as she walked past Joanna, who followed her up the stairs. ‘I had thought I would be alone, at that time of day. That I might confess,’ she stopped, smiled, and leaned into Joanna’s ear, ‘like a Papist.’

  Joanna smiled, and immediately felt the expression did not suit her; it was an indication of guilt. ‘How was she?’ she said, tempering it.

  ‘She looked very fine,’ said Harriet. ‘She wore a green silk gown with silver lace, and a green ribbon a mile long threaded through her hair beneath an enormous hat. Her curls were tumbling everywhere. She put me quite in the shade.’

  ‘But, madam, you always look so beautiful,’ said Joanna, mechanically. The familiarity of it soothed her. Flattery had been one of her first lessons, learned when she was still sewing ribbons on to bonnets in a milliner’s shop. Now she flattered like an automaton, and so convincingly that even she didn’t consider herself a liar. It was a duty she had to perform well, that was all. ‘If you wish, we can experiment with the curls, but I think the more structured look you have now suits you very prettily indeed.’

  Harriet had picked up a letter that had been placed on her table. She took her gloves off and threw them on the bed, then broke it open and began to read. She put a hand to her mouth.

  ‘My own mother,’ she said, looking up. Her voice vibrated, but no tears came. ‘She writes to me as though I am a stranger; and she knows I live through my letters.’

  Joanna remembered Harriet, hunched over her secretaire, writing laboriously: words, and more words, her lips moving.

  ‘A few lines on duty, and that is all she has to say to me,’ she said. ‘And the letter is closed by my father, on money matters. At least my husband will be pleased.’

  She got up and walked backwards and forwards by the bed, then threw herself down in the chair. Joanna went to her, took off her hat, and unpinned the lace. She made her hands gentle, knowing how to soothe without words. Harriet’s voice had stopped on a little break, but no, she would not cry: it was simply her voice, so overly expressive, as though she had a perpetual sore throat. ‘She sees me as a family portrait now,’ she said. ‘That is all. What comes after I have done my duty? Nothing, it seems.’

  ‘Your mother will write again soon,’ Joanna said, softness and briskness mixed together to make her sound definite. ‘I hope, in the interim, to be of some comfort to you, though I am but a poor substitute.’ You are a wifely scion now, she thought. I have waited a long time for you to turn from child to adult, and now you have realized the truth in mere moments. She wondered what exactly Harriet had written to her mother; she was sure it had not been too much, for Harriet was in awe of the woman. She certainly would not have breathed even a hint of her connection with Monsieur Renard.

  Harriet went to her dressing table and laid her hand on one of the silver boxes. ‘I have done what they asked of me,’ she said. ‘I wear the diamonds my father bought from some poor purse-empty family. He thinks to make us an old family, but you cannot do that so quickly, can you? My father’s house in Northumberland covers acres, but not the house my mother was raised in. My grandmother was a fearsome woman, but practical, with forty keys swinging from her chatelaine. Counting the provisions, counting and mending the linens, supervising the cooking. Even her recipes were kept under lock and key. She ran the house in every sense; she was of use.’ She stopped. ‘What did your mother do?’

  ‘She was my mother,’ said Joanna. ‘I don’t remember.’ She didn’t dare to utter the truth: father a bookbinder, mother a drudge, apprenticed to a milliner at fourteen. One never knew when some stray remark would be taken up against you, especially when you had submitted a false character. Joanna had scrubbed enough floors to last a lifetime; she was determined to keep this place.

  Harriet looked at her for a long time. ‘I knew, Joanna, the moment I saw you, and Mama knew too. There was a goodness about you, a steadiness. She left you here for my comfort.’

  Joanna said nothing. She folded the lace into its paper.

  ‘That woman, Mama said, will guide you, will keep you as you need to be for Mr Chichester. I never told you that till now because it made me sad to think I should need chaperoning. I was a little afraid of you when you arrived.’

  Something like dread turned in Joanna.

  ‘But then, how could Mama be expected to stay near me?’ said Harriet. ‘It would be impossible. I am the first of her children to go out into the world, I must lead the others by showing an example of perfection. There are eight of us, you know.’ She paused. ‘Eight living, that is.’

  Joanna felt the knowledge break over her that while she congratulated herself on being the perfect servant, she had failed in something. She had been entrusted with something and she had not realized it. She had been given a child in Harriet, a child that would have to be a lady, handed over by her tired mother.

  ‘What must it have been
like to live my grandmother’s life?’ said Harriet again. There was no sharpness in her tone, only insistence.

  ‘I would not know,’ said Joanna.

  ‘I wish I did. I thought myself sensible until I came to London,’ said Harriet. ‘But my head was so easily turned. The clothes, the entertainments. So many whispers, so much gossip. And then, him.’ She looked at her hands. ‘I did not see the man. Only the name, only what a prize he would be, and for my family too. I was pointed at him; I looked at no other. We were engaged within a few days. I made it so easy for him. I try to remember if he ever smiled at me – I think he must have done, once. He must have done, surely? But if he did, I cannot remember it. One brief season of merriment. And now, my world is this house. A prison of the most exquisite kind.’

  ‘Have you been reading those novels again?’ said Joanna, wondering which of the servants she had sent to get books.

  ‘I see it all,’ said Harriet. ‘I know it is beautiful. My mother gasped when she first saw it, and I did too. I thought it would make me the wife my husband wishes me to be. That it would flow through me, make me of itself, in the way that other things do. But it does not touch me: I rebound off it; I am temporary.’

  ‘I will fetch you a drink,’ said Joanna. ‘Sit here, be quiet.’

  Do not fight life and the path it takes you, she thought. Do not waste your energy, beating against the beautiful enclosure of your jewelled box; and she felt something like pity stir in her heart.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  19th June, 1792

  To the Chichesters again, with more designs, adapted for the lady. I admit they are taking up much of my time for new customers. I know it will be a long time before I am paid for this service, but the wife is an enchanting creature. It does my heart good to see her. She has the bluest eyes I have ever seen, so bright and innocent; there is nothing haggard about her, she is unsullied, and seems to walk always in sunshine.

  I cannot look at my wife without a pain in my guts, as though I have drunk bad wine; whereas Taylor remarks on her delicacy, her feeling, as though it is some admirable quality, I see only how her imagined cares (what cares does she have, when a woman is as lucky as she?) have left their mark on her face.

  Daylight had long left the winter sky when Mary Renard’s household was woken by a small fist hammering on her front door. Mary was sitting in the chair by the fire’s embers. She heard Grisa open the front door, and begin a tirade of some sort. When she arrived at the top of the stairs she wondered whether she was dreaming, seeing Grisa remonstrating with a small figure, all the time wearing the most extraordinary red embroidered headgear.

  ‘What a fine nightcap you have, Mr Grisa,’ she said, as she came down the stairs, before she noticed that he was reprimanding her nephew, Matthew. Luckily, Matthew was his mother’s son, and did not heed Grisa’s annoyance, or look impressed by him. He only waited dispassionately for his aunt to descend the stairs. ‘You shoulda locked him in,’ he said when she reached him, nodding in the direction of Grisa.

  ‘What is it, my love?’ she said.

  ‘Ma’s going through her chests, throwing things out,’ he said. ‘She wanted you to have this. Said it was urgent. Says it will make you feel better, Aunt Mary.’ And he handed her a letter.

  There was just enough light to see him run off along the pocked surface of the stone paving flags. A fine drizzle was falling and as she stood in the doorway Mary heard a watchman’s rattle sound in the distance.

  ‘Inside if you please, before we are all murdered in our beds,’ snapped Grisa. He pulled the door shut and heaved the bar up. A faint smell of smoked mackerel still hung in the air, a reminder of their dinner.

  ‘How like Mallory,’ said Avery from the top of the stairs. ‘Sending the poor child out at night. Could she not have waited until morning?’ She padded off to bed.

  ‘Poor child?’ said Grisa after her. ‘I pity any soul who gets in his way between here and Piccadilly.’

  Mary went to her parlour, Grisa stamping up to his rooms and slamming the door hard. She sat on the edge of the chair, leaning close to the embers in the fireplace, the only source of light in the room.

  She had seen at once that the address was written in the firm, elegant hand of her mother, the characters sloping forwards. The sight of the familiar, long-stilled hand gave her a jolt, reminding her of the letter burnt by Pierre so long ago. She unfolded the page and read it slowly. It was written after their mother had left London with Eli. It seemed so strange to see a new representation of her mother’s voice. She wrote of preserving vegetables, of a new maid her sister had engaged, and Eli. She smiled as she saw his name. Then, as she read on, her smile faded.

  Tell me how Mary does. I dream of her sometimes. Eli does not say her name any more, nor yours, nor your father’s. He still laughs and plays, but sometimes he sits very still and stares ahead of him, and I know he is wondering where you have all gone. His health is never good, and I fear this loss worsens it.

  I repent of that marriage. We were wrong to have encouraged Pierre Renard, and to have silenced all Mary’s doubts, for he had no kindness for her, and that is the one thing that is always needed in marriage.

  Beneath the last line was fresh ink; Mallory had underlined it. So you all knew, Mary thought, remembering their blank faces when she had wavered in her resolve to marry Pierre. How her parents and Mallory had looked at her: uncomprehending, puzzled, a wall of faces. Their lack of expression had silenced her, so there was only the noise of Eli playing in the background, and the clatter of the charwoman’s pail as he upturned it.

  ‘He will provide for you,’ said her father on the night before her wedding. ‘I am convinced of it, my dear.’ He had kissed her on the forehead, and turned to watch her as she began to climb the stairs by the light of one candle. ‘You said you liked him, when you met him that first time.’

  She knew that Mallory had sent the letter to comfort her. But the image of Eli sitting on the floor, cross-legged, his blue eyes looking into the middle distance, hit her deeper than she could have anticipated. The letter was clasped tight in her hand now; carefully, she spread it out on her lap, and smoothed it. Then she pushed up the sleeve of her black bombazine dress. The bruises were fading; they were now pale yellow. She hardly knew why, but she could not bear for them to fade completely. She could only think, ‘not yet’, and press her index finger into each of the faint circles. She needed to keep Eli with her a little longer; to make his memory stronger in her mind than that of a destroyed letter, dissolving in flames. He was with her, watching the carriages and the people going up and down Bond Street; he was urging her to live.

  Before he began his evening’s work, Digby went to Half Moon Street with the intention of speaking to Maynard. The man’s interest in Renard was vexing him, and he had resolved to know more. He was angry that he had allowed himself to be intimidated. He walked with a purposeful briskness, not wrapping himself against the damp evening air but keeping his head up and shoulders back, as though his proud gait would invest his old clothes with some kind of dignity. They were well enough, he supposed; he paid a woman in his lodgings to keep them well-mended, and was proud of his shirts. But they were not the kind of clothes he longed to wear; plain broadcloth, rather than the rich damasks, satins and figured velvets that gentlemen such as Maynard enjoyed, and the thought of meeting with his insistent patron made him feel even poorer.

  As he neared Maynard’s house, his bravado began to drain away. He pulled his collar high so that his face was half-hidden. A couple of fine carriages passed him, and there were several sedan chairs carrying people to their clubs and to engagements. He passed one containing an old woman, her face white with powder and fur around her neck. She glanced at him with a mixture of disdain and fear, and he wondered whether she was anxious about the white pearls hanging from her elongated lobes. He almost fancied making a lunge towards her just to see her jump, but she might recognize him, and he had no wish to lose his place.
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br />   Maynard’s house was fine enough; a tall town house of London brick with an imposing door studded with iron. The torches were lit, and a carriage waited outside it, the horse twitching its tail this way and that. Digby bit his lip and surrendered, turning away. He was unable to imagine himself mounting the steps and knocking on the door, but he had no wish to go around to the back of the house, and face the curious stares of the servants, for he was a free man, he thought, not a servant. He began to cough, and as he fought it, trying to catch his breath, the front door opened, and Maynard came out.

  Digby took a step back, not wanting to be seen. Maynard was dressed for dining out; Digby saw a flash of white and black beneath his greatcoat. The woman that walked beside him Digby took to be Mrs Maynard. Her hair was piled ridiculously high and covered with an enormous confection composed mainly of feathers. But through her grand appearance Digby noticed her eyes: a piercing blue, full of sadness, her fine skin lined, so that she looked older than her husband. She smiled at Maynard as he handed her into the carriage, a smile that spoke of trust and perfect confidence, and it stuck in Digby’s heart.

  Before the carriage even rolled off, Digby walked on, passing through the scent of roses that the woman had left to linger in her wake. He was glad they had not seen him; his heart was beating hard with agitation, and he wanted always to be calm when dealing with Maynard. It was drizzling, and the dampness soaked into his clothes, so that before long his agitation calmed to dull misery.

  When he reached the watch house he found his partner in a rebellious mood. I’m sick of covering for you,’ said Watkin.

  Digby had heard it all before. ‘Quit all your mouthing,’ he said. ‘We can go out now; it’s barely chimed the quarter hour.’