The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin

by Tobin, Sophia

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  12th September, 1792

  Such a day this has been. A day to make me fall on my knees and thank God.

  I went to Berkeley Square this morning. The Chichesters received me in the breakfast room. There was something amiss between them, I could see that at once. She insisted that I make some small alteration to the design of the dressing set and bring it to her that afternoon. As I left she slipped me a note.

  These many changes mean I see you many times, it said; I will be alone this afternoon.

  ‘Now that the French King is dead,’ said Grisa, polishing a set of salts with small, ineffective, fretful movements, ‘all people can talk of is bloodshed and the war with France. no one cares for beauty in such days. Before long, this business will be gone.’ He clicked his fingers and sniffed.

  One of the shop windows had been smashed a few nights before, startling them all as they sat at dinner. Though it was now fixed, out of the house’s inhabitants it had seemed to destabilize Grisa the most; he veered between ecstatic cheerfulness and deep melancholy.

  ‘You are not a companion for a winter’s day,’ said Alban. The window had discomforted him too; he had gone out into the evening, but the culprit was long gone. ‘You are right, trade is quiet, but I am sure things will pick up.’

  He was not so sure. He had not designed a piece of silver in weeks; he had only managed some small repairs in the quiet of the workshop, glad that Benjamin had been given leave to visit his parents. A letter from Dr Taylor had smoothed things out; he was to stay there for several weeks, and luxuriate in his family’s company, for he was one day to own a silversmith’s business in London, and was clearly enjoying some local fame.

  ‘You do the apprentice’s job better than him,’ said Grisa, watching as Alban carefully rearranged a tray of mourning rings, seals and necklaces. Then, the shop manager gave a small, stifled sob, and cast his polishing rag down.

  Alban sighed. Grisa’s theatricality was no fun without Mary to share in his ridiculousness; over the past few weeks they had slowly become allies in the ill-assorted household.

  ‘This is a cursed house,’ said Grisa eventually, obviously annoyed that Alban was ignoring him.

  The word needled Alban; he remembered Jesse saying it. ‘Then why do you stay here?’ he said. ‘Out of loyalty to Mr Renard?’

  ‘I know why you stay here,’ said Grisa, sniffing.

  ‘I have been inside long enough,’ said Alban, with an air of finality, as he pushed the tray of jewellery back on to its shelf. ‘And you have been melancholy long enough. I will get you some of those lozenges you have been asking for.’

  Grisa wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and began polishing again. ‘You are a good friend, Mr Steele,’ he said, with the weakest of smiles.

  It was to be a trial of his new commercial approach, Alban thought, as he walked along Bond Street. It was not far to his intended stop. Mr Jones the apothecary had a shop a few yards down from Renard’s on Bond Street. The shop floor was a fine room: plenty of dark wood, mirrors and gold writing advertising the potions anzd pills Jones sold, for he specialized in treatments for fashionable ailments.

  Jones was a man who seemed to speak in swirls, and it was unclear whether he had been given this manner by nature or designed it himself. Alban thought he could have listened to his voice, rising and falling like the tides, for hours, for it had a strange musicality, and was often comic.

  ‘Ah, Mr Steele, Mr Steele,’ said Jones. ‘How can I help you? Do you have the headache? Nausea? You can tell me, Mr Steele, if you supped too long with Bacchus last night.’

  Alban laughed. ‘I’ve come to get some of your best lozenges for Mr Grisa,’ he said. ‘He believes himself to be consumptive half the time; and an advert in The Times has convinced him that he will be well if he has your special lozenges.’

  ‘Him, consumptive?’ said Jones, losing a little of his delicate accent. ‘The man grew up in Southwark. He has the constitution of a mule. But who am I to argue with my customers?’ He handed the small packet over with a smile.

  ‘By the by,’ Alban said. He felt uncomfortable, but he hazarded that Pierre Renard would never have faltered at introducing business at any moment. ‘Mr Holt mentioned that he was at dinner with you, and that you have a fine pair of candlesticks from our firm. Do they give satisfaction?’

  The colour drained from Jones’s face. ‘What of it?’ he said. His voice was faint. In the corner of the shop, a lady exclaimed over a pot of vegetable cream for the complexion.

  ‘I wondered only if you cared for any more table wares to match?’ said Alban, worried by the expression of annoyance on the apothecary’s face.

  ‘Not at present,’ said Jones. He raised his voice. ‘In fact, I regret buying them. It is unlikely I will venture to your shop again.’

  ‘Are they faulty?’ said Alban.

  ‘No, not exactly – but they are old-fashioned, heavy French things. I believe I was talked into it by Mr Renard. God rest his soul. He was a friend of mine – and persuasive.’

  ‘Perhaps we could exchange them?’ said Alban, but this evidently dissatisfied Jones. He shook his head and took a step away, smoothing down his hair nervously.

  ‘If you will excuse me, Mr Steele, I have customers to deal with. I wish you a pleasant day.’

  ‘May I pay you for—’

  ‘Just take them,’ said Jones, adding, in a biting undertone, ‘Do not come and see me about this again, and do not – I repeat, do not – mention this to anyone.’

  ‘May we join you, Mr Steele?’ said Mary that evening.

  ‘If you don’t mind watching me polish the stock,’ he said. ‘Mr Grisa began it today, but now he is laid up in bed.’

  The shop was open late, the windows lit by candles, and as Mary walked past him, Alban caught the sweet scent of her.

  Mallory crept down after her, a glass of red wine in her hand, looking rather merrier than usual. Her children’s voices drifted down from upstairs, for they were being expertly cared for by Avery, who tirelessly involved them in conversation and games. Mary and Mallory moved around the shop, looking at pieces together and remarking on them. Mallory draped a chain of graduated amethysts around Mary’s neck; the colour suited her pale skin, and as she turned in the candlelight, her eyes seemed bright in a way Alban had not seen before, so that for a moment he ceased to look at the silver, and put it down on the counter.

  ‘Why do you powder your hair?’ he said. ‘It is such a colour.’

  ‘Would you have me appear like a revolutionary?’ she said, smiling. ‘There are so many hidden things, so many signs. My husband taught me to look out for them, and now I am terrified of many transgressions. I hardly know how to keep up with them. You know how Dr Taylor thinks everyone a radical. If I left my hair as nature intended he would say God save the King every other sentence.’

  ‘He already does,’ he said, and she laughed.

  Recently, their words and looks had begun to fit into each other, a puzzle that was gradually being constructed between them.

  ‘You should not be afraid now,’ he said to her, and saw Mallory tip another mouthful of red wine back.

  There was a knock at the shop door. ‘I’ll go,’ said Mallory, and she went to the door with a heavy step.

  The door opened, banging the bell against the frame, and Dr Taylor peered in. ‘Mrs Renard, Mrs Dunning, Mr Steele,’ he said, removing his hat and bowing. ‘I saw you at the window, Mrs Renard.’ There was a tone of gentle disapproval in his voice. ‘I know Mr Renard always said that you were dazzled by some of the jewels in this shop.’

  ‘We have been surrounded by metal and stones our whole lives,’ said Mallory. ‘They hardly dazzle us, sir.’

  ‘I did not mean to offend you, Mrs Dunning,’ said Taylor. ‘Though I see, as usual, you are quick to jump to it.’

  ‘I will ask for tea,’ said Mary, not daring to catch Alban’s eye, for she knew he found Taylor and Mallory’s
irritation with each other amusing.

  ‘There is no need,’ said Taylor. ‘I simply called to say that I have heard word from Thomas Havering, and I have given him leave to call on you, next week.’

  Silence fell over the room.

  Mallory spoke first. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it is a sensible thing, indeed, for him to visit.’

  ‘You always hated him,’ said Mary to Mallory, undoing the amethyst necklace, and crumpling it into her hands.

  ‘Do you know him well?’ said Taylor. He was leaning on his gold-topped cane, his eyes fixed on the floor.

  ‘A little,’ said Mary. ‘My father did work for him. I used to hide behind his legs when Mr Havering came to call.’

  She wished to add that Pierre had modelled himself on goldsmiths like Havering: bluff, thriving men, who knew how to woo and flatter, but never did anything unless it was to their advantage. She recalled Havering’s square figure, his clothes enriched with gold lace, thick fingers adorned with an indecent number of rings as though he was a walking advertisement for his trade, and a nose that seemed wrinkled with permanent discontent.

  As a child of nine, she had attended the burial of the goldsmith’s first wife, Anne, at a country graveyard in St Pancras. She remembered chiefly the rain falling all around, and Havering expressing the worry that he might have caught a cold. Mary glanced at her sister, but Mallory was finding it hard to look at her, as was Taylor. Only Alban’s eyes were fixed on her face.

  ‘He has spoken warmly of you,’ said Taylor. His voice was trembling slightly. ‘Forgive me; this is an indelicate conversation, but an advantageous marriage, that would take you far away from these dangerous streets . . .’ He let his voice trail off.

  ‘Dr Taylor may have a point,’ said Mallory. ‘I am afraid for you, after everything that has happened.’

  Alban put the ledger down hard on the counter, making everyone jump. ‘Your book, Mrs Renard,’ he said.

  ‘What is this?’ said Taylor.

  ‘I have volunteered to keep the accounts,’ said Mary.

  ‘There is no need for you to involve yourself in the workings of the business,’ he said.

  ‘But I wish to be involved,’ said Mary. ‘My mother was a burnisher, you know. The women in my family were not always so helpless.’

  ‘She writes a fine hand,’ said Alban.

  ‘I say again,’ said Taylor, with a pained expression. ‘There is no need. You must excuse me; Mrs Taylor has held the dinner long enough. Mrs Renard, do think on what I have said.’

  He bowed, and went out on to the street, walking slowly, his eyes fixed on the ground as though he was deep in thought. Mallory brushed her skirts down. ‘Avery must be rescued from the children,’ she said. ‘I have stayed too late. Mary, will you go up and bid them come down to me, if you please?’

  Mary went, biting her lip, her face pale. Mallory put her empty glass down on the counter. She put her hands on her hips, as though she was gathering strength for something.

  ‘Mr Steele,’ she said, ‘you must learn to hide your face, for in your expression I see everything, you know.’

  Alban continued to polish the silver. ‘I do not know,’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘You think me harsh,’ she said, her voice slurring slightly, but only slightly, under his minute observation of her words. ‘But it did grieve me to see all the life drain out of your face, and hers, when Havering was mentioned. I do not agree with Dr Taylor on much, but it will be best if Mary leaves here.’

  ‘You have often said you wish to protect her,’ he said.

  ‘And so I do,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps this is not the best way. She is stronger than you think,’ he said.

  Mallory stared at him. She leaned so close that he could see the pores in her fine skin.

  ‘You were not there,’ she said, ‘on the day our brother was taken. I held the door shut when they carried him to the carriage. I stopped her from following him. The cry that came from her lips was unearthly. It froze my blood. I knew then she is not as I am. Not rooted in this world, but in some other.’

  Her eyes dropped to the counter, as she heard her children’s feet on the stairs. ‘Proceed, if you must, Mr Steele,’ she said quietly. ‘But if you break her, I will break you.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  13th September, 1792

  I return again to the blessings of yesterday, which have hardly left my mind for a moment except in the execution of business.

  When the footman showed me to her boudoir there was nothing in his expression. After all, I have been sent up there many times by Mr Chichester. When I entered the room I hardly knew what awaited me. Only that, after the door had closed behind me, she went to it, and locked it, then turned to me, those beautiful eyes alight. Her expression lit such afire in me that I hardly knew what I did. Only now can I savour it: the feeling of her lips beneath mine, the trembling of her body. I took her.

  I had my satisfaction, as, may I hazard, did she: she did tremble so violently around and beneath me that it inflames me even to think of it. She cried out my name, so that I was obliged to put my hand over her mouth. Never had my wife cried out for me as she did; never for a moment looked at me in that way, as though I was a vision of heaven before her eyes. ‘I am dying,’ she said to me, and I held her to me, feeling her heart beat quick and fast, her body run through with pleasure.

  ‘Come in with me,’ Joanna said that night.

  They managed it quietly enough, though Digby sensed her tension with every step on the stair. She had bribed Mrs Holland to let her borrow the key to the back door, but it was important that no other servant should see them. ‘Never again,’ she said, smiling, as she locked her bedroom door then, as an extra measure, dragged her locking box in front of it, and he reached out to pull her to him. He had given her a gift: a small folding knife with a mother-of-pearl handle, ‘So you can defend yourself, when you come out to me at night,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘With a blade this short? I should have been better off with a dessert knife.’

  ‘You are too practical,’ he said, sounding hurt. ‘I thought its prettiness would appeal to you.’

  ‘And so it does,’ she said, kissing it, and placing it on the locking box carefully, as though it was the most precious of love tokens.

  It was the first time Digby had lain with her, and it had its own kind of unreality, like the dreams she had spoken of to him, so that afterwards he wondered if he really was there, in that garret room, with the moon shining in on them and all of London sleeping below.

  ‘Shall we go to the theatre?’ he said, his fingertips tapping up and down her spine slowly to the tune of a ballad singer he had heard in the street. ‘I will buy you a seat in the first gallery.’

  She took up his fantasy without hesitation. ‘And shall we send our man ahead to save the seats?’ she said.

  ‘We shall,’ he said, shifting, and kissing the top of her head.

  She had told him things: of the things she saw and imagined, which seemed real to her. Nothing had been denied between them. He did not shrink from the slack, pale skin on her stomach, stretched long ago by pregnancy then let loose, so it lay as thin as tissue, with its small wrinkles and lines. He dipped his face to kiss it. She had thought men were incapable of such tenderness.

  ‘I had a child once,’ she said. ‘A daughter. She is dead.’

  ‘What of the father?’ he said.

  ‘He is dead too. I had only one thing of his, and it is gone. A lock of his hair, in a pendant. I gave it to Mr Renard to make, and now it is lost.’

  Digby hid his face in her shoulder. He kissed her once, twice, three times, his mouth finding her neck. She held him, and after innumerable minutes, she heard his breathing deepen into sleep.

  Her eyes moved across the room, taking in every detail, as she savoured the quiet moments, and the sound of his breathing. Her gaze halted on his clothes, hastily thrown to the floor. On the glint of gold, at the edge o
f his pocket.

  She carefully moved out of his embrace, inching her way, stopping each time he stirred and letting him settle. She got out of bed, slowing every movement so as not to wake him. She took two steps across the floor, and crouched down beside the pile of clothes. What she had caught sight of was a gold link; part of a chain. She pulled it, felt the weight of something, then a watch emerged. The most beautiful watch she had ever seen.

  The look on Joanna’s face had unsettled Digby. He had woken suddenly, in the dense darkness of her room, and when he turned he saw that she was awake, but staring at the ceiling. She had submitted to his kiss, then had seen him out of the house quietly, with only the faintest of smiles. As he walked away, he knew he should be happy, but the tenderness they had shared had been diluted by the odd, sad look on her face, and the tentative way in which she had said goodnight.

  He kept awake until morning, walking circuit after circuit of the square, and having received Watkin’s pledge that he would be covered for the next night, went home. He slept a while, and woke, and coughed a good deal. It was a pattern he repeated over the day, until he checked his watch and knew he should take his place in the Red Lion, for he liked to be early for all appointments.

  As Maynard entered the Red Lion, Digby could see he wasn’t even making the effort to look cordial.

  ‘So?’ he said, taking his gloves off.

  Digby gestured to the stool opposite him. He had chosen it on purpose, as he had liked its effect last time: a small, three-legged stool, shorter than the bench he sat upon, so Maynard’s grand, elegant bulk sank until his eyes were lower than Digby’s. He smiled at the displeasure filtering through Maynard’s eyes; at the sense of him calculating whether he could rise again and cast the stool off for something more appropriate to his dignity.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do, sir,’ said Digby, raising his drink high and then knocking back the dregs.

  Maynard sighed and signalled to the landlord. ‘I’m surprised you’re not out on the watch,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit late for you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Night off,’ said Digby. ‘It does happen sometimes. If one has important business.’ As the landlord collected his tankard to refill it, he rubbed his hands together under the table, watching as Maynard wiped away a small tear of brown mucus trickling from his nostril. He almost asked for a pinch of snuff himself, then decided against it. He was glad he’d bribed Watkin and Brown to cover for him. He had no stomach for going out there tonight.