The Gilded Lily (23 page)

‘And what would you do? We can’t do aught. We stole the stuff ourselves.’

They lit a fire but it was a subdued meal, despite the heat. Sadie pushed on extra coal, as if to make up for what they’d lost. The room glowed in the light. But Ella sat away from the
fire in case she should get smuts or ash on her fine new dress. She shielded her face from the heat with her hands.

Sadie handed her a plate. ‘Why are you covering your eyes?’

‘Because I don’t want my face to be red tomorrow. Well-to-do ladies have very white skin. The Misses Edgware are white as milk.’ She looked up at Sadie, the ghost of an apology
in her eyes.

Sadie bridled. ‘Maybe their rooms are not so draughty. You’ll catch a chill sitting over there in that thin dress. Come in a bit and get cosy. Look, it’s making my skirts
steam.’ Sadie wafted her grey woollen petticoat up and down.

But Ella remained resolutely away from the fire. Sadie cooked, tossing the flat cakes on the griddle plate, then flipping them deftly onto a cloth on the floor.

She wrapped the cloth round the cake and passed it to Ella.

‘This is better’n bread and scrape, isn’t it just,’ said Sadie, biting into hers.

Ella looked at the plate sitting on her lap with distaste. She placed it on the floor untouched with a sigh that was meant to be heard. She was obviously still sore at her for going out.
‘I had a muffin at Whitgift’s,’ she said.

‘Really? You beggar. Did you not think to save me a bit?’ asked Sadie.

‘No, I was that thrang I didn’t have time to think. Anyways, I don’t think they’d like me taking stuff off the premises. It would be like stealing.’

Sadie contemplated this strange contradiction. Her heart was still beating faster than usual from the thought of someone taking their things. They’d been outraged to be robbed, but it was
of no earthly use to tell anyone, not when they’d thieved the stuff themselves. And now here was Ella reluctant to bring home a bit of bread from Whitgift’s.

‘It would only be a morsel. Bet they could spare it. Try and bring me a bit next time?’

Ella nodded, but Sadie could see there was no intention behind it. Ella seemed to be distracted, as if she were not there in the room but somewhere else. She kneaded the red silk in her hand,
balling it and letting it go, over and over.

At length she turned to Sadie and said, ‘Them goods can be traced easily if they’re sold all of a piece. That seal’s got his initials on. And they think I killed
him.’

‘It’s not true.’

‘Course it’s not true. But when they find us we’re done for. You do know that, don’t you?’

Sadie did not answer. She pushed the poker into the fire, and the wood crackled and spat.

In Whitgift’s Yard, the Gilded Lily had been open little more than a week, and it was thriving. A long cavalcade of gigs and carriages drew up every day, and the newly
swept yard bustled with ladies coming and going on their little heels. Jay’s father, Walt, was in his office, measuring some coin. He looked up from his magnifying lens and calipers. There
was a commotion outside in the street, with posthorns blaring and horses whinnying.

He rubbed his hand over the dusty windowpane but it looked over the back wall towards the river and he couldn’t see anything amiss. When the hullabaloo continued, he stood up and rubbed
his aching back and, disgruntled at being disturbed, threaded his way through the warehouses. At the threshold to the yard he stopped. The yard was jammed with horses and carriages attempting to
leave, but a gig was trying to press through the gates, preventing them. Walt hurried over to remonstrate with the driver, but when he got there the whole street was full of horses and carriages.
And they all seemed to want to come into his yard. His mouth fell open. He stepped back inside, his eyes searching the throng.

‘Jay!’ he shouted, craning to see him above the moving sea of horses. He caught sight of Dennis, trying to persuade a driver to rein back his pair of greys.

‘Where’s Jay?’ shouted Walt.

‘Upstairs. In his chambers.’

‘What’s all this?’

‘Jay’s ladies, sir. Come to the Gilded Lily.’

‘What?’

‘Over there. In the old dairy. Where the new sign is.’

Walt looked vaguely around the yard. Dennis took hold of his shoulders and turned him round, pointing over the horses’ heads to the gaudily painted sign. Walt set his jaw and forced his
way through the jostling horses. He ignored the sign on the door that said ‘Ladies Only’ and shoved it open with a great push. Within a few moments he was hobbling back across the
yard.

A moment later, when his father entered his attic chambers, Jay had the box of cameos out and was in so deep a trance that the sudden opening of the downstairs door made him shoot up out of his
chair. In a trice he loped down the stairs to arrive just as his father had his foot on the bottom step.

‘Don’t come up, Pa,’ he said.

‘Come with me,’ barked Walt, his face grey, bustling him out of the door.

Jay resisted. ‘Hang fire. The brooches – I need to lock them away.’

‘Later. First you’ll sort out this mess.’ Walt pointed to the packed yard, where a coachman was just baring his fists and a crowd was gathering, spoiling for a fight.
‘Get those carriages out, then we’ll talk.’

Jay looked out, amazed. Then he grinned. The coachman could take his chances. What a crowd! His idea was working. Why, there must be half of fashionable London here. He swaggered into the press
of conveyances, nimbly manoeuvred himself past a sidestepping horse and dodged out of the gates. He strolled past the queue of carriages down the length of the street until he came to the last one.
Apologizing profusely to the lady occupant and her maidservant, he told her that the Gilded Lily could be visited by appointment only, and instructed the driver to turn around. Proceeding thus up
the line of carriages, Jay soon was able to free passage for those trying to exit the gates.

It had done him no harm to turn people away, he knew. It would just whet their appetites further. The more popular it was, the more exclusive he could make it. And when he had spoken earlier
with the new girl, she had told him the book was full for three more days. She was sharp, that one, she’d picked up the ropes in no time. She was good for business too – the women
envied her pearly complexion, so the apothecary’s creams had flown off the shelf. It was all a lot of quackery he knew. Upper-class women were generally stupid, couldn’t see a blind if
it waved a stick at them, and he was right, they couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Already he was reaping the benefit; they would be surprised to find out he had information about not only
what new gimcrack their husbands had purchased, but also its value and even sometimes where it was kept.

Miss Johnson could be moulded into an asset – with her brows plucked and a little alabaster powder over her bosom, she could look picture-perfect. That is, so long as she was prepared to
play his game. Trouble was – they always got meddlesome in the end, wanted to know more than was good for them.

Jay’s musings were short-lived. As he approached the warehouse, he could see his father’s bent figure waiting for him, his face sour.

‘It’s a circus,’ said his father, leading him into his office. ‘I told you before, we’ll have no dealings with women’s business. When I’m gone, you can
do what you like, but I’ll not have it.’

‘But we’ve turned over nineteen pounds in less than a week’s trade, and that can’t be bad. Just give it time to settle.’

‘Settle? Settle you say? I’ll never live it down. It looks like a strumpet fair – all that gilt, that brazen girl in scarlet with her hair coming down. You can’t tell me
it’s a respectable business. It stinks like a midden.’

‘But I’ll wager the gentlemen have stayed longer in the warehouse . . .’ His father did not answer, but from his expression Jay could see that they had. ‘They have,
haven’t they?’ His father opened his mouth to protest, but Jay pressed on. ‘And I’ll bet your takings are up too. Show us the figures, Pa, come on.’

Jay riffled through the papers on the desk looking for the big leather ledger showing the day’s accounts.

‘Leave it be!’ his father shouted. ‘I don’t dare ask you where the money came from for all that show and tackle. There’ll be time enough for you to juggle with the
figures when I’m cold and gone. You’re not cock o’ the roost yet. But for now you will repay me if there’s even a single farthing down. Those rooms are to be closed today.
Do you hear?’

Jay frowned and stuck out his chin. ‘I can’t. We’ve appointments booked till the end of the week.’

‘If you don’t want to abide by my rules, then by heaven you don’t have to stay under my roof.’

‘What about the appointments?’

‘Cancel them.’

Jay took out a leather pocket book and pulled his finger down the page. ‘Let’s see . . . yes, Thursday is Lady Waltham, and Lady Jane, you know, Sir John Bickford’s wife.
Friday is Miss Lucie Almoner, and Miss Catherine Holmes, milliners to the queen . . . I suppose there would be time to send a message . . .’ He paused to see if his words were having any
effect.

His father sat down heavily in his captain’s chair and swivelled it round with a creak so he had his back to Jay. Jay stood fast, letting the names sink in.

At length his father sighed. ‘Well, I suppose you had better honour these few appointments. But no more. There’s a deal goes on around here that I don’t know about, and
I’m telling you, I don’t like it. I’m not beyond putting you out to make your own way. A son should have respect and do his duty by his parents, and well you know it.’

‘Quite right.’

Jay turned at the voice behind him, and saw that Tindall had appeared in the doorway. He looked as odious as ever, his cuffs grey and his eyes watery above his hooked nose. Jay glared at him.
What right had he to just walk in on their private conversation? But his father turned back in his chair and beckoned him into the room.

‘Ah, Tindall, my friend,’ said his father, ‘just the man. You can help solve a little problem we have. I need advice. Maybes you can tell us whether this new-fangled idea of
Jay’s has any firepower in it or whether it’s a damp fuse.’

‘Yes, I’d noticed the increase in activity. I told you the sign would be a good idea. But it’s “painted lily”, the Shakespeare quotation, not “gilded
lily”.’

‘I don’t care if it’s a daffydilly, will it be good for business?’ Walt said.

Tindall took a piece of paper from his moth-eaten leather bag, and a piece of lead. ‘You’ll need to tell me the day you first conceived it, the exact time, if possible, and the
precise time you opened the door for business.’

‘I don’t know. I can’t remember when I thought of it,’ Jay said.

Tindall tutted and looked to his father.

‘Then you’d better think on,’ said his father. ‘I trust Nat’s judgement. He’s always spot on. So if he says it’s right, then I’ll give you six
months. If not then I’ll tear that wretched papering down myself if I have to.’

The next day, Jay humoured his father by giving him the dates he asked for. When he dropped the parchment on the desk in front of him, his father had smiled and rubbed his
hands together as if it had been a royal writ. Gullible old fool. Astrology was a dead end. The only way to make a fortune was through your own craft and cunning, and knowing the right people in
society. By the time he was thirty he wanted that big house in Whitehall he’d set his sights on, and a baronetcy to go with it.

Jay walked across the yard to check on the Gilded Lily. He hoped the dates he gave Tindall were auspicious, it would be less trouble if they were. He didn’t want to argue with his father
and lose the business he had been grooming for so long. There were rumours that the king was to grant a dispensation to pawnbrokers, and the millwheel of his father’s ramshackle yard could be
sold on for a pretty penny as soon as he did. Meanwhile, he could build up his collections, hive off the most appealing trinkets ready for his new house and offer judicious loans to gentlemen in
hard times who would pay him a fine fee. As for his future in the stars – it was all nonsense. Old ideas that should have died with the old king. But he sensed trouble – he suspected
that Tindall would say the stars were opposed to the Gilded Lily just to put the wind up his father.

Sometimes when he saw his father crouching at his desk, his papery skin stretched over his dome-like skull, he wished he would get on with it and die. Once or twice it had even crossed his mind
that he might hire Stevyn Lutch to do the deed for him. But so far, he had been too squeamish. And his father deserved a gentler end than that, the old fool. Besides, he did not want to risk the
taint of blood anywhere near him. Too many people he knew had ended up on the triple cross at Tyburn.

He opened the door to the Gilded Lily and inhaled the slightly sickly smell of face powder. As he passed the counter he straightened the row of neatly labelled bottles of lily-of-the-valley and
stood the evergreens up more stiffly in the vase. Miss Johnson was leaning over the counter showing some velveteen patches to a lady in a broad-brimmed hat. Miss Johnson was wearing a patch
herself, on her cheekbone. Her face was very white and she had plucked her eyebrows. Her breasts rose and fell as she talked; she waved her hands in little expressive gestures, like a fluttering
moth. Her features were animated. The ceruse would soon crack if she carried on like that. He hoped she was listening as well as she was talking.