The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin (29 page)

1st November, 1792

I happened to walk by Berkeley Square today. I saw Chichester pass, carried in a sedan. He looked thin, as weak as water. He seems to fade day by day. My apprentice, malnourished as he is, could beat him in the ring. And his wife is such a woman: my dearest girl.

At our meeting in the park I happened to mention to her of a legal separation I had heard of. I must have been mad to say it, but when her skin is beneath my fingertips, the thoughts flow from my lips. She is so beautiful, dressed in the most delicate silks and satins, her white neck warmed by sable. It is like that day I first entered a jeweller’s shop: her eyes are the sapphires, her skin the silver. I am racked by the need to have her, not just to possess her bodily, but to make the jewel entirely my own, and keep it in a case of my own devising.

Of course it is madness to talk of a separation; it would never be possible and it is fantastical to think of it. But God has given me the vision of what could be: the boy will die, and if my wife is not there . . . God knows I have wished her gone long enough. Yes, I will write it: I see a day when Harriet could be my wife. To write it brings tears to my eyes, tears of gladness and longing. They blur my sight and fall on to this page.

The next day dawned bright. When Mary came out of the shop on to Bond Street, she felt that the world had been transformed, and all her fears from the night before, dissolved. It was as though her senses had been sharpened, and she saw everything anew. Her sight was clearer, and she noticed details everywhere. A weed in the guttering, a crack in a brick, the specks of dirt in a pail of milk as it was carried past her, the milkmaid mewing her wares.

It was like that first morning after she had taken Alban into her bed. The sense of life had surged in her. Strange as it was, she felt sure it was not mainly from the physical act. She had felt connected to the world again. She was free to feel sympathy for others again, and free to see beauty where it lay.

She smiled to think that her husband had learned about women the way he had learned to draw designs and work silver: carefully, slowly, persistently. This morning, he had left her silver wedding cup on the table, so that she found it when she came in to breakfast. Its surfaces pure and sheer, he had rubbed every fingerprint away. It shone, drawing light into itself, and casting light out. It seemed to say to her: have patience, and you will have everything. ‘You and I are so different,’ he had said to her, when she had run to him and kissed him for it. And she didn’t know if she saw pleasure or misgiving in his eyes.

‘Madam?’

The woman’s voice made her turn in the street, and her gaze met with a pair of blue eyes. The lady that had spoken to her had one hand placed on the wall of the shop, as though it was taking her weight. She was dressed finely, her hat trimmed with feathers that bobbed and spun in the breeze. She wore gloves, and was well wrapped against the cold, but Mary could see she was heavily pregnant. She recognized her from somewhere, and as she moved towards her she mentally began flicking through the lists of names she had consulted in the ledger, hoping that an identity would emerge. There was such a stricken look on the woman’s face that Mary’s first instinct was to offer her comfort.

‘Are you well?’ said Mary. ‘Can I help you?’

The woman shook her head, and looked at the ground. When she spoke, her voice was soft, without any harshness. ‘I may be in error,’ she said, and again turned her eyes to Mary’s face, as though searching for something there. ‘Yet I had to come here, and speak to you. I hope you will understand.’

‘Please, do speak,’ said Mary.

‘Oh,’ said the woman. ‘This is much harder than I thought. I have imagined this moment many times, yet now, all of the things I have to say to you have dissolved, like smoke.’ She gave a small, girlish laugh, but Mary noticed that her eyes remained steady. ‘I suppose there is only one important thing I must say,’ said the lady. She took a deep breath, then drew herself up, as though bracing herself. ‘I loved your husband once,’ she said.

Mary said nothing. Her first thought was: Alban. But before she could formulate any question, the woman had pitched herself forwards, and began to walk down the street, quickly. She did not look back, and moved surprisingly fast. Mary watched her bobbing head until it disappeared from view.

She didn’t know how long she stood there. A customer went into the shop, glancing at her strangely as he passed. She turned a little, and saw Alban and Grisa dancing in attendance through the glass. Her husband smiled as he spoke to the customer, but his eyes were sad.

Then the bell went again, the customer passed by, and Alban was beside her.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘Grisa noticed your dress fluttering in the wind. And here you are, stock-still as though in a trance. Don’t the neighbours think you strange enough?’

He meant it as a joke, she knew. But she turned away from him, unable to look at him. ‘What is it?’ he said. She shook her head, silently, and pushed past him to go into the shop and up the stairs. As she did it, she could tell he was maddened by her silence, and it grieved her, yet she could not speak.

Two hours had passed and Alban came to their chamber door, knocking and knocking until she opened it.

‘What is it?’ he said.

‘I have a headache,’ she said. ‘Go back to your bench.’ He was dressed in his work clothes: the pale brown shirt and breeches, the leather apron still tied around his waist. His hands were stained grey with toil. ‘Did you not even wash before you came up here?’ she said. Her voice sounded disdainful, even to herself.

‘Not until you tell me what happened,’ he said.

‘What’s wrong with your hand?’ she said. His right thumbnail was black; she caught sight of it as his hands twitched slightly in the anxiety of the moment. ‘I misstruck,’ he said. ‘Are you going to tell me?’

She stared at his hand, reached out to touch it. He put his hands on her waist, and pulled her to him. ‘Tell me,’ he said. His left hand brushed her face, then slid down gently to the back of her neck, and rested there. Mary found she couldn’t look up at him.

‘A woman on the street,’ she said. ‘Came up to me and said, “I loved your husband once”.’

Alban let her go. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Did you recognize her?’

‘Yes, but I don’t know who she was. For a moment, I thought she meant you. And the sadness came upon me – and I thought – what hope is there? After everything that has happened? How can we be free of it all?’

He shook his head. ‘We can be free if you will only let him go. You think I am like him, don’t you? Do you know me?’

She sagged forwards at the disbelief on his face. She clung to him, and kissed him, until he answered her kisses with his own, turning the key in the lock. Afterwards she was too sensitive to be touched, and twisted on the bed, not knowing how to be soothed. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘Forgive me.’

‘Will you never have faith in me?’ he said, and his voice was sad.

‘I will,’ she said. ‘I do.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t.’

A door slammed in the depths of the house and Joanna woke suddenly.

As she rubbed her eyes the details of her dream stayed vivid in her mind. She’d come across the master with one of the boys he had picked off the street. She had been walking along, her heart full of cheer having just left Digby; she had seen someone struggling with a young boy, had paused, her hand clenched around a knife, yet not wanting to use it. And out of the darkness, her master’s face, then a cry of fear.

Unnerved, Joanna got up and left her room, locking the door behind her. She went down through the back stairs.

Harriet’s room was empty. A window had been left open, the air blowing through. Joanna hurried to it and shut it, with a crash. I put too much force into things, she thought, I must still myself, I cannot be angry with the world forever.

Down in the hall no one had seen Harriet. Alarm began to unfurl itself in Joanna’s chest. She spoke sharply to the footmen, and they looked at each other. She had an image in her mind of Harriet, hopeless dramatic Harriet, doing some injury to herself. She picked up her skirts and ran up the stairs.

As she did, the front door opened and Harriet walked in. She looked well. Joanna wondered how she had even managed to dress herself properly; to bind her hat to her head. Joanna ran to her, fussed over her, and called for them to mix the mistress a hot sillabub. Then she folded Harriet’s hand over her arm and led her upstairs.

‘I am well,’ said Harriet, settling down on a chair. ‘Dearest Joanna, you must not worry.’

‘Where did you go?’ said Joanna, fussing around her.

‘I went to see Mr Renard’s shop,’ said Harriet. ‘I never went there, while he lived. He always came here. One only had to write a note, and he would come running.’

‘You should not have gone out,’ said Joanna. ‘You should not distress yourself.’

‘I am not distressed,’ said Harriet. ‘I wished to go to his shop.’ Her voice was soft. ‘I owed him that.’

‘Now, now,’ said Joanna. ‘You have no obligation to him.’

‘He deserved an honest answer,’ said Harriet. ‘I should not have left him to wait outside for me on a cold November night, at the mercy of whoever should pass. I knew my answer before that night. I could have written to him, made him understand without bringing him to stand outside this house. You see, Joanna, he thought he could persuade me, still. The day before that terrible night, he had sent me money. I still have it. It is in my secretaire. Proof of his circumstances, he said. Insurance, security, I did not know what he meant.’

‘A man such as him should not have been discussing money with you,’ said Joanna.

Harriet looked away in irritation. ‘He was not thinking rightly. He said he was wildly in love with me. I thought it was a game. I had not been flattered so. But then, he tried to speak to me, in such serious terms. I laughed it off.’

‘Serious terms?’ said Joanna.

Harriet looked up. Even now there was something of the coquette about her gaze. ‘He told me I could separate from my husband.’

Joanna tried to swallow back her amazement. She fixed her gaze on Harriet. No, she thought, no. Pierre Renard was not that kind of man.

‘He even spoke of us marrying,’ said Harriet. ‘And when I laughed, he told me not to, for it killed him.’

‘And what of his wife?’ said Joanna.

‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘He promised me all would be well, that he would “deal properly with the situation”. He said I should wait and see, and that he would prove it to me. That he would do everything to make me contented, if only I would promise to be his.’

‘What did you say?’ said Joanna.

‘What could I say? I was all astonishment. I told him to come back that evening, that I would get some message to him. But I knew, already. I could not look him in the eyes and say it. He gave me full proof of his affection.’ Her eyes flickered. ‘But I, the silversmith’s wife?’ She paused, as though she expected Joanna to say something. ‘The shame would have killed my father. To leave this, for a tradesman? I may as well have been the grocer’s wife or the chandler’s wife.’

Joanna said nothing. It was amazing, she thought, that the Harriet who wept over the stirrings of her baby would give this same cool, pragmatic stare. She wondered whether the emotion there was all play-acting, if it rippled any further than the surface of those blue eyes. And she felt dread twist its way around her heart.

‘That night,’ said Harriet, ‘I knew he would be there. He had begged me to reconsider, to let him know my thoughts and feelings on the matter. I should have sent out to him, some message. It was a cold night. But my husband had someone in the house. I was jealous and afraid. And I knew Pierre would return. Though,’ she paused, ‘he too had frightened me, a little. Shown me his temper. He said he would chalk,’ she paused again, ‘a word, on our door. When I think of it now, I cannot bear it. I was so distraught, I told it all to my coachman. Such a loyal servant. Poor Pierre.’

She hid her face with her hands. Automatically, Joanna reached out to her, and gently touched her arm. But you were there, she thought. You told me you went out, fearlessly, into the night; you told me you stood on the step. Terrified, she did not speak. When Harriet lowered her hands her eyes were dry.

‘I went to see Mrs Renard today,’ she said. ‘I wanted to tell her not to mourn, for she meant nothing to him. But when I got there, I did not know what to say. He hated her, you see, and how could that be a comfort?’

‘How was she?’ said Joanna.

‘She is striking enough, I suppose,’ said Harriet. ‘But not pretty like me.’

Joanna could say nothing.

‘She looked happy,’ said Harriet. ‘So there was no reason to tell her. She is happy.’

Joanna shook her head, and felt Harriet’s hand rest on hers, then tighten. I will say nothing, she thought: it is not my place, I am a good servant. And when she raised her eyes to Harriet’s, Harriet smiled.

‘We all receive what we deserve in the end,’ said Harriet. ‘Do you not think so?’

But Joanna could not speak, recognizing for the first time a nature as twisted as her own.

17th November, 1792

Taylor came this evening, and without invitation. He was not his usual cheerful self, and though I called for wine, and was all fit to welcome him – despite the fact that I had not invited him – he did not respond to my jollity. I noticed that he kept looking about, in a distracted way, and before long he asked where Mary was. I said that she was above, for she had a headache, and this seemed to disturb him even more, so that for a moment I thought he might ask to see her.

I admit this did vex me, and so I made a few barbed comments, and I was a little forced in my humour. I made a jape about her sickliness, which he reprimanded me on; and later when I joked about a gentlemen I had read of in the newspaper who had left a large fortune, and said that it was strange that rich husbands did not live long, he interjected forcefully. He brought up some strange thing of the past – a person who was an apprentice of mine, who had a weak character – and accused me of hounding him. He told me he had often excused me of things in the past, and let my words go when he should have spoken up. I have seen that look on your face before, Pierre, he said – you know I love you as I would a brother or a son, but I do not like what I see in your eyes. I am pleased to say that I did not respond with wrath; I was silent, and cold, and eventually he begged my pardon, as I knew he would, and left.

Mary knew that, some day soon, she would have to learn to be harder. For now, every time Alban was absent from her, she felt it keenly, as though death was close. The sound of Pierre’s step in the hall, the suggestion of his voice, even when she couldn’t hear the words, had made her heart quicken with dread. Alban’s step ended her suffering, for she knew that he lived.

She knew that what Mallory termed her ‘nervous complaint’ would taint everything if she let it. She had to learn to leave joy alone, to enjoy it, not always to look forward to loss. Summer was coming, and she hoped that the lengthening days would reawaken her hope, and quicken the calm Mary who she was sure had once existed. She tried, but it was the kind of work that could not be achieved by effort alone, and she felt as though the sun was always behind her, on her back, and her shadow always cast ahead.

This evening, she was playing cards alone, a solitary game her father had taught her as a child. The cards felt greasy under her fingertips. Pierre had been used to playing with them. She did not dare to look out of her own pool of light. She would not whisper it, even to herself: he is here. But she felt sure he was: in the darkness in the hall, the unexpected flaring of the fire, and the ticking of the clock. She longed to know that Alban was safe, but she did not dare move herself to go to the workshop, where he was carrying out repairs with Benjamin.

A knock on the door made her jump, but when it opened Ellen was there, looking bored. ‘Please, Mrs Renard,’ she said. ‘Dr Taylor is here.’

He was standing directly behind Ellen, a dim figure. As Mary rose she knocked the table, and some of the cards fell on to the floor. She thought that surely he must see it: the dreadful symmetry of this night, and the night he had come to tell her Pierre was dead. But his face was blank.

He had come on other evenings, she supposed, though not usually this late, and usually with Amelia.

‘Good evening, Dr Taylor,’ she said. ‘I was not expecting you. Is Mrs Taylor well?’

‘Perfectly, thank you, madam,’ said Taylor, bowing to her. She caught the scent of spirits as she came closer.

‘It is late,’ she said. ‘Mr Steele is still in the workshop, if you wish to speak to him about the business. Mr Grisa is out. Shall I ask for tea?’

‘No,’ said Taylor. ‘Thank you. It is you I wish to speak to.’ His temper seemed to be fluctuating with every moment: he moved his head, as though he longed to shake something off. ‘I meant to call earlier,’ he said, ‘but I have been unwell these last few days. Mr Cracknell took my visits on for me.’

‘I am sorry to hear that,’ she said, seeking some sign of his normal gentleness. There was none. He sat half-turned away from her, and the firelight shadowed his face. There was a certain harshness to his expression, and the change from his usually kind demeanour troubled her.

He continued without encouragement. ‘You know I have always tried to be a good friend to you,’ he said. ‘And it is as such a friend I speak now. I hope I have done my duty to you, and to Pierre’s memory. You, and this business, were his most precious possessions. It is my duty to protect you, and it, and that is why I speak.’

‘Well, then,’ she said. ‘Speak.’

Taylor kept his eyes down. ‘I have been looking at the books,’ he said. ‘There has been a falling-off in trade, a marked falling-off. Not just due to the season,’ he added, more loudly. ‘Mr Steele was most kind to help us, but it is time to find someone more fitting.’

‘More fitting?’ said Mary, struggling to keep her temper. ‘He is the finest craftsman I have ever seen.’

‘I am sure, I am sure,’ said Taylor. He rocked a little, and would not look at her. ‘But he is a working silversmith, not a retailing goldsmith. This business is a going concern. I’m sure his skills are manifold, but he is no salesman, and though Mr Grisa is half-entranced with him, better management is needed.’ He nodded, seeming more comfortable.

‘He may not be a salesman,’ she said. ‘But he knows what beauty is, and how to create it. If he does not court people as Pierre did, maybe he is better for it. If I have any say in the matter, I do not accept your recommendation.’

Taylor looked at her face sorrowfully. ‘My dear Mrs Renard,’ he said. ‘I have failed you. I had come here hoping that what I had heard is not true, but now I see what has happened here. This man has enchanted you in some way.’ He leaned forwards, and touched her hand. She snatched it away. ‘I do not blame you,’ he said. ‘Let me say it, I do not blame you. After losing such a husband as Pierre, such a man.’

‘What have your spies been telling you?’ she said. ‘Is Mr Digby one of your men? Is that why he haunts this stretch of Bond Street as if his soul was tethered here? What are you paying him?’

‘Mr Digby?’ said Taylor. ‘What do you mean?’

She shook her head. ‘I do not care, anyway. I will tell you the truth: I am not afraid of it. I am married to Mr Steele. I am expecting his child. And you are mistaken, quite mistaken, in what you said about Pierre. My husband is a better man than Pierre Renard ever was.’

Taylor stared at her as though she was raving. But she had heard his sharp intake of breath, and saw his fists clench. ‘God,’ he said, under his breath.

‘I am not ashamed,’ she said, her voice wavering, though she could hardly hear it. ‘If we have married too quickly in the eyes of the world, still I know my heart is pure, and I know his is too.’

‘You don’t know what you are saying,’ he said. ‘I fear for you, Mrs Renard. I fear for you.’

‘There is no need,’ she said. She did not search for anger; it rose quick in her. ‘I will not be controlled. You sought to find another Pierre, but I would not wish for him again. I hated him.’

‘Stop it,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what you saying. My dear Mary.’

‘I am not your dear Mary!’ she cried. ‘I am not a child. It has been long since I have been grateful for your protection. For God’s sake go now, before I say anything else.’

The ugliness of Taylor’s former expression had crumbled away, like plaster chiselled from a flint wall. He was all raw anguish now, painful to look upon. He stood up, and held his hands out to her, as one would to a difficult child. As she turned away, the door opened.

‘Mary?’ It was Alban, holding a rag to his hands. ‘What is it, dear?’ he said. ‘I heard you shouting.’ He looked at Taylor. ‘So you’ve heard. Come to speak of your disapproval, have you? Come to say you wish to exert your powers?’

‘You will have to go,’ said Taylor.

‘Well, I knew that,’ said Alban. ‘Why not call in daylight hours instead of sneaking around in the dark? What business did you come here with this evening? Or did you come merely to trouble my wife?’ He stood in front of the door. His eyes were dark with anger, unreadable in intent. His customary calmness threw his anger into strong relief.

Taylor sensed his menace and rose quickly. ‘Let me go home. It was a mistake to come here,’ he said.

‘I’ll show you out myself,’ said Alban.

Mary heard the bang of the front door, and her husband calling to Benjamin to tidy the benches.

‘High emotion,’ he said, when he came back into the room. ‘Was that his sole reason for coming here? Our marriage? What other business did he have?’

Mary was tidying the cards up, heaping them together in a haphazard way. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

‘When will you learn to be honest with me?’ he said.

‘Very well, then, if you will know. He came to say that the business was not working as it should. That a different approach was needed.’

Alban nodded. ‘I see,’ he said.

‘He said that you do not woo the customers in the way Pierre did.’

She looked at him. His face was delineated by shadow. He had not shaved for days, and his hair was roughly pushed back from his face.

She tried to be gentle. ‘It is new for you, to run a shop on Bond Street. There are many clients. You must learn to read them all, and flatter them all. I know that this is not, perhaps, the way you imagined it.’

‘It is not.’ He was still holding the rag in his hands, as though he didn’t know what to do with it. ‘I didn’t come to London for this,’ he said. ‘I came to be myself. To be a silversmith. To do my work. That, at least, is real and true.’

‘Your work is beautiful,’ she said, shying at the inadequacy of the word. ‘no one can dispute its quality or its mastery. But the shop makes certain demands. Clients may not want something new and beautiful; they want what Lady So-and-so has.’

He threw the rag down. ‘I should not have taken this on,’ he said.

‘Oh, come now,’ she said. ‘It does not matter. We will go.’

‘It was never what I wanted,’ he said. ‘It came with you. That’s why I did it. All these years I have been too cautious. I wanted you and rushed into this place of misery. And now I am here, after all your angry words about him, you seek to make me into the model of your dead husband.’

She thought her heart might stop. She sat down quickly, hearing him go out into the London night. Her first instinct was to follow him, but she knew it would be pointless. She slammed the parlour door. She couldn’t bear for Benjamin to come in, and triumph over her.

Alban turned right, and kept walking. He didn’t know where he was walking to, only that he had to be gone from Bond Street. His first thought was Jesse; but that was too far, and he had no idea what he would say once he got there. He didn’t want to speak, or explain anything. He was tired, there was the pain in his elbow, and now he was walking away from his wife.

All those years of calm, he thought, and now this. It is like being thrown into a wild sea, with only the stars to guide you, and the stars were often hidden by clouds.

What kind of man does it make me, he thought. That within a few months I have disappointed my wife, failed in her eyes and in the eyes of the world. I am nothing when compared to him, he thought. She might cling to me, but even now she watches, wondering why I am not like him. Even when Pierre’s woman had come to lay her tears at Mary’s feet, she had doubted him, and not Pierre, not that wretch who he had loathed at first glance, whose every word, whose every breath, seemed to fill the air with the aroma of his bloated ambition like stale tobacco.

He reached Piccadilly, and stopped. He looked left and right. Carriages and people everywhere, things brewing. Up and down these streets people were drinking themselves into unconsciousness, wagering livelihoods on the turn of a card, losing their virtues in golden palaces and dirty hovels. That old wretch Digby was right, perhaps; he said that London would chew me up and spit me out. I should have turned right round and got back on the mail coach again. I’ll see my grave sooner than I will the long grass dancing in a field, under the full moon.

‘Care for some company, sir?’

Of course, it had taken only a moment for her to find him. Girls like her could sniff out a conquest; or did they hit everyone? She was ageless, in the way some of these whores were; young, yet old enough to have seen too much.

‘For one of your kind looks I’ll give you a good price,’ she said.

She took him to an alleyway nearby. She could tell he needed the shadows, the seclusion.

Her hands upon him were practised and skilful. Their dexterity surprised him, and his hand went to his pocket. The best whores in the world, he remembered a man saying. Who was that man? Was it Digby again? Was he the repository of truth and wisdom?

Alban took her wrists. His feeling surged in him, but it was mainly aggression, only edged by lust. He felt like he wanted to punch through a wall. Yet he was at a distance from his desire. He felt like he was fighting his way through a thicket. Something stood between him and the fulfilment of the desire.

The girl’s face was passive before him: not comprehending, her eyes as glassy as moonstones.

‘No,’ he said. Then, ‘I’m sorry.’ He saw something cross her face, the beginning of a snarl. ‘Keep the money,’ he said.

She lapsed against the wall as he turned and walked away from her. He had to go back to Mary. His anger had melted away, found its home in the darkness of the London night. It belonged to someone else now.