The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin (32 page)

August, 1799

The stones of the cottage seemed to hold the summer’s heat within them. The sun was just setting; soon it would be completely dark, but for the stars and moon.

In the six years since they had left London, Mary had hardly ever thought of the city. It troubled her a little that the place she had grown up in had such a small hold on her heart; that the threads were so easily broken. Mallory always tutted when she said that, and told her she had always been too sentimental. The place was nothing, she said, it was just another stage set.

Of Mallory’s children only Mattie had stayed in London, learning his trade as a silversmith in the workshop on Foster Lane with Jesse. It was Mattie who had written to his aunt Mary in his careful hand, telling her that Dr Taylor had died, his body found floating in the Thames near Chelsea, a year to the day after the Steeles had left London. Some said he must have lost his footing, but others spoke of how his nature had darkened, and thought he had sought the bottom of the Thames. He had taken to spending his days in the church, was the rumour, and whatever he had found there, it was not enough to save him in the end.

Mallory had just now returned from London. She had gone to see Mattie, tend to her investments, and to visit Francis Dunning’s sister, who had returned to the city and seemed as devoted as ever to the little boy in her care. Her master had died, and the mistress had promised her a handsome pension one day. ‘I think,’ Mallory had said, carefully, ‘she is happy.’

When Mary walked through the house in the evenings, she felt no fear of the shadows. Her grief for Eli was always there, but when she thought of him, as she often did, she could see his face clearly; he no longer turned his back to her. More often than not, he was smiling.

Mary went into the small building next to the cottage, where her husband was working. He made small table wares, did repairs for goldsmiths in nearby Chester, and, occasionally, his own work. He struck his initials on it, and sent his pieces to be assayed at Chester. He did not care, he said, if others overstruck his mark.

‘How will anyone ever know your work, if you hide away here?’ she would chide him.

‘I like the mystery,’ he would say, smiling that same quiet smile that he had always had, half-sadness, half-delight, which had stayed with her throughout the years of her first marriage.

He made parcels of designs: carefully drawn, persistently worked on, packaged up and sent off. The best things, he did not share; he locked them away.

He was drawing tonight, and when she put her hand on his back, he turned and smiled. He drew her to him and put his head against her heart, and she thought, how will they know this? Posterity should remember you, but how will they know you, even when they hold a piece of your silver in their hands?

‘Alban Steele,’ she said. ‘Do you know nothing of time?’

He laughed, and kissed her. ‘I forget it,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in directly.’

‘I’ll check on Edmund,’ she said.

She found their son at his casement window. She normally closed the shutters and tucked him in long before this time. He was kneeling there and looking out. When he saw his mother he looked guilty. ‘The light woke me, Mama,’ he said. She went to him and put her arms around him. She inhaled the smell of his hair and skin: that familiar, mineral-like smell, of newness.

‘It is bright,’ she said. The moon seemed closer tonight.

‘What is it?’ asked Edmund, his face turned up to her, all young babyish curves; it pained her to think how like an angel he looked, with that light on his face.

‘It is the full moon,’ she said, and stroked his hair. ‘It is the full moon, Edmund.’ She wanted to say: people walk abroad by the light of it. They fall in love, they steal, they kill by the light of it. Stay in the house, my boy: never venture out under such a moon. She didn’t say it, of course. She had begun to realize that her success as a mother would depend on learning to stay silent about so much.

She kissed her son, and tucked him in, telling him that the full moon would watch over him while he slept. He seemed pleased by this, and closed his eyes. He fell asleep almost immediately. When she went to close the shutters she stared up at the moon as though for the first time. She saw its shadows and its mysteries. She was surprised by it, surprised anew. Because it didn’t look like silver. It didn’t look like silver at all.

I am indebted to my agent, Jane Finigan, and the staff at Lutyens & Rubinstein, for championing this book from its earliest stages. I am also immensely grateful to my editor, Clare Hey, and to all at Simon & Schuster for their hard work and enthusiasm.

The Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Competition was an invaluable source of encouragement and I am grateful to everyone who is involved in the competition. I am also indebted to the Trustees of the London Library who granted me Carlyle membership of the Library, allowing me to complete the research for this book.

My colleagues at the Goldsmiths’ Company have provided much encouragement and I am grateful to all of them.

A big thank you to all of the friends who have cheered me on, especially Sian Robinson, Ruth Seward and Samantha Woodward. I am grateful to Luke Schrager for reading the manuscript and discussing eighteenth-century detail with me. All errors are my own.

Finally, huge thanks to my family: my parents; my sister Lisa and her sons Samuel and Harrison; my sister Angela and her family; and above all my husband, without whose love and practical assistance not a page would have been written.

Author’s note

The wording of the advertisement for the Foundling Hospital which upsets Joanna is adapted from an original that appeared in
The Times
, on Monday, 9th May, 1791.