The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin (4 page)

For Digby, it was simple, almost a matter of housekeeping; Renard was to be taken where he belonged. He couldn’t understand Taylor’s anger. He had also found it hard to shake off, and had been obliged to take home Cissie, who normally plied her trade on Piccadilly’s side streets, so that he might have a little company. She had been most disconcerted when he had asked her only to lie alongside him, and put her arms around him.

Even now Digby found it hard to shrug off the look of angry disgust Taylor had cast him. In an attempt to divert himself he dwelt on Cissie’s embrace, and reflected on the fact that he could have told the good doctor a thing or two about women. Like: it was a bad idea, an exceptionally bad idea, to take the corpse to the Taylor house, and leave its blood darkening Mrs Taylor’s kitchen table. It was no excuse that he was seeking to spare Mrs Renard’s delicate nature. Just thinking of it made him chuckle under his breath. Mrs Taylor was the kind of woman who wrapped her hair in bindings then slept still, untouched, like an effigy on a tomb in one of the old churches. The idea of her stumbling across a corpse in her kitchen was the funniest thing he’d thought of all week.

In its coffin the silversmith’s body looked as lifeless and sallow as wax, a model in a show. But Digby saw the coroner was avoiding looking at it. It had never happened before, but Taylor seemed to be acting like a squeamish old bird. Still, what could you expect from a man who turned a profit from dealing with ladies’ privates?

Eventually the doctor called the other men to attention. An expectant silence fell on the company, which became tinged with embarrassment when he fought to control his voice, clearing his throat several times. Eventually, he began. ‘We are, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘called to enquire into the death of Pierre Renard, Esquire, of Bond Street, a fine Christian gentleman, who was regrettably killed in Berkeley Square.’

A murmur passed through the company. Digby folded his arms and looked on with interest. Pierre Renard was no Esquire, he knew, despite his pretensions. Henry Maynard stepped forwards, hat in hand, but with a sour expression on his face. He gave his condolences to Dr Taylor ‘on the sad loss of his friend,
Mister
Renard. We should be exact, for the record.’

Taylor nodded in acknowledgement of the correction. A suggestion of a smile flitted across his face. ‘He was rising in the world,’ he said to the other man, as though they were alone in the room. Maynard looked unimpressed, and Digby admired the sardonic way he raised his eyebrows in response. ‘As I say, exactness,’ he murmured.

Regaining his composure, Taylor brusquely called Digby as a witness. Digby came forwards slowly, with measured steps. When he reached the table, he looked evenly around at the faces observing him. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. The acoustics of the room made his voice resonate in a particularly agreeable way.

‘Will you tell us what you have to say?’ said Taylor. His voice had a harsh ring to it. Still angry, thought Digby, and for no reason. There, there, Doctor; calm your temper, now.

Digby recounted his discovery of Renard, although he left out the kick he’d dealt the body. He concluded by saying that Renard’s watch chain had been hanging, loose and empty, when he turned the body over, and that his pockets had been emptied. ‘I think it must have been theft, Dr Taylor,’ he said, and murmurs broke from the circle of jurors. ‘Theft,’ he said again, for good measure. ‘And a bloody job the killer made of it, for the gore had soaked the ground for several feet around.’

‘Enough,’ said Taylor harshly. There was an uncomfortable hiatus as the coroner stared at the floor. Digby felt the heat gathering in his cheeks. Eventually one of the younger men in the group stepped forwards and took control. ‘Thank you, Mr Digby,’ he said. ‘You have discharged your duty.’

Digby looked him up and down suspiciously. It was beneath his dignity to be dismissed by someone just out of the nursery, but he wasn’t prepared to do battle over it. He nodded, and backed into the shadows, to continue watching.

‘Mr Digby may well be right,’ said the young man, with careful ambiguity. ‘And the watch will be advertised for, of course; but has anyone enquired as to why Mr Renard was in the vicinity of Berkeley Square at such a late hour? And what his business was there? Could he have been meeting somebody?’

Taylor glared at him and gave a little shake of his head.

‘No?’ continued the man. ‘Perhaps enquiries should be made. Perhaps Mrs Renard—’

‘This is no place for a lady,’ said Taylor. Digby saw a little tremor of irritation move across the other man’s face at being cut off.

‘I agree with you there, Taylor,’ said Maynard, a smile briefly flickering across his face as he spoke up. ‘And if one were to look for a motive, you would be forced to cast your eye over the hopeless entanglements of Mr Renard’s life. I do not doubt there were many. He was ever where he had no business to be; and last night was obviously no exception. I understand the constable has no notion of who could have done this other than a thief; and if Mrs Renard were to be put to the expense of an investigation, those she hired would hardly know where to begin.’

‘Berkeley Square is but a stone’s throw from where Pierre lived,’ cried Taylor, his voice reaching an uncomfortably high pitch, as though it was being drawn painfully through his tight throat. ‘We have no way of knowing why he was there but no reason to taint his reputation by suspecting that he was involved in some kind of scandal or bad business – if that is what you are implying, sir; and I see from the look on your face that it is.’

‘I am implying nothing,’ said Maynard.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ said another of the men. ‘It is a cold evening, and the case seems clear enough to me. Mr Renard was murdered by some unknown person.’

There were nods and muttered agreements. Digby saw Maynard look at Taylor, but the coroner did not want to meet the foreman’s gaze, and only nodded. ‘Then, sirs,’ Taylor said, ‘let us set our hands and seals to that.’

In his pocket, Digby’s hand closed around the watch. It was a risk to carry it with him, but he couldn’t bear to be parted from it, and his landlady might find it if he left it in his rooms. It was the finest thing he had ever seen but, as he was discovering, it had a feel of its own too. His fingertips brushed over it: the chasing of clouds and cherubs, the smoothness of hardstone.

10th May, 1792

After my liking period with my master, I was bound over as his apprentice; there were three others in the same workshop, and I was the most junior of them. These three were all sons of gentlemen, and they lived very well, almost as if nothing counted on their completing the work. They were more in Covent Garden than at home, leaving me in the kitchen to eat the stale bread and rancid butter which it pleased my mistress to feed me. I worked hard to ingratiate myself with my master and his wife, and learned ways of pleasing them. Before long, I shared in the food from their table. The way the other apprentices lived still sat badly with me, and though Mr Pelletier gave me a coin or two as an allowance, there was no way I could partake of the same pleasures as my fellows. Yet I was the hardest-working of all of them.

I learned of the injustice of life early, you see. Now I will never take a gentleman’s son as an apprentice; and to me, a so-called born gentleman is worthless, except for the money he pays me. It is the self-made man that I respect, and raise my glass to.

Twenty-six hours on the mail coach, thought Alban Steele, was enough to kill a man. He felt as flattened and reduced to essentials as one of the letters he had travelled alongside. Longing to rest, to stretch, he looked out at the bustling crowds of Charing Cross, and wondered how he would fight his way through them to reach his cousin’s house.

He had crossed the unimaginable gulf from his quiet world to this place, which had lived only in his memory for years. As the coach had slowed on the congested roads he’d looked out at the black night and seen the lights of the city glittering. It was true. He was in London. And if the view from the coach was anything to go by, she was just as he had left her.

He climbed down carefully, clinging to his pack, ready for the onslaught. Seven in the evening at Charing Cross. In the winter’s darkness he felt the energy of London: the charged night. He was warier than he had ever been, for the newspapers talked of insurrection and riot, of fires lit all over, and coaches riding away from a burning city. Had he come here in time for revolution?

Through the noise he picked out a voice calling his name. He looked around. The sound came again, a thread tying him to this place, preventing him from pushing through the chaos: consistent, a pause for breath, then again. Finally, he found the source, a boy whose mouth opened repetitively like a cuckoo’s. The child had pale flaxen hair, green eyes, and milk-white skin. Alban immediately saw the similarity to his cousin: the boy had to be Jesse’s. He waved, then fought his way through the crowd.

‘I’m your second cousin,’ he said, as he reached him.

‘I’m Grafton,’ said the boy, and held his hand out. ‘Pa says I’m to call you uncle.’

Alban smiled, and shook his hand. The boy had been a baby when he visited last. Grafton: Duke of, he thought. He wished his cousin would stop naming his children after patrons. It wasn’t as if they would know or care. Had the Duke of Grafton been asked to recommend his silversmith, he would have said: Pierre Renard, at the sign of the Golden Acorn on Bond Street, for Renard liked to keep his sign as well as his number. His Grace the Duke had no knowledge of the man who had actually fashioned his favourite silver bread baskets. Alban had reasoned thus with his cousin years ago. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jesse said. ‘The plate on their tabletop was made by me, not that bloody Frenchman.’ He refused to admit that the silver had Renard’s maker’s mark stamped all over it, obliterating Jesse’s own.

Alban followed Grafton as he weaved his way through the crowds. He knew it was some way to Jesse’s house, but he was glad of the walk, and glad too that Grafton was taciturn.

The action of walking helped him shake off the melancholy that had settled on him during the journey Everyone had agreed it would be best for him to come here, to help Jesse. After all, that was what kin was for. The family silversmith’s firm in Chester was doing well enough: his cousins there hardly needed him. But Jesse did. He was sickening, and there was talk of a large commission from Renard, which he wanted a part in. So Alban had come, with hardly any need of encouragement, back to the city he’d once cherished hopes of establishing himself in, but which he never had, kept to his place by habit and, he supposed, weakness of will. He had begun the journey electrified with hope and the knowledge that he was doing good.

He had travelled under the light of the full moon. They had just left the city and reached the open road when the driver had to pull up for an obstruction to be cleared from the horses’ path. As the coach swayed to a halt the three other passengers, all ladies travelling together, started murmuring to each other. Their eyes were wide with alarm and one even gave a little shriek. Alban hardly blamed her; the roads from Chester were notorious for footpads. ‘Be calm,’ he said. ‘Remember, we are armed; there is no need to stir yourselves.’ But his words had little effect and he turned aside with irritation. As they waited in the moonlight, Alban looked out at the fields he had walked as a child and watched the long grass ripple in the wind.

I am leaving here for ever, he thought. The conviction that he would never return surprised him; for though no dates had been discussed, he’d initially thought his stay with Jesse would be temporary. What surprised him still further was that he felt no sorrow at his leave-taking. He tried to bring himself in touch with it. He tried to bid the familiar landscape goodbye as the mail coach started forwards again: to forge into his memory the view of the fields and the sky, blue-black in the moonlight.

His family had always told him he was too sensitive, too fastidious, too careful: and yet as the landscape of his childhood, so loaded with memories, had receded from him, he felt nothing. The nothingness was familiar to him. It approached him sometimes; he felt it in the middle distance, nearing him.

There is a gap, he thought, where my heart should be.

The house on Foster Lane was the same as he remembered, but Jesse was not. Something had left him, although he was Jesse well enough, and not visibly ill. He came to the door at Grafton’s knock, and gripped Alban’s hand strongly.

‘I see no invalid,’ said Alban, trying to make light of his purpose. ‘Am I really needed here, or have I come all this way for nothing?’

Jesse gave him a weak smile. ‘Some days are better than others,’ he said. ‘Yesterday I came in late from a visit to a customer and could hardly lift my limbs at all. I’m lucky I have my best apprentice here.’ He slapped Grafton on the shoulder, and the boy smiled.

Jesse’s children provided a welcome distraction. They swarmed towards him as he entered the parlour, all seemingly identical at first glance, differing only in height. Every child had the same milky blonde hair, green eyes, freckled skin and mouths overfilled with crooked teeth. They were all lean and long-limbed, like their father. They parted easily for him. ‘It’s good to see you, Alban,’ Jesse said. ‘Children, let him through to the seat by the fire – how long has it been?’

‘Eleven years,’ said Alban; he had the date he’d left London written down somewhere, probably on the back of a design sheet. He wished he could name it now: he enjoyed precision.

Jesse sucked the air in through his teeth. ‘Have we lived that long?’ he said. ‘You don’t look a day older than when you left. Does he, Agnes?’ He turned to his wife, who had stepped quietly in behind them, carrying a small child neatly on her hip.

‘Always so handsome,’ said Agnes, kissing Alban on the cheek. ‘And your hair is still black, while mine . . .’ Laughing nervously, she tucked a grey curl under her cap.

‘You are still as lovely as ever you were,’ said Alban, and he didn’t lie. Agnes looked to be the same uncomplicated, cheerful girl he remembered his cousin plighting his troth to. There were lines around her eyes and her figure was thicker. But she didn’t have the sadness that ricocheted off the spaces in Jesse’s eyes. She wore her exhaustion proudly, as though it was an honour that she was happy to bear.

‘How many children now?’ Alban said, looking around. ‘I can’t even count them.’

Jesse laughed, though his eyes flickered. ‘They move too fast. Seven.’ He lowered his voice. ‘A man must work hard to support them all.’

Alban fixed his gaze. ‘I’m your hammer man now,’ he said. ‘I work quicker these days, so whatever Renard throws at you, I’m your man.’

‘I appreciate you being here,’ said Jesse. ‘I’ll make sure you don’t regret it. Tomorrow we will go to the Hall to have some silver touched, and you will see some of your old friends. I’ve spread the word to every worker of the metal in London. Soon we’ll be striking the leopard’s head on that fine silver of yours.’ He watched Alban produce a coin from behind his youngest daughter’s ear. ‘How old are you now, cousin?’ he said.

‘Who knows?’ said Alban, and their laughter sent the little girl scurrying off to her mother. Alban took the seat offered to him.

‘We can register a maker’s mark for you, if you wish,’ said Jesse.

Alban shook his head. ‘I work for you,’ he said. ‘Anything I make can bear your initials.’

‘Always in the shadows, cousin?’ said Jesse.

‘Always,’ said Alban.

They had just finished eating when there was a knock at the street door. Jesse went to answer it, walking slowly, holding his arms a little wide of his body, as though he sought to fill whatever space he was in. The familiarity of his gait moved Alban; unlooked for, he seemed suddenly in the past. He heard Jesse open the front door and greet someone, his voice low and cheerful. Goldsmiths’ Hall was but a few steps away, and other silversmiths often knocked on the door in passing, sure of the welcome they would find at Jesse’s house.

Agnes leaned forwards, and put her hand over Alban’s. ‘He is gladder than he can say that you are here,’ she said. ‘He does not wish to be the weak link in the chain.’ Alban nodded; he understood. To create silver of true beauty needed a network of craftsmen, for there were so many skills involved: raising, casting, chasing, engraving. Although well established, Jesse would not wish to fall behind, to lose his reputation as a craftsman of worth. Thinking on it, Alban saw Agnes’s eyes widen as Jesse came into the room.

‘My dear?’ she said. The children had been telling stories to each other, but their murmuring voices fell silent.

In the dimness, Jesse’s face had a ghostly pallor. His eyes seemed blank smudges of darkness. ‘That was Ovick from the Hall,’ he said. ‘Pierre Renard’s dead. Someone did for him last night, in the middle of Berkeley Square.’

Agnes murmured a prayer under her breath.

‘How?’ said Alban. The word broke from him before he could suppress it. Mindful of the little ones, Jesse turned his back to them and drew his finger across his throat.

‘It’s time for bed, my dears,’ said Agnes. As she ushered the children out, Jesse pulled across a chair, and sat down heavily, his shoulders sagging forwards. Only when the last of them had gone did he look up at Alban. ‘I cannot believe it,’ he said. ‘I was up that way last night. I went to deliver a commission to another shop.’

‘But you did not call on Renard?’ said Alban.

Jesse shook his head. ‘No, no, but,’ he blinked, and shook his head again, ‘it does not matter. Forgive me; it is the shock of it all. And things have been so unsettled recently. We are relying on him for most of our work.’

‘There’s still a business there,’ said Alban. ‘There will still be work.’

Jesse smiled, a little colour returning to his cheeks. ‘I’d forgotten, cousin,’ he said, ‘how placid you are. I bring you news of a murder and you look just as if I’d remarked on the weather. If only I had your sense of serenity.’

Alban smiled uncertainly. He took the notion of his stillness as a compliment, but he also felt it to be wrong. He was far from calm. He had a thousand questions moving across his mind.

‘We will call upon them when it is decent to do so,’ said Jesse. ‘Though I may need to go to the West End sooner. Mallory has some repairs which need carrying out.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘It is strange,’ he said, ‘how everything can change in an instant.’

Agnes had slipped back into the room. ‘It’s late now,’ she said. ‘There will be enough time tomorrow to speak of all this.’ Alban saw from the expression on her face that she was concerned for Jesse.

He did not respond to her touch on his shoulder. ‘Go up to the children,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Let us converse a little. It will bring me to life again, I promise.’

Alban smiled a goodnight to Agnes as she turned away, and sipped his beer. It was a good few minutes before either of the men spoke. Above them small footsteps traversed the floor again and again, as though a game was being played. Eventually Alban formed one of the questions that had been moving around his mind.

‘Was Renard a good man?’ he asked. ‘I met him once, but I could not form an opinion.’ He kept his tone quiet, and emotionless.

His cousin gave him a lopsided grin that emphasized the sad expression in his eyes. ‘Not really a good man,’ he said. ‘He was a flatterer, a salesman. He didn’t care too much whether he spoke truth or lies. I called him an oily bastard often enough, behind his back, of course. But his death is – inconvenient, at least. At the worst – well, I will not speak of that. He had spoken of some large commission, and without him – I’m worried that we may have a loss of income, when we need it most.’ His eyes met Alban’s questioning gaze. ‘Agnes is expecting again,’ he said.

Alban sat back in his chair. He could not imagine another child in this dwelling: another whole presence clamouring for food and care. ‘How does she feel?’ he said.

Jesse gave a mirthless laugh. ‘She’s pleased about it,’ he said.

Alban knew he did not need to ask how Jesse felt. The answer lay in the silence between them. He also knew that it was the wrong time to ask about Pierre Renard, to stir up thoughts of the past when there were more immediate concerns.

‘Alban,’ said Jesse. ‘I worry for them. I am so very tired.’ He looked up at Alban’s face. ‘Do not tell me I will get better.’