The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin (6 page)

16th May, 1792

The image of Sarah and her children stayed with me throughout the day. Her face appeared before my eyes when I tried to concentrate on writing my business correspondence in my chamber this evening. I could not help but feel what a poor creature my wife is by comparison, and my imagination conjured up the life I might have lived had my marriage to Sarah taken place. I have achieved much, yet I have a cold bed, and no children of my own. In truth, I find it unjust that I, who have succeeded in all my endeavours, should be tripped up by a mistaken choice in marriage.

In my prayers, I asked that blessings be rained upon Sarah. I was sitting, thinking of her, when my wife came up to see me. I spoke to her with tolerable kindness. She tries often to be in my confidence, to wheedle things out of me. It takes all of my patience to be gentle with her.

Mary thought she must have been small when her father first took her to the Assay Office, the place in Goldsmiths’ Hall where silver and gold were tested before being hall-marked. For when the memory came to her, she had the sense of being held high in his arms, her face against his, as she stared over the shoulder of the man at the touchstone. The man took the slim piece of metal (the touch needle, her father said) and drew it across the black stone deliberately slowly, taking pleasure in her delight. He did the same with the ring her father had given him, then, so delicate with his large hands, laid a drop of acid on each line.

‘Look at the colour,’ her father said. ‘One line, that drawn by the needle, is gold; the King’s gold; and the other is a baser kind of metal.’

Mary had leaned forwards, almost overbalancing, wanting to touch the black stone with its magic. Had she touched it, she thought, even now, she might have known better; known the difference between base and noble, true and false.

‘One day,’ said her father, ‘you will have a brother, and he will work silver and gold.’

Many years later, he had been sure, even before Eli was born, that his last child would be a son.

‘Mary?’

Mallory’s voice, low and loud, broke through Mary’s thoughts, bringing her back to the parlour. In the morning light, every object was harshly delineated, unsoftened by the shadows and candlelight of evening. Mary was dressed in the black bombazine dress she had worn to mourn her parents, and the garment had wrapped her in memories which constantly claimed her attention.

‘What in the name of Christ are those men doing down there, gathered as if it is a hanging day?’ Mallory said. ‘And why are you not there? Are you not mistress of this house?’

Mary recognized the look on her sister’s face: as though she had been lumbered with a recalcitrant child who was sorely in need of a good hiding. Instead of answering her, Mary huddled deeper into her shawl. The taste of her breakfast roll still lingered in her mouth, sour and grainy, as though someone had put chalk in the flour. It was not out of the question, she supposed.

There was the sound of a chest being dragged across the floor downstairs, the sound of wood and metal scraping on stone. ‘They are being too loud,’ said Mary faintly. ‘They will tear the house apart. Why must men destroy everything?’

‘Will you answer me?’ said Mallory.

‘They are looking for Pierre’s will,’ said Mary. ‘He told Dr Taylor he had made him executor. They asked me, but I know nothing of it. And now they cannot find it either.’

Mallory shook her head, as though to indicate she was valiantly keeping her temper in the midst of the most absurd situation she had ever heard of. She had been executrix of both her husbands’ wills. When Francis Dunning had said he preferred to wait until he was ill to make one, she had clapped him around the side of the head so hard he said he had seen stars for a week.

‘Are you sure he made one?’ said Mallory. ‘He was just the kind of man to think he would live forever, and said all kinds of fiction with three bottles of claret inside him. Oh,’ she gave a cry, ‘how he went on about it: I am a three-bottle man, at least, as if that qualified him for some high position.’

‘It was not long ago that he wrote it,’ said Mary. ‘Do you remember when he took to his bed with that cold? He was convinced he would die.’

‘I do not, unfortunately,’ said Mallory.

‘I tended to him all night, and the next day he wrote it. Scratching away, behind a locked door. He was always stowing things in dark corners. He trusted no one, though you would not think it to see him smile.’

‘Did you not ask him where he kept it?’ Mallory was relentless: her strong voice, so toneless, so sure.

‘No, I did not,’ said Mary, struggling to keep her self-control. ‘You knew him. You know it would have been pointless to ask him. He would never have told me.’

She knew what would have happened had she asked Pierre where he kept the will. He would have insinuated that she wished for his death. Pierre seemed to search automatically for the vice in everything she said. His face was not expressive, but in his last days, his eyes had clouded with dislike every time she spoke. She wondered if he had felt that way for years, and simply become less adept at hiding it. His eyes would seem to darken, and there would be a frozen aspect to his face, pale patches around his nose, as though her words had shocked him enough to stop his blood from flowing for a moment. At such times she would touch his hand, and say ‘my dear’ to him, as though the words carried some kind of opiate effect, the marker of a partnership that neither had completely abandoned.

‘You are over-tired,’ said Mallory. ‘I have sent for Avery, and she will not thank me for it; there will be so much for her to do when she arrives, if you let things run on as they are.’

Mary had a vague memory of their cousin as a slim, blonde girl with a ready smile and a caustic wit. ‘I have not seen her for years,’ she said.

‘Thanks to Pierre,’ said Mallory. ‘But she will come readily enough now. She is needed; you cannot live here without a companion. You are causing enough talk as it is. I found your girl Ellen out on the street, gossiping. I heard her tell Alice Barber that her mistress is not right in the head. And though I gave her a good talking to, I can see why she thinks it. You are active enough in your sleep, it seems, locking and unlocking doors, moving the furniture; but now, when action is called for, you are sitting here, staring at nothing, letting a group of so-called gentlemen take your shop apart.’

There was a crash, and the sound of a man’s voice damning everything to hell.

Mary swallowed Ellen’s betrayal. ‘I promised her extra tea and sugar for her trouble,’ she said. ‘I cannot offer an explanation for what I do in my sleep. That she speaks of it on the street . . .’ She wrapped her shawl tighter around her. ‘Perhaps Pierre was right. He always said that, left unchecked, people would become unruly and out of hand.’

Mallory said nothing for a moment, and Mary guessed that she had been shocked into silence because she agreed with Pierre.

‘Did I see one of your lodgers dragging his trunk along Bond Street?’ she said, after a moment.

‘Mr Pickering?’ said Mary. ‘Yes, you did. He says he will not stay. He feels the chill of death in this house, and claims he heard Pierre’s footsteps the other night.’

‘Fool,’ said Mallory.

‘Do you think so?’ said Mary. ‘I am in agreement with him.’

Mallory ignored her. ‘Have you opened the boxes for them?’ she said. Mary nodded. Pierre had kept his documents in a number of secure chests, soundly locked and stowed in the cellar with the plate chests.

‘I thought so. Give me your keys,’ said Mallory. ‘I will watch over them while they look.’ As Mary handed her the keys Mallory could not help one further burst of advice. ‘When will you learn?’ she said. ‘Your servants live to rob you. Bright Hemmings is probably in the back yard with a hand cart.’ She turned, with an exhalation that sounded like a sigh, and ran through the door down the stairs quickly and lightly.

Mary settled back in her chair. The house felt like a galleon in full sail, groaning and creaking, voices rising and falling in every room. In Pierre’s lifetime, the inhabitants of the house had done their best to be quiet, by the master’s command. Though he didn’t seem to mind the noise of the workshop and the sound of the hammer on metal, within his home Pierre had been sensitive to every voice and footstep. He had even sent a maid packing because she was too heavy-footed. The household had been muffled, everyone closing doors quietly, keeping their voices lowered, as though in mourning. Now, when everyone was dressed in black, they seemed to be making enough noise to wake the dead.

After a few minutes Mary decided to follow Mallory The shop door was closed, and as she came down the stairs she saw that beyond the velvet-draped window Bond Street was quiet. The inhabitants of her house were concentrating their attention on the workshop, and the passage that ran between the front door and the cellar. Grisa saw her first, and fell silent. Then they all turned, one by one, and looked at her as though she was a ghost.

Taylor was holding a document in his hand, holding it with his fingertips as though he did not want to sully it. Mary saw the large dollop of sealing wax on it. There was more wax there than necessary: Pierre must have poured it on with his trembling, feverish hands, and caught it with the side of his hand as he sealed it, so a smear lay across the parchment, the colour of dried blood. She came through the group, Grisa and Mallory moving aside, then Taylor’s assistant.

‘You have found it,’ she said.

‘Quite so, my dear,’ Taylor replied.

‘Holy Jesus!’ cried Grisa. Everyone followed his gaze, turning to see a man’s face pressed to the window, white, the nose squashed so it was deformed by the glass. It would have been ridiculous at any other moment, something a child would have laughed at. But as Taylor went to the door Mary saw all colour had drained from his face.

‘Maynard,’ said Taylor, opening the door with a jerk so that the bell jangled wildly. ‘Good God, man! You scared the ladies half to death.’

‘Speak for yourself, sir,’ said Mallory.

‘You are causing concern on the street,’ said Maynard smoothly. ‘Did you think you would attract no attention, rummaging through the house of the departed – God rest his soul? Has more evidence been uncovered? Do you wish the constable to be summoned? I have just passed Mr Pickering, who was giving a most colourful account of this house as a haunted one.’ He caught sight of Mary’s face, and flushed. ‘Forgive me, Mrs Renard. I did not see you there.’

‘It is the will, sir, that is all,’ said Taylor. ‘An important matter for those close to Mr Renard, but not to you.’

‘In that case, I hope that Mrs Renard will forgive the intrusion,’ said Maynard, tipping his hat and withdrawing. Grisa was still breathing in a laboured way, one hand splayed across his chest.

‘Come now, Mr Grisa,’ said Mary, patting his arm.

‘Do not interrupt him,’ said Mallory loudly. ‘He is seeking to outdo you in the matter of extreme nervousness.’

‘My dear Mrs Renard,’ said Dr Taylor. ‘This is no place for you. Will you allow me to escort you upstairs?’

Mary placed her hand on his arm, and they went upstairs slowly, Mallory two steps behind them. Mary could not help but feel grateful for the doctor’s calm, steady manner; his arm felt as solid as she felt insubstantial. When they reached the parlour and she took a seat, he stood over her, a kindly smile filling his face, his eyes searching hers with concern.

‘Your grief is most natural and a credit to you as a wife,’ he said, ‘but you must be careful of your health, Mrs Renard.’ He had stopped calling her Marie; his sense of decorum, unseated by grief, had returned.

‘The doctor and I are in agreement on this,’ said Mallory, sitting down opposite her. I’ve ordered your girl to make caudle. You need it. You are fading, Mary; there is no flesh on your bones.’ To belie her harsh tone, she put her hand to her sister’s cheek, and let it rest there for a moment, as though half in appraisal, half in caress.

‘I do not think I can drink caudle,’ said Mary. At the idea of its cloying, milky, spicy sweetness, she felt her stomach roll in rebellion.

‘You have to eat,’ said Mallory.

‘Mrs Dunning is right,’ said Dr Taylor. ‘And I see she will make a good nurse. I can, at least, take the burden from you of reading the will, and arranging the funeral.’

Mary saw Mallory’s features tighten, but she said nothing. The doctor took his leave, and the two women heard him go out through the shop door. Mary resumed her former position, settled in the chair, swaddled in her shawl.

‘Will you let them take over everything?’ said Mallory. She took Mary’s hands; her sister was unresponsive. ‘What are you thinking of?’

‘The manner of his death,’ said Mary. She saw irritation flash across her sister’s face again: how vital Mallory was, how full of life and feeling. She observed this dispassionately, as the doctor, she thought, would observe a patient.

‘Then you are wasting your time,’ said Mallory. Her voice was harsh and loud. ‘For he is gone, and you should be glad of it. Open your eyes. There is a business here; there are many things to be dealt with. This house and shop needs a mistress: you must be strong.’

‘You speak as though it is simple,’ said Mary. ‘As though my life is my own. But Pierre has not gone, do you see? I feel him in this house, as though he might walk into the room at any moment.’

As she looked at her sister, Mary could have sworn she saw a slight shiver move through her. ‘Did you go and see the body?’ Mallory said. ‘I told you not to.’

‘I did not go,’ said Mary. ‘This is not about that. When I wake in the morning, all I see is the life he created, and that includes me. It is as I knew, the night he came to speak to our father, to say that he would marry me. I had watched the craft of silversmithing my whole life, from dark corners of workshops. I knew that from my softness, he would make a clay maquette, a waxen form, then cast me out of sterner stuff. And he did: I am, now, his creation. Every dress, every word, almost every movement, I measured and weighed before he himself could measure and weigh it. Day by day every piece of me was stolen away. You look at me as though I should be my old self, but the old Mary is gone and I do not know the way back to her. Our parents and Eli are gone too. It is only you who remembers me as I was; and it is too late for me to make amends for what Pierre did. Do you understand?’