Garlands of Gold (36 page)

It was usual for a newly built house to stand empty for three to six months in order to allow the plaster and all else to dry out completely, which to Elizabeth seemed the longest time that she had ever known. Fortunately she was having no trouble with her pregnancy and was looking forward to bearing her seventh child in her new home.

She had confided her little sin of deceiving Grinling to Saskia and asked her to beg Robert not to give her away. Fortunately Grinling never questioned him on the matter and when he inspected the property he kept his opinion to himself. He and Saskia had called in not just for him to view the house that day, but also for Saskia to take a new toy for one of the Gibbons children, who was still in bed with a chesty cough. As she disappeared upstairs, calling to the child as she went, Elizabeth, rotund in her pregnancy, took Robert into the grand drawing room.

‘Look at my flowers,’ she said, indicating the carved bowl of lime wood blossoms that she had placed on the sill of a window facing the street. ‘Here they sway and dip with the vibration from every passing wagon and loaded stagecoach just as if they were newly picked from the garden. That did not happen where we lived before, because we were too high up in our apartment at the inn. It makes the blooms more realistic than ever. What a genius I have for a husband!’

‘Yes, his skills are beyond comparison,’ Robert agreed, but he did not care for the amount of vibration that the house was experiencing. He glanced up at the ornately plastered ceiling. ‘You must get the builder back to see to that crack, Elizabeth.’

She followed his gaze. ‘I did send for him, but somebody else had taken over his office and nobody knew where he had gone. But Grinling has a plasterer coming tomorrow to put it right.’

‘Who surveyed this property for you?’ he asked.

‘Nobody.’ She blushed scarlet at having to make a confession. ‘But Grinling thinks you did. It was a little – er – misunderstanding, but I was desperate to get this house.’

He raised an eyebrow at her in mock reproof. ‘Should you like me to look around now?’

‘Oh, yes, because I’m sure you’ll find no fault in it.’

He spent about an hour checking on various things. He thought the finishing off was extremely bad in some places, there being every indication of work having been rushed, and up in the attic the rafters were not what he would have selected, but were secure enough. He also found some slight evidence of subsidence on the ground floor, but the property seemed to have settled.

‘Well?’ Elizabeth asked, putting aside some sewing as he returned to her.

‘I’ll be blunt, Elizabeth. The house has its faults, although I have no quarrel with its design, the rooms being well proportioned with high ceilings, but I would not have advised the purchase.’

‘Don’t ever tell Grinling that!’ she implored. ‘Choosing this house was the only decision of importance that I have ever made in my life – apart from accepting Grinling’s marriage proposal – and I do not want him to think me foolish and deceitful.’

Tears welled up in her eyes and she fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. Robert smiled and patted her arm.

‘He would never think that. Just make sure that any repairs needed are carried out promptly.’

She nodded, cheering up, and before he left she showed him a marble bust of Grinling, which had just been finished by a talented sculptor and had been given pride of place in the library. It was a striking likeness, the fashionable size of the large, intricately carved wig was matched in abundance by the billowing of lace at the throat. Robert thought that any stranger to whom Grinling was unknown would see at once that this was indeed a man who knew his own importance to the world and was well pleased with it.

Elizabeth gave birth to another daughter in her new bedchamber and, as was usual, she suffered no ill effects. Her godmother had died earlier in the year and so it seemed right that the new baby should be baptized Henrietta in her memory. Once again the little family procession entered Aldgate Church for the ceremony, although Grinling’s parents were now missing, he having lost them both through a fever. Saskia carried the new member of the family and Robert was godfather for the second time.

He and Saskia were also expecting another child, but a few weeks after the christening she miscarried and, according to the doctor, she was unlikely to conceive again. She was deeply distressed, having hoped so much to increase her little family, but Robert consoled her by reminding her how fortunate they were to have three healthy children, all of whom had already battled through measles and whooping cough, which so often proved fatal to the young. Elizabeth had been through similar crises with her young ones and blamed her premature streaks of grey hair on countless sleepless nights at nursery bedsides, for she was like Saskia in never relying on a nursemaid at anxious times. Saskia concocted a special dye that exactly matched Elizabeth’s golden tresses. It could be combed through to disguise the loss of colour completely and had the effect of restoring lost highlights.

‘Everything you produce always makes me feel beautiful,’ Elizabeth declared, looking at her reflection and touching a curl into place, ‘and it is the same for all your ladies. I believe,’ she added knowingly, lowering her handglass to gaze in amusement at her friend, ‘that is the real secret of your success.’

Saskia gave a delighted little laugh. ‘It’s true that beauty comes from within, so I think you have found me out at last, my dear friend. For a woman to believe she is beautiful, whether she thinks the source to be from a pot of facial cream or a special lotion, it gives her self-confidence and a glow to her eyes. Therefore she is beautiful.’

Elizabeth nodded in admiration. ‘I’m sure that is true. I’ve seen it happen in my own looking-glass.’

Saskia thought as she had done many times before that Elizabeth had a loveliness that had nothing to do with the symmetry of features.

Twenty-Five

I
t was to be an evening without any social engagements and after Saskia had seen the children tucked up in bed she went downstairs again to have a quiet hour or two alone with Robert after what had been a busy day.

In the drawing room he was rereading a letter that he had received that morning. Then, when Saskia had taken up some embroidery and was settled opposite him by the fire, he flicked the letter in his hand, his expression serious.

‘My lawyer has written about the arrest of a much wanted arsonist, named Walter Thornberry.’

She raised her eyebrows enquiringly. ‘That name means nothing to me.’

‘Nor did it to me until I read the name of the woman whom Thornberry declares paid him to burn down a cottage out in the country, which is only one of many charges against him. She has been arrested as the instigator of this particular crime with intent to murder. They are both incarcerated at Newgate prison awaiting their trial.’

Saskia stiffened in her chair. ‘Not Martha!’

He nodded. ‘She has denied the charge, but there is little chance of her being believed, because there is strong evidence against her.’

Saskia bowed her head, covering her face with her hands. ‘I never thought she had anything to do with the fire,’ she said in a distressed whisper.

‘It was no fault of yours.’

She lowered her hands again and looked at him as she shook her head. ‘How can I ever be sure of that?’

‘You must never think otherwise.’

She looked at him fearfully. ‘If she and the man are found guilty what will happen to them?’

‘Arson is a serious charge. If guilty of that alone, even without intention to murder, the punishment would be the gallows.’

‘Oh, no!’ She turned ashen, her eyes stark, and she put aside her needlework.

‘I’m sorry that I have to tell you all this, but I have still more bad news to impart. As the occupant of the cottage, who could have perished in the flames, you will be required to give evidence at the trial.’

She sprang to her feet. ‘No! I did not see or hear anything amiss until I woke to find the place alight.’

‘But you heard a sound outside. Thornberry said he passed the time drinking gin while he waited in the darkness for your candle to be extinguished. He admitted that the bottle smashed when he tossed it aside and he saw you come to the window and look out to see what it was that you had heard.’

‘But why should he betray Martha in such a way when so much time has elapsed since the fire?’

‘A while ago he was short of money and tried to blackmail her, but when she refused to pay up he took his revenge by implicating her when his crimes of arson caught up with him.’

She sank down into her chair again. ‘How soon is the trial?’ she asked tonelessly.

‘It is at the end of the month.’

When the day of the court proceedings arrived Robert accompanied Saskia. At the courthouse steps he bought from the flower-sellers two scented posies, one for her and another for himself, which would help to keep the stench of the prisoners at bay. The court was crowded, but seats for the witnesses had been allotted in a side room and she sat next to Ted Robinson, who had been summoned there through having rushed to the scene of the fire, and was accompanied by George as he had been there too. She asked after Kate and promised to visit again soon, for she tried to go as often as she could, their kindness to her never forgotten.

In the courtroom Robert stood with everybody else when the judge in his scarlet robes and grey periwig appeared and took his seat in his high-backed chair, the lawyers in their equally large periwigs bowing respectfully to him with a rustle of their black robes. The judge had his own posy, larger than those being sold outside, which he placed within easy reach. He was to put it to his nose frequently as he judged first three cases of robbery with violence, the prisoners in chains. All three were condemned to the hangman’s noose, the judge putting on the black cap as he pronounced their sentence. One of the men wept.

Then Martha and Walter were brought into the dock to be judged together for the cottage crime, both in chains. The charge against them was read out that they did conspire to burn down the cottage with the aim of murdering the sole occupant.

‘No! No!’ Martha burst out in a choked voice.

The judge glared fiercely at her. ‘Remain silent, prisoner in the dock!’ he thundered. He considered it to be an open and shut case, wanting no unnecessary time wasted on a pair of arsonists, who had plotted such a foul crime. The fellow had already confessed, but by trying to lay all the blame on the woman he was hoping to escape the rope by appearing to cooperate with the Law. But the woman had mettle in her and was showing no remorse for her crime. Yet there was a terrible fear of the death sentence in her. He knew the signs.

The first witness was Martha’s employer at the time of the fire, for Henrietta had dismissed her before that night. The woman’s name was Mistress Penn and she was a flamboyant woman, extravagantly be-gowned and bejewelled, who was clearly of the
nouveau riche
. Robert, remembering all that Saskia had told him, guessed that the woman was not at all the sort of employer whom Martha would have chosen to serve. The woman’s resentment at having to come to court was soon very clear. It was also apparent that she had never liked Martha, who had probably looked haughtily down on her for having more money than breeding, and her replies to the lawyer were tinged with malice.

‘Yes, she was honest as far as I know, although a pair of my ear-drops went missing for a week. I always found her sullen and disagreeable. Why I kept her on for as long as I did is beyond me.’

‘Keep to the point, madam!’ the lawyer ordered sternly. ‘Did you at any time have any reason to suspect that Martha had carried out the crime of which she and her fellow prisoner have been accused?’

‘No, of course I didn’t!’ the woman snapped. ‘But I believe her capable of it. She has a nasty temper!’

The next witness to be called was Ted Robinson, who nervously twisted his hat round and round by its brim in his gnarled hands. He described how he and his two sons had been searching for some errant sheep with the help of some neighbours when they had spotted the flicker of flames in the direction of the cottage and rushed to help. George then went into the witness box after his father, giving more or less the same account. The following witness was Mistress Penn’s housekeeper, who identified Walter Thornberry as the man who had called more than once on Martha at the house.

Then Saskia’s name was called. She left her seat in the waiting area and entered the courtroom. There she went up the steps into the witness box to take the Bible into her hand and swear the oath. Then she looked across at Martha, who avoided her eyes, straightening her spine and staring ahead defiantly. Yet Saskia was distressed to see the state of the woman who had always been so neat and clean in her appearance. She was in prison-soiled clothes, her hair straggling for want of a comb, but somehow in the squalor of Newgate prison she had managed to wash her cap, making it white enough to almost shine, although it was creased through lack of an iron. The prosecuting lawyer addressed Saskia with respect.

‘You were the sole occupant of the cottage, Mistress Harting?’ he began.

‘Yes. Everybody in the district knew I lived there alone.’

‘What was your acquaintanceship with the woman prisoner?’