Goldsmith's Row (2 page)

"Well, then it was a drawl. What the devil does it matter? I don't care a fig for Laurence, so long as he stays over in Germany."

Receiving no comment from either of his companions, he began to make a speech.

"My father should have been recognized as John Tabor's partner years ago, only the cunning old brute always put off signing the agreement. It was a disgraceful way for one master-craftsman to treat another; my father was as good a goldsmith as Tabor, only he wasn't so lucky. He had his own shop once—not in the Row, I grant you, but he had a place in Foster Lane where he was doing well enough until the house burnt down and we lost everything we had. It seemed very charitable of John Tabor to come to his rescue and settle all his debts. My father was so grateful, he agreed to everything that was suggested. He'd come here and work for low wages until he'd repaid the loan; I was to be bound apprentice to the old man, and Sam after me, and we were all to make our home under this roof—so that my mother lived and died in another woman's house, and my father lost his freedom and drudged on as though he was no more than a journeyman—but we v/ere to swallow all this and look pleasant, because the old man had promised he should be a partner, and sooner or later he'd make it legal. Well, he never did, and now he's dead, and I want to know whether he put matters right in his will."

Edmund and Philadelphia had both heard this string of grievances before, especially during the last week, after Mr. Tabor's sudden illness took a turn for the worse, and there was no hope of his being fit to deal with any outstanding business matters.

It remained to be seen whether he had already made some sort of provision for Zachary Downes. He might have been prepared to sign an undertaking that would not be honored until after his death. Alive, thought Philadelphia, he had not been noted for keeping his word. She considered her own experience of his large, vague promises.

The Whitethorns had lived on their own land in Gloucestershire for the last two hundred years. Quiet people, satisfied with their place in the world, they had not cared much for display until Philadelphia's brother William, marrying a little above him, had been persuaded that it was time their shabby old manor house was converted into something more like a gentleman's country mansion. Visiting London to raise money for this worthy object, he had met John Tabor, and during their negotiations he had apparently disclosed that one of his encumbrances was an unmarried sister of twenty-one who did not get on with his wife. Mr. Tabor had immediately offered to take her into his own household, where she could make herself useful while he found her a suitable bridegroom.

It was quite a usual agreement and Philadelphia had been glad to agree. She had no false pride about her birth and consequence; she knew that she would probably have a better life with a London merchant than with any of the squires who came within their orbit in Gloucestershire, and she was also anxious to get away from her sister-in-law. So she had come to Goldsmiths' Row, where she had been made very welcome and treated with great kindness—she had no complaints on that score—only John Tabor had never made the slightest mention of finding her a husband.  After several weeks of feeling like a heifer at a fair whenever she went into company, it slowly dawned on her that none of the Tabors' friends had been given any of the customary hints about her dowry and connections. She suspected that Tabor had simply taken her in because he needed another woman in the house to be a companion to his ailing and rather foolish wife.

Not that he would have prevented my marriage, thought Philadelphia honestly, if I'd known myself an eligible suitor. Any other girl would have known how to employ the opportunities I've had the last eight months, meeting the bachelor sons of all the wealthiest families in the City. Other girls didn't wait to have matches made for them, they went ahead and found their own lovers, giving rise to a great deal of headshaking by ancient persons who didn't know what the young women of today were coming to. But such girls were sure of their own success, flawless and desirable; they weren't branded like criminals with the horrible insignia of smallpox. Philadelphia had decided at fourteen that her face was going to be her misfortune. She had enough sense to know that there were men who would be willing to take a pock-marked wife, provided she fulfilled all the other conditions that a prudent bridegroom looked for. But the opening moves in a match of this sort were invariably made by the friends of the couple who wanted to bring them together. With no one to push her forward or take her part, she doubted whether she would ever get a husband.

She was not afraid of men; she was well able to treat them in a sisterly fashion, talking sensibly or making them laugh. And that was not likely
to
get her very far.

John Tabor's funeral took place three days later, and his will was read the following morning. The widow received a very handsome jointure: this was a foregone conclusion, for the amount had been stated in the terms of her marriage-settlement. There were a few small bequests, and everything else was left to "my nephew Laurence on condition that he comes home to England and applies himself to his craft as a member of the Goldsmiths' Company."

Zachary Downes received a legacy of twenty pounds and a mourning-ring.

He accepted this with resignation, as though he had expected nothing more. Joel was furious.

"That old villain, that lying hypocrite—I hope he's roasting in hell! I might have guessed he'd cheat my father, but I never thought we'd have Laurence lording it over us—why, the old man never had a good word to say for him. He only made that will last year; he must have been in his dotage."

"It's the old story, I suppose," said Philadelphia. "He decided that blood was thicker than water."

"The Tabors' blood must be thick with gold-dust."

"Suppose Laurence doesn't come home? The lawyers may not be able to find him."

"They know where he is already. He's taken good care to keep in touch," said Joel viciously. "Of course he'll come home. He won't find it very onerous keeping this shop
so
long as he has us to do all the work. And we've no choice; we can't afford to throw up our employment, and we haven't enough money to set up on our own account."

Philadelphia was very sorry for him, and hesitated before giving him a message from Mrs. Tabor, who was asking to see him.

"What's she want with me?" he demanded, on the verge of truculence.

"It's concerning her grand-daughter; I think she wants
you
to go and fetch her."

"I'm damned if I will!"

"I understand how you feel, but do come and speak to her, Joel. It's certainly not her fault that your family was treated so badly."

He grumbled a little more, but finally went upstairs with her, and listened with impeccable civility when Mrs. Tabor told him how eagerly she looked forward to seeing her only grandchild.

"I would be very glad if you would act for me in this matter, Joel."

"I don't know that I can help you, madam. Where is your grand-daughter?"                                                       

"I am not precisely certain where she
is
now. Cicely Fox took her to live in Kent, and I suppose they are still there. I know you will find her and bring her to me as soon as you can. My little Frances! Only think, I have not had one single report of her since the letter Elizabeth wrote me the day she was born."

Joel and Philadelphia exchanged glances of baffled astonishment. They had assumed, from the confident way she spoke, that Mrs. Tabor must know exactly where the child was; probably with foster-parents chosen and paid by hergrandfather.

"If you don't know where she is," said Joel slowly, "where am I to start looking? You can't expect me to search through the whole of Kent?"

"Why, no—poor Joel! Don't look so disconsolate. The whole of Kent, indeed! I have the name of the village, it is written down in the letter, as you shall see. Philadelphia, would you open the big chest under the window, and take out a coffer that is stowed away somewhere towards the bottom on the left, a little coffer made of Spanish leather… I keep the letter in there that Bess wrote me the day my dear daughter died. That was Elizabeth Angell, whose father had his shop at the other end of the Row, though they have all gone from there now, scattered Heaven knows where. Bess must be more than thirty years old, for she and my Frances were exactly of an age, and it was to Bess that poor Frank turned, after that wicked man deserted her…"

Hunting in the big chest for the little coffer, Philadelphia heard the whole story, which she translated in her own mind to a rational account of what had really happened.

Frances had run off to live blissfully in sin somewhere in the country, taking with her from Goldsmiths' Row her former nurse, a woman called Cicely Fox. The only other person in her confidence was her friend Bess Angell. When she was seven months pregnant her lover, Robin Martel, had surrendered to family pressure and gone back to his wife. It was not clear whether he had left Frances penniless or whether she had been too proud to accept his help. She had not approached her parents. It was Bess Angell who had secretly taken care of her, installing her and Cicely in a farm at Enfield belonging to her own family, but which they seldom visited. Mr. Angell only discovered what his daughter had been doing when he got an enquiry from the local coroner about a young woman who had died in his house. Horrified that Bess should be involved in such a scandal, he had carried her off forcibly to relations in the West Country, and there she had remained. All Mrs. Tabor had received from her was this one letter.

Philadelphia had found it now; she offered it to her mistress, who asked her to read it aloud. She said her eyes were dim from weeping; Philadelphia had a suspicion that she had never entirely  mastered  the   art  of reading  and writing.

The same might be said of Bess Angell, she reflected, unfolding the limp sheet of paper and trying to decipher the faded scrawl. There was no law which governed the way you chose to spell, that would be absurd, but most people did stick to a rough kind of orthodoxy. Not Bess Angell. She and her friend Frank, spoilt little heiresses, had no reason to waste their time on book-learning.

Madamm i greave to tel you deere Franke dyed in my armis
…

Philadelphia was reminded that the writer of this letter was an eighteen-year-old girl who had just watched another girl through hours of agony that culminated in death. She was ashamed of her own arrogance. The letter was short and bleak. Frank had been in labor for thirty hours. The baby was strong and lusty. Frank had shown great courage. Then came the crucial part.

Shee axed me to care for her childe so I crissent the babby Fraunceys witch is al i cd do for feere of mi fathers rawth. Sisley and the babby ar lodjing with the wett nourse and wen Franseis is weand they wil goe to Sisleys kindread at Cobchirche.

Poor Mrs. Tabor was dabbing her eyes, but she must have brooded over these details so often that the pain was a little dulled. At the end she said, quite cheerfully, "There, you see. Cobchurch."

"Suppose she has the name wrong," said Joel gloomily. He had got a glimpse of Bess's handwriting.

"You need not trouble your head on that score, for I remember thinking, when I first had the letter, that Cob-church in Kent was where old Reuben Fox came from forty years and more ago. He was a porter at the Shambles, and married a woman that worked for my mother as a laundress. Cicely was their daughter, who came to me when Frank was in her cradle. I know she had a brother who went back to their father's native village. So there's no doubt about Bess having the name right, and you should be able to find Cicely straight away, for it's only a small place where everyone is bound to be known."

There was a slight pause.

"Mrs. Tabor," said Philadelphia gently, "has it ever crossed your mind that the baby might have died?"

Mrs. Tabor was confident that little Frances had survived. She felt it in her bones. Philadelphia made another tentative suggestion.

"Should you not consider carefully before you bring her here? If she has lived all her life in a ploughman's cottage, she may not take kindly to Goldsmiths' Row."

"Then we'll go down to Hertfordshire and stay there until she is more used to our ways. It's true the great house at Thurley belongs to Laurence now, but I don't suppose he'll object."

"Laurence!" said Joel sardonically. "Why not send him to hunt for your grand-daughter, madam? I'm sure he'll be more use to you than I am."

Mrs. Tabor became flustered. "Don't desert me, Joel—don't be angry. It wasn't my fault that there was no special provision—indeed it wasn't. I did try to suggest it, but he would not listen, and I am not very well instructed in such matters… But I'll tell you one thing I have always had in mind: that when my husband—if it pleased God that I should outlive him—I would offer a great reward to the person who found my Frances for me. And that is why I'm giving you the first chance to look for her, so that you can win the reward. It won't be as much as your father would have got from the partnership, but it will be worth having, I promise you."

Joel stared at her for a moment without speaking, and the anger died out of his face.

"Very well," he said eventually. "I'll go as far as Cob-church for you, at any rate. I reckon he was a hard master to you also."

"Oh, you must not say so," whispered Mrs. Tabor. But she did not contradict him.

3

Joel sat astride a hired horse in the sodden desolation of a Kentish lane, gazing at a tumbledown cottage entirely surrounded by briars.  The roof of mildewed thatch was  full of holes, the place must have stood empty for years. He was calling down curses on the females of the Tabor family, and on all the yokels in the country of Kent without exception.

He had set off on his travels the previous day, well supplied with money and making the best of a tedious journey by dwelling on the promised reward. Having crossed London Bridge, he had asked a man in a carrier's cart the way to Cobchurch. Here things had begun to go wrong, for the carrier had sent him off in the direction of Orpington, to a place that turned out to be Cobstreet. Cobchurch, apparently, was somewhere quite different, over towards Rochester. He had turned eastwards, hammering along the bad roads as the day became darker and colder and he grew sore and stiff in the saddle, for he was not much of a horseman, and the old nag knew it and was giving him the devil of a jolting. The January dusk came down early. He put up at a wayside tavern where he was bitten all night by fleas. This morning, after several wrong turnings, he had at last reached Cobchurch, hungry for his dinner, only to discover that it was nothing more than a poor, scattered hamlet without so much as an alehouse.