The Gilded Lily (17 page)

‘Ah, Miss Johnson.’ His voice made her start. Jay Whitgift leaned back against the sideboard, raising his eyebrows. Then he laughed, showing his white teeth. ‘Well, I suppose I
did give you the choice.’

Ella looked down, confused, at her gown, smoothing it with her hands. ‘It’s a fine fit, sir. I made sure of that. Is it all right, sir?’

His mouth twitched. ‘It will certainly attract attention. And your hair – it is most unusual.’

Ella was uncomfortable. She had a suspicion she was being laughed at but she did not understand why.

‘You are not cold?’

‘No, sir.’

He smirked again, but then his mouth tightened and he led her towards a stout woman dressed in a stiff coral-coloured gown.

‘This is Mrs Horsefeather,’ he said. Ella dipped her head as was expected of her.

She tried hard not to gape. There was so much lace on Mrs Horsefeather’s cap and mantle that it gave the impression there was a wave breaking round her neck.

Mrs Horsefeather said, ‘Come on, girl,’ as if she was ten years old, and Jay Whitgift smiled and left them. Ella nodded, half an eye on his retreating back. He was easy enough on the
eye and no mistake, she thought. Mrs Horsefeather coughed drily to gain her attention and proceeded to instruct her about the different items on display, keeping up a running commentary as she
guided her through laying out the different stock ready for the opening. She showed her how to dab the perfume on the ladies’ wrists and temples with the conical tip of the glass stopper, how
to mix alabaster powder with egg white to make skin-whitener, how to use the belladonna dropper and, not least, how to stand respectfully to one side so that her breath should not fall on
anyone’s countenance.

Ella took it all in, in a state of excitement, as if she was drinking great draughts of the elixir of eternal life. She kept glancing at the glittering walls, the dancing candle flames, the
displays of powder puffs and pomanders. She was dreaming, she must be. Miss Corey Johnson, of Whitgift’s Chambers. She said the name to herself over and over, quashing the images of the other
Corey bent over her stinking bench at Madame Lefevre’s wig shop.

She learnt how to tally the coinage and put it in the drawer with the wooden compartments. She swirled her hand around the smooth wooden bowls and felt the coins trickling through her fingers.
She could have stood there all day just feeling the weight and coolness of those coins.

The room soon grew hot, there were so many candles lit. She’d never seen so many. What an extravagance. Perhaps it was because ladies were careful of their complexions – not to get
them in the sun, lest they turn brown, like any common labourer.

Ella licked the perspiration from her top lip. ‘Beg pardon, is it always going to be this bright?’ she asked.

‘Mr Whitgift thinks candlelight more flattering to a lady’s complexion,’ Mrs Horsefeather said, patting her own cheek. Ella saw that Mrs Horsefeather’s face was parched
as a dried-up riverbed, her papery cheeks unnaturally rosy. She hoped she would never look as old as her.

Mrs Horsefeather poked Ella with a finger. ‘Now give that table a dust, there is powder spilt all over it. And stop asking so many questions.’

But that’s the first question I’ve asked, thought Ella. She took up the duster though, noticing that even the duster was a proper feather duster and not just an old rag or bobbit of
clothing.

When Mrs Horsefeather went outside to talk with Jay about arrangements for opening day, Ella could contain herself no longer. She gave a huge whoop of joy and hopped round the room in a mad
May-dance. In and out of the tables and chairs set out ready for the customers she went, picking up her red silk skirts and swishing them over her knees, until when Mrs Horsefeather returned she
was pink-cheeked and panting with it all.

‘You look a touch warm, Miss Johnson. It will not do. Mr Whitgift wants you to set an example. I suggest you take a few minutes to powder your nose.’ She held out a small box.

Ella took it. ‘Yes, Mrs Horsefeather,’ she said.

Ella held her breath as Jay Whitgift inspected the chambers, now laid out with every sort of skin balm, glaze and herbal comfit. After moving the belladonna phials into
military ranks on the counter, he turned to smile. ‘Very good,’ he said, strolling again round the counters and the displays. ‘Tomorrow you will help Waley the apothecary in the
back room with making up scented nosegays and salves. He will show you what to do.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Ella, dimpling at him.

‘If you’re all ready, I’ll get the bills printed up this afternoon,’ Jay said.

‘With what?’ A ragged-looking gentleman in a flapping coat had come in behind them.

Jay frowned. ‘Sorry, Tindall, gentlemen are not allowed in the Ladies’ Chambers. Except for the proprietor, of course.’

‘I know. But there’s no ladies come yet. And there is not much coinage in that name, as far as I can see.’

Jay stepped away from him as if he smelt bad. ‘Meaning?’

‘Well, you cannot make a sign out of that. The newer coffee houses all have lively signs, ones that will stand out, attract attention. Like the Pelican or the Dancing Bear. You need
something auspicious, attractive to ladies, like a powder puff or a fan.’

‘I don’t see any reason to complicate it,’ Jay said. ‘It’s chambers where ladies will meet, so the Ladies’ Chambers is good enough. I’ll worry about the
sign later.’

‘Well, mark my words, it will fail if it has no proper signage.’

‘I know what I’m doing, so I’ll thank you to mind your own business. Oh, I forgot, you don’t seem to have one.’

Tindall looked taken aback. Then he retorted, ‘Well, yours seems a damnified business anyway, selling such pap and palter.’ He picked up a creamware pot from the newly neatened
pyramid and opened the lid to sniff at it. ‘What is it Shakespeare said? To gild gold and paint the lily is a waste of time. I might not know much, but I know this: beautiful women have no
need of all this –’ here he held out the pot on his palm – ‘and ugly women, well, whatever they do, they will still be ugly. No point gilding the lily then, is
there?’

‘At least my business is thriving, unlike . . .’ Jay let the words hang there.

‘Here, sir, I’ll take that,’ Ella said hurriedly, replacing the lid on the pot and putting it back on the pyramid. She wished Tindall would leave. There was an atmosphere in
the room now, and she did not like him saying the shop might fail.

Tindall shook his head under his greasy felt hat. ‘Only trying to be helpful, my boy,’ he said, before turning on his heel and walking out.

Jay turned to Ella and Mrs Horsefeather. ‘The bills for Whitgift’s Ladies’ Chambers will be put out tomorrow,’ he snapped.

But when the bills came, they said, ‘Under the Sign of the Gilded Lily’, and when Ella next crossed the yard, there was the draughtsman drawing up a brand new sign with a golden
flower in front of a red lace fan.

Blackraven Alley

Sadie bent low over the table in the wavering shadow of a rushlight. She was darning her shawl again, using one of the wool fringes to mend a hole where she had caught it
on a fencepost the day before. Her fingers were cold, the ends white and bloodless, for they had no wood. The bundle of faggots was finished yesterday. Last time she had gone to fetch wood she had
scrabbled in the mud with the other scavengers for almost two hours, but gleaned only a small damp bundle of sticks and a few sackcloths fit for burning. It was hard to find enough fuel in the
city, where there were no trees and there was no peat to be dug.

Smoke from other people’s fires seeped in through the walls, although the heat did not penetrate through the damp. It was a drizzly night and the walls sweated like cheese. Sadie pushed
her hair out of her eyes, put the shawl down on the table and rubbed her hands over her cheeks to warm them.

She looked up at the window. The sacking that was tacked over it was not quite big enough and gaped open to the sky outside. It was dark and Ella was late home. She wondered how her sister had
fared at Whitgift’s today. She seemed altogether taken with Jay Whitgift. It wasn’t good to wear your heart on your sleeve like that, it gave gentlemen ideas. Sadie remembered the last
time she had seen such a look on Ella’s face. It was eighteen months ago, when she was describing Thomas Ibbetson’s house. She remembered Ella’s awed voice: ‘Feather quilts
in glossy satin covers, and the blankets – soft as lambs’ tails, not like our thin rat-eared ones.’ Ella’s face had taken on the same rapt expression describing Jay
Whitgift’s clothes: ‘Watered silk, Sadie, and cambric that fine you can see your hand through it.’

Sadie took up her needle and rethreaded it. The dreamy look she had seen on Ella’s face meant trouble. To her mind Jay Whitgift was altogether too well turned out – like a
tailor’s dolly. When they had first arrived in London they had both chortled at the men in their ribands and bows and fancy curls, thinking it made them look like maids – funny how
quickly she had got used to it. But Jay Whitgift’s clothes fitted tight, as if they’d been shrunk to him, and he was spotless, right up to his pheasant-feathered hat and right down to
his silver-buckled shoes.

The downstairs door clicked shut. She stood up and brushed the loose threads from her sleeve. She hurried to the landing and peered over the banister.

‘Ella?’

It was not the top of Ella’s head she saw, but the brown felt hat of Dennis from downstairs, listening at his own front door. Just as she was about to go back inside, fearing he would
think her nosy, he turned his face to look up and caught sight of her. She withdrew hastily and turned away.

‘Hang on,’ he said in a loud whisper.

Sadie waited.

‘Have you got a minute?’

She nodded, and he grinned broadly. He came up the stairs two at a time in a kind of lope so that he made no noise with his boots.

‘I think Ma’s asleep,’ he said, ‘so I’ve got a few minutes before I need to see to her.’ He had a large tied bundle with him, which he dumped on the landing
at Sadie’s feet. ‘Last week’s wash – from the wash-house down the way,’ he said wryly, pointing.

‘Oh,’ Sadie said, uncertain whether it was a good idea to stand talking in the hall.

‘If you’ve got the rent, I’ll take it now,’ he said.

‘Oh, oh yes. Wait on.’ She went inside to fetch her purse, and when she could not see it on the kitchen table she shifted her shawl, feeling for it until it was in her hand. When she
turned again she was surprised to find Dennis standing just behind her.

She took a step away. He had taken off his cap and was scratching his head and looking at the shawl on the table.

‘Blimey, that’s neat,’ he said, indicating the shawl with his head. ‘When my ma does darning it looks like a drunken spider’s made a web over the hole.’

‘My sister thinks it’s a fright and I should throw it away. Says it’s not worth mending, but I like it.’

‘It looks warm, that,’ Dennis said. ‘No point buying new if you can mend the old one. Don’t know what’s up with folk – we get them in Whitgift’s all the
time, pawning brand new stuff and wearing the old that’s full of holes. Truth is, they can’t afford to buy the new and end up pawning it. Then they finish up in their old togs just the
same. Dunno why they don’t just mend the old stuff.’

‘Did Ell— I mean Corey come back with you?’

‘No, it was that busy, it’s been a madhouse in there. They don’t let gents in either, so I can’t say what goes on inside.’ He spoke quickly, hardly pausing for
breath, ‘I’ve never seen that many fancy carriages with ladies in before. Looks like it’s going to be a boon for Whitgift’s. I like the name, “The Gilded Lily”
– wasn’t sure about the whole scheme to begin with, ’cos Jay Whitgift’s a bit of a rum animal, but I’ve a lot of time for the gaffer. He lets me take time off if
Ma’s not so good, he’s kind like that, he is.’ He seemed to have run out of things to say. Then suddenly, ‘Are you working?’

‘I’ve got piece work at Lefevre’s Perruquier’s.’

Dennis looked blank.

‘The wig shop round the back of Bread Street.’ Sadie had been counting out the money whilst he was talking. Now she held it out to him.

‘Thanks,’ he said as he took it. ‘I’m glad we’ve got one room let at least. The other one’s been empty three weeks now. But Ma can’t bear the idea of
anyone directly overhead. She reckons ’twould stop her sleeping, you know, the noise and that.’

Sadie was surprised that after she gave him the money he made no attempt to go but continued to stand there. She started to move towards the door to encourage him, but he turned instead to the
darning on the table.

‘Show us how you do this,’ he said, ‘how you make it so neat.’

‘You don’t really want to see.’

‘I do. Show us how it’s done.’ He patted the shawl.

Sadie flushed, embarrassed. It felt odd to show a lad how to sew. She picked up the needle and, feeling a little ridiculous, began to weave the thread.

‘Over and under, see, then push it tight with the back of the needle. You have to keep the hole taut so that the weaving’s even. It’s simple, a child of three could do
it.’