The Silver Touch (34 page)

Everything in the mansion was covered in dust-sheets and in the yellowish light given by his lantern it looked as if every room was inhabited by spectres. He made a lightning tour to get his bearings, the shutters over the windows preventing his lantern-glow from being seen from outside, and he only paused in the Esdailes’ own bedchamber. There he stood gaping, never having seen such a bed with its carnation-coloured silk draperies, fluted canopy and tinted ostrich feathers rising from a gilded dome almost ceiling-high. There were no dust-sheets here. His guess was that due to a muddle of servant-instructions it had not been properly closed up again after James’s sojourn on the night of the wedding. Some idiotic maid had even put clean sheets on the bed. He grinned, running a hand over the fine linen. Maybe luck was going to be with him all the way.

Sarah was late in arriving to the point where he had begun to think she was not coming. He shone the lantern for her as soon as he heard the crackle of dry twigs as she began to crawl through an ancient duct in the thick wall that might have been there since Roman times. He bent down and grabbed her by the upper arms to pull her through and on to her feet as if she had been a fish on an angler’s line. He had expected her to be shy and terrified, but there was a curious, almost hysterical exhilaration in her.

‘I did it!’ she exclaimed in an exuberant whisper. ‘I got away from
them
. It shows they can’t keep me boxed up with their rules and regulations for ever.’

‘Well, that’s good.’ He felt somewhat deflated. She had not come entirely to see him but mainly — or so it seemed — to fulfil some obsessive need to prove herself against her guardians. Perhaps she had been waiting to break out in some outrageous move and he had all unwittingly presented it.

‘Have I torn my skirt?’ She looked down anxiously at the drab garment.

He shone his lantern over it. ‘Not that I can see.’ He helped her to brush away the leaves and cobwebs. ‘I have a better way for you to get in next time.’

‘Not crawling on all fours again, I hope,’ she giggled, letting him take her hand to lead her through some undergrowth into the stable yard.

‘No, I’ve a key for each of us that unpadlocks the side gate. Were the gorgons late going out this evening? I had begun to think you weren’t coming.’

‘For once they didn’t go out!’ Her voice quavered on a rising note of triumph. ‘It means I was able to get here on the most difficult evening ever! It will always be easy from now on.’

‘What happened?’

‘The preacher had cancelled the meeting for some reason. It meant I had to wait until nine o’clock before getting away because that’s the hour the whole household has to go to bed to save candles. After saying good night, I climbed out of my window on to the roof of the scullery and down to the ground by way of an old barrel that stands there.’

He burst out laughing. ‘I used to leave our house by the same sort of route. You’re a girl after my own heart.’

She laughed with him, sparkling-eyed and impish, but when he linked his hands at the back of her waist to hug her to him in celebration of her daring, she stiffened away from him instinctively, and he accepted that for all her boldness in meeting him she was also wary. It made him decide not to take her into the mansion until he could be sure she understood she was not exchanging one trap for another. This was a girl to have fun with of every kind and his impression was heightened of a dancing, evasive trait in her that was going to lead him on and on along a path that would be new to him.

They spent their time that evening learning about each other. She had had a happy childhood until one of the strange fevers that frequently hit cities in summer-time took both her parents from her in a matter of days. She had had no other relatives except her late mother’s brother and his wife, who had considered it their Christian duty to crush out of her what they considered to be wayward ways brought on by too much leniency and lack of discipline. Sensitive, fragile and lonely, it was no wonder that twice she had almost pined away.

‘That will never happen again,’ he told her, moved by her plight. ‘You have me now.’

‘I have, haven’t I?’ There was wonder in her voice as if she were only just beginning to comprehend her change of circumstances. It gave him the chance to kiss her, not in laughter as when they had first kissed in the Beavers’ orchard, but softly and experimentally in a discovery of each other’s lips that was entirely romantic.

He gave her one of the two gate-keys when they left the grounds together and he locked up again after them. Under the trees they kissed once more before they parted, she to get back into her home in the same manner in which she had left it, and he to return to London where he had his own secret way of getting back into his apprentice quarters after hours.

At their third meeting he decided to tempt her into the house. It was a cold wet night, which was in his favour, and he led her towards it saying he had a surprise for her. Her eyes gleamed as he set a key in the lock of the mansion’s entrance and turned it. Entering swiftly, he pulled her in after him. To his astonishment, she rushed into the middle of the hall and laughed shrilly in triumph, throwing out her arms as if to the whole house.

‘I always wanted to come into this place! Now it is ours! Yours and mine, Will. A playground safe from all the gorgons in the world. Nobody shall ever find us here.’

There were times when he felt some faculty was missing in her. When he expected questions she never asked them. She had shown no more curiosity as to how he had obtained keys to the gate than she had now about the greater achievement of getting into the mansion itself. What had become obvious, and about which he had no questioning doubts, was that she had become strongly attached to him. It was what he wanted more than he had ever wanted anything before. She haunted him when he was not with her. If he had not been absorbed daily in the work that meant so much to him, he believed he would have been unable to think of anything else but her elfin looks and slim, snake-like body that tantalized his own whenever he was near her.

‘I’ll show you over the place,’ he offered. ‘I’ve explored before.’

‘No!’ she exclaimed, her eyes glittering. ‘Give me the lantern. I want to see for myself.’

He handed it over and ran with her to skid ahead and fling wide doors to let her go rushing through. The beam of light danced from the wildly tossing lantern to send their shadows shooting high to the ornamental ceilings and down across the floors again. She squealed with delight as they went from room to room and skipped ahead of him down to the basement kitchen where the copper pans on the walls blazed briefly in the lantern’s glow as she passed by. In the hall again, she raced ahead of him up the curving flight of stairs with such speed that in his own mind he compared her again to a will-o’-the-wisp with all its teasing elusiveness and he was darkly excited by the strangeness of her.

Once she hid from him and he found himself alone. ‘Sarah! Where are you?’

There was such silence in the mansion that he felt a sense of eeriness. He called her name again and when she did not answer he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. Suddenly she giggled at a distance from him and there was the bang of a door followed by the muffled clatter of footsteps as she took the servants’ staircase up to the attic. By the time he reached her in the cramped quarters under the eaves she had opened the shutters of a small window and released the latch to let the rain come pattering in.

‘Come away from there!’ he ordered in alarm.

Deliberately she leaned out dangerously, mocking him. ‘Nobody tells me what to do in this house. Not even you, Will.’

He seized her by the shoulders and flung her back into the room. Then he banged the window and shutters closed before he faced her in a fury. ‘If you want to be seen and put an end to our meetings, that’s one thing, but I’ll not let you risk your life again in that stupid manner.’

She was in too buoyant a mood to be dashed by his rage. Mischievously she laughed, setting down the lantern on a chest of drawers as she came towards him. ‘I frightened you then, didn’t I? I wanted to test whether you really care about me.’

‘I care for you,’ he admitted huskily as she came close to him.

She peered into his face as if trying to read what was there for her own satisfaction. ‘If that’s true, then you’re the only person in the world who does.’

‘I’m in love with you.’

For a moment she looked as if she might faint under the impact of what he had said to her. Then, in a single movement, she wrapped her arms around his neck and strained her whole body against his. His control snapped. He bore her down on the nearest bed and her kissing and embrace was as frantic as his. He wrenched her skirts up to her narrow hips but as he thrust himself into her she screamed out in innocent terror and ignorance.

‘You’re hurting me! What are you doing?’ In panic she beat against him with her fists but he was beyond speech. Then abruptly her spine arched and she threw her arms back above her head, her mouth agape as she climaxed and he held her as the sweet violence of her body welded with his until he withdrew from her in the nick of time.

It was a long while before she spoke afterwards. He cradled her to him, using gentle words and caresses such as he would have used beforehand if the situation had not rushed out of hand. She stirred in his arms.

‘Now we belong to each other for always, don’t we?’

‘We do,’ he agreed without hesitation, full of love for her.

She linked her hands behind his neck, her face eager, her eyes aglow. ‘Make love to me again. This time I’ll know what to expect.’

All through the winter and into early spring they continued with their secret meetings. She always became a little wild as soon as they entered the mansion and devised games to play amid the shrouded furniture and in the dark corners of the stately house. On occasions they chased each other in nakedness, two pale forms reflected in the gilt-framed looking-glasses as they darted by the Chippendale bed, only one of the many places where they made love. They picnicked in the kitchen, drinking wine from the cellar. She liked to dress up in the silken gowns she found in an old clothes press; once, for a joke, clad in a fashion worn half a century before, she set their picnic out on the long banqueting table. There they sat at either end until, unable to be apart for even that small amount of time, they moved to neighbouring chairs. The door into the tavern was a constant temptation, he wanting to order ale and bring it to her in the Esdaile room there, but it was too great a risk to take. Danger of discovery was also the reason why they never entered the library. He knew Ann to be too keen-eyed and sharp-witted and if she noticed anything out of place she would report it immediately.

Inevitably their trysts were subject to increasing strain, for the constant danger of being sighted on their way to and from the mansion grounds often had their nerves in shreds before they reached each other, resulting in snappiness and bad temper. They quarrelled fiercely, revelling in the release of tension and exulted in making up again. At times they could not have been happier; at others the mansion became a prison to them particularly when, like all lovers, they wanted to emerge together into other company. It was not unusual for them to part in anger.

‘I’m never coming back!’ she would shriek before she ran out into the night to be first through the gate. Then he would regret his own heated words and wait out the whole week in anguish, certain that this time she meant what she had said. In some ways it was her unpredictability that held him. He never tired of her. She was always fresh and intriguing and ever evasive. Often he had to win her all over again, especially when she had suffered a dreary week of petty fault-finding and upbraidings that had taken toll on her belief that anyone could love her.

William had long since discovered that it had been the rare excitement of attending a normal social event that had fired her bold behaviour at his brother’s wedding. It was a measure of her courage that she continued to meet him at all and he viewed her guardians as his enemies as well as hers, never underestimating their power. His ever-ready fear of losing her was also due to her lack of love-words. She listened but never gave back what he wanted to hear. The nearest she had ever come to saying she loved him had been after their first love-making when she had wanted to clarify that now they belonged to each other for always.

‘Tell me,’ he would urge in a situation completely reversed for him, for always in previous amorous encounters he had been the one begged to declare love and he had told the woman concerned whatever lie had suited the occasion, ‘I want to hear you say that you love me.’ Sarah would tell neither a lie nor the truth.

Ever fey, she would sigh, tease, sulk or otherwise remain at a distance from him however close their embrace. It was one of the many causes of their quarrels and in exasperation he would come close to hating her. But the following Saturday he would be at the mansion long before she was due, pacing the floor and eager for her coming. He had not had a second key to the mansion made for her, for the death of a fine horse was still on his conscience and he could never be sure that she would not smash some priceless vase in a temper if ever he should be prevented from getting there. As yet he had not failed her and he hoped to keep it that way.

It was his constant need to be with her that brought about a change in him that was soon noticed by others. For the first time in his life he considered the consequences of following his own will, knowing that drunkenness or gambling or any such indulgence might hazard his chances of being free on a Saturday evening, for any master had the power to curtail liberty for a misdemeanour. As a result he devoted himself to work as never before and his standard of achievement advanced by leaps and bounds. Richard began to entrust some of the most intricate tasks to him and as his general behaviour continued to be beyond reproach he found himself allotted the gold-work that always held his special interest.