The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin (11 page)

‘I am, sir,’ Alban had said. They had stood there for a moment, Renard speaking of the trade, his voice ranging pleasantly over subjects as though Alban was his equal, but his dress and his watch indicated otherwise. He seemed perfectly relaxed, and his smile never wavered; Alban thought how engaging he was, and imagined him charming his customers.

Several aisles away Eli gave a little cry as he was lifted up by Mallory, struggling with her, but with a smile on his face. Renard’s face changed, and though Alban could not remember the colour of his eyes, the content of his stare had remained with him: cold, and full of spite, as though the child he watched was an inconvenience, a blemish on the pleasant picture of a morning at church.

‘That child,’ he had said, in the same lyrical tone, with a hint of a French accent. ‘I cannot look at him without wishing to raise my hand.’

Alban left the church; and for days he had been haunted by the memory of Mary’s smile when her father had introduced her as Renard’s bride.

Eleven years later, Alban walked quickly down the London streets. He had not put on a coat and the winter air crawled over his skin. Jesse’s words had angered him, raising emotions from the past that he had no wish to confront. He had meant only to escape the workshop, but as he walked his route bent towards the west. He reasoned that his feelings had been just the tremors caused by memory, echoes of something that no longer truly existed. If he could look her in the eyes again, and use logic to decipher his thoughts, perhaps he could lay it all to rest.

He followed the route he and Jesse had taken four days before, stopping every time he came to a taproom or a beerseller, throwing down spirits after ale. He tried to unpick the past, but underlying his thoughts was the question that had always haunted him: why had she married Pierre Renard?

The drink desensitized him. It was two and a half hours before he reached Bond Street. He told himself he was walking straight, yet he felt that numbed hesitance: a precursor, a whisper not yet loud enough for him to heed, that he would think of this later with shame. For now, the drink had taken the edges off life, so he proceeded with confidence.

On Bond Street everything seemed brighter than before, the colours more intense, the edges sharper. The sky’s blue was a mixture of ice and lapis, without a cloud. The grey of stone against it, the burnt-wood brown of bricks cut from the London mud and stained by the city’s smoke. Had he never noticed these things before? he wondered, he who prided himself on recognizing beauty, on seeing detail where others saw only the mundane essentials of life. Where there were carved details, be it a bunch of grapes or only a volute, double-lined, cut in stone, he stopped and looked at it, as a child looks at a ladybird crawling on a wild flower: with fascination and excitement. The window displays and people did not interest him as much as the buildings did; the busy road, the noise, he could ignore. His progress down Bond Street was slow.

The ladies and gentlemen had come to buy things: silver, jewels, sweetmeats, furs. Their carriages and sedan chairs filled the road, and their feet the pavements. More than once, in his unsteady state, Alban’s shoulder caught another, earning him a sharp reprimand, but he continued on, expecting at any moment to be pushed into the path of a horse by an officious manservant, but somehow knowing he would deal effectively with trouble when it came. The liquor he had drunk gave him the certainty that he was able to defeat the hundreds of foes, natural and unnatural, that had barred and would bar his way in the world; it gave him the conviction he could survive. This new view made everything possible, suddenly; even the possibility of love. With it came an intense desire to see Mary’s face and gauge if there was any trace left of the girl he had once known.

He found a space opposite the Renard shop. Or, more accurately, he carved a space out with his sudden stillness, refusing to be carried on the relentless crowds of shoppers down Bond Street. People flowed around him. How he stared, intensely, at that shop front, looking for meaning (like a fool, he thought) in something dumb, unseeing and unfeeling: as if glass, bricks and mortar could speak to him. The tumult and excitement in him, the flame lit by Jesse and the drink, began to gutter and die. For though he knew he could live whatever came, he could not find the words to speak to Mary, even to ask for her, without drawing ridicule on himself.

He was not like Renard. He had no words. He never wished to explain, or excuse himself. He had lived with acceptance, at a distance from the things that could have given him joy or pain. He had nothing to account for: the sheet was clean. He did not wish to apologize for himself, and yet he felt unworthy.

He kept telling himself that he could lay it to rest. For it seemed so strange that this ache in him, this sense of loss, had been based on such brevity of acquaintance. He had never said the word love in his mind when thinking of this cherished stranger, and did not want to account for why she should be so precious to him, dearer than his own flesh, when they had spent so many years apart. If it was love he felt – and he could think it, after so much drink – then it was a love long buried and based on unknowing.

He stood watching for some time; minutes passed, then an hour, and still he did not move on. When the shop door opened, and Mary came out, he felt shocked, though he had waited for that reason, with that hope. She was dressed in black, her hair up, her dark eyes paled by the sunlight. There was a wildness about her look that reminded him of Grisa’s word.
Insensible.
She was alone, divorced from propriety. Then she looked up from adjusting her cloak, and saw him.

They were separated by Bond Street; carriages, horses, people moved between them in a blur of colour and noise. She was the fixed point he kept his eyes on, and she did not draw her eyes away.

He saw her lips move; he could not tell what she was saying. One word. Sir? You?

He did not know how long they stood there. It was she who crossed the road, eventually; he could never after think of that without shame. When she reached him, they kept a good foot apart, for all the others moving around them.

‘Mr Steele?’ she said. She looked down when he nodded, took a breath. ‘You probably don’t remember me,’ she said. ‘My name is Mary Renard.’

‘I know who you are,’ he said. In his mind he begged whatever watched him, whether it was God, the sky or just his own thoughts, to keep his voice steady, to stop himself from slurring the inane things he was going to say. But already reality was breaking in: he was unkempt, dressed in his work clothes, smelling of a tavern. He bowed briefly. ‘I would not have chosen to meet you like this,’ he said.

‘You did not wish to meet me?’ said Mary, and he saw the hurt in her eyes.

‘No!’ he said. ‘Not as I am now, dressed only for the workshop, and the smell of drink on me. I am not normally so. Let us move a short way; I would speak with you.’

She acceded by following him. They walked in parallel, still apart, as though each separate and unseen by the other, buffeted by the shoppers, and unaware of them. Near the junction of Old and New Bond Street, at Grafton Street, they were able to turn off the main thoroughfare, and stood awkwardly as the flow of people continued without them, both looking on at the ongoing rush that moved ever forwards like a river. ‘And this is low season,’ he said, looking around them. Then, he knew he must finally turn towards her. ‘How are you?’ he said, quickly. ‘I must give you my condolences.’

Mary stared at him. ‘I am well, thank you,’ she said. She forced a smile, while her eyes remained unreadable. ‘And what of you? Where have you been, all these years?’

‘In Chester,’ he said. ‘It does not seem so long. When one does the same thing every day, the years fly.’ The evenings in a small, dark room in a lodging house: drawing by candlelight, putting the elements of his silver designs on paper. The days: never realizing the designs, only doing the bread-and-butter work. One woman in those years, her white back turned to him, her dark plaited hair so long the end rested on the bed. He had not cherished the sight of her as he had the stacks of drawings, littering the table and the floor, drawings he would one day categorize, one day fulfil, one after the other. He had sworn it; he had sworn many things. One evening he had even sworn he would return to London and seek out Mary, when, drawing a design, he had found beneath his hand a cypher: her initial, and his, intertwined, drawn without calculation or thought. The memory of it was a small stab in him; it made him catch his breath, for he had been a younger man then, and he wondered if he might have saved her from the sadness that now enveloped her.

‘I will be in London for some time,’ he said. ‘May I call on you?’

She was about to respond when a shout went up. ‘Thief!’ There was a scramble, of people turning, of men checking their watches and women their jewellery Mary had taken a step backwards towards Bond Street. Later, Alban thought he must have been emboldened by the drink still filling his blood, but he was not sure if the instinct would have overridden politeness anyway. He took her wrists, gently but firmly, and drew her out of the path of the crowds, towards him. His hands were still upon her, when she caught sight of something over his shoulder.

‘Here is Dr Taylor,’ she said. ‘He has come to protect me again. I keep going out alone, and it is thought to be unseemly.’

Alban turned and saw the lumbering figure dressed all in black. He squeezed his eyes half-shut to focus, and noted the grim expression on the doctor’s face. He bowed briefly to Mary. ‘My compliments,’ he said. Then he did the same to the doctor, barely hearing Mary’s introduction of him as Mr Steele, a fine silversmith, from Chester. It was evident that the doctor wished him gone; so he went, glancing at Mary’s face, her suddenly downcast eyes.

As he reached the junction of Grafton Street and Old Bond Street, a man in a burgundy coat tipped his hat to him. ‘I see you know Mrs Renard,’ he said.

‘I cannot see what business it is of yours, sir,’ said Alban. He would not have shown such sharpness, normally; he hardly knew where he was.

The man smiled, looking around as though he sought to take in every detail of the scene. ‘A stranger,’ he said. ‘How curious.’

He briskly joined the flow of people before Alban could say another word. Frowning with annoyance, Alban looked back over his shoulder: Mary was speaking, and the doctor was still watching him.

As he began to walk, he dwelt on the moment when he had taken her wrists, and moved her aside. It was in that moment that he had known there was something beyond logic in all of this. Whatever he felt for Mary Renard, it was not dead.

5th June, 1792

Lately I have kept to myself when not working, and shied away from pursuits that might divert me, for I have needed the quiet to think on the past. But tonight I sent word to Dr Taylor that I would care for his company, and sure enough he came.

Taylor is a good man and I prize his high connections. I first met him when I took the lease here on Bond Street; he lives nearby, and has earned a high reputation doctoring women, but is a man of great skill and learning, and now serves as a coroner. He took to me at once when we met, and has been a useful friend. He has no children, and being some fifteen years older than I, I believe he values me almost as a son, for there is something of that tenderness in his treatment of me.

I am wont to speak to him at least with the impression of openness, and sometimes I am frank even beyond what I intend. I confided in him of my desire for a family. He, huge man that he is, had tears in his eyes. He has not spoken to me of his own marriage, which has lasted twenty years, but remained childless. Yet there was such emotion in his face when I spoke that I felt sure he knew my anguish.

‘None deserves that better than you,’ he said to me. ‘If it is God’s will, you will be given a son, but you must be patient.’ His words, though meant well, did not soothe me. My agitation is great.

Digby had left the watch house late. It had been a busy night. He’d broken up three brawls, and then some house-breakers had been caught and delivered. He did not feel tired; he and Watkin had been dissecting the night’s events with good humour and vigour. So he decided to go to the Red Lion and have a pot or two of beer.

The beer was good, but it made his head spin. He thought perhaps he’d got a good barrel for a change, before the landlord could water it down. Whatever was wrong with it, it had had a stupefying effect, as though stronger than usual, and his energy melted away. He stumbled along in a cloud of fatigue, bumping into a man or two as he walked, raising his hands in apology. ‘Half-dead with tiredness,’ he muttered, when he hit one man’s shoulder particularly hard, and was sworn at. He speeded up on Piccadilly; not long now until his bed, and he was so ready for it he knew the vermin would not disturb him.

A flash of a burgundy-coloured coat insinuated itself into his peripheral vision as he walked slowly along, and it was half a minute or so before he realized Maynard was beside him, swinging his stick as he walked and smiling with his usual determined good humour.

‘Sir,’ Digby said, wondering how long he could delay the action of taking his hat off without being accused of insolence. Every movement was an effort, and especially any movement that went against his will.

‘What a fine morning it is, Digby,’ said Maynard, in a good-natured tone. He was slightly breathless, the colour high in his cheeks. There was an aura of enquiry about him, Digby thought, and he found the very awareness of it exhausting and disquieting. Still, though his liking for Maynard was diminishing, tempered as it was by suspicion, he did not actively dislike him. Which put Maynard above most of the people that crossed his path in the average day.

‘As you say, sir.’ Digby stayed on the right side of politeness.

‘And what a fine coincidence to see you here.’ A large woman descended regally from her carriage into their path, her enormous hat pinned precariously to her towering hair, one gloved hand holding it in place. Digby and Maynard swerved as one, Maynard tipping his hat.

‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said Digby, in a tone which did anything but. ‘I could’ve sworn you live on Half Moon Street, yet I cannot move but you are near me.’

‘It is hardly my place to consider where you shall be when I walk out in the mornings,’ said Maynard, a little more loudly, but still cheerfully. ‘And shouldn’t you have been abed several hours since?’

Digby opened his mouth, then closed it again. His bed was not a welcoming place, but he did not want to risk the truth, and he could not trust himself to utter a falsehood without making it a little smart. He had a sense that Maynard would not enjoy more smartness from his lips.

‘Besides,’ said Maynard. ‘You must have thought I would come and find you again. You never did answer my question the other day.’

His hand closed around Digby’s arm, bringing him to a halt. Digby looked at the hand. Yet, for the suddenness of the gesture, Maynard’s touch was firm but unthreatening, as though they were friends, and he was simply supporting him.

‘Isn’t Ma Blacklock’s near here?’ said Maynard. ‘We could have some coffee. You look like you need it. And this kind of discussion is better had off the streets. Good morning, sir!’ He tipped his hat at another acquaintance. ‘Everyone’s up early, ain’t they?’ he muttered, after the man had passed by.

Digby wondered whether he could possibly steer Maynard back to the Red Lion, but then realized it was too long a walk. ‘I don’t know how a gentleman of your sort knows of Ma Blacklock’s, sir,’ he said.

Maynard gave a hearty laugh by way of reply, and cheerfully led the way off Piccadilly.

Ma Blacklock’s was situated in a small courtyard, and was styled as a coffee house, but all kinds of dubious services issued from its centre. Digby watched Maynard’s face, and noticed that the man looked undisturbed, cheerfully handing a coin to the girl that came to serve them. What had once been a parlour was lined with benches and two trestle tables, panelled with dark wood, and lit by guttering reed lights. It had a stale smell, as though shut up too long, and the lights gave the air a constant smoky tinge of animal fat. After Maynard spoke briefly to the girl they were directed to a small box of a room in a section of what must have been once the back parlour, where Digby sat down and longed to put his head on the table. A coffee pot and cups were banged down next to them. ‘I didn’t know there were private rooms here,’ he said, his voice slurring with tiredness.

‘This is it,’ said Maynard, sitting down. ‘Apart from upstairs, of course. It’s been years since I came here last. A gentleman seasons his experiences with places such as this. What kind of man would I be if I spoke only with the womanish Taylors of this world? You and I know what life is, Digby. I hear you carry a dagger with you rather than your watchman’s rattle.’ He took a sip of the coffee, and winced.

Digby yawned. ‘My voice carries pretty far, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve no need of the rattle, and the knife serves me better.’

Maynard smiled. ‘You’ve got sharp eyes, Digby,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that – yes, a hundred times over. I always knew it; I always saw it in you. The most acute perception. Surprising.’

Digby was unimpressed. Was this the man’s idea of flattery? ‘Just because I’m no gentleman it doesn’t mean I am dull-witted, sir. Not all of us are.’

‘Then we agree,’ said Maynard. ‘As I said to you the other day, I require your assistance. I am certain, as certain as I am that this coffee is mostly not coffee, that there will be many rumours about Pierre Renard’s death. Some have said he wanted the Terror brought to England.’

‘Hardly a reason to kill a man,’ said Digby reasonably.

‘Unless you’re hot-headed,’ said Maynard. ‘But like you, it seems, I think Renard’s trouble was closer to home. Recently, he had become more arrogant, and careless of making enemies, even amongst his customers. Much more to this than meets the eye, my good man, much more.’ There was an edge to his cheerful tone. ‘What have you heard?’ he said.

The watchman raked through his recent memories for a recent titbit. ‘Bright Hemmings,’ he said, this throat croaky, ‘is telling everyone who’ll listen that Mary Renard is sweet on him, and that she’ll be his. Exham, that engraver of Renard’s, was ready to combust when he heard him say it. Chased him halfway down the street.’

‘And what do you think of that?’ said Maynard. ‘Drink the coffee, Digby.’

‘I think Bright Hemmings is an idiot who thinks more of pigs than he does of women,’ said Digby. ‘The idea that he had someone do Renard in is nonsense.’

Maynard nodded. ‘There we agree, again.’

Digby took a mouthful of the coffee. It tasted foul and gritty and he had to fight every instinct to stop himself from spitting it out. He swallowed it with a gulp. ‘I don’t know why you think you need me to work all this out, sir,’ he said.

‘Because it is not simple,’ said Maynard. ‘For Renard was the kind of man who had a thousand threads weaved together, and it will take thought to untangle it all. I want to know if there is so much as a hint of who might have wished to kill him.’

‘And why do you think I can get near it?’ said Digby Looking up from his coffee cup, he met Maynard’s eyes for the first time: steady, unblinking grey eyes. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘Because no one will notice me. I am not a gentleman. I am nothing.’

Maynard left a brief pause. ‘I did not say that, Digby,’ he said.

Offence had already risen up in Digby; he was feeling more snappish by the moment. ‘What I don’t understand is this: why do you care so much anyway? What was he to you, I wonder?’ He tried a small leer.

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Maynard. ‘You may think me a hard man, but I am not – and it is the plight of his wife that touches me. I have heard she is delicate, and as Taylor seems concerned only with keeping her out of the daylight, she is not likely to make a move herself to ensure her own safety, or discover if there was some dark dealing by Renard which may come back to haunt her. I worry for her. He was a wretch, that man.’

‘Handsome, though,’ said Digby, thinking he would rub it in. ‘Ladies liked him.’

‘That too,’ said Maynard, with a grim smile. ‘But I don’t talk out of jealousy, Digby. Renard had a dark heart, and in seeking to make himself out as a gentleman . . . he took people in, people like Taylor, who should have had more sense. He thought he was clever, that he could line people up like pieces in a game of chess.’ He shook his head. ‘Shortly before his death, I heard talk that he’d promised to get votes for one of his patrons, in exchange for a big commission. God knows how he thought he was going to get them, I don’t know. Blackmail, perhaps. I was going to expose him, make the world see him for what he was.’

‘And now you can’t,’ said Digby ‘Speak no ill of the dead.’

‘Quite,’ said Maynard. ‘But the puzzle remains. What kind of bad business was Renard involved in? Surely correcting an injustice appeals to you? And protecting an innocent lady, who may still be in danger? You have a strong sense of justice, I can tell.’

Digby swung himself off the bench with some difficulty. ‘I need to sleep. I wish you a good morning, sir, and I’ll think on it,’ he said.

‘I’ll call on you again sometime,’ said Maynard. ‘You’re in the Red Lion mostly, are you not?’

‘I am,’ said Digby, wondering how Maynard knew, but not caring to enquire any further.

He went directly home. But when he got into bed, sleep would not come. Maynard’s words had disturbed him. Eventually, he dozed, and when he woke he panicked, going to his coat and feeling in the pocket for the watch. He decided he would buy a cheap chain for it, so he could secure it in some way even if he could not wear it openly. He raked his fingers through his hair. A headache was beginning behind his eyes. He decided to take a breath of air.

A stagecoach had disembarked at the White Bear on Piccadilly, and to Digby’s jaded mind as he walked through the people every face seemed to shine with hope and expectation. There was a radiance about them all, he thought; young people, come from the country. Were they all so young? He wrapped his coat around him, coughing, and that created a clear enough path.

‘You again,’ said the landlord of the Red Lion.

‘And a good day to you, too,’ said Digby ‘Give me a friendly word for a change, would you? I have had precious few this last week or so.’

‘Well, you might be of some use,’ said the landlord. ‘You know him, don’t you?’

Digby looked over his shoulder to see Jesse Chamac, sitting on his own. He was gulping quickly from a pint pot, and when he put it down he drummed his hands on the table. He nodded. ‘He’s been here for hours and he’s putting some of the regulars into bad humour,’ said the landlord. ‘Speak with him for his own sake. Old Paynter doesn’t like strange ’uns and I don’t want blood spilled at this time of the day.’

Digby took his own pint and went to sit down with Jesse. ‘Visited Bond Street?’ he said, as Jesse looked up. Jesse shook his head. His eyes glowed with a kind of feverish excitement, and with every breath he exhaled the scent of an afternoon’s drinking. He drummed his fingers on the table.

‘Leave that, now,’ Digby said. ‘What’s ailing you?’

‘Woman,’ said Jesse.

Digby said nothing, took a sip.

‘It’s not
that
!’ cried Jesse. ‘I see the way you are looking at me. She’s like a sister to me.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Digby.

‘She will not sh-peak to me,’ Jesse said, tilting his head, observing the grain of wood on the table closely, as though it was deeply interesting to him. ‘I keep coming to her, I keep trying. I am neglecting my work, I am neglecting my family. Today I came to her, and I said, I cannot keep inventing pretexts, madam, to visit you, but if I must protect you I must know why.’

‘Did she tell you?’ said Digby, swilling his beer around and rolling his eyes in the direction of the landlord.

‘No, shur, no, she did not. She cursed me, and said she wished I was long gone. And I said to her, but I saw you. I was visiting some of my fellows and I saw you on the street that night, that night, you know when, you passed me and you did not see me but I saw you, I would know you anywhere, and she said, what night, and I said the night your sister’s husband met his maker.’ He gave an exaggerated, triumphant nod, then clumsily mimed a sawing action to his throat. ‘She could be strung up for it. I keep it quiet, I say nothing, I ask only for a word of explanation to rest my conscience, and she curses me.’

‘Who are you talking about?’ said Digby. At Jesse’s silence, he swallowed hard and put his pot down. In his mind he damned Maynard before he asked the question. ‘Is this about Pierre Renard?’ he said. He lowered his voice. ‘Jesse, you know me. Is it him?’