Goldsmith's Row (12 page)

Grace had started to come and sit in the church very soon after the disastrous morning when she and Mrs. Tabor had met Coney in the street outside. At first he would not speak to her; he used to go stalking by with his head turned away, pretending not to know she was there. Until one day she was crying, and he came and sat beside her, gripping her hand and not saying anything, so that they made up their differences without any troublesome arguments, and since then they had been meeting in the church two or three times a week.

Melchior Breda seemed to accept her visits with placid approval. She was not sure if he understood her position; his English was extremely bad and his head was generally in the clouds, so lie probably took it for granted that she was nothing more than a maidservant. In any case he must know that there was no harm in the quiet and sober talks they were able to have in church. Only once, when there was a wedding at St. Mary's, the stone-carvers weren't able to go in, and Coney had taken Grace for a walk. They had strolled along Aldersgate Street, passed St. Bartholomew's Hospital, till they came to London Wall. Feeling very venturesome, they had gone out of the City into Moorfields, a desolate, marshy place that had recently been drained and still had a strange, drowned landscape which looked as though it wasn't yet accustomed to the sun. It was the favorite haunt of courting couples, philosophers and lunatics, and also of the laundresses who went out there to do the Citys' washing and dried it on the grass. They did not meet any philosophers or lunatics, but presently Coney put his arms round Grace and kissed her on the mouth. And all of a sudden she knew that this was what she had been waiting for. She knew why she had felt so uncomfortable being cajoled and caressed by Joel Downes; not because kissing was wrong in itself (which was the gloomy nonsense that had been thrashed into her by Mr. Tucker) but because it would always be wrong for her to kiss anyone except Coney. They had loved each other since they were small children, far more than most children would, for each had been the other's whole family.

She was thinking about all this as she waited in the cool austerity of the high-vaulted church. At last Melchior Breda clambered to his feet, a huge man with a jolly, red face.

"You may haf one short rest, boy," he said to Coney in his outlandish accent. "The young maiden here is come."

Coney jumped down from the tomb, somehow managing to arrest his jump in mid-air, when he remembered where he was, so that he landed with some pretence of reverence, and came across to join her in the pew.

"Well met, sweeting. I didn't think you'd come today."

"I had to see you, to tell you—Coney, she's taking me away!"

"Where to?" he demanded.

After she had explained, he laughed at her evident despair. "A few weeks' holiday in the country—there's nothing very terrible in that, surely? And the time will soon pass."

"I hope you won't have finished the monument and gone off somewhere else before I get back."

"Not much fear of that. And even if we had, I dare say we shall be going to one of the other churches around here, for so many people have been in to admire my master's work, and he has the offer of plenty more commissions. And because he has so much work, he is letting me watch all he does, and copy the easy bits whenever I can. It's the only way to learn, and I'm lucky to have the chance. When I'm a few years older, Mr. Breda says I shall be able to set up on my own and earn a good living too, for there's no shortage of work if you have the skill to do it."

"Won't it matter that you never served an apprenticeship?"

Grace had heard so much about apprentices since going to live with the Tabors. All their friends were continually making plans for their children and discussing the necessity of binding a small boy to the right master. As for any boy who was not properly apprenticed, as far as the City Companies were concerned he didn't exist. It wasn't a division between wealth and poverty. Although the Goldsmiths and Mercers were nearly all rich men, there were lesser Companies, like the Cobblers, or the Upholsterers, who sold second-hand goods and conducted funerals—their members were often poor, yet they could pass on to their sons the privilege of belonging to a craft. For children born outside the charmed circle, it was hard to get in, especially if they were foundlings like Coney who had never known their fathers. Not for them to hear the promise that the bells pealed out over the City: "Turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London."

Having learnt these things, she had begun to feel anxious about what would happen to Coney.

He had no fears on the subject as he tried to explain.

"It doesn't signify much for a stone-carver whether or not he's gone through all those legal forms. It's not as though I wanted to be a mason…"

"But I thought that's just what you did want! Carvers and masons—what's the difference?"

"Masons build houses. They have several fraternal crafts, bricklayers, tilers, and so forth, and some of them are also carvers. But there are plenty of carvers who don't choose to do anything else. That's what I want to be, an alabaster-man, working in churches or furnishing heraldic screens and chimney-pieces in great men's houses. There aren't enough alabasterers to go round, so no one troubles to ask where they come from. They'll accept strangers from the North of England or foreigners from the Netherlands, so why not a bastard from the Charity Hospital?"

Grace looked admiringly at Coney. His blue eyes were brilliant with enthusiasm and his thatch of fair hair was standing on end; she longed to comb it into place. His shoulders had broadened in the last few months. His hands were strong and gentle. She was filled with loving confidence.

"I'll need a patron," he was saying, "when the time comes. And as soon as I have a little money saved, we'll be married. If you can wait for me so long."

"You know I will."

"They'll try to pair you off with some fat merchant or other, you see if they don't. Are you certain you can refuse?"

"Yes, because Mrs. Tabor is so kind, she would never force me to marry against my will. And indeed I think she may have trouble finding a bridegroom for me. Her rich friends look askance at me, they aren't certain whether to believe…"

She broke off. Coney disapproved strongly of the way she was imposing on Mrs. Tabor, and she did not want to draw his attention to it.

"I'd leave there tomorrow," she said with a slight gulp, "only I've nowhere to go. And—and I dare not confess, for fear of what they might do to me."

"No need to go looking for trouble. You'll have to stay there and keep your mouth shut until I'm able to take you away. And I tell you what, Grace: you shouldn't condemn yourself to sackcloth and ashes. So long as you don't let her settle a fortune on you, or make a great marriage under false pretences, I can't see that you're doing much harm. After all, you earn your keep, don't you? What with sewing and cooking and listening to the old woman's stories, I reckon you're worth as much as that fine gentlewoman she has dancing attendance on her."

As she dawdled her way back along Milk Street, blinking at the sunlight, Grace considered what Coney had said. Although she was no longer so frightened of being unmasked, her conscience was
a
great deal more sensitive than it had been; she was now able to see shaded degrees of right and wrong that she had never perceived before. It was true, as Coney said, that she could stay in Goldsmiths' Row without robbing Mrs. Tabor of a vast sum of money. But suppose she remained there several years and then ran away with Coney (and she did not think she would be allowed to marry him, so they would have to run away). Wouldn't that be a wicked thing to do to her benefactress? Mrs. Tabor's daughter had run away with her lover and never come home. How would the old woman feel if the girl she accepted as her grandchild played the same trick?

Grace paused at the corner of Cheapside, waiting for
a
break in the traffic. Some horsemen passed in front of her, a cart loaded with vegetables, and then
a
curious sight: two sturdy fellows dragging a hurdle on which
a
dejected elderly man was seated, with his hands strapped behind him. Dangling from
a
cord round his neck there was a stale loaf of bread, and this made the whole situation plain. He was a baker who had been caught selling short weight.

She was very sorry for the man as he crouched on his hurdle, bumping over the cobbles and trying to avoid catching anyone's eyes. How dreadful it must be to know that his customers and neighbors were seeing him publicly disgraced. Even so, there were worse fates.

She and Philadelphia had been walking past the pillory one day last week. There was a man pinioned in the usual backbreaking position, with his head and hands stuck through the sockets. This was a familiar sight, yet it had drawn quite
a
crowd, and the prisoner was whimpering and moaning in a very disturbing manner. When she saw the reason, Grace had felt sick with horror. For some specially grave crime the wretched man had been pinned to the pillory with a nail through each ear.

She had not managed to find out
what he had
done, or whether women were liable to such a punishment. Was it (for instance) the sort of sentence you might receive for impersonating a lost heiress in order to inherit
a
fortune?

She could not possibly risk
a
confession.

15

"You add a little water," said Laurence. "And then stir it into a thick paste. So."

The powdered enamel, which was bright green, had been ground in the pestle and mortar. On the workbench lay the pendant that he was about to decorate. It was an intricate design and when it was finished would display a white and gold unicorn, about an inch high, against a thicket of green leaves and crystal berries. At the moment the pendant had a bare and skeletal appearance; the rock-crystal would be inserted at the end, and so would the unicorn's body, which was to be made of one large baroque pearl. The leaves were outlined in gold and each one hammered into a shallow cavity to receive the colored enamel.

Laurence began to charge the dented surfaces with minute blobs of green paste. It was extraordinary that the hands of a grown man could maneuver with such wonderful dexterity on so small a scale; he never spilt a drop or smudged a line.

The two apprentices watched him, spellbound. Will was biting his tongue in suspense, Sam asking endless questions, which Laurence always took the trouble to answer.

The green leaves were all filled in; Laurence laid the pendant carefully in an iron dish and put it by the fire to dry out. When it had stopped steaming, he placed it in a cradle directly over the open furnace so that the paste should heat and liquefy. Once it was allowed to cool, the substance would harden to that gleaming patina which gave champleve enamel its luxurious brilliance.

Joel stood watching the trio by the fire. His feelings towards his new master had subtly altered since that battle over the anvil. It was odd, he ought to have disliked Laurence even more. But then his dislike of Laurence had not been based on ordinary jealousy, and he was too single-minded a craftsman to be jealous of anyone whose work he honestly admired; there was no virtue in this, you simply could not reject beauty or the hand that made it.

Though he'd rejected Laurence's pictures, without really looking at them, which was a pity, for if he had looked properly he would almost certainly have guessed that of course it was Laurence himself who had designed and made the case for the portrait of Walter Brand which he had brought with him from the Continent. Brand had let him submit the miniature and its case to the Goldsmiths' Company as his masterpiece: Joel had discovered this eventually and it made him feel very small.

There was an open box of baroque pearls on the bench; he picked out a couple of them at random, playing with them in his hand. Unusually large, they were always badly misshapen, not fit to use in necklaces like ordinary pearls— the word baroque meant rough and lumpy in Moorish or some such foreign tongue—but the creamy-textured monsters were now much in demand for ornamental jewellery, the strange contours suggesting possible themes. What could you make of this one? A cornucopia, a swan, a sleeping cupid? He felt he would like to try out a few conceits of his own. Laurence's exquisitely tiny and sparkling fantasies had opened up whole new worlds that he wanted to explore. If he could pluck up courage to ask Laurence's permission.

"Don't forget to put them back," said a cool voice behind him.

"What?" he asked stupidly.

"Those two baroque pearls," said Laurence.

Joel dropped them into the box, flushing with mortification. "If you think I meant to steal them…"

"My dear Joel! Have I ever accused you of stealing? It's true you are inclined to regard my family's property as yours by right, but that's my fault, or my uncle's fault— whoever's to blame, we know it isn't you."

Joel turned and walked over to the other side of the workshop, picked up a silver porringer and began to polish it with such vigor that he made a large dent in one side. There was no hope of conciliating Laurence, he was sure of that now. Laurence mistrusted him too deeply, which was ironic, for he hadn't a scrap of evidence to back up his doubts about Grace. Joel thought that his suspicion and his dislike both stemmed from the same cause; Laurence could not forgive his former hostility, or the many scornful and indiscreet remarks that must undoubtedly have been repeated to him.

In which case, the future was bleak; Laurence might de-tide to turn him off without ceremony, he was practically penniless, he still hadn't received the whole of the promised reward for finding Grace, and as for his hope of marrying her, he could say good-bye to that if he stopped working for the Tabors. Unless he went ahead with his courtship straight away? Mrs. Tabor might not yet be ready to welcome him as a suitor, but he thought he could see his way around that difficulty.

He found an opportunity to try his luck that very evening, for Philadelphia had gone to visit some friends of her family who lived in Blackfriars, so it was easier to manage a private meeting with Grace. After supper, instead of going off to his lodging, he hung around until he saw her go upstairs to her bedchamber. He followed her cautiously, gave a light rap on the door, and went in, without waiting for an answer.