Goldsmith's Row (22 page)

Mrs. Beck evidently thought this too. "I don't understand why they did it," she kept saying.

"Then I'll tell you, Mother," said Edmund in a hard, unnatural voice. "They did it because you were forever coming between them…"

"Coming between them? What wild talk is this? I never…"

"Judith said you were always there at her elbow, directing every movement she made, reproving all her actions, interpreting her thoughts, answering questions for her before she could get a word in edgeways. She says she became so stupid and anxious that she could take no pleasure in Brand's company, so that he might soon have fallen out of love with her—and besides, it made him angry to see a girl so timorous in the presence of her mother, and that caused a dissension between them. So in the end she asked him to marry her privately and take her out of your reach. And I don't blame her."

"You're mad! I won't listen…"

"Yes, you will." Edmund raised his voice. "It's time someone told you how much harm you do. Judith is only one of your victims. You forced me to become a goldsmith's apprentice, when I wanted to stay at school and go on to the university—and the result is I'm a bad craftsman instead of a passable scholar. You nagged my brother Tom into marrying a rich wife who makes him miserable; you drove a wedge between Joan and her husband, so that they quarrel every time you visit them. You've made my father a figure of contempt in his own shop, and you continually mortify my aunt by dwelling on troubles that are nearly twenty years old. You can never leave well alone. Or ill alone, come to that. Most people know their own business best, and even when they don't, they would rather make their own mistakes than dwindle into puppets, dragged this way and that by the strings of your everlasting interference!"

He stared at them all for an instant after he had stopped; they could hardly recognize the gentle, diffident, amenable Edmund through this impassioned bitterness. He turned and went out of the room; they could hear him running down the stairs in the silence that followed.

Mrs. Beck had not spoken. She was breathing heavily and she had gone strangely pale, except for the blotched veins high on her cheeks, which were almost purple. Slowly the tears began to slide out of her eyes, noiseless and unchecked, as though she was not aware of them.

"How could he be so cruel?" she said at last. "My dear Edmund, that was always my favorite. And Judith—to run away because—how could she say that I was preventing her happiness? I wanted her to find a bridegroom who was worthy of her, I wanted to help her. I wanted to help them all."

"That's what most mothers want," said Mrs. Tabor. "Now perhaps you see how easy it is to mismanage a beloved child."

It was her moment of triumph, of justification. She had no talent for revenge, however, and gave up her advantage in immediate compassion.

"Come, my dear Hannah—come into my chamber, and you shall bathe your
eyes,
and take a draught of my special cordial to revive you. Edmund didn't mean what he said. These children never know how much they can hurt us."

With a curious reversal of their usual roles, she led her sister away, leaving Philadelphia alone with Laurence.

She gazed at him, speechless after the hammer-blows of so many different surprises. One fact dominated the rest. There was no longer any question of his marrying Judith. He did not look as though he minded; had he ever expected to marry her?

"How long have you known?" she asked. "About Mr. Brand and Judith—were you in their confidence?"

"Yes, I've known since the spring, ever since he first came here when I was painting her portrait and fell instantly in love with her. That's why I brought him to Thurley; I shouldn't otherwise have invited him into such a family party. It must have seemed strange to you; both Walter and I were all for letting you know how matters stood. But Judith did not wish it. She is a little afraid of you." "Afraid of me! Good heavens, why?"

"I dare say it was all part of the humility that has been so driven into her by her mother. You belong to the same world as Walter Brand, you understand the mysteries of life on a gentleman's country estate, besides being so fearless in the saddle and an excellent musician, and the poor girl was sure you must despise her."

"I am sorry if I ever gave her cause to think so," said Philadelphia uncomfortably.

"I am sure you never did. But those two had got themselves into such a tangle; they could hardly ever be alone together, and when they were, Walter kept trying to stiffen her resolution against her mother. He could not bear to see her being so browbeaten, and it took him some time to discover that poor Judith could not overcome the dependency of a lifetime as though she was casting off an old cloak. Do you remember our last ride together—the day your horse lost a shoe?"

"Yes." (So that was why he had followed her, when she rode off by herself; to give the lovers a chance of being alone.)

"When they rejoined us, outside that wood, I could have murdered them both. But I could see at once that something was wrong; that was why I left you in such a cavalier fashion, and rode ahead with Judith. I tell you, I got heartily sick of playing both Cupid and Mercury for the pair of them, at Thurley and then here in London. In the end they decided to marry in secret and tell her mother afterwards, and I admit I encouraged them. I wouldn't have done so if I hadn't felt certain that Walter would make her a very good husband, besides being an excellent match."

"No. I mean, yes," murmured Philadelphia automatically.

How stupid she had been, that afternoon when she thought that Judith's and Brand's glum faces were hostile with disapproval; they must have been too wretched, poor creatures, to notice anyone else's follies. Laurence's preoccupation with Judith, even that scrap of talk Mrs. Tabor had overheard next day in the gallery—all this took on a new aspect. But what had he meant, just now, when he said he could have murdered them both, outside the wood?

She was wondering how she could ask, when the door opened, and Joel looked in, shied like a nervous horse, and made to withdraw.

"Are you looking for me?" asked Laurence.

"Yes, but it doesn't signify. Ill come back later."

Having nerved himself to the point of seeking an interview with Laurence, he was ready to clutch at any excuse for putting it off.

"I'll leave you," Philadelphia said, as Joel hovered unhappily.

"I'd prefer you
to
stay, Mrs. Whitethorn. If you please. I want a witness of what I am going to say to Joel."

Philadelphia stayed.  She was  almost  sure  Joel did not want a witness, but she could not help being curious, and perhaps she could help in some way, by pouring oil on troubled waters. (She hoped she wasn't getting like Mrs. Beck.)

"Sit down, Joel," said Laurence. "We've got a good deal to talk about, one way and another. You can begin."

"I?" said Joel, taken aback.

"Well, you came up here to find me, didn't you?"

"Oh. Yes. To—to say I'm sorry. For the distress I've caused Mrs. Tabor; it was a cruel thing to do, I didn't entirely perceive at the time—but that's no excuse. And protests of contrition sound rather thin, don't they? Once one has been found out."

"Why did you do it?"

"You know very well why I did it," said Joel, raising his head a little and looking directly at Laurence. "For the money. Are you going
to
get me turned out of the Company."

"What do you expect me to do?"

"Well, you can't prosecute me, because you let Grace go— and that was an act of mercy that it's not my place to thank you for. You could simply send me packing, without informing the Company what's happened, but why should you spare me? I've robbed your family, which is as bad as stealing from the shop, and for that they can certainly break me. I should be left with no trade and no means of earning my living. I deserve no better, and I shouldn't have the impudence to complain, but I wanted to ask you, sir, not to visit my sins on my father and Sam. I don't believe you would let innocent people suffer—I should be very grateful if you would tell me whether you mean to go On employing them."

The bleak voice died away. Joel sat hunched on his stool, nervously smoothing the wrinkles out of his sleeve.

"Make your mind easy," said Laurence. "I should not think of persecuting either your father or Sam. It's what I am to do with you that concerns me. You've placed me in a damnable predicament."

"I have?" said Joel, startled.

Philadelphia remembered Laurence saying something of the sort to her and Bess Iredale in the gallery at Thurley, just before they were interrupted by the cries from the lake. It was extremely tantalizing, his habit of making cryptic remarks.

"What possessed you, to get embroiled in such a hare-brained scheme?" he demanded. "I should have thought there were easier ways of making money. You set out to look for my cousin—I credit you with that, for you got as far as the Charity Hospital—yet you never managed to find out that the child you were following was a boy. You're not the most skilful of intriguers, are you?"

It was a sign of poor Joel's change of heart that he didn't bristle up arrogantly at this derision, but merely said, "I went to Cobchurch and the cottagers I spoke to had seen the child simply as a babe in arms; they sent me directly to the Southwark tavern. The people there told me a story that they'd inherited when they bought the place; they didn't know for certain whether the abandoned child was a boy or a girl… I never doubted that your aunt knew the sex of her own grandchild—though I ought to have done, now I come to think of it, for I'd heard the contents of Mrs. Iredale's letter."

"So had I," remarked Philadelphia. "I was as dull as you, and Mr. Tabor can afford to scoff at us both."

Laurence had the grace to say, "I was forewarned; I already believed the child to be a boy. But I suppose it has now dawned on you, Joel, that if you'd asked the right questions, the answers would have led you straight to Coney Martel and you'd have earned your reward honestly instead of sinking to the level of a common thief."

"Coney wouldn't have wanted to
come to
Goldsmiths' Row," said "Philadelphia, seeing that Joel looked too wretched to speak.

"What of it?" replied Laurence. "My aunt had promised to reward the person who found her grandchild, and she would have kept her word. However, that's neither here nor there." He turned back to Joel. "Having failed to find a girl called Frances Perry, you conceived the notion of putting a deputy in her place?"

"I'd seen Grace and she was so pretty; I thought Mrs. Tabor would sooner have her than no one."

"You had no compunction in cheating her, I suppose. An unprotected woman who had always been kind to you?"

Joel did not answer.

"Well?" prompted Laurence.

"What do you want me to say. Don't you think I'm ashamed of what I've done?"

"I thought you might suggest that your family were entitled to a settlement from my uncle's estate."

"Oh no!" said Joel. "I swore to myself that I wouldn't bring that up. It's no proper defense, and in any case, why should you believe that your uncle owed us anything?"

"I believe it because he told me so."

Joel jerked upright. "He did what?"

"He left a letter for me with his attorney, in which he said that he had a moral obligation to take your father into partnership, as he had promised and in recognition of many years' hard work. He had not done so because he knew that your father's mind was rigidly set in the past, and if he was given too much say in the management of the shop, he would lose money hand over fist. My uncle was set in his ways also, but he knew what to buy and sell, for all that. He was afraid that Mr. Zachary would not be so successful."

"It's true," said Joel sadly. He had made no attempt to deny these strictures. "My father is no longer fit to take complete charge. Perhaps he never was. But why couldn't your uncle have redeemed his promise by giving him a lump sum?"

"Because he had a better idea. He suggested that I should take you into partnership instead. He wrote that it would not seem strange if I preferred to take a partner younger than myself. He thought you and I should discuss the matter and then put it to your father with as much diplomacy as we could manage."

"Then why didn't you—Oh!"

"Yes," said Laurence, surveying him ironically. "By the time I read that letter, I knew that my intended partner was engaged in the criminal enterprise of defrauding my uncle's widow out of a large sum of money."

"Oh, God," said Joel, with a sort of groan, "why did I have to be such a fool?" '

There was a short interval, during which Philadelphia felt extremely sorry for him, and Laurence took off a ring he always wore and began absently polishing the engraved crystal with his thumb.

Presently he said, "What's past is over and done with. Can you think of any overwhelming reason why we should not still enter into this partnership?"

"You cannot mean that!" said Joel, staring. "You'd never trust me."

"I don't think you'd try to cheat me. Why should you?

We could prosper only if we worked in harmony, and I'm sure you have the wit to see that."

"Even so, I no longer have any claim on you…"

"You seem determined to spoil your own chances. Don't you want to stay here?"

"You must know very well that I do. After watching you at work these last few months, there's nothing I should like better—the fact is, I've often wanted to ask if I could try my hand at fashioning some of those new jewels, but I was afraid you'd refuse. You had Ralph and the boys at your beck and call, but I was always excluded and my conscience told me why."

"Well, what do you think my conscience was doing? I knew I ought to tell you what was in my uncle's letter; I also knew that you'd taken the law into your own hands and that I had got to stop you fleecing my aunt. What sort of friendship could I offer you in those circumstances? I kept hoping that either you or Grace might come out with the truth of your own accord. I certainly had no other reason for leaving you out in the cold. Just the contrary." Joel said uncertainly, "You are very generous."