Goldsmith's Row (5 page)

"And you would not be the loser," he added. "Think of it, Grace—you would live in a splendid house in Goldsmiths' Row, and have a great many fine dresses and eat your dinner off a silver plate. And you would go shopping at the Royal Exchange, and to all manner of feasts and revels…"

Grace was staring at him, round-eyed, quite forgetting the rules of Charity Hospital behavior. "If it please you, sir—how long will they let me stay in that house?"

"Why, you'd stay there for ever. At least," he corrected himself, "until they found you a handsome young bridegroom. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

The girl looked more perplexed than delighted. She turned to Mrs. Bullace, as though expecting some sort of guidance, but Mrs. Bullace was refreshing herself with a sip of cordial.

"Do you mean," said Grace at last, "that I am to go on all my life pretending to be that rich lady's grand-daughter? But that would be acting a lie! It would be wicked!"

Joel was disconcerted. Mrs. Bullace intervened in a magisterial tone, her color rather heightened.

"That's enough of your presumption, my girl. Who set you up as a judge? Do you think that anything I allowed you to do would be wicked?"

"No, mistress. I ask your pardon, mistress. I'm very sorry."

Grace twisted her hands, immediately awkward and placating.

Mrs. Bullace spoke quietly to Joel.

"You had better leave her to me. I'll soon persuade her that I know what's wisest for her to do. In the meantime, if Silas Tucker asks me, I shall tell him we are convinced that Grace Wilton is the girl, and you have gone to consult with your patron; Tucker won't know any better, for he's only been here a twelve-month. If you come back tomorrow, I believe this foolish child will be happy to fall in with our plans."

5

Grace Wilton was stooping over the tub in the laundry, her sleeves rolled above the elbow, as she dealt with a mountain of dirty clothes, rubbing and dipping and squeezing and wringing—it was heavy work but she was used to it, and at least you kept warm. The laundry itself was a chilly outhouse opening on to the yard, but the water was hot, she had staggered across with two buckets of it, straight from the kitchen fire; the tingle of comforting warmth ran upwards from her wrists, and she was wrapped in a cloud of steam.

She was still trying to get clear in her mind the extraordinary interview she had just had with Mrs. Bullace and the strange man from the City. She could hardly believe that it had really happened. It seemed incredible that she might actually find herself being taken to live at a rich merchant's house in Cheapside. Yet even more astonishing than this fairy-story promise of wealth and splendor was the fact that Mrs. Bullace was encouraging her to tell lies. She was so dumbfounded by this that it almost overshadowed the glories of Goldsmiths' Row.

Grace was not a very truthful girl; she was not at all brave, a grave disadvantage for any child growing up in the hard conditions of the Charity Hospital. Perpetually trying to cover up her misdemeanors, she would say almost anything to avoid a whipping. This also had its dangers, for being caught out in a lie was one of the worst crimes in the calendar. Yet here was Mrs. Bullace, after all her severe admonitions, suddenly turning round and saying that Grace ought to pretend she was this rich girl who had disappeared and tell all sorts of stories about people and places she had never heard of. It was very mysterious and she could not make it out; perhaps Coney would understand, and help her decide what to do.

Coney was the person Grace loved most in the world. He was supposed to be a year older than her—though ages at the Charity Hospital were never very exact—and they had been friends since they were about five or six years old. Although the boys and girls were brought up in separate houses, they were allowed to play together in the yard, and she remembered Coney as a champion at leapfrog, handstands and spinning the top. He could invent wonderful games too; he had brought imagination and liveliness to a drab setting, where many of the children were dull from lack of affection.

For some time now Coney had been going out to work. He was not apprenticed to any trade; orphans and foundlings could not count on such advantages. Coney had picked fruit and hoed turnips, held horses and run errands; since last summer he had been employed as a servant by a Dutch stone-mason, Melchior Breda, one of the many foreign Protestants who had fled from persecution on the Continent and who thronged the London suburbs, a cheap labor force that was not very welcome inside the City boundaries. Melchior Breda carved tombstones and memorials; he lived alone in one small room in Southwark, so Coney still came home to sleep at the Charity Hospital, and when he arrived he would usually seek out Grace, especially if she was working somewhere out of the public eye.

Presently she heard the latch lift, and the door opened, letting in a draught of freezing cold air, for though it was only five o'clock, the January night had already begun. Coney stepped out of the darkness into the faintly quivering light of the lantern. He was a sturdy boy with a merry, stubborn face and thick, fair hair; he owed his strange nickname to the rabbit-skin hood he had been wearing when he first arrived at the Hospital. Stubborn even then, he would not be parted from it, though it was the height of summer. The name had stuck, but the origins were forgotten; he was nearly as tall as a man now and still growing; his arms shot out of the sleeves of his old jerkin, which was powdered with white dust, because he spent so much of his time heaving about great blocks of stone.

"Oh, Coney! I'm so glad you've come."

He looked at her anxiously: he was always trying to protect her from hardships which he could accept quite cheerfully himself.

"Is anything wrong?"

"No, at least I'm not in any trouble—not yet—I just don't know what to do, it's all so strange, and I can't for my We make out why Mrs. Bullace should want me to do such a thing."

"Of all the hen-witted girls! Can't you say what you mean?"

Grace laughed. She regarded this as a term of affection. "Listen and I'll tell you…"

Coney listened, absently helping her to hang out the washing on a line which ran across the width of the laundry. By the time she had finished he had forgotten about the clean shirts, his attention was riveted.

"Of all the cunning schemes! That Downes must be a fox and no mistake."

"Yes, but why does Mrs. Bullace want me to do what he says? That's the part I can't fathom."

Coney thought for a moment. "I expect he's promised her a share in the reward."

"What reward?"

"Why, for finding the lost heiress. If this rich old woman is so anxious to discover her grand-daughter, she's bound to have offered one. Yes, and if Downes can't find the real girl, he won't get anything, so I dare say that's why he hit on this notion of putting you in her place."

Grace listened respectfully. Coney spent his working hours in the great world outside the Charity Hospital and this gave him the status of an oracle. But there was one point she was inclined to cavil at.

"Even if there is a reward, surely Mrs. Bullace wouldn't
»

"She might, if it's true that Tucker means to get her turned out so that his sister can come here as Dame. She must want money, or what's to become of her?"

"I don't know," said Grace. Poor old Mother Bullace, she was often rough and sharp, but she could be warm-hearted too, and a provider of small pleasures, she would be very much missed. All the same, there was another and more urgent question to be solved.

"What do you think I ought to do?" she asked Coney.

"You'll refuse, won't you? It would be crazy to fall in with such a plot." He sounded surprised. "Surely you can see that? You can't live under a false name, and take things that don't belong to you…"

"I don't see why not. If that old woman gave them to me."

"She'd only do it if she thought you were her own kith and kin. And what about the real grandchild? You'd be stealing her birthright."

"Mr. Dowries says she's been dead for ten years. So I don't see why it would be wrong, if I made her grandmother happy—why shouldn't I be happy too? Why shouldn't I get away from this prison, it's the only chance I'll ever get," wailed Grace on a note of despair.

"Poor Grace, don't cry," said Coney full of awkward concern. "It's wretched for you having to stop here, but it won't be for ever, I promise. You know I'm going to marry you when we're older and I can earn a living for us both…"

"But that won't happen for years and years! And they won't even allow us to meet; remember what happened at Michaelmas. You'll soon forget me, once you live outside the Hospital."

"I'll not forget," said the boy stolidly. It crossed his mind that if she went to live in Goldsmiths' Row, she would soon forget him. Was this why he felt so righteously indignant at the thought of Grace cheating the merchant's widow? Not entirely, he decided. There was the risk that she might be found out and sent to prison.

He was beginning to say this when she silenced him with a movement of her hand.

There was a footfall in the yard outside.

"Someone's coming—quick you must hide!"

Frantic, they gazed around. The back of the outhouse was full of shadows; there were several hampers stacked by the wall. Coney dived behind one of them, just as the door opened, and Grace was appalled to see the gaunt black figure of Silas Tucker, Master of the Charity Hospital.

"Grace Wilton! What are you doing out here so late?"

"If it pleases you, sir, there was such a lot of washing today."

"You'd work faster if you didn't waste your time in profane dreaming and idleness. Has there been anyone out here with you? I could swear I heard voices."

"If it pleases you, sir, there were some men in the lane just now. I think they were drunk," said Grace in a moment of inspiration, "for their language was very lewd."

She did not know how she had managed to bring out this red herring, for she was almost too terrified to speak. She was anticipating what would happen if Coney was found hiding behind the laundry hamper. It was a matter of conviction to Mr. Tucker that if a boy and girl were left alone together, their natural wickedness would inevitably cause them to sin. There had been a terrible retribution last Michaelmas, after she and Coney had slipped out quite innocently to go for a walk by the river. Mr. Tucker had himself administered the beatings which followed, and he had been entirely without pity. As she stood before him now in the damp wash-house, Grace was quaking with fright and certain that the signs of guilt must be written all over her face.

But apparently he accepted her story about th6 men in the lane, and perhaps he thought she was shivering from the cold, for he merely told her to get back indoors.

"There are plenty more tasks to be done, if I hear of you loitering again, I will make you sorry."

"If it pleases you, sir, I will do my best, sir," stammered Grace, humble and servile.

In spite of her servility she was coming to a decision. Like Coney, she realized the risks she would run if she attempted to pass herself off as the missing Frances Tabor. These risks would have been quite enough to daunt her if she hadn't been reminded how confined and miserable and hopeless her position was at the Charity Hospital. It was not so bad being here when you were a child, and most of the orphans escaped as they grew up, but she had never been given an opportunity until now. So she was going to seize it while there was still time. She was going to try her luck in Goldsmith's Row.

6

"No, I do not find it a cause for rejoicing," Mrs. Beck crossly informed her sister, "that you are proposing to take in some nameless pauper waif who has the impudence to pretend that she's your grandchild…"

"I am sure she must be my grandchild. Joel has traced her all the way from Cobchurch to Southwark, and found out that she was put in the Charity Hospital, poor mite, after Cicely died."

"So he says. Don't you understand, Alice, that he has given you no proof of his story? How you came to trust him with such an enterprise, a mere journeyman, an underling…"

"Zachary Downes and his boys are friends of long-standing; John trusted them…"

"Not enough to leave them a share in the shop. Arthur was appalled when he heard of your impudence. Surely you could have consulted him first?"

"No, I couldn't," said Mrs. Tabor with unusual asperity, "because Arthur would never have attempted to find Frances, he would simply have come over here and told me how foolish it would be to start looking for her."

"So it was foolish," persisted Mrs. Beck. "Even supposing this girl is Frank's child—which I absolutely refuse to believe —even so, there's no place for her here. A mannerless, untaught bastard, dragged up in penury with a pack of children from the gutter—how do you think she will conduct herself in Goldsmiths' Row? You'd be wiser to leave well alone."

Mrs. Tabor burst into tears.

Hannah Beck was made rather uneasy by her sister's distress, but she was too thick-skinned to be a very successful comforter.

"There, Alice, it's no good crying over spilt milk. What's done can't be undone. I'll leave you now to consider what I've said, I'm sure you'll remember how often I've given you good counsel. Mrs. Whitethorn, I believe you had something to give me for Judith? A pattern for a stomacher, was it?"

With many cryptic winks and nods, Mrs. Beck signified that she wanted to speak to Philadelphia in private.

Directly they were outside the door of Mrs. Tabor's bedchamber, she said, "My sister seems to set great store by your opinion. You must discourage her from paying any attention to this impostor. We don't want her to be made the victim of a plot."

"Certainly not. But if you will forgive me, madam, I don't see how you can be certain that this girl is an impostor. Why shouldn't she be your niece's child, after all? Surely you don't mean to condemn her out of hand?"

"I can recognize a tissue of lies when I hear them. Mr. Beck and I are convinced that this so-called foundling is an adventuress, hoping to take advantage of my sister's credulity. And I think you will admit that we have more experience of the world than you. I don't know how these things are judged in the deserts of Gloucestershire, but here in London it is considered very impertinent for an unmarried woman to give advice to her elders and betters. My sister allows you great license, but your position here is a humble one, in which you ought to be seen and not heard."