The Silver Touch (5 page)

She did not see him at first. The place was crowded and pipe smoke was hanging in the air thick as a winter fog off the river. Taking a seat at one of the oaken tables by the wall, he waited until she should come near, feasting his gaze on her as she darted to and fro serving customers, every one of whom seemed to have a vast thirst to be quenched.

He could only afford a small beer himself, but it would give him a chance to talk to her and arrange to see her later when her duties were done. She was wearing the customary lawn cap, as were the other waiting-maids, a few escaping tendrils of her red-gold hair dancing down the back of her white neck, and her smile was quick as she took orders. Now and again some quip would make her throw back her head in laughter, and to his dazzled eyes all the enjoyment of life seemed concentrated in her. How had he managed to stay away so long?

When finally she saw him her eyebrows arched and her colour came and went in pleased surprise. Then instead of crossing over to him, as he had anticipated, she whirled about and returned to the bar. Moments later she set a tankard of frothing ale down in front of him and one of the Heathcock pies, hot from the oven.

‘It’s on the house,’ she said quickly. ‘Eat up. You look half-starved.’

He grinned as she darted away again, apron ties flying. Taking up the pie with both hands he bit into it, the rich juices running into his mouth, the meat tender, the pastry crumbling in its golden-brown lightness. It tasted better to him than all the Harwood Sunday dinners he had eaten put together. When it was finished, he took up the last crumbs from the pewter plate with the tip of his fingers just as she swirled down on to the bench beside him.

‘I can only stay a minute. This is our busiest night of the week.’

‘I’d like to wait until you’ve finished your duties.’

She looked doubtful. ‘That will be late. I thought apprentices had to be in by what is deemed to be a Christian hour, even on a Saturday night.’

‘So they do, but there is a grid that my fellow apprentices will pull aside for me to get back in unobserved.’

Her eyes danced with amusement. ‘You are the last person I would have expected to break rules.’

He frowned at her perception, not altogether pleased by it. ‘What makes you say that?’

She put her head on one side, studying him. ‘I don’t know. It’s just an impression I have.’ In her own mind she supposed it to be a basic seriousness she sensed in him, for whenever he was not smiling that kindly, fleeting smile that illumined his whole face there was a deep-thinking, composed look to his features that she had absorbed at their first meeting. She spoke quickly to reassure him. ‘I’m not deriding you for it. It gives more value to your coming here to see me this evening than a visit from anyone else in similar circumstances.’

His eyes dwelt on her. ‘I’m pleased to hear you say that.’

Briefly she touched his hand where it rested on the table. ‘I’ll give you a sign when I can get away. Then go round to the kitchen yard and wait for me there. We can have a little while together.’

She left him again to return to her duties. As he made the ale last, savouring the full-bodied flavour, he thought over what she had said. His quiet temperament was disturbed by disruptions and still more so by lawlessness and violence. He had no stomach for bear-baiting, cockfights or similar pastimes when animals were set upon each other for the pleasure of spectators. He always avoided the huge crowds that gathered for a hanging at Newgate prison, once having been enough for him when he had been trapped by pressure in the street and unable to get past until the event was over. Yet none could call him weak-kneed, for like most people slow to anger, he had a fierce temper when it was aroused, and if he made a stand on a principle, nothing could shake him from it.

There was no doubt that his preference for a peaceful existence came from his beginnings. He could scarcely remember his parents and his childhood had been spent in country pursuits with his grandfather, fishing and rambling and riding, the two of them always together. Books had been another part of that secluded existence, a rich world within that delapidated old house, servantless and dusty, where they had eaten their meals at a long kitchen table, watched by waiting dogs and with hens pecking about their feet. No boy ever had a happier existence, but being reared by an old man had made him staid for his years and old before his time.

When, following in his father’s footsteps, he had gone to Westminster School, life had been a nightmare until he had floored a few bullies with his fists and asserted himself. As for his apprenticeship, he saw it in terms of the last gold coins taken from a box to pay for his seven years’ indenture, bringing poverty right over the threshold into that Staffordshire house where one old man now lived alone with the last of the dogs and horses gone from the stables. To have done less than his best in his training would have been to betray everything from his past, which was also why his apprenticeship had been singularly free of the reckless escapades usually indulged in by young men bound by restraining circumstances. His plan to slip back into the Harwood building by way of the grid was new to him and full of risk, a measure of how much it had meant to him to see Hester again.

She came to collect the emptied tankard as a sign that she was ready to meet him, although the taproom seemed no less busy. He went out into the night to follow the Strand to a side street that would give access to the rear of the tavern. Not possessing a sword, he walked with fists balled in readiness as he entered the darkness of the alleyway, not knowing who might be hidden in the blackest shadows. A few rats scuttled out of his path, making him start, but he met nothing else.

Hinges screeched as he entered the Heathcock’s kitchen yard. Rectangles of golden light, thrown down by the tavern windows, lay across the cobbles. He passed swiftly through them and sat down on the steps where he had first seen Hester at her sketching. Almost at once she came from the door leading to the flight and dropped down on to the step beside him, smiling into his face.

‘I thought it wasn’t fair to keep you too late. One of the other girls is covering for me until I get back. If you like I’ll see you tomorrow instead. I can be free on a Sunday afternoon.’

‘Much as I should like it, I’m afraid that’s not possible.’ He was uncomfortably aware of the Harwood Sunday dinner looming on the morrow. ‘Would next Sunday do instead?’

She had looked down at her hands in her lap at the first shake of his head at her suggestion, as if to hide any disappointment in her eyes. Now she raised them again, her expression eager. ‘We could walk by the river, I always like that.’

They arranged where they should meet. She thought they would have about three hours together. ‘You work hard at the Heathcock, don’t you?’ he said, thinking that her days were even more taxing than his. At least he had no work on Sundays.

‘I suppose I do. I’m so used to it that I think nothing of it.’ She told him a little about her daily routine and then how and why she first came to live at the Heathcock. When he heard that she had had a country childhood similar in some ways to his own they were on common ground. It was something stable between them to anchor still further the intense physical attraction that each felt for the other.

When it was time for her to go, he rose to his feet with her and they stood facing each other on the step. The night all around them was warm and full of stars. He had wanted to kiss her the first moment he saw her. Not at all sure what her reaction would be, he reached out to draw her nearer. To his surprise, her cool palms immediately cupped his face and she raised herself on tiptoe to press her lips softly against his. It was over in a matter of seconds, the brush of her breasts against his chest, the feather touch of her fingers and the whip of her skirt against his legs as she turned to run up the steps and into the tavern out of sight. He smiled to himself, slapping his hand deliberately against the stone balustrade as he descended the flight. There was a spring in his tread as he went out of the gate to make his way home.

As Martha made ready for bed, brushing her hair vigorously with a tortoise-shell brush, she looked across at Jack, who was already tucking down in the pillows of their four-poster. ‘Who was that young fellow that Hester sat at a table with this evening for a while? She knows it’s not permitted to sit with customers.’

Jack, tired as he was at the week’s end with its frantically busy Saturday night as a climax, thought to himself that Martha missed nothing with her sharp eyes as she moved constantly from the taproom to the dining-room and into the private parlours and the kitchen throughout the evening to ensure that everything was running smoothly and well.

‘Perhaps she has a sweetheart. It’s about time she settled on one. There’s been enough lads after her.’

‘Then it’s your duty to find out about him. He looked neat and clean in his appearance, but not grand enough to court your sister.’

The rasp of sarcasm in her voice, directed against his fraternal fondness to Hester, grated on him. He had given up long ago wondering why he had ever married Martha, resigned to her being the way she was. Now and again he reminded himself doggedly of her good qualities, especially when her nagging began to reach a danger point with him. He had struck her more times than he cared to remember in earlier days, blacking her eyes and once knocking a tooth out, for which she had never forgiven him. Eventually she had learned just how far she could go with him and she used that knowledge with a skill that was deadly in its own way.

He grunted wearily. ‘Hester will tell me when she’s ready to seek my approval of her swain. Come to bed. I ain’t able to sleep with candles burning.’

In the morning he had forgotten the incident. Martha had not and she observed Hester closely, able to recognize the state of being in love, even though she herself had passed through it and left it behind years ago.

*

Dinner at the Harwoods was as usual. John arrived on the stroke of two o’clock and was greeted by Caroline in the presence of her parents. She was quite small in stature and had to tilt her dark curly head slightly to look up at him. Her serene, porcelain looks, almost fragile in their delicacy, gave no hint of her will and strength of character. Totally self-assured and compact, tranquil depths in her soft brown eyes, she smiled warmly, pale pink lips parting, and moved towards him, elegantly attired today in maize sprigged lawn over rustling petticoats.

‘I trust I find you well, John.’

As he made the conventional reply, he found himself extraordinarily relieved to see her. Her calm presence seemed to wash over him, everything was always orderly and settled when she was near, which was how he liked things to be. He was certain Hester’s call to his senses would fade after he had seen her a few times to get her out of his system. Nothing could compare with Caroline’s intelligent companionship, her unique understanding of his pride in his work.

‘I hear from Father that you are to do much of the work on the presentation goldpiece for the retiring Worshipful Master of the Goldsmiths Company,’ she said in congratulatory tones. ‘I haven’t seen the design yet. What is it to be?’

He had anticipated her enquiry and from the inside pocket of his coat he took out a copy of the design, spreading it on a nearby table for her inspection. Together they bent their heads over it. ‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘it is a shaped circular salver supported by four ball-and-claw feet.’ His hand followed the border. ‘This will be chased with the flower, London Pride.’

‘Most appropriate. Was that your idea?’

‘It was my suggestion,’ he admitted, pleased by her perception. Her enthusiasm for his work was always a great encouragement.

She leaned both arms on the table to peer closer. ‘What is the figure to be engraved in the centre?’

‘St Dunstan.’

‘Ah! The patron saint of goldsmiths. What could be better?’

‘A final touch will be the arms of the Company with their motto.
Justitia
virtutum
Regina
.’

She was full of admiration. ‘It will be a magnificent piece.’

‘I shall do my best.’

‘You always do,’ she whispered proudly, drawing back to let others in the room have space to look at the design, too.

It was due to there being an extra number of dinner guests that he did not get a chance to talk to Caroline on her own again. If the rest of the time dragged as a result, it was not the case for the remainder of the week, for the following morning he began work on the salver and was absorbed from the moment he took the required disc of gold into his hands. It was from such flat sheets of metal, sometimes called blanks, that every conceivable shape could be raised by skilful beating with a hammer. He began by cutting the disc to the right size and filed the edges smooth to prevent cracks developing from any nicks or scratches. He marked out the centre to preserve the area that needed to remain flat and then, taking a dome-headed hammer, he rested the disc over a certain shallow depression in his wood block and began to strike the edge. He grinned to himself. He and the salver were now on their way. Gradually, as he turned the disc slowly, the first saucer curve, which would eventually become the rim of the salver, began to rise up under his skilful beating.

By the time Sunday came the work was well advanced and he was satisfied with the progress made. Before he could reach the gate of the Heathcock’s kitchen yard Hester came through it, having been watching for him. She had decided that nobody should know about this meeting, or any other, until he and Caroline had dissolved the understanding existing between them, otherwise Jack was bound to be difficult if he discovered she was seeing someone supposedly in line as a future son-in-law to one of his most esteemed patrons.