Goldsmith's Row (14 page)

This was a most disconcerting train of thought. Months ago Philadelphia had become convinced that Grace was the real Frances Tabor, and she wanted to go on believing it. She thrust the alternative out of her mind; she could not waste time pandering to such fancies at present, she was getting ready for the move to the country; it was of course necessary for them to take down all the usual items of bed-curtains, linen and plate. She worked hard, packing the stuff into hampers, helped by a revived Grace, who had cheered up as soon as she heard Joel wasn't coming to Thurley.

"I've never been to Hertfordshire," she chattered, one afternoon when they were rolling up a large set of couch-work hangings. "Is it near to Portsmouth, Del?"

"No, the other side of London. Why?"

"I had a friend called Nan Briggs who went to live in Portsmouth. She was my first friend at the Hospital; we were both of an age, though she came there the year after me. Her father was a sailor, and when her mother died Nan was put in the Hospital. She was there seven years, until she had passed her ninth birthday, and then her father married a widow in Portsmouth and fetched her away to live with them; I remember how we all envied her. We never saw her afterwards. I wonder what's become of her now. Why, she might be married."

Philadelphia said nothing. She was grappling with an uncompromising piece of arithmetic. Grace and this Nan were the same age. Nan was admitted to the Charity Hospital when she was two years old.
And Grace was already there.
Therefore she could not be Frances Tabor, who had arrived in Southwark with her foster-parents three years later. What was more, she could not be the supposedly innocent foundling whose early memories of life outside the Charity Hospital had led her to believe that she might be the missing Frances. A child who was already in the Hospital at the age of two could not possibly have any memories of life before she got there.

Philadelphia squatted back on her heels and stared across the roll of curtains at Grace, who was kneeling behind them, meticulously pinning the folds, oblivious of what she had said. She looked so pretty and so good, such a credit to all they had done for her in Goldsmiths' Row. It now appeared that she was a wicked little liar. Yet she was so young, and it must have been a great temptation…

If I give her away, reflected Philadelphia, I suppose they'll hand her over to that brute in Southwark. Poor girl, how wretched he'll make her, it doesn't bear thinking of. Mrs. Tabor will be wretched, knowing she was deceived. No doubt Joel will be wretched also, which I dare say he deserves, but I have nothing against Joel and I think his family have been abominably treated by the Tabors. The one person who won't share in all this wretchedness is Laurence. He'll be cock-a-hoop. She admitted, guiltily, that this was the most disappointing aspect of the whole business.

She decided that she was not going to rush into a flood of accusations. She was going to think out the consequences slowly and impartially in the quiet of the country, and if

Grace's pretensions had to be overthrown, a few more weeks' delay would make no difference. She had all sorts of high-minded reasons for thinking this. She was also extremely reluctant to have to go and tell Laurence that he was right and she was wrong.

17

Philadelphia had stayed at Thurley the summer before, when John Tabor was alive, and soon after she had taken her place in his household. So she was not surprised by the size of the red brick mansion, the endless procession of lofty rooms that never got properly warm, the neglected garden or the tall grass that came right into the forecourt like an incoming tide. The great house at Thurley had been built the same year as Hampton Court, an imitation on a small scale, by a successful courtier who thought he was founding a dynasty. But his line had petered out in two generations, and the property was sold to Henry Angell, a Cheapside goldsmith, whose daughter, Bess Angell, had been the devoted friend of young Frances Tabor. Angell had a passion for buying houses, he bought them all over the place; the one at Enfield where Frances died was another. In the end his extravagance ruined him, the family retreated from Goldsmiths' Row, and Thurley was sold to John Tabor.

It was not clear whether he had bought it to help his old friend out of a hole, or because it was going cheap. He took very little interest in his noble estate, beyond sending his wife down there for a few weeks every summer; she was too brow-beaten to refuse.

"It's not a friendly house, is it?" whispered Grace, daunted by her surroundings. "And I'm frightened of the servants."

Philadelphia thought that the servants were at the root of it; they were certainly very different from Mrs. Tabor's jolly, quick-spoken London maids who had been with her half a lifetime and were perfectly contented with their lot. It was a measure of their content that they had never resented the little foundling; the idea that she was Frances's long-lost baby appealed to their love of drama. They welcomed her in the kitchen and let her make herself useful. The servants at Thurley were very different: a sullen collection, intermarried and inbred, who lived soft all the year round inside the sheltering walls of the great house, and felt put upon during the few weeks that the family were in residence.

She decided that it was necessary to tackle the ringleader, whose name was Simeon Wacey, and who called himself the steward, though she suspected that he'd never been more than a butler, and not a very good one.

The servants must get up earlier, she told him; the chamber-maids must finish cleaning all the upstairs rooms by ten o'clock, and dinner must be on the table punctually at eleven.

"And while we are on the subject of food…"

"Peace, woman," intoned Wacy, making a gesture of dismissal with his fat, white hand. "It is not your duty to admonish me, and I do not choose to hear you."

"You are mistaken," said Philadelphia, who did not relish this form of address. "Mrs. Tabor has asked me to give you her orders."

"It is not customary for the mistress of the house to send messages to the steward through an inferior…" In his neat black, with his white collar, Wacey looked like an odiously condescending archdeacon. "I dare say such things are not understood where you come from. In my late master's time…"

"Your late master," Philadelphia informed him, "was the grandson of a dishonest Customs clerk, and all the world knows it. His forbears were counting on their fingers when mine were riding across Gloucestershire at the head of a troop of horse. And when there was a Tabor keeping his state as Lord Mayor of London. So don't try to stun me with your examples of gentility."

This put him out of countenance, and during the next week she bullied and persuaded him into getting the house shipshape and seeing that the servants did what they were told.

Wacey did his best to maintain his own importance, and finally came out with the time-honored threat: all the servants were preparing to leave in a body. He added, as an afterthought, that no one in the village would dare to replace them.

Philadelphia had expected this, sooner or later. She had her answers ready. "We'll get servants from the City," she said airily.

He gave her a pitying smirk. "You won't get them to stay long in the country."

"But they may not be required to stay."

He stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"You can't surely suppose that a young man like Mr. Laurence Tabor will care to live in an ill-appointed house where he is ashamed to entertain his friends? I believe he is already in two minds about leaving Thurley," said Philadelphia, happily romancing as she went along. "He could afford to let the house stand empty for a year or two, while he waited for a suitable offer."

There was a baffled silence, while the steward worked out what could happen if he drove these interlopers too far. He then remembered that there was some urgent business needing his attention in the buttery, and withdrew, more in sorrow than in anger, leaving Philadelphia in symbolic possession of the great hall and feeling rather pleased with herself.

"Magnificent!" said an amused voice behind her. "We shan't have any more trouble from him."

She was taken completely by surprise. Laurence was supposed  to  be   miles   away  in   Cheapside.   Instead,   he   was standing just inside the oak screen that separated the hall from the front door, with the dust of travel on his boots
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and a distinctly ironic glint in his eye.

"I thought you were in London," she said stupidly.

"I wanted to make certain that everything was going well down here. I see I need not have troubled. Do you play chess, Mrs. Whitethorn? You were at least three moves ahead of that old villain."

"I don't know how much you overheard," she said, aware that she had been slightly carried away. "You must have thought it a great impertinence, my suggesting that you were going to shut the house."

"On the contrary. I thought it was a master-stroke." He put down his gloves and riding-whip, and stood looking out of the tall window at the glowing colors of a hot summer evening. "Could we go on talking out of doors? I must pay my respects to my aunt, but I don't suppose she'll grudge me a stroll in the garden first."

Philadelphia was glad to get out into the warm, still air. The garden, so-called, was not much better than a wilder-ness, though you could still make out a ghost-pattern of throttled hedges and tufts of pinks and pansies visible under the weeds. The paths were freckled with moss, and the pleached alley so weighed down with ivy tendrils, and clambering roses running back to briar, it seemed as though the tunnel of living branches might collapse at any moment.

Laurence was still talking about Wacey. "I don't like the fellow, but I don't want to be too speedy in making changes that might not suit my aunt."

"Your aunt doesn't like him either. Nor does the Vicar."

"What's he done to annoy the Vicar? Too zealous in religion?"

"If you can call it that. He's for ever trying to hunt out witches."

They had reached the edge of a small lake. The grass here was short, being steadily nibbled by a flock of geese. Their maid-in-waiting sat in the shadow of a hazel bush: a little, barefoot girl of about nine, who gazed in wonder at Laurence and Philadelphia but was too shy to return their greeting. The edge of the lake was thick with rushes, the surface of the water was a bright, opaque green, covered with a mesh of reeds that spread like the tentacles of a deep-sea monster.

Laurence sighed. "How I used to love this place. I learnt to swim in there; you wouldn't think it now."

"How old were you when your uncle came here?"

"Sixteen. But I was thinking of earlier days, when the Angell family had it. Bess Angell was my cousin Frank's dearest friend, and Bess's younger brother Tom was mine. I wish I could get news of them. I've entirely lost sight of them both… Tell me honestly, do you think I can set this garden to rights again, or has the ruin gone too far?"

"I'm sure it can still be done, though it will cost you a mint of money before you're through." Which was a clumsy thing to have said; it was extraordinary how she could never talk to Laurence without getting on to the subject of money. "I mean," she explained carefully, "that I wouldn't encourage a poor man to saddle himself with so large an undertaking."

It was clear that he had been struck by the same uncomfortable association.

He said, hesitantly, "There's something I ought to say to you. I'm afraid that I was outrageously uncivil to you, just before you left Cheapside…"

"Don't say any more, sir," she interposed. "I think I was twice as uncivil to you, and I started first."

"All the same, I am sorry if I offended you…"

"Not the least in the world!" she assured him cheerfully.

This was a lie. He had as good as told her that she was too ugly to get a husband, and how could she escape from the pain of believing that was true? But as soon as she had recovered her temper, she had acquitted him of saying it on purpose. It was a thought in the back of his mind which had slipped out by accident, and it would not be fair to hold it against him. Better for her pride to pretend that she had not entirely taken in what he said.

"The next time you want me to hold my tongue," she suggested, "you'd better take a leaf from Wacey's book. Stand before me with your hand upraised, and say in a voice of great solemnity: 'Peace, woman!' "

"No, did he do that?" exclaimed Laurence, delighted. His eyes were full of laughter. "What an impudent rogue he is. And how I wish I'd been there!"

This put an end to any stiffness between them. They sauntered along by the water's edge and he began to discuss some of the improvements he wanted to make, asking her opinions.

This would be a good moment, thought Philadelphia, to tell him about Grace. That she's a cheat who's given herself away at last, and not his long-lost cousin. I don't think he would be unduly triumphant or vindictive. And he has the right to know.

He also had the right to a spell of ease and refreshment after his long ride from the City. And it seemed a pity to spoil such a pleasant evening. In the end she said nothing.

18

Soon the Beck family arrived in force at Thurley: Mrs. Beck, two of her married daughters with numerous children, and her younger daughter Judith. The Becks had not yet acquired a house in the country, and the redoubtable Hannah rather prided herself on this. They were  honest merchant stock, perfectly content in their own state of life, not feeling it necessary to imitate the gentry—these protestations did not prevent her enjoying her sister's hospitality at Thurley and criticizing everything she found there.

The married daughters were chiefly concerned with the health and safety of their children, who showed a tendency to eat too much ripe fruit and fall in the lake. Grace presented herself as an extra nursemaid. She was in her element, delighted to cosset and play with the babies and keep them out of mischief, and even Mrs. Beck had to admit that she was a patient, sensible girl who knew what she was about.