Goldsmith's Row (21 page)

So that was that. Mrs. Tabor did rouse herself, after some further meditation, to say that it seemed wrong for John's grandson to be lodging in the suburbs and earning his keep as the servant of an ignorant foreigner, instead of being properly apprenticed to a trade.

"Only consider, madam: Francis is past the age of starting an apprenticeship, so how fortunate it is that he has chosen a craft which he can practice without being a member of a company. Mr. Laurence is going to make certain that this Dutchman is a fit person to teach him; you need have no fear on that score."

"To be sure, that's a great comfort."

Mrs. Tabor relapsed amongst her pillows. She had decided to spend the day in bed.

Joel was also in bed, for he was too stiff to move, and one leg was so swollen that he could not put it to the ground.

He was looking very woebegone when Philadelphia went to see him, and asked immediately, "Does Grace want to marry that oaf?"

"I don't believe she's ever wanted anything else. And he isn't an oaf. He's young and raw, and he was reared in a hard school. All the same…"

"He's half a Martel and half a Tabor and I suppose that makes all the difference."

It struck Philadelphia that the boy had been able to face

Laurence last night on something surprisingly close to equal terms. They spoke the same language, those two, and presumably it was the language of their common ancestry. But none of this would mean much to Grace.

"I think," she said, "that children who grow up in such places must set all their affections on each other. Coney isn't simply Grace's sweetheart, he's her brother, friend, protector, all her kindred. I believe he has always taken care of her; he seems to have been totally undaunted by the terrors of the Charity Hospital. Unlike poor Grace." Philadelphia hesitated. It seemed unkind to taunt Joel in his present plight, but she could not resist one question.

"What made you embark on such an enterprise with so unlikely a partner? Some girls would have reveled in it, but Grace is a timid creature."

"I know," he said. "I must have been mad. The scheme came to me, all of a sudden, after I'd seen her for the first time, in an ice-cold room, ministering to a gaggle of orphans. I hadn't intended to cheat Mrs. Tabor, I wasn't looking for revenge at that moment either. I'd hoped to earn the reward. When I came to weigh up my plan, those reasons seemed good enough. But if you could have seen that beautiful girl, imprisoned in her mean clothes, in that barren room, with nothing to call her own, when so much money was going begging—maybe that's why I did it: to put such a jewel in the setting she deserved.

"She never enjoyed it," he continued after a minute, turning restlessly in the bed, and plucking at the crumpled edge of the sheet. "She always felt guilty and afraid. As you say, she had no stomach for the part, and I made matters worse for her. I wanted to marry her—to get hold of her dowry, that's what I told myself; I thought it a splendid solution to all my troubles. But when she refused me, made it plain she wanted nothing to do with me, I was angry, and I reminded her of the fate she would suffer if I gave her away. Oh God, how could I have been such a brute? When I saw her in the water yesterday, I felt as though I'd done that outrage to her myself."

"You saved her life," said Philadelphia.

"If I hadn't led her astray, she wouldn't have been in danger."

This was undoubtedly true. Then his remorse took a different turn.

"I was
so
impatient. She was too good, too innocent for me. If I'd used her more gently, she might have learnt to love me."

Philadelphia thought privately that Joel would never have stood a chance against Coney, though there did not seem much purpose in arguing.

She did persuade Grace to say good-bye to her fellow-conspirator before leaving with Mrs. Iredale for Bristol.

"Must I, Del?" pleaded the girl, her blue eyes clouded with apprehension. "He frightens me."

"He couldn't frighten anyone at the moment, poor Joel! Besides, I think he wants to tell you he is sorry."

"You won't leave me alone with him?"

Philadelphia promised, and found herself, therefore, a most unwilling witness of this farewell scene. Grace stood just inside the door, giving Joel no help as he stumbled through his speech of contrition. She was a kind-hearted girl, and when she saw him looking so bruised and wretched she no longer felt hostile, but she hadn't got the words to separate the complicated emotions that were stirring under the surface of her mind. So she whispered a few unsatisfying phrases: that he mustn't take all the blame, truly there was no need, and escaped as fast as she could.

How unjust life is, thought Philadelphia. She has the empty prettiness of a doll, with no more wit and no more courage, yet she's got those two young men willing to go through fire for her. Even Laurence wasn't immune. He had spent very little time reproaching her after she was found out; he'd been too busy making plans to save her from the consequences of her own folly.

Philadelphia went into her bedchamber and stood gazing out the window. Presently Coney and Grace appeared in die garden below, walking silently together, hand in hand. At the sight of them, her bitterness melted. Grace might not be able to say anything very profound, but there was no doubt that some of her feelings ran deep, especially her love for Coney. Eventually she would give him everything most men asked for in a wife. The qualities she lacked, such as an independent spirit or an educated mind, were an uncomfortable sort of dowry.

In the meantime, they had to face another parting: two children who had always been at the mercy of other people's arbitrary demands. That last day, as they wandered over the dewy grass, Philadelphia's heart ached for them. Yet she knew that they were safer than they had ever been.

They had friends on their side now, and everything to look forward to. A great deal more to look forward to, for instance, than she had. Or poor Joel, who was lying on his back, staring into the dark hood of the curtains and wondering what was to become of him.

Joel tried to dismiss Grace from his mind by thinking about his own future. He wouldn't be prosecuted, that was one consolation, since Laurence had let Grace off scot free, and it would be impossible to bring a case against one of them without accusing the other. It was not surprising that Laurence wanted to spare Grace, she was so childish and ignorant that no one could have taken her for anything but a dupe. Joel did not expect such clemency for himself. He was a grown man who had known what he was doing, he had set out to defraud his former master's widow, he had abused a position of trust. Laurence had the power, not only to dismiss him, but to get him expelled from the Goldsmiths' Company, and then how would he contrive to live?

One other person was going to escape prosecution, since Grace would not be there to give evidence, and that was Wacey. But the steward's star had waned; the villagers had been affronted by his latest witch-hunt, especially when his charges of necromancy had been answered in such a matter-of-fact way. He left Thurley two days later, with the air of a misunderstood minor prophet, and the village was a healthier place without him. So that Laurence felt able to return to London, taking Coney, and leaving Philadelphia in charge of the household for as long as Mrs. Tabor and Joel needed to recuperate.

She spent a week there with these two gloomy companions. It might have been a good deal worse, if Mrs. Tabor had felt vengeful towards Joel, but she was too busy trying to clear up her own confusion of mind. The false Frances and her sponsor were easier to relinquish than the imaginary Frances who had never existed.

Gradually she became more resigned to the truth, and began to hanker for some of the small pleasures of the City. There was only one thing she dreaded about going home, and that was the prospect of the homilies she was going to get from her sister. Mrs. Beck had always said that it was a mistake to bring Grace Wilton from the Charity Hospital; events had proved her right, and nothing would induce her to hold her tongue.

27

On the morning after their return to London, Hannah Beck arrived in Cheapside to perform the sisterly duty of pointing out to poor Alice where she had gone wrong.

"You would have been wiser to listen to those of us who have your true interests at heart," she announced, sitting bolt upright on the day-bed which occupied one corner of the great chamber.

It was not a setting that flattered her; she looked much too large and stiff on a seat that was meant for graceful reclining, and the pile of embroidered cushions, purple and red, clashed violently with her high complexion and brass-colored hair.

"I told you all along that the girl was an impostor, didn't I, now?"

"Yes," whispered Mrs. Tabor, defeated and cowed. "It stands to reason, you were not fit to conduct such a search, you were bound to be taken in. Your life has been so easy, John always shielded you from every care. Why, you didn't even know whether your precious grandchild was a boy or a girl," said Mrs. Beck in a jolly, rallying tone. "You must forgive my laughing, Alice, but you have been a great simpleton."

"Madam, I think I must tell you that it distresses Mrs. Tabor to talk of these matters," said Philadelphia in a low voice, trying to hide her indignation.

"I'm sure you prefer to think so, Mrs. Whitethorn. Better for you if the whole business was forgotten. You were very much to the fore in encouraging my sister to trust that jade and her paramour."

There was just enough truth in this to make Philadelphia feel uncomfortable. She was collecting her wits when Laurence came into the room with Edmund. Mrs. Beck greeted them complacently, and told Laurence that she knew he had no patience with people who were robbed through their own stupidity. Whatever his faults, Laurence had always been courteous to his aunt, and Philadelphia hoped he might pour cold water on Mrs.  Beck's pretensions,  it was the sort of thing he could do extremely well. But Laurence answered at random, and signaled a question to Edmund in some kind of dumb show. Both young men seemed surprised and disconcerted at the sight of Mrs. Beck.

"Joel was not Grace's paramour," said Mrs. Tabor, pursuing the discussion at her own pace. "She was a good girl and would never have consented."

"My dear Alice, you are willfully blinding yourself. Just as you did over Frances."

"For pity's sake, Hannah, must you reproach me with that, yet again? Haven't I suffered enough?"

"Mother, how can you be so heartless?" burst out Edmund.

His mother ignored him. "I wasn't reproaching you, Alice," she said in a slightly aggrieved tone. "The fact is, you're too innocent. You could never take the measure of a wicked, wayward fly-by-night like Frances…"

"She wasn't wicked and wayward! Or if she was, you've no right to say so to me. Can't you understand? Each time you tell me how foolish I've been, I feel guilty, and each time you tell me how wicked she was, I feel miserable. And what good does it all do, when she's been dead fifteen years? I wish you would leave me alone!"

"There's no need to shout at me," said Mrs. Beck, affronted. "You know very well that anything I say is meant for your own good."

"And you are tireless in searching out other people's good, aren't you, Mother?" burst out Edmund.

"I want no impudence from you, Edmund. Lucky for you your father didn't hear you!" His mother looked him over carefully, and asked why he was wearing his best doublet on a working day? That milaine velvet had cost too much to be wasted on the shop; he ought to take more care of his new clothes, hadn't she always told him that he must overcome his sinful extravagance?

Edmund confronted her, hot with mortification. He had a quiet, pleasant manner, an ineffectual charm, and a certain air of the scholar he would have liked to be. His parents —at any rate, his mother—had no use for book-learning, so he had been apprenticed to John Tabor and hammered into the semblance of a goldsmith. He had never been much of a craftsman, he hadn't got the right sort of hands. He was accustomed, like all Mrs. Beck's children, to the ignominy of being asked in public why he  was  wearing  his  best doublet.

He answered, with unusual truculence, "I've been to a wedding."

A wedding, thought Philadelphia. A painful suspicion edged into her mind, as she observed that Laurence was also dressed with particular elegance. Quilted chestnut satin, laced with gold thread—it was good enough for a bridegroom. And Edmund was Judith's brother.

"Don't you want to hear about the wedding, Mother?" continued Edmund. "My sister Judith was married two hours ago to Walter Brand."

"To Walter Brand!" repeated Philadelphia, forgetting that she was not a member of the family and it was nothing to do with her. Luckily no one seemed to notice.

Mrs. Tabor blew her nose and gazed bemusedly at Edmund over the edge of her handkerchief.

Mrs. Beck was incredulous. "What kind of a jest is this? I've no patience with you when you start talking nonsense… It is nonsense, isn't it?" She appealed to Laurence, suddenly apprehensive.

"It's perfectly true, madam. They were married this morning at St. Dunstan's Church."

"But why? What reason had they for such unseemly haste and secrecy?" A fearful possibility leapt to the eye. "You don't mean to tell me that my Judith allowed herself to be led astray? In the summer when we were at Thurley? I can't believe it!"

"I don't mean to tell you any such thing," said Laurence briskly. "Brand married her because he loves her, and not out of necessity."

And dear Judith is as pure as driven snow, thought Philadelphia. That was a foregone conclusion. She did not wish the girl any harm, but it would have been pleasant to find that one of Mrs. Beck's children was capable of error. As it was, they were faced with another example of natural injustice. Frances Tabor's escapade had ended in tragedy. But when one of Mrs. Beck's precious daughters ran away with a lover, he immediately married her and raised her to a position of dignity and consequence. Though it certainly did seem odd, on thinking it over, that such an acceptable match should have been hustled through in a furtive way which suggested scandal where no scandal existed.