Goldsmith's Row (4 page)

Then she offered Joel a stool, and he settled down to tell her why he had come.

When he had finished, she shook her head sadly. "I fear I can do nothing for you, sir. We have never had your Frances Perry at the Charity Hospital."

"She might have been called by another name. Have you no Frances Tabor? Or Frances Fox?"

"Neither. And I was not going by the name. It is simply that we never had a girl in our care who answers your description."

He was amazed. "How can you be so certain? So many children as you must have seen in the course of your time here, how can you remember them all without consulting your records?"

The woman smiled. She had an easy manner and a little more polish than he would have expected in such a place.

"We have twenty boys and twenty girls, and there is much coming and going. All the little ones are put in my care, for I have charge of the boys until they are turned four years, when they go to the Master's house, and the girls I keep as long as they remain with us. I wouldn't claim to recite a list of all the babies we have taken in, not if I had to give the exact dates and circumstances. But you are looking for a girl of five years old, and that's a different matter. Most of our infants are bastards, as you might expect, and some are left on the doorstep by night because their mothers are afraid to own them. But the children who come to us when they are older don't come as foundlings. They are the victims of misfortune whose parents have died or met with some disaster; we know all about them and exactly who they are."

"I understand," said Joel slowly. He felt curiously flat. "I can't make out what happened, though. If the innkeeper's wife brought the child here…"

Mrs. Bullace had no suggestion to offer.

After a moment, he said, "There was a girl I saw as I came in. She was minding the young babies. I suppose it's not possible… ?"

"That Grace Wilton should be your missing heiress? No, Mr. Dowries, it is not possible. She came to us when she was a few weeks old, and there was no secrecy about her birth, for her mother was a Bankside harlot, and much frequented, I believe, until she died from eating oysters out of season."

"Oh," said Joel, disconcerted.

"Mind you," said Mrs. Bullace, "I pity Grace with all my heart. (You'll take a draught of cordial with me, sir? To keep out the cold?)   I wish some family had adopted her when she was younger. It's too late now, and we can't send her out as a maidservant either."

"Why not?" He sipped the spicy, burning cordial she had poured for him, and wondered what was in it.

"Consider, Mr. Downes. What woman would take a bird of so bright a plumage into her household if she had the virtue of her young sons to consider, let alone her husband?"

Joel saw the force of this. "So what will become of the poor girl?"

"She'll stay at the Hospital. We can use another pair of hands, and she's a good worker. But I'd like to see her safely settled before I go."

"Are you leaving the Hospital?"

It was no more than a civil enquiry; he was startled to find he had released a floodgate. You might well find a cause for astonishment, Mrs. Builace informed him, that a woman should be turned off after twenty years' faithful service, just because she was no longer so light footed as she used to be, and afflicted with shortness of breath—though everyone knew the real reason, how that sly fellow Silas Tucker, the new Master, wanted the Dame's place for his widowed sister; a couple of vinegar-voiced puritans they were, and the way they'd rule those unfortunate children it made your heart bleed to think of.

Here Mrs. Bullace took a gulp of cordial and defiantly put another log on the fire. Joel did not know what to say. She was certainly not drunk, though judging from the redness of her face, it was possible that the cordial was brought out fairly often. Its effect now was probably exaggerated by the pleasure of having a sympathetic listener. And perhaps the talk of a rich goldsmith's family, and the glories awaiting the lost Frances, had stirred an unaccustomed mood of discontent in the woman whose future must be so precarious. After a moment's pause she recollected herself. She brought the interview to an end by saying that it was nearly dinner-time and she had a great many hungry mouths to feed. She was sorry to have given him so little help.

Joel left the Charity Hospital without any clear idea of what to do next. He dined at an ordinary, and then went for a walk by the river.

It was a dry, frosty afternoon; across the sparkling water lay the familiar splendor of London, the great profile of St. Paul's and the endless streets of houses with innumerable church spires and towers rising out of them. St.  Michael's and St. Peter's, St. Helen's and St. Andrew's, and the soaring pinnacle of St. Dunstan-in-the-East—he could have identified them all; he had known the churches of London by rote ever since he was a small boy playing Oranges and Lemons. Today he hardly saw they were there. He was trying
to
work out what could have happened to little Frances Tabor after the death of her foster-parents in 1579.

He finally decided that there were two probabilities. The account he had heard from the innkeeper's wife was vouched for, up to a point; the Perrys had certainly died very soon after their arrival in Southwark, but perhaps the picture of Mrs. Williams abandoning the child on the doorstep of the Charity Hospital was a myth? Suppose she had found a private family willing to care for the little girl; that would not have made nearly such a good story for the old gossips to moralize over in their cups.

There was a grim alternative. It was only too likely that Frances might have caught the plague from her foster-parents. She might have died on that doorstep, poor little wretch. He believed Mrs. Bullace when she boasted that she remembered all the girls she had brought up; he did not think she would remember the death of an anonymous waif at the height of the plague season. There were so many who died.

Either way, his search for Frances Tabor seemed to have ended in a blank wall, and he was convinced in his own mind that it was no good hoping to get any further.

Mrs. Tabor would be sorry. He was sorry too, for she was a good old soul, and he would have liked to find the grandchild who might have brought some comfort and color to a life which must have been very dismal for a long time now. He would also have liked to earn the reward. In fact it was only now, with his hopes finally crushed, that he realized how much he needed that money. There were certain dreams he had been indulging, of himself and his father and Sam in a place of their own. Mrs. Tabor's reward—and perhaps Mrs. Tabor's continuing gratitude—would have provided a solid base to build on. Instead of which they would have to stay on indefinitely at Goldsmiths' Row, working for Laurence, and making do with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. Why was life so depressingly unlike the fairy-tales? Why couldn't little Frances have lived to become the ravishing beauty her grandmother had described so lovingly out of pure imagination, with her celestial blue eyes and golden hair?

A fantastic thought came into his mind, it was so audacious that it made him laugh. Such a plan could never succeed in a thousand years. A pity, for apart from all the other advantages, there would be a subtle revenge on John Tabor in the success of such a trick. And was it so hopeless, after all? He began to think it out, spent some time weighing up the pros and cons, and then went back to the Charity Hospital.

4

"You must be mad," said Mrs. Bullace. "I could never connive at such a scheme, it would be far too dangerous. However splendid the reward."

Joel was pleased to find that she did not produce any moral scruples. She simply objected to his plan because she thought the risks were too great.

"It's nowhere near so rash as you suppose," he assured her. "If I took Grace Wilton to Cheapside and presented her as my mistress's long-lost grandchild, I could offer plenty of proof. I could relate all the facts I have uncovered about the maidservant Cicely Fox, her marriage, and her death in Southwark ten years ago, and the story that the child was brought here to the Charity Hospital—every word of that is true. Then I could say that I came to you for help, and you told me of this young girl who was left at your door in the very month of Cicely Perry's death. This would be our one positive lie, and I don't see who there is to dispute it, since you tell me that you are the only person now remaining who was at the Hospital so long ago—apart from some of the children who were no more than babies at the time. I don't think your word would be doubted, because I should then go on to suggest that Mrs. Tabor might question Grace— and this is the great strength of my plan: if Frances Tabor had indeed arrived here at five years old, she would have remembered some fragments of her life before she came; and I can provide Grace with as many memories as she needs to draw on. I can tell her a good deal about her foster-mother, and about the place in Kent where she lived for three years while Cicely's husband was working as a tapster at the inn. That's the only home the true Frances would have been able to recall, and neither Mrs. Tabor nor any of her family has ever been there. Even if Grace was caught out in some error, she could say that she didn't remember clearly, having been so young at the time. No impostor can ever have had an easier task, and you must understand that Mrs. Tabor longs to be convinced."

"You make it sound very simple," said Mrs. Bullace.

"It would be simple. Provided, of course, that the
girl
has wit enough to learn her part. Would she be capable of a little play-acting?"

"She's a hardened liar," said the Dame cheerfully. She met Joel's look of surprise, and laughed. "How else do you think our children could survive? Grace is a virtuous maid, but she will sometimes steal a spoonful of honey, or loiter a few minutes in the sunshine when she ought to be at her work. And then she'll he to escape punishment… Still I doubt I ought not to encourage her in this present wickedness. Better for her to stay at the Hospital for ever than to enter on a life of deceit."

She did not sound very certain about it.

"Do you think she will stay here for ever?" asked Joel. "She's bound to stretch her wings in the end, and you can't keep her under lock and key; she must know already a little of what the world is like outside. You say you can't find her any lawful employment—well, there's plenty of unlawful employment for girls like her in Southwark of all places."

He felt that besides wanting the reward, Mrs. Bullace had a lively concern for Grace, and would rather have her committing perjury in Goldsmiths' Row than sinking under the corruption of a Bankside brothel.

After a few moments' thought, the woman said, "There's one question you haven't dealt with. If Frances Tabor had been brought here at five years old, she must have known her own name—or whatever name she was going under at that time; Frances Perry, most likely. She wouldn't have been called Grace Wilton. How were you going to explain that?"

Joel stared at her in dismay. This was a snag that had not crossed his mind. His wonderful design looked like foundering, because it would be impossible to conceal the name Grace had used all her life. Even the most casual enquiry at the Hospital would expose the truth; any one of the children would give it away.

The would-be conspirators cogitated in silence. Oddly enough it was Mrs. Bullace who solved the difficulty.

"It can happen that when children of that age are left suddenly among strangers, their confusion and distress is so great that they lose the power of speech. If your Frances had been abandoned after the death of her foster-parents-yes, I think she might have been struck dumb long enough for us to have chosen a new name for her and taught her to accept it."

Joel was a little dubious, but he decided that Mrs. Bullace was probably right; she must know a lot about children, after all.

Mrs. Bullace was so pleased with her own cleverness that she gave up her objections. Somehow, imperceptibly, it became certain that she was ready to take part in the plot.

There was one other person whose complicity was even more important. Joel waited on tenterhooks while Grace Wilton was fetched. She represented his last hope of getting Mrs. Tabor's reward; a fraction at least of the money that his family were entitled to and needed so badly.

When she came into the room, he was astounded, all over again, by the sight of her. She really was a most ravishing creature, with her straight nose and soft little mouth, her rose-petal complexion and those celestial blue eyes. He did not imagine she was very much like her supposed mother, apart from the commonplace similarity of fair hair and blue eyes, but he was sure she was just what old Mrs. Tabor had been dreaming of—not only beautiful but unworldly, for the Charity Hospital had certainly stamped on any pretensions to vanity, and he had never seen such a pretty girl who seemed so little aware of herself.

She gave him one glance of speculation when she first came in, and then stood respectfully in front of Mrs. Bullace, with her hands clasped and her eyes lowered, as she had been taught.

"Now, Grace: I have some good news for you," began the Dame. "How would you like to go and live in a great house on Cheapside?"

"I should like it very well!" She had a very young, flute-like voice which rose to a squeak of excitement. "If you please, mistress, am I to be a laundress or a kitchen maid?"

"Neither one nor the other. You are a very fortunate girl, for you are going to perform a more valuable service.
Not
through any particular merit on your part, but because there is a wealthy widow who has lost her grand-daughter, and it so happens that you greatly resemble her."

"If it pleases you, mistress—what will I have to do?"

"You will have to pretend that you are the lost granddaughter, call yourself by her name, and also—it may be— use some other small deceptions; there's nothing to fear, Mr. Downes here will tell you what to say."

"Is the poor lady out of her wits?"

It had struck Joel several times, especially during
his
sojourn in Kent, that Mrs. Tabor was undoubtedly out of her wits. However, she was not mad in the sense that Grace intended, and he hastened to explain that she was very melancholy because her husband had just died, that she longed for the company of the grandchild she had never seen, and surely it would be a kind action to make her happy again?