Goldsmith's Row (8 page)

"Once we start fiddling round with champlev6 enamel, we'll never get any work finished," complained Zachary. "I know that kind of time-wasting foolery; you end by botching the whole business, and every scrap has to be melted down again to recover the gold. No, your uncle was right: we should stick to the molding and casting of plate, as we always have done, and sell a few imported trinkets for what we can get."

"After all," added Joel, "we are smiths by trade. Our whole skill lies in the fashioning of fine silver plate, not in dabbling with paltry little trinkets that look like so many spun sugar sweetmeats."

"My dear Joel, if you can find a way of making jewellery without employing a smith, then you are welcome to call in the pastry-cooks."

The argument raged on. Zachary Dowries disapproved of Laurence's suggestion as a matter of course because he disliked any form of change. The idea of making jewellery in their own workshop was new, and the kind that Laurence wanted to make was new also, so both must be condemned.

Joel knew in his heart of hearts that his father, like John Tabor, had been getting steadily more old-fashioned in his outlook, and he had every intention of persuading Zachary into a few innovations, but his impatience was tempered by an aggressive family patriotism. Zachary had borne enough from John Tabor, and Joel wasn't going to stand back and see this idle, jumped-up fellow Laurence setting the place by the ears with his unpractical notions of making a quick profit.

Laurence answered all their objections with an obstinate self-sufficiency that was extremely irritating.

The two apprentices were whispering together by the fire. Sam Downes was the elder, a tough, impudent child with a distinct look of Joel. Will Morris, slighter and more diffident, was his faithful shadow. They were concocting a plan in a volley of suppressed giggles. Unnoticed, they reached down some of the fining tools that hung over the chimney-breast, went through some form of secret preparation at the furnace and then, urging each other forward with many thrusts and nudges, they approached the three men who were still talking beside the bench.

"Sir," said Sam to Laurence, "can you settle an argument for us?"

"I'll do my best," said Laurence, smiling.

"Are you a master-goldsmith, like my father?"

The smile vanished. Laurence said, in a cold voice, "When I went abroad, I was a journeyman. I shall have to apply to the Company for the right to call myself a master. Was that the cause of your argument?"

"No, sir—we knew that already," said Sam, with a seraphic innocence. He could see Joel grinning away because the hated usurper had been forced to admit that he was still only a journeyman.

"Well, make haste, boy; what is it you want to ask Mr. Laurence?" demanded Zachary; he was not exactly displeased himself, but he had better manners than his sons and was a good deal more prudent.

"Will is learning to decorate a border—here, hold it up, Will, for Mr. Laurence to see—he wants to work it with the little chasing tool, but I think he ought to use a heavy graver. What do you say?"

Laurence took the fragment of silver and copper alloy; it was a narrow strip that had been sheared off when some large vessel was being cut into shape. On the rather buckled surface Will had managed to scratch a few shaky lines.

"Yes, you need a firm edge here," remarked Laurence.

Sam was standing attentively beside him, with a selection of instruments on an iron tray. Laurence reached across and picked up the graver, seizing the metal handle with a decisive grasp. His hand lifted so far, then paused in midair, while his expression changed from dumb astonishment to excruciating pain and he let the tool fall with a clatter on to the stone floor. "My God, it's red hot!"

He put his burnt hand to his mouth, swearing, while the two boys burst out laughing, and Joel joined in, he couldn't help it.

For they all knew what had happened, they all knew the rough and ready joking which had reduced many a small apprentice to tears on his first day in the shop. You heated one of the tools, handle and all, over the open top of the furnace; then you removed it with the tongs, put it down as bait and sent the newcomer to fetch it… How delightful to have caught Laurence with that old trick. He had come lording it back to Goldsmiths' Row, expecting to be confirmed as a master in his own right—and this was the figure he cut in front of the apprentices. Impossible not to laugh.

"That's enough, Joel," said his father. "And as for you two young rogues, I'm ashamed of you. Indeed, I'm sorry for this, Laurence, but they shall each pay the penalty for their bad behavior."

"No," said Laurence. "Don't punish them on my account. A poor creature I should be if I couldn't endure a laugh at my own expense."

He tried to speak lightly, but he had gone very white, and he winced as he tried to flex the already stiffening fingers of his injured hand. They all stood staring at him. As though he could not bear that silent mixture of pity and contempt, he turned and hurried out of the workshop, up the wide staircase to the second floor, and straight into someone else he did not wish to meet: Mrs. Philadelphia Whitethorn, busily putting away the clean linen.

He pushed past her without speaking, went into his bedchamber and slammed the door. Philadelphia gaped after him. How strange he had looked: not at all like the smooth-tongued young man who had been so much in command of the situation yesterday.

Inside Laurence's room there were various bumps and bangs   as   though   he   was   hunting   rapidly   and   clumsily through his baggage for something he couldn't find. A hard object dropped and rolled across the floor; then there was a sound of cracking and an exclamation, almost a groan of despair.

Philadelphia tapped on the door and went in, without waiting for an answer.

Laurence's stuff had been strewn about the place, and he had apparently been tipping up the cloak-bags and letting their contents fall out on the bed, using only one hand and distributing a good many items on the floor—that accounted for the cracking sound, he had trodden on the ivory box that held his paint-brushes.

"I wondered if there was anything wrong," began Philadelphia. "Oh—your hand!"

"I've got some ointment to put on it, at least I thought I had, but I don't seem able to find it among all this clutter." He gazed around him distractedly.

"We have an excellent remedy for burns; I'll fetch that."

"What happened?" she enquired presently, weaving a neat white parcel round his hand, as though it was a newly-swaddled infant. "Did you pick up the poker by the wrong end?"

"Something just as elementary."

When he told her about it, she was indignant. "But that's barbarous! And you mean to say that young children are subjected to such pain…"

"Not as a rule. The metal handle is heated enough to sting a little. Unluckily those young monkeys were too thorough."

"I hope you mean to make matters hot for them in return."

"And make myself more unpopular than I am already?" he said rather bitterly. • "No sense in that. I don't think they meant to hurt me, and I wouldn't care except that it's the hand I work with."

If he was unpopular, it was largely his own fault, he had not tried to be conciliating. All the same, Philadelphia did feel a little sorry for him. Seeing his belongings at close quarters she noticed that although he had several very fine doublets and outer garments, his shirts were worn thin with washing and patching, and his other possessions were rather meager. She thought that perhaps he had found it a hard struggle to make a living these last few years.

There was a stack of papers on the edge of the dressing-chest, and she could see that they were drawings done with a fine brush, not much more than outlines: A girl pinched into a tight stomacher, a child holding a cat, a spray of roses…

"Are those your little pictures?"

"Sketches, merely. For proper limning you use parchment; then it's stuck on a playing-card and given a mount that's been specially made to suit the picture. This is the only one I have by me at present."

He unwrapped a silk kerchief. Inside it lay a gold chain with a circular disc displaying the well-known device of a phoenix rising from the flames. The design was worked in colored enamels, enriched with rubies and diamonds. When it was reversed, the pendant turned out to be a locket containing the portrait of a young man in riding-dress crisply painted in minute detail. Above his head there was a shield with the inscription: "W.B. 1589 aet. 26" and a hand holding a flaming torch.

Philadelphia exclaimed with delight. She had not imagined that a miniature could be such a complete and perfect work of art, and she was impressed by Laurence's skill.

"Who is the man in the picture?"

"Walter Brand, a young English gentleman I met on the Continent. He left before the picture was framed, so I promised to bring it home for him. My dear Mrs. Whitethorn, whatever are you doing now?"

"Picking up some of the things you dropped. No, don't complain. It's difficult for you to manage with one arm, and you must know I am your aunt's housekeeper, I'm sure this is one of my duties."

She was still arranging the room, with a brisk composure, when Joel arrived, belatedly. He was surprised to find Philadelphia in Laurence's bedchamber, but had sufficient poise not to say so.

"I hope your hand is not too painful," he began stiffly.

"It will soon mend. In the meantime I am being well taken care of, as you see."

"I did not mean to laugh at your misfortune," pursued Joel, as though reciting a set speech. "I—we did not understand that the burn was so severe."

"Of course not," said Laurence agreeably. "You naturally assumed that I was making much ado about nothing."

Joel looked as though he was going to wreck his careful apology with an outburst of plain speaking, and Philadelphia thought it wise to intervene.

"Mr. Tabor has been showing me one of his miniature pictures."

She thought Joel was bound to admire Laurence's talent as a draughtsman, and hoped (perhaps foolishly) that this might make a bond between them. But Joel inspected the portrait and some of the sketches without comment, and then turned the locket over, remarking pointedly that the case was a piece of excellent craftsmanship.

"The work of one of your foreign jewelers, I suppose?"

"It was made in Germany," said Laurence. He picked up the miniature and wrapped it away in the kerchief.

"You weren't very civil about his painting," Philadelphia told Joel later. "It was very well done, and I think he would have Bleed you to say so."

"He may be paying my wages, he can't hire my tongue. If he wants admirers, he'll have to look elsewhere. He's a vain trifling fellow, and I see nothing in him to earn the respect of a working goldsmith."

10

"I can't make out why you want to ask my poor lamb any further questions," Mrs. Tabor complained to her nephew in the gentle, anxious voice with which she had been repeating much the same statement for the past hour.

Her poor lamb sat beside her, head dutifully bent over a piece of embroidery. Laurence stood in front of the fireplace, his arm in a sling, trying to suppress his exasperation.

"It's a matter of collecting evidence, madam. There's no need for Grace to be so much afraid of me. I'm not an ogre."

"Grace is inclined to be timid, which I understand, for I suffer from the same weakness. Frank was very stouthearted, like the rest of you Tabors, but Grace takes after me."

Mrs. Tabor now called the foundling Grace, to distinguish her from the original Frances, but she insisted on the relationship between them, even when everyone else was trying to examine the facts impartially. She informed Laurence that she meant to remain in the room while he talked to his cousin, and that would make them all quite comfortable.

Laurence was plainly at the end of his tether. It would never be possible to settle Grace's identity, one way or the other, if Mrs. Tabor was going to prompt all her answers.

Philadelphia took pity on him by reminding her mistress that she was expecting a visit from one of her married nieces.

"But if you will let me stay with Grace while Mr. Tabor discusses these matters with her, I hope everyone will be satisfied."

Laurence and Grace were both grateful for this suggestion, and so it was that Philadelphia found herself holding a watching brief in what appeared to be a contest between two very unequal opponents.

They had moved into the parlor, which was at the back of the house, looking out towards Watling Street, with a sideways view of St. Paul's. There was a small courtyard behind the house, and a patch of grass where a few green daffodil spears were thrusting out their yellow tips in the pale March sunlight. Laurence sat at one side of the table, a sheet of foolscap in front of him, making notes awkwardly with his left hand. Grace sat facing him, dumb with apprehension, her fingers gripped tightly together in her lap.

His first question went right back to the roots.

"What is the earliest memory you can recall?"

Grace cleared her throat, nervously. "I fell and cut my leg," she whispered.

^Where?"

"If it pleases you, sir, I think it was above the knee."

Laurence took a deep breath. "The place where this happened; can you remember that?"

Grace thought it was at a cottage in the country, near a pond. She had closed her eyes while she was speaking, as though dredging up images from inside her brain. Philadelphia thought that it would be a clever way of protecting herself, if she was lying, from the scrutiny of the man opposite.

The inquisition continued. Some of his questions she could not answer. Some of her memories might have come out of anyone's early youth. Where she mentioned details that coincided with the known history of little Frances Tabor, Philadelphia found her credible and consistent.

Laurence pushed back his chair. "Very well, I've done asking you questions. But let me tell you this. If you have been drawn into a wicked plot by others, or forced to impersonate my cousin against your conscience, then I advise you to confess the truth straight away, and I promise you shall not be punished. But if you are telling deliberate lies, and go on lying for your own advancement, I warn you that we shall catch you in the end, and you'll get no mercy from any of us."