The Spider's Touch

THE SPIDER’S TOUCH

Patricia Wynn

The spider’s touch, how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

Alexander Pope

An Essay on Man in Four Epistles

Chapter One

To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke,

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things

To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.

Let us (since Life can little more supply

Than just to look about us and to die)

Expatiate free o’er all this scene of Man;

A mighty maze! But not without a plan
...

A pair of tiny overlapping circles embossed the baby’s forehead, carving an edge like an embryo moon. Reddish brown, it marked her perfect skin like the scar from a branding.

The infant girl, sucking hungrily at her mother’s breast, seemed completely unaware of this touch from God—if so it was.

As Hester Kean, waiting woman to her cousin Isabella, Countess of Hawkhurst, pondered the significance of the mark, she wondered what future would be in store for this infant girl. Given the meanness of her parents’ house, the number of mouths they must feed, and the smallpox, which threatened rich and poor alike, she likely would not survive until the age of five, unless the
sign
, as people had named it, truly was proof of the Almighty’s favour.

Just yesterday, the news-sheets had reported the birth of a child with the sign of the eclipse upon her forehead, barely a week after the moon had cast its ominous shadow upon the City of London. Her mother had been frightened by the event too near her time, it was said. Whatever the cause, people of all walks had flocked to this tanner’s house in Grace Church Street to see the curiosity, which, if nothing else, had provided a boon to the baby’s parents, for no one was admitted without an exchange of coins.

 Isabella and her husband Harrowby, Lord Hawkhurst, with two of their friends, had decided to examine this miracle themselves. Sir Humphrey Cove, a short, merry gentleman with small, nervous movements, drew closer to the nursing pair. He lowered the handkerchief he’d been holding to his nose to block the stench from the tannery below and bent to examine the mark.

“Yes, I see it!” he whispered eagerly, his fingers fluttering against his chest. “It
is
a miracle, I am sure. A sign of something great about to dawn.”

“If something were about to
dawn
, I should think there’d be a sun without the moon.”

Lord Lovett’s comment, delivered with his usual wryness, brought a smile to Hester’s lips. He was a dark, handsome gentleman with thick black brows and a satirical bent. She found him vastly more entertaining than any other of her cousin’s friends.

“But I assure you, my dear Adrian,” Sir Humphrey went on excitedly. “Sun or moon—it truly does not matter. Why, my uncle’s neck erupted with a carbuncle on the very eve of King James’s departure!”

Lord Lovett gave a brief laugh. “What perfect rubbish you do spout, Cove!”

Turning to Isabella and taking her gently by the elbow, he asked, “What say you, my lady?” He addressed her with a great deal more tenderness than he had accorded his friend. “Does it indeed appear like the eclipse to you? I recollect no such shape. As I recall, all that occurred was that the sky grew dark and the light returned a few minutes later.”

“I did not see it. I was not out of doors that day.” Isabella stared at the baby’s forehead from behind the half-mask she had worn to protect her face. “But Hester did!” With a cheerful mien, she turned her wide, beautiful eyes on her cousin. “Remember? You came into my chamber, saying something about seeing the eclipse, but I hardly attended. Does this mark look like it, indeed?”

Hester was so taken aback that she could not instantly respond. She could not imagine how Isabella could refer to that moment without even a hint of chagrin. She could not think of it, herself, without a hard tightening in her chest, for that was the day that Isabella and her mother had cheated the real Lord Hawkhurst out of his estate.

* * * *

Hester had come in after witnessing a violent death to find that Isabella and Mrs. Mayfield, Hester’s aunt, had conspired to hide the only piece of evidence that might have cleared Gideon Fitzsimmons, Viscount St. Mars of his father’s murder. But if the evidence had cleared him, then he, and not Isabella’s foolish husband, would be the Earl of Hawkhurst now.

Since St. Mars’s arrest and his subsequent escape, Isabella and her mother had enjoyed the fruits of their deception without the slightest inkling of guilt. For surely to be a countess—or even the mother of a countess—was a glorious thing.

* * * *

“I believe,” Hester said, in answer to the question, “that the mark reflects the shape we
should
have seen if we had looked at the sun when the moon was covering it. But I did not look directly at it. It is dangerous to peer at the sun.”

“Then, how can anyone know what it looked like?”

“Humph!” Harrowby snorted. “No one does, I’ll warrant.” He had been irked by the necessity of waiting below in the filthy street until the previous visitors had descended from the cramped room above. Then, being greeted by the unremarkable sight of a woman nursing her child had done nothing to decrease his annoyance. “This whole thing reeks of a humbug to me. Why anybody would believe that a tanner’s brat would receive a mark from God passes all bounds. Why, I have a birthmark myself on the back of my knee, but nobody’s saying that it’s a sign! And if I haven’t had a run of luck lately, I don’t know who has.” He barked a laugh.

“Indeed, my lord,” Lord Lovett agreed, with a wry twist to his lips. “I had much rather have visited your chamber at Hawkhurst House to see your mark than come to this stinking hole. What a pity you did not mention it before!”

“Pooh!” Isabella pouted. “I have already seen my lord’s mark an hundred times.”

“One hundred already? And you married only a few weeks! I must congratulate you, my lord, on a prodigious performance—unless I err in attributing these sightings to an activity I can only reflect upon with envy.”

Isabella giggled, and Harrowby guffawed, neither the least displeased to have their marital exploits admired.

Hester would have smiled, too, for Lord Lovett had delivered this quip with his usual wryness, and she was not immune to his wit, had Isabella not immediately ruined the joke.

She lowered her voice to a sultry note and, casting a flirtatious glance at Lord Lovett, said, “Shall Harry-kins tell you of any marks he’s found on me?”

This drew his leering brow. “And spoil the fun of discovering them myself?” He said, “My lady, I beg you will not.”

Harrowby laughed almost as hard as Isabella did at this gallantry, for having a wife that a gentleman as fashionable as Lord Lovett desired could only add to his sense of importance. And, indeed, it seemed to Hester that Harrowby felt no jealousy of the gentlemen who paid court to Isabella at her levees. She even wondered if he had not grown tired of his marital duties and would not welcome a rival to occupy his voracious wife.

Throughout this exchange, Sir Humphrey had not taken his eyes off the baby, and his eager whisper floated to Hester now, “Yes, yes! It must be a sign. This
must
be the moment.”

No one else seemed to share this excitement. Isabella’s disappointment in the mark was so complete that she had forgotten the eclipse entirely, and it would be useless for Hester to repeat the explanations she had read. A pamphlet had been published, describing the astronomers’ observations, and Hester had ventured a few precious pennies to learn about the extraordinary event, for it was a day that she would never forget.

“Shall we go, my lady?” Lord Lovett offered Isabella his arm to escort her down the narrow stairs. They exited without another glance at the mother or her child.

“Well, I confess, I do not see what all the fuss has been about.” Harrowby started to precede Sir Humphrey from the room, but Hester prompted him before he could escape.

“My lord
...
.”

“What?” Harrowby turned, and Sir Humphrey went on. Seeing Hester curtsy where she stood by the woman and her child, he grumbled, “Oh—deuce take it!
...
Very well!” He reached into the pocket of his knee-length silk coat and extracted a silver coin. He did not toss it to the woman, as Hester half-expected he would, but instead dropped it into the earthenware cup, resting conspicuously on a stool near the door.  “Here’s something for you, then, Goody. Buy the brat a gewgaw with it, if you want. But I shouldn’t set much store on that mark of hers, if I were you. Seems a stretch to my way of thinking. And it doesn’t do to hoodwink peers, you know.”

With the woman’s grateful farewells assaulting their ears, they followed the others down the stairs.

Hester picked up her long skirts before stepping out of doors. Even the pattens she wore would not be enough to keep the deep mud in the street from soiling her hem. Out in Grace Church Street, Lord Lovett, Sir Humphrey, and Isabella stood waiting for them beside Harrowby’s coach and four, with its door open to receive them.

Out here, the odour was even more unbearable, so Hester clutched her handkerchief to her nose. They had all worn masks to protect their faces in this neighbourhood, which was too near the Leadenhall market for leather not to be filled with the stench of tanneries and the waste from slaughterhouses. Dressed in their laces and silks, with Harrowby’s footmen garbed in brown and gold livery, and the ornate carriage emblazoned with the Hawkhurst arms, they made an entertaining spectacle for the residents in the street.  Urchins had stopped to stare. Mothers stood in doorways with their babies on their hips. Others leaned from upstairs windows to gawk at the gentlemen and ladies in their finery.

There was nothing unusual in their attention but, still, a mood of uneasiness seemed to fill the street. Lord Lovett must have sensed it, too, for his indolent features reflected an impatience to be gone that she had never seen in him before.

“We ought to make haste.” He glanced at his timepiece. “We mustn’t be late for the Princess’s drawing room.”

“No, indeed,” Sir Humphrey agreed. “Gentlemen in our position cannot be too careful, can we, dear Lovett?”

Lord Lovett answered with a shade of annoyance, “I was referring to the possibility that we will find ourselves too late to be admitted, if the crowd proves to be large. But no, I should not wish to offend her Highness.”

“Well, if you ask me, this whole outing has been a damned waste of time,” Harrowby said.

“My lady?” Lord Lovett handed Isabella to one of the footmen, and they all climbed inside.

On their way there, it had been a squeeze for five people to ride in one vehicle, but Isabella had insisted on Hester’s coming, too. Her pleasure on any occasion seemed directly related to the number of people who accompanied her. She did not care for the intimacy of a quiet evening at home. Since becoming a countess, she had taken advantage of her position as a married lady of consequence to make sure that hardly a moment went by that was not filled with some delightful scheme.

It was she who had urged the expedition after Hester had read the announcement of the baby’s mark. Isabella had immediately solicited the company of their two friends—Lord Lovett, who haunted her levees even more than he did the new earl’s, and Sir Humphrey Cove, who had been Harrowby’s boon companion since their days at Oxford, when they had discovered a common love of gossip. Since Isabella, with Mrs. Mayfield and Hester, had moved into Hawkhurst House, hardly a day had gone by that part, at least, was not spent in the company of these two gentlemen.

On the way to Cornhill, Hester had found herself crushed between them on the rear-facing seat. Sir Humphrey’s perfume had nearly overwhelmed her, and she had not looked forward to breathing it on the return ride. But the waste used in tanning was so offensive that anything was preferable to its smell. Soon it would be summer, and the city’s stench would be even worse. The Court would leave town to avoid the unhealthy air. In another month the aristocracy would be impatient to leave, but no one would dare until after the King’s birthday at the end of May. Already many were grumbling about the inconvenience.

They were settled in the coach when Lord Lovett made suggested that they go by way of Lombard Street. “I believe it to be faster. And we’ve tarried too long.”

“Lombard Street?” Harrowby gave a snort.  “When it is half the width? We should be stuck there for ages while my footmen cleared a path. Why, the last time I was on it, some fool of a carter was driving a waggon with five teams right up the middle!” He shook his head. “No, you’d better leave it to my coachman to decide.”

Lord Lovett subsided with his customary good grace, though his shoulders betrayed a certain tension. “As you will, of course, my lord.”