The Silver Touch Read online

  ‘And there was never a prettier sight, Hester! Believe me.’

  She did believe him — and he had called her Hester. What a start to their time together! ‘There’s not a minute to be lost, John,’ she urged enthusiastically. ‘Let’s make our way to the river. All London will be afloat on the Thames today.’

  They went there hand in hand, talking all the time, each wanting to know more and more about the other. Now and again they broke spontaneously into a run, as if their pleasure in each other’s company could not be contained without an outlet of energy, and once making an archway of their arms and linked fingers for an old woman hobbling along with a basket, her eyes on the ground. Their pace slowed to a leisurely stroll when they came within sight of the Thames, the city’s highway and lifeline along which sailed a continuous host of tall-masted ships, coming and going to all corners of the globe. They turned their steps to follow the river eastward to London Bridge which, with its collection of ill-shaped buildings, stood high on the skyline not far from the Tower, and spanned the gleaming water across to Southwark. Since it was the city’s only bridge, thousands of little ferry-boats plied their trade to and fro, making an ever-moving pattern in each direction as far as the eye could see.

  Hester perched on a wall to watch for a while, John leaning his arms on it beside her. What she most liked to see were the gilded and marvellously decorated barges of the rich livery companies which dated their origins back to the Craft Guilds of mediaeval times. They gave an almost Venetian touch to the scene, oars rhythmic and flashing colour, the oarsmen themselves in handsome crimson, yellow, purple or blue liveries according to which individual coat of arms was located high for all to see. One of the most spectacular was that of the Goldsmiths Company, although that was not to be seen today. Instead a barge of the Apothecaries Company, painted ruby and gold, was making its way leisurely upstream.

  ‘Have you ever wished to go far afield to foreign places?’ she asked John dreamily.

  ‘As a boy I thought once of going to sea.’ He shifted his position on to one elbow, looking up at her. ‘I’d read so much about the strange mammals of the deep and the mysteries of ancient lands that I wanted to see everything for myself.’

  ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘My grandfather gave me a book on the treasures of the Incas and that sparked off an aim in me to work with precious metals.’

  She wanted no more talk of books and reading. It was a dangerous subject as far as she was concerned. ‘Have you made plans towards the day when you’ll be admitted into the Goldsmiths Company?’

  If he’d been asked that question before today, he would have answered at once that he expected to remain with Master Harwood where the opportunities for fine work were manifold and he could do no better elsewhere. Moreover it would please Caroline that he should continue to work for her father. But now everything that was orderly and well arranged in his life was under the threat of disruption by the magnetism of this lovely girl looking questioningly down at him, the breeze from the river playing tricks with her hair and flapping the frill of her neckline against her white throat. Desire for her surged up within him with such force that he answered her abruptly, turning his gaze back to the river, angry with his own madness.

  ‘Time enough for decisions when I’ve been granted the Freedom. Master craftsmen are always in demand whatever their trade.’

  She sensed her question had unsettled him and she wanted nothing to infringe upon the happiness of the day. Slipping down from the wall, she scooped her arm through his, her face bright with optimism. ‘One thing I do know and that is one day you’ll be the most famous goldsmith in the whole of London.’

  ‘Only London?’ he teased mildly, his fleeting smile returning to illumine his features with all his gentle qualities.

  ‘Of course not. They’ll speak of you all the way from China to the American colonies.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ He was enjoying the experience of sustaining the little joke. ‘You’ve never yet seen anything I’ve made.’

  ‘I don’t have to.’ She could tell she had dispersed whatever it was that had suddenly threatened the day. It gave her an insight into the power she might possess to lead this serious young man into lighter frames of mind whenever he was troubled. ‘I think that here, on the banks of the Thames, I’ve suddenly developed second sight!’

  She loved to see him laugh and laughed with him. Her arm remained tucked into his as they continued their stroll, aware only of each other.

  After that day they saw each other regularly, not only every two weeks on a Sunday, but occasionally on weekdays when some of her free time in the evenings gave them the chance to talk for a little while in the kitchen yard. Without actually bringing Caroline’s name into the conversation, he had told her about the Harwood Sunday dinners. She, in turn, had said enough for him to understand she must have heard something of his involvement with his master’s daughter. For the time being, by unspoken consent, they left the matter there.

  On his part, to avoid any chance of running into Master Harwood in the main taproom, he took ale sometimes in the rougher end of the tavern. Although Hester did not wait there, she always managed to spend some time sitting at a table with him when her brother and his wife were safely elsewhere, which gave them the chance to hold hands. She had to face some good-natured chaff from the rest of the staff about her swain, but she shrugged it off, knowing it would not be voiced in either Martha’s or Jack’s hearing, for in spite of being related to them, she was very much a lowly member of the staff and therefore belonged to the confederacy of the kitchen regions.

  John often looked back to that first afternoon with Hester by the river as the start of a new pattern of living that tore daily at his conscience. The Harwood Sunday dinners became unbearable to him. He was frequently abstracted and lost to the conversation until jerked back into it by a direct question. Now and again he took stock of the situation as if miraculously a solution might suddenly present itself. On the one hand there was Caroline, still lodged in his affections, still secure in an understanding that they were to share a future together. Nothing had been stated categorically in their love-talk, even her father had forbidden mention of it until a later date, but for someone of his outlook an unvoiced promise was as binding as any other. He was in it up to his neck!

  On the other hand there was Hester, drawing him to her by day and filling his dreams at night with images of her as Caroline had never done. The bachelor’s adage of a good girl to woo and a bad one to tumble with did not even apply in this case, for Hester, honest and generous and warm-hearted, held herself in respect and commanded it in others. The thought of abusing her never occurred to him. On the contrary, she awakened in him such tender feelings, combined with the longing to possess and cherish her, that eventually he came to the stark realization that he was in love with her as he had never been, or ever would be, with Caroline.

  It became more difficult with every meeting to hold back what he wanted to say to Hester. He could tell she knew his feelings and was waiting each time for him to speak, particularly after they had kissed when she was pliant and yielding and breathing softly within the circle of his arms. Again and again he had to choke back the words, realizing that he could easily plunge them both into depths from which it would be impossible to draw back.

  Yet eventually the moment came. They were taking a Saturday afternoon stroll along the Mall. It was here that the latest fashions of both men and women were to be seen, which made the Mall one of Hester’s favourite walks. Although the cooler weather meant that capes and cloaks now shielded, or partly hid, the grander garments underneath, there was an abundance of rich velvets, feathers and fur-trimmings.

  Suddenly, when the heavy drops of rain began to fall from a darkening sky, people hastened in a swirl of colour towards waiting carriages or scampered, like Hester and John, for whatever shelter the trees could afford. By chance nobody else came to the oak they had run to and
as they huddled close together against the rough bark, holding his cloak across her for added protection he looked down into her rain-wet, wonderfully inviting face and the words burst out of his heart.

  ‘I love you! I’ll love you all my life.’

  She turned pale with joy. ‘I love you, too,’ she whispered. ‘I have done ever since that first day.’ Her arms went tight about his neck as he caught her still closer to him and they kissed as never before, heedless of the drumming rain.

  It was that same afternoon that Martha, listening at the kitchen door, finally overheard in a snatch of conversation the name of the man that Hester appeared to be seeing at every opportunity. She went at once to Jack.

  ‘It won’t do,’ she stated firmly. ‘You must put a stop to it at once or you’ll be in danger of losing Harwood’s custom.’

  ‘How could that be?’ Jack was cynical.

  ‘My! You can be senseless at times! He is not going to think well of your sister dallying with his daughter’s betrothed. If Harwood should turn against us and the Heathcock, his acquaintances would soon follow suit. You’ve said yourself he’s not a man you’d wish to cross swords with.’

  Jack accepted her reasoning while at the same time concern for Hester came uppermost in his mind. He tackled her about the matter that evening. She had known that sooner or later she would be challenged and she answered him in a forthright manner.

  ‘Yes, I am seeing John Bateman. Is he to be denied all other company because the Harwood family have staked some claim to him? You told me yourself that nothing was officially settled.’

  ‘That’s beside the point. I ain’t going to allow anyone to trifle with your affections when he’s under other obligations, official or not. Stay away from him, Hester. No good can come of it.’ He became irritated and exasperated by the whole business. ‘London is full of young men. You don’t have to hob-nob with one already spoken for.’ His forefinger with a grimed nail pointed sternly at her, his scowl matching his action. ‘I mean what I say. You’ll not see young Bateman again!’

  Hester ignored his instructions completely and kept her next appointment with John as arranged. She told him of this new development as they sat side by side on a wooden bench overlooking the river. Dark clouds were streaking a sky already grey and the wind made whirlpools of the fallen leaves from the trees around them.

  ‘It’s happened as I feared. Until you are free of all previous commitments Jack will continue to oppose my seeing you.’ She knew he had attended a Harwood Sunday dinner since she had seen him last. ‘Have you told Caroline about me yet?’

  It was the first time Caroline’s name had come into the open between them. Until now she had been a shadow that they had both chosen to ignore in their deepening love for each other.

  ‘Not yet,’ he replied hoarsely. At her news he had leaned forward to stare towards the river, elbows across his knees and his hands clenched, his right thumb working across his left knuckles, the skin strained over them. ‘It’s a difficult situation.’

  She was disappointed he had not taken the chance when he had had it to explain matters to Caroline. Deliberately she tested her own power of attraction. ‘Perhaps it would be best if we didn’t meet again for a while.’

  ‘No!’ He turned to grip her hands in his. ‘I can’t say how long it’s going to be before things are straightened out. How could I go two or three, or even six months, without seeing you?’

  ‘Six months!’ She jerked her hands away, aghast. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  The tension between them was rising. He felt himself being driven into a corner and resented it. ‘All I’m asking is that you have a little patience.’

  ‘You expect me to stay dancing on a string like a puppet for six months?’

  ‘Don’t keep throwing the length of time at me.’ He was thoroughly wretched and feeling guilty enough to be ready to retaliate fiercely in his own defence. To be plagued by too much conscience was as great a handicap in his present opinion as having none. ‘I used it figuratively.’

  Her colour flared. Suddenly she had become possessed by an intense jealousy of Caroline that she could not control. Her eyes flashed. ‘Figuratively or not, it is days you should have listed in any case, not months!’

  ‘Whatever you will.’ It was a well-intended attempt to extinguish the first dangerous sign he had recognized of his own anger, which was always dreadful to him. In his mind’s eye he saw it as the first ominous rising of the curl of smoke that precedes a forest fire.

  Hester was not appeased. ‘It is not my will that counts now, but yours. You have only to tell Caroline that she has to absolve you from whatever understanding once existed between the two of you. No woman of any spirit would want to hold, much less marry, a man no longer in love with her.’

  Tormented, he retorted sharply: ‘You don’t understand. In her circle marriages are arranged in a practical manner and love is a bonus. I must wait for Caroline’s own rejection of me. It’s a point of honour —’

  ‘Honour!’ she exploded, leaping to her feet, her temper unleashed. ‘What of your honour towards me?’

  He sprang up to face her, his cheekbones standing white. ‘I should never have spoken of love to you until I was free to do so!’ Having admitted his fault the forest fire was almost upon him. He could feel its awful crackling coming up through his veins to break into flames in his head. ‘It was a terrible mistake on my part!’

  ‘So you have regrets now!’ Deeply hurt, feeling torn inside by his words, she couldn’t stop herself from hurting him. ‘Maybe I have them, too! I can see I’ve been mistaken about you in every way. You are still fonder of Caroline than you would ever have me believe.’

  His self-control snapped and his fury burst forth: ‘What if I am?’ He waved his arm about. ‘She hasn’t changed. She’s still the same person I admired for her looks, her cultured mind and her educated attitude to life.’

  For Hester it was too much to be borne. He could not have said anything, however unwittingly, to strike harder at her. All her vulnerability about her own intellectual shortcomings had been delivered a dreadful and humiliating blow. Her pride could not endure it.

  ‘Stay with Caroline then,’ she raged, backing away from him. ‘It’s what you have really wanted to do all along if you had only dared admit it. It is I who have been in second place, not her. Marry Caroline! Spend the rest of your life with her. I never want to see you again!’

  He roared back at her: ‘If that’s your decision, so be it!’

  In the heat of his fury he let her run from him. He did not even watch her go, turning instead to stalk away in the opposite direction. That evening he went with Tom and Robin to the Blue Boar Inn where, for the first time in his life, he drank himself into a stupor and had to be carried home.

  It took an early-morning dousing under the yard pump to get his head clear and ready for work. Still shaky, plagued by a thumping headache and with his face chalk-white, he took his place at the work-bench. By ill chance his task that day was to raise a silver bowl by beating on the outer convex side until it was moulded over the steel head from which it was taking its lovely shape. Every tap of the hammer jarred up his arm into his aching head. It was a relief to take a break when he was told that Master Harwood wanted to see him in the office. He felt no trepidation. Both Robin and Tom had assured him that he had not been seen by anyone in the establishment in his drunken state. His guess was that he was to be given something special to do again; the presentation salver had been much admired.

  In the office, Stephen Harwood paced the floor as he waited, hands clasped behind his back, fingers flicking impatiently. The previous evening he had taken a theatre party of friends to supper at the Heathcock and, when he had settled the bill, Mrs Needham had invited him aside to put a word in his ear. He had listened without expression, nodded his thanks to show that her considerate warning had aroused no personal ire in him against her or her husband, and mulled over what he had learned going home in hi
s carriage.

  ‘Ah, Bateman,’ he said, when his apprentice stood before him. In his own residential quarters on Sundays he called John by his Christian name, but here in the business regions it was a different matter. He lowered himself into his chair, taking his time and settling his elbows on the polished arms as he put his fingertips together. It would do no harm to let the young fellow sweat a bit.

  John’s first thought was that his drunkenness was known about after all. He was not unduly alarmed. It would be his first black mark in nearly six years and he would not get booted out for that. ‘Sir?’

  ‘There comes a time in most apprenticeships when a young man needs to be reminded of the rules governing his behaviour as laid down in his indentures. If they have been flagrantly broken, then penalties are not enough and he must go, his chances of master-craftsmanship lost beyond recall.’

  ‘I know that can happen.’

  Stephen Harwood watched him under his black brows that were at odds with the brightish hue of his brown periwig. ‘You’re a good craftsman. From the start you showed the makings of an exceptional talent and you’ve gone from strength to strength. I’ve never once had cause to be disappointed in you. As you know, I’m not a man to give praise lightly, which should encourage you to grasp fully the significance of all I have said.’ He shifted his heavy weight forward in the chair and lowered his hand on to the desk in front of him, gold rings gleaming, an emerald blinking green fire. ‘Since you have such skills in you, it is nothing but folly on your part to put your future in jeopardy by pursuing a tavern-maid.’

  It was not what John had been expecting to hear. His eyes narrowed and his face tightened. All the rawness of the parting quarrel twisted like a knife in him. As always when he lost his temper he felt drained afterwards, his equilibrium shattered. And it was that, as much as the after-effects of drunkenness, that was weighing him down today. In his numbed state his loss of Hester had yet to make its full impact.

  ‘That pursuit is at an end,’ he stated bluntly.