The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin Read Free

strange to see him in dishevelled clothes, and the wig he normally wore – a little old-fashioned, but elegant – left off. It made him look curiously vulnerable.
    They regarded each other in the moonlight. His eyes were shining, watery; he looked as though he was on the brink of tears.
    ‘Do you wish to come in?’ she suggested helpfully, then cautioned: ‘My husband is not at home.’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘But it is for him that I am here.’
    Talking in riddles, she thought in her befuddled brain. Perhaps it is some game they have been playing again – she knew how Pierre and Taylor delighted each other with wordplay, though she often thought they sounded like overgrown children. She let him in, and directed him up to the parlour. If he was going to speak cryptically to her, they may as well be warm; and as for respectability – there was no one respectable out to know that she was receiving him without Pierre in the house. She followed him up the stairs wearily.
    She thought later how strange it was that he should make such a mess of it. Dear Dr Taylor, who was normally so authoritative; so used, as a doctor, to presiding over birth and death. Yet there he was, walking up and down her parlour, the floorboards protesting beneath his heavy feet, his hesitant speech fading to a mumble as he groped for words. He said her husband’s name several times, as though by saying it, it would give him the momentum to speak on, but each time his voice trailed off, and he muttered the name of Digby, and spoke of Berkeley Square, and of footpads.
    ‘Please tell me what has happened,’ she said, eventually. Taylor ceased his pacing. He stood over her. It was odd to see his face, which usually bore an expression of jovial kindness, twisted with sorrow, the shadows and the firelight laying contrasts on it, making him seem gargoyle-like.
    ‘He is dead,’ he said. ‘Someone has taken him from us. I am sorry. So very sorry.’ Then, hesitantly: ‘Marie.’ It was the use of her Christian name that most clearly showed his distress; until this night, he had never said it. A fat tear rolled down his cheek.
    Mary stared at the floorboards, and the Turkey rug that Pierre had made such a fuss over. ‘Make sure it is brushed, Ellen, and brushed properly,’ he had said to the maid before he left. There was a spot of dirt on it. She had to resist falling on to her knees and picking it up, pincering it between the nails of her thumb and forefinger, before Pierre came back and saw it.
    ‘Has the constable been called?’ she said.
    ‘The watchman will make his report to him, but – when he was found – there was no one nearby.’
    ‘How did he die?’ she said. She knew it was an unlady-like question, but she also knew that in his current state, Taylor would tell her; tomorrow, it would be too late, but for now, all delicacy and convention had flown.
    ‘They cut his throat,’ he said. His voice was barely a whisper.
    Tick, tock, went Pierre’s lantern clock, and as Mary’s eyes darted around the room, all she could see were things chosen by her husband, for he had crafted his home carefully. She gazed on the dull brass colour of the lantern clock; it was over a hundred years old, he had told her when he bought it. She would have preferred something else in this room: something made of wood, ‘something feminine’, he had scoffed. Everything in the house had been done to his liking. Except for the papers in this room: cream, with little scarlet fruits. They had agreed on the choice, startling each other with acquiescence.
    She heard the doctor pull a chair towards her, and felt him take her hands. They were unexpectedly rough. He was an accoucheur, and she had always assumed his hands would be soft, silken, for attending to a woman’s most delicate parts; but no, these were large paws, chapped, as though if you stroked them the wrong way the skin would rise up like scales.
    I never had a child, she thought. And I never will,