The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin Read Free Page B

Mallory would have asked, and made sure things were dealt with properly.
    Her housemaid came in, dressed in her outside cloak over her nightgown. She crouched down beside Mary, and took her hands.
    ‘You are icy cold, ma’am,’ she said. ‘I thought you were walking again, when I heard the footsteps; but I was locked in, and could not come to you. I was afraid you would go out into the night, and have no one to bring you back.’
    Mary looked down, feeling the familiar shame. She had sleepwalked for years, and only once had her husband shaken her awake. At the memory of it she could feel the primal horror it had awakened in her: a seam of terror running from her throat to her breastbone. Her scream, like an animal, he said, had woken every inhabitant of the house. He had cursed her for it, and never woken her again, always rousing Ellen from her bed to talk Mary soothingly back to her room or to a chair in the parlour.
    ‘I am cold,’ said Mary. ‘My feet are damp, from standing on the doorstep. I wish my sister was here.’
    ‘But it’s too late to go out,’ said Ellen, and Mary saw the fear in her eyes. ‘Who did it, Mrs Renard?’
    Mary shook her head. ‘I do not know,’ she said, and covered her face with her hands.
    The girl slipped out and returned with a glass of red wine. Her hand trembled as she put it down on the table next to Mary. She banked the fire, then brought a shawl in, and wrapped it around her still mistress, gently pulling Mary’s reddish-brown hair free from it and smoothing it over her shoulders as one would to a child.
    The other inhabitants of the house did not go back to bed. Roused by the news of a sudden death they stood around, conferring, in low voices. Who could have done it? He was, they all agreed, a difficult man – but this?
    Mary watched the flames rise and fall. She was hardly aware when Benjamin came into the room, and put the keys by her with a clunk, scratching the flawless surface of Pierre’s tea table.
    She realized she was hunched tight, her arms folded around her body as though she sought to hold herself still. As her hand slid down she felt a dull pain, just above her wrist, and pulled back her sleeve. On the underside of her arm there were three bruises: three small perfect circles in a line. As she saw them, she heard her brother calling her, a voice from eleven years ago.
    Mare-lee. Mare-lee.
    A door slammed shut.
    ‘It’s a full moon,’ she heard the maid say in the passage. ‘It makes my flesh creep.’
    Mary began to laugh; and once she started, she found she could not stop.

CHAPTER TWO
    1st May, 1792
    I must begin by saying that my blood is French. It is a century since my mother’s family came to this country, silk weavers driven here by cruel religious intolerance, and though I may pass for an Englishman, the name of France is engraved on my heart: for it is the source of taste, of true art and of craftsmanship fit for kings. My father was descended from a goldsmith’s family, creators of some of the finest silver and gold plate this country has ever seen; but he died before I was born and my mother, denied by his family, gave me her name. She died when I was barely walking, and I knew only of a cousin living in some distant part of the country, only lately reconciled to me.
    From such sad beginnings, I have come, and my present circumstances, to some, would be enviable indeed. I own a fine shop on Bond Street, where I live with my wife, Mary, and our servants and lodgers. People of quality flock to my shop, for I know how to match each man with the piece of silver or gold plate that will appeal to him: for this man, beauty matters; for this man, utility. I am a master at it.
    Yesterday, a newly married couple came calling to the shop when I was not there. It sounds as though they are prepared to spend a good portion on plate, but Grisa – my shop manager, an emotional fellow – was apparently all of a fluster with them, and instead of serving them