The Silversmith's Wife _ Sophia Tobin by Tobin Sophia

Author:Tobin, Sophia [Sophia, Tobin,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2014-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

19th June, 1792

To the Chichesters again, with more designs, adapted for the lady. I admit they are taking up much of my time for new customers. I know it will be a long time before I am paid for this service, but the wife is an enchanting creature. It does my heart good to see her. She has the bluest eyes I have ever seen, so bright and innocent; there is nothing haggard about her, she is unsullied, and seems to walk always in sunshine.

I cannot look at my wife without a pain in my guts, as though I have drunk bad wine; whereas Taylor remarks on her delicacy, her feeling, as though it is some admirable quality, I see only how her imagined cares (what cares does she have, when a woman is as lucky as she?) have left their mark on her face.

Daylight had long left the winter sky when Mary Renard’s household was woken by a small fist hammering on her front door. Mary was sitting in the chair by the fire’s embers. She heard Grisa open the front door, and begin a tirade of some sort. When she arrived at the top of the stairs she wondered whether she was dreaming, seeing Grisa remonstrating with a small figure, all the time wearing the most extraordinary red embroidered headgear.

‘What a fine nightcap you have, Mr Grisa,’ she said, as she came down the stairs, before she noticed that he was reprimanding her nephew, Matthew. Luckily, Matthew was his mother’s son, and did not heed Grisa’s annoyance, or look impressed by him. He only waited dispassionately for his aunt to descend the stairs. ‘You shoulda locked him in,’ he said when she reached him, nodding in the direction of Grisa.

‘What is it, my love?’ she said.

‘Ma’s going through her chests, throwing things out,’ he said. ‘She wanted you to have this. Said it was urgent. Says it will make you feel better, Aunt Mary.’ And he handed her a letter.

There was just enough light to see him run off along the pocked surface of the stone paving flags. A fine drizzle was falling and as she stood in the doorway Mary heard a watchman’s rattle sound in the distance.

‘Inside if you please, before we are all murdered in our beds,’ snapped Grisa. He pulled the door shut and heaved the bar up. A faint smell of smoked mackerel still hung in the air, a reminder of their dinner.

‘How like Mallory,’ said Avery from the top of the stairs. ‘Sending the poor child out at night. Could she not have waited until morning?’ She padded off to bed.

‘Poor child?’ said Grisa after her. ‘I pity any soul who gets in his way between here and Piccadilly.’

Mary went to her parlour, Grisa stamping up to his rooms and slamming the door hard. She sat on the edge of the chair, leaning close to the embers in the fireplace, the only source of light in the room.

She had seen at

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