The Silver Touch

by Rosalind Laker

  ‘Who is this for?’ she asked, resting her arms on the bench to study the design pinned there. It was a two-handled wine cistern of gigantic proportions destined for some grand dining-room and elaborate to the point of vulgarity in her eyes. She was not impressed by excessive ornamentation at any time. Simplicity of line and restrained and beautiful decoration were the attributes that counted with her. Too often cherubs’ head, scrolls, shells, swags and foliage weighed down a piece in what was spoken of as the Rococo style, which was charming enough in its way, but too fanciful for her increasingly honed and incisive taste.

  ‘Master Feline,’ he answered her, busy at his work. The wine cistern was taking its shape from a huge stake that had been little used before.

  She traced the drawn pen-and-ink design with a critical fingertip. ‘I wish I could prune away this abundance of vine leaves.’

  ‘I agree with you. It must have been commissioned from Master Feline by a nabob with more money than taste.’

  ‘And with a gargantuan thirst!’

  He chuckled with her and paused in his tapping to throw her a glance. ‘Have you come back to work?’

  ‘I can spare an hour.’

  ‘Well done.’ His eyes narrowed at her. ‘I’ve missed you here with me.’

  It was satisfying to know he had come to rely on her at the work-bench. After four years of marriage a solid base of companionship and tolerance, combined with their good working relationship, had built up to support their undiminished passion for each other. He was good to her in so many ways. She could not understand why Caroline should still loom as a threat to her. There were even times when she had the uneasy sensation that Caroline was still close at hand, touching their lives in some indefinable manner. It remained impossible for her to subdue her misgivings just as she had been unable to suppress the foreboding that had preceded the time when she and Joss had barely escaped death in the ruins of their home.

  Her hours in the workshop would have been severely restricted if she had not thought to ask her former neighbour, Mrs Burleigh, if her eldest daughter, Abigail, could come as house-help and nursemaid. Mrs Burleigh was more than willing to see the girl go to a good home. Abigail, sensible for her sixteen years, able to cook when necessary and thankful to escape the surroundings of her upbringing, arrived with a small bundle of belongings much as Hester herself had done when leaving the countryside for London.

  ‘I hope you’ll be happy with us, Abigail,’ Hester said in welcome.

  ‘I know I will, madam.’ She was a big, honest-looking girl with arched eyebrows that gave her a look of permanent anticipation of pleasant surprises and with a wide smile to match. Joss, who knew her from times of calling with her mother, went to put his hand in hers and accepted her taking charge of him without complaint.

  Letticia was never as easy a baby as Joss had been and from the toddling stage developed a demanding and imperious manner that her parents considered to be an amusing, if somewhat irritating, stage in her development, never supposing it was a stamp she was to bear for the rest of her days. A beautiful child with hyacinth-blue eyes and pale copper hair, she had myriad dimples that she often used with effect to get her own way when her tantrums failed. She took advantage of Joss’s good nature at every opportunity and was intensely jealous that he was allowed in the workshop while she was not.

  ‘Me come, too,’ she insisted mulishly when the door was closed firmly against her, and flung herself down on the floor kicking and shrieking until borne away by Abigail. There was no doubt in Hester’s mind that her daughter had inherited her explosive temperament and she hoped that time would ease it, although not through the kind of circumstances that had forced her to subdue and sublimate herself as she had done.

  Inevitably there were times when she snapped, eyes flashing, her whole body taut; if John was involved she would leave his presence at once and shut herself away in the bedchamber upstairs until the rage in her had died down and she could think and discuss rationally again. Whether or not he understood why she dealt with her temper in this manner she did not know. It was probably enough for him that he was spared what he hated most and could concentrate on his work without domestic upheavals to distract him.

  Work was going along steadily. John had established himself as a reliable outworker who could be trusted to do a task well and deliver on time. He still worked long hours, but always finished at noon on Saturdays to be free until Monday morning. It was the time of the week that Hester liked best, for they could be together as a family, taking the children to see the shipping on the river, or to the zoo in the Tower, or to play in St James’s Park where cows grazed and milk was on sale for the thirsty.

  When John decided that some time at each week’s end must be allotted to giving Joss a measure of schooling, Hester was in full agreement, for there would still be plenty of time for leisure pastimes together. What she had not realized was that John intended to instruct two pupils in the subjects of reading and writing.

  ‘You shall learn to read with Joss,’ he said to her. ‘It’s a splendid opportunity for you to start from scratch and offer competition to him at the same time.’

  She froze, all her old terror sweeping back to set her stomach churning. ‘No! I’m too old to learn now.’

  He burst out laughing, throwing his head back and showing his white teeth. ‘You’re twenty-five! A slip of a girl! Remember how quickly you did well in the workshop. It will be the same with reading. After all, you have no trouble with reckoning.’

  She twisted her hands together. ‘I don’t know how to explain. The letters of the alphabet defeat me.’

  ‘Only because you were never taught properly. You have a quick brain and a good eye. You’ll soon be at home with books. Think how much better it will be for you to write down whatever you want to record instead of drawing all those little symbols that only you can understand.’

  Nobody could say afterwards that she did not try. She had learned the alphabet by rote as a child, which should have given her a head start over a five-year-old, but she could not relate the spoken letters to those written down for her. She had shut the thought of reading out of her mind with such determination over the years that it was harder to learn than it had been before. It was as though something within her that she could not control rejected every effort she made. Why was it she could draw effortlessly, her pencil free as a bird, and yet in the setting down of words, even her own name, everything refused to stay level on a line ruled for her? She felt cursed. In no time at all Joss had advanced to reading and writing simple words without difficulty while all John’s patient efforts failed to penetrate the blockage that stood between what she saw on slate or page and her comprehension. Sweat broke out constantly on her palms and upper lip and at times she reached a peak of tension where the feeling of nausea rose in her as it had done in childhood. It came to a point where her own son attempted to help her.

  ‘It’s like this, Mama. Try to write it with me. Watch what I do.’

  She developed little tricks of memorizing what Joss had read and then being found out by turning the slate over to the other side too soon. She was equally defeated by letters being changed about, which showed that she was only guessing. Joss never laughed or crowed over her as another child might have done and John never showed impatience, but the humiliation was acute.

  ‘I’m holding Joss back,’ she insisted after a particularly harassing session. ‘This can’t go on.’

  John gave a nod. ‘I agree.’ Then he dashed away her rise of relief by adding: ‘I’ll teach you on your own.’

  Where she had always looked forward to the evening hours alone with John after the children were abed, she now began to dread them. After dinner dishes were cleared away he would get out the hated slate and books and the lessons would begin again. By now she could write her name and a few short sentences, but no matter how often she was told, she frequently reversed letters, or left them out, as she had done long ago. When he corrected her yet
again she could hardly hold back the scream of frustration that rose in her and more than once hammered her fists on the table over an error.

  ‘Don’t despair, sweeting,’ he would say cheerfully, putting an arm about her. ‘You’ve made progress as I knew you would. It is only a matter of time until all goes well.’

  The main cause of her despair was his stubbornness in refusing to give up the struggle. She longed to be released from her state of purgatory and from the old sense of shame that was as heavy upon her as it had ever been. Then one evening she thought that blessed time had come. Instead of the slate and the rest of his teaching paraphernalia he put some drawing paper in front of her.

  ‘I want you to design a teapot for me. You’re always able to see what is right or wrong in the designs that come with the outwork. Now I should like to see what you can produce.’

  She felt as though a great weight had slipped away from her. Her increased distress during the past week’s lessons must have finally touched him. He was not going to inflict his well-intended teaching on her any more.

  ‘That’s an easy task,’ she answered happily. ‘I’m always making little sketches for silverware for my own pleasure.’

  ‘I know you are. Now give me one in the detailed style of the professional designs.’

  She set to work at once with pen and ink. Her guess was that for once he had been given free rein in choosing the design for a teapot and was drawing in her ideas with his. She felt honoured and greatly complimented. He did not leave the table to sit in his wing-chair and read the newspaper while she drew, which was what she had expected. Instead he continued to sit by her as he had done throughout his tutoring and watched every stroke that she drew of a pear-shaped teapot, its beauty in its graceful lines, chased festoons its only ornamentation, the lid topped by a cone finial.

  ‘There!’ She sat back. ‘What do you think?’

  He studied it. ‘Charming. It would make up well. Now for the finishing touch I’ll help you to write Teapot in silver underneath and your name beside it.’

  Her eyes dilated as she stared at him. He had tricked her! It was all a ploy, a new way to get her to write and read that would tear apart all her joy in drawing and destroy it. She uttered a kind of strangled shriek and swept the drawing and all else from the table with the back of her hand as she leaped to her feet. Nausea gushed up in her. She hurled herself from the room and only just reached the outdoor privy in time. When she came out into the air again, wiping her mouth, she sank down on to a wooden bench. Her vomiting might have been induced by her outrage, but she recognized it for what it portended. She pressed her folded hands across her stomach. Without doubt she was pregnant again. It explained the recent disorder of her moon cycle, which she had blamed on the stress of the lessons.

  Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath of overwhelming relief. This was her escape. John would never risk upsetting her during a pregnancy and there would be no more lessons or humiliation or shame. It did not matter whether she was to bear a boy or a girl, for she would always cherish a special love for this coming child, who had been instrumental in obtaining her release from what had been a loving persecution. Suddenly serene, she rose to her feet and went back into the house to break the news to John.

  As she had anticipated, there were no more lessons for her and they were never mentioned again. John, stubborn as he was, had accepted defeat. Perhaps to compensate her for what he saw as his own failure, he gave her advanced instruction in the intricacies of goldsmithing and her ever-quick ability and talent left him even more puzzled by her resistance to the letters of the alphabet.

  Joss continued to make strides in his learning. John would have liked him to attend Westminster School when he was old enough but the fees put it far out of reach. At least he could give his son the benefit of his own classical education received there and he began to prepare Letticia, who was a bright child, for the time when he would teach her in her turn to read and write and reckon. Although it was never said, it was clear he did not intend to tolerate any illiteracy, other than Hester’s, in his family and that applied equally to the child who had yet to be born and any more that might come in the future.

  When Hester was brought to bed for the third time the birth proved to be the easiest to date. As she had somehow expected the baby was a girl and Hester had her own mother’s name of Ann ready for her. It was typical of Joss that, when admitted to the bedchamber, he should welcome his new sister with a rattle he had made for her. Letticia, jealous of this new arrival, hung back from the cradle and had to be pushed forward by Abigail.

  ‘Go and give Baby Ann a kiss.’

  Letticia did not do that, although her glare into the cradle changed immediately with a coquettish tilt of the head into a smug smile. ‘She is not as pretty as me!’ Then, perhaps seeing a coolness towards her in her mother’s expression, she went to the bed and flung herself forward for an embrace. ‘You still love me, don’t you?’

  Hester stroked back the copper-fair hair from the child’s upturned, anxious face. ‘I love you dearly,’ she said reassuringly. Yet she knew there was a niche in her heart exclusively for Ann, which had been made seven months ago and would always remain there.

  Although Hester was never to show favouritism, Letticia continued to be jealous of Ann. For a long time she created trouble at every opportunity to bring attention to herself until gradually she came to realize that Ann, with her plain looks and thin brown hair that seemed reluctant to grow, was never going to outshine her.

  *

  Hester could never be quite sure when she began to suspect that some of the grandest workpieces on John’s bench were being made for the Harwood establishment. She knew that Master Harwood had never recovered from his second stroke and was a bedridden invalid. Although John never spoke of the Harwood family, she had heard through Robin that Caroline had taken control of the business, leaving her mother concerned solely with the care of her father, who would tolerate no one else to nurse him. What more natural than that Caroline should seek to help John by sending him such work? If that should be the case, then why had he never mentioned it? Equally puzzling was her own reluctance to question him outright. The thought of challenging him brought dread to the pit of her stomach and she did not know why. Constantly she searched her memory to try and settle the time or place or day when suspicion had first seared into her brain, hoping it would bring some light to the matter. Was it that at some time he had given her an evasive answer about a new source of work that she had not paid attention to at the time, but which had lodged in the back of her mind to cause a build-up like a grain of sand in an oyster?

  Against her better instincts, she found herself watching and waiting until one grand workpiece or another was finished and ready for delivery. Mostly he delivered in daylight for safety reasons, but there were times when he had to go by night if an article was required urgently. On these occasions he hired a retired army sergeant as armed escort, which relieved Hester of anxiety when he went out with a valuable article in its presentation box under his arm. A piece of rough cloth disguised its importance and if it were an extra large presentation box, he would carry it in an old sack over his shoulder. Even with the sergeant’s good sword-arm in readiness, there was no point in inviting trouble. On the evenings he set off with what Hester guessed to be Harwood articles she found herself timing his absence and comparing it with how long it took to deliver elsewhere. Over a period of many weeks a definite pattern evolved.

  On the night he returned home at midnight, the latest he’d been to date, she was waiting for him at the head of the stairs, a light robe over her night-gown, her face pale with stress. Inwardly she was seething with the same heated jealousy she had perceived often enough in Letticia and was as powerless to control it. He hung his tricorn hat on a peg in the hall before he turned for the stairs. Then he looked up and saw her in silhouette against the glow of a candle in its chamberstick on a small table on the landing. Th
e thought occurred to him that the trouble with peace-loving people like himself was that they took wide circles to avoid trouble and still managed to bring it down upon themselves, inevitably at the least prepared moment. He had expected Hester to be asleep and could tell by her face that his secret was a secret no more. He hated to be on the defensive and, due to a traumatic turn of events that evening, he was in no mood for a confrontation.

  ‘I didn’t expect you to be awake,’ he said quietly from the foot of the flight.

  ‘How could I sleep knowing that you were with Caroline,’ she burst out in pent-up torment.

  He sighed and began to mount the stairs, the aura of candlelight holding his drawn face as if in a cameo. ‘I stayed too long, I know. But it would have been discourteous to refuse supper and a glass of wine.’

  ‘What would her betrothed think of your supping alone with her?’

  He had reached the last but one stair before the top and stopped there, his eyes on a level with hers. ‘What makes you think we were on our own?’ he questioned sharply.

  ‘Because you have been on previous occasions! You can’t deny it!’

  ‘I’ve no intention of denying it.’ A nerve began to throb in his temple and his eyes glittered. ‘But let us talk about this in the morning when you’ll be more in charge of yourself.’

  ‘No!’ She could see the warning signs that his rare anger was rising and recklessly she welcomed it, all resolutions gone momentarily beyond recall. ‘Guilt is written all over you. Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing her?’

  ‘To avoid such a scene as this!’ he replied fiercely between his teeth.

  She hit him across the face with all her strength. His head jerked back and the ring of her forceful blow seemed to hang suspended in the air. She had caught him off balance just as he was about to step on to the landing and he staggered slightly, reached for the newel post to save himself and thrust out a hand as if to keep her at bay. In her fury she would have hit him again, but he caught her wrists and grappled with her. They swayed together, knocking against the little table that stood there, causing it to tilt. The chamberstick and the tablecloth went sailing off the polished surface to land together on the floor. The still-burning candle illuminated them like two actors in the footlights as he bore her backwards against the wall and held her there, his angry face within an inch of hers.