The Silver Touch

by Rosalind Laker

  She hated city life, having been reared in the countryside, and was more at home with farming folk and stable-boys than London society, however well she conducted herself there. Everything she had loved had been left behind when her father’s parliamentary ambitions had settled him and his family in Clerkenwell. She had seen her sister wed, but her down-to-earth attitude and her fierce independence had kept suitors at bay until James had taken a determined fancy to her.

  He had followed her into the house and was handing his hat and cane to a servant. ‘Well?’ he asked her, ‘what do you think of it?’

  She slewed her glittering green eyes over her shoulder at him. ‘It’s all perfect,’ she ground out between her teeth.

  He ignored her show of displeasure. Not easily riled, he could tolerate her tempers, for he knew his power over her. The chink in her armour was that, apart from being a good-natured woman, she had a rough sense of humour that matched his own and it was often through bawdy exchanges and rollicking horseplay that he got the better of her. From the start he had intended to have his way over this house, whatever tactics he would have to counter. ‘I knew you’d like it when you got here,’ he said cheerfully, pretending to have misread her answer. ‘Don’t I always know what’s best for you, my love?’

  Rounding on him, she gave him a violent push in the chest. ‘Oh, if I had a field-gun in my hands now I’d pepper you with shot!’

  He gave a great bellow of mirth. She grabbed up her skirts and began to run up the staircase, he in hot pursuit. As she ran she began to laugh, never able to stay angry for long and in any case the battle was not over yet. She could raise some new objections before the summer came round again.

  Reaching her bedchamber door, she entered intending to slam it shut, but he was too quick for her, pitting his strength against hers, both of them laughing. She released the door and he bounded in, pitching her backwards with his weight until they fell together amid the cushions and draperies of the Chippendale bed, causing the ostrich plumes on the canopy’s dome to sway as if in a high wind.

  ‘I’ll get my will over this house yet,’ she warned riotously, throwing her hat aside, heedless that it went skeetering into a far corner of the room.

  He lay across her, looking down into her amused, defiant face, well aware that she meant what she said, her will as stubborn as his own. ‘Not all the time there’s breath in my body!’

  She lifted her arms and linked them about his neck. It was tussling with him over endless matters, verbally and physically, that made being married to him such a pleasure. Any other man would have bored her. The difference of eighteen years between them was immaterial to her. With his broad chest and thighs like tree-trunks, he was more attractive to her than any younger man would have been and none could have challenged his prowess as a lover. Yet if ever she had to choose between his company and the wide hills and woods and valleys of the countryside there would be no hesitation in her decision.

  ‘You’ll never master me,’ she taunted boastfully, ‘not in a thousand years.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he replied drily, a wrinkle of high amusement at the corner of his eyes.

  By next morning everyone in the vicinity was aware that the Esdailes were in residence and within days the pattern of their existence became known. He went almost daily to the city in his big rumbling coach, returning to dine at three, while she spent her time playing with her little children as noisily and as uninhibited as if she were a child herself, or went riding on a spirited mare, taking off at a gallop across Bunhill fields and being away for hours on end. Hester had glimpsed her several times but had seen no sign of James, when one evening an invitation came. John read it through and made the announcement in the parlour, only the two girls being present with Hester, the boys already in bed.

  ‘We four have been invited to a dancing party and supper at the mansion by the Esdailes.’

  Hester put the flat of her hands together in pleased surprise. ‘When is it to be?’

  ‘In three weeks’ time.’

  Letticia, who had showed little interest in anything since Richard had failed to reappear, felt her spirits lift slightly. A new setting and the attention of other men would be some balm to her hurt pride. ‘Is that long enough to have something new made to wear?’

  ‘It’s time in plenty and I think Ann and I should have new gowns too.’

  Ann, curled up in a wing-chair with a book, lowered it in dismay. She liked gatherings of close friends, but large parties and balls peopled by strangers were not to her taste at all. ‘Do I have to go?’

  Letticia scowled across at her impatiently. ‘Don’t be such a mouse, Ann! It would be ill-mannered not to accept. Of course you must go.’

  Hester nodded endorsement with a preoccupied air. So she was to see James again. He would scarcely remember her. It was obvious that he and his wife had decided to invite the neighbourhood to an informal social occasion out of courtesy. This conclusion was confirmed when Joss and Alice called in half an hour later to say that they had also been invited to the party. But as the days went by it became known locally that only the adult Batemans had been singled out for the honour and the rest of the guests would be coming from London and not-too-distant country estates.

  John raised a gently mocking eyebrow at Hester. ‘You must have made a great impression on Esdaile the day you met him. Joss was still an apprentice then but Esdaile has taken the trouble to find out that the owner of Number 85 is your married son.’

  She uttered a little laugh to hide her embarrassment. It was foolish to think of the kiss after all this time and she was relieved that she had never mentioned it to John. He might imagine it retained some importance for James or, worse still and just as erroneously, for her. ‘Whatever the cause, Letticia is the most cheered by it. She changes her mind about how to dress her hair for that evening a dozen times a day.’

  In the sewing-room a dressmaker and her apprentice were hard at work making up the fabrics that had been chosen: jade silk for Hester, white ribboned muslin for Letticia and primrose satin for Ann. A fourth fabric of rose satin was for Alice, for Joss felt she should have a new gown too. All four garments, with their own variations, were to be in the current mode of tight bodices with low-cut square or deep oval necklines and elbow-length sleeves. The skirts, which were very full, hung straight back and front and were extended widely over hinged iron hoops at the sides, a quirk of fashion that Hester discarded in the workshop or on country walks, or anywhere else where comfort was more important than this French-dictated mode. She sometimes wondered why her fellow countrymen and women, who generally abhorred France and the French as a result of many bitter years of war, should follow the Parisian fashions so slavishly and buy smuggled wine and lace and Lyonese silk without the least clash of principles. For herself, she had learned tolerance in many fields since her marriage to John. So much that was good in him had had its effect on her, for he could weigh any situation and see virtues and faults on both sides, even in the latest conflicts with France.

  There was only one sphere in which she wondered if he had an Achilles heel and that was in her own progress as a goldsmith. He was always generous with praise, never tardy with comments on what was a particularly good finished workpiece, and yet there were times when, with that special empathy that existed between them, she sensed an uncertainty in him as if his male ego was being undermined by her achievements being equal to his. If she really wanted to pinpoint its beginnings, she could date it back to the time just prior to Joss starting his apprenticeship when he had praised her little snuff-box on the bench as one of the best his father had ever made. With every nerve in her body she had felt John’s recoil and the sensation was embedded in her memory.

  The final stitching of the gowns was done and the last length of hem pressed on the morning of the event which dawned hot and sunny. The evening retained a balmy warmth enabling the Bateman women, escorted by John and Joss, to wear the flimsiest of silk gauze shawls about their shoulde
rs as they covered the few yards to the mansion.

  Ann alone felt cold and shivery, which was due to apprehension, her self-confidence undermined by her apparel. She had chosen the primrose satin against both her mother’s and her sister’s advice because it was such a pretty shade and one in which she felt she could achieve her aim of looking her best, but quite unobtrusively. At the first fitting she had realized her mistake. The yellow hue heightened the sallowness of her complexion and in her opinion she had never looked worse. Her mother, guessing her disappointment, had suggested changing the matching lace to white for edging the neckline and frothing in a falling cuff from the sleeves. It had helped a little, but to her eyes she still looked as if she were cut out of old parchment from head to toe and she disliked the way Letticia had scooped her soft brown hair into the style called Pompadour with crimped curls that did not suit her in the least. The paralysing shyness of her childhood had returned as it sometimes did in the face of a social ordeal and her morale was at its lowest ebb as she walked with Letticia past the long line of coaches taking turn in letting the passengers alight at the porch steps of the mansion.

  Hester, crossing the threshold and surrendering her shawl to one of the waiting maidservants, marvelled to herself at the complete transformation of the hall while regretting the loss of the old panelling that had given it a quiet charm. The walls were now hung with golden damask, the ceiling richly ornamented and even the staircase changed to a more graceful curve with a metal balustrade of anthemion pattern. As she and John turned towards the ballroom door she saw that the tapestries originally there had been replaced by panels of an apricot satin ground with a pattern of lyres, baskets and crowns of white roses which was echoed in the upholstery of the gilded furniture.

  Then she sighted James and his wife welcoming their guests just a few seconds before he saw her, enabling her to assess his appearance after the lapse of time. He had put on weight, but his stature was such that he bore it well; his complexion was more ruddy, although that could have been a trick of his snow-white tie-wig, which suited him as did his ivory silk coat with its gold thread embroidery. As for his wife, she was certainly a credit to him in her evening elegance. Her pearly bosom, the mound of the right breast ornamented with a star-shaped patch, rose alluringly from the rigid bodice, displaying to full advantage her magnificent necklace of sapphire and diamonds that matched ear-drops in her lobes. Her gown was of silver brocade with panniers twice the width of Hester’s as the height of fashion decreed.

  ‘Mr and Mrs John Bateman.’

  Hester drew in her breath as the announcement of their arrival was heralded out. James turned his head sharply, almost as if he had been waiting for this moment. His smile widened, creasing the sides of his face, and his gaze absorbed her as she approached in her jade silken gown at her husband’s side, her burnished hair drawn back from her face, a single strand of pearls tight and high about her long white throat.

  ‘My dear Hester!’ he exclaimed as if they were lifelong friends, startling John even more than her by this intimate greeting. ‘What a pleasure to see you again and to meet your husband.’ The sincerity in his voice rang through as he addressed John directly. ‘I bid you welcome to my house, sir. May this be the first of many visits.’

  John was struck by the genuine bonhomie he recognized in the man. It would be hard not to like such a fellow and he did like him, in spite of the extraordinary lapse of good manners in a greeting to Hester that had been tantamount to an embrace. ‘You do me honour, sir.’

  ‘Allow me to present my wife.’ James drew Mary’s attention to the new arrivals and she responded with a warmth that matched her husband’s, her mind lively with curiosity. So this was the silversmith’s spouse whom he had talked about. His excuse about wanting to be neighbourly to the Bateman family had deceived her no more than it would have done any other wife with her wits about her. James was attracted to this lovely-looking woman, probably more than he was prepared to admit to himself. She felt no jealousy. There was no cause. In the circles in which she moved it was easy to spot the women who offered danger and Hester did not come into that category, except unwittingly in this case.

  ‘Now we are neighbours, Mrs Bateman,’ she enthused. ‘There will be little chance to talk together this evening, so do call on me soon and take tea. Then you’ll be able to see my three beautiful babies. Bring your boys at the same time. There’s a pony in the stables they can ride and a basket of puppies to play with.’

  ‘That is most kind of you.’ Hester was taken aback by this show of hospitality and wondered if her hostess was lonely away from the city.

  ‘My word!’ John muttered under his breath as she moved on with him into the ballroom. ‘I’ve a feeling we’re going to see more of the Esdailes than we had anticipated.’ Hester heard the undertone of unease in his voice and knew he was still put out by the way James had greeted her.

  In their wake Letticia and Ann, followed by Joss and Alice, were being received in their turn. James summed up each Bateman individually. Letticia, pretty as porcelain with the kind of calculating wiles that would always draw men to her like bees to honey, the virginal white of her gown in itself a veiled invitation. Then Ann — bright, intelligent eyes in a dull little face. There were depths to this one yet to be plumbed. Now Joss and Alice, a stalwart pair, who reminded him of his own son and daughter-in-law. He hoped his second brood would grow up to match his first, but they would have to withstand Mary’s spoiling and her inability to instill any kind of discipline into their lives or her own. Yet he could scarcely blame her for that when he indulged her every whim, the matter of this Bunhill Row residence being one of the few times when he had withstood all her pleas, tempers and feminine tricks. He knew himself to be besotted by her. Why then had that first sight of Hester again after such a long period momentarily turned everything to dust and ashes? It had been a fleeting illusion, for he was a sensible man but, dangerously, it had shown him what he would still pursue if Hester should ever give him the slightest sign. He wanted her as much now as he had done that day in the herb garden. The time between had melted away as if it had never been.

  As soon as all the guests were assembled, he and Mary started the dancing and the evening proceeded merrily, for both of them liked the formal dances to be plentifully interspersed with jollier measures and country jigs. As host he would partner most of the women — at least as many as was possible — throughout the evening and after taking half a dozen senior ladies in turn around the floor, he approached the spot where the Batemans had gathered. Hester had just seated herself after dancing with her husband and James drew her into the music that had struck up once more.

  ‘Where are the tapestries?’ she asked him as they danced.

  He grinned triumphantly at her. ‘Safely installed in my London home. You see how I followed your advice. What do you think of the changes here?’

  She twirled under the arch of his arm in the measure and faced him again. ‘Everything I have seen so far is quite beautiful and your wife is the pearl in the oyster.’

  ‘You like her?’

  ‘Yes, I do. She was charming to me. I can see you’re a fortunate man.’

  ‘I am particularly fortunate at this moment.’ He pressed her fingers a little tighter within his own. ‘I’ve never forgotten the last time you were here.’

  She raised her eyebrows, smiling in gentle reproof. ‘Do you have such a long memory, James? Some things are best forgotten.’

  ‘But not that day.’

  She tried to redirect the line of the conversation. ‘I still have the key to the herb garden. Now that you are in residence I’ll return it.’

  ‘No, keep it. I insist.’

  ‘But there’s no need. I have a well-established herb garden of my own now.’

  ‘Have you been visiting mine then?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It is such a peaceful place. Sometimes I sit and sketch there. But now it will be your wife’s domain.’

  He shook his
head, thoroughly entertained by such an idea. ‘Housewifely pursuits are not my wife’s métier. She’ll never go near it.’

  ‘Nevertheless the cook will, or there’ll be kitchen-maids sent to gather what is needed for the pot. I would not be alone there any more.’

  He wondered if she was afraid that he would seek her out in that peaceful corner. ‘Then continue to go there when Mary and I are not in residence. We shall return to London in the autumn and the place will be yours again.’

  ‘Then I’ll keep the key,’ she said gratefully, knowing his offer was well meant. The dance was ending and he swept her down into her curtsy with his own bow. Her face was upturned to his. ‘I must tell you one thing. I’m so glad that no changes were made to that part of the grounds. The herb garden was a link with your first wife. It is right that it should have remained as it was.’

  She thought he looked surprised at what she had said. Perhaps it had not been right to mention his first wife on such an occasion, but he would understand it had been said from the heart and would not be put out.

  Later James danced with Ann, whose only partners had been her father and her brother, and her pale-faced nervousness dispersed as he talked to her throughout the measure. When he returned her to her seat she sparkled with a rare excitement as she faced her father.

  ‘Mr Esdaile drew it out of me that I’m a bookworm. He says I may use his library whenever I wish. When he is not in residence, Mother is to have a key and full charge to allow me access.’

  James gave a nod of endorsement. ‘My books are being catalogued at the present time and soon Ann will be able to pluck what she wants from the shelves without any of the confusion that previously prevailed there.’