Page 37 of Dark Tides
She stood and gestured at the view behind her, towards London where she knew there was wealth and opportunity, and decadence too. “Oh yes!” she declared. “If it was exiled: let it return. If it burns down: rebuild it. If it was robbed: restore it. If it is free—let us take it.I shall be an English lady in a beautiful grand house with a thriving business in antiquities, a storehouse in Venice and a gallery in London because I have set my heart on it—one way or another—why not? You should have a wife and a baby son, because that is what you desire. Why should you not restore yourself? Why should you not come into your own again? Why should we not take what we want and go where we are not invited? Why should we not be happy?”
They walked home together without him giving her an answer, but she was content that she had put a swirl of ideas in his head. At the front door she put her hand on the latch and said carelessly over her shoulder: “Come for me tomorrow, and I will have discovered where your son is. I will tell you.”
“I’m grateful.” He stumbled on the words. “I would not have you spy on them… but I have to know…”
She shrugged. “Of course you must.” She smiled. “Good day.”
She opened the door, waved the nursemaid and the baby inside, and gave him her hand. He bowed over it and she leaned towards him. “But think of me,” she whispered. “Why not?”
He had no answer for her, but she did not wait for one. In a moment, she was gone and only her rose-petal perfume was left on the heavy summer air.
Sarah and Johnnie took supper in the kitchen with their mother, then walked down the quay to London Bridge and crossed to the north side of the river. They walked together arm in arm, their steps matching, to Sarah’s millinery workshop.
“That was odd, that Sir James,” Johnnie remarked. “What d’you think he wanted? What d’you think he really said to Grandma?”
“I’ve never seen Ma so flustered,” Sarah agreed.
“But why would he turn up? And why speak to Grandma about a refuge? What can he mean: a refuge?”
“Perhaps he’s something to do with our Lady Aunt?” Sarah suggested.
“Odd that they should have just met on her walk?”
“D’you think they’re working together? I’ll ask at the milliner’s if anyone has ever heard of him.”
“In a milliner’s?” Johnnie asked skeptically.
“If he’s ever bought a hat for a woman in this town, they’ll know.”
“I suppose so. I’ll ask at Mr. Watson’s if they know his name, if his credit is good.”
“He looks like a wealthy man. That collar alone was worth ten shillings.”
They paused at a bow window, the shop front of Sarah’s workplace. “That’s one of mine.” Sarah pointed to a wisp of golden net and some glass flowers.
“How much?” Her brother strained to see. “Two pounds for what? Some beads and some wire?”
“It’s not the beads and wire, it’s the art of putting it together,” she said with assumed dignity, then she giggled. “It’s the name on the hatbox to tell the truth,” she admitted. “I’d give the world to be able to open my own shop and have my own name on the hatbox, and not to have to work for someone else.”
“When Uncle Ned’s ship comes in,” her brother replied. “From America. Filled with Indian gold.”
At bedtime in the warehouse, Livia paused on the stairs and asked Alys: “May I stay in your room again? The attic room is so stuffy and hot.”
“Of course,” Alys replied a little awkwardly. “I was going to ask if you… but then I thought…”
“I sleep so much better with someone in the bed,” Livia confided. “I miss your brother so much in my sleep. I wake and wonder where he is. But beside you, I am at peace.”
The two women went into Alys’s bedroom. “Don’t undress under your gown like that,” Livia told her. “We are just women, the same as each other. There’s no need for shame. Here—let me help you.”Gently, hands on her shoulders, she turned Alys around, and undid the fastenings at the back of her gown and lowered it for her to step out. “And you can be my maid in return.”
“All right,” Alys said, blushing furiously as she stood in her underdress and undid Livia’s gown and helped her slide it from her shoulders over her slim hips till it lay in a pool of black silk at her feet. Livia stepped out of it, and let Alys pick it up and spread it gently in the chest.
“So pretty!” Alys exclaimed as she turned and saw Livia in her shift of silk trimmed with black lace.
“Roberto always liked me to have the best.” Livia took the hem in her hands and pulled it over her head. She stood before her sister-in-law, quite naked. Alys took the shift, shook it out, and laid it flat in the chest, her hands trembling. When she turned back, Livia was pulling her nightshift over her head, and then she turned and sat on the edge of the bed. “Will you do my hair?”
Alys pulled the ivory pins from the thick black hair and it tumbled over Livia’s bare shoulders. “It’s a pity to plait it up,” she remarked.
“Perhaps tomorrow you will help me wash it?” Livia asked. “Roberto used to help me wash and dry it.”
