Dark Tides Read online

  “Delighted,” he said with a leer. “I never mind doing business with a lady. Though this is the first time I’ve discussed marble!”

  “Indeed,” she said coolly. “It is the Caesar heads you are interested in?”

  “Got my steward to measure my dining room. They can all fit in, he tells me. If I want them. And I have a man who buys art for me, he’ll come and look at them before I conclude.”

  She flicked out her black fan and looked at him over the top. “Perdono! I am not that bold!” she protested. “I cannot deal with agents and salesmen. You must excuse me.”

  She had surprised him. “I wouldn’t buy a horse at this price without advice.”

  “These are Caesars, not horses.”

  “It’s the question of provenance,” he said.

  “Exactly. They come from the collection of the Fiori family, my first husband’s family. Their provenance is perfect.”

  “Yes, I suppose. But it’s rare to have a full set, isn’t it?”

  “Extremely rare,” she said unblinking. “That’s why they are so expensive.”

  “You think they are expensive?”

  “Would you rather they were cheap?”

  He laughed, despite himself, at her contempt for the word “cheap.”

  “Nobildonna, you have mastered me. I shall buy them without asking for anyone else to look at them.”

  “But only if I will sell them to you…” she countered over her fan. “Perhaps I am not sure that you value them sufficiently?”

  “If you will be so kind,” he replied. “Am I begging you to fleece me now? Did we say two hundred pounds?”

  “We said two hundred guineas.”

  He reached into a pocket in his jacket and brought out a folded piece of paper. “A promise to pay,” he said. “On my goldsmith. Immediately.”

  She took it without looking at it, as if she disdained normal business practice.

  “You don’t check it?” he asked her.

  She widened her eyes at him. “Do I need to? Would I question the words of a gentleman?”

  He gave a little bow. “You are superb,” he said, as if she were an actress in one of the new playhouses.

  “Shall I send the antiquities to you, or will your people collect them?” she asked.

  “I’ll send my own people,” he said. “I’m taking them to my country house. It’s a pleasure to do business with you, Lady Peachey.”

  She inclined her head and stepped a little closer. “And I have more,” she whispered. “I have a reclining female figure in the most beautiful marble, a creamy color marble just like skin. Completely naked, a Venus resting, with a dolphin under her feet, his head lying…” She turned aside and raised her fan to hide her blush. “Along her thighs. The contrast of the skin of the dolphin and her… her… it’s very beautiful. The great classical artists put beauty before everything…” she recovered. “We moderns, we are bound to be limited by modesty. But not, I hope, blinded by it. This is a private piece, for a gentleman’s study or his private gallery.”

  “I should like to see it,” he said eagerly. “Quite naked, is she?”

  “I would have to order it to be shipped from my late husband’s store in Venice,” she said. “I could show you a drawing and you could order it. I could not undertake to bring it into the country without a guaranteed purchaser. I would have to deliver it directly to you; I could not show it in Sir James’s house, it is a piece so…”

  He bent his head to hear her whisper.

  “Infiammando,” she breathed.

  “Inflaming?” he confirmed.

  Livia, sloe eyes turned down for modesty, only nodded.

  “For sure, to a lady; but for a man of the world like me?”

  “It’s indecente to anyone,” she assured him, turning her head away, embarrassed beyond words. “It would be indecente to the king himself, and we all know that he has an eye for art.”

  “How much?” he asked, breathing a little heavily.

  “Ah, my Venus, my indecent Venus, would be five hundred.”

  “Guineas?”

  She turned back and smiled. “Exactly.”

  * * *

  James waited for Livia in his study, as the last guest left the house. She came in smiling and offered him Sir Morris’s note of hand. “Will you take this for me?” she said. “I dare not take it to the warehouse. I am so afraid of thieves or fire!”

  “I’ll redeem it tomorrow,” he said. “Shall I keep the gold at my goldsmith’s for you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “That would be best, thank you.”

  He glanced at the amount. “You must be pleased,” was all he said.

  “I am,” she agreed. “For the poor ladies.”

  He waited while she put on her bonnet and threw a little cape around her shoulders against the cold evening air, and then she took his arm and let him lead her through the garden towards the river. Glib went ahead of them to hail a skiff to come to the Avery pier.

  “What a beautiful evening,” she sighed. “What a wonderful day we have had.”

  She waited for him to reply, and when he was silent, she paused at the head of the steps to the pier. “Oh! I had quite forgotten! How foolish of me. Alys will be wanting to be paid for the shipping and the wagon.”

  “Immediately?” he asked, surprised.

  “My dear, they are so hand to mouth, she has been dunning me for weeks. You have no idea! I have been quite uncomfortable…”

  “I shall send your money from the goldsmith’s tomorrow…” he suggested.

  “No, no, I need it at once. She will be waiting up to empty my pocket. She’ll be expecting it tonight.”

  “Surely she realizes that you would be paid in a promissory note?”

  “My dear, they only deal in coins,” she said. “She keeps everything she makes in a chest in the counting house. I doubt they’ve ever seen a note!”

  “Of course…” He hesitated and reached into the deep pockets of his jacket. “Shall I give you some funds now?”

  “That would be so kind,” she said. “I should give my Mia Suocera something for housekeeping too.”

  He drew out a heavy purse and tipped out five gold guineas. “Would this be sufficient?”

  She took it and breathed: “Thank you, you’re very thoughtful. Perhaps ten? I would not want to embarrass myself in front of Alys, she’s very grasping.”

  “She always was,” he assured her, and handed over the entire purse, which disappeared into the placket sewn inside the waistband of her skirt. He bowed and kissed her hand and then helped her down the stair into the stern of the waiting skiff, as Glib scrambled into the seat in the prow. The boatman nodded to Sir James, pushed off, and started rowing.

  The sun low on the river, the skiff went along its own shadow on the darkening water. The wind was coming in from the sea and the boat rocked gently on the little waves. Livia, a woman of Venice, took no notice of the birds skimming by her, going to roost for the night, or the beauty of the little moon rising before her. She looked back to the water stairs of Avery House and the tops of the trees beyond it in the orchard and the hidden garden, and thought only of the grand house behind that and the Avery fortune that had built and maintained it, and the ten guineas in her pocket.

  The waterman drew up to the Horsleydown Stairs and Glib paid with Sir James’s money, and got out of the boat first, to help Livia up the greasy steps. “You can go,” she dismissed him when she reached the top.

  He hesitated. His orders had been to see her into the warehouse, and he hoped she might pay for his return by boat.

  She snapped her fingers in his face. “Did you not hear me? Go.”

  He bowed and set off on the walk back to Avery House, as Livia opened the mean front door and stepped into the dark little hall.

  Alys was waiting for her. “I saved you dinner,” she said eagerly. “I’ve been waiting for you!”

  “I’m very tired,” Livia said sulkily. “I don’t want anythin
g.”

  “Oh! Would you like some soup? Or a glass of—”

  “I said: nothing! I think I’ll go straight to bed.”

  “How was it?” Alys asked. “Did it go well? Did you…?”

  “I suppose you want money,” Livia said unpleasantly.

  “Well, of course I do! But I also hoped that you’d had a good day. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been thinking about you. I was worrying as it got dark that you wouldn’t…”

  “Wouldn’t what?” Livia countered. “Bring home a pocket of shillings like your son and daughter have to do? Of course not! I have put my earnings into the care of Sir James who will deposit them at his goldsmith’s! Did you think I would push a purse down my bodice like a thief?”

  “I did hope you would bring money home, tonight,” Alys admitted. “My dear, we need it! The warehouse has paid out for the shipping, and for the wagon, and for the lightermen. And we’ve commissioned a second voyage. I can’t carry the debt! I did tell you? And you did say you would…”

  Livia put her black silk shoe on the bottom stair. “I’ve earned a fortune today, more than you could have earned in a year, in ten years! I told you I would do so, and of course, I will pay my debts, but I shan’t be paying out my money for your children’s keep, nor for a maid who does not even come when she is called.” She opened the purse from her pocket and pulled out five coins. “Here is five guineas and you’ll have the rest later. I would have given you it at breakfast, there was no need for you to stay up and dun me on the doorstep.”

  “I just wanted to see you safe home!”

  “You wanted to see the money safe home! All you care about is money. And don’t wait up for me again, unless I ask you to.”

  NOVEMBER 1670, LONDON

  Johnnie tidied his high desk in the merchant’s counting house as the early dusk darkened the lofty dirty windows. The other clerks were putting on their jackets and hats, and leaving at the same time, but he did not walk with them to the bakehouse or coffeehouse. Instead he went down to the river and stood at a set of river stairs. The low tide lapped at his feet on the green weedy steps, a wash of rubbish, bits of cloth, the flat end of a bonnet, a sheet from a catalogue, some bits of wood, something stinking and dead; but he looked beyond the flotsam to the horizon. The river, even at dusk, was a forest of swaying masts, as ships—sails furled—were towed in by busy barges or moored in midchannel waiting for their turn to declare their duty and unload at the legal quays.

  A child of the warehouse, Johnnie usually counted the queue of waiting ships and looked for the names of those that often came to the Reekie Wharf; but this evening he looked beyond them to the east where the thick gray clouds merged the sky into the sea on the dark horizon.

  He was confident that Sarah would be safe on board Captain Shore’s ship and that she would cope with whatever faced her in Venice. She was only twenty-one years old but the two of them had been raised on the streets, alleys, and wharves of St. Olave’s, and he knew she was no fool. She had seen enough libertine men buying gewgaws for their mistresses at the milliner’s not to be tricked or seduced by a few slick words, she had seen fellow apprentices leave the workshop in a carriage and come back barefoot. A child of the coastal trade, he was not fearful for her at sea; a firm believer in his grandmother’s wisdom, he did not think she had been sent on a mission that she could not accomplish. But he believed himself to be half of a twin and, as she went farther and farther away, he felt as if half of himself was missing.

  He walked along the wharf from one set of steps to another, not knowing where he was going in the gathering dusk, but understanding that he was undertaking a sort of vigil, a waiting for her, and that until she came home his family would be dispersed and he would have no comfort until he knew she was safe. Now he understood how it had been for his mother, when her brother, Rob, went away; for his grandmother when her brother, Ned, went to the New World. Now, as he tried to look through the dusk, as if he could see Sarah so far away at sea, he believed that his grandmother would know for sure if her own son was alive or dead.

  NOVEMBER 1670, LONDON

  Sarah had been away from her home for nearly a week when Alinor came down the narrow stairs to find Alys in the counting house, on the other side of the narrow hall.

  “Alys, I need to talk to you.”

  At once, Alys slid down from her stool at the clerk’s high desk where she worked. “Ma? Are you ill?”

  “No,” Alinor smiled. “No, I’m well. But I’ve something to say to you.”

  “Shall we go into the parlor?” Alys scattered a shaker of sand to dry the careful figures in the ledger, put a bookmark in her place, closed the ledger, and led the way across the hall. She settled her mother in a seat near the fireplace. “Shall I light the fire?”

  “No, I’ll go back upstairs again in a moment.”

  Neither woman would have lit a fire to burn in an empty room. It was one of the many grinding economies they had practiced all their lives.

  “Balancing the books?” Alinor asked. “Are they right now? With Livia’s payments?”

  “Yes! Finally paying our debts,” Alys said. “She paid us in the very nick of time, it was close.” She closed the parlor door as if to shut out the threat of failure. “I’ve settled with Tabs and given her a little extra for her patience, and I’ll be able to pay Captain Shore when he returns with the load. But we’ve got nothing to spare. It’s close—too close,” she confessed.

  “And where’s Livia now?” Alinor asked.

  “At… with the statues,” Alys replied. She never named Sir James to her mother.

  “Again?” Alinor asked curiously. “I thought they were sold?”

  “Now she’s supervising their packing up and sending them off to the buyers.”

  “Will she pay us a share of the profits?” Alinor asked curiously.

  Alys flushed slightly. “She’s paid what she owed for shipping on the first voyage, she still owes for commissioning the second,” she said. “I didn’t ask for a share of her profits. After all, it’s her widow’s dower from her first marriage, we’ve no claim on it. And anyway, she plans to buy a house for us all to live in, she’s saving up the money. We will be partners.”

  “Don’t we have to buy the warehouse?” Alinor asked. “A new warehouse, for her to show her treasures?”

  Alinor flushed. “As a partner, yes. I know she’s ambitious, Ma, but this could take us to a better house and a better living than we’ve ever dreamed of.”

  There was a cold draft from the unshuttered windows. Alinor drew her shawl closer around her shoulders.

  “You’re cold. I’ll light the fire for you.” Alys rose to go to the kitchen for some embers.

  “No, no, I’m not staying downstairs. I came down to tell you something.

  Alys sat on a stool at her mother’s feet and looked up into the worn and beautiful face. “Yes, Ma?”

  “Sarah didn’t go to see a friend. I sent her on an errand.”

  “You did?”

  “A long errand, I’m afraid. I sent her to Venice, my dear. To find Rob.”

  For a moment Alys was silent as she could not believe what she had heard. “What?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t like it, so I told her to keep it secret. She was eager to go, I sent her with a little money—” She broke off and smiled. “And the old red purse of tokens. She sailed with Captain Shore, and she’ll come home with him in the New Year.”

  Alys rose to her feet. “You sent Sarah to Venice? My daughter? Without telling me?”

  “Aye, I’m sorry.”

  “Ma… I can’t believe it… you sent Sarah?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what for?”

  Alinor folded her thin hands in her lap. “Because I don’t think Rob is dead,” she said very quietly. “I don’t believe it. So I sent Sarah to see what she could find out. And if there’s nothing, and he’s dead, then I asked her to bring something back of his, that I might take in my coffin
when I’m dead too.”

  Alys jumped to her feet, took two steps to the window, and then came back to her mother. “I can’t begin to… Ma, what have you done?”

  “Sarah feels as I do—both the children do. That there’s more to Livia’s story than she’s told us. And I know—I know in my heart that Rob isn’t dead. I just know it. He’s not a young man to die in water, not when he could swim to shore, not when he could find his way home on hidden paths. Lord, Alys—think! He was raised on Foulmire, he’d never have drowned in shallow waters. If I’d been well enough I’d have gone myself. But Sarah leapt at the chance.”

  “How could you send her? Send my daughter in secret? Overseas? Ma, how could you!” Alys looked out of the window as if she expected the sails of Sarah’s ship to appear, returning her home.

  “My own daughter! And you made her keep it secret!”

  “We only didn’t tell you because we knew you wouldn’t like it—”

  “You were right!” Alys burst in.

  “And because we don’t trust Livia,” Alinor said steadily. “She has you in her pocket.”

  Alys flushed red. “Ma!”

  “She treats you as no one has ever done. She speaks to you with contempt, as if you were her servant, and then she gives you money, as if she could buy your pride.”

  “I’ve heard people speak worse to you,” Alys rejoined.

  “Yes. Many. But they never said they loved me in the next breath. They ordered me and I resented it. I didn’t love them for it.”

  “She’s Rob’s widow… what’s wrong with you? Why don’t you trust her? She’s paid her debt, she’s going to give us a home! She’s a true daughter to you. She’ll find us a new house where there’ll be room for us all, and a garden, and clean air! She’s the savior of this family! She came here, when she could have gone anywhere! She’s stayed here, though it’s so poor and mean and so beneath her! And she’s used our warehouse and our wharf to bring in her valuable dower and sold it to our benefit! She loves us! She loves me!”