London - Edward Rutherfurd [240]
“You try,” Amy suggested. But after a couple of minutes Ducket began to fidget, and soon he could stand it no more. “I’m off,” he said. When he looked back, Carpenter was still there, perfectly still, with Amy sitting on the ground, watching him admiringly.
He was rather surprised, returning to the George, to find Dame Barnikel, arms impressively folded, waiting for him. “I want to talk to you,” she began. She fixed him with a baleful look. “How do you think young fellows like you get a start in life?”
“Hard work,” he suggested, but this elicited only a snort.
“Time you grew up. They marry the master’s daughter, of course. Bed,” she suddenly roared. “That’s where it all gets done. Get in the right bed and you’re set up for life.” Even now, Ducket was not sure what she meant, but her next words left him in no doubt. “Do you really think I’m going to pass all this,” she waved at the George, “to that moonfaced little Carpenter? Do you think I want him to marry my daughter?”
“I think she likes him,” he offered.
“Never you mind. You just get in there,” she ordered. “You take that girl from him. Don’t you take no for an answer, if you know what’s good for you.” And she stomped off, leaving Ducket uncertain what he should do next.
If there was one matter about which Bull felt he could congratulate himself, it was the upbringing of his daughter. With her fluffy hair and her soft but bright eyes, Tiffany was such a pretty little thing that she almost compensated for his lack of a son.
Tiffany was eleven when she was told it was time to think of a husband. It happened on her father’s birthday, one sunny afternoon in June. It was the first time she had been dressed as a grown-up.
Her mother, who had looked rather tired of late, had brightened as she took this business in hand. First she slipped a silk undergown over the girl’s head; this had close-fitting sleeves with silk-covered buttons all the way from elbow to wrist. On top went an embroidered gown of blue and gold that brushed the floor. Then, despite her protests, she parted Tiffany’s dark hair in the middle, pulled it very tight, made two plaits which she then wound and pinned into circles over her ears. “And now you look like a young woman,” she said with pride. The effect was simple and charming. And though Tiffany had no breasts to speak of yet, and was quite small, as she saw the effect in her mother’s little silver hand-mirror, she smiled with pleasure. The outer gowns had slits like pockets at the hips, and as she slipped her small hands into these, between the soft silks, it made her feel deliciously feminine.
A large company had gathered at the house. There were several prominent mercers. Young Whittington had come. At Tiffany’s request, Ducket too, neatly dressed in a clean, simple linen shirt, had also been invited. Chaucer could not be there since he had an appointment at court, but he had come by in the morning with a present that had given Bull huge delight.
There was also one other couple, whom she had never seen before: a young man and a nun. The nun, she learned, was named Sister Olive and came from the convent of St Helen’s, a small but fashionable religious house just inside the city’s northern wall, where rich families often placed their unmarried daughters. Sister Olive had a pale face and a long nose; when she smiled, it was with becoming piety; her large, soft eyes were modestly downcast. Her companion was her cousin, a pale, long-nosed and serious young man called Benedict Silversleeves. Both, it seemed, were distant kinsfolk of Tiffany’s mother. The girl found them rather intriguing.
If at first she felt a little shy in her adult dress, she was soon put at ease. Whittington came over and made much of her; Ducket gazed with a frank admiration that greatly pleased her. Several of the merchants and their wives came to talk to her. She was rather flattered too when Sister Olive came across the room, raised her brown eyes, composed her mouth into a demure smile and told her that the dress was very becoming. “But you must talk to my cousin Benedict,