Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [403]
He might be nearly as rich as the great Halle and Swayne: he might not. But since his operations were invisible, and since people could never be sure when they were going to be caught up in them, he was likened to a spider and his business to a spider’s web.
The spider was a pure merchant, having little to do with the craftsmen’s guilds, and he was not popular. His son Robert who acted as his agent in the port of Southampton, was seldom seen in Sarum, but was said to be like his father.
At six o’clock, John Wilson left his splendid house in the New Street chequer; no one noticed him leave. He had two important visits to make, and as usual, he knew exactly what he was doing. The first was to the house of the great John Halle.
At seven o’clock, as Lizzie Curtis walked along the edge of Vanners Chequer outside St Edmund’s Church, she had a sense that she was being watched. Twice she glanced into alleys as she passed by, but she could not see anything.
She was sure that she had heard something, though: a scuffle of feet and a rustling noise behind her.
It was light; there were people in the houses. Whoever was following her, she did not care. She tossed her head to show it, and this time she was sure she heard a laugh.
There were two things about Lizzie Curtis that mattered, as she knew very well: she was pretty and she was rich. Her father was one of the greatest butchers in the town, and he had no other child. And so, although she was intelligent, and friendly, she knew that there was no need for her to be either. She was seventeen.
She wore a bright blue surcoat over a trim yellow cotte, so fine it was almost like a petticoat. On her feet were yellow felt shoes that she slipped into pretty little wooden clogs, painted red, so that she made a dainty sound as she clip-clopped down the street. It was warm and the street was dusty, so she scooped up one corner of the outer garment in her hand, showing her petticoat and a tantalising glimpse of her ankles as she went by. The white wimple on her head did not hide the soft brown hair that peeped out in ringlets around her ears.
Was she being followed? There was an air of bravado about her as she tripped along, pretending not to care.
Lizzie Curtis cared what people thought of her. Every time she said something or made a gesture, she thought about it afterwards, remembering in detail people’s reactions. When she was alone, she practised expressions in front of the silver mirror her father had given her. And whenever she saw a fine lady in the town, she would study her every move, committing it to memory. She collected all the clothes she could – but the brightly coloured articles she saw in the market place never seemed to satisfy her imagination. She had a little coterie of friends, girls of her own age or a little younger, and they remained her friends as long as they admired her. Since she was often funny and usually courageous, the other girls followed her most of the time without complaint.
One matter she often thought about – how would she make men admire her too? She was not certain yet, and as she was unsure, she generally played hard to get: flirting just enough to lead them on, then tossing her head and treating them with scorn. So far she had only tried this technique on the youths she met in the town, and it had seemed to work satisfactorily. Once she had been careless and let a young apprentice kiss her, but then, terrified that he would boast about it, she had pretended to be angry and flounced away.
Lizzie Curtis knew what she wanted. She wanted to be a fine lady – one of those gorgeous figures occasionally to be seen in the town wearing magnificent cloaks trimmed with ermine, and tall, fantastic headdresses made of tissues or brocades and studded with jewels, that rose over their heads in the spectacular if uncomfortable fashion of the time. Could her rich father find her a husband who could give her such things? He would have to be a gentleman,