June 1763: Part Two
308 Words
June 1763: Part Two
Will dressed in his new clothes—the shirt with its ruffled cuffs, the double-breasted waistcoat, the frock coat, the brown tie-wig. He surveyed himself in the mirror. He didn’t look like a servant; he looked like a man who had one or two servants himself.
Will nodded at his reflection, placed the three-cornered hat on his head, and left the inn, stepping out into Salisbury’s bustling High Street. He strolled along the flagway, gazing in the windows, and halted at a jewelers’ shop.
A bell tinkled as he entered.
“Good afternoon, sir.” The jeweler was a little man with a creased face like a monkey and an elaborately curled wig. “How may I assist you?”
Will took the brooch from his pocket and placed it on the counter. “My mother recently died. She left me all her possessions.” Both those statements were true; if the jeweler chose to believe that the brooch came from his mother, it wasn’t his fault, was it?
The jeweler leaned forward to study the brooch. “You wish to have it valued?”
“I wish to sell it.”
The jeweler pursed his lips and scrutinized Will more closely, his gaze flicking from the wig to the embroidered waistcoat to the shoes with their large, shiny buckles. “We don’t usually purchase pieces.”
“I can take it elsewhere—”
“No, no,” the jeweler said, his hand closing over the brooch. “We occasionally make exceptions.”
Will tried to look bored while the man examined the brooch. At last the jeweler laid the piece on the counter again. “I can offer you two hundred guineas. No more.”
Two hundred guineas.
Will managed to stop his eyebrows from climbing up his forehead. “That will be fine.”
The jeweler counted out the guineas, some in gold, the rest as banknotes. Will placed them in his pocket, trying to behave as if he was used to dealing with such huge sums of money. “Thank you.”
“A pleasure, sir,” the jeweler said, with a bow.
Will stepped outside. He took a deep breath. Two hundred guineas!
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