Mott brought the final draft of the Charter to the wool-loft on the thirty-fifth evening, and she brought it in both hands, folded in the Chamber’s blue paper with the lark and scale pressed into its seal. She did not sit down. She stood at the foot of the loft’s ladder with the draft held in front of her like a hymn-book, and waited while Piers came down the rungs one at a time, favouring his right hand, which he kept tucked against his coat.
“It is the Chamber’s copy,” said Mott. “Velvet’s flourish is at the head. Tallow has written the minutes at the foot. I have made the clauses plain, so you may read them without a broker’s help.”
“You have never once been plain in your life, madam,” said Piers, reaching the bottom rung.
“I have been plain for the length of a contract, Mr Hadley, which is more than most people manage in a marriage.” She unfolded the draft and held it out, and he took it in his left hand and carried it to the window, where the grey light was going out of the sky over the marsh.
He read it through once, fast, as a wool-factor reads a sample. Then he read it again, slowly, clause by clause, with his lips moving very slightly, the way Harrow counted stones. He had not known that a Hold’s Charter could be so plain. He had not known that a clause could be built like a…
