Garlands of Gold

by Rosalind Laker

  Elizabeth had suddenly pressed her fingertips to her lips in self-reproach. ‘I’m sorry, Saskia. I spoke thoughtlessly about my babies when you have yet to conceive. I’m sure you will find yourself with child before long.’

  Saskia spoke lightly as she returned the sleeping baby to the crib. ‘I have your two dear children to love in the meantime.’

  It was the truth. She enjoyed playing with little James and now there was his sister to bring pleasure into her life, easing the craving in her for a child of her own. As agreed from the start she and Robert were leading their own lives, although they accepted all invitations that came to them jointly and were socially much in demand. They entertained lavishly, saw all the new plays and attended balls, card parties and soirées. She guessed that Robert had a mistress, but preferred not to think about it, uncertain as to why she should find it painful. She told herself it was from resentment that somewhere another woman thought her too dull to keep such a handsome man faithful to her.

  Her relationship with him was not easy. There were times when they laughed together, but others when the strain between them was intense and they quarrelled heatedly. Then she was almost afraid of him, for he looked at her so passionately. Yet never once had he tried the handle of the communicating double doors between their two rooms. She decided that for his sake and her own she would have to return to Holland as soon as the war ended. She was certain he would give his consent now when their marriage was proving to be so difficult for them both.

  He had kissed her on occasions. Usually it was when they were on exceptionally good terms. Then he would take her by the shoulders and kiss her on the brow, but never on the lips. She believed he did not trust himself to put his mouth to hers, for she was well aware that his desire for her had not waned.

  Her collection of little treasures had now reached the figure of one hundred and twenty. On her natal day and at Christmas time Robert had given her something that she could add to it, each being new and of beautiful French porcelain. She had one cracked little pot in her collection that could never be used, but it was of blue Delft just like one she had had in the original collection and when she had seen it languishing on a market stall she had bought it immediately.

  It was an evening in early summer when Saskia decided to broach the subject of a return to Holland. Robert had gone out into the garden to see what the gardener had done that day, for he was extremely interested in plants and new ones were being introduced into the country from far away places all the time. She found him strolling along a path and increased her pace to catch up with him. He turned to her with a smile.

  ‘You’ve come to enjoy the evening air with me. Good.’

  ‘Yes, but I also want to discuss a very serious matter with you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It is about our relationship. You have to admit that it is quite impossible at times. We would be much better apart and I’m sure after the difficult months we have shared you feel differently now about my original request to go home to Holland. This war will not last for ever. I’m looking ahead to when peace is restored and I could safely return without causing any gossip. Nobody would be surprised that I should wish to go home and see how friends have fared during the conflict. You are so firmly established with Master Wren now that when I fail to come back again you would not be blamed for my apparent desertion. You can also query the legality of our Fleet marriage, because I believe that can be done under certain circumstances and then you would be a free man again.’

  He must have been expecting such an approach from her, for all the time she had been speaking he had shown no surprise.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied evenly. ‘You can go back to Holland whenever it is safe for you to travel, but on one condition. In return I’ll raise no objection to your departure. Previously when you asked me to let you go I was against it, because I wanted to give our marriage a chance to survive. Unfortunately it has proved to be a pathetic sham.’

  ‘I regret that too, but I never deceived you. From the start you knew I loved somebody else, even though his love was directed elsewhere.’

  He gave a nod. ‘So how soon after we have news of a peaceful settlement would you expect to depart?’

  ‘I have to wind up my business first. What is the condition that you mentioned?’

  ‘That you share my bed before your departure.’

  She gasped in angry astonishment at his demand, withdrawing a step from him. ‘That would be breaking our agreement!’

  ‘Just as you intend to break it by leaving me!’ he gave back bitterly. ‘So make up your mind. Meet my terms or stay as we are in this wretched relationship.’

  She felt overwhelmed. ‘Do you hate me for it, Robert?’

  His gaze was incredulous. ‘Hate you? No! I pity you for throwing away the good life we could have had together.’

  She experienced a deep stab of sadness. ‘I wish it had been possible.’

  He shrugged and continued his way along the path while she walked slowly back into the house.

  Several weeks went by with no more talk about a future departure. During this time, after a long legal tussle Robert’s case to reclaim his family home and evict his stepmother had finally come to court. On the day the verdict was given in his favour he did not go home to convey the news to Saskia, but went to celebrate with friends. The hour was late when eventually he arrived home.

  Saskia was waiting up for him. ‘How did the case go?’ she asked anxiously, able to see that he had been either celebrating or drowning his misery.

  He beamed at her. ‘It is wonderful news. The verdict went in my favour and Harting Hall has been returned to me.’

  ‘I’m so glad for you, Robert,’ she said sincerely.

  He ambled across to the staircase, but reeled slightly and caught at the newel post to steady himself. ‘I think I must have done rather well this evening,’ he commented with a grin, ‘but I did tip the waiter to keep the wine flowing.’

  She watched him go up the stairs. It hurt her deeply that he had shared his news first with friends just as he had done when Master Wren had appointed him. Surely, even though they were estranged, she held more importance in his life than his friends. Then on reflection she realized that over past months Robert had been slowly cutting her out of his life in preparation for her departure, which he must have always foreseen. All he had originally hoped for through capturing her in marriage had faded away. Now he would adjust easily enough to being on his own again when she finally left him.

  Next morning Robert outlined all that had happened in court, but it gave her less pleasure than it would otherwise have done as his account was coming to her after being celebrated by others.

  ‘After all this time everything is returned to me,’ he said. ‘The house and the whole estate! At my father’s untimely death my stepmother was left well provided for in his will and she can live in comfort at any other house of her choice for the rest of her days.’

  ‘My felicitations to you,’ Saskia said. ‘You have waited so long for what is rightfully yours. I have often wondered why your stepmother has been so stubborn about surrendering the house to you, knowing that you were the rightful heir to your father’s property?’

  ‘Revenge perhaps?’ he suggested. ‘She was quite savage about my father’s loyalty to the King. What seems worst of all to my father’s memory is that she entertained Cromwell, his greatest enemy, twice under his roof and all her acquaintances were Parliamentarians. Now she has to vacate the house immediately and the present staff will remain other than her personal maid. But I thought I should send two of our senior servants to make sure all is in order and then I’ll go down to Sussex for a few days. I have plenty of work to take with me.’

  She experienced a sense of shock that he intended to go alone, but she remained silent. In the past he had often talked to her about the house and all that he would show her in the surrounding countryside whenever he should win the family estate back again. Now she was
no longer included in his plans for the future.

  A week later, after word had been received that all had been made ready at Harting Hall, Robert bade her farewell and set off for Sussex, his valet travelling with him. She stood on the steps to watch him leave and she felt strangely bereft. It was becoming all too clear that his love for her had faded and she should be glad of it instead of feeling increasing sadness as the gulf between them widened. He had been patient for so long and had accepted at last that her love for Grinling would always stand between them.

  As she turned back indoors a thought struck her and she hastened to his study. Opening the door, she looked in and with a curious pang of her heart she saw that the portrait miniature of her was still hanging on the wall there. For the first time he had not taken it with him. During the next few days she wondered whether he would send a messenger to collect it, having simply forgotten it in his excited anticipation of seeing his home again after so many years, but nobody came.

  Although he no longer cared about her she knew that he would continue to be adamant that she could not leave England without his ever having possessed her. She feared his angry lust, but it was the doorway to her freedom. She might be left pregnant and that thought alone gave her comfort, for she was financially secure from her business to keep herself and a child in moderate comfort until she had re-established herself and her cosmetics in Holland. She thought she would settle in Amsterdam, for it was the heart of Holland where merchants of the East India Company thrived on the rich comings and goings of their vessels and their wives and daughters would be attracted to her beauty products.

  She began looking for a letter from Robert, but she received no word. Neither did he send a messenger with news of how he was dealing with everything at Harting Hall. The two senior servants returned and assured her that everything was running smoothly there after – on their recommendation – some of the staff had been replaced.

  Three more weeks went by and then a month. She heard by chance that Robert had made a swift visit to London in order to discuss some matter with Master Wren, but he had not come to see her. From being irritated by his neglect her feelings turned to anger and then to outrage when she considered the possibility that he might have installed his paramour at the Hall to keep him company in her absence. It never occurred to her that her fury sprang as much from a shaft of jealousy as from his neglect.

  Finally she summoned Joe. ‘I want you to drive me down to Sussex. I intend to visit Harting Hall.’

  She gave other instructions to Joan. ‘You must be early to the assembly rooms this week and apologize while making a deep curtsy for my having to postpone my consultations for that day.’

  ‘Am I not to accompany you, madam?’ Joan said in disappointment. ‘How will you manage without having me to unhook your clothes and brush your hair and see that the servants bring you anything you want? Do you intend to take Matilda with you?’

  ‘No, because it will be a very short visit and I need to rely on you to deal with my ladies. Probably I shall only be gone for no more than two days. I am not taking any grand clothes. Just pack my sprigged cotton gowns and the essentials that I shall need.’

  It was a warm sunny day when Saskia and Joe set off on their journey. When they had left the stench of the London streets behind them Saskia inhaled the sweet country air with quiet pleasure. The fields were full of ripening corn and every meadow was sprinkled thickly with wild flowers. The road was hard and dry, there having been no rain for some weeks, and the wheels of the carriage bowled along.

  Saskia was always to remember her first sight of Harting Hall at early evening and thought it beautiful, although the great size of it surprised her. They had passed through some woodland and suddenly there it was, lying in a curve of the softly rounded hills that in her opinion were curiously called the Downs. It was a Tudor building with grand chimneys and the panes of the many casement windows were blinking back gold and orange and pink at the exceptionally beautiful sunset. A long gravelled drive led between an avenue of trees to the steps of the entrance, which was protected by a large stone porch under which equipages could come to a standstill and give arriving passengers protection from any inclement weather.

  There was no sign of human habitation anywhere, but as she alighted the great door in front of her was opened and a manservant bowed to her. She entered the house with a flourish.

  ‘Tell your master that Mistress Harting is here.’

  Momentarily he showed surprise at hearing who she was, but bowed again as he stood aside for her to enter. ‘The Master is not at home, madam. He went riding this morning with company and has not yet returned.’

  She was gazing around at the wide hall with its dark linenfold panelling, the ancient but still colourful murals that followed the wide sweeping staircase to a gallery, and the heavy chandeliers from another age suspended from the ornamentation of the plastered ceiling.

  ‘Notify my husband when he returns that I am here,’ she said authoritatively, intending that the servants should know from the start that she was in charge, no matter if Robert was keeping his mistress under this roof. ‘I want the best bedchamber in the house prepared for me immediately. I have not brought my personal maid, so send me one of the maidservants able enough to attend me.’

  ‘The room you require is already prepared, madam. So are a number of the other bedchambers, because after a card party or any other social gathering here guests sometimes stay overnight.’

  ‘Do they?’ she commented drily.

  The bedchamber was spacious and very fine with rich brocade hangings draping the four-poster bed and a Turkish carpet on the floor. She went to look out of the window and saw that she had a wonderful view of the parkland where a herd of deer was grazing in the distance.

  She dined alone at a long oaken table where thirty or more could have sat down together. Afterwards she took a little tour of some of the ground floor rooms, but not upstairs in case she should see signs of a woman’s occupation in one of the bedchambers, for she had not come to spy, only to assert herself as mistress of the Hall whether it pleased Robert or not.

  When she was getting ready for bed, attended by a young maidservant, she thought she heard the clop of a horse’s hooves in the drive, which surely meant that Robert had returned home. She was seized by an intense desire to go and meet him, but she crushed it down, for it was likely that his mistress was with him and he would be hostile at what he would see as her intrusion. Then, as the maidservant was nervous and clumsy, although doing her best, Saskia sent her away downstairs again, preferring to brush her own hair.

  She was in her night shift, wielding her brush in long swift strokes as she stood in front of a Florentine looking-glass, when the door of her room was suddenly opened wide. Startled, she glimpsed Robert’s reflection, and turned swiftly to face him where he stood framed in the doorway, a red silk dressing-robe covering his nakedness. Never before had he come to a room that was hers.

  ‘I did not hear you arrive home,’ she said almost in a whisper, unaware that the candle-lamp illumined her silhouette through the diaphanous silk and lace of her night shift. Her eyes were held by his concentrated gaze just as once on a staircase in Holland all that time ago. She stood as though rooted to the floor.

  He did not move from the threshold of the room, but held out his hand towards her. ‘Come to bed, my love,’ he said very softly. ‘It is time now and the hour is late.’

  She put down the hairbrush and went slowly and unquestioningly towards him, her feet as bare as his. It was as if this moment had been predestined and only she had not known it. When she reached him he put an arm about her and guided her along the wide corridor to the door of his own room, the wall sconces throwing their shadows fore and aft as they went by. When he opened the door of his bedchamber she saw in the glow of many candles that his Tudor bed here was even larger than in his room at their London house and was as heavily carved, but here cherubs were pouring fruit symbolically from a cornucop
ia.

  With the door closed behind them he led her by the hand to the bedside. As she stood there he kissed her lips softly as he released the silken ribbons of her night shift and it slipped from her to the floor. Then he tossed aside his own robe and lifted her up in his arms on to the great bed, her head coming to rest against the pillows. There he took his place beside her, his long limbs and handsome body warm against hers.

  ‘I knew,’ he said softly, putting his arms lovingly around her, ‘that if one day you came looking for me it would mean that you had discovered at last where your heart belongs.’

  Her eyes were wide and frightened. ‘I’m not sure if that is true.’

  ‘You will be by morning, my darling,’ he whispered before he buried her mouth in his, gathering her to him in a loving embrace.

  It was as he had long anticipated. After he had tenderly caressed her whole body and when his lips had awakened her lovely breasts, she was totally ignited to sexual pleasure, responding joyously to greater intimacies as under his lips and tongue and hands she became afire with passion. When eventually he took her she cried his name aloud at the moment of ecstasy and he knew that at last he had truly won her.

  The night they shared was one she was never to forget. In the soft glow of dawn she lay awake for a while, still a little dazed by all that had taken place between them in this great bed and yet glorying in being so loved and desired. His arm was encircling her as he slept, his head beside hers on the pillow.

  She knew now that her love for Grinling had been a girlish infatuation, deep and true in its own way, but built on a dream without substance or reason. Lying beside her was a powerful man who had given her his whole heart long since and she had failed to accept that he was the other half of herself until this night that had passed in such passion. She would never cause him pain and disappointment again, but love him as he deserved to be loved until the end of her days.

  His eyes opened as if he had heard her thoughts and she cupped the side of his face with her hand. ‘I love you,’ she whispered tenderly for the first time, repeating what he had said many times over to her during the night hours.