Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  ‘He’s not for sale and so it’s pointless to think that way. Take him on permanent loan. Will that satisfy you?’

  ‘No. I’d still be under an obligation to you. Keep my horse. Charlie has been well cared for and is in perfect condition. That’s what matters most now.’

  ‘Then you shall ride the animal whenever you wish.’

  ‘I agree to that.’

  He rolled up his eyes in exaggerated relief. ‘I can hardly believe that we’ve come to an amicable settlement. May it be a stepping stone to many more.’

  ‘I can’t endorse that wish,’ she replied wickedly. ‘I think it will be more fun to remain at daggers drawn with you.’

  He did not respond with amusement as she had expected. ‘That time is over, Julia. Let’s aim for friendship now.’

  She saw he was making it clear there was to be a solid foundation to their relationship. Friendship on its own would suit her well, because she would miss all the young company she had had at Bletchingdon, but marriage was another matter. ‘I spoke thoughtlessly,’ she admitted. ‘This is a time for amending past mistakes, both between us and the country as a whole.’

  He gave her a serious sideways glance. ‘Ever the Royalist, aren’t you? I suppose you subscribe to the exaggerated belief that Charles I was a martyr and Cromwell a tyrant. Has it never occurred to you that there is a way to draw the good from both sides to form a new path?’

  ‘When I can worship as I please, dress as I like, eat what I wish at Christmastide and dance around a maypole without anyone accusing me of being a pagan or a Papist, I’ll know that the King is home and England is herself once more.’

  ‘You’re confusing extremist ideas with the original Parliamentary ideals that I hold. Our country would be equally free if it adhered to them.’

  ‘The gulf between us is wide,’ she pointed out meaningfully.

  ‘But friendship can bridge anything.’ He smiled kindly. ‘Let us call a truce for now.’ Bringing his horse closer to hers, he pulled off his gauntlet to reach out his hand to her. ‘Agreed?’

  She nodded, giving him an answering smile. ‘Gladly.’ She put her hand into his to seal their pact. ‘Now we can enjoy our day together.’

  They rode for the Downs. The countryside was a spread of mellow browns and greys with the eternal green of the rolling hills and the air fresh with the scents of damp grass and dark earth. Pale sunshine lingered on the bark of the trees. When they followed a path through the woods last autumn’s leaves were trampled down into the soft mud by their horses’ hooves, leaving a shining trail behind them. Snowdrops clustered within the shelter of roots and he dismounted to pick a small bunch of the fragile blooms for her. She shared them with him, threading hers through an eyelet in her bodice while he tucked his into the band of his hat.

  On the open brow of a hill they rode hard, clods of turf flying up in their wake, colour stung into their faces. When they rested their horses he produced a picnic from his saddle-bag and they sat on a fallen tree-trunk in a sheltered hollow to eat. Their view spread over the meadowland and the fields and far beyond the smudge of Chichester with its Cathedral standing proud, to the pale green stretch of the sea. They bit into roasted capon drumsticks accompanied by diet rolls, which were so named for providing extra nourishment to any meal, being thick and rich and buttery, tasty with herbs. There was wine to drink, which he poured into silver travelling cups and when only the capon bones remained, they tucked into preserved plums and apricots, which left a sugary coating on their lips that they wiped away on linen napkins.

  ‘This is much better than dining at home today,’ she said contentedly. ‘I’m so glad you thought of it. My mother is probably too exhausted to go downstairs and it would have been dreadful to eat alone with Makepeace. He doesn’t like my being home again and can’t wait to be rid of me.’

  ‘I can guess what he wants you to do,’ he drawled lazily, leaning back against a tree to gaze seawards, his long legs stretched out in front of him, booted feet crossed at the ankles. He was sipping the wine from his silver cup.

  She glanced sharply at him. ‘Makepeace showed me the signed marriage settlement this morning. It’s pointless, you know. I’ve told you before I’m waiting for someone else. If my stepfather starts getting persistent about it I shall go back to Bletchingdon.’ Then she drooped her head and put her hands against her eyes. ‘What am I saying? I can’t leave either my mother or my grandmother now.’

  ‘Warrender Hall isn’t far away,’ he reminded her, taking another leisurely sip of wine.

  ‘It’s a thousand miles distant as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Not at all. When the boundary wall is changed to square off that acre of land I’m getting as your dowry, I thought I’d have a gate set in and a path laid to join up with another near the Hall. Then you could ride to Sotherleigh whenever you wished, because it would cut the distance by half.’

  She scarcely listened. Letting her hands drop into her lap, she looked at him in appeal. ‘Help me with this problem. Show me that you meant it when you said you wanted us to be friends. If Makepeace starts pressing for a wedding date, find excuses to postpone it; that will make it easier for me to stay on at Sotherleigh caring for those who need me.’

  He sat forward and for the second time that day regarded her with disbelief. ‘You’re asking me to do that? I want our marriage. I’d let it take place tomorrow if it didn’t mean twisting your arm. You’ve lost us time already. There’ll come a time when you’ll regret every hour wasted in procrastination.’

  She looked at him incredulously. ‘You’re impossible! You and Makepeace are two of a kind!’

  He hurled aside the silver cup he had still been holding, the red wine spraying out in an arc, and grabbed her by the shoulders to shake her, his face livid, ‘I told you before! Never mention that man’s name in connection with mine! I’d never allow myself to be under the same roof with a regicide if there were any other way by which I could see you!’

  ‘I apologize for that!’ She was struggling frantically to free herself from his iron grip, ‘I thought that as my friend — ’

  He shook her again. ‘Friend! Lover! Husband! That’s what I’ll be to you, but not necessarily in that order!’

  She lunged backwards, seeing he was about to aim his mouth at hers, and they fell together from the tree trunk on to the grass. His hold on her was loosened and she struck out with her arm, scrambling to her feet to rush for her horse, which was only a few yards away. Still on the ground, he hurled himself forward and caught a handful of her skirt-hems. She swung round to try to snatch them free of his clasp and then he was on his feet with his arms round her. In trying to escape him again, both of them gasping in the struggle, she stumbled on the slope and they went crashing down. Immediately the weight of his body trapped hers and he cupped her head in his hands, holding it steady to plunge his mouth down on hers, forcing her lips open and kissing her with intense passion. She was possessed by a delicious fear and her fingers dug into the soft turf, her arms pinioned by his elbows, which seemed anchored to the ground. His heart was pounding against her breast, almost as if it were seeking her own, and one of his long legs lay between hers, her petticoats tumbled above her garters. All was fire and darkness in his kiss and she was lost in it.

  When eventually he took his lips from hers, it was to raise himself slightly and to draw one hand from the side of her face down to caress her breast through the soft wool of her bodice with, what was to her, almost unbearable tenderness. Her fear of him changed into alarm at the sensual abyss into which she felt herself slipping. She turned her head sideways, the turf against her cheek and disguised the surge of desire in her by speaking with all the coldness she could muster in her voice. ‘Take your hands from me. You’ll never seduce me into a marriage.’

  He caught his breath as if she had struck him, although for a matter of seconds his hands lingered on her as if magnetized there. Then he rolled away to sit with one knee updrawn, his arm r
esting across it. He spoke with steel in his voice. ‘You certainly know how to be viperish, Julia.’

  She had risen to her feet and was brushing bits of grass from her skirt. He had unwittingly given her an outlet and she seized upon it, although not without sympathy for him. ‘My grandmother has told me more than once in the past that I have the making of a shrew in my temper and my stubbornness. It’s as well that you’ve found that out. No man wants those characteristics in a wife. Now you can look elsewhere.’

  ‘You forget that I’m bound to an agreement.’

  She tossed her head, her impatience directed at Makepeace and not at him, although he did not realize it. ‘That marriage settlement isn’t worth the ink of your signature.’

  He watched her as she knelt to pack up the remains of their meal, wrapping everything in napkins to be put back in the saddle-bag. ‘I want that strip of Sotherleigh land and if it means taking you as part of the bargain, shrew or not, I’ll have it.’

  There was such anger in his voice that every word was clipped. She felt a shiver of apprehension run down her spine. In him she had an adversary far more dangerous than Makepeace, because he had the power to stir all the pent-up sensuality in her by his very nearness. She half wished she could love him, which would solve everything, but physical excitement was not love as she knew it, perhaps from the time long ago when she had shared her dream with Christopher.

  Making no reply to what he had said, she sat back on her heels, the packing-up finished and rubbed her arms, looking at the sky. ‘It’s getting colder and the best of the day has faded. We must be getting back.’

  They rode in silence for most of the way. The snowdrops had wilted in his hat and she had lost every one of hers in their struggles. When they were almost in sight of Sotherleigh he spoke as if after much deliberation.

  ‘You need not worry about a wedding date in the near future. I’ll find reasons for postponing it as you asked. Your mother in her present condition and Mistress Katherine need your care.’

  She looked at him gratefully. ‘I thank you. That means more to me than you can possibly know. In that case we’ll not be seeing each other for a while.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ he replied wryly, ‘this morning I accepted an invitation to take supper with Walker this evening.’

  ‘I may not be included.’

  ‘You will be. I believe he thought all would be settled between us today.’

  In her bedchamber, when she was changing out of her riding clothes, a single half-crushed snowdrop fell to the floor. Somehow it must have slipped inside her bodice. She picked it up and put it in water, not through any sentimental attachment to the earlier and better half of the day’s outing, but because she cherished all nature’s beauty. When she passed the flower screen later on her way downstairs, she paused for a moment by a carved snowdrop and traced its delicate curves with a finger.

  When she reached the Queen’s Parlour Makepeace was there and Adam had already arrived, attired now in crimson velvet. Their eyes met and all the events of the past hours on the Downs seemed to tumble between them as they bade each other a formal evening greeting. Makepeace was in full flow on the subject of pheasant-shooting and the pair of exceptionally good retrievers that he had had this winter. When it came to a few seconds to eight o’clock he showed he had not forgotten the time, for he glanced at the clock twice, awaiting Anne’s arrival.

  It was exactly on the hour when there came scuffling sounds in the arched passageway leading from the hall to the Queen’s Parlour. Makepeace strode across to the door and flung it wide. Then he took a step back as if unable to believe his eyes. Anne entered with her usual grace, but she was attired in the dazzling Elizabethan gown. The scrolling flower embroideries on the bodice and the isolated slips on the skirt gleamed like multi-coloured jewels, the wrist-length sleeves so encrusted with stitchwork that they held a lovely ballooning shape. Around her neck was a filmy ruff edged with needlepoint lace while the extremely low décolletage, enhanced by its ornamentation of the swinging drop-pearls, pale and gleaming, revealed the white mounds of her bosom almost to the aureoles of her nipples, for she had not fastened the bodice properly at the back. Behind her in the passageway Mary and Sarah hovered aghast, having glimpsed her from a distance and been too late to prevent her entrance.

  Makepeace uttered a bellow like a bull about to charge. ‘Out of my sight, madam! You have dared to garb yourself like a bawd in my house!’

  She did not seem to hear, continuing to advance into the room in a state of dreamy abstraction, the soft grey eyes unfocused. Julia thought her mother had never looked more beautiful or more vulnerable. In a flash of understanding she recalled Anne’s distress that morning at having to hide away Michael’s gift of the Lyonnaise silk. The Elizabethan gown had been mentioned and it must have remained in her confused thoughts all day.

  Adam, having grasped the situation, was bowing to Anne. ‘How elegant you look, madam.’

  In a flicker of her mind like a swaying curtain letting in light, she recognized him and gave him her hand to kiss. ‘I’m delighted to see you here, sir. All feuds should end in harmony as between your family and mine.’

  ‘Anne!’ Makepeace roared, maddened above all else that her bosom should be thus revealed to another man’s eyes. ‘Go and clothe yourself decently!’

  He reached forward to propel her from the room himself, but Adam held him back by the arm. ‘No, sir! Don’t touch her! She’s in some kind of trance. Let your daughter and womenfolk see to her.’

  Julia took her mother about the waist. ‘We’ll go and show your finery to Grandmother,’ she said emotionally.

  Anne looked pleased by the suggestion, forgetting already that there was a guest in the house. ‘Yes, she will like to see her gown worn again.’

  She went eagerly from the room, stepping lightly ahead of her daughter, and Makepeace saw to his further dismay that the back of her bodice was completely unlaced. Before she disappeared from sight the single ribbon in the eyelet holes at the nape of her neck, which would have been all she could manage to tie unaided, slipped apart and the whole of her back almost to the base of her spine was revealed to him and his guest. He wanted to choke the life out of Adam for having seen what belonged to his pleasure alone.

  Adam’s voice broke in on the maelstrom of his wrathful jealousy. ‘I think I should leave, sir.’

  ‘No.’ Makepeace gulped down his rage and managed a grimace he hoped was a smile of apology, ‘I invited you to sup this evening and it would disappoint me greatly if you failed to let me fulfil my duties as a host. I’ve heard tell of pregnant women having strange fancies and I fear my dear wife has fallen prey to one. I ask you to forget what you have seen.’

  ‘You don’t have to ask me, Mr Walker. That was already my resolve.’

  In the hall Julia halted Anne while Sarah retied the loosened ribbon to prevent the whole gown falling from her. ‘How did you take the gown without Grandmother’s knowledge?’

  ‘She was dozing in her chair,’ Anne answered simply, ‘and I didn’t want to wake her. I knew she wouldn’t mind.’ Taking hold of her skirt to raise the hem slightly, she went on up the Grand Staircase, Julia at her side, Mary and Sarah following. Then she surprised them all again by running to the flower screen and swirling around beside it, exulting in the splendour of the embroidered satin as the skirt swayed out. ‘Look! See how the same flowers are all over this gown, which is such a happy garment to wear.’ Her face was radiant. ‘I think it must have magical qualities.’

  Then she turned and sped on to Katherine’s apartment, the others following after her. The old lady’s astonishment was equal to Makepeace’s, but her reaction was entirely different as Anne swept towards her and then curtsied as deeply as if at Court. Katherine held up her thin hands in delight.

  ‘What a wonderful surprise to give me! Thank you, dearest Anne. I thought never to see that gown worn again until Julia’s wedding day, and since that may prove to be too far distant fo
r me I’m grateful for what you have done.’

  Julia, watching the happiness of the two women at this time, thought it would be easy to believe that the gown had the power to cast good spells. Maybe it was just that any lovely garment could make a woman feel beautiful and other women, knowing that bewitchment themselves, could share vicariously in the experience. Proof of this was in the smiling faces of Mary and Sarah, who had forgotten momentarily that it was Anne’s confusion through sheer misery that had prompted the putting on of the gown in the first place. Even Julia herself, conscious as she was of it, could not help but be warmed by the glowing look on her mother’s face. It made her realize how long it was since she had last seen Anne truly happy.

  *

  Makepeace questioned Julia about the gown. He had tried to get an explanation from Anne, but all he could gather was that it belonged to Katherine and was sixty years old or more. Why she had made such a display of herself she seemed neither to know or care.

  ‘My mother isn’t well in her mind,’ Julia said firmly, ‘it’s because she has no freedom any more. If you would let me take her shopping or calling on — ’

  ‘No!’ He thumped his fist on the library table to emphasize his refusal, ‘it would not be seemly for her to appear anywhere in public from now until after her confinement. I want your word that your grandmother’s flamboyant garb is kept under lock and key in her apartment and that Anne does not gain access to it again. If not, I’ll go myself to fetch it now and put a flame to it.’

  She knew he would not find it now that it was back in its secret compartment, but she could not risk his upsetting Katherine by turning the apartment upside down, ‘I’ll see that my mother doesn’t displease you over the gown again.’ When Julia had gone he rose from his chair to pace up and down in the library, punching his fist into the palm of his hand. Something was amiss with Anne. He had noticed it increasingly, but since she obeyed him in everything he had dismissed her bouts of vagueness as nothing more than absorption in her pregnancy. Yet maybe he should consult a physician. He would call the best man in London down to Sussex without delay.