Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  ‘Sir!’ the girl exclaimed. ‘I’ve come to warn you. It’s been whispered that local people in Chichester are coming to Sotherleigh tomorrow to make a civil arrest and lock you up in readiness for the King’s justice.’

  He regarded her calmly. All his arrangements were made and he only had to bring everything forward by a few hours. Luckily it was a bright moonlit night and he would be able to see the roads as if by day. ‘You did well to tell me, Charity. I shall leave tonight. Go to the stables and tell the head groom to saddle my horse and make ready the two pack-horses that will be carrying my goods.’ There were some things he had to leave behind, but that had to be.

  ‘Sir! Let me go with you!’

  The thought had not crossed his mind before and it surprised him to discover she appeared to have some fondness for him. She was a plain enough creature, but she had a voluptuous body and she did things for him that he would never have asked of a wife. Now it occurred to him that if a hunt was rising against him he would do better to appear as a family man travelling with a wife and baby. She could care for his daughter on board ship and then raise her out of his sight as had been happening at Sotherleigh.

  ‘Very well. Be ready in an hour. Under these circumstances I have decided to take my young daughter with me. Pack a few necessities and whatever baby garments and accessories will be needed on the voyage. I’ll go myself to the stables and pick out a steady mare for you to ride.’

  Her expression was mixed. She had not bargained on being saddled with the baby, but as she feared she was pregnant herself it was to her advantage to go with him, whatever the conditions. ‘Getting Patience’s clothes won’t be a problem, but getting hold of her will be, because Miss Mary sleeps in the same room. She’ll be like a tigress defending its young.’

  ‘What nonsense! She’s only a nursemaid. I’ll fetch the child myself at the time I have set you.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ At the door she paused. ‘Where are we going on the ship? Is it to France?’

  ‘You’ll find out when we are on board.’ He did not want her blurting out something if they should be questioned somewhere along the way.

  It was close on midnight when he went silently to Mary’s bedchamber. He hoped to remove the child soundlessly from her crib in order to avoid a hue and cry or any kind of scene, pointless though it would be. He glanced first at the bed, but the sheet was still turned down and it was empty. When he looked into the crib it was equally bare. He smiled humourlessly to himself. He knew where the two of them would be.

  Mary had been sleeping in the underground chamber every night, for although Makepeace’s preparations for his departure had been observed, nobody knew which day he would be leaving or his ultimate destination. Patience slept well in a spare crib brought down from the attics and Mary knew that nowhere else could the two of them be safer from Makepeace.

  The Queen’s Door only creaked faintly when it was opened, but the hinges of the two inner doors were in need of oiling and squeaked slightly. When this happened, Mary, under too much stress to sleep soundly, opened her eyes at once. The chamber was dark except for a finger of light coming through a gap in the door from a passageway sconce. It was enough to show’ her the late hour on the wall clock.

  She threw back the bedclothes, anxiety high in her, for it could only be Julia coming to warn her that something was amiss. Then she went out into the passageway and saw to her horror it was Makepeace, dressed for travelling, who stood there. ‘Go away!’ she shouted defensively.

  ‘I’m here for my daughter!’ he yelled, advancing towards her and breaking into a run.

  She whirled back into the chamber, slammed the thick oaken door shut and turned the key as he reached it. With all her strength she shot the first heavy bolt home as far as she could, ignoring the drumming of his fist as she sent a second one into its socket. Patience had woken and started to cry, but Mary was standing on tip-toe to settle the top bolt and did not go to her until it was in place. Then she snatched her up and held her close, cupping her head protectively.

  ‘Open up!’ Makepeace roared, beside himself with rage. The door had been designed for a last-ditch stand against any onslaught and he knew its strength from his previous inspection. Mary’s reply, muddled by its thickness, came through to him.

  ‘No! You’ve never wanted Patience before! She’s nothing to you, but she’s Anne’s daughter and belongs here at Sotherleigh where she will always be loved and protected!’

  To him it was all the more reason to wrench his daughter away. These wretched Royalists were getting Sotherleigh back and they wanted the child as a bonus. He wondered about shooting the lock. He did not want to arouse the house, not knowing any longer how many of his servants he could trust. One pistol ball wouldn’t do it and the constant rumble of several attempts might stir some wakeful person into the realization that it was not thunder being heard but gunfire resounding underground. Then he decided it was a calculated risk that he should take. There was every chance that Mary had lacked the strength to send those heavy bolts home properly and then with his powerful shoulder he should be able to vibrate them loose again.

  ‘Keep the child well away from the door!’ he shouted.

  Mary had already drawn back instinctively against the far wall, but before she could dart with the baby into the closet leading off the chamber, the pistol was fired. She screamed at the explosion and Patience sobbed piteously. Powder billowed in round the lock. Snatching up a blanket from the bed, she rushed into the closet, laid it on the stone floor and sat Patience on it. ‘Wait here, my darling! Mary will be back in a moment.’

  Patience’s sobs became even more heart-rending as her clutching hands were gently unfastened. She continued to hold up her arms as Mary closed the closet door to keep out the worst of the second explosion as it came. Terrified, she took down a pistol from the rack of weaponry and with powder, ball and ramrod she loaded it as she had been taught, for Katherine had always insisted that Pallister women should know how to defend themselves in an emergency, having once in her young day winged a highwayman. When Makepeace fired for the third time before she had finished her task, she thought how his military experience had given him a speed she could never match.

  The door had splintered around the lock and now he was using the full force of his strength to shake the door. One bolt was already working free and another was rattling wildly. She put aside the pistol and struggled to get the bolts back, but the vibrations being created put that beyond her efforts. Taking up the pistol again, she stepped backwards until she was standing against the door into the closet. Patience’s sobs tore at her; there was no reckoning the misery the child would suffer in her future life if Makepeace should snatch her away. She herself would shoot Makepeace dead before she would let that happen.

  The door was going to give! The last of the bolts was loosening. She could imagine his face contorted with effort and running with sweat as he lunged his weight again and again. Another few thrusts and he would be in the chamber. She cocked the pistol. Then the attack on the door stopped abruptly as Julia’s voice rang out somewhere in the passageway.

  ‘Get out and leave, Makepeace!’

  Julia had come through the Queen’s Door and thrust the inner door open to stand aiming a pistol at him. Being armed was a contingency she had thought of in case Makepeace should try to get Patience by day if Mary was not quick enough to hide with her. What neither of them had suspected was that he had discovered the subterranean hide-away or that she would ever see him in this passageway in his shirt-sleeves with his jacket, cloak and hat thrown to the ground while the seemingly impregnable door was much damaged by his efforts.

  ‘You’re breaking the law by keeping my own child from me!’ he snarled, well aware she had the upper hand, for although he could have shot her easily enough, the pistol in his belt was empty and he had not stopped to reload it a fourth time. He had thought to do that when the door needed no more than a final push.

  ‘Don’t talk t
o me of the law!’ Julia replied angrily. ‘You’re running away from justice and you’ll go alone! Patience shall not go with you!’

  He accepted defeat, snatched up his jacket to heave it on, flung on his cloak and replaced his tall-crowned hat. He seemed to fill the whole aperture of the passage-way like a black shadow.

  Julia drew back to keep him covered with the pistol as he came forward to pass her on his way back into the house through the Queen’s Door. He paused when he was level with her, his eyes full of hatred.

  ‘Keep the brat for now. I’ll get her later when the time is right.’

  His cloak swung about him as he made his way out of the house and down the steps to where the two riding horses and a pair of pack-horses waited. Charity was already in the saddle but no longer necessary to him.

  ‘Where’s the baby?’ she asked.

  ‘They will only hand her over to you,’ he lied, putting up his hands to help her down. When she hesitated he spoke reassuringly. ‘It’s all agreed. Don’t be afraid.’

  ‘Where is Patience?’ Charity still sounded doubtful, although she let him assist her from the saddle.

  ‘In the west wing. Hurry! We’ve no time to lose.’

  She hastened back up the steps and into the house thinking it all very odd. He had only to carry the child downstairs. She had barely reached the flower screen when a terrible suspicion assailed her. Turning on her heel, she rushed down and out of the house again. Her saddled horse stood on its own. Makepeace and the pack-horses were already out of sight down the drive, the sound of galloping hooves fading away into the distance.

  She ran forward and shook her fists, screaming after him every gutter name she had ever learned.

  In the underground chamber Patience had been rocked back to sleep in Mary’s arms and Julia had discovered the Sotherleigh treasure was gone. She knelt by the chest with the forced-open lock. Mary had not noticed it, for Makepeace had left the front side turned to the wall after plundering the contents at some time earlier in the day.

  ‘Everything!’ Julia shrieked in fury, banging her fists on the rim. ‘All the Elizabethan plate and every gold coin. I even moved a few bags of money down here that Grandmother had left, to be absolutely safe! There’s nothing for Michael! Nothing! What a homecoming for him! Why didn’t I suspect that Makepeace had somehow discovered the secret of the Queen’s Door?’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself. How could you know? He was a cunning man in every way. Let’s go back into the house now.

  We haven’t lost the greatest treasure of Sotherleigh, which is Patience. In any case, if Makepeace is arrested wherever he is on the road, the money and plate will be returned to you.’

  Julia shook her head, closing the lid as she stood up. ‘Local people won’t catch up with him now, and in any case who would know where to look for him?’ She stroked the sleeping baby’s cheek. ‘You’re right. Eventually money can be replaced, but not a half-sister as this little one is to Michael and me. We have all that matters in her. I’m so thankful Makepeace didn’t close the Queen’s Door when he came after her or else I would never have caught the echo of those pistol shots and realized what it must be.’

  When they reached the Grand Staircase, Julia went up to the first landing and without a word removed the portrait of Oliver Cromwell from the wall and turned it face downwards on the floor. Then, while Mary waited, she fetched Elizabeth’s portrait from her grandmother’s room and set it back where it had always belonged.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Julia said as she straightened it, ‘I’ll get old Ridley to come up from the village and chip away the plaster from the King’s face in the Long Gallery. Sotherleigh will soon be itself again.’

  *

  In the morning Julia addressed the household staff in the hall as her mother and her grandmother had done in the past. Several of the menservants and three of the women dropped out rather than serve a returned Cavalier, their Puritan or political views still too strong. Phoebe, who had become increasingly homesick for her native village of Bletchingdon, also decided to leave and Julia raised no objection. She was left just enough staff to keep the house, stables and park in order until Michael’s home-coming, after which the responsibility would be Sophie’s, whom she would help and advise.

  Although Mary had acted as nursemaid to Patience, help was needed and Julia promoted the smiling maidservant whose name of Bess had pleased Katherine. The girl was proud to be chosen. Julia then instructed the house staff to begin cleaning throughout. She wanted all traces of her stepfather swept away.

  From the library she sent for Ridley and the bailiff. While Ridley commenced his task in the Long Gallery she received the bailiff’s report. Whether he should be kept on or not was a decision for Michael to make, but the bailiff showed himself to be one among many in the land whose old loyalty to the Commonwealth was fading before the new Royalist fever that prevailed. He pronounced himself keen to stay on at Sotherleigh and admitted having to put pressure on those tenants who had fallen into arrears with the higher rents that Makepeace had imposed on them, several families having been evicted. This was already known to her, but she had been helpless to do anything about it. Now she could put matters right.

  ‘I know all those people. Some of the families have been here longer than Sotherleigh. My grandmother and then my father dealt fairly with them and I know my brother will do the same. In the meantime the arrears are wiped out. The rent will be reduced by two-thirds of the increase that Mr Walker set. That should be agreeable to everyone. Find out where those evicted families went and offer them vacant cottages. Lastly, serve notice to quit on the Roundhead gentleman in the house in Briar Lane which Mr Walker renovated and then rented furnished instead of selling, as he had first proposed. Mistress Mary will be having her own home there quite soon.’

  It was not an ideal arrangement, but after careful discussion between herself and Mary it had been settled. Mary would inevitably meet Michael from time to time, but she had dreaded having to leave everyone she knew in Sotherleigh and its vicinity.

  ‘I must find a way to make a livelihood for us, Mary,’ Julia said, closing her account ledger after the bailiff had gone. ‘Michael is going to need every penny from the rents to maintain his household and the estate. At least his wife’s dowry didn’t go on an expensive house in Paris, so he should be able to secure himself against debt.’

  ‘I was a seamstress before and I can be one again,’ Mary volunteered willingly. ‘I’m sure almost every woman will be wanting new gowns for her wardrobe.’

  Julia nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s certain, but any female who can wield a needle with be calling herself a seamstress now. If only we could think of something more original and more profitable, something that maybe we could sell in London where prices would be much higher than in Sussex.’ She slapped her hand down on the closed account ledger. ‘I have to make money somehow. No matter what you say, I’m to blame ultimately for Michael losing his fortune. The larger portion of whatever I earn must go to him!’

  ‘There’s some sewing I’d like to do as a means of celebrating the Restoration,’ Mary said wistfully. ‘Unless you feel I should sell the Lyonnaise silk that Michael gave me.’ Julia’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Sell it? Never!’ Then she grinned jubilantly. ‘Mine was never made up at Bletchingdon and the time is now! Let you and me have a new gown each with ribbons and flounces that show our bosoms as gowns did in Royalist days! What’s more, we’ll go to London and see the King come home to Whitehall with Michael riding after him in the great procession!’ She flung her head back, closed her eyes rapturously and hugged her arms, ‘It’s so long since we have had a treat! Mama will have Sarah to watch over her and now Jane, who was head-housemaid since before I was born — until, of course, Makepeace dismissed her — is so anxious to come back and she will be able to help Sarah.’

  By the end of that first day everything that had been Makepeace’s property had been removed and taken by wagon to an auction-house in Chichester to await
the next sale. The feather bed in the master bedchamber was replaced by another from storage and the Elizabethan bed-hangings rehung again in all their magnificence. While this was being done Julia sent a manservant up to the attic to fetch down her mother’s marriage chair and needlework box, but he returned while she was opening the windows of the master bedchamber still wider to let the breeze blow the last traces of Makepeace away. ‘I couldn’t find them, madam,’ he reported.

  She turned to him in concern. ‘But they must be there. Did you look everywhere?’

  ‘In every room except the one that was locked.’

  ‘Locked?’ To her knowledge there had never been anything up there that had to be locked away. Perhaps Makepeace had made extra secure all those items that Anne valued, which he had been determined she should not have about her.

  ‘I’ll go up there myself.’ She fetched a ring of keys and on her way to the attic called through the flower screen to Mary, who happened to be in the hall. ‘Would you like to come and help me search for Mama’s chair and needlework box?’

  ‘Yes. Can’t they be found? I saw them go up there myself.’ In the attic rooms they could see how the manservant had made a thorough search, patches of dust-free floorboards showing where he had pulled out furniture and boxes to look behind. None of the keys on the ring fitted the locked door. Then Mary spotted one lying on a ledge quite inconspicuously.

  ‘Try this one,’ she suggested.

  It clicked the lock and the door swung inwards. Both girls stood on the threshold transfixed. In contrast to the dust and cobwebs elsewhere under the eaves, here was a clean chamber with Anne’s chair set at the same angle to the light as it had once stood in the Queen’s Parlour, her needlework box beside it. Robert’s portrait hung from a nail on the opposite wall, the frame clean and polished. Julia saw how it was in direct line with the chair from which her mother would have glanced up at him from her embroidery. His maps were displayed on all sides and propped on the chests and boxes that lined the walls, except where a tall cupboard stood.