Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  Yet that meeting of her halfway, about which she knew nothing, had subtly changed their relationship. He had felt the difference in himself when he had come into the cottage when she had thought it was her maid who was there. Although he had tried to tell himself at first that the change was too slight to be of any importance, it had become clear that the rapport between them had gone. He had to face the fact that it might never come back.

  19

  When autumn came the plague was still raging in London and there were more outbreaks in the provinces where the pestilence had been carried by those who had slipped the net. The realm was being ruled from Oxford, there being no question of the King risking his life by returning to Whitehall, particularly as the Queen had not yet given him an heir and concern was growing that she was to prove barren. Parliament continued to be prorogued and both Lords and Commons made the most of being at their country seats, hunting and shooting and caring for their estates as they did in any case during the months when Parliament was in recess. Unlike their French counterparts, Court life was not the be-all and end-all for the English nobility and gentry, entertainments being as pleasurable in the green countryside as in London. Although normally there would have been parties and balls throughout these times when people were at their country seats, because of the plague large gatherings were discouraged. On the whole, only local friends and acquaintances gathered together in small numbers for any occasion.

  Adam’s days followed the same pattern. Outwardly everything was well between him and Julia, but they did not laugh together as often as before and their quarrels, previously lively and often leading to lovemaking, took on a sharp, unhappy twist. Julia wanted to talk everything out with him as they had done when problems had arisen in the past, but each time she tried to broach the subject she became choked emotionally, fearful as to how he would answer her.

  She had hoped desperately at first that the change in him had been temporary, the result of tiredness from his solicitous nursing of her, but that was not it. Since then she knew with her whole being, tuned in every nerve to Adam, that the special and adoring spark in him which had been dedicated wholly to her had gone. Extinguished like a candle-flame, it had left his attitude towards her as previously hers had been towards him. Everything due to a wife was being given, but he had withdrawn his soul from hers, which previously he would have laid at her feet.

  She accepted that it was just punishment, all the harder to bear, she realized, because he was unaware that she had sensed what had happened, further proof of how everything between them had deteriorated. It had not been a deliberate revenge that he had taken, but after five years of marriage his love had failed to find the reciprocation that should have been his from their wedding night if she had come to her senses then and not at Versailles upon hearing that he was in danger. That was when she knew she could not live without him, that he was everything to her and had been all unconsciously from a certain moment that she could now pin-point. It was when she had been dressed for her marriage in the Elizabethan gown and had looked at her image in the mirror. She had asked aloud, right out of her heart, if Adam would find her beautiful. It was what she had wanted above all else and had not understood that it sprang from love.

  When she had kissed Christopher in the Cour Royale it had been a long overdue farewell to a first love that should have faded with her emergence from adolescence. Katherine had given her sound warning and it was the only time she had paid that sensible woman no real heed. In that final embrace Christopher had exchanged a special, loving look with her. He had understood what was happening, just as he had so often comprehended her hopes and fears in the past, and he had been glad for her.

  One night when Adam had been particularly tender in his love-making she had gazed into his beloved face on the pillow beside her and, with effort and with trepidation, she had whispered the words she should have said long ago.

  ‘I love you, Adam.’

  He had looked back at her for a long moment and then he had smiled wryly. ‘Of course you do.’

  She had seen that he did not believe her, that he thought she was making some effort in response to his special cherishing of her body. It was clear that he was more hurt than pleased that she should say then what she had never before said to him.

  ‘I do,’ she persisted, aware of blundering on, but wanting to convince him. ‘I didn’t realize until I thought you were in London in danger of the plague.’

  He drew a finger along her jawline and then placed it against her lips. ‘You’d have felt the same about anyone you knew well in that situation and proved it in bringing Katy and those women out of London. Sleep now, my love. I’ve kept you awake too long.’ He snuffed the candle and turned away from her, something which he never did, and she thought her heart must break. She lay awake until he slept and then curled up against his naked back, sliding her arm around his waist and resting her head against him. The woman who had estranged him from her was herself. She had worn out his love, not appreciating what he had given her from the start. When he had been so set on winning through to make her his wife, she had responded with a compromise she now saw to be utterly wrong. For any other man with feelings less deep than Adam’s it would have worked, but he was too passionate and strong-willed to be content with liking and fondness from the woman he loved. At some time he had finally come to the moment of truth and met her on her own terms.

  She pressed her lips to his spine in a kiss and breathed softly, ‘I love you, my darling. It’s become my turn to try to win you. I shall have a harder battle, because when love fades it can’t easily be revived.’

  He slept on and in the morning had no knowledge of what she had poured out to him in the darkness of the night.

  Julia had far more trouble than she had anticipated from her London workers. They were used to working together, but not living under the same roof in somewhat cramped quarters. They quarrelled and sulked and several times some of the younger ones fought like wild cats. With the exception of Alice and a few who had found sweethearts in the village, three already wed, they were tired of the countryside and longed for the more vibrant atmosphere of London. Neither did they like working with the local hands, mocking their Sussex dialects, and those in turn were shocked by some of the rough language used in their hearing. Since there was no longer any likelihood of Michael’s coming home from France to stay, Mary had no need of Briar House and Julia turned it into separate workshops for her London and village hands. The extra rooms also supplied more spacious accommodation and things became better generally for all but two of the women. They were so homesick that their work had become slack and Julia found them alternative employment and housing with a prosperous Chichester dressmaker. Although they received much lower wages their compensation was in living again amidst the bustle of streets and markets, albeit there was no comparison between the great capital and the small city of Chichester.

  With no outlet for her ribbons in London, and not prepared to accept lower prices in the provinces, Julia wrote to Michael about selling them in Paris. He told her to send whatever she had and keep up a steady supply, because he could sell her ribbons through his own silk channels and would find as great a demand for them as she had known previously. Mary produced designs incorporating L for Louis XIV and fleur-de-lis in gold and silver thread, but Anne’s flower ribbons and designs proved equally popular with rich French customers. A well-to-do shopkeeper who rented one of the exclusive little shops at the château of Versailles and other of the royal palaces increased his orders steadily for Pallister ribbons, the nobility being much taken with the extravagant novelty of them.

  Sophie bitterly resented this new line in ribbons going out under the Brissard reputation. She broke her usual silence with Michael when they were on their own to storm at him.

  ‘We’ve always dealt only in the best Lyonnaise silks, not in fripperies such as any pedlar might sell! You must be out of your mind to degrade my father’s wares in such a manner.’


  He cut her tirade short. ‘I had to remind you once before that I’m the head of Brissard’s now. The ribbons are of faultless silk and sell as fast as they are delivered and the orders stockpile. I’ve started sending Julia’s wares out with silks that tone with the various designs and this is proving successful. When you have sound advice to offer instead of wanting to cut off a new selling source simply to cling to old ways, I’ll listen and not before.’

  It seemed to Sophie that he crossed her at every chance. She tried to think how she might thwart this new sideline. If she let it be rumoured that the ribbons came from plague-stricken London, instead of Sotherleigh, she would not be deviating greatly from the truth, for she knew that Julia had simply evacuated her workers for the time being. France was as used to outbreaks of plague as everywhere else on the Continent and a summer never passed without its flaring up somewhere, but never to her knowledge had there been such a scourge anywhere as was presently diminishing the population of London, and fear of its crossing the Channel continued to be high. One reason why Julia had been kept in the dark over it was because there was a superstition that even to speak of it was to invite its presence.

  Sophie gave considerable thought to how best to put her plan into action. She decided to let her outburst at Michael subside well before she took action or else he would suspect her and she never wanted to experience again the ordeal she had been forced to endure as a result of driving him to the end of his tether. The trouble with easy-tempered people was that when they were finally driven into a rage they were worse than anybody else and made themselves ill over it. She had seen Michael looking haggard for days afterwards. It had been her only consolation.

  After waiting a month, Sophie rode in her coach to the cemetery as she always did and spent her usual time at the graveside, for nothing should disturb the time she spent there. Then she returned to the gates to send the coachman on an errand to collect a garment she had specially ordered from her dressmaker for this day.

  ‘It will take me a couple of hours, Madame.’

  ‘No matter. I shall wait here.’

  She watched until the coach was out of sight and then hailed the bearers of a sedan chair that took her to a shop that sold Pallister ribbons supplied by Brissard’s, which she had never patronized before. It was located in a part of Paris that had become unfamiliar to her through new buildings and street planning since she was last there. It made her realize how long it was since she had ventured anywhere, either with Michael or later when the cemetery had become her only destination. The shop proved to be full of customers and she took a quick look round, but there was no-one whom she knew and in her mourning veils nobody would recognize her again.

  As always her elegant air commanded immediate attention and she asked to see embroidered ribbons. She was shown some that she knew instantly.

  ‘These are very beautiful,’ she remarked, trailing one of snowflakes on a midnight-blue ground over her gloved hand.

  ‘They are Brissard ribbons,’ the assistant informed her, finding it easier to impress customers with the name of Brissard rather than the unfamiliar and foreign-sounding name of the maker.

  Immediately Sophie gave a scream, aware of every head turning, and she dropped the ribbon as if it had become red-hot. ‘They are imported from plague-stricken London! I heard that only yesterday!’

  Pandemonium broke out. The assistant himself shot back from the ribbons; women shrieked and exclaimed in dismay. Sophie wrenched off her gloves, having had them in contact with the wares, adding to the panic. Then she was pushed and jostled as customers vied with her in getting out of the shop first.

  ‘Plague goods!’ she heard someone shout in the street and several more took it up.

  Smiling to herself, she entered a glover’s, had an agreeable time selecting a new pair of gloves and then took a chair back to the cemetery. She had ten minutes to spare and then the coach came to take her home again. Once there she awaited events.

  At supper Michael looked abstracted and worried. She guessed someone had been sent to the office wanting confirmation or denial of what had been said about the ribbons, but since she and Michael did not normally converse at supper, Jean-Robert already in bed, he did not tell her and she could not ask.

  At first Michael was able to appease those who came with the rumour, but within twenty-four hours it was out of his hands. By law, plague goods had to be burnt and officials, keeping a distance from him, came to question him at his office and study custom papers and ledgers concerning the ribbons. While this was going on Jean-Robert arrived with a footman, it being the child’s pleasure to call in and see his father at work sometimes. He liked the warehouses where there were no little children struggling with difficult tasks, and if the men working there were not too busy he would get a ride on one of the hand-carts. For the first time his father did not give him a welcome, but an anxious frown instead.

  ‘You can’t stay today, Jean-Robert. Go now! Quickly!’

  ‘Wait!’ One of the officials held up a hand. ‘Is this your son, Monsieur Pallister?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then he stays here. We do not doubt your honesty or that of your sister, but there is plague in the provinces now in England and in view of the many complaints laid at our door since yesterday we must take action to protect the city of Paris from the slightest risk. We shall not order your wares to be burnt yet, but we must seal up your premises here and your home for a period of two months.’

  ‘No!’

  The official ignored the interruption, ‘If at the end of that time nobody has fallen sick of the pestilence, then we shall re-open your property and you may sell such wares as are now in store.’

  Michael, holding his son close, with the footman, two clerks and twenty packers and loaders, watched as outer doors were locked and padlocked. A watchman was placed by each.

  At home Sophie was getting ready to go to the cemetery when a maidservant came rushing to her, eyes wide with fright.

  ‘Madame! There are men sealing up the house! They say we may have the plague here! We are to be isolated for two months!’

  Sophie almost fainted. She clutched at a bedpost for support. ‘That’s not possible. They can’t do that.’

  ‘But they are, Madame!’

  She pulled herself together. ‘I’ll speak to them.’ Downstairs she found the entrance door already padlocked. As she opened a window to speak to the men carrying out the work they thrust it back into place and began setting a bar into place across it. ‘Stop!’ she cried through the panes. ‘There’s no truth in the Brissard ribbons being infected with plague! I know the person who started the rumour. It was done as a joke! For vengeance! Out of rivalry! Who knows? But it was a lie!’

  She dared not confess to being the culprit and in any case they were not listening. Wild with fury she hammered her fists on the panes and wept. This was not at all what she had expected. She had thought the sales of Pallister ribbons would fall off so drastically that Michael would be forced to stop importing them. This was disaster beyond anything she had imagined. Then to her horror she saw that the men, wary that she might break through the glass, had begun to board up the windows.

  She drew back sharply and tied out into the hall where she dithered like someone in a maze, remembering she would not find her father in his study or upstairs. The only place she could be with him was no longer accessible. She uttered such a scream of frustration that the servants, who had gathered gloomily in the kitchen to discuss the distressing events, rushed into the hall in a body, thinking she was being attacked. When they reached there she had already dashed up to her bedchamber and slammed the door. They stood at the foot of the flight, able to hear her crashing about and the drumming of her heels in helpless fury.

  She came down to supper white-faced and red-eyed. Those waiting at table saw her halt with a startled look on the threshold at not finding her husband waiting for her. It was apparent to them that she had been so wrapped up in h
er own misery that she had not given a thought before now to either him or her son. Neither had she deigned to utter a word to her domestic staff trapped in the house with her, as any normal employer would have done. There was not one servant from the housekeeper to the kitchen boy who did not resent it. Without her being aware of it, she had become still more isolated in the midst of isolation.

  At the Brissard business premises Jean-Robert was thoroughly enjoying himself. It was like being a soldier at camp with make-shift beds for his father and himself in the office, the footman and the clerks in the outer office and the workers in the stockrooms. The bedclothes and feather beds had been brought to the door to the watchmen, together with the food and wine that went on his father’s account at the suppliers. They had all eaten together at one of the packing tables in the warehouse and an initial shyness among the workers had been dispersed with the wine.

  ‘This is fun, Papa!’ he declared before he slept, ‘I’m glad I’m here. But do you think Mama will be worried?’

  ‘No. One of the senior officials has promised me he will take a message to her to say that you are here with me. She will know that we’re safe, just as we know she will be. None of us is going to fall sick, of that at least we can be certain.’

  By the end of the first week time had begun to drag for everyone. Michael’s banker came in answer to a message to shout through a window. Michael arranged that the workers’ wives should be paid weekly. Some of the women came with their children to wave to their men at the windows, but the watchmen would not let them draw near. Michael had to keep everybody occupied and when the last scrap of work had been done he had the premises cleaned and repainted, a project long overdue. For relaxation there were games of boules in a warehouse, chess, draughts and cards, but he forbade gambling for money, not wanting the men to fall out, and they played for counters instead, marking up debts against one another to be settled later when wages would be theirs again and not in the hands of their wives. Books were brought in for Jean-Robert and Michael gave him daily lessons, including English, which in spite of Sophie’s opposition had always been part of his curriculum. Occasionally there were violent quarrels among the men that resulted in bared chests and fisticuffs, which Michael supervised as if it were a public fight on an English village green. There was such cheering and shouting on these occasions that the din could be heard in the next street. As one week followed another tempers were more easily frayed and the fights became more frequent, a safety outlet which, when organized, Michael did not discourage.