Lost to the real world, Juliana did not hear Little Prue knock at the bedchamber door, nor did she immediately notice her standing in the room. Little Prue, a vague, pale mite who came from a farming background, stared at the book as if its spellbinding hold on the young lady suggested Juliana was a witch. In seventeenth-century Europe, that could be a serious mistake. A spinster who wanted to avoid disaster never lived reclusively, nor kept a black cat, nor gave her neighbour — or her neighbour's cow — a lingering look. Otherwise, the next step was having voyeuristic men inspecting breasts and genitals for devil's teats. No witch-finder ever conceded he had made a mistake: invariably accusation led to a guilty verdict and the penalty was hanging.
Juliana smiled at Little Prue reassuringly.
On being informed that she was being visited by two strange gentlemen, Juliana went through all the sudden shifts of emotion that would overwhelm any young girl. She did not want to put down her book in mid-chapter, for one thing. Domingo Gonsales, the Utopian voyager, was about to return to earth, where he landed in China… Yes, Juliana Carlill was a reader who peeked ahead.
Her next thoughts were for her appearance. Fortunately she was wearing a neat gown of pale yellow, sprigged with tiny flowers. Little Prue, whose memory was no bigger than a bluetit's, forgot her fears of witchcraft and took it upon herself to straighten Juliana's soft collar, with its falls of delicate lace from high in the throat then down across her shoulders. Juliana's lace was always good. It had been mended in many places, but the mends were invisible, she was entirely confident of that, having reworked the threads painstakingly herself. Her hair, too, was fashionable and smart. When a young lady is staying with an elderly bachelor guardian who refuses to hear of her assisting his all-duties maid in anything more than genteel gathering of herbs from the kitchen garden (which at Wallingford was not well stocked), she finds nothing much to do with herself except mope in her bedroom arranging her hair. So Juliana had a very neat flat bun on the crown of her head, with tendrils of curl framing her face and long loose ringlets at each side.
She stepped down the dog-leg staircase, pointing her toes as she took the wooden boards, so she would not trip on the long folds of her gown. This was a Tudor house, maybe a hundred years old, built in mixed materials, with some brick. Juliana descended into a small hall, with a low plaster ceiling rather than the great hammer-beamed caverns of earlier periods, though this one boasted a heavy rent table — too heavy to move easily, and so left to gather dust here while the house stood unoccupied.
Mr Gadd, shrunken but twinkling with excitement, waited for her outside the door to a withdrawing room or parlour. Skinny legs in old-fashioned black hose capered beneath a full-bottomed doublet in a style from the time of King James. He was mostly bald, but lengthy strands of grey hair dragged on his quaint outfit's tired brocade. With his elderly, watery eyes, this gave him an off-putting, slightly seedy impression. That was misleading.
He was, Juliana had discovered, extremely intelligent. At eighty years of age he had retired from the Inns of Court with a healthy pension; it was paid by several grateful lawyers whose careers he had burnished by steering clients their way, by discovering long-forgotten points of law, by tracing — or otherwise procuring — essential witnesses, and by knowing where to buy good malmsey. He had no formal qualifications; he was a pig-keeper's son. He knew more law than most judges, but he had not been born a gentleman so could not use this knowledge directly. Juliana's grandmother had pretended to think he was legally qualified, though in truth Roxanne recognised exactly what he was, just as he understood her position. They were outsiders. They had invaded a level of society that was theoretically closed to them — and they stuck there tenaciously. Roxanne had intended that something should be done about this for Juliana — and Mr Gadd concurred.
So here they were.
'What do we have, Master Gadd?'
'A pink-and-white mother's boy — manageable. And there's his supporter — who needs watching.'
Juliana and her guardian had had a sensible exchange of views on her future. They were prepared to deal with any wooers who came to call. 'If he looks sound husband material, we'll drop him!' chirruped Mr Gadd, pretending to level a firing piece at some unwary bird in a coppice. Juliana, who feared that shooting down a husband might be the only way to catch one, smiled as if she too were enjoying the chase.
Two gentlemen was more than they hoped for. Mr Gadd whispered quickly that it was only to be expected that the scholar-suitor would be nervous and would bring a friend. Juliana would have liked an encouraging friend of her own. But she had never had friends. Her grandmother had thought English children were nasty creatures.
All the same, she was not alone. She was lucky to have found herself placed in the care of a guardian with whom she could converse on a practical level. Their good humour together only increased her sense of obligation. She did not wish to burden Mr Gadd. Besides, Juliana might be only seventeen, but she had a keen sense of how the world worked; she preferred not to be alone in his care too long. So far, he was sheltering her with the gravest of good manners, but he was a man. Roxanne had been a man's woman — and Juliana knew what that meant. Her grandmother remained flirtatious right until she died; Mr Gadd had been a conquest, undoubtedly. Mr Gadd on his stick-thin legs might yet launch some tottering sally against Juliana's honour. Girls who have other girls as friends give themselves courage against unwanted amorousness, but Juliana had no such confidante. Her chaperone was Little Prue, though she suspected instinctively that Little Prue might beat off an attacker with a warming pan — yet might as easily decide it was not her place to interfere.
So one reason Juliana welcomed marriage, marriage to anyone who seemed suitable, was that she wanted her own home, where she would have standing as the housewife and could enforce rules for her own protection.
Juliana and Mr Gadd knew in advance that Edmund Treves had a widowed mother, to whom he was close, and also siblings. This could entail married life with the Treves family. While Juliana might find herself immediate soulmates with her mother-in-law, she could equally end up in thrall to a harridan. She had been surprised when Mr Gadd discussed this. He actually warned her against life as a young bride in another, older, woman's home. His unfashionable attitude, which had a ring of experience, was her one glimpse of his personal background.
Until three months beforehand Juliana and her guardian had never met. He knew her grandmother only briefly in London, and although he prepared Roxanne's will on that occasion, nine years later when Roxanne died he was initially alarmed to find himself left in charge of Juliana. He took to the responsibility, however. Roxanne had foreseen this. Mr Gadd, who had never had dependants, was thoroughly enjoying himself as Juliana's guardian. Still, even though she knew Roxanne had vetted him, Juliana could not absolutely depend on him. When it came to accepting or rejecting the suitor, he would advise, but she had to decide.
Mr Gadd paused, with his hand on the latch, winked, then opened the door. Juliana took one hard look at the two men in the parlour, before she cast down her grey eyes modestly as a young girl was supposed to do.
Once she thought she could do so discreetly, naturally she then peeked.
Orlando Lovell — sombrely clad, heavy spurs, uptwirled moustache, pinched lips — had taken possession of one of the solid square wooden armchairs, whence he had been eyeing the room. Edmund Treves — shaved until he bled and blushing pink — was standing. His gaze fluttered on her guardian but then came directly to Juliana. He wanted to know what was being offered to him. Juliana felt equally determined to assess her suitor: the younger, taller man, who wore a braided cherry suit slashed over silver satin (the main colour clashing with his red hair) and a billowing satin cloak wrapped over one arm. Mr Gadd had led her to expect someone wimpish, though in fact Treves's features were firm, with a forward-thrust chin, and his build was chunky. He appeared more athletic than scholarly. Juliana, who could not afford to make mistakes here, immediatel
y assessed him as good-natured, but too young.
She felt more wary of the other man, who was so coolly assessing his surroundings. The room had linenfold oak panelling and contained only two monumental box chairs, plus a rather ugly fifty-year-old buffet, a long side table with two open levels, which currently displayed no plate, not even second-best pewter. There was an open hearth, where a modest log fire blazed, but it had made little encroachment on the chill that gripped the long-empty house. Nobody present, however, would have challenged the fact that a judge should own more houses than he could live in, and should be able to abandon a fine property, without tenants, for years at a time.
Juliana was introduced. For this, Lovell rose rather reluctantly; both visitors swept off their broad-brimmed beaver hats. Everyone uttered polite nonsense for the briefest time possible. Lovell returned to his great chair, leaving Mr Gadd to occupy the other, while Juliana and Edmund took separate window seats. It left both of them relegated to the sidelines, with a pillar between them. If Juliana had foreseen this, before the meeting she would have dragged in a couple of leather-backed dining chairs. She wanted to peer at the suitor, while the others talked.
Mr Gadd crisply enumerated Juliana's talents: chaste, sweet-natured, well read, religious, a good seamstress, able to manage a kitchen and a still. He called her fair, because 'beauty' was conventional. They could see for themselves that she had brown hair, grey eyes, straight teeth, a small nose (unlike her French grandmother), and a medium figure that could probably cope with child-bearing. Her manner seemed reserved. That was good. A woman had to accept her fate meekly.
'You have been at court, Mistress?' asked Treves, sounding hopeful as he leaned forward awkwardly from the other window seat. He was still flustered and blushing.
'She is far too young!' remonstrated Mr Gadd, with a friendly chuckle.
'You are French?' demanded Lovell. Nothing flustered him.
'My grandmother was French, Captain Lovell.'
'The French court is full of foppish men and filthy women.' He sounded as if his sneers were based on experience — though Juliana thought anyone could generalise in such a way.
'Perhaps,' Juliana countered, 'that was why Grand-mere was pleased to leave.'
Her retort was too strong. All three men blenched.
'The grandmother married a cloth merchant of Colchester, very well-to-do,' Mr Gadd said rapidly. It was true, although the cloth merchant was a haberdasher and he had vanished from the scene rather quickly. 'Drowned at sea — so sad!' was how Roxanne had passed it off in her brisk manner. She always made it sound as though Mr Carlill was a bolter, who had left her in the lurch. Perhaps. Juliana had occasionally wondered disloyally whether he was dispatched by other means. For certain all his money and his stock-in-trade, while it lasted, remained with Roxanne.
He also left Roxanne pregnant — the only time the Frenchwoman was caught out. She thought her son Germain a British milksop, but brought him up diligently. She never complained, even when Germain spent most of his father's money (Roxanne kept some of it back in secret) and himself failed in business.
Germain Carlill survived childhood, grew up feckless and married a young woman called Mary, who was the antithesis of his mother, the simplicity of Mary's name and nature throwing her exotic foreign mother-in-law into high relief. Mary produced Juliana, miscarried, miscarried again, then died. Seeing there was no hope her dreamy son would take proper care of the little girl, Roxanne stepped in. Though never maternal previously, she and her granddaughter grew very close. Juliana was a sunny, self-reliant child. It helped.
None of that needed to be recounted to Treves and Lovell. The background and experiences which had formed Juliana's personality were irrelevant; only her paper assets counted.
'Are you able to supply a dowry list?' It was Lovell who asked.
'In preparation,' assured Mr Gadd. 'Her grandfather left a wealthy bequest and her grandmother was an excellent businesswoman. I was proud to have the acquaintance of Madame Carlill.' Mr Gadd saluted Juliana who smiled gravely. She noted that nobody asked about her father. 'Captain Lovell, it would be helpful to hear whether your friend's landed estates would add the same level of material security? What jointure is being offered?' A jointure was money provided by a groom's family to support a wife if her husband predeceased her; it was generally similar to the dowry that a girl brought to the marriage.
Lovell bluffed: 'Mr Treves is a gentleman and a scholar, as you know. His family is well regarded in Northumberland — are they not, Edmund?'
'Staffordshire,' Edmund corrected, forgetting that Lovell had told him to say Northumberland as it was more remote, which would help flummox enquiries.
'He is a scholar,' repeated Mr Gadd thoughtfully. 'How can he marry whilst at the university?'
'Any gentleman may leave his studies to settle down. A degree is not in itself significant. The important thing is to have broadened his mind — then to seize the moment to establish himself wisely' Lovell managed to suggest that acquiring a degree for career purposes was not only unnecessary, but even slightly sordid. Obtaining a rich bride was much more respectable.
'His estate will permit him to be immediately independent?' Mr Gadd was inspecting his skinny knees with a clerkish air.
'He is possessed of all the requisite rents to flourish.' Lovell remained polite, but implied Gadd had insulted them.
Mr Gadd had worked with lawyers, so he was impervious. He spoke as if he had made up his mind. 'It will be necessary to satisfy myself.' Juliana knew he was already making enquiries, a task he enjoyed, though the political upheaval meant answers were slow in coming.
The shrewd Gadd observed a passing shade of alarm in Treves — which gave him answer enough. The boy would not do.
Mr Gadd could have cut their losses immediately and withdrawn from negotiations, but there had been no other offers. The threat of war was a trial. Good families always liked to marry their offspring to their friends and relations. He knew it would be difficult to drum up interest.
Besides, rehearsing witnesses had been Mr Gadd's strength when he worked in the law; he wanted to give Juliana more practice with suitors.
The young redhead was mightily keen on obtaining the 'Kentish acres', which told its own story. Treves was no use. He needed to be dropped, but Mr Gadd was enjoying this race between impostors. He let Treves and Lovell run downhill with the cheese.
Chapter Nine — Wallingford: October, 1642
Treves and Lovell came daily for over a week. A phantom courtship was played out, with nobody learning much, nobody committing themselves. Mr Gadd had not yet warned Juliana he planned to refuse Edmund Treves.
So she donned her hat dutifully and went walking with the two gentlemen, chaperoned by Little Prue. They conversed politely of birdsong, the price of butter, the delights and pretensions of Wallingford. Juliana pressed Treves for stories of his family, ignored Lovell as much as possible and said nothing of her own background. She learned about Treves's widowed mother, Alice, his younger brothers and sisters, his two uncles who acted as interested patrons as far as they could afford. Through his private enquiries Mr Gadd had discovered that one of the uncles was supporting Parliament, although the keen Royalist Edmund seemed unaware of it. His mother must know, but had kept that back.
Juliana treated Edmund well. Unfortunately, he mistook her good manners for genuine interest in him. He had never had much contact with young women outside his own family. He found Juliana pleasant to look at; her intelligence impressed him without his noticing it. Even when he forgot to think about her apple orchards, he was falling in love with her.
Juliana had never had much contact with young men, but she had a practical streak, directly learned from her grandmother. She was certainly not falling in love with Edmund Treves.
Once or twice the men were invited to dine. On these occasions, it was natural that the conversation turned to the political situation. Juliana was glad, for it took attention away from Little Pr
ue's indifferent efforts to pan-fry escalopes.
Juliana rarely spoke. She was supposed to remain silent. She knew these negotiations could just as well have been carried out without her presence. But she watched carefully.
'Are you for the King or Parliament?' It must have been Lovell who put the question to Mr Gadd; Treves innocently assumed that everyone he met was a Royalist.
'I am for King — and for Parliament, Captain.'
'A lawyer's answer!' Orlando Lovell quite rudely related how a country labourer had been asked the question by a troop of cavaliers; when he gave the same cautious reply as Gadd, they shot him dead. 'Many people would rather not choose,' Lovell acknowledged, 'but we shall all be forced to it.'
'So is it your opinion this armed conflict will rage long?' asked Mr Gadd — still slyly withholding his views, Juliana noticed.
Lovell answered at once. 'If there is a decisive battle this autumn and if the King wins — as he should — then all is over. If there is no decisive battle, or if Parliament prevails, then we are in for a long, hard-driven wrangle.'
'So you are for the King, even though it is a hopeless cause?' sniped Mr Gadd.
'Not hopeless,' returned Lovell. 'More ridiculous than I like. More ill-judged than it need be, longer, more bloody, more expensive, no doubt. But the King must win.'
Mr Gadd pursed his lips very slightly.
'Of course the King will win!' Edmund burst out immaturely.
While Juliana continued to observe in silence, the men reviewed the position. England had had no standing army. On both sides, gentlemen raised regiments, often composed of their own pressurised tenants, ill-equipped and mutinous. The King's call to arms was being only fitfully answered but in contrast, the Earl of Essex, Parliament's commanding general, was in charge of twenty thousand troops. Now, in October, the King was still trying to drum up support in the Midlands, with mixed success, his army still much inferior. At the time of Juliana's courtship, the King had moved to Shrewsbury.
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