Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  ‘That is putting it mildly. There were mathematical devices beyond ordinary understanding and then ingenious inventions such as a pen with two nibs for writing or copying two documents at the same time, which he uses himself for his records. Another gadget is for measuring the mileage covered by a coach wheel. He is experimenting to find out how to navigate under water, how to raise water levels by engines, better means of rock mining, new ways of printing and so forth. He has even devised a method by which a man who has lost excessive blood might be given it in a vein through a needle and a syringe.’

  ‘Mercy!’ Susan exclaimed, putting down the comb.

  ‘That’s not all. He believes that a tincture of opium could be similarly infused to induce a stupor.’

  Her eyes were becoming wider. ‘A stupor? For what purpose?’

  ‘The possibilities are endless. Before surgery it would save a patient all that pain under the knife. The hopelessly insane could be quieted in their ravings.’

  She was a sensible middle-aged woman who had been married a long time to a clever man, and she did not dismiss these theories as impossibilities. ‘If ever it can be done, I’m sure Christopher will do it. When we were in the crowd looking up at the sundial this morning, people all around were talking about him. I heard him referred to as “that miracle of a youth, Mr Wren.”’

  ‘I would compare him with one other.’

  ‘Who could that be?’

  ‘Leonardo da Vinci. Christopher will match him yet.’ Christopher was waiting for them when they went downstairs. Susan surprised him by kissing his cheek when she reached him. ‘What was that for?’ he asked merrily. ‘You greeted me upon your arrival yesterday.’

  ‘It’s for being my young brother,’ she said fondly, ‘and I do not see you very often.’

  Over supper there was family talk about their father’s health and how their uncle, who had been Bishop of Ely until arrested by Cromwell, was faring in the Tower. He was an old man and although he had books and writing materials his incarceration was telling on him. They spoke about the Pallisters and exchanged the news they had, which reminded William of a recent incident at Cambridge that he believed to be indirectly concerned with the Sotherleigh family.

  ‘Didn’t you tell me at the time that a Colonel Warrender was responsible for Robert Pallister’s death?’ he asked Christopher.

  ‘That is correct. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It happened that I was in conversation with some undergraduates two or three weeks ago. One of them said he was from Sussex and his name was Adam Warrender of Warrender Hall.’

  ‘That would be the Colonel’s only son. What was the occasion of your meeting?’

  ‘I had delivered a lecture during which I mentioned having talked at length with Oliver Cromwell. Warrender was among those who shared my enthusiasm for the man’s political acumen.’

  Although Susan had always been staunchly Royalist, William had been a supporter of Parliament from the first challenging of Charles I’s autocratic behaviour and his implicit belief in the Divine Right of Kings. Yet it had never caused any awkwardness between husband and wife or with any of her family, for he was a wise and moderate man. It was the principles of just government that he was upholding and not the excesses that had been committed in the name of freedom. He had been horrified by the beheading of the King and the many acts against the established Church, having been a sub-deacon himself at Windsor when he and Susan had met. But his faith in Oliver Cromwell remained firm and he foresaw only good coming from that man’s leadership. Christopher, who always enjoyed a lively discussion, slipped naturally into talk with William on recent events at Westminster and the name of Warrender did not come up again. Even from opposing sides they were able to approve Cromwell’s ending of the Long Parliament.

  It had been so-called for having sat without elections for well over a decade, having been originally elected in 1640, and now it had become violently quarrelsome, incompetent and thoroughly corrupt. Cromwell had taken matters into his own hands by marching into the House of Commons with a band of musketeers. There he shouted at the Members that they had sat far too long. He ordered the Speaker of the House to dismiss them and had them driven out at sword-point. A new Parliament had been formed. As for Cromwell himself, he had taken the title of Lord Protector of England and was addressed as His Highness. In addition he had taken up residence amid the royal trappings of the Palace of Whitehall and the other palaces, as if in some oblique way he had gained the inheritance of the Throne.

  Piety remained the rule with Sunday church attendance still compulsory and devoid of organ music since Cromwell considered that it drowned the words of hymns. Opera escaped his censure by being performed unadorned and without the trappings of the theatre, which he abhorred as sinful. He had both acting and its viewing punishable with flogging and imprisonment. Even strolling players, who had never walked the boards of a London stage and had once brought laughter and drama to villages and market towns, were destitute on the streets. Maypoles gathered more layers of dust in country barns and the caps and bells of the Morris dancers were kept hidden away. Christmas came and went and came again, the festive eating of plum pudding banned and the decorating with evergreens strictly forbidden, the carol singers silent and all wassailing outlawed.

  *

  At Sotherleigh economy continued to be the rule as another year went by. This did not mean there were no treats. When a ragged fellow begging at the kitchen door turned out to be an actor, he was not only fed but invited to give a performance for which he was paid. Sotherleigh was a safe house for performers and the entertainments were held in Katherine’s apartment in order that she should not be left out, and family and servants sat together. The programmes ranged from bawdy songs and caperings to speeches from King Lear and Hamlet.

  Christmas was celebrated as it always had been with traditional fare and the giving of gifts, Cromwell’s rules ignored. Neither was anyone’s birthday overlooked, either in the parlour or the kitchen, something extra always found. It was on Mary’s nineteenth birthday that she was given a book. Having learned to read and write had opened a whole new world for her and to possess a book of her own was a wonder to her. It was a small treasure bound in vellum, its contents devoted to cosmetic receipts, herbal cures and how to sugar violets and such novelties, all of which interested her. It was a proud moment for her when she wrote her name in it. Mary Twyat, her book. Her other self had gone for ever and she wished only that her adopted surname might be changed to Pallister one day when Michael should come home again.

  She was embroidering the cuffs of a pair of gloves for him, for although it had been Anne’s idea that this should be done, either to await his return or until some means were found later to send them to him, she had volunteered to do the work. Her offer had been taken up, for these days she excelled at embroidery. She had done little before coming to Sotherleigh, her experience limited to practical sewing, but Anne had only to demonstrate a new stitch to her once, twice at the most, and then her needle would be flying away at it.

  In the three years of Michael’s absence Katherine’s aching bones had slowed her down still more and she merely shuffled about her apartment, sometimes having to pause and draw breath before she could take another painful step. Yet it was only from the hips downwards that she was badly affected, and although she was also plagued by aching in her back and stiffening of her fingers, she still managed to do some wool-work for a chair if she sat in a good light with spectacles on her nose. She also read a little every day and whenever the weather permitted she would have all the windows open and sit looking out at the Knot Garden and the distant maze, the plan of which Julia now knew like the back of her young hand.

  Katherine still thought of her granddaughter as a child, but at thirteen Julia was fast approaching womanhood and there were times when she waved up to the window from the Knot Garden that her slenderness and grace made her seem to have reached that state already. Maybe the plainness of her garme
nts these days added to the illusion. Katherine recalled how once she had thought fewer ribbons on her granddaughter’s clothes would be a good thing, but she would never have wished it to come about as it had.

  Another year went by and life at Sotherleigh continued at the same slow pace, but changes were taking place. Katherine dozed more in the daytime, Mary’s yearning for Michael consumed her at times with such restlessness that she took on many tasks with which she need not have burdened herself, and Julia became more adult in her attitudes. Yet the one in whom the change was most marked was Anne.

  She had never regretted moving out of the bedchamber she had shared with Robert. It had held too many cherished memories that could only be borne when she was at her embroidery. Then she was able to recall the joyous times when she had woken during the war years to find that Robert had returned secretly for one of his flying visits and was taking her into his arms again. There were nights when she still started from sleep at the creak of floorboards, Robert’s name on her lips. In opening her eyes to another room there was less anguish, even if the sense of loneliness was not abated and never could be.

  She had never guessed before experiencing widowhood herself what utter emptiness to everything it would bring, no matter how close family and friends might be. In fact, the sense of loneliness was often more acute in company, especially if married couples were present. But the time to face up to it was long overdue, and she must do as Katherine and countless generations of women who had loved their partners had done before her. She had been more fortunate than many in having a purpose to her existence in keeping Sotherleigh financially stable for Michael’s return, quite apart from having her daughter and mother-in-law to care for. It had been her lifeline and now she could broaden out into wider spheres, taking one step at a time.

  She began by lifting the long-closed lid of the fabric chest. From it she took a length of dark violet silk, which she handed to Mary, who made it up into a new gown for her. It was not more than a few weeks before others in silver-grey, lavender and smoke-blue were added to her wardrobe. Eventually, to the relief of the household, she stopped wearing black altogether.

  In the meantime Mary had finished the gloves for Michael. They had been entrusted to someone known to the family who was going to France and would deliver them to him. With the gloves went a letter from Anne, who had left enough space for Julia and Mary to add a few lines. Katherine also added a greeting to her grandson in her shaky hand.

  Julia reached the final stage of her sampler in what was known as stump work. This was a type of raised embroidery in which padding was used to plump out motifs ranging from figures and animals to clouds and trees and flowers to give a three-dimensional effect. She found it fascinating to do and put the last stitch in the whole sampler shortly before her fifteenth birthday. Already she had planned to make a border of stump work for a mirror that would hang in her bedchamber. Snapping the silk, she tossed aside scissors and thimble in triumph.

  ‘It’s done, Mary!’

  Unrolling the sampler completely, she sprang up to send it whipping out like a banner. Mary left her own sewing to snatch up the bottom end of it just before it reached the floor, holding it by the ivory rod that had been attached to it ten years before. Immediately Julia stepped back a few paces to stretch out the full three feet of the sampler between them.

  ‘It looks very fine,’ Mary said with approval.

  Her gaze travelled down the sampler from the top bands of simple stitches down through the alphabets and the numerals, the fantastic beasties and the more recognizable wild and domestic creatures. Following were the bands of drawn threadwork and the cut work, the latter filled with delicate needlepoint lace, this section being known as ‘white work.’ Then came the ‘black work,’ no less intricate, for the designs in minuscule black stitches on a white ground had to be equally perfect on both sides of the ruffs and frills it usually adorned. Next was the encrusted embroidery in metallic threads and glittering beadwork, and finally the stump work. Apart from the white and black work and the wide bands sparkling with gold and silver, the sampler was a closely covered stretch of coppery reds and bright pinks, brilliant blues, mustardy yellows and clear greens, almost stiff with its multitudinous stitchery.

  Julia heaved a satisfied sigh. ‘It will please Mama, I know.’

  It was natural that she should have thought of having an ornamental mirror, for over the past months her appearance had become highly important to her. Gone were the days when she had never glanced at her reflection and found her be-ribboned garments such a bugbear to wear. Now she would have loved those be-flowered ribbons looped about her neckline to enhance the increasing swelling of her bosom. She thought that in shape, if not yet in size, her breasts more than matched the cleavages in the portraits of female ancestors in the Long Gallery when she held aside the dust-sheets to view them.

  *

  Spring came again to Sotherleigh. In the woods the windflowers showed in pale, blush-like hues among the carpet of the previous autumn’s rusty leaves until the bluebells rose in a thick haze to be gathered in armfuls once again.

  Mary had a suitor, a hard-working and steadfast young merchant who was both prosperous and charming. She liked him well, which all at Sotherleigh could see, approving him at the same time. Then, just when everyone thought she was on the point of accepting him, a long-overdue letter came from Michael, part of it written to her, and the next day the courtship was ended.

  Katherine was the only one not surprised. None of the others connected Michael’s letter with Mary’s refusal, for her section had been slotted in with everybody else’s on the same single sheet of paper and written in the same friendly tone.

  His news was good. He had gained a much better position as chief clerk to a rich merchant who dealt in fine silks. Joe was still at the royal stables. He had been promoted to the charge of the horses kept solely for Louis XIV himself and was quite a dandy in his blue livery. Michael added that Joe’s command of the French language had become so authentic that few took him to be an Englishman these days and he continued to be a favourite with the maids in the palace kitchens. Michael had made some good friends of his own among the French and in all he seemed as content as he could be away from his homeland.

  At the end of the letter he gave the latest that he had heard of King Charles. Now in Cologne, the unfortunate man was frequently in a state of penury as bad as when he was with his mother in Paris. Although most of the exiled Cavaliers had accompanied the King to his new place of abode, Michael had felt no obligation to leave France with them since he did not move in the King’s circle.

  Time enough, he concluded, when I can follow him back to England under a newly raised Royal Standard. May that day be not far distant.

  Never once had Michael asked for money to be sent to him. Unlike those hapless noblemen with Charles, who continued their same role of gentlemanly leisure in exile, existing on whatever could be smuggled to them by their families and friends, Michael had used his intelligence and his skills to carve a living for himself without being a burden on those at Sotherleigh. Since he was as much a gentleman-born as any nobleman, it was all to his credit and Anne was proud of him.

  She received news of another kind when visiting a sick tenant to whom she had taken special foods to aid his recovery. When she returned to Sotherleigh she went, still in her outdoor clothes, to Katherine and told her what she had heard.

  ‘Colonel Warrender is dead! Of apoplexy. It happened yesterday.’

  When Katherine made no immediate reply Anne thought at first the old lady had not caught what was said, having grown quite deaf. Yet Katherine had heard. Her eyes, sharp and bright in the wrinkled lids, turned in the direction of one of the windows that was half open, almost as if she were stretching her gaze to see beyond the countryside with its woodlands to the old Tudor mansion of their late enemy.

  ‘So he’s gone, has he? Well, there’s a new young Master of Warrender Hall now. I wonder if he is as tigh
t-fisted and bull-necked as his father was.’

  Anne turned away, clasping her hands restlessly. It was the first time she had spoken the name of Warrender or heard it in this house since the tragedy of losing Robert. In a gush it had released the stored-up anguish in her. She had to hold herself back from rushing downstairs to her embroidery and the refuge it had become to her. There were times when she feared for her own sanity and this was one of them. The words burst from her.

  ‘At least those of that fearsome name have done their worst to us here at Sotherleigh. There can be nothing left for them to do.’

  ‘Pray God that may be so.’

  Had there been a note of doubt in Katherine’s voice? Anne did not dare ask in case some kind of scream of protest might rise up in her throat. ‘Amen to your prayer, madam,’ she whispered fervently. Then she left for her own room to toss her hat and gloves on the bed before hastening downstairs to her chair in the Queen’s Parlour and her embroidery box.

  Julia, carrying her stump work for her new mirror wrapped in white linen, found her there. ‘I’ve come to ask your advice as to whether I should take the foliage right to the edge of my border.’

  ‘Show me.’ Anne had had almost an hour at her favourite pastime and was composed again. She went to a side table under a window where her daughter spread out the border on its protective cloth. It was embroidered on a ground of ivory satin with a garden motif, flowers intermingling with birds and hedgehogs, peacocks, butterflies and a lake with a swan in a rectangular shape, the central space allotted for the mirror, which would have a door closing over it. The panel for the door was arranged separately and on it Queen Elizabeth stood in the gown kept by Katherine. Julia had been granted access to copy it in detail, and tiny pearls and beads gave accuracy to the embroidered version. She had wanted real red hair for the Queen’s tresses, but her own was too chestnut, for all its bronze lights, and Joe, who could have provided the right colour, was not available. So she had settled for orange-red silk and the result was effective.