Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  Julia whipped the lute from Mary’s hands and gave her a little thrust forward. Mary had learned all the old country measures and went gladly to partner Christopher while Julia played a tune that was as lively as the first. There was such delicious anticipation in her of when it would be her turn to dance with him that she was willing to prolong it and struck up a second time for them.

  When at last he held out his hand to her she had the sensation that her feet were not touching the ground. To her surprise Mary chose to open with the sprightly notes of an old Elizabethan dance.

  ‘Do you know the steps of the Volta?’ Julia asked him.

  ‘Your grandmother taught me when I was nine or ten. There were always summer dances on the lawn here in my boyhood.’ He remembered well that it had been during a summer vacation when the good Sussex air had done its healing work and he had lost his cough and regained much of his energy. The joy of dancing with a pretty girl his own age was a memory he was never likely to forget. With the dance ending in a kiss it had been his first experience of a girl’s soft lips.

  ‘Grandmother taught me too.’

  They whirled into the dance. When he set his hands on her waist and lifted her high and around, he was careful that her skirts did not sway unduly, something that Katherine had impressed upon him during his instruction. Anne had come to sit on the bench seat beside Mary and she clapped her hands to the rhythm. She thought what a splendid couple Julia and Christopher made, the daughter who was her joy in spite of many ups and downs of temperament, and the clever young man with the masterly mind who was another son to her.

  It was as the dance ended that she saw in a moment of revelation what Katherine and Mary, who had never communicated their knowledge to each other, had been aware of for a long time. Anne alone had failed to connect the fondness with which Julia had always spoken his name with anything more than sisterly affection. For the same reason, during the past few weeks after word had been received of his coming, she had not identified the girl’s spurts of despair over her hair and her complexion with anything more than the agonies of adolescence. Now as the kiss that concluded the Volta was exchanged, she saw her daughter’s eyes close, the look of bliss on the lovely young face, and the instinctive straining forward of the slim, lithe body. And Christopher, his hands still on her waist, made the kiss longer than he should have. It was to Anne as if she was seeing it all in a curious slowing down of time and motion. Yet it was all over in a matter of seconds, only the intense joyfulness of Julia’s expression and Christopher’s smiling sidelong glance at her showing that it had ever happened.

  Next morning Anne went to tell Katherine about the conclusions she had drawn, never supposing that her listener would not be in the least surprised at what had taken place.

  ‘I had never thought before of a possible match between Julia and Christopher,’ Anne said speculatively, immensely pleased by what was to her an entirely new development, ‘I cannot think of anything to make me happier or a union that would have pleased Robert more.’

  ‘My dear Anne, dismiss that idea,’ Katherine advised firmly. ‘It will come to nothing.’

  Anne was taken aback. ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘He is attracted to her. I saw that for myself yesterday evening during those games of cards. After all, she was a child when he last saw her and now, seemingly overnight to him, she is a nubile and quite beautiful young woman. It is as if he is seeing her for the first time. He may fall in love with her. Being the man he is, he will never forget her, simply because she will always be associated in his mind with Sotherleigh and old friendships. It is also possible that his path and hers will cross until the end of their days.’ Katherine paused deliberately, wanting to emphasize her point. ‘But he will never marry her.’

  ‘Why not?’ Anne was bewildered.

  ‘Julia is too volatile for him, too demanding of those she loves. He has his research and endless ventures to take up his concentration and his time. The little he has told us about his work is enough to give an insight into his intense absorption, even if his sister had not kept us more fully informed. Julia would never be content to play a minor role in his life.’

  ‘But she is an intelligent girl. She would understand.’

  Katherine sighed heavily, thinking how little Anne knew her own child. ‘Julia will want to be her husband’s equal on many planes, to be able to match her wits against his. With Christopher that would be impossible. He would always be far ahead of her and that would set her battering against a door that could never be opened.’ Katherine paused again to let her words sink in. ‘He will marry a gentle, docile and loving woman who will make him happy as Julia never could. If she had been more like you in temperament and less like me, she would have stood a chance.’

  During the short silence that followed Katherine could see that her daughter-in-law had taken some heed, but was reluctant to relinquish a new-born hope that appeared to be the answer to everything. She watched Anne rise slowly to her feet and cross thoughtfully to the nearest window where she stood looking out. There was a certain wistfulness in her voice when she spoke.

  ‘I had hoped for a betrothment before he returned to Oxford. Julia is old enough. I was married at her age now and Robert was thirty. She will be sixteen in October and Christopher’s twenty-fifth natal day is a week later.’

  ‘Where are they at the moment?’

  ‘She has taken him into the maze.’ Anne’s gaze was focused on it. ‘He accepted her challenge to find his way out again if she led him in blind-folded.’

  Katherine saw through her granddaughter’s ploy. The maze. No chance of interruption. There they would be alone, making it a lovers’ playground. ‘Julia will not be expecting a proposal yet, so you can put your mind at rest there.’

  ‘I suppose I should warn her not to lose her heart to him.’ Anne spoke uncertainly. The hope persisted that a match was possible and she could not dismiss it.

  Katherine thumped a fist on her knee. ‘You’ll do no such thing. She’s in love for the first time and to give a girl of her age that sort of advice would make her more resolved to have him. In any case, you’re too late. She’s been devoted to him all through childhood.’

  Anne swung round to face her. ‘That was no more than hero-worship.’

  ‘Agreed. Had he not come back into her life when she was ripe for love some other young man would have become her target. As it is, their early friendship sowed the seed of what she feels for him today, and it will be more difficult to dislodge because of that.’

  Anne’s face came as close to an expression of defiance as was possible for her. ‘In that case, madam, we will await events. Forgive me for being outspoken, but you cannot always be right. People who truly love each other are able to overcome many problems. Who is to say that Julia and Christopher could not do the same?’

  ‘I cannot argue with that, except to point out that the odds against their achieving happiness are greater than you appear to comprehend.’

  Anne went from the room in a swish of dove-grey silk. She did not exactly stalk, but her shoulders were set far enough back for Katherine to see that she intended to cling tenaciously to the hope of gaining Christopher as a son-in-law.

  In the maze Julia was laughing as she took Christopher by the sleeve and turned him twice around to disorientate him. His own silk handkerchief covered his eyes, knotted securely at the back of his head, and he made grinning protest.

  ‘When I took on your wager you didn’t tell me that you intended to use these tricks.’

  ‘Just be glad I don’t keep leading you to and fro along the same path for a spell,’ she retaliated merrily, ‘because that would have deprived you of any chance at all of deducing the way we have come.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He cocked his head in the birdlike manner that he had never lost. ‘Don’t be so sure. I give you permission to try it.’

  ‘I may or I may not do that. You’ll get no clues from me.’

  She took his hand an
d led him on again. It was wonderful to be on her own with him amid the high green box-hedges with the blue spring sky above and their shadows together on the sunlit gravel paths. Last night it had been hours before she slept, for she had relived the kiss they had shared, his firm lips on hers, their breath intermingling. In the candlelight she had studied her reflection in the stump-work mirror, almost as if she had expected to see some visible effect of that kiss on her mouth. All she saw was her own radiance and the sparkle in her wide-awake eyes. Before going to her own room she had whispered her thanks to Mary for choosing to play a Volta, knowing that her friend had deliberately done her a good turn in playing a dance that ended in a kiss.

  ‘We’re almost at the heart of the maze now,’ she announced mischievously. ‘Find the rest of the way by yourself.’ Releasing his hand, she darted along the path and through the last archway into the circular space with the octagonal stone seat.

  ‘Wait! Where have you gone?’

  She ran to be level with him on the opposite side of the hedge, full of giggles and expecting him to be blundering about. The close-cut foliage was too thick for her to see through, but she could tell he was standing perfectly still. She held her breath, but it was too late.

  ‘You’re not far away,’ he said with a chuckle in his voice. ‘I judge you to have run about ten paces before you went through a gap in this hedge. Am I allowed to remove this blindfold when I reach it?’

  ‘You are.’

  When he pulled the handkerchief away, blinking for a moment or two in the sunshine, he was standing framed in one of the four archways that stood at the points of the compass. She sat on the seat, leaning back slightly and supporting her weight on her hands, her face merry and as beautiful as the day.

  ‘Now you’re my prisoner, Christopher. You’ll not get out of here for a thousand years!’

  ‘What will happen to my work?’ he joked.

  ‘We’ll make time stand still and you’ll be as young as you are now when I release you.’

  He laughed. ‘It would suit me well to see this land of ours a thousand years hence. No doubt many of the problems I struggle with will be solved. I have a friend and fellow astronomer who believes that one day men will find a means by which to reach the moon and I see no reason to disagree with him.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ she cried out in protest. ‘The moon belongs to lovers — not to explorers.’

  ‘The romantic in me accepts your view, but the astronomer in me prevails.’ His eyes were dancing as he sat at her side and turned towards her.

  ‘Your head must always be full of puzzling notions,’ she declared, ‘but here in this maze you can relax and be happy with me.’

  ‘You say that when you have taken my freedom from me?’ he teased.

  She sat forward, making a little face at him, and rested both her wrists on his shoulders. ‘Nobody loses freedom in a magic place.’

  ‘Is this how you see the maze?’

  ‘I did when I was little. I always thought there must be something very special about it when it was such a secret. Once I tried to find out what it was on my own and became lost.’

  ‘I remember hearing about that, but I never knew the reason why you were in the maze alone.’

  ‘I’ve never told anyone before. Just as I once told you about my dream.’

  ‘Do you still have the dream?’

  ‘If I do I don’t remember it when I wake.’ She had become more serious and drew her wrists away to settle her hands in her lap. ‘I do like to come here. I will be honest and admit to finding some magic in its atmosphere even though all its secrets are known to me.’ In her thoughts were the subterranean passage-way and the hidden room as well as the lay-out of the maze, which she could have followed even if she had been wearing Christopher’s blindfold. ‘If you will just listen for a few minutes with me you will understand what I mean. I’m sure you never sat to listen when you and Michael ran through here as children.’

  That was certainly the case. In boyhood an occasional game had been played there, but Michael was conscientious about keeping the solution to the maze to himself, having been entrusted with it. Knowing how Christopher excelled at mathematical and geomearic problems, he was not entirely sure that his friend would not work it out. For that reason Christopher could count on the fingers of one hand the times he had been into the maze, the last occasion when he and Michael were young schoolboys.

  Yet the lack of sound amid the high box-hedges had been recalled from those days past when he had entered the maze again with Julia. He realized it must be due to location and perhaps a by-passing of air currents that could not penetrate the thick, close-cut foliage. Being blindfolded had not been any great disadvantage in registering the lay-out of the maze in order to beat her challenge. One section of his mind had been counting paces, and additional clues were received when turning a corner made the yellow silk binding across his eyes lose light in the resulting shadow. There had been no lowing of cows from the parkland, no bleat of sheep or the bark of a dog. Neither had there been any echo of activity in the distant stables or around the house. What he was aware of now in the encompassing silence was her soft breathing, his own pulse and the whisper of her petticoats beneath her apple-green linen skirt. Maybe it was simply that one’s senses became heightened by isolation, for being in the middle of a maze was akin in some ways to being in the eye of a hurricane. Then nearby, in one of the hedges, there came a lively twittering, surprising him by the effect it had of shattering the stillness.

  She gave a nod. ‘The birds love it here. Their songs are all that is to be heard in the maze. You should hear the nightingales in May. I’ve often sat alone on this seat at night to listen to them. They sound sweeter in this place than anywhere else.’

  ‘I have realized that here in the centre of the maze there seem to be certain acoustics that would enhance such sounds heard at close range.’

  ‘Maybe the birds know that,’ she commented quizzically.

  He smiled. ‘I’m sure they do.’ Even as he spoke a thrush gave full throat and they listened in silence until with a rush of wings it was away.

  ‘That thrush sang yesterday or tomorrow, but not today,’ she decreed firmly. ‘As I told you, present time has been terminated.’

  ‘Why is that?’ He thought to receive one of her impish, amusing answers.

  Unexpectedly she turned her dark blue eyes on him in a long and melting look that stirred him deeply. ‘Because I want this morning to last for ever and for you never to leave Sotherleigh.’

  He understood that she had substituted Sotherleigh for herself and a wave of tenderness towards her swept over him. ‘None of us can make the clock stand still,’ he replied quietly, ‘but we can be thankful for good times and for meetings and for friendship.’

  ‘And for love.’

  ‘For love above all else.’

  ‘Do you have a sweetheart whom you love?’

  An image came into his mind of a shy, self-effacing girl he had known since childhood: Faith Coghill. She was the daughter of a Bletchingdon family he had known as neighbours to Susan and William for many years. He saw her whenever he visited her home, but she was shy and left talking to others. For all he knew he was in her thoughts no more often than she in his. Yet it was odd that Julia’s question should have spurred a memory of her. ‘No,’ he answered truthfully. ‘My work leaves me no time for the pursuit of ladies.’

  She had not taken her gaze from him. ‘In this maze you have no work and I am here.’

  If any other woman, young as she or older, had spoken such words to him they would have been a blatant invitation, but she had uttered them out of her heart. He put up his hand and lightly cupped the side of her face, intending to defuse the situation with some distancing remark, but at his touch she shivered sensuously and cradled her cheek into his palm, her eyes closed as if she might swoon. His voice caught harshly in his throat.

  ‘Julia — ’

  Her eyes flew open and she flung he
rself passionately across his chest, her arms wrapped about his neck, her mouth on his. Her kiss was innocent, her lips closed, and he struggled with himself to let her mouth remain uninitiated as by her very weight she bore him down over her until her back rested across the broad stone seat. His senses reeled. He knew he could take her and she would fall to him like a ripe peach, but because of who she was, every principle he had ever upheld and even his love for this girl held him back from making the first moves to possess her. Then she took one arm away from him to seize his hand and press it to her firm young breast, the nipple raised hard and true. Unable to stop himself, he began to fondle her. He saw her eyes close languorously and heard her quickened breathing, her moist lips parting. His own mouth was magnetized in the direction of hers and almost imperceptibly the distance between them shortened as he reached out to stroke her thigh, ripped through by a pounding desire for her. But abruptly he checked himself, summoning up all the willpower he possessed, and his hand shook with effort as it remained suspended over her thigh and did not descend. With a great gasp of effort, he hurled himself away from her and the seat where she lay in willing abandonment.

  The curious hush of the maze hung in the air. He stood with his back to her, breathing heavily, and dashed the back of his hand across the sweat that had gathered on his brow. When he had recovered himself he turned about to look at her. She was lying exactly as he had left her, her untouched skirts hanging decorously to her ankles, her arms at her sides and silent tears running from the corners of her eyes down the sides of her face as she gazed skywards. He went and sat beside her again, looking down into her face. Her swimming eyes, like sapphires under water, met his.

  ‘Am I wanton?’ she asked him tragically, her voice barely audible.

  ‘No,’ he reassured her softly, wiping the tears from her face with his fingertips. ‘To be wanton is to show passion without love. Your heart ran away with you and mine would have followed if circumstances had been different and we were husband and wife.’