Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  She wanted to ask him if that would ever be, but she had been too bold already and dared not set him drawing back from her again. ‘I broke every rule that I’ve been taught with regard to my virtue.’

  ‘Not every one.’

  ‘Well, almost.’

  As her tears continued to flow, he took from his pocket the yellow silk handkerchief that had bound his eyes and mopped them up gently. ‘I’m glad it happened with me and no-one else.’

  She looked at him pitifully, fearful that her behaviour had set a breach between them. ‘Are we still friends?’

  ‘More than that. We are dear and loving friends.’ At all costs he wanted her to have no sense of shame. ‘I’m the one to bear the blame for what occurred.’

  She sat up and was grateful that he put an arm about her, letting her rest against him as she dried her eyes completely with his handkerchief. It was a hard lesson she had just learned. If she wished to win him she must learn patience, discover how to endure waiting until such time as he, committed only at present to his precious work, was ready to take a wife into his life. She would be that woman. Briefly she had glimpsed his love-face when she had caused him to lie across her and had had an insight into the sensual power she could have over him. He was hers, claimed by her love, and nobody else should have him. She had only to wait.

  ‘I think everyone will start wondering if we are both lost.’ She wanted to close the episode gracefully. ‘What time is it?’

  He took his watch from his pocket. It was housed in two pouches, the outer one of thin, soft leather to protect the inner one, which had been embroidered by Anne on satin. It was typical of a richly embroidered item that it should often defeat the purpose for which it had been made, simply by turning into a work of art which itself needed protection.

  ‘The hour is almost noon,’ he said.

  ‘Then we must go back to the house.’ She spoke briskly, hiding the ache in her at the imminence of his leaving again. ‘But we shall see first if you can find our way out of this maze as you boasted you could.’ Teasingly she waved his silk handkerchief to and fro in front of his face. ‘Remember that this is mine if you fail.’

  ‘And your new embroidered bookmark belongs to me if I win,’ he reminded her with a grin. ‘Just follow me.’

  He could have found his way out easily. Even in boyhood he had almost mastered it. Yet he would not spoil a triumph for her. He took one wrong turn and then another until she was in fits of laughter. Once she fell against him in her mirth, leaning against his chest, her face only inches from his. For one dangerous moment he almost crushed her in his arms and then there would have been no retreat for either of them. But unwittingly she saved the situation, skipping away from him and fluttering the yellow handkerchief tantalizingly. Eventually, as he had expected, she declared she would take pity on him or else he would be blundering about the maze for ever. With his hand in hers, she led him along the exact paths he would have taken had he not kept up his harmless pretence to please her. When they emerged from the maze she looped the silk handkerchief around her neck, delighted at having won her wager.

  Yet when he was in the saddle of his horse and about to depart she ran forward and pressed her bookmark into his hand. Take this!’ There was a look blended of love and laughter in her eyes. ‘I don’t believe the great mathematical genius, Mr Wren, was quite as lost as he made himself out to be.’

  He laughed as he tucked the bookmark into his coat pocket. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Twice you turned from the right path into the wrong one when you need not have. In any case, I was expecting you to play that little trick on me.’

  He chuckled as he smiled down at her. ‘How well you know me.’

  ‘Better than anyone else in the wide world!’ She could have added that was because she loved him as no-one else ever could, but the time for such declarations was not yet. As he rode away she waved the yellow silk handkerchief until he was out of sight. Then she folded it carefully and took it up to her room where she placed it among lavender bags on her cupboard shelf. She would keep it for ever, together with her Wren doll’s house.

  *

  Summer rolled by as one warm day followed another. Haymaking was early and soon the crops stood high and golden. Julia had her final lessons with her tutor and closed her school books. As a young woman near her sixteenth birthday her education was over. She had not been her tutor’s only pupil, for her mother had recommended him to other Royalist families, but he and his family would have missed the good produce given from Sotherleigh’s kitchen garden if it had not been arranged that he should call once a month to fill his basket with vegetables and fruit. No doubt he would also get a joint of meat from the estate farm that supplied the house.

  Julia had become interested in gardening ever since her success at stump work. She had always loved the colour and variations of the Knot Garden, and it seemed to her that gardening there was not unlike carrying out raised embroidery in the choosing of plants and the allotting of pattern. The old gardener was only too pleased to leave it to her care, having more than enough to do himself, and now that she was free of study she had plenty of time for what she thought of as her hobby. Whereas the Knot Garden had become somewhat ragged and neglected, it now took on its neat appearance again in Julia’s charge. No flower was allowed to protrude above the rest, not a weed permitted to grow, and straggling plants were replaced with new cuttings that she had taken and raised herself or carefully pruned back into shape. The paths came in for the same care, the gravel raked and wayward grasses plucked out and thrown away.

  It was a relief to Anne to see the Knot Garden in order again. Much as she loved flowers she was no gardener herself. Yet it was Katherine to whom Julia’s gardening was of most benefit, for she could look from her window now and see the Knot Garden just as it had been in happier times. She would nod and wave to her granddaughter, miming applause when Julia stood with arms outflung in mock conceit at the results achieved.

  On the farms the harvest had been safely gathered in and the warm weather remained unabated on the afternoon that a maidservant came running to the Knot Garden where Julia knelt weeding.

  ‘Miss Julia! There’s a visitor and Mrs Pallister isn’t home yet from Chichester!’

  Julia sat back on her heels, brushing a tendril of hair back out of her eyes. ‘Who is it?’ Then she saw that the woman looked anxious. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing that I know of, but it’s a stern Puritan gentleman. He gave his name as Mr Makepeace Walker.’

  Julia felt a qualm. It would not be a social call. Was there to be another fine imposed on Sotherleigh? There had now been two since her father’s death and she did not know how her mother would be able to meet another one so soon. She stood up and pulled off the gloves she used to protect her hands, dropping them into the trug that held her gardening tools. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I showed him into the Queen’s Parlour.’

  Julia went round to the front of the house. The groom had led the visitor’s horse away, which showed it was not to be just the delivery of a document of demand such as happened before. She crossed the sun-streaked entrance hall and entered the Queen’s Parlour. It was deserted. Surely another maid had not been foolish enough to disturb Katherine’s afternoon rest and take him up there?

  She hastened back to the entrance hall, prepared to dash up the stairs, when she heard someone moving around in the Great Hall, the door of which stood open. She went swiftly to it and paused on the threshold. The stranger, a thick-set, powerful-looking middle-aged man, was running his hand over a tall, magnificently carved cupboard that stood against the north wall. Many had admired it, but nobody outside the household had ever opened the outer doors without invitation to examine the half dozen smaller and equally splendidly carved doors within. She gasped at the impertinence of this man as he opened one of them.

  ‘What are you doing, sir?’ she demanded.

  He replied without turning his head.
‘Examining some of the contents of this house since it is to be mine.’

  She thought for a moment that her knees would give way. ‘I don’t think I heard you correctly.’

  ‘I am sure you did.’ He closed the doors and moved on to finger a tapestry depicting David slaying Goliath. ‘Very fine. French, is it not?’

  She could endure no more. Sweeping forward to the long table, she picked up one of the pewter candlesticks and banged it down with all her force on the dark oaken boards, making the echoes ring against the beams overhead. ‘Get out or I’ll have you thrown out!’

  He did turn then to face her across the length of the great chamber and an expression of contempt settled on his broad, square-jawed visage. She judged him to be in his mid-forties, his brown hair still free of grey but thinning back from the wide forehead and worn with a middle parting to hang straight to his shoulders. His nose was beak-shaped and large, his skin pale as if he spent little time out of doors, and his mouth fleshy. He also had the strangest eyes she had ever seen: round and clear as a fresh herring’s and as sea-cold.

  ‘I’m not accustomed to impudence from any one,’ he said in deadly tones, ‘least of all from a slip of a girl who needs to be taught good manners.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Her hands were clenched at her sides, ‘I represent my mother in her temporary absence. I’m Julia Pallister, daughter of the late Colonel Robert Pallister, who died in the service of the King. Tell me by what right you intrude upon this house and make your outrageous claim!’

  He ignored her demand. ‘There is an older woman in this house. I will see her since your mother is not here.’

  ‘No!’ She flung herself in front of the door to bar his way as he made a move from where he stood. ‘My grandmother is old and physically weak. Sotherleigh is her life-blood. Should you say to her what you have said to me her death from shock could be in your hands.’

  ‘She will have to know sooner or later that Sotherleigh Manor has been sequestered and that I am the new owner.’

  ‘Sequestered?’ she echoed with white lips. ‘We’ve had no notification.’

  ‘I have all the papers with me.’ He patted his pocket. ‘But you will not find me unmerciful. I shall allow all in this house forty-eight hours’ grace in which to pack up and leave.’

  She was staring at him in stunned disbelief, unable to accept that this should be happening. ‘We are four in family,’ she said tonelessly. ‘My brother is abroad.’

  ‘I know all the details. Everything is in the records about this house. You had a distant cousin come to live here about six years ago, did you not? A mute who learned to talk after she came here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Then her temper, which could explode without warning, lashed out at him. ‘Since you know so much about us, you should also be aware that we are not people to give in to anything we do not believe to be right! There are Courts of Appeal. We’ll fight you to the end!’

  He patted his pocket again. ‘In this case your appeal would not reach any court. The sequestration order bears the signature of His Highness himself.’

  ‘Cromwell!’ It was as if she had heard the gates of Sotherleigh slam behind her and she clapped her hands to her ears.

  He did not like what he took to be a show of dramatics. ‘I want no more talk with you. If you wish to make yourself useful, inform the servants that their service to this house is at an end and break the news to your grandmother in any way you wish.’

  She had lowered her hands again and she clasped them in front of her, further shocked that the servants were to suffer. ‘But our servants are good workers! For several of them Sotherleigh is the only home they have. They are loyal and true.’

  ‘It is for that very reason that they are to be replaced by my own staff. I want no Royalist sympathizers serving me.’

  He made her gall rise. She could no longer endure to be in the same room with him and she took a few steps in the direction of the door, ‘I shall do nothing until my mother returns.’ She thought she heard a whisper of departing petticoats and guessed that the maidservant who had alerted her to his coming had been listening. Normally she would have been furious, for the rule against eavesdropping had always been strictly upheld, but servants seemed to have a sixth sense about anything that involved them and in less than a minute the kitchen would be buzzing with the dreadful news. All she could feel was intense pity for their plight. Her own, and that of those dearest to her, still seemed as unreal as if she were caught up in a nightmare from which she would soon wake. ‘For all I know, my mother may have some document of dispensation since Sotherleigh has been left undisturbed with its rightful owners until this false claim.’

  His bushy eyebrows met as he glowered at her. ‘It is fortunate for you that you’re not remaining under my roof. I should soon punish your tongue into respect and humble that Royalist pride of yours.’

  With her hand on the door she looked over her shoulder at him. ‘The roof of Sotherleigh will never be yours nor any other part of it. This house was built by a Pallister and will belong to Pallisters long after you and Cromwell are no more.’

  He shouted something after her as she swept from the room, but she did not listen. Instinctively she turned for the stairs to make her way to Katherine’s apartment. Ever since childhood she had turned to her grandmother in moments of crisis and this time, apart from her own need of Katherine’s company, she wanted to be sure that Makepeace Walker was kept at bay if he should try to approach the old lady.

  As she drew near the apartment she was not surprised to see the door to it standing wide. In summer Katherine liked to keep a flow of air through her rooms from the open windows, providing there was no resulting cold draught. Then Julia caught the noise of sobbing, interspersed with what sounded like a high-pitched pleading. She dashed to the door and entered, aghast at what she saw. Katherine was sitting in her marriage chair, her back to the door, and kneeling down in front of her and quite hysterical was the maidservant who had admitted the Parliamentarian to the house. Any doubt as to who had been listening was gone.

  ‘Think what are you doing!’ Julia cried out in distress. ‘Come away!’

  The distraught woman gathered up her skirts to run from the room with her head down, sobbing and knowing she had done wrong to give the old lady the news as she had done. As she came level with Julia, she looked up with eyes streaming.

  ‘Mistress Katherine took the news bravely! She said she had been half expecting it ever since the new young Master of Warrender Hall was turned away from Sotherleigh. All I wanted was her promise that I’d not be left high and dry, because where would I go?’ Then she bolted on her way.

  Julia shut the door and leaned her back against it, hugging her arms in shock. Ashen-faced, she shook with uncontrollable trembling from head to toe as the full implication of what had been said sank into her. This terrible situation was due entirely to her headstrong, thoughtless actions. Makepeace Walker would not be in the house at this moment if she had not offended Adam Warrender and driven him away from Sotherleigh. Her head bowed under the weight of her remorse. How could she go forward and face her grandmother now? How could she face any of those who were going to suffer through what she had done?

  ‘Come here to me, child,’ Katherine said quietly.

  ‘I’m too ashamed!’

  ‘Do as I say.’

  Scarcely knowing what she was doing, Julia went slowly forward to the footstool and sat down by Katherine’s chair as she had done countless times before. She twisted her hands in her lap. ‘This is all my fault,’ she declared brokenly in a voice raw with anguish.

  Katherine’s lips were tremulous and nervous little twitches played around her eyes from the shock that had been dealt to her so bluntly by the maidservant, her expression as tortured as that on her granddaughter’s upturned face. ‘It is a terrible thing that has happened, but in what way should it be your fault?’

  ‘If I hadn’t lost my temper with Adam Warrender he would never have taken
this awful revenge.’

  ‘There is rarely a time when we don’t wish afterwards we hadn’t lost our tempers, but we still do. Old age has mellowed me, but when I was younger I was fiery enough at times.’ Katherine rested her thin hand on the girl’s head, smoothing back the burnished hair. ‘You wanted only to protect your mother, to keep this new Master of Warrender Hall from distressing her by his insensitivity in thinking to call on her.

  ‘We agreed between us that what took place should be kept from her and that agreement must stand, because I wish it. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, Grandmother.’

  ‘I tell you now that I feared in my own mind there would be repercussions to your treatment of the young man that day, but I expected nothing on the scale of what he has set in motion. My hope was that he would have had enough charity in him to overlook the incident, but that was not to be.’

  ‘Then you are not angry with me?’

  ‘Why should I be angry now when I approved what you did at the time?’

  For a few moments Julia was unable to speak for emotion. Then she took the frail hand with its gold wedding band into her own and kissed it. Surely there was no-one anywhere as good and just as her grandmother. She could not absolve herself from the responsibility of her action, but Katherine with her unique understanding had not wanted her to have regrets about what could not be undone. Her spirits soared again.

  ‘We’ll not let this sequestration take place! I’ll fight Adam Warrender again! Nobody shall take Sotherleigh away from us, no matter what evil conspiracy has brought about this attempt. Do you have any documents that would help us make a case? Of course, a deed showing there had been a royal grant of the land, in spite of Elizabeth being queen then, might even go against us. Does Mama have anything among my father’s papers that would stand us in good stead?’ Julia waited hopefully for an affirmative answer, but Katherine had leaned her head back against the chair’s tasselled cushions and seemed far away in her thoughts. Supposing the old lady was trying to remember, Julia exercised patience, but then she was not entirely sure that Katherine was not close to falling asleep. ‘Grandmother! Are there any papers?’