Makepeace made a slight flick of his hand to show he took back any error he had made with regard to the doctor’s honesty, ‘In that case I will allow Mrs Pallister four weeks in which to get her mother-in-law fit to move, but not a day more, whatever the condition of the patient when that time comes.’
Anne’s natural good manners compelled her to acknowledge what he considered to be a munificent concession on his part. When the doctor had left by a side door, for only gentry arrived and departed by the main entrance, Makepeace told Anne to show him which bedchamber she and the two girls occupied. Finding that all three were in the west wing he allotted one less to them.
‘Your daughter and your cousin can share,’ he said when the short tour was done and they stood by the carved screen. He saw her brows contract on her thoughts and guessed she expected trouble from her wilful daughter, but she accepted his decision meekly. It was as if gaining a reprieve over leaving had drained all her strength and she would submit uncomplainingly to anything else.
‘I’ll see to it,’ she said tonelessly.
‘During the rest of your time in this house,’ he went on, ‘you and your family will keep entirely to the west wing and use a side door for your comings and goings. In that way there will be less interference with my arrangements. I suppose you will wish to retain your lady’s maid, but she cannot take up a room that will be needed by my servants and you must accommodate her within your quarters as best you can.’ He paused, but no protest came. She stood docilely, looking down, her hands linked in front of her. ‘Now, if you will be so good, madam, as to send your housekeeper to me I will be in the south-facing room to the west of the entrance hall.’ She looked up then. ‘We call that the Queen’s Parlour. Elizabeth herself once came here.’
‘Did she? In future it will be known as the South Parlour.’ He turned for the stairs and her voice followed him.
‘We have no housekeeper. I have managed the household ever since the war disrupted Sotherleigh. It will not be as a favour to you but out of concern for my own family that I will continue with those duties until a housekeeper of yours arrives to relieve me of them.’
He stopped, clasping the staircase hand-rail, and looked back at her, guessing what it had cost her to rally her spirit and let him know the circumstances in which he would be served. She stood in the pattern of sunlight and shadow thrown by the screen, dark hair gleaming, her slenderness causing her to look younger than her years. She stirred him physically again, proof in itself that female beauty was the bait of the devil. He was also more than a little inclined to the theory held by some extremists that women had no souls, having been created solely for men’s convenience. It would not have been hard to convince himself it had been ordained that a suitable third spouse should be provided for him along with the gift of Sotherleigh. Then he took a grip on himself. A Royalist woman! Never!
‘In that case, Mrs Pallister, you will want to instruct your servants yourself on what there is to be done to make all the house open and habitable again. Let them have their forty-eight hours’ grace before departure. I also give you leave to direct my servants to your wishes when they take over.’
That evening he sat down at the head of the long table in the Great Hall and was served a good supper that he could not fault. Two maidservants waited on him with hatred in their eyes, but there was no slapping down of plates or dishes and he guessed that Anne had given them strict instructions. He liked that. It showed that she did not tolerate slovenliness even in the most stressful circumstances. When he went to bed he slept well in the massive four-poster with its replacement hangings of olive-green velvet. Life at Sotherleigh was going to suit him. His rooms in London had never been to his liking and his ancient stone house in Cumbria where he was born had more draughts inside than out. Moreover his land there, although possession of its acres had enabled him to stand for Parliament some years before, had never been productive, its soil poor whereas that of Sotherleigh’s farmland was as rich as plumcake.
When morning came he made a tour of the house before partaking of the hearty breakfast that awaited him. There was not a dust-sheet to be seen or a speck of dust. For all her meek and mild ways, it appeared that Anne Pallister knew how to run a home.
His tour of the house completed from cellars to attics, he went outside to inspect its environs, pausing on the steps to fill his lungs with the good Sussex air. The late Colonel Warrender had told him that his father, old Sir Harry, had lived to be over ninety, evidence that if one avoided gargantuan eating and wine-swilling, in which the Colonel had indulged himself, it was possible to make very old bones living here. He had served with Warrender until a wound in a skirmish with the Scots had put an end to his military activities. His convalescence had been long, but his leg had healed well and did not handicap him, although it ached badly at times.
He had thought to return to a seat in the House of Commons, feeling that no other choice was open to him, for the chills of Cumbria would have played havoc with his leg. Yet his political ambition had waned, for his aim had been achieved in seeing an established Commonwealth in a Puritan England with the monarchy eliminated for ever. Also he was not as young as he had been and somehow he had lost his appetite for the intrigues and bickerings of politics that had been the spice of life to him in the past. Maybe his leg wound had affected him in mind and body more than he had first realized.
Then, no more than a month ago and totally unexpectedly, the Lord Protector had rewarded him with Sotherleigh and settled the question of his future. No more politics. An end to living in London and travelling out to Westminster by coach or by ferry-boat on the Thames. Instead of the stinking city he had the fragrant countryside. What a multitude of gifts all in one! Who had been responsible for bringing the long overlooked Sotherleigh to the Lord Protector’s notice he had no idea, but that was not important. It had been given him not only for the routing of the Scots on the day of his wounding, but also for other deeds of valour in war combined with his staunch political support of the Lord Protector from the start.
As Makepeace made off to stroll in the park, he knew how much he was going to enjoy being a prosperous landowner. One of his first acts would be to take back the land presently being rented to two fellow Parliamentarians, but it should be done amiably. It did not pay to be on ill terms with neighbours, for he wanted to be invited to hunt and to voice his views in conversation with congenial male company. He would pay Warrender Hall an early call, for Adam had formed the Warrender Hunt, the young man himself able to say yea or nay as to who might join, and it would be galling if he were left out. There would be reciprocal hospitality at Sotherleigh, for it was too good a house not to be used to its limits, and in any case he liked to model himself on the Lord Protector, whose Puritan beliefs did not stop him from living in rich surroundings and enjoying a good table. At the first opportunity he would invite the Lord Protector to Sotherleigh. It would be fitting to have that pleasant south-facing room renamed Cromwell’s Parlour.
Anne wrote to Christopher setting out the situation at Sotherleigh and asking him to present an appeal to the Lord Protector on their behalf. When it had been despatched she sat down with Julia to discuss the next move, Mary sitting with them, for Anne considered her to be possessed of sound good sense and her opinions were always welcome.
‘We have to make emergency plans,’ Anne said tautly. She was sitting in her wedding chair, which with her needlework box had been brought to Katherine’s parlour from downstairs. ‘It might take more than our allotted four weeks for Christopher to get an appointment with Cromwell even if he should communicate with Whitehall at once. I have also written separately to Robert’s three cousins at Steyning to see if any of them, with their wives’ agreement, of course, would accommodate us indefinitely.’
‘I’m not going there!’ Julia declared, dismayed by the suggestion. ‘They all sat on the fence during the Civil War, turning whichever way the wind blew, and you can be sure they’ll all be for Cromwell n
ow.’
‘They are family,’ Anne pointed out in distress, ‘and would not turn us away.’
‘We’d end up in the servants’ quarters — just as we’re being cramped up here in our own home. As I’ve said before, I’m not leaving here and neither is Grandmother even if she and I have to lock ourselves in this apartment!’ Julia’s face was intractable. ‘I’ve given her my word and I’ll die before I’ll break it!’
Anne turned distractedly to Mary. ‘Have you anything to suggest? There is no reason in Julia. I cannot appeal to George Gunter, because when I last heard, he was in trouble with the authorities and feared it might come to the point when he would have to flee to the Continent. It could weight the scales against him if a Royalist family connected with the escape of the King landed on his doorstep. To others it would be a less sensitive matter, but now almost all our old friends are scattered and I have no relatives left in this country. The last left several years ago to join others of my family in a place called Plymouth in the New World.’
‘There is an empty house in the village in Briar Lane,’ Mary said.
Anne’s face cleared. ‘I had forgotten it. It was never relet after old Mr Jackson went to live with his daughter.’ She turned hopefully to her daughter. ‘That is on Sotherleigh land.’
Julia bounced to her feet. ‘No!’
She flew from the room and would have banged the door after her if she had not had the invalid in mind. By the flower-screen she leaned her forehead wearily against a carved cluster of hawthorn blossom, full of anguish. She thought what a bitter turn of fate it was that the one person who would have backed her in the fight for Sotherleigh was lying helpless and ill. Much as she loved Christopher and knew he would move heaven and earth to save Sotherleigh for them, she had come to realize that his chances of influencing Cromwell this time were nil. His old uncle, the Bishop, had been incarcerated too long to be able to harm the Commonwealth and so was a very different case from the forfeiture of property belonging to a Royalist in exile. Michael was not only the son of a Cavalier who had defied Parliament, but had done the same himself. Somehow she must work out a plot to compel Makepeace to leave of his own accord. How that was to be done she had no idea as yet, but it would most surely come to her. She had four weeks, all but a day, in which to bring a plan to fruition. A ride should clear her head and help her to concentrate on her important project. She fetched a cloak and went down the grand staircase and out through the main entrance now forbidden to her. The effect of her defiance was lost since Makepeace did not see her, but she felt the better for it.
At the stables the groom saddled up her horse, delaying her with his pithy views on what had befallen Sotherleigh. He was like the rest in accepting defeat before the battle had even started and she was glad to get away. She had outgrown Starlight long since and rode a long-tailed bay, whom she had named Charlie after the King. Her pony had gone to the children of Royalist friends, who had given their word that he should never be sold and would end his days in their care. She was full of hope as she rode Charlie out of the stableyard. Makepeace should never win over her!
Anne, still sitting in Katherine’s parlour, had bowed her head in despair, a hand over her eyes. She recalled how her mother-in-law, the most strong-willed of women, had also urged Julia to follow the Tudor Queen’s example and hold fast in the face of adversity. It was apparent now that there had never been any need for urging. Queen Elizabeth, Katherine and Julia herself appeared to have been cast in the same mould. Never before had Anne felt more keenly her own inadequacy in time of trouble. She had only just remembered that the house in the village was part of the Sotherleigh estate and they were dependent on Makepeace’s consent as to whether they could move in there.
*
It was a rough day and the wind blew hard into Julia’s face when eventually she emerged from the woods on to the brow of a hill that gave her an open view of Warrender Hall. It was as if in her need to defeat Makepeace she had to take full account of enemy territory.
There was no denying the Hall was a handsome house. It was older than Sotherleigh, having been built of stone, now mellowed by time, early in the sixteenth century when Henry VIII was newly come to the throne and Elizabeth still many years from being born to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn. The old oaks and firs of its deer park veiled it in part from her gaze, but she could see that its terracing and flowerbeds were as originally laid out, although the enclosed Knot Garden would have been added in the latter half of the previous century. According to Katherine, the family there had always been loyal to the Crown until dissatisfaction had crept in with Sir Harry, first in James’s reign and then the outright break coming in the time of Charles I with such dire consequences resulting eventually for Sotherleigh.
Absorbed as she was in contemplation of the house and with the wind carrying away sound, she failed to hear the approach of horses through the trees behind her. The first indication that she was no longer alone was in the sudden jingling of a bridle as the hoof of one of the horses jerked down into a rabbit hole. She looked round sharply, holding her wind-tossed hair back from her eyes, and saw that a phalanx of young men on horseback, at least a dozen or more, had emerged from the woods, blocking the bridle path that she would have followed homewards. They showed amusement at their discovery of her there. One spoke up at once.
‘I’d know those bright curls anywhere! The little Royalist bird from Sotherleigh has flown far from the nest today!’
The majority of the riders were strangers to her, the rest known only by sight since, without exception, they were the sons of Parliamentary families. The one who had caused the laughter was of the family that had moved into the property of Royalist neighbours after it had been sequestered.
‘Let’s make a new nest for her,’ one of the others suggested, rising in his stirrups to beckon the rest forward. Then to her dismay they peeled off with battle yells and enclosed her in a moving ring of their horses, not giving her a chance to wheel away. She glared at them, not at all sure that they did not intend her some harm, for young men whatever their backgrounds were exhilarated by a sense of power. Her father had said once, not knowing she was within hearing, that it was to his regret that as many heinous deeds of rape and pillage had been committed by Royalists as by Roundheads.
‘Stop behaving like schoolboys,’ she said angrily, hiding her alarm. ‘Break the circle and let me leave.’
Another band of horsemen, fewer in number, had also emerged from the woods and she saw that Adam Warrender was among them. His look of surprise at seeing her changed to a smile of satisfaction at her predicament. Those with him grinned at the game being played and took their horses forward to form a second sparser ring, circling in the opposite direction, adding their voices to the din of shouts and laughter already created. She began to feel more frightened than she showed, her temper at pitch. As for Charlie, he was thoroughly fidgety, snorting at a clamour he did not like. Only Adam remained stationary, his hands with the reins resting on the pommel of his saddle as he watched alertly.
She was well aware of being on part of his estate and did not expect him to lift a finger to extract her from this unpleasant situation. Turning Charlie about, she appealed again to the riders for release. She thought it unlikely that Adam would have told them how he had been treated at Sotherleigh and hoped to persuade someone in the rotating ring to give way to her. But the way he was keeping out of it made her afraid he might be thinking up some devilish means to take further advantage of her folly in being caught there.
‘Enough! Let me pass!’ She made as if she would force a way through with Charlie, but the grinning horsemen reached out as if they would grab her and several drew swords to flick the tip of a blade in her direction.
‘I suggest we slit a few of those Royalist ribbons,’ one swordsman roared, whirling past. ‘I’ve a mind to see this errant dove without her feathers.’
A deafening cheer went up. She turned cold with fright. It had been an old Roundhea
d taunt about Cavalier finery that had been thrown at her, for she had only two plain bows on the front of her bodice today.
She drew in a deep breath and steeled herself, glancing about with hostility as the young men dismounted riotously and advanced in a predatory manner from all around her. What had started out as a piece of boisterous fun, inflamed to a certain extent by the good wine imbibed at Warrender Hall, had shifted to far more dangerous ground. She knew it and so did they. The majority of the faces were lustful and even those who looked somewhat uncertain over this turn of events had excitement in their eyes. An air of lecherous anticipation emanated from them.
Warily she watched them approach. She was gripping her whip, ready to lash Charlie forward through a gap in the now dispersing rings of horses that were taking a few steps to stand waiting or to crop the grass. But she had no chance. The whip was snatched from her hand and Charlie’s bridle was seized, keeping him fast. It was only a matter of seconds before she would be hauled from the saddle.
‘Let none of you dare to lay a hand on me!’ She spat the words at them, her temper as high as her fear. ‘As one of you said, I am of Sotherleigh! Not some pitiable drab trapped for your pleasure!’
‘You were of Sotherleigh,’ someone mocked her. ‘I’ve heard there is a new owner now.’
She felt nauseous at their laughter. It was the first time that anybody outside her home had emphasized the terrible truth to her and the pain of it was excruciating, bringing a sting of tears to the back of her eyes. Makepeace Walker had not been in the house more than twenty-four hours and already it was public knowledge, surely spread by Adam Warrender himself. She kept her gaze rigidly away from him.
‘A theft doesn’t make an ownership,’ she cried out bitterly.
They tumbled her from the saddle then and gripped her by the shoulders to set her on her feet. The point of a sword sliced through the ties of her cloak, which the wind had blown back over her shoulders, and aimed for the bows now visible on her bodice. Yet the swordsman hesitated, a wide grin spreading across his face.
Circle of Pearls Page 25
