Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  When Christmas came it was the most austere that Sotherleigh had ever known. Nobody was allowed to mention its coming and the room where Anne had once secreted herself, making gifts for the entire household, had not been entered. At dinner on Christmas Day there was a special menu ordered by Makepeace, but it was broth and black bread as if he wanted to ensure that those who had previously enjoyed feasts in the Great Hall at the festive season should do penance for it. By chance Katherine was poorly during the spell of Christmastide, or else she would have queried the lack of holly and greenery festooning her parlour and become suspicious over the broth and black bread.

  By the spring of 1658 Makepeace was able to take stock of his position at Sotherleigh and realize he had achieved much. He had been invited to become a local magistrate, to hunt, to dine and to sup, the social invitations having snowballed. The exception was Warrender Hall. He had called on the young man there and been courteously received, but there had been no invitation to join the most important local hunt. The call had been returned when the ladies of Sotherleigh were in Chichester and Adam Warrender had gone by the time they returned. Since then there had been no more contact, except when meeting by chance or when hunting with others. Adam always made a point of enquiring after Anne and Julia and seemed keenly interested in the Sotherleigh estate, ready enough to give advice on crops and cattle. If the young man had not possessed an equally fine estate, Makepeace would have almost believed Adam had a mind to the place himself. The lack of an invitation to join the Warrender hunt continued to rankle and Makepeace pondered as to how the oversight might be amended.

  Makepeace had treated Anne to some new gowns in the Puritan mode of sombre-coloured silks with the type of collars he had stipulated, but which she regarded as over-large until it dawned on her that he wanted the shape of her breasts hidden from the sight of other men. It was apparent to all that he was deeply in love with her, but he had been seized by an overpowering jealousy as a result. He watched her constantly in mixed company. Any gentleman who lingered in conversation with her could expect Makepeace to come and clap a hand on his shoulder with some comradely remark to divert attention away from her. At table in other houses, if he was seated some distance from her, his eyes would be forever drifting in her direction.

  She was not quite sure when she first realized he was beginning to resent her attention to her own family, but whenever he was in the house he tried to keep her away from Katherine’s apartment and seized any excuse to send Julia off on some errand if the two of them happened to be together. Neither did he like Mary sharing her time.

  ‘Surely the young woman has someone else with whom she could live, Anne,’ he remarked testily one day. ‘Where is her home, anyway? Devonshire, I was told. Whereabouts? I could probably arrange for her to go back to her roots with a small income.’

  ‘No.’ Anne was adamant. ‘I promised her a home after she was bereaved and nothing shall induce me to break my word.’

  He left the matter there for the time being, returning to it occasionally, but was unable to prise much more information out of Anne. He tried questioning Mary, but she was equally vague, saying all she knew was that her father had been concerned with seafaring matters in south Devon. She had been orphaned very young and had been cared for by various friends and relations, mostly elderly, until the last one was too old to have her; then someone had contacted Anne on her behalf. Makepeace began to scent a mystery and intended to solve it if that should prove possible. The few facts presented had been so pat, so — rehearsed.

  He began his investigation by going through all the papers and correspondence in Anne’s desk when she was absent. There was nothing of interest, although her son’s letters reeked of royalism and he would have burned them if he had not wanted to keep his search from her knowledge. He went systematically through every room as he had never done before and a number of unexpected things came to light. There was a chest of rich fabrics, which he locked again and pocketed the key, and others of every kind of sewing materials, including yams of plain silk ribbons awaiting the embroidery that he had now banned and which he left untouched since they were not important any more. He searched for secret panelling, but could find nothing. The false wall invited suspicion. He pulled it from its slot where it was housed permanently since he now used the whole room for entertaining, but no hidden cavities were revealed.

  Finally he decided that since he had left nowhere unexplored, apart from Katherine’s apartments, he would let the matter rest for the time being. Meanwhile he would write to his friend Captain Crowhurst, asking him to make enquiries at Dartmouth, at which port he always berthed for a few days on his voyages to and from the New World.

  Anne was thankful when he stopped his persistent nagging about Mary’s presence in the house, but then there came a further onslaught from him on the question of her needlework. From the first he had interfered in every aspect of it, starting by not letting her have her needlework box where she had always had it in the Queen’s Parlour, insisting that the light was better from another of the windows there. It had upset her when he had her wedding chair removed to the attics, although she had accepted his explanation that it was not seemly he should be reminded daily of his predecessor by the initials on the chair. Over and over again she had given in on what would have seemed mundane matters to him and others, but were important to her. Early on he had forbidden the embroidering of ribbons, the work she had always loved best, by pointing out it was a waste of her time since the end product could not be used in any way. She had been obliged to accept this decree and turned to other forms of embroidery, but gradually he had exerted pressure on that too.

  ‘Put that stitchery away, my dear, and read to me instead,’ was one of his ploys. At times he would want her to discuss some trivial matter with him or draw attention to a domestic affair that he thought she should investigate, or to stroll with him in the garden, whatever the weather. It was any pretext he could think of aimed at making her put away the work that was such a comfort to her in her life with him. She believed he would not give up until he had driven a wedge between her and her work for ever. It was not difficult to guess the reason. The first time he had invited her to take supper with him she had told him how she could lose herself in contented memories as she stitched. It had been a foolish confidence, for he was set against that last link she kept with the past.

  Day by day she put up with his petty tyrannies. She had always enjoyed riding, but he had forbidden that too, expressing concern that she might take a fall. When she went shopping in Chichester a certain maidservant, instead of Sarah, was always detailed to accompany her at Makepeace’s order, and she believed a full account of everything she did, and whom she met, was reported back to him. If one of her old friends called, he would hurry from wherever he was to ensure that she should not be alone with her guest, reminiscing about times past in which he had no part. She tried to find excuses for him in her own mind, aware that jealousy affected people like an illness they could not control, but it was becoming as if she could not breathe without his knowledge.

  Then the day came when she went into the Long Gallery and found that Robert’s portrait, which had been painted on his thirtieth birthday, just before their marriage, had been removed to the attics. Something seemed to snap inside her. She gathered materials for her ribbon work into a basket and went up to the attics herself. These consisted of a series of rooms that stretched the length of the house, each cluttered with discarded furniture, ancient chests, old bed-hangings and boxes of papers and receipts that probably dated back to Ned’s time. Her wedding chair and Robert’s portrait had been dumped in the first room nearest the door, showing that the servants concerned had not wanted to penetrate farther into that dark and dusty place.

  She went to the room at the far end. The window there looked down on the courtyard and she’d be able to watch out for Makepeace’s comings and goings. The panes were grimed and hung with cobwebs, which she cleaned away with an old c
ushion cover that came to hand. Then she fetched her chair, which she placed by the window. Next she took Robert’s portrait from its wrappings and hung it on a convenient nail exactly opposite where she would sit. Some of his old sailing charts were stored on a shelf there and she dusted them off after taking them down. They were hand-drawn on vellum stuck to panels of wood for easy folding. She opened them and propped them up in a semicircle at a short distance from her chair, anticipating how she would follow those past voyages with him in her thoughts. Lastly she kissed his portrait on the lips before sitting down to embroider under his keen blue gaze for almost two hours, utterly at peace.

  When she heard hooves in the courtyard heralding Makepeace’s return, she locked the door of the room after her and sped back down the stairs to the narrow corridor at the east end of the house. From there she slipped through a door into the east wing and reached the safety of her bedchamber in no more than a minute. There was some tell-tale dust and cobwebs clinging to her skirt-hems, and she decided that at the first opportunity she would clean up the section of the attics she would be using.

  Two days later this was done. Unbeknown to Julia or Mary, or to anyone else in the house, she began to slip away to the attic and embroider whenever it was possible. Sometimes when she could not sleep at night she would leave Makepeace snoring in their bed and go up there, for by now she had candles and a curtain for the window to keep the light from being seen outside. She was always back in bed well before dawn at which hour Makepeace sometimes woke.

  As he increasingly denied her the relaxation of embroidery downstairs, she felt herself becoming more exultant in the knowledge of the haven she had created for herself with Robert, away from her dominating husband. She was often forced to sit with idle hands or read a book that was never one of her own choice, for Makepeace selected editions of Puritan sermons or volumes on the principles of Puritanism in his effort to hammer into her his beliefs and intolerances. She thought how he was corrupting her instead of uplifting her, for she had turned to deceit by hiding her embroidery in the attic.

  That her secretiveness came from sheer desperation did not allow her to excuse herself in her own eyes. In atonement she put her ribbons aside for a while and made a chalice veil of finest linen. After delicately marking out what she was to embroider on it, she used silver and white silks in hem and satin stitches for the main work. In the middle of the chalice veil were the words Unto God Be Praise. Then along the border on four sides she put her own prayer. O, Lord, consider my distress. With speed erase my sin’s deface and my fault redress, Lordy for thy Great Mercy’s Sake.

  When it was finished she folded it away in a small box and put it on the shelf of an ancient cupboard in her retreat where she also stored her newly embroidered ribbons. She added to them the many rolls she had worked in happier times from boxes in what she thought of as the ‘Christmas Gift’ room, which had escaped Makepeace’s notice. Then she became like a magpie adding the bows and streamers from her gowns and those of Julia and Mary that had been discarded but never thrown away. When she remembered there were more boxes in the closet of the bedchamber she had occupied in the west wing, it was like discovering gold. By now the cupboard in the attic was full and she had to make use of a chest there. It troubled her sometimes that she was like a miser hoarding money, but it did not stop her rising from her bed at night if she remembered suddenly where another length might lie; more than once she had hurried in from the garden when she thought where several other rolls might be found. It did not occur to her that she was holding on to these symbols of love and freedom like a life-line.

  The day came when Makepeace successfully eliminated any chance she had to stitch downstairs. ‘I think you might as well put that old needlework box right away,’ he said smilingly to her. ‘You have no need of it any more.’

  ‘Whatever you wish, Makepeace,’ she said, her lashes lowered to hide the flare of exhilaration in her eyes.

  Her needlebox was thrust inside the door of the attics by a servant’s hands. That night she was up there to carry the stand and then the box to her retreat. When she sat in her wedding chair and lifted the lid she thought that if it had not been for Julia, Katherine and Mary, she would have been content to stay in her attic haven until the end of her days, never again to share a bed with Makepeace.

  *

  Makepeace was holding one of his all-male supper parties. Anne had followed her usual pattern of discussing the menu with the housekeeper before leaving everything in the woman’s capable hands; then, on the evening itself, she checked the table to see that it was all to her husband’s liking. When the wives were present he left the seating arrangements to her, but these male occasions were less formal and guests settled themselves where they pleased at the well-laden board. This meant she was able to be upstairs before they arrived and did not have to appear at all unless Makepeace asked her or Julia, sometimes both, to provide a little musical entertainment in the Queen’s Parlour when supper was over. It was to Mary’s relief that he never suggested that she form a trio with them. She was always nervous of being present in his gatherings, never forgetting there was still the chance of her being recognized by a former Roundhead officer among them.

  Anne always welcomed these gentlemen’s supper parties. It meant that she was left free to be in Katherine’s apartment, secure in the knowledge that he could not trump up some excuse to call her away. She believed half the reason for his wanting a musical interlude was to make sure she did not have too long on her own with her family and thus forget him temporarily. He had forbidden all games of chance with the exception of chess, which he considered an intellectual exercise, but this did not stop merry games of cards and dice and shove-halfpenny being played in Katherine’s parlour. The old lady was much better again and although she did not play she liked to watch and applaud the winners with gentle clapping.

  ‘Well done!’ she would exclaim.

  On this particular evening Anne and Julia had been ordered to attend Makepeace and his friends at ten o’clock. Katherine retired early enough for Sarah to see her into bed and then return to make up a foursome at the card table again for a hand of Triumph.

  In this Royalist nucleus remaining at Sotherleigh, there were no false barriers. Sarah had her duties but it was unthinkable to either Anne or Julia that such a loyal woman should not be included in the simple pleasures that passed the evening away.

  They had played two lively games when Anne suddenly noticed the clock and sprang up in alarm, it’s a quarter past ten! Fetch your lute, Julia! You and I should have been downstairs fifteen minutes ago to time our entrance to the second. We’re terribly late!’

  They hastened downstairs, checked each other’s appearance in the hall and then Anne led the way into the Queen’s Parlour, Julia following. Chairs scraped as Makepeace and his thirty guests rose to bid them good evening. Anne acknowledged their courtesies with a gracious nod left and right, but her vision was dominated by Makepeace. She could see he was extremely annoyed over her and her daughter’s tardiness. The smile with which he welcomed her was solely for the benefit of his guests. She knew she would be severely reprimanded when she was on her own with him in her bedchamber later. She feared these sessions. He always lectured her for an hour or more, making a sermon of it, and at the end she had to apologize humbly, admitting how wrong she was and how right he was in everything. She had learned early on that to voice anything else at that point was to bring a resurgence of the upbraiding, interspersed with reminders that it was entirely for her own good. During these ordeals he never varied from his fond tones, but his voice and all he said created crushing bands around her brain until she withdrew her thoughts from him in a means of escape that she was using more and more. Even when he finally fell silent all was not over. As if to make up for having had to be severe with her, he made love to her afterwards with an adoring passion to which her body frequently responded of its own volition while her mind remained shut away behind her eyes that had to
be turned on him.

  ‘Take your place at the spinet, my dear,’ he said, bowing her to it. ‘We have all been waiting impatiently for this treat that you and Julia are to give us.’

  It was a veiled barb, a hint of what was to come. She put her hands on the keyboard and saw they were shaking. As she began to play, the sweet tinkling notes had a soothing effect and she became calmer. After two pieces it would be Julia’s turn. Her opening song was to be one of Makepeace’s favourites, being in praise of the countryside, for he saw himself now as a fully fledged Sussex squire as if he had been born in the county.

  As her mother played Julia sat unobtrusively on a stool by the wall. She let her gaze travel over the middle-aged audience, noting who was there. Many of the faces were flushed with wine and she guessed that an older guest here and there would be hard put not to slip into a doze during the recital. She picked out two gentlemen a few seats apart whom she did not know. Normally Makepeace would have presented any newcomers to her mother and herself upon their entry to the Queen’s Parlour, but he had been so rattled this evening by their failure to appear on time that he had not adhered to the good manners he was accustomed to show in public. Her glance went to her stepfather. Makepeace’s doting gaze was fixed on Anne, a smugness of possession on his face as if that sensitive, lovely woman were a prize he had won through his own virtue.

  Sickened, Julia let her eyes wander back to his guests again. At least two-thirds were Puritans, but only an extremist here and there was in black or grey like Makepeace, the rest dressed in rich colours with some conservative braiding. Most wore silver-buckled shoes and several were in deep-cuffed dress boots, but only one man flaunted a pair of bucket-tops in a pale creamy leather. She could see only one of his boots and just his blue velvet-sleeved elbow, for some large gentlemen in high-backed chairs blocked her view and also prevented any clue to his identity. Unlike all the other guests and Makepeace himself, the unknown gentleman was wearing the new straight-cut breeches that flapped at mid-calf instead of the fuller, knee-length breeches such as had been worn for as long as she could remember.