Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  They made an affectionate parting, Julia turning back at the door to kiss her grandmother’s cheek once more. When the door closed after her, Katherine put a shaking hand over her eyes. She had had to speak out for there might never be another chance. It was much in her mind that despite her health rallying at the present time, there were many little signs that her days were fast running out.

  *

  Julia travelled in the Pallister coach with a Mrs Reade, the mother of one of Anne’s Chichester friends, who was seizing this unexpected chance to visit another daughter in the city of Oxford itself. The coach was to deliver Mrs Reade after leaving Julia at her destination and then go back to Sotherleigh. It would return to collect them when they were both ready to go home again at some date presently left open, neither being restricted by a time limit.

  Bletchingdon proved to be a picturesque village and the Holders’ fine rectory was set amidst trees and flower beds. Susan welcomed Julia as if she were a home-coming daughter.

  ‘I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to your visit, Julia.’

  ‘I’m so happy to be here.’

  Julia was shown to her room, which had a view of the countryside and where a maidservant waited to attend her. William had returned home when she went downstairs and he welcomed her as warmly as his wife had done.

  ‘We want to try and give back a little of the wonderful hospitality your family have shown to Christopher in the past,’ he said to her. ‘But that would take many years to fulfil and so we must do our best with as much time as you can spare us.’

  She thought them a most kind and friendly couple. William’s stiff and scholarly appearance was no doubt daunting to Cambridge undergraduates at such times as he lectured at their University, but he had a broad smile that lightened his whole face. As for Susan, she was plump and charming with a birdlike way of holding her head that reminded Julia of Christopher.

  From the first evening Julia was drawn into many enjoyable occasions. There was little Puritan element in Bletchingdon, for together with Oxford this area had been staunchly Royalist.

  The Parliamentarians who lived in the village were like William in having nothing against people enjoying themselves. The law imposed restrictions here as elsewhere in the land, but if private parties were merrier, games more lively and company less abstemious than Cromwell would have allowed, nobody reported a neighbour, not even when the floor was cleared for the forbidden dancing.

  Julia soon learned more of the general restlessness that was pervading the country. She had heard rumours at home, seen news-sheets that wrote of the crushing of subversive activities, but through conversation with William and hearing general talk she realized the full extent of the unrest. Much of the trouble came from ordinary folk resenting the restrictions and curtailment of the old customs; moreover, promises made to countrymen that they should own their own acres when the King was defeated had not been kept; many other workers had found themselves in bad straits through the changed conditions due in some cases to the banning of certain luxury trades, and payment to the army and navy was in arrears. At the outbreak of the Civil War there had been innumerable citizens uncertain whether to support King or Parliament, and many who had chosen the latter were becoming steadily convinced they had made a mistake. Pockets of Royalist activists, who had never given up the struggle, were working on the discontent and flare-ups that were continually occurring. To Julia this information was like a breath of hope.

  She had become a frequent visitor to the house of Sir Thomas and Lady Coghill, having struck up a friendship at first meeting with their daughter, Faith. Susan was delighted this should have happened although, as she remarked to her husband, no two girls could be less alike in looks or temperament. Julia’s beauty was flamelike, sparkling and volatile, whereas Faith was reserved and composed, and considered plain by many. Her pale oval face verged on thinness, the brow high with soft, straw-brown hair growing back from a peak, the eyes green and wide-set, with a longish nose and a small chin. She responded to Julia’s warmth and gained confidence in her company, while Julia admired Faith’s quiet wisdom and dry wit.

  ‘I wish you had come to Bletchingdon long ago,’ Faith said one morning when they were returning on foot from a shopping expedition in the village. Neither wore capes for the day was warm. ‘Mrs Holder told my mother she is willing that you should stay permanently if it suits you.’

  ‘That’s because she knows from my mother’s letters that Makepeace and I do not get on together.’ Julia had never had a close friend other than Mary, who was seven years older, and it was natural that Faith should have become her confidante. Nobody in Bletchingdon except Faith knew of Makepeace’s threat. ‘I wouldn’t want to stay away from my family too long, even if Makepeace is there. As I told you, my mother urged me to attempt a new beginning with him when I return and I shall try for her sake. I’ve already accepted that he has the right to ask whomever he likes to the house, even Adam Warrender.’ She sighed. ‘What worries me most now is having discovered from Dr Holder that Makepeace’s own hand signed King Charles’s death warrant. Walker is such an ordinary name, I never made the connection. And in any case it happened when I was seven and that terrible event isn’t anything people like to talk about.’

  ‘Your mother must have known.’

  ‘I expect she did. That makes her sacrifice in marrying Makepeace all the greater. Somehow she had come to terms with it. If only the clock could be turned back to the day of King Charles’s trial and matters arranged as Dr Holder and others like him wished them to be. It would have been so simple. Exile for the King and a reformed monarchy for his successor. Then Charles the Second would be reigning in London now instead of trying to raise an army abroad and Michael would be Master of Sotherleigh.’

  Faith put a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t go back to Sussex except on visits. Let’s you and me choose a husband out of this district and then we can be friends and neighbours for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘But I’ve never doubted that I’ll see our present King ride by one day in London,’ Julia answered absently, ‘I’m going to live in a house there that Christopher will design for me.’

  Faith looked puzzled. ‘How could that be? He’s not an architect, but an astronomer and a mathematician first and foremost.’

  Julia laughed awkwardly. ‘I really don’t know why I said that. It was something Christopher promised me years ago when I was still a child. It suddenly came back to me.’

  ‘I suppose you and I have known him about the same length of time,’ Faith said meditatively. They proceeded to work it out together and discovered there was little difference in how long each had thought of him as a friend. It did not occur to either that the other might have a special reason for cherishing the bond of time. Julia wanted no-one, not even Faith, to know of her love for him, which now seemed under threat. As for Faith, she loved him without the least hope that he would ever look at her with more than a mild and polite interest in his eyes.

  Julia had been two months at Bletchingdon when Christopher returned to Oxford and then came home. He was to arrive in the early evening and Susan planned a supper party with many of his local friends. Faith and her parents among them. Julia was still hesitating before her bedchamber mirror when Faith arrived and joined her there.

  ‘Why aren’t you downstairs and waiting?’ Faith wanted to know. ‘Christopher will be looking for you when he arrives.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he will.’ Now that the time had come Julia was nervous, longing to see him again but with none of the wild joy she had previously experienced at his coming. She had had plenty of time to mull over her talk with her grandmother, and rising against the romantic in her was her own acceptance that in her relationship with Christopher the love had always been heavily on her side. She gave a start as a chorus of greetings floated up from downstairs.

  ‘He’s here!’ Faith clasped her hands excitedly together. ‘Do come now, Julia. You look lovely in
your new gown.’

  She led the way hurriedly to the head of the stairs and waited for Julia to catch up with her in order that they might go down together. As Julia reached her friend she looked down into the hall where Christopher was in the centre of the gathering, smiling and greeting everyone in turn. Her heart seemed to somersault with love. Then, as she and Faith set off down the stairs, he looked sharply up over his shoulder and saw them. His smiling mouth spread still wider into a merry grin.

  He went to the foot of the flight. His gaze had been drawn first to Julia, gloriously beautiful in amber silk with ribbons in her hair. Then his eyes switched to Faith and lingered on her. No ribbons, but pale green taffeta the colour of her eyes and there was a cool yet glowing look about her. He realized that Julia’s vivid loveliness was highlighting Faith’s serenity of expression and the quality of stillness that hung like an aura about her even in these crowded surroundings. The astronomer in him compared the two girls to the sun and the moon, one no less beautiful than the other. He greeted them from the foot of the flight, throwing his arms wide.

  ‘Julia! Faith! Now my home-coming is complete!’

  Everybody laughed and applauded, the mood for the evening set. Julia, gaining confidence again, swept down to meet him and Faith followed slowly.

  After supper, when he was dancing a slow Courante with Julia, he looked across at Faith, who sat conversing with a trio of older women. The glow had gone from her as with an eclipse of the moon to which he had compared her, and she was once again the quiet, unassuming girl with the shy presence. Yet none knew better than he that the moon never lost its radiance, even when it could not be seen. Then Julia spoke to him and once again he forgot everything else.

  Next morning he drew Julia out to a seat in the garden where they could talk undisturbed. There was the same fierce tug on his senses in being near her as there had been in the maze. For a long while after that encounter, thoughts of her had come between him and his work. In spite of his determination not to be similarly affected this time he feared that resolve was lost.

  ‘Now tell me,’ he said, keeping to the purpose of bringing her out of the house, ‘how were things at Sotherleigh when you left and what news of your mother and grandmother since?’

  She told him everything except Makepeace’s threat to marry her off by his will and not hers. Knowing Christopher for the man he was, she was certain that his sense of duty would compel him to step in and offer for her, but that was not what she wanted. If they had been back in the maze, she would have had no compunction in using any means in her power to become his wife, but she was no longer an impulsive girl trying to make everything go her way. If he wanted her he must take his own steps to win her. It was what she yearned for above all else and it would be the hardest task she had ever faced just to wait and see.

  ‘It’s a sorry case,’ he said when she had concluded her account of all that had taken place. ‘But do you remember my telling you once that no regime lasts for ever? I can see the present rule cracking like ice in the spring. Cromwell goes daily in fear of assassination. I have heard that he sleeps in a different place every night. Those at Westminster are well aware of the increasing unrest in the country. The day may not be far distant when Sotherleigh is in Pallister hands again.’

  ‘If only that could be,’ she breathed, cheered by his words.

  On another day, when they were at a picnic in the company of others, their talk turned to Oxford. ‘I would like you to see that ancient seat of learning while you are here at Bletchingdon,’ he said, lounging back on the grass beside her. ‘I’d show you round the whole university.’

  ‘I should like that so much.’ Her face was eager. ‘Would you allow me to look at the stars through the telescope you invented?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I’ll leave the matter in Susan’s hands and she shall bring you at the first opportunity.’

  Throughout the rest of his stay she revelled in being with him. It filled her with bliss just to see him at the table at breakfast time or when she caught his smile across the room when they were being entertained by the Coghills and other hospitable people. In readiness for her visit to Oxford he agreed to show her some of the many early drawings and diagrams of his experiments and inventions that he kept stored in his room at the rectory. At a convenient hour he brought out two files and set them on a table for her to leaf through in turn. What struck her immediately was that his detailed drawings were works of art in themselves. There was one of a left hand drawn palm up which she recognized as his own. With numbers and lists it demonstrated the sign language he had invented for the deaf and dumb.

  ‘Would it be difficult to learn?’ she asked wonderingly.

  ‘Not at all. It could be mastered in an hour.’ He leaned close to her as he pointed out how each finger and the thumbs played a part.

  ‘Please teach me. At least Mary could hear when she couldn’t speak, but I have met others who have been born deaf and have been laboriously taught some speech and to read. With them I could communicate with your sign language.’

  ‘You shall learn it this very day.’

  She turned over the drawing of the hand and studied all the rest in turn. There were precise anatomical drawings. Some showed the injection of blood into human beings; these would have made her turn squeamishly away if he had not pointed out how beneficial it could be in the field of medicine. On a similar category was his drawing of an artificial eye, which could relieve many who had lost an eye in battle or by other means. There were diagrams of instruments for grinding glass, illustrations of the lenses of telescopes, and other inventions for pneumatic engines, embroidering by machine, a variety of musical instruments and a weather wheel. He told her that some of his inventions had been put to use over the years while others were still only working models. His years in London as a boy seeing ships on the Thames had borne fruit in an invention for strengthening the hulls of ships of war and many ingenious aids for those at sea, such as a new and better way of reckoning time-away-longitude, how to stay long under the surface, submarine navigation and much more.

  Diagram after diagram was turned over. Then she came to one showing the mechanism of an unusual loom. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s an idea of mine that would enable several lengths of ribbon to be woven at the same time instead of singly as they are now.’

  ‘My mother would like to see this.’

  He promptly picked it up and rolled it up. ‘You shall have it to show her when you go home.’

  The final papers in the first file composed a small section on astronomy. He explained that almost all his work on that subject was at the University, but she was able to see at a glance that her study of the little book on the subject, given her by Mary, was laughable in comparison to this mathematical approach to the galaxies. It was almost a relief when she turned to the second file, which was devoted to strength and beauty in buildings, much of it dealing with new materials. She would gladly have framed any one of the sections of houses illustrated, the porches and cornerstones and suchlike, as a true artist’s work. He explained several things about it all before they reached the end of the file.

  ‘Now I’ve seen for myself that you will be well prepared when it comes to building the London house for me one day,’ she said teasingly.

  He grinned widely. ‘Build? I thought I only said I would design it.’

  ‘Ah! But you surely would have to see that the builders had the benefit of all your knowledge in erecting such a fine residence.’

  ‘I suppose I should do that,’ he agreed.

  Throughout his time at home he did not kiss her, but at the moment of parting his eyes went to her lips as if it were hard to restrain himself. Yet the moment passed, other people being present, and she felt bereft when he was gone. The matter of her visiting Oxford had been left in Susan’s hands, so she did not have a definite date to which she could look forward to seeing him again.

  The summer rolled on, one warm day following anot
her like breakers on a seashore. Susan had so many engagements and pastoral duties as the wife of the Rector that it never seemed convenient to go to Oxford. Then one afternoon when Julia returned from a walk with the rectory dogs, Susan met her in the hall, her very serious expression filling Julia with sudden alarm. ‘Have you heard from Sotherleigh, Mrs Holder? Has anything — ?’

  ‘Calm yourself, my dear. All is well there. An hour ago I received a letter from Anne, which you shall read and to which your grandmother has herself added a few shakily written words. There is something else for which I have to prepare you.’ There was a moment’s pause. ‘A young man, who graduated at Cambridge while my husband was still lecturing there, has come to see you all the way from your neighbourhood in Sussex. He is Adam Warrender.’

  Julia drew back, her face hardening. ‘He and I have nothing to say to each other.’

  ‘Forgive me, but I think you have. William and I have been talking with him for an hour. Nobody could regret more than he that moment of conflict in which your father was fatally shot.’

  ‘I don’t lay that at his door. It’s all he represents and there’s something about the sequestration of Sotherleigh that I haven’t told you.’

  ‘Do you hold him responsible for that?’ Susan asked perceptively. Then, when Julia made no reply, she gave a firm nod. ‘If that is what you think it would be better to bring the matter out into the open with him and hear what he has to say. How do you imagine that William and I could have stayed in harmony with each other if he had stuck stubbornly to his Parliamentary views without discussing anything with me or I did likewise with my Royalist loyalties? War could have split us asunder for ever, but we bridged the gap with understanding.’

  ‘That was different. You and William were married.’ She made for the stairs, but Susan’s next words halted her, sending a chill down her spine.

  ‘As you and Adam might well be. He has offered for you and Makepeace has agreed.’