Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  ‘For the present time we are continuing to live with Monsieur Brissard. He has a large house that was once part of an old palace and until I can bring Sophie to Sotherleigh that is where we shall remain.’

  Nothing in his face or voice gave the least indication that this arrangement was not entirely to his liking, yet with the high-pitched sensitivity of a woman in love she knew instinctively that she had come close to touching a raw nerve in him. Perhaps Sophie was so used to luxurious surroundings that she would not move into a small place such as he could presently give her and must wait for the grandeur of an English mansion. Yet she herself would have lived in a garret or a cellar with him and thought it paradise.

  Suddenly she knew she hated this Frenchwoman who had not given him all he deserved. Just because she was quiet by nature did not mean she was submissive like Anne, or that her feelings did not run as deep as Julia’s. At the news of Michael’s marriage she had lain on her bed and privately writhed with jealousy, making no sound, the old habit of silence having returned to her in her stress, and she had wept oceans of soundless tears. Yet then his wife had been totally unknown to her and in the midst of her despair she had wanted only that Michael should be loved as she had loved him since he had first taken care of her long ago. Now that she had seen the miniature, Sophie had a face, one that was cool and calculating behind a mask of beauty, no heart to the eyes, no smile to the lips. Such a loathing of the shallow creature welled up in her that she feared she might suddenly cry out with rage and frustration.

  She pulled herself together as she saw he was looking at her with a worried frown. ‘There’s something I have to ask you. How long has my mother been wandering about at night?’

  ‘What do you mean? I know nothing of it.’

  ‘I met her coming down from the attic. She told me it had become her habit to move about the house when she can’t sleep.’

  Mary was astonished. ‘I did not know she ever went near the attic by night or day. At least not since the time when we thought we should have to move and I went up there with her to see if there was anything we could take with us.’

  ‘Do you think she is well?’

  Mary thought carefully. ‘Yes. I have noticed she is often completely withdrawn in Makepeace’s presence unless he happens to be speaking to her. It’s as if she has slipped far away. Where once she was always busy with her embroidery she never touches it now. It’s as if she had become like the lady in the children’s rhyme that lived on strawberries and cream and sat all day on a cushion sewing a fine seam, except that in her case her hands are idle in her lap.’

  ‘She sounds desperately unhappy to me.’

  ‘I fear she is, but she keeps it to herself. Partly it’s to spare the rest of us worry about her, but also because Makepeace is her husband now and she shows him the respect that is expected of a wife, no matter how much she may be suffering privately.’ Then she repeated what Julia had said during a similar discussion. ‘I think Makepeace is a detestable man, but he does care for her and at times is quite insanely jealous of anyone who takes her attention from him.’

  ‘Perhaps she regains a sense of freedom when she goes about the house by night,’ he suggested meditatively.

  ‘Yes, I should think that is the case,’ she agreed. ‘But now it is time you went down to the underground chamber. Take a pitcher of water with you while I get some bedclothes and follow in a minute.’

  When she had taken an armful of bedding from a cupboard, she paused for a moment and laid her cheek against the sheet on which he would soon be resting, his powerful limbs sprawled, his eyes closed in sleep. A tremor of long-pent-up desire went through her. Then she straightened her shoulders and composed herself as, carefully watching and listening to be sure she was not observed, she made her way down to the Queen’s Door.

  He had lit candles in the underground chamber and came to take the load of bedclothes from her, but she held them back. ‘These are not heavy. Tell me more about France while I make up the bed. You’ve mentioned Lyon in your letters. What is it like there?’

  He told her how the silk-weavers worked in their humble homes that were adapted with lowered floors to take the height of the looms, and how whole families worked together as a unit in producing their quota for the merchants, who sold it to buyers who came from all over France and beyond to buy, himself among them.

  She listened dreamily, more to the sound of his beloved voice than to what he was saying, although images passed through her mind’s eye of the clanking looms and the little children crouched beneath to mend the broken threads. She gave a last smoothing touch to the fold of the top sheet and then turned to find him holding a glorious length of silk threaded with silver across his arm.

  ‘This is Lyonnaise silk. I brought a length for each of you at Sotherleigh. Julia received hers when I saw her at Oxford. It seemed to me that this would suit your fair colouring. I have learned such things since I entered the silk-trade.’

  She came slowly across, her robe and nightgown billowing lightly, and then fingered the soft silk. Her face was radiant. ‘For me? Oh, Michael!’

  He draped one end of it over her shoulder and they both turned to the mirror on the wall for her to see her reflection. The neckline of her nightgown was low-cut, her robe only tied at the waist, and the silk gleamed against her skin. She was as speechless as if once again her voice had deserted her.

  It did not matter that he had brought for the others too. This had been his personal choice for her. His gift for her alone.

  ‘You like it?’ he asked her. His gaze had lowered to her cleavage. The bouquet of sleep from which she had been awakened still hung about her, a feminine fragrance of warm flesh and hidden places. He felt dangerously stirred, his feelings for her rising rapidly.

  It was at that moment she looked up over her shoulder into his face and saw in his eyes what the distorted glass of the old mirror had not revealed. The words of thanks for the silk faded from her lips. She turned towards him and put up her hand to the side of his face, raising herself on tip-toe to kiss his mouth.

  Instantly his arms were about her, passion flaring up between them. The silk slipped unnoticed to the floor. The hunger of his mouth met what he wanted from hers, her response unrestrained, giving and utterly loving. Their need for each other overwhelmed them. They moved simultaneously to the bed, he pulling her robe and nightgown from her on the way and then tearing off his own clothes and throwing them aside.

  They churned the bed into furrows and she climaxed again and again as if her body, released at last from its long-held virginity, had become insatiable for love. When at last they lay still, all verbal sounds silence, they looked at each other in a kind of wonder.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered. Why should she hold back this confession when she had been totally uninhibited about everything else that had taken place between them? ‘I’ve loved you ever since the day you brought me to Sotherleigh and I was suddenly terrified when you went from the room, leaving me alone with Anne and Sarah.’

  ‘I know now that I should never have left you at any time,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘Circumstances were both for and against us. We met and then because of that same meeting you had to go alone to France.’

  ‘Now we have met again and history is about to repeat itself.’ His voice was hoarse with regret and he put an arm about her waist to draw her to him and kiss her again.

  After they had made love once more he slept, and she slipped from the bed to re-don her nightgown and robe. Then she tidied up the tell-tale scatter of his clothes and piled them neatly on a chair. Pausing only to kiss his closed eyelids, she left the underground room. She had to use extreme caution in getting upstairs without being seen, because it was eight o’clock and Makepeace as well as the servants would be about, breakfast being at a quarter past the hour. Twice she had to dodge into doorways until she was in the west wing where fortunately she met nobody. Never before had she bathed and dressed and arranged her h
air with such speed. Even then she arrived five minutes late at the table and Makepeace glared his displeasure.

  ‘If you wish to stay in my house,’ he said with emphasis, ‘you will not come late to this board.’

  Anne glanced at her in sympathy at the barked command and then looked down at her plate again. She had noted with increasing anxiety how he never missed an opportunity to let Mary know that she was at Sotherleigh on sufferance. It was apparent that if the right excuse came his way he would banish her immediately.

  That day Michael saw Katherine. She had been told of his coming and her cheeks were pink with anticipation. He went to her apartment at an afternoon hour when Makepeace was out and the servants were gathered in the kitchen regions, their earlier duties done. Her reunion with her grandson was a tonic to her. In addition, she was delighted with the prospect of a new gown out of the length of ruby silk he had brought her. She was animated and talkative, having much that she had long wanted to discuss with him about Sotherleigh and what he should do when it was his once more.

  ‘The day will come when the King is home again and all the trespassing Parliamentarians like Makepeace compelled to surrender their ill-gotten gains.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Grandmother. We just have to be patient.’

  ‘I fear that virtue does not run in Pallister veins. We want what is our due without delay when we know it is our right.’

  ‘I agree with you there.’ There was a wry note in his voice that she did not quite catch.

  That night Mary came to his bed at midnight and left before the servants were about next morning. He postponed his departure yet another day, not knowing how to leave Mary with her loving heart and body. When they made love her little sighs afterwards were of sheer contentment and not of relief that it was over as his wife never failed to utter. No rigid submission from Mary, no distaste for a man’s body with averted gaze, but a passionate eagerness and a demonstrative glorying in his strength and prowess.

  Yet he had to go. His danger increased with every hour he lingered. Anne, much as it meant to her to see her son during the day hours, innocently implored him to depart, imagining it was for her sake and Katherine’s that he was staying on. Finally he told her the predominant reason.

  ‘I’m in love with Mary. I’ve made the greatest mistake of my life in marrying someone else, but I have to live with the consequences.’

  It was typical of Anne that she should feel compassion equally for the three people involved in this unhappy triangle. ‘Yes, you must, Michael. You have hurt Sophie whether she should ever know it or not, as much as Mary. I shall do what I can for Mary while you try to make amends with your wife.’ Her eyes were full of pity. ‘Leave today, Michael. When you return with the King and bring your wife with you, I know Mary will want to be far from Sotherleigh.’

  ‘I fear she will, but the loss will be mine.’

  That night he and Mary made love for the last time. They knew they were parting for ever. He could not hope to be sent to England on a royal mission again. His role as a French merchant had worked once, but a second time might stir suspicion with fatal results, as had befallen the spy before him. Should he ever return as master of Sotherleigh, Sophie would be with him.

  In the early hours of the morning he made ready to depart.

  He put his arms about Mary as they went along the subterranean passage and up into the maze. They had agreed they should say their farewells there. The gardener would be waiting by the side gate with Michael’s horse and she did not want their final words overheard by anyone else.

  ‘I’ll remember these hours we have had together until the end of my days,’ she said softly, her eyes searching his face in the glow from the lantern that he had set down on the octagonal seat.

  He realized she was memorizing his face anew in these last seconds and he held her close to him. ‘Nothing will ever be the same for me, my dearest. I should have realized it was not mere chance that I took you from the gallows that day. Fate had given me the woman who should have been my wife and I failed to realize it until I saw you again.’

  ‘I’m going to be thankful for what we have had. If you hadn’t risked your life in coming to England, even that time would have been lost to us.’

  ‘I love you,’ he murmured in the need to tell her once more, and he kissed her with a fierceness born of his despair at losing her. Then he broke away to disappear through the south archway into the path that would take him from the maze.

  She picked up the lantern and stayed above ground until she could be sure that he had left the park and was galloping for the coast.

  *

  By the following February Richard Cromwell, a worthy man in his own way, less Puritanical than his father, had shown himself to be a weak leader and had made enemies across wide sections of the populace for a variety of reasons. As a result he had been nicknamed Tumbledown Dick.

  Julia was abreast with all that was happening through the intellectual and political talk that prevailed at Bletchingdon rectory. It was suspected that certain powerful army officers at Westminster were more attracted to taking control for themselves than considering a return of the monarchy as an alternative to Richard’s government. There were also some men, according to William, who were secret Royalists in that same government, and thus it was possible the King had more friends than he knew to counteract that danger.

  Interested though Julia was in all she heard, looking for hope wherever it showed itself, her thoughts were never far from Sotherleigh and had become directed recently with increasing anxiety towards her mother, from whom she had not heard since shortly before Christmas. Then Anne had insisted she remain at Bletchingdon. Much as she longed to see those dear to her at Sotherleigh, she had been glad to stay on with the Holders. Christopher had come for Christmas Day and made other occasional visits. Everything was still the same between them, his affection for her noticeable, his glances ever on her. He saw for himself that she had plenty of local young men eager to hold her hand and dance with her, or to have a seat next to her at table and offer to accompany her on walks, but if he was jealous he was too sophisticated and mannerly to show it. She told herself he was so sure of her he knew he had no cause for anxiety while others courted her. At times when he did exchange a restrained kiss with her in a game or a dance, or in rare, delicious moments on their own, she sensed the desire vibrating in him. More than once Adam’s vow of what he would have done in Christopher’s place returned to her, making her wish that the man she loved would set aside honour to hold her as she wished to be held, wildly and in total abandonment. Then she despaired of her own wayward yearnings.

  Although Christopher had left Gresham College, he returned once a week to give lectures on light and refraction there. He was at Bletchingdon on the eve of one of these London visits when Julia received a letter from Mary. He saw her look of pleasure at hearing from home fade with her colour as she began to read.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked, going to her.

  She looked at him with frightened eyes. ‘My mother is not well. She is three months on the way to having a baby. I must go home. Now! Today!’

  ‘I’ll get two horses saddled up. It’s late in the day to start for you, but we’ll ride until dusk and start off again at dawn. We’ll be at Sotherleigh tomorrow.’

  When Susan heard what was happening, she insisted that the maid who had been attending Julia should go with them. It was not that she doubted Christopher in any way, but convention demanded a chaperone. ‘Keep Phoebe with you at Sotherleigh if you wish. I can spare her and as you have no maid of your own there she would fill the gap.’

  ‘That’s most kind of you, but it all depends on my stepfather.’

  Susan stood at the gate of the rectory and waved the three riders out of sight. It concerned her to think of Anne pregnant at the age of forty-four.

  When the journey ended at the steps of Sotherleigh, Julia did not wait for assistance to dismount and went running into the hou
se. Makepeace stood at the foot of the Grand Staircase, his scowling expression showing it did not please him to see her again. She remembered Anne’s wish that she should make a new beginning with him whenever she should return home and she would try to keep to that.

  ‘Good day, Stepfather. I’ve come home to care for my mother in her pregnancy. Where is she?’

  ‘Resting,’ he said coldly. ‘She can’t be disturbed now.’

  ‘I should like to see her without delay since I’ve been told she is not well.’

  ‘I’ve said that you must wait. Have you learned nothing of obedience to your elders in your absence?’ Then he looked beyond her to the doorway. ‘Who is this?’

  She presented Christopher, who had entered after her, Phoebe behind him. The change in Makepeace’s attitude was remarkable. He was smiling and benign as he went forward to greet Christopher, unaware that he immediately said the wrong thing. ‘The famous Mr Wren! What an honour to meet you, sir. Praise of your marvellous inventions is to be heard everywhere. I read a paper only recently on your approach to navigation through mathematics, science and astronomy. Brilliant!’

  ‘I am only one of many seeking to find a means of establishing longitude accurately at sea,’ Christopher replied. ‘There are others far more advanced than I. But I’m afraid I have no time to stay and tell you of them. I should like to see Mrs Walker before I leave, although I think I heard you say she was resting.’

  ‘But she is not asleep. I will escort you to her myself and you must at least take something to sustain you before you go again.’

  ‘Perhaps Julia and I could share some refreshment with your wife when we sit with her for a little while?’

  Julia noted Makepeace’s thinly disguised annoyance at having to grant her admission to her mother’s room through the wishes of this eminent man, but he led the way. She gave her cape to Phoebe and told her to ask the footman on duty at the door to direct her to Sarah. Then she hastened on up the stairs in the wake of Makepeace and Christopher. Dearest Sotherleigh! She was home again.