Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  Deeply moved, Julia slowly walked across to lift the lid of the needlework box. Within all was as neat and tidy as it had ever been. She took up a half-completed ribbon with an embroidered design of May-blossom.

  ‘This is where Mama found solace,’ she said huskily. ‘No wonder she wandered up here at night. It was the only place where she could sit and embroider.’

  She went to the tall cupboard and pulled on one of the two central brass handles. It did not respond and she jerked it harder, causing the cupboard to sway slightly. Immediately both cupboard doors flew open, releasing a cascade of stacked-high rolls of multi-coloured ribbons. They unwound and whirled and rolled out and rippled about her, in the air and over her head, finally coming to rest in ankle-deep mounds at her feet, the thousands of tiny embroidered flowers lying like a meadow of wild blooms. With a sharp intake of breath, she stooped to gather up an armful and hold them close to her as if she embraced the woman who had put them there.

  Mary moved swiftly to the nearest chest. ‘There’s more!’ she exclaimed, flicking back a piece of protective linen and looking down at the tightly packed ribbon rolls that filled the chest completely. Julia, unaware that one of the falling ribbons had come to rest on her head and trailed down her back, others on her shoulders and dangling from her arms, went to raise other lids. None of the containers were empty. All were full.

  Julia gazed wonderingly. ‘There must be many, many years of work here. I know Mama used a great deal on our clothes and gave away some as presents, but that could not account for one-tenth of what is hoarded here. Now I remember Katherine used to say Mama embroidered as a shield against her anxiety ever since my father first joined the late King at Nottingham, and then later up here it was her way of blocking out her unhappiness with that wretched Makepeace.’ She was silent for a moment, her eyes moist; then she raised her head and said tremulously, ‘She has given me the means to restore Michael’s fortune in some small way and earn a living at the same time. We’ll be ribbon-makers, Mary! Not making the ordinary, every-day kind that will soon be commonplace again, but the rich and expensive and beautifully worked like these!’ She pulled two at random from the bunch she still cradled. One shimmered with a galaxy of moons and stars in silver thread, the other had bunches of lilies-of-the-valley tied with love knots.

  ‘I agree it’s a splendid idea.’ Mary was reluctant to cast a damper on the plan. ‘But neither you nor I could ever work with your mother’s special speed with the needle. Those patterns seem to grow by their own volition from under her hand.’

  ‘That pace is not so essential if I have a host of embroiderers carrying out these designs at the same time. I’ll have cottage workers! The employment will be welcome in the village. I’ll supply the ribbons and silks and keep to the Pallister tradition of a fair remuneration. Mama won’t mind my selling these for a start, I know. She has always liked others to enjoy her handiwork.’

  Mary was won over. There were women in the village who did the most fanciful smocking on their men’s and children’s linen smocks and their clever fingers would make the transition to the more delicate ribbons without any difficulty. As for herself, she loved to embroider and it was work she could do while keeping a constant eye on Patience. ‘Where will you sell the finished ribbons?’

  ‘In London! There’s a market waiting there like a huge whale ready to gulp up whatever I fling to it.’ She began to pace up and down, hugging the ribbons closer as she worked out details. ‘I’ll have to approach shops and secure orders. The shopkeepers will be mad to get hold of these only days before the King’s arrival.’

  ‘You’d go to London ahead of that day?’

  ‘Yes!’ She twirled around twice like a top in her growing excitement, making her skirts swing out and her ribbons flutter. ‘We’ll go together and take boxes of these ribbons with us.’ She became quiet and serious again. ‘Mama has often duplicated many of her favourite patterns — there are plenty of examples of that here. I shall save a roll of every one of her designs and those will never be sold. I’ll keep them for my children and all my descendants to let them see what a treasury of stitches was once created by Anne Pallister!’

  As soon as they had left the attic Julia resummoned the manservant. He fetched her father’s portrait and she saw it rehung beside Anne’s in the Long Gallery. Then he and one of his fellows brought the marriage chair and the needlework box to the Queen’s Parlour. Julia made sure they were in exactly the same places as they had been in the past and then she went upstairs to the nursery where she knew she would find her mother at this hour.

  Anne was tucking a sleepy little Patience into bed. It was something that she never allowed anyone else to do unless there was a special reason. Quickly she put a finger to her lips to warn Julia to make no noise. Then together they went quietly from the room.

  ‘I have a little surprise for you, Mama. Your marriage chair and needlework box are back in the Queen’s Parlour.’

  Anne gave a delighted exclamation. ‘I wondered where they were!’

  She rushed ahead down the stairs, Julia in her wake. In the Queen’s Parlour Anne went quickly to sit in the chair, putting her hands over the ends of the chair-arms and leaning back blissfully against its cushions. ‘I can always feel your father’s arms around me when I sit here.’

  Then she sighed with pleasure as she lifted the lid of her needlework box and looked at everything lying neatly within. There were her silks in all shades wound on to mother-of-pearl crosses and squares and snowflake shapes. Beside her needle-case was the wax and bristle for beadwork, her gold thimble inscribed with words of love that Robert had given her and another of silver that twisted off the top of a little powder shaker for keeping the hands smooth and dry for metal embroidery. She stroked everything in reunion, smiling over her three pairs of scissors in varying sizes, her scarlet velvet pincushion. She could have been greeting beloved friends. Lastly she picked up a roll of ribbon, only half of which was embroidered and mused over it thoughtfully. It was her habit to complete a leaf, or petal, or stem, before putting her work away, but for the first time that she could recall the last motif to be stitched had not been finished.

  ‘I had to leave this because I suddenly realized it was dawn.’ She spoke in a faraway voice.

  Julia crouched by the chair, looking up into her mother’s face. ‘Did you embroider every night?’

  Her daughter’s voice drew Anne back to the present and her air of faint bewilderment vanished as she laughed. ‘I’ve given myself away, haven’t I? When I can’t sleep in that wide bed with your father away, I do get up sometimes and come down here to stitch for a little while and calm my restlessness.’ Already she had forgotten that her chair and needlework box had only just been regained.

  ‘There are hundreds of yards of lovely ribbons in this house, Mama. I’ve come across a great store of them. Would you mind if they were sold? We need funds for Sotherleigh and I want to make money for Michael by starting a ribbon business.’

  ‘What a splendid idea! I said to your grandmother that Michael’s fortune must not be touched.’ Unknowingly she had come close to the present again. ‘May I help?’

  ‘I should be delighted if you would. Nobody in the world can embroider ribbons like you. It means I shall be going to London to sell them. Prices will be higher there.’

  Anne put both hands on Julia’s shoulders. ‘Go whenever you wish, but please don’t ask me to go too. I went to London once years ago with your father and it was far too noisy and busy a place for me.’

  Julia smiled. ‘Just embroider for me whenever the will takes you. You need never leave Sotherleigh again.’

  Before the day ended she despatched a letter to Christopher with a request that he should find accommodation for Mary and her in London for their stay. He was back at Gresham College for his weekly lectures after a break when it had been used as a barracks for General Monck’s soldiers. He had told Julia what a pleasure it was that his circle of old friends from his
undergraduate days, all renowned names now in the sciences, gathered at the college each week after his lectures to resume their hours of discussion on all that was happening in their particular researches. She knew that if anyone could get hostelry rooms in London it would be Christopher, for otherwise everything would be fully booked for the royal event before she could get there.

  On her way to bed she took a candle into the Long Gallery to see again the King’s profile. Encircled by its laurel wreath it shone like a white medallion set amid the ornate plasterwork of the wall. Its pristine condition was evidence of the good work Ridley had done in both covering it and uncovering it. Gazing at it, she remembered that she had been a child when it vanished from sight and now she was eighteen. Similarly, Charles II, whom she had seen that fateful day drinking ale at the George and Dragon while fleeing from his enemies, had left England as a young man and would be coming into his own at last on the very day he was thirty years old.

  Mary volunteered to do the sorting and measuring and listing of the attic store of ribbons, which had now been brought downstairs to the old gift-making room. Julia checked on the chest of sewing supplies that had always been kept well stocked. There was enough there to keep workers supplied for quite a while, but she would have to start replenishing without too much delay.

  She was interested to find that Makepeace had locked the chest of fine fabrics at some time and removed the key, but it was a simple lock and she soon found another to fit it. The fabrics were sumptuous and there would be fine gowns for her mother and Mary as well as herself whenever the occasion arose. If there should be any chance of getting to Court to display ribbons at any time she would not lack the right garment.

  That same day she began a round of the village. Women welcomed her in, the older ones having known her mother’s kindness to the sick in their households and generosity when times were bad, while the grandmothers had been similarly cared for by Katherine in days gone by. To the younger wives she had already proved herself by readjusting the rents. She met at least one willing needlewoman in each cottage and in fortunate cases as many as three or four where there were daughters of a grown age. She stipulated two rules: the work must be of a high standard and it must be done with spotless hands and with clean aprons and white cloths over a scrubbed table to protect the ribbons from getting soiled. Many of the cottages were dirty, but she understood the problems where the place seemed to be swarming with children and tired men clumping in from the fields and farm-yards with soiled clothes and muddy boots. For those lacking a corner that could be kept spotless and free of cooking smells, she said there would be a room in the house in Briar Lane where they could gather. She saw by their faces that this would be a great pleasure to them, a chance to leave the children with grandmothers and escape for a while to enjoy the fine needlework and a gossip with neighbours.

  The next day she returned to inspect the places where those working at home would sit at their embroidery. They had tried hard to get everything right and had an example of a single flower to show her, executed from a design and silk thread and scrap of ribbon she had left with each one. Some of the work was splendidly done, but the rest had to be weeded out. Since most country women knew how to spin and weave, she let those whose sewing was below standard try their hand at her mother’s little ribbon loom. Anne had rarely used it in latter years, but had kept it in store. Here many of the women came into their own, happy to be at familiar work and undeterred by its being on a small scale, with finer thread to warp and weave than the linen and wool they wove for hard-working garments and household necessities. It would be much cheaper to have her own weavers and before leaving the village that day Julia ordered from Ridley half a dozen commercial looms, which wove four ribbons at the same time.

  In spite of all there was to do Mary cut out and made the new Lyonnaise silk gowns for London. A box of Katherine’s collection of beautiful lace, carefully laid between snowy linen, supplied what was needed for cuffs falling from full three-quarter-length sleeves and for edging the drapes and loops that offset the low necklines.

  At the auction Makepeace’s tapestries, paintings and silverware fetched a particularly high price, some dealers having come from London to bid, for a whole new market had opened up as people set out to refurbish their homes more extravagantly. There was even a buyer for Cromwell’s portrait, although the Puritan who purchased it had only to bid a few pence. Julia locked all the proceeds away in a strong-box in keeping for Michael.

  Just as she supposed that to be the last link with Makepeace’s sojourn there proved to be another. The maidservant, Charity, asked to see her. The girl’s freckled face was desperate.

  ‘Mr Walker left me in the family way!’

  Julia considered what she should do about this new problem. Had the father not been Makepeace it would have been easy enough to find the girl a husband locally, for country people accepted such matters philosophically, but this was the baby of a man who had been much disliked. She wrote to Susan and there was a helpful reply. As a result Charity went to Oxfordshire to wed an agricultural worker, a widower with two small sons. He proved to be greatly to her satisfaction, being both young and virile.

  *

  The days of May were slipping by. The housekeeper of the Briar Lane tenant, who had scarcely used his rented country seat, surrendered the key to the bailiff almost at once. Since it had been kept clean and in good order it was a simple matter to turn one sizeable room at the end of the house into a workroom. Julia saw the women installed, and work on the ribbons began. At the end of the first day she was more than satisfied with the standard produced and Sarah had agreed to be in charge of Briar House during Julia and Mary’s sojourn in London, the reinstated maid attending Anne.

  Christopher’s reply came. He had secured two rooms on the royal route to Whitehall. William and Susan had stayed there several times and found them satisfactory. He would meet her and Mary there in the evening and they would have a celebratory supper together. There was much he had to tell her, having just been home to Bletchingdon again, and both his sister and brother-in-law sent their felicitations.

  ‘What a day the twenty-ninth of May is going to be!’ she exclaimed to Mary. ‘We’ll see the King and Michael and Christopher!’

  They set off for London in style in the Pallister coach on the morning of Thursday the 25th of May. Boxes strapped on behind contained their new gowns, the ribbons and everything else they would need for their stay. Neither of them had ever been to London before. When Julia had journeyed to Bletchingdon her travelling companion had insisted on a wide detour of the city, for there had been an outbreak of the plague and Mrs Reade had been nervous of infection, being on her way to a houseful of grandchildren. Julia had been disappointed then, but now she was glad she would be seeing London for the first time in a state of rejoicing.

  It was late afternoon when they approached it down St Margaret’s Hill through Southwark where London Bridge offered the only route into the City from the south, except for the heavier traffic of ships and barges coming up the Thames. She knew from what Christopher had told her that the Bridge was a virtual barrier for these incoming vessels, for there was a five-foot drop of water at high tide with swirling rapids there. As a result the shipping kept east of Billingsgate where wharves and quays and the custom house were specially located. Beyond the Bridge and up the river to the west was the seat of government and the Palace of Whitehall, which was now to be the heart of the monarchy again. In between lay the walled City of London itself and therein stood the Tower, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Temple with its Law Courts, the grand Halls of the Guilds and Companies, the Royal Exchange and other important buildings.

  Just before the coach reached the Bridge it was possible to see some of the hundreds of little ferry-boats that plied to and fro across the wide sparkling river as far as the eye could see to the east and the west. Then the shops and taverns and other ill-assorted buildings built on the Bridge blocked out all view of the Thames
, being as busy as any street and flowing with traffic.

  As the Pallister coach rolled off the Bridge and lumbered up Fish Hill Street, there came a great salute of cannon-fire from the Tower, which after a few seconds of surprise sent people cheering on all sides. It meant only one thing. The King had landed at Dover!

  ‘What a moment for us to arrive!’ Julia exclaimed excitedly. She and Mary leaned out to glimpse the Tower rising powerfully against the soft May sky, a wraith of gun-smoke drifting across the City. Then there came another booming roar as the salutes continued and they laughed, withdrawing into the coach as their ears rang.

  There was so much to see they were glad the crush of traffic imposed a slow pace on the coachman, giving them the chance to look to one side and then to the other. Julia had heard that derisive foreigners frequently called London a wooden city because of the abundance of timber, by far the cheapest building material available, used in its construction, but there was also much medieval stone and rosy Tudor brick to be seen.

  Countless numbers of the wooden buildings were covered with pitch and the rest so darkened by the smoke of sea-coal from thousands of chimneys that they were as black. These and houses of better quality rose high, each of the four, five or even six storeys jutting out over the ones below, so that when a street was narrow it was like passing through a tunnel, the top rooms often no more than a handshake apart. Some residences were adorned with painted and gilded figures, one of Queen Elizabeth standing out to Julia’s eye, and there was a great deal of beautiful pargeting that demanded a second glance. Pedestrians could walk underneath all these properties protected from rain by the projecting storeys, but there was always the risk of being splashed when pails of slops were thrown out of the windows into the gutter. Only the fine mansions of the nobility, rich merchants and aldermen of the City, which were set in formal gardens, were protected by high walls and gates from the teeming public and never-ending traffic.