Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  There was width to Cannon Street and Watling Street along which the girls were travelling, for these were main thoroughfares; the squalid side streets and twisting passages, which were never swept, were flanked by tall, deformed-looking properties crammed with families on each floor, giving the girls a glimpse of the vast network of such ways that veined the City. With such a throng of people everywhere and such bustle and noise, stenches and fragrances, it was easy to see that three hundred thousand of London’s citizens lived within the square-mile radius of the City walls, four hundred thousand more in the Liberties of Westminster and the out-parishes that spread to three points of the compass as well as south of the river at Southwark.

  The coach had borne the girls away from the groaning watermills, which pumped water from the Thames into the public conduits, the stinking tanneries, the breweries and the tallow-and soap-boilers, which among other trades made the air so foul in the vicinity of the Bridge. Now they were passing cruciform St Paul’s Cathedral with its square truncated tower, the wooden spire of which had been lost a century before in one of the fires that had broken out here and there about the City. The rose window there had inspired the fashion for rosettes on shoes when installed many years ago.

  They reached Ludgate and went down Fleet Street, where there were shops of every pleasant kind taking up the lower floors of the houses. Goldsmiths and haberdashers, drapers and milliners, perfumers, apothecaries and stationers — all their signs competed with those of the taverns and gave a checkerboard effect of brilliant colour along every street.

  There was plenty to buy as well from street-vendors, the sing-song cries of London as ancient as the City itself heard on every side. ‘Who’ll buy my custard-apples!’ cried the custard-mongers. ‘Lavender, sweet lavender!’ came from women with baskets on their arms. ‘Herbs for the pot!’ called another. Vying with them were the muffin-men, the fruit-and flower-sellers and the milkmaids with their yokes and buckets. ‘Fresh fish, morning caught!’ yelled those with creels of fish on their backs.

  Everywhere water-carriers obliged from the conduits, their shoulders stooped from the weight of their yoke-bearing buckets, their legs bandy from the number of stairs they climbed.

  Everywhere there was traffic. Magnificent coaches with armorial bearings and richly liveried coachmen put the Pallister coach and others in the shade, while the hackney coaches frequently presented a shabby appearance and outnumbered the rest. There were wagons bearing goods to many markets, interspersed with cattle and sheep and flocks of geese being driven to the same destination. Every kind of cart and dray rumbled along and private sedan chairs carried well-clad and be-plumed passengers, the feet of the bearers sometimes flashing along the egg-shaped cobbles when the mission was urgent. Riders on horseback, pack-horses and little donkeys all added to the colour and spectacle of the City.

  Julia and Mary passed the Fleet prison, wherein debtors were housed, and were borne over the Fleet ditch that was spanned by a bridge. Near the brick-towered Inner and Middle Temples and gardens the lawyers in their bushy grey periwigs and black robes darted between taverns and their chambers and the courts, some with the nosegays tucked in their pockets that were necessary when prisoners in the dock either reeked from their cells or were suspected of carrying gaol fever. The Pallister coach passed through the western outlet of the City at the gates of Temple Bar into the Strand. After some manoeuvring in the traffic it drew up with a clatter of hooves into the busy courtyard of the Heathcock Inn amidst its shouting ostlers, the ringing bells announcing the departure of two stage-coaches and the scurrying of passengers who did not want to be left behind.

  ‘We’re here!’ Julia exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with excitement as they had been since her first sight of London. She felt she belonged already and had a strange sense of homecoming.

  Mary followed her more slowly from the coach, feeling assailed by all the noise and bustle. Looking upwards before entering the hostelry with Julia to take the accommodation that Christopher had booked for them, she saw it was four floors high with three galleries encompassing the courtyard, and along which people were going to and from their rooms. The innkeeper welcomed them with traditional hospitality, the mark of a good hostelry, and a porter took a key and led the way with some of their baggage, the rest carried in their wake by one of his fellows. Julia was given a room that was entered from the second gallery, but looked directly down into the

  Strand. To Mary’s relief, hers was at the end of the same gallery, but with a view down into an unexpected patch of green garden with a few trees. She hastily declined when Julia generously offered to exchange rooms in order to give her the better view.

  It was too late in the day to think of offering their ribbons for sale, but Julia took advantage of the lull to buy a map of London, which she studied during supper. One dazzling smile from her secured the eager help of a young business-man at the next table, who afterwards marked on certain streets the best places for her to sell. He also gave her plenty of valuable information about prices, which were soaring on such goods as hers. After she had shown him some samples of the ribbons he named figures at which she should start that made her blink. He grinned at her surprise.

  ‘The shopkeepers will try to beat you down, but don’t budge by a halfpenny. They’ll know that if they don’t buy from you others will and they won’t want to miss the chance.’

  ‘But so many guineas a yard!’ she gasped.

  He fingered a ribbon of red roses. ‘Look at this, for example. What man or woman wouldn’t want to wear the royal rose of England on Tuesday when the King comes? Then there are those with crowns and other royal emblems — they’re worth a mint of money at the moment. I’m not in the drapery trade myself, but my brother is and I know something about it. Put a higher price still on anything connected with the twenty-ninth day of May and cash in on that while you can.’

  ‘I’ve four days in which to do it.’

  ‘That’s plenty of time. If you don’t sell out by the first day you will by the second.’

  ‘You’ve been most kind,’ she said gratefully.

  The young man looked hopeful. ‘May I see you again?’ Before Julia could reply Mary intervened crisply. ‘Miss Pallister is betrothed.’

  Julia gave him a length of ribbon for his hat in appreciation and afterwards when he had gone she spoke quite crossly to Mary. ‘Why did you say I was betrothed?’

  ‘Because you are until all orders and settlements by regicides are officially rescinded. In any case I’m here to chaperone you as if your mother and grandmother had entrusted me with that duty, and I intend to do it.’

  Julia looked doubtful, but recovering her temper shrugged and laughed.

  Early next morning they set out together. On the young man’s advice they did not take their produce with them, but before going to bed they had cut off the ends of a number of ribbons to provide a small sample of each pattern. These were pinned to sheets of thick cream paper that Julia had been able to buy in the Strand. All the royal emblems were on one sheet and the floral and sundry designs were on the rest.

  Eager curiosity compelled them to look in the shop fronts as they walked to the first place marked on their map. Many were larger inside than would have been supposed by the windows, which with small, thick-glassed panes made it difficult to see the interiors. Sometimes open doors at the rear of a shop created enough light for a cabinet-maker’s furniture to be seen, or printing presses at work with books displayed in the foreground on counters. All rooms were dark-panelled and in some cases the gloom enhanced the shimmer of draped fabrics or a jeweller’s sparkling wares where a ray of sunlight slanted across them.

  Julia experienced a qualm as she and Mary entered their first place of call. It proved to be well founded. The shop-owner was a strict Puritan not yet resigned to the changes taking place and, without looking at their wares, promptly showed them the door. They were no luckier in the next two shops. One proprietor remained at the back, sending someon
e to tell them he had all the ribbons he needed; in the other establishment the owner was absent that day and there was no-one else empowered to buy.

  It was hard not to fear another set-back in the fourth shop, especially when they had to wait ignominiously in a corner until a portly man with piggish eyes, wearing a yellow periwig, deigned to appear. Disdainfully he took the samples to the light and peered at them closely. Then contemptuously he tossed the samples back towards Julia.

  ‘I’ll take whatever you have of the royal patterns,’ he said as if granting her an enormous favour, ‘with delivery today. I’ll pay you sixpence a yard and that’s generous.’

  ‘That’s the reverse and you know it, sir!’ She began gathering the samples together, shocked by this insight into how hard-working out-workers were treated.

  ‘Wait! What price were you expecting?’

  She no longer wanted him to buy from her in any case, her pride bristling over the treatment she and Mary had received, and she doubled the original high figure planned. He turned purple, waved his arms about and asked Heaven if he was to be made bankrupt by the greed of ribbon-makers in this new Royalist era. He then offered her a fifth of what she had voiced. She was already on her way out the door, Mary following. He ran out into the street after them, calling to Julia to come back, but she stalked on with her cheeks an angry red, her chin high and not listening.

  ‘Nobody is going to bargain with me in that way over Mama’s ribbons! In any case I didn’t like him and wouldn’t have let him have them if he had offered double the asking price.’

  Mary chuckled. ‘Well, he wasn’t offering to do that, but he was shouting that he would meet the exorbitant price you had demanded!’

  Julia halted, laughing too and delightedly. ‘He’s done us a good turn after all! He’s given me the current market value of those ribbons!’

  With her confidence high and her Pallister dignity full upon her, she sailed into the next shop, announced her business and was bowed into an office. There she and the shop-owner, Mr Denmead, recognized each other’s qualities, she seeing an honest man and he a remarkably unusual young woman, fully aware of the bargaining power she had over the ribbon goods that he would give his eye-teeth for. There were woven brocaded ribbons appearing again, but nothing of this originality of design and superb hand-work. Erroneously he supposed she had visited many shops to test the water of her exceptionally high prices, increasing them still further as she went and leaving a trail of willing and waiting buyers hoping she would return. Why else would she have presented samples in such a professional way instead of bringing baskets of finished work as ribbon-makers usually did, mostly taking without question whatever sum was offered. He intended to be the one to culminate this forceful young woman’s excursion.

  ‘I’ll meet the figures you’re asking if we can enter into a contract over the royal ribbons. I want you to agree that I shall have the exclusive right to all those designs, straight through until the King’s coronation. After that, unless there is a royal wedding soon afterwards, the sale of them will go down.’

  ‘I’m willing to do that, but I should expect you to keep up orders for the floral ribbons as well and such a clause would be included in the contract.’

  ‘That, Miss Pallister,’ he said, rising to fetch a decanter and glasses, ‘goes without saying.’

  He sent his own wagon to the Heathcock Inn to collect the boxes of ribbons and he paid her in gold, which she deposited with a banker recommended to her in Lombard Street by Mr Hannington, from whom she had sought advice before leaving Sotherleigh. For the rest of the day and all through those that followed, she and Mary gathered orders for all the designs not secured by Mr Denmead. She ended with work for her embroiderers and ribbon-weavers for many months to come, and nowhere, since she had asserted herself with the yellow-periwigged shop-owner, had she and Mary received anything but the most respectful courtesy.

  In this walking about the City they discovered that London had many charming courts, yards and steps, flowers blooming in unexpected places and leafy trees extending welcome shade. There were also many fine houses, which were secured by high-walled gardens against the waves of humanity that passed by. Off the Strand, outside the city walls and the tight congestion within, a number of grand residences had open views of the river. Julia, remembering Christopher’s promise to build her a house, thought such a location would suit her very well.

  As she strolled with Mary back to the Heathcock on the eve of the King’s return, London’s mood was one of pulsating anticipation. On all sides tapestries and colourful draperies were being hung from windows, giving a bright and festive look here as in the City, and garlands of greenery were being looped over shopfronts and doorways. People had made excursions into the countryside and were returning in wagons with baskets of flowers to strew the royal path on the morrow. The royal arms, unseen in London for so long, were displayed again. News had spread widely of the King’s tumultuous welcome at Dover, the same approbation following him to Canterbury where he had held his first privy council and on Sunday had attended a full Anglican service in Canterbury Cathedral. Next he had ridden on to Rochester with cheers echoing round him all the way and now London was poised and waiting to give itself back to the crown.

  Julia was conscious of a rising sense of destiny as if something tremendous in her life was to be linked with the royal day that would dawn on the morrow. She began to hope that this sensation had its roots in Christopher’s coming and almost without realizing it she became convinced that he would say something wonderful to her. Surely nothing else could account for the boundless exhilaration in her? No other reason could be spurring this gush of love for him, which she knew nothing would stop once he held her in his arms again. Tomorrow she would be his. Nothing now existed that could stem his passion and hers.

  14

  Mary would have been content to watch the procession from Julia’s bedchamber window, but it was not close enough for her friend.

  ‘We must be down there in the street!’ Julia declared, giving a final touch to her new azure gown by tweaking the bow of May-blossom ribbon into place at her cleavage. ‘Right at the front where we can curtsy to the King should he look at us and where Michael can see us and know where to find us afterwards.’ Then, raising her eyes to the mirror, she caught the reflection of Mary’s torn expression and spun round to her. ‘Don’t be sad on this of all days. Sophie won’t be with Michael. It’s only loyal Cavaliers who will be following the royal party. She might be at Sotherleigh soon but you can have this little time with him with nobody to spoil it.’

  Mary nodded courageously. ‘It’s not as though Michael and I will be alone at all. By having supper with you and Christopher the pattern can be set for our relationship in the future.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Julia picked up her hat by the brim and, turning again to the mirror, lowered it carefully on to her head. Hers was a rose colour with a swirling plume the same shade of blue as her gown. Neither her hat nor Mary’s was new, both having been found in Anne’s hatboxes in the attic. The plumes each had bought had been their one extravagance since coming to London, for public demand for new finery had sent up the price of feathers too.

  They spent the morning hours in the Strand, for here, as elsewhere in London, there was much to see, every street on the royal route now dressed overall for the great moment when the King rode by. Ceremonial arches had been erected and houses were almost hidden in multi-hued tapestries. Flowers festooned balconies that were already full of ladies, their plumes and bright new gowns adding more colour to the scene. Conduits were already running wine being well sampled in the mood of the day. The tallest maypole ever known, and specially made for the occasion, had been erected in the Strand with a multitude of rainbow ribbons that had been wound and unwound since early morning. People danced around it to music, and there were always others waiting to take their places when they tired. Julia and Mary both took turns, young men seizing their maypole ribbons with th
em, so that they danced in pairs. Afterwards they would have had their partners’ company for the rest of the day if they had not managed to slip off on their own, with plenty of other girls to fill the gap.

  Morris dancers, forbidden their ancient prancing steps for so long, performed to the whack of their sticks and the jingle of bells on their legs and boots, every one of them in a new smock sewn by a wife or sister, their straw hats encircled by flowers bobbing and shedding petals. Professional entertainers, no longer afraid of whippings or imprisonment, juggled and tumbled, recited poems in honour of the King and enacted everything from Shakespeare to the lewdest comedies. When eventually people began to fill the sides of the streets in readiness for the procession, a large number having taken places since the night before, the entertainment continued, making the time of waiting pass quickly.

  By tradition London crowds were orderly and good-humoured on state occasions, and many younger people who were to see a royal procession for the first time conformed with all the rest. Children were given places at the front, their parents eager that this momentous occasion should be imprinted on their memory. When a vibrating salute boomed from the Tower to announce that the King had crossed London Bridge into the city, there was a spontaneous explosion of joy, cheering from every throat rending the air. Church bells had also burst into full chime, which with the thunder of the cannons was to continue until nightfall. Julia and Mary tried to plot the King’s slow progress as they waited, their excitement mounting at the prospect of seeing Michael again in addition to the royal return. Then eventually a rise in the cheering in the distance gave the message that was taken up all along the Strand. ‘The King is coming!’

  At last the head of the procession came into sight. First were the heralds, blowing their long slender trumpets, followed by marching soldiers, silver sleeves to their buff jerkins showing that no expense had been spared to bring the King home in style. The Lord Mayor of London, wearing his Tudor-style velvet cap and gold chain of office with his robes, was on horseback, the Aldermen of the City riding after him in their scarlet cloaks. They had ridden out of Deptford to meet the King with an address of welcome and to escort him home. After them came representatives of all the Guilds and Companies of the City, their horses richly caparisoned. There then followed, interspersed with ranks of drummers or bands of musicians, six hundred of the nobility and other gentlemen in saddles studded with jewels, they themselves in newly fashionable periwigs that caped the shoulders of their velvet attire. Beside them on foot were attendants and footmen in liveries of crimson, green or purple. More riders and more musicians went by and then a host of young women who were strewing flower petals from gilded baskets as they came, for behind them was the King! The cheering soared to deafening proportions.