Charles II rode slightly ahead of his two brothers, all three of them in cloth of gold with enormous plumes flowing out from their wide-brimmed hats worn with a dashing air. For a moment Julia was spellbound, gazing raptly at him. She thought he looked every inch a regal figure with his magnificent height in the saddle and his dignified wave. His long curly hair was as black as ever; his face, the sides of his mouth now deeply grooved, was older than she remembered from the brief meeting that had marked her tenth birthday outside the inn at Houghton, and older still than the youthful likeness in the Long Gallery at Sotherleigh. If there was the slightest hint of amused cynicism in his smile it was not to be wondered at, for less than ten years ago he had been hunted out of England like a fox to suffer poverty, humiliation and near starvation in exile, while to all appearances these cheering, jubilant people had never wanted him gone. Breaking out of the spell cast on her, Julia began to exuberantly fling the flowers she had kept for the purpose into his path. His alert gaze fell on her.
‘God bless Your Majesty!’ she cried out, curtsying.
He inclined his head, his heavy-lidded eyes conveying that it was as much in appreciation of her beauty as in acknowledgement of her loyal benediction. Then he had gone by, leaving her wondering if her neckline had been cut too low after all, for it had been no kingly glance that had travelled from her face to her cleavage and back again. It had been the same as that which she had often caught in the dark, glittering depths of Adam’s eyes. She gave a start as Mary clutched her arm.
‘Can you see Michael?’
She promptly forgot both the King and Adam in the heightened anticipation of seeing her brother again. ‘He should be with these Cavaliers.’
Riding by now were those who had gone with their monarch into exile, all gloriously dressed for their return, for a chest of gold had been sent to the King in order that he and his Court might come home arrayed as if the years of privation had never been. They waved their hats and their hands to those giving them special approbation. Although Julia and Mary searched the faces, Michael’s was not among them.
‘How strange he’s not there,’ Julia commented a little uneasily. The procession flowed on, the sparkle of gems, the shimmer of silver and gold lace and the splendour of rich garments seemingly without end. Then suddenly a face did stand out as some gentlemen with their horses caparisoned in red and gold came riding along in pairs.
‘Look!’ Mary exclaimed in the same moment of recognition. ‘It’s Adam!’
‘So it is.’ Julia gave a little laugh of sheer astonishment.
He was wearing the snowdrop ribbon as a hat band, a large ruby brooch holding in place a crimson plume of loyalty such as many were sporting that day. He was on the same side where she and Mary were standing and his gaze was travelling over the crowds as if he were looking for someone. She took a step forward to stand out as she had done for the King and waited until he should see her. When he did his face cleared.
‘I’ve been looking for you!’
‘So you ride with the King at last, Adam Warrender!’ Her goodhumoured mockery had no malice in it and the happiness in her face showed him that his being won over to the King had made a perfect touch to her day. ‘I never thought to see such a happening!’
‘So I can mark this up as an achievement.’ His tone was joking as he drew level, but his eyes were serious, showing it mattered to him that this former breach between them had been healed.
‘Yes, I’m delighted!’ She put her hand into his, which he had reached out to her. Owing to the crawling pace of the procession, she was able to stroll comfortably alongside, looking up at him. ‘How did you know I’d be here in London?’
He retaliated with a little mockery himself. ‘You’ve been such a staunch Royalist all along that it was a natural assumption.’
She chuckled. ‘It’s not just that, is it? Where have you been all this month of May?’
‘All I can tell you now is that I was abroad on business for the government. When I returned to Dover with the King’s ceremonial flotilla a messenger from the Hall was waiting for me, as I had instructed, to give me your whereabouts and other news and information from home.’ He frowned compassionately and his clasp tightened on her hand. ‘My condolences on the death of your grandmother. I had not heard before.’
She answered soberly. ‘She lived to know of the Restoration, which was what she wanted most of all.’ Then she smiled again. ‘What brought a change of heart in you with regard to the King?’
‘I’ll tell you later. I know where you’re staying and I have a message from Michael.’
The anxiety in her came through. ‘Is he all right? Why isn’t he here?’
‘I can’t tell you now.’
‘Come to supper at the Heathcock. Mary and I had planned on Michael being with us and Christopher Wren will be coming.’
‘I may be late. Don’t wait to eat. I’ll be there tonight whatever the hour.’
He released her hand and saluted her with a gallant’s Court gesture of a bow from the saddle and poised fingers set lightly against the heart. It was observed by a section of the spectators, who shouted to him with a merry bawdiness, making him laugh, and Julia was applauded as she hurried back to Mary.
When Mary heard what Adam had mentioned about Michael she felt crushed down by disappointment. ‘It can only mean that he is still in France.’
‘I fear so.’ Julia linked her arm through Mary’s consolingly. She was puzzled, unable to think of anything that would have kept Michael from coming to England on such a long-awaited day. Mary, remembering the cool, hard face of Sophie in the miniature, could not help wondering if she had played any part in denying Michael’s return. Perhaps she had insisted that he should not go home unless she could go with him and that would not have been possible, for the wives and womenfolk of the men who had crossed the Channel in the King’s flotilla had had to wait behind.
There was one exception, who was not yet known to Londoners. She was Barbara Palmer, a beautiful married woman who had become the King’s mistress in exile and did not intend to relinquish him or the advantages her position would give her now that he was home.
Julia and Mary watched the rest of the procession until dusk fell. It had taken the King seven hours to ride through London. Now at Whitehall he must attend a thanksgiving service in the Palace chapel and afterwards eat a supper banquet in view of all who wished to see him, an old tradition on momentous royal occasions. Glad that their day was to end more peacefully, the two girls returned to the Heathcock, leaving others to rollick and dance in the streets around bonfires.
Christopher had booked a private parlour for their supper. Julia, coming downstairs to it as soon as she had changed for the evening, thought how foresighted it had been of him, for the dining-room and the tap-rooms were full of noisy and roistering customers. Any talk there between Christopher and her would have had to be at the top of their voices. He could scarcely ask her to marry him in that manner!
She no longer tried to check this hope. There were no grounds on which to base her assumption that he was ready to become betrothed, and she could only assume that she knew because she had always been so close to him in spirit. It was as if some invisible current of knowledge had come to her through the air, gradually at first and then with increasing forcefulness. Love and passion were directed at her and this marvellous day was to culminate with a ring on her finger.
She had taken the precaution of asking Mary to delay joining them for a little while. ‘Come down just before supper is to be served.’
Mary had nodded uncertainly. ‘I suppose that is all right.’
It amazed Julia that considering how many times she and Christopher had been alone together in Sotherleigh and Bletchingdon, Mary should think she should accompany them now and also that she should have no inkling as to what Christopher’s true purpose was to be this evening. Even a hint of what was to come, and that this would be a time when any couple would expect to be left alon
e for the asking of the vital question, had failed to get home to Mary. Julia could only conclude she was too wrapped up in thoughts of Michael to be really aware of anything else until Adam had delivered his message.
When she reached the private parlour Christopher had not yet arrived. The round table was laid for four, the linen crisp and the silver cutlery shining, no pewter in this part of the Heathcock. She crossed to a bench by the wall and had barely seated herself when he arrived, bounding into the room in his jaunty way, his brown hair swinging back over his shoulders, his hat and gloves already dispensed with in the hall.
‘Julia! What a day this has been! How glad I am to find you alone.’
Closing the door after him, he was across to her in a matter of strides to catch up both her hands by the fingers in his and plant a kiss on the back of each. She had no chance to rise for an embrace such as they usually shared and she smiled at his new and formal approach on this momentous evening.
Still without releasing her hands, he swung himself down on to the seat beside her and for a few smiling moments drank in the sight of her. ‘You become more beautiful every time I see you. How is it possible?’
‘You compliment me excessively,’ she protested happily.
‘Nobody could do that,’ he countered admiringly. Then he wanted to know how she had enjoyed the procession. Being that day at Gresham College, he had walked from Bishopsgate to watch it at a good distance away from where she and Mary had stood. She told him about Michael’s non-appearance and how Adam had word of her brother to convey later. She held back from telling him about her ribbon project, for that could wait until Mary was present and they were no longer alone.
He had some good news himself. His uncle had been released from the Tower and had already been re-installed as Bishop of Ely, the position from which the old man had been so roughly snatched all those years before. She pressed him as to his own work at Oxford, always eager to know what he had in hand, and he admitted to having spent many hours over past months furthering his research into the strength, convenience and beauty of line he deemed necessary for buildings of the future. Almost as if in light relief, he had designed a beehive that was both practical and transparent. ‘As you know,’ he concluded, his eyes merry, ‘I’ve always been partial to plenty of honey on my bread.’
She laughed teasingly. ‘I declare you deserve an extra spoonful if your beehive keeps the bees more contented. Is there anything in the world that has escaped your thought and consideration?’
He smiled ruefully. ‘A great deal, I fear.’ Now he looked with great seriousness into her eyes. ‘Maybe all I want and also an end to my seeking will come with the fulfilment of my half of that dream you once shared with me. I’ve never forgotten that generous gift. Maybe I felt at the time it portended as much for me as it did for you.’
‘That’s how I wanted it to be,’ she said very softly.
‘Have you ever had the sensation of coming at all close to what it might mean?’
‘No. I linked it once to a wonderful gown that Queen Elizabeth gave my grandmother, but that was only a signpost along the way. I’ve never doubted that there’s more to come.’
He nodded in agreement, ‘It has been the same for me. I’ve thought several times I’ve been about to grasp it, but always it has eluded me.’
‘I’m sure there will come a point in our lives when we shall look at each other and know, even without words, that our dream has been mutually fulfilled.’
‘I believe that too.’ He regarded her tenderly. ‘Although our paths are set apart that time will come.’
She inclined her head almost shyly. ‘Why do you speak as if there is a division between us? I know your work will always keep you to a way separated from the one I can travel with you, but they can run parallel.’
‘I have to tell you that between those two paths runs another and that will be followed by someone to whom you opened a door for me.’
Somewhere in her head there rang a warning signal of alarm, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Do you remember when you were first at Bletchingdon I came home to a party in that house?’
‘Yes.’ She withdrew her hands from him and folded them tightly in her lap.
‘I stood at the foot of the stairs and you nearly made my heart stop when I looked up at you. But you did more than enchant me at that moment. Somehow, and in a manner I could never explain, your beauty gave a candle-flame to Faith’s quiet face and I, who had known her as a neighbour’s daughter for many years, saw her in this new light. A spark was ignited. A seed was sown. How shall I describe it? I suppose neither she nor I was aware of it at the time, because both of us were encircling you in the friendship you had bestowed on us individually like a blessing.’
‘So what has happened since?’ She held herself quite rigid, having the terrible feeling that if she attempted to move even a finger every limb in her body would begin to jerk convulsively.
‘Gradually I made a point of always seeing her whenever I was home. Our relationship grew deeper and warmer. Last week when I was at Bletchingdon we became betrothed.’ Was she staring at him in such high-wrought distress that he would have to look away? It did not appear so, for his expression remained serious and composed. She heard herself speaking: ‘Faith has many good qualities to her character.’
‘I do agree. She will be writing to you but I wanted to be the one to tell you the news. I know that whatever Faith and I may have in our lives together it will be due to you that evening at Bletchingdon.’
She shook her head, managing what she hoped was a smile. ‘It would have happened anyway. Some things are meant to be.’ Never would she let him see what he had done to her. Her Pallister pride would not allow it. In love she would have thrown herself at his feet if he had desired it, but now she must guard and keep from him and the whole world the awful hurt that had exploded inside her. She had once boasted to Katherine that should loss of him ever come about, she would bear it bravely. Maybe she had never really believed it could happen, but now she had to live up to her own words.
‘Nothing can change our friendship,’ Christopher was saying, ‘because Faith and I are most anxious that my ties with Sotherleigh should not be broken.’
She wanted to scream that she would not let him thrust her back into the childish and innocent mould of their first acquaintanceship. She did not belong to Sotherleigh in that sense any more, but was herself, whole and complete, adult and sensual and ripe for experience in living and loving.
‘When shall you marry?’ She tried to associate that coming union with something as impersonal as drinking a cup of chocolate or taking a stroll. If she thought of him making love to another woman she would die, torn to shreds by her own imagination and forgetting that she had sworn to survive.
‘That is too far into the future to be settled yet. Financially we could marry tomorrow, but the very nature of my work necessitates a freedom to come and go, to study all night if needs be, and to take whatever journeys are necessary either at a moment’s notice or what might soon be the expressed wishes of the King. None of this would be conducive to wedlock. Faith, being the calm and patient girl that she is, knows that we must have a long betrothal.’
Many months and even years of remaining in the background was to be Faith’s fate. Julia questioned herself as to whether she could have filled such a role and knew that before long she would have set out to change that state of affairs, subtly imposing herself on the path he needed to keep free of encumbrances. Had he known all along that such a love as hers would have been both a glory and a handicap to him? And had the handicap proved more important than the glory? At least let him not suspect now that her yearning for him had not wavered by an iota from the time she had immaturely revealed her feelings for him in the maze. Let him think that only friendly devotion remained. Don’t let him know she was drowning in anguish.
‘You have made an ideal choice of a wife in Faith.’ She had always been honest with herself
and with him and, although she thought she must be reeling visibly through forcing this admittance into the open, it had to be done.
He should have looked grateful and relieved, but concern was sharpening his gaze on her. ‘I shall always remember hearing you say that. It means more to me than you can possibly know. What I hope now to hear before long is that you have found someone you love with whom to share your life.’
She had to disperse the uncertainty he was showing about her. He must not suspect the torment she was suffering.
Nobody should pity her! Not even Christopher out of his kind heart and compassion.
‘Surely you’re forgetting that I’m betrothed too? It meant nothing to me all the time it had been settled by Makepeace, but already his hand in it is virtually at an end. Adam and I are to begin again.’ Her bravado was leading her into rash statements, but if she stopped she might break down and that must not happen. ‘You will see when he comes how well everything is between us.’
She saw she had finally convinced him. His face cleared and he shook his head in wonder that such good fortune should have come to her. ‘Dearest Julia, you’ve given me the best tidings I could have hoped to hear towards the closing of this Restoration Day.’
Circle of Pearls Page 44
