Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  Unable to sleep, she wandered to look out of a landing window at the Strand. It was as busy in the moonlight as it had been all day with people removing what possessions they could from fire-threatened properties. Sick people were carried on stretchers if there was no transport available, for again, as in the plague, anything on hooves or wheels was in enormous demand, any price paid. Lanterns and flares bobbed along as if some festive procession were going by. Surely no city had ever suffered two such vastly different tragedies as London had during the space of fifteen months?

  By morning, after sleeping for a little while, Julia resolved to try to save her precious stock of ribbons. Months of work had gone into them and she would have almost nothing left if the fire took them. According to Molly, who was helping her dress, merchants had been transporting goods all the previous day from the great commercial street of Cheapside, which was a good indication of the new sweep of the fire, and Cannon Street had now become a target. Julia fumed to herself that she had not gone the previous day instead of trusting in fire-breaks that had only scattered timber seized on by the flames like stepping stones.

  ‘You’re not going to Carter Lane!’ Molly exclaimed in disbelief when Julia told her to fetch one of the coachmen’s spare leather capes, normally worn in bad weather.

  ‘Do as I say!’

  While the cape was being fetched Julia found one of her winter hats with a stout brim that would shield her face from sparks just as the cape should protect her from any chance burning splinters flying through the air. Some blackened ones and scraps of burnt paper had landed on the lawn, giving an idea how far the wind was bearing them. She could not bury her ribbons as some people had done with their wine, for there was only a cobbled yard at the back of the workshop. But there was a dry well with a cover jammed over it to prevent accidents that had been there for years, but still had a rope to it. If she lowered the boxes into the well and shovelled what earth there was over them, they should be safe until the fire had passed by.

  Even if there had been someone to drive her, a horse could not be taken anywhere near the fire, and she managed to summon a waterman after only a short delay. He refused to take her to the steps she wanted, saying the fire might have drawn too near, and landed her at a flight slightly to the west. It meant covering an extra length of another street, but she intended to run all the way.

  As she emerged from the side alley leading from the steps, she came into full view of St Paul’s and cried out in distress at seeing it was ablaze. It was as if the heart of the city had been taken! But she had no time to linger and set off at a run to Carter Lane. So many people were fleeing from that direction that she was bumped and jostled against, nobody having time to make way.

  When she reached Carter Lane she saw why so many were in flight, for the fire was approaching at the far end, the swirling smoke giving her glimpses of houses beyond that were sheathed in flames. The heat was tremendous as if the fire were sending out a warning to be clear of its path. She could not possibly take the risk. It would be madness. A firebrand had fallen on the workshop roof, which was smouldering and adding to the danger. Disappointment surged through her. To be so close to saving her ribbons, even able to see the window behind which they were stored on the shelves of large cupboards, was frustrating in the extreme, but sparks were showering down like fireworks and she dared not go nearer.

  Then, just as she was about to withdraw from the street and join those retreating from the flames, she hesitated, certain she had glimpsed somebody in that storeroom window. Gazing upwards, she became sure there had been a flick of a cape as someone had taken a swift glimpse to check the nearness of the fire before vanishing again. Immediately she thought of two or three of her workers whose loyalty was such that they cherished the finished ribbons as much as she did. They would know what it meant to lose vital stock. Whoever was in there probably had no idea that the roof was already alight. She must go in herself and get that person out of the place while there was still time!

  Lowering her head to gain the maximum protection of her hat-brim against the sparks and keeping her cape tightly about her, she bolted for the workshop, dodging flaring firebrands lying on the cobbles where they had fallen. When she reached the workshop door she saw that although it was pushed shut an entrance had been forced, enabling her to swing it open at a touch. She plunged into the smoke-filled interior, shouting the names most likely to gain a response.

  ‘Martha! Beatrice! Peg! Come quickly! This place is on fire!’

  No reply was forthcoming. No footsteps resounded. She began to cough and drew a handful of the cape over her nose and mouth. The firebrand must have taken a greater hold on the attic than had appeared from outside. Suppose one of those women had already collapsed from the smoke?

  She darted for the staircase and pounded up the flight to dash through the weaving room to the storeroom, but as far as she could tell nobody was there in that thick and billowing smoke. Coughing violently, she wrenched open the cupboard doors and saw that they were empty. Once again she called to the same women, wanting to be sure that nobody was trapped or had fallen somewhere gasping for breath. She searched carefully and then again in the weaving room, but both were deserted. Maybe it had been a trick of reflected light against the window panes that had made her believe someone was upstairs here. There was no time to wonder whether her ribbons had been taken a day or two previous by trusted hands or by looters, because her own life was at stake now.

  A sudden dreadful cracking sound made her look up sharply at the ceiling where the plaster was beginning to give way before the heat above. She screamed and darted in the direction of the stairs. On the way she saw, as if caught in a nightmare that had suddenly slowed down, the whole ceiling of the weaving room disintegrating into huge slabs of jagged plaster about her. A triangular piece struck the back of her head and she fell amidst thick smoke and choking dust into blackness on the floor. Above her the revealed flames no longer crept but burst into a lively roar in the draught that had been created.

  In the yard behind the workshop Adam was at work with a coal shovel, which was all he could find to dig up earth from around the tree that grew in a corner there. He was shovelling it into the dry well where he had lowered all the boxes of ribbons in a length from one of the rolls of linen used for packing, not wanting to risk them bursting open by landing too heavily.

  He had been fighting the fire near at hand when he heard it was advancing on Carter Lane. The King was at his side, although he had not recognized him at first, for Charles was as blackened by smuts and ashes and as charred in his clothes as any other man beating out flames with pieces of carpet or throwing water, or hooking fallen timbers out of the fire’s path. The Duke of York was equally unrecognizable, except for his stentorian voice with which he competently gave commands, having taken charge. It was he who had shouted that Cannon Street was lost and the Old Change beyond saving, thereby causing Adam to remember Julia’s ribbons and their importance to her. Since he had not taken a rest for several hours he broke away to use that time in going with great haste to the workshop, thinking how the ribbons might be saved. His heel had smashed a way into the premises and a quick inspection had shown him that the well, half filled with ancient rubble, was dry.

  Now, just as he had finished his task, he was almost certain he had heard a woman call out from the upper rooms of the workshop. Knowing the roof was alight there now, he flung down his shovel and ran inside to the foot of the stairs as the ceiling gave way in the weaving room. He threw himself up the flight and saw Julia lying as if dead in a great cloud of choking white dust amidst a rubble of chunks of plaster, flames curling down from the rafters and one of the looms already burning.

  With an agonized shout he dashed to her. She had fallen close to a loom and a great slab of plaster had fallen at an angle against it or else she would have been crushed. He shoved it aside and it shook the floor as it fell. Coughing from the smoke, he scooped her up in his arms, rushed with her do
wn the stairs and out into the street. There he ran like a man demented to bear her away from the fire, for the flames, as if encouraged by the workshop’s flaring like a torch, had leapt raging to meet it, firing both sides of the narrow street as it came. Turning into a side alley that was only half burning, he bore her in the direction of the river, seeing that other ways were now cut off. He dived through a passage-way, the walls of which were oven-hot. As it caved in behind him, he came out on the waterfront and saw that the fire was devouring one by one the row of the warehouses to his left, and to his right it had taken possession of Blackfriars, trapping him in both directions.

  There were ferry-boats on the river, but they were all a great distance away, mostly close to the opposite side of the water. He stood there with Julia in his arms and shouted with all the power of his lungs.

  ‘Oars! For mercy’s sake!’

  He was not heard, but he was seen by a gentleman with a spyglass, who had come up from the countryside beyond Southwark like many other sight-seers to view the Great Fire. He ordered the waterman in whose ferry-boat he was sitting to pull for that section of the waterfront immediately. When his order was not obeyed he showed a gold coin, intent on having this unexpected adventure with which to regale friends and acquaintances for years to come. The waterman pocketed the coin and began pulling on his oars across the river.

  Seeing the boat coming, Adam went down the steps that had been placed there for the passage-way and sat down on the lower step where he soaked a handkerchief in the river and bathed Julia’s face. When the boat came alongside, the gentleman exclaimed with dismay. ‘My dear sir! She’s not — ?’

  ‘No,’ Adam answered huskily, ‘she’s alive and will stay so, thanks to you and your waterman.’

  Julia was lifted into the boat and then Adam held her again as they were rowed all the way to the Somerset steps. From there he carried her home.

  20

  At Sotherleigh that night Mary stood on the lawn in the moonlight looking in the direction of London. Although it was sixty miles away there was a pinkish glow rimming a patch of the horizon that told of the furnace the fire had become. Servants had gathered silently on the lawn behind her. They were all concerned for the fate of those at the house in the Strand. Mary tried to tell herself that Adam would have made sure that Julia and all in their charge were safely away from danger, but not knowing definitely made it impossible not to worry desperately about them.

  News of the fire had reached Sussex quickly as elsewhere. There were tales of people camping in the fields around the City, of noblemen and wealthy merchants who had hindered the fire-fighters by refusing to have their fine mansions pulled down to create the necessary fire-breaks, and of roads out of London filled with refugees. Mary had started to keep watch for Julia’s return with Adam, hoping every time there were hooves in the drive that she would see them safely home again. Perhaps tomorrow they would come.

  It was mid-morning the next day when from an upper window in the house, Mary happened to see a coach emerge from the elms as it took the last curve of the drive. She had just returned from taking Anne and the two children to Warrender Hall for the day, but had come back herself in the certainty that Julia and Adam would soon be arriving. Gathering up her skirts, she ran in excitement and relief that they should be safely home and dashed downstairs and out through the door already opened by a footman to greet their arrival.

  Then she stopped abruptly on the top step, her heart leaping. It was Michael who had alighted from the coach and with him was a handsome little boy to whom he was pointing out aspects of the house. Then he saw her and held her eyes.

  ‘I’ve brought Jean-Robert home with me, Mary. We’re here to stay.’

  A sob of gladness rose in her throat. As he and the boy came up the steps hand in hand she knew that all she had ever wanted was about to come true. When he came level with her he drew her into an embrace and kissed her lovingly. Then he presented his son, who bowed deeply to her. The boy’s English was faultless.

  ‘I’m honoured to meet you, madam. Papa has told me that you are to be my stepmother and the new mistress of Sotherleigh.’

  She put a hand on his shoulder, looking down at him. ‘Welcome to the home that has been waiting for you, Jean-Robert. You will be happy here, I know, and my happiness will be all the greater through your becoming a son to me.’ Then she looked at Michael with eyes full of love and joy. ‘This is the second most important day in my life.’

  He smiled, putting his arm around her waist as they went indoors. ‘What was the first?’

  ‘The day you rescued me from the scaffold and I loved you from the first moment you spoke to me.’

  He paused in the middle of the hall to kiss her again. Jean-Robert sprang up the stairs to the first landing and studied the portrait of Queen Elizabeth that his father had told him about. He knew all about the gold she had given his great-grandfather to build Sotherleigh, and how her seamen had defeated the Armada and that the last of her gowns was in his Aunt Julia’s keeping. He turned on the landing to face the hall, his feet apart and his thumbs hooked in his belt as he imagined Great-Grandfather Ned had done when sailing triumphantly into harbour after a long voyage.

  Dinner was served in the Great Hall, Michael seated at the head of the table. Towards the end of the meal, Jean-Robert, too excited to eat much, had been allowed to leave the table and go and explore the gardens. Then Michael told Mary of how he had sold Brissard’s for a very high price, many bidders being after the business.

  ‘It was a decision I did not take lightly, but Jean-Robert has been set against the silk industry ever since I took him to Lyon. Although he might have felt differently towards it later on, it was apparent to me that his heart would never be in it as his late grandfather and his mother would have wished. There was another factor that weighed with me too. By being able to tell Julia my financial future is secure I can release her from her aim to recoup as best she could the lost Sotherleigh fortune.’ He reached for Mary’s hand. ‘Above all else I wanted to share Sotherleigh with you and to see my son and our children grow up here.’

  She had not known it was possible to be so happy.

  After dinner she and Michael walked with Jean-Robert by way of the short cut to Warrender Hall. Patience and Katy were playing with Meg’s three youngest children on the lawn, Anne trying to organize them. She did not hear Michael’s approach across the grass, Jean-Robert at his side. Then, when she happened to turn her head and catch sight of him, she did not show the least surprise.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re here, Michael. You can settle the game of football the children want to play.’ Although he bent his head and kissed her cheek, she took no notice, her attention focused smilingly on his son. ‘Who is this?’

  The boy answered for himself. ‘Your grandson, Jean-Robert.’

  ‘Then why are you Frenchifying your good name? Robert was good enough for your grandfather and it shall be for you.’ At that she put a hand to her head, panic in her eyes as sometimes happened when an incident jerked her out of her tranquil state, and she turned at once to Mary on whom she had come to rely. ‘He looks a good boy. I know I love him, but why can’t I remember his mother?’

  ‘She lived abroad and she died some time ago. The boy was born in France.’

  ‘Was he?’ She looked astounded.

  ‘He’s to be my stepson. Michael and I are to marry.’

  Anne was overjoyed. She kissed Mary and embraced Michael and then stooped down to give her grandson a hug. ‘What a good thing you are here now, young Robert. Do you know how to play football?’

  ‘Papa taught me. Shall I take over the game?’

  ‘Please!’

  He went running to join the other children and Anne straightened up to tilt her head sideways as she studied Michael. ‘I’m sure you’ve grown three inches since you were last at Sotherleigh.’

  He laughed softly. ‘You’ve said that to me at many homecomings.’

  ‘Are you goin
g away again?’

  ‘No, Mother. Never again.’

  Anne heaved a blissful sigh. ‘That’s splendid news. Let’s go and tell Meg. She’s waiting to pour me tea.’

  ‘Why not invite her to the wedding at the same time,’ he suggested.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Chattering happily, Anne led the way into Warrender Hall.

  *

  It took Julia thirty-six hours to regain her senses. By then the fire had been defeated, due mainly to Mr Pepys, who had the idea of bringing in seamen from ships of the navy. They had created fire-breaks with gunpowder, sometimes blowing up a whole row of houses at a time. It had saved the fire spreading as it went. Virtually the entire City had been destroyed from the Tower in the east to the Temple in the west, the destruction stretching out roughly in the shape of a fan from the river to Cripplegate and only a hair’s-breadth from Moorgate in the north.

  Adam walked into what was left of Fleet Street the morning after the Great Fire’s end and in whichever direction he looked there was nothing but smoking, charred and blackened ruins. He could see people wandering about as if in a desert, some trying to find where their homes had been, and he was drawn to walk through a great part of what had once been the greatest and most thriving capital in the world. During the fire-fighting there had been no time to assess the losses being sustained, but with shock and sadness he estimated that over a hundred churches had gone and that St Paul’s, where once Queen Elizabeth had given thanks after the victory over the Armada, stood as a broken shell. Over fifty Halls of Companies, all of which had been magnificent palaces, marvellously adorned and constructed, had gone with the flames, together with many other historic buildings, including the Elizabethan Custom House, the Royal Exchange and Gresham College where, with one of the odd tricks the fire had played, the statue of the founder, Sir Thomas Gresham, stood untouched. There was a second oddity he spotted, which he took note of to tell Julia. On another scale there was the loss of priceless medieval libraries and other heritage treasures that could not be saved. A tragedy in itself was the loss of thousands of homes belonging to every class of person from the nobleman to the beggar.