Adam constantly lost his bearings where whole streets had become a flat area of ashes and debris. In places the cobbles were too hot to step on, cellars were still burning and water hissed as it boiled in the conduits. After great difficulty he located the well where the ribbons lay, for as with other narrow streets, the heat of Carter Lane made it impassable and he had to approach it from the rear. He saw that a piece of still smouldering timber had fallen across the well, half demolishing it, but he thought he had thrown in a thick enough layer of earth to have kept the boxes well protected.
When he returned home he had to change all his clothes and bathe and wash his hair to remove the stench of the fire before he went to Julia’s bedside. She was still deathly white and felt unwell. The doctor had recommended a rest at Sotherleigh as soon as she was able to make the journey. Adam drew up a chair and held her hand.
‘I’ve two things to tell that will please you,’ he said.
She looked at him listlessly. ‘What are they?’
‘The first is that amidst all the destruction of the City, Queen Elizabeth’s statue still stands untouched on Ludgate.’
‘Grandmother would have been pleased about that too.’ Her voice was weak and only just audible, but a smile touched her lips.
‘I’m also certain that your ribbons have been saved.’
‘I should never have gone there.’ Her drawn face was full of unhappy self-reproach.
‘I’ve good reason to be glad that you did on my own behalf,’ he said with a smile. ‘I was at Whitehall earlier today and the King told me that had I returned to the fire-fighting at his side I should not be here. A wall gave way unexpectedly and he only just escaped being crushed. I should not have stood a chance.’
She closed her eyes tightly on the tears that sprang there in relief at the escape he had had. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to go on living without you.’
‘Nor I without you,’ he replied softly.
She had soon recovered enough to make the journey back to Sotherleigh. Michael had come to London out of anxiety about her and Adam, which enabled him to take her back when he returned to Sussex, Adam having to stay on at the House of Commons to deal with the chaos that the conflagration had left. It was exactly six days after the end of the Great Fire when Julia left with her brother. On that same day Christopher Wren presented his plans for a new and beautiful London to the King at Whitehall.
*
In the good autumnal air of Sussex Julia soon recovered completely. There was a wonderful atmosphere at Sotherleigh that nothing had ever destroyed, and Anne’s tranquil happiness seemed to lighten it everywhere just as the gracious windows filled it with air and sunshine. Due to Michael’s insistence that he was as wealthy as if the Sotherleigh treasure had never been lost, Julia accepted that her days of business were over. A Chichester merchant took over her village stocks and employed her workers in their own homes and, being a fair man, he kept on Mr Mather as his inspector and agreed to pay the same adequate wages. As for London, Julia knew her workers there would have no difficulty finding employment, for soon the demand for skilled workers in sewing and weaving would be enormous to replace all the goods that were lost. The marriage of Michael and Mary was to take place in the village church and had been arranged for early November when Adam felt he could get away for the ceremony.
Mary made her own wedding garments. Julia had offered her the Elizabethan gown, but Mary felt it was too splendid and regal for the quiet wedding that she and Michael wanted, although she did accept the loan of a trimming for her gown of some of the beautiful drop-pearls, on the day itself. On the eve of the marriage Julia awaited Adam’s return as if she were a bride herself, full of trepidation and love.
He usually called in at Warrender Hall to check that all was well before coming on to Sotherleigh and this time Julia had made a special arrangement with Meg. Servants were to be posted along the short cut between the two estates to signal to her when he had arrived there. He was late and everyone else at Sotherleigh had gone to bed as she continued to watch from a window for the first flicker of lantern light. She hoped that for once Adam would not decide to come straight to Sotherleigh instead, because that would ruin all that she had planned.
Out of the darkness a light suddenly glowed. The chain of lanterns had reached the gate there. Already in her cloak, she raced down the stairs and outside where Charlie stood ready saddled for her. The groom helped her up and she was away, galloping across the park and through the gate that stood open for her on to Warrender land, the first time she had ventured on it since her chance meeting with Adam on the slope above the house when his friends had made such sport of her.
She overtook the returning lantern-bearers and when she reached the Hall a groom was waiting to take Charlie from her. The door was swung open at her approach and she rushed into the candle-lit hall. At the head of a great carved Tudor staircase Adam stood talking to Meg. He looked down at Julia in astonishment and disbelief. His sister melted away into the shadows.
Julia went slowly to the foot of the staircase, her face upturned to him. ‘I’ve come home to you, Adam.’
He moved down the flight to her. Cupping the side of her face, he gazed at her tenderly. She seized his hand to press the palm passionately to her lips while she leaned against him and rested her head against his chest. Without a word he swung her into his arms and carried her up the flight to the master bedchamber where, long ago, he had planned to possess her.
It was a bed even wider than that of the master bedchamber at Sotherleigh. They used every inch of it in the abandonment of their lovemaking in the glow of a single candle that by dawn had drowned in its own wax. They slept late. His caresses awakened her. The sensual bliss of being made love to when still drowsy was always one of special delight to her and it was particularly pleasurable after the night they had shared. This was the time when he expected no active response from her, content to touch and stroke her erotically while she feigned sleepiness a little longer until her own body gave her away as it did now. Her arms reached for him. This morning, as she blended with him in their mutual passion, it seemed to her when the supreme moments hurled them into total ecstasy that she had conceived at last.
As they lay together with their heartbeats subsiding, she turned her head slightly to look into his face. His eyes were closed and she traced with a fingertip the scar on his cheek made by the mirror-frame she had thrown at him on the day he had come riding to Sotherleigh.
‘This is my seal on you, Adam Warrender,’ she whispered softly, her voice imbued with love. ‘It bound me to you then and for ever. I loved you always, but it took me far longer than it should have done to discover it. I believe I gave my heart to you that day in Chichester when you rode into my life on a pearl-white pony. Why else should I remember every detail of our meeting from that moment onwards? That you should have remembered it too is surely proof that we were destined for each other. I love you. I know I said that many times to you during the night, but I say it again now and will do the same with my last breath.’
His arm had tightened around her and he opened his eyes to look at her with such depths of love and joy in his eyes that she caught her breath in wonder. ‘My beloved,’ he said huskily. ‘You have been and always will be my life.’
Simultaneously each sought the other’s mouth in a kiss of such loving intensity that their embrace did not bring them close enough and once again he entered her in a passion enriched now by the new happiness they had found together.
*
Only the family and a few close friends were to attend the marriage of Michael and Mary. It meant that all would be able to sit at the one long oaken table in the Great Hall and there would be none of the riotous junketing such as Julia and Adam had had to endure. Christopher was Michael’s groomsman and it was the first time the two friends had seen each other since they were in Paris.
‘I trust you will be groomsman to me, Michael,’ Christopher said before the ceremony.
‘In exactly three years. By then I should be settled in London with no more travelling to and fro between Oxford and the City like a jack-in-the-box.’
‘How goes it with the London plans you told me about?’
‘I had strong competition and my plan as a whole has not been accepted, but I am to have licence in some areas and have received a great commission to rebuild many of the lost churches to my own designs.’
‘That’s splendid news!’
Christopher nodded very seriously. Then he spoke almost shyly. ‘There is still more, Michael.’
‘What could that be?’
‘I’m to rebuild St Paul’s. I beg you to pray for me that I may be worthy of this commission and raise a cathedral that will be a hymn of praise to the glory of God.’
‘My prayers will be for you, my friend.’ Michael shook his hand firmly and they clapped each other on the arm.
The village church was full when the bride entered at Adam’s side to be taken up the aisle to where Michael awaited her. She was in forget-me-not blue satin, her wide-brimmed hat trimmed with a bunch of Anne’s ribbons embroidered with the tiny blooms and she carried a small posy of late flowers gathered from the Knot Garden. Anne sighed romantically and turned her head, expecting to catch her husband’s smiling eyes. In confused bewilderment she saw he was not there, but young Robert was and he took her hand.
‘I’m here, Grandmother,’ he whispered. He had learned fast how to calm this sweet lady, whose sudden dithering was a sign she needed reassurance.
‘So you are,’ she whispered back, full of smiles.
Faith, present with Susan and William, let her eyes rest on Christopher as he waited to hand the ring to the Rector for its blessing. She was content that they had a wedding date now and three years should soon pass.
It was a week before Julia and Adam left for London again. During that time she came to know Warrender Hall. It was an old and beautiful house in its starkly early-Tudor way, but in spite of losing her aversion to it she knew it would never mean anything to her as a home. Although she was mistress of it, she felt she was usurping Meg, who belonged to it far more than she. Not once did she execute her authority in any way and it gave her an understanding of how it must have been for her mother at Sotherleigh when Katherine had held sway.
The November weather was cold with sharp frosts, which enabled the journey to London to go at good speed over stone-hard roads. To Julia’s surprise, when they came to the cross-roads that would have led them towards Westminster and the Strand, the coachman followed the sign to Chiswick village.
‘Why are we going there?’ she exclaimed.
Adam grinned at her. ‘I’ve a surprise for you.’
It was a charming village with many trees and thatched cottages clustered by the river. The coachman drove through open gates into a park only recently landscaped to a newly built mansion. Adam sprang out first to help Julia alight, and she paused on the coach step to look in delight from the house to him and back again.
‘It’s ours, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve sold the Strand house. It is equally convenient here to go by boat to Westminster. I shall have my own oarsman.’
She stood and gazed at the classical frontage. Built of mellow-toned brick it was three storeys high with handsome windows, those uppermost framed in stone drapery, each topped by a lion’s head. As for the wide and welcoming entrance, it was flanked by two columns supporting a friezed doorway elaborately ornamented. It was a house both simple and grand, its splendour restrained and yet glorious. Without being told she knew its architect. She turned to Adam, her face shining with joy.
‘How did you know I once made Christopher promise to design a house for me?’
His eyes twinkled. ‘You told me yourself, without knowing it, when you were delirious with the plague. I made up my mind then that one day you should have your wish.’
‘I’m going to love it more than Sotherleigh! I can’t pay it a greater compliment than that!’
‘I’m glad, because this is our home now. Several times when I left you on what you supposed was political business, it was to meet Christopher in order to discuss plans and then later on the site of the house when he supervised the building himself.’
‘What of Warrender Hall?’ She did not want it to be abandoned.
‘I’ve signed it over to my eldest nephew. It was never the place for us. If ever you want a country seat we’ll build another house.’
‘I don’t want any other than this one and here we are in the country already. Let’s call it Chichester House to remind us always of our first meeting.’
He nodded smilingly. ‘Whatever pleases you.’
She caught his hand eagerly. ‘Let’s go in! I can’t wait any longer to see inside.’
Hand in hand they went swiftly up the steps into the house.
Epilogue
In the late spring of 1723, a few weeks after Christopher’s impressive funeral, Adam took Julia to St Paul’s to see his tomb. They were both in their eighties; she was still spry and he rode daily, only having recently retired from many distinguished years in politics. In Chichester House, which she still loved as much as the day she had first seen it, she had borne him five sons, who in all had given them more than a quiverful of grandchildren, resulting in a mounting number of great-grandchildren, with frequent visits from them all. She thought sometimes that the house, which their eldest son, an eminent lawyer, would inherit, had rarely been without some happy sounds of singing or laughter or music. There had been sad times too, as happened in any family, but through it all adults and children alike had sustained one another and remained united.
As she alighted at the huge flight of steps leading up to St Paul’s Julia hesitated, not because she was daunted by the effort of ascending the flight, but because memories were flooding back to her. This beautiful Cathedral, with the double portico of Corinthian columns and the twin towers displaying a classical formality, had taken thirty-five years to build, its magnificence surpassing anything else of its time in Europe. Surmounting the portico with its bas-relief showing the conversion of St Paul, was a statue of the apostle himself. With the massive pearl-shaped dome rising three hundred and sixty-five feet high, the Cathedral dominated the skyline through the sheer power of its glorious architecture.
Just fifteen years earlier she had been standing almost at this spot. Then she had been gazing up at the dome against a ribbon-blue sky to see a tiny speck, which was Christopher’s grown son, who bore his name, placing the last stone on the lantern topped by a ball and Cross to complete the building. At the moment it was done the mighty bells began to chime out for all of London to hear. Christopher, who was standing on the steps, had sought her eyes, and she had answered the smile he gave her with one of perfect understanding. His half of the dream had come true in his masterpiece just as hers had come to fulfilment in her love for Adam.
Adam’s voice brought her back to the present. ‘Shall we go into the Cathedral now?’
She gave him a fond look and took his arm that he was offering her. He was still a handsome man and the grey periwig draped down to his broad shoulders suited him well. He still found her beautiful, but then they had ever looked at each other with the eyes of love.
As she took the steps, holding her tawny velvet hem free of her rosette-trimmed shoes, her thoughts turned to Faith, whom she missed sadly, nothing able to fill the gap left by a dear friend. As arranged, Christopher and Faith had married in the year he had been given the honoured position of Surveyor of the King’s Works, but after only six devoted years together she had died of smallpox just a few weeks after giving birth to their son. Soon afterwards Christopher had married again. His second wife, Jane, had much the same gentle nature as Faith, and she had borne him a daughter and son, but over the years he had lost all three of them and did not marry again.
He had become President of the Royal Society, which he had helped t
o found, but in another sphere in his latter years he had had a great deal of stress. After years of loyal service to the Crown and building many beautiful churches, palaces, colleges, mansions and hospitals, he had fallen from favour with King George and had been dismissed as the Royal Surveyor. He had retired to his apartment at Hampton Court and from there he had come often to sit in St Paul’s, a small frail old man not noticed by those who came to view and worship in its dazzling magnificence.
There were tears in Julia’s eyes as she reached the great door, but she dashed them away. Christopher would not have wanted her to cry. She held up her head, her stateliness set off by her cream-coloured hat. Wide brims had never gone out of fashion and it suited her well. The musical thunder of the organ seemed to hang in the air as she and Adam entered the vast glory of the Cathedral, two tiny figures amidst a wonder of colour, gold and stone. It was full of light that streamed down from the dome, which was supported by eight great pillars, and from many lovely windows. She remembered Christopher telling her of the day he had been marking out this huge new edifice and had called for a lump of the old masonry with which to set a central guide for the whole project. A stone had been picked at random and when the workman had dropped it into place Christopher saw that engraved on it was the word RESURGAM, meaning I shall rise again. St Paul’s had risen again with greater beauty than ever before and she hoped with all her heart it would remain undamaged by fire or anything else throughout the centuries to come.
Circle of Pearls Page 66
