In his effort to keep busy, Glover sent a boy to the gate with a handful of coins to pay off traders so they would not call outside the windows. Helena doubted the efficacy of such an action, but reasoned it could do Guy no harm.
“The grooms have spread straw on the drive beneath his window, Mistress.” Glover removed a bowl of water and the stained linen. “And on the street outside the gates to muffle passing carriage wheels.”
“An excellent idea, Glover.” It was an effort to talk; she was so weary from her disturbed nights.
With all possible noise deadened, the massive house took on an expectant, silent feel. Guy’s level of consciousness altered until he seemed no longer comforted by Helena’s presence, or her gentle ministrations.
Sticking rigidly to her routine, Helena bathed his hot face, tipping tiny spoonsful of the potions Glover brought through his distorted lips. Unable to concentrate long enough to read or even sew, she sat by the bed and twisted them in her lap, wishing his fever would break and he would wake up, declare he was wasting time and should be working.
Dr Stone visited again, but would not venture any closer than the doorway, making Helena impatient with the man’s negativity.
“Don’t admit him again,” she instructed Glover when he had gone, richer by another fee.
Glover accepted her edict in silence.
Helena took short naps in Guy’s dressing room, but they were fitful and unsatisfactory, with every sound disturbing her rest. The dull afternoon turned to deep night, but she refused to leave Guy’s side, fearful she was not doing enough.
The logs in the fire shifted and settled with a whispered whoosh, the air thick with a sick room smell and by the time the Watch called midnight, each hour seemed to stretch unbearably. The night darkened and chilled around the house, making Helena feel she was the only one in the entire city not asleep.
She watched the coverlet over Guy lift and fall rhythmically, a lone candle illuminating hollow cheeks which had shed flesh since his illness began. The fever had devoured him so rapidly, they had barely talked before he slid into unconsciousness, and there was no way to reach him now. She rose and approached the side of the bed and leaned over him, trying not to focus on the angry eruptions on his cheeks and forehead.
“I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you,” she whispered.
Her words, she knew, were pitifully inadequate, and it was unlikely he heard her, yet something compelled her to explain and apologize. Her hand crept towards his gloved one, drawing back at the last moment. The pustules on his wrists looked painful and she had no wish to make his ordeal worse. “I wanted to be a good wife, Guy. I tried hard to be, but I was weaker than I imagined. I’m sorry.”
Guy moaned, one hand jumping convulsively on the bed.
With a sigh, she fell silent, in case her voice disturbed him, and turned to stare at the deserted night city beyond the window. There was nothing to see in the murk but her reflection in the glass, lit by the single candle on the sill beneath. Minutes passed and the silence in the room stretched until there came no sound at all but her own breathing.
Her own breathing.
Her chair creaked in protest as she leapt to her feet and to the side of the bed, her hands pressed to her mouth in dread. Frantically she searched his face, where his half open eyes beneath swollen lids were discoloured and still, clouded into milky opaqueness. A tiny speck of dust had settled near one iris, but he did not blink it away.
He had gone.
Her eyes swam with tears, and her fingers shook as she adjusted the cap on the shorn head, folding the ravaged hands onto a hollow chest. Her final act of love.
He seemed small, diminished, somehow. Not at all the dependable, proud, yet sometimes overly serious but constant man she had sworn to love forever, and had betrayed. He couldn’t hear her goodbye, so she didn’t offer one. Instead, she wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders and settled back in her chair to wait for the night to end.
When Glover scratched on the door in the morning, it was a dry-eyed Helena who broke the news that his master had left him, and it was from her the devastated man sought comfort.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
January 1695, Palmer House, London – Helena
“It’s no task for a woman,” Aaron insisted, when Helena announced her intention of arranging her husband’s funeral.
Too dispirited to argue, Helena retreated, resisting Glover’s suggestions to send for the boys.
“Not yet. Allow them to remain in blissful ignorance just a little longer.” She missed them, but dreaded facing her sons with such dreadful news. The passing bell was rung at St James, nine rings for a man, followed by one ring for each year of Guy Palmer’s life.
Dr Stone called a final time in order to pronounce death and collect another fee, but his conscience must have bothered him, for he brought a ‘searcher’ with him. This was a stout, black-garbed matron with round eyes and a blank expression, who stared around with awe at the opulence of the entrance hall as she stumbled to keep up with Glover’s long strides.
The red cloths were removed and the entire house draped with heavy black mourning, concealing its beauty and bringing the winter darkness inside. Helena’s jewels were locked away, the mirrors and pictures swathed with black to prevent shiny surfaces from attracting the spirit of the dead, thus keeping him earthbound. With all sound muffled, everyone spoke in whispers.
A white linen shroud was ordered, meaning a fine would have to be paid for not burying him in flannel, but despite the Woulfe’s continued interest in the woollen trade, no one expected Helena to obey.
The painted oak coffin was set on trestles in the ground floor salon and by chance, Helena happened to pass the door as two men upended a sack of bran into the interior. A light dust puffed into the air and sent nausea into her throat. Distressed, she ran from the room, and collided with Henry.
“It’s done to soak up bodily fluids, Helena. A sensible thing to do, you must agree.” He tried to offer a comforting arm but she shook him off.
“Sensible? He’s still my husband, not a slab of meat. No one appears to regard him as a person any more. Except me.”
Ignoring her resistance, Henry gathered her into his arms.
“I don’t want to watch them laying him inside. I couldn’t stand to see—”
”You don’t have to.” Henry drew her away. “Aaron collected the funeral cards. Are they not fine?”
Helena examined the black-edged squares of thick pasteboard that held the details printed alongside a hand sketch of a skeleton. She ran a finger beneath Guy’s inscribed name. “Those likely to attend are already in London for Christmas. Send them out tonight.”
The gateposts on the drive were swathed with hangings and Helena ordered full mourning clothes for the servants. Despite the way her chest hurt constantly, Helena could not help but admire the footmen in their elegant black and white livery standing sentry in the hallways.
Distraught that a man younger than himself had been taken, Robert ordered mourning rings struck in his own workshops, fashioned from black enamel for the men and gold with a black band for the ladies, each inscribed with Guy’s name and the date of his death.
At Alyce’s urging, for even in funereal matters she expected everyone to be fashionable, Helena purchased yards of silk crepe, a new and fine fabric spun by Huguenot weavers in Spitalfields. The seamstress stayed up all night fashioning long scarves to be attached to gentleman’s hatbands for the period of mourning following the funeral.
Helena insisted the fine was paid to allow him to be buried in a shroud of fine linen. “What a barbarous notion to make it law to bury the dead in flannel,” she had muttered when reminded.
When Aaron imparted the news that William had arrived home from Ceylon two days after Christmas, Helena fought to keep her fragile emotions hidden. “Did…did he have a profitable journey?”
“Very, according to Robert. Although he is distressed about Guy.” Aaron fiddled
with a funeral card propped against the mantle and gave a deep sigh. “It’s a shame Guy will never see the wonderful jewels William brought home.”
Helena looked into his face, but his expression was guileless. She had kept her secret from him at least.
“I’ve invited him to be a pallbearer. You don’t object, I trust?” Aaron said.
Helena caught Henry’s startled gasp, but kept her face neutral. “No, of course not. How kind of him.”
Aaron drifted out of the room and Henry came to stand at her shoulder, “Helena—”
She held up a hand. “Don’t say it.”
* * *
December 1694, Kensington Palace, London – Aaron
Aaron followed Hendrick through a hushed crowd waiting in the snow outside Kensington Palace.
“The notice is up.” He nodded at the gate.
Aaron glanced briefly at the black bordered parchment that announced Queen Mary’s death from smallpox at thirty two. “I know. I’ve never seen His Majesty so distraught.”
“He says he cannot bear the sound of hammering as they hung the mourning cloth.” Hendrick stood aside to let Aaron pass as they gained the door. “He plans to move to a house overlooking Richmond Park.”
“I told Helena about the Queen this morning.” Aaron turned into the long corridor leading to the king’s apartments.
“How did she take it?”
“Calmly. But that’s her manner lately. I would prefer to be with her more, but there’s too much to do at Guy’s workshops. Then there is the Bank. I had no idea he worked so hard.”
“Yes, you did. But such industry made you look idle, so you made jokes about it.”
Aaron glanced at his friend in surprise, but there was no real malice there, simply amusement.
“Perhaps you’re right, Hendrick, I probably even envied him.”
They entered a room filled with frantic activity, in stark contrast to the sombre silence of the road outside. A small army of servants rushed from room to room, packing their master’s personal items in boxes.
“I have to admit, I rather enjoy this new responsibility.” Aaron picked a discarded hairbrush from the floor and dropped it into a box beside him. “But it pains me when I return to Palmer House in the afternoons. Helena looks almost disappointed when it’s me who walks through the door and not Guy.
“Did you think she would not miss him?”
Aaron did not respond. Having never been tempted to embark on married life himself, its vagaries eluded him.
“I think His Majesty is ready for us.” Hendrick nodded toward a footman who signalled to them from the door.
They entered the audience chamber, where the tired looking king sat slumped on his chair, his faithful Bentinck murmuring into his ear from beside him.
“Look at all these vultures.” Aaron indicated the crowded room. “Can they not leave their petitions until after the queen’s funeral?”
Hendrick’s sardonic look sent warmth into Aaron’s face. Was that not exactly why they were there?
He gave an embarrassed cough and shifted uneasily. The room was stifling, despite the cold morning, the combined fragrances of expensive toilettes mixing with more earthy smell of unwashed bodies.
King William looked up, his heavy lidded eyes sweeping the room with a familiar expression, assessing whom he could ignore and those he was pleased to see. When his master looked his way, Aaron’s palms began to sweat. He had waited so long, and now his petition to regain Loxsbeare had finally reached the top of the pile.
Aaron was beckoned forward and eased through the press of disappointed faces to the front of the room, their owners moving aside reluctantly to let him through.
“Master Woulfe, this day I seek your forgiveness,” King William said, inclining his head.
Aaron straightened from his low bow, one eyebrow raised in surprise. “What can you possibly have to seek my forgiveness for, Your Majesty?”
The king held up a finger. “Because I have made you wait an exceptionally long time to address your petition. I hope you will indulge me, for I have done so to keep you among the court.”
“Where I shall remain for as long as you wish, Your Majesty.”
The king’s hooded eyes sparkled. “Would you have me believe, sir, that had I heard your petition sooner, you would have resisted the desire to rush off into the country to claim your birthright?”
Aaron hesitated. Not a natural sycophant, he found it hard to openly lie. The king smiled and came to his rescue. “Master De Groot tells me that my Uncle Charles bestowed a certain honour on the Manor of Loxsbeare, did he not?”
Aaron glanced at Hendrick with a frown “The Licence to Crenellate. Yes, Your Majesty, he did.”
At the king’s signal, Hendrick produced a sheet of parchment from a pile on a nearby desk, handing it to Aaron.
“Pray, Master Woulfe, read to me what it says there.”
Aaron squinted at the paper, recognizing the phrases he and Helena had read so often as children, he could recite them by heart.
Charles, by the grace of God King of England, to all to whom these letters come, greetings.
Know that we have granted on behalf of Ourselves and Our Heirs that our beloved and faithful Thomas of Exeter and Eleanor his wife that they may fortify and crenellate their house named Loxbeare Manor in the county of Devon with a wall of stone fortifications, and that they and their heirs may hold it, thus fortified and crenellated, for ever, without let or hinderance of Us or Our Heirs or any of our officials. In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patent.
Witnessed by myself at White Hall Palace, on the twenty-third day of May in the fifth year of our reign.
Signed and sealed by Charles II
When he reached the end, Aaron lifted his head, meeting the king’s amused eyes.
“Their heirs may hold it, thus fortified and crenellated, forever,” he repeated, in his remarkably improved English. “With such a precedent made by my late uncle, how could I withhold this prize from such a faithful servant?”
A ripple of congratulatory murmurs ran through the onlookers, but Aaron stood immobile, stunned. It had finally happened and when his senses returned, he had to resist the urge to throw his arms skyward and cheer.
With an effort, he pulled his attention back to what the king was saying. “I wish you well of it, Master Woulfe.” He held bony hands out in a gesture of surrender. “I’ve scant liking for Exeter in any case.”
Aaron smiled, recalling the November march through muddy roads to the city of his birth, their arrival filling him with pride. Not so the then Prince William, who loudly disparaged the state of the city walls, remarking, “I could take this city with baked apples.”
A clerk stepped forward to offer a petition for inspection, beckoning the next candidate for favour into the royal presence. Aaron found himself dismissed.
“Whatever prompted His Majesty to accept my petition?” he asked when he and Hendrick were released into the hallway. “And don’t tell me this had anything to do with it, as I won’t believe you.” He waved the parchment he carried under Hendrick’s nose.
“A good excuse though, don’t you think?” Hendrick kept pace with him along the echoing corridor. “However you are right, it was really the Bank.”
Aaron halted, turning to face him. “The Bank?”
“Guy Palmer’s involvement in the Bank of England has been a boon for securing funds.” Hendrick indicated they should keep walking as a duke and an earl walked past them in the opposite direction. “However, he could hardly reward your family publicly for encouraging war.”
Aaron bridled. “Are you telling me I have my late brother-in-law to thank for this?”
Hendrick shrugged. “Does it matter? You have Loxsbeare back, and how it came about is irrelevant.”
A spark of resentment lit in Aaron’s head, but he pushed it away. “I’ve earned Loxsbeare, no matter what Guy’s role was in its restoration.” His footsteps quick
ened and Hendrick increased his pace to keep up. “And His Majesty is right, I cannot wait to go down there and take possession. When the roads are passable again.”
* * *
December 1694, Palmer House, London – Helena
A blanket of thick snow covered the city streets on the day of the funeral, with low clouds darkening the afternoon into evening. Chloe helped Helena dress in a gown of black wool, arranging an opaque veil over a peaked headdress to signify her withdrawal from the world.
Chloe’s hands shook as she secured the pins, and with a choked half sob, she brushed her nose briskly with the back of her hand.
“Don’t cry, Chloe.” Helena pulled the gauze down over her face. “Your master would not wish you to be unhappy.”
“Oh, Mistress. My sadness is for you and those poor children.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve.
A stream of visitors filed into Palmer House, some to pay their respects, while others stared around at the house and its furnishings with ill-disguised curiosity.
“Are you still determined to walk with the procession?” Aaron demanded for the tenth time since Helena had told him she intended to go to the funeral. The sombre note of the passing bell came to the end of the nine rings that signified the death of a man, then without pause launched into ringing once for each year of Guy’s life.
Helena gritted her teeth and tried to shut out the sound. “We’ve had this argument before. I’ll not let my sons go alone. They need me to be there.” And I need to see this through to the end.
Aaron finally gave up and to her relief, didn’t mention it again.
In full darkness, the procession set off on the walk to the church behind the velvet draped coffin lit by bearers with wax torches. Lines of onlookers crept out of their houses into the snowy streets, watching their progress with heads bowed and hats removed.
“I’m glad we thought to employ guards,” Aaron said “Funeral processions are often attacked and robbed, you know.” He indicated the expensive pall and the torches carried aloft. “And it proved costly to ensure the grave was dug deep enough to discourage grave robbers.”
The Goldsmith's Wife (The Woulfes of Loxsbeare Book 2) Page 25
