Garlands of Gold (29 page)

Eighteen

S
askia discussed the menu at length with Louis, the chef, for the evening when the Wrens would be present. When the day came she spent considerable time decorating the table as she had once longed to do when watching Mistress Gibbons give the final touches. As it was early December there were few flowers to be had anywhere, but she used what she could find and added rowan berries for colour while ivy trailed delicately along the table and encircled the bases of the silver candelabrum with the tall white candles. The effect was later admired by Mistress Wren herself.

Saskia was fascinated to meet that lady’s famous husband with his strict principles and extraordinary talents, for not only was he a brilliant architect, but also a mathematician, a geologist, an astronomer and much else, and had once successfully transferred blood from a healthy animal to a sick one, which had never been done before and would probably never be done again. Yet he had given lectures on its possible benefits for human beings instead of the bloodletting that most physicians considered essential for most ailments.

Saskia curtsied deeply to him when he and Mistress Wren arrived and Robert had welcomed them.

‘I have been hearing about you from my wife, madam,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Your success is much to be admired. We need beauty in all its forms in this world of ours and you are contributing in your own unique way.’

She had liked him on sight and his compliment meant much to her. He was not a commanding figure, being slight of build, but she thought him most remarkable for his keenly intelligent eyes that seemed to encompass everything at a glance. His nose was long and thin with finely curved nostrils, his cheeks clear cut and his mouth pleasingly indented at the corners. His periwig, which flowed over his shoulders, was a dark coppery shade that most surely echoed his own hair colour to judge by his brows and lashes. He was handsomely dressed in a sea-green coat of richest velvet, and the lace trimming his cravat and flowing from his cuffs was as fine in appearance as the lace that Grinling had once carved.

There were only eight guests and conversation flowed freely around the table. One gentleman, forgetting that his hostess was Dutch, brought up the subject of the current war with Holland. Immediately Wren intervened.

‘Remember that we are both great maritime nations,’ he said, ‘both expanding our colonies and our trade routes. Friction has been inevitable, but all will settle down again before too long.’ He turned to Saskia, for he was seated at her left hand. ‘Believe me, madam, it was only a squabble between two seafaring friends. Our bonds with your nation are too strong to be severed. Even the King’s niece is wife to the Prince of the House of Orange, and your country gave refuge to our Merry Monarch himself during his years of exile. Bonds have been formed over the years that will never be broken.’

‘I thank you for your kind and reassuring words, Master Wren.’

He had averted what could have been an embarrassing interlude for her and after that the talk was mostly light-hearted and amusing. Once during dinner Saskia’s glance was caught by Robert at the head of the table. He gave her a smile that told her the evening was already a success.

It was as the guests were leaving that Wren spoke quietly to Robert. ‘I shall be in my office tomorrow morning. Come and see me about eleven o’clock if that is convenient.’

‘Indeed it is, sir,’ Robert replied swiftly.

‘Good. Thank you again for a most enjoyable evening.’

When the last guest had departed Saskia and Robert faced each other in the drawing room. ‘Tomorrow I’ve an appointment at eleven o’clock with Master Wren at his office,’ he said triumphantly.

‘That’s wonderful!’ she exclaimed, glad for him. ‘I wish you well there.’

‘It’s all due to you,’ he said appreciatively.

She shrugged. ‘It was bound to happen for you sooner or later. I’ve heard praise for your work from different sources. I’m only sorry, as I am sure you are, that this chance had to be achieved through a deception.’

‘But there was none,’ he said.

She looked at him in cool surprise. ‘How can you say that when we are only posing as a married couple?’

He had decided that the time had come to tell her the truth. ‘But it is not a pose, Saskia.’

She looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘The Reverend Walburton was still ordained when he married us at the Fleet prison. What I paid him settled his debts and afterwards his bishop was merciful and restored him to his parish in Berkshire.’

All colour drained from her face and in distress she pressed her fingers against her cheeks. Her voice came in a whisper. ‘You tricked me.’

‘Not in the way that you imagine. I have wanted you for my wife ever since I first saw you on that day of my return to Rotterdam with Grinling from abroad. He has known my feelings for you ever since that time.’

She sat motionless, her head bowed, and he could not see her face. Dropping down to one knee beside her, he would have taken her hands into his, but she snatched them away and her expression as she jerked her head towards him was one of total fury.

‘You are the one who has always stood between Grinling and me!’ she accused fiercely, her eyes flashing. ‘Not Elizabeth! Not then! If you had never told him he might have looked at me in a different light. We both know that out of the binding loyalty of friendship he would never have vied with you over me.’

‘I cannot deny that,’ he said, rising to his feet again. ‘He did think you were a lovely girl.’

She gasped, hearing no hint of remorse in his voice. ‘This is beyond endurance! I cannot stay in this room with you for another second!’

She threw herself up out of her chair, her silken skirts swirling about her, but when she would have flown past him he caught her by the shoulders and jerked her to a halt.

‘Not before we have settled how we are going to spend the rest of our lives together!’ he declared firmly.

‘That is easily answered!’ she retorted. ‘I’ll stay long enough for you to establish yourself with Master Wren and then I’ll go back to Holland! I’ll find some way to be free! Then you and I need never meet again.’

‘Do you really suppose that I’d allow that to happen?’ he demanded on a note of angry disbelief that she should have thought it possible. ‘You are legally my wife and therefore you have become a British subject. Dutch laws would no longer apply in your favour.’

She gave a sharp cry. ‘You have taken away my freedom and my country!’

‘Don’t be so dramatic!’ he replied impatiently on the brink of anger. ‘I have no intention of restricting you in any way. You can continue to sell your products and if you need financial aid in getting a shop you shall have it.’

‘No! I want it to be through my own enterprise! Not a means by which you can entrap me still further!’

His jaw tightened and a vein throbbed in his temple. ‘Stop turning me into a jailer and listen to me, Saskia!’ he demanded dangerously. ‘As soon as there is peace again between our two countries you can visit Holland as often as you wish. All I ask is that you will always come back to me.’

All the fight seemed to drain from her and her whole frame sagged, causing her to clasp the back of a chair as if for support. She turned her anguished face to him. ‘Is that all you will expect of me?’

He shook his head, his deep gaze fixed on her. ‘No. I hope in time you will be a true wife to me.’

She straightened up and her eyes blazed. ‘Not unless you are planning rape!’

He caught his breath in such a great surge of rage that his whole face flamed as if speech would have choked him. She backed away from him, fearful that she had goaded him beyond restraint. There was no sound in the room except the crackle of burning logs in the fireplace and her frightened breathing. Yet, after a few tense seconds during which they faced each other as if on the brink of an abyss, he turned away from her to fling the double doors wide and stride from the room, leaving them open behind him.

She stood trembling from the shock of all that had taken place. It was in such moments of high tension and savage words that violence could occur and an end put to love. She believed she had ruthlessly murdered whatever tender feelings he had had for her. Somehow all the anger she had felt initially at the revelation of his tricking her into a legal marriage seemed to fade before the much greater harm that she had done to whatever future they would have together. She had the feeling that she had ripped both their lives into shreds.

Slowly she went out into the hall and paused at the centre of the wide marble floor, her shadow thrown in all directions by the crystal chandelier suspended overhead. A streak of light under the study door showed her where he had gone, perhaps to put her from his mind in the absorption of work. Momentarily she wondered whether she should go to him and try to heal in some measure the searing rift between them for both their sakes, but the harm that had been done needed the solace of time before such a move could be made and even then might prove impossible to mend.

It was in the early hours of the morning that she heard him go to bed in the neighbouring room. She had found it impossible to sleep. Dawn came before she finally dozed.

Nineteen

R
obert was gone from the house when Saskia came downstairs, his place at the table cleared away. Ever since his return they had had breakfast together. She made no comment, determined not to give the servants any cause for gossip, but she wondered where he had gone so early when his appointment with Master Wren was not until mid-morning.

She aimed to spend the morning going to two different markets. Although Joe drove her when the distance was too far to walk she always left the carriage to go on foot into markets and side streets and alleys in her search for unusual and beautiful items for her collection. She also dressed inconspicuously, not wanting her purse snatched in dubious areas.

In the first market, looking with interest at the goods on the stalls of what others would consider rubbish, she found a tiny glass bowl, covered with dirt, which in its better days would once have held finger-rings. It would be perfect for presenting one of her products that did not need a lid. After paying for it she put it into the basket she had brought with her and covered it with a patterned cloth.

She had no luck in the second market, but went down a narrow alleyway where she had never been before and found a little curiosity shop. The proprietor’s name was above the door.
William Jenkins
. Looking through the small grimy panes of the shop window, she was amazed at the variety of second-hand goods on display. Everything from painted masks to wooden toys, spades, gardening forks and tools of every kind, jugs and chamber pots and worn-out rugs. She entered to the smell of dust and dirt and a foul aroma of tobacco smoke that came from the long-stemmed clay pipe being smoked by the old man behind the counter, his spectacles tied on by a faded ribbon around his bedraggled grey wig. Yet he moved with an unexpected sprightliness at her entrance, getting quickly to his feet. She guessed that this was William Jenkins.

‘What ’ave you brought me?’ he asked without preamble. ‘A pendant? A ring? Your ’usband’s watch?’

She realized that he thought she had come to pawn something. ‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘I’m on a quest for anything small and antique and still beautiful.’

‘What’s it for?’

‘I need containers for the cosmetics I make for the face.’

He gave a hoarse chuckle. ‘You don’t need paint on that visage of yours.’

‘But I’m in business. I produce my powders and balms for other people too.’

He frowned at her warningly. ‘I don’t give no special prices for those in trade. It’s the same prices for all.’

She doubted that was true, but shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m going to look around. You may not have anything suitable.’

‘Oh, I will, madam! You take your time and ’ave a good look and I’ll see what I can find for you.’

He dived behind a ragged curtain into the back of the shop. She heard him rattling around in there while she looked along the crowded shelves where festoons of cobwebs showed how long some of the items had been undisturbed. But she was rewarded in her search with a little pink-tinted flask, the stopper intact. She had put it on the counter ready to be paid for when the old man returned, holding a collection of items by an arm across his chest. He set them down one by one on the counter. Most of them were worthless rubbish, but there was one of silver with a screw lid, but black through lack of polish, There was another of Indian origin studded with semi-precious stones, which looked as if it were gold, and also a little china box, so charmingly painted with a primitive portrait of the King that she could not resist it. These three objects she set aside with the flask she had found.

‘Well?’ the old man prompted as she lingered over some of the other items on the counter, discarding in turn those that were cracked or otherwise damaged.

She stood back to gesture towards those she had chosen. ‘What is your price for these?’

He made a great show of pursing his lips and shaking his head as if she had given him a difficult task in estimating what he should charge her. Then he asked her far too much, but after some bartering they reached a figure agreeable to them both.