Rebels and Traitors (13 page)

Mr Gadd crisply enumerated Juliana’s talents: chaste, sweet-natured, well read, religious, a good seamstress, able to manage a kitchen and a still. He called her fair, because ‘beauty’ was conventional. They could see for themselves that she had brown hair, grey eyes, straight teeth, a small nose (unlike her French grandmother), and a medium figure that could probably cope with child-bearing. Her manner seemed reserved. That was good. A woman had to accept her fate meekly.

‘You have been at court, Mistress?’ asked Treves, sounding hopeful as he leaned forward awkwardly from the other window seat. He was still flustered and blushing.

‘She is far too young!’ remonstrated Mr Gadd, with a friendly chuckle.

‘You are French?’ demanded Lovell. Nothing flustered him.

‘My
grandmother
was French, Captain Lovell.’

‘The French court is full of foppish men and filthy women.’ He sounded as if his sneers were based on experience — though Juliana thought anyone could generalise in such a way.

‘Perhaps,’ Juliana countered, ‘that was why Grand-mère was pleased to leave.’

Her retort was too strong. All three men blenched.

‘The grandmother married a cloth merchant of Colchester, very well-to-do,’ Mr Gadd said rapidly. It was true, although the cloth merchant was a haberdasher and he had vanished from the scene rather quickly.
‘Drowned at sea — so sad!’
was how Roxanne had passed it off in her brisk manner. She always made it sound as though Mr Carlill was a bolter, who had left her in the lurch. Perhaps. Juliana had occasionally wondered disloyally whether he was dispatched by other means. For certain all his money and his stock-in-trade, while it lasted, remained with Roxanne.

He also left Roxanne pregnant — the only time the Frenchwoman was caught out. She thought her son Germain a British milksop, but brought him up diligently. She never complained, even when Germain spent most of his father’s money (Roxanne kept some of it back in secret) and himself failed in business.

Germain Carlill survived childhood, grew up feckless and married a young woman called Mary, who was the antithesis of his mother, the simplicity of Mary’s name and nature throwing her exotic foreign mother-in-law into high relief. Mary produced Juliana, miscarried, miscarried again, then died. Seeing there was no hope her dreamy son would take proper care of the little girl, Roxanne stepped in. Though never maternal previously, she and her granddaughter grew very close. Juliana was a sunny, self-reliant child. It helped.

None of that needed to be recounted to Treves and Lovell. The background and experiences which had formed Juliana’s personality were irrelevant; only her paper assets counted.

‘Are you able to supply a dowry list?’ It was Lovell who asked.

‘In preparation,’ assured Mr Gadd. ‘Her grandfather left a wealthy bequest and her grandmother was an excellent businesswoman. I was proud to have the acquaintance of Madame Carlill.’ Mr Gadd saluted Juliana who smiled gravely. She noted that nobody asked about her father. ‘Captain Lovell, it would be helpful to hear whether your friend’s landed estates would add the same level of material security? What jointure is being offered?’ A jointure was money provided by a groom’s family to support a wife if her husband predeceased her; it was generally similar to the dowry that a girl brought to the marriage.

Lovell bluffed: ‘Mr Treves is a gentleman and a scholar, as you know. His family is well regarded in Northumberland — are they not, Edmund?’

‘Staffordshire,’ Edmund corrected, forgetting that Lovell had told him to say Northumberland as it was more remote, which would help flummox enquiries.

‘He is a scholar,’ repeated Mr Gadd thoughtfully. ‘How can he marry whilst at the university?’

‘Any gentleman may leave his studies to settle down. A degree is not in itself significant. The important thing is to have broadened his mind — then to seize the moment to establish himself wisely’ Lovell managed to suggest that acquiring a degree for career purposes was not only unnecessary, but even slightly sordid. Obtaining a rich bride was much more respectable.

‘His estate will permit him to be immediately independent?’ Mr Gadd was inspecting his skinny knees with a clerkish air.

‘He is possessed of all the requisite rents to flourish.’ Lovell remained polite, but implied Gadd had insulted them.

Mr Gadd had worked with lawyers, so he was impervious. He spoke as if he had made up his mind. ‘It will be necessary to satisfy myself Juliana knew he was already making enquiries, a task he enjoyed, though the political upheaval meant answers were slow in coming.

The shrewd Gadd observed a passing shade of alarm in Treves — which gave him answer enough. The boy would not do.

Mr Gadd could have cut their losses immediately and withdrawn from negotiations, but there had been no other offers. The threat of war was a trial. Good families always liked to marry their offspring to their friends and relations. He knew it would be difficult to drum up interest.

Besides, rehearsing witnesses had been Mr Gadd’s strength when he worked in the law; he wanted to give Juliana more practice with suitors. The young redhead was mightily keen on obtaining the ‘Kentish acres’, which told its own story. Treves was no use. He needed to be dropped, but Mr Gadd was enjoying this race between impostors. He let Treves and Lovell run downhill with the cheese.

Treves and Lovell came daily for over a week. A phantom courtship was played out, with nobody learning much, nobody committing themselves. Mr Gadd had not yet warned Juliana he planned to refuse Edmund Treves.

So she donned her hat dutifully and went walking with the two gentlemen, chaperoned by Little Prue. They conversed politely of birdsong, the price of butter, the delights and pretensions of Wallingford. Juliana pressed Treves for stories of his family, ignored Lovell as much as possible and said nothing of her own background. She learned about Treves’s widowed mother, Alice, his younger brothers and sisters, his two uncles who acted as interested patrons as far as they could afford. Through his private enquiries Mr Gadd had discovered that one of the uncles was supporting Parliament, although the keen Royalist Edmund seemed unaware of it. His mother must know, but had kept that back.

Juliana treated Edmund well. Unfortunately, he mistook her good manners for genuine interest in him. He had never had much contact with young women outside his own family. He found Juliana pleasant to look at; her intelligence impressed him without his noticing it. Even when he forgot to think about her apple orchards, he was falling in love with her.

Juliana had never had much contact with young men, but she had a practical streak, directly learned from her grandmother. She was certainly not falling in love with Edmund Treves.

Once or twice the men were invited to dine. On these occasions, it was natural that the conversation turned to the political situation. Juliana was glad, for it took attention away from Little Prue’s indifferent efforts to pan-fry escalopes.

Juliana rarely spoke. She was supposed to remain silent. She knew these negotiations could just as well have been carried out without her presence. But she watched carefully.

‘Are you for the King or Parliament?’ It must have been Lovell who put the question to Mr Gadd; Treves innocently assumed that everyone he met was a Royalist.

‘I am for King — and for Parliament, Captain.’

‘A lawyer’s answer!’ Orlando Lovell quite rudely related how a country labourer had been asked the question by a troop of cavaliers; when he gave the same cautious reply as Gadd, they shot him dead. ‘Many people would rather not choose,’ Lovell acknowledged, ‘but we shall all be forced to it.’

‘So is it your opinion this armed conflict will rage long?’ asked Mr Gadd — still slyly withholding his views, Juliana noticed.

Lovell answered at once. ‘If there is a decisive battle this autumn and if the King wins — as he should — then all is over. If there is
no
decisive battle, or if Parliament prevails, then we are in for a long, hard-driven wrangle.’

‘So you are for the King, even though it is a hopeless cause?’ sniped Mr Gadd.

‘Not hopeless,’ returned Lovell. ‘More ridiculous than I like. More ill-judged than it need be, longer, more bloody, more expensive, no doubt. But the King must win.’

Mr Gadd pursed his lips very slightly.

‘Of course the King will win!’ Edmund burst out immaturely

While Juliana continued to observe in silence, the men reviewed the position. England had had no standing army. On both sides, gentlemen raised regiments, often composed of their own pressurised tenants, ill-equipped and mutinous. The King’s call to arms was being only fitfully answered but in contrast, the Earl of Essex, Parliament’s commanding general, was in charge of twenty thousand troops. Now, in October, the King was still trying to drum up support in the Midlands, with mixed success, his army still much inferior. At the time of Juliana’s courtship, the King had moved to Shrewsbury.

‘There he is well positioned for support to reach him from Wales, where several regiments are being raised for him,’ said Mr Gadd.

‘You speak like a strategist,’ Edmund Treves commented.

We shall all be strategists by winter,’ replied Mr Gadd.

Lovell had previously worn a superior smile, but now spoke easily, as if he was enjoying the debate: ‘The Earl of Essex prefers a waiting game; he wants the King to sue for peace.’

‘You think the King will march on London?’ Mr Gadd asked.

‘What has your intelligence from London to say?’

‘Oh my correspondence with London is all of demesnes and rents,’ Gadd told Lovell softly.

‘Of course it is.’

There was a small pause, as if contenders in a sparring match were taking breath.

Lovell reached for the wine flagon to refill his glass and that of Treves. Mr Gadd had already declined further liquor, on health grounds. Juliana’s glass was empty, but she was a young girl, and Lovell no more considered replenishing her wineglass than he had deemed it proper to include her in the political conversation. She had a flashing vision of Roxanne, on rare occasions when there was wine at the Carlill table, grasping the flagon and pouring for everyone equally.

Edmund Treves caught Juliana’s look and misinterpreted: ‘Do not be alarmed by all our talk of war, madam. Neither side wishes this conflict to be a trouble for women.’

Juliana remembered what Mr Gadd had told her about Edmund’s opposing uncles. ‘Any woman connected to men who are fighting must find it a very deep trouble, Master Treves. Besides,’ she added wickedly, ‘perhaps if Captain Lovell had asked me
,
am
I
for King or Parliament, I might not give a lawyer’s answer!’

Orlando Lovell looked amused. ‘So let me ask you the question.’

For almost the first time in their acquaintance Juliana gazed straight at him. ‘Oh I must ally myself with my husband — when I have a husband.’ She let them feel smug, then added, ‘However, if I did not like his views, that would be very difficult. I hope to have my husband’s full confidence, and to share mine with him.’

‘And if you could not?’

‘Oh I should have to leave him of course, Captain Lovell.’

As they all laughed most merrily at this idea, it seemed that only Juliana Carlill recognised that she had not been joking.

By the time that they had this conversation, King Charles had made his move. He left Shrewsbury, to the relief of the townsfolk, who had been badly used by his bored and ill-provisioned soldiers, even after the royal Mint from Aberystwyth was brought to coin collected plate and pay the men. The Earl of Essex bestirred himself. Leaving Worcester, which had suffered from his billeted troops as badly as Shrewsbury from the King’s, he set off to form a blockade between the King and London. So the two field armies moved slowly towards each other, with between fourteen and fifteen thousand men apiece, each strangely unaware of their converging paths. Poor physical communications and the indifference of the people in areas through which they passed combined to astonish them when they suddenly came within a few miles of each other, near Kineton in south Warwickshire. On the 23rd of October, the King decided to join battle, drawing up his troops on Edgehill ridge.

When news of the battle at Edgehill reached Wallingford, which happened quite swiftly despite the sleeting autumn weather, the courtship of Juliana faltered. Though reports were as confusing as the battle seemed to have been, Treves and Lovell were now eager to join the King’s army. A polite note informed Mr Gadd they had left Wallingford to volunteer.

‘We shall not see them again,’ Juliana murmured, uncertain whether to be disappointed.

Six days after the battle, the King and his army marched into Oxford, where Lovell and Treves were waiting. Charles was welcomed by the university with great ceremony and with less warmth by the town. Four days later he set off again determined to capture London. This was his march to Turnham Green.

As the Royalist army travelled south, it passed Wallingford. Juliana and Mr Gadd were surprised to receive a new visit from Orlando Lovell. This time he came alone. He seemed depressed, which appeared to be his reaction to the battle; he had ascertained details which he shared with Mr Gadd, man to man, Juliana being permitted to listen in only because she sat so quiet in a corner the men forgot she was there.