reasoned with.' Wiping away a tear, Juliana did not have to tell Anne Jukes that the Bridewell treatment of lunatics was to beat them with rods; it was supposed to drive out their demons and cure them, though it helped but few.
Once her grandmother could no longer bear Germain's decrepitude, being an intolerant woman who was angered by illness in others, she sold the Colchester house and took Juliana to London. There Roxanne died. Tottering himself, her guardian William Gadd saw his priority as settling Juliana; he never told Orlando Lovell that the 'Kentish orchards' were meagre and still belonged to Germain Carlill. Once she married, Juliana had frequently had to make excuses to Lovell for her non-receipt of the rents.
When Juliana went back to Colchester to look for her father after the siege, one of her trials was hearing from his keeper that no money had been received from the Lewisham tenants for some time. Juliana would have to discover why. None of the likely explanations was good.
Far worse news was waiting, however. By the time she arrived at Colchester and talked her way in through the victorious New Model Army soldiers, her father was dead. As she read the news-sheets, she had suspected this. He was too fragile to survive such a siege. His nurse's house had been lost to fire; the homeless had to shelter in a church. Before then, the poor old man — who was fifty, yet more like a man of ninety — had become utterly confused and terrified. Germain knew nothing of the civil war. He lived in his own world, no longer aware who he was, responding to his nurse out of habit. The noise of guns had appalled him; Juliana was told of one wild scene when he escaped to the town walls, half naked, and tried to instruct the soldiers to stop causing such a commotion. Starvation hit him hard. Already weak, he shrank to a wraith, refusing to eat even the unpalatable scraps that were available. His mind deteriorated further, very rapidly. He ranted uncontrollably and accused the poor woman who looked after him of trying to end his life. She had little to give him, and soon knew she could not save him.
'By the time I found her,' Juliana poured out to Anne Jukes through tears, 'she was herself desperately sick. She died, almost overcome by relief at telling me what had happened to Papa. She died apologising for his death — even though I was told by others afterwards that the woman had struggled to look after him long after most would have given up. She had not just shared her pitiful rations with him, but gave him the greater share because his pleas were so heartbreaking
Nobody left at Colchester could tell Juliana exactly when Germain Carlill died, or where he was buried. The dead had been disposed of by the fainting population in a random fashion, with no parish records kept. Nobody ever knew the full death toll among civilians.
Juliana had paid for the nurse to be buried. At the funeral, a woman who had probably intended to keep quiet suddenly came forward and told her where to find her father's remaining possessions. Juliana knew Germain had owned a watch and there had once been pewter, linen, colourful delft platters… she would never see any of those again. She did find sacks of haberdashery. She tracked down one great chair that her father had always sat in. In a chest, surviving because they must have seemed to have no value, were papers covered with her grandmother's patterns for lace and embroidery. Juliana piled all these onto her cart, with her own possessions.
She had one last task: to discover whether Orlando Lovell had been among the Royalists at Colchester. She was unable to find his name in the lists of prisoners and a few she was allowed to speak to had never heard of him. So she left Colchester, her last link with her own family, for ever.
Juliana confessed to Anne she was glad she never had to show her sons their grandfather without his wits and suffering. Eventually she would be able to tell Tom and Val about Germain, as she remembered him from her short but happy childhood — the affectionate father who had helped her learn her letters and given her a love of literature: gentle, always a little vague, unworldly, maddeningly untouched by common sense or commercial acumen, but also quite lacking in the greed, depravity and ambition that disfigured so many men's characters.
'Would he have been for Parliament or the King?' Anne Jukes asked curiously.
'I do not think he would have known how to decide.'
'Would he have wanted equality and liberty?'
Juliana smiled suddenly. She knew from their past meeting that Anne had a subscription to the Levellers. It would not have surprised her to hear that Anne attended meetings where she-preachers stood up. 'Oh, when he had his wits, my father could not have been for any other cause.'
'And you?' Anne wondered. She had learned enough from the episode yesterday when Juliana quietly removed the pudding from the oven during the crisis of Lambert's return — and then did not draw attention to her good deed. Anne was glad to have Juliana in her house for a few days. They understood one another, as some women do instinctively. 'So whom do you support?'
'I am a wife!' protested Juliana. The two women's eyes met.
'Oh you think as your husband does!' teased Anne Jukes. 'You think as your husband tells you to think — which is, you do not think at all.'
'He is the head of my household.' Juliana was smiling despite herself.
'You say he is never there.'
'So now Lambert has returned to you, will you do all he suggests — or will you wrangle?'
Anne smoothed down her apron. 'There will be fights ahead.' She let out the words like one who was just admitting it for the first time.
They sat in silence for a while, each pondering her own problems. When the moment came to rebuild the fire then develop a new subject, Juliana prodded, 'I do not suppose you have had much to do with Royalists?'
'Is there a family in England that does not have divided loyalties?' Anne was now in a gossipy mood. 'The Jukes had a terrible uncle, Bevan Bevan — a man who caused dissension every time he cleared his throat. He recently set himself on a horse and joined in the Kent rebellion. A more ridiculous cavalier the King could not muster; Bevan could hardly move for his weight and his gout, and he was far too old for adventuring. I am waiting to tell Lambert how the silly man advanced upon London with Lord Norwich's troops, and was with them when they swam their horses across the river by Greenwich. Bevan's horse managed to shed him and he was carried away by the current. Many were drowned; Bevan was among them. His body was washed ashore downriver. He was recognised by his belly — and his old red suit.'
'Your husband will rejoice at this?'
'My husband rejoices in no man's death,' Anne quickly replied. 'His uncle caused trouble all his life, but has left behind a wife nearly hysterical, with many children.' Anne paused. 'Elizabeth will marry again,' she confided, with certainty. 'There are women who always do.'
They smiled together, two natural survivors, deploring such women who could not live five minutes alone.
'Quite how many children?' Juliana queried meaningfully.
'Six or seven now, all badly behaved and snotty. You are right; it is enough to deter suitors — but the widow has ownership of a printing business…'
'Ah, just give her six months then!'
This time they both laughed gently.
Bereavement, loneliness and anxiety caught up with Juliana.
'Oh you have saddened me, Mistress Jukes,' she acknowledged. She had not gossiped by the fire with a woman friend since Nerissa died — she could not discuss Nerissa, both Irish and Roman Catholic, in this house of Independents. 'I am looking back and reassessing life. I have nobody now' No one except a husband who was missing yet again and who would not thank her for enquiring after him. Even Mr Gadd had stopped answering her letters. He might be too frail to write; more likely he had died of old age. 'I see very clearly how these wars have taken everything from us. Orlando and I never enjoyed a life together. I find myself thinking of what I have had and lost — then I look forwards, only to see what I shall now never possess.'
'You are young,' Anne reminded her.
'And, you may say, madam, you have your children! My boys give me much — but they also cause me constant fear, fear for them, and for all of us. Sometimes, Mistress Jukes, I feel that I am yearning constantly… for I know not what.'
Anne Jukes smiled a small, intensely rueful smile. 'Ah that, Mistress Lovell! When you find whatever we women run after so blindly, let me know, I pray you, what it is.'
Once, Anne would have jumped up, to lose her emotion in making a beef broth to revive Lambert. Time and weariness had overtaken her too. So she sat on beside the fire, and merely thought about how she ought to be doing it.
