'If my dear Smudge can no longer bear me, it is a sign of God's will that I must retire from the fray. Henceforth I shall support my beloved sovereign only with my prayers.'
He was a widower. The Pelham line would die out. All four of Sir Lysander's sons — Phillip, Jeremy, Hengist and Little Barty, who was only fifteen — had perished fighting for the King. Juliana suspected that Lovell was hoping to ingratiate himself so he might be made the knight's heir. If so, he had reckoned without Sir Lysander's forthright daughters, Bessy and Susannah, not to mention their husbands. The girls arrived in carriages from different directions, each nursing an infant at the breast and towing a cowed spouse. 'Pulled by the nose!' muttered Sir Lysander to Lovell. 'I would get more spunk from Hercules and Ioleus.'
Hercules and Ioleus were his two white-faced bullocks, all he had left of a once-great herd after comprehensive plundering by one army and another. His trees were felled, his horses and cattle stolen, his palings broken down, his barns raided and his house robbed out, with even the pillows slit open and their feathers scattered over half the county. The two bullocks had been somehow left behind and became rather close friends. Sir Lysander explained to Juliana that they had lofty ancient Greek ideals and earthy ancient Greek habits. 'The love between males, which is unselfish, philosophical — and requires from the parties some adaptability in performance.'
Juliana cast her eyes down. 'I never heard of this before!' 'Then you never were in military quarters, madam.' Untrue. Juliana thought back pensively to when Fairfax's New Model Army shared her house in Oxford. All she remembered were constant filth from muddy boots, queues day and night for the overflowing privy, endless demands for bread and butter and the men's tireless stares of disapproval for her and her little household. They kept Mercy and her out of the kitchen while they let the fire go out. When they wanted to make Juliana feel a sinful malignant, they piously sang psalms for hours, once trapping her son Tom in the room with them, until he bit a sergeant. The worst of it all had been the necessity to endure what was done. To complain risked more bad behaviour and uncertain official reprisals.
Now life was better. Although Orlando, who was ostensibly the knight's estate manager, often came in with his boots on after tramping through farmyards, Juliana only had to mop up after his one pair. She had trained the boys to sit on a bench and pull off their dirty shoes when they were called in for dinner. Tom and Val ran free in chicken-run and orchard, while as a family who lived in their own accommodation, generally they were left to their own devices.
Attempts at household regulation still foundered on Orlando's free-booting habits. Juliana did sometimes wonder how such a man could have been a competent soldier and whether he saw their life here only as some kind of game. He came and went in disorderly bursts. He continued to excite their sons at inappropriate moments, taking them from Juliana's lap when she was quietly reading to them, then when he remembered business of his own needing attention, he abruptly passed them back to her, stirred up and fractious.
Thomas was approaching four, Valentine had had his first birthday just after Oxford fell and was now unsteadily toddling. When Sir Lysander took Orlando on a trip to London (for reasons that were not quite clear), toys for which both boys were far too young were brought back. Given the warlike period, it was no surprise when Tom received a gun and even Val was given a flat-cast pewter cavalier, pressed out of metal. 'I won't have my boys play with dolls, Juliana!'
'Valentine is still in baby skirts, Orlando; he loves his doll.'
'Nonsense. Look at the exquisite detailing. I had a ship of the same type, with rigging and cannon and a wavy waterline — '
Val's soldier, on which he soon cut his lip, was one-dimensional, whereas Tom's copper toy musket was fully modelled, with imitation scroll motifs and a tiny trigger. It really fired. For a mother it was a nightmare. The harder Juliana tried to hide the hideous little weapon, the more Orlando conspired with Thomas and made her out to be a spoilsport. Fortunately when the toy misfired, it was Orlando who had it and was burned in the hand — after which he banned the gun and gave it away to an ostler's child. (Juliana found the ostler and warned him of the danger, but he had been in the Earl of Essex's infantry and told her he had spiked it and made all safe; his sneer was telling.) Tom cried for four days. Juliana was left to deal with that.
Life, however, was better than she had ever known before. Perhaps qualms made her suspect she was only playing at house, yet Juliana knew how to savour even a situation she distrusted. Since she married five years before, she had been accustomed to insecurity. Now here they were, all alive and together. She took what she could. Even to be wrangling with her husband over whether carrots should be glazed with parsley butter was a joy, infinitely preferable to wondering which battle he was in and whether he was dead or wounded. All the same, she wondered if she must spend the rest of her days feeling that every place they lived in was just a temporary stop on the way to a remote destination they would never reach.
Juliana was curious about how her husband had discovered Sir Lysander Pelham, and why Pelham had taken him up. She could not quite square the tale that Orlando was acting as an estate manager — when there must be plenty of men in the countryside who were better qualified. Sir Lysander certainly liked to share a drink with Orlando in the evening and would sometimes summon him to the hall for that purpose — a source of contention when Orlando came home the worse for wear. Juliana said little, because they needed the patronage.
Other men visited the hall, presumably friends of Sir Lysander. Juliana never met them.
Finding an occupation posed a problem for her husband. He was not suited to endure penurious exile at the royal court in Paris. There would be no pay, he spoke no French, and hanging about a cold chateau on the fringes of Queen Henrietta's retinue would be as boring for him as for his wife, assuming she went with him — which was never discussed. A professional soldier all his life, either Orlando now must find himself a new war, or he must buckle down to a civilian occupation, untrained and inexperienced. That he had fallen into this niche at Pelham Hall was as lucky as it was surprising — all the more so since England was awash with disbanded and retired soldiers, all desperate for employment. All claimed to be obedient to discipline, good at man-management, trained in horse- husbandry, loyal, hardened, healthy and, naturally, expert shots. Once the New Model Army was disbanded, this could only grow worse. Sussex was a Parliamentarian county and would have many returning soldiers.
In truth Sir Lysander seemed almost fonder of Juliana than Orlando. He was a kindly man and an appreciator of women. Telling her about Hercules and Ioleus, the bullock lovers, occurred because he could see Juliana had more sense of humour than her husband and indeed enjoyed curiosities, unlike the rather straight Orlando. Orlando thought himself a lively fellow with a racy past, but Juliana was more observant and had a better ear for an anecdote. If she baked an almond tart, Sir Lysander would willingly discuss its finer points with her. If one of her boys had a chill, he suggested remedies. He took her on walks, showing her how to identify edible plants and mushrooms. She rapidly learned on those walks not to dally to be helped through gates or over stiles, lest she be pinned to them and forced to notice a virile erection that advertised why English knights of the shire generally had long pedigrees. Juliana was taller than the knight and had faster legs, should running for home become necessary. But it never really came to that. She was never afraid of him.
He knew that she read. Orlando had always boasted that his Juliana was a great reader. She thought of herself more as a needlewoman, but her father had taught her a love of books. Sir Lysander presented her with his late wife's book of recipes and household management. 'Well, it will save Bessy and Susannah tearing it in half.' He then brought her a First Folio Shakespeare one day, simply because he thought she would enjoy it. 'A gift.' He shrugged. 'I never look at it, but you will gain pleasure from it.'
She did. In particular, she discovered Shakespearean heroines: their wisdom, wit, grounded good sense and intrepid bravery, their love for men in all their mastery, mystery and folly. Had he noticed, Orlando Lovell might have thought it ominous that Juliana admired Viola, Rosalind and Harry Hotspur's rumbustious wife, Kate Percy. The ladies in cavalier love lyrics were lofty objects of devotion, yet they were praised more for their clothes, especially fine silks and lawns that lay awry as if tumbled by lovers, than for their readiness to climb into britches, taunt men and take on fate. In the civil war, even the doughty matrons who defended castles were seen as handy to have, in order to preserve an absent husband's home, yet unnatural.
Like many extremely conservative men, once Sir Lysander Pelham found a girl he suspected was equal to anything, he soon developed an affectionate twinkle. He was even struck by Juliana's ability to tolerate and handle the sometimes tricky Orlando Lovell. Sir Lysander never commented on that; he was a gentleman, except in the vicinity of gates or stiles, where he believed a countryman had a blanket exemption from the rules of etiquette.
Eventually Juliana found out why her husband had been brought here. Orlando Lovell and Sir Lysander Pelham were in deep conspiracy.
