Mab, like myself, had to go through a certain tuition. I think she enjoyed it, for she started to give herself airs and talk disparagingly of the poor maids at Trystan who had no idea what fashion meant.
I was beginning to feel that but for the anxieties about what was happening at home and if Bersaba could have been with me, my trip to London would have been a great adventure.
Sir Gervaise appeared a few days after my arrival. He was kind and asked solicitously after my family. He was quite clearly concerned and I thought he was much more kindly than his wife and I wondered if he was happy in his marriage. I believed that Carlotta would be a demanding and not very affectionate wife. Of course he admired her beauty, which was something one could not help but be aware of. When I looked at myself in the mirror with my fashionable fringe and my rather bony wrists I often thought what a contrast I made to the elegant magnificance of Carlotta. She seemed to be aware of it too, for she viewed me with great complacency.
So I began to feel a little happier, for Senara’s certainty that all would be well and Sir Gervaise’s gentleness were of great help to me.
Every day I would hope for a message from home, but Senara said: ‘It is as yet too early. Your mother would wait to tell you until she was certain that the crisis was over. I promise you it will be, but remember it will take a little time for the messenger to get here.’
Sir Gervaise told me that he knew several people who had suffered from the smallpox and survived. Careful nursing, the sickness taken in time … these things worked wonders!
They did all they could to sustain me, and I began to accept their conviction. All will be well, I told myself. It must be. There could not be a world without Bersaba.
I dreamed of her; it was as though she were with me, laughing at my fringe and my shyness with Carlotta. It was almost as though she injected some of her qualities into me. Sometimes I used to think: We are really one person, and I believed she was thinking of me at that moment as she lay on her sick-bed, just as I was thinking of her, so that part of me seemed in that bed of fever and part of her was here in this elegant house learning something of fashions and ways of London society.
I liked to listen to Sir Gervaise talking. He knew that I was interested and seemed to enjoy it when I listened so intently.
He told me that he was rather concerned about the way in which the country was moving. The King could not be aware of his growing unpopularity and the Queen did nothing to help.
‘The people here are suspicious of her,’ he said, ‘because she is a Catholic and she will do all she can to bring Catholicism into England. Not that she could ever succeed. The people here will never have it. Ever since Bloody Mary’s reign they have set their hearts against it.’
I asked about the King and he told me: ‘A man of great charm, of good looks—for all he is of small stature—and perfect manners. But he will never win the popularity of the people. He is too aloof. They do not understand him nor he them. He is proud, with a firm belief that God set the King on the throne and that his right to be there is unquestioned. I fear it will bring trouble … to him and the country.’ He looked at me and smiled. ‘I am wearying you. Forgive me.’
‘Indeed you are not,’ I assured him. ‘I long to learn something of what is happening at Court.’
‘I fear,’ he said ominously, ‘that before long the whole country will be aware of what is happening at Court.’
I gradually began to understand what he meant, and my education began the next day when Carlotta took me into London to buy lace and other materials such as ribbons, gloves and a fan or two. We went in style, for Sir Gervaise, being a rich and important gentleman, was the owner of a coach, and because Carlotta had the ability to wheedle anything out of him, she persuaded him to allow her to use it. It was grand, like a padded box with seats for two at the back and front and a window with velvet drapes which could be pulled if one wished to shut out the street scene. Sir Gervaise’s family crest was emblazoned on the side and it was drawn by two magnificent white horses. The driver was resplendent in the Pondersby livery and so was the footman mounted at the back.
Thus in state we set off, and as we approached the city I became aware of an atmosphere of bustle and excitement; there were people on horseback and people on foot, all behaving as though their business was of the utmost urgency, matters of life and death. For the first time I saw one of the new hackney coaches which could be hired for short distances; a carrier’s waggon trundled past us and, with a great deal of noise, turned into an inn yard. There were so many barges and other craft on the river that the water was almost invisible; and everywhere people seemed to be shouting, calling to each other, sharing jokes, quarrelling, cajoling, threatening. I saw men and women in the most exaggerated of costumes. The low-cut dresses of the women seemed distinctly immodest to me, but at home we were still in the fashions of twenty years before, I supposed, when even ruffs and certainly the high collars which followed them were still being worn. The men were more surprising than the women, for they wore wide sashes and their garters, just above the knee, were made of ribbon with big bows at the side; and there were rosettes on their shoes.
But this elaborate costume was not general, for there were of course the beggars—ragged, sharp-eyed, darting hither and thither, pleading and threatening, and there was another kind of citizen who by the very sombre nature of their dress called attention to the splendour of others. These were men in cloth doublets and dark-coloured breeches, their collars were plain white and their tall crowned hats were unadorned by feathers; the women who were with them were dressed in plain gowns usually grey in colour, with white aprons protecting their skirts and white caps or plain tall hats similar to those worn by the men. They were like a different race of people; they walked quietly, eyes downcast except when they cast looks of contempt at those who swaggered by in their flamboyant garments.
I asked Carlotta who these people were.
‘Oh, they are the Puritans,’ she said. ‘They believe it is wicked to enjoy life. See how they cut their hair.’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘It’s a great contrast to those who wear theirs long like women.’
‘Long hair is so much more becoming.’
‘The contrast is so great,’ I said. ‘In the country no one looks as grand and no one as sombre.’
‘They will. Fashions arrive in time … even in remote places like Cornwall.’
I disliked the denigration in her voice when she talked of my home, so I said no more and gave my full attention to the scene before me.
I had never seen women such as those I occasionally glimpsed. Their faces were highly coloured in a manner which could never be natural, and many of them had black spots and patches on their faces. I saw two of them in an argument and one started to pull at the other’s hair, but the coach passed on so I did not see the outcome of that affair.
When we stopped, beggars looked in at the window and called a blessing on us if we would give them just a little to buy a crust of bread. Carlotta threw out coins which clattered on to the cobbles, and a ragged boy who could not have been more than five years old darted forward and seized them. The beggars set up a wail but the coach passed on.
We left the coach at St Paul’s and Carlotta told the coachman to wait for us there and guard well the coach while we explored Paul’s Walk for the articles we had come to buy.
My experiences grew more astonishing with every passing minute. There in Paul’s Walk, which was the middle aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral, was a market and a promenade and a meeting place for all kinds of people.
Carlotta bade me keep close and I could see why. We were watched as we passed along, and now and then a lady or a gentleman as grandly dressed as Carlotta would stop and exchange a word with her, when she would present me as ‘a visitor from the country’ at which I could be graciously smiled on and then ignored.