My love linked arms with me. ‘What will you wear, Jacob?’
‘My best coat, the one you know with the mother-of-pearl buttons, and a lace collar to my shirt. I have had them ready a month and more.’
‘And favours?’ she coaxed.
‘Aye, favours,’ for I had gained my point over the ring and other trash, and I knew that without these trumpery bits of ribbon her woman’s soul would not be satisfied.
Caro squeezed my hand. ‘We will look like gentry.’
‘I am gentry.’ My own words surprised me. Having been a servant so long, I had near forgotten.
‘But not idle like some we know.’
‘Let us hope,’ I said, ‘that he will be away, or dead drunk in bed.’
My Lady was coming back up the stairs, grunting from a stiffness she had in the legs and hips.
‘Madam, may we go down now?’ I requested. ‘Caro has not yet been seen by my mother.’
‘What! Most certainly you must go. She is in the garden with your brothers, near the lavender bed.’
‘You are all kindness.’
We bowed and curtseyed, then scampered downstairs like children.
Mother was just where the Mistress had said, standing between Zeb and Izzy.
‘I always forget how pale your mother is,’ said Caro as we crossed towards them. ‘Where is her part in you, Black Jacob?’
‘The eyes.’
‘So much?’
‘More than she has in the others. Zeb and Izzy have Father’s complexion entirely. Yet folk say I am the most like him.’
Mother turned the grey eyes which were under discussion sharply upon her future daughter as soon as she perceived our approach. Caro curtseyed with a graceful sweep that not even Mervyn could have faulted, but to no purpose: there would never be liking between these two. My mother bristled like a dog’s back. For Caro’s part, as soon as she came out of her curtsey she drew herself up, Youth against Age.
‘You have met Caro before, dear Mother,’ I tried. ‘Now you meet her as a dutiful daughter.’
Caro smiled.
Mother’s glance raked her up and down as if seeking cracks in her skin, as she said, ‘I will scarce know what to do with a daughter. My babes have all been boys.’
Izzy shot me a sympathetic glance.
‘I had hoped we might put you to bed at home,’ Mother said, turning on me. ‘But you will not want that.’
‘That was our first wish,’ I assured her, Caro’s head bobbing up and down in agreement. ‘But the kindness shown, and such gifts – a servant is not a free man—’
My mother inclined her head so slightly that one might not say she nodded.
‘The Mistress has given me a gown against the day,’ put in Caro. ‘And a pair of—’
‘She has been most kind,’ I hurried to conceal the last loan.
Mother pounced. ‘A pair of what?’
‘Earrings,’ faltered Caro.
‘Earrings for a serving maid.’ My mother stared into the sky, her mouth sulky and closed like that of an old fish.
I was stung. ‘Say rather for ‘my wife.’
‘Your mother thinks I intrude myself among my betters. Give you good day, Madam.’ Caro turned and walked away.
‘Are you now content?’ I burst out. ‘I mean to espouse her, and you had best—’
‘Mother, will you come and see my garden?’ Izzy almost shouted. ‘The Mistress has given me a plot for myself, and I take cuttings of the rare plants.’
‘Indeed, Isaiah, that will be very pleasant.’ And off she went with Izzy, leaving me and my betrothal to come about as we would.
Zeb grinned. ‘Caro is too pretty for her, and you too amorous. That sets her on edge.’
‘Amorous? I did but speak!’
‘It shines out of you.’ He gave a sly laugh. ‘For all she says, methinks she would scarce welcome the bridebed at home. And then, she once hoped we would marry better.’
‘Then you must look for trouble, when the time comes.’ If Mother behaved thus with Caro, she would surely take a whip to Patience.
‘I have ample trouble at present.’ Zeb’s eyes grew miserable.
‘Be easy,’ I said. ‘Patience cannot be at Champains. She will be found in time.’
He glanced at me in surprise. ‘I have been thinking. Perhaps you are right, and I drove her away—’
I shook my head. There followed a rare moment of peace between us.
‘Ah, well,’ Zeb said at last, ‘Mother will come round. Directly you and Caro quarrel, you’ll be her own sweet boy.’
‘We won’t quarrel,’ I replied. Zebedee clapped me on the shoulder and we began strolling back to the house.
‘Have you seen the ceiling?’ Caro pushed open the door of the unused chamber that was to be our married quarters.
I looked up. I had seen it often, without much interest. Now the other servants had cleaned both it and the walls, revealing the fantastic images that crowded there: a shameless hotch-potch of the pagan and Papistical, a whirl of naked and semi-naked forms intended to give the eye the impression of an ascent into the air above the house.
‘Sir John’s taste exactly,’ I pronounced.
‘O no,’ Caro corrected me. ‘Older than that. Godfrey says Sir John’s father hired a foreigner for the painting.’
‘And how do you like it?’
‘Not at all,’ she said at once.
I gazed on the bloated babes carrying lyres and blowing trumpets, the swags of painted stuff and grapes piled up here and there. In the centre, a bare breasted woman conversed like the strumpet she was with two men, one on either side of her. All three were seated on thrones shaped like shells and coloured gold.
Caro pointed. ‘That’s a goddess, the Mistress says.’
‘You are prettier than she.’
My love wrinkled her nose. ‘She is coarse. In need of stays.’
I said, ‘Izzy told me these were painted so that the children conceived here might be beautiful.’
Caro burst out laughing. ‘What, Mervyn—?’
Laughter seized on me also. ‘Why, yes. Look there—’ and I pointed out a chubby infant swilling wine from an upturned horn.
‘Mervyn must have been made in the great chamber.’ Caro wiped her eyes. ‘The ceiling there isn’t fit for a maid to look on.’
‘You will get used to this one,’ I said slyly, and saw her blush.
The espousal was fixed for the next day. My Lady was to send her coach for our ungracious mother, and since our fellows at Beaurepair were also our guests, servants were come in from a neighbour’s house to help Mounseer with the food. Poor Mounseer, he was the only one of us not to have a holiday. But he had consolation in the form of Madeleine, a young Frenchwoman employed to dress hair. Her thankless task was to spin gold from the thin and greying locks of her own mistress, and now she had been borrowed and was to try her skill with ours. I had heard Daskin present himself to her the day before, and since then there was no good English spoken when