Page 73 of Dark Tides
“They say there’ll be another war with the Dutch,” Ned volunteered. “They’re not allowing any Dutch shipping to take our goods.”
Both men looked immediately disapproving. “A war against godly men?” William asked.
“The king’ll probably join with the French against them,” Ned suggested. “That’s what they’re saying.”
The ferry nudged the pier and Ned tied it off.
“God help the country, fighting a godly realm in alliance with papists, with a king married to a heretic. God teach them a better way to go.” William closed his eyes briefly in prayer. “And what will it mean to us here? Are we settlers supposed to fight the war too? In front of the savages in the New World? It’s the worst thing we could do.”
“Lord make him see sense,” Edward joined the prayer.
Wussausmon looked from one man to another. “You pray against your king?” he asked.
“We’ve done far worse than that.” William opened his eyes and smiled.
OCTOBER 1670, LONDON
Livia was seated in a high-backed chair in the black-and-white checkerboard hall of Avery House by half past nine on the day of the viewing breakfast. In the basement kitchen the servants prepared silver salvers of biscuits, pastries, and fruits. Bottles of wine chilled in buckets of cold well water. Great jugs of freshly squeezed lemonade were cooling in the sink. Everything was ready.
Sir James stood in his study door admiring Livia, seated in the hall. She was dwarfed by the thick wooden arms and the high back of the chair, but she radiated self-possession and a pretty dignity of her own. He knew that she was nervous; but she did not fidget or run from kitchen to garden to check that everything was ready. She contained her nerves behind a calm smile and only the rise and fall of her black lace bodice showed that her heart was pounding.
“They will come.” He stepped into the hall to reassure her. “But they will come throughout the day. We can’t expect anyone to come on the striking of the ten o’clock bell.”
The face she tilted up towards him was serene. “I know,” she said. “And besides, you have a beautiful house that anyone would be glad to visit, and I am showing genuine rare antiquities. I know that we are together offering the very best. People are bound to come, and if they come: they are bound to admire.”
He thought she showed her quality in her self-control. That she was—just as she said of her antiquities—something rare and beautiful He was glad that he had opened his house for her, that his memories of his wife’s awkward silences could be overlaid by this dainty littlewoman and the occasion she had single-handedly created. The ten o’clock church bell rang at St. Clement Danes and all over the house there were silvery chimes of ten from clocks in the study and in the drawing room, and loud pealing from all the neighborhood churches.
“Will you take a glass of lemonade?” he said. “We cannot expect people to be on the very dot—”
There was a hammer on the door and the noise of a carriage outside. With a triumphant smile at him she motioned Glib to open the door and the nominated maid to stand ready to take the hats and sticks. As the door opened, she rose to her feet and waited, like a queen, for her first guest.
Sir James recognized Lady Barton and her daughter, old friends of his mother, and, stepping forwards, made the introductions. Livia curtseyed to precisely the right level as he introduced her and gave her hand to her ladyship and led the two of them upstairs. She did not glance back at him and beam, as he had been afraid she would do. She was perfectly dignified. As she went up the stairs, her black silk skirt brushing the worked-iron bannister, there was another knock on the door and a well-known landowner, famous for his park and gardens, was there, hat and cane in hand, coming to visit the antiquities. Sir James realized that it was he who was beaming, like a schoolboy, up at Livia.
They closed the front doors on the last guest at three in the afternoon. “Come into the parlor,” Sir James said. “You must be exhausted.”
Livia dropped into a chair. “How many people?” was all she asked. “I lost count.”
“As many as a hundred,” he confirmed, taking a seat opposite hers. “Were there any actual orders?”
She showed him a little notebook that she had on a silver chain at her waist. “Three for sure, and two others who are going to measure their dining hall to make sure they have enough space. Most people said they would write within a few days. But three promised to buy.”
He shook his head. “You were magnificent!” he said. “And so calm!”
“Because you were there,” she assured him. “And because I was in Avery House. How could I be anything but calm when the house is so beautiful and there have been such wonderful women in this place before me? I thought of what you have told me of your mother, and I wanted her to be proud of the house… and even of me,” she added.
“She would have been,” he said. “She would have seen, as I have done, how hard you work and how easy you make it look.”
She glowed with pleasure and came across the room to his chair. She bent quickly and put her lips to his cheek. “Thank you for saying that,” she said. “That is the best of the day. It has been a wonderful day; but that is the best.”
He could smell her perfume, sun-warmed roses, and for a moment he thought that he could put his hands on her slim waist and pull her down to sit on his lap and kiss her lips. He hesitated, half-afraid of his own desire, aware that this was a woman without protection in his house, and that she was the daughter-in-law of the woman that he had loved all his life.
“Forgive me…” he started, but she had already slipped away to the door.
“I shall leave you to dine in peace,” she said, as if she did not want him at all. “I must get back to the warehouse and tell them how well we have done. I shall be able to help them to buy new premises, and have a better life, and I am glad of it. Wait till they hear!”
“Will you tell them I send my best wishes, that I am glad of your success for them, and happy that I have been able to help?”
She came back to him and put her hand on his arm. “No,” she said tenderly. “Alas, they will not hear your name. They even warn me against trusting you.” She paused, her pretty face looking up at him. “I hope I don’t cause you pain when I tell you they have cut you out of their lives. You should think of yourself as free of them.”
