After their meal, discussion of the proposed pattern book resumed. Catherine took away the boys, put them to bed and retired to her own room. If any tried to eavesdrop, they would only have heard polite voices as Juliana and Gideon continued to put together the draft pages.
Their work finally done, Gideon collected the drawings and Juliana's stitchery instructions into his satchel. From it he first removed a bundle of old news-sheets.
Perhaps for a second he looked uneasy. 'Customary printer's gift. Out-of-date editions. Useful for wrapping up fish heads and marrow bones. Clean your muddy heels and soles on them. People put them in the privy. As we printers say, let the nation wipe its arse on the news…' Juliana was slightly startled; this man had certainly not come to be romantic! Even Gideon had second thoughts. 'Bringing bum-fodder to a strange house? Apologies, madam; I must be mildly deranged..'
'No gift is turned away by tradespeople, Captain!'
She should have known that there was a point. Gideon lifted his hand, which had lain palm-down on the pile, apparently accidentally. Juliana read, upside down, that the top paper was called The Moderate Intelligencer. Gideon leafed through the first pages then read out, not looking at her: 'I thought you may not have seen this. "By an express further from Holland, we hear that Prince Rupert is daily expected… he wrote letters not long since to his mother, intimating that as soon as he could hear of his brother Maurice, with those eleven ships that were carried away in the hurricano" — he would go to his mother is intended, I presume, though this journal is too poorly edited to say so — "His own letters say that he himself and one more" — one more ship, it means — "was not in it. What is become of the rest, the Lord knows" This was at the end of March. Thinking of you, I made enquiries — '
Thinking of you? Juliana had once discussed Orlando with Anne Jukes; Anne must have said her husband was at sea. 'Yes. There were other reports.' Prince Rupert continues at the Palace Royal. There is no news yet of his brother Maurice… A good mother, Juliana had kept news-sheets for her boys, if they were curious in future. 'Thank you. It was kind.' Her voice choked a little; she pressed her palm over her mouth. 'There was a rumour that Prince Maurice reappeared in the Mediterranean, but that was false… Even the two ships that survived were so worm-eaten they were quite unserviceable; I suppose in such a condition the rest were vulnerable to the storm..'
Gideon watched unexpected feelings rush upon Juliana. She had only ever discussed this with Mr Impey — a lawyer, with whom it had been neutral and professional. Otherwise, her deduction that Orlando must be lost had been borne in private, as she had always borne her troubles. Suddenly here was Gideon Jukes right at her dining table, agreeing: Lovell was gone. She was a widow. There would be no farewells, no explanations, nothing. Her married life was over.
Juliana had shed tears before, but her surging emotions now startled her. Gideon saw her face, just before she jumped up and swiftly left the room. She was trying to conceal the emergency, but her expression tore his heart.
He waited, uncertainly, then he followed and found her, in the little parlour next door, weeping uncontrollably. Gideon suppressed a curse, thinking he had made a bad mistake. He hardly dared approach, and Juliana held up a hand to stop him. He wanted to hold her, to console her, to let her cry at will onto his shoulder. Instead he could only stand silent in the doorway, offering at least his presence for comfort. This grief is all for the malignant Lovell… Yet he could not hate the man. Gradually he realised that he was witnessing more than straightforward torrents of grief. As Juliana wept herself into exhaustion, it was not just for love of her husband, for his suffering as he drowned, nor even for her sons' loss of their father. This was her release from years of introversion, struggle, loneliness and anxiety. It was necessary. It marked an end to that phase of her life.
When her sobs stopped, neither was embarrassed. Juliana turned away further, to begin the ghastly business of drying tears and nose-blowing. 'I am much to blame,' Gideon apologised, all humility. 'I bungled that. I did not know what to say for the best.'
Juliana still could not speak.
'Mistress Lovell, I will take my leave — do not disturb yourself; I will let myself out of the shop. Do not wait too long before you lock up properly'
He went — not so hurriedly that he seemed to be afraid of a woman weeping, but more swiftly than she wanted. Feeling doubly bereft, Juliana slowly completed her mopping and snuffling, then she washed her hands and face. It had grown dark, so when she made her way downstairs to secure the premises she took a candle.
The shop door remained wide open. With his back to her, Gideon Jukes was leaning against the frame, disconsolately, gazing out. The street was dark and gusty. It was absolutely sheeting down with rain.
He had heard her, so Juliana went and stood in the doorway beside him. She stayed in the dry but let the weather cool her hot face. 'Come back in. You cannot go in that.' She knew she was glad. She hungered for more time with him.
Gideon did not stir. He seemed to be reminiscing. 'I was drenched often enough in the army — day after day, week after week, many a night lying out in the fields in filthy rain like this… You close yourself down, waiting for the misery to end — while you form dreams to take your mind away from it.' He half turned his head. His voice sharpened: 'Did you miss me?'
Convention got the better of Juliana. She fluttered uncharacteristically, 'Oh Captain Jukes, I hardly know you!'
'I believe you do.' Gideon was quieter than ever, yet no longer subdued. He had the air of a man who had reached a decision. 'I know you too,' he went on purposefully. 'Though not so well, because you hunch up in yourself. I shall have to winkle you out, when you allow me to do it. That could be good — it leaves more to discover at leisure… I missed you, I admit it. I carried your memory fast within me.'
He had lost the thin tone and careful formality he had used before. This was his normal voice, resonating as it had done in her reveries. Juliana luxuriated in its return. She asked him with her usual candour, 'What happened to the light lad who flirted?'
'Held in restraint.'
'I liked him!'
Gideon laughed quietly. 'I know you did.' They seemed able to speak together with astonishing honesty.
'And you liked being him.'
'Oh yes.' To himself, Gideon was confessing that he had never behaved before or since as he did the day of Anne Jukes's birthday and for that short time afterwards. He was not even behaving like that now; well, not yet. He could be working up to it. 'How did you like such an odd bubble of air?'
'Well, I thought him a sly-tongued rogue.' Now Juliana felt she was flirting. She had lost all her modesty, and did not care.
'Ever astute, madam! But you can trust him. Gideon Jukes: age thirty-three, height inconvenient, hair tow-coloured, eyes blue, journeyman printer, ten years fighting for liberty, some wounds but no loss of capacity' — soldiers always wanted to make that clear — 'clean and neat around the house. Favourite cake: gingerbread. Favourite pie: veal on a base of bacon. Favourite celebration dish: a salmagundi. True unto death.'
'True to what?'
'God, my cause, my city and family — the woman of my choice.'
Juliana let herself accept that the salmagundi in his manifesto was a heavy clue who that was.
The rain continued to pour incessantly. Anyone who walked outside would be soaked through at once.
'Move from the door and let me close it, Captain.'
Gideon stepped back, though he put up his hand on the edge of the door, preventing her from moving it. A gust of motion blew the candle out. It made little difference. The loss of its small light barely affected eyes that had grown used to the murk. All their senses were heightened and fixed on each other. 'Do you want me to leave you?'