'Nerissa was never one to seclude herself in a fine carriage. There were noblewomen who did that, and I suppose they were treated by the victors accordingly. Nerissa always saw it as her duty to guide the junior officers' and soldiers' wives.'
'So?'
'So, when the New Model Army troopers burst in among our women in their tranquil camp site, Nerissa stood among them. The Roundheads could not understand the women; they called them Irish papist whores. They began mutilating the poor creatures — slashing their noses as a sign they were supposed to be harlots, making them too ugly to ply such a trade… The bloodlust took hold; they callously slaughtered dozens. I am told that Nerissa marched forwards and stood up to the men indignantly. She cursed their blind morals and their cruelty — but not for long. Irish herself and not denying it, she quickly received punishment.'
Survivors, blood still pouring from their slit noses, had told Owen when he came to search. At his insistence, they showed him his wife's mangled body. He wept as he told Juliana.
'We were going home to Ireland. I shall go to Ireland still — in bitter sorrow that I must return alone. We thought if we were ever separated, Nerissa would bear that burden. This is not planned for, Juliana. Oh, how am I to deal with it?'
'Save yourself.' Not weeping herself yet, though tears were all too close, Juliana's throat had dried; her voice came as an angry croak. 'Leave this terrible, blood-soaked country. It is what she would want.'
Owen Mcllwaine had had a long weary ride in which to think about his future. 'What is the point?' he asked, though it was a mere murmur of exhaustion. 'What is the point of anything?'
Women have their work. Juliana set aside her feelings. She kept going, temporarily, playing at housewife. She organised a bed, persuaded the colonel to take nourishment, saw him safe to his room. Then she roused Nerissa's servant and told her what had happened, so that Grania's first terrible torrent of distress could happen out of Owen's hearing and before little Tom awoke.
'The colonel will take you with him back to Ireland, Grania. He has come to Oxford to fetch you. He will take you safely home.'
He had come for the family valuables too, Juliana realised. Because of her friendship with his wife, she knew what the Mcllwaines owned, and where they kept it. A discreet man, the colonel systematically gathered together the money, the papers and his wife's jewellery next day. There was silverware, off which they had all so often dined convivially — battered old Irish cutlery, chargers and dishes collected in France, ridiculously tall German goblets — and there were Venetian glasses, which were housed, wrapped in green velvet, in their own casket. Most precious and rare, there was a clock.
The colonel worked fast and miserably, and he worked alone. As a couple the Mcllwaines had been generous with their energy, to the King they served and to their own friends, yet they had controlled their affairs with caution. They had lived, worked, fought, always with their eventual retirement in mind. Even Grania, the family retainer, had been kept in their household as someone who might tend them in old age. When Grania made a desultory offer to stay with Juliana until she gave birth, that was never a real option. 'No; you must go with the colonel. Mistress Mcllwaine would expect you to look after him, now he is desolate. I have a midwife arranged for my lying-in; I shall do well enough.'
Juliana would never be able to afford to keep a servant. That was so evident, she barely considered the issue. So long as the colonel remained in the house, she was deferring any hard look at her future, but it could only be a life of poverty.
Mcllwaine stayed two days. On the night before he left, he allowed Juliana to prepare a decent supper, set formally at table, instead of the hurried snacks he had taken in his own unhappy company. She dressed in the best gown she owned that would fit over her expanded belly; she wore the pearl necklace Lovell had brought back from campaign. Her son Tom and the servant Grania dined with them; little Tom, on what passed for his best behaviour, sat on a pile of cushions, tied with a sash to the tall chair-back. Afterwards Grania cleared the table, put the child to bed and retired to pray and weep for her lost mistress, leaving Juliana and the colonel to conduct dreary finalities.
Mcllwaine now told Juliana the house had its rent paid up until December; she was welcome to have use of it for that period. He had listed various pieces of furniture that he could neither take with him nor sell; these were hers on permanent loan. He handed her one flat, velvet-lined jewel case containing an antique Irish gold-set sapphire necklace and earrings, which he said Nerissa had wanted her to have. Then he tried, as far as honesty would let him, to pretend that her husband might still return.
"We shall see.' Juliana quietly folded her hands and wished the conversation were over. For her there was no point in speculation. Either Orlando would turn up, completely out of the blue as was his habit, or in time she would have to accept he was not coming back. She might never discover what had happened to him. They had made no plans for this eventuality, so she must make the best of it. With resignation she saw that, back in Wallingford, Orlando had chosen her on a raffish presumption that, unlike women with more conventional upbringings, Juliana Carlill had enough spirit to fend for herself. If he was alive still, he would not be worrying about her.
It was a night for plain speaking. There in the twilight, Nerissa's widower and her young friend spent time talking about her. Owen and Juliana went through the difficult, necessary conversation bereaved people inflict upon themselves: they reviewed Nerissa's talents and reminisced over special events they had shared with her, as if they were fixing those dear past times in the memory.
'I shall never forget how, in the big fire here last October, we had scuttled for our lives over into Christ Church quadrangle and as we pushed in among the cattle some men ogled us — Nerissa gurgled with laughter and whispered to me, "If we were not good wives, we should fill in the hour while the flames are doused, having liaisons with these gallants!'"
'She was never a one for the gallants,' Owen congratulated himself.
'Oh do not be so sure, my dear! She would eye up a gallant astutely — you were safe because of her wisdom; those dark eyes of hers would twinkle as she knew them all for shallow idiots…'
Very carefully, avoiding too much emotion, they listed the qualities of loyalty and courage that had made Nerissa follow Owen and the army, and the sense of justice that made her denounce the New Model Army troopers who were savaging the other women.
The colonel had drunk deeper than usual. There were a few good bottles of wine in the cellar and this was his last chance to enjoy them. When he soldiered on the Continent, he and Nerissa had more than once moved on and left a life behind, but he had never had to do it alone. Nerissa had been there, ready to prepare some new home wherever they landed up. As he stretched his long legs and brooded, Juliana considered privately how relationships between families worked and sometimes shifted. Nerissa had been her friend; she took in the Lovells to be part of her household, yet it was her gift to Juliana specifically. The two couples had lived side by side, though theirs was never the timeless friendship that came from years of living in neighbouring villages or adjacent town houses, nor had they a history of working together as courtiers. Even though Juliana and Owen had just talked intimately about Nerissa, in truth she barely knew the man. She was not certain he understood why Nerissa had been so fond of her. Perhaps she and Owen were each a little jealous of Nerissa's closeness to the other… Now friendship would continue on the surface, but awkwardly. If Lovell had been here, that would have been worse.