He was a heavy man, jowly, with a soft wet mouth, whose gaze lingered on Juliana momentarily. She saw how things were. Marrying a knight or baronet would have been a coup for Aurora, a squire's daughter. Before war put pressure on finances, the eldest Lovell girl would have had a good dowry. As Lady Swayne, Aurora had settled into her rank very comfortably, adding to the high-handed manner she must always have had. Her husband was probably satisfied that he had made a good match, as well as one where he could ply his courtship merely by strolling across a few fields, sparing himself any interruption to his hunting.
Juliana was sure if he and she had been alone in the room, Sir Daniel Swayne would have dropped some hint to the effect that she was too good to be penned up in a kitchen inglenook, meaning she should accept overtures from him. Even with his wife present, Juliana read insinuation in his eyes: one more problem that unprotected woman had to face. Some kinds of friendly reception were too unpleasant to contemplate.
Unable to face answering, Juliana waited patiently for the next onslaught.
It came unexpectedly. The parlour door crashed open. In burst a man in a long creased nightshirt, pale and distraught. Without doubt, Ralph Lovell.
Once, he must have looked very like his brother Orlando — a resemblance that gave Juliana a pang — yet he had recently been cruelly deprived of handsome features. A young woman who must be the spinster sister, Jane, scuttled in after him and attempted to place a blanket around his shoulders, only to be shaken off roughly.
The sight was horrific. Juliana had to force herself not to squeal with horror. Major Ralph Lovell's right arm had been shot off above the elbow and half his face blasted away. His life had been saved — at a terrible cost. A good surgeon must have done what he could to mend the damage; the results were still raw. Ralph's face was now twisted, with one eye socket dragged from its proper place — the eye missing — his burned flesh cobbled back together with terrible distortion and scars. When he struggled to speak it was evident he had lost pieces of his jaw and part of his tongue.
'Po-echt!' cried Ralph. It took Juliana a while to understand he was wanting to protest. She had already been struggling with the Hampshire accents of his relatives. Ralph could no longer form clear words, he had lost all ability to make tongued consonants, and was even hampered with his vowels.
Jane screwed her eyes shut and shook her head helplessly, telling her sisters she had not been able to prevent him coming downstairs. Probably they had instructed her to conceal Juliana's visit. Jane was still a girl. Now that the money had run out and taken her marriage chances with it, she was probably pushed around by everyone. Even her disabled brother bullied her while she dutifully nursed him.
'Ralph!' cried his father. 'Be easy. Do not trouble yourself.'
Ralph made more agitated, indecipherable sounds.
Mary leapt up and went to him. 'Oh this is not right. Never mind what Orlando did years ago — though that was bad enough! — His obstinate delinquency cannot be borne. We should not be asked to bear it!'
Ralph still forced out noises while gesticulating wildly. Jane, who must be used to it, interpreted. She spoke rather formally because it was so difficult: 'Orlando and Ralph can never be reconciled. Our brother's foolish adherence to the King must for ever cause grief to our father, and all of us. Fathers are fighting sons, brothers fighting brothers, cousin against cousin — men have sacrificed their lives in our cause. Ralph has shed his blood for the cause. He has endured grievous hardships and would have given his life. Orlando is resolute on his malignant course. Therefore he and those who belong to him must stay apart from us!'
Exhausted, Ralph collapsed on a chair brought to him by Sir Daniel. While Jane sank onto a footstool, their sister Mary wiped dribble from Ralph's chin with a handkerchief from her pocket. Her gesture was automatic; Ralph struggled with swallowing and would have to be mopped up for the rest of his life. Who knew what other intimate attentions he would require or how any of the parties would endure it.
Juliana assessed the damage that Ralph's terrible injuries had caused to his relatives. His wife, Katherine, was sitting silent and rigid; Juliana now recognised her complete devastation. Katherine had kept her husband, yet lost her marriage. She could not cope with what had happened and was barely hiding her disintegration. Juliana read the father's despair, the sisters' misery, the brothers-in-laws' discomfort. She could only imagine how children reacted. How the servants shuddered, the tenants whispered. How Ralph himself would alter, as pain and frustration embittered him.
All eyes turned to Juliana accusingly.
She was so shocked she had leapt to her feet. They would not want her sympathy, though they had it. Ralph's disfigurement and disablement were so dreadful they must have thought his death would be easier to bear. For him and for all of them. But no; he was going to struggle on and they were going to care for him. Nothing within this large, close family would ever be the same again.
Ralph's situation should make no difference. Her pleas on Orlando's behalf remained just as valid. Yet Juliana knew her suit was blown away.
Somehow she found words. 'I am appalled, Major Lovell, to see your suffering. You may not wish to hear this, but your brother will be heartbroken; he has always spoken most kindly of you — ' Well, except when he said you had died in an explosion, so he could masquerade as heir… ' I plead with you only to remember this: just as you chose your cause according to your conscience, so did honest men on the other side. Both parties claim they fight to preserve the freedom and safety of the kingdom. That is the tragedy. Royalists' opposition to you was never ignoble; they serve the King because they believe it is the proper thing to do. They did not choose it as some path to wickedness. I know there are even those in the King's party who serve him out of ancient loyalty of subject to monarch, yet who still desire that Charles should yield to Parliament's demands. Some who always did wish it so, some who are even now pressing him to make a peace.'
This speech certainly was unexpected to the Lovells. Juliana had surprised herself.
'I do not take sides,' she added quickly. 'My coming here was for two earnest reasons. One was to give my boys an opportunity to know their grandfather — which is their right, as it is every child's right. The rest of you may decide how you regard them, but I beg you, do not interfere between the squire and Tom and Val.'
'Tom!' murmured Squire Lovell, his face irresistibly softening. Then Juliana realised for the first time that Orlando had named their elder boy after his own father. She knew at once: Orlando had done it deliberately.
'And I was hoping — ' Unexpectedly, she stumbled. 'I hoped that since you have influence with Parliament and I do not, you might be willing to assist me. I have been told that my husband is a prisoner since Naseby. I am desperate to find out where he is.'
Again, there was that odd riffle of movement among the Lovells.
'Oh we know where the scoundrel is!' scoffed the squire. 'His first action on finding himself penned up in London was to write here and tell me!'
Chapter Thirty-Six — Hampshire: 1646
So shaken was Juliana that she was sent back to the Anchor under escort from Mary and Francis Falconer. During the walk, through the misty countryside and the quiet village, the couple explained to her in a fairly friendly fashion that there was a practical reason why Orlando wrote to his father and not to her. Paper and ink in jail were scarce. Orlando's most pressing concern involved his personal estate. When he first returned to England in 1642, Orlando must have brought home money he had earned — or acquired by other means, thought Juliana — during his service on the Continent. He had asked Squire Lovell's agent to buy land for him.