Garlands of Gold (9 page)

‘I know,’ Saskia answered blissfully. ‘She is the one who inspired the figurehead.’

Just for a moment the thought crossed the old woman’s mind that Saskia imagined the young woman in question to be herself, but he had been far too long away to have held an image of her in his mind. Unknown to her Saskia was remembering the portrait medallion and her conviction remained unchanged.

Before departure Vrouw Gibbons gave Saskia strict instructions. ‘We shall talk only in English from the moment we step on board the vessel that will be taking us to England. There you shall speak of me as “Mistress Gibbons” and address me as “madam” in the English way.’

The crossing of the North Sea to England was quite smooth, but Vrouw Gibbons kept to her bunk in the cabin the whole time, which allowed Saskia to wander freely on board during the day unless needed to produce a lavender-scented handkerchief, a cup of weak tea or to perform some other small task. When they landed in the port of Harwich on a bright sunny morning a four-horse coach, which was Cousin Henrietta’s own equipage, was waiting for them.

Saskia enjoyed every moment of the journey to London, interested to see that everything was so different from her own country and she marvelled that a stretch of sea could create such a contrast. Instead of a flat horizon there were gentle undulating hills. Although the coach took them across bridges over flowing rivers there were no canals that she could see, and even the thatched roofs in England were all of a yellowish hue whereas those in Holland were as sleek and dark as the fur of a cat. There were windmills, but nothing like the number she was used to seeing at home where sometimes there were as many as six or seven in a row and, according to Mistress Gibbons, the English ones ground corn for flour and were not regulating the water level as so many did at home.

Nobody wore clogs, although many of the ragged children, who ran begging to the coach whenever it stopped, were barefoot. She thought how the poorest Dutch fathers would carve clogs for their offspring, and that could have been done here, for there were plenty of suitable lumps of wood to be gathered from under the trees that frequently shaded the road to London. In fact everything was as beautifully green here as in the Dutch countryside and people seemed to share the same love of flowers, for even the humblest cottage had some blossoms by its door.

When passing through towns Saskia took note of the fashions, which followed the same trends as in Holland. Men of style wore enormous curled periwigs that flowed to their shoulders, their knee-length, full-skirted silk or velvet coats swirled as they walked, and their tubular breeches met high bucket boots that flapped over at the top, often with a trimming of lace or a flurry of ribbons. The women wore wide-brimmed hats like the men, but in softer colours, and overskirts were drawn back to reveal handsome underskirts over abundant petticoats. As it was a warm summer day, a light wrap of lace or silk completed their attire. As for the poor – and those she thought of as everyday folk – they were no different from their Dutch counterparts.

When eventually London was reached the coach had to pass through one of the areas that had been destroyed by the Great Fire and the devastation was terrible to see. Street after street, although swept clear of ash and debris for traffic, was lined with blackened ruins, for the old houses of London, many of them Tudor and earlier, had blazed like torches, the flames leaping from one building to the next. Pathetically, here and there, attempts had been made by destitute families to reconstruct shelter out of whatever could be found to house them while the great task of rebuilding the city took place, signs of it in progress. There were wide gaps where firebreaks had finally controlled the spread of the flames. Soon the borderline of the conflagration was reached and then streets, shops and houses showed no sign of what had happened to the rest of the city during those terrible days and nights.

Rushmere House, Cousin Henrietta’s grand grey stone residence, was set beyond iron gates in a formal garden with everything planted in squares with paths between in the current fashion. As the coach went up the drive to come to a halt at the steps up to the entrance a manservant opened the door and Henrietta Rushmere herself blossomed forth like a colourful flower in silken shades of rose and crimson. In a flutter of lace cuffs, she clasped her hands together in delight at her cousin’s arrival.

‘My dear Bessie! Welcome!’

The two women, who were the same age all but three months between, embraced joyfully.

‘How wonderful to see you again, Henrietta! I had begun to fear this day would never come!’

With arms linked as if they were girls again they went into the house. Bessie was scarcely over the threshold when she came to a halt to face her cousin and ask the question that had been churning inside her all the way there.

‘Henrietta! I just have to know! Is there a young woman with whom Grinling might be in love?’

Henrietta looked completely bewildered. ‘He has never asked to bring a young lady here and neither has he ever spoken of having a sweetheart. I’m sure I would have seen signs of a romance.’

It should have been reassuring, but Bessie was unconvinced. If Henrietta knew nothing it could mean that the young woman in question was as unsuitable as she had feared. She would just have to keep an alert eye open for any female that made soft glances at her son and then judge for herself.

Saskia had watched the meeting of the two cousins with interest. There was no doubt that Mistress Henrietta had been a great beauty in her youth. She had very intense, almost brittle good looks that time had only managed to pluck at over the years and her cosmetics had been most discreetly applied. As for her hair, it had been coloured to a pleasing tawny hue and was exquisitely dressed with side-ringlets that Saskia guessed were supported by wires skilfully hidden from sight. It was a new quirk of fashion that she had yet to try on her mistress. She looked forward to meeting Mistress Henrietta’s personal maid, sure that some helpful hints could be exchanged.

It came as a great surprise to find her counterpart was a Dutchwoman, named Amalia Visser, who was from Amsterdam. She was fifty years old, a long, lean woman with quite beautiful hands and, although her features were pleasant enough, her face was marred by a sad look in her eyes.

Amalia waited until Saskia had supervised the unpacking of her employer’s travelling boxes and then invited her to a cup of tea in her own little parlour, which was very comfortable and had a view of the end of the formal garden. Together they chatted in Dutch.

‘It is such a treat for me to have someone from home to talk to in my native tongue,’ Amalia confided, ‘and I knew your mother. We met some years ago through a mutual acquaintance.’

‘You knew her!’ Saskia felt a warm wave of emotion sweep over her in finding this unexpected link with the past.

‘Yes, but I don’t remember ever seeing you, although I knew of your existence.’

‘Work and parentage were two different roles for my mother and one did not overlap the other.’

‘I realized that. Now tell me how things are in Holland and all that is happening. I’m starved for news.’

Saskia thought to herself that here again was someone who was homesick. So she did her best, telling that there was no slump in the demand for fine paintings from artists that were making their names known in the great flourishing of art throughout the Netherlands and how the bulbs of beautiful tulips were increasing in price, more and more being grown for exportation as well as for the home market. All she knew of politics and other national affairs was what she had gathered from the news-sheets that James Gibbons discarded when he had read them. If he had come across some political item that had enraged him he always denounced it in an angry voice that could be heard all over the house. Saskia had always found his comments interesting and sometimes enlightening.

Amalia listened intently to Saskia’s every word and then heaved a deep sigh. ‘You make me wish I were back home again more than ever. I’ve no complaints about how I am treated here and I’m paid well enough, but England isn’t Holland and my heart is there.’

‘Does Master Grinling ever visit here?’ Saskia guarded against her question coming in a rush, but it was what she had wanted to ask from the start.

Amalia, as Saskia had anticipated, mistook the reason for her interest. ‘Yes, I know he’s Dutch by birth, but I don’t have any conversation with him if that’s what you’re thinking. His mother and Mistress Henrietta are first cousins, as you will know, and so he comes to dine occasionally when she invites friends to her table. He is always an asset as a guest, because he is musical and will often sing and accompany himself on a viol or a lute to please her and her other guests. There are times when he plays a fiddle beautifully and I’ve heard him on a flute too.’

‘Yes, I have heard him sing and play.’ Saskia had an eager question on her mind. ‘Does he come on his own to visit?’

‘Sometimes alone, at other times with a friend or two, because Mistress Henrietta often includes people more of his age, although – from what she has said to me – he is a young man at ease in any gathering, whatever the age group. Why do you ask?’

‘I’m just interested,’ Saskia replied and quickly changed to another question on safer ground. ‘How is it that you’re working here in England?’

‘It was your mother that contacted me when I was living in Rotterdam. Mistress Gibbons wanted her cousin to have her own lady’s maid while visiting in Holland and as my own lady had just died I was glad to obtain another position so quickly. I stayed on with Mistress Henrietta when she returned to England. It’s pleasant enough living here and for a while I had a follower, as servants’ suitors are called here. He was a dear man and was very good to me. He made my life worth living, but since he passed away a few months ago I’ve become very unsettled.’

They talked on for a while, their conversation turning inevitably to beauty preparations. Saskia was cautious, remembering her mother’s warning never to betray to others the secrets of her skills and explained her reticence.

Amalia understood and nodded her approval. ‘I want you to keep your knowledge to yourself. That was wise advice that your mother gave you, because if you have exceptional talents you can rise high in our particular field, even to the Palace itself.’

‘You are very understanding,’ Saskia said thankfully.

‘I have always been moderately skilled,’ Amalia confessed easily, ‘but anything I know to be good I’ll gladly pass on to you.’

‘There are two things I should most like to know. How do you wire Mistress Henrietta’s hair in that pretty way and what is the special dye that you use to colour it that is so pleasing?’

‘Get out that red book you’ve told me about and then you can write it down.’

Saskia, who had already unpacked, went eagerly to fetch her red leather book out of the Spanish strongbox. Then she took pen and ink, ready to record what was needed to achieve the pleasing colour that dyed Henrietta’s otherwise grey hair. But when Amalia began to list the ingredients Saskia sat back in surprise, putting down her pen.

‘You use oil of vitriol?’ she queried, frowning. ‘Even though you dilute it I know that it can cause a painful rash and much else if it comes in contact with the scalp.’

‘There is a way around that problem,’ Amalia replied. ‘Mistress Henrietta’s hair is very fine and needs hair supplements at all times. So I buy strands of fair hair and dye them in the oil until they become that tawny colour. Then, when they are ready and have become the hue I require, I brush them out and weave them into her hair, creating the glossy coiffure that you admired.’

Saskia had often used strands on the heads of her foster mother’s tenants, but had only used safe dyes in the colouring of them. Yet she wrote the receipt down in case she should ever require it, but she made a special note that it should be used with special care.

As they talked on they found it interesting that they were both of the same mind, just as Saskia’s mother had been in her day, in regarding the popular use of lead in cosmetics as the most dangerous of ingredients. Both had seen on older women – and on men too – the ravages that it could wreak on complexions over a period of time.

That same evening of arrival, after a message had been sent to Grinling that his mother had arrived, he came to the house to see her. Saskia, knowing she would have no chance to speak to him, waited on the gallery above the hall to see him arrive. At the clang of the doorbell she gasped with happy anticipation and then there he was, smiling as his mother came hastening across the hall to greet him in English.

‘My dear son! How well you look! Your father sends his most cordial greetings!’

‘I’m delighted to see you, Mother,’ he replied genuinely in the same language, his Dutch accent totally unrelieved by the time he had already spent in England. Saskia was amazed that there was no sign of any improvement. ‘What a pity Father was too busy to come with you. Is he in good health?’

‘No, he is not. He has never been the same since he had that heart trouble. It is high time he retired, but nothing exists that will drag him away from his three loves – the office, the shop and his warehouse.’

Grinling grinned. ‘Just as I am with my tools and my woods.’

For a matter of moments Saskia had the chance to see that in the time that had passed since his departure from Holland he had lost his boyish looks and matured to a splendid masculine handsomeness. It made her yearn for him more than ever and enviously she watched him disappear with his mother into the room known as the Blue Drawing Room and heard Mistress Henrietta welcome him before the door closed.