The House at Bishopsgate by Katie Hickman

Author:Katie Hickman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408834138
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-02-03T10:18:33+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Celia

Bishopsgate.

She was never exactly sure when the first small cracks and fissures in her relationship with Frances Sydenham began to appear.

Sometimes she thought it had been talk of the diamond that had given her the first warning signs; later she realised that it was Annetta who had caused the first serious breach between them.

They had been sitting in Celia’s gallery one autumnal afternoon, and their conversation had turned to the first visit, to the miladies Peters and Ormiston.

‘At first I thought they were speaking another language,’ Celia recalled. ‘I couldn’t understand them at all.’

‘But they are Scots ladies, of course. You mean you couldn’t tell? Don’t tell me you have never heard a Scots accent before, you puur wee thing?’ Frances took one of Celia’s cushions and threw it at her playfully.

‘There were not so many Scots in Constantinople or Aleppo of whom I ever heard tell.’ Laughing, Celia batted the cushion away.

‘Well, you must get used to it, there are scores of them at Court these days.’ Frances sank down on to the cushions on Celia’s divan and stretched out luxuriously. ‘They came to London with His Majesty.’

Celia tried to look interested, but the Court of King James, she thought privately, had about as much to do with her as. . . well, as Lady Sydenham with the House of Felicity.

She looked over at Frances, and it occurred to her that, sprawling upon the cushions, she did not look at all as a respectable Ottoman khatun should look. Oh, no, Celia thought to herself in amusement, not at all.

Madonna! She could hear Annetta’s scathing voice, You do not lie there as though it is your bed!

She wondered about explaining the indecorum of this to Frances, but some instinct made her think better of it. She put her hand to her mouth to hide her smile.

‘Do I amuse you?’

Frances, in turn, was looking at Celia. Her head was upside down and from this angle her eyes appeared narrow and calculating. At first Celia had missed the subtle change in tone.

‘No, not at all,’ she answered easily, her head bent over her work. ‘It’s just that you have never sat with me like this before. Like this I mean.’ She indicated the divan. ‘Like a true Ottoman lady, a khatun.’

‘Well, child, some of us don’t have time to lie around all day.’

The barb hit home.

After a moment’s hesitation Celia replied carefully, ‘All the same, it is comfortable, is it not?’

‘Yes, indeed, barbarously so.’ Frances pulled herself slowly upright again, smoothing down the folds of her dress. ‘Barbarously so.’

It was quite clear to Celia that she had made a mistake.

‘It is so easy to forget with you, my sweet Celia.’

‘Forget?’ Celia looked up, puzzled, ‘Forget what?’

‘Oh, you know. . .’ Frances replied, waving one hand about her in a vague gesture. ‘How long you were away from us.’

She selected another of the cushions, and threw it, a little harder this time.

‘Imagine not knowing how a Scots lady speaks. It may interest you to know,’ she added, ‘that there is a Scots King on the throne of England these days.

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