London in Chains (3 page)

Thomas nodded eagerly. ‘Aye! I've been told I could get as much. Since the war ended, all England's coming to London to solicit Parliament.'

Geoffrey smiled. His own errand was to solicit Parliament – or, at any rate, a parliamentary clerk – for the right to buy a strip of land. It had belonged to a supporter of the king and was now at the disposal of Parliament. He raised his mug to his host. ‘I'm grateful, Uncle, that my lodgings are free.'

Agnes had appeared in the doorway just before he said this, and Lucy noticed her sour expression: she, obviously, would have preferred a guest who paid. Perhaps it wasn't maternal feeling that made her want to keep Lucy out of Hannah's room. Perhaps it was simple greed.

‘There you are, girl!' said Agnes. ‘Your things are in the kitchen. You can take them up.'

‘Thank you, Aunt,' said Lucy meekly. ‘Aunt, my petticoat's muddy: please, where should I clean it?'

Agnes gave her a distrustful look but showed her into the kitchen and pointed out the scrubbing brush.

Lucy cleaned her petticoat, then carried her small case of possessions up the stairs, the damp hem flapping against her shin. She set her case down at the foot of the bed and looked at the maid's clothes hanging on the wall. She would have to find some more nails so she could hang up her own.

When she went back downstairs, she found that the maid had returned from the market and was busy preparing supper. Susan was about Lucy's age, a pock-faced young woman with work-reddened hands. She was chopping onions when Lucy came into the kitchen, but she stopped and the two of them looked hard at one another.

‘This is Lucy, of whom I told you,' said Agnes, who was also in the kitchen.

Susan bobbed a curtsey, then stared at Lucy some more. She was clearly wondering whether Lucy would go to work beside her, like a fellow-servant, or sit down in the parlour, like a guest.

Lucy might have offered to help prepare the meal if she'd been given Hannah's room and there'd been no doubt as to her status. Because there was doubt, she stood and smiled, as though it hadn't even occurred to her that she might do a servant's work. If Agnes wanted her to serve, she would have to order it.

Agnes, however, was craftier than that. ‘Lucy has been long on the road today,' she told Susan. ‘Tonight she will rest.'

Meaning, of course, that she'd start as a servant
tomorrow
. Lucy felt her smile stiffen. Susan ducked her head and went back to chopping onions.

The evening meal was barley soup; with it they had maslin bread, of wheat mixed with rye, cheaper than wheat bread. It was full of grit from the millstones and Lucy nibbled it cautiously. The men talked: Cousin Geoffrey was eager for hints as to how to get his business done quickly. Uncle Thomas was discouraging.

‘If I'd known how the world would run over last month, I'd have advised you not to come,' he said, shaking his head unhappily. ‘I pray the peace holds!'

Geoffrey was startled. ‘What? The war's
well
ended! Hasn't Parliament reached a settlement with the king yet?'

Thomas shook his head again. ‘No. Parliament sends him proposals, and he says only that he will take them under advisement. I fear he is fishing in troubled waters. The Army – have you really heard nothing of this, up in Leicestershire?'

‘The Army is to be disbanded, surely?'

Thomas let out his breath unhappily. ‘That's what Parliament wants, certainly. The trouble . . .' He stopped, then, leaning forward, said, ‘There was a petition from the Army last month. The soldiers asked, first and foremost, that before the Army was disbanded they should receive their pay – they have had none, not for months, and many of the men have not enough money to carry them home, let alone pay debts for their food and board. They also asked for indemnity for any acts done in furtherance of the war—'

Geoffrey gave a snort of contempt. ‘What, so they need not repent their thieving?'

‘There are some who have been hanged as horse-thieves because they collected horses
requisitioned
for their troop!' Thomas protested.

Geoffrey snorted again, unconvinced. He'd be delighted to see soldiers hanged for horse-stealing: his family had lost most of their own stock. He only had his mare and the gelding because he'd been using them when soldiers arrived to ‘requisition' the rest.

‘They had some other demands,' Thomas went on nervously. ‘Just and reasonable demands.'

It was Agnes who snorted now, and Thomas glared at her. ‘
Reasonable
demands, I say! Fair and reasonable demands! Pensions for men crippled in the war, so that they need not beg in the street, and provision for the widows and children of those who died for the cause of Parliament! But Parliament denies them. Worse! Parliament has passed a Declaration of its high dislike of their petition and decreed that anyone who furthers it shall be proceeded against as an enemy of the State.'

There was a silence. Then Geoffrey asked, ‘And?'

Thomas subsided into his chair. ‘And there, at present, it stands. But I cannot think it wise for Parliament thus to set itself against the Army, and I do fear that there will be trouble from this.'

‘It's the business of the officers to control the men!'

‘The Army,' declared Agnes, ‘is full of heretics, and many of them
are
officers!'

Thomas looked alarmed. ‘Peace, wife!'

Agnes snorted and rolled her eyes, but fell silent. Geoffrey gave Thomas a quizzical look.

‘The Army,' said Thomas reluctantly, ‘does have many men who are Independents in religion – though to call them
heretics
, wife, because they don't agree in all things with Jock Presbyter . . .'

Agnes sniffed. Thomas glared at her. ‘A man may be a good Christian and still disagree with another man about church government! I have had many profitable discussions with Independents, and I've found them godly people.'

This was surprising and interesting. Thomas, like all his family and Lucy's, had always been a strict Presbyterian, deeply suspicious of all other forms of Christianity. Lucy had developed doubts of her own over the past two years, but she'd been afraid to acknowledge them even to herself, in case doing so led to damnation. She hadn't expected her pious uncle to preach toleration.

Agnes sniffed again, conveying a world of indignant disgust without a word.

‘Even where a man is
mistaken
,' Thomas insisted, ‘what benefit is there in demanding he should
lie
about his beliefs – on pain of imprisonment or branding with irons, as the proposed Blasphemy law would have it? It would be worse than the tyranny of the bishops, and it would make hypocrites, not believers!'

‘And what of the Covenant?' Agnes asked acidly.

Even Lucy knew that Parliament had engaged to establish a Presbyterian state church throughout England – had made a Covenant to that effect with the Scots, in return for their help in the war. She hadn't realized, however, that there were so many Independents in the Army; it wasn't the sort of thing that was discussed in rural Leicestershire. The Independents would obviously oppose a Presbyterian settlement. If they had a lot of support in the Army . . .

This was frightening. The one good thing about the bitter and bloody war was that it was over with, or so Lucy had thought.

‘Lord General Fairfax is an honest man,' said Geoffrey confidently. ‘I cannot believe he will countenance mutiny!'

‘But Cromwell's an Independent,' said Agnes shortly.

There was a silence. Everyone knew of Lieutenant General Cromwell, second in command of the New Model Army, victor of Marston Moor and Naseby. Lucy put a hand to her mouth. Parliament chose to antagonize the Army, when they knew a man like Cromwell was already opposed to them?

Into the stillness came a knock on the door. Susan went to open it and presently came back with a burly man who carried a shabby hat in a dirty hand. Thomas jumped to his feet and came to take his hand. ‘Will!' he exclaimed warmly. ‘Come, sit down and sup with us!' Lucy noticed that Agnes's face had grown stony.

‘You've company, Tom, I won't,' replied the visitor, glancing at Geoffrey and Lucy. ‘I brought the petition round since you missed the meeting last night.' He took a sheaf of paper out from under his jerkin and set it down on the table. ‘I brought a dozen copies: will that suffice you?' Lucy, craning her neck, saw that they were printed sheets, not a letter.

‘It should,' replied Thomas. He scanned the paper, smiling, then asked, ‘Do you have pen and ink, Will?'

Grinning, the visitor removed a quill pen from the band of his hat and a capped inkwell from a pocket. Thomas took them and, with a bold flourish, signed the top paper. He noticed Geoffrey and Lucy staring and waved the pen at them vaguely. ‘It's a petition,' he explained, ‘for the release of Mr Nicholas Tew, a brave man who's been unjustly imprisoned for defending the liberties of freeborn Englishmen. Geoff, this is my friend, William Browne. He's brought me copies of the petition so I can take up signatures here in Southwark. Will, this is my nephew Geoffrey, my brother John's eldest, from Hinckley in Leicestershire.'

William Browne cheerfully offered his hand to Geoffrey, who took it gingerly. Lucy realized that the black on Browne's hand wasn't ordinary dirt but ink. ‘Well met!' Browne exclaimed. ‘You're a Mr Stevens? Like your uncle? Have you just arrived in London?'

‘Aye,' agreed Geoffrey, still perplexed. He glanced sideways at his uncle. ‘What's this petition?'

‘Mr Tew was arrested last month,' explained Browne. ‘He was defending the right of subjects to petition Parliament, and the Committee he spoke to took offence at his vehemence and had him cast into prison without so much as stating a charge against him. This petition asks Parliament to release him – or, at the very least, to allow him due process of law – and to defend the right of subjects to petition.'

‘I see,' said Geoffrey, and Lucy could tell that he was wondering what connection Nicholas Tew had with Uncle Thomas for their uncle to take up signatures on his behalf. She wondered the same.

‘Would you care to sign?' asked Browne hopefully.

Geoffrey hastily shook his head. ‘I know nothing of this matter, sir; I only arrived in London today!'

Browne took this with a good-humoured smile. ‘I'll let your uncle tell you more of it, then!' He retrieved his pen from Thomas and put it back in his hat, then recapped the inkwell and returned it to his pocket.

‘How go things?' Thomas asked him.

Browne sighed and rolled his eyes. ‘Difficult times, Tom, difficult times! We've finished printing the latest, but the sheets hang all about the works since we've no one to stitch them together.'

A possibility suddenly occurred to Lucy, so irresistible that she blurted out, ‘Sir, are you looking to hire a needlewoman?'

Everyone turned and stared at her in surprise: a young woman shouldn't have spoken out uninvited. She pressed her hands together in her lap and tried to look innocently hopeful.

‘This is my niece,' said Thomas, while Agnes frowned at Lucy for her forwardness. ‘Lucy Wentnor, my poor sister's daughter.'

Mr Browne glanced from Lucy to Geoffrey. ‘She's not your wife, sir?'

‘Indeed not!' exclaimed Geoffrey with a horror that was far from flattering.

No one else seemed inclined to explain the situation, so Lucy did. ‘Cousin Geoffrey brought me to London. My aunt and uncle have offered to take me in for a time. I am very sensible of their goodness to me, and I thought, sir, that if you were looking to hire someone to stitch these sheets of yours, I could use the money to . . . to ease the burden on my family.'
To avoid becoming a servant in the house of my own bloodkin!
she thought fiercely. ‘I'm a quick needlewoman.'

There was another silence, startled and uncertain. Mr Browne looked at Uncle Thomas and said, ‘It's true we could use a trustworthy young woman to stitch the pamphlet, and we could afford to pay her a small wage, if—'

‘It's out of the question!' exclaimed Aunt Agnes furiously. ‘Tom, tell him so!'

‘Peace!' ordered Thomas.

‘No, I will
not
hold my peace!' cried Agnes. ‘How can you even
think
of allowing it? Send a simple country girl to stitch those foul seditious pamphlets for your trouble-making friends? Bad enough that
you
have anything to do with–with
these people!
' – she spat the words at Browne – ‘I won't have you involving the rest of the house!'

Thomas slapped the table. ‘Peace, I say!'

He was flustered and alarmed: the head of the household was supposed to command respect, and Agnes was embarrassing him in front of guests – not for the first time. She had, in her family's view, married beneath her, and she had always been more forceful than her husband. Lucy remembered her father laughing at his brother-in-law: ‘Small wonder if a capon's hen-pecked!'

For her own part, she was surprised. She hadn't appreciated that the ‘sheets' to be stitched were pamphlets, let alone ‘seditious' ones: she'd thought she was volunteering to work as a seamstress. She found, though, that the prospect made her more eager, not less. She looked at her uncle with fresh appreciation: so the capon had trouble-making friends who printed seditious pamphlets, did he? He'd never mentioned it in his letters.

‘You stupid girl!' exclaimed Agnes, turning her fire on Lucy. ‘The man you want to go to work for has
twice
been arrested for selling seditious libels!'