London in Chains (8 page)

She thought again about the lord of Hinckley's hedge. He'd not only stolen common land; he'd turned five poor tenant families off their farms, leaving them to beg bread of the parish. If a lord said he had a right to a piece of land, what chance did a poor tenant have of proving the contrary? It wasn't
right
, though – not
naturally
right, however the law stood.

Typesetting was
not
as easy as stitching a pamphlet.

Lucy had barely noticed the cases of type before: the big boxes had been closed, and she'd thought they were something to do with the carriage-shed. Now Mr Browne opened them, and she found they held drawers and drawers of little letters on stems. They were called
sorts
, and there were all sizes and styles of them. The reason Browne had mentioned her ‘nimble fingers' became clear at once: the sorts were
tiny
, and it was very easy to fumble them.

Finding and arranging the letters was hard enough; what made things worse was that margins had to be straight and even –
justified
, like sinners – which meant varying spacings and moving words from one line to another to try to get everything to fit in neatly. It took her a whole morning to set her first paragraph; Mr Browne set the rest of the first and fourth page in less than an hour, and then went off to his bookshop.

He reappeared at dinner-time with Ned Trebet. She'd stopped worrying about the tavern-keeper: he still tried to flirt with her but he kept his hands to himself. She showed them her miserable few lines.

‘Never mind,' Browne told her kindly. ‘It will come, with time. Let's print it off and see what it looks like.'

At last she got to see the press working. It was much as she'd imagined – the bed slid under the screw – but there was a lot of fuss first, much like checking over a cart and team before setting off to market with a full load. The machinery was clearly very heavy: Trebet pushed the bed in like a man ploughing a field full of stones. Lucy had had visions of working the press herself, and began to suspect she couldn't.

The bed was hauled back, the paper was removed from the press and the first impression was carefully examined. Ned Trebet began laughing. ‘Resolb!' he exclaimed; ‘freebom!'

Lucy stared at him, puzzled. With a smile Browne showed her the page. The paragraph she had typeset was a mess: every letter
d
had been replaced with
b
, and vice versa, and the same thing had happened with the
p
's and
q
's.

‘The letters on the sorts are
reversed
,' Mr Browne gently reminded her.

‘Free bomb!' repeated Ned Trebet and mimed an explosion.

Lucy, red with shame, bit her lip and said nothing.

‘Never mind!' Browne comforted her. ‘An easy mistake to make, and almost as easy to correct. Ned, I think we need more pressure
here
and
here
.'

Lucy, still red in the face, replaced the errant letters. Browne arranged some scraps of loose paper under the formes in the spots where the impression was faint. The press was worked again, and this time the result was judged satisfactory.

‘Five hundred copies, I think,' said Browne, with satisfaction. ‘I'll work the press for the next hour, Ned. Then you can take over. Lucy – you do the inking.'

Inking was done with two
dabs
, leather balls on sticks which you rolled in ink, then blotted over the forme two-handed, as quickly as you could. Printer's ink was thick, like set honey, and it smelled of linseed and soot. It took a full day to dry, so between dabbing ink Lucy ran around hanging up the printed sheets. She went home that evening exhausted, but at the same time satisfied. They had made something that day; turned scribbled words into a sheet that would soon be in men's hands and minds.

She arrived back at the house at supper-time, but when she sat down at the table, Aunt Agnes stared, then squawked angrily, ‘You're filthy!'

Lucy glanced down and saw that her hands were black with ink; what was worse, there were tiny splatters all over her sleeves as well. She jumped up in horror, bobbed her head at her aunt, and ran into the kitchen to wash it off before it dried.

Too late. The ink wouldn't come off with water; laundry soap only smeared it. She was dismayed. Ink-stained hands were one thing, but she
had
only two shifts.

‘You'll have to stitch yourself some oversleeves,' said Susan, who had been eating her own supper in the kitchen with Geoffrey's William. ‘I'm sure Mr Stevens has some old scraps of linsey you could use for it.'

‘Aye,' Lucy agreed unhappily: oversleeves might protect her shift in future, but they wouldn't get the ink out.

William gave a bray of laughter and leaned back against the wall. ‘Got your hands dirty, Mistress High-and-Mighty?'

She gave him a cool look and didn't reply. Susan slapped his arm. ‘Leave her be!' she ordered. ‘Where's the shame in dirtying your hands with honest work?'

‘She wouldn't dirty them on
your
work, though, would she?'

‘As though you cared for that!' Susan replied tartly. ‘Your grievance is that she wouldn't dirty them on
you
– and for that I don't blame her!'

Faced with this female solidarity, William's only reply was a grunt. Lucy smiled at Susan, who grinned back.

She wondered if she could clean the splatter-marks by rubbing soda and ash into them and leaving them to soak overnight. That would mean she had to wear her best shift instead, but the next day was a Sunday, so she'd be wearing it anyway. She went upstairs to change.

Lucy wanted to rinse her shift next morning, but Uncle Thomas forbade even that much work on the Sabbath. She'd forgotten that he was so strict: on a farm, where cows needed milking regardless of the day of the week, Sabbath-keeping tended to be more lax. The household – including Cousin Geoffrey and his man – went to the parish church of St Olave instead, and listened to a long sermon on a text from Jeremiah. Lucy usually enjoyed sermons – the high-flown rhetoric, the dramatic story-telling, the ingenious reasoning and heartfelt emotion. St Olave's preacher, however, was a long-winded mumbler, and she spent a tedious two hours worrying about her shift.

In the afternoon they walked across the bridge to visit Cousin Hannah and her husband in Stepney. Lucy had met Hannah only once, twelve years before when Thomas had taken his whole family north to meet his relations. She remembered a soft, fat, timid girl who hadn't liked the countryside and who'd cried to be taken home to London. Meeting Hannah again, after so many years, she found her perfectly recognizable: still soft and timid and anxious. Her husband, Nathaniel Cotman, was a loud, large man at least a decade older than his wife, a mercer like his father-in-law. He engaged in a long lament about the ruin of trade; Thomas occasionally added an ‘Aye! Very true!', while everyone else sat mute. Lucy found herself wishing for the morning: printing was a lot more interesting than the Stevens family Sabbath.

She finally managed to rinse her shift that evening. By candlelight it looked as though most of the stains had come out. In the morning, however, daylight showed the marks had merely faded from black to grey. The shift was damp, too: it had not had enough time to dry. She put it on anyway – she didn't want to ruin
both
shifts – wrapped herself up in a thick shawl, and set off for The Whalebone Tavern, shivering and scowling.

Ned Trebet was in the yard of The Whalebone, helping to unload a dray. He glanced at Lucy, glanced again, then set down his barrel of beer and came over. ‘What's amiss?' he asked with concern.

‘Naught,' she said sharply.

‘Your face is as pinched as a mildewed apple! Come, what's the matter?'

‘It's only that I got ink on my shift,' she said, showing him the sleeve, ‘and I cannot get it out again.'

‘Is that all!' he said in relief. ‘You cannot
shift
it, you mean! Ha, ha, ha!' He laughed with great gusto, then, at her look, stopped abruptly. He touched her sleeve. ‘Here, that's damp! Why did you put on a damp shift? You must have others; your uncle's no pauper!'

‘What, and spoil another one? I'll not be using less ink today than I did Saturday!'

‘You'll catch cold!'

‘I have this.' She waved the end of the shawl. ‘I'll be warm enough.'

‘Nay, it's a chilly day! I'll speak to our girls here, see if one of them can lend you—'

‘Nay!'

He stopped, surprised by her vehemence. She looked him in the eye: she had no intention of changing her shift anywhere he might spy on her. ‘I thank you, but there's no need.'

He frowned, surprised and hurt. ‘What ails you? You treat me as though I were a rogue out to cozen you, when I've never treated you with aught but kindness!'

Her face flushed: it was true. ‘I'm sorry.'

He continued to frown at her.

‘It's only that I'm . . . that London is such a fearful place and so full of strangers.'

His expression softened. ‘You've not been here a month, have you? I had forgotten. You're from . . . from somewhere up north.' He waved a hand vaguely towards Moorgate.

‘Hinckley, in Leicestershire.'

‘Aye, and your father has a dairy farm, freehold. Will told me. Aye, I suppose London is a fearful place, to one not used to it, and perhaps you think your uncle's seditious friends must be desperate men, hey?'

She risked meeting his eyes and managed a small smile. ‘Are you not?'

‘No more than your uncle. These are uncommon times, mistress, and many ordinary men are desperate.'

She considered that a moment, then responded honestly, ‘Aye. It was a cruel war.'

‘God knows it!' replied Trebet, with feeling. ‘My brother and I fought at Newbury. I brought him home after, but he died of his wound anyway.'

She looked at him with sudden understanding. So, like Thomas, he fought now to make the sacrifice worthwhile. The phrase
throwing good money after bad
came to her mind, but she put it aside. How could anyone who'd lost a son or a brother
not
want their death to count for something?

‘You were in the London militia?' she asked instead, then bit her lip: of course he had been in the militia. The service was required of freeholders.

‘The trained bands, aye. I'm a sergeant.' He said it proudly. ‘My regiment trains at Moorfields once a month, but since the Army was new-modelled we've not been called upon.' He paused, looking at her, then said, ‘Are you sure you'll not borrow a dry shift? I've three serving-women here who might lend one.'

‘Nay,' she said, but more gently this time. ‘I might smut it with more ink, which would ill return their kindness. My shift is almost dry now, and the work will keep me warm.'

By the end of the week she'd stopped worrying about ink spots. Her new oversleeves caught most of them and there was no point worrying about the rest. Ploughmen had muddy boots; printers had ink-stained sleeves, and there was nothing to be done about it. Like her hedge-leveller caution going to and from work, it became something she no longer even thought about.

It was a good week: they printed half of
The Resolved Man's Resolution
, and Lucy's typesetting gained speed and accuracy. Sometimes Mr Browne worked the press, sometimes Ned Trebet, sometimes one of the ostlers from The Whalebone, who, like his master, was enthusiastic for the cause. Twice Lucy found herself printing on her own and was pleased to find that she could, after all, manage the heavy machinery, though it was an effort and she didn't think she could keep it up for a full day.

Mr Browne's daughter Liza turned up at The Whalebone at dinner-time on Tuesday. ‘I come here,' Liza said ingenuously, ‘cause it's raining, and da's gone to Westminster.'

Ned Trebet, who was working the press at the time, rolled his eyes and exclaimed with comic exaggeration. ‘More mouths to feed!'

‘Nay!' protested Liza. ‘I have my dinner, here.' She held up a covered dish. ‘It's only I mislike being at home when da's at Westminster.'

There was no Mrs Browne at home: Lucy had gathered that she'd died in childbirth some years before. ‘What's your father doing at Westminster?' she asked.

‘Shouting at the Parliament-men,' replied Liza woefully.

Ned Trebet caught Lucy's frown and explained: ‘We're pressing Parliament for an answer to our petition. Well-affected people stand outside the hall every day and ask the Parliament-men about it when they go in.'

‘Isn't it too early for an answer?' asked Lucy in surprise. The petition had been printed only a week before, and if it had been handed in, neither Uncle Thomas nor Browne had mentioned it.

Trebet shook his head. ‘Not the
new
petition. The last one, the large one. The one that asked for the reforms we want. Mr Tew was arrested over it.'

‘Oh!' Lucy had believed that Tew's arrest was something to do with unlicensed printing, though now that she thought of it she remembered that Thomas
had
mentioned a petition. So now Mr Browne was at Westminster, doing what Tew had done? She glanced at Liza, guessing that this was the reason the girl misliked being home without her father: she feared that she'd find herself left that way. ‘Well, I'm glad you're here,' she said impulsively. ‘I mislike eating alone, too.'

She and Liza became firm friends after that.

The policy of the ‘well-affected', however, caused trouble in a completely unexpected quarter. She came home on Friday to a row between Thomas and Cousin Geoffrey.