London in Chains (9 page)

‘. . . seditious and scandalous!' Geoffrey was shouting as she came in. She froze, one hand still on the door.

‘That is a lie!' Uncle Thomas replied hotly.

‘Why would he lie?' demanded Geoffrey. ‘What was I to say? Your friends have been standing around Westminster calling like fishwives! All week I've been courting this man's favour, and it's all for nothing! He told me to my face he much misliked my company in London, that you and your friends—'

‘These
ambitious
, encroaching Presbyterians would have no opinions spoken but their own! Do you know what they plan? Have you heard of their foul and tyrannical Ordinance against what they call blasphemy?'

‘I do not
care
! I wish only to buy some land and go home! And now I find that—'

‘Is it
my
fault, then, that they would deny you your purchase merely because you lie in my house?'

Lucy closed the door and came into the parlour. Geoffrey, who had been short of an answer, seized upon her arrival. ‘If you wish to court trouble, Uncle, it's your affair, but why should the rest of your family pay for it? It's not just
my
business you're ruining: here's my cousin Lucy – a simple country girl whose father trusted you to protect her – and you have her printing these scandalous pamphlets for your trouble-making friends! Will you go to Daniel Wentnor and tell him his daughter's in prison?'

Thomas flinched.

‘Don't fear for me!' Lucy put in hurriedly: any more of this and Thomas would forbid her work. ‘I
offered
to take this work, Cousin Geoffrey, and I like it very well!'

Geoffrey glared at her. ‘As though a silly girl could understand anything of what she's tangled in!'

Lucy glanced down at her ink-stained hands, then up at her cousin's face. He was, and always had been, a selfish, self-important ass; she'd kept that view to herself all her life and now she couldn't think
why.
‘I understand this much,' she said evenly. ‘You save ten shillings a week by staying here as our uncle's guest, and you are berating him,
your father's brother
, at his own table, about his choice of friends.'

Geoffrey flushed. Thomas gave Lucy a look of astonished gratitude.

‘If you are so eager to please this clerk at Parliament,' Lucy went on, ‘why don't you tell him you've resolved not to lie under your uncle's roof a night longer? – though in fact I'd wager your business would be better served by giving the ten shillings to the clerk!'

‘You–you brazen hoyden!' exclaimed Geoffrey incredulously.

‘Better brazen than a silly child!' replied Lucy. ‘Better either than a selfish dolt!'

Geoffrey drew in his breath sharply and raised a hand.

‘Enough, enough!' said Thomas hastily. ‘Lucy, you shouldn't speak thus to your cousin. Ahem.' Despite the reproof, he was smiling. ‘Geoffrey, you are always welcome under my roof; I would never turn away my brother's son. If you
wish
to leave, though, because it impedes your business here, I will not hinder you.'

Geoffrey floundered: he did not wish to leave. The whole trip to London was proving much more expensive than he'd expected and he couldn't afford to pay for his lodgings. He scowled and grumbled an apology.

His words had, however, hit their target. Thomas climbed the ladder to the loft when Lucy was preparing for bed.

She and Susan were both in their shifts with their hair loose: they'd been combing out one another's tresses and checking for lice. They both gasped when Thomas's head appeared in the stairwell.

‘Be easy!' said Thomas. ‘I only want a word with Lucy.' He climbed the rest of the way into the loft, regarded the two young women for a moment, then smiled. Lucy had had a moment of terror that his appearance preceded some lustful advance, but the smile was one of extraordinary sweetness. ‘Lord, how pretty you are! So much like your dear mother.'

Lucy had a sudden vision of her mother as a girl, sitting before the fire of the big farmhouse now owned by Uncle John, combing out her hair while little Thomas sat beside her reading aloud: two children, long ago.

Then she remembered her mother as that last skeletal shape, lying on dirty sheets, dull eyes staring at the wall. ‘Oh Lord God, have mercy, no more!' had been her last words. ‘I'm not made of iron.'

Lucy twisted a hand in her long dark hair and pulled it behind her head, then pulled her coif over it, as though she could stifle the memory. ‘What is it, Uncle?'

He sat down on the boards of the loft, acknowledged Susan's presence with a nod and a weak smile, then returned his attention to Lucy. ‘Child, I'm troubled by what your cousin said. I was entrusted with keeping you from harm, and this employment of yours is like to put you in danger.'

‘I like it very well,' Lucy said. Her heart speeded up again.

‘My dear, that's nothing to the purpose.'

She searched for his eyes, held them. ‘Uncle, you know what manner of thing we print. It's work you would see done, or so I thought. Why would you hinder it?'

He winced. ‘I would not
hinder
it – but I'm sure Will Browne could find another girl to help him, if he set his mind to it.'

‘And that would be
better
?' Lucy asked sharply. ‘What's dangerous for me is just as dangerous for another, and the one to replace me might not have as much will to the work as I do.'

‘I would not be answerable to your father for somebody else,' replied Thomas. ‘I fear that your cousin will carry him a report, and he will be angry with the both of us.'

‘My father never wants to see me again!'

He stared, shocked.

‘He's ashamed.' She'd never said this aloud before and she was surprised that she could speak of it now without tears. When she'd first realized that her father was shunning her, she'd been so sick with rage and grief that she'd been unable to eat. ‘I was ravished in his own barn, and there's nothing he can do to revenge it or mend it, so whenever he looks at me he feels less of a man. He hates the sight of me! I've no doubt that you're right – that Cousin Geoffrey will tell him tales – but if you think he'll reproach you, you're much mistaken.'

Thomas looked at her for a long time in silence. Then he sighed. ‘Oh, Lord God, man that is in honour and understands not, he is like the beasts that perish! When a man is cast down, he should turn the more urgently to God – not punish his family with his own idolatrous pride!'

Thomas always had been a godly man. Lucy bowed her head humbly, though privately she wondered why her own suffering should be so purely incidental to her father's casting down. ‘Amen,' she said vaguely; then resumed, ‘Do you see, though, Uncle? You don't have to answer to my father for me, let alone to Geoffrey. As to the work, I like it well, and I . . . I think it tends to the good of the Commonwealth. I know that you and your friends think the same. Since we are agreed on that, don't, I beg you, put me from it.'

Thomas sighed, then raised his hands in surrender. ‘How can I argue against my own heart? So be it! Oh, Lucy, you're a brave girl! I wish your dear mother could see you: she would be so proud!'

She felt her throat catch: it had been two years since anyone been proud of her. She went over to Thomas and kissed his cheek. He gave her another of those sweet smiles and said goodnight.

Susan was looking at her curiously. ‘Do you really think that?' she asked, when Thomas had descended from the loft. ‘That printing these pamphlets is for the good of the Commonwealth?'

Lucy considered that a moment. ‘Aye,' she said at last, ‘if the Commonwealth heeds them.'

She reminded herself of that the following week when William Browne was arrested.

It happened at Westminster. Browne had let his boldness carry him away: he'd been overheard saying, ‘We have waited many days for an answer; we should wait no more, but take another course.' When he was asked his name, he'd replied, ‘The time may come when I will take
your
name!'

This, however, Lucy learned later; the first she heard of the matter was when she arrived at The Whalebone and found Liza sitting huddled against the press.

It was the first day of May, but still cold and rainy. They had finished printing
The Resolved Man's Resolution
two days before; Mr Browne had carried off the first batch of freshly assembled copies, but the carriage house was still aflutter with printed sheets and Lucy had expected to spend the day stitching. Instead she was confronted with Liza, wrapped in a blanket. The girl looked up miserably when Lucy came in, and announced, ‘My da's in prison.'

‘Oh, Liza!' cried Lucy, shocked. ‘Don't you . . . isn't there somewhere you can go?' If Liza didn't have an aunt or cousin or neighbour to take her in, Lucy knew she was going to have to beg Uncle Thomas to give her houseroom. An illegal printworks in a disused carriage house was no refuge at all.

Liza shrugged. ‘I'll go to Auntie Moll this morning, but I came here last night with the books.'

‘The books?'

‘Aye. Da said if there was trouble, bring the books here, the ones he don't want the wrong people to see,' elaborated Liza.

Lucy noticed the neat stack of pamphlets on top of the cases of type; on the floor beside the cases was the bundle of
The Resolved Man's Resolution
which Browne had proudly carried off the day before. She stared at it, her stomach cold. She'd
known
that this might happen, so why was she so shocked?

There'd be no wages for Lucy now and no sales for the Brownes. What would Liza do? What would Mr Browne do, locked up in prison? Jailers were notoriously greedy, charging their captives extortionate rates for food and bedding: how long could the Brownes afford to pay? ‘Have you told Mr Trebet?' she asked, flailing for some solid ground.

‘Aye, of course!' said Liza impatiently. ‘He helped move the books, and he gave me my supper, and this.' She plucked at the blanket and eyed Lucy unhappily. ‘I didn't want to go home last night, in case the men came to search.'

The door to the carriage house opened and Ned Trebet came in. He looked pale and anxious, and he stared at Lucy in surprise. ‘Oh, I'd forgotten you! You should have stayed home!'

‘Why?' she asked – and suddenly the chill in her stomach turned to iron. ‘Would Mr Browne have asked me not to come?'

‘He's in prison! Didn't Liza tell you?'

‘Aye. But by what I can see, the pamphlets still need stitching. If we need to hide them, they're easier to hide folded and stitched than loose.'

‘Well, that's true,' admitted Trebet, frowning. ‘But I can't pay your wages for doing it.' He paused, then went on cautiously, ‘If you're willing to work unwaged, of course . . .'

‘I can't,' Lucy said, without thinking. She was a little surprised by her own certainty, and slightly disgusted. If she believed in what she was doing, why was she so determined to get her tuppence a day?

It paid her way, that was why. Aunt Agnes had now settled on an arrangement of taking tuppence one day and a penny the next: she'd grudgingly agreed that it covered Lucy's keep. Without that money Lucy would be nothing but a drain on the household, and while Thomas might agree to support the cause that far, Agnes certainly would not.

Lucy turned to Liza. ‘Do you know who your father's customers are?'

‘Some of 'em,' said Liza cautiously.

‘
I
know 'em,' said Trebet, blinking. ‘The leaders meet here every week.' He stared at Lucy for a minute, his eyes beginning to brighten. ‘You're right! We don't need Will to sell Freeborn John's
Resolution.
I'll just offer it here – aye, and take up a collection for Mr Browne while I do!'

Liza clapped her hands. ‘Thank you, Ned!'

He grinned at her, then at Lucy. She grinned back. ‘So,' she concluded, ‘we have the pamphlets and we know we can sell them. I'll take my wages when we have a profit. Why should I go home?'

When Lucy finally got back to the house that evening, tired from a full day's work, Agnes rushed into the shop to meet her before she'd even closed the door. ‘Where've you been all the day?' she demanded.

‘At work, Aunt. I—'

Agnes slapped her. ‘Liar!'

Lucy stood in the open door, the mark of her aunt's hand burning on her face, so indignant that she couldn't speak. She could feel her fingers curling into claws; Agnes's face once again became unnaturally distinct – the wattled neck and hot eyes, the spots of colour on the cheeks, visible in the last daylight. ‘You greedy, preaching harridan!' Lucy said at last. She turned about on her heel and walked out into the street.

She walked down to the corner, to St Olave's Street, which led to London Bridge. There she stopped. The light was fading and there were few people on the street; the air was heavy with coal-smoke from a thousand kitchen fires. She told herself that that was why her face was wet with tears – hot on one side, cool on the other, where Agnes had slapped her. She tucked her trembling hands into her sleeves and swallowed repeatedly.

She remembered her mother dying
– ‘Oh God, no more!
' – and then her mind fell into the well-rutted track of the soldiers in the barn; always, always when she was angry she remembered that. She supposed it was because she'd fought them so hard. They'd laughed at her at first; then, after she'd bashed her head into one man's face and made his nose bleed, they'd beaten her and told her she was making it worse for herself. She probably had – but she'd felt such immense, overpowering
outrage
that it had been impossible not to fight.