‘They may be out the back,’ said the serving-man. ‘I’ve not had time to look.’ Nedham grimaced and went to the window.
‘I haven’t given you your money!’ Lucy protested.
Undoing the catch on the window with one hand, Nedham impatiently held out the other to Lucy; she hurriedly fished out her purse and emptied the contents into his palm. It was probably more than she owed, but she wasn’t going to make him wait while she counted the change. A few coins tinkled to the floor; Nedham scooped the rest into his own purse, then opened the window and looked down at the street. ‘Matt,’ he said to the serving-man, ‘be a good fellow, and give me a hand.’
Matt at once went over and offered Nedham his hand. Nedham took it – then let go, caught Lucy in his arms and gave her a passionate kiss. ‘I pray God your husband gets the plague!’ he exclaimed. He went back to Matt, climbed out the window, and, with the servant’s help, lowered himself full stretch, then dropped. Lucy, flustered and outraged – such a horrid and blasphemous prayer! – got to the window in time to see him straighten his coat and saunter off.
The door of the dining room flew open, and Gilbert Mabbot, Licensor of the Press and publisher of The Moderate, strode in. Close behind him was John Wildman. Matt the serving-man managed to slip silently out the door before it closed.
‘Mr Mabbot!’ cried Mary in astonished misgiving.
Mabbot gaped at her. Wildman rushed across the room and looked out the window, but Nedham had already disappeared into the crowd. The major turned toward Lucy, his face – still haggard from his time in prison – blotchy with anger. ‘Nedham was here!’ he said furiously. ‘Do you deny it?’
Lucy was suddenly every bit as angry as Wildman. It was instantly clear to her that the intrusion was Wildman’s doing, that Mary had said something about the meeting to her husband, who had mentioned it to Wildman, who had gone straight to Gilbert Mabbot. All those months she had visited him in prison, searching out delicacies and bribing the turnkeys, and as soon as he was out, he attacked her. ‘Aye, he was!’ she said recklessly. ‘I owed him money, and he insisted I come hither to repay it.’
‘Owed him money!’ spat Wildman. ‘A likely story!’
‘Mrs Overton!’ Mabbot exclaimed, still staring at Mary. ‘What do you here?’
Mary only gasped in dismay. Her employer had just caught her dining with the Licensor’s Most Wanted.
The awareness that she’d got her friend into trouble penetrated Lucy’s armour of righteous indignation. ‘I brought her!’ she cried urgently. ‘I had no wish to meet Nedham alone, for he’s a lecherous knave, so I made Mary swear to say naught of it to you, and brought her with me. She has no love for him, you may be certain, but like a true friend she came rather than leave me to face him alone!’ She turned to Wildman. The shame of having got Mary into trouble made her more angry, not less. ‘What I cannot see, Major, is why it was any concern of yours!’
‘You are my friend’s wife,’ replied Wildman. ‘Should I not care when you dine with a man you yourself term a lecherous knave?’
‘Oh, this is care, is it?’ Lucy cried. ‘To bring Mr Mabbot down upon me, and upon poor Mary, who scarcely knew who I was meeting, and only came out of kindness to me?’ The full implications of his presence shook her, and she went on furiously, ‘This is care? To convict me of a foul sin, without the least ground, without even making any inquiry first, that is care, Major?’
‘But how do you know Nedham?’ demanded Mabbot, more bewildered than angry.
There seemed no point in prevaricating. She could never come up with any lie that would convince him. ‘I worked for him for a time,’ she said, biting off the words. ‘After you had turned me off The Moderate, in the middle of winter, when my uncle was newly dead and I had neither house nor money. Nedham offered me work, and I took it.’
Mabbot’s jaw dropped. ‘You? You print Pragmaticus?’
‘Printed it. Formerly. You’ve no right to reproach me, sir! You claim to believe in the freedom of the press, yet took the position of Licensor as soon as it was offered you! Aye, and you’ve abused it, to advantage your own business! My need was far greater than yours, but, unlike you, I was never at ease with hypocrisy! I loathed every malignant lie I was required to print, and got other work as soon as I could. I do not print for Nedham now, nor never shall again. That is the truth, I swear it before God.’
Mabbot continued to look bewildered. He glanced at Mary. ‘Knew you that she was Nedham’s printer?’
Mary had recovered her wits. She and her husband had both known that Lucy worked for Nedham, and had been glad of the extra money coming into the household. To say so, though, after all the effort Mabbot had put into the hunt for Pragmaticus, would be an open affront. ‘I knew she worked on a press that was unlicensed,’ she said, carefully skirting the issue,‘so I took care to ask no more of it. God He knows that unlicensed printing has given me grief enough, without adding to it.’ Mabbot knew that sad story.
‘I kept it secret,’ Lucy said quickly; she could at least protect Mary. ‘Mr Nedham wanted naught to do with the Overtons, and warned me often against speaking to them.’ That was true. She glanced at Wildman’s blotchy face and added viciously, ‘Major Wildman knew, but it seems he kept it to himself so long as he was in prison and relied upon me to bring him comforts – which I could not have done without Mr Nedham’s money! Now that he is free, though, and has no more need of my help, what must he do but run to you crying, “If you would arrest that rogue Pragmaticus, Lucy Hudson is meeting him at The Sun!”’
Wildman flushed. ‘I feared for your safety and your honour. You’d told me, aye, that you’d quit Nedham’s newsbook, so when I gathered you were to dine with him . . .’
‘With Mary!’ Lucy spat. ‘You knew I’d enlisted Mary’s help or you knew nothing of it at all! Why would I do that, if I were bent on mischief? If I needed you to guard my honour . . .’ She pulled herself up, heart pounding. ‘Nay. Say what you mean! You think I have no honour, that I am a weak wayward fool who’ll betray her husband for the sake of a dinner at The Sun! What cause did I ever give you to think so poorly of me?’
‘Nedham is a malignant rogue,’ interrupted Mabbot impatiently, ‘and not to be trusted. You should have come to me as soon as you quit him.’
Lucy regarded him a moment with contempt. ‘And is that your notion of honourable behaviour? To take a man’s coin, then betray him as soon as you’ve quit him?’
‘He should have been in Newgate long since!’ Wildman said hotly.
‘For publishing a newsbook?’ asked Lucy. ‘I can think of no other crime he’s charged with! When you call for freedom of the press, Major, you should add, “for us; but Newgate for our opponents”!’
‘He is our enemy!’ Wildman declared fiercely. ‘His clever lies do our cause much harm!’
‘So say our enemies of you, Major! Does that mean they were justified in shutting you up in the Fleet?’
Wildman flinched. ‘Why did you meet him here? Only tell me that!’
‘I’ve told you! God have mercy, you know I went to Colchester! You know it as well, Mr Mabbot, since Mary left you short-handed when she did my work. Did you think such a journey costs nothing? Or that I had the funds for it, when I’d just spent every penny I had on a press of my own? I went to Mr Nedham because I knew he had a horse, but, as it happened, he was unwilling to lend her, and instead helped me to hire at a livery stable. I was left owing him money, and he insisted I meet him here to repay it. And aye, I did suspect his motives. That was why I brought Mary!’
There was a silence. They could see she was telling the truth. Wildman scowled. ‘Jamie is a gentleman!’ he complained. ‘His wife should not be in such straits! Lucy, you have kin of your own in London. Could you not have turned to them? Or to Dick Overton? Or to any other man than that knave?’
‘I thought Jamie was dying!’ Lucy said, then stopped, swallowing; her voice had gone shrill. ‘I feared my Stepney cousins would urge me
to wait and send a letter,’ she went on, struggling to lower it, ‘and I’d not time to run about the city begging. Dick and Mary don’t have a pound in coin, so Dick would’ve been bound to pledge goods and come with me, and how could I take him from The Moderate when I was already taking Mary? You were in the Fleet. I went to a man I knew had a horse, and soon wished with all my heart I had not! I put myself in debt to him, only to find Jamie in health – and now Jamie is angry with me. I borrowed from my cousins and came here today so that I could pay Nedham and be quit of him. That is what you interfered with! Do you think Jamie will thank you for it?’
‘Jamie knows?’ asked Wildman in astonishment.
‘Aye. As I said, he is angry with me – but I doubt he’ll be happy with you!’
Mabbot gave Lucy a thoughtful look. ‘You could send a message to Nedham.’
‘He shifts his press and his lodgings frequently,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve no notion where he might be found now.’
‘You might, though, send a message,’ said Mabbot. ‘Through one of his mercury-women.’ He began to smile. ‘Invite him to another meeting, to pay the money you owe.’
‘I paid it,’ she said. ‘Just as he left.’ She pointed at the spilled coins, still lying on the floor. ‘He dropped those in his haste.’ She knelt down and began to pick them up.
‘Find another excuse, then!’ ordered Mabbot, looking at the remains of dinner on the table. ‘He’d meet with you eagerly, I’ve no doubt; he obviously hoped to obtain more from you than money!’
‘Would you have me play the whore?’ she asked, looking up indignantly.
‘Nay, indeed not! We would arrest him the instant he appeared.’
She got to her feet, slipping the coins into her purse, and faced Mabbot squarely. ‘I have taken his coin, and he helped me when I was desperate. I will not betray him.’
‘Mrs Hudson,’ said Mabbot, attempting a stern, magisterial tone that suited him very badly, ‘these nice scruples do you no credit. The man is an enemy of our cause, and of the State as well!’
‘He is guilty only of unlicensed printing!’ replied Lucy. ‘If that deserves prison, then all of us here might keep him company!’
Mabbot looked alarmed. ‘God forfend! Mrs Hudson, Parliament wants Nedham’s head, Cromwell hates him, and our own people detest him. Why should you protect him?’
‘I do not, and would not, protect him!’ cried Lucy, fighting an urge to burst into tears. Mabbot was the Licensor, and could close down her press. ‘I hate his vile Pragmaticus! But you are asking me to betray him, a man who has been my benefactor. How can I do that? It would be shameless ingratitude!’
‘You should never have accepted him as a benefactor!’ cried Wildman in exasperation.
‘Oh, that is easily said!’ she exclaimed, glaring. ‘But, Major, those of us who are not gentlemen with a rank in the Army and a couple of hundred pounds a year find it less easy to pick and choose our benefactors! You were glad enough of my help while you were in the Fleet!’
Wildman – finally – looked embarrassed.
‘So you will not help me?’ asked Mabbot.
Lucy ducked a curtsey. ‘I cannot, sir, in all conscience I cannot!’
‘Well, God damn you!’ exclaimed Mabbot, and walked out.
Wildman, still in the room, looked warily at Lucy. ‘It is most strange that you should defend Nedham, when you claim to hate him.’
Lucy pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, still struggling not to cry. She had offended the Licensor. She had made an enemy of Gilbert Mabbot, and to engage in unlicensed printing was now out of the question. She would have to sell her press.
‘It is most strange,’ she choked, ‘that after all the kindnesses I’ve done you, you should ruin me!’
‘I’ve done no such thing!’
Lucy shook her head miserably. ‘What will become of my licence to print? Where is my livelihood, Major?’
He stared in dismay. ‘I . . . I was trying to protect you!’
Mary came over and took her arm. ‘Come!’ she said firmly. ‘We must go home.’ She nodded gravely at Wildman, and escorted Lucy out.
In the street outside The Sun, Lucy began to cry in earnest. Mary put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Hush, hush!’ she murmured. ‘There’s no ill here beyond bearing.’
Lucy wiped her nose with the back of a hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said thickly. ‘Mary, I’m so sorry! I never thought any harm, but I’ve made trouble for you with Mr Mabbot.’
‘He quitted me of blame,’ said Mary. ‘Now that I’ve had time to think on it, I’m sure he would always have been eager to, since he so much relies upon Dick for The Moderate – even if you hadn’t cleared me by taking all the blame upon yourself.’ She gave Lucy a hug. ‘It’s I who should be sorry. Dick and I did connive at your working for Mr Nedham, as you well know, but I let you tell Mr Mabbot otherwise. Oh, my dear! If it were not so grave, I could laugh! The look on Gilbert Mabbot’s face when you told him he was a hypocrite!’ Despite her assertion that the matter was too grave, she did laugh. ‘And when you said we might all justly keep Nedham company in prison, oh, he was like a frightened bullock!’ She stopped laughing, though, and went on soberly, ‘I fear you’re right, though, to think that now he will search out some reason to take away your licence.’
Lucy sniffed and wiped her face again. ‘It won’t be far to seek.’ She’d found two potential customers over the course of the week, one with a treatise on the Book of Revelation, the other with a strange compilation called ‘The Burning Bush’, an incendiary mixture of religion and radical politics. Both would be called heretical by Parliament, and neither was remotely licensable. ‘I must sell my press.’
Mary nodded. ‘I fear you’re right.’ After a moment’s silence, she went on, ‘If you do that, though, it will satisfy Mr Mabbot; it may even make him a little ashamed – as he should be! He’s not a wicked man. He’ll pursue you no further.’
Lucy hadn’t even thought about that. A really vindictive Licensor could make every printer in London afraid to touch her. She was lucky that Mabbot was only greedy and mildy hypocritical.
‘It’s a setback,’ Mary admitted, ‘but not an overthrow. You’ll have your money again, and when you make your next attempt, you’ll know what you’re about and can avoid the pitfalls.’
‘Aye, but how am I to save enough to make another attempt?’ Lucy said miserably. ‘Without I work for Nedham, which I will not do.’ She thought, wretchedly, of bald Mr Pecke of the Diurnall, and slovenly red-faced Mr White, who owned the press on which Mary printed The Moderate. Both were just as lecherous as Nedham, but neither was willing to pay half as much.
‘Good!’ said Mary emphatically. ‘Lucy, dear, even if you can save nothing from your earnings, there’s no cause for despair! There are other resources. Your husband can help you, when he comes home from the war, you’ve a dowry unpaid, there may well be legacies. You should not suppose that you’ll have no money unless you earn it!’ She squeezed Lucy’s shoulder. ‘You’ve always been determined to owe nothing to any man, and I admire that beyond telling – but you’re too impatient! Two years ago you’d never even seen a printing press; why should you suppose that if your first venture with one fails, all’s lost forever?’
Lucy wiped her nose. There was a lot of truth to what Mary was saying.
‘You’re young,’ Mary continued gently. ‘You can afford to wait for better times; and they must come, in the end, after so much suffering! Whatever you do, though, Lucy dear, you must not go back to work for Nedham.’
Lucy looked at her doubtfully, and Mary returned the gaze with a sober certainty. ‘He is in love with you.’
Lucy looked away. ‘I fear you may be right. He knows that I’m a married woman, but . . .’
‘But he does not fear God’s vengeance upon adulterers,’ said Mary, ‘having seen precious little of it, in this world, anyway. Yet it will come, of that I am certain.’
‘He isn’t an evil ma
n, no more than Gilbert Mabbot,’ Lucy said, wondering, even as she spoke, why she was still defending him. ‘That is, aye, he sets his profit and his pleasure before his conscience, but there’s no real malice in him. He tells lies about us, but, but he believes that he does it for the best. It’s not just greed; he’s seen the world turned upside down, these last seven years, and it’s frightened him, as it’s frightened so many others. I do not love him.’ As she said it she recognized, with relief, that this was entirely true. The mixture of attraction and exasperation she felt fell a long way short of love. ‘He’s a mercenary rogue, and I’d no more trust him than a horse-trading gypsy! But he’s done nothing that deserves prison.’
‘It would be a hard woman that sent a man that loved her to prison,’ replied Mary. ‘I don’t say you were wrong, to answer Mr Mabbot as you did. Treachery is base, and if you’d agreed to do as he wished it would have been false and ungrateful. But you should have nothing more to do with Mr Nedham, for your sake, and your husband’s.’
‘I know that,’ Lucy said. ‘I had resolved it already.’
A deep tension went out of Mary’s pocked face, the lines on it easing, showing the underlying sweetness that her friends loved and strangers never noticed. Lucy understood that her friend had been afraid that her advice would cause a quarrel, but felt she was bound to give it anyway, because she was afraid that Lucy would be badly hurt.
‘It’s why I had to pay him off,’ she explained.
Mary took a deep breath, then nodded. ‘Of course. Forgive me. You’d already said as much. Well, then, I should only add that, whatever becomes of your business, you need have no fear that Dick and I will ever turn you out. You will have food to eat and a bed to sleep in as long as we have them ourselves.’
Lucy hugged her friend tightly, too moved to speak. Mary was right. What had happened was no ill beyond bearing, so long as she had such friends.
They both returned to the Overtons’ house in Coleman Street, though Mary intended only to check on her children before returning to the printworks two doors down. Nine-year-old Faith, who was in charge of her little brother and sister when her parents were out, met them at the door. ‘A gentleman came to see you!’ she told Lucy. ‘Da’s taken him to a bull-baiting.’
A Corruptible Crown Page 16
