London in Chains

by Gillian Bradshaw

  ‘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!’

  Browne laughed, looking pleased with himself. ‘Aye, and gave the constable the slip both times! But you’re right, child, to think that there’s no wickedness in what I print. Indeed, it’s the wicked who want the pamphlets suppressed! Can you read and write, as well as sew?’

  ‘Aye,’ Lucy said eagerly. ‘I read and write very well.’

  Browne looked at Uncle Thomas. ‘I could pay the girl tuppence a day.’

  Thomas hesitated, looking troubled; Lucy thought he was about to refuse, but Agnes chose that moment to cry angrily, ‘You agreed that she would help me in the house!’ and he decided he had to assert his authority.

  ‘Very well!’ he decreed. ‘Lucy may try her hand at stitching pamphlets, since she wishes it.’

  Lucy bowed her head respectfully, heart beating hard in triumph. She didn’t have to become her aunt’s maidservant: she had paid work! True, tuppence a day wasn’t much – only half of what her father would give the poorest day-labourers on his farm – but she’d never been paid before in her life. She supposed she would have to give most of the money to Uncle Thomas, to pay for her keep, but perhaps he’d allow her to keep a little of it? Even a penny a week would be more money than she’d ever had at her disposal before.

  Mr Browne went off, and the supper ended. Lucy tried to slip up to bed immediately, but Agnes was too quick for her. When Lucy started up the stairs from the parlour, Agnes struggled huffing and wheezing after her and stopped her at the foot of the loft-ladder with a peremptory ‘Girl!’

  ‘You shameless little minx!’ she said, advancing on Lucy like a dog on an intruder. ‘Too proud to serve, are you? There are worse places in the city than this house, girl, and if you go to work for Browne, you’ll find them. You’ll end up in Bridewell, mark my words!’

  Lucy set her teeth against another surge of rage and bowed her head humbly, keeping her angry eyes down. ‘I’m sorry if I displeased you, Aunt. I only hoped to be able to give you and my uncle something for my keep. You told me earlier that you’ve scarce enough.’

  ‘Oh, a clever tongue! You should remember what the scriptures say: that the tongue is a fire and a world of iniquity. A woman should be humble and obedient and do as she’s told without argument!’

  ‘As you did just now at supper?’ asked Lucy, looking up.

  There was a silence: Agnes seemed to swell with rage. ‘Well, you’ve got your way,’ she said at last. ‘I pray you don’t curse the day you won it!’ She turned and stamped back down the stairs.

  Lucy went on up to the loft, unnerved despite herself. It was growing dark and her eyes tried to tell her that there was a man hiding behind one of the bales of cloth, another waiting beside the chimneypiece. She stood still a moment, heart pounding, then made herself walk slowly from one end of the space to the other, proving that there was nobody there. She went again to the window and looked out: the sky still held the last of the daylight, but the streets were already black. For some reason the sight soothed her. Fear and anger both fell away and she was left with only the weariness of a long journey. She undressed to her shift and got into bed. She could smell Susan in the none-too-clean linen – a scent of onions, soap and old sweat; she could feel the shape the other woman’s body had worn in the flock mattress. She was too tired, though, to care much, and she snuggled under the thick blanket.

  She was just falling asleep when Susan came in, holding a candle. Lucy looked up sleepily at the maid, then moved over to the other side of the bed to make space for her.

  Susan set the candle down and undressed to her shift, hanging her skirt, petticoat and gown up on the nails. She blew out the candle and climbed into bed. Lucy felt the mattress shift, adjusting to the weight; the other girl’s shoulder brushed hers, colder than her own sleep-warmed skin. It was impossible to lie in Susan’s bed and ignore the fact that the maid, too, was being forced to share and that she must have her own view of the matter. Lucy wondered if she resented the intrusion, or if she’d looked forward to having another pair of hands to help her work.

  ‘I’m happy to lend a hand, if it’s needed,’ Lucy said abruptly. ‘On a wash-day, like. And I can pick things up in the market and run errands. I don’t mind work. But I didn’t want to be maidservant to my mother’s brother and his wife, and if they were like to offer me tuppence a day for my labour, I never heard them say so.’

  ‘I’ve not seen my own wages this twelve-month,’ Susan said unexpectedly. ‘Not that I’d complain: with things as they are, there’s plenty who’d be glad of enough bread to fill their bellies and a roof to keep off the rain. I’ll speak plainly: if you’d taken the maid’s place, I would’ve feared being turned out of it.’

  Lucy remembered the hard look they’d exchanged in the kitchen and suddenly understood that she was not the only one worried about being sent back to a home where she’d be a burden. She began to relax. ‘Of that, I’m not so sure. My aunt is very angry with me.’

  ‘She don’t like anyone,’ replied Susan. She paused, then said, more gently, ‘She used to. It broke her heart when her boy Mark died.’

  Lucy was quiet a moment, thinking of all the dead. ‘It was a cruel, unnatural war. I pray God it truly is settled! I’d not heard any of this that my uncle was saying, about Parliament and the Army.’

  ‘The master is eager in suchlike,’ said Susan. ‘Always buying newsbooks and drinking in taverns with men of the same humour as himself. And he knew John Lilburne, back when Freeborn John was an apprentice mercer.’

  ‘Who’s John Lilburne?’ asked Lucy.

  S
usan raised herself on an elbow. ‘You never heard of John Lilburne?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Eh! Well. He used to write pamphlets against the king, but now they’re against Parliament because, he says, Parliament’s become more tyrannical than the king was. He’s been locked up in the Tower this past year.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘The pamphlets Mr Browne sells are his, some of ’em. I can’t believe you never heard of him!’

  ‘Leicestershire’s a long way from London.’ Lucy could feel all those miles in the ache of her muscles and the heaviness of her eyelids. She had never seen any pamphlet at all, let alone one so dangerous that it got its author locked up in the Tower. She was too tired to wonder what it was like.

  She was just about to fall asleep when Susan said, ‘They said you came here because you were ravished by soldiers during the war, and your sweetheart wouldn’t have spoiled goods afterwards, and your mother died of grief. They said you were pining away.’

  Lucy was abruptly fully awake again. ‘My mother had been ill a long time. Grief ended her illness but didn’t cause it. And I wasn’t pining: I was angry.’

  ‘Aye?’ said Susan with sympathetic interest. ‘I’d be angry, too. If a woman jilted a man because he lost a leg in the war, everyone would call her a false jade, but if a man jilts a woman because she’s lost her maidenhead, the other men just nod. Half of them think the woman must’ve played the harlot to have suffered so in the first place, and the other half say they wouldn’t want spoiled goods either.’

  ‘I think Ned fancied he could marry a bigger dowry,’ Lucy said bitterly. ‘With so many men dead, those that are left fetch more at market, and my father couldn’t supply even what he’d promised before. The men who took my maidenhead also took all our cattle. You say you were told about this, about me?’

  ‘Oh, never fear!’ Susan said, immediately understanding the concern. ‘Nobody in the neighbourhood knows. Your uncle told me, but to the neighbours he gave out that you’ve come to stay in London because times are hard for your family. He says that’s true as well, anyway.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Lucy. ‘All our wealth was in those cattle.’

  She had milked those cows every morning and evening; she had given them the old country names – Daisy, Clover, Sweetbriar – and they’d come trustingly to her call. Sometimes she still dreamed of them. The thought that they’d almost certainly been slaughtered for meat still caused a surge of pain and anger, even two years later. It was worse, somehow, than the anger she felt on her own behalf: you weren’t supposed to mourn cows.

  Her father had been slow to replace the cows. He’d promised Ned Bartram a dowry and he’d tried to keep his promise – until Ned declared that he wouldn’t take spoiled goods. Then the dowry-money was spent on cattle. Lucy had said nothing but she’d noted the assumption: no one would wed her now.

  Still, now she was in London, where nobody knew of her disgrace. She allowed herself a small sigh of relief. One of the things she’d most longed to escape was the way everybody knew what had happened to her. She could feel them looking at her when she walked past: ‘There goes Lucy Wentnor, who was ravished by three soldiers when she went to milk the cows. Her father found her lying on the barn floor, naked and covered in blood.’ She didn’t know which was worse, the pity or the revulsion.

  Now she was in London, she thought again, already half asleep. It might be a hellish place but at least it was a new one.

  Two

  Lucy woke before dawn, at first disturbed just because she was in an unfamiliar bed. Then the thought struck her: I start my work today! and it became impossible to go back to sleep.

  She wanted to jump up at once, but there was nothing to be gained by it, and it would wake Susan. The maid deserved better than to have her sleep disturbed to no purpose. Lucy lay staring up into the darkness for what seemed like hours, thinking about Parliament and seditious pamphlets, until at last the window over the stairwell turned grey and Susan stirred, yawned and sat up.

  The previous night it had been arranged that Thomas would walk Lucy over to Mr Browne’s shop. Cousin Geoffrey made a half-hearted offer to do it, but Thomas said it wasn’t on his way and, anyway, the place was difficult to find. Agnes, who was required to mind the shop while he was out, scowled at them resentfully as they set off.

  It was just after dawn, but already the streets were full of people: apprentices hurrying to work, children to school, and women to market; vendors on their rounds and tradesmen opening up their shops; craftsmen fetching this or that needed for the day’s work; ragged beggars pleading for alms. Lucy felt as overwhelmed by the noise and bustle and stink as she had been the afternoon before. She did notice this time, though, that the citizen-women all wore gowns – new or shabby; kilted up or loose and half-covered by aprons. She suspected that her skirt and waistcoat marked her out as a country bumpkin, and bit her lip. She had no money to buy a gown.

  Thomas walked very quickly, and Lucy struggled to keep up with him, particularly since she had put on footwear suited to the muddy streets, high wooden pattens that kept her petticoat-hem out of the mire but were clumsy to walk in. She was relieved when her uncle paused near the foot of London Bridge to talk to a vendor. The woman smiled and offered him what seemed to be a chapbook from the satchel-like apron she wore around her waist. ‘Weekly Account, Master Stevens?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘I’ll wait till Monday. I miss Britanicus, Kate, indeed I do.’

  ‘We all miss him,’ replied the woman, returning the booklet to her apron with a sigh. ‘If he takes up his pen again, I’ll keep a copy for you, shall I?’

  ‘Do that!’ Thomas ordered and walked on. He glanced at Lucy, hurrying after him, and explained, ‘I used to buy a copy of Mercurius Britanicus every Thursday when it came out, but, now, alas, I have to make do with A Perfect Diurnall on Monday.’

  Lucy was confused, and Thomas noticed. ‘Newsbooks, child! Ah, but you wouldn’t have seen a newsbook, would you? They’re not printed out in the country, and I never troubled to send any to your father. He would’ve reckoned it a terrible waste of money!’

  Susan had mentioned that Thomas was a great reader of newsbooks. ‘What is a newsbook, sir?’

  ‘A sort of chapbook, or short pamphlet, that recounts the news of the week. Some call them mercuries, because many of them take the title Mercurius after the heathen god who carried messages. It’s an apt title for them, for, like the gods of the ancients, they are full of lies. To read them, one would think that all Parliament-men are wise and fair, and that only the malignants differ with them on any matter whatsoever!’

  Lucy wondered why Thomas bought them if they were full of lies, but they were now struggling to cross London Bridge and too busy trying to dodge the traffic to continue the conversation. She thought about it, though, staggered by the idea of buying a book every week to tell you what had happened. Her father owned two books: the Bible and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs – heavy and valuable volumes, which were treated with reverence. The only other printed materials Lucy had handled were the blackletter ballads she’d swapped with her friends – song sheets which cost a penny new but were passed from hand to hand for years. She wondered what you did with a book that was worthless the week after you bought it.

  Getting across the bridge was quicker on foot than on horseback: it was possible to squeeze past obstacles by nipping in and out of doorways. When they reached the northern bank of the Thames, they paused a moment to catch their breath. Thomas smiled at Lucy and said, ‘You’ve not been to London before, is that so?’

  Lucy nodded.

  ‘A fearful city,’ said Thomas. ‘I remember when I first came here, thirty years ago, it seemed to me a hell on earth.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Lucy, a little too quickly, and Thomas smiled again.

  ‘One grows used to it. Here, let me show you the shape of it, in case you get lost.’ He led her to a point on the riverbank where there was a view. ‘That,’ he pointed acros
s the bridge, ‘is the borough of Southwark, which is reckoned almost a separate city. That tower there, that’s St Mary Overie – see it, the great church? This,’ he waved at the shore about them, ‘is the City of London. Now that,’ he pointed west and a little north to a tower which rose above the crowding roofs, ‘there, that is London’s cathedral, St Paul’s. If ever you are lost, look for the towers of Paul’s or St Mary’s, and then you can find Southwark. Downriver yonder – see the ships? That’s the Pool of London, the port where all our merchandise comes and goes. That great fortress above it, that’s the Tower.’

  ‘Where prisoners are kept, sir?’ asked Lucy, remembering what Susan had said, that the author of Mr Browne’s pamphlets, a friend of Thomas’s, was imprisoned there.

  ‘Aye, where men whom the state fears are kept prisoner, but also where all the coin of the realm is minted. There’s a menagerie there, too, with lions and other strange beasts, well worth three farthings to view. But today we are bound north, to Moorgate.’

  At first Thomas continued to point out the sights: Lombard Street, where the rich bankers had their offices; the fine shops on Cheapside; the merchants’ Exchange on Cornhill. After that, however, he trudged in silence. Lucy was wondering what the matter was, when suddenly he burst out, ‘Lucy, my girl, I confess I am having doubts whether you should take up this place. In fact, I–I should never have agreed to it!’

  Her heart gave a jolt: the prospect of returning to the house now, and resigning herself to becoming Aunt Agnes’s maidservant, was utterly abhorrent. ‘I like the notion of it very well, Uncle,’ she said quickly. ‘Shouldn’t we at least make trial of it?’

  He frowned. ‘There’s a matter. I should have spoken of it last night, but . . . well, Will was eager, and your aunt was pressing me.’

  This, Lucy suspected, was going to be about the seditiousness of the pamphlets and ending up in Bridewell. ‘Yes, Uncle?’

  ‘The printing press is unlicensed,’ said Uncle Thomas. He peered at her anxiously. ‘Do you know what that means, child?’