Mr Vermuyden glances out of the window again. Does he see Canvey Island out there, as if it had been towed into the city in proof ?
‘Between the embanking and the draining I made new land and enriched old. Croppenburg gave me in recompense a portion of the pasture, which yields a good income from tenant farmers. That’s a piece of advice for you.’
Vermuyden makes sure I am paying attention.
‘Never take specie payment, young man, if you can get the land instead. You will be familiar with the principle, though too young as yet to go without a salary.’
‘Indeed, sir. My mother has expressed the same sentiment.’
‘Good. It is no more than I expect of a sensible Dutchwoman. Money passes through your fingers like water; land sticks.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Croppenburg lives on his rents now. The war made his business hard and the King’s death has finished it off. Few dare to walk abroad with any jewellery these days, as you will see. It’s land that will get him through.’
I nod and wait. I do not say that I have no particular interest in buying land or even in my salary. It is the subtle combat, the tussle between land and water, that catches and holds me tight. Mr Vermuyden also says nothing and a silence gathers between us that I do not know how to fill.
Then he adds, almost in a drawl, ‘The present scheme is altogether larger than anything I have undertaken. It is brought about by General Cromwell himself in alliance with several Gentlemen Adventurers. You will have acquainted yourself with its whole history during the late war.’
‘Only a little; I know a start was made.’
Vermuyden looks up sharply at this. ‘Yes, indeed, a start was made; and a stop too. A very bad business. But now we begin again.’
At that Vermuyden walks towards me, full of energy all of a sudden. ‘We are ordered to make a scheme for the draining of the Great Level, a large expanse, being in total area some five hundred square miles in the English way of measuring.’
‘That is a vast area, sir.’
‘Indeed, Jan, it is. We start with nothing, for it is a great wilderness of fen that stretches from the city of Ely to the North Sea, and as wide again from side to side. That is a great chunk of England. A Dutchman would not credit it lying unimproved. Yet so it is, and now affords little benefit to the realm other than fish and fowl, being for the most part great sheets of water called there meres.’
‘Is it a lived wilderness, or at present water only?’
‘It is inhabited, yes, Jan; but, the island of Ely excepted, inhabited by a lazy and barbarous people who trap eels and other such trash foods.’
‘Does not the place belong in some manner to these people, sir?’
‘Indeed not, or only by custom, for much rightly belongs, as underwater, to the realm, having formerly been the property of the King.’
Vermuyden takes a turn around the room.
‘The people there are few in number, and of concern only to the Adventurers, who now propose to bring the whole place into proper cultivation. We will make order where at present there is none. No person shall lose their life in floods, no islands drown. It will be an immense labour, the like of which this country has never seen.’
He pauses and adds, ‘There is a profit in it for both of us, Jan; a profit in land and standing. You cannot ask that any labour in the world should give you more.’
With the fatigue of the day and the confusion of talk that seems so often to say one thing and mean another, my mind becomes vacant. Although I know that I should feel the happiness that comes with the prospect of work for which I am fitted, I struggle to thank Vermuyden, or say anything at all.
Vermuyden brings me back to the room when he taps my roll of maps and drawings on his velvet thigh. I am proud of my drawings and now wish that he would unroll them. I am looking for praise as a son does from a father, but Vermuyden seems uninterested in my past. The present and the need for speed engross him. Our family connection, and not the work I have done, stands surety for me.
‘So tell me now, Jan. Do you wish to work for the Gentlemen Adventurers? Don’t dally about. I cannot keep company with ditherers.’
‘I am willing, sir.’
Vermuyden nods and then kisses me on both cheeks in a distant way, not holding me close to him but leaning towards me as if to dispatch the action as quickly as he can.
‘Well done, Jan; well done. Go now. I will have reports of your progress.’
‘Are we not to meet again before I go?’
‘I find no need for it. Set out at first light tomorrow. The journey will take you two days, the roads being very bad outside London. Jacob Van Hooghten will meet you at Ely.’
‘Jacob Van Hooghten?’
‘He works for me and you will work for him. He can explain the whole to you and get you started.’
‘I should like to meet others of the Gentlemen who I shall answer to.’
Vermuyden puts my maps down on the table next to him with a slap of impatience. He is a heavy man, with leg-of-mutton calves. He has a dozen children, my mother says, and one of them fought with General Cromwell in the late wars.
‘They are far above your head, Jan. You are an engineer; a master engineer, to be sure, and trained in the best schools, but nothing more. These men are not engineers; there is little they can say that would be of any use to you. Some of them know the Great Level, others think of it as they might a plantation in the New World; an empty place that will be a new land. They intend to take a profit from it, nothing more nor less. They are merchants or gentlemen. You might pass them in the city here and they would look like other men. Money is what they offer and you have no need to know more than that.’
‘Their names?’
‘All on the contract that I will have sent down to you. But it matters little. The chief of them is the Earl of Bedford; a man more merchant than lord, who smells a profit from a distance and has few scruples about heading towards it. But you will likely never see him. General Cromwell heads the company of Adventurers and has himself entrusted this scheme to me. We must begin. Summer is on the way and there is now enough dry land to make a tolerable survey.’
I understand that I have the position and that I am dismissed. I look at the roll of papers on the table and summon my courage.
‘You wish to check my drawings, Mijnheer Vermuyden?’
Vermuyden picks up my papers and glances at me, then puts them down again.
‘No, no. Van Nes has given his word. Besides, we are related.’
I say nothing and do not ask for my papers, anxious that my disappointment stays inside.
‘I have arranged a lodging for you by Charing Cross,’ Vermuyden says. ‘The Rose Tavern; usually so full of our countrymen you can hear them from the street. When you get up to Ely, find Van Hooghten and put yourself on an easy footing with him.’
So there is nothing else to be done but to bow, and turn, and walk away, which I do with a heart full of foreboding. Had I more experience of such work I might feel easier, but it is not even that, perhaps. It is more a sense of being alone in this city, no person or place nearby that I understand. I vow to begin my work as soon as possible, which is what Mr Vermuyden wishes. Measuring and mapping, steady and patient labour, will give me a feeling of ease greater than any contemplation of the final rewards.
Chapter 3
London.
The 10th day of May, 1649.
Wind from the west with rain to come.
Outside in St Paul’s churchyard I wrap myself tight in my worsted cloak, for the company of the cloth and because now the storm is nearly here. I stop a passer-by and ask, as best I can, for Charing Cross. He looks at me with suspicion, and then, as if to be rid of me, points the way down from the cathedral and makes a gesture for straight on. Past the booksellers’ shops, at the bottom of the hill, is a narrow stream, choked and foul, with stepping stones that I take carefully. I wish to avoid notice and walk as those around me do, with my head d
own. My cloak is a dull brown, my hat the usual felt, with a white ribbon at the base of the crown. You would not take me for a Dutchman from the outside.
At the edge of the stream a woman stops me as if to ask a question, then pulls a bag from the folds of her gown and takes from it a small print, face up so that I can see it clearly. She is silent, just gives me a look and holds my eyes with hers for a minute. I understand; commerce speaks a language without words, and so does secrecy.
No one is behind me or anywhere near. I cannot say why, yet the very sense I have of being observed prompts me to put one hand out for the print and with the other find some coins and pass them over. When the woman rolls up the paper, ties it with twine and offers it to me, I feel none of the usual heart-lift that comes with small purchases; a corner sweetmeat or a pipe in an inn. This is a hurried and furtive thing between us; glancing round, I tuck the print into my sleeve and walk on.
The rain begins as I pass an old mansion by the river; not drop by drop, but in a sudden squall that throws down the storm in a sheet. Trees whip and bow eastwards. Their new leaves shuffle like an angry crowd. At midday it is dark enough to be night, in which another man might find a portent.
I have read that where there is war it is a shame for a gentleman to say he has read of it only, and has not seen it. There is no war in this city, no havoc of battle; but I am seeing war nonetheless. London is sullen. Soldiers stand on the street corners and beneath the overhangs of the houses. As the rain begins I hear it drumming on their helmets. Citizens walk past, close to the walls. The women cover their heads with their cloaks and none meet my eye. Fear and mistrust hang in the air, so heavy that I might put my hand to them.
At the Rose Tavern, I find a note from Mr Vermuyden with instructions and money for the journey. My man has already set down my boxes and left, no doubt to find ale and Dutch company. As soon as I have closed the door to my room, I pull out the printed paper from my sleeve and roll it open on the bed. There is no doubt about what it shows. A wooden platform is depicted at the centre of the picture, upon which kneels the body of the King, with the animation of life still in it. His head lies cut off upon the executioner’s block. The lines are ragged, the whole cut by an inexpert hand. The King’s body, his shoes balanced on the platform, his large hat alone in the middle: these things make a shiver run through me. This was a king once, and I feel sure that the heart of the man who carved this picture lay with the King’s, for he made a flat, lifeless thing, with only sadness in it. Even on Tholen – for there, too, the thing was felt – people said King Charles died well. In Delft, a man told me, as if he had been there, that at the instant of the blow a single groan went through the whole crowd. Now, as I sit here, it seems that groan still sounds.
I am a man of solitary habit, yet now I long to leave this silent room and find the noise of life. I’d like a woman to lie with, but I want more the company of men. Downstairs are Dutchmen, shutting out the rain with talk and laughter. At the thought my mood lightens, and I remember why I am here. Though without the comfort of family or friend, and though Mr Vermuyden has held my papers (I shall request them with my first report), yet am I determined to seize and undertake this adventure. I call for water, wash my face, and make my way to the parlour.
Smoke meets me, and a thick wall of my own language, mortared with wit and good humour. Half a dozen men sit loosely round a table. Talk flies between them, and through it come jabs of their pipe stems, raised glasses, exclamation and laughter. Straight away, to my relief, a comfortable feeling of Amsterdam and Tholen comes round me; of men who throw their legs apart when they laugh and wear their hair long, as I do.
‘Jan Brunt, engineer,’ I say, and take an empty chair as the chatter stops and I hear the familiar ‘Goedenavond, Goedenavond.’ The circle opens to make a space for me and the day’s indignity and strangeness fall away. The man of the inn comes in. I order brandy and a pipe for myself.
For a few minutes the company talks on as if I had not joined it, then a florid man stops and turns to me, wine glass in hand. A diamond flashes on his little finger.
‘Your business here in London, Mijnheer Brunt?’
I wonder, even in the company of my compatriots, whether I should speak, as if the mood of this city has oozed inside this cheerful inn.
‘To help in the undertaking of a great labour.’
The florid man leans towards me, knees apart. He taps a pipe against my chest. I can feel the heat through my cotton shirt.
‘And what great labour might that be?’
‘I am to assist Mijnheer Vermuyden with the new draining works in the lands beyond Ely. General Cromwell has ordered them restarted after the years of disturbance.’
Another man turns towards me, heavyset and sprawling on his chair. He lifts his glass so that the wine dances golden in the candlelight.
‘Beaver-skin hats, young man – they are my line of work, and I’ve traded up there, at Ely Isle. Ely was once a fine place, though now much decayed and wretched. Yet round it is strange country, forbidding, a wild place as far and beyond what the eye can see.’
‘I have heard it said,’ another man broke in, ‘that barbarous people live there.’
‘Barbarous and godless, too, so I was told,’ the hatter added, ‘though I never had cause to go in there, the people of those parts beyond Ely having no means to deal in luxury.’
‘I know little of the people,’ I say, ‘except that they are few, and there are five hundred square miles to be drained.’
‘Well, Godspeed to you, young man. That’s work for many years.’
The hatter laughs with an edge of scorn, or so I think afterwards. The talk then passes to the events of the day and the scarcity of commerce. One by one the merchants complain about the ruinous state of London and no one buying, until a quiet man with folded arms speaks up.
‘I myself have succeeded, sirs, right here in London.’
‘What is your trade?’ The hatter waves his glass again.
‘My name is Frans Klaassen, gentlemen. Allow me to show you my stock.’
Klaassen is a lean man with a face weathered in the outdoors and little hair on his head. Alone among the company he wears no hat and has neither cloak nor cane with him. From next to his chair he quietly lifts a box bound in brass with a curling clasp. Inside, trays and boxes are neatly stacked, and alongside them lie three scarlet velvet bags with drawstrings which Klaassen places on the table.
A hush settles on the company, as if we wait for a performance. Perhaps Klaassen is a magician. As we watch he takes three small bowls punctured with different-sized holes and a piece of red woollen cloth that he spreads out upon the table and then, perhaps, several of us understand what his goods are: pearls, from Arabia.
Klaassen tips the pearls from one of the velvet bags into the first bowl. They tremble for a moment before he raises the vessel and shakes it. The smallest pearls, tiny as pinpricks, rattle through the holes and settle into a low mound on the red cloth. Picking up the next bowl he tips the remaining pearls into it and shakes it again. A new mound collects on the cloth, made of slightly bigger pearls. Once more Klaassen repeats the operation. Now there are three piles, and only the biggest pearls are left in the last bowl. These he tips onto the cloth to make a fourth group. We peer at their glowing, uneven surfaces.
We Dutch know pearls. Necklaces and wrist bands, buckles and brooches, stomachers and collars; pearls adorn them all. Pearls are the slow accumulation of beauty and the reward of wealth. We do not mine and cut them like diamonds, or refine them like gold. They are nature’s gift, taken from water and brought into the light. We prize their completeness and their milky shine.
The hatter glances towards the door.
‘Mr Klaassen, you know these pearls are no longer allowed here? All precious stones are forbidden by decree; the Crown Jewels themselves are melted down and sold off ?’
Klaassen shrugs and smiles.
‘So much the better for my affairs, since e
very man desires what is hidden and denied him. Think on it, gentlemen. Is not the most prized part of a woman the most hidden and secret? I sell my pearls in Cheapside by appointment, and the largest sell the best.’
‘Why so?’ I ask, since measurement will always catch my notice.
From his pocket Klaassen pulls a key, unlocks a drawer in the box and draws out another bag, silk this time. From the inside, when he slides it onto the cloth, comes an earring; a single pearl clasped in a silver crown and sphere. The mount for the ear is fashioned into a cross.
‘The King of England wore one such as this to the scaffold. I have them made up in Amsterdam. I could not risk the work here; but many wish to have a copy as a keepsake or a token.’
He shrugs, picks up the earring and returns it to its drawer, then shovels up his pearls. In a few seconds the shining shells – for what are they? The emanations of creatures, or precious jewels? – are bagged up. Klaassen packs away the sieves and scales, the weights and the red cloth, locks the box and stows it again by his feet.
Before anyone says a word, Klaassen raises his wine glass and says with a smile, ‘To King Charles and the pearl he wore.’
None of us speak, and strange as it is – for in Amsterdam pearls are bought and sold in the bright light every day and, besides, we Netherlanders have no king nor any allegiance to one – solemnity falls in the room. It settles over all of us, even if, as I think for a second, Klaassen’s toast is more a thanks for profit than a prayer for the King’s soul.
After a pause the talk turns to the events of the day, and how to pass the evening with the theatres now closed.
‘Bawdy houses, too, in case you were thinking of spending your nights under a woman,’ says a fair man about my own age.
But I have had enough of company, suddenly, and say goodnight, bowing to each of the men in turn. ‘Godspeed, Godspeed,’ they say in reply. As I leave I see Klaassen picking up the cards from the table.
The Great Level Page 3
