by Ann Turnbull
“Don’t promise anything. Think about it. It will be a few weeks before I need your decision. There’s another youth I could ask, but I’d prefer you. Consider whether you might compromise, Will. For my part, I believe the act’s a bad one and will only make more Quakers; people flourish under adversity. But I don’t make the laws. Think about it. I’ve spoken to your father. He knows how I feel.”
And then he was gone, before I could gather my answer. I knew, of course, that I must turn down his offer. I could not compromise; I could not put God aside to further my career.
But I also knew my father would be furious.
We argued half the night.
“He has made you an offer that’s more than reasonable,” my father said. “You will write to him tomorrow and accept.”
He was red-faced, flushed with wine.
My stepmother tried to calm him. “Husband, come to bed. It’s late, and you spoil a pleasant evening. Will, tell your father you will think about it tomorrow.”
“He knows I will not.”
“And what else do you intend to do with yourself, sirrah?” demanded my father. “Will you live here, idle, at my expense?”
“I mean to look for work,” I said stiffly. But I felt shamed, knowing that he was in the right and should not have to keep me. I should leave his house. But to go where? Without work I could pay no rent.
“You need not think I’ll come up with the money for any other bond you choose,” he said. “If you tie yourself to a Quaker master you’ll get nothing from me. Let them look after you – I cast you off! We’ll see how long your principles last then.”
My stepmother said, “Will has been given time to consider the offer. Let him sleep on it, at least.”
Finally she persuaded my father to his bed, and I went to mine. But not to sleep. I lay awake with a pounding headache, and relived the conversation I’d had with Nicholas Barron over and over again.
There was another thing on my mind that Nicholas Barron as yet did not know about: if I accepted his offer it would take me far away from Susanna. Unless… And then I realized something else. When an apprentice signs a bond he agrees to certain conditions. One of them is that he shall not marry during the seven-year term of his apprenticeship.
Susanna
“I have scarcely seen thee this week.”
Will and I were in the bookshop, snatching a moment together. The day was hot, and even with the counters down and the shop door wide I felt sticky and uncomfortable. There was a film of sweat on Will’s forehead.
He had told me about Nicholas Barron’s offer, and that he intended to reject it, and I felt a mixture of joy and guilt – but mostly joy because I had dreaded his going away to London. And yet even if he stayed here we were not free; he could not acknowledge me.
“I daren’t go to the Mintons’ too often,” he said. “Anne says the servants have noticed. I don’t want to lead my father to thee.”
I longed to be alone with him, away from Hemsbury.
Sometimes, in my imagination, I took the two of us to Long Aston, to a field I knew which sloped down towards woodland and a little stream. We walked hand in hand through the green corn, and when we reached the edge of the wood we found a place away from the track and lay down together on rough grass and leaves, and heard a cuckoo calling in the wood, and the murmur of the stream. We were quite alone. No one came to disturb us; no eyes watched. There was a scent of honeysuckle and dry earth, and Will’s face above mine was dusted with pollen. I put my arms around his neck and kissed him.
I felt shame when I dared to imagine more. Will and I were not promised in marriage; he had never spoken of it. He was forbidden to me, and I knew I should not be thinking of him in that way.
And yet I kept the picture of that woodland place in mind while I went about my work. The cesspit in the cellar stank and the streets were foul with rubbish. I saw a dead cat, bloated and buzzing with flies, in Broad Street, and butchers’ waste clogging the gutters. Hemsbury folk fear plague in hot weather. Hester told me to carry a posy of herbs to ward off infection; she made me one from the Mintons’ garden, and I felt safer having it about me.
One blessing of the hot weather was that the laundry dried quickly. There was much to do, for we struggled to help our friends in prison keep clean. Judith had her monthly courses that week, and I took home her bloodstained rags and put them to soak in a pail of water, then washed them and spread them on the bushes to bleach in the sunshine. On fifth-day Hester and I washed a pile of shirts and shifts, helped by Abigail. We knew that the prisoners would come to court soon and we did not want them to appear like vagabonds.
On seventh-day we filled a basket with clean clothes, rags, and bunches of thyme and rosemary, and went to the prison.
The smell, as we went down into the dungeons, almost drove me back. God give them strength to endure it, I thought. And I dreaded to see how my friends might look.
We heard someone speaking in a loud voice.
“They rant on, those Quakers,” the jailer grumbled. The heavy wooden door had a grille in it, high up. He looked in, called, “Visitors!” and opened up.
Hester and I went in. As he locked the door behind us, we were swallowed up in the buzz of voices, the press of stinking, unwashed bodies, the smells of excrement, blood and vomit.
I felt as if caught in a trap. I could scarcely endure this for one moment, and yet they were here day and night.
I saw Judith first. My friend, who had been so fresh and fair, was changed: her skin greyish, her hair hanging loose under a dirty cap, flea bites on her neck and arms. When she saw me she struggled to hold back tears.
“Judith!”
We squeezed our way towards each other and embraced. I felt myself wanting to cry with her, but that would not help.
She drew back, smearing a hand across her face, and I noticed with repulsion that there was dirt under her fingernails and ingrained in the skin of her hands. “I never was made for this, Su,” she said. “We are so crowded that only half of us can lie down at one time. My mother is ill. She burns with fever. Many are the same – fainting and feverish…”
“Jail fever?”
“We fear so. There is so much filth, and we can’t wash; we have lice and fleas.” She shuddered. “I know I should be stronger. I think of Dan; he’s still manacled in the Pit. Oh, but yesterday someone puked near me and it splashed all down my gown and I can’t get rid of the smell…”
“We’ve brought clean linen,” I said, glad to have something practical to offer. “And thou can have my skirt…” I was stepping out of it as I spoke, for it seemed to me far more important that Judith should be comfortable than that I should not be seen by men in my shift; so much had our lives changed. “I’ll take thine and clean it. Here. It might be a little short.”
“No matter. Oh, Su!” And she started to laugh, and soon we were both laughing.
“Wait!” I said. I went to the basket and brought out a clean cap of hers, and a shift, and a parcel of rags for her courses.
“Thou giv’st me courage,” she said, becoming grave again.
I stepped into her skirt, and rolled it over at the waist to shorten it. The women went into a huddle, changed into their clean linen, and put the dirty clothes in our basket for washing.
I found Nat in better spirits than Judith, though just as dirty. But he had lost his jaunty grin and looked leaner and more sober than I had seen him before. Mary remained strong. She was thin and gaunt, but she brushed aside my questions about her health.
“What news?” she asked me. “Hast thou heard from thy parents? From Eaton Bellamy Meeting?”
“No. But our people are being arrested all around. A packman came the other day with messages. Brentbridge jail is full. And they say there are many arrested at Ludlow and Hereford and Birmingham.”
“And my shop?”
“Simon manages alone. I’m living at the Mintons’. The print room has closed.”
She nodded. “
Tell Simon not to fear for his wages. I have money put by.”
“The meeting…” I wanted to cheer her. “We shall keep the meeting. The children will keep it as long as we must. And Will says he’ll come.”
She looked at me with concern. “Don’t persuade Will into trouble.”
“I don’t! He chooses to come.”
“They’ll deal harshly with you all,” she warned. “They won’t spare any, even the little ones.”
It was mid-afternoon when Hester and I returned to the Mintons’. High Street was busy, for it was cattle market day and the town full of country people. As we approached the shop, I saw two children in homespun clothes stop and look up at the glover’s sign – and my heart leaped in joy and alarm.
“Deb!” I shouted. “Isaac!” I turned to Hester. “It’s my brother and sister!”
I gave my basket to Hester, and ran towards them. We came together in a huddle on the street, and I felt tears rising as I exclaimed, “How did you get here? Are Mam and Dad arrested? Oh, Isaac, Deb, I’m so glad to see you!”
Deb hugged me as I dropped down beside her, and Isaac said, “We went to Mary Faulkner’s, but the man said Mary was in prison and thou gone to the Mintons’. So we came here… Deb’s tired.”
“She never walked all the way?”
“No. A farmer brought us into town in his cart.”
“And Mam and Dad?” I asked. I knew they must have been taken.
“Arrested – both of them. On first-day. They are in prison at Norton. Eaton Bellamy Meeting are almost all there.”
Hester had caught me up. “Bring the children inside, Susanna,” she said. “I’ll fetch food and drink. Dost thou like milk, my poppet?”
Deb nodded, and put her thumb in her mouth. “Goody Allen’s geese frighted me,” she said into my shoulder.
I stood up and led her indoors as Isaac explained. “Innkeeper Allen and his wife would have taken us in. Said we could stay as long as need be, and I could help out back for our keep. But Deb cried a lot so I said we’d go to thee. Their son – that was him in the cart – was going to town, and he took us all the way. We were quite merry till we reached Faulkner’s and found thee gone…” His chin wobbled.
I put my arms around him. “Well, you are with me now. You did right to come. We’ll send a message to Mam and Dad, to say you are both safe here.”
But to myself I wondered how I was going to care for them, with all our friends in prison and even my work and wages uncertain.
William
“You will come to church tomorrow,” my father said on Saturday night.
“I will not.”
We had been sparring for two days, since the evening of the civic dinner. I had refused to write and accept Nicholas Barron’s offer, but had made several attempts to write a letter of rejection that would not offend – each time screwing up the paper in frustration and throwing it into the fireplace. I stalked about the house in my hat, refusing to go bareheaded before my father, and used “thee” and “thou” whenever I spoke at all. He did not attack me again, but banished me to the kitchen at mealtimes, saying I could eat with the servants if I would not remove my hat.
The servants were puzzled but sympathetic. As I sat with them I became aware, for the first time, of their lives. Joan disliked Rebecca, my stepmother’s maidservant, and the two sniped at each other continually. Ned spoke to me of his time in the army. I hadn’t known Ned had been a soldier; never thought much about these people I’d lived with for years. Meriel, it seemed, had a lover – a draper’s servant – who appeared at the back door on Saturday evening and was alarmed to find me there.
Meriel slipped outside with him into the warm dusk.
“Don’t tell Mistress,” said Joan. “The girl needs a bit of life.”
On Sunday – first-day – morning I did not wait for confrontation. I was out of bed and down to the kitchen before even the servants were awake. I drank some beer, then took a chunk of bread from the crock and went out the way Meriel had gone.
The town was quiet: a housewife was mopping her step; a girl walking with a yoke of pails to the conduit. The Mintons’ shutters were closed; I could not call there at this hour. I went down to the riverside and sat on a wall eating the bread. Then I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind and make space for the light. When the streets began to stir with people I went to Cross Street.
Susanna was there, in the yard of the Seven Stars, and with her the Minton boys, Tom and Joe, and perhaps a dozen other children. A little one of four or five was holding her hand.
Her face showed love and relief when she saw me, but she said only, “I’m glad thou’rt here, Will.” She glanced down at the little girl. “This is my sister, Deborah.”
I remembered the child then. “We’ve met before,” I said to her. But Deborah hid her face in Susanna’s skirts.
I looked at Susanna. “Thy parents? Are they arrested?”
“Yes. The children came yesterday. Isaac is over there.”
He was like her: slight build, golden-brown hair. I knew him to be about twelve years old.
I saw that I was the only person over sixteen. I counted eight boys and five girls between about nine and fifteen years; and little Deborah. We were not an illegal meeting under the terms of the act since there were not five adults present.
“I doubt the authorities will trouble us,” I said and felt almost disappointed; I was keyed up for conflict.
“Oh, they will,” said Susanna. “They will come.”
She let us in with the Mintons’ key. The seats were in some disarray, a few toppled over – unchanged, I supposed, since the last meeting had been broken up. We set them upright, and Susanna and Tom and I sat down. Isaac and Deborah sat either side of Susanna, but the other children all went to their usual places scattered around the room, some at the back.
Susanna looked round at them. “Come nearer,” she said. “We should all sit together.”
Gradually they moved forward, and we formed a half-circle.
The children fell quiet at once, even those I’d seen fidget and play during Meeting. A new seriousness seemed to have come upon them. I saw that Susanna was nervous; her hands were clenched tight. I tried to relax into the silence and seek the Lord’s will on how we might respond if the militia came.
But we had no time to find the silence. We were only a few minutes into the meeting when the door burst open.
I looked up, my heart thumping, expecting to see soldiers, led by the sheriff. But only one man came into the room: my father.
Susanna
I guessed at once who the man was. Will gave a small moan at sight of him, and rose to his feet.
“Stay there,” he said to me. And to the man: “Father, you should not have come here—”
His father was ablaze with anger. “Get out!” he shouted. “You are expected in church.”
He seized Will by the arm and tried to drag him away, but Will resisted. “I won’t go. Father! Calm yourself. This is a religious meeting. We have come here to worship—”
“Worship?” His glance flicked contemptuously over our group. “A rabble of children? With no minister present?”
I stood up then, and faced him; took a breath to steady myself. “God is here,” I said.
He looked at me, and I returned his stare. I saw in his eyes the moment of recognition when he realized who I must be. His expression hardened.
“You bold-faced little whore!” he said. “What have you done to my son?”
I felt shock, as if he had punched me, and took a step back. At the same moment Will sprang forward, and Tom jumped up to try to make peace. Deb, seeing me distressed, began to wail. Then I heard men’s voices outside, and in through the open doorway came Robert Danson, followed by several constables.
Danson was stopped in his tracks at sight of Will’s father. “Mr Heywood…” he said, uncertainly.
Henry Heywood was breathing fast. “I am here to retrieve my son from this gathe
ring,” he said.
Danson recovered himself, took charge, and declared the meeting illegal. Will at once spoke up and said that he was the only person over sixteen years old and so it was lawful. But Danson retorted, “This is clearly a riotous and tumultuous meeting, a danger to the public peace. It is therefore an unlawful assembly.” He turned to Henry Heywood. “Take your son home, sir.” And to the constables: “Drive them out. If they will not move, beat them.”
The children were courageous. None of them moved. Will’s father tried to wrestle him towards the door. At a signal from Danson, the constables set about the rest of us with rods, striking out even at the youngest children, so that all were forced to get up.
I crouched to protect Deb, angry with myself for having brought her into danger. A blow from a rod caught me on the shoulder. I cried out, and saw Will struggling in vain to reach us, held back by his father and Danson. All around me children were scrambling to get out, arms raised to ward off the blows.
I am the eldest, I thought; I brought this meeting about; I must take charge, as Mary would. I turned to the constables, my arms shielding Deb, and said, “You need not beat us! We are leaving.”
Once outside, they herded us together. I guessed we appeared a sorry little group, and I drew myself up and held Robert Danson’s gaze. Will and his father were arguing, both red in the face. Will moved forward to join us, but the constables barred his way.
“Go home with your father, Master Heywood,” said Danson. “I shall not arrest you.”
And Will had no choice but to go. I saw the shame in his eyes as he looked back at me.
Now Danson demanded the key to the meeting room. I gave it to him, and he locked the door and kept the key.
“You will not meet here again,” he said. He turned to the constables. “Take them to Bridewell. A night there will teach them obedience.”
I felt a moment of panic. I had not expected this. The Bridewell is a workhouse for the rough sort. There they lock up vagabonds and vagrants, brawling apprentices, those the worse for drink, and loose women.
