She clung to the package, and he had to wrest it from her, almost pulling her out of the saddle before she would let go. Her horse snorted and side-stepped, and at last she gave a gasp of pain and grabbed the saddle instead. He tore the bundle open, and a cap and stockings fell out into the muddy road. Jamie ignored them and tore open the letters, one after another.
Two notes to livery stables, announcing a few days’ delay in returning and promising to pay charges; a letter which sounded like one to a printer, again mentioning the delay and containing instructions for what to do with the previous week’s sheets; a note to somebody called John rescheduling a dinner. There was nothing seditious, and no mention of Lucy at all. Rage ebbing, he looked up guiltily from the last letter. Lucy had dismounted to collect her belongings; she had the wet, dirty things under her arm and she was trying to get back into the side-saddle. There were tears running down her face. He felt a wave of shame, and dismounted to help her.
The look she cast at him, of fear and loathing, stopped him in his tracks. She turned her back on him and clawed her way up on to her horse, and he felt as though the gates of Paradise were swinging shut, leaving him outside. She tucked her muddy cap and stockings into the front of her gown, turned her horse and rode on towards London. Heart aching, he followed her in silence.
Eight
Lucy had been worried that Mrs Alkin would be angry with her errant printer, but when she went to speak to her employer, on the morning after her return from Colchester, she was surprised to find the older woman sympathetic.
‘Of course you had to go to your husband!’ she said. ‘I told your friend Mrs Overton that I would have done just as you did. God knows, I would have rid through fire to be at Francis’s side when he was dying!’
Lucy was startled. She’d never given a moment’s thought to Mr Alkin, though she’d known he was no longer about. It was odd to think of this large, forceful woman as a devoted wife.
‘The King had him hanged as a spy in Oxford,’ Mrs Alkin said, in answer to the unspoken question. Her voice was bitter. ‘They had no evidence, but they hanged him anyway. I was in London, and knew nothing of it until it was done. Were you in time?’
‘I was deceived,’ Lucy admitted, still nervous. ‘When I arrived in Colchester, I found my husband safe and well.’ And mightily displeased with me for coming, she thought wretchedly. Jamie had scarcely spoken to her after making that monstrous accusation. She’d spent the whole two-day ride having conversations with him in her head – indignant, furious, reasonable, pleading – but every time she looked at his grim face the words withered on her tongue. The night they’d spent on the road had been passed in the common room of the inn at Widford, lying stiffly back to back, and the following afternoon he’d started back to Colchester even before she’d returned the borrowed mare to the Smithfield stable.
Mrs Alkin beamed. ‘God be praised! Had another injured man been mistook, then, for your husband?’
‘Nay,’ said Lucy, and told the story of the false Mr Bailey. Mrs Alkin listened with keen interest.
‘You should have writ out a description of the horse,’ she said, when Lucy had finished.
Lucy stared at her employer a moment, impressed. She’d expected a pious exclamation about the wickedness of men – or questions about why her husband had enemies.
‘People often take more note of a horse than of a man,’ Mrs Alkin explained, misunderstanding the stare, ‘and even if your oppresser didn’t use his own beast, still he would likely have borrowed or hired it in his own name.’
‘That is excellent advice, Mistress!’ Lucy said respectfully. ‘It was a big grey stallion, very high strung, very noteworthy. I will write and tell them so. Thank you!’ At least, she thought, it would give her an excuse to write to Jamie again; though probably he didn’t want to hear from her.
That thought brought a fresh stab of pain and indignation. How could he believe she’d been unfaithful? Yes, yes, he was undoubtedly right about Nedham’s motives, but the fact that another man lusted after her didn’t make her an adulteress! She’d only turned to Nedham because she was desperate to reach him, her husband. How could he blame her for that? The unfairness was not just infuriating, but disturbing. She’d believed that fairness was one of his great virtues.
Well, she wouldn’t see Jamie any time soon, and meanwhile she had to pay the rent. Lucy turned the conversation back to Mrs Alkin’s newsbook. There were no complaints, which was probably a factor in her employer’s sympathetic attitude. Mary Overton had finished the first edition on time, and had persuaded most of The Moderate’s vendors to take a few copies. Sales hadn’t been bad for a new title. The real test, however, would come the following week. Curiosity would only help a first edition.
Mercurius Pragmaticus had a page on the siege of Colchester that week. Lucy bought a copy, in dread, but it was better than it might have been. Nedham’s first priority had been to encourage the King’s supporters by exaggerating the strength of the city’s defence. ‘It is fair weather still at Colchester . . . they feare no storm, knowing that he that would do is not able. Nevertheless, they are provided for it . . .’ The precision of the circumstantial details was less striking in the general bombast, and Rainsborough wasn’t even mentioned.
Lucy worked assiduously for several days, printing each instalment of news as Mrs Alkin delivered it to her. She sent off a letter to Jamie with the description of Bailey/Barker’s horse, also saying that she was sorry she had grieved him – but there was no reply.
She also put up notices in booksellers informing the citizens of London that her press was available to print any licensable material they might wish to publish; something she should have done the week before. Her rent-free month at the printworks expired at the end of July, and she needed to find more customers by then or run into debt.
No one appeared to take up the offer, but four days after her return from Colchester the publication of her address did gain her a visitor. She was setting type, sitting in the shop doorway to get the light, when she became aware of someone standing over her. She looked up and saw that it was Marchamont Nedham.
She started up, then sat down again quickly so as not to spill the type. She put her hands protectively over the forme. ‘I scarce expected to see you here, sir!’ she hissed. ‘What if Mrs Alkin comes?’
Nedham gave a snort of amusement. ‘She’s come already. You’re setting type. She’s not like to be back until tomorrow, is she?’
Wat came to the door, gave a strangled yelp, and backed away again. ‘It’s Mr Nedham!’ he informed his Uncle Simmon breathlessly.
‘Aye, it is,’ agreed Nedham, ‘and if you’ve a mind to inform on me, boy, be sure that I shall inform on you. Lucy, sweet, will you come with me to the Swan, or must we talk in the street?’
Lucy stood up, carefully supporting the forme on her apron. ‘We can talk in the shop, sir.’
Nedham followed her into the dark dank room and looked down his nose at the press as she put the forme aside. He took one of the drying sheets from the line, inspected it a moment, then tossed it aside, smirking. ‘I see I need not fear for my sales.’
Lucy hesitated, wanting to rebuke him, but not able to. The Impartial Scout’s second edition looked to be even weaker and thinner than its first. ‘Are you here for what I owe you, sir?’ she asked instead. ‘I have not the money here, but . . .’
He waved it aside. ‘I’m here, girl, to ask you who read my letters.’
Her face went hot. She’d left his letters at The Sun in Convent Garden, as he’d asked, but there’d been no hiding the broken seals and torn paper. ‘My husband, sir, feared they were seditious.’
‘Loyal,’ Nedham corrected her. ‘It’s your husband who’s guilty of sedition, not I – and a fine figure of a man he is, too!’ He screwed one eye shut and clapped a hand to the right side of his face, pulling the skin grotesquely tight. ‘He might play Sin in a masque, for he’s ugly enough, and has one eye for delight, and the o
ther blind to the consequences! He’s a cursed ill-favoured wretch, and to see him clutch and fondle you turned my stomach. I wonder, truly, why you wed him.’
The outrage Lucy felt surprised her. She hadn’t expected this hot impulse to defend Jamie when she was furious with him herself. ‘I wed him for his virtues,’ she said sharply, ‘which you lack. Sir, I’m sorry he read your letters, but he feared you were involving me in sedition.’ She repeated the word with some emphasis. ‘What decent man would not wish to protect his wife from such danger?’
Nedham scowled. ‘You told him who I am.’
‘Aye, I did.’ And I wish I had not.
‘God damn you, girl! Did it never occur to you what would become of me if he spoke out?’
‘He has wit enough to know it would endanger me, sir, since I lied to protect you! He would never put me in danger, and if I’d held my tongue, what would I have said to him, when he asked after my cousin Wentnor?’ She looked Nedham in the eye. ‘Confess it: you knew he might read the letters when you gave them to me. They would not have been entirely innocent else!’
Nedham laughed. ‘Oh, sweet, you’re wasted on that mumbling stump! Come, have a drink with me, and we can talk – about business, if you must!’
She shook her head. ‘Sir, that would not be proper, and my husband would be very angry, did he learn of it. What business you have with me can be discussed here.’
He gazed at her, still smiling. ‘You do owe me money. That journey was made at my charge.’
She’d thought that would be the next ploy, would even have been suspicious if he hadn’t tried to use the debt to pressure her. She grimaced and nodded.
‘Why not deal with one another ingenuously, as friends? You were happy enough to meet me in a tavern when first I hired you.’
‘That was before . . . before we knew aught of one another.’ Before you proposed marriage, and before my husband grew jealous. ‘It would not be proper now. Sir, I am in your debt, I confess it, for your kindness as well as the money, but I am a married woman, and I cannot do a thing which I know would much offend my husband.’
That brought a ferocious scowl. ‘Well, then! If you will not deal with me as a friend, then you cannot hope for friendly terms! The cost of the Smithfield mare’s hire was five shillings a day, and you had her three days; the Widford horses were a pound ten, plus sixpence for our dinner . . .’
‘My dinner was three pence! And one horse from Widford for two days was eight shillings!’
‘Aye, but I made that journey on your account, so it’s fit you should pay my costs!’
She gazed at him in incredulous indignation. ‘Sir, the time to say that was before we set out! I tried to refuse your company then, and I would certainly have done so, had I known you’d expect me to pay for it!’
He slammed a hand on the press. ‘Must I suffer loss because I helped you?’
‘Was it such a hardship for you to sit at Colonel Rainsborough’s table and tell him lies? You seemed at the time to relish it!’
‘A long hard ride in ill weather, and this is my thanks!’
‘Sir, your haste to be away from London had nought to do with me! And if your real hope was to console me in my widowhood, well, I’m accountable neither for the hope nor its disappointment.’
‘Curse you for a shrew!’ he exclaimed resentfully. ‘Your tongue’s as foul as your husband’s face!’
She bobbed a curtsey. ‘By my reckoning, I owe you one pound, three shillings and thruppence. That is, fifteen shillings for the Smithfield mare, eight for the horse from Widford, and three pence for dinner. I might freely bid you whistle for the money, since you’re in no position to sue me for it, but I will repay it, because I am an honest woman, and grateful for your help. Only, as I said, I have not the money here, so you must set me a time and place to repay you.’
There was a silence. Nedham grimaced. ‘Damn the money! I didn’t mean to quarrel with you, Lucy.’
She crossed her arms, steeling herself. Nedham might say ‘damn the money!’, but if he remitted it, she had no doubt he’d try to get payment in another form, and while it was true that she could get away without paying him in any kind, she did not want to be in his debt. He made her uneasy enough as things stood. ‘Then let us deal as friends,’ she said mildly. ‘I am content to pay what I owe you, with my thanks for your help. You need only set a time and place.’
He sighed, then glanced round the dark room, grimacing at the fascinated faces of Lucy’s employees. ‘The truth,’ he said. ‘Do you have one pound three shillings?’
She flushed. She did not. ‘I can get it.’ She pushed aside the uncomfortable thought that she would get it if she sold her press. If The Impartial Scout failed, as she feared it might, that would be her only recourse. She told herself instead that she could borrow the money, using the press as security.
Nedham regarded her a moment thoughtfully, then smiled. ‘Well, then, you can repay me at The Sun in Convent Garden. Meet me for dinner at noon on Saturday! No, stay, make that Saturday next. This Saturday I’m engaged already.’
She made a face. She’d walked into that. She agreed, and resolved to bring Mary with her.
The second edition of The Impartial Scout was completed a couple of days later, on Friday. Lucy worked hard to persuade vendors to take copies, then awaited the results with trepidation.
She had yet to find any new customers. The mood in London was fearful and subdued, the citizens all reluctant to spend on inessentials when they might soon need every penny simply to survive. Parliament was discussing reopening negotiations with the King, this time without preconditions. Everyone knew that if they did it would cause a breach with the Army, but many would welcome it. There were plenty, even in Parliament, who feared the Army radicals even more than they feared the King. It was not a good time to publish banalities, but it was hard to get a licence to publish anything else.
On Saturday afternoon the mercury-women trailed into the printworks one after another, returning unsold copies. ‘Those that hate the King buy The Moderate,’ one explained. ‘Those that love him seek out Pragmaticus, and the rest wait for the Diurnal or its kin. None see the need for this new book, Mistress, and those that took it last week say it’s sad stuff.’
Mrs Alkin arrived at about six. ‘God have mercy!’ she exclaimed when she saw the stack of returns. ‘Did we sell none of them?’
‘Some hundred, perhaps,’ Lucy said unhappily. Even if there were no more returns – which there probably would be – the sales wouldn’t even cover the cost of the paper the book was printed on. A newsbook needed to sell at least five hundred copies to break even.
‘Well!’ Mrs Alkin puffed out her cheeks and sat down heavily on the stool by the composing frame. ‘I’d a notion from the mercury-women I spoke to in the city today that our success was poor, but it’s worse than I thought! God knows, this business is harder than it seems!’
‘It always takes time,’ said Lucy. ‘The Moderate made a loss for months.’
‘I cannot afford to prop up this newsbook for months,’ replied Alkin. She frowned at Lucy. ‘I’d persevere a bit longer, if I thought I’d win through in the end, but I much doubt that I will. Your Moderate can never have sold so few copies as this poor work of mine – and scribbling is hard work! Last week I had much I wanted to say, but this week I found I’d said it already. To go on saying it, and pay a pound a week for the privilege – no, I can’t afford it. I didn’t know how I’d thrive in this new business. Now I do. I’ll pour no more good money after bad.’
‘But . . .’ began Lucy, then stopped, biting her tongue. She wanted to protest – no, more than that! She wanted to shout that Mrs Alkin was a false jade if she did not provide Lucy’s press with the work she’d promised! The insult, though, would be not only pointless, but unfair. Mrs Alkin had made it clear from the start that she wasn’t prepared to make a heavy financial commitment. That, after all, was the reason she’d offered the press to Lucy instead of buyin
g it herself. The old spy had provided work, too, as well as she could. Blaming her for being a bad newswriter was like whipping a willing horse because it was too slow to win a race. The real fault was Lucy’s. She’d been so eager to buy her own press that she’d barely considered what she’d print on it.
‘I’m sorry, child!’ Mrs Alkin said, with concern. ‘I see that this is a blow to you. Have you no other customers?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘I will try to find some.’
She knew where to look for them, too, but she hadn’t expected her heart to sink so at the prospect. Hitherto she’d obeyed her employer and looked only for licensable material, but if Mrs Alkin gave up on The Scout there was no reason to keep to that restriction. It wouldn’t mean going back to Pragmaticus. There were plenty of Levellers and religious nonconformists eager to appear in print. She found herself wishing, though – with a craven intensity – that she could find some legitimate business instead.
It was odd: she’d spent much more time in unlicensed printing than the licensed sort, and she’d thought she was used to the risks. Instead the very idea of going back to it made her feel as though she was faced once more with that horrible side-saddle. When she’d started printing she’d been ignorant and fearless; now she found herself remembering the starving misery of the Tower, the stink of the Fleet, and Mary Overton’s dead baby. Coward! she told herself severely, but the insult failed to produce any sudden access of courage.
When Mrs Alkin had gone, Lucy closed the printworks and walked slowly back to Coleman Street, miserably considering her options. The end of the month was now only days away. If she had no new customers by then she would either have to sell the press or borrow money. She didn’t want to borrow. She’d heard too many stories about debts spiralling out of control, and knew she risked losing her press and all the money she’d invested in it. Most of that money had come from the legacy left her by her beloved Uncle Thomas – and she found that the fear of losing that troubled her more even than the thought of losing the press. As long as her livelihood sprang from his gift it was as though she hadn’t altogether lost him.
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