Well, as she’d told Mary, she’d acquired the press at a bargain price, and could probably sell it for more than she’d paid. If she sold it now she could pay off her debts and be no worse off than she’d been when she bought it. Then she could start saving again, and buy another press after she’d lined up her customers . . .
Except that she couldn’t go back to working for Nedham – not now, not when he’d made his feelings so plain, and Jamie was so angry and jealous – and nobody else was likely to offer her ten shillings a week. There was no way she could save enough for another press if she was earning sixpence a day and her dinner.
There was Wat, too, – and his poor simple-minded Uncle Simmon, but she felt less responsibility for Simmon. Wat, though, had followed her from Pragmaticus, and she doubted that Nedham would take him back. She knew he relied on his wages, slight as they were. Trade in London was so bad that his father, a bootmaker, struggled to keep his family fed. What would he do if she sold her press?
She briefly wondered about going to her father. When she’d married he’d promised a dowry. He hadn’t had the cash to pay it, though, and who knew whether he ever would? Even if he did, the money would go to Jamie, not to her. Besides, he was far away in Leicestershire, and she needed the money now.
She pushed aside a wistful thought that Jamie and his rich family might help. Jamie was angry with her, and had no money of his own anyway; as for his family, they’d never wanted her at all.
Well, she’d managed to climb back into that horrible side-saddle even after it flayed her, so she supposed she could go back to unlicensed printing. The next day was the Sabbath. The day of rest would give her time for solemn and sober consideration, and the opportunity to overcome her jittery nerves.
Borrowing enough to pay off Nedham was easier than she’d expected. On Sunday she went to visit her cousins the Cotmans in Stepney, as she often did, and at dinner after church she told them about her trip to Colchester – though she implied she’d been accompanied by a friend of the Overtons. The Cotmans abominated Royalists, and she’d never told them about her association with Pragmaticus. Cousin Hannah clasped her soft hands together and gasped when Lucy described her encounter with the false Bailey. She exclaimed, ‘Thanks be to God!’ on hearing that Jamie was in fact unharmed. Nathaniel, however, frowned, and said, ‘It mislikes me, coz, that you turned for help to strangers instead of your own kin.’
It was a sensitive point. Many of the family felt that he should have taken Lucy into his own household after her uncle died, rather than let her lodge with friends. Lucy was as keenly aware of this as Nat, and she ducked her head humbly. ‘Sir, forgive me! Had I run all the way hither to Stepney to ask help of you, I could not have set out before midday, and I was in terror that Jamie might die before I could come to him.’ It was true, but she privately doubted that Nat would have done anything more than advise her to write a letter.
Nat grunted, not entirely mollified.
‘I’d still be very grateful for your help,’ Lucy said, seeing an opportunity. The Cotmans weren’t exactly rich, but they were better off than most, with income from rent as well as Nat’s mercer’s business. ‘I was obliged to borrow a pound and ten shillings to hire horses, and I’d much rather be in debt to my kin than to a stranger.’ She felt a lurch of guilt at the inflated sum – but the extra seven shillings would keep the printworks running for another week.
‘A pound ten shillings?’ asked Nat in horror. ‘Where did you hire this horse? Whitehall Palace?’
‘It was two horses, sir. Else I could not have rid all that way in a day. Sir, I’d be most grateful, and I would repay you as soon as my situation allows.’
‘Oh, Nat!’ exclaimed Hannah. ‘We must help poor cousin Lucy!’
‘If she’d turned to us first, the matter might have been settled at less cost!’ Nat grumbled – but he went to his strongbox and counted out a pound and ten shillings. Lucy thanked him profusely, secretly amused by the look of self-congratulation that crept over his face. She suspected that not only would he tell everyone he’d loaned her the money, but that within a few days he would almost have forgotten that she’d actually made the journey before he did so.
The following day she returned from questing after customers to find that a letter had come for her from Colchester. She took it from Mary eagerly, then frowned. The handwriting was not Jamie’s.
Mrs J Hudson,
First, be at ease. Your husbonde is in no Danger, tho’ he took a chill upon his riding back to Colchester, and fell ill. He was sent with other Sick Men to Quarters in Braintree, yet the Surgeon sayes he maykes a good recoverie and shd soone be returned to his Duties.
Lieutenant Barker returned yesterdaye from his errand. General Ireton charged him with his conduct; he at first Denyed, but at last Confessed it when told that he must goe to Lundon and Deny againe to your face. He sayes that he did Alle in Jest, and wd have Delivered you unhurt to your husbonde, had you not taken Alarm and quarrelled with him. He thus escaped Punishment, but yet has not come off unscathed, for the General frowns upon him, and will employ him no more. He had pinned all his Hope upon Ireton and Cromwell and their Faction, and cries out loudly against this Sentence, but to no avayl.
I pray you remember me to Maj Wildman and our friends, and to your witty cousin. God keep you in health.
Yr. Servant
Ths. Rainsborowe
‘That is a very generous letter,’ Mary commented, when Lucy showed it to her. ‘Few men of his rank would even remember that you waited here, still less trouble themselves to give you news.’
Lucy nodded, but her attention was elsewhere. Jamie was ill? Was that why he hadn’t answered her letters?
‘You don’t seem pleased,’ observed Mary. ‘It’s true that this Lieutenant Barker deserves worse than General Ireton’s frown, but . . .’
‘I don’t care a fig for Lieutenant Barker,’ Lucy interrupted, angrily folding the letter. ‘Jamie’s lying ill among strangers – and Colonel Rainsborough may say he’s in no danger, but it seems he’s too ill to write to me himself, which . . .’
‘The colonel knows him to be convalescing in Braintree,’ Mary interrupted, quietly amused, ‘where he would receive scant news – and I cannot think that he or any other of Jamie’s friends would be eager to give him such news as this, and perhaps provoke another quarrel.’
‘Oh,’ said Lucy, and bit her lip. ‘I’d not thought of that.’
‘Would you have set out upon another ride?’ asked Mary, still smiling.
‘Nay.’ Lucy sighed and tucked the letter into her apron pocket. ‘I should not have made the last one. Only . . .’
‘Only you fear for your husband’s safety,’ Mary agreed, ‘as who would not? Disease has ever slain more soldiers than any malice of the enemy. But truly, Colonel Rainsborough’s an honest man, and you can trust his word that your Jamie is making a good recovery. A Chill, he says; not camp fever or, God forbid, plague.’
Lucy sighed again. She took the letter back out of her pocket and read it over. ‘It’s a kind letter,’ she admitted. ‘I like that he remembers Major Wildman, too.’
She was worried about Wildman. She’d missed one visit to the Fleet because of her trip to Colchester; she’d felt obliged to go the following week, though the meeting had been an unhappy one. She’d been unable to afford any delicacies, and Wildman had been bad tempered in his disappointment, berating her for meanness and complaining about her absence the week before. When she’d explained about her journey he’d disapproved of it, even though she hadn’t admitted whom she’d travelled with or how badly it had turned out. He’d apologized, though, when she took her leave – apologized with a frightened urgency. Looking at his thin face and shadowed eyes, she’d seen his terror that he would be abandoned in that horrible place. Others of his friends had ceased to visit him, unwilling or unable to deal with the cost, the filth, the danger of infection.
Lucy bit her lip. She’d promised she’d come aga
in. This week, though, when she was living on borrowed money, how could she afford it?
‘You could ask money from the common fund,’ Mary said, understanding her worry. ‘But perhaps by Friday you’ll have some customers.’
‘God send it!’ Lucy exclaimed.
She did not visit the Fleet on Friday, however. On Wednesday – the second of August – John Wildman was released.
Nine
Jamie had come down with a flux the day he returned to Colchester. He’d spent a day running between the forge and the latrine, then collapsed with a high fever. The Army didn’t like to keep sick men in the camps – disease spread quickly enough as it was – so he was taken to nearby Braintree on a cart, along with half a dozen others with the same disorder. A local merchant was required to provide free quarter for them.
The merchant was a wool-dealer. His business had suffered badly in the war, he was struggling to pay his bills, and he was utterly dismayed to be handed half a dozen feverish and dirty strangers and told that he was now responsible for their care. He put the sick soldiers in his warehouse, which was half empty, bedded them down on fleeces, and tried to keep his family well clear of their contagion.
The warehouse had no windows; the only light was what crept under the eaves. In the badly ventilated room the stink of diarrhoea was soon overpowering. The care the men received was scant and slapdash, and the soldiers complained among themselves that if it hadn’t been for the regular visits from the regiment the wool-dealer would have left them to starve in their own filth.
Jamie disagreed. The wool-dealer brought them gruel three times a day and saw to it that they were warm and had plenty of water to drink. It was too much effort, though, to argue with the others. His illness, coming on top of such a pile of other miseries, had left him exhausted and depressed. It seemed to him that it would be much better to die than to go on living. He had taken up arms for the noble cause of justice, freedom, and common right – and here he was, short of an eye and half a hand, disfigured, lying in a dark and stinking warehouse, soon to return to the stifling hatred of a bitter siege. He was estranged from his family and home; his father had all but disowned him; his nearest and dearest brother had died in agony at the hands of his own side; and now he had bitterly offended his wife, and had no idea how to make peace with her.
He was lying on his fleecy pallet, staring at the wall, when the warehouse door opened, admitting a flood of light and a spatter of rain. There was a murmur, and then his brother Robert’s voice cried angrily, ‘Oh, Christ have mercy!’
Jamie rolled over and sat up. Robert saw the movement and came over, his boots loud on the wooden floor slats. ‘Christ!’ he exclaimed, gazing down at Jamie in disgust. ‘Did you come to my door, the servants would turn you off for a begging vagrant!’ He turned on the wool-dealer, who’d followed him in. ‘How dare you, sir? My brother is a gentleman! I would not kennel a dog in this foul hole!’
‘Had I a sunny courtyard I would lodge them there!’ the wool-dealer objected indignantly. ‘How am I to provide comforts for these when I lack for my own?’
‘You have a house!’ Robert said bluntly.
‘Aye, and three small children in it!’ replied the wool-dealer. ‘Would you lodge men with the flux with your own sons?’
Robert glared. ‘I’ll have him from here at once!’
The wool-dealer glared back. ‘You’re welcome to him! Take all of them!’
Robert spat, then dropped to his knees by the pallet and took Jamie’s arm. ‘Come, brother! Can you walk?’
‘Aye,’ said Jamie, dazed by surprise. ‘But, Rob, I can’t go home, I’m . . .’
‘We’ll speak,’ Robert said firmly, and pulled him to his feet.
Robert led him out and down the muddy street. It was another grey day; the clouds heavy with more rain, but after the dark warehouse the light was dazzling. They went to an inn. Robert led him upstairs to a private room, then went to the door and shouted for a servant.
The man who answered the call had a face familiar from another world – a world of farms and stables, of wildfowling expeditions into the Lincolnshire fen and winter nights storytelling round the kitchen fire. Jenkin Simons, that was the fellow’s name. His family had a cottage half a mile from Bourne Manor, and he and Jamie had sometimes gone fishing together. Somehow the sight of an old acquaintance caught at Jamie’s heart the way the sight of his brother had not, and suddenly he wanted desperately to go home.
Jenkin frowned at Jamie for a moment in puzzlement, then recognized him. His expression changed to one of horror and dismay. Jamie looked away, his eye stinging. He had imagined that look a thousand times, on the faces of the friends he’d gone hunting with, the pretty girls he’d courted. He’d dreaded it so much that going home had come to seem impossible.
‘Jenkin!’ Robert snapped impatiently. ‘Tell the servants we need hot water and a basin, and bespeak us a good dinner.’
‘Aye, sir,’ replied Jenkin. He gave Jamie another pitying glance and added, ‘Never fear, Master James. A few good dinners will set you up again.’
‘Jamie,’ Robert ordered, as Jenkin went out, ‘take those stinking things off. I’ve fresh for you. We’ll dine together downstairs, like gentlemen.’
Jamie obediently began to take off his coat, though he protested, ‘But, Rob, I cannot go home; the Army’s not discharged me, and if I desert . . .’
‘We’ll speak,’ Robert said again. ‘Jenkin!’ He went to the door and called it down the stairs. ‘Jenkin, when you’re done, fetch shears and a razor; my brother needs his hair seen to.’
Half an hour later, washed, shaved, trimmed and dressed in clean clothing, Jamie found himself sitting opposite Robert at the table of the inn, contemplating a dish of roast capon and a mug of ale.
‘Eat up!’ Rob ordered. ‘God knows you need some flesh on your bones. You were a sorry sight in June, but you’re worse now.’
Jamie thought of objecting to the tone – but in fact the clothes Robert had given him hung very loose. Besides, he was hungry. He helped himself to the capon and a slab of good wheat bread. ‘Thank you, Rob.’
Robert waited to be sure he ate before starting his own meal. ‘What ailed you, any gate?’
‘A flux,’ Jamie told him. ‘It’s common in the camp.’
Robert made a face. ‘I suppose you’ve been eating nought but gruel, then.’
‘Aye.’
Robert frowned at the capon. ‘Is that too rich a dish for you?’
Jamie’s whole body had responded to the first mouthful of chicken with an eager craving for more of it. ‘I’ve been clear of the ill for a couple of days now.’ That was true, though he’d eaten nothing but gruel even so, and little else than pottages even before the flux. ‘Rob, what brings you here?’
Robert snorted. ‘What do you think?’
Mouth full of bread and capon, Jamie stared at him, baffled.
‘You, you great fool!’ Rob exclaimed in exasperation. ‘After taking so much trouble to seek you out, did you believe we’d forget you? When I told our sisters how you did, they set about knitting and sewing, and I was recruited to carry you a package. What do you think you’ve got on your back now?’
‘I thought the clothes were yours,’ Jamie said, glancing down at the clean shirt.
Robert shook his head. ‘I don’t think a week’s passed these last seven years that Peggy hasn’t said, “I wonder how Jamie fares.” When I told her how I’d found you, and in what state, she shut herself in her room and wept. We’ve lost one brother this summer; we’ve no wish to lose another – and by the look of you, we might well have done!’
‘I was in no danger,’ Jamie said guiltily. Peggy was his younger sister, the only one still unmarried and at home. Their mother had died a week after giving birth to her; the loss had left him determined to look after his poor little motherless sister, so he’d spoiled her shamelessly as she grew up. She’d been fourteen when he last saw her.
‘I should think
every man put in that black hell-hole is in danger!’ Rob said angrily. ‘How can your Army use its loyal servants so?’
‘We were dry and fed,’ Jamie replied. ‘That’s the best that can be hoped for, in war.’
Robert scowled, and Jamie braced himself for a reminder of how foolish he’d been to go to war. What Robert said, though, was worse. ‘Enough is enough!’ he declared. ‘Come home.’
Jamie put his piece of bread down and stared at his half-empty plate, unable to speak. He wanted, more than anything in the world, to do exactly what Rob urged, and he didn’t see how he could.
‘Send for your wife,’ Robert said. ‘I told Father what you said of her, and his rage is much abated. Make your peace with him and he’ll give her grace.’
Jamie looked up again into his brother’s earnest face. ‘And to make peace with him I must do what?’
‘Christ, Jamie, he wants to forgive you! If you repented your errors and begged his forgiveness, he would welcome you with tears.’
‘How, though, if I did not repent and beg?’
Rob let out his breath in an exasperated huff. ‘You know he’s near as stubborn as you are. Give him no choice but to stand by his word and by it he’ll stand till Doomsday! Yield, though, and he’ll run to meet you. Come, you said yourself that if you’d known how things would turn out, you would never have gone to war.’
Jamie shook his head. ‘Rob, such repentence as I could offer would never suffice him. He might welcome me with tears, but then he would pick at the matter and pick at it, and each time I gave way, he would press harder. If I didn’t lose my temper, my wife would lose hers. She’s no wish at all to go to Bourne as it is, and . . .’
‘You’ve asked her?’
The rich food was suddenly very heavy in Jamie’s stomach. He pushed his plate aside and put a hand over his eye. ‘She . . . I wanted her out of London. It’s no safe place, and it cuts me to the heart that I can neither protect her nor provide for her. She nearly . . . she was assailed, Rob; she might have been carried off, killed, even, if she’d been less wary. And she rode all the way to Colchester after, to seek me out, and all I could do was quarrel with her for her company on the road.’
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