There was a drunken roar from upstairs as young James got himself on his feet and staggered down. Bleary-eyed and still dressed in the clothes he had worn at the inn, James cast a wild look at Moll in her bedsheet and at the assembled faces below.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sobering.
“God’s teeth!” cried his mother. “These men come bursting in, in the night, and is that all you can ask? Order them out!”
Young James looked warily at the grim faces ringed below. “What d’ye want of us?” he demanded weakly.
They told him what they wanted. James grew pale, knowing full well that the shipment of liquor had been delivered earlier. That damned smuggler! How dare he get caught and bring calamity down upon them!
“I know nothing about it,” Trelawney said sulkily.
Moll, in custody of the butler and forgotten for the moment, had time to look around her. The castle was “great” only in Moll’s eyes. It was sadly in need of repair, many of its rooms unusable. But to a serving girl it was magnificent. She looked about her at the great hall with its stone fireplace, so big a man could stand in it, and at the tall ceiling crisscrossed by heavy beams. She crouched, shivering in her bedsheet, as the men began their search. For a wistful moment she remembered what it had been like to work there, to walk through the awesome rooms every day. How she had hungered for the monogrammed silver, the snowy linens, the “yes, m’lady,” “no, m’lady,” the spices and wines and perfumes. . . . And now she’d been dragged back in a bedsheet, looking wild and tumbled—no one even cared that she’d been raped—and Lord James Trelawney was ignoring her.
She could hear him roaring about “improper search” as the excisemen combed the house. Beside her, the butler’s eyes rolled wildly. But the excisemen did not find the large nook behind the fireplace where he had cautiously hidden the liquor, and eventually, tiring of the search, they were persuaded that they had come to the wrong place. The innkeeper might have received the shipment, someone suggested. After all,the smuggler had been spotted at the inn, hadn’t he?
The excisemen made apologies of a sort to the Trelawneys, and turned away, still dragging Moll with them. The girl turned wildly toward her former employers.
“Make them let me go!” she gasped. “I know nothing of this business!”
James Trelawney looked worried. He stepped forward uncertainly. His mother’s arm pushed him back.
Moll gave him one last look from large reproachful eyes as the excisemen jerked her along with them, and down to the inn. The surly innkeeper almost came to blows with them as they searched his establishment thoroughly from top to bottom.
“Think you it could be in the girl’s hut” asked one of the men thoughtfully.
“Nay,” said another. “He’d probably not set eyes on her before tonight. He’d made many deliveries from that wagon we found. This was his last stop. Who’d leave such a sum with a barmaid?”
“That’s true,” agreed the other.
It was morning before they completed their search, and Moll sat, shivering, tied to a chair until they had done.
“Well, it’s not here,” said one at last. “But all’s not lost. We can have a bit of fun with the girl.”
Moll shuddered, thinking what their “fun” would mean to her, and her pleading eyes sought the innkeeper’s.
He appeared not to see her, but said instead in a surprised voice, “Are you tarryin’ here then? I’d ha’ thought you’d be off after the other one!”
“What other one?” asked the leader sharply.
“You mean you didn’t go after him?” demanded the innkeeper incredulously.
“After who?” roared their leader, grabbing him by the throat.
“Him, the one that came by just after your men left,” growled the innkeeper, “and asked about his friend. He waited a bit and then went off that way.” He jerked his head toward the coast. “Could be you could overtake him.”
The innkeeper staggered as the big man let go of him and led the rush to the door. As they rode away, the innkeeper called after them, “He had yellow hair and was wearin’ a Manderville coat.”
He stood in the doorway, the sound of hooves fading in the distance, then turned grimly to Moll and untied her.
“Get you gone, girl,” he said gruffly. “When they come back empty-handed, they’ll be in a mean mood.”
Moll stared at him, enlightenment washing her face of everything but surprise. There was no “other one”; the innkeeper had lied to save her!
“Hurry away now, Moll,” he said more kindly. “Have ye a place to go? Will they take you in up at the castle?”
Moll shook her head. “I’ll hide in the woods till they’ve gone,” she said.
He sighed. “Raping of virgins, I wouldn’t have thought they’d stoop to it. Shows you what we’ve come to under the Stuarts! Take some food and a flagon of ale with you, Moll, to warm your spirits.”
Moll smiled at him wistfully. Saying thank you came hard to her; she hadn’t had much occasion to use the words and mean them. She scooped up her sheet and, impulsively flinging her arms around the square-built older man, planted a warm kiss on his mouth.
A little shaken by the feel of her firm young breasts thrusting through the thin worn sheet, the innkeeper unwound her arms from about his shoulders. “I’ll walk through the woods whistling a tune when the excisemen have left, Moll,” he promised. “Go on now.”
So, with some bread and meat wrapped in a napkin slung on one arm, and a flagon of ale balanced carefully in her hand, as she struggled to hold the sheet around her, Moll walked warily into the woods. This time, she left by the back door, and this time she looked behind her not coyly but in fright.
She stayed two days, crouched in a little copse whose leaves and branches gave total concealment, before she heard the innkeeper’s rollicking whistle. Staggering out, stiff and sore, she returned to the cottage and sank down in misery onto that bed where she had lost her virginity, and where her attacker had lost his life.
“Well. . .” he had whispered to her. Well what? Well done?
Moll looked around her with vacant eyes. Soon the heirs would sell this place and she’d have nowhere to go. Although she could keep her job at the inn for a while, Nelly would be coming back after her confinement, needing work worse than ever.
She moved stiffly out into the yard to draw some water to cool her hot face. Looking down into the water’s glittery surface, she lowered the oaken bucket.
The well! That was what the smuggler had been saying to her, and she had been too frightened to take it in. The gold was in the well!
Trembling, Moll peered down. The sparkling water fascinated her. It wasn’t a deep well but still there was water in it. How to find out if he’d thrown the gold in?
Suddenly she remembered a big iron hook that held the pots over the fire. If she fastened a long rope to that—!
Hours later, her arms aching with fatigue and her dress torn, her waist rubbed raw from leaning over the well’s rough stone edge, she felt the hook bite into something heavy, at last, and pulled it up. It was a dripping leather pouch, the hook had caught on its drawstring.
Moll pounced on it.
Laughing and crying at the same time, she counted the golden coins in the leather pouch. A fortune!
The smuggler had also left her something else.
Fertility ran in Moll’s family. Her mother had said her father had only to hang his britches on the bedpost for her to conceive. Moll was the spitting image of her mother, and she had little doubt that in nine months’ time there’d be another mouth to feed. Moll began to plan.
She packed her few possessions, hiding the gold in various places—a coin or two in each shoe, the remainder stitched into her petticoat except for one golden coin in her shabby purse, to keep her, and to represent her total fortune in case robbers fell upon her.
She was waiting at the inn for the stage when Lord Trelawney rode up. He was sober and he looked dismayed at the si
ght of her standing there. Plainly he felt a little guilty too, for word of the hard usage the girl had gone through had reached him via the local gossips.
“Are you off to somewhere then?” he asked Moll, reining in his horse.
She nodded, surveying him with steady eyes.
He hesitated, taking in regretfully the warm curve of her breasts, the gentle rise of her hips under the rough brown cloth of her skirt. “There’s no need to go, Moll,” he said. “I’ll speak to Sedley up at the castle. He’ll find a place for you in the kitchen again.”
Moll’s eyes gleamed. Now she had the smuggler’s gold, she felt rich. She was through with kitchens!
“And,” he cast a look around, saw there was no one within earshot, and grew bolder, “there might be a moment for us to dawdle together, eh?”
How she had yearned to hear him say that, all the time she had worked as a scullery maid at the castle. How sweet the words would have rung on her ears! And this was the man who could so easily have helped her. A word from him, that was all that would have been needed. But no, he’d let his mother fire her, and the excisemen drag her around. For all he cared, the lot of them could have raped her!
She lifted her head and smiled sweetly into his face. He looked pleased, waiting for her thanks.
“Go to the devil, James Trelawney,” she said evenly. “I’ve no time to dawdle with you.”
“What? What?” He was so startled he jumped and his horse reared, nearly knocking Moll to the ground.
The coach thundered into the courtyard and Moll turned disdainfully away from him to walk toward it.
Her child would not be born here. She would be born in London. And she would grow up to be a lady.
22
II
August had ended by the time Moll reached the outskirts of London. On advice of the stage driver, who realized Moll’s innocence of city ways, she had found decent lodgings near the Boar’s Head Tavern and, pulsing with excitement, set out to explore the great sprawling city that was London.
She did not have long to explore it.
For Moll, having escaped the year of the Great Plague, had arrived in London in time for the Great Fire.
She awoke one night to hear cries of “Fire, fire!” Dressing hastily, she hurried downstairs to learn that all of Pudding Lane was ablaze. Moll rushed out into the street, which was a sea of carts and running, shouting people, and heard there the rancor expressed at Sir Thomas Bludworth’s contemptuous remark about the fire, “Pish, a woman might piss it out!”
Driven back by heat and smoke, Moll returned to her room, but stayed awake, listening to reports shouted from the street: the Star Inn on Fish Street Hill was alight; St. Margaret’s Church was burning; the fire had consumed London Bridge. Moll knew that England was at war with Holland, and her heart thumped as someone rode through the streets crying, “Arm! Arm!”
Frightened by the ever-increasing heat and smoke and noise, Moll packed her few belongings in the sturdy square of linen cloth and started out to find safer lodgings.
Rumors were now abroad that a French army had come to crush the city, and Frenchmen were attacked wherever they were found—one of them was suspected of carrying fire balls, when in truth he had only tennis balls.
Moll was swept by the crowds this way and that, and at last sat down, exhausted, in a doorway. Clutching her possessions and using them for a pillow, she fell into a fitful sleep.
She awoke to more carnage. The great clouds of yellowish-gray smoke had rolled over the outskirts of the city to the west, turning day to night. With nightfall, the city became brighter than day, and towering pillars of flame lit up all the streets and alleys as if a red sun shone in the sky.
Completely lost, driven this way and that as hoarse cries warned that the mighty Guildhall was in flames, this church or that one burning, the Thames awash with boats filled with refugees fleeing the charred waterfront, Moll felt frightened and helpless. Great fiery sparks carried three furlongs through the air, to set new fires where they landed. Tinder-dry London was ready for the torch and the strong east wind had brought it. All around, houses were being pulled down to make firebreaks, or being blown up with gunpowder. Added to the fearsome roar from the fire itself, the giant crackling and smashing as timbers fell and stone burst from the heat, was the incessant din of the fire alarms—parish church bells, pealing out the discordant sounds that meant “Fire.” There was fear for-the White Tower—its keep jammed with gunpowder—sitting above most of the nation’s archives.
White Towers did not trouble Moll. Tossed about on a sea of shouting, struggling human flesh, she felt that she had descended into hell, and began to gasp out prayers as she tried to fight her way out. Tumbled carts with locked wheels had jammed the entrance to the city gates. There was no water, women screamed in terror, babies cried lustily, and all about her the air was heavy with choking smoke. She tried to make her way through the churning avalanche of goods as people fought to save their earthly possessions.
The prisons were burning, and old St. Paul’s Cathedral—all 600 feet of it—was a furious sea of flames, as the melting lead from its roofs ran down the building causing the great stones to explode and fly with killing force in all directions. Next, molten lead crept out of its doorways to run down Ludgate Hill in a stream of fiery red as if a volcano were erupting.
Eventually the east wind lessened and halted the conflagration, but before it did Moll had been swept along in the human tide pouring out of the old city. She found herself surrounded by a great crush of carts, horses, wagons, every kind of conveyance—and by people on foot, carrying on their backs their most treasured possessions, who shouted to one another in wild excitement, asking where the fire had reached now. Against their voices was a great crackling roar as the flames advanced, and sometimes, their cries were drowned in explosions as men from the dockyards, under orders from the king, sought to demolish houses with gunpowder and thus establish fire-breaks.
Night found Moll camped with thousands of other refugees on Hampstead Heath. Leaning against somebody’s wagon in exhaustion. Drinking water from a borrowed cup, she listened to the wails of children, mothers calling for lost ones, occasional curses and snores.
Once again she had to find a little space where she could curl up under her cloak to spend the night.
When the fire had burned itself out, four-fifths of the old city lay in smoldering ruins and more than a hundred thousand people were homeless. The fire was on everybody’s mind—and on everybody’s tongue. A thin old crone cast a significant look at a fat friend across from her. “Mark you,” she said disapprovingly, “any fire which begins in Pudding Lane and ends in Pie Corner is a judgment on those who gorge themselves!”
“You’re thin as a rail,” scoffed the other, her pendulous chins bobbing, “and the fire burned you out too, didn’t it?”
Moll, who was quite hungry by now, ignored their exchange. More bewildered than most, since she was a newcomer, she had just decided to walk as far into the country as possible when her left shoe came apart, spilling its golden coin. Moll snatched up the coin and sat down in the dirt and wailed. How far could she walk barefoot? And where was she to go?
A wheedling voice behind her said, “If you’ll be givin’ me that gold coin, I’ll find you a cobbler, that I will.”
Moll looked around at the ragged, rat-faced speaker in amazement. A gold coin to find a cobbler, indeed!
“Carts that be reg’larly hired for ten shillings be hirin’ today for as much as fifty pound,” he said with a smirk. “Tis a fair price—and I know where a cobbler’s to be found.”
With a rueful sigh, Moll surrendered the coin.
“You can stay here,” he said. “I’ll bring back the cobbler.”
“Nay, I’ll go with you,” said Moll grimly, hobbling after him. He led her on a crazy-quilt path through a horde of dazed-looking people, sitting among their remaining possessions, people who, to the idle gaze, might appear to be camping out on some g
reat public outing.
She soon realized he was outdistancing her, and called sharply for him to wait, but he hurried on. She stumbled after him, shouting, but he eluded her rounding a maze of carts. She sat down and began to cry.
An old woman plucked at her sleeve to ask what was wrong. Moll poured out her story, and the old woman clucked her tongue. “Newgate Prison has burned,” said she, “and the inmates they be taken to Southwark, but many escaped. Your trickster could be such a one. If you go now and cry out that you are in sore need of a cobbler, there’ll be people here that may know where one is to be found.”
So Moll got up and hobbled along crying out for a cobbler. After a while, a little group of people all turned and pointed at once, telling her that there was a cobbler to be found in that direction. As Moll advanced, limping, a pale thin man rose from a group sitting dispiritedly on the ground and said in a quite kindly voice, “I be a cobbler and my tools are here beside me. Give me that shoe and I will fix it.”
In silence, Moll handed over her shoe and watched as the man, who was thin-shanked and plain-faced and exceedingly sober in dress, opened a wooden box of cobbler’s tools beside him. Smiling at her, he proceeded to make her shoe whole again. He disdained her money, and instead offered her a seat beside him on the cobbler’s box and a slab of cheese and coarse bread from a bundle that he carried.
Moll, who was nearly famished, sank down beside him and, between munches, asked him about himself.
His shop had burned, he told her gloomily, but by the grace of God he had been able to save his tools.
Moll liked him. Her recent experiences in Cornwall had made her like men in general rather less, but this man seemed different.
He was indeed different from the men she had known. His name was Increase Woodstock, he was a Puritan, and he had never seen anything so beautiful as the spirited girl who sat beside him, her amber eyes flashing with lively interest as he told her the simple story of his life.
When at last Moll sighed and said she must be getting on, though for the life of her she didn’t know where to go, he offered to walk with her and give her protection on the road until they could find decent lodgings. He had friends who lived some miles down the road. He was sure these friends would take them in, although their house might be filled and they would have to sleep in the barn. Sleeping in a barn sounded fine to Moll at this point. She looked around at the swarming quarreling humanity on Hampstead Heath and gratefully accepted his offer of protection that night.
This Loving Torment Page 2