London in Chains

by Gillian Bradshaw

  Lucy clutched the step above her. It was hard to breathe: all the air seemed full of needles, and her throat was clenched shut on them. Her aunt’s face above her was unnaturally clear: the loose skin folded where the chin was tucked in, the spots of colour in the cheeks, the resentment in the eyes. Lucy imagined that prim mouth shrieking, spewing teeth and blood. She shut her eyes hurriedly: God forgive her this sinful anger!

  ‘Keep your surly look to yourself!’ commanded Agnes. ‘What, did you think you could step into our daughter’s place? There’s no undoing what’s done, girl: you must make the best of things, not puff yourself up with sinful pride, as though you were still a wealthy maiden! If we’re to keep you, we need to get some profit from it. Charity’s fine for them that have money.’

  So she was to become her uncle’s maidservant? She clenched her teeth and stared down at her feet, motionless on the stairs. Her old shoes poked out from under her petticoat; the hem of the petticoat was splashed with mud from the street. She made herself concentrate on that stain: imagined scrubbing it off and throwing out the wash-water. Her soul was stained, too, with rage: she begged God to cleanse her. A woman should be humble, modest and obedient, and if she wasn’t, she should at least pretend to be. If she offended Thomas and Agnes, she had nowhere to go but home again, and no one there would be happy to see her.

  Agnes waited a while, but Lucy said nothing and did not look up. At last there was a creak of floorboards, and Lucy, glancing up quickly, saw that her aunt had moved off. Lucy followed, moving stiffly, afraid that the fury inside her would burst out and break anything she touched.

  To get to the loft they had to climb a ladder fixed to the stairwell above. Half of the loft held bales of fabric for Thomas’s customers; the rest was bare under the roof-beams. A window above the stairwell provided reasonable light. The chimney, brick and solid, ran up the right wall, and the maid’s bed stood next to it. A shift and some petticoats hung from a nail in the wall beside the bed, and there was a small chest at the bedfoot with a washbasin and pitcher. Lucy told herself that it was no worse than her bed at home, and she was used to sharing that, with her cousin, with the occasional visiting relative or friend.

  But not with the maid!

  ‘There you are!’ said Agnes. ‘Space aplenty!’

  Lucy clenched her hands together to keep them still and kept the angry words tight-locked behind her teeth.

  ‘Susan is at the market,’ said Agnes. ‘She knows to expect you. Your things are on the mule? Then you can bear them up later. I’ll leave you to refresh yourself from your journey.’

  Lucy stood where she was and listened as her aunt descended the ladder. When the footsteps and the huff of breath had gone, she went over to the window. It was unglazed, the panes covered with waxed paper in place of glass, but it was hinged. Lucy flung it wide and leaned out. The scream of rage was still caught in her throat, and she took deep breaths of the smoky air, trying to dislodge it.

  From the window she looked out on to a jumble of tiled roofs, with, further away – across the river? – the stone bulk of a church. As far as her eyes could see, there were houses. So many people!

  London. She had wanted to come here to start a new life – not to take Cousin Hannah’s place but to regain her own. Before the war, she’d been (a wealthy maiden, yes!) a prosperous freeholder’s only daughter, able to look forward to a house and husband and children. She’d lost all that through no fault of her own and she’d hoped that in London she might be able to make a fresh start. It seemed, though, that she’d been naive. There’s no undoing what’s done.

  The hurt and rage grew as the full measure of the blow made itself felt. She’d expected to help Uncle Thomas and Aunt Agnes, in the house and in the shop. She’d hoped to make herself useful, even valuable. She’d never in her life been idle and she was perfectly willing to work hard – but this, this was a humiliation! She was Thomas’s niece. She’d expected to be treated as family. Instead, it seemed that she was expected to work as a servant, unpaid, and to be grateful that she had a place at all!

  When she last saw Uncle Thomas, at home in Leicestershire, he had teased her, saying that a girl as pretty as her would certainly marry a fine gentleman, and then she would have to be kind to her poor old uncle. Six years ago; before the war, before . . .

  Your place is with Susan. Would Agnes have said that two years ago, before . . .

  She’d known that the rage would bring the memories down. She held on to the window frame, seeing the soldiers’ faces, feeling their hands on her, hearing . . .

  She swallowed the scream, though it churned in her stomach. She swallowed several times more to try to settle it. Then she went over to the washbasin, poured in some water from the pitcher and washed the cold sweat off her face. By the time she dried her hands she’d almost stopped shaking. She sat down on the bed and inspected the mud on her petticoat, then glanced about for something to brush off the worst of it.

  There was nothing suitable in the loft. She would have to go back downstairs, but she wasn’t ready for that yet. If Agnes said anything more to her, she would hit the woman, and she knew that if she did, she’d have to go straight back home. London might not be what she’d hoped, but going home would be worse.

  Understand this, miss: you’re no heiress. Your place is with Susan.

  It suddenly struck her that perhaps this was nothing to do with what had happened two years before. Agnes had lost her son; her daughter had married and moved out. Now her husband had proposed putting a stranger into the place that had been occupied by their children. Agnes might very well dread that, without any sense that Lucy was defiled and dirty, unworthy of Hannah’s maiden bed.

  Lucy drew another deep breath, this time in relief. She didn’t have to hate her aunt, and she might yet find a way to make a new life for herself. She made a fierce vow that she would not settle for a servile dependency: she would find a way – somehow! – to be mistress of her own life. She checked that her hair wasn’t coming loose and repinned the white coif that kept it decently covered, then went downstairs.

  Uncle Thomas and Cousin Geoffrey and his man had returned from the stable and were sitting in the parlour with mugs of beer. Thomas waved a hand at Lucy as she descended. ‘There you are, my girl! All well?’

  He sounded nervous and embarrassed. Lucy hadn’t been sure whether he’d approved the decision to send her to sleep with the maid: now she was. She curtsied. ‘Aunt Agnes says that your maid Susan is at the market, sir, but has been told to expect me.’

  Thomas nodded, relieved. ‘I’m sorry you can’t have Hannah’s room, sweet, but your aunt wants to let it.’

  ‘Oh?’ asked Geoffrey, surprised.

  ‘We could use the rent,’ admitted Thomas. ‘Trade in this town has gone to ruin, Geoff, to ruin! If I make enough in a week to pay my costs, I bless God for my good fortune!’

  ‘Lodgings are dear,’ said Geoffrey thoughtfully. ‘I was told by one I met on the road that he’d paid ten shillings and sixpence a week for two rooms, and he had to supply his own coal and candles.’

  Thomas nodded eagerly. ‘Aye! I’ve been told I could get as much. Since the war ended, all England’s coming to London to solicit Parliament.’

  Geoffrey smiled. His own errand was to solicit Parliament – or, at any rate, a parliamentary clerk – for the right to buy a strip of land. It had belonged to a supporter of the king and was now at the disposal of Parliament. He raised his mug to his host. ‘I’m grateful, Uncle, that my lodgings are free.’

  Agnes had appeared in the doorway just before he said this, and Lucy noticed her sour expression: she, obviously, would have preferred a guest who paid. Perhaps it wasn’t maternal feeling that made her want to keep Lucy out of Hannah’s room. Perhaps it was simple greed.

  ‘There you are, girl!’ said Agnes. ‘Your things are in the kitchen. You can take them up.’

  ‘Thank you, Aunt,’ said Lucy meekly. ‘Aunt, my petticoat’s muddy: please, where sh
ould I clean it?’

  Agnes gave her a distrustful look but showed her into the kitchen and pointed out the scrubbing brush.

  Lucy cleaned her petticoat, then carried her small case of possessions up the stairs, the damp hem flapping against her shin. She set her case down at the foot of the bed and looked at the maid’s clothes hanging on the wall. She would have to find some more nails so she could hang up her own.

  When she went back downstairs, she found that the maid had returned from the market and was busy preparing supper. Susan was about Lucy’s age, a pock-faced young woman with work-reddened hands. She was chopping onions when Lucy came into the kitchen, but she stopped and the two of them looked hard at one another.

  ‘This is Lucy, of whom I told you,’ said Agnes, who was also in the kitchen.

  Susan bobbed a curtsey, then stared at Lucy some more. She was clearly wondering whether Lucy would go to work beside her, like a fellow-servant, or sit down in the parlour, like a guest.

  Lucy might have offered to help prepare the meal if she’d been given Hannah’s room and there’d been no doubt as to her status. Because there was doubt, she stood and smiled, as though it hadn’t even occurred to her that she might do a servant’s work. If Agnes wanted her to serve, she would have to order it.

  Agnes, however, was craftier than that. ‘Lucy has been long on the road today,’ she told Susan. ‘Tonight she will rest.’

  Meaning, of course, that she’d start as a servant tomorrow. Lucy felt her smile stiffen. Susan ducked her head and went back to chopping onions.

  The evening meal was barley soup; with it they had maslin bread, of wheat mixed with rye, cheaper than wheat bread. It was full of grit from the millstones and Lucy nibbled it cautiously. The men talked: Cousin Geoffrey was eager for hints as to how to get his business done quickly. Uncle Thomas was discouraging.

  ‘If I’d known how the world would run over last month, I’d have advised you not to come,’ he said, shaking his head unhappily. ‘I pray the peace holds!’

  Geoffrey was startled. ‘What? The war’s well ended! Hasn’t Parliament reached a settlement with the king yet?’

  Thomas shook his head again. ‘No. Parliament sends him proposals, and he says only that he will take them under advisement. I fear he is fishing in troubled waters. The Army – have you really heard nothing of this, up in Leicestershire?’

  ‘The Army is to be disbanded, surely?’

  Thomas let out his breath unhappily. ‘That’s what Parliament wants, certainly. The trouble . . .’ He stopped, then, leaning forward, said, ‘There was a petition from the Army last month. The soldiers asked, first and foremost, that before the Army was disbanded they should receive their pay – they have had none, not for months, and many of the men have not enough money to carry them home, let alone pay debts for their food and board. They also asked for indemnity for any acts done in furtherance of the war—’

  Geoffrey gave a snort of contempt. ‘What, so they need not repent their thieving?’

  ‘There are some who have been hanged as horse-thieves because they collected horses requisitioned for their troop!’ Thomas protested.

  Geoffrey snorted again, unconvinced. He’d be delighted to see soldiers hanged for horse-stealing: his family had lost most of their own stock. He only had his mare and the gelding because he’d been using them when soldiers arrived to ‘requisition’ the rest.

  ‘They had some other demands,’ Thomas went on nervously. ‘Just and reasonable demands.’

  It was Agnes who snorted now, and Thomas glared at her. ‘Reasonable demands, I say! Fair and reasonable demands! Pensions for men crippled in the war, so that they need not beg in the street, and provision for the widows and children of those who died for the cause of Parliament! But Parliament denies them. Worse! Parliament has passed a Declaration of its high dislike of their petition and decreed that anyone who furthers it shall be proceeded against as an enemy of the State.’

  There was a silence. Then Geoffrey asked, ‘And?’

  Thomas subsided into his chair. ‘And there, at present, it stands. But I cannot think it wise for Parliament thus to set itself against the Army, and I do fear that there will be trouble from this.’

  ‘It’s the business of the officers to control the men!’

  ‘The Army,’ declared Agnes, ‘is full of heretics, and many of them are officers!’

  Thomas looked alarmed. ‘Peace, wife!’

  Agnes snorted and rolled her eyes, but fell silent. Geoffrey gave Thomas a quizzical look.

  ‘The Army,’ said Thomas reluctantly, ‘does have many men who are Independents in religion – though to call them heretics, wife, because they don’t agree in all things with Jock Presbyter . . .’

  Agnes sniffed. Thomas glared at her. ‘A man may be a good Christian and still disagree with another man about church government! I have had many profitable discussions with Independents, and I’ve found them godly people.’

  This was surprising and interesting. Thomas, like all his family and Lucy’s, had always been a strict Presbyterian, deeply suspicious of all other forms of Christianity. Lucy had developed doubts of her own over the past two years, but she’d been afraid to acknowledge them even to herself, in case doing so led to damnation. She hadn’t expected her pious uncle to preach toleration.

  Agnes sniffed again, conveying a world of indignant disgust without a word.

  ‘Even where a man is mistaken,’ Thomas insisted, ‘what benefit is there in demanding he should lie about his beliefs – on pain of imprisonment or branding with irons, as the proposed Blasphemy law would have it? It would be worse than the tyranny of the bishops, and it would make hypocrites, not believers!’

  ‘And what of the Covenant?’ Agnes asked acidly.

  Even Lucy knew that Parliament had engaged to establish a Presbyterian state church throughout England – had made a Covenant to that effect with the Scots, in return for their help in the war. She hadn’t realized, however, that there were so many Independents in the Army; it wasn’t the sort of thing that was discussed in rural Leicestershire. The Independents would obviously oppose a Presbyterian settlement. If they had a lot of support in the Army . . .

  This was frightening. The one good thing about the bitter and bloody war was that it was over with, or so Lucy had thought.

  ‘Lord General Fairfax is an honest man,’ said Geoffrey confidently. ‘I cannot believe he will countenance mutiny!’

  ‘But Cromwell’s an Independent,’ said Agnes shortly.

  There was a silence. Everyone knew of Lieutenant General Cromwell, second in command of the New Model Army, victor of Marston Moor and Naseby. Lucy put a hand to her mouth. Parliament chose to antagonize the Army, when they knew a man like Cromwell was already opposed to them?

  Into the stillness came a knock on the door. Susan went to open it and presently came back with a burly man who carried a shabby hat in a dirty hand. Thomas jumped to his feet and came to take his hand. ‘Will!’ he exclaimed warmly. ‘Come, sit down and sup with us!’ Lucy noticed that Agnes’s face had grown stony.

  ‘You’ve company, Tom, I won’t,’ replied the visitor, glancing at Geoffrey and Lucy. ‘I brought the petition round since you missed the meeting last night.’ He took a sheaf of paper out from under his jerkin and set it down on the table. ‘I brought a dozen copies: will that suffice you?’ Lucy, craning her neck, saw that they were printed sheets, not a letter.

  ‘It should,’ replied Thomas. He scanned the paper, smiling, then asked, ‘Do you have pen and ink, Will?’

  Grinning, the visitor removed a quill pen from the band of his hat and a capped inkwell from a pocket. Thomas took them and, with a bold flourish, signed the top paper. He noticed Geoffrey and Lucy staring and waved the pen at them vaguely. ‘It’s a petition,’ he explained, ‘for the release of Mr Nicholas Tew, a brave man who’s been unjustly imprisoned for defending the liberties of freeborn Englishmen. Geoff, this is my friend, William Browne. He’s brought me
copies of the petition so I can take up signatures here in Southwark. Will, this is my nephew Geoffrey, my brother John’s eldest, from Hinckley in Leicestershire.’

  William Browne cheerfully offered his hand to Geoffrey, who took it gingerly. Lucy realized that the black on Browne’s hand wasn’t ordinary dirt but ink. ‘Well met!’ Browne exclaimed. ‘You’re a Mr Stevens? Like your uncle? Have you just arrived in London?’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Geoffrey, still perplexed. He glanced sideways at his uncle. ‘What’s this petition?’

  ‘Mr Tew was arrested last month,’ explained Browne. ‘He was defending the right of subjects to petition Parliament, and the Committee he spoke to took offence at his vehemence and had him cast into prison without so much as stating a charge against him. This petition asks Parliament to release him – or, at the very least, to allow him due process of law – and to defend the right of subjects to petition.’

  ‘I see,’ said Geoffrey, and Lucy could tell that he was wondering what connection Nicholas Tew had with Uncle Thomas for their uncle to take up signatures on his behalf. She wondered the same.

  ‘Would you care to sign?’ asked Browne hopefully.

  Geoffrey hastily shook his head. ‘I know nothing of this matter, sir; I only arrived in London today!’

  Browne took this with a good-humoured smile. ‘I’ll let your uncle tell you more of it, then!’ He retrieved his pen from Thomas and put it back in his hat, then recapped the inkwell and returned it to his pocket.

  ‘How go things?’ Thomas asked him.

  Browne sighed and rolled his eyes. ‘Difficult times, Tom, difficult times! We’ve finished printing the latest, but the sheets hang all about the works since we’ve no one to stitch them together.’

  A possibility suddenly occurred to Lucy, so irresistible that she blurted out, ‘Sir, are you looking to hire a needlewoman?’

  Everyone turned and stared at her in surprise: a young woman shouldn’t have spoken out uninvited. She pressed her hands together in her lap and tried to look innocently hopeful.