London in Chains

by Gillian Bradshaw

  Someone banged on a table as a signal for the meeting to begin. It occurred to her that this would be the last meeting she attended: in future, it would be Tew in charge of the press. For the past few months she had been part of this company, a comrade-in-arms; now she must go back to being just Thomas Stevens’ niece. She took her seat, pressing her hands together to stop them from shaking and struggling not to cry.

  Stop it! she told herself. She had known all along that the press belonged to Nicholas Tew. Perhaps he had fled London when it was most dangerous and only returned now that it was safe again, but he had spent five months in Newgate. That surely beat anything she’d earned by three days in Bridewell! As for her, she’d done very well out of Tew’s press: she’d acquired all the skills needed in a printer. She would only drop back into dependency if she gave up; if Tew kept his promise and recommended her among his printer friends, she need not fear for her future.

  She abruptly thought to wonder what Jamie would do now. He had no chance of another job printing: no one would take on a maimed printer, a man who could never set type or stitch up a pamphlet. He was unlikely to be offered anything other than menial work. He would probably turn to drink again.

  She began to fidget, unable to pay attention to what what was being said. Thomas gave her a look of surprise, and Ned, still nearby, one of concern. She forced herself to sit still and listen.

  It was bad news, confirming her sense of disquiet. According to William Walwyn, the triumph of the Army was not turning out to be the great victory they’d all expected. The eleven impeached members might have disappeared, but the rest of the old Parliament remained, as corrupt and intransigent as ever. The Army’s grand officers were pinning their hopes on a settlement with the king, but King Charles had rejected their proposals out of hand, and the Grandees were looking for compromises that would appeal to him. There were rumours that the king had offered to make Fairfax a duke and Cromwell an earl if they sold out.

  Edward Sexby, the Army Agitator, stood and spoke vehemently, protesting that The Heads of the Proposals had been too generous to the king even in the first draft; to make any more concessions would be a betrayal of everything the Army had fought for. He invited his friends to join the Agitators in drafting an alternative settlement. ‘Lord General Fairfax went to the Tower today,’ he continued. ‘He asked to see the Great Charter, saying that it was what we had fought for, but he never spared a thought for our friend John Lilburne, imprisoned in that very Tower, contrary to that same Great Charter. I take that to be a more honest measure of his commitment to the people’s rights than his fine words! My friends, I have no doubt that the Grandees, like Parliament and like the king, would much prefer it if we kept silent and let them dispose matters to their own advantage, but I say, if our voice is not heard now, we will lose it and be dumb ever after!’

  The others cheered. Walwyn rose and proposed setting up a committee to work with the Agitators; the motion was seconded and approved immediately, and Walwyn was appointed to it, along with Wildman and a couple of others. Then Tew rose and announced that he was once more in charge of ‘the only free press in London’, and that he was willing and able to print anything the council wished to publish. There was more applause; the meeting welcomed Tew back and voted him congratulations on his recovery.

  William Walwyn looked towards Lucy with a smile. ‘We should also take time to thank Mistress Wentnor for her diligence in Mr Tew’s absence! It is a hard thing for a young woman to take up a burden that has crushed brave men, but she never failed us. I think we’ve all heard of her courageous defiance of the Committee of Safety. I move a vote of thanks to Mistress Wentnor!’

  ‘Seconded!’ cried Ned, jumping to his feet.

  There was applause and cheers. Lucy got to her feet and curtsied, trying to crush the angry thought that she’d much rather have the job than the thanks.

  The meeting, as always, closed with a prayer. As soon as it ended, Lucy turned to her uncle. ‘Uncle Thomas,’ she whispered, ‘I should like to speak to Jamie Hudson, to warn him that we are out of work. Could you help me?’

  Thomas was already shaking his head. ‘It’s late now, child. The city gate will be shut. You will have to speak to him in the morning.’

  She did not sleep much that night and the next morning she rose before dawn. London Bridge was eerily still in the first grey light as she crossed it, the whole great span empty of movement. Billingsgate fish market was already busy, though, and as she walked north the light grew and more and more people appeared on the streets, so that by the time she reached Bishopsgate, London was itself again. She made her way out of the city among a jostling crowd and picked her way along Moorfields to the barn.

  The place was quiet and apparently empty when she unlocked the door. Nothing had been printed since the Army arrived in London, and the drying lines were empty: the press stood alone in the dim light of the interior. ‘Jamie?’ Lucy called, looking up towards the loft where he normally slept.

  There was no reply. She went to the ladder, kilted her skirts, and climbed up. ‘Jamie?’

  Still no answer, but when she advanced there was a groan from under the straw. She squatted down and brushed some straw away, revealing a coated back. ‘Jamie? Are you ill?’

  Another groan; Jamie snugged his face against his arm. ‘Let me alone, wench!’

  ‘You are ill!’ She touched his cheek, but it was no hotter than her hand.

  ‘I am most vilely hung-over,’ replied Jamie shortly. ‘I said, let me be!’

  She sat back on her heels and surveyed him: now that he mentioned it, she could smell the brandy. ‘You’ve heard that Tew’s back and means to take the press,’ she concluded.

  He lifted his head and surveyed her with a bloodshot eye. ‘Aye. So you’ve heard, too.’

  ‘He was at the meeting last night. Jamie, drinking won’t help . . .’

  ‘There you’re wrong, for it helped a deal!’

  ‘Oh? And it’s helping this morning, too, is it? I’ll fetch you water, and then we’ll talk over what you are to do.’

  ‘God have mercy!’

  ‘Amen!’ agreed Lucy tartly, and went back down the ladder.

  When she came back with the water, he hadn’t moved, but at the sound of her footsteps he squinted up at her resentfully. ‘Sit up!’ she ordered.

  ‘And if I won’t?’

  She tipped the flask, dousing him with cold water. He sputtered and flung up a hand to fend it off.

  ‘This is yet half full,’ Lucy said sternly, shaking the flask. ‘Will you drink it, or will I throw it over you and go fetch more?’

  He groaned and sat up. ‘You’re a hard master, Lucy Wentnor.’ He took the flask of water, though, and drank of it. She sat down beside him.

  ‘I was thinking of you all last night,’ she told him. ‘And it came to me that there’s no reason you shouldn’t go back to being a blacksmith.’

  He made a noise of derision and held up his maimed right hand. She seized it. His whole body gave a jerk of astonishment and he stared at her, his single eye wide.

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ she told him, turning the hand over with her own. ‘Look, your whole palm is unhurt, and here, you still have the meat of the thumb . . .’ It trembled, and she closed her fingers about it. The scar was rough and warm. ‘There are plenty of men in the city with worse, Jamie! Sailors and shopkeepers aplenty do fine with nothing but a hook, and you have most of your hand intact!’

  ‘Smithing needs two hands!’ he replied. He took his hand away.

  ‘Indeed it does not!’ she replied. ‘Not two skilled hands, anygate. Every smith I’ve ever seen uses one hand to do nothing more than hold the tongs or pump the bellows. Surely with use your left hand could manage a hammer as well as the right ever did!’

  ‘You know nothing of it!’

  ‘I know this much: it’s easier to wallow in misery and drink than take up your life again!’

  ‘How can I even hold the tongs with th
is?’ Again he showed her the hand as though he expected her to recoil from it. ‘I’ve not enough strength in these two fingers to hold anything more than a tankard! The day we met, you called it a claw, and so it is!’

  She remembered saying it; remembered how he’d lowered his head after. She’d taken that as a prelude to attack, which now seemed to her wilfully blind: he’d been hurt and shamed. His rudeness had been nothing more than bluster, a defence against a pretty girl’s horror. ‘The day we met, Jamie Hudson,’ she said tartly, ‘you called me “puss” and thought to be master at my own press, if you recall! But as to how you might hold the tongs, surely you could fit some sort of brace about your wrist . . .’ – she caught the hand again and circled the wrist with her fingers – ‘. . . with a false thumb, here, see?’ She lifted her own small thumb where his should have been. ‘Curved, perhaps, and padded, so that it won’t slip. You’re the smith! What would you make?’

  He stared down at her fingers curled about his mutilation. She could feel the pulse in his wrist, beating against her palm. The urge to lean forward and kiss him was suddenly so strong it frightened her. She let go.

  ‘It would take time to master the skill over again,’ she admitted. ‘You’d need some master smith willing to take you on, but you have friends who can help you. I have a little money saved, and I’m sure Captain Wildman would help, too, and Ned . . .’

  Jamie scowled. ‘I’ll not take your savings! You’re losing your place, too!’

  ‘Aye, but I hope I may get another one soon.’

  He gave her an angry look. ‘Ned’s spoken, then?’

  She stared. ‘What do you mean?’

  He was confused. ‘What did you mean, speaking of “another place”?’

  ‘Only that Mr Tew has offered to recommend me to all his acquaintance. What, do you think I hope to marry Ned?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Indeed not!’ She glared. ‘I told him honestly that I’m all but dowerless. I’d not trick any man into marriage!’

  He stared at her. ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that Ned may not be so set upon a dowry as you suppose.’

  She started to tell him that he was wrong, then remembered how Ned had kissed her the evening before. It should have occurred to her to wonder whether he would kiss her so publicly if he was completely unwilling to be seen as her suitor.

  ‘You do not seem as happy at the thought as I would expect,’ remarked Jamie.

  ‘The prospect of explaining to him that I’ve no maidenhead either doesn’t please me, no!’

  ‘That he’s guessed already.’

  ‘What? You told him that? You promi—’

  ‘Nay, nay, nay! I told him nothing. When we were burying Symonds and his friend, though, he asked John and me whether we thought they’d forced you. We both claimed ignorance, but the question knew its answer. He spat on the bodies before we covered them, and wished them all the pains of Hell.’

  Lucy was dismayed. She twisted her hands into her apron.

  ‘And still you are not pleased!’ said Jamie.

  ‘I’ve no wish to marry Ned Trebet,’ she admitted. ‘I like him well, but I’ve no wish to be mistress of The Whalebone Tavern. I like printing much better.’ Her heart added, in bitter secret, I like you better, too, Jamie. If I’d never met you, perhaps I’d be better pleased with Ned.

  There was a silence, and then Jamie said gently, ‘You’re afraid of men, are you?’

  She shrugged: let him think that. ‘We were not speaking of me,’ she said determinedly. ‘We were speaking of you, and I said I see no reason why you should not become a blacksmith again. I’ll not let you sink into some swill-pot wallow, Jamie: I’ll nag you day and night if you try!’

  There was another silence. ‘I’d rather sight along a pistol again than suffer that!’ said Jamie at last. ‘Aye, very well. I’ll ask John’s help to find a place with a blacksmith.’

  Again she almost kissed him; she even leaned forward a little. He had looked away, though, lowering his head so that his hair fell over his blinded eye. He stared down at his bad hand, bringing the good one across to circle the wrist as she had, and folded down his two remaining fingers as though to make a fist.

  Nine

  Lucy’s new employer arrived the very next day.

  She’d decided to make the best of unemployment by finishing her gown, which had been half done for a long time now. She’d completed only one sleeve, however, when Uncle Thomas came in from the shop, escorting a stranger.

  ‘This is my niece, sir,’ Thomas said seriously. ‘Lucy, this is Mr Gilbert Mabbot, a friend of Mr Tew.’

  Mr Mabbot was a big, pock-faced man somewhere under thirty; he wore a plain dark coat, none too clean, and had a sword by his side. He smiled broadly at Lucy, displaying crooked teeth. ‘Mistress Wentnor! You must be the prettiest typesetter in all London!’

  Lucy set aside her lapful of fabric and stood, filled with hope and distrust. ‘You’re a friend of Mr Tew, sir?’

  ‘More acquaintance than friend,’ admitted Mabbot, ‘but certainly I esteem the gentleman. I need a typesetter, and my need is like to grow. I hope soon to start a newsbook of my own, though at present I’m but junior partner on A Perfect Diurnall. Nick Tew said you’d managed his press by yourself all the while he was in Newgate, that you kept good clear accounts and that you could manage all the business of supply.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Lucy agreed. ‘I’m glad he was pleased with what I did.’ A Perfect Diurnall! The most popular newsbook in London!

  ‘Nick said that your wages were sixpence a day.’

  Lucy almost agreed, but something stopped her. Mabbot had appeared very quickly, and he’d sought her out at home, rather than sending her a message through Tew. She might be eager, but so was he.

  ‘Sixpence and my dinner, sir,’ she said impulsively. ‘If I must buy food at an ordinary, I’ll need another threepence.’

  Mabbot grimaced. ‘Ah, I feared it was too good to be true! But how can I pay an unschooled countrygirl ninepence a day, when she must work with printers who served out a full apprenticeship before they earned so much? What would you say, Mistress, to a soldier’s wage?’

  That, notoriously, was eightpence a day, and Lucy had no intention of paying threepence to eat at an ordinary, not when she could fix herself something at home much more cheaply. She pretended to ponder the offer, already determined to accept it.

  ‘Let it be understood,’ Uncle Thomas broke in anxiously, ‘that my niece is under no necessity of going out to work for strangers. She first took up printing to help my friend Will Browne after Mr Tew’s arrest. It shames me that she . . . that she ran into such danger under the Committee of Safety, and that . . . that is, I am determined that she will suffer no more insolent abuse!’

  Mabbot smirked. ‘I can promise you, sir, that your niece will suffer no such difficulties as she did under that ill-famed Committee. Everything I cause to be printed will be properly licensed – for I myself am to become Licensor of the Press!’

  ‘You?’ said Uncle Thomas, startled.

  Mabbot bowed. ‘The Army has been unhappy with the persecution meted out to its supporters in London. Mr Rushworth, the Secretary to the Army, whom I had the honour of assisting, kindly put forward my name to Lord General Fairfax, who has forwarded it to the authorities here in London. So, Mistress Wentnor, if you come work for me, you need not fear the law! How say you?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Lucy, her heart singing. ‘Eightpence a day. When do you want me to start?’

  Mr Mabbot was keen: he wanted her to start on Monday, the very next working day, even though his proposed newsbook was still nothing more than a hope. ‘A spell on the Diurnall will teach you the ways of newsbooks,’ he told her, ‘and, God He knows, we need another typesetter. My partner and I have just bought a second press, but it sits idle half the day waiting for a forme to be made ready for it.’ He paused, then added, ‘Umm . . . you should say nothing of the new newsbook to the oth
er printworkers. Keep mum about it to my partner, Sam Pecke, too – to him especially. I, uh, have yet to begin this enterprise, so there’s no need to spread gossip.’

  She wondered uneasily why gossip would be so bad. It seemed likely that Mr Pecke would be unhappy to discover that his junior partner was setting up in competition.

  She had dinner at Thomas’s house that day, which was rare enough to make her feel that it must be the Sabbath, even though it was only Saturday. Thomas wavered anxiously between congratulating Lucy on her new job and worrying about it. Agnes ate in silence, with an occasional disgusted glance at her husband. When the meal was finished Lucy collected the dishes and carried them into the kitchen – Susan had finished her own dinner and gone to the market. Agnes followed her.

  ‘You’re to get another shilling a week,’ said Agnes.

  Lucy could guess where this was heading. ‘Aye.’ She picked up the kettle and started to fill it with water from the jug.

  ‘Look at me when I speak to you, miss!’ Agnes ordered.

  Lucy set down the kettle and looked at her.

  ‘I remitted you one shilling of the two you owed me every week. Now you can pay it again.’

  Lucy raised her eyebrows. ‘I was glad to pay two shillings a week into the household account, Aunt, but it was no debt I owed to you. You remitted one because you didn’t want me at your table at supper-time, and there’s no buying supper in the City for less than tuppence.’

  ‘You insolent little slut!’ spat Agnes. ‘I’ll have that shilling!’

  Lucy set her teeth. Why should she keep paying the better part of her earnings to Agnes? All the money she’d paid over hitherto hadn’t won her any goodwill; in fact, Agnes disliked her more than ever. ‘Am I welcome at your table for supper, then?’ She asked it to make a point, but even as she did it occurred to her that she might be, now that she would be printing a respectable newsbook instead of seditious pamphlets.

  Agnes, however, glowered. ‘We both know well that you much prefer merry-making with your scandalous friends!’