London in Chains

by Gillian Bradshaw

  ‘Why must you depend on the Overtons?’ Ned asked in confusion. ‘Has something befallen your aunt and your other kin in London?’

  ‘God forbid! They are well, but they would only keep me until my Leicestershire kin come fetch me – and, as I said, I’ve no wish to go back. Mary Overton was given my place at The Moderate and, conscientious as she is, she had no wish to see me suffer because of her good fortune. I hope I may find another place soon. Last night Mr Overton—’

  ‘What do you want of me?’ Ned asked unhappily.

  Lucy stopped, surprised. Ned flushed, and she suddenly understood that he thought she’d come to plead for help – for marriage if he’d offer it; for money and protection if he wouldn’t.

  He hadn’t come to Thomas’s funeral. She’d scarcely thought about that at the time, but now the omission had a stark significance. He’d been afraid she’d cling – and if she had, he would have pushed her off.

  ‘I thought you might know what has become of Jamie Hudson!’ she said bluntly, choking back her anger. ‘Last night Mr Overton was telling me of the rendezvous at Ware – have you heard yet what happened there?’

  Ned floundered at this unexpected turn of the conversation. Then his face darkened. ‘Aye. John Wildman came in late last night and told us of it. As foul a piece of treachery as ever I heard!’

  ‘Is Major Wildman here?’ Lucy asked hopefully.

  ‘Nay, he’s at his cousin’s house. But he told the tale when he stabled his horse. He did say what had happened to Jamie, too! He’s been arrested; Major Wildman said he should have been safe, but when one of his friends was arrested, he protested, and so he was arrested as well.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  Ned shook his head. ‘That’s yet to learn.’ He frowned. ‘You came to ask about Jamie?’

  ‘He’s your friend and mine, Ned! Shouldn’t I care that he’s in prison?’

  ‘I–I . . .’ stammered Ned. ‘Aye. It’s only – well, Lucy, I thought you might want help. With your uncle dead.’

  ‘Nay,’ she said coldly. ‘I’d not come here for that.’

  There was a silence. Ned looked shocked and hurt rather than relieved.

  Lucy relented a little. ‘I would be grateful, though, if you could spread word that I’m looking for work, printing or setting type.’

  It didn’t seem to help. Ned might have dreaded the prospect of an old semi-sweetheart clinging to him in tears, but the sight of her determined to fend for herself evidently didn’t please him either. ‘Aye,’ he muttered unhappily, ‘I’ll do that.’

  Nancy Shorby, who’d listened to all this uneasily, suddenly leaned forward. ‘I’m at a loss to know why you’re so set against your kin in Leicestershire.’

  Lucy met her eyes. The question had, she was sure, been asked to embarrass her in front of Ned – and yet there suddenly seemed no reason not to answer it honestly. The shame of what had happened no longer had power to crush her. The rape of a Leicestershire dairymaid couldn’t blight the life of a London printworker. ‘I’m not set against my kin,’ she said firmly. ‘My father, though, hates the sight of me because those villains who stole our cows forced me, and it shamed him. I’ll thank you to keep that tale out of the tavern gossip.’

  Nancy’s jaw dropped. Ned opened his mouth and closed it again: if he had guessed this, he clearly hadn’t expected Lucy to speak of it. He gave her a look of shock and, strangely, resentment.

  ‘I wouldn’t have spoken of it,’ she told them defensively, ‘only I’d not have people wondering why I’m set against my kin or they against me.’ She got to her feet. ‘Thank you, Ned, for the bread and ale! If you learn any news or hear of anyone who needs a typesetter, I’ll be grateful to know it. I’m at the Overtons’ at present, as I said. God give you health!’ She walked off and went back to Coleman Street to find William Browne and the bookbinding work he’d promised her.

  The piecework consisted of folding and stitching pages for a collection of sermons. Browne gave her a heavy basket of printed sheets; Lucy worked hard all the first day and only earned tuppence. She told herself that it was the same as she’d done when she first came to London, but even that wasn’t true: the wages didn’t include dinner. She didn’t go hungry, but that was only because she lugged the sheets to the Overtons’, did her stitching in their kitchen and ate the midday meal along with the family.

  She did what she could to make herself useful. She helped Faith, the eldest Overton child, to keep an eye on the younger two, and she prepared the midday meal and cleared up afterwards. She didn’t think, though, that it compensated the Overtons for the inconvenience of having an extra person in their crowded house and she was painfully aware that her earnings barely covered the cost of her food. She’d proudly told Nat Cotman that she didn’t want to be a burden to him, but she suspected that instead she was burdening the Overtons, who could afford it less and who had no real obligation to her.

  However, when she was offered a well-paid printing job after only two days stitching sermons, she didn’t see how she could accept it.

  Faith Overton answered a knock on the door, then came to the kitchen and handed Lucy a note:

  Mistress Wentnor, it has come to my eares that the Licensor has let you go. I am in need of an honest and discreet Printer, as you have shown yourself to be. If you wd learne more, meet me at The Blew Boare in Holborne this evg at 7.

  Yr. srvt Marchamont Nedham

  ‘Who gave you this?’ Lucy asked in surprise.

  The girl shrugged. ‘A man. He didn’t tell me his name.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘He was short and dark and ugly,’ said Faith disdainfully. ‘But he had a gold earring. In just one ear!’

  That sounded like Nedham, all right. If he needed a printer, it was probably because his previous printer had been arrested – that, or decided that the risk of continuing to work on Mercurius Pragmaticus was too great. Gilbert Mabbot’s men were ransacking the city for Pragmaticus. Nedham’s newsbook was popular – it sold out more quickly than the Perfect Diurnall, despite the fact that, being illegal, it cost twice as much – and its stories embarrassed and offended the government in equal measure. Mabbot’s masters were demanding that he shut it down.

  Lucy read the note again resentfully. A part of her wanted to respond to it: Pragmaticus would be much more interesting than sermons and more profitable as well. She had no illusions, though, that it would be safe. Printing Leveller pamphlets had been dangerous too, of course, but she’d believed in what she was printing. A Royalist newsbook was another matter entirely. She was not quite sure when she’d started to despise the king, but she did, wholeheartedly. He could have given his poor bleeding country a fair peace at any time over the last summer but he had instead clung to his own privileges. Why should she risk her freedom by printing apologies for him?

  There was something very satisfying, though, in the notion of thumbing her nose at Gilbert Mabbot after the shabby way he’d dismissed her.

  She struggled with herself, dismayed by how much she was tempted. She told herself firmly that it would be perfectly monstrous to betray the Overtons by taking up Royalism while under their roof and resolved to hand them the note as soon as they returned from work. She expected it would end in the privy.

  ‘There’s no harm in meeting him,’ said Richard when he returned to the house a couple of hours later. ‘If you’ve no liking for his terms, you can simply walk out.’

  Lucy was flabbergasted. ‘You –you wouldn’t mind if I took the place?’

  Richard shrugged. ‘It’s not my affair, Mistress, but it’s like to pay well.’ He smiled at her. ‘I confess, that would weigh with me.’

  ‘But he’s a Royalist!’

  ‘Of late his main target has been Cromwell.’ Richard suddenly grinned. ‘“Crum-Hell”, “the Town Bull of Ely”, “the Nose Almighty!” Nedham’s a very witty fellow and his barbs draw blood. It does my heart good to see Cromwell pricked! If he turns
on us again, you can always resign. Besides . . .’

  Lucy tensed, suspecting that Richard was about to say he’d like to be able to call his house his own again. If he was, however, he tactfully changed it. ‘We say that we’re in favour of a free and unlicensed press: if that means a free press for ourselves but none for our adversaries, we’re nothing but false hypocrites!’

  ‘Your partner Gilbert Mabbot wouldn’t say so,’ Lucy pointed out.

  ‘Gilbert is a hypocrite!’ Richard replied cheerfully. ‘He believes in the liberty of the press as I do, but the Licensorship was too fine a gift to refuse.’ He sighed and admitted, ‘Had I been offered it, I might have accepted it myself. Our Lord threw the money-changers from the Temple, but I’ve no doubt they crept in again by the backstairs and set up in business once more. I’ll never sell our liberties, but still the children must eat. Had Mary been without employment and received that note you hold, I would have advised her to meet with Nedham.’

  Lucy looked dubiously at the note. An alternative reason for the invitation had, of course, occurred to her. ‘Why appoint a meeting in a tavern? He knew to leave the note here. Why didn’t he come in?’

  That brought another grin. ‘Into my house, you mean? The house of the Licensor’s partner? Nay. An inn is safer, and The Blue Boar is a fine inn for intrigues. A man has ample opportunity to watch who comes and, if he sees someone he’d prefer to avoid, ample opportunity to slip away.’ The grin broadened. ‘And any woman pestered by a whoremongering rogue like Nedham would have no difficulty giving him the slip.’

  It was a big inn, certainly; a coaching inn, with a large courtyard flanked by galleries. Lucy hesitated in the wicket gate from the street, then told herself it was absurd to think that Nedham would go to so much trouble to seduce a girl he’d met only once months before, and that if that was what he had in mind, she would walk out. Her heart was pounding, though, as she walked on: in the back of her mind she could hear her father’s outraged voice: ‘She agreed to meet a strange man in a tavern after dark? The whore!’

  The main room of The Blue Boar was long, low-ceilinged, poorly lit and full of tobacco smoke: you could have hidden a troop of pikemen in it, let alone a fugitive newsbook editor. Lucy stopped inside the door and looked around helplessly. Several of the men sitting nearby took their pipes out of their mouths with appreciative stares. A serving-man hurried over.

  ‘I came to meet Mr . . .’ she began; then decided it would be better not to name any names. ‘I came to meet a gentleman who offered me work as a printer.’ She emphasized the final words: she was going to make it absolutely clear that she would have nothing whatever to do with any other suggestions!

  ‘Aye, he’s expecting you,’ said the serving-man calmly. He glanced behind her, then, confident that she wasn’t being followed, said, ‘This way.’

  Nedham was in a cubby-hole of a private room, eating a meat pie and washing it down with a bottle of wine. He beamed when Lucy was shown in. ‘Sweet Mistress Lucy! I feared you’d leave me to pine for you! Here, sit down by me! Harry, another glass!’

  Lucy took hold of the stool at the end of the table and moved it so that the board separated her from Nedham. ‘Nay, I thank you, no wine!’ she told the serving-man. She sat primly.

  ‘You’re not a Puritan?’ asked Nedham in dismay.

  ‘Indeed I am!’ she replied. ‘In your note you offered me work, Mr Nedham.’

  ‘A Puritan as well as a Leveller!’ Nedham shook his head sadly. ‘Where’s the harm in combining work with pleasure?’

  ‘I see nothing here that would give me any pleasure, sir.’

  He smote his heart, grinning. She looked him sternly in the eye. ‘I am not so desperate for work that I would damn myself, Mr Nedham. If your offer requires me to whore for you, I’ll leave now.’

  ‘Oh, oh, oh! The kitten has teeth!’ Nedham poured himself more of the wine. ‘I am offering you work, Mistress Leveller. You managed John Lilburne’s press all last summer, did you not?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And then went to work for Mabbot?’ He smirked.

  ‘Aye,’ she agreed. ‘And, indeed, I think that does mean that Mabbot would be slow to suspect me. He knows me for a Leveller – and he dismissed me very meanly and will want to avoid me.’

  Nedham raised his brows appreciatively. ‘Clever puss!’

  ‘If I am a cat, Mr Nedham, are you a cur? You need someone to print your newsbook and keep your press safe from the Stationers. I know how to do both. I need work and I’m willing, but only if the terms suit. What became of your last printer?’

  ‘He thought he was suspected and told me to take myself elsewhere – which I’m doing now. I can offer you as much as Mabbot did.’

  ‘Sir, what I printed for Mr Mabbot was in keeping with my sympathies; it was also lawful and licensed. You must offer me more than he did!’

  Nedham sniggered. ‘I’m sure I have it, too.’

  ‘I meant money, Mr Nedham.’

  ‘This greed is un-Leveller-like, surely!’

  ‘Consider it my refutation of that foul lie that we’d do away with property.’

  He laughed. ‘Six shillings a week, then! Are all Leveller girls so hard?’

  Six shillings a week; a whole shilling every working day! For that sort of money she could rent . . . well, no, not a room, but certainly a bed – and still have enough left to live on. She struggled to keep her pleasure from showing. ‘Very well, sir.’

  ‘If you’ll whore for me,’ Nedham said with a lazy smile, ‘I’ll double it.’

  She jumped to her feet, glaring, and he held up his hands. ‘Nay, it was a jest!’

  She was quite sure it hadn’t been. ‘A lewd, sorry one, then,’ she said in disgust. ‘And they say you’re so witty!’

  ‘Jesu have mercy! You know where to strike! I shall try to think of better jests in future. I think we shall agree very well, Mistress Wentnor.’

  The serving-man, Harry, came in looking excited. He whispered something in Nedham’s ear. ‘What!’ exclaimed Nedham. ‘Are you sure?’

  Harry shrugged apologetically. ‘Nay. I’ve not seen them anywhere but a-horse going through London. But I think so.’

  Nedham frowned. His eye fell on Lucy. ‘Mistress Wentnor. Will you go with Harry here, as though . . . as though he were showing you the way to the privy. Cast an eye over a pair of new-come guests, then come back and tell me if you recognize either of them. Don’t let them know you’ve taken note of them!’

  Lucy suspected that some of Mabbot’s men had just turned up. She bit her lip, wondering if she should walk out before anyone connected her to Nedham. Six shillings a week, though . . . She nodded and followed Harry from the cubby-hole.

  The main room was just as dark as before and the smoke was even thicker. Harry led the way over to the other side of the room. ‘In the corner stall,’ he muttered out of the side of his mouth. ‘The two Army men with their hats pulled down.’ Lucy saw who he meant: they were sitting in a stall in the darkest part of the room and their faces were further shadowed by the wide brims of their hats. Harry, with Lucy trailing him, went up to them. ‘One moment, mistress!’ he told Lucy loudly. ‘More ale, sirs?’

  The two men looked up. They both wore the plain buff-coats of ordinary cavalrymen and their swords were leaning against the table. One of them – a fairish man with a pointed beard – was unknown to her; the other – an older man with a ruddy face and red nose – seemed familiar. ‘Not yet,’ he told Harry.

  Harry nodded, then turned back to Lucy. ‘Down the passage, and outside on the left!’ he told her, waving an arm.

  ‘Thank you,’ murmured Lucy, blushing. She went out, then continued on down the passage and outside to the left: she might as well use the privy while she was about it.

  She was readjusting her skirts when she remembered where she’d seen that red-nosed farmer’s face before: riding through Southwark, with his Ironsides behind him. She staggered from surprise and fought down a m
ad urge to go to him and demand, What have you done with Jamie Hudson? Instead, she went quietly back into the tavern and crossed the main room without even glancing at the stall in the corner.

  Nedham was on his feet, pacing, when she returned to the cubby-hole. He gave her a look of sharp question.

  ‘It’s Cromwell!’ she whispered, still aghast.

  ‘Ha!’ Nedham stood still, his eyes bright with excitement. ‘So Harry thought, too; and if one’s Cromwell, then there’s no reason to think that he was wrong about the other. Cromwell and Ireton! Now what, I wonder, are those two about?’

  ‘They were dressed like common troopers,’ said Lucy, amazed by it.

  ‘Oh, oh!’ exclaimed Nedham, grinning. He sat down at the table again, tapping it with his fingers. ‘What think you? Are those two holy saints here to meet a pair of whores on the sly?’

  ‘I cannot think any man would take his son-in-law whoring with him!’ said Lucy, scandalized.

  ‘Ah, you’re an innocent maid, after all!’ said Nedham. ‘I’ve known it happen. Still, you’ve the right: old Noll wouldn’t want his daughter struck with the clap, blighting the little Nollivings to come! Perhaps it’s not Ireton. You recognized Cromwell; what of the other? You said naught of him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know Ireton from Adam. The man is slight, fairish, with long hair and his beard done in a point.’

  ‘Huh. That should be Ireton. Well, well! I think I will stay here a little longer and see how this comes out!’

  Harry came back in. ‘They’ve got a man watching the gate to the street,’ he informed Nedham.

  ‘They’re expecting someone,’ said Nedham. He dug a sixpence out of his purse and tossed it to Harry. ‘Here’s thank you and well done! I’ll wait here, Harry; let me know what they do. And bring me another bottle!’

  Lucy hesitated: she knew she ought to conclude her business with Nedham, then go back to the Overtons – but it was possible that Cromwell’s business here was something the Levellers would want to know about. She seated herself.

  Nedham eyed her. ‘You need not stay. I’ll meet you tomorrow, at The Fleece in Covent Garden at about ten o’clock.’