‘The Council of the Army no longer includes Agitators elected by the men,’ Wildman explained to Lucy. ‘Officers only.’
‘You say that what happens to Jamie now depends on Cromwell?’ asked Lucy.
Wildman nodded. ‘And that is one of the weary questions we’ve been circling about this evening.’
‘I still believe he will do his utmost to break us!’ Lilburne declared. ‘He knows that he has wronged us and he will not want to leave our supporters in place to work against him.’
‘But the men were deceived,’ argued Wildman. ‘That trick he used, of replacing the Agreement with his own declaration and acting in the name of the Council of the Army – that gave his actions a veil of legality. If he sets out to crush us, he will strip that veil away and offend many.’
‘Then he will strip it away and offend!’ said Lilburne. ‘I know the man, remember: I fought beside him and shared a camp. He’s never been one to turn back when once he’s set his hand to the plough.’
‘But he has others to think of besides us!’ protested Richard Overton. ‘Enemies in Parliament, and a storm gathering to the north! He can’t afford to offend the Army!’
Lilburne shook his head gloomily. ‘An agreement with the king would give him strength enough to outface them all, and he hopes that now he’s put down the faction that were crying out against Charles Stuart, he will get one.’
‘Nay,’ said Lucy. ‘The king has played him false.’
The three men stared in surprise, and she blushed. She hadn’t consciously decided to speak out, but the information clearly would help them; it might even help Jamie. She was glad, after all, that she hadn’t made Nedham any promises.
She told them what she’d seen and heard at The Blue Boar. ‘I was in two minds whether to speak to you,’ she finished nervously. ‘In part only because Mr Nedham said that if I did, I’d lose my place printing for him; but in the main I feared what would come of you knowing. I thought perhaps you might print the tale in The Moderate. . .’
‘It would do well in a pamphlet!’ said Lilburne, his one eye gleaming. ‘The cozener cozened!’
‘It would not!’ she cried desperately. ‘Truly, sir, I fear it would do nothing but harm! The Royalists would never take it for true – not from you, not from any of us! – but even if they did, they wouldn’t care! They would praise the king for tricking his jailers! The only people who’d take real note of it would be Cromwell and his friends – and they would wonder how we knew about it. They’d suspect a Leveller plot, and . . . and there are so many rumours already! You, sir, are already accused of conspiring to murder the king, or else of conspiring with him against Parliament, or I know not what . . .’
‘One would think that even my accusers would see I could not do both,’ murmured Lilburne.
‘Suspicion is already so thick that reason can’t be seen through it!’ Lucy replied. ‘And I feared that publishing this tale would only thicken it more!’
‘And yet you have told us of it,’ said Richard.
She nodded miserably. ‘You said you were circling about the question. The rest of us rely on you, sirs, to find our way forward. I could not keep back information which might make a difference to your decisions.’
Richard and Wildman both looked at Lilburne. ‘She’s right, John,’ Richard said gently. ‘Making this public would harm us.’
Lilburne grimaced. ‘You need not coax me, Dick, as though I were a stubborn child! I can see she’s right.’ He sighed. ‘It would have made an excellent pamphlet!’
Richard turned a serious gaze on Lucy. ‘You say Nedham threatened you if you spoke of this?’
‘Not so much threatened, sir, as . . . well, he offered me a gold angel if I promised to tell no one, and said that if I spoke, I would print for him no more – which I should be sorry for, but I expect I can find another place.’
‘Not one that pays six shillings a week,’ said Richard, smiling at her. ‘There’s no need for Nedham to know that you told us.’
She smiled back, deeply relieved and slightly guilty. That morning she’d told Nedham that she’d kept quiet: it had been perfectly true at the time but now it felt like a lie. Still, that discomfort was slight compared to what she would’ve felt if she’d been obliged to give up her new job.
‘Interesting that Nedham feared the effect of this,’ said Wildman.
‘He was less worried this morning than he was last night,’ said Lucy. ‘I think at the first he was too shocked to think it through. He had hoped to discover something that would discredit Cromwell. Will this help, sir?’
‘It will,’ replied Wildman and looked at Lilburne.
Lilburne frowned at his pipe, which had gone out, then knocked the ashes into the fire and began to refill it.
‘It tells us that Cromwell knows that he will need the Army soon – and need it united,’ Wildman urged. ‘He cannot afford a contest with us now.’
‘We cannot afford a contest, either,’ Lilburne replied unhappily. ‘Not without we risk letting a Scots army into London. Oh, God, that it should come to this! After so much blood spent! But your point holds. Cromwell will try to win us back with promises and soft words. We will have to make certain that we get hard commitments from him.’ He gave Lucy a tired smile. ‘Your sweetheart should be safe.’
The front door banged; Richard again called out, ‘Mary?’ and this time his wife’s voice answered. A moment later Mary appeared in the door. She surveyed the smoky kitchen equably and asked, ‘How many are we to supper?’
Lilburne and Wildman declined to stay for supper and the meeting broke up. As Wildman took his leave, though, he told Lucy, ‘I know Jamie would be very glad of a letter. If you leave one at The Whalebone, I will take it with me tomorrow when I ride to Windsor.’
Lucy took the letter round to The Whalebone later that evening. The tavern was as full as she’d ever seen it, every bench taken and more customers standing around the walls: The Moderate’s account of events at Ware had hit the street the day before. She would have known the crowd were Levellers even if she hadn’t recognized many of the faces: The Moderate was being read out in every corner, and everyone who wasn’t listening was arguing about it and about how to press forward with The Agreement of the People. She struggled sideways to the bar, where Ned was serving ale and arguing that when the Army realized how it had been deceived, it would turn against Cromwell.
‘Ned!’ she said, and he glanced up with a vague smile of acknowledgement.
‘The Army might turn against Cromwell,’ said the man Ned had been talking to, ‘but against Fairfax, never!’
‘Everyone knows this was Cromwell’s doing!’ replied Ned. ‘Lord Fairfax has been ill all this year with the gout, and never had a stomach for politics even when he was in health, but Cromwell—’
‘Ned!’ Lucy tried again. She was tired and wanted to go home to bed. ‘Can you give Major Wildman this letter when he comes for his horse tomorrow morning?’ She took it out of her apron pocket and held it up.
‘Aye, I suppose,’ said Ned, taking it. He glanced at it, then frowned. ‘It’s for Jamie?’
‘Aye. Major Wildman says he’s been taken to Windsor, to be tried by a court-martial.’
‘But he’s no longer a soldier!’
‘He struck an officer, it seems.’
Ned’s frown deepened. The man he’d been talking to began to say something more about Lord Fairfax, but Ned waved him to silence. ‘And you’ve writ him a letter?’
‘Major Wildman said he would be glad of it.’
Ned looked at the letter in his hand, then looked up again at Lucy. ‘A moment,’ he told his customer. ‘Lucy, a word with you!’ He gestured towards the kitchen.
The kitchen was warm, lit by a couple of cressets over the fireplace. The din of voices in the main room just beyond was muffled. Rafe the cook was clearing up.
‘Rafe, take charge in the house!’ ordered Ned.
‘But—’ began Rafe, startled.
Rafe shrugged, wiped his hands on his apron and went to take Ned’s place serving beer, leaving the two of them alone in the kitchen.
‘Why are you writing to Jamie Hudson?’ demanded Ned bluntly.
His tone stung. ‘What is it to you if I do?’ she replied coolly.
‘Because if he’s courting you, he’s a false knave!’
‘What?’ she asked incredulously.
‘He knows very well I had my eye on you! He swore he would say nothing!’
‘What?’ she asked again, now completely bewildered. ‘He swore . . .’
Ned glared. ‘He swore he would pay no addresses to you, in deference to me!’
She opened her mouth, then closed it. ‘In deference to you?’ she managed at last. ‘You, who had nothing to say to me once you’d learned I had no dowry?’
Ned had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘He knew I needed time to—’
‘He knew more of your mind than I did, then! But I’ll have you know that he kept his oath: he dealt with me as a friend and nothing more. God have mercy! I’ve heard of a man standing aside to let his friend court a woman, but never in my life have I heard such a thing as this! To make a man swear to stand aside in case his friend decides to court a woman! You’re like a . . . a Parliamentary clerk, that will neither do business himself nor permit any other to do it for him!’
‘That’s a foul likeness!’
‘Aye, but a true one!’
‘I would have courted you; you surely know I wanted to! But you put me off, first telling me about the dowry and then keeping me at arm’s length, and finally telling me plain a thing you knew very well I had no wish to hear! If you’d kept your peace I would have—’
‘Oh, so now it’s my fault, because I wouldn’t deceive you?’
‘My uncle will settle fifty pounds on me if he approves my bride, but—’
‘If you must marry to please your uncle, do it! I never set out to catch your eye, and I’ve dealt with you truthfully and fairly. Can you say the same?’
Nancy Shorby came in, flustered. ‘Ned, the party in the holly room are quarrelling—’
‘Will you let me be!’ roared Ned. ‘Every time I . . .’ He stopped suddenly, staring at Nancy. ‘You’ve done it a-purpose!’
‘What?’ she asked guiltily.
‘Every time I try to talk to Lucy, it’s Ned this and Ned that, and please, Ned, you must come and sort this for us – and it’s always a thing you might’ve sorted for yourselves!’
‘But they are quarrelling!’ wailed Nancy. ‘In another moment there’ll be fisticuffs!’
‘Let them fight!’ Ned shouted. He turned back to Lucy, caught her shoulders and kissed her; she made a muffled noise of protest and tried to push him off. ‘Marry me!’ he demanded, breaking off.
Nancy groaned.
‘I will not!’ gasped Lucy. She shoved herself away from Ned and fled out of the kitchen door.
She was in tears by the time she reached the Overtons’ and she stood outside the door for several minutes, gasping and wiping her face, until she had regained enough composure to slip up to bed without having to explain why she was crying. She didn’t know how to talk about what had just happened, and she didn’t want to try.
She spent a largely sleepless night. She was furious with Ned and Jamie both. Something inside her (good sense, she thought bitterly) kept trying to tell her that she’d just made a terrible mistake. She ought to go back to Ned; she ought to beg his pardon, explain that she’d been so surprised and so worried about his friends’ reaction that she hadn’t been thinking clearly; she ought to say plainly that if he still wanted her, she would be very happy to marry him.
The rest of her could not let go of the notion that Jamie might have spoken if Ned hadn’t sworn him to silence.
In the morning she rose before it was light, slipped downstairs and by candlelight wrote another letter to Jamie. She doubted that Ned would forward the first one and, any way, she now had more to say.
To Mr James Hudson,
Ned has told me of that oathe you swore to him. It is the gratest follie and shame that ever I heared in alle my lyfe, that you should deal with me as though I were a parcell of land, and agree to stand aside while your Friend makes up his minde whether or no he will buy. Now he has made his offer, and I have told him plain that I will not marry him, for I like it not at alle, to be reckoned so Doubt-full a Purchase, that he must buye against his better Judgment. As to you, I am verie sorrie you are in Prison, so I will saye no more than that I am ablaze with shame and anger, that you have so slight Opinyon of my Regarde as to barter itt awaye to any man whatsoever. And yet I pray God that you come safely out of this Danger, and are soone restored to your Friends and your Freedom.
Your Friend, Lucy Wentnor
She blew out the candle, wrapped herself in her shawl and silently let herself out of the house. She made her way to The Whalebone in the first grey light of dawn and went straight to the stable without going into the tavern. The ostler who had helped her on the press those first days had just risen and was in the yard fetching water for the horses. He gave her a sleepy smile.
‘I have a letter to go with Major Wildman,’ she told him. He took it and promised to hand it on when Wildman came for his horse.
She went directly from The Whalebone to Covent Garden; it was full day by the time she arrived, and the market was bustling. She slipped quietly into the printworks-scullery, found the text Nedham had left for her the evening before and began setting the type for it.
Nedham turned up before she’d finished, bringing her new assistant, a sullen boy named Wat, the son of Nedham’s bootmaker. Lucy showed him how to ink, and together they printed the first segment of Mercurius Pragmaticus.
Wat scowled all morning, but Lucy won his heart when she shared her dinner with him. It was only pease and bacon from a Covent Garden cookshop, but apparently in Wat’s house dinner in this bitter winter usually consisted of gruel. The bootmaker had a large family and trade was scant: the tuppence a day Nedham was paying the child to do the inking was desperately needed.
When she got back to the Overtons’, she found Mary and Richard preparing to set out for The Whalebone: it was Thursday, the evening of the Leveller council meeting. ‘Come with us!’ Mary offered cheerfully.
‘But the meeting’s only for the council,’ Lucy pointed out.
‘Not so,’ replied Richard. ‘It’s for the council and the local chapter, and you’re now a resident of this ward.’
Lucy had no idea how to answer: The Whalebone was not a place she wanted to visit at present.
‘Have you supped?’ asked Mary, seeing her hesitation. ‘Dick, she needs a bite to eat first! Next week she can come with us.’
‘I thought . . .’ Lucy began, then stopped. Both Overtons looked at her enquiringly.
‘I thought that now I’ve well-paid work, I should give you your house again and lodge elsewhere,’ she said with regret. She would be sorry to leave this secure refuge.
‘Ah!’ said Richard. He’d been standing in the doorway, but at this he came back and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘That. Aye. What would you say to staying on, as paying lodger?’
Lucy was astonished. She looked quickly at Mary.
The older woman smiled. ‘If we could have taken a lodger before, we would have, but where could we find one we could set to share a bed with the children?’
‘We will buy another bed!’ put in Richard hastily. ‘We’d soon have need of one anyway, with Faith growing to be such a great big girl. But, aye, it would be hard to find another lodger we could trust to keep any secrets she might chance to overhear, and two or three shillings more each week would be very welcome.’
‘I . . . I should very much like to stay,’ Lucy said. ‘But if Mr Mabbot learns what it is I’m printing, surely he will . . . will be very angry with you?’
Richard grinned. ‘No doubt he would be, but nothing would c
ome of it. I, after all, am prerogative archer to the House of Lords, and he’s but the hypocrite Licensor of the Press! I hope he never does learn it, but that’s for your sake, not mine. How say you?’
‘I should like it very much,’ said Lucy, blushing a little.
‘Very good!’ replied Richard. ‘We’ll agree the rent later; now Mary and I must away to our meeting.’
The next few days Lucy basked in the sense that she had come home after struggling through a storm. She had work; she had safe lodgings with friends; she had finally made a settlement with her heart. She hadn’t realized how much the lack of the last thing had preyed on her: it was as though she’d dropped a heavy burden. The worry about whether Ned would or would not offer marriage; the division in her soul about what she should do if he did; the struggle to suppress her feelings for Jamie – it was all done with and she could let it go. Her settlement might not be wise, but at least her struggle – unlike the kingdom’s – was over.
It was true that Jamie was still in prison and that she didn’t dare speak to Ned, but she had made her decision, and now all she had to do was wait.
Fifteen
There was a letter waiting for Lucy when she returned from work on Tuesday evening. ‘John Wildman left this for you,’ Mary told her.
Lucy felt a shock of cold from head to foot: she hadn’t seen that rough left-handed writing very often, but it was distinctive, easily recognized. She took Jamie’s letter over to the kitchen table, where a candle gave her enough light to read it.
‘My verie deere . . .’
She had to stop there. Mary, who was busy preparing supper, looked at her in concern and asked, ‘Bad news?’
‘Nay,’ said Lucy, smiling and blinking.
‘Oh!’ said Mary, staring at her. ‘Oh, my. Whose is this letter?’
‘Jamie Hudson’s, whom I . . . who was at Ware and arrested for mutiny.’
Mary thought a moment. ‘The big man with half a face, a friend of John Wildman?’
‘Aye.’
Mary gave her a doubtful look. ‘What of Ned Trebet?’
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