Jem (and Sam)

by Ferdinand Mount

  Well, she is serving with her own hands, and I call that uncommonly gracious.

  I dare say she is used to the trade.

  I stood in a rage behind these ill-natured females and waited my turn to be served from the long side-table.

  She was wearing a low dress. Her cheeks had a high colour and her eyes the brightness of sapphires. Under the light of the great candles she shone like the moon at her zenith. For me, she was worth all the high-born ladies that were there. It was more than seven years since we had met. Even to see her was the end of one great hunger, although it was the beginning of another.

  Nan was talking in her high throatsweet voice that I remembered so well from our first days amid the bales of cloth at the sign of the Three Spanish Gypsies. She was helping one of the ladies to punch with a silver ladle.

  Now, she said turning to me, it is the gentleman’s turn, I’m sure that – But of what she was sure I never knew, for she was struck dumb and could say not a word more but filled my tankard like a senseless automaton. Nor could I say a word in reply but bowed my head in thanks for the wine and passed on. Then I thought to go back but did not wish to cause her an embarras, as the ladies were pressed in, along her table. I went into the next room and cursed my dumbness, though I did not know what she would have wished me to say.

  I was standing there moping by the mantel, feeling most sorry for my plight, when a commotion arose and that same low stocky man whom I had seen bumping along on his horse down the Strand came into the room with his attendants.

  You, he said, pointing at me, I know you.

  Yes, sir, you do.

  You’re the fellow sold me the maps I beat the Dutch with.

  Yes, sir, I am. You are very good to remember.

  I don’t forget a face, and you looked like one of those Stuarts, that’s why I remember. Don’t shrink, man, it’s not a crime. He laughed (it was more like a grunt than a laugh) to see how discommoded were his courtiers to hear mention of that name which was on everyone’s lips in private, but never passed them in public. What are you doing now, hey?

  Through the kindness of Your Highness, I’m Under-Clerk to the Council.

  Are you now? Excellent, carry on the good work. We shall meet again, I trust. And he moved by.

  This fortunate encounter restored my spirits greatly but I was still in a fever of passion and uncertainty at the sight of Nan and wondered whether I dare steal back into the great chamber just to see her again.

  Just at that moment a small dull man who seemed familiar to me accosted me with an air of exasperation. Without troubling to greet me or inquire my name, he said:

  I’m Clarges. I’ve a message for you from my sister.

  Your sister?

  Her Highness, the General’s wife. She wishes to see you in an hour’s time when the General has gone to the City and the other ladies have left.

  Here?

  Yes, in her apartment which lies beyond this one. I must add that you are to be extremely careful. That is my advice, not hers. She is a stranger to discretion, I fear, but I would not advise you to presume too much.

  I have no such intention.

  I am glad to hear it. These are dicing times. One false throw could lose the whole game.

  It shall not come from me.

  Good. He looked at me with his cold dry eye. I did not expect him to become my friend.

  The interval was intolerable. The chamber seemed too hot to breathe in. I went out into King Street and paced up and down though there was a drizzle falling upon my head. W. Symons and S. Pepys passed by and mocked me for looking like a drowned magpie in my court finery (I wore my black surcoat with my new white justaucorps which was trimmed with silver lace, and my black Rhinegrave breeches edged with white ribbon, and a black beaver), but they were so impatient for wine that they did not stay to question me further.

  But at length the hour struck upon the great clock and I went back into the Prince’s lodging by the side-door that we clerks used as a short cut and came up into the apartments by a private stair.

  There was only a young Scottish maid in the antechamber who bobbed and said I was to go on. I stood stock still in the middle of the room beyond, for a strange dizzy fit had come upon me and I began to shiver because my clothes were soaked. The room was dark and cold and I had almost started to wish I had not come. Was the trial too great for me? Had I the stomach for the fight?

  But then the door opened and Nan looked round the edge of the door with a mocking smile on her face. Ah, she said, there you are. It’s cold out there, come by the fire. She took me by the hand and led me into the next chamber, which was warm and hung with fine tapestries and had a fire crackling in the grate. She stood a yard away from me and regarded me as though I were a statue.

  Why, you are wet to the skin. You look like . . . like a drowned magpie.

  So I’m told.

  You must take off your fine feathers. Here off with this coat, and she pulled me out of my coat and vest as a mother undresses a child that has splashed his clothes in a puddle. I stood there in my linen underdrawers and after she had put my clothes on a chair by the fire she put her arms round me.

  Now this is the Jem I remember. Come, sir, we have time to make up.

  And I had barely kissed her in return before she had led me over the great bed with its blue hangings and laid herself upon it and thrown up her skirts so that her middle parts were quite exposed and that dark forest lay open to me as it had so often before. All my irresolution melted like snow in the morning sun and we resumed where we had left off in Cromwell’s heyday. Jem, Jem, she cried with that nightingale gurgle which marked out her speech from all other women. You’ll kill me, Jem, she said. But in the end it was I who expired first so that she had to rouse me from my sleep and tell me to make haste and be off down the back-stair, for it was not certain that the General would spend the night in the City, although lodgings were prepared for him at the Three Tuns by Guildhall.

  Jem, how shall we manage?

  I thought we managed well enough.

  No, you silly boy, it must not be another seven years before we meet again.

  I have a chamber in the Cockpit.

  And you think the General’s lady could be seen skipping through Whitehall to your lodging? The General is a good man, but he has a quick temper and many spies.

  The General thinks well of me. He knew me just now, for I sold him charts before he went to sea.

  Did you so? And he was not drowned either.

  Nan, don’t mock me. I can come again by the back way as I did just now.

  No, you may not. Maids will not hold their tongue for ever. And what would a clerk to the Council be doing crawling up my lady’s stairs every other night?

  How did you know I was Clerk to the Council?

  You see, we have spies everywhere.

  Could I not be charged with some special business to you?

  The General would spy out soon enough what that special business was. His eye is sharper than he pretends.

  May I not at the least stay this night?

  No, you may not, for there is another thing you must know.

  She led me out the low door by her bed and down a dark passage, I buttoning myself the while. After a few paces she opened the door into a small side-chamber.

  There, is he not beautiful?

  I looked round the door and saw a child with dark tousled curls lying in a cot that was already too small for him and the moonlight upon his face.

  Is he not an angel, my Christopher?

  A cherub, madam, I said with all the politesse I could muster, for I had no great liking for children.

  That is why you may not stay the night, for at first light the little darling crawls into bed with me. He is my rosy-fingered dawn.

  Ah yes, I see.

  Take his little hand. He will not bite you.

  As I stretched out to fondle his chubby fist, a terrible thought struck me. The child might be as much as eight yea
rs old, in which case he might – but as though to answer my thought, Nan bent over the cot and cooed to her son like a pigeon in a hay loft:

  Is he not like his papa? Oh he is my little general, yes you are, my Kitty Kit.

  And in truth, I could discern even in sleep the lineaments of our nation’s saviour.

  How old is he?

  He is but six years old, though many take him for eight or nine, he is so forward.

  So he was born . . . ?

  In a place we shall not speak of.

  Ah, I said.

  It was a full year after the General and I were married, whatever the ill-natured may say. You may see our names in the book at St George’s, Southwark if you doubt my word.

  I would not doubt it for all the world.

  Yet I knew there were many who did doubt it and some who said that even if a true priest had married them he had no business to do so, for Mr Radford her first husband was not dead but had been dispatched to Tangier (or some said Devonshire) to be out of the way. But I was happy to believe every word she said and to observe the General’s brow and nose and lips reproduced in the sleeping child’s, all of which acquitted me of his paternity. Thus my first view of Kit inspired no apprehension in me. He seemed a mere attendant on our delights, a cupid who portended me no harm. If I had been able to peer into the future – but there, if we could foretell all that was to befall us, we would never stir out of doors. As we quitted the little chamber, the child turned over in his sleep and emitted a sturdy belch. That should have been an omen.

  The rain had ceased as I came out into the court and the stars were shining in the sky again and I was as happy as any man can be, for there is no greater happiness than to lose your treasure and find it again long after you have given up all hope of it. And even though my affairs were to roll downhill afterwards, I still do not forget that glorious instant when I stood at the top of the hill.

  It may seem curious but I did not worry about the difference in our situations or the danger that we might both stand in. I had such confidence in Nan, I could not imagine how she could fail me or undo herself. All the years in between now seemed like a sleepless night of fever and fret. Now true life began again. The destiny of the country lay in the General’s hand, and my destiny lay in the hand of the General’s lady.

  Then to take my leave of the clerks of the Council; and thence Doling and Llewelyn would have me go with them to Mount’s chamber, where we sat and talked and drank and then I went away.

  Diary of Samuel Pepys, 22 March, 1660

  IV

  The Barge

  AND SO I began to lead a doubled life. When my lady was out of town, I would carouse with my fellows that were turned out of office, viz. Will Symons and Peter Llewelyn and Mr Cooke (not the Mr Cooke that later built the new tennis court for the King) and Mr Chetwynd (his wife was sister to Will Symons). They would curse the name of Monck and look back to O.C.’s time when business was orderly and the fees were fat. And I and the two Leighs, Matthew and Thomas, that had survived the axe, would endeavour that we did not look too smug for that we had kept our posts. Thomas Leigh’s wife was sister to James Chetwynd, so our old club was also a family, but it was a family that was sundered in two halves between the Ins and the Outs.

  But when the General was away or detained on business, my other life would begin. I would walk past Nan’s chamber and look up at her window. Two lit tapers standing together were a sign that I should duck down the alley and come in by the back-stair. Then we would re-create that first reunion as though we had not met for seven more years, and our brief giddy embraces would resume.

  Yet this secret love had its inconveniences. Two times out of three that I walked past there was but a single taper in the window and I passed a solitary night, for I had sworn to remain faithful in gratitude for our reunion. Even when the two tapers were lit together, as often as not she would greet me at the head of the back-stairs and pray me to crouch there quietly until Christopher was asleep. And that was not the end of the brat, for after she beckoned me into her chamber she would insist that I hear all his exploits of the day, how he had fallen and cut his knee, what a merry sally he made at the butler’s expense, etc. Moreover, I was so tall and the back-stair was so low that I must bend double not to knock my head. Even so my dark hair (of which I confess I was somewhat vain) was covered with white dust.

  Sometimes you come to me like a drowned magpie, but tonight you are come like a camel from the Arabian sands.

  Nan, don’t mock.

  You’re in an ill-humour. Shall I put you in a better one if I tell you a secret?

  I care nothing for your silly secrets.

  Well then, I shan’t tell you.

  This teasing displeased me and I was too proud to inquire further about her secret which I thought would amount to little. Her thoughts were of jewels and gowns and brocades and hangings, for now she could buy for herself all the finery that had passed through her shop at the Three Spanish Gypsies, and much more besides came to her gratis, from supplicants for the General’s favour. And she enjoyed her greatness. She called it her revenge for the ladies who had slighted her when she was but a female mercer.

  Yet although she was severe with me, I could see that underneath she was on fire with joy. It was pardonable vanity that I should attribute her extremity of pleasure to my efforts, and I was the more flattered that when I was buttoned up she took my hand and said, Jem, I will come down the back-stair with you, for lovers should part at the door, should they not?

  This seemed to me a foolish whim but I was content to humour it, for she had humoured me royally, and I led her down the winding stair, both of us crouched, she being tall for a woman.

  Oh it’s so cold, I’m all a-shiver.

  I could see by the light of the taper she carried that her nose was quivering with mischief and her cheeks were flushed as a dogrose in July.

  At the foot of the stair there was a store-room which I had not entered, for it was locked. And now I saw her take a key from the chain she had at her waist and unlock the door.

  Look, Jem.

  I peered into the dark. At first my eyes could see nothing beyond the taper, but as she moved it to and fro, my sight became accustomed, and I could see great piles of household linen, sheets and smaller cases for the pillows and other napery reaching almost to the ceiling. There must have been enough linen to furnish all the royal palaces.

  I didn’t know this was your linen closet, I said in tones of utmost indifference.

  See, Jem, I bought it all wholesale, all of it . . . I must have saved the State five hundred pounds and more.

  Has not the State linen enough already?

  Oh you are a silly boy, she said and took me in her arms and began to unbutton the very buttons that I had just done up and started to fret me into life again there amid the linen. Yet this repetition of our first bout amid the bales of cloth in the Gypsies failed to stir my fancy, and with a sigh and a chuckle she put me away again, as one puts away a candle that will not light.

  I was as tired as a dog after the chase, and it being yet early I dropped in upon Marsh’s rooms in Whitehall, for I was famished and yearned for a beef pasty and some ale. There was no company to be had there, and I ate my victuals quickly and went off home to bed. But as I was putting on my nightshirt, there was a loud knocking at the door, and I opened it to see Thos Doling and Llewelyn who were both fully foxed and behind them in his high beaver which made him look like a mole was S. Pepys.

  Sam is away tomorrow and we have brought him here so that you may have the honour to bid him farewell. Llewelyn spoke as slowly as a tortoise and he shook his head while he spoke, which in vino he did like some paralytique.

  Well then farewell, Sam, I said curtly.

  No, no, you must drink his health for he is going away. We must all drink his health.

  It’s very late.

  It’s never too late to bid farewell to a true friend who is taking ship.

  T
aking ship? For where?

  Why, for Holland, of course. Where have you been, Jem?

  That I was not at liberty to tell and had no mind to. My head ached and I was weary of their presence, especially of Mr Pepys who stood between them grinning like a monkey.

  Very well, if you will, come in. I have some canary in my closet, if it was not all drunk upon your last visit.

  No, but you don’t understand, Jeremiah. Mr Pepys is bound for the Hague.

  Very well, for the Hague, what of it?

  At which little Llewelyn came up close to me and spoke almost into my face so that I could not breathe for the foulness of his breath, and uttered these words which made the hairs on my neck stand up like a porcupine’s quills:

  To fetch the King.

  And I was the last man in London to know it, I whose lover was wife to London’s ruler. Never was there such a humiliating ignorance. But I instantly resolved to seem unmoved.

  Of course I know that, I said, but what are his precise orders? What are the commissions from Parliament and – and from the General?

  I’d have thought you of all men would be privy to those matters, Mr Pepys said. For my own part I may disclose nothing beyond the fact that I am leaving tomorrow, with my lord and kinsman.

  For one dreadful moment, I thought that Sam Pepys knew my secret, but then he continued in his sleek fashion:

  For I recall, do I not, that you once sold charts to the General when he was our Admiral and that you owe your place to his favour?

  I nodded and was glad that the room had only one candle lit, and that at the far corner (for their visit had surprised me), and thus they could not see how hot were my cheeks.

  Observe, Jem, Mr Pepys’s sword, isn’t it fine? And his sea-boots, aren’t they sturdy?

  I had them of Mr Wotton in Fleet Street, and at a fair price. And the sword from Mr Brigden, a merry fellow. I took them both round the corner to the Pope’s Head where we met Gilbert Holland the cutler and Mr Shelston who I believe is a grocer, and they paid all. I haven’t laid out a penny on wine all day.