Rebels and traitors

by Lindsey Davis

  'I am glad that you say so.' Juliana laid a hand on the door handle. 'Indeed, sir, I hope you will not think me forward — but I shall insist upon it.'

  She felt extremely calm. She closed the door and turned the key in its lock. Gideon reached up and pushed a bolt home for her.

  His arm dropped and came straight around Juliana, gathering her to him. She had thought she might have to stand on tiptoe, but they fitted together naturally. Gideon kissed her, gently and deferentially, though for a long time. She kissed him, making no bones about it. These were as honest and sweet as any kisses Juliana ever gave.

  Soon, she took his hand to guide Gideon safely through the darkness of the haberdashery, where she knew her way around obstacles even without a candle. They came upstairs; she led him to her room. With children and a servant in the house, there was no place for turmoil, uncontrollable passion in stairwells or festoons of discarded clothes and cast-off shoes. That was not their way in any case. They had waited a long while for one another. They walked up through the house, closing doors and dousing lights almost as if it was their long-time nightly ritual. By one dim rushlight, they undressed as neatly as if they already had behind them a companionship of decades, each folding their clothes upon a chair. Only once naked, they did clasp one another, gazing together a little in wonder at their situation. Yet they were smiling and already bonded in trust and friendship, until suddenly they kissed again, this time harder and with greater urgency, no longer at all deferential though full of tenderness.

  So, without any more words spoken, they came gladly to bed.

  Chapter Seventy-Two — Shoe Lane: 1654

  For Gideon Jukes, life under the Protectorate truly began on the morning he woke in the arms of his lover, drugged with spent passion, as he smiled into her smiling eyes. They lay together in silence, braving the risk that the door would burst open and they would be discovered. They heard the sounds of young boys scrambling for breakfast, petulant shouts, thrown shoes, mild scolding from Catherine Keevil. Either Catherine knew what had happened and shielded the couple from disturbance, or in the scramble to get ready for school there was no time for the boys even to think of plaguing their mother. They clattered downstairs. Catherine took the boys to school; on her return she would open the shop and remain there.

  The house grew quiet. Juliana and Gideon were alone.

  With some trepidation Juliana surveyed the man she had taken to her bed. 'Well, that's done!' he quipped callously. 'Time to be up and off!'

  For a split second he deceived her.

  Juliana responded with a languid stretch, tucking her hair behind her ears. She fought back: 'Bolt then. Always so convenient for everyone… So, Captain Jukes, you are a loose seducer who lies with a woman once, then thinks his wager over, and moves on, never to be seen again? No, I do not believe it — you actor!'

  Gideon exploded into giggles. He kept laughing, lost in a helpless joke of his own, while Juliana gazed at him in amazement.

  When he settled, she asked, 'What was that about?'

  'A dotterel.'

  'A what?'

  'Oh I shall tell you one day, sweetheart… Now I must take you in hand. Milady Formal, let us dispense with this Captain Jukes of yours. I shall have to compose a book of etiquette and print it for you. It will go thus: When a Lady hath lain the whole night with a Gentleman, making love together until they can no longer move, it is expected that the said Lady shall call the said Gentleman by his name!'

  'Gideon.'

  'Better.'

  'Gideon…' Juliana rolled on her side — with a groan for he was right about movement being difficult. She kissed him on the forehead. 'Gideon…' She kissed him again, on the eyes, the nose, the chin, the lips, each time saying his name over. 'Gideon.'

  'All this is good!'

  'I believe I had called you so before.' She had indeed, while so desperate in passion that even the memory of it made her face colour up.

  'Oh so you did!' chortled Gideon, lasciviously reminding her. Seriousness overcame him, however. His voice dropped into tenderness. So much had been left unspoken last night that delicate negotiation seemed required. 'Now shall I take myself off? Must I?' They were entwined like ancient ropes of bindweed and Gideon made no move to unravel himself. 'Then if I leave you, may I come again?'

  'I hope you will.'

  'When shall I come? When, dear heart?'

  'Whenever you like,' Juliana answered, being completely honest. She had nothing to lose by it, she thought — and everything to gain. 'My house is yours,' she told Gideon then, more than ever full of gratitude to Mr Gadd that he had given her this gift, a house that was all hers, with no obligation to respect the feelings of anybody but herself. She could not have said it if this had ever been her family home with Lovell.

  Gideon, too, had his moment of absolute truth: 'If you give me this freedom, I shall never leave. I love you and long for your company'

  'Death and disaster wait around every corner,' Juliana said. 'Let us not waste any of our lives.'

  Gideon gave her a slow but cheeky London grin. 'I could court you,' he offered.

  'You have done that.'

  'Yes, it seems I have.'

  'If formalities are needed, I could seduce you!'

  'That too,' answered Gideon dryly, 'would appear to be superfluous.'

  So they began their lives together. Gideon returned to the print shop later that day — much later — and gravely informed Miles that the business of the embroidery book would necessitate additional work with the client.

  'How long?' asked Miles, a perfectly professional query. He was a romantic, and had already sensed the crackle of interest between his master and Mistress Juliana Lovell, yet from what he knew of Gideon he did not suppose anything had been done about it. Gideon's cheerful reply made his jaw drop.

  'About forty years, God willing.' Gideon paused. 'Fifty, if she wants an index!'

  Juliana did not wonder how she would explain this to her children or to Catherine. Catherine already had a personal debt to Gideon; she viewed him kindly. Tom and Val had been brought up with the kind of strict French discipline Juliana had known herself from her grandmother. Although she expected stressful moments, a lone mother did not beg for forgiveness that she had found new comfort for herself and a provider for her family. As soon as she knew for sure that she had lost her husband, Juliana would be expected to remarry. She was still not thirty. Supplying a stepfather was her social duty. Placing herself in the protection of another man was her proper role.

  Both boys resisted reconciling themselves, none the less. They were used to being kingpins in a fatherless home. They viewed Gideon Jukes as an interloper and were sullen for some time. But sooner than they wanted to, they found they took to him. He made no fuss. His steadiness and likeability wore them down. Tom and Val responded well to having a happy mother; they were reassured by their new feeling of security.

  Gideon's arrival expanded their horizons; they learned about printing, always had paper to write and draw on, got to know Miles — who owned a dog they liked; puppies were given to them and though they saw it as a bribe, they let themselves be suborned. They acquired relatives too. Once a week the family walked to Bread Street to dine with Anne and Lambert. Now Tom and Val not only had an aunt and uncle but childless ones, who loved children and generously spoiled them. They were always excited at going to the grocery shop, with its rich odours and endless supply of edible treats. Lambert took them to see the Trained Bands exercise at the Artillery Ground. Lambert and Gideon together arranged male expeditions, fishing and shooting, or watching ships on the river.

  To Gideon, the life they led now was what he had been fighting for. The regular pulse of work he enjoyed and a domestic life he loved hardly changed his character, yet settled him and rounded him. He came into contentment. He wished his parents could have seen him so happy. He wished Robert had known of it.

  Juliana was slower to accept her good fortune. Life had taught her dis
trust. For some time she felt she was playing at house in a game, that this new wonder would be taken away from her. Yet gradually she relaxed. This existence became normal. To be sure that her man would return home every evening stopped feeling like a luxury and seemed like a right. To lie safe in his arms through the night, every night, became reliable and normal. She was allowed to see his weaknesses, to wrangle with him, to consult him, to care for his welfare. As well as Gideon's constant devotion to her, she had the delight of his physical lovemaking.

  'I have ten years of extremely chaste life to make up — ' Gideon declared.

  'All tonight?'

  'After ten years, it needs practice.'

  'No, you remember how! — Enjoying it is a sin, you know.'

  'Then both of us will go to the Devil!' answered Gideon with a gleam of glee that seemed both unexpected and delightful in a radical Independent.

  To her joy, they read all the time. Juliana had not shared her love of books with anyone since her father's wits began to leave him. She and Gideon had every access to the printed word. Their shelves filled up with books. Rarely an evening passed without Gideon sitting with stockinged feet on the fender, reading aloud a news-sheet while Juliana plied some needlework. Separately and together they read books too.

  Juliana accepted just how full her contentment was now. Sometimes she paused in her sewing to watch Gideon rebuild the sunken fire. It was one of his charms that he would do this — unlike Orlando Lovell, who deemed it his place to sprawl at leisure and have women tend the hearth, however black the evening when they must go out of doors to the coalshed, however steep the stairs up which they had to carry hods or scuttles. Gideon, by contrast, not only noticed when the embers were low but routinely fetched new fuel, without being asked, and he would automatically wash the coaldust off his hands afterwards to avoid black fingermarks. He was unquestionably the product of a mother who wanted him fit to live with; Juliana wished she could have known Parthenope Jukes. She wished she had Parthenope to advise on Tom and Val.

  Of course, when he rinsed his hands Gideon always left the damp towel scrunched on a chair, but no man is perfect, despite the efforts of his mother. More often than not, he did remember not to leave the soap-ball sitting in a pool of water so it went slimy…

  Whenever he caught Juliana watching him, Gideon cocked his head on one side like a speculating robin. They would survey one another in silence sometimes, wearing slight smiles. It was companionable, undemanding, satisfied. He knew she was learning his habits, his ways of moving, all his thoughts. He looked for and found a new peacefulness in the gaze of her grey eyes. He had achieved that; he knew it. At such moments, Juliana would notice a sigh waft though him very faintly, not from trouble but in emotion that she knew he welcomed.

  So, in December 1654, since they both thought it certain they would never desert one another, nor would anything ever come between them, they married. At that period of the Interregnum, the legal form of marriage was civil; weddings were performed with the Independents' belief in minimal noise and ceremony. It suited them both. They presented their particulars to their local parish registrar. Banns could be called in church or the market-place; Gideon and Juliana opted for the market-place. Once their banns had been cried, the registrar gave them their certificate of publication. A justice of the peace accepted their certificate, their declarations that they were over twenty-one, and their honest explanation of the continuing absence and presumed death of Juliana's first husband. The JP had met such situations before and did not quibble. So, with Anne, Lambert, Catherine and Miles as their credible witnesses, they were married in due Commonwealth form: The man to be married, taking the woman to be married by the hand, shall plainly and distinctly pronounce these words:

  'I Gideon Jukes, do here in the presence of God, the searcher of all hearts, take thee Juliana Lovell for my wedded wife; and do also in the presence of God, and before these witnesses, promise to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband.'

  And then the woman, taking the man by the hand, shall plainly and distinctly pronounce these words:

  'I Juliana Lovell, do here in the presence of God, the searcher of all hearts, take thee Gideon Jukes for my wedded husband; and do also in the presence of God, and before these witnesses, promise to be unto thee a loving, faithful and obedient Wife.'

  Juliana dropped her eyes a little at 'obedient' — while Gideon smiled at it.

  Certain of themselves, they shared none of the qualms others had that the bare new marriage service lacked validity. Not for them fiddlers, white dresses, riotous games with bridesmaids and bridesmen, lewd fumbling with garters or terrible wedding jokes. Nor did they trouble to use a wedding ring, that diabolical circle for the devil to dance in. They would be bound by mutual loyalty. All the solemnity they needed had come to them with the admission of their love. To celebrate, they gave a dinner at home for a small circle of family and friends, then simply went on with the life together that by then they had firmly established.

  Chapter Seventy-Three — Hampshire and London: 1653

  Orlando Lovell came ashore in Hampshire, sometime in early summer 1653, alone. He landed in a dapper cloak and an ash-grey suit, passing himself off as someone who travelled for education or business. He wore a sword like a gentleman. His baggage was compact and neat. He brought no horse, because Parliament imposed heavy customs duties on anyone importing horses into England unless they had obtained prior exemption from duty because they were diplomats. If Lovell thought of himself as a diplomat, it was not the kind who made formal addresses to the Lord Protector.

  He bought a horse, finding it a good joke to cheat the man who sold it to him. Taking no trouble to hire a groom or other servant, he set about his personal business.

  At this time, Lovell had not long been back in Europe. Earlier that year, a month before Oliver Cromwell lost his temper and dismissed the Rump Parliament, a disheartened Prince Rupert had returned to France from the West Indies, with Lovell in his company. While Rupert was devastated by the loss of his brother, Lovell's regret was a veneer. As he saw it, he had had a lucky escape, and not just from the hurricane. For the past three years he had led an adventurous life, but he had endured his fill of sailing.

  Of course he had not died on the Defiance. That would have been the kind of bad planning Orlando Lovell deplored. During the storm, he was aboard one of their prize ships.

  There was a disadvantage in capturing a ship: the victor had to reduce his own establishment by placing officers and men aboard, to sail her back to a home port. Prince Rupert had no home port, but if they were sound enough his prizes were attached to his slowly increasing squadron.

  Lovell, a trusted officer, had sometimes been deployed elsewhere than on Maurice's flagship. Maurice, probably, had liked a break from him. Lovell, no admirer of commanders, had certainly liked a break from Maurice.

  His vessel somehow survived, rendezvoused with Prince Rupert and limped back to France. At St Malo the bedraggled Lovell abandoned the rat-infested, rotten hulk on which he had floated back. He was ready to ditch Rupert too. He made his own journey to the court of King Charles II. Not many exiled cavaliers remembered him, but building up his reputation from scratch was nothing new. Orlando Lovell always had the air of a man they ought to remember. He could even persuade people to apologise for their forgetfulness, when in truth they had never met him before.

  The young King's court and that of his widowed mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, moved between Paris and St Germain-en-Laye with their impoverished retinues. Lovell hated it. When, eventually, the French decided it was in their interests to begin making overtures to Cromwell and the English Commonwealth, the disgruntled Charles II moved to Holland. That had the advantage of placing him near the coast from which he would sail to invade his kingdom — if he ever did so. He had neither an army nor ships to transport it; there was no funding.

  Throughout his exile, Charles would keep up the trappings of monarchy, dining in state formally to
emphasise his privileged position — wasting money that-Lovell thought would be better spent on men and arms. Throughout this time, too, Charles was the focus of continual scheming which, though it never came to much in real terms, served to unsettle and preoccupy the Commonwealth.

  Lovell found that among the English Royalists, several groups were plotting. These exiles were by definition those who had done most tenacious service to the royal cause, men most virulently opposed to Parliament, men who would find it difficult or impossible to return home — men like Lovell himself, though he would not have acknowledged any likeness to most of them. Some had been denounced and banished. Whether in France, Germany or Holland, they had nothing else to do but drink, duel — and conspire.

  Lovell was a modest drinker, preferring to spend his cash on himself rather than splash out on carousing with a feckless group. Guarded, he kept to himself, so avoided fights. As one of Rupert's privateers, Lovell was rather isolated at court, especially after Rupert quarrelled with everyone and left for Germany. But scheming always attracted him. Ever grimly practical, he surveyed the field. Turncoats and double agents were everywhere. Orlando Lovell enjoyed feeling that no man near him could be trusted. It absolved him from letting any man trust him.

  What his Royalism still supplied was danger and a challenge. He had always been restless and risk-loving. So long as he had means to live, intriguing for the young King would suit Lovell. Like many men of shallow morals, he called himself a patriot. He had no romantic longings to restore the monarchy; he had fought for the Stuarts for more than a decade and knew their limitations. Still, he had made his choice, just before Edmund Treves first met him in Oxford. A proud man, he never went back on a decision. He would stay loyal. Always sure of his own worth, he thought this gave him nobility.