Treason's Daughter

by Antonia Senior

They lie in silence for a while.

  Lost in a vast loneliness, Ned reaches across to Lucy’s body. Is this all there is, he asks his God, before he sinks, relieved, into lust and the quelling of thought. Is this it? Strangers grunting in the dark?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  18 July 1645

  TWO DAYS LATER, ANNE AND HEN STAND WATCHING THE sorry march of the royalist prisoners. They stumble along under their captured colours, which hang limply in the still air – a strange parody of a martial procession. Their mottos smack of hubris here. God was not watching; the king was not victorious, nor was his strength proclaimed.

  Hen scans the faces as they march past, not daring to turn away in case she misses him. Anne is beside her, restless eyes searching. Hattie is there too, solid and unmoving amid the crowd, her face fierce and arms crossed.

  Hen tries to shout Sam’s name at the passing boys, but her voice is lost amid the jeering. All the city’s hunger and fear rains down on the prisoners in a torrent of bile and fury. They attract that contempt Londoners have for the outsider: the poor fools who know grass, not brick; who are dazzled by the scale of the place, its mighty squalor and its heaven-provoking grandeur.

  Some prisoners shout back, but most fix their eyes on the shoulders of the man in front, marching, marching, as they marched away from their homes and into the death pit at Naseby.

  She has dreamed that she will find him, and filled the waking gap between dreams with her prayers. Keep him safe, oh Lord. Keep him safe. Warm and fed, and happy. She thinks of the map in the bookshop and imagines all the other desperate midnight prayers across the country – all variations on the same theme, wending their way to heaven. Imagine the cacophony of pleading the Almighty must hear. Perhaps He can’t distinguish one name from the other in all the noise.

  The queen – does she pray for the king? Does He hear papist prayers? Does He look down on us as we once looked through the microscope at ants? Does He laugh at our antics and ceaseless scurrying?

  Such thoughts turn her nights into a looping, wakeful riddle. But her dreams are worth nothing. He is not here. She stares until her eyes hurt, lost in pity for these ragged losers, their unhappiness radiating from their slouched, marching bodies. Hattie disappeared at the start of the march, muttering darkly. Now she returns with a basket of bread, and she and Hen press it into passing hands.

  ‘Leave off, you peageese! Leave off!’ a jowly man with a drinker’s purple nose shouts at them. ‘Don’t feed the whoresons. Have you no shame?’

  There is muttered agreement from the crowd around him, and Hen feels the fluttering of fear in her belly. She continues to pass out the bread. Anne steps in beside her and helps now, goaded by the jowly man.

  ‘Deaf as well as ninny-headed?’ Another man has joined the first, short and bristling with his fury.

  Hattie rounds on them, furious. ‘Is the manikin your pet, you goddamned looby? Did you get a knock in the cradle? Were these boys not forced to fight as well as ours? Were they not levied out of their hearths and hurled at a stupid war like so many hares to the mastiff? Are our boys not somewhere, hungry like them, tired like them, in want of a rag of kindness?’

  ‘Hold thy tongue, trull,’ shouts the first man. ‘I know you – the butcher’s wife. They’re traitors and scum.’

  ‘Aye, and I know you, Jeremiah Weeks. A fumbler, ladies and gentlemen!’ She turns to the crowd that has gathered around the commotion. ‘Whirligigs the size of oranges, I’m told, but a prick the size of my finger.’ She waggles her little finger at the man’s face, to laughter from the crowd, and then lets it droop. ‘Aye, a fumbler. Has to pay double for the extra time he needs, and to give his hackney-whores time to stop laughing.’

  Anne is laughing loudly beside Hen, who watches the man begin to bluster. But he’s lost the crowd and he knows it, and he scuttles away, yelling over his shoulder.

  ‘Wouldn’t pay a ha’penny to strap you, quean.’

  ‘I’d starve first, fumbler.’

  She turns back to the girls, and starts at the sight of them as if she forgot they were there. ‘Sorry for my language, Hen, Anne. He made me that angry. I’m all in a tweak.’

  ‘Hattie,’ says Anne, ‘I think I love you.’

  Flushed, Hattie smiles. She is still a bit flustered by her lodger, and this new arrival. They are well spoken, well educated, these girls. In other times she would have bobbed to them, and Lucy is clearly indignant that she does not. But with not a rag to their name, and dependent on her intermittent charity, the relationship between them all is odd. Arsey-versey.

  Hen puts her arm through Hattie’s spare arm. ‘You were wonderful, Hattie. As if it’s these boys’ fault.’

  ‘The fault lies with the slippery sod who calls himself king, Hen. Beg pardon, Mrs Wells.’

  Anne shrugs. She wears Hen’s mother’s wedding ring; a fake, dead Captain Wells conjured in case the potion Hattie brewed failed. There’s no bleeding yet. And no mileage in the lie either. Lucy must have talked, despite Hen’s urgent pleas. Anne is condemned in the parish already as a grass widow.

  They pass the minister’s wife, Mrs Pike, who greets them but pointedly ignores Anne. She bustles past, to a real or imagined urgent meeting.

  Hattie, after a pause, says in a voice weighed down by acute embarrassment: ‘Mrs Wells, I must advise you against coming to the parish church in the morning. I’ve been warned they mean to refuse you the communion.’

  Hen gasps, but Anne carries on walking.

  ‘There’s been tongues off like mill clappers, Mrs Wells, and, well, there we are. When the world turns upside down, some women hold on to their morality all the tighter. As if a stricter grip can flip the world back to where it was.’

  ‘Oh Anne,’ says Hen.

  ‘Oh, never mind. I shall have to turn independent. It’s like Hattie says: the world’s turned upside down, and if the Presbyterians won’t have me, there’s a sect that will. What shall it be, Hen? Baptist? Particular Baptist? Quaker? Socinian? Latitudinarian?’

  Hen smiles, but she can’t quite bring herself to laugh. Surely some things are beyond even the reach of Anne’s wit?

  Hattie, however, is grinning widely. She adds in a voice copying Anne’s singsong inflection: ‘Arminian? Anti-Trinitarian? Antinomianism? Adamite?’

  Anne comes back: ‘Brownist? Traskite Sabbatarian?’

  Hattie is silent, thinking. ‘You’ve trumped me, Mrs Wells.’ They turn into Newgate Street. ‘I’ve got one!’ she shouts, actually skipping in her excitement. ‘Grindletonianism.’

  ‘You made that up,’ Hen protests.

  ‘I did not. There’s a couple walked here from the north after the king’s men burned their farm. He preaches down behind the Three Tuns. Garnered quite a crowd.’

  ‘What do they believe?’

  ‘Lord,’ says Hattie, ‘you lose track. I’m all a jingle-brains when I start thinking about it. They are against the established Church and the sacrament, like most the independents. They think the Lord’s spirit and the scriptures can bring man to a state of perfection.’

  ‘Antinomian then,’ says Hen.

  ‘Is it? Lord.’

  They turn into Hattie’s closed shop and head to the back, where a broth bubbles on a fire and Jenny, Hattie’s maid, is sweeping. Hattie ladles bowlfuls out for the girls, who slurp hungrily at it.

  ‘Anyway, Anne,’ says Hen, ‘you can’t just choose your faith like that.’

  ‘No? What must I do then?’

  ‘You must pray and reflect, and listen to God’s guidance.’

  ‘But what if I can’t hear Him? Can’t I just choose the sect most likely to promise me entry to heaven despite my Great Sin?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Why not?’

  Hen is foxed. She searches for her arguments. Hattie breaks in.

  ‘Did you see the news-sheet about the letter from Cromwell purged by the MPs? The letter before they censored it called for religious liberty for soldiers. If for soldi
ers, why not us? That’s what Mary Overton says. You know Mary, Hen? Her husband’s the firebrand who acted before they banned it.’

  Hen nods. She’s seen the Overtons, and heard the neighbourhood mutterings about them.

  ‘Ned thinks Cromwell is a great man,’ says Hen. ‘He says the army is awash with independent thinking, and the Presbyterians will never be able to contain the outpourings of faith.’

  ‘Well, Hen,’ says Anne, ‘you are the clever one. Just say you could choose. Where would your clever-puss head direct you?’

  ‘If head alone could choose, I would be a Baptist.’

  ‘Arminian or Particular?’

  ‘Arminian, though Ned would disown me for it. Salvation through good works, no predetermined choice of elect and non-elect. But I cannot choose the workings of salvation. Our God has already chosen how we are saved.’

  ‘And how do we know what He has chosen?’ says Hattie.

  ‘My head hurts,’ says Anne. ‘Too much doctrinal tattling does that.’

  She wanders out of the room towards the stairs, doubtless for a lie-down. Hattie says that women with child need more sleep than well women, but Hen is beginning to suspect that Anne’s endless sleeping is an excuse to be looked after. Another mouth for Hen to feed, another body to keep warm.

  In her absence, Hattie says: ‘I am sorry you didn’t find your brother, Henrietta.’

  ‘I know. But Ned said he had checked the prisoners, so I did not expect it.’

  ‘Hoped, though?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hattie pours out some more broth, brushing aside Hen’s thanks.

  ‘Did I tell you, Hen, about walking with the peace protestors back at the start of all this? We got up a petition, the women of these neighbouring parishes, and we marched to Parliament. Made it all humble. We’re only poor women, blah-di-blah, and you so wise. That’s the rub with men, dear. You have to grease ’em up like a pig on a spit. Then ask.

  ‘They paid us no heed, of course. Set on breaking out their sabres, the lob-cocks. So the world has turned, and we’ve all this freedom to think what we like and talk how we like. Women standing on tubs, preaching away, the rest of us making do and running things our way. But it’s only because half the whoresons are away fighting and the other half are looking the other way.’

  ‘I know what you mean, Hattie. But none of this upside is worth my father and Sam and Ned. One dead, one lost and one . . .’ She leaves the sentence unfinished.

  ‘True. I don’t mind if my soldier comes back or not. I lost him to drink before our honeymoon was done. It goes straight to his noddle, and he’s top-heavy from the soaking.’

  Hen looks at Hattie as she prods at the fire, at her deft hands and broad shoulders. She struggles to imagine her as anything other than this woman alone, running her shop and propping up the neighbourhood women with counsel and herb-skill. She probably struggles to imagine me as a pampered trade princess. Yet that was me too, she thinks. Perhaps we are like jelly: we can set in different moulds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  October 1645

  HEN WALKS HOME THROUGH THE CITY FROM ST PAUL’S churchyard on an autumn day so golden bright it makes her want to skip like a girl. Her cheeks and hands burn with the cold, but she bubbles with happiness. The low sun gilds the buildings, as if setting a halo on the city. God is good. God is good.

  In her pocket are her wages, and Mr Rowan has given her a half-day. Tucked under her arm is the book she has chosen to take home with her. She found it buried in the back stacks: The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania by Lady Mary Wroth. She has read the title page again and again. Lady Mary Wroth. A woman!

  Scribbled across the page is a note written in anger, with splattered ink and indentations like furious pinpricks: ‘Vile HERMAPHRODITE. Leave idle books alone: for wiser and worthier women have written NONE.’

  She thinks of the lines she snatched before tucking the book away in a hiding hole, to take home later. Not stealing, exactly. Just borrowing.

  Come darkest night, becoming sorrow best;

  Light, leave thy light, fit for a lightsome soul.

  The book promises misery, and love denied. What joy! She will read it to Anne. Poor fat, irritable Anne, with her raging heartburn and sleepless nights. Anne’s belly grows bigger, swelling and thumping with life, despite her best efforts. She has drunk potions that make her spew from both ends: ‘a thorough fart’, Hattie called it, which made Anne smile even as she dove headfirst to the pot. She has jumped off walls, and stood on her head. She begged Hattie to use the needle, but accepted her refusal. Too dangerous for the mother.

  Until now, at last, she has learned to accept the life inside her, even to anticipate with pleasure its violent kicks. Now coming to term, it batters at her belly from the inside, demanding its entry to the world.

  Lady Mary Wroth will take her mind off the coming event. Lord keep her safe.

  ‘Miss Challoner!’

  Hen stops, squinting into the sun.

  ‘Mr Chettle!’

  They both begin to talk at once. He looks well. His dark suit is well cut, and he looks healthy, handsome even. There is a pink flush to his cheeks, no doubt from the cold.

  ‘Very well, thank you,’ she stammers out to his enquiry as to how she is.

  ‘And your brothers – they are well?’

  ‘Ned is with the army, a captain now. Sam we heard of last at Naseby.’ All the happiness she has husbanded leaks away in an instant.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘Innocent questions in these times too often provoke pain. May I walk with you?’

  She thinks of her rooms above the butcher’s shop with a sudden rush of shame. She starts to make excuses and then thinks, the devil take my lies. I am where I am.

  ‘Yes, thank you. I am going home.’

  They turn and walk together. ‘And have you spent a pleasant morning, Miss Challoner?’

  ‘I have been at my work.’

  ‘Work!’ He stops and stares at her.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Chettle. Did I startle you? Yes, work. It helps to buy food, I find. Useful, too, for paying rent.’

  ‘Well, yes, I . . .’ He stops talking and they begin to walk again.

  ‘You know my father’s property was sequestered. And the committee for which you clerk is having a terrible time actually paying the men who fight its wars. Ned cannot keep me and his wife and our grandmother on thin air.’

  Chettle stammers something non-committal.

  Hen thinks of Anne, and starts to enjoy this. What a tale she will make of it when she gets home.

  ‘I’m working in a bookshop. There is only one other career open to women, but though I can take the risk of paper cuts, I prefer not to entice the Spanish pox. I rather like my nose.’

  ‘Miss Challoner!’

  ‘Dear Mr Chettle, I am sorry. Do you have any other notions of how I might earn money for my keep?’

  ‘Respectable women . . .’ he begins, but trails off.

  ‘ . . . are plump of purse. I, however, am not.’

  ‘I am sorry, Miss Challoner.’

  ‘Curious,’ she says. ‘I find I’m not sorry.’

  And now, she thinks, for the final scene.

  ‘Here we are,’ she says.

  ‘Here?’ He looks at the shop. Hattie sits on the front step, cheerfully plucking a chicken, pausing to wave at Hen. The chicken’s throat is cut, and its head swings back and forth on the flap of remaining skin. Its blood pools at Hattie’s feet, and there is a red smear on her face.

  Hen points to the upper levels, which hang precariously over the fetid street. The place looks tired, cheap and grimy.

  ‘There. Well, Mr Chettle, many thanks for escorting me. Goodbye.’

  It would be too much to sit with Hattie and pluck the chicken. A scene too far. She walks past Hattie towards the stairs at the back of the shop, leaving Chettle gawping like a befuddled guppy.

  Grandmother’s end comes with a whimper. The day before she was
raging. Demons danced in her brain, and hell beckoned her. Grandmother clutched at Hen’s hands, babbling her fear.

  ‘He’s coming for me. Coming. And he is dancing, and they are naked, his imps, child, and they want me. And they will burn my flesh; fry me and roast me and souse me. They’ll broil me and baste me with my own blood. Henrietta, they’re coming. Oh, they are coming.’

  Lucy and Anne leave off their bickering long enough to help. They bring warm water for Hen to bathe her; they take away her soiled sheets and put them in the pot, drawn together by the horror of the old woman’s descent into a hell she has long prophesied.

  To the girls it seems as if she is hanging on to a cliff edge by her fingernails, the fires below licking at her skirts. It is so real for her, her fear so vast and so palpable, that they can almost smell the smoke, and the crisping of flesh.

  They have pulled her out of her cave, but she is beyond caring. She lies, tiny and shrivelled, in the best bed. Her eyes are huge in her furrowed face. She closes them to sleep, at last, sometime around two in the morning, and Hen climbs in beside her. She puts her arm round the old lady’s concave waist and feels the shock of time. How strange to be the soother, not the soothed. How infinitely sad to coddle and hush her grandmother like a child.

  ‘Hush, my darling. All will be well. All will be well.’

  What lies we tell to the ones we love best, Hen thinks in that long, dark night.

  In the morning, Hattie is there, solid and wonderful. Her broad red face is shiny and beautiful to Hen, who has watched the pain and fear flit over her grandmother’s ruined face for too many hours.

  Behind her is Claire Baker, their neighbour and a cunning woman. She is older than Hattie, and grey-haired. Her face is curiously unlined. She nods towards Hen, crossing the room swiftly. She leans in to listen to the old lady’s breathing. Grandmother stirs a little and mumbles.

  ‘From life to death,’ says Claire softly. ‘She will be gone soon. Caught in His embrace. Come, child. No time to cry. She will be in His arms at last.’

  ‘She doesn’t think so,’ says Hen, sobbing. ‘She thinks the devil is waiting. She thinks she is damned.’