The Flight of Sarah Battle

by Alix Nathan

  *

  In Paternoster Row Digham advises Joseph.

  ‘Lucy is a girl of some quality, not merely pretty.’

  ‘I know. I love her.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I do. I’ve told her.’

  ‘She loves you, I dare say.’

  Joseph doesn’t answer.

  ‘It’s luctiferous, Joseph.’

  ‘Luctiferous?’

  ‘You’ll only cause sorrow. You know how I love these old words on their death beds. It’s like the old methods. Watch out for the wooden press gasping its last breath, young man! Iron is coming. Even stone. They say stone won’t wear away like copper does.

  ‘You should return her to her parents. Perhaps they will give you a reward!’

  Joseph snorts.

  ‘Then you must marry her. And give up your Sal or Moll, your drinking and smoking club. Wood’s is it? Where is that?’

  ‘Wych Street.’

  ‘Cock and hen is it, or a free-and-easy club? Don’t think I haven’t known since you began. I was glad for you then, knew you’d learn about the world that way. Make a better artist. As a boy you were so bookish, Joseph, dawdling at bookstalls whenever I sent you out. Of course, I swallowed a few books in my youth. But you! You needed to see life. And you have. By God, you etch like an angel even if your subjects are the devil! But you must not damage Lucy.’

  Still no reply. Joseph tramps round the room bending his big head beneath the lines of pegged prints, a turkey in a coup.

  ‘Not that I think much to marriage without love on both sides.’ The old man sighs.

  ‘I told you, I love her.’

  Digham’s turn to snort. ‘You may today, but will you tomorrow?’

  ‘Her parents will hardly approve of me.’

  ‘Then let me intercede for you. You say her father’s deputy chaplain at the Tower. I’ll go, speak for you. I’ve always seen myself as a father to you, Joseph. I’ll go first. Smooth the way. Burnish the copper.’

  Joseph looks down and Digham clutches his upper arms, embraces his large ex-apprentice.

  ‘You are a father to me, William,’ the young man says, stooping to the old face. ‘I promise I shall get all those tedious plates done that I owe you, the trade cards for Casaltine and Matthews, Scattergood, the lottery tickets and all the rest. I’ll do them now in double quick time. And you can be a father to us both.’

  ‘I’ll certainly accept your promise of the plates which are well overdue, but this I shall do from love. And I’ve had another thought. Let me teach Lucy to hand-colour and earn a little money at home colouring prints. She can do mine, she can do yours. Even some for our rivals. I suspect she has the talent to limn accurately.

  ‘So, young man Young, I shall look forward to my visit to the Tower. I’ve always wanted to see the lions in the menagerie there.’

  *

  The Rev. Mr Henry Dale and Mrs Dale agree to Digham’s request that they meet Joseph Young. But the interview with Digham is awkward and they are disinclined to believe the whole of his story. An engraver, a printer of satires, why should they trust a man with such odd speech? Lucy ran away, bad enough, but this apprentice of his… The shame of it! And following so soon upon the disgrace of Matthew’s incomprehensible crime! Mrs Dale had taken to her bed for a month but finds herself just well enough to join her husband after his preliminary discussion with the wretched apprentice.

  The room is dark-panelled in the style of the previous century. There are brown portraits of earlier chaplains, a glass-doored bookcase, heavy chairs and tables. Mr Dale is a very small man made even smaller by his black clothes. His wife is helped into the room by a maidservant, tucked under a rug on the only comfortable piece of furniture. Joseph searches for Lucy beneath her mother’s puffy, weary skin – finds the symmetry, a mouth that had once been firm. Fair hair aged to the colour of dust. Mr Dale shows tall Joseph to a low chair and remains standing.

  ‘My dear, as we were informed he would, Mr Young has asked for Lucy’s hand in marriage,’ he says in a sharp rasp. ‘I have explained to him that we shall not settle a penny upon her in view of the circumstances. And in any case my own fortune would not stand it, would it, my dear.’ He looks at Mrs Dale with an old resentment.

  ‘He has assured me that he can earn enough to keep them in modest comfort as a married couple and that Mr Digham is correct in assessing his prospects highly.’

  Against her will Mrs Dale finds Joseph Young intriguing. He looks older than his twenty-one years – she was expecting a brutish boy – and has an attractive confidence which has yet to spill over into contempt. Before he left, Lucy washed and brushed him, advised him to wear his other coat, which she patched discreetly, a clean shirt, a striped waistcoat whose stains could not be seen. All of this, she told him, would help placate her respectable parents.

  ‘My future is certain, Mrs Dale.’ Joseph bows in her direction. ‘I can engrave and etch perfectly and I use stipple and aquatint, both of which are desired by those who buy prints nowadays.’ He looks up at the walls of the room with their archaic, carved panels and wainscoting, so valued by rioters seeking flammable material. There are no prints: they won’t know what he’s talking about. ‘In five years I shall be the most well-known engraver in London.’

  Mr Dale turns away from this distasteful boasting.

  ‘And, for a while at least, Lucy will learn the art of hand-colouring so that together we can create finished prints.’ Now it is Mrs Dale who turns away at the thought of this man and her daughter together.

  ‘Of course, were I able to buy my own printing press then we should be dependent upon no one. We could be successful much sooner. At present I must use Mr Digham’s press, you see. Even a small settlement could help me achieve the goal of purchasing my own.’

  ‘Mr Dale?’ says his wife, feeling a bubble of generosity begin to rise through habitual self-pity. Mr Dale ignores her query.

  ‘Mrs Dale and I agree to your marrying our daughter Lucy as long as you do so as soon as possible. A pity Marylebone Old Church is no more. There you could have done it immediately. We shall not attend the ceremony of course.’

  ‘Though I shouldn’t presume to speak for Lucy, yet I am sure she, too, would prefer that you didn’t attend,’ Joseph says with disgust at parental heartlessness. It is a mistake.

  ‘You will be good enough to inform us when it is done, Mr Young.’ He pulls on a bell-cord. ‘Bessy will show you out. Good day.’

  *

  St George’s Court

  Albion Place

  Britton Street

  14th November 1795

  My dearest Matthew,

  I wish I could know that you are well. I wish I could know that you will even receive this letter, but since I shall take it myself and try to persuade the porter to give it to you I am hopeful.

  You will see from the address that I am no longer at home. I ran away when they took you back to the school and shall certainly never return so long as you are not there.

  In any case I have found a friend who rescued me when I was fainting in the street – I had collapsed in a doorway. We are to be married! He has asked permission of Papa and Mama, which they have granted, though they want nothing to do with us. His name is Joseph Young and he is an engraver, so skilful and clever that I know he will become famous. And I have begun to learn how to be a limner, to colour his prints with watercolour paint so that we can sell them.

  I know you will like him. He thinks you are terribly brave. He belongs to the Corresponding Society but is not such a revolutionary as you.

  Oh Matthew, I hope and pray that they are not beating you any longer! Please write to me and tell me how you are.

  Your ever loving,

  Lucy

  *

  Joseph accompanies her to the school as she finds it hard to remember his directions, so anxious is she about her letter.

  It takes an hour, avoiding the main roads blocked with carriages and carts, cutting thro
ugh filthy, unpaved backstreets.

  ‘Joe!’ In Cross Street two men hail him through smog. ‘’Ow are you? Is it Joe, or is it a phantom?’

  ‘Where you bin?’ says the other. ‘Wood’s ain’t the same wivout you. Not seen you in fourteen days.’

  ‘Fourteen nights!’ the first man says and punches him on the arm in mock fight. They look Lucy up and down. She’s standing aside, shy, preoccupied, unused to working men on friendly terms. She feels their gaze all over her.

  ‘Oo’s the pretty wench, Joe? Friend o’ yours? Sister, mebbe?’

  ‘This is Lucy, Lucy Dale. Yes, she’s a friend.’

  He says nothing about marriage.

  ‘Glad to meet you Miss Dale. ’Ow d’you like our clever friend Joseph Young? Good at drawin’, ain’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  ‘Good at all sorts o’ things is our Joseph,’ they say and laugh raucously. ‘Sandman Joe!’ they shout and slap him on the back. One of them begins to sing:

  He star’d a while then turned his quid,

  Why blast you, Sall, I loves you!

  And for to prove what I have said,

  This night I’ll soundly f…

  ‘I’ve an urgent errand with Miss Dale,’ interrupts Joseph. Miss Dale? ‘We must hurry on.’

  ‘Urgent.’ They wink at each other. Oh well, off you goes. We’ll give your greetins to ve lads and lasses, shall us, Joe?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Tell ’em you’ve urgent business vese days?’

  ‘Tell them I’m busy, Jack. It’s the truth.’

  ‘Vey’ll be sorry to ’ear it. George Quinton and Barnabas’ll be sorry.’

  ‘And Charlotte. You know, ve one always talks about her sister shot and killed in ‘80.’

  ‘We miss you, don’t we, Hugh? And Fanny, she’ll be a lot sorry, eh?’

  ‘We must hurry on now.’ Joseph gives Lucy a small shove and walks her away. The men bawl out:

  His brawny hands, her bubbies prest,

  And roaring cried, white Sand O!

  7

  One evening in Battle’s a man asks after James. Sarah knows spies sit in every coffee house and inn. James warns her to be careful what she says, though she’s hardly garrulous.

  ‘Mrs Wintrige?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know where your husband was this afternoon?’

  ‘I have been here since six o’clock this morning.’ She heard a thrush sing from a roof ridge on the way. ‘He was surely at the Customs Office today as usual.’

  ‘He was expected at a meeting this afternoon. He never came.’

  She pays no attention. Nowadays they close before nine. Staying open late causes suspicion.

  Two weeks later he comes again. She recognises his red neckerchief, his lively push through the press of men around the bar.

  ‘Thomas Cranch, Mrs Wintrige. Enquiring about your husband again.’ He catches her eye. ‘I’m from the Society,’ he says quietly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He is ill, I hear. He sent us a letter today. He’s too ill to attend the meeting. Coughing blood. Can we be of help? Recommend a physician?’

  Leaning towards him to hear, their foreheads touch. She draws back hastily, sees surprise, pleasure hop across his face. He drinks porter. He is short, thickset, his black hair cropped, his movements energetic. Printer and bookseller, he tells her.

  ‘British Tree of Liberty. 98 Berwick Street, Soho.’

  Or so he says. She warms to him despite herself.

  James slips into bed about midnight, undershirt smelling of anxiety.

  Half-asleep she asks: ‘Are you unwell?’

  ‘No. Been at a meeting.’

  ‘Have you coughed up blood?’

  No. Why do you ask?’

  She turns over. Shifts away.

  Stares into the dark with indignation: he has another woman.

  She fails to sleep. He snores. Perhaps several women. Whores.

  She’s in Battle’s at six, her father grumbling, a waiter late. She sets about seeing that fires are laid and lit under the coffee cauldron and in the fireplace where men toast their backsides, pat the dog, read aloud the latest news, hold forth. Checks that floors are swept, meat is prepared, onions sliced, clean glasses and coffee dishes lined in ranks.

  Another woman. The words embed. She was told of a common law wife before their marriage whom he left. She finds relief in the pattern.

  Later she remembers a conversation she once overheard. She knew the men. Knew they were radicals who drank at the Red Lion but dropped into Battle’s occasionally to test the mood, check on the opposition. They were reluctantly tolerated by Sam because they came so rarely, always paid and were discreet. They’d not been seen for some time.

  ‘Wintrige,’ she’d heard.

  ‘Our old friend Wintrige,’ the man called Baldwyn said and laughed. They all laughed: Pyke, the oldest, Hadfield with the scars over his eye, down his cheek, Harley the young one. Slapped their thighs in merriment. Newton would have caught them all on a page, with their oddities, looking conspiratorial.

  ‘Is he honest?’ asked the one called Coke.

  ‘Well, he’s no Iago.’

  ‘I should hope not. But can you trust him?’

  ‘Can you trust a man that foolish, that silly? He’s taken minutes enough times. He’d play the buffoon, only he hasn’t the wit.’ They laughed again. Left as soon as the government spy Nodder appeared with his threadbare moustache.

  Foolish, silly? Buffoon? It isn’t the Wintrige she knows. The man to whom she’s married. But the day takes over; she can puzzle no more about it.

  He’s out when she returns. Dripping wax on his papers she rummages. What does she hope to find: a message in a woman’s hand, a diary of assignations? There are books and books of minutes: once he’d actually been president of his division, now he’s secretary. She reads the endless names, dates, subscriptions, sums of cash paid out to wives and children, which taverns for the next meeting; all in his tiny, neat, sloping letters. The life of the Corresponding Society about which he’d been so reticent is exposed: harassed by Blackheath Hundreds; justices terrified the landlord, moved to Angel, High Street; considered the best means of defending the several imprisoned Citizens; experienced a very narrow escape from the Bow Street Runners; adjourned at three o’clock in the morning; appointed as delegates Jas. Wintrige, Joseph Young.

  There are those starry, overwrought phrases: Infant Seed of Liberty; Hydra of Despotism; Strong Arm of Aristocracy; Yours with Civic Affection.

  And then a sealed letter addressed to R. Ford. Which goes the next day.

  That night they coincide, unusually.

  ‘Who is R. Ford?’

  ‘Ho, ho! Been spying on me, have you?’

  ‘I saw a letter, yes. Is it a man or a woman?’

  ‘A woman? Why should you think that? You, with your apple cheeks!’ He pinches them hard. ‘It’s for the Society. Our new strategy. We shall demand a meeting with the Duke of Portland. Don’t trouble yourself with thinking. You couldn’t understand.’

  He shouts his loud laugh, mirthless, and his eyes slide away into their shadows.

  She finds out nothing about the other woman. Yet their marriage is also nothing. Has almost always been nothing. Rare meetings. Pared-down questions; opaque answers from the edge of the mattress.

  *

  Winter sets hard. Yesterday’s horse-dung is frosted. House martins, swifts have long flown the city. Carrion crows stalk the streets.

  Tom Cranch comes often to Battle’s. Stands at the bar, drinks, waits to hear treasonous tones, she assumes. Yet men are cautious now; he can’t have much to report. His own speech is enthusiastic. She listens. He has a good disguise if he’s a government spy. He tells her about America.

  ‘There’s wilderness with bears and wolves, eagles and catamounts. But the wild men have made peace. Americans honour wise Indians, you know. They’ve even made a saint of one, St Tam
many.

  ‘Philadelphia is built to a rational scheme with straight roads and plenty of space to make the city healthy. In truth, it is a new-created world.’

  ‘All built on the backs of slaves. Deny it if you can, whoever you are.’ A bystander, listening in.

  ‘Thomas Cranch, printer, bookseller, Berwick Street. In fact, sir, Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1780.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it.’ The man stomps off.

  Tom Cranch is not fazed. He describes a future where property is unimportant, where everyone votes for members of parliament and no one starves. She has to remind herself that he’s a spy and is trying to trap her.

  She looks forward to his smile of pleasure, his latest tale of a reformed world. Knows what he says is true. Does he really not believe it himself? How can he speak like this yet actually think it’s treason?

  He charms her into talking to him, holding his head at an angle, bright-eyed, like a blackbird listening for a worm. Or, because of his red neckerchief, a robin. He brings her some verses by a poet he’s just met called William Blake:

  The Sun does arise

  And make happy the skies…

  ‘If you like it, I’ll lend you the book. The illumination is wonderful, unlike anything you’ve seen.’ She folds the paper, tucks it into the pocket of her dress.

  She tells him she was in the great crowd at St George’s Fields in June among the dandelions and flattened grass. That she’d never been to such a thing before; how she’ll never forget it. He was there, too, of course, he says. In fact he printed the tickets for the meeting. Yes, wasn’t it wonderful? There’ve been two huge gatherings of the Society since. He wrote and printed reports of those. Now there’s to be a final one, near the Jew’s Harp House, Marylebone, where city succumbs to open country. The great men will attend, the heroes, to speak against the Acts. Will she come?

  A sudden surge of men from the street breaks her imagined flight.

  ‘Three bottles of your best claret to begin!’ they order, roaring.

  ‘What a man you are, Byng! Bagged woodcock near St Martin’s and snipe at Five Fields. Will you cook them, Miss Battle, when they’ve hung enough?’