***
Jem could not resist going down to the tavern on the Ratcliffe Highway to see how the so-called ‘Poor Whores’ Petition’ had been received there. Over the last few weeks, before it came out, he had gone to Lukenor Lane more and more often, carrying his printed copy of the Bible, his tracts and his collecting box.
Strange, but the Bible and the tracts had never seemed to come out of his bag. He wanted to preach to the people he met, but found in the end that his wooden collecting box was far more use. He was always opening it to fish out a copper or a token to give to a man that needed it.
His friends in the tavern were celebrating.
‘Ah, my favourite parson! Come have a sup with us!’ boomed Mrs Cresswell, pulling out a stool for him. She jammed her pipe back between her lips and sucked appreciatively.
There was no room at the table, but the quieter lady he had seen before smiled towards him and beckoned, and he went to join her at her table.
‘We haven’t been introduced,’ he said. ‘Jem Wells. You were here when we were writing the petition, weren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m Lizzie. I run the school next door.’
‘A school? I’d no idea there was a school near here.’
‘It’s not a proper school. Just a room above a shop. But it’s where I teach the children their letters and the girls their manners.’
‘How many children?’
‘As many as I can cram through the doors – twenty, thirty maybe? Those that can have a few hours away from trying to scrape a living. Often they might only come once a week. It makes teaching hard. But better a few hours than none at all. They learn numbers and letters, that’s all. There’s no time or staff for more.’
Already an idea was forming in Jem’s head. Now here was an enterprise where he could help. ‘Can I see it?’
She laughed. ‘There’s nothing much to see. We have only a few slates, one sand tray for writing, and a few tracts for copying. If you want to, though, I’ll take you for a look.’
He stood and she dipped her head. ‘We’ll catch it before the light goes, if we’re quick,’ she said.
She led the way through an ironmonger’s shop, telling him to watch his head as there were pails and scuttles hanging from hooks above. He ducked past them and followed her up the stairs.
The room was bare except for a table strewn with slates and some papers with proverbs written out, which the children were copying. There were no benches such as he had when he was schooled, no globe or lectern for teaching from. He could not believe anyone could teach anything here.
‘You see?’ she said. She picked up one of the slates where the letters ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ had been copied out in rows. He could not help but notice her hand was puckered and red, as if it had been burned.
She saw him staring. ‘I can still use it. I’m lucky.’
‘Is that from the fire a year back?’
‘Yes. I used to have work in a printer’s shop – cleaning, and parcelling up orders. It burned down. I lost everything. My son died after the fire. The smoke … he wasn’t strong.’ She put down the slate, looked at her bad hand as if she had just remembered what it looked like.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I did not mean to pry.’ He was suddenly awkward, but Lizzie scrubbed her hand on her skirts as if that might erase the scars.
‘It’s all right. What’s that they say? That strife helps one endure? Mrs Cresswell took me in. Nobody else would help me. I had nowhere else to go. And I couldn’t work, I was too consumed with grief. I did not see how I could go on when I lost Thomas. I lived for that child.’
‘Have you no other family?’
She paused; a fleeting expression of pain was immediately masked. ‘No.’
‘It’s just that you seem …?’ he was too embarrassed to voice his thought, ‘too much of a lady to be here.’
She smiled, shook her head as if she understood. ‘Come, the light is waning. Let’s make our way down before it gets too dark.’ As they went down the stairs she paused and turned back to look over her shoulder at him. ‘Men like you may call them “whores”, but they’re good-hearted here, kinder than the folk where I come from. In their line of work there are often children, and their prospects are bleak. The school is my way of repaying them. They gave me hope and a reason to live when I had neither.’ They emerged onto the street. ‘Look at me, Mr Wells. I’m too old and plain to be much use in the bedchamber. A governess is the best I could ever have hoped for. So why not for many, instead of only a few?’
‘I can help,’ he said, suddenly, surprising himself. ‘I can raise some funds for your school, even teach, if you’ll let me.’
‘Are you not a working man?’
‘I’m a curate in training. But my parish burned down and is being joined to another. Besides, it seems like a sign. That I should do something.’
‘A sign?’ She looked amused. ‘A fine offer, Mr Wells, and I’d be a fool to refuse. When can you come?’
A clap on the shoulder made him jump.
‘Bart!’ he exclaimed.
His brother and his friends were a little the worse for ale already, and corralled Lizzie and Jem back through the tavern doors into the fug from the fire and the sharp, sweet smell of snuff and hops.
Some of the men had found themselves women. A blonde doxy sprawled in a sailor’s lap, her shift unlaced under her bodice, and too much mottled flesh showing. Jem averted his eyes. ‘Don’t you find it hard,’ he asked Lizzie, ‘living here?’
‘You mean, do I approve?’ Her eyes appraised him. ‘You should try it yourself. People judge too easily. Try living here, Mr Wells, with no servants, no work, and no means of finding any, then you’d understand. People are never what they seem on the outside.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘Why not? If you want to be a good parson, then a week of living here would give you more of an education than any university.’
He squirmed under her gaze. ‘I’ll think about it.’ He was wondering about Deb Willet, and how it would appear to her. It was one thing to visit the poor, but quite another to actually become one of them. But Deb was in the country, so perhaps he should. After all, a week could not hurt. And he was keen to do what he could for the school.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said, suddenly reckless. ‘Just tell me where to lodge, and I’ll do it!’
Her grey eyes glittered. ‘You’re a fine young man, Jem Wells. You won’t regret it.’
He was already regretting it. To agree to live with felons and whores. Whatever had possessed him?
Chapter Twenty-three
April
‘IT’S A DISASTER. Couldn’t you dissuade Mrs Pepys?’ Abigail had said, when Deb went to her house to tell her she was to go to the country. ‘The King will be displeased.’
‘There is little I can do,’ Deb said. ‘I suppose I could take some documents with me and copy for you while I’m away, but it would be most unwise. Elisabeth is already suspicious. She searches my room, and once she almost caught me copying, but—’
‘What?’
‘It’s all right. She saw nothing.’
‘Fool. You must be more careful.’ Abigail flounced back and forth, swishing her skirts. ‘Lives are at risk. The security of the country is at risk. You made an agreement.’
‘And I have honoured it,’ Deb said, clenching her fingers. ‘But if I am to remain employed by the Pepyses, I must surely behave as any good servant should.’
‘There are pressures on me from certain quarters. I need more from Mr Pepys’ diary.’
‘His diary seems rather dull and uneventful to me. Is Mr Pepys still under suspicion, then?’
‘The King is not a trusting man. He fears plotters everywhere, and who can blame him? Since the plot that killed his father, he has nothing but chronic distrust for everything and everyone. The treachery of the Fifth Monarchists has made him nervous, and now there are riots amongst his people and a trade embargo with the
Dutch. He fears another attack from any quarter, even from within his own ministers. No, he suspects everyone of underhand dealing, even my Lord B and your Mr Pepys. That is why he pays us – us and a whole network of others to act as his secret eyes and ears.’
This thought made Deb uncomfortable. Who else was in this secret network of spies? But she reasoned with herself that if it was work for the Crown, it was good work, even though she was making the King believe that Mr Pepys had done nothing wrong. Of course, she knew this to be false, and a sliver of unease remained as a tightening in her throat – that she was actually daring to hoodwink the King.
The last few weeks of frantic preparations for the excursion were done, with Elisabeth satisfied at last with how Deb had packed her valises. They were to travel with one of Mr Pepys’ cousins, Betty Turner, as well as Jane. Mrs Pepys did not trust the cook at old Mr Pepys’ house. In their absence, Mr Pepys would eat out, but a daily woman, Bridget, would come in to look to his needs.
On the day they left for the country, Mr Pepys caught her in the passage with the bags, trapped her against the wall and forced his kiss on her again. Quickly, she turned her head so his lips slithered over her cheek. She was ever ready with a nimble dodge and an excuse as far as he was concerned, but he was becoming wise to her tricks, and like a hound after a fox, she could feel him moving in for the kill.
‘Will you miss your big bear?’ he asked, but a door slam warned them of Elisabeth’s approach and, to Deb’s relief, he scuttled away.
Later, just before she got into the carriage, he pressed a whole ten shillings into her hand and enjoined her in all seriousness to ‘look after Elisabeth’.
In fact, the excursion to the country was a relief. Deb certainly did not miss Mr Pepys, nor did she miss the pressure of Abigail’s demands. Elisabeth and Jane were better company with no men to answer to; more open and at ease, and with the warmer weather and the casting off of cloaks and heavy woollen skirts, they all felt lighter. After the dust and soot of London, the country air was reviving.
The cousin, Betty Turner, seemed used to old Mr Pepys’ querulous demands, and it was clear she was fond of him, whereas Elizabeth found him a trial. Betty, who had bad knees, was happy to keep the old man company whilst Elisabeth explored the countryside with Deb and Jane. One day they took a blanket and sat on the grass amid the purpling bluebells, watching the birds drifting above them against the pale sky. Elisabeth told Deb of her childhood outside Paris, of how she rode in the forests, lived for a time in an Ursuline nunnery.
‘Ah, I was such a happy child,’ Elisabeth said. ‘Childhood is indeed a precious thing.’
‘Did you and Mr Pepys not wish for children?’ Jane asked, emboldened by Mrs Pepys’ confidences.
Elisabeth frowned at her impertinence, but then shook her head. ‘We wish, yes, but they do not come. And now I fear I am getting beyond it.’
‘You need to get Mr Pepys to wear cool Holland-linen drawers,’ Jane said, flapping her skirt up and down to make a breeze, ‘my auntie swears by it.’
‘Tush, Jane! I can’t see my Sam in those! He likes his plain wool.’
‘Well, have you tried making the bedhead lower than the foot?’ Jane asked.
‘To tell truth, we have tried everything,’ Elisabeth said, and she looked so woebegone that Deb could not help but lay a hand on her arm, and Jane too patted her mistress’s skirts in comfort.
Elisabeth pressed her lips together, and her eyes glistened. She turned her head away as though she might cry. ‘It’s me. He blames me. He says nothing, but I know he does.’
‘Perhaps this healthy country air might do the trick,’ Deb said.
Elisabeth took Deb’s hand and squeezed it, but Deb could tell by her expression that Elisabeth was not convinced. How sad to long for a child so much and be denied. Deb vowed she would try even harder to befriend her mistress.
Jane was sweet on Tom Edwards, the clerk, and talked about him every minute. They were hoping to be wed soon, and the thought of it inevitably brought Jem Wells to Deb’s mind again. The ache would not go away. She reprimanded herself for such feelings, but they came just the same. She had told Jem not to reply to her letters lest it upset Elisabeth, but it was harder than she had imagined to write to him and receive no reply. The thought of him made her suddenly anxious to move.
‘Come on, Jane,’ she said, jumping up. ‘I’ll race you to that tree.’
‘You won’t. You’ll win. My legs are too short for running.’
But Jane grudgingly stood, and Elisabeth called the marks. They set off and Deb did win after all, but Elisabeth clapped her hands with the fun of it. And in the following weeks something arose between the three of them that felt like friendship, though, of course, Deb and Jane had to mind not to overstep their place.
They were to travel onwards to the West Country to meet up with Mr Pepys, who wanted a tour of the druidic monuments and the old Roman city of Bath, so Deb asked if she might write to her Uncle Butt who was still in Bristol. Uncle Butt was her father’s cousin and a little intimidating. Since the break-up of the family and her mother’s disappearance, she had not set eyes on him or his family, and she was not sure how she would be received. Still, there was nothing to lose. Her uncle might know the facts of why her mother left them, might even know where she went, and she was determined to find out, however uncomfortable the truth might be.
Chapter Twenty-four
June
SO MUCH RATTLING ABROAD in a hot carriage; so many towns with their shops that were all the same; and Elizabeth would make the driver stop at them all. Deb was restless with nothing to occupy her mind. Surprisingly, she found that she missed the stimulation of the copying, but most of all her heart ached for Jem.
Mr Pepys came down to meet them in the West Country as Deb dreaded that he would; but to her relief Elisabeth watched him like a hawk. When they got to Bath, a letter was waiting for Deb from her Uncle Butt. Deb explained that Uncle Butt was a wealthy Bristol merchant trading sherry sack and sugar with the Indies.
Mr Pepys was enthusiastic about the idea of inspecting Deb’s family, even if they were only cousins, and she said she would try to arrange it. Though, if she remembered him rightly, Deb thought wryly, Uncle Butts would certainly give Mr Pepys a run for his money. She left the Pepyses at the lodging house and went in a hired hackney to her uncle’s house close to the Bristol quay. She was surprised to find when she got there that Aunt Lillibet was in bed and suffering from a complaint of the stomach.
‘Deborah! What a turn-up! My, how you’ve grown,’ Aunt Lillibet enthused, sitting up in her lace bed-jacket, her thin hair scraped back under a frilled cap. ‘Quite the young lady.’ She pulled Deb towards her and pressed an effusive kiss on both cheeks.
Deb leaned away; Aunt Lillibet smelled overpoweringly of sulphurous medicine. There were several bottles of greasy-looking elixir on the table next to the bed, and a bloodletting basin.
Aunt Lillibet patted the bed to indicate she should sit. ‘Uncle William will be back soon. He just had a few items of business to attend to. Have you heard from your father?’
‘He’s well.’ She masked her feelings about him. ‘My brothers write to me and tell me how he does. He’s not much of a writer himself, he’s far too busy. His wool exports from Ireland are less lucrative than they were, but I expect he’ll weather it as usual.’
‘You must miss them all.’
‘We keep in touch by post,’ she said, ‘but I haven’t seen either of my parents for more than a year. In fact I haven’t seen my mother for more than five years.’
‘You’ve heard nothing from her? Not in all this time?’
Deb shook her head. A lump seemed to have formed in her throat so she could not utter a word.
Aunt Lillibet reached out and placed a wrinkled hand over her fingers. ‘That’s shocking. I know it is none of my business, but, Lord knows, I thought they’d repair the rift somehow. But your father can be as stubborn as a mule. William says
he was always the same, even as a child. And if William were here I wouldn’t even be speaking of it.’
‘Has he talked with my father then?’
‘Yes, he sides with him, as men do. They can’t bear the idea that they’re not in control.’ Aunt Lillibet tapped her hand on the bedsheet. ‘I told him, a girl needs a mother’s hand, and he should let her see you once in a while. None of it is your fault, though it was a terrible business, your father turning your mother out like that. Though I have to say, he can hardly be blamed. But I heard your father tell William she’d gone to her brother in London. Did you not think to ask after her there?’
‘You mean Uncle Jack? But I thought he had gone to Holland. Was he in London then?’
‘Yes. Though I dare say he didn’t want anyone to know. Not since he was involved in that plot to keep New Amsterdam out of English hands. He was staying at The Grecian, the coffee house at Wapping.’
Deb let out a cry of recognition. The Grecian! So that was it. A coffee house. Why hadn’t she thought of something like that? She obviously hadn’t remembered it rightly; she’d thought they were talking about a person, not a place. And Uncle Jack – yes that would make sense. ‘Aunt Lillibet, why did my father send my mother away? What had happened to make him so angry? I don’t understand.’
‘Has nobody told you?’ Her aunt looked discomfited. ‘It’s not really my place … but I guess you’ve a right to know … from what I’ve gathered, she cuckolded your father. But he never speaks of it, and I’ve only heard whispers, not the whole story. William doesn’t like me to even mention your mother’s name. I think he’s frightened I might do the same to him – that infidelity’s catching somehow, like the plague. And there were rumours,’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘that the baby was … that he was not your father’s. But I don’t think I should betray his confidence … it’s really up to him—’
‘A baby?’Deb asked, grasping Aunt Lillibet’s hand. ‘You mean she’d had the baby before—’
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