by Maria McCann
Ferris glared up into my eyes as he rejoined me. I had seen that look before, when he dared me to break him of having friends, and the questions died on my tongue. We continued in silence until we were almost at London Wall, when I halted and put out my hand so that he stopped also. Both of us were hot and breathing fast.
‘I know not what to think,’ I said. ‘Who—?’
‘Mister Cooper.’ He spat again, on the ground this time, and slowly walked on. I followed, beginning to understand the speed with which the elder had taken to his heels upon seeing us.
‘You go for him whenever you meet?’
He said nothing but the set of his shoulders told me I had guessed right.
‘He is old, Ferris. Death will level him soon. Why should—’
‘It pleases me,’ he said stonily.
‘But how did you marry his daughter if—’
‘Not then, you fool! Then I had to be meek, so I could get her away.’
I remembered the bold stare of his portrait. Perhaps Aunt had painted him not as he was, but as he longed to be.
‘Her death freed me from that,’ he added.
‘Should you not try to practise forgiveness? For your own sake,’ I added hastily, for his eyes sharpened as if I were Cooper himself.
Ferris snorted. ‘You weary me, Jacob, and you are the last man on earth who should preach forgiveness. When did you ever stop at spitting!’
I was afraid to go on. Yet when we got back to Cheapside, he squeezed my hand and entered the house without even a scowl at the windows opposite, his humour seemingly purged. Aunt, who was cutting up some cabbages within, remarked on our glowing cheeks and said our walk had surely been healthful. Ferris said it had been most enjoyable, and Jacob’s conversation as good as a sermon.
‘Farming’s like the army,’ I said. Ferris and I were sitting at the table, face to face in unalterable opposition. ‘Graft every day, the ground muddy except when it is hard, sweat, shit and injury.’ The idea of field labour filled me with dread, for besides knowing what suffering it brought, I was now enamoured of London.
‘Under a taskmaster, yes,’ Ferris said. ‘But there will be none such in the colony. We will be our own men.’
‘The earth’s your taskmaster,’ I retorted. ‘The cruellest.’
It was our constant quarrel. This friend of mine, so gently raised and so utterly ignorant, was wild to get away the following spring and dig the commons, an idea he had long debated even before his army days. In vain did I endeavour to impress upon him what had been ground into my bones while I was still a child: the stubbing up, burning, ploughing, harrowing, planting, hoeing and dunging; the war against crows, snails, blight and whatnot which brought such weariness that no bed could be too hard; and then the back-breaking Harvest when the workers went on until there was no more light. I told him how I had seen men drop to the stubble and sleep without food or covering. My breath was entirely thrown away, for Ferris saw only the means of a glorious triumph. Smiling, he assured me that he took good care to school himself. Did he not study his Gervase Markham and his other writers?
‘Let Markham persuade you if I cannot!’ I cried exasperated. ‘If there be any truth in the man, read only what he puts as to digging, setting aside the rest. It is slavery! I wager you anything that on that point your author chimes with me.’
Ferris said that a man of my size had surely endurance enough.
He had friends of a like mind, most of them as unskilled as himself and as full of these madcap notions. They would come and drink wine and scribble on little papers. To Jeremiah Andrews, a gardener wizened as one of his own apples, who like me had some conception of men’s daily fight with the land, I could listen without too great a trespass on my patience. But then there was that great fool Roger Rowly, a journeyman tailor whose own breeches were wearing out at the arse from a lifetime’s sitting. He deemed it no hardship to plough, scatter, build, harvest, do everything ourselves, and the women, for all I could tell, to give birth in the open fields.
One day he talked of digging turf.
That takes more strength than any of you reckon on,’ I said.
‘We can’t all be pikemen,’ Ferris put in, so that the others laughed.
Recalling how often my temper had shamed me, I calmed myself and went on, ‘Men can only endure such toil if they know nought else.’
‘We can learn to labour if we have to,’ insisted Rowly, who looked about strong enough to lift needle and thread.
‘Our people put us to better trades,’ I urged.
They were completely deaf to me, and for the rest of that afternoon I held my tongue.
Another time, when we were joined by Harry and Elizabeth Beste, I gained more support. These two had three small children, one still at suck. Like Ferris, they had read and been fired by writings that claimed men might work the common land, and so live free; unlike Ferris, they could see shadow as well as sun.
‘While we are building, the babes may fall ill,’ said Elizabeth. ‘They need warmth.’ Her husband nodded. Rowly was there also, and he raised his eyes to Heaven but to no avail, for these two were respected. Elizabeth was comely, with a skin so white the veins showed blue on her forehead, and thick hair like dull gold. She had a deep soft voice which soothed quarrels and gave hope, and her husband, who was a blacksmith, also spoke softly but was so big about the arms that not even I would willingly have fought him. Harry’s eyelids drooped, giving him a lazy look, but he was more wide awake than most.
Now Rowly was talking of strolling women and their children, the living proof (he said) that babes could lie out in the cold provided only they kept close to the mother. I said that grown men had found it hard enough in the army and challenged Ferris to deny this, which he could not.
‘It blights the little ones,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Vagabond women have thin and ugly children.’
‘I hope—’ I said, and broke off. The rest stared at me.
‘Go on, where are you now?’ asked Ferris.
I saw Caro trudging forward, over mud, through snow. By now, if my seed had rooted in her, she would be heavy with child. ‘I consider that a woman – a woman without shelter—’ I stopped, for to my surprise and horror my voice was thickening. There was silence. Ferris seemed eating me up with his eyes.
‘Pray excuse me.’ I walked out and up to my chamber, tears already slipping onto the boards as I climbed the stairs.
Like Ferris, I had a ghost-wife. Our talk, so like the meetings at Beaurepair, had called this ghost to table with us, and the mention of vagabond women had finally given her flesh. During those weeks of lying in the rain I had more than once wondered if Caro lay cold and wet likewise, and each time I had hardened my heart. Now was the reckoning. I wept with the abandon of one who can make no restitution, and after sprawled on the mattress watching the sky grow dark.
At last I heard their farewell calls and laughs far below. He came upstairs at once and tapped at the door.
‘Come in.’
Ferris entered with a candlestick which he placed on the mantelpiece before seating himself on the edge of my bed. ‘So. Who is she?’
‘You know.’
‘Do you fear she is dead, Jacob?’ Ferris took my hand between his; I let it lie in his grasp.
My voice sounded cold as I answered, ‘She was half naked, travelling the roads.’
‘And you must not be found,’ he squeezed my fingers, ‘else you would write and enquire?’
‘We are wanted for theft.’ As soon as the words were out I remembered Fat Tommy’s big mouth. ‘And I killed a – a man. In self-defence. He went for me in the dark.’
Ferris’s eyes held mine. ‘It seems scarce justice to be hunted for that when the whole country’s at it.’
‘She’s most likely dead.’
‘I fear you are right.’ Sighing, he again pressed my hand. ‘Will I ever hear the whole of this tale?’
I shook my head.
‘Come down.’ He loosed m
y fingers and felt in his sleeve for a handkerchief, which he held out to me. ‘My aunt is back and it’s much warmer than up here.’
I blew my nose with an ugly farting sound. ‘What was decided after I left?’
‘O, the usual, to put by money until we could agree what to do with it.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘We need more people.’
‘More women,’ I suggested.
Ferris raised his eyebrows. ‘Aye, why not! Are you looking to remarry, Jacob?’
‘I meant, bring in men with wives. It’s not to be the army again, is it?’
‘But do you want to remarry?’
‘Not yet. And how can I?’
‘These are strange times,’ said Ferris. ‘There’ll be thousands disappeared, not known for dead. Folk must live.’
We went downstairs.
Ferris was not the only one musing over my right to marry. Sometime in early December I noticed that the maidservant, Rebecca, had a liking for my company. She was eager to bring in the breakfast to me, and would stand watching me eat, asking me was it good, and so forth. At these times she looked keenly into my face, her voice taking on a curve that flattened out entirely when she spoke to Ferris or his aunt. I was flattered and amused by this humble courtship but hoped for her sake she would soon cool, for though she was not an ill-looking girl, black hair and clear pale flesh, she stirred me not a whit. She could have come to my bed – well, perhaps not. At any rate, I was courteous with her, but never more, and she neither took offence nor grew bolder. My hair was growing back, and Aunt said I was handsome in a gypsy sort of way, and all this puffed up my vanity. Thus all of us went on peaceably enough until we came to the Eve of Our Lord’s birth.
THIRTEEN
Eve of Nativity
‘What, Jacob, up early again?’
Sitting alone, I shrugged and smiled as Aunt came in.
The windowpanes, entirely black, reflected my candle flame in their magician’s mirror. Aunt put down her candle next to mine, and the window caught that flame too, and doubled it, so that there were four. She sat down beside me in the kindness of their yellow glow.
A silence followed. We needed few words, being easy with one another. Looking at her, I thought she must have been comely once, with her nephew’s light hair and clear eyes, but time had creased and dried her blondeness into sand.
‘Rebecca shall bring some caudle.’ She knew I could not get enough of this broth, which I had never tasted before coming to town. Leaving the light for me, she went to tell the girl; I stayed, watching the flames jiggle and then draw themselves up into white-gold angels.
The room where I sat so idle and somewhat melancholy was comfortable, with that solid plainness which is commonly called ‘Dutch’ and breathing the cleanliness of that people also. Black and white tiles on the floor, dark cases full of godly books. I had searched in vain for those pamphlets of which Ferris had boasted.
Over the fire was a painting of the late Joseph Snapman, whose sober dress, like that of a minister, could not disguise his sharp, busy face. Aunt, as his widow, owned the house outright. Her sister Kate Tuke had married Mister Henry Ferris, but they both died of the plague when their boy was but two years old, so little Christopher came to live with the childless Sarah and Joseph. In their house he grew to manhood and took a wife; from their house he left for the wars.
Soon after Rebecca had brought me my broth I heard him banging down the stairs. By that time, I had grasped that whereas I was either asleep or awake, Ferris passed some time in twilight before and after sleep, a kind of living ghost, and it was thus that I had seen him – eyes open, mind shut – that night with Nathan. He was clumsy in the mornings and had once fallen down the stairwell, crying out with the fright of it. Now he trod heavily and scuffed the door open with his foot.
‘Good day, Rupert,’ he said, and shambled away.
I called, ‘Ferris? Will you not take anything?’
He came back, sheepish, saying, ‘Be so good as to ask Becs for a bit of bread,’ before disappearing again.
‘Ferris! Come back!’
In the end I followed him downstairs. He was in the back room, shivering in his shirtsleeves.
‘Would you help me get this clear, Jacob?’
I saw a machine half buried in firewood, broken crates and soiled ends of cloth. These we pulled off, and I saw that it was a press. I had only seen them in pictures before. At once I felt my ignorance, for I could not even guess which part of it to hold.
Ferris noticed my look. ‘You’d like to learn?’
‘Very much.’ I walked around it trying to see how the different pieces went together. Ferris found a skin bag and inside it a clout which he stroked over the metal parts, sighing to find so many rust spots. The stink of pig grease filled the room.
‘It’s too damp,’ he remarked, ‘but there’s nowhere else. Look here,’ and he pulled up a greenish stack of paper. I took the mouldering mass in my hands and read, On the True Brotherhood of Men. As I opened it the top sheet of the pamphlet flipped away and went whirling to the floor. Inside I read an address to the Members of Parliament exhorting them to grant every poor man or woman a cottage, pig and cow and four acres of land. It was dated 1643, and signed A Friend to England’s Freedom.
Ferris laughed. ‘You didn’t believe me, eh? But come, I’m starving hungry,’ and he led me upstairs again.
Rebecca brought in some rolls for both of us and a jug of beer. I said, ‘Thank you,’ and tried not to look at her. Ferris chattered on like a natural, holding his roll in a napkin so as not to get pig’s grease on it.
‘Won’t you wash your hands?’ I hinted.
‘O it’s not worth it, I’ll be back there directly – we can get sowing by the spring, if there be enough of us, that means starting now and selling them from the house, but wait, there’s a bookseller at Paul’s takes pamphlets—’
He dropped crumbs on the table, picked them up with the point of his tongue. Rebecca stared at him and he began to snort with laughter, spraying the bread out again. ‘You’ll not tell Aunt, will you Becs? What a pig I was? Jacob’s no pig, is he Becs?’
The girl flushed and walked out.
‘What ails her?’ cried Ferris.
‘What is become of your discernment?’ I asked hotly. I was embarrassed for the girl, and for myself.
‘What, you and Becs—!’ He was merry in disbelief, but then he saw my face and stopped. We stared at one another, and I thought there was displeasure in the look he gave me.
After this the rest of the day held something of an edge. I relished it notwithstanding, for it was new to me to celebrate Nativity and not Christmas, and to be a guest instead of waiting on others. I helped Aunt, was especially kind to Rebecca (though this might not be wisdom, still the girl’s blushes merited gentleness) and made small talk with neighbours who came to give the compliments of the season, viz. to gossip. I learnt that Mister Cooper was selling up, perhaps weary of dodging Ferris in the street. Not a single visitor arrived drunk, and I wondered if the Roches could have recognised the religious feast at all.
Ferris mostly avoided the company. He scrabbled about in the back room, coming out covered with grease. From time to time he would look in, bow and smile, but decline to shake hands on account of being ‘all over muck’. The visitors seemed a little offended, and indeed I think I would have been, in their place. They departed with much dignity, sighing out their wishes that the young master might live to be the man his uncle was.
‘They have never understood him,’ his aunt said. ‘Up and down! Up and down!’ she went on, as his feet shook the stairs.
Ferris was straightway back again, wiping his hands on a linen napkin. ‘The press is not too stiff—’
‘Christopher!’ His aunt snatched the cloth from him.
‘O, I’ll make good whatever I spoil. Let’s kiss and be friends,’ and he hugged her to him in a bear dance. Then, without a word to me, he was out of the door again.
‘Did you ever se
e such maggots!’ But she was laughing. ‘He hardly knows we’re here,’ she said. ‘He was just this way as a child, charging about…’
She was delighted to see him less melancholy, let the neighbours say what they would.
My own feelings were not so happy. There is a very particular way that a man looks upon another who has just disgusted him. He feels the eruption of hatred from within, and you may even see him place his hand on heart or belly as if to support the body against the scalding of the spirit. Yet at the same time no movement, paling or even breath of the other escapes notice, and the loathed object is seen vilely revealed as if on the Day of Judgement. I had shivered at Ferris’s expression when I tried to drive away his friends, for he had looked at me as if my whole life lay open to him and he found it an ugly spectacle. I had also received other kinds of looks: Caro’s promise of herself, Nat’s stupid gratitude, the crooked smile Ferris had worn when I gave him the Loyaute glass, even the dog’s gaze that Rebecca fixed on me while I was eating. None of these served as preparation for the way that Ferris left without seeing me. I was become nothing but the audience to his play, and had not felt so discounted since I jumped to the orders of Mervyn Roche.
Aunt looked over at me sitting by the fire and seated herself nearby. ‘It won’t last,’ she said. ‘He’ll weary himself.’
‘Why is he so – so—?’
‘O, because it’s Nativity tomorrow, I guess. It’s a cruel season for a man who’s lost his wife. He’s killing the hours.’
‘Will he really use the press?’
‘Why not? He knows how. Go down to him if you wish; I have Becs for company.’
I stayed where I was. If he asked me to help, I would gladly do so, but I would not lie ready to his hand. A tool can be used, a man must be asked.