by Maria McCann
‘Mistress is gone to see Mistress Osgood.’ This Jane Osgood I had heard of more than once, a young wife with child and grown so huge it must be twins at least. The confinement being her first, she was horribly afraid.
‘Is she brought abed?’
Rebecca shrugged. ‘Mistress didn’t say, but she’s very near her time.’
‘And Mister Ferris—?’
‘Is here.’
I blinked.
‘Working the press,’ Becs explained. I had made an error in questioning her, for be the talk never so dull it gave her cause to stay. I therefore addressed myself to the pie and she at last tripped out of the room, casting a roguish eye backwards as she did so. There was a new boldness in her, and I sighed. 1646, thought I to myself, will be like the year before, a chaos. Chewing away in this humour, I let a morsel of the crust dig into my gum. My eyes watered and the fruit was sauced with blood.
‘Jacob!’ Ferris put his head round the door. I thought I saw pleasure in his looks. ‘How long have you been up?’
‘Not long.’
‘Will you come out when you’ve eaten? To Paul’s Cathedral?’
I nodded, flushing with happiness, and he sat down to wait with me. He need not have asked, for I counted it one of my best pastimes to walk in London with him. I sometimes ventured out alone, but although there was much to admire, such as the markets, the churches, the palaces and the quays, yet the crush of people in some parts, especially down by the river, unnerved me, and I was forever in fear of pickpurses. Then there were what they called ditches and kennels but which any countryman would have called by their true name, moving cesspits, for the water could scarce crawl along for filth. All the streets were wet with more than rain, as the jerries were emptied into them, and a terrible stench breathed from the sweating, greenish stones. Even after weeks in town I marvelled at the way the inhabitants contrived to step over black vegetables, rotting cats and bubbling crusts of shit, seeming neither to see nor to smell them. Despite my distaste, however, I never lost the chance of seeing any new thing, and if Ferris were able to show me a famous building or two I felt I was growing in knowledge and, if not a native, might one day make a citizen of the place.
Near though it was, I had not yet been inside Paul’s. The outing promised well, for Ferris seemed amused by my excitement and when in this mood he was often especially kind to me. I pushed aside the pie without finishing it.
It was as miserable a day as I have seen, dark and blustery. Most of the time we were shielded from the wind, for the houses were built on three or four storeys, each projecting further into the air than the one beneath it, so that in the end a mere crack of sky remained overhead for light. I thought our progress was more like digging a mine under the earth than walking on top of it. Despite the cold there were still plenty of folk about. Many men, like ourselves, seemed going to the area around Paul’s Churchyard, to the shops there, and some of these had a scholarly look, but others showed more boisterous, loud in their calls and whoops, running along fired by drink and folly. There were women, too: sutlers selling hot chestnuts and pasties from little stalls, others who hurried along, head down, who might perhaps be midwives, going to Mistress Osgood. Two of these stalked rapidly before us for the length of one street and their talk was borne back by the wind; I heard one say, ‘She cannot be married for she cannot lie dry in her bed,’ and the other reply, ‘What! Sixteen years and such a baby!’ ‘Aye,’ says the first, ‘And her mother says it is nothing but a trick…’
I heard no more of this poor wretch. From time to time a foul-smelling gust found its way through an alleyway or round a corner. I gaped to see a man ahead of us wearing four hats together, one atop the other, and somewhat perplexed as to how to keep them on.
‘Is he a lunatic?’ I asked.
Ferris laughed at me. ‘They are for sale.’
No sooner had we got free of this coney-warren than we were swallowed up in the scum of little shops around Paul’s, many of them pasted up against the walls of the place itself, so that its fabric looked to be completely smothered. I stopped and said to Ferris, ‘We had an engraving of this. It showed the whole. But where could the artist have stood?’
He considered. ‘I don’t know. There’s nowhere I know of where you can see it complete.’
Puzzled, we made our way towards the booksellers, Ferris saying that we were come to do business though he would gladly take me into Paul’s afterwards. He stepped into a kind of shack propped against the cathedral wall. Inside we found a young man of a sallow cast of countenance, whose hair was so black as to be near blue. He seemed hiding in the dark at the back, but stepped forward when he saw Ferris.
‘Welcome. I’ve not seen you this year,’ he said.
‘I’ve been in the wars,’ and my friend touched his cheek.
‘More welcome, then.’ They clapped each other on the shoulder. ‘There are some new things here which might please,’ he went on, ‘will you do me the honour…?’ He bent to pull out some material from a stack of papers at the back. Ferris went forward and started to browse through it, frowning from time to time. Other customers stood here and there, unfolding maps or reading plays with a finger on the page, quietly mouthing the words. One tall sanguine gentleman seemed much taken with his reading matter and I determined to know what that might be, but on my coming closer he shut up the volume with a look of no good will towards me and held it to his chest as if to say, Go off, impertinence, so I withdrew having seen nought but the name of the author, one Aretino: I thought this might be a Spanish name, and the writer perhaps a monk. Repulsed by the tall gentleman, I examined the contents of the shelf behind the counter, mostly sermons and political pamphlets, but without recognising any of the titles.
‘Liberty No Sin,’ I heard my friend say. ‘Please you to wrap it.’ There was a rustling as his purchase was stowed against the wind.
‘Will you come and dine with us as you used?’ Ferris asked.
I looked up. The young man hesitated. ‘I – I have wived since you left.’
Ferris shrugged. ‘No reason not to come.’
‘And my father died.’
‘I am heartily sorry to—’
‘He left me the shop. Here I stay, now.’
‘Not even a cup of wine between friends.’ Ferris smiled ruefully. He raised his hat to the man, who blushed. We went out into the darkening day. Outside he turned his back to the wind and carefully inserted the thin package between his shirt and coat, then swore. ‘I forgot to ask him about paper.’
‘We can go back.’
‘Too late,’ he said. ‘Too late altogether. Shall we go into Paul’s?’
I dithered. It was so cold that I most of all wanted to go home, but I might not get another chance to see the place with him.
‘We can come again,’ he said, seeing me hesitate. ‘Now, there’s something I want from the New Exchange.’
I lumbered unwillingly along by his side. When we got there, however, there was so much to be seen that I asked Ferris if I might wander at large. He at once agreed and I had the impression that he was glad to be rid of me awhile. Having seen all the jewels, stockings, pots of perfume and stacks of books, I came back to find him clutching a roll of paper as well as his precious Liberty No Sin.
‘What might that be?’ I asked.
‘A secret just now.’
We again burrowed into the maze of streets and alleys, their stones now slippery with drizzle. It was like the reign of Old Night: steps rang out long before the eye could discern any human form and I tensed each time a man passed us in the way, my heart labouring under all my accustomed fear of footpads. I thought how strange it was that my size availed me nothing against this dread. In the darkness I almost took a pratfall, having trodden in something both brittle and slimy the feel of which on my shoe made me shudder. I was loath to examine the mess and walked on dragging one foot a little.
At the end of the street shone a faint amber light and I heard th
e clink and hum of a tavern. A man stood in the doorway spitting and seemingly looking out for someone.
‘Eh, Christopher!’
‘Daniel, my lad!’ Ferris ran up to embrace him.
‘You’ll take some canary with us, f-friend?’ Daniel asked me over Ferris’s shoulder. He put me in mind of a carrot-haired owl, but his face, despite the gloss of drink upon it, was humane and spirited. As soon as Ferris released him he seized my hand and pumped it up and down.
‘This is Jacob Cullen,’ Ferris said. ‘And no, lad, it grieves me but we must go back. My aunt awaits us. But how have you been living?’
The man sighed. ‘I wasn’t meant for a stool-arsed Jack. The fencing school – now that was an occupation.’
‘Why don’t you—’ I stopped. Ferris and Daniel were both looking down. I followed their eyes and saw what I had not perceived earlier owing to the gloom: Daniel’s left leg was of wood.
‘I beg your pardon, sir. I hadn’t remarked—’
He clapped me on the arm. ‘And why should you!’
‘So, no more swords,’ Ferris said. ‘But can you handle a spade?’
‘Don’t know, I never did before.’ Daniel roared with laughter. I wondered how far gone he was in drink.
‘I propose to dig the commons and raise crops.’
‘Ah, we’re onto that, are we?’ Daniel clutched at my sleeve. ‘Are you another one?’
‘Another—?’
‘Another dreamer.’ He turned to Ferris. ‘Your man is Richard Parr. Mad as the man in the moon.’
‘He wants to start a colony?’
‘Not his own, perhaps; but he’d go along with yours. Able-bodied, but poor. Lodges at Twentyman’s.’
‘I know it’ Ferris’s look was gone inward. He roused himself to ask, ‘Will you come and eat with us, Dan?’
‘No, thank you kindly.’ The man’s eyes glistened. ‘Too f-far on this leg.’
‘Then shall we come one day and see the new babe?’
‘When you will.’ But he seemed now not to want us. I expressed likewise a wish to have his company at some future date and we left him. Passing up the street I heard some men within roaring out the ballad of the ‘Mercenary Soldier’.
I come not forth to do my country good,
I come to rob and take my fill of pleas-ure…
‘The rain’s stopped,’ Ferris said. It was thin comfort, for the streets were darker than ever and the air nipped my flushed cheeks. We walked on some yards without speaking, until I asked, ‘Will Dan stay there all night?’
‘They ought not to let him, if the landlord wants to keep his licence.’
‘I never thought of you having a toper for a friend,’ I said.
‘What, you don’t think I’ve ever been in a tavern, neither?’ He laughed, but stopped and went on more soberly, ‘Dan was no toper when first I knew him.’
These broken men, I thought, are everywhere. Who will gather them up and mend them?
Rebecca opened the door. ‘I took you for the Mistress,’ she cried on seeing us. ‘She won’t stay much longer, surely?’ She hurried back to the kitchen whence issued a strong smell of roast goose.
‘Mistress Osgood must be brought abed,’ said Ferris. He shuddered at the warmth as he unfastened his coat and laid the parcel from Paul’s Churchyard on the table. I stood before the fire, crushing my purple hands together and thanking God for the comfort of coal on such a bitter night.
Ferris picked at the parcel, hissing with annoyance. ‘My fingers are too cold.’
‘Mine also.’
‘We should get us dogskin gloves.’ At last he was able to peel back the outer wrapping. ‘There! A treasure revealed.’
Liberty No Sin looked a strange enough treasure, showing Adam and Eve but without their coats of leaves, standing to face the reader naked and unashamed on either side of a spade planted upright in the ground. The handle of this spade seemed to have taken life and spread into a goodly tree. Indeed no such tree was ever seen, unless it were that Papistical tree at Glastonbury that the cunning monks professed sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, for this spade-tree had fruit and flowers together on the branch. I knew at once what manner of reading I was in for, and groaned inwardly.
Ferris saw it. ‘Wormwood, eh?’
He could not hide his disappointment, and I was at once ashamed of myself and my stubbornness.
‘We’ll read it together, as soon as it please you to start,’ I said, and he brightened directly, and said we would get warm first. He took the other package, the scroll, and stored it carefully within the bookcase, locking it after.
‘So will you tell me what that is?’ I asked.
‘I have told you, a secret for now.’
He stuck his head out of the door and called downstairs for Rebecca, who came, poor girl, as promptly as she always did, and embarrassed me again, for she fairly ate me up with her eyes before she looked at Ferris. I remembered that I had left her special offering of pie unfinished, and blushed, and could then have kicked myself to think what interpretation she might put on my reddening cheeks, and so blushed worse.
‘Will you bring us some wine up?’ he asked her.
I said, ‘Ferris, I don’t want any.’
‘Well, I do.’
I coughed. ‘We – Daniel—’ trying to be discreet in front of the listening girl.
‘And some of that cheese we had yesterday, Becs.’ She curtsied and left the room.
‘Ferris, don’t.’
‘I’m not Dan. I’m me, and I’m cold, and I want warming through.’
I held my peace. Rebecca brought in the wine and two goblets. She poured one; I straightway bade her take the other away again: I would wait until we had the goose.
‘There’s bread and cheese coming,’ she said, misunderstanding me.
‘I’ll have some salep, if there be any,’ I went on. ‘Is there?’ She nodded and went out again.
‘Salep’s just as warming to drink as wine,’ I said.
‘If you say so,’ he answered. ‘Shall we have a look at Liberty No Sin?’
He lit a fair new candle and propped the pamphlet on the table, taking up his wine and sitting down to the paper as to a feast. Part of me wanted to laugh, but I pulled my chair up next to his and endeavoured to keep a respectful face. It had been easier to escape the wine than I had anticipated – I had been afraid he would urge me – and I felt calm, certain I would not shame myself in any way. Ferris read aloud, pausing from time to time:
‘Whereas we know that in the beginning He created them man and woman, that is to say that Adam was the grandsire and Eve the grandam of all mankind, none excepted, and that man and woman is to say, all men and all women, how comes it that since then are sprung up so many Kings, Lords and Squires that tread their fellows under foot and are loath to call them Brother?’
I looked through, not at, the pamphlet, and listened to his voice. He pronounced the words wonderingly, as if granted a vision of divine light and overpowered with its sweetness, even at times with a little catch in his throat, when, looking round, I would see a glitter in his eye that might be a tear. Zeb, I thought, had a softer way of speaking, more beguiling, but this halting, passionate way of Ferris’s made it impossible for a friend to break in upon him. I had heard him only once before with this ache in the voice, and that was when he had told me how he rescued Joanna out of her bondage and brought her safe home. But the time he told me that, he had not been drinking.
‘And so the earth was given to mankind that all might enjoy it, and though Eden may not be regained, yet by labour and by just dealing one with another we may build a happy and prosperous Israel. And to those lovers of kingly power that will say, You come to throw down all rank and degree, we answer without shame, being none other but your dispossessed younger brothers, Aye, we do, and know you not that you are our own flesh and blood, and are you not ashamed to lord it over us so long? And yet we do freely forgive you, if you will but lay down the we
alth you wrongfully hold, and join with—’
The door opened. ‘Here’s the cheese,’ said Rebecca. ‘And your salep, Sir, and extra nutmeg in it for the cold.’
We thanked her and she went out, again casting a longing look at me which made me fairly flinch. Ferris laid down the pamphlet and cut some bread and cheese for us both, for though I would not tipple, I could eat.
‘Well, what think you?’ he asked, sawing through the manchet.
‘It seems to me,’ I answered, hesitating, ‘that it is a curious thing to be reading such matter as this and have a woman serve us. The last time I read such things I was a servant myself, and now I have one, or rather,’ for I saw the chance of a jest against him, ‘you have one. Are we not lording it over her? I could fetch bread or make salep, could not you?’ I took a bite of cheese and waited.
Ferris frowned; he chewed slowly, turning the bread about over in his mouth and moistening it with wine. ‘I know not what to say,’ he confessed at last. ‘Do you think, Jacob, that the man who wrote this has servants also?’
We sat in silence, for although I had meant only to tease him, on reflection I found it a matter worthy of serious thought.
‘She is my aunt’s servant,’ he went on uncertainly. ‘Not mine.’
‘But we both of us give her orders.’
The salep was very good, steaming hot and full of spices. Becs was showing me how well she could look after a man. I drank it off and continued: ‘We have no wives, and she does many things for wages which our wives would do naturally for us were we married.’
Any man but Ferris would have cracked a jest here, but instead he demanded of me, ‘Does that not make a wife a species of servant?’
‘No more than a husband, who also labours without pay for the household.’
‘But this means unmarried men and women will all have servants – no, hold, Jacob, we are out of our way. Married persons also have servants, which shows it is not a question of being married, but of wealth.’