by Maria McCann
We bent down to look closer. Warm-smelling hair brushed my face. The shirt fell away from his neck and I drew back a little.
‘Hard to say,’ he replied. ‘Wait a minute,’ and he took up and inked the pen I had been using, then bent again and turned the map over, writing on the back To Jacob Cullen, a New-Year’s gift from his friend Christopher Ferris, 1645-1646.
‘There,’ he said. ‘Though somewhat early.’
I flung my arms round him. ‘Many, many thanks! The best gift I ever had—’ And so it was, not only the gift itself but his having noted my interest in such things, and picked me one out with such care.
‘Something to remember me by,’ he said as I released him.
‘It needs no gift for that.’
Ferris came to sit next to me and watched, amused, as I traced out upon the map all the places I had visited.
‘I shall never tire of looking on it,’ I cried. He turned to me, smiling, a tiny movement in his eyes as if he were searching in my face, then rose abruptly.
‘I wonder what ails my aunt! Will you get Becs to fetch me something to eat, Jacob, while I go and see if she be well?’
I agreed to brave Becs, and going downstairs I asked her to bring up Ferris’s something.
‘You look more yourself now,’ she said.
‘Is prayer so unusual in this house that it’s counted an illness?’ I teased her.
‘Kneeling on the tiles is.’
I discovered she did not know why Aunt was so late that morning, but on going back to the fire I found Ferris full of intelligence.
‘A chill,’ he said. ‘Rheumy eyes and nose. She’d best keep her bed.’
‘Should we call in a doctor?’
‘She says no. I’ll take her some ginger after breakfast.’
We sat down at the table again in silence, side by side. I carefully rolled up my map and replaced the ribbon. ‘Ferris,’ I began.
‘Yes?’
‘I – something very strange happened to me this morning.’
‘Becs put her hand on your knee?’
‘This is no jest. Pray hear me out.’
He moved back to the chair opposite me.
‘This morning, when I came down and no one was here, I – I had a vision.’
Ferris’s eyes grew perplexed. ‘What, an angel? A ghost?’ There was suddenly a hunger in his voice and in his look. I knew what it meant, and was sorry to disappoint.
‘No. Nothing like that. But I saw the room – the world – felt it – translated.’
‘Translated!’ He frowned. ‘How?’
‘I can’t say!’ I was beginning to wish I had never started. ‘I was happy, and – methought I was with God. It was so strong, Ferris, like nothing I have known since I became a man.’
‘How long did it last?’
‘Perhaps a minute, I could not tell. Becs broke into it.’
‘That was what scared her?’
‘She found me kneeling in prayer.’
‘That would scare anybody.’ But there was no heart in his mockery. He leant forward and took me by the shoulders. ‘So, why did you pray? Does it signify, do you think? About the colony?’
‘There was nothing about that. But I knew myself forgiven for all my past sins. Now I have to do right.’
‘Make restitution.’
‘Aye.’
‘Stay here.’ He rose and went to the bookcase, whence he pulled out a little blue and green volume.
‘What’s that? A book of visions?’
Ferris shook his head. ‘Sermons. Look here,’ and he ruffled the pages with his finger. ‘Here.’
I took the sermons and read:…the desire for salvation is in itself a most certain proof of salvation, and though diverse there be who feign it, so that they may deceive their fellows, yet any man who doth yearn and travail in his heart after salvation, even that man who grieveth for that he holdeth himself damned, that man is saved. And though none other knoweth it, or considereth the man worthy, this proof doth hold. For what wicked creature did ever desire to be saved? The evil wish only to continue in their evil, and to be thought good. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. But to say, I am a sinner and desirous of salvation, that is to say, I am every good man. Take heart therefore, and continue in the ways of virtue.
‘This is all that was wanting,’ I said, laying aside the book.
‘Did you not tell me in the army that you wished to make restitution?’ Ferris asked. ‘You grieved for your sins then; it needed no vision.’
His voice was gentle, but I thought I heard mockery there, deep down.
‘More than grieved,’ I insisted. ‘There was terror of damnation – temptations—’
‘We are all tempted,’ he said. ‘Are you a Christian, and still to learn that? Every single man that lives—’
‘Not every man hears—’ I cried out, then stopped. I was afraid to put to him the question that racked me: And if some – thing – came privily to you? If it showed you foul pictures, and spoke to you in words – in words—! Would you not fear for your soul?
‘Hears what?’ asked Ferris.
I shook my head.
‘Take comfort,’ he said. ‘Lay the past aside.’
‘So you do think I have received Grace?’ I begged.
Ferris gave a crooked smile. ‘I guess that if Elect there be, you are one of them. And being Elect, you stand in no need of my say-so.’
I saw he did not like the talk. For one moment, when he had thought I was speaking of a ghost, his longing for the dead had charged my vision with a quickly fading glory. He was now recalled to himself and to a familiar scorn. His own dreams were of brotherhood and justice on earth: visions and enthusiasms he associated with Ranters. When Becs brought up the food Ferris began to talk of the printing press, and we spoke no more of the thing I had witnessed; though I was sure I had been given a sign, and glowed inwardly with resolution, yet I felt I should never have told him of it. For I was Jacob, and there was room for just one prophet in our house.
It fell out as I had hoped: we did not visit Richard Parr. Having taken up some ginger in hot water, Ferris found the sick woman more wretched, and sat with her until she went off to sleep again.
‘Becs can’t do everything; besides, Aunt gets comfort from me,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and see her every hour or so, unless she wants more.’
‘Let me help,’ I said, glad to risk a sickroom provided I could only stay shut up on such a foul day.
‘I have more need of you than Aunt. Get your coat.’
‘Coat?’ I thought I had heard him wrongly.
‘For warmth. Today your apprenticeship begins.’
The room at the back of the shop was bitterly cold. Ferris ran about fetching logs and quickly made a fire. The grate did not draw very well, and the air soon grew something smoky.
‘Here.’ He threw me a leather apron and tied another round his own waist. ‘You’ll get ink everywhere until you’re used to it.’
There was a slanted wooden shelf which I had not noticed before, and on it a kind of frame filled with metal blocks.
‘This is your typecase, and the type pieces with the letters on. What do you notice about them?’ he asked.
‘They’re back to front.’
‘Right! A very quick boy. Now, you have to read and set everything in reverse.’
Ferris pulled something from a drawer underneath the shelf. ‘This here’s your stick,’ and he put a piece of wood in my hand. It had corners to it, and looked nothing like a stick. ‘I want you to set up my name, yours, and Aunt’s, all in one line. Like this,’ and he showed me how to wedge the little squares of type in place. ‘Off you go.’
I searched for the letters and found J-A-C-O-B-C-U-L-L-E-N. It was easy work laying them out on the stick, and I went on with Christopher Ferris and Sarah Snapman in the same way. Ferris meanwhile fiddled with the screw mechanism on the press, flicking oil onto it with a feather.
‘Finished,’ I
said. He came and took the stick from me and smeared a little ink over the type with his finger, then pressed a sheet of paper over it. When he peeled the leaf off, I read:
SIRREFREHPOTSIRHCNELLUCBOCAJNAMPANSHARAS
‘First mistake,’ he said. ‘Everybody makes it. Try again.’
‘You could have let me know after one name.’ But I settled down to work out the problem in earnest. It was much slower going the second time, but at last I managed:
CHRISTOPHRFERRISJACOBUCLLENSARASHNAPMAN
‘Better. Now,’ he went on as I picked at the muddled letters, ‘To space them out, you take these,’ and he showed me some little squares which were blank. ‘Put spaces between them, and points,’ showing me the stops.
All my life I have had a horror of being thought clumsy or stupid; even when I toiled beating carpets and polishing pewter for fools, I wanted my fellow servants to see how well I did it, and Caro’s neatness of touch, shown in her skill with My Lady’s hair and with laces and pot-pourris, was one of the things that drew me to her. I grinned with pride when his next print-off read:
CHRISTOPHER FERRIS. JACOB CULLEN.
SARAH SNAPMAN.
‘Excellent!’ He was boyish, excited. ‘So far as composing goes, practice is all – getting handy at it. So I’ll give you something to set up.’ He handed me a printed sheet. ‘The Lord’s Prayer. Set it up, and justify the left, exactly as it is here – you see?’
I nodded. ‘Where are the big letters for the title?’
‘In these cases here. They’re all laid out in order of size, see the names: ten point, twelve point.’
‘And what happens when I’ve finished?’
‘It goes in the form.’ He showed me how the type was fixed into a metal frame. ‘Then you can see it printed off. Put your name on the bottom and we’ll hang it on the wall upstairs.’ He went off to see if Aunt was awake.
How I laboured. Yet at the time I scarce noticed, for I was no longer working to please Ferris alone. There was a delight in it. No one had taught me such things before, my job at Beaurepair had been simply to serve. Then there had been handling the pike: that was a butcher’s job, needing only size and strength. But this work was what they called a mystery, a skilled trade. My eyes watered in the smoky room; my hands were stiff with cold and most likely very clumsy with the letters compared with my friend’s more delicate fingers, but I kept on without a thought of stopping until I heard the door open.
‘Jacob, come eat something. Aren’t you hungry?’
I at once knew that I was.
Ferris came over to see my handiwork. ‘Bravo, Prentice! We should cut your hair again.’
‘What, and break Becs’s heart?’
‘Give her a lock to keep.’
We were laughing as in the army, the early days. I almost expected Nathan to stick his head up from behind the shelf of typecases. Ferris’s spirits were high, I knew, because he saw my willingness as a sign I was coming over to the idea of the colony. His happiness was so pleasant to me, I resolved there and then never to thwart him if I could help it. If I could not atone to others I could at least be a means of good to my friend, and though I could not interpret my vision to him he might yet benefit by it. And I at once had some success, for as he ran up the stairs ahead of me I remarked how graceful he was, and another thought following upon this, I straightway cut it out at the root.
‘Jacob is one of the Elect,’ announced Ferris as Becs brought in some boiled bacon and pease pottage. ‘So be sure and serve him properly.’
Becs sniffed.
‘From now on he will lead us in saying Grace,’ Ferris added.
‘You would not talk thus if your aunt were here,’ I said. I most definitely disliked this teasing, which seemed to hint that I had lied to him.
‘Becs understands,’ said Ferris. ‘She knows what Elect means.’
The girl stared at him.
‘The Chosen,’ he went on.
The poor thing clattered the dishes in laying them before us. When she went out I said, ‘Why so unkind, Ferris? What harm does she do?’
‘O, she knows I mean nothing by it,’ said he.
‘She knows no such thing. She will think I complain of her to you.’
Ferris hummed a tune.
I put down the cup of cider I was tilting against the tabletop. ‘Come man, she wants a husband and I’m thrown in her way. She does no wrong.’
‘And suppose she had money and were offered you, would you have her?’
‘She has no money – has she?’
Ferris shook his head. We chewed on the bacon, which was tough.
‘I wish spring would come,’ he said suddenly. ‘It seems years since I tasted green salad.’
‘You won’t be eating it here.’
We both fell silent. For my part, I was overcome at the thought that the place would then be well known to me, which now I was unable to see.
‘You’ll print off the Lord’s Prayer this afternoon,’ Ferris said. ‘Shall we go talk to my aunt first?’
She was lying propped up when we pushed open the door after tapping. I could see the flush on her cheeks from the other side of the room. Ferris put some cordial to her mouth but she pushed the vessel away, so he set it by the bedside.
‘I’m not dying, so you needn’t come in looking as if you’re going to lay me out.’ She blew her nose and I heard the catarrh rattle in her head. ‘How is the girl doing? Have you dined?’
‘Bacon and pease. Be at rest, she is doing well.’
‘I’m hot and cold, Christopher. No comfort at all!’
‘Will you have some of the bacon?’
Aunt pushed herself up in the bed and dropped back again. ‘I can’t taste anything, every bit of me aches. Hold me up, Jacob, so Christopher can turn the bolster.’
Her back was slightly humped, the bones pressing on my palms through the thin stuff of her shift. I held her in an awkward embrace while Ferris beat the thing and turned it over. Dust and feathers made her sneeze as I laid her down and pulled the coverlet over her shoulders.
‘Good strong arms you’ve got,’ she coughed out, voice cracked with phlegm. ‘A prop to a woman.’ I must have shown my surprise for she laughed and added, ‘Don’t take fright, Jacob, you’re safe with me.’
I smiled and kissed her hand.
‘He’s setting the Lord’s Prayer,’ Ferris told her. ‘When it’s done I’ll bring it you.’
But she was already drifting off. Her nephew put his hand to her forehead.
‘She’s hot,’ he said on the stairs. ‘But I doubt it’s more than a cold. Let’s check your typesetting.’
He found only two errors, and I had composed as far as Thine is the Kingdom. When the whole thing was properly justified and my name added in a smaller point at the bottom (which I thought was like the ending of a young girl’s sampler), he took me over to the press.
‘This is a Dutch one,’ he said. ‘The frame is wood and as presses go it’s not heavy.’
‘Was your uncle licensed to print, then?’
‘No. He got the press as part-payment for a debt, took it as a commodity, you might say; then he got the itch to use it, and paid a licensed man to run off lists of his goods, and so learnt.’
‘But he did not use it himself? That would be against the law.’
‘They were but lists. I did the same when I traded in linens.’
‘And you, you –’
‘– Have no licence. Don’t look so sick.’ He placed his hand on part of the machine. ‘Here. This is the bed – it rolls in and out so we can get at the type and ink it. Put your form onto the bed – like this.’
I watched him fix the form, with all my labours in it, to the flat bottom part of the machine.
‘See that? Now, we ink the form with these inkballs.’ He put them in my hands. ‘Run them over the type.’
‘They stink,’ I said, passing them back and forth. Their smooth leather surface gave off an odour like rotting kidneys.
Ferris laughed. ‘I piss on them. To keep them sound.’
‘Make me not your story!’
‘Ask anyone in the trade.’ He grinned. ‘Your privilege to piss on them tonight.’
The form was inked and he arranged a little frame about the lettering. ‘This is what you call your frisket. It stops ink getting where you don’t want it. Now, paper. There’s some behind you.’
I reached for the top sheet of a pile.
‘And don’t paw the rest of it!’ he cried.
‘Yes, Your Lordship.’ I held out the sheet to him.
‘Don’t give it me, put it there. That thick thing is the tympanum – it evens the pressure—’
‘I won’t remember all these names.’ I laid the clean white sheet atop the tympanum, as he called it, and Ferris showed me how to work the hinges so that the paper was bedded between two layers. Then the bed was rolled underneath the enormous screw at the other end of the press.
‘Now, pull the lever to bring your platen down.’ He showed me the way I should bend my arm. I took a firm grip and dragged the metal bar all the way.
‘When you let go, the thing will move back of itself, because there’s a counterweight,’ he warned me. ‘Right, let go now.’
I watched the lever return to its original position. The platen rose. ‘Is that it?’
He nodded. ‘Do you remember how the paper comes out?’
I was excited as a child with a gift, undoing all I had seen him do until at last the paper came off the form. He came to look it over with me.
The Lord’s Prayer stood out clearly, properly pointed, and my name underneath like a real printer’s. I capered in the smoky air.
‘Let it dry,’ he warned. ‘Lay it here until the ink is set.’
A thought struck me. ‘Did you go back for the paper?’
‘Roger Rowly brought it.’
‘Ah.’
‘And why, Ah? This is good quality merchandise…now, load another sheet while I watch.’
After a few false starts I was able to set up the machine and print off correctly. Ferris, ink blotching his unscarred cheek, made me say the name of each part of the press as I handled it. Though he watched like a cat all the time I was performing my tasks, in the end he could not fault me. Five copies of the Lord’s Prayer lay drying on the stand.