by Ann Turnbull
“Will…” I broke free and took his hand and drew him to sit on the bench beside me. His face was flushed and he looked more desirable than ever before. I put my arms around him and kissed him again, but as we drew apart I told him, “I can’t marry thee, Will.”
It was said.
He leaned his forehead against mine. “I know.”
But did he understand?
“Not today,” I said. “Not this year. I don’t know when. One day, if God be willing.”
He pulled me into his arms and hid his face in my hair. “I know,” he repeated. “I already knew, only I would not attend to the inward light that told me so.”
I thought of Mary, and our parents, and how we had planned to deceive them all; the priest who would bend the law for payment; and the well-used room at the inn. We were free of all that now.
“Thou’ll go to London,” I said, “and I shall stay here, with Mary, as I promised. I’m too young to marry, and I have Deb and Isaac to care for, with my parents in prison.”
“And I have no money, and no work. But I’ll find them. And I’ll write, Su – and thou must write to me. I’ll stay true to thee. And one day…”
“When the time is right,” I said, “I’ll know. And then I shall come to thee. And no one shall prevent me.”
William
I knew I had hurt my father, perhaps beyond forgiveness.
“Who is he, this fellow?” he demanded when I told him I was going to London with Nat. “What’s his trade?”
“His name is Nathaniel Lacon. He’s a journeyman printer.”
“And how will the two of you travel?”
“We’ll walk. Stay with Friends – other Quakers. Perhaps get work helping with the harvest along the way.”
He made a sound of contempt. “You know nothing of the world! You’ll have no servants. How do you think you’ll manage, on the road, without clean linen every day, with no one to cook your meals or make up a fair bed for you at night?”
“I don’t care about those things.”
The truth was, the prospect of the journey filled me with a sense of adventure. I imagined sleeping in barns, lighting a fire beside the road at night, bathing in streams.
“You will come to care,” my father said, “when you are cold and hungry and the rain soaks your clothes.” He turned on me, and spoke bitterly. “I was prepared to spend eight hundred pounds on you, to set you up as an apprentice in the silk trade – and you have thrown it back in my face. You could have gone to London as a merchant, not as a vagrant. Well, you’ll get no money from me for this venture. I disown you – cut you off.”
For the three weeks or so that followed, until the day I left, we scarcely spoke. It was as if I no longer existed for him. I had one final sitting for my picture in the family portrait. He had always accompanied me before, taking much interest in the likeness, pointing out to Mr Aylmer details of clothing and background that needed to be included. But this time he would not come, and I went with my stepmother and Anne, who were always eager to see it.
When the session was over, I looked at the almost finished painting, and saw myself as I should have been: a serious-looking youth standing at his father’s side, richly but not showily dressed; dark hair to the shoulders, a collar edged with point lace, one hand holding a book. That was the image of me that would remain with him.
“You have hurt your father greatly,” said my stepmother when we left.
“I know, and I’m sorry for it. But there was nothing else I could have done.”
She looked at me in astonishment. “You could have obeyed him, done his bidding, as was your duty. Each of us has a place in society and obligations to fulfil. Not all are welcome, but they must be attended to. These people you mix with will destroy all order in society.”
But the servants were sympathetic, and so was Anne, who came to me wanting to know where I would stay in London, and when she might come and visit me, and whether I would give Susanna a love token.
“You should give her a ring with both your names on it.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Susanna would not wear a ring.”
“A lock of your hair, then.”
“Maybe. But don’t fear. We won’t forget each other.”
Of the time that was left, I spent as much as possible with Susanna. Mary’s kitchen became my second home, and Susanna and I were able to meet most days in the shop or around the workplace. But Mary saw to it that we were rarely alone together for long. I think she had a concern not so much for Susanna’s virtue – for she trusted me – but that we should work and learn, and become worthy partners for each other; that I should learn the skills and work-patterns of an artisan and Susanna those of a woman who can work alongside her husband in his business; and that we should be friends and workmates as well as lovers. “Then you may decide freely, when you are older,” she said, “whether or not you will become man and wife.” So we both helped in the print room, inking, folding, cutting and stacking, and served customers in the shop, and took orders for goods.
As the time of departure drew nearer Nat and I studied maps and planned our journey to London, or looked at the maze of streets that made up the great city. Susanna joined us. I knew she must feel that I stood on the brink of a new life, while she was to be left behind. As for me, I felt as if I were being torn in two.
On our last evening together we sat on a bench in Mary’s backyard, kissing and talking and making promises. The sun went down, and stars appeared, and bats flickered past in the dusk, and still we would not go in, though Susanna shivered with cold. I wrapped my coat around us both and held her close, breathing her breath and feeling her heart beating against mine. We stayed like that until Mary tapped on the door to remind us that decent folks were ready to lock up and go to bed; and then we kissed each other a last goodnight.
I walked home heavy-hearted, and as I began packing – leaving most of my possessions behind – I thought how much I should miss not only Susanna but the home where I had grown up; and I wondered whether I would ever see my family again.
I planned to take little with me, since I must carry it all on my back. A change of linen, breeches and stockings, a blanket, a Bible, some money in a pouch hidden under my coat. As I sorted through my clothes, something fell and rattled on the base of the chest. It was a small flute I’d bought in Oxford, years ago. I put it to my lips and played a snatch of tune.
Many of my new acquaintance would not approve, I knew. I’d heard of a music teacher in London who burned his instruments after he turned Quaker. But I loved to play, and could not believe it to be ungodly. And Nat, I felt sure, would be of the same mind. I put the flute into a bag I could wear at my waist. I’d take it with me. The thought of music on the road was cheering.
The morning dawned fair, and I was up early. The women were still in their rooms, but I had heard my father go downstairs. I carried my pack down, placed it in the hall with my hat on top of it, and went to find him. The door of his closet was half open. I could see him within, standing with his back to me, looking out of the window.
“Father,” I said.
He turned round. I stepped into the room and, on an impulse, went down on one knee and bowed my head as I always used to do.
“Forgive me for hurting you, Father. Give me your blessing on my journey.”
For a long moment I was conscious of him standing there, the hem of his coat close to my face. Then I felt his hand touch my head.
“Oh, Will…” he said, and his voice broke.
I stood up, and we flung our arms around each other.
“What have you done?” he said, his face wet against mine. “You have ruined your life, destroyed my hopes. I can’t forgive you. Don’t ask it.”
“Then wish me Godspeed,” I said.
“Godspeed…” He held me close, then abruptly pushed me from him. “Go,” he said. “Get out, before I beat you. And don’t write to me from London. I shall not reply.”
Susanna
On the morning they left, Mary and I walked with Will and Nat as far as the East Bridge. A light mist was rising from the river, but the day promised fair, and I sensed the excitement in the two of them at the prospect of the road ahead.
Mary was brusque as ever, but I knew she was sad to lose Nat, who had been almost a son to her. I kissed Nat, and then Will. All my goodbyes to Will had been said in private the night before, and now I could only tighten my arms around him and whisper, “God keep thee safe.”
“And thee. I’ll write – as soon as we arrive.”
And then they were on their way, and all that was left was to watch and wave until they reached the bend in the road and were lost to sight.
Mary patted my arm and drew me back towards the town. “We must comfort each other now,” she said.
In the days that followed I felt a great emptiness, and thought I would never be happy again. When I was minding the shop I looked at the maps and tried to work out how long it would be before Will and Nat reached the city, how long before we could expect to hear. All I could think about was the promised letter.
Mary became impatient with me. She took me out of the shop and found housework for me to do: cleaning, shopping, laying the buck-tub on washday. “Work is the way to overcome grief,” she said.
And then one day she came to me with a proposal.
“I could do with another hand in the print room,” she said, “now Nat is gone. I would not offer thee an apprenticeship – thou would not want to be bound for seven years – but what say thee to an agreement for a shorter term? If thou stayed with me two years, or three, I might teach thee much of printing practice and bookselling and accounts.”
“Oh!” I said. “Yes! Yes, I’d like that.”
I saw myself at eighteen, no longer a maidservant but a woman who could read and write, a woman with a trade.
“We could get a girl in to help with the housework perhaps twice a week,” Mary said, thinking it through, “but thou must be ready to turn thy hand to whatever’s needed in shop or house.”
I nodded, willing. Mary’s offer was generous, I knew. An assistant who stayed only three years could never repay the time spent teaching her.
“Then let’s put it to thy parents,” she said.
Now, though still yearning for Will, I began to feel more purposeful. Mary and I visited my parents in prison; an agreement was made, and put into writing, and I was able to call myself a printer’s assistant. Em was astonished, and saw no advantage for me in the new arrangement, only more work, but Judith understood and approved. Judith was still in prison: thin, with a lingering cough, but calm and determined in spirit. She told me that she and Daniel Kite had promised to marry when they were released; and that when he had enough money saved for their passage, they would sail to America.
The first-day meetings continued, but we began gathering in a Friend’s house instead of in the street. The harassment lessened for a while, but Mary warned me that our troubles were not over; already there was talk of harsher penalties. “I believe it will be worse in the years to come,” she said. “But with God’s help we will endure.”
I wondered often about the future, and what it held for me. I thought of Em, with her young man: the comfortable, conforming life she planned to live. I might live like that if I chose. But, despite all danger, I knew I would not. “Stay at home and spin,” the vagrant woman had advised me. But that was not a choice; not in these times.
At the end of September the authorities released all the prisoners who had served their sentences. I took Isaac and Deb home to our parents in Long Aston, and stayed a few days. We met with Eaton Bellamy Friends, and there was talk of finding an apprenticeship for Isaac. Tom Minton had found a master in Bristol, and would leave home before winter, and Isaac had thoughts of going there too.
I told my mother about Will, how I missed him and had not yet heard from him.
“Oh, it’s hard to wait for news!” she said. “But he is in God’s hands. We are all held in the love of God. Have faith.”
And at last, one day, the letter came – two letters, in fact, for Mary had one from Nat. Both were brought by a Friend travelling on business.
I held mine, looking at the wax seal, the direction with my name on it, hardly able to believe it was for me. I had never received a letter before.
I took it up to my bed to read; I sat enclosed by the screen, broke the seal, and unfolded it.
He was well. He and Nat were living with a Friend, a printer, in a street near Paul’s steeple-house. Nat was employed as a journeyman printer and Will taken on as an assistant at a bookseller’s. He was happy, he wrote, and had made many new friends at meetings in the city, but no one he loved to be with as much as me. (That line I read again and again.) He told me much more: about the city, the river, the books he sold, the people he met, the meetings they’d had on the way. I read it all, but it was his words of love that I read most eagerly: that he missed me and longed for the time when we could be together again. “Write to me soon,” he said.
I wrote the same day. My letter was not as long as his, for I still found writing difficult and must take much care with it. I told him all that had happened here, and ended:
I know nothing of letters, or what is right and proper for a girl to say.
But I will tell thee that I love thee, and miss thee; and when I am free to come to thee I shall leave my home and family and let no one hold me back. When I think of that day, all the long miles that separate us seem as nothing.
I pray God keep thee in the light and watch over thee till we meet again.
Thy friend, Susanna Thorn.
About the Author
Ann Turnbull grew up in south-east London but now lives in Shropshire. She has always loved reading and knew from the age of ten that she wanted to be an author. Her numerous books for children include Alice in Love and War, A Long Way Home and House of Ghosts, as well as her Quaker trilogy – No Shame, No Fear (shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Book Award and Whitbread Award) Forged in the Fire and Seeking Eden. For younger children, she has also written Greek Myths, illustrated by Sarah Young.
You can find out more about Ann Turnbull and her books by visiting her website at www.annturnbull.com
Books by the same author
House of Ghosts
A Long Way Home
No Friend of Mine
Pigeon Summer
Room for a Stranger
Forged in the Fire
Seeking Eden
FORGED IN THE FIRE
London 1665–66. With the plague raging and the scent of smoke upon the wind, Will and Susanna, separated by class and distance, struggle to reunite. Will has become a Quaker and broken with his father. Leaving Susanna behind in Shropshire, he travels to London, swearing to send for her once he is settled. But Will is arrested and thrown in gaol for standing up for his beliefs. This, along with the rapidly spreading plague and a dire misunderstanding, conspire to keep the lovers apart…
SEEKING EDEN
1683. Inspired by William Penn’s vision of a Quaker colony and hoping to be free of the persecution they suffered in England, Will and Susanna Heywood have settled in Pennsylvania. Their son Josiah has found his own freedom, and adventure, in the employment of merchant George Bainbrigg, whose daughter, Kate, he has fallen in love with. It is only when the three travel to Barbados that Josiah learns the true nature of Bainbrigg’s work … and a painful struggle to uphold his beliefs begins.
I should like to thank Ted Milligan
for reading the manuscript and advising
me on Quaker history.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
First published 2003 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
This edition published 2013
Text © 2003 Ann Turnbull
C
over painting: Rest (oil on canvas) by Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916), Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France/Bridgeman Art Library
The right of Ann Turnbull to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system
in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
a catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4063-5289-4 (ePub)
www.walker.co.uk