‘I was wondering,’ said de Sève as they continued down the rickety wooden staircase, ‘do you think we are to wear our uniforms on the way there?’
‘You mean to join the regiment?’
‘Yes, bearing in mind that we are permitted to join them as we see fit. We are not obliged to leave with them from London.’
‘Well, I suppose it would make us rather conspicuous,’ said Jacob. ‘On the other hand, it would make for a lighter pack if we did.’
‘Fair point,’ said Philippe. ‘I must remember to enquire while you are at church. It will make a change from this suit I purchased from that Dutch puritan I told you about. Why, I verily feel like a condemned man.’
‘Ha, wait till you get your first pay, my dear friend, though take guard not to overindulge in the colour such as myself. I do feel such a pillicock in this bright blue . . .’
Whenever they walked down the narrow and uneven staircase to the first floor, they normally hushed and trod carefully. But in the exuberance of the sunny morning after a week of summer showers, they both overlooked their habit until it was too late.
The landlady’s front door cracked open. Then Mrs Smythe, dressed in her grey overdress, beige bodice, and white apron and bonnet, appeared overtly industrious with an old birch broom that had seen better days.
It was still early in the morning, and Mrs Smythe would not be down to the workshop for another hour. She looked haggard, her hair as lustreless as dried broomcorn. She had spent another sleepless night wondering how long she could hold on to Nelly, who was also her first husband’s second niece once removed. Maybe she could let her go two days a week until more orders came in; it would not be long before the autumn winds reminded ladies of their winter wardrobe. But then, the girl might go and find work with the enemy.
On the other hand, why did she not just give up the ghost and rent out the workshop to the Frenchies? She would if she could, but she knew deep down that it was beyond her. It made her cringe and toss and turn in her sheets at the mere thought of it. The small outfit had been started by her first husband when they were young, her husband whom she had loved.
The two Frenchmen gave her good day as they made footfall upon the landing.
‘Why can’t you talk in English?’ she said with her usual frankness and sardonic smile.
‘We do, Madam,’ said Jacob, smiling politely, ‘but is it not normal to speak the language of one’s homeland with a fellow countryman?’
‘Get away with you,’ she said, giving half a sweep, then stopping again as the gentlemen tried to edge their way past her. ‘And how does anyone know you’re not popish spies plotting against the king, then? We’re not daft over here, you know,’ she said with a fearsome glare.
Jacob paused a moment on the landing. With his arms crossed, he peered down into Mrs Smythe’s clever but anxious eyes. Standing erect, he said: ‘Then I invite you to follow us now, and you will see where we go every morning.’
‘And where’s that in English, then, if it isn’t the coffeehouse?’ challenged the landlady.
‘To the French church, Madam, the Protestant church!’
‘To the blimmin’ church? Ha, why, bless my soul,’ said Mrs Smythe, shaking her head incredulously. ‘If my first husband could hear you now, he’d soon talk some virility into youse, all right. I mean, aren’t you gentlemen supposed to be looking for work? Church is for Sunday, for heaven’s sake!’
Did he really have to listen to this? He had remained as polite as humanly possible. Were he in a stronger position, he would give her a piece of his mind. But besides the fact that this was not his country of birth, he felt all the weaker because he had no revenue and therefore was not paying taxes. He had little doubt that Mrs Smythe suspected that it irked him not to be pulling his own weight. Or perhaps he was just being overly sensitive.
Refusing to enter into a fruitless debate, Jacob bowed his head and gave the woman a stern farewell. She swept after them as if to shoo them away, as they went bundling the rest of the way down the stairwell. She knew as well as they did that she could easily find other lodgers should the need arise, and fetch a higher price for the rooms given the increasing demand.
Philippe de Sève’s riled glance to Jacob needed no words as they stepped into the street. Delpech pursed his lips and chased away a fat bluebottle. The city stench rising with the heat of the morning sun made Philippe turn his nose into his scented lapel. But at least the lane was dry, littered with splashes and turds thrown from chamber pots, but mostly dry. They passed by the open square of land, the tenterground, where already women were laying out their cloth tautly on the tenters. Philippe tipped his hat politely to one of the young ladies.
‘Good day, Mademoiselle,’ he said in French, which was no less common an occurrence nowadays than giving good day to an acquaintance in the streets of Pau. Indeed, the jabber that arose from such gatherings of ladies often resounded in French. The young lady gave a coy smile and a bow as she continued hooking her woven fabric tautly on the wooden frames, to keep it square and prevent it from shrinking.
‘Would you have a twinkle in your eye for an apprentice weaver, de Sève?’ said Jacob in a surprised voice, as they entered an alleyway where cats were lounging half in the sun, half in the shade.
‘Are you afraid she might be below me, Jacob?’ said Philippe in jest.
In fact, Jacob’s surprise was only a half measure. He had experienced a similar egalitarian feeling of excitement in the new colonies. For the new refugees, London was a place where the usual social fences had not yet been erected and the customary exterior signs of wealth not established. Everyone was more or less in the same boat.
‘In fact, I do fancy I might take a wife on my return, actually,’ continued Philippe.
‘And good for you, Sir!’ said Jacob brightly. He had seen his friend on the wretched days when his loneliness made him haggard. For unlike Jacob, Philippe had no family reunion to look forward to; his loved ones were all dead, his solitude all-consuming. ‘And would you be planning on becoming a rag merchant?’ said Jacob in banter.
‘Oh no, my dear fellow. We have our master plan.’ Philippe said it in jest, but Jacob was nonetheless secretly reassured to hear it. Philippe went on. ‘I dare say in a few years’ time, Londoners will have as much choice of home-made fabric as in France!’
‘And not only fabrics, my good fellow,’ said Jacob, recalling the respected watchmakers and silversmiths he had met through the church. ‘I dare say that soon, the only French merchandise that we shall be able to ship exclusively from France will be crops and wine!’
‘And that is where we come in, Messieurs Delpech and de Sève, Merchants of London!’ said Philippe with a flourish of the hand.
‘And lucky it is for us that planters cannot bring with them our clement skies of southern France!’
At the end of a narrow alleyway, they came to the busy thoroughfare that met with Whitechapel Street from Hare Street and the open fields east of Shoreditch. This was the appropriately named Brick Lane, where cartloads of bricks were trundled into the city from the kilns in the fields.
‘It will be an avenue from London all the way to the village of Hackney, according to some,’ said de Sève as they crossed the rutted road, still unpaved at that end.
‘I have no doubt it will,’ said Jacob, ‘considering the number of brick carts I have seen passing through here every day of the week; it is truly phenomenal. The city seems to gobble them up at an astounding rate! I am given to believe, too, that Spittle Fields will no longer be what its name suggests.’
‘Spittle Court, they should rename it,’ said Philippe, ‘if the building petition goes through.’
There was business indeed in building houses made of brick, thought Jacob, amazed at the multiple opportunities that the monstrous city offered a man of means. But means is what he and de Sève lacked. So they had agreed to pool their earnings once they were decommissioned, with the aim of entering into business together.
‘Bonjour, Messieurs,’ said a gentleman, walking with his wife who Jacob recognised from the French Church. Both Philippe and Jacob gave a polite bow to the acquaintance and continued on their way westward. They took the route past the modest, pretty weavers’ dwellings of Fashion Street, then along the old artillery garden until they arrived at Bishop’s Gate Street. The wide thoroughfare was already heaving with streams of horse-drawn traffic, mostly headed cityward, and hawkers crying out their wares.
It was not long before they found themselves at their usual parting point under the sign of the Flying Horse Inn, near Bishop’s Gate. A carthorse was drinking at the trough, others were lined up to carry their passengers into the city, and sedan bearers stood ready with their black chairs to carry their fares through the alleyways and backstreets where horse travel was forbidden.
‘I shall meet you at the usual place, I hope with news of our leaving date, my dear Delpech,’ said Philippe.
‘It is a fine season to be going on a journey,’ said Jacob. ‘It will be a welcome change to get out into the fresh air of the countryside, I must say. Meet you at the coffeehouse later!’
The two men set out on their separate ways, de Sève heading westward towards the new artillery ground. Jacob continued through Bishop’s Gate, down the wide and traffic-choked avenue towards Threadneedle Street as he had done every day since settling in Albion.
‘Prithee . . . make way!’ came a deep shout from behind as he entered the street in question. He niftily stepped aside to let strong-armed bearers carrying a sedan chair scurry by. Jacob watched it glide past him, no doubt on its way to the Exchange. It reminded him of his brother-in-law’s account of how his wife was forced by brutes of the French army to spend the night with her newborn baby in one such chair. It was during the month of August, four years ago almost to the day. While she was in labour at her sister’s, Jacob had been forced to serve soldiers who had taken over his own home. Had he known she would be thrown into the streets just two nights after the baby was born, he would have thrown down his life to relieve her. But by the grace of God she had endured, and escaped to the country. She had found a winter sanctuary in one of his brother-in-law’s farmsteads. But come spring, her baby and children were wrenched away from her when she was forced into hiding to avoid imprisonment. Having since travelled across the world, would he have rather chosen to recant, now knowing the suffering and destitution his allegiance to his Protestant faith would bring to him and his family? He could not say.
The peal of church bells chiming in the hour and another hawker’s cry prompted him to instead contemplate the city’s awakening, to distract his mind from thoughts of his family and how they had been able to manage without him. He continued to remind himself that God had given him such trials for a reason, saved him from others perhaps to live to fight another day. Nevertheless, he had not expected to enlist one day to fight on a battlefield.
It was eight o’clock. The shuffle of people on the pavements thickened: well-heeled gentlemen heading for the Royal Exchange, labourers in working attire, and ladies with baskets on their way to Wool Church market. He was glad for the daily pretext for a foray into these more sumptuous streets, rebuilt after the great fire, a welcome respite from the district where he now resided. It was a well-hooved district and a testimony to the wealth of opportunity the city had to offer. If he could muster enough funds with de Sève to create a decent investment pot, he might well be able to build up his fortune again. He might well one day be walking with those merchants to the great temple of commerce, the Royal Exchange.
There was much to do beforehand, though. For starters, there was a war to be won, and then there were the restrictions imposed on non-natives to be tackled.
At last he came to the new French church. The early-morning service being over, it was virtually empty. No sooner had he entered the cool brick building and bowed in reverence than he was greeted by the pastor.
‘Monsieur Delpech, I was expecting you.’
Jacob’s heart leapt—the pastor was hobbling excitedly towards him from the vestry, and he was brandishing a letter.
A note from Robert might bring him news of monies recovered; one from Jeanne would bring him the love he needed right now to go on.
Jacob took the letter. ‘Thank you, Pastor,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much.’ The old man gave a wordless bow and left him to the discretion of a rear pew.
Jacob sat forward, half closing his eyes. But he could not bring himself to pray that the contents would be good tidings. The news it contained was already written, and there was nothing any prayers could do to alter the facts.
He recognised Jeanne’s elegant handwriting. At last he broke the crimson seal. Anxiously, he unfolded the letter. In the hunger for information, his eyes could not track whole sentences from start to finish, but singled out key words. They picked out ‘Palatinate,’ ‘refugees,’ ‘Amsterdam,’ ‘ship,’ ‘London,’ ‘soon,’ ‘Paul,’ ‘August.’
‘Dear God. Thank you, thank you!’ he whispered as he sat back, the sheet trembling in his hand. He swallowed, steadied his nerves, then read the letter again sentence by sentence from start to finish.
*
Philippe could hardly wait for Jacob to take a seat opposite him.
‘Schomberg wants to leave in early August while the weather holds,’ he said excitedly. ‘We are to attend training in uniform from tomorrow morning until we head for Wales for the crossing to Ireland.’
They were sitting in their usual haunt on Birchin Lane off Cornhill. Jacob had just paid his penny and ordered a bowl of the black, gritty drink that he took with a pipe to take away the bitterness. The exuberant chatter and chink of crockery made any discreet conversation impossible. But Jacob did not mind; he had his own news that he wanted to shout to the world.
‘Yes, I heard. Bumped into Monsieur Lafont, who was on the way to the chophouse,’ he said while the serving boy nonchalantly filled his bowl, pouring the thick coffee from considerable height. ‘I only hope I see my wife beforehand!’ Jacob’s boyish grin broadened irresistibly into a wide smile.
Philippe, who sported a pointy beard, brought his pipe from his mouth. Wide-eyed, he said: ‘Why, my dear fellow! Is she due in?’
Jacob gave a curt nod which allowed him time to quash the surge of emotion. ‘Yes,’ he said at last as the boy moved on to another table with his jug of coffee. ‘I received a letter, says she’s in Amsterdam, that she’s getting the next ship to London.’
‘Do you know when?’
‘She says they are to embark once enough passengers have been accounted for. I imagine they could even be here in a matter of days . . .’
‘Or weeks,’ said Philippe, grasping the tail of his goatee. ‘The only thing is, Jacob, we are to join up with the regiment in Wales in ten days.’
‘Then we shall try to hold back as long as possible. Are you with me?’
‘I am, Sir!’ said Philippe, raising his cup.
‘Good, then we shall go to the chophouse for lunch to celebrate!’
*
The following morning, Lieutenants Delpech and de Sève walked down the staircase of the Smythe tenement building, their boots falling heavily on the steps. Mrs Smythe, broom in hand, stood agape at her door upon seeing two dazzling soldiers dressed in pearl-grey frock coats and breeches, and white neck scarves and sashes. It was a uniform she did not recognise, for it was the uniform of the Huguenot regiments of King William of England.
‘Madam,’ said Jacob, tipping his felt hat as Mrs Smythe scuttled backwards through her door.
THIRTEEN
Jeanne awoke to the insistent tugging at the hood of her cloak and the strident cries of gulls.
She cracked open an eye to see the dawning day filtering into the gun deck through the hatches, bringing colour to the huddle of fellow passengers. She turned her head to the caress on her cheek. ‘We’re in London, Mother,’ said Paul in a low, excited voice. He had returned from above, where Jeanne
could now hear shipmen scurrying about the deck in response to the orders heartily hailed in Dutch.
‘Klaar voor de kaapstander!’
‘We are coming to anchor,’ continued Paul, his eyes bright and shining like two silver shillings as the folk around them—some propped up against posts and barrels, others lying willy-nilly upon the deck timbers—groaned into consciousness.
Blurry-eyed, the passengers began to gather their meagre belongings, some their yawning offspring, while bundled babies suckled at their mothers’ breasts. People began looking around like alert stoats, wondering whether to abandon their places and make a move to the upper deck where the air, though chilly, was at least free of the foul smell of bilge water and the like. But their choice for the time being seemed to favour the latter, inured as they were to the stench of unwashed bodies, and sick and pisspots.
For Jeanne, the immediate relief was that of arriving safely to port, for the crossing had been rough at times, causing people to puke in unison. She had never travelled in a cargo ship over the open sea, and never had she been so fearful as when the boat had rocked and swayed far more than the craft on which she had travelled on Lake Geneva.
However, the general feeling of deliverance that accompanied the end of any seafaring voyage lay largely muffled under the anxiety of now facing the unknown, in a different language, and in a nation presently at war with their country of origin.
The clomping of boots descending steps diverted the voyagers’ attention to the hatch, where a stout Dutch gentleman—the same who had shepherded them onto the ship in Amsterdam—hummed and clapped his hands together. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he said in accented French, standing on the second step from the bottom. ‘Welcome to London Town. Please make your way above deck in order to board the wherries that will ferry you ashore.’
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