Act of Faith (3 page)

He jumped to his feet. ‘Then I can indeed be of service. Allow me to find you the best ship across the Channel.’

‘I have never seen the ocean,’ I said. ‘I’ve certainly never sailed upon it.’

‘Nor have I,’ Justinian admitted. ‘But I will find a way.’

I held out my hand. He took it with relish.

‘The very next ship would be better than the best,’ I suggested. ‘Shall we say, tomorrow?’

‘So soon?’

‘My father fears for me. I must leave this week.’

‘Then he need fear no longer. Leave it in my hands.’

He was back within an hour.

‘I have done it!’ he shouted, waving a piece of paper over his head. ‘The good ship
Dolphin
. It sails on this evening’s tide, close to midnight, they said. Be at Puddle Dock by nightfall. A boat will meet you there.’

He handed me the paper and I took it in both hands. It felt like freedom.

‘There are men called shipping agents,’ he said. ‘They take care of everything. I booked you a cabin. It’s a very modern ship. There is a bunk for you and one for your servant.’

‘Such luxury. Imagine.’

‘Only …’ He took my hand again. ‘I wish you didn’t have to leave. Paris is a terribly long way.’

‘We shall return in no time at all, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘When all this nonsense is cleared up and my father is released.’

‘Yes,’ he said bravely. ‘I look forward to that moment for so many reasons.’

I extracted myself from Master Jonson’s formidable grip as best I could, and hurried out into the city to prepare for the journey. I needed food for a few days, a completely new wardrobe for Nanny, an extra trunk. I ordered a cart for the luggage, and spent the afternoon packing Father’s few remaining books and papers into his old leather bags. Then I gathered together my own things, Nanny’s clothes and the basket of food, and left the inn forever.

I was outside the prison well before dusk.

Justinian Jonson came out of the gates and waved extravagantly at me before I had time to hide. ‘Mistress Hawkins!’

‘How do you do, sir?’

‘I have been visiting your father.’

‘I thank you, yet again.’

‘I am honoured.’ He bowed. The man was always bent double.

‘I have come to say goodbye to him,’ I said, a genuine tremble in my voice.

‘A sad occasion,’ he said. ‘I have myself spent more than an hour with him and know how keenly he will miss you.’

Damn. ‘You told him I was leaving tonight?’

‘I wanted to be sure he felt confident of your plans,’ he said. ‘He approves, and was kind enough to thank me for my effort on your behalf, trifling though it was.’

‘As do I, with all my heart.’

I offered him my hand and he took it, kissed it softly, and held it in his.

‘You must excuse me, Master Jonson,’ I said. ‘This is a sorrowful day for me. I must go to my father. Nanny is meeting me here and we must join the ship in an hour or so.’

He nodded. Another bow. ‘Farewell, Mistress Hawkins. Until better days.’

He waved until the prison gate slammed shut behind me.

My father stood by one of the fireplaces, staring anxiously into the crowd. His face crumpled into a smile when he sighted me.

‘Father.’ I took both his hands.

‘My wise, courageous daughter. Jonson has told me everything. This is much the best way.’

He was trying to be brave, I could tell.

‘Father, that’s very noble of you, but there’s no need for martyrdom just yet.’ I paused and looked around us. Wallace waved. ‘We need to go somewhere private. Very private.’

‘Follow me.’

He led me to a dingy room just off the main hall. It smelled like a privy. ‘This is supposed to be our chapel, but nobody ever feels like praying in this squalor.’

‘I can see why. Now, just do what I tell you and, for once in your life, don’t argue.’

An hour later, I bade farewell to Father’s friends in the main hall and waved to the old woman, who was again cooking something wonderful over the embers. How she managed it in that place, I’ll never know. I walked out through the prison gates for the very last time, with Nanny a few paces behind me, carrying the basket. She dipped a curtsey to the guard at the gate, handed the basket to me, then helped me into the cart that stood waiting, with my trunk and bags.

When we were both settled, the cart lurched and we set off across London to the river, to the good ship
Dolphin
and to our future.

Nanny started to fidget halfway across the Channel.

‘Stop it,’ I ordered.

‘Can’t I at least have something to read?’

‘It’s too dark. And, anyway, nannies don’t read.’

‘This one does.’

I glanced across the cabin and laughed out loud. Father was slouched on his bunk, resplendent in Nanny’s new clothes, but with his own boots and breeches showing clearly underneath.

‘I feel ridiculous,’ he said.

‘You are ridiculous,’ I said. ‘But you are free.’

He let out a laugh as well.

‘Shhh! Nannies don’t laugh that loudly, either.’

He stifled it into a low chuckle.

‘Where is dear old Nanny, anyway?’

‘Visiting her sister in Cheapside.’

‘Did she know about this?’

‘I thought it better if she didn’t. But I wrote to her just before we sailed and asked her to go back to Cambridge and pack up our things. She’ll keep them safe until …’

He nodded. ‘And Jonson?’

‘Sadly, I had to mislead Master Jonson ever so slightly.’

‘Oh dear.’ Father lay back on his narrow bunk. ‘He was so proud of himself, too.’

‘We must hope he won’t realise his error until too late.’

‘It’s already too late — Cromwell will not chase us to Paris.’

‘We won’t be in Paris,’ I said. ‘As soon as we arrive, we’ll take another ship.’

‘Ah, my adventurous, brilliant daughter!’

‘I have written to your friends in Amsterdam. We’ll seek refuge there, as have so many others.’

He grinned. ‘God is good, my darling girl, but you are a wonder.’

We were nearly there when the storm broke.

The ship had reached the waters of the Zuiderzee, off the coast of Amsterdam, at last after days at sea, though it still had to weave its way along narrow channels between sandbars.

It seemed calm. At first.

There was nothing more ominous than a summer rain shower: a puff of breeze that buffeted the ship ever so slightly; a grey glaze in the morning sky. I kissed Father’s forehead and left him in the cabin to read in peace. On deck, the crew pulled on ropes, shouted from the tops of the masts, and dragged sails down — as if they knew. I suppose they did.

I gazed at the clouds — watched how they dipped and buckled against each other. I heard the sailors call:
Beware the shoals, the sand, the current; beware the lee shore
.

Beware. What a dreadful word that is — one of those words that holds its very own meaning. Once someone shouts ‘Beware’, it’s too late. There is nothing you can do but stare your fate in the eyes.

My father stood beside me. ‘What’s all the fuss?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘It can’t be anything serious. Perhaps they’re just getting ready to dock.’

The captain rushed past yelling, paying no attention to us.

‘It sounds rather serious,’ I said.

‘Sailors never talk when they can bellow, that’s all. They’re used to shouting over the noise of storms. Still, there’s no sign of a storm today.’

‘The sky is getting rather gloomy,’ I said. ‘But we’ll be safe in Amsterdam in a few hours.’

‘The greatest city on earth,’ my father said, one hand warm on my shoulder.

‘You used to say that about London.’

‘Perhaps.’ He smiled. ‘But we’re finished with London now, aren’t we, Bella? From tomorrow, we are citizens of Europe.’ The breeze flicked at his hair. ‘Imagine,’ he said softly. ‘A whole new life lies before us.’

Then, all at once, it seemed as if God’s forefinger burst through the clouds and pressed down upon us — out of all the people in the world, we were chosen to be swirled about in our suddenly fragile ship, hammered by surging seas, and cast upon the shores of Hell.

Green and white water foamed over the bow and crashed along the length of the deck, swirling around our legs, clutching at our clothing. The ship shuddered and twisted. I clung to Father’s arm, partly to help him stay on his feet and also in fear.
He held onto the mast; one hand clutched a rope. Another wave, even higher this time. Cold, so cold — and suddenly dark, as if God had left us.

Someone grabbed at me — a sailor who shrieked into my face so I could hear him above the wind. ‘Come, Mistress. You must come to the boat.’

I stared at him. ‘Is it that bad?’

He wouldn’t answer. ‘Please, Mistress. Hurry.’

I felt a lurching terror in my belly, in the dark of my soul. I nodded, as calmly as I could.

‘Father,’ I shouted. ‘We have to go to the boats.’

Water streamed through his silvery hair and dripped from his beard. He gazed at the waves, at the ship, at the crew — at everyone but me. ‘Magnificent,’ he said.

‘Father?’

He smiled, cupped one cold hand around my face and looked at last into my eyes. ‘You go first, child, with the other women. I’ll come in the next boat.’

The sailor tugged at my sleeve.

‘Go, Isabella, they are waiting for you,’ said Father. ‘God willing, you will soon be safely ashore. I will join you there.’

He kissed me twice — once on the temple, once on my fingers — before the sailor dragged me away.

In the feverish days and nights that followed, while I waited for my father to find me, the narrow bed in the hospice seemed to rear and rock beneath me, wrenched this way and that by the tides, by the storm, by the hand of God, until one morning I woke up and knew the truth.

There was only one boat.

The nuns bustled about with compresses and hot towels but I barely acknowledged they were there. I would not speak or cry or sleep. I lay there, swimming in the bleak certainty that my father had gone back to our cabin to pray amongst his books and his precious papers, until the ocean folded over him like sleep and took him down through its depths.

Those books, his papers, the mahogany writing desk, the silver goblets, his great fur coat, the sketch of my mother’s face, her earrings, the little book he had made me with his own hands, our small pouch of gold pieces: they were all gone.

They were all we had.

He
was all I had.

He had left me, abandoned me, given me up to the strong arms of sailors straining against oars, to the pummelling waves, pebble-wracked sand, and a city filled with strangers. Our new lives, my father’s life, were over.

I sat on a chair by the window and stared out across a tiny courtyard towards the hospice garden filled with healing herbs, where the Sisters worked in the afternoons before prayer. I watched them, and wondered about their days here in this place of silence and sunshine. Such peace. Such a long way, in every sense, from my past.

Strange how the leap from one life to the other had taken only a few minutes — a shouted farewell, a kiss, and then … this.

On the fifth day, Fra Clement came.

The nuns roused me from my stupid staring and escorted me into a reception room where a tall man in a black cassock sat waiting.

He rose, put out a hand and greeted me in accented English — the first I’d heard since my father’s farewell.

‘My child,’ he said kindly as we sat stiffly on two wooden chairs facing each other, ‘I am so sorry for your loss — as are we all.’

I sniffed.

‘Your dear father had many correspondents in the city. We were all eager to meet him.’

I said nothing. Instead, I gazed about me, at the clean-scrubbed stone floor, the empty fireplace, the whitewashed walls. The nuns had given me a dark woollen shift to wear, and a linen blouse that scratched against my skin.

This is all I have now.

‘Are you quite recovered from your fever?’ he asked.

I jumped; I’d almost forgotten he was there.

‘Yes, thank you.’

His voice dropped into a practised pastoral tone. ‘We shall have to consider your future here.’

I stared at him. ‘Excuse me, sir, but who are you?’

‘Didn’t the Sister announce me?’ he asked.

‘She told me your name, and I know it well from your letters,’ I said. ‘But …’

‘I am an unofficial consul here in Amsterdam — I represent His Holiness.’

‘You know the Pope?’

He smiled. ‘Not personally.’

‘Forgive me, sir, but why should you have any regard for my future?’

‘You are not alone in the world, Mistress Hawkins, although it may feel that way. As you know, I have corresponded with your father for many years — we never met, but I considered him a friend.’

‘I remember,’ I said, my voice rather more hoarse than I intended it to be. ‘He was looking forward to meeting you, and his other colleagues in Amsterdam.’

‘Of whom there are many,’ said Fra Clement. ‘Please believe that we are your friends, too, and together we will find shelter for you.’

‘Can’t I stay here?’ I asked. ‘I just need somewhere to sleep.’

Fra Clement sighed. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. The Sisters run a hospice, but they cannot care for healthy young women who are not part of their order. So, unless you wish to become a nun …’

‘I suppose I might have to,’ I said, although it had never occurred to me before that moment. ‘Unfortunately, I’m not Catholic.’

He laughed. ‘Nor are the Sisters. Nobody with any sense is now, or they risk the wrath of the City Fathers. The Dutch States are similar to England, although at least they do not execute priests here. But Catholicism is illegal — a topic on which your father held strong views.’

‘Don’t read too much into that,’ I said. ‘My father defends everyone, of every faith, on principle. Except himself.’

‘He defended liberty in all its forms.’

So my father was now in the past tense. Not for me. Not yet.

Fra Clement went on. ‘I believe I am the only Catholic officially left in Amsterdam, and I’m not even sure about that sometimes. They let me stay because I am a harmless old fool, besotted with books and too preoccupied to bother anyone.’

I looked at him closely for the first time — he didn’t appear to be either old or a fool. He was a dark, dander-flecked man, with surprisingly small hands like the claws of sparrows. Everything about him was thin: his nose and face, his greying hair. Thin lips, too.

I sniffed again. Loudly. ‘You are very kind, sir, but I don’t wish to burden you. Is there an almshouse, perhaps?’

In my sorrow, I hadn’t wondered what might happen to me next. The horror of the shipwreck, and my father’s sacrifice, were all that my mind could contain. There had been no room for the future in my thoughts.

‘I trust it won’t come to that,’ said Fra Clement.

‘I have nothing — no possessions, no money,’ I said. ‘It was all on the ship.’

‘You have your mind.’

‘Oh, that.’ I smiled, for the first time in days. ‘How much could I get for it down at the market, do you think?’

‘Perhaps you can work, until such time as you find a husband.’

I pictured myself bent over a kitchen floor, scrubbing brush in hand; or counting out oysters in the fish market; sewing shirts by candlelight; selling pork pies from a barrow, or flowers to young girls who walk, as I once walked, carefree through the streets.

‘Over the years, your father has written to me about your education, your work as his secretary, your skill in translating,’ said Fra Clement. ‘It is unusual in a girl, of course, but I cannot doubt it. You are his daughter, after all, and I have never known a finer mind than his.’

‘That is what I am — my father’s daughter,’ I said slowly. ‘That is all I am.’

There was another of those pain-stuffed silences.

‘I will come to collect you in the morning,’ he said quietly, and then he was gone.

I waited a while, staring again at the cold fireplace, until one of the Sisters came to take me back to my room.

Fra Clement was true to his word. After breakfast the next morning, the Sisters bustled me out to the courtyard where he waited in a black carriage marked with a silver crucifix on each door. He wore the most startling scarlet cloak over his cassock.

I climbed up into the seat opposite him. The interior of the carriage smelled of polished leather and the faintest trace of incense. He nodded at me gravely and thanked the Sisters on my behalf. I tried to smile to show my own gratitude for their kindness, stout bread and weak broth.

Fra Clement didn’t speak to me for the entire journey. He glanced at me once or twice, as if to check I was still there, and seemed vaguely surprised to find that I was. I didn’t ask where we were going. I didn’t care.

The carriage drew up in a little cobbled square, edged by rows of identical houses on three sides and a canal to the north. Every house was many storeys tall and narrow, and each was as grey as the next.

Fra Clement knocked on one of the doors facing the street, and greeted the old man who answered it with a smile and a pat on the shoulder. ‘Here we are,’ he said in French, suddenly cheerful.

‘Here you are indeed,’ said the stranger. ‘What do you want?’

‘One thing at a time, my friend,’ said Fra Clement. ‘Don’t fuss. Let me get in the door first.’

‘All right, all right, if you must.’

The man opened the door a little wider so we could enter a wood-panelled hallway, then led the way into a cold room that looked as if it hadn’t been dusted for many months. Bookcases
filled an entire wall, and books sat in piles on the floor everywhere. Fra Clement made himself comfortable in the only chair, and looked around happily.

The old man’s intense brown eyes were upon me. I stared back. He was wearing a worn green robe, and a soft cap that fell down around his ears and long grey hair. I noticed that his fingers were stained with ink, and there was a black smudge along one cheekbone.

‘Is this Professor Hawkins’s girl?’ He had a lovely lilt in his voice, and the trace of a Spanish accent.

‘Yes,’ I said quietly, also in French.

‘I’ve heard of your grief,’ he said. ‘We all feel it. May God have pity on the soul of your father, and let him rest in peace.’

‘Thank you for your kindness, sir,’ I said. What else was there to say?

‘Isabella, may I present Master Joseph de Aquila?’ said Fra Clement. ‘He is without doubt the finest printer in all Amsterdam, another great friend of your father.’

‘I know your name, sir,’ I said. ‘I believe you printed an edition of
Discourse on Liberty
.’

He nodded sadly. ‘That was some years ago.’

Fra Clement went on. ‘Joseph is also someone to whom you will no doubt prove very valuable.’

We both turned and stared at him.

‘What are you scheming at, you wretched monk?’ Master de Aquila growled.

Fra Clement smiled, and switched into Italian. It was the Tuscan dialect, and hard to follow at first. ‘My dear friend, I am not scheming. I simply propose to solve Mistress Hawkins’s problems and your own at the same time. You know she is an accomplished
Latin translator, and you need someone to help you around here. A match made in Heaven, as they say.’

Master de Aquila’s scowl grew even more ferocious. ‘What do I want with a girl who can’t speak Dutch? I’ll wager she can’t read Hebrew, either.’

‘But that’s the point.’ Fra Clement took the printer’s arm and led him to the corner near the fire, as if I couldn’t hear them there. ‘She can run messages, and need never know what’s in the notes she carries. If anyone asks her questions, she won’t understand what they’re talking about. Any secrets will be safe. You may as well have a deaf mute. Look at her.’

Master de Aquila threw me a glance. I pretended I hadn’t noticed.

‘Blue eyes, fair hair, skin as pale as a statue,’ Fra Clement went on. ‘She looks more Dutch than a Dutchwoman. She’ll pass unnoticed in the city, which is more than you can do, mark my words.’

‘Bah! Too skinny. She’s just another mouth to feed.’