London in Chains (36 page)

‘Have you supped?' asked Mary, seeing her hesitation. ‘Dick, she needs a bite to eat first!
Next
week she can come with us.'

‘I thought . . .' Lucy began, then stopped. Both Overtons looked at her enquiringly.

‘I thought that now I've well-paid work, I should give you your house again and lodge elsewhere,' she said with regret. She would be sorry to leave this secure refuge.

‘Ah!' said Richard. He'd been standing in the doorway, but at this he came back and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘That. Aye. What would you say to staying on, as paying lodger?'

Lucy was astonished. She looked quickly at Mary.

The older woman smiled. ‘If we could have taken a lodger before, we would have, but where could we find one we could set to share a bed with the children?'

‘We will buy another bed!' put in Richard hastily. ‘We'd soon have need of one anyway, with Faith growing to be such a great big girl. But, aye, it would be hard to find another lodger we could trust to keep any secrets she might chance to overhear, and two or three shillings more each week would be very welcome.'

‘I . . . I should very much like to stay,' Lucy said. ‘But if Mr Mabbot learns what it is I'm printing, surely he will . . . will be very angry with you?'

Richard grinned. ‘No doubt he would be, but nothing would come of it. I, after all, am prerogative archer to the House of Lords, and he's but the hypocrite Licensor of the Press! I hope he never does learn it, but that's for your sake, not mine. How say you?'

‘I should like it very much,' said Lucy, blushing a little.

‘Very good!' replied Richard. ‘We'll agree the rent later; now Mary and I must away to our meeting.'

The next few days Lucy basked in the sense that she had come home after struggling through a storm. She had work; she had safe lodgings with friends; she had finally made a settlement with her heart. She hadn't realized how much the lack of the last thing had preyed on her: it was as though she'd dropped a heavy burden. The worry about whether Ned would or would not offer marriage; the division in her soul about what she should do if he did; the struggle to suppress her feelings for Jamie – it was all done with and she could let it go. Her settlement might not be wise, but at least her struggle – unlike the kingdom's – was over.

It was true that Jamie was still in prison and that she didn't dare speak to Ned, but she had made her decision, and now all she had to do was wait.

Fifteen

There was a letter waiting for Lucy when she returned from work on Tuesday evening. ‘John Wildman left this for you,' Mary told her.

Lucy felt a shock of cold from head to foot: she hadn't seen that rough left-handed writing very often, but it was distinctive, easily recognized. She took Jamie's letter over to the kitchen table, where a candle gave her enough light to read it.

‘
My verie deere . . .
'

She had to stop there. Mary, who was busy preparing supper, looked at her in concern and asked, ‘Bad news?'

‘Nay,' said Lucy, smiling and blinking.

‘Oh!' said Mary, staring at her. ‘Oh, my. Whose is this letter?'

‘Jamie Hudson's, whom I . . . who was at Ware and arrested for mutiny.'

Mary thought a moment. ‘The big man with half a face, a friend of John Wildman?'

‘Aye.'

Mary gave her a doubtful look. ‘What of Ned Trebet?'

Lucy glared indignantly. Mary put her hands up. ‘Well, others than me have noticed!'

‘His friends want him to marry a respectable dowry. They disapproved me and so he havered and wavered. He wouldn't court me, though he tried to put off . . . others, until he had made up his mind.'

Mary was silent a moment, studying Lucy with a clear, level gaze. Then she sighed. ‘He left it too late, I see.'

‘Aye, he did,' agreed Lucy, and went back to her precious letter.

She read it over and over, smiling over the agitated crossings-out, trying to work out what he'd started to say before he changed it. She spent the rest of the evening in a happy daze.

She ached to see Jamie. When it was Thursday again, she went to the meeting at The Whalebone, along with the Overtons, in the hope that John Wildman would be there and could give her the news.

When she came into the tavern, Ned stared at her hard, his face flushed and his jaw set angrily. She gave him a timid smile. He did not return it but looked pointedly away. After that he ignored her.

It hurt – she had, as she'd feared, lost a friend.

She spotted Wildman shortly before the meeting was called to order. He looked tired, and his boots and coat-hem were splattered with mud. When he noticed her looking at him, though, he smiled.

Lilburne chaired the meeting, as he usually did when he was present, but he called on Wildman to speak first.

‘My friends,' Wildman began, ‘most of you know that I have been at Windsor, arguing on behalf of our friends who were most unjustly taken up at Ware. First I must report that I have good hope for their release. The Grandees at last begin to despair of a settlement with the tyrant Charles Stuart, and the sinking of that hope compels them to look more favourably upon us. The court-martial which was to have tried our friends has been suspended, and instead their cases have been referred to the Council of the Army. I fear, though, that this is the reformed Council of the Army: the Agitators have been barred from it, and the men have no one to represent them. Like all else in this sad and divided kingdom, the release of our friends has become a subject of contention.'

The contention, however, was not as serious as it might have been: it was over whether the men should be released without charge or whether they should first be required to offer some form of submission to the Army command, rather than over how severely they should be punished. Wildman was optimistic that the matter would be resolved within a couple of weeks; in the meantime, he said, the men were being treated well, and their friends were allowed to visit them and bring comforts. It was a great relief to Lucy.

The rest of the meeting was encouraging, too: it treated the events at Ware as a lost battle rather than a lost war. A new petition had already been drafted and the drive for signatures would be on an unparalleled scale. Meetings would be held throughout London and into the suburbs; the Leveller leaders would visit every part of the city to answer questions about
The Agreement of the People
. The common fund would be expanded; a second treasurer would be appointed to help Mr Chidley to manage it; members would be asked for regular subscriptions. Far from being inclined to surrender, the Levellers were stronger and more determined than ever.

When the meeting ended, Wildman paused and waited when he saw Lucy coming to speak to him.

‘He's well!' he told her before she had a chance to ask. ‘But I know he would be glad of another letter.'

Richard Overton had followed Lucy; at this he grinned. ‘I never thought to see you play Love's sweet messenger, John!'

‘Ah, I am a man of infinite resource!' replied Wildman. ‘But I fear I have displeased our host.' He glanced at the bar, where Ned stood glowering at them. ‘He did not even give me any ale tonight!'

‘I had none either,' said Richard, also looking in that direction. ‘And yet I can't find it in my heart to blame the man. He has suffered a cruel disappointment.'

Wildman shrugged. ‘Let it be a lesson to us all of the dangers of hesitation.'

December started out bleak, dark and bitterly cold. Lucy imagined Jamie shivering in a stone cell. She wanted to send him warm clothing but didn't have enough money saved to buy any. She considered going to visit the Cotmans in Stepney and asking Cousin Nat for the repayment he'd promised, but she feared what might happen if she did. Nat Cotman was already angry with her: he clearly felt she'd shamed the family by going to lodge with strangers. To make her first visit because she wanted money seemed likely to prolong the quarrel.

She hoped that the Cotmans would invite her to visit on a Sunday. Dull as Sabbath afternoons in Stepney had been, she did not want to be at odds with her only kin in London. Cousin Hannah's baby – Thomas's grandchild – was due in a couple of months, and Lucy wanted to be part of its admiring family. No invitation came, however. Near the end of her third week at the Overtons she sent a hesitant note.

There was no reply.

That Sunday, greatly daring, she accompanied the Overtons to their church. They were what her father would call ‘heretics and blasphemers' – specifically, General Baptists. She was mildly disappointed to find nothing in the service to shock her: Baptist preaching wasn't all that different from the Presbyterian variety. There was less about Hell and more about Christ's love, but the flurry of scriptural references and the style of preaching were much the same. If the congregation groaned in penitence less, it shouted more.

The Brownes attended the same church, and after the service Liza hurried over to give Lucy a hug. ‘I've not seen you for
weeks
!' the girl cried. ‘And I thought I'd see you every day, now you live but down the road!' She turned to her father. ‘Da, can Lucy come to dinner?'

‘Aye, why not?' said Will Browne, smiling.

It turned out, however, that Liza had an ulterior motive for the invitation.

‘Is it true that Ned Trebet asked you to wed and you refused him?' Liza asked breathlessly, when they were seated at table in the room behind Browne's bookshop.

‘Liza!' protested Will Browne.

‘Aye, but is it true?'

Lucy set her teeth: Mary Overton had been right that Ned's interest had been widely noticed. ‘It's true.'

‘Why did you refuse him?' asked Liza in bewilderment. Her father cast his gaze towards Heaven.

‘His friends disapproved me because I have no dowry,' replied Lucy tactfully. ‘I had no wish to cause a quarrel between him and his friends.'

‘You hear that, Liza?' asked Will Browne approvingly. ‘Lucy's a wise woman: she knows that a marriage undertaken against the wishes of friends is a hard road!'

Liza frowned at her father. ‘Do you think Ned's friends would disapprove of
me
, too?'

Lucy suddenly grasped the reason for Liza's invitation. For a moment she was tempted to laugh; then she realized that Liza must be almost fourteen. That was more than old enough to marry, according to the law, and Liza thought Ned altogether wonderful; Lucy had been vaguely aware of that for some time without giving the matter any thought. She wasn't sure whether to be worried for Liza, vexed that at least one young woman already had an eye on Ned – or relieved because, if it all worked out, she might recover a friend.

‘
You
have a dowry,' Browne said affectionately.

Liza lowered her eyes, satisfied.

December wore on slowly.
Mercurius Pragmaticus
began to mention Christmas – a festival which Parliament had banned as an idolatrous excuse for gluttony and licence. Lucy's family had never celebrated it, but many of the citizens even of godly London strongly resented the ban, especially in this grim year of poverty and hunger. Marchamont Nedham had much to say about Parliament-men who banned innocent merriment while engaging in all sorts of corrupt practices themselves, and his writing fed the restless anger that was everywhere in the city, flaring up suddenly into violence in tavern or marketplace quarrels. Lucy took more care than ever on her way to and from work, dodging through side streets or waiting in doorways if she heard raised voices ahead.

Around the middle of the month, Lucy came home to find Susan sitting in the Overtons' kitchen. She exclaimed delightedly and rushed to hug her.

Susan returned the hug, then let go and looked searchingly at Lucy. Lucy was shocked to see that the maid was worn to the bone, her eyes darkly circled and her pock-marked skin pale and dirty.

‘Your aunt's dying,' Susan told Lucy quietly. ‘She asked for you.'

She told Lucy more as they walked eastward towards Stepney. Agnes had been suffering the first feverish forepangs of smallpox even at her husband's burial. She had taken to her bed as soon as the family returned home from the church, but everyone had put it down to grief – until the rash appeared three days later. She had survived the disease itself but had now contracted pneumonia and was not expected to live through the night.

Lucy remembered her fatuous hopes for an invitation to Sunday dinner and was horrified and ashamed: she had blithely gone about her work, unaware of the disaster unfolding for her kin. ‘Is Cousin Hannah . . .' she began, then stopped, unable to finish.