No Shame, No Fear Page 3
Now I shut the door on them all. I put my shirts and other spare clothes in the chest; looked in vain for somewhere to arrange a few books, and left them on a chair.
The scholar’s life had suited me. But now, it seemed, I was to become a silk merchant’s apprentice, my career mapped out already. My father probably had a future bride in mind too: another connection. For three years I had read and studied and translated, and the world had seemed to expand and become full of possibilities. Now the time had come to channel my life into its adult course. I liked the thought of London, and the prospect of travel. But the bond, if it was made, would bind me to Nicholas Barron for seven years. Seven years! I’d be twenty-four. It seemed an eternity.
My window overlooked the street. I opened it and breathed in the cold, still air. A house door opposite opened, and a woman came out. A cat miaowed around her feet. She placed a dole-cupboard on the street for vagrants, then reached up to light the lamp above her door. The sky was almost dark, and lights were blooming all along the street. I knew that under the overhang of the upper storey, Meriel would have lit ours.
There was no view, but I could smell the river, and I imagined it winding through the town and out to the countryside, field and barn dark under the stars; imagined the Quaker girl asleep, her hair loose but its colour still hidden.
That Quaker my father had seen sent to jail had stood up in church and interrupted the priest. Why? What did he have to say that was so urgent, so important that he would risk prison for it?
“They meet at the Seven Stars in Cross Street,” my father had said.
And I knew I would go there. Just once. Just to find out.
Susanna
It was a rare treat for me to go to town. Sometimes a pedlar came to the village, and we might buy threads or a thimble or cup from his pack. No trinkets. My mother and I never wore such things. I owned two dark wool skirts and a finer one for special days. This skirt was striped in blue and dark red and I wore it with a blue bodice that dipped in a V towards the stomach.
My mother was uncertain about what I should wear to meet Mary Faulkner – and then accused herself of light-mindedness for being concerned about such things.
“I think the striped skirt,” I said.
“But perhaps it is too fine for a servant…”
“I shall not wear it to work in. And folk dress finer in Hemsbury.”
She agreed. She found me a plain linen collar to cover the open neckline, an apron and dark stockings. I put on my only pair of shoes: sturdy brown leather, with plain laces. My hair was hidden beneath a loose hood and a hat.
She stood back and looked at me. “Thou’ll do.”
“Pretty,” said Deb, and my mother frowned.
I wished I could see myself. I’d often wished this. We had no mirror – that would be vanity – but there was a pond in the woodland that backed onto our holding, and sometimes I would look in there, or in a pail of water. I’d see a dark, wavering reflection that never came clear. I knew I had no pockmarks, that my teeth were good, that my hair curled naturally. But on the backs of my hands and arms were faint golden freckles. Once I tried washing these with distilled water of feverfew, but was still freckled afterwards.
My mother went with me to Hemsbury. I wanted to go alone, but she was set on meeting Mary Faulkner. We walked halfway there, then got a lift on a cart into the centre of the town. I gazed around at the crowds of people, the shops with drop-down counters onto the street, the gloves and purses, linen goods, bolts of wool – Welsh russet, Irish fledge. My mother lingered awhile by the cloth merchants’ shops, then asked the way to Broad Street, to the stationer’s.
We recognized it by the sign hanging above the door: a painting of a hand and quill pen. Inside, the shop was dark and smelled of ink and leather. I glanced around and saw stacks of paper, quill pens, slates, notebooks. At the back of the shop were some shelves of books and a step-stool to reach them. A man sat at a table there, peering short-sightedly and writing in a ledger. Behind him was a half-open door, and from beyond it we could hear raised voices, one of them a woman’s – a masterful voice.
The man looked up at us, and my mother asked for Mary Faulkner. While he went to fetch her I looked around at the books. Not all were new, and while some had soft leather bindings that made me long to touch them, others were unbound, or roughly bound in vellum that had curled.
The door opened at the back of the shop and Mary Faulkner came in. I saw at once that what I wore was unimportant, that she was one who would see past such things. She was a thin woman of fifty or so in a plain cap and apron, the apron none too clean and a smear of ink on her cheekbone. She was wiping inky hands on a rag and looked irritated, but she smiled when she saw us and said, “Forgive the noise. I am served by fools. You’ll be Elizabeth and Susanna Thorn from Long Aston, come seeking work?”
I felt fascinated by the surroundings, eager to see more, and yet overawed by so much evidence of learning. “I don’t know books,” I said. “Only dairying and spinning and such.”
“Thou need not know books,” she said. “Except to sweep the floor around them, and maybe dust them and put them away. Couldst do that, Friend Susanna?”
I lowered my eyes. “Yes.” I felt foolish.
“The books” – her gaze lingered on the shelves – “were my husband’s joy. But the print works was always our living. Come and see.”
The door at the back of the shop led into a long narrow workshop, full, it seemed to me at first, of machinery, men, noise, and the smells of ink and paper. It was an alien, male world, like no place I had been in before; yet Mary moved easily there, stopping to pick up a page still wet from the press and nodding approval to the burly man who operated it. He hauled on a lever and the press came down; another man retrieved the printed page and inserted a blank one. Mary introduced the men. The big man was John Pardoe; the other her apprentice, Nathaniel Lacon. This younger man looked up, red-faced, and I guessed he was the one Mary had been shouting at.
Mary handed me the leaflet. It was a notice of a cattle auction to be held in town.
“Most of the work is of this sort,” she said. “I print for Friends too: notices and commentaries. I could make more profit if I also printed local sermons, but my conscience would not allow that.”
“No books?” I asked. I was disappointed. I’d imagined seeing books made.
“No. My books come by carrier from London, or Oxford or Cambridge. For books you need a binding workshop, and artists to put in the illustrations and paint the colours. Ours is everyday work: handbills, announcements of sales and suchlike.”
The press was at one end of the room. It was made of wood and had a huge upright screw at its centre and a lever jutting out to one side. When John Pardoe pulled on the lever the screw brought down a heavy flat plate onto the frame holding the page to be printed. I watched as Nathaniel Lacon retrieved the finished page, then daubed the type with ink, using two round leather-covered pads with wooden handles.
He glanced at me as he laid another sheet of paper on the wooden frame. “This frame is the tympan, and over it” – he demonstrated – “we fix the frisket; that holds the paper in place, see? It all folds down over the forme.”
“The forme?”
“The tray of type.”
I craned my head to look at the type. “It’s back to front.”
“Has to be. The printing reverses it.”
He smiled at me, and I knew that he was glad to break off work for a moment and talk to a girl, and the thought made me feel both pleased and shy.
I looked around the workshop. All along the sides of the room were racks, drawers, cupboards, baskets of rags, bottles of ink. On a line strung between the press and a low beam were hung pages in different kinds of print. Some I found almost as hard to read as the back-to-front type.
“That’s Gothic,” said Mary. “We don’t use it much, but we have the fount.” She waved a hand at the racks. “All the founts are here.”
“This is Simon Race,” said Mary.
I thought: I shall not remember all their names.
Mary explained to me how the type was set up, page by page, all in reverse, with wooden spacing blocks between the pages.
“Canst read?” she asked.
“I can read the Bible.”
“Try this.” She handed me a little book.
I read aloud, nervous and trembling, for I knew I was slow. “‘The Pious Prentice … wherein is declared, how they that intend to be prentices, may rightfully enter into that calling; faithfully abide in it; dis … discreetly accomplish it—’”
She stopped me. “Thou read’st well enough. Keep the book. Thou’ll do well to learn it; it speaks for young servants too. Thou cannot write, I suppose?”
“Only my name.”
She nodded. “Thou should learn to write. A woman who can write can keep accounts, and list recipes and inventories, and make sure she’s not being cheated. And she can write to her husband when he’s away.”
I felt astonished, and then inspired. Writing seemed to me a powerful skill, one that few women had mastered, though some could read. And Mary thought me capable of it; that encouraged me.
I turned to my mother. “I could write to thee, Mam!”
“I’ll teach thee,” said Mary. “If thy mother approves?”
“I see no harm in it,” my mother said. I sensed that she saw little good in it either. She looked around at the leaflets hung on the line and the many different messages they must contain, and I knew she felt unlettered and in awe of Mary. “Thou’ll take her on then?” she said.
“Yes, I’ll take her if she be willing. As for that, Susanna, thou may do as the apprentices do, and come a-liking, to see if we suit each other. Come for a month. I’ll pay thee five shillings and thy keep. We live over the shop. Thou’ll share a room with me, but have thy own bed. Does that suit?”
“Yes,” I said, and smiled.
I spoke quietly, but I was near to bursting with excitement. A working woman. A wage of my own. And I’d live in town, and learn to write.
It suited me well.
William
I found the Seven Stars.
Cross Street is a little twisting street that runs downhill from Broad Street towards the river, and the Seven Stars is halfway down, among mean houses and shops.
It’s a respectable alehouse frequented by artisans; not a place I had ever been to. The street was crowded, for it was Tuesday morning and the shopkeepers had let down their counters. A woman selling fish from a barrow had stopped outside the inn and was shouting her wares. A small crowd soon gathered around her, and that gave me the cover I needed to look around.
Inside the shelter of the inn’s doorway someone had nailed a printed notice. It said that the People of God (called Quakers) met within on first-days, both in the morning and the afternoon.
As I was reading it a maidservant came out and threw some slops into the gutter, which was already beginning to stink of fish. She glanced at me, and I moved away as if I had no interest in the notice. I wondered if she was one of the People of God, as they called themselves. Through the open door the alehouse looked a simple working-men’s place: rough benches and stools, a stone-flagged floor wet from the servant’s mop. The meetings, I guessed, would be held in a room beyond, or upstairs. I tried to imagine going in there. It would be difficult; but I had nearly a week to get my courage up.
Before long all thought of Quaker meetings was pushed to the back of my mind. On Wednesday evening my father took me with him to meet with some other merchants for dinner at the Bull. One of them was Nicholas Barron.
I liked him at once. He was a man with the confidence that comes from wealth and position; calmer than my father, and less eager to please. He was soberly but richly dressed, his collar edged with fine Brussels lace, his gloves embroidered in gold.
He told me he was shortly to move to London, to an address near the Tower, and that his trade was expanding. He mentioned Venice and Bruges. He said his former apprentice was to leave and start out on his own, and he was now looking for another youth.
At first I was shy as he questioned me about my studies and the work I had done for my father, but gradually I felt more at ease. Our party was in a room of its own, with a good fire, waited on by the landlord in person, and served with plenty of wine. I began to talk more freely, and saw that he liked me. By the end of the evening we had agreed informally to the bond. I could hardly do better, I thought.
My father was in excellent spirits when we returned home. He told my stepmother, “I knew Nick Barron would like my boy! It’s all but settled, and just the details to be agreed.” He turned to me. “You’ll do well – and London is the place to succeed. But make sure you work hard; don’t idle your time away in taverns and playhouses.”
The thought of London sustained me all week. But on Sunday, when we went to church dressed in our best, I remembered the Quakers; and in the afternoon I made an excuse that I would go for a walk – and went to Cross Street.
I saw several groups of people walking together and knew at once they were Quakers: something about their style of dress, which was unadorned and a little old-fashioned, with tall black hats and plain collars; and their grave manner of talking to each other, straight-backed, with no doffing of hats or bowing, and no hint of precedence although some were clearly of higher social standing than others.
They went into the Seven Stars, one group after another. I had steeled myself to follow them. I hung back a little behind the last group, who were by now approaching the door, thinking that I could always turn back, then realized to my alarm that others were behind me, that I was caught in the flow. In panic I stepped aside, murmured, “Your pardon, sir,” and touched my hand to my hat before realizing that the gesture was inappropriate. They acknowledged me with the merest nod and passed inside, and I walked away down the street disappointed with myself.
I turned at the end, and came back up, determined to brave it out. I saw the last few – a family, parents and two boys – going inside. It would be easier now, alone. The door was closing behind them; I had only to catch it—
“Will!”
The shout made me jump as if caught out in a crime. I sprang away from the door and almost bounded into the street, turning round as I did so.
I didn’t recognize the two young men at first. Then I realized they were Jacob Powell and Christopher Harley. We’d been thirteen or so and at school last time we met.
“Jake!” I said. “Kit!”
I swept off my hat and bowed, and they did the same.
Jake clapped me on the shoulder. “We’ve been following you up the hill, arguing was it you or not.” He looked disparagingly at the Seven Stars. “Were you about to…?”
“No! I paused to – to glance at the notice there, but it’s nothing.” I knew I would not go in now; they had given me my excuse.
I drew them away, up the hill.
“You look mighty fine, Jake.” I remembered hearing that he had been apprenticed to a local wool merchant a year or two back.
He smiled. “My master flourishes, and is good to me.”
Kit, it turned out, had been less lucky. He had broken his bond with a Bristol master and had come home to look for another place.
“We’re out to drown his sorrows,” said Jake, flinging an arm around the other lad’s shoulders. “Come with us?”
“On Sunday?” All the taverns I knew of were closed today.
Jake gave me a mocking glance. “You’re an innocent, Will. Always were.”
He took us to a place in Fish Alley, where a door opened into
a house that served beer and food in a back room. Illegal, of course, and crowded. It amused me to think that my father probably had the power to close it down; and yet he might be happier to find me here than at the Quaker meeting.
We ate oysters, and beef; and we drank too much, each matching the others with offers to pay for all. We talked loosely, boasted, laughed at nothing. Kit told of the master he had left, who had regularly beaten him for the smallest fault and kept him half-starved by the sound of it. “A holy mister,” he said bitterly, “all preaching and praying and no charity.” Jake, by contrast, seemed to have an easy life: the daughter of the house ready to fall into his arms, the maids already done so; good meals of beef and pork, white manchet bread, wine; and free time in the evenings to spend drinking and gaming or betting on dogs.
“And you, Will?” he asked. “Are you in work?”
“Looking for a master,” I said. “I’ve been at school these three years past. In Oxford.”
“Oxford,” said Jake. “Now there’s a place. Are those Oxford whores as good as they say?”
“Better.” I could not admit that I didn’t know.
Kit, already well gone in drink, said, “A scholar. Been studying whores.”
We laughed, loud enough to make others turn round.
A maid came to clear the dishes. Jake put his arm around her waist. “Here’s Kate.” He pulled her close.
“You’ve had too much.” She wriggled free.
“What have I had? Not enough of you!”
She laughed, and cast a glance at me. “You’ve brought a friend.” And as she leaned across to pick up the plates I caught the scent of her sweat and saw her breasts moving inside her bodice.
We grew more boastful as we drank. I told stories, much exaggerated, of drinking and gaming in Oxford, and I guessed how their stories must be equally false. But my news of a possible bond with Nicholas Barron impressed them. “Don’t hesitate,” said Jake. “Take it if it’s offered.”