No Shame, No Fear Page 7

  “I was.” She glanced at my father, and a smile passed between them.

  A picture came into my mind, then, of my father, a soldier in Cromwell’s army, and a seeker after the truth, billeted on that farm in Staffordshire where my mother lived under the harsh rule of her Puritan parents. For the first time I saw them as young, like me, and I imagined the quickening of love between them, my mother seizing her chance of freedom.

  “It was a time of war,” she said, as if she’d seen my thoughts. “Everything was different then.”

  On May Eve, Mary and Nat and I watched a great maypole go up in the centre of town. That evening dozens of young people went out into the woods to gather greenery, and many didn’t come back till dawn. All day on May Day there was dancing and drinking around the maypole, and the streets were full of revellers. I looked out for Will, half hoping, half fearing, he’d be there. He was not, but he came that evening to a meeting at the Seven Stars.

  In our own community of the truth, we had more sober concerns than bringing in the may. We knew that the new act would soon come into force. For some time Friends from other meetings had been visiting, to talk and pray with us. Some came from as far away as Birmingham and Bristol. Meetings were now held several times a week, after work, for we all felt a strong need to be together and to wait on the Lord for guidance. Will came to most of these, but he still had not spoken to his father, and I grew afraid once again that when the trouble began he would be forced to leave us, and perhaps to leave me. I didn’t know if he had the strength to defy his family.

  The day we heard that the Quaker Act had been passed by Parliament, the room at the Seven Stars was full, and extra benches had to be brought in. In the silence that fell upon the company I felt the strength of our people. Judith’s father, Samuel Minton, spoke first. He said our task was to bear witness to the truth. If we met in secret the authorities might turn a blind eye. “Many of them are good men, unwilling to persecute us,” he said. “It’s what they want us to do: to go quietly and meet secretly if we must. But to do this would be a denial of the truth.” Several others spoke that evening, all against secrecy. We were resolved to meet in the truth and take the consequences.

  In the days that followed, some people had visions and spoke prophecies. John Callicott interrupted a sermon at All Saints Church and was arrested. Daniel Kite stripped naked except for a loincloth and walked through the streets on market day, proclaiming the power of the Lord.

  Mary was busy with a pamphlet that John Callicott had written. It spoke against the new Quaker Act and also the Licensing Act, which Mary told me had been brought in to prevent the publication of unauthorized pamphlets.

  “Our friend John is authorized by the spirit,” Mary said, as she took the text to Simon to have the print set up. She did not seek a licence.

  The next day – it was fifth-day – Friends were out on the streets, preaching and handing out pamphlets to any who would buy them.

  On sixth-day morning I was woken by banging in the street below. A vibration went through the building and I realized the banging came from our own door. Then I heard men’s voices shouting, “Open up!” and I pushed the screen aside and saw Mary, with a robe thrown over her night shift, heading towards the stairs.

  “Who is it?” I got out of bed, frightened already, remembering the day the bailiffs had come to my home.

  “The sheriff’s men.” She put out a hand to me. “Stay here, child. I don’t want thee hurt. Thou too, Nat,” she added, as he appeared, barefoot and pulling on a shirt, at the top of the stairs.

  “Thou shan’t face them alone!” Nat protested.

  “Don’t argue, boy. Go out the back way, and run up to the Pardoes’. Fetch John.”

  “I will.” He followed her downstairs.

  I dressed hurriedly – shift, stays, skirt, bodice – and ran down capless, my hair loose and feet bare. I could not stay there alone with the sounds of violence and argument coming from below.

  The print room was full of armed men. They had stormed along the passage when Mary opened the door, and now they were among the tables and around the press, searching out evidence. I suppose most of them could not read and did not know what they were looking for. They scooped up leaflets in handfuls: bills of sale, auction notices, as well as the so-called seditious pamphlets – everything they could lay hands on – and threw them into sacks to be taken away. Two men overturned the compositor’s table. Trays of type fell and scattered their contents and the men stamped on the trays to smash them.

  The leader shouted, “Take the sacks out, and clear these shelves!”

  I saw Mary place herself in front of the shelves to protect their contents. One man flung her aside, and she fell, catching her shoulder a blow against the press.

  I cried out, and they turned to me.

  “Here’s a maid come to fight us,” said another of them. His face leered close to mine. I could see the stubble on his chin and smell his breath.

  “Leave my girl!” said Mary; and I knew I had made things harder for her by coming down.

  She got to her feet again and tried to reason with them as they stripped the shelves of printing blocks and founts.

  “There is nothing seditious here,” she said. “It is work for the citizens and shopkeepers of the town.”

  But they ignored her, sweeping the shelves clear, smashing and breaking; and I saw how they enjoyed the damage.

  All was over in less than half an hour. By the time Nat returned with John Pardoe the men were on their way out, leaving us to survey the mess and rescue what we could.

  Mary looked white and shaken. I knew she had fallen hard against the press. With her grey hair hanging loose, she appeared an old woman, not the strong mistress we knew.

  “Why not go upstairs?” I said to her. “The men will set things aright. Let me make some camomile tea, and a cold compress for thy shoulder.”

  I went out to the kitchen, got the fire going, set some water on to heat for the tea, and wrung out a cloth in witch hazel and cold water the way I’d seen my mother do it.

  When the tea was infusing I took it upstairs with the cold pad and a bowl of water.

  “Thou’rt a good girl,” said Mary.

  The bruise was swollen and already darkening. I laid the compress on it and held it there to bring the swelling down. When the cloth warmed from her body I soaked it again and laid it back in place. Some water trickled onto her shift, and I moved the linen away. As I did so I saw marks on her back: hard ridges of lumpy flesh.

  “Thou hast been whipped,” I said.

  The beating had been more than a woman could expect from husband or father. This was punishment meted out by law. I trembled to see it.

  She turned round to face me. “That was long ago – when I was on the road and speaking as the spirit moved me.”

  I thought of her stripped half-naked, flogged in some marketplace with a crowd looking on. And, not for the first time, I wondered if I would be able to endure such treatment, if my faith was strong enough.

  “How dost thou bear it?” I asked. “To be shamed like that in public?”

  Her answer came without hesitation. “I wait upon God. In the silence, when my mind is turned to the inward light, I have come to a place where there is no shame, and no fear. Thou’ll find it, Susanna, when needs must. In that place, everything is possible.” She smiled. “Except my stays. Canst help me lace them? My shoulder begins to stiffen.”

  William

  “Have you got yourself a woman, Will?”

  I stood still, my heart pounding. My father’s innocent question filled me with guilt. Had he seen me? Did he know about my visits to Mary’s shop?

  He faced me across the warehouse, smiling, open-faced. His apprentice, Richard Allday, looked up and grinned.

  “A woman…?” I repeated stupidly, playing for time.

  “Yes. You know.” He sketched a shape in the air. “You take a good many walks, and go out in the evenings. And Richard he
re thought he’d seen you talking to a girl…”

  I turned sharply to Richard. But he was not to blame. The streets must be full of eyes. And sometime, I knew, I must tell my father everything. But not yet.

  “No,” I said. “No woman. I meet Jake Powell and Kit Harley, as you know.”

  I busied myself with my work. There had been a delivery of Welsh wool that morning by pack-train, and we were undoing the parcels and checking their contents. The floor was stacked with bales wrapped in sacking. Bars of sunlight lay across the room, lattice-patterned from the high leaded windows, and in the light floated a dense stream of dust particles.

  My father’s attention remained on me. “We must have some new clothes made for you,” he said. “You grow taller and broader.” He draped a dark red and gold wool across his arm and shoulder. “This is excellent cloth.”

  I looked at the fabric and knew it was not for me. Since I’d been mixing with the Quakers I had begun to change my style of dress. I had borrowed Anne’s embroidery scissors and removed the lace from two of my shirts. But I did it clumsily, leaving loose ends of thread, and Meriel came to me a few days later, full of apologies, thinking the shirts had been damaged in the wash. “I considered them too fine,” I explained, embarrassed, and she looked at me, uncomprehending. I had a mind also to change the silver-embroidered buttons on one of my coats for something plainer, but that would mean going to the tailor’s, and I knew my family would notice.

  Now, I looked at the luxurious cloth my father showed me, and suggested, “Perhaps in a darker colour.” I was unpacking a fine herringbone weave in grey, and held it up.

  My father frowned. “That’s sombre stuff! You want to make a show. Now this, with some ribbons put in bunches, London style, and some braid on the sleeves, perhaps red…”

  “I – I see no need for show,” I said awkwardly.

  “But men will judge you by your appearance. Be sure of that. And fine clothes are a mark of a man’s wealth and position.”

  I saw how much it mattered to him, that his son should reflect his status. His energy and enthusiasm would wear me down in the end. But not red and gold; I’d hold out against that – perhaps settle for blue.

  “We must all have something new for the midsummer dinner,” he said. “Everyone will be there – aldermen, councillors, the mayor…” He smiled. “It will be good to have you beside me.”

  My father did not inherit wealth. He was a farmer’s younger son, apprenticed to a draper and wool merchant. In this way he learned the trade, and although he has become wealthy he has never been too grand to work in the warehouse or shop. But he relished his standing in the town, and I was part of his pride: his clever son, who had studied the classics, who would bring him more honour.

  I knew I should tell him about my association with the Quakers before gossip reached him. But how to begin? He was not interested in religion, except as a form of behaviour. Anne and I were dutiful children: at morning and night we kneeled to him and received his blessing; at mealtimes we all offered thanks to God. But we never spoke of religion and what it meant to us.

  And now I had found a faith that challenged me to overturn my life. I had been shown a new way to live, and, no matter how difficult and dangerous it might be, I knew I must meet that challenge.

  I rehearsed in my mind what I would say. “Father, I have begun attending meetings of the Quakers…” The thought of his incomprehension and the pain I would cause him daunted me. But there was no avoiding it.

  I will tell him tonight, I thought, after supper.

  When I went to the bookshop later that morning I found it closed. At once I felt uneasy. I hesitated, then knocked at the side door. Nat answered it. His hair and clothes were dusty and there was ink on his hands.

  “Will!” he said. “Come in. Quick.” And he shut the door behind me.

  “What’s happened?”

  “We were raided this morning—”

  “Is anyone hurt?” My thoughts flew to Susanna.

  “No. Don’t fear. But they came when we were still a-bed; broke and scattered the founts and tossed work around. We need all hands to get the print room working again; none to spare for the shop.”

  “Can I help?”

  “Maybe.” He began explaining about the unauthorized pamphlets as we walked down the passage into the kitchen and parlour at the back.

  I had never been in this part of the building before, and felt as if I was being admitted into the intimate heart of the place.

  Susanna was there, kneading bread on a board, pummelling it with small strong fists. She looked up, startled, as I came in. There was a smudge of flour on her nose that I wanted to brush off, but I only said, “Susanna! I am glad to see you unharmed.”

  She wiped floury hands on her apron, offered me beer, which I declined, and glanced shyly from me to Nat. I saw that she felt at a disadvantage, caught here unawares. Even when Nat left us and went to find Mary, she did not come towards me, but returned to her work, shaping two loaves from the dough and placing a damp cloth over them. “I’ve to take those to the baker’s when they’re risen,” she said.

  The yeasty smell of the bread mingled with the scent of herbs and onions. A stew was simmering in a cauldron over the fire, and several cats lay snug against the hearth bricks. Behind Susanna a narrow stairway curved upwards. They would go up there, I thought, carrying their candles, at night – Mary, Susanna and Nat – into some arrangement of rooms and beds familiar only to them. I imagined Susanna in the candlelight, her dark eyes shining, her hair freed from its cap and falling over her shoulders.

  Mary came into the kitchen. “Hast thou come to help, friend William?”

  “If I can.”

  She nodded towards a broom propped in the corner. “We have most things back on the shelves and tables now, and the men are sorting it all. But the floor needs sweeping.”

  “Oh!” Susanna looked shocked. “Thou should not ask…” She blushed and fell silent under her mistress’s gaze.

  As for me, I was glad to sweep, if it kept me there and in Mary’s favour. I took the broom and went into the print room.

  It was good to be among friends and to feel part of the group. I swept a heap of broken wood into the centre of the floor, raising a cloud of dust; then collected the rubbish in panfuls and took it outside to the midden. I dusted the press, sorted a stack of paper, pulling out the crumpled pieces, and put it away. Various broken items I took to Nat for identification.

  “That’s a compositor’s stick. For setting up the line. But it’s no good now: throw it out. That’s a type tray. We can salvage that.”

  He explained the different typefaces to me, and I helped him and Simon sort them while John repaired the leg of one of the tables. Dust filled the air and we all sneezed constantly as we worked.

  Later, the women brought in mugs of beer, and we stood drinking and surveying our efforts.

  “What will you do now?” I asked Mary. “Will you dare print more?”

  “I think we will hold ourselves in readiness for next week,” said Mary. “On first-day there may be trouble.”

  “You fear arrests?”

  “We’ve heard it will be soon.”

  “I shall come!”

  “No!” she said, and I felt hurt. Hadn’t I just demonstrated my willingness to be part of this?

  Mary put a hand on my arm. “Come out to the kitchen. I must talk with thee. Susanna! Those loaves will be ready for the baker now.”

  Susanna glanced from Mary to me.

  “Get on, girl,” said Mary.

  When Susanna had gone, Mary turned to me. She was an intimidating woman: not tall, but with a commanding presence, her gaze steady and without any womanly deference. I guessed that she had been born into a family of some consequence. Certainly she was not in awe of me.

  “Hast thou spoken to thy father? Thy stepmother?” she demanded.

  “I – I mean to. Tonight.”

  “Until thou can do that it wou
ld be better to stay away. There are difficult times ahead. Thou’rt very young—”

  “But I am convinced!”

  “Very young,” she continued, “and the child of a powerful man who could justly accuse us of leading thee astray.”

  “You have not! I have come to it through my own conscience and the leadings of God.”

  “I believe thee. I have talked with thee and know thou’rt a seeker. And I know thou hast prayed and sought God in the silence. But thy father knows nothing of this. And there is the matter of Susanna. I’ve seen how it is between you, and others will have noticed too. It might be said that she enticed thee, and such accusations are dangerous. People are always ready to accuse us of witchcraft.”

  The idea filled me with horror.

  “I would never want to endanger Susanna,” I said.

  “Then wait. Be clear in thy own mind first. Such clearness will come if thou wait on the Lord and attend to the inward light. Now, don’t look so downcast. I have a duty to keep thee from committing thyself too soon. When the time seems right to speak to thy father, that will be thy time to bear witness.”

  That evening friends of my father’s came for supper; we played music and sang, and afterwards, my father being sleepy with wine and everyone happy, I felt it was not the time to speak out. On Saturday he went to Brentbridge on business and was not home till late.

  That night I lay awake, wondering if it was fear that prevented me from speaking to my father: either fear of him or a larger fear, of the great commitment I was about to make. I was afraid of pain, of imprisonment, of the loss of that protection my father’s wealth and status gave me; and yet the sense of joy and certainty in the path I had been shown was stronger, and I knew it could overcome all fear. But then I began thinking about Susanna: what to do; whether to tell my father about her before someone else did; what he would say if he understood how I felt about her. I lay sleepless for hours.

  On Sunday morning we went to church as usual. I sat between Anne and our stepmother, both dressed in rustling silk and smelling of rose-water, and all I could think about was Susanna and what might be happening to her at the Seven Stars.