Cromwell’s Blessing

‘Very much, sir. I have dreamed of it long enough.’

‘Well then, you shall be. In a few days’ time.’

I smiled at his look of astonishment.

‘But my indentures are not over for –’

‘Nine months.’

‘And twenty days,’ he said, looking at the base of the press, where for the past year he had carved and crossed through each passing day before his release.

I told him he was as skilled as he ever would be and the paperwork was a mere formality. I would arrange it. As a journeyman, his religion would then be a matter for his own conscience. I began to go into practical details, but he interrupted me. He had a stammer, which he had gradually mastered, but it returned now.

‘Has my m-master agreed?’

‘Yes.’

‘It is …’ His face reddened, intensifying the pale blue of his eyes. ‘D-dishonest.’

I told him the rules were dishonest for apprentices – medieval rules, designed to give Guild Masters free labour for as long as possible.

‘What about George?’

‘There’ll be no trouble there. I’ve told him you were leaving.’

‘With-without telling me?’

He began to make me feel uncomfortable, particularly as I thought he was right. I had been high-handed. ‘I’m sorry, but the opportunity arose. And I was worried about Mr Black being thrown out of church.’

‘That would be a good thing,’ he said fervently.

‘A good thing?’

‘He could join the Baptists and see Heaven in this life.’

The idea was absurd. But he elaborated on it with a burning intensity until I stopped him. ‘Nehemiah, Mr Black is old and he’s been in St Mark’s all his life. I’m sorry, but you have to leave. Or go to your master’s church.’

‘Obeying G-George? Like you did?’

He knew the story of how I had struck George and might have killed him if Mr Black had not intervened. Then I had run off. I sighed. Helping him was not as easy as I blithely imagined, particularly when he brought up how I had acted like him – or even more violently – in the past. I walked outside to untether my horse. He followed me, saying he h-hoped he did not sound un-g-grateful – I detected a note of sarcasm in his stammer – but e-even with his journeyman papers he had no position to go to.

I mounted my horse. ‘I will take care of that.’ I told him of a printer who, at my recommendation, would pay him twenty-eight pound a year.

He gazed up at me, open-mouthed. ‘All f-found?’

There was no sarcasm in his stammer now. Money. Everything came down to money. I was a fool not to mention that at first. ‘All found.’

‘Twenty-eight pound!’ he muttered to himself. ‘All found!’ He caught the saddle of my horse. ‘He is one of Lord Stonehouse’s printers. I would be beholden to Lord Stonehouse.’

‘We are all beholden to someone, Nehemiah.’

‘No!’ he cried, with such violence my horse reared. ‘We are not! We are beholden to ourselves!’ He gave me that look of intensity again, then abruptly bowed his head. ‘I-I am sorry. I know I have been churlish, but I have not slept since this business began. I was a fool to think Mr Black would become a Baptist.’ He gave me a wry wincing grin and I warmed to him, for he brought back to me all the torments I went through at his age. ‘I must consult my brethren. And pray.’

‘And sleep,’ I smiled, telling him to give his answer to Mr Black in the morning.

Who would have thought peace was such hard work? It was easier to face cavalry across open fields than try to bring conflicting minds together. But I felt a surge of optimism as I rode past Smithfield on the route I used to take as a printer’s runner. I may have made a great hash of the Challoner business, but I was learning.

Next morning a letter came from Mr Black. Nehemiah had gone. He had scrupulously broken up the last forme, distributed the type and cleaned the press. In the night he had woken Sarah, apologising for taking a piece of bread, which he promised to repay. He put the bread in the old knapsack, with his Bible and a pamphlet whose title she knew, for he had read it to her interminably. It was called England’s Lamentable Slaverie. There was no printer’s mark. It was from a group naming themselves the Levellers. It declared the Commons as the supreme authority over which the King and the Lords had no veto. Also found in Nehemiah’s room was a copy of a petition to Parliament circulating round the army. It asked simply to be paid, to guarantee indemnity for acts committed during the war, and no compulsion to serve in Ireland.

Nehemiah went off at first light, breaking his bond as I had done, years before.

4

It preyed on my mind. What Nehemiah had done was completely stupid. He could have been a journeyman, earning far more than most people of his age, free to practise his religion – what more did he want? And why did it trouble me so much?

‘I would be beholden to Lord Stonehouse.’

That was the problem, of course. He reminded me I was beholden to Lord Stonehouse. Nehemiah was like a piece of grit in bread that sets off a bad tooth. However much I told myself it was nonsense – he could be a liberated slave and see how far that got him – the ache persisted.

Anne knew, as she always did, there was something on my mind, but I refused to talk about it. She would laugh at me, just as she had when I was like Nehemiah. So I whispered it to little Liz and she put everything into proportion. I was beholden to Lord Stonehouse because I was beholden to Liz, to my whole family, to peace.

‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ I whispered.

She gurgled and put out her hand, exploring my face. I laughed with delight, held her up, kissed her and rocked her to sleep. I crept away, stopping with a start when I saw Anne watching me.

‘You never kiss me like that now.’

I bowed. ‘Your doctor has warned me against passion, madam.’

It was true. Liz had been a difficult birth. Anne had lost a lot of blood, and had been bled even more by Dr Latchford, Lord Stonehouse’s doctor. That was one of the things I hated most about being a Stonehouse. I felt like a stallion, not a lover, only allowed to cover the mare in season.

‘Dr Latchford,’ I said, giving her the doctor’s dry, confidential cough, ‘says it is too soon to have another child.’

‘Dr Latchford, fiddle!’ She picked up the mockery in my manner and drew close to me. ‘You’re back,’ she whispered.

Perhaps it was Nehemiah, that ache in the tooth, which made me say ‘Tom Neave’s himself again.’

‘Oh, Tom Neave! Tom Neave! I hate Tom Neave! He is nasty and uncouth and has big feet.’

I choked with laughter. This was exactly the sort of game we used to play as children after I had arrived without boots and she had mocked my monkey feet. ‘How can it be? Tom Neave or Thomas Stonehouse, my feet are exactly the same size, madam!’

‘They are not! Look at you!’

In a sense she was right. I was not really conscious of it until that moment, but since seeing Nehemiah I had taken to wearing my old army boots, cracked and swollen at the toes, but much more comfortable than Thomas Stonehouse’s elegant bucket boots. I slopped about in a jerkin with half the buttons missing and affected indifference to changing my linen.

I loved her in that kind of mood, half genuine anger, half part of our game, teased her all the more and tried to kiss her.

‘Go away! You stink, sir!’

I pulled her to me and kissed her. She shoved me away. I collided into the crib, almost knocking it over. Now really angry, she went to the door. Contrite, I followed to appease her, but the baby was giving startled, terrified cries and I returned to soothe her.

The encounter with Anne roused me. We had not slept together since I returned, but I resolved not to go to her room. Although I mocked Dr Latchford, I could see that, even when she had been out in the garden, her skin did not colour. Her blue eyes had lost some of their sparkle. She loved rushing round with Luke, but she left him more and more with Jane and Adams.

I was asleep when she came into my room and climbed into bed beside me.

‘Are you sure?’ I mumbled.

‘Sssshhh!’

‘Dr Latchford –’

‘Do you want me? Or do you want Dr Latchford?’ She leaned over me and kissed me on the mouth.

There was a violence, a hunger in that kiss that swept away the dry old doctor and all our arguments and fears, swept them away in the wonderful rediscovery of the touching of skin, bringing every feeling crackling back to life until her cheeks coloured and her eyes sparkled. We laughed at the absurdity of our arguments, at the sheer joy of being together.

We were side by side. I began to climb on top of her.

‘No!’

‘No?’

She twisted away and wriggled on top, which seemed unnatural, outlandish to me. I had heard some of the men, in their cups, talking of whores having them like men. I had reproved them, not just for the whores, but saying did they want to wear skirts, like cuckolded husbands shamed in a Skimmington? But, before I could utter a word, she had clumsily but effectively put me inside her. I was on the brink and could not stop, until she gave a cry of pain and pulled back. I checked myself but her nails dug into my back as she thrust me back into her and we came together in a confusion of pain and pleasure. She instantly rolled away and lay panting with her back towards me.

‘Are you all right?’

She nodded and curled up to sleep.

‘What was all that?’

‘Did you not like it, sir?’ she murmured. ‘It’s called world upside down.’

It was a well-worn phrase describing the chaos after the war, vividly illustrated in a pamphlet by a man wearing his britches on his head and his boots on his hands. Now it seemed to have entered the bedroom.

‘World – world –? Who on earth told you that?’

‘Lucy.’

I was outraged. ‘You talk about our love-making with that woman?’

Lucy Hay, the Countess of Carlisle, had been the mistress of John Pym, leader of the opposition to the King. Since he had died, there had been great speculation about who was now sharing her bed.

Anne sat up, fully awake, her gown half off. Her belly was slacker, her breasts full, but her neck was thinner, her cheeks pinched. ‘We talk about how a woman should keep a man when she has just had a child. About what to do when – when it is difficult to, to make love … That’s all.’

‘All!’

She hid her face on my neck and I held her to me. I could feel her heart pounding. ‘We should wait,’ I said half-heartedly. ‘You know what the doctor –’

She pulled away. ‘Wait? I want another child in my belly before you go off again!’

She spoke so loudly and ferociously I clamped my hand over her mouth. There was silence for a moment, then a cry from Liz, broken off by a stuttering cough.

‘I will not be going away again.’

‘You will. I know.’

Liz gave a long, piercing wail. ‘She’s hungry. Could you not go to her?’

‘Women who are in milk can’t conceive. The wet-nurse fed her. Don’t you want another child?’

‘Yes, but when you are well.’

‘I am well.’

I put my hand over her mouth again as footsteps stumbled past the door. I listened to Jane’s soothing, sleepy voice, the clink of a spoon against a pot of some syrup, until the coughing eventually ceased. Anne ran her finger gently down my nose and along my lips. She dropped her gaze demurely. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I will not do that again, sir, if it displeases you.’

I swallowed. I could not get out of my head the vision of her being above me and began to be aroused again. She laughed out loud at my expression. ‘You’re like a small boy who’s just been told he can’t have a pie!’ As I moved to her, she stopped me with a raised finger. ‘Wait, wait, wait! Promise me you are Thomas Stonehouse, and not that stupid Tom Neave.’

I put on my deepest gentleman’s voice. I enjoyed being a gentleman when it was a game. ‘I am Thomas Stonehouse –’

‘I mean it!’ She clenched her fists. ‘Why do you put on that stupid voice? Why do you quarrel with Lord Stonehouse? You can get on with him so well when you want to!’

‘When I do what he wants.’

‘Please, Tom!’

‘All right.’

‘Promise? Promise you will not quarrel with him when he gets back from Newcastle.’

‘I promise.’

‘Touch the bed.’

When we were children we made solemn vows by touching the apple tree. Now we touched our marriage bed. Being a great lady was as much a game for her as being a gentleman was for me. But for her it was a deadly serious game. I looked at her knotted hands, her earnest, determined face, even lovelier in its fragile, faded pallor. I felt a deep, swelling surge of love for her. Being a gentleman at that moment seemed a most desirable thing to be. No more fighting. Sleeping in my own bed. Or hers. I touched the bed-head.

‘I promise.’

When the letter arrived next morning it felt like too much of a coincidence. I could not believe she had not known, before coming to my room, that Lord Stonehouse was on his way back. But she looked so shocked that I could ever think she would dissemble like that, and said it so charmingly, and was so full of excitement, and fussed so much over my linen and over a button on my blue velvet suit – in short, it was so much as if we had just been married all over again that I was completely disarmed and able to read the letter, if not with equanimity, with more composure than otherwise. Lord Stonehouse, as frugal with words as he was with money, presented his compliments and would appreciate me calling at Queen Street at noon sharp.

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