As Meat Loves Salt (37 page)

'I won't send it,' I promised. As earnest of my good intentions I crushed the letter into a ball and, stepping up to the grate, tossed it into the flames.
God reads it,
I thought, as it drew itself together into a black rose, then delicately broke apart.

Ferris came up to me and squeezed my hands. 'You're grown very biddable since we left the New Model,' he said. 'What has quieted you?'

I shrugged.

'If I can think of any safe means, Jacob, be assured we'll use it. Let's both give it our best consideration.' He patted my arm. 'Meanwhile, I've something to show you. Sit down — no, not there. At the table.'

Biddable, I sat where I was told.

'Clear all this away to one corner.' He was fumbling with the lock of the bookcase. 'Why are these dishes still here? Where's Becs?'

'I've frightened her away,' I told him, stacking plates.

'What, did you catch hold of her?' He stopped jiggling the key and looked back at me. 'Eh? Kiss her—'

'No!’ I almost shouted. 'Nothing, I'll tell you later.'

'Be sure you do.’ He grinned. 'I count myself the protector of that girl's virtue. It is a fearful thing to see your lust battering down her defences—'

We both laughed. The bookcase door swung open with a thin squeak and Ferris lifted out the scroll of paper he had brought back from the New Exchange. Easing off a narrow ribbon he unrolled the thing and then whirled round to slap it down on the table in front of me.

'There!'

We faced one another over a masterly engraving of the cathedral itself and all the city round it, finer even than that we had at Beaure-

pair, and serving also as a map, for it showed the names of the roads and streets. Ferris smoothed it flat against the table, holding down the corners with his elbows.

"This is where we went—' and he traced the route with his finger, as well as he could, for he was reading upside-down and some of the smaller ways were not marked. 'And here, Cheapside.'

Fascinated, I picked out one of the tiny houses. 'Is this ours — I mean yours—?'

We bent down to look closer. Warm-smelling hair brushed my face. The shirt fell away from his neck and I drew back a little.

'Hard to say,' he replied. 'Wait a minute,' and he took up and inked the pen I had been using, then bent again and turned the map over, writing on the back,
To Jacob Cullen, a New-Year's gift from his friend Christopher Ferris, 1645-1646.

'There,’ he said. 'Though somewhat early.'

I flung my arms round him. 'Many many thanks! The best gift I ever had—' And so it was, not only the gift itself but his having noted my interest in such things, and picked me one out with such care.

'Something to remember me by,' he said as I released him.

'It needs no gift for that.'

Ferris came to sit next to me and watched, amused, as I traced out upon the map all the places I had visited.

'I shall never tire of looking on it,' I cried. He turned to me, smiling, a tiny movement in his eyes as if he were searching in my face, then rose abruptly.

'I wonder what ails my aunt! Will you get Becs to fetch me something to eat, Jacob, while I go and see if she be well?'

I agreed to brave Becs, and going downstairs I asked her to bring up Ferris's
something.

'You look more yourself now,' she said.

'Is prayer so unusual in this house that it's counted an illness?' I teased her.

'Kneeling on the tiles is.'

I discovered she did not know why Aunt was so late that morning, but on going back to the fire I found Ferris full of intelligence.

'A chill,' he said. 'Rheumy eyes and nose. She'd best keep her bed.'

'Should we call in a doctor?'

'She says no. I'll take her some ginger after breakfast.'

We sat down at the table again in silence, side by side. I carefully rolled up my map and replaced the ribbon. 'Ferris,' I began.

'Yes?'

'I - something very, strange happened to me this morning.'

'Becs put her hand on your knee?'

'This is no jest. Pray hear me out.'

He moved back to the chair opposite me.

'This morning, when I came down and no one was here, I— I had a vision.'

Ferris's eyes grew perplexed. 'What, an angel? A ghost?’ There was suddenly a hunger in his voice and in his look. I knew what it meant, and was sorry to disappoint.

'No. Nothing like that. But I saw the room — the world
—felt
it — translated.'

'Translated!’ He frowned. 'How?'

'I can't say!' I was beginning to wish I had never started. 'I was happy, and — methought I was with God. It was so strong, Ferris, like nothing I have known since I became a man.'

'How long did it last?'

'Perhaps a minute, I could not tell. Becs broke into it.'

'That was what scared her?'

'She found me kneeling in prayer.'

'That would scare anybody.’ But there was no heart in his mockery. He leant forward and took me by the shoulders. 'So, why did you pray? Does it signify, do you think? About the colony?'

'There was nothing about that. But I knew myself forgiven for all my past sins. Now I have to do right.'

'Make restitution.'

Aye.'

'Stay here.' He rose and went to the bookcase, whence he pulled out a little blue and green volume.

'What's that? A book of visions?'

Ferris shook his head. 'Sermons. Look here,' and he ruffled the pages with his finger. 'Here.'

I took the sermons and read: ...
the desire for salvation is in itself a most certain proof of salvation, and though diverse there be who feign it, so that they may deceive their fellows, yet any man who doth yearn and travail in his heart after salvation, even that man who grieveth for that he holdeth himself damned, that man is saved. And though none other knoweth it, or considereth the man worthy, this proof doth hold. For what wicked creature did ever desire to be saved? The evil wish only to continue in their evil, and to be thought good. The fool hath said in his heart, "There is no God." But to say, "I am a sinner and desirous of salvation, " that is to say, "I am every good man." Take heart therefore, and continue in the ways of virtue.

"This is all that was wanting,' I said, laving aside the book.

'Did you not tell me in the army that you wished to make restitution?' Ferris asked. 'You grieved for your sins then; it needed no vision.'

His voice was gentle, but I thought I heard mockery there, deep down.

'More than grieved,' I insisted. 'There was terror of damnation — temptations—'

'We are all tempted,’ he said. 'Are you a Christian, and still to learn that? Every single man that lives—'

'Not every, man hears—' I cried out, then stopped. I was afraid to put to him the question that racked me:
And if some — thing — came
privily to you? If it showed you foul pictures, and spoke to you in words — in words
—!
Would you not fear for your soul?

'Hears what?' asked Ferris.

I shook my head.

'Take comfort,’ he said. 'Lay the past aside.'

'So you do think I have received Grace?' I begged.

Ferris gave a crooked smile. 'I guess that if Elect there be, you are one of them. And being Elect, you stand in no need of my say-so.'

I saw he did not like the talk. For one moment, when he had thought I was speaking of a ghost, his longing for the dead had charged my vision with a quickly fading glory. He was now recalled

to himself and to a familiar scorn. His own dreams were of brotherhood and justice on earth: visions and enthusiasms he associated with Ranters. When Becs brought up the food Ferris began to talk of the printing press, and we spoke no more of the thing I had witnessed; though I was sure I had been given a sign, and glowed inwardly with resolution, yet I felt I should never have told him of it. For I was Jacob, and there was room for just one prophet in our house.

It fell out as I had hoped: we did not visit Richard Parr. Having taken up some ginger in hot water, Ferris found the sick woman more wretched, and sat with her until she went off to sleep again.

'Becs can't do everything; besides, Aunt gets comfort from me,' he said. 'I'll go and see her every hour or so, unless she wants more.'

'Let me help,' I said, glad to risk a sickroom provided I could only stay shut up on such a foul day.

'I have more need of you than Aunt. Get your coat.'

'Coat?' I thought I had heard him wrongly.

'For warmth. Today your apprenticeship begins.'

The room at the back of the shop was bitterly cold. Ferris ran about fetching logs and quickly made a fire. The grate did not draw very well, and the air soon grew something smoky.

'Here.' He threw me a leather apron and tied another round his own waist. 'You'll get ink everywhere until you're used to it.'

There was a slanted wooden shelf which I had not noticed before, and on it a kind of frame filled with metal blocks.

'This is your typecase, and the type pieces with the letters on. What do you notice about them?' he asked.

'They're back to front.'

'Right! A very quick boy. Now, you have to read and set everything in reverse.'

Ferris pulled something from a drawer underneath the shelf. 'This here's your stick,' and he put a piece of wood in my hand. It had corners to it, and looked nothing like a stick. 'I want you to set up my name, yours, and Aunt's, all in one line. Like this,' and he showed me how to wedge the little squares of type in place. 'Off you go.'

I searched for the letters and found J-A-C-O-B-C-U-L-L-E-N. It was easy work laying them out on the stick, and I went on with Christopher Ferris and Sarah Snapman in the same way. Ferris meanwhile fiddled with the screw mechanism on the press, flicking oil onto it with a feather.

'Finished,’ I said. He came and took the stick from me and smeared a little ink over the type with his finger, then pressed a sheet of paper over it. When he peeled the leaf off, I read:
SIRREFREHPOTSIRHCNELLUCBOCAJNAMPANSHARAS

'First mistake,’ he said. 'Everybody makes it. Try, again.'

'You could have let me know after one name.’ But I settled down to work out the problem in earnest. It was much slower going the second time, but at last I managed:
CHRISTOPHRFERRISJACOBUCLLENSARASHNAPMAN

'Better. Now,' he went on as I picked at the muddled letters, 'to space them out, you take these,' and he showed me some little squares which were blank. 'Put spaces between them, and points,' showing me the stops.

All my life I have had a horror of being thought clumsy or stupid; even when I toiled beating carpets and polishing pewter for fools, I wanted my fellow servants to see how well I did it, and Caro's neatness of touch, shown in her skill with My Lady's hair and with laces and pot-pourris, was one of the things that drew me to her. I grinned with pride when his next print-off read:

CHRISTOPHER FERRIS. JACOB CULLEN. SARAH SNAPMAN.

'Excellent!' He was boyish, excited. 'So far as composing goes, practice is all - getting handy at it. So I'll give you something to set up.' He handed me a printed sheet. 'The Lord's Prayer. Set it up, and justify the left, exactly as it is here — you see?'

I nodded. 'Where are the big letters for the title?'

'In these cases here. They're all laid out in order of size, see the names: ten point, twelve point.'

'And what happens when I've finished?'

'It goes in the form.' He showed me how the type was fixed into a metal frame. 'Then you can see it printed off. Put your name on the

bottom and we'll hang it on the wall upstairs.' He went off to see if Aunt was awake.

How I laboured. Yet at the time I scarce noticed, for I was no longer working to please Ferris alone. There was a delight in it. No one had taught me such things before, my job at Beaurepair had been simply to serve. Then there had been handling the pike: that was a butcher's job, needing only size and strength. But this work was what they called a
mystery,
a skilled trade. My eyes watered in the smoky room; my hands were stiff with cold and most likely very clumsy with the letters compared with my friend's more delicate fingers, but I kept on without a thought of stopping until I heard the door open.

'Jacob, come eat something. Aren't you hungry?'

I at once knew that I was.

Ferris came over to see my handiwork. 'Bravo, Prentice! We should cut your hair again.'

'What, and break Becs's heart?'

'Give her a lock to keep.'

We were laughing as in the army, the early days. I almost expected Nathan to stick his head up from behind the shelf of type cases. Ferris’s spirits were high, I knew, because he saw my willingness as a sign I was coming over to the idea of the colony. His happiness was so pleasant to me, I resolved there and then never to thwart him if I could help it. If I could not atone to others I could at least be a means of good to my friend, and though I could not interpret my vision to him he might yet benefit by it. And I at once had some success, for as he ran up the stairs ahead of me I remarked how graceful he was, and another thought following upon this, I straightway cut it out at the root.