Forged in the Fire (12 page)

“Thou lov'st that girl – the musician.”

“No!”

Other people looked round at us, and he continued in a low, intense voice, “Catherine is fond of music, as I am. I enjoy her company, but it's thee I love, Susanna.”

Catherine. So that was her name. In my memory I saw them again: laughing, catching each other's eyes; saw their shared joy in the music. Perhaps he had not yet acknowledged it in his heart, but…

“Thou belong there, Will; can't thou see it? Those people, with their books and music, their wealth, their connections. I saw thee there, and my eyes were opened. I saw that I should never have come. Thou did not expect me, nor send for me—”

“Only because the time was not right!”

His voice had risen again. The girl arrived with the bread and beer, and her glance took in our quarrel as she set the food out on the table.

When she had gone, Will reached for my hand, but I withdrew it.

“Su, what you saw was nothing – nothing! I have never been alone with Catherine; I am not courting her; thou wrong'st her to think so. I have scarcely spoken to her of anything except music.”

“But thou
lov'st
the music! I could see that. It shone in thy face. And with me, thou would lose it. I come of plain, sober folk. I have grown up without music. To me, it seems – not ungodly, but … frivolous.”

“It is frivolous indeed compared with my promise to thee.” And he looked at me with such hurt and longing that I was almost persuaded.

But I had made my decision. “I shall go back to Shropshire,” I said, “and set thee free.”

Our bread lay uneaten on the table. The newly arrived travellers settled near by and were served with bowls of steaming mutton pottage. They talked loudly, forcing Will to lean towards me as he tried to speak. I drew back, but he seized my hand and held it firmly.

“There is only one impediment to our marriage,” he said, “and that is my lack of work and prospects. James Martell and all his family died of the plague.”

I felt shock. I had not known this. “I am sorry, Will.”

“Edmund Ramsey cared for me when I was ill and has given me employment, though it is temporary. That is the only reason I remain there. They are good people, Su, newly become Friends. I wish thou would meet them—”

“No!” The memory of my shaming flight from their house rose before me. “No, don't ask me to face them again. I shall go home. There is no place for me here.”

I
walked back to Throgmorton Street in despair that I had been unable to reach her, to make things right between us. What had happened to our love that we had nurtured through three years of letter-writing: talking of books, of religion, of places, Friends and friends, our ideas and dreams of life together?

Now that I had seen and spoken to her again I had no doubt that I wanted Susanna as my wife. For the first time, this morning, I'd had a chance to look at her and see how she had matured and changed since I'd seen her last. Her face, framed in the plain cap of unbleached linen, had lost some of its childish plumpness but none of its fair colour, so appealing in London where people mostly look pinched and pale. Her dark eyes and her voice with its soft country burr were as beautiful as I remembered them.

We loved each other. We belonged together. How could she think I'd prefer Catherine Ramsey?

It was true – more true than I'd admitted to Susanna – that I had felt drawn to Catherine, and not only because of our mutual love of music. She was there, in the house, a pretty girl who enjoyed and sought out my company. But she was also a virtuous girl, who had done nothing wrong. I reflected bitterly, self-pityingly, as I trudged back through the cold dawn streets, that I had stayed true to Susanna for three years, as I'd promised her; I had not had any other girl, nor gone whoring as many young men do. I did not deserve her censure. She wronged me; and wronged Catherine.

The Ramseys did not ask questions, but they knew something was amiss. That afternoon there was no virginal-playing, and I noticed that the music books had been put away.

Dorothy, the youngest girl, regarded me solemnly. “Thy Friend was shocked, I think.”

“No, not shocked. But she – she felt unable to stay.”

I guessed that Catherine – indeed, all the women in the household except Dorothy – had grasped the situation exactly.

“Is she thy sweetheart?” the child asked.

“Dorothy!” warned Jane.

Clearly they had been told not to talk about my visitor.

Catherine was quiet and avoided my eye. A constraint had come between us, and I suspected that she felt overcome with guilt, as I did. I feared also that she was disappointed – that she had more fondness for me than I'd realized, and was hurt. I knew I must be careful, now, to protect her honour.

I considered leaving Edmund's house at once and returning to Creed Lane. But that would imply that something had happened between me and Catherine, which it had not. So I stayed, and nobody mentioned Susanna, and over the next few days the atmosphere in the house returned to normal and I sometimes heard the virginal again in the afternoons. I spent most of my time in the library, hard at work. The cataloguing would soon be finished, and then I would leave.

On seventh-day, in the evening, I went to see Nat.

“Hast thou seen Susanna again?” I asked him.

“No.” He looked at me warily. “You didn't kiss and make up, then?”

“No. We did not.” I would not talk to him about our troubles, but added, “She said she'd go home.”

“I doubt she'd go till the other Friends leave,” said Nat. “Perhaps she'll be at the Bull and Mouth meeting tomorrow.”

I thought about going to that meeting, where I could encounter her as if by chance. But what could we say to each other in company, even supposing she wished to speak to me?

She would not want me haunting her. I went with Edmund to Gracechurch Street instead.

I
did not go home. When I tried to imagine myself doing so I realized that I had nowhere to go – except back to Long Aston, and I didn't want that. I had ended my employment with Mary and had no place any more in her house. I thought, too, how humiliating it would be, to return to Hemsbury without Will; how I'd have to explain to Mary, to the Mintons, to Em; and be pitied by everyone.

So I told myself. No doubt there was a glimmer of hope there also, but I did not admit that.

I was certain I should not hold Will to his promise. He was with people of his own kind now, and I had seen how easily he consorted with them, and realized that he might soon begin to prosper again if he was not held back by me. I thought, too, how those people must have seen me – especially that fair, blue-eyed girl with her quicksilver hands. I'd stood there, dumbstruck, in my heavy shoes and plain hood and hat – a country girl whose hands were red and roughened from work. Of course the Ramsey girls were Friends, but as different from me as swans are from chickens.

I would give him his freedom, I decided. But I did not leave London.

The Shropshire Friends I had travelled with planned to leave in December – well before the shortest day and the feast of Christmas. That gave them some two or three weeks to visit London Friends and meetings. Some went to stay with relations or Friends they already knew; those few of us remaining were to be taken in by members of the local meetings.

On the first-day following our arrival, Alice and I went to the meeting at the Bull and Mouth tavern in Aldersgate. I knew this was the meeting Will and Nat usually attended. Nat was there, but not Will; and despite my resolution I felt disappointed. I was too proud to ask after him. He'd be with the Ramseys, I supposed, at some other meeting, or at their home; and the worm of jealousy, which I knew should have no place in my heart, twisted within me, and prevented me from reaching the light.

After the meeting, when we talked with Friends, I was approached by a thin, pale young woman with sombre dark eyes. Her name was Rachel Chaney, and she offered me lodgings at her home.

“It would please me if thou would stay in my house while thou'rt in London,” she said. “I am alone except for my young child. My husband is on a prison ship – condemned to be transported…”

“The
Black Spread-Eagle
?” I said.

“Thou hast heard of it?”

“Yes. And have been praying, in Hemsbury Meeting, for thy husband and the other prisoners.” I understood now why she looked so wan. “I should be glad to stay with thee.”

She smiled then, and the smile brightened and changed her face. “Come tonight,” she said. “I live in Foster Lane, above the silversmith's workshop. It's near here. Thy friend Nat will show thee.”

Nat came to the Three Tuns that evening and took me to Rachel's house. Alice had already gone to stay with a widow named Jane Catlin, who lived near by.

Foster Lane was only a short walk from the inn. It was a narrow lane, darkened by the jettied storeys that almost met overhead, so that on this winter evening we could see almost nothing except where an occasional household lantern cast a pool of light. I feared what I might be treading in, and stepped cautiously. The silversmith's shop was locked and shuttered, and entry to the house was by an even narrower passage between two shops which led to the back doors.

Rachel greeted us and invited us both in. Nat set down my bag while I looked around at the small kitchen, which was lit by tapers. There was a table criss-crossed with knife cuts, pewter plates on a rack, bunches of herbs hanging from the limewashed ceiling, and a baby's linen cloths drying on a guard by the fire. In one corner, safe behind a makeshift barrier, was the baby: a little girl less than two years old who reached up her arms to Nat and said, “Dadda!”

Nat shook his head and laughed, as did we all; and Rachel scooped up the child and kissed her and said, “She calls every man Dadda! I wish thou might see thy dadda soon, my poppet.” She turned to me. “This is Tabitha. She was eleven months old when her father was sent to Newgate. I fear she will forget him, so I talk about him to her all the time. Nat, will thou take beer with us? I have bread and some cold mutton too.”

But Nat said no; he'd leave us to talk. And he wished us goodnight and blew a kiss to Tabitha, which made her laugh; and then Rachel picked up a lighted taper and led me upstairs – she with the child on her hip, I with my bag.

There were two more rooms, both small, and one above the other, linked by steep, narrow stairs. Above the kitchen was a parlour, and above that a bedroom with a four-poster bed hung with thick drapes, a washstand, a child's cot, and a chest of a fashion I had not seen before, with drawers in it.

I set down my bag here, and went to the window to look out. There was no view, for the upper storey of the house opposite was almost close enough to touch. Someone with a candle was moving within.

Rachel said, “In summer, when the windows are open, we wave to Goody Prior, don't we, Tabby?”

We went downstairs to eat. I noticed that the fire was not lit in the parlour and guessed that Rachel was saving fuel by not using that room. It must be many months since she'd had her husband's income. In the tiny kitchen I amused Tabitha with a toy dog on wheels while Rachel mixed some gruel for the child, then cut up meat and bread and brought out a jar of pickled vegetables, and set the table.

“I'm glad thou could come,” she said. “My mother wants me to go and stay with her, back home in Houndsditch; she says I should not be on my own. But I don't want to go back there. I got married in part to get away from home! Sit down, Susanna, and eat.”

She took Tabitha on her lap and began spooning gruel into the child's mouth. Tabitha struggled to seize the spoon herself, flicking gruel around, and then became more interested in what was on her mother's plate.

We tried to talk, but our conversation was broken by the child, who demanded attention. After supper she grew sleepy and her head lolled on Rachel's shoulder.

“I'll put her to bed,” Rachel whispered, and crept upstairs with the little girl, whose face and hair were sticky with gruel.

She came down alone and said she would light the fire in the parlour, but I persuaded her not to. “It's warm here, by this fire.”

“I try to save money,” she said. “The meeting helps. Friends have been good to me.”

I asked, tentatively, “What news of the
Black Spread-Eagle
?”

She paused, and looked down at her hands in her lap. “None, for some while. There was plague come on board, and many must have died, but we don't know who… The ship is still in the river—”

“Still?”

“Yes. It's been nearly four months now. They say it cannot sail because the master has been arrested for debt, or some such. Oh, he is a foul, worthless man! I know I should seek to see the light in everyone, but in him I cannot! He will be the death of my husband, who is a good Christian and seeks only to worship God in peace—”

Her voice broke, and I reached and touched her hand. “I'm sorry, I should not have…”

She looked at me, her eyes red. “No. I need to be angry. I am angry with Vincent too, for going to Meeting that day when he knew he was at risk.” She brushed tears away. “He is a small man; slight, not strong – except in the spirit. His health is not good; every winter he suffers with a cough… But tell me about thyself, Susanna. Thou hast come with Friends to visit London meetings?”

“No,” I confessed. “I may do that, but I came to find my – the man I promised to marry. Will Heywood.”

“Oh!” She turned to me with renewed interest. “Thou'rt
that
Susanna! Will was to have been married to thee at midsummer?”

“Yes.”

“Will is a fine young man. Serious and deep-thinking. Thou know he is at Edmund Ramsey's?”