Treason's Daughter (31 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

October 1645

H
EN WALKS HOME THROUGH THE CITY FROM ST PAUL'S
churchyard on an autumn day so golden bright it makes her want to skip like a girl. Her cheeks and hands burn with the cold, but she bubbles with happiness. The low sun gilds the buildings, as if setting a halo on the city. God is good. God is good.

In her pocket are her wages, and Mr Rowan has given her a half-day. Tucked under her arm is the book she has chosen to take home with her. She found it buried in the back stacks:
The Countess of Montgomery's Urania
by Lady Mary Wroth. She has read the title page again and again. Lady Mary Wroth. A woman!

Scribbled across the page is a note written in anger, with splattered ink and indentations like furious pinpricks: ‘Vile HERMAPHRODITE. Leave idle books alone: for wiser and worthier women have written NONE.'

She thinks of the lines she snatched before tucking the book away in a hiding hole, to take home later. Not stealing, exactly. Just borrowing.

Come darkest night, becoming sorrow best;
Light, leave thy light, fit for a lightsome soul
.

The book promises misery, and love denied. What joy! She will read it to Anne. Poor fat, irritable Anne, with her raging heartburn and sleepless nights. Anne's belly grows bigger, swelling and thumping with life, despite her best efforts. She has drunk potions that make her spew from both ends: ‘a thorough fart', Hattie called it, which made Anne smile even as she dove headfirst to the pot. She has jumped off walls, and stood on her head. She begged Hattie to use the needle, but accepted her refusal. Too dangerous for the mother.

Until now, at last, she has learned to accept the life inside her, even to anticipate with pleasure its violent kicks. Now coming to term, it batters at her belly from the inside, demanding its entry to the world.

Lady Mary Wroth will take her mind off the coming event. Lord keep her safe.

‘Miss Challoner!'

Hen stops, squinting into the sun.

‘Mr Chettle!'

They both begin to talk at once. He looks well. His dark suit is well cut, and he looks healthy, handsome even. There is a pink flush to his cheeks, no doubt from the cold.

‘Very well, thank you,' she stammers out to his enquiry as to how she is.

‘And your brothers – they are well?'

‘Ned is with the army, a captain now. Sam we heard of last at Naseby.' All the happiness she has husbanded leaks away in an instant.

‘Forgive me,' he says. ‘Innocent questions in these times too often provoke pain. May I walk with you?'

She thinks of her rooms above the butcher's shop with a sudden rush of shame. She starts to make excuses and then thinks, the devil take my lies. I am where I am.

‘Yes, thank you. I am going home.'

They turn and walk together. ‘And have you spent a pleasant morning, Miss Challoner?'

‘I have been at my work.'

‘Work!' He stops and stares at her.

‘Sorry, Mr Chettle. Did I startle you? Yes, work. It helps to buy food, I find. Useful, too, for paying rent.'

‘Well, yes, I . . .' He stops talking and they begin to walk again.

‘You know my father's property was sequestered. And the committee for which you clerk is having a terrible time actually paying the men who fight its wars. Ned cannot keep me and his wife and our grandmother on thin air.'

Chettle stammers something non-committal.

Hen thinks of Anne, and starts to enjoy this. What a tale she will make of it when she gets home.

‘I'm working in a bookshop. There is only one other career open to women, but though I can take the risk of paper cuts, I prefer not to entice the Spanish pox. I rather like my nose.'

‘Miss Challoner!'

‘Dear Mr Chettle, I am sorry. Do you have any other notions of how I might earn money for my keep?'

‘Respectable women . . .' he begins, but trails off.

‘ . . . are plump of purse. I, however, am not.'

‘I am sorry, Miss Challoner.'

‘Curious,' she says. ‘I find I'm not sorry.'

And now, she thinks, for the final scene.

‘Here we are,' she says.

‘Here?' He looks at the shop. Hattie sits on the front step, cheerfully plucking a chicken, pausing to wave at Hen. The chicken's throat is cut, and its head swings back and forth on the flap of remaining skin. Its blood pools at Hattie's feet, and there is a red smear on her face.

Hen points to the upper levels, which hang precariously over the fetid street. The place looks tired, cheap and grimy.

‘There. Well, Mr Chettle, many thanks for escorting me. Goodbye.'

It would be too much to sit with Hattie and pluck the chicken. A scene too far. She walks past Hattie towards the stairs at the back of the shop, leaving Chettle gawping like a befuddled guppy.

Grandmother's end comes with a whimper. The day before she was raging. Demons danced in her brain, and hell beckoned her. Grandmother clutched at Hen's hands, babbling her fear.

‘He's coming for me. Coming. And he is dancing, and they are naked, his imps, child, and they want me. And they will burn my flesh; fry me and roast me and souse me. They'll broil me and baste me with my own blood. Henrietta, they're coming. Oh, they are coming.'

Lucy and Anne leave off their bickering long enough to help. They bring warm water for Hen to bathe her; they take away her soiled sheets and put them in the pot, drawn together by
the horror of the old woman's descent into a hell she has long prophesied.

To the girls it seems as if she is hanging on to a cliff edge by her fingernails, the fires below licking at her skirts. It is so real for her, her fear so vast and so palpable, that they can almost smell the smoke, and the crisping of flesh.

They have pulled her out of her cave, but she is beyond caring. She lies, tiny and shrivelled, in the best bed. Her eyes are huge in her furrowed face. She closes them to sleep, at last, sometime around two in the morning, and Hen climbs in beside her. She puts her arm round the old lady's concave waist and feels the shock of time. How strange to be the soother, not the soothed. How infinitely sad to coddle and hush her grandmother like a child.

‘Hush, my darling. All will be well. All will be well.'

What lies we tell to the ones we love best, Hen thinks in that long, dark night.

In the morning, Hattie is there, solid and wonderful. Her broad red face is shiny and beautiful to Hen, who has watched the pain and fear flit over her grandmother's ruined face for too many hours.

Behind her is Claire Baker, their neighbour and a cunning woman. She is older than Hattie, and grey-haired. Her face is curiously unlined. She nods towards Hen, crossing the room swiftly. She leans in to listen to the old lady's breathing. Grandmother stirs a little and mumbles.

‘From life to death,' says Claire softly. ‘She will be gone soon. Caught in His embrace. Come, child. No time to cry. She will be in His arms at last.'

‘She doesn't think so,' says Hen, sobbing. ‘She thinks the devil is waiting. She thinks she is damned.'

‘Shall we pray for her, child?' They kneel, but before they pray, Claire takes Hen's hand. She says: ‘In the time of our fathers, they thought that prayers could intercede, could help the departing soul find the light. We know now that was mere superstition; hope triumphing over scripture. But we can pray for her path to be easy, for her expectations to be confounded.'

As they begin to say the words, they hear a whimper from the bed. Hen rises to comfort her, but realizes it is too late. Grandmother is gone.

Hattie stands in the doorway, fidgeting.

‘A visitor for you, Miss Challoner,' she says. From behind her steps a figure, gorgeously arrayed. The silk rustles as he walks forward; the feathers in his hat shiver as he sweeps it from his head. His face is framed by bouncing curls, and his moustaches are artfully twirled.

‘Miss Challoner,' says the apparition as he bows, and the voice is unmistakable.

‘Cheese!' cries Hen, and Lucy's head bobs up from her sewing at the cry. She swiftly looks the visitor up and down, and decides he is evidently worth the laying down of her sewing and the bending of her knee.

‘Forgive me,' Hen mumbles, seeing the annoyance on his face. ‘The surprise. Michael Chadwick, my father's former apprentice, this is Lucy Challoner, my brother Ned's wife.'

Cheese rustles forward, and Hen is astonished by him. Still short, he is thinner now, and less ungainly. He is all poise and gallantry bending to Lucy, and she simpers and coos at him, delighted. He turns back to Hen.

‘Well now, Miss Challoner. What charming company you keep, even if your living accommodation is less salubrious than when last we met.'

Lucy blushes prettily, and Hen bows her head.

Hattie is peering in behind the doorframe, mesmerized by Cheese's ostentatious splendour.

‘Hattie,' says Hen, and she straightens and blushes. ‘Could you send Jenny with some small beer and some of those caraway biscuits she made yesterday?'

Hattie nods, abashed into silence, and disappears.

‘I am glad I found you, Miss Challoner,' he says, as they settle awkwardly into chairs.

Hen blesses Jenny for seeing to their rooms this morning. Three women in two rooms make for living on the edge of chaos. The trunk she perches on is full to bursting, springing open when she moves.

‘I had business with the committee, and Mr Chettle mentioned seeing you.'

She nods, but finds herself oddly tongue-tied. The shift in their relationship to each other is disconcerting, dizzying even.

‘And what business is that, Mr Chadwick?' asks Lucy.

‘Ordnance, madam. When the war intruded on my apprenticeship with dear Mr Challoner, I returned home. Where once there was room only for one son in the firm, an upswing in our business offered greater opportunities.'

‘You are clearly prospering,' says Hen.

‘We are. My father was granted monopoly for the supply of cannonballs some years ago, before there was overmuch demand for cannonballs. Now, of course, demand is not a trouble . . .'

‘How fortunate,' Lucy cries, clapping her hands.

‘Indeed, madam. We supply both sides of the disagreement. Cannonballs, bullets, grenades. If a gun fires it, we made it!'

‘How proud you must be,' says Hen.

‘Indeed.'

‘You heard about Chalk, I suppose?'

He nods. ‘Yes, alas. Too many good men have been taken by these troubles.'

‘Do you think that one of your bullets may have done for him?'

‘Why, Miss Challoner, you tease me.'

Hen laughs mirthlessly. ‘Apologies, Mr Chadwick. I have become unused to polite company.'

‘She excepts me from that, I do assure you,' says Lucy, her laugh all tinkles and silver. ‘She can be intolerably severe, our Henrietta.'

‘I remember of old, madam.'

They exchange civil chat. Yes, the troubles are tiresome. Yes, the king is surely defeated. Goodness alone knows what the peace will look like. God pray it brings an easing of the wheat price, and a falling off from the malt highs.

Why are you here? thinks Hen. Why now?

Eventually, he makes his move.

‘Mrs Challoner, I must beg a favour. I must talk to Miss Challoner alone, if you do not mind,' he says to Lucy.

Lucy does mind, Hen can tell. She covers her minding with
a display of coquettishness, before flouncing out of the room. As soon as she closes the door behind her, Cheese moves closer.

‘I am glad to find you at last, Miss Challoner. Or may I call you Henrietta? I have been looking for you. And when Mr Chettle told me of your misfortunes, of your unfortunate circumstances . . . Well, I came nearly as soon as I could.'

He sidles even closer, and she can see under the foppish display the boy she once knew. ‘I have so long admired you, Miss Challoner. Henrietta. And now I have some little fortune, and you are but a poor woman living, dare I say it, like
this
.' He gestures wildly around her little room. ‘I thought, perhaps . . .' He trails off uncertainly.