Forged in the Fire (15 page)

“The birds of the air.” He smiled, and pulled me closer, till our noses bumped together.

“Or the lilies of the field,” I said. “Though we did toil much, and my mother spins for a living.”

“I should like to know thy mother better. Thy father too.”

“So thou shall, if thou marry me.”

“Did they name thee for the lilies of the field? Susanna: it means ‘lily'.”

“Does it? They found it in the Bible; I doubt they knew its meaning. I did not.”

He'd lost me again, with his books and learning. But I felt pleased to be a lily.

The serious look in his eyes had been replaced with expectancy. “Then thou hast no fears? We'll marry, shall we? Here in London? Without prospects? Without a home?”

“I want a
home
!” I said. “Thou needn't think I'd live here, not even with thee.”

He laughed. “We'll find somewhere. There are plenty of places – and all must be better than this.” His eyes brightened at the prospect. Then he said, “Su, I'm hungry. I bought a pie in Pudding Lane on my way home. Shall we share it?”

The pie was a poor thing, but it staved off hunger. After we had eaten, we sat on his bed, close together, and drank warm ale, and kissed, and talked. What we talked about, I don't remember, but I know that all the time I was thinking, as he must have been, of what might come next.

Gradually we talked less, and kissed more, and the feel and smell of him made me want to gather him in to me, as if we could never be close enough; and I knew he felt the same.

We heard faintly, from a neighbouring street, the nightwatchman's call: “Nine o'clock, and all's well!”

I broke free then. I went to the window and stood with my back to Will, looking out at the yard and passageway. Snow lay thick on the ground, and big soft flakes fell steadily against the window and built up on the ledge, cocooning us.

“If I'm to get home…” I began.

He came and stood behind me, put his hands on my arms, kissed the nape of my neck.

“Don't go,” he said. “Stay with me, Susanna. Please.”

I woke in the night when some revellers went by outside, shouting. For an instant I did not know where I was, and then I remembered, and felt his arm under my shoulders, the heat of his body against mine, his steady breathing. From the edge of the bed came an icy draught, and I pulled the blankets close and snuggled against him and felt his other arm reach around me as he slept.

Our coming together had not been quite as I'd imagined it. First there were the cumbersome layers of winter clothes. I insisted that the candles be blown out before I began to undress. The room was cold, and I was nervous and kept my shift on as I got under the covers. It was a shock to feel him climb in beside me and to realize that he was naked. I was tense, and I knew he was anxious; the passion of only a few minutes ago had cooled: we tussled awkwardly and nothing seemed to be right. After a while he rolled away and we both apologized.

“It doesn't matter,” I said.

But I felt that it did; that I was to blame.

I sat up and took off my shift, then slid back and put my arms around him, laying my body alongside his.

That must have been what was needed, for all at once we were together again, both of us moving without thought or fear, as if we'd always known what to do. And although in the end it was clumsy, uncomfortable and too quick, I didn't mind. I lay beneath him, feeling the thudding of his heart, with a sense of both contentment and triumph.

We belong to each other now, I thought. We shall never be parted again, except by death.

I'd known all along what would happen if I entered his room that night. But since we had renewed our promises to marry, there seemed no wrong in it; indeed, it seemed a right and honest thing to do. I had said to him once, of Friends: “We try to live in the truth”; and our love
was
the truth.

I woke again, a little before dawn. Something was treading on the bed: I could feel feet – an animal! I opened my eyes and saw the small black cat with white whiskers peering at me over the edge of the coverlet.

Will half woke, muttered, “Go away, cat!” and shook it off. He reached for me, and we rolled together, warm and expectant. The cat returned, pressing and purring, and I started to laugh.

Will said, “I'll put it out.”

He got up, caught the cat, and darted naked to the door. I heard a muffled exclamation, and almost at once he was back beside me. “Ma Corder was outside!”

“Oh, Will!”

We shook with laughter; and then began to kiss and stroke each other. This time, when he moved to lie on top of me, everything seemed easier; and though I hurt a little afterwards I felt truly happy.

Next time I woke it was full day. There was a cold, clear light in the room, and a strident sound: the bell of Paul's steeple-house.

“Will,” I said.

He opened his eyes – grey-green, flecked with gold – and smiled at me; and at once I wanted to stay there with him, wrapped in his arms, all morning. But I said, “It's first-day.”

I had quite forgotten, until I heard the bell.

He came properly awake. “Then we must go to Meeting.”

“Together?”

Despite my determination to be truthful, it might appear unseemly, I thought, to walk boldly in like man and wife.

“Rachel will know already,” said Will.

We dressed quickly, both shy now, turning away from each other, and laughing as we shivered and drew on layer after layer: in my case shift, stays, bodice, jacket and two woollen skirts. I combed my hair, looking in Will's mirror, and marvelled that I did not look any different to yesterday although I felt such momentous change in myself.

We breakfasted on stale bread and beer, and let in the cat, which was mewing and scrabbling at the door.

“We'll have no cats in our home,” said Will.

“Then we'll have mice.”

“And thou'll leap on a chair.”

“I will not!”

We continued with such foolish talk while we ate, and then we became serious and sat in silence awhile, to prepare ourselves for Meeting.

Corder's wife was at her door to make me blush as we emerged together into the sound of bells from all over the city. The overnight snow had hardened to a bright frost which crunched underfoot as we walked to Aldersgate.

We went first to Rachel's house. She was just leaving, with Tabitha toddling alongside. I blushed again on encountering Rachel, and did not know what to say, but she merely remarked, with a smile, “We shall have a wedding, then, soon?”

And I thought: Yes, we shall. Will and I would not, after all, wait till spring to go home and be married at Eaton Bellamy Meeting with my parents and Isaac and Deb there to wish us well. We would be married here, in London, where our new life was about to begin.

T
hat morning, when I woke and found Susanna beside me, I experienced a wondrous, drowsy mix of happiness, pride and contentment. I wanted to stay in bed and prolong our time there, for I knew we would not be together again until we were married. But I also felt a certain guilt, and a desire to protect her, and I knew that I must set about finding somewhere for us to live.

I began my search the next day.

The city was full of vacant houses and rooms, many at very low rents, but there was good reason for this. The first place I saw looked a handsome house, and the whole upper storey was vacant, but at a suspiciously low rent.

“You won't find better value,” the agent assured me.

“Is it a plague house?”

He shrugged. “The plague was everywhere, last summer.”

“But people died here?”

“It has been aired and fumigated. Thoroughly smoked throughout, the hangings changed…”

I did not even go in. Something in his manner made me distrustful. I knew I should not give in to fear. I should put my trust in God. But I had Susanna to care for now, and was fearful on her behalf. Coming fresh from the country, she might be more likely to fall victim to the plague. And the sickness was still about, though the death toll was falling. Fourth-day that week was another day of fasting and prayer in the churches, and Friends closed their businesses and went to meeting.

We heard that the King, who had been in Oxford, had returned to London, and this made us feel confident that the greatest danger from plague must be over. But there was no more news yet of the
Black Spread-Eagle
.

At the end of the week, Susanna and I went together after work to see a place in Bow Lane, which runs south from Cheapside. The house was next to the steeple-house called Mary Aldermary, built close up against it, so that on the north side it was shaded by the tower. The ground floor was a hosier's, with living quarters and storage above, and an attic floor to let: two rooms, furnished, at a reasonable rent.

We climbed the narrow back stairs and found ourselves in a low attic room. The window was small and the ceiling sloped towards it.

“Oh! I like this view!” said Susanna.

I stooped, and looked out over a spread of roof-tops, jetties, innumerable chimneys with smoke rising up and, far below, glimpses of people thronging the darkening streets. I saw a few lanterns already glowing, the moving lights of link boys, and the flicker of candles in windows. So many people live in this city, I thought; so many other lives. I could not see the river, but saw a slender crescent moon, which pleased me after the view of the privy at Creed Lane.

The walls were limewashed and the floor made of clean boards, and there was a table and stools, and a small fireplace with a pot and trivet for cooking.

The hosier's wife stood at the top of the stairs, watching us. “It is all newly done,” she said. “And quite high, in the centre.”

I removed my hat as it knocked against the ceiling.

A doorway led to a second room that contained a bed, washstand and clothes chest. It too had a low window, but the light was stopped by the nearness of the steeple-house. The walls were painted reddish-brown. As we stood looking around, a great sound of bells burst from the steeple-house next door, seeming to rock the walls of the room. We both gasped and clutched each other in shock, then began to shake with laughter.

“Bell-ringing practice,” the hosier's wife said. “Every Friday night. You get used to it.”

“We wouldn't lie in on first-days here!” I murmured to Susanna, who was still trying to stifle her laughter.

We came back into the parlour, where Susanna examined the cooking area and looked at me in approval.

“It's a long way to carry water,” I warned her, “up all those stairs.”

She shrugged. “Oh, I'm strong!”

“Thou like it here, then?”

“I do. I like to be high above the city. And thee?”

I agreed. There was a madness about the place that appealed to me: an eyrie, blasted by bells, where I would knock my head at every turn; and yet I could imagine us making a home here.

“Let's take it,” she said. And we exchanged a smile, secret and complicit. Now we could be wed.

As we followed the woman downstairs I took Susanna's hand and felt her fingers curl in to mine.

“Quakers, aren't you?” the woman said. I realized that mixed, perhaps, with her fear of Dissenters was a feeling that Quakers were unlikely to use the furniture for firewood or make off without paying the rent. I gave her a crown piece as deposit and agreed to move in next week. She produced an account book in which she asked me to write my name or make my mark; I signed it, and she wrote down the five shillings and made her own mark – a cross – beside my name.

Susanna and I were married at the Bull and Mouth meeting nine days later, on Susanna's nineteenth birthday. The meeting was full of our friends, for everyone likes a wedding, and there were many young children present. Edmund Ramsey came with all his family, dressed in subdued fashion and sitting unobtrusively near the back – which I liked him for, being concerned that the Ramsey presence might disconcert Susanna.

But I soon saw that nothing could unsettle Susanna today. Her face, framed by the plain linen cap, was calm, her hands loose in her lap. I felt all around us the support and well-wishing of the meeting, and knew she must feel it too. The silence grew, broken only by some fidgeting and babble of small children. I meditated on marriage, my responsibilities as a husband, wondered what our future would hold, and thought about how we might serve God more fully together than separately. At first I slid a few glances at her, but she had closed her eyes, and after a while I ceased to think about my surroundings and withdrew into the inward light, and felt the meeting become gathered.

The silence was long and deep, as befitted our serious undertaking. At last the atmosphere changed; I heard a rustle of movement, and Jane Catlin rose to her feet and said that we had all come here today to bear witness to the marriage of William and Susanna.

“We are not here to join these two in marriage as the priests do,” she said. “We are but witnesses. The marriage is the work of the Lord.”

Then I caught Susanna's eye, and together we rose to our feet and took each other by both hands.

I said, “I, William Heywood, take thee, my Friend Susanna Thorn, to be my wife. And I promise that with God's help I will be to thee a loving and faithful husband until death shall separate us.”

I spoke with much intensity, and felt tears spring to my eyes and saw an answering glitter in hers. But she spoke out light and clear, in much the same words, ending, as I had, “until death shall separate us”.

Until death shall separate us. There was death all around us in the city, and danger at every turn, from sickness, accident or persecution. Only God knew how long we would have together. We must live every moment of our time fully and in the light.

After we had spoken, there was another brief silence, and then the meeting broke up with smiles and good wishes. Rachel Chaney came and put her arms around me and wished us happiness, and as I returned her embrace and felt how small and thin she was, I became aware more than ever of the fragility of life and the need to use it well.