The Crimson Ribbon (9 page)

Chapter 15

As I lock and bolt the kitchen door, my head spins with the drink and the cold night air. I rest my forehead against the wood for a moment.

‘Where have you been?’

Lizzie sits by the hearth, swaddled in a thick shawl. The fire is fading and the red glow from the embers lights her features, casting dark shadows beneath her eyes. She stares at me, unblinking, like a falcon.

‘Oh! You startled me,’ I say, moving towards her. ‘May I fetch you something?’

I realise that her eyes are swollen. She has been crying.

‘Where have you been?’ she repeats, her voice hard.

‘I’ve been with a friend.’

‘Margaret told me you went out with a man.’

‘Yes . . . a friend called. You were abed, so . . .’

‘You told me you had no acquaintance in London.’

‘He is someone I know from . . . before.’ I crouch down and reach out a hand to touch her arm. ‘You don’t look well. Let me help you upstairs.’

She shrugs me off. ‘You stink of the alehouse.’

Then she stands suddenly, knocking me backwards onto the floor. ‘You seem to have forgotten your place, Ruth. You are a servant in this house. You are
my
servant. I will not have any servant of mine going about with strange men of whom I know nothing. I will not have you drinking like a common slattern and I will not have you celebrating papist festivals.’

She is so cold, so angry. I have never heard her voice knife-edged like this before. She towers over me like a gorgon, her hair streaming over her shoulders.

‘I have given you a home here, Ruth. I have treated you with charity and generosity, and this is how you choose to repay me – by disappearing without a word and gadding about with a man. We are a respectable household and I will not have my servants bringing disrepute. These are dangerous times – gossip and scandal have ruined better households than this. Is that what you want? To bring the fires of Gomorrah to our very door?’

Her anger shatters me. I have been stupid. I should have known that Lizzie would not approve. I have risked my place by her side on a whim.

‘Well?’ Lizzie says. ‘Have you anything to say, or shall I leave you to gather your things?’

‘I’m sorry . . .’ My voice quavers, brimful of tears. ‘Please, don’t make me leave. I couldn’t bear it . . .’

She stands over me unmoved, taut as a bowstring. Shame bears down on me like a weight. Any joy I have felt in the evening is crushed to dust.

‘Please . . . I know it was wrong . . . I do so want to be good. Teach me how to be good.’ I reach out and touch the hem of her skirt, like a penitent.

‘Do you see that you have sinned against me? That you have betrayed my trust?’

‘Yes . . . yes. I will do anything to make it right. Please show me how . . . Please let me stay.’ Sobs rock me, doubling me over on the floor by her feet.

She leaves me there, giving me time to languish, and paces the kitchen. I think of all the kindness she has shown me. She has taken me in and given me a home. She saved me when I was desperate. She cared for me when I had no friend left in the world. She has made me her maidservant, when she could have treated me as a kitchen drudge. She has trusted me. Without her, I have nowhere to go, no money, no family to save me from the streets. And, far beyond all of that, I cannot bear to be away from her. I feel a deep, yawning void open in my chest, filled with nothing but bitter blackness. I tremble with the horror of it. I had thought I was in control of this – the casting of the binding charm slowly stitching her heart to mine – but I am not in control of my own heart. Of everything I stand to lose in that moment, it is her company that matters most. I will do anything to keep it.

Eventually she comes to me, kneels down and puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘Sit up, Ruth.’ Her voice is measured.

I try to dry my eyes.

‘If you are truly sorry, I suppose I can forgive you. Come now, it gives me no pleasure to see you so. Let us begin again. We will not speak of this to my father, or to anyone. But I will be watching, Ruth, and I will be speaking with Pastor Kiffin, to recommend that he give you special attention and instruction. If you are willing to learn from this, then that will be an end of it.’

‘I will do anything you ask.’

‘I want you to do this for yourself, Ruth. I need to know that you are committed to the true faith and are willing to work hard to banish your sinful thoughts and actions.’ She takes my hand and helps me up.

I meet her eyes. ‘I would do anything to stay with you.’

Her features soften as she looks at me and she cups my hand in hers. ‘And do you promise not to see that man again? Or any man, without my presence or my permission?’

‘I promise.’

‘Then, we have an agreement.’ She turns to leave the room. I stand, shivering, alone. But then she throws a glance back at me and says, ‘There is one more thing, before we retire. I have something for you.’

She beckons. I follow her up the stairs and into her bedchamber, meek as a lamb, grateful for any scrap of goodwill that she is willing to throw me. She crosses the room to the chest where she keeps her private things, opens it and draws out a small package. Then she closes the door to the room, indicating that I should sit down upon the bed.

‘I planned to give this to you tonight. That’s why I came to the kitchen looking for you. Part of me thinks that you do not deserve it. Perhaps I am being too lenient. But I believe you are sorry, and I do not want to spoil our friendship. For we do have a friendship, do we not?’

My heart picks itself up from the pit of my stomach and grows wings. It flutters against the cage of my chest. ‘Oh, yes!’

‘Then this is for you. We do not celebrate the season here, but I like to give a token to those I care about.’

She hands the package to me and I unpick the strings and unfold the linen. A pair of crimson satin ribbons gleams like rubies in the candlelight.

‘I thought they would look pretty in your hair. It is our duty to appreciate God’s natural beauty and a little adornment will do no harm, if we are ever wary of vanity,’ Lizzie says, and I hear Kiffin’s voice in hers.

The ribbons nestle in my palm, coiled like shining snakes. They speak to me of my mother, twirling with red ribbons in her hair. Red – the colour of passion, the colour of the army, the colour of blood. I finger them. They are slippery, silky, the best quality that Master Poole sells. I have often coveted them as I cut a length for some lady in the shop.

‘They are beautiful. Thank you.’

Then the idea takes me. ‘I have something for you too.’ Before she can speak, I race upstairs to my room and pull my mother’s book from its hiding place beneath the pallet. I hold it to my chest and breathe in the familiar scent of the binding. My mother is on every page of this book, her life woven through the paper, steeped in the ink. I falter. Must I part with all I have left of her?

I sit down on the pallet, rocked yet again by the strength of my memories. I can almost see her before me, brow furrowed as she bends over the bed of a fever patient; smiling and slapping out the first cry of a newborn; reaching for a sprig of herbs over a steaming cauldron, face hot and shining; salting the meat for the barrels, arms red and itching. In every task, her book was always somewhere within reach.

I have my memories and that will have to be enough. All those things are in my past. Lizzie is my future, I’m sure of that now. I owe her my life. I so desperately want to repay her and this book is the only thing of value I own. To me it is beyond value. If I give the book to Lizzie, then I give her everything. Then, suddenly, I am resolved – I know this is what I must do. It is the best way of proving my word.

Back in her bedchamber, I place the precious thing in her hands as though it is a piece of the most delicate lace. ‘This belonged to my mother.’

She looks astonished and then her eyes blur with tears. ‘Oh, Ruth, I cannot take this from you.’ She opens the cover and scans the first few pages. I see her face alter, a shadow passing behind her eyes. Her hands close around it, as though she possesses it already.

‘I want you to have it, if you will promise to keep it safe,’ I say.

‘Indeed . . .’ She is thumbing through the pages now, intent on the contents. ‘What a fine gift.’

‘Please, take it.’

She looks up at me. I see that she understands. ‘Then let us agree that our exchange of gifts seals our pact. Our agreement stands. No more lies and no more harsh words. We will be the very best of friends.’

‘Yes.’ I take up Lizzie’s gift to me and run the ribbons between my fingertips. The satin is smooth and gossamer soft, like her skin.

She reaches over and clasps my hand. ‘You are special to me, Ruth.’ The ribbons lace our fingers, crimson lengths falling, coupling our wrists. For the briefest moment she squeezes my hand tightly, then lets it drop.

I go to my bed lightheaded and exhausted. As I reach my door Charlotte is waiting on the threshold of her room, candle in hand. My weeping must have woken her. Perhaps she has heard it all. She does not say a word but closes her door with a scowl.

Chapter 16

The ice that binds us over Christmas remains well into February and people stay indoors, hiding from the cold. The streets are quiet and the fallen snow dulls the clamour of the hawkers. The war continues outside the walls, now a game of hide-and-seek for the King, who has escaped the Parliament men and is sought by the army. There can be no fighting in this season when men must stay at their fireside to survive. The brutalities of the battles at Marston Moor and Naseby begin to fade in people’s minds. The newsbooks still feed the fire of the New Model Army, and people still talk of a better future, but somehow, inside the city walls, it seems a long way off. Westminster could be a hundred miles away for all I care about it. My concern is with my life at West St Paul’s, and I feel no threat from any army, Parliament’s or the King’s.

I love winter-stilled London. I love to walk the streets, all swathed in white, icicles dripping from eaves, windowpanes frosted. The sky is clear, chimney smoke dispelled by biting winds. The vile filth beneath my feet is frozen, the stinking drains encased in ice. Like this, the city has a melancholy beauty that suits my mood. My grief lingers but the pain is dull now, as though the cold has numbed the cracks in my heart.

These quiet months are a blessed time. Lizzie keeps her word and makes me her constant companion, banishing Charlotte to the kitchen. She teaches me how to help her dress in the morning and how she likes her things put away when she is abed. Each day I brush her hair until it shines, then plait it and pin it up under her cap. I lay out her clothes and lace her into her stays. I am close to her for most of the day. Master Poole allows me to sit in the front parlour. Now that I have one or two of Lizzie’s old gowns to wear, I look almost like a lady myself and I’m learning the trade. My needlework will never be as perfect as Lizzie’s but it is good enough for the rougher jobs, so I sit alongside her, tacking and hemming as if I were born to it.

Young men come calling, dropping into the shop to make enquiries of Master Poole or to buy buttons and trimmings for their wives. But for the most part they come to see Lizzie. I watch them, their eyes sidling over her as she measures out some length of ribbon, their lips wet and cheeks flushed. I see their hungry gaze linger on the graceful turn of her neck, the trimness of her waist and the swell under her stays. In watching them I learn what a precious thing I have, and secretly triumph over them, for I alone can touch her. I feel no threat from these dribbling oafs, for they will never have what I have. They will never catch the scent of her hair as she pulls a shift over her head, or feel the brush of her clean skin, fresh from her bath, or the morning heat of her body. These things are mine alone now.

And, more than that, she is become softer and more open with me. She honours her promise – there are no more arguments and no harsh words. We are the best of friends. I have bound her to me. I thank the Fen spirits for heeding my prayers, whispered to the waters, and I promise I will not let her go. No one will ever replace my mother, but at least I am no longer alone.

I am almost sorry as the season turns, spring arrives and I can no longer take refuge beside the kitchen hearth at West St Paul’s. The days are longer, the air turns milder and, with it, Lizzie’s energy is renewed. We spend our days at work in the parlour, making trips to the churchyard or the market, or visiting Stukeley at Pope’s Head Alley. Encouraged by Kiffin, Lizzie is writing a treatise and loves to discuss the printing of it with Stukeley. She spends her evenings at the kitchen table with paper and ink, but I never see a page completed, though many find their way into the fire.

One day, Lizzie is busy working on a new dress for Mistress Cutler, the second of two commissions granted in thanks for my ministrations at Christmas. She sends me out on an errand to Stukeley’s, claiming she does not have time to go. She finally has some pages that are ready for the press. Stukeley is expecting them.

‘Surely you would prefer to see it done yourself,’ I say.

‘He knows what I want,’ she says, ‘and I trust you to do as I ask.’ She smiles at me and I think how beautiful she is today, in her red serge with unruly copper curls escaping her cap. ‘Besides,’ she says, ‘I prefer to be alone for this work. I must concentrate. I do not want to be disturbed before supper. Please tell the others – I am only at home for important callers.’

Lizzie does not know that a visit to Stukeley’s means I will see Joseph. She does not know that Joseph is the man I have sworn not to see. God forgive me for the deception, but I have chosen not to tell her the whole truth. I reason that sometimes silence is kinder, and safer all round.

Since our quarrel on Twelfth Night I have visited Stukeley’s shop several times, always as Lizzie’s chaperone. I sit in the corner, near the window, while Lizzie and Stukeley mutter in low voices over some new setting or woodcut. Although Joseph has made sure to catch my eye, we have not been free to talk, and I am glad of it. I burn with guilt when I think of this secret, but I burn with fear even more, when I think of Lizzie’s wrath. It is better that she does not know.

Today when I arrive at the shop, I find Joseph alone. He listens patiently as I detail Lizzie’s request and takes the papers she has given me for printing. Then he leads me to the back room. He pours a cup of small beer from a bottle that stands open on the mantel and hands it to me, indicating that I should sit upon a stool next to his workbench. I watch him for a while as he sets letters into a tray. I study the press, running my eyes over its oily black hulk. To me, it is nothing but a jumble of levers and pulleys and wooden panels, stained with smudges of grease and black ink. I cannot make sense of it, of how this newfangled machine can make the crisp white pamphlets that Lizzie loves so much. It broods in the centre of the room, keeping its secrets from me.

Joseph breaks the silence. ‘Why do you not speak to me, when you come here with her?’

‘She forbids it.’

He frowns.

‘My mistress forbids me to speak to men she does not know,’ I explain.

‘She has no such rights over you.’

‘She is my mistress.’

Joseph snorts.

‘She is good to me. I will not disobey her.’

‘Then why do you linger here?’ He smirks, knowing he has caught me out. He looks me over, taking in the good dress I am wearing, the new leather boots on my feet. ‘You think you are too good for the likes of me, now you’ve moved up in the world. Is that it?’

I shake my head. ‘It’s not that. It’s only . . .’ I look at his big labourer’s hands, stained black with ink, and his patched and darned clothes. ‘Lizzie would not understand.’

‘She’s not so fine herself.’

‘What do you mean? She is as fine as any lady.’

‘I measure a person’s worth by their deeds, not their bearing.’ He stops his work and looks me full in the face, as if searching for something. Then he shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to argue. Let’s talk of something else,’ he says.

I drain my cup and eye the contraption in the centre of the room. ‘How does it work?’ I ask.

His eyes brighten. He sets aside the tray before him and fetches an empty one. ‘See these letters?’ He picks up a tiny metal block and holds it up to the light so that I can see a delicate letter M cast upon it. ‘I make up the words with these. Often I work from a handwritten text, like those your mistress sends, or I’ll be copying something else that has been printed before.’ He points to a document on the table covered with ink. ‘I read each word in turn and select the letters from over here.’ He strides to a large wooden cabinet, which has drawers from top to bottom. He pulls one out and I see row upon row of tiny squares. He takes his time, choosing four of the larger ones and carrying them back to the bench. ‘I line the letters up in the frame to make the words. But, and here’s where the skill lies, the letters are formed backwards, like looking in a glass, so you have to set the type in reverse. When the words are printed, they come out the right way around.’ He slots the four letters into the tray.

‘And we use blanks to fill the spaces.’ There is a jar filled with unmarked blocks on the bench top. He picks up a handful and places them in the tray, arranging them around the word he has spelled. Then he carries the tray to the bed of the machine. ‘Each frame corresponds to the size of paper you are using and each set of letters to the size of the type, you see? It’s delicate work. Took me three weeks to print a page with no mistakes.’ He smiles, with something like pride. ‘Do you want to work the press?’ he says.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. But not a word of it to anyone.’

He slots the tray into place and fastens it down with a little wooden frame. ‘We coat the blocks with ink. See?’

I watch as he uses a leather pad to blacken the metal letters, surprised by his dexterity. He wipes his hands on a rag, then fetches a fresh sheet of paper. He slides it onto a flat plate above the bed, nudging it gently to straighten and flatten it, tightening screws to secure it.

‘Now, come here.’

I stand and go to his side. To my right there is a long iron lever. Joseph puts his hand on my waist and guides me until I am alongside it. ‘Take hold.’

I put both hands on the cold metal. He stands close behind me, so that his arms circle me and he can reach the lever too. I am enfolded. I sense the warmth of his body and smell the leather of his apron with the distinct spiciness of male sweat. His face is at my shoulder. If I turn my head now my lips would brush his cheek, I would feel the scratch of his stubble on my skin.

‘Now, we push the handle down. Not too fast or too slow.’

He places his hands gently over mine and guides me as I apply pressure to the lever. It is heavy and as I grapple with it, the weight of his grasp increases. I feel the flex of his forearms. His palms are hot and damp.

Together, we haul the lever down. The press makes a creaking, clunking sound, and the paper is pressed down upon the waiting ink.

‘And now slowly back up . . .’ Joseph says, gradually lessening the pressure until the lever finds its resting place.

For a few seconds I am breathless, my hands glued into place beneath his. And then he is away from me, attending to the press.

He peels the paper from its holding and reveals a sheet of creamy whiteness, stamped with four letters in perfect glistening print:

I have never seen my name in print before. The letters are stark and lonely on the page. But he has used a curling script the like of which I have not seen on the newsbooks. It is strangely beautiful. I reach out to take it from him.

‘Careful,’ he says. ‘We must let it dry.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ I say, and he grins.

‘The skill is all in the setting and knowing how to handle the press. And patience. You must be careful and patient. There are some men so skilled they can make masterpieces. Beautiful pieces from Germany and Holland sometimes pass through this shop. They say it takes years to learn the real art of it.’

‘But you will do it, I’m sure,’ I say.

He puts the paper down on the workbench and his eyes rest on my name. ‘Ruth . . .’ he says, under his breath, and then he raises his gaze to meet mine. The air between us is alive. ‘If things were different . . . if I were a richer man . . .’

Just then the shop door clatters open and there is stamping and blowing as Stukeley warms himself. Joseph pushes the printed paper towards me. ‘Take it,’ he says.

I pick it up and hold it behind my back. Joseph is suddenly panic-eyed. If we have done something wrong, I do not know what it is.

When Stukeley sees me, his face turns sour. ‘What is happening here?’

‘Mistress Flowers has come on business, sir.’

‘We have talked about this, Joseph.’

‘Master Stukeley, I’m sorry . . . Mistress Poole sends—’

‘It is not for discussion. See her on her way.’ He does not acknowledge me. He stalks across the room and thumps up the stairs.

Joseph cannot meet my eye. He takes up the papers I have brought from Lizzie and holds them out to me. ‘Please tell Mistress Poole that we cannot take her work.’

‘What? Why?’

‘We’re too busy.’

‘Nonsense. What do you mean by this, Joseph?’

‘Stukeley will not print Mistress Poole’s work. He must decline.’

‘But it has been arranged. They have spent hours discussing this. How can he withdraw now?’

He sighs and beckons me closer so that he can whisper. ‘There has been gossip . . . about your mistress.’

‘About Lizzie?’

‘Aye.’

‘What kind of gossip?’

The sound of Stukeley moving overhead chases us into the shop and Joseph opens the street door. ‘You must go.’

‘What gossip, Joseph? Tell me.’

‘God knows I’m not one to believe in rumours, but I’ve heard things. People say she’s not to be trusted.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Some are saying she does bad things. That she is sinful.’

‘What?’ Anger bubbles in my chest.

‘I know how much you like her, and that she has been good to you, but I think perhaps—’

‘Stukeley believes it?’

‘He says we need to be careful who we associate with. It could damage the business if we’re seen to deal freely with someone who is . . . a known sinner. If we print her words we could be implicated.’