The Flight of Sarah Battle Page 5

  ‘You’ve fled.’

  She holds her cup in both hands; perhaps they’re still cold. Yet her face is faintly flushed. He observes the shape of it, the set of her eyes, her small, determined mouth, her hair much fairer than his own. Her beauty is delicate, but certain: his fingers itch to sketch her.

  ‘It’s because of my brother. Matthew. Papa beat him. I could hear it a whole floor away. And Mama wouldn’t stop him. Then they beat him at school, too! When he came home Papa said he must go back and live at school. He’s arranged it with the headmaster. He must stay until he’s eighteen. It’s like sending him to prison.’ She breaks into sobs.

  He casts around for a handkerchief, sees only inky rags, the one in his coat pocket filthy, but she takes one from her travelling bag.

  ‘What did they beat him for? How old is he? What in heaven’s name did he do?’

  ‘Oh, Matthew is fifteen, a year younger than me. But we’re friends. We’ve always been friends. We never quarrel, unlike some brothers and sisters. I shall not live at home if Matthew is not there.’

  ‘But what did he do that was so bad?’

  ‘He hoisted a French flag on the White Tower on the King’s Birthday. They said it was a crime.’

  ‘Oh lord! What an extraordinary thing to do! And how on earth…? Was it his idea?’

  ‘Yes, but I helped him sew the flag.’

  ‘Oho!’

  ‘We found pieces of silk in my mother’s box of stuffs. A proper sized flag: three yards wide. Matthew attached it to rope.’

  ‘You’re revolutionaries! Wonderful! I’ve known several myself, but none like you, for they’re all men. Lucy, you are the first revolutionary woman I’ve met.’

  He begins to sweat. Holds his fists hard on his thighs. Forgets his lack of sleep.

  ‘I cannot claim that title – I’m not sure I believe in revolution.’

  ‘I was once in the Corresponding Society. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. All I know is that Matthew is angry the whole time. He hates where we live. Hates the school. Oh, poor Matthew! But it’s no use my crying about him, is it? I shall make a plan to rescue him. Though I don’t suppose … At least I can write letters to him. Do you think they’ll let him receive letters?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps not. I’ll help you, Lucy.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘We’ll secrete letters to him somehow. I have friends of all kinds. But where do you live that he hates so much?’

  ‘The Tower. We live in the Tower. We already live in a prison, you see! The prison for traitors. My father is chaplain. The soldiers there must attend services; sometimes the King comes.’

  ‘Heavens!’ He scrambles up heavily from the floor. ‘Then I salute Matthew. I salute you both. What a remarkable thing to do! What courage! And I have only ever posted bills and bored myself at interminable meetings! Oh, how feeble! Lucy, I am honoured to have found you!’

  He takes both her hands, pulls her to her feet.

  ‘I must sketch you. Stand there. Just there!’

  He steps sideways, knocks her teacup and dabs violently at her clothes with the nearest rag.

  ‘Oh! Have I ruined the gown? How careless of me. You shall have another.’

  ‘Are you so rich, to buy food for two people and new gowns?’

  ‘No, not rich. My father left a bit of money. I’m almost through it. I shall finish my apprenticeship next year. But I’m very good, you know. Digham says so and he’s the best engraver in London. I’ll draw you now!’

  *

  A while later, she watches him mix a ground of asphalt, resin, wax, spread it onto a plate of thin copper. The smell of resin speaks of unknown forests. He takes his etching needle, deftly reproduces his charcoal sketch in reverse, an image of herself cut into wax. With care she would not have thought possible from his previous clumsiness he dips the plate into a small bath, warns her not to touch the nitric acid, dilute though it is. Lifts it out, dabs varnish on the deepest grooves, dips again.

  Rags, more rags, discarded clothes. Under a pile of them she finds some finewed bread, grey and hairy, another cup, a hard-boiled egg half eaten, but doesn’t distract him with her finds.

  He removes the ground from the copper plate.

  ‘And now to Digham’s’, he says. ‘Will you come? He has the press, you see. When I’ve earned enough I shall buy my own. Meanwhile I etch and engrave here and take my plates to him to be inked and printed. And sold if he likes them.’

  ‘How far away is it? I don’t want to be recognised.’

  ‘Paternoster Row. Not far. Pull your kerchief over your face.’

  She barely keeps up with him for he walks ahead as if forgetting she is there, the carefully wrapped plate under his arm.

  ‘Lucy!’ He turns, calls to her. Waits. She has kept her eyes on his head above the throng, the fair, tied-back hair bouncing on his coat, the pockets of which are bulging.

  ‘What have you in your pockets?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Books.’

  They must pass through Smithfield. A comical pair, the tall young man striding with a parcel wrapped in old shirts, the girl, her face half hidden, running to keep up.

  It’s a great wide area, a field opening out from closed-in streets. Thousands of sheep shove each other in tight-packed pens. Lines of cattle and horses nudge and nose, rear suddenly, bellow, whinny; men whack them with switches. The air stinks of hot hide and the dung that will be carted to market gardens in Stepney and Chelsea at day’s end. Shouts and cries of pudding-, sausage- and mutton dumpling-sellers punctuate the lowing, neighing, baaing, bawling, the rattle of auctioneers’ patter. It’s summer: young women, perspiring, sell strawberries, scarlet strawberries, round and sound five pence the pound Duke cherries.

  He buys her a penny stick of cherries and bends to hear that she’ll not eat them now for fear of revealing her face. He plunges on, she hastens to keep up, fearing to lose him in the press of men. For a while a dog runs with them. On towards Christ’s Hospital, past new-built Newgate’s enormous walls, down Warwick Lane to the narrow gloom of old buildings at the skirts of St Paul’s.

  At the top of a flight of stairs she waits in a dark doorway. Altar-like, a printing press stands in the middle of a room, in light pond-green from a tree’s dense leaves outside the back window.

  A short man in an embroidered felt hat looks at them through thick lenses.

  ‘Joseph! And who have you brought with you? Come in, come in.’

  ‘William, this is Lucy Dale. A heroine. I found her. Lucy, this is William Digham, my beloved master. The best engraver and etcher in town. I have learned everything from him.’

  ‘Delighted, Miss Dale. A heroine you say, Joseph.’

  ‘Yes.’ Apparently he feels no need to explain. ‘And, Lucy, this is Batley,’ indicating a brawny man sweating and heaving with his arms and knee on the huge star-wheel of the press.

  Batley nods mid-turn.

  ‘Please sit here, Miss Dale.’ Digham places her at a bench by the street window. A glass bowl of water on the sill magnifies light onto a small area of the bench. ‘Can you draw?’

  ‘Why yes. I’ve had a few lessons.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  She contemplates paper, pencils, charcoal, pens, while Digham questions Joseph under lines of prints pegged above their heads like washing on a still day.

  ‘Now, young man Young, have you brought me a new apprentice?’

  ‘No, William. I’ve a plate to print. I’ll ink it, then you’ll see.’

  He unwraps his plate, rolls ink over it until the grooves are full, wipes it clean, lies a damp sheet of paper on it, places it in the press. Batley pulls with both arms, pushes with a podgy knee, the paper passes through and Joseph grabs it delicately.

  ‘Ah!’ he says and pegs it to dry. ‘You’ll see shortly.’

  ‘I understand,’ says Digham, gazing at the print moments later. ‘He has a great talent, Miss Dale. Look. He has n
ot flattered you, it’s entirely true to life. Mirifical! Such touching symmetry of feature. Lovely!’ While he shows her the print Joseph stands opposite scanning her face.

  She reddens, pleased, embarrassed, unsure what to do or say.

  ‘And shall I suggest how much you should charge, Joseph?’ Digham asks.

  ‘No, William. I’ll not sell it.’

  *

  He constructs a bed for her of sorts for she won’t hear of his giving up his; comes home with a mattress on his back that doesn’t look too bad. She offers to cook for him so he picks up a frying pan and saucepan from a street-seller. She tidies and cleans one end of the large room, not daring to touch the other half where he works.

  She gathers together the books she finds scattered on the floor, on the mantelpiece, under heaps of paper, and places them on shelves. Recites the titles to herself like a prayer of worship: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Paine’s Rights of Man Part I (Part II lives beside his bed), Age of Reason, Volney’s Ruins of Empires, Martin’s Philosophical Grammar, Shakespeare’s plays, Cowper’s poems, Defoe, Goldsmith, Voltaire, Homer. In between she wedges pamphlets: Priestley’s ‘The Importance and Extent of Free Enquiry’, Thomas Day’s ‘The Dying Negro’.

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll read most of those books again,’ he tells her. ‘I have far too much to do. A paragraph of Paine is about all I can manage these days.’ She takes a couple for herself: Bewick’s General History of Quadrupeds, Johnson’s Lives of the Poets.

  They discuss Matthew’s ‘rescue’ with scant hope and she begins a letter to her brother. He works at two plates for Digham, breaking off frequently to sketch her as she reads, as she writes. At other times she wonders if he remembers that she’s there at all, so engrossed is he in drawing and etching at his bench. Then sees how he stares at the wall before him, not moving for minutes at a time, in a paralysis of concentration.

  She gives him all the money she has, for her keep. It’s not much and he accepts it.

  ‘I shall take in fine sewing,’ she tells him. ‘In another week, when perhaps they have stopped looking for me. When that money runs out.’

  Joseph grunts. He is busy: with his right hand he clasps the wooden mushroom handle of the burin, pushing its lozenge point into metal, forcing out curls of copper that cover the floor around his bench. With his left hand he holds the corner of the copper plate which rests on its leather pad, turning it to accommodate the burin’s movements. The hands move in harmony with each other, creating harmony. To her he is a master.

  A few days pass. Lucy’s ways are quiet; she is the visitor, the intruder. Joseph is kindly, smiling; impatient, tetchy. Loud, boisterous; silent for hours.

  One morning he doesn’t rise.

  ‘Are you ill?’ she asks, but he waves her away. She tries to read.

  ‘Go away! Leave me be!’ he shouts at her later when she asks again.

  She hears him groaning into his pillow. Dares approach.

  ‘Worthless. My work is worthless. I shall abandon it.’

  ‘Joseph, your work is wonderful! William Digham says so, not just me.’

  He ignores her. ‘Yes, I’ll give it up. I’ll buy a cart, a horse, collect night soil. What’s the difference? It’s muck. What’s the point of these drawings? Prints! It’s no good, any of it. To the dung heap with it! I might just as well set up as a goldfinder!’ He moans, clutches his head with both hands.

  She wants to cry, to laugh. He is ridiculous. Or is he? Eventually he gets up, counts out countless drops from a ribbed glass bottle. His head crashes onto his desk and he seems to sleep. Awake, he leafs through his sketches, flings them on the floor, stands before the fire staring at his feet. He has not spoken for more than a day.

  ‘I’m going out tonight, Lucy. You will not mind?’ He looks into her face so intently she turns away.

  ‘How could I mind, Joseph? You rescued me. You let me live here. I am indebted to you.’

  He growls, leaves and she feels entirely bereft. Lies down on his bed to retain the sense of him and wakes the following morning.

  He returns after dark, dishevelled, his eyes faintly glittering.

  She has tidied his bed, washed, drunk tea, eaten nothing. She is alarmed at the smell of him, too inexperienced to know its various origins.

  ‘Don’t stare at me! Miss Perfect. Miss Virginal Perfect.’

  She can say nothing.

  ‘Miss Perfect Welcomes Home the Evil Artist. Hah! There’s a subject for a print. Now, you’re turning away from me. Don’t!’

  ‘You told me not to stare at you.’

  ‘Don’t stare but don’t turn away from me. Never turn away from me, Lucy! You are innocence itself. I need to see that innocence exists. Especially here.

  ‘When I was your age I was innocent, too. You don’t believe me, do you? It’s true. Then one day I found myself in a house of ill-repute. By accident. It’s true! And do you know, I heard someone sing a wondrous song in that place. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever encountered.’

  What can she say to this? She struggles to understand. Fails completely.

  ‘We are all of us round-packed sinners. Perhaps even you are. It’s just a veneer that perfection of yours. Think of your name. Lucy. It comes from lux, light. But so does Lucifer. Which are you, light or dark? Ha. Haha! Lucy Lux Lucifer!’ He slaps his thighs in delight while she looks at him dumbfounded. ‘There now. You’re shocked!’ He falls onto his bed and sleeps immediately.

  She’s utterly bewildered, stupefied with dread. His words are inexplicable, except she realises he has some other life. She hardly knows what a house of ill-repute is; has heard half-tales about soldiers, diseases. Was that where he was last night, all night?

  Coldness shades, invades her. She is no help to him here, when she’d thought she was. She thought he liked her, was even charmed by her. Self-flattery! She understands nothing except that there can be no reason why he’d want her to stay. It was stupid to imagine he wanted her to. He hates her, despises her. He can live without her, work perfectly well without her. He must have held back for days from going to this other place, out of politeness to her. She is mortified.

  Must leave. Where can she go? Not home. Not now. She envisages her parents’ disgust, their execration. They would punish her. Matthew is shut away. Could she throw stones up at his window? Which window? She knows no one.

  Then it comes to her that William Digham seems kind. And he understands Joseph. Perhaps he can explain him to her, and at least he might take her in or know of somewhere she could sleep. She imagines herself resting her head on the bench by the window in the pool of light, the sweaty green darkness of the room comforting, requiring nothing of her. She thinks she can remember how to find his house. St Paul’s is unmissable: you can see the dome wherever you are.

  She packs her bag quietly before realising that Joseph’s sleep is deep, he’ll hear nothing. The last of the coins she gave him lie on a table; she won’t touch them. Pinning her hat she sets off, drawn and repulsed by the sounds and stench of Smithfield, her vision dulled by tears that have yet to run. She is jostled by herdsmen thwacking cattle, called after, shouted at. She seems to be in everyone’s way. Stumbles against a legless beggar on a wheeled board who curses her bitterly.

  Her bag begins to weigh heavily in her hand. She stops at a shop window, puts it down, pretends to stare in and cries properly. For herself. For Matthew. Leans her head against one of its panes. Sobs for the misery of the world.

  He’s grasping her shoulders, turning her to him.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To William Digham. I am a hindrance to you. Perhaps he can find me somewhere to live.’

  ‘You mustn’t leave like this. Come back. Please, Lucy. You must live with me! I need you to live with me. I need your innocence, your perfection. You mustn’t leave me.’

  She looks at him amazed. Miss Perfect. Miss Virginal Perfect. Lucy Lucifer.

  But she cannot argue or protest. Al
lows herself to return with him, following as he strides ahead with her bag, till back in his room he holds her to him for the first time, kisses each part of her tear-smeared face, gazes at her, promises, apologises, assures. She is confused, relieved, saddened. Joyous.

  6

  Toil in Battle’s is alleviated for Sarah by her new cause. Where once she had escaped to her imagined dialogue with Newton, now she dwells in a remembered, passionate world, populated by crowds of people more like her than any of Battle’s customers.

  Not that she spoke to many on that day in St George’s Fields. When they learned her father had a coffee house so near the Exchange their faces fell. She watched them furtively, especially the women her age with their children and babies, the families cheerful on their day out. But as the speeches began, they listened as one, the fervency felt by all, simultaneously. Then she was no longer different; a fellow-feeling moved in some new-found depth of her being.

  Newton would have drawn them, of course, sprawling all over the field, their children running after each other, soon dirty, crying, laughing, babies at the breast, the women released, shouting and waving their arms, or listening, intent.

  But Newton would have been for them. She’s sure of that. Why else had he lost all his mirth when the soldiers began shooting? Why else had he rushed out so readily into the mobs on the streets? Of course he would have thought as she does! It’s a small revelation that fortifies her.

  The oddest thing is James, whom she can no longer connect to the cause to which he’d introduced her.

  ‘I’ve never seen so many people,’ she says the day after the great meeting. ‘It was a wonder to me. May I read your report?’

  ‘It cannot interest you.’

  ‘It does! It will remind me of everything that took place, who it was who spoke and so forth.’

  ‘No. It’s not for you.’ He covers it with his arms like a schoolboy.

  ‘I can do no harm by reading it.’

  ‘No! My, how red you are from sitting in the sun all afternoon, Sarah. What do we eat tonight?’

  She longs to talk about who spoke, what they said. But not with him. Evidently it bores him. And yet he is secretary of his branch of the Corresponding Society, writes up notes assiduously. She knows that even if it didn’t bore him, he’d kill the event with his lugubrious tones.