Act of Oblivion, page 3
‘I don’t wish to seem inhospitable . . .’
‘Think nothing of it.’ He glanced up. ‘What’s above? An attic?’
‘Oh, that is merely a servant’s room.’
‘You have a servant? I’ve not seen one.’
‘Not at present,’ she conceded. ‘But the attic is not at all comfortable.’
‘After the ship, it will seem a palace.’
The two soldiers hoisted their bags onto their shoulders. Colonel Whalley was plainly a gentleman by birth: polite, accustomed to deference, not easy to deny. She hesitated, but lacking the inspiration for any fresh objection, she felt she had no choice but to lead them out onto the landing and up the narrow staircase.
The attic ran the length of the house. Its ceiling sloped according to the angle of the roof, and Whalley was tall – perhaps a head higher than his son-in-law – so it was only in the central section that he could stand upright, and even then he had to duck as he walked to the window, to avoid striking his head on the cross-beams. He unfastened the latch and leaned out, looked this way and that, then withdrew.
‘This is perfect. We shall be most content up here, shall we not, Will?’
‘Indeed. And at least, Mrs Gookin, we’ll be somewhat out of your way. We do so much regret this unexpected imposition.’
She glanced doubtfully along the cramped, narrow space. There was a single wooden bed they would have to share, with a straw mattress, too short for Whalley – his feet would hang over the edge for sure. In the gloom at the far end were various items of furniture, no longer used. There was an old chair among it all somewhere, and a chest. She surrendered.
‘Take what you need. I’ll have the girls bring you linen and blankets.’
‘Most kind.’ Colonel Whalley was already back at the window. He took a small telescope from the inner recesses of his coat, extended it, adjusted the focus, and scanned the river. ‘That bridge will make the journey from Boston much quicker. There must be thirty men working on it. When will the job be done?’
‘They say another half-year.’
‘So, January then.’ The answer seemed to satisfy him. ‘Perfect,’ he repeated. He snapped the telescope shut.
Daniel Gookin was in their bedroom, lying on the bed with his arms flung wide, his eyes closed, sound asleep. He hadn’t bothered to take off his boots. She leaned over and studied him for a moment. He was forty-eight, thinner than she remembered. The greying at his temples rendered him more distinguished. She felt a surge of love. The colonels were not the first men in need of help he had taken pity on, and would surely not be the last. They had even had local Indians sleeping under their roof before now. Daniel was dedicated to the cause of teaching them the Scriptures. Such faults as he possessed came only from a good heart. She knelt at the foot of the bed and began to unlace his boots. He felt the movement, opened his eyes and raised his head to look at her.
‘Leave the boots and come and lie beside me.’
‘Hold your impatience, Mr Gookin.’ She finished the unlacing, grasped the heel and worked the boot off, then did the same to the other. The climacteric had come upon her while he was away. There would be no more children, for which she thanked God. Fifteen pregnancies had been more than enough. She lifted her skirt and climbed onto the bed.
Ten minutes later, there was a thud above their heads, followed by another, and then the scrape of a heavy object being dragged across the floor.
He looked at the ceiling. ‘You have lodged them in the attic?’
‘It was their choice. Do you disapprove?’ She climbed off the bed and searched around the floor for her underclothes.
‘No, not if they are content with it.’
‘If you like them so much, they may sleep in here with us if you prefer.’
He laughed and made a grab for her, but she twisted away and finished dressing.
Another thump came from the attic.
‘How did you come to know them, Dan?’
He swung his feet to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘You remember Reverend Hooke of New Haven, who returned to England some years ago?’
‘Of course.’
‘His wife is Colonel Whalley’s sister. When Hooke discovered it was my intention to sail back to America with Captain Pierce, he asked me to arrange passage for his brother-in-law. And then Ned persuaded Will to join us. He was reluctant – he has a young family.’
‘And why was it so urgent for them to leave?’
‘To put the matter briefly, the King’s son is returning to the throne by invitation of Parliament, the army has agreed – or most of it – and England is to be a republic no more.’
The information came in such a rush, was so overwhelming and unexpected, she had to sit on the bed beside him to absorb it. After a few moments she said, ‘Why did the army agree to such a thing?’
‘A new law, what they call an Act of Oblivion, has been laid before Parliament. The past is to be forgotten. There’s to be an amnesty for all who took up arms against the late King – with one exception. All those regicides, as they call them, who had direct involvement in the trial and execution of Charles Stuart are required to surrender themselves for judgement.’ He took her hand. ‘There you have it, as plain as I can tell it. This was ten weeks ago. Ours is the first ship to reach Boston with the news. That’s what I had to go and tell the governor as soon as we came ashore.’
‘How many of these regicides came over with you?’
‘These two only.’
‘And the rest?’
‘Some are already fled to Holland. Most are lying low in England. Others were planning to surrender in the hope of mercy. The ports were closing even as we left. It will be hard for them to get away now.’ His fingers tightened on hers, as if he could somehow transfer his strength and belief by the force of his grip. ‘They are good men, Mary. Ned was Cromwell’s cousin. He commanded the cavalry in the campaign against the Scots. Will commanded Cromwell’s regiment of foot. They’re in need of sanctuary until things quieten down. There’s nothing to fear. No one knows they’re here, save you and me and the governor.’
‘Colonel Whalley was Cromwell’s cousin? Oh Daniel!’ She pulled her hand away. ‘Things will never quieten down. They’ll come after them for sure. Nothing is more certain.’
Above their heads, another piece of furniture was being dragged into position. In her anxious imagination, it sounded as if they were already building a barricade.
Down on the river, the workmen had finished for the day. Both banks were deserted. Water glistened invitingly in the sunlight. Ned, back at his post at the window, felt a rush of contentment. He liked the Gookin family. He liked this place. America would suit them very well.
Behind him, Will was laying out their armoury on the bed: four matchlock pistols, two bags of powder, a box of bullets, two knives, a pair of swords. He had barely spoken since they came into the house.
‘Leave that, Will.’ Ned searched through his bag, pulled out two clean shirts and threw one to him. They had not been out of one another’s company for the past four months. His son-in-law’s face had become like a pane of glass to him – he could see everything that passed through his mind. ‘Let’s go down to the river. It’ll do us good to be rid of this salt.’
Will looked dubious. ‘What if we’re seen?’
‘There’s no one to observe us. And if they do, what of it? We’re merely two men bathing.’
‘Shouldn’t we ask Gookin first?’
‘He’s our host, not our gaoler. The governor said it was safe for us to move freely here.’ He took a step forward, gripped Will by the forearms and shook him gently. ‘You’ll see your wife and little ones again, I’m sure of it – my sweet Frances, and the grandchildren. God will not allow the wicked to triumph for long. We must have patience, and faith.’
Will nodded. ‘You’re right. Forgive me.’
‘Good.’ Ned released him.
Together they put the weapons into the chest and covered it with a blanket, then Ned led the way downstairs. The two bedroom doors facing one another on the landing beneath the attic were both closed.
Mary, sitting on the bed, heard the boards creak as they passed. She glanced at her husband. ‘What now, do you suppose?’ she whispered. He shook his head, had no idea.
The two officers passed through the parlour, out into the front yard, through the gate, and set off down the slope to the river.
Gookin had taken them straight from the Prudent Mary to the home of the governor, John Endecott, an old man in a lace collar and black cap who seemed to Ned to have stepped out of the England of Queen Elizabeth. They had handed him their letters of introduction – Will’s from John Rowe and Seth Wood, the preachers at Westminster Abbey, Ned’s from Dr Thomas Goodwin of the Independent Church in Fetter Lane – and while the old man held them close to his eyes and studied them, Ned had sketched the circumstances of their departure: how for two days at Gravesend they had been obliged to hide below decks while on the quayside the common people had celebrated the imminent return of Charles II, son of the dead king. The sky above the town had glowed a diabolic red from their bonfires, the air had been filled with the noise of their carousing and the sizzle of their roasting meat. The revels had gone on disgracefully late into the Sabbath. On the Monday, when news was brought from Parliament that his name and Will’s were on the list of those wanted for the death of Charles I, Captain Pierce had given the order to put to sea.
‘But for our good friend Mr Gookin here,’ concluded Ned, ‘we were likely to have been taken.’
‘So you both were judges of the King?’
‘Yes, and signed his death warrant. And let me be plain with you, Mr Endecott, for I would not live here under false pretences. We would do the same tomorrow.’
‘Would you indeed!’ Endecott set down the letters and studied the two visitors through moist occluded eyes, pale grey as oysters. He gripped the edge of his desk. Amid a fusillade of cracking joints, he pulled himself to his feet. ‘Then let me shake the hands that signed it, and bid you welcome to Massachusetts. You will find yourselves among good friends here.’
They scouted out a place a little way off the road, where part of the riverbank had been eroded by the current to form a natural pool. Trees hung down almost to the surface. Someone had tied a rope to a branch to make a swing. A long green dragonfly, more exotic than anything they had seen in England, skimmed between the reeds. Wood pigeons cooed amid the foliage. Ned pulled off his boots and briefly dipped his feet into the cool flow, then stripped off his brine-stiffened clothes and waded naked into the river. The cold made him shout out loud. He ducked his shoulders beneath the surface until after a minute he became used to the temperature. On the bank, Will had taken off his own boots and leather coat but seemed to be hesitating. Ned waded back, cupped his hands full of water and splashed him. Will laughed, danced away and shouted in protest, then pulled his shirt over his head and quickly removed the rest of his clothes.
What a sight they made, thought Ned, with their dead white bodies and their battle scars, like phantoms amid all this lush greenery. He’d seen corpses that looked better. Their skin, front and back, was covered in nicks and welts. Will had a jagged line across his stomach from a royalist pike at Naseby, he himself an ugly fist-sized crater beneath his right shoulder, sustained when he was knocked off his horse at Dunbar. Will stood on the water’s edge and lifted his arms above his head. At forty-two, he was still slender as a boy. To Ned’s surprise he launched himself into a dive, full-length. He disappeared beneath the surface, then bobbed up moments later.
Was there any sensation more delicious than this – to wash stale salt off sweating skin in fresh water on a summer’s day? Praise God, praise God in all His glory, for bringing us in safety to this place! Ned flexed his toes in the soft mud. It was years since he had swum. He was always poor in the water, even as a boy. But he stretched out his arms and allowed himself to topple forwards, and presently rolled over onto his back. Katherine floated into his mind, and for once he did not try to shut out the memory, but allowed her to take shape. Where was she? How was she? It was four years since she had miscarried and almost died, and her health and spirit had never properly recovered. But what was the use of tormenting himself, as Will did every night, with impossible speculations? One of them must be strong. They had a duty to stay alive, not for themselves but for the cause. His text, which in the end was what had persuaded Will to join him, was Christ’s injunction to his disciples: ‘But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another; for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.’
When he rolled over again onto his stomach, the riverbank was suddenly a long way off. As he struck towards the land, he could feel the pull of the current trying to carry him out towards Massachusetts Bay. Will was standing up to his waist in the river, arms akimbo, watching him. Ned trod water for a moment and waved to him, and in that instant saw a figure in the shadow of the trees behind him. It was hard to make the stranger out. He was dressed in black, with dark hair and a short dark beard, and he was standing perfectly still. No sooner had Ned registered him than he realised he was drifting again. The force felt strong enough to drag him all the way back to England if only he would let it. He had to put his head down and swim – swim hard, on the edge of panic, pulling with his arms and kicking with his legs – to save himself. When his feet at last touched the muddy riverbed and he was able to stand, the man had disappeared.
He staggered through the water and threw himself down on the grass, breathless, heart pounding. Will splashed his way out and stood over him, laughing, blocking the sun. ‘I swear I never saw a man swim so fast in my life! You looked as if Leviathan was after you!’
Now here was a sound Ned hadn’t heard in a long while: Will’s laughter. He propped himself up on his elbows, coughed, and brought up a mouthful of river. He glanced at the trees, rustling in the slight breeze. Perhaps the figure had existed only in his mind. He decided to say nothing that might spoil his son-in-law’s mood. ‘That river’s like the man it’s named for. The surface may look friendly enough, but beneath it means to kill you.’
Will laughed again, put out his hand and pulled him to his feet. They dried themselves in the sun, donned their clean shirts, and made their way back up the empty road towards the house, the two English regicides, arm in arm.
Mrs Gookin was in her apron in the kitchen preparing supper when Ned ducked his head beneath the lintel and asked if she had such things as a pair of scissors and a broom – and if so, might he borrow them?
Naturally she had scissors, their blades as sharp as penknives, and of course a broom as well. She fetched them from the cupboard.
‘And a mirror, by any chance?’
She handed it over and watched as he climbed the stairs. On the threshold where he had been standing, he had left a damp patch.
Elizabeth, laying the table, asked, ‘How long will they be staying, Mama?’
‘As long as they desire. Your father is quite firm on the matter.’
‘But why have they come from England to Massachusetts? Are they on official business?’
‘Enough questions. Go fetch some water.’
In the attic, Ned placed the chair next to the window, invited Will to sit, and began to cut his hair. They had been on the run since April – a month and a half in England, sleeping in strangers’ houses and in barns and hedgerows, wanted by Parliament for trying to rouse the army to oppose the deal with the exiled Charles II, then ten weeks cooped up on that stinking ship. Will’s dark locks came away in handfuls.
After a while he protested, ‘Enough, Ned, surely? I shall be bald as an egg.’
‘Not enough yet if you are to look respectable, which is how we must appear. If we look like escaped prisoners, we shall be treated as such. Front face, soldier. That beard must come off now.’
He squatted in front of Will and set about the tangle of hair that reached down almost to his son-in-law’s chest. He wielded the scissors deftly. Long ago, in the twenties, before the war, he had been apprenticed to the Merchant Taylors’ Company to learn the cloth trade from top to bottom, and the skill of cutting had not deserted his fingers. The face that emerged once most of the beard was gone was strong and delicate, full of spiritual force – a face straight out of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, thought Ned, which was exactly what the younger man would have become if he hadn’t persuaded him to run.
‘That will do well enough.’ He showed him the result in the mirror, then handed him the scissors and took his place in the chair. ‘Now you trim me.’
Will hesitated. His father-in-law had always been a man of distinguished appearance, what with his embroidered waistcoats and his fine shoes, and his splendid house in King Street next to Whitehall Palace. The Levellers were not the only ones who had accused him of vanity. The old man must miss it all, surely, yet not once had he complained. Under the strain of the past year, his hair had turned entirely grey.
He made a tentative cut.
‘Hack away, Will,’ commanded Ned cheerfully, but as he watched the clumps start falling to the floor, he noticed they were the colour of goose down, and when he picked up the mirror and studied himself, he realised with a shock that he had become grizzled, like one of the old Royalist soldiers begging in the City of London. He put the mirror aside.
Half an hour later, when they came down to the kitchen for supper, their appearance was transformed. They had discarded their stinking leather army jackets. They smelled clean from the river. Sitting in their shirtsleeves at the table with the Gookin family, the pair looked no different to any of the other Englishmen of Massachusetts, for which, thought Mary Gookin, God be thanked. Perhaps they would pass unnoticed after all.
