It seemed true. The man lay exhausted, obviously sick or wounded. She could see no bandages. Nor could she make out blood, or any of the terrible wounds soldiers suffered. Like the sick and exhausted people she had seen at Colchester, he must be simply failing from neglect and hunger. Colchester was a long way behind them now, but it was possible he too had come from there.
Juliana wanted the boys safely back with her. So much misery had crushed her lately, she was unable to abandon another sufferer. Like all people who have little, she was too close to thinking What if this were me? Therefore she heard herself call out grudgingly, 'You will experience a jolting, if you ride with us. But if you can climb in unaided, we will take you to the city gate.' She had set her conditions. Neither she nor her boys would touch him. He would stay well behind them, crammed among their baggage, where if he was as helpless as he seemed, he could not harm them.
'Tom, Val; come back here now.' Eager to see what would happen, they came scampering. She pulled them up in the front with her. They waited.
The man had roused himself. With difficulty, he stood upright. He wore, half unbuttoned, what had once been the uniform coat of the Parliamentary army, though the cloth was dark with use and the red colour had leached from its dye. He fumbled with a small bundle, his snapsack. One step at a time, he came to the cart. He had days' of matted beard-growth. The snaggles of hair sticking out from under his hat were filthy though he was fair, apparently. Juliana cursed herself for not having considered whether he had weapons, though he appeared unarmed.
She had the sword! Annoyed, she remembered that old sword Lovell once gave her to protect herself; it was here in the cart with them. But too late. Always distasteful of it, she had hidden the thing right under their belongings, so she could not reach it now.
Tom wriggled free and jumped down again. In an instant he was at the tailboard, which he unleashed and dropped, very politely. As if afraid that they might still change their minds and leave him, the sick man forced himself forwards and up into the vehicle. He collapsed again, lying face down against their possessions, retreating into his sickness, yet not quite finished, for he made a desperate effort to pull in his legs so Tom could close up the tailboard. Just before he pushed it up, the well-mannered five-year-old introduced himself: 'My name is Tom Lovell, sir.' There was some mumbled reply.
The boy rushed back and climbed aboard. Gently, as if to spare their passenger, Juliana made the horse walk on. 'Watch behind,' she murmured. 'Val, Tom — if that man moves, tell me instantly.'
'His name is Jukes,' whispered Tom, as if he was reproving his mother for some discourtesy in speaking of him.
To Juliana it was familiar for some reason.
Chapter Fifty-Four — London and Lewisham: Autumn 1648
Anne Jukes was in her apron, with her hands all floury, when Robert Allibone's journeyman, as Amyas now was, urgently called her from her kitchen. Completely flustered, Anne gesticulated helplessly, not recognising Juliana among the strangers with Amyas. The tailboard was down. Amyas was shaking his head, almost as a warning, and then Anne saw the wasted, barely conscious soldier that this strange family had brought to her. Ah Lambert!
Her husband slithered over the edge of the cart. He had grown so thin that Anne Jukes, a brewer's sturdy daughter, was strong enough to haul his arm over her shoulder and support his weight. She staggered with him indoors. Amyas, bring these people in and look after their things, please. I need to know what has happened…'
So the Lovells gazed up from their ramshackle flatbed at the gracious gables and sash windows of a substantial three-storey London merchant's house, then they were brought into a warm kitchen that glittered with burnished copper utensils, where they waited to be interviewed by Anne. Upstairs, it took her almost an hour to get Lambert undressed, washed and laid in a clean bed. A maid had been sent running out for a doctor. Downstairs, Juliana Lovell took it upon herself to find a cloth and remove Anne's nutmeg-scented bread pudding from the oven when it was obviously done. The boys stared with great hope at the pudding until they fell asleep against their mother, who was already dozing in exhaustion on a settle.
So Anne eventually found them, and realised she would have to take them in. She went quietly back upstairs and made up the guest bed. It was a high four-poster, a full tester, with fantastical tapestry hangings and swag ties so heavy they could have knocked a bullock unconscious. There her refugees all slept together that night, the most comfortable night they had had since they left Essex, or perhaps ever.
Next day, Anne took the little boys to the Jukes' shop, where Thomas solemnly helped to weigh things out while Valentine gorged himself on sweet raisins and almonds. Leaving them in safe hands, Anne hurried home. She found Juliana was ready to let her guard down, lulled by the unaccustomed luxury of knowing that her children were warm, fed and secure. It was weeks since she had freely spoken to another adult. It was three years since she last had a close woman friend and longer than that since she had openly discussed anything to do with her family.
Anne Jukes first wanted to find out what had happened to Lambert. All her normal housework was deferred. Upstairs, her husband slumbered and began his recovery. Anne was herself in a state of shock. She welcomed a morning when she could sit idle at the kitchen fireside while she prepared herself for having Lambert home. She was acutely curious about the Lovells too.
Juliana told how they came upon Lambert, some miles beyond Chelmsford. 'I managed to learn from him that carts were provided to bring the sick and wounded to London,' Anne said. 'He says they took a stop to rest and his cart accidentally went on without him — he could not run after it — yet the fool decided he would then walk home… I had been told he had a serious sickness that he could not shake off. Gideon wrote to me that Lambert had the bloody flux — '
Gideon? wondered Juliana, imagining some pinch-mouthed, fatalistic puritan. Clearly an idiot, if he had told poor Anne her faraway husband was gripped by the generally fatal epidemic.
Once she remembered that she had met a woman called Jukes at the printer's in Basinghall Street, Juliana had reasoned, rightly, that carrying in a sick New Model Army soldier might persuade the guards at Moorgate to admit her without too many questions. One had been detailed to accompany her to the print shop; he pushed her aside from the driving seat, as if a woman could not be trusted to control a horse, so she let him have the trouble of arguing with it. At the shop Amyas took over, intrigued to see how Anne would react to having Lambert home. Juliana remembered again her curiosity about this woman and the printer, Allibone. He had appeared briefly but merely gave Amyas instructions to escort the cart to Bread Street.
There Anne Jukes had greeted her husband's sudden return with simple surprise. She bounced automatically to wild panic at his dire condition, then she braced herself to tackle it. 'Well, so, so! I have him back… Now tell me, Mistress Lovell, how were you passing by at that lucky moment?'
Juliana was relieved to unburden herself. First she spoke of why she and the boys had been at Pelham Hall, and what she presumed her husband had been doing. Annoyed at being abandoned, she would not lie to Anne about either his politics or his activities. Then Juliana told how the Pelham family had been so relieved to see the back of her, they equipped her with horse, cart, a hamper for the journey and a travel-pass to Colchester that said, accurately, she was a distressed daughter looking for her invalid father.
'What was your father's situation?'
'As terrible as it could be.'
Germain Carlill, who had always been a misfit, had prematurely lost his wits like an old man. This was the sad secret Juliana and Mr Gadd had always kept. He began to fail in the 1630s, when Juliana was still a child. All the family were then living in Colchester, the original home of her vanished grandfather the haberdasher, a modest town house in the suburbs. As Germain became more and more vague and in need of constant care, he was placed with a young woman of the town; she was paid for nursing services with the rent from a property that Roxanne bought for the purpose. Germain had wasted most of their money but Roxanne earned some by making the costumes for a court masque. While doing that in London, she acquired the famous 'estate in Kent, with orchards' that Mr Gadd later touted as Juliana's dowry; it was little more than a small house with a market garden and few fruit trees near a village called Lewisham. The deeds were in Germain's name, for Roxanne wanted to ensure he would always be cared for. 'It was either that or put him in Bridewell. My father no longer knew us and could not be
