alleviate their loneliness and to help if they were widowed. She had no one.
She spent her eighteenth birthday alone, her first ever without any other family members. Now certain she was pregnant, Juliana wanted to make plans for herself and the child, if it lived. She found herself fretting helplessly over what they should do or where they could go if anything happened to Lovell, since Oxford held nothing for her without him. Ruefully she faced the possibility that marriage, that supposed safe haven for women, had only brought her the added burden of the child. Frustrated and sad, and more depressed as she mused on her life because of her anniversary, she went out for a walk. She would become very familiar with this city.
On her return to the house, she made the mistake of mentioning her birthday to their landlord. The glover at once presented her with a delicate pair of pale kidskin gloves. For an instant Juliana was grateful, then she stiffened and knew she had made a serious mistake. He must have been thinking up ways to ingratiate himself and she had handed him a fatal chance. She would pay a price for this gift — things she would never wear and could no longer bear to contemplate. The gloves were too small for her, anyway. They were probably too tight for anyone, which was why the man had parted with them. Now he thought she was his to claim; he was enjoying her discomfiture while he brooded on when and how to exact a show of gratitude. He could not believe his luck: the absent captain's wife was extremely young, bright-eyed and presentable. The glover, who had once bitterly resented having lodgers imposed on him, now salaciously saw the benefits.
He either did not know, or did not care, that she was breeding. Early pregnancy had its own allure, in any case — not least that a wife already pregnant by her husband held no risks of claims for fathering a bastard child.
His name was Wakelyn Smithers. He was one of the many townsmen who slyly endured the King's presence because it brought trading opportunities. By religion he was a lacklustre Independent, who served fowl instead of fish on Fridays in order to pinpoint his views for his lodgers, should any of them consider him guilty of popery. His real crimes were livid lechery and undercooking the small cuts on the turnspit. He supported Parliament, at least to the extent of voting for puritan town councillors, though he was allergic to giving money and if ever called upon to fight he would have added fifteen years to his age without a qualm and feigned a carbuncle that prevented marching. A physician was invited to dine once a month, which Juliana believed was to facilitate obtaining a medical note quickly.
Unmarried, Wakelyn Smithers gave the impression he had never had a wife. Juliana did not enquire, though she had spotted a meat charger so hideous that it had to be someone's wedding present. Taking meals here had been bad enough when Lovell was with her. Being forced to dine with Smithers alone would have been tortuous, though tabling with the landlord was her only choice; no respectable woman could go out unaccompanied to inns or ordinaries. Fortunately Juliana got through mealtimes at her lodgings because there were other people present: the silent cooper, his belly as round as the barrels he made, who lodged in the attic above her; the glover's depressed apprentice, Michael; Troth, the sniffing scullery maid who came in twice a day to wash dishes and mend fires; and the glover's overweight, permanently breathless sister. The sister was in her forties, a viciously pious widow whose marriage had been short and inharmonious. Her asthmatic condition was aggravated by the smoke if she sat too close to the fire, yet she hogged it relentlessly. She treated Juliana as a dangerous seductress; the beleaguered girl could never hope for assistance there. Complaint about the glover's behaviour would only confirm the sister's mean-eyed suspicion.
To escape Smithers's ominous friendliness (for he worked from a bench at home), Juliana increased her time out of doors by day, roaming endlessly around Oxford. The markets held limited interest for someone who had to watch every penny, while the butchers' shambles were sordid, with bloody bones and offcuts thrown into Queen Street, where there was no watercourse to carry the stinking flux away. Unaccompanied women were refused entry to the colleges, even now there were virtually no young scholars left here. To Juliana's regret, her sex barred her from the libraries. She would stroll in the Parks or by the river as long as she could, but it was dreary and perhaps foolhardy alone, while the spring weather soon chilled her. Buffeting through the streets was warmer, though equally tiring. Oxford was desperately crowded. The early years of the century had seen intensive building, with parks and orchards and any empty plots inside the city walls being covered over by new colleges and houses, to the detriment of the environment. Though not true slums, crowded lodgings and cottages had been crammed down entries and lanes, where they now filled up with Royalists. Shortage of space at ground level meant houses' upper storeys often hung over the streets, 'jettied out' as it was called, which increased the feeling of congestion. Most streets only had a gravel surface, with minimal or no drainage, a clutter of impeding signs and a ripe embroidery of dunghills. The broad main highways had frequently been encroached, with a line of shambles or cottages squeezed up their centre, narrowing the way and annoying those who lived in the finest houses by taking their light, spoiling their views, destroying their peace and their exclusivity.
Through the puddled thoroughfares tramped the teeming life of university and town, embellished now by a local garrison of over two thousand foot soldiers and three regiments of horse, plus the incomers of the royal court, from anxious lords and bored ladies to poulterers and pastry-makers, tennis teachers and dancing masters. All cursed their mud-splashed hems as they milled in a stew of brewers, builders and butter women, dons and college servants, priests and lawyers, along with the horses of cavalrymen and distributors who all thought they had right of way, fighting for space with protesting herds of raided cattle. Everyone was raucously abused by the traditional uncooperative low-life of lewd women and disorderly persons. Sometimes there were arrests. At Carfax, villains who committed lesser crimes were made to 'ride the wooden horse' as punishment, sitting painfully astride two planks to atone for theft or obscenity. Occasional hangings took place there. Some saw these as entertainment; Juliana had a gentler attitude to human life.
If there was no market, Juliana would sit to rest on Penniless Bench. This wooden seat, about a hundred years old, attached to the City Church of St Martin's, was where the butter girls sold their produce, citizens met, and the King had been welcomed on his first arrival with a gift of two hundred pounds — accompanied by the hopeful but futile hint that Oxford could afford no more. Once Juliana was moved on by a beadle who pronounced her a vagrant. Ruefully, she reflected that she was little better, though her habit of reading the news sheet Mercurius Aulicus, which was now produced for the King by a lively, satirical editor called John Berkenhead, should have identified her as literate gentry, merely troubled by lack of funds. Once she herself had to summon the beadle, when she found a dead soldier lying under the bench; the parish took away the corpse for burial.
When desperate for refuge from the crowds, she elected to become devout. While many Oxford worshippers liked short services, Juliana sought churches with verbose preachers where she could shelter for longer; a two-hour sermon suited her well and she learned to doze gently while sustaining an attentive expression. She would have been better provided for in the East End of London, where in the most Independent parishes lecturers were hired to give four-hour morning sermons, after which a new set of afternoon lecturers gave four hours more, speaking ex tempore with magnificent passion. In Oxford, worship was high; altars were ornately railed to protect the perfumed sanctity of God from persons with grubby consciences and muddy shoes. Sermons were intellectual, pre-written and dry; they were read by fleshy ministers with plummy voices who could spot a button slipped into the collection plate at twenty paces, or scrawnier men who used Latin like a flail to exclude their inferiors. Some churches were available to a pregnant woman seeking grace and respite for her weary feet, though not all: from time to time Royalist soldiers were billeted in St Michael's and St Peter-le-Bailey, until the despairing churchwardens paid them to find lodging out of town. Parliamentary prisoners were kept in St Giles, St Mary Magdalen and St Thomas, causing damage for which the King had had to pay compensation. Their lot was better than those who were locked up in the castle, who were said to have deplorable conditions.
In the hope of deterring the glover, Juliana made sure he knew of her churchgoing. It merely encouraged him. A girl with high morals was far more of a challenge — and clean goods, moreover.
Juliana would have liked to remain quietly in her room. She had been brought up to do embroidery, tatting, lace-making and sewing; among the gentry these were just about regarded as ladylike activities — though not so admirable as ornamental flower-painting, which shamed no one since it had no practical use. She had great talent in design herself, but also possessed many patterns created and drawn by her grandmother. These called to her as she filled in time with piety, and one cold day she became incensed that fear of her landlord was keeping her from home. From then on she spent more time in her lodgings, though she made sure when she sat working at her table she had a sharp array of needles and scissors displayed as a deterrent. She would slip into the house discreetly when she thought the glover was busy with customers. If he did accost her, she insisted on discussing sermons and scripture until his eyes glazed. Once she was in her room, she would remain still and quiet, hoping he might forget her presence.
