learned papers printed by Robert Allibone.
His wife had continued to occupy their bedchamber, apart from him. He had barely seen Lacy since he came home. In the New Year his mother decided to restore normality, so Parthenope stripped the sickroom bed, pulled up floor mats and beat them in clouds of dust, making so much bustle that Gideon capitulated. He shambled back to his old room, where Lacy received him with a brief shrug, perhaps of welcome, or perhaps indifference.
At the foot of their bed stood the cradle with the baby. Various scents that emanate from infants and breast- feeding mothers suffused the atmosphere. Many a father has felt an outsider on the arrival of a first baby. Gideon was no exception.
The child's existence forced him to face his predicament. His lack of pride and excitement at the birth was reprehensible, and he knew it. Coming from a good home, he had been brought up to do better. At least while his daughter remained a babe-in-arms, he could assign her to his womenfolk; many men, and more women than is generally acknowledged, do not care for babies. Once this infant became mobile, Gideon knew, he would be obliged to take on the full role of a cherishing father. He must pet her, praise her, instruct her in spiritual matters, consider her education, give her a puppy or a singing-bird, have a family portrait painted — and he must uncomplainingly provide her with siblings.
His own parents were already besotted with their first grandchild. This only emphasised Gideon's awkwardness.
Lacy, sloe-eyed and now lazily voluptuous, never asked him to coo over the cradle or pick up the tiny bundle. She and Gideon stalked around one another, never acknowledging that anything was wrong. They did not yet have the bitterness that seeps through many longer marriages, but their silences were deadly.
In due course, Lacy granted her favours in bed. She gave him his rights without resistance, yet Gideon was made aware that she had condescended to do this, when she could just as easily have rebuffed him. He did not enjoy their lovemaking and quite clearly Lacy could take it or leave it. Such occasions became infrequent.
All over the country soldiers were returning from campaigns to find themselves strangers in their marriages. Everywhere fathers were missing crucial moments in their children's lives. However, real difficulties rarely happened while campaigns were as short as the Gloucester and Newbury march. The estrangement between Gideon and Lacy Jukes was reckoned by others to be caused by the war, but they both knew it had more deep-seated origins. Gideon was starting to analyse his doubts.
Elizabeth and Bevan Bevan sent the child an extravagantly expensive silver bowl as a baptism gift.
'Return it,' snapped Gideon. 'We shall not dowse her in a font. I believe in adult baptism.'
His mother looked up over her spectacles at this revelation.
'What are you my son?' enquired John Jukes mildly. 'An Anabaptist, a General or a Particular Baptist? Do we harbour a Browneist? A Dutch Mennonite? Are you for full baptismal immersion, for sprinkling — or merely for careful pouring from a neat Delft jug?' Gideon looked truculent.
While Lacy sat at the dinner table deciding whether to put up a fight, Gideon stiffened into his new role as a domestic autocrat. Lacy gave way, surprisingly. 'As you wish.' She shot him one tart look, then cast down her eyes like a model of patience.
'I am sure my uncle and his good wife Elizabeth meant well,' murmured Parthenope, though playing the peacemaker went against her feelings. Everyone present knew she thought poorly of Elizabeth.
'They are hoping to be godparents,' sneered John.
'We shall have no papistical godparents!' thundered Gideon. They are buying me off, he thought bitterly, as he too brooded on the Bevans' motives.
He knew that other members of his own family were judging him, in the dark way families have. Lacy herself fell silent. Among the Jukes she had a sullen reserve, as if she was trapped — and knew they all understood exactly how she had been trapped.
Lacy had named her daughter. Without consulting Gideon, she had chosen her own mother's name, one of the only signs ever that Lacy cared for somebody other than herself. The tiny scrap was Harriet Jukes.
'She is an innocent,' Parthenope consoled herself. 'Her sweet soul is unblemished in the eyes of the Lord.'
'She is an innocent!' Gideon agreed tartly.
As Harriet lay in her cradle with her eyes tight shut, she emitted a softly bubbling burp as if practising to charm apocalyptic judges. Her mother went to her. Her father would not look her way.
Gideon grasped the monstrous bowl by its rim and strode with it from the house. It was almost the first time he had ventured out since his fever; anger gave his long legs strength, despite the enormous weight of silver he was carrying. He did not, in fact, return it to the Bevans, but carried the loathed object to the Guildhall where he handed it in ceremonially to be melted down for the Parliamentary war effort.
In this way he did for the first time exert himself to play the father, deciding his child's political allegiance and disposing of her property. It struck him guiltily that baby Harriet might grow into a spirited young lady who would take him to task. The bowl had been handsome and she would be a City girl who could correctly assess the value of ornamental metalware. Gideon supposed he might teach her his ways of thinking, but he would have to desire the task. So far, he saw the child in the cradle as little to do with him. Some men thought they were fighting the war for their children, but not he — or not yet.
The silver bowl discussion was the closest he ever came to confronting Lacy. She must see his growing suspicion that she and her infant had been foisted on him. He started looking for an escape, rather than to plunge them into discord. Divorce only existed for monarchs and the aristocracy. Even kings and earls were forced to cite reasons such as non-consummation of the marriage. For Gideon it was an impossibility. He was the wrong class. In any case, he felt squeamish about suggesting that Harriet might be a bastard. Whether she was his flesh and blood or not, his kind heart failed at the thought of condemning her.
When Gideon recovered his strength he rejoined his Trained Band regiment, though what he had heard about recent manoeuvres still demoralised him. He did not want to find himself among reluctant comrades under a general they all resented. Sooner or later, on rotation, the main Green Regiment would be deployed with Waller.
He was struggling physically. The loss of his fingertips hampered loading and firing his musket. His captain suspended him from active duty. Gideon went back to work full-time at the print shop. Having to relearn hand movements made him far from dexterous there too. There were worse disabilities, but he resented his fate.
The Public Corranto was still being turned out every week, so when Gideon was particularly grumpy Robert sent him out transporting copies. A system had been developed where bundles of pamphlets or news-sheets were taken beyond London, along the road to Oxford in particular, in order to satirise the enemy and depress them with their godly opponents' good spirits. Royalist publications were imported on the way back. Nobody was supposed to travel either way without a pass; realistically travellers needed two passes, one from each army although to be in possession of two was in itself dangerous. Troops saw it as proof of treachery. In the previous November one of the King's messengers had been hanged as a spy.
A secret network of couriers had grown up. Women disguised as beggars did much of the work. Printed papers were dumped at a series of drops, to be picked up and discreetly passed along the network. Within the area close to London, controlled by the Trained Bands who knew him, Gideon could safely take copies to the first hideout. There were a few butchers and chandlers in the ranks who would always give a printer backchat, but in general his colleagues saw this as God's work. They would wave him through checkpoints without bothering to ask questions. He was rarely stopped.
Then one day early in 1644, instead of his normal trip west out of Hammersmith, Gideon happened to go with a carter north towards St Albans. As they were returning via Bushey, they were suddenly surrounded by a small group of armed men. At first Gideon feared this troop were cavaliers. They had a high-handed, aggressive demeanour and they meant business. They were light-armed dragoons, speedy horsemen who trotted under black banners which, when the heavy fringed cloth flapped open in the spring breeze, revealed emblems of Bibles. This was a banner of righteousness, yet even after Gideon ascertained that the troops came from a Parliamentary garrison, the situation remained tricky. The dragoons were so very completely righteous they were keen to arrest anyone, never mind if he claimed to be from their own side.
The carter behaved as if none of this concerned him. He was a lean Londoner from a family in Wapping, a wiry old worker with a dogged, equable mentality, often silent although Gideon had gained his confidence. He kept to decades-old routines, bringing his lunch with him in a battered basket, where every item had its place. The food was always in a threadbare square of housewife-cloth, well laundered. Every day he ate cheese with shallots and a
