Shrewd though he was, however, Thomas Forest as a rising gentleman had no wish to soil his hands with any personal involvement with trade – at least, not visibly. And so young Edward Shockley with his fulling mill was exactly what he needed.
“I can provide the money to set up as many looms as we want: we’ll put them on one of my farms and we’ll make enough broadcloth to keep your mill going full time – build another mill if we need to. And I want you to run the whole thing, Edward, because I can trust you.”
Thomas Forest had a memorable face – sallow and narrow-set, but dignified with jet black hair and eyes and a long, thin moustache that drooped almost to the line of his jaw, so that when he was displeased he could look as grim as an executioner; when he chose to be pleasant however, he had a warm smile which he would accompany with a disarming and courtly inclination of his head. To Edward Shockley he was always particularly courteous.
He offered the young merchant generous terms, and at one of their meetings Shockley suggested:
“What we should do is try to export our cloth ourselves – cut out the middlemen, like the Webbes do.”
To his delight Forest nodded.
“I agree. And I want you to go to Antwerp to find us an agent.”
Shockley made the journey that February with high hopes. But before he went, Forest gave him careful advice.
“We want a man who can trim his sails to the wind – a privateer.”
Edward knew what he meant. The situation on the continent, with the recent wars in Italy and the constant unrest between Protestants and their Catholic rulers in Germany and the Netherlands, was always uncertain. Only the year before, the English had finally thrown the powerful German Hansa merchants out of London and English exporters could therefore expect harassment from them in return. The merchants who did best in these stormy times were the bold adventurers and opportunists.
“We must also find a man we can control from a distance – someone who needs us more than we need him.” He gazed at the young merchant thoughtfully. “Find a man with a weakness.”
Shockley had pondered this advice carefully on his journey to Antwerp. He stayed ten days in the busy port on the tidal river Schelde, with its Gothic cathedral, famous for possessing six aisles, and whose towering western spire reached seventy feet higher than even Salisbury’s. He visited its great guildhalls, markets and printing works, astonished by the scale of every building he saw. There were a thousand foreign merchant houses: English and French, Spanish, Italians, and Portuguese from the south, from the north, Germans and Danes. And on the sixth day, in a street of tall brick-gabled buildings, he found his man.
He was a huge, blond Fleming aged about thirty-five; he was clever and knew the markets well; he had a large family; he was looking for business. And he was in debt.
“If he can’t pay soon, they’ll take his house away,” Shockley told Forest.
“He sounds like our man,” the landowner agreed.
He was taking the Fleming to meet Forest at Avonsford that day. If Forest approved, then the deal between the three of them would be struck and the business would be ready to begin.
There had been a brief shower of rain just before Edward collected the Fleming from the George Inn that afternoon, and as they rode up the Avon valley glistening in the sunlight, he was glad that the place was looking its best.
For although he and Forest were intending to make use of the big foreigner, he was uncomfortably aware that the merchant, used to the huge metropolis of Antwerp and the mighty castles and palaces of Germany and France, might be a little contemptuous of the market town and modest manor houses of Sarum. The evening before when they had dined together at the inn, his companion had expressed the general view of the continentals when he leaned back comfortably and remarked:
“You English live poorly: but I grant that you eat well.”
He need not have worried, however. For as they passed through the stone gateway and rode down the newly planted avenue that led through the deer park, the Fleming nodded in warm approval.
It was when they came in sight of the manor house, however, that his companion reined his horse and stared in open-mouthed amazement.
“It is beautiful,” he said in frank admiration. “I have never seen such a thing better done.”
For when the Forests had rebuilt Avonsford Manor fifteen years before, they had incorporated into it a remarkable feature. And as a result, with the sun glancing off the still wet walls, it presented a most extraordinary sight.
“It’s like a chequerboard,” the Fleming cried in delight.
No description could have been more apt. The house now consisted of two large, gable-fronted wings between which stretched a two storey central section long enough to contain a row of five fine windows; in the middle of this now perfectly symmetrical arrangement was a broad, low-arched doorway. But the striking feature of all this, and what had excited the merchant’s admiration, was the stonework of the walls. For here the Tudor masons had demonstrated one of the triumphs of their local craft. The entire façade was divided into perfect squares, about a foot across, and these had been alternated between local grey stone of a light shade and carefully knapped flint which was darker. When the sunlight caught it after a shower, this flint gleamed almost like glass.
It was a design that had been used in this and other regions where grey stone and flint had been found since Roman times, but nowhere was it more elegantly and precisely done than in the five valleys around Sarum.
As the two drew closer to the gleaming grey building however, it was another feature that caught the visitor’s eyes. Edward saw to his amusement, as they approached the entrance, that the Fleming’s gaze was so fixed upon this last ornamentation, that he did not even notice Thomas Forest had come out of the door to greet them.
He was staring at the chimneys.
“My God,” he shouted this time, so that his voice echoed around the whole house, “what do you call those?”
“Chimneys,” Forest answered quietly.
In the reign of Henry VIII, a brief but never-to-be-forgotten fashion appeared in the architecture of England, and one which was not found anywhere else in Europe. For the English took it into their heads to create chimney stacks unlike any that the world had seen before. They were always made of red brick, and placed on top of great and medium sized houses, wholly irrespective of whatever material, plaster, brick or stone, the rest of the building was made of. They were huge. Their stacks rose in ornate columns, often heavy spirals, and were crowned with still more bulky capitals of brick or tile, carved into elaborate shapes. The capitals of the brick chimney stacks at Avonsford were particularly splendid and cumbersome, being octagonal in shape with overhanging scalloped edges. They proclaimed, if such a proclamation were needed, that the owner of the house aspired to the highest social status, that in time the house itself would grow to be as elaborate as its chimneys: they were its greatest and most preposterous glory.
The meeting went well, and after less than an hour, Forest concluded the deal. Its terms were simple. The Fleming was to act as exclusive agent for the new venture; Forest would finance any other dealings he wished to undertake. He would also pay off the merchant’s debts, taking his house in Antwerp as security. In effect, by the end of the afternoon, Forest owned him.
“And the secret of him is,” young Shockley had confided to Forest before hand, “he likes to live well and he spends his money as fast as he makes it: he’ll never pay off his debt to you.”
When the matter was satisfactorily clinched, the three men fell to talking of general matters.
Sitting comfortably in the big panelled hall the merchant grinned knowingly at them both and asked:
“So – you English are Protestant this year, like us. Soon you will change your minds again, ya?”
Shockley opened his mouth to protest, but to his surprise Forest made only a sign of caution.
“In Antwerp there is a rumour that your boy kin
g is sick. He will die soon. What then?”
“Nonsense,” Shockley protested. Only the previous year the fifteen-year-old king had passed through Sarum and he had seen him with his own eyes: the boy had looked pale, but he had smiled and acknowledged the loyal cheers of the crowd with every sign of healthy enjoyment. It was true that there had been news of a temporary sickness that February, but a London merchant had told him the young king was better now.
To his surprise, once again, Forest did not deny the charge.
“The country will follow the religion of the monarch,” he told the Fleming quietly.
“Whatever it is?” Shockley asked sharply.
“I think so.”
The Fleming laughed.
“It’s true what they say then – you English believe in nothing.” And he slapped his knee in amusement.
Hearing these words, Shockley’s face clouded. He remembered Abigail and Peter Mason that morning. He thought of his own, foolish admission of his Protestantism to Katherine a little earlier. Could it really be, now, that the country would change religion again?
As he left, he asked Forest anxiously:
“So you really think the king is so ill?”
Forest took his arm confidentially:
“Concentrate on the new business, Shockley. Don’t worry about politics or religion. Just follow Bishop Capon.” He gave him a warning look. “If trouble comes, keep your head down, that’s all.”
The Fleming was in a boisterous mood as they rode back to the city. He understood perfectly the hold Forest now had over him, but he was relieved at the same time to be free of his debts. As they passed the old castle hill and approached the city gates he blew out his cheeks and demanded:
“So where are the girls in Sarum?”
Abigail Mason’s face was always perfectly still. Edward had noticed that for a long time.
Her broad, pale brow was always placid; her brown hair pulled tightly back; her face, which receded to a firmly chiselled angle at the chin, was never allowed to give way to any animation.
It was as though a Tudor painter had depicted her face and body in severe, chaste lines on a wooden panel before she had been allowed to step into the world and assume a life in the flesh. Her mouth was carefully held in a modest line. Was there a hint of bitterness there he sometimes wondered? If so it was perfectly controlled. Her eyes were deep brown but gave nothing away. There were often dark rings under them. A generation earlier, instead of being a Protestant, she might have been a nun.
Abigail Mason wanted a child. She was twenty-eight.
Once, when she was twenty-five, she had thought that she was pregnant, but it had turned out to be a false hope. She did not know why she had failed. True, her husband had not been able to arouse her to any great passion, but she was sure that this was not important.
Was it her fault they had no child? She knew most people supposed it must be. The Mason family was plentiful; her husband’s cousin Robert who lived at Fisherton nearby, had six healthy children. And yet some instinct told her that she could have one still. She did not know how she knew, but she was sure it was so.
How she longed for it. When she saw a baby carried in the street, she was irrepressibly drawn to it; when she saw Robert’s wife suckle her child, she could not help an almost greedy expression coming over her placid face as she ached to do the same. Was it a sin to long for a child of her own? She prayed for it every night. And still it had not come.
She was firm with herself. Her father, a dour London bookbinder who had taken up the Lutheran persuasion, had taught all his children that they must suffer: it was to be expected. She suffered.
Peter Mason was of medium height and, unusually for his family, thin. But on his rather delicate body there rested, cheerfully, a large, round, balding head. He was a gentle, simple man and it was a tribute to Abigail’s calm sense of duty that his broad face lit up with an innocent smile of pleasure whenever he saw her.
They occupied the same house where old Benedict had had his bell foundry; but they only rented half the space. The bell foundry had been discontinued thirty years ago and Peter made cutlery now. He, too, hoped for a child; apart from this he was contented.
She wished, sometimes, that he had more ambition. She wondered if, without her, he would even have served God as he should. It had taken her much persuasion to bring him to destroy the idolatrous window in St Thomas’s church. But if Peter Mason was not all she might have hoped for, “I must be grateful for what I have,” she would remind herself. And life in their house was quiet and pleasant enough.
Except for one thing: about that, she knew, something must be done; it was as important as the church window; and as she walked back with Peter that morning she reminded him:
“You must act now, husband. You promised me.”
It was a confrontation he dreaded. He wondered if he could put it off until tomorrow.
When Nellie Godfrey left the George Inn with the merchant from Antwerp that evening, she had a feeling that he might give trouble. He was a large man and though he had taken a quantity of wine, she was not sure whether it had made him drunk or not. She glanced up at him shrewdly. She thought she could handle him: she could most men. Carefully but firmly she steered him towards her lodgings, and when the Fleming swung his great arm to pull her to him in the street she laughed and disentangled herself.
“Wait.”
Nellie Godfrey had a remarkable combination of gifts which made her attractive to men. She knew about them, but they came naturally: a gay, lively, outgoing nature combined with a body of such heavy sensuousness that the air around her seemed almost palpable with the aura of it.
She was below medium height, so that her head with its short, dark brown hair hardly came up to the Fleming’s chest. She wore a bright red half-open bodice laced across the front with ribbons and with high red and blue pads on the shoulders. Under this was a chemisette of thin white linen. She wore a full-bodied skirt to the ankles, dainty leather shoes and a jaunty little linen cap. Her best features were accentuated by her short stature: a pair of dazzling blue eyes with a flicker of hazel around the irises, that were always staring up beguilingly, a brilliant smile that revealed two rows of small, perfectly white teeth, and a pair of magnificent heavy breasts. It was when she came close however, that men became aware of a rich, thick sense of warmth that seemed to rise from below her breasts, carrying with it the heady sensuous scent of musk with which she perfumed herself whenever she could afford it.
“That woman,” Thomas Forest remarked to Shockley, “was made to be loved by many men.”
She liked her sensuousness: she was excited by it herself.
But she had a greater gift still. All her lovers felt they had received – as well as the rich warmth of her magnificent body, the triumph of holding her through her titanic orgasms – a share of her genuine affection, and a sense of an inner softness, a vulnerability in her nature that was touching.
Nellie often considered it, and she was satisfied that she liked most of her lovers. True, she sometimes had to sell herself to men she did not care for; but most of the time she had made her living by being the mistress of a few chosen men in the city. They paid her, of course, she had to eat; but it was their presents, which she did not ask for, that were important to her. She would take them out when she was alone, sit up in bed with them and survey them, murmuring: “He loves me a little, I think,” or even: “He loves me more than his wife.” And when, satisfied, she put her presents away again, she would sometimes cry a little; but this was something nobody ever saw.
It was over seventy years since old Eustace Godfrey had become a hermit, sixty-five since he had died. Three generations had passed since then, and none of them had done well. By her grandfather’s day, the last of the Godfrey money had all gone. Her father had been a drunkard and she and her only brother Piers had been orphaned when she was thirteen. Piers was a carpenter: a worthy, quiet fellow who often did small jobs for Shockley, who
had befriended him. He had supported Nellie when she was a girl and he still loved her; but he was ashamed of her now. She could not help that.
“Our family was noble once,” he reminded her; it was two centuries, seven generations since any Godefroi had lived at Avonsford though and her brother’s foolish idea meant little to Nellie.
“Won’t buy me anything, will it?” she would retort fiercely.
Indeed, the fact that they bore the same name as the brother and sister was now an embarrassment to the worthy merchant Godfrey family of Salisbury whom Eustace had once despised. They had reached the apex of the town society, had even supplied a mayor of the city.
“Nellie Godfrey’s no kin of ours,” they were quick to say if her name was mentioned.
At the age of twenty-two, Nellie made a modest living. She owned several small pieces of jewellery, though they were worth less than she thought; she had a few fine dresses a rich merchant had given her. But though she was not unhappy with this achievement, the future was beginning to look uncertain. And when her brother pleaded with her: “What will you do next, Nellie?” she could only cry impatiently: “Something,” and refuse angrily to discuss the matter any further.
She had never wanted to sit at a spinning wheel or marry a poor artisan like her brother: the boredom of the prospect appalled her lively mind; but what were the alternatives?
“You won’t even get any husband,” Piers warned. “Your reputation’s gone.”
She knew it was true. She would not admit it but she was frightened. Yet some force inside drove her onward.
“I’ll think of something,” she would repeat defiantly, as her bright blue eyes looked out at what she could see of the world in Sarum, and watched for an opportunity.
She reached her lodgings in Culver Street. The Fleming had been ambling contentedly beside her, swaying a little and humming to himself; now he looked at the modest tenement and cried:
“Today I see a fine house like a chequerboard. Now I see a house I like even better – because it has a woman in it!” And his laugh echoed down the street.