Rebels and traitors

Chapter Forty-Seven — Covent Garden: 1648

Her name was now… something new. Who needed a name? She worked alone these days, swooping about the arcades at twilight like a bat, hunting. She had made Covent Garden her roost, homing in on this grand place as ideal for her purposes.

The Italian piazza in the old convent kitchen garden of Westminster Abbey had been designed in 1632 by the King's surveyor, Inigo Jones, for the Earl of Bedford, one of the main conspiring aristocrats who organised the Long Parliament and the King's downfall. Despite growing antagonism between them, the King had been one of the chief supporters of this first experiment of town planning, with the creation of the first public square in London. The square was surrounded on two sides by tall terraced houses, intended for fashionable society — 'the habitations of Gentlemen and men of ability'. To the west was the new church of St Paul, and to the south stood the existing mansion of the Bedford family, which faced onto the Strand, the major artery connecting the City of London with the court at Whitehall, or with Parliament at Westminster.

As with so many ambitious projects, money ran out. By the time Inigo was commissioned to build St Paul's Church, Lord Bedford ordered that he should make it no more expensive than a barn. The architect bravely responded, 'You shall have the handsomest barn in England!', but he had to endure further interference when William Laud, then Bishop of London, insisted that the church's altar should be on the east side, where an enormous Tuscan portico was designed as the main entrance. Two insignificant doors were added either side of it while a new entrance had to be made at the back, leading ignominiously from a small graveyard and a muddy field path.

Surrounding the piazza was a grid of straight roads, short but wide, quite unlike the winding lanes to which Londoners were accustomed: King Street, Charles Street and Henrietta Street were named for royal patronage while Bedford Street, Russell Street, Southampton Street and Tavistock Street paid tribute to the earl's own family and connections.

People cannot be made to behave in accordance with a chart. The original grand plan failed in its lofty intentions. Despite the elegant housing for wealthy people, the square was a public area so undesirables rapidly colonised it. The presence of wealth was a lure for underworld skulkers of all sorts, who either provided the gentry with vice or simply robbed them. The famous vegetable and flower market began in a very minor way in the 1640s, before the Earl of Bedford capitalised on his investment with a full market permit; even the scatter of early stalls attracted both ordinary members of the public and criminals. The well-built new taverns in Inigo's beautiful streets instantly became a haunt of idlers, rakes and ne'er-do-wells. There were drunks. The drunks had fights. There were duels. At night the area had a noisy threatening quality which offended the refined householders beneath whose curtained sash-windows hubbubs took place. By 1648, the words 'Why do we pay our rents for this?' were uttered in strained aristocratic accents, and as soon as other, more peaceful private squares with greater security were built elsewhere, they superseded Covent Garden's attractions.

At the moment it still was a fine haven for a street urchin. She had unwary people to prey on and warm taverns to retreat to if she was in funds, which at first she was. Once her money ran out, the vegetable stalls reminded her of her upbringing; she knew how to chivvy or trick stall-holders into letting her have bruised or unsold wares. She went back to her childhood ways of looking out for dropped apples and carrots. To the huge piazza came strollers to jostle and steal from, with escape routes all over the place. She could leap the low wall that surrounded the central area, or dive away down uncluttered side streets. The noble arcades, with their round-topped Roman arches and sturdy brick pillars, provided opportunities to lurk. Designed to provide shade from the hot Italian sun, in England these Palladian corridors were shadowy and dank, with little street trade; unlit at night, they were full of menace.

Here the scavenger eked out her living, though with diminishing returns. She had soon wasted away all the funds she earned on the road with Jem Starling. She blew it on drink, or had her cash pilfered while she slept. Untutored in money-management, she was easily conned out of precious coins by street tricksters. Pawnbrokers diddled her when she turned in trinkets, then if she bought herself a fine jacket or a pair of gloves, they were ruined or stolen. Older now, she could not face going back to life as a highway robber, even if she could have found her way out of London to do it. So she stayed where she was, lurking in Covent Garden, where her descent into misery was rapid. Here, one day in summer 1648, she followed a young woman who appeared usefully preoccupied, until the mark turned around suddenly and stared straight at her. She had been spotted.

She walked on past. Then she realised, with annoyance, that while she tracked the young woman, a man was tailing her. As she turned to object and curse him, he accosted her: 'That gentlewoman saw you, and knew your intentions!'

She feigned innocence: 'She never did!'

'You know I am right.'

This man wore a brown suit several decades old, with stains down his jacket that were almost as old as the suit. She had seen him before in the area, though had no idea what trade he pursued or whether he lived locally. Not in these tall houses, unless he was some secretary or man of affairs. But he looked rougher, more like a press-gang leader, a pimp, or a justice's informer. He had the eyes of a loner, one who would not admit openly what filthy trade he followed. Perhaps he was just religious, some fanatical sectarian, she scoffed to herself.

She felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny. He was seeing a thin streak of tension and trouble, haggard-faced, hollow-eyed in the way only worn women on the London streets ever were. It was sometimes the result of drink. He could tell she was struggling. If this little thief had ever been prosperous, that was long past and she was heading for her destruction. She was ripe for him to take over. If he did not, she could be only a week away from being caught. Hanging then awaited. He would be doing her a service.

'I could turn you in — but I will not do it.'

'Oh I know what you want then!' she chided, rejecting his presumed advances with a sneer. Still, she wondered if she should give him his pleasure, just to gain a few pence in the hand.

'You know nothing. I can help you.'

'To what? To the stocks now and a sickly bastard in ten months' time?' Could he tell that she knew all about that?

'To a new life.'

'Oh you are a preacher!' The scavenger burst out laughing. Forget nurturing her soul. All she wanted was a bite to eat — and now she thought about it, she wanted that badly. She was so thin that even at the height of summer, she felt chilled to her fragile bones. Her weakness nowadays was dangerous; if a hue and cry started, she had no energy to run.

'I will not press religion on you,' promised the man. 'Not unless you choose that course. But those who do have faith and who have gone away to a new life in a better country, good honest people all of them, need healthy wenches of good character and spirit to serve them in their homes. I recruit for them. Were you wanting to escape your misery for a respectable career, in a land of hope and prosperity, I could show you the way to it.'

'Nobody would want me.'

'No one need know what you have been or where you come from.' He played his best card: 'I am walking now to an ordinary for a meal. Come, if you want. Eat with me at my expense and simply listen. Where will be the harm? No obligation. None at all.'

Of course she went. He knew what he was doing. A free meal would buy anyone. He knew how to time it, when they were desperate. Just as the light was fading and the evening chill set in, when they were tired after a long and useless day… Picking them up off the streets was his job, and he was unfailingly expert. Once he had lured her to the depot, in nearby St Giles-in-the-Fields, he would take his commission and vanish. Others would keep her secure. Fed, given a warm bed and safety, provided with a clean gown and cap, promised freedom and light work as a treasured servant in a respectable home in the colonies, she would be ripe for the bearers of contracts. Like many before her, she would 'sign indentures', make her mark on them voluntarily, listen while their importance was 'explained', not know she was being bamboozled and sold into something close to slavery…

It was no different from luring virgins into brothels, though it sounded better. He had done both, so he knew that both played on loneliness and fear, hope and misplaced ambition. The victims were young, most of them willingly entering into apprenticeships. By the time they saw they had been betrayed and were to labour in the plantations until they dropped, there were a thousand miles of ocean between them and home, with no chance of appeal. This one, along with so many others, had nobody to miss her.

She was his now. Her name hardly mattered. She was about to disappear, from Covent Garden, from London, even from England. She had been 'spirited'.