She did not lease out the shop. She had it fitted with drawers and cupboards, turning it into a haberdashery which she ran herself. She brought her own braids, ribbons and tassels, to which she soon added more — cords, silk and woollen threads for sewing and embroidery, needles, thimbles, darning mushrooms. She developed links with suppliers and weavers of what were called narrow wares — braid, bobbin lace, ribbon, tapes and gimps. She sold buttons, both fully finished and the wooden cores over which embroidery could be worked to match or contrast with particular material. Women of the gentrified classes learned of her shop, and although plain styles were worn by many nowadays, many others who could afford it wore decoration whatever their religion and politics. Everyone needed britches' hooks and apron strings. Juliana became known for her sound advice on dressmakers and hatters. She also sold patterns. Starting with her grandmother's traditional embroidery emblems, she went on to offer designs of her own, either on printed paper or ready sketched out on outfit pieces. She could prepare patterns to order.
Her natural talents were those necessary to a businesswoman: she was bright, energetic, courageous and dogged. She had a pleasant manner, but had learned to stand up for herself. Her buying mistakes were few; her debtors fewer. If her premises were the wrong end of the city for the Royal Exchange where grand silks, satins and velvets were sold, at least she had an untapped market. Lawyers, jewellers and their wives had money and the wish to deck themselves out. She did well.
It was hard work, and left her little time for herself in the first years, but as she became established and her boys grew older and less demanding, at last she was able to enjoy a quiet life, mostly free from anxiety. The boys went to school. Catherine Keevil assisted in the shop. Juliana had told Tom and Val that they had to assume that their father was dead. She did not remarry. She did not expect to. She was lonely, but she had been lonely ever since her marriage when she was seventeen. She made the best of it. At least she was free from anxiety, which brought her close to contentedness.
By the time she took possession of the Fountain Court premises, she had lost contact with her friend Anne Jukes. Anne had had wearing experiences with her husband, which Juliana heard about. She thought Anne might wish to remain private temporarily. Besides, Juliana felt a reluctance to be involved with that family. Of course she had been promised wages for her maid, Catherine Keevil, but after the first year which Gideon Jukes had paid for, Juliana found the money herself. She was proud to do so. It avoided obligation. It avoided awkwardness.
Some months after she set up in her new premises, Juliana did take herself nervously to Basinghall Street, however. She had a genuine commercial reason. She wanted to explore whether ready-designed embroidery patterns could be printed on paper sheets to sell. She believed there was a market, but was uncertain whether her idea was viable or how expensive it would be to have her drawings produced. To advise her, she wanted a printer, one who could be relied upon to deal fairly with a woman client.
She was dismayed to find that the print shop she knew, Robert Allibone's, was locked up. It looked deserted. When she tried again a few weeks later, still hopeful, it had become a confectionery shop. The new proprietors said the previous occupants had died or gone away. She felt her enquiries met with odd looks, so she wondered whether the shop had closed because of some problem with the authorities.
She could have asked Anne Jukes. After so long out of touch, she did not know how to make an approach. Then someone told her there was a new printer not far away from her house, just off Holborn. Hers was a business venture; with no moment for sentiment, Juliana packed up her designs and went there.
A young man was working the press. He had a vague air, but he was slowly doing the job, without supervision. A bell had tinkled briskly on Juliana's entry, but the apprentice or journeyman barely looked up. The shop seemed to stock mainly sermons and schoolbooks. Juliana, who could never resist new works, spotted on a shelf A Treasury of English Wit, nudging a Latin grammar and books on mathematics; against Practical Remedies for Gout and Sciatica, her eye lingered on a handbook of Women's Diseases..
There was a small pile of Mercurius Politicus — an edition Juliana had not seen; it would be published on Thursday — tomorrow.
'Can I buy this already?'
'Not supposed to,' answered the young man. He finally turned to talk to her. 'You can have it if you hide it.'
'How do you obtain them so early?'
'Our printer writes articles sometimes.'
This dismayed Juliana, who feared such a public man would not want her domestic commission. The youth assured her they undertook all work that was not obscene or seditious — though when Juliana began describing embroidery patterns, he looked affrighted. With her speech all prepared, she continued talking about her project until his eyes glazed. Stitchery patterns were something they had never attempted here; accepting strange jobs (which might have no profit) went beyond his authority… 'You should speak to my master.'
Juliana lost faith in her pitch and faltered. 'Maybe another day, when he is not too busy'
'Suit yourself.' The young man turned back to the press, which was rude. Juliana had not quite finished speaking and she was aware from the bell behind her that another customer must have come into the shop. 'Of course,' added Miles, grinning oddly over his work, 'the correct way to commission a printer is to summon him to a tavern and ply him hard with drink — but my master is clean-living, so you may simply ask him…'
Annoyed now, Juliana crisply picked up her drawings and turned around, ready to share a disapproving frown with whoever stood behind her.
It was the printer himself. He was listening, quiet and serious, just inside the door. His tall height blocked part of the light through the glazing. She felt a shock: how blue his eyes were. He had been waiting a little wryly for her to notice him. Now that she had, he flushed faintly.
He stepped forward, offering his hand in conventional good manners. Juliana responded. As they clasped hands, he pulled hers in closer to him — an instinctive, momentary gesture. He may not have realised he did it.
The day was fine and he wore his coat fully unbuttoned. So although Gideon Jukes let go of her hand politely and her fingers slipped away through his in the same movement, Juliana had felt through his linen shirt the man's warmth and the strong beat of his heart.
Chapter Sixty-Nine — Dunbar and London: 1650-51
'We are in the hands of God.'
So pronounced a surgeon after the battle of Dunbar. He assumed this would spread well-being among his patients, those who had fought for the New Model Army and who had just been vouchsafed yet another glorious indication that God favoured them as His own. It carried extra force in Scotland, where the Covenanters were equally certain that God was all theirs. To worship the same God as your enemy, and to worship Him with exactly the same rigour, expecting the same signs of favour, might be unsettling. Thoughtful worshippers could be uneasy about placing God in a dilemma. But since Dunbar, the Kirkmen must know what God thought. Knowing it too, the New Model Army was once more cocksure and chipper.
Nevertheless, patients extracted from a battlefield view everything through the prism of pain. Disfigurement had already claimed casualties. Disease lay in wait. Death was smiling at the surgeon's shoulder, with his tally-stick ready to be notched. To a man lying on a blood-soaked pallet with his energy ebbing out of him, the words 'We are in the hands of God' spoken by a surgeon meant only one thing: there was no hope. To a surgeon, it was inconceivable that anyone else could be given credit for saving a patient, even God. God fought the battles, surgeons patched up the wreckage afterwards.