Bevan Bevan was standing as guardian. Gideon saw Allibone stiffen when his great-uncle walked in, wearing a florid scarlet suit, the outfit in which he had married Elizabeth Keevil. The Jukes family had focused their revulsion upon this wedding suit. The main colour was vivid; the braid which outlined hems, edges and side-seams flashed with spangles. The short cloak, which was worn with a casual flourish on the left shoulder, made Bevan look immensely wide. The outfit came with gloves — one to wear and one to clutch.
Bevan placed his clutching-glove upon a pile of printed pamphlets, while he handed over the fifty pounds agreed as bond money. This was supposed to represent a surety that Gideon came from a good background and would be capable of setting up in business on his own account eventually. Normally a bond would be repaid when a young man completed his apprenticeship; its purpose was to establish him. However, Gideon deduced that Bevan's fifty pounds would remain with Allibone, for it represented some debt the Keevils owed. He sensed rancour between the men. Allibone's voice was pointedly dry: 'You are a fortunate boy, Gideon Jukes. Entry to apprenticeship in the Stationers' Company is regulated strictly!'
Bevan shot Allibone a sorrowful look. Then he took it upon himself to explain the contract of apprenticeship: 'Your indenture — which you must guard with your life — this witnesses: that you, Gideon Jukes, will faithfully serve your master to learn the trade of a printer.' He ran a fat finger down the terms. 'You shall do no damage to your master, nor allow it to be done by others. You shall not waste his goods, nor lend them out unlawfully. You shall not fornicate, nor commit matrimony. You shall not play cards, dice, tables, nor any unlawful games which may cause your master to have any loss. You shall not haunt taverns or playhouses!
Gideon scuffed his feet. Robert Allibone's sharp eyes lingered thoughtfully on this boy who had been promoted to him as so intelligent and keen to learn: a gangly specimen, with a newly cut pudding-bowl of straight tow-coloured hair and vividly pustular skin. Still, he seemed well mannered. Before the irritating uncle arrived, Allibone had warmed to him.
With a wave of his clutching-glove, Bevan fluffed on. 'Well, well, it is all here — not buy or sell goods on your own account, not absent yourself from your master day or night, but behave as a faithful apprentice, et cetera. In consideration, your master shall teach and instruct you in the art and mystery of his trade by the best means he can, while finding you meat, drink, apparel, lodging, and all other necessaries, according to the custom of the City of London.' They were outside the City, but nobody quibbled.
'Thank you,' said Gideon gratefully to the printer. His parents had threatened to throw him out of house and home for his disloyalty. It was probably bluff, but a thirteen-year-old boy needed to feel confident he had not seen his last beef-and-oyster pie.
His great-uncle proposed a drink with Allibone to seal the contract. Gideon was left behind, sitting on a paper bale, gazing rather dolefully at the terrifying equipment. The silent press stood taller than a man. In due course Allibone would explain to him that it was based on the design of olive and wine presses. It had two tall, heavy, upright side-beams, which carried a lighter cross-piece. Down through that ran a big wooden screw. Into its bell-shaped lower terminus was fixed a turning lever, then a flat box containing the paper. Below was a long table, where the form sat, full of mirror-image type to be inked. Around the room Gideon saw a daunting array of boxes which contained letters, large and small, in seeming disarray. On shelves were unbound books and pamphlets awaiting sale.
Allibone, who was not a toper in Bevan's style, soon returned and taught his new apprentice his first lesson: how to make up a truckle bed for himself in the shop.
John Jukes, the careful parent, showed up two days later to inspect the printer.
He found a freckled man of twenty-nine, with a cool eye and a confident air. Jukes had ascertained that Allibone was married with no children. He owned one press, since to possess more caused difficulties with the authorities. He worked from a tiny shop, living above it with his wife. He sold some works himself, but passed out other copies to bookshops and itinerant pedlars.
'I understand there are but twenty licensed printers,' Jukes began pedantically. Allibone listened, sizing up Jukes: a well-fed shopkeeper, probably sent today by his wife. He wore an English cloth suit, with no French, Dutch or Italian accessories, a suit made for him a decade earlier when he was middle-aged and carried more weight. A man who brooded on slights, planned his argument, then came out with it as if reading a sermon. 'You are not troubled by the authorities, Master Allibone?'
'I avoid exciting them… There are twenty or so Master Printers, licensed by the Stationers' Company and approved by High Commission.' Allibone went back to inking a tray of letters, deftly deploying a wooden tool covered with lambswool. John Jukes sucked his teeth at the mention of the King's Court of High Commission; Allibone shared the moment, then confided more freely, 'We mere yeomen and liverymen strive to stay friends with the company officers, and if we are suitably humble, they duly pass work to us. Always the least profitable work, of course.'
The father began a new tack: 'Sending a boy out to a stranger's trade is a common thing.' Allibone merely nodded. Though a dealer in words, he could be content with silence. Gideon, whose family would yammer on about nothing rather than leave fifty seconds empty, had already noticed the difference. Allibone was to be a strong influence; Gideon Jukes was on his way to becoming a quiet man.
'We are rubbing along,' commented Allibone, who privately thought his young apprentice was quite tough enough. There was no meekness in Gideon. He had a mind of his own but had been polite these past couple of days, a willing learner. Allibone was finding him easy to instruct and if Gideon was making mistakes, it was only because he was trying to rush ahead and do things before he was capable.
John Jukes reluctantly convinced himself that Allibone was reliable. The printer made no attempt to bluster about himself or his trade, and happily no mention of Bevan Bevan. He gave Jukes a moment alone with his son. Allibone had noticed the awkwardness between them, exacerbated by the fact Gideon had suddenly that year grown taller than his father.
Are you content with your situation?' John was staring at his son's apprentice clothes, old britches of Allibone's, beneath a blue leather apron. Everything Gideon touched seemed to cover him with ink; only his newly cropped hair had escaped. John was not sure whether to laugh at the filthy picture he made, or to deplore it.
Gideon bravely maintained that he was happy; his sceptical father knew any lad would be forlorn after his first two days in strange surroundings. Stepping from childhood into adult work was an ugly shock. Gideon now had to contemplate a lifetime of near drudgery, rising at first light and sticking to a mundane task until dinnertime. 'Well, you have bound yourself, Gideon. Your mother's uncle, for his own reasons, put himself to some trouble to win you this opening.'
'Plenty of apprentices fail to stay their term,' muttered Gideon glumly.
'Not in our family!' John must be forgetting wastrel cousin Tom, Gideon scoffed to himself. Tom Jukes tried a new occupation every year and the only one he ever liked was going to the bad… Sympathetically, his father offered, 'You must stay for a month, to try it thoroughly. Then if your heart cries out strongly, you may come and consult me.'
'A month!'
The boy had revealed how homesick he was. To overcome the tug on his emotions, Jukes senior summoned back the printer. Allibone gave no sign of his own misgivings. Gideon was the first apprentice he had been able to take on, and he was anxious that things should not go awry. He satisfied John Jukes eventually, soothing him with a free almanac and a proposal that Jukes should compose an encyclopedia of spices for publication. Robert Allibone was a sharp businessman despite his reserved manner; he had recognised in Gideon's father a man of many projects — though perhaps he had not realised how frequently John's projects were left incomplete.