London in Chains by Gillian Bradshaw

sure what she wanted herself. She hadn’t previously considered this as something she might do; now she was both intrigued and alarmed. It would be interesting to hear the talk, but it would mean crossing another line. She’d come to the cause as hired help, an onlooker; she’d become a sympathizer; if she started attending meetings, she would have enlisted.
    Thomas did go to the meeting at The Whalebone that evening. He returned after Lucy had gone to bed, but when she came downstairs in the morning she saw that Ned had spoken to him because he gave her a very anxious look. ‘I’ve business in the City today,’ he announced. ‘Lucy, I’ll set you on your way this morning.’
    Agnes muttered angrily, ‘ Whose business in the City? Not yours , I’ll warrant!’ When Thomas looked at her, however, she fell sullenly silent.
    Thomas started on the subject as soon as they were out of the door. ‘Lucy, child, last night it was suggested that I should bring you to our council meetings at The Whalebone, at least while Nick Tew and poor Will are in prison.’
    â€˜ Council meetings?’ she repeated, surprised. It seemed a very grand name for drinks in a tavern.
    â€˜Aye, our common council meets in The Whalebone on Thursdays,’ said Thomas impatiently. ‘The others thought it a fair notion that you should attend, but they defer the decision to me. I . . . well, you know, child, that I mislike the risk to your safety, and I fear what your father would say.’
    He said nothing about any scandal in her attendance. ‘Do women come to these meetings, Uncle?’
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ he said, surprising her. ‘Mrs Lilburne comes, and the wives of some of the other men. Mary Overton came, until she was imprisoned. Katherine Chidley – a most outspoken soul – never misses a meeting; her son, Samuel, is our treasurer—’
    â€˜ Treasurer? ’ repeated Lucy, surprised again.
    â€˜Aye,’ said Thomas, blinking at her. ‘He keeps the common fund that pays half your wage.’
    â€˜It does?’ Browne hadn’t mentioned that. Where, she wondered, did the money in the common fund come from? But that was an easy question: it came from collections among the ‘well-affected’. Another reason, she suspected, that Agnes disapproved of her husband’s friends. For her own part, she was intrigued. Villagers might band together to oppose an enclosure, but this sort of organisation – a council with regular meetings, a common fund managed by a treasurer – was something more.
    â€˜Aye, Will asked for help,’ Thomas continued, ‘and we agreed that he was entitled to it. But this strays from the point! What I meant to say was that this notion of your attendance troubles me. Already I fear that your father will be wroth with me on your account. If he learns that I’ve brought you to . . . well, you and I know it’s honest business, undertaken in goodwill to the Commonwealth, but some would call it a nest of heresy and sedition.’
    â€˜What need has he to know?’ asked Lucy. ‘Cousin Geoffrey will leave London before long, and once he’s gone, who’ll tell my father? I won’t, you may be sure of it!’ She realized even as she spoke that, yes, she did want to attend the meetings. If she was going to risk arrest, it should be for what she was doing and not just because she was William Browne’s hired help and Thomas Stevens’ niece.
    Thomas stared at her for a long moment, taken aback. ‘It would scarce be honest of me to—’
    â€˜My father won’t care anyway,’ Lucy interrupted. ‘I’ve told you: his wish is to forget that he ever had a daughter. It’s Cousin Geoffrey who’d stir up trouble, and Cousin Geoffrey has no rights in the matter! I doubt he cares a fig what happens to me, but he’s offended with you because