The Rebellion of Jane Clarke by Sally Gunning Page A

of Miss Gill of Royal Exchange Lane. Her usual order.”
    Knox possessed one of those wide, shining faces that would no doubt look happy under tears, but Jane’s request made it shine even more broadly. “Ah! You’ve arrived! The niece! Miss Clarke, is it?”
    Jane dipped her head.
    Knox disappeared behind the counter and returned with a packet of paper, setting it down in front of Jane. “And you’d like Pamela as well?”
    “No! Oh, no.” Jane set the book back on the table.
    “Not Pamela ? Well, then, what of Cleomira Supposed Dead, or The Nun the Fair Vow Breaker, or The Reformed Coquet ?”
    “No, no thank you.”
    “In truth I’m partial to The Nun . Such an exotic, scandalous convent! But Pamela! One daren’t leave that poor girl alone a minute. Perhaps if you tell me what you’ve last read I’ll know better how to advise you.”
    Jane’s last reading had been a few snips out of the Gazette. She said, “Perhaps if you tell me what you’ve last read I’ll know better what to think of your judgment.”
    The happy moon-face glowed. “Ah! Clever you are! In that case I have no qualm in telling you that I’m reading Mr. Locke’s Second Treatise on Government . ‘Men being by nature all free, equal and independent, no man can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent.’ At the same time I’m undertaking a detailed study of artillery.”
    He peered at Jane to see if she took his point. She did. And if Aunt Gill told true of her chatting about Jane’s father around town, she also guessed why the bookseller felt the need to make it. Something like resentment on her father’s behalf began to tickle her tongue; she said, “I’d not have thought the words consent and artillery would make such compatible reading.”
    Knox’s eyebrows rose in clear surprise, which would have been insulting if the eyes beneath weren’t so filled with delight. “Then I must lend my books to you, Miss Clarke.”
    Jane said, again, “No, thank you. But I’ll take a half-dozen sheets of letter paper to my own charge.” She looked at the books on the table. Pamela cost two shillings—two days’ wage. But Knox’s infamous Nun was only a shilling ten pence, a savings of half a day. She said, “And The Nun, please.”
    JANE DECIDED TO WALK home along the other side of King Street to acquaint herself with the shops there, but as soon as she reached the other side she ran into a pack of boys outside the Brazen Head, catcalling “Importer! Importer! Importer!” She cut wide around the group, making it the rest of the way without disturbance, but coming from the west it forced her to walk within view of the sentry at the Custom House for a block or more. From the distance he looked only straight and neat; closer he looked clean and young. He watched her come; she knew this because it required him to turn his head sideways, and as she reached the corner of Royal Exchange he touched his brim to her in adieu. So he knew who she was now. He knew where she turned. And she now knew he was indeed the soldier of the dirty boot who lived two doors along.

Chapter Nine
    J ANE WAS WELL into her third week in town before her brother Nate finally came by. He had always been what their father had called, enraging Nate, “a pretty boy,” but now his body had grown more solid, his face more edged, and the moniker no longer suited quite as well. He swept off his hat and kissed her cheek—a new gesture, but one he seemed comfortable enough in making, as if he’d practiced it a time or two before. She watched him as he crossed the room to make his duty to Aunt Gill and could detect nothing but the slightest limp; only as her worry for him lifted did she feel how heavy it had grown. But this new strangeness in him! He seemed to have receded farther from her than the length of the room allowed.
    Nate kissed Aunt Gill and turned around. “Well, Jane, I should like to say what a fine