At the Sign of the Sugared Plum (15 page)

I told him that I had come to speak to my friend the maid but had not been able to rouse her, and fearfully asked him if there had been other deaths in the house. He told me there had, but he could not say who they were.

‘For the usual fellow is taken sick and I only came
here last night,’ he said.

I began trembling, and felt ashamed and low, for what if Abby had died since my last visit . . . had dragged herself to the window to look for me, but I had not come?

‘How many have died altogether in the house?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Three, I believe. Or four.’

I went round to the back again and threw some gravel up to the window, and called and called. At last, at very long last, someone appeared. It was Abby, yet not the Abby I knew, for this person had a wild eye and a pain-filled face, and her forehead glittered with beads of sweat.

I could see at once that she had been deeply and fatally afflicted, but I tried to swallow down the fright I felt at her appearance. ‘At last,’ I said, ‘I have been a-calling this hour or more.’

Abby smiled down at me. A strange smile she had, and an odd gleam in her eye.

‘I have been visited, Hannah!’ she said, and to my extreme surprise her voice had the tone of one telling another that a favourite friend had called. ‘Visited at last. It courted me but I resisted it for days . . .’

‘I . . . I see,’ I said.

‘Death called me to come into his arms! And what is a maid to do?’ She gave a sudden cry of pain and clutched her head with both hands. ‘Oh, but it is a hard and spiteful master!’ she cried.

I choked back tears. ‘Are you in great pain, Abby? Where is the nurse to look after you?’

‘The nurse hasn’t arrived today, Hannah. No nurse.’ She shook her head gravely. ‘She must be dead too.
They are all dead. And I have two fearful lumps come up in my groin so that I cannot walk as far as the privy but must lie in my own soil.’

I was sickened at this, but tried not to show it. Poor, poor Abby, who so loved her pretty gowns and her silk ribbons and who had come out with me on many a May morning in order to bathe her face in the dew and be beautiful.

‘Is
everyone
dead, Abby? Your master and mistress too?’

She nodded. ‘Within an hour of each other. In the beautiful chamber with the mirrors from Venice and the hangings from Persia.’

‘But –
all
dead? What about the babe?’

‘The babe!’ A sudden light lit her face. ‘Little Grace survives. But she cries – oh, how she cries! She is a poor orphan babe though, so she is right to cry.’ Abby was leaning against the window frame and suddenly slipped sideways so that she disappeared from view. I called to her again.

‘Abby!’ I said urgently. ‘What can I do for you? Is there something I can get you? Anything at all?’

I didn’t think I would get a proper response, for I could see that the horror of what she must have seen in that house had already driven her half mad, but suddenly her two hands appeared, gripping the sill, and she pulled herself to her feet.

She looked at me with glittering eyes. ‘Yes, Hannah,’ she said. ‘I almost forgot. You must take the babe.’

Astonished, I thought I must have misheard her, so did not reply.

‘I promised Mrs Beauchurch, my mistress, that you
would get the babe away if I could not. It is all planned. There is a letter for you . . .’ Abby flinched with pain and pressed her hand to her head, then raked it through her hair, knotting a handful of it around her fist as if she would pull it out.

Filled with pity, I waited for the spasm to pass from her before I prompted her to continue. ‘A letter?’

She nodded and felt among the folds of her dress for her pocket, then dropped the letter out of the window.

It fell on to the cobblestones and lay there for a moment (for to tell the truth I feared to handle it) until Abby cried that I must take it up. I was forced to do so then, and holding it outstretched before me, I ran home with it.

At the corner I looked back, but Abby had again disappeared.

Chapter Thirteen
The first week of September

A
saddler who had buried all his children dead of the Plague, did desire only to save the life of his remaining little child, and so prevailed to have it received stark naked into the arms of a friend.’

I sobbed all the way back to the shop and people avoided me as I ran, for they probably thought I was afflicted and half-mad.

Sarah was standing in the doorway with a grave expression upon her face, but my sudden tearful appearance distracted her from whatever had caused this. I gave her the letter and explained in a few words about Abby. Without speaking she shut the shop and we went through to our little room in the back.

She turned the letter over in her hands. ‘We should steam it over vinegar,’ she said.

‘But I have already handled it in bringing it here!’

She shrugged, and I knew she was trying not to alarm me. ‘Then we won’t bother.’

We sat down together on the bed and she peeled up
the seal and opened the folded piece of paper. It was a page torn from a book, the handwriting being on one side.

‘It is written in an educated hand,’ Sarah said, ‘although you can see that whoever it is from—’

‘It is from Abby’s employer, Mrs Beauchurch,’ I said.

‘Her hand wavers and she is in some distress.’ Sarah then read out the letter, which was addressed to me.

‘Dear Hannah,

I beg and beseech you in the name of the Almighty that you take my child, Grace, upon receipt of this letter, and carry her with all speed to my sister the Lady Jane at Highclear House, in Dorchester. My child is lusty and hearty now, but if left in this house of death she will surely perish. There are Certificates of Health for you and your sister, but you must travel under the names of Abigail and myself. A carriage has been procured and will be at the sign of the Eagle and Child in Gracechurch Street each day awaiting your arrival. The driver is my sister’s man and has a Certificate to travel.

On reaching Dorchester, Lady Jane will ensure that you and your sister are well cared for. You will be permitted to stay until the Visitation has left London, when you will be given safe passage back.

May the prayers of a mother melt your heart and you find it within yourselves to grant my dying wish and save my child.

By my hand this 30th day of August 1665.

Maria Beauchurch.’

‘Abby is terribly sick and so strange that I could scarce believe it was her,’ I said to Sarah. I lifted a corner of my skirt and wiped my eyes on it. ‘What will we do?’

She put down the letter and turned to look at me. ‘We will go, of course,’ she said calmly, ‘for our own sakes as well as that of the babe. We will not get another chance of leaving London and it grows more dangerous here by the minute.’

I was still shaking from the shock of seeing my poor friend, and from hearing what was asked of us. ‘Must we really go?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘For when you appeared then, I had just been told a terrible thing by Mr Newbery.’

I looked at her. ‘But there are so many terrible things.’

‘The Bills. They show six thousand dead in London in the last week.’

‘Six thousand!’

‘And nearly two more thousand dead of “other causes” – and they fear it will get higher, for there are so many dying all around that there are no longer enough men to board up and guard the houses. Mr Newbery says the afflicted will now begin to walk the streets and infect others, and the whole population may fall.’

I put my face in my hands, uttering a cry of distress. How had I ever thought that living here in this city . . . this charnel house . . . was preferable to living in the serenity I had enjoyed in the country?

Sarah was already moving about our room, pulling things out of our nest of drawers and stuffing them into a cloth bag. ‘We will wear our good gowns,’ she
said. ‘For if we are to act the rich mistress and her nursemaid, then we must look the part.’

She stepped out of her workaday dress and apron and threw them on the bed, then took down her best grey taffeta gown and jacket, and put on her little lace hood. ‘’Tis not the height of fashion,’ she said, ‘but I daresay that the men at the city gates won’t know any better.’

She came to me and clasped my hands in hers. ‘This is our way out, Hannah. This will save us!’ I did not reply or move and she shook my shoulders gently. ‘Set to, Hannah. You can wear your blue and put my little travelling cape over the top.’

I rose and turned so Sarah could unbutton my gown at the back, my mind a mess of thoughts: Tom, Abby, our journey, the babe . . .

‘We will shut up the shop and not tell anyone where we’re going, for who knows but there might be some law against impersonating a person of quality and using their Certificate of Health,’ Sarah said. I nodded obediently. I would let Sarah take charge, for I did not wish to have to decide things myself.

Two bags were packed with some clean shifts and a change of clothes each, and somehow I found myself dressed and ready, a cape around my shoulders and a clean white cap on my head. Sarah decided to leave what there was left of our plague sweetmeats outside the shop for the poor to eat (which they would, of course, immediately) for she said it would just encourage rats if we left them inside.

‘And who knows – our sweetmeats might do someone some good,’ she said.

There was a knot of fear in my stomach as we
closed our shop behind us. Suppose it was discovered that we were travelling under false documents? Would we then be consigned to the pest hospital (which I had heard was little more than a burial ground)? And – worse still – suppose little Grace carried the plague germs on her? If everyone else in that house had succumbed, why should she be spared?

Sarah secured the door and then, having thought of something else, went back inside and came out carrying a folded linen sheet.

‘We mustn’t take anything from Abby’s house,’ she said, pushing the sheet into the bag. ‘For they say you should remove nothing from a house which has plague in it.’

‘But we are taking Grace—’

‘We will have to trust that she is healthy. But she must have no clothing or swaddling cloths on her. Nothing in which plague germs could hide.’

She closed the door again just as Mr Newbery came out from his shop. ‘I’m shutting up,’ he said. ‘What is the point of making parchment and fine writing papers when no one’s buying them?’ He looked at us curiously. ‘But are you shutting up too? I would have thought your business was doing well.’

‘We are . . . are . . .’ Sarah stumbled.

‘Going to church!’ I finished for her.

‘Well, that’s very good and commendable,’ Mr Newbery said. ‘Though you may not get in through the gates, what with all those corpses lying about!’

‘We will somehow manage to get in and pray,’ I said piously.

‘And spend the rest of the day in silent contemplation of our fate,’ Sarah added.

‘Well, say a prayer for me,’ Mr Newbery said. ‘I’ll be in a pew in the Three Pigeons.’ He gave us a wave and walked off in the opposite direction.

Sarah and I did not speak for some moments, for I was deep in thoughts of what might lie ahead. Deep in thoughts of Tom, too, and as we approached Doctor da Silva’s I asked if I might go and say goodbye to him.

‘I’d rather you did not,’ Sarah said. ‘For the less people know about our flight from London, the better.’

‘But Tom can be trusted,’ I pleaded. ‘And think how worried he’ll be if he comes down to see me and finds the shop empty. He’ll think we’ve both been taken by the sickness.’

She sighed, but in the end gave me leave to see him. ‘Hurry, though,’ she said as I pushed open the door of the apothecary’s. ‘With Abby so very ill, every moment is precious.’

Tom
was
in the shop, and I quickly explained to him and the doctor what was happening, and they were most anxious and concerned for us. The doctor gave me a sleeping draught for the babe, a strong purging elixir for Abby, and also two onions which I was to tell her to roast and place on the buboes to try and bring them to a head. He packed these things into a small valise and told Tom to escort us to Belle Vue House to ensure that we had safe passage.

Any other time I would have been merry whilst walking with Tom through the City, but this was very different. The three of us barely spoke as we hurried along, and when we did it was just to murmur in low tones of the dire things we saw around us. There were
more corpses placed outside houses for collection – I saw at least three – and other sad sights: a woman sobbing, ‘Dead, all dead!’ from a top-floor window and a man dressed only with a rag around his private parts, crying aloud and tearing at his flesh with his fingernails so that his arms and chest ran with blood. We also saw a death cart trundling along, so over-full with corpses that some were slumped across the bench seat with the driver.

Tom hurried us past all these sights until we arrived in the vicinity of Belle Vue House, and here the streets became quieter, most of the residents having gone into the country some time before.

Going round to the back of the house my heart was heavy, for I was fearful of what condition Abby would be in. If she was well I feared the effect giving the babe away would have on her, for she loved Grace, and caring for her gave her something to live for. If she was worse – well, I did not dare think on that.

As before, there was no answer to my call. We all tried, calling softly at first and then more loudly, and in the end Tom gave a most piercing whistle, like a blackbird, but even this did not bring her to the window.

‘I fear she may have fallen into a deep sleep,’ I said. For I had heard that this is what happened just before plague sufferers died.

‘I fear she—’ Tom began, but then glanced at me and did not finish.

We looked around us. A large green and gold vine encircled the house, going right up to the fourth floor, but Sarah decided that it was not strong enough to climb, or Tom might have shinned up it.