Forged in the Fire (19 page)

Bow Lane was free of fire, though smoke blew across the entire city, and from the top of the lane we could hear the noise of firefighting and see black smoke and flames bursting from a warehouse near Three Cranes.

Our landlord, Robert Whitman, was not in, nor his wife, and I saw that their cart had gone from the yard at the back.

I ran upstairs; shouted Susanna's name.

She was there. We caught each other on the stairs and clung together, oblivious to the presence of Nat, who must have retreated discreetly around the bend of the staircase. He reappeared when he heard us talking.

“The Whitmans are at Holborn,” she said. “At his cousin's house. They've been back and forth with the cart all afternoon, taking their stock there for storage. They'll be back later.”

“They left thee alone?” I said, and pictured her gazing out across the river, wondering when I would return.

“Friends came from the Bull and Mouth: Gerard Palmer and Jane Catlin. They are using it as a gathering point for Friends. We may store our goods there, and sleep there tonight if the fire drives us from home.”

“Did thou go to Meeting?”

“Yes. Morning and afternoon. Jane said I should stay there, for safety, but I wanted to wait for thee. Oh, I'm so relieved to see thee, Will! And thee too, Nat.” She reached out to him. “Come in, both of you. I'll fetch beer and food. You must be hungry.”

“Thou should have stayed with Friends,” I chided her, but I was glad she had not, that she was here, that our home was safe.

We drank beer, and I felt it cooling my scorched throat.

“Was Rachel at the Bull and Mouth?” Nat asked.

“Yes. She went home afterwards. Joseph Leighton walked with her.”

Nat wiped his mouth with his hand. “I'll go to the meeting room. Call in on Rachel on the way and make sure she lacks nothing.”

“It's quieter up there, near Aldersgate,” Susanna said. “Much like normal.”

But we knew that if the fire wasn't curbed soon, supplies of food and other necessities would run short, with the streets so clogged with people and shopkeepers deserting their premises.

When Nat had gone, Susanna put her arms around me. “I thank God thou'rt home. We don't need to leave, do we?”

“Not yet.” I looked over her head at our meagre furnishings. “But they say the cost of a cart is rising by the hour. If the fire comes any closer…”

Her embrace tightened. “I don't want to leave our home.”

We heard a voice on the stairs: our landlady, Ancret Whitman. “Mistress Heywood! Are you there?”

We both came out onto the landing. She stood a few steps below us, smuts on her face, her hands dirty and her hair escaping its cap.

“Oh! You are home, Mr Heywood! I'm glad. We were concerned for your wife.” Her eyes widened. “We have just seen the King! Such a handsome man! Working and encouraging others. The Duke of York too. They're down at Three Cranes. If you hurry you might see them.”

We did not go. But towards sunset I walked down towards Thames Street and helped for a while filling and passing buckets with the firefighters. The street had been dug up and the water pipe breached, but the water supply was running low. Desperate people, whose homes lay near by, cursed papists and foreigners indiscriminately.

“They burned the waterwheel!”

“It's gone?”

“This morning, early. Utterly destroyed.”

And there was more talk of the fire being a plot, the work of foreign agents. “The tide out, the waterwheel struck, then the bridge and docks…”

After a few hours I went home, exhausted by the long day. I spoke to the Whitmans, who had decided to stay in their home, at least till morning. I said we'd do the same. Susanna and I prayed together, and I read aloud from the Bible: not the terrors of Revelation, but the Twenty-third Psalm, which Susanna loved because its green pastures and still waters made her think of home.

That night we woke frequently, disturbed by the distant roar of fire and the shouts of men. Towards morning they seemed louder.

So London still burns, I thought.

We rolled together and held each other close, both of us unwilling to get up and face the day.

W
e dressed in reddish darkness. I don't know what o'clock it was, or whether the sun ever rose that day. The clouds of smoke were lit by vivid flame, and when we went outside we found ourselves choking, gasping for breath, the air thick with smoke-borne fragments.

Down towards Queenhithe the smoke was blacker still, and as I stared with stinging eyes, I heard an explosion and saw a sudden uprush of fire – as high as a house. It was followed by screaming and the appearance of frightened people struggling up the lane towards us with horses, carts, children, bundles of belongings. The roar and crackle of the fire, the screaming and shouting and rumble of carts, brought me to a state of panic.

“Will! We must go!”

Our landlords were already loading up their cart – this time with their home possessions.

“Bring your things down,” Ancret Whitman said to us. “We'll find room for them. You'll never get a cart for hire now.”

“But where are you going?” Will asked.

“We have family in Holborn. We'll go there. And you?”

“The Bull and Mouth tavern,” said Will. And he told Robert Whitman how to find it.

“We'll take you there, then leave by Newgate. It'll be better to turn north, I reckon, than try Ludgate.”

We thanked them. We had little enough to save, but we took down our bed curtains and bundled up our sheets and clothes and kitchen things, our books and papers. I saw the home we had made together stripped bare, only the bunches of herbs left hanging from the ceiling as we turned to leave.

“Oh, Will!” I said. I felt heartbroken.

He hugged me to him. “We may yet come back. Let's hope.”

He lifted the bedding roll, and I followed him downstairs with another bundle, and the Whitmans found space for everything.

We made slow progress up Bow Lane, which was blocked by laden carts. The smoke seared my lungs, and I found a strip of linen and tore it into four pieces, so that we could each hold a piece over our mouths.

Ancret Whitman was concerned for me, knowing I was with child. “You could ride in the cart,” she said. But I refused. I feared the jolting would be worse than our shuffling walk.

At last we came out into Cheapside and even more confusion. In Jewellers' Row men were removing the precious stock and loading it into secure carts. All the other shopkeepers were employed in the same task, with carts waiting outside almost every door, and a great press of people, each intent on saving his own goods. People fleeing from Eastcheap said they'd seen the flames leap across streets, jump from one building to another five or six doors away. The docks were alight as far as Baynard's Castle, and the wind had veered north-east and was spreading the fire into Cannon Street. Our attic was surely doomed.

As we moved slowly north-east the smoke grew less and we were able to breathe more freely. We'll be safe at the Bull and Mouth, I thought. The fire won't reach there. The tavern was far away from the fire, near Foster Lane and Aldersgate.

The Whitmans took us almost to the door, and waited while we checked that there was room within. We thanked them for their kindness.

“We'll meet again soon, I hope,” Ancret said, “if God spares our house – and the church.” Her husband was a churchwarden at Mary Aldermary, and much involved with parish matters.

I thought of Mary Aldermary, that place I'd given the slighting name of “steeple-house”, and realized that I too would feel something precious had been lost if it was to burn.

The Whitmans drove off towards Newgate, leaving us standing in the way of others struggling along the road.

Mark Ashton came out to help us.

“Come in,” he said, taking hold of one of our bags. Will shouldered the bale of bedding and I took the bundle of clothes and we went inside.

Jane Catlin found us storage space. “Several families slept here last night,” she said, “but people begin to grow fearful, the fire is spreading so fast. Gerard Palmer has gone to see about hiring carts in case we need to move out.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“To the fields. They say Moorfields and Finsbury Fields are filling up already.”

When we left, Will said, “I must go to the bookshop.”

For a moment I thought he was mad, thinking to go to work as usual, but then I understood. “The fire won't come as far as Paul's Churchyard, surely?”

“It's already at Queenhithe, and moving north. And the stock will take hours to shift. If we leave it too late…”

“Where would we take it?”

“I don't know. There's Stationers' Hall at Ludgate. But I need to ask Edmund. Come with me, Su, and we'll open up, and see what other booksellers are doing, and then I'll go and find Edmund.”

We went to Rachel's on our way, and found her packing Tabitha's clothes and baby things in a basket.

“I don't want to leave,” she said, “but if Friends decide the Bull and Mouth is unsafe I'll go too.”

“To thy mother's?”

“Yes.”

I exchanged a look of sympathy with her.

“At least it will be safe,” she said, “outside the wall.”

We left soon after and found Edmund already at the bookshop. I was relieved, for I had not wanted Will to leave me and go back along Cheapside through the crowds and alarm to Throgmorton Street.

“Will! Susanna!” Edmund was already stacking books. “This is a grim day. Is your home safe? Have you removed to the meeting house?”

He, it seemed, had left his servants packing as much of his furniture and goods as could be got into two carts he had managed to procure – “at thirty pounds apiece,” he said, “that would have been three pounds yesterday. But it must be done. The family will go to Essex, to their cousins. I'll follow on after, if the worst comes and the house be burnt. First we must see to the books.” He sighed. “It's such a little time since we set them all anew on the shelves.”

“Where shall we take them?” asked Will.

“To St Faith's, in Paul's crypt. It's the booksellers' church, and nearer and more fireproof, I think, than Stationers' Hall.”

“But will they allow us into Faith's? Dissenters?”

“If we pay, yes. There is a storage fee that all must pay. Now, here are the instructions: bundles to be small enough for a man to lift easily, wrapped and tied, each bundle clearly marked
Martell…
”

We were soon at work. The men lifted and stacked the books while I wrapped and cut the twine and marked the parcels. It was tiring work, even though I was not lifting, and both men urged me to rest; so after an hour or two, when my hands were sore from the twine, I poured beer and looked into the basket of food Edmund had brought for us to share.

I found meat and fine bread, cheese, and apples from his garden, and a large pie of beef and spices that his cook must have baked the day before.

I cut up the pie, and we ate it from paper instead of plates, and felt great satisfaction both in the food and in our continuing work, even though outside all was panic and distress.

We had a small cart of James Martell's in the backyard of the shop, and this we loaded up with book parcels. Will and Edmund made several trips to Faith's while I continued to wrap and tie.

I felt tired, but not much more than usual. I was only four months gone with child, and my belly did not yet show my condition to the world, although I could see and feel that I had thickened a little. Rachel had told me I must wait another month or so before I felt the child move.

Each time Will and Edmund came back they spoke more of the heat and the blinding smoke.

People fleeing from the fire came into the shop to talk and shelter. They told us the fire seemed to have a will of its own, breaking out on a sudden where none had been before.

“They're saying it's a popish plot,” one said.

And it seemed everyone was inclined to blame the Catholics, believing them to be in league with the French and Dutch, and that their agents were going about throwing fireballs into shops and houses and starting new fires all over the city.

Edmund was sceptical of this, convinced that the wind and the dry timbers were to blame. When a Friend came in and told us that the fire was sweeping north up Gracechurch Street I saw that he was alarmed. He had left his family at home, helping the servants to pack.

It was midday and we were more than half finished.

“I'll go and see how things stand at home,” he said. “If they are ready, I'll send them on their way, then come back to you.”

Soon after he left, Mark Ashton and Gerard Palmer from the Bull and Mouth meeting arrived and told us that Friends did not feel safe staying at the tavern another night. A large number of the meeting – women with children, the elderly, and any whose businesses were now secure – were about to leave through Aldersgate in several carts. Our goods could be put aboard if we wished to leave with them.

“Where will you go?” asked Will.

“A Friend named Sylvester Wharton has a farm a mile or so out, south-east of Islington. There are barns and fields where we may camp. But he says make haste, because all the fields north of London are filling with people and he will not keep space for us if others are in need. We go with some who know the way, but Sylvester will fly a green flag from the roof so that any who come later may find the place.”

Will turned to me. “Thou should go, Susanna. I'll come later, when we are finished here.”

“What?” I'd no intention of leaving him. We would not be separated again; I was determined of that. “I won't go without thee!” I said. “We'll finish our work here, and go together.”

“That will take two hours at least, even if Edmund is soon back.”