Agnes studied her with narrowed eyes. ‘So Phoebe told you, then?’
‘But I didn’t know until Beth was born. I thought William was Joseph’s father. I overheard him tell you when Phoebe first arrived. At least, I thought I overheard him say it. He said Joseph was part of the family.’
‘Shouldn’t listen at doors then, should you, miss?’
‘No, Agnes.’
‘Still, Henry left quite a muddle behind him, didn’t he? Joseph is Beth’s half-brother and nothing will change that. But where is William? I can’t rest until I know he’s safe.’
They finished their soup and sat hand in hand without talking as the last of the light faded.
Then there was a rattle of stones at the window.
‘William!’ Dizzy with relief, Susannah hurried to open the casement.
But it was John Fuller who stood in the lane below, in a considerable state of agitation. ‘I’m leaving,’ he said. ‘My lodgings are in Wood Street and the fire is galloping along Cheapside. I have to go and help my wife to pack up our belongings and move the children to safety.’
‘Cheapside? Has it really spread so far?’
John wiped his hand over his face. ‘I should have gone before. I never thought it would take such a hold or move so fast. If I were you I’d start to pack up your own treasures ready to flee.’
‘Flee? But we can’t …’
‘Stay and be burned, then! I’ve unlocked your door. Your quarantine’s nearly over anyway and you look well enough.’
‘We are well but—’
‘Can’t stop! May the Lord keep you!’
Susannah watched as Fuller thrust his way through the mass of people making their way down Whyteladies Lane towards the river. ‘Did you hear what he said, Agnes?’
‘The fire’s more than half a mile away.’ Agnes’s face had blanched. ‘Surely it won’t reach us?’
‘I can’t imagine …’ Susannah looked out uncertainly at the smoke cloud. Flakes of ash drifted and swirled in the gusty wind. ‘But it seems the fire is burning out of control. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to pack up whatever we can, just in case?’ If nothing else, keeping busy would take Agnes’s mind off her worries about William’s health.
‘We’ll never carry everything! What about my candelabra, for example?’
‘I suppose we could bury some things in the garden?’
‘Of course! I always knew you were a clever girl,’ said Agnes. ‘Fetch Phoebe and Mistress Oliver and they can help to pack. It’s nearly dark so we’ll have to bury the plate in the morning.’
Each time they thought they had finished, Agnes remembered another item that she wanted to save: the captain’s globes, a metal-bound chest with Chinese plates in it, a long abandoned viol. The pile of goods became larger and Susannah despaired of ever being able to dig a hole large enough to contain it all.
It was very late by the time they went to bed. Susannah was so tired as she sat on the bed feeding Beth that her head was nodding before the baby had finished suckling. Yawning so widely that it made her eyes water, she tucked Beth into her cradle.
As she undressed, Susannah looked out at the river. Suddenly frightened, she stared at the blaze illuminating the night sky. The fire had reached Baynard’s Castle, less than half a mile away.
Chapter 30
In spite of her exhaustion Susannah found it hard to sleep, her thoughts too full of worry. To make it worse, Beth seemed to sense her mother’s unease and cried fitfully on and off all night.
Where was William? Susannah pictured his dark eyes crinkling up at the corners when she’d said something that amused him and of the love she had believed he felt for her.. She wept for what might have been and attempted to distract herself by planning her new future working again in her father’s apothecary shop. But her thoughts kept sliding back to William. Was he suffering the same terrible symptoms of the plague that had killed her father? And what of Jennet, her family’s faithful servant for so long? She simply couldn’t wait any longer to find out what had happened, quarantine or no quarantine. She would go and find out.
By first light, Susannah had washed and dressed. The exodus along the Thames continued and the smoke cloud had increased overnight. The fire had advanced towards Bridewell, only some quarter of a mile away.
Beth had her morning feed and, tired out by her wakeful night, at last fell into a deep sleep.
Susannah took her mother’s miniature from its little box, wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it in her pocket. She put on the pearl pendant and lodged it safely in her bodice. Her books, including her mother’s recipe book, she tied up in a parcel with as many clothes as she could carry. She put this on the bed with her apothecary’s box and left all in readiness for a hasty departure if necessary. Beth still slept peacefully so Susannah went to find Agnes.
‘Has William come yet?’ The old lady, her eyes shadowed with fear, looked as tired as Susannah felt.
‘Not yet. We’ll bury your treasures and if he hasn’t come by then I’m going to the shop to find out what’s happening.’
‘I curse my poor old legs or I’d have gone myself. But listen, we don’t need to bury my things! I’d forgotten that there’s an old well under the flagstones in the garden.’
Phoebe and Mistress Oliver, with Joseph running between their feet, prised up the flagstones and peered down into the well. An iron ladder was fixed to the inside and Joseph was sent down to take a look. As far as he could tell it was dry.
‘Dried up back in sixteen thirty,’ said Agnes, ‘and the captain covered it up.’
They packed the goods into baskets and lowered them down on ropes. Then Susannah and Phoebe dragged the flagstones back over the top.
‘I can’t bear the waiting any longer,’ said Susannah. She took Agnes’s gnarled old hands gently into her own. ‘I have to go and find William now.’
Agnes nodded. ‘The streets will be dangerous.’ Her dark eyes were fearful. ‘Please, bring my William back to me,’ she whispered.
Susannah turned to Phoebe, who held Beth against her shoulder, and took the baby from her. A shaft of fear ran through Susannah’s heart at the thought of leaving her daughter for even a moment. But she had to find William.
She kissed Beth, breathing in the sweet smell of her, and handed her back to Phoebe. ‘Will you take care of her until I return?’
‘Beth is Henry’s chile,’ Phoebe said. ‘I love her like my own.’
Susannah briefly touched her on the shoulder. ‘I’ll not be long.’
Standing in the open doorway of the Captain’s House, Susannah took a moment to relish her freedom before launching herself into the press of people making their way down Whyteladies Lane towards the river.
There was agitation in the smoky air and she was shoved from side to side, bruised by handcarts and nearly knocked off her feet by crying children scurrying after their parents. One man carried a huge pack on his back, nearly bent over to the ground with the weight of it, while his wife rolled a barrel along the ground and hung onto a rope tied to a squealing pig.
Susannah forced her way through the maze of alleys and courts, dismayed to see the desperate crowd hurrying hither and thither as they carried their goods to safety. The streets were so narrow, and the houses so close together, that in some places the sheer number of people made the way impassable.
She slipped on an apple core and fell to the ground. Each time she tried to push herself up she was knocked over again by the surging horde. People shouted, children wailed and all the time there was the clack of clogs and handcart wheels on the cobbles. The noise was so great that no one seemed to hear her cries for help and she was starting to panic when a man elbowed aside the mob and dragged her to her feet.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she said.
‘You’re going the wrong way, mistress.’ The man wiped the sweat off his grimy forehead. ‘Turn round and go back.’
‘But I must reach my father’s house!’
‘Everyt
hing’s burning east and north of here. The Duke of York and his men are blowing up the houses around Bridewell Dock to make a firebreak. Go back while you can!’ He adjusted his bulky pack and set off again without a backward glance.
Susannah watched him disappear into the mêlée and hesitated before turning back in the direction of Fleet Street. She hadn’t gone far when she heard the explosions, one after the other. Somewhere a woman screamed and the swarming crowd pressed so hard against her that she was flattened against the wall. The air was full of acrid gunpowder smoke, making her eyes smart, and the darkening sky was a menacing blood red.
Gradually she inched her way onwards until she came to Bridewell, where the scene of utter devastation laid out before her made her gasp. The houses that she had known all her life had gone, to be replaced by a sea of rubble. She stared around her with horror, unable even to make out where the street had once been. The ground was littered with splintered wood, plaster and thatch and the air thick with smoke and dust.
Men scrambled over the ruins and, as she watched, the few houses still standing were blown into the air with a deafening explosion.
She screamed and clapped her hands over her ears.
A man shouted at her but her ears were ringing and she was too shocked to do more than stand rooted to the ground. He ran over and shook her arm. ‘You can’t stay here!’ He gave her a push in the direction she had come.
Stumbling her way over the wreckage, she circled the ruins but now she saw the full horror of the fire. Men were pulling down the burning buildings, shouting as they strained on ropes attached to the roof timbers by great iron hooks. The choking dust made her cough and ash and cinders rained down from the sky.
The smoke was blown aside by a sudden gust of wind and she caught a glimpse of St Bride’s. Hardly able to comprehend what she was seeing, she cried out. The church where her mother was buried, where she herself had been christened and married, was burning. Vicious great orange flames licked the steeple and black smoke funnelled out of the windows into a dense cloud.
She ran towards the church, scrambling up over the mountain of debris and sliding down the other side. Bewildered people gathered in groups, watching St Bride’s burn.
A weeping woman clutched her arm. ‘There’s no saving it! There was a water engine but no one kept it oiled and working. All too late!’ she lamented. ‘Whatever is to become of us miserable sinners now?’
‘St Bride’s? Gone?’ Susannah swallowed. This was unimaginable.
‘But St Paul’s is saved, praise the Lord! The fire burned along Paternoster Row and Carter Lane, leaving the cathedral on an island in a sea of fire. But the fire swept down Ludgate Hill and now it’s into Fleet Street.’
Susannah went cold. ‘Oh, please tell me it’s not in Fleet Street! My home is there.’
The woman gave her a look of terrible pity. ‘Not any more, my dear.’
Susannah turned away, her knuckles pressed to her mouth. It couldn’t be true! And what of William and Jennet; were they still in the apothecary shop? She began to run then, instinct leading her home through an almost unrecognisable landscape. The fire roared in her ears, as loud as the iron wheels of a thousand chariots racing over cobbles. The deafening noise took her breath away as the flames crackled and rattled and spat all around her. The heat was on her face now and she had to brush smouldering cinders off her shoulders as she ran.
The wall of flame that greeted her on the south side of Fleet Street was as impassable as the fires of hell. Beaten back by the terrible heat, she was forced to enter the unfamiliar territory of Ascentia, the home of pickpockets and thieves. Twisting and turning against the tide of screaming people in the maze of dark alleyways and passages, she shoved her way forward, blindly heading towards her childhood home.
At last she saw light between the mean little tenements and found a way through into Fleet Street. The fire, whipped up by the gusting wind into a crackling, orange fury was advancing fast. The apothecary shop was some fifty yards away and her breath caught on a sob as she saw that the roof was already afire. Dread clutched at her with icy fingers; it was inevitable that her old home would be destroyed.
As she ran, the ground underneath her feet was hot and scattered with glowing embers. With every footfall, William’s name echoed in her head like a silent prayer. William, William, William.
A stitch in her side made her slow to draw in a ragged lungful of acrid air. The sign of the Unicorn and the Dragon blazed above her now and the tears on her face evaporated in the intense heat from the adjoining house, already burning fiercely. The half timbering on the first floor of the apothecary shop was glowing red, ready to ignite. She pressed her face against the shop window and looked inside but there was no one there. The door, still emblazoned with the red plague cross, was locked.
Running back from under the overhang of the first floor, she shaded her eyes against the heat of the blaze to peer up to the window above.
‘William! Jennet!’ Her shout was lost in the crackling of burning timber and thatch. A shower of sparks rained down upon her and she hastily flicked a glowing cinder off her singeing hair.
A shadow passed in front of the window and there was William behind the closed casement.
‘William!’ A great joy rose up in her heart, her legs nearly betraying her as she staggered with the relief of seeing him. Thank God he was still alive!
He pressed his hands against the glass and silently shouted at her. Flames licked at the smouldering window frames.
Then he disappeared.
The sight of him conjured up the last time she had seen her father at the window and something inside her snapped. Now that she had found him, she wasn’t going to lose him. Frenziedly, she rattled the shop door and when it wouldn’t open, resorted to kicking and pounding at it. Half blinded with tears and hoarse from shouting, she cast wildly around until she found a piece of timber. It burned her hands as she snatched it up and smashed the window. Heedless of the broken glass slicing through her skirt and into her thighs, she wriggled through the opening.
‘William! Jennet!’ She raced up the stairs two at a time but there was no sign of either of them.
She was on the landing, in the doorway of her father’s smoke-filled bedchamber, hopping from foot to foot to stop the soles of her feet burning, when she glimpsed William on the other side of the bed.
‘Get back!’ he shouted.
Suddenly, the crackling of the fire in the roof above was drowned out by a thunderous groan. Flaming thatch and timber crashed to the floor and a blast of searing air hurled her backwards. Fanned by the wind, orange sparks fountained high up into the open sky and the roaring of the fire howled in her ears. Burning wreckage in the doorway made it impassable. Thick smoke spiralled and swirled in the bedchamber.
Susannah couldn’t see William any more.
Screaming his name, she held up her arms to shield her face against the inferno. No one could possibly survive such heat. She let out a wail of anguish as she pictured William fighting to escape the flames, his body blackening and twisting in the fire until he fell to the floor and was consumed.
A choking cloud of black smoke forced her to cover her face with her skirt and the fire spat embers at her. Coughing and heaving for breath, she remembered Beth. She must leave before it was too late! There was nothing she could do for William now, except to grieve for him, but her baby needed her.
Then, the ceiling above the stairs exploded into flames. A glowing roof timber collapsed in a shower of sparks and fell, barring her way. Panic-stricken, she kicked it aside and tumbled down the stairs and out of the shop door, running and running until she was a safe distance away.
Gasping for breath, she leaned against the wall of the glovemaker’s shop and watched as her childhood home, and William’s funeral pyre, burned. Hot tears streamed down her face as she remembered William’s kindness to her after Henry had died and how she had grown to love him. She remembered the passion in his voice and how h
e had trembled when he kissed her and then how she thought he had betrayed her. And she remembered her mother’s sweet face and the loving home over the shop that had made it all the harder to accept Arabella into her place. She recalled the happy hours spent at her father’s side as she learned his trade. And she realised that her dream of earning an independent living as an apothecary would remain only a dream. The shop was now entirely consumed by flames.
Her past and her future both burned before her. ‘Susannah!’
She jerked round, her mouth wide with shock. ‘You stupid, stupid girl!’ William stood before her, his shirt singed and torn. A muscle flickered in his unshaven jaw, his anger shimmering in the scorched air. He strode forward and crushed her to him, smothering her face in smoky kisses. ‘What in God’s name were you thinking of?’
His body was warm and he smelled of smoke and sweat. He definitely wasn’t a ghost.
‘William,’ sobbed Susannah, ‘I thought you were dead!’ She clung to him as tightly as a limpet to a rock, touching his face and breathing him in, unable to believe that she had lost, and found, him again.
He shook her until her teeth rattled, his fingers bruising her arms. ‘How could you have risked everything by going into a burning house? Didn’t you hear me shouting at you to keep clear? Stupid, stupid, girl; I could have lost you!’
‘I saw you on the other side of the flames; I thought you were dead!’
‘I died a thousand deaths when the roof collapsed and I couldn’t reach you. You disappeared in the smoke and I thought it impossible for you to escape. I’m never, never going to let you out of my sight again!’ He pulled her tight to his chest and his lips came down hard and urgent on hers.
Gasping, she felt a sweet, painful blossoming in her groin and, half-swooning, she opened her mouth to his.
At last he released her and rested his forehead against hers. ‘You’ve broken down all my defences and worked your way into my heart in such a way that I would not wish to live without you. This may not be the right time or place but I’m damned if I’m going to wait any longer. Susannah, will you marry me?’
The Apothecary's Daughter Page 35
