by Ann Swinfen
I knew my way now to Superintendent Ailmer’s office, and strode along the corridor as though I already had every right to be there. Perhaps I had, but I would not be quite sure of myself until I was formally given my duties. Mistress Maynard was coming out of the room as I approached and rewarded me with a curtsey and a smile. I bowed in return.
‘Dr Alvarez,’ she said, ‘I am glad to see you. Dr Colet left two days ago and we have had an outbreak of vomiting amongst the young children of the parish. I hope to see you on the wards as soon as you have seen the Superintendent.’
This was promising. If they were short handed, there was unlikely to be any question over my appointment.
Her eyes went to my bandage. ‘You have hurt your hand?’
‘It is nothing,’ I lied. ‘Besides, I am right handed.’
I knocked on Ailmer’s door as she hurried away further along the corridor and turned to ascend a staircase.
‘Come.’ The Superintendent’s voice was abrupt, but in fact he looked relieved to see me. I had decided that, in the interests of harmony, I would give him the title he was not quite entitled to.
‘Good morning, Superintendent,’ I said.
‘Good morning, Dr Alvarez. I will not keep you long. Initially I have assigned you to take charge of the unmarried mothers’ ward and the children’s ward. We have many children at St Thomas’s. These people breed like rabbits.’
Perhaps seeing the look of distaste on my face, he altered his tone, adding hastily, ‘It is a young population. Young families. Not many live to a great age who work in the tanneries and brickworks. We have many cases of congestion of the lungs. Many young people from the country settle here as well. They cannot afford the London rents, even if they work in the City.’
‘I have seen them crossing the Bridge of a morning,’ I said.
‘Aye. And then there are the Strangers,’ he said, using the common London term for anyone not English born. ‘We have some strange folk hereabouts. Sailors, some of them, with dark skins, or yellow skins and slit eyes, speaking gobbledegook.’
Ailmer, I decided, was not a tolerant man, but that did not mean he could not manage a hospital. He was clearly busy and distracted. He had not even asked me to sit down.
‘Come,’ he said, rising from his chair, ‘I will show you the way to the two wards I am putting under your care. You will, of course, be required to assist in the other wards when you are needed, but you will be responsible for the smooth running of these two.’
Suddenly he caught sight of my bandaged hand.
‘What is that? Are you injured?’
‘A burn,’ I said. ‘It is nearly healed. It will be no impediment.’
He led me up the staircase where I had seen Mistress Maynard disappear. The lying-in ward was large, airy and well appointed. Silently I congratulated Mayor Whittington on his gift to unmarried mothers. What an extraordinary man he must have been, and a good deal more tolerant than Ailmer. Almost every bed was occupied. Most of the women looked pale and thin, hardly the bouncing whores common gossip spoke of when they mentioned the Winchester geese. Some were nursing newborn babes, some had yet to give birth, some were trying to sleep, despite a rich cacophony of infant wails.
‘The children’s ward is next door,’ Ailmer said. ‘Ah, Mistress Maynard! Will you take Dr Alvarez to the children’s ward? I have a great deal of paperwork awaiting me. Later, introduce him to the almoner and show him the apothecaries’ room.’
He turned to me. ‘Mistress Maynard and John Haddon, the almoner, should be able to tell you everything you need to know. If there is anything else, you may come to me.’
It was clear from his tone that he hoped this would not be necessary.
‘Shall we see the children’s ward, then, Mistress Maynard?’ I said. ‘An outbreak of vomiting, you said. How have you been treating them?’
So began my work at St Thomas’s hospital, Southwark. It some ways it was no different to my previous work at St Bartholomew’s, but in other ways it was. The lying-in ward for unmarried women was, I believe, unique in the world, and it was always busy, for the prostitutes of the Southwark stews were forever getting pregnant. In other towns and cities, such women would have done anything to rid themselves of an unwanted child, but the enlightened practice here meant that the pregnancies usually went full term, the woman were better cared for and better fed than ever before in their lives, and the babies had some hope of a future. An unusual situation, to say the least.
Then there were the different practices regarding admission here, for St Bartholomew’s turned away all patients whom two doctors judged to be incurable. Of those desperate cases refused treatment, some managed to drag themselves across the river to St Thomas’s, which turned none away. This had been the practice here as long as anyone could remember. All were to be admitted, save those with leprosy, who were despatched to the Lazar House of St Mary and St Leonard, which was situated here in Southwark, without St George’s Bar. Yet there were few lepers nowadays, compared with what we were told of the problem a century or more ago.
As a result of St Thomas’s policy of admitting every sick person, in addition to the poor who lived south of the river we also treated the incurable cases from the City itself, which had been rejected by St Bartholomew’s. This meant that all we could do for many of them was to ease their suffering, keeping them clean and warm and fed until they died, but my fellow physicians took some pride in the challenge of these seemingly hopeless patients, and occasionally succeeded in curing them. I found I soon shared in their keen desire to treat these cases. There was a mostly friendly rivalry between the two hospitals, and I found my loyalties sometimes severely tested.
In my second week, I approached the gatekeeper, Tom Read, for I had noticed that he had a dog, an ancient wolfhound, stiff in his joints, which spent his days sleeping in the gatekeeper’s small room in the gatehouse.
‘Goodman Read,’ I said, ‘I see you are a lover of dogs.’
‘Aye.’ He looked at me suspiciously. ‘Superintendent says I may keep Swifty here. I have permission. He helps to guard the gate.’
‘Indeed,’ I said. The wolfhound lay snoring at his feet, and I had never seen him move whenever anyone went in or out at the gate. I crouched down and rubbed the old fellow behind the ears.
‘I have a dog, Rikki, he’s called. He was a stray, but he saved my life in the Low Countries.’
Tom looked interested. ‘What sort of a dog would he be, doctor?’
I laughed. ‘Nothing in particular. Not like this fine Irish wolfhound. Over there they use them as working dogs, to pull little carts.’
‘That’s a strange thing for a dog, that is.’
I saw I had caught his interest. ‘I need somewhere safe to leave him while I am at work in the hospital,’ I said. ‘With someone who cares for dogs. Would you be willing, Goodman Read? There’d be a groat a week in it for you, and he would be company for your lad.’
To my relief, he agreed, so from the next day Rikki accompanied me to St Thomas’s every morning. He was eager to befriend the wolfhound, but the old dog merely sniffed him and went back to sleep. Tom, however, seemed pleased with the company. I suppose he must often feel bored and lonely on his own when there was no activity about the gate.
Tom was useful in another way. I remembered my promise to Adam, and asked Tom whether he knew of anyone needing a strong honest worker in any of the businesses which continued to flourish in the old monastic grounds. Principal among them were a printing works and a stained glass foundry.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘There’s a man from the glass works got in trouble with the law and the constables hauled him away. Your man could try there.’
And Tom was right. I sent word to Adam and visited the glass works myself, to recommend him. Before the end of September, Adam had started work as a labourer. It looked hot and exhausting work to me, but the windows they produced were almost miraculous in their beauty and colour. Although the monasteries had a
ll been destroyed half a century ago, cathedrals and parish churches still had their stained glass windows which often needed repair, and sometimes a benefactor would donate a new one. There were hundreds of parish churches in London, Westminster and Southwark, so the glass-makers were never short of work.
Altogether I soon settled in to my new hospital and my new work. Then October brought two changes.
Normally I left the house before anyone else was astir, but one morning Sara was waiting for me, her face shining.
‘You were so late home last night, Kit, that I could not tell you our news, but I wanted to see you before you left this morning.’
‘I can see from your face that it is good news,’ I said with a smile.
‘Ruy has been partially forgiven by the Privy Council for his part in organising the Portuguese expedition and – so they say – losing them so much money. He has not received his import monopoly again. That has already been awarded to someone else. But instead he has been given two estates in the Midlands from which he can draw the income. He understands that there is extensive woodland of mature timber. That will be very profitable, now that so many new ships are being built to strengthen the navy.’
I took both of her hands in mine. ‘I am so glad, Sara. It will be an end to your financial worries, after Ruy lost the monopoly. And his rich patients have not deserted him, for he is an excellent doctor. And the Queen still sponsors Anthony at Winchester. Everything is now looking fine and prosperous for the future.’
After all her kindness to me, I was relieved that everything now seemed more hopeful for her. I saw there were tears in her eyes.
‘You are a dear friend, Kit. I wish I could see you settled, and in your proper self.’
I laughed. ‘I do very well, Sara. I am a hard working but contented physician at an excellent hospital, with occasional work for Sir Francis Walsingham. I lack nothing.’ Nothing, I thought, but a family.
And the other change? Simon came home from the Low Countries.
He was waiting for me one evening by the gatehouse as I came out of St Thomas’s on my way home to Wood Street. At the sight of him I felt almost giddy with pleasure, and tried hard not to grin like a fool.
‘I am sorry to hear all your sad news, Kit,’ he said, linking his arm with mine and giving it a friendly squeeze. ‘I have been talking to Sara Lopez. Your father gone and your home gone, and the Portuguese voyage a disaster.’
I shrugged.
‘It is all behind me now.’ So much had happened since my return in the spring, I could hardly remember the person I had been then, sitting in desolation beside the Rose theatre. I did not tell him how glad I was to see him, or how the firm grip of his arm gave me a stirring of pleasure deep in my belly.
‘And Walsingham himself finding you a position at St Thomas’s!’
‘It was kind of him. It is very different from St Bartholomew’s, but I am enjoying my work there, especially with the new mothers and the children.’
‘Have I not heard that they have a special ward for the Winchester geese to give birth?’
‘There is a ward for unmarried mothers,’ I said severely, ‘but they are not all prostitutes. Some are the victims of rape. Some have been betrayed by the men who had falsely promised to marry them.’ I did not want to fall out with Simon over this, when he was so soon back in England, but I had become very protective of my women patients.
‘What becomes of the babies?’
‘Some of the mothers keep their children, however difficult it may be for them. They are not all bad women, you know. A few babies are adopted, perhaps by women who have lost a child or have not been blessed with one. The rest go to Christ’s Hospital, where they are cared for and taught a trade.’
I remember suddenly – something I too often forgot – that Simon himself had been orphaned young. He had been fortunate to gain a place at St Paul’s school, where his talent for singing and acting had been fostered.
‘Tell me about your adventures in the Low Countries,’ I said. ‘Your time there will have been very different from mine, I am sure.’
He laughed. ‘Aye. I certainly did no breaking and entering, nor finding dead bodies. We travelled about, giving public performances at inns and private ones at the houses of noblemen, but the whole tale would take too long now. We will dine together one day this week and I will tell you all.’
‘We’ll dine together, will we?’
‘Aye. Now, listen, Kit. Why do you spend so long every day crossing the City and the river between Wood Street and St Thomas’s? You should be living here in Southwark.’
‘I live free in Wood Street,’ I said.
‘But the time you must waste! There is a room for rent at my lodgings – the tenant moved out while I was away. Take it, and save the walk twice a day.’
He was persuasive, and at last I agreed to see the room. I knew I could not stay for ever with Sara, and after paying off my debt to her I still had some of Drake’s money as well as my salary from the hospital. I was now in a position to rent a room of my own, if it should prove not too expensive.
‘Why are you living in Southwark, Simon? Is Burbage’s company not still appearing at the Theatre in Shoreditch?’
‘I took the room when I was on loan to Master Henslowe at the Rose, and I find it cheap and comfortable. The walk straight across the Bridge and up Fish Street and Gracechurch to Bishopsgate is not far, not nearly as far as you have to come from Wood Street. Besides, all the best rooms in Shoreditch around the Curtain and the Theatre are taken by players who earn more than I do and can pay a higher rent.’
We walked a short way from the hospital along Bankside to a house between Winchester Palace and the bear pits. It was a large house, three storeys high and fronting on the river. Simon introduced me to the landlord, who seemed respectable, unlike many in both the City and Southwark. And he did not mind Rikki, who was on his best behaviour. The landlord led us up a well swept staircase and unlocked the door of a room at the front of the house. It was surprisingly clean and pleasant, though fairly small and very simply furnished after the luxury of the Lopez house, but its very simplicity appealed to me. Ruy’s flamboyant taste rather overpowered me. After a little wrangling, I agreed terms with the landlord, and by the end of the week Rikki and I had moved in.
The room was high up under the roof, just below the garret, but the window looked out over the river and gave me a view across the water-borne traffic to St Paul’s on the rising ground beyond. The landlord had lime-washed the walls after the last tenant had left and the fresh scent of it still lingered. The small fireplace had a trivet and a hook for a cooking pot, so I would be able to make myself simple meals. The only furniture consisted of a low cot, a table, a carved chest for my clothes, and a couple of joint stools.
I decided that as soon as I could afford it, I would buy two chairs from the street market in Southwark, where secondhand goods were sold, and then I might invite a friend to dine with me at my own table. I laughed at myself for taking such pleasure in my small domestic arrangements. I laid my few clothes and my knapsack in the chest and knocked some pegs into the wall to hang my satchel of medicines, my cloak and my physician’s gown. My two precious books I laid side by side on the table, both somewhat tattered now after their rough journeys in my knapsack: the Testament given to me by our old rector, David Dee, at St Bartholomew-the-Great and the privately printed copy of Sidney’s poems that Simon had given me for my seventeenth birthday. Beside them I set the porcelain bowl I had come by rather illegitimately from Drake’s kitchen. Perhaps I would fill it with pot pourri, like any proud housewife.
One evening soon after I had moved into my new lodgings, Simon met me again at the hospital gatehouse.
‘We are all meeting for a celebration dinner tonight,’ he said, ‘and you are to come too. You can bring Rikki.’
‘We?’ I said.
‘All my fellows from Burbage’s company. Some of us have been away in the Low Countries, some of the
others were touring the provinces of England – even as far as Cornwall. The rest have been working in London. Now we are all back together again, and we are meeting to dine at the Lion.’
The Lion Inn was close to our lodgings, so we made our way along Bankside and found most of the other players already gathered there.
‘Can this be Kit, this fine fellow in a silk gown?’ It was Guy Bingham, musician and comic. I punched him on the shoulder.
‘It is not silk, you ass! How could I afford silk? My old gown was torn up to make bandages on the Portuguese expedition.’
He flashed me a quick look of sympathy, then patted the bench beside him.
‘We have missed you, Kit. Where have you been hiding all summer?’
‘Oh,’ I said vaguely, ‘I had some work with Walsingham. And now I have started at a new post in St Thomas’s.’
‘I know.’ It was Christopher Haigh, who played most of the romantic young leads. ‘We went looking for you there, but we could not find you.’
Richard Burbage gave me an elaborate bow and pulled a stool up to the table. Already he was gaining a reputation for his performance in dramatic roles, though he was not much older than I. His brother Cuthbert helped their father with the business of the players’ company, but Richard lived only for the stage.
Amongst the others seated around the long table there was another young man, perhaps a little older than Richard, whom I did not know. He must be new to Lord Strange’s Men. He was introduced to me simply as Will. He said very little, but I noticed that he watched and listened intently.
Then there was a roar for the inn keeper as the door swung open, and the magnificent figure of James Burbage strode in. As always he seemed to take up the space of any two normal men, not because he was large, but because he crackled with energy.
‘Aha!’ he cried, slapping me on the shoulder, so that I nearly pitched forward into the tankard of beer someone had just set down before me. ‘Our missing companion, our medicus magnificus, our rival to Guy on the lute! You have returned to us, Christoval Alvarez!’
