The Ashes of London

by Andrew Taylor

  She took a deep breath, gathering courage. ‘You said the pilasters between the bays are to have Corinthian capitals, sir. But will the carving on the cornice distract the eye from them and confuse the mind?’

  He stared down at the paper, screwing up his face in concentration. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘As a matter of fact I was uncertain about that myself. I shall raise it with Dr Wren.’ He glanced sideways at her. ‘I was intending to do that anyway.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I beg your pardon.’

  ‘But you have an eye, Jane, and that is invaluable.’

  He dismissed her, and she floated down the stairs, as happy as she had been since those far-off days at Coldridge.

  The clocks were striking nine, a conversation of bells that lasted for several minutes.

  The three servants walked down to the Strand. John carried a lantern and a stick tipped with iron. There was rowdiness on public holidays, as well as the usual perils of the night. Margery was next to him, and Cat between Margery and the wall.

  ‘It’s not very busy,’ Margery said when they reached the Strand.

  No one replied. But she was right, Cat thought. The street was scarcely empty – the usual pleasure-seekers were about, and some shops had not put up their shutters yet. Coaches and carts passed to and fro, as well as the occasional horseman. But there was no sign of the crowds she had expected, and no sense of that heaving, restless excitement that the mob brought to the streets on public holidays.

  The three of them walked under Temple Bar and into Fleet Street. The desolation of the City lay in front of them, with the hulking shadow of St Paul’s just visible against the sky. The ruins were in almost complete darkness. Few ventured there by night.

  ‘Where’s this bonfire then?’ Margery demanded.

  ‘I told you – Harp Lane,’ John said with a hint of anxiety in his voice. The outing had been his idea, and its success or failure was his responsibility. ‘You’ll see in a moment.’

  But they didn’t see. Beyond Fetter Lane, the ruins stretched down to the Fleet Ditch and then up the slope to the City wall. No torches milled about them, no hubbub rose into the air, and above all no bonfire burned the triple-crowned Anti-Christ of Rome into a heap of ash.

  Cat had not wanted to come on this outing. But now it had lost its purpose, she felt disappointed.

  ‘They said it’d be here,’ John said; he sounded sulky, a boy deprived of a treat and made to look foolish into the bargain. ‘They must have moved it.’

  Margery stopped a maidservant coming out of a pastrycook’s with a covered basket on one arm. ‘Where’s the bonfire then?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘No one came.’ She waved her free arm in a gesture that embraced the City and its environs. ‘There’s no bonfires this year. No one wants another fire, do they? We’ve had enough of that.’

  John bent his head towards Cat. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Go home,’ Cat said. ‘I’ve got a headache.’

  Simultaneously, Margery said, ‘Let’s have some oysters first. It’s only a step to Fleet Bridge.’

  ‘We’ve not got long,’ John said. ‘Jane, what do you—’

  ‘Come, you will not deny us this? We deserve a treat. And I know a short cut.’ Margery snatched the lantern from him. ‘Follow me. I’ll show you.’

  ‘There’s not time,’ he said. ‘And Mistress Noxon—’

  ‘There’s always time for oysters.’ Margery marched into the lane running parallel to Fleet Street, taking the light with her. She called back over her shoulder. ‘Or what do you say to gingerbread?’

  Automatically the others followed. The lane had been cleared since the destruction of the Fire. Cat stumbled on the uneven cobbles, and John took her arm to steady her. She did not snatch it away. This, she realized when it was too late, gave him courage. He stopped suddenly and swung her round, so her back was against the wall.

  ‘Jane, I can’t help it,’ he whispered. ‘I must speak. Or I swear I’ll burst.’

  The light disappeared round a corner. The darkness descended.

  His hands clamped themselves onto her shoulders. She fumbled in her pocket.

  ‘Let me kiss you. Be my sweetheart. I beg you.’

  He brought his face down to hers. His sweat smelled acrid, indisputably masculine. Nausea rose in her throat. He pushed her against the wall. His cheek brushed her lips. She heard her cousin Edward’s voice rasping in her ear.

  Scream all you like, my love. No one will hear.

  She eased the little knife from its sheath.

  ‘Sweet Jane. Forgive me. One kiss. Please. Just one.’

  Part of her had time to think that John was not like Cousin Edward, that he was a kind, stupid man who was foolish and strange enough to desire her, whereas Edward was a monster who deserved to be hanged for all his fine airs.

  But the distinction between the two men didn’t matter. John had triggered something within her, and she had no more control over what followed than a ball did when it emerged from the muzzle of a pistol.

  His lips had found her face. His mouth was open and moist. One of his teeth jarred her chin. He found her lips.

  The light returned. ‘Hey – you!’ Margery said. ‘What are you—’

  She broke off in mid-sentence. Cat pulled out the knife and stabbed John’s thigh. She felt the tip snag for an instant on the kersey of his breeches. Then the blade pierced the skin beneath and dug into flesh and muscle.

  John screamed. He jerked back from her, clutching his leg.

  Cat broke away. She ran through the darkness towards Fetter Lane.

  The streets were full of terrors.

  Cat took shelter near Harp Lane, not far from the place where the bonfire should have been, pressing herself into a corner where two walls met. She had hoped to find solitude here but she soon discovered her mistake. There were invisible people among the ruins – some living there, perhaps in the ruins of their homes, others roaming through the rubble. For a moment she glimpsed what it must be like to be truly poor, to have even less than a maidservant in Three Cocks Yard, let alone a young heiress of Barnabas Place.

  In a perfect city, she thought, desperate to distract herself, there should be modest but airy houses for the poor. They should be built of brick and set in straight, well-drained streets with a pump at every corner. Not these sooty holes in the ground.

  Firmitas, utilitas, venustas. She clung to the words as if they were an amulet to keep her safe. Firmitas, utilitas, venustas. The houses of the poor should be solid, useful, beautiful.

  It started to rain. She kept the knife in her hand and moved as stealthily as she could, retreating to Fetter Lane and then, because she did not know what else to do, back to Three Cocks Yard. She knocked hesitantly on the door.

  Mistress Noxon let her in, once she was sure of Cat’s identity. In the hall, only one candle was burning. The housekeeper barred, bolted and locked the door. When she turned, one look at her face was enough to tell Cat that she knew what had happened.

  ‘Are – are they back, mistress? Margery and John?’

  Mistress Noxon nodded. ‘I’ll deal with you in the morning,’ she whispered. ‘Now go to bed, Jane.’

  She spat out Cat’s assumed name as if it were a mouthful of bad meat.

  Cat curtsied. Her cloak was wet through, and the bottom of it was smeared with ashy mud from the ruins. The skirt of her dress was equally filthy. More trouble for the morning, she thought, and more work.

  She went down to the kitchen to fetch her candle and then climbed the stairs. The higher she went, the cooler the air became.

  To her dismay, a line of light showed beneath the door of the attic she shared with Margery. She paused on the landing. There were sounds within – footsteps, a ragged gasping, and a scraping noise, as if something were being dragged across the bare boards of the floor. She would have to face Margery at some point. Better to do it sooner than later.

  Cat raised the latch and pushed open the door. Cold
, damp air swept towards her. The window was wide open. A candle stood on the stool beside the straw mattress where Cat slept. Its flame flickered wildly in the draught, and shadows glided to and fro over the sloping ceiling. Margery was by the window with a roll of papers in her hand.

  Cat saw a box – Cat’s box – standing open on the floor. The shock of it felt like a blow to the stomach, and for a moment she gasped for air like a landed fish.

  As the door opened, Margery turned. Her face glistened with rain, or perhaps tears. She ripped away the ribbon that secured the papers and threw them out of the window.

  For an instant, the papers fluttered in the air, faintly illuminated by the glow from the window. Then the unbuilt buildings and the unmapped streets vanished into the night.

  Lost cities. Firmitas, utilitas, venustas.

  ‘I hate you,’ Margery said, in a voice that was quiet, almost conversational.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  IN THE MORNING after the disasters of Gunpowder Night, the work of the house continued. Fires had to be lit, beds to be made, meals to be cooked. Cat, John and Margery went silently about their work, avoiding eye contact with each other. John limped slightly and slunk against walls, like a dog fearing a whipping. Margery’s face was red and the skin around her eyes was puffy from weeping. Cat had listened to her snuffling and sobbing all night.

  Mistress Noxon said nothing to any of them, apart from giving orders. All morning, her wrath hung over the household like a black, threatening cloud.

  The attic window overlooked the front of the house. Early in the morning, Cat went outside. A grey half-light filled the court, enough for her to see that her papers were long gone, the victims of the wind and the rain. Her leather bag and her spare clothes had also disappeared.

  Aunt Eyre’s box was just outside the front door. It had been a delicate thing, and the impact of the fall onto flagstones had smashed it beyond repair. Its contents had vanished. There had been compasses, a set of dividers, a protractor and a short ruler, all of brass, together with a pencil enclosed in a silver case.

  Her worldly possessions were now reduced to the contents of her pocket: a few shillings, a handkerchief, Hepzibah the doll, her knife, the key to Jem’s box and the box itself. This was now empty, apart from the stolen grey cloak, which had been hanging on the back of the attic door.

  She did not mind much about the loss of her clothes. But she minded bitterly about the destruction of Aunt Eyre’s inlaid box and the theft of its contents.

  Cat expected a beating for her part in the affair, and she felt that Margery deserved one for hers. It was possible, even probable, that they would lose their positions.

  She wasn’t sure what would happen to John – he might escape corporal punishment, or even any punishment. But this would be at least partly because he was a man, and because a woman had tempted him. It was well known that young women were lascivious creatures, desperate to slake their lusts, who preyed on innocent young men. Cat herself was not aware of these lusts within her, but she accepted the possibility that they might be there, somewhere, since everybody else took their existence for granted. Since her mother’s death, she had felt much the same about God: possible but by no means probable; but one had to take into account the feelings of other people.

  Dinner was cooked, served and cleared away. Afterwards, Mistress Noxon talked separately to each of the three servants. One by one, she drew them aside into her room and interrogated them with calm, impersonal efficiency. At this stage, she did not pass judgement or mete out punishment. She merely gathered information. By the time she had finished she had constructed a pretty accurate narrative of the events of the previous evening, from the non-existent bonfire to the attack on Cat’s box.

  Still Mistress Noxon said nothing, but went about her work as silently as they did, apart from when she gave them orders.

  Later in the afternoon, Dr Wren called on Master Hakesby, and the two men remained closeted together in Master Hakesby’s apartment. Dr Wren was grim-faced, and Cat guessed his plans for the City had received another setback. Since it was a Tuesday, he had attended a meeting with the other Commissioners for rebuilding London. Cat hoped they might send for her, but they did not.

  Then it was time for supper. Master Hakesby and Dr Wren ate theirs in Master Hakesby’s room. Mistress Noxon herself took the trays upstairs, which gave Margery a chance to knock Cat’s spoon into the ashes, accidentally on purpose.

  Meanwhile, John limped about the kitchen, silently reminding the two young women that he was wounded and inviting their sympathy. Perhaps he even wanted to make them feel guilty. He was nothing but a great baby, Cat thought, like all men. The knife had barely scratched his thigh but he was acting as if he had lost a limb.

  When supper was finished, Mistress Noxon looked around the table and said coldly, ‘I’ll see each of you again now. John first.’

  He followed her into her room. He wasn’t long. When he came out his face was as red as a guardsman’s coat and his lips were trembling.

  Margery sidled up to him. ‘What happened?’ she whispered.

  ‘Three months’ wages in the poor box. Either that or I’m on the street. Tonight.’ He sniffed and turned his head away; he was clearly on the verge of tears. He added in a muffled voice, ‘She wants you next.’

  Margery smoothed her apron and hurried away.

  John glanced at Cat, who was standing near the fire. He swallowed. ‘I wanted you to enjoy it, Jane. The bonfire. Everything.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Cat said. ‘And that’s that.’

  He blundered into the scullery, and from there to the yard to escape her.

  When Margery came out, she was crying again, her apron held to her eyes. She pushed past Cat and ran upstairs.

  Cat knocked on the door of Mistress Noxon’s room. The housekeeper was sitting at her table.

  ‘Close the door,’ she said. ‘Then stand there.’ She pointed to a spot in front of her table.

  Cat obeyed. She stood, head down, her hands clasped in front of her.

  For a moment Mistress Noxon did not speak. Then: ‘I should have you whipped and then put you out on the streets.’ She waited, perhaps expecting Cat to speak, before going on: ‘You stabbed that great booby. How could you?’

  ‘He attacked me.’

  ‘He tried to kiss you. That’s not the same thing.’

  ‘But it is.’ Cat looked up and swallowed. ‘Mistress.’

  ‘Men always try to kiss a girl. You should have slapped his face. That was all you needed to do. But a knife – dear God, what possessed you?’

  Cat said nothing. How could she explain that the last man who had forced himself on her had been Cousin Edward, and that he had raped her on her own bed?

  ‘And now I’ve got John making even more of a fool of himself than nature intended. Margery’s burning up with spite and jealousy. And then there’s you. The cause of all this.’

  ‘I ask your pardon,’ Cat said stiffly. ‘I shall try to mend my ways.’

  ‘Maybe you would try. But it wouldn’t do any good.’ Mistress Noxon sighed. ‘You’re a strange little thing. You’ve tried to settle in. You do your work without complaint – I’ll give you that. But, however you look at it, you’ve brought trouble into this house. And I haven’t even mentioned poor Master Hakesby. That’s another thing.’

  ‘What about him?’ Cat said, suddenly alarmed. ‘There’s no quarrel there, mistress, or—’

  ‘Be quiet,’ Mistress Noxon said. ‘He’s a strange man, and God knows what’s wrong with him. But he’s taken a fancy to you. And it won’t do: a dog can’t have two masters, and no more can a servant.’

  ‘Shall I not work for him any more, mistress?’

  Mistress Noxon shrugged her ample shoulders. ‘It doesn’t matter what you do in this house. You’re still going to cause trouble. And that’s why there’s no help for it: you’ll have to go.’

  The kitchen fire was out but the bricks of the hearth still ga
ve off a little warmth. Cat sat on a stool by the grate with the grey cloak about her shoulders. She was perfectly still, and her eyes were half closed.

  By tomorrow evening, Mistress Noxon had said, Cat must be out of this house. It was a harsh decision but Cat understood it. She even admired it.

  Mistress Noxon had a house to run, and that mattered more than the well-being of an unsatisfactory servant. Two months ago, she had sheltered Cat with reluctance, and she had made Cat work for the privilege. But there had been no trickery about it, no unfulfilled promises, and Cat had known that she was living here on sufferance.

  She considered the choices that were left to her. In the end, she sighed and stood up. Taking her candle, she slowly climbed the stairs. She was very weary. The thought of spending another night with Margery was almost unbearable, but there was no help for it.

  On the first floor, there was a line of light under Master Hakesby’s door. Well, she thought, what is there to lose? She knocked softly. There was no response. She knocked again, a little louder.

  A moment later she heard slippered feet shuffling across the floor. The door opened a few inches. Master Hakesby, candle in hand, stared down at her on the landing.

  ‘I thought it might be you,’ he said.

  Master Hakesby looked like a skeleton. His naked head was bound up in a kerchief. A blanket was draped over his shoulders. The candlelight deepened the hollows in his face and made him look taller and thinner than ever. It seemed impossible that there should be any flesh on him whatsoever. His hand was trembling, so the flame danced wildly, sending his shadow careering around the room.

  ‘Close the door,’ he said. He looked her up and down, and seemed to understand her weariness, for he told her to sit on the stool by the drawing table.

  He returned to his elbow chair and set down the candle on the bracket attached to one of the arms. There was an open book on the table beside him.

  ‘So you’ve lost your place, Jane?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘There was quite a commotion last night. I heard the wailing and the crashing about. Was that your fault?’