In the drive she picked up her piece of baggage but left her hat where it had fallen. Her intention to go inconspicuously out of the side gate used by the servants was thwarted by finding it securely locked. Through the bars, and directly opposite, she saw a red cross marking the corresponding gate of the neighbouring house and a watchman was patrolling the narrow passage-way. She drew back quickly, but he had not seen her. Hurrying to the main gates she knew now why the looters had decided to pick the locks there. It would have been easily done in a matter of seconds by cunning hands under cover of darkness.
She slipped out of the gate and joined several pedestrians walking in the middle of the street. Nobody paid her any attention. After going only a short distance she trailed off to look in a jeweller’s window. It was bare of goods due to the red cross above the door and she made a grimace of disappointment, catching a nearby watchman’s eyes.
‘Nothing pretty to look at in there any more,’ she said, using the inflections of a Sussex country woman in her voice.
‘Nor will there be from the hands of the old jeweller again. He’s gone and so has his wife. Only the servants are still boxed up in the living quarters.’
‘Gone? You mean nipped off like the folk in the house over there, leaving a man dead of the plague?’
He did not bother to clarify what she had deliberately misunderstood and glared towards her home. ‘Why ain’t there a red cross there? How can you be sure a corpse has been left?’
‘I know the maidservants that worked there. The mistress left in a right old hurry!’
‘I bet she did!’ he snapped grimly, not taking his glare from the house. ‘You did right to warn me, lass. I’ll see that corpse gets shifted tonight and the house closed.’ Then he looked at her with more interest, giving her a yellow-toothed smile. ‘Where do you work then?’
‘I sell ribbons.’
He looked sympathetic. ‘Not much call now for that trade, is there?’
‘I fear not.’
‘You won’t get no domestic work either. The rich folk are locking up their London houses and turning off their servants left, right and centre, leaving even those of many years’ service out on the streets with nowhere to go and at the mercy of the plague.’
She was shocked at this information, having been raised always to consider one’s responsibility towards those one employed. ‘You mean they’re simply being abandoned?’
‘That’s it. People are looking after their own skins first these days and the nobs can do it better than most with their coaches and horses to speed them away. What happened to your friends over there?’ He nodded in the direction of her home.
‘They were all taken to safety.’
‘Then they were some of the lucky ones.’ He gave her a sly wink. ‘Why not make a lucky man of me later when I hand over to another watchman at curfew time?’
‘I daren’t be out after that hour.’
‘With me you’ll be aw’right. Us watchmen and bakers have special passes.’
‘The bakers?’
‘Didn’t you know that? Why else do you think there’s always plenty of bread for all? The Lord Mayor has forbade any baker to leave London. People need that stuff of life, whether they be sick or well.’ He reverted to his talk of a further meeting. ‘You be here just before nine o’clock. I know a place where we can still enjoy ourselves with ale and anything else we fancy.’
‘I’ll see.’ She began to move on.
‘I’ll be lookin’ out for you,’ he called after her. Then came an afterthought. ‘What’s your name?’
At that point she was far enough away to mouth the first name that came into her head with no chance of his hearing, for ear-splitting shrieks had broken out again in the same upper room as before when she had come from the ferry-boat. She checked an urge to clap her hands over her ears and rush from the heart-rending sound, certain it would not be the last of what she would hear before the day was out.
Her first task was to hire horses and carts in readiness to transport her workers out of the City in the morning. Remembering the scramble there had been for her hired horse on the other side of the river she wondered what her chances would be. She was sure Mr Needham at the Heathcock would do everything in his power to oblige her and she could enquire after the family at the same time, but when she arrived there she saw that a red cross stained the hostelry’s street door and a chain was looped across the way into the deserted courtyard.
‘How fares the landlord and his wife and family?’ she asked the short, square watchman leaning his shoulder against the hostelry wall. Her tone was authoratitive, the few minutes of pretence necessary for the other watchman over and finished. She could be herself again.
The watchman was chewing tobacco, which was a new habit brought in by the plague in the belief it kept infection away, and he spat a stream of yellow saliva into the gutter before he answered her. ‘Two dead brought out last night and one the night before.’ Then a tap came from within the hostelry door and he gestured with his stave for her to draw back. ‘Clear well away. There will be some errand I’ll be required to do or else it’ll be to tell me there’ll be another corpse for the cart when it comes by.’
She moved to a safe distance, full of distress at what she had heard, and watched him unlock the padlock. Then he himself stood well back as the door opened a few inches. She saw a man’s hand, probably Mr Needham’s, place some coins on the doorstep, but she did not hear what was said. The door was repadlocked and the watchman gave a shout to one of his fellows as he picked up the coins in a gloved hand.
‘I’m fetching food. Back in ten minutes.’
Julia was relieved to know it was not more dreadful tidings as she had half expected and she wished the Needham family well as she continued on her way. It was to prove the most harrowing walk she had ever taken, such ghastly screams and shrieks and groans coming from some of the plague-stricken houses that she wept to hear such torment.
She was approaching Temple Bar when there was a sudden commotion ahead. People were scattering in all directions and she was left with a clear view of a stricken woman, demented with pain from a crimson swelling in her neck the size of an apple, who had managed to escape through a window and was running wildly like a mad dog. Her relatives wailed and cried at other windows of the house, not being allowed to emerge and fetch her in again as she tore her nightgown, her nakedness exposed for all to see, her screaming terrible to hear. Then several men came with homemade pikes, obviously kept for such an emergency, to help the watchman with his stave prod and drive her back indoors, but she seemed unaware of the extra pain being inflicted upon her in her greater agony. An exodus of coaches from the city was being held up and a few coachmen, ordered by their irate masters, came with their whips to see what they could do. It took quite a while before the woman was rounded up and forced near enough to the door for her distraught family to seize her and pull her inside.
Julia was filled with pity for the woman and her kin in their misery. She stood aside as the coaches went rolling on, horses whipped up to compensate for lost time. Out of half a dozen coaches only one had a wagon following with servants.
At the Temple there were no periwigged lawyers dashing about, for the courts were not being held at this dangerous time. Shops and businesses were open in Fleet Street, as they had been elsewhere along her route, but few people went in and out. The markets, normally thronged with customers, were practically deserted. Only the street-criers selling herbs and lavender were making money, their posies being brought to hold to the nose and stave off infection. There were no children to be seen at play, parents keeping them indoors for safety, and even the ragamuffins that begged were few and far between. To Julia’s distress, whenever a plague victim began to sneeze, sometimes crying out for help, neither she nor anyone else dared go near. Without exception the afflicted were dead a few minutes later and left where they lay for the death cart to collect them when night came. It seemed to her that the new voice
of London was the tolling of bells and the tumult of suffering.
At Ludgate there was a stable that offered horses for hire and stood open for business. All the others Julia had passed had been closed. A man in shirt-sleeves and a leather apron came into the yard to meet her. She asked first if he had any carts or wagons for hire.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said, looking at her in such a hostile manner that she guessed he was wearied by such enquiries in the great exodus from London.
‘Then I must take whatever horses you can supply. I know they are in great demand, but I’m willing to pay well. If you don’t have many yourself I should like you to gather some from elsewhere and bring them to me at an address in Carter Lane at curfew’s end tomorrow morning.’
‘Are you gaming me, madam?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Or perhaps you’ve had your head in the sand. There isn’t a cart or wagon or a horse to buy or hire anywhere in London to my knowledge. My last two nags took my family into the country a month ago. I’m staying on as many tradesmen are just to keep my property from being looted, because I run a harness-making business from here as well.’
She was dismayed, ‘Is the shortage so acute? Indeed I had no idea. I fear I’ve not adjusted to conditions here yet, having returned from abroad only yesterday.’
He looked more kindly at her. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you. Have you no friends who could oblige?’
She pondered over his suggestion as she left. Most of her connections were with the Court and they were gone. Maybe the Lord Mayor, whom she knew personally, having met him on many social occasions, could give her some advice when she collected the certificates of health for her women, otherwise it would be a long tramp for them along dusty roads to the meeting point with the Sotherleigh carts. At least she could be sure the coachmen and grooms would wait, allowing for any delay. Everything had taken an unusual turn, for when that arrangement had been made she had never expected to be travelling with her party, imagining herself with Adam.
St Paul’s was tolling its tower bell and she could hear its distinctive notes as she entered Carter Lane. Christopher had been asked to see to its much needed restoration, for its spire had fallen down long since and its timbers had been attacked by both damp and the death watch beetle, an insect that could not have been better named in these sad times.
When she opened the door of her workshop she had the extraordinary sensation of time having stood still in these premises and all she had been witnessing had been a nightmare from which she had awakened. Her embroidery hands sat quietly around their large tables, plenty of room for each, and from the weaving room came the clicking of the looms. Within a second all the embroiderers had looked up and seen her and immediately a babble of voices broke out, all relieved that she was there, some springing to their feet while one ran to summon the weavers.
‘Where’s Mrs Blake?’ she asked as soon as she made herself heard. Immediately a silence fell. Then Alice spoke. ‘She died of the plague nearly four weeks ago.’
Julia swallowed her sorrow. ‘Who else?’
‘Rose and Eleanor among the weavers and Polly from the embroiderers. There’s one more who’s still alive, but in dire circumstances. That’s Abigail. She is shut up in a plague house with her sick husband and father-in-law with no woman to help her when her time comes.’
‘When will that be?’
‘The baby is already overdue.’
‘I think I can solve that problem.’
‘No midwife will step inside an infected place.’
‘The one whom I know won’t hesitate.’ Julia looked around at the little gathering of women, ‘I see some faces are missing. Not through sickness, I trust.’
Again Alice answered her. ‘They’ve all left London to go to relatives in the country.’ She counted off fifteen names on her fingers and then another four before she was prompted into remembering three more. Most of them were married women with children.
‘That leaves just twenty-one of you here,’ Julia said. ‘Why haven’t any of you left London?’
The explanations came all at once. They knew no-one who would take them in; they had no money to leave their work to go elsewhere and all were afraid of falling sick and dying somewhere on a roadside. Alice gave an additional reason that covered them all. ‘None of us has a certificate of health to leave in any case and it’s unlikely we’d be given one as some of our fellow workers have died of the pestilence.’
‘But none died here or else there’d be a red cross outside,’ Julia pointed out.
‘That’s right and all were within a few days of one another.’
‘Then it’s unlikely that by this time any of you will fall sick from that source. If I can get certificates for everyone, would you like to accompany me to Sussex tomorrow morning, even if it should mean walking almost ten miles for the first part of the way?’
Almost without exception they burst into tears of relief, seeing an end to weeks of terror and suspense. All gave their eager assent, many laughing and crying at the same time. She went into her office and wrote a quick note to Mrs Webb, giving Abigail’s address. This was given to one of the weavers, whose home was in the same alley as the house belonging to the Webbs’ contact. The young woman promised to deliver it on her way past, for Julia had told them all they could go to wherever they lived to notify those needing to be informed of their absence and to collect only what they would require overnight.
‘There will come a point on the journey when you will have to part with everything that is linked with London, so leave anything of value with friends you can trust. If you have no-one, those items can be locked up here in a safe place. You are all to spend the night here. It won’t be comfortable, but the sooner we become an isolated group the better. We shall leave at dawn.’
They poured out of the workshop to disperse in different directions. Only Alice, her calm face framed by her white working cap, remained. ‘I can’t go tomorrow, madam. I have good reasons to stay.’
Julia gave an understanding nod. ‘I know you won’t leave your invalid aunt and I’ve thought of that. When I’ve seen everybody into the Sotherleigh wagons that will be waiting, I’ll bring one of the lighter carts back to fetch you both.’
Alice broke down, covering her face with her hands. ‘I’ve been so worried about Aunt Henrietta if anything should happen to me.’
Julia patted her shoulder comfortingly and thought suddenly of the journey Michael had once made with Mary lying in a cart. The one that she and Alice were to undertake would have to be a similar slow pace in order not to jog the invalid too much. She put from her any hope she had had of reaching Sotherleigh before Adam.
‘Do you know anything about the Needhams?’ she asked when Alice had recovered and was drying her eyes.
‘No. All I do know is that a groom and two tap-room maids fell sick of the Great Plague about the same time at the Heathcock and it was closed immediately, trapping a houseful of travellers. The three Needham lads were out with me in the ribbon procession at the time, and so they went to an aunt at Islington where I hope they’re still safe. That ended the processions, and in any case shopkeepers were cancelling orders everywhere.’
‘I expected that, but trade will come back when the plague is over. Now I’ll go for those certificates.’ She opened her purse and gave Alice some money. ‘Meanwhile I want you to buy food and ale for those who will be here overnight.’
When Julia came in sight of the Guildhall from which the affairs of London were conducted, she found a vast crowd filling the street and clamouring for admittance. As she reached its outskirts she saw there was an alderman on the steps trying to make himself heard.
‘No more certificates of health can be issued on trust. The Great Plague is taking too many lives now. All who require a certificate must present themselves either with a personal doctor to vouchsafe for them or to see our physicians here. That applies to every member of a household.’
Such an uproar broke out that he drew back nervous
ly. Shouts that those same physicians should be tending the sick instead of seeing the healthy was the least of the abuse hurled at him. Julia could see that even if she should round up all her women it would take hours of waiting on the morrow, for there was not enough of this day left in which a tenth of those gathered here could get through the formalities.
‘Psst.’
She turned to see a foxy-looking man at her side and edged from him. ‘Go away!’
‘Do ye still want me to do that when I tell ye that I ’ave forged certificates for sale?’
She did not hesitate. ‘Let me see one.’
He drew her over to a brick porch and took one from his pocket. It was an adequate forgery printed with a blank space for the name to be filled in and a seal that would pass muster. ‘Well?’ he queried craftily, ‘what do ye say?’
‘How much?’
‘‘Ow many do ye want?’
She was about to state twenty-one and then thought she should have extra for she half expected some of her women to turn up with someone they did not want to leave behind. ‘Thirty.’
‘That’ll be twenty pounds.’
It was an outrageous sum, but she could not accuse him of robbery since she was committing a crime herself in buying from him. ‘I’ll have them but you’re to hand me each one separately, because I’m not going to get a top one and a sheaf of blank papers underneath.’
‘Ye’re wily, ain’t ye?’ He scowled at her, obviously thwarted in his intention because he shoved back a wad of papers he had been about to take from one capacious pocket and took a bunch from another. Disagreeably he handed each one to her and then she paid him. It emptied her purse of all except a few shillings, but money was no problem, for she had three bags of gold concealed among her petticoats.
Carefully she tucked the papers into her cloak pocket with the two Adam had left for her. The forger did not leave at once.
Circle of Pearls Page 57
