by Sarah Burton
“A pox on Sylvia. I am tired of her already. Pox on it that a man can’t drink without quenching his thirst,” said Roger, to universal laughter.
“And is she tired of you?” asked another I presumed to be Tom, one of Roger’s playhouse companions.
“I fully expect so,” said Roger, and belched loudly. “Ours is a marriage of inconvenience.” During the ensuing laughter one of the men rolled out of the door into the hall, vomited perfunctorily in a corner, and returned to the company. Evelyn and I looked at each other and said nothing.
“Still, there is Sophia... ” said Jack.
“... and Lucy... ” said Tom.
“... and Moll – there’s one that swives like a stoat!” said Roger, to cackles from the company.
I looked at Evelyn as I didn’t know what ‘swive’ meant and her expression told me she guessed, but did not care to say.
“If I had such a bitch I should spay her,” piped Jack.
“Roger, dear heart,” said Tom, “you’ve had more whores than Sodom’s walls ever bounded – what, pray, has this Moll to make her so favoured of the sisterhood?”
“Ecod! Not just plain Moll, I prithee, give her her full title, Posture Moll. Egad, the slut’s a veritable gymnast,” asserted Roger.
I understood gymnast to be a very filthy word as at this Evelyn pulled me away and up to bed. Much later I heard her coming into the room again.
“They’ve gone,” she whispered. “I’ve put out the lights and left Roger snoring on the floor. They’ve left a terrible mess of things.” Indeed in the morning the dining room looked as though a carthorse had pulled his load through it.
Mr Fluke and Dr Rookham arrived as usual for the monthly dinner, though as I have said only Evelyn and I were present to receive them. They were very kind and I realised that however curmudgeonly they seemed they took very seriously the compact they had made with our aunt about keeping an eye on us. They were a good deal surprised at some of the dishes Cook had prepared for the event which she had got from her girt book, all of which featured, in some form, custard, which had been a great discovery to her. Still, we made merry, although the conversation took a more serious turn when Mr Fluke mentioned that he had seen his first shut-up house on the way to us, as he passed through Drury Lane.
I did not know the significance of this, so Evelyn explained that when there was the plague in a house, it was shut up by the authorities – the windows and doors nailed up – and a guard was set to watch it to make sure no one went out, and they put a red cross on the door and painted ‘May God Have Mercy On Our Souls’ on it to warn people how dangerous a matter it was to have ado them, and to resist bribery and so on. If, after such and such a time, others in the same house were hale, the red cross was changed to a white cross and if, after such and such a number of days (I forget now) everyone was still well, the quarantine was lifted. It was a safety measure to check the spread of the infection, Dr Rookham said. He had been called to a few cases, but as the disease was so infectious, he never went near the patient, but asked questions of their family and prescribed remedies from the door. He was confident there were more cases than were reported, as families naturally feared being shut up with a diseased person.
Seeing the expression on my face he told me not to worry, just to keep away from St Giles, which was the hotbed, and assured us that there had not yet been, to his knowledge, any cases within the city walls. Mr Fluke begged to differ with him on this point, saying that it had indeed spread to the city and also to Westminster, causing some nervous people of quality to remove into the country. Worse, he said, some men of the cloth, on whom the poor people depended in time of need, and even doctors, had taken fright and gone out of town. Still, he said, there were plague cases every year, and even in epidemic years it was always the poorer parishes that took the brunt and there was no cause for alarm. Dr Rookham told us to ensure we washed everything we bought, to see that the servants did the same, to avoid crowds and to breathe no noxious fumes; he reassured us that by these means we would escape infection. Given that Cheapside was a perpetual mobile throng this would prove difficult, but we were at least to implement his instruction to wash everything, especially food.
Yet when they left, Mr Fluke found reason to be the last to go, and told us that it was as well our aunt had gone out of town when she did, and that we would do well to follow her as soon as we could. Evelyn and I talked about this as we prepared for bed, and knew we could not leave because of the assurances we had given Aunt Madge, but we agreed Evelyn would write to her the next day urging her to remain in the country until the danger was past. We also decided to let the three maids go to their families if they wished. As we lay in bed Evelyn observed that Mr Fluke must indeed be concerned about the plague, as he had not mentioned the lamentable behaviour of the younger generation all evening.
15
The next day we let the maids go. Cook would not leave the children and the footmen were content to stay and try their luck with us. Evelyn told me she was going to pass on Mr Fluke’s warning to Roger and Sylvia, as they had not just themselves but the baby to worry about now. As it transpired, Roger rolled home and went to bed just as Sylvia was rising, so after an argument which Sylvia was infinitely more willing to prosecute than was Roger, she came down to her dinner.
Sylvia would now have been a figure of pity – heedless of her appearance, unhappy in her marriage, sick in her pregnancy, unloved in an unfamiliar home – had it not been for her unrelieved nastiness. Venom and barb simply sprang more naturally from her than anything tending towards harmony. She could respond to no small act of kindness, no enquiry about her well-being, no suggestion for her greater comfort, without conveying her thorough despisement of us. She treated Evelyn and me as servants while resenting the fact that we were not. Our company was insufferable to her, while our absence rankled. In short, we could do no thing right by her, and though we understood this, we recognised that simply to ignore her existence would merely give her another cause to spite us. Bearing all this in mind, it took some courage for Evelyn to bring up the subject of her removing from town at the dinner table.
Sylvia stopped with a fork mid-way between her plate and her mouth as if Evelyn had announced that London Bridge had finally fallen down.
“Leave town?” she repeated. “Leave town? Why on earth should I want to do that?”
“I do not suggest you want to, nor that it is convenient,” said Evelyn patiently, “but it seems that this could be a serious outbreak. Mr Fluke thinks we should all leave as soon as possible.”
“Oh, Fluke the Spook,” said Sylvia, “that beastly antique!”
“Dear Sylvia,” I interjected, not wishing to leave all the onus on Evelyn, “if not for yourself, for the child, please think of going into the country.”
“Oh, the child, the child,” Sylvia said, throwing down her fork. “It seems once you carry a child, that is all you are, a child-carrier, and that child must be all your care. I did not choose the child, I do not care for the child, and the sooner we are parted the better.” She picked at her food angrily and neither of us had the heart to press her further. She threw her fork down again. “I am nineteen years of age!” she exclaimed, through a mouthful of dumpling. “I need company, plays, masked balls… I need Hyde Park! I need the Exchange and Covent Garden! I need fashion and quality about me to remind me that though I am married I am not yet dead! I cannot, will not, go into the shires and dwindle into a country wife! I would rather die!” And here she broke down and sobbed and Evelyn leapt up to put her arm round her, but Sylvia thrust her away, saying, “Don’t touch me! Don’t presume to pity me!”
Evelyn later tried to talk to Roger about it, but he was never in any kind of sensible mood and demonstrated, if possible, an even greater aversion to the country than had Sylvia, again principally for its lack of amusements and diversions. Evelyn could not argue with this, so, feeling she had done her duty to the best of her ability she desisted from further deb
ate.
Roger increasingly peopled the house with his companions, and as Sylvia began to appear more often on these occasions and make herself agreeable to him by getting drunk with him, he occasionally took her out on his sorties. Again Evelyn made so bold as to suggest to Roger that with all the worries about the plague, it might be dangerous to be going out so much, especially to places of resort, where one might meet with many strangers. Roger merely laughed, called Evelyn an old woman, and added that if the quantity he drank didn’t kill him, nothing else would.
As the days passed, one would have had to be actually blind or wilfully so not to see the signs that the situation was worsening. When the infection took hold in Westminster, those who had consoled themselves that this was ‘the poor man’s plague’ suddenly woke up and took stock. Within days the streets became uncommonly busy in some places with the one-way traffic of the wealthy, who had somewhere to go and the means of getting there, leaving the city. A kind of panic had set in. We knew we had to act, for the sakes of little Sal and Joe, if not for our own.
Roger and Sylvia now existed in a kind of limbo between drunkenness and sleep, which bore no relation to the hour of the day or night. They had ceased to keep table at regular times and food was sent up to their room when they called for it. Evelyn and I kept out of their way as much as possible, as Roger had become indiscriminate in his lewdness (though, to be fair, he always let me alone), and Sylvia did not know what a civil tongue was. They reigned over the house like two overgrown tyrannical children, unreasonable and irrational, impossible either to please or tame.
Evelyn would not write to our aunt about this, for fear she would come back, which we now knew to be actually dangerous, but we were aware the life we were leading was hopeless and we began to plot a way to get ourselves and Sal and Joe out of the city and safe into our aunt’s house in the country. Then we considered the other servants. In the absence of our aunt we were responsible for them too, Evelyn said. We would take them with us. One night when Roger and Sylvia were quiet in their room and presumably unconscious, we gathered Ned (the coachman), the Potters, Cook and the children in the kitchen and told them our plan.
Had we acted earlier, all would have been easier, but due to new regulations we now needed to acquire certificates of health, as the Lord Mayor had issued orders that no one was permitted to leave the city without them, to prevent Londoners carrying the infection into the country. Letters, we discovered, had some days ceased to be carried out of London for the same reason, so we now had no means of contacting our aunt or Frederick. We had also stopped sending Joe out with local messages as he was a child and would not understand what not to touch and who not to trust. So the next day I set off for Dr Rookham’s house to see about the certificates, while Evelyn went to Mr Fluke to leave word of our going.
The world had changed since we had last ventured out. There was an air of quiet desperation everywhere. Everyone we met was fearful of everyone else, and above all it made our hearts heavy to observe how sad and serious they all were. Although we had both put on thick cloaks (which were most uncomfortable in the hot weather) and carried posies against the poisonous miasmas, we felt the danger everywhere.
I noticed some of the stalls along the streets had bowls of vinegar which coins were put into to disinfect them when a sale was made, and how empty the shops and stalls seemed, and many of them closed up, much of the trade having ceased, the town having been as good as quarantined. As I got further from home, and had to pass through areas worse affected than ours, I went down a road where it seemed every other house was shut up, and others had been vacated, and the streets, apart from the men standing watch, were almost empty. I closed my ears to the moans I fancied I heard within, the cries for mercy I hoped I imagined.
I sustained myself with my mission, to get to Dr Rookham, yet when I got to his house, found him not at home, nor indeed anyone at home. Having knocked and waited, and gone down to the kitchen door and knocked and waited, and tried the door and found it locked, I peered in through the window and saw the place in some disorder and no fire in the grate, as if the inhabitants had left in a hurry and been gone some time. This threw me into some confusion, as I could not understand how Dr Rookham would have left without sending us word, and more urgently because I knew no other doctor, so wondered how we would procure the certificates we needed to get out of London.
I went straight to Mr Fluke’s, thinking he must know some other doctor who would help us. The maid showed me straight into his closet, where Evelyn already was.
“Oh, Evelyn, Dr Rookham is gone!” I cried. “Whatever shall we do?”
“Now, now, young ladies,” said Mr Fluke, “at times like these we must keep our heads. I promised your aunt I would stand for an uncle to you and I will. I would not now send you a strange doctor, as he may bring the infection to you, but I believe I can procure certificates for you. This is not legal, by any means, and will take time, and you must never say how you came by them, but we must get you out by hook or by crook. To avoid unnecessary journeys do not come back to me until I send for you, or I may come myself.” Mr Fluke was serious but kindly and we began to feel a little reassured. “Now you must go home and make yourselves ready to leave the moment the papers arrive. There is some speculation that the city gates may soon be closed to all – certificate or no – but I have reason to believe we have at least a week’s grace.” He rootled in a drawer and drew out a purse. “Here is some money. Do not, on any account, buy food on the way, nor go into any inn, nor be persuaded to take any stranger into your coach. Take water too. Do not weigh yourselves down with possessions – your aunt will have everything necessary at her house. Now go, my dears.” And he showed more tenderness as he kissed us goodbye than I think I ever saw in him. “And God speed and bless you.”
16
I may say that the days following seemed the longest of my life. During that time we discovered there was now barely a clergyman or a doctor to be found still in town and the people were left to shift for themselves as best they could. As news came that the court was quitting London the citizens understood that they were being truly abandoned, and it was only fear of congregations of people, I now believe, that prevented most unhappy scenes of violence and rebellion in the city. Everyone was afraid and angry and the King must have sensed this, for he made all the army withdraw from the city at the same time as the court, for fear they would lend their might to any revolt, it having been ordinary Londoners that turned against his father.
The only advantageous occurrence in that time was that Sylvia and Roger were frighted enough to cease their gadding out so much, though I was astonished at their continuing refusal to countenance leaving the city. I began to wonder whether it was a point of principle with Sylvia and that even if she wanted to leave, as I felt she must now, she could not alter her mind, for pride.
The playhouses had long been closed, and hardly anyone went to church anymore, but now even markets were cancelled and street stalls banned, inns and lodging houses closed. All this served to kill the last vestiges of trade in the city. The case was worsened by the fact that many wealthy families had turned out their servants before quitting town, leaving them not only jobless but homeless, unable to leave the city and ill-equipped to sit out the dark days ahead. The only employment remaining was of the most unsavoury kind but those left to wander the streets had no choice but to take it or starve.
As a consequence, the city was now run by a new and ragged regiment of watchers, scavengers and rakers, examiners, searchers and nurses, serving the usurper: King Plague. Frightening stories circulated daily; on the rare occasions when Cook ventured out to get milk or eggs to supplement our supplies, which, due to my aunt’s habits of careful household economy and keeping in a good stock of pickled, cured and preserved victuals (habits, I supposed, learned during the civil wars, and hard to lose), stood us in good stead (though I ate a good deal more of her plum preserve in those weeks than I should ever like to see again
), she invariably returned with new horror stories, of watchmen being killed by inmates trying to escape, of thieving nurses who abused and neglected their vulnerable charges while they drank their cellars dry and pillaged their belongings. Cook had heard a tale of a watchman hanged from a noose let down from an attic window, the inmates scaling down the same rope to freedom. While I secretly doubted this at the time, similar tales were to become commonplace. Others knocked down walls to get out or dug through cellars. It is hard, these days, to credit the extremities these poor souls were in, but if you lived through those times in the city you will well know the uncertain hazards people would run to save themselves from the certain danger within their own homes. I also later discovered as true the rumour she related that some refugees from London were herded into barns in the counties surrounding the capital, outside which stood men with guns ready to shoot them if they stirred, so afraid were the country people of Londoners carrying death in their train. The plague indeed engendered a kind of civil war, setting Englishmen against each other, neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, as everyone scrambled over everyone else to save their own skin.
The whole texture and timbre of the city was changing and though we rarely went out we could feel it within the house. Even the quiet of our library, our favourite retreat, was usually tempered with an underlying roar of distant traffic, as well as local: of wheels rattling, horsehooves clattering, footsteps padding, the to and fro of buyers and sellers, the conversation of the citizens, and cutting through and over all, the street-cries and invocations to buy that, as a visiting country child, had seemed to me to be the motley song of London itself. Yet now Cheapside was so quiet, if we heard a noise we often ran to the window to see what it was. The calls of happier times, of “Round and sound, fivepence a pound, Duke cherries!” and “Here’s your toys, for girls and boys!” and the song Evelyn loved best, “Ye maidens and men, come for what you lack, and buy the fair ballads I have in my pack!” not to mention the piercing professional cry of the boy “Sw-e-e-e-p!” – all these seemed buried and almost only to have existed in a dream. Now “Bring out your dead!” was all our night music, and bells tolled so continually for burials that when they on occasion ceased, you wondered whether the bell-ringer himself had been taken. In short, a phantom of the former city now reigned, a malign double of the town we knew had supplanted its original.
