by Karen Brooks
The moment he did, they moved another bed into Bianca’s chamber, placing brother and sister side by side. While Bianca looked pale and weakened by her ordeal, her body ravaged and the tokens still stark even upon her dark flesh, it was evident from her brighter eyes and husky voice that she was recovering.
As she grew stronger with each breath, Jacopo weakened. It was almost as if he was surrendering his life force to his sister. Bianca railed against what was happening, crying out to God in all the many tongues she knew, turning to Jacopo to whisper his favourite tales of heroes so he might carry the spirit of these mighty beings into his soul or, as he grew sicker, into the ears of God in heaven above.
Unable to leave his side, Filip had done what he could, forbidding Solomon and Thomas from entering the room, but asking them to fetch and carry clothes, water, medick. Between them, he and Rosamund cared for Jacopo and Bianca, hauling them out of bed when they needed to relieve themselves, changing and washing the bedding when they were not quick enough, spooning broth or chocolate into their mouths. Trying to adhere to the tenets of cleanliness, it was difficult.
The room stank, and Rosamund’s clothes were stained with bodily fluids and foodstuffs, but she didn’t care, she didn’t want to waste a minute worrying about anything beyond Jacopo and Bianca and their recovery. But she was bone-weary and aching. Her head hurt.
When Matthew entered the room on the second day after Jacopo fell ill, supplies in hand, she thought he was simply a wraith from her dreams. She’d nodded off thinking about him, wondering how he was faring, and here he was. She smiled at him, but it wasn’t until he knelt by her side and took her hand in his and she smelled the blowsy odour of him that she knew he was real.
‘Dear God,’ she choked. ‘You’re really here.’
‘I am,’ he said and pressed her fingers to his lips.
She began to cry. He put her palm upon his cheek.
A sound from Jacopo’s bed interrupted them. ‘Matteo,’ he whispered.
‘I’m here, my friend,’ said Matthew and, lowering himself carefully, took Jacopo’s hand in his own. ‘I thought I was bringing physick for Bianca alone, but you’re ever determined to share your sister’s lot, aren’t you?’ He tried to smile, but his lips wouldn’t cooperate.
Where he failed, Jacopo succeeded. ‘The eternal demand of the younger sibling.’ Jacopo shut his eyes. The tokens on his neck were huge and weeping. His tongue was swollen, his breath rancid, yet the proud, beautiful man who’d endured beatings from Sir Everard without a whimper was still evident. The young man who’d been so torn by his master’s order not to teach Rosamund to read he’d told his sister, who gave Rosamund what she craved so deeply. Jacopo, who’d protected her when she didn’t know it; who’d hovered like a guardian angel, keeping secrets no-one should be asked to keep, ensuring that after Sir Everard died, the businesses kept running. It was Jacopo and his sister who had told her to trust Matthew. To deal with the man she’d been led to believe was the devil.
The devil sat on the bed holding Jacopo’s hand, gazing with sympathy at Bianca and Filip. Filip was just a shell, a scarecrow without his stuffing. How could she not have seen how Jacopo felt about him, how they felt about each other? Such love, such affection could not be unnatural, could it? Couldn’t be a sin in God’s eyes.
The acrid smell of death filled her nostrils. Love and death were both here, only death was winning this night.
In a daring gesture, she placed her hands on Matthew’s shoulders, and shut her eyes in relief and pleasure when one of his gloved hands closed over hers.
‘Your family is here, Jacopo,’ she said.
Jacopo eyelids flickered. ‘More than you know,’ he said.
Bianca gave a dry laugh.
‘What does he mean?’ Rosamund turned to Bianca.
Jacopo signalled for a kerchief, which Filip passed. He spat into it and lay back again. ‘Bianca, please; it’s time we tell her.’
Bianca frowned. ‘Time for me to do as you tell me, mio fratello?’
Jacopo nodded and tried to summon a grin, but his swollen mouth wouldn’t allow it; his expression was more a grimace. ‘Si,’ he murmured.
‘What he means, Rosamund,’ said Bianca, rolling on her side, ‘is this: just as you’re a Blithman, just as Matthew married one and is thus connected, so are we — me and Jacopo.’
Matthew’s hand tightened over Rosamund’s. Did he know what she was about to hear?
‘I… I’m not sure I understand.’
Jacopo’s lustrous blue-green eyes were latched onto her.
‘Me and Jacopo, we’re Sir Everard’s piccoli bastardi neri — his little black bastards,’ said Bianca. ‘At least, that’s what he used to call us — his dirty by-blows; and that’s what Gregory, Helene and Aubrey called us too. We are Blithman spawn just as surely as his other children.’
Her words took a moment to register, then Rosamund gasped. She looked anew at their colouring, their magnificent bright eyes. Of course.
‘Sir Everard was the lover who paid your mother to remain his?’
‘Si. He would always promise that if anything happened to her, he would take care of us.’ She made a disparaging noise. ‘In that regard, he didn’t lie. He took us away to England and, in his own way, cared.’
Rosamund recalled the number of times she saw Jacopo limping, bruised; the beating he had received at the chocolate house that day. She thought about the way in which they would both accept and even protect Sir Everard and his secrets — from the other servants, from gossip, from her… even when he was at his worst. They were his children. His flesh and blood. Blithmans.
Her hands dropped from Matthew’s shoulders and went to her cheeks. ‘Why did you keep this from me? I mean, I understand while Sir Everard was alive you probably had to —’ Bianca nodded. ‘But after he died… why? Why not tell me?’
‘We did discuss it, Jacopo and I.’ Bianca flashed him a look of love. ‘But we decided against it. You’d already endured so much. And would it have made a difference? You already gave us what no-one, apart from our mother, had — love, the freedom to be. We could not ask for more, we could not burden you with the truth. Not then. Now? What difference does it make?’
What difference did it make? Rosamund knew that she could not love them more if they were — oh, dear God — if they were Sir Everard’s children, that meant she was their stepmother. The wickedness of Sir Everard’s denial of his paternity, that he could treat them as he did, astounded her. They might have been slaves but they were his in more ways than one.
And now they were hers.
‘When you gave up your jointure so you might own us,’ said Bianca, ‘we knew then it didn’t matter any more. You gave us what he took from us — what he took from us all.’
As Bianca spoke, Filip captured Jacopo’s hand and held it to his heart. Jacopo’s eyes found Rosamund. ‘You didn’t need to buy us, Rosamund,’ he croaked.
‘No,’ said Bianca. ‘We were already yours, you were already ours. A piece of paper makes no difference.’
Jacopo gave a dry cough; his eyes were fevered, bright. ‘You are our family too.’ He searched for Rosamund’s fingers. ‘And I do love you with all my heart.’
Rosamund couldn’t speak. She nodded and, taking Jacopo’s other hand, pressed it to her bosom. Bianca reached and found her.
‘We’ve all been touched by the Blithmans, for better or worse,’ said Matthew calmly. ‘For all they destroyed so much, they cannot destroy this.’
Rosamund knew from the tone of his voice that he’d known who Bianca and Jacopo were all along. Just as they’d protected Sir Everard, they’d also protected Matthew from his wrath, revealing enough of Sir Everard’s intentions to him to keep him safe. One had been served through obligation and filial duty, the other through love and respect.
Just as they protected her.
She didn’t realise she’d this aloud, releasing Jacopo’s hand in her passion, until Matthew stood and pulled
her into an embrace. Filip joined them and held them both to his chest. Bianca leaned across her bed and demanded to be included as well. Ever so gently, they all hugged Jacopo, uncaring of his tokens and the infection that with every passing minute was claiming his life force. They’d been careful for so long and that hadn’t helped. Why deny each other — why deny Jacopo — the comfort of human touch and the love that flowed from each of them when it was most needed?
And so as Jacopo passed into the Lord’s ever-open arms, he was surrounded by his extraordinary family and enveloped in the deepest mutual affection.
PART FOUR
January 1666 to September 1666
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.
— Holy Bible, King James Version, Revelations 13:18
Kind Friends I am resolved to discover a thing
Which of late was invented by Foes to our King
A Phanaticall Pamphlet was printed of late
To fill honest-hearted Affection with Hate
— Thomason Coll, The Phanatick’s Plot Discovered
THIRTY-NINE
In which voluntary exiles make their return
As the bells tolled throughout January 1666, Rosamund couldn’t help but shudder. While they now rang for the reasons they had of old, to call people to service on Sundays, to chime the hour and to celebrate marriages and baptisms as well as deaths, for her they’d always carry the memory of pestilence and horror.
Carriages churned through the snow-covered streets, riders wove their way around the throng of conveyances and pedestrians. The new year had brought with it a dramatic drop in loss of life, and all manner of professions returned to the capital. A sense of renewal and fresh beginnings enveloped the city, despite the season. Shops reopened, vendors reappeared, markets thrived. The link-boys with their burning torches and lanthorns did their duty by folk at night, and the watchmen patrolled, shouting out the time and reports about the weather. It was a change from the cries that echoed in Rosamund’s nightmares. Dogs and cats sprouted like seasonal plants, bakers stoked their ovens, butchers honed their knives and, once more, all was well. The dreadful visitation had passed.
The chocolate house had reopened just before Christmas, but they were yet to welcome back many of their patrons and supplies were still low. Matthew had heard from his captain that the quarantine embargoes placed upon his ship were soon to be lifted and they could soon expect fresh stocks (the war notwithstanding) of cacao, sugar, vanilla and spices. Each day, the trickle of men coming through their doors grew thicker and stayed longer. Familiar faces reappeared — Thomas Bludworth, the new mayor; John Allin, John Evelyn, Sir Henry Bennet, the Duke of Buckingham, Charles Sedley and, of course, Sam. Sadly, the Three Unwise Men had been reduced to one — Sir Roger being the only one to survive the pestilence. As if to honour his friends, he tripled his efforts, penning even more poems and notes for Rosamund. Not even Charles Sedley had the heart to torment him.
Patrons returned to the bookshop as well. Unexpectedly, Mr Henderson had left his house to Matthew and the bookshop jointly to Matthew and Rosamund, doubling their businesses.
Rosamund was overwhelmed by her friend’s generosity and found it hard to credit that she who’d been illiterate was now the owner of a bookstore. The very notion filled her with a combination of joy and great sorrow. It seemed wrong to prosper from a friend’s death, yet, as Matthew said, it had only come to her — to both of them — because it was what Mr Henderson wished. When Mr Bender explained the conditions of Mr Henderson’s will, which included the printing licence, Rosamund had wept for a great gift for which she could never thank him.
Between them they decided that Rosamund would continue to run the chocolate house with Filip’s help, while Matthew would take care of downstairs as well as manage stock and figures for the Phoenix. Rosamund noted that he seemed keen to put physical distance between them. As soon as the forty days of quarantine at Blithe Manor had ended, he’d moved into Mr Henderson’s house around the corner from the bookshop in Lombard Street. She persuaded herself it was because he was keen to avail himself of the printing press in the stables and prayed he would be cautious. L’Estrange’s news sheets had ceased publication and Henry Muddiman’s new Oxford Gazette (another tissue of propaganda, according to Matthew) made him even more determined to offer alternative viewpoints to those endorsed by the crown.
Much was being written about how shutting up houses had not only increased the death toll in the city, but contributed to the spread of infection throughout the provinces, as those who were ill fled rather than be entombed in their homes. The war against the Dutch still continued and with the French entering as their allies just last week, there was much to report. Illegal presses were being rooted out and their operators severely punished lest they publish news counter to what was officially sanctioned. The names of Giles Calvert, Simon Dover, Thomas Brewster and the unfortunate printer John Twyn, who was hanged, drawn and quartered, were on everyone’s lips — a warning to those who dared dissent. Not that it stopped Calvert’s and Brewster’s brave widows from continuing their husbands’ work. Quakers too refused to be cowed, risking prison and death. Matthew’s newly inherited press might not be illegal — Mr Henderson’s will and a word in Sir Henry Bennet’s ear had seen to that — but much of the material he intended to print was. Perhaps he maintained his distance to protect her should he be discovered. Whatever his reasons, she wished he would not be so aloof, but was uncertain how to raise something that could simply be the product of her imagination.
Throughout January the apparatus of government slowly returned. The Exchequer came back to Whitehall; the Navy Board, much to Sam’s relief, to Seething Lane. Having ordered the city cleaned and fumigated, the Lord Mayor hoped the last of London’s citizens (and by that he meant the gentry and nobles) would hasten back. Whitehall and Covent Garden remained all but empty, though rumour had it the King and the Duke, as well as a goodly portion of the court, would leave Oxford and arrive at Hampton Court by the end of the month before proceeding to Whitehall. Everyone was returning to the city.
And so, it seemed, would Aubrey.
Rosamund received a hastily scrawled note from Aubrey announcing his return — a note with a shocking addendum.
She knew she’d have to raise his imminent return with Matthew, and soon. The question was how to do this without him mistaking it as a request for his intervention. Especially when what she really wanted was more of his company. At odd moments she found herself recalling Matthew’s arms about her the night Jacopo died, the comfort and strength he had shared. And then there was the way he would sometimes, even now, catch her eye and earnestly discuss an issue, whether it was cacao, books, customers or additives. The thoughts snagged her heart and made her soul ache. Pushing them aside, her priority must be how to deal with Aubrey and his unexpected proposal.
When she’d broken the news of his return to the servants at Blithe Manor last night, there’d been a mixed reaction. The new staff didn’t know him and so simply accepted that a different master would soon arrive, failing to understand the impact it would have on them. The older staff — those who’d survived — mumbled dourly and set about their tasks half-heartedly. Rosamund could scarce blame them.
Retiring with Bianca to the closet, she’d pondered a solution to the dilemma Aubrey posed.
The thought of him coming back filled her with foreboding, though she was in a better position this time than on his first appearance. She not only knew he was coming, but who her friends were. She had resources to draw upon which she’d lacked previously. Naturally the news of Aubrey’s imminent return had reached the chocolate house, and some of the regulars, knowing the type of man he was, or feeling the need to shepherd her, once again offered Rosamund rooms, houses — even an estate outside London. Most came with a now-familiar caveat and had little appeal, especially as she had t
he means to rent premises herself. Nevertheless, she knew there were those she could rely upon to help her find accommodation for her household if needed.
She hoped she would not have to take that option. Blithe Manor might not be hers in name, but she’d come to think of it that way. Filled with bitter-sweet memories, it was also the place where Jacopo had died, and to cede it to Aubrey without a whimper didn’t seem right.
Studying Bianca, she wondered if Aubrey would tolerate her beneath his roof now her brother was dead. He’d made it clear he wanted both siblings gone before he returned, but didn’t Jacopo’s death change things? Bianca was his half-sister, after all. A Blithman. The knowledge hadn’t spared Bianca and Jacopo pain, on the contrary — their father subjected them to outbursts of cruelty, his other children harboured deep-seated resentment of them and, according to Bianca, Lady Margery had been much the same.
‘She knew you were Sir Everard’s children?’ Rosamund asked one day.
‘Si. And it made not a whit of difference to her. To the Blithmans we were slaves — human possessions — no more, no less. Our parentage did not affect their attitudes — except to sharpen them.’ Bianca’s eyes filled with torment and betrayal.
Rosamund made her decision then: if Aubrey did not accept Bianca, neither of them would remain a moment longer in his presence.
The sound of coins clattering into the bowl and cries of ‘what news?’ broke Rosamund’s reverie. Fixing a smile to her face, she moved from the window and greeted the gentlemen, allocating drawers to take their orders while she slipped behind the bar. The new boys, Timothy, Adam and Hugh, circulated about the room; their uniforms — sewn by the Wellses — were still a little stiff, but she was pleased to see how well the boys had adapted.
It was hard to suppress the pain in her chest as the ghostly shadows of Wolstan, Harry and Owen (who died a week before they reopened) seemed to follow them. Filip, devastated by the loss of Jacopo, nonetheless determined to continue and to help Rosamund in whatever way he could. Having recently rediscovered his smile, she could nonetheless see the toll it took to use it. His determination not to let grief affect his workmanship defined the jut of his chin. Solomon was extra solicitous of his father, and Thomas too helped Filip and his friend. Between the four of them, they managed very well. They’d also hired a new girl, Grace, to help Bianca in the kitchen. With an unflappable disposition that not even the plague had quashed, she was a much-needed boon. Art and Kit came back, as irrepressible as ever.
