At the Sign of the Sugared Plum (4 page)

‘Then nothing can stop the plague?’ I asked, suddenly rather alarmed.

He looked at me gravely over his spectacles. ‘We all have our preventatives and talismans, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. To my way of thinking, though, once that dread disease takes hold, be it on a person or a city, then it has to run its course.’

‘Does this Frenchman make pills to take? Is it something you can eat?’ I asked, thinking that I’d go there myself, right now, and buy whatever it was, for it surely couldn’t hurt to try it.

The doctor shook his head. ‘He has a method of smoking . . . of fuming out a house. A fire of sulphur is lit; sulphur and some other ingredients which the Frenchman keeps secret. It stinks the place out and – so he says – cleanses it of plague germs.’ He spat again. ‘The Lord Mayor of London has ordered that this method be tried. He must be in the man’s pay.’

‘And was there plague in the house that’s being fumed?’

‘Indeed there was,’ he said gravely. ‘Seven dead – the whole family – although the city authorities are not yet admitting that it was plague which carried them off. It will probably go down in the Bills of Mortality as fever, so as not to alarm the people.’

I, for one, was most certainly alarmed. Seven dead in a house!

Handing over the saffron and receiving his payment, the doctor then asked if there was anything else I desired. I thought about my freckles but decided –
in view of our previous conversation – that the matter was too trivial to speak of. I was surprised, then, when the doctor looked at me searchingly and said, ‘Your complexion. I suppose you wish it to be pale?’

I nodded. ‘Oh, I do!’ I said eagerly. ‘I’ve tried things myself – I’ve washed my face with May-dew, and bathed it with the juice of lemon, but nothing works.’

‘What sign of the heavens were you born under?’

I shook my head, bemused. ‘I do not know, sir.’

‘I ask you because I use the methods of Nicholas Culpeper.’

I shook my head, not understanding. I had heard of this man and knew he was a herbalist, but did not know the methods of which Doctor da Silva was speaking.

‘Culpeper decided that the planets in the heavens were responsible for the various diseases which afflict us, and that the planets also govern different parts of our bodies – our blood, skin, heart, and so on.’

I nodded, frowning with concentration.

‘So to cure people he uses plants governed by planets which are in opposition to those associated with the parts of the body.’

I did not really understand, but I tried to memorise his words so that when I saw Tom again he would not think me totally ignorant of his chosen calling. The doctor asked my birth date and when I told him I was born on the 23rd day of July he said that it was no wonder I had fiery colouring, because I was a subject of the sun. He pulled out a drawer beneath his counter and showed me a long, papery-dry leaf. ‘This is yellow dock,’ he said. ‘You must steep it in warm water and
vinegar and leave it for three days, and then bathe your face with the resulting liquid.’

He wrapped the leaf in a fold of brown paper and, when I asked him what I owed, he said that Sarah was a good customer and I could have the leaf for nothing. After a moment’s hesitation I asked if there was anything I could do to make my hair less red and less curly.

‘You can comb it with a lead comb,’ he said, ‘I have heard that darkens the hair considerably.’

‘Do you—?’ I began, but he shook his head, staring at me over his glasses.

‘I do not sell brushes, combs or complexion paints for the ladies. But if you wish your hair less curly, you may find that Lad’s Love – a little of that plant in a herbal infusion – may help to straighten it, and you can find this herb at any wayside.’

I thanked him kindly for his advice, and for the leaf, curtseyed, and went to leave. On opening the door of the shop, though, I had to tussle with a great black-and-white hog which tried to push me back in. While I was engaged in pushing it out several chickens ran in, for there was a market at the end of the street that day and a greater variety of animals than usual were sniffing and grunting and trotting around outside. I caught two chickens but another ran towards the doctor, its claws skittering on the marble tiles, but the doctor roared at it so that it turned tail immediately and ran out squawking, its tawny feathers flying. I could not help but laugh.

Once outside in the street, I blinked against the strong sunlight. It was another very hot day and the air felt clammy. Smoke and fumes curled out of the
leather tanners in the next street, a soap chandler was boiling stinking bones in a cauldron at the front of his shop and there was a disgusting smell coming from the piles of human refuse which had been scraped into a heap by the night-soil men.

The runaway hog had been claimed and was now being used as a pony by two of the children playing nearby. These two young boys, Dickon and Jacob, lived in an alley near us and often hung about our shop, hoping that (as occasionally happened) a comfit or two would turn out to be misshapen and either Sarah or I would throw it to them. They were about five or six years old and worked as errand boys, taking messages between shops and their customers, sweeping a path through the muck for well-to-do visitors or obtaining a sedan chair for people who wearied of shopping and wished for someone else’s legs to carry them to their next appointment. They asked me if I would like a ride home on the hog and though I was tempted – in Chertsey I would have hitched up my petticoats and ridden him as if he were the king’s nag – in London I was different, and I laughingly refused and went on.

Now I was out and once again surrounded by London life, by busy folk going about their business, all felt normal. Already the horror of the story the doctor had told me was receding. Seven were dead – but High Holborn was a way off, and possibly the plague would be stopped in its tracks by the efforts of the French doctor. Mother had always taught us never to worry about something before we had to.

When I got back to the shop, Sarah was weighing out a quantity of crystallised violets to a customer. As
I bobbed a curtsey to the young woman, she was speaking of how the violets revived her spirits and freshened her breath, and said that the ladies she worked with enjoyed them, too.

I looked at our customer with interest. She was dressed in a low-cut, primrose-yellow silk dress, ruched up all round the bottom (as was the latest fashion) to expose a yellow and red spotted petticoat. On her head was a little velvet cap embroidered all over with coloured beads, and under this – how I stared! – her hair was as red as mine.

She and I smiled at each other and it seemed to me that, as well as the hair, we matched each other in age as well. The pity was that I couldn’t see whether she had freckles because she had some whitening on her face, and several black heart-shaped patches.

Sarah coughed. ‘Will there be anything else?’ she asked, and I glanced at her, wondering why she sounded so cold and remote.

‘Not at all, thank you kindly!’ the young lady said, seeming not to notice Sarah’s tone. She paid, tucked the paper cone of violets into her yellow silk muff and went off, smiling at me again. She stood at the doorway of the shop for a moment, attracting stares and a murmur of appreciation from a passing gallant, all of which she ignored. Suddenly, she put her fingers in her mouth and gave a piercing whistle. A sedan chair came up, the door was opened for her and she got in and went off. As she climbed in the sedan I noticed that her shoes were spotted yellow and red to match her petticoat.

‘Oh, who was
that?’
I asked Sarah breathlessly.

Sarah sniffed. ‘That was Nelly Gwyn.’

‘But who
is
she?’

‘Well, she used to be an orange-seller at the playhouse, but now I believe she calls herself an actress.’

‘An actress!’ I’d heard, of course, that women and girls were appearing on the stage, but I’d never ever seen an actress before.

‘You needn’t sound so impressed,’ Sarah said, ‘for she’s as common as kennel dirt. Her mother is famous for being drunk, and no one ever knew her father.’

‘Well, whatever she is, she must be a very good actress to be able to afford clothes like that,’ I said (and I spoke enviously, for I was still wearing cast-offs from the vicar’s daughter).

‘Oh, it’s not acting that brings in the money,’ Sarah said with an edge to her voice. ‘It’s something else.’

I looked at my sister. ‘You mean . . . you mean she’s a
whore?’
I said daringly – for although I’d already heard this word used several times in London, such language was forbidden to us in the country.

Sarah gave me the faintest of nods.

‘I see,’ I said. ‘But anyway, she’s very pretty. Can we go some time?’ I asked suddenly. ‘Can we go to a playhouse and see her?’

‘Well,’ Sarah said, and she frowned. ‘I don’t know that we should.’

‘Oh, please!’ I said. ‘It’s quite all right to go now – even polite company attend playhouses, don’t they? Even the king goes!’

‘It’s not how it would look,’ Sarah said, ‘for we are known to so few people in London, that would hardly matter. No, I’m thinking of the plague. People are saying that you shouldn’t attend any large gatherings,
and the nobility are already leaving London for the country.’

‘But there’s nothing official, is there?’ I said, and was glad that I’d not yet told her about the seven dead in High Holborn.

‘We’ll ask someone’s advice,’ Sarah said. ‘We’ll ask one of the clerks at the church whether it would be wise to attend a play at the moment.’

I said I would go to ask at St Dominic’s, for I meant to couch my question to the clerk in such a way that his answer – the one I would bring back to Sarah – would allow us to attend. I very much wanted to see a play and, now that I’d met her, I especially wanted to see a play with Nelly Gwyn in it.

However, before I could go to the church – in fact, that very evening – a crier came round the streets. After ringing his bell so loudly that Mew fled into a box under the bed, he called that, by order of the Lord Mayor and because of the feared visitation of plague, all playhouses were to be shut up forthwith, and drinking hours in taverns were to be restricted.

I was bitterly disappointed, for I’d heard so much of what went on in the theatre – the shouting and singing and throwing of tomatoes by the groundlings if they did not approve, and of how the great ladies and gentlemen vied, like peacocks, to outdo each other in gaiety of dress. Now I’d have to wait until the scare was over before I could see it all.

And only Heaven knew when that would be, because the following Thursday, when the Bills of Mortality were published, it was found that there had been one hundred deaths of plague that week in London. And at this figure, the authorities declared
that the plague had begun.

That afternoon Sarah sent me out for water. She gave me leave to take as long as I wished and make an outing of it, for we had stayed up late the previous night, working by candlelight to blanch and pound a goodly quantity of almonds to a fine powder, and she’d told me I had worked excellently and she couldn’t think how she’d ever managed without me. While we’d worked we’d discussed the plague and told ourselves that it might not be as bad as people feared. For good or ill, however, Sarah could not send me back to Chertsey, because, as our neighbour in the parchment shop had told us, the magistrates were restricting travel out of London for fear that infection would spread to the provinces. This same neighbour, Mr Newbery, a short, stout man with a merry smile who loved nothing better than morbid gossip, had also said there was little hope of escape anyway, for if you had been chosen by the Grim Reaper then he would just come along with his scythe and cut you down.

I went to draw my water from Bell Courtyard. Although there were closer watering places, I favoured this one because it was a fine, paved area with trees and seats, and was much frequented by maids and apprentices from nearby houses. Also, the water there came from the New River and was judged to be pure.

The queue to draw water being quite long, I put down my bucket and enamel jug and waited patiently, looking around me at what the others were wearing (all were more fashionable than I) and wondering when Sarah would have time to take me to the clothes market.

As I waited, amused by a pedlar selling mousetraps with a monkey on his shoulder, there was a sudden burst of laughter from the front of the queue, and a hand waved madly.

‘Hannah!’ a girl’s voice called. I saw to my great delight that it was my friend Abigail Palmer from home.

‘There was no mistaking that hair!’ she said, coming up and hugging me.

‘Indeed not,’ I said, for though I’d bought a lead comb and had been stroking it through my hair night and morning, it didn’t seem to be making my curls any darker. My freckles, too, were just as bright and, as a result of the continual sunny days, now seemed to crowd across my nose and cheeks jostling for place.

Abigail had put on weight and it suited her. She was pretty, with dark curly hair which had sparks of copper in it, deep brown eyes and a curving mouth. She had on a black fustian dress cut up the front to show a lacy white petticoat, and looked very neat and comely.

‘How long have you been in London?’ she asked.

I told her, and said where I was living.

‘And are you still in your position?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘With Mr and Mrs Beauchurch.’ She was about to say more when a cry came up from the front of the queue. ‘Maid! Will you come to take your place?’

Abigail waved her hand. ‘No, everyone can step up,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait in line here with my friend.’

‘And a pretty sight you will look,’ the youth’s voice replied. ‘Two fair maids together!’ The rest of the queue laughed, for a musical entertainment of the
same name had recently been on at one of the playhouses.

Abigail blew a kiss to the youth who’d spoken, and linked her arm with mine. ‘Now Hannah, tell me every piece of news from Chertsey, for I swear I have not heard a word of gossip from my mother or sisters since I came here.’