Petals in the Ashes (19 page)

Anne uttered a long sigh and then pulled at my sleeve. ‘Oh, can we go now?' she implored me, and a moment later added, ‘A carriage belonging to Giles Copperly! Do you think he and Sarah are betrothed?'

I shook my head unknowingly.

‘There's no reason at all to stay here now!' Anne went on. ‘'Tis awful and I hate it and we can't
possibly make sweetmeats
here
!'

‘I know,' I said, biting my lip. I was anxious to get away too, but reluctant to go without telling Tom. Looking down at Sarah's note, however, I thought immediately of what I could do – employ the same method as she had and leave a few lines in case he should come by.

I had no quill, of course, and sought to borrow one from Mr Newbery, but he told me that all his presently lay buried in the strongbox in his friend's garden.

‘I shall pin Sarah's own note back to the wall, then,' I said to him, ‘so it should be clear enough that we've gone to Chertsey. If anyone comes for me then please direct them to it.'

‘Indeed I shall!' Mr Newbery said rather grandly, and with a slur to his voice, making me wonder how much ale he had already drunk that day.

‘We hope to see you again soon, Mr Newbery,' I said. ‘Although I don't know when.'

He waved the tankard. ‘Be assured that if any other young man asks after you, I shall tell him where you've gone.'

I'd already turned away when what he'd said registered with my fuddled brain: if any
other
young man
…
‘Has someone asked for me already, then?'

‘A lad came a while back. In quite a mess, he was!' He glugged his ale. ‘Been in a fight, I should imagine.'

‘What did he want?' My heart was fluttering but I fought to stay calm. Had it been Tom – or only Bill? Had I told him where the shop was that night at St Paul's?

Mr Newbery shrugged. ‘He just asked for you and I
told him I hadn't seen you, neither dead nor alive.'

‘And where did he go? In which direction?' I asked urgently.

Mr Newbery waved his tankard and ale slopped from it. ‘Who knows. In the direction of wreckage and rubble.' He smiled, pleased with himself. ‘For in every direction is wreckage and rubble!'

I left him then and, calling to Anne that I would be just a moment, hurried up the lane (as best I could because of the devastating ruins) towards the corner where Doctor da Silva's shop had stood. If it had indeed been Tom who'd asked for me I thought that, finding himself with nowhere else to go, he might make for the apothecary's shop where he'd once lived.

This was not too difficult to find, for it had stood at the convergence of several lanes, and the outlines of these could still be traced. Reaching what I thought was the remains of it, I had further confirmation that I was in the right place by seeing what was left of several heavy iron chains and padlocks from when the shop had been enclosed in the plague time. This ironwork was in a heap on the ground, fused together by the heat which had passed over it.

Scrambling over stones I found Tom lying within the rubble, propped against some brickwork. His knees were drawn up, his head down on them, and he gave no indication of having heard my arrival.

I gasped with shock at the sight of him for, as well as being covered in dirt and ash, through his torn and bloodied shirt I could see dark bruises across his shoulders and large abrasions on his back.

‘Tom!' I called.

He lifted his head and gave me a weak smile, then
closed his eyes. ‘Excuse me not rising, Hannah.'

‘What happened to you?' I put out my hand to touch his shoulder, causing him to wince. ‘Did you fall from a carriage or – or get in a fight?'

He shook his head and sighed wearily. ‘It isn't a pretty tale.' There was a pause. ‘I was stoned by a mob.' I gasped. ‘Along with Count de'Ath – although I should not call him that because that isn't his real name – and it was that which led to the trouble.'

I looked at him and longed to put my arms around him, for he looked so broken, but I was scared of hurting him. ‘
Stoned?
'

He nodded and explained in a croak. ‘We – some of the folk of Bartholomew Fair – had moved on to the common land in Islington. Local men got to hear that Count de'Ath was there, and, thinking him a Frenchman, sought him out and were about to take him and hang him, saying it was he and his compatriots who had caused the fire.'

He paused to take several slow breaths, then went on, ‘A soldier intervened and stopped them, saying it could not be proved that anyone started it, and for his pains was stoned out of the village with us.' He paused again here and I stroked his face tenderly, for there was a small space on his cheek which wasn't bruised.

‘The Count jumped on a horse and galloped off, and most of the mob ran after him, leaving me to evade the rest and walk back here. I didn't know where else to go.'

‘You must come back with us!' I said immediately. ‘Sarah is waiting at Southwarke with a carriage, and we are going home to Chertsey.'

‘I cannot …' he protested weakly.

‘You must!' I said. ‘Tom, I insist.' My mind raced ahead. ‘You will be able to obtain lodgings in our village. And work, too, later, if you wish.'

He did not say anything, but he looked at me with such great relief that my eyes filled with tears again for pity of him.

‘Come now,' I said, and I put my hand under his arm to help him to his feet. ‘We shall have a grand ride home in a carriage and—'

He let out a cry and clutched his elbow. ‘I fear I shall not be good for work with a broken arm.'

‘You will mend!' I said with false cheer, but seeing him standing, I hid my dismay at the pitiful, wretched sight he made. His arm hung useless, fine ash had stuck to his open wounds, and his skin, where visible, was blue with bruising. ‘You shall have the root and leaves of comfrey to mend your broken bone, and alkanet and pennyroyal to heal the bruises and cuts. You know the herbs as well as I do!'

He tried to smile at me and just about succeeded. Slowly then, with his good arm about my shoulders, we made our way down towards Crown and King Place. We passed other citizens who were either shocked, burnt, dirty, troubled, dazed – or all of those things – but none spoke, nor hardly looked at us with any interest, for everyone was deep in their own troubles and woes, and much brought down with them.

At Crown and King Place Mr Newbery was not now to be seen, but Anne was standing by, looking anxious. On seeing Tom's condition, her eyes widened and she gasped. ‘Did you get caught in the fire?' she
asked. ‘What happened?'

‘We'll tell you on the journey,' I said. ‘We're taking Tom back home with us. He has nowhere to go. And no work,' I added.

‘Perhaps he can work with Father,' she said. ‘He's always complaining he has too much to do.'

‘Perhaps,' I nodded.

Anne went to take Tom's other, broken, arm but I shook my head at her. ‘You manage Kitty, I'll manage Tom.'

Leaving what remained of our shop then, we began to walk very slowly, passing others trudging at a snail's pace and looking around them in bewildered fashion. In the ash-fogged light we were all grey wraiths, moving through a wasteland of rubble and stones. Twice we came across still-glowing coals and directed passing soldiers to stamp them out, and going by what remained of St Dominic's we found that the tower was down, its great lead bells melted completely and fused into the stones in a strange, mountainous lump.

Once or twice on our journey Tom swayed and almost fainted and we had to sit on the ground for a while until he recovered, but pretty soon we came in sight of London Bridge and I knew there would soon be an end to his ordeal.

It was while we were waiting our turn to get on to the bridge through the narrow passage that had been forged between the heaps of wreckage, that Anne slid her hand into Kitty's basket and drew something out. ‘While I was waiting for you, I looked around in our shop and found this,' she said.

I took what she offered and gasped with surprise,
for I saw that it was part of the metal sign which had hung above our shop. It was much reduced and had melted and buckled through the great heat, but a part of the painted image could still be seen. Gazing at it, I was torn between smiling and weeping. ‘The sugared plum,' I whispered. ‘To think that this is all that remains of our shop.'

Anne shrugged, murmuring that she'd thought I'd like to keep it, and Tom looked at me with sympathy. ‘London will be rebuilt, and your shop along with it,' he reassured me gently. ‘And when it is, I'll make you another sign.'

I smiled at him – indeed I would have kissed him had I been able to find space on his poor face – for I knew what he said about London was true. I felt that my fate was with Tom, but it was also with London, and one day we would return and there would be another shop, trading anew under the sign of the Sugared Plum.

But for now we would cross London Bridge, find Sarah and go home …

The Great Fire of London began on Sunday 2nd September 1666 in Pudding Lane and was finally halted (some say at Pie Corner) by nightfall on Wednesday 5th September.

Year of the Beast
In the Bible, 666 is the number of the beast, who has the ability to bring down fire from heaven. 1666 had long been heralded by hellfire preachers and puritans as the year when God's punishment would fall on sinful London.

Samuel Pepys
All the quotations at the chapter headings, and some of the stories of the characters, are from Pepys's
Diary
. Pepys was perhaps the most famous observer of the fire and wrote movingly of it (he was also the man who buried a whole Parmesan cheese in his garden). Two other books I used were
The Great Fire of London
by W. G. Bell, first published in 1923, for its accurate detail, and
Restoration London
by Liza Picard, an amusing and invaluable source of background material.

Nell Gwyn
was sixteen in 1666 and had been acting with the King's Company for a year. By 1668 she had become the king's mistress and two years after this she had a child by him. Strikingly attractive and a practical joker, Nelly never hid her humble beginnings and the people loved her for this.

Bartholomew Fair
All the sideshows and stalls mentioned (and more) were at the real fair, which was
held for two weeks at the end of August. I have taken liberties with history only in that Bartholomew Fair was not held in 1666, for fear there would be a reoccurrence of plague.

Numbers of deaths
Early counts had it that only a handful of people perished in the fire, but now it is believed that many more may have died, for such was the disruption to ordinary life that there were no Bills of Mortality published for three weeks after the fire and so no way of telling just how many perished in that fierce, all-consuming heat.

Numbers of houses burnt
It is thought that about 15,000 houses and Guild Halls were burnt, including some of the most palatial and beautiful buildings in the city, and about eighty churches, including St Paul's, of course. There was no such thing as fire insurance and no way of obtaining recompense for what had been lost.

Rebuilding
It took many years to get back to some normality (St Paul's Cathedral was not completed until 1711) and for some years the rubble was occupied by shacks and alehouses built to entertain all the workmen employed on the rebuilding of London. Jetties (the fronts that jutted out from houses) were now banned, as were all-wood structures. The streets were also made wider to help prevent fires catching from one side to the other.

Plague
One of the most commonly-held beliefs was that the fire ‘finished off' the plague of the previous
year. The truth is that plague had more or less ceased in London by September 1666, but what the fire did was to burn out the worst of the filthy, unsanitary and horrendously overcrowded buildings in which people lived (sometimes ten to a room), thus ensuring plague would find it difficult ever to get a foothold again.

Who started the fire?
In October 1666 a Frenchman named Robert Hubert, who had confessed to starting the fire, was hung, but there were doubts at the time as to whether he was sane, or had even been in the country at the time. Many thought that Thomas Farriner, the baker in Pudding Lane, was responsible, because he had not guarded his fire well enough. Others thought Dutch, Spanish – or a group of Catholics – were to blame. The people of London were desperate enough to blame anyone, and religious and racial intolerance are not new.

Most grand houses had a still room (the word ‘still' comes from ‘distilling'). Here the women of the household would prepare pot pourri, balms and scented waters, and distil flowers in order to obtain precious drops of their essential oils.