Plague Child (5 page)

George found his voice. ‘Ask him how he got into the fight.’

‘I was attacked. Thieves who tried to get the speech.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us all this before?’ George’s voice was acid with scepticism.

‘There has been no time!’

‘Apprentices from Merrick?’ said Mr Black.

‘No, sir. I never saw them before. One had a sword.’

George looked up at the ceiling in disbelief, but Mr Black leaned forward sharply.

‘A gentleman?’

‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’

‘Perhaps once was?’

‘Yes.’

‘Describe him.’

‘A thin face. A beard like the King. He was wearing a beaver hat.’

‘Like half London,’ said George.

‘The other?’

‘A lowpad. Shoulders like a bull.’

George laughed. ‘It’s a tale from a halfpenny broadsheet! He’s lying.’

Mr Black jumped up. His good mood had disappeared as quickly as it came. He seized his cane, which had become a stranger to me in recent months. ‘Are you?’

‘No, sir!’

I ducked as I saw the cane move and flung my hands round my head, wincing in anticipation. But the blow never came. The cane clattered as he flung it on the stone flags. His face looked tortured. I feared he had been struck by the strange ailment that affected him at times when he would stand quite still, as if struck by some vision others could not see.

George backed away, muttering. ‘The boy has cursed you. I saw his lips move.’

Mr Black shook his head, as if he was shaking off the vision, like a dog shaking off water. He seized me by the shoulders and shook me. ‘Are you lying?’

‘No, sir!’ I sobbed, more frightened by the strange contortions of his face than the violence.

He shook me again, and pushed his face into mine. ‘It’s as import ant for you as it is for me that you tell me the truth! Do you understand, you little fool?’

I pulled away from him with a rush of anger that overcame my tears. I did not consider myself a fool and I was certainly no longer little.

‘It’s true – I heard one of the men asking another ’prentice about a boy with red hair and then the man turned round and saw me and I ran and then –’

‘Where was this?’

The words dried up in my mouth. Normally I would have lied. Told him the street, anywhere, but the look on his face was so alarmed, so urgent, I felt compelled to tell the truth.

‘The Pot.’

A sad smile played round George’s mouth. ‘Now we have it, sir, now we have it.’

I expected to be given the beating then. I wish they had. George was clearly relishing the thought. He picked up his old composing stick with the rusty metal end from which I still bear a mark on my left temple. But Mr Black waved him away. He gave me a look of such sadness it cut me more sharply than any whip or stick.

‘Oh, Tom, Tom, I was beginning to trust you.’

Now I could not stop the tears bursting out of me and with them a torrent of words. He must have beaten more of his obsession with sin into me than I realised, but it had all been concealed from me until a little kindness let it out. That, and my realisation that the words that were going to change the world could have been lost because of my desire for a drink.

I confessed drink. I confessed pass dice. I confessed lusting after Mary, the pot girl. I confessed cursing his daughter. I confessed, although I feared it would be the greatest sin of all in Mr Black’s eyes, drinking and getting into debt with Henry, Merrick’s apprentice.

George was hovering, testing the position of the stick in his hand. I wanted him to beat me. I needed his savagery. But as I moved like a sacrificial lamb towards him, Mr Black stopped him. He was berating himself under his breath for not having written to someone. He picked up pen and ink as if he would write a letter there and then, then set it down and paced again.

Waiting for my punishment made it ten times worse. I felt so wretched I begged him to cancel my indentures and send me home. I would return my uniform and boots, get some clothes from the rag woman at Tower Hill and go back to my father.

He came to a full halt, staring at me as if I had said something that first of all shocked, then amused him. ‘Your father? No, no, that won’t do, that won’t do at all. It’s far too late for that. As for the boots . . .’ He gave me one of his rare, dry, mirthless smiles. ‘I doubt anyone else would fit them.’

The touch of levity left him. ‘You are not to leave this house until I give you permission. Is that clear?’

No. Nothing was clear. Not the evil that he said was in my soul, nor the man in the beaver hat who had suddenly come into my life, causing him such consternation. But I promised to obey him.

He hesitated. ‘No, I can’t trust you. I can’t
afford
to trust you.’ He turned to George. ‘Lock him in the cellar.’

George gripped me by the arm, nodding his head in approval at the gravity and the justice of the punishment. My tongue and limbs were so paralysed with fear at the thought of being locked in there at night that George got me halfway to the door before I anchored myself to the table.

‘Not in the dark, sir,’ I pleaded. ‘Please don’t lock me in there in the dark!’

‘Why, Tom,’ Mr Black said, an amused look on his face, ‘I thought you were grown up now and afraid of nothing. Are you still afraid of the dark?’

I had made my confessions with the reason of a man, but now all reason deserted me and I whimpered my plea again like a child.

‘Let him have a candle,’ Mr Black said curtly.

I made no further resistance. In the early days I had learned, painfully, that it was useless and only gave George more satisfaction. George lit a candle and with the composing stick in his other hand led me down the stairs, his shadow splayed out over the low ceiling. As he opened the door of the cellar the dank rotting smell brought back to me the terror of the first time they brought me here, but I stifled it, determined not to show any more fear to George. It was very late, and the candle would last me until first light filtered through the broken plaster.

It is only when you have been punished regular that you learn instinctively to recognise refinements of such punishments. As George began to close the door on me I realised he was not going to give me the candle.

I put my boot in the door and struggled to pull it further open. The composing stick fell on my fingers with agonising force. For a moment I could not move for the pain, but the rattle of the key drove me to wrench at the door. I got it half open and grabbed for the candle. He pulled back but hot wax spilled on his hand. He yelled, dropping the candle, which went out.

There was now only a dim, flickering light from the room above. I glimpsed him coming for me with the stick. I ducked and, as he crashed into the wall, grabbed him from behind and shoved him into the plaster with such force I thought the wall was coming down. He groped feebly for the stick he had dropped but I saw it on the stair and grabbed it.

I was familiar with that stick on every inch of my body, except in the palm of my hand. The feel of it there, my fingers gripping it, that hated stick, and the fear of the dark in that stinking cell drove me into such a frenzy I lashed out at George. He ducked, but I caught him a glancing blow on the temple and the thought that I had scarred him as he had scarred me let loose such a rush of savagery it felt as if the devil George always claimed was in me was released, urging me to beat him and beat him as he had beaten me.

George slipped and fell and God knows what I would have done if I had heard Mr Black coming down the stairs sooner, but by the time I turned and saw him, he was bringing his stick down on my head.

Chapter 4

I thought it was a louse.
Pediculus Humanus Corporis
, my Latin tutor Dr Gill had drummed into me, as he triumphantly plucked a particularly fat specimen from my clothes. They came out to feed at night. We were used to one another, and, unless they ventured to a particularly sensitive spot like my groin, they rarely woke me. Even then, it was more my finger and thumb the creature aroused, which hovered, waiting for it settling to feed before closing round it with a satisfying snap, at which I would instantly sink back into sleep.

But this creature was on my face, normally considered too leathery for a decent meal. My finger and thumb were throbbing, stabbing with pain as I instinctively tried to crook them to catch the louse. My head thumped like the big drum in the Lord Mayor’s show. Something terrible had happened but I did not want to remember, I just wanted to catch the louse and fall back to sleep. My finger and thumb crept stealthily up to my face. They touched a sticky, glutinous mass, pausing in bewilderment before closing round the object of irritation.

All in the same instant I felt a sharp, needle-like pain and sprang up yelling, Mr Black’s angry face and descending stick jumping back to me as I realised that I clutched not a dead louse but a live rat which, attracted by the drying blood on my face, was squealing and biting in my hand.

I threw it from me, screaming. I could see nothing. I blundered into one wall, cold and greasy with damp, then another before I found the door, hammering and shouting until I dropped to the floor with exhaustion.

The last time they locked me in, when I first came here, I had been playing dumb, pretending I had lost my reading. I hoped in my confused way that they would believe that, just as I had been given the gift of reading, so it had been taken away. Finding me useless, they would send me home. George, however, was far subtler than me in the twisting and turning of such beliefs.

If it was a gift, he said, and I did not use it, God would punish me by taking my sight away. Still I was stubborn and when they gave me the Bible, nonsense came out of my mouth. So they locked me in and, as the light faded, so did my stubbornness. There had always been the light of stars and the moon in Poplar, however cloudy and dim.

As the dimness in the cellar faded to black, I believed I had gone blind. I screamed and yelled and threw myself about the cellar until they released me. Mr Black had forbidden George to lock me in again. Until now.

Now, exhausted, I tried to thrust what had happened then from my mind. I was a man now, I told myself. Had not Mr Black said so? I took some courage from his unexpected praise, going over and over it in my mind. The light would eventually come, filtering through the cracks in the ceiling.

I buried my face in my hands for what seemed an age. Rats whispered and scuttled. I opened my eyes, but it was still dark as pitch. We had worked long into the night. Surely the sun should have risen by now? Perhaps it had already risen! Nonsense, I told myself. God could scarcely be punishing me now for not reading – I read all the time. But then I was struck by a fresh panic. George had wished the same punishment on me for striking him. The panic mounted. Perhaps George was dead. Whatever there was of a man in me fled and I became that screaming child again, jumping up at the ceiling, tearing at the plaster with my nails.

The cellar was under the printing shop, thus isolated from the bedrooms. Even so, I thought Mr Black must hear me, however muffled. As I clenched my fists to hammer on the door, I heard a scratching sound. It came from under the door. More rats. Trying to get into the room. I stamped my foot down. There was a cry. I jumped back in terror. Not a rat – some kind of spirit, George’s spirit, muttering behind the door. Then the muttering became words.

‘Stupid Monkey!’

Never had that hateful word sounded so beautiful. ‘Anne?’

‘Be quiet, for God’s sake!’

‘Is George alive?’

‘Of course he’s alive – no thanks to you.’

‘Is it light?’

‘Can’t you see it’s not light, stupid? Why do you think I’ve brought you a candle?’

I thanked God as I caught the acrid smell of tallow. Bending low, I could just glimpse the faintest glimmer of yellow from a candle which she must have set down on the steps. She told me George had been bandaged and given a cordial to help him sleep as she pushed another unlit candle under the door. She followed this with a flint.

‘Thank you, Anne.’

‘Miss Black. And don’t thank me.’ Her voice was cold and brusque. ‘I only did it to stop you making such a row. Crying out like a baby in the dark.’

‘You would cry here.’

‘Indeed I would not!’ she said, with such contempt ringing in her whispered voice my cheeks burned.

The thin band of light under the door began to waver and disappear, like the will o’ the wisps dancing away on the marsh. My panic rushed back.

‘Wait – the flint is damp!’

‘You haven’t tried it.’

I scraped my boot against the wall. ‘Not a spark! Please, An— Miss Black. Give me a light from your candle. Under the door.’

The light, the blessed light under the door grew stronger. Prone on the floor, I could see the flame, tallow dribbling, glimpse her thin delicate fingers. The flame wavered and almost went out. She gave a little cry and I could hear her scrambling up, waiting until the flame grew again.

‘I cannot. There is a draught – it will go out.’

‘Are you afraid?’ I mocked, then quickly, as I heard her step away: ‘I’m sorry, Miss Black. Miss Black – is there a key in the lock?’

There was a silence. I felt I could see her there in a long willow-green nightgown which I had glimpsed before, a shawl wrapped round her shoulders, those thin fingers cupped round the flickering flame.

I tried to make my voice sound as weak and humble as possible. ‘Miss Black . . . it would be easier if you were to open the door a little.’

She laughed, the contempt coming back into her voice again. ‘Do you think I’m such a fool, Monkey?’

Now the word had its old, hateful ring. I only just stopped myself from flinging myself at the door in anger and frustration. I clapped my hand over my mouth to stop myself from shouting.

I did not understand how I could love her one moment and hate her so much the next. My hopes for her were as much a fable as looking in a mirror and pretending I was handsome. Add to the feet and the red hair my nose, sharp and inquisitive as a bird’s beak, and you have a pretty full picture. Only my eyes, large and black as ink, drew me any kind of attention – that and my use of words which, from hating when they tried to drum rhetoric and writing into me, I had grown to love.

‘Open the door?’ she mocked. ‘You’ve run away before.’

‘I will not!’ I cried out with a sudden passion which must have taken her with as much surprise as it took me. ‘I want to run away, but I cannot run away from you!’

‘What rubbish! What nonsense! How can I trust you? No one can trust you! My father says you have the devil in you. I pray for you every day.’

‘Do you?’

‘Ssshh.’

‘What is it?’

‘Be quiet!’

I became as still as the stone flags under my feet. I could hear nothing but the shuffling of rats and, distantly, the wind rattling the panes and the crack and creak of wood; the house, like the ships in the docks, always seemed to talk to itself at night.

‘Do you?’ I whispered.

‘What?’

‘Pray for me.’

‘It is only Christian charity to do so,’ she said, quietly, earnestly. ‘To pray for a lost soul. To stop you from doing such things. Writing such things.’

Writing? She must mean a poem I had once dared to write to her. Had she read it? The thought, as unexpected as Mr Black’s praise, pricked my eyes with tears. The idea that she had taken any notice of me at all, except as a figure of fun and mockery, was a revelation.

‘Are you crying?’

‘No. Yes.’

‘Perhaps you are not quite lost, Monkey.’

Was there something softer in the mockery, or was it just my hope? There was no doubt about the sweetness of the next sound: the key turning in the lock. I sprang to open the door, but before I could do so the key turned back.

‘How can I open the door when you wrote such a poem to me?’

‘
Did
you read it?’

‘Indeed I did not. My father said it was full of such vileness –’

‘Vileness?’ I said hotly. ‘You think it’s vile to write: “The windows of thy soule –”’

‘Stop it!’

‘“That when they gaze, see not me –”’

‘I will not listen!’

I heard her going. The yellow glow from her candle under the door wavered and went. In that moment I did not care. It was the first thing I had ever written that said truly what I felt, and the words kept coming from my lips as though they had a life of their own.

‘“I know the windows of thy soule

That when they gaze see not me

but some strange Satyre. Perchance

One idle day, they may see

These stumbling lines of poetry.

And, from these clumsy words know

I have no hope of your love, only

Hope that my love for thee

May make your eyes see me.”’

The words had calmed me. Now the sounds, the shuffling of the rats, the drip of water crept back. And with them another sound, but outside. The barest glimmer of yellow light had reappeared under the door.

‘Anne? Miss Black?’

‘They were not the words my father said.’

‘I will show you them – you should have read them.’

‘I cannot read, you know that!’ There was anger and humiliation in her voice.

I did not know. I had often seen her with her Bible, going to church, or opening one of the books of Lovelace’s poetry we printed.

‘I will teach you.’

‘You!’ Now there was no mistaking the total contempt in her voice. ‘You copied that poem. You did not write that stupid jingle.’

‘I did!’

‘Liar,’ she mocked.

My anger burst out uncontrollably and I hammered wildly on the door. ‘I did and it’s not stupid and I love you and always will – God knows why!’

During this she tried to silence me, but it was only when I stopped I heard Mr Black’s grumbling distant voice followed by Mrs Black’s high-pitched tones.

‘There is someone!’

I heard him say, ‘It’s Tom. Let him hammer away,’ then mutter something. Mrs Black’s voice grew louder, sharper and more urgent. ‘I can hear people talking.’

Whatever Mr Black said was drowned in bad-tempered thumps and creaking of boards.

I had heard nothing in Anne’s voice before but lightness and mockery. Now her whisper was panic-stricken. ‘Oh God! He must not find me here.’

‘Go! Go now,’ I urged.

Her bedroom was off a landing one floor above Mr and Mrs Black’s. She might just make it. As the light of her candle vanished I heard a door open upstairs and a moment later she returned.

‘It’s too late. He’s coming downstairs.’

‘Open the door.’

She gave a little moan of fear. ‘No.’

‘Open it!’

I heard the key turn and pulled open the door. She was in her green nightgown, as I had pictured it. The rest I had never imagined. That wonderful hair was locked up in some loathsome nightcap. All her haughtiness and mockery had vanished and been replaced by this shivering drab, face as pale as the candle she was holding. I thought, when I wrote that poem, as youth does think, that I knew everything about love. I looked into her eyes, wild, darting like a fearful animal, and realised that I knew nothing, except that I loved her even more.

She looked more frightened than ever at the sight of me, and backed up the steps. I snatched the key out of the lock.

‘Who’s that?’ Mr Black called out. ‘Who’s there?’

Anne retreated back. I pulled her to me, clapping a hand over her mouth, afraid she would cry out. I whispered into her ear. ‘Stay – when you hear a noise in the shop, run back to your room.’

I snuffed her candle out, stifling her little cry of fear, and crept up the steps.

‘Who’s that?’ Mr Black repeated.

I heard the crack of a stair that was rotten, followed by Mr Black’s muttered curse, and knew he was nearly downstairs. I slipped into the kitchen as he entered the room, holding up his candle. Its light flickered towards me. I ducked behind a chair. From there I could see into the printing shop.

As Mr Black, candle in one hand, stick in the other, approached the stairs that led to the cellar, I flung the key into the shop. It hit the press and, by great good fortune, dislodged some of the drying pamphlets, the clips holding them clattering down.

‘Thieves!’ he yelled, setting the candle down and running into the shop. I went after him, ducking round the press, trying to get to the door, but he saw me and blocked my way. He drew back his stick. Whatever vague plan I had formed deserted me.

‘It’s you!’ he said. ‘How did you get out?’

‘Run!’ I shouted. ‘Run!’

‘Two of you are there!’

I dodged the first blow. He had his back to the kitchen and I glimpsed Anne’s petrified face as she emerged from the cellar steps.

‘I can handle two of you!’

Distracted by the sight of Anne, the next blow caught me and a third sent me to the floor.

‘Where’s the other? Who let you out?’

I flung my hands round my head, curling up into a submissive ball as I had done so many times before to receive his blows. Then the thought of him seeing Anne drove me to fight in a way I had not done since they first took me from Poplar. Through an aching, blurred mist I saw his legs, inches from me, grabbed them, and pulled. Off balance as he swung back his stick, he went down easily, a look of great astonishment on his face, hitting the floor with such a thud I thought the house must fall down.

I was at the door, fumbling with the key, before I realised he hadn’t moved, and there was no sound from him. I went back to him. Mr Black was still, his eyes closed. One wild thought after another chased through my head. I was in love. I had told her I loved her. And moments afterwards I had killed her father!

As I bent over him, his eyes shot open and he grabbed my wrist. He was a powerful man and I could not wrench away. I grabbed hold of the table to stop him from pulling me down. A chair clattered down.