‘What else could he have done? He had to meet people to seek new business.’
‘And look where it got him! And now Will is out day after day visiting the sick and putting himself at risk.’ Agnes picked fretfully at the cuff of her nightgown.
Susannah gripped the comb so tightly that the ivory teeth bit into her palm. It was her constant fear that William would sicken.
‘I never cared very much for Henry,’ continued Agnes. ‘He was too like his mother, seeking only pleasant diversions and unable to bear life’s disappointments. Will, however is altogether different from his cousin.’
‘He takes very great care of his patients.’
Agnes sighed. ‘Close the curtains, will you? Help me into bed and read me something soothing.’
Susannah slowly pulled the curtains across the tightly closed window, reluctant to shut out the beauty of the fiery sunset. The bedchamber was claustrophobic from the warmth of the day but Agnes feared the noxious humours rising from the city even more than she disliked an overheated bedchamber.
Picking up a book from the bedside table, Susannah pulled the stool close to the candle. She forced her turbulent thoughts to the back of her mind as she began to read.
‘Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
Woods or steepy mountains yields.’
She glanced at Agnes and saw that her eyes were closed. Just for a moment she let her thoughts drift to William and her visit to Merryfields. How peaceful it was there and how free from the cares of the world he had seemed then!
‘And we will sit upon the rocks
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.’
Agnes’s mouth had fallen open and her breathing was even but Christopher Marlowe’s words had no power to quieten Susannah’s own confused frame of mind today.
In the garden that morning, how could she have imagined, even for a moment, that William cared for her? Her pregnancy revolted him and, as Arabella had pointed out, he could not possibly find her attractive while she was bloated and ugly with another man’s child.
Taking care not to disturb her mistress, Susannah placed the book back on the bedside table and left the room.
Her thoughts were still so caught up with William that she didn’t hear Joseph as he ran along the corridor behind her until he raced past. She put out her hand and caught him. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry, little man?’
‘Doan want to go to bed!’
‘But it’s late.’ She looked up as she heard footsteps and saw Phoebe. ‘There’s your mama. Be a good boy and do as she bids you.’
Phoebe took the child’s hand. ‘Come, Joseph!’
‘I’m not tired!’
‘But you will be tired tomorrow if you don’t rest now,’ said Susannah. ‘I don’t want to see you falling asleep while I’m teaching you your letters. Your mama will be very proud of you when you can read and write, won’t you, Phoebe?’
The black woman stuck out her bottom lip. ‘A slave don’t need letters,’ she said. ‘A slave needs freedom.’
‘Perhaps …’ Susannah hesitated, trying to ignore her antagonism, ‘perhaps when Joseph is grown up, if he can read and learn how to make his own way in the world, perhaps then he might be free.’
‘If you say he can be free? Why do you have the power for his life, or mine? What makes you better than Joseph and me?’ Phoebe almost spat the words out and her eyes glittered with a dangerous light.
Susannah took a step back. ‘I would like to see Joseph have opportunities but for that he needs education.’
‘Education? Ha! A white man’s word. You think my son need education because he is white man’s son?’
‘It’s not just because Joseph is Dr Ambrose’s son!’
Phoebe stared at her. Then a slow smile spread across her face. ‘You know Joseph is doctor’s son? And you want help Joseph?’
‘Dr Ambrose has asked me to teach Joseph his letters.’
Slowly Phoebe nodded. ‘I seen you looking at Dr Ambrose. You think if you teach Joseph, the doctor love you.’
‘How dare you!’
‘Joseph is my son. And the doctor his father. Don’t you forget it! Your husband die only a few months ago and already you look for a new man, even before baby come. My people have a name for women like dat.’ Phoebe took a firm grip on Joseph’s hand and pulled him away.
Susannah watched them disappear round the corner, her fingers twitching as she itched to slap the triumphant smile off the other woman’s face. How dare she! She went into the chapel, slamming the door behind her to give vent to her feelings.
The dying sunset had painted the chapel walls a rich gold and Susannah curled up on the window seat to watch the orange disc of the sun drop behind the rooftops. After a while, the beauty of the sunset began to ease the agitation of her mind. The street below was already cast in shadow and a few people hurried by on their way home. A rat streaked along the ground, stopping to investigate a mound of kitchen waste, and then sat there, as bold as brass, gnawing a bone. One by one, candles appeared in the windows of the houses opposite as the light faded.
A familiar figure strode along the street, deftly sidestepping the rubbish.
William was early tonight, thought Susannah, her heart thudding. She smoothed her curls and pinched her cheeks, desperately hoping he would seek her out and continue their interrupted conversation.
The front door clanged shut and footsteps mounted the stairs and echoed along the corridor, stopping outside the door to the chapel.
Susannah held her breath.
After a moment the footsteps continued.
Involuntarily, she called his name. ‘William!’
The door creaked open and William’s head appeared.
‘Susannah, what are you doing here, sitting all alone in the gloom?’
‘Agnes went early to bed and I’ve been watching the sunset.’
‘Did you want something?’
Her blossoming hope died. ‘No, I merely wondered if you’d had a good day.’
‘In so far as there were no deaths, I suppose you could say I’d had a good day. And your health? It remains good?’
‘Apart from a little backache and some bad dreams I am well, thank you.’
‘I am pleased to hear it.’
‘I saw Goody Joan the other day. She told me that vivid dreams are quite normal for a woman in my condition.’
‘She is a fine midwife with a good record of successful births.’ He stopped, as if he’d run out of commonplace conversation at last. ‘I’ll bid you goodnight, then.’
‘Goodnight.’
Susannah turned her gaze back to the darkening street below, disappointment making her eyes smart. Had she imagined it then, that William had looked upon her with affection, no, more than affection in his eyes? Or was her present condition inflaming her imagination? But she had been so sure that he had been about to tell her that he cared for her.
It was no good sitting in the half-dark mooning like a lovesick calf over a man who simply thought of her as a patient. And a charity case, at that. As she uncurled herself from the window seat she saw the door of the house opposite flung wide. A young woman tumbled out whom Susannah recognised as Jane Quick. Her fair hair was uncovered and loose upon her shoulders. She ran across the street, heedless of the mire as she splashed through the stinking drain.
A second or so later Susannah started at the sound of hammering upon the knocker. By the time she had made her way down the stairs Peg had opened the door and Jane stood there wringing her hands and sobbing.
‘The physician! Is he here? Please, he must come now! It’s Edwin. He’s been sniffing and sneezing with a summer cold but this evening he fell into a swoon and I can’t wake him. He’s burning with fever and I don’t know what to do!’
&nb
sp; Peg flattened herself against the wall. ‘The plague? Go away! We don’t want the plague here!’
‘Peg!’ said Susannah sharply. ‘You forget yourself! Go upstairs and call Dr Ambrose. At once!’
‘Yes, miss.’ Peg scurried up the stairs.
Susannah swallowed back her own fear at the terror in Jane Quick’s eyes. ‘Go and sit with Edwin now,’ she said. ‘Dr Ambrose will come over to you. And I’ll send you a bottle of a very good medicine that I have in the still room.’
Jane Quick had only been gone a moment when William hastened down the stairs, his beaked mask in his hand.
Susannah caught at his sleeve. ‘William, be careful, won’t you? What if it is the plague?’
‘Then it is in the hands of God and there is little I can do except ease the child’s suffering and wait.’
‘But what if he sneezes over you?’
William gave a half-smile. ‘I have long learned to dodge a sneeze. And in any case I have a theory that the plague isn’t spread by sneezes and noxious air at all.’
‘A theory! What good is that?’
‘The best hope I have at present.’
‘Wait, just a moment! I promised Mistress Quick a bottle of my Plague Prevention Syrup.’ She rushed off to the still room and returned to thrust the bottle into William’s hand. ‘Take a dose yourself, too.’
He nodded and closed the door behind him.
It was dawn when Susannah was jolted awake. She had kept vigil on the chapel window seat, waiting for William to emerge from the house opposite, and finally dozed off just before dawn until the spine-chilling scream reverberated through the houses.
In the street below Jane Quick fought and twisted in her husband’s arms as he attempted to quieten her shrieks. A horse and cart had stopped outside their house, its grim cargo of corpses half-covered with sacking. The driver jumped down and held the horse’s head as it whinnied and kicked up its heels, frightened by the commotion.
The small crowd fell back like the waters of the Red Sea as one of the buriers came out of the house carrying the body of a small boy.
Gasping in horror, Susannah hastened down the stairs in time to see William running out of the door in front of her.
‘I didn’t hear you come home!’
‘I returned an hour ago, after I alerted the watchers that the boy was gravely ill.’
As the burier covered the boy with the sacking, Jane Quick began to thrash and scream again. ‘Francis! Francis, don’t let them take our baby! Can’t you see? He’s only sleeping. Just a little summer cold, that’s all it is!’
‘Jane, he’s gone! Edwin has gone.’ Francis Quick held his wife tightly to his chest, his face buried in her loosened hair.
All at once Jane gave up the fight and collapsed against him, weeping piteously.
The driver climbed back onto the cart, flicked the horse with his whip and trundled away.
Susannah bit her knuckles at the sight of Jane’s distress, tears of pity on her face.
‘You must go into your house now,’ said William to the weeping couple. ‘Do you have family who can feed you?’
‘Feed us? Do you think we can eat while our son is on his way to the plague pit?’ said Francis Quick.
Jane moaned and buried her face in her husband’s shoulder.
‘Do you have family nearby?’ persisted William. ‘Is there someone I can fetch for you?’
Quick shook his head. ‘Our family is all in Leicestershire. We only came to London a year back.’
‘I must go with Edwin,’ wailed Jane. ‘I must know where they are taking him.’
She pulled away from her husband and made to run off after the cart but a heavily built man carrying a halberd stepped forward from the dissipating crowd and barred her way. ‘Back in the house, mistress,’ he said. ‘You’ve to be quarantined.’
‘But I must go …’
‘You cannot.’ He grasped her with beefy hands and pushed her towards the open front door. ‘And you, sir. Now.’
Defeated, the Quicks went inside.
White-faced, William moved to take hold of Susannah’s arm but thought better of it. ‘I must cleanse myself for fear of infection. Let me take you home.’
‘William, I know them! I met Jane Quick and little Edwin a few weeks ago,’ wept Susannah. ‘Edwin fell over in a puddle and Jane scolded him. One minute he was a mischievous little boy and now he’s about to be thrown into the pit and covered in quicklime like a piece of rotten horse meat!’
‘Don’t think of that. Remember he’s gone to a better place.’
‘Look! Oh, William, must they?’
The watchman had begun to nail shut the door to Jane Quick’s house, each hammer blow making Susannah wince.
Inside the house Jane Quick began to scream again.
Chapter 19
Black depression settled over the household like a sea-coal fog. Susannah sat on the chapel window seat for hour after hour watching the house on the other side of the street, haunted by the memory of poor little Edwin’s body. There was a red cross painted on the door now and passers-by gave it a wide margin. The watchman slouched on the doorstep picking his teeth with a knife and in the evenings he was replaced by another guard for the night shift.
William visited the Quicks every day, calling up to them through the upstairs window. He reported that the couple remained free of plague symptoms but suffered greatly from a sickness of the spirits.
A great pall of smoke rose up over the rooftops as Edwin’s bed and all the household blankets and linen were thrown onto a bonfire in the back yard. Once it was apparent that his parents had not been immediately stricken down, Agnes gave Susannah leave to turn out the linen closet and to take a set of sheets and a blanket to the house over the street. Susannah fetched cleansing herbs from her father’s shop for the Quicks to smoke away the pestilence and made up a basket of provisions for them.
Francis Quick lowered a rope from the window to haul up the basket. ‘Thank you, Mistress Savage. The food we had has all spoiled and a month is a long time to go without.’
‘I’ll come by again,’ said Susannah. ‘How is poor Jane?’
‘She lies on her bed weeping and is grown very thin.’
‘Tell her I am thinking of her.’
That evening William sighed and put down his knife. ‘Don’t keep watching me like that, Susannah! It puts me off my supper.’
‘I want to be sure you haven’t caught the infection from the Quicks.’
‘Do you think I would stay here to endanger you all if I thought I was sickening? Eat your dinner and try not to worry.’
‘But we do! What if—’
Agnes held up her hand to Susannah. ‘William is a great deal more sensible than Henry,’ she said.
‘Good God, I should hope so!’ said William, his expression aghast.
In the silence that followed Susannah found herself thinking that, however sensible William appeared, he was the one who had fathered a child by a slave woman.
William cut himself another slice of bread. ‘It is interesting, and maybe I shall write a paper on it later on, but I can’t help noticing that where there is overcrowding and poverty and filth, that’s where the worst of the sickness lies. In the richer sort of households it’s common for there to be only one or two victims, however much the patient sneezes. And not everyone who sickens dies.’
‘So …’ Susannah hesitated while she considered this new idea. ‘So you don’t think the pestilence is spread by sneezes and evil humours from the smog or the river?’
‘I believe that either the good Lord is watching over me or that the infection cannot be spread by the means you describe. There may even be different sorts of the pestilence.’ He leaned forward. ‘If only we could rid the city of the rat-infested tenements and clean the filth from the alleys and drains I’m sure we could bring the plague under control.’
‘There is always plague in the city,’ said Agnes. ‘It’s been there for as long as I
can remember, gathering strength every now and again and lying in wait for us.’
‘There must be more we can do!’ said Susannah. ‘If only I’d been born a man I could have been an apothecary. Or even a doctor.’
William gave a tight little smile. ‘But the world is a richer place for your feminine graces.’
Agnes cackled. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve heard you pay a woman a pretty compliment, William.’
‘I am merely stating a truth,’ he said.
Susannah was gratified to note that the tips of his ears had turned as pink as her cheeks. ‘That’s all very well,’ she replied, ‘but I serve no useful purpose any more and it irks me.’
‘You are fulfilling a useful purpose in giving lessons to young Joseph. And I understand you are teaching Emmanuel too. I found him spelling out the words from my newspaper the other day.’
Agnes pushed her plate away. ‘What purpose is there in teaching a slave to read and write, especially if he is strong and could be put to better use in the fields?’
‘Every reason,’ said William. ‘A slave, a woman or a child from the poorest hovel, everyone should have the opportunity of an education. Who knows what treasures are hidden behind the most unlikely façades?’
‘And what happens when you have educated every last serving wench?’ Agnes banged her fist on the table. ‘Who then will empty the slops?’
Susannah’s sleep continued to be disturbed by nightmares and she woke early one morning all tangled up in the sheet and with her heart racing. She’d dreamed again of her mother’s terrible struggle to give birth and of the baby’s barbaric death. Her mother’s anguish seemed so real that every time she dreamed of it, Susannah carried the pain in her breast the following day: an aching, empty feeling that made her fear afresh for the loss of her own child.
Heavy-hearted, she dressed and went downstairs.
Peg was busy banking up the fire, while Phoebe shined the pewter.
‘You’re up early,’ said Mistress Oliver as she slid the bread into the oven and banged the door shut behind it. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’
The Apothecary's Daughter Page 24