At the Sign of the Sugared Plum

by Mary Hooper

  When I arrived at the front of Abby’s house I saw a most fearsome sight, for the plague cart was at the front door and the carters were taking away a large bundle. Of course, my first fear was that it was Abby, for notwithstanding that the groom had told me last night that she was perfectly healthy, I had heard many tales of persons being well one moment and dead the next.

  I held back for a while in the shadow of the opposite building, my heart pounding, but then, having judged by the size of the corpse that it could not be Abby, went around the back of the house to call up to her.

  She was already at the first-floor window, standing looking out with the babe in her arms, and she looked so thankful to see me that I almost fell to crying. She still had a flower tucked behind her ear, but that flower was fading now, and her face was pale, her dress creased and stained.

  ‘I have been here since daylight,’ she said and, when I began to apologize for not getting there earlier, added that it was not because she was especially waiting for me, but because she wished little Grace to draw in what fresh air she could from outside and not let her breathe in the foul atmosphere of the house.

  ‘I saw the cart outside,’ I said. ‘Who was it that died?’

  ‘Cook,’ she answered.

  ‘So quickly?’ I gasped.

  She nodded. ‘I did not like the old baggage . . .’ Here she stopped and struggled to compose herself. ‘. . . but I would not have wished that death on her.’

  ‘How did she . . . did she have the buboes?’

  Abby nodded. ‘In her groin. She screamed for four hours last night.’

  ‘Was there nothing could be done?’

  ‘Nothing. She cried out that she could not bear the pain and was going to fling herself out of the window, and the nurse had to tie her to her bed.’

  I shuddered. ‘And then what—?’

  ‘Then she fell into a deep sleep and woke before dawn to start screaming again. She found the strength from somewhere to break the ropes that bound her, then ran through the house and threw herself down the back staircase.’ Abby drew in a little breath, making a sound between a sob and a laugh. ‘She knew her place even then, see, for she made sure it was the servants’ stairs.’

  She dipped her head and wiped her eyes on the swaddling sheet. ‘And now her neck is broke and she is no more.’

  ‘And you. Are . . . are you well?’ I faltered.

  She struggled to compose herself. ‘I am. I’ll be all right. For aren’t we good country stock and as strong as ’roaches?’ She smiled faintly.

  ‘And what of the others in the house?’

  ‘The master complains that he cannot sleep for pains in his arms, so they are going to send the doctor round,’ Abby said. ‘And one of the maids says she has a sick headache. But every little sniff and ache is the plague to us!’

  ‘Is there anything you want?’

  She shook her head. ‘The milch-ass comes twice a day, an apothecary calls with fresh tinctures and the wretch at the door buys our food for us. We have everything we need.’ She looked at me bleakly. ‘We just have to wait.’

  ‘Forty days?’

  ‘Forty days from the last death,’ Abby said wearily. ‘If another of us dies in a week’s time, or two weeks’ time, then that forty days will start again.’

  I swallowed and my throat was dry with horror, for I knew I could not bear being shut up in that house for those weeks amongst the dead and dying. ‘I have brought you some sweetmeats,’ I said quickly. ‘Candied angelica and some rosemary comfits.’

  Comfits for corpses. The thought came to me unbidden and I quickly brushed it aside.

  Abby looked a little cheered. ‘I will send down a basket,’ she said, and holding the babe deftly in the crook of her arm, she put out a little wicker basket on a string and lowered it to the ground. Carefully – I did not let my fingers come into contact with the basket – I put the cones of sweetmeats in and stood back to allow her to pull it up.

  ‘Will you come again, Hannah?’ she asked.

  I nodded. ‘I will try to come every day. And if you need anything, you must tell me and I will try to get it for you.’

  We blew kisses, said goodbye, and I turned away.

  Abby called me back. ‘Hannah!’ she added, with a touch of her old spirit. ‘You be sure to kiss your sweetheart!’

  Chapter Twelve

  The fourth week of August

  ‘Every day sadder and sadder news of its increase . . . it is feared that the true number of the dead this week is nearer ten thousand.’

  For the next few days the church bells seemed to toll incessantly for one death after another, until an Order came from the Lord Mayor that they should be stopped, for everyone was much cast-down by hearing them. The weariness of spirit I’d noticed around me when visiting Abby had spread and it seemed that some people no longer cared what happened. This led them to go one of two ways: either they sank into a deep gloom, or they began frequenting the ale houses (for these had begun to open again) and drank themselves past false joviality and into a stupor.

  Although our herbal sweetmeats were still selling quite well, no one had much faith in preventatives any more – not when the dead were to be found clutching the very talismans that they’d hoped would save them. There were no directives from the authorities and it seemed that they had washed their hands of us, for the only new instruction we heard was that it was forbidden to build plague hospitals near to the dwellings of persons of substance and quality.

  I had a mind to visit Abby again, but the next morning, after sleeping badly (for I still had the fear of the plague pit on me), I could hardly rouse myself up, and my legs trembled as I put them to the floor.

  Sarah bade me stay in bed. ‘For if you feel weak you may be more likely to take infection,’ she said.

  The next morning I was the same and I slept most of that day, weary, tearful and, for the first time, wishing myself safe back in Chertsey with my brothers and sisters. It crossed my mind – and of course it crossed Sarah’s – that these were the first stirrings of plague about my body, but praise be, the third morning, I felt better and was anxious to go out and see how Abby fared.

  Before I could do this, however, Mr Newbery came in to tell us a fresh and morbid tale, which was of a friend of his, one Josiah Brown, who, he said, was as well and as merry a chap as ever you could meet. ‘He took all the precautions against the plague, and when he was out he carried a cloth of vinegar over his face, and never failed to change into fresh garments after going abroad. I saw him last week and he stood as healthy as you or I!’ he said. ‘Well, on Monday, my friend Josiah met someone in the street – an astrologer – who took one look and told him that he saw the mark of death on him.’

  Sarah and I exchanged glances, knowing what was coming next.

  ‘Why, Josiah laughed in his face,’ Mr Newbery went on, ‘and said he had never felt so well in all his life. But when he got home he changed his clothes and saw to his horror that he had the tokens on his breast. And he knew that the tokens were gangrene spots and that the plague had gone inwards and mortified his flesh.’ He paused for breath. ‘And then my friend Josiah just sat down and died.’

  Sarah tutted, shook her head, but I was silent, thinking of Abby.

  ‘Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!’ Mr Newbery went on. ‘You may as well die happy as any other way.’ He winked at me. ‘Or catch the French pox, eh? That’s worth a try!’

  I didn’t know what he was talking about but when he left, Sarah blushingly told me that it was thought that if a man lay with a prostitute and caught a disease, then that would stop him catching the plague. ‘But ’tis all just a rumour,’ she said, ‘for no one knows anything of what is true and what is not any more.’ She frowned. ‘But I cannot believe that God would allow a man to be saved by sleeping with a . . . a whore, for this wouldn’t be right.’

  On the way to Abby’s house, to my horror, I saw another corpse on the street (a woman, seemingly big
with child) and heard the agonised sobs of people from an enclosed room, and so began to fear of what I might find when I reached Belle Vue House. But Abby was at the window once more, though looking pale and weary. There was no flower behind her ear now, and her hair was hanging in lank tails on each side of her face.

  I asked how she was and she shook her head listlessly. ‘I am well enough and I have no lumps,’ she said, ‘but I fear I shall go mad with being enclosed here.’

  ‘But how is your mistress – and the babe?’ I added anxiously, for I could see she was not nursing it as usual.

  She shook her head. ‘The babe is well and sleeps. But Mistress Beauchurch does nothing but cry and ’tis difficult to tell whether she is sick or well. My master has now a lump in his groin and groans aloud – I fear he is failing – and Becky, the other maid, lies in bed with such a sweat on her that we cannot keep her dry no matter how often we change the sheets.’

  I gasped. ‘Is it plague, then?’

  Abby did not reply for a moment and I had to ask again.

  ‘We fear so,’ she then answered in a low voice. ‘For she was often enough with Cook.’

  ‘And do you have to nurse her?’

  She shrugged. ‘We have a nurse-minder sent in by the parish every morning, but she is a haggard old crone who knows next to nothing, and Becky is terrified of her.’ Abby’s hands gripped the sides of the window frame. ‘Hannah, if I die you must promise you’ll get a message to my mother in Chertsey.’

  ‘Of course!’ I said before I could stop myself, and quickly added, ‘But you won’t die! We’re strong as ’roaches, remember?’

  But her eyes had glazed over and she was thinking I knew not what terrible thoughts. I tried to think of things to speak about to lighten her heart, but it was hard, for all that was on my mind – indeed, all that was on the mind of anyone in London – was the plague, the pits, the corpses on the streets and horrid tales of those who had been afflicted. I left her, promising that I would go back as soon as I could, and I vowed to myself that I would do this even if I had the lethargy on me again, for it seemed little enough in comparison to what she was going through.

  At home I had the most pleasant surprise, for Tom was there taking a glass of small beer with Sarah. She had sent a message to Doctor da Silva while I’d been out, to ask for something which would help me sleep soundly and prevent nightmares, and Tom had brought up a phial containing oil of lavender.

  He told me to put one drop on my tongue on retiring, and one on my pillow.

  ‘No more,’ he said, ‘for it is extremely potent.’

  ‘And will it help her sleep?’ Sarah asked him anxiously.

  He nodded. ‘It helps in all manner of night terrors and passions of the heart.’ He smiled at me mischievously as he said these last four words, and raised his eyebrows. I could not help myself smiling back at him.

  He could not stay, for at Doctor da Silva’s they were busy day and night with making preventatives, for although it seemed that people no longer believed in them, they still wanted to take them.

  ‘The doctor says they must have hope in something, for if that goes then all is lost,’ Tom said, draining his glass.

  He and I went to the door of the shop together and I told him the latest news about Abby and asked if he could offer any advice. He could not, however, apart from saying that I should tell Abby not to sleep in the same room as Becky, that she should keep to her own chamber as much as possible.

  I hesitated before asking my next question. ‘Do you think it is . . . is dangerous for me to speak to Abby from some distance away?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘I do not think so,’ he said. ‘But no one knows for sure.’ He took my hand and spoke earnestly to me, ‘Hannah, you will take care, will you not?’

  I nodded shyly.

  ‘I think about you often, and if I could do what the necromancers say they can do, and cast a cloak of protection over you, then I would.’

  Our gazes locked and I could not reply for the fullness of my heart and the tightness in my throat.

  ‘And when all this is over . . .’ he said softly.

  Our hands touched, I lifted my face to his and let my eyelids drift down, ready . . . then I heard a jovial laugh beside us and Mr Newbery’s voice saying, ‘Ah, that’s right – gather ye rosebuds while ye may!’

  Unwillingly, I opened my eyes.

  ‘That’s what the poet tells us,’ Mr Newbery went on, ‘and in this dark time it would be as well to remember it!’

  I glared at him, thinking that if ever there was an inappropriate time for Mr Newbery to appear with one of his stories, then this was it. But he did not seem to notice, just looked from me to Tom, casting his merry and unwelcome smile on each of us in turn. ‘If I’m not mistaken, you’re the ’prentice lad from the apothecary’s!’ he said. ‘Now, tell me what faith you have in holding a gold angel in your mouth to keep off the sickness, for I have heard ’tis the very thing.’

  Tom cast a sorry look at me, twining his hand in mine, and I squeezed his fingers for goodbye and dropped a small curtsey, for I knew Mr Newbery could speak for a great deal of time when he had a mind to.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me . . .’ I murmured, and Tom smiled at me – a bright, tender smile – before I went inside again.

  I used the lavender oil that night, and, thinking of Tom before I went to sleep, did sleep sounder and felt better. To my great shame, however, I let two whole days elapse before visiting Abby again. I had no excuse to offer for this, except my own selfishness, for while I stayed with Sarah and kept within the confines of the shop I felt I was out of harm’s way. I did not feel safe in the city any more, for Death stalked its streets and no one was immune. I no longer thought London an exciting place to be.

  Abby was not waiting at the window when I went round, nor did she come when I called up to her. I waited and called again, several times, and at length, fearing the very worst and chastising myself for staying away, I went round to the front of the house and spoke to the man guarding the door. At least there was a man still guarding them, I thought, so there must be someone alive inside.

  I told him that I had come to speak to my friend the maid but had not been able to rouse her, and fearfully asked him if there had been other deaths in the house. He told me there had, but he could not say who they were.

  ‘For the usual fellow is taken sick and I only came here last night,’ he said.

  I began trembling, and felt ashamed and low, for what if Abby had died since my last visit . . . had dragged herself to the window to look for me, but I had not come?

  ‘How many have died altogether in the house?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Three, I believe. Or four.’

  I went round to the back again and threw some gravel up to the window, and called and called. At last, at very long last, someone appeared. It was Abby, yet not the Abby I knew, for this person had a wild eye and a pain-filled face, and her forehead glittered with beads of sweat.

  I could see at once that she had been deeply and fatally afflicted, but I tried to swallow down the fright I felt at her appearance. ‘At last,’ I said, ‘I have been a-calling this hour or more.’

  Abby smiled down at me. A strange smile she had, and an odd gleam in her eye.

  ‘I have been visited, Hannah!’ she said, and to my extreme surprise her voice had the tone of one telling another that a favourite friend had called. ‘Visited at last. It courted me but I resisted it for days . . .’

  ‘I . . . I see,’ I said.

  ‘Death called me to come into his arms! And what is a maid to do?’ She gave a sudden cry of pain and clutched her head with both hands. ‘Oh, but it is a hard and spiteful master!’ she cried.

  I choked back tears. ‘Are you in great pain, Abby? Where is the nurse to look after you?’

  ‘The nurse hasn’t arrived today, Hannah. No nurse.’ She shook her head gravely. ‘She must be dead too. They are all dead. And I have two fearful lumps come u
p in my groin so that I cannot walk as far as the privy but must lie in my own soil.’

  I was sickened at this, but tried not to show it. Poor, poor Abby, who so loved her pretty gowns and her silk ribbons and who had come out with me on many a May morning in order to bathe her face in the dew and be beautiful.

  ‘Is everyone dead, Abby? Your master and mistress too?’

  She nodded. ‘Within an hour of each other. In the beautiful chamber with the mirrors from Venice and the hangings from Persia.’

  ‘But – all dead? What about the babe?’

  ‘The babe!’ A sudden light lit her face. ‘Little Grace survives. But she cries – oh, how she cries! She is a poor orphan babe though, so she is right to cry.’ Abby was leaning against the window frame and suddenly slipped sideways so that she disappeared from view. I called to her again.

  ‘Abby!’ I said urgently. ‘What can I do for you? Is there something I can get you? Anything at all?’

  I didn’t think I would get a proper response, for I could see that the horror of what she must have seen in that house had already driven her half mad, but suddenly her two hands appeared, gripping the sill, and she pulled herself to her feet.

  She looked at me with glittering eyes. ‘Yes, Hannah,’ she said. ‘I almost forgot. You must take the babe.’

  Astonished, I thought I must have misheard her, so did not reply.

  ‘I promised Mrs Beauchurch, my mistress, that you would get the babe away if I could not. It is all planned. There is a letter for you . . .’ Abby flinched with pain and pressed her hand to her head, then raked it through her hair, knotting a handful of it around her fist as if she would pull it out.