The heat was great that summer and people saw in this a reason for the spread of the plague. In the gutters the filth stank and rotted and the rats multiplied. The city was the scene of desolation; the shops closed, the streets emptied except for the pest carts and those who were dying on the cobbles. Orders were given that fires should be lighted in the streets for three days and nights in succession in the hope of destroying the rotting rubbish and purifying the air. The deaths, which in the beginning had been one thousand a week, were reaching ten thousand. The King and the Court had moved to Salisbury, but when the plague reached that town they adjourned to Oxford.
At Eversleigh we were ever on the alert. I was terrified that some harm would come to my son. Every morning, as soon as I arose, I would hurry to the nursery to assure myself that he was in perfect health.
Sir Geoffrey stayed on. We impressed on him that it would be folly to return to London just yet. He seemed very willing to agree to this and interested himself in the estate and made himself useful in several ways. He himself had estates much closer to London and he told me that he really should be there. However, it was pleasant to linger and his affairs were in the best of hands.
“It has been so pleasant here,” he went on. “I have grown so fond of the little boys. I always wanted a boy of my own and I would have liked him to be just like Edwin.”
Nothing he said could have pleased me more. He had made me see too how fortunate I was. I had lost my husband, but fate had been kind in giving me my son.
What a relief it was when September came and the weather turned cold. The good news came that the number of deaths in the capital had dropped considerably. There was no doubt that the excessively hot weather had been in some respects responsible. Rain came and that was a further help and gradually parishes began to be declared free of the plague.
There was great rejoicing throughout the country and those who had left London were now eager to return.
Geoffrey went, declaring he would soon be back. We must visit him, he said. He would enjoy riding round his land and showing it to young Edwin. We missed him when he had gone, and this applied particularly to my son. We all said we must meet again soon. The kind of experience we had had was a firm foundation for friendship.
It was disconcerting to hear that ninety-seven thousand people were known to have died from the plague but, as Carleton pointed out, many deaths would not have been recorded. One hundred and thirty thousand was more like the number.
It was a sobering thought.
“There is too much filth in the streets of big cities,” he said. “They are saying that the rats carry the plague and where they are this will be. We could clean up our streets and then perhaps we should not be cursed with this periodic plague.”
We were all greatly relieved to have come through safely. Uncle Toby said what a delight it would be to visit London and the Court again. He was fascinated by the theatres which had improved considerably since the King had come home.
“The King loves the play,” said Carleton, “and since the fashionable world will follow its king, we have improved playhouses.”
“Very different from what they were when I went away,” agreed Uncle Toby. “Though we had the apron stage then.”
“Ah,” said Carleton, “but not the proscenium arch with the window opening onto a music room and the shutters which can be open and shut, thus make a change of scene.”
“A great improvement!” agreed Toby enthusiastically. “But I’ll tell you what is best on the stage today, Carl, my boy.”
“Don’t tell me, I know,” said Carleton. And they said simultaneously: “The women players.”
“Think of it!” went on Uncle Toby. “We used to see a delicious creature on the stage and just as we were getting interested we’d remind ourselves that it was a boy, not the pretty lady it seemed.”
“There is nothing to compare with the real thing,” said Carleton. “The King is all for the playhouses. He thinks they make his capital gay. The people need to laugh, he says. Odds fish, they’ve been solemn enough for too long. He won’t have them taxed, although some of our ministers have tried to make it difficult for them. The answer was that the players were the King’s servants and part of his pleasure.”
“Was it right,” asked Uncle Toby, “that Sir John Coventry asked whether the King’s pleasure lay with the men or the women?”
“He did, the fool,” replied Carleton, “and for once His Majesty did not appreciate the joke. Nor did others, for Coventry was set on in Suffolk Street and ever after bears the mark of a slit nose for that bit of foolery.”
“It seems a harsh punishment for a remark which might be considered reasonable,” I put in.
“Dear Cousin, have a care,” said Carleton lightly. “What a tragedy if that charming little nose of yours should suffer the same treatment.”
I put my hand to my nose protectively and Carleton was at my side. “Have no fear. I would never permit it. But it is a fact that even the most good-natured kings can now and then give sharp rejoinders.”
“I’ll swear the theatres will soon be full again,” said Uncle Toby.
“You can be sure that Killigrew and Davenant are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect,” said Carleton. “When we are absolutely sure that it is safe, you must visit a theatre again, Cousin. I wonder if the handsome Mistress Harriet Main is still about. You would be interested to see her, Uncle Toby, I don’t doubt.”
“Always like to see a handsome woman, my boy.”
“You shall, Uncle. You shall.”
By the following February the King had returned to Whitehall with the Duke of York, and the courts of justice were once more sitting in Westminster. Carleton went to London and was away some weeks and it was while he was away that Tamsy Tyler came to Eversleigh.
I knew Tamsy before, because when Barbary had come to Eversleigh, she had brought Tamsy with her as her personal maid. Tamsy had been adept at hairdressing and adding the right touch of colour to cheeks and knew exactly where to apply a patch or a black spot to enhance a particular feature. She had been a plump and rather pretty creature and I had had no doubt that she shared her mistress’s pleasure in the opposite sex.
The Tamsy who returned to us was quite different and alone.
She arrived at the gates footsore, weary and almost starving. I was in the garden when she came and it was some time before I recognized her.
I thought she was a beggar and I went to her in some concern because her state was pitiful. As I approached she cried out: “Mistress Arabella. Oh … Mistress Arabella … help me.”
Then she sank half fainting to the ground.
I didn’t believe then it could be the coquettish Tamsy, and it was only the timbre of her voice, which was rather high pitched, that gave me a clue to her identity.
“Tamsy,” I cried. “What has happened? You poor girl. Come along into the house. Where is your mistress?”
She could scarcely walk. I said: “I’ll call Ellen.” I laid my hand on her arm. Its thinness shocked me.
“I thought I could not get here …” she stammered.
Charlotte came out. “What is it, Arabella?” she asked.
I said: “It’s Tamsy.”
“Is Barbary with her?”
Tamsy shook her head. “Mistress …” She looked from me to Charlotte. “Mistress Barbary is dead, mistress. ’Twas some months ago. Right at the end of it all too. I nursed her through it and took ill myself.”
“Tamsy!” I cried in horror, my thoughts immediately going to Edwin.
“I am well enough, mistress. I was one of those who came through. Once you’ve had it you’re free of it, they say, forever. I’ve been free these two months or more. I wouldn’t come here till I was sure.”
“Let’s get here into the kitchen,” said Charlotte. “Oh, Ellen, look who this is. She’s ill. She needs looking after.”
“Tamsy,” cried Ellen. “Well, then, where is Mistress Barbary?”
> “She’s dead,” said Charlotte. “She died of the plague.”
Tamsy recovered quickly under Ellen’s care. In a day she looked less like a skeleton and could tell us what had happened without breaking into hysterical tears. She and her mistress had been in Salisbury when the Court was there, and when it left they went to Basingstoke because of a gentleman friend whom Mistress Barbary was meeting there. She did not know that he had come from London.
They had dallied there for three days and nights until he was taken sick. It was soon clear what ailed him.
Barbary had been frantic. She had been sharing a bed with the plague.
“Before we could leave the gentleman was dead and we were there in his house, all the servants gone and only the two of us. Then my mistress was taken ill and there was no one there to nurse but me, and I nursed her, and there she lay on her bed shivering and sick and not being sure whether she was there or not.
“She kept calling out for Carleton. It was pitiful to see her. She kept calling out about starting again and how she’d give anything to do that. How she’d accept him … and do what he wanted and how she’d be a good wife to him and how wrong it had been to take all those lovers … to pay him out for what he had done to her. Pardon me saying this, mistress, but ’tis gospel truth.”
“It was good of you to stay with her, Tamsy,” I said.
“Oh, I reckoned I couldn’t have escaped. You see there was his manservant who had been my friend, and he too was stricken.”
Poor Tamsy! Poor Barbary! Jasper would say it was God’s punishment for their sins.
“Oh, it were terrible, terrible,” cried Tamsy. “To see her horror … her fear when the horrible sores started to come. She screamed out to God to take them away, that she’d do anything to be rid of them. … And there they were … horrible to behold, and they would not break open either … great sores, they were, like carbuncles. If they break there’s a chance you can live but not if they don’t. … Then one day I saw it on her breast. … She saw it too … the macula they call it. They say when it shows on the breast that’s the end. She saw it and she thanked God for it because she wanted to die by then. And she did … she died within an hour. And there was I … alone … in the house with her. The cart had come to take him. So it would come to take her. I had been out in the dead of night and painted the red cross of death on the door. Now I waited at the window for the cart to come and I wrapped her in a sheet and I dropped her through the window. And there I was alone in the house behind the red cross of death.”
“My poor, poor Tamsy,” I cried. “You were a brave woman.”
“Brave, mistress? ’Tweren’t nothing else to do. I knew then, for the faintness and the sickness was getting me and there was I alone. I dunno. Perhaps because I was alone … I had to look after myself and funny like I said, ‘If I die, how’ll they know at Eversleigh? Master Carleton will never know he is a widower. So I mustn’t die.’ It seems funny now to live for such a reason. But I was half dazed with fever and I just had this feeling that I had to live. I saw the horrible sores taking over my body but I knew I’d never see the macula on my breast. Then they started to open … those sores did, and the plague came out of me and I knew I’d live. And gradually, they faded away and the sickness and the fever left me. And there was I alone in the plague house …
“I sat at the window and the pest cart came and I shouted: ‘I’m here. I’ve had the plague and I’m well again.’
“They wouldn’t come near me for two days and then they shouted to me. I had to burn everything in the house. I had to light fires everywhere. Burn all my clothes and everything on the beds. They passed food in to me and they sent me clothes and I came out.
“People came to look at me. It wasn’t many who had come through the plague.
“Then I set out for Eversleigh because I knew what I must do. I had to come and tell Master Carleton that he hadn’t got a wife anymore.”
The Seduction
GEOFFREY INSISTED THAT WE keep our promise, and we had met several times during the year. He would ride out to Eversleigh on the slightest pretext, and it seemed as though some business constantly brought him our way. Both Edwin and Leigh delighted in his visits and used to vie with each other to ride on his shoulders. He would carry them through the house and allow them to make crosses on the beams with a piece of chalk which meant that we should have good luck.
Carleton had accepted the news of Barbary’s death without emotion. I supposed it would have been quite false for him to have pretended grief considering the nature of the relationship between them. He merely shrugged his shoulders and said: “Poor Barbary. She had a talent for getting herself into awkward situations.” He looked at me quizzically and went on: “I know you are thinking that the most unfortunate of these was her marriage to me and you’re right.”
He went back to London but it was not long before he was back and he made a point of spending time in my company.
I was not really displeased about this although I pretended to myself that I was, which was foolish of me, of course, but I’m afraid I was rather foolish at this time. It was becoming clear to me that Geoffrey’s visits were not without some meaning. We liked each other very much. We had both been widowed. We had loved and lost and perhaps were both looking for someone who could give us companionship and fill that void which I was sure he felt in his life as I did in mine.
Geoffrey was a cautious man. I should admire that in him. He would not be the sort to rush into a relationship without having given it considerable thought beforehand. I believed that now he was weighing up the situation. He wanted to know so much about me; he wanted to make sure that we should be happy together.
It was wise, I told myself, and if not as romantic as my love for Edwin and his presumably for his dead wife, it was sensible.
I would never love anyone as I loved Edwin. I kept telling myself that. But should I deny myself the pleasures of marriage because I could no longer share them with Edwin?
There was my son, too. Perhaps he needed a father. He was surrounded by love. He lacked nothing really, and yet I had noticed how he loved to be with Geoffrey who could give him a certain kind of companionship which I couldn’t.
These were the thoughts which were in my mind on a lovely, sunny June day in that year 1666.
I was in the garden gathering roses, which I loved to arrange in containers and set about the house. I liked their scent to fill my rooms. I had always had a fancy for the damask rose, perhaps because my great-great-great-grandmother had been born at the time Thomas Linacre brought it to England and had been named after it.
I heard the sounds of arrival, and I immediately thought of Geoffrey, and as always when he called on us I would ask myself: I wonder if it will be today?
I always hoped not, because I was unsure. I could see so many reasons for saying yes and so many for refusing. Such a good father for Edwin, I thought. And I was fond of him. He was pleasant, charming, kindly. The sort of man one could rely on always … very different from …
Why should I want to think of Carleton at such a moment?
“Carleton!” He was there grinning at me and I felt that foolish flush rising to my cheeks.
“A charming picture,” he said. “The lady of the roses.” He took the basket from me and smelled the blooms. “Delicious,” he said looking at me.
“Oh, thank you, Carleton.”
“You look as if you were expecting someone else. Geoffrey Gillingham has become a very frequent visitor. Do you know, I begin to regret bringing him here.”
“Why should you? We all like him very much.”
“And he likes us … or some of us … and some of us probably like him better than others. Give me the basket. We’ll sit by the willows. I want to talk to you.”
“I have not finished gathering the roses yet. I want more of them.”
“You have enough here.”
“Pray, let me be the best judge of that.”
“
Dear Cousin Arabella, you can trust my judgement in this matter. What I have to say to you is of far greater moment than a basket of roses.”
“Say on, then.”
“Not here. I want you to sit down and give me your undivided attention.”
“As serious as that?”
He nodded and looked grave.
“Edwin,” I began.
“Yes, it concerns Edwin.”
“Carleton, is something wrong?”
“By no means. It could be right … very right …”
“Then pray tell me. Why do you beat about the bush?”
“It is you who are beating about bushes … rosebushes. Come and sit down and I’ll tell you at once.”
He had alarmed me, and I allowed myself to be led to the stone seat sheltered by the weeping willow trees.
“Well?” I said.
“I want you to marry me.”
“Marry you!”
“Why not? I’m free now and so are you. It would be the best possible answer to everything.”
“Everything! I’m afraid I don’t …”
He had seized me suddenly so that I was taken off my guard. He was kissing my face and caressing me in a way in which no one but Edwin ever had.
I tried to hold him back, but his strength was greater than mine and clearly he meant to remain in charge of the situation.
I whipped up my anger.
“How dare you!”
“I would dare everything for you,” he said. “Don’t be prudish, Arabella. You know you want me as I want you. Why make a secret of something so obvious?”
“Obvious?” I cried. “To whom?”
“To me, and that’s the one it should be obvious to. I sense it every time we meet. You’re crying out for me. You want me.”
“You have the most extraordinarily high opinion of your charms. I can assure you I want nothing so much at this moment as to be out of your sight.”
He looked at me, his mouth turned down in mock dismay and his eyes alight with mischief.
“Not true,” he said.
“Absolutely true. How dare you take me away from my …”
Lament for a Lost Lover Page 25