by Ann Turnbull
The day darkened early, the sun hidden behind a haze of smoke. People began settling down for the night.
“Susanna, thou must eat,” said Jane Catlin. She brought me a bowl of stew, but I had no appetite. I sipped a little, then gave the bowl to someone else and went to stand by the roadside, looking out for Will.
It was hard to distinguish faces in the dusk. The flow of people had lessened, and at last it almost stopped.
Jane took my arm. “Come away now, Susanna. Think of thy child.”
I did, and saw it fatherless, Will caught in the maze of burning alleyways, overcome by smoke, never to find his way out. “He said he’d come. He promised.”
“He’ll have gone to shelter somewhere. He’ll come in the morning, never fear.”
But I was besieged by fear. As night fell we saw before us the full horror of the burning city, lit up in its own dreadful day, and heard the roar of its destruction. All around us people sobbed and prayed.
“I’m London born and bred,” said Jane. “Those streets – I knew them all.” And she wept for her city.
The wind had turned cool.
“Come and sleep with me and Elizabeth Wright,” said Jane. “Thou’ll be warmer.”
“No, I thank thee.”
He would surely not come now, not in the dark, but I wanted to be in my own shelter, to keep a place for him there, in case by chance he did. I curled up, pulling the blankets close around me, but I could not sleep. I was too full of fearful imaginings.
William
I worked alone for an hour after Susanna left, stacking and baling. Outside, the street was full of people and carts, streaming towards the gates in a great clamour and confusion. There were explosions, rumbles of thunder; I knew the fire must still be spreading. Perhaps Edmund would be unable to get back. And Susanna: I’d been overbearing with her, and was sorry, and we’d parted unhappily. I longed to be done with the books, to go and find her.
The shop door opened, and Nat came in. I was never more glad to see him.
“We’re finished at the print shop,” he said. “Made safe all we can. I thought thou might need help.”
“I do,” I said gratefully. “Edmund has gone to see to his goods and family, and Susanna with Friends to find shelter in the fields. She didn’t want to go, Nat, but I insisted. We quarrelled.”
“She’ll forgive thee.” His words, casually spoken, cheered me more than he could have imagined. He began tying parcels as I wrapped them. “And thou did right to send her. I hear the gates are almost blocked with traffic now. They’ve had to ban carts from coming in, to ease the flow. You’ve got a good pile of books here. Faith’s is near full, they say.”
“Help me get another cartload there, will you? I don’t know when Edmund will be back.”
“For sure.”
We loaded up, and wheeled the cart the short distance to the storage place. Faith’s was a church within a church, in the crypt of Paul’s, and the books had to be carried down the steps to be taken from us by a verger and stacked within. We took it in turns to transport a few parcels while the other one guarded the cart, which we feared would otherwise be stolen.
I went with the first load, and saw how full the space now was. It no longer resembled a place of worship but was filling from floor to ceiling with books and papers – booksellers and stationers coming and going all the while with more stock. I thought of all the cellars and repositories throughout London that must be the same: the Guildhall, the company halls, the strongrooms at the Tower; and all the steeple-houses filled with the furniture and goods of their parishioners.
When Nat and I returned from our second delivery, Edmund was back – his hands and clothes dusty and streaks of soot on his face. He was grateful to have Nat’s help and apologized to me for being so long.
“They are all gone now, on their way to Essex,” he said, “and the servants with them, except Martin, who will travel with me. Think well, you two, before you burden yourselves with more goods than you need. It was impossible to get everything aboard and a cause of much argument what should go and what should stay.”
I wondered whether the virginal had gone; and I thought of Catherine, and of the Ramsey home and all its fine rooms under threat.
“I met Nick Barron,” Edmund told me. “He says he is ruined – his warehouse burnt, his home now in the path of the fire.”
I was shocked. For both my father and me, Nicholas Barron had represented security, wealth and advancement. He was to have been the making of me. It did not seem possible that such a man could be ruined.
“Could he save nothing?” I asked.
“Only such gold as he could carry. The rest he’s buried, and left to chance, as I have. The great stock of silks is in strongboxes in the cellars, but he has little hope of its survival. And he has no reserves. He put everything into the business, and last year the plague cut his trade to the bone.”
He’d be camping in the fields, then, I thought, as no doubt many once prosperous men were; would perhaps go back to Shropshire, if he had relatives there. It must be the end of all his dreams. I pitied him; having less, I could not lose so much.
We finished our work and took the last load to Faith’s, which we were told would be sealed shut so that no fire could enter. It was now late afternoon, I guessed, although all sense of time had gone. I thought of Susanna waiting for me, and felt impatient to be away.
The city was a threatening place now. The three of us decided to stay together while we could. We went first to Nat’s lodgings. Being reluctant to leave the cart, we took it with us to Creed Lane, where Nat found the Corders already fled. He put his few clothes and a bundle of bedding into the cart, and we made our way back to Paul’s and along Paternoster Row.
Edmund needed to go home, where Martin waited with horses, and then the two of them would go out through Bishopsgate to take the Woodford road. Nat and I had planned to leave through Aldersgate, but the street was blocked all the way back. Edmund waited with us as we debated what to do. All around us people were shouting, arguing, exchanging news. Someone spread an alarm that the authorities were about to shut the gates, causing a wave of panic to run through the crowd, which was unable to move forward or back.
“They want citizens to stay and fight the fire.”
“It’s too late for that!”
A push started; someone fell and went under the crush of feet; others screamed.
The thought of the gates closing, the city locking us into its fiery heart, terrified me. But then we heard that the ban was only on carts coming in. We did not know what to believe.
“Come with me,” Edmund suggested. “You might get out sooner by Moorgate or Bishopsgate.”
We agreed, and followed him.
Now we were moving east, into the wind and smoke. We passed the top of Bow Lane, and I looked down towards the steeple-house of Mary Aldermary, and saw beyond it a towering wall of flame. People were fleeing, bursting out of lanes and alleys, carrying bundles, children, even furniture. We heard the voice of the fire – a vast roar, so loud it made normal speech impossible – and within that sound was a malicious hungry crackling. The heat scorched my face; my eyes stung and my throat was full of burning ash.
As we hurried along Poultry the smoke parted to reveal a great building all ablaze, flames leaping from its roof. I realized it was the Exchange, and I stared in fascination and horror.
Men were there with water squirts, pumping, but they shouted that the water carried no force; it was almost gone. And their efforts were wasted: the building was doomed. We could not see its frontage, but fire was spouting from the upper storeys and balconies. Then, as we watched, the flames turned strange colours – blue, purple and green – and a wondrous smell of spices spread all around.
“The storerooms below,” said Edmund. And I realized that he himself must have had a stock of spices stored there, and that it was his wealth, or part of it, that burned so deliciously: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, anise.
The fire began to leap and invade the nearby houses and shops. We turned off, up a narrow lane – I had lost my bearings, but Edmund knew this area. The lane was full of people, a few still hauling goods out of their houses, struggling with babies, children, even a sick man on a pallet. Nat pulled the cart while I pushed from behind and Edmund walked alongside us. The cart, jolting over uneven ground, struck hard against a stone; a book (Nat’s Bible, I think) bounced out, and Edmund stooped to retrieve it. He straightened up – and at that moment the house next to him erupted in flame, fire shooting from the windows, the whole structure lit up in an instant.
People screamed, turned, fled back towards Poultry. As the house blazed, isolated from its untouched neighbours, a man – red-faced and frantic – pointed at Edmund. “He threw something! A fireball! I saw him take it from his cart!”
Edmund began to protest, but to my horror the red-faced man struck and felled him with one blow from his fist.
The others surrounded Nat and me.
“They’re Quakers or some such! Didn’t you hear them talking?”
But even as they went to set about us there was a cry of “Fire! Fire!” and I looked up to see a nearby roof and jetty blazing. The whole overhanging structure broke away and fell, showering us all with burning debris.
It was enough to scatter our attackers – though one had the forethought to take our cart with him. The lane was full of black, choking smoke and the burning house was now well alight.
Edmund struggled to his feet.
“Quickly!” I said.
Nat and I helped him away. He was shocked and in pain, and I feared his nose might be broken. One eye was closed, the flesh around it darkening and swelling. Despite this, he was able to direct us another way to his home. We hurried, guiding him between us, pushing through crowds until we came out in Throgmorton Street and I recognized with relief the Ramsey house.
Edmund’s servant, the young groom Martin, cried out in alarm when he saw his master. He led us into the kitchen and ran to fetch water and cloths.
“Lucky not everything has gone to Essex,” he said, producing soap and a bowl. Nat made a cold compress for the eye and told me to hold it in place while he bathed the bloody nose. Edmund submitted to this, gently apologizing for the trouble.
“It’s no trouble,” I said – though in truth it was keeping me from Susanna, and I saw now that the day was more advanced than I’d thought, and growing dark.
Martin found food that had been left behind for Edmund’s journey to Essex: bread, cheese and beer. He advised his master not to leave that night. “I went up to Bishopsgate a while back to look around. There’s a great press of people. And it’s almost dark; roads’ll be unsafe. We’ll do better to leave early tomorrow.”
Edmund nodded, cautiously feeling his nose. “But the fire? If it spreads this way…”
We were terrifyingly close to the burning Exchange – only the width of a street or two separated us. Selfishly I wanted Edmund to say it was too dangerous, that we must go now. I was desperate to reach Susanna before night; I’d promised her.
Nat looked at me. He knew what I wanted. “It’ll be dark even before we get through the gate,” he said.
He was right. And we couldn’t go blundering across unlit fields in search of our friends. We had to wait somewhere till morning, and it might as well be here.
Edmund got to his feet and looked out. “We can leave at once if the fire comes too close. Are the horses ready?”
“Been ready an hour or more,” said Martin.
Edmund turned to us. “But you – Will? Nat?”
“We’ll stay,” I said.
Edmund touched his battered face again. He moved awkwardly, stiff from his fall. “Do we have willow bark, Martin? Any herbs? And is there bedding left here? Though I doubt we’ll sleep much…”
I slept hardly at all. Nat and I shared an unmade bed in the girls’ chamber, which had been cleared of all their possessions. We folded our coats under our heads for pillows, drew the curtains around the bed but opened a window to cool the room, for the night would have been hot even if it were not for the fire raging outside. The sound of the fire was a background roar, louder now it was night, against which we heard sudden explosions, the rush and splintering of collapsing buildings, the cries of people still out in the streets. Somewhere near by a dog howled relentlessly.
After an hour or so I got up and went to the open window, which faced south, and saw the city bright as day.
It’s unstoppable, I thought; only a matter of time before all is consumed.
I went back to bed and lay thinking of Susanna, pictured her lying awake, like me, fearing for me as she watched the city burn.
I must have slept at last. I woke to a banging on the door, and Martin’s voice, urgent. “Sirs! We must go! The fire’s upon us!”
We sprang up and ran to the window. One of the houses opposite had caught. Its roof was ablaze, flames shooting upwards into the darkness. The street was packed with people rushing, crying out, hastening towards Bishopsgate Street.
“We’ll leave by the back gate.”
Martin had brought the horses into the yard: two of them, for Edmund and himself. Edmund looked pale, his left eye half closed, swollen and purple, his nose blackened with bruising. Martin led us down a narrow series of paths that ran alongside a great steeple-house and past the walled garden of a grand house. Priests in black robes came out of the steeple-house, arms and handcarts full of hastily wrapped bundles, and went hurrying along ahead of us. We emerged through a small gateway opposite London Wall, and there we saw people already crowding towards the gates.
“You two had best go through Moorgate, if you can,” Edmund said.
It was time to part. We wished one another Godspeed, not knowing when we’d meet again. Edmund cast one regretful look back at his home, then he and Martin left us, and Nat and I moved to join the crowd at Moorgate.
We knew that dawn was breaking only because there was a yellow tinge to the dense layer of smoke blowing over us on the wind. The sun was not visible. We heard from voices around us that Cheapside was on fire, the Post Office gone, and the Gazette’s offices, and Mary le Bow. Baynard’s Castle, that great stronghold on the river, had blazed all night and was now a ruin. People looked dazed and bewildered. We shuffled, all of us, towards the gate, and passed through into Moorfields.
Those fields, which a few days before had been pleasure gardens, laid out with walks and shrubs, were now full of homeless citizens and their piles of belongings, their babies, children, dogs, their crated chickens, even their pigs. We walked among them, trying to keep our bearings, to head north-west, but without sun or light we had little sense of direction, and had constantly to step aside to avoid huddled families. We could not see more than a few yards in the smoky darkness, but as we walked on we became aware of people all around us, in one vast encampment, coughing, groaning, crying, arguing. Many were just beginning to stir after the night, but hundreds more were on the move, all the paths clogged with the slow tide of refuge seekers.
And somewhere among all these was Susanna. Only now did I realize how long it might take me to find her.
Susanna
I woke to the sound of someone pissing into the hedge near by; heard him sigh in relief and move off. Instinctively, eyes still shut, I reached out, but the space beside me was empty. I was cold, and hungry, and the ground was hard under my hip bone; but none of these things would have mattered if Will had been with me.
I opened my eyes. It was dawn – or rather, it was no longer night. The sun was hidden behind a thick yellow-brown mass of smoke and cloud that covered all the sky.
I stood up, chafing my upper arms to get warm. All around, people had begun to stir and rise – and all of us looked towards London.
The fire still raged. We heard its roar, and here and there we saw flashes of flame as a spire or tall building caught light. The smoke borne to us on the wind was laden with blackened fragmen
ts and burning embers. People stared, some in horror-struck silence, many weeping.
“It is the end of the world!” a woman cried out, and fell to her knees. And Elizabeth Wright saw God’s righteous anger in it, and said there would be no end to the suffering till London was utterly destroyed.
I moved away from Elizabeth and went to tidy myself and to piss behind the hedge. I needed to go more often these days; Rachel said it was the babe growing inside me, pressing down. I put a hand on my belly; it was no longer quite flat. Will’s child was growing.
Will. I saw that the movement of people along the road had begun again, and hope sprang up in me that he had perhaps stopped somewhere nearer the city wall when it grew dark, and would soon be here. I shook out my crumpled skirts, took a comb from the pocket under my gown, tidied my hair, and fastened my cap in place. I’d been wearing the same linen since first-day, and had not washed since then, except to splash my face with cold water before we left Bow Lane. No matter. He would be dirty too.
Jane Catlin saw me and said there was milk at the farmhouse; that I should come. I followed her, and waited my turn for a bowl of new milk, creamy and warm from the cow. It was like being at home in Long Aston. And I thought: if my mother could see me now…
There was bread too, and I took a piece and went to stand once more by the roadside, looking for Will.
Three hours I reckon I waited, maybe four. I grew weary, and sat down on a tussock, but would not leave the road. My hope, which had been so strong at dawn, slowly shrivelled and died. If he had left through Aldersgate yesterday he should have been here by now. The fear that he had come to some harm grew in me.
“He may have lost the way, nothing more,” Jane had said. But he’d been given directions, the way was straight enough, and the green flag still flew. Jane was kind, but I longed for Rachel, or Nat – and most of all for Will. Once or twice I saw someone who looked kindly, and ran and asked after Will, or after the booksellers at Faith’s. No one had news of them, but I heard that the fire had broken all bounds, that Cheapside and the Guildhall were aflame, the wall breached at Ludgate, the city doomed, and folk fleeing through all the northern gates.