Plague Child

by Peter Ransley

  To my astonishment, Luke said he had married Charity that afternoon. It was one of many such marriages in the militia, provoked by the feeling that we would soon be on the march. I helped him lift a bench from the church and pile it on the barricade.

  ‘You are not marrying Anne?’

  ‘No, no. That’s over.’

  He looked at me slyly. ‘You prefer the Countess?’

  ‘And her carriage,’ I managed, but the banter rang hollow. For hours at a time I managed to stop thinking about Anne, but then I would see someone in the street I thought was her, or smell the damask roses she used in her pomade. Then, as now, I would hurl myself into activity, struggling to forget. We picked up another bench and manoeuvred it through the church doorway.

  ‘I heard Anne was with someone else.’

  I dropped my end of the bench so rapidly he lost his grip, howling with pain as it fell on his toe.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know – it was just alehouse gossip.’

  There was still a gap in the barricade and I wriggled through it. I forgot my vow not to see her. I pushed and elbowed my way, but outside the Guildhall I found myself wedged in a solid mass. There was a great roar as the gates opened. A spurting flare of torches lit up the glittering gold and red of the King’s livery as his carriage pulled up outside the Guildhall. The crowd fell silent as the King emerged and brushed something from his cloak before getting calmly into his carriage. The muttering began as a group of the King’s dragoons cleared a way slowly through the crowd with the flat of their swords, and built until the crowd found its voice again, thundering ‘Privilege! Privilege!’ Pamphlets were flung at the coach, and I glimpsed the King’s white, frightened face. It was hard to believe that, less than two months earlier, the same crowd had given him such a rapturous welcome and I had thought him divine.

  Seizing my chance, I darted into the passage beaten by the dragoons before it closed up again. I burst into a run, but I was now in full view. A voice bellowed, almost in my ear:

  ‘There he is!’

  It stood out in the crowd, that scar, a living presence. The cold metallic eyes held me hypnotised. I might not be Matthew’s son, but I had inherited from him the fear of that scar. The man pushed his way towards me. In front of him was a man I had not seen before. Thin and wiry as a greyhound, he stood a foot taller than most of the crowd, slipping through it towards me as if he was oiled. He was near to grabbing me when a stave thrown from the crowd caused a dragoon’s horse to rear. Another dragoon slashed at the rioter. The man with the scar was shouting at me but I forced my way through the crowd until I reached an alley. I ran blindly. It was part of the City I did not know. When I reached a narrow street I tore down one alley after another, until the shouts of the riots dwindled, and all I could hear was the sound of my running feet and my panting breath.

  I had no idea where I was. There was only a scrap of moon, but it was reflected from the ice in an unearthly glow. I leaned against a slimy wall, slowly recovering my breath. I did not even hear them, they must have approached so carefully. Looking up, I saw, silhouetted at one end of the street, the bulky shape of Crow. At the other was the man in a beaver hat, his hand on his sword. They were so sure of me they did not even move. Neither did I. It seems strange, but for a moment I almost welcomed them. It was not just that I was tired of running, it was what Luke had said:

  I heard Anne was with someone else.

  Even if it was just alehouse gossip, what hope was there for me? It came back to me, with redoubled force, that I had sworn on the Bible never to see her again. In that moment, with the three of us standing as frozen as the ice, I felt for a moment it would be better to die if I could not see her again. But my instincts, my legs, propelled me into a narrow alley. Crow and Gardiner were in no hurry to follow me, and I soon found out why. It led to a church huddled between two narrow passageways. The gate to the other passageway was locked.

  ‘Convenient,’ Gardiner said to Crow, drawing his sword, flourishing it towards the graveyard, which was above the small flight of steps. Like all the churches crammed into the City, where people fought for space, in death as in life, to be buried in their own piece of holy ground, the graveyard was crowded. There was a pile of unburied coffins at one side of the steps. Crow indicated them with a grin.

  ‘Perhaps we can borrow one of those.’

  I ran up the steps, holding my knife, ducking behind the coffins, which rocked unevenly. On top of them was a body in a shroud.

  ‘Making it easier for us, Tom?’ Gardiner mocked. He drew his sword.

  Gravediggers, like the scavengers, had either not been paid in the crisis, or taken to rioting, or joined the militia. Rubbish piled up; bodies were left unburied. The stench of rotting flesh brought bile into my mouth. As Gardiner began to ascend the steps I pulled the shroud from the body. ‘This one has the plague!’

  Gardiner laughed and drew back his sword, preparing to lunge. ‘You’re lying! You wouldn’t go near it if it had.’

  ‘I’m a plague child!’ I yelled, pushing the body to the top of the steps. Gardiner backed away slowly, sheathing his sword. He drew his tongue over his lips. ‘Shoot him,’ he said, matter-of-factly.

  For the first time I saw that Crow had a pistol. I stared down the long barrel, seeing every rifled groove and Crow’s eyes above the backsight, and prayed to live then, for God to forgive me for ever wishing to die, but there was a blinding flash and a searing pain before everything slid from me, as if I was falling into a dark, bottomless pit.

  Chapter 13

  Hell is not knowing. Not knowing where voices are coming from, what they are saying. Hell is burning fire and soaking sweat, pain you eventually do not want to end, because if it does, you know it will start again, and waiting is the worst thing. No, that is not true. The scar is the worst, just as Matthew told me. That was why I shut my eyes, feigning sleep when people came into the room.

  There was the scar, and another man. There was a doctor who put a splint on my arm and bandaged it. He would have bled me, but the scar said I had bled enough, for God’s sake. There was a girl in black they called Jane, who drew the curtains with quiet hands, lit the fire and left food, which I began to eat when the fever slackened a little, but only when I was left alone.

  One day I was sipping the pottage she left me when a short, fat man walked, or rather rolled, into the room. From his well-turned calves to his plump cheeks, everything about him was warm and genial, except his eyes, which sat upon a second pair of cheeks and were shrewd and watchful.

  ‘Caught!’ he said, rubbing his hands gleefully. ‘I told my learned friend you are like the little mouse who only comes out to eat when the trap has been laid.’

  There was something in the way he said ‘trap’ I did not like. My hunger banished, I dropped the spoon back on the plate. ‘Am I in Newgate?’

  ‘Newgate?’ He broke into fits of laughter. ‘Much worse than that. You are in my house near Lincoln’s Inn. I am a lawyer. People can escape from prison, but they can never escape from the law. Is that not right, Mr Eaton?’

  I turned to the wall as the man with the scar entered. ‘Awake, is he, Mr Turville? I was hoping he’d never come round, and that would be the end of our problem.’

  Needles of pain shot through my shoulder as he gripped me to pull me up. I screamed, sweat breaking out over my whole body. The scar was a livid flickering wound which seemed about to eat my face before I twisted away.

  ‘That’s enough!’

  There was a new note in the other man’s voice. He sat on the bed, which sagged under his weight. He had a heavy smell of musk. ‘Come – you are not in prison, nor going there.’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ the man he called Eaton said.

  Turville ignored him and spoke gently, soothingly: ‘Come, Mr Tom, sit up. We must all have a good talk together, mmm? Sit up, there’s a good boy.’

  He touched my shoulder. It was nothing to the pain of Eaton gripping it, but I w
as as much afraid of his gentle manner as I was of Eaton’s violence. I was exhausted, worn away by not knowing, while people made knowing remarks such as ‘my dear Tom’ or ‘Mr Tom’. I sprang up, almost knocking him from the bed, screaming at him, pointing to Eaton.

  ‘He’s tried to kill me! He wants to now – look at him! I can’t bear him near me, I can’t bear to look at him!’

  The outburst took what little energy I had and I fell back on the bed. The smell of musk nearly overwhelmed me as Turville pulled the blankets back over me. ‘That’s nonsense, Tom. Mr Eaton brought you here – he saved your life! His man shot Crow as he was about to shoot you!’

  If my body was exhausted, that took away my sanity. I raved at them. Saved my life? The man with the scar? Who had driven Matthew away and whose men, I believed, had killed Susannah? The fat man got up and had a whispered conversation with Eaton.

  ‘Wear a scarf, man! He’s had nightmares about your scar. We’ll never get anywhere like this.’

  My fever became worse. The next time I saw Eaton he had a high scarf knotted round his neck, covering the worst of the scar, but still I saw it: in the coals that warmed the room, in the branches of a tree outside the window. I even imagined a man with a scar was measuring me for the drop from the gallows.

  When Eaton stopped coming I gradually recovered. Turville would not explain why he was keeping me there. He insisted I was not imprisoned, although I was locked in. It was for my own safety, he protested, because I was so disturbed. When I asked for my clothes, he said they were ruined and he had ordered others; but they never appeared. I discovered from Jane that Turville was Lord Stonehouse’s lawyer, and Eaton his steward.

  Now I was totally bewildered. Was I, suddenly, in Lord Stonehouse’s favour? Or was there a more sinister motive? Politely, unctuously, Turville evaded all my questions.

  Jane nursed me back to health slowly, although I remained so weak and lethargic I could scarce get out of bed. I knew from the familiar way Turville touched her they slept together. I saw her flinch from him and when I remarked on it she broke down and told me her story.

  She was a maid at Highpoint, Lord Stonehouse’s country seat, until a gentleman – she refused to say who – had ruined her. Her mother, Mrs Morland, who was the housekeeper, had disowned her. Jane had lost her position. Eaton, who dealt with such problems, had placed her in Turville’s household.

  A strange bond grew between us. She had had a child who had died. She knew from what she had overheard that I came from a similar liaison in the past, but could give me no details. In a curious way, I believe she took me for the child she had lost. She told me that the sweet posset I enjoyed contained opium and other herbs to keep me drowsy until they had completed their plans for me. I stopped taking it, throwing the posset into the chamber pot. She heard Turville telling Eaton I was love-sick, but would be cured by the end of the week.

  ‘Cured? What did he mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. But Mr Turville said it when Mr Eaton was drawing extra money for Mr Black.’

  ‘Extra money? For what?’

  She shook her head, her hand trembling as she fumbled in the pocket of her apron, brought out a key for my room, and pressed it into my hand.

  ‘His bedroom is the first room you come to on the next floor. Your clothes are in a chest near the dressing table. Leave the key in the lock. They will think I’ve been careless.’

  ‘They won’t believe that!’

  She shrugged. ‘Turville is meeting Mr Eaton tomorrow at nine o’clock. His study is on the first floor. As soon as you hear them go in, dress. There is a passage in the hall leading to the back stairs. Before you reach the kitchen, turn right down another passage. The door there will be open.’

  I pleaded with her to come with me, but she refused, saying she would never find another place. But I could write a letter for her to her mother, who was very ill. She wanted her mother to forgive her for what she had done.

  For what she had done! But I wrote it and promised to send it to Mrs Morland. Or perhaps, I thought, as I fell asleep that night, I could deliver it. Mrs Morland had been involved with the consequences of one liaison with a gentleman. I wondered if she had been involved with another . . .

  Next morning I waited by the door until I heard Eaton’s harsh voice, Turville greeting him and the closing of what was presumably his study door, before opening mine. I could see right down the well of the stairs, to a small portion of the black-and-white floor tiles of the hall. I took another couple of steps and caught my breath. On the stairway was a magnificent picture. It was of a great house, with a sweep of turrets and Dutch gables, and, above the columns of a stone porch, a three-tiered clock tower and belfry. There were tiny figures in parklands and fields running down to a river: labourers working, a lady taking the air. In one corner of the picture was a signature, P. Lely; in the other, Highpoint, Oxon. 1635.

  I crept down another flight. From below I could hear a murmur of voices, coming from what must be Turville’s study. A heavy smell of musk drew me to Turville’s bedroom. The door was open. His four-poster bed took up most of the room. He was fond of red; crimson silk curtains hung from the tester and scarlet cushions were piled on white rugs. I skirted the bed to reach a chest of drawers, opening the first. Linen. In the next I found my jacket, looking at it in dismay. It was crusted with dark, matted blood, and the sleeve had been ripped off, presumably by the doctor in order to extract the ball from my arm. I searched frantically, but could find neither britches nor shirt. Turville’s breeches would go round me two or three times.

  It was in the bottom drawer that I found them. The breeches and doublet were an austere dark blue, but the material was a rich velvet even Luke could not afford. The linen shirt with its fine lace cuffs was something I could only dream of. I tried on the shirt. It fitted perfectly. So did the doublet and breeches. By the dressing table there was a new pair of boots. When I slipped on the soft leather an eerie shiver passed down my spine. Never had my large, clumsy feet found such an elegant, comfortable home.

  I stared into the dark, lumpy Venetian glass and started back. The dour Puritan had gone. My fiery red hair had returned. Had I been ill for so long, or had the dye been washed out? I did not know. My beard had grown. The clothes might have been tailored for me, yet I remembered no tailor. I sat down abruptly on the bed. Another shiver ran through me as I recalled, when thrashing about in delirium, believing I was being measured for the gallows. I clearly had been measured for something else. These were not the clothes of an apprentice, nor even a businessman like Mr Black. They were the clothes of a gentleman.

  Even my hands had changed. The ink had disappeared from my palms and fingertips. Perhaps they had been scrubbed. Only traces of ink remained in the cuticles and the fleshy part of the palm. These were not my hands, any more than the reflection was that of Tom Neave. I felt a pang, a sense of loss, as I stared at them. Since I had graduated only from the pitch of Poplar to the ink of Farringdon, I had never seen these strange pink palms before.

  I jumped as the clock in the hall struck the half hour. As I slipped down the stairs, keeping to the edge where they were less likely to creak, I could hear someone pacing restlessly in the study. There was a strong smell of tobacco. Another flight and I would be in the hall. A board cracked. I froze. In the silence it sounded like a pistol shot. I thought I heard someone in the hall. I ducked behind the banisters then crept down a few more steps and peered into the hallway. I could see no one.

  ‘I should have let them shoot him!’

  Eaton’s voice exploded so suddenly I fell down a step, clutching at the banister rail.

  ‘And lose everything?’ Turville said sharply. ‘Patience, Mr Eaton, patience! Wait until today’s over . . .’

  Wait until today’s over? His voice dropped into a soothing murmur and I could hear no more as I crept downstairs. There were no other sounds now but the tick of the clock in the hall and the distant clatter of pots in the kitchen. I passed the c
lock and turned into the passageway. Leaning against the wall, pipe in hand, was the tall man, rangy as a greyhound, who had chased me through the crowd the night I was shot. There was a pistol in his belt. He took a puff at his pipe and smiled at me. I ran for the front door. It was locked. The man came up behind me and grabbed me. I kicked and struggled but, still weakened by my illness, could do nothing more than break his pipe. Still with a smile on his face he picked me up as if I was no more than a baby, carried me back upstairs and dumped me outside Turville’s study before knocking on the door.

  Chapter 14

  Eaton flew into a rage. He knew nothing of the clothes, and thought that Turville and I had planned this together. Only when I assured him I had stolen the key from Jane and found the clothes for myself, and Turville in his oily manner said that they were ‘a contingency’ I was not meant to see, was Eaton reduced to a glowering silence.

  On the wall behind Turville’s desk was a map, which from the picture outside I could see was of the Highpoint estate, with the house dominating forests, water meadows, villages and churches. Turville prowled round me as if I was a thoroughbred horse for sale at a fair. Far from being angry at my deceit he seemed so pleased I felt increasingly uneasy. What would have led to a beating from Mr Black, here seemed to meet with approval. Even Eaton could not stop staring at me. And the most remarkable thing of all was that he – the man with a scar, the source of all my nightmares – was frightened. Perhaps that is too strong a word. But he was certainly agitated, pacing, cracking his raw knuckles, gazing out over a large garden, before swinging back to gaze at me.