A Plague of Sinners

by Paul Lawrence

  ‘Are you angry with your father?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘For we should have left London long ago. Yet Father will not have it.’

  ‘Why not?’ I wondered, thinking guiltily of Jane.

  ‘He does not say,’ Liz sighed. ‘But it is something to do with his business, some matter unresolved.’

  I squeezed her hand. ‘Well, I am glad for my sake that you stay.’

  She pulled her hands away and placed them on her lap, blinking again like she would cry. ‘Harry, I wish with all my heart that we could leave London. It is only because my father has the soul of a donkey that we remain. But for that James might still be with us.’ She dabbed at her eyes again. ‘Now is not a time for courting and currying favour. Now is a time to withdraw valiantly and weather out God’s storm. Once the clouds have parted and peace reigns again, that is the day to consider our lives and not our deaths.’

  A morbid speech, and not very romantic. Death and disease were ever present, and a life spent shivering in fearful anticipation was a life wasted.

  She lifted her chin and managed a weak smile. ‘I do enjoy your company though, Harry, while we remain.’

  ‘And I yours.’

  ‘I know so little about you.’ She stared deep into my eyes. ‘I know you are peddled about the City as a pleasant prospect, yet in your case I cannot fathom the reason for it.’

  I had no idea what to say in response. Though her words cut like a short blade to my belly, I was struck by her candid nature. Courtship, in my experience, was usually a game of tedious riposte. The suitor was obliged to find ever new ways of paying compliments to the lady, who rarely displayed the same ingenuity in accepting them. I chose to interpret her meaning as relating solely to my prospects and not my personal qualities, the thought lightening my spirit. ‘I am a King’s man,’ I replied, hoping I masked my resentment.

  ‘Yes, Harry, I know that, but I don’t know what a King’s man is. My father is impressed, but I don’t know why, nor do I understand whether your role is important. There are hundreds of people, nay thousands I imagine, that perform duties on his behalf. Some of those duties are quite important and others more menial. The man that keeps his closet stool is a King’s man. What do you do for the King, Harry?’

  ‘Well.’ I sat up. ‘As of this moment I am investigating the death of the Earl of St Albans.’

  She took a sharp breath. ‘Thomas Wharton?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘You know him?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head, sharp. ‘Though I have heard of him. He was a scoundrel. Why are you investigating his death?’

  ‘Lord Arlington asked me to.’

  ‘I see.’ Her eyes began to well again.

  I was confused. ‘Why do you weep?’

  Her hair fell over her face. I restrained myself from reaching over to brush it off. She started to cry, for James I supposed. It made sense he may be plagued. If he believed himself to be infected, then his motive for leaving was clear. The only place such a man might go would be a pesthouse.

  ‘Did James take money with him?’ I asked.

  ‘He took some clothes, not many.’ She held her fingers to her face. ‘And, yes, he took several pounds of his own money.’

  To pay his way, I reckoned. He would turn up at one of the pesthouses and declare himself to be of this household, sent by his master. Then he would pay the fee and lie there. To recover or die.

  ‘You will help us look for him, Harry?’ she pleaded. ‘Despite what I have said.’

  I concentrated on ensuring what I felt did not reach my face. Cripplegate Pesthouse would be the first place to look, a ramshackle slum of wooden sheds, the capacity of which was exceeded weeks before. I knew they built new sheds recently, and knew also how quickly the task was achieved. It was full again already, so they said, full of bodies already so diseased they served no purpose other than to propagate the pestilence. To go to the pesthouse was to take my good fortune and rub it in the Devil’s face so hard he could not help but smite me. It was not feasible. Yet it stood next to Bedlam, where Wharton’s lunatic brother resided. ‘Yes,’ I replied, unable to resist pleasing her.

  ‘Thank you, Harry.’ She twisted the little kerchief so it fitted up her nostril.

  I allowed myself to stare at her soft lips, whilst my inner rage hopped up and down with a knife, stabbing at my guts. What had I just done? Bedlam and Cripplegate. The itinerary from Hell.

  Chapter Five

  WHETHER THE DISEASE BE IN THE BODY, MIND OR BOTH

  If that planet who rules the sign wherein the Lord of the ascendant is in, and he who is dispositor of the moon be unfortunate in their fall, detriment or otherwise very much afflicted, the disease reigns more in the mind than in the body.

  The Hospital of St Mary Bethlehem was more than four centuries old. Once she stood amongst green fields. Now she slumped, bent and broken, an old lady dragged to her knees by the thick, poisonous blanket of slums and hovels that sullied her pristine innocence. St Mary Bethlehem was now Bedlam, and Bedlam was a terrible place.

  Until the sickness came, people paid to visit this terrible place. To walk the corridor between the open cells, to pull faces at the comically strange, to throw stones at those that refused to entertain. Not now though, for Bedlam stood outside the city wall, in the middle of a parish now sodden with disease.

  I stopped at the Bedlam gate, Purgatory before me. Fingers of panic teased their way about my heart. Dowling stood as solemn as I, his faith sorely tested, I reckoned.

  A fat fly landed upon my sleeve, the size of a grape, with large green eyes that stared at me hungrily. I hated to think upon what it had fed. My body shuddered and I struck at it with an unsteady hand. I missed, and it lurched off lazily in search of a quieter place to sit and digest.

  ‘God help me, Davy. I cannot go further.’

  Dowling patted me on the shoulder. ‘God help us all, Harry. Be strong and of good courage. Fear not, nor be afraid of them; for the Lord thy God, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.’

  ‘They say it was God sent us the plague in the first place,’ I retorted. ‘A fickle fellow, by all accounts.’

  Dowling withdrew the comforting hand and took a step forwards. ‘If you would wait for me here, I will understand.’

  ‘A kind offer,’ I replied, angry. I stepped out of the shade into the burning grounds of Hell.

  In the middle of the yard rested an old coach with no wheels, just a tattered peeling body. Old clothes and stiff rags, bottles and bones, filth and a mouldering dead dog. I could feel the sticky atoms hanging in the air, waiting to cling and creep upon my skin. Behind the coach was a large hole, for Bedlam hosted a plague pit.

  Only the poor ended up in the pits. These bodies were not buried in coffins but in sheets, one body thrown atop another from dusk until dawn, when a thin layer of dirt would be thrown upon all in anticipation of the next night’s visitation. Now the pit was quiet, yet the dirt was piled high, sprinkled with lime.

  I shivered. Two men leant against the main door, one alert, the other bleary-eyed, stinking of wine.

  Dowling hurried to them. ‘Where is Pateson?’ he demanded. ‘The keeper of this place.’

  ‘He is not here,’ answered the long, thin man to the left, red hair hanging over his eyes. He appeared young and pale, white skin flecked with raised, purple patches. He waved a hand across his face before digging a forefinger into his ear. ‘He doesn’t come often.’

  The short, rounder man stirred. He resembled a potato, face covered with round, yellow growths. ‘He cannot abide his wife. Says she is the most brutal of all the lunatics in the house.’

  ‘What of the plague?’ I asked, wary as to what lay before us.

  ‘What of it?’ the thin man replied. ‘When one has it we place him in his own cell until he is dead, then the bearers take away the body.’ He grinned. ‘It is not far to travel.’

  ‘How many have died?’

>   He scrunched up his face in intense concentration.

  ‘Two,’ declared the shorter man brightly, ‘which is not so many. They are gone in the pit.’

  I wished I were somewhere else. ‘Then you must show us about, for we are King’s men.’

  The short, round man licked his lips and seemed reluctant. ‘Well, this be a royal abode, so I suppose you have the right.’ He walked up the two flat stairs, pushed open a thick, wooden door and bid us follow, sniffling unhappily.

  Bedlam had not been maintained since first established. Iron gates, thick chains and all manner of harness and restraint hung from damp perspiring walls. Rain fell freely through wide, airy holes in winter, and autumn leaves sailed happily to the floor where they slowly rotted until covered by next year’s fall. If someone did not demolish it soon then a few more seasons of wind and rain would do the job cheaply.

  The wailing and groaning of the frantic and insane filled our ears, an opera of pain and melancholy.

  The round man screwed up his face. ‘What do you want to see?’

  I screwed up mine too, for the lewd ammonic smell streamed through my nose like the filth of Fleet ditch on a wet and rainy night.

  Dowling sniffed the air as if discerning its vintage. ‘We seek one man in particular, but we don’t know his name. Will you show us them all?’

  The man nodded without enthusiasm. ‘Very well.’

  The passage before us loomed dark and shadowy, lit by a comb of white teeth, shafts of light stabbing through holes in the roof onto the filthy straw below. Thin green moss covered stone walls, thriving in the moist heat. Our guide led us to the end of a long, narrow corridor before turning to face us with an attempt at good cheer.

  ‘Where we stand now is the old dairy, which may be why it smells so bad, I always say.’ He waited for us to laugh, but showed no visible disappointment when we failed him.

  ‘Beyond this door afront of us is where the rectory and servants’ quarters were located. Now they house our guests. Eight cells line the first corridor and fourteen the second, twenty-two in all, and beyond the Abraham Ward, where the less afflicted wander freely. At present time we have fifty-seven lunatics here, including twenty cells with two lunatics in each. An arrangement that encourages garrulity, but I reckon the company is good for them and makes them happier.’ The dirgeful sound of torment from behind the door suggested otherwise.

  ‘What is your name?’ I asked.

  ‘Robert Morrison, sir.’

  Behind the door awful wailings welled loud and piercing, drilling into my ears and bouncing about my skull. Morrison stood to one side, compelling us to pass through. ‘Take heed of mad folks in a narrow place,’ he muttered.

  I led the way, pushing through the noise like it was a wall of water. Morrison danced between us on his toes before holding up a dainty finger to bid us stop, once more in role of guide.

  ‘Behold!’ he cried loudly.

  He invited us to inspect the first cell upon our left, inside of which were two lunatics. Both were manacled to the wall with thick chain. The first was naked, lain on his back in the straw, feet astride and hands clasped over his stomach. The second had done all he could to remove himself from the splendour of the first man’s nudity.

  Morrison cleared his throat and spoke to the ceiling. ‘The immodest fellow is Thomas Miller. Senseless and beast-like. Lieth in the straw and will suffer no clothes. Teareth all things and will piss in the corner.’

  Peering about the bare cell, I could see nowhere better he might relieve himself.

  ‘The modest man is Henry Ringe, tormented by guilt after he lay with a woman that was not his wife. Now he says he is possessed by four spirits named Legion, Simon, Argell and Ammelee the tempter. Ammelee doth regular battle with the good angel that resides within him. He saith things loudly.’

  ‘Saith things?’ I said.

  ‘Aye, sir.’ Morrison disappeared back from whence he came in a great hurry and returned quickly with a stout cane. He held it up. ‘My stick.’ Then he stuck the cane betwixt the bars and poked Ringe hard in the ribs. A pitifully sad, grey-lined face looked up at us with red-bagged eyes and slack jaw.

  ‘Ho, Ringe!’ Morrison bent down and talked to the man as if he was a small child. ‘Tell us what the tempter tells ye.’

  The man’s dull eyes rolled downwards to fix themselves upon Morrison’s thick black belt. He licked his lips and began to recite. ‘Leave tempting of me, and I will my soul freely unto thee.’

  ‘Now tell us what the good angel says.’

  ‘Christ shall have my body and soul.’ Ringe’s second voice shrilled high.

  ‘Now the tempter again,’ Morrison commanded.

  ‘Then thou must take it out of God’s hands. God shall have it from thee!’

  Both tempter and angel spoke with a strange intensity, triggering the surrounding crescendo to a higher pitch. If you were not a lunatic upon arriving, likely you would be one afore you left. ‘How long have these men been here?’ I asked.

  Morrison scratched his head. ‘Miller has been here for years, Ringe for two years or so.’

  ‘Could either be related to an earl?’ Dowling rumbled.

  ‘An earl?’ Morrison repeated, eyes wary. ‘No, sir, I think not. Nor Richard Pudsey.’ He moved on to the next cell. ‘They took him from his house, naked, in a great rage, just last March.’

  Jane stormed about my house in a great rage most days, though she did not discard her clothes, shame to say. ‘Is that enough to call him a lunatic?’ I asked.

  Morrison pointed at Pudsey’s hands, held clutched to his stomach, left hand hid within the grasp of the right. ‘He cut off the fingers of his left hand and claimed the spirits of the air told him to do it,’ Morrison explained.

  I stared at Pudsey’s hands. ‘Why the left hand?’

  ‘He is right-handed.’ Morrison wiped an eye and blew his nose upon his sleeve. ‘When he is distracted he shouts and screams, and talks to himself very fast, and none can understand. He holds his hands to his ears and strikes himself about the temples.’

  Pudsey turned his head and bared his teeth, an anguished grimace speaking of terrible anxieties. The yellow straw stuck to his hair, slimy and damp.

  ‘Now we’ll on to the widow Adams.’ Morrison stepped smartly to the next cell along. ‘You might ask her a question.’

  The widow sat on a bench in a cell by herself, without chains, next to the bars. She wore a long grey dress that might once have been black, and a hat tied about her chin, despite the airless heat.

  ‘How are you this day, Mrs Adams?’ I called out, not sure whether she would leap at me or throw a curse.

  Her tiny head turned to me. ‘The day be fine and I am well, though I be cursed – my soul in Hell,’ she addressed me softly. I had to crouch to catch every word.

  ‘She speaks in rhyme?’ I wondered how long it took to develop this parlour trick. I decided to test her. ‘Tell me what you see in my eyes.’

  Her face gaped in melancholic oblivion. ‘Feeleth your heart like it shine as the sun? Your eyes tell me not, that you be only one. Thinketh you long of the joy that you bring? Nay, your soul sleeps in winter, where no voices sing.’

  I snorted. ‘She is a widow and speaks rehearsed rhymes of her own situation.’

  ‘Nay.’ Dowling shook his boulderous head from side to side. ‘She describes you like she be your mother.’

  ‘My mother?’ My mother hadn’t spoken a sensible word to me in years.

  He regarded me solemnly. ‘I have not seen a smile upon your face this last year, and Faith knows you have been enveloped in a cocoon of self-regarding misery that renders you senseless of others.’

  ‘I smile when I fancy, Dowling, which is not often when I am in your company,’ I snapped. ‘And I am not senseless of others.’ I stared into his old face, brows arched like he would place a hand on my head and bless me. ‘And when did you ever laugh, you miserable great baboon?’

  Morrison’s eyes lit u
p with eager curiosity.

  Dowling’s expression was so saintly I thought he would sing a psalm. ‘You are a good man, Harry, yet you wallow in a melancholic mope at the twitch of a mouse’s whisker.’

  ‘If you are the mouse, then I concur,’ I retorted, to which he waved his paw at me in a manner so assured it made me want to kick his draggy arse. ‘You are a great oaf.’ I walked away.

  The next cell contained a thin man who panted fast and shallow like a dog in pain. Chains about his ankles bound him to the stone wall and he lay sideways in the straw. A physician and assistant stood watching, waiting for something. The physician’s large, round face resembled a big pudding. Upon it balanced a thick and bushy wig. His assistant stood dutifully, bearing a pair of tongs to open the lunatics’ mouths. The man on the floor stared out through bloodshot eyes. He breathed hard in and out of his nose before vomiting violently against the bars. The physician grunted in satisfaction and scrawled an entry into a large black book.

  ‘What did you give him?’ I demanded.

  The physician turned to regard me. ‘Tobacco.’

  I eyed the mess with disgust. ‘Why do you not just whip them as you used to?’

  The physician regarded me with similar abhorrence before moving to the next cell.

  Morrison grabbed my sleeve and bid me stop. ‘If you want to view the whippings then you must come at three o’clock tomorrow,’ he whispered.