Circle of Pearls

by Rosalind Laker

  ‘Let me fetch the two ladies, madam. Don’t you step out ’ere. It’s a foul place.’

  She shook her head. ‘You must stay with the coach and guard the horses. I couldn’t aim a pistol as well as you.’

  ‘Very well, my lady.’ Uneasily he helped her alight. There were two pistols in his belt. He would not hesitate to use them.

  She had to walk about twenty yards down the stinking, garbage-strewn alley. Each house was joined to its neighbour with no party wall between. Three had red crosses on the door, but as there was no watchman about she guessed that the unfortunate occupants had already perished. It was as she was passing the third of these houses, the side of it adjoining Alice’s home, that she paused in compassion. A little girl no more than three years old, dirty-faced with matted curls, was in a downstairs window, huge tears rolling down from the forlorn, frightened eyes, the grubby palms of her small hands pressed against the panes. Julia supposed the watchman had gone on an errand, for there was still life in this house, and she went nearer the window, unable to pass by without some word of cheer to the unhappy child.

  ‘I know it’s hard to be shut in on a sunny day, but you’ll soon be out to play again.’

  Through the glass the child’s voice was muffled, but it rang with appeal. ‘I want to play now!’

  ‘So you shall when everyone in your house is well again.’

  Far from being consoled, the child began to sob pitifully. ‘All gone away.’

  Julia’s cheeks hollowed. Surely the child could not be alone there! ‘Who is in the house with you?’

  The same answer came. ‘All gone from Katy.’ The child let her head sink down on the inner sill, tears flooding her eyes and she patted the window, imploring release.

  Horrified, Julia went to Alice’s door and knocked. It opened at once, the young woman’s face lighting up at the sight of her.

  ‘Good day, Lady Warrender. My aunt and I are ready and have been since first light.’

  ‘That child in the adjoining house!’ Julia exclaimed as she entered. ‘Is she on her own?’

  Alice nodded sadly. ‘She is the only survivor in her family. The watchman comes once a day to put a plate of food through the door.’

  ‘That’s monstrous!’

  ‘I agree. Katy is terrified of the dark and at times she screams. I’ve tried to talk to her through the walls, which are only partitions in these old properties, but she cries most pathetically for her mother. The parents were the most respectable and hard-working couple and there were several in the family.’

  Julia leaned a hand on a chair’s top rail for support, ‘I can’t endure it. I have to get that child out.’

  ‘But how? It’s padlocked at the front and there’s no rear entrance. These houses were built back to back.’

  ‘Could we knock a way through that wall you mentioned? I’d compensate you for any damage.’

  An elderly voice piped up from a chair in the shadows of the room. ‘There’s a chisel and a hammer in the cellar. The wood is rotten with age.’

  Julia turned gratefully to Alice’s aunt, a tiny woman twisted in her frame by some unidentifiable disease of the bones, ‘I thank you, madam.’

  Alice fetched the tools and then showed Julia up a rickety staircase into an upper room and indicated the wall. ‘I’ll help.’

  ‘No. You mustn’t come in contact with the contagion. Take your aunt out to the coach and tell the coachman what I’m about to do. I’ll walk Katy out of London and he can meet me at the river tomorrow. I’ll bathe the child here first. Do you have anything I can put her in?’

  Alice found a cotton skirt, needle and thread. Knowing Katy’s size, she chopped off the top half and gathered up two shoulders, leaving armholes. It was done in a matter of minutes and would suffice. She laid a shawl with it and then went down to the kitchen and set water to heat before she went with her aunt from the house. Their pace was slow due to the old woman’s infirmity.

  Left alone, Julia began prising out one of the slatted wall boards. Damp played havoc with the timbers of such property, which made them unhealthy places in which to live, but those of moderate means could afford no better and the poor fared even worse. There was a sharp crack and the board, dried out now by summer, split away in a cloud of choking dust and crumbling splinters. She pulled part of it out, gaining a smallish gap that just showed the corresponding room in Katy’s house. Through it came a strong stench, the origins of which she could guess at.

  ‘Katy!’ she called through, ‘I’m making a little doorway to get you out!’ Then she went on driving the chisel into the rotten wood and jerking off pieces, heedless of her hands. When the gap was large enough she called again. ‘Come upstairs, little one. There’s no need to be afraid. I’ve made the door and you can come and play.’

  She listened keenly. At all costs she wanted to avoid entering the infected premises. There was no sound and she kept calling and listening. Finally she heard a faint creaking of stairs as ancient as those in Alice’s house. Katy’s face peeped through a half-open door.

  ‘See! I’m the friend who spoke to you through the window.’ Julia held out her arms through the gap. ‘I’ve come for you.’ The child’s lower lip trembled. ‘I want my mama.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but let’s keep each other company, because that is what she would want us to do.’

  Katy was reassured. She came trotting across the floor, barefoot and filthy from head to toe. When she reached the gap she studied it seriously, ‘It’s a nice little door.’

  ‘It is, and to come through I think you should leave all your dirty clothes behind. I have a new gown here that I know your mama would like you to wear.’

  Obediently Katy turned to have the back of her bodice unlaced. This was something safe and familiar. Her mama always changed her out of dirty clothes.

  Julia reached through the gap, but the tapes of the child’s bodice had become knotted. She took the scissors Alice had left and cut them through. Katy pulled off the garment herself. Underneath she was wearing a petticoat with a neatly embroidered hem that she had torn by catching it on something. Julia snipped her out of it and Katy faced her again to be lifted through. It had been her intention to keep the child at a safe distance until she was bathed, but Katy, suddenly feeling secure, reached out swiftly and hugged her tightly about the neck. The child did not see Julia’s expression of fear as the matted curls flicked across her face or notice the automatic tightening of her grip to thrust the innocent embrace away. Yet in the same instant Julia held her tight. This was a child not a poisonous snake to be flung away. Had Katy been covered with the plague-blains it would have made no difference.

  ‘Your neighbour, Alice, has left hot water in the kitchen for your bath. I expect there is soap too.’

  Katy leaned back in her arms and nodded solemnly, ‘I think it’ll take lots of soap to make me clean.’

  Julia gave a shaky laugh. ‘I’m sure it will.’

  Alice had relit the fire to heat the water, which was only moderately warm, but Katy did not complain when she sat in a wash-tub and splashed about. Her curls had to be well soaped several times before they showed their natural gold. She was painfully thin and Julia wondered how much she had eaten of the food pushed through to her as if she were an animal in a cage.

  The new garment delighted Katy with its bright colours, although she looked quaint in it. Julia tidied herself, her gown soiled from breaking through the wall, and there were small splinters in her hands she would have to remove before she could hold the reins of the horse she hoped to hire for Katy and herself as far as the river.

  After putting out the fire she left the house, turning the key Alice had left in the lock and then dropping it in her pocket. She took Katy by the hand and as they reached the end of the alley she saw with mingled relief and anxiety that the coachman had waited for her. He sprang down from the box at their approach and forestalled any reproach that might be forthcoming.

  ‘I didn’t quite unde
rstand my instructions from the lady passengers,’ he lied blatantly. ‘I thought you’d probably like to sit on the box in the open air with me, my lady, and the little girl could sit between us.’

  She looked steadily at him. ‘Unless the child is already infected there should be no danger from her. As for myself, that may be a different matter.’

  ‘Then I’d better get you home to Sotherleigh, my lady.’

  ‘There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be, but Katy and I must be on our own for a while. I’ll tell you where to take us after you’ve delivered the two inside passengers.’ Katy slept her way out of London, her head on Julia’s lap. When the five certificates of health were shown by Alice at barriers Julia did not experience the slightest twinge of conscience since she had arranged in her own mind isolation for herself and the child. Her premonition of the previous day seemed to get stronger with every mile that was covered and her sense of despair deepened.

  The gates of Sotherleigh stood open when the coachman drew up alongside and shouted for the gatekeeper. As always, the view of the house was blocked by trees, but Julia gazed longingly at the drive that would have led her to it. When the gatekeeper appeared she asked him the question that had been uppermost in her mind all the way.

  ‘Has Sir Adam arrived back yet from France?’

  ‘No, my lady.’

  Somehow she did not feel surprised. His not being here yet seemed to fit in somehow with the conviction that everything was in the process of being turned upside down for them, ‘Is the master at home?’

  ‘He went back to France yesterday.’

  ‘Take a message to Molly. Tell her that I shall be staying for at least three weeks at the cob and wattle cottage in Honeywood dell.’ She was aware of the coachman turning his head sharply at her and the gatekeeper’s mouth had dropped open. ‘She must see that food, bed linen and all else she knows I will need are left at the gate. I want some toys delivered too, because I have a little girl with me.’ She nodded to the coachman. ‘Drive on.’

  He obeyed and she could guess at his thoughts. He was appalled that she should consider staying at such a humble place, whatever the circumstances. The cottage had been a shepherd’s shelter for years until it had been found more convenient to have a covered cart on wheels that could be moved with the flocks. As it was isolated, Katy could run and play in the meadow there. She herself would be able to wander with her for a short distance without the risk of either of them meeting anyone.

  The coachman stopped in the lane outside the three cottages her women had occupied. They came crowding out to the gates to greet the new arrivals. Two of the strongest lifted the old woman out, Julia having told the coachman not to come in close contact with anyone until he had bathed and burned his clothes.

  ‘How have you settled in?’ she asked one of the older women, whom she had left in charge.

  ‘There ’ave been only minor problems that I soon sorted out. We ’ave everything we need and none of us knew that air could ever smell as clean and sweet as it does ’ere.’

  ‘Everybody is well? How is Boy?’

  ‘’E’s bonny and so are the rest of us. A wet-nurse couldn’t be found to take the risk of nursing a London baby, so ’e’s ’ere with us and a flask with a teat made from a glove-finger suits ’im well. The village midwife ’ad a word with us from the other side of the gate. She says Boy will do better on milk from an ass, and as there’s one in the village that foaled recently she leaves a flask of the milk, mixed with a spoonful of flour that’s been well baked in the oven, outside every day. ’E’s had several feeds of this pap already and didn’t leave a drop! Why not come indoors and see ’im, madam? ’E’s sleeping in a crib that was brought specially for ’im from Sotherleigh and wearing garments that your little sister wore.’ So Patience’s baby clothes were being put to good use. Julia guessed it was Mary who had given special thought to the infant. ‘I should like to see him again, but not now.’ Briefly she explained the situation. ‘So I shall not be seeing any of you for a little while. Molly will be the go-between, speaking to me at a distance as she does to you.’ She gave the woman a final reminder. ‘Now you do remember Mrs Webb’s treatment that I told you about if anyone should fall sick of the pestilence?’

  ‘Yes, madam. I pray we all got away in time and that you and the little girl will be spared.’

  ‘I thank you.’

  Alice came to look up at her on the box. ‘I’ll never forget what you have done for my aunt and me.’

  Julia smiled down at her. ‘You were both instrumental in helping me rescue Katy. She might have died there alone. Even if that had not happened it would have been a life in the poorhouse with a future to follow that I care not to think about. Tell me, have you any idea how long she was alone in that house?’

  ‘I reckon it would be nigh on two weeks since they took the last body away. If it hadn’t been for the watchman’s food and those of us who talked to her through the window, I doubt the poor mite would have survived.’

  Julia’s thoughts went back to the dead looter she had brushed against in her own house. Surely it was too slight a contact to have done any harm? But she must not risk Katy’s being with her for too long. ‘So in another week there should be no fear of Katy developing the plague. I’ll make arrangements for her to leave me as soon as her quarantine time is over.’

  Katy tugged at Julia’s sleeve. ‘I’m hungry.’

  Julia opened the box of travel food beside her. She had been letting the child eat a little at a time, for she had been quite ravenous at first. Watching over Katy kept her occupied until the shepherd’s shelter was reached. The child spotted it first, pointing a finger.

  ‘There’s a little house!’

  It looked much like a doll’s house perched on its own in a dip of undulating meadowland. Any path to it had been long overgrown, wild flowers sprinkling the grass right to its door. The coachman went ahead to make sure the door was neither locked nor stuck, but it opened with one sharp thrust. He glanced around inside and then stood outside again, looking down his nose at it. There were none so snobbish as the servants of a large house used to the hierarchy created by the domestic staff themselves, prestige allotted to those holding the most responsible positions. He, as head coachman, would not have deigned to spend an hour in such a place.

  ‘Are you sure, my lady?’

  With a nod and holding Katy by the hand, she entered the low doorway. The shelter consisted of one room with white-washed walls; a hearth was at one end and a box-bed built in at the other. A table with two three-legged stools upturned on it had been pushed into a corner. A row of pegs, one with a forgotten crook hanging on it, and some shelves completed the furnishings. It was not dirty, but the floor was strewn with dried leaves that had blown in under the door and there were festoons of cobwebs.

  ‘This will be quite adequate. Make sure Molly brings a broom, a bucket and a scrubbing brush.’

  He rolled up his eyes expressively, but he was plodding off to the coach and his mistress did not see his disapproval.

  *

  When Michael arrived back in Paris he met his wife at their own front door. She had returned from her daily pilgrimage to the cemetery and, although her face was thickly veiled, he could tell by the haughty bow of her head and her whole posture that she was highly displeased that he had gone rushing off from Calais as he had done.

  ‘Is Sir Adam Warrender here?’ he asked. Before leaving England he had heard that Parliament had been prorogued and it had passed through his mind that it would be an unlucky chance if Adam should come seeking Julia in Paris and miss her on the way.

  ‘No, he is not. Why should he be?’ She was removing her veil.

  He explained the situation, which she listened to without interest. Then he asked after their son. ‘The house is quiet. That must mean Jean-Robert is out!’

  ‘Yes. He’s gone on a nature walk in the park with Faith.’

  ‘He’ll enjoy that,’ he commented, hoping
this would be an end to their conversation. But she was not prepared to let the matter of his absence rest there. She followed him from room to room as he sorted through his mail, put travelling pistols away in a velvet-lined box and sat down to a tray of refreshments brought to him by a servant. Her cold polite tirade paused only until the food had been set out and they were alone again. Then suddenly she broke off her disagreeable flow to challenge him.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ She had been pacing the floor and now stopped to stare at the bottle he was pouring, ‘Isn’t that Papa’s special burgundy? That’s only served on celebratory occasions.’

  ‘Isn’t my homecoming such an event?’ he queried, an edge to his voice.

  She ignored the question, ‘It’s barbaric to drink it straight from the cellar. It should be presented with finesse and ceremony. Papa never had it otherwise.’

  ‘Will you join me in a glass?’

  ‘Not at this hour. Later, perhaps.’

  He did not intend to leave it where she could gain easy access, for he must be vigilant against any further attempts she might make to poison him at her whim. This was particularly important as far as wine was concerned. It was virtually impossible for her to contaminate his food since she never went into the kitchen and it was brought straight from there to the table. Never again should she pour him a glass of wine and neither would he touch any decanter if she had been in the room with it. He groaned under his breath that things should have come to such a pass, feeling there was little doubt his wife was not quite sane. It increased his commitment to look after her, for her condition might deteriorate as the years went by. All the happiness he had was in his son and the woman he loved at Sotherleigh.

  Faith and Jean-Robert were full of talk about their nature walk at dinner. They had spotted a variety of butterflies, which she had named for him in English and he for her in French.