Deb was numb when Elisabeth told her. Oh please, no. The prospect of months in Brampton, with only Elisabeth for company, made her want to tear her hair. Abigail would be angry. And of course there was Jem. How could she tell him? Her stomach contracted with an ache of longing.
‘But surely the plague has left London now,’ Deb said, ‘and you always say it is too dull in the country.’
Elisabeth pouted. ‘I don’t know what London’s coming to. It seems to be one thing following another. People can’t sleep safe in their beds for fear a rabble will burn them out, and I’m telling you, my constitution won’t stand it a moment longer.’ She continued to complain a good few minutes more before finally saying, ‘I’ve got to find some peace and quiet!’
Deb ignored the irony of this, determined to persuade her to stay. ‘Perhaps you just need to rest for a day or two. I’ll strip the beds by myself, and you can read a little, how would that be? Then tomorrow you might feel differently.’
‘I won’t. I’ve made up my mind. I’ve written to Sam’s father to tell him to expect us, and I’m awaiting his reply. It will be a family occasion; Sam’s cousin, Mrs Turner, will accompany us.’
‘But—’
‘We’re going, Deb, and that’s an end of it.’
Her attempts to cajole Elisabeth to change her mind and stay in London had only made her mistress more resolved to go, and after they’d stripped the beds in silence, Elisabeth thrust the sheets into Deb’s arms. ‘Take these to the whitster’s,’ she said. ‘Mary Mercer’s coming, and the last thing I need is a house full of wet linen.’
***
Elisabeth had furnished her with a bogie to push the bedding down to the whitster’s for laundering. Unwilling to leave any evidence of her copying in her room, Deb felt the papers brush against her legs as she walked briskly up Thames Street. Her irritation with Elisabeth vanished as she realised that, with a bit of bending, her route would go past the parish church of St Gabriel’s. She’d need to break it to Jem that she would be going away, and she could ask him directions to Bridewell.
She pushed the bogie in through the gate and set it to the side of the path, close to the burial ground, while she went to ask for him at the wooden office attached to the church. Despite the weak sun, an icy blast blew over the burial slabs. She rapped hard at the door, shivering in the cold and damp as she waited for the door to open.
‘Miss Willet! What a pleasant surprise.’ The words were muffled, and the sight of him made her smile. His cheerful face was half-hidden under a green knitted scarf, but his hands, encased in gloves against the cold, still held a quill.
‘Have you a few moments to spare?’ she asked.
He pulled the scarf down. ‘It so happens I do. Dr Thurlow’s not in, he’s gone to a meeting with the bishop, and I’m to do his duties today. Is that the Pepyses’ laundry?’ He frowned, stuck the quill behind his ear. ‘It looks too heavy for you. I didn’t know you were expected to do such heavy work. I thought it was all tea with the ladies and visits to the milliner, or whatever you do.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said, aware of him gazing at her with concerned eyes. ‘Mrs Pepys has a visitor today, and it’s too cold for drying unless it’s had a start over the fires. I think she wants me out of the way, and besides, I wanted to ask you something.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Then I’ll assist you, and we can converse as we go.’ He grasped the handle and pushed the bogie ahead, propelling it forward on its iron wheels as if it weighed nothing at all. As they went, he told her that he was worried about his brother Bart, who had apparently got in with bad company. When they got to the laundry he handed the bundle over to the washerwomen. ‘Will you wait for it?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said, though Elisabeth did expect precisely that. But Deb had other ideas. ‘Mr Wells, I wonder, do you know the way to Bridewell, to the poorhouse, please?’
‘They don’t pay you that little, surely?’ His mock astonishment gave way to a grin.
She laughed. ‘No, Jane said the church often have cause to send folk there, so I thought you’d be able to direct me. I’m looking for someone – a friend.’
‘A friend of yours? In there? Are you sure? It’s just … it doesn’t seem like the sort of place where—’
‘I know, that’s what Jane said. But do you know the way?’
‘Better than that – I’ll escort you. It will be my greatest pleasure.’
‘That would be … lovely. Thank you, is it far?’
‘Only a quarter mile. I’ll take you down now, while you wait for the laundry.’
She had not imagined Jem would accompany her, and the prospect was embarrassing. She did not know how to tell him about her mother, and that she would rather go alone. But the grip on her arm was firm.
***
Bridewell poorhouse was a long low byre made from cob and plaster, with soot-stained walls and a smell like pigswill wafting from the yard. It had been butted onto the end of a burnt-out stone building as a temporary measure. Even through the metal gate she could see the yard was swarming with people, mostly women, but some old men were leaning up against the walls, clay pipes stuck in their mouths.
‘Shall I come in with you?’ He’d caught her daunted expression.
‘No, thank you all the same, I’ll be all right now. And I’ll try to get away and come to one of your services on Sunday.’ She willed him to go, did not want him to associate her with this foul place.
‘Oh no, don’t come this week. Not unless you want to be asleep on your bench. It’s Dr Thurlow preaching. If you don’t mind me giving you advice, go to St Margaret’s instead. It’s Parson Green, and he’s right rousing. Not that you need any rousing, by the look of you …’ He caught his lip. ‘I mean, you’ll like him.’
‘Farewell, then, and my thanks,’ she said, and tugged on a rusting bell by the gate. A man in a filthy smock over stained breeches appeared. He must be the overseer, thought Deb. She glanced over her shoulder to see Mr Wells stare at her in puzzlement a moment before he disappeared around the corner.
‘We’ve no room,’ the overseer said.
‘No, I’m not looking for a place to stay,’ she said, trying to sound businesslike. ‘I’m looking for somebody. A woman called Eliza Caroline Willet.’
He shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘No. Don’t recognise the name. And we’ve had that many this last year, miss, what with the fire and all. We’re packed to the rafters. I can’t help you.’
‘The postmaster says an Eliza Willet lives here. Don’t you have some sort of record?’
‘Aye. They have to sign, but most can only write an X. She might have been here, might not. She’s not here now.’
‘This woman could write her name. Please, can I look at the record?’
‘What’s it worth?’
Of course. She should have been prepared for this. She turned her back to him so he could not see the contents of her purse, took out a few coins and then held them out.
He pocketed them into his grimy breeches. ‘This way.’ He swung the gate open. A sea of hollow eyes looked up at her before they shifted as one body towards her, clamouring. Hands clawed at her – ‘Please, miss, spare a copper’, ‘Any loose change?’, ‘Have a heart, lovely’.
The stench of poverty hit her like a wall. A sudden irrational terror drained the movement from her legs. She felt the pull at her skirts, fingers feeling for her purse strings, but she was overwhelmed, clasped the purse tight to her chest with both hands. At last, common sense returned and she struggled to twist free of the welter of bodies, but she was hemmed in.
A wave of panic made her sway on her feet. ‘Help me,’ she cried.
‘Get out of here!’ The man in the smock whipped a cat-o’-nine-tails from his belt and swung it at the mob with a crack. It caught a wrinkled old woman on the cheek. Deb gasped, tears springing to her eyes. The crowd cringed, and the mass of bodies parted reluctantly and gave them room. Deb followed close to the
warden, longing to be out of sight.
He took her into a dingy cubbyhole of an office and dragged a mouldering book from a shelf. Deb leaned against the wall, panting, trying to slow her breath.
‘This year,’ he said, slapping it down on the table. ‘The others are up there. They’re a bit sooty; the gov’nor pulled them from the fire. Goes back ten years or more.’
‘Thank you,’ she managed.
It took a few minutes for her to recover enough to begin. From habit, she was already counting back along the shelf in a methodical way. Seven years ago. She had better start there and be thorough.
Did it matter? There wasn’t an Eliza Willet here now, the warden said. But somehow it was important to know. To know if her mother had been here. Whether she’d been one of those filthy faces in the yard. She took down the book. It was crusted with soot and the leather binding was furred at the edges with green mould. Just the look of it made her stomach heave. But she steeled herself and prised it open, sighed at the long list of names on the first yellowing page, the long line of badly scrawled ‘X’s.
When she heard the quarter bell strike, she was still only halfway through the book. She had read hundreds of names but none was Eliza Willet. The enormity of her task struck home. She had hoped to recognise her mother’s writing.
She speeded up her reading, her finger scrolling down each page until her nail was thick with dirt, but she dare not miss a single entry. A name caught her eye. Her heart leapt.
“Eliza Willet.”
But then she read on, “aged 23 years”.
Too young. Disappointment flooded through her like an icy tide.
The Eliza Willet in Bridewell was illiterate and was certainly not her mother. The woman had signed it with a clumsy ‘X’.
She slumped against the wall. Had she expected to find her? Not really. But she didn’t know what else to do, and it seemed that to do something, however small, might somehow draw her mother back to her. Some unspoken magic. The other, to just give up, now she had determined to find her, was unthinkable.
She sagged, wedged the book back and stood at the office door a moment, blinking at the light. Thoroughness was everything. She forced herself to scan through the rest of the records. Nothing.
The smell of unwashed flesh and filth caught at the back of her nostrils. She dreaded going back through the crowd. It would be her worst nightmare to be trapped somewhere like this. She sent up a silent prayer that her mother, wherever she was, did not have to endure it.
As she stepped into the yard, hand over her mouth and trying not to breathe the foul air, the overseer held out his hand. She was ready with more coins, to drop them so she need not touch his hand, but the ranks of women and children watched silently, accusingly. She bowed her head, ashamed, and the warden escorted her back to the iron gate with his cat-o’-nine-tails flapping a warning.
She fled into the street gulping the air, disorientated. Even the thought that her mother might be somewhere like that made her nauseous. She bent double, knees shaking.
‘They didn’t search your pockets and keep you in then?’ A quiet voice. She looked up. To her surprise, Jem Wells was still there waiting.
His doubtful expression made her tearful. ‘There wasn’t room,’ she croaked, half crying, half laughing, trying to match his good humour.
‘All finished?’ He was looking at her with such care that she could not speak. ‘Looks like it nearly finished you. You’re grey as a goose. Come, let me give you my arm.’
He held out his arm and she fell against him. They made slow progress back to the laundry. He felt sturdy and solid, well attached to the earth. She leaned on him, feeling the comfort of his touch, and his other arm came around her shoulders to support her.
‘I don’t mean to pry,’ he said, ‘but it seems like an odd place to spend your free time.’
She remained silent.
‘You can tell me, you know. I’m trained to it. We’re taught to listen and let God make the judgements, not us.’
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. But I do thank you, nonetheless.’
‘You disappoint me. I thought my parson’s manner was improving. Perhaps I’m not as good as I hoped.’ He smiled ruefully at her, and she had to smile back. A trickle of heat seemed to flow from him, fizzing in her blood, melting the hard stone that was lodged in her chest. ‘Here we are.’
They were back at the laundry already. Over the tang of the urine used for bleaching, the clean smell of soap and lavender drifted over them like a blessing. The sheets were folded into a heap on the bogie, and Jem took charge of it straight away, which was a relief as it was heavier damp. He insisted on pushing it right to the Navy Chambers and hauling it round the back to the kitchen gardens so she could ask Jane to help her spread it out to finish airing in the faltering sun.
‘Miss Willet, I know you are not allowed to meet me, but I wanted to say how much I’ve enjoyed your company. Perhaps I could call on Mrs Pepys and—’
‘No.’ She felt the pages of Mr Pepys’ diary against her legs, and in her ears echoed Abigail’s voice saying ‘treason’. Jem knew nothing of all that, and she couldn’t let Jem become involved with the Pepyses if they might be arrested as traitors.
‘I mean, I’ve got to go away. Mrs Pepys is taking me to the country for a few months.’
‘Months? What for?’
‘She’s afraid of these plague rumours. I’m sorry, Mr Wells.’
‘It’s Jem. Please. I keep telling you, you must call me Jem. I’d hoped…’ After a quick glance at the windows, he reached for her hand, ‘… never mind. Come and find me at the church when you’re back. Mrs Pepys can’t object to prayer, surely. And if you’re tired of poorhouses I can show you the madhouses instead. Or the plague pits. They might be full by then. Anything, if it means being with you.’ His expression was serious. ‘I didn’t mean it, you know, about the plague pits.’
She smiled despite herself. ‘You really know how to court a lady, don’t you?’
‘I like you, Miss Willet. You’re not afraid of life.’
‘Tush.’
‘A parson needs someone who’s not afraid. Someone who’s prepared to go into places like Bridewell.’
‘But I was afraid,’ she said. ‘It was unspeakable, I couldn’t even—’
‘Exactly.’ He lifted Deb’s hand and pressed it to his lips. His touch made her heart race and skitter. She hoped her hand was clean enough to kiss. ‘Don’t forget,’ he said. ‘I’ll be waiting. You can write, care of the vicarage.’
She hitched her skirts and hurried away, through the rows of fruit trees, flustered at the way her thoughts whirled so fast she couldn’t catch hold of them. She would write, she knew that already. And he had hinted … was she imagining it? The thought came that she liked him, more than liked him. That being with him gave her a pain in her chest that was sweet and sharp together.
Was this the way Mr Pepys felt about her? The thought of Mr Pepys made her stop dead just outside the kitchen door. She had managed to evade her master’s attempts to get her alone, but his eyes were always on her, his glances too lingering. It was as if the more she evaded him, the more it inflamed him.
She turned to see Jem still watching her. He had no idea, she thought, no idea at all. Full of guilt, she steeled herself and went inside.
Chapter Twenty-two
THE DAY AFTER, JEM SET OFF to the chapman on Fetter Lane, for today was the date when the news-sheet was to be printed – the one he’d helped Mrs Cresswell and the other ‘ladies’ to write.
‘Sold out,’ the chapman said when he got there. ‘They’re hot as hell, those. You’ll get one by St Paul’s though.’
Jem strode quickly through the lanes towards the ruined church, taken aback to see a great gaggle of people gathered by the printers’ stalls already. All seemed to be holding a copy of the flimsy news-sheet. There was a deal of laughter and people returning to buy a second one. One young cloth-worker in a threadbare jerkin
was so overcome with mirth, he wiped tears from his eyes and began reading aloud.
‘Listen to this! “Should your Eminency but once fall into these rough hands …”,’ he declaimed in a parody of a woman’s voice, ‘“… you may expect no more favour than they have shown unto us poor inferior whores!” Can you imagine King Charlie-boy’s face!’
‘Do you think Lady Castlemaine will reply?’ asked his lantern-jawed friend.
‘Agree to be the patron saint of her sister whores? Do me a favour.’
‘I can tell you one thing,’ the chapman said, ‘that printer had better watch his arse. It’s going to cause a right stink.’
Jem’s stomach dropped. What had seemed like a jest was now an unstoppable sensation. He bought his copy and took it home to read. Now it was in print, in black and white for all to see, it was bolder than he had ever thought. He could be in trouble. The paper lampooned the court as the whorehouse of White Hall, and the writers offered to venerate the King’s mistress, Lady Castlemaine, as their sister prostitutes in Rome and Venice venerated the Pope.
Oh, merciful heavens. The reference to Barbara Castlemaine’s Catholic leanings was sure to provoke an outcry from the court.
Everywhere he went there was talk of this paper. His brother Bart pounced on him the minute he came through the door, a dog-eared copy in his hand, jubilant.
‘It’s working!’ Bart crowed, brandishing it in front of him. ‘It’s catching quicker than the pox! More will join our cause after this, I’m sure.’
‘Not without trouble though,’ Jem voiced his worry. ‘They’ll be coming after those who wrote it.’
‘Fiddlesticks. They can’t pin a thing on us. We took advice. Lizzie ran it past Bates the lawyer.’
Nevertheless, Jem thought, it was hardly the sort of thing a curate should have got himself involved with. He cursed himself. What would little Deb think, if she knew he’d been responsible for such a thing? Even the language of it. He hoped she’d never get to hear of it. Of his involvement. It was a good thing she was going out of London. But all the same, he could not help feeling a little proud of his own contribution.
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