“I will give her your message and the letter. You have my word. Rest now, George. You have made peace with God.”
Mompesson shut the bedroom door and crossed himself. He grabbed the wax-sealed letter on Vicars’ dining table, tucked it in his coat breast pocket, and with great haste ran from the tailor’s cottage.
First, he would bathe. Then, burn his clothes.
And after … there was much to do.
CHAPTER 5
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Eyam, England
November 1665
“I’M SO NERVOUS, Paul,” Kathryn said, in a diminutive voice, barely audible over the grind of the carriage wheels on dirt and pebbles. “What if Papa won’t speak to me?”
“Of course he’ll speak to you. You’re his only daughter, and he adores you. Besides, what choice does he have? He can’t stay angry at us forever,” Paul said, feigning confidence. But he was nervous too. His thoughts were consumed by what his own father would say. He had abandoned the family right before the autumn harvest; they would be angry and disappointed with him. Luckily, Fosters were not opposed to forgiveness, provided that sufficient supplication was involved. He wouldn’t be surprised if he and Kathryn were forced to sleep in the barn for a fortnight as punishment.
“I hope you’re right,” she said, wringing her hands. “How do you think he’ll take the news that we’re married?”
“I’m sure he suspects as much. He will have made peace with the idea by now. And Cromwell too.”
She smiled a tenuous smile, but said nothing else.
Paul guided the carriage horse—the mare he had borrowed from his father’s stable —into town and onto Church Street.
“Paul, what is going on?” she asked gravely, pointing to a bright red cross painted on the wooden door of the Hancock cottage, as the carriage rolled past.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Look, there’s another … on the cottage across the street.”
She gripped his hand. A bitter November wind snapped at their cheeks and caused their eyes to tear. The overcast sky, grey and nebulous, reinforced the listless, somber atmosphere that hung over the village. The Eyam they held fondly in memory—the one from that sunny day in August—was like a sparkling diamond that someone had tossed to the bottom of a murky lake. Dread crept into their minds.
When they reached the Vicars’ cottage, Kathryn gasped.
A red cross emblazoned the front door.
Paul hopped down from his perch, and extended his hand to Kathryn, helping her down from the bench seat. He gave the grey mare a pat on the neck, and then he escorted her to the door. He knocked. After thirty seconds elapsed with no reply, he knocked again.
“Papa! Papa, it’s me, Kathryn. Please open the door!” she bellowed. Then, with her jaw clenched, she pushed past Paul, intent on barreling into the door. He caught her by the wrist and stopped her dead in her tracks. She glared at him, taken aback by the power of his grip.
“No, Kathryn. We dare not open this door,” he scolded.
“But Papa!” she cried.
“Your father is not inside. That much I’m certain of. We should go to the farm. My parents can tell us what is going on.”
“Okay,” she whimpered. “But Paul … I’m scared.”
• • •
ALICE FOSTER HAD prepared for this moment, but now that the moment was upon her, she fumbled the delivery of her speech.
“You see, Kathryn, your father didn’t know … er, what I mean to say … ’twas not his fault that he brought the Plague from London. He fell ill so swiftly. Had we known where you and Paul had gone, Henry would have sent word … but, of course, there is nothing you could have done.”
“What are you saying, Mrs. Foster? What happened to my father?”
Alice bowed her head; she did not meet Kathryn’s eyes. “Your father is with our Holy Father in Heaven.”
“Oh no! Papa … Papa,” Kathryn wailed.
Paul held her and tenderly stroked the back of her head as she sobbed and trembled in his arms. Alice looked on with wet eyes. As a mother of five children, she was an expert at mending things. Scraped knees, torn britches, sibling feuds—such calamities all fell within her motherly domain. This tragedy, however, was uncharted territory for her. All she could do was watch in silence as her eldest son comforted the daughter-in-law she had officially met only five minutes ago.
Henry Foster ordered the younger children away to the loft so he and his wife could talk privately with the young runaways. He took a seat at the head of the family table next to Alice, while Paul and Kathryn sat on the opposite side. To Paul’s astonishment, the conversation did not unfold as he had expected it would. Neither parent chastened him for missing the harvest, nor for running away. His father did not even mention the theft of the mare. Instead, Henry and Alice welcomed them home and told them how relieved they were that the young couple had eloped to Chesterfield and stayed clear of the Plague.
After Paul and Kathryn related the details of their previous three months as newlyweds, Alice reciprocated by explaining what had transpired in Eyam during their absence. She explained how the village had searched for Kathryn the night she ran away, and of course, how the search party had returned empty-handed. She recounted the details of Rector Mompesson’s visit to George Vicars’ cottage three days later, his discovery that the Plague had reached Eyam, and of the tailor’s proclamation of love for his daughter. Then, taking Kathryn’s hand, she explained that Rector Mompesson had later told Henry that the tailor’s final act had been to give his blessing for Kathryn to marry Paul. This news caused Kathryn to brighten, clench Paul’s hand, and then burst into tears. Sobbing, Kathryn inquired after her father’s funeral service. Alice dutifully recounted the details of George Vicars’ burial and eulogy, which in turn caused her to weep. After both women had regained their composure, Alice admirably steered the conversation onto other town gossip. Henry Foster chuckled as Alice acted out the story of Ethan Cromwell’s visit to the Foster farm. With her chest puffed out and her nose held high, Alice imitated how the aristocrat had stomped about the house for ten minutes, yelling at Henry, and then at Alice, and then at Henry some more, about their insolent son, and how he would make them suffer the consequences if he learned Kathryn and Paul had done anything so foolish as to marry. When Kathryn inquired after Cromwell’s current state of mind, Henry Foster smirked and said simply, “As far as I imagine, the only thing on Ethan Cromwell’s mind is six feet of cold, hard earth.” Alice explained that the Plague had ravaged the Cromwell estate during the last two weeks of October, and that Cromwell had died the Friday before last. The conversation carried on for two hours, but the longer they talked, the more Paul’s mind gravitated toward a single thought. Plague. Fear took hold of him, and he erupted.
“Mother, if the Plague is afoot in Eyam, then it’s not safe here. For any of us! We all should leave. We should all go to Chesterfield.”
Alice turned to Henry.
“Son, I understand your fear, but we are safe here on the farm. Yes, Plague is afoot in the village proper, but on the farm we are isolated. We have practically everything we need stored in the cellar and the barn. Your mother and I have a plan. We are going to wait out the scourge. Let it run its course in the village through the winter. Come spring, we will reassess. Until then, no one in this family leaves the farm. Nobody goes into town. Alice is going to teach the children their school lessons at home. You and Kathryn are welcome to stay here through the winter. In fact, your mother and I welcome you to move back permanently. But if you decide to live here, then you will live under the house rules. That includes you too, Kathryn.”
“We’re not trying to be harsh. It is for everyone’s protection,” Alice added.
Paul looked back and forth between his parents apprehensively, probing for any signs of insincerity or false hope in their faces. He found none. Still, his gut told him that he and Kathryn should return to Chesterfield, back to his uncle’s house, where
they had lodged the past three months. He would need to discuss the matter with Kathryn, in private.
Kathryn slumped in her chair. She had dark circles under her eyes and her skin was pale. “Mrs. Foster, you have been so kind welcoming me into your home, thank you. And thank you for telling me the story of my father’s final hours. The emotions of the day are weighing heavily on me—I mean no offense—but I would like to be alone.”
Paul escorted Kathryn to his old bedroom and returned sullen, five minutes later. Alice walked over to her son, threw her arms around him, and did not let go for a very long time.
CHAPTER 6
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Eyam, England
Late November, 1665
KATHRYN SAT, HUDDLED in a corner, shivering on a bed of straw. The tattered wool blanket wrapped around her did little to stave off the moist, bitter chill in the air. It was winter in Eyam, and the Foster barn where she was exiled was not heated. Gaps in the siding boards, shutters, and doors were exploited by the wind; drafty gusts nibbled incessantly at the tiny aura of heat her body was able to generate. If Paul did not return in five minutes’ time, she was resigned to huddle with the sheep. Oh, what she would give to be a sheep right now. They may be stupid, dirty creatures she thought, but at least they were warm in their fleeces.
She sneezed and wiped her nose on the corner of the blanket. She cursed the sneeze, and then she cursed Henry Foster. Yes, she had violated the house rules, but she felt no remorse for having done so. If time were somehow magically turned back, she would do it again. She opened the flap of her leather-bound diary, pulled out her father’s letter, and read it for the third time that morning. It had not been her intention to see Rector Mompesson; she hadn’t even known about the letter when she set out. Her only intention had been to visit Papa’s grave and pay her final respects. Plague or no Plague, was that not a daughter’s right?
She had needled Paul for hours until finally he relented and let her take the grey mare. Yes, she had broken the house rules by going into town, but it had not been her intention to interact with anyone. Her mission had been simple. Ride straight to her father’s grave, make her peace, and return directly to the farm. Of course, for her plan to have worked, the graveyard needed to be deserted. It had not been.
She replayed the previous day’s events in her mind:
Rector Mompesson spied her immediately when she arrived on the Foster’s grey mare. He was giving his daily blessings in the graveyard for the souls claimed by the Black Death thus far. He smiled at her and walked over to her father’s grave. She sat frozen in the saddle for a long moment, debating what to do. She was afraid to speak with Rector Mompesson, afraid of what he might say about her father. Afraid that his words might tear open the wound in her heart that had just stopped bleeding. For what seemed like an eternity, she ignored his repeated gestures for her to “come hither.” But Mompesson was unrelenting, and eventually she broke.
He maintained his distance from her, keenly sensing that his close proximity made her bristle. He greeted her, told her she looked well, and congratulated her on her marriage to Paul. She smiled nervously, and asked him to say a blessing for her father. He obliged, and to her surprise, his blessing moved her. She told him so, and the next thing she realized she was seated at the Mompesson family dining table with the rector and his wife. A well-stoked fire blazed in the corner and Mrs. Mompesson poured her a cup of hot tea. She sipped the tea, and took note that the warmth in her belly was the coziest feeling she’d had in long time. They exchanged pleasantries for several minutes, and then Rector Mompesson excused himself from the table. He returned a moment later with a wax-sealed letter in hand.
“Your father made me promise to give you this letter when you returned to Eyam. I have not opened it.” Mompesson slid the letter across the table to her. “Now my promise is fulfilled.”
She looked hesitantly at the rector and then at his wife.
“Kathryn, dear, the letter is meant for you. We have no expectation that you open it now, nor that you share your father’s words with us. Read the letter when the time is right for you,” Mrs. Mompesson said.
She nodded and tucked the letter away in her pocket. She finished her tea, thanked the rector and his wife, and excused herself. The couple bid her farewell, and Mompesson asked her to pass on kind regards to Henry and Alice Foster. She said that she would and took the dirt road back to the Foster farm. During the journey home, it began to rain. The temperature was above the freezing mark, but barely. By the time she arrived at the farm, she was soaked through and through, and nearly hypothermic. Paul spied her from the window, rushed to her aid, and carried her inside. Her skin was grey and her lips and nail beds a deep shade of purple. Alice promptly stripped off all her wet clothes, wrapped her head to toe in dry blankets, and ushered her fireside. It took twenty minutes before she stopped shivering. Across the room, Henry Foster hovered. Pacing. He waited until she was properly dressed and then he launched into his interrogation. Where had she gone? Who went with her? Who had she spoken to? Why had she broken the rules? She answered each of his questions truthfully. Both Paul and Alice took her side, balancing the feud. Henry’s anger eventually waned, and he said nothing more … that is until she sneezed right in the middle of the family supper.
Henry erupted in a fury the likes of which the Foster clan had never witnessed before. Kathryn melted and burst into tears. Paul shrunk in his seat, cowed. Even the normally sharp-tongued Alice retreated in silence. Henry ordered her to the barn, where she would be forced to stay until it was known whether she was infected with the Plague or not. Obediently, she and Paul moved to the barn. They slept that first night together in one of the empty stalls, Paul spooning her to keep her from going hypothermic again. Upon waking, Paul launched into a tirade about the injustice of his father’s punishment and marched off toward the house to argue for her exile to be rescinded.
He had not come back.
She sneezed and wondered if she had indeed caught the Plague. She wiped her nose and suddenly felt nauseous. She doubled over, hugging her stomach. Saliva flooded her mouth. An instant later, she vomited. She wretched until her stomach was empty, and she dry-heaved several times after, before the nausea finally waned. She inspected the ends of her long, dark blonde locks to see if her hair was wet and soiled. Relieved to find that it wasn’t, she pulled it back into a ponytail. She tried not to stare at the steaming pile of vomit on the straw next to her. She decided to write in her diary to take her mind off her frozen toes, her nauseous stomach, and the anger brewing at Paul for being absent for so long. She retrieved a jar of ink from her coat breast pocket, where she stowed it so it would not freeze. She opened her diary to a fresh page, dipped her feather pen, and began to write:
November 28, 1665
Dearest diary,
I am writing from inside a dreadful barn where I have spent all of last night and this morning. I am sneezing and shivering. I just emptied my angry stomach and feel no relief in the aftermath. Henry is convinced that I caught the Black Death when I rode into town to visit Papa’s grave yesterday. I spoke only with Rector Mompesson and his wife, and they were in good health and good spirits. I am distressed that cruel Henry may be right, but I have not wept about it. I am not strong of courage, so the only explanation of merit is that I have shed a lifetime’s worth of tears for Papa these last weeks, and I have no more tears left to weep.
I do not want to die.
Paul is brave. He slept in the barn with me, even though it might be the death of him. I love him for that. I do not know what the Plague feels like, but I can only imagine that something so dreadful would feel so much worse than this. I have been afflicted with nausea for several days now, even before I rode into town. Also, it has been nearly two months since I last bled. I have not told Paul or Mother Alice this. Time will decide my fate. Will I be dead within a fortnight, or am I to become a mother?
CHAPTER 7
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Eyam, England
June 1666
IT WAS THE first day in over a week that Eyam had been without rain. The sun blazed bright in a blue and cloudless sky. A cool steady breeze rattled the lush green arbor foliage of Cucklett Delf. Waves of fragrant aroma—wafting from the petals of late-blooming English Bluebells—sweetened the country air. Woodlarks and nuthatches whistled and chirped happily, as they flittered from branch to branch and back again. By all accounts, it was the most beautiful spring day that Mother Nature could have gifted upon rural England. Rector William Mompesson looked down from the sky to focus on the faces of the village elders who were seated in the grass in a broad arc in front of him.
No one was smiling.
The subject of the meeting was not a surprise to any of the attendees. Mompesson had spoken to every person present on the matter individually, and privately, at some time during the previous two months. It was not something he could spring on the town and expect a calm, rational response. No, a proposal as radical as this needed to seep into a person’s consciousness slowly, until at last virtue triumphed over instinct. In the end, however, Mompesson felt it was the staunch support of his fellow clergyman, the Puritan Thomas Stanley, that had made the difference. Without a united front at the leadership level, dissension in the ranks would have been inevitable. Dissension begets schism, and schism gives way to conflict. Together, Mompesson and Stanley had kept the townspeople united and prevented the situation from spiraling out of control.
The meeting played itself out as Mompesson had imagined it would, with plenty of shouting and crying, but in the end, when he called for a vote, the show of hands ‘in favor’ of the motion comprised a supermajority of the representing body. It was now official. The town of Eyam was under strict, self-imposed quarantine. None of the residents were permitted to leave; outsiders were prohibited from entering. He had tried to enact quarantine protocols nine months earlier, after George Vicars’ death, but the town had resisted. The village elders believed they could minimize the spread of the scourge by limiting contact with infected families. They hoped that if sick families kept to themselves through the winter, the infirm would pass into God’s kingdom, and the strong would emerge into a healthy spring. But the plague returned in May with a vengeance, and after dozens of new cases, it was apparent to all that Mompesson’s quarantine was necessary.
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