The Vizard Mask

by Diana Norman

  Penitence rested her hand on the latch of Dorinda's door, dismal with the return of an old pain. Her mother had stood in the kitchen of the New England house as Her Ladyship had stood now. At her feet were the shards of a favourite Delft bowl that Penitence had just dropped. 'I never wanted thee. Thee was spawned of the Devil. I'll not have thee in my house.'

  Dorinda was in her room, lying on her bed with her thumb in her mouth. Her eyes were open but when Penitence spoke to her they didn't move.

  Francesca and Alania looked in. They were carrying one of the chests from the attic. 'Has she got it?'

  'I d-don't know.'

  'Oh Gawd. Look, then.'

  And because they were expecting her to, she put out her hands to force Dorinda's huddled arms apart and pull down her robe.

  The girl's skin was clear. There were no swellings under her armpits.

  'I th-think she's j-just afraid.' Dorinda had chosen to meet the end of the world gibbering. Penitence couldn't find it in her heart to blame her.

  'Ain't we all. Well, she's no loss in the kitchen, that's for sure.'

  'I'll m-manage the k-k-kitchen.' She knew enough of the Cock and Pie girls' slatternly backgrounds to doubt if housewifery was numbered among their skills, whereas it was the one challenge she was equipped to meet. Her mother and grandmother had organized the provisioning of their remote household - during harvest-time when neighbours gathered to help it had numbered more than sixty - with an efficiency that would have put an army sutler to shame. Good housewifery was the only lesson Penitence had learned from them with any pleasure.

  Other lessons had been harder: how to cling on to a knowledge of self-worth in the face of women who'd given her none, how to use stubbornness as a resistance against discipline verging on dictatorship. They availed her now. She pulled the bedspread over Dorinda's hunched shoulders and went out on to the clerestory, her mouth set in a line her mother and grandparents would have recognized.

  In the salon Her Ladyship was washing Kinyans who had relapsed into unconsciousness. As if he was a baby, she'd got his thin ankles in one hand, lifting them high while she laved the ordure off his buttocks and thighs with a cloth in the other.

  Penitence watched her. Two images, a thin woman screaming at a child in Massachusetts, a fat woman screaming in a brothel's salon, moved into each other and fitted into one. The same note, the same rejection. The question of why the Searcher had brought her unhesitatingly to this address all those months ago was answered.

  Penitence said: 'I'm m-managing the k-kitchen.' If this was the end of the world, she was going to face it busy. As the woman jerked her head up, she went on: 'You n-need m-me, Aunt M-Margaret, w-want me or not.'

  The state of the kitchen indicated that Kinyans had been neglectful of his duties for many days. It was a mess and buzzed with bluebottles. Either he'd been feeling ill for longer than suspected, or, Penitence thought, the killing of his cats had put him into a lassitude.

  It had enlivened the rats. Clattering down the wooden staircase from the clerestory she saw a wave rustle through the rushes on the kitchen floor. A big black one in leaping to escape from a shelf in the pantry knocked over a wooden salt- shaker. As she rushed to right it and stop the escaping flow of luck, her foot stubbed into another rat's stiffened corpse. Yet another had died near the well.

  Penitence threw a pinch of spilled salt over her left shoulder to blind the Devil, grabbed the nearest broom and set to work. There wouldn't be any more rushes; she'd have to make sure there weren't any spills. From the look of the place, there wouldn't be much to spill. The flour barrel was half empty, the remaining flitch of bacon heavily carved into, and the smell from the meat safe indicated that its contents should have been cooked yesterday if not earlier. The only just-usable joint was a leg of beef which she put in a mixture of water and vinegar to take away its highness. Stew it for supper and Kinyans could have beef tea. She thanked the Lord that there were good supplies of oats, dried peas and beans.

  Even so, they'd have to be rationed to one meal a day, and with isolation now pointless they might as well resume the custom of eating it together.

  Cleanliness obsessed her and she was worried at finding only one small bar of soap; if Kinyans's condition was anything to go by, they were going to need a lot of it. She'd have to make some. When Job came into the kitchen she took him out into the yard to show him how to burn the swept-out rushes and save the ash, at the same time using the fire to render down the fat she'd shaved off the putrid meat.

  Horrified, she stared at the large tub by the gate into which the Cock and Pie emptied its chamber pots. It was overflowing. A humming, shimmering blue-green mass of flies replaced the lid, which had fallen off.

  'Lord's sakes, haven't the n-night-soil men b-b-been?' She rattled at the gate to find it padlocked on the outside. 'G-get that lid on.'

  She stamped upstairs to give Dogberry a piece of her mind from the balcony. As she passed her side window, she noticed that the actor's room was empty. Just as well, she didn't have time for mummery now.

  Considering the time and ingredients at her disposal, Penitence produced a very passable meal that evening. It was spoiled when Francesca pushed her platter away untasted.

  Almost shamefacedly, she lowered her fichu to display a chest that had developed a rash. 'Just come up,' she said. She looked round the table. 'It ain't the Plague,' she said, 'I feel well. Can't be the Plague, can it? Not when I feel well. It's a measle, ain't it? They ain't coloured like Kinyans'. Must be a measle.'

  Everyone hastened to agree that it was. The spots were less concentrated than Kinyans's and pinkish where his were brown. 'Measles,' pronounced Her Ladyship. 'Go lie down a spell. Don't be afraid, pippin.'

  Francesca was shivering. 'I ain't,' she said. 'A bit cold is all.'

  Phoebe put her arm round her and helped her up the staircase.

  Nobody else moved.

  It's here. In this kitchen. Now. There was a spurt of surprise. Even in watching Kinyans's suffering there had been a remove; he was old, male, down there, part of another tableau. But the thing had sat at the table, on Francesca's young flesh, eating supper with them. Next to her.

  Sabina's spoon was rattling where she rested it on her platter. Her Ladyship leaned over and moved it: 'We'll bring her bed down to the salon,' she said. 'Save running up and down stairs. But eat first.' She frowned at the table. 'Penitence, you've forgotten the finger bowls.'

  'Water,' begged Fanny.

  'You're n-not s-supposed to have it,' said Penitence, wearily.

  'Water.'

  From the darkness Her Ladyship's voice said: 'What difference do it make? Fetch it.'

  Penitence put her hands on her knees to lever herself out of the little gilt chair by the side of Fanny's bed. 'Shall I g-get s- ssome for the others?'

  'Yes.'

  She weaved her way to the kitchen. The few coals in the grate gave her enough light to locate the bucket by the well in the room beyond. Her Ladyship was right, she was always right; whether they gave Fanny cold water or withheld it, as Master Boghurst urged them to, she would die just the same. They'd followed the apothecary's instructions with Kinyans and Francesca, giving them only sips of electuary mixed with wine, and fought to keep them covered with blankets during their fevers. Kinyans and Francesca had died.

  The Plague had picked up their corpses and slung them on the cart. The Plague had attached so many things to its personality, the stink of the bodies it attacked, the scarcity of food and light, the bells, that now the bearers had assumed the role not of parish servants but of goblins that came at the command of their unseen master to complete the process he had begun. They lived by Plague, died by it, cooked it, regarded the view it allowed them. It had moods and, like the slaves they were, they pandered to them.

  It had turned on the three untouched houses in Dog Yard, the apartments next door where Mistress Chalkley lived, the Cock and Pie and Mistress Hick's, infuriated at having neglected them for so long.
They'd cowered while it lashed. Kinyans was dead, Francesca was dead, Fanny was dying,

  Alania and Job were going through the process that led to death.

  It had paused for the moment. She could see it, standing back, puffing. She could hear it playing its counting game: 'Otcha, potcha, dominotcha. Hi, pon, tusk. Huldy, guldy, boo.'

  Out goes who?

  This wouldn't get baby a new bonnet. She attached the bucket to the rope on the windlass and pushed against the heavy handle. The air coming up from the well struck wonderfully cold on her perspiration-soaked dress.

  The Indians didn't treat fever like Master Boghurst. They sponged down their patients with cool water from the river. The River... It came, lapping about her feet. She felt the cool membrane of its surface trickle up her ankles and the coloured pebbles against her toes.

  Baby's bonnet. Keep winding. Was it yesterday it had carried off Mistress Chalkley? This morning? No, yesterday. This morning was the orange-seller and her eldest. This morning the actor had said that Mistress Hicks had got it.

  Don't think of him. She began turning the handle fast to keep her mind away. The Plague could catch a thought, it was so clever. It would step next door to carry him off.

  Don't even plead with it. She'd pleaded for Francesca.

  There'll be nobody left to close my eyes. That worried her very much; Francesca's eyes had been half-open, giving her an appearance of unaccustomed slyness, Kinyans's had been bale- fully staring. Master Boghurst said most victims died with their eyes open. Unreasonable perhaps, but it bothered her that she would flop, staring, on to the other bodies in the cart with an improper expression ...

  God, I'm so tired. The Indians didn't treat fever like Master Boghurst. The Indians sponged down the sick with cool water from the river. The River . . .

  It didn't come this time. The cold shock was her mother's voice: 'Thy aunt sinned, Penitence Hurd. Touch ye pitch and be defiled.'

  You didn't understand, Mother. You didn't understand anything.

  The action of winding became purpose in itself, cocooning her in a hiatus between past and future. When the full bucket appeared above the well-head, she stared at it in surprise.

  'Penitence.'

  'Coming, Ladyship.'

  She pulled the bucket, still on the rope, so that it rested on the well-head edge, unhooked it and lugged it through the kitchen.

  She wasn't frightened for Her Ladyship as she was for the actor. Her Ladyship was the Plague's match. In other houses there were fights among the dying, screaming attempts to escape, nurses stole their patients' clothes and tipped the corpses, naked, from the window to the burial cart. Not at the Cock and Pie.

  The Plague's plan was to steal dignity. Job turned his face to the wall and cried as he involuntarily excreted, Francesca, who'd endured agony with courage, spent her penultimate hour in a temper because Sabina forgot to bring her another pillow. But Her Ladyship overlaid all of it with a gravitas that made those who nursed and those who received nursing aware that they were involved in events of monumental importance.

  She'd neither confirmed nor denied being Aunt Margaret and Penitence had not pursued it. It was enough that Her Ladyship knew she knew. As she did; it all fitted. Now listening for it, she heard her mother's voice in Her Ladyship's every pronouncement and saw in the woman who had built up a successful business in the most shameful area of London the same unbending capability as in the one who'd faced down a wilderness in Massachusetts.

  It concerned her that under Her Ladyship's hardness lay more true charity than had been under her mother's.

  I'm proud of her, Mother. What do you think of that?

  It took an effort of will to enter the salon. They were lucky to have a large sickroom at all; what conditions were like in the small apartments of places like the Buildings didn't bear thinking about it. But even in daytime the salon's gloom and stagnant air were reminiscent of a mausoleum. At night, still heavy with the day's gathered heat and with the economy of only one candle, it shrank into a tomb.

  Her Ladyship said: 'Get another glim, Penitence.' Fanny's breathing was rising into gasps of pain. She put down the bucket and hurried back to the kitchen to fetch a candle, hurried back.

  One of Fanny's buboes was bursting. Thick grey-yellow matter oozed through the lint they had put over it and dripped on to the sheet as she twisted.

  Not the sheet. Going into the battle of heating water, carrying, scrubbing, rinsing, drying ... she couldn't do it again so soon. Then she was ashamed of herself. She poured water into a beaker and helped Fanny drink while Her Ladyship cleaned the wound. The emission of poison brought relief; the girl's breathing returned almost to normal. 'Better,' she said.

  Penitence went to the other beds. Alania moaned in her sleep. Plague dreams were terrible. It left its victims nothing. Not any good thing.

  Job was awake. She wiped the sord off his lips with a rag and helped him drink. 'Fanny better?'

  'Yes.'

  'That's good.'

  She nodded to comfort him. Fanny's was only a remission. The Plague was standing back to consider its handiwork before setting to work again.

  'Gawd, Prinks.' Job twisted. 'It's fretting at me gizzard.' She held his hand tight while the spasm lasted. 'Ferrups. Oh Cripus.' He tried to smile at her. 'I'm an old gammer, ain't I?'

  'You're bravest of b-brave,' she told him. He had been a revelation. She'd been so contemptuous; helping a male body to use the pot, cleaning it afterwards, was more disgusting than doing it for women. Yet he'd proved more aware of those outside the circle of his distress than any of the others, thinking and feeling for them in a way that showed he always had. She hadn't noticed her stammer was diminishing until his grey, sorded mouth whispered: 'Speaking nice, Prinks.' He was an undemanding sufferer, constantly apologizing with: 'I'm a bother, ain't I?'

  Yesterday, in one of the false-hope remissions, he'd said: 'You're a reader, Prinks. Teach me when I'm better, eh?' She'd promised, unsettled at finding someone she had classed as undeniably degraded and even more undeniably stupid should cherish such ambition, but she doubted that he would live to claim the promise. Every gland was swollen to the point where it looked as if marbles had been stuffed under the skin of his joints.

  He was little older than the girls, about nineteen; a country boy, Her Ladyship said, who'd blundered his way into the town, 'made a bad job of begging, a better one of starving', until he'd gone to sleep in the Cock and Pie doorway one night where Her Ladyshop, impressed by his size, had given him the job of apple-bully.

  On the Plague's present form, he had two more days before he died, each one worse than the last.

  Through force of habit, she prayed for his survival. He's too valuable. But they were all valuable, and they were all going. Too late, she wished she'd been open to the diversity of character existing around her these last months, appreciated it instead of condemning. Each illness, Kinyans's, Francesca's, Fanny's, Job's, Alania's, drew her into its own private world, each one appallingly the same, yet each one different from the others because beneath it was the palimpsest of the personality that endured it.

  'Penitence.'

  She disengaged her hand and ran to Fanny's bed. Her Ladyship's voice signalled a change. Fanny's once-heavy legs prodded up and down on the bed, scraping her heels in a steady digging motion. Her Ladyship lifted her feet on to her lap to ease them. They left blood on the sheet.

  Suddenly Fanny doubled up as if some animal had bitten into her stomach, and then her head went back to turning on her pillow, left, right, left, right, on and on as it had for days. Her raw, griping heels made bloody lines on Her Ladyship's apron.

  Stop it, stop it. If you can stand it, I can't. She took Fanny's hand and tried to will something of her own untortured self into the girl.

  Fanny's breathing became short and harsh. Her hand clawed at her heart. They lifted her shift and saw that the skin beneath the left breast was fluttering. Penitence pressed her hand over the heart to try t
o contain it. Fanny's eyes stared at Her Ladyship's face as if it could save her. 'There, pippin. There, my good little girl,' Her Ladyship was saying.

  They were so far away, isolated from the struggle going on inside the poor body. They could be standing on a shore watching her drown.

  The flutter beneath Penitence's hand went into salvoes, paused, burst into an artillery of thumps. And stopped.

  'No,' said Penitence. 'Don't do that, Fanny.'

  Her Ladyship put her hand on Fanny's eyes and drew the lids down.

  They sat a while beside the body, as much from exhaustion as respect, then Penitence dragged herself upstairs to get a clean sheet from the press in what had been Mary's attic. For a moment she stood and looked out of the tiny back window over the misty configuration of roofs to where the Tottenham Court road wound its way into the countryside. The light blobs on the fields were sheep. A lone bird began to twitter. It was going to be another blistering day.