Petals in the Ashes (2 page)

‘Is she not with you?' The woman peered into the windows of the carriage as it moved away.

‘No, we …' Sarah looked at me helplessly, but I did not know what to say, and so pretended to be very much occupied in keeping little Grace quiet. We had not thought of this: that those in Dorchester might not know that their relatives in London had died, and that strangers were bringing Grace to them.

‘Mrs Beauchurch is … is not with us,' Sarah said hesitantly. She indicated Grace. ‘But this is her child.
We have brought her from London.'

Hearing the word ‘London', the woman took two steps backwards, and I noticed that she made a little hiccupping noise.

‘But we are quite well and healthy!' I added quickly.

‘May we speak with Lady Jane?' Sarah asked and, without another word, the woman turned and ran back into the house, leaving us standing outside as if we were peddlers selling ribbons.

For some minutes we just stood there, waiting. Grace began crying fitfully but I walked with her to the fountain to soothe her. She watched the water droplets falling and was amused by them, holding out her hands as if to catch them and making baby noises.

‘Hannah!' Sarah called to me suddenly and, when I turned, another woman was coming out of the house with the woman in black.

This, we knew straightaway, must be Lady Jane. Although not tall, she was imposing, with fair hair caught on top of her head and styled into a hundred tiny curls. She was wearing a fashion that I'd seen worn by the quality in London: a cerise flowered silk dress cut low in front, with much gold lacing above the waist, slashed open to show a froth of petticoats. She carried a posy of flowers which she was to sniff throughout the time she spoke to us.

Instinctively, Sarah and I both curtseyed as she reached us.

‘Who are you?' she asked sharply.

This was not the welcome we had hoped for, and we hardly knew how to begin our reply.

‘Where is my sister? Where is Mrs Beauchurch?' she asked, speaking accusingly, as if she thought we might
have stolen her from the carriage and made use of it ourselves.

‘Were you not expecting us?' asked Sarah.

‘I was expecting my sister,' came the reply. ‘I sent Carter with my carriage and he's been waiting some two weeks for her fever to subside so he could bring her out of London.'

‘She is … ' Sarah began, but I interrupted.

‘The letter!' I urged her. ‘Give Lady Jane the letter.' Sarah looked at me, and then she delved into the canvas bag she was carrying. ‘This letter,' she said, holding it out, ‘is from your sister. You will recognise her hand.'

Lady Jane and the other woman stepped back together. ‘I will not touch it!' said Lady Jane. ‘Read it to me please, if you are able.'

‘I am able,' Sarah said, adding gently, ‘and I am very sorry for what you are about to hear.' She then read out the letter, which had been given to me by Abby.

‘Dear Hannah,
I beg and beseech you in the name of the Almighty that you take my child, Grace, upon receipt of this letter, and carry her with all speed to my sister the Lady Jane at Highclear House, in Dorchester. My child is lusty and hearty now, but if left in this house of death she will surely perish. There are Certificates of Health for you and your sister, but you must travel under the names of Abigail and myself. A carriage has been procured and will be at the sign of the Eagle and Child in Gracechurch Street each day awaiting your arrival. The driver is
my sister's man and has a Certificate to travel.

On reaching Dorchester, Lady Jane will ensure that you and your sister are well cared for. You will be permitted to stay until the visitation has left London, when you will be given safe passage back.

May the prayers of a mother melt your heart and you find it within yourselves to grant my dying wish and save my child.

By my hand this 30th day of August 1665.

Maria Beauchurch.'

As Sarah reached the end of the letter, Lady Jane's face grew pale and her mouth tightened with distress. She shook her head to and fro several times, but did not speak.

‘I am Hannah, and this is my sister, Sarah,' I said into the long silence which followed. ‘Abby was Mrs Beauchurch's maid and was also my dear friend. She … she died of the plague.'

‘As did your sister, shortly after writing this letter,' Sarah said gently. ‘And her husband being already dead, we secured the safety of Grace and brought her to you, as she wished.'

Lady Jane's face did not change, but she took several more sniffs of her nosegay.

‘Grace would have been alone in the house in London,' I said. ‘She would have died.'

‘I did not know of this,' Lady Jane said at last. ‘I sent a messenger to the house to bring me news, but he did not return.'

‘London is devastated by the sickness,' Sarah said. ‘People are dropping like leaves from trees.'

‘Eight thousand died last week alone,' I said. ‘Your
messenger may have caught the sickness too.'

‘But little Grace is well and lusty,' Sarah went on, ‘although we are woefully inadequate at feeding her and hope to discover that you have a wet nurse here.'

‘Wet nurse!' Lady Jane said scornfully. ‘How would you expect me to find a wet nurse for a child, however well-born, that is come from a house where plague has taken its mother and father?'

‘But Grace is healthy,' Sarah protested. ‘As healthy as we are. See!'

She lifted Grace towards Lady Jane, who made agitated movements with her arms and moved away from us. ‘No! Get back!'

‘We have Certificates signed by the Lord Mayor himself,' I said, and then realised how stupid a statement that was.

‘They are not in your names!' said Lady Jane immediately. ‘They verify the health of my sister and her maid – and how little they are worth may be judged by the fact that both are now dead!'

‘But for pity …' I held up Grace for her to see. ‘Here is your niece and she is a beautiful child.' My voice shook, for not only did it seem that the lavish welcome I'd been expecting was not going to be forthcoming, but it also looked as though we were going to be turned away. ‘Surely you'll let us stay?' I cried.

Lady Jane was silent for some moments, causing me much anxiety, but at last she spoke.

‘I will not turn you away entirely. Indeed, it pains me to keep my own flesh and blood from my side, but I have my household here to consider. You must be quarantined until I am sure that you have not brought
the sickness with you.'

‘But we are well …'

‘Please consider …' Sarah began, but her voice trailed away for, like me, she felt that to protest was useless. Lady Jane would have heard what the conditions in London were like and would know how the plague proliferated – and had I not told her myself of the numbers who'd died in the previous week?

‘How could I live with myself if I were responsible for bringing the plague to Dorchester?' Lady Jane asked. ‘No, to vouchsafe my family here, the three of you must go into a pestilence house for a period of isolation.'

Sarah gasped. ‘Oh, not that!' she cried, and she moved closer and put her arm around me.

I felt tears of fright spring to my eyes. To go through all we had done, only to be sent to one of those beggardly, foul-smelling places where the Angel of Death kept constant watch beside each bed! It would have been better if we'd not journeyed here at all, but had taken our chances in London.

‘And what of Mr Carter?' the woman in black asked Lady Jane. She had not spoken in all this time, just made more of the strange hiccupping noises. ‘He has been living amongst the sickness in London too. Must he go to the pesthouse?'

‘Carter was afflicted in the last outbreak twenty years ago,' Lady Jane said. ‘He recovered and will not catch it again.'

‘But … but where is there such a house?' Sarah asked. ‘Where must we go?'

‘There is a pestilence house for travellers located on the road into Dorchester,' Lady Jane said. ‘You must
stay there for forty days – until we are sure that you are not contagious.'

‘But we sought to secure the life of Grace by bringing her here – how will she fare in such a place?' I asked. ‘We have no milk for her, nor clothes or coverings. All she has is the sheet she lies in.'

‘I will have the milch-ass call there, and you may have whatever comforts I can provide,' Lady Jane said. ‘After forty days you may return to Highclear House.'

‘We might be dead by then!' I said bitterly.

‘And how will we get there?' Sarah asked, tears now running down her cheeks. ‘Must we walk?'

‘No. I shall arrange for Carter to convey you,' Lady Jane said. She turned and spoke some words to the other woman, who hurried off towards the stables. ‘But now will you show me the babe once more?' she asked.

I felt like refusing, but did not dare. I held Grace out towards her, loosening the sheet so that Lady Jane could see her healthy complexion and strong limbs.

‘She is very like my dear sister,' was all she said, and then she turned and began to walk back towards the house.

‘Not a word of thanks,' Sarah said as we watched her go inside.

‘And sent to the pesthouse for our reward! Shall we just run away?' I said desperately. ‘We could hide in the woods somewhere or make our way into a town. Anything rather than go to a pesthouse!'

Sarah shook her head wearily. ‘How could we run away? We have no food nor means of shelter. Where would we go?'

‘We have some money …'

‘But not enough to last. And what of Grace – we couldn't live like animals in the woods with a child of such a tender age. Besides,' she added, ‘I am so weary that I could not run anywhere.'

‘So you mean for us to go to the pesthouse and live among the beggars?'

‘I fear we have no choice,' she said. ‘We must make the best of it.'

‘This month is the first decrease we have yet had in the Sickness since it began, and great hopes that the next month it will be greater.'

Upon the door of the pesthouse being opened, the first thing which arrested our senses was the stench which derived from it, as thick and foul as the miasma which had hung over London. It told of filth and rotting food and excrement and uncleansed bodies and was enough to turn the strongest stomach. Sarah and I both gagged and would have backed out again, but the parish officer, in whose charge we had been put, was close behind us.

As our eyes grew accustomed to the dim light inside, we looked about us, quaking with fear. Sarah had Grace in one arm and she and I linked hands and held on to each other like lifelines.

After the smell, the next most apparent things were the gloom – for it seemed as dark as a burying vault – and then the decay. No covering or cloth hanging relieved the rough walls or cobweb-encrusted beams,
and the windows were high and narrow, with no glass in them. The floors were of trodden earth and littered with all manner of disgraceful objects: old, stained plaisters and blood-soaked bandages, full chamber pots, tattered cloths and rags, and what looked to me like the detritus and waste left behind by a dozen different plagues. Amidst this filth stood perhaps eight beds, some five supplied with a patient, either sitting or lying down, and covered with a grimy sheet or rough blanket.

‘It is … foul,' Sarah said faintly, and she loosened her hand from my grip and pressed a white holland kerchief to her mouth to breathe through. She turned to the parish officer, Mr Beade, a rank and ratty-faced man with a good many pox scars. ‘My sister and I are gentle born,' she said in a low voice. ‘Is there not another place we may lie?'

I indicated Grace. ‘This child is Lady Jane's niece,' I said. ‘It is surely not right that she should be in such a place.'

‘But Lady Jane herself has sent you,' he said, looking astonished that anyone should question the desirability of living there, ‘and she will pay me for accommodating you and letting you wait out your quarantine. Come,' he went on, ‘the time will go quickly, and with God's grace you will be out of here as healthy as you came in.'

Sarah and I exchanged despairing glances.

‘And such pretty wenches – and you with your flaming locks!' he said, sliding his eyes to me. ‘Two such frisky creatures will gladden the hearts of some of our poor patients!'

I gave him a hard stare at this, for I had no
intention of being a form of entertainment for the other inmates. ‘May my sister and I at least stay close to each other?' I asked.

Sarah nodded. ‘And, as we have a young child, may we have a corner or recess where we can attend to her needs and not disturb those who suffer here?'

Mr Beade – who was as ill-smelling as his pesthouse – looked doubtful.

‘We are not seeking special treatment,' I said. ‘We are thinking of the comfort of your patients as much as ourselves. The babe wakes frequently for milk and cries as often as any other infant.'

After much deliberation, and after dragging a poor person who looked half-dead from their mattress and moving them elsewhere, Mr Beade found a bed in the corner for Sarah, with my bed at an angle from this, thus enclosing Grace within the small square made by our two bedsteads. For her (no doubt wanting to secure the good opinion of Lady Jane), he procured an empty drawer from the adjoining almshouse where he lived, saying we could fill it with whatever material we wished and it would make a fine cradle.

Sarah looked around at the patients. ‘Do any here have the plague?' she asked him in a low voice.

He shook his head. ‘No, indeed!' he said. ‘No one has the plague here. There is no plague in Dorchester.'

She pointed around us. ‘Then what …?'

‘Two have the spotted fever,' he said, ‘one the bloody flux and one suffers the sweating sickness. One other is come back from London to Dorchester, which is their home town, and must sit out forty days, as you do.' Saying that, he went off about his duties, which seemed mostly to consist of chivying people to bestir
themselves and not lie around succumbing to whatever ailed them.