Petals in the Ashes (4 page)

Some two weeks or so after we'd arrived in the pesthouse, Martha was seen by a doctor from Dorchester, pronounced fit, and allowed to go on her way. We knew we would miss her very much, but we promised that we would see each other again – and indeed she said she could not wait to visit us in Highclear House.

One person died over the next week (it was given out that he'd died of spotted fever) and two more people were admitted for quarantine: an old man and his son. They too had come from London and brought the welcome news that at last there had been a downturn in the numbers dying from plague. From a tragic high of ten thousand deaths in one week, the numbers had gradually fallen. The first week in October showed three thousand, with further falls expected.

‘We must write to our family,' Sarah said, on learning this news. ‘Now the numbers of dead are decreasing, they may allow a letter through.'

I nodded. ‘Besides, we are not writing from London, but from Dorchester, and that will make a difference.'

We deliberated a good while on what to say about
the death of Abby, for Abby's mother, a widow, lived just a short distance from our house in Chertsey and would not yet have heard of it. We did not know if we should put our own mother in the difficult position of passing on the news.

In the end we decided we would not mention it, for neither our mother nor father could read well, and it would have been too difficult to explain the circumstances of Abby's death and to say how we had taken over the care of little Grace and brought her to Lady Jane. Accordingly, we just wrote the following:

Dearest Mother and Father,
We trust that you remain in good health as we do, thanks be to God. You will have no doubt heard of the unhappy conditions in London at present and we write to tell you that due to certain circumstances we are at present staying in Dorchester. On our journey back to London we shall be sure to visit you, and in the meantime send love to John, George, Adam and Anne, and remain your loving daughters, Sarah and Hannah

Folding the parchment and sealing it with wax supplied by Mr Beade, we sent it care of the Reverend Davies at our parish church in Chertsey, trusting that he would pay the necessary small sum to take delivery of it and pass it to whichever member of our family came to church the following Sunday.

‘Imagine the excitement when it is received!' Sarah said fondly.

I nodded. ‘Anne will carry it back home to Mother …'

Sarah laughed. ‘And John and George and little Adam will fight to see it first … and they will try to read the words … and Mother will show them their own names at the end.'

‘And then the boys will practise their writing by making a fair copy underneath!'

We were silent for a good while after this, and I felt very low and as if I could weep. Though it was only five months since I'd seen my family, a great deal had happened to me in that time, and I wished most desperately to be back safely in our little thatched cottage in Chertsey with them all.

When our forty days had elapsed, Mr Beade applied for the local doctor to call and examine us. He did so and pronounced the three of us fit and healthy. He must have then supplied the same information to Highclear House, for that afternoon the coach which had conveyed us from London to Dorchester called at the pesthouse and Mr Carter, bowing, requested that we collect up our belongings, as Lady Jane wished to receive us.

Immediately, very excited, we dressed Grace in her best dress and bonnet, attended to our hair and gowns and made ourselves ready for the short journey. Mr Beade, whose person who had not been part of the pesthouse improvements and who still stunk worse than a polecat, ran beside the carriage for some distance, seemingly sorry to see us go.

‘Don't forget, ladies, to tell Lady Jane how I have nurtured and taken especial good care of you!' was his last cry to us.

‘Called at my booksellers for a book writ about twenty years ago in prophecy of this year coming on, 1666, explaining it to be the Mark of the Beast.'

The contrast between Highclear House and the pesthouse could not have been more marked. We had first seen Highclear in the sunlight so that the marble columns gleamed and the windows glittered silver, and though when we returned it was raining, with storm clouds above as thick as pease pudding, the sight of it was still enough to make you catch your breath. It was imposing and stately, with something of the grandness of the Royal Exchange about it, and looked far too splendid to be a house built merely for people to live in.

Mr Carter drove us around to the back, past a chapel, brewhouse, laundry, stables, and coach houses. There seemed enough of these buildings to form a small village, and this impression was strengthened by the large number of people we saw going about their duties: clerks, maids, grooms, valets
– even two reverend gentlemen.

The carriage stopped in a paved courtyard and, alighting, we entered the house through a heavy oak door and went down steps into the kitchen. This was a room as big as an alehouse, its walls lined with pot cupboards and shelves. Along one wall was a vast black-leaded cooking range, and above this were two complete rows of shining copper pots, pans and moulds. There were several deep pewter sinks and two fireplaces, each holding a roasting animal turning on a spit, and the bright flames of the fires reflected off the lines of copper pans, making the whole room cheerful. Indeed it looked so warm and welcoming that for some moments we just stood there staring about us, for it was such a contrast to the dark and dirty aspect of the pesthouse where, in spite of all our efforts, rats scuttled across the floor at night and lice and fleas bit us into wakefulness, that I felt I could scarce look at it enough.

Grace, secure in my arms, was silent and wide-eyed too, and the several women in white aprons who were busying themselves about the room smiled at her – and us – in a friendly manner. We were both astonished and delighted to see that one of these women was our friend Martha from the pesthouse: Martha in a long white apron, her unruly hair pushed up and almost hidden under a new starched cap.

‘I've been waiting for you!' she said, coming up and kissing us in turn. ‘Mrs Black told Cook that you would be arriving here one day this week.'

‘But what are you doing here?' I asked, very surprised.

‘Well, my sister has a new husband and I could not
abide him,' she said. ‘I heard that her Ladyship wanted a cook-maid and so I applied, knowing that you would be coming here soon.'

She stroked Grace's cheek and the babe, recognising her, began to babble at her in nonsense baby-talk. Meanwhile, I still stared around the room in awe, for here was a grand home, a stately home, such as I'd never entered before. Through a doorway I could see into a still room, where thick bunches of dried flowers and herbs were hanging, and another doorway led into a buttery, with vats of cream and butter standing by to set. I wondered about the rest of the house and concluded that if I was in such great awe at the kitchen, I might possibly be struck dumb by all the rest of it.

‘What are we to do here – do you know?' I asked Martha, for Sarah and I had often talked about how we might be received by Lady Jane and what she would do with us.

‘What will be our status?' Sarah added.

Martha shook her head. ‘I have no idea,' she said, ‘for though we maids keep our ears pricked for gossip, we rarely hear anything of merit. The undercook is above me, and the cook is above her, and the housekeeper is above us all. I have never even seen Lady Jane! I do know that Lord Cartmel is something to do with Parliament, but he's away in Oxford where they're sitting.'

‘Why sitting in Oxford?' Sarah asked.

‘Because of the plague still being in London,' Martha replied, dropping her voice on the dread word.

‘But we did hear that the numbers of dead were
falling,' I said.

Martha nodded. ‘They say there's an improvement now the cooler weather is come. Thanks be to God,' she added.

Grace made a grab for Martha's cap and pulled it sideways and I moved her on to my other hip and so away from temptation. ‘Is this a good house to work in?' I asked.

‘It is,' Martha assured us, ‘for although Mrs Black is strict, she's fair. And it's most beneficial to the staff that the poor lady suffers permanently from—'

But she did not continue, for just then there was a strange little noise from the doorway and a moment later the woman in black we had first spoken to some forty days before appeared. This was, in fact, Mrs Black (which name I thought most appropriate for someone wearing such sombre clothing), housekeeper to Lady Jane. As such, she supervised all the female staff: cooks, maids, governesses, needlewomen and launderesses.

Another moment and we were to find out what Martha had been about to tell us of Mrs Black, for as she came towards us she hiccupped twice, tiny movements which jerked her head back and caused a little inward breath. I felt a laugh rising inside me but managed to keep it down, for Mrs Black was holding out her arms for Grace.

‘At last! You are welcome to Highclear House,' she said, adding, ‘and indeed the little one is more than welcome.'

Sarah and I both bobbed curtsies – I as well as I could, for Grace was plump and heavy now. Mrs Black took her from me and I think Grace might have
cried at being handled by a stranger, indeed she opened her mouth to start, but Mrs Black gave two more hiccups and Grace forgot to bawl, looking at Mrs Black with such an astonished expression that again I felt I wanted to laugh.

‘You are to come upstairs now and speak to Lady Jane,' Mrs Black said, ‘and be sure to say how very grateful you are for her kindness in receiving you here.'

Sarah and I exchanged brief glances and, as Mrs Black led the way through the kitchen, I said to her in a whisper that it should be the other way round:
she
should be grateful to
us
for rescuing Grace. Sarah shook her head at me to be quiet.

Mrs Black, hiccupping gently, led us down a long corridor, and through doors, and up and down short flights of stairs, and then said we were entering the part of the house where Lady Jane and her family lived.

Going through a door into this part of the house, the difference was apparent immediately. One moment we were in a narrow, dark stairwell without a rug under our feet, the next we had entered another world where the air was heady with the scent of pot pourri, and where we trod on thick, soft carpets and looked up to walls hung so generously with portraits, mirrors and tapestries that the wallpaper behind could scarce be seen.

‘You will never be in this front part of the house again, except by invitation,' Mrs Black said, ‘for the house has been designed so that the staff and the family lead completely separate lives. The servants here have their own staircases and corridors and are
not seen by the family.'

Sarah and I both looked surprised at this, for we had never heard of such an arrangement before.

‘It is so that the gentry walking up the main stairs in the morning do not see last night's chamber pots coming down to meet them,' Mrs Black said.

‘And is there really a room for bathing,' I asked, ‘in which the hot water comes out of a tap in the wall?'

‘There is,' she said, ‘but it means two maids working four hours each to fill the tank with hot water, so it has been used once only, and that after my Lady's last confinement.'

We paused outside a door gilded all over with carvings and Mrs Black shifted Grace into a more comfortable position and rubbed a smudge from her plump cheek, then looked at me and Sarah critically. ‘Can you not calm your hair a little more?' she asked me. ‘'Tis all over the place like a storm.'

I adjusted my cap. ‘It is tied at the back,' I said, turning slightly to show her. ‘I fear it has a mind of its own, though.'

‘And such a colour,' Mrs Black murmured. ‘Do you not find it over-bright?'

I did, of course, and had tried many times to subdue its redness, but since finding out that Nelly Gwyn had hair of the exact same colour and type, I had begun to bear it a little better. Hearing someone criticise it now just caused me to run my fingers through my curls so that they stuck out further.

‘Hannah's hair is much admired,' Sarah put in, hiding a smile. ‘All the gallants comment on it.'

‘There are no gallants here,' said Mrs Black dryly. She gave us a final look-over and brushed a leaf from
Sarah's skirt, then tapped at the door gently and ushered us into the room.

I just managed to stop myself gasping at the sight before me, and indeed I could not describe it in any detail, but knew that there were vast purple velvet drapes and many mirrors hung with crystal droplets and studded with candles (for the day was already dark), and that the whole effect was one of glitter and light and richness. Three golden bird cages hung from the ceiling, each with several brightly-coloured birds within.

In the middle of all this glory sat Lady Jane at cards with three other ladies around a small table. All four had high, glossy wigs and were dressed in the finest silks and satins: Lady Jane was in stiff gold brocade over gold moiré, one of her companions was in brilliant green silk lined with silver and the remaining two ladies were in pink: one deep plum, the other clover. The overall look was as rich and elegant as a painting.

The ladies put down their cards and stared at us, causing Sarah and I to sink unbidden into curtsies as deep as if we were faced with the King of England.

Lady Jane rose from the table and, ignoring us, made straight for Grace and took her from Mrs Black. She snatched her too abruptly, though, for she immediately began to cry.

‘Hush, you minx!' Lady Jane said, then made an ineffectual try at pacifying Grace by lifting her into the air and swinging her about.

‘She dislikes that!' I blurted out, and would have taken her back again but was somehow stopped by the glances of my sister and Mrs Black.