Petals in the Ashes (6 page)

‘Aren't we near yet?' I asked Sarah. ‘We
must
be nearly there now.'

She looked out of the carriage window and into the sky to judge the position of the sun. ‘Mr Carter said we would arrive near sundown,' she said. ‘And we're a way off that yet.'

I sighed, long and loud. Never had a journey seemed so wearying. Even travelling from London to Dorchester seemed nothing to this, for we'd had Grace with us then and much to do in keeping her fed and pacified.

‘We'll soon be there, Hannah.' Sarah smiled into the distance. ‘And just think how excited the little ones will be to see us.'

‘And Father will grunt a bit and nod and look pleased!'

‘And then Mother, after she's got over her shock,
will cry with happiness that we're home.'

I nodded with satisfaction. All that. All that and more: Mother would have one of the boys catch a chicken and cook it for supper, with a flummery to follow that had been made with cream from our own cows. After we'd eaten we'd all sit down, light the candles and tell our news: Mother and Anne would want to know about the shop, what sweetmeats were most popular and the fashions worn by the quality who came to buy from us, while the boys probably would want to know how many bodies we'd encountered when the plague was at its height, and if we'd seen anyone with the buboes on them. Later, I would be sleeping once again in the bed-chamber where I'd been born, with the damp patch on the wall which was shaped like an oak tree, and Tyb, our big old cat, would sleep on my bed and wake me in the night by leaping around the room trying to catch moths. I was so longing to be there.

Our stay at Highclear House had continued until the numbers dying from plague on the London Bills of Mortality had come right down and it was considered perfectly safe for us to travel. We'd heard at the end of February that the king and his court had returned to Whitehall, but it had taken us some time to arrange our journey, as Lady Jane had by then gone out of England to stay with relations in France. Mrs Black, however (who could not do too much for us since we had cured her of the hiccups), had written to her mistress asking that Carter might take us in the carriage as far as Chertsey. Permission had been granted, and Sarah and I were to stay with our family
for a week or two before we made the last stage of the journey to London by whatever means was convenient. We had bid farewell to the Highclear household, but had only been really sorry to leave Grace and our good friend Martha.

I stretched my legs in the cramped carriage, then lifted my skirt to rub at my knees. ‘Every part of me has been jolted to bits,' I complained. ‘I swear I am black and blue under my shift.'

Having rubbed at my aches, I pulled my skirt down again and patted the pleats carefully into place, for the material was costly and the colour vivid blue and I loved the gown dearly. By and large, Sarah and I had managed to obtain several new outfits during the time we'd been at the house. Lady Jane was generous with her cast-offs and, in addition, a bolt of deep plum linsey-woolsey had arrived from abroad, the colour of which Lady Jane had not liked, so she had passed it to Mrs Black. With her help, and that of the needlewoman at the house, Sarah and I had made skirts and matching jackets of it, which we later embroidered and which looked very fine.

We came to a crossroads and I peered out of the carriage window. There was a set of stocks here, and also a double gallows where the bodies of two highwaymen hung, swaying gently in the wind. This caused to make me think of Gentleman Jack, the highwayman who'd plied his trade around our home town and on the roads into London – a dashing figure always dressed in the finest silks and satins who oft stole a kiss from the ladies when he took their diamond rings. I asked Sarah if she thought he were still on the roads.

‘I think not,' she answered. ‘I am sure that our neighbour Mr Newbery said to me that he saw Gentleman Jack hung at Tyburn and his head stuck on a pole over London Bridge.'

I was just taking in this news when there was a shout from outside and a yell and swearing from Mr Carter, and one of our horses neighed and reared up, causing the carriage to skew across the road. I screamed, for it seemed obvious to me what had happened. ‘It's highwaymen! We're going to be robbed!' I cried to Sarah.

I had no jewellery, but I immediately pushed my small bag under the seat so it was out of view. Our gowns and capes were in a chest on top of the carriage and they would be stolen straightaway, but at least they would not see my bag containing my own special things: brushes, pink kid gloves, a little silver box and two pretty fans.

Sarah, too, pushed her bag out of view, and tucked her only jewellery (a gold neck-chain that our grandmother had given her) into her neckline so that it was hidden.

There was another shout, but we were too frightened to lean out of the window for, apart from Gentleman Jack, most of the highwaymen were violent, lewd fellows who would shoot first and rob second, and think nothing of stripping a lady's dress from her and leave her standing in her shift. Indeed, we had heard of one who had a mind to take a lady's petticoats too and leave her stark naked on the road.

Our carriage came to a halt all of an angle, and Sarah and I clung to each other. We heard Mr Carter shout to someone, employing a good deal of swearing
and blaspheming.

‘Take heart, my man!' an answering hail came. ‘I am not a highwayman. I have merely been assaulted by one.'

‘Get out of the way!' Mr Carter swore again and whipped up the horses but (as it turned out) one of our back wheels had gone into a ditch and we did not move an inch.

‘I assure you I am speaking the truth!' the man's voice came again. ‘I have been abroad and was travelling from Southampton back to my home when I was set upon. My two horses were taken – and my luggage. All I have is what I stand up in.'

‘A likely tale!' Mr Carter retorted.

‘Indeed not, Sir. I am Giles Copperly and my family lives in Parkshot.'

Sarah's arm gripped mine. ‘The
Copperlys
…' she said.

I gasped and nodded. Parkshot was a hamlet only a spit away from Chertsey, and we knew of the Copperly family, for they were rich spice merchants and had endowed a stained-glass window at our church.

Sarah put her head out of the carriage window. ‘Mr Carter,' she said, ‘my sister and I know the Copperly family.'

‘Do you indeed?' Mr Carter said stoutly.

‘I am sure he …' she paused. ‘Mr Copperly, what is the name of your father?'

‘It is Thomas, Madam,' the answer came.

‘That's right.' Sarah opened the carriage door and Giles Copperly strode over. He was about twenty-five and swarthy, with dark eyes and good teeth.

‘Your servant, ladies,' he said, bowing very deeply, and I felt that, had he had one, he would have flourished a plumed hat as he made his addresses.

There was a
hurrumph
from Mr Carter. ‘If you're sure, Ma'am,' he said.

Sarah nodded her assent to Mr Carter. ‘I am Sarah, and this is my sister Hannah,' she said to Giles Copperly. He gave a nod towards me and I smiled and inclined my head slightly, as I had seen the quality do. ‘We live at Chertsey and are going home to our family,' Sarah went on. ‘We're sorry for your predicament and will be pleased to convey you to Parkshot.'

‘Thank the Lord!' said Giles Copperly, and he seized Sarah's hand and kissed it. She looked at him, smiling, and, to my great surprise (for gallants coming into the shop often flirted and it was nothing to us), blushed scarlet.

Mr Carter called for Giles's aid in setting the carriage straight, and (while Sarah, I noticed, was patting her hair and pinching her lips together to make them pink) he helped get it from the ditch and back on to the road. He then joined us for the rest of the journey. While I had hoped for some lively talk – for it turned out that he had just returned from the South Sea Islands – he and Sarah kept most of the conversation between the two of them, and spoke of little but spices and sugars all the way to Parkshot. We left him there, and indeed I was glad to see him go, for I thought him a bore, and we were then driven the short distance home.

We drove through the high street of Chertsey, and – it being rare to see such a beautiful and costly coach-and-four
going through the town – people stopped and stared at us and we, seeing folk we knew, laughed and waved to them. As we drove I was mighty relieved to see that nowhere in the town were there signs of plague: no houses enclosed, no doors with the dread sign on them, and the churchyard stood as tranquil as before, the ground not raised and swollen with bodies as had been the case in London.

Leaning from the coach window, I directed Mr Carter down our lane. Our cottage, cosy and newly thatched with golden straw, stood just beyond the apple orchard, and my brothers were perched on the gate which led into this, playing Jack-come-up and pushing each other from the top bar, as they always did. Suddenly, though, they saw the smart carriage coming towards them and became still as statues, their mouths perfect circles of astonishment.

We just had time to admire our beautiful orchard, alight with white blossom, and the barn where Father worked, which was covered all over with glossy ivy and starry forsythia, before the carriage halted and Mr Carter got down to open the door and lower the carriage steps for us.

Sarah and I exchanged glances and she put her finger against her lips. We lifted our skirts and climbed out in a genteel manner, being sure to keep our faces low so that the boys could not see who we were – but I had reckoned without my hair, and there was no hiding
that
. Before I had even taken a step on to the ground Adam shouted, ‘It's Hannah and Sarah!' and all three boys flung themselves on us with squeals and shrieks of laughter. At the noise they made, Anne ran from the cottage, closely followed by Mother, all
set to admonish the boys for acting familiarly with two such grand ladies. These two halted on the path and then we had the bigger surprise, for we could see that our mother was expecting a child, and indeed was so very large that it seemed she might produce it at any moment.

She hugged us as close as she was able, and wept, and we wept too, and were glad to be safely home. ‘All my children together,' she said, ‘gathered in like the harvest.'

Near a week later Sarah and I were ourselves sitting on the orchard gate amid the fast-falling blossom. We had just returned from Abby's cottage, where we'd had to tell her mother how she had died of plague. Although we'd emphasised how brave she'd been, and that it was due to her that the life of little Grace had been saved, it was obvious that Abby's mother would rather have had her own daughter safe and did not care two jots for some other person's child. She had cried, too, because she would have no tranquil churchyard to visit or lay flowers in, Abby's body having gone into a plague pit along with so many others.

‘I wish we had taken some memento from Abby,' I said as Sarah and I sat on the gate, talking of what had been said. ‘A lock of her hair or some trinket – or at least a word or two from Abby to her mother.'

‘There was no time for things like that,' Sarah said. ‘We were too anxious to snatch Grace and get away. But mayhap we should have made up some last words to be of comfort to her mother.'

I sighed and nodded, for it had been a difficult and
awkward visit and we'd been only too anxious to leave the poor woman and come home. After some moments I tried to put this sad matter out of my head, however, and looked at Sarah to try to judge her mood, for she'd been acting rather oddly the last day or so. ‘When do you think we'll return to London?' I asked.

‘You seem in a great hurry.'

I shrugged. ‘Well, I thought we agreed we wanted to get our business going again, the shop open and the customers back and …'

‘And see Tom!' she finished.

‘That as well,' I said, my heart giving a little leap.

There was a long pause. ‘Hannah, you may not be altogether happy with this, but I think we ought to stay until our mother's lying-in,' Sarah finally said.

‘That long!' I protested, for in spite of Mother's girth, there was more than a month to go before our new brother or sister would be born.

‘Mother is not so strong as she was for birthing or for the demands of a new baby. We know how hard
that
is from looking after Grace,' Sarah said.

‘But Anne will help! And the maid from the village comes in every day.'

‘The maid has enough to do with the boys – and Anne is just a lazy flibbertigibbet!'

I laughed, but it was true, for Anne's head was stuffed with games and fashions and fol-de-rols. Further, as she had not bothered overmuch with school, she could barely read or scribe her name.

‘She'll be no help at all to our mother!' Sarah said. ‘And as we are the eldest daughters, I feel we should stay.'

I sighed. ‘But for how long?'

‘Eight weeks or so – maybe twelve. We'll see.'

I gave a cry of protest, counting on my fingers. ‘Twelve weeks will be July! We'll have lost all our customers by then – they'll have gone elsewhere for their sweetmeats.'

‘Tush!' Sarah said. ‘There are only a few sweetmeat shops in the west of the City – and we are most certainly the best. They'll come back to us.'

‘But …' I sighed again, for I could barely explain how much I wanted to go back to London, for I hardly understood it myself. I'd hated the stinking city when we'd left, could hardly bear to think on its name, but now that the plague had disappeared from the streets the people would be back, the theatres and shops would be open and we would find everything as cheery as it had been before. Besides (and this was what I most feared), if I was too long in returning, Tom might find another sweetheart, for there had been no words spoken or pledges given, nor even a kiss.