Petals in the Ashes (9 page)

I shook my head.

‘They say plague may return if we don't take care.'

I didn't speak.

‘I keep three spiders in my pocket whenever I go aselling faggots. What do you do?'

But I couldn't reply to this for my throat was thick with tears and I felt near choked with them. After a moment she moved on, looking at me strangely. ‘Five for sixpence! Five faggots for sixpence!' she called as she moved down the lane.

I stayed leaning against the shop front for some
time, tears falling down my cheeks and marking the green taffeta gown. And then I pulled the rosemary sprigs out of my hair and let them fall, for there was no one here to remember me.

‘Saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings door in Drury Lane in her smock-sleeves and bodice – she seemed a mighty pretty creature.'

Anne did not find me good company in those days after I had first learned of Tom's death for, being full of sorrow, I made a hard task-mistress. Not sleeping well, I rose before dawn, worked all day and continued toiling by the light of a candle at night, and expected her to do the same.

I found it hard to believe that I had lost Tom for ever. With my friend Abby I had seen her grow weaker and more pitiful, day by day as the plague took a tighter grip on her. That she would die had seemed inevitable. Tom, though … the last I'd seen of him he had been strong and healthy and brave, blowing kisses to me as our carriage had driven away from London. How could he be dead?

I lay awake at night with Anne sleeping peacefully beside me, and couldn't help wondering in which way he had been struck down. I had seen or heard of
plague taking many forms: brief and so violent that the sufferers were dead before they knew they had contracted it; painful but drawn out over a long, weary period so that they almost believed they might survive; or so prolonged and maddening in its intensity that the victims dashed their brains out against a wall in order to find peace.

Which had Tom endured?

I knew again, too, the sorrow of not having a grave to visit. After our grandmother in Chertsey had died we would go to the churchyard several times a year to take flowers or – on her birthday – to decorate the grave with cut-out pictures and black ribbons. I would have felt greatly comforted if I could have visited Tom's grave, for I would have taken paper love-hearts as well as flowers, and sat and told him what was in my heart. There was nowhere to go, though, no grassy mound to sit beside, and although I made enquiries at the parish church, they told me that on contracting plague he and Doctor da Silva had been taken to a pesthouse in another parish. On asking there, I was told they had died and their bodies tipped into a plague pit. It was not even known which pit it was, except that it had been outside the City walls.

After two weeks of continual moping my dark mood was arrested, however, by Anne's announcement that she wanted to go back to Chertsey.

We had just shut the shop and I had put her to grinding down sugar for the next day's sweetmeats, hardly noticing that she was tired and unhappy.

‘Hannah,' she suddenly announced. ‘You're not the same sister that I remember. You're miserable and
hag-ridden and I declare I want to go home.'

I could scarce believe my ears. ‘Why, what are you saying?'

‘I know you've lost your sweetheart, and I've held my tongue thinking you would get over your bad humour, but it looks to be getting worse and you're more miserable by the minute,' she said defiantly. ‘I'd thought we'd have a rare old time here in London and enjoy each other's company and be going to fairs and plays and suchlike, but all I do is grind sugar day and night – and moreover, be held up to ridicule for not doing it well enough!'

I stared at her in surprise, for this speech was so unlike Anne that I could only think that she had been rehearsing it for days.

‘So if you'll pay me my wages to date I'll take Kitty and make my own way home,' she continued, ‘for I'd rather stay in Chertsey with the heifers than be in London with a shrew!'

‘Oh!' I gasped.

‘So there. I've said it and am glad on it.'

I looked at my little sister standing there so defiantly and, although I was very much hurt, recognised more than a little of the truth in what she'd said.

‘A shrew, you say …'

‘I didn't mean that last bit.'

‘Yes, you did!'

‘Well. Only sometimes.'

There was a long pause. ‘Am I really so bad?' I asked.

She nodded. ‘I can never speak to you. You're always miserable. You stand and watch everything I
do and then say it's wrong.' Her bottom lip trembled. ‘I don't like it here now!'

I felt so ashamed at these last words that I went over and put my arms around Anne. ‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I've thought of no one but myself and I've been horrible and beastly.'

‘Indeed you have.'

‘But please don't go home,' I said, hugging her tightly, ‘for I couldn't manage without you.'

‘Well,' she said. ‘You must promise to be nicer to me, and if you are, perhaps I'll stay …'

So we became friends again and I resolved to myself that I would put Tom out of my mind as much as I could, for I knew that everyone had lost someone in the plague: parent, employer, friend, husband, child … and if we all went around in low mood and foul temper, then the world would become an awful place indeed.

I began to see another side of Anne, a London side, for here she became a quick and neat worker and not at all lazy. As the weeks went by and the markets became fully open across the City, I allowed her to go off on her own in the mornings to buy the fruit and flowers we needed. She was good at this, for she drove a hard bargain with the stall-holders and, unlike me, was bold enough to return a bloom she later found to be damaged or an orange with a worm at its centre. I did not allow her to handle money, however, for on the two occasions when she had gone out with a pocket of coins under her petticoats, once she had been rooked of all she had by a fortune teller in a booth, and once she had purchased a whistling
wooden bird to amuse Kitty, which had broken within the hour. After this I sent her out with trading tokens, or she went to one of our regular suppliers where we had an account.

We spoke often of our family, and whether Sarah and Giles loved each other, and also if our mother had been confined safely and whether we had a new brother or sister. I felt that things had gone all right for our mother, for Sarah would have found means to let us know if this were not the case.

It had been feared that with the coming of warmer weather the plague would return, but although there were always a few plague deaths on the Bills of Mortality, thanks be the numbers did not increase. People continued to pour into London – either returning to their old jobs or coming to fill up the places left by those who had died – until the City seemed just as crowded and heated and hectic as it had done the previous year.

In the first days after our return we did not have many customers, but we didn't mind this because we didn't have a deal of sweetmeats prepared. By the month of June, however, many of our old customers had realised we were open again and custom began to improve. I was pleased to be in such a trade as ours, for although it is true that sweetmeats are only passing trivial things, our customers held that they made them feel better and cheered their day. One grand lady said to us that if she wanted some sweet delicacy and could afford it, then she would have it, for life was too short to do without.

One day, we made an excursion to see the shops on
London Bridge. It took us fully one hour to fight our way across to Southwarke, for there were forty shops open on the bridge, and as many stalls, and a press of people on foot, horseback, carriage and sedan fighting with each other for space. Here we purchased two pairs of scented gloves each, and a set of nutcrackers at a new cook shop, for one of our most popular sweetmeats was miniature fruits made from marchpane, which meant two or three nights sitting cracking a deal of almonds with a hammer, and the nutcrackers would greatly speed this work.

Leaving the bridge to go around the myriad of little shops near the Tower, we heard a terrible roaring coming from the king's menagerie, making me jump mightily and Anne shriek with fright. We were told by a garlic-seller that it was feeding time for the king's lions and tigers and, hearing this, I promised Anne that we would visit the menagerie soon and see these lions, for they were said to be most enormous and fiercesome, yet related to our own Kitty (which I could scarce believe).

Another day, obtaining some lengths of parchment from Mr Newbery (who asked me if I wanted it to write my Will and said it was wise to do so), I wrote a list of all the sweetmeats that we made, to be advertisements for our goods. This read:

Frosted rose petals
Crystallised violets
Sugared plums
Herb comfits
Sugared angelica
Glacé cherries
Sugared orange peel
Lemon and orange suckets
Violet cakes

As well as these we made the marchpane fruits, of course, but as they took a monstrous long time to make, we could not always hold them in stock. I took great pains with the spellings of these items, even though many of our customers would not have known any better and, after getting some coloured inks from Mr Newbery, drew a likeness of the sweetmeat next to its name for those who could not read. I made two copies and nailed one to the wooden shutter to be on show when we were open, and put the other inside on the wall.

We also began to make pomanders as Martha had instructed us, for at a warehouse in Wharf Lane I'd seen a barrel of cloves going very cheaply and had made bold to buy the lot. Oranges were costly, but we did not need the best quality, nor the freshest, so we would buy five or six of a lesser quality at a time, stud them all over with cloves and decorate them with ribbons and lace. Anne was especially good at doing this and would search around the rag markets for scraps of braid or gay trimmings to use. We hung these pomanders in the shop and they did not stay long, for pretty items like this were much in demand with the quality.

I wanted Sarah to see what a success we were making of things, and looked forward to her return so that we could hear how our mother had fared, yet loved what I was doing so much that I did not want to relinquish my place as shopkeeper. I knew, too, that
Anne would not now wish to return home to Chertsey, so began to wonder if the three of us could work together when Sarah arrived. The shop and the living quarters were small, but Anne could have a truckle bed to pull out from under the bigger one, and perhaps a storeroom could be built at the back of the shop, beside the privy.

Anne and I soon became best friends again, for being very near in age we had always played together as children, and it didn't take long for us to regain our old closeness. Things were going mighty well for us and I would have been happy had it not been for the loss of Tom. Though I did not speak on it now, his memory was always at the back of my mind. I wondered if I would find another sweetheart, and when, and what he would be like. Whenever I daydreamed and thought on this mysterious person, though, he always turned out to have Tom's face. Maybe, I thought, there would be no other suitor for me, and I would remain unkissed and die a spinster.

One morning, to my great surprise, a handsome gilded carriage stopped outside the shop drawn by two white horses with their manes and tails plaited with red and gold ribbons. A velvet-coated footman then jumped down, opened the door with a flourish and lowered the steps.

As I hurried to the doorway to greet this important customer, there was some giggling within the carriage (for it seemed that there was a man in there too), and then a young woman with hair as red as mine stepped out.

I brushed down my apron and just had time to call
Anne to come through from the back room. ‘Quickly!' I shouted in great excitement, for I had never forgotten her coming to the shop before. ‘'Tis Nelly Gwyn. The actress!'

Anne came running in and we both curtseyed to Nelly for, as Mr Newbery said later, although she was but a whore she was a mighty pretty one. She was dressed very beautifully: her gown was of the finest silver tissue and over it she wore a most fashionable little cape of black velvet backed with silver fur.

‘I'm pleased to see your shop open again at last!' she said. ‘I have oft fancied some of your sweetmeats.'

‘Thank you, Ma'am,' I murmured. ‘We have but recently returned from the country.'

‘And all's well and you have survived the visitation?' She looked through to the back of the shop. ‘Where is your sister?'

‘She is staying with our family at present, Ma'am,' I said. ‘But I have my younger sister here instead.'

Nelly laughed and showed little pearly teeth, perfectly spaced. ‘So! A goodly supply of sisters.' She looked around. ‘Your shop here is a little oasis. London roars outside as wild as a lion, but in here all is sweetness and calm.'

‘Thank you, indeed,' I said, bobbing another curtsey and thinking I would write to Sarah on the instant and tell her this.

‘And now will you let me have some of your crystallised violets, for I swear nothing revives me after a performance as they do.'

I was instantly filled with remorse, for we had not been able to find fresh violets at the flower markets in the last week and so did not have any crystallised ones
to sell. I apologised for this, and, promising that we would have some by the middle of the following week, persuaded her that lemon suckets might be the very thing to refresh her instead.

I counted ten of these into a large cone of paper. ‘Are you on stage at present, Ma'am?' I asked, for I could see from Anne's face that she was struck dumb with admiration and would want to know more about our visitor.

She nodded. ‘I am engaged to play Lady Wealthy in
The English Monsieur
. Me – a lady! The very thought has put the aristocracy into a fearsome stir!'