Plague Child. Peter Ransley

welcome little game was interrupted by a familiar voice.

      ‘What’s going on?’

      George had come out of Half Moon Court. He still had a plaster on his head where I had struck him, but his darting eyes seemed as sharp as ever. I turned away, retrieving my hat. The woman told him what had happened. All that seemed to concern him was that the coach and its occupant had gone. I moved to pick up my uniform, torn and muddied by the wheels of the coach. I felt his eyes on me, but then I heard Anne’s voice.

      ‘George, are you going?’

      My heart lifted. If only I could speak to her before her father!

      ‘I must get my coat,’ George said. ‘It’s a chill evening.’

      ‘Please hurry!’

      ‘All right, all right,’ he muttered.

      He gave me another curious look. I bent and picked up a rotting apple from the sewer, which seemed to satisfy him I was a beggar, for he went back into the court. Under the overhanging jetties it was darker and easy to follow him, keeping to the shadows of the opposite building. Although my new shoes leaked, they made less noise than the clumsy boots. Candles were lit in the house. The last of the light always came into my window in the evening, and I could see the edge of my mother’s Bible on the sill.

      At least, I determined, I would take that away.

      Anne came to the doorway. She wore a pale-blue, high-waisted dress which I knew to be her best, presumably for the benefit of the visitor. Over that she had put on an apron. She carried George’s coat. He seemed to take an interminable time putting it on, during which he shook his head gravely before finally coming to a decision to speak.

      ‘What has happened to Mr Black is God’s visitation on you, Miss Anne,’ he said.

      She looked at him in terror. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I think you know,’ he said steadily.

      ‘Indeed I do not! Please go for the doctor.’

      I stared up at the window of Mr Black’s bedroom. In the wavering candlelight I could just see Mrs Black passing restlessly by the bed, peering out of the window.

      George stopped buttoning his coat, glanced up at the window, not speaking until Mrs Black had passed out of sight. ‘You let the devil out of the cellar,’ he said softly.

      ‘I did no such thing!’ Her voice was equally low, but sharp and contemptuous, as if it was the last thing in the world she would dream of doing.

      ‘I saw you.’

      ‘I came down when I heard the disturbance.’

      ‘I saw you going up.’

      There was a trace of uncertainty in his voice which she leapt on. ‘You cannot have done. You make too much of yourself. Get the doctor!’

      Perhaps he was lying and merely suspected. Or had seen something, but, groggy after my blow, could not be sure. At any rate, he began to move away reluctantly, and my heart went out to her for standing up to him.

      All would have been well, but then she added bitterly: ‘You should have let him have a candle.’

      She knew what she had said as soon as the words were out of her mouth. He stopped and turned very slowly. As he did so I caught the smile of satisfaction on his face. It vanished as he looked at her with grave concern.

      ‘How did you know about the candle?’

      She gave a little moan. ‘Please go.’

      ‘Mr Black needs more than a doctor to cure him. We must root out the cause of the illness: your sin.’

      He spoke so solemnly, so gravely, I had to struggle against the feeling that he was right, had been right all the time, and that the devil was within me. When George and Mr Black had first brought me here from Poplar, before the boat bumped against Blackfriars Stairs, had I not sworn a pact with him to be as evil as possible?

      ‘You must confess,’ George demanded.

      She staggered. I thought she was going to faint.

      ‘I cannot tell my father – it would kill him!’

      ‘Then you must confess to God.’

      ‘Yes, yes. You will not tell my father?’

      ‘If you are good, child, and accept my guidance.’

      She nodded perfunctorily, turning away. I could see she was on the edge of tears. ‘Please go now.’

      He was insistent. ‘You will? Accept my guidance?’

      ‘Yes!’

      He smiled. ‘God be praised! The sinner repenteth!’

      He took her hands and began murmuring a prayer. At first she submitted, head bowed, but when she tried to take her hands away he only held them more tightly, murmuring away. Half a dozen times I nearly broke out of that doorway. Half a dozen times I forced myself back until suddenly I no longer cared whether he was pure good and I was pure evil. I jumped out.

      ‘Leave her! Leave her alone!’

      Nothing George had said could have made his point better. For a moment I must have looked like some foul spirit coming out of the ground. Anne screamed and backed away to the door. George ran. ‘Anne!’ Mrs Black shouted from upstairs. ‘What is it? Has George gone for the doctor?’

      There was no sign of him. ‘I’ll go,’ I said.

      Guilt drove me: I felt that Mr Black’s illness was my fault. And breaking a bond is not just a matter of throwing away a uniform and selling boots. I went because I could not get out of my head it was no longer my job. Several times a year Mr Black had these strange attacks. He would stop what he was doing and stare at me like a blind man. Once, he dropped back on his chair, missed it, and fell to the floor. The first time I was very frightened, but Mrs Black drummed into me that when he had one of these attacks I must run and fetch Dr Chapman, for my master’s life depended on it.

      The doctor practised near St Bartholomew’s in Little Britain but, luckily, was returning from a patient only two streets away. He was a bustling little man, of great good humour.

      When I first met him I had told him I hated my hair; he offered to cup me for nothing, in the light of the discoveries of Mr Harvey, who declared that blood circulated and nourished everything. If enough was taken, he said, it might drain the colour from my hair. I thought he was serious and backed away hastily, at which he burst out into roars of laughter.

      Now he said slyly, as we hurried back to Half Moon Court: ‘I like your court dress, Tom. Are you to be presented to the King tomorrow?’

      He went upstairs laughing, but that soon died. I always knew from the sound of his voice how serious the attack was. Now his greeting and his banter dwindled almost immediately into silence. There was no sign of George or Anne. It was very quiet, apart from the murmurings of the doctor, and the occasional creaks when he moved across the floor above me. There was no chance of my confronting Mr Black, but I might get my Bible.

      I opened the door to the kitchen, where a kettle was heating by the side of the fire. I crept to the bottom of the stairs; from there I could see that the door to Mr Black’s bedroom was closed. There was the faint clink of metal against a basin. I had watched Dr Chapman cup him once. After tightening a bandage round Mr Black’s arm he would warm a lancet in the candle flame and draw it across a bulging vein. After a spurt of blood there would be a steady flow. It would take about ten minutes.

      I took a step or two up the stairs. A shadow fell across the small landing above. I glimpsed the edge of Mrs Black’s dress and pulled back against the wall. Never able to stand the blood-letting, she had gone into her own room. Anne was probably with her.

      I stood indecisively. I could see straight through to the print shop, and beyond that to Mr Black’s small office. The door,