London - Edward Rutherfurd [414]
The last paragraph of Jane Wheeler’s will was startling.
Finally, with this my last testament, and with my dying breath, to Sir Julius Ducket, thief and liar, who has stolen my rightful fortune and caused my ruin, I bequeath my curse. May God, who is just, send him to hellfire for his sins, and may his family be cursed hereafter and his inheritance stolen as mine has been. Amen.
“Are you sure you want to say that?” Meredith asked.
“I am. Have you written it? Show me. Good,” she breathed. “Give me the pen.” She signed with difficulty. “You and the nurse witness.” Meredith did so. The nurse made her mark.
The flea hopped on to Meredith’s sleeve.
“I must go now,” Meredith said, and pulled on his glove again. Jane hardly seemed to hear him. Suddenly she cried out in pain. The nurse and Meredith looked at each other. It would not be long now. He decided he would not tell poor Sir Julius that he had been cursed.
The flea could get nothing from the coat. He was just preparing to try Meredith’s bare hand when it vanished inside the long leather glove. As Meredith went towards the door, the flea leaped on to the nurse.
By the month of October, the plague seemed to pass its peak. For the first two weeks the Bills of Mortality were in the four thousands; by the fourth week, fewer than fifteen hundred; then about a thousand for three weeks. Then a falling away. Although cases would continue to crop up into February, by November London was cautiously opening up again. By late January, the carriages of even the wealthiest citizens and their doctors were rolling back into town.
The total official death toll of the Great Plague is over sixty-five thousand. The true figure was certainly more, perhaps nearly a hundred thousand. One curious feature of the plague however, which is often overlooked, was the colony of folk living on floating islands in the Thames. There were a considerable number of these huge and curious structures. Altogether some ten thousand people lived on the river like this for several weeks. As far as is known, few if any of them caught the plague. It was a fact which Doctor Richard Meredith noted, but was still, to his chagrin, unable to explain.
So it was, at the end of November, that Dogget and his family finally ventured back to their lodgings, to find they had gained a small inheritance.
If Richard Meredith was saddened at his failure to understand the plague, nobody else did either. Not for almost two centuries would the true nature of the disease and its carriers be identified. Until that time it was remembered only for the fact that no herbs could cure it and for its symptoms – the rosy rash or the sneezing – recorded in the song which, a little time after, the children began to sing.
Ring a ring o’ roses
A pocket full of posies
Atishoo, atishoo
We all fall down.
In later times, in North America, the “Atishoo” of the song, not understood, was changed to “Ashes”. But there were no ashes – only, that year in London, the terrible sneezing before death.
1666
September the 1st was a quiet night. Sir Julius lay peacefully in the big house behind St Mary-le-Bow. It had been a long, pleasant summer and the family had only returned from Bocton the week before. It was Sunday tomorrow. About midnight he awoke briefly and went to the window. The air was pleasantly cool, with a hint of breeze coming from the east. He took a few deep breaths, then went back to bed.
At about one o’clock in the morning he arose again. Had he heard something? He looked out of the window. Was there, perhaps, a faint sound coming from the direction of London Bridge?