P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

‘And what colour is your wife’s hair, sir?’

‘Red.’

‘How charming,’ said the woman with a smile. ‘Just like the Queen. Well, I think you’ve made a very good choice, sir. That will be twenty five shillings exactly, sir, and cheap at the price.’

Dodd gobbled. He heard himself do it, but couldn’t stop. Twenty-five shillings , for a hat ? ‘Barnabus…’ he growled and Barnabus took his elbow and whisked him round the side of the stall.

‘Look, Sergeant, it sounds a lot, but it’ll be worf it, believe me. There’s nuffing ladies like better than ’ats and she’d never ever get one this good nor this fashionable anywhere norf of York.’

‘But…but I could buy a field for that.’

‘No doubt you could, round Carlisle, where land’s so cheap, but would Mrs Dodd like that so much?’

‘Ay, she would, she’s a sensible woman.’

‘Look, mate. You’ve treated me right and I’m giving you some good advice ’ere. You give her the hat, and every time she looks at it, she’ll forgive you for whatever it is you’ve done.’

Dodd shook his head to clear it. ‘Ah’ve niver heard of such a thing.’

‘Look, let’s see what I can do for you, eh? I know Mrs Bridger…’

‘Och, so that’s it…’

‘Come on. You’ve got to get her somefing while you’re in London or she’ll never speak to you again.’

This was incontrovertibly true. Dodd hesitated.

‘So you might as well give your money to somebody I know, right? Anyway, let me see what I can do.’

Barnabus trotted round the back of the stall and had a long chat with Mrs Bridger, while Dodd got his breath back and resignedly pulled out his purse.

Barnabus beckoned him close again. ‘Mrs Bridger has very kindly on account of our friendship agreed to cut her price by a fifth, which pretty much wipes out her profit, so this is quite a favour…’

Dodd counted out two of the golden angels Heneage had given him and handed them over. Mrs Bridger looked at them sharply, and bit both of them. Then she handed one back with an ugly look on her face and glared at Barnabus.

‘Are you up to your tricks again, Cooke?’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘That one’s false. If your gentleman’s got no gold in ’is purse, he shouldn’t come buying things at my stall.’

‘False?’ echoed Dodd, looking at the coin.

‘It’s pewter with gold on the outside. Look at it.’

Dodd squinted closely at it and had to admit he could see grey metal in the pits made by her teeth. Simon stood on tiptoe to peer at it too, shook his head and tut-tutted.

‘You could be hanged for uttering false coin, you know that, Cooke.’

‘On my soul, Mrs Bridger, I’d no idea. Look at the other ones, Sergeant, see if they’re all right.’

Dodd fished out another angel and bit it himself and it seemed right enough. Mrs Bridger took it suspiciously, bit it, then weighed it on a pair of little scales she had under the counter. At last she nodded. ‘That one’s all right too.’

With a meaningful sniff and another scowl at Barnabus she took the magnificent hat, wrapped it in a linen cloth, stuffed the inside with hay and put it in a round bandbox with a handle which she gave to Simon to hold.

A horrible idea occurred to Dodd. He poured all the angels onto his palm, bit the three remaining and found one other was the same as the false one. On Barnabus’s advice he put the two false angels in his jerkin and the rest of his money back in his crotch and they walked on. Dodd felt he had been robbed, even though he was still carrying more money than he ever did except on rent day.

‘We’ll ’ave to talk to Sir Robert about that,’ said Barnabus. ‘I wonder if it was Heneage’s bribe or the footpad’s money?’

‘Have ye got any bad ones?’

‘Dunno. I left mine at Somerset House.’ His small eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Hem. Let’s go see my sister first, then we’ll take a boat.’

They finally came to New Fish Street and ducked down a little alley. ‘Of course, there’s always a bit of coining going on, but they don’t generally bother with gold coins, it’s too hard to spend what you make…Now, you mind that box, Simon, if anybody swipes it or sits on it, I’ll sell you to the Falcon’s Chick to pay for it. You should be worth that much, what d’yer reckon?’

Barnabus was still talking as he bustled up to a narrow fronted house with the shutters on the two lower windows still closed, and lifted his arm to bang on the door.

He stopped stock still, frozen in mid-move, made a little short grunt in his throat as if he’d been stabbed. Dodd saw the thing a moment after and felt the blood drain down from his face in horror and fear.

There was a cross branded into the wood of the door, red paint daubed into the burnt furrows which had dripped down the door as it dried. The latch had been nailed shut, and so had the shutters. Below the cross was pinned a piece of printed paper.

Barnabus ripped it down and his lips moved as he read it.

‘“May the Lord have mercy on us.”’

Dodd had backed away from the door, looked up and down the street which he now realised was suspiciously empty for London. There were other red crosses on other doors.

‘Nah, nah,’ Barnabus croaked. ‘It’s a mistake. Easily done. Just a mistake, Simon, don’t you worry.’

Simon had his face screwed up and tears in his eyes as he looked up at the cross. ‘Mum?’ he shouted, ‘Mum?’

‘Margery!’ bellowed Barnabus, hammering on the door. ‘MARGERY! It’s me, it’s Barnabus. Where are you?’

One of the windows opened on the upper storey and a girl poked her head out. She was very pale and she had bandages round her neck.

‘That you, Uncle Barney?’ she called.

‘Letty! Letty, what’s happened? What’s all this?’

Letty was crying and looked as if she’d done a lot of it, lately. ‘Oh, Uncle Barney. It was Sam got it first, and then Mary, and then George and me, and then dad got it and mum’s got it, and dad’s dead and they took him off yesterday and now mum’s all black and she won’t wake up and…and…’ She made her hands into fists and howled into them.

Barnabus was panting as he looked up while Simon had placed the bandbox carefully on the step, sat down beside it and was weeping into his sleeve.

‘I…I don’t believe it. She’s too good for this. She never done nuffing. She’s the best of the lot of us. Letty, are you sure…?’

For answer the girl pulled down the bandage under her chin and they could see the scabbed pit under her ear where a buboe had burst. Dodd had looked coolly at the pointed end of all manner of weapons, but this nearly made him lose his water. ‘I’m getting better now and so’s George, but…but Mary’s looking poorly and the baby’s…Well, the baby’s dead, of course, but me mam…It’s me mam I’m feared for, she’s all black, all black spots all over and she smells horrible. I think she’s still breathing but…Oh, Uncle Barney.’

For fully five minutes Barnabus stared up at his niece, breathing hard through his mouth and his hands opening and closing into fists. Dodd was rooted to the spot and the hair on the back of his neck standing up like a hedgehog. He had seen plague. Years ago, back when he was a little wean still in skirts, there had been plague in Upper Tynedale and his cousin Mary had died of it and his uncle had staggered through the village roaring, his face turned into a monster’s by the huge lumps on his neck and the black blotches and he’d collapsed over by the stream and none of the grown-ups had dared go near, except poor mad Peter…Big strong grown-ups, men that had forayed hundreds of times into Scotland and come back triumphantly with Elliot cattle and sheep, they had smelled of fear and some of them had disappeared forever. Dodd’s memory was confused but he knew that one of his sisters, the one he hated because she was littler than him, she had turned black and become a stiff doll-like thing and they had buried her…