Forged in the Fire (20 page)

“Then I'll help thee, and it will be done the sooner. I won't leave thee, Will.”

I saw Will's face set firm. He means to overrule me, I thought, but I will not endure it.

He turned to Gerard Palmer. “Can she ride on a cart? Will there be room?”

“Yes, of course. We'll make room for such as Susanna, and for children and the sick.” He looked kindly at me. “We can take thee now, Friend Susanna.”

“No,” I said. “No, I thank thee. I'll stay till the shop is cleared.”

Will put a hand on my arm. “Susanna, I insist—”

“I will not go!” I sprang away from him. Tears stung my eyes, but they were half of rage. My voice rose. “Don't ask me to leave thee! I will not go!”

Our Friends looked embarrassed, and Will's face darkened. He pulled me with him into the back room, pushed the door to, and said in a low, angry voice, “Do not brawl with me in public! It is unseemly—”

“I care not if it is! I won't leave without thee!”

“There is danger—”

“If there's danger we'll share it.”

He seized me by the shoulders. “Thou'll do as I say! Su, thou'rt carrying our child! When my mother was in like condition my father protected her. She did not run around like a peasant. I won't have it!”

He is his father's son after all, I thought. And I retorted, “Thy mother was a lady. And I
am
a peasant.”

“My mother was a farmer's daughter, as thou know. And thou'rt no peasant. Oh, Su” – he put his arms around me but I stiffened against him, resentful of his assumption of power – “let's not quarrel, love. I want thee and our child to be safe. Our Friends are waiting. Go with them. If thou go, thou can make sure our goods are aboard, and can find us shelter, perhaps in a barn. And I'll come. Tonight. I promise.”

He was right. I knew it. And I knew I must give way in the end. But my heart was against it. I had such fear for him: of the fire itself, the desperate crowds, the great mass of people at the gates.

I made a last stand. “They say thousands are fleeing. We'll never find each other again!”

“Of course we will. Friends will help us.”

“I don't want to leave thee,” I said. But my voice was small now; he knew he'd won.

Aldersgate was jammed with carts. From my perch, high on our foremost cart, wedged in among bales of bedding, I could see soldiers ahead struggling to control the crowds, but could not understand why the queue of carts was moving so slowly. We had been stuck for nearly an hour, I reckoned.

“It's the carts coming in,” said Jane Catlin, who sat near me.

We learned that there were almost as many coming in as out – large numbers of them country people with carts for hire, seeking to profit from the emergency.

But those fleeing should have right of way, I thought.

Another cart ahead of us passed through, and we jolted forward in an encouraging way. Then a wagon turned over. Children, dogs, beds and furniture spilled into the road. People began shouting, and the soldiers intervened to break up a fight while others righted the vehicle. And all the time hot, choking smoke swept over us on the gale, full of dust and ash, and we found our clothes covered in it, our eyes and throats burning. A rumble of thunder overhead startled me. Was it true thunder, or the roar of collapsing buildings? We could not tell, but the sound was fearsome.

When at last we made our way through the gate there were more narrow streets to delay us. And now carts were turning off, or emerging from lanes into the flow of traffic, or stopping to unload. Our own carts stopped once or twice, and several of our people left, to go to friends or relations who lived outside the walls.

I had already lost the company of Rachel. She had gone to her mother's house in Houndsditch, travelling with other Friends who had relations east of the city. I knew how unwilling she was. “I'd rather stay with Friends – even in a field,” she'd said, when we met up again at the Bull and Mouth. “But my mother will fear the worst if Tabby and I don't appear. Come with me, Su! There'll be room for thee. And thou shouldn't sleep out.”

But I would not go. Will would look for me at Sylvester Wharton's, and Houndsditch was far from there.

We resumed our journey, and now the tight-packed houses gave way to more isolated farms and cottages. The air was clearer, though the sky all around was hidden by dark clouds streaming west. The wind was hot and heavy with ash. My dress and the bales of bedding in the cart were by now covered in a layer of debris: fragments of paper, parchment, linen, plaster – the very stuff of people's lives. I looked back and saw the city ablaze under dense black smoke with flames leaping in it, and thought with terror of Will; and I believe that if I could have got down then and fought my way back to him through the crowds I would have done so.

Jane Catlin seemed to guess my thoughts. She touched my hand. “Better to look forward,” she said, indicating the road ahead, “and trust in God. See, there is the green flag.”

And indeed we had reached Sylvester Wharton's farm. I was glad to be helped down from the cart and to stretch and move, and to feel grass under my feet and breathe cleaner air.

Then I looked around, and was amazed. As far as I could see in every direction – from Islington all the way back to London – the fields were full of people; I had not known there
were
so many people in London. Some had put up tents; others sat in the shelter of a cart, or had a horse tethered near by; but most had simply a few possessions piled beside them on the ground. Rich and poor together, all were homeless. There were children and dogs running about, and babies crying, and a great hubbub of thousands of voices, so loud and continuous that it seemed to be the voice of the earth itself.

A grey-haired man I took to be Sylvester Wharton greeted us all and began advising us where to go. Gerard Palmer took charge of me and my bedding, and he and another Friend carried them to a sheltered place in the lee of a hedge. There we erected a makeshift tent of propped branches and a blanket, and I laid my bedding inside and reckoned Will and I would be snug enough at night. Some people chose to sleep in the carts and guard the goods, while others – the sick, and those with young children, or women who were near their time – were in the house and barns. I was glad to be outside, where Will and I could be together. Now, in late afternoon, the wind was strong but warm, and I did not fear the cold.

We all looked back at the city. I remembered how I'd seen it from Islington last year with the cloud of kites hanging above it. Now a much greater cloud hung there, glowing red beneath, with flashes of flame erupting from it. Somewhere a steeple blazed like a torch, and of a sudden we heard several explosions, one after the other, and a ripple of panic went through the crowd like the wind through grass. I heard cries of “Invasion!” and “The Hollanders!” and my heartbeat quickened.

But Gerard Palmer said, “They are blowing up buildings to halt the fire. It should have been done before.”

Elizabeth Wright gazed on the scene almost with satisfaction. “It is God's judgement,” she said. “God's terrible judgement on us all. Nothing can save the city now.”

I didn't want to listen to such talk. It filled me with dread. I stared back down the road. Without a cart to manoeuvre, Will should have passed through Aldersgate easily. He could not be far behind us, surely? But among all the people walking and riding along the way I did not see him.

Those Friends who organized our departure had brought supplies of food, and soon cooking smells were carried on the wind. Two cauldrons were in use, one in Sylvester Wharton's kitchen and a larger one over a fire in the yard. I saw that there were few fires lit in the fields. Perhaps the people were mostly too close-packed, or too afraid of the very sight of fire. Indeed, the sound of the bonfire in the farmyard, its greedy crackling and sparking, frightened rather than drew me.

And I had no interest in food. It was evening, and still I waited for Will.

Faintly, from Islington to the north, we heard steeple-house bells ringing. And from London too: but that was a reverse peel, a warning of fire still spreading. It was impossible, from here, to see which streets were ablaze and which still safe, but the endless line of people moving along the road brought news. The fire had reached Lombard Street and Cornhill. The pipes and cisterns were all dry; there was no water to fight the fire. Late in the day came news that the Exchange had burned. I recalled that sumptuous place with its colonnades and the candlelit shops glowing in the dusk and the smell of spices. I could not believe it was no longer there.

“Burnt to the ground,” a woman said. Her face was scorched red, her eyelashes gone.

“We had ado to get out,” her husband told us. “Burning timbers all across the road. Blocked our way. We turned down Kemp's Passage—”

“Black as Hell, it was, and smoke blinding you—”

“Found ourselves didn't know where, fire all around…”

Slowly, interrupting each other, they told us how they had found their way at last to Aldersgate and escaped. And all the time I was thinking of Will, imagining him trapped in Paul's Churchyard, ringed round with fire.

I stared towards London. Paul's still stood. When the smoke shifted I could see it. But where was Will? Why didn't he come? If these folk had got out, why couldn't he? I felt angry – furious with him for sending me away, and with myself for going.

The day darkened early, the sun hidden behind a haze of smoke. People began settling down for the night.

“Susanna, thou must eat,” said Jane Catlin. She brought me a bowl of stew, but I had no appetite. I sipped a little, then gave the bowl to someone else and went to stand by the roadside, looking out for Will.

It was hard to distinguish faces in the dusk. The flow of people had lessened, and at last it almost stopped.

Jane took my arm. “Come away now, Susanna. Think of thy child.”

I did, and saw it fatherless, Will caught in the maze of burning alleyways, overcome by smoke, never to find his way out. “He said he'd come. He promised.”

“He'll have gone to shelter somewhere. He'll come in the morning, never fear.”

But I was besieged by fear. As night fell we saw before us the full horror of the burning city, lit up in its own dreadful day, and heard the roar of its destruction. All around us people sobbed and prayed.

“I'm London born and bred,” said Jane. “Those streets – I knew them all.” And she wept for her city.

The wind had turned cool.

“Come and sleep with me and Elizabeth Wright,” said Jane. “Thou'll be warmer.”

“No, I thank thee.”

He would surely not come now, not in the dark, but I wanted to be in my own shelter, to keep a place for him there, in case by chance he did. I curled up, pulling the blankets close around me, but I could not sleep. I was too full of fearful imaginings.

I
worked alone for an hour after Susanna left, stacking and baling. Outside, the street was full of people and carts, streaming towards the gates in a great clamour and confusion. There were explosions, rumbles of thunder; I knew the fire must still be spreading. Perhaps Edmund would be unable to get back. And Susanna: I'd been overbearing with her, and was sorry, and we'd parted unhappily. I longed to be done with the books, to go and find her.

The shop door opened, and Nat came in. I was never more glad to see him.

“We're finished at the print shop,” he said. “Made safe all we can. I thought thou might need help.”

“I do,” I said gratefully. “Edmund has gone to see to his goods and family, and Susanna with Friends to find shelter in the fields. She didn't want to go, Nat, but I insisted. We quarrelled.”

“She'll forgive thee.” His words, casually spoken, cheered me more than he could have imagined. He began tying parcels as I wrapped them. “And thou did right to send her. I hear the gates are almost blocked with traffic now. They've had to ban carts from coming in, to ease the flow. You've got a good pile of books here. Faith's is near full, they say.”

“Help me get another cartload there, will you? I don't know when Edmund will be back.”

“For sure.”

We loaded up, and wheeled the cart the short distance to the storage place. Faith's was a church within a church, in the crypt of Paul's, and the books had to be carried down the steps to be taken from us by a verger and stacked within. We took it in turns to transport a few parcels while the other one guarded the cart, which we feared would otherwise be stolen.

I went with the first load, and saw how full the space now was. It no longer resembled a place of worship but was filling from floor to ceiling with books and papers – booksellers and stationers coming and going all the while with more stock. I thought of all the cellars and repositories throughout London that must be the same: the Guildhall, the company halls, the strongrooms at the Tower; and all the steeple-houses filled with the furniture and goods of their parishioners.