White Water Read Free

disturb their peaceful existence and Maria’s talk of plague dismayed her. Barely sixteen, she had only the vaguest memories of the last serious outbreak to affect the West Country and now all her fears were for her beloved Allan. She adored her tall blond husband and longed to give him a family of tall blond sons to carry on his name. Her one fear was of losing him.
    ‘Is it elsewhere, do you think?’ she asked as casually as she could.
    Hugo shook his head. ‘I’ve not heard of it,’ he said. ‘Pray God ’tis a local outbreak and soon ended.’
    ‘Then pray God ’tis not in London,’ said Harriet, putting a name to her fear.
    Hugo, understanding the direction of the girl’s questions, smiled at her. ‘There’s no mention of it in London,’ he said. ‘And no mention of it in Exeter.’ He put a hand over hers. ‘We must put it out of our thoughts,’ he told her. ‘Three shut houses and a bonfire! ’Tis very little to be alarmed about. That may well be all there ever is to it.’
    Harriet looked at Maria with new hope. ‘Mayhap the crosses were old ones,’ she suggested, ‘from an earlier outbreak. And the women just gossiping and the bonfire was to celebrate — ’ Her voice trailed off as she failed to think of an alternative reason for the untimely appearance of the bonfire.
    ‘Mayhap,’ said Maria kindly. ‘As Hugo says, we must not fret. We shall take precautions and all will be well. We’ll have a few bonfires of our own to burn up any pestilence in the air — if there be any — and will stay away from Ashburton for a week or so.’
    ‘Have we plenty of medicaments?’ Hugo asked lightly and she nodded. ‘Then we can speak no more on such a mournful topic,’ he said. ‘We’ll finish our wine and then Harriet shall sing for us.’
    Maria nodded and her smile to Harriet was warm and reassuring. However, as she sat later listening to the girl’s thin sweet voice, her thoughts returned to the threat of infection and she determined to be safe rather than sorry. She would send out for more herb of grace and dragon water and sprinkle fresh herbs and flower petals among the rashes on the floor to sweeten the air. Tomorrow, too, she would warn Melissa. Content that she could do no more, she went to bed a little easier in her mind and, with Hugo’s body comfortingly familiar beside her, the spectre of plague faded until at last she slept.
    A week later, however, the number of reported plague cases in the town had trebled and there were isolated cases in the neighbouring hamlets. In Exeter there were a few more and Maria’s concern grew daily for Beatrice. The baby, due in October, would be the first grandchild.
    At Ladyford, a short distance from Heron, a bonfire burned day and night. There Melissa Benet, the children’s aunt, kept a watchful eye on her own small household. Her husband Thomas was an old man and vulnerable. Neither Minnie, the cook, nor Jacob, the hired man, were ever ill and her son Oliver was away at sea. Nevertheless Melissa heeded Maria’s timely warning and had visited the apothecary before the general alarm put the medicaments in short supply and sent the prices creeping up. There was nothing left then but to wait and pray and this last they all did with great fervour.
    *
    Kent , July 1574
    Appledore, in Kent, shimmered under a fierce July sun which, late in the afternoon, struck the wooded slopes at an angle and sent long shadows across Romney House, nestled below them. They gave the white walls a cold look and the black beams stood out harshly, but were in their turn offset by the warm thatch grown brown with age and pitted with birds’ nests. The house now belonged to Maria, but had formerly been the home of Harold Cummins, to whom she had once been betrothed. Now it had a neglected air and the gardens were little better. The once neat hedges sprouted rebelliously and the shrubs grew into trees, obscuring the red brick wall which bordered the garden. Harold Cummins