A Plague on Mr. Pepys by Deborah Swift

Author:Deborah Swift
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2018-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

At night Bess tried to draw Will into her arms, but he would not have any dealings with her. He pretended to sleep, but she often heard him prowling the chambers at night, the bang of the workshop door as he came and went. Will was mysteriously silent about Jack and what sort of help he was giving them with the loan.

One night, Will was late coming up for supper. Bess went down to the workshop and saw him staring by candlelight at his empty work-bench. His knitted cap was pulled firmly over his ears to keep off the cold, and his shoulders rose and fell in a sigh, before he scraped at the pile of sawdust in front of him, moving it to and fro. She watched him absently gouge a hole in the bench with his drawknife.

‘It’s past seven bells. Did you not hear them?’

Bess pulled up a wooden stool and sat next to Will, resting her hand on his needlecord breeches. ‘Tell me what’s going on, Will. I know something’s wrong.’

‘Nothing’s wrong.’

‘The other week – what was Jack fighting about?’ He swivelled away, so her hand fell to her side. ‘You brought those children home for some reason,’ she persisted. ‘What was Jack doing?’

‘He was busy. It was men’s business.’

‘Men’s business, men’s business.’ She stood and threw up her hands in annoyance. ‘That’s just an excuse. Why won’t you talk to me? I know we can afford a servant and such, but this business with Jack, I can see there’s more to it than you’re telling and—’

‘It’s just business, Bess.’ He turned back and caught her eyes with a warning look.

‘Beg pardon, husband,’ she said, bitterly.

‘I have to earn a living how I can. I lost my chance on the Salvation. And you’ve no work now, not since the glover laid you off. And I have to do what I have to. Beggars can’t be choosers.’

Bess felt the unspoken words though he hadn’t said them – that it was her fault he was not at sea on the Salvation, earning his keep as a ship’s carpenter. Not that they’d seen any money yet from his last stint, like all the sailors. The King’s treatment of his fleet was a scandal. She pursed her lips and went back up to the chilly parlour, longing for Will’s company but not daring to ask for it.

*

Will watched Bess go, her back straight as a fire-iron, her skirts dragging wood-shavings with her. The Salvation was on his mind. Hertford had called in earlier and said she was waiting in quarantine. There’d been two more cases of the plague on board, and such was the men’s fear of the disease, that the ill men had been off-loaded, still living, into the sea. He imagined the cold suck of it, the lungs screaming for air. The slow drift downwards, eyes staring sightless into the greenish depths. It could have been him, he realised, thrown overboard to drown. And now the ship was quarantined, becalmed by the disease, not the wind.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.