Petals in the Ashes by Mary Hooper

Author:Mary Hooper
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2004-10-22T04:00:00+00:00

‘Wherever did you get those?’ I looked at Anne and burst out laughing. I’d sent her to the conduit for water and she’d been gone an age. When she’d come back, her face was stuck all over with black and sequined patches: a heart on her forehead, clubs and spades on her cheeks, a ladybird on her chin.

‘Do they look fine?’ Anne said, taking up a looking-glass and admiring herself. ‘Do I look a lady?’

‘You look a harlot!’ I said.

‘But everyone wears them now!’

‘Not shop-girls,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘How much did you pay for them?’

‘I traded a pomander with a woman who runs a stall in Cornhill.’ She picked up Kitty, who looked at her in some surprise and then began to pat at her face, no doubt thinking that the face patches were black beetles.

‘I have one for you, too,’ Anne said to me. ‘It is of a miniature coach and horses and you may wear it across your forehead. The woman said that she sold a Countess one just the same.’

‘I would sooner have my freckles!’ I said.

But Anne thought her patches mighty fine and wore them for the rest of the day – and the next, too, until I thought I’d have to peel them off when she was asleep to be rid of them. She wore them until Mr Newbery came in to impart some tidbit of scandal and, seeing Anne’s face, stepped back, looking aghast.

‘Have you the pox, Madam?’ he asked.

‘No, indeed I have not,’ Anne said indignantly.

‘But the women who wear patches are mostly raddled old bawds who wear them to hide their sores and scars,’ he said, and for once I was glad of his dismal perspective, for even before he had finished speaking, Anne had begun peeling them off.

Mr Newbery gave us the gossip, which was that the king’s new mistress, Mall Davis, was an actress, and that Nelly Gwyn was so jealous of her that she’d had a song written which poked fun at her rival’s legs, which by all accounts were fat and not nearly so elegant as her own. We laughed and said we were on Nelly’s side, and then just as Mr Newbery was leaving I suddenly remembered. ‘What is Bartholomew Fair?’ I asked him. ‘And when is it?’

‘Bart’s Fair?’ he asked, scratching his bald head under his wig. ‘Why, ’tis a monstrous big fair held on the grounds in Smithfield, by St Bartholomew’s hospital. ’Tis there for two weeks at every end of August.’

Anne had gone through to our back room now. She was having trouble removing some of the patches, for they had set hard on her skin, and every now and then she gave a little shriek as she pulled at them.

‘And are there conjurers at this fair, and magic men?’ I asked him more quietly, for I did not wish Anne to hear.

‘There is everything there!’ said Mr Newbery. ‘Plays and players, dancing shows, educated apes, puppets and horses dancing jigs! The whole world is there.

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.