It was during the late 1550’s that a tiny girl was born to
an average family living in London. She
was the last baby, in a family that already had six boys. Her mother was overjoyed to welcome a little
girl, bundle of joy. She was wrapped in
pink and proudly displayed. This little
tiny girl was taken care of by her mother, her father and her brothers. Theirs wasn't a rich home but it was far from
the tenements that had a dozen families living in one house or the slums that
were just shacks, thrown up with no real walls, doors or windows.
This little girl was safe and spoiled in her snug little
home, where mother took in washing and father worked for an apothecary. There was a very small yard behind the house
where she played and mother tended to some vegetables. There was enough food, respectable clothes
and even a small rag doll.
All that this little girl knew of the world was wrapped up
in her mother and father’s loving arms, the gentle games of her big
brothers. Occasionally she would hold
her mama’s hand and carry a small basket while they walked to the market. Once, her father put her up high on his
shoulders and walked to the shop to meet with the apothecary. These were exciting trips out into the
world. The streets were full of people,
noises and smells, which fascinated the little girl.
Slowly, a little bit at a time, life changed in the city of
London. At first the little girl didn't
notice the worried look on father’s face, the hushed conversations. Then one of the brothers got sick, then
another brother and another. Mother
worried and cried. Occasionally, the
little girl went to bed hungry and crying.
But mother didn't come, she sat beside the boys, she prayed with tears
streaming down her face. Father left
early in the morning and didn't come back till late at night.
Once the plague hit that little home it was not long
before each of the brothers, then mother succumbed to illness and finally
death. Father worked hard to care for
his family, but it did no good.
Eventually, even father died and there was no one left. Except one small girl.
For a long time she cried.
She knew that the Searchers would come.
They had already carried away mother and all the brothers. She sat in the dark with hunger gnawing at
her belly. In the morning the voices
would be shouting in the street. “Bring out your dead!” Except for the Searchers and the voices she
had seen no one for days. There was a
man at the door that wouldn't let father leave, but even that man had gone
now.
For a long, lonely night, she cried, but as the light of
dawn slowly crept into her little home, this little girl knew she must hide
from the Searchers who would come and take away all that remained of her
family. Clutching her little rag doll
she crept into the garden. Her stomach
growling with hunger she munched on some of her mother’s vegetables and hid
herself behind a bush. Warm from the
sun, with a little food in her belly, she dozed off to sleep. The Searchers
came and took her father’s body. The
voices in the street came, pulling their carts full of dead. Yet here she stayed, hiding in the
garden. During the night she would creep
into the house, wrap herself in a blanket and cry for her mother and her
father. Every day she would go into the
garden, eat a carrot or a potato with the dirt of the garden still on it and
fall asleep behind her bush.
The constant loneliness was her new normal. There were no more big brothers, no papa to
throw her up in the air and catch her.
No mama to tuck her into her bed at night, just one ragged doll,
clutched in a dirty fist. Tears streaked
down her face every day. Her clothes
were torn. Her hair was tangled.
Finally there were no more vegetables in the garden. With hunger came fear. It was time to either curl up under her bush
and sleep away the rest of her life or set out to find help, to find food. The daylight, with the searchers and the
carts of dead were too scary. So she
decided to set out at night. Perhaps she
could remember the way to the apothecary shop.
The apothecary must still be there.
He would take care of her.
Slowly the sun set and the darkness settled in. A brave little girl set out on her quest, to
find life in the plague ridden city of London.
She didn't know that anyone who could had already left the city. She didn't know that more than 200,000 people
had already died. With her doll tucked
close and her feet bare she began to walk the cobble-stoned streets. There were no people anywhere. There were no lights in the houses. There were no sounds. The smell of death accompanied her as she
walked but it was a familiar smell. It
had been her constant companion in her home for the last few months.
Fear dogged every step.
Every shadow set her to trembling.
Up one street and down another, there were no signs of life. I’m not sure if this little brave girl would
have been happy to see a drunk waking the streets or if she would have cowered
in a doorway. She never got the chance
to find out. All night she wandered the
abandoned streets of London. She was too tired to cry. Her legs were trembling from exhaustion when
she finally found herself at a small arched bridge.
It took great amounts of courage for the little girl to walk
herself up over that bridge, out in the open with no doorways to duck into or
houses to cast their shadows. As dawn
approached, the little girl found she was just big enough to see over the side
of bridge. The horror of dead bodies
floating in the river was too much for her.
She sunk to the ground, curled up around her dolly and cried, big silent
tears rolling down her face. There she
stayed.
This is where she was found by a large man, walking by in
the early morning. At first he thought
she must be dead. He contemplated
leaving her for the Searchers and the carts of dead. But something made him lean down and
check. He noticed the fresh tears on her
cheeks and the slight rising and falling of her chest. Quickly her scooped her up and turned back
the way he had come. It was a short walk
back to his home where here was no one left but himself.
He was one of the few physicians that hadn't fled the
city. He spent his days, walking the
streets, going from house to house, caring for those he could help. This day, he washed the dirt and tears off of
a little girl, he replaced her tattered clothes with a too big nightshirt and
the he sat beside a bed, watching her sleep.
He wiped her face with a cloth and dripped some water between her lips
and he prayed.
His prayers were answered when little brown eyes opened and
eyed him warily. She didn't make a
sound. But when he offered her food, she
ate. When he offered her a chamber pot
behind a screen, she used it. When he
held out a dirty rag doll, she reached for it.
The two of them stayed together in his house in the
city. There were no more trips to help
the plague victims. Eventually winter
came upon the city. The man talked to
her, she listened. He fed her and she
ate. He read to her. He left her occasionally to get food, to do
what he had to, but mostly, they stayed home, they stayed together. Her fear was still great. She had bad dreams and whimpered during the
night. He stroked her hair to soothe
her.
Finally the city began to return to normal. King Charles returned. The carts of dead no longer roamed the
streets. People went to market, walked
the streets, and conversed again. But
the little girl never left the house where she had found safety.
Until one day, the kind physician told her he was taking her
away from the city. It was time. He had stayed to help care for people during
the plague. His family, his servants,
everyone had been sent away to the country. For whatever reason, both he and the child
seemed immune to the deadly disease but the plague was over now and he was
ready to go. There was no need for them
to remain in hiding. He brought a
carriage to the house, filled it up with books, clothes and food. Then he carried her out of the house and into
the carriage. Together, they set off to
begin the next stage of their life together.
In the country was a warm home, full of live bodies. People talked and laughed. There were children who played, dogs and cats underfoot, cows and chickens in
the yard. The small girl learned to
climb an apple tree and eat the fruit off the tree. She found her way to the safety of the barn
and learned to love the smell of hay and warm cows. She collected eggs and delivered them to the
kitchen. She picked flowers and breathed
deeply to remove the smell of death that seemed to never quite leave her.
Her physician friend had saved her, he’d cared for her. But now he was more. He was the miracle-worker that had
transformed a dark and scary city into a country side full of light and love
and laughter. He was the conjurer who
had produced squirming puppies, fluffy chicks and soft kittens where before
there had been nothing but loneliness.
He was the wizard that had delivered her from fear and saved her from
the city of death. She adored him.
Yet still, she didn't talk and still she kept a small rag
doll tucked into her bed at night. Still
she had nightmares of death, of bodies floating in the river. In her dreams she heard the voices calling
“Bring out your dead.” And she wondered
how long until the physician disappeared and her safety disappeared with
him.
Years passed, the little girl grew up. She learned to read. She learned to cook and sew. She worked in the garden, tended the chickens
and milked the cows. She climbed apple
trees and roamed the country side. She rode a horse. One day she even began to
speak again. In every way she seemed
healed, strong and whole. She learned as much as her physician could
teach her about herbs and healing. She
helped to deliver babies and set bones.
The townspeople became her people.
She absorbed all the information she could. Always searching to learn more, she read books
constantly, she explored the gardens and the woods, collecting herbs and
learning about their uses. She spoke to
the people, gathering up their stories, their hopes and their dreams. She grew in wisdom, in beauty and in
kindness.
Then one day, her greatest fear became reality. Her physician became ill. His death was imminent and all the herbs and
potions and powders did nothing to help.
All of the things she had learned were not enough to save him. As he lay in his bed, getting weaker and
weaker, she asked him what she could possibly do to help. There was a new powder, in the city, that
might help, he told her. She wondered
who might be able to ride to the city and purchase the drug but there was no
one faster on a horse than she, no one who loved her friend more than her. None of the servants or townspeople could go. Fears and doubts assailed her. But how could she not return to the city of
death if it meant saving her beloved physician.
All night long she agonized over the choice in front of
her. Without her help, her physician,
who had saved her and carried her out of the city of death, would surely
die. But her fear was great. She prayed that there might be another way to
save him, another person that could ride to the city. But there was no other way, there was no
other person. As she lay in her bed,
through a dark, lonely night, she clutched her very old and very dirty rag doll
in her arms. The one thing that had
brought her comfort through the long lonely nights in the city of death brought
little comfort now. If she couldn't find
the courage within to go to the city, soon, all she would have left would be
this lifeless rag doll that was the last thing she had of her family. She knew that it would not be enough. The
decision made, she slept deeply and peacefully.
The very next morning she set out, determined to ride like
the wind and return with the lifesaving medicine. All the way to the city her heart pounded in
time with the horses hooves. No one in
their right mind would ride back into the city of death. Fear clutched at her throat, quickened her
breathing. Her two greatest fears – that
of losing her physician and being an orphan again, at war with the fear of the
city. Love of the physician, fear of the
city. Doesn't it always come down to a
battle between love and fear?
As the miles sped by under her horses hooves, images of her
nightmares filled her mind. “Bring out
your dead!” the voices screamed in her
mind. She saw the bloated bodies piled
high in the cart. She remembered the
stench of death and smoke that filled her every breath. She heard the weeping of the neighbours before
the silence that meant everyone had fled or died. She saw, in her memory, the lifeless bodies
floating in the river. Tears leaked from
her eyes as she remembered the terror, the loneliness, the gnawing hunger that
never eased. Every step the horse took
brought her closer to the city of death.
There was no escaping the fear that dogged her every step.
With the city fast approaching the young girl slowed her
horse. She wanted nothing more than to turn
back, to stay in the relative safety of the countryside. Anywhere else was better than riding into the
city of death. But every fear, every
nightmare that she could think of, didn't compare to the fear of losing the one
person that she loved. It would be
better to die in London, surrounded by the stench of death, to lie with the
bodies in the streets, than it would be to return to the country and face a
lifetime of loneliness without her friend.
Nothing was scarier to this young girl than being alone again. She would die in the city, attempting to save
her friend. She would face the Searchers, the death carts, the bodies, if it meant that she could return to
save the man who had saved her.
With the vision of her friend held in her mind, she battled
her fears and made it to the city. Once
there she found her way through the bustling streets of a city that she didn't
even recognize anymore. The Great Fire
had destroyed everything that she might have once known. The city no longer smelled like death. There were no more dead bodies. There were no Searchers, no carts of
dead. There were just people, doing
people things. With awe she wandered the
streets that were bustling with people.
She admired the new brick buildings, the wide open streets. It no longer felt that the houses were
closing in on her. Finally she found her
way to the right apothecary and purchased the necessary powders that would save
her physician. As she prepared to leave
the city she even found her way to the bridge and looked into the water. She found no bodies floating there.
It was a lighter, stronger girl, free from the fears that
she had carried for years that made her way back to her home in country. She nursed her physician back to health. Never marrying, she grew old, caring for her
people, tending to her herbs, healing the sick, listening and encouraging the
weary. Never once did she return to the
city again. But there was no need, the
city no longer held the power to scare her.
Her love was greater than her fear.
