Free At the Sign of the Sugared Plum by Mary Hooper

through.’
    She set me to nipping the violet flowers from their stalks and washing them, while she boiled the water tomelt the sugar. Several times she skimmed it of foam, until it was a thick, clear syrup mixture. Then I was allowed to take the violets – about a quarter of all I’d picked – stir them thoroughly in the mixture, then quickly pour it out into a wetted tray.
    The mixture began to harden almost immediately and we let it be while we washed the rest of the violets and borage flowers for the next day. When we turned to it again the flat cake was almost firm, and Sarah carefully cut it into small squares, lifted them from the tray and put them on white paper. They looked very pretty, for I had made sure to choose a variety of colours for the violets, and they ranged from white through pink down to deepest purple. Not, I realised, that it was likely that our poor family would appreciate this careful harmonising of colour.
    When the violet cakes were quite cool we folded them into a small package and set off for the house. The windows and door were already barred, and marked with the red cross. Above the cross I could see the same paper sign that I’d seen on the house in St Giles: LORD, HAVE MERCY ON US.
    Sarah and I held each other’s hands tightly as we approached, for I can’t convey how much fear was struck into us to see these words so close to home, and to imagine the terror of that little family on the other side of the door.
    The guard, a youngish bearded man, was sitting outside on a stool, his halberd standing diagonally across the doorway of the house.
    ‘Could you give these sweetmeats to the children next time you see them?’ Sarah asked, giving the package into his hands.
    He nodded. ‘That will be in the morning,’ he said, ‘when I takes in their milk and bread.’
    ‘Are they . . .’ I hesitated. I’d been about to ask if they were all right, but of course they were not, and I did not know what else to say.
    ‘They’re sleeping now,’ he said. ‘An apothecary has given them all a draught.’
    I was torn between wanting to make our stay there as brief as possible and finding out more, but Sarah was already pulling at my hand to come away.
    We walked to our shop, looking back only once at the enclosed and silent house.
    ‘Violet cakes – they seem but poor reparation,’ Sarah said. ‘What can they do to help?’
    I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
    But we were glad we had gone.
    The following day we took some candied borage flowers up to the house and left them with the guard, but had no way of knowing whether they actually received them or whether the guard ate them himself.
    The Bills for that week showed 750 deaths in London and to our great dismay our trade began falling off a little. This was because many of our customers, being mostly of the middling classes, knew how to obtain a Certificate of Health, and were going to their country houses. The king and his court moved further out, too – from Isleworth to Hampton Court – for it had been said that Isleworth was not far enough away from the contamination in London and it was feared the plague might still be able to reach him there.
    On Saturday a fruit-seller came to our door calling,‘Cherry-ripe!’ and although Sarah said they were too early to be Kentish cherries, and must have come on a ship from the Netherlands, she bought some on my urging, for I was anxious to try out the recipe for sugared cherries which mother had given me. After washing a scoopful of these, I carefully stoned and halved them, then set them over the heat in a preserving pan with a little water. When they were scalding hot I shook them in a sieve, then put them in a cloth to dry, after which I put them back into the pan, layered with a good amount of sugar that I had previously ground down. Putting this pan back on the fire, I scalded the cherries and cooled them three times all together, so that they picked up the sugar and it crystallised on