Free Forged in the Fire by Ann Turnbull Page B

since coming to Friends; reorganize the remainder. Thou could help. It would provide some small paid employment for thee for a few weeks – if thou’rt willing.”
    It sounded congenial work, of a kind I was accustomed to. And yet… “I am more than willing,” I said, “but I should do it as payment for thy hospitality.”
    We were dining on excellent beef and drinking Rhenish wine.
    â€œWill, thou need’st money – and I need help.” He smiled. “I shall not overpay thee, never fear.”
    â€œThen I would be glad to do it. Only … thou’ll remember I told thee I was to have been married this summer? I need to find permanent work, an income, a home…”
    He nodded. “I understand. But because so many businesses are closed, there is not much work to be had. And thou’rt not strong enough yet.”
    I knew he was right. I had eaten scarcely anything for weeks; my clothes were loose on me, and my face in the mirror that morning had looked gaunt. But I could walk and take fresh air and begin to regain my strength. The colder weather had caused a steep drop in deaths from plague; it was considered safer now to go about the streets.
    â€œStay here, and work for me for a short while,” Edmund suggested, “and in the meantime look about for other employment. My family are to come home on sixth-day. They’ll be young company for thee. I wish, having taken themselves to safety, they would remain there somewhat longer, but my wife is anxious to return.”
    And so I stayed. I missed Nat’s easy companionship, and yet it was a pleasure to be living once again in the sort of home in which I had grown up. The library work absorbed what little physical energy I had. The combination of lifting, climbing steps to the top shelves and moving armfuls of books from one place to another made me breathless at first, but in a day or two I was able to do it without difficulty. I also went out into the streets and saw how sadly empty they were: rows of shops still closed, and the Exchange with only a scattering of customers, very few of them gentry. I walked almost as far as Paul’s Churchyard, but stopped short, and retraced my steps. It was not so much physical weakness: I could not bear, yet, to go there and see James Martell’s closed-up shop. It would make the Martells’ deaths too real. I still found it hard to believe that I would never see any of them again. For the same reason I had not yet written more fully to Susanna; that, and the feeling that I was now without prospects and had little to recommend me as a husband. I would write to her when I found permanent employment, I decided; then I could begin, at least, with some good news.
    When the Ramsey family returned I was at work in the library. I heard the coach arrive, the sudden clamour of voices, a dog barking, and felt a draught through the house as the side door was flung open and the servants brought in bags and boxes. The voices spread around the house; footsteps creaked on the floorboards of the room overhead; doors opened and shut. I did not venture out, being unsure of my status here. But at last I heard everyone gathering in the region of the drawing room, and then Edmund opened the library door and said, “Come and meet my family.”
    The drawing room seemed full of billowing silk skirts. With the mother were three girls aged between about twelve and seventeen. All were blue-eyed, fair and comely, though the youngest had been somewhat scarred by smallpox. Their little dog, a terrier, ran and barked at me, and the youngest girl stifled a giggle as she caught and subdued it.
    Her father introduced them all. “My wife, Margaret; my daughters, Catherine, Jane and Dorothy.”
    â€œThou’rt welcome, Will,” said Margaret Ramsey.
    I thanked her, and saw her taking in my appearance (shabby, I feared), my thinness, my way of speaking. I also felt her