Fudge Ripple, Trail Mix and Butterscotch
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Red Paint
Rating: G
Challenge: Fudge Ripple #7: pity, Trail Mix #29: bath
Toppings/Extras: butterscotch
Wordcount: 1,224
Summary: A household is torn apart by plague.
Notes: Now, whose ancestor could this be? (Prelude to a three-part series, Her Final Friend.)
“Live, live, live...”
Tilly Bishop could hear her mother’s moans form the other room. Biting her lip, she hovered outside of the door-all that she knew was that her sister was dying, nothing more. The fever was strong, and her sister Daisy seemed to be losing the battle. Earlier that day, she had simply been complaining of a mild headache-and now she lay in the next room, thrashing and leaking life.
After hesitating, she knocked on the door.
“The bath is prepared,” she called shakily. There was hardly a chance to stumble out of the way as her parents rushed out, carrying her sister’s weak and writhing body between them.
“Help me undress her, Tilly, and hurry,” her mother pleaded tearfully. Tilly stepped forwards and began to help her to undo her sister’s apron and dress; her father kept his eyes averted, touching the lukewarm water with one hand. As more of the clothing came loose, her mother uttered a terrible gulping wail and drew her hands to her face.
Tilly could not make a single sound. She stared at the plague-tokens darkening her sister’s skin; dark purple clots, immovable bruises that strained at the delicate young skin. Daisy, usually so quiet and meek, was uttering the most terrible sounds that Tilly had ever heard; such great wrenching gulps and other wordless noises.
“Tilly, go into our room,” her father suddenly said sharply. She looked at him fearfully; his fox-red hair was straggly and limp from stress.
She did, nearly running into the two household servingmaids as she did so. Carrying a large dipper of medicinal compound, they rushed past and into the room. The dipper was taken and they were quickly turned out, much to their surprise.
It felt like years passed as she sat in her parents’ bedroom. The wooden beams that supported the ceiling above her head were ornately carved with angels-when she was smaller and frequented the room often, she used to pray to each one. Now thirteen, she did the same thing, closing her eyes and moving her lips silently. Usually she wasn’t allowed in her parents’ bedroom, but she had been barred from the bedroom she used to share with her sister.
Her father came in, looking weary. The lines of his face, so deep in the candlelight, told her the news.
“God rest her,” he said quietly, and then he strode across the room and slammed the window shut. “The plague, Tilly. She died of plague.”
Plague was always common in the slums-a few hundred of the poorest people died from it every year-but it was rarer amongst the people of a slightly higher class, and this vicar’s family had not been troubled by plague for several generations. But if it struck-which it always would, soundless and without warning, to the wicked and the good-it struck deftly, and thrust its cold blade deep.
“I know,” Tilly replied in a small voice. Her father hid how troubled he was, pulling a large sackcloth bag from one of the cupboards. The candle nervously flickering as he passed, he strode from the room. She could hear each thumping footstep as he traversed into her room, and then he returned.
“You must leave,” he said. Tilly’s eyes widened.
“Papa?”
“The doors and windows will be boarded up; red paint will be daubed on our house. Nobody will be allowed to enter or leave for forty days. You must leave, Tilly. If you do not have the plague already, staying here will certainly beckon it to your body.”
It felt as though all of the air in her was shrinking; it was a feeling close to exhaustion, but less physical. She felt like she had just spent many hours digging graves. The grief of her sister’s death had hardly penetrated. Her father took her by the wrist and began steering her down the stairs. Tilly could faintly hear her mother weeping.
“Are we all leaving?”
“No. ‘Tis dishonest to do so, you know that. We must pay the penalty...” His eyes lowered. He knew that plague striking one person in the household meant death to everyone there. But he could not allow it to happen to his daughter; the only child he had left. Virtuous, innocent Matilda. “But you can go. We will say that you and Daisy were both struck down.”
“No!” Tilly’s brown eyes were round in horror.
“My dear child,” he said, stroking her hair before delving into the pantry and pulling out some loaves of bread. Then he turned back to face her, his face twisted with emotion. “I cannot give you much, and for this I am sorry.” Tilly could not speak: she had nothing to say. “Your Aunt Mary in Reading will take you in a while, I am sure.”
“I don’t want to go,” Tilly whispered.
“I will not let you die here, Matilda!” he exclaimed strongly, thrusting the cloth bag towards her. “I have already sent a message to the parish. Take it, before they come to board the windows up!”
She did so, feeling treacherous.
Ushered towards the back door, which her father opened quickly, he hurried her across the small courtyard that joined onto their home. It rushed past her in the darkness, her childhood place of play, and her father took her to the stone wall at the back, bundling her up in a large coat. Finally she allowed her bitter, bitter tears to stream loose.
Her father kissed her on the forehead and clasped her tightly before lifting her to the top of the wall, where she scrambled for hold. For a moment, he didn’t let go of her hand, as though his body were disobeying him.
“Sweet Tilly,” he said gently; she could just about make out his rich brown eyes in the darkness.
“Where will I go?” she asked, clinging to the wall, not wanting to drop onto the other side of it; to be cut off from her family.
“Who is that scamp that called you to play with him in the street often at market-time when you were young; the boy that you still talk to after church?” her father asked. She could see it pained him. “Oh, Lord knows I have disapproved of your friendship, but perhaps he will be a good place to begin. Reading is far for a young girl like you to travel alone, my darling.”
With her mind awash with such distress she had forgotten about her friend, perhaps the only one that could help her now. Jack Prowse. Her father stepped back from the wall, and behind him the house that Tilly Bishop had lived in for all of her life became alight as everyone was woken up and told the news. The lit windows then winked out as blinds were slammed shut, as doors were locked. It would be quarantined; it would become a trap of odorous death. Her father’s face was scarcely discernable in the weak light.
“Sweet Matilda,” he repeated, “Stay as virtuous as you are now-know that I am very proud of you. Farewell... say your prayers every morning and every night, and may God preserve your soul.”