At the Sign of the Star Read Online Free

in front with my father, and behind us came Cook and Jane, the serving girl, then Robert with Charles and James, the other apprentices. Godfrey, the boy, walked sometimes next to Jane, and sometimes with the older boys, that he might hear their chatter. We passed by the stones and beams they were putting together at St. Paul’s, to rebuild the cathedral, and I pointed with great excitement to a fine column. My father only shook his head and said he did not think that it would ever be done. We walked through Cheapside, and saw the ruins of churches burnt in the Great Fire that destroyed so much of London my second year of life. But in the same street we saw the new shops of goldsmiths, drapers, and haberdashers. The shops were shut up for the Sabbath, of course, but the streets were filled with people in their Sunday finery, nodding and bowing to one another. They were filled, too, with ne’er-do-wells who were playing when they ought to have been at church. We saw some young apprentices sitting on steps and waving their tankards at one another while they told jokes. One of them called out to our boys to join them; Charles said he would, and Robert cuffed him. We walked on through Threadneedle Street. I heard a shrill crow of pain, and looking down a narrow lane I caught a glimpse of a cockfight.
    I do not know which I loved more, seeing the folk who bowed and nodded and worried about the weather, or seeing the boys who would certainly be fined for staying away from divine service if they were caught. Both were a part of life in London, and that I loved most of all.
    Hester, however, loved it not. “Look at this,” she would say as she stepped over the turds someone had emptied from a chamber pot into the street. “What a filthy place London is.”
    And so it was, and so it is, but I have never minded it.
    St. Botolph’s was dark and old, for it was not burnt in the Great Fire. I sat with my cloak pulled close amid the dreary, chill, stone monuments, and paid little attention to song and prayer. But I listened more carefully to the preaching, as was my habit, for sometimes a good sermon can be published with profit. However, the Reverend Little’s words would find no wider audience; he made dull what should have stirred us all.
    When the service was done, Hester and I stood in the lane outside and curtsied to this merchant and that neighbor. The draper and his wife bade me good morning with wide smiles, and their grown daughter, Susannah, spoke to me by name, which surprised me. “I have seen you in your father’s shop,” she said. She smiled as she said it, but I felt accused, as though she had said I should not be there.
    â€œAnd I have seen you there,” I answered her. All the grown folk laughed, and began to chat among themselves, while I waited impatiently to move on. But we did not move on, and at last Hester and I drew off, and murmured to one another as we listened to my father pay extravagant compliments to the draper’s daughter.
    â€œBeauty!” I repeated to Hester, having heard the word escape my father’s mouth. “If bread is beautiful, then so is Susannah Beckwith.”
    â€œOr if coal is beautiful,” Hester said.
    â€œIf lard is beautiful.”
    â€œIf sand is beautiful.”
    â€œSand is beautiful,” I answered.
    â€œWell, so is Susannah Beckwith’s gown, even if her face is plain. Look at it.”
    I looked. And I looked some more. She was wearing a blue velvet gown drawn back to show a yellow underskirt, and the ruffles of her embroidered chemise showed at her neck. Her yellow hood was cast back to show off her hair, which was wired in ringlets that hung at the sides of her face. “Now, why is she all dressed up?” I said as I watched her simper at my father, but as soon as I spoke I knew the answer. I knew why we’d been going to St. Botolph’s, and why my father was not himself, and where he’d