Mask of Night Read Online Free Page A

it had been pinned to the door. LORD HAVE MERCY UPON US was printed on it in big black type (and the largest word by far was LORD), together with some other prayers and injunctions in smaller lettering. The short man held out the bill, crumpled and torn, in front of the beadle’s evasive gaze.
    I had the impression that the speaker intended his words to be heard not just by the beadle and the constable but by the rest of us. The beadle shifted uncomfortably and muttered something about “orders”.
    “I am giving you fresh orders, Arnet,” said the small man, whom I took to be a councillor or alderman. Judging from his high-handed manner, which was in inverse proportion to his inches, he probably came from across the river. A fine white horse was tethered to a tree at the London-ward end of the row of hovels. Presumably it belonged to this important gent. He continued to address the beadle: “You are to return here with red paint and a brush and you are to set the mark upon this door. It is to be the prescribed fourteen inches in length. You will do it in oil so that it may not be easily rubbed off. These are the new orders from the Council.”
    “Well, Master Farnaby . . . ” said the beadle but his voice tailed off as the other man stared at him. Arnet gazed across the road at the little crowd, as if he expected some help from that quarter. I guessed that the beadle was local, drawn from the parish like the constable.
    “While you are obtaining the red paint,” continued the alderman called Farnaby, “and the brush and a measure – remember that the mark is to be fourteen inches in length, that is prescribed – while you are obtaining the necessary items, this gentleman remains here to secure the premises. You understand?”
    He was referring to the constable. The constable nodded energetically. The alderman turned back to the beadle.
    “Well, what are you waiting for, man? Go get your brush, your paint, your measure.”
    The beadle scuttered off up the street. As Farnaby was issuing these instructions in a not-to-be-controverted tone, a flickering movement caught my eye. To one side of the doorway there was a low ragged window, more of a hole than a proper opening, covered with cloth sacking. Someone was looking out at the street through a gap between the sacking and the wall. All I could see was the white of a single eye. I find it hard to describe the thrill – of horror, of terror, somehow mixed up with fellow feeling – which shot through me at the sight of that single eye. It must have belonged to a child or to an adult who was crouching down low so as to see out into the street. The house was occupied!
    I don’t know why I should have been shocked at this. The dwelling, more of a hovel than a house, was much likelier to be full than empty. And this could explain why the beadle had put up a bill which was no more than a flimsy sheet of paper. It might have been that Arnet had been bribed by the occupants of the house to keep quiet about the infection, or that he was hoping to be bribed. Sticking up a bit of paper to warn of the plague was the equivalent of doing nothing since, as the alderman had demonstrated, it was easily torn down. Or it might have been that the beadle was moved to pity for the inhabitants of the hovel. With the painting of an indelible red cross on their door, and other restrictions, they were being condemned to a prison of sickness from which none could expect to emerge alive.
    As if to confirm that the place was occupied, Alderman Farnaby turned to the constable and, motioning with his head in the direction of the door, said, “Their name?”
    “Turnbull, sir.”
    “Number?” Then, realizing that he hadn’t been understood, “How many Turnbulls altogether?”
    The constable counted off on his fingers.
    “Five, six . . . no . . . seven. And then there is a person called Watkins.”
    “There are eight Turnbulls,” said a woman standing on the far side of Abel Glaze. She was