He straightened and their eyes met. Hers, wide and revealing, shifted away too late. His face tightened as though he had received a blow. She heard his breath catch and then come faster.
‘There is nothing for me to do today,’ he said huskily to Ellen, who was smiling down upon her sleeping babe, her lips curved tenderly. ‘Eat and sleep. I’ll stop by and ask Mistress Burcher to come in and watch the children for a few hours.’
He fished in his sleeve and brought out a little twist of sweetmeats which he handed to the two children on their stool, grinning at them.
‘Shall I walk back some of the way with you?’ he asked Cornelia.
She smiled, nodding, and gently took her leave of Ellen, who seemed tired again now and ready to fall back asleep. The children watched them go with bright, curious eyes.
As they walked back to Upper Thames Street, Cornelia told him lightly that her birthday would fall in the next week.
Andrew looked down at her, a boyish grin on his face. ‘What? Will you be nineteen so soon? Time flies fast.’
She grinned. ‘Time is knocking louder every year. When I was a child the days went slowly. Now they seem brief. My father has promised to take me to the theatre. I am allowed to draw up my own list of guests. Will you come?’
The doctor frowned. ‘You should invite your young friends,’ he said. ‘I would be out of place, a skeleton at your feast.’ He smiled, speaking lightly, but his eyes were serious.
She laid her hand on his arm. He looked at it as though not knowing what a hand was, his features tight.
‘Oh,’ she said, assuming a playful manner. ‘You must come, you know. It is not polite to refuse an invitation so ungraciously.’
His smile was genuinely amused now. ‘Was I ungracious? I did not mean to be. But I can never be certain of being free, you know—my patients fall sick at the oddest times. It would be ill mannered to accept and then have to cry off.’
‘I would understand,’ she insisted. ‘I do know how it is with you, Andrew.’
He stopped dead, looking down, his eyes grave. ‘Do you, Cornelia?’
She was silent for a second, frozen in a sensation of great happiness. Then she smiled, brilliantly, at him, ‘I think I have always understood you, Andrew. Do you remember how I used to trail after you when I was small? You were very kind to me. Not many boys would be prepared to play nursemaid to a little girl.’
‘You were a sweet girl though,’ he said lightly, his blue eyes dark with amused recollection. ‘Wilful and naughty at times, but always enchanting.’
Her cheeks grew poppy red. She looked down, heart thudding, but he had already begun to walk on, much faster, as though regretting that he had said so much, and too soon they were parting outside her home.
‘You will come?’ she urged, holding his arm.
He nodded. ‘I will try.’ A pause; then he said abruptly, ‘I should like to come very much.’
She watched him walk away, tremulous with happiness. Nan glared at her, shaking her head disapprovingly.
‘Your mother will not be pleased.’
But nothing could dampen Cornelia’s joy today, and as the hours wore on she only laughed as Nan banged and stamped about the house, her expression fierce enough, as the cook, Poll, said, to frighten St George himself.
‘St George!’ snorted Nan, rattling the pans. ‘What was he, pray, but another prying busybody of a man? Damn all men, I say.’
‘Have you been crossed in love, Nan?’ Poll asked slyly, and the kitchen maids burst into uproarious laughter.
Nan stalked off, grimacing horribly.
There was a fire in Cheapside that night, and many fine houses burned. The people crowded the streets to watch, and what with the noise of the fire, and the hum of the crowds, Cornelia found it impossible to sleep, and sat at her window, watching the red glow in the sky, and listening to the ominous roaring of the flames.
Her father, being an Alderman, had dressed and gone out to see what was to be done about pulling down some houses in the path of the fire so as to stop it before it spre
ad further.
He came back, towards dawn, with Sir John Robinson, the Lord Mayor, to drink wine and talk soberly of the losses sustained that night. Cornelia heard the maids running to and fro, and the sound of the mens’ deep voices rumbling on for an hour or two.
The Alderman later told her that Andrew had been in attendance on some of the poor people burnt in the fire, and said how ill he had looked, yet he had never complained of weariness, working on for hours, dressing wounds got from falling timbers, tending burns and soothing distressed women.