Wickedness by Deborah White Page B

charm against bad luck. I do not think the rope-walker saw me do it, for his eyes looked still shut tight. But a moment later, he opened them and looked straight at me. Though he was clearly in pain, he gripped my hand and struggled to his feet.
    “Here,” I said. “Lean on me and I will take you to my house. It is close by.”
    The crowd followed us as far as Bow Lane, then stopped by a baker’s that I knew was owned by a Dutchman. What mischief they did there I do not know, but I confess I was grateful they no longer followed us. We reached home safe.

    Jane must have returned home in my absence, for she came to the door and stood there, hands on hips, insolently barring the way. “Go shoe the goose,” she said gleefully. “You are in trouble and no mistake. Wait till the mistress sees you come home with a beggar boy, instead of the herbs you were sent for. You’ll get a thrashing.”
    I said nothing but, as I pushed past her, I contrived to tread hard on her foot with my patten.
    Hearing the scream, my father stepped out into the hall. “What is the matter? Are there thieves at the door?”
    “Not a thief, Father,” I said, “but a poor boy who was set upon in the street and beaten. Should I have left him to die there?”
    Before he could answer, my mother appeared, wiping her hands down her apron and looking flushed. “Boy? What boy is this? The Doctor will be here before we know it and the dinner will be only half cooked. I have no time to be looking after beggar boys.”
    While we argued, the rope-walker slid down in the doorway and turned deathly pale.
    “See,” screeched my mother. “He has brought the plague to our house. Now we will all die!”
    “The only one likely to die is the boy!” I answered back. “And you will have killed him.”
     
    I thought it likely my mother might die herself… of an apoplexy. For her face, now so close to mine I could smell the sourness of her breath, was the colour of a boiled lobster. She took me by the shoulders and started to shake me so hard I feared my teeth would fall out of my head. My father began to shout at my mother to stop and Jane stood by, laughing.
    And so we did not notice the Doctor arrive, or see him bend down over the rope-walker. But we heard him say, “While you argue, this boy suffers.”
    The sound of his voice brought my mother to her senses. At once Jane and I were instructed to bring the rope-walker in. To take him to the room my father used as a study and which had a truckle bed in it. For he sometimes worked late into the night.
    “When he is made comfortable,” the Doctor said, “I will take a look at him.”
     
    This was the first time I had seen the Doctor after our meeting at the Head and Combe. Since then he had appeared in my mind’s eye as larger than life and as wickedly seductive as sin. It was a shock to see him play the Good Samaritan.
    “We will pay you for your trouble, of course,” said my father hurriedly.
    But the Doctor would not hear of it. “It was Margrat who thought to bring him home,” he said. How had he known that? Had he shadowed me? “I merely follow her example.”
    It was cleverly done. A compliment to me and to my mother, for having borne such a tender-hearted daughter. I had been many times to the theatre with my father. I ought to have seen the trick of it. But I confess I was unaware of how he set the stage.
     
    He must have noticed the rope-walker’s ring when he first bent down to look at him. But he said nothing at first. He waited. His display of charity only increased his reputation in my father and mother’s eyes. And I confess it now… in mine too.
    Once the rope-walker was safely tucked in bed, the Doctor sent Jane out to the apothecary’s for a sleeping draught. “Sleep is a great healer. When he awakes, I will examine him and see if there is anything to be done.”
     
    I thought it was strange that the Doctor did not attend to him directly, but I said nothing. As to my mother,