212 • The Abyssout: “Are you ill that you dare not tell me how ill you are?” Symon’s anxiety
about Elizabeth’s danger was heightened by the sight of recovered neighbors
terrifying passersby with their embraces. The authorities in Westminster
were no longer shutting up infected houses in some streets, despite the vig-
ilance of Albemarle and Craven. Newly infected parishioners—the “vulgar,
poorer sort,” he confided in an uncharacteristic slur—were going every-
where.^37 Three days after writing that anxious note, Symon was in a happier
mood on receiving a letter from Elizabeth. “My very deare friend, it was a
singular joy to me when I did but see your hand last night.”
Elizabeth, in turn, was delighted to hear of his improved mood and the
pronounced dip in fatalities in the metropolis. Her spirits were buoyed by
thoughts of heading homeward. Perhaps, Symon thought, this prospect
would get Elizabeth over her headaches and ill spells. But he was concerned
by her mood swings and tendency to become excited and impatient. She
might still catch the infection. Clapham was not yet safe, nor were the routes
around London to get there. Hutton Hall was her best haven, despite the en-
circling epidemic in Essex. She should remember her brother’s advice: “Go
far, stay long, return late.” For her part Elizabeth persisted in urging Symon
to take care of himself.
As the death toll in Greater London finally began to drop, Reverend Pa-
trick seized on the chance to move to better quarters. “You must send your
next to James Street, whither I am going the beginning of the week. I have
an handsome study, a furnished room to lye in.” Happily, he had hung it with
Colchester “bay” cloth, “which I had of a safe hand, not thinking it fit to ven-
ture to enquire after anything better.” Elizabeth was relieved at the knowl-
edge he was taking better care of his needs, even to keeping his rooms warm
with coverings on windows. But she worried that the move might delay de-
livery of his next letters. It was imperative not to lose touch, for the last part
of his letter brought disturbing news. “My poore clerk,” Symon admitted,
“found his house infected, and acquainted me with it. I was so pity-full as to
bid him come out of the house himself, and attend his business, and I should
not be afraid of him.”
She kept an anxious eye on London’s Bills of Mortality as the temperature
fell. One week the overall toll was lower; the next week it increased again in
some inner and outer parishes. The plague was heavy at Wandsworth near
the Battersea house of Symon’s brother in Surrey, and right next door to him
a girl had died, “not without strong suspicion of the plague.” Elizabeth would
know it was time to return when her brother reopened his London home and
her husband found Clapham safe. The prospects looked good. The overall