Anne Perry - The Shifting Tide

Monk closed the door and returned to the fire, the watch still in his hand. Hester was still clasping the cameo. She was thrilled for Callandra. Her friend had loved Kristian profoundly and hopelessly for so long that to have wished her anything but success would be unthinkable. But she was aware, with the cold from the open door still sharp in the air, just how alone it left them. She was not sure what to say. The awareness of the difference it would make, especially now, was like a third presence in the room between them.

“It had to happen,” she said, lifting her gaze slowly to meet his. “We couldn’t have wished it differently. If the position were the other way around, and it were you and I in their place, and they in ours, I should go to Vienna, or anywhere else, if you needed me-or wanted me with you.”

He smiled slowly. “Would you?”

She knew he was joking, fighting the fear so she could not see it. She pretended she had not. “I’d like tea,” she remarked. “Shall I fetch some?”

By ten the following day, when Monk was back at the dockside, Hester was going through the cabinets in the main room at Portpool Lane. There was conspicuously less of almost everything than there had been the day before. No later than tomorrow they would have to buy more disinfectant and at least carbolic, lye, vinegar, and candles. It would be nice to have brandy as well, and fortified wine to add to beef tea. She could list another dozen things it would help to have.

The girl who had come in the day before was still deeply asleep, but her breathing was easier and there was already a little color in her skin. If they could have afforded to feed her for a week or two, she would probably have recovered completely.

Hester had turned away from the cupboard and was going to the drawer of the desk when Bessie came in. She had her sleeves rolled up and an apron tied around her waist. There was an old smear of blood across the center of it.

“We got another of ’em as can ’ardly breathe,” she said wearily, her face puckered in anger because the problem was too big. She had spent as long as she could remember trying to cope with it, and as fast as she cured one, another turned up, if not two. “Why couldn’t the good Lord ’a designed us better?” she added tartly. “Or else done away wi’ winter. ’e can’t ’a not see’d this comin’! It ’appens every year!”

Hester did not bother with an answer, not that she had one anyway. The question was rhetorical. She turned from what she had been going to do and followed Bessie to the entrance room, where a middle-aged woman in brown was sitting hunched up on the old couch, her arms folded protectively across her chest. She breathed slowly and with obvious difficulty. In the candlelight her face was colorless; her fair hair, liberally streaked with gray, was piled on her head like so much old straw.

Hester looked more carefully at her pinched face and saw the whiteness about her lips and around her eyes, and the slight flush in her cheeks. It was probably bronchitis, which could turn to pneumonia. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Molly Struther,” the woman answered without looking up.

“How do you feel, exactly?”

“Tired enough ter die,” the woman replied. “Dunno why I bothered ter come ’ere, ’cept Flo tol’ me ter. Said as yer’d ’elp. Daft, I call it. Wot can yer do? Gonna change the world, are yer?” There was no mockery in her voice; she had not the energy for it.

“Find you a warm, dry bed-undisturbed for the most part-and some food,” Hester replied. “Plenty of hot tea, with maybe a nip of brandy in it, at least until the brandy runs out.”

Molly drew in a deep breath of amazement and broke into a fit of coughing until she all but gagged. Hester fetched her some hot water from the kettle, put a spoonful of honey in it, and held it out for her. Molly sipped at it gratefully, but it was several minutes before she tried to speak again.

“Thanks,” she said finally.

Hester helped her to one of the rooms with two beds, while Bessie went off to heat a warming pan. Half an hour later Molly was lying on her back, blankets up to her chin, eyes still wide with surprise and the sheer unfamiliarity of it.

“We gotter get more money!” Bessie said to Hester when they were back in the kitchen. She poked tentatively at the stove, wondering how long it would burn without adding more coke to it. It was a fine balance between using the minimum it would take to keep burning, and so little it actually went out.

“I know,” Hester admitted. “Margaret’s trying, and I’ve got a list of names to go on with, but people are uncomfortable about giving because of the women’s occupation. They feel better about sending their offerings to Africa, or somewhere like that.”

Bessie made a snarl in her throat that was eloquent of contempt. “So they think them Africans is better than we are?” she demanded. “Or they’re colder, or ’ungrier, or sicker mebbe?”

“I don’t think it’s got anything to do with that,” Hester replied, warming her hands above the cast-iron surface of the stove.

“O’ course it in’t!” Bessie snapped, filling the kettle up again from the ewer of water in the far corner near the stone sink, and putting it back on the hob. “It’s ter do wi’ conscience, that’s wot it’s ter do wi’! It in’t our fault if Africans starve or die; it’s too far away fer us ter feel bad about it. But if our own is freezin’ an’ starvin’, then that’s summink ter feel bad abaht, aw-right. ’Cos mebbe we should ’a see’d they wasn’t like that in the first place.”

Hester did not answer.

“Or mebbe it’s ’cos they in’t no better than they should be,” Bessie went on, drying her hands on her apron. “They sell theirselves on the street, which is sin, in’t it? An’ we might get our skirts dirty if we ’ave anythin’ ter do wi’ the likes o’ them! Never mind our ’usbands go ter them poor sods fer a bit o’ wotever we don’t wanter do-’cos we got an ’eadache, or it in’t decent, or we don’t want no more kids!” She slammed the grate door shut on the stove. “It in’t nice ter know about things like that, so we pretend as we don’t! So o’ course we don’t want ’em fed or nursed; we’d rather play at it as if they in’t real. Gawd ’elp us, it in’t our daughter, or sister, or even our man!”

“That’s probably more like it,” Hester agreed, hoping the kettle would boil soon. A hot cup of tea would warm her through before she went around collecting the linen to wash, and turned her thoughts to what they could fall back on if Margaret failed. She didn’t want an idle mind, or it would be too quickly filled with thoughts of how Monk was progressing on the docks in the blustering rain, searching for evidence he might not even recognize if it was there in his hands.

“ ’Course it is,” Bessie retorted. “Stick yer ’ead in the coal cellar, an’ then tell the world there in’t nobody there, ’cos you can’t see a bleedin’ thing! Gor, I dunno! Are they stupid, or just frit out o’ their brains?”

Hester did not reply. She was upstairs changing beds, ready to wash the linen, when Bessie came tramping up about two hours later.

“I’m here!” Hester replied, coming to the door.

“Got another sick one, poor cow,” Bessie said cheerfully. “Looks like death on a bad day, she do. Shoot ’er’d be the kindest thing.” She caught a stray length of hair and tucked it behind her ear. “Mind, I’ve felt like that at times. It don’t last forever, jus’ seems like it. But she got a feller with ’er wot’s askin’ real nice, all proper dressed an’ all. An’ ’e says ’e’ll pay us wot it costs ter look arter ’er, an’ more besides.” She waited expectedly for Hester’s approval.