Anne Perry - The Shifting Tide

At half past ten Margaret arrived, bringing with her two women. They walked into the clinic behind her, then stood in the main room, the first staring quite openly around with a look of disdain. She was a tall, rather thin woman with dark hair, and she was considerably broader at the hip than the shoulder. Her face had been handsome in her youth, but the marks of discontent detracted from it now that she appeared to be in her middle forties. Her clothes were smart and expensive, even though she had clearly selected her oldest skirt and woollen jacket in which to come. Hester knew at a glance that they were well made and of good fabric. Five years ago they had been the height of fashion.

The woman behind her was different in almost every respect. She was at least two inches less in height. Her face was soft featured, but there was great strength in the broad cheekbones and the chin. Her hair was honey-brown and had a heavy natural curl. Her clothes were also of good quality, but less fashionable in cut, and looked to be no earlier than last winter’s in style. She seemed to be the more nervous of the two. There was no discontent in her face, but a profound apprehension, as though she feared the place as if there were something in it which was dangerous, even tragic.

“This is Mrs. Claudine Burroughs,” Margaret said, introducing the older woman to Hester. “She has very generously offered to help us at least two days a week.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Burroughs?” Hester responded. “We are very grateful to you.”

Mrs. Burroughs looked at her with growing disapproval. She must have seen the exhaustion in Hester’s face, her hair untidily caught up and her hands red from scrubbing the floor and feeding hot, wet sheets through the mangle. There was a tear in the shoulder seam of her blouse from reaching to winch up the airing rack to try to get the bed linen dry before they needed to put it back on again the next time the beds needed to be changed.

“It isn’t the sort of charity work I usually do,” Mrs. Burroughs said coolly.

“You will never do anything which will be more valued,” Hester replied with as much warmth as she could manage. She could not afford to offend her, full of misgivings as she was.

“And this is Miss Mercy Louvain,” Margaret said, introducing the younger woman. “She has offered to be here as long as we need her. She will even sleep here if it would be helpful.” She smiled, searching Hester’s eyes and awaiting her approval.

Louvain! Hester was incredulous. Was she related to Clement Louvain? She had to be. It was hardly a common name. Was it possible she knew Ruth Clark? If she did, it might be an embarrassing situation, especially if Ruth really was Louvain’s mistress and not that of some fictional friend.

She smiled back, first at Margaret, then at Mercy Louvain. “Thank you. That is extraordinarily good of you. Nighttimes can be hard. We would appreciate it very much indeed.” Not once had Mercy looked around the room as Mrs. Burroughs did; it was almost as if she had no interest in the surroundings.

Hester did not express her gratitude to Margaret in words, in case the depth of her feeling alarmed the two new volunteers, but she allowed it to show in her eyes for a moment when their glances met. Then Hester showed the women the house and introduced them to their first tasks.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t you have servants here of any sort?” Mrs. Burroughs demanded when they were in the laundry. She gazed at the stone floor and the pile of linen on it, awaiting washing, and then at the huge copper with the steam rising off it, her nostrils flaring at the vinegar and caustic in the air. She looked at the mangle between the two deep wooden tubs as if it were some obscene instrument of torture.

“We don’t have money for it,” Hester explained. “We need all we can get for medicine, coal, and food. People are very unwilling to give to us because of the nature of our patients.”

Mrs. Burroughs snorted but made no direct reply. Her eyes went further around the room, noting the pails, the sack of potash, the vat of lard, and the large glass flagons of vinegar.

“Where do you get water?” she asked. “I see no taps.”

“From the well down the street,” Hester replied.

“Good heavens, woman! You want a cart horse to labor here!” Mrs. Burroughs exclaimed.

“I want a lot of things,” Hester said ruefully. “I’ll accept what I can get, and be most grateful for it. Bessie usually fetches the water. You don’t need to concern yourself with it.”

“Bessie? Is she the big woman I saw on the landing?”

“Yes. She would do most of the laundry usually, but we have a lot of sick and injured here right now, and she has learned a little nursing, so I need her to help with that.”

“Skilled, is it?” Mrs. Burroughs asked disbelievingly.

“Yes, some of it is,” Hester replied, again finding it difficult to remain civil. “Some of it isn’t, like cleaning up blood or vomit, emptying slops-that sort of thing.”

Mrs. Burroughs jerked up her chin. “I’ll do the laundry,” she stated.

Hester smiled back at her. “Thank you,” she accepted sweetly.

If Mercy Louvain saw any humor in Mrs. Burrough’s reaction there was no reflection of it in her grave face. Hester showed Mrs. Burroughs where everything was, and the exact proportions to be mixed and put into the coppers. She demonstrated how to use the wooden dolly to move the linen, how long to leave it, and at what temperature. She would have to return in order to help her move it all to be rinsed and then mangled and folded, and the airing rack winched down, the linen put on it, and winched back up again and lashed tight. It was obvious Mrs. Burroughs had never so much as washed a handkerchief. She had a great deal to learn if she was to be of use.

Mercy Louvain was of a totally different character, but it did not take long to see that she also was completely inexperienced in any domestic work. She had seldom visited a kitchen, but when Hester showed her the saucepans, oatmeal, salt, flour, and vegetables, she seemed to grasp the essentials at least willingly, even if she needed to ask a great many questions. Hester finally left to go back upstairs, wondering if it would not be easier to do it all herself than accept such unskilled help.

However, in the middle of the afternoon she was grateful to be able to leave Bessie to teach Mrs. Burroughs how to clean up the laundry, and Flo to give Mercy Louvain a lesson in peeling potatoes, and go upstairs to rest.

Darkness was coming earlier each evening as autumn moved towards winter, and by six o’clock it was both dark and cold. They bolted the doors at eight, and Hester thought with a shiver of those outside walking the streets, hoping for the trade which kept them alive.

She went upstairs to see how Ruth Clark was.

She had been well enough to take a little thin broth, and had expressed her disgust with the quality of it. Hester wondered again how much of her temper was really directed at the man who had apparently loved her, or at least desired her, and then when she was ill had put her out on the street to depend upon strangers and the pity of those who wished to do good. Were Hester in the same position, she might have resented it just as deeply, and with as bitter a tongue. Had Ruth loved the man? Or was he no more than a means to live well? If she had cared for him, had even hoped there was something real in their relationship which would last, then no wonder she was raw with pain.

Hester retired to her room, then she heard Flo shrieking again, and she strode back into Ruth’s room to find Flo standing over Ruth’s bed swearing at her. Ruth had malice bright in her eyes, and her fist was clenched on long black hairs.