Anne Perry - The Shifting Tide

Mercy must have caught the momentary grief in her face. “My parents are dead,” she said quietly. “From the way you speak, your mother is also?”

“Yes, and my father,” Hester acknowledged, straightening up to go over to the table. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I just wanted you to send a message if you wished. Sutton would see that it was delivered.”

“There isn’t anyone,” Mercy replied, getting the bread out of the bin and passing it to her. “My elder sister, Charity, married a doctor. That was seven years ago. They stayed in England for a year, then he decided to go abroad, and of course Charity went with him.”

“That must have been hard for you.”

Mercy shrugged very slightly. “It was at first,” she said, turning her face away so Hester could see only the angle of her cheek and the way the muscles pulled in her neck. “But she was ten years older than I, so we were not as close as we might have been.”

“And your brother is older, too,” Hester observed, remembering Clement Louvain as he had been when he brought Ruth Clark in.

“I was an afterthought,” Mercy said, lifting her chin a little, her wide mouth curved in a smile. “My mother was nearly forty when I was born. But I think she was especially fond of me, for that.” She turned back to face Hester. “I’ll make us a cup of tea. I expect Claudine would like one too, and perhaps Mr. Robinson.” She did not mention the others because they were taking an hour or two’s rest before the night duty.

In the kitchen, Claudine was preparing vegetables for a soup. Many of the sick women found eating difficult. Fever robbed them of all appetite, but some nourishment was essential, and above all they should drink. She stood at the bench, a large knife in her hand, her lips compressed as she tried to cut a raw carrot into small squares. She was muttering to herself under her breath.

Hester considered offering to help her, but she had already had a taste of Claudine’s temper when she was angry with herself for her ineptitude.

Mercy gave Hester a wry glance, more than a little because she was domestically inexperienced also, and knew that culinary skill did not come easily. She filled the kettle and set it on the hob.

Claudine went on chopping.

Squeaky Robinson came in, looking with disapproval and impatience at Claudine, then hopefully at Mercy.

Claudine glared at him. “Wonderful how you always know to come when the kettle’s on!” she said tartly.

“Saves yer having to send for me,” he replied, sitting down at the table, ready for Mercy to bring him tea when it was brewed.

“And why would we be sending for you?” Claudine demanded, her jaw clenched to swallow back the words as a piece of carrot jumped off the board under the crooked angle of the knife. She stooped awkwardly to pick it up. She had little grace, and she was hurtingly conscious of it.

Squeaky rolled his eyes.

Mercy glanced at Hester and swallowed a giggle.

“Probably ’cos yer’ve run out o’ water again,” Squeaky said wearily. “Beast o’ burden, I am.”

“You’re only getting it from the back door!” Claudine said crossly. “Some other poor devil is carrying it the length of the street, and he can only do that in the dark, for fear people’ll see him and wonder why we aren’t fetching our own. So don’t waste it! You were scrubbing the floor yesterday as if you’d half the ocean to play with.”

“Perhaps you’d better scrub the floor, missus,” Squeaky retorted. “An’ leave me ter chop them carrots. I couldn’t make no worse a job o’ it than you are. No two bits the same, you ’aven’t.”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed it, but the Dear Lord doesn’t make any two carrots the same,” Claudine said instantly, her eyes blazing, the knife clutched in her hand as if she were about to use it as a weapon.

“ ’e don’t do it wi’ pertaters neither,” Squeaky said with pleasure. “Only wi’ peas, an’ we in’t got none o’ them. Yer knows wot peas is, missus?”

“About a penny a hundred,” Claudine responded. “Roughly what you’re worth.”

Squeaky shot to his feet, his face flushed. “Now look, yer vinegar-faced ol’ cow! I’ve had as much o’ your tongue as I’m gonna take! Yer bleedin’ useless! Yer can’t turn the mangle wi’out tearin’ the sheets, like we got ’em ter spare.” He jabbed his finger towards her. “Yer can’t make soap, yer can’t make porridge wi’out more lumps than the coal got in it! Yer can’t light the bleedin’ furnace if it goes out, an’ yer can’t cut a carrot wi’out ’urlin’ bits all over the floor! That poor cow wot died was right-no wonder yer poor bleedin’ ’usband don’t miss yer bein’ ’ere! ’E’s probably got a bit o’ peace for the first time in ’is poor bleedin’ life!”

Claudine went white. She drew in her breath, but found she had no words to defend herself. Suddenly she looked old and plain, and very vulnerable.

Hester was grasped by a pity so fierce she had no idea how to express it or what to say or do. She stood frozen in the grip of it. The fear and the sense of imprisonment was wearing on everyone’s emotions. No one gave it words, but they were all intensely aware that the disease was here with them like a brooding entity, able to strike any of them, or all. Every ache, every weariness, every moment of heat or chill, every twinge of headache could be the beginning. She was not the only one to wonder about every tenderness in the breast or the arm, to look at herself with fear and imagine she could see shadows or the faintest swelling sign.

It was Mercy who interrupted her thoughts. “Mr. Robinson, we appreciate that you are afraid, we all are, but deliberately seeking to hurt each other is only going to make it worse.”

Squeaky blushed, but under his embarrassment he was angry as well. He did not like being criticized, particularly in front of Claudine. He knew he was in the wrong, and it hurt him that Mercy, whom he admired, was the one to point it out. “She’s the one wi’ the tongue pickled in acid!” he said accusingly.

“And you think so well of it you have to do the same?” Mercy raised her eyebrows.

Hester smiled, because the only alternative was to cry, and if she started she might not know how to stop. As it was, she was tired, confused, and would have given anything, except what it would actually cost, to have been able to go home.

The back door opened, startling them all and making them swing around, setting hearts pounding in sharp, urgent fear.

But it was the little terrier, Snoot, with his face half brown, half white, who came scampering in, wagging his tail, Sutton close behind him. Hester breathed out in relief, realizing she should have known it would be he. The men with the dogs would not have permitted anyone else to pass.

Sutton glanced around the room, but if he sensed the tension, he did not show it. He was carrying beef bones, two bottles of brandy, and a pound of tea. “Miss Margaret must a brung ’em,” he said, setting them down on the table. He ran his hand gently over the little dog. “That’s it fer the night,” he said gently. “Now go ter bed.”

The anger in the room subsided, and everyone returned to their duties.

It was in the middle of the night when the incident occurred. Hester had had a few hours’ sleep and was going around to the more seriously ill of the women when she heard a noise on the landing a short distance away. She knew Bessie was doing the rounds as well, so at first she took no notice. Then she heard a long wail, rising into a note of sheer terror, and she put down the cup of water in her hand. She excused herself to the languid, feverish woman she was with, and went out into the passage.