“I understand!” he said quickly, closing his hand over hers where it lay on his wrist. “Be careful. And . . . and when you take food to them, leave it. Don’t be . . . don’t be tempted to . . .”
He saw an instant of pity in her eyes, not for Hester, or for the sick, but for him, because she recognized his horror of disease. It chilled him like ice at the heart. Suddenly he saw that he could lose her not to death but to contempt, that awakening of disgust that is the end of love between a woman and a man, and becomes the pity that a strong woman has for the weak, for children, and for the defenseless, but never for a lover.
He looked away.
“I will do what I have to,” she said quietly. “I do not intend to go inside the clinic; I am more use to them out here. But if Hester sends for me, perhaps because she is dying, then I will go. I might lose my life too, but if I didn’t, I could lose everything that would make life precious. I am sure you know that.” There was no certainty in her voice or her face. She was full of question. She needed his answer.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, and he meant it with all the force of his nature. “I know you must. It was a moment’s complete selfishness because I love you.”
She smiled, and lowered her eyes as the tears slid down her cheeks. “You must go and defend this thief, if that is what Monk requires. Now I am going to raise some more money. We need vegetables, and tea, and beef, if possible.”
He took ten pounds out of his pocket and put it on the table. He was giving money away like water.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Now please go while I can still keep some measure of composure. We both have things to do.”
He obeyed, his emotions storming inside him, his own composure in shreds. He was glad to say good-bye and go as rapidly as he could outside into the anonymous street, where the sharp wind would sting his face and the rain would hide his tears.
ELEVEN
Day and night blurred into one exhausting round for Hester. There were over a dozen women in the clinic altogether, counting herself, Bessie, Claudine, Mercy, and Flo. Three had been injured by accident or violence, five were suffering fevers and congestion which might be pneumonia—or early stages of plague; it was too soon to be certain. There had already been two deaths, one apparently from heart failure, the other from internal bleeding.
Of course, to his outrage, Squeaky Robinson could not leave either. Sutton had chosen to return and work with the little terrier, Snoot, to catch the rats. Food, water, and coal were left in the yard, and the men with the dogs placed them outside the back door. When Hester went to retrieve them, she caught sight of one of the men standing near the wall, half concealed in the shadows, his dog at his feet. It gave her a feeling of safety, and reminded her at the same time that she was as much a prisoner as any of the others.
Mercy helped her carry in the pails of water, which were extremely heavy. They left two in the kitchen, and the other eight along the wall of the laundry.
“We’re going to have to use the water several times,” Hester said unhappily. “It’s not the best, but we daren’t run out. With fever like this, it’s more important to drink than to be clean, and I don’t think we can have both.”
Mercy leaned against the washtub into which the mangle drained. She looked pale and very tired, but she was smiling. “Makes you realize what a blessing it is to have water at home, doesn’t it? Ask someone for it, and there it is!”
Hester looked at her with affection. In the few days she had been there Hester had grown to like her. She still knew very little about her, other than that she was Clement Louvain’s sister. She had a gentleness with the sick, an endless patience, and in spite of the utterly different world she must be accustomed to, she never seemed to patronize people—unlike Claudine, whose temper was never far below the surface. Although Hester found she could not dislike Claudine either.
Now they worked together piling the soiled sheets into the corner, and then Mercy tipped more coal from the scuttle into the boiler to heat it up. It was an awkward job, and she was covered in smuts by the time she had finished. She leaned back, putting the scuttle down, and looked at herself in dismay.
“Why on earth do we wear white aprons?” she said disgustedly. “Whoever thought of that obviously didn’t have to do the laundry!”
Hester smiled. “Don’t worry about it. It’s good clean dirt.”
Mercy looked confused for a moment, then realized what she meant, and relaxed, smiling back. It was half past nine in the evening, and most of the jobs were done for the day, insofar as day and night were any different from each other.
“Were you really in the Crimea?” Mercy asked a little shyly.
Hester was surprised. “Yes. Most of the time it seems like another world, but right now it’s not so hard to remember.” She bit her lip a little ruefully. There had been far more deaths there; they were surrounded by it every day, and it had been brutal and terrible, largely senseless, inflicted by men upon their fellows. But there was a vast difference between war and murder, even if there had seemed times when it would be difficult to explain it. Whole hours went by when she completely forgot that Ruth Clark had been murdered, let alone that she should be trying to find out who was responsible.
Did it matter anymore—really? She realized with a jolt that she was not even certain that she wanted to know. It had to be someone here, and she cared for each of them. Was the bond of fear and survival greater than whatever had driven one of them to kill? She did not want to know the answer.
“You’ve not asked to have any message sent to your family,” she said to Mercy. She did not want to intrude. Mercy had never spoken of her home. She had not even said if she knew it was her brother who had brought Ruth Clark here, although Hester had assumed that she must have known. She seemed to be in her early twenties, pleasing to look at, and certainly she had an agreeable nature. Why was she not enjoying the social life her position offered her? Was there a love affair that had gone so badly for her that she was still too hurt to think of someone new? Was that why she was here, to escape a greater pain? Hester realized that that was what she had assumed, but there was no evidence for it.
