as well, whatever the truth of his regard for her had been. Odd, such lovely words: Mercy and Clement. And the sister was Charity—the same meaning again. And Ruth Clark too. The word was usually used in the negative—
Had he known that Ruth had plague? Was that why he had brought her here instead of having her nursed in his own home? If she had been his mistress, then he could well have it too by now.
Mercy’s eyes were open.
Hester looked at her. “Did you know that Ruth Clark had the plague?”
Mercy blinked. “Ruth?” It was almost as if she did not know who Hester meant.
“Ruth Clark, the first one to die,” Hester reminded her. “She was suffocated. Someone put a pillow over her face and stifled her, but she would have died of plague anyway—almost certainly. Hardly anyone ever recovers.”
“Leaving . . .” Mercy said hoarsely. “Not listen to me. Spread it . . .”
“No, she didn’t,” Hester assured her gently, her eyes brimming with tears. “She never went outside the clinic, except to be buried.” She put her hand on Mercy’s and felt the fingers respond very slightly. “That’s why you killed her, isn’t it?” Her throat was tight and aching. “To stop her from leaving. You knew she had plague, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” It was hardly more than a breath.
“How? Was she your brother’s mistress?”
Mercy made a funny little sound in her throat, a gasping as if she had something caught in it, and it was a couple of seconds before Hester realized it was laughter.
“Wasn’t she?” she asked. “Who was Ruth Clark?”
“Charity . . .” Mercy answered. “My sister. Stanley died at sea, but Charity thought she could escape. I wouldn’t let her . . . not with plague. I . . .” But she had no more strength. Her eyelids fluttered and her breath eased out slowly and did not come again.
Hester reached for her pulse, but she knew it would not be there. She sat motionless, overwhelmed with the reality of the loss. She had not known Mercy long, but they had shared sorrow, pity, and laughter; shared grubby manual duties, fear and hope, and feelings that mattered. Now she knew that Mercy had come here deliberately, knowing what it might cost her, to stop her sister from carrying plague away into the city, the country. She had paid the price to the last drop.
Slowly, Hester moved from the chair and bent to her knees. She had prayed often for the dead—it was a natural thing to do—but before now it had been for the comfort of those remaining. This time it was for Mercy, and it was directed to no listener except that divine power who judges and forgives the souls of men.
“Forgive her,” she said in her mind. “Please—she didn’t know anything better to do—please! Please?”
She did not know how long she knelt, saying the words over and over until she felt the hand on her shoulder and flinched as if she had been struck.
“If she’s gone, Miss ’Ester, we gotter get ’er away from ’ere an’ buried proper.” It was Sutton.
“Yes, I know.” She climbed to her feet. “She has to be buried in a graveyard.” She stated it as a fact. She had already decided to tell no one what Mercy had said. As far as they were concerned Ruth Clark was a prostitute who had died of pneumonia and no more.
“She will, Miss ’Ester.” Sutton bit his lip. “I told the men yesterday. They got a place. But we gotter ’urry. There’s a grave new dug not far from ’ere, mile an’ a ’alf, mebbe. It’s rainin’ like stair rods, which’ll keep folk off the streets. Flo’s bringin’ one o’ them dark blankets an’ we’ll wrap ’er up. But we in’t got time ter grieve . . . I’m sorry.”
Hester felt her eyes hot and stinging with unshed tears, but she obeyed. When Flo came with the blanket she took it from her and insisted on wrapping Mercy in it herself. Then the three of them, Sutton at the feet and the two women at the head, carried Mercy down to the back door. Squeaky, Claudine, and Margaret were waiting, heads bowed, faces pale. No one spoke. Margaret looked at Hester, the question in her eyes.
Hester shook her head. She turned to Sutton. “I’m going with them.” It was a statement.
“Yer can’t do that . . .” he started, then he saw the blind grief in her face. “Yer can’t go out now,” he said gently. “Yer’ve kept in all this time—”
“I won’t go near anyone,” she cut across him. “I’ll walk behind, by myself.”
He shook his head, but it was in defeat rather than denial, and his eyes were swimming in tears.
Flo sniffed fiercely. “Don’ yer forget yer goin’ fer all of us! An’ for all of them as we buried as ’as got no one.”
“Say something for us as well,” Claudine agreed.
Hester nodded. “Of course I will.” And before anyone could say anything more and break what little composure she had left, she opened the door and Sutton helped them carry the body outside into the yard and lay it down. “Look after ’er,” he said to the men when they came for it.
Hester waited until they were almost to the street, then she pulled her shawl over her head and followed over the cobbles in the drenching rain, Sutton’s coat around her shoulders. She waited under the arch of the gate as they passed under the street lamp and across the footpath and placed the body gently into the rat cart. One man picked up the shafts and started to pull, his dog beside him; the other went behind, his dog at his heels.
Hester went after them, about twenty feet behind. They knew she was there, and possibly they walked a little more slowly to allow her to keep up. They moved through the sodden night unspeaking, but every now and then glancing backwards to make sure she was still there.
She thought of the other women who had been buried this way, unmarked and unmourned. Whoever had loved them would never know where they were, nor that at the very least someone had dealt with them in some reverence.
