Page 8 of The Shifting Tide (William Monk 14)

Hester touched the thin neck with the backs of her fingers. The girl did not stir. She looked about eighteen, but more likely was far less. Her collarbone protruded and her skin was very white, but her pulse was steady enough. Margaret was probably right, it was no more than chronic hunger and exhaustion. When she woke up they would give her more to eat, but after that she would probably have to go. They could not afford to feed her regularly.

Hester wondered who she was. A prostitute without sufficient skill or beauty? A servant thrown out because she had lost her character, either willingly or unwillingly, with one of the men in the house? A girl who had had a baby, and perhaps lost it? An abandoned wife? A petty thief? The possibilities were legion.

She went back out and closed the door. She returned to the main room, which had been created with rather simplistic carpentry from two smaller rooms a few months ago. Margaret was sitting at the table and Bessie was carrying a tray from the kitchen with a teapot and two cups. Bessie was a big woman with a fierce countenance and hair which she screwed back off her brow and twisted into a tight knot on the back of her head. She would never have said so-it would have been a sign of unforgivable sentimentality-but she was devoted to Hester, and even Margaret was earning considerable favor in her eyes.

“Tea,” she said unnecessarily, putting the tray down on the middle of the table. “And toast,” she added, indicating the rack with five pieces propped up to remain crisp. “We in’t got much jam left, an’ I dunno where we’re gonna get any more, ’less we get it given us! An’ ’oo’s gonna give jam ter the likes of us? Beggin’ yer pardon, Mrs. Monk!” And without waiting for an answer she swept out.

“Are we really out of jam?” Hester said unhappily. “And so low we can’t afford any more?” She would have liked to bring some from home, but she was far more aware of the need for economy there than she had allowed Monk to know. She already bought less meat, and cheaper cuts; and herring more often than cod or haddock. She had told the woman who came in to do the heavy cleaning that she was no longer needed, and when she had time she meant to do the work herself.

Before Margaret could respond there was a sharp bang on the door and a moment later, without waiting for an answer, Squeaky Robinson came in. He was a thin man, dried up and bent over. He was dressed in a very old velvet jacket that had lost whatever its original color had been. His trousers were thick and gray and he wore slippers. He carried a leather-bound ledger in his arms. He put it on the table, eyeing the tea and toast, and sat down in the third chair opposite Hester.

“We cut it down,” he said with satisfaction. “But you’ll ’ave ter do better.” He had the air of a schoolmaster with a promising student who had unaccountably fallen short of expectation. “Yer can’t put out more’n you get in.”

Hester looked at him patiently, but it required a certain effort. “You’ve balanced the books, Squeaky. What do we have left?”

“Of course I’ve balanced the books!” he said with satisfaction, even if he was masking it by a pretense of being offended. “That’s wot I’m ’ere fer!” He was there under constant protest, because at first he had had nowhere else to go when Hester and Margaret had very neatly tricked him out of his appalling brothel business, and at a stroke gained the building for use as a clinic. But as he had busied himself with small jobs there, he had gained a certain pleasure from it, even if he would sooner have given blood than admitted it.

“So how much have we left?” she repeated.

He looked at her lugubriously. “Not enough, Mrs. Monk, not enough. We’ll manage food for another five or six days, if yer careful. No jam!” He pulled his lips down at the corners. “ ’Ceptin’ fer yerself, pr’aps, an’ Miss Ballinger. No jam fer these women! An’ careful wi’ the soap an’ vinegar an’ the like.” He took a breath. “An’ don’t tell me yer gotta scrub! I know that, just scrub careful. An’ boil them bandages up an’ use ’em again,” he added unnecessarily. He nodded, pleased with himself. He was becoming more and more proprietary each time they discussed the subject.

“Carbolic?” Hester asked.

“Oh, some,” he conceded. “But we need more money, an’ I dunno where yer gonna get it, ’less’n yer let me foller a few ideas o’ me own.”

Margaret raised her cup to conceal a smile.

Hester could make an educated guess as to what Squeaky’s ideas might be. “Not yet,” she said firmly. “And we don’t need to attract any attention that we could avoid. Give Bessie what she’ll need for food, b

ut be sure to keep back at least two pounds. Tell me when we get that low.”

“I can tell yer now,” Squeaky said, shaking his head. “It’ll be day arter termorrer.” He sniffed. “Sometimes I think yer live in a dream. Yer needs me ter wake yer up, an’ that’s a fact.” He rose to his feet slowly, clutching the book. There was an air of profound satisfaction in him, the ease of his body, the smug line of his lips, the way his hands folded over the ledger.

Remembering his previous occupation, and his outrage at being tricked into yielding the house and all its furniture, which was his entire livelihood, Hester smiled back at him. “Of course I do,” she agreed. “That’s why I kept you.”

His satisfaction vanished. He swallowed hard. “I know that!”

“I’m glad you do it so diligently,” she added.

Mollified, he turned and went out, closing the door with a snick behind him.

Margaret put down her cup, and her face was grave. “We do need to get more money,” she agreed. “I’ve tried the usual sources, but it’s getting more difficult.” She looked rueful. “They’re all generous enough when they think it’s for missionary work in Africa or somewhere like that. Speak about lepers and they are only too willing. I began two evenings ago at a soiree. I was with”-she colored slightly-“Sir Oliver, and the opportunity presented itself to approach the subject of charitable gifts without the least awkwardness.”

Hester bit her lip to disguise her smile. Oliver Rathbone was one of the most brilliant-and successful-barristers in London. He had not long before been in love with Hester, but an uncertainty about a step as irrevocable as marriage, and to someone as unsuitable in her outspokenness as Hester, had made him hesitate to ask her. Not that she would have accepted him. She could never have loved anyone else as she did Monk-in spite of their continual quarrels, the erratic nature of his income and his future, let alone the dark shadow of amnesia across his past. To marry him was a risk; to marry anyone else would have been to accept safety and deny the fullness of life, the heights and the depths of emotion, and the happiness that went with them.

She believed that Rathbone could find that same joy with Margaret. And deep as her friendship with him still was, being a woman, she felt most sensitively for Margaret, and read her with an ease she would never have betrayed.

“But the moment they knew that it was for a clinic for street women here,” Margaret went on, “they balked at it.” She bit her lip. “They make me so angry! I stand there feeling like a fool because I’m full of hope that this time they’ll give something. I know it shows in my face, and I can’t help it. I’m trying to be polite, and inside I am veering wildly from pleading with them, thanking them overmuch as if I were a beggar and the money were for me, and fury if they refuse me.”

She did not add that she had been acutely conscious of Rathbone beside her, and what he would think of her manners, her decorum, her suitability to be his wife. But on the other hand, would he lose all respect for her, and she for herself, were she to do less than her best for a cause she believed in so passionately?

“And they say no?” Hester said gently, although something of her own anger crept into her tone. Cowardice and hypocrisy were the two vices she hated the most, perhaps because they seemed to give rise to so many others, especially cruelty. They were woven into each other. She had learned how many men used the street women, and she refrained from judgment on that. She also knew that quite often their wives were perfectly aware of it, even if only by deduction. What she hated was the hypocrisy of then turning and condemning those same women. Perhaps the interdependence was what frightened them, or even the knowledge that what separated them was often an accident of circumstance rather than any moral superiority.

Where there really was a moral honor, a cleanness of spirit, she had found there was also most often a compassion as well. Margaret was an example of exactly such singleness of intent.

“And then I feel so ridiculously disappointed,” Margaret answered, looking across at Hester and smiling ruefully at herself. “And I’m disgusted to be so vulnerable.” She did not mention Rathbone’s name, but Hester knew what she was thinking. Margaret caught her eye and blushed. “Am I so obvious?” she said softly.

“Only to me,” Hester answered. “Because I’ve felt just the same.” She finished the last of her tea. “But we do need more money, so please don’t stop trying. You know me well enough to imagine what a disaster I would be in your place!”

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