Page 28 of The Shifting Tide (William Monk 14)

“Right, then I’ll fetch the water,” she said. “And you change the beds. Remember to pull the bottom sheets straight and tight, and tuck in only the ends of the top ones. You’ll have to work around the sick women, but I expect you know how to do that. Then you can mix the lye and potash and-”

“All right!” he said angrily. “I’ll get the water! I in’t dealin’ wi’ sick women in bed!”

“Bit modest, aren’t you, for a brothel-keeper?” she asked mockingly.

He gave her a filthy look, picked up the two pails, and stormed out.

Smiling to herself, Hester went back upstairs with a pile of clean sheets and pillow slips to begin changing the beds. Fevers made people sweat, and it was inevitable that linen soiled quickly.

She began with the girl who had come in exhausted, and who was already so much better she could be sent back out again today or tomorrow.

“I’ll ’elp yer,” she offered straightaway, rolling over and getting to her feet. She steadied herself with one hand on the bed frame, then wrapped a shawl around her shoulders.

Hester accepted. All such duties were a great deal easier with two. They changed the linen on that bed, then went to the next room, in which rested the woman with more severe congestion. She was feverish and in considerable discomfort. They took off the damp and crumpled sheets, easing her from one position to another and replacing the old with new. It was an awkward task, and at the end of it, when the woman sank back, dizzy and gasping for breath, Hester and the girl were also glad of a moment’s respite.

Hester helped the sick woman to take a few sips from the beaker of water on the table. The water had once been hot and was now tepid. Then they left her and went to the next room, and so on until they were all finished.

“Can I help yer wash ’em?” the girl offered, pointing to the sheets.

Hester looked at her pale face and the slight beading of sweat on her brow. “No, thank you. Go back to bed for a while. It doesn’t take two to do this.”

That was not strictly true-it would have been much easier with someone else to assist her-but she stuffed the soiled linen into two pillow slips and put them over her shoulder, then carried them downstairs.

Once in the laundry room, she checked the coppers and found the first one more than half full. Squeaky must have been working swiftly, in spite of his complaints. She put all the linen into the copper, stirring the sheets around with a long wooden dolly until they were thoroughly soaked. She brought another scuttle of coke across and added it to the boiler, then carried the empty scuttle back.

Next she took the last of the soap to add to the water in the copper, and set about one of the jobs she disliked most, the making of more soap. It was not a difficult task so much as a heavy and tedious one. They bought the potash from a dealer a few hundred yards along the street, in Farringdon Road. It was made from burned potato stalks, not necessarily the best, but the cheapest because it produced a dozen times as much potash as the same weight of any wood. One pound of caustic potash combined with five pounds of clear grease would make five gallons of soft soap. For their purpose the smell of it was unimportant, and funds did not run to adding perfume.

While she was working, Squeaky came in with two more loads of water, scowling so hard she was surprised he could see where he was going. “I ’ate that stuff!” he said, wrinkling his nose. “When we was a proper brothel, we bought soap!”

“If you’ve got money to spare I should be delighted,” she replied.

“Money! Where’d I get money?” he demanded. “Nobody around ’ere makes bleedin’ money! Yer all just spends it!” And before she could make any reply he tipped the pails of water into the second copper and marched out again.

They admitted two more women in the middle of the day, and in the early afternoon Margaret came in and willingly helped scrub the kitchen floor with hot water and vinegar. Later she took another two pounds and went to pay the coal merchant’s bill, and brought back a pound of tea and a jar of honey.

Another woman came in with two broken fingers on her right hand which took all Hester’s skill to set and bind. The woman was exhausted with the pain of it, and it was some little time before she was composed enough to leave.

At quarter to six Margaret went home. Hester intended to take a few minutes’ sleep herself, then see Ruth Clark again before heading home, but she woke with a start to find it completely dark outside and Bessie standing over her with a candle in one hand, her face creased in concern.

Hester pushed her hair out of her eyes and sat up. “What is it?” she said anxiously. “Another admission?”

“No.” Bessie shook her head. “It’s that Clark woman. Wot a miserable piece o’ work she is, an’ no mistake! But she’s real poorly. I think as yer’d better come an’ take a look at ’er.”

Wordlessly, Hester obeyed. Without bothering to pin up her hair she put her boots back on and followed Bessie to Ruth Clark’s room.

The woman lay half on her back, her face flushed, her hair tangled. The sheet was crumpled where her hands had clenched on it. Her eyes were half open but she seemed only barely conscious of there being anyone else in the room.

Hester went over to her and touched her brow. It was burning.

“Ruth?” she said softly.

The woman made no answer except to move her hands fretfully, as if the touch bothered her.

“Get me a fresh bowl of cold water,” Hester directed. The woman’s condition was serious. If her fever didn’t decrease at least a degree or two, she might well become delirious and die.

Bessie went immediately, and Hester picked up the candle on the bedside table and looked more closely at Ruth Clark. She was breathing erratically, and her chest seemed to rattle as if it were full of congestion. Pneumonia. The crisis might well come tonight. Hester could not leave to go home. If she did everything she knew, she might save her. She looked a robust woman, definitely someone’s mistress rather than one of the women who walked the streets selling their bodies to anyone with the money to pay. Often the latter spent their nights cold and hungry, and in the bad weather with wet feet and possibly wet clothes altogether. She put the candle back.

Bessie returned with the water and cloths and set them down on the floor.

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