Page 30 of The Shifting Tide (William Monk 14)

“Did he pay you? Is that why you sit here nursing me?”

“He did pay us, yes. Or more accurately, he gave me a donation sufficient to cover the cost of caring for you, and for several other women as well. But we would have taken you anyway. We have plenty here who have nothing to give.”

Ruth was silent. She was finding it difficult to breathe again, and her face was flushed. Hester stood up and fetched half a glass of water from the stand and brought it back. “You should take this. I’ll help you to sit up.”

“Leave me alone,” Ruth said irritably. “You’ve been paid to look after me. Consider yourself acquitted.”

Hester controlled her tongue. “You’ll feel better if you take some liquid. You have a high fever. You need to drink.”

“A fever! I feel worse than I ever thought a human being could-”

“Then stop being so perverse and let me help you take a little water,” Hester insisted.

“Go. . go to. .” Ruth was gasping for breath again, and her face was scarlet.

Hester put the cup down, leaned forward, and put her arms around Ruth’s shoulders, heaving her up and sliding another pillow behind her. With great difficulty she put the cup to Ruth’s lips. The first mouthful was lost, sliding down her neck onto her chest; of the second she swallowed at least half. After that she yielded and took almost all of the rest, and finally lay back exhausted.

Hester took away the pillow and helped Ruth lie back, then began again with the cloth and the cool water.

A little after two she left Ruth for a while and went around to the other patients, just to make certain that everyone else was as well as was possible, then she went down to the kitchen and boiled the kettle. She made herself a cup of tea and had drunk most of it when there was a banging at the front door. She roused herself to go and answer.

There were two women on the step: Flo, whom Hester had seen many times before; and leaning against her, white-faced and holding her arm in front of her, cradling it with the other, was a younger woman with auburn hair and frightened eyes. The sleeve of her dress was scarlet and blood was dripping onto the step.

“Come in,” Hester said instantly, stepping back to make room for them to pass her. Then she closed the door and bolted it, as she always did after dark. She put her arm around the injured woman and turned to Flo. “Bessie’s asleep in the room to the left at the top of the stairs,” she directed. “Please go and waken her and ask her to put more water on to boil, and get out the brandy-”

“She don’t need no more brandy,” Flo interrupted her, glancing at the injured woman impatiently.

“It’s not to drink,” Hester replied. “It’s to clean the needle if she needs stitching up. Just get Bessie, please.”

Flo shrugged, pursing her lips. She was somewhere in her mid-thirties, dark-haired, and with a mass of freckles. She had a long, rather lugubrious face, and no one could have called her pretty. But she was intelligent and had a quick tongue, and when she could be bothered, she had a certain charm. She had sent or brought a number of women to the clinic, and once or twice she had even brought one with money. Hester was grateful to her for that.

“I’ll put the water on,” Flo said gruffly. “Yer think I don’ know w’ere ter find it or I can’t lift a pan!”

Hester thanked her and helped the other woman to sit down in the chair in the main room, still nursing her arm, her face pasty white at the sight of so much of her own blood.

Hester lit more candles and began to work. It took her over an hour to stop the bleeding, clean and stitch the wound, and bandage it. Then she assisted the woman, whose name was Maisie, into a clean nightgown and to a bed.

“Yer look ’orrible yerself,” Flo observed when the two of them were alone in the kitchen. “I’ll make yer a cup o’ tea. Yer fit ter drop, an’ if yer do, ’oo’ll look arter the rest of us then, eh?”

Hester was about to refuse, instinctively, then she realized the stupidity of it. She was so tired the room seemed to waver around her, as if she were seeing it through water. She did not want to disturb Bessie, who had more than earned her sleep.

“Then yer should catch a bit o’ kip yerself,” Flo added. “I’ll wake yer if anythin’ ’appens.”

“I’ve got a very ill woman upstairs; I must see how she is. We have to keep the fever down if we can.”

Flo put her hands on her hips. “An’ ’ow yer g

oin’ ter do that, then, eh? Work a bleedin’ miracle, are yer?”

“Cold water and cloths,” Hester said wearily. “I’ll look in on her, then maybe I’ll take an hour or so. Thank you, Flo.”

But that was not how it transpired. Hester drank her tea, looked in on Ruth Clark, and saw her sleeping, then went to a room two doors along and sank gratefully onto the bed. Pulling the blankets over herself, she allowed oblivion to claim her.

She woke reluctantly-she had no idea how much later-to hear women’s voices raised in fury. One was louder than the other, and unmistakably Flo’s; the other was quieter, deeper, and it was a moment before Hester could place it. Then it came to her with amazement as she sat up. There was no light except the small amount that came from the candle in the passage. The other voice was Ruth Clark’s, and the language was equally robust and abusive from both of them. Words like whore and cow were repeated often.

Hester stood up, still dizzy with tiredness, and stumbled toward the passage. She blinked as she reached the brighter lights. The noise was worse. How could Bessie sleep through this?

The commotion was coming from Ruth’s room-of course it was! She was far too ill to be out of her bed. Hester strode along and pushed the door wide. Helpful or not, she would tear Flo to pieces for this!

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