William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

opened onto the night. “Is that what you call winning, Flo?”
    “Well . . .” Flo started, then she froze. “Geez! I din’t do nothin’ to ’er, Miss ’Ester!”
    The cold deepened inside Hester, gripping like ice. “Why would I think you did, Flo?” she asked very quietly.
    “ ’Cos she called me a thief, an’ I i’nt!” Flo said indignantly. “That’s a nice thing ter say! If yer’d believed ’er yer could a put me out on the street, fer Gawd’s sake! I could die out there!” A wry, miserable smile flickered across her face. “Come ter think on it, I could die in ’ere too. But in ’ere I’m wi’ friends, an’ that counts.”
    “I never thought you were a thief, Flo,” Hester said, surprised how completely she meant it.
    Flo’s face lit with amazement and joy. “Din’t yer? Really?”
    Hester felt tears prickle in her eyes. It must be tiredness. She could not remember when she had last slept more than an hour at a time. “No, I didn’t.”
    Flo shook her head, still smiling. “Then I’m glad I never fetched the poor sod in the chops, an’ b’lieve me, I thought of it! D’yer want some more towels, then?”
    “Yes, yes please,” Hester accepted. “Bring them next time you come.”
    Another woman died, and Hester and Mercy tied her in one of the dark blankets as a winding sheet. When they were finished Hester looked across and saw how white-faced Mercy was, and when Mercy turned her head, hearing footsteps on the stairs, the candlelight accentuated the hollowness around her eyes.
    “We’ll get Squeaky to help us carry her down,” Hester said. “Don’t you do it.”
    Mercy started to argue, then gave up. “Perhaps you’re right,” she conceded. “It would be terrible to drop her—poor soul.” Her face was filled with pity and there was also a note of anger. Hester wondered why, but she was too tired to pursue it.
    Claudine stood in the doorway. She looked at Hester for a moment, then at the bundle on the bed. It was a woman she had despised, but even a glance at her face showed that death had cleansed judgment from her and left only a common humanity.
    “I’ll tell the men,” she said. She turned from Hester to Mercy. “You don’t look as if you could lift your own feet, let alone anyone else’s. I’d better fetch that useless man away from his books!” And without asking Hester’s agreement she withdrew. They heard her feet going down the passageway, still sharp-heeled on the wood, but slower than before. She too was on the edge of exhaustion. It would soon be time for Bessie and Flo to take over for the rest of the night.
    “We can manage,” Hester said to Mercy. “Go to bed now. I’ll wake you when it’s time.”
    For once Mercy didn’t demur.
    Claudine returned with Squeaky a step behind her, grizzling all the way.
    “In’t my job ter be a bleedin’ undertaker!” he complained. “Wot if I get the plague, eh? Wot then? Carryin’ bodies! Mr. Bleedin’ Rathbone din’t say as I ’ad ter be carryin’ bodies—that weren’t part o’ the agreement. Wot if I get it, eh? Yer don’t answer me that, did yer?”
    “You didn’t hold your tongue long enough to give me the chance,” Claudine responded tartly. “But if you can’t work out the answer for yourself, then I’ll tell you. You’ll die of it, that’s what. Exactly the same as the rest of us.”
    “Yer’d like that, wouldn’t yer!” he accused her, glaring at her where she stood just inside the door, her head high, hair untidy, hands on her wide hips.
    “Of course I wouldn’t like that!” she snapped. “If you were dead I would have to carry all the water myself, instead of just most of it, as I do now. Apart from that, who’d carry you out?”
    “Yer a cold and ’eartless woman,” he said miserably. “An’ yer don’ carry most o’ the water, yer carries ’alf, just like I does.”
    “Well, carry half that poor woman’s body,” she ordered. “Not the bottom half, the top!”
    “Why?”
    “Because it’s heavier, of course. Use the wits you were born with, man.”
    “Poor woman, is it?” he sneered. “That’s not wot yer called ’er a couple o’ days ago. Nothin’ weren’t bad enough for ’er then, ’cos she made ’er livin’ on ’er back, like most of ’em ’ere. Yer just despises ’er ’cos yer wouldn’t a made an ’a’penny yerself, not even in the dark!”
    Hester tensed, ready to stem the onslaught she expected in reply to this