William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

quietly.
    “Killed Ruth?” She was surprised. It seemed to matter so little now. “No, I don’t. I’m not sure how much I care. The poor woman was dying anyway, she just took longer than some of the others. Partly it was because of the way the disease went, and partly because she was strong, not living on the streets half starved. I think if I had plague, I wouldn’t mind a lot if someone just snuffed me out a little faster. And don’t bother to tell me you shouldn’t do that. I know. I’m just admitting that I haven’t even thought about it lately. Have you?”
    “Not much,” he replied. “She quarreled a lot with Claudine and Flo. Mercy was the only one ’oo ’ad the measure of ’er, but then seems it were Mercy ’oo looked after ’er. As it were ’er brother ’oo brung ’er ’ere, so mebbe she know’d plenty about ’er. Could bin ’er as done it.” He pulled his face into a gruesome expression of disbelief. “Or it could a bin anyb’dy else. She were a nasty piece o’ work, Gawd rest ’er.”
    “I don’t think it’s going to matter if Mercy did,” Hester said quietly, her voice flat.
    Sutton caught the tone, and he looked at her with intense sorrow. “She got it too?”
    Hester took a shuddering breath. “Yes . . .” It ended in a sob.
    He put out his hand, automatically, to touch hers, very lightly, as if he did not want to intrude. She felt the warmth of it and ached to be able to hold on to him. But it would have embarrassed him. She was there to be a leader, not to turn to others for comfort as if she were just as terrified as they were. They might guess it, but they must never know.
    She sat there silently for a moment longer, forcing her breathing to become even again, and the tears to choke back out of her throat. Then she brought her head up and began to drink her tea.
    Ten minutes later she went back upstairs to sit with Mercy. She spoke to her every so often, not certain if she was awake enough to hear or understand. She talked about all sorts of things: past experiences, things she had seen, like the first Christmas in the Crimea, the beauty of the landscape, snowbound under a full moon. And she described other things, closer to home, wandering in her memories at random, simply for the sake of talking.
    Once or twice Mercy opened her eyes and smiled. Hester tried to get her to drink a little beef tea, and she managed a mouthful or two, but she was very weak. How she had kept going for so long was hard to imagine. She must have been in great pain.
    Hester thanked her for all she had done, above all for her gentleness, for her friendship. And she praised her, hoping she would understand at least some of it. Late in the afternoon she seemed to find almost an hour of sleep.
    In the evening Hester went downstairs again to see how everyone else was doing—if there was enough water, food, soap—and to fetch another candle. Her head was aching, her eyes prickled with weariness, and her mouth was dry. She had just started back upstairs when she was aware of the room blurring a little, sliding away from her vision. The next thing she lost her balance and slipped into darkness, only vaguely aware of something hitting her hard on the left side.
    She opened her eyes to see the smoke-stained patch on the ceiling, then Claudine’s face, ashen with fear, tears on her cheeks.
    With a wave of terror so intense the room spun around again, she remembered the moment she had touched Mercy’s armpit and felt the hard swelling. Had she looked as Claudine did now? It was the end; she had gotten it after all. She would never see Monk again.
    Sutton was beside her, his arm around her, holding her head up a little. Snoot was pushing against him, wagging his tail.
    “Yer’ve no right to give up yet,” Sutton said scathingly. “Yer’ve nothin’ ter give up for! Yer not ill, yer just daft!” He gulped. “Beggin’ yer pardon fer the familiarity, but there in’t nuffin’ under yer arms. Yer just too skinny ter stand the pace!”
    “What?” she mumbled.
    “Yer not got the plague!” he hissed at her. “Yer just got a fit o’ the vapors, like any other lady wot’s bin brung up right! Claudine’ll get yer ter yer bed, an’ yer stay there until yer told yer can come out. Sent ter yer room, like. In’t that wot yer ma did to yer when yer was full o’ lip?”
    “Sent to my room . . .” Hester wanted to giggle, but she hadn’t the strength. “But Mercy . . .”
    “The world