William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

I’ll just get it started.”
    “Yeah? An’ ’oo’s gonna fetch the water fer yer?” Bessie asked.
    Hester smiled more widely. “Squeaky. It’ll do him good. A bit of fresh air and exercise.”
    Bessie laughed outright. “Then tell ’im if ’e squawks I’ll come an’ beat ’im over the ’ead wi’ a saucepan!”
    When Hester spoke to Squeaky ten minutes later he was horrified.
    “Me?” he said incredulously. “I’m a bookkeeper! I don’t fetch water!”
    “Yes, you do,” she answered, handing him two pails.
    “But it’ll take ten loads o’ that to fill the bleedin’ copper!” he said furiously.
    “At least,” she agreed. “And another ten for the other one, so you’d better get started. We need them washed today, and dry by tomorrow or the day after.”
    “I in’t a bleedin’ water carrier!” He stood rooted to the spot, indignation filling his face.
    “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