William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

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 goin’ 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!
    The scene that met her eyes was extraordinary. Ruth was propped up on several pillows, an empty cup in her hands. Her hair was wild, her face pale but for the hectic flush in her cheeks, and her expression was one of unmitigated rage.
    A few feet away from her stood Flo, her lips drawn back in a snarl. Her hair was half down, as if someone had torn at it, and the front of her dress was soaked in water.
    “Stop it!” Hester said in the tone of voice she had heard used during her time on the Crimean battlefields.
    Both women stared at her. It was Ruth who drew breath to speak first. “You’re paid to