William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

at Hester’s face, and then Bessie’s. “What’s happened?” she asked, her eyes wide with alarm.
    “We need more ’elp,” Bessie replied before Hester could say anything.
    “And the rat catcher,” Hester added. Flo was already fetching more water from the well along the street.
    Margaret made a slight flinch of distaste, but she was not surprised. Rats were a condition of life in places like Portpool Lane.
    “How’s Ruth Clark?” she asked Hester.
    “She’ll live, more’s the pity,” Bessie replied. She jerked her head towards Hester. “Bin up most o’ the night, wot wi’ m’lady Clark, ’er an’ the poor bint wot come in wi’ a knife cut in ’er arm. Which ’minds me, I in’t never took ’er no breakfast yet.” And suiting the deed to the word, she ladled out a dish of gruel and went out of the room with it, leaving Hester and Margaret alone.
    “We do need more help,” Hester admitted. “But we’ve got no money to pay anyone, so it’ll have to be voluntary. Heaven knows, it’s hard enough to get money. I’ve no idea how we’re going to persuade someone to give up their time to a place like this.” She glanced around the candlelit kitchen with its stone sink, pails of water, and wooden bins of flour and oatmeal. “Unfortunately, heaven’s not telling me!”
    Margaret made tea for both of them, and toast from one of the loaves of bread she had brought. She even had a jar of marmalade, taken surreptitiously from her mother’s kitchen. She had left a note in the larder, in case the cook or one of the other servants got the blame for its disappearance.
    “I’m not sure where I’ll ask,” she said when they were both sitting down. “But I have one or two places at least to start. There are women who have no money they can dispose of without their husbands’ approval, but they do have time. It is possible to be very comfortably well-off and bored silly.”
    Hester was in no position to quibble. She would be very grateful for any help at all, and she said so.
             
    It was a hard day. Two more women were admitted with bad bronchitis, and a third with a dislocated shoulder which took Hester and Bessie considerable difficulty to reduce, and of course was extremely painful for the woman. She let out a fearful scream as Hester laid her on the ground, put her foot as gently as she could into the woman’s armpit, and then pulled steadily on the hand.
    Flo came rushing in, demanding to know what had happened, and then was furious to discover it was nothing she could do anything about. The woman, gasping to cry abuse, staggered to her feet and only then realized that her shoulder was back to normal.
    Just before five there was a knock on the back door and Hester opened it to find the costermonger in the yard, his barrow behind him.
    “Hello, Toddy. How are you?” she asked with a smile.
    “Not bad, missus,” he replied with a lopsided grin. “Just got me usual. Yer don’t think as it’s summink serious, do yer?” A flicker of anxiety showed for a moment in his eyes.
    She affected to give his aches their proper consideration. “I’ll get you some elder ointment that you can rub in. Bessie swears by it for her knees.”
    “That’s right nice o’ yer,” he said, obviously comforted. “I got ’alf a dozen pounds o’ apples it in’t worth me takin’ ’ome. More trouble than it’d be worth. D’yer like ’em ’ere?”
    “That would be very nice,” she accepted, going inside to fetch the ointment. She returned and gave it to him in a small jar, and found him standing there with the apples and a small sack of mixed potatoes, carrots, and parsnips.
    Margaret left to go home at eight o’clock, and it seemed a long night. Hester was able to snatch no more than an hour or two of sleep, in bits and pieces, catnaps when the chance arose. Flo fetched and carried, but her quarrel with Ruth Clark rumbled on, and by daylight everyone was exhausted. The best that could be said was that none of the patients gave cause for fear that they were close to death.
    At half past ten Margaret arrived, bringing with her two women. They walked into the clinic behind her, then stood in the main room, the first staring quite openly around with a look of disdain. She was a tall, rather thin woman with dark hair, and she was considerably broader at the hip than the shoulder. Her face had been handsome in her youth, but the marks of discontent detracted from it now that she