William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

not take pleasantries for granted. “Good morning,” she replied, even now unsure whether to address Hester by her Christian name. “I’m very well, thank you. But I fear we can expect a good deal of bronchitis in this weather, and pneumonia as well. Got a stab wound in last night. Stupid girl hasn’t got the wits she was born with, working out of a place like Fleet Row.”
    “Can we save her?” Hester asked anxiously, unintentionally including herself in the cause.
    “Oh, yes.” Claudine was somewhat smug about her newly acquired medical knowledge, even if it came from observation rather than experience. “What I came about was new sheets. We can manage for a little longer, but you’ll have to ask Margaret about more funds soon. We’ll need at least a dozen, and that’ll barely do.”
    “Can it wait another few weeks?” Hester regarded the column of figures in front of her. She ought to tell Claudine that she was going, but she could not bring herself to do it yet.
    “Three, perhaps,” Claudine replied. “I can bring a pair from home, but I don’t have twelve.”
    “Thank you.” Hester meant it. For Claudine to provide anything out of her own home for the use of street women was a seven-league step from the wounding distaste the woman had felt only three months earlier. The charity work Claudine had been used to was of the discreet, untroublesome kind where ladies of like disposition organized fêtes and garden parties to raise money for respectable causes, such as fever hospitals, mission work, and the deserving poor. Some profound disruption to her personal life had driven Claudine to this total departure. She had not confided in anybody what it had been, and Hester would never ask.
    “Breakfast will be ready in half an hour,” Claudine responded. “You should eat.” And without waiting for a reply, she went out, closing the door behind her.
    Hester smiled and returned to her figures.
    The next person to come in was Margaret Ballinger, her face pink from the cold, but with nothing of the hunched defense against the weather that one might expect. There was a confidence about her, an unconscious grace, as of one who is inwardly happy, all external circumstances being merely peripheral.
    “Breakfast’s ready,” she said cheerfully. She knew Hester was going, but she refused to think of it. “And Sutton’s here to see you. He does look a little…concerned.”
    Hester was surprised. Sutton, a ratcatcher by trade, occasionally did odd jobs for Hester. She stood up immediately. “Is he all right?”
    “He’s not hurt,” Margaret began.
    “And Snoot?” Hester was referring to the ratcatcher’s eager little terrier.
    Margaret smiled. “In excellent health,” she assured Hester. “Whatever concerns Sutton, it is not Snoot.”
    Hester felt immeasurably relieved. She knew how Sutton loved the animal. He was possibly all the family he had, certainly all he spoke of.
    Downstairs in the kitchen there was porridge on the large cast-iron stove. Two kettles were boiling, and the door to the toasting fire was closed while an entire loaf of bread, sliced and browned on the fork, sat crisping in two wooden racks. There was butter, marmalade, and black-currant jam on the table. The clinic was obviously quite well-off in funds at the moment.
    Sutton, a lean man not much more than Hester’s height, sat on one of the few unsplintered kitchen chairs. He stood up the moment he saw her. The brown and white Jack Russell terrier at his feet wagged his tail furiously, but he was too tightly disciplined to dart forward.
    Sutton’s thin face lit up with pleasure and what looked like relief. “Mornin’, Miss ’Ester. ’Ow are yer?”
    “I’m very well, Mr. Sutton,” she replied. “How are you? I’m sure you could manage some breakfast, couldn’t you? I’m having some.”
    “That’d be very civil of yer.” He watched her, sitting down as soon as she had.
    Margaret had already eaten at home; she never ate the clinic’s rations unless she was there for too long to abstain. She collected most of the clinic’s funds through her social acquaintances, and she was far too sensitive to the difficulty of that to waste a farthing or consume herself what could be used for the sick. She would make an excellent mistress of this in Hester’s place.
    Sutton devoured his porridge and then toast and marmalade, while Hester had just the toast and jam. They were both on their second cup of tea when Claudine