Cain His Brother (6 page)

“Finished?” she asked cheerfully. “Excellent. I'm afraid we're going to need every foot of space we can find. And, of course, blankets.” She surveyed the room for a moment, then proceeded to pace the floor out carefully, measuring precisely how many people might lie on it without touching each other. “I would like to get pallets,” she went on, her back to Hester. “And pans or buckets of some type. Typhoid is such a beastly disease. So much waste to dispose of, and heaven only knows how we are going to do that.” She was now at the far end of the space and almost inaudible to Hester. She turned and started to pace the width. “There isn't a midden or a cesspit within miles of here that isn't overflowing already.”

“Has Dr. Beck spoken to the local council of authority yet?” Hester asked, picking up her bucket and going over to the window to tip it out. There were no drains, and the water was full of vinegar anyway, so it would be more likely to improve the gutters than harm them.

Callandra reached the far side and lost count. She had loved Kristian Beck since before the wretched business at the Royal Free Hospital the previous summer. Hester was aware of it, but it was something they never discussed.

It was too delicate, and too painful. The depth of Kristian's feeling in return only added to the poignancy of the situation. Callandra was a widow, but Kristian's wife was still alive. She had long ceased to care for him, if indeed she ever had in the manner he longed for, but she clung to her rights and all the status and the comfort they afforded. To Callandra he could give nothing but an intense friendship, humor, warmth, admiration, and shared passions for causes in which they both believed with ardor and dedication.

Even the mention of his name could still jar her concentration, so vulnerable was she even now. She turned and began to pace back, beginning to count the width again.

Hester looked out of the window to make sure no one was passing beneath, then emptied the bucket.

“I think we could get about ninety people in here,” Callandra announced.

Then her face pinched. “I wish to God I could think that was all we should need. We have forty-seven cases already, not counting seventeen dead and another thirteen too ill to move. I'll be surprised if they live the night.” Her voice rose. “I feel so helpless! It's like fighting the incoming tide with a mop and bucket!”

The door opened behind Hester and a striking-looking woman came in, a bottle of gin under one arm and another in each hand. It was Enid Ravensbrook.

“I suppose it's better than nothing,” she said with a tight smile. “I've sent Mary out to get some clean straw. She can try the ostler at the end of the lane. His mother's one of the victims. He'll do what he can.” She set the gin down on the floor. “I don't know what to do about the well. I've pumped the water, but it smells like next-door's pigsty.”

“Probably with good reason,” Hester said, tightening her lips. “There's a well in Phoebe Street that smells all right, but it'll be an awful nuisance to carry water over. And we're desperately short of buckets.”

“We'll have to borrow them,” Enid said resolutely. “If every family spared us one, we'd quickly have sufficient for all purposes.”

“They haven't got them,” Hester pointed out, setting her bucket, scrubbing brush and cloth away tidily. “Most families around here have only one pan between them anyway.”

“One pan for what?” Enid pressed. “Perhaps they can use their night bucket for scrubbing the floor as well?”

“One pan for everything,” Hester explained. “The same one for scrubbing the floor, for bathing the baby, for waste at night, and for cooking in.” “Oh God!” Enid stood still, then blushed, robbed of speech for an instant. She took a deep breath. “I'm sorry. I suppose I'm still very ignorant. I'll go out and buy some.” She turned on her heel and was about to leave when she almost bumped into Kristian Beck coming in. His face was set in anger, his cheeks burned with color which had nothing to do with the cold outside, and his beautiful mouth was set in a tight line. There was no need to ask if he had met with success or failure with the local authority.

Callandra was the first to speak. “Nothing?” she said softly, no criticism in her voice.

“Nothing,” he conceded. Even in the single word there was a trace of some European accent, very slight, only an extra preciseness which marked English as not his mother tongue. His voice was rich and very deep, and at the moment expressive of his utter contempt. “They have a hundred prevarications, but they all amount to the same thing. They don't care enough!”

“What excuses?” Enid demanded. “What could there possibly be? People are dying, scores of people, and it could be hundreds before it's over. It's monstrous!”

Hester had spent nearly two years as an army nurse. She was used to the workings of the institutional mind. No local authority could be worse than military command, or in her opinion more stubborn or totally fossilized in its thinking. Callandra's late husband had been an army surgeon; she too was familiar with ritual and the almost insuperable force of precedent.

“Money,” Kristian said with disgust. He looked up and down at the length of the now-scrubbed warehouse with satisfaction. It was cold and bare, but it was clean. “To build proper drains would add at least a penny to the rates, and none of them want that,” he added.

“But don't they understand…” Enid began.

“Only a penny…” Callandra snorted.

“At least half of the members are shopkeepers,” Kristian explained with weary patience. “A penny on the rates will hurt their business.”

“Half shopkeepers?” Hester screwed up her face. “That's ridiculous! Why so many of one occupation? Where are the builders, the cobblers or bakers, or ordinary people?”

“Working,” Kristian said simply. “You cannot sit on the council unless you have money, and time to spare. Ordinary men are at their jobs; they cannot afford not to be.”

Hester drew in breath to argue.

Kristian preempted her. “You cannot even vote for council members unless you own property worth over one thousand pounds,” he pointed out. “Or rental of over one hundred a year.

That excludes the vast majority of the men, and naturally all the women.”

“So only those with a vested interest can be elected anyway!” Hester said, her voice rising in fury.

“That's right,” Kristian agreed. “But it helps no one to waste your energy on what you cannot change. Rage is an emotional luxury for which we have no time to spare.”

“Then we must change it!” Callandra almost choked on the words, her frustration was so consuming. She swung around to stare at the empty barn of a place, tears of impotence in her eyes. “We should never have to fill something like this with people we can't save because some damnable little shopkeepers won't pay an extra penny on the rates for us to get the sewage out of the streets!”

Kristian looked at her with an affection so naked that Hester, standing between them, felt an intruder.

“My dear,” he said patiently. “It is very much more complicated than that.

To begin with, what should we do with it? Some people argue for a water-carried system, but then it has to empty somewhere, and what of the river? It would become one vast cesspool. And there are problems with water. If it rains heavily may it not back up, and people's houses would become awash with everyone's waste?”

She stared at him, as much of her emotion drinking in his face, his eyes, his mouth, as thinking of the bitter problem. “But in the summer the dry middens blow all over the place,” she said. ““The very air is filled with the dust of manure and worse.”

“I know,” he replied.

There was a noise on the staircase. Mary returned with an undersized little man in a shiny hat and a jacket several sizes too large for his narrow shoulders.

“This is Mr. Stabb,” she introduced him. “And he will rent us two dozen pots and pans at a penny a day.”

“Each, o' course,” Mr. Stabb put in quickly. “I got a family to feed. But me ma died o' the cholera back in forty-eight, an' I wouldn't want as not ter do me bit, like.”

Hester drew in her breath to bargain with him.

“Thank you,” Callandra said quickly, cutting her off. “We'll have them immediately. And if you know of any other tradesman who would be prepared to assist, please send him to us.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Stabb agreed thoughtfully, his face failing to mask a few rapid calculations.

Further deliberations were prevented by the arrival of several bales of straw and canvas sheets, old sails and sacking, anything that might be used to form acceptable beds, and blankets to cover them.

Hester left to set about procuring fuel for the two potbellied black stoves, which must be kept alight as much of the time as possible, not only for warmth but in order to boil water and cook gruel, or whatever other food was obtainable for anyone who might he well enough to take nourish- ment. Typhoid being a disease of the intestines, that might not be many, but if any survived the worst of it, they would need strengthening after the crisis. And fluid of any sort was of the utmost importance. Frequently it was what made the difference between life and death.

Meat, milk and fruit were unobtainable, as were green vegetables. They might be fortunate with potatoes, although it was a difficult season for them. They would probably have to make do with bread, dried peas and tea, like everyone else in the area. They might find a little bacon, although one had to be very careful. Frequently meat of any sort came from animals which had died of disease, but even then it was extremely scarce. In most families it was only the working man who had such luxuries. It was necessary for everyone's survival that he maintain as much of his strength as he could.

Patients were brought in over the next hours, and indeed all through the night, sometimes one at a time, sometimes several. There was little even Kristian could do for them, except try to keep them as clean and as comfortable as possible with such limited facilities, to wash them with cool water and vinegar to keep the fever down. Several quite quickly lapsed into delirium.

All night, Hester, Callandra and Enid Ravensbrook walked between the makeshift pallets carrying bowls of water and cloths. Kristian had returned to the hospital where he practiced. Mary and another woman went back and forth emptying the ironmonger's buckets into the cesspool and returning. At about half past one there was some easing and Hester took the opportunity to prepare a hot gruel and use half of one of the bottles of gin to clean some dishes and utensils.

There was a noise in the doorway and she looked up to see Mary come limping in carrying two pails of water she had drawn from the well in the next street. In the candlelight she looked like a grotesque milkmaid, her shoulders bent, her hair blowing over her face from the wind and rain outside. Her plain stuff dress was wet across the top and her skirts trailed in the mud. She lived locally and had come to help because her sister was one of those afflicted. She set the pails down with an involuntary grunt of relief, then smiled at Hester.

“There y'are, miss. Bit o' rain in 'em, but I s'pose that don't 'urt none.

Yer want them 'ot?”

“Yes, I'll add them to this,” Hester accepted, indicating the cauldron she was stirring on top of one of the potbellied stoves.

“Were it like this in the Crimea?” Mary asked in a husky whisper, just in case some poor creature should be sleeping rather than insensible. “Yes, a bit,” Hester replied. “Except, of course, we had gunshot wounds as well, and amputations, and gangrene. But we had lots of fever too.” “Think I'd like to 'ave bin there,” Mary said, stretching and bending her back after the weight of the water. “Gotta be better than 'ere. Nearly married a sol'jer once.” She smiled fleetingly at the memory of romance. “Then I went and married Ernie instead. Just a brickie, 'e were, but sort o' gentle.” She sniffed. “ 'E'd a' never made the army. 'Is legs was bad. Rickets Wen 'e were a kid. Does that to yer, rickets does.” She stretched again and moved closer to the stove, her wet skirts slapping against her legs, her boots squelching. “Died o' consumption, 'e did. 'E could read, could Ernie. Captain o' the Men o' Death, 'e called it. Consumption, I mean. Read that somewhere, 'e did.” She eyed the gruel and lifted one of the pails to pour in a gallon of water to thin it.

“Thank you,” Hester acknowledged. “He sounds special.”

“'E were,” Mary said stoically. “Miss 'im I do, poor bleeder. Me sister Dora wanted to get out of 'ere. Never thought it'd be in a coffin, leastways not yet. Not that there's many as gets out ter anythink much different. There were Ginny Motson. Pretty, she were, an' smart as yer like. Dunno wot 'appened to 'er, nor were she went, but up west somewhere.

Real bettered 'erself, she did. Learned ter talk proper, an' Wave like a lady, or least summink like.”

Hester refrained from speculating that it was probably into a brothel. The dream of freedom was too precious to destroy.

“Reckon as she got married,” Mary went on. “'Ope so. Liked 'er I did. D'yer want more water, miss?”

“Not yet, thank you.”

“Oh-there's someone sick, poor devil.” Mary darted forward to pick up a pan and go to assist. Enid came out of the shadows on the far side, her face white, her thick and naturally wavy hair piled a little crooked, and a long splash of candle tallow on the bosom of her dress.

“The little boy at the end is very weak,” she said huskily. “I don't think he'll last the night. I almost wish he'd go quickly, to ease his suffering, and yet when he does, I'll wish he hadn't.” She sniffed and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Isn't it ridiculous? I first saw him only a few hours ago, and yet I care so much it twists inside me. I've never even heard him speak.”

“Time has nothing to do with it,” Hester replied in a whisper, adding salt and sugar liberally to the gruel. It was necessary to replenish what the body lost. Her own memories crowded her mind, soldiers she had seen for perhaps only an hour or two, and yet their agonized faces remained in her memory, the courage with which some of them bore their wounds and the breaking of their own bodies. One was sharp before her vision even now. She could see his blood-smeared features superimposed in the cauldron of gruel she was stirring, the smile he forced on his lips, his fair mustache and the mangled mass where his right shoulder had been. He had bled to death, and there had been nothing she could do to help him.