Taking Liberties (33 page)

MRS Hedley, your ladyship.' The two women regarded each other across the length of the Great Hall. Both had changed a little since they'd last met but each disliked the other too much to notice.

‘Sit down, Mrs Hedley. What may I do for you?'

They seated themselves on either side of the empty fireplace.

‘Your ladyship . . .' Makepeace cleared her throat; this was gall and wormwood but she was desperate. ‘Your ladyship, Mr Spettigue tells me you have some dealings with the hospital at Millbay Prison.' After calming her down in the early hours of yesterday morning when she and Beasley had roused him by hammering on his front door, it had been Spettigue's suggestion: ‘
Try Lady Stacpoole. She has influence there, I'm told
.'

‘In fact, I am about to go to the hospital,' the Dowager said. ‘Will this take long?' She's nervous and so she should be; it is impertinent of her to come.

Makepeace began rubbing her hands up and down her skirt. Damn the woman, she ain't making this any easier. ‘There was an attempted escape there yesterday night.'

‘Was there?'

‘There was. The guards shot two American prisoners trying to climb over the wall.'

‘Indeed.'

‘One of them was killed.' Standing under the tree, she had known Josh was dead.
Known
it. The fusillade of shots had been too prolonged for him not to be. But Mr Spettigue's informant at the prison, whoever it was, had reported this morning: ‘
The blackie's alive. Don't know how much longer
.'

She took in a breath. ‘You know I come from Boston . . . I'm an American?'

The Dowager inclined her head. ‘How could you not be?'

Makepeace ignored it: ‘Well, the other young man is . . . I think he's badly wounded and he's a friend of mine.' She took the bull by the horns. ‘I want you to take me in to see him. If you will, please.
Please
.'

The Dowager watched the griping hands. ‘What is his name?'

‘Joshua Burke.' Betty had discarded the slave name given by her master as soon as she'd run away from him and adopted that of Makepeace's family who'd taken her in. ‘He's a boy I helped bring up; he's . . . he's precious to me.'

An illegitimate son?
The Dowager wondered what extraordinary circumstances had led Philip Dapifer to marry this redheaded, freckled and probably loose-living colonial. But, despite herself, she was touched; the agony of a mother for a child was here before her and could not be disregarded. How terrible that the guards had resorted to shooting. Inevitable, perhaps. The prisoners had been warned . . . But terrible nevertheless. So un-English.

None of this was apparent in her tone which, as ever, was dispassionate.

‘Mrs Hedley, you should be aware that in endeavouring to improve conditions for the wounded and sick at Millbay, one is labouring under certain difficulties, not to say opposition. Furthermore, the work is only now under way and I fear I cannot consent to jeopardize it by introducing an unauthorized person into the prison at this stage. I shall most certainly enquire for this young man and do what can be done for him but that is as far as I can go.'

It was a statement of fact. In view of their previous encounter, the Dowager felt it was even generous.

It's because I was rude to her. She's taking it out on Josh for spite. Makepeace stood up: ‘You won't let me see him?'

‘I have explained. One cannot.'

‘Then I hope one rots in Hell.'

 
‘Possibly unwise?' suggested Mr Spettigue. He was in lemon today. ‘Ladyship might have been worked on.'

‘I know,' said Makepeace, miserably. She'd castigated herself all the way back from Babbs Cove. ‘Can't you do anything?'

‘Source in the prison is only prepared to give information. Frightened of doin' more. Too many escapes, you see. Discipline bein' tightened.'

‘Discipline? They
shot
them.'

He fidgeted around her solicitously, tapping her back, waving a smelling-bottle under her nose. ‘Strong young man . . . sure to recover . . . only wait . . .'

He'll die and no one to comfort him.
Andra, Andra, come home. I'm fouling everything I touch
.

She wiped her eyes. ‘This won't get baby a new bonnet,' she said, wearily. ‘We'll have to think of something else.'

‘Will you return to the North?'

‘And leave him?' She was incredulous. ‘He's maybe dying. I'll get to him somehow, you see if I don't. If necessary I'll go back to Lady Tight-Boots and ram an apology down her neck,
make
her take me in.'

The thought of more anxiety-ridden days in Plymouth, at the overcrowded, ever noisy Prince George, was almost beyond bearing. ‘I'll send Philippa home, though. She's looking peaked, she needs quiet and fresh air.'

‘You'll be alone, time of trial, etc. Wouldn't the Pomeroy Arms suit? Quiet, sea breeze, friendly people.'

‘Perhaps. I'll see.' Her instinct was to stay crouched outside Millbay Prison like a dog.

Mr Spettigue wiggled. ‘Another matter come up . . . tenuously related, really, but wondered whether you'd think worth taking action . . .'

He told her what it was. In the state she was in, action of any sort seemed good to Makepeace—and this one had spice.

‘Take it,' she said.

 
The warehouse had been raised in the fifteenth century but, for all that, would serve its new purpose very well. Once it had stood on Millbay's waterside but the sea had been pushed back by further quays furnished with more useful go-downs, leaving it stranded.

The great trussed-rafter roof was still a home for the occasional sparrow but the bays that ran along each side of an enormous aisle had been scoured and fitted with new truckle beds out of the public subscription fund. The high windows left it dim but mercifully cool.

Piles of fresh linen lay on each bed. At the far end, an open flight of steps led to a newly painted loft where shelves were stacked with medicine bottles, boxes of salves, rolled bandages, new chamber pots.

All it lacked was patients.

‘Everything to your ladyship's specification.' Captain Luscombe was anxious. ‘I hope it meets with your approval.'

‘It is splendid, Captain, you have done marvels.'

‘Yes, well, it was at a pace, but on your ladyship's urging . . .'

She praised him for a minute longer before adding: ‘. . . though one did hope that the men might have been moved in today.'

‘Ah, well, yes, d'ye see, we've had something of an upset. Guards shot a couple of escapin' prisoners the other night. On the
qui vive
, for once. Had to sharpen them up—too many escapes lately. Two Americans tryin' to scramble over the wall. One of them's dead, I fear.'

‘How shocking.'

‘Sad, but shouldn't have done it. Funeral's later on this afternoon.'

‘Does that prevent the orderlies transferring the patients this morning?'

‘Ah, well, yes . . .' She was beginning to dread this prefix. ‘Fact of the matter is, your ladyship, the orderlies take their cue from Dr Maltby and, well, not to beat about the bush, the good doctor ain't enthusiastic about the new hospital. Says it'll entail a good deal of walking.'

‘I can see it would; there must be at least a yard and a half between the beds.'

‘Fact is,' Captain Luscombe said, ‘Dr Maltby don't take kindly to innovations, especially those suggested by someone else and especially if the someone else is, well, of the female gender. It might be your ladyship's charm could persuade . . .'

‘Perhaps if, in the meantime, my maid could begin some bed-making? '

She left Joan to him and walked away towards the cottage.

The orderlies, all four of them, were sitting and smoking their pipes on the grass outside as she came up and wished them a bright good-day. She introduced herself and asked their names, which they gave with the willingness of men asked to deliver their savings. Payne, Davis, Watts and Farnham.

‘It is lucky, gentlemen, we just have time to transfer the patients before the funeral this afternoon.'

Payne, leader and wit, shifted his pipe enough to say: ‘Easier if we had litters. Only we ain't.' The others sniggered.

‘Then we shall have to take the shutters off the cottage windows and use those, shall we not?'

He said: ‘Dr Maltby didn't say nothing about it an' we take our orders from him.'

It was early to use the whip but if that was their attitude . . .

Her voice jerked the pipe from Payne's mouth. ‘You take your orders from the Admiralty in whose employ you are. In this matter I am the Admiralty's representative and if you question it we can go straightaway to Lord Edgcumbe for the answer. Now take the shutters off those windows.'

Watching them shamble into action, she supposed that these were the dregs even press gangs rejected. Nursing was not regarded as a job for a decent sailor at the best of times, and when it came to nursing the enemy, it was left to the halfhearted, the half-dead and half-witted.

Downstairs in the cottage, it was difficult to see the men on its floor for the flies. The eyes, mouths, nostrils, open wounds of the insensible crawled with them. Those who had the strength batted them away so that the room was full of slow uncoordinated movement. Upstairs, where it was even hotter, the flies were thicker, as was the stench. Ten narrow beds had been crammed together in order to accommodate twenty-three men.

‘Before these men are moved, they must be washed,' she said. To take them as they were would merely be transferring disease from one place to another.

The change of order brought resigned and meaningful nods from the orderlies.
Women
. Never know their own minds.

She wondered if she might wash some of the patients herself—cleaning so many bodies of their pus and sores would take a long time even for those with enthusiasm for it.

No, she dare not; the orderlies would delight in reporting the scandal. She had to go carefully.
I must have more help
.

‘And I want their clothing taken off and burned. They are to be dressed in nightshirts.'

She left them to it and walked across the compound towards a gate leading to the area that now contained the warehouse/ hospital. A militiaman sentry pointed a musket at her. ‘Password, ma'am.'

‘But you have just seen me with Captain Luscombe.'

From the door of the warehouse, Joan shouted: ‘It's Dandelion.'

‘Dandelion.'

‘Pass, friend.'

‘New rule seemingly,' Joan said when Diana joined her. ‘Last week a Frenchman tried to get out tricked up like a woman. I said to that booby out there, I said: “Do I look like a Froggy?” But he an't got the brains he was born with. If Cap'n Luscombe hadn't come up, I reckon he'd'a shot me.'

‘Very efficient.'

There were still beds unmade. With no one except Joan to see her, the Dowager felt able to indulge in making them. In his last days, Aymer could endure nobody's presence but hers and, as it had been necessary to change the sheets with frequency and he could not abide the merest wrinkle, she had learned to tuck in corners with geometric precision.

Their backs were aching at the finish. Definitely, she would need more help.

They went up to the loft/store cupboard and fetched the cotton nightshirts she had ordered from a Plymouth outfitters.

‘Password, ladies.'

‘Dandelion.'

For decency's sake the two women waited outside while the patients were put in their nightshirts. Immediately, a few looked better, as if cleanliness and attention had already set them on the mend.

The transfer took some time; the orderlies were slow and deliberately clumsy. Joan went to the warehouse to receive the patients and make sure they were put down gently. Diana stayed at the cottage, supervising their departure. ‘Which one is Joshua Burke?' she asked Payne.

‘Don't know their names.'

She called: ‘Which of you is Joshua Burke?'

‘He is.' One of the less seriously injured was pointing to the man next to him. She stepped across the bodies to look.

‘No, this can't be Joshua Burke.'

‘Surely is, ma'am. Heard his name when they dragged him in. Got shot trying to get over the wall. He's right poorly, ma'am.'

He's
black
.

She stared at the negroid head on its pallet, wondering at the life La Hedley had led that this young man was so precious to her, and not least at the fact that she hadn't mentioned his colour.

He was poorly indeed. There was a bullet wound in his neck and, according to the man next to him, a mercifully clean bandage round his chest hid another. ‘Think they got his lungs, ma'am. He's breathing terrible bad.'

‘Payne, send for a doctor.' She touched the beaded forehead. He also had a fever. She wondered if he should be moved at all. No, he couldn't be left in this charnel house; if he was to die, he should do it in a decent bed.

‘Ain't the doctor's day for comin' in.'

‘Then send for one from town. I'll see he's paid.'

She was sharp with the orderlies when they lifted the boy. ‘Take extra care, please.' She walked beside the litter on its journey to the warehouse to ensure that they did.

Halfway through the afternoon, she had to give the orderlies leave to attend the funeral of the prisoner who'd been shot. ‘Got to pay our respects, your ladyship.' She felt that respect would be better lavished on the living but she did not want to push them too far. ‘Very well.'