The Shifting Tide (42 page)

Slowly, Hester moved from the chair and bent to her knees. She had prayed often for the dead—it was a natural thing to do—but before now it had been for the comfort of those remaining. This time it was for Mercy, and it was directed to no listener except that divine power who judges and forgives the souls of men.

“Forgive her,” she said in her mind. “Please—she didn’t know anything better to do—please! Please?”

She did not know how long she knelt, saying the words over and over until she felt the hand on her shoulder and flinched as if she had been struck.

“If she’s gone, Miss ’Ester, we gotter get ’er away from ’ere an’ buried proper.” It was Sutton.

“Yes, I know.” She climbed to her feet. “She has to be buried in a graveyard.” She stated it as a fact. She had already decided to tell no one what Mercy had said. As far as they were concerned Ruth Clark was a prostitute who had died of pneumonia and no more.

“She will, Miss ’Ester.” Sutton bit his lip. “I told the men yesterday. They got a place. But we gotter ’urry. There’s a grave new dug not far from ’ere, mile an’ a ’alf, mebbe. It’s rainin’ like stair rods, which’ll keep folk off the streets. Flo’s bringin’ one o’ them dark blankets an’ we’ll wrap ’er up. But we in’t got time ter grieve . . . I’m sorry.”

Hester felt her eyes hot and stinging with unshed tears, but she obeyed. When Flo came with the blanket she took it from her and insisted on wrapping Mercy in it herself. Then the three of them, Sutton at the feet and the two women at the head, carried Mercy down to the back door. Squeaky, Claudine, and Margaret were waiting, heads bowed, faces pale. No one spoke. Margaret looked at Hester, the question in her eyes.

Hester shook her head. She turned to Sutton. “I’m going with them.” It was a statement.

“Yer can’t do that . . .” he started, then he saw the blind grief in her face. “Yer can’t go out now,” he said gently. “Yer’ve kept in all this time—”

“I won’t go near anyone,” she cut across him. “I’ll walk behind, by myself.”

He shook his head, but it was in defeat rather than denial, and his eyes were swimming in tears.

Flo sniffed fiercely. “Don’ yer forget yer goin’ fer all of us! An’ for all of them as we buried as ’as got no one.”

“Say something for us as well,” Claudine agreed.

Hester nodded. “Of course I will.” And before anyone could say anything more and break what little composure she had left, she opened the door and Sutton helped them carry the body outside into the yard and lay it down. “Look after ’er,” he said to the men when they came for it.

Hester waited until they were almost to the street, then she pulled her shawl over her head and followed over the cobbles in the drenching rain, Sutton’s coat around her shoulders. She waited under the arch of the gate as they passed under the street lamp and across the footpath and placed the body gently into the rat cart. One man picked up the shafts and started to pull, his dog beside him; the other went behind, his dog at his heels.

Hester went after them, about twenty feet behind. They knew she was there, and possibly they walked a little more slowly to allow her to keep up. They moved through the sodden night unspeaking, but every now and then glancing backwards to make sure she was still there.

She thought of the other women who had been buried this way, unmarked and unmourned. Whoever had loved them would never know where they were, nor that at the very least someone had dealt with them in some reverence.

The rain was turning to sleet, drifting across the arcs of light shed by the street lamps and disappearing into the darkness again. She pulled Sutton’s coat more tightly around her.

Without warning they came to a stop and she stood, still twenty feet away, while the two men took the body out of the cart and led the way very slowly, guided by the bull’s-eye lanterns, through the graveyard gates. She waited until they were almost out of sight before she went after them along the paths between the stones.

A thin figure loomed up ahead, standing by the earth of a new grave, dug ready for the morning. The mound of fresher earth, excavated deeper, was barely visible in the darkness.

“Quick!” was the only word spoken, but she heard the slither of soil and then the thud as shovel blades hit harder ground. There was a minute’s silence. Dimly she saw the figures straighten and bend again as they lowered Mercy down. Then all three piled the earth back in. It was bitterly cold, and she heard the faint splash of water in the bottom of the grave. At least the downpour would wash the mud from their hands afterwards.

It seemed an age until Mercy was completely covered, but at last it was done.

One of the men walked over and stopped about ten feet from Hester. “Yer wanner say summink?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.” Hester took a step sideways, closer to the grave, but away from him. “Rest in peace,” she said clearly, the rain icy in her face, washing away the tears. “If we loved you as much as we did, and could understand, you have no need to fear God—He has to love you more, and understand even better. Don’t be afraid. Good-bye, Mercy.”

“Amen,” the others said in unison, then led the way ahead of her through the gravestones back to the rat cart and the cold, bitter journey home.

The next day passed with no one else developing symptoms. They waited in dread and hope, listening for every cough, feeling for tenderness, watching for an awkward movement. They worked together to scrub, launder, cook, change bandages for the injured still trapped with them, and tend to those recovering from what now seemed to have been only pneumonia or bronchitis.

No one spoke much. They were all deeply subdued by Mercy’s death. Even Snoot seemed to have lost his heart for ratting, although he had possibly got them all anyway.

Once or twice Claudine seemed about to say something, deliberately filling her expression with hope, then as if it were too fragile to expose to reality, she changed her mind and kept silent, redoubling her efforts at scrubbing or mixing or whatever else she was doing.

Flo chopped vegetables as if she were slitting the throat of an enemy, biting back tears all the time; and Bessie banged pots, pans, folded linen, and grunted. But whether it was out of satisfaction, the ache in her shoulders and back, or too much hope bottled up inside her, she did not allow anyone to know. In the evening they all sat together around the kitchen table and ate the last of the soup. From now on there would be nothing except gruel, but no one complained. In everyone’s mind there was just the one prayer, that the plague be gone.

In the morning one of the men with the dogs knocked on the back door. When Claudine allowed him time, then went to answer it, she found a box of food, three pails of fresh water, and two envelopes tucked where they were kept dry. She carried them inside in triumph.

One note was for Margaret. Hester watched as she opened it and her face filled with joy, her eyes brimming. She read it twice, regardless of her tears, then looked across at Hester, whose note was still unopened.

“It’s Oliver,” she said, gulping. “He brought the food himself.” Involuntarily she glanced at the courtyard. “He was right outside the door.” She did not offer any further comment; they both knew the effort it must have cost him, and the victory.

Hester tore hers open as well, and read:

My dearest Hester,

The thing you will care most about is that Monk is well, but he looks exhausted, and his fear for your welfare is eating him alive. He is working night and day to find the crew of the
Maude Idris
who were paid off before the ship reached the Pool of London, but we fear they may already be dead, or else have gone back to sea in new ships.

However, we have succeeded in saving the life of the thief, Gould, with a verdict of not guilty because of reasonable doubt, and thus justice is served without the terror of the truth being known.

When I last saw Monk, after the trial, I did not yet know that I would find the courage to deliver this myself, or I could have brought you a letter from him. But you will already know all that he would have written.

My admiration for you was always greater than I told you, but now it grows beyond my ability to measure. I shall be proud if you still wish to consider me a friend.

Yours as always,
Oliver

She smiled, folding it up to put into her pocket, then looked up at Margaret. “I told you he would,” she said with infinite satisfaction.

They spent the day scrubbing everything they could reach. Rathbone had thoughtfully included carbolic among the things he had left. By suppertime they were exhausted, but every room was clean and the chemical’s sharp, stinging odor was everywhere. At any other time it would have been offensive; now they stood in the kitchen and inhaled it with pleasure.

That night they all slept—except Bessie, who now and again walked the corridors just to make certain there was still no one worse or complaining of new symptoms.

In the morning there was a crisp, hard frost, and the light was sharp with pale sun. It was November 11, twenty-one days since Clement Louvain had summoned Monk to find his ivory and see the dead body of Hodge.

“Yer beat it!” Sutton said with a huge grin. “Yer beat the plague, Miss ’Ester. I’ll take yer ’ome!”

“We beat it,” she corrected him, grinning back at him. She lifted her hands tentatively, wanting to touch him, shake his hand, something. Then she abandoned conventions, even the fear of embarrassing him, and did what she wished. She threw her arms around him and hugged him.

He stood frozen for a moment, then responded, gently at first, as if she might break, then strongly with sheer joy.

Claudine came into the room, gasped, then whisked around and took hold of Flo, behind her, and hugged her too, almost bumping into Margaret.

There was a knock on the door and Sutton stepped over and threw it open, blinking in amazement when he saw a smartly dressed man with fair hair and a long, intelligent face, at the moment filled with overwhelming emotion.

“Oliver!” Hester said in disbelief.

Rathbone looked questioningly from one to another of them, then solely at Margaret.

“Come in,” Margaret invited him. “Have breakfast with us. It’s perfectly all right.” Then she smiled hugely as well. “We’ve beaten it!”

He did not hesitate an instant; he strode in and took her in his arms, hugging her just as all the others had, in a bewilderment of happiness.

Finally he turned to Hester. “You haven’t been home for over a week. I’ll take you now.” It was not a question.

She smiled at him, shaking her head. “Thank you, Oliver, but—”

“No,” he cut across her. “Margaret will stay here now; you must go home. Even if you don’t think you deserve it, Monk does.”

“I’ll go home,” she said meekly. “I’ll just go with Sutton, if you don’t mind.”

He hesitated only an instant. “Of course I don’t mind,” he replied. “Mr. Sutton deserves that honor.”

So Hester walked home beside Sutton, pulling the rat cart, smiling all the way. Snoot sat upright in the front, quivering with excitement at all the new sights and smells, and the infinite possibility of ratting ahead of him.

Sutton put down the cart in Fitzroy Street and turned to Hester.

“Thank you,” she said with profound sincerity. “That is far too small a word for what I feel, but I don’t know any large enough.” She offered him her hand.

He took it a little awkwardly. “Yer don’t need ter thank me, Miss ’Ester. We done well together.”

“Yes we did.” She shook his hand, then let it go and turned to walk up to the step. She would have to knock, or look for her key. She had thought Rathbone had said Monk was home, but perhaps she only wanted to believe that. How absurd it would be if he were not!

The door opened, as if Monk had been watching for her. He stood just inside the hall looking thin and ashen-faced, his eyes shining with joy so intense he could not speak.

Rathbone had planned this—she knew it now—but there was no time even to think of him. She walked straight into Monk’s arms and clung to him so fiercely she must have bruised his body. She felt him shudder, holding on to her with such passion he could scarcely breathe, his tears wetting her face.

It was the rat catcher who softly closed the door, leaving them alone.

FOURTEEN

Monk stood in the bedroom in the wan morning light looking at Hester still sleeping. He wanted to stay, simply to be as close to her as he could. He would like to wait until she woke, however long it was, and light the fire downstairs, regardless of expense. He would make the room warm for her, bring her whatever she wanted, tea, toast, go out in the rain and buy whatever else she would like and bring it back for her. Then when she was ready, talk about everything, tell her all that had mattered to him, and learn more than the few bare facts she had told him of her time in Portpool Lane. He wanted to hear the details, how she had felt in all the victories and the pain, so he could be closer to her.

Before that he had one more idea to pursue. He knew nothing about any of the missing crewmen except Hodge. He was apparently the only one married. It was perhaps intrusive to go to his widow now, but it was just possible that Hodge might have told her something about one of the missing men: a woman, a place, anything at all to help find them.

He went downstairs and cleaned out the grate, clumsily. It was not a job he was accustomed to doing, and at the end he found himself with rather more cleaning up to do than he had expected. Then he laid a new fire and lit it. When it was drawing nicely, he damped it down so it would last. He filled the coal buckets to the top and wrote a note for Hester, saying simply that he loved her. At any other time he would have thought it ridiculous, but today it was the most natural thing to do. He only became self-conscious after he had propped it up on the table and had gone as far as the door, coat collar turned up. He smiled for a moment, then went out into the wind and sleet.