The Shifting Tide (6 page)

“How are you, my dear?” Callandra said warmly.

“Very happy to see you,” Hester replied, letting her go and standing back. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

Callandra looked startled. “Oh! No thank you, my dear.” She stood still in the middle of the floor as if unable to make herself sit down, the smile still wide on her face. “How are you both?”

Hester thought of lying politely, but she and Callandra had known each other too long and too well. The generation between them had not affected their friendship in the slightest. It had been Hester, rather than anyone her own age or social class, who had watched Callandra’s heartbreaking love for Kristian Beck, and understood it. It had been Hester and Monk to whom she had turned when Kristian had been accused of murder, and not only because of Monk’s skill, but because they were friends who would not mock her loyalty or intrude upon her grief.

Hester could not deceive her. “We are struggling to make ends meet in the clinic,” she answered. “Victims of our success, I suppose.” However deep their friendship, she would not tell her that for Monk work had been poor of late. He could do so if he wished; for her to do it would be a betrayal.

Callandra immediately turned her concentration to the subject.

“Raising funds is always difficult,” she agreed. “Particularly when it is not a charity one feels comfortable boasting about. It’s one thing to tell everyone at the dinner table that you have just given to doctors or missionaries scattered across the Empire. It can stop conversation utterly to say you are trying to save the local prostitutes.”

Hester could not help laughing, and even Monk smiled.

“Do you still have that excellent Margaret Ballinger with you?” Callandra asked hopefully.

“Oh, yes,” Hester said with enthusiasm.

“Good.” Callandra lifted up her hand as if she should have had an umbrella in it, then remembered that she had left it somewhere. “I can give her some reliable names for raising contributions. You had better not be the one to ask.” A smile of profound affection softened her face. “I know you too well to delude myself that you would be tactful. One refusal, and you would render such an opinion as to make all future approaches impossible.”

“Thank you,” Hester said with mock decorum, but there was something in Callandra’s words which disturbed her. Why did Callandra not offer to ask them herself? In the past she had not been hesitant, and she could surely see in Hester’s face that she was already busier than she could manage with comfort.

Callandra was still standing in the middle of the room as though too excited to sit. Now she was searching in her reticule for something, but since it was more voluminous than most, and obviously over-full and in no sort of order at all, she was having difficulty. She gave up. “Have you a piece of paper, William? Perhaps you would write them down for me?”

“Of course,” he agreed, but he glanced at Hester rapidly, and away again before he moved to obey.

Hester was on the edge of asking what it was that had brought Callandra, unannounced, and was so clearly momentous to her that all her usual care was scattered to oblivion. But to do so might be intrusive. She was a dear friend, but that did not destroy her right to privacy.

Monk brought the pen and paper, and an inkwell, setting them on the table for Callandra. She sat down at last and wrote the names and addresses herself, and then after a moment’s thought, with a flourish added what sums she thought they could comfortably contribute. She held the list up in the air and waved it for the ink to dry, since Monk had brought no blotting paper, then she handed it to Hester. “Don’t lose it,” she commanded. “I may not be able to replace it for you.”

Monk stiffened.

Hester looked up at him slowly, hardly breathing.

Callandra’s eyes were bright. It was with happiness and tears, as if she were on the edge of some tremendous step and she was clinging to the last moments of the familiar, because it too was dear to her and she could not let go without pain.

“I am going to Vienna,” she said with only the slightest tremor in her voice. “To live there.”

“Vienna!” Hester repeated the word as if it were close to incomprehensible, and yet it made the most devastating sense. Vienna was the original home of Kristian Beck, before he had left with his wife to come to London. Then he had met Callandra, his wife had been murdered, and grief and shattering revelations had followed. Perhaps as difficult as those of his dead wife’s character had been the discovery of Kristian’s own origins, turning upside down everything he had previously believed. But was Callandra going to Vienna because Kristian had decided to return? What was his part in her decision? Hester was already dry-mouthed with fear that Callandra would be hurt yet again, and she had borne so much already.

But Callandra’s eyes were shining, and it did not seem a wild hope but rather a steady understanding. “Kristian and I are going to be married,” she said softly. Her voice was tender, and absolutely sure. “He has decided that he needs to face the past, look at it honestly and discover the answers, whatever they are.”

She turned from Hester to Monk. “I’m sorry, William. Sharing cases with you gave me interest and purpose during many years when I would have had neither without you. Your friendship has meant even more to me—as much, in its own way, as Hester’s. But Kristian will be my husband.” Her eyes flickered down, and then up again. “I wish to be with him, and if leaving my home and my dearest friends is the price, then I will pay it willingly. I thank you with all my heart for the love you have given me in the past, and for your skill and loyalty in defending Kristian . . . and me. I know what we would have suffered without you.”

Hester went forward and put her arms around Callandra, holding her tightly and feeling Callandra’s eager response. “I couldn’t be more delighted for you,” she said honestly. “Go to Vienna, and be happy. And whatever Kristian finds there, help him to remember that he is not responsible for the sins or the ignorance of his fathers. None of us are. We cannot ever undo our own pasts, let alone anyone else’s. But we have the future, and I am so glad yours is with Kristian. That couldn’t be better.” She kissed Callandra on the cheek, hugged her hard for a moment longer, and then stepped back.

Callandra turned to Monk, her face still touched with uncertainty.

He did exactly as Hester had done. “Go and be happy,” he said sincerely. “I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more than both of you. And when you’ve solved the problems of the past, there’ll be other good causes to fight for. If there’s anyone who knows that, I do.”

Callandra sniffed hard, gulped, and gave up the battle. She let the tears flow, standing quite still, her face smiling in spite of them. Then as Monk pulled out a handkerchief, she accepted it and blew her nose.

“Thank you,” she said, handing the handkerchief back to Hester. “I apologize. But I cannot add stealing your clothes to my general desertion. My carriage is waiting. Will you allow me to retreat with what dignity I have left?”

“Of course,” Hester said, her own voice thick with emotion. “Good-byes are ridiculous. One is quite sufficient.”

“I’m most grateful,” Callandra said, her eyes brimming again.

She dug in her reticule and this time quite easily found what she was looking for. She brought out two small packages, handsomely wrapped and tied up in ribbon. She glanced at them, then handed one to Hester and the other to Monk. From the expectancy in her face she was obviously waiting for them to open the gifts now.

Hester started with hers, undoing the ribbon and paper carefully. Inside was a box, and within it the most exquisitely carved cameo, not of the usual head of a woman, but of a man with an elaborate helmet and flowing hair. It was mounted in a rich filigree of both yellow and rose gold.

Hester gasped with delight, then looked up at Callandra and saw the answering pleasure in her eyes.

Monk unwrapped his more impatiently, tearing the paper. His was a gold watch, a perfect piece of both art and workmanship. His appreciation was abundantly clear in his face even before he spoke to thank her.

“So you will remember not only me but how much I care for you both,” she said a little huskily. “Now I must go.”

She smiled once more and then swept out of the door as Monk held it open for her. Her skirts were crooked, her jacket not quite matching, and her hat had slipped to one side, but her head was high. She did not look behind her, even once.

Monk closed the door and returned to the fire, the watch still in his hand. Hester was still clasping the cameo. She was thrilled for Callandra. Her friend had loved Kristian profoundly and hopelessly for so long that to have wished her anything but success would be unthinkable. But she was aware, with the cold from the open door still sharp in the air, just how alone it left them. She was not sure what to say. The awareness of the difference it would make, especially now, was like a third presence in the room between them.

“It had to happen,” she said, lifting her gaze slowly to meet his. “We couldn’t have wished it differently. If the position were the other way around, and it were you and I in their place, and they in ours, I should go to Vienna, or anywhere else, if you needed me—or wanted me with you.”

He smiled slowly. “Would you?”

She knew he was joking, fighting the fear so she could not see it. She pretended she had not. “I’d like tea,” she remarked. “Shall I fetch some?”

By ten the following day, when Monk was back at the dockside, Hester was going through the cabinets in the main room at Portpool Lane. There was conspicuously less of almost everything than there had been the day before. No later than tomorrow they would have to buy more disinfectant and at least carbolic, lye, vinegar, and candles. It would be nice to have brandy as well, and fortified wine to add to beef tea. She could list another dozen things it would help to have.

The girl who had come in the day before was still deeply asleep, but her breathing was easier and there was already a little color in her skin. If they could have afforded to feed her for a week or two, she would probably have recovered completely.

Hester had turned away from the cupboard and was going to the drawer of the desk when Bessie came in. She had her sleeves rolled up and an apron tied around her waist. There was an old smear of blood across the center of it.

“We got another of ’em as can ’ardly breathe,” she said wearily, her face puckered in anger because the problem was too big. She had spent as long as she could remember trying to cope with it, and as fast as she cured one, another turned up, if not two. “Why couldn’t the good Lord ’a designed us better?” she added tartly. “Or else done away wi’ winter. ’e can’t ’a not see’d this comin’! It ’appens every year!”

Hester did not bother with an answer, not that she had one anyway. The question was rhetorical. She turned from what she had been going to do and followed Bessie to the entrance room, where a middle-aged woman in brown was sitting hunched up on the old couch, her arms folded protectively across her chest. She breathed slowly and with obvious difficulty. In the candlelight her face was colorless; her fair hair, liberally streaked with gray, was piled on her head like so much old straw.

Hester looked more carefully at her pinched face and saw the whiteness about her lips and around her eyes, and the slight flush in her cheeks. It was probably bronchitis, which could turn to pneumonia. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Molly Struther,” the woman answered without looking up.

“How do you feel, exactly?”

“Tired enough ter die,” the woman replied. “Dunno why I bothered ter come ’ere, ’cept Flo tol’ me ter. Said as yer’d ’elp. Daft, I call it. Wot can yer do? Gonna change the world, are yer?” There was no mockery in her voice; she had not the energy for it.

“Find you a warm, dry bed—undisturbed for the most part—and some food,” Hester replied. “Plenty of hot tea, with maybe a nip of brandy in it, at least until the brandy runs out.”

Molly drew in a deep breath of amazement and broke into a fit of coughing until she all but gagged. Hester fetched her some hot water from the kettle, put a spoonful of honey in it, and held it out for her. Molly sipped at it gratefully, but it was several minutes before she tried to speak again.

“Thanks,” she said finally.

Hester helped her to one of the rooms with two beds, while Bessie went off to heat a warming pan. Half an hour later Molly was lying on her back, blankets up to her chin, eyes still wide with surprise and the sheer unfamiliarity of it.

“We gotter get more money!” Bessie said to Hester when they were back in the kitchen. She poked tentatively at the stove, wondering how long it would burn without adding more coke to it. It was a fine balance between using the minimum it would take to keep burning, and so little it actually went out.

“I know,” Hester admitted. “Margaret’s trying, and I’ve got a list of names to go on with, but people are uncomfortable about giving because of the women’s occupation. They feel better about sending their offerings to Africa, or somewhere like that.”

Bessie made a snarl in her throat that was eloquent of contempt. “So they think them Africans is better than we are?” she demanded. “Or they’re colder, or ’ungrier, or sicker mebbe?”

“I don’t think it’s got anything to do with that,” Hester replied, warming her hands above the cast-iron surface of the stove.

“O’ course it in’t!” Bessie snapped, filling the kettle up again from the ewer of water in the far corner near the stone sink, and putting it back on the hob. “It’s ter do wi’ conscience, that’s wot it’s ter do wi’! It in’t our fault if Africans starve or die; it’s too far away fer us ter feel bad about it. But if our own is freezin’ an’ starvin’, then that’s summink ter feel bad abaht, aw-right. ’Cos mebbe we should ’a see’d they wasn’t like that in the first place.”

Hester did not answer.

“Or mebbe it’s ’cos they in’t no better than they should be,” Bessie went on, drying her hands on her apron. “They sell theirselves on the street, which is sin, in’t it? An’ we might get our skirts dirty if we ’ave anythin’ ter do wi’ the likes o’ them! Never mind our ’usbands go ter them poor sods fer a bit o’ wotever we don’t wanter do—’cos we got an ’eadache, or it in’t decent, or we don’t want no more kids!” She slammed the grate door shut on the stove. “It in’t nice ter know about things like that, so we pretend as we don’t! So o’ course we don’t want ’em fed or nursed; we’d rather play at it as if they in’t real. Gawd ’elp us, it in’t our daughter, or sister, or even our man!”