The Silk Thief (18 page)

Sarah looked. In the folded pads of coarse linen was not a tiny baby as she’d expected, but a lumpy sac-like mass of tissue and blood. ‘Are you sure?’

Nora nodded. ‘That’s what they look like before they’ve quickened.’

‘Really? But why is she so ill? And the blood!’ Sarah bent down and sniffed. ‘Has it gone rotten?’

‘No, there won’t have been time for that.’

‘Will she stop bleeding now?’

‘I bloody well hope so.’

Friday and Sarah were both with Harrie the next morning when they overheard Nora having a furious row with George. Under the impression that Harrie was suffering some sort of ‘women’s affliction’, George was extremely disgruntled by the fact that his wife intended to pay, from her own purse, the fee for the doctor who would soon be attending. Harrie was the one indisposed, they heard him rant on the floor below; why couldn’t
she
pay the cost of the doctor’s visit?

‘She doesn’t have any money!’ Nora shouted. ‘She’s a bonded convict!’

Harrie did have a little, Nora knew — the money she earned drawing flash for Leo Dundas — but George didn’t know about that: he thought the only profit being made from that arrangement was the small retainer Leo paid him for Harrie’s services.

‘Well, that’s just too bad!’ George bellowed back. ‘Doctors’ house calls cost a fortune!’

Upstairs in Harrie’s room, Sarah muttered to Friday, ‘Arsehole. It’s Nora’s money.’

‘But I’m her mistress, George,’ Nora responded, loud enough for even the neighbours to hear, ‘and you’re her damned master. We’re responsible for her welfare!’

‘Oh, she’ll be all right. What does she need a doctor for? And why are those bloody friends of hers here? It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning.’

Something broke. A plate?

‘Oh, just finish your cup of tea and bugger off to your shop. Go on!’

George didn’t know, of course, that Nora would be asking Biddy Doyle for reimbursement, but that was beside the point.

Harrie’s bleeding and accompanying pain had eased overnight, but this morning she was so weak she could barely move or speak and was constantly on the verge of passing out. Nora had dispatched Abigail to the Siren’s Arms to alert Friday just after sunrise, and they’d decided to send the child out again to fetch a doctor, who was expected any minute now. Sarah had arrived of her own accord.

‘Who’s the doctor?’ she asked.

‘A man I’ve taken the children to once or twice. He’s a bit of a bad-tempered old sod, but he knows I can afford to pay, so that should get him out of doors fairly smartly.’

‘What are we telling him?’

‘That Harrie’s having a lot of trouble with her courses.’

The door to Harrie’s room opened and Hannah marched in.

‘
Hannah
,’ her mother said. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, knock and wait to be invited! It’s very rude to just barge into someone’s room.’

Hannah was clutching a handful of flowers that looked as though they might have been pinched from someone’s garden. She laid them on the end of Harrie’s bed.

Nora frowned. ‘Where did they come from?’

‘I found them. Is Harrie all better?’

‘Not yet, love. That’s why the doctor’s coming.’

Hannah’s eyes went very round and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘There’s a man waiting outside. With a big black hat on.’

‘Oh, Hannah! How long has he been out there?’

‘I’ll fetch him,’ Friday said. ‘What’s the cove’s name?’

‘Dr Poole.’

Fed up with standing around in a smelly backyard, Dr Randolph Poole was about to return to his house-cum-surgery in Cambridge Street, and his breakfast, when Friday opened the back door and invited him in. As she stood aside so he could ascend the stairs, she noticed with alarm that he ponged of alcohol. Following him up, she scowled as his hand flew out and clutched at the wall several times to steady himself.

‘Keep going,’ she said as Dr Poole reached the parlour beyond the landing. ‘Her room’s in the attic.’ She pointed down the tiny hallway, at the end of which were the narrow stairs to the uppermost floor. The doctor tugged at the hem of his waistcoat, tightened his grip on his bag, said ‘Thank you,’ and lurched off.

With the doctor, Sarah, Friday and Nora all crowded into Harrie’s room, and Angus the cat curled up on the rocking chair under the eaves, there was barely space to move. Dr Poole set his bag on the floor, his hat on top of Angus, and stood peering down at Harrie, lying still and pale in the bed. Behind his back, Friday caught Sarah’s eye, pointed at him and made exaggerated glass-raising gestures.

‘Your daughter, er, Adelaide?’ he began.

‘Abigail,’ Nora corrected him.

‘Abigail informed me that your servant is too unwell to attend my surgery, but was unable to tell me what ails her.’

Nora nodded — at eight Abigail wasn’t old enough to be told what had happened to Harrie. ‘Harriet is suffering from very heavy courses. She bled badly all yesterday, and last night especially. I’ve been having to change the linen constantly.’

Friday glanced at Sarah again. Their eyes met. Dr Poole was obviously so swattled that if Harrie had just given birth and the baby was sitting up in bed smoking a pipe he probably wouldn’t notice. Their secret was likely safe.

‘Is she still bleeding?’ the doctor asked.

‘Yes, though not as much this morning.’

‘An improvement, then?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Then why have you called me?’

‘Look at her!’ Friday exclaimed. ‘She’s so weak she’s hardly bloody well breathing! We’re really worried. She looks half dead.’

It was true — Harrie’s breathing was alarmingly shallow and she was that pale her skin appeared almost transparent. Her eyes were open but she seemed barely able to focus.

The doctor peered blearily down at her. ‘Is she prone to this sort of thing?’

‘Heavy bleeding?’ Nora said. ‘Ah, a little.’ Though as far as she was aware, Harrie wasn’t. Her courses seemed to be as neat and tidy as the rest of her normally was.

‘What’s her name?’ Dr Poole asked. He glanced longingly at his bag, and Friday wondered if his tipple was in it.

‘Harriet Clarke,’ Nora said.

‘Is she married? Had any babies?’

‘No and no.’

‘Perhaps that’s the problem. A baby would fix things. Her menstrual difficulties would no doubt settle if she married and had a baby.’

It was an extremely unfortunate thing for him to say. A prickly silence settled over the room. The doctor noticed it after about half a minute, and looked up to find Friday, Sarah and Nora all glaring at him.

Nora said, ‘We were hoping you would examine her, Doctor. If you can’t see your way to doing that, please leave. And don’t expect the custom of my family at your surgery again any time soon.’

Dr Poole let out a weary sigh. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ He bent over Harrie, and said loudly in her face, ‘Miss Clarke, can you hear me?’

Harrie moved her head slightly away from him. That’ll be his breath, Friday thought. Nodding weakly, Harrie raised her hand, then let it flop onto the bedcover. Dr Poole lifted the limp wrist and felt for her pulse. He examined her fingernails, peered into her eyes, looked in her mouth and pressed on her gums, and felt around under her jaw with his fingers.

He asked Nora, ‘Would you please lower the bedclothes to the hips?’

Nora moved Hannah’s flowers and folded back the blanket and sheet — one of Sarah’s — and stood back while Doctor Poole prodded Harrie’s belly over her shift. Harrie groaned. Then he lifted the bedclothes off the end of the bed and examined her feet, paying particular attention to her toenails.

Finally, he straightened, looked at Nora, and said, ‘There is an imbalance of the humours. I note symptoms of disruption of all four — dry and rough skin, split nails, dull hair, bags under the eyes, and she is underweight. Does she have access to adequate nourishment?’

‘Of course she does,’ Nora said, insulted. ‘She eats what we eat.’

‘In particular her liver is swollen, a sure indication of a severe deficiency of blood, and of course we are coming into spring, the season corresponding with that very humour. I suspect that coinciding with her menses as it has, this disparity has resulted in excessive bleeding. It seems she is approaching a state of exsanguination.’

‘What?’ Friday said.

‘She is becoming worrying close to bleeding to death. So, clearly, bleeding her is not my preference, though that is what I would normally recommend.’

‘I should bloody well think not,’ Friday said. ‘You’d finish her off completely. You quack!’

‘What
do
you recommend, then?’ Sarah said.

‘Bed rest, gruel and mutton broth, a good general tonic, no bathing in any form for a fortnight, and she should be kept warm.’ Dr Poole opened his bag and retrieved a sheet of paper. ‘I shall write a receipt for medicants. Take it to the chemist and have him dispense them.’

‘Hold on, what are you prescribing?’ Sarah asked. The man was mashed. He could be writing out a receipt for anything.

‘Preparations for alum boluses to be taken internally to stem the bleeding, enough to last a week. Dandelion tonic for the liver, and citrate of iron for the debilitating effects of blood loss, to be taken in watered wine. And she may, of course, have tincture of opium for menstrual cramps.’

They all stared at him in silence as he got a bottle of ink out of his bag, fumbled a nib into a holder, perched on the end of Harrie’s bed and scratched out the receipt, then flapped it in the air to dry. He handed it to Nora, then placed everything back in his bag and fetched his hat, now covered with Angus’s white and black fur.

Nora handed him his fee. ‘Will you come back if she doesn’t improve?’

‘If necessary.’

‘Well, don’t turn up mashed next time. You stink of booze,’ Friday said.

Dr Poole examined the fur on his hat, placed it on his head, then opened the bedroom door. ‘That makes two of us, doesn’t it?’

‘That doctor cove could do with a good kick up the arse, turning up drunk like that,’ Friday grumbled.

‘You’re just shitty because he knew
you’d
been drinking,’ Sarah said. ‘And it serves you right. It’s not even nine in the morning.’

‘He was a quack anyway. He couldn’t even tell what was wrong with her.’

‘Maybe,’ Sarah said thoughtfully. ‘What if he could tell, but just didn’t say so? He must see the results of quite a few abortions. They all must, even James.’

‘Aren’t they supposed to report it?’

‘What would be the point? Just because something’s against the law doesn’t mean it’s always a bad thing.’

‘That’s true,’ Friday agreed. ‘We could have saved our money, though, and just asked the chemist for everything he prescribed. We don’t need a receipt for any of this.’

‘Nora’s money, you mean,’ Sarah said. ‘But what if we hadn’t got him in, and Harrie had died? He said she was close to bleeding to death. You’d be sorry then, wouldn’t you?’

Friday didn’t even need to answer that. They stood on George Street outside the gaol, waiting to cross on their way to the chemist, but the street was bustling this morning. There were half a dozen new ships in the cove, and the road was jammed with wagons and drays piled high with goods either just unloaded or about to be taken aboard for the next voyage. When the harbour was busy, so was the town, from the administrators to the bureaucrats, to the businessmen to the shopkeepers, to the street vendors and the whores.

Friday spotted a gap in the traffic and darted across the street, Sarah right behind her, both hoisting their skirts above the slurry of mud and horse and bullock shit stirred up by the previous night’s rain. There was an apothecary on Cambridge Street but his prices were very high, and chemists carried a much larger range of products.

Once across the road it was a short walk south to the chemist near the intersection with Bridge Street. In the mullioned shop window was a display of various-sized carboys filled with emerald, blue, amethyst and red liquid, glittering like enormous jewels. A sign on the footway advertised that the chemist or his assistants would bleed for a penny, and cup or draw a tooth for tuppence. The bell over the door chimed as they entered.

‘I love the smell of this shop,’ Friday said, inhaling so deeply she snorted.

‘You’ll turn into a drug inebriate next,’ Sarah warned, only half in jest.

The smell was unique — a mix of lavender and iodine and carbolic. A wooden counter ran all the way around the store; in the rear wall a door opened onto a storeroom for bulk raw ingredients such as herbs and minerals. Behind the counter, tiers of labelled wooden drawers and shelves rose from floor to ceiling, the shelves home to many hundreds of glass and ceramic jars and bottles containing a cornucopia of pharmaceutical ingredients. Antimony and arsenic; borax and blistering plasters; calomel and chamomile flowers; dragon’s blood and digitalis; Friar’s balsam and frankincense; hellebore powder and henbane; ipecacuanha; juniper berries; laudanum, lavender drops and lunar caustic; myrrh, mercury and milk of sulphur; oxymel of squills; pennyroyal, paregoric elixir, and poppy heads; Spanish fly, senna, snake root and slippery elm; vitriolic acid; worm powders; zinc, etc.

On the counter sat smaller sets of drawers, glass cabinets, two brass beam scales, and five mortars and pestles, three of which were currently in use by the chemist and his two assistants. Also on display were medicinal and cosmetic preparations such as proprietary cordials, ginger beers, tooth powders and brushes, hair powder (scented and plain), flavoured breath pastilles, Castile, Windsor and Naples soaps, smelling salts and smelling bottles (cut glass and plain).

There were already seven customers in the shop, one of whom Friday — to her horror — recognised.

‘Bloody hell,’ she swore under her breath as she grabbed Sarah’s arm.

‘Ow. What?’

Friday hissed, ‘Shut up!’ and inclined her head towards the woman standing at the front of the queue.

Sarah moved so she could see properly, and paled slightly as she recognised Becky Hoddle. ‘Shit! Shall we come back?’ she whispered.

Friday shook her head, and tilted her hat to such an angle that her face was almost completely hidden. Sarah followed suit, yanking the brim of her bonnet down to her slightly prominent nose and completely covering her eyes. Friday, tired and feeling worn down by worry over Harrie, snorted out a laugh and had to quickly examine a tin of violet-scented hair powder on the counter when customers in front of her turned to look.