by Anne Perry
“We'll have to face it,” she answered. “If we can, we'll prove that we're not like that, but if we aren't given the chance, then we'll have to find some other job. We will, don't worry. There are lots of things we can do. I could go back to nursing. I used to earn my own living before I married Mr. Monk, you know.”
“Did yer? Like lookin’ after the sick? They pay yer fer that?” His eyes were wide, his toast and jam halfway to his mouth.
“Definitely,” she assured him. “If you do it well enough, and I was very good. I did it in the army, for soldiers injured in battle.”
“When they come ‘ome again?”
“Certainly not! I went to the battlefield and tended them there, where they fell.”
He blushed, then he grinned, sure that she was making a joke, even if he didn't understand it.
She thought of teasing him back, then decided he was too genuinely frightened to absorb it right now. He had just found some kind of safety, perhaps for the first time in his life, people not only to love but also to trust, and it was slipping out of his hands.
“Really in the battlefield,” she answered. “That's where soldiers need doctors and nurses. I went to the Crimea with the army. So did quite a few other ladies. The fighting was pretty close to us. People used to go out in carriages to the heights above the valley and watch the fighting. It's not dangerous, or of course they wouldn't do it. But we nurses sometimes saw it too, and then went to find those who were still alive, and who we could help.”
“Weren't it ‘orrible?” he asked in a whisper, toast still ignored.
“Yes, it was. More horrible than I ever want to think of again. But looking away doesn't solve anything, does it.” That was a statement more than a question.
“Wot can yer do fer soldiers as are ‘urt real awful?” he asked. “Don't they ‘ave ter ‘ave doctors, an’ such?”
“There aren't enough doctors to attend to everybody at once,” she told him, remembering in spite of herself the sounds of men in agony, the chaos of the wounded and dying, and the smell of blood. She had not felt overwhelmed then, she had been too busy being practical, trying to pack wounds, amputate shattered limbs, and save men from dying of shock. “I learned how to do some things myself, because it was so bad I couldn't make it worse. When it's desperate, you try, even if you don't know what to do to begin with. You can be a lot of help with a knife, a saw, a bottle of brandy, and a needle and thread, and of course as much water and bandages as you can carry with you.”
“Wot's a saw for?” he asked quietly.
She hesitated, then decided that lies would be worse than the truth. To saw through jagged bones so you can make a clean cut, and sew it up,” she told him. “And sometimes you have to take somebody's arm or leg off, if it's gone bad with gangrene, which is sort of like rotten meat. If you don't, it will go all through them, and they'll die.”
He stared at her. He felt as if he were seeing her for the first time, with all the lights on. Before it had been almost as if they were in the half dark. She was not as pretty as some of the women he had seen, certainly not as fancy as some of the ladies; in fact, the clothes she wore were downright ordinary. He'd seen just as good on women near the docks when they went out on Sundays. But there was something extra in her face, especially in her eyes, and when she smiled, as if she could see things other people didn't even think of.
He always used to think that women were nice, and certainly useful in the house, the best of them. But most of them had to be told what to do, and they were weak, and scared, when it came to fighting. Looking after important things was men's work; protecting, fighting, seeing that nobody stepped out of line had to be done by a man. And for clever things, it was always men, of course. That went without anybody needing to say it.
Hester was smiling at him, but there were tears in her eyes, and she blinked quickly when she talked about the soldiers dying, the ones she couldn't help. He knew what that felt like, the ache in your throat so big you couldn't swallow, the way you kept gulping breath, but it didn't get any better, nor did the tightness go out of your chest.
But she didn't cry. He hoped to goodness Mr. Monk looked after her properly. She was a bit thin. Usually real ladies had a bit more … softness … about them. Somebody should take care of her.
“Yer gonna ‘ave another piece o’ toast?” he asked.
“Would you like one?” She misunderstood him. He was not asking for himself.
“Will yer ‘ave one?” he changed his approach. “I'll make it fer yer. I know ‘ow ter make toast.”
“Thank you,” she accepted. “That would be very nice. Perhaps I should boil the kettle again?” She began to rise.
“I'll do it!” He stepped in her way so she had to sit down. “All I gotta do is move it over on ter the ‘eat.”
“Thank you,” she said again, slightly puzzled, but willing to accept.
Very carefully indeed he cut two more slices of bread, a little thick, a trifle crooked, but good enough. He put them on the toasting fork and held them to the open door of the stove. This was not going to be easy, but he could look after her. It needed doing, and it was his new job. He would see to it from now on.
The toast started to smoke. He turned it round just before it burnt. He had better concentrate.
Hester had debated whether to take Scuff with her or not when she went back to look further into Durban's history and whether the charges against him were in any part true. The matter was taken out of her hands by Scuff himself. He simply came.
“I'm not sure …” she began.
He smiled at her, continuing to look oddly important. “You need me,” he said simply, then fell in step beside her as if that settled the matter.
She drew in her breath to argue, and found that she had no idea how to tell him that she did not really need him. The silence grew until it became impossible, and by default she had accepted that she did.
As it transpired, he helped her find most of the people she eventually wished to speak to. It was long and tiring walking from one narrow, crowded street to another, arguing, asking, pleading for information and then trying to sort out the lies and the mistakes and find the elements of truth. Scuff was better at that than she was. He had a sharp instinct for evasion and manipulation. He was also more prepared than she to threaten or call a bluff.
“Don't let ‘em get away with nothin’!” he said to her urgently as they left one smooth-tongued man with a wispy black mustache. “That's a load o’ …” He bit his tongue to avoid the word he had been going to use. “I reckon as it were Mr. Durban ‘as pulled ‘im out o’ the muck, an’ ‘e's too … mean ter say it. That's wot that is.” He stood in the middle of the narrow pavement looking up at her seriously.
A costermonger wheeled his barrow past them, knowing at a glance that she would not buy.
“Yer din't ought ter b'lieve every stupid sod as tells yer,” Scuff continued. “Well, yer din't,” he granted generously. “I'll tell yer if it's true or not. We better go and find this Willie the Dip, if ‘e's real.”
Two washerwomen barged past them, sheets tied around dirty laundry bouncing on their ample hips.
“You don't think he is?” Hester asked.
Scuff gave her a skeptical look. “Dip means ‘e picks pockets. ‘Oo don't, round ‘ere? I reckon ‘e's all guff.”
And so it turned out. But by the end of the day they had heard many stories of Durban from a variety of people up and down the dockside. They had been discreet, and Hester believed with some pride that they had also been inventive enough not to betray the reason for their interest.
It was well after dusk with the last of the light faded even from the flat surface of the water when they finally made their way up Elephant Stairs just a few yards along from Princes Street. The tide was running hard, slapping against the stone, and the sharp river smell was almost pleasant in the air after the closed-in alleys they had walked all day, and the heavy, throat-filling odors of the docks, where men
were unpacking all manner of cargoes, pungent, clinging, some so sweet as to be rancid. The quiet movement of water was a relief after the shouting, clatter of hooves, and clank of chains and winches and thus of heavy loads.
They were tired and thirsty. Scuff did not say that his feet were sore, but possibly he regarded it as a condition of life. Hester ached all the way up to her knees, and beyond, but in the face of his stoicism, she felt that it would be self-indulgent to let it be known.
“Thank you,” she said as they started to walk up in the direction of Paradise Place. “You are quite right. I do need you.”
“S'all right,” he said casually, giving a little lift of his shoulder visible as he passed under the street lamp.
He took a deep breath. “‘E weren't a bad man,” he said, then looked sideways at her quickly.
“I know, Scuff.”
“Does it matter if ‘e told a few lies about ‘oo ‘e were or where ‘e come from?”
“I don't know. I suppose it depends what the truth is.”
“Yer think it's bad, then?”
They came to the end of Elephant Lane and turned right into Church Street. It was completely dark now and the lamps were like yellow moons reflected over and over again right to the end. There was a faint mist drifting up in patches from the water, like castaway silk scarves.
“I think it might be. Otherwise why would he lie about it?” she asked. “We don't usually lie about good things.”
He was quiet.
“Scuff?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“You can't go on calling me ‘miss’! Would you like to call me ‘Hester’?”
He stopped and tried to look at her. “Hester?” he said carefully, sounding the H. “Don't you think Mr. Monk might say I'm bein’ cheeky?”
“I shall tell him I suggested it.”
“Hester,” he said again, experimentally, then he grinned.
Hester lay awake and thought hard about what steps she should take next. Durban had tried for a long time, well over a year, to find Mary Webber. He was a skilled policeman with a lifetime of experience in learning, questioning, and finding, and he had apparently failed. How was she to succeed? She had no advantages over him, as far as she knew.
Beside her, Monk was asleep, she thought. She lay still, not wanting to disturb him, above all not wanting him to know that she was thinking, puzzling.
Durban must have searched for all the families named Webber who lived in the area and gone to them. He would even have traced any who had lived there and moved, if it were possible. If he had not found Mary that way, then Hester would not either.
Then just as she was finally drifting off towards sleep, another thought occurred to her. Had Durban gone backwards? Had he found out where they had come from before that?
The idea did not seem nearly as clever in the morning, but she could think of nothing better. She would try it, at least until another avenue occurred to her. It would be better than doing nothing.
It was not particularly difficult to find the local families by the name of Webber who had a Mary of roughly the right age. It was simply tedious looking through parish registers, asking questions, and walking around. People were willing to help, because she embroidered the truth a little. She really was looking for someone on behalf of a friend who had died tragically before finding them, but whether Mary Webber was a friend or witness, help or a fugitive, she had no idea. If it had not been for Monk's sake, she might have given up.
After some time, she found what appeared to be the right family, only to discover that Mary had been adopted from the local foundling hospital. Her mother had died giving birth to her brother, and the adoptive family had no ability to care for a baby, the wife being handicapped herself. There was only one such hospital in the area, and it was no more than half an hour's bus ride to its doors. It was a further half hour before Hester, now with Scuff determinedly on her heels, was shown into the office of Donna Myers, the brisk and rather starched matron who ran it from day to day.
“Now, what can I do for you?” she asked pleasantly, looking Hester up and down, and then regarding Scuff with a measuring eye.
Scuff drew in his breath to protest that he needed nobody to look after him, then realized that that was not what Miss Myers had in mind, and let it out in a sigh of relief.
“We've got plenty of work,” Mrs. Myers told Hester. “Wages are poor, but we'll feed you and the boy, three square meals a day, porridge and bread mostly, but meat when we have it. No drink allowed, and no men, but the place is clean and we don't treat anyone unkindly. I'm sure the boy could find something too, errands or the like.”
Hester smiled at her, appreciating from her own experience in running the clinic just how strict one had to be, no matter how deep or how genuine your pity. To indulge one was to rob another.
“Thank you, Mrs. Myers. I appreciate your offer, but it is only information I'm looking for. I already have work, running a clinic of my own.” She saw Miss Myers's eyes open wider and a sudden respect flickered alive in them.
“Really?” Mrs. Myers said guardedly. “And what is it that I can do for you, then?”
Hester wondered whether to mention that Monk was in the River Police, and decided that in view of the present highly unfavorable publicity, it would not be a good idea.
“I am seeking information about a woman who came here as a girl of about six, with her mother,” she answered. “Perhaps about forty-five years ago. The mother died in childbirth, and the girl was adopted. I believe the baby remained here. I would like to know as much about them as your records show, and if there is anyone who knows what happened to them I would be most grateful.”
“And why is it you wish to know?” Mrs. Myers looked at her more closely. “Are they related to you in any way? What was the mother's name?”
Hester had known that the question would be asked, but she still felt foolish that she could not answer. “I don't know her name.” There was no choice but the truth; anything else would make her look dishonest. So much of what she was saying was no more than an enlightened guess, but it made the only decent sense.
“It is the baby who concerns me,” she went on. “He would be in his fifties now, but he died over six months ago, and I want to trace the sister and tell her. Perhaps she would like to know what a fine man he was. He was doing all he could to find her, but he failed. I am sure you understand why I wish to complete that for him.” She was leaping far to such a conclusion. If Durban had really been born in a foundling hospital, was that why he had invented for himself a gentler, more respectable background, and a family that loved him? Poverty was not a sin, but many people were ashamed of it. No child should grow up with nobody to whom he was important and precious.
Mrs. Myers's face was touched with pity. For a moment she looked younger, wearier, and more vulnerable. Hester felt a sudden warmth towards her, a momentary understanding of what her task must be to keep such a hospital functioning and not be overwhelmed by the enormity of her task. The individual tragedies were intensely real, the fear of hunger and loneliness; too many bewildered women were exhausted and at their wits’ end to find the next place to rest, the next mouthful to give their children. The searing loneliness of giving birth in such a place stunned her, and ridiculously she found herself gulping and tears stinging her eyes. She imagined passing over your newborn child, perhaps holding it only once, and then bleeding to death alone, buried by strangers. No wonder Mrs. Myers was careful, and tired, or that she kept a shell around her to close out some of that tide of grief.
“I'll ask my daughter,” Mrs. Myers said quietly. “I doubt she'll know, but it is the best place to try.
“Thank you,” Hester accepted immediately. “I would be very grateful indeed.”
“What year would that be?” Mrs. Myers inquired, turning to lead them through bare, clean corridors, sharp with the smell of lye and carbolic.
“About 1810, the best calculation I can make,” Hester answered
. “But I am going on memory of neighbors of the family.”
“I will do what I can,” Mrs. Myers replied dubiously, her heels clicking sharply on the hard wooden floors. Maids with mops and buckets redoubled their efforts to look busy. A pale-faced woman hobbled out of sight around a corner. Two children with straggling hair and tearstained faces peeped around a doorway, staring as Mrs. Myers, followed by Hester and Scuff, striding past without looking to either side.
They found Stella in a warm room facing the sun, sharing a large, enamel pot of tea with three other young women, all dressed in what looked like a simple uniform of gray blouse and skirt, and short black boots. All of their boots were dirty and worn lopsidedly at the heels. It was one of the younger women who stood up to lift the heavy pot and refill all the cups, while Stella remained seated.
Hester assumed that was the privilege of being the matron's daughter until they were level with the table and she saw that Stella was blind. She turned at the sound of unfamiliar footsteps, but she did not speak or rise.
Mrs. Myers introduced Hester without mentioning Scuff, and explained what she had come for.
Stella considered for several moments, her head raised as if she were staring at the ceiling.
“I don't know,” she said at last. “I can't think of anyone who would remember that far back.”
“We have our people the right age,” her mother prompted.
“Do we? I can't think who,” Stella said very quickly.
Mrs. Myers smiled but Hester saw a sadness in it that for a moment was almost overwhelming.
“Mr. Woods might recall …”
“Mina, he barely remembers his name,” Stella cut in, her voice gentle but very definite. “He gets terribly confused.”
Mrs. Myers stood quite still. “Mrs. Cordwainer?” she suggested.
There seemed to be a complete silence in the room. No one moved.
“I don't know her well enough to ask her such things,” Stella replied huskily. “She's very … old. She might …” She did not finish the sentence.
