Cain His Brother - Anne Perry [22]
“But don’t they understand …” Enid began.
“Only a penny …” Callandra snorted.
“At least half of the members are shopkeepers,” Kristian explained with weary patience. “A penny on the rates will hurt their business.”
“Half shopkeepers?” Hester screwed up her face. “That’s ridiculous! Why so many of one occupation? Where are the builders, the cobblers or bakers, or ordinary people?”
“Working,” Kristian said simply. “You cannot sit on the council unless you have money, and time to spare. Ordinary men are at their jobs; they cannot afford not to be.”
Hester drew in breath to argue.
Kristian preempted her. “You cannot even vote for council members unless you own property worth over one thousand pounds,” he pointed out. “Or rental of over one hundred a year. That excludes the vast majority of the men, and naturally all the women.”
“So only those with a vested interest can be elected anyway!” Hester said, her voice rising in fury.
“That’s right,” Kristian agreed. “But it helps no one to waste your energy on what you cannot change. Rage is an emotional luxury for which we have no time to spare.”
“Then we must change it!” Callandra almost choked on the words, her frustration was so consuming. She swung around to stare at the empty barn of a place, tears of impotence in her eyes. “We should never have to fill something like this with people we can’t save because some damnable little shopkeepers won’t pay an extra penny on the rates for us to get the sewage out of the streets!”
Kristian looked at her with an affection so naked that Hester, standing between them, felt an intruder.
“My dear,” he said patiently. “It is very much more complicated than that. To begin with, what should we do with it? Some people argue for a water-carried system, but then it has to empty somewhere, and what of the river? It would become one vast cesspool. And there are problems with water. If it rains heavily may it not back up, and people’s houses would become awash with everyone’s waste?”
She stared at him, as much of her emotion drinking in his face, his eyes, his mouth, as thinking of the bitter problem. “But in the summer the dry middens blow all over the place,” she said. “The very air is filled with the dust of manure and worse.”
“I know,” he replied.
There was a noise on the staircase. Mary returned with an undersized little man in a shiny hat and a jacket several sizes too large for his narrow shoulders.
“This is Mr. Stabb,” she introduced him. “And he will rent us two dozen pots and pans at a penny a day.”
“Each, o’ course,” Mr. Stabb put in quickly. “I got a family to feed. But me ma died o’ the cholera back in forty-eight, an’ I wouldn’t want as not ter do me bit, like.”
Hester drew in her breath to bargain with him.
“Thank you,” Callandra said quickly, cutting her off. “We’ll have them immediately. And if you know of any other tradesman who would be prepared to assist, please send him to us.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Stabb agreed thoughtfully, his face failing to mask a few rapid calculations.
Further deliberations were prevented by the arrival of several bales of straw and canvas sheets, old sails and sacking, anything that might be used to form acceptable beds, and blankets to cover them.
Hester left to set about procuring fuel for the two potbellied black stoves, which must be kept alight as much of the time as possible, not only for warmth but in order to boil water and cook gruel, or whatever other food was obtainable for anyone who might be well enough to take nourishment. Typhoid being a disease of the intestines, that might not be many, but if any survived the worst of it, they would need strengthening after the crisis. And fluid of any sort was of the utmost importance. Frequently it was what made the difference between life and death.
Meat, milk and fruit were unobtainable, as were green vegetables. They