Hope - Lesley Pearse [113]
‘Two days ago they was all fine,’ the woman said, a note of alarm in her voice. ‘Old Ada went in there to see what she could do, but she soon come out. Said she didn’t reckon anyone could help ’em.’
Old Ada was the closest thing Lewins Mead had to medical help. She was responsible for bringing most of the babies in Lewins Mead into the world, and laying out the dead. She was dirty, foul-mouthed and usually drunk, but those helped by her swore by her.
‘They ain’t the only ones sick neither,’ another of the women said. ‘I ’eard they got it in Cask Lane too.’
A cold shudder went down Hope’s spine, for Cask Lane was next to Lamb Lane. She rushed off towards the school feeling even more frightened.
‘Miss Carpenter! Could I speak to you?’ Hope called out as she saw the teacher about to leave the old chapel building.
Despite the hot weather Miss Carpenter was still wearing her customary plain grey dress and bonnet, a shawl around her shoulders. She looked round at Hope and frowned. ‘Hope, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I still don’t have any work for you.’
‘It isn’t that,’ Hope said breathlessly. ‘My friends Gussie and Betsy are sick and they need a doctor. I thought you might know someone who would come to them.’
Betsy had always had a down on Miss Carpenter; she claimed she involved herself in good works because she was a cranky old spinster with nothing better to do with her time. She sneered at the teacher’s unfashionable plain clothes, and at her strong religious beliefs. She even suggested the woman got some vicarious thrill out of sticking her long nose into the rookery.
Hope had always laughed at Betsy’s jaundiced views, unable to make up her mind whether she agreed or disagreed. But when she saw real concern flash into the woman’s sharp, dark eyes she felt ashamed that she’d allowed Betsy to influence her.
‘What are their symptoms?’ she asked. ‘Are they feverish?’
Hope explained how they were and what she’d already done to help them. ‘I’m scared it’s typhus,’ she said finally. ‘My parents died of that.’
Miss Carpenter looked very surprised and took hold of Hope’s hand, pressing it in sympathy. ‘I didn’t realize you had been orphaned. I’m afraid I assumed because you’d been educated that you’d run away from home hoping for some adventure, and that was why I was a little sharp with you. But that isn’t important now. I will ask a doctor I know if he will call on your friends, though I can’t promise he’ll come today as he may be out on other calls. Go home now, keep them warm and give them more fluids. It sounds as if you’ve been doing all the right things for them already.’
‘I haven’t got much money to pay the doctor,’ Hope blurted out, having no idea at all what a doctor’s visit cost.
Miss Carpenter made a little gesture with her hands, implying Hope wasn’t to worry about that. ‘The good Lord will provide,’ she said. ‘Not everyone in this world expects payment for their services.’
After checking exactly where Hope lived in Lamb Lane, the schoolteacher hurried on her way. Hope stood for a second or two watching the careful way she picked her way up the narrow alley, holding her skirt clear of the filth underfoot. She thought she must be about forty, yet she was as slight and slender as a young girl. Hope wondered why she hadn’t married, for though she was rather plain with her long, pinched nose and thin lips, there were plenty of much plainer married women. Betsy claimed that men didn’t like intelligent women, and Bible bashers even less, and perhaps she was right.
Hope had given up on the doctor coming by the time she heard the church clock striking ten that night. It had been an endless, terrible day for as soon as she cleaned up Betsy, Gussie would need washing too, and they both cried out with the pain of the cramps they were suffering. Hope was swaying