Hope - Lesley Pearse [126]
‘Lawdy, you don’t want to hear my troubles,’ she exclaimed to hide her discomfort at being caught crying in a public place. ‘I’m sure you’ve got enough sick people to worry about without me taking up your time.’
‘I can spare time for a nurse as good as you were,’ he said with a smile.
The sternness in his face vanished with the smile. His mouth was wide and full, she noticed, and he had good teeth.
‘They were my friends, I had to take care of them.’ She blushed and lowered her eyes. ‘But tell me, has it spread further? I went away to the woods and I only returned today, so I know nothing of what has been going on.’
‘Sadly it is now a full-scale epidemic,’ Bennett said gravely. ‘There have been many deaths and each day the number grows. But come over there and sit with me for a while?’ He pointed to a large felled tree some twenty yards from them. ‘I’ve been on my feet for a long time and they ache.’
Hope had never been more in need of a kindly word and a friendly face, so she did as he asked. He told of the woeful conditions in St Peter’s Hospital and his concern that the disease would spread beyond the relatively small pockets it was contained in now.
‘But enough of that,’ he said. ‘I really do wish to know what brought you to Clifton today, and what happened that made you cry.’
Hope explained haltingly what had happened when she called at Royal York Crescent, and how vicious Mrs Toms had been.
‘It was just too much for me when she was so insulting. I didn’t deserve that, did I?’
‘No, you didn’t, not after what you’ve been through,’ the doctor said thoughtfully. ‘But people are afraid, Hope; it stops them from thinking of anyone but themselves. Cholera is such a mysterious disease, you see; it comes, kills at random and then disappears as suddenly as it came. I’ve even heard some call it a Devil’s Plague because they say it takes the good and the pure and leaves the scoundrels alone.’
‘I hope you are a scoundrel then,’ Hope said, and gave a hollow laugh.
‘My uncle thinks I am,’ Bennett replied, smiling at her. ‘He is appalled that the nephew he supported throughout medical school is deliberately courting infection by going to St Peter’s each day. He thinks I should be using my skills on people who can afford to pay me.’
‘I didn’t pay you either.’ Hope blushed with embarrassment.
‘I didn’t ask for any money,’ he said. ‘I could see how it was for you. But tell me, Hope, how did you come to be in Lewins Mead? I can tell by your speech and manner that it isn’t where you belong.’
Hope told him the same carefully edited story she’d given Gussie and Betsy when she first arrived in Bristol; that she’d fallen out with her brother-in-law. She had often wished she dared tell them the whole story, but she never had; she was too afraid fiery Betsy might insist on going out to Briargate to avenge her.
‘How old are you, Hope?’ Bennett asked, strangely making no comment about her story.
‘Seventeen, sir,’ she said, but afraid that he would question her further, she changed the subject. ‘Do you know where my friends’ bodies were taken?’
Bennett knew that they’d gone to a mass grave close to the river just outside the city, along with the other victims who died that day. He knew too that the bodies had quicklime shovelled on top of them and they hadn’t been given the dignity of even a prayer. But he couldn’t tell her that.
‘I believe they were put in St James’s churchyard,’ he lied. ‘But so many more took sick that day I cannot be sure.’
She nodded as if satisfied at that. ‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll catch it too?’ she asked, surprised that he could bear to go to St Peter’s for it was a hospital in name only, a dreadful place that took in the insane, the very old and orphans.
‘Yes, I am afraid,’ he admitted. ‘But I couldn’t call myself a doctor and refuse to treat any patient who is suffering from something infectious, could I?’
‘The doctor didn’t come to my parents when they had typhus,’ she said. ‘But Reverend Gosling came in, that meant a great