Hope - Lesley Pearse [134]
In a quick reconnoitre of the yard at the end of the corridor where the carter came in, she found there was clean strawin a lean-to shed. There was also a brazier that held the clothes of those who had been taken away earlier, which were obviously going to be burned. Taking a large empty box back in with her, she swept up all the foul straw, took it out and dumped it, then scrubbed the cleared area vigorously.
Once she’d put clean straw down she went into the back room. Despite the hot weather, Sal and Moll were huddled close to the stove, and the smell coming from them was almost as bad as the stink in the ward.
In her time in Lewins Mead she’d met many women like them, lazy, dirty and unscrupulous and lacking any morality. Such women would steal the pennies from a dead man’s eyes.
But Hope knew that if she was to challenge them in any way, they would make trouble for her, so she hoped to appeal to their better natures.
‘I’ve cleaned up and put fresh strawdown,’ she said as she washed her hands. ‘Do we give the patients tea now?’
‘Tea!’ Sal exclaimed. ‘They only gets water, and they can wait fer that till we’s ready.’
Hope had seen the wooden water pail in the ward, and was appalled that the tin mug hanging on the side of it appeared to be used by everyone.
‘Come on now, ducks, ’ave a cuppa tea,’ Doll said. ‘I knows you wants to look good on yer first day, but them in there ain’t going now here but the Pit. No sense in wearying yerself out fer nothin’.’
Hope bit back a sharp remark, washed a cup out carefully, then poured herself some tea from the pot they’d made. ‘I thought that maybe we could move some of the patients on to the clean straw and then wash the floor where they’ve been,’ she said tentatively.
‘Yer what?’ Doll retorted. ‘We don’t touch ’em, well, ’cept for givin’ ’em a drink and tryin’ to get ’em to take some gruel when they brings it.’
That, Hope discovered, was the entire extent of nursing in the cholera ward. Even Sister Martha when she appeared later only hovered in the doorway clutching her crucifix and could offer no practical advice or instructions. It seemed that no patient was ever washed, there were no comforting hot poultices, no extra blankets put over those shivering with fever, and absolutely no one rubbed limbs when they went into cramps.
While Hope could see by the blue colour of the patients and the torpor they’d fallen into that they were probably too far advanced with the disease to save, nonetheless she felt she had at least to try to make them more comfortable and the ward less foul. So one by one she rolled or pulled the patients on to clean straw, washed their faces and hands, then scrubbed the place they had been before.
‘Yer mad,’ Doll said as she stood lolling against the doorpost looking on in complete disbelief that Hope was scrubbing the floor. ‘You’ll catch it an’ all, pokin’ around ’em like that.’
As expected, the men arrived back with the cart, containing three new female patients. All three were already in the final stages, with blue-tinged faces and struggling to draw breath. Hope tried to get them to drink, but they seemed unable to swallow and the water just dribbled out of their lips. She sawa rat looking balefully at her as she put blankets over them, and thought it was just as well the women were unaware of where they were.
*
Hope was kneeling beside a patient, vigorously rubbing his legs because he had severe cramps, when Dr Meadows arrived. She didn’t hear the ward door open as the big, redheaded man was tossing his head from side to side alarmingly while roaring with pain.
The doctor came straight to her to take over the friction. ‘Take the laudanum from my bag and put a few drops in hot water,’ he ordered her.
Hope did as he asked, rushing back to feed the man with it.