Hope - Lesley Pearse [33]
Hope had been to Bristol twice, both times by day and in good weather, but however thrilling she’d found it, she hadn’t forgotten the hordes of beggars, the noise, evil smells and the daunting hurly-burly of the place. It wasn’t difficult to imagine how she would feel if she were alone, cold and soaked to the skin, compelled to hang around the docks for three days without anyone to turn to for help.
Her father spoke of ruffians who lay in wait for gullible country folk, of the ragged half-starved child beggars who plagued him after seeing him give a couple of pennies to one of their number. He said there were painted floozies on every corner who loudly belittled him when he ignored them. And all the time there was the fear that any one of the many brutalized drunken men would attack a simple countryman like him just for the few shillings in his pocket, and even for his cart and horse.
Someone at the rooming house picked his pockets during the night. In the morning another man attempted to run off with his boots, and he’d had to run after him on bare feet and fight to get them back. He said he would have turned tail and come home right then, but he knew that Mr Francis would stop giving him and the boys work if he did. So he waited to collect the goods from the ship, cold, wet, hungry and frightened almost out of his wits. He said he would never go there again.
Yet although he said how hungry he had been, he only managed half a bowl of stew before sinking back on to the pillow. He was still shivering, and he said his head and back ached, so Meg got other blankets to cover him and put a hot brick by his feet.
Joe and Henry came back a little later, equally wet and downhearted because Mr Francis had not paid them, or even given them anything to eat. ‘We’ve done a man’s work, so we should get paid a man’s wages,’ Joe said heatedly. ‘Mr Francis was grumbling all day because Father hadn’t come back. I reckon me and Henry will have to go to London to find work. There ain’t nothing fer us around here.’
The boys went to bed straight after their supper, but Hope stayed up with her mother, sensing that she was worried about her husband. Even by candlelight, Hope could see for herself he wasn’t right. He appeared to be asleep but he was shivering still, while beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.
‘He’s a strong man, he’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep,’ Meg said, but there was a hollow ring to her voice.
Hope woke in the night to the sound of her mother poking the fire and the smell of drying clothes. It was pitch dark and still raining hard.
‘Is Father any better?’ she whispered as she climbed down the loft ladder.
Meg shook her head. ‘He won’t be able to work for a day or two. He’s really poorly.’
Hope went over to the bed in the corner, and although the light of the candle didn’t reach that far, she fancied her father’s face was unusually gaunt. ‘Have you slept at all, Mother?’ she asked.
‘I lay down beside him for a while, but it was too hot in there for me.’ Meg sighed. ‘I couldn’t take off any covers for he was still shivering, so I sat in the chair.’
‘You go up and get into my bed,’ Hope said. ‘I’ll watch over him.’
‘Wake me at first light, and keep turning the boys’ clothes till they’re dry. I don’t want them catching a chill too,’ Meg said wearily. ‘If your father wakes, give him some water. I’ll go down to see Lizzie Brierley first thing and see if she can make me one of her mixtures.’
To Hope, that was confirmation of how frightened her mother really was, for she usually pooh-poohed the concoctions Lizzie made.
Over the next four days Hope watched her father grow sicker and sicker. He was feverish, holding his head in his hands because it hurt, and he could barely get up to relieve himself. Meg plied him with both the mixture she’d got from Lizzie and one of her own herbal infusions, good for fevers. She sponged him down when he was too hot, and put a hot brick in beside him when he shivered. Yet by the fourth morning he was muttering deliriously.
‘Shall