Hope - Lesley Pearse [74]
The clock on St Nicholas’s church was striking twelve noon as Hope finally reached Bristol Bridge. It had taken some five hours or so to walk a distance that could be completed in two. It was almost miraculous that she’d got there at all, for she was dizzy with pain all the way and she was so weak now that she had to hang on to the bridge parapet to hold herself up.
Yet she felt no pleasure or relief that she’d made it, for the noise of rumbling carts and carriages and the shrill cries from street vendors was deafening and the river stank like a privy. People pushed and shoved past her; if they even noticed her they wouldn’t stop to offer any help to a girl who was soaking wet, swaying with exhaustion and clearly in pain. Her father had always said that city folk had no charity, and Hope had never felt so alone and abandoned in her entire life.
She thought if she could just have a drink of water she’d feel a lot better, but everyone knew you couldn’t drink Bristol water. How could she get a drink without money?
She hadn’t been to Bristol since her father died, and his description of how it was for him on that last fateful trip was ever present in her mind. She pulled her wet cloak around her more tightly, letting the hood hang over her face to hide her injuries, and shuffled painfully on.
As she stepped into the road to cross over to the church, she heard the driver of a carriage scream some abuse. It seemed to be directed at her, yet she didn’t know why. She felt so strange, as though her mind and body had separated. She could hear noise all around her, smell the horse droppings in the street, and even sensed someone’s face right up close to hers. But it was dream like, as though she were asleep.
‘You gotta get up,’ she heard a woman say. ‘You stay there and they’ll cart you off to the Bridewell or the infirmary.’
‘Look at her face!’ a man exclaimed. ‘She’s bin given a right good hiding.’
‘Who did this to you, love?’ the woman asked. ‘You nearly got yerself run over by that carriage! Maybe we should call a constable?’
The word ‘constable’ was almost like having smelling salts held beneath her nose. Hope came round sufficiently to know she was lying on the ground; that the voices she’d heard belonged to a young man and woman, and that there were other people standing around looking down at her. But she couldn’t seem to open her eyes wide enough to see them properly.
‘Don’t call a constable,’ she managed to croak out. ‘Just help me up!’
She felt them lifting her, but she swayed on her feet and the young woman held on to her. ‘Lawdy! You’re soaked through,’ she exclaimed. ‘You ain’t bin having a dip in the river, ’ave you?’
Hope knew that the woman was teasing, and that at least suggested she was kindly. ‘I like my water drinkable,’ she replied, and tried very hard to smile.
‘Lord love her,’ the woman exclaimed. ‘Well, whoever hit you ain’t quite dampened yer spirit, I’ll say that. Give us a ’and, Gussie, let’s get ’er in the church outa the rain.’
The church was very dark, but it was much warmer than out on the street and smelled of candlewax rather than human and animal waste. Once Hope was sitting on a bench near the door, she tried to thank the couple, but she still couldn’t open her eyes enough to see them properly.
‘I can’t see,’ she murmured.
‘Shouldn’t think you could, both yer eyes are swollen over,’ the young man said. ‘Who done this?’
‘My brother-in-law,’ Hope said.
‘Yer sister let him do that to yer?’ the woman asked indignantly.
‘She wasn’t there,’ Hope said. ‘He threw me out the house. I walked half the night, and then came on here this morning.’
‘Have you got folks in Bristol?’ the woman asked.
‘No, and I don’t have any money either,’ Hope said. ‘Do you know