Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [41]
"What is it now?" asked Fowell, his nose streaming. He looked at Sarah and raised his eyebrows. She gave a little bewildered shrug.
"Wait," Anna told them. Then, after another exchange of strange guttural phrases, she said over her shoulder, "As far as I can tell—though the dialect is a strange one—they want to save themselves."
"Save themselves?" shouted Fowell. His nose was purple. "Save themselves from what? Why would we have bloody well saved them from drowning if we meant them any harm?"
Anna went into another huddle with the sailors, then straightened up in her chair. "I have it now. How stupid of me. The word must correspond to salvage. It appears they want to stay to see what can be saved. From the water, you know."
Fowell let out his breath in a baffled puff. "Nonsense. What's there to salvage that's worth their catching their death?"
Sarah stared out at the gnawed, splintered remains of the Russian ship. She wondered what detritus the tide might bring in, tonight or tomorrow. A barrel of spirits? An odd shoe? A scattering of wet letters from home? The bodies of their lost shipmates?
But Anna wheeled herself past Fowell up the beach to Sarah. Her face was marked with the wind's radiance. "Let them be. Come along," she said. "We'll fetch them more blankets and flasks of hot wine."
Sarah tucked her numb hands in her armpits, turned, and followed the snaking tracks of the wheels up the sand.
Note
Anna Gurney (1795–1857) and her cousin Sarah Buxton lived in Northrepps Cottage, near Cromer on the Norfolk coast, and their neighbours called them the Cottage Ladies. As well as being a linguist and historian who published the first modern English translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1821, Anna was known for her attempts to rescue drowning sailors.
My main source for "Salvage" was G. N. Garmonsway's invaluable piece of research, "Anna Gurney: Learned Saxonist" (in Essays and Studies, 1955), which draws on unpublished letters and family anecdotes. I also consulted the anonymous On the Means of Assistance in Cases of Shipwreck (1825), which has been attributed to Anna Gurney.
Anna Gurney and Sarah Buxton acted as their relative Fowell Buxton's secretaries in his long campaign to end the slave trade, founded a school, travelled to Rome and Athens, and finally were buried together in the seaside graveyard at Overstrand.
Cured
P.F., aet. 21, dingle, admitted into the London Surgical Home Jan. 7, 1861
"My brother brought me in. He's a peeler—I mean a policeman."
"Do you keep house for him, Miss F.?" The doctor crossed his legs, and his wing chair gave a luxurious creak.
The walls of his office glowed with books. The carpet was thick under her scuffed boots; she wanted to sink down onto it and sleep. The pain kept her always tired, these days. "Yes, well, no. I used to be a cook with a very good family, you see, Doctor Brown."
He smiled at her a little reprovingly. "Mr."
"Oh that's right, you said, pardon me. I mean Mr. Baker Brown, sir." The doctor's face was smooth-shaven: no whiskers, even. He had the pink glow of a best-quality pork sausage, she thought, and almost laughed at the thought. Then she remembered the question. "When my back got so bad, I could hardly stay on with that family, could I? So my young brother, he's always been good to me—our parents have gone to their reward so there's only us now—my brother said he'd take me in till I was well again."
"But you have not been well for a long time now, I believe?" Mr. Baker Brown's eyes were tender, respectful.
"No, sir," she said, letting out her breath and feeling that familiar throb start up again in the small of her back. "I've been to the free hospitals and they can't do a thing for me. One doctor said I, what was it he said, according to him he said I showed no signs of organic disease, only the normal aches and pains of life." Her voice was