Hope. Part 21

Back in her shelter later, she had studied herself in the small mirror Gussie had given her when she first arrived in Lewins Mead. Her hair shone and curled the way she remembered back at Briargate. Her cheeks were pink again and her eyes were bright. For a couple of hours she had even managed to think purely of her own future, rather than dwelling on the past, and it came to her then that Gussie and Betsy wouldn't see that as a betrayal, but be glad for her.

Since that day she'd had new purpose. There were many times she found herself crying for her friends, and she knew it would be a very long time before memories of them stopped hurting. But she had stopped wishing she'd died with them, and resolved to let herself recover from what she'd been through with rest, fresh air and food. She had the idea that she'd be given a sign when the time had come to start out again.

As she lay there listening to the rain trickling from the leaves, she felt this was the sign. She hadn't spoken to anyone other than the man she'd bought food from, and even then she'd only asked the price of his produce. She had glimpsed other people coming through the woods, but she'd kept well away from them. She couldn't hide here for ever, though; it was the end of August now and today's rain might prove to be the start of the end of the summer.

Something kept telling her to go up to Royal York Crescent and explain why she hadn't come last Monday. She didn't hold out much hope that Mrs Toms had kept the maid's position open for her, but she might have. If not, she could go round a few farms to see if anyone was taking on help with the harvest.

The rain stopped later, and the air was much fresher as Hope packed up her belongings. Before making her way down to the lane that led into Bristol she went over to the edge of the gorge and looked out at the view. The rain had not been heavy but it had left everything glistening. A ship was coming up the Avon with enough wind behind for it to skim along at a fair speed. It was the first time since she'd been here that she'd seen any ships with full sails and it made a pretty and welcome sight.

She needed to know what was happening in Bristol, whether the cholera had claimed other lives, and to thank Miss Carpenter for sending the doctor. She remembered her mother had always put great store in thanking people properly who had helped her at difficult times. She said it proved to people you were truly appreciative of their efforts. Hope also thought she should go into a church and say a prayer of thanks for being saved.

By the time Hope had crossed the bridge and reached Hotwells, the sun had come out again, and the earlier rain was drying fast on the ground. She took the steep lane up the hill to Clifton, admiring the many fine new houses on the way.

She had got to know this area well while selling her kindling, and often when she was cold, tired and hungry she used to take her mind off it by pretending she was a rich lady choosing a house to live in. Her favourite had been quite tiny compared with its grander neighbours, hardly more than a cottage. It had a dark red shiny door with a bra.s.s knocker like a lion's head, and lace at the small windows.

Once she had knocked at the door and a girl no older than herself had answered it. She wasn't a servant; she wore a fine blue gown with lace ruffles at the neck and sleeves, and ribbons in her fair hair. She gave Hope sixpence for a bundle of kindling and told her to keep the change. That little kindness had warmed Hope more than a hot dinner, and remembering it again now was a reminder that luck could change at any time. Perhaps today something good would happen.

As Hope turned into Royal York Crescent from Regent Street, she remembered how surprised she'd been the first time she came to Bristol that people lived in houses which were all joined together. Her father had explained they built them that way, because land was very costly in towns. He said they were called terraces.

Royal York Crescent, home to some of the richest people in Bristol, was an extra-special terrace because of its shape: one long, curving sweep of beautiful four- or five-storey houses on the top of the hill overlooking the city. Hope had been thrilled when she finally got to take coal into the drawing room at number 5 and had seen the view from the big windows. She could see the ships down in the harbour, St Mary Redcliffe's spire, then all the way across Bedminster right to the hills of Dundry on the horizon. She thought if she were mistress of that house she'd sit at the window all day looking at it.

A carriage was just pulling up outside the first house and Hope stopped to look purely because it had a coat of arms on its door similar to one that came to Briargate occasionally. As she stood there, the red and gold-liveried footman jumped down and opened the carriage door.

Two young ladies stepped down. One was all in pink, the other in pale yellow; even their dainty shoes matched their beautiful dresses. Hope couldn't bring herself to walk on past them for they were giggling excitedly and she was afraid they would laugh at her, suddenly aware just how woebegone she must look to girls like them. Her grey dress was little better than a rag, her boots had holes in them, and she had no stockings or hat.

All at once the front door of number 1 opened and a much older woman in lavender-coloured silk came out, almost running down the steps to greet the young ladies. It was obvious she was their mother by the joyful expression on her face and the way she held out her arms to embrace them.

Tears p.r.i.c.kled in Hope's eyes as she remembered her mother greeting Nell that way when she came home on her afternoon off. But it was rare to see the gentry display such affection in public.

The ladies disappeared into the house and Hope moved on, but the happy little scene triggered memories of Nell's wedding day. She could see her mother and father and each of her brothers and sisters, all dressed in their best clothes, faces wreathed with smiles. She remembered hearing her father making a toast. He said that he believed that his eldest daughter's wedding was the start of a golden era for the family.

Hope was too young then to understand what he meant by that. But she realized now that he hoped that one by one his sons and daughters would marry well and before long there would be grandchildren for him and Meg to love. But her parents were gone now, the entire family broken up and scattered far and wide. And she, the youngest and the one they had the highest hopes for, was a pauper, reduced to scrubbing floors to eat.

'You were expected last Monday,' Mrs Toms said, looking down her thin nose at Hope as she stood nervously outside the servants' entrance in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Mary, the kitchenmaid, had fetched the housekeeper at Hope's request, but the moment she saw Mrs Toms bustling down the pa.s.sageway with that tight expression she remembered only too well, Hope knew she was on a fool's errand.

'The friends I lodge with were sick and I had to nurse them,' Hope explained. 'I didn't feel I could come here until I was sure I hadn't got it too.'

Mrs Toms backed away, eyes wide and her hands fluttering with agitation. 'They had cholera?'

Hope's heart sank right to her boots. She wanted to lie, but found she couldn't. She nodded.

'Get away from here!' Mrs Toms flapped her arms like a startled goose. 'How dare you bring that filthy disease to this door? Out, out and don't come back!'

Hope felt she couldn't be carrying the sickness if she was well, but there was no point in trying to explain further, she knew Mrs Toms wouldn't listen. There was nothing for it but to turn and walk away.

'You dirty minx, you and your sort are spreading this plague everywhere!' Mrs Toms yelled after her in high-pitched hysteria. 'You should be locked up!'

At that insult Hope could not hold back her tears, and almost blinded by them she ran up Regent Street, her bundle of belongings thumping against her legs. She didn't slow down until she reached the Downs, the vast area of open s.p.a.ce where she had so often gone to before when she felt the need for quiet and solitude. Under the shade of a large tree she sank down and covered her face with her hands as she sobbed out her pain.

It was as if all the injustices which had been piled on to her from the day Albert attacked her at the gatehouse until now had finally broken her. Images of all of them rushed through her mind: dragging herself through the rain away from Briargate, arriving in Bristol so weak that she scarcely knew where she was, waking next morning to the squalor and filth of Lamb Lane. She saw too all the many times she was refused work, the terrible hunger which forced her to steal the pork pie. Then there was the collecting and selling of kindling, her feet a ma.s.s of blisters, her skin so chapped and raw she cried with the pain. So much humiliation, the curt refusals and doors slammed in her face.

Even when she'd got work up here in Clifton, she'd always been treated with suspicion and scorn: no one was ever really willing to give her a chance to prove herself. Then finally the only good thing in her life was s.n.a.t.c.hed from her, her two dear friends.

Why? What had she ever done to deserve such misery?

Other girls might have gone straight from that room in Lamb Lane to service at number 5 not caring if they took the cholera with them. But she hadn't, she'd stayed alone and frightened in the woods to be sure she was well. She didn't care that Mrs Toms wouldn't let her work for her again, she was a vile woman anyway, but her insults had robbed Hope of the last of her dignity, and now she had nothing.

Bennett Meadows was almost home to Harley Place on the Downs, when he saw a young girl sitting hunched up under a tree. He was just returning from St Peter's Hospital, and his mind had been on the cholera victims he'd just attended and how many more deaths could be expected before the epidemic ended.

Over fifty people had died in the past week, not just in Lewins Mead either, but in the b.u.t.ts and Bedminster, and there had even been two cases in the grand houses of Queen's Square. As yet there were no reported cases of cholera here in Clifton but that was thought to be because of its elevated position well above the miasma of the dock area.

Panic was keeping people in their homes. Bennett had noticed that the streets were quiet; the only shops that had a steady stream of customers were those selling items people believed would protect them. He didn't personally think that drinking copious amounts of brandy, burning herbs or soaking bedsheets in vinegar and hanging them over doors and windows could act as a defence. But then he supposed people had to put their trust in something.

The desolate way the young girl was sitting, her head on her knees, alarmed him. If she was sick he knew he must get her to the hospital before she spread the contagion around this area too.

'Are you sick, miss?' he called out as he got closer. He had become far more cautious since his first two cases in Lamb Lane. While it was not possible to avoid touching patients entirely, he kept it to a minimum and scrubbed his hands vigorously afterwards. 'I am a doctor and I can get help for you if you are.'

Her head jerked up at his voice and to his utmost shock he saw it was Hope, the girl he'd been keeping an eye out for each time he went down into the town.

'Hope?' he asked incredulously. 'It is you, isn't it?'

She had clearly been crying for some time. Her eyes were red and swollen and she stared at him blankly as if she'd never seen him before. 'I'm Dr Meadows,' he said. 'I called to see your friends when they were sick.'

There was a spark of recognition. She hastily wiped her eyes on the hem of her dress, and even tried to smile. 'I didn't know you,' she said in a tear-choked voice. 'I didn't see you clearly that night.'

'No, I suppose you didn't,' he replied, remembering how dark it had been, and that she'd put the candle by the patients, not near him. 'I was very sorry your friends died. I got there about ten that morning after you'd left. Thank you for the note. But tell me, what is wrong now? Are you sick?'

'No.' She shook her head furiously, then leapt to her feet, trying to smooth down her hair with one hand and wipe the remaining tears away with the other. 'I was just upset because of something said to me. I'm very healthy. Do I look sick?'

Bennett moved closer. Her colour was good, her eyes were bright despite the tears, and she was remarkably clean, her dark hair positively gleaming. He was as struck by her beauty as he had been on their first meeting; in fact she looked even lovelier than he remembered.

'No, you don't look sick, only unhappy,' he said. 'Would you consider telling me about it?'

Hope looked at the tall young doctor staring intently at her and wondered how it was she had recalled so little about his appearance that night in Lamb Lane. She recognized him by his soft, deep and kindly voice, but she thought she should have noticed that his eyes were like rich brown velvet, or that his complexion was as clear and glowing as a child's.

He was thin, with an angular, rather stern face, and his moustache looked as if it didn't quite belong to him for it was dark, while his hair was fair. Not handsome exactly, but he had a good face, and as he had been caring enough to return to Lamb Lane that Sunday, she knew she must talk to him.

'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 embarra.s.sment.

'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 ma.s.s 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 deal to me.'

All at once she found herself telling him about how she nursed them at the end.

'That explains why you were such a good nurse then,' he said. 'If we could get nurses like you at both St Peter's and the General Hospital we might not lose so many patients. There are a few Sisters of Mercy who are fine nurses, but the rest!' He shrugged his shoulders and made a hopeless gesture with his hands.

Hope knew the kind of women he meant. Dirty old crones in the main, who could get no other work and saw it as an alternative to the workhouse. Most of them were drunks; they often stole from the sick. With nurses like that it was hardly surprising few people went to the hospital willingly.

'I must go,' she said, getting up. 'I am going to try to get some work helping with the harvest.'

'You are worth more than farm work,' he said quickly.

'Let me ask about and see if I can get something better for you?'

'Why would you do that?' she said in some surprise. 'Surely you wouldn't want to present someone like me to your fine friends?'

He got up and looking down at her, he took hold of her chin and tilted it up so he could see her face better. 'If by that you mean rich or influential friends, I don't have any,' he said with a little smile. 'But my uncle, who is also a doctor, has many well-to-do patients who could do with a nurse to take care of them. It was people such as these I was thinking of.'

'Me be a nurse?' She c.o.c.ked her head to one side, looking at him askance. 'I wouldn't know what to do.'

'You did very well with your friends,' he said. 'Most of nursing is keeping a patient clean and comfortable and seeing that they get the right nourishment and take their medicine. I know you could do that, and if there was anything which needed more medical skill, I could instruct you on that.'

'But look at me!' she exclaimed, glancing down at her ragged dress and wincing. 'No one would want someone looking like this caring for them.'

'I don't think they'd notice much more than your pretty face and your soft voice,' Bennett said with a smile. 'But a new dress and a clean ap.r.o.n might make you feel more confident. I'm sure my uncle's housekeeper could sort that out for you. Come with me now to his house and we'll talk to him.'

'Why would you do that for me, sir?' she asked. She felt she could trust him, she liked him too, but Betsy had warned her that men only wanted to use young girls.

'Because I know you'd make a fine nurse,' he said. 'And because I think you and I have more in common than you imagine.'

She looked up at him curiously, unable to believe a gentleman like him had anything in common with her.

He smiled. 'My mother was widowed when I was still a child. There was no money and she had to work as a dressmaker to feed my younger brother and me. My uncle Abel was her brother-in-law, and it was he who paid for my schooling. Without that I wouldn't be a doctor now. But it hasn't been an easy ride for me. I might not have been hungry like you, or forced to live somewhere like Lamb Lane, but I've had to endure being the poor relation, to appear grateful at all times, and to follow my uncle's wishes at the expense of my own desires or needs.'

'Do you mean you didn't want to be a doctor?'

'No, that I love,' he said. 'But I am a fish out of water in society. I do not like or approve of many of the people my uncle expects me to mix with. There is so much hypocrisy, such meanness of spirit and ignorance. And precious little compa.s.sion for those less fortunate than themselves.'

Hope nodded, liking this rather odd doctor more by the minute. 'You sound like a sw.a.n.ky version of Betsy,' she said with a grin. 'I think you would have liked her.'

'Would she have wanted you to become a nurse?' he asked.

'h.e.l.l, no,' Hope chuckled. 'She was too much of a free spirit to approve of any work which might involve taking orders. But she would think that any doctor brave enough to come into Lewins Mead must have something special about him. I think that too.'

'So you'll come with me to my uncle's then?' he asked. He turned and pointed out the row of elegant houses facing on to the Downs. 'It's only over there in Harley Place.'

Hope looked at the house, the hope that a visit there might lead to something she could be proud of overriding her natural caution. 'I will,' she replied. 'But if he's rude to me I'll leave. I'm never going to let anyone speak to me again the way Mrs Toms did today.'

'She's a pretty little thing, I'll grant you that,' Abel said begrudgingly. 'But she's proud, and that won't go down well with my patients.'

Bennett was with his uncle in the drawing room on the first floor, a gracious room with long, elegant windows, a sparkling chandelier and fine Persian rugs, but the effect was marred by too much furniture. Large, overstuffed armchairs and couches jostled for s.p.a.ce between heavily carved and polished chiffoniers, side tables, bookcases and a vast writing desk.

The room reflected sixty-year-old Abel's appearance, for he was overstuffed too, a short, fat-bellied man with a penchant for floral waistcoats which often vied with his high colour and his checked breeches. Alice, his long-suffering but adoring housekeeper, often tried to persuade him he looked rather more like a circus showman than an eminent doctor, but his explanation for his loud taste was that in nature, the male of the species has the brightest plumage. Bennett privately thought it was a ploy to display his wealth and position.

Harley Place had been built during the Georgian period when the slave trade was booming and wealthy merchants wished to escape the noise and filth of Bristol. Abel had inherited enough money from his ship-owning father to set himself up here with a consulting room on the ground floor, when he was still a young man. Mary, his wife, had been very well connected, so almost as soon as his bra.s.s plaque was fixed to the door, her friends flocked to the practice. Sadly, Mary had died in childbirth just five years later, their son stillborn, and Abel had never remarried.

Alice lived in the bas.e.m.e.nt along with the two maids, and although Abel would never admit they were anything more than servants, they had become his subst.i.tute family. Bennett often felt Abel was closer to them than he was to his nephew and junior partner.

'She'll make a first-cla.s.s nurse, I'd stake everything on that,' Bennett said staunchly. He had been somewhat amused that Hope had refused to kowtow to Abel; he was a man who normally intimidated most people at their first meeting.

But Hope had given a good account of herself. She looked him straight in the eye and told him that she could read and write, and she'd been trained in service and was able to cook and sew. She also related explicitly the deaths of her parents from typhus and made it quite clear she understood the need for strict hygiene in the sickroom.

'If you are such a paragon of virtue, why were you living in a rookery?' Abel barked at her.

Bennett realized that his uncle suspected she was a prost.i.tute, and expected that Hope would flounder at his loaded question.