‘Did she know you were there?’ Bridget asked, thinking of the poor young woman who now lay on a cold mortuary slab.
Ellen nodded. ‘She watched me as I prayed through my beads. Her lips moved but she never said a word, and finally she drifted off into a deep sleep and then slipped away without any fuss. I sat with her for a while then left.’ She glanced up. ‘I’m so thankful that it was Doctor Munroe on duty when Kitty was brought in.’ Ellen said in a softer voice. ‘He was very gentle with her and actually looked as if he cared, whereas I could see that some of the others thought that Kitty got no more than she deserved.’
‘You knew the doctor?’ Bridget asked studying her daughter closely across the table.
‘I met him in the Angel a few weeks ago,’ Ellen told her, not meeting her eye. ‘Danny introduced him.’
Bridget clucked her tongue and jerked her head back. ‘He’s one of those in Danny’s pockets then, is he?’
Ellen’s gaze rested on her hands as her expression became thoughtful. ‘I thought so, but I hear that he got the sewage cart to clean in Wapping Dock Street.’
There was something again in Ellen’s expression that caused Bridget to pause. Then tears welled up in Ellen’s eyes.
‘He was good to poor Kitty.’
Both women lapsed into silence, the only sound in the room the tapping of the rain on the window. Ellen took a deep breath and stood up. She rubbed the remaining tears from her eyes and smoothed her hair back into the bun at the nape of her neck.
‘I told the ward orderly that I was Kitty’s sister, that’s how they let me in. So that means the wake will be here then.’
Danny handed his hat and cane to the clerk as he walked into the main office of Cashman & Son, builders. The half-glazed door closed behind him as he took a seat. The other side of the desk from him sat Herbert Cashman, owner of one of the most lucrative building companies in East London.
Herbert Cashman was about Danny’s own age, but without his abundance of hair. Unlike many who tried to cover their baldness by combing what remained across the head, Cashman had dealt with his by shaving his whole head closely. Although it had been many years since he had wielded a pick or shovel himself, his hands were still deeply calloused, with a faint rim of grime under the nails. He looked up from the account book on his desk as Danny took his seat.
The chair creaked as Cashman leant back and gave Danny a long look.
‘I gave Black Mike my insurance last week.’
Danny reached out and took a cigarette from a silver box in the centre of the desk. Casually, he struck the flint lighter and drew on the cigarette, his eyes never leaving Cashman’s face.
‘How is the little woman? And those darling children of yours?’ Danny asked, crossing one leg over the other with difficulty.
‘Edith’s well. Charlotte is attending Barnsbury College for Young Ladies and young Bert is down in the yard learning the business the hard way like I did from my father.’
Danny took a handkerchief out of his pockets and blew his nose loudly. ‘You’re a blessed man, so you are, Bert.’ Another loud blow. ‘Two children and a loving wife to come home to.’
Cashman’s weatherbeaten face cracked in a smile. ‘From what I hear you’ve a nipper or two running the streets and several wives to go home to if you fancy.’
‘Well, you know how it is.’ He drew long on the cigarette again. ‘How’s Cissy?’
Cashman shot a nervous glance at the door then gave Danny a nonchalant look. ‘The same as ever.’
‘She was a sad loss to the Angel. She sang like a linnet,’ Danny said, thinking of the fiery redhead who used to draw drinkers from miles around before she clapped eyes on Cashman and cajoled him into setting her up.
‘Well, you’ve got Ellen O’Casey now to take her place.’
Danny’s eyes narrowed a fraction. Ellen had taken Cissy’s place on the stage but not where Danny really wanted her, underneath him. The familiar rumbling rage that was ever present when Ellen’s name was mentioned started in his gut. Pushing her from his mind, he returned to the man on the other side of the desk.
‘You’ve done well for yourself,’ he said, sweeping his hand around the oak-lined office.
Cashman took a cigarette himself and lit it. ‘What do you want, Danny?’
Danny leant forward and stubbed out the cigarette on the desk blotter. Cashman glared at him.
‘I’m guessing you’ve heard about Doctor Munroe who’s been appointed to the Parish Emergency Board.’
Cashman relaxed back into his chair. ‘I did. So?’
‘It seems that Doctor Munroe has been asking around about a few things.’
‘That’s his job. But what’s it to me? I’m a builder.’
‘The builder who was contracted to refurbish the dwelling houses in King Street and to replace the pumps in the parish.’
A sheen of sweat appeared on Cashman’s forehead. ‘I let the work out to your boys, and paid you for it.’
Danny leaned back and tucked his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat. ‘Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t.’
Cashman stood up and slammed his hands flat on the table, red-faced and glowering. Danny also rose to his feet. He saw Cashman’s gaze falter for a second and smiled.
‘Because, Bert, when our good doctor comes to ask about the parish repairs it’ll only be your name he’ll be finding on the dockets.’
‘But we shook hands!’ Cashman told him.
Now it was Danny’s turn to slam his hands on the desk. He did so, making the inkwell and quill jump with the force. ‘Get them fixed.’
‘Seventy guineas I paid your men to do the work,’ Cashman said. He jabbed his index finger at Danny. ‘There may be no papers to show but someone will tell him.’
‘Make sure it’s not you,’ Danny said. ‘I don’t care how you do it. Solder patches on the pumps, shove some plaster on the walls. As you said, you’re the builder. But know this, Bert.’ Danny balled his hand into a fist and held it at Cashman. ‘If the repairs don’t get done then Munroe will go poking around in all our businesses, believe you me, he will. There will be no young ladies’ colleges, no more of your old lady playing at being gentry and no business for young Bert to learn, because that bastard Munroe will finish the lot of us.’
Danny stood up, straightened the front of his striped jacket sharply, walked to the door and grabbed the worn brass handle. Then he turned back to the builder. ‘Oh, and will you be giving my warmest regards to Cissy, when you see her.’
Nine
Emptying the water from the jug into the china basin, Robert picked up the tar soap and washed his hands thoroughly. Many of his colleagues thought his excessive use of soap and water to be something of an eccentricity but, as he pointed out to his students, if one decaying apple can spoil a whole barrel, cannot debris from one putrid wound contaminate another?
It had been a long afternoon. Over twenty people and their families had arrived since Thomas had opened the door at one-thirty. This was not unusual.
Robert had seen a variety of cases in the last four hours. Sickly infants with loose motions, for whom he prescribed a mild binding mixture of ground chalk and syrup, others with colic who were given carminative powders, with strict instructions to their mothers about dosage, and a coal merchant with a foul-smelling wound for which he instructed Thomas to mix tincture of myrrh and aloes. He had grappled with tooth pincers as he pulled rotting teeth from both children and adults with gum boils and then packed the cavities with brandy and marigold paste to stem the bleeding. Ten or so children with worms all received a dose of purging worm powder. One poor trollop with the cartilage in her nose eaten away by syphilis was told to present herself at the hospital’s medical school on Friday so that his students could see one of the more uncommon effects of the illness. Lastly, a mother of six with a canker in her breast was sent away with vinegar of squill in cinnamon water.
Robert was glad to be finished. He hadn’t been sleeping
at all well and he still had Caroline’s letter to finish.
He settled down to complete his notes and observations when the door bell jingled. Closing the ledger, he got up and walked back into the dispensary.
A slight woman in her middle to late forties with a work-worn face was standing there. Although her dress was old, the threadbare patches had been neatly darned by a skilled hand. Her face and hands were clean and under the tartan shawl that swathed her head, her thick grey hair was tied back in a neat knot. She looked familiar. She rushed over to him.
‘Please, sir,’ she said, stopping at a respectable distance.
Robert could hear her wheezing. He glanced at her ankles. They were swollen.
‘What is it, Mr ...?’ he said, studying her closely.
‘Mrs Shannahan, sir. Oh, it’s not me,’ she said, putting the flat of her hand on her chest as if to slow her breathing. ‘It’s my granddaughter. She’s sick in her throat like, and burning up with fever, so she is. We only live in Anthony Street. ‘’Tis but a short stroll from here.’
Robert scratched his chin thoughtfully. There had been a number of cases of typhus in the workhouse. That often started with a raw throat and burning temperature.
‘Anthony Street, you say?’ Robert took his coat from Thomas.
The woman nodded. ‘Number two, at the corner.’
‘I’m leaving for the hospital in ten minutes or so, I’ll call on my way.’
Fifteen minutes later Robert made his way along Chapman Street, then turned right into Anthony Street. The cobbled road and piles of rotting rubbish in the street didn’t distinguish it from any one of the other dirty streets in the parish, and he wondered in passing what conditions he would find in Mrs Shannahan’s house.
To his surprise, when he stopped in front of number two, he was confronted by a white scrubbed step and polished wooden knocker. Before he could make use of it Mrs Shannahan appeared at the door.
‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, as he squeezed past her into the small downstairs room.
The cottage, like the rest in the street, comprised one room downstairs and another above it, the access to which was via a flight of narrow stairs boxed in by a thin partition at one side of the room. He looked around. The furniture in the room, though poor, was well maintained. There were two armchairs with threadbare upholstery, but both had patchwork covers over them, giving the room a cheerful appearance, as did the glowing kitchen range. The floor, although made of beaten earth, was swept and a large rag rug covered the centre of it. A faint smell of meat emanated from the pot simmering on the back of the range, while cups sparkled on hooks from the mantelshelf above. There were faded pictures around the walls of what Robert guessed must be Irish country scenes.
‘If you please, Doctor, my granddaughter is this way,’ Mrs Shannahan said, leading him towards the stairs. Robert left the cosy living room and ascended the stairs after her.
He found the same degree of order and tidiness in the bedroom. There was a large bed in the middle of which lay a young girl of about twelve, covered with clean sheets and a large eiderdown. She clutched an old rag doll. Robert walked over the rag rug and gazed down at his patient.
‘I fetched the doctor to see you, Josie,’ the older woman said, resting an affectionate hand on her granddaughter’s forehead.
Josie swallowed visibly and winced. ‘It hurts, Gran,’ she said.
‘Aroon, aroon, my angel,’ the older woman said, sitting down on the bed beside her. ‘Yer Mammy’ll be back soon, I’m sure.’
‘Who’s this then?’ Robert said, smiling widely at his young patient and pointing to the doll clutched to her.
‘It’s Waisy,’ Josie said, swallowing and grimacing as she did.
‘Waisey? I’ve never heard that name before. Is it Irish?’ Robert asked, laying his hands on her forehead lightly. It was hot but not dangerously so.
Josie looked up at him with bright green eyes and gave him a wide smile. ‘It’s not Irish. I just couldn’t say Daisy when I got her.’
Robert saw a smile hover around the young girl’s mouth and smiled down at her.
‘Now, Josie, let me look at your throat.’
Under the anxious eye of her grandmother, Robert looked down Josie’s throat and felt her pulse. Then he opened his bag and listened to her chest with his newly acquired stethoscope of polished cow’s horn and leather. He stood up.
‘I’m pleased to tell you, Mrs Shannahan, that your granddaughter has no more than the quinsy,’ Robert said, to the obvious relief of the older woman. ‘Call in tomorrow and I’ll get my assistant to mix you up a gargle and some Peruvian willow powder for her. Until then give her plenty to drink and keep her cool.’ He turned to the girl on the bed. ‘You’ll be up and around by the end of the week, Josie, or I’m not a Scotsman.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ she croaked, putting on a brave smile.
He followed Bridget down into the snug living room, thankful that the last patient he would see that day would make a speedy recovery.
‘Can I offer you a dish of tea before you go?’ Mr Shannahan asked, turning her motherly instincts on him.
A polite refusal sprang to Robert’s lips, but it stayed there. He was weary and, comfortable though his rooms at the hospital were, they were not a home. Although the room he now stood in was poor, it was a home, and a loving home at that. He dropped his bag onto the table and smiled at Bridget.
‘That would be most kind of you, Mrs Shannahan.’
As his hostess collected the cups and arranged them on the table Robert took the opportunity to look around the room more closely. His eyes fell on a stack of books on the mantelshelf. There was a Bible, a couple of almanacs, and three of four copies of the Penny Magazine amongst others. He reached up and took down a book. It was a much-mangled copy of Pride and Prejudice. The cover was missing and there was a brown stain that ran though the first few pages, but after that the text was clear. He placed it back beside Munster Village, Thaddeus of Warsaw and The Mysteries of Udolpho.
‘You enjoy reading, Mrs Shannahan,’ he said, holding up the slim volume and trying not to look surprised that she could read at all.
‘God bless you, Doctor, I can make out my name but no more. Those,’ she indicated the books on the shelf with her head as she poured the boiling water into the teapot, ‘are my daughter Ellie’s. It’s her that’s the reader. Like her father is my Ellie, clever like,’ Bridget glanced at the window. ‘I’m surprised she’s not back by now.’
She handed Robert the cup of tea. He sat down, weariness stealing over him as he sank back into the bright patchwork. ‘She only went out to deliver the done laundry. I wonder what could be keeping her.’
‘It’s just the three of you living here?’ he asked. She nodded. He noticed that the family food was not left out as in most poor homes he had visited. Even the milk that had been used to whiten his tea was taken from a covered jug. ‘You and your daughter take in washing then, Mrs Shannahan?’
‘Indeed, sir. We wash in the morning, iron and return in the afternoon and sew in the evening. Josie helps, as she goes to school twice a week to learn her letters. Ellie insists on it, she does.’
Robert’s eyebrows nearly disappeared under the rebellious hair on his forehead at this piece of news. It all came together. Mrs Shannahan and her educated daughter were obviously of respectable Irish stock who had fallen on hard times. The neat clean house, the washing that gave the family its income without asking for parish relief. Mrs Shannahan’s genteel Irish accent, and spending money on what most of the neighbourhood would be considered unnecessary - schooling - all pointed to that conclusion. He drained the last of the tea.
The front door opened.
‘Here’s Ellie now, Doctor,’ Bridget said.
Robert stood up and found himself face to face with Ellen O’Casey.
It was just twilight as Ellen crossed over from Katharine Street and saw the light already in the window of her home. Thank God she didn�
�t have to sing tonight and could spend the time with Josie. With a quick wave at the rat-catcher, with his day’s work dangling head down from his pole and his terrier at his heels, Ellen put her hand to the door and walked in.
Her breath fled her body and her head spun as she found herself staring into the equally astonished face of Robert Munroe. She looked to her mother then back to the doctor.
‘Josie,’ she shouted, dropping her basket. Its contents spilled on the floor as she fled to the stairs. Doctor Munroe caught her arm.
‘There is no need for alarm. Josie is quite well, Mrs O’Casey,’ he said, as she turned to him. His eyes were tired but as they rested on her they were warm and tender. She melted for a second, then she snatched her arm away and glared at him.
‘You know my Ellie?’ Bridget said to the doctor as she gathered up the shopping from off the floor.
‘I have had the pleasure of hearing her sing on several occasions in the Angel and Crown,’ he said, still looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face. Ellen strode over to the corner kitchen range and whipped open the ash grate underneath. Picking up a set of fire tongs from the hearth she fished around for a moment or two, then pulled out a battered tin box. Flipping the lid back carefully she reached in and retrieved something then closed the box and shoved it back into the ashes.
‘Sixpence is the usual fee for a physician’s time, is it not?’ Ellen said, thrusting a still hot coin at him.
‘That’s quite all right, Mrs O’Casey.’ Ellen thrust it at him again.
‘We may be poor but we don’t have to take charity yet, thank you,’ she said, daring him to refuse the payment again. He took it and slipped the coin into the breast pocket of his waistcoat.
She could barely spare the coin from her funds but Ellen wasn’t going to be indebted to Robert Munroe.
No Cure for Love Page 9