Hope

by Lesley Pearse

  A short while later Gussie was in the same state, and Hope was run ragged building up the fire to boil water for more cinnamon tea and darting down the stairs to fetch more water from the pump and empty the slop pail of dirty water. Flies buzzed frantically around the room as it grew hotter and even more foul, and sweat poured from her as she tried to scour the pail and bowls, wash over the floor and keep her friends clean.

  By early afternoon, Hope was truly alarmed by her patients’ appearance. Their eyes were sunken, their breathing very shallow, and they were no longer really aware of her ministering to them. She knew she must get help, but she had never heard of any doctor coming into Lewins Mead. Miss Carpenter, the schoolteacher, was the only person she could think of who might have enough influence to persuade someone to come.

  Hope had only met Miss Carpenter twice. The first time was when she went to the school in St James’s Back with Gussie in an effort to encourage him to go to lessons. The second time she had gone to ask the teacher if she could use any help in teaching the youngest children to read.

  She admired Miss Carpenter greatly, as almost everyone in the rookery did. Anyone who could be so dedicated to teaching the poorest, most disadvantaged children in the city deserved admiration. She lavished her care and attention on her small charges, cared passionately about each one of them, yet for all that she wasn’t an easy person to like. She was frosty, she rarely smiled, and there was an intensity about her that was frightening.

  The teacher had also seemed very suspicious of Hope at their last meeting. Betsy had claimed it was because Hope was every bit as clever as her, and far prettier. Hope didn’t believe that was the real reason. It was far more likely the teacher couldn’t understand why someone able to read and write should end up in her neighbourhood. Yet whatever the woman’s reasons for being chilly with her, Hope knew she had to try to enlist her help, or Betsy and Gussie might die.

  Hope stopped by the pump to wash her face and hands before running round to the school. Three women had just filled their buckets and were gossiping before returning home. As Hope washed, she pricked up her ears because one of the women was talking about a whole family who had suddenly been taken ill.

  ‘Two days ago they was all fine,’ the woman said, a note of alarm in her voice. ‘Old Ada went in there to see what she could do, but she soon come out. Said she didn’t reckon anyone could help ’em.’

  Old Ada was the closest thing Lewins Mead had to medical help. She was responsible for bringing most of the babies in Lewins Mead into the world, and laying out the dead. She was dirty, foul-mouthed and usually drunk, but those helped by her swore by her.

  ‘They ain’t the only ones sick neither,’ another of the women said. ‘I ’eard they got it in Cask Lane too.’

  A cold shudder went down Hope’s spine, for Cask Lane was next to Lamb Lane. She rushed off towards the school feeling even more frightened.

  ‘Miss Carpenter! Could I speak to you?’ Hope called out as she saw the teacher about to leave the old chapel building.

  Despite the hot weather Miss Carpenter was still wearing her customary plain grey dress and bonnet, a shawl around her shoulders. She looked round at Hope and frowned. ‘Hope, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I still don’t have any work for you.’

  ‘It isn’t that,’ Hope said breathlessly. ‘My friends Gussie and Betsy are sick and they need a doctor. I thought you might know someone who would come to them.’

  Betsy had always had a down on Miss Carpenter; she claimed she involved herself in good works because she was a cranky old spinster with nothing better to do with her time. She sneered at the teacher’s unfashionable plain clothes, and at her strong religious beliefs. She even suggested the woman got some vicarious thrill out of sticking her long nose into the rookery.

  Hope had always laughed at Betsy’s jaundiced views, unable to make up her mind whether she agreed or disagreed. But when she saw real concern flash into the woman’s sharp, dark eyes she felt ashamed that she’d allowed Betsy to influence her.

  ‘What are their symptoms?’ she asked. ‘Are they feverish?’

  Hope explained how they were and what she’d already done to help them. ‘I’m scared it’s typhus,’ she said finally. ‘My parents died of that.’

  Miss Carpenter looked very surprised and took hold of Hope’s hand, pressing it in sympathy. ‘I didn’t realize you had been orphaned. I’m afraid I assumed because you’d been educated that you’d run away from home hoping for some adventure, and that was why I was a little sharp with you. But that isn’t important now. I will ask a doctor I know if he will call on your friends, though I can’t promise he’ll come today as he may be out on other calls. Go home now, keep them warm and give them more fluids. It sounds as if you’ve been doing all the right things for them already.’

  ‘I haven’t got much money to pay the doctor,’ Hope blurted out, having no idea at all what a doctor’s visit cost.

  Miss Carpenter made a little gesture with her hands, implying Hope wasn’t to worry about that. ‘The good Lord will provide,’ she said. ‘Not everyone in this world expects payment for their services.’

  After checking exactly where Hope lived in Lamb Lane, the schoolteacher hurried on her way. Hope stood for a second or two watching the careful way she picked her way up the narrow alley, holding her skirt clear of the filth underfoot. She thought she must be about forty, yet she was as slight and slender as a young girl. Hope wondered why she hadn’t married, for though she was rather plain with her long, pinched nose and thin lips, there were plenty of much plainer married women. Betsy claimed that men didn’t like intelligent women, and Bible bashers even less, and perhaps she was right.

  Hope had given up on the doctor coming by the time she heard the church clock striking ten that night. It had been an endless, terrible day for as soon as she cleaned up Betsy, Gussie would need washing too, and they both cried out with the pain of the cramps they were suffering. Hope was swaying with exhaustion, dripping with sweat, and beside herself with anxiety. The fluids coming from them now were like rice water, and the pair of them were scarcely aware of their own condition. It was like nursing two large helpless babies, only she had no napkins, sheets or towels to make them more comfortable.

  Even more awful was the way they looked. When she held a candle near, their eyes seemed to have sunk into their faces, and their skin was mottled and dark. She talked to them constantly as she rubbed their limbs to ease the cramps, and even though they seemed unable to reply, she felt sure they knew what she was saying.

  Raised voices from below suddenly alerted her that a stranger had come to the house. In the eighteen months she’d lived here, she’d grown used to this early-warning system. Anyone coming into Lewins Mead who wasn’t known to the residents was treated with suspicion, and by calling out to the visitor, usually quite rudely, they made the stranger’s presence known to the whole lane.

  Hope opened the door and peered down the dark, rickety staircase. There was the usual cacophony of noise, and more light than usual for many doors were open, but not enough light to see who was there.

  ‘Up the top of the stairs, mister,’ someone called out.

  A wave of relief welled up inside her, for it had to be the doctor. She nipped back into the room, grabbed a candle and went back on to the staircase to light his way.

  The only doctor Hope had ever met was the one in Chewton that she’d been sent to when her parents were ill, so she expected this one to be of similar age and size. So she was somewhat taken aback when a tall young man with fair hair came into view.

  ‘Are you the doctor?’ she called down to him.

  ‘I am. Dr Meadows,’ he replied. ‘And you must be Hope? I’m sorry to say Miss Carpenter didn’t tell me your full name.’

  ‘Thank you for coming, and just Hope will do fine,’ she said when he reached her. ‘I’ve been so afraid as my friends have become even sicker since I spoke to Miss Carpenter.’

  Dr Bennett
Meadows had thought himself fortunate when his uncle, Dr Abel Cunningham, invited him to join him in his Clifton practice when he qualified. He had no money to start up his own practice, and he knew that in all likelihood any other doctor offering to take him on as his junior would expect him to work very long hours for a mere pittance.

  As a child he’d spent many holidays with his uncle, and he knew that most of his patients were wealthy people, so he imagined that it would only be a couple of years before he’d be in a position to branch out on his own.

  But to his disappointment his uncle was no different from any other successful doctor; he kept his best patients to himself and only allowed Bennett to treat the poorer ones.

  ‘Ask for the shilling fee as soon as you arrive at a house call,’ Uncle Abel had advised him. ‘If you wait until you’ve treated the patient they’ll think you’re soft and find an excuse not to pay you.’

  Perhaps Bennett was soft, for he found it impossible to demand his fee before looking at a child in the grip of whooping cough, or a man in agony from a crushed leg. And his uncle was right; he often didn’t get paid afterwards. At first this frustrated him, but as time passed he came to learn that the poor never called for a doctor unless it was for something very serious. He found he just wasn’t callous enough to take their last shilling if it meant the whole family would go hungry because of it, and if he could save the patient, the satisfaction was his reward.

  It was because of his altruistic attitude that Uncle Abel mockingly called Bennett and Mary Carpenter ‘Twin Souls’. Abel had been a friend of Lant Carpenter, Mary’s late father, but he shook his head in bewilderment that the preacher’s well-educated daughter had chosen to devote her life to a Ragged School. When Abel first introduced Mary to Bennett he had smirked and said that they ought to get along famously because they were both champions of lost causes.

  Bennett didn’t think a free school was a lost cause, and neither was the reformatory Mary had started up in the village of Kingswood. He thought it was marvellous that she’d persuaded the courts to give criminal children into her care, so she could teach them to read and write and learn a trade, and keep them out of adult prisons where they would only be corrupted further. She wanted her scheme to be used everywhere in England, and so far it appeared so successful that it seemed she might eventually get her wish.

  Bennett did admire Mary for her compassion, intelligence and drive, but he wasn’t so keen on her impervious manner, or the way she would often browbeat friends and acquaintances into doing her bidding. He had escaped this until tonight; she’d often invited him to fundraising events, and sought his opinion on treatment for minor ailments, but this was the first time she’d pressed him into making a house call.

  She said there was something intriguing about the girl called Hope who had asked for her help. ‘She is not typical of the young girls in Lewins Mead,’ she said, shaking her head as if mystified. ‘She is intelligent, well-mannered and very clean. I shudder to think about the conditions she is living in, but she cares desperately about her two sick friends and I felt compelled to do something to help her.’

  Bennett wanted to refuse. Everyone knew the rookery was home to the most brutal and depraved people in Bristol. Even the police wouldn’t go in there for fear of an attack. Mary insisted that his doctor’s bag should be enough protection, and if challenged, he was to say she sent him, but from what he’d heard from other sources, the residents in that neighbourhood would rob their own grandmother for a tot of rum.

  He had to agree to go though. If a slight, middle-aged woman was brave enough to go in there daily to teach, it would look very bad if a young and fit doctor wouldn’t do likewise to attend the sick.

  But his heart had been thumping with fear as he made his way through the rabbit warren of narrow, stinking alleys. He was disgusted by the filth, appalled by the number of drunken men and women slumped in doorways, and horrified that even after dark so many almost naked, malnourished and dirty children were abroad.

  His nervousness had increased as he climbed the stairs to the attic room, for although it was too dark there to see the filth, he could sense it, covering his nose to keep out the stench. Raised, angry voices were all around him, and he felt a rat brush past his ankles. This, he thought, was as close to hell as a man could get, and had it not been for the sweet voice calling down to ask if he was the doctor, he might very well have turned tail and run away.

  Mary Carpenter’s description of Hope had formed a picture in his mind of a very plain but kindly girl. But as he reached the top landing and saw her lit up by her candle, he was astounded to see that she was beautiful.

  Her grey dress was ragged and stained, she smelled of sickness and sweat, and her dark hair was plastered to her head. But her face! Huge, limpid dark eyes, plump lips and a perfectly formed nose. It was like discovering a rose growing on a dung heap. He was so staggered that for a moment he could only stare at her in amazement.

  ‘Will you look at them now?’ she asked, bringing him sharply back to the purpose of his visit. ‘I’ve tried to make them drink, but they aren’t taking it any more. I’m so afraid for them.’

  Bennett had been into the homes of hundreds of poor people since he came to Bristol, but he had never seen anywhere as grim as this girl’s room. By the light of three or four candles, he could see there was no furniture, just a couple of wooden crates which acted as tables, and sacks filled with straw for beds. Hope’s friends were lying on two of these and the air was rank with sickness and excrement, yet he could see by the rags hanging to dry by the window that this young girl had done her best to keep her patients clean.

  He went to the sick woman first, kneeling down on the floor to examine her. Her pulse was almost indiscernible, she seemed unaware of him or her surroundings, and worse still, she had a bluish-purple tinge to her face.

  Bennett stifled a gasp of horror for her colour told him exactly what she was suffering from. He had never treated anyone with the disease before, but he remembered the effects of an epidemic that had occurred before he began to study medicine. He had, however, studied the disease in theory and knew how serious it was, and his stomach churned with alarm as he recalled how fast it could spread.

  The young man’s symptoms were identical to the woman’s, but his pulse was even slower. Bennett looked up at Hope, saw her exhaustion and the fear in her eyes, and he was afraid to tell her the truth.

  ‘How long is it since they were taken ill?’ he asked.

  ‘Only yesterday,’ she said. ‘Betsy said she felt poorly the night before, and Gussie wasn’t quite himself either, but we all thought it was just the heat. Is it typhus, doctor?’

  ‘No, it’s not typhus,’ he said, wishing it were as the recovery rate from that disease was much higher.

  ‘Then what, doctor?’ she exclaimed. ‘Tell me, for pity’s sake.’

  He knew he had to tell her the truth. He must give her the opportunity to decide whether she would flee to save her own life now, or stay and catch it too. She might even have it already, for he knew it was a fickle disease. In some it took days to manifest, in others, like these two, it struck fast and without mercy, death following in less than a day.

  ‘It is cholera, I’m afraid,’ he said softly, a lump coming up in his throat at having to name the disease which frightened him above all others.

  She gasped and covered her mouth in horror. ‘Hundreds died of that the year I was born,’ she said, tears springing into her eyes. ‘I remember my mother talking about it to my sister. Can you make them better? Can we get them to the hospital?’

  ‘Your friends are too sick to move now,’ he said gently. His mind was whirling, weighing up how quickly the disease would spread to the others in this house. He recalled hearing some wailing as he came down the alley, which might have been another victim. Only this morning Uncle Abel had mentioned that there had been reports of several deaths among the destitute Irish immigrants, and now in the light of what he’d seen here
, he thought it very likely that was cholera too.

  He feared a mass panic when word got out that the dreaded disease was back in the city, and if people began swarming out into the countryside it could lead to a huge, countrywide epidemic.

  But these two patients were his primary concern for now. It would be soon enough when he left here to inform the authorities and let them decide what was to be done.

  ‘I will give you some opium to put in their water which will help their cramps,’ he said. He knew he ought to tell the girl that her friends’ blue colouring meant they were already in the final stages, but he couldn’t. At least the opium would make their deaths gentler.

  She might have been told about the cholera epidemic in ’32, but Bennett had seen it for himself, for he had been twelve years old then. He often felt it was that epidemic which had prompted him to become a doctor. His childhood home was two miles from Exeter, but in the city people died like flies that summer, often dropping in the streets. His mother had been terrified by the disease, refusing to let him go out for fear of catching it, but he had slipped out and seen the bodies being flung on to an open cart, heard the church bell tolling as the mass graves were filled. He could never forget the bonfires on which victims’ clothes and bedding were burned, or the fear in people’s eyes as they swarmed from the city trying to escape the disease.

  That same fear was in Hope’s eyes now; she looked at him as if knowing he was holding something back, but afraid to question him further. ‘I’ve been giving them cinnamon tea,’ she burst out. ‘That is, until they stopped drinking. I put mustard poultices on their bellies too. Was that right? Should I go on doing it?’

  ‘All that is excellent,’ he said, astounded that a girl so young could be so unselfish and practical. ‘You’d make a fine nurse, Hope. But leave the poultices now, just give them water with the opium. You must get some rest too, or you will become ill.’