‘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 embarrassment.
‘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 mass 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 cocked 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 apron 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 compassion for those less fortunate than themselves.’
Hope nodded, liking this rather odd doctor more by the minute. ‘You sound like a swanky 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.
‘Hell, 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,’ A
bel 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 space 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 brass 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 basement along with the two maids, and although Abel would never admit they were anything more than servants, they had become his substitute family. Bennett often felt Abel was closer to them than he was to his nephew and junior partner.
‘She’ll make a first-class 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 prostitute, and expected that Hope would flounder at his loaded question.
‘Because when you have no money you have to take shelter wherever you can,’ she said crisply. ‘But that doesn’t mean I had to fall into the ways of the neighbourhood.’
Abel rang for Alice at that point and asked her to take Hope downstairs while he spoke to Bennett. To his credit, he didn’t embarrass Hope further by giving Alice any orders to see she washed and to find her some clean clothes, but Alice was a very kind-hearted woman and Bennett knew she would do this anyway, even if the girl was asked to leave later.
‘You’ve been bemoaning the absence of good nurses at St Peter’s,’ Abel said as he turned away to pour himself a brandy. ‘So take her there.’
‘I can’t ask her to take that risk,’ Bennett said in horror.
‘She survived nursing her friends,’ Abel said with a shrug. ‘You appear to have avoided being infected too.’
‘I don’t know whether that is just luck or the stringent care I’ve taken to avoid close contact with the victims,’ Bennett said. ‘If it is luck, it could run out.’
He had taken every precaution he could think of to avoid bringing the disease home. He kept a cotton coat at the hospital which he only wore there, he had made a point of keeping his distance from Abel and the servants on his return, and he scrubbed his hands until they were almost raw.
‘Test her pluck by asking her!’ Abel barked at him. ‘If she’s prepared to do that, I’ll find her a softer billet later.’
Bennett knew how his uncle’s mind worked. He wasn’t one for charity, and he was suspicious and narrow-minded. He probably thought Bennett was sweet on the girl, and his demand would probably make her run off, which was almost certainly what he hoped for. But Bennett didn’t think she would flee; her innate kindness would make her want to help those poor souls.
He half-closed his eyes, visualizing the filthy, overcrowded wards at St Peter’s which reeked of the most hideous suffering. She’d had more than her share of misery already, was it fair to give her more? To ask her to risk her young life for the dubious honour of maybe later being promoted to nursing some wealthy old crone who wouldn’t value her. Surely it would be better to let her go and find work on a farm? She might find love and happiness there.
But he recalled the proud way she’d stood up to Abel, her face as beautiful as a spring morning, and he knew he wanted some way of holding her in his life.
Chapter Fourteen
Hope stopped on the turn of the stairs, transfixed by her reflected image in the long mirror in front of her.
She couldn’t remember ever seeing herself in a full-length mirror since she was a child and used to play with Rufus at Briargate. She had of course looked at her face in a hand mirror daily, and caught sight of herself reflected in shop windows, but the latter images were never clear, and she always averted her eyes as she didn’t want to be reminded of her ragged and unkempt state.
But here in front of her now was the girl she had ached to be for so long. Her hair was neatly plaited and wound around her head. The dress Alice the housekeeper had given her was a maid’s dress, navy-blue with white collar and cuffs, and she wore polished boots. If she lifted the dress an inch or two above her ankles she saw the lace on the hem of a cotton petticoat and black stockings.
She couldn’t thank Alice enough for this transformation which had been achieved in such a kindly, diplomatic manner that Hope hadn’t even felt embarrassed. Alice said the clothes and boots belonged to a maid who had left to get married some years earlier and they were too small for anyone else.
It was this small size that surprised Hope most of all. She had never realized she was so slender. But then, her old dress had been Nell’s and it was so loose her real shape was hidden. Alice had remarked on her tiny waist, and laughingly said that all the Clifton ladies would be jealous of it. She’d also said Hope had beautiful hair and eyes, and that she understood why Dr Meadows had been so concerned about her when he found she had left Lewins Mead.
It was wonderful to feel respectable again, but to know that she’d made enough of an impression on the doctor for him to worry about her gave her a warm glow inside. She wasn’t even scared that she had to go back into the drawing room and see whether Dr Cunningham had decided if he would give her nursing work. The wash in hot water, her nails scrubbed and cut and the new clothes made her feel she could deal with anything he might say to her.
Alice said his bark was worse than his bite, but that was because he’d lost both his wife and his baby son. She added that the best way of dealing with his rudeness was to answer him back. ‘He likes a bit of spirit,’ was how Alice put it.
Well, Hope felt spirited now. She wasn’t entirely sure about becoming a nurse, but washing and feeding old ladies was certainly better than working on a farm, or selling flowers or kindling. She was also indebted to Dr Meadows for giving her a chance. So she didn’t intend to let him down.
She moved on up the stairs, but as she approached the drawing-room door, she heard raised voices and wondered if they were arguing about her. But she knocked anyway, and barely a second later Dr Meadows opened it.
‘Come on in, Hope. Alice has done you proud,’ he said, smiling appreciatively at her appearance. Yet she had the feeling that the flush on his face was from anger at something his uncle had been saying.
Dr Cunningham was standing with his back to the fireplace. He looked at her with a sour expression and didn’t comment on her changed appearance.
‘So you think you’ll be a good nurse, do you?’ he said curtly.
/> That sounded like sarcasm, and she wasn’t sure how to respond. ‘I’m not sure, sir,’ she said, clasping her hands together in front of her. ‘But I shall try.’
‘To prove yourself, d’you mean?’ he growled.
‘Yes, sir.’ She glanced at the younger doctor, noting that he looked distinctly nervous.
‘Then I shall place you somewhere where your character and ability will be tested,’ he said. ‘This evening my nephew will be returning to St Peter’s Hospital, you will accompany him and he will hand you over to the head nurse there. As I am sure Dr Meadows has told you, they are in desperate need of nurses.’
Hope’s heart plummeted. If Dr Cunningham had said he was sending her to the general hospital by Bedminster Bridge she would have been scared but not horrified because it was a newly built hospital and a good one by all accounts. But St Peter’s was viewed with the same terror as the gallows. It was a well-known fact that most entering its doors came out in a coffin, and rumours abounded about the brutality and the squalor within.
She was just about to retort that she would sooner return to the woods to live, when she saw a wily look in the old doctor’s eyes. All at once she realized what he meant by testing her. He hoped she’d refuse; that way he could feel justified in ordering her out of his house and his nephew’s life.
‘I can’t say I’m grateful for such a position,’ she said with all the dignity she could muster. ‘But as I know you wish to test me, then I’ll go and prove I have some ability.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Dr Meadows blurted out, and when she turned to look at him she could see dismay written all over his face. ‘St Peter’s is a hell-hole; there is no other word for it. And with the cholera raging there you will be in danger yourself.’
‘Bennett!’ Dr Cunningham said reprovingly. ‘I will not have you making such remarks about our hospital; the board of health has spent a great deal of money on improving conditions there in the last few years.’
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