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“There’s an outbreak of the typhoid in Limehouse, sir. She’s gone there to help with Dr. Beck, and I expect a good few others. I really couldn’t say when she’ll be back. No one can.”
Typhoid. Monk had no personal knowledge that he could recall, but he had heard the fear and the pity in other people’s voices, and saw both in the maid’s face now.
“Limehouse?” It must have been typhoid the cabby had meant, not typhus. He knew where it was, down by the river along the Reach. “Thank you.” He turned to leave. “Oh …”
“Yes sir?”
“Is there anything I could take for her, a change of clothes perhaps?”
“Well … yes sir, if you’re going that way, I’m sure it’d be appreciated. And per’aps for Miss Hester too?”
“Miss Hester?”
“Yes sir. Miss Hester went as well.”
“Of course.” He should have known she would be there. It was an admirable thing to do, and obvious, with her professional training. So why was he angry? And he was! He stood in the porch entrance while the maid went to fetch the articles and put them in a soft-sided bag for him to carry, and his body was stiff and his hands clenched almost to fists. She rushed into things without thought. Her own opinions were all that mattered. She never listened to anyone else or took advice. She was the most willful and arbitrary person he knew, vacillating where she should be firm, and dogmatic where she should be flexible. He had tried to reason with her, but she only argued. He could not count the quarrels they had had over one issue or another.
The maid returned with the bag and he took it from her smartly with a brief word of thanks. A moment later he was back in the street, striding out towards the square, where he knew there would be a hansom.
In Limehouse it did not take him long to trace the warehouse on Park Street now converted into a fever hospital. He could see the fear of it in people’s faces and the drop in the tone of voice as they spoke of it. He spent all the change he had on half a dozen hot meat pies.
He went in the wide door and up the shallow steps with the pies wrapped in newspaper under his arm and the soft-sided case in the other hand. The smells of human waste, wet wood, coal smoke and vinegar met him before he was into the main room, which must originally have been designed to accommodate bales of wool, cotton, or other similar merchandise. Now it was ill lit with tallow candles and the entire floor was covered with straw, and blankets under which he could make out the forms of at least eighty people lying in various states of exhaustion and distress.
“Yer got them buckets?”
“What?” He turned around sharply to see a woman with a tired, smut-dirtied face staring at him. She could have been any age from eighteen to forty. Her fair hair was greasy and screwed into a knot somewhere at the back of her head. Her figure was broad-chested and broad-hipped but her shoulders sagged. It was impossible to tell whether it was from habit or weariness. Her expression was almost blank. She had seen too much to invest emotion in anything but hope, or grief. A stranger who might or might not have buckets was not worth the effort. Disappointments were expected.
“ ’Ave yer got the buckets?” she repeated, her voice dropping as she knew already that the answer was negative.
“No. I came to see Lady Callandra Daviot. I’m sorry.” He let the case drop to the floor. “Do you want a hot pie?”
Her eyes widened a little.
He unrolled the newspaper and handed her one. It was still warm and the pastry was crisp. A tiny piece flaked off and fell to the floor.
She hesitated only a moment, her nostrils widening as she caught the aroma.
“Yeah. I do.” She took it and bit into it quickly before he could change his mind. She could not remember the last time she had had such a delicacy, let alone a whole one to herself.
“Is Lady Callandra here?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said with her mouth full. “I’ll get ’er for yer.” She did not ask his name. Anyone who brought meat pies needed no further credentials.
He smiled in spite of himself.
A moment later Callandra came down the length of the room, also tired and dirty, but a lift in her step and a quickening in her face.
“William?” she said softly when she reached him. “What is it? Why have you come here?”
“Hot pie?” he offered.
She took it with thanks, wiping her hands briefly on her apron. Her eyes searched his, waiting for him to explain himself.
“I have a difficult case,” he answered. “Have you time to listen? It won’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes. You have to rest sometime. Come and sit down while you eat the pie.”
“Have you one for Kristian?” she asked, still having taken only a bite from the one he had given her. “And Hester? And Enid? And Mary, of course?”
“I don’t know Enid or Mary,” he answered. “But I gave one to a young woman with straight hair who expected me to have buckets.”
