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Surely Enid would have said something, if she had overheard Monk? But Enid had not been in the room, only Monk, Callandra and herself. She was too tired now to turn it over in her mind any further. All she wished was to wash the grit out of her eyes, feel the warm clean water on her skin, and then lie down and at last stop fighting exhaustion and allow it to overcome her.
She was wakened by a persistent rocking and a voice in her ear whispering her name over and over. She struggled to consciousness to find a gray light seeping into the room and Genevieve Stonefield’s white and anxious face only a foot from hers.
“Yes?” she mumbled, fighting to clear her mind and free h
erself from the shreds of sleep. Surely it couldn’t be morning already? It seemed she had just lain down.
“Miss Latterly! Aunt Enid seems—worse. I dare not leave calling you any longer. I know how tired you must be—but …”
Hester hauled herself up, reaching out blindly for her robe, then remembered she did not have one. Even her nightgown was Dingle’s. Ignoring the cold—there was no fire in the dressing room, although there was a fireplace—she went past Genevieve into the bedroom.
Enid was tossing and turning and crying out with pain in a soft, almost childlike whimpering, as if she were completely unaware of her surroundings. She seemed completely delirious. The perspiration stood out on her skin, even though the jug of water and a cloth were on the bedside table and the cloth was still cool and damp when Hester picked it up. A good deal of the sugar water was gone.
“What can we do?” Genevieve asked desperately from just behind her.
There was little enough, but Hester heard the fear and the grief in her voice, and felt a quick pity for her. If she was indeed Monk’s client, then she had enough tragedy to contend with, without this bereavement added to it.
“Just try to bring the fever down,” she replied. “Ring for some more water, at least two jugs of it, and cool, no more than hand heat at the most. And perhaps we’d better have clean cloths and towels as well.”
Genevieve went to obey, glad to have something specific to do. The relief was naked in her face.
When the water and towels came Hester put them on the table and pulled back the bedcovers, ready to begin. Enid’s nightgown was soaked with perspiration and clung to her body.
“We’ll change her into a shift, I think,” Hester suggested. “And change that lower sheet again. It’s very rumpled.” She reached out her hand. “And damp.”
“I’ll get the clean ones,” Genevieve said instantly, and before Hester could agree or disagree, she darted away and started opening the drawers of the linen press and searching.
She brought the shift, and then went back straightaway to find a sheet, leaving Hester holding Enid and trying alone to take off the soiled nightgown. Enid did what she could, but she was barely conscious, and it was only too apparent that every touch hurt her and every movement sent pain right through her bones and joints. Added to which, her vision was so distorted by fever she could not focus on anything and kept misjudging where her hands could grasp.
Hester was intent upon causing her as little additional distress as possible.
“Genevieve!” she called. “Please help me here. Never mind the sheet yet.”
Genevieve turned around from the drawers where she was standing. Her face was white, her hair straggling out of its pins. She looked desperately tired.
“Please?” Hester said again.
Genevieve hesitated. The silence hung between them as if she had not heard, or not understood what was said. Then as if with a great effort, she came over and stood at the far side of the bed, leaned forward, her head down, and took Enid’s limp body in her arms.
“Thank you,” Hester acknowledged, and pulled the nightgown off and put it away. Quickly and as gently as she could, she bathed Enid all over with cool water. Genevieve stood back again, taking the used cloths from her and rinsing them out and wringing them, then passing them back.
Over and over she washed her own hands, once or twice right up to the elbows.
“I’ll get the clean sheet,” she offered as soon as the task was completed.
“Help me put the shift on her first, will you?” Hester asked.
Genevieve took a deep breath, gulping awkwardly, but she did as she was bid. She stretched out her arms, and Hester saw the muscles tense, and saw that her hands were shaking. It was only then that she realized how terrified Genevieve was of catching the disease herself. She was trembling and almost sick with the sheer fear of it.
Hester was not sure how she felt. A tangle of emotions rose in her. She could understand it easily! She had felt the same overwhelming horror in her own early experiences. Now time had taught her a more philosophical view. She had seen hundreds of cases, by far the majority of them dying of it, and yet she had never been touched by it herself. She had suffered the occasional chest fever or chill, but nothing worse, although they could certainly make one feel badly enough at the time.
“You are not likely to get it,” she said aloud. “I never have.”
The color burned hot up Genevieve’s face.
“I—I’m ashamed to be so afraid,” she said haltingly. “It’s not for myself—it’s my children. There is no one to care for them if anything happened to me.”
“You are a widow?” Hester asked more gently. Perhaps in her place she would have felt the same. It was more than natural, it would be hard to understand any other feeling.
