Chapter 21 #2
“Mr. Robbins says you can keep your job as a crimper. He sent over a bottle of wine to celebrate.”
Sam’s nostrils flared and his eyebrows lunged together. “What?”
“Yes, a bottle of wine to celebrate your job. He’ll be that upset if you don’t toast him.”
A glowing ember of hope ignited in Sam’s pupils. A fragile flame, but still…
Daniel was ready, grabbing the half-filled glass of port and chloroform mixture. “To Mr. Robbins,” he said. “And your job as a crimper.”
Sam stared, the terror ebbing from his face. “I keep my place?”
“Yes, of course.” Daniel smothered a twist of guilt in his gut as Harry pressed the bottle into the man’s hand and guided it firmly to his mouth.
With a strange smile, Sam accepted the dose and swallowed. Instantly, Harry’s stiff shoulders lowered in relief. Another sip. Another swallow. Sam’s shaking limbs slowed, quieted. So did his pulse.
“You need a good night’s sleep,” Daniel prodded. “This will help.”
“Sleep,” Sam repeated sloppily, his furrowed brow relinquishing its fear. His gaze slid across the ceiling as if watching a seabird slowly circle the room. After a quiet minute, Sam gave a loose sigh, and his eyelids fell.
Daniel planted his wooden stethoscope against Sam’s thin chest. “It’s slowing down,” he announced.
Harry exhaled. “It was going like a steam engine about to blow.” He looked the man over, watching as the mottled purple faded from his face.
“He’ll need a dose of spirits every hour until the shock wears off.
The only remedy for putting down the bottle too fast is to take it up again, in moderation. ”
“You saved his life,” Daniel reassured him, troubled by the profound weariness in Harry’s voice.
Harry looked beyond the door to the hall where the wife waited, out of earshot. “For now. Is it cholera?”
Daniel found the chamber pot beneath the bed, dread rising when he saw the small white pieces floating at the top.
Once cholera tore all the bile from a body, it continued to strip away the intestines themselves until the only thing expelled was water and tissue fragments.
“Dammit,” he whispered. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
But could they go home? If infected, they risked the entire household—Horace, Nora. Daniel took another step back, holding his hand over his mouth and nose, keeping his inhalations shallow.
“What about his poor wife? The little girl?” Harry whispered urgently.
Daniel chewed the skin of his cheek, face grim. “We’ll give them instructions and check back when we’re prepared. We need clean handkerchiefs and something to fight the miasma.”
“And in the meantime?” Harry stared accusingly.
“We can’t save them all,” Daniel reminded him.
“I’m not talking about all. I’m only talking about one mother and a baby girl. They deserve better than this.”
Daniel knew not to argue. Turning away, he stoppered and tucked away the bottle of chloroform. Mrs. Healey stepped back into the room, the child only whimpering now. Her eyes riveted to her motionless husband. “Is he safe?”
Anything but.
Before Daniel could share the diagnosis, Harry spoke up. “He’s going to need constant nursing with a small sip of wine or beer every hour, along with a cup of tea. Absolutely no milk or cold water. Do you understand?”
She nodded with startled eyes. “What is it?”
“The hallucinations are alcohol withdrawal. That’s why he needs the spirits.” Harry paused, his eyes shining in the low light. “But he has…” The word wouldn’t form.
“He has a case of cholera,” Daniel finished quietly, clinically, hoping to ward off her shock.
He didn’t. She let out a torn wail and covered her mouth.
“When did his evacuations begin?” Daniel asked.
“Yesterday afternoon.”
He nodded, pressing his lips. Some patients died within hours.
Perhaps Sam’s was a tamer version of the disease.
He told her as much and repeated Harry’s instructions before backing out the door quickly as Harry repeatedly promised to check on her.
They escaped the oppressive darkness of the tenement, back to the wet street.
Daniel concentrated on filling his lungs with the cool fall air, but Harry slumped onto the neighbor’s front stoop, leaning his head against the railing.
“Harry?” Daniel bent down, unable to keep the trace of panic from his voice.
“Took it out of me, is all.” Harry closed his eyes. “The smells and the noise, and I was certain he was going to drop down dead when he started hacking. And now…” He took a mournful breath. “The cholera really is here.”
Daniel frowned. “Do you feel faint? Headache?”
Harry shook his head in a way that didn’t convince Daniel at all. They’d need to change their clothes before they went into the house. John, the orderly, could bring what they needed to the stable. To be safe, these things should be burned.
But Harry looked too haggard for comfort. Daniel restrained his hand from feeling for a temperature. The gesture was as likely to get him slugged as anything else. “You don’t look well.”
Harry stared ahead with unfocused eyes, the usual ruddiness of his cheeks gone. “Three nights I’ve been called out, and even when I could have slept, I…” He looked toward the intersection ahead, where a group of factory girls crossed the street, chattering on their way home.
“You aren’t sleeping?” Daniel pressed.
“Doesn’t matter.” Harry’s shoulders straightened and his face went blank and closed, a maddening habit he used for ending a conversation. Useless to pry when he wore this expression.
“I’ll take your calls tonight,” Daniel offered. “Nora can help, too. You can send some to the clinic.”
Harry shifted his bag to his other hand and shook his head. “Nora’s expecting. Even if she weren’t, she can’t wrestle wild patients like Sam.”
No, she couldn’t. Daniel slumped onto the step beside Harry.
“When she can’t work, we’ll be underwater,” Harry lamented.
We are already.
Daniel turned his head away. “If it were up to her, she’d never stop. She’s angry at me for signing Adams’s petition.”
“It was idiotic,” Harry confirmed.
A sigh ran from Daniel’s lips and joined the passing breeze. “I’m trying to spare her a firing squad of angry doctors.”
“You put yourself in her line of fire instead,” Harry pointed out, accurately. “And it’s all about to get worse.”
Daniel cocked his head. Harry was too tired or discouraged to even open his eyes.
“The Spectator had an article today.”
Daniel stiffened. Why hadn’t he taken the time to scan the papers today?
“A woman claiming to be a midwife in Surrey was arrested for murder.” Harry rolled his head toward Daniel and opened his worried eyes. “She apparently made a mess of it, and the mother and child both died.”
“What do you mean, claiming to be a midwife?” Daniel pressed.
“She knew nothing about it. Wasn’t trained at all. Doubt she’d ever seen between a woman’s legs. Thought it would be a quick pound, perhaps.” The iron bar of the railing indented Harry’s whiskered cheek.
“Dammit,” Daniel spat out. It strengthened his argument in the fight with Nora, but he didn’t enjoy the victory, not when it bolstered Adams’s cause. He turned back to Harry’s absent gaze. His friend was miles away.
Harry shook his head. “I can’t tell up from down anymore. But the Surrey case—it’s a tragedy. Perhaps I was wrong and I should sign the petition, too.”
“You saw how well that worked for me,” Daniel said.
“You and Nora will find a way to work through it. You always do,” Harry said, a shade bitterly. “Disagreements aren’t immutable.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow, tempted to ask how well Harry thought he knew Nora. Her stance on this issue was harder than he’d ever seen—and they’d sparred plenty of times before.
“You have Nora and a baby on the way. Even if you can’t see eye to eye now, that will pull you back togeth—” Harry stopped. Swallowed.
Daniel was trying to navigate a bog. One false step and he’d be swallowed in the muddy swamp. But Harry was his oldest friend, so Daniel ventured, “Is there something troubling you and Julia?”
A small bead of water slid from Harry’s eye. His first words were an indecipherable mumble. “What it’s like to never have a child.”
Daniel swept his eyes over the distant walkers, grateful no one had strayed within earshot. “Have you and Julia—”
“It’s been over two years, Daniel. Nothing. And when Nora revealed her pregnancy, something happened to Julia. I lost her.”
Daniel reviewed the past week, searching his memory for Julia. He’d hardly seen her.
“But…” Daniel closed his mouth. He couldn’t bring up that Julia had once been pregnant. Reminding a husband of his wife’s rape, even in the most elliptical terms, was no way to offer comfort.
Harry read his thoughts anyway. “I know. She could carry a child once, before I mutilated her. Why did I ever let her father convince me to do it?” Harry’s voice rose and broke, and he buried his head in his hands.
Daniel scanned the street and the windows behind them.
Confessions like this could get Harry hauled to prison.
This wasn’t the place for this conversation.
But he wasn’t sure he could convince Harry to move.
“She was your friend’s daughter. She’d tried to kill herself.
Her parents were begging for your help. You did it to save her life. You don’t know it was what you did—”
Harry’s blazing eyes cut off Daniel’s sentence.
“She was healthy until my surgery. I’ve never told you, but my God, how she screamed. She woke in the middle of it, but I kept on.” Harry’s already ruddy face turned crimson as he choked on the memory. “I deserve whatever I get, but she doesn’t.”
He needed sleep. A bath. Food. Nothing would help, remaining here. “We’re going home,” Daniel insisted. “We’ve got to tell the others about Sam.”
Harry’s face shuttered, almost as blank as their sedated patient’s. The sight turned Daniel cold.
“You’re right.” Harry stood. “Don’t let Nora stay here in the city, Daniel. I know she has ideas about immunity, but if your baby is lost…” He licked his lips. “She won’t want to live with being wrong on this one.”