Chapter Nineteen
“Where are we going?” Rynn asked as a taxi pulled over and stopped.
“Chapel Street.” Bundling her inside, he spoke to her and the driver at the same time.
“Have you medicine?” she asked him in a low voice as the taxi got underway, because she had nothing of the sort with her.
If Seamus was in the state Donal claimed, he was going to need more than just her nursing skills to help him.
“We had some iodine. It’s gone now. It didn’t do much good anyway.”
Rynn leaned forward to speak to the driver. “Take us to the nearest apothecary, please. And then I’ll need you to pull over
and wait.”
“Yes, missus.”
A moment later, the taxi pulled to the curb beside an apothecary shop.
“You stay here. I’ll be as quick as I can,” she said to Donal, and went inside.
It wasn’t very many minutes later that she emerged with several rolls of bandages and a specially compounded jar of BIPP, the miraculous new treatment for infected wounds that had been created by a woman doctor right there in London at the start of the war.
Having grown familiar with it in the course of her work, Rynn was able to rattle off the ingredients and the proportions from memory so that the apothecary could easily make up what she needed.
“Still the managing sort, I see,” Donal said, after she’d gotten back in the taxi and directed the driver to proceed. Which
he did, pulling out into heavy traffic with a blare of his horn at an oncoming tram.
“Depending on the company. Some need more managing than others.” With that pointed rejoinder, she handed over what was left
of her money. He glanced at what she gave him and thrust it into his pocket.
“So, you’ve married,” he said next, and from the way he looked at her she knew he had a great deal he wanted to say about
that.
“I have.”
“To the son of a duke, forsooth.”
“Yes.”
“That was some quick work. The speed of it’s put a question in my mind about exactly what was going on at home while I was
off at war.”
“If your mind was capable of coming up with anything beyond rank stupidity, you’d know better.” Her tone, and the blistering
look she gave him, was daunting enough to stop that line of conversation, for the time being at least. His mouth tightened,
but he said nothing more and looked out the window instead.
“Pardon me, sir and missus, but we’ll have to take the long way around, because the worthless Socialists are marching down
Lisson Street,” the driver said.
So intent were they on what they weren’t saying, the interruption startled them both.
“That’s fine,” Donal answered, unsurprised.
A protest march by one disgruntled group or another had become a regular occurrence as the euphoria of the war being over was replaced by the harsh reality of a worsening economy, an overcrowded city and tens of thousands of demobbed soldiers returning home to the reality of no jobs.
After that, mindful of the driver’s listening ears, neither of them said anything more until they reached their destination,
which was in a part of London Rynn had never visited before. It was poor, and dirty, rife with peddlers hawking their wares
and children in ragged clothing running unsupervised through the streets and beggars on seemingly every corner.
Chapel Street itself was a narrow, cobbled avenue lined with Georgian and Victorian houses on what looked, from the wash hung
out to dry from various windows and the slimy nature of the cobblestones underfoot and the sheer number of persons, animals
and vehicles crowded into it, like something out of one of the popular novels by Charles Dickens. There was no space between
the houses. They rose up in a solid wall on both sides, blocking out the sun. It was dim and grim and noisy, and, as Rynn
noted as she slid out of the taxi, smelled of unpleasant things.
“Couldn’t you find somewhere less busy?” Rynn asked under her breath as Donal herded her toward the nearest doorway. What
she meant was, wouldn’t it have been better to find a more deserted area to hide out in, but with so many people around she
was careful of being overheard.
Donal shook his head. “It’s all immigrants here. There’s Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Italian—all coming and going all the time.
The whole street is lodging houses, both sides. We don’t attract any notice.”
He pushed open the door, and Rynn walked inside. She was just taking in grimy yellow walls and a peeling ceiling when a commotion
to her left drew her gaze.
“Seven come eleven,” a male voice yelled, making her jump.
Her gaze flew to a group of men crouched on the floor of a small open room just inside the door.
Something rattled across the hardwood, a wordless shout went up as several of them jumped to their feet with their fists raised in jubilation and Rynn realized they were playing a game of dice.
“If you’re planning on staying on, Mr. Brady, I’ll remind you that the rent on 314 is past due,” the woman behind a desk on
the other side of the entry hall sang out as Donal hustled Rynn past.
“And you’ll be having it shortly, Mrs. Clark,” Donal replied. By then they’d reached the staircase at the far end of the hall.
At his urging Rynn started up, and he followed her. The banister was rickety, while the steps themselves were dirty and littered
with debris. The strong smell of cooking cabbage and the wail of a crying child intensified as she climbed.
“Mr. Brady?” she questioned over her shoulder as another shout went up from below.
He shrugged. “As good a name as any.”
The room he took her to was on the third floor, number 314 as the woman had said. It was cluttered and dark despite the feeble
sunbeam trying to force its way through the one grimy window. The first thing that struck Rynn as she stepped inside was a
wall of heat from the gas fire—and the nauseating smell of rotting meat. She instantly recognized that for what it was: putrefying
flesh.
It meant nothing good for Seamus.
“I’m going to need hot water,” she said to Donal as he closed the door behind them. A glance around the room had shown her
a range with a kettle on it in one corner along with a pair of cupboards. Combined, they made up what passed for a tiny kitchen.
“I’ll see to it.” He headed toward the range.
“Where’s Fergus?” she asked, having ascertained that he was not present.
Removing her hat and jacket, she dropped them and her pocketbook on the small dining table in the middle of the room as she walked toward the iron bedstead in the far corner.
Seamus lay there on a thin mattress under a pile of blankets.
He was stretched out on his back with only his head and right leg uncovered.
His leg was wrapped from knee to crotch in makeshift bandages, and a grubby sock adorned his exposed foot.
He was pale, shivering, and his eyes were closed.
“He was with us in the warehouse, but we lost him after. We were next door to a freight yard, and that’s where we ran. I managed
to get Seamus hidden away in a railway car behind some sacks of grain. We stayed put while the soldiers searched and then
the next day the train brought us to London. Where Fergus has got to, I don’t know.”
“If he has any sense, he’s left you two to it.” Her voice was tart. Depositing the bag with her nursing supplies on the bedside
table, she bent over Seamus, laying her hand on his forehead. “Seamus.”
“Who’s that?” His eyes flew open. They were bleary, bloodshot. His skin was hot with fever even as he shivered as if he were
freezing cold.
“It’s me,” Rynn said, but Seamus stared at her like he’d never seen her before.
“I’ve brought Rynn,” Donal said at the same time. Having lit the fire under the kettle, he was walking toward them. He, too,
had shed his coat and hat. In his shirtsleeves, with his shock of black hair as unruly as if it hadn’t seen a comb in days,
he looked more like his old familiar self. “She’ll get you fixed up, don’t worry.”
“Rynn? But she’s in England. Remember, we saw her picture in the newspaper.” Seamus shook his head fretfully.
“We’re in England, too.” Donal stopped beside the bed and frowned down at his cousin. “He’s been shivering like this since
last night. How he can be cold in this oven I’ve no idea.”
“It’s the fever,” Rynn said, then shifted her focus to her patient. “I’m here, Seamus,” Rynn assured him, and gently gripped his ankle. There it was, what she’d been hoping for: a pulse. At least there was some blood flow to the leg.
“Rynn?” Seamus peered at her.
“That’s right,” she said, and started working to untie the knot above his knee that would allow her to unwind the bandage
that consisted of what looked like someone’s—probably Donal’s—torn-up undershirt.
“I’m shot.” Seamus closed his eyes. “Hurts like bedamned.”
“Yes, I know. I’m just going to have a look at the wound.” Once the water was hot, she would clean and drain it, which she
could already tell was going to be necessary. But first she had to remove the bandage, and the knot was proving impossible
to undo.
She looked at Donal. “Do you have scissors? Or a knife?”
“Scissors, no. A knife . . .” He fetched her one from kitchen, held it out to her. “That I can do.”
It was big and cumbersome, but the blade seemed sharp enough. She slid it under the knot and started to saw at the cloth.
Seamus groaned and arched like she was taking the knife to his leg. The blankets shifted enough so that she could see that
he was, fortunately, wearing drawers. Not that she hadn’t nursed men who weren’t, but . . .