Chapter 10 #3
Ellen glanced around the room, looking for Amelia’s crutch. It wasn’t just that the room was so cluttered, though it was. It was so small to be the entire living quarters of six people.
“Sean,” Tina began, then a coughing fit hit her. She bent over, hacking and wheezing. Ellen watched, alarmed, as Tina grabbed the edge of the table to stay upright. Even the crying baby paused to stare up at her mother. Tina waved her hand at her children as she continued to cough.
Sean moved wordlessly to a pile of dirty laundry near the cold stove and started looking underneath as his mother continued. His grubby hands wrapped around a wooden stick, and he pulled out a crutch with a cracked bottom.
Ellen gritted her teeth. I really, really dislike Mr. O’Malley. She stepped forward and took the broken crutch from the boy, bestowing a smile she hoped was both friendly and calming. “Thank you, sweetheart. How are you doing?” Dirt and body odor wafted up to greet her.
“Fine.” Sean stared up at her, cheeks dirty and hollow.
He should be returning home from school—education was mandatory for all children under the age of ten—but he’d just turned ten and his father had pulled him out to work.
He spent most of his days now as a street sweeper in the finer parts of Covent Garden.
At least it’s not chimney sweeping with his father, Ellen consoled herself. Tina would report her husband to the police herself if he put their son in such a dangerous job.
Tina had quit coughing, and she picked up baby Opal from the floor, shushing the crying child.
“She sounds hungry,” Ellen noted. “How’s feeding her going?”
Tina shook her head, exasperated. “It’s like squeezing blood from a gourd, trying to get milk out of my teats these days.” She rubbed her swollen belly. “New one’s taking all my energy.”
“We can try some more of Mrs. Daugherty’s teas,” Ellen suggested, “but I think going forward we need to keep doing artificial feeding with goat’s milk.
” She paused. “It could be too late, but there are pills to end ‘menstrual blockages.’ I’m sure we could find a safe way to purchase a dose.
” Tina O’Malley needed to keep Opal and her other three alive.
Tina shook her head. “No, our priest says it's a mortal sin. Besides, it’s illegal and probably too late to do it anyway.”
Ellen looked her over, holding back a frown.
Tina was probably right—it was too late to do it safely, without hemorrhaging and perhaps losing Tina from blood loss anyway.
There were so few options for women like Tina.
So few options for women, period, but working-class women bore the brunt.
She’d once seen contraceptive sponges discreetly advertised in a ladies’ journal for a guinea apiece.
Tina had probably never held a guinea coin in her life.
Tina scrounged around in the wash bucket and pulled out a glass bottle with attached rubber nipple. She one-handedly unscrewed the top and dunked the dirty bottle in the dirty wash, swirled it around, and went to the window.
Ellen watched wide-eyed, a pit growing in her stomach.
After dumping the remaining drops of water out the window, Tina pulled in a milk bottle that had been resting on the sill and poured the chilled milk into the badly-rinsed bottle.
“No!” Ellen couldn’t hold back, and she flew across the small room to snatch the bottles out of Tina’s hands. “They have to be sterilized first.”
Tina looked at Ellen, sullen. “I don’t have time to do all the boiling and sterilizing you talk about.”
“Then wash with soap, at least,” Ellen suggested, starting the process over from scratch. She stoked the smoldering coals in the oven, then set the full kettle on to boil. In the meantime, she started scrubbing dishes with the handful of soap flakes left.
“I can do my own dishes,” Tina said resentfully, sitting back down in the stool and holding the wailing Opal.
“I know you can,” Ellen said, pausing to look in Tina’s eyes. “But you do them every day, and you’ve clearly had a long day. Please let me do this for you so you can spend these few moments just resting.”
Tina didn’t know what to think of that, clearly. To Ellen’s relief, she took the words at face value and simply sat on the stool. Opal, however, screeched and wailed as if she was starving to death.
Ellen winced. If Tina wasn’t able to get the support she needed through the winter, Opal might not make it.
She was only six months old. The icy water bit into Ellen’s hands, and she tried not to gag at some of the things in the bucket.
She kept scrubbing, especially all the bottles and nipples, until the kettle whistled.
Opal quieted for half a moment, obviously associating that sound with getting fed, but when no bottle magically appeared she started up her crying again. Ellen’s head throbbed, and she understood why Tina took the shortcuts from sterilizing.
She demonstrated to Tina and the second oldest child, a girl around seven, how to properly sterilize, fill, and heat the bottles.
The girl was too thin, and she shivered while she watched Ellen.
Her shoulders drooped from exhaustion of a long day at school and a long evening ahead.
Ellen was reluctant to place more responsibility on the little girl, but if the choice was between that and a dead baby, Ellen knew which she would pick.
I’ve been here fifteen minutes and I’m already putting too much on the wee girl.
Ellen glanced at Tina, who now held her baby in the crook of one arm and was feeding her with the bottle.
Opal guzzled the milk. I don’t know how she does it.
Ellen thought of herself eight years ago, reeling from loss and devastation. I don’t know how I did it, either.
“Do you have enough pennies for tomorrow’s milk?” Ellen asked quietly.
Tina grunted. “Half a day, likely. But there’s Eileen MacCready two rows down from us. She’s offered to help out if I pay her.”
“That’s good,” Ellen said with great enthusiasm. “A wet nurse is always better than goat milk, in my experience. Did she already wean her infant?”
“She had triplets a year ago.” Tina scratched her neck. “One died at birth, one died of the croup a few months ago. So she’s got extra milk to spare.”
Before Ellen could respond, the door burst open and Seamus O’Malley stumbled in. Ellen wrinkled her nose, smelling the alcohol on him from across the room.
“Is supper ready, woman?” He glanced between Tina and Ellen. “Who’s this? Doctor Amelia?”
Ellen stood, knowing it was her cue to leave. “No, just Mrs. Glenfall.” She picked up the crutch, which was leaning against the cracked plaster of the wall. “I’ll let you enjoy your evening.”
Three pairs of eyes from the bed watched Ellen leave.
“I don’t see why you invited her here. Always sticking her nose in places it doesn’t belong,” O’Malley huffed to his wife.
Ellen shut their door behind her, but his voice still carried through the thin wall.
“Is she telling you to ignore your wifely duties again?”
“Aoife, dear, hold the baby so I can heat up our supper.”
“Do you know how cold it is outside? I worked all day, brushing rich people’s chimneys, and I can’t come home to a hot meal?
” A thud, probably O’Malley slapping his hand on the table.
“I don’t beat you or the children. And all I ask in return is a wife who keeps house, cooks, and keeps me warm. You don’t even work all day!”
“I know, Seamus.”
Ellen ground her teeth. For someone who didn’t beat his wife or children, he was a nasty man.
She wanted to storm back inside and say something, but she knew she couldn’t.
Ellen could mouth off to O’Malley all day long, then go home and sleep safe and sound, for she didn’t live with the man.
She didn’t have to suffer the consequences, the way Tina and the children did.
So instead she walked down the steps and back into the narrow alleyway.
Her breath fogged in the air as she trudged to Amelia’s dispensary.
It was easy, oh so easy, to grow discouraged.
Surrounded by grinding, wrenching poverty she couldn’t change, babies who died more often than not, men drinking away the wages meant to buy milk for their babies, and so little hope for immediate change.
Ellen was as passionate and determined as ever in her work, but the payoff sometimes was so small she couldn’t help but want to hide under her covers for a few days.
Maybe Amelia’s nurse has a point. Maybe I should do more than work. I should probably find something in my life that brings joy.
Ellen rounded the last corner and the dispensary came into view.
And on the steps stood not the footman, but Mark.
He was bundled up from the cold, a navy great coat and hunter green scarf covering most of him.
His bowler hat sat low on his head. When he caught sight of Ellen, his face lit up like a Christmas tree and he started toward her.
Ellen’s lips twitched, and she hurried to meet him. “Let’s go home.” She didn’t even realize she was grinning until they were bundled in a cab.