Chapter 17 #4
The other woman turned, holding the bucket stiffly before her.
Ellen, who’d almost started walking again, paused and her eyes widened. “Mrs. Chisom?”
Mrs. Chisom stood, bundled against the cold, with a scowl across her features.
“I didn’t know you were a Salvationist!” Ellen struggled to comprehend the idea that Mrs. Chisom was a soldier in the Salvation Army. She didn’t exactly seem like the sort to roll up her sleeves and delve into Whitechapel.
“I am not,” Mrs. Chisom declared. “I offered to knit stockings and read the Bible to the fallen women at the shelters.”
The woman with the sign smiled broadly. “But we decided that Mrs. Chisom would do better work out of the slums. Before we start her on the knitting projects, the Army Mother thought she could use some exposure to gathering donations and street preaching.”
Ellen barely stifled a laugh in time. “Are you enjoying your exposure?”
Mrs. Chisom pursed her lips. “Mrs. Booth suggested this, but I believe I am better suited to soliciting donations from the community or advocating for legislation. Better yet, funding evangelism.”
“We call her the Army Mother,” the woman told Mrs. Chisom with a friendly smile. “Worry not, we’ll have you sorted in no time.”
Ellen bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “I hope you find the experience educational.”
The Salvationist beamed. Mrs. Chisom stayed stone-faced.
Ellen hurried off, covering her laughter with a gloved hand. She hoped Mrs. Chisom would learn something from the experience, though she doubted the matron would show up tomorrow for marching orders.
She made her way past the wide streets and into St. Giles, heading for the parish church to attend Tina O’Malley’s funeral.
It was a pauper’s service with a cleric rushing through the words while making the sign of the cross over seven cheap coffins in a line.
A cart pulled by the saddest, scrawniest mule she’d ever seen carried the coffins from the church to the large hole in the graveyard, and coarse, rough men handed the coffins down to one another.
The families of all seven hung back, silent and stoic, watching their loved ones receive a mass funeral and group burial.
It was all anyone could afford. Ellen stood back from the rest of the mourners, not wanting to intrude.
She waved to Sean, who nodded back. The four children had new clothes and wore shoes, so the cousins must be taking good care of them.
She hoped Spitalfields had a midwife who’d take the time to make sure Opal was being fed goat milk.
Or maybe there was an affordable wetnurse.
Seamus O’Malley didn’t attend his wife’s funeral. No one missed him.
Ellen heard rumors over the next few days that he was living in the street behind his favorite pubs, drunk as ever, cursing his dead wife, his removed children, and the women who slummed in St. Giles and pretended to provide medical care.
If Amelia heard those rumors, she didn’t let on.
Ellen guessed Amelia was busy spending her scant free moments with Jiya, anyway.
Mark, however, heard them, and scowled at the unflattering image of his wife.
“Never go out alone, swear it. That man wants someone to blame, and you are his perfect target after you humiliated him in front of everyone,” he told her on a trip home from the dispensary one early evening.
“I only told the truth!” Ellen glared.
“I know it, and so does everyone else. So does he, and that’s why he’ll take any chance he has to get back at you.”
Ellen rolled her eyes. “He’ll have drunk himself to death before Easter. I’m surprised he hasn’t died in the cold yet.”
“Then we’ll be careful until Easter,” Mark replied, undeterred.
Ellen reached out and took his gloved hand in hers.
“Very well.” But her sigh masked the anxiety bubbling inside her.
She'd expected to begin her monthly bleeding yesterday, and she hadn’t.
That wasn’t terribly unusual. Ellen could be a few days late in normal times, and the past two weeks had been incredibly stressful.
Still. She’d missed four doses out of the nine.
She refused to think about it. She poured herself into her work and into Mark.
If she wasn’t thinking about it, it wasn’t happening.
At the end of January, she wasn’t just late for her courses.
She’d skipped them completely. And that never happened.
The knowledge she was eight days late for her typically five-day bleeding cycle finally came crashing down on her in the morning, right after she’d finished her time in the water closet and freshened to meet the day.
There’s no certainty, Ellen told herself.
I’d have to have an internal exam for certainty, and even then it’s still so soon.
She couldn’t imagine asking Mrs. Daugherty for that.
Pregnancy isn’t confirmed for certain until the quickening.
She did the math, trying to bolster her denial.
She hadn’t felt Constance move until she’d been four, almost five months pregnant.
Holding her breath, Ellen slipped a hand down her dress to cup one of her breasts.
She passed her fingers over one nipple and almost cried out in pain.
Nipple sensitivity and missing one cycle was confirmation enough.
Mark stuck his head in her bathroom, half-dressed. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
At his soft, sweet tone, all stoicism eroded. Ellen burst into tears.