Death of a Stranger

There was a noise outside the women's clinic in Coldbath Square. Hester was on night duty. She turned from the stove as the street door opened, the wood still in her hand. Three women stood in the entrance, half supporting each other. Their cheap clothes were torn and splattered with blood, their faces streaked with it, skin yellow in the light from the gas lamp on the wall. One of them, her fair hair coming loose from an untidy knot, held her left hand as if she feared the wrist were broken. The middle woman was taller, her dark hair loose, and she was gasping, finding it difficult to get her breath. There was blood on the torn front of her satin dress and smeared across her high cheekbones. The third woman was older, well into her thirties, and there were bruises purpling on her arms, her neck, and her jaw. "Hey, missus!" she said, urging the others inside, into the warmth of the long room with its scrubbed board floor and whitewashed walls. "Mrs. Monk, yer gotter give us an 'and again. Kitty 'ere's in a right mess. An' me, an' all. An' I think as Lizzie's broke 'er wrist." Hester put down the wood and came forward, glancing only once behind her to make sure that Margaret was already getting hot water, cloths, bandages, and the herbs to steep, which would make cleaning the wounds easier and less painful. It was the purpose of this place to care for women of the streets who were injured or ill, but who could not pay a doctor and would be turned away from more respectable charities. It had been the idea of her friend Callandra Daviot, and Callandra had provided the initial funds before events in her personal life had taken her out of London. It was through her also that Hester had met Margaret Ballinger, desperate to escape a respectable but uninteresting proposal of marriage. Her undertaking work like this had alarmed the gentleman in question so much he had at the last moment balked at making the offer, to Margaret's relief and her mother's chagrin. Now Hester guided the first woman to one of the chairs in the center of the floor beside the table. "Come in, Nell," she urged. "Sit down." She shook her head. "Did Willie beat you again? Surely you could find a better man?" She looked at the bruises on Nell's arms, plainly made by a gripping hand. "At my age?" Nell said bitterly, easing herself into the chair. "C'mon, Mrs. Monk! Yer mean well, I daresay, but yer feet in't on the ground. Not unless yer offerin' that nice-lookin' ol' man o' yours?" She leered ruefully. "Then I might take yer up one day. 'E's got an air about 'im as 'e could be summat real special. Kind o' mean but fun, if yer know wot I'm sayin'?" She gave a guffaw of laughter which turned into a racking cough, and she bent double over her knees as the paroxysm shook her. Without being asked, Margaret poured a little whiskey out of a bottle, replaced the cork, and added hot water from the kettle. Wordlessly she held it until Nell had controlled herself sufficiently to take it, the tears still streaming down her face. She struggled for breath, sipped some of the whiskey, gagged, and then took a deeper gulp. Hester turned to the woman called Kitty and found her staring with wide, horrified eyes, her body tense, muscles so tight her shoulders all but tore the thin fabric of her bodice. "Mrs. Monk?" she whispered huskily. "Your husband . . ." "He's not here," Hester assured her. "There's no one here who will hurt you. Where are you injured?" Kitty did not reply. She was shuddering so violently her teeth chattered. "Go on, yer silly cow!" Lizzie said impatiently. "She won't 'urt yer, an' she won't tell no one nufPerry, Anne is the author of 'Death of a Stranger' with ISBN 9780345440068 and ISBN 0345440064.