Cousin Prudence (23 page)

The broad
, but somewhat irregular, street lead from Hartfield into the cheerful village of Highbury; a busy and bustling little town even in the miserable weather that this morning could not make up its might whether it was a wet mist or light rain and compromised by penetrating every item of clothing with clinging tendrils of damp.

The doctor’s house was a large one with a brass door plate, the dispensary beside it, a converted cottage, where two youths laboured under regular direction in the making up of both prescriptions and more regular nostrums for everyday ills.  The younger of the two, newly apprenticed and scarce more than twelve years old made a horrible face at Henry through the window which was promptly returned with interest.

Gervase caught Henry’s eye, winked, and pulled an even worse one, so quickly executed and so quickly gone that the gurning youth might wonder if indeed the big gentleman had thus demeaned himself or no; for Gervase’s face returned swiftly to bland well bred indifference as Prudence pulled on the bell pull by the brass plate to set up a distant and doleful clanging in the stygian recesses of the nether regions of the house.

“You are a bad man my dear lord
,” said Prudence equably.

Mr Perry was a little overawed to have a real noble lord talking to him, and somewhat inclined to puff out his chest when he heard that an eminent physician in York agreed with his ideas on dirt and proximity spreading typhus.  He was more cautious on the theory Alverston advanced from his Peninsular days however.

“Carried on lice!  Well indeed, an interesting theory, but only a layman’s theory of course… I am inclined myself to believe that the disease is spread by the foul miasmas that exude from an unwashed body; still I suppose there can be no harm in suggesting killing lice eggs in this fashion, they are disgusting things and it might too mean that I am less likely to succumb to being bitten when in the more insalubrious areas I visit…. Miss Fellowes
is,  I fear, Miss Blenkinsop, so delirious that I am not sanguine about her chances of survival at all; her sister however, who has also taken the illness, I believe may live.”

“Take me to this Fellowes house, Perry
,” said Alverton, “Prudence; go at once to George and ask him if I might nurse the girl in the spare stable at Donwell.  I shall not take her into the house, but there is ample unused stabling as I understand; if he will permit this, you and Hester shall scrub the floor clean and bring bed linen, bed linen that can be spared for I shall burn it after she either recovers or dies.”

“What about the boys?” asked Prudence.  Henry and John had been born to the nursery by a servant.

“George must collect them” said Alverston.

Prudence watched  as Gervase approached Donwell’s outbuildings with the unconscious figure of the girl in his arms.  She had made up a bed, filling a tick with crackling straw and laying a good thick blanket over it below the sheets so none of the straw might penetrate; old darned linen that might not be missed made up the bed, Emma having emptied out what was kept for emergencies. 

George had suggested
that, rather than a stable, the groom’s accommodation over the stable might be used; as he kept only a boy to see to his few horses, who used one of two rooms at opposite ends of the stable block.  Prudence had kindled a fire in the grate there and had put water to heat; she had an idea that Gervase planned to wash his charge thoroughly too.  She had left a nightgown of her own for the girl; and asked George if Mrs Hodges would heat water for her so she might aid Gervase and then strip and wash before returning to Hartfield.

“After all
,” she had said to George, “Mr Perry visits other sick people and he is adamant that it is washing thoroughly between patients that is the key.”

“Perry is an old fool who encourages flights of morbid fancy
,” George had replied, “but he is a solid enough physician and he has never brought disease to the house.  I will permit this.  You will however, if you do not mind, not be
close
to either Emma or papa until it is certain that you are not likely to take the disease.”

Prudence was willing to acquiesce; and Gervase frowned as she walked up to him.

“You should be safe at home,” he said.

“I have arranged with Mrs Hodges that I shall bathe and change and she will launder my clothes immediately
,” said Prudence.  “I cannot in conscience do anything else; for a girl should be stripped by a girl or woman.  It is unseemly that you should minister to her in any intimate function.”

“I do know that females have similar intimate functions you know
,” said Alverston, “I have mares.  I have also had mistresses.”

“But consider her feelings when she regains consciousness; her embarrassment
,” said Prudence. 

“You are as bad as my sisters
,” growled Alverston.  “Very well; strip her, wash her, burn her clothes, then go and strip and wash yourself – change to the skin.  Do not risk being in contact with lice; whatever Perry says I believe my friend was right.”

“And as you have carried her, do you likewise while I see to her
,” said Prudence, “even if you are no longer susceptible.”

He nodded and strode towards the back door.

The oldest Fellowes girl – Emma had told Prudence that she was named Kate –  was very light and it was easy to strip and bathe her emaciated body.  Prudence burned each garment as she removed it; the wretched Fellowes woman had not even put her daughter into a shift let alone a nightgown and had left the poor child in her own filth.  Prudence wrinkled her nose; but did not flinch.  There was an unpleasant rash all over the child’s body but she seemed not to notice any pain when the hot water Prudence used washed her thoroughly all over.  Prudence was as thorough as might be without scrubbing the girl and was as gentle as she could be on the welts on the girl’s back visible despite the ugly rash.  There was no rash on her face or palms of her hands or soles of her feet; otherwise she was covered.  Mr Perry had said the rash typical; so it was a sign to recognise another time.  Prudence, having put the nightgown that quite drowned poor Kate onto the young girl, which made her look even more vulnerable,  laid her on the bed.  She went downstairs and nodded to Alverston, emerging from the scullery.

“Mrs Hodges is heating you more water
,” he said. “She said she will help you bathe and has a copper of boiling water to drop your linen into as you strip.  She permitted me to use a screen.”

“Ah the woman is obviously the soul of tact
,” said Prudence; and went in to find a steaming hip bath.

“Off with those nasty clothes, Miss Prudence
,” said Mrs Hodges, a motherly woman, “I make no doubt but that his Lordship is right about those horrid lice; and there’s little to pick between Fellowes and anything that lives on

him if you ask me.  It’s as hot as you can bear and probably the more pleasant in this weather.  I was none too sure about having a noble lord stay here when Mr Knightley told me at first, but he’s that pleasant a gentleman!  And caring about poor Kate whose life is more blows than sweetmeats, I can tell you!”

“I fancy she will end up as my maid if she survives,” said Prudence, stripping obediently, “for having seen the state of her back and backside I will not be happy about her going home to such a place!”

“Fellowes is a drunken lout
,” said Mrs Hodges, “and as his wife fights back that poor girl takes the brunt… some do say she undertakes the duties of a wife for him when Mrs Fellowes denies him, poor creature; but what can anyone do?”

Prudence gasped.

“Are there truly people so sinful?” she asked.

“Ah Miss Prudence, there are sinners of all kinds and I would not disbelieve the blackest of sins laid at the door of that man
,” said Mrs Hodges.  “There now, Miss Prudence, into the water and I shall wash your back for you and help you with your hair too.”

“And after, Mrs Hodges, I shall help you wi
th
your
hair; for you must take like precaution for standing close to help me” said Prudence.

“Bless me!  I had not considered!” said Mrs Hodges “I should get one of the girls to help me…”

“Not at all Mrs Hodges; for I am one who has been exposed,” said Prudence.  “We women must stand by each other.”

Clean and clad in fresh clothing and having aided an embarrassed Mrs Hodges to wash her hair and deposit her clothes in the hot copper, Prudence sallied out, her shawl over her head like a mill girl so that the cold did not strike through her still wet hair.  She threw a small pebble at the stable-room window.

Alverston’s head emerged as he opened the small leaded pane.

“All well?” she asked.

“Indeed; the poor girl is seriously dehydrated.  Will you ask Mrs Hodges to make up some weak – very weak – lemonade?  She needs fluid and the slight taste might persuade her to drink.  And a baby’s weaning cup if she has one, or an invalid’s cup.  Making her drink is hard, but I have seen this with sick dogs and it will kill her more surely than the typhus.  Her mother is an evil old baggage!”

“I will do as you ask.  Gervase?”

“What my dear?”

“I have never loved you more
,” said Prudence softly.

Chapter 30

Prudence joined Alverston by Kate’s bedside next morning.

“How is she?” she asked.

“She has been able to pass fluids through,” said Alverston, “she will have no recollection of needing aid from a man; if she knows you have been part of her good aid it will be enough for her self esteem.  I have found that once the system is working adequately survival from
that
complication is usually fairly well assured so long as fluids continue to go in.  Will you be with her?  I could do with some sleep.”

“Certainly
,” said Prudence, “how often do I give her this lemonade?”

“Every hour, half a cup to a cup if you can make her swallow so much
,” said Alverston.  “You are a remarkable woman.”

“And you a remarkable man; few enough would do this for one of their own dependants let alone some poor girl who is nothing to you.”

“Mr Perry cares only to make notes on her and on the manner of her demise,” said Alverston. “You, in your compassion, had undertaken to care for her; so she became my responsibility too. And I could not leave her in the squalor that is the Fellowes hut….. I should have taken them all if I could have hoped to keep them safe.  The others must take their chances.  Children who are not otherwise sickly have remarkable recuperative powers, but this one is on the cusp of adulthood.”

He brushed his lips across Prudence’s forehead and was gone, to bathe and then to sleep. 

Kate still muttered in delirium and tossed; and Prudence bathed her forehead with a cool rag gently scented with eau de cologne – Alverston thought of everything, she reflected – and settled down to watch.  She

had brought up a newspaper to read that might be burned with less profligacy than a book; and with that she whiled away the hours between bathing Kate’s head and making her drink.  It was more wearisome work than any kind of strenuous activity!

Alverston relieved her that she might go and eat and – he ordered – go for a brisk walk.  Prudence was glad to comply, washing all over – there was probably no need for an immersion now – and changing her clothes, taking them to wash directly.

“You are good to undertake this extra washing, Mrs Hodges
,” she said.

“Well Miss Prudence, I take it kindly that you and his lordship do as Mr Knightley and Mrs Emma would do if Mr Woodhouse were not poorly and Mrs Emma in such a condition as would make it unwise
,” said Mrs Hodges who could, as she would herself have put it, see further than a nod and a wink.

Prudence sallied forth into the sullen drizzle, walking on the Donwell estate rather than towards the village.  There was a footpath she knew to the nearby hamlet of
Langley across the home meadows but she did not expect to meet anyone.

That there was a figure on the footpath made her heart sink; for it was Mrs Elton.

“Why! Miss Blenkinsop; surely you have not removed to Donwell?” asked Mrs Elton.

“Oh most certainly not
,” said Prudence, “that would be most improper with Lord Alverston in residence; he is renting the house from Cousin George.  I but take the air as a respite from my turn at nursing Kate Fellowes; for her mother is but little use it seems and I will not see a fellow being suffer so.”