“We can help.” She swallowed. Then she shook him off.
“We’ll make sure the kettle is full. We’ll fetch tea and coal,” Horace said, lifting the dead infant from the bed gently. “And we’ll send for the undertaker. You can’t stay here,” he whispered.
Nora ignored the command despite her thudding pulse. “Where is your husband, Mrs. Morse?”
“At work. He’s a tub man. He does the roping.” An unpleasant job, but a well-paying one, shoveling out cesspits. The rope man on the team hoisted out the tubs and unloaded them into carts to be driven out of the city.
“Is he ill?” Nora asked.
“He was sick first, but he’s doing better. He went back to work two days ago.”
“You should stay inside until you’re entirely well,” Horace said with a wrinkled nose and a glimpse at the small window. He always preferred sick patients to convalesce outside, but in this crowded street, that would only expose the neighbors. “We’ll come and check on you at least once a day, but we’ll speak to you through the window.” He fumbled his handkerchief from his pocket and tied it over his mouth and nose. “Nora,” he said, ordering her to imitate him.
She complied but didn’t let his frown push her out the door. The sick boy’s black hair clung to his forehead, plastered in place by sweat and suffering. “I brought this boy into this world. I want to make sure he stays here,” she said stubbornly, voice muffled by the handkerchief. She’d tied it hastily, squashing her nose.
The sister let out a small sob. “His name is Elias.”
Nora spared her a long look. She looked twelve but could have been as old as sixteen. The undernourished ones always looked younger.
She’d had two dying brothers as well, once. “I’m staying,” she whispered loud enough for Horace to catch.
If Elias couldn’t swallow, they’d need a spouted cup or a tea-soaked cloth for him to suck. But with others sickening, they might not think of such things or have the strength to carry on tending to the boy, hour after hour.
Horace’s chest swelled as he straightened his shoulders, leaning forward on his stick. “Think, Nora.” He dropped his voice even lower. “You should at least talk to your husband.”
Nora raised her eyebrows. They couldn’t argue here, but once she followed him out into the street, it would be that much harder to gather enough resolve and fight her way back in.
The kettle shrieked, saving her from replying. “Where’s the tea chest? We want it brewed as strong as we can make it.”
Wordlessly, the older daughter gestured to the cupboard. Nora bustled to gather up pot, tea chest, and strainer, trying to forget the unsettling gray hue of the girl’s wraithlike arms.Her color will be better once she’s downed a cupful, Nora told herself.
Cracked lips and perishing thirst, a pounding head that overpowered everything else…one by one, the symptoms came back to her. She remembered sharing the care of her younger brother, Peter, until her mother lay down and didn’t get up. She thought she remembered crawling across a threadbare carpet for a dipper of water, finding the pail empty, and knowing it was impossible to fetch any more. The recollection was so cloudy it might have been real or made up, pieced from bits in Horace’s carefully edited account. He was right. It was dangerous to stay.
“I’ll work fast,” she promised.
Behind her, Horace sighed. She heard him unclasp his bag and rummage through the contents. “I’ve a spouted cup here and a clean cloth.” He grunted. “It won’t be nearly enough.”
“We’ll send a messenger to Great Queen Street,” Nora said, blinking her eyes clear as she measured tea leaves and dropped them into the pot of steaming water.
“Staying here is your foolish decision,” Horace warned. “Not mine. I can’t force you out the door, but your husband will be…” He’d never spoken this cautiously before. Arteries might burst, bones might shatter, he might desperately pray for luck or divineintervention, but his voice and his face never betrayed it. Revealing anything but optimism and robust confidence was bad form.
And she couldn’t afford his uncertainty, not with her courage wavering so much already.
“Tell Daniel I couldn’t be stopped.”
“I will. But what will you tell him?”
Nora paused. Daniel wouldn’t understand, no matter what she told him. Even though a year ago he’d treated highly infectious children with diphtheria when no other doctors would.
It was different, when you were responsible to guard your own child. Your own family.
Nora bit the inside of her lip and studied Horace, too frail after his stroke to be exposed to any virulent disease, let alone cholera. Her hand went involuntarily to her stomach. Daniel and Horace may have treated countless dangerous diseases, but they’d never done it while harboring a stowaway.
“Cazzo,” she muttered, the familiar Italian curse escaping before she could stop it.
Horace blinked, reminding her that cursing wasn’t safe in any of her languages, at least not from him.
“We should go. But someone must check back here soon,” she insisted.
