a body of men such as the River Police had the kind of power they did, and there was no check upon the way they used it, or abused it. If the members of Parliament who represented the constituencies along the river were doing their duty, there would be questions asked in the House.
She looked up at Scuff. He was watching her, trying to judge what the paper said from her expression.
"Yes, they are saying bad things," she told him. "But so far it is just talk. I need to know whether they are true or not, because we can't deal with it until we know."
"Wot'll 'appen to us if it's true?" he asked.
She heard the fear in his voice, and the inclusion of himself in their fate. She wondered if he had meant her to notice that or not. She would be very careful to reply in the same tones, equally casually.
"We'll have to face it," she answered. "If we can, we'll prove that we're not like that, but if we aren't given the chance, then we'll have to find some other job. We will, don't worry. There are lots of things we can do. I could go back to nursing. I used to earn my own living before I married Mr. Monk, you know."
"Did yer? Like lookin' after the sick? They pay yer fer that?" His eyes were wide, his toast and jam halfway to his mouth.
"Definitely," she assured him. "If you do it well enough, and I was very good. I did it in the army, for soldiers injured in battle."
"When they come 'ome again?"
"Certainly not! I went to the battlefield and tended them there, where they fell."
He blushed, then he grinned, sure that she was making a joke, even if he didn't understand it.
She thought of teasing him back, then decided he was too genuinely frightened to absorb it right now. He had just found some kind of safety, perhaps for the first time in his life, people not only to love but also to trust, and it was slipping out of his hands.
"Really in the battlefield," she answered. "That's where soldiers need doctors and nurses. I went to the Crimea with the army. So did quite a few other ladies. The fighting was pretty close to us. People used to go out in carriages to the heights above the valley and watch the fighting. It's not dangerous, or of course they wouldn't do it. But we nurses sometimes saw it too, and then went to find those who were still alive, and who we could help."
"Weren't it 'orrible?" he asked in a whisper, toast still ignored.
"Yes, it was. More horrible than I ever want to think of again. But looking away doesn't solve anything, does it." That was a statement more than a question.
"Wot can yer do fer soldiers as are 'urt real awful?" he asked. "Don't they 'ave ter 'ave doctors, an' such?"
"There aren't enough doctors to attend to everybody at once," she told him, remembering in spite of herself the sounds of men in agony, the chaos of the wounded and dying, and the smell of blood. She had not felt overwhelmed then, she had been too busy being practical, trying to pack wounds, amputate shattered limbs, and save men from dying of shock. "I learned how to do some things myself, because it was so bad I couldn't make it worse. When it's desperate, you try, even if you don't know what to do to begin with. You can be a lot of help with a knife, a saw, a bottle of brandy, and a needle and thread, and of course as much water and bandages as you can carry with you."
"Wot's a saw for?" he asked quietly.
She hesitated, then decided that lies would be worse than the truth. To saw through jagged bones so you can make a clean cut, and sew it up," she told him. "And sometimes you have to take somebody's arm or leg off, if it's gone bad with gangrene, which is sort of like rotten meat. If you don't, it will go all through them, and they'll die."
He stared at her. He felt as if he were seeing her for the first time, with all the lights on. Before it had been almost as if they were in the half dark. She was not as pretty as some of the women he had seen, certainly not as fancy as some of the ladies; in fact, the