Execution Dock Page 0,44

her, disbelief, pity, and hurt crowding her face all at once.

Hester swallowed. "No. I'm going to go back to the beginning and start again."

Bessie flashed a brilliant smile, then it disappeared so rapidly it could have been an illusion. "Good. Then yer'll be needin' me an' the rest of us ter keep comin' 'ere."

"Yes, please. I would appreciate that very much."

Bessie grunted. "Lady Rathbone is in the kitchen, givin' orders, I 'spect," she added. "An' Squeaky's in the office countin' money." She was watching Hester carefully, judging her reaction.

"Thank you," Hester replied with a face as devoid of expression as she could manage, and went to get the encounter done with as soon as possible. Besides, she needed to speak to Squeaky Robinson privately, and at some length.

She swallowed hard and walked along the uneven passage with its twists and its steps up and down until she reached the kitchen. It was a large room, originally intended to serve a family, and it had been added to when the two houses had been turned into one.

She smiled with bitter humor when she remembered how Rathbone had exercised legal skill and some considerable guile in maneuvering Squeaky into yielding his ownership of the brothels, and then taking on the bookkeeping of his own premises as a shelter for the very people he had once owned. Rathbone had left Squeaky no acceptable choice. It had been wildly daring, and from Rathbone's point of view, totally against the spirit of the establishment he had spent his adult life serving. It had also brought him acute moral and emotional pleasure.

But then Hester had also allowed Squeaky little choice in his decision, or as little as she could manage.

Now she was at the kitchen door. Her quick, light step on the wooden boards had alerted Margaret to her coming. Margaret turned with a vegetable knife in her hand. At home she had servants for everything; here she could put her hand to any task that required attention. There was no one else in the room. Hester was not sure if it would have been easier or harder had there been.

"Good morning," Margaret said quietly. She stood motionless, her shoulders square, chin a little high, eyes direct. In that one look Hester knew that she was not going to apologize or offer even the suggestion, however tacit, that the verdict of the trial had been unjust. She was prepared to defend Rathbone to the hilt. Had she any idea why he had chosen to champion Jericho Phillips? From the angle of her head, the unwavering stare, and the slight rigidity of her smile, Hester guessed that she did not.

"Good morning," she replied politely. "How are our stores? Do we need flour, or oatmeal?"

"Not for three or four days," Margaret said. "If the woman with the knife wound in her arm goes home tomorrow, we might last longer. Unless, of course, we get anyone else in. Bessie brought some ham bones this morning, and Claudine brought a string of onions and the bones from a saddle of mutton. We are doing well. I think we should use what money we have for lye, carbolic, vinegar, and a few more bandages. But see what you think yourself."

There was no need for Hester to check; that would have made the most delicate of implications that she did not believe Margaret capable. Before the Phillips affair neither of them would have thought such conspicuous courtesy necessary.

They discussed the medical supplies, simple as they were: alcohol for cleaning wounds and instruments, cotton pads, thread, bandages, salve, laudanum, quinine for fevers, fortified wines to strengthen and warm. The cautious politeness was in the air like a bereavement.

Hester was relieved to escape to the room where Squeaky Robinson, the short-tempered, much-aggrieved ex-brothel-keeper was doing the accounts and guarding every farthing from frivolous and unnecessary expenditure. One would have thought he had labored for it personally rather than received it, through Margaret, from the charitable of the city.

He looked up from his table as she closed the door behind her. His sharp, slightly lopsided face under its long, moth-eaten-looking hair was full of sympathy.

"Made a mess of it," he observed, without specifying whom he meant. "Pity that. Bastard should've 'ad 'is neck stretched, an' no mistake. The fact we got a lot o' money in't much comfort, is it! Not today, any'ow. Mebbe termorrer it'll feel good. Yer can 'ave five pounds ter get more sheets, if yer like." That was an extraordinarily generous