“I couldn’t listen to their lectures anymore. I’d rather die than stomach any more of their preachy jabbering.”
You might get your wish . . . Oh, Lord, can You not heal her? Rachel rested Molly’s hand atop the sheet. He would not help either of them, two sinners. Poor creature. “Has the bleeding started again?”
Molly nodded. “It was bad a bit ago. I thought it’d stop, like the other day. But it didn’t.”
“Soaked seven rags, she did.” Molly’s friend stood against the wall at the head of the pallet. A hard veneer protected the woman’s emotions, but Rachel was confident the woman was frightened for her friend. She should be.
“Has the bleeding stopped now?” Rachel asked.
“Yes, but the cramping is bad. I’m so cold.”
Rachel drew out the bottle of spirit of niter and the laudanum. “I need a cup of the cleanest water you can find and more cool cloths,” she instructed Molly’s friend.
Molly shivered and closed her eyes. “I’m scared of going to hell. I’ve been trying to pray but I can’t seem to remember the proper words.” She sobbed, but no tears fell. The fever was slowly wringing every ounce of moisture from her body, leaking it through every pore, leaving none for sorrowing. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
Rachel brushed tendrils of the girl’s hair off her forehead. Yes, Molly, you are, and I cannot stop it from happening.
“I will not let you die, Molly,” Rachel said instead of the words pounding in her brain. Her mother had always insisted that the patient must believe they could heal, even if Rachel did not. “Do you hear me? I will not let you die.”
Rachel raised her eyes to the peeling plaster of the ceiling while despair hollowed out her strength, draining it away like grains of sand slipping through an hourglass.
“God, do not do this again,” she muttered wearily. So weary.
Molly’s eyelids fluttered open. “What’s that?”
“Nothing, Molly.” Rachel patted the girl’s hand. “Nothing at all.”
Molly’s friend shuffled back into the room, cradling a mug in one hand and a torn bit of cloth in the other.
Rachel diluted the spirit of niter. “Help me lift Molly” Her friend gripped Molly’s shoulders to raise her up so she could drink. She lifted easily. Molly was light as a rag doll, a shadow of her former self, and just as limp. “This is for the fever.”
The girl spluttered, half the liquid dribbling down her chin. When she finished the spirit of niter and a portion of the laudanum, she settled back on the lumpy tick. Molly moaned and curled into a ball. Her cheeks were splotched unnaturally crimson, her breathing fast and shallow.
“Will she live?” her friend whispered, laying the dampened cloth over Molly’s forehead. The girl had fallen into a fitful sleep, insensible to the question.
Rachel shrugged. Dread weighed so heavily she thought it would drag her straight through the floor into the basement.
“I’ll pray for ’er, beg God’s mercy. She wasn’t always a sinful girl, but that fellow she’s been with . . .” The woman shook her head regretfully. Her face was pinched and tears shone in her eyes. “’e ruined her, ’e did. An’ now she’s payin’ the price.”
“Yes. Pray for her,” Rachel replied mechanically.
“I will. An’ when Moll wakes up, she’ll ask forgiveness, repent. Jus’ like the preacher what comes roun’ ’ere tells us to do. God won’t punish ’er.”
Won’t He?
“I am sorry,” Rachel murmured, not certain who she was saying sorry to.
CHAPTER 22
What is Miss Dunne doing in St. Giles at this hour?” James pulled out his gold pocket watch. Half-gone eight. His final meeting with Dr. Calvert had taken longer than expected, turned into a dinner invitation, then more conversation. About the cholera, mostly.
He scowled at Joe. “Why would she be in St. Giles? You must have misunderstood her destination. She must be at her cousin’s.” Although James thought he’d heard that Miss Harwood had abruptly left for Weymouth.
“Aye, I took—eh, I saw ’er take a hackney and, clear as I’m standin’ ’ere, tell the bloke to take ’er to St. Giles. Fair surprisin’ and all she’d venture out to take care of Moll, but there ya ’ave it. Miss Dunne’s a good un.”
“Molly isn’t in St. Giles. The institute is in Marylebone.”
“Moll’s not at the institute, sir. Done left it, accordin’ to the woman what come to fetch you. Stayin’ in St. Giles. Miss Dunne says come as quick as you can, tho’.”
“What time did she depart?” A sick feeling burrowed in