Mad Alice Lane

Chapter Fourteen

Alice

We'd known sickness before. In a city where whole families lived in one room and open sewers flowed down many streets it is an accepted part of life. People will fall ill and some will die. Myself, I had nursed the Tuke children through scarlet fever and I was hardly the only one with such a story. For them to lose only Esther was considered a blessing at the time. Yet, when the rumours began to filter through that another sickness was spreading through the city, another far more lethal, I couldn't act with complacency.

I was within weeks of my due date, and I'd have guarded my precious cargo with my life. Seeing Samuel all those months ago had changed the course of my life once more. I could not say whether the child I carried was his or that of my husband, but I prayed every night that he was Samuel's.

I returned home that day, soaked again by the rain on my walk back, to find Thomas in a temper, demanding to know where I had been. I never told him the truth, of course; instead that I had been visiting my family, and the next time I saw Eliza, I handed her the precious volumes to keep safe; I couldn't risk Thomas finding them.

I hadn't seen Samuel since but those brief hours we shared, reunited, were enough to bring some light back into my life. Knowing that he did not betray me, and that he too would grieve for the child we lost, had lifted me from the cold dark place I had willingly crawled into.

To say I was filled with joy at my life with Thomas Smith was to tell a lie, but I was reconciled; accepting of my circumstances. He was a violent, coarse, crude man, but I was provided for, and with no reason to suspect the babe I carried might not be his, his pleasure at discovering I was pregnant almost touched me.

He had proved a milder man since that day, and I was no longer taken so roughly. I could look Simon in the eyes once more, and that time, my rounded belly was no shame. Neighbours congratulated me, and I was welcomed most openly into my childhood home. No one begrudged me an hour or two with Eliza those days.

But there was a slight shadow; for the first time in my life, I was keeping a secret from her. No one apart from Samuel and myself knew of our brief reunion. I hadn't dared tell Eliza; not for lack of trust for I would entrust her with my life, but for simple superstitious fear that to speak of such things will be to release them into the world, for anyone to catch at. I dared not. I had simply handed her the books.

And so I carried my babe and my secret alone, and then sickness came to the city and I knew real fear once more.

They said some sailors brought it with them from Hull. Hearing of the habits of such men, I don't doubt it, even today, and certainly, within hours of their arrival, the first people began to fall ill. We might not have afforded a daily newspaper in our household, but news travels fast by word of mouth.

With the first death came confirmation of the worst kind. Cholera was come to York.

Months ago, while snow still laid on the ground, it was rumoured that something was afoot when city officials had begun to make their rounds demanding a clean up. We had laughed at them. How do you clean up an open sewer? Where do you put your nightsoil when there are no drains? The river has always seemed as good a place as any for most.

And yet, rooms were whitewashed, as were the pigsties and privies, for those lucky enough to have the latter. Ma had said it wasn't the first time officials had been to Bedern, but they had scurried away fast enough with their tails between their legs and shit on their shoes. But when nothing followed these incursions into the filthier parts of the city, interest had waned. We should have known that something had spurred those officials on; they never spend money unless they have to.