Beloved Poison Read Free

clerk – and the houses of the poor. They crowded close to our eastern wall like mushrooms beside a decaying tree, the smells of industry – from the tanning yards and the leather market – mingling with the reek of putrescence and privies breathed from the open windows of our wards.
    Was that what Will Quartermain wanted to know?
    ‘Of course, it’s people who interest me most,’ he said, as if reading my mind. ‘The men who work here, for instance. What are they like?’
    I shrugged. ‘Dedicated.’ It was bland, I knew. And predictable. Should I tell him what I really thought? I had been schooled to revere them all, but I had formed my own opinions. I prided myself on never joining in the gossip, but I heard everything. Mrs Speedicut was the worst.
That Dr Graves . . . The way he boils up the bodies of the dead . . . Human broth, that’s what’s in that great copper cauldron of his, human broth. And don’t he just stink of it? As for anatomy, I’ve seen them at Smithfield making a cleaner job of it . . .
I had heard it so many times, though I could not disagree.
And that old stick Dr Catchpole. Married to that young slip of a girl? There’s trouble! I knew it soon as look at her. She was after Dr Bain quicker than a toddy-cat once he’d thrown her a smile
. . . On and on she went, sitting before the stove in the apothecary, her pipe clenched between her blackened teeth, her mug of gin and coffee in her hand.
That Dr Magorian, thinks he’s God, so he does . . . That Dr Bain, you’ll never imagine what he’s come up with now
. . . Although I did not join in, I did not stop her either. Mrs Speedicut’s observations were always perspicacious. Certainly there was little that happened at St Saviour’s that she didn’t know about. I could see her now on the far side of the courtyard, her great thick arms folded across her huge bosom, her matron’s cap sitting drunkenly awry on her greasy hair as she whispered and cackled into the ear of one of the laundrywomen.
    Will was talking again. ‘And why is there a statue of Edward VI out here?’
    ‘He reopened the place after his father, Henry VIII, closed it down.’
    ‘Is that all? How dull.’
    ‘Indeed he was.’
    ‘Unable to live up to expectations.’ Will slid me a glance. ‘Like so many men. And yet his sisters were quite the opposite – always their own masters. Don’t you agree?’
    ‘I’m sure there’s more to many women than meets the eye, Mr Quartermain.’
    ‘I don’t doubt it.’ He grinned. ‘And what of the other women here, at St Saviour’s?’
    ‘Other women?’ I said. ‘Other than whom?’
    ‘I mean the women who work here. Other than you. That is to say,
in addition
to you.’
    I stared at him through my devilish mask, unsmiling.
    ‘Not that you’re a woman, of course. I can see that
quite
clearly. What I meant to say was
other
than you, and the doctors, there must be women at St Saviour’s—’
    ‘Nurses,’ I replied. ‘Naturally. And the usual complement of domestics, cooks, cleaners, washerwomen. Women’s work is done by women, Mr Quartermain, here as elsewhere.’
    ‘Of course,’ he said, his eyes now fixed meekly upon the ground. ‘It is the natural way of things.’
    ‘You think they’re not capable of more?’ I said. ‘But of course they are! Give them an education so that they might think, listen to their opinions so that they might gain confidence, treat them as you treat a man and they’ll succeed at anything. I have no doubt about it.’
    At that moment we heard women’s voices echoing from the passageway that led to the governors’ building. ‘“If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and
you
are that temple!” Ladies, where in the scriptures might we find those words?’
    ‘Oh! Corinthians!’ came the answer.
    ‘Quite so,’ said the first.
    I groaned. ‘Not them. Not now.’
    Will grinned. ‘Give them an education so that they might