The Fall Read Free Page B

circumstances I could finish the first dress in two days. Would that be acceptable?’
    Two days in a nightgown? ‘Mr Smith, do you think you could make one of these fit by tomorrow morning?’ I said, walking up to the wardrobe and offering him the contents.
    He inspected each dress and chose one made of dark green silk. ‘This one should be fairly easy to resize. I could deliver it tomorrow morning.’
    ‘I am deeply indebted to you, Mr Smith.’
    He chuckled, red-cheeked again, and left with a bow and a ‘Farewell’.
    I stared at the closed door, as though it were his back. The man seemed friendly and caring, but blushed so easily that I did not think him fit to lie for me without being discovered. Certainly, Durham was already wondering about Mr Smith’s state. I slapped my forehead. How stupid and slow I was! Why did I not listen at the door as he left? I could have easily overheard whether Durham had questioned the man or ignored his slightly excited state.
    I drank all water that was left to wash out the remaining poison. Then I inspected the room again, starting with the area around the bed. There were no openings in the walls to neighbouring rooms. Good. I wasn’t certain whether or not I tended to talk in my sleep.
    Something essential was missing, though. I rang for the maid.
    ‘Miss Gooding, I could not find the chamber pot….’ Her lopsided smile stopped me.
    ‘We have water closets, Miss.’
    ‘Oh.’ The rich all had plumbing and hot water. I had forgotten that.
    ‘May I show you to it, Miss?’  
    ‘Where is Mr Durham?’ I had barely finished speaking when his heels came clacking over the floorboards, briefly dulled by the carpet, and then his head showed in the door frame.
    ‘Miss Kronberg wants to see the water closet,’ the maid explained, head bowed, gaze turned away from the manservant.
    ‘I will take it from here,’ Durham said. ‘Follow me, please.’
    We walked through a corridor and turned to the right where he opened a door to a small room with wood panels on the walls and a flowery porcelain bowl with an oak seat standing at the far end.  
    I had never seen a water closet in a private home before. Its drain looked different from the ones I had seen at Guy’s and the medical school — it was s-shaped and not straight. The nonexistent stink caught my nostrils. It appeared that the water standing in the s-bend prevented the foul odours from rising up through the plumbing. If every Londoner had a water closet installed, would it prevent the spreading of diseases? We could possibly even get cholera epidemics under control. How would London change if people no longer dug cesspits? I stood back, wondering whether the problem of disease transmission would only be relocated, together with the waste. Then a thought struck me — water was the one thing that left this house unsupervised!
    Durham was waiting at the door when I opened it a minute later.
    ‘How can I reach it when you are not available?’ I asked him, cringing at the thought of being at his mercy for such private business.
    ‘Gooding will bring you a chamber pot for emergencies.’
    Back in my room, supper waited on a small table. The smell of cabbage was sickening.

    It was past eleven o’clock at night. An oval moon peeked through the window, casting silver onto the floor. My bare feet walked irregular helices, in and out of the moonlight, from the rug to the naked floorboards and back again, gradually covering the entire area. By the end of my third round, I could recall every one of the sixteen places that produced a squeal when stepped upon.  
    I took a break and drank some water, forcing the patterns out of my mind and watching the yard below. The moonlight had painted the maples’ foliage silvery-blue. Fog started to rise and swirled up where the dogs were running. Four large, broad-chested animals with short coats and flapping ears — Mastiffs, maybe? I had never been afraid of dogs, but I knew well enough