The Victory (75 page)

‘And what good do you think you do them?'

‘
Little enough, I suppose. I often feel discouraged, but that
is no reason to give up. We do what we can.'

‘
But Mary, love,' he said pleadingly, 'can't you just send a
servant with the food and the money, or whatever it is you
take them? You don't need to go yourself.'

‘
It isn't food and money they need most, Papa, it's
education. They need to be shown how to take care of
themselves. Father Rathbone brings them spiritual teaching, and I — I try to teach them to be clean, and to care for their
children properly.' She passed a hand wearily over her
forehead, pushing back the fronds of her soft hair that had escaped around her brows. 'They don't learn very quickly,'
she admitted with a faint smile.

‘
Well, well,' Mr Hobsbawn said, turning instantly to her
defence, 'that's not your fault, love. They should be grateful
you go at all, though I warrant it's little enough thanks you
get from them, the dirty ignorant rabble.' His anger was
whipping itself up again. 'But what in the name of perdition
do you want to take our little lad with you for? What the heck
do you think they can learn from him? You drag our little
angel through all that dirt and muck and God knows what,
and how's that supposed to help?'

‘
Oh, but it does, Papa,' she said earnestly. 'The women pay
more heed to me when they see I am a mother too. They
notice him, because he is so healthy and bonny, and they
listen to me more closely because of him. He is my object
lesson, he is the living proof that I am telling them the truth.
And there is something else,' she said, hesitating, not sure if
he would or could understand. 'He brings them something of
himself, Papa, that I have no name for. These people, it's as
though they live in perpetual darkness, like blind, caged
animals. But Henry is so — so innocent and beautiful, he
brings light to them. I've seen it again and again, their terri
ble, blind faces lighting up when they see him.’

Mr Hobsbawn's brow was corrugated with perplexity. 'But
if they are blind, love, how the hangment can they see him?’

She looked at him with affection. 'Oh, Papa!' she said, with a tired smile. 'If only I could interest you in their plight, there
is so much you could do. It needs you and others like you, men of substance, to do something for these people. Father
Rathbone has fought and fought to try to get a decent water-
supply established for them, but he can do nothing without
the support of the wealthy families. If you would only help us!
You can't think how terrible it is, and with the hot weather,
Father Rathbone says there may well be plague, like there
was in '96. I wasn't here then, but I'm sure you must remem
ber it.'

‘
Remember it? I should think I do! I tell you what, young
woman, if there's to be plague, you are not going down there
again, not for anything!’

Mary Ann sighed. 'Only poor people catch the plague,
Papa. Father Rathbone says so. He knows all about it. I must
go and wash and change now. I'm very tired.'

‘
Aye, that's right, love, you go on up,' he said with tender
concern. 'We'll talk about this later, when you're rested.’

She smiled a little, and went away, knowing that she left
him firmly believing that he could persuade or bully her into
giving up her work. She was glad, given his reaction, that she
had not told him that there was already sickness in the courts
surrounding Long Millergate: five cases today of a kind of
fever which Father Rathbone had said, in a grim voice, that
he had seen before.

Father Rathbone arrived at the house the following
morning so early that he almost caught Mr Hobsbawn leaving
it. Mrs Morland was still in her chamber, he was told, and he
begged for a message to be taken up to her, and expected a
long wait. But Mary Ann came down only five minutes later,
neat as a pin from her cap to her shoes.

‘What brings you here so early, Father?' she said, unaware
of how her face had lit up at the sight of him. He looked down
at her, a little puzzled.

‘
When they said you were still in your chamber, I thought I
had arrived before you were up.’

She smiled. 'I always rise early, and spend some time at my devotions,' she said without emphasis. 'Is something wrong?’

His face grew grave. 'I think there is. One of the women in
Lob's Entry came to me early this morning with a sick baby,
and told me that there are four others in her house alone.'

‘The fever?’

He nodded. 'I'm afraid the plague I have been warning
everyone about is here. Now they will have to listen to me.
But can you help me? There is so much to do.'

‘
Of course,' she said briskly. 'I will come at once. What
should I bring with me? What can be done for the sufferers?’

But he took her hand, and looked down at her penetra
tingly. 'Are you sure you want to do this? Do you know what
you will face? I would not have you come with me unpre
pared.’

She looked up frankly into his face, light eyes into dark.
She was so different in appearance from him, that they might
have been two different species, not male and female of the
same: she pale and curved and soft and cool, he hard and
black and burning. Her small white hand was entirely
engulfed by his, long-fingered, brown and strong, but she
regarded him steadily as equal to equal; and if some of her
strength came from her desire to please him, that did not
diminish it.

‘I understand. I am ready.’

He released her, now all urgency. 'Good, then prepare
yourself quickly. Bring with you whatever medicines you have
in the house. Have you laudanum? Quinine? Bring anything
you have.’

She nodded and turned away to go and get ready. 'Bring
your maid if she will come,' he called after her. 'She seems a
sensible woman. And don't bring the boy.'

‘I was not thinking of it,' she said.

*

It was a long day. The fever spread with frightening rapidity,
and there seemed little that could be done for the victims.
Diarrhoea and vomiting were rapidly followed by cramps in
the stomach and limbs, and then collapse and death, the
whole process happening sometimes within a matter of hours. Mary Ann, followed by Dakers, tight-lipped and disapproving
but unshakeably loyal, went from house to house, able to do
little more than persuade the healthy to isolate the sick, try to
remove the children from the rooms of the infected, give a
little laudanum to those in convulsions, bathe the faces of the
dying.

They were not alone in their efforts to help. John Ferriar brought another physician and several nurses from the infir
mary, and there were helpers, too, from the St Anthony
mission; but in all, they were pitifully few. During the day
they were joined by some women of the middle orders, trades
men's and craftsmen's wives, upon whom Father Rathbone
had worked his magic as on Mary Ann. They were the sort of people she never normally had anything to do with, and they
looked at her with a certain suspicion; but by the end of the
day there were no reserves left between the members of that
small army. The enemy they had pitted themselves against
was too terrifying.

By the late afternoon there were fifteen dead, and it was
impossible to guess how many unknown victims might be
suffering in windowless cellars they had not yet penetrated.
Ferriar and Rathbone came together at the corner of Brock
Street for a brief consultation.

‘
It's spreading,' Rathbone said abruptly. 'We shall never be
able to contain it.'

‘
No,' said Ferriar. 'The time has come to make it public.
We need more help than we can ever get from volunteers. We
must call a public meeting.'

‘Tonight?'

‘Yes.'

‘
I think you're right,' Rathbone said, his mouth grim. 'I
have seen this fever before, in India. We must tell them all
about it, Ferriar, and spare no detail. We will never move
them with pity, but by God, their self-interest will wake them
up!’

The meeting was not well attended, for there had not been
time to spread the word throughout the town, but there were
enough people of importance there for decisions to be made,
and to be sure that by the next day, everyone would know
that the plague had come to Manchester. Mr Hobsbawn was there, torn between pride and outrage to see his daughter on the platform alongside the priest and the doctor, the superin
tendant of the Infirmary, the chairman of the Board of
Health, and the baronet's daughter who owned the
Star.

He waited at the end of the meeting to take her away with
him, and when she came down from the platform he found
himself face to face with Father Rathbone. The two men
stared at each other inimically.

‘
Now then, sir, are you satisfied?' Hobsbawn demanded. ‘Now that you've got your damned plague, and exposed my
daughter to it, are you happy?'

‘
It is not my plague, sir,' Rathbone replied, his channelled
fury more searing than Hobsbawn's undirected fire. ‘It is
yours. It belongs to you and everyone like you in this city who
would not listen to my warnings, who were content to allow
these people, who make your wealth for you, to live in condi
tions that none of you would willingly condemn a dog to.'

‘
Make my wealth? Make my wealth? God damn it, sir, I tell
you here and now I make my own wealth! I got where I am
today by my own efforts, by the labour of these hands, sir,
and I've never been afraid of hard work! No-one in my mills
works longer hours than I do!'

‘
But what do they go home to, Mr Hobsbawn?' Father
Rathbone demanded. 'A comfortable house and nourishing
food? Or a dank cell full of pestilence?'

‘You talk like one of those damned French revolutionaries,'
Hobsbawn growled in fury. ‘Aye, and you look like one! We
don't want your sort here, making the lower orders discon
tented, telling them they are as good as their masters!'

‘
Papa, Father Rathbone didn't say that. But hasn't every
creature that lives the right to enough to eat, and a dry floor
to lie down on?'