The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection Volume 2(271)

"They are not related through his part of the family, but mine. Two brothers, Adam and Oliver Neville. A few years older than myself. Great sporting types. I'm surprised to hear they're both in town. Adam had a bad riding accident some time ago, and Oliver is supposed to be at Oxford."



"Well, all will be revealed tonight," he said, trying to contain his annoyance at what appeared to be potential matchmaking on the part of his old friend.



Well, so long as it was not her own nephew Matthew, he might consider…



No, he would never consider anyone good enough for Arabella. Especially himself.



"In the meantime, if you are finished, shall we?"



One look at the clinic told Arabella that there were far too many patients and far too few staff and volunteers. There were not just fallen women there, but anyone who lived in the area and needed to be treated for the myriad of illnesses that plagued the poor.



There were also simple childhood diseases, injuries in the factories, and sometimes, as she discovered, elderly people who just wanted to come in to talk.



Or even have a bath, for as long as Blake had them there and they were willing, he would get one of the nurses to delouse and de-flea them.



Now she knew why Blake was so scrupulous about scrubbing himself in the well-apponited bathroom when he got home from the clinic every night. Why he insisted on the laundry being done constantly. Why the clothes therefore needed to be mended so often after the battering they received in the tubs and then being run through the mangle.



She had come to enjoy the smell of good clean soap rather than the heavily perfumed ones most people used to disguise their lack of cleanliness. He had mentioned his fear of disease…



She understood about the clap and the pox, but there were also many terrible things that one could catch just by proximity so far as Blake could guess.



She knew he would not wish her to get close to the patients immediately. There was, however, much to do between the laundry, cooking and cleaning. The former factory was a cavernous space, dark and dingy, but that did not mean it could not be improved.



Or the people either, as she saw a child trying to make sense of a newspaper, one finger pointing to each of the letters in wonder.



Though the three-storey building was full to the rafters with patients who were brought up to the higher floors by means of a platform and a rope and pulley system, more room could be found below for a classroom, could it not? The boiler room was not used for anything other than that and for storing coal. It would be hot, but then the poor souls needed some warmth. There was a small alcove next to the main entrance that could be partitioned off as well.



She was making her calculations when a very badly battered prostitute was brought in complaining about two men who had attacked her when she had been doing her job. She was shortly followed thereafter by a woman who was obviously in the grip of a debilitating fever.



As Arabella had read from Blake's paper, fevers were often highly contagious and frequently lethal to systems already weak from lack of nourishment, cold and hard labor.



She followed the two women in and watched whilst they sat down in the anteroom to wait with a resigned air of hopelessness. The battered woman propped herself against the wall with great difficulty. The fevered one squeezed herself in between two other women, one with a teething baby by the look of it.



Arabella was no doctor, of course, but she knew from her experience helping the poor and sick back home in the country that exposure to illness often led to contracting it. Why then were all these people crammed together, and left to wait hours for their turn?



She turned and went to find Blake.



"Dr. Sanderson, may I speak with you a moment?"



He looked up from the arm he was stitching. "Is there something wrong? Are you ill? I know it can be very distressing-"



"It is, but not in the way you mean."



She spoke of her impressions, and concluded, "If there were someone who could look at them on the way in, at least separate them out into different rooms so that they are not all crammed in, it would mean the more serious cases got treated first. We could get more benches, and something to pass the time. Some better sanitation. The privies are practically overflowing."



"There are so many of them and so few of us. It's nearly impossible to keep up."



"Hire more people."



He shook his head and sighed. "Even with the charitable donations and my own contributions, we're stretched to breaking point."



"Then we will organize a fundraiser, and I will donate. Everything you helped me earn last week, and whatever I get now by your giving me that advice about getting out before the bottom came out of Pinkus' and the Hodge Mills."