Hear No Evil by Sarah Smith

Author:Sarah Smith [Smith, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529369090
Publisher: John Murray Press
Published: 2022-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

36

Thursday, 30 January 1817:

Partickhill Road, Glasgow

Jean was in the kitchen, having a cup of tea, when the nausea began to rise in her throat. She took another sip of the sugary tea to try to quell it but that only made it worse.

Ina peered at her from the opposite side of the table.

Martha was scrubbing down the bunkers in the pantry.

‘Is she alright, do you think, hen?’ Ina shouted through to Martha.

The housemaid stopped what she was doing and came directly. She crouched down beside Jean and patted the deaf woman’s hand.

‘Are you sick?’ she mouthed at her, clutching at her own stomach and miming a retching motion. Then turning to Ina, in a completely unnecessary whisper, ‘She’s awfy white, do you not think?’

Jean stood up abruptly, holding a hand up to them both as if to say leave me alone, I’m fine, I’ll sort myself out. She stumbled through the scullery door, in search of the privy.

The McDougalls kept a necessary house a few yards from the back door, on a cinder path that led to a jumble of outbuildings tucked behind the villa’s uniform front facade. Jean groped her way along in the dark and fumbled for the latch.

Once inside, she pushed her hair back from her face and leant over the opening to the waste pit below. She retched two or three times, despairing of any release, but eventually a stream of liquid vomit came. She sat on the ground and breathed slowly, trying to collect herself. She felt marginally better, although her throat felt rough, and her muscles strained.

She wanted the lavatory now. She hitched up her dress, pulled down her drawers and perched on the rough wooden seat. Almost as soon as she sat down, shit came out of her in a torrent and splattered onto the earth below. She felt an odd pulling sensation in her groin followed by an emptying, and she recognised the signs. There were no real contractions as yet, and what had come out of her was too far down in the pit to examine, even if she had been of a mind to, but she was sure that the plug had been dislodged from its stopper and it was now just a matter of time before her pains began.

Jean cast about beside her for something to wipe herself with and her fingers alighted on a pile of leaves left in the necessary for that purpose. She hitched up her drawers again and righted herself as best she could in the dark, cramped surroundings.

When she flicked the latch and opened the door, she almost knocked Martha over. The housemaid had been sent out to keep an eye on her. As Jean stepped out of the necessary house, the wind blew the door open, and its edge caught Martha on the leg. Martha hopped up and down swearing and rubbing at her shin; Jean was distraught at having hurt the girl. Once the bolt to the lavatory was secured, they both shambled along the path into the light of the kitchen.

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