‘You won’t hurt your drawing-room. You have to recover your health.’
‘’Ealth is a blessed privilege. Well, I’ll put up a truckle bed in the first-floor front. The girl could sleep on a mattress on the floor at the bottom of my bed. She’d be company.’
‘Of course she would. Make yourself comfortable mentally and bodily, and you’ll soon get well. Now, how about this girl? You must get her immediately.’
‘I’ve got a neighbour coming in presently. I’ll get her to step round and tell Jemima to come.’
‘Is Jemima the girl?’
‘Yes. She’s step-daughter to the tailor at the corner of Cricket’s Row. He’s got a fine family of his own, and Jemima feels herself one too many. She’s a hard-working, honest-minded girl, though she isn’t much to look at. Her father was in the public line; he was barman at the Prince of Wales, and the stepfather throws it at her sometimes when he’s in drink.’
‘Never mind Jemima’s biography,’ said Gerard. ‘Get your neighbour to fetch her, and in the meantime I’ll help you to make up the bed.’
‘Lor’, Mr. Gerard, you haven’t had your tea. Your chop will be stone cold.’
‘My chop must wait,’ said Gerard cheerily. And then, with all the handiness of a woman, and more than the kindness of an ordinary woman, the young surgeon helped to transform the first-floor sitting-room into a comfortable bedchamber.
By the time this was done Jemima had arrived upon the scene, carrying all her worldly goods tied up in a cotton handkerchief. She was a raw-boned, angular girl, deeply marked with the small-pox. Her scanty hair was twisted into a knot like a ball of cotton at the back of her head; her elbows were preternaturally red, her wrists were bound up with rusty black ribbon; but she had a good-natured grin that atoned for everything. She was as patient as a beast of burden, contented with the scantiest fare, invariably cheerful. She was so accustomed to harsh words and hard usage that she thought people who did not bully or maltreat her the quintessence of kindness.