No Cure for Love by Jean Fullerton Page A

I’m truly sorry, Mrs O’Casey, for Kitty and’ - the nurse moved closer to them and put her hand on Kitty’s pasty cheek, Robert bit his lip - ‘and for the other night at the Angel.’
    For a second, Ellen’s eyes softened as they rested on his face, then her reserved expression returned. She inclined her head as elegantly as a duchess, but said nothing.
    Go, his brain shouted at his feet and reluctantly they responded. As he reached the door he turned to see Ellen on her knees, head down and a small string of rosary beads moving through her fingers as she prayed over the dying young woman.
     
    Bridget awoke with a start as the front door slammed. She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the window. The light was almost gone. It must be nearly seven. Standing up she went to the range and moved the simmering kettle back onto the full flame.
    Ellen almost fell into the room and threw herself onto the spindle-leg chair. She buried her head in her arms and sobbed loudly.
    ‘Good heaven’s, child, you’re soaking,’ said Bridget, crossing the room and placing a hand on Ellen’s shaking shoulders. ‘Take off that coat and warm yourself by the fire before you catch your death.’
    Ellen rose and stumbled to the fire as Bridget stripped the sodden jacket from her back.
    ‘Whatever has happened?’
    Ellen turned a tear-stained face to her. ‘Kitty’s dead.’
    ‘Dead! How dead?’
    Ellen’s eyes darted around the room. ‘Where is Josie?’
    ‘She’s with Mrs Nolan helping with the twins. Patrick said he’d bring her back. Now tell me what’s happened.’
    Ellen sobbed out the story then threw her head down on her arms. Bridget put her arms around Ellen and hugged her close.
    After fifteen minutes or so Ellen looked up. ‘Kitty and the baby could have come to Joe’s in America and met someone better than Danny. Someone to love her and who would treat her right, not blame her for being caught in the family way.’ She looked mournfully at her. ‘And Josie asks me why I haven’t married again.’
    ‘Did Kitty know you? At the end I mean,’ Bridget asked.
    Ellen nodded. ‘She did. When I got there she was in a side ward. There was a physician and some of his students looking into her case. The physician, Doctor Munroe, had ordered her to be given a draught of laudanum so she wasn’t in too much pain.’ A tear skidded down Ellen’s cheek and she wiped it away. She looked up at Bridget. ‘You should have seen her lying there, as white as a sheet with her breath hardly making it past her lips.’
    ‘Did she know you were there?’ Bridget asked, thinking of the poor young woman who now lay on a cold mortuary slab.
    Ellen nodded. ‘She watched me as I prayed through my beads. Her lips moved but she never said a word, and finally she drifted off into a deep sleep and then slipped away without any fuss. I sat with her for a while then left.’ She glanced up. ‘I’m so thankful that it was Doctor Munroe on duty when Kitty was brought in.’ Ellen said in a softer voice. ‘He was very gentle with her and actually looked as if he cared, whereas I could see that some of the others thought that Kitty got no more than she deserved.’
    ‘You knew the doctor?’ Bridget asked studying her daughter closely across the table.
    ‘I met him in the Angel a few weeks ago,’ Ellen told her, not meeting her eye. ‘Danny introduced him.’
    Bridget clucked her tongue and jerked her head back. ‘He’s one of those in Danny’s pockets then, is he?’
    Ellen’s gaze rested on her hands as her expression became thoughtful. ‘I thought so, but I hear that he got the sewage cart to clean in Wapping Dock Street.’
    There was something again in Ellen’s expression that caused Bridget to pause. Then tears welled up in Ellen’s eyes.
    ‘He was good to poor Kitty.’
    Both women lapsed into silence, the only sound in the room the tapping of the rain on the window. Ellen took a deep breath and stood up. She rubbed the