It was several miles to Hampstead. I’d never been so far from home, and I was glad to have Dilly’s company. At first I’d been torn about setting out—a part of me wanted to stay near Florrie. But I knew she’d want me to go.
It felt strange to leave the chimneys and coal-dusted buildings behind. Out here, the air had a sweet, earthy scent. It reminded me of wagons on their way to Covent Garden. Whenever they pass by, the stench of the city falls away and you’re surrounded by the fresh, fragrant smells of apples, pears, and vegetables.
Only now the smells weren’t just from a wagon but from everything around me: sweet, fresh hay in the fields and hedgerows dotted with wild roses. If the blue death was caused by miasma, the way folks believed, I didn’t see how anyone in Hampstead could get it.
There were more trees too, with bright green leaves that sparkled in the sunlight. I passed meadows where, like Gus, I might’ve stopped to pick flowers for Florrie. For every ten steps I took, Dilly ran a hundred—circling back and forth, sniffing under every tree and rock, and now and again chasing a squirrel.
“Maybe you were born some place like this, Dilly,” I told her. “If you hadn’t gotten lost in Piccadilly Circus when you were a pup, you might be here still.”
It wasn’t hard to find the right house. I asked a farmer on his way back from bringing produce to town. He pointed it out, saying, “May she rest in peace, poor lady.”
Mrs. Susannah Eley had lived in a pretty white cottage, surrounded by a neat fence and a garden bursting with color. I recognized hollyhocks and daisies from seeing them at Covent Garden Market, but there were lots more besides. Bees buzzed everywhere.
I went around to the back and waited till I saw a young housemaid come out with a bucket. She headed to a pump in the backyard. I frowned. Why would Mrs. Eley get water from the Broad Street pump when she had this well? Then I remembered what Gus had said: she had liked the taste of the water from Broad Street best of all.
I knew I couldn’t introduce myself as an assistant to Dr. Snow. Any maid who heard that would laugh in my face and scoff, “A great London doctor wouldn’t give an urchin like you the time of day.”
No, helping the doctor on Broad Street, where folks knew me, was one thing. Here in the country, it was quite another. I’d have to discover what I wanted to know some other way. “Pardon me, miss,” I called, taking off my cap. “I’m on my way to my grandpa’s house in the center of London. I’m wondering if you could spare a cup of milk.”
I smiled and waited for Dilly to charm her. Dilly didn’t disappoint. She plopped herself down in front of the little maid, grinned broadly, and swept her tail back and forth on the grass.
“Well, ain’t she a sweetie,” said the maid. She went inside and brought me out a small tin cup of milk. Then she went back to drawing water.
“Get good water here, do you?” I asked as casually as I could, sipping the milk.
“Well, I’ve always thought so. But the mistress was partial to the water in her old neighborhood,” the maid told me. “Liked it so much her sons had a cart come out every few days with some big jugs of it. I never touched it myself.”
“Your mistress, I think, is the Widow Eley, whose sons own a factory on Broad Street?”
“Was. My mistress that was. Poor lady,” sighed the maid. “She got awful sick last week and died on Saturday. Her niece that was visiting from Islington got struck down too.”
The girl paused and wiped her face with her apron. She beckoned and I went a little closer. “They say it was the blue death,” she whispered. “I had to burn the sheets.”
“Have many other folks died of the cholera around here?”
“Oh, no. None whatsoever.” The girl looked shocked at the idea. “Just Mrs. Eley and her niece.”
“That’s very sad,” I said. “I expect the two ladies often dined together, with wine and everything?”
“Mrs. Eley never touched wine,” she said. “No, I served the two of them water with their dinner on Thursday night. Mrs. Eley always said water was the best thing for a healthy skin and constitution.”
Now came the most important question. “And Mrs. Eley’s niece … she liked the Broad Street water too?”
“Oh, yes! I just left the pitcher on the table, and by the end of dinner it was empty.”
So there it was: Mrs. Eley and her niece had both drunk water from the Broad Street pump.
Suddenly the maid began to sniffle. “It’s an awful tragedy. The mistress was ever so kind to me. And now … I don’t know what will happen. I’m just staying on to clean out the house till the family decides.”
“I’m sorry, miss,” I said. And I was. I knew what it was like to lose a situation. “I can see that you’re a hard worker. I’m sure you’ll do well wherever you go.”
The girl patted Dilly’s head. “Thank you, lad. I hope I shan’t have to leave Hampstead. The boy who delivers the water, Gus is his name, tells me such stories about how crowded and dirty a place the center of London is. No, you can keep that.”
We talked for a while longer. The maid told me her name was Polly. She was fifteen, just two years older than me. I thought Florrie would like working in a house like this one, with a kind mistress and flowers all about.
If only Florrie could fight off the blue death.
“Dilly,” I said on the road heading back, “I think we’ve found the right clue at last.”
For it seemed clear that Gus had brought Mrs. Susannah Eley water from the Broad Street pump several times last week. I’d seen him myself on Monday, the day I’d found Queenie. And now Mrs. Eley and her niece were dead of the cholera.
Polly, who had not drunk the Broad Street water, was perfectly fine. There were no other cases of cholera in the neighborhood. To everyone else, it was a mystery why poor Mrs. Eley got the cholera out here in Hampstead.
But not to me.
Today was Wednesday. If tomorrow night Dr. Snow could stand up and tell the committee that Mrs. Susannah Eley—far away in a leafy part of Hampstead—had died on Saturday from drinking water from the Broad Street pump, surely they would listen.
I couldn’t wait to tell Dr. Snow what I’d found. More than anything, I hoped Florrie would be well enough to hear it too.