Read Online Ragamuffin Angel by Rita Bradshaw - Free Book Online

Bishopwearmouth, his chest on fire from the exertion and the breath rasping in his throat.  
    No, Doctor Turnbull wasn’t here at present, the small neat maid informed him when he reached the practice in High Street East in the East End. Peggy had been adamant that only Doctor Tumbull would do – she had been treated by his father as a child and later, when the son had inherited the practice, had found him as understanding about such matters as payment by instalment as his predecessor. Some of the more highfalutin of the medical fraternity wouldn’t turn out before you had greased their hand with a half crown, and what good was that when you were faced with an empty purse and a sick child or whatever? Peggy had challenged Dan bitterly.  
    If the matter was as urgent as it appeared, the maid continued, perhaps the young gentleman would like the address of the patient Doctor Turnbull was attending? It wasn’t too far.  
    Yes, the young gentleman would like it very much indeed, Dan assured her quickly, and so it was that he found himself running the twenty or thirty yards into Hartley Street and then along into Northumberland Place where he banged at the door of one of the houses.  
    Dan knew this area; his father’s business stretched from William Street to more warehouses storing heavy goods such as tar, pitch and resin in East Cross Street, while ships’ provisions, consisting of mess beef and pork, together with the overspill of canned and dry goods from the central warehouse in William Street, were catered for in another two-storey warehouse overlooking the river in Sunderland Street, so in spite of living in the seclusion of Ryhope Road he had, to some extent, seen how the other half lived. He and his brothers, without their mother’s knowledge, would oft times escape the house to the old market in the East End of a Saturday night, which would be full of people from the collieries and shipyards round about. Besides all the stalls holding second-hand clothes and such, there were barrels of nuts and raisins sold at ha’penny a bag, sweet stalls, buskers playing accordions, a roundabout – like a fairground – at the top of the market, even boxing most Saturdays.  
    Dan had always loved the Saturday nights, from drinking at the tap in the centre of the market which had a lead basin and a lead cup attached to it with a very heavy chain, to the walk home when they would spend their last pennies on fish and a halfpennorth of chips, and finish off with a quarter of brazil nut toffee from the large sweet stall at the bottom end of the market. Everyone always seemed happy on Saturday nights and – in a childlike fashion – he had never questioned the poverty that was apparent under the jollity.  
    But now, as the door was opened by a young child of indeterminate sex who stared at him warily, it was the smell that hit Dan first; the smell of unwashed humanity, of decay and rot and mould and a hundred other things besides, and he found himself wanting to retch.  
    ‘Is –’ He had to take a deep breath and try again. ‘I’ve come for Doctor Turnbull. Is he here?’  
    ‘He’s seein’ to me da, he’s had his leg smashed right bad at the docks the day,’ the child replied without much interest.  
    ‘Can I talk to your mother then?’  
    ‘Me mam’s deliverin’ the washin’ down near Mowbray Park with our Gertie an’ Jimmy.’ The child sniffed wetly, catching a drip from the end of its nose on the back of its hand. ‘You can come in if you want,’ it offered apathetically.  
    ‘Right. . . Thank you.’  
    Dan found himself stepping into a narrow hall, devoid of wallpaper, where the encrusted floorboards spoke of years of dirt.  
    ‘You want to come in the kitchen?’  
    ‘No, no thank you,’ said Dan hastily. ‘I’ll wait here if I may?’  
    ‘Please yerself.’  
    It seemed like forever to Dan before Doctor Turnbull emerged from the first door on his right, but within minutes they