“Skeeter,” he sighed as the elevator carried them down toward Commons, “there’s only one thing infinitely worse than running a luxury hotel on a time terminal.”
“What’s that?”
“Not having a time terminal to run that hotel on.”
To that, Skeeter had no reply whatsover.
* * *
Catharine “Kate” Eddowes generally enjoyed her annual trek out to the fields of Kent to work the harvest. Picking hops wasn’t as difficult as some jobs she’d done and the Kentish countryside was almost like a great garden, full of flowers and green fields and fresh, crisp air. Moreover, John Kelly, with whom she had shared a bed more or less continuously for seven years, almost always benefitted from the change to the countryside, where the cleaner air eased his constant cough.
But this year, things were different.
Late September was generally warm and beautiful. But the whole summer had been unseasonably chilly and full of rain. By the time they arrived in Kent, the late September weather was raw. Working sunup to sundown in wet, cold fields, John Kelly’s health deteriorated alarmingly.
“It’s no use, John,” she finally said. “We can’t stay the season, this time. You’ll catch your death, so you will, and then what’ll become of me, luv? I need you, John Kelly.”
Tears of defeat and shame caused him to turn aside, but by nightfall, his cough had grown so alarmingly worse, he agreed to abandon the hop harvest, even though it meant giving up money they both needed. They had no choice but return to London, where they could at least find a dry room for Kelly to sleep in at night. It was a long walk from Hunton, Kent back to London, but they hadn’t any money for a train, so walk it they did, in the company of another couple they’d met working the same fields.