“Marietta!”
I had only come a short way from the market when the woman called my name. I turned, startled to see an apparition in black hurrying toward me. Her black taffeta dress rustled crisply. The feathers on her black hat bobbed, and heavy black veils cascading from the brim completely covered her head and shoulders. She stopped a few feet away from me, catching her breath, and the scent of her perfume was so strong it almost knocked me down. She was literally drenched in it.
“My dear!” she cried. “I thought you were in England. No, no, don’t get too close, stay where you are! No offense, dear, but we all have to take precautions.”
“Lucille? Is—is that you?”
“I scarcely know, my dear! These past three weeks have been so horrible I’m not sure who I am. The girls have left me, every last one of them. Fled the city immediately, as I should have done, of course, if I’d had any sense. I was afraid to leave the shop, all this dreadful looting. It’s boarded up, windows, doors, everything, and I’ve finally found a man to guard it for me. I’m leaving for the Devereaux plantation tonight.”
“I didn’t know anyone could leave the city. I thought—”
“It costs a fortune, my dear. These wretched, wretched men smuggle one out in boats in the dead of night, it’s extremely dangerous. I just made the arrangements half an hour ago—that’s the only reason I’m on the street, my dear, that insufferable lout wouldn’t come to the shop.”
Lucille pulled out a large white lace handkerchief and, moving back a few steps, cautiously lifted the heavy black veils, draping them over the brim of her hat. For the first time I could see the bright, shrewd, not unkind eyes, the heavily rouged cheeks, the thin, avaricious mouth painted a vivid red. A few gray curls dangled across her brow, and the dangling garnet earrings I remembered so well still swayed at her ears. She raised the handkerchief to her nostrils and sniffed audibly. Overwhelming waves of Parisian scent filled the air, completely eclipsing the scent of sulphur.
“The Devereaux girls have been after me to come to the plantation ever since the first cases were reported—they want me to sew for them, of course, they’re planning a ball and want new gowns, but I shall naturally be treated as an honored guest. No one should stay in this city a day longer than it’s absolutely necessary to stay. I’m surprised to see you here, my dear. I was under the impression you were in England with your handsome Hawke.”
“I—that didn’t work out, Lucille. It’s a long story.”
“You must tell me all about it. Later, when this is all over with and we can talk in safety. That dress you’re wearing! Don’t tell me where you got it, my dear, please spare me the sordid details. Cotton! And I made you such gorgeous things!”
Lucille shook her head, raising her eyes heavenward at the same time. The earrings swayed vigorously. One of the veils tumbled back down. She whipped it back up and took another sniff from the perfumed handkerchief. I had set the basket down beside me, and I rubbed my arms.
“You’ve been to the market, I see,” she said. “I suppose one has to eat—I’ve been living on champagne and petits fours, had a huge supply in my rooms over the shop. You want to cook everything carefully, my dear, boil all the vegetables, don’t dare eat anything raw. Lettuce! You bought lettuce! Don’t risk it, no matter how long you rinse it, and, of course, you don’t drink water.”
“I’ve been boiling it first.”
“Folly, my dear, sheer folly! As soon as it cools it’s as bad as ever. Champagne’s the thing. I still have two cases left—I wish there were some way I could get them to you. Ordinarily I’d send a boy over with them, but of course one daren’t trust anyone now.”
Lucille waved the handkerchief in front of her nose and looked up and down the street as though to verify that it was still safe to talk. She moved back another step and raised her voice.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“Four days.”
“Four days! Then you have no idea what it’s been like. My dear, over two thousand have died! More dying every day—men, women, children. No funerals, no decent burials. They’ve dug these grotesque pits outside the city. The dead are carried there in wagons, dumped into the pits, lime poured over them. Not just the dead, either!”
“What do you mean?”
“My dear, the authorities have hired the scum of the earth to do the dirty work—guard the roads, drive the wagons, collect the dead. Horrible ruffians from the waterfront. They’re worse than the worst criminals! Crosses are painted on the doors where there’s sickness—you’ve seen them. These men march into the houses to collect the dead and my dear, sometimes a poor soul is still alive, and they just chuck him into the wagon with the corpses in order to save themselves another trip the next day!”
“How horrible!”
“It’s true, I swear it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I was watching from my upstairs window when one of the wagons stopped across the street from the shop—I shan’t describe it to you, I couldn’t bear to!—and two terrible men got down and went into the house. They came out with poor Mr. Jacobson, he was wrapped in filthy sheets. His wife was shrieking and wailing, running after them. My dear, Mr. Jacobson was still alive!”
Lucille paused dramatically, her dark eyes wide with a curiously gleeful horror. “He would have died in a matter of hours, of course,” she continued, “but that’s beside the point. When they dumped him on top of the corpses, I saw him move! He tried to get up, but he hadn’t the strength. I’ll never forget it, my dear—it was horrible, horrible.”
“Surely the authorities—”
“The authorities don’t want to be bothered! Most of them are safe and snug on plantations downriver. They’ve turned everything over to these hooligans and a few brave doctors who’re working themselves to death. But let me finish my story! Mrs. Jacobson tried to pull her husband off the wagon, and one of the men knocked her down, knocked her unconscious. Then both of them went back into the house and came out a few minutes later with her Sevres vases and her silver candlesticks and jewelry box.”
She paused again, lifting the handkerchief to her nostrils. “I happen to know her jewelry was all paste—the pearls may have been genuine, perhaps, but they were decidedly inferior.”
“Can’t something be done?” I asked.
Lucille shook her head. “Respectable citizens are arming themselves. You never know when those ruffians are going to break into your house under the pretense of doing their official ‘duty.’ There’ve been several shootings.”
“I’ve heard about that,” I said.
“Looting on a grand scale, rioting on the waterfront, and hundreds dying all the while. Thank God I’m finally getting out of the city, even if it is costing me a small fortune. I’d suggest you get out, too, my dear, as soon as possible.”
“I hope you have a safe journey, Lucille.”
“It’s going to be dreadful. A tiny rowboat. Swamps! But at least I’ll be getting out of this hellhole. You take care, my dear, and when this is all over come by the shop—we’ll have a lovely gossip, and I’ll see that you have something better to wear than that hideous cotton!”
“Take care yourself.”
“I will. I must fly! I hope the shop is still standing!”
Lucille dropped the veils over her face and shoulders, waved the handkerchief at me and scurried away in a flurry of rustling black taffeta. I sighed and picked up the basket and continued on my way, deeply disturbed by what she had told me but not sure I believed all of it. Lucille was a magnificent seamstress and a very shrewd businesswoman, but she was also flighty and excitable and prone to exaggeration. She thrived on gossip and drama, and it was obvious that this fever epidemic was the greatest drama that had come her way in a long time. She had almost seemed to be enjoying herself in a perverse sort of way, I thought, although surely I had imagined it.
I turned another corner, my free hand over my mouth and nose as I passed the vat of sulphur. There was no need to
panic, I told myself. The worst of the epidemic would soon be over, the fever would run its course, and things would return to normal. I would simply sit it out inside the apartment, and then I would take the first available ship to England. I might have to endure two or three more weeks of Jeremy Bond’s company, true, but that was an ordeal I could face easily enough. He might grumble about having to sleep on the sofa in the parlor each night, may have hinted that the bed was plenty big enough for both of us, but at least he hadn’t made an overt attempt to try and share it with me. He wouldn’t dare!
Gripping the handle of the basket with my left hand, I walked alongside a crumbling gray brick wall festooned with strands of withered purple bougainvillaea. A fountain splashed mournfully in the courtyard beyond. As I passed the wrought-iron gates, I saw the white cross slashed across the door of the house. Someone was sobbing inside. The sound was muted by the thickness of the walls but clearly audible nevertheless. I shifted the basket to my right hand and moved on hurriedly, eager now to be safely back inside the apartment I had been so ready to leave earlier on.
I wasn’t more than three streets from the apartment when I heard the wagon approaching. I turned, looking behind me, and then I stopped, a cold chill of horror turning my skin to ice. I could feel the color leaving my cheeks as the wagon with its grotesque cargo moved down the street. It was pulled by a bony brown horse that looked ready to drop in its traces, and two men sat on the high wooden seat in front, rough, surly-looking men in filthy clothes. Neither of them wore scarves over their faces. The driver was chewing a wad of tobacco. The man beside him was busily scratching his filthy straw-colored hair. Both were oblivious to the cargo.
The back of the wagon was heaped with corpses, bodies piled helter-skelter like so much cordwood, legs and arms akimbo, some dangling over the sides. There were women, children, old men, lifeless eyes wide open and staring at nothing. Some were in night clothes, some wrapped in sheets, a few completely naked, and as the wagon moved over the rough cobbles the bodies on top rolled and shifted about. I felt faint. My knees seemed to give way. I flattened myself against the wall, staring in stark horror, unable to look away as the wagon drew nearer and nearer. The driver spat out his tobacco and tightened his grip on the reins as the wheels bumped over a rough stretch.
One of the bodies jerked, slipping over the side, dangling there with arms hanging down, swaying, lifeless hands trailing over the cobbles. It was the body of a gray-haired old man, skeleton thin, prevented from falling completely off only by the weight of the body of a corpulent woman thrown over its legs. I saw the torso swaying from side to side, saw the fingers trailing, and I closed my eyes tightly, willing myself not to swoon. I kept my eyes closed until I could no longer hear the sound of hooves and creaking wheels, and when I finally opened them I felt dazed, disoriented.
I wasn’t going to be sick. I wasn’t going to faint. I was going to be perfectly calm. I gripped the handle of the basket and moved on resolutely, trying to shut the horror out of my mind, trying to forget, but the sight seemed to be burned in my mind in graphic detail. I shuddered, and it seemed to take me forever to get back to the apartment. I opened the gate and crossed the courtyard as though in a trance, dug the door key out of my reticule and unlocked the door with trembling hand, half-expecting to find Jeremy Bond waiting for me in the foyer with hands on thighs and eyes blazing with anger.
He hadn’t returned. That, at least, was a relief. I sighed, pulling myself together with great effort. I took the basket into the pantry and put the food away. I would cook a large meal. I would keep busy. That would help. Yes, when he returned I would have a hot meal waiting for him, but first I had to bathe. I had to scrub myself thoroughly. I fetched water from the cistern in the backyard and heated it and poured it into the large white porcelain tub behind the screen in the bedroom. I poured perfume and bath powders into the water and took off my clothes and dropped them into the hamper.
I must have stayed in the tub for half an hour. I scrubbed and scrubbed, washing my hair as well, and then I soaked in the warm water, relaxing at last. When I finally climbed out and dried myself off I felt much better, although I still had a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I put on a fresh white petticoat and the deep blue silk gown I had worn the night of Em’s wedding. I toweled my hair again and brushed it until it was completely dry. The clock on the mantle chimed. It was five o’clock. I wondered why Jeremy hadn’t returned. He should have been back much earlier.
I wasn’t going to worry about it. I was going to keep busy. I pailed the water out of the tub and emptied it in the backyard, cleaned the tub out and started a fire in the large black iron stove in the small kitchen in back of the apartment. I washed vegetables and put them on to cook. I put a chicken in the oven to roast. I made fresh bread. The clock chimed again. I could hear it in the distance, a pleasant metallic sound. Six o’clock. It couldn’t possibly be six! Where was he? Why hadn’t he returned? I took the vegetables off the stove, put them in bowls, and buttered them. I sliced some bread and checked the chicken and decided to let it cook a few more minutes.
The sunlight was almost gone. I lighted all the lamps and set the table in the dining room, carefully arranging silverware and plates, folding the linen napkins, deliberately dawdling. Six-ten. Six-fifteen. I smelled the chicken and hurried back into the kitchen to take it out of the oven. The skin was a crisp golden brown, but it wasn’t burned. I placed it on a platter and told myself that he would be coming in any minute now, I might as well take the food into the dining room.
I wasn’t at all hungry myself. I was too worried to be hungry. Yes, I was worried, damn it, and when he came in I intended to give him a tongue lashing he wouldn’t soon forget. How could he be so inconsiderate? How could he be so thoughtless, staying gone all this time, leaving me alone to worry myself sick? The bastard was probably at a bar somewhere, drinking with cronies and blithely ignoring the hour. It was absolutely infuriating! He might keep me shut up in this apartment like a prisoner and forbid me to go out, but it was perfectly all right for him to sally about all over the city oblivious to the danger all around him.
I set the food on the table and refolded the napkins. Wine. We would have wine with our meal. There were dozens of bottles in a heavy wire rack in the pantry. I chose a bottle and returned to the dining room with it and then stood there, holding it, unable to keep the alarm at bay a moment longer. My hands were trembling. The back of my throat ached. There was a terrible hollow feeling inside. Something had happened to him. I knew it. I could feel it in my bones. I set the bottle down on the table and moved to the doorway and gripped the frame with my right hand, steadying myself as wave after wave of alarm swept over me.
Something awful had happened to him. He wasn’t coming back. I would never see him again, and I had been so cold, so hateful, so remote, and he would never know that I hadn’t meant any of it. I had been angry with him, it was true, dreadfully angry, with good reason, but I didn’t hate him. How could I possibly hate him? How could I have treated him so badly after all he had done? I had no illusions about him. He was a thorough rogue, a scamp, a scoundrel, and I could never love a man like that, but.… Oh, sweet Jesus, I couldn’t stand any more of this. I was beginning to tremble all over. My legs wouldn’t hold me up much longer. I clung to the doorframe, silently praying that he would come through the door.
Several moments passed. I heard footsteps in the courtyard. I heard a key turning in the lock. He opened the front door and stepped into the foyer, a bulging black bag in his hand. He sighed and brushed a heavy brown wave from his brow. He looked weary. His face was pale. There were deep mauve-shadows under his eyes. He was wearing blue breeches and frock coat and a darker blue waistcoat patterned with black silk leaves. The clothes seemed to hang limply on him. His black silk neckcloth was crumpled. He sighed again and looked up and saw me standing in the doorway and smiled a jaunty smile.
“Been waiting for me?” he inquired.
“Have y
ou any idea what time it is!”
“Haven’t the least notion, lass.”
“It—it’s almost seven o’clock! You should have been back hours ago!”
“Been busy,” he said.
“I was almost out of my mind! I thought—damn you, Jeremy Bond! You saunter out of here like you’re on your way to a picnic and leave me alone all day and—”
I cut myself short, unable to go on without spluttering. He shook his head, a smile playing on his lips, and I glared at him, desperately wishing I had something to throw. The heavy wave dipped over his brow again. His blue eyes were full of amusement. He was very pleased with himself, insufferably pleased with himself. I longed to slap him.
“I take it you’ve been worried about me,” he said.
“I never gave you a thought,” I said venomously. “I was worried about my jewelry.”
I was lying. I had forgotten all about the jewels.
“Sold every last one of ’em,” he told me. “Took quite a while. I had to call on quite a few of my—uh—contacts. None of ’em could afford to buy the whole lot, had to sell a few pieces at a time.” He hoisted the bag and grinned. “I drove a hard bargain, lass. This bag’s full of money, and you’re a very rich woman.”
“You look tired. Your forehead’s moist.”
“There’re thousands and thousands of pounds, thousands. I wouldn’t take anything but cash, counted every note. I probably should have put it in one of the banks, but I don’t trust ’em, never have. I’ve got a safe in the bedroom, in back of the wardrobe, solid iron. Figured I’d put it there where I can keep an eye on it. Do you realize how wealthy you are? Do you realize—”
Love Me, Marietta Page 52
