“Who is it?” asked Elizabeth.
“I don't know,” said Eleanor, and then suddenly she recognized him. “It's Frank. Merciful God, it's Frank! It's over!”
She scrambled to her feet and ran toward him, laughing and shouting his name. He pulled up and grinned down at her. “I knew I'd get a warm welcome here, but I didn't think it would be this warm.”
“I can't tell you how good it is to see you,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath. “When did you return?”
“Just this morning.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a letter. “This is my first stop. I haven't even been to the post office yet.”
“Thank you, Frank. God bless you for this.” She took it from his hand with a laugh, her joy dimming only slightly when she read the New York postmark. Now that mail had resumed, she would surely hear from Freddy soon. “When did they lift the quarantine?”
“You mean those signs? They're still up. I guess we won't be seeing any strangers in town any time soon.”
Eleanor went cold. “The quarantine is still in force?”
“Well, sure, as far as Gloria knows, anyhow. She hasn't left the farm much. Says there hasn't been any reason.” He studied her, puzzled. “Those signs aren't for me, Eleanor. They're for strangers.”
“They're for anyone who wasn't in Waterford at the time.”
“But I live here,” he protested. “And I was in Grangerville all that time and didn't have so much as a sniffle.”
“Frank, please don't go into town.”
He laughed as if she had told a joke, but when he realized she was in earnest, he spoke to her as if she were a child awakened by nightmares. They were safe in Waterford, he assured her, as safe as any place on earth.
Frank Schaeffer was the first to fall ill. Gloria was the next, and then the other postal clerks, and then, it seemed, nearly everyone.
Soon every bed in Dr. Cullen's clinic was occupied by a feverish, coughing man or woman who only hours before had seemed whole and strong. Dr. Granger raced from house to house, caring for those too sick to come to the clinic. His father came out of retirement at eighty-five to assist him on his rounds, though neither man had any remedy to offer their patients. There was no cure for influenza.
Rumors spread, ignited by fear. A father of six had ridden for help when his oldest child could not be roused from unconsciousness; he returned home with a nurse to find all six children and his wife dead. An ailing husband and wife had tried to drive into town to the clinic; their horse arrived pulling the wagon bearing their corpses. Everywhere Professor Johnson went, the people of Waterford begged him to lift the quarantine so that doctors from the cities might aid them, bring them medicine. “Every doctor who can hold a thermometer is already in service to the sick elsewhere,” he told them. “And there are no medicines for anyone to bring.”
But there had to be something; the alternative was unthinkable. In the absence of medicine from the doctors, the people of Waterford developed their own: plasters made of mustard and turpentine. Quinine and aspirin. Vinegar scrubs. Tobacco smoke. Poultices of every description. None worked. Nothing prevented Spanish influenza from sweeping through Waterford like fire through straw.
When every chair and even the hallway floors of Dr. Cullen's clinic overflowed with the sick and the dying, Professor Johnson turned the primary school into a makeshift hospital. Lucinda and Eleanor were among the volunteers who set up cots and sewed muslin partitions from old sheets. Then, at Dr. Cullen's request, they joined the teachers working in the kitchen preparing meals to be delivered to the bedridden. They worked late into the night before returning home to Elm Creek Manor, almost too exhausted to eat the meal Maude had kept warm for them, and too drained to describe the horrors they had witnessed passing by the sickrooms throughout the day.
The following morning, Eleanor could hardly bear to leave Claudia in the care of Elizabeth and Maude as she and Lucinda returned to the school. They took the wagon, leaving the strongest horses for David and William, who at Elizabeth's urging spent the days helping their stricken neighbors. They rode from one farmhouse to the next, calling out from a safe distance to ask whether the people inside needed anything. Sometimes their neighbors needed food; often David and William heard a weak voice call out that the cows needed to be milked and the livestock fed. They returned home after dark as exhausted as Lucinda and Eleanor, reluctant to report which of their neighbors had died overnight.
On their fourth day in the kitchens, Dr. Granger strode in; later Eleanor learned that he had just returned from the Waterford College infirmary where he had found more than fifty students, the doctor, and the two nurses all dead from influenza.
His mouth set in a grim line, his eyes shadowed and glittering, he tore into the cupboards and pulled out a large stockpot. “Mrs. Bergstrom,” he called, without looking in her direction. “To me, please.”
Eleanor quickly washed her hands and dried them on her apron as she joined him. “How can I help?”
“Find me herbs that will smell and taste like medicine when mixed with this.” His voice was low as he withdrew four tall bottles of liquor from his overcoat. He set the bottles on the counter and filled the pot with water. “I have some bottles in the clinic. They will need to be brought here and boiled.”
Eleanor nodded and sent Lucinda for them. By the time Lucinda returned, Eleanor and Dr. Granger had cooked up a dark, vile-smelling brew that resembled the worst medicine Eleanor had ever seen. “But it is not medicine,” she said as they poured the mixture into bottles. The other women were studiously ignoring them, but she kept her voice to a murmur nonetheless.
“If they believe it is medicine, it may help them.” He raked his hair out of his face, and only then did she see that his eyes were feverish, his face flushed. “You are wasted in the kitchen, Eleanor. You and Lucinda will be more useful tending to the sick.”
“But we are not nurses,” said Eleanor faintly.
“You are the closest thing we have to them.” He corked the last of the bottles and carefully filled his pockets with them. The rest he placed in the cupboard. “Ask for Dolores Tibbs in the clinic. She is in charge of the nurses now.”
Eleanor nodded. She knew Dolores well; the librarian was the fourth founding member of the Waterford Quilting Guild. Dr. Granger rushed off without another word, and Eleanor watched him go, her hand on her heart.
“Eleanor,” said Lucinda. “I don't think I can.”
Something in her voice made Eleanor turn sharply. Lucinda was pale and shaking, her teeth chattering. She clutched the counter as if it alone kept her upright.
Eleanor pressed a palm to Lucinda's forehead; her skin radiated heat. “We must go after Dr. Granger.”
Lucinda nodded in reply. Eleanor helped Lucinda to a chair, then raced through the school searching the sickrooms for Dr. Granger, Dr. Cullen, anyone who might help. A white-faced girl too young to be a nurse interrupted her duties long enough to say that they had no more beds left and that Eleanor would be better off taking Lucinda directly to Dr. Cullen's clinic rather than waiting for a doctor to return. Eleanor hurried back to the kitchen, pulled Lucinda to her feet, and helped her outside, past classrooms hung with blackboards and cheery pictures that now looked down on the dead and dying.
When they reached the clinic, they could not approach the front door for the crowds of afflicted men and women trying to enter. A man stood in the doorway at the top of the stairs shouting that they were too full to accept new patients, and that anyone who could make it that far should go to the Waterford College gymnasium, where Dolores Tibbs was arranging another hospital. “I can make it,” Lucinda murmured. So Eleanor turned and half-carried her back down the hill toward the campus, trying not to think of what would become of those who could not walk so far or had no one to take them.
Inside the gymnasium, volunteers were arranging cots in rows, and where they had run out of cots, they had placed mattresses on the floor. Patients filled the makeshift beds as
soon as they were available. At the back of the room, dozens of sufferers waited to be examined. Some sat slumped against the wall, others lay upon the floor alone, as if fearful relatives had abandoned them there and fled. One young mother cradled a baby and a young boy in her lap. She called desperately for a doctor, but her children were motionless in her arms, and the scurrying volunteers could not stop to comfort her.
Eleanor stared at the scene in shock before swallowing hard and scanning the room for Dolores. She spotted her among the crowd at the back, bending over a patient, calling out orders, gesturing and pointing. Eleanor knew Dolores would not hear her over the din, so she made her way to her friend's side, still bearing up Lucinda. “Dolores,” she began. “Dr. Granger—”
Dolores glanced at her and turned to another patient. “You'll need to wait in line by the door.”
“Dolores—” Eleanor stumbled as Lucinda slumped against her. “Dr. Granger sent me to help you.”
Dolores looked over at Lucinda quickly. “Then get your friend into a bed and come back.”
Eleanor nodded and half-carried Lucinda through the rows of mattresses, looking about for an open bed. Just then, two men passed her carrying a body draped in a sheet. Eleanor looked back the way they had come and found an empty mattress on the floor two rows down. Swallowing hard, she hurried to claim it and helped Lucinda onto it.
“I'll be back soon,” Eleanor promised, and raced back to Dolores. Dolores did not seem to recognize her, so Eleanor repeated her offer to help.
Dolores studied her and nodded. “You're new, you're still fresh. You can help with triage. Most of these people would be better off at home, but they won't listen when you tell them that, so save your breath. Send those whom we can still help to a bed. Leave the rest here.”
“Wait,” said Eleanor as Dolores turned to go. “How will I know which is which?”
“Check their feet. If they're blue, the person won't make it.”
Eleanor nodded, but Dolores had already spun away.
Eleanor hurried back to Lucinda. Quickly, before fear could stop her, she removed Lucinda's shoe and stocking, and forced herself to look. The sole of her foot was pink and healthy.
Swiftly she returned stocking and shoe. “Come on,” she said, grunting from the effort as she pulled Lucinda to her feet. “You're going home.”
“Don't be stupid,” said Lucinda faintly. “I can't risk carrying this illness home to the family.”
Eleanor knew that, but she also knew if Lucinda stayed in that makeshift hospital, she would die. “There are too many patients here and not enough nurses. Dolores herself said people like you would be better off at home.” She draped Lucinda's arm over her shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief when Lucinda walked along beside her, supporting much of her own weight. “When we get home—”
“No. You're needed here. The horses know the way home, and Elizabeth can care for me.”
As they left the gymnasium, Eleanor reluctantly agreed, and they made their way back to the wagon. Eleanor warned her always to wear her mask and to allow only Elizabeth to care for her, to limit the risk to the others. She watched Lucinda ride off, slumped with exhaustion but steady in her seat, and hoped it would be enough.
Then she raced back to help Dolores.
She did not know how long she worked before another volunteer helped her, stumbling, to a chair to catch a few minutes of sleep. One day blurred into another. She knew many of the sick at least by sight, while many others were unfamiliar and young, probably students of the college. She could not think about friends and neighbors left by the wall and strangers directed to beds; she could not give special consideration to anyone, except for children and mothers carrying babies. She did not care if they had to be carried to their cots, they were assigned them.
Once she passed Dr. Granger administering his concoction to a middle-aged man. She had to turn her face away when he swallowed the bitter liquid and gazed up at the doctor, his eyes shining with gratitude. Too busy to acknowledge her, the doctor swiftly moved on to the next patient, but something compelled Eleanor to follow. “Dr. Granger,” she said. “Will the Health Officer lift the quarantine and send for help?”
“Professor Johnson was buried this morning. In the trench.” Dr. Granger's voice was hoarse, his gaze haggard. “There is no help to send for, Mrs. Bergstrom. We have only ourselves.”
He hurried away. Eleanor stood there dumbly nodding, her ears ringing. The trench. She had heard whispered rumors about the mass grave, but she had not wanted to believe them true.
“Eleanor.” She felt a hand on her arm. “Eleanor, dear.”
Slowly she turned. Elizabeth stood beside her. “You must come home at once,” she said. “We need you.”
Eleanor felt a fist close around her throat. “Lucinda?”
“She lives yet, but others fell ill even before she returned to us.” Elizabeth put her arm around her daughter-in-law and guided her to the door. “My husband. Maude. Clara. William.”
“Claudia?”
“We must hurry,” said Elizabeth, her anguish like a knife in Eleanor's heart.
Eleanor felt as if she tended her family at a dead run. First to Claudia to try to get her to nurse, then to Lucinda to change her bed linens, soaked through with perspiration, then back to Claudia to coax her to sleep in her cradle, then to the kitchen to prepare a sustaining broth, and then back to Claudia. Always back to Claudia.
Maude was the first to die. Two days after Eleanor's return, her sister-in-law slipped away before the sun rose. Through the frenzy of nursing those who yet lived, Eleanor watched Elizabeth with a sort of detached amazement as she arranged for her daughter-in-law to be buried on the family estate. Maude was her son's widow, and Elizabeth would not see her interred in a mass grave with strangers.
David, Clara, William, and Claudia hung on. Once Clara came out of her delirium enough to beg Eleanor for the Ocean Waves quilt, and she was inconsolable until Eleanor found it, draped it over her, and assured her it was there. Eleanor sat beside her and stroked her sweaty hair until she drifted off to sleep.
That night, Claudia screamed in pain until she was too exhausted to do more than whimper. She lay so limp and silent in her cradle that Eleanor's last bit of control finally shattered. She broke down in sobs and gathered her child in her arms, but Claudia did not even blink at the tears that fell upon her hot skin. Eleanor carried her into her own bed and lay beside her; Claudia took her nipple in her mouth but had no strength to suckle. “You will be all right,” whispered Eleanor, kissing her, knowing that Claudia would probably not survive the night. She murmured soft words of comfort, all the while silently praying: Please, Lord. Please. You took all of my babies but Claudia. Please don't take her from me now. I will never again ask you for more children. I will never again ask you to spare my dear Freddy. Please Lord. Take whomever else you want, take me, but let my child live.
Eleanor fell asleep to the rhythm of her desperate prayer. She woke late the next morning to find Claudia breathing beside her, the Ocean Waves quilt spread over them.
She sat up, startled. Claudia let out a soft cry and rooted for her, so Eleanor lay back down and gave her the breast. Claudia never opened her eyes as she nursed, and fits of coughing forced her to spit out more milk than she swallowed, but she did not cry as she released the nipple and drifted off to sleep. Eleanor pressed a hand to Claudia's forehead; she felt cooler, if only slightly.
Carefully Eleanor gathered up the Ocean Waves quilt and stole from the room, whispering a prayer as she closed the door. She met Elizabeth in the hallway on her way to Clara's room. She looked haggard, but she must have seen something in Eleanor's face to give her hope, for she asked, “How is the baby?”
“She nursed, and I think her fever has broken,” said Eleanor. She saw no point in saying how little Claudia had drank, or how weakly she had suckled. “You should not have let me sleep so late. How are the others?”
“I let you sleep because you needed
your rest. David is sleeping. William asked for something to eat. Lucinda drank some broth, but I had to force her. Clara …” Elizabeth shook her head. “Clara is the same.”
“I will tend to them while you rest.”
Elizabeth nodded, but stopped Eleanor before she went two paces. “Where are you going with that?”
“To Clara.” Eleanor indicated the quilt in her arms. “She asked for it yesterday. Thank you for returning it, but I do not need it.”
“I did not bring it for you.” Elizabeth took the quilt, and Eleanor was too surprised to stop her. “Claudia may still need it.”
“Surely you don't believe the quilt will cure her.”
“You yourself said her fever broke,” Elizabeth countered. “What does it matter to you what I do? I've heard you say my superstitions are harmless. The quilt will not harm her, even if you don't believe it will help.”
“I don't believe it, but what if Clara does? She asked for this quilt for a reason. What if you've taken her hope from her?”
“Clara herself insisted I give it to Claudia. She said the baby needs it more than she does.”
Eleanor heard the note of hysteria in her mother-in-law's voice and could not bear to prolong the argument. “If Clara asks, we must give it back to her at once,” she said. Elizabeth nodded distractedly as she hurried off to Claudia, the quilt in her arms.
Clara never asked for the quilt. Within hours she sank into an unceasing, feverish sleep in which she screamed and cried and babbled nonsense. Then, suddenly, she grew still. While Eleanor tried to rouse her, Elizabeth fled from the room and returned with the Ocean Waves quilt. Weeping, she flung the quilt over the bed and threw herself upon her daughter's silent body, moaning her name.
Finally Eleanor had to gently pull Elizabeth away.
William insisted that he be the one to dig his sister's grave. Though his legs wobbled beneath him when he rose from his sickbed, Elizabeth was too heartsick to object. She had not left Clara's side since fleeing to retrieve the quilt. “Too late,” she whispered, rocking back and forth on her chair and staring straight ahead at nothing.
The Quilter's Legacy Page 22
