An Embarrassment of Riches

by Margaret Pemberton

  Caitlin refused absolutely to go into quarantine.

  ‘You can’t possibly nurse the little one twenty-four hours a day single-handed, ma’am,’ she had pointed out practically. ‘And I’m strong as an ox. I’ve never gone down with anything in my life, not even famine fever and that’s just as contagious as smallpox.’

  Maura had known better than to argue with her. Gratefully she had accepted her offer of help and had immediately issued instructions, from behind a closed door, to Haines.

  The household staff were all to be told of the contagion that had entered the house. Bridget was to leave immediately for Tarna with Felix and Natalie. Word was to be sent to Miss Millbank informing her of the nature of Stasha’s illness. He was to check that there were adequate food supplies in the house and that all Dr Bridge’s requirements were bought in, and then he and the rest of the staff were to take a month’s paid leave.

  ‘But what about the cooking and cleaning, ma’am?’ he had queried, and to her amazement she detected genuine concern in his voice.

  ‘The little cooking that we are going to require I can do myself. The cleaning, apart from the sick-room which Caitlin and I will do between us, can wait. The house won’t fall down for want of a duster.’

  ‘No, ma’am.’ Haines cleared his throat. ‘I hope the young gentleman quickly recovers, ma’am.’

  It was the first touch of warmth there had ever been between them.

  ‘Thank you, Haines,’ she said appreciatively. ‘If word can be got to Mr Karolyis, please see that he is informed that his …’ She stopped herself just in time. ‘Please see that he is informed of his nephew’s illness and whereabouts.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Good luck, ma’am. Goodbye.’

  From the moment she had made the decision to nurse Stasha at home and not have him sent to a fever hospital she had known she was undertaking a task of frightening responsibility. If he died, then it would be said that the outcome would have been different if only she had allowed him to be sent away. Alexander would never forgive her. Not ever. If Caitlin caught the disease then that, too, would be her responsibility.

  She sat by Stasha’s side, talking softly and comfortingly to him when he was conscious, sponging his sweat-soaked forehead ceaselessly when he wasn’t.

  He vomited bile with appalling frequency. His sweatsoaked bed-sheets needed changing a half-dozen times a day. At every opportunity she spooned sweetened boiled water between his lips, trying to replace the fluid sweating out of him.

  As the fever grew in intensity he lapsed into delirium, calling out for his nurse; for his teddy bear; and once for ‘Uncle Xander’.

  Days and nights merged into one. When she was too exhausted to sit by him any longer, sponging him and comforting him, Caitlin would relieve her and she would snatch a few hours’sleep in the adjoining room.

  She kept wondering if Haines had managed to get word to Alexander and if the Jezebel was already on its way back to New York. She kept thinking about Genevre. Of how much Alexander had loved her. Of how different his life would have been if Genevre hadn’t died giving birth to the child tossing and turning in delirium only yards away from her.

  The spots on his face and body became large and began to suppurate. With unspeakable horror she tended each and every lesion with diligent care, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t leave deep, scarring pits in his skin.

  It was early morning when he fell into a coma.

  That evening an imperceptible change came over him and Maura was seized with the certainty that he was about to die.

  She woke an exhausted Caitlin, saying urgently, ‘I think we’re losing him, Caitlin!’

  Caitlin grabbed her rosary beads off the bedside table and hurried into the sick-room. There was no fever now. Beneath the angry, deforming pustules his skin was like marble.

  They knelt down at either side of the bed.

  ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,’ Maura began.

  She felt dizzy with weariness. It was so hot in the room she could hardly breathe. She tugged at the back of her dress, pulling it open.

  ‘Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,’ she continued.

  Her head was throbbing and she felt sick. Was going to be sick.

  ‘His breathing is changing, ma’am!’ Caitlin was saying, almost sobbing in relief. ‘He’s sleeping naturally, ma’am! I swear he is!’

  Stasha’s face swam before Maura’s eyes. She tried to focus properly and couldn’t.

  She was suddenly aware of a new note in Caitlin’s voice. A note of sheer horror. Yet it couldn’t be for Stasha. Stasha was going to be all right.

  Dimly she realized that Caitlin was crying out her name, was rushing around the bed towards her.

  ‘Oh God!’ she whispered as realization came. ‘Oh no!’

  Her hands went to her face. There were no pustules there as yet, but there would be. And they would scar her just as they were scarring Stasha.

  ‘Alexander!’ she cried. ‘Alexander!’ and then she pitched forwards, plunging into unconsciousness.

  Dr Bridges abandoned all his other patients and moved into the house within hours, bringing with him three fever nurses.

  An exhausted Caitlin was relieved of all her duties. Stasha continued to recover and the pustules on his face and body began to heal, leaving deep pits in his skin. Spots began to appear on Maura’s face and hands and then on her body. When they began to suppurate Dr Bridges put cotton gloves on her hands so that she didn’t touch them in delirium and a nurse applied camomile to them almost constantly.

  ‘Where the devil is Mr Karolyis?’ he asked time and time again as Maura tossed and turned and vomited.

  No-one knew. The Jezebel had not berthed at any of the yacht clubs along America’s East Coast. It was tentatively suggested that perhaps the Jezebel had sailed further south than Florida, towards the Bahamas, or even that Alexander was attempting an ocean crossing to Ireland.

  Three weeks later, as Caitlin entertained a nearly fully recovered Stasha by helping him to cut figures from a magazine and as Maura lay pale and spent, her face barely visible beneath a thick application of pale pink camomile, Alexander returned.

  The Jezebel berthed at the New York Yacht Club and Alexander made his way from the club to the Fifth Avenue Hotel by hansom.

  The gentleman receptionist stared at him wide-eyed as he strode through the opulent reception area. Without halting near the desk Alexander made his way towards the elevator. The receptionist ran after him.

  ‘Mr Karolyis! Mr Karolyis, sir!’

  Alexander turned towards him impatiently, his mind on Stasha. It had been over a month since he had seen him and he was looking forward to their reunion.

  ‘Yes?’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Mr Karolyis, sir! There have been urgent messages asking as to your whereabouts every day …’

  Alexander shrugged dismissively. No doubt there had been. He was a man people were always wanting to contact; to meet.

  ‘You gave them to my secretary?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Karolyis …’

  Alexander turned away and waited as a bellboy slid back the elevator door for him.

  ‘Mr Karolyis, sir! They are very important. Your nephew had to leave the hotel because he was taken sick. We were asked to get word to you that he had smallpox and …’

  Alexander whipped round on his heel so suddenly he stumbled.

  ‘Smallpox?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We were told in order that we would realize the importance of trying to make contact with you. We did try, sir, only you were sailing off Florida and …’

  ‘Where is he?’ Alexander demanded, chalk-white.

  ‘At your Fifth Avenue home, sir.’

  Alexander broke into a run. He ran through the marble-floored reception area, he ran down the steps of the colonnaded entrance. He didn’t pause to demand that his carriage was brought round and he didn’t hurl himself into one of the waiting han
soms. Fifth Avenue was choked with traffic and he wasn’t going to sit imprisoned in a slow-moving carriage. He began to run south, past the Union Club, past the Belmont mansion.

  Several times he was recognized. Several times people called out his name in bewilderment as he ran past them like a madman.

  He ran past the Schermerhorn mansion, he ran past Union Place. If Stasha had smallpox and was at the Fifth Avenue mansion, what about Felix and Natalie? Did they have smallpox too? And for how long had Stasha had it? For how long had he been desperately ill, perhaps even dying?

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he panted, running, running, running. ‘Don’t let him be dead. Don’t let Felix or Natalie be sick! Please! Please! Please?’

  As he approached the giant gates of his home they remained closed. No minions hurried out to open them for him. In rising terror he heaved them apart, running across the cobbled courtyard, running up the lion-flanked stone steps.

  The house was as still and quiet as a tomb. No Haines came to meet him. There was no sign of house-maids or footmen. Dust had settled on the intricate carving of the grand staircase.

  Sweat was dripping into his eyes, his heart was pumping as if it were going to burst. Still he continued to run. Up the stairs; along the corridor towards the nurseries.

  It was Dr Bridges who hurried to meet him.

  ‘I’ve just got the message!’ Alexander gasped, almost hurtling into him. ‘Where is he? Have Felix and Natalie caught it as well?’

  Dr Bridges took hold of his arm, steadying him.

  ‘No. Your children are safe and well and at Tarna …’

  ‘And Stasha? Is Stasha at Tarna, too?’

  ‘No, Mr Karolyis. He’s here and he’s well on the way to recovery. There’s no fear of blindness and …’

  Alexander swayed with relief. ‘Take me to him. I must see him!’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course. But I have other news for you. Your wife took it upon herself to nurse the child. When she announced her intentions I naturally assumed she had been inoculated. If I had known otherwise, I would never have allowed her near the sick-room …’

  He forgot all about the recovering Stasha. One look at Dr Bridge’s face was enough to tell him what had happened.

  ‘Jesus God,’ he whispered, drowning in horror, suffocating in it.

  ‘I’m afraid that though the child is now no longer infectious, your wife is still ill. The delirium is at an end, but the pustules are still suppurating …’

  Alexander rocked on his heels. He had been so terrified that Stasha had died that he had not given a thought to the consequences of the disease if Stasha lived through it. Now he thought of Stasha, physically marked for life. And Maura …

  ‘Take me to her,’ he said harshly, feeling the gilded walls of the corridor spin around him. ‘Take me to her! Now! Immediately!’

  ‘I can’t, Mr Karolyis. Not unless you have been inoculated …’

  ‘Of course I’ve been bloody inoculated!’

  But Maura hadn’t. Living in the depths of Ireland she had not received the kind of scrupulous modern medical attention that he himself had received. And he had been too negligent a husband to have ensured that the omission was rectified.

  When he entered the room he stood still for a moment, rooted by shock. She lay motionless. Her hair was brushed damply from her face in a long, thick braid. It made her look very young and vulnerable, almost schoolgirlish. Her hands lay on the crisp white coverlet, encased in cotton gloves. Her face was barely recognizable, masked in pink, dry paste.

  ‘Maura!’ he said chokingly. ‘Oh, dear Christ! Maura!’

  She turned her head weakly towards him, relief flooding her eyes.

  As he strode towards her, her relief changed to horror.

  ‘No! You mustn’t! I’m still infectious …’

  ‘I’ve been inoculated. And why the hell didn’t you tell me you had never been inoculated? You know what a cesspit of disease New York is …’

  His voice was so thick he wondered how on earth she could understand him. He sat by the side of her bed, taking her gloved hands gently in his. ‘You’re going to be all right,’ he said, trying hard not to cry. ‘Bridges says the worst is over …’

  ‘Stasha,’ she said, the soft fullness of her mouth trembling slightly. ‘Have you seen Stasha?’

  ‘Not yet. Bridges says he’s well on the way to recovery.’

  ‘And his face?’

  It took Alexander all the strength he possessed not to flinch. ‘I don’t know.’

  Tears glittered on her eyelashes. ‘I’m sorry, Alexander. So very sorry.’

  He said fiercely: ‘A few pockmarks won’t destroy Stasha’s handsomeness. They will make him look swashbuckling. And you’re not going to have any marks on your face, Maura. I promise.’

  Her fingers curled in his. It was a promise he couldn’t possibly keep and both of them knew it.

  ‘I think it is quite safe to say that if your nephew had gone into a fever hospital, as I first suggested, he would have died,’ Dr Bridges said to him later that evening. ‘Between them your wife and your children’s nurse-maid saved his life.’

  When Alexander had visited Stasha he had found him sitting up in bed, cutting figures out of magazines, Caitlin at his side.

  ‘Uncle Xander! Uncle Xander!’ he cried, dropping the scissors, magazines and cut-outs slithering to the floor.

  Alexander had hugged him, and hugged him, and hugged him.

  ‘I like it here, Uncle Xander,’ Stasha had said to him as Alexander took over Caitlin’s task and began helping him cut out figures for the toy theatre she had made him. ‘Can I stay here? Will you stay here, too?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Alexander said, not daring to make a promise to him until after he had talked to Maura, wondering what her reaction would be when he did so.

  It went without saying that his previous objections to Caitlin and Bridget no longer stood. And he had known for months past that his remarks about her Irishness and about the likelihood of Stasha being accepted in society and Felix not being accepted had been crass stupidity. If he began living at home again, perhaps he could even publicly admit that Stasha was his own child. Perhaps the impossible was still possible. Perhaps he and Maura could live together as happily as they had done in the early days at Tarna.

  When she was fully recovered he would talk to her. He would tell her he had never truly wanted to be estranged from her, that his affair with Ariadne was well and truly over.

  At the moment both of them were still living fearfully day to day as the suppurating lesions on her face began to heal and they waited to see if she would be scarred and if so, how badly. It was now obvious that Stasha was going to be permanently scarred, but Maura had had less lesions on her face than Stasha and Dr Bridges was holding out hope that they were going to be less damaging. Whether they were or not, pockmark scars would make no difference to the passion he felt for her; that he had always felt for her. She would always be beautiful because her beauty came from within, as well as without. And if he and Maura began living together again as man and wife, then Stasha, Felix and Natalie could grow up together, aware of their true relationship to each other. It was an idyllic prospect. A prospect that sent the blood singing along his veins.

  It was a letter from Kieron that put an end to all his hopes for the future. Because there was still not a full complement of household staff in the house, he had been attending to all correspondence himself. Dr Bridges had strictly forbidden Maura to read anything until she was fully recovered, fearful of her illness causing permanent damage to her eyes, and so he opened all her mail for her, informing her as to who was sending best wishes for a speedy recovery.

  Kieron’s letter had been sent from Kansas.

  I should be back in New York by the end of the month for a few days before returning here permanently. Thanks to Henry’s generosity I’m now the owner of a fine ranch and all that’s needed to make life heaven is yourself. I know that your greatest fear is that
himself won’t allow you to take the children, but I think you’re wrong. The four of us could have a grand life out west. Before I left New York I spoke to the Bishop about the chances of having your marriage annulled and he was cautiously encouraging. You could free yourself completely from the slum landlord tainted Karolyis name that you hate so much. We’ve always been meant for each other, élainn. As you’ve said yourself, how could anyone else ever understand us as we understand each other? The answer is no-one. Don’t let your fear of losing the children stop you finding happiness out here. It won’t happen. I swear to God it won’t. I love you, sweetheart. I love you more than anything else in the world.

  He didn’t read any more. He couldn’t. Were Maura and Kieron Sullivan already lovers? It was impossible to tell from the letter. What was obvious was that Sullivan’s love for her was reciprocated and that Maura had only refused to leave for Kansas with him because she was frightened of losing the children. Slowly he resealed the envelope. He had suffered years of guilt because of the misery he had inadvertently caused Genevre. Was he now going to feel guilty for the rest of his life because of Maura’s unhappiness? He could make her happy if he chose to. He could free her and allow her custody of the children. She had, after all, given him Stasha. Without Maura, Stasha would have died. He remained sitting at his desk, his shoulders slumped, his head in his hands.

  When he finally emerged the skin was taut across his cheek-bones and there were white pinched lines around his mouth.

  He entered her room. She was sat up, propped by a pile of plump pillows. Her eyes were shining and there were only small patches of camomile on her face.

  ‘Has Dr Bridges told you? Isn’t it wonderful? There are only the slightest of scars. There’s one deep one by the corner of my left eyebrow, but I shall see that a wisp of veiling conceals it when I am out, and there’s another tiny one at the corner of my mouth, but Caitlin says it looks more like a dimple than a scar.’

  He forced a smile, too overcome with grief at what he was about to do to be able to share in her joy.