Quarantine

by John Smolens

  “Certainly that is the case, Doctor, and that it is a crucial failure on my part.”

  Giles stepped outside the tent, into the cooler evening air, which was filled with voices, pleading voices rising from the tents.

  That evening Leander and his father boarded up the windows. It was being done throughout the neighborhood. The sound of hammers and saws echoed through the streets. His father cut the pine boards, which Leander fastened to the window frames with square-head nails. He had been cautioned against using too many nails. Nails were precious things and his father always treated them like money. He went through each board without pausing, his strokes long and even, the pitch of the blade rising as he neared the end of the cut. There was music to the sawing, rhythm to the hammering, and they barely spoke as they worked.

  It was nearly dark when they put away the ladder and tools. They went into the house and heated a barley soup his mother had made. His father hung a pot of water and vinegar over the fire, and then adjusted the chimney damper so that the room began to fill with smoke.

  “I’ve heard say that this will help ward off the fever,” he said, sitting at the table.

  “The smoke,” Leander said, “it stings my eyes.”

  “I know.” His father would not look up from his soup bowl. “There’s another precaution I’ve taken. The rifle, it’s loaded with ball and powder.” He cleared his throat and resumed eating. “This fever drives some people mad.”

  “Like Mr. Sears across the street. And Papi.”

  “Yes.” His father raised his head now and stared across the table. “If I get like that, you are to use it.” He nodded toward the rifle, leaning in the corner.

  Leander shook his head.

  “You heed me now. It is an act of mercy, no different than putting down a mad dog.”

  Leander pushed his bowl aside.

  “And you finish the soup that your mother made with her own two hands.”

  Slowly, Leander drew his bowl back and began to eat. “I’d like as give the Reverend Cary an act of mercy.”

  For a moment Leander thought he detected a smile, but his father only continued to spoon barley and carrots into his mouth.

  Giles opened a vein in Amanda’s left forearm and allowed about a dozen ounces of blood to drain off into a pan. He was assisted by an old woman named Esther L’Amour who, when young, had been a Water Street prostitute.

  “The blood, it is sizy,” she said after he had applied the tourniquet to Amanda’s upper arm. “Frothy and dark, as though something inside her has set it to boil. Maybe you should take more?” Ester had a terrible deep crevice in the right side of her face, where years ago another prostitute had taken a bite out of her cheek. The result was that her face seemed lopsided, and she talked as though she were speaking around something lodged in her mouth.

  Giles wiped his lancet with a cloth and placed it in his medicine bag. “No.”

  “But this girl, she is so peaceful now.”

  “The bleeding has nothing to do with it. If anything, it’s only making her weaker.” He diluted some laudanum in water. “I want to see if we can get her to drink this and keep it down.”

  Esther held Amanda’s head up off the pillow, and he managed to get her to drink some of the liquid without it coming back up. Her eyes were opened and she would not take them off of Giles. Her skin had turned yellow and was hot to the touch.

  “Leave us,” Amanda said to Esther. “Please.”

  Reluctantly, the old woman got to her feet. “There are other patients to attend to,” she said as she wrapped her shawl about her and left the tent.

  “Will you try to drink a little more?” Giles picked up the glass from the small table next to the cot.

  “No, it has me dreaming as it is, and I need to be clear.”

  “After a short rest I thought we’d try another emetic.”

  “No,” Amanda said. “No more vomiting, no drawing blood. Let me just look upon your face. I feel it drawing near. I have come to realize that I must follow Sarah, to make sure she can see her way.” She smiled weakly. “Though I will be surprised if she will be blind in heaven. He wouldn’t do that to her, would He? I just want to look into my daughter’s eyes and have her see me. She must not be alone.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you remember when we used to row out into the marshes?”

  He nodded.

  “There was that one perfect summer’s day. The tide was low and we were concealed by the marsh grass rising well above us. We could not help ourselves.” She looked away. “And then you went back to sea.”

  “I returned to the war, yes.”

  “You wanted to. You needed some reason to get away.”

  “It does not mean that I—”

  “What, Giles?”

  “Remember you sat in your dooryard and said we must not speak of this, ever.”

  “My notion of ‘ever’ has changed since then. Can you tell me once? Can you say it?”

  “I left, yes. I went back to the war, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t love you.”

  She studied his face as though she thought something was missing. But then she winced, gripped by pain.

  Giles picked up the glass and leaned close. “Take some more.”

  She didn’t resist as he held the back of her head and tipped the glass to her lips. She swallowed some of the laudanum, but most of it ran down her chin. Still there seemed a dazed release to her eyes. He eased her head down on the pillow.

  “That day in the skiff, we were so drawn to each other,” she said. “I never felt such urgency. To make love like that in a rowboat, with the oars and the thwarts. Do you remember how the boat rocked?”

  “Yes. It took great balance.”

  “Balance, yes.” She closed her eyes and breathed slowly. Several minutes passed and there was only a shallow wheezing in her chest. “I could not wait for you—I wanted to but I could not wait for you to come back from the war. I did not bleed again. For two months I did not bleed and I knew, and I was frightened. And there was Caleb, he was so eager. And then we married.”

  “I wasn’t on a privateer then, but on a navy frigate,” Giles said. “We were in Baltimore when a brigantine dropped anchor. She had Newburyporters in her crew, and we were all anxious to hear word from home. That’s how I learned that you had married Caleb Hatch, but I did not know—”

  “Caleb has tried to be a good father to him, but there has always been a silence between them. Leander has been closer to my father, and I’m sure he doesn’t understand why. His father’s always stern, as though he were disappointed in the boy. It’s always baffled Leander.”

  “Caleb knows,” Giles said. “And he knows it was me. It’s something in his stare.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she said. “But he has always loved me in his own way. He has been a good husband, better than what I deserve.”

  “You should not think that.”

  “We sinned, Giles. And the worse sin is that I have never regretted it. I have often prayed for His forgiveness, but more often I have dwelt upon that afternoon in the skiff, and have sinned again and again with such thoughts.”

  “Love is no sin.”

  “It has filled me with such sadness and longing, and the only benefit is that I can now look forward to death.”

  “Don’t think that, please. Just don’t think that.”

  Suddenly, her entire body went rigid, and she arched her back off the cot. She remained that way for a few moments, and then collapsed. Giles wasn’t sure if she was still breathing. He put his fingers over her mouth, but couldn’t tell. There was a pan of water on the ground; he wrung out the cloth and gently mopped the perspiration that glazed her face.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him as though she didn’t know where she was, and then another spasm gripped her, this one worse than the last, and she was taut as a board. When the seizure passed, he held the glass of water and laudanum to her lips again.

  Eleven
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  “WELL, MY DEAR,” MIRANDA SAID. “YOU SEEM MUCH REVIVED this morning.”

  Marie sat across the dining room table, dipping a wedge of toast in her soft-boiled egg. She glanced at Samuel, who muttered something in French by way of a translation. Though yesterday she had demonstrated the fact that she could speak English, this morning she had yet to utter a word of it, and Miranda gathered this to be an attempt at maintaining some control in these unfamiliar surroundings. The only thing to do was break down such resistance.

  Miranda smiled pleasantly and said, “Of course, now we need to determine what is best to do with you.”

  The girl rolled her eyes toward Samuel, who spoke at length in French. Her response was to point toward her tea cup, prompting Cedella to step forward with the pot.

  Samuel turned to his mother and cleared his throat. “The difficulty is this damned quarantine. No one can get in or out of Newburyport at the moment.”

  As Marie sipped her tea, she made some reassessment, studying Miranda as though seeking to glean an opponent’s weakness. “But, Madame,” she said, “whot dan-jour cood there be in such a fine houz?”

  Miranda put her hands to her breast in a gesture of amazement. “Samuel, I believe our guest is fully recovered. Will you listen to her?”

  “It’s marvelous, Grandmother,” Samuel said.

  “A miracle,” Miranda countered.

  “A gift,” Samuel sputtered. “God-sent.”

  Miranda dropped her hands in her lap with great satisfaction and smiled. “Truly.”

  The girl leaned forward. “This dan-jour is from Got?”

  “No,” Miranda said. “If anything, it’s that other fellow, what’s his name?”

  “Satan,” Samuel offered.

  “Sa-tan?” Marie said, leaning forward further. Her dress touched the edge of her eggshell, and a bright dollop of yolk clung to the blue bodice.

  “Satin,” Miranda said.

  Marie puffed her cheeks in frustration. “All this English, it sounds so … stronge.”

  “Satin,” Miranda observed, “requires cold water. Immediately, or else it will stain.”

  Marie sat back and looked down at her dress. She appeared genuinely horrified, and raised her hands in submission.

  “Cedella,” Miranda ordered.

  The maid took up a clean napkin from the place that had been set for Enoch—who, Fields had reported, was still in the cupola, sleeping off last night’s Madeira—and she wetted a tip of the cloth in the water pitcher and approached Marie. The maid blushed, making the bruise on her forehead all the more livid, as she gently daubed at the stain on Marie’s dress. For her part, Marie leaned back and turned her head away as though she were submitting to an embarrassing but necessary medical procedure. Samuel looked on with dumbfounded fascination.

  When the operation was finished, Cedella retreated to her position next to the hutch, while Marie gazed down at the dark wet spot as though it were blood. “I must chonge this dress immediately, but I haf nothing alz to wahr.”

  “And Cedella worked so hard to have it cleaned and ready for you this morning,” Miranda said. There was, for the briefest moment, a flicker of resentment, perhaps even anger, in the maid’s dark eyes. “Cedella,” Miranda said sternly. “You will accompany our guest upstairs and help her change. Look in my wardrobe—I believe you’ll find something of mine that will do.” She smiled at Marie. “Once I too was slender, like you, and I can’t bear to throw things out. How foolish, after two husbands and bearing two children, clinging to some hope that one will miraculously become young and svelte again.”

  Marie seemed genuinely baffled, and she had gazed at Miranda’s lips as though they might issue coins. Cedella stepped forward and took hold of the back of Marie’s chair.

  “Go on up,” Miranda said. “Cedella will help you chonge.”

  Reluctantly, Marie rose to her feet and followed the maid to the door, where she hesitated and turned around. “But, Madame, you wahr speaking of some dan-jour? The dev-eel, here in this houz?”

  “Was I?” Miranda propped her chin in her palm and gazed out the window a moment in thought. “No. I believe I was only referring to your lovely satin dress. Satin. Satan.” She fixed Marie with her warmest smile. “I fear they must sound so very much the same to you, my dear.”

  Samuel bolted to his feet. “Perhaps I could be of assistance and help you select the appropriate garment?” He began to rattle off in French, which seemed to be hurtful to Marie’s ears.

  “Now, Samuel,” Miranda said. “Marie and Cedella are perfectly capable of accomplishing such a task without the intrusion of male opinion.”

  Crushed, he sat down again.

  Relieved, Marie fled from the dining room, and Cedella followed.

  Outside, the day promised increasing humidity and, most likely, rain. Miranda listened to the two young women hastily climb the carpeted front stairs, and when they were on the second floor, she said, “For the time being, Samuel, you are to curb your inclinations. Understand?”

  When he didn’t answer, she looked at him. He raised his eyebrows in acquiescence as he picked up the slab of ham from Marie’s plate. “I suppose it would be prudent to remain focused on our immediate problem, my father.”

  “Precisely,” Miranda said. “And perhaps our guest will prove useful in this regard?”

  “Well, he does seem fond of her.”

  “For the same reasons you’re fond of her.”

  He began gnawing on the piece of ham.

  There was a knock at the front door. Though it was morning, Leander and his father had the fire stoked, the house smoky and smelling of vinegar. His father went to the door, and when he opened it the sunlight was blinding. At first, Leander couldn’t tell who was on the stoop, but then he heard Dr. Wiggins’s voice, barely a murmur, and he went and stood behind his father.

  The doctor looked terrible, worse than the evening when Leander had found him drinking at Wolfe Tavern. He squinted against the smoke pouring out the door and seemed on the verge of collapse.

  “What is it?” Leander asked. His father turned around and both men stared at Leander, but neither spoke. It wasn’t necessary. “Mother, too?” Leander said.

  Dr. Wiggins nodded. “I was up with her all night and it finally took her not an hour ago. I tried what I could to ease the pain. I’m sorry you could not be there, but that is not allowed.” He swayed backwards, and for a moment it appeared he was going to lose his balance and fall off the stoop into the street.

  “That pit,” Leander’s father said.

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “They must be buried immediately.”

  “Under the circumstances, funerals must be discouraged. We must set an example.” Leander’s father hiked the blanket up about his shoulders. “Come in, Doctor.” His voice was odd. He didn’t sound like himself. There wasn’t the usual curtness to his words. When he spoke, which was seldom, he usually sounded disappointed, if not angry and offended. “Come in,” he repeated. “I can brew tea.”

  Dr. Wiggins appeared reluctant, but he seemed to come to some decision and stepped through the doorway. They sat at the table before the fire and drank tea from mugs. Their faces glistened with sweat, and for minutes no one spoke.

  When Leander’s father refilled their mugs, the doctor said, “The town reeks of smoke and vinegar, and many of the houses have been boarded up.”

  “It’s to ward off the fever,” Leander’s father said.

  “I don’t think it does anything.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t, not for certain.”

  “You don’t know anything, really, about this fever.”

  “That is true.”

  “That Reverend Cary, he stands there on his box outside the pest-house gate and preaches about the people inside being sinners—he don’t know nothing either. Doctors, clergymen—you’re supposed to be educated men, but none of you know a damned thing.”

  “I’d be lying if I sa
id otherwise.” The doctor turned to Leander. “I heard about your grandfather drowning in the river and I am sorry.” The doctor sipped his tea then, staring straight ahead. He seemed deeply preoccupied, and Leander noticed that his eyes, reflecting the fire, were becoming increasingly fierce, almost as though he were possessed. Finally, the doctor said, “I believe it has to do with water—water and filth. I have talked with Dr. Bradshaw and Mr. Poole. We are organizing an effort to find places where there is standing water and refuse. That’s what needs to be done. We must clean up the standing water. Somehow it breeds the disease. How, I don’t know. Why it doesn’t afflict everyone, I don’t know. Some may be immune because they have survived it earlier, but why—here, for example—within one household will it strike some and not others?”

  Leander’s father ran a hand over his chin, the whiskers crackling beneath his fingers. “I must help. As former constable and high sheriff, it’s my duty. I can’t sit here in this house all day. I must do something.”

  “I’ll help, too,” Leander said.

  His father turned to him—his eyes were moist, and Leander didn’t think it was just from the smoke. “No, Leander, you’re to stay here.”

  “But I want to help.”

  His father looked away.

  “It’s best you remain here,” Dr. Wiggins said. “Tend to the fire. There were two houses burned to the ground overnight, I understand. People, smoking their houses like you are, they fall asleep and then their house catches fire. The entire Rutherford family over on Milk Street, they were brought to the pit this morning. We don’t even know for certain if they had the fever. Their bodies were so charred—they were just interred in the pit. So you tend to this fire and protect the house, Leander.”

  Leander’s father pushed his tea mug away and stood up. “I told my son no, Doctor. No explanation is required.”

  “Of course,” Dr. Wiggins said, getting to his feet. “My apologies.”

  The two men left the house and Leander followed them out to the front stoop, watching them walk together down the road toward Market Square. His grandfather, his sister, and now his mother were dead, and he thought he should feel different, but he felt only resentment that he had to remain behind in the house that was empty except for smoke.