Somewhere, amidst the snuffled breathing and snoring of all the people still asleep in the dwelling-house, Nancy heard a dry, barking cough. She stirred oats into the water, wondering who had taken a chill or an ague now. They all took it in turns to be sick, coughing and shivering and sneezing. “You told me this place had mild, gentle winters,” she had accused Ned.
“The last two winters were nothing like this,” Ned had said, by way of apology.
If they had been, would we be here now? Could John Guy have survived a winter or two like this and still thought the New Found Land was a fit place to bring women and children out to? They talked a great deal, down in the main dwelling-house, about how much better off they were than the Virginia colonists. But from all Nancy had heard, Virginia at least was warm most of the time. Why could not John Guy have taken it into his head to plant a colony some place warm and dry?
Again, the hacking cough, over and over, followed by the shuffling sound of someone in skirts climbing down the ladder. Daisy, coming from the bed she and Matt shared in the upstairs loft.
“Watch the floor, have you got your boots on?” Nancy warned. “We got snow in here last night.”
Daisy wrinkled her nose. “It stinks down here.”
“The pisspots are frozen over and the door won’t open. Must be snow up against it. When the lads are up and about, we’ll see if we can push it open enough to clear a way out.”
“I don’t know if Matt will be getting out of bed this day. I’m some worried about him.” Matt Grigg had taken to his bed two days ago, weak and with pain in his joints. “I’ll bring him up some pottage. Is there anything to have with it?”
“I’ve stirred in a little pork fat, but I’d not like to use too much—if this storm doesn’t pass off till later today, we may not get down to the storehouse for more.” That was, Nancy thought, the simplest of their problems. The greater problem was how much of anything was left in the storehouse. Their stock of everything except salt fish was dwindling. The last of the beef—first the salt beef, then the tough leathery strips of dried beef—had been eaten. The hens had stopped laying. Several of the goats had died in the harsh weather. They were getting through the cheese and the grain at an alarming rate. Their grain stores, salt fish, and some vegetables from the garden still held out, but the choice of food was becoming monotonous.
Of all the colonists, Kathryn Guy and Jane Catchmaid got the first and best of whatever food was going, since they were with child. After that, Governor Guy gave all the men, including himself, even shares. The women got a little less food, since their work was not as physically demanding.
At least there were still plenty of oats for pottage. Nancy ladled up a bowl and handed it to Daisy. “Give that to your man, see will it give him enough strength to get up on his feet.” She did not approve of people lying abed when they could be up working: it was why she was so worried about Kathryn just now. Everything could be borne, everything survived, if you put your mind to it. If you could not—if you lay down and gave up—well, that was too terrifying to think about.
Governor Guy was fond of telling them that during the colonists’ first winter, one man had taken to bed with a sore leg, and never got out of that bed again. The moral of the story was that if only the afflicted fellow had been able to drag himself upright and limp along on his sore leg, he would have out-limped death. Ned said it was foolishness, that the man’s wound had turned septic and killed him, only Governor Guy would not admit to it because he liked the lesson so much. But Nancy found herself in agreement with the governor. For as long as she had to be in this harsh land, she would never succumb, never lie abed nor encourage anyone else to do so.
By the time Daisy returned with the half-filled bowl of pottage that Matt had been unable to finish, the rest of the household were all up, even those who were dull eyed and listless with sickness. After they broke fast, the men who were strong enough set to work to get the door open and clear away the drifts of snow outside.
Kathryn, who said she had slept poorly with the babe kicking at her, knitted while Nancy and the other maids cleaned up and made bread. One thing they had plenty of was the yarn they had spun months ago, and Kathryn was attempting to knit garments that would keep a baby warm in this winter. “Though surely spring will be here by the time he’s born, don’t you think?” she asked.
None of the women could answer her. Her husband, coming in from the storm long enough to hear her question, sounded irritated as he said, “The worst of winter will be past by Lady Day, but ’tis not uncommon to have snowstorms well past Easter. It will freeze, and then thaw, and then freeze again. The weather will be as God wills it.”
He was able to report that the wind had died and the snow slackened. The men cleared a path down to the storehouse and brought back some rye flour, ale, salt fish, and cabbage, as well as the news that several people in the larger dwelling-house had fallen ill during the storm. “Some have chills and ague, but there’s a good few that the governor believes have the sailor’s curse—the scurvy.”
“Like as not ’tis what ails my poor Matt, too,” said Daisy. “He’s weak as a kitten, and all his limbs are giving him pain, and his teeth are bleeding.”
“If ’tis the scurvy we have in the house, will it harm the babe?” Kathryn asked, her hand cradling her belly.
“No way to tell,” her husband said, sitting down on the bed beside her, “for women have rarely been exposed to it, much less women with child. ’Tis always been a plague that struck men on board ships, and the surgeon thinks ’tis something to do with the stomach, for ’tis oftentimes cured by eating fresh food or drinking the juice of oranges and lemons. Whether it can spread from one to another like plague is hard to tell.”
“Oranges and lemons! As if we could get such things here,” wailed Daisy.
“If it cannot be cured by turnips, we are all like to die of it,” said Ned, taking a few of the dreary vegetables from a sack.
“Boiled turnip and cabbage, pease pudding, and salt fish for dinner,” Bess announced, “and them as don’t like it can keep quiet, you hear now?”
So despite the sick man in the house and the news of more sick in the other houses, they were able to wring a bit of laughter out of the stormy day, and after dinner the men set to building stools and tables while the women knitted and sewed; all the work that could be done indoors was saved for these days when it was not fit to go out. There was even a bit of music, for Frank Tipton took up Crowder’s fiddle and played a few tunes while they worked, which earned him an admiring glance from Bess. Another wedding there soon, if we all live long enough, and a better match for her than that fool Whittington, Nancy thought. George Whittington no longer lived under their roof; after returning with the Indeavour, he had moved to the main dwelling-house, where he divided his time between courting Nell Bly and currying favour with the governor and Master Philip. Though he had often been at odds with the masters, after voyaging into Trinity Bay and being the first man to treat with the Indians, George was basking in their good graces.
Nancy glanced at Kathryn to see if she, too, had noticed Bess making sheep’s eyes at Frank. But Kathryn was sunk in thought over her knitting, paying no attention to the flirtations of maids, and Nancy felt the cold clutch of fear at her heart. Not Kathryn; not the baby. Whatever illness swept over the cove, they must be spared.
The storms abated and a few mild days melted the deepest snowdrifts, but more and more people fell ill. Colonists took to their beds and found themselves too weak to rise in the morning. Matt Grigg lingered in the bed he shared with Daisy, while Frank, Tom, and Molly all fell prey to the aching joints, the bleeding gums, the bone-weariness that kept them to their beds. Nicholas Guy fell ill as well, and took himself off to one of the beds in the upstairs chamber, lest he might pass the illness to his wife. Kathryn stayed abed too, but swore it was only the weariness of carrying a child, not any sickness or plague, that laid her low.
The other men of the house,
John Teague and John Crowder, were among a party of men that Master Crout had sent off into the woods, led by Bartholomew Pearson, to hunt and trap animals for furs. Nancy was left to run the household with Bess, Daisy, and Ned—or, truly, with Bess and Ned, for Daisy spent every minute she could with either Matt or Molly. There were as many sick in the other houses, and most agreed it was the dreaded sailor’s curse that had struck them. No one was agreed on how to cure it. There was nothing in the colony’s stores that even resembled fresh fruit.
“Beet juice is good for laziness,” Sal Butler said to Nancy one afternoon as they both sought supplies for their household larders in the storehouse. Sal was as solicitous of Mistress Catchmaid as Nancy was of Kathryn, as if it were a competition which woman could take the best care of her mistress and produce the healthiest newborn for the New Found Land. “I’ve had great success putting it up our Sam’s nose when he laid abed, but we’ve not many beets in store.”
Nancy had heard of this cure from Mistress Gale back home in Bristol, but never seen it tried. She imagined herself going about the sleeping chamber with beet juice and a spoon, trying to pour it up the noses of the sick. “It might rouse one whose only trouble was laziness, but I’ve never heard it would cure scurvy, even if we had enough beets to try it.”
“What of the berries? Them tart red berries we made preserves out of—are they still growing? If ’tis fruit that drives out the sickness, those berries might do it.” Sal directed her question at Master Crout, who was tallying up the remaining stock on the shelves with a frown on his high forehead. He and Master Pearson had done more exploring of the forest and fens around the cove than anyone.
“I wondered about the turnips,” Nancy said. “Besides the ones we have in store, there are more left in the ground that we never harvested. What if we were to eat them raw instead of cooking them?”
“Ugh—raw turnip is too bitter,” Sal said.
“Bitter, yes—but so is a lemon. Maybe there’s some good in it that the cooking takes away—something that balances the humours. What think you, Master Crout? Red berries, or raw turnip?” Nancy had not even been sure the man was listening to their talk; he paid little attention to the women, though he sometimes deigned to speak to Elizabeth Guy or Alice Colston. The maids he seemed to view as only a little above the chickens and the goats. But at Nancy’s question he looked over his shoulder.
“Our surgeon has little knowledge of this sickness, and nothing in his stores to treat it, so housewives’ remedies may be all we can rely on. We will try what we can. When Pearson and his men come back from the trap lines, I will send them out to dig under the snow to see if any of the berries remain. As for the turnip, you both may try serving it raw to the sick in your own households and see what the results are.”
“Indeed I won’t then,” Sal Butler muttered. “I’ll not go forcing raw turnip down a sick man’s throat—’tis as like to kill as cure him.” She shot Nancy a look from under the brim of her cap as she bustled out of the storehouse, her basket full. Nancy, who did not care very much what Mistress Butler thought of her, went her own way a few minutes later. But that evening, she cut the uncooked turnip into thin strips and gave some to each of the sick men in her house. With their loose teeth and sore gums it was no easy task to chew it, and poor Matt Grigg could not manage it at all, though Daisy tried to feed him tiny bits. Master Nicholas, Frank, and Tom all ate some, and though there was no miraculous healing, Nancy continued to make it a part of the daily diet. The hunters’ quest for red berries under the snow had turned up none, so no one was able to judge whether they might work as a cure.
But whether it was the turnips or a thawing of the weather, as February wore on some of the sick began to rise from their beds. Frank Tipton and Tom Taylor were up and walking around again, though Tom’s wife Molly still kept to their bed. Matt Grigg was weaker than ever, but Master Nicholas felt strong enough to urge his wife to walk outside with him and take a little exercise on a mild day. Kathryn was large and ungainly with child now, and Nancy wrapped both her mistress and master well in cloaks before letting them out of doors.
From the other two houses, the news was bleak. While some of the sick grew stronger, two men died in the Catchmaids’ house, as did two of the apprentices in the main dwelling-house. Philip Guy’s children fell ill and were slow to recover. And though Mistress Catchmaid, who had been sick, began to rally, she miscarried her child.
“’Tis a dark day for all the colony,” Reverend Leat said in his sermon at the funeral service for the four men who died within a few days of each other. “Not only have we lost four strong men, with many more growing weaker by the hour, but with Master Catchmaid’s heavy loss of his unborn child, we have lost half our hope for the future. Indeed, in such bleak times it may seem as if God has turned His face away from us, though we have come all the way to this far land to bring His gospel to the natives of this country.”
Nancy, seated on the bench with Bess on one side of her and Ned on the other, stole a glance at the faces round her. How many, she wondered, had really come here with the thought of converting the natives? Making a fortune, or seeking adventure, had brought most of them to these shores, despite the minister’s pious words. It did not seem likely the endeavour had earned them any special favour from the Almighty.
Be that as it may, she prayed silently, You have spared my mistress and her child. Only keep Your hand over them, keep the sickness from them, and I will look after all the rest in our household, the best I can. Then she almost laughed aloud in the gloomy solemnity of the meeting at the thought of Nancy Ellis blithely assuring the Sovereign of the Universe that she had matters well in hand.
The prayers were said, the dead men buried in shallow graves in the near-frozen ground. With the service done, Nancy set to work with Bess’s help to prepare a meal that would strengthen those who were recovering.
“I do despair of our Moll,” Bess said. “She grows weaker by the hour. I can’t bear to think of her lying under that cold earth. We have never been apart, not for a single day in our lives.” A sob trembled at the edge of her voice, and Nancy thought at once how selfish she herself was, to beg God for Kathryn’s life and no one else’s. Every sick person here was dear to someone, every death a blow to some beloved heart. Then Daisy crept down to join them by the hearth, weeping for both her sister and her husband. Bess put her arms around Daisy and both sisters cried, and Nancy was left to cook dinner by herself.
Matt Grigg died before dawn the next morning, the fifth man to fall victim to the disease, and the first of Nicholas Guy’s household. Daisy wailed and sobbed until Master Nicholas begged Nancy to take her somewhere where her cries would not disturb Kathryn. Bess was left to wash her brother-in-law’s body, and to tend to her dying sister Molly. Ned and Frank went to dig yet another grave.
Nancy walked the weeping Daisy past the small burying ground where the men were preparing her husband’s grave. Rather than pass through the rest of the settlement, she led her up the path to the freshwater pond where they drew their water, taking two buckets with her for good measure. The day was cold and the ground frozen, covered with the lightest skiff of snow. Spring seemed an eternity away.
“I can’t bear it,” Daisy said through her sobs. “So long I waited—two years, back in Bristol, all the time praying my Matt was still alive, that we’d be together again someday. And then that long voyage over here, only to be together a few months and him taken from me! And I am not even carrying his child, not a thing left to prove he was ever alive!”
There were no words for her comfort and Nancy did not try to offer any. When they got to the pond, she set the buckets down on the ground and put an arm around the weeping girl’s shoulder; Daisy turned to her, burying her face in Nancy’s cloak so that Nancy had no choice but to pull her into an embrace.
After a little time Molly’s husband Tom, himself only just recovering his strength, came up the path in search of Daisy, saying that Moll had wakened and asked
to have both her sisters by her side. Nancy thought this would bring on a fresh burst of tears from Daisy, but instead Daisy drew herself up, pulled her cloak tighter around herself, and took Tom’s arm. “We must be very brave now, Tom, for her,” she said, hardly sounding like the same girl who had cried such stormy tears a few moments before.
Nancy was left alone by the pond. She took up the buckets and picked her way out across the shore ice to the hole Ned had chopped yesterday, which was only just caught over. Breaking the thin ice, she filled both buckets, the icy water biting at her bare hands. Then she began the slow walk back with her burden, trying not to slop too much on the ground.
She heard someone crashing up through the brush along the path towards her and hoped it was Ned come up to help her carry the water. Hoped, too, that he did not come bearing news of Molly’s death. This day was too heavy already.
“Ho there, ’tis the proud Mistress Nan! Need a hand with those pails?”
It was George Whittington, that preening peacock. He had been giving himself all kinds of airs since he went away on the Indeavour and came back with a wolf’s skin and the honour of being the first man to talk to the natives. Nancy was glad he had been paying attentions to Nell Bly, for though he was no great prize for poor Nell, it gave herself and the other unmarried maids a rest from his attentions. Still, she was not fool enough to turn away help. She handed him one of the buckets.
“Nary a word of thanks?” he said, reaching for the other.
“I can take this one well enough. Thank you.”
A Roll of the Bones Page 18
