Captive Innocence (26 page)

Eventually the trip ended. Royall climbed from the carriage with stiff muscles crying out in pain. She had to find Elena and find out what was going on. She was nowhere to be found. The beautiful Casa looked as though no one lived in it. Everywhere she looked, mildew and dust were growing rampant. The large kitchen that was Elena's domain revealed no sign of life. A bowl of rotting fruit covered with flies rested on a stout wooden table. Royall suppressed a shudder. How ominous everything appeared. A loaf of bread with a huge knife buried in the middle lay next to the decayed fruit. It, too, was covered with the blue yellow mold.

It was serious. Until now she only imagined what it was like. Royall knew in her gut that never in all of the years that Elena was housekeeper in this house would she ever permit fruit to rot.

Royall called the housekeeper, her voice rising to a shrill crescendo. When there was no answer, fear rushed through her, making her weak in the knees. “Rosy, Bridget, Moriah,” she continued to shrill. Again, there was no response.

Taking a deep breath, Royall turned to stare at Jamie. He would be of no help at all. Quickly, she gathered her skirts in her hands and raced for the stables. She didn't even bother to saddle the gray horse.

Riding the large gray, Royall began to feel the strain as the heat beat down on her. Perspiration ran down her body, and exertion caused her to gasp for breath. It was difficult to remain seated on the gray's slippery back. She held onto his mane for dear life. Royall looked around as the gray stopped. How uncanny that he knew just where to bring her. Worms of fear crawled around her stomach and up her back.

Her worst fears were realized when she looked around the clearing that housed the blacks and Indians. Everywhere she looked there were pallets on the ground. Men and women and children moaned in agony. To her left, her eyes fought for and found the small burial ground she had noticed from her last visit. The mounds had multiplied alarmingly.

She shaded her eyes from the hot sun and tried to count. There appeared to be twenty-seven. She blinked in disbelief. To the right of the burial grounds was a mound of something with a piece of canvas over it. Royall looked at Elena, who was bent over a pallet, a cloth in her hand. Seeing the look on Royall's face, Elena nodded. “There's no one to bury them. There's no one to dig the graves. I can't do it,” she said wearily. “I tried.”

“How many of them are left?” Royall demanded.

Elena shrugged. “We lost as many as fifty, and those,” she said, pointing a finger to the far corner of the clearing, “can never make it. They're in the last stages. There's nothing to be done for them except to give them a little water from time to time, and keep a cool cloth on their heads. These,” she said pointing to several huts behind her, “are the ones who just came down with the fever a few days ago. I'm doing the best I can, Senora, but I must have some help or all of them will die.”

Royall shook her head. “There's just myself and Jamie, Elena.”

Elena merely nodded wearily.

“I'll help you, Elena,” Royall said quietly. “If you tell me what to do, I'll be glad to do my share.”

Elena looked at the American girl with the quiet golden eyes, saw the elaborately coiled blond hair, the gleaming aquamarine gown, the long slender hands with the tapered fingers and the unblemished skin. Again, she nodded wearily as she let her eyes fall to her own dirty, tattered clothing and the red, dry, cracked skin of her own hands. “Come,” she said to Royall, “you can help with the children. I think there's hope for some of them.”

“Is it Bridget and Rosy?” Royall asked fearfully.

Elena nodded. “Rosy I'm sure will get well. Bridget is holding her own at the moment.” She led Royall into the stifling hut. Looking down into the dimness, she saw the two small figures on the straw pallets. Their eyes were bright with fever and their cheeks flushed, their lips red and cracked. Royall gathered up the train of her gown and tucked it under the gold girdle and knelt beside the two little girls. Gently, she touched their cheeks. Neither child responded.

“It's time to give them a little water, and they should be wiped down. Can you do it?”

Royall agreed and bent to the task. Elena herself rose from her knees and looked with unseeing eyes, hoping that Senora Banner was wrong and the Baron would materialize. Somehow she had thought he would return to help. Her shoulders slumped, and Royall, looking up from the children, spoke.

“Even if he was here, he would be useless. He wouldn't know the first thing to do for these people. And he'd only be in the way. I'll help you, and I feel sure that Mrs. Quince will arrive here in a few days to help us. That is, providing that there's no fever on her own plantation. I'll do all I can, Elena.”

Royall was as good as her word. For four days and four nights she worked side by side with Elena as they dug fresh graves and lowered the bodies into their final resting places. Her hands were blistered and raw and bleeding. She had long since shed the satin dancing slippers she had worn. Now she walked barefoot. Her feet were cut and bleeding from the rocks and hard, baked ground. Her golden hair was tied back from her face with a stout piece of cord. She resembled a bedraggled street urchin, her eyes huge dark circles in her white face.

On the morning of the fifth day, she was standing by the open fire making a weak broth when Rosalie Quince rode into the clearing. “Lord a mercy!” came the raucous shout. “Is that you, child? Yes, I can see that it is.” Quickly, she dismounted and wrapped her arms around the weary Royall.

“It's a losing battle, Mrs. Quince,” Royall said, waving her hand around the clearing.

“I'm here to help,” Mrs. Quince said briskly. “Remove the broth and come over here and tell me how the situation stands.”

Royall sighed deeply and quickly explained. Mrs. Quince nodded mutely. “I stopped by the Casa Grande, and the Baron was noticeably absent. Jamie was stomping the floor in some kind of a temper tantrum. Do you have any strength left, child?”

Royall nodded. “I'm strong as an ox, Mrs. Quince. I can do whatever is needed. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Now this is what we are to do. First, we must burn everything. We'll set fire to the lowlands and the marshes. I've brought along some men from my plantation. They'll set up smudge pots. They've brought their drums with them. It's the fetid air that causes the fever. It just lays there all about us, calm and still.” Rosalie Quince's face froze into deep, hard lines. Her eyes took on a faraway look, and she seemed to be steeling herself to pit her strength against an ancient enemy—the yellow jack. There were graves here in the damp soil of Brazil which Rosalie had dug herself. There was a baby, dead of yellow jack, whose small bones had fed the stinking roots of some strange tree.

Rosalie Quince visibly shook herself and brought her thoughts back to the present.

“Before we do anything else we must do something about separating the sick. How many of them are vomiting blood? They're the ones beyond sav-ring.”

Royall spoke quietly. “More than a dozen, Mrs. Quince.”

Within a matter of hours Royall and Elena had the sick separated to Mrs. Quince's satisfaction. All the patients were carried to the back of the clearing. Mrs. Quince herself was hacking at the stout vines and dragging them into the jungles. “We have to have enough cleared area for them when we start the fires.”

Royall settled the children and tried to spoon some of the broth into Bridget. It ran down her chin and caused her to choke. Immediately, she started to vomit. Royall looked in horrified disbelief at the child. “God in heaven, not this child too. She's so small she hasn't lived yet. There must be something I can do.”

Agonized, she called Mrs. Quince. The old lady took in the scene and shook her head. “I know, child. The fever does not discriminate.”

“There must be something, Mrs. Quince. Something. Anything, I'll do anything,” she pleaded tearfully. “I can't believe God would allow this to happen to a helpless child,” she cried bitterly. “Surely, Mrs. Quince, in all of your years in the jungle, there must be something you know that could be of help.”

“Child, if there was, don't you think Elena would know? Some of these are her people, you know.”

Royall nodded, wiping her eyes.

“Come, child, we have work to do. We can't help little Bridget now, and perhaps we can save some of the others. I know that it's hard, but you'll find in time you'll be able to accept this.”

Royall shouted vehemently, “Never!”

The two women worked side by side the remainder of the day. The heat from the roaring fires exhausted Royall and caused her to stumble and fall time after time. She was soot-blackened from head to toe. By nightfall the huts and the clothing had burned to cinders. The marshes were still smoldering. By the light of the fire in the middle of the clearing, Royall and Mrs. Quince brushed the cinders and the rubble into a pile at the far end of the clearing.

Royall swayed on her feet.

“Come, child. We must have something to eat. We have worked long and hard. Tomorrow is another hard day of work. We both need rest and food.”

“Mrs. Quince, why haven't any of the other owners offered to help?”

“They, too, have their problems. The rubber shipment has to be gotten out. Have you forgotten? They're not callous, child; they have their own sick to take care of. I came here because of you. We have but two cases on our plantation, and they're on the mend. Alonzo can see to them. The Baron has been warned time and again that the conditions under which these people are expected to live make this place a breeding center for disease. The Indians themselves are a clean people, given a chance. But they work sixteen hours a day in the rubber groves. They come here to eat and sleep. The food is insufficient to keep a body going. There's no energy left in them to care about their surroundings. It's time to have some of that broth you made earlier in the day.”

“First, I have to see Bridget. I'll eat later, Mrs. Quince.”

The good lady merely nodded and sat down by the fire. She knew that Royall had to see to the child. She watched the tattered, golden girl wash her face and hands and walk into the hut. Royall remained inside for quite some time. Mrs. Quince looked thoughtfully around the clearing at their hard day's work and knew that the next day the work would be even harder. She knew there would be many graves to be dug. She prayed for the strength to endure and also for the slim girl who would have to work at her side. Elena possibly could help, but someone had to stay with the sick and the children. No, she and the girl would have to do it alone. She contemplated the future of the Reino with a sour feeling. How it could survive after this holocaust was beyond her tired brain. Truly, she was getting old. Every bone in her aging body ached. She was so tired. She reached for her pallet and drew it closer to the fire. She thought to rest only a moment till Royall returned.

She closed her eyes and knew no more till she woke in the morning, hearing soft sobs. She looked around the stark clearing and saw Royall carrying the small child in her arms, the tears flowing down her cheeks.

“I did everything I could, Mrs. Quince. Truly I did.”

“I know you did, child. You know what has to be done now.”

“I'll do it. I have to do it.”

Royall stopped to wrap heavy green leaves around her blistered hands. Dejection was replaced by white-hot anger as the small hole began to grow larger. The dirt flew from the shovel. Mrs. Quince, spurred by the anger of her young friend, shoveled just as diligently. They lowered the small, still form into the ground. The dirt was replaced. The soft thunk of the earth on the unmoving bundle melted the tears, frozen till now within her, causing them to bubble to the surface. Rosalie Quince felt fury stir her as it had her young friend. “There must be an answer,” she pleaded, looking heavenward. “There has to be an answer.”

“Mrs. Quince, who is to tell the child's parents? They're on Sebastian Rivera's plantation.”

“I'll do it, child. But not now. We can't leave here, as you well know. There's not a plantation in all of Brazil that would make either of us welcome at this moment.”

The grim task completed, both women walked slowly back to the clearing. “I long for a bath and clean clothes,” Royall said softly.

“Have you no other clothes with you, child? Can't Elena go to the Casa and fetch you clean garments?”

“I thought of that, but Jamie will not allow either of us to go near the Casa, and he himself won't venture out of the door even to leave us something at the edge of the lawns. I fear he thinks he will be contaminated.”

“Sometimes Jamie is just like his father,” Rosalie Quince snorted. “How many times I've heard the other plantation owners ask the Baron and plead with him to clean up this place, especially Sebastian. This is what it has come to: all this suffering and wastefulness, all these lives lost for the selfishness of one man. I don't understand why Carl has never spoken up and at least tried to do something.” She sighed at the hopelessness of the situation.

“That dress you have on reminds me suspiciously of the elegant gown you wore to your party. Is it?”

“I'm afraid so, Mrs. Quince. I think we should both eat some fruit, and then we can get on with our work. I looked in on Elena before and she was asleep. I didn't have the heart to wake her. She's just as tired as we are. I checked everyone in the early hours. I fear we'll lose three more before the day is over. There are six on the mend, and I do think Elena was right—Rosy looks as though she may pull through this too. There is one old man who is now up and around. He has been helping Elena in a small way. But he has little strength and must rest frequently.”

Once again Royall checked her sick patients and joined Mrs. Quince for some fresh mangoes. She sucked the juice from the rich, tart fruit but, in truth, had not the energy to chew the meat. Neither did Mrs. Quince, it appeared.