Quarantine: A Novel (14 page)

q u a r a n t i n e

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.

R

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 tour-

niquet 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 medi-

cine bag. “No.”

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

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“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?”

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“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 row-boat, 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. Sev-

eral 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.”

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“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.

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Eleven

“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.

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“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 amaze-

ment. “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.

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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 Miran-

da’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 per-

fectly capable of accomplishing such a task without the intrusion of male opinion.”

Crushed, he sat down again.

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Relieved, Marie f led 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.

R

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