Quarantine: A Novel (30 page)

“I’m making an inquiry,” Giles said. “What have the authorities

done to retrieve this stolen property and apprehend these thieves?”

“I assure you we are conducting an investigation.” Ellsworth

turned back to the bar and leaned over his tankard of ale.

“Do you know how many new cases of fever we have admitted

to the pest-house?” Giles asked. “How many bodies have been

thrown in the pit? You’ve seen this before, so you know how such an epidemic goes.”

The room had become silent.

Reluctantly, the constable faced Giles again. “What exactly

are you saying?”

“I’m saying look about you. It’s a summer’s night and there’s

hardly anyone here at Wolfe Tavern quenching their thirst.

State Street is quiet. And the harbor—” Giles glanced at Darby

Conover—“not a ship has entered or left the Merrimack since

this began, and the merchandise on your shelves gathers dust. The price of food, what there is available in Newburyport, it increases daily. Even the cost of fish taken from the river has risen sharply.”

There was a low murmuring in the room. “I’m asking, Mr. Ells-

worth, would you be acquainted with this Mr. Uriah Clapp?”

“I would not,” Ellsworth said. “I don’t know anyone from

Boston, now that my Uncle Elliot has died, and Aunt Rebecca

has removed to Providence to live with her sister’s family.”

“Then perhaps some of the other constables might know this

man from Boston.”

“That is a question for the high sheriff, Thomas Poole. Next

time I see him, I’ll make a point to ask him.”

“Do, and ask about the night the three apothecaries were robbed.”

Ellsworth’s arm came up quickly, and he slapped Giles across

the face with the back of his hand. Giles took a step sideways to keep his balance.

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“I suggest you’ve had enough to drink.” The constable turned

back to the bar.

No one said anything. No one moved.

After a moment, Giles felt a hand grip his arm and he looked at

Marie, who was standing beside him. “Come, Doctor,” she said.

“I wish it that you would walk out with me.”

Giles stared at Ellsworth’s back for a moment. The constable

didn’t turn around, though he was looking at Giles in the mirror behind the bar.

Marie squeezed Giles’s arm and guided him toward the open

front door, where Roger Davenport stood, his arms folded.

Glaring, he whispered, “Don’t you be coming in here again,

thinking you can stir things up. Hear?”

Giles was about to speak, but Marie pulled him through the

door and down the front steps to the street.

R

Leander walked into the blacksmith’s shop, where Horseshoe

and several other men were passing a jug. Their sweaty faces

were illuminated by the dying red coals in the fire pit. Horse-

shoe, leaning against the bellows, was still wearing his leather apron. His eyes, curious, drifted down to the sack dangling from Leander’s hand.

“What you bring that foul-smelling thing in my shop for?”

Leander tossed the sack, which landed before Horseshoe’s feet,

spilling fish guts over his boots. Horseshoe took a step backwards, angry now. Leander turned to go, but he heard the sound of metal and saw the other men rise up off the crates and barrels they’d

been sitting on.

“You want to stay here longer?” Horseshoe said. Leander

turned around. “We’re going to have to brand you—as a sign

of ownership.” Horseshoe held a poker which had a glowing
ES

on the tip. He nodded, and the other men closed in on Leander,

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taking firm hold of him. “Where might we mark him?” Horse-

shoe asked pleasantly. “His arse? Or his back, where everybody

can see it?”

Leander’s shirt was yanked up over his head, and he was forced

to bend over until his arms were held across the top of a barrel.

He struggled against the strong hands that gripped him but they

only held him tighter—and then he felt the heat of the poker near the right side of his back, just below the shoulder blade.

“This’ll only take a moment,” Horseshoe said pleasantly.

But then the heat disappeared, and the hands suddenly released

him, allowing Leander to stand up. He turned at the sound of

flesh on flesh and saw Horseshoe lying on the ground, rubbing

his jaw. Benjamin was standing over the blacksmith, who said, “I got no complaint with you.”

“No?” Benjamin looked around at the other men. “None of

you?”

They didn’t move, and some drifted back toward the door.

Benjamin grabbed the poker, which lay on the dirt f loor.

“Well, come on, Horseshoe. You dropped this. Take it back.”

He extended the hot tip toward Horseshoe, who scuttled away

on his hands and knees. “You been here longer than Leander or

me—shouldn’t you have the honor of being branded first?”

Horseshoe got to his feet. He smiled, looking about at the

others, until he realized that they weren’t interested in any further involvement. A couple of them went out the door, and some sat

down again as a sign of submission. After a moment, Benjamin

tossed the poker into the fire and walked outside. Leander fol-

lowed, tugging his shirt down over his back.

They walked in silence, the cool night air a relief after the

blacksmith’s shop.

“Thanks,” Leander said.

“He’s done this before. Branded new boys. I’ve been waiting

years to catch him at it.” As they reached the back door of the

stable, Benjamin added, “I’ll bet you’re thirsty.”

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“That I am.”

They went inside and found Mr. Penrose smoking a pipe as

he sat in his office.

“Evening, Father.” Benjamin picked up the bottle of whiskey

on the desk, took a pull, and handed it to Leander.

R

Lunt’s Wharf was dark and unusually quiet save for the creak and groan of dock lines. Below, the river current lapped against the pilings, and men’s voices came across the water from grog shops

on Water Street. It was a warm night, and Marie pressed close as she walked next to Giles, holding his arm. They paused by a shack to look at the moon, low in the sky above Plum Island, casting a shimmering beam of light on the river. She stood in front of him and drew his arms about her narrow waist. Her hair was soft,

smelling of perfume and vinegar.

“You are comfortable on board Emanuel’s ship?” he asked.

“
Oui
.”

“You do not find the tight quarters too cramped, after my

brother’s house?”

“These past few years I have spent many the times aboard

sheeps
. Do not think I must have the need for the maids and cooks and servants. I am. . . .” She paused, looking for the right English word. “I am the bastard.”

Giles laughed. “Not exactly.”

“This is not the right word?”

“It’s close enough.”

After a moment she turned in his arms and kissed him—and

as she did so she moved him, her hands determined, out of the

moonlight, until his back was pressed against the wall of the

shack. Her mouth was warm, eager, her tongue furtive. Finally,

she tilted her head back and gazed at him. “In America royalty

does not exist, am I right?”

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“As I said, only to fools like my half-brother. When we fought

England, some, like Enoch, didn’t believe we were rebelling

against sovereign rule, but merely replacing British lords with a new breed of American royalty.”

Her arms encircled his neck and she drew him close. “Royalty

is in the deed, not the blood,” she whispered.

“That depends, I suppose, upon the deed.”

“It is in the way you care for people who take with this

fever.”

“But it is only what I am—a surgeon, a bone setter.”

“Perhaps, but when we leave Wolfe Tavern some of the men

they stare at you with—oh, my English—with
reeespect
.”

“It is more fear. A surgeon is necessary, but feared. There are

ministers who preach against my profession, claiming that I must be possessed, that I do the devil’s work. And I am an unmarried

man, which gives me a dubious reputation.”

“Very
stronge.”
Her breath was warm, her lips against his cheek.

“But it is this reputation that appeals to me. I do not climb up in the carriage with just any man, you know.”

“I know.”

“It is a pity there is no carriage available now, or some

other—what do you call it, ‘tight quarters’?” She laughed, and

it seemed her voice shimmered, much like the moonlight on

the water. “But must it be possible to make the love standing

up, no?”

“Oui,”
he said. “It must be possible.”

R

It was never easy to understand what Mr. Penrose said because

he had only a few teeth left, but now he was drunk and Leander

could barely understand him. And at first Leander didn’t like the taste of the whiskey—it burned from his throat all the way down

to his stomach—but every time the bottle was passed his way he

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took a pull, and after several turns the sharpness in his mouth

seemed to have disappeared.

“Gon’tah get worse, you’ll see,” Mr. Penrose said. “Gon’tah

kill lots more New’breepottahs. You go inta tha’ pest-house an’

ya ain’t gon’ta come out ’cept on ya back. It’s a short ride, then, uphill tah the cemetree.”

After taking a drink, Benjamin said, “He lost his family,” as

he passed the bottle to the old man, who stared at him with large, watery eyes.

“How many, boy?”

“My mother. My sister. My grandfather. And my father, he

died when our house burned to the ground.”

Mr. Penrose leaned forward, so close that Leander could smell

the foulness of his breath. “But you ain’t got no tee-ahs?”

“No,” Leander said. “No tears.”

Mr. Penrose sat back in his chair. “He’s a strong’un, ain’t he

then.”

“Seems so,” Benjamin said.

“We gon’tah need that strength fah what be comin’. They

doctahs ain’t got no medicine, no quinine watah, no nothin’, an’

y’know why?” He smiled, revealing his few remaining teeth.

“They was stolen. Robbed.”

“Who was?” Leander asked.

“Ain’t yah heard? Word has it all the ’pothicaries was robbed.

All in one night. Them medicines valuable as gold now.”

“Who did this?” Leander asked.

Mr. Penrose shrugged. “The high sheriff’s men, the constables,

they don’t know nothin’—” He laughed, until he began wheezing,

bent over and spitting on the floorboards. When he’d cleared

his lungs, he sat up and said, “And men that don’t know nothin’, y’know they-ah more often on the lyin’ side of a thing. Somebody’s gon’tah get rich, and a lot more New’breepottahs gon’tah

get sick with fevah an’ die. It be just like the wah, they-ah. Things like this happen, somebody’s always gon’tah make money on it.”

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“Quinine water?” Leander said. “What’s it do?”

“It helps,” Benjamin said. “If you have the fever, it can help.”

Mr. Penrose took another pull on the bottle. “What is it, lad?”

he asked as he handed the bottle over to Benjamin, but kept his

eyes on Leander. “Somthin’ they-ah in your eyes. What might it

be? What do you know?”

“Know? I don’t know anything. About fevers. About things

like quinine water. About my father’s satchel.”

Mr. Penrose leaned forward in his chair. “Satchel?”

“Why wouldn’t it be in the fire?”

Benjamin glanced at his father, and then said, “What about

the fire?”

But Leander shook his head.

“Give ’im the bottle, Ben. He knows a thing and we kin wash

it outta ’im.”

“All I know is,” Benjamin said, as he handed the bottle to

Leander, “this one ain’t much of a talker.”

Leander raised the bottle to his mouth—it was nearly empty

and he finished it. “It’s not a matter of knowing something—it’s knowing what to do with it.” As he put the bottle on the desk,

he said, “Done.”

Mr. Penrose turned to his son and for a moment they both

appeared stumped, baffled, but then the old man pulled open a

drawer and removed another bottle, and as he did so both he and

Benjamin laughed. Finally, after much coughing and hacking,

Mr. Penrose pulled the cork from the bottle and said, “Done, ye

say?
Ain’t never
done.”

244

Twenty-Three

When Giles arrived in the late morning, Miranda herself

greeted him at the door. He appeared fatigued, for it was proving to be another hot, humid day.

“I was summoned. Enoch is ill?”

“He is,” she said. “He spent the night on the daybed in the

library.”

“What are his symptoms?”

“Feverish sweats, vomits—I do hope it’s not this pestilence. I

have ordered the staff to scrub everything daily.”

“Let me see him.”

Miranda took a step to block him from heading down the hall

to the library. “He’s not in the library. I was up with him all night, until I myself was fairly overcome with exhaustion. I might have slept but an hour, perhaps two? And when I came downstairs, he

was gone.”

“Gone where?”

She leaned close to him now, something she had always liked to

do. It brought out such pliable complications in him. Instinctively, he was wary, perhaps even frightened, but he didn’t have the will 245

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