Quarantine: A Novel (42 page)

evening.”

“Who took him away?” Mr. Poole asked.

“I don’t know,” Clapp said.

Mr. Poole clasped his hands behind his back and walked away

a bit, looking down the street toward the river. He stood there

for quite some time, deep in thought. “All right,” he said finally.

“We’ll take him now and return him to the jail.” Then he nodded

to Trumbull and Blake, who moved to each side of Clapp and the

three men began to walk back down State Street.

“You’ve done a fine job, son,” Mr. Poole said, and he looked

at Roger Davenport, standing in the doorway. “See that this man

gets something to eat and put it on my account, will you?” Then

Mr. Poole started down the street, following the constables and

their prisoner.

“You come inside now,” Roger Davenport said. “We’ll fix you

up something to eat.” He stepped back inside the doorway. “And

I think it’s time you might be allowed a mug of ale.”

But Leander hesitated, remaining out on the porch. “The last

time I stood in this doorway,” he said, “I had been sent to fetch Dr. Wiggins. It was the night the fever was arrived aboard the

Miranda.”

“Much has happened to Newburyport since then,” Roger

Davenport said.

“It feels like a lifetime ago, not several weeks.”

Leander looked down the street again. The men were barely

visible now, and it was beginning to rain again.

“Well,” Davenport said, “you done your duty. Now get your-

self inside out of the rain.”

“Thank you,” Leander said. He was hungry, and he could

smell meat cooking on the spit inside the tavern. But he thought of Cedella, waiting alone in his grandfather’s house. “Thank you, Mr. Davenport, but I must be getting down to Joppa.”

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He began walking back toward the river, leaning into the rain.

R

After Giles had been washed and dressed, several orderlies carried his cot through the camp toward the gate. Marie and Eli Bradshaw led the way through the rain. Orderlies paused in their duties to watch in silence as he passed. Some of the sick tried to sit up on their cots, and many raised a hand in farewell. Esther L’Amour

stood by the gate, tears streaming down her face. Gently, she

placed her arms about his shoulders and kissed his cheek.

Outside the gate, Enoch stood in front of his carriage. When

Giles looked at the two white stallions, his brother said, “I thought you might like to ride in the diligence, drawn by Mr. Jefferson’s fine horses.”

“This is very kind of you, Enoch.”

With great care, Giles was lifted from the cot and laid on the

bench inside the carriage, where he was covered with a blanket.

Enoch and Marie sat across from him.

Bradshaw leaned in the open door and took Giles’s hand. “I

would attend your wedding, but there’s work to do here.” He

looked at Marie. “You both have my best wishes.”

“Eli,” Giles said, and then he let go of Bradshaw’s hand.

The doctor stepped back and the footman closed the door.

When the driver slapped the horses’ reins, the coach began to roll across the Mall. Each jolt sent shooting pains through Giles’s leg.

Enoch took a flask from inside his coat and offered it, but Giles shook his head. Marie also declined. “So, you are to be married

to this lovely lady.” He took a sip of rum, and put the flask away.

“I envy you that.”

“She will be your sister-in-law,” Giles said. “So I expect that

you will do what you can to assist her.”

“Of course,” Enoch said.

“Did you tell Mother?”

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“No. We had an argument, a terrible argument. She—she is

exhausted, and Fields says she refuses to allow anyone into her

room.”

They reached High Street, where the ride was smoother.

“Samuel and Mr. Clapp escaped from the pest-house,” Giles said.

“That was her doing?”

“Completely,” Enoch said. “I just don’t understand what’s hap-

pening to our mother.”

“You’ve both been cooped up in that house of yours too long.”

“I give her everything she wants.”

“And you think that’s enough? She wants to be the one who

gives, not takes.”

“The woman grieves for one son, while she tries to kill the

other.”

“There’s a logic at work—”

“Logic?
Really, Giles, a maternal logic where a mother eats her young?”

“—that’s based on firm conviction.”

“Some conviction.” Enoch stared at Marie. “First, she takes her in, and then she throws her out—out of my own house, without asking

me.” He turned and placed his hand on Giles’s shoulder. “Now she says that she’s sending Samuel back to Europe, and she’s distraught, believing she will never see him again. I suspect this is true.” Enoch hesitated a moment, and then said, “He will be safe from this mob.”

“That is all she cares about,” Giles said. “Samuel is the future of the family.”

“Perhaps you’re right, Doctor.” Enoch gently squeezed his

shoulder. “She wants to order the world, and that’s what has been driving me mad all these years.” Enoch laughed before taking

another drink from his flask. “But everything’s in chaos. There

are reports of looting and fires as these mobs roam the streets. One group stood in front of my house earlier this evening, banging

sticks on the fence and throwing rocks into the garden. I may

survive this fever, but it has ruined me, I fear.”

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“The scheme to sell the medicine in Boston,” Giles said. “That

was entirely Samuel’s notion?”

Enoch stared out the window at the rain.

“I suspected as much,” Giles said. “You will survive, Enoch.”

“If only just,” his brother said without looking away from the

window. The carriage turned down State Street, and the roof was

lashed by rain that swept up from the river.

Giles placed his hand over his brother’s. “You must take care

of Mother.”

“She will remain in my house, as always, but we will never speak to each other again. She told me so—through Fields, of course.

Never, not a word. And when our mother makes up her mind—”

“You won’t have to endure more of her logic,” Giles said.

“True, but her silence will be worse.” Enoch smiled faintly.

“It will be my punishment. Worse than poison.”

R

Miranda opened her bedroom door, startling the new girl Rachel,

who was sitting on the top step of the front stairs. She got to her feet hastily, looking frightened, holding a candle in her hand.

“Where’s Fields?” Miranda asked.

“He instructed me to wait on you, Ma’am.”

“I didn’t ask you that, did I?”

“No. Ma’am.”

“Why isn’t he here?” Miranda didn’t know whether this girl

was simply shy or slow, but it seemed to take her a long time to understand the question. “I asked you a question.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I’m not sure but I believe he had to go out.” The

girl glanced down the stairs, as though that way might lay her

salvation. “Something about a relative falling ill.”

“The fever?”

“Perhaps, Ma’am. A messenger came, and Mr. Fields left

quickly, he did.”

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“Yes. That’s loyalty for you.” Miranda stepped out into the

hall, pulling the bedroom door closed behind her. “There’s been

a great deal of commotion about tonight. I heard my son take a

carriage out earlier and don’t believe he’s returned. Tell me, would you say there’s an element of fear in the house tonight?”

“Fear? Ma’am?”

“You know the meaning of the word?”

“Of course, Ma’am.” As a sign that she was weighing the ques-

tion, the girl puffed out her cheeks. “Fear—well, yes, I suppose there is something.”

“I have no doubt. This fever will drive those of us mad that it

doesn’t kill.” Miranda turned and began walking down the hall

toward the back of the house. “Well, come on, bring that candle,”

she said over her shoulder.

Rachel followed as Miranda went to the back stairs and began

to climb the dark, narrow steps to the servants’ quarters on the third floor. Every step was an effort, and at the first turn, Miranda had to stop, her hands against the walls, to catch her breath. “I have not been up here in years,” she whispered.

On the third floor, she paused once more until her breathing

eased; then she began to climb the stairs—they were really almost a ladder—that ascended to the cupola.

“Ma’am, are you sure. . . .”

“Quiet—
and stay close with that candle.”

She had to pause after each step. Her legs burned with the effort of climbing, and there seemed to be so little air. Finally, when she made it to the top of the ladder, she nearly fell as she stepped up into the cupola. Fortunately, it was cooler here in the small octagonal room, and the girl’s candle was reflected—multiplied,

it seemed—in the window glass. Rain pelted the roof.

“This has been my son’s sanctuary, you see, the one place

where he knows I cannot find him.” She went to the telescope,

seated on its wooden tripod. “And this—have you ever seen one

of these?”

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“No, Ma’am.”

“A remarkable invention, really.” Miranda looked toward the

river and the South End. “It’s not a clear night, and look how

the sky glows.” She peered into the lens, turning the knob that

adjusted the focus. “There—now take a look.”

Miranda stepped back and took the candle from Rachel. The

girl reluctantly went forward and leaned down to look in the

telescope. She straightened up, startled.
“Fire!”
she gasped, and then she put her eye to the lens again. “Two, no three fires, in the South End.” She placed her hands on the smooth metal shaft

of the instrument, moving it slightly to her left. “And there are

. . .
torches.
It seems there’s a crowd moving through the streets.”

“Madness, you see,” Miranda said. “This is the result of this

fever. They are burning the houses of the dead, believing that that might drive the fever away.” Miranda went over to the couch.

Rachel came and took her arm, helping her sit down.

“Ma’am, are you all right?”

“I feel . . . faint. Just let me rest. There, is that a bottle of wine on the table? Pour me a glass. And then I want you to observe

what you see below. I want you to tell me what is happening down there. Tell me what this fear looks like.”

R

As Leander walked along Water Street, the air in the South End

became thick with smoke. The overcast sky glowed with a fire

somewhere to his right. At Federal Street he passed an old man,

carrying a squirming chicken in his arms. “They’re burning the

houses,” he said. “One on Purchase Street. One on Bromfield.

And it looks like a barn’s caught fire, too.”

Leander hurried on toward Joppa Flats. Despite the heavy

rain pounding the muddy street, he could hear the sound of

crowds several blocks away, sometimes angry and chanting,

sometimes cheering. There was the crackle of burning timber,

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of walls and roofs collapsing. At the next block, two boys

emerged from Lime Street, carrying burlap sacks over their

shoulders—the contents rattled—pewter, or perhaps even

silver. A candle holder fell out on the ground, causing one

boy to stop and pick it up before he followed the other on into

the dark.

At the next corner, Leander came upon a woman sitting on the

stoop in her nightgown, soaking wet, her head buried in her arms as she wept. He was about to speak to her, when he heard a loud

shrieking sound. Looking around the corner of the house, he saw a horse on fire sprinting down Neptune Street. Its screams were shrill, horrified, and the flames engulfed its neck and back as it veered from one side to the other, until it finally collapsed, writhing in the mud. A man ran up to the horse, aimed a pistol at its head, and fired a shot. The animal’s legs kicked once, and then it was still. The air was filled with the smell of manure, burnt hair, and cooked meat.

Leander looked back at the woman on the stoop, who still keep

her head buried in her arms, her shoulders quivering as she cried.

“Ma’am,” he said. “You should get inside out of this rain.”

She lifted her head but didn’t look directly at him. Slowly she

got to her feet, and as she stepped inside the front door she said,

“Bastards stole my last pig.”

Leander ran the rest of the way to his grandfather’s house. The

door was locked, but Cedella must have seen him coming because

she opened it immediately. It was dark inside—she had not even

lit a candle. As he closed the door behind him, she flung her

arms around his shoulders. She was shivering and he hugged her

tightly, while out the window the clouds above the river glowed

from the distant fires.

R

Once Giles’s cot was on deck,
The Golden Hand
cast off its dock lines and drifted away from the jetty. When they were well out

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in the basin, Emanuel ordered Francois to drop anchor. From

the river, Newburyport appeared to be under siege. There was

looting all along the waterfront. The sounds, the smoke, the fires illuminating the lowering clouds—it was as though some foreign

army had invaded the seaport.

“This rain,” Emanuel said, “we can rig up a canopy to protect

you.”

“No,” Giles said. “I will miss the rain, but I will miss the Merrimack fog even more.” He looked at Emanuel. “Have you ever