Ship Fever (22 page)

“May I help you, sir?” the clerk said. He had a large mole near the corner of his eye, which moved as he spoke.

The men grumbled but stepped back. “I have an advertisement I'd like to place,” Lauchlin said. He handed over the page on which he'd written Nora's message. “I'd also like to arrange for a copy to run in the Montreal paper. Can you take care of that for me?”

The clerk read the message, his face expressionless. “Certainly,” he said. “Certainly, if that's what you wish. You'll be picking up any responses here?”

“Yes,” Lauchlin said. “Or I'll arrange to have them forwarded to me.”

The clerk calculated the charges and Lauchlin paid his bill. “You know the responses to these have been small?” the clerk said, handing him his change.

“These?”

The clerk gestured at the room. “All these people,” he said. “All placing the same sort of advertisement, looking for family they've misplaced. I wish you good luck in your search.”

As Lauchlin turned to leave, an elderly man bumbled into him and then pulled himself upright, clutching a fistful of Lauchlin's coat. “Your pardon,” the man said. “Would a fine gentleman like yourself have a minute to help?”

Lauchlin gently detached himself. The man's fingers had left marks on his coat. “What's the problem?”

“I'm searching for my daughter,” the man said. “If you could just spare a minute, to help me write out an advertisement…”

Lauchlin penned the man's message, and then he fled. Throughout the cities along the great waterway he imagined this scene repeated: those left behind here searching for those shipped to Montreal; those left in Montreal searching for those shipped farther inland. Nora's brothers were gone.

One fruitless call after another ate up the afternoon; the members of the Board of Health were more angry than sympathetic, and more concerned with the outbreak of fever in the city than with conditions on Grosse Isle. Sewell was furious and blamed Dr. Douglas; Henderson and Phillips could spare only minutes for him. At Phillips's office he learned that the clothing and provisions gathered by the Quebec Ladies' Protestant Relief Society, and meant for the sick on Grosse Isle, had been diverted to the sick here in the city. But here, in the heart of the city's best neighborhood, the sick were not evident. The clerks bustling around with their papers were remarkably sleek and plump. The physicians' coats were clean and brushed, the servants were well
turned-out, the horses stood calmly before their carriages, occasionally twitching away the flies, and the stone steps he trudged up and down were freshly scrubbed.

In and out of offices, through and back out pairs of weighty doors. Grave faces, cups of tea, hurried half-hearted promises, or outright refusals; yes on a little extra bedding, yes on some extra funds, but not now; no on an emergency shipment of flour and milk, there were already shortages in the city. The fever here was already serious, he heard again and again. A tall official said, “The only good news is that so far most of the victims are emigrants—there are upwards of 800 of them at the Marine and Emigrant Hospital and the newly erected fever sheds nearby. We have no medicine to spare at present.” Lauchlin stared at this man's shoes as he spoke; they were expensive, and very well shined. Two doors down and a cup of tea later, Jackson told him that the residents of St. Roch, near the emigrant hospital, had torn down the first set of fever sheds in a fury of opposition. “We have had to post guards over the second set at night.”

He called at Dr. Perrault's office, but Dr. Perrault, whom he had particularly wanted to see, could not be found. Later a young physician told him that a hundred beds had been equipped for the sick in the cavalry barracks on the Plains of Abraham, and that Dr. Perrault was thought to be out there. Someone promised some corn and barley; another official promised a donation of blankets from the army. No more physicians could be spared, he was told. And nurses were not to be found for any wage.

Defeated, and obscurely ashamed, Lauchlin went to Susannah's house when he finished his rounds, rather than to his own. It was almost dusk and he could not bear to face what he knew awaited him at home. Mail and repairs and the complaints of his servants; what could he do about any of that? In the back of his mind he was hoping, too, that Arthur Adam and Susannah might
invite him to dinner. He'd forgotten what real food tasted like, away from the smell of death.

He stood outside the Rowleys' door, thin and exhausted and out of breath. It was Annie Taggert who greeted him, as he'd expected. But he did not expected her news.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Mr. Rowley is still abroad.”

“I didn't know,” he said. Even Annie looked plump to him. Her apron and cap were starched, so clean. “Is he all right?”

“Of course. He's in London now. We expect him back next month.”

Susannah had been alone, then. All this time. He had written her only twice from Grosse Isle: the most perfunctory of notes, not wanting to worry her in the happiness of her reunion. He had written simply to say that he continued well. He said, “Might I see Mrs. Rowley, then?”

Still Annie did not open the door. “Mrs. Rowley is out,” she said, her voice harsh with disapproval. “Mrs. Rowley is where she always is these days, trotting between the hospital and the fever sheds in St. Roch. It's a horror, it is. What she's doing, the places she goes with no more escort than her friend Mrs. Martin—does she think the sickness will just keep passing her by?”

“I don't know, Annie,” Lauchlin said wearily. Who was Mrs. Martin? “But may I come in? It's late, she'll surely be back soon from wherever she is.”

Annie looked him up and down. “You look terrible,” she said. “If you don't mind my saying so. Have you been home yet?”

It didn't occur to him to lie to her. “No. I came straight from the island.”

“Straight from working with the sick, I'll bet.”

He thought she would praise him for his good works among her countrymen. “Yes,” he said.

“And why would you be thinking I'd let you into this house,
still carrying the sickness on you? Not me, not through this door.” She stepped forward and closed the door behind her, carefully avoiding any contact with him. “You follow me,” she said. “You want to wait for the mistress, you'll do what I make her do every night, when she comes home from those filthy places.”

Lauchlin was too weary to argue. Around the house she led him, past the hedges and flower beds and the kitchen garden. “Don't you touch a thing,” she said, as she led him through the kitchen door. A dirty scullery maid looked up as he passed; Annie said to her, “Dr. Grant's come from tending the sick. Don't you go near him.” In an unused storeroom off the kitchen she stopped.

“You go in there,” she said. “That's where I make Mrs. Rowley clean herself every night. You take off every stitch of those clothes and push them out through the back window. I'll bring some hot water and a sponge.”

He stood, numb and confused, after she closed the door behind her. What was going on in this house, where the servants now gave orders? What was Susannah doing, and why was Arthur Adam still absent? The room was clean and bare and smelled faintly of nutmeg and flour. There was not even a chair where he might sit.

He was still standing when Annie knocked at the door. “Yes?”

“Here's your hot water,” she said. “And some soap and a sponge, and a blanket to cover you when you're done. Get those clothes off you, now.”

He looked down at his filthy pants and his stained, worn shirt and coat, unable to argue with Annie's caution. “I will,” he said. “I'll do that right now. Thank you. But could you bring me something of Mr. Rowley's to put on when I'm done? Even a dressing gown would be fine.”

Annie drew herself up. “That would not be possible,” she said. “We have put all his clothes in storage, against the moth.”

“But Annie—I can't see Mrs. Rowley wrapped in a blanket, now can I?”

Annie sighed. “You tell me what you'd like from your house,” she said. “I'll go over there and get what clothes you'd like from your housekeeper.”

“That seems foolish. All I need are a few things.”

He started to argue that Arthur Adam surely wouldn't mind the loan, but Annie cut him off. “Mr. Rowley's things are not available,” she said stiffly. “But it would be no trouble for me to fetch something from your house.”

Lauchlin looked down at the cooling water. “Fine,” he said. He gave her instructions and then, as soon as she'd gone, tore off his clothes and tossed them out the window to the ground below. Then he began to bathe. Against his skin, the warm water felt heavenly. The storeroom was almost dark, except for the rectangle of dusky sky let into the rear wall; in the kitchen the scullery maid hummed to herself as if she'd forgotten about him.

Annie set off for Lauchlin's house but turned back a few yards down the street. The doctor would be wanting supper, she knew. Mrs. Rowley would come home late, as always, and would bathe and change her clothes in the storeroom, the way Annie had trained her: then she'd discover her waiting doctor friend and offer to feed him, with no thought as to where that food might come from. It was Mrs. Heagerty's day off. Annie, knowing Mrs. Rowley would only pick at some little scrap on her return, had not fixed anything more than a chicken pie, which she'd expected would be more than enough for her and Sissy and the other servants after Mrs. Rowley had taken her two bites.

She ducked back into the kitchen and seized a basket. Sissy cringed. “It's nothing to do with you,” Annie snapped. “You finish cleaning that silver before I'm back.” Then she was off again; first the market and then the doctor's house.

At the market, in the square facing the Basilica, she looked through the butchers' stalls. Chickens were shockingly high, and none looked as fresh as she would have liked; geese were even higher and the mutton she examined was distinctly off. She bought some oysters, which were cheap and fresh, and a pair of lively lobsters—an oyster stew, she thought, warm and sustaining; then the lobsters split and broiled. She and Sissy would eat the leftovers tomorrow in a salad. The wild raspberries had a wonderful smell and she bought a large pail, undecided yet as to whether she'd serve them plain with cream, or in a tart. Lettuce, radishes, green onions; cream and butter of course. Because Mrs. Heagerty wasn't around to bake, and because she knew she'd be pressed for time, she allowed herself the luxury of a dozen hot rolls.

Then she set off for the doctor's house. She knew where it was, having carried gifts of preserves and extra produce from the Rowleys' garden there on occasion; Mrs. Rowley was overly generous with the bounty of Mr. Rowley's household. Annie walked past the convent, the courthouse, the livery stable, and two hotels. The hotels appeared to be almost empty, which was no surprise; who would visit this city if they could avoid it, now that the fever had come? Behind her she heard the rattle of a pair of carts, and although she averted her eyes she could not help seeing the coffins they carried.

At Lauchlin's house, she registered the disrepair with surprise. Nasty weeds poking up through the flagstone walk; tall saplings waving arrogantly from the places they'd stolen in the hedge; a stain creeping down the wall where rain had poured through a broken gutter. Ashamed of himself, Annie thought. That's what the doctor should be. She blamed him for letting
things fall apart. If he'd been here where he belonged, and not off at that horrid island, his house would look at least partly respectable.

Annie knocked at the door. The Rowleys' house might look like this, were it not for the unceasing efforts of herself and Mrs. Heagerty and the others, all joined to keep the place intact for Mr. Rowley, so that he might not be ashamed when he returned. At night sometimes, lying alone in her small attic room counting Mrs. Rowley's faults, she'd been tempted to let the house crumble in just the way Mrs. Rowley's inattention deserved. But who could bear it? She touched the grimy doorknob with distaste. Still no one came to the door. Then she heard voices, just a few feet away, too ignorant to realize she could hear them.

“
You
get it,” a girl said. “It's not my place, it never was.”

“Well it's not mine either,” a boy said. “I wouldn't be in here at all, if it weren't that I'd come in to eat. You want I should open the door with stable-muck all over my breeches?”

“Don't care. You open that.”

“Won't.”

Annie rapped sharply on the door. “Whatever are the pair of you doing in there?” she called. It was shocking, how far this household had fallen. “You open this door right now—I've a message from Dr. Grant.”

A terrified silence, and then a boy, as dirty as promised and with a wild head of blond hair, pulled the door inward.

“Fetch the housekeeper for me,” Annie said to the girl. Tall and poorly dressed, the girl was nearly as sluttish as Sissy but looked to be German or Norwegian. She vanished and returned with a middle-aged woman in tow.

“I'm Mrs. Carlson,” the woman said. Portly, suddenly filled with dignity, she drew herself up. “And you would be?”

Annie also stood very tall and identified herself. “Dr. Grant has come to call on us,” she continued. “On Mrs. Rowley, that is—Mr. Rowley being still in England, on very important
business. Dr. Grant has had a small accident with his clothes, and he requires that you gather a new set for him, from the skin out. I am to bring the items back to him at the Rowleys'.”

“Indeed,” Mrs. Carlson said. “And how am I to know . you're telling the truth? What could the doctor have done to himself, to need everything from linens to a coat?”

Annie swallowed the implied insult in silence; this woman was too far beneath her to argue with. “It's the sickness that's on him,” she said, lowering her voice dramatically. “From that island. It's on his clothes, and he doesn't want to bring it into the Rowleys'. When he leaves there tonight he'll be coming here. Perhaps he'll give those old clothes to you then, to have washed.”