Quarantine: A Novel (12 page)

he had the fever in Paris.”

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“You do realize that’s not the point. This ship is a serious threat to Newburyport, unless the quarantine is observed.”

“Enforcement of such matters is not my concern, Giles. They’re

both here in this house now, and their presence has had a detri-

mental effect upon your brother’s demeanor. He and Samuel rarely get along, and this girl—well, you have eyes. She has become

something of a distraction. Please, remain with her, if you wish, and see if you can at least bring her around.” His mother opened the door but paused again. “I keep a clean house. You know that.

Such pestilences will find no safe haven under this roof. The filth of those people. . . .” She left the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Giles suddenly felt tired—it was the food, the Dog’s Nose, the

warmth of the afternoon. There was a window seat with a fine

embroidered cushion. Down on High Street, a wagon passed by,

carrying two more people destined for the pest-house. He should

return there, for there was much work to be done. Reluctantly,

he turned toward the young woman, asleep in the canopy bed.

R

Leander had been given lamb stew and bread in the kitchen. Min-

ions and scullions moved about, preparing dinner, ignoring him

as he sat at the table. Their aprons were spattered with sauces and gravies, and they went about their tasks with a vengeance. One

plump woman, her arms covered with flour, pounded and rolled

dough; another basted several chickens; still another ground seasonings with mortar and pestle as though her life depended on it.

“Fancy some more, love?” the woman in charge asked.

Leander, his mouth full, nodded. She took his bowl away and

at that moment a dark-skinned maid entered through the swinging

door. He couldn’t help but stare, embarrassed, at the high fullness confined beneath her uniform. Yet she was slender, remarkably so in the midst of all these fleshy women with their quivering jowls 90

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and pink cheeks. She looked toward Leander for a moment, her

oval eyes both alert and vulnerable, and then she picked up a

silver tray with fine cut glasses and f led the kitchen. It was only after she’d left that he realized there was something peculiar

about her face. There was a bruise on her forehead, which was

only partially concealed by the black curls that escaped from

her lace cap.

The cook put the bowl in front of him, and he commenced

to eat. He was unaccustomed to so much seasoning, and yet he

couldn’t spoon the stew into his gullet fast enough. His mother’s fare had always been ample but plain, and seldom enhanced with

anything but salt and pepper. As he was wiping his bowl clean

with the last of the bread, the lady of the house came into the

kitchen. The entire staff paused in their duties and curtsied. She ignored them and walked straight toward Leander, and, along

with the others at the table, he hastily got to his feet.

“You did well today, quite possibly saving that woman’s life.”

She held out two coins and placed them in his hand. “You may

finish eating and go.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

She swept out of the kitchen, seeming to take all the air with

her. The staff appeared unable to move, unable to breathe as they stared at Leander. Some were aghast, while others looked suspicious. The maid was back—she must have slipped through the

service door again without Leander noticing. She gazed at him a

moment before raising her head abruptly, as though detecting a

bad smell, and pushing out through the door.

R

The girl coughed, and Giles got up off the window seat and went

to the canopy bed. Her eyes were open, her gaze startled and confused but defiant. There was a water pitcher on the nightstand,

and he filled a glass. “Here,” he said, leaning over her. She shook 91

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her head. “Just small sips.” He held the glass to her mouth and

she drank a little.

As he was putting the glass on the table, the door opened and

Enoch stepped into the room. His shirttails hung below his gold

waistcoat, and he was wearing only one silk stocking and no shoes.

The crotch of his britches was wet and he smelled of urine. He

held a wine bottle by the neck and as he walked toward the bed, he tended to lead with one shoulder, as though breasting a stiff wind.

“So, Doctor, you’ve raised her from the dead.”

“She’s merely exhausted, and distressed from having swallowed

so much brackish water. She should not have been allowed ashore, if she was aboard your quarantined ship.”

Enoch raised the bottle to his mouth and as he drank, red

wine dribbled off his chin and stained his shirt. When inebri-

ated, his eyes tended to gaze in two directions, so that one eye studied Giles’s face, while the other seemed to regard something just behind him. “But here she is.”

“I understand Samuel has made it ashore as well.”

“Place a ship under quarantine—you only open the way to

bribery.”

Giles picked up his medical bag, which he hadn’t even opened.

“I would see that she gets plenty of rest and nourishment.”

“Whot
would you
haf
me eat?” she said.
“Hooorse?
They fed me meat from the
hooorse
on that
boot.”
She then muttered something in French.

“I would eat plainly for a day or two,” Giles said to her.

She glared up at him.

He bowed politely and went to the door. Enoch followed him

out into the hall, where he took several coins from his waistcoat and offered them.

“Ordinarily,” Giles said, shaking his head, “Mother insists that Fields compensate me as he ushers me out the front door.”

“He may yet.” Enoch held out the bottle in his hand. “Perhaps

some wine, then?”

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“No, thank you.”

“This girl, she has been in hiding—for several years.”

“And how do you know that?”

Enoch looked down the hall as though he suspected someone

might be eavesdropping, then took hold of his brother’s sleeve

and drew him toward the stairs. They climbed to the third floor, which was decidedly less decorous—the servants’ quarters—and

then they ascended a steep, narrow set of stairs and entered the cupola which was perched atop the hip roof. The view was spectacular; it was a clear evening and the lights of Newburyport

spilled downhill to the banks of the Merrimack. Jonathan Bream,

Enoch’s bard, was stretched out on a couch snoring gently, and an empty bottle of wine lay on the floor by his hand.

Enoch went to a spyglass on a tripod and peered through it. “I

will take you, my half-brother, into my confidence.” He turned

the glass until it was pointed at Giles. “But you must promise me you will not divulge what I’m about to tell you to anyone.”

“Does this have to do with a broken law?”

Enoch straightened up and laughed. “I believe there is a sort

of person who is meant to be beyond the law.”

“Don’t you mean above?”

“Is there a difference?”

“You’re talking about royalty, of course.”

“No common law applies to the blood of kings.” Enoch came

around the spyglass and stood very close to Giles; as he exhaled the doctor took a step backward and held his breath. “Perhaps the future of France lies here in my humble home.”

“This—?”

“This delightful girl, yes. What would you say if I told you

that her father was the king himself?”

“King Louis? The sixteenth?”

“Of France.”

“I’d say you’d have a hard time proving it.”

Enoch smiled. “Why are men of science such cynics?”

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“They believe in evidence.”

“But, Doctor, I have evidence.”

“In what form?”

Enoch turned away and moved to one of the windows. Giles

took a deep breath.

“Perhaps I’ll show you,” Enoch said, “another time.” He took a

swig from his wine bottle. “What hasn’t been determined with absolute certainty is who her mother is—it’s possible it was Marie Antoinette, but it’s more plausible that it might have been some other woman, one of the king’s favorites in court. But who? He had so many, of course.”

“Of course. King’s prerogative.”

“Precisely. Whoever the mother was, she’s most likely dead

now—those peasants and their guillotine, you know. But she made

arrangements to have her daughter spirited out of Paris. Surely

you’ve heard such rumors. And she’s been in hiding for several

years, first in Havre, then in the Caribbean—and now, finally,

she’s here, safe and sound.”

“And only slightly waterlogged.”

Enoch gazed through the spyglass toward the river. “I know

you’re busy with this fever that seems to be gripping Newbury-

port, but I would appreciate it if you would find the time to

examine our guest periodically.” He looked over his shoulder

now. “And, Doctor, please, don’t give our mother any more of

your potions or pills. She hoards them. And with my son returned from France as well—I have no doubt that he is conspiring with

her against me. They’ve always been . . . allies.”

“Conspiring? In what way?”

“If I knew that,” Enoch smiled weakly, revealing his putrid

brown teeth, “it wouldn’t be much of a conspiracy.”

R

When Leander finished eating, he went to the kitchen door and let himself out into a courtyard. The last light of day cast a glow like 94

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burning coals on the undersides of towering clouds. Mosquitoes

danced in the humid air, which smelled of manure. Several boys

watched him from the open doors of the stable. They slouched

on bales of hay, their arms folded. But they looked as though they were ready to attack upon a moment’s notice, and to defend their territory to the death. Leander walked around the corner of the

house and a guard let him out a side gate.

He wasn’t sure what to do. He wanted to go to the pest-house,

to see if he could get news about his mother and sister, but it was late and his father would wonder what had happened to him. And

there was the skiff, which he had left tied to Sumner’s Wharf. He decided that first he must return the boat to Colin Thurlow in

Joppa Flats. So he walked down to the wharf, boarded the skiff,

and began rowing along the south bank of the river, making good

speed as he was moving with the outgoing tide. He kept watching

the water about him, half expecting to see something—some sign

of his grandfather. But there was nothing but the gentle lapping against the hull, the splash of his oars, and the reflection of distant shore lights off the water.

He leaned sideways and farted. It was a rich, resonant fart.

Not a clam fart, but, still, a deep fart. This was one of Papi’s great talents. He believed the proof of a good quart of clams was in

the fart, and suddenly, drifting on the dark Merrimack, Leander

began to laugh. He leaned the other way and farted again. He

couldn’t stop himself—laughter coming out of one end, farts

from the other—and he was filled with a childish glee until he

began to cry because he suddenly understood his grandfather’s

logic. Papi had run away, bounding down the hill, stark naked,

and waded into the river in an attempt to protect his grandson—

Leander was certain of this, he knew not how, but in his heart

he understood that his grandfather believed he posed a threat to the boy, and he used his last moments of strength and reason to

get out into the river current, where his burden would once and

for all be carried away. There was no place Papi would rather be 95

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buried than in the waters of the Merrimack, where the river

meets the ocean. His life had been so beholden to the ebb

and f low of the tides that it was only fitting that this would

be his final place of rest. Leander cried as he drifted on the

dark river. And he knew that when he reached his destination,

when he pulled the skiff up on Joppa Flats, he would cry no

more. Ever. That, he was certain, was his grandfather’s desire.

R

The second floor was now lit by candle sconces on the wall.

Giles returned to Marie’s room and, upon opening the door,

found Samuel leaning over the girl in the bed; startled, Samuel

straightened up, holding his hands behind his back. Giles hadn’t seen Samuel in several years—he was heavier and now a tousled

forelock hung down over his eyes.

“Well, Samuel.”

Giles looked at the girl, who was sound asleep. He went to the

bed and Samuel backed up.

“What have you got in your hand?” Giles asked.

“Nothing.”

“Come now,” he said as though to a recalcitrant child, “let

me see.”

Samuel took several more steps backward, until he bumped

into the wall, causing something to drop on the floor. He turned his head away and winced, as though he expected a severe

reprimand.

Giles looked at the floor and saw something glistening in the

candlelight. “Move aside.”

Samuel tried to stand his ground, though he appeared on the

verge of whimpering.

“Samuel, did you hear me?” Giles said, taking a step forward,

and Samuel shuttled along the wall.

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Giles picked up the shining object off the floor—a small locket

on a fine silver chain. He went over to the bed and placed his