Quarantine: A Novel (22 page)

uel’s hand grabbed his arm by the shoulder. Giles said, “You have a very strong grip.”

“It’s the only hand I have, so it must be twice as strong.”

Giles tried to continue on, but Emanuel only pulled him closer.

“What
are
you doing, Mister?”

“My exact question, Doctor.”

“Is it any of your business?”

“I’m curious, just curious. You have healed me, so why can’t

you heal the others?”

“That is the question, indeed.”

Emanuel let go of Giles’s shoulder and held out his hand. Giles

gave him the bottle again and watched him take a drink. As he

returned the bottle, Emanuel smiled. “I came all the way up here to help, you pathetic sawbones.” He leaned forward and spoke

slowly, as though speaking to someone hard of hearing. “I want

to lend a hand—I only have the one, you know, so, please, lead

the way, and show me what I can do.” Emanuel’s face, illuminated from below by the lantern, seemed ghostly, haunted.

“Damn you, Mr. Lunt.” Giles began walking back toward the

pest-house gate, slower, so that Emanuel had no difficulty keeping up. “We are nearly out of medical supplies,” Giles said, “so our methods are very primitive. We use linen and blankets, soaked

in hot water to wrap each patient, and stones—hot bricks and

stones—to be laid down on the torso of each patient.”

“You try to sweat the fever out of them,” Emanuel said. “Bril-

liant. That’s often what they did in the Caribbean, if I remember correctly.”

“Exactly.”

“It was easier to practice medicine, I gather, when we were at

sea and men were wounded by grapeshot and flying chain. The

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worst were those splinters that flew when the hull of a ship was struck by cannon ball—those splinters, they’d go right through

a man like a sword.”

“True, it was easier,” Giles said as they reached the pest-house gate. “You could at least see a man’s wounds.”

“And in most cases you’d just—” Emanuel held his hand out

and made a sawing motion. “It was simple. In a minute you’d

cut off the wounded limb, leaving your patient healed—unless of

course you’d cut off his leg. Then the man was
un-heeled.”

“Precisely.” Giles opened the gate.

“Did I ever tell you that I appreciated the fact that you elected not to cut off my wounded leg, only my hand?”

“You tell me every time you’re drunk, which means too often.”

“Well, I just want to show my appreciation.”

They stepped inside the pest-house fence, and Giles pulled the

gate closed behind him. The click of the latch startled the sleeping guard, who quickly got to his feet.

“It’s all right,” Giles said to the guard. “I’ve just conscripted a new recruit.”

R

Leander slept on the dewy grass in the apple orchard. Occasion-

ally his slumber was disturbed by distant voices—song, laughter, a toast that was followed by a chorus of huzzahs—but it wasn’t

until the early morning hours, when the revelry in the Sumner

house had ended, that he was awakened with a start. A man stood

over him, leaning to one side as though pushed. He wore an

enormous cockade hat, and a small, pudgy dog sat next to him,

panting desperately. In one hand the man held a wine bottle, and in the other a pistol.

He said something that was totally incomprehensible, and

when he spoke he moved his arm back and forth, sloshing a sweet-

smelling beverage on Leander’s face.

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Leander hastened to his feet. “Excuse me, sir?”

“I
said
what are you doing sleeping in my orchard.”

“Beg your pardon, sir, but you may recall that I am the new

stable boy.”

“Recall? Are you an honest lad?”

“I—I believe so, sir.”

“Very well, then you may remain my stable boy and you’re

welcome in my orchard.” Mr. Sumner took Leander’s forearm

and used it for support as he eased himself down on the grass. “I want you to do me a small service.”

“What is that, sir?”

Mr. Sumner held out the bottle. “Drink.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me.”

Reluctantly, Leander took the bottle and raised it to his mouth.

He sipped the contents—some kind of wine, he assumed, and it

made him wince.

“More,” Mr. Sumner commanded.

Leander took another drink of the wine, which proved not

that unpleasant.

“S’alright?”

“Yes, sir, it’s fine.”

“You sure now?” Mr. Sumner took back the bottle. He raised

his other hand, and pointed the short silver barrel of the pistol at his left temple, then pushed his cocked hat back so that he could scratch his forehead. “Y’know they’re trying to kill me?”

“Who is, sir?”

“They—oh, they know who they are. I think they mean to

poison me.” He took another drink of wine and wiped his chin with the ruffled sleeve of his shirt. “But this, it didn’t kill you, did it?”

“No, sir.”

“Good, because if it kilt you we’d both be dead now.” As he

lay back on the ground, his cocked hat fell off, and he immedi-

ately began to snore. The dog curled up in the crook of his arm.

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j o h n s m o l e n s

Leander waited for a good while, expecting Mr. Sumner to

be revived, but finally, as the first light of day was beginning to paint the eastern sky, he left the orchard. On a fence behind the stable, he found several horse blankets that were being aired out for the night. He took one blanket, returned to the orchard, and draped it over Mr. Sumner, causing the dog to grunt its approval.

He went to the service quarters, where he made his way up the

dark stairs to his cot.

172

Seventeen

At sunrise, Giles and Emanuel Lunt helped each other

navigate State Street. Exhausted from the long night’s work in

the pest-house, they had with them a bottle of rum procured

from Dr. Bradshaw’s supply. As they entered Market Square, Giles veered toward the door to his rooms, but Emanuel grabbed him

by the arm.

“Come back to the ship, and we’ll see what’s cooking in the

galley.”

Giles did not resist and they walked through the square, which

was quiet save for some seagulls that were squabbling over a pile of oyster shells left outside one of the vendors’ shambles. When they arrived at the waterfront, the two men boarded Lunt’s schooner

The Golden Hand,
which was tied up to a small dock downriver from Sumner’s Wharf. Lunt and his family made their living

coasting, delivering goods as far north as Halifax and as far south as the Caribbean. Two mulatto children—thirteen-year-old

twins—were on the quarterdeck.

“We spotted you coming from the square,” the girl, Domi-

nique, announced, wielding her father’s spyglass. “And Mother

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says you are not to set foot on this ship until you have washed

thoroughly.” She pointed at the water bucket and towels that had been placed on the dock.

“We washed before leaving the pest-house,” Emanuel said.

“Mother says she will not have you smelling of rum on board.”

“I married a woman with a keen nose.” Emanuel leaned over

the pail and splashed water on his face with his left hand. “Do I smell bacon?”

“And
ouvres,”
his son Francois said.

“Eggs—yes, lots of eggs.” Emanuel unfurled a towel and dried

his face. “Then go down and help your mother set another place

at the table for the doctor. After all, he saved your father’s life, and he brought the two of you into this world. You were a real

bargain, two babes delivered for the price of one.”

Francois disappeared down the companionway, while his

sister came and leaned her elbows on the rail.
“Bonjour,
Doctor Wiggins.”

Giles smiled up at the girl.
“Bonjour,
Dominique.”

He removed his coat and shirt, and with cupped hands scooped

water from the pail. As he washed, he said, “Look at this,

Emanuel—look at these mosquitoes, how they hover about the

pail. They’re attracted to the water. Maybe this is why we need to clean up the stagnant pools and cisterns around this soggy port?”

Emanuel offered him the other towel, and Giles paused as

he reached out: they both watched as a mosquito landed on his

forearm, just above the inside of the wrist. Curious, Giles allowed the mosquito to probe his skin for a moment before he slapped his wrist with his other hand. He missed the mosquito.

“See, blood?” Giles said. “He draws my blood.”

“The little creature must eat, too.”

Giles studied his wrist as though he were trying to decipher

some lost ancient language. “He hangs about water and sucks the

blood from anything—man or animal—that comes along. And

then. . . .”

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“And then your skin turns red and itchy, and you scratch it

until it’s raw.” Emanuel draped the towel over Giles’s outstretched arm and climbed the plank to his ship. “This is the benefit of

having a stump for a hand, with a metal hook for fingers—less

flesh to attract mosquitoes. Less to nibble on!” He leaned down

and kissed his daughter on the neck, causing her to squeal.

“Yes,” Giles said vaguely as he wiped his hands and arms

with the towel. He pulled the clean shirt over his head, and then boarded the ship. “But what becomes of the mosquito?”

“If you don’t squash him,” Dominique said, “he flies off, to

eat again.” Her face was fine and delicate, and she was tall for her age and lithe, as was her mother. She had her father’s pale green eyes, which seemed to shine from within, and her hair, which fell in loose curls down to her waist, was a bronze color that glistened in the early morning sunlight.

“You’re exactly right, Dominique,” Giles said. “The mosquito

drinks my blood, and then goes and drinks from another, and then another, and another.”

“And your conclusion, Doctor?” Emanuel asked.

“Conclusion?” Giles said.

“Eventually,” Dominique said, taking her father by his hook

and leading him toward the companionway, “the mosquito gets

full.”

“Precisely,” Giles said. “He eats, and he fills up with . . .

blood.”

“This is a great scientific discovery?” Emanuel said as he fol-

lowed his daughter below to the galley. “It makes me hungry just to think about it.”

Again, Giles studied the spot where the mosquito had bitten

him. A small red welt was already beginning to form, causing

the skin to swell slightly. He scratched it with a fingernail, and watched the smallest bead of blood emerge from the tiny hole

in the center of the welt. With two fingers he squeezed the bite, causing more blood to surface. He looked down at the pail again, 175

j o h n s m o l e n s

where a haze of mosquitoes hovered above the water. Some

thought, some connection seemed to tug at the corners of his

mind, but it eluded him, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by

the smell of the eggs frying in bacon grease. “The doctor’s con-

clusion?” he said as he climbed down the companionway. “The

doctor is tired. He is inebriated. And he is extremely hungry,

drawn to the smell of eggs cooking in bacon fat as the mosquito

is attracted to blood.”

R

At midday, Miranda sat in her bedroom doing needlepoint. But

for minutes she would lay the embroidery hoop in her lap and

just listen; then she would resume work on a spray of lilacs on a field of green leaves. From the library downstairs she could hear the low murmur of voices, a delegation of men who had been

arriving by carriage for the past hour.

Finally, there was a tap at the door, and before she could

answer, Samuel let himself into the room.

“Well?” she said without looking up from her work. The

tedium of such projects was, ironically, a source of tranquility, and Miranda found she often did her best thinking when her hands

were busy with needle and thread.

“Most of Newburyport’s shipbuilders and captains are down

there,” Samuel said, his voice low, conspiratorial. He went to his mother’s canopy bed and lay down, propping his head on several

pillows.

“Shoes.”

Using his toe he nudged off each of his dainty shoes and let

them fall to the floor. “And there are the doctors,” he said crossing his legs on the counterpane,” Bradshaw and Uncle Giles.”

“So, you’ve had your ear married to the door. What’s this

confab about?”

“It seems they’re talking about money.”

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“They’re always talking about money.”

“The doctors are trying to extract contributions.” Samuel

folded his hands behind his head as he gazed up at the canopy

above the bed. “They require funds to buy medical supplies for

the pest-house.”

“The old High Street pikers are as tight as bark on a tree and

they won’t contribute to the commonweal unless ultimately there’s a handsome return in it.”

“The epidemic’s getting worse,” Samuel said, “and it seems

that necessary medical supplies have gone stolen.”

“Stolen?” Miranda raised her head.

Samuel continued to stare at the canopy. “You’re surprised?”

“No, not surprised.” She looked down at her work. “So

someone’s going to make a profit off this fever. Just as they did during the war. Wars, disasters, pestilence—they’re all viewed as opportunities. How much do the doctors need?”

“About five thousand pounds.”

“My.” She considered this for a long moment. “Is Wilberforce