Quarantine: A Novel (5 page)

this before in Newburyporters: they were being polite, but also

tolerant. High Street sea captains and shipbuilders, in their fine new mansions, their coaches and four, were a separate breed—and

they’d be the first to tell you so. But here, at the corner of Pleasant 31

j o h n s m o l e n s

and State, people had business to attend to and they stepped out into the street again, careful of fresh road apples.

Leander walked into the South End, thoughts of Enoch Sum-

ner’s grand coach giving away to a more immediate concern:

digging clams always worked up an appetite, and he wondered

what he might find to fill his belly when he got home.

R

Fields, the butler, was showing Giles to the front door when Enoch’s carriage pulled up in front of the house. The footmen climbed

down; one opened the carriage door, while the other pushed back

the gate at the end of the brick walk. Enoch stepped down from

the carriage, wearing a purple frock coat, a gold satin vest, and his enormous cockaded hat with a gold tassel dangling from each end.

He was not a tall man, really quite paunchy now that he was nearing fifty, but this hat afforded him a stature that was as impressive as it was ridiculous. He was accompanied by his small, panting dog, Bowsprit, and followed by Jonathan Bream, the man who acted as

his personal bard and sycophant. As always, Enoch walked with a

cane, which gave his unsteady gait a threatening cadence. He came up to the front door and paused to run the soles of his boots across the iron boot-scrape that jutted out from the granite step.

“Excellent, Doctor,” he bellowed, as he entered the front hall.

“Come to see after the health of the beloved mother? I would

have summoned you anyway. Please, tarry a moment before you

venture forth to conquer disease and pestilence.” He moved down

the hall, handing his enormous hat to Fields.

“Doctor,” Jonathan Bream whispered, as he followed Giles.

“Your brother’s in a vile mood today. One shan’t plan very long

to stay.”

Fields opened the door on the right side of the hall, and they

entered a fine library with Oriental carpets. Enoch went to the tall window and poured himself a brandy from a cut-glass decanter.

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q u a r a n t i n e

He glanced at Giles, who hesitated but said, “It’s a bit early,

but a small one, yes.”

The dog ran around the room, barking incessantly while

Enoch poured their drinks. He appeared to be oblivious to the

noise as he sat on the window seat and for a moment drew

back the green velvet curtains, allowing sunlight to illuminate

the dust motes that hung about his head. He had become,

without a doubt, the ugliest man Giles had ever seen. It was

as though some great powerful hand had taken hold of his

face, balled it up like a sheet of paper, and then allowed it to slowly open up again, all jagged edges and imperfect propor-tion. One eye was larger and higher than the other. The nose

was long, crooked, and pocked like a strawberry. The mouth

was small, the lips slack, and what teeth remained were stained

brown. Giles had pulled several of his brother’s teeth, always

when Enoch was well fortified with whisky, and throughout

the whole procedure the force of his breath caused the doc-

tor’s eyes to water, making such gruesome work all the more

difficult.

“I have just come from a confab with the harbormaster, the

high sheriff, and several of this port’s civil officials.” Enoch let go of the curtain, casting his face in shadow. For a moment he

adjusted his periwig with his free hand, and then took a sip from his tumbler of brandy. The dog jumped up on the window seat

and continued to bark. Enoch slapped its head once, shutting it up.

Growling, the little beast curled up on the seat cushion. “And they tell me that my ship
Miranda
is to be held in quarantine—upon your recommendation.”

“It’s the harbormaster’s decision—but yes, it’s based on my

inspection of the crew.”

“What is it? Measles? Yellow fever? Smallpox? Plague?”

“I don’t know what it is.” Giles drank his brandy down and

winced, from the sharpness of the liquor, but also because he

dreaded where he feared this conversation was headed.

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j o h n s m o l e n s

“You don’t know, Doctor?” Like their mother, Enoch always

seemed amused when he employed the title while addressing his

younger half-brother.

“Not exactly, no.” Giles placed his empty glass on the corner

of the desk. “There are a great many agues and fevers reported up and down the Atlantic coast, and we are merely taking a necessary health precaution.”

To his right, Bream slid into an armchair. He had the expres-

sion of a child who is about to witness—gladly—the unfair

reprimand of a schoolmate who has been falsely accused by the

headmaster.

“My goods aren’t to be delivered to port?” Enoch asked.

“Not yet.”

“My new horses are pining away in a ship’s hold, Giles. Do

you realize that these two stallions are a gift from Mr. Thomas

Jefferson? They’re high-strung animals and they’ll expire in those conditions.” He crossed his legs, two sticks in white silk hose. The dog rested its jaw on his knee.

“It’s out of my hands,” Giles said. “This is Caleb Hatch’s

decision.”

“He and that high sheriff—they didn’t say so directly, but I

assume they want money.”

“It’s not a question of money.”

“It’s always a question of money, Doctor.”

“There’s nothing to be done until we are assured that the men

on that ship are—”

“I will give you what is required and you can distribute

the funds to the proper authorities, as you see fit.” Enoch

tossed back his brandy. “I want those goods off loaded as soon

as possible.”

“I have been compensated by Fields for my house call, per

usual. Though it’s unnecessary, Mother insists upon it. I require nothing further.” Giles began to turn toward the door, where

Fields seemed to stand guard, but he paused and looked back at

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q u a r a n t i n e

Enoch. “I am given to wonder about the ship’s captain, though.

Mr. Frothingham?”

Enoch got to his feet, causing the dog to bark. He shut it up

with another slap, and then hobbled toward Giles, favoring his

left leg. “What about the captain?”

“He wasn’t aboard ship—someone named Delacourte has

taken command.”

Enoch stood close and Giles held his breath, for though his

brother gave off the scent of perfume, it was overpowered by his body odor. His eyes, too, were bloodshot, and his brow creased.

“Our dear mother, I fear, is getting worse—her latest delusions

concern the honor of the family tree. Bloodlines, and all that.

She sees bastards and bitches everywhere. You’d think our fathers were in perpetual rut. No wonder they both died so young. Certainly I try to live up to his name, but here I am nearing fifty, so I must not be as prolific as our fathers. I suppose it’s a question of stamina.” Enoch leaned close and exhaled slowly. “Doctor, you

should tend to the madame’s physical ailments but ignore her

addled ruminations.”

“I will attend to a patient without restriction,” Giles said.

Jonathan Bream, in his seat, made a high peeping sound of

joy. “Oh, that’s rare, indeed,” he said, gesturing with his hand.

“Here stands the good doctor, dedicated to healing those in

need.”

“If my method is unsuitable,” Giles said, “you are welcome to

engage another.”

Enoch glared at him for a moment, but then he began to

laugh—a loud, cackling emission that caused him to double over

as though gripped with pain. Soon Bream joined in, and then

the dog commenced to bark, as well. Enoch tried to speak, but

he could hardly catch his breath. “Our dear mother . . . won’t let any other doctor . . . lay a hand on her!”

Bream found this so funny that he tumbled from his chair

and writhed on the carpet. “Come back to see your fair patient

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j o h n s m o l e n s

soon,” he said. “Because your bedside manner doth make Madame

swoon!”

Enoch howled as he staggered back to the window seat, where

he collapsed next to his yapping mongrel.

“My dear Doctor!” Bream cried from the floor. “It is as though

you had removed a malignant
tumor,
the way you have returned Master Sumner to his customary good
humor.”

Giles went to the door, which Fields, absolutely stone-faced,

opened just in time.

36

Four

Leander always held his sister’s hand when they left

the house. Sarah’s hand was a delicate, tiny thing, which she

entrusted to him, soft and warm in his fingers. She had enor-

mous eyes, and their mother often told her they were as blue as

the Atlantic on a summer morn. It seemed impossible that such

large, beautiful eyes failed to see anything. Leander sometimes

wondered if the silence between his mother and father had

been caused by the fact that his sister had been born blind. His mother could barely let the girl out of her reach, and when she

did allow Leander to take her with him from the house, it was

always with a sharp warning that he mind his sister. At times

his father seemed to resent Sarah, as though her existence were

a form of punishment he did not deserve.

“It’s going to rain,” Sarah said. “I can smell it.”

They were walking along Merrimack Street, and Leander

looked up at the clouds above the river. “You’re right.”

The afternoon’s chores had been done. He had split wood for

the fireplace and filled the water bucket at the cistern in Market Square. Taking Sarah for a walk was often the last responsibility 39

j o h n s m o l e n s

before supper. They had purchased flounder from Mr. Ault, the

fishmonger, and on the way home they paused to visit with their

cousins the Brimleys, who had seven children, one of them, Amy,

about Sarah’s age. There were relatives all over Newburyport,

mostly in the South End, but some up around Tyng Street in the

North End too, where the houses tended to be bigger and farther

apart. They were families with large broods—six, eight children, at least. The Laphams had eleven, and the Cloughs had nine, with one on the way. Leander and Sarah were always welcomed by relatives, but there was something unspoken, a reservation, or perhaps it was even a form of pity. Leander used to think it was because his sister was blind, but their cousin Jonas Lapham had a withered hand, and Annie Clough had a birthmark that made the right side

of her face the color of a blueberry. Leander had come to suspect that his family was considered the runt of the litter—
Only two
children!
—and there would always be some lingering doubt and suspicion that was intended to make him feel ashamed.

Sarah seemed unaware of these things—or perhaps she didn’t

care—and she hummed to herself as she and Leander walked

home. Finally she stopped and said, “Tell me what’s green.” She

never tired of this, her fascination with color.

“Well,” Leander said, looking out at the river. “There are a few here. There’s the pale green of the willow trees along the bank.

There’s the green of the salt grass acrost the water. And there’s the darker green of these maples overhead.” He reached up and

plucked a leaf off the nearest branch and placed it in her hand.

“And there’s the green in your eyes.”

She turned her head toward him. “Momma says my eyes are

blue.”

“They are, sometimes. Depends on the light. Your eyes, they

change colors just like that. Today they’re more green—green

with some yellow.”

She blinked several times as though she were trying to feel

the color in her eyes. Then she lowered her head and ran a finger 40

q u a r a n t i n e

along the jagged edge of the leaf. “I can feel green—it
feels
like a leaf. But I don’t understand blue.” Her voice was small, disappointed. “You’ve told me water was blue. Whenever my hands

get wet, I think
blue.
But then you say that when the sun shines, the sky is blue.”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you see how it can be confusing? When the sun is hot on

my face, that’s blue, but it’s completely different from water blue.”

“There are a lot of blues, yes,” Leander said. “The world is

full of them.”

She dropped the leaf, and said, “There’s only two colors. Night

and day. You say they’re black and white. That’s what I see.”

“You think I’m making the others up?”

She didn’t answer.

“Well, I’m not, Sarah.” He looked at her. She didn’t seem to

be getting pouty. She was listening—not
to
, but
for
something.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Can’t you hear that?” she said.

“What?”

“Thunder—it’s coming from upriver.”

They stopped walking, and then Leander heard the faint distant

rumble. “You have the ears of two people,” he said. She laughed.

“And the nose of three.”

“I smell your farts, even the silent ones.” She laughed louder.

“But Papi’s are the worst. Particularly after we eat clams. And he’s very proud of them.”

“I know. He’s a wise man—he believes in a good fart and the

Bible.”

Sarah laughed—until there was the sudden crackle of light-

ning, followed by more thunder, causing her to squeeze his hand.