Winsor, Kathleen (81 page)

"Aye,
mam," agreed Mrs. Spong, and as she nodded her head the wig slipped,
showing some of her own thin dirty grey hair. "Ye can count on me, mam. I
warrant you."

Amber
pulled out the trundle on the opposite side of the bed and lay down on her
stomach, wearing her dressing-gown but otherwise uncovered, for the room was
still hot and close. She did not want to sleep—she was afraid to leave him—but
she knew that she must, and she could not help herself. In only a few seconds
she had lost consciousness.

Sometime
later she was wakened by a sudden stunning blow across the face and the weight
of a heavy body falling over her. Involuntarily she screamed, a wild terrible
sound that filled the night; and then she realized what had happened and began
to struggle fiercely to free herself. Bruce, in his restless agony, had gotten
out of bed again and stumbled across her; he lay there now, a massive, inert
weight.

She
shouted for Spong but got no answer. And as she pulled herself out and saw the
old woman just lifting her head and opening one eye something seemed to swell
and explode inside her. Swiftly she rushed around the bed, slapped her
furiously across the face, and grabbed hold of one flabby arm.

"Get
up!" she yelled at her. "Get up! you miserable old slut and help
me!"

Shocked
wide awake, Spong hoisted herself out of the chair much faster than she usually
did. It took them several minutes, but at last they got him back into the bed
and he lay stretched out, perfectly quiet, collapsed. Amber bent anxiously over
him, putting her hand to his heart, pressing her fingers against his wrist—the
pulse beat there, faintly.

And
then she heard a whine from Spong. "Oh, Lord!
What've
I done! I
touched 'im and now I'll get the—"

Amber
whirled around furiously. "What've you done!" she cried. "You
pot-bellied old bawd! You fell asleep and let him get out of bed! You may've
killed him! But by Jesus, if he dies you'll
wish
you had the plague!
I'll strangle you, God help me, with my own two hands!"

Spong
started back, quivering. "Oh, Lord, mam! I'd but dozed off that instant. I
vow and swear! Please, for God's sake, mam, don't hit me—"

Amber's
clenched fists dropped and she turned away in
disgust. "You're no damned
good. I'm going to get another nurse tomorrow."

"Ye
can't do it, mum. Ye can't turn out a nurse. The parish-clerk sent me here and
he said to stay till all of you was dead."

Amber
blew out her cheeks in a sigh of utter exhaustion, throwing the hair back from
her face with the back of one hand. "Very well. Go to sleep, I'll watch
him. There's a bed in there." She pointed toward the nursery.

Through
the rest of the long night she stayed beside him. He was quieter than he had
been and she did not want to disturb him to make him eat, but she prepared some
black coffee to keep herself awake and now and then she took a swallow of
cherry-brandy, but she was so tired that it made her dizzy and she dared not
drink much. In the next room Spong lay spewing and hawking; an occasional late
coach rattled by, the horses' hoofs clopping rhythmically on the pavement; and
the night guard stamped wearily up and down. Somewhere a cat squalled in
nocturnal ecstasy. The passing-bell tolled three separate times and the
watchman went by with his musical call:

"Take heed
to your clock, beware your lock,

Your fire and
your light, and God give you good-night.

One
o'clock!"

Morning
came at last, the sun rising bright and hot in a cloudless sky. Amber, looking
out, wished desperately for fog. The brilliant joyous sunlight seemed a cruel
mockery of the sick and dying who lay in a thousand rooms all over the city.

Toward
dawn the look of angry worry which had been on Brace's face, from the first
morning she had seen him at the wharf, changed to one of listlessness and
apathy. He seemed to have no consciousness whatever of his surroundings or of
his own actions. When she put a glass of water to his mouth he swallowed
involuntarily, but his eyes stared dully, seeing nothing. His quietness
encouraged her and she thought that perhaps he was better.

She
got into the dress she had worn yesterday and began to clean up the night's
accumulated filth. Her movements were slow, for her muscles felt heavy and
aching and the rims of her eyeballs burned. She carried the slopjars—all but
that which Mrs. Spong had used—down to the courtyard privy and there she had to
stand and wait, for there was a man inside and he seemed leisurely.

At
six she went to wake Spong, shaking her roughly by the shoulder. The old woman
smacked her lips together and looked up at Amber with one eye. "How now,
mam? What happened?"

"Get
up! It's morning! Either you'll help me or I'll lock the food away and you can
starve!"

Spong
looked at her resentfully, her feelings hurt. "Lord, mam! How was I to
know it's mornin'?"

She
flung back the quilt and got out of bed, fully dressed but for her shoes. She
buttoned the front of her gown, pulling and twisting at the skirt, and cocked
her wig back to approximately where it had been. She leaned backward,
stretching and yawning noisily, massaging her fat belly, and she stuck one
finger into her mouth to pick out some shreds of meat, wiping what she
extracted on the soiled front of her gown.

Amber
stopped her as she was going through the bedroom on her way to the kitchen.
"Come here! What d'you think? He's quieter now—does he look better?"

Spong
came back to look at him, but she shook her head. "He looks bad, mam.
Mighty bad. I've seen 'em like that not a half-hour before they're dead."

"Oh,
damn you! You think everyone's going to die! But
he
isn't, d'ye hear me?
Go on—get out of here!"

Spong
went. "Lord, mam—ye but asked me and I told ye—"

An
hour later, when she had finished cleaning the bedroom and had fed him the rest
of the soup, Amber told Spong that she was going to a butcher-shop for a piece
of beef and would be gone perhaps twenty minutes. There was one, she knew, not
a quarter of a mile away near Lincoln's Inn Fields. She fastened her gown as
high as she could and filled in the neckline with a scarf. It was too hot to
wear a cloak but she took a black-silk hood out of the chest and tied it
beneath her chin.

"The
guard won't allow ye to go, mam," predicted Spong.

"I
think he will. You let me alone for that. Now listen to what I say: Watch his
Lordship and watch him close, because if I come back to find you've let him
harm himself in any way or so much as thrown off the blankets—believe me, I'll
slit your nose for it!" Her tawny-coloured eyes glared, the black centers
swelling, and her lips drew tight against her teeth. Spong gasped, scared as a
rabbit.

"Lord,
mam, ye can trust me! I'll watch 'im like a witch!"

Amber
went through the kitchen, down the back staircase, and started off along the
narrow little alley that ran behind the house. She had not gone twenty yards
when there was a shout, and she turned to see the guard running toward her.

"Escaping,
eh?" He seemed pleased. "Or maybe ye didn't know the house is
locked?"

"I
know it's locked and I'm not escaping. I've got to buy some food. Will a
shilling let me out?"

"A
shilling! D'ye think I can be bribed?" He lowered his voice. "Three
shillings might do it."

Amber
took the coins from inside her muff and flipped them to him—he did not venture
to step up close and he had a pipe of tobacco in his mouth, for that was
thought a plague preventive. She walked swiftly down the lane and turned into a
main street.
There seemed to be even fewer people out today than yesterday and those who
were did not loiter or stop to gossip but moved along briskly, pomanders held
to their noses. A. coach followed by a train of loaded wagons went by and
several heads turned wistfully; it was only the prosperous ones who could
afford to leave, the others must stay and take their chances, put their faith
in amulets and herbs. And there were several houses shut up along the way.

At
the butcher's stall she bought a good-sized chunk of beef, taking the meat from
the hooks on which he extended it to her and dropping the money into a jar of
vinegar. She put the meat, wrapped in a towel, into her market-basket and on
the way back she stopped to buy a couple of pounds of candles, three bottles of
brandy and some coffee. Coffee was so expensive that it was not hawked on the
streets and while Amber did not drink it often she hoped that it would help her
get through the day.

She
found Bruce just as she had left him, and though Spong protested that she had
not so much as taken an eye off him Amber strongly suspected that she had been
foraging, at least in the bedroom, for money or jewels. But it was all locked
up behind a secret panel, where Spong nor anyone else was likely to find it
without a long search.

Spong
would have followed her to the kitchen to find out what she had bought, but
Amber sent her back to stay with Bruce. She locked the brandy away, for she
knew that otherwise it would disappear, but first she took a good swallow
herself. Then she tied back her hair, pushed up her sleeves and went to work.
Into a great blackened kettle full of hot water went the meat, cut up in cubes,
and some of the bacon she had bought the day before. She split the bones with a
heavy cleaver and added them with the marrow and when the vegetables were ready
they went in too: a quartered cabbage, leeks, carrots, peas and a handful of
crumbled herbs, and she ground in some rock-salt and peppercorns.

The
soup had to be cooked for several hours until it was boiled down and thickened,
and meanwhile she prepared a caudle of sack, spices, sugar and eggs for him to
drink. She crushed each eggshell to tiny bits, remembering the old country
belief that otherwise a witch would write your name on it. She had trouble
enough now, without inviting more.

She
found, as she poured the drink down his throat, that the fur on his tongue was
beginning to peel, leaving raw red patches, and that his teeth had made deep
indentations in it. His pulse had quickened, his breathing was more rapid and
sometimes he coughed slightly. He lay in a deep coma, not sleeping but wholly
unconscious, and it was no longer possible to rouse him at all. Even when she
touched the plague-boil, now a soft doughy mass, he gave no indication of
awareness. It did hot seem possible, even to her, that a man could be so sick
and live very long.

But
she refused to think about it. She was, in fact, so tired that it was almost
impossible to think at all.

She
went back to the kitchen to finish the cleaning there. Then she swept the other
rooms and dusted the furniture, put the towels to soak in hot soapy water and
vinegar, brought up some more water and finally—when she felt that she could
not make another move—she went into the bedroom and dragged out the trundle.
Her lids felt rough and seemed to scratch against the eyeballs and there were
muddy circles around her eyes.

It
was about noon when she lay down and though the draperies were pulled the hot
sun beat into the room. She woke up several hours later, wet and with a heavy
aching head, feeling as though the house was rocking. It was Spong shaking her
shoulder.

"Get
up, mam! The doctor's below a-knockin'."

"For
God's sake," muttered Amber, "can't you do anything without being
told? Go let 'im in."

Spong
was offended. "Ye told me not to leave his Lordship —no matter
what
happened!"

Amber
got up wearily. She felt as though she had been drugged, her mouth had a vile
taste, and days seemed to have gone by since she had lain down. But it was only
five o'clock and though the room was darker the fire kept it as hot as ever.
She pushed back the curtains and bent to look at Bruce, but he seemed not to
have changed, either for better or worse.

Dr.
Barton came into the room, looking tired and sick himself, and once more he
merely looked at Bruce from a distance of several feet. Amber knew with despair
that he had seen so many sick and dying men he could no longer distinguish one
from another.

"What
do you think?" she asked him. "Will he live?" But her own face
showed no hope or expectation.

"He
may; but to be truthful, I doubt it. Has the carbuncle burst?"

"No.
It's soft now but it feels hard deep inside. He doesn't seem to even know when
I touch it. Isn't there
anything
we can do? There must be some way to
save him."

"Trust
in God, madame. We can do no more. If the carbuncle breaks, dress it—but take
care to get no blood or pus on yourself. I'll come tomorrow and if it hasn't
opened by then I'll have to cut it open. That's all I can tell you. Good-day,
madame."

He
bowed slightly and started out but Amber went along with him. "Isn't there
someway I can get another nurse?" she asked, her voice soft and urgent.
"That old woman is useless. She doesn't do a thing but eat and drink up my
supplies. I could get along as well alone."