Page 126 of The Summer Country

A woman passed her, moving rapidly, head down, a basket on her arm.

“Where are you going?” asked Emily.

“Shops open at half eight,” the woman said shortly. “You’re out of luck if you want brandy or blankets. Can’t get them for love or money.”

Emily wandered through the empty streets, discovering pockets of civilization. A Wesleyan minister standing on an empty barrel preached to a congregation of several hundred people. “The voice said, Cry! And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass . . .”

A group of men reeking of rum and cigars reeled past, laughing at the congregants. One of their number fell in the street and lay still, his fellows fleeing.

Emily ventured closer, but when she saw it was drink, rather than the disease, she left him be to sleep it off.

A street away, a harried government official was doling out rice, bread, arrowroot, and candles in prearranged parcels.

“Do you have your certificate?” Emily heard him ask a petitioner. “You’ve got your share already this morning, I remember you.”

A phaeton, the sort Adam had driven back in Bristol, lurched past, nearly overset by its awkward burden. A coffin protruded from one side, listing farther and farther until it fell, hitting the street with a crash, the corpse rolling free. The horses came to a halt, and the driver dropped down, using his whip to disperse the dogs, who had leaped forward, snarling.

A girl of not more than six held a toddler balanced on her hip. “Are you all right?” Emily asked. “Do you have anywhere to go?”

The girl regarded her warily but answered easily enough. “Auntie.”

“I’ll see you to Auntie,” said Emily, needing to do something, anything.

From a house, someone shouted to the driver behind them, “Hey! Bring your cart! There’s dead here!”

But there was an auntie. Emily delivered the two children and admired a baby kicking his fat feet in the yard. “What a handsome boy you have,” she said politely.

“No, ma’am,” said the auntie. “He’s not mine. I saw this one sitting on the floor in an empty house. With the help of God, I’ll care for it.”

“God bless you,” said Emily, wishing she had her father there, with his calm certainty of faith. But surely, if God would bless anyone, it would be someone like this?

She found her way back to the house on Bay Street, past the silent wharves where no sailors plied their trade, the smell of death and the sea in her nostrils.

“Where have you been?” The door was open before she was half down the walk. “I was ready to start searching the streets!”

The dimness of the hall after the sunshine made everything seem rather vague. Or perhaps it was the combination of the sights she had seen, the horrors upon horrors that stalked the silent streets.

“I went for a walk,” said Emily, untying the strings of her borrowed bonnet and setting it carefully down on the hall table.

“A walk?” Nathaniel made a visible effort to contain himself.

“Yes, it’s what one does when one doesn’t take a gig.” Emily abandoned the pretense of normalcy. “You didn’t tell me how bad it was.”

“You had enough to bear.” Adam might have been gone, but his presence was a tangible thing between them. Nathaniel turned away, saying, “Carts and horses are in short supply. I’ve sent to my uncle to see if we can find a way to get you back to Beckles.”

“No. What I saw today— I met a woman who had children and relations of her own, but had still taken in a child she found alone in an empty house. If she can do that, what excuse have I? I’ll hand out parcels of food or boil water or wash floors. But I have to do something.” The memory of the empty bed upstairs haunted her. She looked up at Nathaniel, feeling raw and bare. “Unless you think I’d be more harm to the patients than good.”

“You did everything you could for your cousin. Do you understand me? There wasn’t a doctor from here to London who could have done more.” The hallway echoed with the force of his words.

Emily blinked at his vehemence. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” said Nathaniel brusquely. “You did what you had to do. It’s done. That woman you saw today, this is her home, these are her people.”

“But they’re not mine?”

“No,” he said bluntly. “You can walk away, leave it. This isn’t your fight. You accused me of not telling you how bad it is? It’s bad. It’s worse than you can imagine. I was called out to the Asylum for the Destitute today. Every last inmate is dead. Mrs. Kennedy, the keeper’s wife, died this morning. Her husband died last night. There’s not a criminal left in the gaol. They were assigned grave-digging duty and brought the disease back with them. It took three days, Emily. Three days to kill near eighty men. All gone. Every one. And don’t think you’ll be spared by virtue of your station. They’re dying at Government House. It was His Excellency’s orderly this morning. His sister’s maid died last week. It’s killing the doctors. I attended on Dr. Springer’s wife this morning and found him unconscious beside her corpse. Bascom and Brereton were taken last week. There were three hundred deaths yesterday—and that’s only the deaths that were recorded by the Board of Health. There may well have been more, rotting undiscovered. Do you understand what I’m saying? No one is safe, Emily. No one.”

“I know that.” Her mother, her resolute, indomitable mother had been taken off by a disease that took some and spared others, with no reason to it. “I know I’m not proof against it, any more than any other man. But if I were to die, what of it? Would it be so very dreadful? I have no husband, no children, no brothers or sisters to mourn me. At least I would know I had done what was needed.”